“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.” ― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

In the astrological worldview, time moves in a circle. Everything repeats, and we are always returning to events that have happened before. In a circle, there are no real endings. In cyclical time, the end of every story is followed by the beginning of a new one, if a story can even be said to end at all.

The idea of cyclical time contrasts sharply with the way our culture sees time. While we pay lip service to the seasons, we generally see time as moving in a straight line with a beginning, middle, and end.

Living in a culture with linear time, it can be easy to forget that astrology looks at time in a counter-cultural way. The 12th house is the house of endings. Astrologers like to talk sometimes as the 12th house is the end of history, but the 1st house always follows the 12th house. We move from the 12th into the 1st seamlessly. It isn't like we get off of a rollercoaster at the end of the 12th house and have to return to the back of the line to wait to ride it again.

At 36 years old, I have lived through four 1st house profection years, and I have learned from repeated hard experience that the transition from a 12th house year to a 1st house year is messy for me. During every 12th house profection year, I have experienced an unexpected explosion toward the end of the year and then spent my 1st house profection year cleaning up the mess. In retrospect, I can see that the seeds of a new beginning are planted during my 1st house years, but it takes a long time for me to see the significance of things that were initiated.

Aspiring Priest to Astrology Writer: A Full Cycle of Profections in Retrospect

During my 12th house year in my 20s, I took on an internship that demanded every ounce of my energy and then some. The stakes were high. I had spent my entire life up until that point preparing for a life of ministry, and the internship was with a church I hoped would ordain me. The internship was a trial run with my diocese. If I did well with the internship, I would start the process of becoming ordained, but I would not be allowed to go forward with the ordination process if they didn't like my performance.

In retrospect, this situation was ripe for abuse, and it was abused. A "10-hour a week internship" became a job that filled every waking moment and haunted my dreams. In retrospect, it is so obvious to me that I should have questioned if this was an organization I wanted to run my life, but I was so committed to the track I was on, I worked until my body broke, and then the diocese threw me away like a broken toy.

I spent the vast majority of my 1st house profection year recovering from major reconstructive knee surgery and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life if I wasn't going to become a priest.

I thought I had the answer about halfway through my 1st house year. I would get my MFA in creative writing! I was going to be a writer!

As I started graduate school, launching myself toward a career as a writer, I met Rachel Pollack. Rachel was one of my professors, and I was ecstatic to study with her. I had read her science fiction stories in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and I idolized her ability to write fiction that felt epic and strange like my favorite myths. When she talked about the influence of tarot on her work, I was inspired to buy my first pack of tarot cards. Those tarot cards were my gateway to astrology.

Over the next twelve years, destiny and planning worked together. I did I earn that MFA. I was on track to becoming a writer, but a writer needs something to write about, and the rest of the twelve-year cycle would be about the process of developing my skill as a writer and becoming a professional astrologer, eventually blending the two into a single vocation as an astrology writer.

While I was living through my 1st house profection year, I couldn't have imagined the magical future that was ahead of me. As a preacher's kid who had lived and breathed the church my whole life, I couldn't imagine a life without the church, yet my relationship with Christianity was coming to an end. I also thought astrology was a superstitious pseudo-science uncreative people used to fill space on paper placemats and in newspapers. I needed my 2nd and 3rd house profection years (ruled by planets in the 9th house) to expand my horizons and show me possibilities I never could have imagined during my 1st house year.

1st House Profection Years Are Like a New Moon

At the New Moon, you know that the moon is beginning a new cycle, but that isn't your experience. When you look up at the sky during a New Moon, the moon is entirely hidden. You see nothing but stars and darkness.

It is only a few days later that the New Moon reveals itself, first as a tiny crescent, barely perceptible to the eyes. By the the time the moon reaches the first quarter phase and is half-full, you might have a pretty good idea of what was begun at the New Moon, but it is only by looking back at that time from a distance that you can really get perspective. The answer might not become clear for six months or more.

1st house profection years are the same way. Something new is starting, but you don't have the perspective yet to know what it is. Seeds are planted. Some will grow, and some will die. Some things that seem insignificant will grow into a tree that towers over a neighborhood, but you might have only had the smallest clues of what was beginning at the time.

A Scanner Darkly: Speculating About an Unknown Future

It is too early to speak confidently about what the new cycle I started last year will be about, but I can already see ways in which the cycles I began in my 20s and 30s rhyme.

In my 30s, I experienced another explosion of something I thought would last forever. In my 20s, it was my religion. In my 30s, it was my marriage. The beginning of the end happened during my 12th house year, but my marriage didn't end legally until my 1st house profection year was almost over. That 12th house explosion (ruled by my moon in the 7th house) catapulted me toward a new stage of my career during my 1st house year (ruled by my sun in the 10th house).

Just like the beginning of the new cycle in my 20s, I went through my 1st house profection year in my 30s with a very foggy idea of where I was going. I followed my intuition and got a certification in user experience (UX) design even though I couldn't have explained why I thought it was important to get that skill. Later, during the month when the 1st house ruler of the year was highlighted, I started a new job that allowed me to combine my UX certification and my experience with astrology to help an astrology website owner make their site more user-friendly.

I don't know what the significance of these experience is. I know that I don't have the perspective to see the significance of the things I've done, so I am trying to hold the story that I'm telling about the significance of these experiences loosely. I don't know if that new job marks the beginning of a new phase in my career that combines UX, astrology, and writing, or if UX will be like tarot, the nudge I needed to launch me toward the unknown.

12th House/1st House: Hinge in Time

Looking back at my experiences of these two cycles, I can see the transition from 12th house to 1st house doesn't mark a hard break between one life and another. The 1st house and the 12th house work together, forming a hinge between one life and the next.

Life is like a spiral staircase. We are always growing and moving forward, always returning at regular intervals to the same themes. As we move forward, we gain perspective on the past and see our story more clearly, returning and returning, spiraling on.

Featured