The Twelfth House

by Eleanor A. Buckwalter

The first house is I, me, mine; who I am, what I do. The twelfth is frequently what I am not, what I do not do. Traditionally, it is described as self-undoing, hidden enemies, including karma, bondage, prisons, hospitals, ashrams, monasteries, institutions, places of research. In Vedic astrology, one of its meanings is final liberation, or total freedom from ego and karma. It is the most important of the moksha or spiritual houses.

The 7th, the 12th, or more precisely, the qualities of the sign on the cusp and energies of any tenanting planets are likely to be projected onto others and the environment. Both houses seven and twelve correspond to the times of the day when the Sun is close to the horizon. One can be blinded by the light and deceived by the long, deep shadows thrown at those hours - dawn and sunset.

Planets in the 12th are not weak or weakened. It is the house of the risen Sun. They are very powerful, although the person may be strangely oblivious to the strength of the influence. An example was a young man with Uranus in Leo in the 12th. He had a very charismatic manner; his style of dress and haircut were distinctly different. He once asked me if he looked weird because he wanted to appear normal and fit in, or so he thought. I suggested he take a good, hard, long look in the mirror and then think about getting a new hair cut and different clothes. He gave all sorts of rationalizations why that would not work and continued to look weird while convincing himself he looked just like anybody else. Had Uranus been in his first house, he would have put much conscious attention on cultivating a dramatically different personality image. He would have wanted to look weird.

The seat of the collective unconscious is the 12^th. It is from there that the archetypes can enter and overtake the personality. Archetypes are universal principles or energies. As mythic figures, they reveal inherent psychological processes embedded deeply in the collective psycho-mythology and work throughout the human species. They are neutral, yet to the degree an individual or a society represses, suppresses, or denies them, they become good or evil, angelic or diabolic. The material we store in the 12th, the unconscious, may be unacceptable because of trauma or conditioning and because it threatens the persona. It is the underside, the dark side, and the hidden part of the person. What we try to hide and deny to ourselves is often apparent to everybody else - like the emperor’s new clothes. Our hidden enemy, obvious to everyone but ourselves, is, more often than not, ourselves.

The house of dreams and imagination is the 12th. This is where we become aware of the contents of our own subconscious as well as that of the social and collective world. As the opposite of the 6th house of work, health and service, the 12th is retreat, respite, isolation, and withdrawal, long term or chronic health concerns. During the month that the Sun transits our 12th house we may want to hole up, sleep more, read, work alone on creative projects, or commune with nature. As Saturn and the other slow moving planets go through the 12th, we have the opportunity for long periods of introspection and communion. When we do not consciously choose to go inward as the rhythms of our nature dictate, we run the risk of becoming ill, of being forced to take time out.

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