Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe 12th House

Here are just a few insights drawn verbatim, but shortened, from The Creative Astrologer, pages 189-190, about the 12thHouse, the House that is so difficult for us in astrology:

The 12th House has the sense of getting prepared, perhaps of making corrections, especially when observing the buildup of a major transit to the Ascendant. Pluto in transit through any House can activate the generic significances of the particular House it is in, as background for development. It stirs into background consideration the field of experience depicted within the particular House. While in the 12th for quite a few years, Pluto will underscore the gathering of sensitivity, of other-dimensioned knowledge, spiritual or religious teaching in order to inspire a new birth at an inner level when crossing the Ascendant. “You surely feel a sense of preparedness now for this time next summer (when Pluto will transit the Ascendant); how does it feel and where is it going with you?”

Pluto natally in the 12th suggests that, under pressure, the defensive attitude can be that “the world doesn’t understand me.” This is often a cry from a position of not being able to control life one’s own way, especially in the realms and tactics of the emotions. Might that enduring attitude -or some other attitude that clearly defines the person’s self-perspective-have been established at the time of major change in the early home? Check the Arc projection of Pluto=Ascendant. Check for any major transit activity at about the same time (it is almost always there!). Remember the Ascendant is derivatively a parental fourth cusp or Midheaven, and the child is living thorough parental decisions of course.

When Mars is in the 12th natally, we are keyed immediately to expect fight, rebellion, inner anger, especially within 8 degrees of the Ascendant. The 8-degree margin is arbitrarily set to keep our attention on early-life formative development, i.e., within the first eight years, as Mars arcs to conjunction with the Ascendant. It can be later (higher in the 12th), of course. This developmental measurement is key, I believe, to appreciating the Gauquelin research that highlights the 12th and 9th House areas, i.e., the ARC potentials in development out of these Cadent House positions will characterize the life expression thereafter, seeding the system significantly when the Arc crosses the Angle.

What House does Mars rule? Is that tension there the source of the anger? How might that have been keyed into developmental experience at the time of the Arc Mars=Ascendant? Are there other Arcs that time out to the same age? How might they work together? What were the major transit triggers then? How will I ask the client about this?

Neptune arcing down to the Ascendant from within the 12th House: what kind of suppression might occur? Because of what in the family? What House does Neptune rule? Might that be the root of the wiped-out feeling that will register after, say, five years of age (an arc of 5 degrees)?

Uranus arcing the Ascendant (or the transit of Uranus to the Ascendant) is going to suggest horoscope responsiveness in terms of self-assertion (that which usually challenges relationship). What did the early move, if there was one, do for personality development? Did it open up new opportunities or uproot something that was going along very smoothly? What about peer-group ties at this time? If this thinking starts to reveal an extended pattern of uprooting, of breaks (a military-family child, for example), are there links through aspects to the 7th House? Could there be a complex forming about abandonment, about nonpermanence? All of this is reasonable out of growth patterns from the early conditioning.

Early-life tensions, especially before clear self-consciousness and verbal abilities, will often be focused in illness. The tighter the conjunction to the Ascendant, the more reliable an early health crisis is. Extreme closeness seems to correlate often with adoption, i.e., the dissolution of the mother-father relationship before or at birth, or enormous family tension at the time of birth. Remember: the natal horoscope is a transit record in the lives of the parents.

—And so much more. This is just the beginning of some 700 keys to creative connections contained in the Creative Astrologer, the book designed to support single-session consultation success.Next Update, February 29, 2000