12th House Astrology Explained with Astrologer Ari Moshe Wolfe (Podcast Transcript)
Everything within time and space is meaningless on its own. It has no inherent meaning. Nothing is meaningful. Except for how it’s serving the higher purpose of return, of remembering, of awakening, of the return to love, of the healing. And that’s really what, in my view, what this life is about, what this school Earth is all about.
It’s remembering, it’s awakening, it’s returning to the love that we are. This podcast episode is brought to you by The Inner Circle, your place to learn astrology in the community with the Masters and transform one’s personal life in the process.
In this episode of the Astrology Hub Podcast, Amanda ‘Pua’ Walsh and Astrologer Ari Moshe Wolfe talk about what the 12th House represents in Astrology and how to use it when interpreting a birth chart. all the houses
On this podcast episode, you’ll learn…
- Why are the twelve houses can be so hard to understand and the non-dual way of thinking about its meaning?
- How there came to be so many negative associations with the twelfth house, and why this is a misunderstanding.
- The archetypal relationship between the 12th, 3rd, and 9th houses and what that relationship teaches us about the nature of suffering.
(2:23) What is the 12th House?
The 12th house corresponds to our life experiences and all areas of life that bring us into a relationship to meaning. So let’s just take a moment and think about what meaning is.
There’s the meaning that we give things, and then there’s the meaning that is. The meaning that is we can also give the word truth, right, or reality with a capital R or God, right, or love. Now, the nature of all these word vibrations is also kind of intangible in the sense that we can’t really grasp it or even give it too much of a philosophy.
The nature of what is, it’s all-encompassing. So you can think of the 12th house as the ocean that the fish are swimming in. This is why it’s kind of like one of those more intangible houses because we’re looking at a particular wedge of the zodiac sign or wedge of the houses, just one of the 12, that also happens to correspond to all that is.
So it’s trip to kind of unpack that and really bring some practical application for that in our lives.
(3:37) Planets in the 12th House
I got this question multiple times.
So if somebody has a lot of planets in the 12th house or significant planets in the 12th house, does it mean that they will be perhaps more drawn to exploring the unseen realm?
Will they be more contemplative about being the fish in the ocean? What kind of traits would it mean that you have if you have significant placements in the 12th house?
So for any placements, including just in general, the sign and the planetary ruler of the sign in the 12th house, this corresponds to where the soul is coming into a relationship to reality.
I’ll introduce the idea of surrender. And so, to answer your question, we’re going to have to look at two ways of being in relationship to reality. We’re all surrendering to something, meaning we’re all trusting in something. And there, I think, is a need for everyone to reconcile with just the fact of existence.
What are we putting our faith in? What are we putting our trust in? We are all, and there’s not one soul on this planet that is free of this. We all have this internal yearning to connect with some sense of ultimate meaning and relevance to the fact of existence.
And in that quest or that yearning to find meaning, which by the way, I think it’s universal because if the meaning is true or if reality is true or if we are a fish in the ocean, if there’s a fundamental truth to it, then there’s something in all of us that remembers that or intuits that and knows that.
And thus, where things don’t feel right, where there’s a sense of existential wrongness or pain and suffering or bad things happen to good people, all the things that come with this life, we’re all in our own way needing to find a way to reconcile with that, how to be in relationship to life itself.
So to answer the question, we have two general perspectives, which we can really unpack as well. One is a sort of emptiness and nihilism, which says life is meaningless. I am fundamentally small and irrelevant.
Nothing I do matters. It doesn’t matter how good of a person you are. Bad things will still happen. You can go and trust people, and they’ll still take advantage of you. Look at the people in power. It just feels like anything I do is like throwing a cup of water in the ocean.
It doesn’t. It’s just I’m so small. And this could be that sense of there’s meaninglessness or there’s no point or just any quality of that. A sense of hopelessness or a pervading sense of when am I going to be important or when am I going to matter?
All of these expressions that in some way, come about as a result of feeling that there’s nothing that one can do. And this facet of the 12th house experience really speaks to where there’s oftentimes this lived conflict or tension between the individual self and existence.
I tried to help, and no one changed. I gave, and then I was taken advantage of. I prayed, and I prayed and prayed, and God didn’t answer. Or just as much as it can be this I’m praying, and I’m hoping, and I’m wishing, and I’m wanting something to change.
And I guess I’m not going to be saved, or I’m not worthy, or it means nothing, or this is all just meaningless. So that level. The other is where a soul is in a conscious relationship informing a conscious relationship.
And I want to really emphasize the idea that not all relationships are meant to last. To make a little tangential note. We can think of the 12th house as I said it’s reality. If you think of Neptune as being associated with the 12th house I don’t think of it as rulership, but archetypally they are related.
Neptune is the higher octave of Venus. So Venus is relational. But then Neptune is sort of relational. When it comes to reality a part of the unraveling is it’s not like there’s something outside of us. We’re in a relationship with it, and it’s also inside.
That’s why the fish in the ocean isn’t even the perfect analogy because it’s not even out there. So this is a soul that becomes actively interested in forming a relationship, consciously knowing what’s true. Which means consciously knowing who I am. Am I oneness with reality? These are the words that become important.
Oneness. Wholeness. Unity. Trust. Faith. A sort of non-dual understanding or experience. It’s really beyond understanding. The difference between understanding and trust. Understanding corresponds to the 9th house, which archetypally is the square of the 12th house.
So that’s more like we can understand the philosophy of astrology and understand the 12th house. But a soul who’s actively really doing this 12th housework will be giving themselves over to higher meaning.
Which means I can’t prove it or even ever approach it with my limited understanding. But I have to trust it and allow it to lead me to show me what’s true. To show me who I am. So those are two very opposite expressions.
And I’ll close that by saying it’s really the duality between meaningful and meaningless. Everything’s meaningful or meaningless. And I think the 12th house in a way says there’s really no gray area in between. We could have an experience where Venus is in the 12th house or Libra is in the 12th house.
Oh, it’s so good. I love them. It was so romantic. And they held my hand. This is like the partner I’ve been dreaming in. And it feels meaningful. And we trust life. And then they just don’t show up again. And it’s nothing that I thought.
And apparently, I didn’t actually know them. And then it’s meaningless again. And it’s why me. That duality is very stark, and it really points to what each soul might be continually faced with. Where we invest meaning in that which has no meaning.
We’re projecting an illusion and a dream and an idea of meaning. And we’re giving our faith and trust to it. And thus, it gives us energy. Part of the journey in orienting towards truth is a process of disillusionment. Which maybe we can talk about in a moment.
(10:31) Negative Association of the 12 House
I’ll start by speaking to what it is and then offer perspective on why there’s this misunderstanding. So every function operating within the 12th house speaks to a realignment and a reorientation toward ultimate reality and truth. And this is where we have to understand where disillusionment comes in.
It can feel like a very intangible and ungraspable experience that can be interpreted as oh you’re never going to have to sustain love or People are always going to trick you. Or yeah this is the house of crazy people or people who live in their fantasies.
What is this all about? The process of disillusionment is what happens for all of us relative to our 12th house and Pisces Neptune. Planets in the 12th house will speak to a necessary process of facing the limitations of the projections and dreams that we’re putting into reality.
We’re saying this is what’s meaningful, and thus this is where I’m putting my faith and ultimate meaning. This is if I can sustain a belief in this, then I will feel fundamentally existentially secure in life itself.
And when the relationship or the teacher or the job or the health or whatever we believed in or the religion isn’t what we thought it was, it’s a profoundly scary experience. This itself can lead to a lot of mental health issues, we can say.
I’m not sure what the right phrase would be, but it can affect our state of wellness in a very profound way. In two ways. There can be an underlying sense of despair that actually leads a soul to feel like they’re giving up on their own life. Or relative to the trauma of disillusionment, a soul can double down on their dreams, on their ideas as a way to sustain the meaning and the value that they’ve otherwise created.
Because to accept that it’s not real would mean facing the need to realign towards reality, which is like, well, what’s reality? I have to actually learn and surrender and get beyond this box that I’ve created, this television in my mind. So very often, a soul will become deeply oriented towards sustaining a fantasy that they’re needing to reaffirm over and over and over again.
That’s one facet of it. The other is there’s a sort of innocence within the 12th house. And you can think of this with every house. It’s like, what’s the enlightened higher expression of that, and what does it look like when that’s misapplied? The higher expression of the 12th house is perfection, unity, love, oneness, and togetherness.
It’s like from the point of view of God, there’s no problem. Everything’s cool. You take that, and you have a little bit of confusion, and then it’s the indiscriminate trust of a personality. I love universally, and so oh, you’re asking me for another loan?
Sure. I mean, you didn’t pay me back the first one, but here you go. This can be a very self-sacrificial dynamic rooted in an underlying recognition that’s true of people’s goodness and innocence. But a naivety and a missing of where there can be all kinds of manipulation and corruption.
Thus the 12th house polarity is very important– the cultivation of discernment and discrimination. But what could happen? And this is where we can have a lot of people that flip. There can be a sort of martyrdom and self-depletion rooted in naivety in the 12th house that could actually flip towards a sort of sadism.
So masochism and sadism are actually a 12th-house, 6th-house archetype.
Both of those archetypes apply in different ways to both of that and Virgo Pisces to that entire axis. So the masochism in the 12th house is martyrdom, self-sacrifice. I’m going to enable and give and trust even though I’m actually suffering.
But I’m making the mistake of thinking that… I mean, we can go more into the whole confusion around suffering maybe in a moment. It’s one of the other good topics. But that can lead to a total flip into sadism which is what I’ve given. I’ve given, and I’ve given, and I’ve given.
I’ve been victimized, and I’ve been taken advantage of. So this is the thing about the 12th house. It’s so profound in the spectrum. It’s caring and loving, and it feels everyone and doesn’t want anyone to feel hurt, doesn’t want to say no to anyone. And there are no boundaries. And then it feels totally overwhelmed and used.
And it can flip to the other end of it as well. Just as much as a soul can find themselves being totally taken advantage of. So we can have… and then this is responding to the question like why do we hear these associations with the 12th house? One other expression of it is that it can be sincerely difficult for a soul to discern between illusion and reality.
Simple as that. You’re putting so much faith in something, and it’s hurt you. Or you met someone who told you something, and they… there can be so many factors. And I’m just going to make up one little story here. You’re part of a religion. The Pisces 12th house archetype in general, as well as Virgo, acts and speaks of Judeo-Christianity.
That whole paradigm. Souls with a lot of 12th house, 6th house, or Pisces Virgo very, very often I see have a very strong karmic connection to the Judeo-Christian cosmology. And have been very influenced by these ideals that say God is some kind of ideal of perfection that will never reach.
God is a perfect 12th house that will never reach 6th house. We’re sinners, and we’re never good enough. And there’s this inaccessible ideal that we have to indiscriminately trust and pray for, and that will save us if we do these things or trust it. It’s totally removed from any kind of self-reflection or unity, or self-cultivation.
So within that, there can be all these kinds of beliefs that are created. You know, trust God, pray to God, and he will take care of you, and then something horrible happens to your parents as a child. The amount of distortion that this could create. This is where who do I trust?
What do I trust, and how do I deal with the total disillusionment of which I’ve given ultimate meaning? So this is where things like insane asylums and being locked up and just being totally out of touch with reality. And I want to just say one more piece about this.
In the same way, we can have the archetype of escapism. Which is I’m not comfortable with reality. I don’t want to deal with it. So I’m just going to stay in whatever world I’ve created for myself to not have to face it.
Sex, drugs, television, indulgence. Any kind of avoidance that keeps me from actually dealing with things. So we can create this whole world for ourselves, and it’s not necessarily delusional, but it can fall into the archetype of escapism.
Is the prison piece also potentially related to being in or perceiving reality as a prison?
That’s really interesting.
So for me, I don’t know if it’s actually 100% clear to me that the 12th house on its own corresponds to prison. And it could be. Just that’s not a self-evident correlation. If you put Saturn there, definitely. Because then we’re looking at the archetype of seeing that existent is perceived as a jail, as a limitation.
And so there’s going to be a, ultimately, you want to come back to what’s the metaphor of a prison? You’re in a situation where you’re confined, and you don’t have freedom of movement. On its own, being in prison doesn’t resonate in the 12th house for me. The experience of being cloistered or alone or being in a place where we’re removed from the world, like a monastery even, right?
That’s a very 12th house. So if the prison is experienced or seen as that, where the world is stripped from us in some way or another. I’m sharing this from experience. I’ve seen a lot of examples of souls with Saturn in the 12th house, many, where they’ve had a prison sentence.
Or just examples where people have been in prison or they’ve been locked up. Or they had really profound spiritual awakenings by way of the rules of society, grossly limiting their freedom of movement. So that can help them become aware of the greater spiritual teaching that this whole world is an illusion.
This whole world is like one big prison cell, kind of like what you’re speaking to. And our freedom isn’t in having a whole bunch of freedom of movement. Freedom is in awakening to the true nature of reality. The true nature of reality is in the prison cell, and it’s in the far. Spiritual revelation and the realization of God often happen when choices are eliminated.
And then all the ways in which we’re looking for meaning and purpose, that falls away. And we have no choice but to look within or to look in the present moment, which is where we’re always going to find it. Okay.
Is heretic associated with the 12th house?
I don’t know. One thing about Maya Shaw, I’ve just never walked the path of all these traditional associations. I’ve never thought of that. I mean, I can think of the heretic from the point of view of the soul that’s transcended what it looks like to be in the world.
Well, and also the Judeo-Christian thing comes in there too, because it’s the person who has said, I don’t actually believe in, or I’m not going to do what the church wants me to do. I have a bigger spiritual perception, right?
Right. And that’s going to innately bring in the ninth house, Sagittarius archetype inherently. Because now we’re looking at perspective.
(22:04) Suffering and Service
Suffering seems to come with this human experience, and there’s nothing that any one of us could possibly do to alleviate it completely. And one of the hardest issues with the 12th House is how do we reconcile with the fact of suffering?
So I can give two examples. Let’s say you’re a counselor, right? Oftentimes souls in the 12th house, we’re going to find themselves called towards public service. Any position or way of being in life that makes an individual available to serve anyone indiscriminately.
So it’s like flowing like water, being available to be an instrument of higher meaning and purpose as creator and love purpose directs it. Right. So it’s like we’re not choosing, we just show up. So an example of that would be anyone who is working in the medical field, and they’re just putting on a, you know, not a costume, but a uniform.
And you see whoever comes to you or even being in the army or any kind of service job or any kind of work or job that makes the individual self just an instrument. So individuality is stripped away. And this is also perhaps where, you know, prison can fall into that category because you don’t, you’re not a person anymore in a sense.
You’re just, you’re wearing the uniform, right? All of that is the 12th house. Anything that unifies and strips individuality and puts the soul into a state where they’re just one of many or an instrument for something that is beyond their individual self. Now in that, the reason why this is a 12th house association is that the soul is yearning and striving and oriented to connect with a higher meaning.
So a lot of these souls will find themselves walking the path where they can be in service, joining an organization, doing some kind of work, or being a part of something that they associate as being meaningful. Where their body, their life, their mind, or their skills are used for a higher purpose, and they’re not seeking credit for it, right? It’s not about them.
And there’s the meaning, and there’s the purpose, and there’s value in it. The issue that arises is never will a soul do enough to alleviate all suffering on the planet. And this brings up some of the deeper, deeper questions of where does salvation come from?
Where does healing come from? Where does the alleviation of suffering really come from? The soul really needs to develop an active discrimination and discernment because, without that, there can be ongoing exhaustion. And I see this all the time. Souls that are very 12th house-like, they have a genuine sense of I get to carry this purpose, this light into the world and there’s an immense amount of exhaustion and depletion.
And so I think what I wanted to say earlier about suffering is we can’t deplete ourselves and save others at the same time. And that’s one of the biggest learning curves in the 12th house. Like we can’t suffer and help people that are suffering.
And it’s the same idea in A Course in Miracles. There’s an important emphasis placed on you having to bring your illusions to the truth. But you can’t bring the truth to the illusion. You can’t be like God, help my problems. But you can actually kind of do it the other way take my problems, reformulate it, reinterpret it, and I’m ready to learn.
Take this from my hands because obviously, I don’t get it. So the journey of really becoming an instrument is also referencing there’s a perspective and a unity and really a plan that is held from the universal intelligence and oneness that is pervading and beyond our ability to comprehend.
That holds perfect peace and acceptance. And in that trust and that orientation to it, we each have a role to play. And the role that we play, I think, is also our happiness. I think our greatest happiness and fulfillment is in aligning all that comes with our human experience to be used as an instrument for greater purpose and meaning.
But when it becomes about the ego or the individual self-identity or self-concept getting in the way and saying, oh, yeah, well, you know, I’m just going to stay on the phone with this person for another two hours. And yeah, my blood sugar is kind of going off the scales right now. But, you know, if I give, I’ll get all that. We can just confuse ourselves.
I wanted to say on this note, we can work with the astrological aspects to really understand some of the stresses. So to close this piece on suffering, why are spiritual discernment and discrimination so hard? You have the 12th house archetypally, meaning not necessarily always, but archetypally square the ninth house, third house.
We can rationalize and convince ourselves of anything. So any delusional idea or conception can make total sense because logic can be directed toward anything. Doesn’t make it sane. That doesn’t make it true.
So the idea that we can’t actually do enough to save and the reconciliation with where does true healing come from? And maybe we can talk more about that in a moment. We can talk about that right now. OK, let’s try not to go too far at once. No.
What I’ll say to this is in this idea that we can’t suffer to help those who are suffering. It brings more and more attention and more and more interest in ourselves, in our own vibration, and fundamentally in our attunement to love.
In our being love, in our knowledge of love, in our oneness with it. And this doesn’t so much speak to the things that we’re doing. It doesn’t speak so much to any kind of quantity of action. In a way, often I find that the 12th house will express itself in a more profound way.
Via less activity, less doing. There’s that idea you do less, more happens, do nothing, everything happens. The less of a doer there is, the more the universe can actually take control. And so it really does, at the core, point back to the realignment of self-knowledge, coming back to our understanding and our unity in our relationship, our trusting, and openness to who we truly are to lead the way.
And so an important quality. And I think Maurice Fernandez for really introducing this word. Into my understanding of the 12th house, because I don’t know if I ever would have thought of it in this way. Neutrality. I think that’s such an important piece because neutrality is okay.
I’m okay. I’m neutral. I’m okay with it. I’m okay with things as they are. It, to me, says I am not going to interpret it and make meaning out of it and thus determine what I’m supposed to do about it to fix it. I’m not depending on my own past thinking.
There’s a course, there’s a prayer in the Course in Miracles that I love. It’s not an exact quote, but it says something I’ll put in the comments on the YouTube channel for sure. I do not know what anything, including this means. And I will not use my past learning to guide me now.
And it just has a practice of referring to a knowing that isn’t divided and confused in the ways that our own limited understanding is. So, yeah.
(30:00) Transits in the 12 House
Wow. So when somebody is having significant, when somebody is having transits to the 12th house or planets moving through the 12th house, these topics are up.
Yes. This exploration is active in somebody’s life. It is. And I would say in general, you can think of a transit to the 12th house expressing in two general ways. And they seem opposite, but they’re the same. It can be a dissolving or completion of everything that we’ve had.
I mean, just think of a cycle from the initiation of the first house all the way around. We are completing a cycle. But what does it mean to complete a cycle? Well, in the 11th house, the individuality is incredibly actualized and activated.
Our unique genius is full on. This is not about us having any level of control. So it can feel like things are ending. It can feel like we’re losing something or losing the grasp of something. Or the opposite, but it’s the same.
It can feel like that which we’ve been doing or working on suddenly becomes huge. Suddenly our life takes on some sort of higher purpose and meaning, and it’s beyond us. An example of that could be a person that’s been practicing singing. And they go outside on the street, and this person sees them, and they happen to know the American Idol people.
And they get a gig and suddenly they become famous. It’s like the divine will take a soul to say, here, now do this. Let it go, release it, give yourself to the world. So fame and public service and public recognition and becoming a universal symbol or becoming oriented towards something profoundly.
It doesn’t have to be fame on that level, but it can be awakening to and life becoming oriented towards something profoundly meaningful. That almost feels otherworldly. Where suddenly it’s just big.
Lots of weight, lots of people following you. You become a part of something that just feels greater than you, and you’re serving it. Or it’s like there’s no meaning, and it’s like everything I thought was important is gone. It’s just the process of life directing the show.
(32:26) The Desire for Answers & Uniformity
Ari, can I ask you a technical question? Now we’re at the 12th house, and it came together for me as a question when I was thinking this through. Why, if the sun’s journey starts at the 12th house in the morning, in the dawn, why do we number it 12?
Why does the son’s journey go backwards when our life journey goes the other way? I don’t know. It’s a good question. You know what’s really funny, Amanda? I actually heard you asking me that yesterday. I was in the kitchen and I was like, oh, that would be a good question to ask. I was like, do I have an answer? I really don’t.
It would make sense that the 12th house would be underneath the horizon, right? What do we know? This is perfect for the 12th house. We have to be okay not knowing. I bet Gemini Brett has a good perspective on that. He’s the kind of guy that would.
He’s going to be doing our bonus 13th episode of this house series. We’re just talking about the different house systems, and I will definitely ask him that question. I got so confused. It’s like, wait, the sun goes this way, but the houses go this way.
I know there’s always intelligence in this design, so there’s a reason for that. One thing I will say that just arises now, two things. One, we love looking for uniformity and conformity where things seem to conform our ideas of what they’re supposed to be.
You have that all the time in astrology, but then you have people in Australia. Aries doesn’t fit with springtime the way it perfectly aligned for us in the Western Hemisphere. Just the humble recognition of that. Two, when I think about the energy of the early morning, it’s the most, in every spiritual tradition.
I’m not trying to give an answer. This is what arises. In every spiritual tradition, the early morning hours at sunrise are considered to be the richest in terms of spiritual culture. Cultivation and spiritual practice. You wake up when the sun’s in the first house. You begin your day before the sun rises.
In the Jewish tradition, the mystical practice of prayer was you wake up before the sun rises. You do your morning rituals. You get yourself dressed. You go to the place of prayer, and you begin your prayers. Then you get to the climax of prayer, the most important part of the morning prayer.
The essence of the prayer at sunrise. That’s the moment where the sun is. That’s the spiritual climax of the morning practice. You’re starting your day in the first house, and you’re reaching God. Just a thought. That’s really beautiful.
Isn’t that true about pretty much everything in astrology? That when we have these paradoxes or when we learn something new that erases what we thought was true. I know a lot of people who find out they have a different birth time.
Or they try their chart in Vedic astrology, but they’ve only known Western or vice versa. Some understanding of a planet or a placement gets expanded and it ruins something that they have felt is the truth.
This feels relevant for the 12th house because it’s something that happens over and over as we study astrology. It can be, like you said, humbling. It can be disorienting. There can be disillusionment. I thought I was this, but does this mean I’m this? Does it mean I’m both? Does it mean I’m neither?
(36:22) The 12th House Experience
Is it all just a lie? Is it all made up? Does none of it make any sense? Will any horoscope feel right for me? Exactly. I think this is all part of the experience of the 12th house. Either in transit or if you have it emphasized in your natal chart.
There is this continual experience of being reborn with greater levels of awareness. Getting to that point where you might think you’ve attained that awareness, but then it just goes away again.
There’s a whole other level. I would love to speak to that. The essence of awakening within the 12th house is never going to be contingent upon a formulation or understanding that we’ve arrived at and figured out.
Let’s say you have Jupiter or Mercury, then that’s where those issues can be. Or a planet in the 12th house squaring a planet in the 3rd house or the 9th house. That’s where these dynamics can be really emphasized. It’s about the present moment. Anything can be meaningful, even if it’s factually incorrect.
It’s about how it makes us available to a greater experience and openness to the truth and the love that we are. That can happen through the vehicle of anything. Any modality. People that have otherwise…
Michelle was sharing this quote with me. I forgot what it is. I don’t have a memory for quotes. The idea of it was people will do all kinds of messed up things, but then the spirit will use that for good. Anything irrational, logical, or factually incorrect, it doesn’t matter.
From the point of view of love, there’s no judgment. There’s no, this is the correct system or the incorrect system. That doesn’t exist in oneness. It’s always about how everything is oriented back towards itself. How love is always pointing back to itself.
In such a compassionate way, everything is… That’s why it’s actually a part of the process of awakening within the 12th. There can be a total state of confusion and disarray, and disorganization. Where everything we thought was meaningful or true doesn’t seem to fit anymore.
We can find this with, let’s take Virgo in the 12th house. The spiritual diet. The best way to eat. Or the best way to take care of yourself. You do that, and then it’s like, oh, you get sick anyway. It points to everything of this.
It’s a fundamental 12th house teaching. Everything of this world, without exception, everything within time and space is meaningless on its own. It has no inherent meaning. Even facts. Facts have no meaning. Who cares? Who told you to write the book, and who’s reading it?
Nothing is meaningful. Except for how it’s serving the higher purpose of return, of remembering, of awakening, of the return to love, of the healing. That’s really what, in my view, what this life is about. What this school earth is all about. It’s remembering, it’s awakening, it’s returning to the love that we are.
Everything and anything, even if it’s totally insane or wrong, can serve as healing. That’s where our conditions and where we thought everything was perfect because we had it all organized in our mind.
That’s going to be constantly recalibrated. Just to really clarify, once we go into the ninth house, we’re going to also appreciate the ninth house, the twelfth house, or Pisces Sagittarius Square is going to help us understand that the truth is the truth.
It is already. It just is. Nothing to do about that in terms of understanding. Ninth house, Sag, we are always going to be expanding our understanding of it. Always, always, always. There’s always a threshold of new realization, new awareness.
We can have these disillusioning experiences and still stay connected to our faith and trust and our surrender and our gratitude and recognize, oh, and there’s more to learn. There’s more to see. Clearly, there’s a broadening of perspective happening now relative to the ninth house.
There’s more information, too, that’s going to always throw a curveball. That’s at third house square. I love it. I’m constantly remembering this for myself and reminding our inner circle members, for example, in this study of astrology, there is no destination.
You can’t go in it with me, I’m going to learn everything there is to know about reading birth charts, about myself, about the people in my life in 30 days, or whatever it is. At every level, there is more and more and more awareness. At every turn of the road, there’s more understanding, but it’s this deepening process that is continual.
It’s amazing. To me, it’s joyful every step of the way, but it can’t be like I’m trying to get somewhere. We actually have to let go of that part of our conditioning if there is a place I’m going.
Beautiful. Just to reflect, because I see you using it with meaning. As I witness it, what you’ve created with Astrology Hub, it’s all about connection. It’s all about community. It’s what you’re bringing in and what you’re honoring and valuing in terms of a diversity of voices and what you’re offering to everyone that joins.
It’s all with pure loving intention. That’s, in my perception, a part of following a guidance. Of course, it’s never about arriving at anywhere in particular. If a person wants to go really deeply in one thing, they’ll follow one particular teacher and do that.
This is all about holy intention and purpose. I love it.
(42:17) The 12th House & Past Lives
More questions for you. Does the 12th house have anything to do with past lives? Did you get any insights into past lives in the 12th house?
Here’s how I would answer that. The totality of the needle chart has purpose and meaning, and relevance and doesn’t come out of nowhere. There’s no placement in the chart that is suddenly like, there’s no house that’s like, this house is a past life thing, but this house is a current life thing.
From the point of view of the soul’s ongoing evolutionary journey, there is an evolutionary reason and purpose for everything being exactly where it is. From that point of view, then we get into a more interpretive technique, working with understanding the nodes and appropriately applying that in the context of Pluto.
Really, in how I do my work, the interpretive paradigm that really understands the soul’s core evolutionary needs and intentions. We would understand the 12th house, including the planetary ruler of the 12th house, as well as Neptune and anything going on with Pisces and aspects to all of the above. As indicative of, for whatever reasons, karmically, where in this lifetime, the soul is on this ongoing journey of spiritual illumination and orienting their attention towards that which is transcendent of any context or experience, but universal and timeless.
Karmically, it can point to particular patterns of disillusionment or confusion or seeking or wandering or hoping that will be played out and resolved or worked through. This is an important piece to speak to. Just in terms of the different topics that fall into the 12th house archetype, it can speak to a soul that has been in a total deception mode, meaning they’ve been deceiving others.
Because the 12th house can be with ill intent. I’m pretending to be something that I’m not, and I’m actively deceiving and drawing upon the innocent and naivety of others. And you can have a soul with lots of 12th house, and it speaks to that particular pattern being brought forth.
All the ways in which a soul may have built a castle out of a deck of cards, whether it’s believing in something or making themselves something that they’re not. And that’s going to play out in this lifetime in whatever way is relevant for their ongoing growth. Okay.
(44:41) The 12th House & Spirituality
Is it true that the 12th house is the most “spiritual house”?
And if that’s true, is there a least spiritual? And I’m pulling on some of the most commonly asked questions I get made about the 12th house. Sure. It’s not the most spiritual house, but it is the house that corresponds to the archetype of spirituality. And all the houses are equally spiritual in the sense that they’re all relevant, and they’re all here.
And you can have very spiritual people with a strong six house emphasis and suddenly you’ve got to brush your teeth every day. Versus very unspiritual people with strong 12th house or people with very few 12th house planets.
And you can’t gauge spirituality or a person’s spirituality or spiritual level of realization by any house placements. The chart is reflective of the soul’s reality, and we have to correlate it to where a soul is actually at.
And no one house is more evolved or spiritual than any other. Just like no one’s rising sign is more evolved and spiritual. Exactly. Just like no one eye color. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Okay.
(45:56) Tips for 12th House Stelliums
Do you have any tips for people that have a stellium in the 12th house?
No, I really have to see the individual context. It’s so, as we know, every house placement and all that’s going on there can express in so many ways. If a person’s coming to me with a stellium in the 12th house and they feel lost in life, right?
And I’m going to tune into, you know, do they have a spiritual nature to them? Are they seeking more? Where are they at in their journey? I’m going to want to try to support them to orient to the way in which they can find meaning in life by giving from their greatest inspiration.
That’s one of the most important things I would offer for the 12th house. It’s not like I don’t exist and I’m just some sort of neutral instrument. The interplay between truth, love, God, meaning, extending itself through us is that it happens through that which is naturally exciting and inspiring and alive within us.
So very often, appoint people who have a strong 12th house stellium or just strong 12th house placements to some of the most young, innocent dreams and fantasies that they had when they were young. And things that maybe they forgot because you grow up and you’re disillusioned or maybe you live in your fantasies, right?
And I would help them recognize that a part of their work is to actually be an active, co-creative relationship to that. Let’s speak to that for a moment. This is one of the ways we can make the 12th house a bit more tangible. It’s co-creation. If you have this inspiration and you love music, but then you’re taking that inspiration, you’re waiting to be found, or you’re waiting to be noticed, to be discovered.
That vibration is separated from that inspiration. But if you love music and you’re constantly creating, and you’re in the vortex, you’re in the vibration of that creative state, you’re going to be recognizing and seeing life as an ongoing opportunity that supports and extends and meets you in your deepest creative inspirations and excitement.
So the journey of really bringing a practical, meaningful life experience within the 12th house is consciously, and we’re all going to frame this differently according to just how we’re wired and just where we’re at in our journeys. These are particular ways of me speaking about it, but can be framed in any way.
Really becoming actively interested in how my greatest joy and inspiration can bring love and healing and inspiration into the world. And so we have people that get into acting or film or writing novels.
So I was actually listening to a talk I gave on the 12th house from another house series that I gave some time ago. And I apparently gave the example of George Lucas. And he has Mercury in Taurus in the 12th house.
Conjunct Venus apparently. And he created a whole world in his mind. Star Wars. A whole fantasy world. Mercury in the 12th house. All the names. Where everyone comes from.
He wrote the books. He created it. If you have a question, it’s like the Lord of the Rings. I haven’t looked at his own chart, but you will pretty much almost always find a very strong 12th house or Neptune involved in the soul because there’s a huge imagination.
It’s taking this inspiration. It’s creating. We can say it’s not real. That’s fine. Nothing is real. This whole world. From the ultimate perspective, apparently, the teachers say this world’s an illusion. So it’s really all that again.
How are we using it to bring us back into alignment? So using the metaphor of the film or the metaphor of the book or the fantasy or the art, which is just extending the idea of this world itself is just a dream that we’re all living.
But creating it and using it with our fantasy, with our imagination, with our creativity. So inspiration and being inspired. Almost like receiving something beyond you to create it. What’s really interesting about George Lucas? Is the Taurus.
It’s like self-enclosed. The very Taurus quality is very self-evident. It’s not just Mercury. It’s like it was his thing. He owned it. And I just want to point out something very interesting about the 12th house. And I don’t know what this is like for him.
Just sharing an observation. He sold the story to Disney at a certain point. For those who are real Star Wars fans, you probably aren’t super happy about that whole situation. And like the last couple of videos of movies, they took the storyline.
And they just disregarded it and created a whole new bunch of facts and data and information. And so Mercury and Taurus, you created it, came through you, it went out of you, and you can’t possess it. On the 12th, it’s not yours. You’re just here to be alive and connected to your inspiration so it can be a part of the plan for the greater.
And I cry when I watch Star Wars because it touches upon these universal themes. It is absolutely healing. God, as we’re at the 12th house, I’m marveling at the brilliance of the design.
There’s no part of our lives that is not encompassed by this incredible tool. It’s hard to even put a word to what astrology is. But the fact that every aspect of ourselves, we can grow in understanding and depth and meaning.
And if we’re paying attention to all of it, whether or not we have house placements there, whether or not we’re in a transit, whether or not a certain part of our lives is illuminated in that moment. It’s the perfect thing to allow us to make sure that every aspect of ourselves is discovered, tended to, nourished, and explored.
Because it’s all there. It’s literally all there. And the 12th house brings it all together in this way that’s like, wow, there is something so much more that we don’t totally grasp or understand as we’re in this lifetime.
But it’s there, and it’s constantly calling us back. It’s constantly tickling us to pay attention to what’s beyond our senses. These things that we can’t see. But it doesn’t make them any less real. They’re still there.
It’s amazing to me because I’ve gotten to sit through every single one of these episodes. And I know there are many of you out there in the audience that have as well. And some of the comments that have come in, like, with every episode, I’ve had another aha moment about myself.
I’ve realized something different about myself. And we’re covering all these different aspects of life. It’s like we go through this journey of, you know, I used to live in New York. And so I think of often, I lived in New York City, the neighborhoods.
And how when you go into each neighborhood, there are different aspects of you that come forth. You might feel a little more artistic in the East Village. And you might find a cozy nook in the West Village. And you might find this more sophisticated aspect of yourself in a different neighborhood or different area.
And for me, sometimes that journey through the houses is like that. We’re walking through all these different areas of life and remembering these different aspects of ourselves. I just totally went off on a random tangent. I’m also continually humbled by that.
And also specifically, the fact that the last house exists in particular. Yes. It’s a house that corresponds to everything, which is like what? Yes. Yes. It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful.
(54:35) Forgiveness
So there’s just one final thing that I want to speak about regarding the 12th house that feels just to me so essential.
I’d be remiss not to speak to it, which is forgiveness. And really at the core, forgiveness is a part of us coming to a state of acceptance and ultimate peace. And at the core, orienting all experience back to an understanding and a perception that’s beyond our own making.
And so one perspective on forgiveness is recognizing all the places in our life that we don’t understand, where we feel confused, or where we feel hurt. And giving this over to the source of all things to control. That’s my current understanding of forgiveness.
It’s saying, I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t have an answer to this. And thus, I don’t know how to accurately see this. And the greater truth of the 12th house is the fact, is the reality of wholeness, of peace, of unity, of love. And it recognizes that there’s sameness, like you and I are the same.
What we see out there is not different from what’s inside of here. This, of course, can become a very confusing point when it comes to the tendencies towards martyrdom and disillusionment, and overgiving. But to really be working with this in a discerning way, without the naivety coming in the way, it’s just active engagement and process.
And seeking to give all things, progressively all things, over to the source of all meaning. And thus, being able to live in the moment alone and relinquishing the confusion, the hurt of the past, and even the need to organize the future.
So I just think that’s just an important part. And that’s why in the 12th house, there is very often, for most souls in different ways, a strong orientation towards living a life where the soul can be in some way giving to others regardless of what you’ve done.
Like you have sinned, or you’ve hurt others. It’s like you are worthy of love anyway. You are deserving of care and love and respect because who you are is not defined by what you’ve done or the thoughts that I have or that you have about yourself. It’s always about moving towards a greater transcendent acceptance of what is ultimately, fundamentally, beautifully true about all of us.
And I’ll say one more thing to close this, which is this is also why spiritual practices and meditation and any kind of prayer, any kind of experience that will take the individuated consciousness into a connection to the timeless and the formless. So where we’re learning to entrain our attention towards that which is not of the world, not in the body, not in form, not in a personality, not in the past.
That which is universal and timeless to guide all things in our life. So prayer and that relationship to the divine is a big part of the 12th house experience as well. What’s interesting about the forgiveness piece, and one thing that just came up?
I mentioned it in the ninth house episode, some past life regression experiences I’ve had. And that, like before I died in my past life regression experience, I was harboring anger and resentment about betrayal or failure or loss.
But after the moment of quote-unquote death in these memories, the first thing I felt so overwhelmingly was forgiveness. It was just like forgiveness for myself, forgiveness for everyone, like this like wave wash of forgiveness of like, oh my God.
Like it’s that kind of like what Jesus says on the cross, like forgive them for they know not what they do. I had that overwhelming feeling of like, oh my gosh, we don’t really know what’s happening here. And so the only thing to do is forgive all of the ignorance, all of the things that are happening.
So it’s really interesting to me that, again, the 12th house is related to what’s beyond, what’s beyond the veil. And for that to then tie back into this idea of, no idea, but this quality of forgiveness. Beautiful. Yeah.
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