by The 12th House symbolises the peak of human experience, the abandonment of pre-existing schemes and structures to renew the scenario of existence.
The 12th House has always been considered a harbinger of bad news, perhaps due to its being the last House or its characteristics fading into indeterminacy without the specific backing of everyday life. But this is part of its symbolic traits that refer to the transitory experiences and the potentials inherent in a new beginning. Its strength lies in the freedom of choice made possible by the resolution of the structures that in various ways condition our life. That makes it a field of representation where the rules give way to the free formation of new rhythms, allowing the individual to renew the fabric of their reality. In an evolutionary sense, it is the House of karma, of liberation from the causal links conditioning the individual’s destiny, the release from the usual patterns, provided that these have been resolved. Otherwise, the deposits of unsolved experiences hinder the free integration in the next evolutionary stage. Hence, human beings remain chained to the ghosts of the past, to forms now empty of significance, devoid of thrust and energy.
As the last of the Cadent Houses, the 12th House summarises the legacy of the 3rd House (the opening of communication channels with the world), of the 6th House (productive adaptation to the environment) and the 9th House (widening of existential horizons). In this final cyclical phase, the objective experience has been integrated as much as possible into our constitution. The synthesis process between our own and the other’s existence brings us the gift of empathy, identification, consonance beyond words, acts or ideologies. In contrast to the 6th House, the 12th House represents solitude (sought or imposed), the eager search for freedom, recklessness, indifference towards bureaucratic mechanisms, independent work. These characteristics act as a counterpoint to the horizons limited to the daily life of the 6th House. Finally, as the last House analogue to the Water signs, it pictures the evolutionary essence of the Element: the incubator of individual existence (family-home, 4th House) gives way to the processes of transformation (the abandonment of fixed forms and certainties, 8th House), to land on the shores of universal participation. Ideally, humanity becomes our own family, but more prosaically, the 12th House signifies the release from the experiences of a life cycle to face a new beginning.
In judicial astrology, the essential meaning of the House is summed up in the term of hidden enemies. The Previous House expresses the sense of a brotherhood that naturally leads to the concept of friendship, thanks to the overcoming of individual barriers. Why should it be different for a House populated with universal contents? The reason lies precisely in its indeterminacy. On the one hand, it opens to indefinite expressive possibilities; on the other, it lacks those filters (6th House) allowing you to manage the experience of reality. That is why the enemy is hidden: the defences ensured by an ordered perception fail. The undercurrents of existence – of which we are unaware – take over without us noticing. These are the enemies who, in some instances, can take on a physical form.
Trials and sorrows are further manifestations awaiting us when we face the passage leading to the renewal of our experiences; that’s because we leave behind unsolved issues in the vast majority of situations. Prisons, chronic diseases, and hospitalisations measure the adverse effects we are subject to when we neglect individual duties (6th House). The lack of integration in daily existence leads us to live on the limits of what is allowed; and being disinterested in the physiological balance, we expose ourselves to the anomalous resurgence of diseases. In a word, it is the impediments to the habitual expression which reveal themselves on the physical and psychic level. The large quadrupeds and the beasts are the opposite of the pets of the 6th House: they represent the untameable beings who live beyond our ordinary experiences. Childbirth depicts a new life; it’s a rite of passage between the old order and the following cycle (1st House). Finally, the falls from high places portray the abysmal symbolism of the House, its absence of defined limits, the horror vacui assailing us in the face of the loss of all the usual supports.
In Water signs, the 12th House finds a favourable environment for increased feelings and emotions, albeit with the uncertainties that derive from exposing oneself without defences. In Fire signs, the impulse to face the tests of existence with strength and decision predominates, at times with excessive contempt of danger. In Earth signs, the desire to consolidate, refine, and achieve long-term objectives prevails, with efforts often not considering the concrete difficulties. Finally, the Air signs suggest a pattern of contacts and relationships based on reciprocal freedom, or the intellectual search for the significant problems of existence, even if sometimes there is the risk of losing control in the face of the vastness of the issues addressed.
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