Listening to a podcast recently on the 12th house you would be forgiven in thinking that if you had any planets there, especially the Sun or the Moon, you were doomed to solitude, mental illness and the occasional interaction with large animals, all traditional readings of 12th house planets.
It is a good podcast generally, but I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated as I listened on to the grim litany of bad news.
What do you do if you have planets, or god forbid a stellium, in this ‘accursed house’? Well, despair not, this article intends to show you why people with 12th house planets often have exceptional gifts.
When you look at charts of people who have a 12th house Sun or Moon there are a surprising number of politicians, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, The Bush father and son, Joe Biden to name a few. How can it be that these people who have the most public of lives, heavily scrutinised by the media have their Sun hidden away in the 12th?
I argue that these people are working with archetypal energies and that this is one of the expressions of the 12th house, working in an area larger than the individual, the collective. One where individual identity is subsumed by an archetype which speaks to the collective and/or the identity is manufactured to fit a particular narrative which relates to the zeitgeist of the time.
Bush and Blair both, for example, represented a new confidence in their respective countries and all was well for a while. Interestingly, both men prosecuted wars which arguably lead to their downfall. The Bushes also started un-winable wars in Kuwait, Iraq and Syria etc. The unbounded quality of the 12th house both embraces the collective and the archetypal very effectively but can also get lost and lose perspective and believe they are untouchable and manufacture their own downfall, which is a traditional reading of the 12th house, but to have a downfall you need a place to fall from, all of these people can be seen as highly successful yet flawed people.
Musicians also feature heavily in 12th house Sun and Moon configurations.
Nina Simone was another brilliant (Saturn in Aquarius on the Ascendant) and flawed individual. Blocked by racism she had to give up her dreams of being a concert pianist, and play jazz instead. Paradoxically, it gave her the voice to rage against the system. Her first protest song Mississippi Goddam (1964) was written in response to two racial killings. It made her famous and a target for racial hate. Her voice became the voice of the collective, her feelings of pain and rage at racism broadcast through her sublime music. Her civil rights songs like Old Jim Crow (1964) and her performances in Montgomery and her support for Malcolm X and violent revolution damaged her career and eventually she moved overseas. The struggle took its toll, she suffered from mental illness at the end, her Moon rules her 6th house of sickness. But no one could call her life unsuccessful, her legacy is her extraordinary music. Moon in Capricorn gives deep ambition, which is often hidden, more so in the 12th house, but also great stamina and perseverance. It is often said, the reason Capricorn natives are so successful, they never give up. Often, people give up on their dreams just before they are realised, while Capricorn knows how to keep on keeping on until they get the prize.
Women are peacemakers (unlike our two leaders above). Malala Yusafzai was targeted as a schoolgirl by grown men opposed to the education of girls. Instead was catapulted into international fame, a Nobel Peace Prize and a life of campaigning for the rights of girls worldwide. Her 12th house planets rule her MC (Venus) and her 11th house (Mercury) of a public role, and a community of young women fighting for justice. Something a shy Cancer Sun might have found impossible were she were not carried on the zeitgeist. This, surely, is a karmic life lived within the collective.
Malala was attacked on the 9th of October 2012. The gunman stopped the school bus and asked for her by name and said if she didn’t identify herself he would shoot everyone. The Moon that afternoon (the girls were returning from an exam) was at late Cancer traveling through her 12th house, and making the opposition to Neptune at 29′ Capricorn. She survived being shot in the face, the bullet lodged in her brain, perhaps Neptune made the gunman’s aim dodgy. Malala underwent long periods in hospital (12th house of seclusion) but miraculously survived and thrived earning at BA from Oxford. Her voice, that 12th house Mercury resonated with leaders around the world. Pakistani clerics issues a fatwa against her killer, she wrote a best selling book, set up a charity and won the Noble Peace prize. She spoke for women and girls worldwide and became the collective voice for them. Venus, the ruler of her MC showed how she used the attack to become a figurehead (MC) for girls (Venus) through her fame (Leo).
A less happy example is Valerie Solanas, the author of the Scum Manifesto (1967) which may have been a brilliant parody of Freud, Solanas was a psychology graduate. Her twelfth house planets Saturn and Venus in Pisces rule her MC and descendant respectively. Although the Sun and Mercury are technically in the 12th, as they are within 2 degrees of the Ascendant I consider them to be conjunct it. Solanas gained notoriety by shooting Andy Warhol in 1968 (June 3rd New York, c 14:30). She claimed Warhol stole her play, he said he had lost it, it was subsequently discovered among his property after his death suggesting he was lying.
The Moon was traveling through Solanas’ 6th house that day, eventually squaring her Chiron at 12′ Gemini, conjuncting her Neptune at 14′ Virgo, opposing to her 12th house Saturn and squaring Jupiter at 24′ Sagittarius. This made Solanas notorious (unlike Malala) and she was subsequently incarcerated in a mental institution and died in obscurity. The Scum manifesto lives on however. Solanas is considered to have been the founder of the radical feminist movement which opposes the collusion of ‘mainstream’ feminism with the patriarchy. Solanas was writing until she died, but nothing survived, her mother burned all her papers. Her mother is also shown by the 12th house Saturn.
Another example is Herbalist and Astrologer Nicholas Culpeper.
Culpeper, the famous herbalist had Jupiter strong in Sagittarius in his 12th house. He was sent by his grandfather to Cambridge in 1632 to study divinity (his father died before he was born). A poor scholar, he wished to study medicine but his grandfather refused. He fell in love with a unnamed heiress who he would not have been allowed to marry as he was not rich or noble enough. They decided to elope some time in the summer of 1634. On the way to their rendezvous her carriage was struck by lightning and she was killed. Culpeper, brokenhearted did not return to his studies. His grandfather then apprenticed him to an apothecary in London, and the rest, as we say, is history.
Culpeper’s books have never been out of print which is a record probably only matched by religious books. His strong Jupiter (which rules publishing) and his second house of money protected his legacy. We do not have an exact time for the event, but Jupiter was transiting at late Gemini and early Cancer during the period so it would have conjuncted his Moon at 22′ Gemini and opposed his Jupiter at 26′ Sagittarius. Neptune (which seems to pop up a lot in these stories) was opposite his Pluto at 9′ Taurus and Mars was conjunct his natal Neptune in early Libra (at least for the summer of 1634). Perhaps the Neptune transits are explained by Neptune’s natural rulership of the 12th house.
In all these examples their lives were lived at an archetypal level, shown by their 12th house planets which ensured their fame and or notoriety. You might add that there was misfortune in their lives, and this is correct, but their lives transformed those of others, for good or ill, and speak of the power of their 12th house placements.
** These charts are discussed in my book Goddess Astrology which you can buy here
Elisabeth Brooke 