-Harvests, and Navigating Closures-

The 12th house is one of the most misunderstood areas of our chart. It shows us our motives, our “self-undoing” behaviors, and is said to be the house of sorrows. However, it is also where we find the harvest of the cycles of self-awareness, and see how our motives have brought us exactly what we’ve worked for, and what is now in the past.

I last gave this to you a few years ago, and have rewritten major parts of it for your consideration today. All the “cadent” houses, the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th, prepare us for what we experience in the “angular” houses, those being the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th, called that because they fall on the angles (Ascendant, Descendant, IC, and Midheaven) of a chart. The cadent houses are where one quadrant experience ends and the next one begins.

Each of the cadent houses leads us to a new experience of a different quadrant of life. So when we speak of the 12th house and “self-undoing behaviors,” what do we mean? As I see it, there are two forms of “self-undoing behaviors” which lead us to a new experience of self at the Ascendant. There are positive self-undoing behaviors, and negative self-undoing behaviors.

If our attitude is positive, or when we know an inner truth, when it's time to end or "undo" an old part of our life, usually it’s clear what we have to do. Whether we want to close an old chapter or not, when something’s done it’s usually pretty clear that there’s no more potential to fulfill in that activity. It’s why stillness and solitude are also associated with the 12th house.

How many times in life do we know it’s time to go forward and leave the past behind in some way? That’s when we have a 12th house event going on. It could involve a transit or progression, or merely one of these working on the ruler of our 12th. In every situation, we are “undoing” some part of our life or way of approaching experience.

This is why when we’re navigating an ending, it’s good not to get too attached to old attitudes, since when we’re finishing an old life experience, it’s better to step back, look at how our motives brought us to where we are, and go deep within to see how to “undo” some old view of ourselves and our experience up to that points. While our attitude can help us move forward or get in the way of moving forward, mostly a 12th house experience shows us how much we're choosing to suffer or enjoy the journey.

I’ve written about “self-undoing” behaviors for years, and when I use that term I’m usually 12th house negative possibilities, since these are what most people have a hard time with. These kinds of "self-undoing behaviors" are the many unfortunate ways we have of messing up something that doesn't need messing up, and often bring sorrow, doubt, confusion, or regrets.

Some examples of these kinds of self-undoing behaviors are when you do things that jam your own gears, or turn out to have unintended negative consequences. They are the things we do unconsciously, or consciously without understanding the implications of what we're doing. They often involve doing something we don't need to be doing, and probably shouldn't be doing. It can manifest as working against our own best interests, self-betrayal, hypocrisy, or not listening to our conscience or our inner voice.

Other examples of negative forms of “self-undoing” behaviors include being hesitant when boldness is needed, rash behavior putting things at risk needlessly, moodiness when you should be celebrating, or reverting to old behaviors that cannot possibly have a favorable outcome at present. It can show up when we’re trying to achieve something using the wrong tools and not realizing it until after the fact, or trusting something or someone that should not have been trusted to begin with. It could be treating something cheaply that should be held as precious, a verbal slip that destroys social bonds which didn't need to be broken, or thoughtless ways of dealing with something or someone important to us.

Usually, self-undoing behaviors are associated with regrets. They are a good signal that a 12th house activity is happening in your life. And to be fair, just as there are regrets for things we didn't do right, it is also natural for there to be regrets at the end of every cycle, for all the potential that could have been but for whatever reasons never came to fruition. These types of regrets are very human, and shouldn't be taken as an inner signal to give yourself a hard time or start thinking you did something wrong. Endings are normal and natural in an impermanent world that’s constantly changing.

All of the ways of experiencing endings and the “self-undoing” which accompanies the conclusion of an old way of seeing ourselves in the world remind us to stay in the NOW. It could be said that whether we got to the end of something with grace and elegance, or error and regret, the only thing to do when we’re at an end is to remember we live in the eternal NOW, being mindful not to do what we shouldn't, or neglect to do what is in our best and highest interests.

Any 12th house experience can bring sorrows and regrets, but also harvests appropriate to our self-awareness gained during the cycle which ends at the 12th house. We can gather all we’ve learned about ourselves and our self-awareness, incorporating it into our motive as we move forward into new experiences. As our self-awareness grows, we come to see old sorrows as leading us out of error, and “self-undoing” behaviors as challenges to adjust to a new view of who we are and what moves us through experience.

Since all we see, know, and live are vibrations, once we realize life is eternal flux we can move with the changes instead of resisting them or clinging to obsolete ways of doing our Being. There may be little comfort and no security in this transitory human condition, but there are lots of ways to learn how to live and give love, to ourselves, each other, and our world. And that's a very good harvest at any turn of life’s wheel.

© Copyright 2020 Robert Wilkinson - https://www.aquariuspapers.com
Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with persmission from Robert Wilkinson.