Category: Evoking the Twelfth House

Following the Sun – into the Twelfth House

The Twelfth House, amongst many things, is a place of retreat, contemplation….today the Sun entered that place in my horoscope.

I’ve decided this year to honour the shift by having some quiet time…. to contemplate this year of retrogrades: Mars in Virgo from late January to mid April, Venus in Gemini from mid-May to end June – and Mercury in Leo, from mid July until early August – not emerging from its ‘shadow’ period until 22nd August. 

For me, it has been a year of returning: going back to work.

To my old craft, astrology. To re-writing my publicity material, revising and updating this blog, going back to Twitter and applying myself to using it more creatively this time. To re-joining professional organisations. To re-establishing my supervision and most happily, going back to my valued supervisor of twelve years ago. To re-connecting more directly through work with clients and students, to that sense of being in touch with the mysterious order which lies behind all of our lives.

It’s been quite a year! 

I’m sure many of you who read my blog – astrologers or not – will have found that this has been a year very much about re-evaluation, delays,  moving backwards in order to move forward (come the autumn!). I’d be interested to hear about it via comments or emails.

So – enjoy August. Enjoy reading your way through this archive of articles which “Writing from the Twelfth House “ has become. Let me know what you’d like me to write about when I return to regular posting. Keep an eye on the Twitter feed which will still be active.

See you again come September!

Chill out time....
Chill out time….

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300 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2012

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Evoking the Twelfth House

A tiny frog, barely half an inch long, flopped, dead, on the tip of a teaspoon as I gently lowered it toward the plug hole of the kitchen sink. Soon, I’d turn on the tap and its fragile little body, already liquefying, would be washed down the drain.

Just holding on....
Just holding on....

http://www.sarasites.com/css_images/frog.jpg

Yesterday, it had been leaping around, full of life, inside the  plastic refrigerator box in which I had created a little aquarium with water, moss and stones. The tadpoles which I had brought home a few weeks previously had all survived. Satisfaction and pleasure at having achieved this, however, was tempered with the growing knowledge that these delightful new pets would soon have to be returned to their original habitat.

But this little fellow would never go home.

This small incident, which occurred well over thirty years ago, offered such a poignant illustration of the transient fragility of life that it has never left my memory.

There are times when something apparently tiny and fleeting can illustrate much larger truths.

The constant dance between order and chaos, form and formlessness, being and non-being, seems to occur in all epochs and at all levels. Humans have created a range of paradigms and metaphors, from ancient myths through the world’s great religions to modern cosmology, within which to explore this dialectic.

Cosmologist Brian Swimme in his inspirational invocation of ‘The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos’ speaks of “each instant protons and anti protons…… flashing out of, and …… absorbed back into, all-nourishing abyss……” The abyss is his term for “a power that gives birth and that absorbs existence at a thing’s annihilation.”

Astrology has its own name for this inchoate territory where everything, tiny or vast, which has ever had form dissolves back into the primal waters of the Source. It is called the Twelfth House.

In my horoscope the Sun, Moon,Venus, Saturn, Pluto, and Mercury the planet of communication and writing are all to be found in the Twelfth House. I have been preoccupied with the mystery of whence we arise and where we return since I opened my eyes to the world. Thus it doesn’t require much of a leap of imagination to work out why this blog is called ‘Writing from the Twelfth House’……

400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2011
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Evoking the Twelfth House

A tiny frog, barely half an inch long, flopped, dead, on the tip of a teaspoon as I gently lowered it toward the plug hole of the kitchen sink. Soon, I’d turn on the tap and its fragile little body, already liquefying, would be washed down the drain.

Tiny frog on lotus bud
Tiny frog on lotus bud

Yesterday, it had been leaping around, full of life, inside the  plastic refrigerator box in which I had created a little aquarium with water, moss and stones. The tadpoles which I had brought home a few weeks previously had all survived. Satisfaction and pleasure at having achieved this, however, was tempered with the growing knowledge that these delightful new pets would soon have to be returned to their original habitat.

But this little fellow would never go home.

This small incident, which occurred well over thirty years ago, offered such a poignant illustration of the transient fragility of life that it has never left my memory.

There are times when something apparently tiny and fleeting can illustrate much larger truths.

The constant dance between order and chaos, form and formlessness, being and non-being, seems to occur in all epochs and at all levels. Humans have created a range of paradigms and metaphors, from ancient myths through the world’s great religions to modern cosmology, within which to explore this dialectic.

Cosmologist Brian Swimme in his inspirational invocation of ‘The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos’ speaks of “each instant protons and anti protons…… flashing out of, and …… absorbed back into, all-nourishing abyss……” The abyss is his term for “a power that gives birth and that absorbs existence at a thing’s annihilation.”

Astrology has its own name for this inchoate territory where everything, tiny or vast, which has ever had form dissolves back into the primal waters of the Source. It is called the Twelfth House.

In my horoscope the Sun, Moon,Venus, Saturn, Pluto, and Mercury the planet of communication and writing are all to be found in the Twelfth House. I have been preoccupied with the mystery of whence we arise and where we return since I opened my eyes to the world. Thus it doesn’t require much of a leap of imagination to work out why this website is called ‘Writing from the Twelfth House’……

400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2008
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page