House of Subconscious
The Twelfth House is commonly referred to as the House of the Unconscious. The unconscious state can help engender our successes, as well as assist us in coping with our failures. Success vs. failure: do we consciously confront our lives or subconsciously sweep things under the proverbial rug? This house might more aptly be called the House of Reckoning, since it is in the Twelfth that we review what we have been (and done) and decide where we go from there. Along with these unconscious musings, we also deliberate on strengths and weaknesses that are hidden from public view.
Where New Insights Happen
Pondering your 12th House gives insight into your shadow side and into the ways you shoot yourself in the foot. It is in this part of the birth chart that why we do what we do is explained. Probing this area when the client is ready can promote great change and healing. It is where new insight happens.
Your Rising Sign’s Hidden Agenda
In another way, the 12th House reveals your rising sign’s hidden agenda. If you look at the sign on the cusp of the 12th House, you will find the motives, meaning, and emotional needs of a person. For example, someone with Leo rising may seek applause and attention out of emotional insecurity or a fear of being overlooked, whereas a person with Sagittarius rising who constantly preaches about ethics, morals, and religious duty may in fact see the dark side of the Scorpio nature operating within themselves.
Your Buried Treasure
Secrets can feed addictions like nothing else, and the addictive aspects of the 12th House situation continue to build until emotional rupture begins. As we become aware, we often uncover our own personal buried treasure—our talents, magnificent insight, and other gifts that we were born to share with the world. We all have accumulated insight and wisdom-knowledge deep within us emerging from intuition and life experience that can be called forth and offered to others. The 12th House asks us that we listen to our own truth and act upon it. When polished, buried treasure always shines.
Keeping Secrets
In the 12th House you keep the secrets you would rather the world didn’t know. If there are no planets in the 12th House, then you probably don’t have many secrets. The negative traits of the sign on that house cusp should be dealt with as life lessons, and those are the things that you would rather people didn’t know. There can be shame attached to matters depicted by the 12th House, and that’s why you would rather not reveal them. These are the secrets you lie to yourself about. In these unconscious urges, emotions, and memories lie the seeds of neurosis that qualified professionals can help unravel. If you have planets in the 12th House, then the closer the planet is to the ascendant, the less of secret it really is. A 12th House planet within 10 degrees of the ascendant is much more apparent to people and the world at large than you believe. You’re probably not fooling anyone but yourself even if they don’t call you out on it. During a transit to the 12th House planet, the secret will come out.