North Node in Gemini — South Node in Sagittarius
For me, my south node is Sagittarius which is in my 6th house, so I am turning my focus from the 6th house, to focussing on the Gemini aspects of my 12th house.
THE 6TH HOUSE: I LIVE TO SERVE YOU, MASTER
In a wonderful movie you really should see if you haven’t already, Gosford Park (2001), set in 1934 England, a manor house is populated by both the uppercrust of British society and its staff of servants. Gosford Park is, on the surface, a murder mystery, but it is much more than that: it’s a social commentary on the values and mores of its time. Servants who worked in manor houses of that era were interviewed by the director, Robert Altman, so that he could tell the actors exactly where one placed the fish fork (above the plate) and how much space is correct between each place setting.
If you think that’s all there is to being a good servant, though, you’re wrong. Being a servant is as much a psychospiritual attitude as it is a skill set. A truly effective servant must be able, in the words of Helen Mirren‘s character, Mrs. Wilson, the chief housemaid, to anticipate the needs of the people she serves. “Do you know what makes me so good at my job?” she asks of a visiting under-housemaid. “I know when they will be tired, and the beds are turned down. I know when they will be hungry, and the meals are prepared. I am the perfect servant. I have no life.”
The key phrase you’ve latched on to, no doubt, is where I’m going with this: “I have no life.” This means the perfect servant is invisible. She has no needs of her own that interfere with fulfilling the needs of those she serves. To all intents and purposes, she doesn’t exist in her own right; she exists to serve others, which gives her her role and function in society (a role, it must be said, provides, or provided, many servants with a deep sense of fulfillment; more on that later).
I think you can see a fundamental problem with this set-up. In postmodern society, after two major world wars and severe economic repressions and depressions, England’s values and socioeconomic needs were forced to change. Society in England became somewhat more egalitarian. However, the reality of servants lingers in many countries today, especially in economically depressed areas that maintain strict hierarchies, where there are the haves and the have nots, and servants are cheap and the individual, with all our pernickety beliefs in fairness, and being treated as equals, are not taken into consideration because they don’t have to be.
Without getting into a long sociopolitical diatribe about human trafficking and slavery, (although I would like to remind you briefly that those are real concerns), now it would be better if I skip off them and talk about something much less difficult to solve, which is the spiritual essence of the 6th house. This house is where I’d look if I were asked for an opinion on the chart of someone dealing with inhumane abuse, just like I’d look to the 6th if I were dealing with a more subtle sadomasochistic relationship between a master and her servant or slave.
Let’s look at what it takes to be a servant. For many, it’s considered a degrading self-destructive act, wherein you lose your individuality while you take care of the needs of the other, selflessly. However, for many who willingly give up their egoic self to another’s needs, the desire to humbly submit to the will of another is compelling. Why is that, you ask? Well, it’s a valid and important question. It can be extremely hard for regular people, with forceful wills, to understand why anyone would be willing to kneel (literally or metaphorically) at the feet of another, yet this is the nature of the 6th house: for the individual to begin to understand that it does not exist on its own, it exists within a world of people who have equally forceful egos. At some point, says the nature of this house, we must all give in, give way, give up our “self” to become more than we are.
Ah. But how to do that? For it isn’t easy giving up your will to the needs of others. I’ve tried it. It’s a hard row to plow, although there is much to be learned from this as a spiritual path.
You begin by serving someone else’s needs, willingly and gracefully. This requires an awful lot of maturity, I’ve found. If the 6th house experience reminds us of anything, it is that there’s a reason why service to another requires acceptance of a spiritual path, a willingness and ability to give up your own needs and ego. In relationship to strengths we garner from the opposite house, in this case, the 12th, we are more or less able to give to another based on what we can bring to relationships. What are you able to give up to make a relationship healthier? This equation can be found in the 12th in relationship to the 6th.
One of the primary reasons the idea of the houses works for me is that there is duality inherent in each house combination. The shadow of the 6th is the 12th. It complements, supports, and at times, undermines, the 6th house experience. Look to the 12th to understand why you want to give up something to another, or why you’re willing to work like a dog in a job you hate; or why you get emotionally ill to the point of physical sickness if you’re mistreated. The concept of taking care of yourself in all ways belongs to the 6/12 axis, because your physical health is affected by that which you cannot necessarily see: your emotional health. Everything you cannot see that is eating away at you is symbolised by your 12th house, and how you manifest everything you can’t see is symbolised by your 6th.
Take these houses seriously; they represent forces that control your everyday life in ways that the West has become more and more aware of over time, but still does not appreciate to the extent we should. The overall theme, then, of the 6/12 axis is one of sacrifice: what are you willing and able to give up to take care of yourself and others? Look first to the 12th if you want to know why you feel the way you do, but look to the 6th to see how your need to subsume self to the other manifests. In both cases, the urge is subconscious, but the 6th will at least allow you to see your behavior in a way the 12th cannot.
The 6th is the house where we begin to accept others into our worldview. How we navigate our relationship to the outside world begins with what of ourselves we’re willing to give. Ask yourself, how giving am I, what do I have to give that I didn’t necessarily know about, and then look to the 6/12 axis to see how that will manifest for you. Your chart is an indicator of what you’re capable of; the houses are one way of looking at the entire complicated notion of ‘self.’ The 6/12 axis asks us to determine how much of what we’ve learned so far, from the 12th to the 5th houses, that we can now give away. This is where serving someone else comes from: internal and material resources we know we can spare and offer to others. Emerging from the 1st through the 5th houses with something to offer is crucial to this ability to give it all away.
The 12th house: Know thyself, or else
Today, class, I would like to take you down into the depths of your psyche, so come with me on a 12th house excursion, as we dive to the deep and see what life under the sea is like.
For that’s what goes on in this house: all the buried sediment of your life lives here.
You know those sea creatures who barely have eyes, and survive by feeling their way through the inky black sludge that is the bottom of the deep sea floor? They are the denizens of your depths, and will be our tentative, sightless guides as we ponder this murk.
The 12th house in your chart is either tenanted or it’s not. If a tenant is squatting there, it’s likely you only know about it because, like a ghost tramping about in your cellar, you hear it go bump in the night. You haven’t heard denial until you’ve heard someone who has no idea their 12th house planet controls them, deny that’s what’s happening.
- Pluto in the 12th? I’m not controlling! Are you kidding? I give everyone complete freedom, until they disagree with me, that is.
- Saturn in the 12th? My childhood was idyllic, except for Uncle Rutabaga, and we don’t talk about HIM.
- Sun in the 12th? I own my own power, except my husband takes care of all the little ‘details’ I can’t handle.
- Moon in the 12th? I’m never sick. I just have this persistent cough.
- Venus in the 12th? I’m gorgeous, I know, that’s what everyone says, but does this make me look fat?
- Mars—you guessed it. This one is never angry.
- Mercury hides their intelligence, or is inordinately proud of it and can’t let anyone know.
Planets in the 12th tend to cover their abilities the way cats hide litterbox offerings.
It’s an insecure house, a house of inferiority, because planets here are uncomfortable. They feel guilty for existing, and then they never get the attention they so desperately want. This is the house of introverts and shy people, people who struggle too often to feel okay about expressing themselves, who never believe they are okay as they are.
I am sad just writing this, but there is hope, 12th house people! You’ll feel better knowing that you’ll have to earn this happiness, though. 12th house people, like 6th house people, want to suffer a little (okay, they want to suffer a lot) to know their trek on this planet was worth it, and are happiest when the world obliges by strewing their already-thorny path with boulders.
This gives them something to struggle against, and that’s how they know they’re alive, too much of the time. Hence the denial, running away, and tragic ends. I strongly suspect Anna Karenina had Venus in the 12th, and if she were real, she’d have Pluto there as well, preferably in Pisces, for dramatic effect.
Hope lies in acceptance of one’s self as merely mortal, something the true 12th house person has some trouble with because they come into this life aware of truths most of us only dimly discern. Divinity and attainment of the godhead seem to be just out of reach for the 12th house person, but because they are so close to the source of inner knowing and wisdom, this house has the potential, like no other, to produce people who have true humility, true goodness and purity of spirit.
Your family of origin gave you what lies here; you learned it like the little sponge you once were, absorbing this energy, so don’t be surprised if you are unconscious you possess these abilities. For those who believe in karma, this house represents what you own and what you owe. For those who believe in past lives, much of what you used to be can be found here.
It’s the land of Ward Robe that leads to Narnia, the pirate’s bounty in Davy Jone’s locker. It’s buried away for a reason—so no one can find it easily. Therein lies the work of a lifetime, and it’s why we go to church, to psychiatrists, and to astrologers: to find a way to unlock the door to this room.
12th house planets are usually not overt until you bring the energy to the surface. This might come after some life trauma, but it’s more likely that insight will require trips to visit a therapist, a past life hypnotist, a non-traditional medical practitioner, a medium, an astrologer, the church of Scientology, or practitioners of Zen Buddhism—any of a number of resources designed to assist you in suppressing your conscious, rational mind, and release the messages your inner world is trying to show you.
Many use drugs to facilitate this release, but drugs are not strictly necessary on this journey, although unless it’s life-endangering, I say give it a go. During 12th house transits, I remember the words of my allergy doctor: “Go ahead, mix your meds. Who knows? You might attain Nirvana.”
The 12th house also represents a time of year, in that the Sun transits through the 12th house at a certain time of year for you. Each year, you get another opportunity to go inside your psyche and feel around, much like Mary Poppins searching inside her carpet bag, or Pandora rummaging around her box.
Ask yourself if you are especially “tired” this time of year, if you find you need more time alone, more time to ruminate, more time to allow whatever comes up during daydreams and fantasies and sleep to simply emerge.
Do you find that you have a lack of energy? That’s your body’s way of saying you’ve been living too much in the hectic light of day, and now it’s time for 12th house slumber. As with dreams and nightmares, the 12th house does not mean your mind is inactive. Instead, it is being prepared, like the ground lying fallow in the winter, for a new season of activity.
But what happens to the ground as it lies fallow? I’ll tell you what happens, since we’re extending this metaphor. First of all, it “rests.” This means it isn’t used for new plantings. The ground has become depleted of oxygen and other nutrients, all of which have gone into creating whatever was recently harvested.
During the transit of the Sun through the 12th, attention is being brought to this part of your reality; you are, temporarily, used up, and it’s time to rest and let nature work its miracle of healing and regeneration. The sludge that lies at the bottom of the oceans keeps many life forms alive with the nutrients that fall there, and this is what is going on in your 12th house psyche; dark stuff, the stuff of dreams, fairytales and nightmares, fall to the bottom and occasionally get dredged up.
Dark yucky sludge is not pleasant to look at, so it’s usually sifted through and allowed to fall gently back to the ocean’s floor again.
However, sometimes the sifting process that occurs when you take your deep sea submersible down there, unearths something useful, beautiful, or amazing. It is my belief that no other house is more capable of self-transformation and true attainment of spiritual truths, and I’m not saying that out of ego; my own 12th house is untenanted, so I have nothing at stake here, I just report what the voices tell me.
However, the 12th house is a potentially spiritual house, one that requires the 40 metaphorical years of isolation in the desert to find the treasure chest lying inside the submerged wreck everyone likes to put in their aquarium.
How to attain spirituality in the 12th? First, by owning what belongs to you. With the 12th, it’s too easy to see others as the problem (unconscious prejudices learned in childhood live here, along with everything you do not like about yourself, as well as untapped strengths and abilities you disown for one reason or another).
Everyone you’ve ever known who declares they’re nothing like the people they deplore has a weak, vulnerable, all-too-negatively human side, which lurks like a noisy ghost under the floorboards of this house. Someone else’s planets falling in your 12th tend to make your weaknesses transparent to them, a very uncomfortable feeling when they see right through your defense mechanisms and call you on all your tricks and denials.
Transits through the 12th might bring all of your inadequacies to light in extremely uncomfortable ways, until you own your negative self and the energy you expend on denial is no longer suppressed. I know it’s hard, but think of these transits as opportunities to know yourself better. Or else.
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