Mother Nature, Leipzeig and the 12th house

By Alanna Morgan

In the German city of Leipzig, Mother Nature is really letting her hair down. In a fascinating turnaround, the forest is making a comeback, slowly but surely devouring the city’s once thriving retail district. The Leipzig experience is a fitting metaphor for the 12th house for it is in this house that we lose ourselves in the dark forest of the collective unconscious. It is here that we imitate Mother Nature and let our hair down. There is no one left to impress when we enter the uncharted waters of the 12th house. When planets arrive at this out-of-the-way place at the end of the line, the final stage of their long journey around the wheel of the houses, it’s time to let go of our striving, to surrender our ambitions. It is in the 12th house that we need to, as the saying goes, “Let go and let God.” Just as the good burghers of Leipzig are for economic reasons (rapid depopulation of the downtown core) letting go and letting the forest reclaim the heart of their city.

Those of us with the late degrees of Scorpio or early degrees of Sagittarius on the Ascendant are currently experiencing Jupiter’s transit through the 12th house, a process that repeats itself every 12 years as Jupiter takes this long to orbit the Sun. Our job now is to let go of our old perceptions and beliefs so that we can give birth to a new vision when Jupiter crosses the threshold into our 1st house and begins another twelve years of growth.

Those of us with the late degrees of Leo or early degrees of Virgo rising are experiencing Saturn’s passage through this territory, a process that repeats itself every 29 years as Saturn takes this long to travel around the Sun. For these people, ambition is stripping itself down to essence. In order to begin the process of building new game plans as Saturn enters their 1st house, their job now is to let go of old ones, along with tired old fears and limitations that have outlived their relevance.

For all of us the Sun passes this way once every year. In the month before our birthday, Apollo (the Sun), travels through our solar 12th house, calling on us to become aware of what it is we have to shed in order to gain a fresh new outlook for the coming year. It is not just imagination that gives us that fresh start feeling on our birthday. We renew our covenant with the Sun, our sense of personal significance and creative purpose, once a year when the Sun touches once again the degree it occupied when we were born.

The Moon passes this way once every month. So even those of us who have no planets in their 12th house will experience the periodic need to surrender the past, give up the ghost and let go of old ways and beliefs. It’s an integral part of all growth cycles, clearing the brush so we can plant new crops, emptying the jug of old wine so we can fill it up with the new.

Like the wise city councillors of Leipzig, we prosper when we cooperate with the inevitable rather than fighting to maintain control at all costs. To everything there is a season. The 12th house season is one in which acts of faith and surrender yield, all in good time, gifts of cleansing renewal and revivifying contact with spirit. In the 12th, house of sorrows, there is a secret passageway to the stars.