This Twelfth House of astrology houses page and the entire website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, mythology and astronomy through which the recipient's complete astrological reading is woven.

Astronomically speaking, the twelfth house is that one-12th sector of the local sky just above the eastern horizon (see above picture) occupied by planets during the two hours after they rise.

When a planet rises in the east it can now be seen -- and thus it enters the twelfth house. Just so, our first instances of self-expression that we offer into the world are vulnerable and easily defeated, but the effect of their success or failure on our personality is enormous. Pulling some of our energy back into our self to keep it from being defeated or overwhelmed has two results. If we are aware of what we are doing, it becomes our hidden secret. If this process is unconscious, it becomes a rejected aspect of the self. These secrets or repressed aspects of the self form the classical interpretation of the twelfth house.

But what if the immature energy we put into the world isn’t defeated early on? Then it can become a source of strength and a dominant aspect of our personality, and even signify our career. The twelfth house is thus where we build inner strength to overcome limitations, sorrows and fears, and where the individual adapts to the collective. It signifies self-undoing: where we stand in our own way, where we are not free to let ourselves become and be who we essentially already are. It also represents that which is hidden, karma, limitation, confinement, prison, betrayal, sacrifice, hospitals and institutions, nuns and priests, secrets and secret enemies (who may just be rejected aspects of ourselves), initiation, ultimate understanding, and charity given or received.