The 12th house as a place of counterculture

The house where the ruler of your Ascendant resides, is basicly the place where you spend the most of your time during life. So of course you don't want this to be the 12th, place of trauma and self-destruction! According to the sources, at best it might mean that you are a private and melancholic person, but at its worst, you have a cynic, miserable personality with no self-control and burdened by problems! Abu'Ali Al-Khayyat states that if the ruler of the Ascendant is in the 12th, "that [the native] will lead a bad life and have many enemies." 

For all people with their Ascendant ruler in the 12th out there: I feel you. But after much angsty pondering about this placement in my own chart, I came to a more positive reading of it.

The house of anti-cheerleading

The second house is the house that supports the life of the native, in contrast with the 12th, which is the house that takes resources away. It's a so-called dark house, since it doesn't aspect the first Place. But this doesn't necessarily mean that a planet has no power in it. On the contrary: I think these are places of a different kind of agency, because here we learn on a deep level that power... doesn't work. 

It's always good to keep in mind that traditional astrology is (still) mostly written by upper class cis men, who upheld bourgeois ideas about power and visiblity. But it is not because a house is less action-oriented or externally visible, that it is less important or succesful in its endeavours. The dark houses are not the houses that tell you how amazing you are (they keep that task to the other 8 houses!). They learn you about vulnerability. 

The endeavours and the experiences that the 12th house will give you, are ones that confront you with the fact that power is not something to strife for. In my opinion, the 12th house gives you disenchanting experiences. Experiences that just make no sense. They make you seriously conclude that all the stories about success and hard work you were told, must be plain lies. 12th house people understand on a deep level that life isn't fair and therefor it is absurd to treat life as if it were. The ability to face life without needing lies is actually a great strength. 12th house wisdom lies in your vulnerability, and your ability to resonate with life's fragility. 

Power-resistant

I would like to reframe the 12th house from a place where people are powerless, to a place where people are power-resistant instead. I have a theory that people who have the ruler of their Ascendant in the twelfth house have a visceral dislike for show-off, dramatic or self-important behaviour. People with an accentuated 12th house have the gift to see the importance and beauty in people and things that are deemed unworthy by society. Deep down they are unimpressed by (normative) beauty, wealth or authority. This tendency to be unaffected by the lure of  societal 'power', is actually a blessing. When 12th house people can get over their feelings of inferiority, they manage to actually have a rare realistic view on themselves and others! 

A 12th house placement keeps you in tune with the reality of life, and be less prone to be enchanted by capitalist fantasies. Maybe there is a tendency to look at life through a more 'negative' lens and being a bit distrustful of human nature. But before you beat yourself up for being so 'negative', I like to reframe this trait as being interested in the essence of things and people. I think you have a knack for seeing the things that others don't (want) to see! A 'negative' outlook can then seem like a Röntgen photograph, that strips away any unneccessary information to see what's really inside. Maybe you are someone who appreciates people for who they really are, in all their rawness and flawedness - and with all the messy, complex emotions they give you - and not for what they can mean or do for you. This is actually a very beautiful gift, but unfortunately it is one that rarely gets rewarded by our society. 

The gift of cautiousness 

I think 12th house people have a talent to spot claims to power, even if they're subtle. Maybe you find yourself  saying to your  friends: 'be careful with this person, I have a bad feeling about them', and not being believed. After some time, when the true colors of this person get to be revealed by some situation, you get a pat on the back for having the depressing 'talent' to immediately spot ill intent. 

Of course, the special 'gifts' we get from our astrological placements, are not god-given. We learn them by experience. Maybe you have been in a lot of situations in  life where you have been carried away by people and places who seemed to be splendid but weren't at all! Again and again, life experience stripped you completely from any illusions, learning it the hard way. Sometimes trauma and illness does this too: you encounter life in its bare bones, and afterwards you feel unmoved by grand gestures of power or beauty, for you just know in your gut how unimportant and superficial they are. 

My theory is that people with 12th house placements have a strange fear and distrust of power. This sometimes shows itself in disempowering themselves and self-destructive behaviour, or in hiding away from society, preferring to be alone. But on the positive end, famous people with important 12th house placements, show an incredible modesty and integrity in a societal position where the ability to keep it real is not a frequent occurence. 

Marginalised people are not 'self-destructive'

I sometimes believe that these ancient writers call the 12th house 'self-destructive' in the same way rich people say that poor people are the agents of their own problems - as if poor people somehow inflict it on themselves. The ideas of meritocracy are so deeply embedded in our system, that other people believe that we are somehow deserving bad luck when it befalls us. 12th house people know that humans are not inherently self-destructive: they get destroyed by the system. 

People with 12th house placements work with marginalised communities, not because they want to 'save' people, but because they are part of these communities themselves or feel genuinely connected to them. You don't have to be 'a perfect victim' to be taken care of by a 12th house person: this is probably why a lot of us are attracted to caretaking-jobs in places of crisis, like hospitals and prisons. 

So even in your 12th house friend can be a bit negative and grumpy sometimes, I think they can really be a blessing in disguise. They won't leave you when they get to know your 'bad' or annoying sides, since it's probably the first thing they noticed about you. They already know and decided to love you anyway. 

Janet Mock

Activist, writer and director Janet Mock has the ruler of her Ascendant in the 12th house, Venus in Aries. Venus in a fire sign is often a indicator of artists who work with light, like cinematographers! 

Mock, famous as the brain behind the Netflix series Pose, shows the beauty of her own Black trans community through the medium of art. Uplifting the beauty of communities often deemed unworthy of attention or adoration, is a very Venus-in-the-12th-house-topic. 

Mock is remarkably grounded and humble person, and very clear on prioritizing the message and purpose of her work above all. Drawing from her own life experiences of being 'othered', her work is very authentic and resists sensationalization. 

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka is a Jewish writer whose work often gets appropriated by non-Jewish sholars. Jewish culture is a very important part of Kafka's writings, and he wrote literaly and figuratively about the racism and marginalisation that his people face. 

The ruler of Kafka's Ascendant is the Sun in Cancer in the Twelfth house. Kafka's writings often talk about loneliness and alienation, subjects he knew very well from his own life. 

The 12th house can show mental, but also physical illness, for having a disability isolates people. Franz Kafka suffered from anxiety, but he also had chronic physical health issues (he had lung problems, very appropriate for Cancer on the 12th house cusp). 

Kafka is famous for resisting any praise about his work and having very low self-esteem - which is an odd thing to be famous for, but with the Sun (the planet that rules our 'fame') in the 12th we get why!

Lots of sources state that he was a man of integrity, showing up for people in trouble, but often in a secretive way - for he didn't want people to know that he did help them out financially, for example. The Sun, the planet that is all about visibility and generosity, is here a place where it does not want to be seen.  Again, we see that 12th house placements indeed show trauma and marginalisation, but also an odd shyness and resistance towards being in a position where the native could receive praise. 

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk was a human rights activist and one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. His Ascendant ruler is Saturn in Capricorn in the 12th. He organised with different marginalised communities to fight for rights, and he did this by joining the political structures that existed - a very Saturnian approach. He had a long term impact, even if he got murdered a year after being elected. This is again an example of someone who knows the realities of being rejected, and uses his experience to connect with other rejected people. His claims to 'power' are selfless - putting his own life in danger since he got death treats every day - to make things better for others. Saturn is in its joy in the 12th house, which bodes well for Milk, but still it is the most difficult planet in a night chart. 

Sometimes you see that 12th house people are (subconsiously) fearful of succes, setting everything up to make themselves fail. Maybe this stems from their fear of power and responsibility over others. This tendency is less the case if you have a dignified Saturn in Capricorn there, the planet of responsibility and duty, a position that Barack Obama shares with Harvey Milk. Obama is also a politician who is remarkably immune to corruptibility by power once he had it (especially if you compare him with every other US president). Both men also share their underdog position in their field of work, since Obama was the first Black president of the US. 

I hope I was able to empower my fellow Ascendants-in-the-12th-people a little by showing some really cool people with similar placements!

Sources:

- Surpassing Certainty by Janet Mock (autobiography)

- Conversations with Kafka by Gustav Janouch

- Wikipedia.com