Living with and loving: 12th house moon

If I can point to one way which astrology has enhanced my life and the lives of those around me, it has been through increasing my tolerance of others and my understanding of innate difference. This has been a truly helpful development for someone who had very firm attachment to the ideas of being right, and my way being therefore the most logical and favourable way of being.

Over the course of my life so far I have had the privilege to meet many people and learning their charts has been ever so helpful in quieting the voice inside my head which wanted to hit them over the head with mallets. Being able to sit comfortably with difference is a challenge, and one I've nowhere near sussed but the Living With and Loving Posts will be a log of my attempts to do so.

Thus, on the subject of 12th house moons...

In astrology the Moon represents our emotional and instinctive self. Where the Moon falls in our chart (by sign, house and aspect) describes something about our primal, innermost self: our hungers, our needs, how and where we seek security.

The 12th house describes the unconscious, the hidden. It is the vastest, and the most mysterious of astrological houses. Trying to see its contents is as useless and as dangerous as trying to discern how deep the ocean by looking at its surface. The only way to experience the 12th house is to sink into it with eyes closed, using intuition and sideways senses and allowing its contents to rise up and meet you, like the distant ancestoral memories we carry unaware most often of the voices which sing in our blood, whisper in our bones.

The 12th house obscures whatever it contains, and its contents are not easily reachable. Attempting to grab a part of us that it's in the 12th is very much similar to fishing - direction and depth are illusory, things slip from our grasps, float to us in their own time, of their own accord.

On the subject of how to spot a 12th house moon, astrologer Alexander von Schlieffen gives a deeply helpful definition; namely that with a 12th house moon person their needs are hidden, elusive, both from themselves and others around them.

I verified the truth of that when I met my husband.

Although his Moon is in the fire sign of Aries (the warrior, the hero; the bearer of courage, arrogance, drive, aggression) and trine a fiery Sun in Sagittarius, its placement in the 12th house obscures everything. While this has its benefits for my rather sensitive nature (he is not aggressive, he doesn't yell) in most aspects it's taken a lot of adjustment (my own Moon is in the 3rd house of ideas and communication, my own needs and emotions are easily verbalisable and plain and obvious to me).

So, here's a list of useless questions to ask a 12th house Moon (unless you are looking for an excuse to work yourself into a froth of frustration):

How do you feel? ("Don't know, can't put it into words.")

What are your needs? (A wide-handed shrug that equates needs to vastness and unquantifiability of the sea; "I don't know")

What do you want? ("I don't know"; "What do you want?")

Can you remember how you felt about that? ("I don't know how to put it into words"; "I cannot find the words to explain how I feel about you either, words are so inadequate, I just feel".)

What are your boundaries? ("I don't know, but when you cross them we'll both know.")

What makes you happy? ("When you're happy.")

In short, a recipe for insanity if you're looking for any kind of a straight answer.

A recipe for suspicion or interest too, if you happen to have a probing Scorpio Moon intrigued by the fact that your normally very keen sense about other people (what makes them tick, where they shine, where they are vulnerable, what they're feeling) is being completely eluded by a 12th house moon person who is ephemeral, keeps slipping away. It takes a different tactic to catch this fish.

You must use patience, and subtlety. Enter its world. Wait with no probing questions, no sudden movements. Move with eyes closed, or using only peripheral vision. Do not startle, do not rush. Gather what information is given and wait for more, wait until the fish swims closer, reveals itself to you. And when the fish comes to you do not frighten it, do not violate its trust by grasping it and hurting it. Respect what you are shown, and honoured with. Swim in its own world, drift with it.

It has taken me three years (and some Pluto transits) to see my husband's naked core, his raw emotions. To be trusted with his secret self. And the experience was all the more special for the waiting.