There are many ways we can connect dreams to astrology, and many don't require that you know all about your Natal Chart. In this column we will be exploring the symbolic rather than predictive aspects of astrology. Symbolic astrology attempts to use the images of astrological to give meaning to one's life and empower choices rather than predict paths. We do this by imaginal overlay. In this process we impleach, (poetically interweave) dream, image, feeling, life and symbol in a way to evoke a felt sense of the dream's imagery and its position in our life.

This year we are focusing each month on a different House.
The inner circle of the Natal or Birth Chart is divided into 12 distinct regions know as Houses. They relate to everyday activates. One will be about physical appearances and temperament, while another relates to possessions, for example. Planets and signs fall within these Houses and influence the areas of focus. We will be watching for images of planets, signs and other celestial events and hopefully begin to see the emergence of an astrological chart that dips into birth charts, dreams, and our waking life.

Twelfth House: Pisces. At the end of the series of 12 Houses, it is the alpha-omega house of endings of one cycle and just before the beginning of the next. The next cycle can be a spiral upward or a spiral downward, or an octave higher or lower than the present one. But before moving to the next octave, the 12th House itself must travelled.

Dream: I am in an arctic sea aboard an 18th Century ship. I am in a cabin studying under a swaying light. I have been brooding for sometime and left my home to help others, but now just seem to live in this little cabin. I am looking at an oily fish design on the cover of the book, and thinking that the fish can get away by slipping deep below the surface.

In this dream we see that there is a struggle with the lower and higher self on a plane that seems isolated for the individual. There is the theme of self-sacrifice and the brooding loss of the old self set to sea, but also the possibility the individual may descend with the old self into the icy depths of the sea. At the center of this escape is the fish, which in this millennium is continually associated with the Christian notion of sacrifice to the higher self. And there is no negative judgement in the descent either. It could be a suicidal escape fantasy, or it could be the need to contact the deeper soul.

Dream: I am waking outside a kind of hospital. Its seems more like an sanitarium for tubercular patients from Thomas Mann. There is a maze of hedges and I find my way blocked by an altar with items laid out on it. No one is around and I see that the altar has clothes on it that I used to wear. I only remember two now, a set of clothes from childhood that used to be put on me when I played in the sandbox, and a business suit that was a favorite of mine to welcome new clients to my shop. I think it is odd that there isn't a priest around.

Before this dreamer is a way out, but a sacrifice of the whole past, all the personalities she previously wore, all that she has obtained in the first 11 Houses, must first be sacrificed. Will she recognize that she is the priest that must do this, or will she return to the hospital? Karma, in this sense, is not so much a fated curse but a way of seeing things that allows for new paths and growth.

Dream: I was playing with my army men toys but then I was one of them. People were shooting all around. I kept thinking that if they really kill one another, I won't have any more left to play with. I run over a hill to get away and see all the army men that have died in a pile. People are pulling them down and burying them in a graveyard nearby. I help them, but feel like I'm burying part of myself. My heart goes out to the soldiers, even though I know they are toys.

Dreams of the 12th House may be particularly difficult for the individual and this difficulty may be relieved by service to others. The gaining of a higher self by loss of an earlier one is painful. Helping others is also helping oneself, even when at the time this may not be fully realized. As some say, its not really a battle to be won, but a acquiescence and devotion.

Those who flee from the 12th House effects may find themselves in classical Shadow psychology, i.e. being chased by monsters and unforseen forces that threaten to undermine or destroy the self.

Also, dreams my compensate too much sacrifice. Many people feel the 12th House as a deep debt that must be paid in life and devote years to helping and ailing relative or seek religious solitude in a monastery, only to neglect their own development. This un-lived life may take on the shape of a monster or force threatening the dreaming.

So, if sacrifice and withdraw are the call of the 12th House that can lead to ruin, what is the productive solution? It seems that the solution is individual and can't be collectively spoken.Inner peace, understanding and wisdom are as equal a possibility as despair. The desire for the inner oneness of all things unfolds a mystery that can be seen in our travel through all the Houses of the Cosmos. With each cycle we get another glimpse and opportunity to share and participate in the co-creation of the universe.

M. Aionia

This is the final installment of Dreaming through the Houses. If you wish to follow the full year of Houses, they will be available online at the Electric Dreams Articles Site:
www.dreamgate.com/dream/ed-articles/

Comments and additions to the set of articles will be added if you send them in to
M. Aionia at aionia@dreamgate.com