The Art of Good-Bye: Lessons from Pisces & 12th House Kids
Kids with prominent 12th house placements in their birth charts can teach us some of the most profound lessons about navigating some of the hardest parts of life. However, it is highly contingent on us listening to and honoring their 12th house energy.
The 12th house in astrology is considered a particularly tough house to have placements in because it represents things we cannot control. It's where life asks—or forces—us to submit to how things are vs. how we want them to be.
And that can be particularly tough in a culture that so deeply conditions us to desire and demand control; a culture that's obsessed with dominating our material reality through sheer force of will and manifesting our individual agency regardless of external circumstances or…anything!
In my view, that cultural context is a huge part of what makes the 12th House so hard. It's a house that's all about submission to a higher power or forces beyond your control. And we, as a society and culture, just do not do well with having to submit.
But to be fair, even if we did live in a super enlightened social context, we are still humans who DO have agency and agendas, and as humans, we ARE meant to express that agency and pursue those agendas to SOME extent. So even if society was more accepting of 12th House experiences, I don't think it would ever not be a hard placement or even transit to deal with.
The 12th house is a very spiritual, ethereal, otherworldly house, which we should all have a healthier relationship with, I think. But I also know that we are still material beings at the end of the day, so that inherent frustration is there.
Being a 12th houser doesn't make the desire to have control over our lives and experiences disappear. If anything, it just puts you in more situations where you have to learn how to handle it. And not even the youngest humans are immune to it or spared from those 12th house experiences of loss or lack of control.
But, because they haven't yet been conditioned into that false sense of expectation of being able to successfully exert their will and have their way all the time, they can be much more adept at accepting those lessons, of taking those losses and having to submit.
But as we know, they will grow. And, I believe, the best gift we as their community of caretakers can give them is the space and support they need to externalize their inner knowing about how to work through those frustrations and learn to navigate those lessons in ways that are most authentic and uplifting and fulfilling for them.
And I would argue that when we give them that gift, they end up returning it to us tenfold. Because what emerges is often excellent fodder and inspiration for practices that could help us all live more peacefully and evolve in more conscious and creative ways.
That said, one of the most profound lessons I've learned, and I think we could all learn from kids with prominent 12th house placements, is the importance of a proper good-bye. The value of a goodbye practice or a goodbye ceremony, if you will.
And not just in the context of major life-changing good-byes, like moving to another city, but the smaller scale good-byes we experience on an everyday basis. (Hey 6th House, I see you. I knew you'd appear at some point. If we're having a discussion about the 12th house, you'll see the 6th house come up at some point.)
The 12th house represents endings, losses, dissolution and the sorrows that can come with having to let go of the people and places and things we love due to circumstances and even unknown factors that are beyond our control. And even though 12th house kids aren't necessarily spared from the frustration or sadness that can come with that, they can be particularly adept at dealing with it—if and when we give them the space and support to do so.
And again, that can be a gift for us as well because it shows that even in situations we can't control, we can still act in ways that honor our creative agency.
For example, one of my toddler niblings has a 12th house stellium and has his grandparents and sometimes his aunties come over to spend the day with him multiple times throughout the week. And he loves it! Even if we're not doing much, he just loves having the company. And I know because even when we aren't doing much, when it's time for us to leave, he'll immediately start to panic and throw a bit of a fit.
Like Sza said in the song Drew Barrymore—the ultimate 12th House anthem by the way—"Why is it so hard to accept the party is over?"
But you know what instantly kind of settles his spirit and helps him make peace with the bittersweet sorrow of some of his favorite people having to leave him at the end of the day every day? His good-bye ritual.
And baby, when I say it's become a whole ritual, I mean the whole household is now involved and it's become a routine we all participate in.
He'll be like, "y'all leaving? COME ON DADA!" and he'll drag my brother-in-law off the couch to come to the door so they can watch out the window as we pile into the car and put on our seat belts, then wave and honk at him as we drive by.
It's like he'll start to cry and panic a little bit when it's time for us to leave, but as soon as my sister reminds him that us leaving means he and his dad can do their little window watching routine, he immediately stops fighting it and puts that energy toward enacting that little ritual.
It's almost like a salve to his spirit or a consolation in some way. It's as if he's saying, I may not be able to control or keep them from leaving, but I can still have some agency within the process and some control over how I experience it.
I'm really just projecting here because I obviously don't know what's in his head, but it seems to me like that little good-bye ceremony is a way for him to ground himself internally and make peace with the external circumstances and have a modicum of control in the midst of an otherwise uncontrollable situation. To me, it seems to bring a sense of closure to the whole daily routine of us coming and going.
Of course, all kids are different and all birth charts are different, and one 12th house kid's good-bye ritual may have different requirements than another's. But to me, it just goes to show that having some sort of practice or process or ceremony where you're consciously, creatively, proactively pausing to acknowledge and commemorate—and sort of tie a bow around a beloved experience coming to an end, even a small one—just makes that ending a lot easier to accept.
And again, that's a lesson for all of us to implement in our everyday lives. Especially as adults who have even more agency over our interactions.
But in terms of kids, I also think it's so important to acknowledge and recognize the role his parents and community of caregivers have in giving him the space and support to take that agency and create that peace for himself. As a toddler!
Big shout out to my sister and brother-in-law for noticing and picking up on his patterns, and for participating in the routine with him and having the patience to facilitate it and even encouraging it to grow. At first, his dad would pick him up so he could see the whole process unfold through the little window in the door, and then he started empowering him to go do it at a different window that was low enough for him to stand at and see out of for himself.
After all, he is an Aries 12th House stellium, so he doesn't mind doing some of those twelfth house things himself, it seems.
Anyway, yes, transitions and endings can be hard for us all, but I think kids with prominent 12th house placements are well positioned to help themselves, and us, learn how to navigate them with more ease and more peace.
Tell me what y'all think or what experiences y'all have had in the comments on my Tik Tok or Instagram. Watch the video version of this essay on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
You can also book a Cosmic Kids reading for more insights and developmental resources specific to your child!
I'm Jada Water and I talk about astrology, philosophy, and spiritual cosmologies for our everyday lives. Asé!