I find that these houses are often grouped together within the context of planetary interpretation. Though, there are nuanced differences between them. They are talked about in such strong tandem that the 8th and 12th house appear to offer us the same things: hardship, challenge, spirituality, meditation, death, loss, the occult. All things immaterial, woo-woo, psychic or magical. The 8th and 12th trine one another, but then so does the 4th, yet the 4th is largely left out of the conversation. More on that another day (sorry 4th). Below is what I find to be the difference between the 8th and the 12th, both as a personal holder of planets here, and from client work.
The 8th house is where we enter into complexity, basically. Whether it is the complexity of the finance market, the complexity of mental health and trauma work, the complexity of occult work or the complexity of marrying or going into business another flawed human—nothing in the 8th house is clear cut. Where the 12th house offers us a similar kind of transcendence, dissolving into nothing—the 8th house is where we dissolve into our own humanity. Not through the more comforting gaze of spiritualism or meditation like the 12th, but through a human willingness to “go there”. And so, to me, the 8th house requires some action. We can perhaps see this in that fact that the 8th house sextiles both the 6th house and the 10th house, the sextile being a more active and energizing current. The 6th is where we go for daily, ritualistic work. It is where we go to hone in on the details of daily life in such a way that galvanizes personal success in the 10th. To have the 8th house hanging out in-between these two houses is to indicate that complexity is a necessary throughway to success. There is no success worth having that hasn’t prompted us to look closely at our fears, our hang ups, our vulnerabilities. So, as we rise up to the 10th house, the 8th house becomes a necessary component in the journey. Its aversion to the 1st house/ascendant is less about lack of personal willpower or an ineffective planet and more about the things we consciously hide, what that planet is keeping. Planets in the 8th don’t speak to the 1st not because they don’t have anything to say, but because what is to be said is heavy, complex, hard, and most times, taboo. We don’t want to say them, or acknowledge them.
The 12th house is less complex in that it represents the dispersal of reality. In this house to “go there” means nothing, as there does not exist. Reality tends to be the realm of existence that humans complicate. Rather, the 12th house presents as a doorway between realities, where you go to forget the self, not to examine the self. Planets in the 12th represent a liminal space between life and death, and as such, concerted human effort, in the ego sense, fails miserably in this house. That is why human action and reaction here, also in the ego sense, is often called self-sabotage. The process of surrendering belongs to this house. After all is said and done, and you’ve done the best you could to erect some personal reality of yours, the time comes to let go. It will either come to pass, or disappear into the ether, an unbelonging. And really, there is nothing complicated about the act of surrender.
If we rise up to the 10th house, then we rest finally in the 12th, where planets enter to recharge, to get a grip on what was accomplished, what was a failure, and where to go now. But first, a pause. And so, the sextile between the 10th and the 12th house, rather, represents the stimulation of retrospect, of glancing upon our successes or actions from a place of distance and non-judgement. To be reborn again into the 1st house with 12th house wisdom. What’s done is done. The impetus to improve or to fix the human condition belongs to the 8th house. Your only job in the 12th is to enter into spaces of compassion, quiet reflection on and acceptance of what is without trying to change what is. Planets in the 12th house operate in a blind spot to the first house, but also in square to the 3rd house. So, planets here can feel unknowable, hard to get a grip on or to understand. That is because they operate above, beside, or without the human trappings of traditional knowledge. They ripen not with sheer brain power, but a higher power.
The 8th house and 12th support one another through trine. It is usually the gunk we drag up in the 8th house that can meet a compassionate ending and release in the 12th house. For example, my anxiety disorder is a result of my specific 8th house set up. And I can therapize, and study, and talk about my anxiety to death. To know it, how it operates, where it came from is all helpful. The gaze here is on my own damaged fear responses. But try as one might, to think hard about a thing isn’t to solve it. And while western medicine and other such remedies exist as management, I believe that true healing lies in that 12th house trine, where we bring our human neuroses and just sit with them, accept them. That alone galvanizes so much healing. The 12th house as a place of the collective unconscious brings with it, also, the knowing that one isn’t suffering alone. That is why 12th house people can get to work in philanthropic and other helpful ways, as they know the pain others go through firsthand. It as also why 12th house artists and creators are able to so succinctly evoke an emotion out of us.
To use another example, the 8th house is where we go for occult practices. So, say you pull a tarot card about the outcome of job interview. In a tarot spread, the Universe speaks through symbolism, a 12th-house brand of vague language. In that instance of divinatory work, it feels you get a glimpse of something bigger, a plan, a message, the reality underneath reality. And that is the 12th house working in harmony with an active 8th house. Let’s say you’re hung up over needing this job, an anxious mess! You’ve allowed all your 8th house hang ups and anxieties to run the show. You get your spread, you see it, you judge it as good, or bad or confusing. But the reality of the outcome is not up to you, really, even though mortal actions such as resume building and good impressions work, at the end of the day, there is a metaphysical underworking to the way things pan out for us. Entering into an energetic space of creation is what necessitates the best outcomes. And so, the trine to the 12th can also enter in as the force of Universe, either moving you in or out of situations for your highest good. And perhaps, for a time, this is unbeknownst to you.
Dear reader, these are just my own musings of the 8th and 12th. I hope I was able to provide a personal brand of clarity for the two houses always shrouded in the most mystery.