in this post I will be referring to the astrological timing technique called Annual Profections. if you want to nerd out over a thorough explanation I recommend Intro to Profections by Jo Gleason. bottom line: annual profections are an ancient astrological timing technique where upon birth you enter the activation of your first house (area of life). on your first solar return you enter the second house and so it continues, each solar return activating the consecutive house. the cycle repeats through the twelve houses until you die, meaning you visit a house in depth every 12 years. what a beautiful, effortless way to time travel…
I am coming to the end of a fourth house year by profection. the sphere of ancestry, roots, emotional well-being, and what it means to return to and/or create origin points has been activated for me since my last birthday. Mars rules this house for me, which has felt like everything circling back to autonomy, desire, and self-advocacy. this Martian part of me, the part that initiates pathways to desire, the part of me that defends and protects me, the part of me that knows I have my own back has been incredibly wounded in my past. this time around, the painful experiences of being impacted without regard by other people’s decisions have opened me up to deeper, more responsive Martian muscle.
Mars is conjunct Mercury retrograde in my natal chart; restorying, rewiring, rewriting have been crucial entry points into repairing the wounds my Mars has sustained. I feel more embodied in my agency, though I am still noticing where I default to the feeling of being dominated or controlled because the story is wired into my nervous system so deeply. it is a true story, but it is a story that ended for me in this fourth house year. the fourth house is also a place of endings; sometimes you have to leave stories for dead because they will suck the life out of you.
the first time the fourth house (the bottom of the crossroads, the bottom line) was activated for me in this way I was 3 and learning all about what it meant to crave safety and be unsafe at the same time, learning all about whether I could assert boundaries or not. the last time I was here I was 15 and beginning to resist subjugation and control, beginning to feel a long repressed anger, but still ultimately powerless.
as I am nearing thirty, it has been excruciatingly uncomfortable and incomparably empowering to have returned to this place. I have been confronted with the three year old and fifteen year old parts of me that were neglected, overpowered, and left behind. I often find them crying inexplicably, or seething with a resentment that tells me some need or hurt wasn’t validated and given the room to release. therefore grief became anger and the entanglement solidified.
when you’re twenty-seven the combination of the progressed lunar return, the nodal reversal, the entrance of Saturn into the sign of your Saturn return, and the fourth house year is quite the invitation to deprogram and reprogram, especially when it comes to reparenting. twenty-seven is a crossroads. (all of this repeats when you’re 55 except it’s your second Saturn return then!)
being at this particular entry point into the crossroads with the power and autonomy I have now that I didn’t have at 3 and 15 is in-tense. Mars does nothing if not bring you into the present tense, and the fourth house requires such a depth of presence if the gifts are to be retrieved. just like the wound brings forth the medicine, the grief brings forth the gifts. when you know what was missing, you know what you want to create for yourself.
what I have found is that not only have the wounds time traveled to meet me here from times in my life that were very tender in a way I’ll never experience again, but the medicine I am conjuring up now is also time traveling backwards. I am learning to listen to my anger from the fifteen year old and I am offering them every supportive reclamation of agency I can enact. I am learning to feel my feelings from the three year old and offering them every validation of my experience that I can.
there is no changing the circumstances of the past, but I can rewrite the story to have an ending that doesn’t leave me hopeless and helpless. I can create an ending where all the violations become protections I now give myself, where all the emotional neglect become expressions I allow myself, where other people’s misuse of power doesn’t hold me back from using my own.
re-parenting is fundamental, foundational, hard fucking work. I notice the ways I want to control, dominate, and subjugate myself in the hopes it will be less painful. but it’s not, on top of being unbearable anyway. instead, I tend to the altar I created for my inner child with pretty candles, good smells, cute things, love notes, and divination tools when I need that extra support.
this is where I have been, elbows deep in the underground dirt of the fourth house, and from where I will be emerging come my next solar return. I will always live with c-ptsd but the more I repair leaks in my power, the less terrifying it becomes to be emotionally available to my own life. self-veneration is a medicine that ripples into timelines, lifetimes, and lineages. most importantly though, it’s a medicine that can only be made and experienced by you.
I would love to support you in time traveling and restorying with your annual profections; you can book a reading here.