Now you see why I chose you Po Yi. Get the Cheese.
The 12th is a house of Dissolution. Our support is washed away. Our ship goes down in the storm and we are left at sea in a small boat with few resources. We are perhaps in a dense fog and can't take a sighting; we are disoriented -- and alone.
For those of you who believe that mankind is overdue for an Awakening, that our racial Ephiphany is on the doorstep, who hold to the dream of the Creation of the Ideal Man, and of the Ideal World, I will let Niccolo Machiavelli speak for me: "it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable." -- and he goes on to say "...many have pictured republics and principalities [let's call this "the human world" as it is today and has been since before history began] which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil." -- The Prince
Before leaving Machiavelli, here is his thought regarding "the spirit of the times". "I believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not accord with the times will not be successful. Because men are seen, in affairs that lead to the end which every man has before him, namely, glory and riches, to get there by various methods; one with caution, another with haste; one by force, another by skill; one by patience, another by its opposite; and each one succeeds in reaching the goal by a different method. One can also see of two cautious men the one attain his end, the other fail; and similarly, two men by different observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the other impetuous; all this arises from nothing else than whether or not they conform in their methods to the spirit of the times." This idea is something an astrologer should consider carefully and incorporate into his work. In a very real sense it is "what astrology is about"... harmonizing action with proper timing. And the same line of thought holds true for the very nature of a man; it is not productive, does not lead to success in life, to attempt to be something we are not, that goes against our very nature.
In regard to the Evils of the 12th House, Mark Twain offers us this thought: "“Only Bunyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, the author of Don Quixote, & a few other people have had the best of opportunities for working, in this world. Solitary imprisonment, by compulsion, is the one perfect condition for perfect performance ... Then his work becomes his pleasure, his recreation, his absorption, his uplifting & all-satisfying enthusiasm. He is miserable only when the work-day closes. And yet a man so circumstanced need never be actually miserable; for he can weave his fancies & continue his work in his head until sleep overtakes him. He lives in a fairer world than any that is outside, he moves in a goodlier company than any that others know, & over them he is king & they obey him.” --- Mark Twain
“Our generation is a realistic generation because we have learned what a human being really is. When all is said and done, man is that same creature who invented the gas-chambers of Auschwitz; but he is also that being who walked upright into those chambers with the prayer “Shema Yisrael” on his lips”. Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning -- All astrological symbolism contains this duality because it is woven into the very fabric of reality. The Twelfth House is both the creature who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the being who walked upright into those chambers praising God.