Timing technique
Annual profections: the theme of your year.
Every birthday, your year moves one sign forward around your chart. That sign tells you which part of life takes the front seat, and its ruling planet becomes the guide of the year. It is one of the oldest and simplest ways to time a life.
Don't know your rising sign? The homepage form finds it from your birth time and place.
How it works
At birth you start in the 1st house, the sign of your rising sign. At your first birthday you move to the 2nd house, then the 3rd, and so on. After twelve years you are back at the start: ages 0, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 are all 1st house years.
So at 29 you are in a 6th house year, the house of work and health. At 30 you move to the 7th house, the house of the partner. Many people notice that the topic of the house really shows up that year.
The guide of the year
The sign of your year has a ruling planet: Mars for Aries and Scorpio, Venus for Taurus and Libra, Mercury for Gemini and Virgo, the Moon for Cancer, the Sun for Leo, Jupiter for Sagittarius and Pisces, Saturn for Capricorn and Aquarius.
That planet becomes the guide of your year. What it does in the sky during those twelve months, and where it sits in your birth chart, gives the tone. When the guide is strong and well placed, the year tends to flow. When it is in difficulty, the year asks for more effort.
Monthly profections
The same idea works month by month: each month after your birthday moves one more sign forward. This lets you see which months of the year light up the topic of the year, and which ones bring another topic forward.
Why it works so well with other techniques
Profections tell you which topic is open this year. Transits, eclipses and zodiacal releasing tell you when it happens. When a big transit touches the house of the year, or the guide of the year, it usually counts more than in any other year.
See it on real dates
In the Astrolab, replay a date that mattered and see the theme of that year, its guide and what the sky was doing.
Replay a dateQuestions
Do I need my birth time for profections?
Yes, for the rising sign. Without a birth time you can still count from your Sun sign, which gives a useful but less precise picture.
When does my profection year start?
On your birthday, not on 1 January. The year runs from one birthday to the next.
Which house system do profections use?
Traditionally whole-sign houses: each sign is one house, starting from the sign of the rising sign.
What is the time lord of the year?
It is the ruling planet of the sign of your profection year. People also call it the lord of the year or the guide of the year.
