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Whether it’s a new calendar year or you’re turning one year older, thinking what the next 12 months may hold can be truly exhilarating — and, OK, a bit daunting. You may wonder if your love life is about to get a romantic makeover or if a new career opportunity is around the corner. Having even just a little insight into the themes that will dominate your year can be centering, which is where annual profections, an increasingly popular predictive method in astrology, come in handy.  Also referred to as “natal promise reports” on TikTok, profections seem to blow up at the new year as people wonder what’s on the horizon for them this coming year.

Here’s the rundown on this technique and how to use it to get a read on what this coming year might hold for you.Here’s What Astrologers Predicts for Your Sign In 2023

What are annual profections?

The method, which originated with the Hellenistic tradition of astrology, goes all the way back to the second century BCE. It equates each house of a natal birth chart with a particular age.

A refresher on the houses: As with many astrology concepts, it helps to have a visual. And the best possible visual for this exercise is your own birth chart. If you don’t already have it handy, you can run one on an app (like TimePassages) or website (I have a tool on MaressaBrown.com or you can try astro.com). From there, note that the chart is divided up into 12 slices. Each of these slices represents a house, and the first house is where your ascendant or rising sign (the sign that was ascending on the eastern horizon at the time of your birth) falls on the left hand side of the chart.

Why Learning Your Rising Sign Is a Game-Changer

From the first house, you’ll want to follow your chart counterclockwise to note your second house, third house, fourth, and so forth and so on for a total of 12 houses. As you move through the houses, you’ll notice that each is ruled by one of the 12 zodiac signs and your planetary placements — your sun sign, moon sign, Mercury sign, et al. — reside within a particular house.

And each house covers a particular area of life and themes associated with it. A quick rundown:

First House of Self: The physical body, self-image, personality

Second House of Income: Money, material possessions

Third House of Communication: Communication, learning, siblings, short-distance travel

Fourth House of Home Life: Family, security, inner life (as opposed to your public/professional one)

Fifth House of Romance: The early, lighthearted stages of relationships like dating and flirting, creativity, self-expression, children

Sixth House of Health: Daily routine, wellness, your everyday work, pets

Seventh House of Partnership: Partnerships (platonic, professional, romantic), marriage, one-on-one interactions

Eighth House of Intimacy Sex, emotional bonds, joint resources, death, rebirth, transformation

Ninth House of Adventure: Long-distance travel, philosophy, higher education

Tenth House of Career: Public image, reputation, professional aspirations, responsibility

Eleventh House of Networking: Groups, teams, friendships, long-term wishes

Twelfth House of Spirituality: The unconscious, intuition, dreams

Profections are a way to zero in on a particular house of your natal chart as a way to see which certain themes will be prominent for you during a given year of your life. It’s also a way to identify the planet or luminary (that’s the sun and moon) that will be particularly powerful for you as it moves over your chart — or is activated within your chart. That’s referred to as your “Time Lord.”

How to Figure Out What House Profection Year You’re In?

To figure out which house is being activated for you right now, you’ll need to check out an annual profections wheel, which shows you which ages are associated with each house.

So, say you’re 30, so you’re in a seventh house profection year. You could potentially get plenty of intel from that alone, but because of course, this is true for all 30-year-olds, you’ll want to get a bit more specific, so that’s when you lean on your own birth chart — specifically, the Whole House system version of it. (If you don’t already have it handy, you can run one on CafeAstrology.)

Although there are various house systems that lean on different calculations of the sky, the Whole House system — in which the first house starts with 0 degrees of your rising sign, and the second house begins with 0 degrees of the next sign, et al. — is required for profections.

Now, in your own chart, look at the house that correlates to your current age. Take note of the sign that is on the cusp of that house. Perhaps your ascendant is Virgo, so the cusp of the seventh house — aka your descendant — is Pisces. This means your Time Lord, while you’re 30, is Jupiter. That’s because Jupiter is Pisces’ traditional ruler.

Here’s a handy list of all traditional rulers:

Aries: Mars

Taurus: Venus

Gemini: Mercury

Cancer: The moon

Leo: The sun

Virgo: Mercury

Libra: Venus

Scorpio: Mars (the modern co-ruler is Pluto)

Sagittarius: Jupiter

Capricorn: Saturn

Aquarius: Saturn (the modern ruler is Uranus)

Pisces: Jupiter (the modern ruler is Neptune)

You can also use this annual profections calculator if you want to immediately zero in on your Time Lord.

Once you’ve nailed down that intel, you can layer in the themes associated with your Time Lord. Jupiter, for instance, emphasizes long-distance travel, advanced education, getting outside of your comfort zone, fortune, and luck.

Here’s a list of focuses the other Time Lords may bring into your year:

Sun: Self-image, confidence, your personal brand

Moon: Emotions, intuition, family

Mercury: Communication, travel, technology

Venus: Romance, beauty, relationships, values

Mars: Action, sex, energy, work, motivation

Saturn: Setting boundaries and limits, responsibility, sense of duty

How to Use Your House Profection Year and Time Lord to Better Understand What’s Ahead?

How that you know which house — and by extension, its themes — are emphasized for you this year as well as your Time Lord, you can use this info to gauge what’s coming down the pike. Put it all together with the following key steps.

Identify Where Your Time Lord Falls in Your Birth Chart

Keeping with the example from above, say your Time Lord is Jupiter. You’ll do well to find Jupiter in your natal chart, taking note of the house that it was in when you were born. This is a house that will also be emphasized this year, because your Time Lord resides there. Perhaps it falls in your second house of income. So your year could be all about partnership, thanks to this being a seventh house profection year — but also money, earning, and cultivating self-worth.

Planets in your natal chart generally interact with one another, contributing to your perspective and characteristics that you were born and live with every day. For example, if you were born when Jupiter was conjunct the moon, you’re generally optimistic, nurturing, and intuitive. So, during a year in which Jupiter is your Time Lord, lessons and opportunities for growth may stem from that aspect in your chart. You might find yourself in a particularly nurturing position, caring for a loved one or musing about caring for or healing others professionally.

Consider Transits of Your Time Lord

Your Time Lord — again, one of the planets or luminaries — matters in real time, too. Whenever your Time Lord is activated by transits moving over it and as it moves through the sky and interacts with other planets and points on your chart, you’ll be more intensely affected than you would if it wasn’t your Time Lord this year. So, perhaps a full moon falls right on your natal Jupiter — this might be one of the most emotional moments of the whole year for you. Or Jupiter pairs up with Venus (as it does on March 2 this year). You might feel that conjunction more than others.