Annual profections move your birth chart on by one sign for every year of your life, starting from your Rising sign. The sign your age has reached is the theme of the year, and the planet that rules it is called the lord of the year, or time lord. The tool works out your age on the date you choose, the house and sign of that year, its lord and where the lord sits in your chart, and shows the years either side.
How it works
At birth, in your first year, the count stands on your Rising sign, the 1st house. On your first birthday it moves to the next sign, the 2nd house, and so on, one sign a year. After twelve years it comes back to the Rising sign, so ages 0, 12, 24, 36 and so on are all 1st house years, ages 1, 13, 25 and 37 are 2nd house years, and the rest follow.
Ptolemy gives the method in the Tetrabiblos, book IV, chapter 10 (Of the Division of Times): count the number of years from birth, one year to each sign, and take the ruler of the last sign. The rulers are the traditional ones from book I, chapter 17: 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, and Saturn for Capricorn and Aquarius.
Your Rising sign is worked out from your birth time and place with the standard house formulae, in the tropical zodiac, and your planets come from NASA JPL DE440 data. Houses are counted whole sign by whole sign from it, which is what a count of one sign a year gives. A profection year runs from one birthday to the day before the next. A 29 February birthday is counted from 1 March in years without a 29 February.
Reading the result
The first line names the house of your year, its sign and its lord. Readers then look in three places:
- The house of the year, which names the part of life said to be in focus, in the same house themes our other chart tools use.
- The lord of the year, and the house and sign it occupies in your birth chart. Its condition in the chart, and what it does by transit during the year, are read as the story of the year.
- Your planets in the profected sign, which are said to be woken up for the year as well.
If a birth time up to 30 minutes earlier or later would put your Ascendant in another sign, the tool says so and by how many minutes, because that would move every year by one sign.
Where traditions differ
Ptolemy describes counting the years from several starting points in the chart, not only the Rising sign; this tool counts from the Rising sign only. It starts each year on the calendar birthday; the solar return, when the Sun comes back to its birth position, falls within about a day of it, so starting there gives the same years give or take a day. Modern astrologers sometimes give Aquarius to Uranus, Pisces to Neptune and Scorpio to Pluto; profections come from the older tradition, which uses only the seven classical rulers, and the tool follows it.
What it does not do
It does not forecast events, and a hard year in the count is not a warning. Without a birth time it can give the house of the year, which depends on your age alone, but not the sign or the lord. It does not work out monthly or daily profections, which Ptolemy also describes.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is a profection year?
It is the year from one birthday to the next, read through one sign of your chart. The sign is found by counting one sign for each year of your age from your Rising sign.
↳ What is the lord of the year?
It is the planet that rules the sign of your profection year, also called the time lord. Traditional astrologers watch that planet most closely during the year, both where it sits in your birth chart and where it moves in the sky.
↳ Why do I need my birth time?
The count starts from your Rising sign, which changes about every two hours. Without a birth time the tool can still give the house of the year, because that depends only on your age.
↳ Which house am I in at 30?
At 30 everyone is in a 7th house profection year, because 30 is two full cycles of twelve plus six. The sign and lord depend on your Rising sign.
↳ Does the year start on my birthday or at my solar return?
The tool uses your birthday. The solar return falls within about a day of it, so the two give the same years apart from a day at the edges.
↳ Why does the tool use the traditional rulers?
Profections come from Hellenistic astrology, which used the seven visible planets as rulers. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered much later, and the tool keeps to the scheme the method was built on.