Annual Profections: Your Birthday as a Cosmic Reset

Each year, on your birthday, the entire chart shifts. This is the foundational insight behind Annual Profections, one of the most accessible yet powerful time-lord techniques of traditional and Hellenistic astrology.

Used extensively by astrologers such as Robert Zoller and Robert Hand and revived through the work of Project Hindsight, Annual Profections rotates the focus of your life to a new house and its ruler each year. Starting from the Ascendant at age 0, each birthday moves the profected house forward one sign in zodiacal order—so at age 1, the second house is profected, age 2 the third, and so on.

If you’re turning 37, for instance, you’re entering a second house profection year. That house, its ruling planet (called the “time lord”), and the condition of that ruler in your natal chart become the main themes of the year. Is the ruler in its exaltation? Cazimi the Sun? In detriment or retrograde? These factors give nuance to the tone of the year.

Annual Profections are especially powerful when cross-referenced with transits and secondary progressions. For example, if you’re in a ninth house year and Jupiter rules that house in your natal chart—and transiting Jupiter is moving through your tenth—this might signal a year of expansive career opportunities involving teaching, travel, or publishing.

One of the most elegant things about Annual Profections is their cyclical nature. Every 12 years, the cycle resets. You’ll revisit the same profected house every 12th year of life—ages 12, 24, 36, 48, etc.—each time deepening the themes, resolving old issues, or evolving the story.

This technique also dovetails beautifully with your broader astrological picture. For clients in therapy or on a path of personal growth, it offers yearly clarity: What am I being called to work on this year? Where is my focus being drawn?

Whether you’re looking ahead or reflecting back, Annual Profections give you a sense of structure, agency, and rhythm—a way to align your internal unfolding with the celestial clock.