Ruling a sign and occupying it are different
In the traditional seven-planet map used by this profection tool, Venus rules Taurus and Libra. That assignment can identify Venus as the lord of a profected year even if natal Venus occupies a different sign. The lord-of-the-year article provides the complete ruler table and its source.
Saying that Venus is in domicile makes an additional placement claim: Venus must actually occupy one of its own signs. Naming Venus as an annual ruler alone does not establish that condition.
Chris Brennan · Annual Profections lecture, traditional ruler selection ↗
Worked example · a ruler away from its own sign
Use an invented Taurus-rising chart at completed age 0. Taurus is the activated sign, so Venus is the annual ruler. Put the invented natal Venus at 20° Gemini: it remains the ruler of the activated Taurus sign, but the chart places it in Gemini, whole-sign house two.
The annual report can therefore name Venus, show its natal Gemini placement and discuss the declared house topics without calling Venus in domicile. Keep the role assignment and the measured placement as two inspectable facts.
Avoid adding a judgement the tool has not made
This annual-profection tool does not calculate an overall dignity score or synthesize planetary condition. Its traditional domicile table selects a ruler. A separate dignity method may use actual sign occupancy, but that requires its own explicit rules and sourced interpretation.
Numbered houses and sign rulership are also distinct. Whole-sign house two names a sector counted from the rising sign; it does not mean that the occupying planet owns that sign. The word-origin section below explains the home metaphor without turning it into a physical claim.
Word origin · etymology
Latin through French.
Domicilium means dwelling place or home. Astrology adopts the home metaphor for a planet's own sign.
How we know · epistemology
Traditional sign-rulership convention
This sign-rulership convention differs from numbered house placement. Lilly counts it as essential dignity, but favorable testimony within a tradition does not demonstrate a successful real-world outcome.
William Lilly: Christian Astrology (1647), p. 101, original text ↗
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Use the citations beside each section to distinguish a calculation convention, a historical teaching and an editorial example.