Are Astrology Transits Affecting Your Life?
Transits are like cards that the universe deals us, and what we do with them—how we play the hand—is what changes us and determines the course of our destiny. Destiny is what happens when circumstances meet character.
In astrology, the term transits refers to the ongoing movement of the planets, in contrast to their positions at your birth or when some other notable event occurred. Because they are connected to current reality, transits reflect our collective reality, the world we’re all living in together.
Read below for a deeper understanding on how transits affect your life:
Planets Transiting the Houses of Your Birth Chart
Planets transiting the houses of your birth chart bring action and awareness to particular areas of your life. In the first house, it’s brought to your front door. In the sixth house, it’s taking place where you work or in something related to your health regimen. In your tenth house, your career, reputation, or calling provide the avenue for responding to the transit.
Depending on where you were born, some houses of your chart may be larger than others. Because transits will always spend more time moving through these houses, they take on a particular importance in your life. And because some transiting planets move much more slowly than others, it’s like the difference between having the mail delivery drop by (Mercury) and having an invalid relative move in to be cared for the rest of his days (Neptune).
Inner & Outer Planets
Mercury, Venus, and Mars, our transiting neighbors closest to the Sun, are often referred to as the inner planets; in astrology, we include the Sun and Moon in this group. An aspect—or geometric angle—to your birth chart from the fast-moving planets—the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, or Mars—happens so quickly and so often that these transits tend to have few long-term consequences. They may, however, act as triggers for slower-moving transits happening at the same time.
The transits of the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, on the other hand, are rare and take a long time to complete their work. They symbolize processes in your life that unfold slowly and usually have far-reaching consequences. Some of them leave you profoundly changed.
Planetary Returns
A planetary “return” refers to the moment a planet comes back to the same point in the zodiac that it occupied at your birth. Each year you have a solar return within a day of your birthday, each month a lunar return, a Jupiter Return approximately every 12 years, and approximately every 29 years a Saturn Return.
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Not All Transits Are Created Equal
Transits behave differently for you than for your friends, family, or partner—because you are different people. You have different birth charts, with planets placed in different signs, houses, and aspects to other planets.
Imagine you’re at dinner with a group of friends. You’re the guest of honor, and throughout the evening your friends celebrate with stories about how they met you and adventures you’ve shared. Some of these stories are familiar, burnished and embellished over years of retelling.
But one friend tells a story that you don’t remember at all. Something about the two of you going to a club, many years ago, and meeting a couple of guys. Apparently, the one for whom she felt an immediate, passionate attraction ignored her because he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Years of resentment and insecurity came to a head, and soon thereafter, she entered therapy to deal with her feelings of inadequacy.
And you didn’t even remember that it had happened.
On the day of the ill-fated club adventure, transiting Venus was crossing Pluto in your birth chart, bringing together themes of affection, attraction, and deep emotion (and, in this case, a jealous female). As we mentioned previously, Venus moves quickly. Every year, it crosses your natal Pluto for a day or so; it’s not necessarily a memorable transit.
But for your friend, it was the other way around: Pluto was making an aspect to Venus. Pluto is the slowest-moving of the transiting planets, taking about 248 years to complete a cycle through the zodiac. Not everyone will experience Pluto transiting over Venus in her birth chart at all, and for those who do, the transit might take more than a year to unfold. During that time, relationships will be changed, and your style of relating to others will change, too. Pluto never leaves us unaltered.
In both cases, the symbolism of Venus meets that of Pluto. But a three-day transit from quick-moving Venus to Pluto simply doesn’t carry the same clout as a yearlong transit from slow-moving Pluto to Venus.
The effect of a transit is usually much more pronounced if it echoes an aspect in your birth chart. If you were born with Venus and Pluto in difficult aspect to each other, you are extraordinarily sensitive to this combination of planets and the themes it symbolizes. So when transiting Pluto connects with Venus in your birth chart, it’s as though a doctor is testing your reflexes with his hammer. Your reaction may seem a little extreme to an observer, but it’s because the transit is triggering every Venus/Pluto hurt and betrayal you’ve ever felt.
Why Explore Your Transits?
Transits awaken your chart in the here and now and allow you to look ahead into the coming days, weeks, and years.
While some transits are rare, only occurring at specific times in life, other transits come around more frequently.
For the really slow-moving planets, we most likely will never live to see their particular transits.
For example, Pluto and Neptune take 248 years and 165 years respectively to move around our chart. So a Pluto Opposition wouldn’t occur until we were at least 124 years old!
How to Work With Different Planetary Transits
Jupiter & Saturn transits can be quite significant but as they only last for weeks at a time they are more useful for looking ahead to plan (or avoid) specific activities.
Venus, Mars and Mercury move quite quickly around our chart and only transit our natal planets for a matter of days so it is more effective to look at which houses they are currently transiting over rather than the aspects they are making to the natal chart unless you are looking for very specific timing of activity.
Finally, the sun and moon move so quickly it is not particularly useful to consider transits involving the transiting moon or sun as they only last for hours or days however it is useful to consider each day, week, and month which house of our chart they are bringing energy to.
It is be extremely beneficial to look each month at which part of your chart the sun is bringing vitality and energy to and also work with the part of your chart that each new and full moon falls in.
Major Transits
Major transits are transits between the same natal and transiting planet which occur at specific times of our life and tend to create highly energized conditions and responses.
An example is the Saturn Return, where Saturn Returns to the position of your natal Saturn (the place it was when you were born). This is also known as natal Saturn conjunct transit Saturn.
The Saturn Return Is A Time Of Maturation, Responsibility, And Often Restriction And Fear Depending On Where It Falls In Your Chart.
We also experience other major transits around our mid-life such as Natal Neptune square Transit Neptune (known as a mid-life crisis transit).
Each planet will have major key transits, however, the number of them that we live to experience depends on how quickly or slowly the planet moves. For example Saturn will conjunct itself (return), square itself, oppose itself and sextile itself throughout our life and if we are lucky we will live to see three Saturn returns.
