Planetary transits: understanding what is happening now

What transits are

The natal chart fixes the positions of the planets at the moment of birth and stays unchanged for life. But the planets keep moving, and at every moment their current positions form new relationships with the points of the natal chart. Those current relationships are called transits.

Put simply, a transit answers the question "what is the sky doing to my chart right now". If the natal chart is the blueprint of character and potential, transits are the weather passing through that blueprint day by day.

How transits are calculated

To analyse a transit, the planet's current position is taken from the ephemeris and compared with the positions of planets and points in the natal chart — the Sun, the Moon, the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the other planets. When a significant angle forms between a transiting and a natal point, we speak of a transit aspect.

The main aspect types

• Conjunction — 0°, a merging of energies, the start of a new cycle of the theme
• Opposition — 180°, tension and the need to choose
• Square — 90°, a test that demands action
• Trine — 120°, an easy, favourable flow of events
• Sextile — 60°, an opportunity you have to notice and use

Planetary speed and the length of the influence

Not all transits are equally noticeable. The Moon crosses a sign in about two and a half days and produces short, quickly passing moods. Mercury, Venus and the Sun work in days and weeks. The slow planets stay on the same natal point for months.

It is precisely the long transits of slow planets to personal points of the natal chart that most often coincide with major life stages and turning points.

Retrogradation and repeated hits

Slow planets periodically turn retrograde, and then a transit aspect to the same natal point can form not once but three times: the planet passes the point in direct motion, returns to it retrograde and crosses it again directly. These repeated contacts stretch the theme over time and let you live through it gradually, in layers. A similar effect of delays and repetitions — in a shorter, more everyday form — comes from retrograde Mercury.

Transits and other forecasting techniques

Transits are the most common predictive technique, but not the only one. They are often used alongside secondary progressions, where symbolic time replaces real time, and the solar return — the chart of the moment when the Sun comes back to its natal position each year. Experienced astrologers read these techniques together to get a fuller picture of a period.

How to track transits yourself

The easiest place to start is with transits to the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant — the most sensitive points of the chart, easy to verify even without deep astrological knowledge. You can add the remaining planets and the houses gradually. An accurate calculation requires your own natal chart with a verified birth time.

Frequently asked questions