Astrology can be confusing and overwhelming. You may or may not be familiar with the word “transit” – astrologers tend to use this term a lot because it is a very important astrological term, and it is especially important in predictive astrology.
Maybe you are not familiar with the term “transit” but you read that “Jupiter moves into Scorpio” or “Venus switches signs and is now in Virgo” – these are in fact, planetary transits.
But most importantly, you want to know how a transit will influence you. What does it mean for you that Jupiter moves into Scorpio? What does it mean for you that Venus is now in Virgo?
To understand how the planetary transits are going to affect you, let’s firstly explain what a transit is.
In Astrology, the movements of the planets in the sky relative to the Earth are called ‘Transits’.
When the Sun moves across the sky, and rises a little bit east or west than it did the day before, that is a transit. The transit of the Sun.
When the Moon is Full and shines brightly in the night sky, or when the Moon is a tiny sliver of a crescent waxing moon, that is a transit. The transit of the Moon.
In the same way, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, rise and set in a different place in the sky every day. These are also transits.
The definition of the word “transit” is “the act or fact of passing across or through; a passage from one place to another”.
We now understand that a “transit” is only relative to something. When you want to know how a planetary transit will influence you, you are in fact looking at your natal chart relative to the movement of the planets in a specific moment in time.
A transit chart is always a comparison between the sky at the time of your birth vs. the sky at a given moment in time.
Let’s say your birthday is January 1st 1970. This is your natal chart, and it never changes. However, a transit can be at any moment in time. You can look up transits on June 5th 1998, or October 10th 2017, basically at any moment in time, in the past or future.
To Read Your Transits, Follow This Process:
Firstly, you will cast your natal chart. There are several websites where you can generate your chart – we will use astro.com
Go to www.astro.com
1. On the astro.com landing page, you click on “Free horoscopes”
2. You will then be prompted to the page below. Click on “Extended chart selection”
3. Go to the “guest user” section and click on “click here to go to the data entry page”. (later if you wish you can also create an account on astro.com to store your data)
4. You will now create your guest profile to generate your natal chart. Insert your name, and your birth details: birthday, time of birth, country, and birth town as shown below:
5. Almost there! You now go to “Chart type” and scroll down until you find “Natal chart and transits”. Then you select “Natal chart and transits”.
You then go to “Start date for charts marked with*” and you put the date for the transit you are interested in. If you are interested in the transits for today, you leave it as it is, because the current date is set by default.
EXAMPLE: let’s say you want to check your transits for the date when Jupiter moved into Scorpio (that’s October 10th, 2017), you then select this date “10 Oct 2017”.
Lastly, go to “House system” and select “whole signs”.
That’s it!
6. Your chart and the planetary transits for October 10th 2017 are generated!
All the planets inside the wheel, colored black, represent the position of the planets at the time of your birth. This is your natal chart. The planets outside the circle, colored green, represent the transits, i.e. the position of the planets in the sky on October 10th
When you read transits, you basically compare the position of the planets at the time when you were born, with the position of the planets for the date you want to have a forecast for.
Now you know that “transit” in astrology means a comparison – between the sky at the time when you were born, with the sky at a given date. Imagine someone took a photo of the sky when you were born, and then they take a photo of the sky right now.
If you compare the two photos, you will see where the planets are positioned in the sky right now relative to where they were positioned when you were born. This is what a transit is.
In our example – let’s say you want to see how Jupiter’s move into Scorpio will influence you.
For this, you look where Jupiter is found outside the circle (if you want to see where Jupiter was positioned at the time of your birth, you would look inside the circle – remember inside the circle is your natal chart, outside the circle, is the transit)
Planet Jupiter is highlighted in red – can you see it? This is the Jupiter transit.
You now want to see how the Jupiter transit will influence you. For this, you need to look inside the circle, and find the corresponding number (from 1 to 12). The numbers from 1 to 12 are called houses. When a planet inside the circle is in a house, you call it a natal house placement. When a planet outside the circle, that’s a transit.
In Jupiter inside the circle is in your 12th house, you say “my natal Jupiter is in my 12th house”. If Jupiter outside the circle is in your 12th house, you say “Jupiter currently transits my 12th house”.
The planets inside the circle never change. Your natal chart never changes. But the planets outside the circle always change.
This is how you read a transit. You look at the planets outside the circle and which houses they pass. In the example below, Jupiter will transit your 12th house.
7. Let’s take another example. In the same chart, you now want to check the Moon. You want to find out which house in your natal chart is transited by the Moon.
In the example below, Moon transits the 7th house.
8. Now let’s take a different example, a little more difficult. Let’s say you read that the Solar Eclipse in Leo occurs at 28° Leo, and you want to find out which part of your chart will be affected.
In the example below, 28° Leo is in the 9th house. Although you don’t see the 28°, you can see a small grid – the sign of Leo is split into 30 small lines, each one representing one zodiacal degree. Therefore, 28° Leo is where you count the 28th line inside the sign of Leo.
This is how you find out how a transit will influence you.
You now know that for someone born on January 1st 1970 at 5:32 AM in LA, California, Jupiter is going to transit their 12th house, so matters related to the 12th house will come into focus from October 10th, when Jupiter moves into Scorpio, until November 9th, 2018.
PS: Please keep in mind that there are different ways to calculate the houses (you may be more familiar with Placidus house system for example).
Now it’s time to practice!
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Thank you, this is awesome. You explained it so clearly, I really appreciate it. I’m looking forward to reading more.
Thank you
Fsahrao5@gmail.com
Yes, thank you, this is great!🤓 This is about where I am up to in my studies. Interpretation is key here. I’m playing with this message: Natal Mars@13°55’ Pisces in 5th house, with Neptune@14°57’ transit sitting right on top! It’s been conjunct for months, and as a slow mover seems to be a major player on the field for awhile. I’m optimistic in interpreting that this means, well, experiencing the fun side of life, while delving deeper into “All that Is”. And then there is Chiron. Phew! 😳🙄Thanks again for all of your inspired professional interpretations. 🙏
Noni🌺
I don’t know why but I’ve read this two times already and im so confused still. I don’t even know what im confused about.
Just visit the website, follow the steps and it will hopefully become clear
Thank you so much for this! So helpful
WOW! I can’t believe you’ve shared this with us. Thank you for being so helpful, loving and EMPOWERING!
Thank you very much on this education..
God bless you!
Namaste💙
Thank you, Namaste <3
Thank you so much for the lesson!! I look forward to learning more <3
❤️
Fsahrao5@gmail.com
Thank you so much for this post! Would it be possible for you to do a tutorial on reading a complete natal chart? Or about astro.com’s many options with their chart selection? Thanks again!
Thank you for the article! I have a quick question. Are the houses supposed to be different in the transit chart versus your personal the natal chart?
hello! i was wondering, under the whole house system how does a transit work? like for example before saturn’s recent transit to capricorn saturn bounced back and forth between scorpio and sagittarius, which under whole house would also make saturn change houses. saturn is a slow moving planet so how could this be? like how could it be almost leaving sagittarius house but then move all the way back into a different house before moving forward again into capricorn?
Retrograde motion based on relative responsibility is responsible for this
Thanks so much! You really helped clarify. I would be most grateful if you could explain one thing. I understand how this works but, I don’t understand it when astrologers say for instance: “you Leo’s, venus will be in your 6th house this week.” This never corresponds to my natal houses. I’m confused and I can’t find info on this.
This is because most astrologers do Sun sign horoscopes. In Sun sign astrology, the first house is the sign where you have your Sun. If you are a Leo Sun, and if Venus is in Capricorn (the 6th sign from Leo) then they will say ‘Venus is in your 6th house’. Sun sign horoscopes can be an alternative when you don’t know your birth time or you don’t know your Ascendant. But if you do, I would advise to listen to the horoscopes for your Ascendant sign
hi, thanks for the explanation! What I don’t understand is that the division of the houses here is a bit different than when looking at astroclick portrait, there for ex. my natal venus falls in my 12th house and on the extended chart selection, the houses are all divided into same sized sections and venus falls into my first (not the transit, but where my venus is natally)
It’s because in this example we selected ‘whole sign houses’. If you use Placidus, you can simply keep the default house option in astro.com (so don’t tick whole sign houses). I hope it helps
ok thanks, I figured it out now
The constellations are not the same size in the sky. Some occupy more degrees of the ecliptic than others. So one method divides the ecliptic based on an even distribution and another method divides the houses based on the actual percentage of the ecliptic the constellation occupies.
Thank you so much
I am taking online astrology classes but my instructor do not explain these things and expect us to learn it, and you are really clear in your explaining, how much to thank you,,god bless…
Hey, as an astrologer, I’ve been trying to get into transits for some time. I have gathered a lot of material on reading natal charts, and I’ve learned a lot, but I haven’t found anything like your article on transits yet. I want to know how, if at all, the effects of transits are different from the affects of stars in our natal charts. I hope you shed some light on this in a future article, but I was hoping to find any material on how transits are read differently – from one star/planet/moon to the next. Thank you for your contribution to the society!
hi! can you explain the significance of the lines of red text just under the birth date/time information? specifically what is the relevance of that date? (in the chart above the date is Oct 10 2017). Thank you!
Oct 10 2017 is the date of the transit. It shows up automatically, depending on the date you select. So if you want to calculate the transits for April 23, 2019 then you select this date and this date will also show up in the chart, with the red text
Hello Blogger, Gorgeous blog post…You have gained a new reader. Please keep it up and I look forward to more of your incredible articles.
Hello when I look up transits what time of day do you look them up for do I use the time I was born ??? I already have my natal chart I’m just curious about what time of day I should be looking up the transit for the day I need the transits
it doesn’t matter, on astro. com or other software they usually use 0:00 AM
Let’s say Jupiter Transits the 12 house do you look up what that means or do you look at the sign that normally rules the 12 house
Thanks for this info! You’ve laid it out so clearly, it really helped something click for me. Just signed up for your newsletter 🙂
thank you! so clear! I have a basic understanding now!
thank you so much for this! really simplified this for me and caught on instantly than trying to figure it out on other sites. much peace & love <3<3<3<3
Thank you, I’m going through a really difficult time, searched this question to see how long Pluto is in my 2nd house, it was in my first and I missed the starting gun lol
Very easy directions, pleased to have an astro acct. now, every site has new/more options to learn rapidly as I’m in crisis, learning OOB Moon, subscribing to transit reports, I am getting a very fast education that explains the last 2-3 years of literal madness. It’s only beginning! 4 more years. I’m only 24°8′ natal so I’m in between, my poor daughter is 29°25′ natal. She’s been on a roller coaster!
The Title for my daily “A Time of Readjustment: Valid many months…”
Thank you again, best wishes 🙂 !!!
Thank you for taking the time to explain transits and how to interpret them. My question is on how to read/interpret the chart at the bottom when you draw the transit chart. Usually, you’ll have a chart with the regular natal stuff, i.e., Sun in Capricorn. When I pull a transit chart, next to the “natal stuff” is symbols in green letters pertaining to the transits. Can you explain those for me? Like, how would I read them?
So, Jupiter is currently conjoining within an orb of 2 degrees my natal sun and mercury in the middle of Jupiter’s present retrograde(it has passed once so far over the degree of sun /mercury -0 degrees Aries). Is the best utilization of any transit that involves retrogrades over a particular degree in the natal chart at the very beginning of the applying aspect? In other words-I understand it’s best when to utilize an aspect while planets are applying but is it also when it is first applying rather than when it’s applying after the retrograde? Hope the question makes sense. Thank you
What are all the red and blue lines in the middle of the chart intersecting houses?
These are aspects. Squares and oppositions are red lines, and sextiles and trines are blue lines