How to Track Your Transits + Why You Must (hint: idea fairies 🧚🏻♀️✨)
“Cycles of light and dark, of heat and cold, of magnetism, radioactivity, and gravity all provide vital guides—and life learns to respond to even their most subtle signs. The emergence of a fruitfly is tuned by a spark lasting one thousandth of a second; the breeding of a bristle worm is coordinated on the ocean floor by a glimmer of light reflected from the moon…
Nothing happens in isolation.
We breathe and bleed, we laugh and cry, we crash and die in time with cosmic cues. ”
This post shows you where to get a transit chart for free, then how to delineate or “break it down,” and apply it to your weird life.
OR, BASICALLY > everything you need to know in order to look up what’s going down in your stars, right now, while hellfire and microbial murderers swarm the earth.*
(*Drafted from the California Central Coast during the COVID “lockdown” and “super wildfire moment” circa September 2020.)
OBVIOUSLY > this is astrological self-study, and totally extracurricular.
I mean—since we’re not running for the hills (which are on FUCKING FIRE 🔥🔥🔥), we might as well stargaze through computer screens and try to come up with new fantasy lives based on sliding door moments we might glimpse in our crude interpretations of what’s transiting…
…and that’s basically my coping strategy. 👍🏻
Anyway…
Transit basically means crossing, passage, transition from one state to another. You’re getting “transited” by a planet when a planet in orbit moves upon one of the planets in your natal chart.
And, like—your natal chart is mostly unrealized potential until activated by transits.
In other words, we need transits in order to unlock the potential, aptitudes, qualities, and experiences indicated by our natal charts. ✅
astrological Transits describe what in your chart is “happening” ✨>
PAR EXEMPLE > if Venus was in Aquarius when you were born, and Jupiter and Saturn are both transiting Aquarius right now, they’ll eventually come upon your Venus, maybe even retrograde back over your Venus, then cross again.
If you didn’t know such a thing was happening, you might overlook, misinterpret, or turn away from significant omens regarding your attraction factors. 😨😩
Reading transit charts might also help you realize patterns coinciding with meaningful moments, such as my research-binge on the 2021 Gemini Eclipse leading me to realize my chart has been triggered by Eclipses previously. 😳🤭
So, transits matter. ✅
If you can figure out how to cast your natal chart, you can definitely cast it again with transits 💫, and I’ll explain what’s worth tracking (and how to plan for it) >
I’ll explain the difference between astrology charts (what is a “natal” versus a “transit” chart, anyway? 🤔), where you can get one (or many), and how you can begin forecasting your life according to planetary currents. ✨
You’ll learn how to calculate a transit chart, and also get an epheremis (hint > Astro-seek.com), the main tools in transit tracking.
I’m also going to link to sundry transit apps and websites for scoring this precious intel, including some that will store and do it for you (if robotically).
Mostly, I’ll show you a couple techniques for reading transit charts yourself, and you might be able to master it (and plug everything into your planner) just in time for lockdown to be over. 🤩✨
HINT 1 > Do already have your natal chart? Click that link to get started on your astrology self-study! This is your birth chart, the astrology of you ma cherie, and the primal compass of your psyche. I’ve lit-er-al-lee been decoding mine for 3 years, always finding more. ✅
HINT 2 > Are you familiar with basic terminology? Planets, Signs, Houses, Aspects…? No need to be an expert, or even an intermediate-level astro student. Just be curious, you’ll learn as you go. This post walks you through the 1-2-3s DIY reading your own natal chart.
We can’t predict what might happen during a transit, it’s all based on probabilities and what’s happening in the rest of the chart 💫, but knowing the transits are coming might help you anticipate a certain mood and dress code.
Once we master this… we will be invulnerable. ✊🏻
“okay, so… What’s the diff between my BIRTH chart and a TRANSIT chart, in astrology?” >
Your natal chart (or birth chart) stays the same all your life, while a transit chart changes (almost) every day as the planets orbit. Your natal chart hints at your ultimate potential, deep epigenetic past, and describes your innate disposition towards experiences. This is, like, looking at the HTML code for your psyche, a topographical map of your soul as it will unfold through time and space. Your natal chart is about you, beneath all the bullshit cultural messaging and shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Who am I?
Why am I like this?
What’s my special gift?
What is my real potential?
How do I manage this karma?
Which karma is even mine??
How can I make better mistakes?
…Natal charts. 👐🏻✨
BY CONTRAST > a transit chart shows where the planets are currently hangin’ out. Your natal chart represents the default code, whereas the transit chart describes what’s coding the current moment. Transits might explain the how + what of your experiences, while your natal chart describes the ways you might unconsciously attract or defer experiences.
Most online calculators will display a transit chart overlaying your natal chart, so you can compare how the planets’ current coordinates might be activating different energies, “triggering” zones of your chart, and bringing correlating themes and activities into focus.
“Transits represent the actual, physical motion of the planets and the relationship between the actual current position of the planets and the location they were at your birth. So ultimately the planets are always “transiting” as they are always moving. So you might hear someone say “Mars is transiting Aries and my 8th House” or you might hear them say “Mars is in Transit with my natal Mercury”. Ultimately what they are referring to is the way that the movement of the planets activates their natal astrology chart.”
(Source)
BASICALLY, a natal chart shows all the planets frozen at your birth, whereas a transit chart shows where the planets are right now in the present. 💁🏻♀️
“OKAY, SO, why should we track our transits?” 🤨 >
Because transiting planets…. witness us. 👐🏻✨
No one actually shows up (hopefully 🤔), but once you start observing transits, you might notice a certain mood shift, the lowering of the barometric pressure, a change in tempo.
You might cast a transit chart for one of your monthly Lunar Returns, or for the date and location where you’re spending your next birthday (a.k.a. a Solar Return chart). 💫
OR… you can cast a transit chart for one of your major astrological cycles, like your Jupiter or Saturn Returns, or even an Eclipse. 🐇🌀
Depending on your worldview, you might use the intel gleaned from transits to study your dreams or intuition, your mood cycles, relationship drama, waves of inspiration or foreboding….
…and perhaps gain insight. 🕯
TRACKING YOUR TRANSITS, therefore, might help you receive these visiting energies with grace and panache, or very specific boundaries in place.
You might better acquiesce to the situation that has presented, or better understand (and feel ripe and ready for) an opportunity.
“In studying Hellenistic Traditional Astrology, the ancients often viewed the planets as bearing witness to each other. The Latin term aspectus, root word for English word aspect, means sight. When you understand this, it helps to visualize the planets as looking at each other and bearing witness to your chart and therefore influencing you.”
— A useful way of think about aspects and transits
FOR MYSELF 💫, I combined this idea about the transiting planets “witnessing” us to this rad metaphor made by a literary goddess in a self-help manual about developing a creative practice (Liz Gilbert, Big Magic ✨) >
“I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses, but also by ideas.
Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us—albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest.
And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.”
SO… idea fairies. 🧚🏻♀️✨
Here’s my thesis about planetary transits…. 🌟
What if… all the planet transits were showing up in our LIVED experiences…
…showing up as muses, geniuses, daimons, and guides?
Like—if you knew the muse was on her way, what container would you create, what would you clear out, how would you lean into or abate or otherwise prepare for your encounter with her? 🤔🧚🏻♀️✨
Like—Venus might be the idea-fairy of beautiful mood-making, fashionable lugubriousness, and wherever she’s transiting on your chart might become a hotbed for fun, flirtation, and leisure activity, especially once a year during your Venus Return. 🤩
Depending on your lifestyle and creative practice(s), you might be able to use the intel gathered from transit charts to better understand the world, your personality, other people, god, the universe… 💡
REMEMBER > Your natal chart stays the same your whole life long, and comprises the background settings on your psyche and preferences and temperament, whereas transiting planets (where the planets are hanging out right now) can roll up on planets in your natal chart, prompting new players and events to erupt. 🎆
When transiting planets come within range of the same degree° in the same sign as any of your natal planets, it can “trigger” natal energies in your chart.
SO, if you visit Planet Watcher and notice transiting Mercury is about to conjunct (pull up side-by-side) transiting Uranus, you’d just have to look on your natal chart at the house aligned with the zodiac sign where the two planets are transiting, as that will reveal where the circumstances of their conjunct-transiting might impact you in your own weird life. 💕
ALSO, a transit chart will clue you into the future or imminent transits that will trip your chart in a palpable way, especially if there’s something like an Eclipse or an Outer Planet about to transit on an angle or planet in your own chart.
Knowing this, you can journal or otherwise document their transit through that area of your chart (and coincidentally, your life), and decide if their influence had the kind of impact you expected.
So, basically, transit charts can guide your activities and process. ✨
If you’re someone who likes pattern recognition, this might make you feel like a little kid again…. you’ll definitely become addicted to people watching (which is why all my neighbors’ birth data is in my phone*).
(*Also because I’m a low-key psychopath, hi. 💁🏻♀️☺️)
WHERE TO GET (+ HOW TO READ) A TRANSIT CHART, SO YOU CAN START PLANNING 2022, AND BECOME INVULNERABLE THROUGH ASTROLOGY 🌟
HIT UP THE ASTRO-SEEK TRANSIT CALCULATOR > type in your birth data, or the date, time, and location you were born.
ALSO select a date (today, in the past, in the future 🌀), and type in the location where you’ll be transited.
Finally, click ‘calculate chart.’
HINT > hit the gray hyperlink labelled “Extended Settings” and customize your display aspects. I check everything except “display aspects for the Lunar Nodes + the AC-MC”. 💫
Ta da! Your transits x birth chart, yayyy! 💫
FOR ME 💕> this works best by printing the transit chart onto scratch paper, so I can trace by hand the chain(s) of influence from the transits.
After scoring up the chart in gel and highlighter ink ✨, I write a summary of the mood (the signs) and potential key events, and where they might happen (the houses). I hole-punch and insert the chart into a binder where I keep such rad information, for random future review.
HINT > Try to think of these less in concrete details, more as an aesthetic, or party vibe.
“WAIT, do I need to type in my CURRENT location (versus my birth location) to get an accurate transit chart?” >
WELP, Astro-Seek asks for current location, but Astro Dienst (astro.com) does not, so… idk. 😳✨
HOWEVER, most astrologers and astrology calculators require your current location, or the location where the transit is taking place.
JUST WANT TO SEE THE CURRENT TRANSITS? > Hit up Planet Watcher, and visualize what you see overlaying your natal chart (Libra on Libra, Gemini on Gemini, etc.).
You can click through the coming weeks on the calendar (righthand column) and study how the aspects change between transiting planets, and that’s actually pretty cool for tracking the “mood” and “vibes” of the day. ✅
This won’t be much different than delineating your own natal chart, and it might even help you hone in on a pattern or theme of experience, certain archetypes that tend to drift in or out, and the same ol’ omens.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A TRANSIT CHART 💫✨ >
SOME GENERAL GUIDELINES… not really step-by-steps, but “hot spots” to pay attention to in your transits charts.
HINT 1 > If you’re following along with Astro Seek, your natal planets are blue and inside the zodiac belt, while your transiting planets are orange and outside the zodiac belt. ✅
HINT 2 > You might want to print your transit chart off onto scratch paper, so you can circle and trace where the planet-play is actually happening.
HINT 3 > Revisit my post about DIY interpreting your own natal chart for more reference sites and resources. ✌🏻
I link to some helpful articles to get you going, but remember, the a-ha’s won’t come until you’re actually delineating the chart, and also documenting the activities, to-do lists, new meetings, etc., coinciding with your transits!
CIRCLE THE PLANETS or ANGLES GETTING TRANSITED > Note any transiting planets about to graze your natal planets, points, or angles, OR on the verge of tipping into new signs / houses. 0-2° orbs have the strongest influence. (“Orbs” = the distance by degrees between two objects on the chart.) Transits to your “personal” or inner planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) might have the most palpable, resounding effect, especially if getting transited by Jupiter or Saturn, or the Outer Planets. 😬 You’ll feel transits somewhere in your morphic field ✨, or find the transiting personal planets personified in your live, in-person, human interactions. Transits to your chart angles might coincide with turn-around moments, or events that remind you that life just keeps on turning. Go here for more info about transits to your personal planets, and go here for more insight about transits to the angles of your birth chart. 💫
CHECK UP ON THE “DISPOSITORS” > Look up the rulers of the sign(s) on your chart getting transited. Wherever the planetary ruler is hanging out hints where events, circumstances, or “types” of people might show up, like special little synchronistic Scooby Snax. 😋 Read more about dispositors / rulers over here. ✨
NOTE WHERE THE OUTER PLANETS ARE TRANSITING YOU > Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. 💫 Which signs, houses? Are they aspecting any planets? …are any of those planets getting transited? Where are the dispositors of the signs/houses getting transited by Outer Planets?
RETROGRADES > Note any planets about to retrograde, and where. Retrograde means the planet crosses then scoots backwards the point it just crossed, before going direct and crossing again. Not our favorite, especially for planets involving tough lesson-learning, such as Saturn. Read more about the effect of planet retrogrades here, and get a full list of planet retrogrades in 2022 over here. ✨
TRANSITING PLANETS @ 27-29° CRITICAL OR “ANARETIC” DEGREE OF ANY SIGN > These planets are about to burst forth into a new sign, so they’re kind of taxiing, kind of revving in place, pacing and muttering to themselves… PAR EXEMPLE, Pluto is in the very late degrees of Capricorn, preparing to push into Aquarius on March 23, 2023, so we’re all feeling a bit of an intense “purge moment” on the darker qualities of Capricorn. Read more about Pluto in Capricorn over here, and more about anaretic planets over here. ✨
FINALLY, NOTE OVERALL PATTERNS + ASPECTS > Which signs / houses have the most transits happening? What “vibes” are the planets throwing at each other? Jo Tracey has great advice about looking for patterns in your current + upcoming transits.
Here’s how to draw an “astro t account” pattern 💫✨ >
NOTE THE TRANSITING PLANET.
NOTE WHERE THE PLANET STARTED TRANSITING. What planets are getting transited?
NOTE WHERE THE ACTION IS HAPPENING NOW. Which house is being transited? (Houses = areas or categories of life.)
NOTE WHERE THE OUCOME WILL PLAY OUT. Which house(s) are ruled by the planets getting transited? (Might be more than one house, such as transiting Venus ruling Taurus + Libra… see Jo Tracey’s demo ✨)
“What about transits to progressed planets?” 🤔 ⏰ >
Ooh, you’re a Hermione. 😉🦉⚡️
Transit charts show where the planets are currently transiting, or where they were transiting, or will transit at a future date.
Secondary progressions show your natal chart sometime in the past… but sped up in time. Progressions are your most abstract, inner, personal transits, happening on some other plane of consciousness closer to your soul-core, and the linchpin factor for much of our personal timing. ✨💫
HERE’S THE EFFECT > if you are 34 years old comme moi 💕, your chart is progressed 34 days past your birthdate, changing a few of the signs / houses of your faster-moving natal planets.
This nudging of those planets ever so slightly re-contours the topography of your soul-map (a.k.a. natal chart ✨), describing a deeper inner mood, a secret, subjective, purely-personal inner landscape with its own time-keeping. Astrologers often check up on your Progressed Moon and Sun to intuit the timing of relationships and opportunities, and to basically gauge your existential mood.
Go here to learn about finding secondary progressions ✨, though you really need to check on where your Progressed Moon and Sun are currently lingering. Your Moon progresses about 12-14° per year (about half a zodiac sign in one year), while your Sun progresses about 1° per year (taking 30 years to start, transit through, and enter a new zodiac sign). Note if either your Progressed Moon or Sun have moved upon one of your natal planets (heightening that planet’s native energy in the matrix of your psyche 👁) OR are currently being transited by another planet in the sky right now.
If you’re already on the Astro-Seek transit chart calculator, and want to see what’s transiting your progressed planets ✨ as well as your natal planets, look at the sidebar (labelled “current horoscopes”), then click “transits and progressions.”
AND JUST FYI > this Astro-Seek calculator actually lets you cast charts where you can see your natal, transits, and progressions all at once. 🤩🙌🏻✨
WHICH TRANSITS TO START TRACKING >
Many astrologers (and astrology apps ✨) typically divide transits into two categories > short term vs. long term transits.
🌟 SHORT TERM TRANSITS > The daily, on-the-go, swifter-orbiting “inner” planets, concerning the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. The Sun and Moon are considered the most personal “lights,” whatever angles or planets they alight upon brings those sign energies into immediate focus, even without any actual events occurring. These planets’ transits set the ambiance. 💫
🌟 LONG TERM TRANSITS > The slower-orbiting, mass-impact “social” or “outer planets,” Jupiter and Saturn, and then also Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. You’ll definitely want to peek at the social planets (Jupiter, Saturn) for any longterm planning (especially where these transits meet you on your broader cycles). We grow and build according to Jupiter and Saturn transits, while Outer Planet transits describe the zeitgeist or background conditions.
IN GENERAL, the transits that matter are the ones that actually impact your natal chart, or whether you happen to have a planet, angle, or other special point getting transited. 💫
If you’re just beginning to work transit-tracking into your life, start with this list, and the swiftest-moving planets at the top >
THE MOON 🌙 > The Moon moves about 12-14° per day, stays in a sign for about 2.5 days, making the Moon the fasting transiting planet. When the transiting Moon alights upon one of our natal planets, it brings energies of that planet into our “mood awareness”. Any natal planet The Deluxe Moon app can help you stay aware of when the Moon enters a new sign, as well as its current phase, which tells you something about the strength of inner awareness it might bring to any natal planets sharing the same sign. HINT > Do you know about your monthly Lunar Returns, when the Moon transits back upon your own Moon, kickstarting a whole new interior cycle encapsulated in the transit chart for that month? Get on it. ✅
YOUR PROGRESSED MOON ⏰🌙✨ > Your “secret” Moon from your progressed chart (your birth chart somewhere in the past), whose sign and house set the mood for about two-three years of your life at a time, correlating with your Saturn cycle. Note when your “secret” Moon progresses into a new sign, house, or upon one of your natal chart planets, and track where in your life you feel the effects, and whether they correlate with the astrology lore. Read more about your Progressed Moon here. ✨
YOUR ANNUAL PERSONAL (OR “INNER”) PLANET RETURNS ⚤ > Our personal planets personalize, and make palpable the more abstract transits, especially with the Outer Planets or Nodes or other special transiting “bodies.” Venus and Mercury “return” every year, and Mars every two years, correlating with specific, immediately-felt experiences correlating with the energy of those planets, in the activities represented by the sign and house they occupy. Read more about your Mars Cycle here, and I have a tutorial about casting Venus Return chart, which can be applied to your Mercury Return as well. 💫
RETURNS OF / ASPECTS FROM THE SOCIAL PLANETS 🕊🪐> By moving in / out of signs or aspecting other planets, Jupiter and Saturn, the Social Planets, shape the social container, and basically frame your public experience. Jupiter changes signs every year, and Saturn every 2 1/2 years. You get a Jupiter Return every twelve years (your “joy-luck” cycle 🕊), and a Saturn Return every twenty seven years (“hard knocks” cycle 🪐). Go here for more intel on tracking the “social” planet transits, not related to your own Jupiter / Saturn cycles. 🌀
CHIRON PASSAGES / TRANSITS OF OTHER POINTS IN OUR CHARTS > Chiron corresponds with our “soul-wound.” Chiron is an asteroid-comet located smack-dab between Saturn (last of the visible planets) and Uranus (first of the invisible, “meta” planets), symbolizing the bridge between our personal and “meta” experiences. Chiron has a wonky orbit, and doesn’t stay in any sign for a consistent amount of time. Thus, depending on birth year (+ our Chiron sign), we all experience our Chiron passages at different ages, though Chiron in-the-sky will also prompt a “healing attack” on whatever point of our charts it transits. We get 3 major “wounding passages” before our Chiron Return (age 50ish, more below ✨), you’ll need an ephermeris to know the dates of your own passages, or this book.
SIGN CHANGES OF + TRANSITS TO OUR CHARTS FROM THE OUTER PLANETS 👻 > Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Slow-movers with inter-generational impact. Outer Planet transits might not happen a whole bunch in your lifetime, but when they do, it’s remarkable. 😳 Uranus moves into Gemini in 2027, juuust about when Neptune will also move into Aries, while Pluto enters Aquarius in 2023. If you’ve got planets or angles in any of these signs (or the ones before them), then you might be having (or due for) an Outer Planet moment. 😳😳 Learn more about Outer Planet transits in general over here, and remember that an astrologer or Mystic Medusa’s Seven Years Ahead Transit Report can help you plan. ✅
TRANSITS TO YOUR MIDPOINTS > This might be “extra,” but you might also benefit from tracking transits to your favorite Midpoints, a.k.a. the hidden “hot spots” in your chart where two planet energies might be co-triggered. Kind of my favorite astrological superstition everrr. Most astrologers want you to pay attention to transits to your Sun-Moon Midpoint, or the midpoint of any two planets with a heavy influence on your natal chart. Keep yourself aware of any current transits that might come within range of your midpoint(s), and when. Learn more about Midpoints here. ✨
UPCOMING TRANSITS OVER YOUR ANGLES, NODES, OR OTHER SPECIAL POINTS > You might need an astrologer to check your work on this, but you can use the Astro-Seek transit calculator to “plan” for when the heavy-hitters (such as the Outer Planets) or any of your progressed planets are about to change signs, houses, or transit a piece of the chart itself, such over the angles (the Ascendant or Midheaven, for example). Outer Planets transit very slow, and sometimes even retrograde or move backwards over a planet, angle, or your Prog’d Moon, opening corridors of our lives and triggering momentous experiences, sometimes requiring existential triage. This article can tell you more about the most impactful transits to watch out for, and this article has great advice for gauging the vibe of Outer Planet transits. ✨
Below, I’m gonna share some ideas and insights about calendaring and documenting what exactly is happening during your short-term transits in order to validate your experience of them (or maybe disprove astrology 😜).
I also outline the momentous long-term transits we’re all on-schedule to experience, so you can anticipate coming down the pipeline. ✅
How to Calendar Your YOUR SHORT-TERM Transits + become bullet-proof, unstoppable, A QUEEN OF THE HUMAN CONDITION (LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN beyoncé + NEO FROM the matrix 🙌🏻✨)
Our “personal” planets (the faster moving inner planets) canvas all the signs and houses of our charts in about 1 -2 years. Venus transits on your planets are considered sweet, cool, and more or less welcome, while Mars is worth tracking for energy and initiative. Mercury Returns can bring snap-crackle-pop moments of inspo, and usually coincide with a trés cool learning moment, or special message delivered through unusual means. If you’re someone who feels acutely affected by Mercury Retrograde, you might want to start tracking it in particular.
When the inner planets make a return, or transit another planet / point in our charts, we might not experience a triggering event, but instead a certain quality of subjective experience. Sometimes an actual person shows up matching the planetary archetype, and actually “midwife” a certain transit or situation.
When Jupiter, Saturn, or Chiron transits us, it’ll take a minute, and have an alchemical effect on the planet (or other point) getting transited, so… we want to know about that. 💁🏻♀️
PRO TIP > You’ll basically need both a calendar system as well as a journal, or someplace where you’re able to document the activities and moods du jour, for later reference when the transiting planets have moved on, and the air has cleared. ✅
For me, I like plugging transit dates and hyperlinking to the charts on Astro-Seek in a Google spreadsheet. Aside from having a place to store the dates, links to the charts themselves, there’s space for recording any other transit moments expected for the year, a column for quoting the Astro-Seek robo-summaries, as well as a column for recording your experiences during those particular transits.
OH, BTW, SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER TO SCORE A SPREADSHEET TEMPLATE FOR TRACKING YOUR LUNAR RETURNS + COINCIDING TRANSITS!
I know, dude—you’re probably not a “spreadsheet” person, so it might sound like I’m hustling you to purchase snow tires while you’re vacationing in Tampa, but I decided to try this after Jo touted its efficacy >
“On their own, the transits were like individual trees – only part of the story, but when I plotted them all on a spreadsheet, I could see the forest. The big picture came into view. By looking at them in isolation, I lost perspective. By plotting it all, I could see the big picture. Now it’s become part of my annual planning session. In fact these days I rarely look at individual transits – I’m more interested in what it means as a whole.”
You can visit this link to see how Jo Tracey spreadsheets her own transits, and it’s very similar to the visuals provided in Mystic Medusa’s 7-year transit report! 🤩
For beginners, I’d say begin with just tracking your monthly Lunar Returns (more info about this in a minute). Astro Seek makes it easy to get all the dates and charts for your monthly Lunar Returns, so you can just copy ‘n paste them into the spreadsheet.
Use the other columns on your spreadsheet to store quotes from Astro-Seek about each month’s Lunar Return chart (scroll down the page), as well as to document your own activities and experiences.
You can totally add more columns to also document other coinciding transits, and here is a tutorial on using Google Sheets to get you there.
ALSO, this post explains how to translate your Lunar Returns into monthly self-care briefs! 🤩🥰
HERE’S WHAT I’M TRACKING IN THE ASTROLOGY SPREADSHEETS, and where I get that information 💫 >
MONTHLY LUNAR RETURNS 🌙 > The Moon speaks to your immediate emotional reality, so tracking your monthly Lunar Returns might be useful. Go here to find out the dates and get the charts to your monthly Lunar Returns.
PROGRESSED MOON MOMENTS ⏰🌙 > I typically like to know (for myself + others ✨) the sign, house, and phase of their Progressed Moon, and when the next transitions are due. Usually, as the Progressed Moon changes conditions, our inner mood also shifts. This Astro Seek calculator can help you determine when / if your Progressed Moon will change signs or houses or phases during this year. Just input your birth data, select which progressed planet you want to track (“Moon”), then from the dropdown menu labelled “Ingresses / Lunation Cycle / Conjunctions”, select “Into Natal Signs & Zodiac Signs.” NOTE > You can also select “8-Fold Lunation Cycle” to see when (+ where) the Progressed Moon will change phases, as well as look for when / if the Progressed Moon (or any planet) will graze one of your other planets or points. ✅
ANNUAL SOLAR RETURN 🌻 > The Sun speaks to your “light of awareness.” Most people visit astrologers to get their birthday charts cast, a.k.a. their Solar Return chart, which can be compared to your natal chart. HINT > You can cast a Solar Return chart for yourself from any astrology calculator, just change your birth year to the current year. (EXAMPLE: March 22, 1987 > March 22, 2022.) Use the Astro-Seek Solar Return calculator to cast your Solar Return chart and get a lay of the land (and scroll down to read the Astro-Seek robo-summaries for yours). Read more about Solar Returns here.
ANNUAL VENUS + MERCURY RETURNS 🐚💡 > Venus Returns are essentially the best times for throwing a party (unless you’ve got some afflictions… either pre-existing in your natal chart, or due to some current wonky transits. Use the Astro-Seek Planet Return calculator to find out the return dates your Personal Planets and cast those charts, just select Venus or Mercury from the dropdown menu. 💫
BI-ANNUAL MARS RETURNS 💥 > Mars correlates with our “take-down” urge, our personal drive, the energy of our desire. Mars returns to natal position every two years, instigating a new two year period of oomph, where we’re driven to make something happen. ✨ Mars is considered a “malefic,” and also the lower octave of Pluto, harbinger of crisis / Awakening moments. Thus, each Mars Return represents a new threshold or evolved chapter in our “will to power” cycle, and casting a chart for start of your Mars Return might yield insight into where this oomph will want to direct itself. Read more about Mars Returns here (including how to delineate your Mars Return chart ✨), and use Astro-Seek planet return calculator to find out when your next one will happen! 💫
FYI, Jupiter and Saturn are considered heavy-hitting, long-term transits, but if you cast any transit chart for a random day, and happen to notice either of those planets sidling up on one of your natal planets, pay attention. ✅✅✅
Jupiter and Saturn transits to one of your personal planets can take a minute (or over a year 😬), and might even reverse back over the point it’s transiting (called retrograding). These aspects might not bring as much BOOM or OOF as a full-tilt Jupiter or Saturn Return 💫, but you’ll definitely notice ‘em, and probably receive inspiration or instruction at this time, usually in the themes of the zodiac sign(s) they’re traveling through, with some kind of influence to the planet, angle, or other point they’re aspecting.
These articles explain how different aspects from Jupiter to your personal planets or Saturn to your personal planets (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, or opposition ✨) might impact your life, and what you might expect. ✅
If you’re not sure how to interpret the information or situations described through these Personal Planet returns, you might want to read up on your bigger, more maj’ planetary cycles, a.k.a. the transits your life is waiting on.
And that’s just what we’re about to do, right now… 🤩🥰
The BIG Transits, a.k.a. the transit MOMENTS your life is waiting on 😳💫✨
ALRIGHT, let’s talk about the larger planet transits you’re on-schedule to experience (…or endure 😳).
In fact, these cycles are the context or frame of reference for what’s really going on during your Personal Planet returns, or whenever one of your planets are getting transited.
All your other transits (your ever-changing monthly Lunar Returns, annual returns of Venus and Mercury, all the way to your bi-annual Mars Return 💫✨) can be understood in relationship to your bigger, scheduled planetary cycles.
OBVIOUSLY, these transits are worth asking an astrologer about, because these are the transits that rumble with your heart, mind, and ultimately reconfigure your soul.
Here is that list. ✨
NODAL RETURN (life purpose), AGES 18 - 19 > You’re confronted with the reality of your potential, where external circumstances force encounters with our personal limitations and family karma. This is when you become aware of your options in life, and begin exploring purposefulness. Mystic describes > “The North Node of the Moon goes back to where it was when you were born so you’re highly conscious of your destiny. You get a calling! You meet people who, one way or another, are Destiny Muses. It’s also the zone of your Uranus square Uranus, a feisty phase of individuation.” (Read more about Destiny Muses, and more about the Lunar Nodes in your chart, including the full schedule of when Nodal “returns” will hit your chart. ✅✨
PROGRESSED LUNAR RETURN (emotional coming of age), AGES 26 - 27 > Your “progressed” Moon is actually totally secret, and takes about 26-7 years to return to natal position. By this point, it has canvassed every sign, house, and planet in your chart, and you now have an intuition about each of these energies, where they’re located, and how they do what they do, even if it’s just a “working” knowledge. This is the time of our lives when we start thinking about commitment, or tuning into the real story our hearts are telling us about what we’re meant for, in terms of partnership, work, and general life contentment. Happens moments before our Saturn Return, when we start thinking about what we’re actually making of our lives. Read more about your Progressed Moon over here. ✨
SATURN RETURN (life structure), AGES 27 - 30 > Everything hurts. 😓 Arrives hot on the heels of your Progressed Lunar Return, when your “emotional matrix” has just started flickering on, and can offer guiding advice for how to structure your life, especially in a way that meets your heart-felt needs and commitments. Learn more about Saturn Return over here. ✨
PLUTO SQUARE (shadow work, whether you want to admit it or not), AGES 36 - 38* > When transiting Pluto forms a 90° angle with Pluto in our chart, creating circumstances forcing us to detox on our “personality strategies,” a.k.a. the manipulations we’ve been relying on to get things done, while maintaining our persona, personality, or whatever we have conceived of as our “self.” Circumstances force us to review the power dynamics in our relationships (working and otherwise), any psychological tit for tat we’ve been engaged in, and the expectations (or goals) we’ve been manipulating others towards. Check your Pluto placement for hints about where (+ how) you deploy personality strategies, then count 90° from natal Pluto for hints about where and what type of circumstances might crop up to force this detox. (Each zodiac sign on your chart is only 30° wide.) *Age of onset might vary, because Pluto orbits hella slow and sometimes wonky. Go here to learn more about Pluto Squares. ✌🏻
NEPTUNE SQUARE NEPTUNE (the “fog of life”), AGES 40 - 42 > “Right on the heels of Pluto’s ‘upheaving’, and sometimes overlapping, depending on your chart and the movement of the points after your birth, Neptune will also square itself. Neptune is the point associated with surrender, spirituality, and mystery. Like Pluto, its long cycle makes the first square the most important for us. I describe it as the Fog of Life because it can be a time of confusion, unclear direction, and dissolving leading to a spiritual awareness of your life purpose.” (Source)
URANUS OPPOSES URANUS (crisis of individuality), AGES 44 - 44 > Pretty much all of your “dirty 30s” transits are about clearing the psycho-somatic gangway for your Uranus Opposition, and ensuing spiritual coming of age. Mystic describes > “Fuq the steady job, fuq the bourgeois relationship conventions, fuq the linear time crap, fuq whatever is in the way of realness. Note also, it is another Node cycle so similar to age 20. But your ability to slither out at midnight in barely any clothes to some cool venue and still feel welcome is significantly impaired. But you probably have more budget to fund the revolution.” Philip adds > “As the final part of the Kundalini Rising work between 36 and 44 (Clow, Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini), the Uranus opposition is designed to ‘shock’ us into awakening and embracing our authentic selves. This period of life can be, and is supposed to be, intensely disruptive, both internally and, if necessary, externally. While you may find yourself swimming in the Fog of Life with no shore in sight, the Uranus opposition is like a lightning strike that instantly burns away the fog so you can see clearly where you are and where you need to go!” If you’re coming up on this transit, this is your homework > Kundalini Rising. 👐🏻✨
INVERTED (or “reverse”) NODAL RETURN (“life purpose” redux moment), AGES 46.5 > Particular circumstances turn themselves on their head in order to force an assessment of your purpose. Are you living your true calling, or is it echoing through your empty heart in the wee morning hours when you’re awake and alone in your wakefulness, wondering after your secret hopes, dreams, goals, and expectations (including the ones you forgot to mention)? This is a time of personal inventory, and maybe a little recovery work, even if you can’t articulate what exactly you’re “recovering” from. Read more about the Nodal Returns over here. (Here’s my post on the Nodes again as well.) 👍🏻
CHIRON RETURN (“healing crisis” moment), AGES 49 - 51 > Time of middle-age when we “change our medicine,” so to speak, and begin integrating deepest wounds from childhood and adolescence into our “adult” psyche. Sets the stage for your ensuing Renaissance Decade. 🎉 Learn more about Chiron Return here, and for the full scratch on Chiron (including dates for your personal “wounding” passages and Return), check out Barbara Hand Clow’s Chiron. ✌🏻
SECOND PROGRESSED LUNAR RETURN, AGES 53 - 54 > …it’s literally been thirty years since you were in your 20s, here’s a reminder of that. ☺️✨ALSO, this is a time when we re-commit, either to an entirely new heart of hearts, or as a reaffirmation of our original heart, now evolved and twice informed of the entire emotional landscape symbolized by our natal chart. ♥️🌀Go here for advice about how to use your Second Progressed Lunar Return.
SECOND SATURN RETURN (revisiting the bare bones + brass tacks of your life), AGES 55 - 58 > Mystic describes > “Yes, honest-to-Hecate, Saturn Returns just keep on a happening. [ 😩 ] This is when the classic Saturn themes of teeth-taxes-bones would really start to bite if you did not honor Saturn earlier. Saturn is the Time God and his second return is when you really benefit from the sort of wisdom that can only be attained with the years. You feel your joints and your accrued knowledge.” Read more about your Second Saturn Return here.
SECOND URANUS RETURN (revisiting your sense of individuality), AGE 84 > Revisiting the same line of self-reflection regarding your sense of self in the wider collective. Carl Jung wrote Memories, Dreams, and Reflections during his Uranus Return, wherein he also describes having used astrology as part of his psychotherapy practice, so, my true-life advice > make sure your doctors, financial advisors, and most of all therapists are also tracking transits. ✅👍🏻
Read more about the 6 Great Transits here, and also Mystic’s explainer on astrological transits during rites of passage. ✨✨✨
RESOURCES FOR TRACKING YOUR TRANSITS (+ BECOMING MORE WONDERFUL 🥰)
The Astro-Seek monthly transit calendar, along with other tools you can use for planning transits, including the personal transit calendar and a monthly ephemeris. ✅
Want a Mad Libs-style cheat sheet for deciphering the difference between a planet’s energy in your natal chart vs. in your transits? Go here. 👍🏻
Want free, low key transit updates delivered to you? 💌📱> my favorite astrologer newsletters over here, plus the Time Nomad and Deluxe Moon apps.
ALSO, for investment-level astrology news > Rachel’s patrons-only Weekly Forecast voicemails, and Mystic Medusa’s members-only Daily Mystic Email. 💕
AND JUST FYI > AstroGraph “Archetypal Astrology” has a monthly graphic report and description of your transits available by subscription, as well as a dashboard where you can view / customize a pre-designed color-coded calendar for all your transits (short and long term) for about $13 a month (well well well…)
What types of transits might you cast a chart for? 💕> I’m casting a transit chart for my upcoming Resurrection Day, a random astrological trivium I mentioned in my post about finding your chart ruler. ☺️✨FYI > a “resurrection day” coincides when the transiting Sun (in the sky right now) crosses over the exact degree of your Ascendent, a.k.a. the “starting line” of your chart. (Natalie @ Soul Shine Astrology also talks about it in this podcast. ✌🏻)
How to track transits with an ephemeris, and also How to Use An Ephemeris, Why You’d Want To ✅
Have a powerful desire to track the planets to the hour (for strange personal rituals, obviously)? Check out the planetary hours section.
SATURN 🪐> Mystic musing on a poetic coming-of-age moment timed with a true-life Saturn transit (not what you’re expecting), plus Nine Vital Truths for Saturn Transits. 🙏🏻💫
What are some “new relationship” transits (juss wonderin’)? > From the Lipstick Alley archives > “Jupiter and Venus transiting the relationship houses 5th, 7th, 8th especially 7th house for marriage. Mine will be in my 7th house later this year and Marriage maybe around 2023-2024. I would think those planets in the 5th house would be the courtship phase.” Scroll to the comment below to see more about Mercury and Venus retrogrades’ coincidences in your relationships as well. 💕
A pro astrologer can also translate the transits and straight-away answer any Qs, and help smooth out any confusing omens you’ve stumbled on. 😅✌🏻
ALSO, even though you’re now an expert at tracking your own transits ✨, you might want to schedule a reading with an astrologer, just to double-check which upcoming transits might wallop your chart (so you’re not blind-sided by a Pluto-Moon transit, or an Eclipse… ⚡️)
You also get the added benefit of vetting your transit chart interpretation with someone else less likely to try rationalizing the planet glyphs into the same hopes, wishful thinking, insecurities, and excuses, amiright…?
OMG, what if you’re having a “transit moment” right now?! 😳🤩
