Astrology Transits Explained

What are transits in astrology?

A transit is the contact that today’s planets make with the planets, angles and houses in your birth chart. Your birth chart is a fixed picture of the moment you were born; the planets keep moving. When a moving planet passes over a point in your chart, or forms an aspect to it, the theme of that point comes forward for a while.

How fast a transit moves depends on the planet, and that speed sets how long a transit is felt:

Planet	Roughly how long in one sign	How its transit is felt
Moon	two and a half days	the day’s mood
Sun	a month	that month’s focus
Mercury, Venus	a few weeks	communication, relationships, tastes
Mars	about two months	energy, desire, friction
Jupiter	about a year	growth, opportunity, expansion
Saturn	about two and a half years	responsibility, testing, maturing
Uranus, Neptune, Pluto	from seven to twenty years and more	deep, generational transformations

Transits of the fast planets describe the weather of daily life and pass quickly. Mars, the ruler of Aries, brings that sign’s fire to whatever it touches: a few weeks of extra energy and drive, sometimes impatience and friction. Transits of the slow planets describe periods that last months or years and often set the main theme of a chapter of life. Saturn, for example, returns to the point it held at your birth roughly every 29 to 30 years; this is called the Saturn return and is usually read as a threshold of adulthood.

From time to time a planet appears to move backwards in the sky; this is called retrograde. It is an effect of the view from Earth; the planet does not actually reverse. Astrology reads retrograde periods as a time to review that planet’s subjects: communication and plans under Mercury retrograde, relationships and values under Venus retrograde. Retrogrades also make a planet cross the same point several times, so some transits are felt three times, months apart.

Transits are not forecasts of events. Reading a Saturn square to your Sun as a sign that you will lose your job goes beyond what astrology can say. A transit is like a season that shows which theme comes forward in which area of your life: winter is cold, but the season does not decide what you do with it.

How to read transits in seven steps

1. Get to know your birth chart first

Transits are read against your birth chart; without it, a transit is only the general state of the sky. Know which signs your Sun, Moon and rising are in and which houses your planets stand in. The rising sign and the houses need your birth time.

2. Separate fast and slow transits

The Moon’s sign today gives the day’s mood; where Jupiter or Saturn stands gives the theme of a year or several years. Start with the slow transits: they draw the big picture, and the fast ones are the daily waves inside it. One way to get to know the slow planets is through the signs they rule: traditionally Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces, Saturn Capricorn and Aquarius, and Jupiter’s generous growth and Saturn’s patient structure show in those signs too.

3. Find the point the transit touches

Which planet or point in your chart is the transiting planet touching? A transit to your Sun brings identity and life direction forward, a transit to your Moon feelings and home life, a transit to your Venus relationships and values.

4. Look at the type of aspect

The aspect between the transiting planet and the natal planet shows how the theme is lived. A conjunction describes a beginning and intensity, trines and sextiles a supportive flow, a square tension and pressure to act, an opposition a confrontation and a search for balance.

5. Look at the house the transit passes through

The house a slow planet is crossing shows which area of life that period is lived in. Jupiter crossing your tenth house widens career and visibility; crossing your fourth, home and family. Each house has its own subject, like the fourth house, and tells you which door the transit is knocking on.

6. Read the transit as a theme

For each transit, ask: which subject is this period bringing forward, and what can I do about it? Saturn conjunct your Sun is not a disaster but a call to review the structure of your life and take responsibility. The theme is shaped by your response.

7. Keep a transit journal

Write down important transits and what you lived through at the time. After a few years you learn from your own life which themes come forward when certain planets touch certain points. The journal gives you something no astrology book can: what transits really mean in your life.

Example: reading a year of transits

The chart (sample): Sun in Capricorn in the tenth house, Moon in Pisces.

Slow transit: Saturn conjunct the Sun. Saturn, the planet of responsibility and structure, crosses the natal Sun. This is a period in which identity and career are tested and the question “What do I really want to build?” comes forward. It can feel heavy, but it is also the time to build something solid.

A second slow transit: Jupiter through the fourth house. The same year, Jupiter, the planet of growth, crosses the house of home and family. Against the test at work, an expansion and support at home: perhaps the wish to move, perhaps a family drawing closer. In tarot terms it has the feel of the Ten of Cups: a home built with love.

Fast transit: the Moon through Pisces each month. Once a month the Moon passes over the natal Moon. Those days feel more emotional and call for more rest.

Together. The year’s theme is a test of responsibility at work and a field of support at home. The transits do not say whether this person will be promoted or move house; they show where the strain will be and which area will give strength. The step: through the year, as the workload is organised, keep home life protected as a place of rest.

Common misconceptions about transits

• Reading transits as predictions of events. A transit shows a period when a theme comes forward, not that a specific event will happen.
• Fearing hard transits. Saturn or Pluto transits can feel heavy, but the most lasting growth often happens in those periods.
• Looking only at fast transits. The daily Moon describes one day’s mood; the big themes of life are in the slow planets.
• Treating Mercury retrograde as a catastrophe. Retrograde periods invite slowing down and reviewing; they do not mean everything will break.
• Interpreting house transits without a birth time. Houses depend on birth time. If it is unknown, read transits through the planets.
• Reading a transit without the natal planet it touches. Saturn crossing your Venus is a different season from Saturn crossing your Mars: the first tests what you value and how you love, the second how you push forward and assert yourself. Name both planets before you read the period.

Where to go from here

The easiest way into transits is to start with the Moon. For a month, note each day which sign the Moon is in and write down your mood. Pay particular attention to how you feel when the Moon passes through your natal Moon’s sign. Then move on to the slow planets: which houses of your chart are Jupiter and Saturn crossing right now?

To see the daily sky with your own chart, open the Transits tool in the Larisa app: it connects the daily sky to relationship, work and inner voice, and shows the transiting Sun and Moon and the closest contact. Before opening the reading, write today’s mood in one sentence.

If you want to read a period with cards as well, month-ahead and year-ahead tarot covers time spreads, and can tarot answer “when”? explains why neither astrology nor tarot gives dates. For the basics of your chart, see how to read a birth chart, and for the houses transits move through, reading the houses in your chart. To follow the Moon’s monthly cycle, moon phases explains the lunar calendar. In tarot, Jupiter’s card is Wheel of Fortune and Saturn’s is the World: two cards of time and cycles, close to the language of transits.