This article is a follow up article to Astrology Intro: Bringing Us Closer To God (Pt 1) so if you haven't already read that one it's a good idea to do it before continuing with this.
To do a quick recap of part 1, I have been including 'community readings' of astrology as part of our new moon ceremonies, and we did a quick overview of the roles that planets, signs, and houses can play in astrology. One way to look at it is that planets are people, or personalities; signs are places like land or terrain; and houses are realms of experience. When we get our natal chart, we can see the placement of the planets in signs, and the houses in signs based off of where the ascendant (or sign on the horizon) was when we were born. This can be considered like a map to understand how stellar influences play into our lives such as how they may affect our personalities, why certain combinations of things come easy or with challenges for us, why certain things in our lives seem related, or why we have certain perspectives. And from there we can start to gain a greater understand of ourselves, and strengthen our connection to this creation we are in, and our creator.
This article is going to focus purely on transits since the information that is shared during our ceremonies related to astrology is a walkthrough of the transit of the planets during the lunar cycle. When I say transits I am referring to the movements of the planets through the zodiac as time passes. And when it comes to predictive astrology, whatever that reason may be for, transits are usually the go-to for where to get the most pinpointed or specific data to best inform our decisions.
Before going any more into this I want to make a point about when we talk about predictive astrology. In my personal opinion, one of the reasons that astrology and other forms of divination are considered blasphemy against God by some schools of thought is because when people start to see that something is bringing them some type of benefit, they have the potential to become attached to it. When this happens, people may start to rely on these tools more and lose sight of the inner guidance from God that informs us. When I talk about predictive astrology and reference some of these things I want to make it clear that whenever we are using any of these tools first and foremost we are centering ourselves and coming from the place of wanting to have God reveal to us the inner meanings of these things so we can use them for our benefit and the benefit of all beings. If we lose sight of the fact that we are looking to understand Nature, God, and the patterns and law that it has laid forth in which we exist, we open ourselves up to potential for suffering.
There are a few different points to take into consideration when we are looking at transits. For our community readings, since our main focus is on the Moon as it is traversing the zodiac, the main thing that I am taking into consideration is the aspect and conjunction of planets. In Vedic astrology, aspects have a personified explanation and are considered a planet casting its view or gaze on other planets or signs. In tropical astrology aspects are considered more to be the spacial relationship between planets and signs and are commonly referred to as angles. Conjunctions, or when two planets are in the same sign, are a bit more significant than aspects due to the more direct interplay of the planetary energies. Another part of transits that are considered are when a planet's current position in the sky is the same position as a planet in one's natal chart, akin to a conjunction. Aspects of natal positions also play a role. In our ceremonies we do not have a natal chart to reference so those aren't relevant, but when using astrology to better understand our selves these are significant.
In Vedic astrology when we count signs for aspects we always count the sign that the planet is in as the first. So, the sign "ahead of" the sign a planet is in would be considered its 2nd aspect. The way I was taught, the inner planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus) have one main aspect which is 7 signs from themselves, or directly across the zodiac (their 7th aspect). In our ceremonies when I talk about exchanging aspects this is what I'm referring to, since the planets are directly across from each other are aspecting each other. The outer planets (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) have those as well as unique aspects. Mars casts aspects on the 4th and 8th sign from itself, Jupiter on the 5th and 9th; and Saturn on the 3rd and 10th. These aspects mainly work one way, so Mars' fourth aspects affects the sign 4 away (including its current sign) and the house and any planets therein. Any planets that happen to be there do not affect Mars.
| Planet | Special Aspect |
|---|---|
| Mars | 4 & 8 |
| Jupiter | 5 & 9 |
| Saturn | 3 & 10 |
Although I do not use tropical astrology methods in our ceremonies I want to point out the difference here because it is one of the most significant I've come across between the two schools of thought. In tropical astrology, the aspects are considered angles. The major aspects are sextiles, squares, trines, and opposition. Sextiles are 60 degrees, or two signs apart (each sign being 30 degrees), squares are 90 degrees, trines are 120 degrees, and opposition is 180 degrees. Another difference here is that planets in these aspects may have a two-way relationship. So, planets that are 60 degrees apart are both considered to be affected by such an aspect. To correlate this to the Vedic aspects, 60 degrees apart would be like Saturn's 3rd aspect, and 180 degrees apart would be the planets' 7th aspect or exchanging aspects. That's all we'll cover on tropical astrology aspects since I don't use them - I just felt it important because it's one of the most significant differences between the two systems and wanted to clarify it in case my use of the aspects from the Vedic system confused anyone.
With this general understanding of aspects, we can start to see how there is always an interplay of energies between the stellar bodies in our solar system that is constantly shifting as they move. We can use this information in a general format like we do in our community readings as a sort of weather forecast, but if the idea is to better understand the patterns in nature and become closer to God, it is necessary to understand one's own natal chart, and to take those factors under consideration when evaluating the aspects. Because it is not only the current placements of planets that are used when evaluating transits, but normally it is that overlaid on the positions of planets in one's natal chart. So, that is taking into account the placements of planets in signs at two different points in time.
The current stellar configuration has Jupiter in Aries and Saturn in Aquarius and with Jupiter's 5th aspect and Saturn's 7th aspect both falling in the sign of Leo where Mars and Venus are positioned. In our ceremonies I've been mentioning how whenever Jupiter and Saturn combine in some way it may mean significant activity related to the sign that it's happening in, so let's use this as a base example for our intro to transits here. And for this, let's imagine a chart where someone was born with their Sun and Ascendant in Leo. I've come up with a chart for someone born on August 22, 1984 at 8 am in New York City as an example for us to use. I'm only going to pick apart pieces of this chart that are useful for our examples related to transits right now to keep this from becoming overwhelming, but in future articles we will dive into this chart more fully to see how all of these things can come together.
In our example chart, the Sun is in Leo along with Mercury and Venus. The ascendant is in Leo which means that the first house falls in Leo, the 2nd in Virgo, and so forth until the 12th house in Cancer. Since the Sun is the ruler of Leo, that makes it the ruler of the first house; Mercury, ruler of Gemini and Virgo is the ruler of the 2nd and 11th houses; and Venus, ruler of Libra and Taurus is the ruler of the 3rd and 10th houses.
In order to not get overwhelmed, our only focus here is to consider the dual aspect of Jupiter and Saturn on Leo since that normally means big things are happening there. As I've stated in some of our ceremonies, since Jupiter and Saturn move through the Zodiac at a slow pace this dual aspect may be occurring over a period of months, sometimes lasting for a full year. What we'll consider first is the aspects of Jupiter and Saturn on the sign and placements of the planets in the natal chart.
Since in our example, the first house in in Leo, this may mean that an event or series of events may be unfolding for several months in something related to the first house for this native. The first house is related to the self, which could be a range of things like personal health or wellness, self-identity, our body and physical wellness or general temperament. So that may mean during the transit when Jupiter and Saturn cast their dual aspect this native could experience things related to their health or physical well being. One would also want to look at other areas of the native's chart to see whether other things supported this.
In our example chart there are three planetary placements in Leo which actually makes things very involved and we have a lot to pull from here. Aspects on the positions of planets in our natal chart can be looked at as well. Let's take Mercury, who is the lord of the 2nd and 11th houses in this chart. The second house can be related to money in the sense that we need it for sustenance, so this native may be experiencing significant things related to monetary needs over this period. Since Mercury is also the ruler of the 11th house and one of its significations is friendships, groups, social interactions, or the collective at large, this native may experience some significant things happening in that area of their life.
While the aspects on the natal planets in our chart should be evaluated to see if there may be some influence there, it is normally more pertinent to consider the aspects happening on the actual positions of the planets in the solar system at the time. The example I came up with is an interesting one since it has Venus in Leo, and Venus is also currently in Leo. So for this example, we can look at Jupiter and Saturn casting aspects on Venus in current time, while it's also the natal position of Venus perhaps adding to the significance of this aspect. Venus is ruler of the 3rd and 10th houses in this native's chart. The third house being related to communication may mean significant things relating to communication may be occurring. The tenth house is normally associated with career, so there may be activity there. Since Venus is transiting its natal position, while also receiving this dual aspect, it's more likely that the native may see activity related to Venus during this current period of it being in Leo.
Mars is currently in Leo along with Venus. Mars is the ruler of Aries and Scorpio, which in this native's chart makes it the ruler of the 4th and 9th houses. Since Mars is actively receiving these aspects (as opposed to when we considered Mercury whose natal position was receiving the aspect, but not its current position), we'd want to look at that as well. The 4th house being related to foundations which may be our homes, may mean the native experiences something related to that for as long as Mars remains under these aspects. The 9th house is associated with higher-level learning, philosophy, or spiritual endeavors so the native may experience things related to that.
From these examples we can see that when it comes to transits and predictive astrology there's a lot to consider. We always want to look for more supporting information in a chart to see how likely transitory situations are to have an effect. Just because a planet or sign is being aspected or conjoined doesn't mean anything. There may be two or three other factors required for it to have an effect in our lives that isn't so subtle. This complexity may start to open some people's eyes as to how there actually may be layers that they weren't aware of that give meaning and validity that isn't immediately apparent via most of the 'pop astrology' that we consume in the western world.
As far as our ceremonies go, since we are monitoring the transit of the moon through a lunar cycle, with some minor attention paid to the other planets as they pass from sign to sign, the focus has been on the aspects the moon is receiving or giving. Now that we've scratched the surface of how we may evaluate transits, it should be reiterated that while the aspects the moon is receiving do play a role in things related to the moon in a native's chart, the way that I prefer to use this lunar transit is to use it to try to more closely pinpoint when something may happen down to the day or days. So let's go back to our example related to Venus actively receiving the aspect of Jupiter and Saturn while transiting its native position and remembering it is the ruler of the 10th house related to career. Since the moon is an extra influence that moves around the entire Zodiac in amount a month's time, we can look for times when the moon is conjoined in the sign with Venus, or exchanging aspects with Venus, to try to pinpoint an exact time when something might happen related to the native's career. Because if Venus is actively receiving these aspects for a few weeks or months, the extra focus of the moon may be an influencing energy that sparks more significant activity.
This provides us an overview of how transits work, and I hope that if anything it has just revealed for some people that there are patterns that follow the laws laid forth by God in its creation that they were not previously aware of. My personal connection to God is always strengthened when I find new patterns like this. And what I find beautiful about my personal connection to God if I stay true to trying to grow this connection, meaning is revealed in places where there previously may have only been conjecture. It can provide one with a sense of security and safety that it isn't just chaos that we are living in, and that there are natural laws being followed. All this being said, I know for anyone with little to no understanding of astrology this has maybe left him or her with more questions than answers. Don't worry, that's normal. I plan to write at least two more articles where we will go through everything in this article and part one using the example chart that I gave the birth time and place for. That will start to fill in some of the gaps. When we're done we'll have covered maybe 5-10% of the realm of knowledge of astrology, but it will be enough for anyone interested to have a very solid foundation for learning how these influences affect them, and how they can use it to feel a closer connection to this creation we all share a part in.