How to read your own transits: a beginners guide
This is a guide for anyone who is learning how to predict events using astrology entirely on their own OR wants to further personalize or expand on general info provided by an astrologer (like the info in my monthly newsletter). Knowing how to read your own transits & determine how they’re likely to affect you is a big part of feeling connected to astrology (and many of us, feeling connected to the cycles of time).
A little note: I’m not a big believer in the idea that we are “affected” by planetary transits. I’ll sometimes use this language because it keeps it simple, but I don’t particularly believe that the planets are out there “affecting us.” (Totally fine if you feel differently!) I think that planetary alignments simply mirror what is going on down on Earth rather than “causing” earthly events to happen. Just like a clock isn’t “making” it light out at 11 am in New York – the clock simply reflects that it’s daytime. The cosmos can be thought of as a very big, very complex, naturally-occurring clock.
Houses
The simplest and most straightforward way to predict how a transit will affect you is to determine the house it falls in in your natal chart. Most astrologers tend to focus on this first and foremost when writing horoscopes or interpreting transits for someone in session. In order to do this, it’s important to know how to read your chart as a wheel, not a table or a list of placements. Here’s a short video I made instructing you on how to do that. For a clear, easy-to-read, free birth chart, I recommend using astro.com (where you have to make a free account but can store up to 100 charts) or astro-seek.com.
The houses are determined by the rising sign. The rising sign is always in the 1st house, no matter what house system you’re using. I recommend using the whole sign house system, but feel free to use whichever you prefer for this.
An example, using the whole sign house system: If you’re a Leo ascendant, when transiting planets enter Aquarius, they will always be transiting your 7th house. While there are plenty of other factors to consider, this means that for you, Aquarius transits (like Pluto in Aquarius) will always speak to 7th house themes like relationships, partnerships of all kinds, open enemies, projections and shadow work.
Aspects
The next most important thing to look at is the aspect(s) that a transiting planet is making to your natal planet(s). An ‘aspect’ is just the geometric angle a planet is making to another planet; the angle at which a planet would be ‘looking at’ the other planet from, if that makes sense. When looking at aspects, focus primarily on natal personal planets (sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) and angles (ascendant, midheaven, IC, and descendant), and consider hard aspects first (squares, oppositions, and conjunctions) because those will be felt most profoundly. Here is a full article on the 5 major aspects, what they each mean, and how to identify them.
You’ll want to focus on when the planet gets within 3º of an exact aspect to your natal planet. That’s when you’ll generally start to “feel it” the most. So for example, if you’re a Virgo rising, while you *may* feel Pluto in Aquarius’ “influence” on your 6th house the whole time it’s in there, it will be MUCH more pronounced when (or if) it makes a hard aspect to a natal placement.
To determine when a planet will get within 3º of an exact aspect to a natal planet, you’ll want to look it up in an ephemeris. They’re available online and in books. Here’s one for 2024.
Putting houses & aspects together
Below is Adam Levine’s birth chart. Because he is a Leo ascendant, he’ll feel all Aquarius transits (like Pluto in Aquarius now, or Saturn in Aquarius from 2020–early 2023) in his 7th house for the entire time they’re there, and it’ll “affect” his relationships, partnerships of all kinds, open enemies, projections and shadow work. But these transits will become MOST potent and most felt when they get within 3º of an exact hard aspect to any of his numerous fixed placements.
For example, Pluto will begin its conjunction to his Venus when it gets to 14º Aquarius, and that conjunction will conclude when it reaches 21º Aquarius – that time period is one of the times during which he’ll be feeling Pluto in Aquarius most, and it brings up Venus themes (relationships, creativity, sex, etc.) in addition to the overarching 7th house themes. Pluto will square his midheaven (which is at 20º Taurus) when it hits 17º Aquarius, and that square will conclude when it reaches 24º – that’s another period during which Pluto in Aquarius is likely to be felt more intensely, and it brings in midheaven themes (public image, career, etc.) in addition to the overarching 7th house themes. And so on!
In September 2022, Saturn was in Levine’s 7th house, conjunct his Venus, and square his midheaven. This is when the allegations that he was cheating on his pregnant wife were made public. This event spoke clearly to the 7th house theme of relationships (and arguably open enemies, I suppose), Venus themes of relationships and sexuality, and midheaven themes like public image. Clearly that was a very active period of Saturn in Aquarius for him, as I’d expect it to be. We could also deduce that he was likely dealing with difficult emotions at home when Saturn squared his 4th house (homelife) Scorpio moon (emotions) next.
Adam Levine’s birth chart, courtesy of Astrodienst
Once you get the hang of it, transits become pretty easy to interpret. I’ll have more info soon on how to narrow down what transits are most important to focus on (assuming I’m able to condense my thoughts enough for a blog post, anyway), but this should give you a good starting point. Let me know if you have any questions!