Ingress

Definition

An ingress is the exact moment when a planet crosses from one sign of the zodiac into the next. The chart cast for that instant is itself called an ingress chart, and traditional mundane astrology gives particular weight to the four cardinal ingresses of the Sun into Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, which set the tone of each season. Personal astrology watches inner-planet ingresses as smaller cyclical resets.

In context

When transiting Saturn ingresses from Aquarius into Pisces, every chart on the planet receives a fresh placement of Saturn, and the affairs of whichever house holds the new sign get a new tenant for the next two and a half years. Ingresses by slow planets feel cultural, almost geological; ingresses by inner planets like Mercury or Venus refresh the texture of weeks. A transit reading often anchors itself on the nearest ingress.

To go deeper

The ingress sits in the family of time-based techniques:

• Transit: the broader category of sky-to-chart contact.
• Cusp: the boundary that ingress is into a sign.
• Solar return: a specific ingress-style chart.