Transit

Definition

A transit is the real passage, in the current sky, of a planet over an important point of a natal chart: a natal planet, an angle, or a house cusp. Planets keep moving after birth; when one of them reaches exactly the degree of a planet or point in the chart, it symbolically activates that zone of the map for a period defined by the speed of the transiting planet.

In context

Where a natal Sun sits at 15 degrees of Aries and transiting Saturn reaches 15 degrees of Capricorn, the two form a transit square between Saturn and the Sun. That configuration often coincides with periods of structural review in a life. The slow transits (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) mark long chapters; the fast ones (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) describe day-to-day nuance. Transit is the favored tool astrology uses to read specific moments in time.

To go deeper

A transit differs from other predictive techniques:

• Natal chart: fixed sky at birth.
• Progression: technique moving the chart at another rhythm.
• Return: planet returning to its natal degree.