When planets pass through
Transits, simply
4 min read
Your houses never change
Your houses are fixed at the moment you were born. Where each one starts and which sign sits on it are set for life. So are the planets you were born with.
What does change
What changes is which planets are passing through. Think of your chart as twelve houses. The houses stay put, but planets keep visiting, and a house with a visitor feels busier for a while. Those visits are called transits.
Born with, visiting now
A planet you were born with is a natal placement: permanent, part of the wiring. A transit is the same planet, today, wandering through whichever house it is in now. One is who you are, the other is the weather.
How long each visitor stays
Mercury and Venus stay a few weeks. Mars stays six weeks to two months. Jupiter stays about a year. Saturn stays about two and a half years. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto stay many years, even decades.
Reading a transit
Combine the visitor with the house. Saturn in your 10th means Saturn's themes of effort and responsibility are turning up in Calling, your career and public life. Fast planets give you a passing mood. Slow ones set a season of life.
A gentle note
A transit is a theme, not a forecast. It tells you where the attention is likely to land, not what will happen. Hard visitors tend to ask for effort, and usually leave something useful behind.
Now try it on your own chart.
Find your rising sign and your Sun's house in ten seconds.