Planetary transits: critical periods and open doors in your life
A transit is the moment when a planet in today's sky forms an angle with a planet in your birth chart (natal chart — the circle drawn from the date, time and place of your birth).
Most transits pass unnoticed. The slow ones — Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto — stay near one point for months and return to it two or three times. Looking back, people often recognise in them the years when their life was changing, even if it did not feel that way at the time.
The Spiral of Life shows them all at once: your whole life so far and the two years ahead of you.
Life as a spiral
Jung described the path to oneself, individuation, as circling around a centre. We return to the same themes, but each time from a different place. That is why your life is drawn as a spiral: each ring is one year, birth is in the middle and today is at the edge. The direction shows the season — January is at the top.
Some days return every year. On them the Sun crosses your Pluto, Saturn, Mars and Moon, and you will see them on the spiral as purple rays.
Critical periods
Gold marks the periods when several slow planets leaned on your personal points (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Ascendant and MC) at once, in the angles that press.
Almost everyone goes through a single transit about once a year. Only when several meet does something really begin to rebuild: a relationship, work, the picture you hold of yourself. That is why the spiral does not glow everywhere. Everyone carries their own threshold, and only a small part of a life lights up in gold.
Read through Jung, these periods are not a punishment. They are times when what no longer served was breaking, and what had stayed in the shadow was coming to the surface.
Open doors
Mint marks the periods when Jupiter, the planet of growth and trust, stood on one of your personal points or supported it by trine (a harmonious angle). They come once or twice a year and last a few weeks.
It is a time when things open more easily: meetings, ideas, the courage to take a step. A door may open, but you still have to walk through it. Open doors have their price too — Jupiter can promise more than can be carried.
Your past as the test
No one knows your life better than you. When the gold arcs fall on the years you remember as turning points, you will read what lies ahead differently too.
Future periods do not predict events. They suggest when certain themes will speak up, and leave room for how you meet them.
A reading of a period
Tap a place on the spiral or pick a period from the list, and you will see which planets met there. With a free account you can ask for a reading of what was being rebuilt in you at that time, or what was opening. The first two readings are free, further ones are part of Pro.
Does the exact birth time matter?
Most of the spiral is not affected, because the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn barely move in an hour. The Ascendant and MC, however, shift by half a sign in an hour. If you do not know your birth time, tick the box in the form and the spiral will leave out the Moon, Ascendant and MC entirely.
The spiral is a tool for self-reflection, not a prediction. It does not replace professional psychological or medical help.
When you look at your turning-point years, what ended in them, and what began?