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Transits and progressions
Revised 2026-01-08 · Contributors · How entries are written
Both methods compare a moving set of positions against the fixed natal chart. They differ in where the moving positions come from.
Transits
- Definition
- The actual positions of the bodies at a later date, compared by aspect to natal positions.
- Timing
- Determined by real ephemeris motion. An outer-planet transit to a natal point may be in orb for a year or more and will usually be exact three times, owing to retrograde motion.
- Common usage
- The most widely used predictive technique in modern practice, and the only one used at all in most popular writing.
Progressions
- Secondary progressions
- A symbolic method equating one day after birth with one year of life. The chart for the thirtieth day after birth is read as the chart for the thirtieth year.
- The progressed Moon moves roughly one degree per month and completes a cycle in about twenty-seven and a half years; the progressed Sun moves about one degree per year, so a progressed sun-sign change occurs at most two or three times in a life.
- Solar arc directions
- All natal positions are advanced by the amount the progressed Sun has moved. Preserves the natal configuration and moves it as a unit.
- Primary directions
- An older and computationally heavier method based on the diurnal rotation. Largely displaced by the above.
Progressed positions do not correspond to anything in the sky on the date they describe. They are a symbolic correspondence, and sources that describe a progression as an event happening overhead are mistaken about the method.
Returns
- Solar return
- A chart cast for the moment the transiting Sun returns to its exact natal longitude, read for the year that follows.
- Lunar return
- The same for the Moon, read for the following month.
- Saturn return
- The transiting return of Saturn to its natal position, occurring at roughly ages 29, 58 and 87. The best known of the returns outside astrology.