Some pro tips

The thing astrology will teach you again and again is to trust your experience in the moment and your impression of the vibe of the times. It's a tool to help give you context or the "why" for things that have happened. The following are a couple of tips I've learned over time that can help you in your exploration:

• Things rarely make sense while you're living them but usually make sense in hindsight. I think it's Stephen Arroyo who says that it takes 10 years to understand the full effects of a Pluto transit, because a lot of things are happening at the time that are subconscious or so subtle that you're not tracking them (usually Pluto transits are overwhelming, anyway, so it's hard to track much). But this is true for Neptune and Uranus transits, too: it takes hindsight to get a sense of what's happening and the greater reason for the things that are happening. When it's one of those three (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), you have no perspective whatsoever while it's happening--this is true for me, also, by the way. When it's me, I can read definitions of what the transits should do or what I should feel like to try to mentally surmount the pressure or confusion or stress, but sometimes that hurts more than it helps. You have to deal with what's happening in the moment to the best of your ability and then understand it all later. Trying to wrap your head around it in real time will drain you and keep you from following your gut and making the best decisions for yourself in the moment, which is what you should do.

  • Also, it's not always obvious what is causing what, and having a second opinion from an astrologer can help you sort that out and help you weigh the importance of each transit you have going, because that's pretty hard to do on your own. Even for me. I've noisily insisted that Saturn was bothering me when it turned out to be Uranus. Oops.

• Watch aspects to angles of your chart. The square is easy to miss visually, but it's noisy, because at a 90° angle, it will aspect both your ascendant and descendant or midheaven and IC at the same time (because half of 180° is 90°. Yay math!). Not all charting software or apps will alert you to this type of transit, either, so you have to look at old school charts and grids (astro.com!). I've seen a few bad breakups when Pluto has squared the ascendant/descendant in peoples' charts, which in these cases happened before Pluto transited the IC (the bottom of their chart). Pluto --> IC is one of those transits people dread, but in these cases, the shittier thing happened during the Pluto square rather than Pluto conjunct an angle. Go figure. (Also, I've seen so many people chronically exhausted or in semi-permanent horrific moods caused by Neptune square the ascendant. So many.)

  • Some astrologers read conjunctions to one angle as oppositions to another, like if something is conjunct (on) the ascendant of a chart, astrologers will read this as opposing the descendant. This is overkill and if something is conjunct your ascendant you're not going to register it as disruptive to your relationships (which is what an opposition to the descendant would do). This sounds complicated, but it's not: the only exception to this rule is if you have a natal planet conjunct the other angle. So for example, I know a guy with Uranus transiting his midheaven but he has Venus on the IC, therefore career disruption also unsettles his home life. Uranus transiting your midheaven with nothing on the IC is just plain career disruption.

• 45°, 135°, 150° are all aspects to watch, too, but they need to be less than a degree to be felt. Usually, less than 30 minutes, even. Be a miser with the orbs (room between exact aspects) you will allow, but they'll make noise. Use this only for planets from Saturn on out, or you will lose your sanity tracking everything.

  • 45°: the semi-square. This is just an aspect of friction that you can't do much about and it'll feel like exactly that.

  • 135°: the sesquiquadrate. Listening to people struggle to pronounce that is fun, and I can't do it well, either. An aspect of friction that eventually reaches a breaking point and you can do something about, but it's like a holding pattern and then release. Please note 45 and 135 add up to 180, which is the opposition. So what I said above about angles? Outer planets (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) making these little aspects to your planets and angles will be noticed, but mostly on a more subtle level than conjunctions, squares, oppositions, etc. until they are really exact.

  • 150°: I may become the ambassador of the inconjunct, which is this angle, because it is fascinating and annoying all at once. Inconjuncts are WTF aspects, as in, you say "what the fuck" when you have one, because suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a stimulus that is foreign to your planet or angle that you have to integrate somehow. By definition, whatever sign the inconjunct is coming from has nothing to do with your planet or angle: look at any chart and what's 6 houses away from any other sign and ask what those signs have in common and the answer is "nothing." (Like Gemini vs. Scorpio. Or Cancer vs. Aquarius. Or Sagittarius vs. Taurus. Couldn’t be more different.) This aspect is also one of pressure, so, suddenly you have pressure to integrate some incoming weirdness.

    • To combine advice: I had this breakup in which the guy seemed to have lost his mind overnight and I did not fully understand what had happened for years, and anyone else I explained it to also was at a loss for why the guy suddenly went nuts. Neptune was inconjunct my descendant. That's what happened. It did NOT make me feel better when I found that aspect (I also got more data later from the actual person, which helped mentally but not emotionally).

• It's impossible to stay on top of solar returns, lunar returns, progressions, converse progressions, solar arc progressions, etc. If you're looking for a reason, you will find one eventually, but don't fall all over yourself trying to figure out what’s going on if it's not obvious. Prioritize what you want to pay attention to rather than spending hours pouring over charts to see if a road trip is a good idea 2 months from now.

  • What I go by: I keep an eye on my progressed moon because that's the only thing that moves fast in progressions, I watch lunar returns, and I watch my transits.

    • I recently learned to really keep an eye on what *exact* (less than 2 degrees) aspects the moon is making in lunar returns, since these indicate busy months AND the type of busy the month will be. Of course, I learned this the hard way. Please note: if Mars is making a bad aspect to your moon during your lunar return, you are going to want to be extra cautious about not getting sick or minorly injured for that 29 day period. Just trust me on that.

• Don't let your chart stop you from doing things you want to do. Even if you have the south node running through your 9th house, you can still have a fun trip in a foreign country, it just might feel like work to plan and execute it. Got Neptune in the 9th? You okay with your trip taking some very weird twists and turns? Go and have no expectations! In a lot of cases, outer planets making noise compel you to have these experiences, for better or worse. At the very least it will feel like it's important.

  • Just don't make permanent decisions under a heavy Neptune transit, please. Like don't get married or get a 30 year mortgage or get an enormous back tattoo.

XO,

The girl who got married with Neptune conjunct her sun (yes, really, but I didn't know astrology at the time.)