Transits of the Moon

Transits to the Sun

Transits between these two bodies, by any aspect, are both subtle and important. In traditional astrology the Sun and Moon are called the “lights” or “luminaries,” two of the most important planets in the chart. Their interactions are regular and periodic, so we tend to overlook them as part of the everyday, year-in year-out rhythm of life. Even so, these transits influence the basic ebb and flow of emotion and energy within you and are a clear indicator of your sense of well-being.

Transits to Mercury

Whenever the Moon aspects Mercury, the part of your mind that governs speech and reasoning interacts strongly with inner feelings and sensations, or it encounters external circumstances that call for understanding not easily reduced to logical, verbal expression. In general this is a neutral combination and it is not difficult to make it work for you.

Transits to Venus

The Moon and Venus are the most feminine planets, so Moon transits to your natal Venus, by any aspect, are unlikely to be difficult and can be extraordinarily pleasant. The main caution is that they can have a slightly unconscious tone. A modest amount of self-discipline helps avoid the chief pitfall: self-indulgence, especially with eating and drinking.

These transits favor intuitive appreciation of beauty, harmony, and art. Together they help you feel what is hard to put into words. If you are inclined, use these feelings to create more beauty and harmony in your immediate surroundings. Beyond the more everyday expressions of these virtues, it is also true that they can reflect the Divine operating within nature and the physical universe.

Transits to Mars

In general this is not the easiest pairing. The Moon is one of the two most prominent symbols of the feminine in the chart; Mars is one of the two most prominent symbols of the masculine. Traditionally the Moon is extremely moist and somewhat cool, while Mars is extremely dry and somewhat hot. These energies do not blend easily. The more favorable combinations are good for raising your energy level and releasing feelings that have been kept hidden. The more difficult combinations tend to bring irrational anger and conflict that arise from causes that are insignificant or trivial but seem important at the time. That is the main challenge with these transits.

Transits to Jupiter

The planetary virtues of these two bodies work together very well. In traditional astrology both are considered moist, which tends to improve relationships and smooth over difficulties through genuine good feeling. Jupiter’s temperate warmth balances the Moon’s temperate coolness, so these combinations usually indicate feeling good about life in general. Just beware Jupiter’s tendency toward excess - “nothing succeeds like excess.” Even beneficial activities can be overdone.

Transits to Saturn

The Moon-Saturn combination is among the more difficult in astrology. The tension and incompatibility between their significations is considerable. For example, the Moon is believed to rule the earliest period of life, infancy; Saturn, on the other hand, is believed to rule the last part of life, old age. The qualities of these two periods are very different. In addition, the Moon and Saturn rule opposite signs, Cancer and Capricorn, respectively. Therefore there is often a quality of opposition between these two bodies.

As the Moon moves around the chart in its 27-day period and makes all its transits to natal Saturn, the effect is to combine Saturn’s structure and discipline with the Moon’s emotional need for comfort and unconditional support in ways that can be briefly uncomfortable. Typically these are not times for self-indulgence, ease, or even complete self-acceptance. Rather, they call for discipline and a willingness to postpone gratification. Still, these are not all difficult transits; they have their purpose and are an important part of the monthly routine.

Transits to Uranus

Uranus is the first of the transcendental planets, which also include Neptune and Pluto. For this reason, Moon transits to natal Uranus often trigger aspects of your consciousness that you do not usually express, unless your natal chart features a particularly strong Uranus. During these times you are unlikely to be patient with routines or with expectations imposed by others that you do not share. These transits are good for exploring new possibilities, opportunities, and ways of being. The main caution is acting without thinking. When Uranian energy is strong, it can be easy to become negatively suggestible, reacting against what others want simply because it is expected. Act in ways that reflect who you truly are, whether or not anyone else expects it.

In daily life you may also encounter something unusual and possibly upsetting. Do your best to go along with it, or even embrace it if possible. If not, remember that this energy passes quickly.

Transits to Neptune

These two planets have many similarities even though they sit near opposite ends of the planetary scale. The Moon is the most personal of planets and Neptune one of the most transpersonal. The Moon typically operates in everyday life, while Neptune works at a level that either transcends ordinary life or profoundly interferes with it. They share several attributes. In terms of the four qualities - Hot, Dry, Cold, and Wet - both are extremely Wet. Practically, neither is concerned with clear distinctions, well-defined conditions, or what usually passes for logic and rationality. The Moon often seems pre-logical, and Neptune is so far beyond ordinary logic that its post-logical quality can make it seem similar to the Moon.

Connections between them, whether in a natal chart or by transit, usually operate outside the normal realm of intellect, through feelings, intuitions, hunches, and similar modes of perception. This does not automatically mean delusion or self-deception, though that can occur. When they work together well, they point to realities outside ordinary perception. The Moon especially rules the faculty of “seeing” in the sense of open, receptive looking. The visual process known as “looking for” is more associated with the Sun. Neptune also rules a kind of “seeing,” not with the eye but through a sensory process that transcends ordinary sight. The rational mind often struggles to grasp exactly what the Neptunian faculty “sees.” Similarly, the Moon operates at a subrational level that can also challenge the rational mind. Therefore, these transits often have an otherworldly quality, or at least the appearance of one.

Transits to Pluto

The simplest thing to say about Moon-Pluto contacts is that they are intense. This can range from obsession at the low end to deep, rich emotional experience at the high end. Difficulties arise when someone tries to manipulate others emotionally for personal advantage, whether or not the manipulator is conscious of it. Under these transits you might encounter such people, or the tendency might appear in yourself.

This combination challenges you to transform emotional habits and patterns that you have outgrown and that may have become destructive or regressive. It also challenges you to make the issues involved as conscious as possible. That is not easy, because we are all attached to particular viewpoints and ways of being that are hard to release. These transits often call you to do exactly that. So long as you keep in mind that the aim is greater clarity for yourself and others - and avoid power struggles and people who are concerned with power or control - these transits can be extremely useful. Do not fear change simply because it is change.

Transits to Chiron

The Moon’s energy is traditionally dominated by the Wet quality, and its temperature is usually considered Hot, though not intensely so, varying with the natal Moon’s phase. The Hot quality in the Moon is not important here; the Wet is. Wetness causes things that have existed separately to merge and become connected. At first glance this would seem to make Chiron and the Moon compatible, but not quite. Merging is not the same as integrating. A truly integrated system allows its component parts to retain their identities so each can make a unique contribution to the functioning of the whole. When a system acquires too much Wet, separate identities blur and the system may cease to function well. Thus there is an immediate ambiguity in the combination of a transiting Moon with natal Chiron.

This is not quite as true in the reverse case, when Chiron transits the natal Moon. There the Moon’s energy retains its quality and can contribute to the system. When the Moon transits natal Chiron, the Moon tends to blur the integrated qualities that Chiron’s energy is meant to create. How this plays out depends on how intensely the Moon operates on natal Chiron and on how prominent Chiron is in the natal chart. See the explanations below.

Transits to Midheaven

Every month the Moon makes a complete cycle around the chart. This gives rise to two more important cycles in addition to the Moon’s cycles with respect to the natal Sun and the natal Moon. These are the cycle of the transiting Moon to the Midheaven and the cycle of the transiting Moon to the Ascendant, which I will take up in the next section.

When the Moon transits by conjunction over the natal Midheaven, it begins a cycle that pertains to two major areas of life. The first concerns profession; the second concerns your broader life direction - not just what you do to make a living, but what you do to make a life. These two domains may or may not be directly connected. If your work is not closely tied to your identity and sense of calling, then the cycle to the Midheaven concerns what gives you purpose, not how you pay the bills. In the Premium Daily Horoscope, I will refer to both what you do to make a living and what you do to make a life as your vocation, simply to keep the language straightforward.

The role of the Moon here is to indicate the way you proceed in career or life direction through routine, day-to-day habits that do not require much thought. While it is generally desirable to be as conscious as possible of what happens in your life, it is impossible to be conscious of everything. Therefore it is necessary to develop habits that are constructive and to notice when things are not going quite right so you can “wake up” and act consciously. This Moon-to-Midheaven cycle is of that kind.

Transits to Ascendant

The Moon and the Ascendant both strongly influence the expression of the personality - the aspect of yourself that you present to the world. Therefore any contact between the transiting Moon and the Ascendant is likely to be a time when you project more of your inward, sensitive, emotional self outward through the personality. There is nothing wrong with this; it is inevitable, and it happens more at some times than at others. The main thing to be aware of is the effect of early life experience and learning on the unconscious foundations of the personality and on the habitual patterns through which you relate to the world.

It is also true that during Moon-Ascendant contacts you may attract people who mirror back what you are within. To the extent that you do not know yourself, you may not realize that what you see in others reflects some aspect of yourself. It is important to understand during these times that when you attract someone who seems pointlessly difficult and causes new stress, you may be dealing, through that person, with a part of yourself you have not accepted. Therefore, know thyself and love thyself.

Transits to the Lunar Nodes

The Moon and the Lunar Nodes are closely related. The Nodes and the Bendings are functions of the relationship between the Moon’s orbit and the apparent orbit of the Sun around the Earth. When the transiting Moon goes from below the plane of the Sun’s orbit, also known as the ecliptic, to above it, the exact point is called the North or Ascending Node. The point exactly opposite is the Descending or South Node. The point 90° from the North Node is the North Bending, where the Moon reaches its greatest distance above, or north of, the ecliptic. The opposite point, 90° from the South Node, is the South Bending, where the Moon reaches its greatest distance below, or south of, the ecliptic. The monthly cycle that measures the time between two successive transits of the transiting Moon over the transiting North Node is called the draconic month. In the Premium Daily Horoscope, however, we discuss the cycle of the transiting Moon with respect to the natal North Node, which of course does not change position.

The Moon is most commonly experienced as human feelings and emotions, parts of the mind of which we are usually not completely aware. More often we feel their effects than we recognize them for what they are. The nodal cycle involving the natal North Node and the Moon is a cycle in which we, in a sense, breathe out and breathe in regarding the outer world. At the North Node, the transiting Moon signifies putting energy out into the world, into the social networks we create with the people who comprise them. We tend to initiate on the conjunction of the Moon with the natal North Node; the transit of the Moon over the natal North Bending is a time of maximum externalization of our network energies each month; the consequences of our work with these networks begin to be realized when the Moon transits the natal South Node; and finally we take these consequences inward at the transit of the Moon over the natal South Bending. These will be described in greater detail in the respective passages in the Premium Daily Horoscope.