I think so. I figured out my entire affair, and maybe my whole life, casting one for myself.
(In order for this to make any sense, you need to know what "transits" and "progressions" are in astrology.)
In your natal chart, which tells you where all the planets were in the sky at the time and place you were born, you have a snapshot that describes you.
BUT, the planets don't stay in the same place forever. They keep on moving. When the place a planet is in the present makes an exact angle with where a planet was at the time you were born, that planet is said to be "transiting" the natal planet, and the angle it makes, along with the houses and signs of the planets involved, all have specific meaning. In a "progression," the astrologer moves the natal planet a specific number of degrees which represent a number of years or months in the life, and notes angles that result from that. For instance, the sun is "progressed" a degree for every year in your life, and any angles it makes reflect something that will happen in that year. It is commonly held that for a thing to happen, it needs to have both a transit and a progression reflecting it, and if your natal chart does not show the potential for it, it will not happen no matter what.
OK. So I did this with transits and progressions:
Being a newer student of astrology, I haven’t been able to study millions of charts and iron out what each aspect means to me. (Some folks have been doing this twenty years, and they actually have studied thousands of charts!)
I know the ones in MY chart like the back of my hand, and some from other charts I have studied. I DO have the dubious strength of having a mother with borderline personality disorder, because, due to the constant and miserable family problems that resulted, I have a bookcase full of self-help, ACoA, relationship books, and all kinds of tomes on borderline personality, codependency, love addiction…you name it. So, when I see codependency, for example, being very politely and solicitously described by, say, the renowned astrologer Liz Greene, in a transit report, it lights up.
The situation in question is/was a love triangle, me and two other people. The chart of the other woman I’m not sure as to the birth time, but I will bet real money I’ve got it pretty darn close, because a.) she sounds a lot like me, with a similar childhood, and people are often attracted to the same kind of person over and over again, and b.) it’s accurately predicting events in her life. She was elected to a lead position in a certain social club here, and I knew it was going to happen a year and a half before it did. When the man in question shocked her by moving out, it was reflected in her chart, most notably by the Robert Hand interpretation of the relevant transit. (Robert Hand is another famous astrologer.)
I found myself heartbroken over the love triangle, and I reallyreally wanted to know what was going to happen. (My own astrologer, Alice Portman, is great, but she only looks two years ahead. She was right about those two years, though.)
So I was going, “And then what happens? THEN what happens?”
If you’re experienced enough to know all your aspect meanings, I recommend doing that, because the method I've used IS expensive. I wasn’t experienced, and I was suddenly making a lot more money, so what I decided to do was let The Gurus—Liz Greene and Robert Hand—interpret all the transits and progressions for me.
The part I would do is use all I know about how unresolved childhood trauma plays out in relationships over adult life to link and look at broader patterns over three decades.
I’m glad I did it this way because I do have the books I have, and when Liz Greene (who used to be a therapist) is describing old issues from childhood, those just light right up for me. I know what codependent behavior patterns are, so when I see a chain of aspect patterns describing how behavior will play out and it sounds like that, I know it isn’t just astrology—I have the codependency books that explain to me that this really is how such a person will behave over time and, oh, here’s the reason why. I’ve found these things in my own chart EXTREMELY helpful in my own therapy and I believe I’ve made major progress over the past four years that I would never have made if I had not undertaken this study.
Enough preliminaries. This is what I did:
I wanted to know larger patterns and trends. So what I did was purchase, yes, the Liz Greene Yearly Horoscope Analysis, available on astro.com for any year you want, for all three members of the triangle, every three years, for about the next thirty years. These reports, for those who haven’t bought one, pick out your 22-26 most powerful transits and progressions, with Liz Greene’s thoughts on what they mean. (I told you, I had some extra funds to do this with.)
I noticed that a lot of times two transits contradicted each other, or over time I saw that this one happened and that one didn’t. I found this very confusing. I have noticed that astrologers, when you hire one to read your chart for you, tend to read them all out at once, with a “This aspect is tough but that one will help you out,” kind of flavor. After much digestion and thought about these three charts, something emerged for me regarding this. Here’s how:
I began boiling down each aspect to a sentence or two, a phrase or two. (Miz Liz can be VERY long-winded.) I asked myself, In a sentence or two, what is she telling me this aspect means? I then jotted them down in a grid for each person in my triangle for each year I purchased the reports.
I was still confused about the contradictory nature of the aspects I was seeing—especially since, at least in my life, if an aspect sounded positive or happy, I could be pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen to ME. If it sounded like perfect shit…yep. THAT turned out to be my life.
Why was this?
What gave me my first clue (together with some background so it will make some sense):
Almost four years ago I was unceremoniously and painfully DUMPED. The person in question did this in order to go into couple’s counseling with the third member of the triangle. At this point in time, Alice The Great predicted that I would hear from this person in October of 2017, that he would be coming back to me for some advice. And this in fact happened; only I think, in retrospect, that I was the person who was actually getting the advice. (The advice was, Neither of us have worked very hard, nobody’s done much in our therapy, and we quit without making much progress. I now attend a weekly support group where I complain every so often. UGH. Not good.)
The transits and progressions I was reading were all over the map…until 2019. Suddenly, my transits and progressions split between being alone, and having a relationship start that ends up exactly like the one that just ended. The same thing happens all over again, only it takes two years instead of four months.
And their charts…wow. The male chart is stuck between two women…again…and the other female chart becomes aware of a rival and every transit that isn’t talking about success in a vocation is talking about a turbulent relationship with a guy who has another woman. These are also present in even the most cursory examination of all three natals on astro.com, in the computer reports that can be looked up for free. One may wonder if all this is accurate if I don't have her birth time right. I did some testing on the chart by changing the birth time several times. What I discovered is that the major transits stay the same on the same birth date. What changes with changing the birth time is the location of houses in the natal chart. The house locations describe the character. So, if the birth time is off, the predictive parts of the astrology remain largely the same. The house placements I have for the wife right now seem to describe her character very accurately as far as I know, therefore I'll leave the chart as I have it. The birth time makes little difference to this essay. With changes in her birth time, mostly quick Moon and Mercury transits change. The other place you see big changes is transits to her vertex, AC, and MC, With a morning birth time she gets easier transits but the natal chart is worse equipped to deal with them; an afternoon birth time gives her harder transits but she has a better natal chart to approach them with.
I could only conclude from this, and from the fact that the forecasted visit in October 2017 actually happened, that it’s the same three people again.
All these transits, in her chart, for the time starting right about now in her life, agree, except one.
Right in the middle of all that hell and high water, one. One. Right before all this starts: A great big ole’ Saturn trine Venus. She has it, ending November 2018. This is a very happy, stable relationship transit!
WTF was THAT doing there?
I recognized it right away because, when I was involved with this man, before I had any idea much about how astrology worked, a set of VERY happy transits including Saturn trine Venus materialized in my report for the next year, along with some truly awful ones. Both his therapist and mine reflected optimism for the relationship, he was saying, “Trust me, trust me,” he seemed to be making good progress in his therapy, and I saw this set of happy-happy transits and went, “I want those!” and stayed in the relationship. And none of the happy-happies happened. He dumped me and went into counseling with her, and all the crappy transits for the next four years happened—to ME! I started studying astrology, and boy, did I learn a lot.
And here it is AGAIN. In the middle of all this CRAP, she has a Saturn trine Venus. What is it doing there?
And then I thought back to the instance where MY Saturn trine Venus didn’t happen, and I thought back to what this guy told me—when he showed up again in October 2017, just as Alice Portman had predicted.
Fortunately for me, when he showed up again, I had known what to ask.
Because I have all those relationship and codependency books on my shelf and I’ve read every single one twice, I knew that how they performed in couple’s counseling was very important and I needed to know that. What he told me was that, after insisting on the counseling, she had acted like she really didn’t want to be there and sort of, in his words, “slept through it.” He said that it had been very difficult to make any progress.
Suddenly the entire past two and a half years POPPED INTO FOCUS. Reeling from my broken heart, I had looked at their charts and seen a series of transits, especially in hers, which Liz Greene and Robert Hand, in their writeups of these, assured me were excellent ones under which to make progress in therapy, healing the wounds from childhood so one’s relationships all will go better. I knew the person who recommended their therapist, he’s in the mental health field and an all-around good guy. My guy had left me, they were in counseling together…of course I assumed they were making good progress and saving their relationship, which is what normally happens in these cases.
Now I’m being told this WASN’T the case, a lot of horrible transits are coming up, and this guy is trying to worm his way back into my life as predicted.
What happened? What was going to happen?
I have developed a theory of how to read transits and progressions over the course of a whole life reading as a result of this, and here’s how it goes:
In perusing transit and progression reports written by experts—not just me guessing, trying to stumble around beginner-wise in a book, I have noticed that
EVERY CHOICE YOU COULD POSSIBLY MAKE IN A GIVEN SITUATION IN YOUR LIFE, HAS A TRANSIT AND MOST LIKELY A PROGRESSION REFLECTING THAT.
BUT, WHO DECIDES WHAT HAPPENS?
WE DO.
This is true in the above love-triangle scenario, and it is also true, apparently, for my chances at publishing a successful novel, if the next five years are any indication. (And, since publishing a successful novel requires laying plans two to five years before, it’s good that I know this.)
In the scenario in which I got dumped, this guy had the choice to go ahead and leave the old relationship. If he had, my happy-relationship transits could have happened, but he elected not to do so, and I lived the “you’ve-been-painfully-dumped-and-are-doing-a-lot-of-soul-searching-and-research” ones instead.
The possibility for me to live the Saturn Venus trine was there, but someone elected to do something else instead. And, reflective of that, the happy-happy relationship transits only went for a couple of years. They’re gone, and what I have now is, ‘’You’re either bemired in a relationship like the bad one that just ended, or you’re all alone.”
It’s almost as if…
THE PLANETS IN THE COSMOS ARE PLACING BETS ON WHAT THE PEOPLE WILL DO.
“Based on your history, we’re betting you won’t learn your lesson and you’re going to do this, therefore these awful transits assume prominence in your forecast. Pssst, there’s still time for you to notice, and DO something about this.”
In my rival’s case, she was presented the opportunity to apply herself in couple’s counseling, enter individual counseling, and make progress on her own childhood issues that were helping break up her relationship. And I know this is true, because of what I was told about both their childhoods and about her behavior.
What hit me here was, IF SHE HAD, that Saturn trine Venus would have been a reality for her. And I might not have heard from him again in October 2017. That Saturn trine marked the place where a turn for the better might have happened, IF she had chosen to do the right thing. The fact that there was only one happy-happy relationship transit here seems to reflect that, well…it wasn’t a very near miss. And, from what I’m told about her behavior during all of this time and many years before, um…this was no surprise to me.
Same thing for me coming up. It would appear that I have the choice to slide downward into depression and ennui, or to refocus and apply myself and publish something successful in the years 2022-2025. (And it’s good I know this now, because if I’m going to have something ready to publish, I have to work hard at what I’m doing in order to make that window in two years.)
GOOD LEG/BAD LEG
In summarizing every important transit for each person over this long period of time, I noticed that some sounded like very happy transits, or transits in which a lot of important psychological and emotional healing could be done, and some really did sound HORRIBLY gloom and doom, for each person.
I tried this experiment: I tried sorting the happy ones from the sad ones, and putting them all together for each person year by year in a grid. Each year, each person, good leg/bad leg.
And what I found was that all the transits, summarized and strung together end to end like this for decades, told two stories for each person: a happy, triumphant one and a very sad, tragic one. And the difference between which story we live and which story we don’t hinges on whether each person does the emotional and psychological work to recover from the aftereffects of being raised in a very hurtful and harmful childhood by parents who were too ill themselves to raise a child healthy.
In the good leg, the person does the work and receives a good outcome. In the bad leg…well. We all make our same mistakes over and over again, and the result is tragedy and suffering.
I don’t know if it’s the same in every person's chart, but for these three people, all wounded from a bad childhood, the issues that make or break success and happiness in the life are very clear. It’s obvious that healing emotionally is the crucial factor in each life, and it’s obvious where all the choice points are.
The other point I want to make is that, in my study of these three charts at least, there seems to be a clear delineation of what natal charts and transits are for. (Because you know I didn’t do all this work without a deep study of the relationship charts: the Davisons, the composites, and the synastries, too, right?)
NATAL VS TRANSITS
In every case, the natal chart, whether it be the Davison (the natal chart of the relationship) or the natal chart of a person, spells out the highest potential that the entity could be capable of reaching. I notice that the Mona Riegger Davison reports on astro.com tend to sound very rosy. Then I look at the transits of each person’s life, and they are mostly HORRIBLE.
(I mean, seriously. I look at all these horrible relationship transits coming up for me, and I pretty much don’t ever want to try to have another relationship ever again.)
Yet I look at the Davison for me and him, and it speaks of all this happiness and good, good potential. (And theirs…um…well…)
In cases where I know a lot about the relationship and how it turned out, and I have studied the Davisons for couples I know the actual trajectory of the relationship for: if the highest potential of the relationship didn’t manifest, it was because one or both people were assholes and didn’t do the work they needed to do on themselves and in the relationship for it to succeed. In cases where the highest potential of the relationship did manifest, it was because both people were serious about leaning into the yoke, learning their lessons and doing their own emotional work to make the relationship work as well as it possibly could. I am a big fan of Family Tree Brand Life Coaches, and these therapists, who have done a lot of successful marital therapy—well, this is exactly their take on things.
So what I draw from that is, Here is your natal chart or your natal relationship chart, your Davison, that is laying out what kind of entity this is and what potential this entity has to progress in their life on earth, but they can get tripped up here and here by this, this, or this. Then the transits and progressions say, Here’s where you’re going to go wrong, here’s why, and this is what will happen to you if you do.
In our cases at least, our transits and progressions are just a vale of tears, even though the Davisons look either somewhat better (their chart) or a whole lot better (our chart), because so much can go wrong, and because so much has already gone wrong in the life that the entities, driven by pain, suffering, unhealed wounds, and no courage to heal or faith to do the work, are more and more primed to do the same old thing instead of finding the courage and perspective to change direction.
Anyhow, that’s where my study of these three charts has led me. I’ve perused a lot of astrology websites, and I haven’t seen it laid out quite like this just yet.
In fact, I’ve mostly been told, “We don’t look that far ahead in charts, because it isn’t useful because things change.”
The fact is, if I had NOT looked this far ahead, I would have totally misunderstood what it meant when this person made the forecasted reappearance in October 2017. I could have made a very serious wrong decision. If the charts are right again and this person makes another reappearance—any time between January 1, 2019 and the end of October (I’m looking at my vertex, Alice!)—I could misunderstand what it means once again and make one of two possible serious mistakes. Which, since I read so far ahead, I see that my transits are cautioning me NOT to do, and, because I read far enough ahead to see the outcomes and I know so much about psychology and relationships from all my prior reading, I suspect to be the absolute truth.
CONCLUSIONS;
1.) I think that perhaps astrology should reconsider the value of looking no farther than two to three years into the future, especially when relationships are under consideration which potentially last decades in the person’s life. I believe the benefits of sorting the good and bad transits and analyzing them in this manner should be considered.
Obviously, I’ve done very limited research here. It would seem that this process could be applied to many more situations in which the outcomes are known, or the outcomes should be followed, in order to determine whether this means of looking at the data has relevance across more charts, and more lives, than just these three. (Or perhaps someone’s already done this, and I just haven’t run across it yet.) The fact that the literature on childhood trauma and how it plays out in adult life already tells us about broad patterns and that’s been established, leads me to think we would see those patterns in the astrology, too, as I’ve seen them here.
We’re apparently only halfway through our story. Big choice points are still forecasted to come up, some in 2019.
Let’s see if they do, or if all this is only bunk.
It’s all been correct so far. If an event did/does NOT happen, I just can’t prove it, that’s all. The possibility for it still existed, footnoted in the transits and progressions.
2.) What we're actually seeing in our lifetime strings of good and bad progressions are all different timelines for our existence, and we’re choosing which timeline we’re going to live.
Sad to say, we make those decisions on the basis of what kind of child we once were, and what decisions our sad little four- and eight-year-old brains made about ourselves, based on how our parents and peers were treating us in those tender, precious, crucial, vulnerable young years.
It’s like an episode of Star Trek, y’all. Remember when there were two incarnations of Kira Nerys in Deep Space Nine, and ... eh, some folks probably don't remember that. But the point is, we can choose which life we want to live, by choosing to do our own emotional healing work.
3.) One more thing: it’s evidence of intelligent design.