Throughout this ancient tradition over thousands of years, astrologers have used a myriad of symbolic timing techniques that function according to principles that bring our experience of time into more complex and elegant dimensions.
These techniques are not only far more ubiquitous throughout the ancient tradition than the use of transits in the way we often use them today, but also offer frameworks through which to understand how a chart—and thus a life—unfolds.

A number of these ancient techniques used different forms of calculations to determine which planet or planets would function as a chronocrator—often translated as “timelord”—for a specific period of time. When a planet is activated as a timelord, it takes on greater responsibility for describing the quality of time during that period, either for life as a whole or in reference to particular areas of life.

Each planet brings its own qualities and significations more prominently into the periods of life for which it is activated as a timelord. This can also include indicating significant developments in the areas of life associated with the houses that planet rules as well as the house in which it is placed. The condition of a planet in the natal chart is part of the story that unfolds during when that planet is activated as a timelord.

In this way, these timelord techniques are part of how ancient astrologers described when particular potentialities within a natal chart were likely to become more significant within a life. They understood that every part of the chart is not active in the same way at all times, and the variations of lived experiences could be describe by these timelord activations.

One of the most common timelord technique in practice today is called annual profections.
Annual profections activate a different part of the chart for each year of life, and the planet that rules the sign on the house that is activated by the annual profection is understood as responsible for that year.
Starting from the Ascendant as the first year of life, with each subsequent birthday—also known as your solar return—the profection advances to the next sign in zodiacal order, activating a different part of the chart and a different planet as the annual timelord.

Profections can also be advanced through the chart month by month.

In both annual and monthly profections, specific areas of life take on more emphasis or focus as the profection comes to a specific house in the chart and activates a different planet as timelord for that period.
Profections are relatively easy to calculate because they advance on the annual scale on your solar return and on the monthly scale counting month to month from your solar return.

Other timelord techniques are calculated using more complex methods and are also capable of describing longer periods of time in your life.
For example, techniques like circumambulations through the bounds—also known as distributions through the bounds—and zodiacal releasing divide the life into different periods or chapters of different lengths, for which different planets are responsible, indicating both the quality of such periods as well as the themes that can become story arcs throughout those chapters.

Circumambulations through the bounds is calculated by projecting the Ascendant forward through the bounds of the signs of zodiac at a rate that is based on the ascensional time of the signs. The bounds of the zodiac are irregular subdivisions of the signs of the zodiac for which different planets are responsible.

The ascensional time of a sign is measured by how many equatorial degrees—degrees of the celestial equator—pass across the Midheaven while that sign is rising over the horizon at a given latitude. This rate in degrees is translated into years of your life.
As we project the Ascendant forward through the degrees of the bounds of the zodiac year by year, the planet that rules the bounds through which the projected Ascendant is moving is said to be the primary timelord for the period during which the projected Ascendant is advancing through its bounds.

Zodiacal releasing starts from either the Lot of Fortune or Lot of Spirit, advancing through the zodiac at rates that are based primarily on the minor years of the planets, which are translated into a number of years, months, weeks, and days corresponding to the minor years of the planet that rules the sign that is activated according to this technique. The minor years of the planets are generally based on their synodic return cycles—the number of years it takes for that planet to make a conjunction with the Sun in approximately the same part of the sky.

So, for example, the planet Mercury takes approximately 20 years to make a conjunction with the Sun in the same part of the sky. In zodiacal releasing, when one of Mercury’s signs—Gemini or Virgo—is activated, Mercury will be the timelord for 20 years, 20 months, 20 weeks, or 20 days, depending on the timescale we are examining.

At any point in your life, each of these symbolic timing techniques can tell a different part of the story of how your life is unfolding, often at different scales.
Zodiacal releasing can identify planets as timelords at the longest scale, anywhere from 8 to 30 years at a time—then can also identify timelords for shorter timelines at the scale of months, weeks, and days.
Circumambulations through the bounds can identify planets as timelords for periods of a couple of years up to around 12 years or so—depending on the ascensional times of the signs at the latitude where you were born.
Annual profections can identify planets as timelords for a year at a time, whereas monthly profections can identify planets as timelords month to month, in combination with the annual timelord.

Thus, using these techniques in combination with one another, you very well may have three to eight different timelords at any given time, each one offering a different part of your story.

Each planet signifies different qualities, experiences, and lessons that characterize the periods for which they are activated as a timelord in any of these techniques.

During different periods, we might be learning more about responsibility and boundaries, freedom and abundance, navigating conflict and finding uses for our anger, coming into our own sovereignty and seeing things clearly in a new way, learning more about what it means to love and be loved well, focusing on your own studies or how you are putting ideas out into the world, or orienting toward caretaking and tending to the needs of the body, for example.
Some planets can indicate greater ease while others can indicate greater effort—but whatever the planets describe, they are part of how we become more of who it is that we are here to be.

Throughout our lives, different planets come into these timelord roles for different overlapping or coinciding periods, like a committee or council of planets guiding us through our own processes of becoming.

These are relatively cursory descriptions of these techniques, but I share them as a gesture toward the ways that the ancients thought about symbolic time and how a chart can come to describe the story of a life.
These are techniques that I use in all of my timing work with clients—along with secondary progressions, transits, and the solar return chart.
If you are interested in exploring what these techniques can offer to your understanding of your life, you can reach out using the contact form on the Bookings page.

What is your progressed lunation phase?

One of the astrological timing techniques that I examine any time I’m doing timing work with a client is the progressed lunation phase.

Secondary progressions is an ancient symbolic timing technique that takes a day of life to be symbolic of a year of life. So, if we want to get insight into year 40—for example—we would look at what was going on in the sky on the 40th day after you were born, almost as a foreshadowing or a microcosm of what is now unfolding at the macrocosm, like a fractal reiterating across the years of your life.

Month to month, the Moon takes about 29.5 days to make a full lunation cycle—from one New Moon to the next New Moon. This cycle is divided into eight lunation phases, each one lasting between three-to-four days.
By secondary progressions, this cycle becomes nearly 30 years of our lives, and each phase of that cycle describe three-to-four years of our lives.

The progressed lunation phase tells us what phase of the lunation cycle you are moving through according to secondary progressions. The progressed lunation phase can describe the general quality of time through which you are moving as well as locate where you are in some of the longer stories that are unfolding throughout each progressed lunation cycle.

Progressed New Moon lunation phase:
This is a major period of rebirth, reinvention, or reset, the start of a new almost 30-year cycle of planting, growing, and emergence.
It can be a time when we are filled with new energy, anticipation, and enthusiasm, without necessarily having a clear sense of where we are headed.
It’s still a very dark time in the lunation cycle, so you might not yet be able to see your path clearly.
It can be a time of planting a lot of seeds, following your intuition and instincts, not yet knowing what will take root, grow, and develop over the next three decades.

Progressed Waxing Crescent lunation phase:
This is the phase of the lunation cycle when the crescent Moon becomes visible in the sky, slowing waxing and growing in its light.
It is a time when you start to see a glimpse of what is beginning to grow and take root during this cycle, gaining some clarity about what it is you are here to do during this period of your life.
But while the light of the Moon is growing, the majority of the Moon remains in shadow—which can feel like keen awareness that what you don’t know is so much more than what you do know.
The invitation of this lunation phase is often to follow the light that is visible, trusting that as you move in the direction of what you do know or understand, more will come to be revealed.

Progressed Waxing Quarter lunation phase:
This lunation phase starts with the Moon half in light and half in shadow—then gradually waxing into more and more light.
It can be a dynamic period of life in which you are gathering more resources, opportunities, and connections.
It can also be a time that requires pushing through some kind of internal or external resistance—like a new plant that has put down roots pushing through the surface of the soil in order to establish its life as viable.
You are, in a sense, breaking through the ground in which you’ve been planted in order to establish your viability as this person, this self, and the life that you are creating for this cycle.

Progressed Waxing Gibbous lunation phase:
This is the phase just before the Full Moon, and it can carry a similar sort of feeling, of being “almost there” or in the final stretch of the effort needed to bring something to its culmination.
It is often a time of refining, revising, optimizing, and improving—clarifying the vision of what it is you are bringing into the world, and taking the steps that are needed to move toward that offering.
Often, there are seeds that were planted back during the progressed New Moon period that are moving toward their blossoming during the progressed Full Moon.
Thus, these are the years of the buds of what you’ve cultivated emerging and swelling, the final stages of development before blossoming.

Progressed Full Moon lunation phase:
This is the brightest part of the lunation cycle, when the Moon makes its culmination into full visibility.
It is a period of something coming to fruition that was seeded or planted back during your progressed New Moon.
It is a period of greater resources and opportunities, greater potential for connection with others, and a sense of having access to all that you need in order to handle what is coming up for you.
It doesn’t mean there won’t be any ups and downs or challenges, but it suggests that you have everything you need to meet the challenges or victories as they arise.
The progressed Full Moon phase can also mark a major turning point, from moving in one direction in your life toward moving in another.

Progressed Disseminating lunation phase:
This phase follows after the Full Moon, when the Moon is still abundant in its light but also technically waning and releasing the light that it has gathered.
That waning can describe a time of sharing from a place of abundance, giving back to others, our communities, and society at large.
It is a time when we are finding ways to offer the wisdom, insights, and resources that we have accumulated over the course of this progressed lunation cycle—since the start of the progressed New Moon phase.
Sometimes this can literally take the form of doing more teaching, training, or mentoring others, but it can also coincide with significant periods of creative output as well.

Progressed Waning Quarter lunation phase:
At the start of this phase, the Moon is once again half in light and half in shadow, then waning into the darker half of the lunation cycle.
It can be a time for making dynamic changes in life, especially stepping away from things you’ve built that are no longer working or no longer in alignment for yourself.
Sometimes it’s simply a matter of no longer needing some of what you have built.
Just because those were the right choices at the time all along the way doesn’t mean that they are all still what you need now.
This can involve a reorientation, getting clear about your own personal truth, and making changes that are necessary for you to live in alignment with that truth.

Progressed Balsamic lunation phase:
This is the final and darkest period of the lunation cycle, when the Moon is releasing its light and moving deeper into shadow.
These are years that will most likely require slowing down, turning inward, making more time for rest, retreat, reflection, and recovery.
It can be a time of significant endings—which is not to say that everything in your life will end, but that you may experience or observe some significant stories in your life reaching their conclusion during these years.
It correlates with the season of winter, a necessary time in the cycle when you are allowing the ground to lay fallow, releasing what has come before, and composting the remains of the last several decades, in preparation for the start of the next progressed lunation cycle.

The progressed lunation phase is only one part of the astrological stories that are unfolding for you at any particular time, but I find it provides a significant context within which we can then interpret many of the other developments that unfold on shorter timelines.
It can give us a sense of the bigger picture, where you are in a larger nearly 30-year cycle, almost like situating you in your own personal cycle of the seasons or your own process of planting, growing, harvesting, and resting.

I bring the progressed lunation phase into all of my timing work with clients, so if you are curious about your progressed lunation phase and how it is woven into all of the other stories that are unfolding for you, I have a few consultation sessions remaining in January, February, and March.
If this is work you would like to do together, you can contact me through the Bookings page on my website.

When looking at where the planets will be moving in 2026—which astrologers describe as “transits”—there are a number of significant stories developing in the sky this year.
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune will move fully into new signs that they visited briefly in 2025. Saturn will be in Aries until 2028. Uranus will be in Gemini until 2033. Neptune will be in Aries until 2039.
We will have our first eclipses on the Aquarius/Leo axis—an eclipse cycle that will continue until January 2028—along with eclipses continuing to unfold on the Virgo/Pisces axis.
Jupiter will finish its time in Cancer and move into Leo, a sign that it visits only once every 12 years.
Venus will have a retrograde cycle that moves through parts of Scorpio and Libra, a part of the sky where Venus’ retrograde cycle only occurs every 8 years.
And we will have Mercury retrograde cycles in all of the water signs—Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio.
 
While these are planetary movements that we will all experience collectively, they may be more or less significant for different people personally depending on the unique configuration of each person’s chart.
And as always, transits are only ever one part of the story. Transits tend to get much more discussion online because they are more easily generalizable, but transits are only one way that astrology describes the quality of time with which we are moving. Throughout this ancient tradition over thousands of years, astrologers have used a myriad of symbolic timing techniques that function according to principles that bring our experience of time into more complex and elegant dimensions. So, even as I offer these details about the transits of 2026, remember that even if these transits are making degree-based connections to your own chart, they are only ever a part your own personal astrological story.

If any of these transits are making connections with your chart this year, and you would like to talk through how they could be part of the multiple stories developing in your life throughout the year ahead, I still have a few sessions remaining in January, February, and March. If that is work you would like to do together, you can contact me through the Bookings page on my website.
 
Pluto:

-Pluto starts the year at 2º43’ Aquarius
-Pluto reaches 5º30’ Aquarius, then stations retrograde on 6 May 2026
-Pluto retrogrades back to 3º04’ Aquarius, then stations direct on 16 October 2026
-Pluto finishes the year at 4º19’ Aquarius

So, if you have any planets or angles between 2º43’ and 5º30’ Aquarius—as well as those same degrees in Taurus, Leo, or Scorpio—then you will be having a Pluto transit in 2026.
 
Neptune:

-Neptune starts the year at 29º30’ Pisces
-Neptune ingresses into Aries on 26 January 2026
-Neptune reaches 4º25’ Aries, then stations retrograde on 7 July 2026
-Neptune retrogrades back to 1º36’ Aries, then stations direct on 12 December 2026
-Neptune finishes the year at 1º42’ Aries

So, if you have planets or angles between 29º30’ and 29º59’ Pisces—as well as those same degrees in Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius—then you will be having a Neptune transit in 2026.
And if you have any planets of angles between 0º00’ Aries and 4º25’ Aries—as well as those same degrees in Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn—then you will also be having a Neptune transit in 2026.
 
Uranus:

-Uranus starts the year retrograde at 27º57’ Taurus
-Uranus retrogrades back to 27º27’ Taurus, then stations direct on 4 February 2026
-Uranus ingresses into Gemini on 26 April 2026
-Uranus reaches 5º41’ Gemini, then stations retrograde on 10 September 2026
-Uranus finishes the year retrograde at 2º20’ Gemini

So, if you have any planets or angles between 27º27’ and 29º59’ Taurus—as well as those same degrees in Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius—then you will be having a Uranus transit in 2026.
And if you have any planets or angles between 0º00’ and 5º41’ Gemini—as well as those same degrees in Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces—then you will also be having a Uranus transit in 2026.
 
Saturn:

-Saturn starts the year at 26º10’ Pisces
-Saturn ingresses into Aries on 14 February 2026
-Saturn reaches 14º45’ Aries, then stations retrograde on 26 July 2026
-Saturn retrogrades back to 7º55’ Aries, then stations direct on 10 December 2026
-Saturn finishes the year at 8º17’ Aries

So, if you have any planets or angles between 26º10’ and 29º59’ Pisces—as well as those same degrees in Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius—then you will be having a Saturn transit in 2026.
And if you have any planets or angles between 0º00’ and 14º45’ Aries—as well as those same degrees in Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn—then you will also be having a Saturn transit in 2026.
 
Jupiter:

-Jupiter starts the year retrograde at 21º21’ Cancer
-Jupiter retrogrades back to 15º05’ Cancer, then stations direct on 11 March 2026
-Jupiter ingresses into Leo on 30 June 2026
-Jupiter reaches 27º01’ Leo, then stations retrograde on 13 December 2026
-Jupiter finishes the year retrograde at 26º30’ Leo

So, if you have any planets or angles between 21º21’ and 29º59’ Cancer—as well as those same degrees in Libra, Capricorn, and Aries—then you will be having a Jupiter transit this year.
And if you have any planets or angles between 0º00’ and 27º01’ Leo—as well as those same degrees in Scorpio, Aquarius, and Taurus—then you will also be having a Jupiter transit in 2026.
 
Venus retrograde:

-Venus will station retrograde at 8º29’ Scorpio on 3 October 2026
-Venus will station direct at 22º51º Libra on 14 November 2026
 
Mercury retrogrades:

-Mercury will station retrograde at 22º33’ Pisces on 26 February 2026
-Mercury will station direct at 8º31’ Pisces on 20 March 2026
-Mercury will station retrograde at 26º14’ Cancer on 29 June 2026
-Mercury will station direct at 16º21’ Cancer on 23 July 2026
-Mercury will station retrograde at 20º58’ Scorpio on 24 October 2026
-Mercury will station direct at 5º04’ Scorpio on 13 November 2026
 
Eclipses:

-17 February 2026: Solar Eclipse at 28º Aquarius
-3 March 2026: Lunar Eclipse at 12º Virgo
-12 August 2026: Solar Eclipse at 20º Leo
-28 August 2026: Lunar Eclipse at 4º Pisces