AstraFlow learning guides
Transits and the nodes: what is moving, and what it asks.
Learn what a transit is, why Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu are read as the slow movers, how AstraFlow counts a transit from the Moon and the Ascendant, and what to record without turning a position into a prediction.
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What is a transit, and what are Rahu and Ketu?
A transit is where a planet is in the sky now, read against where the planets were when you were born. Jupiter and Saturn move slowly, so a transit of either lasts a year or more; Rahu and Ketu are the lunar nodes, the two points where the Moon’s path crosses the Sun’s, and they move backwards through the zodiac over about eighteen and a half years. AstraFlow reads these four as the slow movers that set a season’s tone, counts each from your natal Moon and from your Ascendant separately, and offers the result as a question to notice, not an event to expect.
A transit is a position, not an event
Every planet keeps moving after your birth. Your chart is a photograph of one moment; a transit compares the sky today with that photograph. Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars change sign in days or weeks, so their transits colour a day. Jupiter spends about a year in a sign, Saturn about two and a half, and the nodes about a year and a half, so their transits colour a season. AstraFlow refreshes the fast movers twice a day and the slow movers once a day; the Moon’s position is what Today reads, the slow movers are what Patterns reads.
In the sidereal system AstraFlow uses, positions are measured against the fixed stars with the Lahiri ayanamsha, so a sign here can differ from a tropical horoscope by roughly a sign. The settings are stated on the Elvis Presley example so a reading can be reproduced.
Rahu and Ketu are points, not planets
The nodes are the two places where the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic. They are always opposite each other, always moving backwards, and they have no body: nothing is there to see. Tradition treats them as planets because eclipses happen when the Sun and Moon meet them. AstraFlow uses the mean node, the smoothed average position, rather than the true node, which wobbles; both are stated choices, and a reading tells you which it used.
In the traditional reading Rahu is associated with wanting, novelty and reaching further; Ketu with letting go, what is already known, and what no longer holds attention. Because the two are always opposite, a Rahu transit of one house is a Ketu transit of the house across from it: a season of reaching in one area of life is, in the same breath, a season of release in another. AstraFlow does not cast aspects from the nodes; a node is read by the house it occupies and nothing more. That is a lineage choice stated in the method, not a universal rule.
Two counts, two different questions
A transit is counted from the natal Moon to ask about tone: the classical gochara tables list, for each planet, the houses from the Moon where its transit is traditionally read as supportive. Rahu and Ketu are read as supportive in the third, sixth, tenth and eleventh from the Moon under the lineage AstraFlow follows, the same houses as the Sun; other lineages differ, and the table is published so the difference is visible.
The same transit is counted from the Ascendant to ask which area of life is activated: a Saturn transit of the tenth house from the Ascendant turns attention to work and standing, whatever its tone from the Moon. Keeping the two counts separate is deliberate. An older failure mode treated any transit of a difficult house as a bad event. AstraFlow lets the house name the subject and the Moon count suggest the tone, and when the two disagree it says so rather than netting them into one score.
Node transits are marked as volatile rather than good or bad: the signal is that the area tends to move quickly and unevenly. That is a reason to record more, not a reason to fear.
What to record
The Patterns tab shows which slow movers are active for you, which area each touches and a reflection prompt for it. The prompt is the whole output; there is no date on which something will happen. A useful entry is one line about what you noticed in that area this week, in your own words, dated today. Over a season those lines are the record; the transit is the heading.
When a slow mover returns to a sign it occupied years ago, Patterns can show the earlier passage and ask one question: steadier, mixed, harder, or do not remember. Your answer is stored as your report of that time; it never changes the chart and it never becomes proof that the planet did anything.
Questions about this guide.
Can a transit tell me when something will happen?
No. AstraFlow reads a transit as a season with a subject and a tone, and offers a question to carry into it. It does not name dates for events, and no reading here will tell you to act or wait on a particular day.
Why do my Rahu and Ketu signs differ from another app?
Three settings change the answer: sidereal or tropical zodiac, which ayanamsha, and mean or true node. AstraFlow uses sidereal, Lahiri and the mean node, and says so. A difference of one sign is almost always one of these settings, not an error.
Method and further reading.
Written by AstraFlow. Updated . These guides explain the framework and distinguish calculated placements from interpretation; they do not introduce new personal-reading rules.
Spoken version: WHO CONTROLS YOU? | Astrology Beyond Prediction | AstraFlow (YouTube, opens in a new tab) → A talk on whether the planets control a life: what a chart can and cannot say, and where choice comes in. It covers the ground this guide covers, spoken.
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