Yearly Astrology Guide

Mira, a constructed person with Gemini rising and her Sun at 12 degrees Scorpio, gives Saturn a 3-degree orb, so her sixth-house window runs from 9 to 15 degrees Scorpio, about six months of forward motion.

A yearly astrology guide is a map of the cycles that run through any twelve months. It names the layers, says how long each one lasts, and lists the questions an astrologer asks about it. It is not a forecast. The sky supplies dates and positions, and everything beyond those is interpretation.

Keep two kinds of statement apart. “The Sun enters a new sign about once a month” is astronomy that an ephemeris (a table of planetary positions) can confirm. “Eclipses mark endings along one pair of houses” is a symbolic reading with no test attached. This guide works for any year.

Every year holds clocks running at different speeds. Fast ones, like the Moon, repeat often. Slow ones, like Saturn, barely move within twelve months.

Division shows how much of each cycle a year holds. The Moon's 29.5-day cycle gives 365 divided by 29.5, about 12.4, so a year has twelve or thirteen new Moons. Its 27.3-day circuit gives about 13.4 trips around the zodiac.

Eclipse seasons 173 days apart give 365 divided by 173, about 2.1, so a year holds two seasons and, in some years, parts of three. Mercury's three or four retrogrades of about 21 days total 63 to 84 days, between a sixth and a quarter of the year.

The slow planets invert the math. Jupiter covers 360 degrees in about 12 years, so about 30 degrees a year or 2.5 a month. Saturn covers about 12 degrees a year, close to a degree a month. That is why overviews list them by sign and house, rarely by day.

An ephemeris or a well-edited almanac supplies the dated facts, and you supply the structure. Make a table with four columns: date or window, layer, sign and house, and your note.

Check each date against a second source and a time zone, because one moment worldwide lands on different calendar days in different places.

1. Choose the span: a calendar year, or birthday to birthday.
2. List the Sun's sign entries, about twelve rows.
3. Add only the new and full Moons that matter to you.
4. Add the stations (days a planet appears to stand still before reversing) for Mercury, Venus and Mars.
5. Add the sign changes of Jupiter and Saturn, and shade each eclipse window.
6. Write the house beside each entry, counting whole-sign houses from your Rising sign, or from your Sun sign if you lack a birth time.
7. Leave the note column empty, then fill it from your diary as time passes.

Mira is a constructed person with Gemini rising and a natal Sun at 12 degrees Scorpio. Whole-sign houses from Gemini run Gemini 1, Cancer 2, Leo 3, Virgo 4, Libra 5, Scorpio 6, so her Sun, and any planet passing through Scorpio, sits in her sixth house.

Suppose Saturn moves through Scorpio and approaches her Sun's degree. A 3-degree orb either side gives a window from 9 to 15 degrees Scorpio, 6 degrees wide. At about a degree a month, that is about six months of forward motion, which she notes as a sixth-house theme about daily routines.

Saturn is retrograde about 4.5 months a year, so it can cross the degree three times and spread the contact over two or three years. If an eclipse season is centered two months into her span, the next is 173 days later, about six months, near month eight.

Published forecasts mix four kinds of claim. Sorting one line by line takes about ten minutes and shows how much of it you can check.

A good forecast is mostly the first two kinds and says the second is symbolic. One made mostly of the last two is entertainment, which is fine if you know it.

Most disappointment comes from how the map is used, not from the sky.

• Treating a collective event as personal. An eclipse is the same sky for everyone, and it reaches your chart only through a house or an exact contact to your planets.
• Treating a forecast as a schedule. A shaded window is a theme, not a deadline.
• Reading everything at once. Choose two or three layers and follow those.
• Skipping your own record. The note column shows what a layer means in your days.

Does a year start in January or March? Both are used. Many astrologers start the zodiac year when the Sun enters Aries at the March equinox, about March 20, and a solar return frame runs birthday to birthday.

Do I need a birth time? Not for the Sun, Moon phases, stations or eclipses. For houses from your Rising sign, yes, since it changes about every two hours.

What if a forecast worries me? Treat it as a prompt to check your plans, not as news. Talk with someone you trust if worry is heavy, and take health, money or safety questions to a qualified person.

Once the page exists, spend ten minutes at the end of each month writing one line on what each layer seemed to be about in your real days. At the end of the span, reread the lines and ask which layers described your experience and which did not.

It describes cycles and questions for any year but cannot predict named events, and a shaded window is a theme rather than a deadline.