Monthly Astrology Checklist

A new Moon listed at 03:30 UTC falls at 19:30 the evening before in Los Angeles, eight hours behind, and at 13:30 the same day in Sydney, ten hours ahead.

A monthly astrology checklist is a way to look at the month ahead and the month behind in a calm and orderly way. It is not a forecast. It collects the facts that astrology readings depend on, such as dates and time zones, and then offers a few reflective prompts you can compare with your real calendar. Its job is the month as a whole; for a morning Moon note, see our daily astrology check-in routine, and for arranging a single week around contacts, our guide to using weekly transits for planning.

Done well, it takes about twenty minutes and ends with a few practical notes. Done poorly, it turns into a list of things to worry about, so the order below puts facts first and interpretation last.

Check three things first. Know which sign you are reading: your Sun sign, your Rising sign if you know your birth time, and perhaps your Moon sign. Know the time zone in which any dated event is given, because an event near midnight can fall on different dates in different places. And know exactly which dates the month covers, so that you do not mix up one month's themes with the next.

If a calendar or chart you use has gaps, for example a missing week or planets it does not cover, note that. An incomplete source should not be read as a complete picture of the month.

This example is constructed. A calendar lists a new Moon at 03:30 UTC. In Los Angeles, where the clock is eight hours behind UTC in standard time, that is 19:30 the evening before. In Sydney, where the clock is ten hours ahead of UTC in standard time, it is 13:30 the same day. The same event lands on two different dates.

Clocks change on different dates in different countries, so recheck the offset in the weeks when your region changes. If you plan something around the event, use your own local time.

A month is about four weeks, and each week gets one task. Keep each one to five minutes.

Some cycles repeat on a pattern you can count. The Moon goes from new to new in about 29.5 days, so a 30-day month usually contains one full Moon, and occasionally two. The Moon moves into a new sign about every 2.3 days, which means about 13 sign changes in a 30-day month. The Sun moves into a new sign about once a month.

Mercury appears to move backward three or four times a year for about three weeks each, which is nine to twelve weeks out of 52, or roughly one week in five. A retrograde is therefore common enough that blaming it for every hiccup would explain too much.

A transit is the angle between a planet's moving position and a point in your birth chart. For slow planets such as Saturn, orbs of about 1 to 3 degrees are common, and for fast ones about 1 degree. Saturn takes about two and a half years to cross a sign, and because it turns retrograde it can touch the same degree up to three times, so a single contact can span months.

If your source says a slow planet is close to a point of yours, treat it as a long theme and not a monthly event. Ask what the point stands for in your chart and what you have been doing about it lately. Many people notice nothing dramatic.

Keep the note to five lines so that you will actually write it.

1. The month's dates and the time zone you used.
2. One theme you chose to watch, written in plain words.
3. One thing that happened that matched it, and one that did not.
4. One practical step you took, and how it went.
5. One thing you will do differently next month.

Make four lists on one page so they never blur.

• Facts: dates, time zone, the Moon phase, the sign the Sun is in, which planets are involved and whether the source covers the whole month.
• Themes: the reflective ideas people associate with those facts, such as reviewing or finishing during a waning Moon.
• Calendar: your own deadlines, appointments and obligations, written first, because these outrank any theme.
• Notes: what you actually noticed at the end of the month, in plain words.

Should I change plans because of a retrograde or an eclipse? Not on astrology's say-so. If a theme prompts you to back up files or recheck details, that is harmless, but your commitments come first.

Do I need my birth time? For the Rising sign and houses, yes. A date is enough for the Sun sign on most dates and for the Moon’s phase, but the Moon’s sign sometimes needs a birth time, because the Moon changes sign about every two days or a little more.

How is this different from a monthly horoscope? A horoscope is written for one sign and is general by design. A checklist is something you do yourself, based on your own calendar.

On the last day of the month, reread your notes. Mark which themes matched what happened and which did not, and write down one thing to do differently. After a few months you will see for yourself how much weight the checklist deserves.

The checklist is not a forecast, your real deadlines outrank any theme, and a calendar or chart with gaps cannot show the whole month.