Expert: Zane B Stein - 1/8/2008

Question
hi again; and although it is a little bit late: happy new year!
my question is about interpretation of transits.
on the same day, there can be two or more transits that are opposits of each other.
lets say one tells that "you have many love opportunities these days", the other one says "forget about the romance side of your life nowadays".
and when there are a lot of contradictions- more than just two transits- in a specific period, i can hardly interpret the condition of those days.
houses, planets or something else... is there a certain way of distinguishing the priorities when reading the transits?

Answer
Hi, Foglia,

Happy New Year to you also.

The easiest way to answer your question is to say that every day is a mixture of influences. Except for the Moon, which moves very quickly, every other transiting planet is a gradually increasing influence up to the moment of exact, and then a gradually decreasing influence afterwards.

Let's take some examples.  
Pluto first enters Capricorn this year on January 26. On that date it reaches 0 degrees 1 minute Capricorn. It does not reach 1 degree 01 minute Capricorn until the second week of March.  
Supposing you have a planet in your chart at 3 degrees of Capricorn.  You will begin to feel Pluto's influence at the end of January.  Over the next many weeks, Pluto's influence will be growing stronger and stronger as it moves closer to your planet.  The second week of March, Pluto is only 2 degrees away, so you feel it much more intensely than you do
in January.  In early April, Pluto reaches a station, and then begins to move retrograde.  You will feel the station intensely, then the influence will gradually lessen as Pluto retrograde moves back away from your planet at 3 degrees. Later in the year, Pluto will move forward again, and you will begin to feel the influence grow and grow, even stronger than before as it gets ever closer to 3 degrees Capricorn.
Another example.  On an average day, Mars moves about a half  
a degree. So let's go back to your hypothetical planet at 3 Capricorn. When Mars enters Capricorn, you begin to feel it.
Over the next six days, the influence gets stronger and stronger, being at its most intense on the day it is exactly
on your planet.  Then as it passes 3 Capricorn, it's influence gets less and less but is still felt over the next few days.

The Moon is the exception, because the Moon's influence can be felt in hours rather than days. So you may feel the Moon's influence when it first enters Capricorn, ever incresing over the next 6 hours until it is exactly at 3 Capricorn, then decreasing over the next several hours.

Any single day, you can have many different transits going on in your life, some increasing, some increasing....and sometimes, some exact.  Thus every day will be a mixture of many different influences, in different amounts.

So let us say Venus is about to enter your 5th house.  There will be a growing opportunity for romance over the days ahead, and there may be an especially romantic period as Venus is right at the doorway to your 5th.  Let us say at the same time that Saturn has been squaring your own Venus for some time, and is just beginning to move away.  This is usually a time when there is a cooling when it comes to love.  But because Saturn is moving away, the cooling is decreasing, and because Venus is moving into the 5th, romance may be on the horizon.

Priorities? You need to look at all the aspects. Which ones are increasing, which ones decreasing...and then you can get
a glimpse of the whole picture.  

I hope that helps.

Zane