Not so long ago Mars had a retrograde period. He made his retrograde station exactly on my ascendant, stumbled back into a 12th house trine to the natal moon, then sauntered back across my ascendant. Not a thing. I was watching and waiting and not a thing.

I have always taken it as axiomatic in astrology that "nothing can happen that is not promised in the radix (the Root)". In order for those things to happen, the directions and progressions must "prepare the ground and sow the seed." Then, like warm sunshine, the transits encourage the latent seeds to sprout and bear fruit.

But to throw out the transits (and to ignore the invisible planets) seems to me folly on the part of an astrologer. Unless you have some secret method the rest of us don't know about. I have seen far too many of these transits, both in my own life and the lives of others, produce not only significant but life-changing "events".

Look at Prague and the expulsion of Pluto from the Royal Order of Planets. Pluto was rejected, cast out, like a jailbird given a number, and the cluttered House of Astronomy (which had gotten to be very messy with all the new discoveries) was "purified, or cleansed." Is it any surprise that Pluto was thrown out? It was not, because it is Pluto's intrinsic nature.

It is also in Pluto's nature to work "underground", in the dark, unseen (to inject some mythology, he wears the Helmet of Invisibility)...until forces accumulate and reach a critical point. The "events" can be unseen, but very important and powerful nevertheless.

Pluto is the only planet that touches each and every degree of the zodiac three times during his orbit of the Sun. Often enough these three contacts require TWO retrograde periods to occur. Between November of 1952 (retrograde station opposition natal Mercury, partile), August 1953 (direct passage over opposition), January 1954 (retrograde passage over opposition), and finally July 1954 (direct and final passage over opposition) Pluto made 4 contacts by opposition with my natal Mercury. The time span, 21 months. I can relate (by memory, and so it is approximate but still valid) distinct events, all related, to those passages. And one of those events took place within a minute or two in my own head, and nowhere else, and formed the course of my life which affects me to this day. External events (which no one would normally call "event" because it was all so humdrum and commonplace) opened the gates to a previously unsuspected world that led to my life-changing choice. I have seen Pluto work this way in my own life many times since then.

During the Pluto period of reference, it should be noted that Uranus crossed the Ascendant and both Saturn and Neptune danced on the natal Moon, while the North Node came to Venus. So we can cast out the three modern planets, say that Saturn and the Node were the effective transits...and lose an immense store of information, deep and detailed.

I think that perhaps it is our preconceived notion of what comprises an "event" that precludes our seeing it. We are expecting drums and trumpets, and when the parade fails to appear, we think nothing happened.

We all know the old story, "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost...." Little things have consequences.

What comprises an "event"? And how do the "effects" of that event (seen as causative) manifest?

I like to tell stories. No apologies.

One day I went to the library. I like to read. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just an interesting book. I bumped into B.K.S. Iyengar's "Light on Yoga" and thought it looked interesting, decided to see if I could teach myself yoga from his book. I found his book thorough enough that I in fact began a daily practice of yoga and kept it up for six months or so.

But I moved on to other things. A few years went by and yoga was put aside. And now I found myself in Mexico, discovered there was a children's home in the city I was in, and went to work there as a (nearly) unpaid volunteer. Needing to have at least some income, I thought about how to earn a few pesos. Astrology could meet this need. But where could I look for potential clients. Hmm. People who have an interest in yoga are often also interested in astrology. I found a quasi-religious/spiritual group in town that offered yoga. On my first or second visit to this place I saw a handbill tacked to the wall announcing an "ashram" five or six hundred miles away. I decided to go there.

I spent six months in that ashram. When I left my life had taken a new turn. This would never have happened had I not taken a book from the library years before.

Our lives are full of such little things that determine our path in life. More often than not, they go unnoticed even by ourselves.

I have 3 children and a dozen grandkids because I decided to help the drivers of a bus I was riding change a flat tire. When the beautiful young woman in the seat behind me noticed I wanted to clean my hands afterward, but had nothing to do that with, she offered me her handkerchief. I didn't marry her, but I would never have stopped off in the town where she lived -- and met my future wife -- had it not been for the incident on the bus. Changing a tire was life-changing.

"Events" are not always accompanied by thunder and lightning, or whirlwinds guiding us through the desert. This does not make them any the less momentous.

Tom, I gave the real-life personal "Non-experience" of Mars coming to My Ascendant, making retrograde station there partile.....

If that is not a significant transit...

If transits have no predictive value, then ...

Henry Weingarten used to say, and if he's still walking this Earth probably continues to say, "If you see it once, possible...Twice, probably...Three times, you can go to the bank on it."

Predictions should be based on two things. The first is "Accumulation of Evidence." A single isolated transit does not carry the weight of several indications pointing in the same direction. Transits without support from directions and/or progressions are not normally dependable indicators (and this support is "accumulation of evidence".)

The second basis for predictions (if they are not long-term fortune-telling type predictions, which of course have their place) is, in my view, a thorough familiarity with the current life situation of the client. What is going on in your life today?

When knowledge of current life circumstances is combined with accumulated astrological evidence, it can be a very powerful and useful tool indeed.

I think questioning the nature of an "event" is not only valid but necessary.
If we don't check our premises we are quite likely to find ourselves operating on unrealistic expectations, and that's some mighty thin ice.

[quote]Transits without support from directions and/or progressions are not normally dependable indicators (/quote]

Which is my point.

Oh. Well why didn't you say so?

I did say so:

"Transits are not enough," I was taught by my first astrology teacher - a modern. I think she was right.

Yikes, Paul! Is that you?

As a modern astrologer, let me pose a question, then, to traditionalists who don't use Pluto.

If you can recall a genuinely devastating, crummy time in your life, when ruthless people or impersonal circumstances beyond your control just seemed out to crush you--and nearly did..... what transits or progressions were active in your life then?

If not Pluto, what else was happening? Saturn?

Tom wrote:I find it interesting that moderns who disdain the use of the word "malefic" think nothing of assigning all sorts of malice to the outer three planets.

A while ago, in some 19th century books on google, I found that the meaning of Uranus and Neptune were believed to be of a Saturn like nature, cold and malefic (but often less than Saturn) because of the distance. Therefore a somewhat Ptolemaic (geocentric) assignation to them for some floors higher and similar to Saturn like brothers.

"He (Georgium Sidus=Uranus ) has no Houses allotted to him, but participates of the nature of the malevolent Planet Saturn, in the highest degree; and is therefore equally unfortunate, according to the place in which he falls, in the Radical figure." http://books.google.nl/books?id=yP4TAAA ... &q&f=false p. 59 year 1810

I found something else on the rulership of Uranus but will post it in the outer planets and rulerships thread

Hi Tom-- I personally see all of the planets as having positive and negative potentials. A nice trine from Pluto might be very beneficial to someone. Similarly, Saturn has circumstances in which it can be very positive. (Whoops! I think some traditional astrologers of yore indicated as much. )