How the Flow of Time Shapes Us. (Using the Patterns of Timing Techniques as a Factor in Natal Chart Interpretation.)

  
   We are all affected and shaped by the way that life, and time itself molds us.  Like a mountain slowly being whittled away by the wind, transits will affect who we are, and how we respond to life in an infinite feedback loop between how our natal chart conditions us to respond, and how the chart itself is designed to receive transits on any given scale of time.  Everything is cyclical, and as such, the very structure of our chart describes how events in life will play out on a structural level, which then teaches us how we will flow with the ups and downs of life.  What follows are two separate ways to gain further insight into a natal chart by considering the way the waves of time will crash against the shores of your chart.
   We will start on the level of basic transits.  While I don't generally use anything beyond the Ptolemaic aspects (and the Semi-squares and Sesquisquares, for the lunation cycle) in natal chart interpretation, when it comes to transits and progressions, they can yield important information.  I've written before how the Quincunx and Semi-sextile show a relationship between two natal planets where when one receives a stressful square, the other is receiving an easy Trine or  Sextile from the same transit.  This creates a situation I liken to a distant relative you never see, who cares enough about the family to be there when you really need help.  It seems to describe why some modern interpretations of the Quincunx explain it as a situation which requires a creative solution. 
   In this interpretative method, we need to consider both the Quincunx and the Semi-sextile, so that every planet in any given numerical degree will be aspecting all other signs within the same degree.  The first step in this technique is something I do for any chart I work on.  I build a list in numerical order, regardless of sign, of all the points I want to study in a chart.  So starting from 0 degrees 0 minutes of all signs, I list all the planets and other points I'm going to use, jotting the sign down next to each point.

Never mind the quality of my penmanship.  I write on a computer for a reason.

  I then use this list to plot transit graphs.   In working with this I noticed a pattern in how people will then react to transits.  For a chart that has all their sensitive points bunched up into one or two segments of the 30 degree divisions, they will have times in life where transits are lighting everything up all at once, and times of ease where nothing is happening.  This is going on on a daily level (as the Moon takes 2.5 days to transit a sign, hence touching every point in the chart for a few hours 3 times a week) and in much longer more fundemental scales where Pluto can take 30 years to transit one sign.  This then conditions the native to behave in certain reactionary emotional patterns.  For people with their planets bunched up, they will tend to have huge emotional ups and downs.  For people whose planets are more evenly spread out amongst the degree numbers, they will have a more even keel life of steady progress and mood.  Daily nuisances are less likely to phase these people.  Take a look at the charts you regularly study and see if this is so.
   The next technique I want to discuss here is Zodiacal releasing.  This is a complicated Time Lord technique I don't seek to teach here, but Chris Brennan is more than happy to fill you in on how to use this technique in this video.  I will give the relevant details here however.  In Zodiacal Releasing, one uses the signs angular from the Lot of Fortune to denote peak periods of activity as they advance a lot, (most commonly the Lot of Spirit) around the chart.  So if your Lot of Fortune is within a Fixed sign, then the Cardinal signs show a build up of activity to the peak, or a seeding of something, while the Mutable signs will show a completion and dissemination of the peak activity.  This sequence of running the Lot of Spirit through the signs happens on numerous fractal layers.  You can calculate your own Zodiacal releasing periods here.  I suggest that once you understand this system take a day with some serious ups and downs and time it out on the 7th and 8th layers which Astro-seek allows.  You will be shocked at how well the minute Zodiacal releasing periods will time shifts in mood and difficulty to the minute. 
   Getting that preamble out of the way brings us to how a basic view of the chart layout from the positioning of the Lot of Fortune can give you a perspective on how the native views work and activity in general.  A further consideration in these rising and falling peak periods are the positions of the benefics and malefics to the angular triad created around the Lot of Fortune.  If one has a benefic planet in the sign of the Lot of Fortune (especially the benefic of the sect of the chart, so Jupiter for day charts, and Venus for night charts), the native will respond favourably to more activity and more work in general.  If the native has a malefic in the sign of Fortune, they will tend to find busy periods in life stressful and unpleasant. 
   This becomes an interesting interpretative layer to all activities in life as this sequence of Zodiacal Releasing is playing out on all time scales at once.  Someone will respond similarly to getting ready to go to the store as they would to making a giant career change.  Different in proportion of course, but not in quality.  By using this interpretive technique, one can see whether the building process is where one thrives and feels at ease with the world, or whether one is only satisfied at the conclusion stage.  For those who have a malefic in the signs following the signs angular to Fortune, they will find finishing a project leaves them depressed and anxious to find the next project to accomplish.  Check the charts of your favourite workaholics and see, do they have a benefic angular to the Lot of Fortune, and a malefic in the quadriplicity following the Lot of Fortune?
   These are just two interpretive methods one can determine from a natal chart taking into account how the currents of life will drag people on every time scale in a predictable and consciousness forming pattern.  Of course we can break these cycles of rising and falling stress patterns by studying our natal charts, and understanding that this too shall pass.  One of the great powers of astrology.