With the new year coming up, it’s a moment when lots of people are trying to establish new habits, so it seemed like it would be the perfect moment to do a How To on writing your own moon journal.
Understanding transits (how the planets at a particular moment interact with & indicate events in your natal chart) is super complex, but a moon journal is the simplest way to get first hand experience of how transits to each part of your chart feel and what sorts of events they are connected to. The moon is the fastest planet in astrology, circling the entire zodiac wheel roughly every 28 days (i.e. one moonth). That means that you’ll experience a conjunction (i.e. when a planet is on the same degree as one of the planets in your natal chart) to every planet in your chart every month. If you keep this moon journal until the next new moon, you’ll have a much better sense of how transits feel, not just a set of keywords or generalizations. This is just the basic framework, but you can expand on the journal in any way that helps or interests you (for example, including descriptions of your dreams, tracking your sleep, or adding photos or drawings inspired by that day).
I’ve calculated which days the moon will be in each sign over the next month (based on CDT timezone, so there will be slight variation depending on your location.)
HOW TO MAKE YOUR MOON JOURNAL
FIRST, you need to pull up your chart. Go to astro.com (Free Horoscopes > All Horoscopes at a glance > Extended Chart Selection > Under “Zodiac & Houses” Choose the drop down menu next to “House System” and select Whole Sign Houses. Then click Add (and enter your birth details).
If you’d like me to send you your natal chart, email me your date, time, and location of birth.
1. Find the symbol for Sagittarius on the outside edge of the chart.
-What house does Sag occupy in your chart? Write the number under Your House.
-Do you have any planets in Sagittarius? Write their symbols under Your Planets.
2. Move to the next sign, Capricorn, and repeat the steps above.
3. Every day for a month, write in your journal the sign the moon is in, what house it is for you, and if you have any planets there. Then, write something in your journal about the day. You could just write a couple of words about your mood, notable events, or go into much more detail (it’s up to you!). You can also just draw something, freewrite, or in any way leave a mark for the day. If you’d like to write less, feel free to do one entry per moon sign, instead of every single day.
4. At the end of the month, go through each entry and, using the Chronos & Chaos posters of the planets, note if any of the events or feelings from those days match the themes of the planets you have there. Do you remember interacting with any of the objects ruled by that planet on those 2 ½ days? Doing any of the verbs of that planet?
5. Optionally, you can also see if the house that the moon was in that day indicated anything about your experience. For example, if you have Leo rising, you have Libra in the 3rd house. The moon will be in Libra from 01/02/24 until 01/05/24 at 6:45am. Did you visit or talk to your sibling in those 2.5 days? Go to a class? Need to write or communicate something? The meanings of the houses are listed below for anyone who’d like to follow this added layer of information.
You now have first hand experience with a transit to every planet in your chart! Of course there are hundreds of other factors at play on each of these days, so this is only the beginning of understanding what your relationship is with each of these planets and what kind of events they might bring. For example, all the mutable signs (Sag, Pisces, Gemini, Virgo) are much more difficult than usual, since both Mars & Saturn are in mutable signs right now. The days the moon was in those signs may have been more of a struggle than it would usually be.
The best way to truly understand transits, and begin to predict your own moods & experiences, is to continue this journal throughout the year! Even without reading any astrology books, this firsthand research into how transits affect your chart can be incredibly illuminating and become a practical tool for organizing your time and discovering things you didn’t know about yourself & the patterns in your life.
HOUSES:
1. The house of the self (what individuates you, your role or your persona, the way people first encounter you)
2. Money, resources, personal possessions
3. Communication, learning, siblings, local environment
4. Home, family, roots
5. Pleasure, play, creativity, children
6. Routine, illness & health, service to others, labor
7. The house of the other (marriage/relationships, roommates, collaborators)
8. Death, debt/inheritance, and taboo
9. Belief, philosophy/religion, higher learning, exploration
10. Career, legacy, reputation
11. Friends, groups/group dynamics, the community
12. Solitude, retreat, isolation, hidden things, the invisible
*Quick note that the collage image for the cover of the Lunar Journal includes an amazing salt labyrinth by Motoi Yamamoto. Salt & cabbage are ruled by the moon and everything else is oak trees & tinfoil (ruled by Jupiter!)