An astrology client asked me for a timeline of the major transits we experience in life. These are all rough ages, as due to individual charts and the geography of where a person was born, when these occur might shift slightly. For instance, I first felt my Saturn return at 27 and the Pluto square at 35.

All of these have been written about thousands of times over, so there are many further resources for reading available.

Astrology Timeline: Birth to Elder Years

Childhood

• 7–8: Opening Saturn square – First awareness of independence.
• 9: Nodal opposition – Shifting priorities, social awareness.
• 11-12: Jupiter return – Confidence, growth, puberty.
• 14-15: Saturn opposition – Maturity, responsibility.
• 18–19: Nodal return – Major life transitions such as vocation, college, career, adulthood.

20s

• 21–22: Closing Saturn square & Opening Uranus square – Career & life choices, evolving individuality.
• 23-24: Jupiter return – Expansion, optimism, “getting in” to your life.
• 28–30: Saturn return – Adulthood challenges, forced maturation & self-parenting (career, relationships, stability).

30s

• 36–37: Nodal return & Opening Saturn square – Reassessing/calibrating life direction.
• 37–44: Pluto square – Foundational transformation, destruction of what’s false, facing shadows.
• 39–40: Neptune square – Questioning purpose, seeking meaning, dreaming of “what else’/the unlived life.

40s

• 42–45: Uranus opposition – Along with Pluto square and Neptune square, the heart of the “Midlife crisis,” breaking conventions, seeking other paths, shakeups that lead to liberation.
• 44–45: Saturn opposition – Testing lessons from the first Saturn return.
• 48–51: Chiron return – Healing, mentorship, life review, old wounds revisited for mature/wiser address and healing.

50s

• 51-52: Closing Saturn Square
• 54–55: Nodal return – Revisiting/updating life goals, what we want, and what we are shedding, where we have slacked vs where we have grown
• 58–60: Saturn return – Wisdom, legacy, long-term or retirement shifts.

60s+

• 62–65: Closing Uranus square – Embracing freedom in later life, realizing where we are too free and do not want to be, and where we are cloistered and need liberation.
• 64–67: Opening Saturn square – Reflecting on commitments, goals met or missed, surveying wisdom used or ignored.
• 72–74: Nodal return, Jupiter return, Saturn opposition – Integration of life lessons, choices, and experiences coming home to roost.
• 82–84: Neptune opposition – Spiritual reflection.
• 82-85: Uranus return – Full-circle wisdom, acceptance.