What it means
Saturn spends about two and a half years in each sign. Sade Sati is the three consecutive signs around your Moon - the 12th from it, the Moon's own sign, and the 1st after - which together take about seven and a half years to cross.
How it is read
The three phases are read differently. The first is associated with strain on resources and the immediate environment, the middle with pressure on health, mind and the sense of self, the last with consequences and settling. Two smaller Saturn transits, the Dhaiyya over the 4th and 8th from the Moon, are read on similar lines.
What to watch for
This is probably the most feared term in Indian astrology and the most routinely overstated. It is a common condition - everyone alive gets it roughly every thirty years - and the classical reading is of a demanding, consolidating period rather than a catastrophe.
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