There was once a time when I had an extremely unhealthy relationship with my Co-Star app—a daily astrology app that gives users insight into their day-to-day through astrological predictions. I’ve been casually interested in astrology for as long as I can remember—I’m a textbook Scorpio, and I’ve been aware of this fact since I was very young. When the pandemic hit, there was little I felt I could rely on more than the consistency of my daily Co-Star blurb telling me to “try an upside-down perspective,” “face my past,” or “find a cozy corner.” Over several months, I genuinely allowed my Co-Star app to dictate how I carried out my day, which led to me making some fairly out-of-character decisions. Ever since I took the app off of my phone, I’ve had a cautiously interested perspective on astrology. Though I still love to learn more about myself through my various signs, I’ve gained some suspicion about using astrology to predict the timing of life events or actions.
When my manager suggested that I pick up Trust Your Timing by Vogue astrologer Alice Bell, I maintained this level of skepticism. I’ve always wanted to learn how to read my full birth chart, but I felt wary of the idea that this book could help me “reveal my relationship patterns” and “learn to predict what might be coming,” as the jacket stated. Add on top of this my current approach to dating (in what I’ve been referring to as “time-out” since I’m not remotely interested in finding my soulmate just yet), and I was sure that I wouldn’t glean much from the book.
After reading through all 220 pages of astrological explanation and analysis, I have to say that although I won’t be checking my daily horoscope anytime soon, my faith in the accuracy of astrological analysis has been restored. Bell provides such a thorough and detailed walkthrough of the different elements of a birth chart, synastry (AKA compatibility) chart, and transit (AKA timing) chart that it’s almost impossible to not get excited about your astrological findings throughout the book. Not only did I close the book with a strong grasp on my chart, but I also learned when I might be most likely to fall head-over-heels, mapped my compatibility with my celebrity crush, and had fun along the way. Here’s everything I learned about my love life from Trust Your Timing.
In Trust Your Timing, Vogue astrologer Alice Bell shows us how understanding our own astrology can transform our relationships. By guiding us through the basics of reading our birth charts and then moving on to more advanced areas of astrology, she shows us how learning to trust our timing empowers us to live our lives more freely.
What I Learned From My Birth Chart
Thanks to a lifetime spent on the Internet, I had a basic understanding of my sun, moon, and rising signs before reading Trust Your Timing. I knew that I had a Sagittarius Venus, which I had assumed was the most important thing to know when it came to understanding my love life through astrology, and thanks to this Try Guys video that lives in my head rent-free, I also knew what the different elements of the signs meant, and which signs were cardinal, fixed, and mutable. Beyond that, I knew nothing else about astrology. Thus, my first big “aha!” moments while reading Trust Your Timing came while reading explanations of the planets and the houses.
Before we dive into what my chart revealed, I recommend reviewing what the sun, moon, and rising signs mean, as explained in our breakdown here, and getting familiar with what the planets and houses are with the help of our comprehensive Birth Chart Guide.
Understanding the planets on my chart
Before, only knowing that I was a Scorpio sun and rising and Aries moon gave me a very basic understanding of myself as a mysterious, emotional, attractive hothead. When I learned that my Mercury (which pertains to communication) and Mars (which relates to conflict) were both in Libra, though, that was a huge moment of realization for me. This explained that although I may feel a lot of fire internally, I can be less confrontational in how I choose to address conflict and communicate my opinions about others to the world.
Understanding the houses on my chart
Learning that my tenth house, which corresponds to career moves, was controlled by Leo explained why I feel that my career is leading me in a more public-facing (cough cough, attention-seeking) direction. Additionally, learning that my eighth house, which is all about intimacy, was controlled by Gemini explains why I can be quite flaky and turned off by the idea of combining my life completely with someone else’s.
Putting it all together
My truest self is a Scorpio, as I already knew before doing a reading, and both my Venus and Pluto are in Sagittarius in my second house. When I combine the meaning of all of these things, I understand that I have an optimistic, outgoing (yet occasionally wishy-washy) spirit when it comes to relating to others, going through periods of self-transformation, and concerning money. It is hugely significant that my Saturn is in my seventh house, controlled by Taurus—this tells me that I tend to feel a lot of stress regarding one-on-one relationships (true!) and have a lot of room to grow when it comes to my stubbornness in relationships. Finally, it is important that both my Mars and Mercury are in my twelfth house, ruled by Libra: This explains why I can be indecisive in how I choose to address conflict in my relationships.
How I Learned to Trust My Timing With a Transit Chart
After feeling like I had gained a ton of insight into my personality through my birth chart, Bell’s introduction to transit charts in Trust Your Timing totally blew my mind. I approached this book skeptical about applying the timing element of astrological reading to real life. However, Bell’s deep dive into the fifth, seventh, and eighth houses (AKA the houses that have to do with love and relationships) in this section completely converted me.
First, what is a transit chart?
When you are born, the planets are in a specific place in the sky—this is how you get your birth chart, famously a “snapshot” of the sky when you were born. However, over time, the planets move. A transit chart shows where the stars are on a specific day, time, and in a specific location in relation to your birth chart. Thus, you can read a transit chart for today (AKA your daily horoscope), a transit chart for exactly five years from now, and so on.
In Trust Your Timing, Bell points out three transits that are most important for understanding the timing of relationships and love: Saturn, Jupiter, and the nodes. (If you’re unfamiliar with nodes, here’s a great overview.) As these pass through your relationship houses (fifth, seventh, and eighth), you might experience changes in your approach to sex, relationships, and dating.
Saturn Transits
Bell describes Saturn transits as “make-it-or-break-it” periods for relationships and dating. According to her, when Saturn transits through your seventh house, your love life will come into greater focus, and you may reevaluate how you’ve been approaching romantic relationships. When Saturn transits your eighth house, relationships are taken to a new level of depth, and when it transits your fifth house, you’ll be building greater self-esteem and confidence in dating.
For me, looking at when Saturn will cross through these houses was the biggest “aha” moment when reading this book. As you can see highlighted in yellow in the above transit chart, Saturn is currently in my fifth house—this explains my current approach to dating, which I expect to continue throughout my early twenties. Saturn will transit my seventh house when I am about 29 or 30; this will also be my Saturn return, famously a moment of upheaval for many people. Thus, when I am 29, I will likely be seriously reevaluating my approach to one-on-one relationships. Finally, Saturn will transit my eighth house in my early 30s, which is when I can expect to be combining my life with a long-term partner’s in some significant way.
Jupiter Transits
Jupiter transits indicate periods of happiness and growth in relationships—it takes about 12 years to make its way through all of the signs and houses in your chart. When Jupiter transits your fifth house, you may have an abundance of romantic prospects; when it transits your seventh house, you might meet someone significant or put yourself out there more in the dating scene; when it transits your eighth house, you may work to resolve problems in a partnership.
As you can see highlighted in the above transit chart, Jupiter is currently in my seventh house and will stay there for just under a year. Since tracking my Saturn return gave me so much information about my approach to dating around age 29, I also tracked where Jupiter will be for me in 2030; it will be in my first house, so I will be gaining self-confidence during that period, which bodes well for my dating prospects.
Nodal Transits
Nodal transits indicate change, and they take about 18 years to travel through all 12 houses in your chart. Bell points out the first, seventh, fifth, and eleventh houses as important for nodal transits and their influence on relationships. According to her, when the nodes transit through your first and seventh houses, you can anticipate tending to your own goals while simultaneously dealing with relationship matters; when the nodes transit through your fifth and seventh houses, you might have more romantic activity going on.
Looking at my transit chart for today, my nodes (also highlighted!) are in my sixth and twelfth houses, near my moon and Mercury signs. In brief, this means that I’m putting extra focus on self-improvement as it relates to work and routines, as well as my own self-understanding. Bell points out that nodal transits of your Venus sign are important for potential relationship activity, such as a more active dating life or finding greater depth in a relationship with a current partner. When do I have a nodal transit of my Venus sign? When I’m 30, of course.
How I feel about my love life after reading my transit chart
After reading through all of the information about the most important transits for relationships and dating, I was able to come to two conclusions about my love life. First, I’m in a period of gaining dating confidence right now. Second, 2029-2031 are going to be big years for me when it comes to my relationships, as I likely reevaluate everything I’ve been doing and encounter new challenges and joys in dating. Discovering this about my birth chart felt not only extremely accurate but also gave me significant peace of mind with my current approach to love.
Though it’s rare, I sometimes can feel insecure about my lack of a rush toward finding a deep connection when I chat with friends who are ready to start looking for their forever partner at 23. It’s not that I’m unenthusiastic about love in my 20s—quite the contrary—I just have literally no interest in meeting a long-term life partner until I feel like more of a fully developed human. Seeing how much romantic activity will be happening for me in my late 20s and early 30s, based on my transit chart, felt incredibly validating.
Tying It All Together: Charting Compatability With “The One” (…or Jeremy Allen White)
In Trust Your Timing, Bell shows readers how to chart their compatibility with another person in a synastry chart. A synastry chart shows two people’s birth charts overlaid on top of each other, revealing planetary alignments that can help determine compatibility. It’s the natural conclusion to learning to “trust your timing” through the stars: If you have trusted your timing and found a long-term partner, you can then chart your compatibility to see if they’re a fit.
If I were a better journalist, I would have gone on Hinge and requested the birth date, time, and location of one of my matches, but I bluntly do not have the guts (and, as previously mentioned, I am currently committed to staying off of the apps). Enter: charting my compatibility with my current celebrity crush, Jeremy Allen White.
What my synastry chart with Jeremy Allen White reveals
Though this synastry chart is not completely accurate (because I’m not creepy enough to DM Jeremy Allen White and ask for his birth time), there are some basic things I gleaned. First, we share a moon in Aries as highlighted above in yellow, meaning we both express our emotions similarly—and those emotions tend to be fairly fiery and quick to appear and disappear. Also highlighted, Allen White and I have multiple signs in Aquarius and Gemini, which are both air signs. According to Bell, this indicates that we both place importance on socializing and branching out. Finally, my Jupiter intersects with Allen White’s Mars, boding well for resolving potential conflicts.
Though Bell emphasizes that astrology can never be used to determine exact compatibility (you know who is right for you better than any chart ever could), after using this synastry chart, I can confidently say that Jeremy Allen White and I are at least somewhat compatible based on those planets.
How I feel about using synastry charts for identifying compatibility
I found that looking at my synastry chart was the least interesting part of Trust Your Timing, but with that said, I might feel differently if I was doing a reading of my chart with someone I was dating. The compatibility reading felt less exciting than my general birth chart and my transit chart, which completely blew my mind and made me feel enthusiastic about my romantic future. However, if I were looking for a new, creative way to get to know a long-term partner, I would definitely utilize this section of Trust Your Timing to understand more about our relationship.
Bell includes this portion of the book not to provide a black-and-white criteria for evaluating potential partners, but rather as a tool for understanding how your personality traits interact with the personality traits of your partner. I’ve always been a fan of finding out the Myers-Briggs, enneagram types, or sun signs of the people I’m dating. After learning how to read a synastry chart, I now have an extra tool for that fun getting-to-know-you stage of the dating process.
How Astrology Eased My Mind About My Love Life
Not to be dramatic, but when I finished Trust Your Timing, I felt like I had been on a whole journey. I learned more about myself and my personality, charted my compatibility with a man who I probably will never meet, and discovered that I’m probably going to meet my soulmate at age 29. Unlike my unhealthy Co-Star addiction a la 2020, reading this book provided me with insight into how I can best approach the next several years and even decades of my life rather than dictating my day-to-day. Perhaps even more importantly, Bell’s book gave me the skills to interpret birth charts, transit charts, and synastry charts—so now if I do happen to meet someone who I want to ask for their birth time, I’ll be able to interpret our compatibility whenever I want.
I still think that astrology should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to love. Your horoscope should be used as a fun, exciting tool to get to know yourself and understand how you relate to the world around you, rather than dictating your day-to-day. At the same time, though, I recommend that everyone learn how to read their birth chart and their transit charts. No matter what you’re looking for—peace of mind about romantic love, potential career paths, or even explanations for your past—you can find at least a little bit of helpful info in the stars.
In Trust Your Timing, Vogue astrologer Alice Bell shows us how understanding our own astrology can transform our relationships. By guiding us through the basics of reading our birth charts and then moving on to more advanced areas of astrology, she shows us how learning to trust our timing empowers us to live our lives more freely.
