Journal · Almanac
The seasons of a life, and how to find the one you are in
The 120-year cycle Jyotish calls dasha, and the timing behind every personal reading.
You can feel a season change long before anyone names it. Jyotish names it. It describes a life as a sequence of seasons, each ruled by one planet and coloring the years it covers. The system that times them is called Vimshottari dasha, from the Sanskrit for 120: the full cycle runs 120 years.
The order never changes
The nine periods always run in the same order: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17. What differs from person to person is where you start.
Where you start
Your starting season is set by the Moon. At birth the Moon sat in one of 27 lunar mansions, the nakshatras, and each nakshatra belongs to one of the nine planets. How far the Moon had travelled through its nakshatra tells you how much of that first season was already used up.
Take the sample chart used across this site, born March 14, 1986. The Moon was in Aries, in Bharani, a Venus nakshatra, about a sixth of the way through. So life began in a Venus season with about sixteen and a half years left. It ran to September 2002. Sun, Moon and Mars followed, and an 18-year Rahu season began in September 2025.
Seasons inside seasons
Each season divides into nine chapters in the same order, starting with its own planet and sized in proportion. The first chapter of that Rahu season is Rahu itself, about two years and eight months, to May 2028. Then Jupiter takes over inside it.
What about a Saturn season?
Saturn’s season lasts 19 years, the second longest, and it has a hard reputation. Whether it is hard for you is not fixed. In the Systems’ Approach it depends on your rising sign. For Cancer, Virgo and Pisces rising, Saturn’s main sign falls in one of the areas of life the tradition treats as difficult: sudden change for Cancer, obstacles and conflict for Virgo, loss and release for Pisces. For those charts Saturn asks more. For the other nine rising signs it carries the chart, and where it sits and how strong it is decide how much.
Practitioner note: Saturn’s mooltrikona sign, Aquarius, falls in H8 for Cancer lagna, H6 for Virgo and H12 for Pisces, which makes Saturn a functional malefic for those three.
Finding yours
You need your birth date, time and place. The time matters because the Moon crosses nearly half a sign a day, fast enough to move your starting point. The Life Chart names every season and chapter with its dates, shows you where you stand, and what is ahead.