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What is Sade Sati?
In short
What is Sade Sati?
Sade Sati is the period when Saturn transits the 12th, 1st and 2nd rashis counted from your natal Moon. Saturn spends about two and a half years in each rashi, so the whole passage lasts roughly seven and a half years — which is what the name means. It recurs about every 30 years.
The three phases
The first phase, with Saturn in the 12th from the Moon, is traditionally about expenditure, disturbed sleep and the loosening of things that were settled. The second, with Saturn over the Moon itself, is the peak: it is read as the period of greatest pressure on the mind and on health.
The third, with Saturn in the 2nd, is associated with finances, family and speech, and is usually described as the phase where the pressure resolves into something more concrete. Each lasts about two and a half years, though Saturn's retrograde motion can extend a phase.
How to read it
Sade Sati has a reputation that outruns what the tradition actually claims. Classically it is a period of slowing, consolidation and being made to take things at their proper pace — Saturn is the graha of time and structure, not of misfortune. Many people do their most durable work during it.
Whether Sade Sati is running for you is a matter of arithmetic: it depends only on your natal Moon's rashi and where Saturn is now. The interpretation is where the tradition, and the disagreement, begins.