A year and a half, always with Ketu
Rahu and Ketu always transit opposite signs. If Rahu moves through the tenth house from the lagna, Ketu moves through the fourth. This may increase career ambition while reducing satisfaction with home life, although the natal axis, house lords, and dasha can change the result. Eighteen months is long enough for the nodal transit to influence a substantial period, so both ends of the axis must be read together.
What a Rahu transit tends to touch
Rahu may signify foreign work, technology, unusual status, social outsiders, intense ambition, or a direction that differs from family expectations. Its transit tends to increase attention toward the occupied house and may also increase confusion or dissatisfaction there. Rahu through the first house differs from Rahu through the eleventh. The house lord, natal nodes, conjunctions, and current dasha determine the more specific meaning.
A Rahu transit is not a Rahu dasha
A Rahu mahadasha lasts about eighteen years, while Rahu transits one sign for about eighteen months. These are different timing systems. A prominent transit during an unrelated dasha may have a narrower effect. The same transit during Rahu mahadasha can become much more important. Jyotish reads both timings and always includes Ketu in the opposite house.
How to ask about a Rahu transit here
A reading compares Rahu gochara with the natal nodes, both transited houses, their lords, conjunctions, and the active dasha. Bring your date, exact time, and place of birth, then ask about the strong desire, foreign work, technology, uncertainty, or unconventional path you are experiencing now.
