When you start to learn about astrology, the most common subject is the birth chart. But there’s also the progression, which is more in-depth and often gets neglected. What does it mean, and how can you apply it to insights about your life?
Defining the Secondary Progression
This shows the signs and houses of those same planets at your current age. You may consider your birth chart to be your base personality of qualities as a newborn baby. But you’ve done a lot of growing and developing since then, and that’s where the progressed version comes in. It’s you, updated to now.
Another way to think of the birth report is the foundation for one’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential at the moment of birth. It represents one’s core traits, talents, and overall life path. The progressed report is a way to gain insight into how one’s personality, interests, life experiences, and emotional reactions evolve. It represents personal growth, the direction of one’s life path, and is a reflection of one’s transformed inner world.
Mapping the Secondary Progression
You want to reflect on yourself during the year. You want to look at how you’ve grown and developed. To calculate:
- Start with your date of birth, e.g., January 1, 1980.
- Turn your age into days, e.g., 45 years becomes 45 days.
- Add that number of days to your date of birth to get your progressed chart date of birth. E.g., February 15, 1980.
Doing so will give you a glimpse of yourself during this year. Remember to keep the location and time of your birth the same.
Here’s an Example…
Let’s say Jane Doe was born on January 1, 1980, in Roanoke, Virginia, at 6:00 am. To see how she’s doing now, we must compare and contrast Jane Doe then and now:
Jane Doe
Roanoke, Virginia, United States
January 1, 1980, 6:00 am
Jane Doe
Roanoke, Virginia, United States
February 15, 1980, 6:00 am
Based on first glance alone, one can see that in the birth horoscope, there are more planets above the horizon. This implies Jane Doe is more of an extroverted personality. In the progressed version, she has a more even number of planets above and below the horizon, suggesting an ambivert, or well-balanced between extrovert and introvert. It is how she currently expresses herself.
Another easily recognizable difference is that the birth horoscope shows a bucket pattern, with the moon as the “handle” of the bucket. This means that Jane Doe has a large focus on the cluster of planets, with the moon being a unique point of challenge or focus. The progressed version shows a see-saw pattern, meaning that Jane Doe currently alternates between the two groupings of planets or sides of her adult personality. Also, the Sun sign changed from Capricorn to Aquarius.
Jane Doe’s two horoscopes together show her transformation from birth until this year. Although she remains a Capricorn, her inner world has transformed to resemble that of an Aquarius. She has learned to use her talents from the bucket pattern so that her inner world is more of a seesaw, alternating between her conscious and subconscious. Ultimately, an extrovert, she has learned to self-reflect and take time away from herself to recharge.
Do More with This Knowledge
Don’t be afraid to delve deeper into astrology terms and apply them to your life right now! Compare your birth chart to your progression, as well as your progression with any transits. You can even use the latter to see the timing of life events with surprising accuracy.
