I discuss how we can predict the timing of cycles of growth, versus cycles of contraction, using the fascinating and very informative astrological technique known as Secondary Progressions.
Please note that this in not intended to be an exhaustive tutorial about this application of astrology. Rather, this is merely an introduction to some basic, but very powerful, aspects of Progressions.
This episode was published on March 7, 2024 at 11:11am EST.
You can support my work and this channel by booking an astrology reading.
Check my “Community Tab” where I comment, and share astrological updates and links that I find interesting:
Please add yourself to my contact list.
Episode transcript:
Greetings all, welcome to Aquarian Diary.I’m your host, John Irving.
It is March 7th, 2024.
This episode is dedicated to a very interesting aspect of astrology that deals with what is called the Secondary Progressed Lunation Cycle.
That’s quite a mouthful, but let me explain why this is so interesting and why, if you’re studying astrology, this is something you definitely want to know about.
I’m going to be approaching this in as simple terms as I can because it’s very important to understand the fundamentals of how we calculate Secondary Progressions.
This is one of those topics that if you’re a novice and you first look at your Secondary Progressions, it can be a bit confusing because you don’t understand why they are calculated the way that they are.
It’s actually really simple, but in my experience, I haven’t come across a lot of clear explanations as to how it works, and if you don’t understand how it works, it can be a bit confusing at first. I hope to dispel that so that you can take advantage of this knowledge to gain insights into various phases and cycles of your life. So bear with me, I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible.
Also, if you happen to be listening to this by podcast, you’ll almost certainly want to view this on YouTube instead because I have created quite a few graphics that will help us visualize how Secondary Progressions unfold.
This is not a complete tutorial about Secondary Progressions. I’m focused mainly on a few key factors that tend to show up or indicate cycles of life. But once you see how these play out, you can then go on and study this more deeply if you wish to. But what I’m going to provide here today, I think, is very important and very valuable, like I said.
The technical term for this is “Secondary Progressions,” but just for the sake of brevity, from here on in I may simply refer to them as “Progressions.”
In Secondary Progressions, the Sun moves a degree per year. So the math is really simple.
Each sign is 30 degrees and there are 12 Signs. 30 times 12 equals 360 degrees, a circle.
If you’re born at 10 degrees of Aries, at age 10 your Progressed Sun will be at 20 degrees of Aries.
If you’re born at 5 degrees of Scorpio, at age 10 your Progressed Sun will be at 15 degrees of Scorpio. At age 20 your Progressed Sun will be at 25 degrees of Scorpio. At age 30 your Progressed Sun will be at 5 degrees of Sagittarius.
Very simple.
The Moon and the other planets move at different speeds. Let me explain why.
This is where it can get a bit confusing for people. If you take your natal chart and you looked at the transits every day starting from the day you’re born, let’s say that on the 10th day of your life there was a Full Moon. In your Secondary Progressions, that Full Moon would occur in your 10th year of life.
So it’s a year per day. You need to wrap your head around that.
If there’s a New Moon 14 days later, there would be a New Moon in your Progressions at 24 years of life.
So all we’re doing with Secondary Progressions is we’re mapping each day of life from when you’re born to every year of life. So if you looked at the transits on your 30th day of life, it would map to your Progressions in the 30th year of life. That’s the fundamental way that Secondary Progressions work. It’s a pretty cool concept.
Let’s say that the average person lives to be 80 years old. That means that by Secondary Progressions, the Sun will move 80 degrees in the course of that 80 year life.
So if you start out with your Sun in late Sag, your Progressed Sun might end up in Pisces, depending on what degree of Sag you were born in. So it’s really simple from that perspective.
One of the things that I think confuses people about Progressions is that if you have software and you look at your progress chart at a given point in time, the outer planets, like Pluto and Uranus and Neptune, barely move at all. Well that’s because in the first 80 days of your life, those planets just don’t move very much in that amount of time.
Pluto takes about 248 years to go around the zodiac, so it moves very little over the span of 80 days, or 30 days, or whatever it is. Whereas, for example, the Moon has a 28 day cycle, so there could be 2 or 3 Full Moons in the course of a lifetime, or 2 or 3 New Moons.
And maybe Mercury goes retrograde on the 40th day of your life, which would equate to Mercury going retrograde by progression in the 40th year of life.
Do you get it?
Now, there’s other things that occur here as well too, like your midheaven Progresses and your Ascendant Progresses.
And it gets a little more complicated there too because there are several different ways of calculating the Progressed Ascendant that vary by a few degrees, depending on which calculations you use. And the system you’re using to calculate these may or may not have the ability to change which calculations you’re using.
But again, to keep this fairly simple, I want to focus on a couple things.
One is, when the Progressed Sun changes Signs, that usually indicates a fairly significant period of change.
Each sign is 30 degrees. Let’s say you’re born at 10 degrees of Aquarius. At 20 years old, your Progressed Sun moves into Pisces. Very different energies.
What happens is that this is like another dimension of ourselves and when the Progressed Sun changes Signs, we begin to express more of the energies of the sign that the Progressed Sun moves into.
So you’re still in Aquarius but your vibration changes so that you have more Piscean qualities when that occurs. Or if you’re born a Virgo and your Progressed Sun moves into Libra, you will express more Libra type qualities and have experiences that are more Libran. So we’re not static entirely.
The same can be said for the Progressed Moon which moves at a different speed altogether. It moves approximately 13 degrees per year. It spends, on average, about 2.3 years in each sign. Or house, depending on what house system you use. I use whole sign houses so it’s pretty straightforward. If your Progressed Moon moves into Libra, it’s going to be in there for about 2.3 years.
We can also look at what happens if your Progressed Sun, say, conjuncts Saturn or makes an aspect to some other planet or point. In other words, Progressions to points in our natal chart.
And there’s another dimension as well which is transits to our Progressed positions. Or what happens when planets go retrograde. But that is beyond the scope of what I want to get into here today. I want to keep this fairly simple.
The planets that move the most in Secondary Progressions are the faster moving planets or points like the Moon, Mercury, Venus, to a lesser extent Mars, and then when you get into the slower moving planets, like I said, they tend to move very little.
Again I want to keep this fairly simple and try not to confuse people further if I haven’t already.
But let’s just consider the Progressed lunation cycle itself. It goes like this.. Progressed New Moons and Progressed Full Moons tend to mark significant points in life. New Moons, of course, are new beginnings and Full Moons are culminations where cycles or energies reach a maximum.
There’s one thing here too that people need to understand about New Moons. Everybody says that New Moons are times for setting intentions, for example, or new beginnings, planting seeds. But one of the things that’s often not conveyed very clearly, I don’t think, is that New Moons are not necessarily when things start to manifest.
I often describe New Moons as being like Spring where it’s the end of the Winter and a new cycle of growth is about to begin.
But most of the activity, like in nature at that point, is happening beneath the surface. The buds are just about to start coming out. The seeds are underground, about to germinate or starting to germinate. But they haven’t really made themselves evident yet. And that’s kind of like how New Moons manifest.
If you’re a gardener, you’ll be aware of the risks of planting things prematurely. If things go wrong, you can waste a lot of time and money.
New Moons are a bit like The Fool card in the Tarot deck where you’re just open to possibilities and you’re in a bit of a void. You don’t have a lot of detailed expectations. You’re just like an open vessel.
So New Moons are often preceded by periods of endings. It’s the Balsamic phase where one cycle is winding down and coming to a close.
That period is generally not a good time for initiating major new projects or activities because the energy is waning. You haven’t yet come to the New Moon point where new beginnings or the seeds of them get planted. It’s after the New Moon, as the energy gradually begins waxing or increasing, that we start to see things happening.
So the New Moon itself is actually kind of like a period of limbo because we’re just beginning a new journey. But we haven’t actually traveled yet, if that makes sense.
So we need to be aware that the Balsamic phase of the Lunar Cycle is when the energies kind of come internally and very introspectively as we reflect on the past cycle.
Cut our losses sometimes. We’re kind of clearing the decks or going Zen in a way to try and make space for what is to come next. But we don’t yet fully know what’s going to come next.
We have to let go of the past to allow new things to come in and then we start moving forward with more vigor and energy as the Lunar Cycle begins to wax. And again, it will culminate 14 days or 14 years later. 14 days by Lunar Cycles, 14 years by progression cycles.
So it’s very helpful to know where you are in that cycle.
And culminations, like the Full Moon, does not necessarily mean or indicate a period of success. It just indicates a culmination.
You may have spent the previous 14 days, or 14 years, going off on all kinds of different directions, not being clear about where you’re going or why, or being off course. And the culmination is just simply a realization that, well, things didn’t work out the way I expected them to. I didn’t get the results I wanted, I have to try something else. So culmination, or the Full Moon, can be failure or success, or anything in between, depending, right?
So where these New Moons and Full Moons occur, what Signs and what houses are instructive, and what aspects they make to your natal chart. The degree, like if it’s 29 degrees or 0 degrees, the condition of the house ruler, is it forming an eclipse, and so forth?
But it’s very helpful to understand how these cycles are playing out because, especially with Progressions, these are longer cycles.
It’s interesting to note that the Progressed lunation cycle, which is about 28 years, is very close to the Saturn cycle, which is 28-29 years. That’s a fascinating correlation.
But nonetheless, let’s look at some examples, graphically, to help you understand how this can kind of play out in time. And this is a lot to absorb, so you may need to listen to this again.
For some time now, I have been putting transcripts of my episodes on my website. Sometimes our comprehension, or our ability to absorb and retain information, is better when we read versus listen. So some people like to read. If you want to do that, check my website at AquarianDiary.com if that applies to you.
So let’s look at some graphics that will help illustrate this. If you want all the details, they are on the graphics. You can pause and look at them.
It’s going to vary for everybody, depending on your own natal chart, of course. Your Sun may be in a different sign, different house, and so forth. But the same rules will apply, mathematically.
The planets move counterclockwise in astrology, except for the Nodes, which are always retrograde, or moving clockwise. Or planets when they’re retrograde, which is temporary.
The first graphic shows somebody with a natal Sun at 10 degrees of Pisces. So using a natural house system, their Sun would be in the 12th house. And in this case, their Ascendant is at 12 degrees of Aries.
If you have software, and you want to actually make a chart to compare this to, you can see the birth details in the graphic.
In the graphic on the screen now, I am demonstrating how, at age 20, the Progressed Sun will be at 0 degrees of Aries. Each sign is 30 degrees, started out at 10 degrees of Pisces. So 20 degrees later, or 20 years later, the Sun will move from Pisces into Aries.
This is a very significant shift, because the Sun is changing Signs. It’s moving from a mutable sign into a cardinal sign, and house in this case. And it’s moving into a sector of the astrology chart that is very self-oriented.
The 12th house is very introverted or introspective. The 1st house is very extroverted and self-oriented, and much more visible.
So this person would probably go through a pretty big shift, where suddenly they become much more self-expressive and assertive, and outwardly active, than they had been for the first 20 years of life.
The chart on your screen now shows when the Progressed Sun will conjunct the natal Ascendant at 12 degrees of Aries. The Sun started out at 10 degrees of Pisces. At age 20, it crosses 0 degrees of Aries. And then 12 years later, or 12 degrees later, the Progressed Sun will conjunct the natal Ascendant.
This is also a very significant point, because it adds another dimension to this energy of self-expression and self-orientation and self-identity, because the Ascendant degree is very visible to others, and it is the interface between us and other people and the world.
And of course, this will occur at age 32 in this case. 20 degrees of Pisces, 12 degrees of Aries equals 32.
Here the Progressed Sun, at age 50, has moved to 0 degrees of Taurus. It’s traveled 20 degrees in Pisces, 30 degrees in Aries, which brings us to 0 degrees of Taurus.
So again, another shift, the person will start experiencing and manifesting more of the qualities of Taurus. At age 50, their resources, which provide them with security and a sense of control over their environment and experience, will become more prominent in their life, and all of the themes that we associate with Taurus will be heightened both in their expression and experience.
Thirty years later, the Progressed Sun will enter Gemini at age 80, again, since each sign is 30 degrees.
It will be another 30 years before the Progressed Sun would move into Cancer, which would take them to 110 years old. Most people aren’t going to live that long, but if they did, it would occur at age 110. And again, this is where the themes of Gemini become more prominent in their experience and in their consciousness.
So you can see how the math of the Progressed Sun is pretty simple to understand. It’s just a question of looking at your own personal chart, establishing the degree of your Sun, and doing some basic one degree per year math to figure out when your Sun is going to change Signs or houses and so forth.
And again, when the Sun moves into different Signs, it tends to mark significant points in our journey of life and what themes are going to be present for us.
Now let’s look at the Lunar Cycle. Again, the same chart with a natal Sun at 10 degrees of Pisces.
In this case, this individual has a natal Moon at 24 degrees of Scorpio at birth. A Full Moon would have occurred prior to their birth, so they were born in a waning cycle of the Moon. Remember, the planets move counterclockwise around the chart.
Born on February 29, 2016, this individual will enter the Balsamic phase of the Lunar Cycle by progression on May 19, 2021. The Balsamic phase spans 45 degrees.
By this time, the Progressed Sun has moved to 15.5 degrees of Pisces, and we’re calculating the Balsamic phase backwards from there, which brings us to half a degree of Aquarius. So this Balsamic phase will span May 19, 2021 through September 26, 2024.
People that are born under a Balsamic Moon are born into this energy of completion. So they will often have a lot of encounters with people that may be not necessarily permanent that are occurring so that they can clear up karma and clear their slate, so to speak, so that in the next incarnation they can begin a whole new cycle. We need to go through these periodically to, like I said, clear the decks.
So again, people born under a Balsamic Moon can experience a lot of endings in life where you meet people, you have intense experiences, a lot of stuff happens in a fairly short period of time, and then you move on. Because you have other people that you need to clear karma or clear ties with to make room for your future incarnations.
It’s also not uncommon for these people to express an interest in spirituality, again, the turning inwards.
We are finishing up a cycle and a new cycle will commence at the Progressed New Moon where the Moon and the Sun meet, which I will demonstrate now.
Here we can see that on September 26th of 2024, this individual will have a Progressed New Moon at 19 degrees of Pisces. The first Progressed New Moon in this case will occur at age 8 years and just under 7 months. So 8 years and 7 months.
This is a significant period of the beginning of new beginnings. Effectively, the beginning of a new 27 or 28 year cycle.
And the condition of this point in time, relative to the natal chart and relative to transits, can inform us a lot about what the nature of this new cycle will be about.
In this graphic, we can see that the Progressed Full Moon will reach a culmination or a Full Moon when the Moon is 180 degrees opposite of the Progressed Sun. In this case, the Sun at this point has Progressed to 3 degrees 17 minutes of Aries in the first house and the Moon is at the opposite point, which is 3 degrees and 17 minutes of Libra.
The first Progressed Full Moon will occur at just under 23 years from birth and 14 years and 5 months from the Progressed New Moon. As I described before, this is the culmination of what began about 14 years prior at the Progressed New Moon, which occurred at 19 degrees of Pisces in the 12th house.
Here we can see the second Progressed New Moon, which will occur at 18 degrees of Aries on February 18th of 2054 at just under 38 years of age. So a major new cycle begins for this person at about 38 years old, characterized by the qualities of the first house and in this case, Aries. This New Moon was just under 15 years from the Full Moon and about 29 and a half years from the first New Moon.
So in this example we can see how the Progressed Sun moves through the Signs and houses and roughly when and we can see the Progressed lunation cycle playing out over these longer time spans. Again, these indicate fairly significant periods of change in our lives and it’s definitely worth paying attention to these things.
If for example, you’re in a Balsamic phase of the Lunar Cycle by progression, it might not be the best time to go out and take on some huge new project that requires a lot of drive and ambition and some good luck because the energies may actually be waning. It might be better to wait until the Progressed New Moon or after when the energies are flowing more in the direction of growth and expansion.
It’s not to say that we can’t accomplish great things when the Progressed Moon is waning. Like maybe you’re writing a book and you publish it at the New Moon or just after the New Moon and all that time that you spend working on your book and writing and researching is occurring during the waning phase when your world is focused more inwardly. And then you move outwardly into the world when the Progressed Moon is in its waxing cycle. Or maybe during the waning cycle you are reaping the rewards that you generated during the waxing cycle.
There are also opening and closing squares that occur during the lunation cycle. There are a lot of other things I could talk about but due to just the amount of time here, I want to keep this fairly simple.
So do check your Progressions and look for some of these key developments I’ve described here. Pay attention to the lunation cycle and pay attention to the Progressed Sun moving through the Signs making conjunctions to planets in your natal chart and so forth. And watch how those play out, it’s fascinating.
Then you can look at transits to your birth chart over the first 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 days of life to see these patterns unfolding that you can project forward throughout the years.
If you find this is all a bit overwhelming, you can always book a reading with me and I’d be happy to walk through how this is playing out for you personally. As well as of course your transits, your natal astrology and so forth.
Where are you in your Progressed lunation cycle? How have you noticed these kinds of shifts playing out?
Let us know in the comments, other people find your experience valuable and insightful and it can help them understand the phase of life that they’re in and how it might play out for them.
Thanks very much for everything. If you like this content, I’d really appreciate it if you share it with others and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.
Again, for more detail, check the episode description for other episodes or articles that are related or that I mentioned.
And if you’re interested in a reading with me, I’ll put a link to that as well. I have a 10% off special on currently.
Many sincere thanks to everyone who supports me, especially my YouTube members.
Thank you very much.
Take care, all the best, and I’ll talk to you again soon.
End episode transcript.
Other episodes:
Battleground Earth and Healing Trauma – Spiritual Healing
Lightworker Activations – Pluto in Aquarius 2nd ingress
Pluto in Aquarius – Dawn of Global Consciousness
The Stunning Transit of Neptune in Aries: 2025-2039
The Dramatic Astrology of 2028
Pluto Transit Capricorn – Lessons for Humanity
North Node transit Aries, South Node transit Libra: 2023-2025
Saturn, Chiron, Collective Trauma and Darkness
Saturn transit Pisces – Reality Check: 2023-2026
Other episodes of mine featuring Pluto
—
You can also support this channel with a monthly membership.
#Astrology #SecondaryProgressions #Progressions
Errata
Leave a Reply