How can you advise someone if you don’t know the state of their inner being, or what the soul is requiring us to focus on? Frankly, speaking for myself, I wouldn’t attempt to do an analysis without it. But it’s like throwing out the baby with the complicated bathwater. No one wants to take the time to think about them, in these days of instant answers. Progressed charts have been falling out of favour somewhat, which is a crime. Both act as catalysts to our becoming, whether the shifts occur in the outer world or in our deepest selves. The progressed Moon also has a similar and often immediate impact. (These are simplistic answers but will do for now.) When the progressed Sun aspects anything in the natal or progressed chart, it will illuminate the issues surrounding that planet or point. The Sun represents our current spiritual identity, the engine of the soul, and the progressed Moon indicates the means of our spiritual growth. The best description of them comes from Stephen Arroyo, who called the progressed Sun the hour hand and the progressed Moon the minute hand on the clock face of our lives. Those Mercury/Pluto issues will come to life at that time, particularly if something is transiting the natal or progressed aspect.) The most important factors in the progressed chart are the progressed Sun and the progressed Moon.

Mercury then progresses to a square with natal and then progressed Pluto. I have Mercury semi-square Pluto at birth. Again, that will show via progression, particularly if it’s a repeated theme in the natal (i.e. Sometimes a relatively small transit will affect our lives significantly. The progressed chart outlines the bigger issues. Have you ever anticipated a big transit, and wondered after it was all over why it never manifested in any significant way? That’s because the planet was not primed to maximum impact according to the progressed chart. It’s also the ‘why’ to the natal chart’s ‘what’ and the transit’s ‘how’. The progressed chart reveals nothing more nor less than the slow unfolding of your spiritual development. The progressed chart shows how you’ve moved on, according to a measurement of time. Your natal chart shows who you are, but your progressed chart shows you where you are now. You don’t look the same now as you did when you were born. It is the natal chart itself moved on in time. It’s relation to the natal is everything. In fact, you can’t look at the progressed chart without taking it back to the natal.

I can understand how, looking at the natal and then looking at the progressed chart, the two might seem entirely unrelated. From what I get from my students, a lot of new astrologers feel this way. What does this have to do with me? Transits make sense. Question: “I just don’t understand the progressed chart at all. The Chart Workshop section usually posts on Sunday, but I won’t have an opportunity tomorrow so here it is, a day early.

Solar Arc Directions by Carole Devine