The Astrology Podcast
Secondary Progressions: Every Day Symbolizes A Year
With Chris Brennan and guest Kelly Surtees
Episode originally released on February 22, 2018
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Mary Sharon
Transcription released June 15, 2021
Copyright © 2021 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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(intro music)
CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi, my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. This episode was recorded on Tuesday, February 20th, 2018 starting just after 2:01 p.m. in Denver, Colorado, and this is the 144th episode of the show. In this episode, I’m going to be talking with Kelly Surtees about the timing technique known as secondary progressions. For more information about how to subscribe to the podcast and help support the production of future episodes by becoming a patron, please visit theastrologypodcast.com/subscribe. Hey Kelly, welcome back to the show.
KELLY SURTEES: Hey Chris, thanks for having me.
CB: Yeah, we are back again quickly. So, I just literally today just released our last episode, which was our Q&A episode and the first episode of February because I’m a little bit behind. But one of the things that we noticed when we were gathering questions was we actually got a lot of questions about secondary progressions for that episode. And so we decided instead of answering them there to hold off and do an entire episode on the topic because it actually looked back after 144 episodes, somehow, I haven’t actually done an episode dedicated entirely to secondary progressions until now. And you are the main person I know who specializes in that topic so I’m excited to talk to you about it today.
KS: Thanks. Yeah, I’m probably excessively excited to [Kelly laughs] talk with you about this.
CB: Right. This is your main obsession. This is your main technique.
KS: Yeah, it was the first or the main timing technique that I was taught as a baby astrologer, and for whatever reason. So, it was a combination of learning early in my process and my practice, but also just really feeling alignment or integrity around the technique. I like the flow of it, I like the way it works, and then, I’ve really started to enjoy how I see it in action in terms of timing and symbolism and accuracy with client’s charts. So, it’s definitely my go to timing technique.
CB: All right, brilliant. Well, I’m excited to get into it. So, secondary progressions. Let’s do a little bit of background information first. This has become one of the most common timing techniques in modern astrology, probably second only to transits. Would you say that that’s accurate?
KS: Yes.
CB: Okay. So, pretty much over the past century or so. And one of the things though that’s surprising about that– It’s surprising that if you’re a modern astrologer that learns astrology in that context is that where it’s such a popular technique over the past century is that evidently, it’s only become popular in the past few centuries. And James Holden, in his book, thought that Johannes Kepler in the 16th or 17th century was the first astrologer to mention it or to really start talking about it. And then it was popularized not long after his time, essentially, right?
KS: Yeah. Yeah, the work in James Herschel Holden’s book History of Horoscopic Astrology is a great reference on this. Yeah, Kepler is one of the first people who references secondary progressions, and he really focused on the progression. He did a couple of other things, but that’s where he started. And then yeah, Placidus, who we don’t know because he basically invented a house system, he’s actually sometimes credited as being the inventor. But really, I think, yeah, he popularized the technique. And then moving forward from there, there was Englishman John Partridge, who was more late 17th century, early 18th century. But then, I think part of the reason they’ve become so popular in relatively modern astrology is that Alan Leo loved them. He favored them over primary directions because they are more simple to explain and to work with, and just the huge influence that he had on the more modern strains of astrology, it was really picked out and grew from there.
CB: Right. Because Alan Leo was such an influential figure in early 20th century astrology because he wrote so many books on the topic and really helped to re-popularize it after a century or two of falling out of favor in society.
KS: Yeah, and I think, not necessarily that, we can debate Alan Leo. He sometimes gets people really hot under the collar, but he did simplify some of the tenants in astrology that led to it becoming so accessible. And whether that was a good thing or not, it certainly helped with the revival that we had coming into the 20th century.
CB: Sure, and I meant to mention, so although Holden attributes secondary progressions largely to Kepler, there’s actually a reference in book nine of Vettius Valens who is an astrologer who lived in the second century in Egypt and who wrote in Greek. And there’s this super brief reference where he seems to almost be describing something like secondary progressions. So, the technique may actually go back even further than we know all the way to the second century, although the reference is extremely brief, and then he never goes into it again. So, it’s weird. If it did exist way back then, you’d have this gap of several centuries all the way until the time of Kepler before it really becomes more popular, but who knows? All we can say, though, is that it has become one of the most popular techniques over the past century, especially in modern astrology, and we’re going to see why really quickly because you can do some really cool things with it, basically.
KS: Yeah, you can. And you don’t need a lot of technical equipment. So, for everyone who’s like, “I don’t have soul fire,” I promise you, you can do what you need to do with an ephemeris. And if you don’t own an ephemeris yet because you haven’t fully committed to your astrological nerdiness, the ephemeris is available free online, and you can get what you need from the Swiss Ephemeris.
CB: Yeah. Astrodienst astro.com has a great free app ephemeris that you can pull up in PDF format and print out. But otherwise, I think we should start guilting people if they don’t have an ephemeris at this point because you really do need to have one, especially when you’re learning transits, but it’s also useful for techniques like this one.
KS: 100%. And the only difference is that when you’re doing progressions, you need an ephemeris that covers your year of birth. When you’re doing transits, you want an ephemeris that covers now, the current period. So, I think the Mickelson American Ephemeris, which is what I use and recommend, you want the midnight version, and then now I have a red book for the 20th century and the blue book for the first half of the 21st century. But they actually put it together and created a purple book, which covers from 1950 to 2050. Have you got the purple one there, Chris?
CB: I know. I’m actually really excited about that because they’re calling it the American Ephemeris the Trans-Century Edition.
KS: There, you go. [crosstalk] Oh, you’ve got a white or you’ve got a Noon version. Okay.
CB: Yeah, it starts at noon. So, it’s the white cover, but it’s from 1950 to 2050, which is super useful because it covers both a lot of people who are born in the second half of the 20th century as well as the first half of the 21st century.
KS: Totally. Yeah, so that’s… So yeah, I think you’re right, Chris. We should grill people. We’ll be like, “Serious about your astrology, but you don’t yet own an ephemeris? Come on.”
CB: Yeah, you’re probably not a serious astrologer if you don’t own an ephemeris yet. [Kelly laughs]
KS: We’re just trying to make you all feel guilty. [Kelly laughs]
CB: Right. Right. There’s some truth to that and then we’re also partially joking, but not really good in ephemeris.
KS: Yeah.
CB: All right. So, let’s talk about the technique and first, how it’s calculated. This is a symbolic technique. And there’s actually a number of different symbolic ways of moving the chart forward because the birth chart itself, so we’re talking largely about natal astrology here, which is centered on the concept of the birth chart, or the natal chart, which is a two-dimensional diagram that depicts the locations of the planets, or the alignment of the planets at the moment a person was born. And that’s a snapshot in time of where the planets were exactly at the moment of your birth. But then the planets keep moving, or they kept moving forward after that point. And so, that’s one of the ways of moving the chart forward is just seeing where the planets moved at their different speeds and rates after the person was born. And that’s essentially what the study of transits are, right?
KS: Yes, if we’re looking at the real time movement. So, where are the planets in the sky now, and what’s that triggering in the chart? Yes, that’s going to be our transits, which is a really simple approach that is basically the most common modern timing technique.
CB: Right. And the transits are used in terms of both looking at different planetary alignments in the future as being significant somehow when they fall in different parts of the chart. But also, especially transits are often studied by looking at the planet where the planets will be at certain points in the future compared to or with reference back to where they were at the moment of birth and the birth chart. And that’s basic transit analysis.
KS: Yeah, yeah, you’re looking for a temporary aspect that’s formed between where the planet is or will be with something in the natal chart. And that creates a trend that is around for just a short but specific window of time.
CB: Right. The Saturn return, for example, is when Saturn returns back to the position it was in when you were born. Or you can have other planetary returns, like the Sun returning back to the degree and the same zodiacal sign as it was when you were born is basically your birthday every year.
KS: Yeah, yeah. That would then be the solar return, which is another timing technique because we can create a chart just for that, and then yeah, under the progressions umbrella where in the symbolic timing techniques where we’re artificially manipulating the chart through time in a similar way that we do with perfections, or even for Daria, or other planetary period systems, even in solar arc directions, for instance, we’re giving a particular ratio of movement, and we’re directing or progressing planets forward through the chart according to a certain time ratio.
CB: Sure. So, transits are actual real time movements of the planets, either in the present or in the future whereas a lot of the other timing techniques in astrology are often symbolic movements that are moving the planets according to space, or according to time, [crosstalk] or some combination thereof. So, you have things like annual perfections, you mentioned, which is a very popular ancient timing technique where you basically move the planets forward one zodiacal sign per year, or you move the ascendant forward one zodiacal sign per year. There’s primary directions, where originally I think you advanced the planets or you advanced the ascendant forward at different rates based on the essential times of the signs, which are how fast the signs rise over the horizon, or eventually culminate overhead. And that has a variable rate because some signs move very fast and other signs move very slow, basically, right?
KS: Yes, yes.
CB: Okay. So, it’s taking some astronomical phenomenon or movement, and then translating that into a timing technique. And you mentioned solar arcs, which is another, it’s probably, after secondary progressions, maybe third most popular timing technique you might say in modern astrology. Would you go that far?
KS: Yeah. And I feel like Frank Clifford and I sit on different sides of this. So, we have little respectful debates occasionally.
CB: Oh, no. Yeah, you’re the secondary progressions [crosstalk] king, basically.
KS: Yeah, and Frank’s the solar arc directions guy. And [crosstalk] the horrible thing about the acronym, for solar arc directions is it comes up to SAD, which [Kelly laughs] sometimes I just tease Frank about that.
CB: All right. Well, let’s not… I don’t want to start a huge [crosstalk]
KS: But [crosstalk] I don’t want to start a war. [crosstalk] Solar arc directions, they’re very popular. And what I tend to say to people is, the techniques come from assumable origin, the idea of we’re moving the planets forward through time according to a specific ratio. So, it’s totally symbolic, the ratio is just different. In solar arc directions, we’re doing the movement of the Sun for all planets, which is approximately a degree per year of life.
CB: Yeah. [crosstalk] Let’s say, hypothetically, and get rid of 1°. [crosstalk] Let’s just say solar arcs are basically, you move every planet and point in the chart forward 1° per year, [crosstalk] and then for every year that the person is alive. So secondary progressions, though, is different than a lot of those because it has a really unique rate and it’s one day per year relative. I always have a hard time explaining this. How do you usually explain it to people? Because you can say one day per year of the native’s life, but that doesn’t exactly explain what you’re doing.
KS: Yeah. And that’s technically what you are doing. But a more simple way to grasp the concept is to think we’re going to take what was happening in the sky when you were 12-days-old and we’re going to give it meaningful when you’re 12-years-old.
CB: So, it’s taking the transits for every day that you lived for the first few months of your life and saying that the transit on that day is somehow representative for the entire year of life that you’re going to have that corresponds with that year if you were saying that every day after you were born, corresponds to the subsequent year of life.
KS: Absolutely. So, it’s basically we’re going to look at the transits for the first 90 days of life and that’s going to give us your progressions for your 90 years of living if you have an average length life. And one of the key components of progressions or secondary progressions, is that they slow down planetary movement so that normally, we don’t really consider a Venus-Mercury aspect to say that might be in play for 124-hour period, that’s not going to be a huge impact by transit. But when that movement is given meaning over a whole year of your life, it actually becomes quite descriptive in describing or showing the themes that you’ll experience for that period of time.
CB: Sure, and I just want to make sure we’re explaining this because I feel like people that already know what secondary progressions are probably understand what we’re saying, [crosstalk] but I’m wondering if we’re explaining it clearly. If somebody who’s never heard of this concept before, so you literally just have your birth chart, which is the day that you’re born and the alignment of the planets that day and then basically, what you’re saying is the next day, so the day after you were born, that wherever the planets are placed at that time, the alignment of the planets will be reflective of the first year of your life or the next year of your life after you’re born. And then the second day you’re alive, the alignment of the planets on that day will be reflective of your second year of life.
KS: Yeah, the only slight technical thing I would tweak there is that the day you’re born is actually year zero. So, on day one, the next day, that’s actually going to be the year that you’re one. So, it’s technically your second year. If you’re in the ephemeris and you’re going to count down, your birth date is year zero, and the day after would be year one, and then you two, and then year three of life.
CB: Got it. So, I’m going to pull up very quickly [crosstalk] a copy of an ephemeris.
KS: Yes, that’s what I usually do with teaching so we can show this.
CB: That might be the easiest way initially, to just show how you could look this up [crosstalk] from the perspective of an ephemeris.
KS: Yeah, and one thing I do say this is the very first time you’re learning or hearing about secondary progressions. You might be thinking Chris and I are rockers because one of the things that particularly for more modern inclined students coming into this as a timing tool, it’s just sounds like a really far out concept, the idea that one day has some connection or meaning for a whole year. And that’s what we mean by when we say a symbol like timing thing. We’re taking a short unit of time, something that’s happening in a day or a week or a month, and we’re giving it meaning for a longer period of time. And that concept sounds weird to our modern minds because of the way we think about time today versus the way time was viewed historically. But there is a quote from the Old Testament in the Bible, where they talk about each day shall count for a year. So, the idea of something happening on a day and having meaning for a year or what have you. It’s a very old concept, but it does sound very strange to our minds.
CB: Sure. Well, it’s just exploring and getting to the roots of this idea that astrology is based on symbolism and correlation and that sometimes, something that seems small or unconnected, can be symbolically important. And when you start understanding astrology in that context, you understand why something like secondary progressions would be important that if when you were, let’s say 12-days-old, a major event happened in your environment or in your life, that that might have some symbolic significance for the year when you turn 12-years-old, you can understand the broader symbolic significance at that point if you’re looking at astrology almost like omenology in a sense, where there’s a significant event that happens within the field of view of the observer, and that has symbolic or some broader symbolic significance for indicating something about the future.
KS: Absolutely. And one off the top of my head example is if you’ve ever been around a young baby, if anyone who’s had a baby, or had friends who’ve had babies, or families who’ve had babies, their lives are pretty sheltered. A baby spends a lot of time at home, but maybe the baby on day 14, or day 16 of their life gets taken on the road trip across, maybe they go on a two-hour road trip to meet their grandparents, for instance. So, day 12 of life, the baby takes a big trip. And then, we would say what’s happening planetary wise, but just the simple symbolism is, if you take a big trip, and a big trip for a baby is a two-hour drive, but maybe when you’re 12 years old, you go on an international holiday with your family, for instance. So, it’s almost like those events that happen or those experiences in the early days of life, almost giving a foreshadowing to a more adult or more grown-up version of that event that you will have later on down the track.
CB: Right. I think that idea that key word of foreshadowing is a really good one, and is probably going to be the main one that we come back to a bunch of times in this episode with this specific technique, maybe more than any others.
KS: Yeah, yeah.
CB: So, I pulled up the astro.com ephemeris for 2018. And let’s just imagine that somebody was born on February 1st of 2018.
KS: Yes.
CB: So, what is today? Today’s the 20th of February?
KS: Yes.
CB: So, they’re born on the first, so that would be this first line here. And this is the alignment of the planets when they’re born, which is basically their birth chart. But then all you basically do for secondary progressions is that you would say this… So, let’s say that they’re here. We’re now [crosstalk] 20 days since they were born or 19 days since they were born. On the 20th, and we would say the alignment of the planets on this date 20 days after they’re born, will be the chart basically for when they’re 20 years old.
CB: Yes, exactly, exactly. And what we can actually see is that the date yesterday, the 19th, the Sun has moved into Pisces. So, one of the fun things to start looking at when you first work with progressions is to track back in time and figure out when the progressed Sun change signs for the first time. So, even though this baby that a speculative baby is only a few weeks old, we know that the Sun change signs on February 19, when they’re about 18 days old. And so, when they’re 18 years old, symbolically that Aquarius Sun will progress into Pisces, and all of the features and things the topics connected to the Sun in the chart will shift into a more Piscean period or chapter. So, I’m just taking that example a little further forward, Chris, but just so people can see what we’re looking at and what we do with that info.
KS: Sure, definitely. So, basically, and what’s cool about that then is because most people will only live, let’s say, 90 years or something is a good average for a long, healthy life. That means you basically just look forward for the first three months of the person’s life at the ephemeris. And all of the alignments that will happen during that first three months of life, or basically, all of the secondary progression alignments that will ever occur for the person. So basically, you just have to look and see how did the planets move and what major events happened astrologically and astronomically in the first one or two or three months after the individual was born. And that’ll sometimes help you to zero in on which specific years of the person’s life will be very important, or will have important turning points or events or what have you.
CB: 100%. And when you do this, when you look through the ephemeris, and I do encourage students to literally print out the ephemeris for the three or four months following birth because you can highlight, oh, these are the years that the Sun changes signs, or Venus changes signs, or mercury goes retrograde, or Mars changes signs. So, there are more to do with progressions than just sign changes. But looking at it this way, you can really start to get a sense of when some of those more active years might be in a person’s life.
KS: Right, definitely. All right. So, let me switch back to my outlines are getting a little far afield here. [crosstalk] All right, that’s funny. Well, and it’s like, I don’t even know if we should still continue. Should I pull up a chart now and attempt to show how secondary progress? Because we’re showing it abstractly from the perspective of an ephemeris because that’s the most important format and that’s the one we’re used, too. But I wonder if we should show it in an actual chart and if that would make a difference for a new student at this point, or should we should just hold off and do that when we start looking into examples?
KS: Yeah, we can probably sit with this for a moment because what the ephemeris is really showing is the technique that we’re using, and then we will insert this into the chart if you like.
CB: Okay, so this is going to be to convince everybody to buy an ephemeris episode, basically? [Chris and Kelly laugh]
KS: Basically. [Kelly laughs]
CB: Yeah, there’s no escaping it.
KS: There’s no escaping it. So, it’s because the other thing, too, the point I made before that progressions are going to slow down and planetary movement, which means that when you’re doing secondary progressions, the main planets you are going to focus on other quick moving planets. So, you’ll be focusing on the Sun and Moon, and Mercury, Venus and Mars, especially. There are some special circumstances where I think looking at the progressions of Jupiter and Saturn can be helpful, but I have no examples of ever needing to look at it progressed out of planet. I use them a little differently to the way other astrologers might because of my traditional background. And the idea when we’re doing any timing technique is, we’re looking for things that are changing, we’re looking for a shift or a new energy or dynamic that’s coming in for a particular period of time. And an outer planet moves so slowly that even when you’re doing the progressions for such an old, someone who’s a little older maybe someone in their 70s, or the 80s, the outer planets maybe have not moved 1° over the whole lifetime. So, there’s not a lot of useful info there.
CB: And we can literally see that just looking at the ephemeris here back to, as you said the hypothetical baby example that was born on February 1st 2018. If February 1st was the first year of their life, then you can see Neptune started at 12° of Pisces and 47 minutes. And then on the second day of life/year of life, it moved to 12° and 49 minutes then 12° and 51 minutes during the third day/third year of life. It’s basically at 12° for the first decade. Eventually, it moves to the 13° when they’re eight days old/eight years old, but then it spends the rest of the next month basically, trying to get through 13° of Pisces. So basically, the outer planets because they’re so slow within the context of secondary progressions, as you were saying, just to reiterate your point move almost not at all. And so, from that perspective, they’re not typically something you’re paying huge attention to for the most part.
KS: No. And in fact, I never do. I don’t really, sometimes a client or a student will be like, “What about my progress to be honest?” And I’ll be like, “Well, we’re going to talk about these other things.” [Kelly laughs] Because these are the things a little bit more significant, or what have you. In the whole month, which is the first 28 years of this person’s life, Neptune moves 1° by progression. [crosstalk] But to contrast that, Venus is going to change signs by progression, Mercury is going to change signs by progression, there will be a new Moon, and there will be a full Moon, and the Sun is going to change signs. And each one of those things is much more important.
CB: Right. And that being said, though, sometimes occasionally, you will have for me, for example, I was born with Neptune at 29 Sagittarius, and then actually did change signs about a month after I was born, which is actually [crosstalk] in my actual life since I’m in my early 30s right now just a few years ago. So occasionally, you’ll have things like that or you’ll have outer planets station retrograde or direct which can be significant. In this person’s life, if we scroll down from February to March, all right, there’s nothing. But if we scroll down to, no, there we go. So, Saturn [crosstalk] let’s say hypothetically stations retrograde at some point in April [crosstalk] through
KS: Absolutely. Yeah. And you’ve used the example of where I would, this is how I would use Jupiter and Saturn, is that if you have a chart where the ascendant or midheaven are ruled by a Jupiter sign or a Saturn sign, then it’s worth checking the progressions of Jupiter and Saturn to see do they change signs or direction. Because depending on where you’re born in the Jupiter or the Saturn cycle, it is possible that they can cover fair few degrees. And so, particularly, if they rule the angles, I think that becomes really significant to look at.
CB: Okay. So, what are some important transits in the first few months of the life that we should really pay attention to within the context of secondary progressions or the secondary progress chart itself? And one of the questions is are we paying attention to the secondary progress chart itself and the alignments that occur in the future in the person’s life, or are we looking at the secondary progress chart relative to the natal chart like we do with transits?
KS: Yeah. Look, my take on that is that we are looking at the secondary progress chart in relation to the natal chart. So, the idea of any timing technique is that we working with the ratings of the route chart, which is the birth chart, and essentially what we’re looking to do is what in the birth chart is being triggered or activated. So, students sometimes show up and they’re like, “I’ve got my progress chart here.” And I’m like, “Well, what I’d like you to work with is by will.” So, to create a chart where you’ve got two charts, essentially, your birth chart in the center, and you’ve got your progress planets around the outside, so that if we’re talking houses and progressions, for instance, what we’re mostly interested in is which natal houses are the progress planets are particularly the progressive Moon, which is going to move the quickest? What natural houses are those progress planets moving through? Or what natal planets are those progress planets triggering or creating aspects with?
CB: Okay. And this is an area where there’s some debate, or [crosstalk] there’s a little bit of tension in the tradition in terms of basically two different approaches, but people emphasize one approach or the other typically, or emphasize yeah, basically. [crosstalk] So, could you explain that some people [crosstalk] you’re advocating and your opinion, basically, you think the secondary progress chart should always be related back to the natal chart as a long term transit, whereas a lot of other astrologers, some other astrologers treat the secondary progress chart like a chart unto itself, or you’re just looking at what aspects are going exact, or taking place in different years, just in that chart regardless of the natal chart or without reference to the natal chart.
KS: Yes. And it is in the same way that some people use solar returns as a standalone chart and other people are really interested in how the solar return triggers or reflects or develops what’s in the natal chart. So, it is definitely, there’s two camps for sure, for sure. And I guess that’s the way I was trained to use the progress chart as a trigger or the progress planets, the progressive movement as trigger. As I say that though, there are that when we talk about the progressive Moon phase, which is something [crosstalk] people work with, yeah, that’s totally and exclusively within the progress chart itself. So that’s something we’re lifting out of the progress chart, and giving meaning to the natal chart. So, it’s almost like I’m arguing against myself here.
CB: No, I feel like the answer is both and I’ve always been in the other camp where I always thought that it was primarily just the secondary progress chart and you’re just looking at alignments that will take place in the future over the first few months of the native life and that when those alignments happen, those will mark important turning points in the native’s life when they have a secondary progressed, new Moon or secondary progressed full Moon, I’d seen really powerful examples of that in my life or when planets stationing retrograde or direct that often coincided with important turning points in the lives of people I’d seen. So, I’d seen it working independently. But then a few years ago, I saw some really powerful secondary progressed, essentially transits to natal charts that really made me see how important how you could use the secondary progress chart as a long term, slow transit chart and how that’s really important as well.
KS: Totally. And I agree with you because I don’t think it’s an absolute either or. For instance, you mentioned what if you’ve got a natal planet that’s retrograde, maybe you were born with Venus retrograde or Mercury retrograde natively, and in your progress chart, it does go direct at some point. I have absolutely seen that be a huge change for someone. And the way I guess, where I say, I want us to come back to the natal chart, is I want us to find the meaning or the symbolism or the interpretive information by that planet in the context of the natal chart. And an example would be, say you were born with Gemini midheaven. So, Mercury is a planet that is significant for Korea or Gemini on the 10th house, and you were born with Mercury retrograde, and then in your progress chart, Mercury goes direct. You will notice that around that forward movement of Mercury in relation to career or 10th house or midheaven topics, where all of a sudden maybe some of the barriers or the delays or the hold back around your work life that might have been indicated by that natal Mercury retrograde, once it progresses direct, it’s like you get to move on from that or finally move forward if you feel like.
CB: Right. And that’s actually a funny example. Because I had over the past few years, my secondary progressed, Mercury has stations retrograde, and then I published my book, which is weird, and I’ve been a little concerned about that a little bit. I don’t know what that’s going to meet in the broader long term as I now switch to being born in the first 30 years of my life having Mercury direct by secondary progressions. Now, suddenly, it’s retrograde. But I have noticed that anytime you have a planet like Mercury, or Venus or something like that station retrograde, it’s always a station retrograde or direct that it’s always a super important turning point.
I actually had a friend of mine. He was an older guy that was in his ‘60s or ‘70s and he had a really long, full life, and he was actually an astrologer, and he was actually dying of cancer. And I did an interview with him about his entire life before he died. And he was one of the people that was involved in the translation projects in the 1990s and he played a really pivotal role in them. And I did his secondary progressions, and he had two or three planets that all stationed either retrograde or direct right around the same time in the early ‘90s when he found this translation project, and it just completely changed his life and gave him a lot of meaning and purpose over the course of the last 10 or 20 years of his life. And you could really see it in a secondary progress chart because suddenly, all these planets were just stationing and it showed this huge turning point in his life when this really crucial thing happened both for him personally, but also in terms of his involvement with that project being important historically as well. So that was Alan White’s chart. [crosstalk] It was a good secondary progression example.
KS: Yeah. It’s fascinating. And if we think about that ephemeris that we were looking at, in a three-month period, you might most three-month periods might have one personal planets station. There are some three-month periods, later this year we’re going to have Mars station retrograde and then Venus station retrograde within the same three-month period. But that’s a little bit more unusual. And you do say that and Chris, when Mercury, for instance progresses retrograde, it’s almost like we are going into a research or a consolidation or an integration phase around Mercury stuff. So, it’s not that it stops working. It just that the nature of Mercury is different. Yeah. [crosstalk] Because part of my work on planetary speeds brings in, how does the speed of these planets change over the course of our life, and we see that through their progress cycle.
CB: Yeah, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about it recently because I have been thinking about a lot over the past year since I just celebrated the first anniversary of my book being released a year ago in February 10th of 2017, I was just thinking about how when Mercury stations retrograde, it’s getting as far away from the Sun as it can possibly get. So, it’s almost gone as far as it possibly can before it almost becomes exhausted, and then slows down and turns back and begins moving or falling back towards the Sun. And in some ways, that was descriptive of how I felt by the end of that 10-year project of just I’ve gone as far as I can go in terms of researching this book and reached as far as I can with it, and now it’s out there, I need to put it out there and then move on or move into the next phase of my life and whatever comes after this 10-year-long project.
KS: Absolutely.
CB: Yeah. And it’s fitting in that sense.
KS: Totally. And that’s the thing is I think you can say the symbolism and the shifting quality of the planet, its relationship to the Sun, and how that shows up in a person’s life. And the one thing I did want to say on Mercury, particularly, is that because Mercury goes retrograde about every three months give or take, most of it, the normal average is that all of us have our Mercury progressed into and out of a retrograde cycle at some point in our life. So, my Mercury progressed retrograde when I was 16-years-old and it’s going to progress retrograde soon in the next year or two. And other people won’t have Mercury progress retrograde in their chart until their 50s or 60s. And then because Mercury is retrograde for approximately three weeks, which is about 21 days, Mercury then is retrograde for about a 21-year period in our life. So, particularly with Mercury because it’s retrograde more frequent than all the other planets, we will all have that. What becomes really interesting is the retrogrades of Venus and Mars, which happened less frequently. And most of us don’t have any retrograde action by progression of Venus or Mars, but some people do depend on where in that cycle they’ve been born. So anyway, that’s a little brief segue on the personal planets and how the retrograde cycles show up.
CB: Yeah. Because I think a lot of people would agree that and the other thing we’re about to talk too. So, at this point, we’re basically in the section where we’re focusing on what are some of the most important things you need to pay attention to in secondary progressions because there’s a ton of different things that you could study and it’s a huge technique. But there’s probably a few specific areas that really if you’re trying to focus in on and see if this technique works, that will really give you the biggest [crosstalk] thing for your buck. And so, one of those is just pay attention to when planets station retrogrades or direct by secondary progression in a person’s chart because those will often indicate important turning points in the life. What are some other things that we should look at or pay attention to? Or do you have any examples? Should we share? Do you have an example of a secondary progressed station?
KS: I don’t think I do off the top of my head because the Sun and Moon and the angles are actually the top things to look at. The personal planets I tend to say if they rule the angles, so if you have a Gemini or Virgo ascendant or midheaven, you want to pay special attention to your progress Mercury. Or if you have Venus ruled angles, or Mars ruled angle angles, then you really want to look at those. It’s funny. Of all the examples that I picked up, I don’t think I do have a station one.
CB: Okay, I’ve got the one I was just talking about with Alan white actually at this chart.
KS: Yeah. Do you put that up?
CB: Yeah, so it’s actually two planets. So, I was overemphasizing it a little bit, but let me see how to share this. So, I’m going to share my screen. And first, I’m going to show-
KS: I do work with the progress personal planets all the time and in certain situations worked, which I described earlier, I will use Jupiter and Saturn, but Kepler thought we shouldn’t waste our time on any other planets by progression other than the Sun, Moon and the angles.
CB: Yeah. Well, one of the issues is just as a consulting astrologer, most of the time, it’s only the inner planets you’re going to be working with because those are the only ones that are going to move very swiftly and show changes in the short term, especially. But I guess it’s just if you’re thinking about this as a technique, almost how you think about the timelord techniques where you get into the habit of, in Zodiac releasing, you can calculate the first 100 years of the native’s life and look at it all, essentially, on your page. And so, that has gotten me in the habit of looking at some of these techniques in the broader context of what does this show in terms of the life as a whole where it says, in secondary progressions that can say, when this person is 20-years-old, that’s going to be a huge turning point in their life, they’re going to have difficulties when they’re 46-years-old, and there’s going to be a huge transformation when they’re 64-years-old, or something like that. If you were to try to zoom in on the most important secondary progressed, things that will happen during the entire life, you can do that. Although during a typical consultation, that’s not usually how you’re going to use the technique or [crosstalk] is it, right? I assume.
KS: It depends how you set up your practice. I tend to work with clients annually for year ahead staff. But I guess what you’re saying is that you can absolutely do it, it’s a wonderful thing. But when you’re doing that lifelong progress trigger if you like, in that three-month period, most people won’t have a retrograde personal planets station direct or retrograde. So, if you do see that, that’s going to be hugely significant. But the types of things that we all have at different points would be things like the progress on changing signs or making aspects back to the natal planets and the Moon phases, I guess. They would be some of those big things that you would look for over that lifelong span. Because you’ll be able to see them, this year or that year, three or four years will stand out using those particular progressions for everybody. Yeah. And then for those people who are born in a period where there is going to be Mercury, Venus or Mars station direct or retrograde, for sure, you would use those.
CB: Sure. All right. So, can you see this chart?
KS: Yeah. Yeah, let’s see Alan’s progressions.
CB: Okay. So, this is the birth chart of Alan White and Alan White is funny. He was an astrologer, but he was a Vietnam War veteran that was in the Special Forces and he had Aries rising with Mars in Aries in the first house in a day chart, and the Sun and Mercury and Capricorn in the 10th house. So, it was a gruff, a hard ass and he was very blunt in his manner of communication when he taught astrology, when he taught aspect theory or Hellenistic aspect doctrine of overcoming and hurling raise, he would describe it as, when we’re looking at this, we’re trying to see who’s on top and who’s fucking who [Kelly and Chris laugh] was his way of describing the Hellenistic aspect doctrine of superior and inferior aspects.
KS: Yeah. Which is very Mars rising, Aries rising, I should say with Mars in the first.
CB: Yeah, totally. It’s totally very cliche type character.
KS: Yeah, like a textbook.
CB: Right. It’s like a big mustache and more like a Special Forces hat and it was a gruff guy. Anyways, so this is his birth chart and we can see that the Sun when he was born is like 10 Capricorn and Mercury was direct, and it’s right there just passing the Sun. So, it’s just a few degrees, 4° from the Sun in Capricorn moving direct, and Venus is about one sign over at 18° of Aquarius. So, it’s about one sign away from the Sun. So that’s just the birth chart itself, which is just a snapshot of the planets. But now, let me pull up his progress chart.
KS: Yeah. And Chris, the other thing too is that when people start to be able to recognize the phases, if you like, the relationship between the Sun and the personal planets, looking at his birth chart, it’s like, okay, Venus is starting to pull away from the Sun. She’s going to progress into a retrograde period at some point, basically.
CB: Right. And basically, so this is the, let me take the progress chart all the way back to when he was born which was in
KS: January first.
CB: Okay, there it is. So, yeah, he was born in January 1st, 1942. So, roughly around there, let’s say. And so, then you just advance it for one day for every year. And eventually, we see that his Mercury changes signs when he’s eight-years-old, it moves into Aquarius. Eventually, Venus stations retrograde there in 1954. So, he’s what? 12-years-old when Venus stations retrograde initially in Aquarius [crosstalk] begins moving backwards. Eventually, Mercury catches up to [crosstalk]
KS: Moves up to 31, yeah.
CB: Right. Mercury stations retrograde at 26 Aquarius in the early 1970s when he’s… What do you say? 31-years-old?
KS: Yeah.
CB: So, you’ve got the ephemeris open right now [crosstalk] and [Kelly laughs] you’re looking? Okay.
KS: Yeah, I do. I’m not brilliant. People should not think that. I’ve just got the ephemeris because she was born on the first of January. Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that makes it easier. Okay.
KS: Yeah, it’s basically what happens. I guess he’s in his early to mid-50s, where both Mercury and Venus station direct within 24 hours of each other.
CB: Yeah. So, what happens is if you advance it all the way to the early 1990s, eventually, you get to this point around 1992 and 1993, 1994, where Mercury and Venus both station direct and Aquarius, around the same time roughly are within a few years of each other in the early to mid-1990s. So, Mercury stations direct at 11° of Aquarius by 1993-1994 and Venus stations direct at 5° of Aquarius by 1994-1995. And what happened is that he had been an astrologer since he’d been interested in and studied astrology since the 1960s and 1970s and needed modern astrology, but he was never fully happy with it. He was always looking for something a little bit more precise. And then through some circumstances, he discovered the translation Project Hindsight that was happening in the 1990s, and discovered Hellenistic astrology and was just immediately drawn to and was enthralled with it and became very active as an associate of that project who helped them with various duties and eventually started to give lectures on the topic of Hellenistic astrology and help them to promote it. And what’s interesting about that in terms of his story is that a few years later, in the year, I think, 2000 or 2001, I talked about this in my book, he was sent by Project Hindsight to go to the Northwest Astrological Conference, and to run the Project Hindsight tradeshow booth at this conference, which he did in order to help them promote the project and sell some of their translations and stuff like that. And I’ve heard this story from several different astrologers.
But apparently what happened is, late one night, he was sitting in the bar, and he was talking to a bunch of students of astrology about Hellenistic astrology and he was regaling them with stories about this new tradition of astrology that was being rediscovered. And they were all so excited that they asked him to give an impromptu lecture. So, he wasn’t there to give a lecture and he wasn’t a speaker, but they found an empty room and they went off and he pulled out this flip chart that had a bunch of diagrams of the Thema Mundi, and the Planetary Joys and all these different Hellenistic concepts and gave this impromptu lecture. And all of these students were so enthralled by it that they encouraged, they were actually Kepler College students who were there, having just completed the first year of Kepler College, and they encouraged their teacher who was also in attendance to integrate this material into the curriculum and the teacher who was there in attendance was Demetra George. So, Demetra then goes to Maryland and studies with Alan and with Robert Schmidt learns Hellenistic astrology then creates a course around the subject, and that’s essentially how Hellenistic astrology is taught at Kepler and then I show up and take that course a few years later, and then I write a book on it 10 years later. But the whole link in the chain is this guy whose chart we’re looking at discovering Hellenistic astrology in this new year period in the early to mid-1990s when his secondary progressed, Mercury and secondary progressed to Venus, both stationing direct in his chart roughly about the same time.
KS: Yeah, and I think that’s a really great story, Chris. This is basically the lineage of the modern revival of Hellenistic astrology. And if, of course, I’m thinking about those station points and inserting them back into the natal chart and what aspects those planets were making as they stationed. And just so I can nail down the timeline, it was in the early to mid-90s that he got involved with Hindsight and then it was in like 2000 or 2001-2002 that he went to NORWAC to do this impromptu lecture. So, the Venus station at five Aquarius or progressing Venus stationing at five Aquarius his natal Pluto was at five Leo. So that puts the Venus into an exact aspect for a few years because Venus was at five for quite a few years in the opposition of the Pluto in his natal chart because I’ve got the ephemeris here. Does that make sense?
CB: Yeah, basically. You might also point out because he was Aries rising that Aquarius was his 11th house to begin with. So, he had two planets stationing and the 11th hole sign house and he met people that became close personal friends as part of an alliance and a group of astrologers.
KS: Yeah, he was a huge part of that. And then it looks like that… So, let me just count this very high tech. He is off to the Mercury stationing direct. It had progressed forward to 13 Aquarius, which brought it back into an exact trine aspect with his natal Jupiter, which is at 13 Gemini. And I think that would have been in the early 2000 period where he went to NORWAC and gives this impromptu lecture. And I think that’s a fascinating exposition of the Mercury’s coming out of the retrograde. It’s making an aspect to natal Jupiter, and we’re getting this, will you just be our teacher almost a golden experience that comes together really easily around that.
CB: Sure. Yeah. So, it’s all of those things in terms of both paying attention to just what is the secondary progress chart itself doing, and are there important planetary alignments, like retrograde stations taking place in some specific area of the life, or how are the secondary progressed planets related back to natal planets in terms of activating those placements as well? Yeah, but anyways, that was always one of my favorite examples of stations because as you said, stations are extremely rare. And some people never really even experience some certain types of stations like Venus [crosstalk] retrograde station.
KS: And it is possible. Yeah, most of us don’t have Venus retrograde. Venus is retrograde Mars [crosstalk] out of every 18-month period. So, most of us are not our three-month window of progress possible planets, it’s going to be nowhere near that yet the Mars retrograde should, most of us will have nothing to do with that. And it is possible. Yeah, it is possible that if you’re born shortly after Mercury stations direct, and you live to be 80 or 90 years old, you may miss Mercury progressed retrograde in your chart completely. If you’re born at the very end of a Mercury retrograde, you can miss it.
CB: Okay. So yeah, and as you said, as you keep going further out past Mercury, the rest of the other planets and their stations are less and less frequent. So, planetary stations can be really important and can show important turning points in the life. But yeah, but that’s just one consideration. What are some other? I know one of the other big ones and the one that tons of people talk about has become a really major interpretive principle is the secondary progressed lunation phases and lunation cycle essentially, right?
KS: Yeah. So, we’re looking at the phases of the Moon in the progress chart. And this is something that I have a particular affection for, shall we say. And this goes back to my love of Martine’s work, where he talks about the innermost parts of our being rising and falling or ebbing and then growing based on the relationship with Moon and so the idea that the progressed Moon phases. And when you’re working that out, you are looking exclusively in the progress chart at the relationship between the progress Sun and the progress Moon. And what you’re looking at is what phase are my progress Sun and progress Moon creating, and how is that shifting the tone or the pulse of my life for a particular period of time? And there’s a whole philosophical theory that I bring into this to do with the way the Moon being one of the light givers sets a cycle to do with fortune and abundance or even success. And there’s a number of examples that I’ve got where, when you progress into the bright half of the Moon’s cycle… Is this too much info, Chris? Sorry, this is [crosstalk]
CB: No, I think it’s good. I’m just trying to think about how to visualize it for people that you’re just looking at for, is there a new Moon that takes place after you’re born, or is there a full Moon that takes place after you’re born?
KS: Yeah, so you want to look for both because each one will be different or significant. And then the idea that in addition to the new Moon that happens after you’re born, and there’ll be two or three of them over the course of your 90 days/90-year life, so the progress new Moon itself is a major new beginning, like a rebirth or a fresh start. You are starting over or starting again or striking out in a new direction. And then you’ve got a few stepping stones based on the phases the Moon moves through before you get into your progressed full Moon phase. But the progress full Moon phase itself is definitely a period of combination, and you’re at the height of your or the Moon is most visible. So, your height of being visible or being seen, and there’s a strong accumulation energy that we can have around that progress full Moon.
CB: Right. And have you had lunations? Do you like talking about your chart when you talk about… I always relate a lot of this stuff back to my own chart. I don’t want to be obnoxious about that, but sometimes, it’s useful because that’s when you have the most direct visceral experience of the transit, and so sometimes it stands out the most or you come to the deepest understanding if you do get to experience something astrologically like that because it becomes not just an abstract concept, but something you’ve actually lived through and you can relate to what that [crosstalk] actually means.
KS: Totally, yeah, I have, but I don’t like talking about my chart.
CB: Okay, that’s fine. [Kelly laughs]
KS: I don’t know. Maybe that’s my new Moon nature coming out [unintelligible] I talked about my chart. But I do have a really good example of King George, Queen Elizabeth’s dad with the progressive Moon phases.
CB: Okay.
KS: Do you want me to put that up or [crosstalk] do you want to put that up?
CB: Yeah, go ahead and share it if [crosstalk] you’ve got it.
KS: Okay. Yeah. So, should I put the natal chart up first so we can use that so people can see that first or? Let me just [crosstalk]
CB: Yeah, let’s see the natal charts. We can see where the Sun, Moon were originally and what their relationship were.
KS: Okay, so let me just find [unintelligible] We’re just going to roll through. There we go. Oh, there we go. So here is King George. So, this is Queen Elizabeth dad. This is the guy who became king when Edward abdicated. Sorry.
CB: So, this is the father of the current Queen of England. And originally, he wasn’t supposed to become king, but it was just that his brother decided he didn’t want to do it because he fell in love with somebody or something like that?
KS: Yeah. So, Edward was in love with Wallis Simpson, who was a divorcee. And the throne, the Royal at the time, the British monarchs were not allowed to marry royalty. So, what happened was Edward and George’s dad died in early 1936, which automatically made Edward king because he was the eldest, George was the youngest son and the spare, if you like, the heir and the spare, as they say in royal families. So, Edward became king, but he was already in love with Wallis. And the whole of 1936 was this confusing year for the British monarchy because Edward was going to have to choose. He couldn’t be king and stay with the woman he loved, he could have one or the other. And George is obviously sitting there he is a saj, but he is a balsamic Moon or dark Moon person in his natal chart, plus the Moon is in the sign of Scorpio. So, he’s quite a private guy and tends to maybe prefer to stay out of the limelight.
CB: Sure. And when you say he’s a balsamic Moon, it’s because his Moon is at the very end of its phase. So, at the end of its cycle, it’s decreasing in light, so it’s getting darker and darker before it eventually reaches the exact new Moon, which is when the Moon conjoins the Sun, which it’s about 30°, or one sign away from doing so it’s in the very last 30° of its cycle and that’s what the balsamic phase is, it’s the very last part of that Sun-Moon cycle.
KS: Yes, yes. So, for people who aren’t familiar with the Moon phases, modern astrology we use a template of eight Moon phases that starts when the Sun and Moon are conjunct, and it’s as if the circle is divided into eight sections. So, the opposition is the full Moon. We’ve got the two squares, which are the quarter Moons. And then we have these midway between the conjunction and the square, or the square coming back to the conjunction. And, essentially, to figure out your Moon phase, you start at the Sun in your chart or in your progress chart, and you have to move forward through the zodiac in zodiacal order. And you have to go as far through the signs to find the Moon, depending on where your Moon is. So, we have to go almost a full revolution to find the Moon for King George. And so, that’s how we know we’ve gone all the way through. Yeah, I guess we should definitely explain that because that’s a big concept if people aren’t familiar with the Moon phase doctrine.
CB: Sure.
KS: So, the idea with your progress Moon phase is that you will get more or less light through your progress Moon phase than you will have different times, than you might have had in your natal Moon phase if that makes sense.
CB: Sure. And also, just that in the secondary progressed lunation phase, just the basic structure is that at a new Moon, it’s like you’re starting out a new 30-year cycle of your life and there’s new beginnings versus when you’re at the full Moon, it can sometimes be seen as a period of culminations or other key words like that.
KS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The quarter Moons are really dynamic busy periods where there’s a lot more action that’s going on. And yeah, [Kelly laughs] with a lot of our predictive work, I do a lot of work with people who are progressing through the balsamic or dark Moon phase, which is often a time of closure completion or endings, which is symbolically congruent with what the Moon is doing at that point in her cycle.
CB: Sure. So, George was born in 1895. What’s the secondary progressed example with him?
KS: So, here… [clicking on computer buton] Somewhere… Here we go. So, here we have his secondary progress chart for when he became king. So, this is for… Well, it’s actually for the first of Jan 1936. So, this is the year in which his father dies and his brother becomes king. That happens in January 36th and in December of 36, Edward officially abdicates the throne without having had an official coronation and George becomes king. So the line of succession changes. And the progress Moon phase that George comes into is that progressed first quarter Moon phase. So we’re looking at his progressed Sun at 2 Aquarius and his progressed Moon at 3 Taurus. So the Moon has just progressed into that 90° or square aspect to the progressed Sun. So that’s put him into that first quarter phase. And basically, what I’ve seen in, you know, sort of example after example is that when we progress into this first quarter Moon phase, in this Moon phase, the Greeks called this, I can’t remember the Greek word exactly, but they refer to it as like the teenager phase, where the Moon is half full and growing. So the Moon has now reached like half light. And for the next half, you know, the next sort of 2 weeks or 14 days, which would be 14 years by progression, the Moon is going to be in her bright half of her cycle. So this tends to correlate… I know we say the progressed Full Moon is culmination, the progressed Full Moon phase is culmination, I actually see the success starting at the progressed first quarter Moon phase. So this is where, you know, he becomes king. And what’s interesting in the example with King George, didn’t really want this job, but he moved into what ultimately became his most prominent cycle or phase of life as the Moon comes into its prominence.
CB: Okay, got it. So the secondary progressed lunation phase cycle is always looking at the relationship between the Sun and the Sun and the Moon in the secondary progressed chart. So it’s not relating it back to the natal chart necessarily or at least in terms of just establishing the phases. It’s just in your secondary progressed chart, what relationship does the Moon have to the Sun? And is it near one of those important turning points like a New Moon or Full Moon or first or second, third quarter Moon or what have you?
KS: Yes, yeah. And those four phases that you just described Chris,the phases that begin with a traditional aspect, tend to be really the start of more busy periods in a person’s life.
CB: Right, because you have the New Moon, which is like the start of the almost 30-year cycle, since it takes about 28, 29, 30 years for the Moon to, you know, complete the complete cycle around the Zodiac and come back and can join the Sun. So you have the New Moon, which is the start, you have the first quarter, which is the halfway point essentially before you eventually get to the Full Moon. And then you have the third quarter, which is the halfway point between the Full Moon and New Moon.
KS: Yes. So what we’re looking at is the progressed first quarter Moon if you like. Given time, the Moon will sort of progress over to here, and then the progressed Sun will have moved forward a bit, too. But we would get the opposition forming between the two approximately here let’s say, and then the Moon will progress around here and form that next square. The Sun will have moved on a little bit at that point to approximately here.
CB: Do you happen to have any other progressed lunation examples off the top of your head?
KS: Yeah, yes. We can do the David Bowie example if you like. There’s a second piece to this part with King George, is that he wasn’t well, he was never a well man. And he was king for about 14 years. 14 years, 16 years. He was basically king from the time he entered the progressed first quarter Moon phase until he came into the progressed third quarter Moon phase. So all the while, the Moon progressed into this bright dynamic part of the chart. The Moon got over here, and unfortunately, he was very sick and he ended up passing away quite young which was unexpected. So not that it’s great that he died, but we can see that he was sort of king in that bright part of the Moon cycle. For any other tennis fans out there, Pete Sampras, who had an approximately 14-year career at the top of the tennis world. It started when he went into his progressed first quarter Moon phase, and it lasted until he progressed into that progressed third quarter Moon phase.
CB: Okay.
KS: Another example off the top of my head is the Bill Gates listing example for Microsoft. So this is a good example. I think it happened… We didn’t prep this example. But it was about 86 off the top of my head, I think. Bill had progressed into his first quarter Moon phase when Microsoft listed, and he obviously went and became very wealthy overnight. That’s a good example because he didn’t create Microsoft overnight, that was a company he’d been working on through a number of iterations in the years leading up to it. But he starts to really see the success of that with the progressed first quarter Moon phase. And then to a different… Sorry, go.
CB: No. Actually, go ahead and with yours. I was going to mention… Because I’ve had a one lunation–
KS: Yeah, you tell us about your story.
CB: Yeah, I’m not going to get into it too much. But I had… Mine was weird because I was born in early November of 1984, and my Sun was in early Scorpio. And what happened is that around 2005, my Sun progressed into Sagittarius, so I had a secondary progressed, secondary progressed–
KS: Sun changed signs?
CB: Yeah, ingress, which is big in and of itself. But the Moon caught up to it at the same time and conjoined it also around 2005 at 0° of Sagittarius. So the Moon changed signs, and then I had a secondary progressed lunation. And then what was interesting about that and another thing we haven’t mentioned yet, is that that lunation, that Sun Moon conjunction happened within 3° of the south node. So it was also a solar eclipse. And so that was the year that I discovered Hellenistic astrology. And then right around the time of that solar eclipse basically, in my secondary progressed chart, is when I moved to Project Hindsight to study at this translation project, and started, you know, very intensely studying Hellenistic astrology and then eventually, not too long after that or within a year of that, would start writing my book on the topic.
KS: That is very cool. Yeah, your south node’s at the very end of Scorpio, right?
CB: Yeah, it’s a 27 Scorpio.
KS: 27 Scorpio, yeah. I’m just looking at the…Yeah.
CB: I mean, here, let me share–
KS: No, no, no, I’ve got it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If you want to put it up, for sure.
CB: Yeah, I’ll just share the secondary progressed chart. So that’s what the secondary progressed chart looked like in like November of 2005, was that New Moon conjoining at 0° of Sagittarius, just a few degrees off of the south node. So that it was not just a secondary progressed New Moon, which in and of itself would be the start of a new 30-year cycle, and like laying the foundation for something that would grow and develop over the next few decades of my life, which turned into my, you know, passion and study and sort of scholarship on Hellenistic astrology. But it was also an eclipse, which almost emphasized it as perhaps being more important that it might be otherwise.
KS: Yes, I think the other feature that might have added to the significance, A, you’re right, it’s an eclipse, which is going to give the power and it’s pretty tight like 3° degrees, that would be a total. So what we’re saying essentially, is that the… Let me just grab… What day in November you born? What’s your birth date?
CB: November 1st.
KS: Okay, so basically what happened 3 weeks after you were born is there was the solar eclipse in the sky.
CB: Yeah.
KS: Yeah. And so that solar eclipse becomes your first progressed New Moon in your chart, which is hugely significant.
CB: Which is just a great example, that literally it’s like if some astrologer was standing around in 1984 and they saw that I was born on November 1, and then they would see that like 30 days after I was born or… Not 30, it wasn’t even 30 days, it was what? Like 20 days after I was born…
KS: Yeah, yeah.
CB:…there would be a solar eclipse, they would say, “Because the solar eclipse happened, you know, 20 years after you were born or 20 days after you’re born, your 20th year of life, a significant turning point will take place in that year.” That statement would have ended up being true for those symbolic reasons.
KS: Huge. And I think that in and of itself, that is the synced and it’s a complete forecast, it doesn’t need anything else. But the extra bit that did happen that was also going on is that your Midheaven is in early Sagittarius. And this is still a couple of degrees off, that exact Midheaven, but I think that would add to the power of that event to changing the professional direction or forward thrust in general of your life. Because that’s all what the Midheaven kind of represents.
CB: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, that was the start of a bunch of other things. My friendship with Nick Dagan Best, and eventually my getting involved in the Association for Young Astrologers and becoming the president of that, and eventually becoming the president of a local NCGR group, and then eventually research director, a lot of it grew out of that time and all began happening shortly after that, which is just interesting, since it was also taking place in my 11th whole sign house, and just that idea of friends and groups and alliances and things also being important.
KS: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, which is so important for you with the way your chart is constructed. Yeah, that’s a really great example, Chris. So the progressed New Moon is really important. So this is a really good example of how and why.
CB: Yeah, and this is just another one of those things where like I was saying earlier, sometimes having that experience yourself sometimes and sometimes you have to wait a long time. I had to wait, you know, 20 years for this experience. But when you do have it, sometimes it can create a really visceral understanding of what those periods can be about. And that’s something that I can’t even convey. It’s like I’m giving a summary of it. But it’s like if you lived through my life at that point and seeing what a huge turning point and a new beginning it was, you would understand even better how well the astrological symbolism actually fits the developments that occurred in my life in that year. But even me just summarizing it in that way is kind of useful as a little example.
KS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you’re right, Chris,I mean, if anyone’s listening, who’s over the age of 30, they have had a progressed New Moon, and it would just be a matter of tracking back to figure out when. And for our listeners who are pre Saturn return or pre 30, many of them may, because you can have a progressed New Moon when you’re five or when you’re 17 or when you’re 35. No, it’s got to be before you’re 30. So sometime in the first 30 years of life, you would have a progressed New Moon. And it is interesting because it’s a… I mean, I don’t want to sort of necessarily use a word that often gets overused, but it is a rebirth, you know. You begin again, you start in a fresh direction. One of the descriptive or interpretive descriptions I use for this with clients is you’ve got skills and experience because you’ve been an adult and you’ve been living and you’ve got you know, you’ve got stuff behind you already. But this progressed New Moon, it’s that idea of you’re putting down seeds or you’re like a babe learning to walk, it’s all new again. Because either your circumstances have changed, your focus have changed or some other significant reframe has gone on. And it’s just not like what it was before. So it takes a little while to find our legs. And we can feel a bit wobbly on our feet. But we’re often called into something that is then going to be huge for that next cycle.
CB: Right, definitely. And then for me, that was learning how to read ancient texts, learning Greek, had to like learn the Greek alphabet, learning how to write scholarship and read like academic scholarship on the history of astrology and all sorts of things like that, that then took 10 years eventually to turn it into a book. And you know, who knows what comes next? My next thing, I’m coming up on a secondary progressed Full Moon that’s going to take place here in the next, I don’t know, few years not too long.
KS: Yeah, if you… Yeah, beause you’re just 30, right? Like, you turned 30, was it?
CB: 33.
KS: 33. No, I was like, “You’re more than 30 now.” Because we’re old now that time is flying by.
CB: Yeah, yeah.
KS: So you will have your progressed Full Moon in the next 2 years because you’re 13 years in to this now. But that’s a great example. Because you knew how to speak and write in English, but that didn’t help you when you were trying to get into ancient astrological texts, and you had to learn to speak and write all over again. That’s exactly the kind of thing that happens at the progressed New Moon. The fact that you know how to do stuff in some circumstances sort of doesn’t help you because your circumstances have changed.
CB: Well, and it’s also useful and interesting for that balsamic phase as well, in terms of illustrating that it’s not just about sometimes closing things down or wrapping up the cycle or things ending, but sometimes you can see a preview and you can start to see sort of the shadows of where things are heading. Once you hit that new Moon phase and you have the new beginnings, some of the seeds of that you can see it sort of starting to be laid in the balsamic phase sometimes. Like for me that was going to Kepler College and going to college for astrology and knowing that I wanted to learn the history of astrology and I wanted to go that route. I didn’t know where it would take me, I just had some general idea of like, “This is my long term goal to become a professional astrologer.” And by the time of that New Moon, I had started out on a completely different path in terms of my studies of astrology and suddenly going into ancient astrology, which is something I never anticipated or intended. But, you know, there were some necessary precursors in terms of going to school at Kepler that eventually led me there. And that would have happened, you know, towards the end of that balsamic phase.
KS: Yes, and I think this is a really critical point. That the progressed balsamic phase kicks in somewhere between 3 and 4 years before the progressed New Moon will happen. So if you can find your progressed New Moons, which should be fairly easy because you literally just look up the table. Go to the time and date website, look up Moon phases for your area in the year of your birth and find the New Moons that happened in the 3 months preceding your birth. They’re your progressed New Moons. The 3 to 4 years before each of those New Moons, you’re in that balsamic period, which is introspective, hermit-like and it is about closure and completion. You’re pulling in. And one of the most common or most productive uses of that cycle is actually to go to school or study something, whatever your age, whatever your circumstances. You’re not really interested in like the worldly ambitions of climbing the corporate ladder in that time, but the other thing I see happen a lot, people study in that timeframe. Which means a necessary pulling back from one’s social commitments or even one’s financial commitments because your focus is on the study. And the other thing I see people doing is women go off and have their babies in that timeframe, which is a huge hermit-like, you know, it’s reclusive with a purpose, but you are not doing your sort of normal type things. And then all of the discovery and the experiences you have in that balsamic period, feed into, you know, where you strike out and where you go in the progressed New Moon. So it’s a really important point to make, how they connect.
CB: Sure. So that’s a really important technique just in terms of everybody can immediately help to conceptualize or contextualize where they’re currently at right now in their life and what phase they’re in. And if they’re in a sort of a New Moon type phase, where you’re starting out in a new beginning, but you may not realize, you know, how things are new or how what you’re doing now is laying the foundation for the next 30 years, or you may be at a culmination point like at a Full Moon or something and some things that you started 14 years ago are now coming to fruition in some way, or you may be at one of those other turning points like the first quarter or the third quarter phase.
KS: Yeah, and those turning points are really interesting. And there’s a number of ways you can divide up the lunar phases themselves Is it by waxing versus waning, you know, the growth half, which is new to full, that’s waxing, and then from full back to the new, that’s the waning or the decline or the shedding. I call it shedding, where you’re offloading, whereas the waxing is more of an accumulative half. And then you have the bright half and the dark half. So from the third quarter Moon phase, around to the first quarter Moon phase, the Moon is at least half dark or less. And so there is more of an introspective tone there. We’ve got to put a bit more effort into things to get the results we want. And then we hit that first quarter Moon phase where we come into the bright half. And from there around to the third quarter phase, that seems to be more of our success, abundance, you know, being out in the world ticking some of those boxes. But you kind of want to know where you are because you want to know, is this a good time to push forward? Should I climb the mountain? Like am I going up the mountain or am I starting to come down and share what I’ve learned from having been up there? And it’s huge. And then from a technical perspective, you can actually flavor how you interpret a transit by bringing in the progressed Moon phase because it will orient the direction that that transit goes in. That’s probably a talk for another time, but for the more–
CB: Okay, this is… So a large part of your consulting work is talking with clients about this as a long term phase and helping them to understand where they’re at in their life and the actions that they’re taking now within the context of a larger cycle like this.
KS: Huge. Yes, that’s exactly it. And the progressed Moon phases are kind of the key or the crux for that.
CB: Is this one of the first things that you’ll calculate when you’re preparing for a client session?
KS: Yep. Yeah, so I print off a natal chart and you know, prep the natal chart. And then I’ll print off the bi one with the natal and the progressed. And then I draw the transits in on top. And then, you know, and even I would… I like to just put everything into–
CB: Right, and then there’s the kitchen sink–
KS: The kitchen sink and you’re like… Well, yeah, so it’s your, you know, maybe you’re in a third house profected year, but you’re having that while you’re in your, you know, progressed balsamic phase, this is different from where you were 12 years ago, you know, you can… Once you get comfortable with different techniques, you can interweave them to others. But yes, I would definitely look. Because of the cyclical nature of progressions, that’s one of the things that first drew me to progressions is, you know, there’s that cycle. I also like that it, you know, the difference, one of the technical differences between secondary progressions and solar arc directions is that secondary progressions preserves the relationships between the planets, that the Moon moves faster than the Sun, and we see that in the progressed chart. That’s why we have new phases.
CB: Well, that’s actually really cool looking at the secondary progressed chart is that the Sun in secondary progressions moves forward about 1° a year and the Moon moves forward about 1° a month basically, right?
KS: Yes, that’s the default average. And yeah, so you see over the course of the year, your progressed Moon is going to move anywhere from about 12° to 15°. And over the course of a year, your progressed Sun goes 1°. And so there you get that sense of one moving faster than the other. And one of the timing techniques often encouraged to students who are learning about progressions is to start tracking their progressed Moon through their chart. Because the progressed Moon’s moving a degree per month approximately, every, you know, two and a half years or so, the progressed Moon is going to change signs. And you will get to experience what the mood shift feels like based on whatever sign your Moon is progressing through. So that’s a fun one, you know. For all the people who think having the Scorpio Moon is a bad thing, you know, you’ve probably had your progressed Moon go through Scorpio. And that will give you that flavor of Scorpio Moon for a period of time.
CB: Right. And in that way, I mean, especially in terms of studying short-term stuff on a monthly basis or a yearly basis, secondary progressions because most of the planets move so slowly in secondary progressions, you’re really mainly paying attention to the Moon most of the time in most secondary progressed charts, right?
KS: Yeah, the Moon, the Moon’s phases, you’re right. Because even the progressed Sun or progressed Mercury, they’re not going to change signs every year and they’re not going to make aspects back to the natal chart every year. So in some ways, you sort of scan to see if something’s happening, and if it is happening, you know, it’s a significant event, and you want to weave that into your forecast. And if nothing’s happening, then you know, you move on to your other techniques. You know, the other part though when you dive into predictive astrology is that not every year is important, and not every year will change your life. Chris,you mentioned your year when you were 20. I went through a huge amount of changes when I was 29 to do with, yes, that Saturn return year. But for me, that was also a progressed New Moon year at the same time. So there was a couple of–
CB: And that’s important because sometimes astrologers mention that because the progressed lunation phase is 28 years approximately and the Saturn return cycle is about the same, that sometimes they’ll sync up in this weird way.
KS: Yes, well, what tends to happen is that when you have your Saturn return, you will be progressing through the Moon phase that you were born under basically.
CB: Okay, so when you have your Saturn return around the age of 28, the Moon is going to return back to roughly the same relationship it had with the Sun when you were born?
KS: Yes, in your progressed chart. So if you were born under a first quarter Moon, that’s your natal Moon phase, in that like 20s period, you will progress back into the first quarter Moon phase. Yeah, and then depending on what Moon phase you’re born in, if you’re born… Yeah, that’s one way you can personalize the Saturn return right there, is bringing the sign and phase of the progressed Moon. Yeah.
CB: Got it. Okay. And there’s just a couple other points I want to touch on before we get towards the end of this in terms of interpretive principles. One of them, we’ve kind of mentioned already or alluded to them, but one of them is ingresses. Just when do planets change signs in the secondary progressed chart? So you already mentioned that the Moon changes signs at least every two and a half years basically, right?
KS: Yes. Yeah, you do have to double check because, you know, some people have, you know, New Moon can be a bit quicker or a bit slower. But between every 2 to 3 years is the safe bet. Yeah.
CB: Okay. And then the Sun will change signs at least every 30 years, because that’s about how long it takes for the Sun to move through one sign of the zodiac is 30 days. So that translates to 30 years in secondary progressions?
KS: Yes. And the trick with your progressed Sun is the age at which it first changes signs can be anywhere between 0 and 30. That depends on how far into the sign the Sun was when you were born. So Chris,we can do each of us very quickly. Your Sun was at 9 Scorpio. So loosely eyeballing that, you were about 21 years old when your Sun, 20 to 21 years old, progressed from Scorpio into Sag, which is just what you talked about.
CB: Yeah, that was that New Moon.
KS: That was that New Moon. If somebody is born with the Sun nataly at 25° of the sign, it’s going to progress and change when you’re 5 years old. Once you know how old you are when the Sun first changes signs by progression, you can basically add 30. Gets a little bit off, you know, there’s a… You know, you can have a plus or minus variance here because we’re eyeballing it. But yeah, when the progressed Sun changes signs, that’s one of the most significant events that I look for.
CB: So to what extent is that a timing technique that just shows like a shift in the person’s life in terms of the sequence of events or the chapters of their life, let’s say versus to what extent would you take that as like a shift in terms of the person’s Sun sign and like a character or psychological sense like you know, how much does a person move from being like one Sun sign to being another Sun sign if the Sun shifts? Or do you not really interpret it in that way?
KS: I totally interpret it in that way. So I definitely take that idea of the psychological shift. That if the Sun interpretively is your identity or your personality, if it sort of stands for you, especially if we’re talking a day chart person, then that Sun changing signs by progression, what I say to clients is, it’s like you’ve had a personality transplant. And the way that I language it with clients is from the key words and concepts all the way back in beginner astrology to do with elements and modes. So if you’re a Scorpio nataly or I’m a Pisces nataly, and we… So both of our Suns progressed from a water sign into a fire sign, which we know is a huge different shift. The quality of the elemental change alone is phenomenal. But I went from mutable to cardinal because I went from Pisces to Aries. Which is like getting your mojo on, mutable signs are scattered as all get out. But cardinal signs have got a bit of a mission. So that’s kind of nice. And you went from fixed to mutable, so you went from being maybe very slow and very measured or even more like planned to I can just roll with this. And, you know, neither is good or bad. It’s just that’s the quality of the difference that you’ve gone through.
CB: Yeah, and I could definitely see that shift even just in a personality sense in terms of the elements and going from like a water sign to a fire sign and being much more introspective and sort of like shy or, you know, internal or something like that to being much more extroverted and much more social, and lots of other keywords like that right around that time of the Sun shifting from Scorpio into Sagittarius.
KS: Totally. And the other way I describe it is like… Oh, look, and I’ve got my scarf, so I can do my little dance here. So your core doesn’t change, like you’re still a Scorpio at heart Chris,you know, that’s just who you are. I’m still a Pisces. But it’s like the cloak that you’re wearing, that everything has been filtered through, has changed. So, you know, Scorpio could be black, that would work. And then you put on a cloak that’s much more vibrant. And the filtration like white is more open than black basically or fire if I had used my pink thing behind me. But I think people get the drift. The core is still the same, but the filter or the lens, that’s what the progressed sign of the Sun is giving you. And it can be hugely different. So the element… So, and if you are… If people are trying to think about it, I will say we’re doing, you know, predictive astrology with progressions, which is a weird technique, but we’re going to use beginner astrology or basic astrology concepts to describe it. You’re going to say to the client, “You feel like you’ve come out of your shell or you feel like you’ve got more confidence or you’re more outgoing or you feel like you want to speak up a bit more,” that would be progressed sign in a water sign or natal sign in a water sign progressing into a fire.
CB: Sure, that makes sense. And in that way, that’s one of the other things that makes secondary progressions so interesting, this idea that you might be able to see some of the different phases of growth and development of the individual and of the natal chart by literally advancing it and watching the chart grow and progress and develop in that way. And in that way, I really like the key word for this technique where we call it progressions. Because you’re literally watching the natal chart progress or develop or grow in time.
KS: It’s like the unfoldment of the person, you know. Whether you take the psyche soul psychological component, you just take the development of who they are, you can track how that shifts. And then the other thing with a progressed planet changing signs, that shift is permanent. It doesn’t go back, particularly if you’re looking at the progressed Sun. It could go back if it’s like Mercury progressed in its retrograde. Yes, okay, I understand that we have some very technical listeners who’ll call me out on that. In those instances, it can go back. But progressed Sun changing signs will never go back. If your Venus or Mercury or Mars is not retrograde and it progresses into a new sign, that’s it. Progressed Mars changing Sun is really interesting because it usually only happens once, and it’s a very profound shift in the way you motivate yourself. Even in the way you get aroused by life, you know, Mars is a planet often associated with passions or sexual energies, and Mars progressing, it’s like what turns you on changes. Now, you’re going to notice that in the bedroom, but you’re also going to notice that in life in terms of what you’re interested in. So there’s a lot there, obviously.
CB: And that’s one of the things that you’re going to talk about actually in a workshop soon as you’re focusing on progressed Venus, right?
KS: Yes, actually, I do have a live webinar that I’m giving with lovely Tony through Astrology University. And that’s coming up the last weekend in February. And it is on progressed Venus. So we’ve been doing… I’ve been doing a series of progressed webinars with Tony, so if you’re kind of just coming into that, we’ve got webinars on like an introduction to progression. We’ve looked at progressed Moon phases, that type of thing. And we’re now doing a webinar on each of the personal planets by progression. So we’ve done the progressed Sun I think, but we’re up to Venus. And so we’re just going to look exclusively, what is the Venus cycle about? How do we see that in the progression chart? What do we need to know when we’re tracking our progressed Venus? Is it going to affect our love life? Is it going to affect a different part of our life? And if you, you know, if you’re listening to this and it’s after late February, the video recording will be available still for sure.
CB: Awesome, on your website which is kellysastrology.com?
KS: Yes. Thanks, Chris.
CB: Okay, awesome. So that’s ingresses. And then the final thing we meant to mention is just exact aspects. And this is both when do applying aspects that are still applying in the birth chart, when will those go exact by secondary progression just in the secondary progressed chart? Is one thing, and then the other thing is when will secondary progressed planets hit exact aspects to natal placements that were in the birth chart.
KS: Yeah. Personally, I just look at when the progressed planets will aspect the natal planets, so I take that aspect configuration. But I do know it is personal preference and there are some astrologers who look for the aspects that form in the progress chart itself. I find they tend to be a little more maybe internal. If you’re looking for more an event or for the person to be really aware of a shift or a change, I tend to say that more when that progress planet hits the natal planet, so there’s that component, and that’s really significant. And that’s where you are using the progressions as a trigger.
CB: Right. It’s like almost like a little long term or a slow transit.
KS: Yeah. [crosstalk]
CB: I had one of those a few years ago, actually.
KS: Oh, yeah? Tell us.
CB: So, Lisa pointed this out. So, it was several years ago now. It was probably six or seven years ago, but I had secondary progressed Mars square. It moved into my first hole sign house and then it squared my natal Sun [crosstalk] and Scorpios. So, my natal Suns at nine Scorpio and secondary progressed Mars came up to about nine Aquarius, but because it’s secondary progressed Mars, it moves super slowly. So, it’s just grinding over [crosstalk] for a couple of years. And what happened, it was so funny because at the time, I didn’t really understand and I wasn’t seeing it come up in a lot of other techniques and it was only in retrospect that Lisa pointed out that it really made sense in the context of secondary progressions which I hadn’t been paying attention to for a number of years because I was more focused on some of the timelord techniques. But what happened is that I started seeing this like Ayurvedic practitioner who recommended some herbs because I was trying to focus on my book around 2010 and writing, and I wanted to get more healthy and more focused and stuff. And so, they recommended this herbal regimen of a bunch of different Indian herbs that I was taking in this mixture. And I started taking it one summer really regularly. They had to be taken three times a day. And I didn’t know what was in this stuff, but I was just taking their advice and hoping it would help me to focus more. And over the course of that summer, suddenly, I started having a negative reaction to it. I started getting Sunburns and [crosstalk]
KS: I remember it. Yes. Okay, I remember this.
CB: All of a sudden out of nowhere, over the course of a few months period after I started taking this stuff, suddenly, I couldn’t go outside for more than five minutes in direct Sunlight without getting a really terrible Sunburn. And I had never had this issue before in my life. And suddenly, it just changed my whole life because I couldn’t go outside without just slathering myself in Sunscreen and without wearing a hat and Sunglasses and all this other stuff. So, I ended up staying inside a lot more often than not going out and really shifted things. And I realized pretty quickly that the only thing that I had done that I had changed recently is I was taking these herbs and I ended up looking up the herbs and one of them, I found on the American Cancer association’s website said that it leads to Sun sensitivity. [crosstalk] Yeah. And so, what sucked though, is I stopped taking the herbs, but then something happened where it stayed in my system, or it stayed in my skin for a few years, and there was at least a two, if not three-year period where I still was extremely sensitive to the Sun and kept getting these terrible, terrible Sunburns. And it all happened while secondary progressed Mars came up to and squared my natal Sun.
KS: That is, I wish Kira was on this call almost our friend who is an astrologer and a naturopath and she’d be all over that. But I do a little bit of health and medical astrology just because you see it. But of course, in addition to the nature of Mars being inflammatory and associated with redness and burns, and it being in a hot aspect to your Sun, this is where I bring in not necessarily the kitchen sink, but just to be more specific, you’re a day chart. So, Mars is the most harming planet for you. [crosstalk] So, it’s almost like you took a poison and it wasn’t a poison that was going to kill you, but it did have a negative or detrimental impact. And a progressed Mars aspect, even if you’re just using it exact to the degree, you can have almost two years of Mars progressing through that aspect. And those are really interesting because you’ve got this specific energy coming in. I bet you felt pop up, not that I bet, but theory would tell us that you felt incredibly frustrated or aggravated in general from a psychological perspective that either you were annoyed at this issue, or you were generally annoyed in life that you were constantly having to make adjustments and accommodations between what you wanted to do and what other people were demanding of you.
CB: Right. Although it’s funny because it’s one of those instances where this wasn’t psychologically or inherently [crosstalk] thing. It’s like no actually literally getting terrible Sunburns [crosstalk] and yeah and couldn’t go outside. It was a very literal manifestation of an astrological transit. So actually, sometimes even though you could say there might be side things like that, psychologically, it’s one of those ones I like to refer to just because it’s an instance where if I was to get in an argument with a psychological astrologer who was trying to say that [crosstalk] all transits are basically just a psychological or inherently psychological, and it’s not about the literal event, sometimes it really is about the symbolism indicating a literal event or concrete event that will occur in the native’s life.
KS: 100%. And that’s where I do like to be aware, at least of how the planets and the charts, the symbols, and the chart can shop physically because I do see this, people have fertility problems that are specific to a particular cycle and the cycle ends and the problem goes away, or they have a health condition that is specific to something that is being triggered. As you said, there’s no psychological component other than I’m annoyed, I’m not well, but it’s not like you’re going through a psychological development. It is just a purely… The other way that you see it is, things can manifest where it’s actually not the person, it’s a circumstance around them, and they have to then decide how they respond to that, basically.
CB: Right. But at least sometimes, that’s one of the useful things about astrology, or about this technique is if you can figure out what the thing is that astrologically is indicating that event or that series of events, or even if it is a psychological thing, that mood in the person’s life, during that time, you can sometimes then indicate or figure out or deduce when it’s going to end or when it’s going to lighten up a little bit. And that’s where there’s a real value in astrology in terms of timing and prediction and things like that.
KS: Hugely so. And from my, that’s one of the things clients love is that you can say, “Look, you’re in this cycle, whether it’s a transit, or a progression, or some combination of the two, or a perfection, or for [unintelligible] period, whatever part of the kitchen sink you prefer, and this is what it looks and feels like, and this is when it started. And particularly, when the client is consciously cognizant of that and they’re like, “Yes, I’m very aware that this event began or these feelings began at this time,” then we can say, “Well, if it did begin as theory tells us, it probably should have at the time we expected it to. We can anticipate a lessening of intensity if not a resolution totally at the end of the activation.” Whatever that if it’s two years, if it’s progressive Venus, unfortunately, sometimes they’re really good and they only last six months if your progressed Venus is going really quickly. So that’s just the difference between Venus and Mars.
CB: Yeah, and I think in this context, that 1° range of exactness seems to be really critical, or really key, or at least in that instance, with Mars, for me, it was really the onset was when it started applying within a degree of exactness, I think, and the intense period was around when it was exact. And then once it had moved about a degree away from exactness is when things really started to clear up and resolve themselves.
KS: Yeah. And I think that would be the maximum old [unintelligible] that I would use for a progressed aspect like that because for Mars, 1° applying exact and then 1° separate, that can give you four or five years. And so, it is good to be, this is the buildup or the fade out period. Definitely, that’s what the point of having the old [unintelligible] and then be really specific about the exact timeframe in the middle there.
CB: Sure, definitely. [crosstalk] Okay, so that’s [crosstalk]. We’re almost finished. I know we’re way over time. [crosstalk] That’s an hour and 42 right now, but I think we’ve covered quite a bit. So, you’re not big on secondary progressed aspects of planets to planets, except for the lunation cycle. I’ve seen a few times that sometimes that does seem really important. But I don’t have any examples that I can really invoke right now, so we don’t need to dwell on it. There were a few questions from listeners who that submitted questions about secondary progressions for our Q&A episode, and we decided to not answer those there because we knew we were going to do this follow-up episode. Do you want to answer a few of those really [crosstalk] quick?
KS: Yeah, totally?
CB: Okay, so there’s a few here. I don’t know which ones you’re interested in. Do you want to read one off?
KS: Let’s have a look. So, I think we answered the first one. Oh, the fixed stars. I would love to know how important are the locations of the fixed stars on a natal chart and even on the progressed. So, I’m going to give a very short succinct answer here. When a planet progresses over a fixed star, you will draw in or experience the symbolism or the mythology of that fixed star for the period of time that that planet is conjunct the fixed star. I would only use a conjunction for a fixed star. And the very brief example I have of that is Queen Elizabeth’s annus horribilis. Mercury rules her IC in Taurus. And one year her Mercury sorry, not Mercury, Venus rules her Taurus IC. I beg my pardon. And Venus progressed over 26 Algol 26 Taurus Algol, which is one of the more difficult stars, and she’s on record giving a speech saying she had one of her most difficult year, which was the annus horribilis. Two of her four children got divorced that year, including Charles and Diana, and her favorite castle burned to the ground. So, she described that as being a high stress year, relative to family because Venus for her rules the Taurus IC. So that would be a very quick example of that. If you work with the fixed stars or you want to incorporate them, you will definitely see them come up timing wise. And then, yeah.
CB: And I just remembered, we had one or two really good examples of secondary progress planets hitting the ascendant. And do you want to try to get those in before we [crosstalk] wrap this up?
KS: Yeah, the Clinton example was more progressed Sun hitting the Venus, the strong Venus. And then the Whitney Houston example, progressed Sun going angular, which is the progressed Sun going new nuclear. [crosstalk] We can totally get them in. Do you want to do that?
CB: Yeah, let’s do that really quick because I felt like when we talked about that in the prep for this, those were really good examples that would demonstrate other interesting modifications of things that you can do with secondary progressions. And those ended up being ones that you actually really emphasize and practice planets hitting secondary progressed, or natal angles, right?
KS: Yeah, I do. My experience with the angles is that they’re these power points in the chart. And so, if you have a planet, like the Sun, or the Moon, or an angular ruling planet hitting the progressing over the angle, it’s like it gets plugged in, so I can throw Whitney on the screen right away. So, she was one of the first examples. So, here’s Whitney Houston’s birth chart. So, she is a natal sixth house Sun, which we can see down here in Leo. And at some point, in time by progression, the Sun will progress to the end of Leo, so it will cross into Virgo when she’s about 14 years old. And then about four years later, the Sun progresses over Uranus. She’s about 18 years old. And then a few years after that, the Sun progresses over the descendant. And when the Sun progresses over the descendant, we have a [crosstalk]
CB: So, the natal descendant is at 8° of Virgo?
KS: The natal descendant, [crosstalk] exactly. So, let me just get rid of the drawing tool because you can’t have the drawing tool and change your chart. So, there we go. So, here’s her progress chart. I just threw up January 1985. So, it’s actually would have been better to do January of 1986. So, Whitney Houston came out of nowhere. She was from a musical family. And she had a lot of talent that was recognized from a young age, but her mother made her stay in school, even though she was starting to attract attention from Clive Davis while she was still a teenager, but her mom wouldn’t give her permission. So, I thought that was a really interesting example of the Sun progressing through the sixth house, and even crossing into the hole sign seventh. I’ve seen more power around the angular degree itself. So here we are early 1986, she’s finally allowed to, she signed her recording contract the year prior, and this is the year that she just comes out of nowhere, she’s got the number one song, she’s beating white music bands during this time, and she just does so well for that late ‘80s period once her Sun has now moved into that more angular or electric position.
CB: So, she became very prominent when her sixth house Sun basically moved up to and conjoined the closest angle or the first angle that it would hit, which is the degree of the natal descendant?
KS: Yes. And that’s a really good point that you’ve alluded too there, Chris, is that if the Sun is going to progress about 90°, a degree per year of life, it will probably only hit one angle in the course of your lifetime. And the point at which it does progress over an angle is going to be a year of activation where you gain some confidence, you move into perhaps a more dynamic period. If you’re born with the Sun in the first house or early in the second house, you might have to be fairly old before this happens. If you’re born with the Sun in a cadent house or even a succeeding house, then sometime through the more productive or middle years of life, this shift will happen.
CB: Okay. I have another really good example of that if you want to [crosstalk] look at it. It’s very similar concept. So, this is actually Trump chart. [crosstalk] [Kelly laughs] So, this is one of the ones and this is something I didn’t see during the election because it’s like I was writing my book that year and trying to finish it and didn’t do as much research as I could have and didn’t throw every technique I could have at the chart. But in the aftermath of the election, once he won, I going back through all the techniques that I could think about or have used otherwise, and this is one of the really cool ones that I didn’t see until afterwards was Trump’s secondary progressions were actually really interesting during the election. So, first, let’s take a look at his, so Donald Trump’s birth chart which is… Let me see here. So, sharing the screen. So, this is Donald Trump’s birth chart where his ascendant is at 29.55° of Leo. So, it’s that much commented on ascendant that’s conjunct the fixed star Regulus, which when he was born, was still also at about 29° of Leo. And it’s conjunct to that Mars, of course, in the date chart, and he’s very cliche, Leo rising [Kelly laughs] type dude. I think that’s a pretty uncontroversial statement [crosstalk] that a lot of the qualities of Leo are very obvious and very prominent in him in different ways.
KS: The qualities of Leo and the qualities of Mars. [crosstalk] Yeah.
CB: The qualities of Leo and the qualities of Mars. [crosstalk] And then, there’s also actually, there’s this other funny thing where it’s also the ruler of the ascendant is the Sun which is in Gemini conjunct Uranus and he also has this very like Sun conjunct Uranus and Gemini vibe. So, it’s interesting how all of those mixed together in different ways. [Chris and Kelly laugh]
KS: We could say volatile and combustible.
CB: Volatile, combustible, unpredictable also, [crosstalk] the Uranus component, sometimes erratic.
KS: Well, even the more traditional significations of Mars carry a lot of the more negative side of Uranus too, don’t they? Before, there was Uranus that more that quick or impatient vibe, which is definitely Mars, but Mars and Uranus, the two together, there’s nothing to calm him down.
CB: Sure. But look at where the Sun is. So, the Sun is at 22° of Gemini and the ascendant is at 29° of Leo. So, there’s a pretty good distance between them. How many degrees is that total?
KS: 67
CB: 67°, there’s about 67° between the Sun and the ascendant. And of course, by transit, after he was born, the Sun would have kept moving forward 1° each day approximately. And by secondary progression, the Sun would keep moving forward 1° approximately each year. So, what ends up happening that’s very interesting, in retrospect, is that if you pull up his secondary progressed chart, what ended up happening is that it made it to the degree of his natal ascendant during the election. His secondary progressed Sun made it to 29° of Leo in 2016 during the year of the election. So, for the people watching the video, here is a secondary progress chart. So, whatever age he is at this point, by August of 2016, the Sun is at 29.59 of Leo. So, this is really striking because this is basically right around the time that summer when the Republican National Convention happened and he accepted the nomination. So, he basically had defeated all of his opponents in the primaries and then claimed, or became the Republican candidate officially over the summer right about this point when the secondary progress Sun fully hit the degree of his ascendant. And so, this is an interesting, the other end of the spectrum or the other side of the coin from the Whitney Houston example where we had somebody who, in your example, her Sun started out in the sixth house, and then it progressed, and hit that natal descendant when she became a huge sensation in her musical career and became so prominent.
KS: Well, it’s funny talking about these two examples in completely different fields. Both of these people had this prominence or this sense of being unstoppable. They were winning accolades in their fields at the top of their game. And I think that’s really, really interesting with the power of the Sun there.
CB: Right. And it also ties into the question, I think, because it was about fixed stars and his, of course, is a unique case because he had the fixed star Regulus which is one of the royal stars, which is supposed to confer eminence closely conjunct the degree of the ascendant so, of course, the year that secondary progressed, Sun comes up and conjoins the degrees of his ascendant natively and conjoins the degree of that fixed star Regulus natal is the year that suddenly, he comes into the fullest prominence in his life during the course of that presidential campaign, and then a few months later actually becomes president. So, what’s also interesting about that, though, in terms of some of the other interpretive principles we’ve talked about is of course, not long after that and before the election, his secondary progressed Sun actually changed signs and move into Virgo. So that was actually interesting, curious that he switched from a 30-year period of the Sun being in Leo to a new 30-year chapter of his life with the Sun being in Virgo around the time of the election, which is interesting and curious in itself.
KS: Hugely so. And one interpretation of this is that while your progress Sun is in Leo, for instance, and on Regulus, you’re reaching for something, or you’re striving for something that has been a goal for a long time, or you’re aiming for things that you’ve been aiming for a while, and then the progress Sun changes signs and it is quite the shift. And it’s like, why did I want that? I’m not necessarily speaking to Trump per se, but I’m imagining how other clients might relate to this was, I’m not quite sure why I was so interested in those goals. Because from where I sit now with the progress Sun in Virgo, I’ve got a whole different set of priorities that have nothing to do with what I just spent the last couple of years doing.
CB: Sure, definitely.
KS: And that’s a real unique glitch of when Regulus was at the end of Leo.
CB: Yeah. And now it’s actually progressed into Virgo in the tropical zodiac. Regulus has moved into Virgo over the past few years, which is interesting because then again, comes around to this where it’s interesting that the secondary progressed Sun, by the time of November, was firmly in Virgo at that point and his secondary progress chart. The other interesting thing, of course, is by November, December, so basically, just after he won the election, secondary progressed Moon hit about 23° of Cancer and it’s squared that secondary progressed Jupiter.
KS: Yes. And I think he natively has Venus and Saturn at Saturn’s at nearly at 23 Cancer. And so, that’s not usually a happy six weeks when your progressed Moon passes over your natal Saturn. It’s quite a sobering time, which would make sense.
CB: Yeah, it was unexpected for a lot of people, but especially him coming out that night to accept it. He looked on his face, seemed surprised, or he seemed a little exhausted, I’m sure from the campaign. And yeah, anyway. So, I just wanted to mention that example because it’s such an interesting contrast compared to the Whitney Houston chart, but it really drives home that point of the importance of paying attention to when secondary progressed planets, especially the Sun or the luminaries hit an angle like the ascendant, midheaven, descendant, or IC.
KS: Yes, yes. The Sun and Moon and the other planet I would throw in there would be the ruling planet of the ascendant that tends to really amplify. There’s just a lot of own for vitality that the angles can confer. And when the planet progresses over it, they seem to be… The Whitney example and the Donald Trump example are great examples of how prominent the life can become or the person’s life story, the way their narrative changes with that activation.
CB: Yeah, and that then ties back to our previous discussion in our Q&A episode, we were talking about the degree of the angles and the power that they have, and especially how some are more powerful than others in terms of the ascendant versus the midheaven versus the descendant versus the IC.
KS: Yes, yes.
CB: All right, cool. Well, I think that’s bringing us… Are there any other questions that you wanted to take from our Q&A list?
KS: I feel like we covered…. There was a question about the progressed lunar phase and we’ve definitely talked about that. [crosstalk] I think we’ve covered everything. Yeah. [crosstalk] And it is a big topic. So, I would say that to our listeners, that this is an introduction, if it’s new for you, or it’s maybe giving you a few more points if you’re already working with it, but there’s a lot that you can do like any predictive technique. And one of the bits of advice I tend to give students is don’t try and learn 10 predictive techniques at once. Pick one technique and spend a lot of time practicing it or running a lot of charts through it. You need that to get a sense of the feel and the flow of the technique. Then after six months or a year of working with it, you can decide. I understand the mechanics and the way this technique works, I want to keep it on board, and I’m going to add a next technique in. If it doesn’t resonate, don’t give it a week and then throw it out, give it a few months. But if it’s not a technique that resonates with you, you are allowed to say I’m going to look at other things because not every astrologer who does forecasting or timing work uses every single technique.
CB: Yeah, there’s definitely that’s a thing where there’s some techniques that speak more to certain people than others, either because of how they work or the dynamics of the technique, or there’s just something about different techniques that different astrologers gravitate towards, especially depending on what they’re trying to do, or what they’re trying to accomplish in a consultation, or what their consulting style is, and different things like that. But the purpose of this episode was just to give a well-rounded overview and introduction to the technique because I was surprised that I’ve never really gone into it that much on the podcast so far. And then if people want to learn more, then they can go in depth by studying it on their own, or by focusing on workshops because you have a bunch of different workshops or recordings where you go into specific areas that we’ve talked about here, like the lunation cycle, or progressing specific planets like Venus and other things like that, right?
KS: Yeah, absolutely. Of course, I want to own trumpet and say by my lectures, which are on my website, but there are two great books that I use when I was learning about secondary progressions that I would highly recommend for readers or listeners if they’re interested. One of them is called Predictive Astrology: The Eagle and the Lark, and it’s by an Australian astrologer, Bernadette Brady. It was published a number of years ago, but it’s fantastic. That book also has great eclipse cycles info in it, just as a little sidebar. And the other book I would recommend is actually Steven Forrest’s book, The Changing Sky, which is a great reference for transits. But he gives some of the best info I’ve ever seen out and the most accessible info on progressions that I think can be really helpful for people to understand the technique, but also figure out what to say to a client about certain things in that technique. So those two books are good. And then I do work with progressions where I’m blending some of the traditional ideas with the technique. And yeah, I think I’ve got about half a dozen lectures from an intro to progressions all the way up to doing fancy and fun things with the progress on through the terms and things like that. So, there’s a lot of little iterations like that you can do that are really juicy.
CB: Brilliant, people should definitely check out your website, Kelly’s astrology, for more information about that. And for some of your workshops and stuff like that, people can calculate secondary progressions pretty easily in the extended chart selection on astro.com. For the program we were using today, both of us use Solar Fire. And I think that’s how you and I usually calculate secondary progressions in terms of chart software. And people can find out more information about that program at alabe.com. And we actually have a promo code where you can get a 10% or 15% discount if you use the promo code AP15 when you purchase Solar Fire through the Alabe website. So definitely, do that if you want to use that software. And then, the last thing is just that we both have been using the American ephemeris and that was the other thing that we recommend for studying progressions if you don’t want to just use the free PDF ephemeris on astro.com.
KS: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. [crosstalk] All right.
KS: The other thing on astro.com in the extended chart selection, so I did mention that you can get your progress planets in there as well.
CB: Yeah, that’s a great resource for… I think that what most people use to start out is just the extended chart selection because it has, I forgot what the option is, but it’s secondary progress chart, and then you set the date or you pick a date for where you want to progress the chart to, and then it will output just a chart for that that year.
KS: Yeah. So, you can definitely, there’s lots of ways to get the info without find Solar Fire. Although, there’s a code, Chris, isn’t there?
CB: Yeah, AP15 is the promo code and then you get a 15% discount on the program.
KS: Perfect.
CB: Awesome. Cool. All right. Well, thanks a lot for joining me today, Kelly. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I think this episode is going to stick around for a long time, so I’m glad we got a chance to do it.
KS: Excellent. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate. Always coming on your show is fun, but talking about one of my favorite topics is even more special, so thanks.
CB: Yeah. And I actually look forward to, hoping I think we all still hope this is going to be your first book is probably going to be on secondary progressions, right?
KS: Yeah, it is. It is half done, so I just have to give myself a bit of a crack over the head and get going with it.
CB: Okay. Well, then one of these days people should check out your book when it’s available, which I’m sure will be before [crosstalk] today.
KS: Yeah, I think it has to come out this year. Otherwise, I have to give up on it, basically.
CB: Okay, [crosstalk] awesome. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening to The Astrology Podcast. You can find out more information about it at theastrologypodcast.com. So, thanks everyone for listening and we’ll see you next time.
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