This exploration has been a long time coming — a gradual, slow, inexorable movement towards forming a new way of thinking about the progressed chart. Pieced together through personal experience and those moments of unexpected grace that weave fragmented flashes of insight into a whole. For this, I thank my clients and my students; they are my partners in this creation.

The method of progressing the natal chart at roughly a day for a year — secondary progression — has been taught for centuries. It is not a modern astrological invention, though it was brought back into popular favour by Alan Leo at the turn of the last century. While Leo used progressions primarily as a predictive tool focused on outer results, our focus shifts toward the inner development — the gradual unfolding of the soul’s potential.

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The natal chart is our core self, our main imprint. Our secondary chart is our core self in spiritual motion — the natal chart come alive in the here and now, showing us themes that are ripe for our knowing.

Every astrologer has dreaded a heavy transit of Pluto or Saturn, only to be surprised when the tidal wave manifested gently. In these cases, the secondary progressed chart is at work. Transits do not manifest in and of themselves via the natal — the secondary chart is the meat in the sandwich. It is where we finally take a bite of the apple.

— Dawn Bodrogi

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