Aside from their complexity, one of the reasons secondarieshave lost favour is that we are loathe to admit that our time on earth is limited. And secondaries, if nothing else, give us a clue as to the parameters of our development here on earth. The day for a year method parenthesizes our life cycle in the grand scheme of things. Ninety days after life equals ninety days after birth. Let’s say that this is the best we can hope for at the moment. In ninety days, the Sun will move roughly ninety degrees, or three signs, via progression. Just by understanding that, we can understand why the Sun or Ascendant (which moves at roughly the same rate) changing signs via progression is so significant. Venus and Mercury move a bit faster, but the same applies, Changes and aspects formed in the progressed chart are looking at the big picture. In this span of ninety days/years, what are the major events and when are they occurring? If your progressed Sun moves to conjunct Pluto at the age of 12, it’s different from when it occurs at age 30 or 50. It’s also different if the Sun and Pluto were within a conjunction at birth, but that conjunction moves exact to the minute/second at some point in life. That Jupiter/Neptune wide conjunction that you don’t pay much attention to will also become exact by progression at some point. I’ve seen astonishing things happen to people when more outward planets become exact by progression, and yet no one seems to note this. I’ve seen little to nothing written about it.
Looking at secondary progressions is like taking a step back and looking at the big picture. They show where we are now in spiritual terms, in terms of the chart’s potential. They point out, like good almanacs, what to plant, what the weather will be, what has come to harvest and what needs to be sown. Most of all, secondary progressions make sense of transits. The transits are the how and when, but the secondary progressions are the ‘why.’ We have all had the experience of anticipating a major transit, only to have it fizzle out and have very little impact in the end. The reason is that the progressed chart did not require it. It passed us by because it was unnecessary to our development right now. Meanwhile a small transit no one really took note of might have stopped you in your tracks. And that may have been because the planet was conjunct the progressed Ascendant, or highlighted by the Sun, or formed a square to progressed Moon, at the time of the transit. This is more likely if the two planets formed an aspect at birth.
I can see you’re already sweating, anticipating the work involved. It isn’t really that time consuming, not with computers. It’s just a question of training the eye to see patterns, which this book will help you with. I assure you, it’s worth it. With a real understanding of the secondary progressed chart, life begins to feel less random and starts to take on a logic, a pattern, a sense. We feel less like a lost planet being pelted with meteors.
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