If you’ve been around the astrology world for a while now you’ve likely seen people talk about their “progressed chart” or their “progressed moon” etc - this post will help you understand exactly what that means and why we find importance and significance in them.
In astrology, you have a “Natal Chart” which is a map of the sky when you were born (well, if you follow real-sky astrology anyway - Tropical & Sidereal astrology base their calculations off of an algorithm rather than linking up with astronomy which you can learn more about in this post if you’re curious/confused).
Your “PROGRESSED” chart is a forward advancement of your natal chart. We look at progressed charts to better understand the influences you take on over time. Let’s dive into some examples.
Example 1:
Let’s say you were born with a 37° Leo Sun, in other words, your “Natal Sun” is in Leo. Each year, your sun sign will “progress” or move forward one degree. The zodiac constellation of Leo is 38°, so, by the time you were turning 2 years old, you’d technically be a “progressed” Virgo sun at 0°.
In this example, you’ll always BE a Leo sun, but your PROGRESSED Sun can show you a lot more about how your core identity and personality (what the sun represents) change and shift over time.
Example 2:
People who were born in the early degrees of a sign, let’s say 0° Cancer would spend 21 years as progressed Cancer sun as Cancer takes up 21° of the zodiac. Meaning, they would have very Cancer Sun like themes for the first 21 years of their life. After the sun completes it’s progression through Cancer, it would then move into Leo, making the person take on Leo Sun influences for the next 38 years of their life.
So even though they were born a Cancer, they almost like, “graduate” out of that energy and then move into the next signs energy. This is so that the person can continue to grow and “progress” and not just stay completely stagnant with their natal chart’s energy.
Everything is constantly moving and changing, including us!
Note: This is also why a lot of people, especially in their 20s and 30s “feel like” their tropical chart - because your tropical chart ends up looking A LOT like your progressed real sky chart.
Only the sun moves at the rate of 1° per year, though! Your other planets move at vastly different and varied rates. Your moon will always be the fastest progression as the moon moves the fastest through the zodiac out of all of the celestial bodies. Understanding your current “Moon Progression” can show you A LOT about the emotional themes/emotional growth cycle you’re currently going through.
Again, you’ll always be your “Natal” Moon - whatever moon sign you were born under, but over time, your moon will change signs (and houses…).
For example, I have a Capricorn moon but my current moon progression is in Aries which is an emotional rebirth and the start of a new cycle. Whereas for the past 4 years (Pisces is the second largest zodiac constellation so progressions & transits take FOREVER to get through it - most moon progressions do NOT last 4 years), my progressed moon was in Pisces.
I got to learn a lot about what Pisces energy “feels” like and it was a huge time in my life for spiritual development, cutting through emotional illusions and learning lessons surrounding emotional boundaries and balancing my light and dark energy.
Your Rising sign and all of your other planets will also progress -below are instructions on how to calculate it for yourself!
(I can also do this for you if this is too complicated - get your progressed real sky chart here)
Calculating Your Progressed Chart:
Your progressed chart is actually kind of weirdly easy to look up if you know your birthday, the rising sign does get a little bit more complicated though.
For Example:
Let’s say you were born on September 23, 1995.
Take the current year (2023 when I’m writing this)
2023 - 1995 = 28 (or basically, take your current age depending on what time of the year you’re looking things up during)
Then find a calendar and go back to the year 1995 and literally just count out 28 days after September 23, 1995 (don’t count September 23rd as day 1 - start with September 24th as day 1, btw)
This comes out to October 21st, 1995. You’d then look up the real sky placements for October 21st, 1995 and that’s your current “progressed” chart.
Calculating your rising sign for progressions:
The easiest way to do this is to look up your tropical natal chart and also your tropical progressed chart which you can do on astro.com under the extended chart selection.
Let’s say your tropical rising sign is at 28° Leo and your progressed rising sign is at 19° Virgo - using their equal 30° system you can calculate the difference in degrees.
The difference between 28° Leo and 19° Virgo within a 30° system = 22°
Once you’ve found the difference in degrees, you can look at your real sky natal chart and add on 22° in this example onto your natal rising sign to see your progressed rising sign degree.
Let’s say that your real sky ascendant in this example is 3° Leo - you’d then add 22° to those 3° bringing you to a 25° Leo Ascendant in your real sky progressed chart.
Again, if this is too confusing lol that’s understandable, this is the method I use but there’s probably other ways to do it too. If I’ve lost you and you’re like “idk man” lol I can do this part for you - here’s the link to get your progressed real sky chart made.
To help with your calculations, these are the approximate (I’m not perfect and things might still shift) degrees of Real Sky astrology, keep in mind they may change a bit year to year:
Aries - 21°
Taurus - 37°
Orion - 1°
Gemini - 24°
Cancer - 20°
Leo - 38°
Virgo - 50°
Libra - 19°
Scorpio - 9°
Ophiuchus - 18°
Sagittarius - 33°
Capricorn - 25°
Aquarius - 23°
Pisces - 42°
Anyway… WELCOME TO CHART PROGRESSIONS!
Again, everything is constantly evolving and changing including us!
You’ll always *be* your natal chart but progressions are like “bonus” influences taken on over time.
Interesting, right!?
Lmk thoughts or questions in the comments if you have them! Happy self Discovery!
About the Author:
Lilly Polivoda
Owner/Astrologer of Astrology Vibez
Leo Sun
Capricorn Moon
Virgo Rising