what is a progressed chart?
There are many types of Progressed Charts, but when astrologers refer to Progressed Charts, they usually mean Secondary Progressed Charts. As the Natal (or Birth) Chart shows your promise and potential, the Progressed Chart shows your spiritual unfolding and personal growth. Progressed Charts are used to better understand what motivates you to want to create major life changes. Although your birth chart remains the same, life changes and changes us, and the Progressed Chart describes these changes. It is extremely valuable to compare your current Progressed Chart to your natal chart; it is your inner self showing you how and what it wants to change.
To determine your Progressed Chart, look at an ephemeris (the daily listing of planetary positions), and find the day you were born. Then you then count down a-day-for-a-year for each year of your life, and this is your Progressed Chart. Each line of the ephemeris is a day and each day represents one year of life in your Progressed chart. For example, if you are 20, you count twenty lines (or days) from the day of your birth to find your Progressed Sun and read across to find your Progressed Moon and planets. If you are 30, count 30 lines (or days), etc.
Movement in a progressed chart is different than the movement of a regular chart Since the Progressed chart is calculated using one day for a year of life, the planets move considerably slower. The movement of the Moon is approximately a degree for each month, while the Sun moves about a degree a year. Due to the ecliptic shape of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, the progressed movement is not precisely one degree per year and computer software can make these difficult calculations quickly and precisely. What changes most in a Progressed chart is the Moon, then the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the house cusps, including your Ascendant and Midheaven, which also progress approximately a degree every year.
By Progression, your planets can also change houses, both within the progressed chart and in comparison to your natal (birth) chart. Planets can also station Retrograde or Direct by progressions and these changes are usually notable in your life.