Natal and Progressed Chart, How to Find Your Way through the Interpretation Maze

The best way to interpret a chart is to do it logically. Find a routine that suits you and stick to it and, unless you are already an accomplished astrologer, keep things very simple. Use only the normal and very obvious planets and features on a chart and deal with only the major aspects. In time you will find a system that suits you, but, in case you really don’t know where to start, I shall show you mine.

Stage 1

First of all make up a natal chart and then work out a set of day-for-a-year progressions. Place the progressions around the natal chart (using a different coloured ink, if working by hand) and also make a separate list of them to refer to. Keep a notebook handy for your findings.

A method for using day-for-a-year progressions

1. The midheaven: Check for changes of sign or house and any major aspect to any planet or angle. This could be a conjunction, opposition, square, sextile or trine. Jot down your findings in your notebook. Anything that affects the midheaven is always important. After checking to see if this makes any aspects to anything on the natal chart, look to see if it makes any aspects to anything that is progressed.
2. The ascendant: Check for everything in the same way as per the midheaven. This will probably not be as influential in its effects as the midheaven.
3. Pluto: This won’t move enough by progression during a lifetime to be worth considering.
4. Neptune: This won’t move enough by progression during a lifetime to be worth considering.
5. Uranus: Unless your subject is very old indeed, this won’t have travelled far enough to be worth considering.
6. Saturn: If your subject is elderly this will be worth a glance, but it moves very slowly.
7. Jupiter: This is definitely worth looking at. Check for sign and house changes, aspects and retrograde motion. Also look for aspects to other progressions.
8. Mars: Check as per Jupiter.
9. Venus: Check as per Jupiter.
10. Mercury: Check as per Jupiter.
11. The Sun: Check as per Jupiter. Remember that the Sun never goes retrograde.
12. Chiron: If you decide to use Chiron, check as per Jupiter.
13. The nodes of the Moon: If you decide to use these, you may find that they haven’t moved enough to make any fresh aspects.
14. The part of fortune: This is unlikely to be worth using at all, but if you have it on your computer just glance at the sign and house it now occupies.
15. The Moon: This is the most important part of the whole reading, and it will probably take you as long to work through this section as it has all the others put together. Take your time over this. Firstly, check to see what sign and house the Moon has progressed into. Bear in mind that the Moon moves at roughly a degree for a year, so it is easy to work out how long it has been in its current sign and house, and how much longer it will be before it changes.

Now check the actual degree of the progressed Moon and work it forward until it makes an aspect to another planet or to some other feature on the natal chart. Bearing in mind that the Moon moves one degree per month, make a note of the date of any event. Now continue to move the Moon forward and check each event in turn. You may find that several months go by with nothing much happening, followed by a period when a whole bunch of aspects occur at once or hard upon each other’s heels. Note down the dates of everything and also the interpretations. If you want to check that this works, try moving the Moon backwards and see how it connected to other planets and features and examine what happened at those times.

Stage 2

If you have coped happily with the day-for-a-year progressions, find your ephemeris and look at the transits against everything on the natal and the progressed chart. Whether you choose to use your transits against the natal chart alone or against both the natal and the progressed positions, the following list should help you to work out a logical order in which to proceed.

A method for using transits

1. Pluto: Check for the sign and house this is in and any aspects that it makes to any planet or angle. Pluto’s orbit is eccentric but very slow, so it will affect any sensitive spot on a chart for a year or two, or even more if Pluto is retrograde over a particular spot. Pluto spends many years in each sign.
2. Neptune: As per Pluto. Neptune’s effect can be felt for well over a year, possibly even a couple of years. Neptune spends 11 to 12 years in each sign.
3. Uranus: As per Pluto. Uranus’s effect can be felt for a year or more. Uranus spends around seven years in each sign.
4. Saturn: As per Pluto. Saturn’s effect can be felt for several months, sometimes even up to a year. Saturn spends two to two and a half years in each sign.
5. Jupiter: As per Pluto. Jupiter’s effect can be felt for a few months. It spends just over a year in each sign.
6. Mars: As per Pluto. Mars’s effect usually lasts only for a matter of weeks, but if it spends some time in retrograde motion its consequences can be felt for several months.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Natal and Progressed Chart, How to Find Your Way through the Interpretation Maze

• Natal Charting Ascendant Calculation, Horoscope `map of the hour' continue...
• Natal Charting Ascendant Calculation, Horoscope `map of the hour'
• Natal and Progressed Chart, How to Find Your Way through the Interpretation Maze continue...
• Astrology, the Planetary Movements in Detail (Jupiter, Saturn)
• Interpretation and Meanings of the Numbers
• The Techniques of Prediction of Transits
• Love Reading - Which Love Reading Is the Most Excellent?
• Flying Star FENG SHUI: the time dimension
• Solar and Lunar Returns
• The Progressed Moon and the Decanates (Aries, Taurus, Gemini & Cancer)