An Introduction to Minor Progressions

by Greg Bogart and Tem Tarriktar

Most astrologers are aware of the method of secondary progressions, in which one progresses the natal chart forward at the rate of one day per year. However, other progression techniques are also viable and accurate methods for measuring change and developments that occur within the birth chart — for example, besides the classic day-for-a-year method of secondary progressions, we have solar arc directions, in which one moves all planets forward by the distance between the natal Sun and the current position of the secondary progressed Sun, and tertiary progressions, in which one day in the ephemeris after birth is viewed as equivalent to one lunar month of "real life." In this article, we will explore the use of a method known as minor progressions, in which one lunar month after birth is viewed as equivalent to one year of life.

While secondary progressions consider the rotation of the Earth around the Sun as primary, this method considers the orbit of the Moon as another factor that defines a cycle that can be related symbolically to the cycles of human experience. Thus, if you are 30 years of age, look (in the ephemeris) for the Moon’s 30th return to its natal position after birth to find the positions of your minor progressed planets for your 30th birthday. (There are about 28 days between lunar returns, so each span of about 2½ days is equivalent to about one month of life.)

You can find your own minor progressed placements by simply using your ephemeris. Go back to your day of birth. Let’s say that you were born on March 11, 1960 and that your natal Moon position was 29° Leo. To find your minor progressed chart for your first real-life birthday, you would look to the first lunar return after you were born. The Moon had returned to 29° Leo on April 7, 1960 (you can pencil in a "1" next to that date in the ephemeris, denoting your first birthday). Do this with your next lunar return (in our example, May 5, 1960) to match your second real-life birthday, writing the number "2" next to that line in the ephemeris. Continue this process until you are at your current age.

As a shortcut to calculation, look in the ephemeris for your birthday exactly three years after your birth. That is, if you were born in March 1960, look at March 1963. A few days before your birthday in 1963, the Moon should have made a return to its natal position. This will match up with your 40th real-life birthday. From here, you can easily count backward or forward to find the lunar return corresponding to your actual age.

What if you are in between birthdays and want to know your minor progressed placements? Here’s a quick way to approximate that: Find the lunar return that corresponds to your last birthday, as described above. Now calculate how many days it has been since your last birthday. Move forward 3 days in the ephemeris for every 40 days of life since your birthday. (Each day in the ephemeris corresponds to roughly 13.3 days of your life.)

Another shortcut is to find where in the ephemeris the Moon opposes your natal Moon position — this corresponds to roughly 6 months from your birthday. Our hypothetical person born March 11, 1960 with a 29° Leo Moon, who wants to know where their minor progressed planets are for October 7, 1991, would find their 31st birthday (July 5–6, 1962) and then would look for when the Moon hit 29° Aquarius (July 19), which corresponds to 6 months after their 31st birthday, or September 11, 1991. This is still 26 days shy of October 7, 1991, so we need to go forward 2 days in the ephemeris past July 19. This gives us a final answer of July 21, 1962. If you want more exact minor progressed positions for purposes of timing events, you can use your astrological software to cast a minor progressed chart.

Once you find your minor progressed planetary placements, you can write them in outside of your natal chart wheel, just as you would with transits. They act like powerful, slow-motion transits. As it turns out, minor progressions are not so minor after all! Whereas secondary progressions show slow developmental processes occurring within the person, minors are faster and may show a greater level of detail than secondaries. Minors add another dimension to astrological analysis, offering a lens that reveals things that are sometimes not apparent through other methods.

Why should minor progressions work? Part of the power of minors derives from their symbolic origination, which relates the cycles of the Sun and Moon, arguably the two most important "planets" in astrology. Minors compare the lunar cycle with the Sun cycle, viewing one cycle of the Moon around the Earth as equivalent to one revolution of the Earth around the Sun. As this is a lunar-based method, minors may be an especially important indicator of emotional responses and attitudinal changes to the ever-changing flow of events in our lives. One of us (T.T.) has found minor progressions to be very event-descriptive, mapping significant life events that may or may not be shown by secondary progressions or solar arc directions.

Minors have the advantage of moving faster than secondaries, but not as fast as transits, so they may be ideal for observing the effects of house and sign changes, and of interplanetary aspects. For example, watch minor progressed Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars changing signs, passing over natal planets, and forming configurations.

The use of minor progressions is simple. Track the movements of minor progressed planets through the various signs and houses of the birth chart. Pay especially close attention to prominent aspects, like minor progressed Jupiter conjunct the natal Sun, or strong aspects between minor progressed planets. In our preliminary exploration, we have found that using minor progressed angles to create constantly changing new charts is not very useful. Therefore, we prefer to plot minor progressed planets against the background of natal houses (especially the angles) and planets. Contacts to natal angles (including the Vertex and the East Point) will mark notable events (inner and outer) related to the symbolism of the planets involved.

Minor Progressed Planetary Cycles

Sun: The minor progressed (MP) Sun passes through one zodiacal sign in 13.37 months of real life. It is fascinating to correlate the MP Sun’s sign changes with subtle shifts in the expression of the life force in your life — changes that may not be readily apparent just by following the transiting Sun. Whereas your secondary progressed Sun will not make it through even half the zodiac during your lifetime, your minor progressed Sun has circled the zodiac twice by your 27th birthday!

Moon: The minor progressed (MP) Moon’s sign changes and aspects to other planets are also very important to observe. The MP Moon progresses at the rate of about 1° per day. Especially important are MP New Moons and Full Moons, which can clearly be experienced as rhythmic cycles of new beginnings and culminations. MP New Moons occur every 13 months (of real life), with MP Full Moons coming 6½ months after each New Moon. Pay special attention to the house and sign placements of these lunations, and note the correspondences in your actual life.

Eclipses by minor progression occur every 6 or 7 years. A minor progressed solar eclipse is a powerful influence. Look back in the ephemeris to see when and where your last MP solar eclipse was, and reflect on its influence on your life, its effect lasting up to 13 years. Likewise, a MP lunar eclipse denotes a major culmination or crisis period, depending on the aspects it makes to natal planets and/or angles.

Mercury: MP Mercury moves much more slowly than transiting Mercury and can stay in one sign from 7 months (at its fastest) to 2½ years (when it retrogrades in that sign). The retrograde period itself occurs every 4 years (of real life) and lasts 10–11 months. The Mercury stations and the retrograde period can mark a very mentally active time. Look up when your last MP Mercury retrograde was and what natal house it activated. One of us (T.T.) spent the entire day in a metaphysical bookstore (despite having other plans), only to find out later that MP Mercury had stationed that very day in his 9th house. One of us (G.B.) had MP Mercury retrograde, and then stationary direct, exactly conjunct the MC for several months; during this period, he wrote a nearly complete doctoral dissertation in a short time and with very little difficulty.

Venus: MP Venus acts like a Venus transit, only more concentrated and enduring. MP Venus–Sun conjunctions occur only twice in a 21-year period. The Venus retrograde periods happen every 21 years and last for 18–19 months. Venus will, however, speed through some signs in 10–11 months. It is particularly interesting to watch the minor progressed Venus–Mars cycle (emphasizing the MP conjunctions, squares, and oppositions) over your lifetime, and think back on the relationships you’ve had.

Mars: MP Mars takes an average of 26 years to go around the chart once! Find your MP Mars return and think back to what you were doing then. The retrograde periods last about 2½ years. Obviously, you should see a lot of energy being exerted in the area of life corresponding to the house position of your MP Mars.

Asteroids: Ceres and Pallas have 61.5-year MP cycles, Juno has a 58-year cycle, and Vesta has a 48.5-year cycle. Learn about the asteroids by watching their MP stations and transits over your natal planets and angles.

Jupiter: MP Jupiter will spend about 13.8 years in each sign. This means that many of you had or will have your first MP Jupiter square to natal Jupiter around age 41–42. Look back on MP Jupiter stations and changes of sign.

Saturn: If you live to a ripe old age, you’ll see MP Saturn make a hard aspect to everything in your chart just once during your life. It moves at about the same rate as the secondary progressed Sun, covering about 1° per year, with the added complication of retrogradation.

Outer Planets: These will move anywhere from 6° to 30° during an average lifespan. From time to time, you will have a minor progressed New or Full Moon conjunct or opposite one of these MP planets, and then you will see them manifest more strongly. For instance, if a MP Full Moon conjoins MP Pluto, and this happens on your natal Mercury, perhaps you will notice that you are obsessed with the news (or other information-gathering) for about 6 months.

One other note: If you have a "ruling" planet (e.g., if you have an Aries Sun and Aries rising, Mars would be the "ruler"), watch that planet’s MP cycle closely. What sign is it in? What is it aspecting? You’ll be impressed with the information you get from this analysis.

Examples

One client started an important relationship while MP Mars passed over his Descendant and through the 7th house. While MP Mars passed through his natal 8th house, he got involved in quite a lot of disagreements with his partner and dealt with intimacy and sexual issues. While MP Mars passed through his 9th, he did a great deal of traveling, medical research, and professional lectures and presentations. And when it passed over his MC, he enjoyed a period of heightened recognition for his contributions to his profession.

A woman got married during a MP Venus–Mars conjunction. Another woman wrote a book during a conjunction of MP Sun and Mercury in her 9th house. An investor went through a particularly stormy period during a minor progressed conjunction of Mars, Saturn, and Pluto in his 2nd house. A man was reunited with his children after three years of separation while MP Jupiter and Venus formed a conjunction in his 5th house. They went to Disneyland together!

More examples: A man with a natal Saturn–Pluto square entered therapy for the first time while MP Saturn was trining MP Pluto (MP Moon was also conjunct MP Saturn at the time). He had a major breakthrough in a negative relationship pattern in a relatively short time. The same man attracted an investor while MP Jupiter was exactly conjunct his natal Saturn. A woman had a terrible car accident that she barely survived during a minor progressed lunar eclipse on her 3rd-house cusp, along with MP Uranus opposing her natal Venus, and a MP Mars–Pluto conjunction (she has a natal Mars–Pluto opposition).

Astrological methods overlap and coordinate with one another to a great extent, and the same information is available in different ways using different methods. This suggests that the universe is holographic and that the same pattern of life experience can be revealed from a variety of astrological perspectives. While minor progressions may be viewed as one method within a hierarchy of astrological methods in which the natal chart, transits, and secondary progressions must always be considered primary, we believe that minors by themselves are as powerful as any method in astrology. Test this method for yourselves!

Images:
Clock: Image by 3209107 from Pixabay
Eclipse: Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Crescent Moon: Photo by Henrique Eugénio on Unsplash

First published in: The Mountain Astrologer, Oct/Nov 1991, republished Feb/Mar 2018.

Authors:
Tem Tarriktar was founder and publisher of The Mountain Astrologer magazine, which he launched at his Saturn Return in the 1980s and published until his passing in 2019. Tem was skilled as a mundane and natal astrologer, making astute observations about the astrology of current events/politics and psychological trends and transits for individual clients. In addition to writing articles and editorials and creating and illustrating his humorous Glyphoid cartoons, Tem provided a forum for hundreds of astrological writers to present their work. Along with his wife Kate, he organized two Planet Camp events where anyone could gather at a retreat center in a natural setting and present their astrological knowledge. Tem's tireless dedication to the astrological community earned him the 2018 Regulus Award for Professional Image.
Greg Bogart PhD, MFT, has practiced astrology professionally since 1981 and is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who utilizes astrology in his work as a psychotherapist. He is also a lecturer in psychology at Sonoma State University. He is the author of Astrology’s Higher Octaves; Astrology and Spiritual Awakening; Planets in Therapy: Predictive Technique and the Art of Counseling; and Astrology and Meditation: The Fearless Contemplation of Change. His other books include In the Company of Sages; Dreamwork and Self-Healing; and Dreamwork in Holistic Psychotherapy of Depression. Visit his website at www.dawnmountain.com, or email Greg at gbogart7@sbcglobal.net.

© 1991, 2020 - Greg Bogart, Tem Tarriktar (RiP)

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