Progressed Charts: What Are They & Why Do We Use Them?
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 an exact map of the sky when you were born. Natal charts can also be called “birth charts.”
Your “PROGRESSED” chart is a forward advancement of your natal chart, taking into account additional energies gained over time and over your life experiences. We look at progressed charts to better understand these additional influences. Let’s dive into some examples!
Example 1:
Let’s say you were born with a 36° Sagittarius Sun, in other words, your “Natal Sun” is in Sagittarius. Each year, your sun sign will “progress” or move forward one degree. The zodiac constellation of Sagittarius is 37°, so, by the time you were turning 2 years old, you’d technically be a “progressed” Capricorn sun at 0°. (Degrees based on Astronomic Astrology)
In this example, you’ll always BE a Sagittarius 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. People who are born in a late degree of a sign like in this example often don’t remember being 1-2 years old, so they might “feel” more like a Capricorn than a Sagittarius growing up, and that is due to their sun progression through Capricorn.
Example 2:
People who were born in the early degrees of a sign, let’s say 0° Cancer would spend 19-20 years as progressed Cancer sun as Cancer takes up 19° of the zodiac. Meaning, they would have very Cancer Sun like themes for the first 19-20 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 Astronomic 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 Taurus which is, emotionally, a time to build solid emotional foundations. Prior to that, my progressed moon was in Aries. After my Taurus moon progression, I will experience a Gemini moon progression, starting to make sense?
So although I’ll always be a Capricorn moon at my core, different emotional themes will come into play for me to self-develop emotionally throughout my lifetime. And really, wouldn’t it be kind of boring to ONLY have one energy for your moon life long?
Natal Chart vs Progressed Chart Example:
As you can see, there are some big differences between my natal chart and my progressed chart! The biggest changes will happen within your personal planets/placements (Sun, Moon, Rising, Mercury, Venus, Mars), but other things to look for are planets changing houses or going from Rx to direct, or, in the case of my Mercury, direct to Retrograde!
Your Rising sign and all of your other planets will also progress - below are instructions on how to calculate it for yourself!
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 (2025 when I’m writing this)
2025 - 1995 = 30 (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 30 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 23rd, 1995. You’d then look up the Astronomic Astrology placements for October 23, 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 Astronomic 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 Astronomic ascendant in this example is 3° Leo - you’d then add 22° to those 3° bringing you to a 25° Leo Ascendant in your Astronomic progressed chart.
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!?
Happy self Discovery!