©March 2011 by Fabienne Lopez
The quest for a simple explanation
I teach a beginner’s astrology class. During one of our sessions, a student inquired about the spiritual and philosophical explanation for progressions in astrology.
She knew how to calculate them – a year for a day.
What she wanted to know is why astrologers use progressions? What need do progressions fulfill in astrology? What do progressions accomplish in the chart that is not done by transits?
Two Types of Explanations
I took her question to the Professional Astrology Group on Facebook.
Two different explanations emerged from the discussion. The first type was more philosophical, the second one more mathematical.
The Philosophical Explanation
Progressions are growth indicators. They measure how we change as we age. One of the astrologers compared it to a landscape a person is walking through.
Another astrologer identified progressions as states that we “are ready for” at different times in life.
Transits would fill in the details of the progressions by bringing people and situations that would help us learn.
The mathematical explanation
The more scientific oriented astrologers in the group thought of progressions as fractals – a geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole.
Taking this definition into account, we could apply the qualities of fractals into progressions. Planetary aspects on day one (day of birth) would be similar to those at 1 year, etc… They would carry the same pattern over time, since time and space are on the same continuum as Einstein told us.
Continuing with the fractal analogy, another participant in the discussion pointed out that time – in terms of day, month, and year – is composed of dark and light alternations. The smallest fraction of time (a day) has a similar alternation pattern of a month and a year.
Progressions repeat symbolically the night and day cycle on a different scale: day= year.
Another scientific concept that could be applied to progressions is the concept of half-life from the atomic field.
Half-life is the period of time it takes for a substance undergoing decay to decrease by half. Scientists use the mathematical formula to observe the rate of atrophy of atoms. Each rate contains a shrinking number that signifies the state of decay.
If we applied this pattern to progressions, each day would contain in itself an increasing number that “symbolizes the foot step, the increment of change which goes on, sometimes unnoticed until aspected. A Day for a Year.” (quote from CF).
My thoughts on Progressions
Reading all the explanations, I noticed they all pointed out to the symbolic nature of the chart, transits and progressions. They all were linked in some various degrees to the “Doctrine of Correspondence”, the esoteric tradition that affirms “as above, so below”.
They all indicate a need for a degree of faith in the mysteries of life. Mysteries that are not yet all discovered and backed up with scientific theories, experiments, and research.
Humanity’s scientific progress does not make it possible at the present time to explain the all the correspondences between the material and the spiritual world. Maybe over time, science will. It has already started.
Personally, I do not need to understand the why of progressions. I know they work. I see in my own chart and the charts of my clients. Maybe it is my own way of cultivating an open-minded attitude towards the mysterious, the elusive, the spiritual, and the unknown. My personal homage to the power of Neptune.
I hope this will help my student.
I wish to thank all astrologers who participated in the discussion. CF, GC, JB, EW, LW, BT and MO’R.
Any misrepresentations are entirely my responsibility.
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