Progessions

16
Sunny Dawn,

Below I quote Michael Lutin from a conference in Brisbane:

[If you look at the Natal chart as the 'terrain' - the Planets as the vegetation and the Transits, Progs (where our growth come from ) as the weather it simplies things. ]

[Progressions will not bring in anything we dont have Natally but Transits will do this.] Bernadette Brady

Another way to look at things is to position the self in the very middle of the charts acting as the conductor of the various instruments and the music. One of my teachers.

Julie K

Uranus conj. Mars N

17
Sorry for my recent message!

I wish you a better learning experience than me!

Blessed be,
Bernadette
Last edited by Bernadette Walsh on Thu Nov 29, 2007 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm a French teacher, astrologer and author.
In 2002, my book Le Tarot au f?minin was published in Montreal, Canada.
I would like to offer my contribution to the renaissance of the Great Goddess!

18
First:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds, then, like Primary Directions are very close to Solar Arc Directions, except that you only use the Hylegical points.

Do I have this right?

Yes, you are correct they are quite similar. The only difference is Directions are more specific (having degree & minute calculations, for instance 1 degree = 1 year and 1 minute = 6 days & etc.).
Primary directions and solar arc directions have almost nothing in common. Solar arc directions are measured one way only, in longitude, i.e., along the ecliptic. Primary directions are the measurement of the planets in diurnal motion along the primary path of the planet. Primary directed planets, then, when plotted on a conventional circular chart are moving in the opposite direction of a solar arc. The primary path is defined this way by Rumen Kolev, one of the leading authorities on primary directions:

The celestial sphere apparently is turning around the axis of the equatorial poles. As a result, any point on the celestial sphere describes a full circle around this axis in 24 hours. The circle will be largest if the poin is on the equator. The closer the point to one of the poles the smaller the circle. This circle is called the primary path, or the diurnal-nocturnal circle of the point.
In other words the primary path is the declinational circle. In Primary directions planets movement along this path is measured. In solar arcs the planets are all moved the same number of degrees as the Sun travels each day after birth (roughly 1 degree per day but there are slight variances). Primary directions are natural movment. Planetary movement using solar arcs, except for the Sun, is artificial.

The degree for a year mentioned by Ptolemy is one degree of diurnal arc not one degree along the ecliptic. There are several ways to measure primary directions and several keys. The degree for a year is a key. Naibod used 59' 08". Cardan used yet another. There are at least 10 known "keys" used in primary directions. Ptolemy measured movement (actually the formation of aspects) one way, Regiomontanus another, Placidus used Ptolemy's method, but others modified that method. Even Kepler got into the act.

Finally solar arcs for a 75 year life span, play out over a period of 75 days in real time. All the primary directions a similarly aged native will experience will play out in about 6 hours after birth.

Calculating primary directions requires a knowledge of spherical geometry and trigonometry, or you can spend nearly $400 for Rumen Kolev's program. Calculating solar arcs requires the ability to read an ephemeris. There are more differences but the above should make the point.

Contemporary advocates of primary directions claim great accuracy for timing and symbolism, and therefore the use of primaries requires excruciatingly precise birth times. However this does not seem to be the way they were used. For example Jean Baptiste Morin deVillefranche (1583 - 1656) discusses the chart of King Gustav Adolphus King of Sweden in Book 23 Revolutions (Returns)of Astrologia Gallica. He goes into great depth of analysis of the King's solar and lunar returns and almost in an off handed manner mentions that in the year under discussion (the year of the King's death) he was under the influence of a difficult direction. In other words Morin did not use the precise hit date of the direction in his analysis. Instead he used it for general influence, then he used the solar return, and then the lunar return and finally the transit as a trigger. Which brings me to the main point:


Are Transits even necessary? This will ring out as a blasphemy to modern astrologers who are brought up on transits as the most important of predictive techniques, but my experience is that transits are best used as triggers after directions/progressions, and returns. And as John Frawley pointed out in a lecture in San Francisco almost two years ago, they serve as accurate triggers "sometimes."

Yes I'm sure there are examples or at least claims that this or that transit coincided with this or that event and there was nothing else to explain it, and those claims, on occasion might be true. But I can counter with examples at a possible a 10:1 ratio of people who have lived through one major transit after another that coincided with nothing, and that includes outer planet transits, the supposed big bad boys of the cosmos. I'm old enough to have "survived" not one but two Saturn returns, a Neptune square, a Pluto square, and A Uranus everything and having all these planets form hard aspects to each other's natal positions and in only one instance did any of that coincide with a major life event, and that was shown by other things.

Rob Hand addressed this very problem in his book Planets in Transit and again in his book Essays on Astrology. In both cases he tried to find explanations for the lack of phenomena during major transits. The point being that he felt the lack of events occurred frequently enough to require explanation and that explanation was found in an equal lack of other things happening in the chart. He gave the example of Patty Hearst's kidnapping. Now if there was ever a major event in a life this was it, yet Hand claimed (I did not look at the chart) there is nothing in the transits at that time to indicate such an event.

So instead of worrying about Saturn doing this or that when it forms this or that aspect with this or that natal planet, look to directions, progressions, and returns to see how the life is unfolding. And if your Saturn return occurs at the same time as nasty solar return - then worry.

Tom

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS TRANSIT

19
Bernadette,

I compliment you on your English! As this Uranus/Mars conj has occured before some years ago, you have 'grown' since then and you may be very 'surprised' at your ability to deal with the config. this time around.

Be Impeccable with your Word.
Assume Nothing,
Take Nothing Personally
Always Do Your Best.

The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz.

Julie K