Using Age Progression
Understanding Life’s Journey
by Joyce Hopewell
We are increasingly brought face to face with the fact that everything is interconnected. Astrology has long recognised this basic inter-connectedness, and indeed provides the mechanism of the birth chart, enabling some understanding of that relationship between the individual person and the collective whole, the universe.
The ‘timing’ system of Age Progression through the Life Clock is perhaps the most sophisticated astrological approach to understanding the psychologically significant life experiences that are reflected in the birth chart. It was developed after extensive research by Swiss astrologer/psychologists Bruno & Louise Huber.
You can use Age Progression to seek meaning in the jumble of events in your life. It can show what sort of influences are likely to be at work at different stages of this particular lifetime. As you give meaning to particular times of your life, you tell stories of how things are and how they might be. Naturally this helps in navigating your way forwards through life. Of course, you can use Age Progression in consultation with a friend or client. Many practitioners regard it as a ‘gilt edged’ technique saving many hours of counselling.
In this book, Joyce Hopewell explores the different facets of Age Progression, illuminated by extensive examples with full colour charts, to help you to understand how to apply it to yourself and to helping others.
Availability
Colour paperback, 150 pages, first published August 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-9558339-6-0
Also available as a ‘printed page format’ kindle ebook.
Extract
Review by Marilyn Burnett
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Well, Joyce Hopewell has done it again… another beautifully illustrated and well-presented book that is enjoyable, easy to read and comprehend. This time she focusses on bringing to life, in her delightful, down to earth style, the Huber concept of Age Progression, which uses the birth chart as the ‘time-clock’ of a person’s life. She points out that this method of progression is a very simple, but extremely valuable tool because you can see exactly where you are on life’s journey and what you are experiencing in your life right now. And more importantly, it shows the psychological and developmental phases you passed through on life’s journey, including the significant experiences that add up to the person you have become.
If you are at all drawn towards personal development she explains that it is an extremely valuable tool, and to quote Joyce when she was a student and was told by her tutor that the technique was “gilt edged”, she says, “It quite simply is!” And she should know… trained as a qualified teacher, she headed the APA as principal for 12 years, and is now principal emeritus… she has used it for nearly 30 years both as a tutor and astrological psychology counsellor. As well as being important for self-development she advocates it as an invaluable instrument for professional astrologers and counsellors trained in astrological psychology.
This book is absolutely packed with real life, full colour birth chart examples all vividly demonstrating and confirming the principle. With numerous examples, of both well-known and ordinary people to validate the method, it is both captivating and fascinating to read as each person’s life unfolds through the Age Point system. Among the many famous examples are: Prince William, Margaret Thatcher, Charles Dickens, Pablo Picasso, Fred Astaire, Meryl Streep and the father of computer science Alan Turing.
In her introduction Joyce leads the reader swiftly through a succinct overview of the basics of the Huber Method, which she advises are all essential knowledge before attempting to use the Huber Age Progression method. She is also careful to instruct that Age Progression can only be used with an accurate birth time.
The book is then divided into seven parts, each covering a different facet of the Age Progression method and life’s journey around the birth chart. Part one explains the phases of life and psychological themes that we will all experience as the Age Point moves through each of the houses and quadrants, starting with our birth at the AC. A more detailed look at the life phases follows in Part two where the implication of the Energy Curve through the houses is considered. Age Progression through the signs is the subject of Part three, which describes the change of energy as the hand of the clock moves from one element to the next. Joyce reminds us here that it might be all too easy to dismiss the great significance and importance of these sign changes.
In part four the most important and probably the most interesting feature of using Age Progression is explored, e.g., the aspects made by the Age Point to the natal planets and their connected aspect patterns. Joyce tells us that the conjunctions and oppositions will be the most important and, as she says, “the square and quincunx are hard to ignore”, but that all the aspects should be taken into consideration following the sequence of the seven Ptolemaic aspects. The seven aspect types are described, with examples given of the most important four. She explains that, as each planet comes into orb of aspect we will experience and express the qualities of that planet in our lives, how that is expressed will depend on the type of aspect involved.
Part five briefly explains the important role that the Moon Node Chart, unique to the Huber Method, plays in its holistic approach to astrological psychology. However, as this is an advanced technique, Joyce suggests that this should be explored in greater depth once the basics have been mastered.
In part six we get to the real purpose of the book… interpreting charts! Again, using a collection of both well-known and ordinary people, the latter taken from personal acquaintances, clients and fellow astrologers, Joyce splendidly pulls together everything she has taught us so far. I found myself having to read this section through twice, not because it was difficult to understand… far from it, but because I was so enjoying the biographies themselves! Then I read it again in order to really absorb the implications of the Age Point aspects to planets, house cusps, sign changes, low points etc. and importantly, of their combined effect on the connected aspect patterns. I found this section particularly profitable as I realised I was grasping so much more than I ever had before by viewing them in these real life contexts and, no doubt, as a consequence of her down-to-earth lucidity.
Joyce ends the book in part seven with a bullet-pointed summary and conclusion that runs through the main points. This has been designed as a check-list for those deciding to use the techniques for themselves and, after reading this excellent book, you will want to do just that!
I really can’t fault this book, but one very small gripe is that there is no index section provided at the back of the book. As an everlasting student this is the one thing I yearn for in all of the Huber related books. If this book disappoints me in any way at all it is because it is, necessarily, concise. For instance, I would have loved to have read some real life examples of the semi-sextile, sextile and trine aspects in part four, although these are all encountered among part six’s interpretations. Or perhaps it would have benefitted from the inclusion of something that I found really enlightening and powerful when studying my own chart, which was following one planet’s development through each of the Age Point aspects. But then, I can’t complain because this book’s simplicity is also its absolute beauty!
Marilyn Burnett, Conjunction 59, 2014
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