For some reason, people are almost always daunted by their solar return.
If you’re a beginner, a solar return is a chart of drawn for the time your Sun (solar) returns to the exact place it was when you were born. This is also known as your birthday!
It’s possible for your solar return to take place one day before or one day after your birthday. In whatever case the Solar Return chart offers insight into the year ahead, birthday to birthday.
You keep your natal chart of course. But thesolar return gives strong clues as to what you’ll be doing during the year ahead.
For example, I am a person in service – always. This is shown by my natal chart but the solar return will show the theater of operation (when there is an emphasis on a house); my struggles (hard aspects) and various other sundries.
My current solar return is open (Jupiter) and parental (10th). There is a lot of work and service shown as well as contact with death (perhaps sudden and unexpected).
So far, I’ve just been visiting, and now cooking an elderly friend with end-stage cancer. I met her via a fluke in November. We really hit it off which was mildly surprising but what surprises even more, is that she’s still here, seeing as the cancer has spread to her fingers and her toes and we’ve known this for months!
I was in a person’s company, recently. I truly thought, in the moment that the man was about to die. This is exactly what I was thinking. “Are these the last moments of this man’s life?”
They were not.
To be specific, I’m dealing with Venus/Mars/Saturn/Uranus & Pluto all mashed up. I’ll say terrain has been treacherous. However I am in no hurry to trade it in on next years which looks to be one for the record books.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll play the cards, whatever they may be but it sure helps to know what you’re holding!
Get your personal solar return report here!
Tell us about your current solar return chart. Can you see it in action?
I order one every year.
I’ve said before these SR charts are a religious amount of profound for me after I figured a kind of life lesson at the same point of finding it in the chart just before a birtday.
This year, and one of the first things I woke up thinking about this morning, the chart seemed to prophesize a non pleasant “less than positive” event for me and… that confuses my current state of understanding because I figured it was positive entities doing all this stuff but… It is right there in the chart.
A notable part of the energy that I have been wondering about is that the moon is at a Sabian symbol, something like ‘A dove over troubled water’ and this seemed like a definitive person. It was troubled waters that a person showed up in and very ‘dove like’ individual. People didn’t like her being involved in the conflict and it felt like wanting to sheild her was a reason it stopped.
But I left that place and now what does that same point symbolise? It could be other people but even though some of them somewhat fit, they don’t fit as “perfectly” as that person and my birthday is coming up in a few months so it is as though that solar return energy has “run out”. Although perhaps only that part of it.
My next year I have looked at a bit through a report but not actually the chart itself because I put so much emphasis on them I get overloaded then get paranoid fears I’m misapplying the information and will get a karmic penalty. But I DID see that next year was a very important year and previously thought this year was just kind of preparation.
My life plans are seeming to take sudden drastic turns, winking out previous potential avenues to move forward and opening new ones and providing inconvenient insights about limitations and positive attributes. So I will likely be relying on astrology more.
I have my last years as the background on my laptop. North Node is ‘the mastering of two worlds’ metaphysical and physical, Venus in the 12th… Of course. Sun and Pallas at one degree conjunction. Political Scheming. The previous mercury retrograde in Pisces made more sense in relation to my solar return than my natal.
Elsa, I would appreciate your take on the fact that Pluto will be at the 22* Capricorn point in Solar Returns this year. In January 2020 transiting Saturn and Pluto will conjunct at 22* Capricorn. While Saturn and Pluto at 22* actually trines Jupiter in my natal chart – it’s not so pretty in the Solar Return chart. Of course the house that Capricorn is in in the S.R. chart is different from my natal. Yes it helps to know what your holding. Your thoughts are appreciated.
Terri, this is too broad of a question to address. The whole chart would have to be taken into consideration.
I’m also a visual person. You’re asking me to comment on two charts I can’t see. I have nothing I can say with confidence. Maybe someone else will weigh in.
I had this idea of going on a trip with my husband around my bday (40th!). To the place where we married (10y this year). When I checked the solar return being there brought Saturn and Pluto right to the IC of the solar return chart. More positive it also moved a load of planets to the 11th from 12th. Anyway I won’t let that be the deciding factor for sure but sat/plu on the IC does make one do a double take. I hope it can be positive…and it’s not altogether unexpected given where I’m at in life. It might even be appropriate. But I’m waiting yeti buy my SR report till I know the plan for sure!
I have no idea where that yeti came from
As my birthday is in October, I keep looking at the 2018 solar return until… I think I’ve read 3 months or so before the birthday? Or would i wait right up to my birthday before considering the chart?
Usually I’ve waited to July ….and this year it seems to me the solar chart has kicked in early with Jupiter conjunct the ascendant. (Weight gain)
It’s true that one solar return fades out as the other fades in, but three months is a bit early.
As for an analogy, consider being on a twelve day vacation. If there are four days left, do you want to act as if you’re home, already?
It’s enough to know you’ll be going home. I would work the current return until it’s really time to advance into the new paradigm.
Ah! Ok ?
Sun in first house Libra ASC likely also could mean easy weight gain. Venus influence
Many thanks ??
A major event potentially foreseen in last years solar return occurred 11 weeks prior to my new solar return. This has convinced me to utilise SR’s from birthday to birthday.
When is the solar return chart getting in effect? I’ve read something about three months prior birthday, then I read that it’s after the birthday but it’s confusing since astro changes the solar chart not when it’s birthday time but since first of january, so when the year begins. Can anyone clarify this? Pluto, saturn and jupiter got caught in my 1st house, rising same as natal, house cusps same as natal, nine planets at the bottom, next year will be all planets above, what a stark difference.