Solar returns bug me because they work. I would like them not to work. I would like them to be silly and have no merit but my experience consistently shows these charts to be valid.
My last solar return had a Cardinal grand cross in it. I was pretty disgusted. I did not want to be or become the person it described! I liked myself the way I was, much softer than I am now. I just didn’t want to handle the command the chart described, but as you can see the chart has manifested itself. I have grown into these shoes.
This blog is now a quasi-business and it’s become a fortress. It (and I) stand for certain things and I defend them. Had I not stepped up to do it, this blog on it’s knees.
I think I’ve come up with a structure that supports my efforts, the efforts of my peers, the efforts and investment of the people who read here and at this point I would not trade that solar return for all the tea in China.
I am heading toward another solar return / personality change and this chart is WICKED. It reminds me of a time about 15 years ago when I first got a computer and astrology software. I was flipping through my solar returns and they all looked so benign to me. I am clearly out of that phase. I just think this is interesting.
Get your personal solar return report – here.
Do you mind your solar return?
For those of us interested in getting our solar return charts done, is it better to have them done in advance or around the same time? I know that advance would work better for those planning to travel for their birthdays, but let’s pretend that’s not an option. Any opinions?
I just had mine but didn’t have a reading. I feel a little nervous to look actually. I don’t think I could interpret it for myself–
Someone told me once that virgos (I have virgo moon and rising) only want good news cuz they worry so much….
It is kind of exciting though…. maybe I should print it out….
I peeked at mine months in advance and was reminded of how a little bit of knowledge can be harmful. So no more of that, and I’ll consult an expert.
Sanguine – personally, I would be thinking about the SR at least a couple months out but I am a Capricorn PLANNER!
Also, I don’t know about traveling to change your year. Some people swear by that, others think it is hocus pocus.
I tend to fall in the second group, thinking it is not that easy to trick the universe but very easy to trick yourself! HOWEVER I have no personal experience with this so can’t say for sure.
I have also noticed (though I almost never do consults focused on a SR because it makes no sense…) that if you look at them a few weeks in advance you can see the thing coming in.
This does come up a fair amount of the time because people do call for consults a couple weeks before their birthday. I think this is because it is a disturbing time for many as they sense the shift. It does seem to do a lot of good to re-align and acknowledge one thing is ending, another beginning.
My next one is coming up in about a month, and I’ve looked at the chart but since I’m “challenged” when it comes to reading charts it’s a big guessing game for me….
The most curious thing is my N. node is at 0 degrees 02 minutes in the 7th, conjunct the DC (28
deg 34 Cap) which also happens to be natal ascendant. Anyone have any ideas what that could mean???
I’d love to see Solar charts as a focus for one of the Colosseum sessions.
last year’s solar return i had sun-moon-saturn in the 7th and mercury-venus-mars in the 8th. got engaged!
just peeked at this year’s upcoming solar return, guess what? cardinal grand cross. sh*t elsa!
I read an online blog by a lady who went back and looked at all of her past solar returns from when a significant relationship entered her life that year. She found some really interesting things. I know that whenever someone “special” (Not short bus special) has come into my life, the solar return for that year almost always had Uranus in the 5th house. Not surprisingly – Uranus resides in my natal 7th and rules my chart.
I never used to pay too much attention, I’d have a peak but I was always to busy learning about natal charts. I paid attention last year and its been crazy. My solar return was such a fun loving mutable chart & shiny!!! I had a leo moon and gemini rising with planets in the 3rd and 5th. This was so huge since im a scorp with an 8th house stellium and cardinal energy coming out my ass! I never felt so free and social living this years solar return. In fact I had no choice but to be free, social and light & casual. And oh my my mars and sun fell in the 5th. Wow so this is what its like to be shiny, mind you Im a scop so I was a dark shiny item but wow….weird. My next solar return looks like hardwork, I have a t-square, doh. Im not sweating it too much yet. Im enjoying this fun chart all I can!!!!!
Thanks, Elsa. I just looked at my SR chart for my last birthday and it shows a Cap ascendant. I must be in planning mode!
Omg they do work-it’s amazing. I usually begin to feel them about 3 weeks prior. Last year I had sun and venus in the 8th with Scorpio ascendant, and I was so annoyingly intense. And this year, I have Aquarius ascendant and Gemini moon and other “lighter” stuff. It feels like last year paid off or something.
As for consulting an astrologer before traveling, aspects don’t change when you travel- only houses do, so it’s actually easy to do it yourself on Astrodienst to see which area of life it will effect, though it seems that aspects are stronger than houses in my personal experience (might be different for everyone).
This year my chart ruler is also in the 5th, as is my moon-and my ascendant is conjunct natal descendant. I really hope it works :).
“I know that whenever someone “special” (Not short bus special)”
LOL- yeah, it could go either way huh?
Mine has a stellium in the 12th house this year. Nothing is certain and everything is vague and not likely to stop being vague any time soon…or far, probably.
Sigh. Well, I got told to travel for it, but I just could not do it on a Friday in the wee small hours of the morning.
Oh geez. I just went looking at mine and am not pleased by the 6th house pileup. I work hard enough already!!! 🙂
I am often on the road, and I’ve moved a lot, so never know which charts to use, simply because I’m rarely in the same place long enough.
My birthday just passed, and as usual, I was taking a short trip after having moved again (3rd house sun and moon natally). I like to think I can just make the chart for the location I’m in at the time of my return, since my permanent locations are up in the air. Otherwise I’m switching charts to all sorts of places and it doesn’t help.
In the past I’ve given up on houses, but this time I’ve decided to go with where I was, which happened to be Kentucky. I like the chart, in spite of Pluto on the Midheaven! I figure that perhaps I am changing my public life this year. But if I changed the location to where I’m staying for now, Pluto would be nowhere near the Midheaven, and what if I move again? Hahah! This is what it’s like being in my head!
This year’s was cap rising and all about work. Next year’s starts end of sept and has gemini rising – yay! Not sure what to make of the 7th house pluto though…
Can someone just confirm – is a grand cross when it looks like a big X with a square round it?
Re: PinxMinx
I was also going to suggest solar returns as a future colosseum – maybe it would work looking at the SR for the previous year paired with the current year. That way people could give feedback based on members’ interpretations based on their experiences, rather than just lots of speculating about what’s coming up (given that some of us in the group are quite amateur!)
Sanguine, I’m not a believer in the traveling to change the return’s angles etc. on your birthday. However if you do reside in a significantly different location, they both work. My experience has been that the relocated reflects more external events and the natal location reflects internal ones. I’d love to know if anyone else that’s relocated has checked out both returns and has a similar take on this or not, and what their experience has been with relocated VS natal.
Liori — great idea!
Well my SR chart looks interesting. This year I have Asc in Scorpio, like my natal. just one degree difference. It’s suppose to be powerful year. Of course, MC is the same as natal too. I changed my job this spring, witch is huge, cause I’ve been doing the old one for ten years. My 3rd house is packed (Jup, Mars, NN, Merc, Nep,Chiron). Almost all of it in Aquarius. And guess what? I’m working on internet site.
Moon in Capricorn (2nd)conj Pluto…
Venus in 5th house. no romance for now, and creativity is not at a highest point either. could be better. Jupiter and Merc conj my natal Venus and Mercury. and I still have a writers block. 🙁
You’ve got me curious now… off I go to check last year’s, and my upcoming one…
omg… the moment i laid eyes on my upcoming SR, I *got it*!!! at a glance, instantly…
and i am SO THERE, already
actually, unknowingly, i made a MAJOR (difficult, but essential) decision this past weekend, setting the scene for what i want next in my life… and the chart corroborates EVERYTHING
this is a Big One for me, so I am thrilled to bits to see this “astral support”
sorry… forgot to say: thank you thank you thank you
the more i look at it, the more my jaw drops…
there is another decision i made — an action i took, TODAY… that i had been sitting on for almost two years — but TODAY i FINALLY took the plunge
and i see clear as spring water WHY this year will be the year for “this”… WOW! …just WOW! a-frickin-mazing!!!
and if i’m reading the one for the ~year after next~ correctly, the story is unfolding EXACTLY as i want it to…
so to answer your question: i am ~loving~ these two SRs… (gonna stop there!)
grrr – Thanks! I’m actually thinking of doing the opposite – being where I was born at the return. I’m back to natal ascendant in the upcoming year, so why not?
Strawberry Fields – Sounds amazing! Congrats on taking the plunge.
where can i find a solar return? don’t have my software on this computer…
astro.com, under Extended Chart Selection
thanks! looked around in there and couldn’t find anything… now i know where…
holy blazes. ok. guess it does explain a bit about how different this year is shaping up.
pluto smack on the descendant, sun sextile the superconjunction in aquarius (in the ninth); venus/mars/uranus conjunct trine moon and squaring pluto, opposing saturn… (no t squares or crosses, though)
ascendant in cancer… not sure what to think of that. guess that means the moon (in sag trining on stellium and squaring the other) rules this year. lots of ninth/tenth house…
ok. well. guess i have work to do.
and already a ton of travelling…
…and i planned all that travel before my birthday…
I know this is going to sound incredibly cowardly and superstitious, but I am actually afraid of my solar returns. It started when I went through 7 really terrible years in a row (medical catastrophe that resulted in a financial catastrophe that went on and on.) Needless to say, the solar returns reflected what was going on. Now, I’ve been out of the woods, both physically and fiscally, for a number of years, but I am still too cowardly to look at them.
I wasn’t always like that–I did them religiously, eager to see what the next year held. And several times, I traveled considerable distances to shift the angles of the chart to shift the emphasis of planets that weren’t so positive. Have you ever tried that technique? I traveled from NYC to California on two different occasions and from Portland to SF and to Boulder, CO on two others. I swear that it worked–if only because to make such a major and expensive trip bespoke of a powerful intention to take my destiny into my own hands. Donna
I just started looking at solar returns and I looked back at some years when I travelled for my Solar return and compared that chart to the chart of my residence and I swear the one for the travel location is exactly how my life played out that year. I’ve heard some people say that it doesn’t work, but the proof is in the pudding.
Donna Cunningham,
just because you don’t wanna go through sh*t again does not make you a coward, just a person who wants to be happy!
A coward is a person who’s afraid of everything, but you just want to prevent bad things from happening to you. You’re just being practical!
Oaw, Donna Cunningham, so traveling did work for you! Fascinating. I wonder: how long did you stay at the other location? I’m glad you minded and that it worked out for you. Behold powerful intentions in action !
Well, supposedly when you travel somewhere to have a better solar return, you need to stay at least three days–one and a half days before, one and a half days after.
What I did was to calculate the solar return from my birth place, then put it up on a map from Solar Maps add-on to Solar Fire. Then you look at the places where the various planets are on an angle; when you find one that is promising, you do relocation charts for those places that fall up and down the line. Fortunately mine were for places I wouldn’t mind going anyway.
There’s one astrologer who makes a very good living finding places for affluent people to go for their solar returns. I forget her name but she’s the one that writes about Moon Wobbles (since my Moon seems to be permanently wobbling, I don’t follow her, so don’t ask for an explanation!)
Most of the time I think that sort of thing is a way to “Read your horoscope, cheat your fate,” but this technique works well enough that I did it a number of times when my Solar was tough, no matter what I had to sacrifice to pay for the trip. Now I probably wouldn’t do it IF I was still looking at my solar returns.
Thanks, Elsa, for providing the forum, and thanks to you all for listening. Donna
The cusp of a solar return is three months both ways and there’s a square every three months that brings the charts alive. I love solar returns because they’re an excellent astrology lab. I always start seeing the two solar returns overlap in August and my birthday is in October. I have a cardinal cross this year and already it’s made me feel like I’m in hand to hand combat. I have lots of drive in outer world pursuits which is not characteristic for me. I’m thinking in war imagery and using phrasing that shows I’m expecting to need a strategy and to engage in psychological warfare. It never ceases to amaze how people actually “speak” their charts. The planets want to talk. Listen to what’s coming out of your mouth and you’ll know how they feel.
I look at them. The appearance of a fixed grand cross in my chart is a monumental disaster. Two of my most painful experiences had a solar return with that pattern. Last year I had 4 planets in 12th- plus north node and two other planets in pisces. I survived by praying. There was no chance of relocating and it was bad the other time when I was a gemini rising with sun and mercury in 12th so I decided to simply pray often. It worked!! This year I am a leo rising,gemini moon.💫👌
This time the solar chart is about people. Eight planets in right side of the chart, libra rising, moon in libra conjunct from the 12th. Sun, venus, jupiter in 8th with uranus on the cusp of 8th house. Mercury 7th. No wonder I started to dress better and met lots of people lately, looks like a busy year.