Returns
Solar Return
Your solar return is the moment each year when the Sun comes back to the exact place it held at your birth, right around your birthday. The chart drawn for that moment is read as a preview of the year ahead.
Dates & rhythm
- How often
- Every year, around your birthday.
Modern
Once a year the Sun returns to your natal degree, within a day of your birthday, and astrologers cast a chart for that exact instant as a snapshot of the coming year. It is less a single event than a yearly reset: a fresh twelve month cycle with its own emphasis, set by where the planets fall in that return chart. You do not need the full chart to feel it. Around your birthday is a natural time to take stock, to notice what the past year taught you, and to set the tone you want for the year ahead.
Traditional (Hellenistic)
The return of the Sun to its natal place marked the revolution of the year, the start of a new solar year of life. Older astrologers cast the revolution chart to read the character of the year to come, a practice that gave us the modern A chart cast for the moment the Sun returns to its exact birth position each year, around your birthday. It is read as a forecast for the year ahead..
- birthday
- yearly cycle
- the year ahead
- renewal
- taking stock
Lean in
Taking stock around your birthday and setting the tone for the year ahead.
Watch for
Treating one birthday chart as fate; it is a forecast, not a verdict.
Sources
- Hand, Planets in Transit (1976)The standard modern reference on transiting cycles and the planetary returns.
- George, Astrology and the Authentic Self (2008)Reads the planetary cycles through both classical significations and a modern lens.