

The solar return is more generally defined as the yearly transit of Sun conjunct natal Sun that becomes exact on or around the day of the month you were born (and which need not be exact to be active). Sun returns to its familiar place (sign/degree/house) of your core energy marked in the birth chart. It is a reminder of your default tendencies and an affirmation of your place in the world. Here is my solar return Sun and planet positions over the natal chart. See here the Sun returns to its natal sign, degree, and house as it should be depicted.

A solar return chart (horoscope) refers to a separate stand-alone horoscope timed according to the Sun’s return to its precise position in the natal horoscope and complete with its own houses (usually relocated to your current home location). Here is my stand-alone solar return for 2019, completely separate from the natal chart and without reference to it.

Some astrologers claim it “describes the events to befall the native during the next year” (The Arkana Dictionary of Astrology re: Bradley). This has become a kind of unquestioned ‘common sense’ tenet in modern astrology practice …

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

— Albert Einstein

… or acquired in astrology education full of unexamined or untested assumptions and lacking a critical perspective on how to prioritize astrological tools and information.

It is this second form, the stand-alone horoscope, that holds most of the problems. First, looking at astrological influences as events that happen to a person is to start off wrong in thinking. Planets do not dictate events or outcomes, but set up subtle energies that first contact the energy body of the native and mix with their present energies before events take place or decisions are made. Astrological weather sets up conditions, not outcomes or predetermined events.

From my recent article Tutorial for Entering Astrology Study:

… an essential part of learning will always be un-learning. The astrological community keeps a current of language within itself and it adopts those who join in and go along with it. But that stream of thought is largely unfiltered and allows a lot of chaff to get through. That is because astrological group think eschews anything really approaching peer review or valid questioning from deeply thoughtful astrologers who are unwilling to pass on untested, poorly scrutinized ideas to the astrological audience.

I’ll outline the problems with stand-alone solar return charts (with illustrations), and why the solar return is a set of transits to be interpreted against the background of the birth chart.

I assert that the stand alone solar return chart is a reductionist device that cannot adequately summarize the transit influences for an entire year. It is more for the convenience of the astrologer than of benefit to the astrology customer.

Problem 1 – The stand-alone solar return chart misrepresents the importance of one day’s yearly transit moment as if it were as definitive as the once-in-a-lifetime birth event.

The birth chart marks a metaphysical moment of the transfer of soul consciousness from one dimension into another. (Read: Incarnation process ). Thus the astrology of that moment makes a lifelong imprint upon the individual that contains their soul history and inferences about current life orientation as if it were a cosmic logo stamped upon the body-mind this lifetime.

No such new imprint happens on your birthday each year because no such momentous metaphysical event is occurring. Nothing has happened to replace the astrological imprint of the birth entry into the body occupied. It is simply Sun’s yearly return to its natal position and that should be displayed within or alongside the natal chart. So there is no need to cast a new chart with a new set of houses, placements, etc.

Every predictive tool should have its use and context set by the birth chart with its lifelong imprint.

Problem 2 – A separate solar return chart distracts from the birth chart’s essential framework and is commonly (mis)interpreted as if it overrides it.

When a separate solar return chart is cast the planetary transits will be placed into wrong houses about 11 times out of 12, because the houses defined by a precisely correct birth chart are the only ones that matter. Otherwise, two different charts create two different messages with planets transiting different houses with entirely different implications and interpretations.

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Which houses do you use for interpretation? The solar return horoscope’s houses — for the full year? If doing that annually you’ll be entirely ignoring the relevance of house positions as defined by the natal chart. Okay, so interpret both? Well, that’s cognitive dissonance. It produces contradictory information that reasonably intelligent persons will try to synthesize into a combined interpretation. This places too much emphasis on house position, which then obscures the importance of the aspects created by the planets to natal planets. It’s a formula for chaos, contradiction, and confusion.

Please, don’t pay for such a thing.

Problem 3 – Confusion and anxiety are stimulated by contemplation of an all-new chart unanchored to the birth chart.

Using different charts with different houses for the same periods of time creates confusion and misleading impressions. At its worst it creates an opportunity for astrological dependency (or manipulation) among those thinking that the solar return chart is a necessary predictive tool. That is not an accusation of conscious manipulation by astrologers who use stand-alone solar return charts, but a recognition of the human desire for convenience (reductionism) and of the shadow side of mixed motivations we all have. (Solar return: come back every year and pay for another reading; Lunar return chart: come back every month and pay for another reading. Astrologers want to feel needed too.)

Being unanchored to the birth chart, some people are under the impression you should cast a solar return horoscope for where the person is living at the time the solar return takes place. That means some are under the impression they can manipulate the outcome somehow by changing your location of residence to one that creates a more favorable solar return picture. (Nuts!) Then there is the question of what location should be used if the person moves part of the way through the year. Quite frankly, it can get ridiculous, all because of the attempt to create a separate chart that speaks for the entire year instead of seeing the planetary positions in movement as transits to the natal chart.

Often people post their solar return charts in online astrology forums months ahead of their actual solar return practically begging for some reassurance that it won’t spell disaster for their coming year. This is misplaced attention and is unhealthy. While looking so far ahead you’ll be missing the relevant transits that are happening now that should be understood.

95% of what we worry about doesn’t happen anyway. Astrological information needs to be expressed with continuity of thought that is cohesive and useful. That way it can actually be a basis for decisions instead of a stimulus for anxiety.

When I do transits readings I focus on the next six months or so, but normally describe (and frame the duration of) longer-lasting transits that often reach well outside the year. Thus your report from me will remain at least somewhat useful and informative well outside the one-year boundary of the presumed effect of a solar return chart.

Problem 4 – The solar return chart is only a single figure of the transits of one day. It cannot show all the transit influences for a full year.

Because it is a reductionist device for the convenience of the astrologer.

It takes a lot of time to outline and properly describe the longer-lasting or more important transits that come in and out over the course of an entire year. That’s why my reports focus on the planets Jupiter and outward. (There are often Mars transits worth noting in such a report when Mars’s aspects are critical.) And mostly on what is happening the next six months or so — and always includes declinations transits 99% of astrologers miss. Sometimes things shift too much after several months for the narrative of a single report, however the longer term transits of Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus are always relevant and last 2-6 years for major aspects to natal planets.

Just look at the red lines of transits around the circle showing the movement of planets (Mars, outward) over the course of the year starting at my birthday 26 April 2019:

Mars transits from the Midheaven on solar return day all the way through the 5th house. Jupiter moves into conjunction with the (natal) IC and away from it; moves into and out of square to the Asc; into conjunction with the Moon, and finally into the 5th house. Frozen solar return horoscope positions don’t tell that story, but a false one based on metaphysically anemic reductionism.

Problem 5 – Stand alone solar return charts can never be any more accurate than the birth chart and the accuracy of most birth charts is unverified.

A recorded time of birth does not guarantee the accuracy of the birth horoscope (Ascendant degree, Midheaven, house cusps).

Lifelong astrologer and NCGR member, the late John Willner, estimated that about 40% of astrologers have natal charts with incorrect rising signs (Ascendant sign). How much more for laypersons or novices?

If the natal chart has not been validated as precisely correct by careful rectification work of an astrologer expert enough to do that, then any solar return chart based on the unvalidated natal chart will be as inaccurate as to house placements and aspects to Ascendant and Midheaven as the natal chart is.

Would you want to invest money to homestead on a property that had wrong, uncertain or contested boundaries? Of course not. You’d have it surveyed first to get the exact legal layout of the property. In fact, local laws would probably require it before any sale could take place so that you would know exactly what you were buying and how that property is divided from its neighboring properties.

Astrology practice should be no less conscientious.

Charting solutions:

Chart the solar return as transits within the framework of the natal chart:



You don’t even need to relocate the transits portion. The location that matters is the birth location as it sets the houses that matter.

Astrodienst’s extended chart selection page gives it to you as this option:



Which makes a chart like this:



Just ignore the markers for AC and MC (I erased them here).

Interpretation solutions:

If you want to get a picture of the whole year’s astrological influences then …

1. Look at the longest lasting transits that extend across the entire year (or longer than any others). That means Pluto, which usually sets the context for you challenges and development over the year. Sometimes if the more major transits are from Neptune it sets that context.

2. Look at where growth opportunities are framed up by Jupiter’s major transits to natal points (conjunctions, parallels, sextiles, squares, trines, and yes quincunxes, oppositions, and contra-parallels). This is where relief is brought in, protection is facilitated, and optimism is renewed.

3. Consider Sun and Mars transits only as they highlight natal points being hit by longer, slower planetary transits. Sun crossing the Asc or MC starts a new cycle, as does Mars, but that should not be over-played. See them in the context set by the longer, slower transits Jupiter and outward.

4. Include the declinations action. This will be hard to do without practicing it first in the natal chart aspects (parallels, contra-parallels). Sometimes the longer and most influential transits are in the declinations, especially Saturn & Pluto currently, but often Pluto and/or Neptune.

Of course, you can get such reports from me, because that’s how I write them. See my services page.