Solar return calculator — and every other planetary return
A planetary return is the chart of a single moment: the instant a planet comes back to the exact degree it occupied when you were born. The Sun does it once a year, within a day or so of your birthday, and the chart of that instant is read as the tone of the year ahead — which is why it is usually called the solar return. The Moon does it every twenty-seven days or so, Mercury and Venus roughly yearly, Mars about every two years, Jupiter every twelve and Saturn every twenty-nine.
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Planetary returns
What makes a return chart different from a birth chart is that it is cast for a place as well as a moment. The planets stand where they stand whatever city you read them from, but the houses do not — so a solar return calculated for the city you live in now and the same return calculated for your birthplace put the same planets in different houses, and are read differently. This calculator lets you choose, and defaults to where you live rather than where you were born.
A return does not always happen once. Mercury, Venus and Mars can cross their own natal degree two or three times when they turn retrograde near it, and the report shows every pass rather than only the first, because a year with three Mars returns is not the same year as one with a single clean crossing.
You do not need a known birth time for the planets themselves, and the report will still cast them from a noon chart. You do need one for the houses, and the houses are most of what a return chart has to say — so if the birth time is unknown, read the aspects and treat the house positions as missing rather than as wrong.
The calculator gives you the exact instant of the return in the time zone of the place it is cast for, the wheel for that moment, the houses everything falls in, and every aspect the return chart makes to your birth chart, closest first. It also tells you which return this is — your thirty-fourth solar, your eight hundred and seventy-third lunar — and how long it runs, which is until the next one.
Read the return as a chart in its own right first, and then against the birth chart. The ascendant of the return and the house its Sun falls in set the field of the year: a return Sun in the tenth is a year that happens in public, a return Sun in the fourth a year that happens at home. Planets sitting on the return angles are the loudest thing in it. Only then look at what the return makes to your natal placements, which is where a general year becomes yours.
The lunar return is the same idea at monthly speed. The Moon comes back to its birth degree every twenty-seven days and a third, so there are thirteen of them in a year, and each is read as the tone of the four weeks that follow: mood, needs, what you find yourself attending to. It is a small cycle and reads best lightly — a lunar return is weather rather than climate.
The slow returns are the ones that divide a life into chapters. Jupiter comes home about every twelve years, near 12, 24, 36 and 48; Saturn at about 29, 58 and 87, and the first Saturn return is the one everybody has heard of — the stretch when what you built in your twenties is tested and what is not yours falls away. Those charts are read as the theme of the years around them rather than of a single day.
A return chart is a frame, not a forecast. It describes the shape of a period and the questions it puts, and it is meant to be read alongside the transits and progressions running at the same time rather than instead of them. Where a return chart and a life disagree, the chart is the thing that is generalising.
Questions people ask
What is a solar return chart?
It is the chart of the moment the Sun comes back to the exact degree and minute it held when you were born, which happens once a year near your birthday. The chart of that instant is read as the tone of the year that follows, until the next return.
Is my solar return always on my birthday?
Usually within a day either side, and rarely at the same hour. A year is not a whole number of days — which is what leap years exist to patch — so the Sun reaches your birth degree a few hours earlier or later each year, and the return can fall on the day before or the day after your birthday.
Do I need my exact birth time?
For the planets, no: the report will cast them from a noon chart. For the houses, yes, and the houses carry most of what a return chart has to say. With no birth time, read the aspects and treat the house positions as missing rather than as wrong.
Should I use the place I live or the place I was born?
Where you will be when the return happens. The planets stand in the same degrees whatever city you read them from, but the houses and the angles do not, so the place decides most of the reading. The calculator defaults to your residence and lets you type any city instead, which is what astrologers mean by relocating a solar return.
How long does a solar return last?
Until the next one, so about a year. Some astrologers read it birthday to birthday and some from return to return; the difference is a day or two. The report gives you the exact moment the current return gives way to the next.
Is a solar return chart the same as a birth chart?
No. The birth chart is who you are and never changes. A solar return is a chart for one year, cast for the moment your birth Sun is matched again with everything else where it stands now, and it is read against the birth chart rather than in place of it.
Can I calculate lunar, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn returns here?
Yes. The same calculator casts the return of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn — choose the body from the list on the card. Mercury, Venus and Mars can cross their birth degree two or three times when they station near it, and the report shows every pass.
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