Solar Return location, need help!

roant14

Well-known member
Hello everyone.

I'm quite confused regarding the SR location. Two different locations definitely showed different aspects on the chart.

So my birthday was on May 3rd. But sudden circumtances kinda forced me to fly to another city on May 2nd. I actually spent a month (from May 2nd-June 2nd) at the said place and went back to my hometown (not my residence).

So what location should I use?
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
Natal chart is the logical choice. To use a chart cast for a place you were for a short while to give meaning for the whole year about your family, friends, job, and health doesn't make sense to me. You would have to believe in an astrology where rays are cast down upon you on your birthday to carry you forward for the year. Using natal is to use the root of your whole life to read a small portion of that life.

Moon Dance
 

roant14

Well-known member
Natal chart is the logical choice. To use a chart cast for a place you were for a short while to give meaning for the whole year about your family, friends, job, and health doesn't make sense to me. You would have to believe in an astrology where rays are cast down upon you on your birthday to carry you forward for the year. Using natal is to use the root of your whole life to read a small portion of that life.

Moon Dance

I guess that's more make sense. Thank you!

So does it means I just have to look at transit to predict something?
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
I guess that's more make sense. Thank you!

So does it means I just have to look at transit to predict something?

Solar returns help to narrow your focus. For example the transiting Sun will go through all the houses in a year but a solar return will show in what area of life your Sun will be specifically important to you. Solar return planets bring natal meaning to your year ahead depending on the house and aspects they make.

Moon Dance
 

roant14

Well-known member
Solar returns help to narrow your focus. For example the transiting Sun will go through all the houses in a year but a solar return will show in what area of life your Sun will be specifically important to you. Solar return planets bring natal meaning to your year ahead depending on the house and aspects they make.

Moon Dance

Mm, so does it means I just have to use my birth location despite spending years mostly in different location? (Sorry I'm kinda slow)
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
Mm, so does it means I just have to use my birth location despite spending years mostly in different location? (Sorry I'm kinda slow)

Yes, your place of birth is as important as your time of birth to create the chart that is you. But experiment and create different solar return charts and see what works for you.

Just recently made a major move from one state to another. Using my natal chart to produce a solar return and advancing the SR Asc. gave me the exact date of my move.

Moon Dance
 
Last edited:

Arena

Well-known member
Mm, so does it means I just have to use my birth location despite spending years mostly in different location? (Sorry I'm kinda slow)

No. IF you have relocated and live in another place, not your birth place, then you cast your solar returns to the place you actually live.

Why?

Because your life story changes by moving cities/countries. You make a new story, different from the one that would have been in your home town. The angles of your chart change and bring the focus onto other planets/aspects and the solar return story will be different.

However, your solar arc story is still the same and is seen from the natal birth chart. It will depict timings of the planetary influences/triggers. F.ex. you may see in your solar arc chart that your Sun or Moon or angle moves to n. Uranus at some point. That is destined to be a trigger for you to make a change, probably relocate. So you were already destined to do so. However where you move will be your choice and after the move you will need to look at the new/tweaked story life will bring with new angles of the location.
 
Last edited:

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Solar returns

should be cast for
the place the native occupies at the moment of the return.
No question about it.
On the contrary :smile:

https://tonylouis.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/relocating-the-solar-return/

A perennial question in predictive astrology
is
whether or not to relocate the Solar Return.
Some astrologers insist on using only the Solar Return for the birth place
while others argue that the more appropriate chart
is the one cast for the location of the native at the time of the return.

My own practice is to look at both charts
because they give valuable information from different points of view.

Recently I watched a lecture about Solar Returns
given by the Spanish astrologer Antonio Villalba.
In it he mentions the chart of the Spanish naturalist and broadcaster
Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente who was born in Spain
but who died in Alaska on this 52nd birthday.
This obviously is a case example
which could shed light on the question of relocation.
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Mm, so

does it means I just have to use my birth location
despite spending years mostly in different location?

(Sorry I'm kinda slow)
I'm not that fast either

- however I can definitely state that opinions differ on this issue :smile:

keep in mind that
Solar returns do not coincide with the birthdays
because a day is not exactly 24 hours long.
It is about 4’ less.

Because of this small differential
this adds up to nearly six hours every year
- 5 hours, 40 minutes to be exact
and this accounts for the change in the Ascendant from one solar return to the next.
It is important when looking at a solar return
that we always consider the natal chart equally.
James Eshelman agrees with this position
but with a twist
https://solunars.com/

James Eshelman wrote that we must always look at solar returns twice.
Once as a chart by itself, and, then, in comparison to the natal chart.
James Eschelman also wrote that
“The issue here is not so much one of zodiacs
as of something far more fundamental to the essence of things astrological.”

Jim Eshelman then states that
“one can achieve the desired effects with solar returns by
either
(1) using the Tropical Zodiac and correcting for precession
or (2) using the precession-free Sidereal Zodiac.”
If neither of these methods is used
a Solar Return will be six hours in error by age 18
twelve hours in error by age 36
and
an entire day off by the time a person attains the age of 72.”

James Eshelman explains that this is because
the equinoxes regress along the Ecliptic
at the (current) average rate of 50”.27 per year
or
roughly 1 º in about 72 years.
This is the movement called precession.
Because the starting point of the tropical Zodiac is moving
it is also known as the moving zodiac.”
Eshelman actually refers to the book by Donald Bradley
Solar and Lunar Returns
Los Angeles: Llewellyn Foundation for Astrological Research, 1948
for much of his material.

This is one opinion of how a solar return should be calculated and read.
It is important for you to experiment with what works for you.
 

roant14

Well-known member
Wow,there're definitely different opinions about this.

My last question, does solar return chart act like its own chart? (reading the aspect without natal chart)
 

greybeard

Well-known member
The natal chart is called the Radix, which means root. Nothing in life happens that is not shown in the radix. It "controls" all other related charts.

The solar return can be read "separately", but with reference to the radix.

Experiment. Trust your own judgment. Look at the confusion brought by asking "us"...more opinions than astrologers darned near.

My first solar return study, which led to my continued investigation of astrology, was of my 18th year. At the time of the return I was in the Navy, stationed on Oahu. I was born in California, so there was a difference of about 40 degrees of longitude which made the birthplace and current location charts easy to compare. Oahu won hands down.

Books and movies on "How to Swim" are helpful. But there is only one way to learn to swim. Jump in.
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
Wow,there're definitely different opinions about this.

My last question, does solar return chart act like its own chart? (reading the aspect without natal chart)

Looking at my solar return for this dynamic year, yeah it tells the story all by itself. But looking at the natal gives critical information. For example, if Jupiter is in your SR 10th emphasis will be on career but looking at the natal Jupiter is also in the 10th. What your natal chart promised will be activated this year. If natal Jupiter is in 5th house then maybe your children become involved in your career but it's not a pinnacle year.

The way I read the solar return is by putting it in the center with the natal on the outside. This keeps the angles of the SR in sharp focus and the radical planets in the SR houses. Also using duo charts is a great way of viewing the charts side by side.

Moon Dance
 
Last edited:

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Wow,there're definitely different opinions about this.

My last question,
does solar return chart act like its own chart?
(reading the aspect without natal chart)
AN EXCERPT FROM OUR EDUCATION BOARD on this forum :smile:
at
https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17763

A Solar Return chart

should always be looked at in connection with your natal chart

because

we want to see what our natal planets are doing this year
and looking at their positions in the SR chart is one way doing that.
Putting them on a 2-wheel chart is a good way of viewing them.
Put the natal chart in the inner wheel.
That way you can also keep an eye on the natal chart positions of planets.

Note:

You can also view the Solar Return as a chart on its own
but it wont tell you as much
as when you compare with the natal chart.
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
Marion March and Joan McEvers' books The Only Way to Learn Astrology is my source for using solar return on inner wheel with natal on outer wheel. Rarely see anyone else promote this idea but it's my preferred way.

Moon Dance
 

Moondancing

Premium Member
In my effort to find Anthony Louis' opinion on which location to erect for a SR (because he wrote a book on the subject) I found this great interview. He goes into the history of this technique. He does both, erect from where you are located and one from the natal chart. This video is a SR he did on Trump's 2016 presidential win. He didn't know where Trump was as he was on the campaign trail so he erected the SR from his natal chart.

https://tonylouis.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/trumps-2016-solar-return-and-the-presidential-election/

Enjoy!

Moon Dance
 
Top