Tips for Interpreting a Solar Return Chart

Learn more about my favorite prediction technique...

In a recent podcast episode, I talked about how I use solar returns as one of my primary prediction techniques, so I wanted to elaborate on that here. Your “solar return” is when the sun returns to the same sign and degree in which it falls in your birth chart. This happens once a year on your birthday, so you can think of your birthday as your personal new year, when bigger changes and mindset shifts tend to occur. Reflect back on the previous years of your life, and start to notice how you may often experience a definitive shift in your priorities or how more major life events take place right around that time. 

On your birthday every year, you will get a new solar return chart. This chart shows the current transits that are taking place on that day, and freezes them in time, so that those specific transits become symbolic for your entire year. For instance, if you see that an upcoming full moon is taking place on your birthday, that means the full moon will be in your solar return chart. Therefore, you will experience the energy of that full moon as a bigger theme for that whole next year of your life. Even with less obvious transits, like seeing that transit Mars is squaring transit Saturn on your birthday, you will experience that Mars-Saturn tension for the entire year. Depending on what transits are taking place on your birthday, as well as what houses those planets are falling in the solar return chart can point to why certain years are so fun and full of positive growth, while other years are super hard and emotional. If you want to get the general vibe for how your upcoming year is going to go, you need to be checking your solar return. 

Below, I am sharing tips for how I interpret solar return charts, based on what has proven to be the most effective in my own life and in readings over the years. I also realize that this is not the usual discussion based newsletter, but feel free to leave comments if you’ve had a solar return that resonated a ton in recent years, or if you just have general questions about solar returns and how they work.