Understanding and Directing Solar Return Energies Part One: How to Interpret Your Solar Return Chart Ascendant
Posted by Gabby Turner on Thursday, December 9, 2010 Under: Astrology
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I prefer to think of the Solar Return Chart in the same way I do the Natal Chart, which is that it does not determine outcomes or destinies in an inflexible way, but instead serves to highlight the ENERGIES available to you in the form of opportunities and/or frustrations that we can choose to take advantage of and navigate to the best of our abilities. We are not victims to fate, but living, conscious beings with power to direct our lives by the choices we make. In this post, I would like to focus at how to interpret your own Solar Return (SR) chart with a mind towards recognizing the opportunities available to you this year as well as frustrations/obstacles in order to navigate them successfully.
I'm going to guide you through this process using my own SR chart for 2010 as an example. If you are especially interested in SR charts, you may also be interested in reading Celeste Teal's article on the issue from the Llewellyn Worldwide website. So first, get a copy of your SR chart handy! It helps to either write in the positions of your natal planets along the outside of the chart, or (like I've done below) have Astro.com or your preferred astrology software create a chart that includes both SR and Natal house and planetary positions. This way you can see how the transits occurring at the moment of your SR will affect you in the year following your upcoming birthday.
To view my Natal and Solar Return chart as a reference for the following information, click HERE.
Looking at the Ascendant of Your Solar Return Chart
The ascendant is the beginning point of the 1st House of any chart, and it expresses that way that you assert your personal identity into the world. "This is me!" Interpreting your Solar Return ascendant (and how the SR chart aspects your Natal ascendant as well) can tell you a lot about how you will be able to best project your identity this year, as well as which aspects of your identity are most likely to shine.
First, look to see which sign is rising in the return chart. The sign Cancer is rising in my own SR chart, telling me that emotionality, domesticity, issues from past and past memories, and/or mothering will be strong aspects of my personality over the coming year. Coincidentally, my SR Moon (at 20 Aquarius) is also tightly conjunct my Natal ascendant! So both the SR ascendant and the Natal ascendant are influenced by the Moon and the sign it rules (Cancer) this year. This is interesting because Cancer does not play an especially strong role in my natal chart, but the SR is bringing those Cancerian energies to the fore for me these next 12 months. Knowing this ahead of time allows me to think of how best to project and internalize the positive characteristics of Moon/Cancer while being mindful to avoid the lower nature of the sign (as all signs can be expressed in both their lower and higher natures).
I also can see how this information fits with what I already know will be happening (or with what I want to happen) over the next year. I don't have any children of my own, but I do have a 17 month old niece who is very important to me, and just in the past couple months I have felt my maternal instincts kicking in in the way that I interact with and care for her, so it is nice to know I can draw heavily from my maternal side this year. I'm also turning 30 and have no children of my own, so deciding whether or not to have my own kids is becoming a more important issue for me. This would likely be a very good year to conceive, considering the SR chart, but I also know that I need to wait at least 2 years due to current career goals, etc. Again, knowing all of this, and knowing the likelihood that I will be very fertile this year, I can plan accordingly to prevent a pregnancy that I'm just not ready for quite yet, and channel that mothering energy towards my niece instead.
Something else that Celeste Teal recommends that I find useful here in my own SR reading is to note which portion of your Natal chart is brought to the ascendant in the SR chart. My SR ascendant is at 2 Cancer, which is the 5th house of my Natal chart, and so areas of life governed by the 5th House (children, creation/creativity, etc.) are brought up here again! There is no escaping it. Interestingly, I have been thinking of writing a children's book series on the astrological signs, and so this seems like a good year to do that! The 5th House is a playful, childish house, but a creative and artistic one as well. This is the kind of energy I want to express in my book series, which is perfect.
Additionally, in interpreting the ascendant in your SR chart, see if there are any return (or natal) planets aspecting the SR ascendant. Here in my chart, Venus is in the 5th House of the return chart making a trine to my SR ascendant. I have further support for creative efforts this year, thanks to the beautifying, harmony-loving energies of planet Venus, as well as in the way it connects my SR ascendant again to the 5th House (this time my SR 5th House). I will be able to project a very artistic, mothering identity this year, which definitely supports the goals I have already set in place for myself this year. Fantastic! Now, how about you?
Questions to Answer:
1.) What sign is your Solar Return ascendant in? Your personality this year will take on much of the energy of that sign. How will you use the positive vibrations of the sign in both your inner and outer life this year?
2.) What aspects are being made between your Solar Return ascendant to planets/luminaries in the Solar Return chart? Those planets will also influence you and how you project yourself this year. If you don't understand what a particular aspect might mean, read up on some explanations of how that aspect works in natal charts, because it will work similarly for you in the 12 months following your upcoming birthday (rather than influencing you for your entire life, as the natal aspect would). An example from my chart was that Venus trined my ascendant.
3.) See how your Natal ascendant works in relation to the Solar Return chart. Any aspects made between the two? In my chart, the example would be that my natal ascendant was conjunct the Solar Return (SR) Moon, making emotionality and mothering strong influences on my identity this year. Likewise, you might have Natal planets aspecting the Solar Return ascendant (if you had your Natal Sun on the SR Ascendant, for example, you are likely to have a strong and vital ego expression this year).
4.) Now that you've analyzed the Solar Return ascendant energies, how do you plan to put them to good use this year? Let me know! Comments are more than welcome. (Just click on the title of this blog entry above to be taken to the page where comments can be viewed and submitted).
Entries in the "Understanding and Directing Solar Return Energies" Series:
Part 1: How to Interpret Your Solar Return Ascendant
Part 2: Interpreting Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar Return
Part 3: Interpreting Pluto in the Solar Return
I prefer to think of the Solar Return Chart in the same way I do the Natal Chart, which is that it does not determine outcomes or destinies in an inflexible way, but instead serves to highlight the ENERGIES available to you in the form of opportunities and/or frustrations that we can choose to take advantage of and navigate to the best of our abilities. We are not victims to fate, but living, conscious beings with power to direct our lives by the choices we make. In this post, I would like to focus at how to interpret your own Solar Return (SR) chart with a mind towards recognizing the opportunities available to you this year as well as frustrations/obstacles in order to navigate them successfully.
I'm going to guide you through this process using my own SR chart for 2010 as an example. If you are especially interested in SR charts, you may also be interested in reading Celeste Teal's article on the issue from the Llewellyn Worldwide website. So first, get a copy of your SR chart handy! It helps to either write in the positions of your natal planets along the outside of the chart, or (like I've done below) have Astro.com or your preferred astrology software create a chart that includes both SR and Natal house and planetary positions. This way you can see how the transits occurring at the moment of your SR will affect you in the year following your upcoming birthday.
To view my Natal and Solar Return chart as a reference for the following information, click HERE.
Looking at the Ascendant of Your Solar Return Chart
The ascendant is the beginning point of the 1st House of any chart, and it expresses that way that you assert your personal identity into the world. "This is me!" Interpreting your Solar Return ascendant (and how the SR chart aspects your Natal ascendant as well) can tell you a lot about how you will be able to best project your identity this year, as well as which aspects of your identity are most likely to shine.
First, look to see which sign is rising in the return chart. The sign Cancer is rising in my own SR chart, telling me that emotionality, domesticity, issues from past and past memories, and/or mothering will be strong aspects of my personality over the coming year. Coincidentally, my SR Moon (at 20 Aquarius) is also tightly conjunct my Natal ascendant! So both the SR ascendant and the Natal ascendant are influenced by the Moon and the sign it rules (Cancer) this year. This is interesting because Cancer does not play an especially strong role in my natal chart, but the SR is bringing those Cancerian energies to the fore for me these next 12 months. Knowing this ahead of time allows me to think of how best to project and internalize the positive characteristics of Moon/Cancer while being mindful to avoid the lower nature of the sign (as all signs can be expressed in both their lower and higher natures).
I also can see how this information fits with what I already know will be happening (or with what I want to happen) over the next year. I don't have any children of my own, but I do have a 17 month old niece who is very important to me, and just in the past couple months I have felt my maternal instincts kicking in in the way that I interact with and care for her, so it is nice to know I can draw heavily from my maternal side this year. I'm also turning 30 and have no children of my own, so deciding whether or not to have my own kids is becoming a more important issue for me. This would likely be a very good year to conceive, considering the SR chart, but I also know that I need to wait at least 2 years due to current career goals, etc. Again, knowing all of this, and knowing the likelihood that I will be very fertile this year, I can plan accordingly to prevent a pregnancy that I'm just not ready for quite yet, and channel that mothering energy towards my niece instead.
Something else that Celeste Teal recommends that I find useful here in my own SR reading is to note which portion of your Natal chart is brought to the ascendant in the SR chart. My SR ascendant is at 2 Cancer, which is the 5th house of my Natal chart, and so areas of life governed by the 5th House (children, creation/creativity, etc.) are brought up here again! There is no escaping it. Interestingly, I have been thinking of writing a children's book series on the astrological signs, and so this seems like a good year to do that! The 5th House is a playful, childish house, but a creative and artistic one as well. This is the kind of energy I want to express in my book series, which is perfect.
Additionally, in interpreting the ascendant in your SR chart, see if there are any return (or natal) planets aspecting the SR ascendant. Here in my chart, Venus is in the 5th House of the return chart making a trine to my SR ascendant. I have further support for creative efforts this year, thanks to the beautifying, harmony-loving energies of planet Venus, as well as in the way it connects my SR ascendant again to the 5th House (this time my SR 5th House). I will be able to project a very artistic, mothering identity this year, which definitely supports the goals I have already set in place for myself this year. Fantastic! Now, how about you?
Questions to Answer:
1.) What sign is your Solar Return ascendant in? Your personality this year will take on much of the energy of that sign. How will you use the positive vibrations of the sign in both your inner and outer life this year?
2.) What aspects are being made between your Solar Return ascendant to planets/luminaries in the Solar Return chart? Those planets will also influence you and how you project yourself this year. If you don't understand what a particular aspect might mean, read up on some explanations of how that aspect works in natal charts, because it will work similarly for you in the 12 months following your upcoming birthday (rather than influencing you for your entire life, as the natal aspect would). An example from my chart was that Venus trined my ascendant.
3.) See how your Natal ascendant works in relation to the Solar Return chart. Any aspects made between the two? In my chart, the example would be that my natal ascendant was conjunct the Solar Return (SR) Moon, making emotionality and mothering strong influences on my identity this year. Likewise, you might have Natal planets aspecting the Solar Return ascendant (if you had your Natal Sun on the SR Ascendant, for example, you are likely to have a strong and vital ego expression this year).
4.) Now that you've analyzed the Solar Return ascendant energies, how do you plan to put them to good use this year? Let me know! Comments are more than welcome. (Just click on the title of this blog entry above to be taken to the page where comments can be viewed and submitted).
Entries in the "Understanding and Directing Solar Return Energies" Series:
Part 1: How to Interpret Your Solar Return Ascendant
Part 2: Interpreting Jupiter and Saturn in the Solar Return
Part 3: Interpreting Pluto in the Solar Return
In : Astrology
Tags: "solar return" ascendant "chart interpretation"
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