Solar return: your chart for the year

The solar return is one of the oldest forecasting techniques still in use. Arabic-language astrologers, such as Abu Ma'shar in the 9th century, devoted entire treatises to it, and it passed through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance all the way to contemporary astrology.

The idea is simple: the moment the Sun regains its exact natal longitude opens your personal year. This return falls on your birthday or within a day of it, at a time that changes every year. The Sun of the return is therefore always at the same degree as your natal Sun, but everything else changes: the Ascendant, the houses, the Moon and the other planets.

One question divides practitioners: should the chart be cast for the place of birth or for the place where you are? Medieval authors seem to have always cast it for the place of birth; today both practices exist, and each has its defenders.

AstralPro calculates the return for your place of residence for the year. That is why the form asks you for the "City where you live this year" and the "Solar return year". The chart is cast in the tropical zodiac, with Placidus houses, like your natal chart.

• The ruler of the Ascendant of the return follows modern rulerships, as in your other reports.
• Twelve months are divided starting from the exact date of the solar return, not from January 1.
• For each month, the engine calculates a profection: you move forward one sign per year, then per month, from your natal Ascendant. Here AstralPro makes a deliberate choice: profection is a traditional, Hellenistic technique, so it intentionally keeps its traditional rulers (Mars for Scorpio, Saturn for Aquarius, Jupiter for Pisces), while the rest of the report follows modern rulerships. The report always speaks of the "profection ruler" so as not to confuse it with the ruler of the Ascendant.
• The transits of the month to your natal points and to those of the return are scanned, with an orb specific to each planet, along with lunations, eclipses and retrograde or direct stations. The Moon is not scanned in transit: it comes in through the lunations.

The degrees, houses and orbs all come from the calculation. The text copies them, and an automatic check compares the orbs cited with the calculated values. The dated transits of chapter IV, for their part, carry no orb.

The solar return report opens with "The axes of your year": what the year asks of you, axis by axis, in the calculated order of importance. Then come four chapters:

• I. "The Return of the Year": the return wheel, the Ascendant of the year and its ruler, the Sun, the Moon, the overall shape of the chart.
• II. "The Grounds of the Year": the Sun's house as the main arena, the busiest houses, the planets on the angles, the tensions and the supports.
• III. "The Year on Your Natal Chart": the return planets in your natal houses, then your natal planets in the houses of the year.
• IV. "The Thread of the Months": one passage per month, with its dates.

The report closes with "In Practice": the common thread of the year, three strengths and three points to watch.

For Camille Morel, AstralPro's example chart (fictional data), the 2026 return is cast for Nantes. It covers the period from November 14, 2026 to November 14, 2027: month 1 runs from November 14 to December 14, 2026, month 12 from October 14 to November 14, 2027.

• Return Ascendant: 17°42' Scorpio, Midheaven 2°42' Virgo.
• Sun: 21°55' Scorpio, in house 1, at the exact degree of her natal Sun. Chapter II makes it the main arena: house 1, her own ground.
• Return Moon: 16°57' Capricorn, house 2.
• Mars at 25°00' Leo and Jupiter at 25°43' Leo, both in house 9.
• Mercury at 5°04' Scorpio in house 12, Venus at 22°52' Libra in house 11.
• Saturn at 8°34' Aries, retrograde, in house 5.

At the moment of the return, several slow bodies are retrograde: Saturn, Uranus (4°10' Gemini, house 7), Neptune (1°50' Aries, house 4), Chiron (27°29' Aries, house 5) and the North Node (25°14' Aquarius, house 3). The return's positions table marks them with a ℞.

Her natal Ascendant is also in Scorpio: the year takes up the sign of her birth Ascendant, at a different degree, which chapter I can point out.

The three readings do not answer the same question. The natal chart describes the foundation, stable throughout life. Secondary progressions, in chapter VI of the natal report, describe the current life phase, over several years. The solar return describes one specific year, from your birthday to the next, for the place where you live.

That is why the Discovery Pack brings two reports together: your complete birth chart and your solar return. The return does not replace the natal chart: it builds on it, notably in chapter III, and does not predict events. It describes the grounds and the climate of the year, month by month.