My 2014 Solar Return—and Yours!

©7-4-2014 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

 Though my actual birthday is tomorrow, today is my 2014 solar return. It seems like a good time to say a few words about solar returns in general and about the difficult patterns many thousands of us are seeing in our solar returns this year.

For those of you who are fairly new to astrology, the solar return happens once a year within a day of your actual birth day. It results in a chart drawn up for the date and time the Sun returns to the exact sign, degree, and minute that it occupied when you were born.

That chart describes the most important trends, issues, and events that you’ll experience in the year that follows from that date to next year’s return.

(There’s always been controversy among astrologers about whether the chart should be drawn up for your birthplace or the place you are on this year’s birthday. I fall into the current location school of thought.)

About this year’s solar return—mine and yours—I do know that most of us aren’t having easy ones. But, then, we’re living in an extremely difficult time. Remember the transiting Cardinal t-square or Grand Cross that astrologers have been fretting about for many months? Though it’s a transit, the solar return is based on those same current placements. Thus these formations will appear in the return charts of most of us this year.

There haven’t been many books written on solar returns, but there’s a new one out by astrologer Mary Fortier Shea, well known and respected for her newsletter that discusses the Best Electional Day this Month. Read about it—or order it—here: Planets in Solar Returns: Yearly Cycles in Transformation and Growth.

(I must confess that I haven’t read the book, being up to my earlobes in book projects of my own for the last two and a half years. However, I am enough of a fan of Mary’s work to be excited that she’s written it.)

Knowing that the Cardinal Grand Cross is still in effect this month, I have to confess I was nervous about what my solar return chart would be like before calculating it. And, no, it’s not easy in some respects, with concerns about my own health and the health of a number of close friends.

However, the Cross itself fell into four houses that represent my true self and my goals and projects for the year to come. My natal Sun—and therefore the solar return Sun—plus Jupiter fall into the 9^th house, the house of publishing and teaching. Pluto is opposite it in the 3^rd, the house of writing and communications—blogging included. To have Pluto there means my upcoming writing projects will dig very deeply into their topics. It also means that at age 72, I’m not about to disappear from the astrology world or to quit writing.

Uranus falls in the 6^th, conjunct my natal Moon and Midheaven. I’m not ignoring the fact that that’s a health house, but it’s also the house that represents my daily work. The new book projects coming up are both exciting and trail-blazing. That it aspects the 9^th house Sun and the 3^rd house Pluto confirms that writing and teaching are involved.

The fourth planet in the cross is Mars in the 12^th, conjunct the North Node. Both the 12^th house and Mars are HUGE influences in my birth chart, so the creative work I’ll be doing will reflect my lifelong efforts to use those placements in a holistic way.

(And, yeah, I know the 12^th is a health house, too. I can do enough stewing about that myself, so please don’t send your dire predictions or try to arm wrestle me into another 50 expensive supplements that are guaranteed to change my life. That’s why I’m not giving the data on the return chart.)

So what about you, Readers? Can you briefly tell us what you made of your own solar return chart this year? Despite the difficulties of the Cardinal planets, can you see some important new directions and some transformation that’s going on within you and in your life? 

No, folks, please don’t ask me to interpret your return—it IS my birthday, and I’m celebrating all week. In the months to come, I’ll be much too immersed in the new book projects to do any individual interpretations.

However, Mary prepares written reports about people’s solar returns. See a sample here: Sample Solar Return Report  and two more download files filled with information:  Solar Return Frequently Asked Questions  and: The Sun in the Solar Return.  Not to mention a you tube introductory video regarding solar returns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPgV7pwpVMTell her I sent you!

Related articles on Skywriter:

10 Things You May Not Know about Solar Returns

10 Good Articles about Solar Returns

Your Birthday Headlines: A Day In The Life

A New Look at the Astrology of Twins  (includes astrotwins)