“This is my solar return this year: is it a good time to move?” The question comes from a Mexican forum, “esta es mi revolución solar este año, será buen momento para mudarme?”, and it often arrives right after a birthday, the new chart still on screen. Leaving, staying, changing cities: the chart of the year has things to say, and the decision stays yours.
What your solar return shows about the year
Every year, around your birthday, the Sun returns to the exact degree it held when you were born. The chart of that moment, your solar return, describes the year that runs until your next birthday. Its Ascendant sets the tone, its Sun’s house the ground, and its Moon the climate. For the details, read the solar return.
Where to look when you’re thinking of moving
Home has its own house: the 4th house, the house of roots, of family, of where you come from and where you live. When the year’s Sun falls in the 4th house, home becomes the main theme of the twelve months. The question of your home comes up with force: leaving it, fixing it up, sharing it, or coming back to it.
The Moon of the year, which sets the climate, counts too: its house says what moves you and what feeds you during those twelve months, and a move always touches that. The Ascendant of the year says how you meet change, with momentum or with the wish to settle.
A chart of the year is always read on top of your natal chart. The same Sun in the 4th house changes meaning depending on where it lands in your birth chart.
✦ Read what your year says about home and change — the Astrological year · $19.99 USD
Can the chart say yes or no?
It describes a climate, and the choice is yours. A year turned toward home can go with a departure, a settling-in, or making peace with the place you already live. It brings you a sharper question: what are you looking for by leaving? Space, or family closer by?
In the humanistic astrology AstroLuma follows, a configuration reads as a question put to your life. We can also say when a planet of the year crosses a sensitive point in your chart, like your 4th house, and which stretch is the most charged. What happens there stays open. Read humanistic vs. predictive astrology to see the difference.
Which city do you calculate the chart for?
It’s a real question, and astrologers don’t all agree. Some cast the solar return for the place where you spend your birthday. AstroLuma casts it for your birthplace: the starting point stays the same every year, whether you celebrate at home or on the other side of the world. If you move during the year, your chart of the year stays the same.
The calculation also needs your exact birth time. Without it, there’s no Ascendant of the year and no houses, and the 4th house disappears with them.
The questions people ask
My solar return falls the day after my birthday. Is that normal? Yes. The Sun’s return falls around your birthday: sometimes on the day itself, sometimes the day before or after.
Which year do I calculate? The one that began on your last birthday. If your next birthday is close, the chart of the following year is often the most useful.
Is moving during my Saturn return risky? The Saturn return, around 29, pushes many people to review their foundations. A solar return year that falls during that passage weighs more, and invites choices made for the long run.
In short
Your solar return shows whether the year puts home at the center, with what tone and in what climate. It helps you ask the right question before you start packing, and the answer stays yours.
