Reading your year
Use your Solar Return chart to write the themes of the year between two birthdays as a hypothesis. Write a theme, a time window, and a sign to check, then see how the year matches.
The Solar Return is a chart of the sky at the moment the Sun comes back to the exact position it held when you were born. You read it as the chart of the year from one birthday to the next. Step 4 of the HOSHIDOU Path uses it to read that year.
What the Solar Return is
The Sun travels once around the zodiac each year and returns to the same degree it held at your birth. The chart cast for that moment is the Solar Return. It can land a day or so away from your birthday.
If your birth chart is a map of your whole life, the Solar Return shows which houses’ topics come forward in a given year. It’s a new chart every year, so you can compare one year with another.
Astrologers read the Solar Return’s Ascendant, the house of the Sun, the sign of the Moon, and similar points to find the year’s focus. The Solar Return page covers how to read the chart.
Open it in the app
The Solar Return is a feature of the Hoshigatari plan, free to use during the beta.
- Open Solar Return under Applied charts in the sidebar
- Choose the year. It starts on the current year
- Enter a place. It is where you are when the Sun returns, around your birthday (for a trip, that place; some schools use the place where you live). If you leave it blank, your birthplace is used
Applied charts aren’t shown in the sidebar at first. Turn them on with the side navigation switches under Settings > App. The upcoming section on the home page also shows your birthday and a card for the year’s themes.
Write three readings
Write each reading as a hypothesis. In the week before your birthday, write about three readings of the year. Each one holds three parts.
- Theme: Which house’s topics are you likely to face this year?
- Time window: From when to when? When does it come on strongest?
- Sign to check: What will you look at later to see whether the reading holds?
For example: “Theme is the 6th house (day-to-day work). Time window is the first six months after my birthday. Sign is whether people ask me about changing how I work.” Make the sign something you can count, such as the number of work requests, or whether talk of moving came up. That makes it easier to check.
Add a monthly reading
At each Lunar Return, once a month, you can write one reading for that month. The Moon’s chart goes around in about 27 days, so each one is a progress check on the year’s reading. See Lunar Return.
When you want to see next year’s sky
As the year ends, you’ll want to know what next year’s sky holds. Set the year field of the Solar Return to next year, and the chart for the year that starts at your next birthday opens.
To see when slow-moving planets come close to your planets, move the date on the Triple Wheel.
The Star Scroll titled “The Year Ahead” writes the whole year out as a single report. See Star Scroll.
Next step
A reading only becomes useful once you check it. Go on to Write it down, review it.