Solar and Lunar Returns

- An Introduction to Effective Forecasting

By Babs Kirby and Janey Stubbs

© Babs Kirby and Janey Stubbs - published by Stellar and The Astrological Journal, 2025 / The Astrological Association of Great Britain / 15.09.2025

A Solar Return is a chart set up for the exact time the Sun returns to the position it is at in the natal chart. This is always within 24 hours of your birthday.

Everybody celebrates their birthday, and we generally wish one another “Many Happy Returns” without recognising that it is the Sun’s return we are talking about. It is not only people who have birthdays: businesses, organisations and countries also celebrate anniversaries. This book is orientated towards the interpretation of individuals’ Solar Returns. The technique to interpret other types of Solar Return is similar, except there will be very little psychological choice and the chart will manifest in a far more literal way.

The Solar Return chart is a unique forecasting tool, giving a both broad overview of the year ahead and shading in the subtler nuances of experience which may not show up in other forms of predictive astrology.

Solar Returns were very popular in the 17th century. Arthur Koestler, on page 426 of his book The Sleepwalkers, says of Johannes Kepler, “All his life he had been in the habit of casting horoscopes for his birthday”.

William Lilly, probably one of the most famous of the English astrologers of that time, would cast a Solar Return when doing detailed case studies and when doing the charts of royal and political people. On pages 734-7 of Lilly’s Christian Astrology he explains the Solar Return and how to set it up for a given year. Then he works an example by the method of Maginus, giving step-by-step calculations. In his Catalogue of Astrological Authors he mentions other sources. Such techniques descended from the Greeks via Arabic and Latin translations which circulated in the West.

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In the more recent past, Solar Returns have been mainly used by traditional astrologers in a predictive way. While drawing on some of these traditional ideas, including timing methods, we have developed a psychological and growth-orientated approach to forecasting.

Even if all you ever do with your Solar Return is check out which house the Sun is in for the year ahead, this will tell you something important.

Interpreting Solar and Lunar Returns are about the focus and opportunity the year holds. When you have major transits to your Sun, the Solar Return shows at a glance the areas of life you will be engaged with.

For example, in her natal chart, Janey Stubbs (co-author of this book) has a Sun-Saturn conjunction in Gemini in the 7th house. During a year when this was being opposed by transiting Uranus, her Solar Return had the Sun on the IC with Uranus opposing on the MC. Throughout the year she was preoccupied with finding a new home, having just ended a relationship in which the home was shared and in trying to establish a career as an astrologer. With the Sun conjunct Saturn in Gemini, Janey felt much more secure working with ideas than dealing with the difficult practical matter of finding somewhere to live and so concentrated most of her energy on astrology, which led to her almost becoming homeless. At this point she was forced to recognise that finding somewhere to live must be her priority.

The transiting Uranus opposite her 7th-house Sun only describes the possibility of a relationship breaking up. But the Solar Return shows very clearly the pull between career and home and the Sun in the 4th house indicates that it was vital to concentrate on finding a secure home base in order to have solid foundations on which to build her life.

The more you know of what you are meant to be focusing on, the more you can cooperate with the process you are in and the greater the benefits can be. In client work, you can similarly help your clients to cooperate with destiny. Life hurts most when we fight and resist what is meant.

Our Solar Return gives us a wealth of information about the process we are engaged in.

How it started. We first became interested in Solar Returns in 1984. Our way into understanding how Solar Returns might work was to look at our own. We started with our current ones, and then proceeded backwards, initially looking at years that stood out as being of particular importance. Eventually we filled in and examined the in-between years, to make sure they did not in fact show major significance. From doing workshops we were increasingly requested by clients to do their Solar Return, and we began to look at our clients’ Solar Return for our own interest and research.

Solar and Lunar Returns
by Babs Kirby and Janey Stubbs
Order here

From this, we amassed the ideas that make up this book. A lot of these will be familiar to you but applied in a slightly different way. From our research, we know that there is no one definitive meaning to any of the chart factors. We have both had very different experiences with similar placements. For this reason we include our own natal charts for your interest. This is our subjective bias; this is where we are coming from.

When you interpret any Solar Return, you need to know where the person is coming from, to build your interpretation on your understanding of their natal chart.

Solar Returns fascinated us because they are such a simple way to forecast the year ahead. They give you a tremendous amount of information in a straightforward and accessible form.

We soon became interested in Lunar Returns and what they might hold and tell us in addition to the Solar Return. This is a chart set for the time the Moon returns to its natal position, approximately once a month. Having a computer facilitates this interest, as calculating Lunar Returns is rather a labour of love. However you obtain them, they are well worth it and do describe the months as they go by in a fascinating way. Chapter 7 is a detailed introduction to them and should whet your appetite to start studying yours if you do not already.

This led us into looking at Mercury, Venus and Mars Returns and what they would describe. These are charts set for the time Mercury, Venus and Mars return to their natal positions, approximately once a year with Mercury and Venus, and once every two years with Mars.

The principle in interpreting all Return charts is the same. You take the planet that the Return chart is for, and that becomes the central player, all the other planets within the Return chart are then cast into supporting roles for the main player.

In a Solar Return the Sun has the main role and all the other planets are supporting the solar principle. In a Lunar Return the Moon has the main role, the Lunar Return is telling us about our lunar nature, our feelings, our needs, and how we are on an everyday level. All the planets within a Lunar Return are interpreted within this context.

In a Mercury Return the whole chart is describing our mental orientation for the time ahead. All the planets within a Mercury Return add to the picture of how we will be thinking, what we will be discovering and learning.

Our Venus Return describes our orientation to relating and pleasure per se, and while Venus is the most important planet to interpret within a Venus Return, all the other planets will shade in the more subtle tones. In a Mars Return everything is interpreted within the context of the Mars principle; this provides the framework for the whole chart.

This is as yet relatively unexplored astrological territory which we hope others will now feel inspired to take further.

All return charts can help you understand the principle of that particular planet, and how it actually functions (or doesn’t) in your life. Any return chart that does not seem to operate indicates that this particular principle is not operating in your life.

When interpreting and using any return chart it is vital to look at the condition of the planet concerned in the natal chart, as well as the natal chart as a whole. The return chart shows the development of a particular planet as it is natally with all its potential and difficulty. Everything within the natal chart is brought along to the return chart which must be interpreted with this in mind.

We cannot emphasise enough that the natal chart as a whole must always be referred to, as it is on this that we are building.

Authors: Babs Kirby and Janey Stubbs

This extract is from Interpreting Solar and Lunar Returns: a Psychological Approach by Babs Kirby and Janey Stubbs. Published by The Wessex Astrologer: wessexastrologer.com. Janey is retired. Babs can be contacted via her website: babskirby.com.