Solar Return — the chart for your year ahead

Once a year the Sun comes back to the exact degree it held when you were born. That instant is near your birthday but almost never on it — it drifts about six hours from one year to the next. This poster is the chart for that instant, and traditionally it describes the twelve months that follow. Positions are not read off a stock table: the moment itself is found by searching NASA/JPL orbital data for the instant the Sun returns to your own natal degree. The houses are drawn for WHERE YOU LIVE NOW rather than where you were born — that is the rule for a solar return. Same instant, different horizon: the planets stay exactly where they are, and the ascendant and all twelve houses change. The wizard asks for both places separately. Choose Placidus, Whole Sign or Equal House, any of three layouts and any of six palettes — the same six as the birth chart, to the hex digit, so the two hang together. Matte poster stock, foam board or heavy card; three sizes.

The drawing is the designer's; the colour and the logo are yours. What you see above is what we print.