Do SSR mundane aspects survive relocation?

[Jim Eshelman]

I think the subject line is the single most important thing next to resolved about SSRs.

Let's review what I think we know. (BTW, nothing I say below applies to lunar returns. The rules are different.)

• Regarding location for SSRs, I am CERTAIN that an SSR's original angles persist both in the sense of its angularities describing the year AND in terms of transits. Transits to "where it occurred" SSR angles operate vividly throughout the year.
• Relocated SSR angles (which includes coming home from a vacation) are, at best, only weakly present. This includes both angular planet effects and transits to them. As time goes on, I lean increasingly toward thinking that they don't exist at all. (One can at least act as if this were so in most cases.) This year, since my SSR angles aren't far from their relocated-to-home positions, I've been able to study the small differences, where fast planet transits across the two SSR angle sets occur a couple of days apart. So far, it seems that the transits across original SSR angles are solidly present and those across relocated-to-home SSR angles don't exist at all. (But, again: They may exist but very weakly.)
• Mundane aspects are equal in every respect to ecliptical aspects. There is no difference between them in a return chart at all. Use them interchangeably. (This includes transit-to-transit, transit-to-natal, and natal-to-natal.)

I have an open query in my mind about natal mundane aspects and whether they disappear with relocation or persist. My current thought is that they persist but with lessened force. However, this is an open query so my opinion is subject to change.

I am inclined to think they persist because, in general, when one looks at a large collection of famous people without paying attention to where they live at different points in their lives, the close natal mundane aspects seem to show interchangeably with the close natal ecliptical aspects. Also, individual cases seem to show their continued importance. - However, I allow that maybe this is because one develops habits and other behavior patterns when initially living under a mundane aspect at one location, and these ingrained behaviors continue when one leaves the original location. So far, the evidence weighs slightly against this view, but it's a possibility I keep in mind. (If valid, it probably doesn't have any significance for the short-term one-year solar returns.)

I am inclined to think they at least weaken because one way to distinguish the quality of two locations for a person is to contrast mundane aspects at one location with those at another. Even if the close mundane aspect in one location is an ecliptical aspect in the other, the orb difference seems to make a difference.

It's possible (more than possible) that mundane aspects are more prone to manifest as external events more than as character. (Character traits would then come from reaction to the overt events, rather than have a sense of being innate.) This is consistent with how mundane characteristics seem to operate and matches some good examples. - This is consistent with the fact that there is no evident difference between mundane and ecliptical aspects in return charts (which are all about events) but have a slightly different feel in natal charts. This remains an open question and needs more attention over time.

As an example: Mundane aspects I have at birthplace:
Mars-Neptune square 0°07' [but 2°25' ecliptic anyway]

Mundane aspects I have at residence for last 47 years]:
Uranus-Neptune square 0°11' [but 2°00' ecliptic anyway]
Jupiter-Neptune square 0°33' [but 2°16' ecliptic anyway]
Mercury-Saturn conjunction 1°36' [but 2°24' ecliptic anyway]
Sun-Mars square 4°47' [but 6°28' ecliptic anyway]

I would expect all of these to manifest about the same - all but one orb pair is in the same class - but the contrast of the two lists for experiences in the two locations is dramatic. It's not unreasonable to say that, while having all these traits throughout my life, my life was significantly more Mars-Neptune in Indiana and more Jupiter-Neptune, Uranus-Neptune, and Sun-Mars in California. (Mercury-Saturn seems present in both places because it's similar to Virgo Sun in key respects, and my increased rational thought could have increased in California just because it normally matures around 25 yo. Nonetheless, it's still more descriptive of me here than in Indiana.) The mix is pretty descriptive.

Another example is my wife. She has no mundane aspects at birthplace (none that are as close as their ecliptical equivalents). For LA she gains two Class 1 mundane aspects. Her natal Mars-Uranus conjunction (Class 1 and angular at birth) gets a lot closer, 1°28'in mundo. More distinctively, her ~5° Mars-Saturn opposition at birth moves to 3°37' (Class 2 to Class 1 shift) in LA. This city hasn't been good to her in some respects. (But she has this in Northern California, too, which generally worked better for her: It seems to show some toughness she developed in her adulthood on the West Coast.) In Homer, Alaska where she lived twice and loved it, she picked up mundane Sun square Venus-Neptune, plus her Mars-Uranus conjunction reached 0°00'! (Among other things.) These show very well.

My only point in this is that there is a difference in the two in a natal chart - the relocated mundane aspects seem to show more the experiences of the location. They may (either directly or secondary to adapting to the changing events) remold the character.

Now, back to SSRs.

[Jim Eshelman]

Do mundane aspects in a Solar Return persist when one relocates? That is, are they uniquely locked to the location under which they occur (and not exist elsewhere), or are they "frozen in" for the duration of the return like (say) angularities?

I don't have a clear example from experience thus far, so I'm proposing it as a subject that deserves concerted attention.

These come up increasingly as more people jump on the trend of wanting to find the best place for their solar return each year. The most recent example came from a relative this morning. Her next SSR is quite horrible - likely conflict, pain, possible health crises, possibly morbid moods - where she currently lives and, besides, she wants to travel for this birthday. While moving toward our eventual recommendation to her, Marion and I noticed that there is no good location for the transiting benefics, so I decided to look at the natal benefics. I found that natal Jupiter is on an angle 0°01' for Las Vegas. Transiting Uranus is also very closely angular. There are no foreground malefics. It looked great. (And she has a Moon-Sun conjunction anywhere in the world.)

Then we noticed that, for Vegas, she picks up a Moon-Saturn mundane square.

On balance, I'm quite willing to recommend Vegas as an option because the 0°01' Jupiter angularity surely overwhelms the not-quite-3° Moon-Saturn square. My advice, in that case, would be to go have lots of fun and expect that winnings would not be large enough to be life-changing. However, we're not sure her birth time is accurate to the minute - it's recorded to the half-hour - so I don't know that I can count on Jupiter really being that close to the angle. Do I walk her into a region where she has the mundane Moon-Saturn square?

In practice, this case doesn't matter much because I think she's taking a different piece of advice we gave her - perhaps the suggestion to spend her birthday in Port Alegra, Brazil [hi, Patrick] (where she has a great SSR) then fly to Peru for the vacation she really wanted at Machu Picchu (but has a pretty ugly SSR). Nonetheless, the Vegas chart raises the question of this thread:

I know the angularities in Vegas would follow her home. But would the Moon-Saturn mundane square follow her home? There is at least some evidence it would not. But I REALLY don't really know.

Does anyone else have concrete examples on this one narrow question? - Ignoring the issue of angularity, do relevant mundane aspects in the SSR for one location follow you to a new location (such as going home)?

[Jim Eshelman]

My 2018 SSR occurred in Milwaukee. It was enormously positive by angularities, though it did have a 0°16' Moon-Saturn mundane square (along with Moon ecliptical aspects to Venus and Mars). The angularities were acute:

23°25' 12H - t Pluto
29°49' 9H - r Mars
0°00' 7H - r Jupiter
0°10' 7H - r Uranus
0°58' 10H - t Jupiter
4°25' 10H - r Venus

These angularities persisted regardless of location. There is no practical way to tell whether transiting Jupiter's partile mundane squares to natal Jupiter-Uranus persisted because, in any case, all three planets were within 1° of an angle. - But did the partile Moon-Saturn square "follow me home"? It seems impossible to say. Surely there was a bad thing or two or three that happened during the year, but nothing memorable from this distance. I think the piled up benefics would have ensured this anyway. - And the further complication (that made me think at the time that I couldn't tell the difference) is that Moon conjoined natal Saturn anyway.


My 2020 SSR is pretty complicated. For everywhere in the world, SSR Moon opposed transiting Pluto and natal Saturn, then opposed natal Mars and squared SSR Mars. (It also was 3° separating from SSR Jupiter.) This Moon to Mars, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto in late 2020 (with Covid-19 still dominating the landscape) worried me quite a lot, so, when business suggested to spend a day in Nevada, we jumped on it and drove all night past Vegas to an obscure corner of Arizona just before the road turned north to Utah. Amidst terrible (one could suspect life-threatening) lunar aspects, we stopped where natal Jupiter was natal Jupiter was 0°01' from an angle, natal Uranus 0°12', and the next strongest were two Mercuries, with no malefics near angles except natal Neptune in wide Class 2 angularity.

I had all those Saturn aspects. I was hoping the natal Jupiter angular to the minute would be enough to counteract them - but was it? Well, it ultimately worked because we never got Covid until more than a year later under a different SSR, and passed through SSR Moon's progressions to Mars, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto without incident. - Unfortunately for this study, there is no functional difference of Moon's aspects (mundane vs. ecliptical) across the two locations.


These are not decisive examples at all.