Sun & Moon relative angularity in return charts

[Jim Eshelman]

Comparing the relative angularity of Sun and Moon in a solar or lunar return is something Bradley emphasized in his 1948 book Solar and Lunar Returns, building on Fagan's groundwork. I've relied on these definitions (half consciously, have unconsciously) ever since I knew about the book. The specific detail of judging the relative angularity of Sun and Moon is one of the things I glance at almost unthinkingly when I see a new return for myself. The original 1948 interpretations have worked well enough that I haven't been disturbed using them.

Sometime next year when, with volume 1 of Comprehensive Sidereal Astrology eventually done, I'll start working on volume 2, which includes all the predictive work (with most of the volume being about solunar returns). Gearing up for writing that, I'd like to watch this Sun-Moon dynamic more carefully to get a fresh impression of just how accurate these traditional interpretations are. (If they hold up as well as I've thought in the past, they will be a small but significant feature of the approach to lunar returns.) You're all invited to investigate and engage on this.

There is also a nuance (or perhaps more than an nuance) to work out. These interpretations were written when returns were considered stand-alone charts with no clear distinctions between natal and transiting planets. How much do these positions refer to transiting Sun and Moon only, and what is the relative relationship of natal planets? (I can see, for example, natal Sun foreground having the traits listed below but not the middleground characteristics or any significance for being middleground.)

Here are quotes of what Bradley wrote about Sun and Moon foreground and background. When you have them all in one place, the pattern becomes more obvious. Much of it (but not all) has to do with whether one is "in the driver's seat" for the period - taking charge, asserting oneself, consciously directing affairs - or passively responding and being more "at effect" to circumstances.

[The Sun's] position and aspects refer to the native's self-assertions. Self-assertion is necessarily the expression of desire, for which reason we say the Sun represents "the heart," in the esthetical sense of the word. An "act of self" is any movement produced voluntarily by the native, without the command or coercion of others... Solar indications, then, are suggestive of things the native himself will perpetuate during the period covered by the prognosis of a return chart.

Lunar indications... denote events which happen to him.

...the Moon... shows by its position and aspects those things which happen to or arouse the native quite independently of his own desires in the matter. Hence, it denotes involuntary action. The primary meaning of Luna is that of sensation and response... It must be remembered at all times when dealing with solunar returns that the Moon's indications are those of eventualities which cause the native to react, in ways defined by its relationships in the chart.

Angularity of the Sun always increases the vital reserve, and for health matters is a definite asset.

...overwhelming drive for being seen and heard... [An] upsurge of vitality animates him to heroism or to a heel-striking, arm-swinging gait catching the eyes of passers-by.

Middleground solar positions are those "only average" in their consummate significance... the native's egocentricity is lodged midway between the crowd and total seclusion, so to speak. That is, he evinces no overwhelming drive for being seen and heard, but rather has a compulsion to be felt and handled... No great upsurge of vitality animates him to heroism or to a heel-striking, arm-swinging gait catching the eyes of passers-by... His sentimental nature is prone to be confined to the more naive end-aims of life, such as comfort, sex, and diversion, taken in average-sized dozes.

Cadent positions of the Sun are unimportant in many ways, the main exception being the adverse effects they have on the health... The Sun in any cadent house indicates a retirement of the self away from big objectives in life, so that the native contents himself with passive entanglement in the skein of endless trivialities. It is difficult to be at all productive or energetic... for the most part, little weight should be attached to background positions.

[Background] positions denote a desire to be served and left alone.

...direct exposure to outside entanglements...

When the Moon is to the fore, the native is peculiarly susceptible to a naive emotional reaction to every vagrant feeling he experiences. This is an unstable position, from one point of view, as the native often appears to vacillate from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, making up his mind one day and changing it the next. The reason for this mental dispersion is plainly that his life becomes a stage upon which the scenes and acts change with kaleidoscopic confusion, thereby not allowing him repose and privacy for reflection and careful judgement. Because the Moon represents "feeling," he is brought intimately close to every passing situation - too close, in fact, for him to get a proper perspective on things. He does things without forethought, with a child-like spontaneity of acceptance. This may lead to indulgence of the appetites, dissipation being the result. So eager is he to become "one of the gang," he throws himself into the spirit of things without questioning the advisability of taking another drink, staying up later than he should, or accepting that invitation to aw-come-on-over, etc.

The middleground houses are to be preferred insofar as the Moon's location is concerned... departments of life in which simple satisfaction is more direct... There is not that direct exposure to outside entanglements of the foreground... nor that passive weakness that characterizes the background. The attention is mostly drawn to ramification of a local nature...

Passiveness and exhaustion are tokens of the Moon in background houses. The vitality seems depleted, and the viewpoint is decidedly lax and narrow, as though it required effort to be vivacious. However, a background Moon lessens the danger of wasting effort in worthless ventures, for the native is faced with intensely personal, private matters, and does not have time or the means (other things in the chart permitting) with which to become caught up helplessly in the tide of external activities.

...passive weakness...

...detrimental to the health, as the resistance to disease is very weak and the recuperative powers are at low ebb. Therefore, the Moon's malefic aspects work for further debilitation.

[Jim Eshelman]

To get really simplistic (but perhaps usefully so), the generalizations I have found useful in understanding day-to-day life (but we rarely get around to mentioning) go something like this:

SUN FOREGROUND is more vital, visible, and in the driver's seat with hands on the wheels driving one's own life. When BACKGROUND this trait is not there, and one tends to pull back from visible involvement in big things, projects, and objectives. [To see major, sweeping stages of your life, compare the band of years Sun is foreground in your SSRs to the band of years it is most background.] One finds it easier to fiddle with trivial distractions and NOT be actively driving one's life (or much of anything else).

MOON FOREGROUND responds to everything - every impression, motion, event, distraction, entanglement, or involvement, yielding to whatever draws one's attention at the moment [more like a background Sun and unlike a foreground Sun. Life is filled with an abundance of shifting, morphing impressions to which one must ongoingly adapt. In the MIDDLEGROUND, these nonstop impressions (distractions) don't grab one's attention, and yet one still has sufficient emotional vitality to respond to things. Moon in the BACKGROUND has little energy to respond or adapt to anything, as if life is a TV that plays all day and finally got turned off for a while.


My working interpretations of background luminaries these have generally settled into the following (for or less wordier versions of the above, and mostly based on what I wrote in Interpreting Solar Returns):

Background Sun: More assimilative and preparatory than expressive times. One may withdraw from active participation in long-term objectives, being drawn hither and yon by more transient preoccupations. Less propels one toward creative life-unfolding, so special attention or recognition is less likely. Vitality is lower: if with health-depleting aspects, a key indicator of sickness and waning strength as a result of diminished spirits.

Foreground Moon: Surrounded by emotional excitement, rapidly changing or unstable conditions, shifting social and psychological circumstances. Responsive, adaptive (vulnerable, reactive) to environment. Appetites easily aroused. Popular attention.

Background Moon: A relatively calm, stable period. One's emotional antennae are retracted, so the feeling tone of the outside world doesn't intrude on everyday life. One's overall emotional involvement with people and circumstances in the environment is minimal. - Little effort is wasted on distractions. Personal affairs can be given primary attention because one is not likely to be wrapped up in the frantic scatter of surrounding circumstances.


The questions of the moment are... is this stuff correct, and can we gain more by making a big deal of this Sun-Moon balance in all returns?