Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

Hello everyone,

I have heard that travelling/selecting a place according to the birth chart can be very helpful in getting a good start for the new year from the solar return.

Can anyone help me understand how that can be calculated or where? Any help or resources to do that would be very helpful!

Thank you!

Jim, the host of this forum is the expert for your answer with this question. He is on a few days trip and when he gets back to his main astrological program will most likely answer your question. Welcome to the forum.

Go to astro.com, choose Extended Chart Selection, enter your birth data, select "the Fagan/Bradley ayanamsa" and choose your natal chart. Make sure it's correct. Then go back to the chart selection screen and choose Solar Return. Make a note of the date and time and Universal Time of the chart. Go back to the screen where you enter your birth data, or better, open a new tab and go to extended chart selection, and enter the date and time of your solar return. (Use your birth place.)

In the chart selection screen, click the "Special" tab above where you select the type of chart. Scroll down and choose "astromap" and the location closest to where you are . If you're in the US, choose North America.

Display the map. See where the lines marked with the planets you prefer to be angular are.

Go back to chart selection screen, or better, open a third tab, enter your birth data and choose solar return. Then edit the birthdata ( up at the upper right of the screen) and change the location to somewhere that looks close to the line where a planet you want angular is. There are some names of towns on the map, and you can use google to get closer. Just edit the location, and use the Universal Time to figure out how much to add or subtract from your birth time to get the right time zone.

You can keep changing the location of the birth data to get a planet closer to an angle. A place further east will generally add degrees to the angle, and further west will subtract degrees from it.

This is not as easy as using something like Solar Fire, but it works and if you have set up an account (free, safe and they don't sell your data) you can save your experiments and don't have to do it all at once.

BTW, this is a Sidereal Astrology forum. It's not a sidereal forum. Note the caps. We don't use different ayanamsas (we use the actual zodiac, which astro.com calls the Fagan/Bradley ayanamsa) and we don't use the tropical zodiac. If you want the kind of results we get, you have to adapt to our methods, not try to adapt our methods to your preferred zodiac.

We mostly don't use houses. Sometimes someone who was steeped in houses when they started learning astrology will mention something is in the # house anecdotally, but that doesn't mean houses are real. We don't use stuff like 'the ruler of the # house is in the #+X house. There's no evidence that works.

An angle is an angle is an angle. The Descendent is the same as the IC, is the same as the ASC is the same as the MC. Angles don't take aspects. The planet is on the angle or its not.

We're a public forum. Please don't post anything here you don't want on the net forever. If you want answers specific to you, you need to post your birthdata, not just your chart, because we all use our own programs, and your chart by itself isn't useful to most of us.

I joined the forum some time back and have been reading through the various posts. I came across this thread and would be interested in getting Jim’s & others’ opinions on this specific issue. Is it possible to moderate/ameliorate the bad effects of a Solar return at a specific location by simply relocating yourself to a more favorable location at the time of the SSR/SLR? For example, taking a holiday around the time of your SSR so that Jupiter is rising (for the holiday location) and thereby avoid having Pluto on your MC for the year’s SSR at your residential location? Will the year actually resonate with the Jupiter conjunct ascendant energy even through you have returned to your residential location that would have had Pluto conjunct the MC and Jupiter in the background? I would love to believe that a temporary relocation around the time of an SSR to a more favorable location (with regard to planets on the angles) really works but I have my doubts?
I would be very interested in any comments from Jim or other forum members regarding their personal experiences of being in a temporary location for a SSR (or SLR) and whether those positive and/or negative effects were still felt when you returned, a short while later, to your permanent residential location.

Yes, the relocation for your birthday is a valuable approach. In my experience, when you come back home (i.e., relocate the original Solar Return), any factors in the "at home" chart are quite weak by comparison.

Hi Jim & thanks for your insights regarding temporary relocation to achieve a more favorable SSR. I was specifically interested in your opinion – given your experience with SSRs. Maria Kay Simms makes a case for doing exactly this in her book “Dial Detective” (pg. 63) although she is using the Tropical Zodiac and Uranian methods. So, it was encouraging to read of your support for the idea.
I ask as my next SSR – due next March – has Pluto conjunct the MC (2° 01´) and Uranus conjunct the ASC (3°56´) and both these are marginally tighter mundanely - Pluto (1°58´) and the Uranus (3°39´). Additionally, my SSR Moon is square the return Saturn ecliptically (1°21´) and that same return Moon is square Mars mundanely (3°21´). So, given I can’t do anything about those placements I’m very much interested in being some place other than here so at least I don’t have the intense pressure of Pluto & Uranus on the Angles!! My initial thought was just to get to somewhere where the Angles were clear of that but I guess I should try to pick a place with an angular Jupiter for the return date. I just hope that the current Covid situation will allow me to travel to a more favorable location at the time.
I would certainly be interested in hearing any other members experiences in attempting to “sidestep” a particularly grim SSR by traveling to a radically different location. Surely, I can’t be the only one trying to tilt the odds in my favor?

Mikejames2021 wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:20 am I ask as my next SSR – due next March – has Pluto conjunct the MC (2° 01´) and Uranus conjunct the ASC (3°56´) and both these are marginally tighter mundanely - Pluto (1°58´) and the Uranus (3°39'). Additionally, my SSR Moon is square the return Saturn ecliptically (1°21´) and that same return Moon is square Mars mundanely (3°21´). So, given I can’t do anything about those placements I’m very much interested in being some place other than here so at least I don’t have the intense pressure of Pluto & Uranus on the Angles!!

You can, of course, change that mundane Moon-Mars aspect by relocating.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the Uranus-Pluto angularity provided you're willing to have your whole life rearrange. I've often gone out of my way to tighten those two on an angle. Any solar return I have in my entire life while in Los Angeles has Pluto angular, something I've loved - a life in continual evolution. I've actually interrupted that the last five years or so by moving around on my birthday, but I've usually landed Uranus very angular (and at least one, a couple of years ago, with both Uranus and Pluto).

Nonetheless... yes, you get to pick your experience

My initial thought was just to get to somewhere where the Angles were clear of that but I guess I should try to pick a place with an angular Jupiter for the return date.

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The "relocated" (back to home) angles have some value - just weaker than where it sets up - so if you arrange nothing angular in your SSR, then the "back at home" angularities will be the strongest.

If you search "relocation" in the search box at the top right of the page, you'll find some of the previous discussions on this subject.

Hi & thanks Jupiter Sets at Dawn......that is exactly the type of operation I'll be attempting - I'll study it closely. I appreciate you pointing out the post

Hi Jim & thanks for your additional insights. I appreciate your comments regarding Uranus & Pluto. Both planets have featured prominently in a number of recent SSRs and I feel I just need a “gentler” year! I was very interested in your comments regarding locations with nothing on the angles creating a type of “vacuum” that would be filled upon return by the planets that would have been on the angles had I stayed in my present location. It seems I should definitely be attempting to place a strong benefic as close to an Angle as possible.
I realize this is a loaded question without examining the specific details of the charts involved…… But, as a generalization, would you generally feel it’s stronger/better to have a positive natal factor on the SSR angles or a transiting factor? Many thanks for your generous responses.

Mikejames2021 wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:46 am I realize this is a loaded question without examining the specific details of the charts involved…… But, as a generalization, would you generally feel it’s stronger/better to have a positive natal factor on the SSR angles or a transiting factor?

I wouldn't generalize. You usually don't have that many options and you take what you can get (and what's practical). I suppose transit is more important because people are usually more interested in "what's coming in at them from the world," but statistics (at least with lunar returns) show no difference in, say, accidents (both natal and transiting malefics angular, natal and transiting benefics background), marriages (both transiting and natal Jupiter angular), or childbirth (both natal and transiting Moon and benefics angular).

My experience with solunars parallels Jim's. If a solunar has an angular Jupiter, it's going be a period with a powerful Jupiter energy, whether the locus of that energy is perceived as the universe "outside" or you own being "inside". It makes some interpretative difference, but none in the power of the planet. The words "outside" and "inside" are in quotes, because taken literally they are fallacious: all energies come from within or maybe you might prefer from both. As the old aphorism has it: "as above, so below". As a Christian, I find this an interesting spin on "I and the Father are One".

Good point, Mike. After studying Astrology since 2006, it has been my experience that we actively seek out these energies or unconsciously attract them through psychic energies.

Mike wrote:

As the old aphorism has it: "as above, so below". As a Christian, I find this an interesting spin on "I and the Father are One".

Mike, would this be the same as part of the Lord's Prayer? "Our father who are in heaven, thy will, will be done on earth as in heaven..."
It seems to me the Bible is full of straight-up astrology when read in its proper context. In fact--there is probably a-lot of astrological things in the Bible that has not been understood in an astrological context, imho.

Definitely fits the Lord's Prayer as well. As I have come to believe, there is no conflict between the bible and astrology, indeed they can shed some light on one another.

Job 9:9.

Job 9.9:

He is the Maker of the Bear[a] and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

Is this right? If so, the Ancient Egyptians have already put Orion's Belt on the ground at Giza with the 3 Pyramids with a clear time marker for the beginning precessional age of Leo, app 10.500 BC, and the beginning precesional age of Aquarius 2376 AD. WTF?