My theory for why solar returns cannot be relocated

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The issue of whether or not solar returns can be relocated is something that has been vexing me for a few days now, and after many hours of thinking about it, I think I have finally realized why logically, solar returns cannot be relocated. Here is my theory, feedback is welcome

Solar transits are something that cannot be understood in isolation, solar transits occur in tandem with the simultaneous shifting of the angles and also the movements of the other planets in the sky, thus a solar transit does not occur in isolation, although its easy to lend ourselves to this kind of thinking when we are only contemplating the motion of the sun itself. So when you think about it this way, our natal chart is really just a snapshot of a continuous ongoing cycle of the simulaneous movement of the planets and the angles in the sky as seen from where we were born. Furthermore, this cycle of shifting angles and moving planets is in continuous motion before, during and after we are born, and gradually after about 365 days this continuous motion of shifting angles and moving planets will lead to the appearance of our next solar return and so on so forth. So basically, for example, the solar return chart for our 2nd birthday derives directly from the natal chart (technically our "1st solar return") and the journey (as seen in the sky) towards our 2nd solar return chart begins immediately after we are born. Thus when you look at it this way, you can begin to appreciate the cyclical nature of the solar return and understand why relocating it doesnt make any sense. When we are born in a particular location, we become cosmically "bonded" to that place and are "locked into" the cycle of the moving angles and the planets as understood from that location. Thus this is why the idea of relocating solar returns isn't actually very logical because it completely disrupts this cycle. That being said, why couldn't relocating to another location for our solar return just disrupt this cycle? Because, as I said before, at birth we are locked into a particular astrological cycle that is contingent upon where we were born, it is intrinsically part of us and is ongoing. It is not possible for us to break out of the particular cycle that we were born into any more than it is possible for us to change our natal chart. It only makes sense to relocate a solar return if you are only considering the motion of the sun itself returning to its natal location while at the same time ignoring the larger overall continuous cycle that the movement of the sun is part of.

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astronovice,

i think your argument is based on faulty logic, along the lines of
"because this is true - this can't also be true".. i don't share it.

time and space are in constant motion.. time and location are key ingredients to the astrology we do.. to make either of them static or discount the greater demands required to consider them in motion, seems like a neglect of responsibility towards the demands of looking more deeply on astrology. my suggestion would be to give the thought of relocation more time for consideration as opposed to quickly dismissing it because it doesn't fit so neatly into what may be your present working understanding of astrology..

we don't have to come to a definitive answer, and keeping an open mind is indeed challenging. one doesn't have to consider relocation, or astrocartography, or location astrology, but to dismiss this idea quickly seems short sighted from my own perspective.

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The natal chart is cast for the time when the sun was at the position it was when you were born, and the place where you were at that time.

The Solar Return chart is cast for the time when the Sun comes back to the position it was when you were born, and the place where you are at that time.... if the thing is to make any consistent and logical sense at all.

My two pence worth.

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geoffrey, that's the logic and it seems solid enough.. i would also suggest it can be applied across all the techniques astrologers use.. i don't see this practiced very often however..

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Let's say there is a man from Madagascar. He travels to Ireland.

The circumstances that he can experience where he is as opposed to where he was will be different.

Suppose both SRs do show signs of a freak accident. The same accident is not possible in both places. He can't be mauled by a tiger in Ireland as he could in Madagascar.

Location alters experience.

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james_m wrote:astronovice,

i think your argument is based on faulty logic, along the lines of
"because this is true - this can't also be true".. i don't share it.


time and space are in constant motion.. time and location are key ingredients to the astrology we do.. to make either of them static or discount the greater demands required to consider them in motion, seems like a neglect of responsibility towards the demands of looking more deeply on astrology. my suggestion would be to give the thought of relocation more time for consideration as opposed to quickly dismissing it because it doesn't fit so neatly into what may be your present working understanding of astrology..

we don't have to come to a definitive answer, and keeping an open mind is indeed challenging. one doesn't have to consider relocation, or astrocartography, or location astrology, but to dismiss this idea quickly seems short sighted from my own perspective.
Admittedly the title of my topic may be slightly misleading, perhaps instead I should have titled it "my theory for why solar returns should be cast for the location of birth" While it seems like an insignificant semantic difference, I believe that by using that title, it would help make the concept I am trying to promote clearer. Basically my intention here is to show that not relocating a solar return chart is based on a completely logical point of view, something which is not immediately obvious if you are not considering the whole picture.

Just curious, with regards to relocational astrology, what exactly is it that you believe? I am interested in hearing that.
Geoffrey wrote:The natal chart is cast for the time when the sun was at the position it was when you were born, and the place where you were at that time.

The Solar Return chart is cast for the time when the Sun comes back to the position it was when you were born, and the place where you are at that time.... if the thing is to make any consistent and logical sense at all.

My two pence worth.
Your logic seems fairly consistent, and I'm not going to outright accuse you of being wrong. That being said, many people state that using the natal location for a solar return is more accurate, if this is really the case then there must be a logical reason for that. I have dabbled with relocated solar returns and I have found them to be wanting in terms of results. Am I completely convinced that they are unusable? No, not quite, but I am dubious of their use. Thus this is why I thought up this theory in the first place to explain why natal location based solar return charts would still be effective even though it doesnt make logical sense at first. But yes, I understand and can appreciate your logic even if I don't fully agree with it.
Becca wrote:Let's say there is a man from Madagascar. He travels to Ireland.

The circumstances that he can experience where he is as opposed to where he was will be different.

Suppose both SRs do show signs of a freak accident. The same accident is not possible in both places. He can't be mauled by a tiger in Ireland as he could in Madagascar.

Location alters experience.
Uh, what you wrote is true, but did I ever say otherwise? I am making the claim that solar returns should not be relocated, I never said anything about extra-astrological objective, physical conditions and considerations not mattering.

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AstroNovice wrote: Just curious, with regards to relocational astrology, what exactly is it that you believe?
i try to base my beliefs on my observation, but acknowledge this isn't necessarily all that easy. i have lived my life in a location quite a distance from where i was born.. perhaps this has allowed me the opportunity to assess the relevance of relocational astrology more easily as most of my life has been lived in a 'relocated place' a large distance from my birth place. i became aware of astrocartography somewhere in the 80's or 90's, so that is about the time i have had to consider this approach by running data to a couple of places - birth location verses my actual location. in all this time i have been a strong advocate of relocational type astrology as i believe i see it at work.. that said, there is something in the birth location angles that seems to have an enduring presence, so my position is not an either or position, but one of where i see the merits of both.

the difficulty for doing solar returns for others when you aren't that person is knowing where the person was at the time of the solar return.. i go back to noticing how my own solar returns to the natal location have relevance, in spite of the fact they aren't ever at my birth location, but instead typically an approx 30 degrees or 1 sign difference..

i have arrived at my position via observation.. it probably sounds trite, but that is it. of course what others do, or conclude off data is not going to be the same.. i accept that. everyone needs to find a way that works for them.. what i am doing works for me at this point.. i don't relocate solar returns, other then for myself, and hand in hand with the birth location solar return and only to continue to try to learn from what it is i am seeing.

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It might help to study the returns of people who have recorded birth times and locations and were involved in historic events. To start, 2 American presidents come quickly to mind. Richard Milhouse Nixon (televised resignation speech and official resignation) and Barack Hussein Obama II (first election and inauguration of an African-American to the Presidency of the United States).

Possibly Franklin Delano Roosevelt (elected 3 times - do for 3rd election and inauguration) and Gerald Ford, Jr. [Leslie Lynch King], only man to become President following the resignation of his predecessor.

On election nights elected officials are likely to have been at their non-Washington homes or their campaign headquarters located in the states where they cast their votes. For events in other years, returns cast for Washington, DC, can often be used for comparison to birth place, residence, or event locality returns.

There are likely other charts that can be found of similar nature.

Bob

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unique_astrology wrote:It might help to study the returns of people who have recorded birth times and locations and were involved in historic events.
Lee Lehman has a book on Classical Solar Returns, that is the Solar Return method based on the 'Classical' texts (as she defines 'Classical'). I should say here that the preferred method of prediction in 'Classical' times was the Solar Return chart, not Transits (which were right at the bottom of the list), or Progressions, or Directions as today. So we should (Lee did) conclude that if SR prediction was so highly rated by Classical astrologers, perhaps we should re-visit their methods and see exactly how they did it. Lee wrote a book on what she discovered.

Lee's book is full of examples of people "who have recorded birth times and locations and were involved in historic (i.e. well documented) events" She gives the natal chart, and the Solar Return chart calculated for their place of birth, but not for where they were at the moment of their Solar Return. This, of course, will be a much more difficult piece of data to obtain for even the most famous of people.

Lee comments that the re-located SR chart does have something to say, but should be taken together with the SR chart cast for the place of birth. My comment is that I don't think Lee had (has) enough data to make any positive comments one way or the other.

Lee was right about one thing she commented on though. Whatever method you decide to use in astrology, whether we are talking tropical or sidereal, or house system, or assignment of significators, you must be logical and consistent or you get confused and lost very quickly. This is particularly true when navigating the forest of predictive techniques.

To my mind, the natal chart can be viewed as the zeroth Solar Return chart and you should be able to read the natal chart as representing the first year of life, in the same way that the first SR chart will represent the second year in life, or the chart for the 51st Solar Return will represent the 52nd year of life. Looked at this way, the zeroth SR chart is cast for the place where the native was at that time, which is the place of birth. It is consistent, then, to cast all subsequent SR charts for the place where the native was at the moment of the Solar Return.

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Geoffrey wrote:
unique_astrology wrote:It might help to study the returns of people who have recorded birth times and locations and were involved in historic events.
Lee Lehman has a book on Classical Solar Returns, that is the Solar Return method based on the 'Classical' texts (as she defines 'Classical'). I should say here that the preferred method of prediction in 'Classical' times was the Solar Return chart, not Transits (which were right at the bottom of the list), or Progressions, or Directions as today. So we should (Lee did) conclude that if SR prediction was so highly rated by Classical astrologers, perhaps we should re-visit their methods and see exactly how they did it. Lee wrote a book on what she discovered.

Lee's book is full of examples of people "who have recorded birth times and locations and were involved in historic (i.e. well documented) events" She gives the natal chart, and the Solar Return chart calculated for their place of birth, but not for where they were at the moment of their Solar Return. This, of course, will be a much more difficult piece of data to obtain for even the most famous of people.

Lee comments that the re-located SR chart does have something to say, but should be taken together with the SR chart cast for the place of birth. My comment is that I don't think Lee had (has) enough data to make any positive comments one way or the other.

Lee was right about one thing she commented on though. Whatever method you decide to use in astrology, whether we are talking tropical or sidereal, or house system, or assignment of significators, you must be logical and consistent or you get confused and lost very quickly. This is particularly true when navigating the forest of predictive techniques.

To my mind, the natal chart can be viewed as the zeroth Solar Return chart and you should be able to read the natal chart as representing the first year of life, in the same way that the first SR chart will represent the second year in life, or the chart for the 51st Solar Return will represent the 52nd year of life. Looked at this way, the zeroth SR chart is cast for the place where the native was at that time, which is the place of birth. It is consistent, then, to cast all subsequent SR charts for the place where the native was at the moment of the Solar Return.
I understand what you are saying, but IMO this still conflicts with the cyclical nature of the solar return itself. At the end of the day, all a solar return chart is is simply the transiting sun conjuncting its natal location, thus it is the completion of a cycle which originally began at birth. Seeing it that way, wouldn't it make sense to assume that the angles involved in this gradual lifelong cycle would have to remain the same? Furthermore, even morin himself (the oldest known proponent of relocating solar returns) stated in his book about solar returns that when considering a planet in the solar return chart, you always have to consider its natal significations. This logic right here proves that all of our planets and angles in the solar return chart are part of an intricate cycle which began with the "zeroth" solar return/natal chart. Also its important to consider that really all the solar return chart is is a glorified transit chart (not just referring to the transiting sun, but also all of the other planets in the solar return chart as well), so one could take this logic a step farther and assume that even transiting planets affect us in a particular way that is contingent upon the condition of said transiting planet in one's own particular natal chart. Thus you can see how everything ends up fitting in/going back to the cycle which originally began with the natal chart/zeroth solar return. If we were to assume that solar returns could be relocated, then we would also have to assume that house rulers, angles and location of planets in houses is also malleable and subject to change, and we know that that is not true. Just my 2 cents of course...

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As can clearly be seen, both the non-precessed and precessed Solar Returns are valid.

It might very well be that both the relocated and the non-relocated Solar Returns are valid as well...

Put up some tightly timed births, with major events far from the birth place. It should be short order to show which charts reflect the events most conspicuously...

[In the precessed vs. non-precessed, the SR charts are read differently...with angularity being the KEY in precessed charts. Not sure, but there might be interpretive "fine points" in the interpretation between natal and relocated Solar Returns...]

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astronovice,

here are some more thoughts to go with the conversation..


i like the fact you pointed out the solar return chart is essentially a transit chart with one important distinction - it focuses greatly on the sun's position, thus solar return.. i think the outer planets in a solar return chart - one can include jupiter/saturn and etc - will be ongoing transits for the year - especially saturn and the planets further out.. if a planet like mars this year - does a station - it will impact the chart in all likelihood if it is in wide orb to the lights and etc as well.. - so yes - that is how i see it too.. solar return is transit data with the large exception that it is a focus on the sun.. we could ask just how important the sun is in astrology and whether we don't give it more weight then it really deserves too.. i would say that in a solar return the sun is given it's rightful place as the most central consideration with regard to all the bodies in the solar system astrologers opt to consider..

the angles are obviously quite important too! they will change in a relocated sr, but as you also point out - we still need to keep a focus on the natal chart with it's unique angles being the most individualistic points to any chart - at the top of our focus as well..

the problem with using a well known person such as obama who we have a AA rating from according to adb - http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Obama,_Barack
has to do with who knows just where he was on his last birthday? we can guess it was in washington dc, or camp david where he may have spent it?

as a consequence trying to work out relocated charts is best done in your own person if you live and experience solar returns at a different location then your birth location.. trying to do it with famous people presents the problem of how do you know that is where they were on their solar return? this is another reason i like working with natal solar return charts.. i do like looking at events with people for the location and often it is different then their birth location. this is the way i like doing relocational astrology.. doing it with solar returns seems more tricky unless for example, you know for a fact obama was somewhere on his sr..

i know there is some guy claiming that he can set you up with the most favourable solar return by telling you were to relocate to for your birthday! this seems to be an offshoot of astrocartography which essentially says that by relocating to a different place you can strengthen a particular planet - by putting it on the angle for example - which will somehow be of greater benefit - if you are not happy with your life at your present location!!!! well, hopefully you can see the potential for $$$$ in this idea.. i think people move places based on circumstances often outside their control.. maybe some people have a choice about where they might go - a holiday - or more permanent - work, but this sounds more unusual even today..