Solar Return and Profections
Calculate the solar return chart for any year of your life together with your annual and monthly profections, from your birth date, exact time and place.
Solar Return and Profections
Your year
Annual profection
Monthly profections
The year from your birthday split into twelve equal parts.
| Period | House | Lord |
|---|
Solar return chart
Celestial bodies
| Return | Birth chart |
|---|
Houses
Aspects in the solar return
Aspect grid
Want to talk your year through? Ask an astrologer.
Discuss your chartHow solar returns and profections work
Both are traditional techniques for one year of life, from one birthday to the next. They are read together with the birth chart, not instead of it.
Solar return
Every year the Sun returns to the exact degree it occupied when you were born. The chart cast for that moment is the solar return; its houses and angles show where the year’s themes play out.
Annual profection
Each year of life activates one house, counted from the Ascendant: the first year the first house, then the second, and after twelve years the cycle starts again. The ruler of that sign becomes the lord of the year.
Monthly profections
Within the year the same count continues month by month, starting from the house of the year. Each month has its own active sign and ruler.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do I need my exact birth time?
- Profections are counted from the Ascendant, and the houses of the solar return shift by about one degree every four minutes. Without a birth time even the moment of the return is uncertain, because the Sun moves almost a degree during the day.
- Which place is the solar return calculated for?
- For your birthplace. Some astrologers cast the return for the place where you spend your birthday; traditions differ, and the calculator does not offer that option yet.
- Which rulers are used?
- The traditional ones: Mars rules Scorpio, Jupiter Pisces and Saturn Aquarius. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are never lords of the year.
- How are the monthly profections divided?
- The year from your birthday is split into twelve equal parts of about 30.4 days. Some astrologers count months from the Sun’s ingress into each sign instead, which moves the boundaries by a few days.
- Where do these techniques come from?
- Profections are described by Vettius Valens in the 2nd century; the solar return (revolutio anni) was developed by Arabic-language astrologers such as Abu Ma’shar.