posted December 26, 2005 08:29 AM            

LUNAR RETURN:
The lunar return is the chart run for the Moon's return to its natal position. This occurs every 28 to 29 days and results in 13 lunar returns over the course of each year. The Moon relates to our emotions, feelings and day to day temperament and the Moon in the lunar return chart provides information about what area of our lives we will be most emotionally invested in over the course of that month. The lunar return works very well in combination with the solar return and provides information about which months of the year the activities represented in the solar return are most likely to reach a climax or come to fruition.

MERCURY RETURN
A mercury return is experienced about once every 10-11 months, although due to Mercury's retrograde periods (which occur three times each year and last for a period of 19-24 days), up to 3 mercury returns can be experienced during a given year. For example, for a person born with Mercury at 7 degrees of Leo, a position within orb of a Mercury station this July, there will be three mercury returns this year. The first return will occur while Mercury is direct and stationing retro, the second just after its station and while it's retrograde, and the third when Mercury is direct again. I have found that the years that Mercury stations near its natal position result in important Mercury returns. Mercury's return chart provides information about your evolving mental picture and perceptions. The house location and rulership of the return mercury, as well as the aspects it makes to other planets in the return chart, provide information about where you are most mentally/intellectually invested and taking in new information over the return period. While the Moon's function is to feel, Mercury's function is to think, transmit and receive information and then feed it to the other planets.

VENUS RETURN
The function of Venus is to attract and harmonize and it is also the planet responsible for aesthetic sensitivity. Venus returns, which occur about every 11 months, provide information about relationships, resources, creative activities and the sorts of relationships, experiences and resources you are likely to attract and how to go about attracting them. Like Mercury, Venus can undergo a retrograde period resulting in more than one Venus return in a given year. The Venus retrograde period can occur once a year, but some years does not occur at all, and the retrograde period lasts for about 7 weeks. When planets are making directional changes which correspond to their return periods, these returns tend to represent key evolutionary cycles for that planet and often coincide with important events.

MARS RETURN
Mars symbolizes your capacity for courage, independent action and assertion upon your desires. Mars' returns, which occur about every 22-24 months, provide information about what area of life you are going to be focusing your will with self determination and courage. In essence, where you will be required to be the warrior! Mars also undergoes retrograde periods which can correspond with it's return to its natal position and represent important cycles in the development of your natal Martian potentialities.

JUPITER RETURN
Jupiter returns to its natal position about every 12 years. Jupiter represents the expansive principle and relates to your ability to grow and maintain faith in your dreams and confidence in yourself. Jupiter's return initiates a new 12 year cycle of growth and expansion and provides information about what areas of life will present opportunities for expanding your horizons. Your job is to recognize these opportunities and take advantage of them. Jupiter also undergoes retrograde periods once a year for approximately 4 months.

In summary, return charts provide a periodical guide for understanding and integrating the evolution of the various facets of our character. They do this by outlining the sort of circumstances that will foster new awareness and growth relevant to the symbology of the planet experiencing the return and putting us in touch with the potential vibrating within our own very unique cellular being.

SATURN RETURNs every 28-29 and can reflect our sense of responsibility, maturity and power to build material foundations.

CHIRON RETURNs and the other Centaurs return about every 51 years or more (for Kuiper Belt objects). Chiron returns are about healing, teaching and the preparation of the hero. How will we be heroic in this later stage of life?

Guiding STEPS to READING RETURN Charts:

1. Look at the overall pattern of the return chart. Is it a splash, indicating diverse interests and activities? Is it a bundle pattern, suggesting a focus of interest in the occupied houses? Check the hemispheric emphasis. How does this correlate to the natal patterns? If the person has a natal sew-saw pattern and has a return chart bowl pattern, how comfortable will they be with it?

2. Look at the orientation of the signs emphasized. What is the strongest modality? Element? Polarity? What’s missing? How does that related back to the natal chart? Someone who has a natal emphasis in Cardinal Fire may have a lot to learn about practicality if the return chart emphasizes Fixed Earth. Take the declinations into consideration too! (And the Dwads)

3. What sign is on the Return Ascendant? That will bring the corresponding natal sign/house to the foreground, giving it first house importance. What houses are occupied? Stelliums? Where does the Natal Ascendant degree fall in the Return chart?

4. Look at the signs on the cusps. They indicate needs and drives and offerings. Aries in the return chart is where we want to start something new. Taurus is where we ground things practically. Gemini is where we get curious and want to learn. Think of each house as an area of life and the sign on the cusp as a symbol of the orientation, needs and wants in relationship to that area of life.

5. Check the aspects in the return chart. A lot of oppositions could indicate the need for objectivity and choices. Trines could coincide with ease or even lack of drive. Squares are struggles that get things moving. Look back at the natal chart to see how the solar return aspects compare. How will a natal Venus/Mars conjunction handle a solar return Venus/Mars opposition?

6. Place the return planets in the natal chart and read as a transit chart, then put them back in the return chart to interpret as the outcome of those transits.

7. Check the Lunar nodes, the house placement of the return planet in both return and natal charts (Sun in solar returns, Moon in Lunar returns etc.), interceptions, the house placement of the ruler of the return chart, both natal and return, any planets rising in the return chart (natal or return) and aspects between the return and natal planets and points. You can also look at the vertex, some Arabic parts, midpoints, asteroids and fixed stars. Keep orbs tights!