Solar Return

Astral Hell: Is it a thing?

The astrological Twitterverse is aflame today with reports of something called the Infernal Astral, or Astral Hell.  Apparently in Brazil this is an established thing among astrologers.  I found this website which says:

You have certainly heard someone complain that they are experiencing ” astral hell ” as they approach their birthday. This period is popularly known as a turbulent phase where everything goes wrong and the person goes through some kind of suffering or difficulty. It is believed that during this period things tend not to work very well, health can be a little weakened, business confused, mood and energy low … It is as if we had to go through some kind of ordeal before enter a new cycle. However, does it really exist?

The most appropriate answer is: it depends. There are no records of the term astral hell in the astrological literature. So it is believed to be an invention made in the twentieth century and has no clear meaning to the more traditional scholars of this science.

The Infernal Astral, or Astral Hell,  apparently suggests that the month before one’s birthday (or Solar Return – the time when the Sun returns to its place in our birthcharts) is when this hell takes place.  Some astro-commentators on Twitter hypothesize that perhaps this is because if you put the Sun on the ascendant at the time of the Solar Return (which I never do and haven’t heard of) the Sun would be going through the twelfth house during that month before one’s birthday.  There would be a sense of completion and releasing that could for some people be a difficult process.

If one’s Sun is stressed in the natal chart, then the Solar Return (or birthday) chart would shine a light on […]

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By |2019-09-24T16:32:08-04:00September 24th, 2019|Astrology|15 Comments
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Film review: Five Star Day and the Solar Return

Our friend John Townley has posted a review of the film Five Star Day which was released in 2011 but comes out on DVD next month:

The premise is simple: protagonist Jake Gibson (Cam Gigandet, Christina Aguilera’s love interest in Burlesque) reads his newspaper Sun-sign horoscope which tells him he’s going to have a wonderful birthday – love, money, career outlooks all superb – and then proceeds to have the most disastrous day of his young life on all three fronts. Confusing destiny and predetermination, and infuriated that he has been somehow deceived by the ancient art itself, he sets out to debunk astrology utilizing a project for his college ethics class. His method: to find several other people born at exactly the same time and place as he (February 6, 1982, at 10:32 PM in Chicago), who presumably would have had totally different birthday experiences than he, thus somehow disproving astrology. Not exactly an airtight experiment, but perhaps enough speculative fodder for an ethics class.

 

But his presumptions are soon dashed asunder, for as he travels cross-country to meet three others whose identical birthdays he wants to hear about, he discovers that two also had life-alteringly dreadful days, and later finds the third’s was even worse.  He is treated to it in-depth with his first contact and subsequent love interest Sarah (Jena Malone, of Pride and Prejudice, Sucker Punch, lots more), and the rest follow suit.  It’s an unexpected conundrum. Does this mean astrology is for real? Is there no free will in this world? Well, of course there is, as he discovers from getting creatively entangled with the troubled lives of all three. With a little help from Jake, everyone manages to make lemonade out of their birthday lemons, with engagingly suitable episodes of drama, love, and […]

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By |2020-12-12T17:42:17-05:00January 20th, 2012|Astrology|2 Comments
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President Obama’s solar return

You can read my profile of Barack Obama here.

The Solar Return occurs at the moment that the Sun returns to its place in the birthchart.  That is often the birthday, but sometimes it is a day or two off.  More than just a time to celebrate the time of your birth, it’s actually a planetary cycle that begins a new when the Sun returns to its natal place.  The Sun illumines the Self and inspires us to fulfill the destiny that was given to us in the Sun sign, and the Solar Return shines a window into the manner in which that process might happen over the next year.

President Obama’s Solar Return occurred at 3:33 pm today (August 4).  This is an interesting number, but that’s for another story.  The Sun in the SR chart is in the Eighth House, the house of power, death, sexuality and taxes.  The President is clearly in charge of two of those aspects of the Eighth House, and I suspect that the other two will come into play at some point as well.  In the Eighth House we learn to read and understand the balances of power that pervade our every experience, but the Eighth House also calls on us to dive deep below the superficial.  Obama sailed into office on a sea of popularity which has been diminishing as the reality of the challenges the country face sets in.  This will be the year that tests his ability to hold and distribute the power of the Eighth House.

The only aspect to the Sun is a harmonious sextile from Mars that suggests that he will have a degree of success in achieving this.  Mars provides energy and passion to get […]

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By |2020-12-12T17:42:31-05:00August 5th, 2009|Politics|Comments Off on President Obama’s solar return
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George Bush solar chart

Philip Brown at Astrofuture Trends has an article on Bush’s solar return chart that adds more detail on what’s in store for Bush over the next year.

President Bush’s 2006 solar return, which shows what will happen in his life through July, 2007, has no planets in the earth element. This is a significant imbalance, indicating a lack of support with little to ground him. The bottom drops from under his political footing. This is what has started to happen with the Democratic takeover of Congress, and it will continue for at least the next eight months. Bush has not reached the end of his plummet.

Pluto, the point of transformation in the horoscope, is conjunct his solar return Ascendant. Bush’s whole public façade will continue to undergo intense change through the first half of 2007. He will confront issues of personal power.

The Moon and Jupiter are conjunct in the 10th house of career, indicating a big (Jupiter) change (Moon) in that area of Bush’s life. That does not mean he will be impeached, but his political career will undergo intense change (the solar return Moon is in Scorpio). Saturn squares the Moon-Jupiter conjunction, so the change will not be a pleasant one for Bush. He’s not getting a promotion. We can already see this happening with his “demotion” by voters in the midterm election.

I would add that this chart is for the year that began in July when the Sun returned to its place in Bush’s birthchart.

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By |2020-12-12T17:43:50-05:00November 13th, 2006|Politics|Comments Off on George Bush solar chart
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