Podcast Episode 35 - Solar Return Charts and Birthday Rituals

I’m really excited to share this topic with you. This was something I shared in my stories a few days ago, and it was highly requested that I expand on. I'm really excited to be sharing it, and thank you everyone for the invitation to talk about my birthday rituals.

I'm a rituals person. I love a little ceremony. I love intention setting. I love getting clear with my own thoughts, just connecting with my own intentions and vision for the next steps, because of the inner vision that I have. I'm a mani gen; there are just a lot of things in my design that point to being somebody who enjoys spending time in contemplation, observing, and planning for things that come next.

I've worked with a couple of different modalities for the last several years, and I have a little ritual that I've been doing for a little while now, and I love it. It works really well for me and helps me really set up my next year with intention. We're going to go through what I do for my birthday. Solar return charts are the first thing that I look at, followed by reflecting on the year, numerology, tarot spread, and an intention sheet.

A solar return chart is something in human design and astrology that is essentially a chart that you run that tells you exactly where all of the planets are when the sun comes back to the same position it was in on your birthday. So in human design, this will be the gate and the line number, and then it's, of course, the specific degree in your natal chart or in your astrological chart. For me, when the sun is in 34.6, it's just past Sagittarius, we're just into Sagittarius season, when that happens, and it's probably about five days after the sun enters Sagittarius when the sun is back in that natal position.

The sun represents around 70% of the conditioning that we experience. There are a lot of different interpretations around what happens with a solar return chart, and I am going to expand only my perspective and in my experience and how I like to play with it. I don't actually know what's entirely true, but this is my perspective. When I look at a solar return chart, to me, your foundational chart is the first moment that you were you. It's the first moment that your soul came into your body. It's your first impression of who you are. It's a core memory of authenticity, and it really brings you back to the first moments that you were you. That's a really beautiful moment.

When the sun is back in that position, it means that 70% of the environmental conditioning or 70% of the energy of that moment or of that day, feels very similar, very homey, and resonates a lot with your particular energy. It feels very much like you again. On your birthday, you're celebrating the fact that everyone feels the energy and everyone is experiencing through the transits and through where the planets are right now, through the conditioning that we're all experiencing in this moment, everyone gets to experience what it feels like to be you, at least a little bit or conditioned by you. People can get a taste for the energy that you experience in your internal world consistently.

I love solar return charts because it shows you where everything is and how everything moved and changed this year. There are different theories around how this impacts you, but I like to look at it as an energy that's like my contract with this year. As I go into this next cycle around the sun, as I jump into age 26 or level 26, I have an undefined G Center in my natal chart, and so if I have almost an identity or almost these themes that I know are going to be present for a full year. I can observe them. I can look for them. I can play with them more intentionally. I go with the assumption that this is an energetic influence that's going to stick with you for the entirety of the year. It's your personal life theme.

A solar return chart is essentially a connection chart. You're running the chart for if you were born the moment that the sun came back into the exact same position that it was in when you were born, but today or this year. It's running a whole new chart. It should match your incarnation cross and profile, and the conscious and unconscious sun and earth should all be the same, and then every other planet will be different. What you're looking at is the connections that these planets make for you in that middle connection chart. 

If you know how to read connection charts, you can kind of figure out the solar return charts. It's going to be a little bit different because we're looking at external and environmental conditioning versus another person, but the themes of a connection chart are going to be very similar here. The only place that I know where to look this up is on Genetic Matrix. That's the chart generation software that I use for everything. I don't know where to find it elsewhere, but you can do solar return charts in your astrological chart. I know that you can do that if you just search solar return charts. If you wanted to piece it together from there, I'm sure you could, or you do need the Genetic Matrix software.

When I'm looking at a solar return chart, there are a couple of different kinds of channels. First and foremost, I'm going to look at any centers that are defined or undefined that are different in my personal chart, and then I'm going to look at the definition. I have seven centers defined in my body graph, and I'm a triple split definition. If anything changes that, I want to know because that's going to be a sensation or a feeling that I'm going to hold onto for the entire year. I will look at those things, but this year nothing changes. I'm still a triple split, and I still have my head center undefined and my G center undefined, which is really fascinating to me. 

After you look at the centers, you're going to look at personal channels. A personal channel will be some sort of electromagnetic connection. This means wherever you have a hanging gate in your personal chart, if the solar return chart has a gate that is on the opposite side of that, it will make a channel. For next year, my 2023 solar return chart, I have 54 defined in my chart, and 32 is defined in the solar return chart, so we have the channel of transformation as a personal channel. That's going to be the personal things. It's going to be a theme where there's an electromagnetic imprint, and it's creating some sort of influence.

I will then dive into if it defines a new center, if it doesn't define a new center, and that's going to help you learn a little bit more around if it's going to be directional, if it's going to be helping with direction, it's related to the north and south nodes most likely. If it's related to your personal development or your personal direction, you can look at those things as well on the solar return charts in Genetic Matrix.

I really want to share what I'm seeing in my personal solar return chart for this year. The sun came back into the same spot that it was when I was born at 5:00 AM on the 27th of this year. It doesn't always happen exactly on your birthday. The next morning, it came back into that same spot, and it only has harmonious or companionship channels with me. It has the 34-20, and then the 40-37, which are my incarnation cross. It’s always going to have those, but it doesn't have any other channel connections, which is actually really, really exciting, because it means that I'm going to move a little bit more easily throughout this cycle. There are also no personal channels, and there are no educational channels. 

This is also very similar to how you read transit charts, just regular, everyday transit charts, because this is kind of a transit chart with the solar return. You have the personal channels, which will be an electromagnetic connection where I have one gate, the other gate in that channel is defined in the transits or in this solar return chart, and therefore that is going to define something outside of me, or that's going to define a channel for me. That's going to be a personal thing that I am working through, and a personal trait that I'm going to be connecting with.

If it's an educational channel, it will be a full channel that you have no definition in. This would be like a dominance channel in a connection chart, or also an educational channel in a transit chart. These are going to be areas where you're going to learn a lot because you have access to this whole trait that's outside of you, but it's in your environment. It's something that you're picking up on, and it's something that you feel like you are around somebody even though you're not around them at all.

My chart this year is really exciting because there are no extra channels. I'm still a triple split. My head center is still undefined. My G center is still undefined, and there's no additional channels. I am only working with additional hanging gates here and there, which is really exciting for me actually. I know that that sounds weird, but it's actually really, really exciting to see this because when there is just a hanging gate in the solar return chart or a transit chart, any kind of transit chart, but it's not connecting to any channel or it's not defining a new channel, what happens is it becomes an environmental activation.

An environmental activation means that it is going on in the background and in the environment, but it's not going to be very loud or very important for this next cycle. It means that there’s not a lot of learning. There's not a lot of education. There's not a lot of trying to figure out new things. There's not too much of that additional conditioning. I'm pretty much being left alone this year, which after last year, I am very grateful for. Everything in my chart this year is environmental conditioning, so the energy of this year is that my personal growth is going to be in the background.

My personal growth this year is going to be just happening in the environment. It's not going to be something that takes up too much of my attention, takes up too much of my energy, or really makes me feel different in any way. This is a chart that amplifies and adds additional layers to a lot of the channels that I already have, but then it also just adds a few gates here and there. That means that I will have the chance to play with gate 45, gate 23, and gate 48. I also want to play with 1 and 2 because those are the north and south nodes for this chart. I'll be working with creativity in that masculine and feminine balance.

I'll be playing with the gates a little bit, but there's not a lot of big lessons that I’m going to learn or a big focus, or where a lot of my energy's going to be directed in. The personal growth and the impact that this year is going to have on me is in the environment. It's in the background, and of course it can still affect me, but I feel like I have a pretty good awareness of what's potentially going to happen. So, I'm really excited for this year because I feel like the year is leaving me alone. I'm sure there's still going to be lots of six line in her three line phase growth and messy action, but I feel like this is a really calm year energetically for me, which makes me very happy.

In solar return charts, there can be a center that's defined that is undefined in your personal chart. There have been a couple of years where my G center was defined. Those years I found that I have a very consistent sense of direction, but it's also really hard for me to let go of that when that energy is no longer there. I'll just notice the conditioning of when I think that something is consistent, because it's been in my solar return chart or in the transit for several months or a year, letting go of that can be really difficult for me. I know that next year I won't feel like I'm letting go of very much because there's not too much additional information that I'm receiving, which is going to make my own energy and my own true design, a little bit louder. 

That is what I go over in solar return charts. After going through those, I have a process that I go through. I like to do a reflection, so I will usually do whatever age I am that many things that I learned or want to remind myself or just picked up over the last year. This year I did 25 things that I learned at 25. I just wrote them out. I don't feel like sharing them. A lot of them are just very personal. 

I write down those, and then I just sit in gratitude, and I reflect on where I am and where I was last year. I'll usually read the journal entry from last year just to see the differences. Sometimes it's interesting to notice the lessons from this year; maybe I'll write down the same thing or something at least very similar, just slightly different words. I can reflect on how I grew in that knowledge and grew in that embodiment of that lesson over the next year.

It’s fun to reflect on where I am, what went well, what I enjoyed, what I'm grateful for, what I'm proud of, what I went through, what I am so just blown away that happened, all of the things. I just kind of sit in the moment and celebrate me. I celebrate the life that I'm creating and the things that I'm allowing myself to do. I will go through and take notes on what I see that's really important in my solar return chart, and this year, the big message was that all of the primary conditioning of this year is in the background, and I get to really trust myself. I get to really rely on and strengthen the energetic traits that are already in my design that are already active inside of me. I just get to allow them to be louder. 

I also look at numerology. I love playing with numerology. I think that it's so fun to just see a general theme that you can have in your life. I have a lot of eights in my numerology. I'm an eight life path, and that means that my big thing here is to work on my relationship to success, my relationship to achievement, my relationship to receiving, my relationship to work. That's a big theme in my life, to have your life path number, which you calculate by adding the numbers of your birthday together. My birthday is 11/26/1996. You add all of the digits together, and then you reduce it to a single digit, and that is your life path number. It's kind of like the energetic frequency of your birthday.

I'm an eight life path, but then this year, going into 2023, is an eight year. It's a year eight for me, and as a year eight, it means that the focus for this next year is going to be on success and personal achievement, versus this last year I was in a year seven, and a year seven is all about spiritual growth and evolution. I can tell you the amount of spiritual growth that I have gone through this year is so, so much. It's been absolutely amazing to see. I've been healing ancestral trauma. I've been working with spirits. I've been meditating and seeing things and dreaming, and it's been a whole trip. It's been very fun to kind of explore a different realm of my inner world. It was a lot of spiritual growth, and so I'm really excited to kind of come out of that internal shell and see how that growth applies and how that internal transformation really impacts the external expression and the things that I do in the world outside of me, or physical format instead of the internal world and the internal work that I've been doing over this past year.

Numerology is fun to look at, and I usually just do a little bit of research. Read about any descriptions, and I'm really good about just noticing whatever leaps out at me, whatever is coming up strong, whatever feels like it's pulling my attention, that's where I will go. That's what I will read. That's what I will focus on, and that's what I will allow to be the message that I need at that moment.

The other thing that I will do is a tarot spread. I love tarot cards. I love Oracle cards. I think they're a really great way to connect with your own intuition.nThis year I did an 11 card spread, and I used two different decks. I just looked at what's going on this year? What's possibly going to happen? What's happened in the past impacting this year? What are the themes? What's the education? What's the medicine? I just ask whatever questions are coming up on my heart, and I will get guidance.

This is more of an end of year project, but I love to get a blank piece of paper and a whole bunch of markers or pens and just draw out or really pretty write out the intentions that I have for the year or for this next phase. It's kind of like a mood board, but it's in words. There’s something about drawing them out in different fonts, making them pretty, really just like intentionally putting my creativity behind those words that feels really powerful. I call it an intention sheet, and I just share the vibes that I'm going for. How do I want to feel? It's really about the feeling for me, and if I can capture that feeling in the font that I choose and the color that I'm using and the texture, the size of the words that I'm writing, it's very creative. It's very envisioning; it really gets me in that energy for a while. Then I will keep that page and read over it whenever I feel called to read over it. Just to reconnect with those intentions, and reconnect with the big themes that I am working with over the next year.

That's what I do on my birthday. It's a lot of journaling. It's a lot of writing. It's a lot of contemplation, but it makes me feel like I have a solid understanding of what I'm probably going to experience over the next year. From there, I can start planning the actual projects and the actual trips and adventures that I want to go on that my intuition is leading me to. I don't really make a lot of decisions based on what other people or what charts tell me or predictions, I kind of like to create my own reality. That's how I like to spend my birthday in reflection.

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