Your astrology year in review
Enter your birthday and see your solar year in six slides: the year from your last solar return to your next, its annual profection and your personal year number, the slow planets crossing your chart, your busiest month, the retrogrades and Moons in your year, and a first look at the year ahead.
What the six slides show
- Your year. The dates of your solar year, your annual profection with its lord of the year, and your personal year number.
- The big crossings. The strongest exact aspects Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto make to your Sun, Venus and Mars in your solar year, and to your Moon, Ascendant and Midheaven when you add a birth time. With a birth time you get exact dates; without one, the dates the crossing can fall between, since the hour of birth moves them.
- Your busiest month. The calendar month with the most exact contacts between the moving planets and your chart, with the count.
- Retrogrades in your year. How many times Mercury turns retrograde in your solar year, and whether Venus or Mars does, with the dates.
- Moons in your sign. The new and full Moons, and any eclipses, that fall in your Sun sign or your Moon sign.
- A first look at the year ahead. Your next solar return, next year's profection and personal year number, and the biggest crossing coming up.
Dates still to come are marked as you read, since most of a solar year can still be ahead. Each slide has a "Save" button that makes a phone-sized image for Stories, and there is a share link. Both show a shareable version worked out for the day and month of your birthday in your time zone (or in UTC when your browser does not say one), as if for a birth on that date with no time or town, so anyone with your birthday who makes theirs on the same day in the same time zone gets the very same one: the Sun sign, the personal year, the months of the solar year, the crossings to the Sun by month, the retrogrades and the Moons in the Sun sign. It leaves out your Moon and rising signs, your profection year and the time of your return, and it does not give away your birth year, your age, your birth time or your birth town. It does give away the day and month of your birthday (a February 29 birthday also shows that you were born in a leap year), and its dates can hint at your time zone, so share it only where you are happy for that to be seen. No shareable version is offered for a birthday on which the Sun changes sign in some years, for a few days each year about a month after your birthday, or in the first weeks after a birth.
How your year is worked out
- The solar year. Your solar return is the moment the Sun gets back to the exact degree it held when you were born. It falls on your birthday or a day either side. Astrologers have read the year from one return to the next as your own year since at least Abu Ma'shar's ninth century book on the revolutions of the years of nativities. For the first 30 days after your solar return the slides cover the year that just ended, and after that the one you are in.
- The annual profection. A Hellenistic timing method, set out by Vettius Valens in the second century: each year of life moves one sign on from your rising sign, so the year of birth is the 1st house, the year after your first birthday the 2nd, and so on, back to the 1st every twelve years. The ruler of that sign, by the traditional rulerships used before Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were found, is the lord of the year. Without a birth time this page counts from your Sun sign instead, a solar-sign version, and the slide says so.
- The personal year number. From modern numerology, a twentieth century system: your birth month, your birth day and a year, each reduced to one digit, then added and reduced again to a number from 1 to 9. This page counts it birthday to birthday and also gives the calendar-year number many numerologists use.
- Exact crossings. The planets' positions come from the site's own planet tables, which are checked against NASA JPL's Horizons system to within a few arcminutes. Every day of your solar year is checked for the moment a planet reaches an exact conjunction, sextile, square, trine or opposition to a point in your chart. Without a birth time, your Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars are taken at 7 moments spread across your birth date, from its first minute to its last, so each crossing comes with the dates it can fall between. The slow planets' crossings are ranked by this page's own weighting of common practice, which the slide explains.
- Retrogrades and Moons. Retrograde stations come from the same tables as the site's retrograde pages, shown in your own time zone. New and full Moons come from the same calculation as the Moon phase calendar, and one counts as an eclipse when the Moon is close enough to the Sun's path, the faint penumbral lunar eclipses included.
What this can and cannot tell you
The dates on these slides are astronomy: where the planets were, when the Sun came back to its place, when Mercury stood still. What they mean is tradition. The readings here are the ones astrologers have used for centuries, offered for reflection, not as facts about your life. When astrology has been tested under controlled conditions, as in Shawn Carlson's double-blind study published in Nature in 1985, astrologers could not match birth charts to personality profiles better than chance.
So read your year as a calendar with old stories attached. If a date lines up with something in your year, that can be a good prompt to think about it. If it does not, nothing is wrong with you or your year.
Go further with your year
Cast the chart for your new year
Your solar return chart is the sky at the moment your solar year begins. Astrologers read its rising sign and houses for the themes of the year. It is free, from your birth date, time and place.
Free: your solar return chart Solar Return: Your Year Ahead ($55)
The chart of the moment the Sun returns to its birth position this year: the theme of your personal year, where its energy lands, and the numerology of the year. Includes the return chart wheel. Delivered as a PDF.
Look at the twelve months ahead
Your birth chart is the starting point for any forecast: it shows the points in your chart the moving planets will cross.
Free: your birth chart 12-Month Forecast + Timing ($120)
The year ahead, month by month: the major transits to your chart with their date windows, where the slow planets are working, your best dates by life area, and your personal number cycle for each month. Delivered as a PDF.
Questions people ask
What is an astrology year in review?
It goes over your own solar year, the stretch from one birthday's solar return to the next, and lists what the sky does to your birth chart in that time: which slow planets make exact aspects to it, which month is busiest, the retrogrades, and the new and full Moons in your sign. This one also gives the year's annual profection and your personal year number, and a first look at the year ahead.
What is a solar return?
Your solar return is the moment each year when the Sun comes back to the exact degree it held when you were born. It falls on your birthday or a day either side. Astrologers since the Persian and Arabic writers of the ninth century, such as Abu Ma'shar, have treated the year from one return to the next as your personal year and cast a chart for the moment it begins. You can cast that chart free on the solar return page.
What is an annual profection?
A timing method from Hellenistic astrology, described by Vettius Valens in the second century. Each year of life is given to one sign, counting on one sign per birthday from your rising sign: the 1st house for the year of birth, the 2nd from your first birthday, and so on, back to the 1st every twelve years. The planet that rules that sign by the old rulerships is called the lord of the year, and tradition watches it closely. Without a birth time this page counts from your Sun sign instead and says so.
How is my personal year number worked out?
Modern numerology reduces your birth month, your birth day and a year to single digits, adds them and reduces the total to one digit, from 1 to 9, a nine-year cycle. This page counts it birthday to birthday, using the year your birthday fell in. Many numerologists count it by the calendar year instead, from January 1, and the slide gives that number too.
Do I need my birth time?
No. The date alone gives the solar year, the Sun sign profection, the personal year, the retrogrades and the Moons in your Sun sign. Without a time, the crossings come as date windows, since the birth hour moves them, and the busiest month is named outright only when every hour of the birth date agrees on it. A birth time and town add your rising sign and Midheaven, profections counted the traditional way, the Moon's exact degree, exact crossing dates and the time of your next solar return.
Why does a recap made on my birthday show the year just ended?
For 30 days after your solar return, the slides look back at the solar year that just finished, since the new one has barely begun. After that they cover the solar year you are in, past and still ahead, and slide six looks at the one after it.
Can astrology tell me what my year will bring?
No one can promise that. Astrology is a set of traditions for reading the sky, not a measurement of your life, and controlled studies have not found that it predicts events or personality. Read the slides as a calendar of what the sky does and what tradition says about it, useful for reflection, not as a forecast.
What do you keep, and what does the share link show?
Nothing is kept unless you ask for a birthday reminder. Your birth date, time and town are used to work out the slides and then dropped: not saved, not logged. The share link and the Stories images show a shareable version worked out for the day and month of your birthday in your time zone (or in UTC when your browser does not say one), as if for a birth on that date with no time or town, so anyone with your birthday who makes theirs on the same day in the same time zone gets the very same one: the Sun sign, the personal year, the months of the solar year, the crossings to the Sun by month, the retrogrades and the Moons in the Sun sign. It leaves out your Moon and rising signs, your profection year and the time of your return, and it does not give away your birth year, your age, your birth time or your birth town. It does give away the day and month of your birthday (a February 29 birthday also shows that you were born in a leap year), and its dates can hint at your time zone, so share it only where you are happy for that to be seen. No shareable version is offered for a birthday on which the Sun changes sign in some years, for a few days each year about a month after your birthday, or in the first weeks after a birth. A reminder keeps your Sun sign, your time zone and the date of your next birthday until a month after it, or until you press Stop.