Visibility is hard.
It seems that no matter how many times I have promised myself that I would step into greater visibility in my work, no matter how many deadlines I set for myself, no matter how many visibility challenges I agreed to participate in, I somehow can’t get myself to step into the spotlight.
In the days leading to my birthday earlier this week, I was starting to sink into the rabbit hole of shame for once again failing in this mission.
Then I happened to look at my 2023 solar return chart — the chart for the year that I was ending.
Suddenly, it became obvious to me that my quest for greater visibility this past year had been misguided from the start.
Once again, laws of nature prevailed.
Perhaps my experience can save you the pain of trying to accomplish something at the wrong time.
A Brief Primer on Astrology Language
Before I share my big insight, a quick primer on some relevant terms to help you follow along, in case you’re not up to speed on some of the language here.
Natal Chart
A Natal Chart is a map of the sky at the moment of birth. It shows the position of the sun, moon, and all the planets mapped to the Zodiacal Wheel.
There are 12 signs of the zodiac, so each one occupies 30 degrees of the circle. Each planet lands in a specific sign at a specific degree of that sign.
The signs provide the temperamental environment that influences how the planets operate.
For example, when I was born the Sun was at 15°40’47″ — 15 degrees, 40 minutes, and 47 seconds[1] — in the sign of Taurus. This means my essential nature is influenced by the qualities of Taurus.
Houses
Overlaid on that map is a system called Houses. Houses describe 12 different areas of life. For example: your self and identity, career, home and family, committed relationships, health and work, how you earn income, friends and groups, creative life, travel, philosophy, and learning, and so on.
The Houses start at the sign that is rising on the horizon at the moment of birth — called the Rising Sign — and proceed counter-clockwise around the wheel. Houses tell us where the action of the planet is happening.
For example, when I was born, Libra was on the horizon. This puts my Taurus Sun in the eighth house, an area of life that is about grief, death, mental health, other people’s resources, and collaboration.
The sign on the horizon changes every couple of hours. This means that even people born on the same day who have all planets in the same signs as each other might have those planets in different houses.
Most important: The lineup of planets as they existed at the moment of your birth will never repeat that way again.
The other planets do return to their “Natal locations” — the moon returns monthly and other planets return on their cycles — but it’s rare to have even the Sun and moon align at the same time in their exact original locations at the same time.
This means your Natal Chart is like a fingerprint: unique to you.
Even twins have slightly different Natal Charts
What’s a Solar Return?
The Solar Return is the moment that the sun returns to the same spot in the sky that it was at when you were born.
This coincides with your birthday, although it could happen the day before or after.
A Solar Return Chart is a map of the planets in the sky at the exact moment when the current Sun returns to the same exact spot in the sky as it was at your time of birth.
Like any discrete event, the Solar Return is tied to an exact moment in time, but the energy of that moment can last longer.
While a Natal Chart shows your personal energy, and how the archetypes of the planets manifest within you, a Solar Return Chart provides guidance to where the energy supports you in your year ahead.
Another way to say this is that the Solar Return chart will show you what areas of life you’ll be supported in focusing on.[2]
By definition, then, it also tells you the areas of life where you might feel like you’re hitting a brick wall.
Why The Solar Return Chart is Relevant
Astrology in general — and a Solar Return chart specifically — can tell us what life “season” we are in.
It can help us direct our focus to the places where the energy is supporting us, and can show us where challenging energy is, so we can plan accordingly.
Understanding the energy can help you avoid a situation where you’re trying to “plant trees in the middle of winter.”
One look at my 2023 Solar Return chart revealed to me that this is exactly what I was doing in my attempts to be more visible.
Now that you have the basic terminology, let’s look at how my 2023 Solar Return chart tells me that increased visibility wasn’t on the menu for my year that just ended.
How My 2023 Solar Return Chart Explains My Futile Attempts at Visibility
Looking my solar return chart for 2023, I noticed that the Rising Sign was Gemini.
Gemini as the first house put my Taurus Sun in the twelfth house.
Significations of the 12th House
The twelfth house is one of the more challenging houses to understand. Some astrologers call it the house of the unconscious. Others call it the house of sabotage, or the house of undoing.
What is clear about the twelfth house is that it is not a place for visibility. In fact, quite the opposite.
The twelfth house is the place just before the first house — it equates to our time in the womb before we are born.
What happens here isn’t seen by others — sometimes it’s not even seen by us.
The Moment of Revelation
The moment I saw this, I realized that
Of course visibility was a challenge this past year.
My Sun in the Solar return twelfth house is not a chart for visibility. It’s exactly the opposite.
Other relevant factors: Mercury, the ruler of the Rising Sign, was retrograde in Taurus. That brought in Mercury Retrograde energy to my chart for the year.
The last birthday also brought a focus to first house matters: a reexamination of self and identity, like a rebirthing.
The moment I saw this, I realized my efforts at visibility had been misplaced from the start.
I had new clarity on the preceding year:
It was an incubation year: a year of going within to reshape my identity and let go of old aspects of myself that no longer serve me.
It was a year for behind-the-scenes work.
Liberating From Shame
I had been blaming and shaming myself for not doing more, not doing enough. I had been berating myself with self-criticism.
The only effect of that is to increase exhaustion.
How many times can one ask themselves what’s wrong with me? before you start to believe that you’re incurable?
As if life isn’t hard enough, I made it harder through cycles of blame and shame.
But in an instant, everything shifted.
Suddenly, my Grandpa’s timeless advice came ringing back:
Take your cues from nature.
No need for shame or blame for not being more visible this past year.
It wasn’t time.
You can’t surf just because you want to surf. No amount of strength or willpower or discipline will help you if the waves aren’t there.
You can’t willpower your way around nature.
The best you can do is prepare yourself to surf when the waves come.
Or wait for the planets to align themselves differently.
Liberation Through Literacy
I’ll admit, my next thought was:
If only I had thought to look at this before.
In fact, I had looked at that chart, many times. But I didn’t yet have the literacy I do now.
Previously, I didn’t know what I was looking at — or for.
I knew enough to see how the planets lined up, but I didn’t understand what it told me.
To equate it to reading, I could make out the letters and the words, but I couldn’t comprehend the sentences.
I couldn’t create meaning from it in the way I can now.
The continued practice of studying astrology, learning from new teachers, writing about it, teaching it to others, and working with my chart and others charts has expanded my literacy and fluency.
It’s this literacy — both with my own chart and with various techniques — that has brought me liberation from shame both in this instance and many others.
When we know what season we are in, there’s no need for shame and blame.
There’s no need for self-criticism and self-flagellation.
When we know where the energy is supporting us, we can harness that energy by directing our focus to that area of life.
This makes work and life much more efficient, enjoyable, and pleasurable — something that my Taurus Sun greatly appreciates.
And as for visibility — my 2024 Solar Return chart tells a very different story.
Stay tuned for part 2.
- Astrology software generally provides only degree and minutes, so most programs round this to 15°40’ or 15°41’. More broadly, it’s the 15° of Taurus. ↩
- The Solar Return Chart is one of several tools that shows you where to direct your focus. It overlays with techniques like Progressions and Profections. For simplicity I’m not focusing on these in this essay. ↩
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...