As a triple Capricorn, my first response to any type of astrological technique is one of deep scepticism.
I will first of all fold my arms and say prove it to me, and my proof threshold has a very high bar.
Only when a technique has been shown to work consistently over time in a wide variety of situations will I accept it and begin to work with it, but I still continue to apply rigorous testing, just in case.
Even if a method does work, I need to know which situations it works in and which ones it might not.
I’ve had an ambiguous relationship with the astrological method of solar returns, the drawing of a chart for the exact moment that the Sun returns to the precise minute that it holds in the birthchart.
I’ve always had questions about it.
Does it really work as a chart or are we mainly picking up the major transits operating on the person’s Sun at the time?
If it does work, how long does it do so? Is it valid for a whole year until the next one? Or does it just focus it’s impact around the person’s birthday?
I use the method, but continue to maintain a degree of scepticism when applying it from year to year.
I do know however that as a method for recording the truly important turning point years in a person’s life, a solar return will describe them with uncanny accuracy.
It is for this reason that I use a regressed solar return to provide more information in my past life reviews, because these are focused on genuinely critical past events.
One thing that I have found is that a solar return will give a very clear indication of when someone died whether in a past life or in a current one.
This also seems to apply in the case of leaders of countries.
In The English Revolution I detail the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the extraordinary opposition between Saturn and Pluto and Uranus and Neptune that triggered it.
Intriguingly the Solar Return for the 1066 chart for England seems to be showing it.
Saturn and Pluto in the 10th house in exact quincunx with the Sun in the 5th would surely mean the death of the ruler.
The powerful opposition forming a T square with Mars suggests an act of violence,
Over two centuries later Abraham Lincoln became the first of many US Presidents to be assassinated.
The Solar Return for the US chart also has a Saturn/Neptune opposition.
Again a T square is formed, this time with an apex Sun and Venus.
The tight square between the Moon in Cancer in the 5th and Mars in Aries even seems to suggest an assassination in a theatre.
Maybe there is a Saturn/Neptune quality to these kind of events, in which case you would expect it to be very evident when the nation itself came into being with a conjunction between the two.
I have written many times about the chart for the Storming of the Winter Palace during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and how it works as a neat description of the energies that described the Soviet Union.
The opposition between the Moon/Saturn conjunction in Leo and Uranus in Aquarius covers the conflict between the authoritarian regime and its socialist ideals and the T Square with an apex Sun and Mercury in Scorpio shows the intensity and ruthlessness of its power base.
One man who more than any displayed the full range of this chart was the dictator Joseph Stalin who dominated the USSR for a whole Saturn cycle.
Stalin’s death in 1953 occurred with the next Saturn/Neptune conjunction.
And it was clearly indicated in the country’s return chart.
An exact (to the minute) opposition between Mars and Uranus falling right on the Ascendant/Descendant axis and forming a T square with the Saturn/Neptune conjunction in the 8th house is probably the clearest indicator of death in an astrological chart that I have ever seen.
One more Saturn/Neptune cycle later and the Soviet Union itself died.
I have always stated that planetary aspects are by far the most important thing in astrology for indicating events.
The tighter the aspects the more powerful the drama.
This is perhaps the most important moment in the whole of the 20th century, not least because it made the 21st one a possibility.
And the chart is a classic for liberation from an oppressive regime.
Jupiter in Cancer in the 1st house shows the people rising up in exact opposition to Saturn and Neptune in Capricorn.
This occurred just a few days after the Soviet Union’s 72nd birthday so inevitably the same pattern would be in its solar return.
But there is no reason that it should also fall across the Ascendant/Decsendant axis.
As well as the Saturn/Neptune conjunction, Uranus is involved as well, right on the return Ascendant.
The Sun/Pluto conjunction in the 9th house, showed how events in another country brought the downfall of the Moscow regime.
The events that proceeded from the Fall of the Berlin Wall dismantled the Soviet Union, allowing the map of Eastern Europe to return to something resembling its pre 2nd World War shape.
It also created a new Russia.
The new regime has a new boss born on the same Saturn/Neptune conjunction that took out the old one.
In a week’s time Saturn conjoins Neptune again, so are we about to see the demise of Uncle Vlad?
Maybe not quite yet but in Is It Time To Be Putin Out The Trash?, I point out that this year also sees transit Saturn oppose Putin’s Sun and Uranus conjunction his 8th house Moon.
What about his own Solar return?
A Full Moon can’t be great and the exact square between Mercury in the 4th and Pluto in the 6th suggests him taking a step back sometime this year for health reasons.
Next year’s Solar Return looks like Vlad is about to be impaled.
The Sun opposite Saturn on the angles, looks ominously like the USSR return that took out Stalin.
A T square with Mars in the 10th opposite Pluto forming an apex with Venus the 8th house ruler in Scorpio suggests some very grim reaping.
What about the one for his country?
The Sun and Venus in square to Neptune on the 6th house cusp doesn’t look to healthy and the Moon in exact square to Uranus in the 8th could be enough particularly with Pluto on the IC.
It should be pointed out that the Saturn/Neptune conjunction falls square to the Russia Sun/Venus and Neptune stays around those degrees for a while.
The country’s return for the year 2028 could even witness another Russian Revolution.
Uranus right on the Ascendant, is reminiscent of the 1989 return, in exact opposition to the Moon forming an Easy Opposition (trine and sextile) with a Venus/Pluto conjunction in the 10th looks like Russia will have a new boss.
Maybe we should do a Tibetan Buddhist style search for someone born in 1989 to carry the can down the road.
Let’s just hope the new boss isn’t the same as the old boss and this return doesn’t take us back to the USSR.
Posted on 13 February 2026
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