First: Happy 2025 to you all. Second: Solar Returns: Planets in Houses has now been published – and its presence in the bookshops explains why this website has been so quiet over the past few weeks. Late 2024 was taken up putting the final touches to a book that I first started writing in 2018. Back then, I thought it was going to be too big a project to handle, so I put it ‘back in the drawer’ and focused on starting this website and – of course – the other books I have written to date.
However, you should never say never to a big project (a good resolution to make at this time of year), so I blew the dust off the files and spent almost all of last year completing my biggest book to date. So, to launch this book, here is an abridged extract from the introduction to Solar Returns: Planets in Houses which sets out what you will find inside. The book is available from all of the usual outlets – link available above and at the foot of this page. And I can now focus on catching up with my regular astrology posts – coming soon!
Extract | Solar Returns: Planets in Houses
A few years ago, I wrote Solar Returns: An Introduction. Although I discussed each planet and house in detail – enough for you to start making your own chart interpretations – I wanted to produce a ‘solar returns cookbook’ to give you more in-depth information about the planetary placements in your solar return chart. Solar Returns: The Planets in Houses is that book and in here you will find my analysis and interpretation of the planetary placements for each house of your solar return chart.
What I have aimed to do with this book is build up from the foundation I set out in Solar Returns: An Introduction and provide you, the reader, with an up to date, accessible and down to earth set of interpretative possibilities you can refer to for years to come. The book is divided into twelve chapters – one per house – and in each chapter, I remind you of the basic principles of the house concerned before I set out a set of potential interpretations for each planetary placement.
My analyses are based on many years of chart interpretation and personal observation – and they are done with a sound understanding of the astrological principles that underpin each planet and its house placement. I’m going to add a proviso here: there will be events and occurrences in your life that you won’t find in these pages, however, if you analyze them carefully, you will discover that their fundamental dynamics are right there in the placements of your solar return chart. Let me give you an example to show you what I mean by that.
A solar return chart placement that always makes me smile (nervously) is Neptune in the solar return fourth house. When you read my analysis of that placement later in this book you’ll understand why. As I write this, I’m having that solar return chart placement again and, so far, it’s going exactly as expected with ‘water in the home’ issues. However, there are a couple of additional experiences that meet the ‘fourth house Neptune’ criteria – even though you won’t find them delineated in that section.
They include my discovery of a soda that contains legal CBD oil (the fourth house rules food and drink. I drink it for medicinal purposes (naturally), and it makes a pleasant and relaxing change from dealing with burst pipes. It’s a small example, but it makes this point; it’s almost impossible to account for every conceivable manifestation of every planet in every house. The most likely eventualities are the ones that have made the cut – otherwise this book would run to several volumes.
Incidentally, if you’re wondering what my other solar return fourth house Neptune experience has been this year, it’s been this: I’ve been inexplicably drawn to spending my holidays in idyllic fisherman’s cottages in remote coastal locations. Many outcomes are possible – and you may experience several of the potential effects of a planet in a particular house during a single solar return year.
This latter point is important, as the focus of this book is – quite rightly – on the planets in houses, but you cannot overlook the effects of sign and aspect when you’re making your final and ‘most likely’ interpretation. I have provided you with a comprehensive set of potentials for each house placement – but whether one is going to be more likely than another may be due to the sign in which the placement falls.
For example, Venus in the fourth solar return house is associated with beauty in the home. In Cancer, this may result in you creating a beautiful garden or spending money on interior decoration. The same placement in Sagittarius may have a completely different result. The outgoing and entertaining side of Venus may come to the fore, and you may host at least one major social event during the year. With this placement, I hosted various members of my extended family (involving several different nationalities and a lot of long-distance travel) several times during the year.
Aspects also play a role in how you interpret your solar return house placements. Again, the book focuses on house positions not aspects, but when you’re refining your own solar return chart interpretations, keep the aspects in mind. In Solar Returns: An Introduction, I set out the fundamental principles that govern aspect interpretation in a solar return chart (I would recommend you study that book alongside this one) and I’m going to go back to that fourth house Neptune in my own solar return chart to demonstrate what I mean by using the sign position and the aspects to arrive at the most meaningful analysis.
Neptune in the solar return fourth house has a certain set of interpretations, however, in this year’s solar return chart it’s conjunct the Moon in the same house, so the analysis of the Moon and Neptune can’t be separated – they work together. It’s a watery, emotional and romantic mix. It’s also the kind of watery inundation that you don’t see coming. As the solar return chart began to take effect (and they often do so a couple of months before your birth date) a defective valve in the shower room caused a spectacular flood through the sitting room ceiling. It happened at night (the Moon and Neptune) and there was no way of knowing that it would happen (Neptune).
The valve failed spectacularly (most likely due to thermal expansion caused by a heatwave) and the resulting bill for damage was huge – thanks to the influence of Jupiter, as the fourth house Moon and Neptune were also conjunct Jupiter in the fifth house. It was an object lesson that planets in proximity add so much more detail to your analysis. The fifth house is a place of risk, ‘expansion’ and creativity and our home was my personal creation. It’s also the place where things fail – and that may happen in a spectacular and dramatic way.
On a lighter note, during the year I was also inspired by some beautiful food photography (the Moon conjunct Neptune in the fourth house) and subscribed to the cookery section of an internationally well-known newspaper (Jupiter). The resulting creative pleasure (Jupiter, fifth house) gained from both cooking and eating has been a real feature of the year. As has the expansion of my waistline. And that’s also reflected in the dynamics of this solar return year’s indulgent Moon-Neptune and Jupiter conjunction across the fourth and fifth house cusp.
I’ve given you a few examples of how placements can manifest in your solar return chart, but they demonstrate the importance of always allowing for the influence of the sign and aspects too. Even though this book focuses on the house placements, it’s always best to take a holistic approach to interpretation and ask yourself whether a particular analysis feels right to you in the context of whatever else is being flagged up in your solar return chart.
In any solar return year, you’re going to be faced with sets of events that demand you make choices and decisions; sometimes those events will be new to you and sometimes they are a continuation of things that have happened during the previous solar return year. The thing I like most about solar return forecasting is this: it’s essentially event driven and whether they are inner events that draw you towards new experiences and ways of expressing yourself, or outer events through which you discover how resilient or creative you are (or are not), it’s your response to those events that determines how you move forward and grow as an individual.
Your solar return chart – year upon year – outlines a process of growth that is rooted in dealing with whatever the universe directs your way. It’s only through living life in a mindful way, that we discover who we are capable of being.
© Sara Shipman 2025
Further Reading
Sara Shipman | Solar Returns: Planets in Houses
Sara Shipman | Solar Returns: An Introduction
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© Sara Shipman 2025
Thank you for these valuable resources. I received notice early this morning and purchased. I look forward to understanding more. Much appreciation!
Thank you Katie! Have a wonderful 2025.