Life's turning points
Turning Points
Some passages mark a life more than others. Here are the ones astrology can pinpoint with precision.
Time-based astrology, five techniques
A birth chart fixes a photograph of the sky at birth. The techniques gathered here answer a different question: how does this birth sky evolve over time? Each offers a different breakdown — planetary cycle, symbolic chronology, or chart recalculated at a precise instant — to locate the major stages of a life.
The Saturn return and Zodiacal Releasing (Loosing of the Bond) rely directly on your already-calculated birth chart. The annual profections, secondary progressions, and solar return add a target date — a birthday, a specific year — to calculate a complementary chart for that instant.
These last three remain in beta on the site: the calculation is verified and reliable, but their detailed explanatory article isn’t written yet — the questions below already give the main principles.
Frequently asked questions
- What is time-based astrology?
- The birth chart photographs the sky at birth; time-based astrology looks at how the current sky — or cycles internal to the chart — resonates with that original photograph, to locate the major stages and periods of life. The techniques gathered here (Saturn return, Zodiacal Releasing, profections, progressions, solar return) are the five most used variants of it.
- What is the Saturn return?
- Saturn takes about 29 years to travel the whole zodiac and so returns to its exact natal position around age 29-30, then again around 58-60. This return traditionally marks a passage of maturity — taking stock and restructuring the commitments made in youth.
- What is Zodiacal Releasing (Loosing of the Bond)?
- A Hellenistic astrology technique that unfolds, from a point in the chart (often the Lot of Spirit or the Lot of Fortune), a chronology of nested periods (levels L1 to L4). A "Loosing of the Bond" designates a major sign change in this chronology, traditionally associated with a marked life turning point.
- What are annual profections?
- Each year, starting from the birthday, the chart's house 1 "advances" by one house (profection). The year is then governed by the ruler of the house thus activated, which becomes the planet to watch first for the period.
- What are secondary progressions?
- A symbolic convention where each day after birth represents a year of life: the chart calculated for the day matching the current age ("1 day = 1 year") gives a progressed chart, used to read the inner evolution and maturation of the birth chart.
- What is the solar return?
- The chart calculated at the exact instant the Sun returns each year to its natal position — the precise astronomical birthday, not just the calendar date. This birthday chart is traditionally read as a tone for the year ahead.