Lunar return
A lunar return is the moment the Moon comes back to the exact position it held in the natal chart, which happens roughly every 27.3 days, the length of the sidereal month. Predictive astrology casts a chart for that precise instant and reads it as the emotional weather of the month ahead. It is the lunar counterpart of the solar return, which is calculated for the birthday instead.
How it is worked out
Your natal Moon sits at a precise degree of the zodiac. Roughly every 27.3 days, the Moon in the sky passes back over it exactly: that is the moment of return, for which a chart is cast at the place where you are. This gives you thirteen charts a year, each opening a new lunar chapter, where the solar return opens only one.
What you can do with it
Predictive astrology, with Bernadette Brady among others, reads this chart as the emotional weather of the month: where your attention settles, what asks for care. You can make it a writing date every four weeks, look back over the past month, sense the mood of the next one. A mirror held up to your inner landscape, never a verdict on what has to happen.
Sources
- , The Eagle and the Lark (1992)