Two new years: the ingress and the solar revolution

Astrology has two new years, and confusing them is a common source of nonsense.

The ingress: the year of a place

The Sun's entry into Aries opens the year for a country, and the chart is cast for its capital. It describes the condition of the place and its government over the following twelve months. It says nothing about any individual living there.

The judgement is set out under the Aries ingress.

The solar revolution: the year of a person

The Sun's return to its natal degree opens the year for an individual. The moment differs for everyone, falling near the birthday, and the chart is cast for wherever the native is at the time.

It describes the year ahead for that person, and it is read against the nativity — never on its own. A revolution is a modification of a natal promise, not an independent chart. A magnificent revolution cannot deliver what the nativity never promised, and a difficult one afflicts what the nativity has.

The exact moment of that return, and the chart cast upon it, are calculated in a worked example of a solar revolution.

How they relate

They can be used together, provided the direction of reading is kept straight. The ingress sets the conditions in which a country's people live; a revolution describes one person inside those conditions.

A revolution promising expansion in a country whose ingress shows scarcity is not a contradiction. Individuals prosper in bad years, and the astrology says so quite readily — but only if the two charts are kept in their own jurisdictions.

The error to avoid

Reading a national ingress as though it applied to the reader personally. This is the basis of an entire genre of published forecasting, and it has no support in the technique. The tenth house of an ingress is the government. It is not your career.

The place matters

One further point, since it is the part most often skipped: both charts are local. An ingress cast for a different capital is a different chart. A solar revolution cast for the birthplace of a native who now lives elsewhere is a different chart from the one cast for where they actually are — and the tradition argues about which to prefer, which at least means both parties agree the location changes the answer.

Solar revolutions are taught in Revolutions of the art, alongside the other predictive techniques.