Lunar Return Chart — Your Month Ahead
Cast for the exact moment the Moon returns to its natal position each month, your lunar return chart is a forecast of the weeks ahead — the rising sign of the return, the house holding the Moon and the placements that set the month’s emotional tone. Free to compute; Pro adds the full month-ahead reading.
A lunar return is read against your natal chart. Calculate your full birth chart free.
What is a lunar return?
A lunar return is a fresh chart cast for the exact moment the Moon comes back to the precise degree it occupied when you were born. Because the Moon is the fastest-moving body in astrology, it completes that circuit in about 27.3 days — so a new lunar return arrives roughly once a month, marking the start of your personal emotional cycle.
Sigastra computes the return from the real ephemeris (Swiss Ephemeris), finding the Moon’s exact natal longitude and the next moment it is matched again. The wheel above is that return chart: the same planets you know from your natal chart, re-arranged into the signs, houses and angles that set the mood of the month ahead.
Reading your lunar return
Start with the return Ascendant — the rising sign of the lunar return frames how you meet the month and the tone of the weeks it covers. Then find the house holding the return Moon: that house shows where your emotional attention is drawn, the part of life that feels most alive and most sensitive until the next return.
Read the Moon’s house and sign alongside the return Sun, Venus and Mars to fill out the picture — where your energy goes, what you are drawn to, and where the friction sits. The lunar return is a monthly weather report layered over the fixed landscape of your birth chart.
How often it happens
The Moon returns to its natal position about every 27.3 days, so you receive roughly thirteen lunar returns across a year — a little more than one a month. Each one opens a fresh emotional cycle, which is why the lunar return is read as a short-term forecast rather than the year-long portrait of a solar return.
Because the return moment shifts a few days earlier each month, the calculator computes it to the minute from the current date, giving you the exact instant the Moon comes home and the chart drawn for it.
Lunar return vs solar return
A solar return is cast once a year, on or near your birthday, when the Sun comes back to its natal degree — it describes the overarching theme of the twelve months ahead. A lunar return is its monthly counterpart: the Moon returns roughly every four weeks, colouring the emotional tone of a single cycle.
The two work best together. Read the solar return for the story of your year, then use each lunar return to see the mood of the month within it — the shorter rhythm nested inside the longer one.
Lunar return FAQ
What is a lunar return?+
A lunar return is a chart cast for the exact moment the Moon returns to the position it held at your birth. It happens about once a month and is read as the emotional theme of the weeks ahead — a short-term forecast layered over your birth chart.
How often is a lunar return?+
Roughly monthly. The Moon returns to its natal degree about every 27.3 days, so you get around thirteen lunar returns a year — a little more than one each calendar month.
Is the lunar return calculator free?+
Yes. Casting your lunar return chart, seeing the exact return moment, the return wheel and your key placements is free. Pro adds a full AI reading that interprets the chart as the emotional themes of your month ahead.
Should I use my birthplace or current location?+
The planets are the same either way. Cast for your birthplace for the classic reading, or tick the current-location option to recast the same return moment for where you live now — the planets stay put while the houses and angles shift to your present horizon.