When you move you also shift the rhythms of a lifetime, reinforced every day, and hopefully for the better...

By John Townley, May 2013

Astrology is mainly a passive endeavor – you look at the natal chart, and its transits and progressions, see what’s there and what’s on the way, then make preparations in response to what you see. Kind of like dealing with the weather, you analyze it, then forecast it, and subsequently bask in it or get out of its way. But, like the weather, astrology has its own activist alternative: if you don’t like the weather, you can go someplace where it’s generally better. Astrologically, that translates as relocating to a place where your most-favored natal planets (or, temporarily, the planets of a solar or lunar return) were on the angles at the exact time of your birth.

When you twist the view of your natal horoscope to a place other than where you were born, everything changes for you.  Some places elevate your best planets (like the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter) and give you an edge in life, love, and career, while others emphasize more troublesome aspects of your chart (like Saturn, Uranus, Pluto) which make those locales more risky or restrictive.

Finding a new angle

That’s because in your birth chart at your birth place, some of your most important planets for love, money, or just plain enjoyment may not be ideally placed for getting what you want. Maybe dour Saturn is up top waving a dirty grey flag when you’d rather see bountiful Jupiter flying the crimson banner of success. Or maybe you’ve got a bad Moon rising (literally) which makes you not like what you see in the mirror (and what others see on camera), and you’d be a lot happier if the smiling Sun was shining there instead. To a certain extent, you’ll always have to deal with your original horoscope, but you can get a big effect by moving away from where you were born and putting the positions of your planets higher or lower in the sky, which will give you a custom-altered life template to boost your fortunes, improve your style, and generally make every day more thrilling and intense.

   
A personal life example: A potential natal disadvantage (Mars/Uranus in 12th house, above l.) was largely made up for by growing up in Miami where it was on the Ascendant (above c.), allowing me to excel. When I later performed music in Poland where it was on the MC (above r.), it turned out to bring unexpected fame (wild, cheering moshpits!), and danger (repeated robberies)...it's all put together on the map (below), with lots of other potential profits (and perils), each at the end of another life journey to be embarked upon...

On the map, here’s how it works. As you move steadily away from your birthplace, the sky-view of your natal planets begins to rotate as you go, to the extent that if you go to the opposite side of the globe, it entirely flips over – and you’ve got all the options in between of turning and twisting it into shape by moving north, south, east, and west until you’ve got the original astrological hand your were dealt stacked just like you want it. So if you were born in London, and moved to New York, you’d now have a chart that is the view of your birth sky from five time zones earlier, or rotated about 20% counterclockwise, shifting all the planets from their original places about 72 degrees. Depending on what you’ve got to start with, it can mean a radical change of strength, orientation, and likely events – and it’s critical to make sure it’s an improvement, not spoiling an already good thing.

That could be love (where your Venus and Mars rise together), or money (where Jupiter rules the sky), or greater respect and self-confidence (where your Sun dominates the surroundings), learning and understanding (Mercury), spiritual insight (Neptune), or whatever else you would like a little more of in your life.

The new view

But why does that new “view” actually mean anything? After all, unlike a solar return, where you can actually be there for the event, you were already in one place and one place only at your birth, and travel doesn’t change that. Your real Ascendant will never change, wherever you go, so what’s the deal? Within the normal principles of astrology, why would going somewhere else affect your chart? If you knew why, you might be able to do much more with it. Most astrologers seem to think that relocation seems to work – I do, I can palpably feel it in some strong locations (see above charts for examples) – but based on what principle?

Here’s a likely possibility, simply based on the presumption that astrological effects are not only natal (where the principle of the evolution of initial conditions applies) but behavioral and are learned and increase over time (for lots more on that, read The Horoscope Trap). As we experience each planetary cycle (Moon, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, etc.) we become increasingly entrained by the experience, with each cycle repeat bringing reinforcement of the last and anticipation of the next. This is perhaps the bottom-line principle upon which return charts are based – the patterns surrounding each of these cycle re-beginnings (returns) gives an overlay of indicators about the coming cycle period, be that a month, or a year (or longer for other planetary returns).

It's the daily return of your natal planets, shifted to the angles, that calls you to your best locations, across the globe...

But how about the diurnal return – the instant each day you’re exactly one sidereal day older, functionally defined by the moment your precise angles reappear at the place of your birth? You can’t exactly go rushing about to get each diurnal return optimized every twenty-four hours to improve each day’s outlook. But, as it so happens, if you go to someplace where, say, your “relocated” Mars is on the Ascendant, you’ll find that there the degree of your Mars is the Ascendant of every day’s diurnal return chart. You are, by daily repetition, having your Mars degree reemphasized every day, with each diurnal return. No wonder you can feel it! Your most fundamental and frequently-reinforced cycle has a natal Mars overlay, strengthened each day you’re at that location. The longer you stay, the greater the emphasis – it’s cumulative.

Degrees emphasized

This is also a part of the larger picture of recurring degree areas and how critical they are on a moment-to-moment basis. When the degree of your Sun rises each day, your personality is emphasized, then when your Saturn degree culminates you run into small but creeping roadblocks and restrictions, and when Mars rises you get a sudden lift, and so on. You can even rectify your chart by it. You may travel to get this phenomenon strengthened for the year on your birthday, or for the month on your lunar return. But where you reside tells the story about the emphasis of the chart for the day, each and every day, and that is depicted by the simply-recast relocation chart – which by itself is a mathematical shortcut with no intrinsic meaning except that it conveniently tells you what happens there every day at your diurnal return. It doesn’t mean you have a new chart, only that this location affects your real chart selectively through daily repetitive occurrences. It’s simply another angle (literally) on your ingrained “horoscope trap” and in this case one you can actively use to your advantage.

   Found the spot where all your best planets are featured every day? Now it's time to bundle up your baskets and go there! 

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