Transits & cycles

Jupiter return

Also known as: Jupiter returnsreturn of Jupiter

A Jupiter return is the moment transiting Jupiter comes back to the degree of the zodiac it held at your birth — on average every 11.86 years, sometimes with three exact passes.

Jupiter takes 11.86 years to go round the zodiac, so the first return comes around age 12 and the next ones around 24, 36, 47, 59, 71 and 83. The period is not exactly 12 years, so each return comes on average about 7 weeks earlier than the “anniversary”, and by the seventh the difference is almost a year. The exact dates depend on how Jupiter happens to move at the time.

When Jupiter’s retrograde motion falls near the natal degree, the return has three exact passes: forward, backward and forward again. It is then a window lasting several months, and the new cycle starts at the first pass. Sometimes Jupiter comes within a fraction of the degree, turns back, and the exact pass only follows months later.

In Western astrology the Jupiter return is the symbolic close of one chapter and the opening of the next: the theme of meaning, direction, learning and what is worth growing over the years ahead. Jupiter has another side too — excess and taking on too much — so it is a good moment to ask what you really want to expand. The return describes a theme for the time, not a promise of events.

The return starts the Jupiter cycle, along which the squares, trines and the opposition follow. AstroSensus calculates the dates of the returns from an astronomical ephemeris, including the three passes.