As you probably know, it’s best to turn to transits, including lunations and eclipses, progressions and directions for timing of events. But, you can time events in solar returns too. Here are the ones that I’m aware of:
- Outer planets transiting over SR angles. I personally find this technique to be very reliable, well assuming that the time of birth is accurate in the first place.
- Progressed SR Angles aspecting SR planets. This is supposedly reliable based on various books. But I would want to run it through a few more years and clients to be sure of this.
- Progressed SR Moon aspecting SR planets. This technique is reliable although I have found that the events that are triggered aren’t earth-shattering. The events tend to be part of daily life, so much so that a person wouldn’t necessarily take notice of them.
- Sun transiting aspecting SR planets. This can be hit or miss again. I have only experimented with conjunctions to-date and the events do come through the symbolism rather strongly although it feels somewhat ephemeral. For example, transiting Sun conjunct on SR Saturn in SR 3rd. It was a day of meeting the local police officer involving official correspondence, AND a day of depressed thoughts and feelings.
- Outer planets transiting over SR house cusps. This can be hit or miss, especially depending on the house system you use. Once, I had transiting Jupiter conjunct the SR second house cusp, I made money on the same day (using Placidus house system).
- Sun transiting in SR houses. I have heard that this is rather effective but have yet to experiment with it yet.
There you go, the above are some timing techniques to be used for solar returns. Or you could use lunar returns to see when the themes in a solar return are played out.