OK...
I'm putting all my multiple strands of thought into one post, and I hope people don't mind, but it works better for me. Tried to break it up a bit.
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I found these!
https://cafeastrology.com/ephemerisasteroid2018.html = Asteroid Ephemeris 2018, with lots of other ephemerides in the sidebar, both asteroid and non-asteroid (though none further ahead than 2018).
My natal Chiron is in Pisces 29° 29' 1", retrograde. It will be at 29° 29' 0" on 30th March 2018, at noon Eastern time, and 29° 29' 3" at noon the next day, so I guessed 8pm, converted to GMT and used Astrodienst to tweak the date and time as you did, firecatpickles, until it landed on 29° 29' 1" precisely. NOT retrograde.
As long as Astrodienst is right (I tend to think that's more likely than CaféAstrology), my Chiron return will fall on Sunday 8th April 2018, 3:07am. That's more than a week later than the ephemeris said which puzzles me. But anyway, I'll be 51¾ very nearly (and it's the day before my ex's birthday (grrr), which will help it stick in the memory).
I'm sure the effect will last months if not years either side, though. As much as ten years either side or even more? (Given that a solar return "fades in" and "fades out" three months either side of its point in time, according to what I've read at least.)
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Then the next step. Astrodienst allows a synastry report with an event, so I did that. Give me technology, see me bend it to my will.
Someone tell me if this patching-it-together method is ok! More importantly, tell me if it's NOT ok.
But there I stop, as it will be a lot of palaver to read it - I haven't any experience with reading any kind of return chart, though I have read a few step-by-step articles.
I do (based on "how to read a solar return" how-to's) know enough to notice the Ascendant - in Capricorn (my natal Asc is Saggy) - so would that mean the "wisdom" I've learnt from what I've gone through so far (which is quite a bit actually) will feed into my career and that kind of thing, in later life? If so I'm glad, as that's my intention currently. I'm researching and taking steps towards earning some money (if not exactly a living) through my healing and spirituality, and those have developed through losing my health and having a crap marriage that wasn't far from a prison-type situation. Mars, Moon and Jupiter (which is conjunct my natal Sun) are all close to the return Asc - the Moon conjunct within less than a degree; I think this supports the business/spiritual thing I just said, especially if it also broadens my social network, but I'm guessing - am I making sense?
The thing that struck me even before looking at the Ascendant was how unbalanced my ChR* chart is. Houses 4-9 are completely empty except for the True Node in Leo - just over a degree from my natal Jupiter and 5° from natal Sun. In psychological astrology, this is a bowl chart (
http://www.bobmarksastrologer.com/Bowl.htm). He says, talking about psychology of course:
The Bowl chart occurs when the planets occupy half of the horoscope wheel. People with a Bowl shaped chart can be just as stubborn as those with a Bundle. The difference is that while Bundle people seem self-contained in their own little world, Bowl folks are very aware of others and frequently try to compel recognition. In other words, when two thirds of the wheel is empty, you don’t care. When one half is empty, it seems to give painful recognition that something is missing, that there is an area of existence from which they are excluded, and the entire life may be spent trying to fill that void. This is why those with Bowl horoscopes frequently seem to be on a mission. And they do have a tendency to get involved in causes.
* Is that even a thing, that abbreviation?
Now, I do know that extrapolating from psychological descriptions to apply them to is risky. But it's fun.
I'm thinking, my stubbornness is already developing. Before my thirties I was all about accommodating. And giving up if anything was any kind of struggle, however much it mattered.
The other thing I've noticed so far is that no planets are in Air signs in the return chart; seven, plus the Ascendant, are in Cardinal signs, and all of those fire and earth.
There's only Neptune and Chiron itself in mutable signs, which kind of goes with the stubbornness in Bob Marks' description above.
I don't know how to interpret houses in a return chart.
And that's about as far as I can go without doing some real study - which I mustn't, tempting as it is, because my brain-working-well hours need to be spent on this earning-money, building-business thing that I was mentioning!
However I am interested whether I'm thinking straight, in any of this.
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And finally! Relating my thoughts to what you were actually asking, OP!
This phenomenon reflects what is going on in my life right now as far as a permanent career change and feeling like I am coming into my own, at last. And part of the self-healing process I have undergone the last few years centered on doing with my life what I felt was my calling, and not to allow other people in my like to determine that path for me.
Me too, most definitely. Midlife crisis?
What with this and then the Saturn return, hm. Ten years ago (ten years this coming Wednesday, in fact!) I lost my health; wasn't driving for 7½ years, written off as no chance of ever earning a living again. Certainly I won't do the 9-to-5 again (thank goodness) but I am looking at ways of earning at least something, and getting excited about things that will boost my own health while bringing help and value to other people's lives - and potentially earning quite well, if it all goes right and I don't goof and no aeroplanes land on my house or runaway moose trample me, or anything like that. (You laugh, but you wouldn't believe the number of Universe-dumping-on-me-out-of-the-blue events I've weathered in recent years!)
The big change in my thinking is seeing "business" as my life, instead of dividing everything including my address book into business and leisure. I recognised, and it felt like a sudden revelation, that all my life I've "planned" (somehow I was planning when I thought I was just reading leaflets out of general interest) to start a small business, become self-employed - for example. Suddenly I realised that my lifelong problem with building a social circle* will be solved if I combine business with leisure, ie work with people whose company I love; and I'll find that easier, I relate better to people if we're meeting with a defined common purpose rather than just for a chat or a pizza or to shop for clothes. I'm better addressing a meeting or a class than managing smalltalk, and far more interested in it.
* First shyness, then overwork that left me no spare minutes to stay in touch, then illness isolated me thoroughly, yet I felt the need throughout to be among people, my "tribe".
I'm really interested that my Chiron Return Ascendant is in Capricorn, since I'm moving gradually but so definitely towards business/career in all my conscious thinking and (finally! this year) actinos. After having been brought up to believe that if it was profitable it was unworthy; uselessness was more virtuous than gain; ambition = greed = despicable.
!!!
I have also learnt to ask for help. That is one of the great blessings of long-term poor health. We learn to state need without apology, and to delegate, and we learn our limits. I am privileged, not many people master this, hardly anyone until age makes them frail.
And I've learnt that I'm a healer and empath - and explored these and become competent, and confident, exercising these abilities for the benefit of myself and others. This got me interested in the shamanic thing which again is the wounded-healer thing.
What really makes me wonder is what about the second Chiron Return? I know not many people have one, but enough do. Last month I went to my aunt's funeral, and she was 106 so it makes you think. I didn't know her well enough to know if her approach to life changed around the century - but I do know she stopped baby-sitting, driving, and travelling overseas in her late 90s. (Wow.
) Maybe the second return is more about finishing the task of sharing one's hard-won wisdom, and receiving the acknowledgement and respect earnt in the sharing stage?
One way and another, I really hope that the tougher stage of life is over now, in my own case.
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(And on that original tarot reading, firecatpickles - intriguing to see the 5 of Pents standing for the wounded healer. I'd always say the Hermit for that concept, but now you say it, 5P is utterly valid for it. An extra angle on the 5P for me, great - thanks!)