Zodiacal Releasing: Calculate Your Periods and Learn to Read Them

Updated October 4, 2026

Zodiacal releasing divides your life into chapters, one zodiac sign at a time, starting from the sign of the Lot of Spirit (or Fortune). Each sign lasts a set number of years, then hands over to the next; inside each chapter the same sequence runs again in months, and again in days.

What is zodiacal releasing?

It is a time-lord technique from Book IV of the Anthology of Vettius Valens, a 2nd-century astrologer, who sets it out in a handful of short chapters with worked examples. Modern astrologers rediscovered it through the translations of the 1980s and 1990s, notably Robert Schmidt's Project Hindsight translations of Valens. Chris Brennan, who studied at Project Hindsight, has done most to teach it since.

The lot's sign opens the first chapter; when its time is up, the next sign in zodiac order takes over. Each sign's period belongs to the planet that rules it, which is why practitioners talk about a "Saturn chapter" or a "Venus period".

Releasing from Spirit vs Fortune

Both lots are calculated from the Ascendant, Sun and Moon, with a day and a night formula (see the Part of Fortune guide). Valens calls the Lot of Spirit "Daimon".

You can switch between Spirit and Fortune on the Chapters page. Judging peaks from Fortune either way follows Schmidt's and Brennan's reading of Valens. When Spirit falls in the same sign as Fortune, Valens takes the forecasts of activity "from the sign immediately following" (Book IV, chapter 4), so the app, like Brennan, releases Spirit from the next sign. The Chapters page says so when it happens.

The Chapters page also releases from a third lot, Eros, for love and relationships. This is Brennan's own extension of the technique, not something Valens does. Horoskopos calculates Eros as Brennan does, in the form Paulus Alexandrinus gives: by day the distance from Spirit to Venus, cast from the Ascendant (Ascendant + Venus − Spirit), reversed by night. Valens's Lot of Eros is a different point, from Fortune to Spirit, so other software may disagree. Elizabeth II's falls at 10°44′ Pisces. Peaks are still judged from Fortune.

Planetary periods: why Cancer is 25 years and Capricorn 27

Each sign lasts the "minor years" of its ruling planet: that many years at level 1, months at level 2.

The odd one out is Capricorn. Saturn's minor years are 30, and Aquarius gets the full 30, but Valens gives Capricorn 27. His reason is arithmetical: 27 is a quarter of the Moon's 108 "maximum" years, just as 30 is a quarter of the Sun's 120, and the two together make Saturn's 57. The 211-unit circle matters for the loosing of the bond.

The three levels

Level 3 is the same pattern at the scale of days and weeks, for narrowing down timing within a sub-period you already care about. Valens goes one level further, to units of 5 hours (Aries's 15 units become 3 days 3 hours); the Chapters page stops at level 3. A sub-period is cut off when its parent ends, so the final level 2 period of a chapter is often shorter than its full length.

How long is a year in zodiacal releasing?

Horoskopos counts Valens's 360-day years by default, as Brennan teaches the technique, and the Chapters page says so under its title. Tropical years are an option under Display ▸ Methods (the eye icon above the wheel on any chart's page). The two drift apart by about five and a quarter days for every year of life, so by age 40 the tropical dates come around seven months later. Compared with a tool that uses the other year, expect the same periods in the same order, on dates that differ by weeks in childhood and by months later.

As a check, the app's releasing reproduces Brennan's example of Robert Downey Jr. from The Astrology Podcast, episode 192 (born 4 April 1965, 13:10, New York): a loosing of the bond in March 2007, and the Virgo chapter from August 2008.

What is a peak period in zodiacal releasing?

Valens pays close attention to whether the signs that take over are angular. Schmidt and Brennan developed this into the idea of peak periods: a period is a peak when its sign is angular from the Lot of Fortune, meaning the same sign as Fortune or the 4th, 7th or 10th sign from it. In this reading these are times when life tends to feel more active, visible and eventful. That can mean high points, or simply that more is happening.

Brennan ranks them, and Horoskopos follows: the 1st and 10th from Fortune are major peaks, the 7th moderate and the 4th minor. On the Chapters page, hover over the range and the readout beneath it gives each month's rank.

The 10th from Fortune is the crest. Valens treats the 10th place from Fortune as the place of rank, and Brennan singles it out, with Fortune's own sign, as marking the most important times. Peaks work at every level: a level 2 peak inside a level 1 peak is a high point within a high period.

What is LB, the loosing of the bond?

Inside a chapter, the level 2 sequence keeps moving sign by sign. If a chapter is long enough to get through all twelve signs, which takes 211 months (17 years 7 months, as Valens puts it), the sequence does not start over. It jumps to the sign opposite the one the chapter began from. Valens mentions that some astrologers jumped to a trine instead, and rejects it. Modern practitioners call the jump the "loosing of the bond", or LB.

Only chapters in Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Capricorn and Aquarius run long enough for that at level 2. The same rule applies at level 3 inside those long sub-periods. At level 1 the full circle would take 211 years, so it never comes up.

Practitioners often describe the LB as a sharp change of direction: one road ends and another opens. Pre-LB is the stretch just before the jump, sometimes read as a lead-in. Horoskopos doesn't label pre-LB separately, but you can see it as the sub-period just before the leap, and the Chapters page tells you when the next LB is due.

Worked example: Elizabeth II and 1952

Using the birth data in Horoskopos's sample library (Elizabeth II, 21 April 1926, 02:40, Mayfair, London), this is a night chart. The Lot of Spirit falls in Taurus and the Lot of Fortune in Libra. Releasing from Spirit in 360-day years gives Taurus from birth to March 1934 (a slope), Gemini from March 1934 to November 1953 (a valley), and Cancer, the crest, from November 1953 to July 1978.

The Gemini chapter is 20 years long, more than 211 months, so it has a loosing of the bond. Elizabeth became queen on 6 February 1952, seven months into the Sagittarius period that follows the leap. Her coronation on 2 June 1953 fell in the next level 2 period, Capricorn, which runs from July 1952. Capricorn is the 4th sign from Fortune in Libra, so it is a peak, a minor one in Brennan's ranking. In November 1953 the level 1 chapter changed to Cancer, the crest, which held until July 1978.

With tropical years the dates move later: the loosing of the bond falls on 20 November 1951 and the Cancer chapter begins in April 1954, on the eve of her 28th birthday. The accession still falls in the Sagittarius period and the coronation in Capricorn.

The fit isn't perfect, either. The accession came in a cadent level 1 chapter and a cadent level 2 period, not a peak. This is one chart chosen after the fact, so it shows how the technique is read, not that it works.

How to read zodiacal releasing

The Chapters view gives a short note on each chapter's lord; for sect, see day chart or night chart. For the cross-check, the annual profection is the natural partner, and the Moment view sets the releasing chapter and month from Spirit beside the profection year, firdaria and more for any date.

Why your birth time must be accurate

The lots depend on the Ascendant, which moves about one degree every four minutes on average. A lot near the edge of a sign can change signs with a small change in birth time, and that moves every chapter, every peak and every LB. If your time is rounded or uncertain, check whether either lot sits within a few degrees of a sign boundary before reading much into the dates.

Sources and further reading

• Vettius Valens, Anthologies (trans. Mark Riley; free via Skyscript). Book IV, chapters 4–10: releasing from Fortune and Daimon, Capricorn's 27 years, the jump to the opposite sign, the 360-day year and the smaller periods.
• Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune (Amor Fati, 2017). The standard modern account of zodiacal releasing, including peak periods and the loosing of the bond.
• Chris Brennan, The Astrology Podcast, episode 192: "Zodiacal Releasing: An Ancient Timing Technique" (2019, transcript). A long introduction to the method and how to read it.