The Sun

[Birch Dragon]

Dear Astrologers: How in your practice do you use the Sun? What energies does it represent and how do you explain to your clients what their sun represents for them?

Despite the way the Sun illuminates our entire day - despite how it's through the light of the Sun that we see our world - it's very hard for us mere mortals to actually see the Sun itself. If we look up at the Sun we have to turn away after just a few seconds. I could stare all night long at the Moon, Venus, Mars, all the way up to Saturn, contemplating each one of them without burning my eyes out. But stare into the Sun and we go blind.
It's an irony, of course, because the Sun is the "planet" that we are most directly engaged with in our lives (in the sense that we spend half our life bathed in its light, and the other half bathed in its light reflected from the Moon). It's the "planet" that illuminates the world for us - that allows us to see everything else clearly - yet we can't even look at it, let alone see it clearly.

Currently I'm feeling this as a metaphor for where I'm at it understanding the place of the Sun in a natal chart. Probably because most of us first learn about astrology as "Sun sign" astrology and first identify as "an" Aries or "a" Taurus, etc., it seems like the Sun should be the most obvious indicator in the natal chart. Yet even as I can put my finger pretty clearly now on the energies associated with a lot of the planets - Saturn, Pluto, Mars, Venus, Mercury, even Neptune - I think I'd have a hard time drawing clear boundaries around what the Sun represents and what the Sun doesn't represent.
I've read that the Sun represents "identity." O.k.... But isn't that a fairly big concept that much of the chart speaks to, not just the Sun? Don't I have to know my whole chart to know my "identity?"
I've read that the Sun indicates "life purpose." But again, is that really the purview of just the Sun? I tend to think the lunar nodes, for example, also point in the direction of life purpose in a big way. And what then about a person like myself who has the Sun and nodes square? Do I have competing life purposes??
I've read the Sun represents will, or our Apollonian side. All good, but again... For will I also think Mars, for Apollo I also think Mercury...

Alas...

I recognize some of this may be my own Sun's position. Conjuct the Moon (and Venus) and trining Neptune (6 deg orb, for Krewster ) it may just be hard for me to parse out the Sun from these other energies --- even though I think I have a pretty prominent solar side to my personality. But if that's the case, all the more reason for you to help me see it clearly!

 

[greybeard]

The Sun is the body around which all else circles, and to which it is subject...it's the Center of the universe, including your own personal universe.

It's light, gravity, heat -- influence -- pervades the entire solar system, defines it, holds it together...and the entire system is composed of the stuff of the Sun.

I'm not so sure I agree with all of the descriptions of the Sun that you list, although they all are common in astrological texts. I suppose it depends on what you mean by the various descriptions. "Identity", for example, is said to be described by Saturn...but this may be a different sort of "identity" from what is intended by the many authors who see that word written by some other earlier author and then repeat it endlessly.

My Sun is in Aquarius. I have no trouble recognizing the Aquarius in me. But to separate the influence of the Sun from that of any other planet is sometimes a bit dicey. But one thing is certain, the Sun "illuminates" all else, and is the Master.

Could it be that we are not meant to "know ourselves" completely and instantly? Are we perhaps fated to discover ourselves gradually, like a flower unfolding, each facet of our being coming into view in its proper time? We see through a glass, darkly.

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." --
I Corinthians 13:9-10

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. -- Karl Marx, Das Kapital

 

[Birch Dragon]

Hey greybeard. Thanks for responding.

My Sun is in Aquarius. I have no trouble recognizing the Aquarius in me. But to separate the influence of the Sun from that of any other planet is sometimes a bit dicey. But one thing is certain, the Sun "illuminates" all else, and is the Master.

And I think this is why I'm wondering about the Sun. I too have no trouble recognizing the Aries in me. But parsing out the Sun's influence, in order to understand what to say of the Sun vs. other points and bodies in the chart, is where things get "dicey" for me.
Personally, my Sun lives in Aries in conjunction with the Moon, and Venus between them (you called it a "Venus sandwich" once). Plus Chiron if we want to count it. So I may have a hard time parsing out the Sun's influence from the Moon and Venus just because of that.
I also feel the Virgo in me these days - in a way I didn't at all until I was in my thirties, probably... Virgo is my Ascendent (no planets), and I've been aware of a serious problem in my mind parsing out what the Sun is representing and what the Ascendent is representing ever since, at least, your (Greybeard's) great thread on the Ascendent some months ago. Where does my specific personality/persona end (Asc.) and the spirit of me (Sun) begin.

OR... As I think your reply is suggesting, perhaps that's not how to think of it at all. Perhaps it's wrong to try and "parse out" the influence of the sun? Does it flavour and colour everything, just as the actual Sun's light diffuses through the whole solar system?
In the end, is a certain nebulousness to the Sun the right understanding of it? Is it right to, for example, see myself not as an "Aries Sun" and try to understand that in distinction from a Virgo Asc., but as an essential Aries-ness shining into this world through Virgo-ness. An Aries flame shaped and contained by a Virgo vessel? In irreducible essence, an Aries-Virgo cross??

The Sun is the body around which all else circles, and to which it is subject...it's the Center of the universe, including your own personal universe. It's light, gravity, heat -- influence -- pervades the entire solar system, defines it, holds it together...and the entire system is composed of the stuff of the Sun.

I ask, by the way, less about myself (despite just using myself as an example) but because I'm beginning to look at and study charts of friends. I'm finding it a whole step up in interpretive difficulty from just diving into my own chart...

And on a whole other topic:

"Identity", for example, is said to be described by Saturn...but this may be a different sort of "identity" from what is intended by the many authors who see that word written by some other earlier author and then repeat it endlessly.

Identity and Saturn. Can you fill me in on this? Say more?
Does the connection have to do with Saturn being the original boundary of the solar system, and the planet of boundaries. Is it supposed to distinguish what's a part of our personal identity with what's "Out there?" Or is the connection something else?
"Identity" is a very ambiguous and polymorphous concepts. One of those words (of many words) where people use it and it's not immediately clear to me what they mean. But it's unclear to me not out of ignorance but rather knowledge of the subject. We could be talking about so many things when we're talking about "identity." Which, of course, you note in this quote.
I'd love to know from anybody what they mean by "identity" when they're thinking about the Sun.

Often I get the sense astrologers see the Sun as our essential animus, our basic living energy.
I can see that, I think. And I wonder: do we then, when reading a chart, always check back to the sun as the sort of "primal" instincts to impulses.
Imagine, for example, a Cancer sun woman who has a preponderance of planets in Sagittarius and Aquarius. Is this a person whose psychology drives her to freedom, exploration and eccentricity, yet her essential nature wants to be nurturing and emotionally rooted? Does astrology suggest that we can and should think of individuals as often just profoundly conflicted like that? Does the Sun signify our essential, elementary self, but a self that can wind up scattered and diffused in many different directions by the fact that we all carry complex, multifaceted psychologies that can have competing drives, desires and (karmic?) needs?

Or is this sort of musing about what the Sun represents just on the wrong track???


p.s.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. -- Karl Marx, Das Kapital

HA HA

 

[Flapjacks]

I'm finding the Hellenistic techniques of diurnal vs. nocturnal to be very helpful in understanding Sun. Sun's energy might be more obvious in a diurnal chart, but as you said Birch Dragon, you have it conjunct Moon which is out of sect, and Venus, which is in Fall. Moon and Venus being combust, you may identify yourself as your Moon and Venus, but the energies are expressed awkwardly. Mars is probably the most "easy" for you to express as the depositor of those planets (just a guess), along with Mercury, your chart ruler and ruled by a planet conjunct and angle.

It is very interesting to me how Sun is generally harder to identify with than Moon, when it's ... well, the Sun! However I have a nocturnal chart and Sun is ruled by Moon.

I'm sort of wondering if Sun is the "beacon" of the chart. It points the way for the life direction, but doesn't define it.

 

[greybeard]

What the Sun is and does astronomically is what it is and does astrologically. Astrology works by analogy. Therefore, the Sun is the Center of Self, with all that that implies.

When a cop asks me to identify myself, I show him my driver's license.
But then, I might "identify" myself as American, an astrologer, an old man, an idiot, depending on situation or context. I can identify myself as "my values" or "my opinions"... challenge someone's closely-held opinion (say, their religious beliefs) and it is taken as a personal attack on their very being -- their identity.

Saturn as "identity" is what sets me apart from others, what I use to "isolate" myself. Who am I as an individual within a social mass?

The star we call Sun is the Source of Life...literally.
Therefore, astrologically, it is our Life Source...our Light. Our consciousness of Being. It is the Spirit which animates us. It is the center of the solar system around which all else revolves -- and the solar system is the metaphorical universe. In this sense, then, it is our Identity...and our Purpose, our Will, and all the rest. Sun is the force that Integrates us.

You're on the right track. Smile.

I don't want to get into details. But in the case of your (hypothetical) woman with Sun in Cancer... study the meaning of Cancer more deeply. There is more to Cancer than "nurture" and "emotional rootedness". Ditto the other 11 signs, and Sun operates at the center of self.

What does Aries (so powerfully focused in your own chart) really mean? On what level are we interpreting a chart?

 

[Zarathu]

IMO,

the only reason why the Sun is of serious interest to you right now is that in your Minor progressed chart(mental issues),

In this chart of the present event impacting you mentally, or providing mental chaos, you have:

1. A Cardinal T-Square with the Stellium of the Sun/Mercury/Moon in opposition with Pluto, and with an Apex of Mars.

2. The Sun opp Pluto in your Minor progressed chart is the highest power and the highest friction in the chart

3. The Moon opp Pluto is the second highest power and 2nd most friction

4. Mercury Opp Pluto is the 3rd highest friction and the 3rd highest power fin the chart

5. The sun and the Moon are neck and neck as the co-highest power planets.
So the two LUminaries are simply on your mind.

6. The sun is conjunct the Asteroid Diana, giving you that running between raindrops feeling with something constantly coming after you...

7. And of course the 9th house of higher education is double the power of the closest house, and also is the thrid lowest friction.

And I could go on and on....

Natally, there are far more important issues with other planets than those that involve the Sun. Its the struggle of the on-coming train of present events that are dogging your thinking processes, and these involve the Sun heavily. And since in your natal chart, the Sun is only an average mover, you are simply not prepared for dealing with this kind of intensity. So the Sun while intense due to the minor progressed return chart, tends to take on even more instensity since you don't normally deal with these energies.

My opinion of course. Others may have differing ones.

 

[Birch Dragon]

Z,
Ok... So, we throw away my naive theory that I'm thinking about the Sun right now because it's finally summer???

Seriously, this is fascinating.

Any chance you could get in touch with me in private and say a bit more about the "on-coming train of present events?" I'm REALLY interested..! (Who wouldn't be?)
In my mind I've been working a lot since joining up on this site with the planets and points around my angular cross: Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Asc.
So I see and accept what you're saying about how, if the luminaries are suddenly rising to prominence in this moment, I might not be well prepared to see what that means or what's going on.

One thing I immediately think of as I read your post, which may be wrong. Is that this summer is a pretty crucial time for me where all the emphasis is on me writing, expressing my ideas and imposing myself onto the industry that I'm in. Not sure - (you tell me) - but that sounds pretty Sun-related to me, no???

I also wonder if a Sun/Mercury/Moon satellite opposing Pluto has anything to do with the last month I just spent writing a paper about murder???

 

[Birch Dragon]

Greybeard, if you keep answering questions I'll keep asking them. If you ever want to get rid of me, you'll have to stop giving answers that are full of insight, entertainment and grumpy wit!

You're on the right track. Smile.

I don't want to get into details. But in the case of your (hypothetical) woman with Sun in Cancer... study the meaning of Cancer more deeply. There is more to Cancer than "nurture" and "emotional rootedness". Ditto the other 11 signs, and Sun operates at the center of self.

What does Aries (so powerfully focused in your own chart) really mean? On what level are we interpreting a chart?

These are rhetorical questions, right?

The question "What does Aries really mean" is something I'd like to spend a whole day talking to people on this site about. Maybe somebody should set up a monthly Google chat, twelve over the year, with a mass of posters from this site getting together and discussing, round-table format, the deeper meaning of each sign.
Seriously, I would love that.

In the meantime, I am probably somewhere between the amateur understanding I suggested in my post above and what true artisans of the ancient astrological arts like you and Zarathu know. (Sadly for me, I'm resigned to the fact that I'll never get near the level of knowledge you folks have because, frankly, I missed that boat twenty years ago. Pragmatically speaking, I'll just never be afforded the space and time to study and delve the way you have...)

But, so far, in more underlying terms, I think of Aries as the Pure Thing and Expression of it. The "Let There Be Light" moment. So I think of Aries as the Resurrection, the Pure Truth unadulterated by specific perceptions, interests or institutions, and Authenticity. It is also a drive. The Raw Drive to Simply Be. (Aries as a state of simply What Is: This is why I think of meditation as a pretty Aries act, even though I think pretty much everybody else would think that idea was nuts).
Stephen Forrest describes Aries as, pretty much, the energy of crisis. And so there's the connection to Mars and all the stuff about warriorhood. All of which I see and feel in myself... But I think I've figured out that the crisis-energy and warrior hood comes out of the other traits I just suggested. Because Aries is the raw, unadulterated - many say "niave" - idea, it winds up bumping up against, coming in conflict with, so much of how we live our lives. So much of our lives go beyond the pure idea. We take on differing perspectives, take up strategies to get what we want against the wants of others, institutionalize ideas and make laws. All of that tends to complicate and push against the raw "Let There Be Light" moment. And so Aries winds up in crisis. As a pure, fiery drive to express, Aries won't back down or compromise (anti-Libra) and it seeks the Simple, Truth beneath al the layers of complexity we tend to see and build in our lives. So I think, Aries is totally unsophisticated and without savvy. Aries doesn't understand politics or pragmatic considerations.

That's my take, anyway.

Can I offer a similar picture of Cancer? Not at all. I DO have to go back and study that sign.

And it's probably for a different thread, but I'd love any help on that score...!

 

[Flapjacks]

What the Sun is and does astronomically is what it is and does astrologically. Astrology works by analogy. Therefore, the Sun is the Center of Self, with all that that implies.

[...]

The star we call Sun is the Source of Life...literally.
Therefore, astrologically, it is our Life Source...our Light. Our consciousness of Being. It is the Spirit which animates us. It is the center of the solar system around which all else revolves -- and the solar system is the metaphorical universe. In this sense, then, it is our Identity...and our Purpose, our Will, and all the rest. Sun is the force that Integrates us.

See, I don't understand why Sun seems so difficult to "see" in a chart. Why is the biggest, brightest luminary we revolve around so hard to define and understand the meaning of in modern astrology compared to Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, even Neptune? Sun is "misunderstood" and interpreted differently depending on the astrologer, and I find it so odd that this would be the case.

 

[Birch Dragon]

See, I don't understand why Sun seems so difficult to "see" in a chart. Why is the biggest, brightest luminary we revolve around so hard to define and understand the meaning of in modern astrology compared to Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, even Neptune? Sun is "misunderstood" and interpreted differently depending on the astrologer, and I find it so odd that this would be the case.

Yes.
Exactly my initial question. Thanks flapjacks, for restating it in a much clearer and more direct way than I did.
It's so ironic that the Sun seems like it should be the most obvious and elementary planet in the chart to understand... And yet...

 

[greybeard]

Margaret has a sunny disposition.... Now describe Margaret.

According to Webster, Funk, Wagnalls and Associates Margaret is cheerful and joyous.
Joie d'Vivre. (Sorry, I'm not from Quebec).
Vitality. The Sun is Generative.

The USS Pennsylvania has been cruising the world's oceans powered by a single lump of uranium the size of my fist for over 20 years. This is what powers her, is at the heart of her odyssey.
The Sun describes what powers a thing, what is at the heart of the matter. The heart pumps the Life Blood throughout the organism and beats unceasingly throughout life.

The Incas said that gold is "The Tears of the Sun". Sun rules gold, a noble metal. Gold remains pure and unadulterated, incorruptible. It has intrinsic value.

The sun is composed almost entirely of hydrogen, the First Element. From hydrogen all other elements are built. It is the Source, is primordial.

 

[Birch Dragon]

What Zarathu wrote above really struck me, and I'm willing to admit that I'm asking about the Sun right now because of something going on in my own world, reflected in those minor progressions Z pointed out.

I can see the point about the character of the sun: the common sense understanding of a "sunny" disposition. And I can see the point about the Sun as the heart of the fiery engine that gives us life and drives us: our source. Great and helpful metaphors, and I do see them.

Where I still struggle (and I say this not to exasperate or ask for further help... I'll sit with it and eventually get it) is in seeing the Sun apart from other aspects of the chart.
It's probably clear to all I have no problem finding and identifying with the Aries in me. So too, actually, the Virgo in me (Virgo Asc.). Where the Aries stops and the Virgo begins I haven't been able to find ever since I came onto this website. And perhaps I'm not supposed to. Holistically, perhaps Aries Sun and Virgo rising just means an Aries/Virgo fuse.

Though I wish I could be Margaret for a day, or Greybeard, or Zarathu, or flapjacks, just to feel how your Sun feels alongside everything else in your chart, and that would give me a much clearer picture.
(Pisces Mercury in seventh house? I think I really need to feel into something to understand it).

So, one more piece that came up for me yesterday:
I purchased Steven Forrest's Yesterday's Sky, his book on reading a chart karmically. For whatever reason, Steven Forrest's approach to astrology resonates most soundly with all the intuitions about astrology I carried around before I came to this website, and I think from now on I'm going to run with that.
He notes in that book that a person with Sun square the lunar nodes has, karmically, neglected to develop an ego. An individualized personality.
My Sun isn't in partile square with my nodes but it's less than 1 degree. And they're at 13 degrees in cardinal signs, so all that activity in the sky over the past few months has been running back and forth over my Sun/nodes square.
I'm wondering if this offers an explanation for why I personally have a hard time parsing out the Sun from the rest of the planets. (Flapjacks, you have no excuse! )
I'm also guessing, given what Z said and what I read yesterday in Forrest's book, there's some sort of facing up to my need for ego creation going on right now...

 

[Zarathu]

FYI... the Sun is very weak in power and kind of neutral in my chart.

Solar Arc Directions work not at all for me, and I've yet to see a Solar return that has any impact with me. Everything I do is translated through Mercury, which is close enough to the Sun for me, BTW.

 

[sworm09]

I always read the Sun as representing honor, nobility, recognition, feeling "special" and all of those moments when you feel like a boss

Unfortunately not everyone has those moments all the time or often, so the Sun isn't a huge factor in everyone's life.

Currently I'm feeling this as a metaphor for where I'm at it understanding the place of the Sun in a natal chart. Probably because most of us first learn about astrology as "Sun sign" astrology and first identify as "an" Aries or "a" Taurus, etc., it seems like the Sun should be the most obvious indicator in the natal chart. Yet even as I can put my finger pretty clearly now on the energies associated with a lot of the planets - Saturn, Pluto, Mars, Venus, Mercury, even Neptune - I think I'd have a hard time drawing clear boundaries around what the Sun represents and what the Sun doesn't represent.

Not necessarily. Like Zarathu my Sun is very weak. It's like it's not even there (which is probably a good thing because it rules illness for me). As such my moments of recognition and honor aren't really that big or common. When they happen they only come through academic things (Sun is received by Jupiter). Confidence is a malleable thing for me as well because I generally feel unrecognized in my life. I have a background Sun.

As you could probably guess, progressions from this thing are very, very quiet.

Also, if your Sun is conjunct the Moon and Venus, the essential....sunny nature to your Sun is going to be mixed up with those planets anyhow.

What house is your Sun in? What house does it rule? Is your chart a day chart or a night chart?

 

[Birch Dragon]

Thanks for the helpful post, sworm.

What house is your Sun in? What house does it rule? Is your chart a day chart or a night chart?

Greybeard asked questions about Aries and Cancer earlier in this post that were clearly rhetorical and I went ahead and answered them anyway.
I'm much less certain whether these are rhetorical questions or you're actually asking me. So, to follow my own precedent, I'll just answer them, rhetorical or not.

It's a day chart. That little mini-stellium in Aries is in the 8th house. It all trines Neptune, which is on my I.C. And Leo is on the 12th cusp, so it rules the 12th.

All of which, I could see, could make the Sun a fairly nebulous factor for me personally.

But I'd like to point out that flapjacks saves the initial question of the thread here. She has a different chart than mine, and she too seems to find a certain uncertainty about the Sun..! And I'm sure we're not the only ones.

 

[sworm09]

Thanks for the helpful post, sworm.



Greybeard asked questions about Aries and Cancer earlier in this post that were clearly rhetorical and I went ahead and answered them anyway.
I'm much less certain whether these are rhetorical questions or you're actually asking me. So, to follow my own precedent, I'll just answer them, rhetorical or not.

It's a day chart. That little mini-stellium in Aries is in the 8th house. It all trines Neptune, which is on my I.C. And Leo is on the 12th cusp, so it rules the 12th.

All of which, I could see, could make the Sun a fairly nebulous factor for me personally.

But I'd like to point out that flapjacks saves the initial question of the thread here. She has a different chart than mine, and she too seems to find a certain uncertainty about the Sun..! And I'm sure we're not the only ones.

You did the right thing, I was asking you specifically.

The fact that your Sun is in a day chart is one note of visibility. I think it comes down to the fact that the Sun is in a house averted from the Ascendant and rules a house (the 12th) that is also averted from the Ascendant. It's qualitatively strong but it's not ruling or influencing anything huge.

I think you're more likely to feel the Sun through Venus and the Moon..or rather the houses they rule albeit very subtly and indirectly.

But I think that the problem is pinning down the Sun is due to the fact that the Sun doesn't do anything. Saturn restricts, Jupiter expands, Mars fights, Venus loves, Mercury learns, the Moon changes.....but the Sun doesn't do anything. It just IS. It's radiant on its own right and it doesn't have to act to do anything.

This is why in some traditional forms of astrology having the Sun in the 10th is a sign of nobility; nobility and honor just IS for them. They don't have to do anything, they're just famous in their own right.

Most of the problem with pinning down the Sun's quality in your life comes from the fact that unless it's very, very strong (like unreasonably strong) you may not even notice it as having an effect. It doesn't have to have an effect. It just exists

 

[kimbermoon]

A very good question being asked here; what the heck does Identity really mean? Since the Sun is the generator of our individual experience of life, it also relates to our sense of empowerment in life [our power source]. Afflictions often denote where individuals have been disempowered in some way in the past [which is often actually Identity theft, as when parents try to mold us into something we are not] and in later life such afflictions to their overall sense of self makes it more difficult to really express themselves fully, with confidence and self-assurance. I think our Identity is not about what we do in life, but rather how we identify ourselves in terms of the 'bigger sea' that we find ourselves engulfed in. Another term I think of is Self-Realization. All our potentials are encoded in the Sun but not all end up being expressed for various personal reasons. And as it is said that we cannot look directly into the Sun but instead must turn away, this is a metaphor of how we too often turn away from our central core of being. The Sun represents our conscious level of action and momentum in life, while the Moon represents the other half which is of the subconscious. Only by reflection and contemplation can we really absorb and understand our true essence.
Another term I use is 'our inherited force of creativity'. People focus too simplistically that the purpose and meaning of life is all about love, yet it is not; it is about expressing creativity, for we all play a part in creating our lives, with all it's challenges and it's joys. This is the divine spark of creativity that lives within us all and for which we are truly meant to find expression for. That is the thing about creativity, is that people confine their understanding of it as meaning some kind of artistic skill or talent. That is much too confining, and thus most of us end up being stripped away from any sense of creativity. But creativity is many things, and the Sun is our impetus to create. It is about putting creativity into everything we do in life, even in the most menial tasks and circumstances. I think this is implicit in the fact that the Sun rules Leo, which we access to create drama and hopefully purpose in our lives. Yes I agree that the Sun is our beacon, but not only about our direction in life; it is the beacon towards the fulfilment of our best potentials.
For students of astrology, I urge you all to step outside of the box we have been handed and expand on your personal understanding about how we interpret the charts; this too is about generating new ideas, insights and concepts about what we have been taught [no offence to the traditionalists among us]. I might also add that Uranus also represents the Higher Intellect which comes from a higher source; Pluto is the higher octave of Mars adding more power to our energies and actions; Neptune is the higher octave of Venus, representing our ideals and inspirations relating to the concept of love rather than how we experience it on the physical level. If memory serves me, these were introduced in the book by A. T. Mann called 'The Round Art: The Astrology of Time and Space'. “This highly illustrated work looks at the ancient science of*astrology*and links it with modern ideas in astronomy, psychology and physics', which certainly helped to clarify a lot for me. Still available at Amazon, by the way. Thanks for the great responses to this topic.

 

[Flapjacks]

wow, kimbermoon that explanation really gives a great starting point to understanding Sun... I would never have thought to relate it to "creative impulse" but that makes a lot of sense in association with Leo, one of the signs associated with creativity.

Bringing up how we handle identity is also a major one. It might be the elusiveness of the Sun relates to the elusiveness and shifts of identity for many people. It makes me think of babies (Zarathu, this is for you! )

One of my good friends just had her first baby, who is approaching 10 mo. old. It's been interesting watching him develop his attachment to her. At first, he didn't seem to notice who was feeding him, bathing him, changing him, and providing for his every need. It might be his father, his mother, his grandmother, a family friend... whomever, and he behaved the same. But at some point, he seemed to realize who the primary caregiver was (Moon) and there has been a sort of shift in his behavior from it. He wants to be where she is, copies what she does, says "mama". She is his identity as she controls every part of his life. Yet, at some point, he's going to try to separate from her and assert his own wishes, create his own identity, and now I'm thinking of how perhaps this is a process of expressing Sun; and that relationship with Moon.

 

[Therese]

I was thinking... I remember, when I was at school, we were shown these models of the solar system that made me feel as if the universe was a giant mechanism. In that worldview, indeed, the Sun is just a large ball that heats and radiates light at the same time, until its battery runs out. If you look at mythology and ancient worldviews and religions, however, the difference is striking.

If mythology is based on the observation of nature, celestial and terrestrial, why is the mythological Sun so far from being "mechanistic"? The stories about solar deities tend to be quite heroic, the Sun God usually goes through immense struggles and suffering, death and rebirth. Why be so dramatic? From the perspective of everyday consciousness, it is all quite predictable, night does not come at midday, and winter does not suddenly arrive in the middle of summer, and so on. The cycles of the day and the cycle of the seasons, etc, seem "business as usual". Why does it hit the headlines?

And why does the Sun rule Leo, the most "dramatic" and "creative" sign? How did drama, mythology, sacred rituals and mystery plays etc transform into mere entertainment?

But also, how did reality and truth narrow down to what is measurable and repeatable by any and everyone? What is the difference between illusion and reality that cannot be measured and repeated, experience that cannot be standardized? Why the solar symbolism attached to non-ordinary or "altered" states of consciousness? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)

...