Glossary Astrology

Sun

The Sun is the central luminary of the birth chart in Western astrology. Its sign, house and aspects describe a person's core identity, their sense of self, their vitality and the direction in which they seek to shine. Tradition treats it as the symbol of conscious spirit and will; psychological astrology reads it as the nucleus of the personality, what one is trying to become over the course of a life.

What the Sun lights up

Your Sun is the thread that ties everything else together: the sign it falls in gives the color of your sense of self, and its house shows the area of life where you most need to feel alive and recognized. It is less a mask than a promise, the thing you grow toward when you feel fully yourself.

In the tradition

For classical astrologers, the Sun governed dignity, the breath of life and the figure of the father. The modern reading draws it close to Jung's idea of individuation: not ego in the dismissive sense, but the center your personality organizes itself around, where you gather your strengths to shine in your own way.

Sources

  • Dane Rudhyar, The Astrology of Personality (1936)
  • Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Psychology, and the Four Elements (1975)