Ever wonder why sun sign astrology became so popular, when it’s so silly? It’s because sun signs are easy to use. Everybody knows their birth date, so everybody knows their sun sign. It gives people something to schmooze about in bars and at parties—“I’m a Pisces!” “I shouldn’t date Sagittarians—they’re my downfall!” and so on. This makes for fun conversation, but it also has the unfortunate side effect of categorizing us and giving us preconceived notions about people—notions not true enough to be useful and true enough to do damage. Sigh. It’s a shame, really, that astrology got diluted this way, but it did get astrology into popular culture, which in my mind is a good thing, being a far cry from olden days when only kings had access to astrology.
As I mentioned in my article You Are Not Just Your Sign, the Sun is just one part of your astrology chart. But it is an important part. And here we come to the reason why sun signs are useful at all as conversation starters: they do work. Your sun sign is an important and central part of your personality. The Sun in your chart is the gravitational center of your personality and the sign it’s in shows how you go about the process of individuation, ego formation and discovering your own identity. The Sun is the center of you in the same way it is the center of our solar system: it gives light, heat and life force energy to everything it touches. Your sun sign is the source of your creativity—it’s where you want to shine.
Let’s take a whirlwind trip through the sun signs to answer the questions “How does your process of individuation go?” and “where do you need to express creativity and shine?” Since we’re in August right now, I’m starting with Leo, the Sun’s very own sign.
Sun in Leo: Ego formation happens via the process of performance and using the response from the audience to revise one’s own behaviors. Creativity is natural to Leos and expressing themselves is something they must do if they are to be happy.
Sun in Virgo: Individuation is not difficult for Virgos—their natural discriminatory abilities easily detect where their boundaries are. Virgo’s challenge lies in creativity, because Virgo must learn to be comfortable taking credit and being seen.
Sun in Libra: Libra’s desire for fairness and symmetry will too often have Librans waiting for others to notice them before really allowing themselves to shine and individuate. This is a shame, because Librans have style and artistry.
Sun in Scorpio: Scorpio, like all water signs, would rather operate under the radar than have attention drawn to itself, posing a challenge for this sign’s individuation. Scorpio’s creativity is likely to be expressed internally, rather than displayed.
Sun in Sagittarius: Like the other fire signs, Sagittarius is comfortable with visibility and display but can scatter its creative energies. Sag casts a large aura and tends toward leadership as a form of creativity—when Sag gets focused & chooses a direction.
Sun in Capricorn: Ah, how Capricorn does hold itself back! Cap types tend to crave the public recognition they need to help them individuate, but they are late bloomers and have trouble accepting praise until after 30, when their finest years begin.
Sun in Aquarius: The challenge to Aquarian ego formation is the deep-seated Aquarian belief that the group is more important than the individual. Aquarian creativity does best in the form of intellectual genius and sharing of ideas with those of like mind.
Sun in Pisces: How do you individuate when you feel you are not an individual, but a crowd? So many voices, and Pisces is listening to them all. But the Piscean imagination is strong, leading to abundant creation & potential mastery in all the arts.
Sun in Aries: Individuation is easy for assertive Aries, the sign voted most likely to fall flat on its face multiple times on the way to success. The message is clear: get used to failing fast and draw on Arian hope. Then watch your creativity soar.
Sun in Taurus: Like Virgo, Taurus doesn’t care about flash and glamour. Taurus does care about beauty and quality though, and in its deliberate way, will produce fine creative product given time. Taureans sometimes self-identify with their income.
Sun in Gemini: Geminis can be scattered, losing themselves in an overabundance of ideas, but formidable when focused. Geminis tend to identify with their intellect, to see themselves as a head with a body attached. Communication is central to Gemini.
Sun in Cancer: The tendency to identify with one’s feelings or intuitions is strong in Cancer. The Cancerian form of creativity is in nourishing things, helping things grow from small and weak to strong and formidable. Cancer, nourish yourself too!
I hope you enjoyed this brief and extremely superficial look at the sun signs. It’s just a teeny taste of what you’d get in a full, sit-down astrology reading. If you are not sure of your Sun sign (perhaps because you were born on a day the Sun changed signs), you can make your own astrology chart on Astro.com to find out which sign you actually are.
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