The Sun and Moon within us (Part 1)

The eclipse provides an "As above, so below" window

Looking at the way you spend the hours in your day, your typical month, your years, do you know how you really feel about what you do with your time and energy? This to me is why eclipses can be so jarring. Our conscious identity, hopefully aligned with our truest self (Sun) and our routine and cyclical needs (Moon) are forced to merge and/or confront one another.

I thought I would leverage the eclipse energy that we are in the midst of, as well as the Mercury cazimi so near the South Node in Libra on Sunday to do a reset on our perspective on the relationship between the Sun and Moon in our birth chart. I purposefully want to use a light touch here, because many people have had some heavy eclipse related introspection arise over the last few weeks. 

Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash

By no means do I want self-analysis to become self-blame. I hope instead to offer some compassionate understanding for why we are the way we are and why we do what we do and how they are connected. Further, Venus is in Scorpio, which may make us a bit paranoid about our values, finances, and relationships until she departs this sign later this month (Oct 17). I hope to treat a very subjective topic as objectively as possible here. So, if none of this resonates with you right now, know that I am still holding space for you, too.

Aside from feeling well in our own skin, harmonizing one’s Sun and Moon can serve as an accessible resource to tap into and better yet, to offer to others when one feels fully resourced. I will give you an example from my own life a bit later, but first, let’s revisit what the Sun in our birth chart represents.

You most likely know the zodiac sign of your Sun. And you have most likely heard common stereotypes of how your sign behaves. This alone may have caused you to embrace or run away from astrology, depending on whether you liked or identified with the stereotype or not. That is pretty powerful stuff! Why would we potentially get so insulted that it would cause us to refute a system of knowledge that reaches back thousands of years? Ego.

I use the word ‘ego’ here to mean our conscious sense of self. Who we believe ourselves to be. But we all know that our identity is heavily influenced, and that many of us compromise part or all of ourself to have our needs met. All the more reason for this reset. 

Let’s begin with astrologer Steven Forrest’s description from The Book of Fire: The Life-Givers:

“The Sun represents the basic values to which you must be true if your life is going to make sense to you. It is the common denominator in all your wise decisions.”

And, 

“If you are true to your natal Sun, you’ll be glad you are alive.”

Maybe we can think of the universe as a grand puzzle over time, space, and dimension. (Perhaps each of us is that, too). So, if we are true to our core, our Sun, it will help to pull the rest of the puzzle together rather than make it incomplete or have to accommodate the missing piece.

Using the Sun as a guiding star for one’s life, Forrest describes each of the twelve signs as follows (the below list is taken verbatim from his book):

If the Sun is in Aries: let your guiding star be the development of courage, directness, and the right use of force.

If the Sun is in Taurus: let your guiding star be the development of calm, simplicity and an acceptance of that which arises naturally.

If the Sun is in Gemini: let your guiding star be the development of curiosity, open-mindedness, conversation, and a willingness to to listen.

If the Sun is in Cancer: let your guiding star be the development of gentleness, nurturance, and an acceptance of human frailty.

If the Sun is in Leo: let your guiding star be the development of forthrightness, creativity, spontaneous self-expression, and a sense of Theater.

If the Sun is in Virgo: let your guiding star be the development of service, groundedness, skill.

If the Sun is in Libra: let your guiding star be the development of negotiation, teamwork, and love.

If the Sun is in Scorpio: let your guiding star be the development of honesty, Shadow-work, and courageous emotional investigation.

If the Sun is in Sagittarius: let your guiding star be the development of faith, belief, commitment and mind-stretching experience.

If the Sun is in Capricorn: let your guiding star be the development of self-discipline, integrity and objective accomplishment.

If the Sun is in Aquarius: let your guiding star be the development of individuation, unusual experiences, and escape from social convention.

If the Sun is in Pisces: let your guiding star be the development of meditation, surrender and mystical experiences.

I think you can imagine if we overly focused on superficially putting on our Sun sign as an identity as opposed to acknowledging that these will be the values that we are meant to explore and aspire to in life, we may wind up living a shadow, caricature, or even grotesque expression of the above.

This is where I think our Moon sign can offer a means to check-in. Our Moon sign and placement provides insight into how we feel safe and nurtured. However, something I have noticed lately is that almost all of us have lost touch with this through the pandemic. Why? Because it traumatized us. At some point, in some degree, our minds went into trauma response. And being confined to home was especially triggering for anyone who had a traumatic home life as a child. If we haven’t been able to process all of that, our perception of what is safe and nurturing is likely off kilter.

I know mine was for a very long time. Numbing myself with alcohol was the safest thing my traumatized brain could latch onto as a routine. Being out of touch with your Moon can lead you to wind up hurting yourself and others unintentionally, because you simply lack awareness of self and circumstance. Steven Forrest writes, “The Moon defines reality as we experience it.” So, being out of touch with your Moon can make you lose touch with reality.

Of course, trauma is far more complicated than exploring your Moon’s sign and placement, but I do think it is important to understand what true emotional safety and general coziness feel like to you, and your Moon can be a window into this space.

So what might it look and feel like when your Sun and Moon are working together in harmony? I mentioned I would provide an example from my own life. My Sun is in Leo in the 10th house. This is about creative self-expression (Leo) as part of my public persona (10th house). My Moon is in Aries in the 6th house. This is about taking a self-directed action (Aries) as part of my routine (6th house).

One thing I do here on Substack is pull a Tarot card each day for the collective and write a haiku based upon its energy, and post it as a Note. This is not at all a chore, and nobody tells me or pays me to do it. It spontaneously came to me one day that this would feel really good and satisfying. Low and behold, I still find joy in it, months later. And even if my Moon were not in my 6th house, because the Moon is associated with cycles and the body, doing something on a regular basis that meets your Sun and Moon’s ‘goals’ would just feel right to you.

In the next installment, I will dive more deeply into Moon signs. In the meantime, if you want to explore more on your own, in addition to Steven Forrest’s Book Fire, I have some resources on my website, or you can access my free step by step guide to your Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs in my Astro section.