Unlike the Moon, whose expression is instinctual or intrinsic, the qualities of the astrological Sun evolve over time. The attributes appropriate to the Sun require conscious striving in order to be developed. When this process is consciously engaged, there is an accompanying sense of pulling into orbit everything that is proper to the Sun.
Just as our solar system revolves around our Sun, and our Sun revolves around the center of our (if you’re from here) galaxy, the planets and points in the natal chart orbit the personal Sun. A pivotal point of understanding of the astrological Sun is the concept that it is a reflection of the mythological hero’s journey — the trajectory of every lifetime in which there are destiny-defining calls to adventure.
The Sun in the birth chart is a vast concept. It literally encompasses the corpus of an entire lifetime. So the idea to hone in on now is the concept of heroic choice.
There are crucial points on the hero’s journey where the call to the personal myth is activated. This happens several times over the course of a lifetime. If the hero chooses not to answer the call, it’s possible that the same call can be made repeatedly as a necessary point of development for the personal Solar archetype to come into fuller expression. The call is the summoning to individuate and consciously engage with destiny.
In other words, the call is the ceremonial sounding of the horn. Imagine it. For a semi-extended period of your life, everywhere you go there is a guy right behind you blowing a shofar, letting you know that the call is being made and wanting to know what you’re gonna do about it.
It is the sense that “it is time” and that an action must be taken. The call to adventure could be accepted, which means there will be dragons to slay, apples to pluck, rescuing to occur, self knowledge to acquire, and redemption to activate.
Or, the call can be denied, effectively denying the Sun its urge to express its natural radiance. This would be to accept the blockage and repression of developmental potentials within the Sun.
Or, the call could be projected. This is when we happily (or longingly, as the case may be) see others as possessing the spectrum of qualities that our personal Sun needs to develop in order to bring its particular constellation of archetypal qualities to expression.
On that note and in closing, here is an excerpt from an interview of Geoffrey Cornelius by The Mountain Astrologer magazine, germane to the concept of heroic choice.
When I say “destiny is negotiable,” I’m not suggesting that we can usually make much alteration in how things are shaping up for us except at these critical junctures. When they occur in our lives, there’s something in us that moves with these crucial points of decision. When most people fate themselves into a certain pattern of action, it’s almost predictable what will happen to them, and any good astrologer can pick up on that. But, extraordinarily, we’ve got some power or faith, soul or spirit — whatever it is– that chooses at certain crossroads in our lives. Divination and ritual surround those moments of choice.
I wouldn’t want to say we’re in a universe of complete free will, but the question of our fate is quite fluid and open, and it’s around how our psyche or our volition is moving. So, we fate ourselves and we also face contradictory fates that hard reality presents to us. We make choices — one path leads one way, another path leads a different way. But it’s not preordained which path we will choose at that critical point of the juncture. That’s where I think we get this marvelous intersection of free will and certain inevitable lines of causation that are set down. When talking about Lilly in the book, I use the phrase “knot of fate.” There’s a certain point at which we reach this knot of fate and divination allows us to untangle it.
Warmly,
Ichrak
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Further Resources: The Luminaries by Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas, pp. 99-103
