Sun Dominant People in Astrology: When Is Self-Actualization Better Than Ego Transcendence?

There are people who are on this planet to transcend the ego. I am not one of them. 

It has taken me a lot of work to be able to write the last two sentences with that much certainty and authority. I have always been a very spiritual person, and most spiritual traditions teach that you should transcend the flesh and the ego. I’ve always resisted these ideas at a fundamental level. Until I discovered astrology, I thought that made me a “bad person” who needed to work against my instincts and desires, but studying my chart has helped me to understand why the language of individuation has always resonated so much more strongly for me than the language of transcendence.

I’m a very solar person. I have a Leo ascendant, which is ruled by the sun. My sun is in the 10th house, which is one of the most visible parts of my chart. (Only my Mercury, which is exactly conjunct my midheaven, is more visible to people who don’t know me well.) I was born during the day, which makes the sun my sect leader, and my sun is conjunct the north node, which is said to make a planet even louder in some branches of astrology.

The sun is the ego in astrology. Having a prominent sun means that I’ve come into this world with a need to shine. My most important personal development work is learning to be my best self and use my light to help others. 

Lunation Cycle: Manifesting Dreams

For the last few years, I’ve worked a lot on understanding how lunations (New and Full Moons) work. The typical advice to manifest on the Full Moon and release at the New Moon hasn’t worked for me, so I’ve taken careful notes in my 5- Year Memory Book on what actually happens for me during lunations. I’ve noticed that seeds that are planted at the New Moon have the tendency to come into fruition when the moon is full in the same sign about six months later.

This happened most dramatically for me at the Scorpio Full Moon. I have Scorpio in the 4th house. At the Scorpio New Moon, I had a conversation with my boyfriend about moving in with him. At the Scorpio Full Moon, I actually did it.   

After I noticed that seeds that were planted at the New Moon sprouted at the Full Moon whether I intended them to or not, I started to wonder if I could work with this energy on purpose.

The New Moon in Taurus coming up is going to be a big one for me. It’s happening the day after my birthday at 21 degrees Taurus. It will be just a degree away from my sun in the 10th house, and it will start my 1st house profection year, which is ruled by the sun. 

This means that seeds that I plant regarding my identity and my career have the potential to come to fruition at the Full Moon/Eclipse on November 19th. Since this is the beginning of my sun year, they could reverberate through all of my solar transits this year, as well.

I’m feeling a lot of pressure to get this lunation right. 

Last night, I sat down with my journal and started to dream about the type of person I want to be and what I want my career to look like. 

My career has been a big focus for me lately as I try to ramp up my astrology practice into something that can support me, so I didn’t have to work very hard to come up with a pretty clear picture of how I want my career to look.  

My identity, though, was more difficult. As solar as I am, forming a solid ego identity is something that I’ve really struggled with. In some branches of astrology, the north node is seen as an amplifier of planets. In evolutionary astrology, the north node represents a place in your life that is a work in progress for you, a thing that you’re trying to become, virtues you’re learning to embody. I find that both of these ways of reading the north node are true for me. I have a bottomless need for attention. I also have no idea what it means to be a Taurus. 

Blame it on my Leo ascendant, but, when I found myself getting stuck with my journaling, I got up to look in the mirror. I studied the image that was reflected back to me critically. What changes can I make to my appearance my outside match the person I feel I am on the inside?

It didn’t even occur to me until this morning that this way of thinking about the ego is shallow. …Or is it?

The Beauty of Earth

Call it synchronicity. On a whim, this morning I picked up The Book of Earth by Steven Forrest. The first chapter is all about the conflict between spirit and flesh in many of the world’s religions. This attitude tends to relegate the earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) to the shallows. He quotes astrologer Isabel Hickey as saying, “If there are many planets in earth signs the person puts too much emphasis on material things and he has to attain a truer sense of values.”

While this is true, undoubtedly, for some people, this isn’t what the earth signs are. The earth signs aren’t the unloved stepchild of astrology, the element we have to put up with until we achieve our true state as disembodied spirits. 

The earth signs are about manifestation, taking the dreams of the heart, the vision of the mind, and the fiery passion of the human spirit and turning them into something that you can experience with the senses—a poem, a song, eyebrows that feel like You. This ability to manifest ideas physically is so powerful, the ancients believed that spirits did everything they can to manifest in the physical world, some going as far as tricking us into allowing them to possess us.

Without the earth signs, beautiful things would always exist out of touch in the realm of the mind, unrealized and unfulfilled. The things I want for myself and my career might be out of reach at the New Moon, but the hard work and diligence of the earth signs will help me to do what I can to give those dreams form.