Qualities: Masculine Principle-Warmth-Self-esteem-Honour-Dominance-Stamina-Arrogance-Confidence-Procreation-Pleasure-Generosity-Self-satisfaction-Vitality-Dignity-Will-power-Creativity-Organisation-Condescension-Benevolence-Pride
To ancient peoples the Sun was the most powerful figure in the skies, the primary source of light, warmth, and life, larger and stronger by far than any of the other heavenly bodies. Although we now realize through modern astronomy that the Sun is a fairly ordinary or even minor star, we also know that in absolute terms it is even more potent than it was ever imagined to be.
It is a gigantic, roaring nuclear furnace -a third of a million times the mass of the Earth- whose blazing core achieves temperatures of 15 million degrees Celsius. Its prodigious outpouring of energy is the source of all life upon earth. But in addition to providing the light and heat that sustain our existence, the Sun also spews a torrent of other radiation, including x-rays and ultraviolet rays, that could be fatal for humanity if we were not protected by Earth’s atmosphere.
Mythologically, the Sun in ancient times was everywhere seen as a powerful, life giving god, represented in many cultures with arms or rays reaching down to convey vitality to mortals. Kings all over the world claimed to be the Sun’s descendants. The Egyptian Sun God Ra, who crossed the sky in a boat each day. Perhaps the sun god with the most enduring influence was the Greeks’ Apollo, who traversed the heavens in a fiery chariot and later was adopted by the Romans for their own pantheon.
Apollo grew to manhood quickly, slaying a dragon while only days old.He bacame the idea of virile, youthful beauty, fathering a number of children by both women and nymphs. He could also b e a dan gerous suitor to those who rejected him, however. Apollo turned the nymph Daphne into a tree after she spurned him, and he bestowed centuries of longevity-but not youth-on a woman named Sibyl, she finally shriveled until only a disembodied voice was left. The Greeks recognized the god’s duality: He was at once Phoebus Apollo-Bright Apollo-and Loxian, meaning “the ambiguous one”
Like Apollo and the physical star itself, the Sun in astrology has a dual nature. Highly visible, it is nonetheless condradictory, a benevolent source of life and beauty that is at the same time capable of great destruction.
Astrologically, the Sun governs the essential self, ambition, spirit, will, energy, power, and organization. Among the traits it is aid to confer are creativity, pride, generosity and dignity. But it is also linked with egotism, pomposity, arrogance, and overbearing condescension.
It represents dry, hot masculinity in a partnership of opposites with the Moon, which is cool, moist and feminine (a traditional view some modern astrologers reject as sexist). The Sun is consciousness, the “lighted” part of the mind, to the Moon’s un consciousness, or intuitive knowledge.
In the human body the Sun has special influence on the heart, circulatory system, and spine,and on health and vitality in general. The Sun, along with the Moon , Mercury, venus, and Mars, is one of the inner, or personal, planets, which are thought to have the most direct influence on the lives of individuals. Its position in the zodiac at the time of birth , of course, determines a person’s natal sign-the sun sign , an important element in total astrological view of one’s personality.
The Sun rules the sign Leo, which is its specific dominion, and is personified in Kings, other rulers and heads of state, as well as fathers, teachers, male partners and older friends.
Each of the astrological planrts has its own ancient symbol, or glyph, used in drawing charts. Glyphs were created from different combinations of three basic elements that astrologers call the Circle of Spirit, the Crescent of the Soul, and the Cross of Matter. The Sun’s glyph, is a circle-an image of wholeness-and a point, for the center or focus of life.
Reference: Cosmic Connections-Mysteries of the Unknown
