Revolving: Understanding the symbology of the sun

[Image descriptions: Sight from a window where the warm sunlight colors the walls of a brick building during golden hour. End of image descriptions.]

Squeezing the universe on a piece of paper

When looking at a chart, we sometimes tend to forget that it shows something real and tangible. An astrological chart shows a graphic representation of what we can physically see in the sky. You should be able to put your head out of the window and actually see the same thing that is depicted on your paper happening in real time. If you see a planetary opposition, you should also see two planets standing opposite each other in the sky. 

As with everything that is real and you are trying to put in a scheme, things can become so abstract on paper that your interpretations of it might get destorted. That's why, as an astrologer, you should look at the sky often.  Start with the most basic and simple facts of astrology. Which colors do the planets have? How do they appear to move? 

You have to be able to form a simple picture of all these planetary movements before you can understand the abstraction of astrology. This series is about the basic movements of the planets,  how they are graphicly depicted in a chart, and how this constitutes meaning.

Motion

Astrology is about circular movements. You know that quote about how the main characteristic of life is mobility, while eternity is immobility? Living means movement, change and transition. This is what makes things physical. Physical things move in a concrete direction. The planets, the sun and the stars do this too. In astrology this is called the primary motion. This movement is clockwise. 

It's the movement that we can actually see when we look up: everything in the sky will seem to move from left to right. The sun, the moon, the planets... rise in the east and set in the west. This is the same on the Southern hemisphere. This movement is graphicly depicted in the astrological chart. The line that goes through the circle, is the horizon. The symbol of the Sun, ¸, is making its way  through the sky in clockwise direction. To us this direction seems like an unending stream or flow, where the celestial  bodies are   sailing upon. 

The symbol ¸ shows where the actual sun is situated  in relationship to the horizon. For example, most people born in the morning will  have the sun in the  first quadrant.  People born at night will have the sun under the horizon, in the 3th or 4th quadrant.  This is because the sun literally shines in  on the other side of the globe, invisible to us. 

Clockwise or counterclockwise?

I just told you that all the planets move from east to west, in clockwise direction. But here comes the funny part: they are not really moving in this direction, it only appears so to us! The reason for this illusion is that our earth is spinning counter-clockwise on its own axis. Huh?  

Imagine that your head is the globe. On top of your head is the North Pole, and where your head meets your neck is the South Pole. Place a light source in front of you, such as a candle or lamp. Now rotate around your axis in the counterclockwise direction, just like our globe does. Does the lamp seem to move from East to West (aka left to right)? It will seems to you that the sun (the lamp) moves from east to west while you (earth) are revolving around the sun (the lamp). 

In the beginning this seemed so contra-intuitive for me, since the sun is coming up and is going down in clockwise fashion. This is why our clocks are moving in this direction. They are a simulation of the movement of the sun as we see it coming up in the east and going down in the west. But it is because we rotate in anti-clockwise direction around the sun, that her light caresses over the earth's surface from east to west. 

When people describe the solar system and how it appears to us, versus how it actually moves, it seems like they are describing all the rotations and the directions each dancer is going within a choreography of Béjart. And you observe this dance as if you were a dancer and a watcher at the same time! It's confusing! But in this whirlwinding dance of the solar system, there is one simple premise to hold on to: almost every object in our Milky Way is going anti-clockwise. 

Most planets in our solar system, including our Earth, spin counterclockwise around their own axis. But our universe wouldn't be our universe, if there weren't some exceptions. Even though Venus and Uranus move around the sun in anti-clockwise fashion, their own spin is clockwise! We don't know for sure why this is the case. 

Almost all the revolutions and rotations of the objects in our Milky Way go in the same direction, like asteroids and the satellites of planets, and our moon. The sun itself also rotates counterclockwise. The planets in our solar system revolve counterclockwise around the sun. So the direction in which planets move through the signs of the zodiac, is counterclockwise too. The fact is that the Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars all rise in the east and set in the west, is because everything in the solar system spins counterclockwise: when we stand on any given planet in our system, our neighbours will seem to rise in the East (except when we stand on Venus or Uranus!). 

Retrograde

Sometimes the planets reverse their direction and they start swimming against the current. They do this when they are retrograde. The planets suddenly moves from West to East for a while! This gave the ancients the impression that planets have their own will. 

A retrograde planet appears to us as if it is moving backwards. It is, however, only an optical illusion, as explained in this video: 

The difficult thing about it all is that we cannot look at our universe from a god perpspective. We can only look from our good old earth, and see how planets seem to move from our perspective. This was why the heliocentric model was such a shock to the establisment: if we don't take our vantage point as the default anymore, will there be a ground left to stand on? It was as if we were finding out that their beloved sun was actually polyamorous, and we mourned the simplicity of our past monogamous relationship. And we weren't graceful about it. 

Heliocentrism

[Galileo Galilei in the prison of the inquisition]

To us --21-century people who grew up with a heliocentric model -- it seems strange to act so dramaticly about having to let go of the geocentric model. The Catholic church treated the sun like a overly clingy person treats their lover: the sun wasn't allowed to have a life of their own, even if they're showing up for us loyaly everyday! But you have to understand that us, catholics, have this god image of a absent father or flaky lover. It is someone who we can never be sure if he really love us, which leaves us all clingy and confused. And since the sun was the symbol of God, who created a perfect universe, a cozy (?) home for all of us, the Sun suddenly became this caretaker who leads a double life - a septuple life even! We couldn't be sure of the suns' motivations anymore.

Now you, polypositive modern people, know that is not because the sun is not revolving around you and only you, that it means that you are not important to them! The heliocentric model was like a relationship crisis with our (catholic) image of god. So please, forgive us our historical temper tantrum. Anyway, Arabic scientist knew about this model sometime before Galileo, but didn't make such a fuss about it. 

Too much knowledge

The thing about astrology in modernity is that we sometimes have too much knowledge about the universe. It makes us forget that astrology is solely based on what we can actually see. The people who came before us (and the copernican revolution) had a much easier job: they just had to look at the sky.  They observed these beautiful stars that made a dance through the sky, dissapearing an reappearing, reddening or getting pale. They saw stories in their movements. Astrology still uses a geocentric model, because we look at the universe from our earthly perspective. This doesn't mean astrologers don't know or don't believe that that the sun is not revolving around us. We write about the universe from our standpoint: how we, with our very eyes and bodies, experience the celestial movements. 

But if you drop this earthly perspective, the universe gets really complicated. You suddenly don't know where is up or down anymore. It is if you were in a theater, and suddenly you see the show from a bird perspective. You're attached to the ceiling, with a clear view on the backstage. All at once you can see how the tricks work, and where the actors are hiding in the wings. These optical illusions were just made for you, but now they lost their power to surprise you. You realise the play was made for you, so you could be enchanted by its magic without understanding every prop and trick, but now the illusion is gone.

Sometimes astrology gets easier if you let go all the knowledge that we accumulated about our solar system, and just look at the sky simply in the way we experience it. 

The symbology of the sun

The sun is the A and Z to our human existence. That's why we always associated the sun with the core, the life energy, our very breath. The sun represents the godliness of our universe. It represents clearness, revelation - as in: it reveals everything. What you see is what you get! We follow and imitate its movements: we rise when it rises, we lie down when it lies down. It is our parent in a sense, as it learns us to live and die by showing us how they do it. The sun teaches us about our immortality, because it never failes to come back to life, after it really appeared to be gone (although it left a message via the moon). 

The sun is the biggest object in our sky. It is the reason why we can perceive the other planets too, because they reflect the light of the sun. We are all borrowing its energy. It is our director and choreographer, and we depend on its cues during our cosmic modern ballet. And when it gives up, we go down with it.