Ever wonder why sun sign astrology became so popular, when it’s so silly?  It’s because sun signs are easy to use.  Everybody knows their birth date, so everybody knows their sun sign.  It gives people something to schmooze about in bars and at parties—“I’m a Pisces!”  “I shouldn’t date Sagittarians—they’re my downfall!” and so on.  This makes for fun conversation, but it also has the unfortunate side effect of categorizing us and giving us preconceived notions about people—notions not true enough to be useful and true enough to do damage.  Sigh.  It’s a shame, really, that astrology got diluted this way, but it did get astrology into popular culture, which in my mind is a good thing, being a far cry from olden days when only kings had access to astrology.

As I mentioned in my article You Are Not Just Your Sign, the Sun is just one part of your astrology chart.  But it is an important part.  And here we come to the reason why sun signs are useful at all as conversation starters:  they do work.  Your sun sign is an important and central part of your personality.  The Sun in your chart is the gravitational center of your personality and the sign it’s in shows how you go about the process of individuation, ego formation and discovering your own identity.  The Sun is the center of you in the same way it is the center of our solar system:  it gives light, heat and life force energy to everything it touches.  Your sun sign is the source of your creativity—it’s where you want to shine.

Let’s take a whirlwind trip through the sun signs to answer the questions “How does your process of individuation go?” and “where do you need to express creativity and shine?”  Since we’re in August right now, I’m starting with Leo, the Sun’s very own sign.

Sun in Leo: Ego formation happens via the process of performance and using the response from the audience to revise one’s own behaviors.  Creativity is natural to Leos and expressing themselves is something they must do if they are to be happy.

Sun in Virgo: Individuation is not difficult for Virgos—their natural discriminatory abilities easily detect where their boundaries are.  Virgo’s challenge lies in creativity, because Virgo must learn to be comfortable taking credit and being seen.

Sun in Libra: Libra’s desire for fairness and symmetry will too often have Librans waiting for others to notice them before really allowing themselves to shine and individuate.  This is a shame, because Librans have style and artistry.

Sun in Scorpio: Scorpio, like all water signs, would rather operate under the radar than have attention drawn to itself, posing a challenge for this sign’s individuation.  Scorpio’s creativity is likely to be expressed internally, rather than displayed.

Sun in Sagittarius: Like the other fire signs, Sagittarius is comfortable with visibility and display but can scatter its creative energies.  Sag casts a large aura and tends toward leadership as a form of creativity—when Sag gets focused & chooses a direction.

Sun in Capricorn: Ah, how Capricorn does hold itself back!  Cap types tend to crave the public recognition they need to help them individuate, but they are late bloomers and have trouble accepting praise until after 30, when their finest years begin.

Sun in Aquarius: The challenge to Aquarian ego formation is the deep-seated Aquarian belief that the group is more important than the individual.  Aquarian creativity does best in the form of intellectual genius and sharing of ideas with those of like mind.

Sun in Pisces: How do you individuate when you feel you are not an individual, but a crowd?  So many voices, and Pisces is listening to them all.  But the Piscean imagination is strong, leading to abundant creation & potential mastery in all the arts.

Sun in Aries: Individuation is easy for assertive Aries, the sign voted most likely to fall flat on its face multiple times on the way to success.  The message is clear:  get used to failing fast and draw on Arian hope.  Then watch your creativity soar.

Sun in Taurus: Like Virgo, Taurus doesn’t care about flash and glamour.  Taurus does care about beauty and quality though, and in its deliberate way, will produce fine creative product given time.  Taureans sometimes self-identify with their income.

Sun in Gemini: Geminis can be scattered, losing themselves in an overabundance of ideas, but formidable when focused.  Geminis tend to identify with their intellect, to see themselves as a head with a body attached.  Communication is central to Gemini.

Sun in Cancer: The tendency to identify with one’s feelings or intuitions is strong in Cancer.  The Cancerian form of creativity is in nourishing things, helping things grow from small and weak to strong and formidable.  Cancer, nourish yourself too!

I hope you enjoyed this brief and extremely superficial look at the sun signs.  It’s just a teeny taste of what you’d get in a full, sit-down astrology reading.

In my previous article You’re Not Just Your Sun Sign I pointed out that human beings are too complex to be reduced to a single sign of the zodiac.  I hope also that I made it clear that it’s possible for a person to be a pretty strong type by virtue of having several planets in a given sign.  One way this can happen is if Mercury and Venus are in the same sign as the sun.  Because of the way the solar system is arranged, this is not at all unlikely.  Here’s why:

In our solar system, Mercury is closest to the sun.  Venus is next in line, followed by Earth, then Mars, then Jupiter and so on.  This means that from Earth’s point of view (which is what matters in astrology, because Earth is where we live) the sun, Mercury and Venus will always be in the same quadrant of sky.  You will never see Mercury opposite the sun in a birth chart and if someone tells you that you have that, they’re pulling your leg because it’s physically impossible.  Mercury will always be found in the sun’s sign or one sign ahead or behind the sun.  Venus ranges a little further, but it will never be further from the sun than two signs ahead or behind.

So in any chart, relative to the sun, Mercury has three signs it could be in, while Venus has five.  This significantly increases the statistical chances of Mercury, Venus, or both doubling up in the sun’s sign, which will intensify the sun sign traits.  This is why some people are purer types than others and it’s also why some people may identify with their sun sign very little.  If you are a solid Capricorn sun, but you have a flirtatious Aquarian Venus and a loquacious Sagittarian Mercury, you won’t feel much like a Capricorn unless you have some other planet there (or at least in another Earth sign) to back it up.  However, your Capricorn nature will out eventually, probably around the time of your Saturn return, when you are approaching 30 and find yourself suddenly taking life more seriously.

It’s fairly easy to find out where your Mercury and Venus are by ordering your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details in English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you,  you’ll be able to easily find your Mercury and Venus signs.

While you have your Decoder in front of you, look to see if a single sign appears three or more times.  If it does, that is probably your strongest sign, whether it is your sun sign or not.  If you enjoy reading the silly newspaper “horoscopes,” then this is the sign you should look at, not necessarily your sun sign.

This is one of three related articles on the subject of why your Sun sign is not all that you are.  For more insight, see the other two.
What Is A “Sign Type?” posted 4/9/09
You Are Not Just Your “Sign” posted 4/4/07
What Makes a Strong Sign Type? posted 8/28/07

Ever read a description of your “sign” and just felt like it had little or nothing to do with you? Ever felt categorized by astrology, forced into a grouping that had no relevance for your life? Ever felt frustrated by others who discover your sign and then nod sagely and say “of course” as if now they suddenly have the key to you? It’s all very annoying. Believe it or not, it’s annoying to astrologers too. Believe it or not, the problem is not with astrology, it’s with how people use astrology. Your sun sign is only one small part of who you are, and while astrologers view the sun as important and central, it’s not everything. Not in the least.

What Does My “Sign” Mean Anyway?
When someone asks you your “sign,” they are asking about your sun sign, or the sign of the zodiac the sun was in when you were born. The sun moves through all 12 signs every year in a regular pattern we experience as the seasons. The sun is always just entering Aries on the first day of spring—in fact, that’s an integral part of the very definition of the first day of spring. On the first day of spring, the sun is directly overhead at the equator, making the days and nights of equal length (equator, equinox, equal—coincidence? I think not!). The sign of Aries is the season of early spring, where the sun is when it’s just beginning to warm up the northern hemisphere for the summer. All the other signs are similarly linked to seasonal zones.

Why Sun Sign Astrology?
In the 1960’s an astrologer named Linda Goodman popularized astrology greatly by focusing on sun signs. She’s the reason why asking someone’s sun sign at a party (and drawing compatibility conclusions from it) is such a 60’s cliché. The sun is a very easy part of one’s chart to be aware of—all you need to know is your birthday and you’re off and running. Also it’s accurate enough of the time to intrigue many people.

Linda Goodman did astrology a great service by making it accessible to everyone. This has probably led to a lot more people getting useful guidance from astrology than would ever have thought of it on their own. However, she also did astrology a great disservice by reducing it to such a simple factor. The sun simply is not all there is to any individual, and to categorize individuals by sun sign is to miss out on all the other rich details in human personality.

What Else is There?
A look around an actual birth chart quickly reveals that there’s much more to it than the sun. A chart is full of detail—overwhelmingly so (thus the need for sun sign simplicity). Not only is the sun in a sign, but everything else in our solar system is too. You have a Mercury sign, a moon sign, a Venus sign, even a Neptune sign. And to add layers of complexity, planets-in-signs may be important, but they are still only part of the picture. Check out this sample chart and you’ll see what I mean:

It’s hard to even know where to start, isn’t it? If you look at the bottom of the chart and a little to the left, you’ll find a small circle with a dot inside it. That’s the sun. As you can see, it’s just one factor among many.

Actually this single diagram is loaded with information, all coded in symbols. Astrology is a language, like Spanish or algebra or C++ or musical notation. Every symbol shown here means something and every combination of symbols adds layers of complex and individual meaning. And because the patterns of planetary placement in the sky change at least a little every 3 minutes, this makes a birth-moment, and thus the chart that locked in during it, and by extension the person who was born that moment, highly individual. No categorization at all.

This chart has a complexity of a factor of 11 x 12 x 12 at a minimum. Why? Because in the chart there are 11 “planets” (two of which are the sun and moon, not strictly planets at all), each of which has the possibility of appearing in any of 12 signs and any of 12 houses. And this is just the beginning of the complexity here. I won’t belabor the point because by now no doubt you are getting the picture. You are not your sun sign! Not remotely.

Sun signs were really only ever intended as a gateway. If you find your sun sign interesting, seek out more information (one great way is to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder, which translates your chart into English).  You will find that your astrology chart, if accurate, is surprisingly well-suited to describe you in great detail. And the chart does more than describe—the chart also advises. Read properly, your chart will show you your own best life, describing avenues of success and happiness and giving your existence meaning. All in much more detail than your sun sign alone could.

This is one of three related articles on the subject of why your Sun sign is not all that you are.  For more insight, see the other two.
What Is A “Sign Type?” posted 4/9/09
You Are Not Just Your “Sign” posted 4/4/07
What Makes a Strong Sign Type? posted 8/28/07