On the Sun’s Day

Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash

On the Sun's day, I try to remember my light.

It isn't always easy to succeed. I'm a Scorpio rising, conjoined with the Moon and Pluto, ruled by Aries Mars. I am used to the darkness, prefer the shadowy depths to daylight.

But it is one of many astrological ironies that Scorpio risings are blessed cursed graced with a Sun-ruled 10th house. Our way of being in the world requires some semblance of visibility, even when we'd rather opt out.

In my earliest memories, I longed for that visibility. I was raised on classic films and idolized Shirley Temple, convinced that I was destined for a career in the spotlight. That conviction was reinforced once I started elementary school and my teachers encouraged my parents to take me to auditions. My delight to perform spilled over into playtime, and into my favorite part of the school day: reading aloud. When it was my turn to read, I would craft unique voices for each character, determined to make the story interesting.

To my dismay, my parents never got around to taking me to auditions, and after a few years I lost the innocent and naive sense of confidence that I had been born with. It was the casualty of playground bullies and childhood cruelty, of suddenly finding myself as an outsider amongst my peers.

Visibility was no longer something to be celebrated; it had to be feared, avoided, because standing out in fifth grade and beyond meant that every flaw would be perceived and magnified. My social sins were minor, in the grand scheme of things: I wore glasses and was terminally uncool; I read books and liked answering questions in class; when puberty hit, my long hair turned into an untamable mane, and undiagnosed PCOS led to hair all over my body and face.

I loved standing out, until it became dangerous. So I learned to stay in my lane, to mold myself into someone who could still exist on the margins of the social milieu. "I am vast / I contain multitudes," Whitman once wrote, but those multitudes were flattened and consolidated, edges sanded away until I could become something acceptable to my peers. I became the Nerdy Smart Kid, focused my energy on school, and left behind my visions of stardom and celebrity. There was safety in that kind of restriction, but it was also stifling, an insult to my own spirit and multiplicity of being.

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These are the wounds that the Sun can remedy, but fuck, the healing is hard. Because, yes, the Sun is the joyous babe upon the white horse, innocent as the dawn and a brand new day. But the Sun is also Work. Responsibility. Different from the hardships and demands of Saturn, linked entirely to the weight of the crown "and the heavy mantle you bear," per astrologer and herbalist Maeg Keane. That crown is unique to each of us, and comes with its own unique responsibilities, its own requirements for shining and maintaining our Light. With his illumination, the Sun reveals what we don't always wish to see: frailties and flaws, pettiness, the lies we tell ourselves, the ways in which we hold ourselves back from achieving our full potential.

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My understanding of the Sun began with my study of Hellenistic astrology. At the most basic level: Sect light for those born during the day; ruler of Leo; exalted in Aries. Rejoicing in the 9th House, that place of higher education, religion, philosophy, and astrology. Hot and dry, and malefic in the Jyotish tradition, capable of warmth and illumination alongside scorching heatwaves.

I never expected to work with the Sun, much less to write about him, or consider him an ally, friend, and guide. I thought to keep my distance out of respect and a fear of being singed if I stood too close. The hesitation seemed to make sense: I was born at night, and the Moon is my sect light. She seemed safer, familiar. The diurnal and masculine nature of the Sun called to mind uncontrolled ego, the dominance of unrestrained capitalism, the hyperindividualism that has come to characterize our current era.

But that is not the Sun.

I came to know him during one of the darkest points of my life, in the weeks after losing a much-wanted pregnancy. The Sun wasn't a stranger. I called on him from time to time for advice about work and leadership, to ask questions about the best ways to carry out my responsibilities in the office, sticking to the themes of the 10th House. But in the aftermath of that catastrophic loss I decided to channel the energy I should have been using to create life to instead manifest another dream: a house of my own.

I sat with the Sun on a Wednesday night and, on a whim, asked a simple question: Could he help me figure out a spell to buy a house? I pulled tarot cards for a response and they were affirmative; the feeling in my body, however, was the true answer--joy, elation, excitement. Yes, the Sun could indeed help, and would be thrilled to do so.

(In the background, a chorus of ancestors gave a collective sigh of relief because they had been poking and prodding me for years to attempt some kind of magic... but that is a story for another time.)

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My true work with the Sun began there, walking through ideas for a simple candle spell. In the three years since, I have been challenged and discomfited and dismayed, forced to confront the ways in which my sense of self more often resembles the distortions of a funhouse mirror. I have had to face countless fears, so many of them rooted in wounds I had forgotten even existed. And I've been pushed to acknowledge my very real shortcomings and to do better.

This is a process that I am certain will be lifelong, a constant sloughing off to find the diamond in the rough, my truest self, buried beneath countless layers of anxiety and self-doubt. With every exfoliation, I find a bit more courage to edge out of the darkness, to peer at the spotlight with wary curiosity, to test my voice in a sphere beyond the deep Scorpionic caverns where I have grown so comfortable.

That I am even writing this blog is a testament to solar work. For so long I have believed that there was nothing new I could add to the conversation. What I am learning, however, is that there is a value in joining the conversation, offering my experiences as further testimony and weight. I've been reminded of a saying I heard long ago, when I was working as a baby community organizer: "A candle burns brighter with many wicks." I am proud to offer my own unique light as part of that collective blaze.