Luminary
Sun
What you are here to become.
In a birth chart, Sun describes your core self: identity, vitality, what you are here to become.
What it is
A G-type main-sequence star holding 99.86% of the solar system's mass. Light from its surface takes about 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach us.
In a chart: About a month in each sign. This is your familiar “star sign”.
How astrologers have read Sun
- Traditional significations
- Life, vitality, the father in some traditions, kings and authority, honour, the heart
- Modern natal shorthand
- Core identity, vitality, purpose, what you are here to become
AsterNym’s interpretation
At its best
A clear sense of what you are for. Warmth that other people organise themselves around, and the confidence to be looked at while you are still learning.
The difficult end
Needing the room to agree you are the point of it. Pride that will not let a thing be done badly in public, and so never lets it be started.
What to do with it
Do the thing that is yours in a way that can be seen. The Sun is not modest and does not need to be.
What Sun rules
Traditional domicile ruler of Leo. If Leo is your rising sign, Sun is your chart ruler, the planet a traditional reading treats as standing for you. AsterNym uses the traditional ruler for chart-ruler and dignity calculations and displays any common modern association separately.
| Domicile | Leo |
|---|---|
| Exaltation | Aries |
| Detriment | Aquarius |
| Fall | Libra |
Traditional essential dignity is a symbolic astrological framework, not a measure of astronomical strength or a judgement that a placement is good or bad.
The metal of Sun
Gold Au
Gold became the standard alchemical metal of the Sun and was associated with perfection, the highest stage of metallic refinement. Its brilliance, rarity and resistance to corrosion make an apt later metaphor for solar permanence and visibility.
AsterNym reads it as: What stays recognisably yours under pressure: visible, warm, and difficult to corrode.
The other chart bodies
Where is Sun in your chart?
Its zodiac position comes from the body's calculated astronomical longitude. Its house is derived from your local birth horizon using AsterNym's declared Whole Sign house system.