The Sun sign is at most a 10% factor

Until the 20th century, there was no general use of the Sun sign as predictive of hardly anything. Which is not to say that it's useless either - but with only one factor, there are no "never's" about relationships - or any other human endeavor. Thus, when people asks about things like Gemini-Gemini, why do we assume there has to be a single answer?

leephd said:

Until the 20th century, there was no general use of the Sun sign as predictive of hardly anything. Which is not to say that it's useless either - but with only one factor, there are no "never's" about relationships - or any other human endeavor. Thus, when people asks about things like Gemini-Gemini, why do we assume there has to be a single answer?

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Hey leephd,

Well, you are right, the sun sign itself is at most, 10% of our astrological make up. But then again, if one posseses a deep knowledge about all 12 astrological signs, just knowing a person's sun sign, can give you a 70-80% insight into their persona (considering you've never met the person before and want to know them better without asking weird questions, like "You're a cancer, that makes you a mama's boy right"?)

However, we should always remember, that the Sun is our individuality, the core of who we are. In our solar system, all planets revolve around this great sphere of flames. The moon is our personality, our emotional outake on life. And the rising is the mask we wear, along with our inner motivating factors. We get to discover the influence of the moon and the rising, as we get to know the person on a deeper more intimate level, enhancing our knowledge and ability to understand that person. Nevertheless, the basic behavioral pattern and traits possessed by the Sun Sign shall always stand out throughout the person's life.

A Pisces with six planets in Leo, would still back away from being the center of attention, A Taurus with heavy air influences, would still love being at their home sweet home, A water influenced Gemini would still have a mind that travelled at the speed of light, grinning away that mischevious grin. A Capricorn with heavy Libra and neptune influences would still have that rock of common practical sense ground him from being too indecisive or dreamy, yet make sure everyone around is well taken care for with their "magical" touch.


Hope this helps.

sweet_intuition said:

However, we should always remember, that the Sun is our individuality, the core of who we are. ... The moon is our personality, our emotional outake on life. And the rising is the mask we wear, along with our inner motivating factors. We get to discover the influence of the moon and the rising, as we get to know the person on a deeper more intimate level,

A Pisces with six planets in Leo, would still back away from being the center of attention, ...

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I've often found that the Rising or Midheaven shows up before the Sun sign, in many cases. It is true that the Moon prefers to remain hidden (except for maybe a 1st or 10th house Moon!)

And while I agree with mostly with what you've said, I'm going to have to disagree with the statement about the Pisces with Leo influences. It really depends on the House position, I think. I have a friend with 4 planets in Pisces, including the Sun & Moon, (the rest are Gemini, Sag, Cap and Libra & Aquarius) and yet he is always in the middle of things -- renown for his parties and the hub of a large social circle. But his Sun, Moon, and Venus fall in the 1st house, and Pisces-Ruling Neptune falls in the 10th.

Then again, I never singled out Pisces as being intolerant of attention, just allergic to chaos and sensitive to stress.

The mitigating factors are *very* important, and while yes, the Sun remains at our core (hence my Virgoan need to argue specifics) it can often take a very unusal shape, like the long-blond haired pretty-boy popular (yet alternative) Scorpio Sun/Rising guy with the Leo Mars-Moon conjunction in the 10th.

Hey Voron

Voron said:

I've often found that the Rising or Midheaven shows up before the Sun sign, in many cases. It is true that the Moon prefers to remain hidden (except for maybe a 1st or 10th house Moon!)

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Well, I will agree about the rising showing up before the sun sign (after all, the rising is the mask we wear and with which we all make our first impressions), however, the MC (from my experiences with astrology) doesn't really show up at once. For from what I have noticed, the MC is probably one of the last thing we get to experience from a person we meet. Even in work situations, the sign our MC is in, along with planets aspecting it, have a very "subliminal" way of working. It's usually the person himself who understands it better than anyone else.

And while I agree with mostly with what you've said, I'm going to have to disagree with the statement about the Pisces with Leo influences. It really depends on the House position, I think. I have a friend with 4 planets in Pisces, including the Sun & Moon, (the rest are Gemini, Sag, Cap and Libra & Aquarius) and yet he is always in the middle of things -- renown for his parties and the hub of a large social circle. But his Sun, Moon, and Venus fall in the 1st house, and Pisces-Ruling Neptune falls in the 10th.

Then again, I never singled out Pisces as being intolerant of attention, just allergic to chaos and sensitive to stress.

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Ah, the virgo in you has really pointed out an error in something I said. It's a good thing, get's me of my capricornian high-horse . However, in the light to defend my statemement... A pisces is always in some level intolerant of attention. Now before you or anyone else start saying I'm being too narrow minded and judgemental , let me elaborate a little more on the statement.

Pisces love to party no doubt. They love the pleasant chatter, the never ending supply of drinks, the casual flirtations, and the dreamy spark of it all. All their friends love them, for they make fabulous listeners, put a smile on anyone's face, have a wicked sense of humor, yet such a sheerly lovely demeanor, that at times even the most crudest joke when uttered by them can sound so "darling".

However, observe them carefully. Whenever someone compliments them greately, or whenever they are being honored publically for anything they do, you will notice a quiet grace about them. They may make a joke, or undermine their abilities (which they are famous for), but underneath that watery sparkle, they secretly wish they were hidden within the crowd. Although since children, they have dreamed about winning any award, from an Oscar, to Teacher of the Year, and even dream up acceptance speeches... whenever such an honor actually occurs, they really wish it didn't. They accept it gracefully and are indeed thankful, but like a famous piscean once said, "I don't want to be a millionaire, I just want to live like one"


I hope this has been helpful


Love and Blessings

I'll think about what you said, but I just can't help but think of the time my friend was saying, all giddy-like. "OOOooh, we're talking about ME...this is so cool, nobody ever talks about ME! Go on..." Unless that was a nervous deflection meant to be reverse-psychology...

I think house placement may be a stronger factor. I know a guy with Mars, Venus, and Mercury in the 12th house, and he's got MAJOR social anxiety disorder-- always popping tons of Xanax....

There was a discussion on this before, about the sun sign standing for what we are becoming in life. So a capricorn would be capricorning, as one of the examples.

RW

To me, I've seen the sun sign as the paint. The basic colors of a person, if you will. For example, for the "Art of you," our artist [birth] decides to use red for anger response. Now, he wants a pretty red, so he begins applying tones to make it different, maybe a pink for the moon's association, a deep crimson for wherever mars is, you get the picture. He then puts it down.

It doesn't have to look pretty, it's like modern art.

People who look at the sun sign only, remind me of people who buy cars without looking under the hood.

For the longest time, I wondered why, I, as a Sagittarius was so pessimistic. After seeing all of my planets in aspect, and sign, I noticed that no matter how pessimistic my voice wa, I was always naively hopeful inside. My Mercury is aspected poorly [for happiness at least. I'm happy, just afraid to get happier.], in Capricorn, which screams [to me] "Pessimistic Communication."

An adverse comment

Many of the postings in this thread, as well as other threads, talk about signs as if they are the driving and definitive energies of one's natal chart. WRONG. The planets are the energy expressions of our charts. Period.

The planets in relationship, aspected or not aspected, provide the complexities of character, skills, living experience, etc. The houses of the chart are very personal and unique in that they relate to the time of the day and the location of our birth and therefore have an influence on how the planetary energies can best express themselves. The house/chart arrangement determines which planets are angular and stronger, which are above, below, etc.

The signs are merely "overlays" that are general to everyone and much less effect on how planets express themselves than do aspects and houses. It is my opinion that those who promulgate sun-sign stuff do a great disservice to those who are entering their study of astrology, as well as they side-track themselves from being more effective in their use of astrology -- no matter what their capabilities are or how long they have dabbled in astrology.

I don't want my opinions to hurt others, but at the same time I want those who are starting their astrological studies to avoid the pitfalls of popular magazine-level astrology. This is a wonderful exploration for one to take up but it requires discipline, persistence and lots of work. Dave.

The way I first head it described was that Planets were nouns, Signs were verb-adjectives, and Houses were prepositions. Aspects then become the punctuation & syntax.

Or another way of looking at it.

If your life was one fantasmic play or movie...

The planets would be the actors, the sign's they're in would be their character arcs, the houses they appear in are their scenes and the aspects when interwoven together, make up the entire plot