Here Comes the Sun: Orienting Life Around Your Sun's Values

Flannery O’Connor once told an audience, “It is the extreme situation that best reveals what we are essentially. The man in the violent situation reveals those qualities least dispensable to his personality.” An astrologer might call those qualities the Sun, the center of gravity in a person’s life that allows him, when faced with life’s most dire moments, to feel centered and sane. Doing right by your Sun is rejuvenating and it’s one of the keys to resilience.

Biographies and memoirs offer ample evidence of the regenerative effect that’s available when someone centers in their Sun’s values. In Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, for example, we see the gravitational pull of his Virgo Sun in the 3rd house as King orients his life (Sun) by practicing the craft (Virgo) of reading and writing (3rd house). But the sun-kissed beneficence of his writing routine becomes most obvious as he describes his recovery from a near-fatal encounter with a van and its reckless driver. As he writes,

“I had been in terrible situations before which the writing had helped me get over—had helped me forget myself for at least a little while. Perhaps it would help me again. It seemed ridiculous to think it might be so, given the level of my pain and physical incapacitation…”

An astrologer might have validated his hunch that, improbable as it seemed, getting back to his regular writing practice would help him recover. It satisfies that Virgo need for meaningful routine and the 3rd house orientation toward language and perception. And indeed, daily writing, in small increments that got longer as he grew stronger, did help.

“On some days that writing is a pretty grim slog. On others—more and more of them as my leg begins to heal and my mind reaccustoms itself to its old routine—I feel that buzz of happiness, that sense of having found the right words and put them in a line… Writing did not save my life—Dr. David Brown’s skill and my wife’s loving care did that—but it has continued to do what it always has done: it makes my life a brighter and more pleasant place.”

Like a sunny day.

So where’s your Sun? What core values form the gravitational center of your life? A look at your Sun’s house and sign will provide insights, as will the significant aspects your Sun makes.