In prior posts, I’ve investigated several different ways of astrologically identifying your past and future karma using invaluable information gained by attending workshops/retreats lead by Judy Hall many years ago.
As you might expect, the placement of both your Sun and Moon are key to your karmic journey, as are the nodes (covered in a prior post ) which map the interaction between the Sun and the Moon as they cross each other’s orbital path (or apparent path) around the Earth. As also noted in an earlier post, the Moon acts almost like the South Node in that it symbolises deeply engrained and almost always unconscious patterns of thoughts and behaviours.
The Sun – Who are you?
By contrast, the placement of your natal Sun (by sign and house) suggests not only what you are meant to develop during this incarnation but also answers the all-important question of ‘who am I’.[1]
Personally, I believe that the messages of both the Sun and Moon are easier to grasp than those of our nodal placement because more often than not, the Sun and Moon plays out in our incarnational families – i.e. our mother and father or other important mother/father figures in our lives.[2]
| Sun Sign | Karmic Task | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Aries | Developing personal will | In prior lives may have suffered either from inertia or from an excess of personal will. Now the focus is on finding moderation in interactions with others – you don’t always need to be the leader but equally, you cannot cave in. Learn the gentle art of persuasion and designing a workable win/win situation. |
| Taurus | Learning to live comfortably in your body with sense of organic relatedness to the world around you. | In prior lives, you may have sought security in material things – like King Midas, you wanted more and more gold until mired in your greed, literally it may have killed, you. Now, you not only need to learn the benefits of slow and steady wins the race but also that security comes not from what you ‘own’ but instead from an unassailable sense of self-worth. |
| Gemini | Expressing self with careful attendance to what is and is not truth. | In prior lives you might have been a gossip, or worse recklessly spreading lies to bolster own self worth. Now, you need to time for careful reflection before choosing to open your mouth. Loose lips do indeed, sink ships. |
| Cancer | Learn healthy vulnerability | In prior lives, you might have found security in the emotional bonds formed with others and as a result, even when it was high time, you struggled to let them go. Now, you must develop the ability to be empathetic (putting yourself into another’s shoes to understand how they feel) rather than to be sympathetic (feeling the way another does). The first promotes understanding but the later, codependence. Easy to make the distinction on paper but not in practice. |
| Leo | Learning that power flows through you not from you. | In prior lives, you were likely arrogant in that when you used your special powers to make others feel better, they ought to be indebted in some way. Now, you need to appreciate that in his/her own way, everyone is just as special as are you. If you do them a favour, let it come from your heart and not your ego. |
| Virgo | Learn moderation | In prior lives, you may have wanted everyone and everything to be perfect, in its proper place all the time. This was unrealistic and often the cause of disease – i.e. dis-ease – or failing to be at ease with anything that met up to your exacting standards. Now, you need to learn to strive for the perfection you love but when it fails to be achieved, live and let live: each has his/her own path and that path is not yours. |
| Libra | Learn not to lose yourself in your relationships. | In prior lives, you likely sat on the fence – unable to take a decision least it piss off someone. What’s worse, is that it was all too easy to see how that could happen – there are always multiple sides to every story. Now, you need to get off the fence and take a stand, even though it won’t make everyone happy. Take time out to get in touch with your own story before you jump into intertwining it with the stories of others. |
| Scorpio | Reclaim your shadows, the various parts of yourself that you’ve left behind elsewhere. | In prior lives, you likely took long walks on the ‘dark side’ and in the process, learned some terrible lessons about the true nature of mankind. Now, it’s time not only to transform you own life so that it serves your highest good, but to use what you’ve learned to help others do the same. |
| Sagittarius | Ask important questions like ‘why am I here’ and ‘why does it matter’ and take the time and effort to answer them completely and honestly. | In prior lives, you were a free spirit who roamed far and wide in each for meaning. However, like Gemini, you may not have made enough effort to understand all that you discovered. Now, you are asked to delve deeper – spirituality is not what organised religion tells you that you need not is searching for your spirituality merely an intellectual exercise. |
| Capricorn | Find stability in your outer life through your own inner life (spirituality) | In prior lives, you likely found stability in life through conforming to societal norms and expectations. Maybe you were a great authority or a political leader. Now, you must turn within and integrate your material and spiritual lives – work to live not live to work. Success is a state of mind not a promotion or a raise. |
| Aquarius | Live authentically and help others to do the same. | In prior lives, you might have been the odd man out, the renegade, rebel without a cause. Fighting for change is an admirable life task as long as you are truly committed to what that change will bring about rather than simply tearing down an existing wall (or law or custom) just because it is there. |
| Pisces | Achieve enlightenment that may help shift collective guilt. | In prior lives, it was all to easy for you to get lost in the needs, wishes, and demands of others and in the process lose yourself. now, you need to learn the art of emotional detachment whilst still remaining loving and concerned. |
Example
On that week-long retreat in Glastonbury in the summer of 2002, we did karmic readings for each other and one morning I was paired with a woman named Rosie, who was much more experienced with this than me. So you can imagine how proud I was when she told me afterwards that I’d given her a healing in a way that she’d not anticipated.
Equally, she gave me an unanticipated healing in helping me to understand how much my father (represented by my Libra Sun in my 4th house) had really helped me in this life, giving me everything that he’d have given to a son, and, perhaps, much more.
It was also helpful to learn that I’d had previous lives where I was the ‘bringer of order and wisdom’ – past lives during the ‘dark ages’ when concepts, such as ‘justice’, were just starting to emerge. All good Libra stuff – apparently coming to me from a much longer tradition (4th house – family karma) than I’d imagined.
All those years ago, I was quite pleased with this revelation because I wasn’t yet familiar with the concept of the Gateways of the Soul, or the Seven Seals of Planets. What I’d failed to appreciate then was that multiple lifetimes as a lawyer probably actually wasn’t a good thing. It’s common for those (like me) who are so pleased with their mastery of the law, to get stuck in the Jupiter chakra rather than levelling up to our Mars chakra. ARGGH!
There’s always something new to learn!
(to be continued)
[1] The idea is that before birth, we are each given a daemon that selects the pattern we are meant to live on earth. Our daemon, or soul, accompanies us into life as the carrier of our true destiny. As the mediating consciousness between body and spirit, soul picks up an emotional charge from our parents at birth such that their hopes, fears, and fantasies become our own.
This is not us, however. It is through desire, attachment, crisis, and struggle that soul transmutes the ‘false self’ and reconnects with our ‘true self – i.e., who am I – so that soul can return ‘home’.
You know that you have lost connection with your soul and ‘true self’ when you feel alienated and lose purpose in life. Reconnection with soul requires more than intellectual understand and gaining control of your emotions. It is through imagination and fantasy (symbolized by Neptune in your chart) that you open your awareness to the sacredness and significance of soul. We nourish soul when our psychological lives reflect the heavens – i.e., our birth charts. For more information see the Soul’s Code by James Hillman (Random House, NY, 1996).
[2] If your Sun and Moon are in harmonious elements and aspects, then your journey during this incarnation will be easier than if they are not. For example, my Moon is in Gemini and my Sun is in Libra – both air – and so harmonious and so able to find common ground. Not surprisingly, my father was a Sun Gemini and my mother, Sun Libra. I could see first hand how these energies played out with my parents.
However someone with Sun in Taurus and Moon in Scorpio will struggle because these signs are in opposition to each other – difficult to find the balance of common ground – think of a see-saw that infrequently is balanced. The rest of the time one is either up or down.
Someone with Sun in Taurus and Moon in Leo will have an even more difficult time – as these signs are in square aspect – think of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Nonetheless, with the Sun and Moon in both square and the opposition with each other, at least there is a connection between the energies with which you can work. But if your Sun is in Taurus and you Moon in Sagittarius or Aries, there is a total disconnect – not only do they form no aspect together, but they share no common ground.
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