Using the Sun for Shadow Work
The sun is the source of power in astrology and in life. Without the sun, there is no life. If the sun exploded or stopped shining, everything would die quickly. With all of our modern sophistication, it’s amazing how most people do not remember this simple fact.
It is the qualities of the sun in our birth chart that show how to access our personal strength and power. Through the prism of the ego, the infinite light of the sun gets filtered, leaving parts of our psyche in darkness. Once we live a more examined life, our inner sun illuminates the dark corners of our soul. Once illuminated, these darker parts of ourselves become resurrected.
There’s a classical yoga story that illustrates this point. It is the story of the snake and the rope. In darkness, a coiled rope may appear to be a snake. If we encounter this coiled rope, we may react as if we have seen a snake by fearfully jumping out of the way, with our heartbeat racing. At that moment, the rope IS a snake. Yet, if we use a flashlight and shine it on the coiled rope, all our symptoms disappear and we realize the truth.. Nothing more needs to be done.
The appearance of light removes darkness, and magically our imagined symptoms disappear. Once we see the truth, we don’t forget. After we realize that the coiled rope is not a snake, we don’t then forget this and react in fear again after we turn the flashlight off. We remember, and if we are smart, that experience changes us and gives us insight into our illusory perceptions.
This is the nature of the sun, to separate us from the darker parts of our being. The sun refers to the greatest possibility we have, the possibility of enlightenment. Yet it requires enormous sacrifice, in fact, the ultimate sacrifice. What is that sacrifice? It requires us to sacrifice those familiar shadows of self that we hang onto, those shadows of the ego that give us a sense of worldly identity.
It’s frightening to live with full power and clarity. This requires us to take responsibility for ourselves and our future instead of blaming those who hurt us in the past.. As long as we are still a victim, living in the past, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes, marching under our negative programming.
The sun symbolizes what we are progressing towards and our sincere ambition to attain self-actualization. That self actualization begins with reclaiming the reins of personal strength, power, and integrity.
