The Sun rules Leo, the sign of the lion. It symbolizes the hero’s or heroine’s journey and our core identity. Leos or persons with the Sun strong in their horoscopes will try to shine brightly. They do not like to be dimmed.

The Sun is on a journey, a mission. Like Apollo’s chariot, which from the perspective of the Earth appeared to course across the sky, the Sun is cyclic destiny.

The Sun symbolizes an inner journey. Liz Greene, in a book she co-wrote with Howard Sasportas, The Luminaries, said that the Sun was the mythic hero with a need to experience life as “special and meaningful.”

Literature abounds with heroes on mythic journeys, and we can see how a character like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, following the Yellow Brick Road, was on a hero’s mission, trying to get back home. Everyone she met became part of her journey and served a greater purpose. Harry Potter is another literary Sun hero, as is Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. Very often, the Sun hero or heroine must break through their own clouds. Hamlet was on a hero’s journey of self-discovery.

The Sun acts before it thinks and in that way is like a child. Its power is to burn away the mists of fear and negativity.

The Sun has a deep need for unifying patterns. It can often see the path of its own destiny by intuitively glimpsing and understanding how seemingly random events in life are connected to a deeper, underlying pattern. It lights the other planets and thus “sees” the unity in the cosmos. The Sun is what enables us to look back on a life of seemingly random, accidental events—a life of seeming serendipity—and see how everything was connected to a hidden destiny that may only become clear in hindsight. Or earlier through the divination of astrology.

The Sun needs to create. It can create through art, writing, drama, or music, or in some other way. The key is that it has to express its own nature. The Sun cannot simply sit back and let others do its work.

The Sun is very faithful. You can count on it rising every day. That’s one thing that made eclipses such disrupters of faith. The Sun is loyal and will stick with someone or some task far beyond the tolerance levels of most. It is the ruler of Leo, which is a fixed sign. The Sun, however, can also be blind in its loyalty—to people, ideas, leaders, goals—with a proud arrogance which will not hear opposing views.

It rules the heart. The Sun in Renaissance astrology was also said to rule a number of plants and herbs which were supposed to dissolve malignant influences. According to the great 17th Century astrologer William Lilly, among the plants ruled by the Sun is Saint John’s Wort, which is now used (especially in Europe) to relieve depression.

In Vedic astrology, the Sun is considered a malefic planet—cruel, actually— because of its scorching heat. The Sun is said to be exalted (at its greatest strength) in Aries and debilitated (weakened) in Libra, where it has to compromise.

Spiritually, it rules the soul.

See online:
The Sun-God and the Astrological Sun, by Liz Greene

Deborah Houlding’s Skyscript website adaptation and annotation of William Lilly’s text on the Sun