Sun, Moon and Earth in Astrology
By Sam Geppi
The moment you were placed on the wheel of time shows your incarnation, the incarnation of a soul. The way to look at it is very much like the ocean. There is a metaphor of the ocean and the waves.
Our life is like a wave, but we are connected to the ocean; we are actually the ocean. In totality, we are the ocean of light which is the soul. But let us say it is a watery ocean and its lifetime in the body is like a wave. The body is born as a wave. Then the wave rises to its height in our life and then starts to crash and fall and eventually disappears back into the ocean. Our life is like this.
Astrologically speaking, the physical life we look at from the ascendant (the rising sign – the earth). It has to do with identity in this lifetime – our individual identity – our truthful identity as a separate creature. Not the ego, but the authentic being in this lifetime. Experience and action is what forms our true identity as a living being. We are here with a form to take action – Karma. The first house / rising sign is the sphere of action.
In this case and for this reason, the first house is a house of Dharma, a house of wisdom, because our experience is our wisdom. What we have experienced is all we truly know. This whole matrix of experience through the body in form, in this lifetime is shown by the ascendant.
We have a lot of ideas about why we are here. We have a lot of feelings and emotions about our actions and self. These feelings come from the moon. These feelings and emotions are there trying to integrate the limited sphere of action toward the infinitude of being that is beyond action: the sun. Astrologically speaking, the Moon (heart) is trying to lead the body (ascendant) back to the sun (the supreme Self).
The ascendant is our incarnation in this lifetime, the physical body, how it looks and our individual identity, our experiences. The sun is another sphere of identity, the supreme self, (called the Paramatman in Yoga) which is non localized, non experiential, non physical, not confined by the realm of time. The universal being within which is non localized, that doesn’t have to be in a body in order to BE consciousness and presence, is the sun.
But it is not OUR eternal being. It is not something separate. It is the oneness of ALL. There is only one sun, the Paramatman. The supreme self is the same self in all. It is the same being and presence that is in you, me and everyone. There is only ONE of them. Just like there is only one sun, but it may be seen and reflected in many pots of water set outside.
