Sun in the signs

What Sun means

In a natal chart the Sun stands for the centre of a person: the will, the sense of “I”, the vitality that keeps you going and the direction you grow in over a lifetime. Older astrologers linked it to the heart, to fathers and to whoever holds authority; modern ones add purpose and creative self-expression. The Moon describes what you need and the rising sign how you meet the world. The Sun describes what you are becoming.

The Sun spends about 30 days in each sign and passes through all twelve in a year. Everyone born in roughly the same four weeks shares your Sun sign, so the sign on its own can only say so much. Two people with the Sun in Leo will live it differently depending on the house it falls in, the aspects it makes and where the Moon and the other planets sit. What the sign gives the Sun is a manner: hasty or patient, private or public, practical or visionary.

Each sign also carries a traditional dignity, or none. The Sun is at home in Leo, exalted in Aries, in detriment in Aquarius and in fall in Libra, and the pages below explain what that means in daily life. Because the Sun changes sign at a slightly different moment each year, anyone born near the edge of a sign needs their exact birth date (and, right on the cusp, the birth time) to know which sign it was really in.