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In her very private, private life as Princess of Monaco she was famous for her dedicated work (Scorpio) for numerous charities and good causes (Pisces). Details of her closely guarded emotional life are only now beginning to emerge, but these suggest that this was vastly more complex and tangled than her outward, almost chilly Scorpio self-assurance would have suggested, and that she had an intermittent drink problem.
Bela Lugosi
Lugosi is one of the many actors that this combination seems to produce, but more significant is the kind of parts he played. Like Grace Kelly he is associated with suspense thrillers in particular and with menacing, Dracula-type roles which appeal to, and evoke, the darker (Scorpio) aspects of the imagination (Pisces).
Like others of this combination, Lugosi was tempted by the enchanting Piscean world of drugs and the sense of self-transcendence and emotional release they can bring. Equally typical of this type, however, he successfully fought his addiction and, with typical Scorpionic powers of regeneration, regained his creative equilibrium.
Martin Scorsese
The films of this highly imaginative (Pisces) cinema director focus upon the darkest aspects of male aggression and violence (Scorpio) and a preoccupation with sexual inequality. Typical of his work is Taxi Driver with its nightmarish Scorpio – Pisces vision of New York as an open sewer spewing forth pimps, whores, addicts and criminals.
Equally expressive of the mixture of social concern (Pisces) and personal struggles (Scorpio) is Scorsese’s melodramatic Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, in which a newly-widowed woman tries to cope with economic survival and create a new life for herself and her 12-year-old son. The very title of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ combines Scorpio, which rules temptation, and Christ, whose symbol was the fish, into one image. Indeed, on the highest level, one could say that the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ is the ultimate symbolic image for this combination which can plumb the depths and heights of human experience.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The themes and characters in Stevenson’s writings constantly reflect the contrasting dark, passionate approach of Scorpio with its fascination with the problem of evil, and the gentle, imaginative, lyrical qualities of Pisces. This contrast is most explicit in the split personality who is both the dedicated Dr Jekyll and the murderous Mr Hyde. People who are strong Water types are very much in touch with their dream life, so it is fascinating to note that the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to Stevenson in a nightmare. He spent the next three days in a state of feverish creativity, writing down this 30,000-word story that so captures the essence of the Scorpio – Pisces split between passion and compassion, and between savagery and civilization. This incident is also a classic expression of the creative power of the inner connection of Sun and Moon, which can come about between sleeping and waking.
This same splitting and marrying of tough and tender is present in Stevenson’s kindly, caring, yet utterly villainous Long John Silver in the romantic thriller Treasure Island. For all his wickedness (Scorpio), he still evokes our compassion (Pisces). Likewise we can contrast Stevenson’s wild Scorpionic study in evil of The Master of Ballantrae with his superbly Piscean recollections of childhood of his Child’s Garden of Verse.
William Cullen Bryant
The majestic writings of this poet and lawyer speak volumes of the power of Scorpio combined with the lyric sensitivity of Pisces. His dedicated anti-slavery campaigning is typical of the resolute commitment and compassion of this type.
Alexander Alekhine
Chess is a classic Scorpio – Pisces war game. It involves Pisces strategy and Scorpio plotting, Pisces subterfuge and Scorpio unexpected attack. Alekhine was not only one of the greatest of all chess players, he was passionately addicted to the game and its strategies, just as he also became passionately addicted to alcohol. When his drinking lost him his world title he, like Bela Lugosi, picked himself up from his addiction and made an astonishing comeback from his self-destructive drinking (Pisces) through his sheer determination and applied willpower (Scorpio).
Marie Curie
In the area of science, few life stories appeal to the imagination as much as that of Nobel Prize-winning Marie Curie. Her research against fearful odds into the secrets of radioactivity and its application in radiology, carried out with her husband Pierre, was typically Scorpionic in its intensity and dedication. At the same time her classic Pisces concern for the suffering of others led her, during the first world war, to equip ambulances with X-ray equipment and then personally drive them to the front so that she could help diagnose and care for wounded soldiers. So it was that one of the world’s great scientists also became head of the radiology services for the Red Cross, a superb creative synthesis of these two different impulses.
Summary
From the above you can see how these lives illustrate the range of expression of this combination which, whilst often very different in terms of their occupation and detail, still reflect the underlying principles of these signs. If you want to obtain further pointers to your own inner dynamic, we would encourage you to study the lives of those born with your own combination.
If you come up with additional observations and insights about any of the types, we would be happy to hear from you. All material used will be acknowledged in future editions of this book and/or our further publications.
OTHER ASTROLOGICAL FACTORS
The sign position of your Sun and Moon are of great importance in understanding your central psychology. When it comes to refining your understanding of your Sun and Moon, your Ascendant sign and the position of your Sun and Moon in the 12 ‘houses’ of the chart are also very significant. Interpretation of these is outside the scope of this book. The Ascendant and the houses are determined by the time of birth. Each house focuses on a different area of life and has qualities not unlike the signs. Regardless of your Sun sign, if you were born at sunrise, with Sun in the first house, you will have some of the self-centred qualities of Aries. On the other hand, if you were born in the hour or so after sunset, your Sun will have some of the Virgo qualities of the desire to be of service and to develop special skills.
The other important factors that will modify the basic interpretations given in these pages are the aspects made to the Sun and Moon by the planets. If you have your Sun or Moon in close aspect to Saturn, it adds a Capricorn overtone. Likewise, if one of the lights aspects Jupiter it will add jovial qualities, and so on.
For your further exploration of these and other factors, a short list of recommended astrology books is given on page 567. Of these, Grant Lewi’s Heaven Knows What contains the classic pioneering texts on Sun – Moon combinations, whilst Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas’ The Luminaries is an invaluable study of the deeper psychologies of the Sun and Moon, and is especially recommended for those who want to obtain an in-depth understanding of these life principles.
Chapter Two SUN AND MOON: THE LIGHTS OF OUR LIFE (#ulink_c1784a0f-8052-54f4-a195-4027625c7ad2)
As different as night and day.
The greater your understanding of what the Sun and Moon represent within you, the more valuable and interesting you will find the Sun – Moon profiles given in this book. This chapter looks in more detail at the significance of each of these ‘lights’ or luminaries, as astrologers call them.
We all have different sides to our personality. These different aspects of ourselves are not always in agreement with one another. The two most central and important parts of our nature are represented astrologically by the Sun and the Moon. We can think of these as rather like our masculine and feminine approaches to life that we learned from our father and mother (or those who acted as our parents). For to an astrologer, regardless of our sex, we all have both male and female dimensions to our nature. The central purpose of this book is to show something of the main issues involved with each of the different types of Sun and Moon zodiacal combinations. Equally, it is to show what can happen when we really become aware of these two sides and begin to work – and live – more wholeheartedly with them.
BUT WHY SUN AND MOON?
When we talk about the Sun we are essentially referring to our conscious, focused, ‘thinking’ level which we use to make decisions and move about purposefully in the world. By contrast, when we talk about the Moon we refer to our spontaneous, natural, receptive, ‘feeling’ level, and the way we seek and give nourishment and comfort to ourselves and to others. So far so good. But what, we may ask, have the Sun and Moon out there got to do with what is going on within us down here?
The ancient wisdom, of which astrology is an important part, had no problem with this question. The ancients saw no real separation between man and the cosmos. Their central dictum was ‘As Above, So Below’. In other words, they saw that all things are the product and reflection of the same Creator, that ‘all things are made in the image of the One’. This idea may at first sound very strange to modern ears, but, as those who have seen the film Jurassic Park will know, this idea is still central to contemporary scientific thought. For we now know that the instructions for making the whole body are given in the DNA of every body cell.
Just as one cell can tell us about the whole body, so likewise the ancients argued that what we see Above, in the heavens, will be reflected down here, Below, on Earth. Or, put another way, what we see in the macrocosm, the larger whole, will be reflected in the microcosm, the smaller whole. Science is increasingly corroborating this premise through discoveries about the ‘inter-connectedness of all life’, which has given rise to the now universally accepted idea that the ecological balance in nature, when disturbed by man’s greedy interferences, threatens our survival.
The Sun and Moon are certainly the most prominent features of the heavens; they illuminate our distinctive but complementary worlds of day and night. This being the case, we can argue that all things will contain an equivalent Sun and Moon within them. So this means that the ideas of the Sun and Moon are to be found at work within all organisms. And, just as the DNA we see under a microscope looks nothing like the cells, tissues and organs that it can become, so the Sun and Moon take on different forms in different entities. In other words, no-one would mistake a chicken for an egg, or an acorn for an oak. They look totally different. Yet we know in fact that chicken and egg, acorn and oak are rather intimately related to each other.
Astrology is a larger expression of this same chicken and egg metaphor. The ancients saw that if Above and Below are reflections of each other, then all things must contain the same essential ingredients. (But as to the perennial question – what came first, the chicken or the egg? – that discusson belongs in another book!)
To the ancients the Sun and Moon were the gods who illuminated and ruled over the starkly contrasting worlds of day and night. So by analogy the same gods are seen to dwell within us, illuminating our own days and nights, our own minds and hearts. The Sun, which lights our days, represents the state within us of being wide awake. This ‘noonday’ level of consciousness enables us to be deliberately conscious, focused and attentive. In this state we know ourselves as separate, alert individuals, attempting to make our way heroically in the world, even though we may wonder why we sometimes bungle it so badly. Nevertheless, we consciously keep trying.
In terms of recent research on the brain, the Sun relates to that level of consciousness which is traditionally associated with a masculine approach to life: the left brain’s activities of reasoning, manipulating objects and numbers; the ability to think in three dimensions, to orient oneself, to plan, organize and pursue specific goals.
The Moon, by contrast, represents the feminine level of our personality. The ancients knew that the Moon ruled the world of night and the mystery of the unconscious, of dreams, imagination and the ebb and flow of our emotional needs, responses and sympathies. At this level we are in the realm of the feminine and all matters related to the right hemisphere of the brain, such as sensitivity to sights, sounds, smells; verbal fluency; and interest in people and relationships. The Moon is our connection with the larger world of what some would call Soul, that principle by which we are connected through body and feeling to all life. The Moon is our ability to respond to our own needs and to the needs of others for nourishment, protection and affection.
To put it on a postcard, we could say that the Sun shows our more individual side and what we are like when we make wide-awake, conscious decisions about our life, what interests us and where we are going. Whereas the Moon shows our natural, gut-level, instinctive response to life, our emotional needs and our approach to looking after ourselves and the needs of others. And the vital thing to remember is that, whether we are male or female, we each have both Sun and Moon sides to our nature. To clarify further what these two different sides actually mean for us in real life, let us look at some real-life situations.
THE SUN AND MOON IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Imagine you are at a party. At most parties the aim is to make everyone feel at ease and sociable and, without realizing it, more in touch with their Moon level. Hence, parties are usually held in the evening, as the Sun is setting or has set, and the time of carousing begins. Nourishment is provided – plenty of food, drink, music and probably soft, muted lighting. These are all lunar things which encourage us to feel relaxed, more intimate, and in touch with our spontaneous feelings, or in other words our Moon side.
Now, imagine that you have had a bit too much to drink and you are drifting along with the mood, and are generally a bit ‘out of your head’. Suddenly someone behind you drops a glass which smashes on the floor. As this happens you find yourself ‘pulling yourself together’ and ‘getting back into your head’. You may shake yourself and blink your eyes so as to ‘wake up’ and be able to size up the situation and take appropriate action, such as stopping people stepping on the broken glass, or helping mop up the spilt drink. If the situation is potentially dangerous you may actually turn up the lights to ‘shed more light on things’.
This scene illustrates a shift of consciousness from the relaxed, cosy, soft-lit Moon level, to the more purposeful, bright-lit, focused, decision-making level of the Sun. Indeed, whenever you hear someone saying ‘pull yourself together’, you are hearing the instruction ‘move from your Moon level (where you have become over-identified with your feelings and emotional responses) into your Sun level (where you can have more conscious, decisive control of what is happening to you)’. If, while you are reading this, you take a moment out to say ‘pull yourself together’, you will probably find that as you do this you will pull your shoulders back and straighten up your spine. You are, as it were, taking possession of your body or, as we say, ‘becoming more self-possessed’. It is interesting to note that, astrologically, your back and spine are ruled by Leo, the Sun’s natural sign. So when we say of someone who is weak-willed that they are ‘spineless’ or ‘lacking backbone’ we are suggesting that they are lacking solar qualities.
To give another example of the way we switch levels in daily life – imagine you have just had a serious talk with your bank manager about your overdraft. With good Sun-level conviction you have assured him or her that you are working hard to get your debts paid off. Outside the bank you meet an old friend. You start talking and soon you are deep in the lunar world of your mutual memories and shared experiences. Then out of the corner of your eye you see the bank manager coming down the street. Immediately you recognize that you are ‘wasting time’. You straighten your back, ‘pull yourself together’ and briskly ‘go about your business’, back into your Sun level again. For most people such shifts of consciousness occur repeatedly throughout the day. With a bit of deliberate self-awareness you can catch yourself shifting between these levels.
We most obviously experience this shift when we wake in the morning from the lunar world of dreams. We gradually become conscious that it is time to get up and that there are things that have to be done. The more important the things are that have to be done, the more quickly we are likely to wake up and get going. (Indeed when there is a ‘big day’ ahead some people find it very difficult to surrender to the Moon level and her healing sleep.) This shift of consciousness represented by waking up is, for most people, normally around dawn as the Sun is beginning to rise in the sky. With sunrise, our own consciousness begins to rise, and we gradually leave the world of lunar unconsciousness behind.
Each of these cases illustrates the very normal process of moving our centre of consciousness from a responsive, reactive Moon mode to a purposeful, decision-making Sun mode, or vice versa. Each level serves an important purpose in our natures; each has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own desires and aspirations, and each will tend to pursue its own interests irrespective of the other. This is why so many people find that they are in conflict with themselves. One side pulls us one way, the other side pulls another. When this happens, we feel inclined to ask ‘Which is the real me?’
The answer, of course, is both. Ideally we need to be more aware of both, and to be more adept at recognizing when one is dominating to the detriment of the other. Indeed, as we shall see, the more we can accept, understand, and work with both these Sun and Moon levels, the more we will move towards that ‘inner marriage’ of the lord and lady within us, of which the great alchemists and philosophers have always spoken. We are this inner marriage all the time; there is no hard and fast separation of these modes in the way we actually live our lives. But is it a good marriage, or does one side feel like divorcing the other all too often?
You will find some of the ideas associated with Sun and Moon listed on the next page.
Some Ideas Associated with the Sun and Moon
Table 1. The Sun and Moon can be seen to correspond to two very different ways of relating to the world. We each use both. When either is overemphasized, there is an imbalance. When both are used together (see Table 2), we can become increasingly vital and creative.
GETTING IT TOGETHER – THE KEY TO CREATIVITY
When our conscious, masculine side is at war with our feeling, feminine side, our life can become an endless struggle between what we feel we need to do and what we think we ought to do – like a child living with constantly arguing parents. This can lead to a perplexing sort of self-sabotage which trips us up at the crucial moment. Indeed, we say of some people that ‘their left hand does not know what their right hand is doing’. As we have seen above, this is just another way of saying that our left-brain, conscious, Sun side does not know what our right-brain, unconscious, Moon side is on about.
But experience shows that the more these two sides can be brought into contact with each other to form an inner dialogue, the more whole, fulfilled and creative our life becomes. In fact, there are times when these two aspects of ourselves do come together. As we wake we may remember a dream we have had. Dreams speak from our lunar side. By training our solar side deliberately to remember our dreams, we can learn to listen consciously to our unconscious. Working with dreams in this way gradually brings the conscious and unconscious mind first into a recognition of, and eventually into a dialogue with, each other.
FALLING IN LOVE – WITH YOURSELF
The experience of falling in love is a good metaphor for what happens when the masculine and feminine, the Sun and the Moon, begin to work more harmoniously within us. As anyone who has ever been in love will know, when we are in love everything seems possible. The world is beautiful and life is good. The bliss of being released to life’s magic through falling in love can even become addictive. It makes us feel alive and, even more important, it makes us feel creative.
It is a notable fact that, even in puritanical periods of history, the affairs and infidelities of the creative artist tend to be accepted. In some way, we admit that strongly creative people, be they artists, musicians, poets, politicians, entrepreneurs, indeed philosophers, are in the business of finding their inner wholeness. As such, it is recognized by society, albeit unconsciously, that deep emotional experience and experimentation is for such people the essence of their life.
Everyone loves a lover. This is because their love reawakens our own capacity for love, and we are reminded that we, too, are alive and potentially creative. A loving relationship can be an immensely powerful outer trigger to our own inner creativity. This is because falling in love connects us with both our Sun and Moon energies and, at least temporarily, creates a state of inner ‘alchemical marriage’.
This inner fusion and creativity can, however, take place at any time if we encourage it and give both sides enough space to develop in conjunction with each other. It is probably no coincidence that Leonardo da Vinci, who was a great scientist as well as a great artist, was ambidextrous and could actually write different messages with each hand simultaneously. In other words, Leonardo had equal access to his conscious, purposeful, scientific-orientated left brain (through his right hand), and to his poetic, artistic right brain (through his left hand). Although very few of us are ambidextrous, this inner marriage is something that can happen to all of us. Having tasted it once, it gets easier and easier.
We hope the profiles in this book will help you to recognize some of the main qualities of the central Sun – Moon polarity within you, something of its conflicts and something of its creative magic. The more conscious you can become of the issues in your own Sun – Moon polarity, the more will your left hand be able to shake your right hand, and the more you will be able to get your act together and move towards a greater level of vital wholeness and harmony.
Table 2 offers some images for the resolution of the Sun and Moon, which show how much more valuable it is when we have the Sun and Moon working together. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango, and this is also true for the individual personality. Happy dancing!
The Middle Way – Working with Both Sun and Moon
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