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How to Use Sabian Symbols

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The Sun

The Sun’s Sabian Degree

This is where we usually start – straight to the deepest secret without preamble or pause! Yet one of the first things to learn about these mysteries is their subtlety. This is not prescriptive ‘cook book’ astrology. We will never be told what the deepest secret really is because we have to work it out for ourselves. This means we have to come at it slowly, repeatedly, meditatively, with the willingness to learn something totally new about our identity and personality, and therefore release our stubborn attachment to who we have always thought we were.

First and foremost – what does the Sun’s position mean? What does the horoscope’s Sun actually symbolise? If we come to know the answer to this question, the other things are of secondary importance; sign, house, Sabian Symbol and aspects are all secondary questions compared to the primary one – what part of my character does the Sun point to?

Look up at the daytime sky and try to keep your eyes on the Sun for even a few seconds. Then you might get some idea of what the Zodiac Sun actually points to. If we were able to claim fully the Sun’s meaning then we would become unimaginably powerful and life-bringing. To move towards the full, embodied realisation of our Sun’s Sabian Symbol is to move towards that aspect of self – the absolute, undeniable, powerful Spirit of Life.

The Sabian Symbol for the Sun shows you not who you think you are, nor even who you really are in any limited, dull or measured way. It shows you the path you have to walk if you choose to become phenomenally awesome.

Each of the Symbols is a path. To some extent the track has been identified and cleared for us – by Elsie Wheeler’s images and the words of Jones and Rudhyar as well as the serious attempts of later students to interpret them personally. Yet to an even greater extent the path is evolving and must be improved, clarified and extended into new territory by our own yearning to know who we can become.

Example – the author’s Sun position is Taurus 16

​An old man attempting vainly to reveal the mysteries

All my life I have tried to explain how I see the world and what life means for me. I have never once felt that anyone gets very close to understanding it all the way I see it. I’ve been teaching since I was a schoolboy helping my friends with their homework. As an adult I eventually became a teacher of Astrology, Meditation and Sacred Dance – yet always felt immense frustration because I couldn’t make myself understood. I so yearn to find someone to talk to who actually gets me and my strange ideas.

My Sabian Degree, according to Jones, seemed to condemn me to a lifetime of frustration. Yet I studied it repeatedly and also looked into Rudhyar’s take on it – Creative Frustration – and saw a glimmer of hope, which started me on a new direction on my journey of self-discovery. 

The secret that I needed to unveil was this: that I have been subjected to a long process that has obscured who I really am; I’ve been bullied and lied to, made frightened and too timid to shine enough to proclaim myself. I must not accept the wisdom of old but find new ways to communicate my feelings and ideas. This is my Sabian Degree’s true meaning – a path of overcoming frustration with new creative ideas.

Like all of them, the wisdom is universally applicable; it’s just more central and poignant for me than for other people. This example is typical of what the Sabians can offer us in response to a serious attitude of study. They are mysteries, therefore mysterious and not easily accessible, yet they can trigger within us the recognition of who we are and what we need to do differently in order to claim our proper place in the world.