Every year the ingress of the Sun into Libra marks the descent of light into balance and measure. At the equinox, day and night weigh equal upon the scales of the sky. But the same Libra that proclaims equilibrium is also the place of the solar fall. In Leo the Sun is exalted in its own palace of fire. In Libra it declines into the western horizon, where the day ends and the shadows advance. The Fathers of astrology saw in this place a figure of the king stripped of his own crown, the centre of order weakened at the very point of judgment.
This year the fall is marked with greater gravity. On the eve of the ingress the Sun was eclipsed in the final, anaretic degree of Virgo, carrying the weight of dissolution. The eclipse happened in the sixth house of the zodiac, the region of labour and misfortune, a house described as cadent, silent. At the same moment, the Sun opposed Saturn retrograde in Pisces, the cold star that measures and binds all living things. Saturn stood upon his own bound, ruler of decay and necessity. The radiant centre was eclipsed at the end of mutable earth, bound by the cold judge from across the circle.
The Sun entered Libra carrying this wound. Libra is the house of Venus, but Venus herself is in Virgo, where she falls too. Thus the ruler of Libra appears weak and cannot lift the condition of a wounded Sun. The king walks into his demise with a faint torch, guided by a planet that herself mourns in the fields of the virgin. Saturn, lord of this initial bound of Libra, takes the reins again, so that the Sun falls under a triple weight: the eclipse in the anaretic degree, the fall into Libra, the weakness of its Queen.
The symbolism of the Descendant reinforces the same pattern. The Sun in Libra is in the western gate, the place of setting. The light bends toward disappearance. The Logos, so often tied with clarity and uprightness, now bends under the heaviness of Saturn. The very element of Fire withdraws from the firmament too. At this season, no planet lights the fiery signs, save Neptune retrograde in Aries, and even that light declines, retreating toward Pisces. The sky is watery and airy, dissolving flame into mist. Only in early November will Mars cross into Sagittarius to ignite a new spark. Until then, the heavens are dim, lacking ardour.
The Sun will face another opposition tomorrow, as Neptune stands across the circle in Aries. The meeting of these two speaks of a veil, the solar clarity clouded by the waters of illusion, the centre opposed by the boundless sea. The Sun is also forming trines with Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius. These are planets of depth and upheaval, both retrograde, signalling that even the harmonies of aspect draw the Sun into dialogue with powers of disruption rather than with benefic light.
During the weeks ahead the Sun travels through Libra with little support. The first sign of relief comes only when Venus herself enters in Libra on October 13. Then, at last, the Sun may receive some grace from its ruler restored to dignity. Five days later, a square with Jupiter exalted in Cancer will mark the closing of the transit. The Sun will then confront the great benefic in a sign of watery exaltation, a contest between royal light diminished and lunar fecundity magnified.
Such configurations are omens, mirrors of reality. The Sun fallen reveals the fragility of human strength. It is a reminder that the centre of will cannot always dominate the wheel of fate. The eclipse at the gate between Virgo and Libra shows the Logos wounded. Saturn opposing from Pisces weighs the radiance against the judgement of time. The lack of Fire in the sky reminds the soul that the world sometimes enters cycles of obscurity where clarity is deferred.
When the visible Sun is eclipsed and falls into Libra, the symbol opens upon the same mystery. The Logos enters the house of decline and learns the measure of weakness. But the fall itself is a teaching. It is by descent that resurrection is prepared. The Christ passes through Gethsemane and Golgotha before the dawn of Easter. The cosmos inscribes the same rhythm each autumn. The king must fall in order to rise.
This season, then, is not empty of purpose. It is a time of balance, of reckoning, of shadow. The Sun fallen in Libra shows the face of mortality. The wound of the eclipse testifies that the world is bound to time and tribulation. But, within the silence of such configurations, lies the promise of hidden fire. Even in decline, the Sun carries the seed of light, waiting to ascend again in the arc of the year.
To interpret the heavens, this cardinal reading was made at the exact moment when the Sun entered Libra, with sage incense burning, and the prior reading of Galatians 5:1–10, in honour also of Archangel Michael, the great solar protector.
I. North – What Ancient Fidelity Is Revealed Through The Wounded Sun In Its Fall?
The North is sealed by the Page of Cups, the child of water in the world of Assiah. This carries the image of innocence and vulnerability, but also the power of first devotion. It speaks of a fidelity not made with words but with the beating of the heart. In the cardinal direction of the North, this page announces that the wound of the Sun in Libra awakens a hidden covenant carried in the depth of the soul.
The water of Assiah is dense and earthly, not exalted or subtle, but it reveals where the heart has been bound across time. The Page does not yet know doctrine; he only knows the gesture of offering his cup. The question placed at the North finds its answer in the recognition of a pact with the Spirit that has always preceded the conscious mind. The eclipse upon the anaretic degree of Virgo has stirred this foundation. What rises now is a memory of the covenant that was once made between flesh and Logos. The Page of Cups reminds that the page ought to be remembered.
II. South – How Does This Eclipse And Ingress Into Libra Challenge The Spiritual Function Now Demanded?
At the South shines the Sun itself, in the form of the eighteenth major arcana. Few symbols could be more exact. This is the path of Resh, the head, the face that shines, placed between Hod and Yesod. It joins the angelic choir of Raphael with the one of Gabriel, the mercurial and the lunar spheres, thought and imagination, word and dream.
The eclipse has wounded the solar light, but, in the place of the mission, the Sun here appears again, showing that the work must be purified. The arcana speaks of a new birth of light through the union of intelligence and vision. Hod refines, Yesod receives, and between them the Sun radiates as a sign of clarity in the midst of shadow. The sky now lacks fire, but the inner Light is demanded with greater intensity. The path of Resh is also the path of resurrection, the image of the Sun rising after decline.
The task is to bring this wounded Sun into function, allowing the spiritual work to be born not from strength but from transparency. The mission is to shine in weakness, to illumine without arrogance, to carry Light into a season of balance and judgment.
III. West – What Reflection Or Confrontation Appears Through The Other At This Time?
At the West rests the Four of Cups, Chesed in Briah. Again the waters rise, now in the higher world of creation, where the heart is tested in its generosity. The Four speaks of stability and weariness, a cup that is offered but yet not taken, a Grace that risks being refused. The card reveals that the confrontation with the Other comes through reflection, through the way others respond to the cup we extend. Sometimes it is received, sometimes ignored. This is not a sign of rejection but a test of whether the heart of Tifereth can remain open. Chesed in Briah teaches that generosity must not be withdrawn when the world turns silent and dark. The solar wound in Libra finds healing only when the cup is still offered, even when it appears to fall into emptiness. The lesson is that the wound of the Sun must be shared, not hidden, since Grace flows most strongly when it is given without measure.
IV. East – What Spiritual Gesture Must Be Embodied In This Time Of Solar Decline?
At the East stands Death, the thirteenth arcana upon the path of Nun. This ties Netzach and Tifereth, the Venusian choir of Haniel with the Solar choir of Michael. Nun means fish, a creature that swims in the dark waters of mystery, sign of the hidden life in the depths. Death here is the gesture of surrender to the Spirit.
On the Ascendant, this card shows what the body must enact. The gesture is one of transformation, of letting what has completed its cycle fall into dissolution of shadow, so that the conduit may be made clear for the Spirit. Netzach pours beauty and desire, Tifereth is the heart of the Tree, and between them Death carves the passage. The eclipse has cut the Sun; now Death continues the work, stripping the false, the spent, the forms that no longer serve. The body itself is asked to live this gesture, to embody surrender, to walk as a vessel that is emptied in order to be filled anew.
It is not without weight that Death rises again at the East. Within the three most recent liturgies, it has appeared twice upon the Ascendant, days ago at the entry of Mercury into Libra and now at the entry of the Sun in the same sign. This repetition testifies that the gesture of Nun, the passage between Venus and the Solar heart, must be enacted in the body with insistence. The East, where life is clothed in form, demands the same arcanum again, so that the soul may not forget that transformation is not a single act but a continual offering.
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