Planetary Permutations
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” goes the old proverb. The Chinese version translates as “Enter a village, follow the customs.” For the planets in astrology, the equivalent motto would be something like “When in Libra, act through Libran themes.”
The planets are always themselves and always do what they do, but they don’t always do it in the same style. As each planet transits through the Zodiac, it adapts its manner and focus to the ways of whatever sign it temporarily occupies. Whenever a planet changes signs, we might envision a figure reaching into its wardrobe and changing into a different outfit that’s appropriate to its new field of action.
While a planet occupies a sign, we may observe evidence of its influence in that field. There we may also encounter, or act personally as, agents of that planet. We always have a choice to channel or respond to the planet’s influence wisely or foolishly — that’s up to us.
In this series, we’ll look into each planet’s ‘wardrobe’ to see the style it adopts for each of its 12 regular Zodiacal visits.
What the Sun Does
Sol, the Sun, is the individualizing part of the Fire Element. It’s our unique adult consciousness, with the power to make our own decisions, develop our own talents and ego, and use our abilities to do good in the world. Whatever our chronological age, our inner Sun is eternally youthful and enthusiastic for experience and self-improvement.
In the Zodiac, the Sun rules Leo, the sign of adolescence, during which we experiment with skills and relationships, and begin to discover who we are as individuals. In an astrological chart, Leo’s natural house is the 5th house, the ‘department’ having to do with experiments in life: development of personal talent, courtship, offspring (actual or figurative, as in creative activities), and fun & games of all kinds.
As the astronomical Sun is at the center of our solar system, so the light of the astrological Sun is at the center of each human personality. The Sun always remains at the timeless center of his world, while all the other energies, including Earth, orbit around him in cycles of time. This gives us a clue to what the astrological Sun does in the personality of a human being living on Earth, and why it should be associated with fun & games.
From the central perspective of the Sun (in his world), there is no time and nothing in particular to do. He is a point of awareness, authentically himself. He simply shines! And by extension he plays — just for the sheer fun of being alive. Expressed through an individual, he’s engaged in life and does his best at whatever he does, making a game of finding out how well he can do it. Yet he doesn’t take any of it too seriously, because it’s an experiment after all, and may or may not become something more in his unfolding story.
The Solar Hero of mythology can do everything. He plays music, and practices all kinds of other arts and skills, treating each as a game to enjoy and see how well he can perform. In the same spirit, the Sun in each of us plays like an actor on the Earth stage, the protagonist and hero of our very own story in 12 acts. Here at Elixir, he’s the hero of the cyclical Quest for the Elixir, in a different stage of his journey every month. He’s also the hero whose consciousness develops as he climbs The Mystical Tree.
What ‘games’ does the Sun play? The multi-talented, stationary Sun plays them all simultaneously (and equally well). But the human experiencing earthly seasonal changes plays them one at a time, each in its season. Assuming indoor recreation for simplicity, we can discern 12 classifications of table games, each typical of one of the Zodiac signs. During the month when we’re viewing the Sun through the lens of one of the signs , the Sun cheerfully challenges us to play at life in the style of that sign’s games.
How well can the Sun perform? As well as he can motivate people to channel his spirit. An individual has only to be receptive to the playful bliss of his Solar intuition to bring his unique brand of Sunshine to the Earth.
The Zodiac sign the Sun was in at our birth is a clue to our special talent, and the only factor in our birth chart that we can know from our birthday alone. That’s the one time of the year when we get to be king or queen for a day and celebrate the privilege of being who we are.
See more about the Sun at Pantheon of Colors: Yellow.
The Sun in Transit (cycle is 1 year = 1 month in each sign)
Sol’s apparent annual transit through the Zodiac tells a universal story of human development. As he appears to us in each season, he calls forth aspirations to do our best in its themes by his bright, impressive example.
As the epitome of showmanship and honor, the Sun is both the spotlight and anyone in it. He loves to be in it, and also to shine it on others. Sometimes he reinforces and shows off our best qualities, raising our self-esteem. At other times, when we’re less than satisfied with our performance, he challenges us to improve ourselves in some way.
Whatever outfit Sol may choose from his wardrobe is appropriate to the theme(s) of the month. He dresses for his game, and he dresses to impress. He’ll be sure to check his appearance in the mirror before setting out to light the day. Then he’ll be on his way to play to us, through us, and with us, in many figurative ways, his favorite ‘game’ of the month.
Here’s a list of the game styles our Solar Hero adopts each month, as exemplified in table games, and the places where he plays them on the Quest for the Elixir and The Mystical Tree.
The Sun in Aries: A Game of Blockhead!
Themes of the Month: Birth & Spontaneous Action
Quest for the Elixir: Into the Light
The Mystical Tree and Destiny
Aside from the head being the body part associated with Aries, the Sun in this sign is too impatient for most table games. Wide awake and energetic, he’s on the move and just wants to keep moving as he pleases. The Aries Sun favors games in the skill & action/dexterity category, where he can take exciting risks and get immediate results. On his turn in Blockhead!, he adds a block to a rising tower of blocks that’s bound to collapse at some point. The destruction resulting from a false move doesn’t bother him at all, but strikes him as funny. He tries his skill, laughs if he blunders, and happily moves on to the next thing.
The Sun in Aries especially likes Blockhead! because it’s a short game that’s over quickly. But he can also get a kick out of Operation, Battling Tops, Mousetrap, Carrom, Jenga, and Villa Paletti.
The Sun in Taurus: A Game of Dominoes
Themes of the Month: Production & Value
Quest for the Elixir: Welcome to the Ordinary World
The Mystical Tree and Mother Nature
The reckless games in Aries are appalling to the Sun in Taurus, who takes pleasure in stability, building, beauty, and solid value. In Dominoes he gets to draw from a supply of solid “bones”, “rocks”, or “stones” and build, piece by piece, a lovely pattern of them on the firm table. He may run out of building space, but there’s no destruction involved. Very young players can enjoy simply laying out their patterns; older ones can take additional Taurean pleasure in evaluating scores at the end of the game.
Other tile-laying games, such as Carcassonne, Nile, Pathfinder, and Ta Yü, appeal as well as Dominoes to the Sun in Taurus.
The Sun in Gemini: A Game of Scrabble
Themes of the Month: Connections, Observations, & Language
Quest for the Elixir: Neighborhood
The Mystical Tree and Father Culture
An easy enough transition from the Dominoes liked by the Taurean Sun, the word game Scrabble is a favorite of the language-loving Sun in Gemini. It involves not only whole words, but other features that appeal to this Mercury-ruled sign: the details of individual, interchangeable letters, knowledge of vocabulary, flexibility, math, and discussions of meaning, usage, and spelling. The words that occur to players can prompt further discussion on a variety of topics, and sometimes a lot of silliness!
The Sun in Gemini also enjoys alternative word games such as Boggle, Jotto (a pencil & paper game), and Spill & Spell.
The Sun in Cancer: A Game of Concentration
Themes of the Month: Family, Youth, Security, Traditions, & Memories
Quest for the Elixir: Deterrents
The Mystical Tree and Childhood
In Cancer, the Sun likes to show off his phenomenal memory. For the memory game of Concentration, all that’s needed is a deck of cards with matching pairs of images. When they’re all shuffled and neatly laid out face down, can he remember where they were when they were face up? How many pairs can he gather before he forgets? This simple game can be enjoyed by any number of players of any age. That makes it a good one for families to play together during this month dedicated to children, families. and memories.
Any deck of playing cards may be used to play Concentration, or one can choose from a variety of commercial sets of cards with pairs of images, such as Old Maid decks.
The Sun in Leo: A Game of Yahtzee
Themes of the Month: Fun & Games, Hobbies, Courtship, & ‘Offspring’
Quest for the Elixir: Incentives
The Mystical Tree and Adolescence
This month in the sign of his rulership gives the Sun his chance to play his favorite game of chance! Like all dice games, Yahtzee is a gamble that goes wherever it goes and leads where it will on an adventure. As Glinda said to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Just follow the Yellow Brick Road.” Maybe it won’t go much of anywhere, or maybe he’ll be lucky and score big! The fun of it is the “roller coaster” effect of not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The Sun is all for experimental fun and ready for anything, so let those dice roll!
The Sun in Leo also shines in other dice games, such as Balut, Kismet, and Yamb.
The Sun in Virgo: A Game of Connect Four
Themes of the Month: Health, Work, & Correctness
Quest for the Elixir: The Satisfaction of Service
The Mystical Tree and Coming of Age
The Sun in Virgo is a perfectionist. What he likes best about Connect Four is that it’s a “solved” (predictable) game with a correct solution. This alignment game involves no risky dependency on luck. It’s all about abstract strategy, so he gets to think complex thoughts and figure out exactly how to manœuvre his tokens into a neat straight line in the grid. If he isn’t very careful, he can make a mistake and lose the game. He really hates when that happens. When it does, well, he’ll just play it again and get it exactly right next time. “Practice makes perfect.”
When in Virgo, The Sun also enjoys agonizing over other alignment games like Score Four, Gomoku, Pente, Teeko, and Hex.
The Sun in Libra: A Game of Gin Rummy
Themes of the Month: Relationship & Cooperation
Quest for the Elixir: The Happiness of Harmony
The Mystical Tree and Adulthood
This nice card game for two players is Sol’s preference when he’s in Libra. There are two reasons why Gin Rummy is his choice for the month of this Venus-ruled Air sign. One is that its rules are easy for anyone to learn and not too stressful for Venus’s harmony. The other is that mastery of it requires skill and strategy, which makes it interesting to the Air element. The play between a couple of congenial companions can go pleasantly back and forth for many hours.
Sometimes the twosome agrees to play other two-player card games, including Cribbage, Hero Realms, 7 Wonders Duel, The Fox in the Forest, Exploding Kittens (Venus nixed that one), Double Solitaire, and Spades. For children, there are lots of peaceful Libran options like Old Maid, Crazy Eights, and Go Fish.
The Sun in Scorpio: A Game of Clue
Themes of the Month: Showdowns & Death
Quest for the Elixir: School Tax
The Mystical Tree and The Witch of Fate
When the Sun is in Scorpio, it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce his intense involvement in a game of Clue. What could be more Scorpion than a dangerous murder mystery game? It starts right off with a death. He gets to investigate likely crime scenes in close proximity to other investigators, one of whom is probably the murderer. He gets to gather clues furtively and take notes to help him sort them out. He gets to make dramatic announcements of his dark suspicions and fateful accusations. Our noble Solar hero is an absolute champion when it comes to matters of death, because he faces it at this time every year.
Although Clue is Sol’s favorite game in Scorpio, he shines there in any game that involves trading & negotiation. Examples include Diplomacy, Catan, Chinatown, Traders of Genoa, Bohnanza, Sidereal Confluence, Monopoly, Game of Thrones, Sheriff of Nottingham, Pit, Intrigue, and Lords of Vegas.
The Sun in Sagittarius: A Game of Chutes & Ladders
Themes of the Month: Long Journeys, Optimism, Philosophy & Education
Quest for the Elixir: Eagle's Eye View
The Mystical Tree and The Wizard of Free Will
As in Leo, the Sun in Sagittarius plays a game of chance. But here he’s traveling the world — or at least his mind is. So he plays as he travels, happy-go-lucky, taking his chances along a path or track. Who knows what may happen at the next turn? Oh, it’s a ladder! What good luck! I get to advance to a higher path! Or, Oh, no, bad luck — a chute! Now I have to fall back and cover some of this trail again…. But what does his luck really matter? Here the Sun is a philosopher who laughs at life and takes it all in stride. He knows that whatever his path may look like, it’s really a spiral to the Center. As long as he keeps learning and laughing on his journey, he’s bound to be a winner.
Sol sometimes travels other paths of adventure in Sagittarius, such as those in The Game of Goose, Parcheesi, Sorry!, Ludo, Halma, Chinese Checkers, and many similar games.
The Sun in Capricorn: A Game of Chess
Themes of the Month: Responsibility, Mastery, Control, & Old Age
Quest for the Elixir: Consolidation and Preservation
The Mystical Tree and Midlife
In Capricorn, the Sun doesn’t waste time wandering or hoping for luck. Here he’s serious about controlling his world. For that, he must be focused and disciplined. He must minimize waste by eliminating its causes. He must maximize his power by acquiring territory and resources. And he must disempower his rival, who works against him. He gets to do all of that in his annual month-long game of Chess. This classic game of capture is very old, and can be traced back nearly 1,500 years to its earliest known predecessor. People take it very seriously, taking much time in the course of a game to construct their strategy, sometimes spending days or even weeks mulling over their next move. The game ends when the king is captured. Though the Sun is a masterful player, he knows that the captured king could be himself. But he also knows that, even if he’s captured, he’ll live on, as always, to rise again next year.
Sol also plays other Capricornian games of capture, such as Reversi, Othello, Checkers/Draughts, Stratego, Mill, Nine Men’s Morris, Risk, Axis & Allies, and mancala games like Wari.
The Sun in Aquarius: A Game of Cranium
Themes of the Month: Originality, Ingenuity, The Future, & Teamwork
Quest for the Elixir: Chaos and Creativity
The Mystical Tree and Initiation
When in Airy Aquarius, the Sun becomes an admirable team player, enjoying collaboration, communication, and strategic thinking among groups of people. He likes to play Cranium, "The Game for Your Whole Brain", at parties, because it includes a wide variety of activities for collaboration in teams. It stimulates both sides of the brain, and even activates all Four Elements. There’s plenty of scope for creativity and surprises. What more could the Sun in Aquarius want? In any case, he’s never at a loss for amusement. If he wants something else in a game, an idea for a brilliant new one is likely to occur spontaneously to him or to anyone in the group.
If the crowd should get bored with Cranium and no one comes up with anything new, they can always play other popular team games such as Apples to Apples, Scattergories, Wits & Wagers, Codenames, Reverse Charades, Captain Sonar, or Aeon's End.
The Sun in Pisces: A Game of Isolation
Themes of the Month: Solitude & Imagination
Quest for the Elixir: Visions in the Dark
The Mystical Tree and Elderhood
The Sun can be happy in all circumstances, no matter what. Though he’s normally gregarious, even he needs a break once in a while. Every year he needs to withdraw into Pisces for a month of solitude, to rest in peace and happy dreams until wake-up time in Aries. As with all the other stages of his journey, he has a game for that! When in Pisces, Sol plays a game in the survival category, which may look like bad luck, but is really good luck for him in this phase. Both players of Isolation start out strong enough, with a full set of options. Then they proceed to block and disempower each other step by step, growing progressively weaker during the course of the game. In the end, one player is totally trapped and immobilized, and both are alone. Voilà!
Examples of other Piscean survival games that Sol likes include: Isola (Isolation’s German predecessor), Survive (USA)/Atlantis (UK), Arctic, Piatnik, and Monopoly (which is also a Scorpion trading & negotiation game).
