Yellow Sun

Red begins, white refines, blue transforms, yellow ripens. Sun is the yellow sign of awareness, and it closes the whole cycle of twenty. Everything the other nineteen signs began, refined and transformed comes to full flower here.

The nature of the sign

Ahau is the Sun, the centre of everything, the light that makes all the rest visible. In the Tzolkin it stands for enlightenment, which is a big word for a simple thing: being awake. The yellow colour says the awareness is here to ripen, to be brought all the way to maturity rather than left as a nice idea.

Yellow Sun also closes the count. Kin 20 is Yellow Sun with tone 7, and kin 260, the very last day of the whole 260 day cycle, is Yellow Sun with tone 13. The day the Maya long count rolled over, 21 December 2012, was a Yellow Sun day too, kin 160 with tone 4. The Tzolkin Calendar page has that story. The point here is that Sun is the sign of completion, of a thing finished and shining.

Who you are

If you were born under Yellow Sun, you are warm. People feel more awake in your company and often cannot say why. You are optimistic by nature, and it is a worked for optimism rather than a naive one. You believe that awareness can change a situation, because you have watched it happen.

You are drawn to wisdom teachings of every kind, and you are generous with what you learn, wanting to pass it on rather than hoard it. You are often older in spirit than your years. There is little armour on you, which is part of why people find you so easy to be near.

The edge of that is impatience with people who seem asleep. You can find it hard to sit with someone who does not want to grow, and harder still to hide that you find it hard.

Strengths

Warmth, generosity, light and the gift of showing others what is possible for them. You teach best by how you live, and you inspire without trying to. You give people room to grow in their own way. You are idealistic in the best sense, holding onto a belief that human beings can do better than their worst habits, and you keep holding it when others have let it go. In my experience a Sun person in a room changes the temperature of the room.

Challenges

The shadow of the Sun is glare. Light that forgets it casts shadows becomes preachy, self righteous and quietly judgemental of anyone who has not got to where you are. The spiritual high ground is still a high ground, and looking down from it is still looking down.

The second trap is denying the dark. A commitment to positivity can tip into a refusal to admit that suffering is real, that some things are simply hard, and that a person in pain needs company more than a brighter outlook. Wisdom includes the night. The Sun that cannot sit with darkness has not finished ripening.

The work for Yellow Sun is to learn that your job is to light the path and leave people free to walk it. You can stand in the light and let people see what it looks like, and that is as far as anyone can take another person.

In love and work

In love you bring warmth, a real interest in your partner's growth and the wish to build something conscious together. You are not possessive, and you give a partner plenty of room to become who they are becoming. You need someone who shares your interest in the inner life, and you can struggle with a partner whose whole focus is on comfort and things. Intimacy for you wants a meeting of souls as well as bodies. Where you miss is the practical and emotional ground floor of a relationship. The bills, the moods, the ordinary Tuesday night. Love lives there too.

At work you suit teaching, spiritual guidance, counselling, coaching, writing and anything that helps people see further than they did yesterday. You excel wherever wisdom is shared and people are helped to grow. What you cannot stand is a workplace that runs on profit or power alone, or a job that asks you to keep your values in the car park.

Your sign across the tones

Your tone, 1 to 13, is the pulse behind the sign, and the Thirteen Tones page walks through each one. With a low tone, 1 to 4, the Sun is still rising. Tone 1 gives it a single clear purpose to shine for, tone 2 has it weighing light against shadow, tone 3 is bright and quick to share, and tone 4 wants to give the light a steady form, which is exactly what 21 December 2012 carried.

With a middle tone, 5 to 9, the Sun is at full height. A tone 5 Sun has natural authority, tone 6 keeps light and dark in fair balance, tone 7 is attuned to what others are feeling under the brightness, tone 8 lives what it teaches without exception, and tone 9, Solar on Sun, is light doubled, a sign and a tone saying the same thing.

With a high tone, 10 to 13, the Sun is setting on a long day's work. Tone 10 makes the awareness practical, tone 11 lets go of whatever belief was false, tone 12 shares the light with a whole group, and tone 13, kin 260, is the last day of the whole count, the Sun gone down with the cycle complete and the next one waiting at dawn.

Across the traditions

Yellow Sun belongs to the yellow family, the ripeners, alongside Yellow Seed, Yellow Star, Yellow Human and Yellow Warrior. Your kin is one layer of a full portrait. The Western Astrology section reads the planets at your birth, the Chinese Astrology section reads your year animal, and the Vedic Astrology section reads the sidereal sky and your Moon's nakshatra, and the Sun in your Western chart, its sign and house, will tell you where this light wants to shine.

Who in your life needs your company right now more than your advice?

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.