The ancient wisdom teachings tell us that human beings are “children of the fiery mind of heaven.” This is because the Sun, ruler of Leo and representative of a creating and consuming flame, is the central energizing point of all life in the solar system.
Leo marks the Sun’s point of maximum power — and the soul’s capacity for creative self-expression, to celebrate life with spontaneity, to live life to the fullest, and to be a radiant beacon of job.
Also, as the Sun sign, Leo expresses the creative potency of the focused power of will. “As we mature and unfold our creative potential, we come to the clear realization that without a focused will, we can produce very little of anything,” says Alan Oken on Astrologi.no.
We also come to realize that if this will is centered only in our little egos, then what we produce has no lasting value and can and often does inhibit the creativity of others.”
In Leo, we face a specific challenge, according to Signs of Intelligence. “On one hand, Leo creates the opportunity for dynamic and creative self-expression. On the other hand, this self-expression can rest in the development of excessive self-absorption and self-importance.”
As a result, the sign of Leo offers us two oppositional opportunities — one is to develop our human ego (and strengthen our bond to the earthly realm) and one is to surrender the ego to the self (and aim for spiritual advancement).
Whichever direction we choose from Leo, the intelligence required for success is self-mastery.
If we choose spiritual unfoldment, our Leo characteristics cannot learn to merge with the whole until we have awakened our own unique role as a part of the whole. However, in Leo we must do this with caution, according to Pathway to Ascension.
“A pitfall of Leo expression can rest in the development of excessive self-absorption and self-importance. Hypnotized by the vanity of ego and caught up in the illusion of greatness or privilege, s/he could live a vain and shallow life even though outwardly successful.
“If Leo gets caught in the web of excessive pride, arrogance, and privilege, or fails to appreciate the reality of her/his own foibles, s/he will eventually lose her/his appreciative audience and the recognition s/he seeks. Leo may need to learn humility and admit being wrong on occasion.”
Pitfalls on the Leoine Journey
In The Gospel and the Zodiac, Bill Darlison quotes French author, Dane Rudhyar, with regard to Leo:
Leo’s “tendency to self-dramatization, to ‘feel quite special,’ accompanied by a growing sense of spiritual achievement, are the pitfalls associated with the Leonine phase of the spiritual journey, which is why Jesus explained that suffering, not self-glorification, is a necessary consequence of Christhood.
“Peter’s reluctance to accept this prompts Jesus to say, ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ and to tell him that his ideas are not of God but of men. Peter represents all those who have not yet moved beyond the point of ‘feeling quite special.’ Like the blind man, he can see, but not clearly; and like the rest of us, he has still to learn the lesson of self-crucifixion.”
To overcome this obstacle, Leo must conjure one of the essential characteristics of fire signs — faith. In Leo, we need to access our faith as “a particular kind of confidence in one’s own power as a child of God, the power of the Christ within, in the light of which everything is possible.
“‘It’s not a question of whether I can help you,’ says Jesus to the man, ‘it’s more to do with whether you can help yourself.’
The implication is that any power Jesus might possess is available to anyone who, through spiritual discipline — aka, self-mastery — comes to realize his or her own essential divinity.
“It is the paltriness of our self-understanding which renders us impotent, cowering in the face of adversity.”
The struggle of Leo reminds us of the slippery slope we face on our spiritual journey.
On one hand, we are blessed with the grandeur of the human soul, which perceives its own royal nature on the Mount Transfiguration, but which, upon descending the mountain, is brought once more into the conflicts and uncertainties of daily life where it begins to doubt itself.
“After being illumined by the sun, it is struck by the moon, tossed to the earth, buffeted ‘between the fire (sun) and the water (moon),’ losing faith in its own inherent divinity, as it becomes re-entangled in the minutiae of mundane existence. Whereas the sun rules maturity, ‘giving mastery and direction to action, the moon, by contrast, rules infancy, with its changeability and the imperfection and inarticulate state of its soul’ (Ptolemy, IV, section 10).
“‘Man is a god in ruins,’ says Emerson, and only when we reacquaint ourselves with our true nature will we be able to exercise those powers, which are our birthright.
“In these days, when a reputable scientist can declare, ‘I think we follow the basic law of nature, which is that we’re a bunch of chemical reactions running around in a bag’ (Dean Hamer, Time magazine), and when politicians of right and left can view people as expendable economic entities, the Gospel teaching about the inherent divinity of the human being (of our propensity for self-mastery) needs to be affirmed with all the energy we can muster.”
We could not gain a more important and powerful message at such a moment as the present one in which we are living on this earth.
Gain More Wisdom — Reading Suggestions:
The Gospel and the Zodiac by Bill Darlison
