Leo, the hidden light.
Journey through the archetypes: the Astrology series
Leo is all about the ego, even though the poor ego has got a bad rap- as most things we don’t understand have. We see it as an enemy, an ungraspable invisible monster that sabotages our life against our will. Although this is in not completely true, if we are to slay the monster and win the battle we may perhaps follow the teachings of the the great SunTzu “know your enemy, and yourself”. The knowledge may after all render the monster more approachable and reveal hidden truth previously concealed.
The ego is nothing else than a vehicle, a container through which consciousness can manifest into form. A chalice, with the function to contain aspects of our soul that are to embody so to satisfy the individual unique evolutionary purpose. Without a container these aspects would remain shapeless and dissolved into the greater Whole. Much like taking a glass and collecting water from the vastness of the ocean. An infinite ocean of Light.
Can the container be the enemy? It could, if we make it so. If we look deeper though we see that it is merely fulfilling its purpose: containing, and that our battle against it has only a great loss of energy as a result. Without the ego we would in fact be overwhelmed by Light.
I often like to draw an analogy between the ego and our journey with clothing. We come in the world with a naked ego and as we proceed in life we acquire “clothes” to cover it up, so that we can feel protected and accepted by society.
When we are kids our parents dress us with what they like, we have no power of decision nor we even understand we need clothing, until we grow up and influenced by many factors we start choosing our own clothes. We want to like ourselves, and we want to be liked. We want be seen, or not. As we proceed in life we find our style and what we are the most comfortable and authentic in. Sometimes we don’t need clothes and we prefer to be naked, like when we make love giving in to our instinct and forgetting all else. The older we grow the less interested we are in what we wear. Until it no longer matters.
These clothes for the ego are the beliefs, conditionings, fears and traumas we wear, passed to us by our parents, ancestors, the environment and culture. The problem begins when we become over identified and forget our skin, who we really are underneath it all.
It’s like wearing many layers, every time we get rid of one we uncover more of our authenticity, our gifts, qualities and the intrinsic ingredients we have come in this life to express unapologetically. All this is our inner light. As we undress we allow it space to shine through.
Paradoxically when we identify too much with the ego we have a poor sense of self. Style is an artistic expression, but when we are too obsessed on how we appear and what we wear is because we no longer know who we are. Perhaps we never knew. For instance, having a sense of beauty is being able to shine through the intrinsic divine quality of Beauty, being fashion victim is being a victim of vanity. Vanity always hides deep insecurities.
Symptoms of a poor sense of self are: narcissism (and self obsession), codependency, people-pleasing, not being able to say no and validate one’s own needs, manipulation, lies, emotional outburst, lack of confidence, poor boundaries, lack of assertiveness, etc.
Childhood trauma almost always blocks the process of individuation. Which is the healthy stage when a child learns he/she exists separated from his parents and the people around them. Unfortunately, the world pullulates of unindividuated human adults.
How Leo manifests in the Natal Chart (you can draw your chart here) can tell us if we have tendencies to go into any of the above over identification symptoms. On the other end it also reveals our light: qualities and gifts and whether or not we are able to express them.
The house/houses (it can spread on more than one) that host Leo in our chart can tell us how to find our authenticity and where we can shine our light, but only once we have seen through the illusion of who we are not.
Leo is ruled by the Sun because it is our light we have come in this world to manifest, our personal inner source of light that spread outward. Our unique purpose. What makes us shine and what illuminates also the light in others.
Leo responds to the statement “I WANT’, although this wanting is not the passion of Scorpio, the need of Cancer, the longing of Pisces, or the desire of Taurus, it is more of a spiritual nature. It is the fuel behind the wanting itself. Desires cannot be willed but arise from a space deep within us, some say from the heart, which is where our inner sun resides. I’m talking about true desires. This type does not often show itself during our life time but when it does we cannot do anything else but act on it, we must because it burns like a fire that cannot be extinguished and if we don’t act it spreads the bitter poison of remorse and resentment and eat us from the inside out. Some old people are bitter and hard only because they suppressed this calling. And it does take a lot of energy.
Leo’s wanting is the response to a spiritual quest, the force that sends the hero/heroine on the journey to accomplish the mission that will lead him/her to find himself/herself and in the process, contribute to humanity. We are all heroes and heroines of our life story.
The child who says: “Mom! I want to be an astronaut!” is in its full Leo power. Then the ego kicks in with all its can’t and thousands of justifications and fifty years forward we realised we spent half a life time busy taming our inner wild, the lion within us. No wonder we feel resented, depressed, unfulfilled and bitter. The lion is still a lion though, it may be in a cage and have learned to be submissive but if we set him free and stop abusing him and taming him sooner or later he will roar again.
When we don’t know much about astrology we think we are very much our Sun sign. The truth is that we become our Sun sign only later in life and only if have worked actively with our ego, undressing of useless and outdated clothes. What we unconsciously manifest until then of our Sun sign is mostly its ego aspects (our shadows) and our Moon sign (more than anything). But hey, we need the shadow to see the existence of light.
