Tropical/Sidereal Sun are the same. Questions.

[Char20]

Hello all! My Tropical Sun sign is Cancer and when my chart is converted to the Sidereal zodiac my Sun remains in Cancer- moving from late Cancer to very early Cancer. From my understanding the logic of Sidereal is that the traits of my Cancer Sun are different from the traits that Tropical astrologers assign to it (the traits I’ve been reading about for years) and actually I’d have more in common with Tropical Leos (who are actually Cancerians)? Is that correct?

One thing I’m struggling with though is that I don’t seem to be able to get the Sidereal signs. The Tropical signs all feel very concrete and established to me; I can riff off their meanings and I have a very clear image and aesthetic (for want of a better word) for each one but I don’t seem to be able to do that for the Sidereal signs. They all feel very nebulous and... insubstantial to me compared to the strongly archetypal characteristics of the Tropical zodiac. I'm struggling to see them as much beyond a list of keywords that sometimes hit and sometimes miss (please don't take this as a criticism of Jim’s work! That is not my intention at all, I'm truly grateful for the fact this site exists and the incredible resources Jim has provided). I don’t really know what I’m asking here, I guess I’m just trying to process my thoughts and hoping someone might have some advice. Part of me is enthralled by Sidereal but another part of me has doubts.

Thank you for any responses.

[Jim Eshelman]

Welcome to Solunars, Cha.

...and actually I’d have more in common with Tropical Leos (who are actually Cancerians)? Is that correct?

Yes, you have that right. Or, to be more exacting, about 5 out of every 6 Tropical Leo Sun people have Sun in Sidereal Cancer. To the extent that interpretations are written based on observation, Sidereal Cancer and Tropical Leo should sound much the same because competent people observing folks born in late July and early August should come to similar conclusions regardless of what they call those people.

However, to the extent that interpretations are written based on theory, the interpretations will tend to be different. (We concentrate on learning by observation, though of course the final result is framed in language that matches the sign's symbolism.)

One thing I’m struggling with though is that I don’t seem to be able to get the Sidereal signs. The Tropical signs all feel very concrete and established to me; I can riff off their meanings and I have a very clear image and aesthetic (for want of a better word) for each one but I don’t seem to be able to do that for the Sidereal signs. They all feel very nebulous and... insubstantial to me compared to the strongly archetypal characteristics of the Tropical zodiac. I'm struggling to see them as much beyond a list of keywords that sometimes hit and sometimes miss

I think (I could be wrong, but I think) that this comes from habit. You've taken time to build up and organize ideas around the Tropical signs and it takes time to dismantle a prior framework and compose a new one (especially when you are using the same words to mean different things.)

Other than established habit and familiarity, I'm surprised you find the Tropical descriptions having "strong archetypal characteristics," since it has long seemed to me that the archetypal authenticity is far greater and sounder in the Sidereal. Perhaps if you give a couple of examples of what you mean...

In terms of meaning, probably 80% of the interpretation of a Sidereal sign comes from the nature of its ruling and and exalted planets. Thus, Cancer is going to have traits mostly that match Moon or Jupiter. Secondly, the Quadruplicity has a strong input, Cancer being one of the four Rim ('cardinal') constellations with analogies to the Rim of a wheel etc. (You can read about those in the sign interpretation area.) While these cover most of the traits, there are also symbols that associate more easily with the symbolic history of the constellation, especially ideas of enclosure (arising from the long stream of shelled animals that have been associated with Cancer over the millennia) and with ideas of shadow (evidently a night expression of Moon in contrast to the light symbolism of Leo). So it goes with the other eleven.

[Soft Alpaca]

I think this may help establish a better picture (as I understand that there is truth in advertising).

Cancer is the Scarab. The color of the sign is Amber.
Key words imgination, emulation, and mystery.

They strive for elite dependency. They perfectly represent the Jupiter complice theme by intertwining it with receptivity of the moon. It literally can for a habitatal nature (formed psychological habits) that is hard to break (this is seen already in the way you view tropical astrology).

For me it's this intertwined with it's sister sign Capricorn (both can have a shadowy underbelly). I'd compare the signs myself to Pan (Capricorn) and Selene (Cancer) a love story surrounded in shadow and mystery.

The Greeks saw the sign as the God Hermes (Mercury). Yes it's a link to travel however if you look Hermes is the only one with access to both heaven and hell this for me shows this shadowy nature to things.

Very much Cleopatra Mark Antony vibes. As a good foot to tie this back to ancient Egyptian astrology (which was of course pictorial and Sidereal).

To tie this all up cancer is linked to emulsion. Just like the Egyptians saw the Beatle and Scarab taking advantage of the dung. Making new life from past waste. .

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

Hello all! My Tropical Sun sign is Cancer and when my chart is converted to the Sidereal zodiac my Sun remains in Cancer- moving from late Cancer to very early Cancer. From my understanding the logic of Sidereal is that the traits of my Cancer Sun are different from the traits that Tropical astrologers assign to it (the traits I’ve been reading about for years) and actually I’d have more in common with Tropical Leos (who are actually Cancerians)? Is that correct?

No. You're a tropical Cancer and a Sidereal Cancer. You should have traits in common with both Sidereal Cancer, AND with tropical Cancer, since under that system, you are a Cancer. You are not a Leo under either system.

Sidereal signs do not equal the next tropical signs, so Sidereal Cancer is not the same as tropical Leo. It's a whole different system. Tropicalists (good ones, anyway) have adapted their definitions to their observations. This happened slowly over 1800 years and is an ongoing process. They retain things like the planetary rulers and exhalations and try to fit them in with their observations.

It's pretty much a mess, and I suggest you don't try to compare the two systems or mix them. You know the tropical system so it feels "right" to you, and you will have to work to learn the Sidereal system. A lot of people don't want to do the work. I know I didn't. I dropped the whole concept of signs for a couple of decades. By then I'd forgotten most of the definitions of tropical signs, but I picked up the Sidereal pretty fast, since they are so clear and defined. There are no "on-the-cusp" definitions blending the signs (which were all the rage 50 years ago - I don't know if tropicalists still do that) because the cusps are knife-edged. There's no bleed over.

Don't try to define the Sidereal signs by the tropical signs + one. They aren't the same.

[Jim Eshelman]

Until a couple of years ago, my Sun in Cancer interpretations sounded a lot more like Tropical Leo than they do today, not so much because the individual traits changed but because I picked more Cancer-seeming words to make the same points. Boiling all of it down to a few lines, my current tight summary is:

Thrives within imagination & complexity (vision; or lost in fantasy). Lives in others’ shadow; finds purpose in service & emulation. Conceive & deliver results. Persuasive, trusted, instinct for motives. Live in mystery or its resolution: create or solve puzzles. Renewed by home or sanctuary. Sensitive, moody, self-absorbed.

I boiled this down to the triad of keywords: IMAGINATION. EMULATION. MYSTERY.

This is all pretty evidently Moon + Jupiter.

[Jim Eshelman]

No. You're a tropical Cancer and a Sidereal Cancer. You should have traits in common with both Sidereal Cancer, AND with tropical Cancer, since under that system, you are a Cancer. You are not a Leo under either system.

The one thing I disagree with in this is that it lets you infer that there is really such a thing as "Tropical Leo" or "Tropical Cancer," as if there were truly two zodiacs instead of two zodiac theories.

Probably the one thing we know with the greatest certainty - tested time after time, confirmed with extreme confidence - is that we know exactly where the sign boundaries are. Twelve 30° sectors of the ecliptic do exist as valid, distinct descriptive zones and the transition from one sign to the next was at 23° of each Tropical sign in the 1800s and 24° of the Tropical signs in the mid-1900s. This is exactly where we would expect the boundaries to be for the zodiac that, as history records, had the vernal point at 14° Aries in 786 BVC, 10° Aries in 500 BC, 8° Aries in 373 BC, and 0° Aries about 200 AD.

From both archaeology and 20th century statistics, we know the boundaries of the zodiac to the nearest degree. The odds against our being wrong about this are gigantic.

Then, based on mundane astrology, we know from thousands - literally, thousands - of individual ingress charts (of those tracked on this site alone) that the boundary the signs that we know would be about 25° of the Tropical signs in 2020 is, today, exactly at 25°01'10" of the Tropical signs. (It was slightly later when you were born.) This is surely right to within about 0°00'01" (and we've demonstrated that here).

So there is an area that, today, runs from Tropical 25° Cancer to Tropical 25° Leo that is a single sign with homogenous traits across that 30° range. It doesn't actually matter what you call it: You could call it Leo or Cancer or Ringmaster or Tatooine or Carl. Whatever you call it, those born within that Tropical 25° Cancer to 25° Leo range will have common underlying traits that any number of observers could observe and catalogue. The one thing that makes it sidereal rather than tropical intrinsically is that the precessing vernal point keeps dragging backwards against the ecliptic so that 72 years ago the zone is 25° Cancer to 25° Leo today was 24° Cancer to 24° Leo; 72 years before that it was 23° Cancer to 23° Leo; and in 220 AD this same part of space was 0° Cancer to 30° Cancer. The zone is intrinsically sidereal, i.e., not moving (compared to the universe as a whole). As the vernal point regresses along the ecliptic, it drags the tropical (moving) labels with it so that the one point in space that was called Tropical 24° Cancer seven decades ago is, today, called Tropical 25° Cancer.

You can call that 30° patch Leo if you like, and say there is a 5° cusp for the transition into it.

Ancient astrologers, though, and their Sidereal successors, have always called it Cancer.

[By Jove]

Hello all! My Tropical Sun sign is Cancer and when my chart is converted to the Sidereal zodiac my Sun remains in Cancer- moving from late Cancer to very early Cancer. From my understanding the logic of Sidereal is that the traits of my Cancer Sun are different from the traits that Tropical astrologers assign to it (the traits I’ve been reading about for years) and actually I’d have more in common with Tropical Leos (who are actually Cancerians)? Is that correct?

One thing I’m struggling with though is that I don’t seem to be able to get the Sidereal signs. The Tropical signs all feel very concrete and established to me; I can riff off their meanings and I have a very clear image and aesthetic (for want of a better word) for each one but I don’t seem to be able to do that for the Sidereal signs. They all feel very nebulous and... insubstantial to me compared to the strongly archetypal characteristics of the Tropical zodiac. I'm struggling to see them as much beyond a list of keywords that sometimes hit and sometimes miss (please don't take this as a criticism of Jim’s work! That is not my intention at all, I'm truly grateful for the fact this site exists and the incredible resources Jim has provided). I don’t really know what I’m asking here, I guess I’m just trying to process my thoughts and hoping someone might have some advice. Part of me is enthralled by Sidereal but another part of me has doubts.

Thank you for any responses.

The Tropical Signs probably feel "concrete", "established", and "strongly archetypal" because you are very used to them. The "mystical" and "New Age" language you see on more generic sites appeals to that part of us.

Western Sidereal Astrology is more "scientific" in its approach. Jim tends to document character traits without associating them with mythological or spiritual concepts. When he describes planets, which the signs are based on, he uses more "psychoanalytical" and "sociological" language.

Learning sidereal astrology is difficult because so much of it is re-learning things you once took for granted. I personally found studying older astrologers like William Lily and Alan Leo helpful in the process since their traditional approaches help bridge the gap between Tropical Astrology and Western Sidereal Astrology.