Reading historical first-person narratives is a hobby of mine. Reading these works reveals words that have gone out of style such as economy (meaning “thrifty management”), industriousness and handsome (with regard to females).
I don’t think in today’s American culture we value handsome women who are industrious and economical. We sure did back in the 17th and early 18th centuries when women were hauled out to wild Ohio by their husbands to set up home and hearth in Indian territory.
Another word we hear little today is “dominion.”
According to my Random House College Dictionary, dominion is “The power or right of governing and controlling. Sovereign authority.”
When I hear the word “dominion” I immediately think of the Emperor in the Tarot deck. Some balk at the fact the emperor in the Tarot deck is portrayed as a male. I believe it’s an accurate archetype not because emperors or those with dominion must be male, but because dominion is a yang quality, as in yin and yang. Maleness itself is a yang quality. Yang produces maleness.
I believe dominion is yang because it is active as opposed to reactive. In today’s lingo we might say you should “own” a particular behavior. That is dominion. “Owning” your actions and taking responsibility for your life.
For me, astrology itself is about dominion. Not dominion over others, but dominion over the self. Because I see horoscopes as accurately reflecting behavior and personality, it suggests that we come into the world with a set of glasses we wear to view the world and a particular way of being. You might say astrology describes your DNA.
Dominion is the placement of the sun in the horoscope. The sun is the self, the head honcho in our horoscope. The sun is our own internal emperor who sits on the throne and governs our personality.
The sun rules.
The sun can be placed in one of 12 different signs. The characteristic of that sign in the area of your life where you seek dominion and where you can learn dominion of the self.
Your chart is you. Be you.