For astrologers, our identity is symbolised by the Sun, and by the Fire element.

This identity is supposed to be unique. I love the saying:

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

Spiritual folks talk about a "Higher Self": there is an identity in a spiritual sense that is more authentically us than the little ego.

Can this "Higher Self" have a gender? A gender is a category. In this temporary incarnation, I am a man.

I may have had past incarnations as a woman. I also had a life as a rabbit, but mostly as a human being. This Higher Self which incarnated many times as a woman, many times as a man and once as a rabbit is now me, a man. Higher Self must be beyond gender.

The big problem with identity is that we don't know ourselves.

"Know yourself" was written on the portal of Apollo's temple in Delphi. Lao Tzu said "He who knows others is wise, he who knows himself is enlightened".

Throughout ages and traditions, self knowledge has been what we should strive for. It's not a given.

Because we don't know ourselves, we identify with a number of things. I identify as a storyteller, as a man, as French, as an astrologer etc. But this is my ego.

When we know ourselves, the ego dissolves. The ego may not like it but it's just a temporary illusion, a psychological construct.

The Sun in the chart symbolises both the authentic Self and the ego, which is the temporary illusion we entertain about this authentic Self we don't know yet.

The ego is like the snake that sheds its skin. It dies and is born again, always trans-forming. There is a sign and a house for that: Scorpio, eighth. What is real and eternal does not transform, has no form but can take form.

The Moon has another conception of the word "identity". To be fair with words, the Moon doesn't care about identity. The Moon belongs.

With the Moon we absorb our environment. Ideas like "intersectionality" are typically from the Moon. You are defined by where you belong.

Here are our roots in the material world: I was born French, my Frenchness is obvious when I record a podcast or a video. I am a man. I am white. Was born like that. It's Moon stuff.

I am middle aged. I have not always been middle aged, and won't always be, but that's part of my 'identity' for now. Boom, baby. The Moon always changes.

I am a man. There is a biologically obvious dimension to it (I don't do dick pics but I could if there was a philosophical purpose).

Biology is able to mix up its own categories, however in the majority of cases we are clearly born male of female. That's sex. Gender starts with sex but goes further.

We have absorbed and internalised all kinds of expectations about how we should be. All the influences we absorb are symbolised by the Moon and the Water element. Maybe Venus as well. Water and Earth, the archetypal Feminine energies take from outside in.

Some of the influences I absorbed contribute to my well being, others make me suffer. I do rebel against the influences that make me suffer, I want to break free from them.

How? There may be more than one way. I believe in Kind acceptance and Understanding of what is, in the "here and now".

On earth, we live within the Moon's orbit, in the world of forms.

Forms may be illusions but they are our reality. The spiritual path is striving to look beyond the world of forms and awaken the Sun within.

Jean-Marc

Astrologer, storyteller

I can read your chart! I can also show you how to read charts, possibly in Turkey in October 24. Here is the homepage Have a look, there is even a contact form!