Sun square Moon

Aspect · square · default orb 7°

In the natal chart the Sun signifies the principle of identity and visible authority — what is shown to the world, the part of life that signs its own name. The Moon signifies the principle of need and reception — feeling, instinct, the part of life that receives impressions and seeks comfort. When their longitudes form a tense ninety-degree friction across two signs of the same modality; the configuration imposes a structural demand that, if met, builds something durable, the chart carries the resulting configuration as a structural feature of its temperament — present in every house and angle that either body touches.

The two lights describe the chart's basic dialogue between identity and need — the will of the day-self and the receptivity of the night-self. Their contact is the most often re-staged scene in any nativity.

The square is the load-bearing aspect. The two bodies push against one another from signs of the same modality, and the friction between Sun and Moon cannot be resolved by retreat — only by structure. Classical sources do not treat the square as ill in itself; they treat it as the place where work is required, and where, work having been done, the chart's strongest forms are built.

The configuration is in orb when the angular separation between Sun and Moon falls within 7° of an exact square (Lilly's classical orb; Netra's Aspects view defaults match this and can be tightened in the chart preferences).