Evolving In The Sign Of...
The new moon in Libra reveals the 7th sign of the Zodiac, the emergence of the newly formed personality in relation to others – the 6 first signs being below the horizon mark the formation process of our individual personality.
In Libra, the Leo self-assertion and Virgo self-criticism are reconciled and overcome through self-consecration to the social demands of humanity. The focus is no longer the Self but how we interact with Others. In contrast to the Self-centered Aries, Libra is almost selfless in its pursuit to birth an ideal society.
Just like Aries struggles to define a sense of Self at first, since emerging from unity consciousness and the great mother womb (Pisces), Libra struggles with moving form Self to Unity as the sign represents the first step of the second half of our spiritual journey around the Zodiac wheel.
It first needs to extirpate itself from the heavy density of Virgo. Air sign, Libra will do so by broadening the field of possibilities, mentally integrating others’ ideas, keeping a keen sense of perspective and lightness to all exchanges and integrating that the best chance for social integration to be successful is to mindfully choose love over any other divisive vibration.
Where Aries will move forth, reckless, unaware of the dangers and appear fearless, Libra will consciously pick love over fear; both signs propelling ourselves into uncharted territories (Self and Others) onto our evolution journey.
All relationships are transactional in nature and should truly be of a win-win nature if they are to remain sustainable and fulfilling.
Their purpose is to support our material, emotional and spiritual growth, and blossoming. If relationships just provide material or emotional security, something might need to be tackled.
Libra teaches us that relationships can only be given a real chance and strive when both parts:
And of course, this starts with the relationship we hold with ourselves, for we can only give as much as we have. Addressing a relationship challenge must always start with self-love.
The Self obviously remains but mostly as a lens through which the greater unity consciousness operates, urging all men to become conscious participants in a greater organism called Humanity and where the universal seek to triumph over the narrow power of particular egos.
The Fall Equinox marks the decisive success of united actions and social cooperation over individualistic self-expression and emotional self-centeredness. This is not, however, a final and complete victory (we still have 5 signs to learn from) and the balance remains very fragile, but from there, ideas, vision and objectives become clear. There is an excitement for each new connection and a brimming hope, shared with all involved, with what could potentially be. New energies are being aroused as a result of the collective collaboration.
From there on to the Winter solstice, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius will be devoted to the growth of Society.
The entire purpose of this phase and the last quarter of the year is to:
We will then reach the Winter Solstice on the finally completed social organism: the perfected State (Capricorn).
Libra is a cardinal sign, so activity and behavior are stressed.
The momentum of the social process is truly what excites the Libra consciousness.
Even though social values have become real and central, feelings and emotions are still strongly conditioned by the individualism of the first six signs and the Libra natives tend to exaggerate the importance of social factors to themselves.
A Libra native will typically go to extremes to prove more than necessary his or her social sense, sacrificing himself or herself rather than being negligent in his social duties or group obligations.
The socializing urge haunts Libra but at the same time, the confidence that he or she is doing well is always undermined by the feeling that he or she could somehow easily revert to selfish desires and so will overcompensate in their demonstration of belonging to the community.
There is a tendency to people please, to put others’ needs first which can make the Libra seem inconsistent in their words and actions
However, there is a greater psychological reason explaining those traits and showing them in a whole different light.
Also note that the minute reciprocity is no longer fair or a feeling of being taken advantage of appears, Libra natives will be concise with their words to right that wrong. This, more than anything else, is their compass.
Willing to do absolutely anything to fit in with what a group or community expects of him or her, with what he or she thinks the group might expect of him or her. This makes Libra changeable and look unreliable in their everyday decisions. Appearing as a chameleon — the symbol of all opportunists — changing color to fit the situation and, beyond, to merge into situations for they only aspire to complement the whole perfectly.
Underneath this rather disconcerting behavior, there is a very great individual pride and susceptibility, as well as often the sense of his inability to perform adequately the task he has set for himself or herself.
Because this equilibrium between individualistic and social forces is so unstable a tendency to restlessness, nervousness and often neurotic behavior is often present.
The Libra person wants to consciously be pleasing, impersonal, spiritual, fulfilling but yet subconsciously almost always seems to fail at the ideal goal he or she has set.
Libra natives are also extremely aware that the success of relationships depends on what we project or not into them. Still dealing with individualistic urges and with a Self not yet fully formed, the chance that we project the negative sides of our newly shaped personality: our fears, emotional traumas and reactions, insecurities, and imperfections onto them is high and always top of mind for Libra. And because they are still inexperienced at the relationship game but understand its core uniting function, Libra will always lean on the self-sacrificing side.
It is therefore not surprising to see them switch from experiences of hopelessness to over-zealousness in group participation.
Similarly, the Libra native will always look for the ideal group, the ideal community, the ideal form of cooperation. The process of relationship and relating is incredibly serious to a Libra, so much so that by investing almost all energy into this intent and fixing so high an ideal, he or she actually often passes by real opportunities to create a more genuine bond.
Yet at his or her best, the Libra native is an outstanding manager of group activities: integrating, harmonizing, inspiring, curious, fair, and incredibly polite.
In friendships, bringing your own issues to them is always met with a very fair mind that’s weighing both sides equally before coming to a decision – it will not always be exactly on your side, but it will very often be the best outcome for all parties involved. Have a group dinner and no one can decide on the restaurant – ask the Libra.
Peace, happiness, harmony, and idealism in human relationships are critical for Libra. Conflicts, controversies, and arguments will exhaust his or her energy. Diplomatic intrigues and political schemes will only be mastered later with Capricorn. Hence the Libra aspiration to find the ideal (and completely elusive) group, but for the most evolved type, to give it birth.
Less evolved types of Librans will operate at levels where human relationships are most easily formed — at the level of physical attraction, or further in the arts.
Ruled by Venus, Libra natives will often have beautiful physical features, shapes, and an innate charm. They can be generous in sharing what they love, possessions and knowledge, in hopes of sparking the same enthusiasm of beauty within you. They will also be skillful in the art of dressing up, make up and esthetic refinement more generally. Wherever they will be able to shape disparate pieces together into a much more harmonious and pleasant whole, reflecting their social ambitions, Libra natives will be successful.
Well then what about the scales?
As we have seen, the balance between individualistic and collective forces is quite fragile for those natives so believing that those natives are more “balanced” than others would be extremely erroneous. They definitely aspire to this equilibrium but will very often fall into extremes, at least as often as anybody else.
No, the scales are here to reflect the EVALUATION PROCESS, Libra natives operate when facing a decision or a choice. Scales are used to weigh things using a socially accepted measurement standard. Libra natives are therefore evaluating the fundamental character of a thing or an idea in terms of social value and how it integrates in the greater whole. And always try to do so as objectively as possible, hence the time required to actually make a decision, not to be confused with an indecisive mind.
The purpose of this process is consequently not to reach a balance but to evaluate, measure and judge based on fixed social standards, traditional or ideal.
Libra natives are not self-confident enough to be able to pass judgment “on behalf of society” like Sagittarius will, but the process is nonetheless initiated with this sign, and they will proceed so to understand where everything fits into the whole. Hence also why so many Libra natives will decide to focus on arts since organizing colors, words and notes is easier than to organize humans into an ideal organization.
Libra emerges out of the self-examination of Virgo with visions of the ideal society but very few of the necessary skills to bring it to life, 3 other signs will be necessary to perfect this socializing process.
Libra dreams, evaluate and radiate the love that should inspire this ideal society. Not like a politician or a builder of empires but an artist or seer and this despite unquestionable managerial skills.
Libra as the first sign above the horizon and representing the meeting of formed individual personality with Others holds the SEED, the transition between a dying plant and new life, the self-sacrifice, where all the potential is held within a rigid form of organization but has not yet faced the chaos of life.
With Scorpio, we will then learn to experience collaboration, build together and consequently accept the need to evolve our emotional nature.
With Sagittarius, we will need to transcend this experience, recognize the universal truths, see beyond, and elevate ourselves to embrace our divine nature
With Capricorn, we will finally bring the vision to life, accept both our human nature and responsibilities.
It is here in the Hero’s Journey that we are faced with the inmost cave, another symbolic threshold and axis in the Zodiac wheel. This may seem counterintuitive to Libra being exposed as the first sign incorporating the Other, the external world, but only through this exposure do we get to a reflection back of ourselves. A discovery of our fears and doubts as we are for the first time confronted with an inner conflict we would never have to endure if we were left on our own.
In this part of the quest, we are faced with a choice in the adventure and reflect on what we’ve been through in order to muster the courage to jump into the unknown. We get a moment to catch our breath, synthesize all we’ve learned on the journey so far, and apply an understanding or empathy of that which stands in our way to gather courage to take a big leap.
It is the willingness of the hero opening up to be transformed that reflects Libra. They open themselves up to Other, an unknown, in hopes of reaching a greater goal. The hero is rapidly changing into a bigger-hearted and more alive person, just in approaching to the innermost cave, where the biggest transformation will happen.
The mythology of Libra is not quite as straightforward and is up for a lot of debate. Because Libra was inserted later into astrology and is represented by the scales, her lore gets tied up into both Virgo and Scorpio, the two surrounding constellations.
Initially, Libra was seen as scales carried by the claws of Scorpio. This created one of the largest constellations in the night sky, from scales to curled stinger. However, the Romans favored Libra as it was where the Sun was traveling upon the birth of Rome and how they won favor of the gods. Because the Romans saw themselves as quite a balanced people, and scales being inanimate and having to be held by something, and Virgo being attributed to Dike, goddess of justice, they surreptitiously removed the scales from the claws of Scorpius, and placed them in the “rightful owners” hands in the sky, tying the mythology to Virgo.
With Virgo, Libra often gets linked to Astraea (Dike), goddess of justice. She was the Star Maiden, goddess of innocence and purity. And while she holds the scales, she wasn’t based on the laws of man, but natural order of things. During the Golden Age, she walked the Earth alongside mankind. When she saw the state of corruption in the world she lived in, she left it disgusted, and set up retirement in the sky while holding the scales (Libra) weighing justice on the world from above.
All of this is heavily tied into the carrying of the inanimate object, but where does mythology of partnership, judgment, and the ability to relate equally and fairly?
This may play out best in the Trojan prince Paris. As most Libras are asked to make judgement, Paris was asked to make a beauty judgment (remember, Libra ruled by Venus seeks beauty) after Eris so kindly threw a golden apple inscribed “To the fairest one”. His choices were Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena (Libra’s three planetary rulers). Though each offered a bribe, Paris was won over by Aphrodite who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world. Unfortunately, that was Helen, a married woman, and when he took her (abducted), it started the Trojan War. But this is a common plight of a Libra – a conflict centering around love or beauty.
The delicate balance of Libra within the cosmic transits of the moment is really bringing to light our focus on the “we” versus “I” dichotomy.
At this new moon, we are focused on manifesting a new perspective, possibly several ones, in how we interact in relationships. Choosing to be fairer to the other as well as ourselves when creating relationships, with high emphasis on close friendships currently, not just romantic ones.
Acknowledging where we may self-betray to keep peace and harmony in relationships, and the erosion it creates through resentments and anger. When the goal is to make it look beautiful and nice, despite inner turmoil, all parties involved miss out on vulnerability and growth.
Understanding our stance on collaboration. Do you really integrate the other’s perspective in the decision-making process? Do you try to manipulate the outcome through the other to get your way? Or do you have truthful conversations to weave both parties desires, wants and needs for a collaborative outcome?
Focusing on what you want to manifest in conscious relationships with a brand-new slate is being offered up to us this Libra New Moon. How will you re-write your connection to partnership?
All point to the need to:
