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Libra, the seventh sign of the zodiac, symbolized by scales (used
for weight measurement). People whose birthdays occur between September 23 and October 22 are born under the sun sign of Libra.
The planet Venus rules Libra. Libra is an air sign.
Libras have diplomatic, refined, intelligent, thoughtful, warm, and social natures. Because of the sign's relationship with the planet Venus (named after the ancient Roman goddess of beauty and
love), Libras tend to be romantic and crave relationships. Typical Libras, however, want an idealized meeting of the minds in an atmosphere of civility, refinement, and reasonableness. They do not place as much importance on deep emotional intimacy or physical passion. Libras also enjoy comfort and luxury.
Libras have strong senses of justice. They carefully weigh opposing sides of any issue and are keenly aware of other people's preferences. Although Libras like to take leadership roles, their need to be fair and to please everyone equally can sometimes make it difficult for them to make decisions. Typical Libras are skilled peacemakers and diplomats who desire balance and harmony in all situations and will do almost anything to avoid confrontations. Professions traditionally associated with Libra include the law, politics, the arts or design, mediation, diplomacy, and counseling.
Quality: Cardinal-Libra is active, artistic, easygoing, peaceable, prize beauty and harmony, is diplomatic, polished and very socially inclined.
Ruling Planet: Venus-Goddess of love and beauty. In astrology, Venus rules pleasure, social pursuits, art and adornment. Its influence also inclines toward self-indulgence and love of luxury.
Symbol: The scales-Signifying balance, equilibrium, order and justice.
Dominant Keyword: I BALANCE
Polarity or Opposite: Aries-Libra is the sign of marriage and partnership. Its natives are happiest functioning within a union and often loose their equilibrium and positive outlook when forced to be alone. Aries, Libra's opposite sign, is the sign of ego, personality and self. Aries people tend to put themselves first and selfishness is one of their negative traits.
Body Parts Ruled by Libra: The lower back and buttocks and the kidneys-Librans suffer from lower back strain and problems in the lumbar region. They are also subject to kidney infections.
Lucky Day: Friday
Lucky Number: 6 and 9
Color: Blue and Lavender-the colors of romance, harmony and refinement.
Gem Stone: Saphire. It is considered good luck in many ways and one of the major healing stones. Opal, however, is the gemstone for month of October.
Danger: Libra people tend to stir up ill feelings from others in situations having to do with love. Because they are indecisive and sometimes make a declaration of love too easily, Librans both anger and disappoint lovers. They also have a tendency to be fickle and faithless.
Most likeable Trait: Charm Librans are easy to like, for you have a captivating charm, possess elegant taste, and are usually beautiful to look at. In addition, you have the gift of making others feel important, for you are a superb listener and instinctively know how to draw out another person.
 THE LIBRA WOMAN
With the curous magic of polarities that occurs in this sign, the Libra woman, although she has the love of beauty and style and elegance, often has a mind like a steel trap. This lady is not the vague, fluffy bundle of fur and giggles that will stare open-mouthed at your mental acrobatics. She's very probably either got a string of academic degrees or might as well have.
Libran women can be quite unnerving. They often show the enormous paradox of the sign in the contradiction between their appearance and their real nature. The Libran woman is usually very aware of her appearance, but her appearance often belies the capacities and capabilities of her intellect. She is, however, generally too tactful and diplomatic to allow this to be immediately known. In fact you may not find it out for years.
There's often a strong intellectual drive in the Libran woman, whether this shows itself as love of knowledge in a theoretical way or as love of organizing. Libran women often need strong careers to allow them expression of their gifts. It can be very disconcerting to many men, since this is usually the woman who will happily spend a day being pampered at the beauty salon, and will very agreeably spend a fortune on clothes. But no Libran, male or female, is simple.
The tendency to repress emotion exists in the Libran woman as well as in the Libran man. It's more difficult, in many ways, since society expects women to be emotional. The detached and often intellectual approach which many Libran women show toward others is acceptable when evidenced by their masculine counterparts, yet often reproached in the Libran woman. A true Libran is not a creature of feeling and it's generally easier for the Libran woman to reason things out than to react out of instinct. This is both a great boon and a great problem. A boon in the sense of potential for achievement; a problem because in the domestic sphere the Libran woman may be uncomfortable and find it difficult either to spontaneously show emotion or to respond to emotional outbursts or demonstrations of need from others.
The key here is romance. Libra's tightly corseted emotions can usually be reached through the ritual courtship of romance; if feeling is passed through this tinted lens which raises it up onto a different level, then Libra feels safe and can allow some feeling to be expressed. And the Libran woman is definitely a romantic, even if you find her displaying those frighteningly rational tendencies and claiming to be a logical, reasonable person. One rose goes a long way; one compliment goes even a longer way.
There seem to be two kinds of Libran women, in fact: those who are unashamedly the bundle of contradictions that the sign contains, and those who overcompensate for the intense need of relationship by retreating into the intellect. The latter is usually a frightened Libran, who finds it too painful to deal with her emotional needs. Love and acceptance do wonders for Libra, and even the painfully tight Libran with emotions tucked firmly away in a safety-deposit box will eventually display the gentle and affectionate side of the Libran nature.
The trouble is that a good intellect can be frightening when it appears in someone who looks as though she should be swathed in furs over scented candelight; and it seems that if you want to relate to a Libran woman, you've go to accept both the man and the woman in her. For she possesses both, and the Libran woman who's found her own balance is comfortable in both worlds -- that of mind, and that of her own feminity.
Now Air, apart from being necesary for life and breath, is, of all the four astrological spheres, the least tangible. Fire can burn or warm you, water can refresh or drown you, earth can bury or grow crops for you. But you can't see air. Like the mind, air is volatile, breezy, shifting, clear, transparent, and even abstract.
Air is the only element without any animal symbolism. The air signs are, to sum it up, civilized. No bestial behaviour for them. They think. In fact, the air signs are so civilized that the only inanimate object in zodiacal symbolism -- The Balance -- belongs to Libra, an air sign. Air is the most human element, the quality which has enabled man to create societies, rules for living together, codes of ethics, writing, learning, and the vast and awesome array of gifts and curses which fall under the umbrella of modern technology.
The old medieval word for an airy temperament was sanquine, and a sanguine person was always optimistic, never ruffled, never upset, always positive. First and foremost, the airy temperament is reasonable. Even when angry, he will try to reason with his opponent. The airy person will, because of his constant propensity for reflection, rarely react spontaneously. He will assess a social situation carefully, rather than feel his way into it. He is logical, and must have explanations. He is sometimes so logical that he can make you scream, when he asks you to explain feeling states or moods or nonrational intuitions which in a million years do not lend themselves to the careful scrutiny of his analytical brain. Naturally those sterling virtues would have to be balanced with some pretty sterling problems. And air's greatest problem is what appears as coldness in ordinary human relationships.
One keyword for air is reason. Another is logic. And a third, equally important, is system. Air is the element of systems. Everything must make a coherent pattern. If it doesn't fit into a pattern, either the airy type will make up a new pattern--often called philosophy, psychology or religion--or he will refuse to recognize that thing as a reality.
On the dark side, Air can give the appearance of being rather cold. Air represses emotions he cannot deal with. By repress we don't mean control. But it's much more serious than that. He just blanks them out. They vanish into the vault, and the surface reveals a smooth, glassy consistency. Angry? Of course he's not angry. Hurt? Don't be ridiculous. Jealous? Why, he never feels jealousy. You begin to feel distinctly crude and irrational and bloody-minded in the face of all that nonreactiveness. Don't let it fool you. The element of air masks an intensely emotional nature, which positively terrifies the pants off him.
Beneath that sanguinity is a lot of sensitivity, an acute sensitivity that allows the airy person to be much more easily hurt than others and much more deeply wounded. It also causes him to be more inclined toward emotional dependence. The other elements, when they're weak, frightened, needful, jealous, hurt, angry or rejected or wildly in love, will tell you so. Earth will buy you flowers, and fire will write you a flamboyant poem. Water will positively inundate you with emotion. But air? Why, air will discuss the weather. You can lean to pick up the body language, the dilation of the pupils of the eyes, the movements of the hands, the feeling tone, the intangible communication of an emotional fact that -- if he faced it -- would embarrass him immensely. Be patient. Nobody blushes like an Air sign.
No question about it. Of all the elements, this strange animal is the most difficult of all in love affairs. That is, if you aren't an emotional telepath. If you are, then you're alright, for the glory and tragedy both of the airy people is that when they really give their hearts, like children, they give them forever. One of the paradoxes of human nature displays itself in glowing colours here. Each element of the zodiac is related to a sphere of life, and each has a special gift for expressing in that sphere of life. But each element also has a secret underside which is just the opposite, like the undertow of the tide as it's coming in. In behavioural terms, Air is a somewhat chilly element. But if you really pierce the layer on the surface and get past that constant analysing and rational structuring that goes on habitually in the Airy mind, you will find that the Airy person's feeling run deep and strong -- so deep and so strong, in fact, that they terrify him.
Emotionally, Air is a child. A child's feeling nature is naive, intense, and not very flexible. In feeling matters, air simply isn't very sophisticated, although you'd think from all that polished social charm and the ease with which he flirts and chats and makes clever innuendoes that relationships are an easy matter for him. Not so. What you have, really, is all the vulnerability, sensitivity, and needfulness of a child's feeling in an adult's body. And a good piece of advice to anyone involved in a relationship with a strong airy temperament is: handle with care, for the person usually isn't aware himself or herself of the depth to which the emotion can reach. Airy people can often be infuriating because of their lack of warmth in close relationships. But if you can understand this side of air's nature, and coax it into expression gently (airy people often come near to paralysis when confronted with violently expressed emotional demands), then you're rewarded with all the delicacy and depth of this naive but powerful love. Beneath the cool wit, air is an incurable romantic in emotional realms and is truly incapable of using feeling or diplomacy or manipulation. Children, after all, are the only truly honest souls among us.
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