LIBRA

Possibility / Diplomacy / Light-heartedness / Balance / Charm / Harmony 

Ideally, harmony and beauty are best served when both your needs and mine are identified and reconciled

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Libra has strong will that leans towards instigating change, yet softens its personal bias by seeing the bigger picture. It devotes time to inner reflection to look at all possibilities, seeking reconciliation, but feels no need to compromise to avoid confrontation – so often negotiations give everything that’s wanted. It trusts that any conflict will be peacefully resolved, and this is done by respecting the tensions and strains on both sides in any situation – the need for give and take, drive and relaxation, coping and escaping. Often, attempts to find harmony, and resolve differences of perspective, or clashes of motivation, fail because people take up positions. It takes a special ability to raise issues without raising temperatures; it takes poise.

With excellent communication skills, civility of good manners, true judgement, discretion, and no extremes or excesses, this born diplomat, a perfect negotiator and public relations artist, is a word warrior who can maintain a dynamic forceful posture using intellect and grace, which avoids the need for physical aggression.

Libra is more conceptual than practical. It puts beauty on a pedestal as proof of worth, without quite realising that the unbeautiful may feel judged and wanting. Optimism is favoured over realism, and new can be seen as better than established. The brass tacks do not attract, and the superficial can be very absorbing. For these very reasons however, this sign offers friendship and social empathy at the drop of a hat, and has no deep-seated issues of principle or practice to threaten an immediate and sincere interaction – though such involvement may be short-lived, and eventually prove to have seemed only casual.

The pursuit of excellence involves willingness to see other viewpoints. This is done in the spirit of reaching the highest level of perfection, by comparing what is against what may be. Done with innocence, not contrariness, it is the route of idealism, and sponsors both truth and beauty – in art as much as relationship. Seeing things from the other side is the way towards true insight and, with curiosity and willingness for new experiences, leads to a very refreshing lightness of being. This is the antidote when heavy seriousness has become a problem. As often as the wind shifts, the Libra planets will manoeuvre themselves towards an easier posture, releasing atmospheric pressure, consistently engendering movement and restoring equilibrium through attitudes of fairness and equality, backed up by justice based on impartial philosophical reasoning.

It requires more than exemplary self-discipline to reach the yearned-for condition of perfect balance, because there needs to be a high-level overview to see how two conflicting attitudes are simply in fact one dynamic system expressed as a polarity. In this state of knowledge – called gnosis by mystics – fellowship arises as a spiritual state, and it is seen that all action contributes to life’s essential dynamism – and serene inaction is often an important contribution towards reconciliation and harmony.

Libra defines itself in terms of its relationship with another – and is considerate by its very nature. Achieving a place of equality and peace can take forever – the fine-tuning, the listening, the tactful phrases – and yet forever is no problem. Persistence is as emblematic of Libra as it is of Aries. It takes the other’s position as much into account as its own. This is the essence of spirituality, the Golden Rule, taught by all religions – e.g. ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ – and while all signs can theoretically achieve this, Libra actually enjoys it.