The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 373, titled:
Libra in Astrology: Meaning and Traits
With Chris Brennan, Catherine Urban, and Randon Rosenbohm
Episode originally released on October 22, 2022
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Mary Sharon
Transcription released November 14, 2022
Copyright © 2022 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking with Catherine Urban and Randon Rosenbohm, and we’re gonna be talking about the meaning and the characteristics or traits of the zodiac sign Libra. So hey, welcome both of you. Thanks for joining me today.
CATHERINE URBAN: Hey, Chris.
RANDON ROSENBOHM: Hi.
CB: Yeah. So today, for the data junkies, is Sunday October 16th, 2022 starting at 1:36 p.m. in Denver, Colorado. This is going to be episode 373 of the podcast and this is going to be the seventh, I believe seventh installment in my series on the signs of the zodiac where we’re going to be doing a deep dive into the meaning of the zodiac sign Libra. And what I’ve been doing with this series is I’ve been going around the community and collecting a series of astrologers that have strong or heavy placements in those signs in order to talk about their experience of those signs and their observations under the premise that that will give them a little bit more insight into somebody that does not have those signs present or at least prominent to their birth chart. So, what are both of your credentials? I think Catherine, you are continuing my trend of having astrologers with very large stelliums and certain signs. What’s your situation there?
CU: Yeah, it’s definitely a situation. So I got my IC, the south node, and the Sun all conjunct in the fourth house in Libra with the addition of Venus in Libra and Mercury in Libra.
CB: Whoa. Okay, that is a lot. That is not something to laugh at in terms of stelliums. Do you mind if I show your chart? Are you comfortable sharing your chart data?
CU: Yeah, go for it.
CB: All right. For those watching the video version of this episode, it’s Catherine’s chart. For those listening to the audio version, we see the IC at one degree of Libra, the south node at two, the Sun at three, Venus at 13, and Mercury at 28. That’s a full-blown stellium in the sign of Libra.
CU: Yeah, proud to have Venus there as my one domicile planet so, grateful for her.
CB: Nice source of strength. All right. Randon, what about you? What’s your Libra credentials?
RR: I’ve got the Sun and a diurnal chart, so I have a day chart with the Sun in Libra and Jupiter as well. And it’s in the 10th house depending on the house system. So, not as stellium’d out as Catherine but… I have two planets.
CB: What’s your birth date again?
RR: October 5th, 1993, 2:00 pm, New Orleans.
CU: And Randon, I think you’ve mentioned that today the Sun is conjunct your Jupiter. Yeah?
RR: Yes. I think it’s a 23 today? And Jupiter is about 23 in my chart. Yeah, and so having the fun of Jupiter opposition and you have Jupiter in Aries, too, that’s awesome.
CU: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Nice, I love that. So you have Capricorn rising and the Sun at 12 Libra and Jupiter at 22 in the 10th whole sign house. Nice. All right. Well, those are pretty good credentials. I feel pretty good about this going into it, sounds like a strong team for our seventh sign of the zodiac falling after the Virgo episode where we had some super stelliums. So, let me start sharing some graphics to orient us for people that are just joining us now for the first time for this series. Here’s a diagram that shows the 12 signs of the zodiac and their different qualities and characteristics. We started with Aries which is the first sign that falls after the vernal equinox or the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, and now we’re all the way to the other side with Libra which is just after the fall equinox, which is the beginning of fall in the northern hemisphere. In terms of stats, this is the symbol for Libra. Libra is the scales, and that’s what the word actually means originally in Greek and Latin. Libra in terms of stats is said to be in traditional astrology a masculine or a diurnal sign. It’s said to be an air or Aries sign with the element of air in terms of the four elements of Earth, air, fire and water. It’s also said to be a cardinal sign in terms of modality, and the three modalities are cardinal, fixed, and mutable.
In terms of rulerships, Libra is said to be the home sign or the domicile of Venus. It’s said to be the sign of the exaltation of Saturn, the sign of the detriment, or antithesis of as I say, sometimes of Mars. And Libra is said to be the sign of the fall or the depression of the Sun. So, those are some of the basic stats when it comes to Libra and talking about orienting us in terms of discussing what it means. What is our starting point or do we usually start with this sign in terms of trying to talk about its qualities and characteristics? Or what are some of the things that first come to mind for each of you when you start thinking of the sign?
CU: Well, usually when I think about any sign I like to think about breaking it down, sort of how we just did like it’s an air sign. And understanding Libra as an air sign is going to tell us so much about what Libra is about, because the air signs are the human signs. If you look at all the different glyphs, all the different images for all 12 signs of the zodiac, there are some that are animal-like, and there are some that are human-like. And even though Libra is actually not a human, it’s considered a human sign. And yeah, it’s actually the only glyph in the zodiac that is an inanimate object, which is going to tell us a lot.
CB: Right, because it represents the scales that you weigh two things on?
CU: Yes. But just to finish the thought about it being a human sign, so the human signs really just indicate that there’s something really intellectual in terms of intelligence about the air signs, whereas some of the other zodiac signs there might be bodily intelligences that are coming to the fore. But for the air signs, there’s a lot of intellectual intelligence that is really strong and really important for that sign.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. So it’s an air sign. And what about you, Randon, where do you usually start when you think about the sign?
RR: Oh, okay. So Libra as a diurnal sign, I like to think of it as diurnal Venus-ruled sign, whereas the nocturnal Venus-ruled sign would be Taurus, and so I think about it being related to the intellectual side of Venus where it’s more like aesthetic harmony in an informational way and not necessarily like aesthetic harmony in a totally physical way although they’re often one in the same especially when related to the Sun and things that are visual. I also think of it just in terms of relationships too of course.
CB: That’s a really good point that ties directly with what Catherine was saying in terms of being a human or being an air sign. And this is the second of the air signs. The first time we encountered air signs was with was Gemini, and there we got a lot of communication and a lot of social things coming to the forefront in terms of that archetype. So that’s a good point that both of you’re making that here with Libra, we get again a return to that of more of a social and communicative and sort of intellectual in some ways dynamic.
CU: Absolutely. Yeah. For Libra, it’s the first polarity that we really reach if we’re starting the zodiac from Aries, which is pretty standard although some people would disagree. But yeah, it’s our first polarity so it’s the first time through the order of the zodiac signs that there’s this distinctive awareness of the other and one’s relationship with other.
RR: Yeah, especially because it’s the polarity of Aries and Libra, and Aries is where the Sun is exalted. And then as far away from that is Libra, so that’s where we have the fall or depression of the Sun, right? And so I like to think of the Sun and Saturn kind of existing in opposite spheres, and Saturn being as far away from you and from the Sun and from the ego as possible, and that kind of signification of Libra being relationships and other people and things that are outside of us.
CB: That makes a lot of sense just often contrasting the first sign of the zodiac Aries which is ruled by Mars, it’s a masculine cardinal fire sign or diurnal. And then opposite to that is Libra which is ruled by Venus which has many contrasting significations from Mars and is also an air sign. And in the traditional or the ancient stoic qualities, air was said to be cold and that’s why the air signs are opposite to the fire signs that are said to be hot, so that there can be this polarity or this tension between the signs that are in opposition where they’re coming from sort of opposite ends of a spectrum. And in researching this episode, Camille Michelle Gray helped to do a lot of the research, helped me to sort of prepare for this episode, and she tried to compare some keywords for Aries and to contrast those with some keywords for Libra, and I want to read some of those really quickly because I thought it was a good sort of starting point to lay a foundation for some of the tensions between them but also how they’re sort of two sides to the same coin.
So Aries, a keyword for Aries is ‘I’ and the keyword for Libra is ‘You’. Keyword for Aries is independence, opposite to Libra which can be interdependence. Aries can be that you can go faster alone, whereas Libra might say that you can go further together. Aries is hothead, Libra is cool-headed. Aries is direct, Libra tends to be a little bit more indirect. Aries sometimes can signify things like war, whereas Libra contrasts with peace. Aries can be more like my way or the highway, whereas Libra can say why can’t we all just get along? Aries is brash, Libra is charming. Aries is lone wolf, Libra is collaborating. Aries is the agitator while Libra is the diplomat. Aries is selfish sometimes while Libra can sometimes be more selfless. Aries can sometimes indicate things like autocracy, whereas Libra might indicate democracy. Aries can be more self-sufficient, whereas Libra can sometimes be more co-dependent. Aries can be more demand, whereas Libra might be more defer. And Aries as a keyword may be to do what scares you, versus Libra might be more to do what pleases you– although that brings up some interesting things in terms of contrast between Taurus and Libra. But yeah, so that’s maybe a starting point for talking about that opposition between Aries and Libra and some of those contrasts that both of you are talking about.
CU: Yeah. I love what Randon was saying about the Sun being exalted in Aries and being in its fall in Libra, and just to bring that into the seasonal understanding. Because you know, Western astrology was developed in the northern hemisphere so part of what informed these ideas was what was going on in their immediate environment. And with Aries, with the Sun increasing in light in Aries and bringing warmth, it was simultaneously making the days shorter and colder in Libra. Saturn has that association with cold, so just to bring that connection more with Saturn, they’re having its exaltation in Libra, but having its fall in Aries. So that’s part of the rationale behind that.
RR: Also thinking seasonally, if it’s warmer you kind of can be more independent. And if it’s colder, we kind of need collective and other people to help us get by, I think.
CU: Totally. Totally.
CB: That’s a good point. And also the contrast is the increase of the days, where in both signs the days and nights are equal around the time of the spring equinox and the fall equinox the days and nights are exactly the same length. But at the time of Aries, the days start getting longer. So the daylight starts kind of weaning out and there’s an increase in that, and that’s one of the reasons why the Sun gets exalted in Aries. Whereas at the fall equinox, they’re equal but the nights start getting longer. So the nighttime starts weaning out and that contrasting nighttime force starts becoming more dominant than the daytime force. I think that’s another reason why the Sun is said to have its fall or depression in the sign of Libra, whereas Saturn which is the darkest and the slowest of the visible planets is said to be exalted in Libra.
CU: Yeah, and something that’s kind of fun that I really like about just… They say that on the equinoxes, you can balance an egg. It’s like the two days of the year that you can balance an egg, and Libra being the sign of balance and the scales is pretty neat. You should try it sometime.
CB: Right.
RR: Have you tried it?
CU: No. [laughter]
RR: They should.
CB: Yeah, so balance. And sometimes one of the themes that comes up with Libra is wanting to balance the scales when things become unbalanced. I think that’s one of the ways that the contrast is set up with Aries because Aries will sort of dive in headfirst and will go it alone and will sometimes act as that disruptive influence that shakes things up, but sometimes Libra’s tendency is to want to rebalance things or make them more even or equitable again when something’s been unbalanced.
CU: Yeah, I was thinking about this today actually, and how like… Sort of bringing in the quality of Gemini and how Gemini is really good at juggling a bunch of different things at once. Personally as Libra I’m not that great at juggling. I can, but where I started to bring balance in is for example, my homework-life balance. I try to bring in balance as a whole. So it’s not so much of a juggle, it’s really trying to say like, “Okay, I’ve been working too much now, I need to bring in some play. Or I’ve been playing too much, I need to focus a little bit more.” So I think Libra trying to bring in balance in that regard is important.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. So, balance. What are some of the other ways? Because we’ve talked about how Libra is more of a social sign and sometimes having social decorum or social balance can be very important to Libra in some ways, right?
CU: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Libra is ruled by Venus. And Venus as we know is a sign of creating harmony, and Venus is also connected with relationships. So relationships are a really big deal for Libra. And something that Libra tends to be really good at is reading the realm. Libra just has a way of picking up on social cues that maybe don’t come as naturally to other people, and Libra just has this natural understanding of, you know, like when it’s someone else’s turn to speak for example, or… Libra tends to be conscious of not sucking all the air out of the room. And Libra also if we’re using an example at a party, Libra knows how to work the room. Libra knows how to talk to everyone for a little bit and knows how to mingle and socialize.
CB: Mingling, that’s a really good Libra keyword.
RR: Yeah, I think that difference between maybe an Aries whatever placements and Libra whatever placements at a restaurant for example, if you’re waiting for the cheque, I would just sit there and wait for the waiter to just bring the cheque. And an Aries, for example, would “I don’t care what the waiter’s doing, I’m going to interrupt them and just be like, ‘Hello, can I get the check right now? I need to go.”
CU: Oh, my gosh.
CB: Yeah, they would demand where’s the cheque? Why haven’t you brought it to us yet?” Versus-
RR: -they’re carrying a tonne of plates super busy.
CU: Right. And have you ever been in a situation where you’re cringing because the people are being so rude? And they don’t think that they’re being rude but as a Libra, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so rude.”
RR: Every day of my life.
CB: That’s a good point. So, Libra sometimes has an aversion to rudeness or an aversion to being rude, which is an aspect of that sort of social consciousness of not necessarily wanting to disrupt things or maybe an extension of wanting to create harmony in some ways.
RR: Yeah, social harmony, for sure.
CU: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think it’s both. You know, Libra has this reputation for being so friendly that it comes off as superficial for other people. And I think it’s two-fold where… I think Libra is genuinely nice. Libra is genuinely very friendly, you know, Venusian; wants to create harmony, wants to find a way for us all to win, wants to find a way for us all to be content, you know? Libras because of that awareness of the other, there’s an extreme discomfort sometimes when other people are not having a good time, for example. But I think also kindness, especially as Libra gets more practice moving through life, it becomes like a strategic thing too. Because I think naturally we are just really patient, really friendly, really good-natured. But at a certain point you learn. You have to bring in that Aries counterbalance or else people can take advantage of your kindness, or they can mistake your kindness for weakness as well.
RR: Or you just wait for the cheque for like two hours and never paying. Nothing happens because you’re waiting for someone else to do it.
CU: Right, if you don’t have an Aries sitting with you to flag someone down, you could be there all night.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. One of the things we’ve talked about in this series is almost what I’ve called the corrective quality that each sign of the zodiac has over the sign that came before it. And it’s been really interesting seeing the alternation between one sign signifying something very strongly and then the next sign after that counterbalancing it in some way. So I’m trying to think of what the counterbalance is between some of the significations of Virgo, the sign immediately before Libra, versus Libra itself. Or where Libra excels in a way that may be counterbalances something that Virgo did too much of. One of the things I’m thinking about is that Virgo was a much more intellectual sign that was focused on details and data and the analysis or analytics of that data, whereas I don’t get the same sense from Libra that Libra might be more concerned in some ways with aesthetics or something like that. And one of the contrasts I’ve come up with over the past month that I’ve mentioned before is some people when they have a bookshelf will arrange it according to subject or alphabetically by author or by title or something like that, versus somebody who might arrange their bookshelf based on the colors of the books so that it’s not arranged according to the content of what the book is about or something like that, but simply due to the aesthetics of how it looks on their bookshelf and how that alters their home vibes and things like that. I tend to think that the people that might arrange things according to the aesthetics might be more people with the heavy Libra placements rather than the other approach being more of a Virgo approach to things. What do you two think of that?
RR: I have Venus in Virgo, I can’t claim that. If I see books arranged by color, I lose my mind.
CB: Okay, yeah.
RR: But I definitely appreciate what you’re saying with the aesthetic sort of arrangement but I can’t claim it.
CU: Yeah, I agree. I have a bookshelf downstairs and there’s a section for big books and then I have smaller books. So it kind of depends. It definitely has to look good, there definitely has to be a balance going on as well as function. That’s how it is for me. But in terms of the corrective function, I do think that Virgo… It’s also a human sign. It’s also a very cerebral sign. It’s an analytical sign. But it’s mutable. So a lot of times Virgo can get stuck in the loop of trying to make things so conceptually perfect in their mind before they make a move, whereas you know, Libra is a cardinal sign. And Libra also understands, I think partially because of the opposition with Aries, there is this understanding of ingenuity and, “You know what? This is good enough.” Libra wants things to be polished, Libra wants things to look good, but a little bit of texture or just one little thing out of place can sort of bring the whole thing into cohesion. Like if it’s too polished, it’s… I don’t know. I don’t think Libra waits for it to be too polished necessarily.
CB: That makes sense. That’s a really good point that Virgo might be paralyzed sometimes by the over attachment on the details and the data and the attempt to achieve perfection, whereas perhaps Libra has a better approach to or at least ability to let go of some of that stuff because it’s a cardinal sign and to just initiate what needs to be initiated as part of that.
CU: Yeah, because I think Saturn being exalted in Libra, too, there’s this understanding about time. And like, “All right, I gotta get it out. I got to get it to the printer or I got to turn this paper in. I’m not going to sit here and agonize over it any longer.” I think speaking as someone who has a Virgo planet, I can kind of tell which is steering the ship. [laughs]
RR: Yeah. Maybe not necessarily like the physical aesthetic of information or the way that the books look, but maybe the social understanding of the books. So Mercury and Virgo would be like, “Here’s the data set,” and then Mercury and Libra would be like, “These are the people that it affects and this is how it plays out in social situations.”
CB: Yeah, or this is how you present the data in order to make people care, versus if you just throw a mound of numbers at people, nobody’s going to actually read that and pay attention to it. Sort of in the way where social media or Instagram or things like that, people have learned how to present information in a way that’s more approachable and impactful because part of doing that is being cognizant of humans and how humans think and react to information, and how sometimes there can be– I don’t want to say superficial quality, there’s probably a synonym for that that’s better– but that humans can react sometimes much more to the aesthetics and how something is presented than they do the data or the information itself.
RR: Absolutely. Absolutely.
CB: Yeah. All right. So that’s bringing out some of the Venusian or the creative side of Libra, some of the social part. One of the things that often gets mentioned is that Libra in a way, socially can be very charming. And that there can be very positive charming side of Libra, but also there can be from a social perspective of knowing when to turn on the charm and being able to use charm almost– I don’t want to say as a weapon, but as something that is like a tool in their kit that they excel at maybe more than other signs, like knowing how to be charming in some ways.
CU: Absolutely. Again, I think it’s both. It’s a natural inclination that Libras have. I’ve been in situations too, especially having a past life in customer service where you’re supposed to be nice to people, right? I was a hairstylist and people come in and you want to make them feel comfortable in your chair. And I know that people who work in restaurants and stuff like that deal with this too, where sometimes you’re too nice and the person mistakes that for flirting. And it’s like, “No, sorry, I’m just trying to do my job.” You know what I mean? So in that instance it’s natural, but it is also a tool. Like, you want to get a good tip at the end of the haircut, I guess. But going back to Libra as the symbol of the scale, the scale is a tool. The scale is a tool of measurement and I think is like a symbol of human progress, actually. Yeah, cuz it’s an invention. It’s a piece of technology which has a lot of overlap with the air element being something that connects people and technology. But to speak about kindness as a tool absolutely, I think Libra understands that this is an asset. And kindness can take you pretty far, you know? And like I said, you can use it as a strategic tool, but I think it also is just a natural way of expressing.
CB: Yeah, I liked what you said going back to what you were saying about being a hairstylist because that’s a really good example and analogy because it doesn’t just involve doing somebody’s hair, but there’s actually a good deal of talking and developing interpersonal relationship between the hairstylist and the client, and then a social and communicative exchange that goes on there that’s actually very important as part of the person’s job. And it’s part of what keeps people coming back in addition to just doing a good job with their hair, but that you’ve actually built some sort of social connection with them at the same time and that there’s almost at least the– not illusion, but at least the idea of some sort of friendship or something that you’ve developed between the person that’s like offering something and their clients.
CU: A hundred percent. Yeah, leaving hair to do astrology full-time, of course, was a dream. But the hardest part was saying goodbye to all my awesome clients that I’d built relationships with over the years. I once worked at this small salon and over half of us were Libras. Because yeah, Libra is a sign that tends to do well in the beauty industry where you’re socializing, you’re interfacing with people, and you have to have an understanding for like color and placement and form. So, going back to like the design and the aesthetic elements of Libra, too.
RR: Sometimes instead of using Astrodatabank, which is an amazing resource and the interface is also incredible, I’ll be lazy and use famousbirthdays.org or whatever website it is. And I went to see famous Libra artists and I mean, their data is like what… I don’t know, has to do with very, very, very right now contemporary famous Libra artists. And most of the famous Libra artists were makeup artists and these sorts of bloggers or vloggers that do makeup. And yeah, I think working in the cosmetology field is pretty Libran.
CU: Yeah, and I think anything to do with design whether it’s home decor, or whether it’s digital design that people do, I think Libras tend to do really well in that area. Just working with color and the balance of color and understanding how the big picture and how everything sort of works together cohesively, it’s something Libra just naturally has a knack for. In fact, something I get a lot of good feedback on– and it’s not something I necessarily go out of my way to do, it’s just part of what makes my work more enjoyable– is people like the colors I use or the imagery that I use when I’m sharing astrological content. It’s just something that I’m naturally drawn to, I like color as a Libra. And I see that a lot with my astrology clients too. Like if I’m reading for someone and they have a really strong Venus placement, their background is colorful. They have a lot of color going on, despite the trends right now which are very Saturn, Capricorn, Aquarius, which has been like those grey tones.
RR: Yeah, pretty bleak the things that are designed to look like hotel sadly needs color for sure.
CU: Yeah, maybe when Saturn goes into Pisces we’ll get some color back.
RR: Oh, yes.
CB: Well, it’s interesting how I was watching a video recently on interior design and how interior design trends change and shift from decade to decade. And one of the things they were emphasizing is how there are certain things that are trendy now and that are really popular and a lot of people will take part in that trend and take design elements to decorate their home from and copy that trend, but then he was warning about what trends will stick around versus which ones will look totally dated in five or 10 years from now that you probably don’t want to do. It was interesting the idea that sometimes fashion or design trends come in and become really popular for a time but then eventually when something becomes too popular, there’s something that rises up against it as a counter trend in order to push back or reject against that. And it makes me think of some of that Libraness at the same time.
RR: Yeah. Yeah, I’m almost thinking like a Sun-Saturn sort of opposition. And I do think Libras and Aquariuses are kind of usually, because of the Saturnian nature of being on the pushback of the trend cycle, they often become the initiators of the trend itself. Like Avril Lavigne, for instance, everybody was kind of… I don’t know, I was really young. Everyone was wearing skate shoes and ties or… I don’t know, they become kind of mall trends as well. Bella Hadid somehow made what? The hair clip? A hair clip?
CU: Yeah, the claw clip.
RR: Yeah, she’s somehow made that a trend even though it’s been around forever. Yeah, even like headphones over the ear, headphones with a wire. Just really mundane things like skate shoes or whatever that become trendy because some famous Libra was just like, “This is great,” then it just trickles down.
CB: I like that. That’s a great combination of both the artistic Venusian side of Libra but also the cardinal side, and that idea that cardinal signs, like Catherine was saying earlier, they tend to initiate things. So in a Libran context, sometimes talking about being the trendsetters and the ones that are leading a trend or know what’s trendy are very conscientious of what the current trends are. And you mentioned Avril Lavigne who’s famously a Sun sign Libra. There’s another famous Sun sign Libra which is Kim Kardashian, who has the Sun and Pluto and Saturn in 11th whole sign house with Sagittarius rising in a day chart and is very much involved in things like beauty and fashion types of things, and also being on top of different trends and different social media trends and things like that.
RR: Kind of setting a lot of the trends and a lot of just what we see in everyday fashion, I think is really strongly influenced by Kim Kardashian.
CU: Libra knows what looks good. Libra knows what looks good.
CB: And maybe has an eye for what looks good that’s up and coming and maybe a tendency to jump on that and know how to maybe execute it or do it well, which might be another part of the Saturn-type thing there. Because Saturn usually tries to do things well, it’s an interesting thing about Saturn so it’s interesting Kim Kardashian also having Saturn in that sign.
RR: She also has Saturn in Libra.
CB: Yeah, that’s what I was saying. She has Saturn in Libra and the Sun and Pluto in Libra. Yeah. Okay, those are really good and we’re focusing on some of the aesthetics, beauty, social media trends being trendsetters is a really good thing. There’s also, though, we’ve talked a little bit about the social component of Libras. Sometimes that can be a major factor as well. One of the more famous Libras-Suns recently is AOC, who we have birth time for, and that was one of the chart examples that Camille Michelle Gray pointed out to me who is a politician and an activist that pushes for more progressive and sort of inclusive policies on a local and on a national level. That might be an interesting additional variation of some of those archetypes that we’re talking about in terms of social consciousness.
CU: Oh my gosh. Yeah, Libra is the sign of the politician, basically. It’s the sign of justice, law, and order. I think that that’s pretty much the strongest actualization of Saturn being exalted in Libra is making the rules and creating consequences ideally that are fair. We think about astrology and how it was developed and you know, the ancient Greeks really just brought astrology, they coalesced it into the system that we still work with today, and they were one of the– I want to say first, but one of the oldest societies that we can look at as democratic. And yeah, like Libra being the sign of the scale and fairness. Like I said, this was a tool to make sure that we were paying a fair price for something. The scale was actually developed in ancient Egypt as a way to be like an impartial judgement of how much something was owed or how much something was worth. And so the scale sort of goes on to be a symbol of civility, of civilization, of being rational, of being fair, of being moral. And so we get all these politicians that embody these Libra qualities and some of that more Saturnian energy really comes through because well, to be a politician you have to be well-liked enough to get elected. But there is something more like of that iron fist in the velvet glove quality that a lot of politicians have. So AOC is one but there are so many others. There’s Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, the Bushes both had Libra placements and right now, yeah, Vice President Kamala Harris is a Libra Sun too. So lots of politicians with Libra.
CB: Let me share her chart really quickly. So there’s Alexandria Acacio-Cortez, who has the Sun-Mars, the Midheaven and Mercury all in Libra. And it’s opposite to the Moon which is in Aries because she was born just about a day before a Full Moon.
CU: Oh, yeah. I love the fire that comes out in her chart too. But it’s like the Libra energy is just sort of like driving the ship. You know, her Libra Sun is behind it all like having this innate sense of fairness.
CB: Yeah. Well, but also the Mars there. There’s a moral outrage sometimes when things are, in her view, unbalanced. Or when there’s injustice is taking place, she’s very forthright as a Sun-Mars or Mercury-Mars conjunction about calling stuff out and pushing back. When there are especially social or political injustices taking place, she seems very forward about saying what she thinks about those things even if it’s not super polite or what have you.
CU: Yeah. Something else that is sort of coming to my mind here with Mars having its detriment in Libra, that sort of helps us to understand what Libra is about too; where if Mars has a certain level of discomfort in the sign of Libra, it’s because you know, Libra is Venus’s territory. We’re trying to bring things into cohesion. We’re trying to get everyone… We’re trying to find a solution that is like a win-win. Libra wants to win, too, they just want everyone else to win as well. But yeah, with Mars in Libra, I think it’s actually a wonderful place for politicians because typically as a politician, you can’t do that sort of Mars in Aries go-for-the-gullet type thing. You have to have an art of delivery, there has to be maybe a very polished way of confrontation. And so yeah, like Mars in Libra, I think of the lawyer who manipulates the words in order to get somebody to see things from another way.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Randon, did you have something you were gonna say?
RR: Yeah, just thinking about Libra as the sign of democracy and okay, this is kind of like populism or… Democracy and populism, of course, aren’t different. But okay, what are we all going to vote on? What everyone votes on is coming together under this one decision. This one kind of like the scales finally weigh out in one way or another. And that decision isn’t always going to be making everyone happy, it’s just sort of like the middle ground. That kind of makes politicians often like a scapegoat or whatever for people’s frustrations if the democratic choice doesn’t go their way but yeah, I think democracy is not always exactly fair. And I think Scorpio would add maybe a sort of emotional finality, where justice in Libra’s court wouldn’t necessarily mean total fairness. Or not necessarily fairness, but closure. You can have a final jurisdiction on something and just never feel closure because it’s just impartial justice, it’s done with a scale, these are the rules, and it’s not going to make people happy all the time. So I think democracy is actually really a controversial topic and I think that’s also why Libras catch a lot of heat. And also there have been a lot of Libras that are just controversial or not everybody’s cup of tea because democracy and fairness isn’t going to make everyone happy.
CB: Yeah. So going back to what you said, Catherine, I think one of the issues with Mars in Libra is when Mars is in its own sign of Aries, it’s handed a sword and just said, “This is how you accomplish what you want to do.” Whereas when Mars is in Libra, Mars is handed a bouquet of flowers and said, “This is is your tool to accomplish what you have to do.” And that’s not the weapon that Mars is used to wielding most of the time in order to get things done, it’s used to be able to cut and slash and hack its way toward its goals, but with Libra it has to use something else. It has to use other tools like charm or persuasion or words or negotiation and social contract, and offers of diplomacy and things like that, which can be effective things to do in order to accomplish goals but it’s much different than how Mars is normally inclined to act.
CU: Yeah, it would be so much more efficient Mars and Aries to have this sword and just go out there and take what you think you deserve, you know? But you’re gonna make some enemies in that way. Aries as an archetype might be more comfortable doing that, whereas Libra they’re not comfortable doing that. Also, it’s a strategy. It’s a very strategic thing. I have this book and it’s called the 48 Laws of Power, and there’s this whole section about… It’s like a bestseller.
RR: It’s such a Libra book, I think.
CU: It is! It is such a Libra book. It is such a Mars and Libra book, because-
CB: Oh, why do you both say that? So, Robert Greene’s famous book, 48 Laws of Power?
CU: Yeah, it’s like the art of strategy. There’s a story in there, for example, about this emperor that comes to power and it’s pretty normal for them to just kill everyone who opposes them. Instead, he does this strategy where he instead hires them to work closely with him. And they know that he saved their lives so they’re actually more loyal to him. So it’s like strategy, I think. There was a story about the Trojan horse and how, you know, during the Trojan War it was like a 10-year-war and the armies were both evenly matched. And so they were just killing each other, everyone was just dying, and no one was making any progress in the war. That’s why the Greeks were like, “Well, let’s send them a gift. Let’s build this little horse.” And it’s kind of a Libra thing where it’s like, “Here’s this pretty horse, put it inside of your walls.” And then Mars and Libra comes out and slaughters everybody. And they won but the issue that the Greeks had was they were like, “This isn’t manly enough,” and they were kind of against it, but they were like, “Don’t you want to win?” So that’s an instance like a Mars and Libra strategic move, you’re not going straight for the gullet but it can be very effective. You just have… It has to work a little bit harder to bring about that result.
RR: Yeah, definitely. Like fighting proxy wars almost. Like, I didn’t do it like someone else is doing it. Maybe Mars and Libra could be a good strategy for them. And I think the 48 Laws of Power has a lot of content like always have someone else do it for you, or you never really reveal all of your intentions, or keep your friends close but your enemies closer kinds of things. It’s a really… It’s kind of a controversial book but it’s pretty Libran in this way.
CU: Totally, 100% agreed. And that’s another sort of Libra stereotype of getting other people to do things for you, like the power of suggestion or making it someone else’s idea, versus instead of saying, “Hey, I want you to help me with this. I want you to collaborate with me.” The Libra art of suggestion is saying, “You know, this is why it’ll benefit you,” and maybe you give them a bunch of compliments first before you ask the favor. I think it’s just a Libra sort of way of exchanging like, “Hey, I appreciate you. I want you to do something for me.” But yeah, I think that that’s like a Libra stereotype there.
RR: And like why does etiquette exist, and there are all these rules of the correct proper way of doing things and… I don’t know.
CU: Etiquette, yeah. Social cues. Social order. Yeah, thinking about Libra as a sign of civility. The Greeks they thought that Mars was really brash. And the whole idea of manners, like if you’ve seen movies from medieval times and people just sort of sitting around a table and just gobbling up food. And then you think about more of a set table and people saying please and thank you and please pass me this, and you have the napkin on your lap. That’s more of a Libra thing. And who created all these social rules? But it is like a very Saturn and Libra thing, like setting expectations and having a set of expectations for how you’re supposed to behave in a social situation.
RR: And then I guess the 48 laws of power are like, “How do we exploit these rules for our own gain?” Which would be kind of Libran, I think. If you’re looking at all these famous politicians or people who have prominent Libra placements like Putin or [Satcher] or whoever else kind of using their knowledge of social cues to have the upper hand to initiate their will or whatever they want to happen.
CU: The symbol for Libra might as well be a chess piece.
CB: I like that, that’s a good one. Yeah, and Bill Clinton is one of the most famous 20th-century examples of a Libra stellium where he had the Ascendant Mars, Neptune, Venus, and Jupiter all in Libra in the first whole sign house and using some of those things to his advantage in knowing how to use social cues as well as charm. One of the things they always say about when he was first running for president back during his political days, was people would say that when you were in his presence, even if you didn’t like him politically he was tremendously charming as a person and that there was something about him that was sort of just charismatic in that way. And it’s interesting you’re both mentioning Robert Greene. We don’t have a birth time for him but it’s interesting all three of his book titles relate potentially to Libra keywords. So it’s like the 48 Laws of Power. So, laws. One of them is the 33 Strategies of War. So it’s not just war itself, it’s like Strategies of War. And then finally, one of his books was The Art of Seduction. So seduction is another interesting Libra-type keyword.
CU: Yeah, sounds like he has some Libra placements.
RR: He must.
CB: Yeah, potentially. And then going back to something you were saying earlier, Randon, one of the contrasts at this point that we might come up with with Libra versus Scorpio– Scorpio being the sign that follows after Libra and therefore there must be some corrective function or something that Scorpio balances out that’s different from Libra– one of the things I was thinking about when you’re talking about that is Scorpio tends to focus very much on depth in creating a depth of feeling and depth of emotion. And I think one of the corrective functions that might be happening is that sometimes Libra while social and wanting to create connections between people, it can be similar in some ways to Gemini in that it can be more of like a social butterfly and that it’s creating these short-term or sometimes occasionally somewhat shallow relationships with a bunch of different people, but it’s not necessarily going super into depth with any one of those per se. And that could be something that Scorpio as a fixed water sign ruled by Mars is almost like overcorrecting or balancing out from Libra.
RR: Yeah. I mean, it’s the revenge after the verdict. It’s like, “Oh, I didn’t like what the judge said so then I went and got revenge for closure.”
CU: Yeah. I like what you were saying there, Chris, and I think another maybe corrective one too is like with Libra trying to balance things out so much, it can maybe spread itself a little too thin trying to keep everything in perfect harmony and balance. Whereas Scorpio isn’t afraid to go to an extreme, isn’t afraid to let their passions sort of drive their ship and say, “You know, maybe I don’t have time for everything or everyone, but this handful of people and this thing are what I’m going for.”
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. So Libra in trying to keep things balanced sometimes can spread things out quite a bit, versus Scorpio’s tendency might be to unbalance the scales and to go to such an extreme that might be very different compared to what Libra would be used for or would feel appropriate in terms of going that far.
CU: Yeah, and I think Libra does care what other people think. Libra does want to be liked. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe you could answer, Chris, coz you’re a Scorpio. But yeah, I don’t know if Scorpio cares as much as Libra about what people think of them. You know?
CB: Yeah. One of the funny contrast that it immediately makes me think of is somebody that has a lot of Scorpio placements and has let’s say a goth aesthetic, which let’s say most people might find like off-putting or something like that or that Libra might find off-putting, but that Scorpio almost revels in that in doing the thing that seems odd or strange or dark or… Morose isn’t the right keyword, but something sort of in that sort of general field.That’ss also very contrasting with Libra and its more sort of harmonious aesthetic inclinations.
CU: Definitely. Yeah, I think that that’s one of the criticisms against Libra. It’s because Libra does care about presentation. And, of course, understanding how things are going to be received or perceived, that can be an asset for Libra, you know? That can be something that is strategic for them in that cardinal sort of… Yeah, their cardinal or Capricorn, like that climbing sort of way that Libra does care about. But it can also sort of temper things down too much like dilute the potency a little bit when Libra tries to be liked by everyone. They sort of lose themselves and they lose that spark that makes them special. I think that’s part of why the Sun has its fall on Libra, too. Is that sometimes watering things down too much for the sake of being well-received or well-liked, it sort of loses that individual potency. And yeah, that is something that… Oh, go ahead.
CB: Right, if you’re too preoccupied with what other people think, then your own light may not have a chance to shine through as much as it would otherwise.
CU: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that is something that Libra struggles with at some point, especially Libra-Sun people. It’s like choosing to just be yourself, you know? Because I know that was something I struggled with when I was younger, you sort of start defining yourself by who you are to other people. Eventually that can change but I think that’s something that Libra can struggle with, and that’s one way that we see Libra having its Sun in fall or depression
RR: I’m thinking about this in contrast to Aquarius, and Aquarius is so much like, “Oh, I’m myself and no one else,” like an individuality complex almost about them. But I think being social air signs- Aquarius is also a social sign, right?
CU: Yeah.
RR: As a person. But still, somehow that self is defined by the relationship to other people, to society, to culture… Being countercultural is such an important part of being an Aquarius, I think. Sorry for any Aquarius who is listening and wants to disagree with me right now.
CU: No, I agree with.
CB: I’m sure there’s a lot of Aquariuses that would disagree with you on principle but that’s the point. Yeah, you know, Aquarius being the sign opposite to Leo where the Sun has its detriment or its antithesis. And yeah, Aquariuses do want to oftentimes stand out by setting themselves apart and standing out from the crowd by doing the thing. Sometimes by rejecting social convention can be a very Aquarius and Saturn-type thing with Saturn being the traditional ruler of Aquarius. Whereas Libra seems like usually it’s not rejecting social convention, but instead it’s embracing social convention or sometimes being the one that’s establishing even what the social convention is.
RR: Right, because of the Venusian influence there. Whereas Aquarius would be like, “I don’t fit in and I love it,” Libra would be like, “I don’t fit in, I’m in hell. I’m wearing the wrong thing right now, I can’t believe I showed up looking like this.”
CU: I think Libra gets that stereotypical popular girl, you know what I mean? The girl who we see in movies where, you know, “You can’t sit with us if you’re not dressed a certain way.” Libra sort of gets that archetype. And that’s sort of one of the negative connotations of Libra is that superficiality. But again, it’s not always coming from a place of superficiality necessarily, it’s trying to be something to everybody.
RR: Yeah, and then just kind of, again, losing substance in the process
CU: Exactly.
RR: can be tough, can be a challenge being a Libra.
CB: Yeah, so what…. Go ahead.
CU: I was going to say but I like bringing in that connection with Aquarius because when I think about the human signs and technology and innovation, I think there’s a lot of confusion about the Aquarius symbol. And one of the things that stands out to me is that this is a man carrying an urn of water and bringing it back to society. And I think that that is a piece of technology like a vase that can hold water and bring it away from the water away to somewhere else. Because for eons humans had to live on a water source or die. And so to develop this piece of pottery that can transport water or even looking at ancient Greece and Egypt, the aqueducts, the symbol of the aqueducts is also technology, the ability to transport water and Libra being a scale which is also a human invention which is pretty fascinating. So I think that there’s definitely a connection there on intellect as the thing that sets us apart from the animal kingdom, and that’s why we are the human signs.
RR: Does that Mercury play a role in all of this? Somehow it’s like a triplicity ruler, this is getting too technical.
CB: No, I think that connects all three of the signs that we’re talking about because it’s one of the things we do in this series is kind of do what we’ve been doing, which is talking about the sign and its qualities in its own terms, but then also by comparison with similar qualities that other signs have or by contrasting different qualities that the sign doesn’t have. So it seems like at this point we’re really talking about the entire air triplicity. And that’s a good point that both of you are making that all three of the air triplicity signs, there’s a technological component of using technology as a tool in order to establish or accomplish different things.
CU: Yeah, to advance society in some way. I just think of Libra as being the social order that sort of advanced civilization, and then Aquarius being the infrastructure, being able to take that and apply it to a system or a society. So yeah, definitely social awareness is a huge thing for the air element for sure.
RR: Yeah. And I feel like Libra kind of if we’re thinking about the zodiac images, what is Gemini’s tool? It’s like once we hit Libra we have the scale, and then with Aquarius we have a vase, but Gemini just they have relationship between people, they have each other. I feel like once we hit the cardinal air sign something happens.
CU: We’re doing something with it.
RR: We’re doing something with the air, whereas before with Gemini, the first air sign, there’s really just kind of the element of air itself, I don’t know.
CU: The curiosity.
CB: Or just words, I mean, Gemini sometimes is words, is what it has both as a good thing as well as sometimes as a bad thing, that sometimes all it has is words.
CU: Yeah. And I think there’s just this curiosity tinkering component with Gemini of like, “Hey, let’s find out what this does,” and that might lead to the later inventions later in the triplicity.
RR: Right. What does it actually mean? What is this word versus this word? The relational kind of quality between words. And then graders in that would be Aquarius. It’s so funny that this is the Libra episode and we’re just talking about the relationship of Libra to all the other signs
CU: We’re very concerned about that.
CB: Yeah, well, Libra is the point at which you really fully start to realize that something only exists sometimes by comparing it in relation to something else. And if there was only one thing that ever existed, you almost wouldn’t know or wouldn’t have the same sort of existence because there would be nothing else outside of it to compare it to relatively speaking. Maybe that’s a good keyword for Libra, is that everything in the world is relative to something else and keeping that idea of almost relativity in mind in many different levels of existence might be almost something that’s inherent to Libra as a core concept.
CU: Yeah. And Libra is like the mirror being the first opposition through the zodiac. And I want to say it was Christopher Renstrom who mentioned that Venus if you were to hold it, it looks like a mirror, and I thought that was really cool. I think I heard that from him.
CB: The glyph or the symbol for Venus you mean?
CU: Yes, and how thinking about Libra as a relationship-related sign and how our relationships are the most intimate mirrors that we have, you have a better understanding of yourself or ideas even in conversation with another person. And I think that that’s something that Libra really cares a lot about too is what other people think about something. Libra really cares about other people’s opinions, not just for how that reflects on themselves, but for getting a better understanding of anything. Libra likes to understand what other people think about something because it’s more information. And Libra being an air sign, I think that’s something that’s really overlooked about Libra is that a lot of them are really brainy and really, really nerdy Libras actually and just wanting to learn, wanting to understand. And understanding someone else’s position on something can sort of broaden your own conceptual understanding of something.
RR: It’s where we get the bothsidesisms of being a Libra, the devil’s advocate kind of stereotype. Personally, I’ll have these kind of extreme ideas. I have Mercury-Mars conjunction in Scorpio, and I’ll get really way ahead of myself with some things, and then I need to talk to someone about it. And then as soon as I have someone else to consider these things with, kind of I’m able to dial down the intensity of my ideas and rationalize things a little bit better. But it’s a constant back and forth with being a Libra, I think, and trying to figure out what the truth is. But it is all relative, of course.
CU: Totally. Yeah, Libras love talking things out, especially Libra Moon, they need to talk it out. And it’s so funny, I hear this a lot about Libra placements, about how they “talk about nothing”. But we need to talk things out because we need to explain and validate our line of thinking about something. Whether it’s an emotional thing or whether it’s an intellectual thing, we like to talk it out and hear someone else’s take or perspective because it makes our own more well-rounded.
RR: Yeah, and it helps us to make sure what we’re saying and thinking is real as well, I think, comes from the fallen Sun, right? Okay, it’s real if someone else thinks it’s real, it must be real. But I mean, talking about nothing and thinking about nothing or whatever people say about Libra I think has to do with this thoughts about thoughts, this sort of metaness to being a Libra, where I in part of my research for Libras have looked at philosophers that have Libra Sun or influence and a lot of it is thinking about thinking and I guess the social implications of certain ideas which can become a black hole of ideas. Because if it’s too meta, it can sound like it’s about nothing. It can sound like it cancels it out.
CU: It’s mind-blowing.
RR: Yeah.
CB: That makes me think of the political thing about the both sides issue or people that say both sides are doing that or can see the pros and cons of both sides. And sometimes that could lead to whataboutism or almost a paralysis of assigning truth or blame to either side if you can see both the sort of issues with both sides too much that you’re unable to, that you almost balance them too much and refuse to acknowledge the issues on either side in some way.
RR: Yeah, stagnation.
CB: Stagnation, that’s it, yeah, yeah.
RR: Yes, Saturnian, right?
CB: Right, of just sort of paralysis at that point of not being able to do anything because the possibilities on both sides are just balanced out too much in some ways.
RR: Libra’s still a cardinal sign. It’s like, “Oh, nothing’s happening, nothing’s moving with this debate, but if something comes of it, just might not be so apparent.” It’s like a power move.
CU: Yeah. I think Libra does have this reputation for being indecisive and defaulting to being agreeable, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” And that can be true. If Libra doesn’t have a strong opinion or end goal, then we really don’t care, we really don’t care. But there is this other side to Libra that you both are touching on, which is the devil’s advocate and the contrarian which is a big part of being a Libra of just sort of being the person that challenges and saying, “Well I don’t know, have you thought about it this way? Have you thought about it this way?” And in that case, Libra is not agreeable at all. They’re not really supportive to you if you’re trying to complain about something. Yeah, the devil’s advocate thing is real.
CB: Yeah, that’s a huge aspect of the Libra archetype, the devil’s advocate or the contrarian. I think that partially comes through that notion of if Aries is the first sign where we start and Libra is where you get to the opposition and in some ways in modern astrology Libra often being likened to the opposition in that way by setting up a contrast or setting up and acting in that role and adopting that role of being the other side of the argument, and sometimes Libras love to get into that position of playing the other side of the argument to the point that they can become contrarian in some ways. I know early on in my studies of astrology I was always surprised at how many skeptics of astrology I would run into that had strong Libra placements. And I later sort of came to understand that that might have to do with that contrarian quality of Libra.
CU: Yeah.
RR: I often will mute someone if they find out I’m an astrologer, they’re like, “Oh, I don’t believe in astrology,” or like, “I think astrology’s fake.” I’m like, “Yeah, you’re so right, just you’re right. Yeah, astrology’s bad.” I will immediately just agree with them even though I obviously don’t believe that.
CU: I think that’s a little of your Gemini Moon too, it’s like, “Let’s mess with them here a little bit.”
RR: They don’t just say that simply, maybe they’ll say something like, “Oh, you know how people on Tinder will not swipe me because I said that I’m a Gemini.” I’m like, “You’re right, those people don’t know astrology,” and so I’ll agree with them. I’ll agree as astrology in this regard in the way that astrology is used or misused by popular culture is bad. So I do end up actually seeing truth in what the opposition or someone who would be seen as in opposition to me, I see truth in what they’re saying and I actually do agree with them on some level. And then I probably can end up convincing them of my point by conceding and understanding what they’re saying.
CU: You’re such a Libra. Yeah, the ability to be impartial and see it from someone else’s side. But a lot of times that can be… If you are trying to get someone to see it from your side, that can be a point of leverage too of just empathizing with them. But then devil’s advocating them and saying, “But what if astrology was…” just to use that example.
CB: Really good point because on the positive side that Libra archetype can create empathy and the ability to empathize with other people is like a really important trait, and it’s something that Libra maybe does better than a number of other signs. But the flip side of that or the downside of that can be sometimes being overly impressionable or you have that scenario… There’s a couple of recent people where this is actually a common accusation against them which is true, which is, for example, like Joe Rogan on his podcast oftentimes whatever the last person said to him, he’ll adopt that as what he thinks is true. So they’ll just sort of adopt whatever it was that the most recent person that they talked to said. And sometimes it can just be some wildly wrong scientific or political or other take. But because they had that conversation and that one connection and there was that attempt to find through empathy what was the truth in what that person was saying, sometimes it can leave them open to giving into or going over to really not great or not even truthful things. Being swayed, that’s it. And then it’s funny because another person I think of that also that was a common thing over and over again was they would say that Trump was like that, that whatever the last person was that he had a conversation with, he would adopt whatever that person had said. So people in his political circle were constantly vying for face time with him because whoever could get it could influence what he said and thought and what the official policy was just by introducing ideas and concepts at that point. And he had Jupiter and Neptune in Libra in the third house.
RR: No way.
CU: Yeah, and Joe Rogan has the Libra Moon.
RR: Oh, I thought he might have something because I know he’s a Virgo. So usually if you have a Sun sign, you’ll have some other personal planets nearby.
CU: I think he’s a Leo, but he has three planets in Virgo.
RR: Oh, okay.
CB: I just pulled it up from Astrodatabank and it says it’s an AA-rated chart, but here’s the chart if that’s correct. So he has Taurus rising and Moon in Libra in a night chart. So the Moon is actually his sect [bite]. So yeah, impressionability, and then that’s been funny because sometimes again that can be about the impressionability and sometimes people being shaped by the other people that they’re around and seeing somebody like him have this whole transformation of political beliefs and other things over the past years based on the people that he kept having on the podcast who he was talking to constantly.
RR: I mean, I think I can be impressionable. But if it’s something that I really truly care about, I like to have the final word on what it is and no one can convince me otherwise. Maybe that’s my fixed Mercury, I don’t know, but I do get the sense of… I mean, I do have Jupiter and Libra as well, this like, “Okay, what is it that I believe in?” It’s relative to what the sort of mission is and what the strategy is, which people could find superficial. But I think there is often a core if there are core values and things that people care about. I would put my relationships and my friendships and certain virtues before political ideology or something that I find actually superficial. So I had gotten into an argument with a friend, for example, and then the next day I just called and apologized because I was like, “Are you okay? What’s going on?” And he was really actually taken aback by it, and I was like, “No, I actually don’t care about politics at all, I just want to make sure that you’re okay because that’s kind of the core ideology if it is an ideology at all.”
CU: Yeah. I think a part of that stems from being open-minded too, Libra just being open-minded to an alternate point of view and the ability to be swayed. I think one of the other things that Libra gets labeled as is gullible, and I think part of where that comes from is just being Venusian, being genuine or I should say generally good-natured, just wanting to believe that, “Oh yeah, if you say that’s the truth, that’s the truth.” So I think that that’s part of where that comes from. But being able to sort of hold space for another person’s perspective. I was noticing in my Libra research that there’s like a lot of people who do interviews. So, Kelly Ripa has Sun Moon in Libra, Barbara Walters is a Libra, Johnny Carson is a Libra, Trevor Noah, oh, Ellen.
RR: I think so.
CU: Oh yeah, I think she might have something there, I can’t remember her chart off the top of my head.
RR: If I’m wrong, sorry.
CU: No, it’s all good. But yeah, Trevor Noah from The Daily Show has Libra placements. A lot of people I found had that, and I think just being able to be in the interview seat and hold space for what someone has to say without challenging them too much and also making them feel comfortable to be there.
CB: What is the term for that that’s social intelligence or something, just having good one-on-one conversational skills?
RR: Politeness.
CB: Politeness? That’s good.
CU: And that must be where the politician angle comes in too for sure.
RR: Polite, politic, they must have some root similarities. Is this a reach? I don’t know.
CU: No, I don’t think so.
CB: I was just looking through which of the charts you just mentioned I had, and I have Johnny Carson’s chart, who’s famous for doing The Tonight Show for many years and kind of created the standard for what one of those late-night talk shows was supposed to be. And that’s such a good example of sitting down, he’s got his desk, and then the guest comes in, they walk in and they sit down on his couch, and then they have this short back and forth conversation. And Carson’s entire job is just to be funny but also charming and engaging and to interview and draw out what is best about the other person through a series of questions in what they’re trying to talk about and to make it seem interesting, but also quick, it’s not a long-term thing necessarily, there’s a certain set of parameters to it that you have to operate in. But it’s interesting then that that became sort of the model that all other late-night shows after that have followed and emulated over the course of the past 30 years with people like Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien and other people like that.
CU: Is Conan a Libra? I don’t have his chart, but I do have Jimmy Kimmel has Venus in Libra, and Jimmy Fallon has Mars in Libra too. So yeah, it is something that you see a lot there in the peopleing professions.
RR: Yeah. Also the cardinal signs, again, being the sort of initiators or leaders in most things. I also saw that there were a lot of first female XYZ with Libra placements. Kamala Harris was the first female vice president. I was looking into Jupiter in Libra because I was just trying to understand what it meant, and there were a lot of like the first female rabbi in the United States had Jupiter in Libra, the first pilot, first female pilot, also Jupiter in Libra. So yeah, a lot of Libras firsts.
CU: Yeah, we can add Margaret Thatcher to the list too. She was a Libra and she was the first prime minister in England.
RR: And with Venus being the ruler of Libra kind of generally being women in mundane astrology, and then cardinal signs being the first of a season. So first female XYZ I’m going to say, Libra can relate to this.
CU: Interesting.
CB: That’s interesting. I just pulled up Margaret Thatcher’s chart, and it’s interesting she has Sun, Mercury in Libra, and that’s similar to AOC’s chart who also has Sun, Mercury, and Mars in Libra. So it’s a similar stellium.
CU: Yeah, I think Putin. Well, we don’t have good data for Putin. Dirty data.
CB: That would be an interesting first though if there was a parallel between the Margaret Thatcher chart and some people have speculated about whether in the long-term at least if AOC isn’t, if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t a candidate for somebody that might run for president or perhaps even become first female president at some point one of these days.
RR: Yeah, that makes sense.
CB: Yeah. So we’ll see what the future brings in terms of famous Libras and becoming first at different things. Why don’t we start talking about some other contrasts between different signs since I know we’re about 90 minutes into this, so we probably have about 30 minutes left. Here is back to the signs of the zodiac diagram. We’ve talked a little bit about the contrast between Virgo and Libra. We’ve talked a little bit about the contrast between Scorpio and Libra. We’ve talked about the three air signs, Gemini, Libra, and Saturn and Aquarius. Speaking of that actually, you mentioned Conan O’Brien, Catherine, and he’s not a Libra. However, he does have two very prominent placements in Aquarius which are the Moon and Saturn. And actually, he released a video just a few weeks ago, a podcast episode talking about how he became the host of the late-night show of a talk show suddenly during his Saturn return in Aquarius 30 years ago. And now 30 years later, he stepped down during his second Saturn return, he stepped down from his position hosting late-night television shows, and he’s transitioned into podcasting and his podcast was bought by a major podcasting company and now it’s been expanded into this whole thing with a whole line of different podcasts. So there’s something there about the air signs and interviews and podcasting and different things like that that we’ve really touched on here that seems important and seems prominent.
CU: Yeah, and can I add one thing onto that real quick?
CB: Yeah.
CU: Libras in music, that’s another way of interfacing and engaging with an audience. It’s something I found a lot of in my research, Libra musicians. And Randon and I were actually talking about how we both have guitars behind us.
CB: That’s funny.
RR: The same exact position.
CU: Yeah, just Libras just having this affinity for music. And in my research I found just like, gosh, Bruce Springsteen has a Libra stellium, Tom Petty, John Lennon, Paul Simon is a Libra, all these really likable, popular rock musicians that the music isn’t too confronting, they appeal to a lot of people, is a very Libra thing.
RR: Yeah, and Doja Cat even I think has extreme mass appeal. This music is just fun, it’s pop, it’s not hurting anyone. Beyoncé, incredibly famous Libra stellium, mass appeal.
CB: There is Beyoncé’s chart with Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Pluto all in the sign of Libra.
CU: Boom.
RR: Wow.
CB: One of the most famous artists, musicians of our current time period of the past decade.
RR: I’m sure she’s a record breaker as well in this cardinal Libra sense. She has to be the first woman to do something with music. I don’t have the Beyonce facts off the top of my head, I wish I did. I think, but I bet.
CU: Jay-Z has some Libra placements too. And another Libra person is Freddie Mercury. We don’t have a time chart for Freddie Mercury, but Freddie is a pianist and the lead singer of Queen. And Queen was sort of this eclectic bunch of musicians where they describe in the documentary and in the movie, “We probably shouldn’t all be in this band together.” And actually guitarist Brian May has some Libra placements too. So yeah, I really like that, just to be able to charm an audience and create something beautiful. I think Libra has a lot of connection with music being ruled by Venus and being an instrument basically.
RR: Yeah, harmony. I think music makes… Okay. I was gonna say music makes more sense with Libra than it does with Taurus but Taurus is singing and these sorts in the ears and all these things, but I was just thinking about the conceptual Venusian side, rather than the visual. But I’m gonna like walk it back here.
CU: No, you’re right.
RR: I mean, Libra is diurnal. It has to do with vision and so I think a visual cohesion also makes sense and maybe music isn’t so visual.
CU: Composition. Well, the thing is that music is math. It really is math. Like, you can play by ear which is one thing, or you can understand the system, which is Saturn. And the timing, Saturn, that you get from Libra too and to create harmony. It’s such a Libra thing. But you’re right though about Taurus. Taurus produces a lot of really strong vocalists.
CB: It is reminding me both Freddie Mercury and Beyoncé both are Sun sign Virgos, but then they have those stelliums in Libra and I think there’s something to be said about the performance aspect of music that was so important for both of them and be able to create an image and to kind of craft their image in some way being super important to their success and their lasting memory, not just to the Virgo like the technical aspect of the music being good or knowing instruments or things like that or singing in most instances, but also just the presentation of things and being groundbreaking in terms of that. But, you know, there’s another aspect to music that might tie things in, which is just that there’s a matter of harmony, but also connecting and rhyming together words, rhyming together sentences and things like that is a very kind of Libra thing because it involves the reconciliation or taking words and making them fit together that otherwise wouldn’t fit together just through how the word sounds and there’d be a similarity to the sound of the word.
CU: Totally.
RR: Yeah, songwriters and rappers, lots of Libras.
CB: Well, and it’s a thing where a lot of people don’t know the actual lyrics to a song but the song might still be really popular and people might even really like sing along with it without truly understanding the lyrics or what’s underlying the lyrics of like why the musician chose certain lyrics, but that just sounds good. Or that there’s something about the sound of that that is aesthetically appealing in some ways.
CU: Yeah, kind of like nonsense or surreal lyrics, you mean?
CB: Right. Yeah. Yeah, just different things like that. Similarly, it makes me think of another famous Libra in terms of rappers, and we don’t have a for sure time chart for him, but the chart of Eminem who is a Sun, Uranus, Mars and Pluto in Libra, and then also Venus in Virgo and Mercury in Scorpio so that it’s kind of a combination of all of those things, but that he’s widely regarded as a lyrical genius because of his innovative ways of rhyming different lines and even different words that otherwise shouldn’t go together but finding a way to put them together like puzzle pieces.
RR: I think Future has a Libra stellium and so does Lil Wayne, just throwing those out there.
CU: Lil Wayne does. Yeah, Frank Ocean has Mars in Libra. Sting has a tonne of placements in Libra. Yeah, it’s something you see a lot when you start looking at musicians’ charts.
RR: Lyrics. Lyrical.
CB: Yeah. Lyrical and the ability to convey something with words that is appealing or yeah, there’s something there.
CU: And in terms of pop stars that have huge stage presence, I found an overwhelmingness. Like, when I looked up celebrities who have placements with Jupiter in Libra, oh my god. That list was just all the biggest stars like Madonna, Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Freddie Mercury, Prince, Mariah Carey, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Mozart definitely was hauled in court in his day. Cher is on that list too, Alicia Keys, some powerhouses on that list.
CB: Nice. All right, let’s get to some other contrast with the signs of the zodiac. What other signs have we not contrasted yet that would be good to contrast? One of the things is we’ve talked about the triplicities and the air triplicity and those three signs having a number of things in common based on the element of air. One of the other groupings is the modalities. And Libra is a cardinal sign, we’ve talked about how that connects with Mars as a cardinal sign. The other two cardinal signs that we haven’t really touched on at all are Cancer and Capricorn. What are some similarities or some differences between Libra and Cancer in Capricorn as three of the cardinal signs?
RR: I actually had this thought earlier when we were talking about how Libras oh they get someone else to do it for them, I think that’s such a Capricorn trait. My family has a lot of Capricorn women that I lived with and they would always just be like, “Oh, can you do this? I just don’t feel like getting up and getting glass water, can you just go do it for me?” And I think delegating and being in charge and just saying can you do this, can you do this, that’s such a cardinal sign thing.
CU: Oh, delegating.
CB: Yeah, the delegating of responsibility to another.
CU: But do you think… Oh, go ahead, Chris.
CB: And with Capricorn, that sometimes puts us in the position where they get the reputation of being good managers or at least being managers of things.
RR: Yeah. But people don’t realize that Cancer also is kind of bossy. They kind of are. They can tell people what to do. Yeah. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. They’re leaders.
CB: Yeah, Cancer is like the queen of the zodiac if, let’s say if in medieval times the astrologers would assign the King to Leo and they would assign the Queen to Cancer and the Moon. So that could be an aspect of that of what you’re talking about. What were you gonna say, Catherine?
CU: I was just gonna say it sounds like Capricorn is more direct about it than Libra with the delegating.
RR: “Yeah, I need you to do this at this time.” Okay, there’s a deadline involved with Capricorn.
CB: Yeah. “I’m gonna need you to come into work early in order to do this and this task at six o’clock in the morning.” And that’s Capricorn, whereas Libra might be more subtle or more using a sort of encouragement in an indirect way in order to ask somebody to do something for them.
CU: “It’d be very… I’d really appreciate it if someone…” [laughs]
CB: Right, that’s a great Libra phrase.
RR: “Would you mind doing this thing? I really don’t care if you mind or not, I just want it to get done.” [crosstalk] But I mean, Cancer is kind of mysterious to me as a sign.
CU: I think they’re both like the indirect quality that Cancer has. Like, those ones I think were some of the more confusing signs to understand as cardinal signs. You know, when you’re first learning astrology, you’re like, “Well, if Libra is sort of indirect and Cancer is sort of like passive as they say or sidestepping, how is that cardinal?” So that’s where they relate in that way is both just sort of being indirect with both understanding the objective. Libra usually has a plan and Cancer definitely knows what it wants. Cancer I think is motivated by its instincts and its feelings of what it wants to do, it needs to feel like doing something is sort of the main issue. So yeah, I think that they are both just not as direct in terms of the cardinal signs like Capricorn and Aries might be.
RR: Yeah. I think what Libra and Cancer want to do changes often. Like, what I want to do today might not be the same thing that I wanted to do yesterday because Cancer is ruled by the Moon and so the Moon can fluctuate and change signs, change vibes. And Libras is air so, like we were talking about earlier, it can be influenced by other currents.
CB: Yeah, all the cardinal signs have a reputation especially in ancient astrology for being really strong at initiating things and getting the ball rolling but not being great at follow-through and bringing things to completion.
CU: Very true. Unless you have a lot of fixed in your chart that helps. [laughs]
RR: What are we gonna do about Pluto and Aquarius for having fixed elections? Unrelated, but I’m looking at you, Chris.
CB: I don’t want to talk about it as an Aquarius rising, I’m just trying to get out of Saturn in Aquarius. I’m looking forward to that ending in the spring when Saturn finally moves into Pisces.,
RR: And then Pluto moves into Aquarius.
Yeah, I’ve got no breather. Sorry for all of the Pisces people for wishing Saturn to move into your sign but I’m done with it after two and a half, three years now. Let’s pretend Pluto does not exist, though, because I’m not looking forward to that shift.
RR: [unintelligible]
CB: Yeah, exactly. It’s out there. We can’t even see it. Not even important.
RR: It’s the size of Russia.
CB: Right. Yeah. Well, it has a big heart on it. I loved that picture once we got that picture from Pluto a few years ago, and that makes it seem a little bit warm and fluffy a little bit.
RR: Isn’t it made out of ice, the heart?
CB: Yeah, it’s made out of ice so it’s not that warm and fluffy but, you know. All right, so moving back to the signs of the zodiac. So it’s pretty good for the cardinal signs and some of the similarities between them. Other contrasts might be the signs that are sextile to Libra. So they again have some similarities of association even if it’s a weaker association of having the same sect basically of being diurnal signs. That would be the Sun having a sextile or Leo having a sextile to Libra, and then Sagittarius also having a sextile to Libra. What are some of the similarities that we think of when it comes to those three signs?
CU: Yeah, I think Libra and Saj being ruled by benefic planets, I think those two planets together or those two signs know how to throw a party. You know, Sagittarius can bring the alcohol and the dip, and Libra can set everything up and decide who sits where. [chuckles]
CB: Yeah, for sure. They tend to be– those three signs especially out of any tend to be some of the most extroverted signs and also socials. Like, hosting a party or going to a party, that would definitely be one I could see for those three.
RR: Yeah, I’ve been there. I’ve been there. Yeah, I feel like Leo and Libra share this what’s the dress code similarity, where as much as I hate wearing the same thing as everybody and kind of want people to just feel comfortable and wear whatever they want, I feel like Leo loves to be like, “Okay, the theme is this, we’re all going to wear little hats.” Yeah, and then Libra will be like, “Okay, I have my little hat and it’s great.” Or Libra will show up and be really upset if they’re not wearing the little hat.
CU: Totally, feel very left out.
RR: Yeah.
CU: Yeah, I think both of those signs too are good at making other people feel like they’re in the center of the world, you know? Like Leo as much as Leo has a reputation for being probably the most comfortable in the spotlight, I think Leo actually loves hyping other people up. And I think Libra with so much focus on the other person, there’s like a feeling celebrated in their presence.
CB: Yeah, charisma is a major component for both Leo and Libra and while sometimes that can be manifested as a sort of self-centeredness of only wanting their own qualities to shine in its highest expression, it sometimes works out the best when in the presence of that energy they’re able to direct it on to a person like a spotlight and then sort of magnify or bring out the positive qualities of other people by sort of shining their attention on them.
RR: Yeah, Leos are a lot more direct with that sort of motive. I think Leo can be a little more straightforward with the ‘let’s have a compliment circle,’ and Libra’s like, “Okay.” [laughs] Sorry, I’m just stating things that I’ve experienced with my Leo friends and family members, specifically the little hat and compliment circle with these Leo people that I know. Yeah, and Sagittarius also can really be extremely generous and have the similar quality as Leo and Libra with making someone feel special. I think with Sagittarius you’re like, “Oh yeah, just take it. Just go ahead, it’s yours.” Yeah, generosity is sort of Jupiterian gift-giving.
CB: Yeah, generosity, that’s a good one. Or sort of a beneficence or goodwill sometimes is one of its most positive or highest expressions, and the act of wanting to do something or to give something sometimes without motivation necessarily can be one of the most positive expressions.
RR: Yeah. As a sort of Sagittarius, I don’t think really has a motivation or ulterior motive with the generosity all the time, because it’s a fire sign it’s just like, “Okay, I’m gonna make it rain now. Let’s go. As much dip, as much booze as you want just for the sake of having fun.” Yeah, that sort of generosity with the fire signs. It’s so funny how Libra does have these sextiles to fire signs, and Libra itself is a cold and kind of a Saturnian sign.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good point because it’s otherwise, you know, with Aries it’s acting as the colder opposition to the fieriness of Aries and sometimes putting a damper on Aries in Mars, especially, it’s like overexuberance and over directness or bluntness. It often ends up playing that role of cooling things down but in the context of its relationship to Leo and Sagittarius, it’s actually playing more of a complementary role with the three of those being all extroverted signs. But it’s something that actually contributes in some way rather than just squelching the party or squelching the flame.
RR: Yeah. I mean, it needs oxygen to make fire, right? You need to sort of fan the campfire in order to get it to go.
CB: Right, that makes sense. All right. Let’s see. Going back… What other signs? We haven’t talked about… We’ve talked about two of the signs that are in aversion, which are Virgo and Scorpio, and those are more obvious because Libra is part of that sequence of the planets, you know, move through Virgo and then into Libra and then into Scorpio and so you can kind of see the corrective quality for each of those signs that follow after the previous one. But there’s two other signs that are in aversion to Libra, which are Pisces which is ruled by Jupiter and then Taurus which is ruled by Venus. So we’ve talked a little bit about the Taurus one, we might touch on that a little bit more here at this point even though that’s in aversion because it doesn’t share any of the fundamental sign-based qualities of Libra. Which is Taurus, for example, is a fixed Earth nocturnal or feminine sign. Libra is cardinal air and masculine or diurnal. So they don’t share those qualities. However by sharing the same planetary ruler, there is kind of a mitigation and a similarity between those two signs. But what are some of the things that set them apart maybe or that are different between those two? I think earlier we talked about maybe the tangible quality, like a tangible aesthetic or almost accentual quality of Taurus contrasting with more of the social or intellectual aesthetic quality of Libra.
CU: Yeah, that’s the way I sort of think about… Well, it’s interesting because in that configuration there there’s definitely a Venus connection with both Pisces and Taurus. But yeah, I like to sort of make that distinction of Venus having a more delight in the physical experience with tourists. Like how we can delight through the five senses, whether it’s music or a silky outfit or sheets or a good soak in the tub. That’s sort of how Venus in an Earth sign really shows up in the sign of Taurus.
CB: Food, for example, is like a major Taurus thing.
CU: Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. And then through Libra is like an air sign, it’s more just like conceptual beauty or design as Randon was saying earlier. I totally agree with that. Like how we could think about how we harmonize in a conceptual way. That shows up socially but also through concept of design.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. It makes me think of interior design as a major Libra thing, as opposed to Taurus would be more like somebody who is a chef and creates beautiful things out of food. But they’re not just beautiful for the sake of being beautiful or being symmetrical pieces to look at, but instead they’re like something to eat and consume and become part of you, or to enjoy on that sensual level of taste.
RR: Yeah. I don’t want to sound negative but I think Taurus can be like the actual sensory kind of art, art being an expression of emotion and physical form and beauty and these things, and then Libra is like the kind of conceptual flexors like, “Oh, what is- this is an art, type of art. We’re getting way too ahead of ourselves.” You know? Like this is a TV that’s in cement. It’s not a beautiful painting or something that expresses emotion, it’s something more social. So I think they’re pretty different in this way where Libra’s a little sometimes too lofty with the ideas to actually express something that’s human and relatable and emotional. I mean, they’re great Libra artists who can make something beautiful, I’m sure, but sometimes it could be almost like anti-art, it seems, with what Libra’s making.
CB: That a little bit makes me think of Yoko Ono, for example, who has Libra rising and there’s a heavy Aquarius component to that as well because she has Venus in Aquarius with Saturn and the Sun. But that makes me… What you were saying there just made me think of her chart.
RR: Yeah, whereas Taurus would make something like, “Oh, it’s expressing something.” Like, comes from the source rather than expressing something about the thing that comes from the source.
CU: Got it. Like a concept.
RR: Yeah, the Libra metaness can sometimes be too meta, whereas the Taurian idea of beauty is more nocturnal, I think.
CU: It’s like immediate and primal and emanating from a physical hunger of some kind to experience something. Yeah, I think Venus wants to delight and Venus wants to create cohesion. So through Taurus, you can have that in a present moment experience. Whereas with Libra, there’s like, “You know, what can I do to bring people together?” So there’s like a concept around that.
RR: Like, “Is it okay when I’m enjoying myself right now? Is there something else I should be doing?”
CB: I think the other difference is to make an analogy. I think Taurus is like a flower garden, whereas Libra is like an art gallery. And both of them can be beautiful or have different expressions of beauty but there’s this more earthy, tangible feeling like being in a garden, versus there’s this sometimes more abstract or conceptual or even sometimes cold and sort of remote feeling to being in an art gallery.
CU: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah, and then I guess for Pisces, you know, Venus has her exaltation in Pisces so we get this sort of idealistic love or divine love with seeing how Venus shows up in Pisces. I think that that’s like a connection there were both are looking for a connection with something. Venus in Libra is looking for social connection and like-mindedness or even someone to oppose them to create an intellectual synergy going on, but yeah, Pisces is looking to connect with something bigger, something bigger than that, something conceptually grander. Pisces is looking for that connection with something profound.
CB: Yeah, it’s mostly a connection more on an emotional level, though, and it’s interesting that Libra is in aversion to both Scorpio and Pisces which are both water signs. So it’s almost like one of the signs or one of the elements or qualities that it may have the hardest time relating to is that almost emotional component of things that are so present in both of those signs. And what you’re talking about with Pisces is needing to believe or needing to be inspired by something larger than yourself. Which is not necessarily a social thing, it’s an internal thing that you feel almost on an emotional level.
CU: Yeah, there’s something really soulful about Pisces that Libra doesn’t necessarily have that depth I guess.
RR: Yeah, I’m trying to think about this in terms of marriages or long-term commitments where Venus in the sign of Saturn’s exaltation is kind of like a marriage and that’s like a commitment and a devotion and kind of ‘this is it’. And then I think of Venus in the sign of Jupiter’s domicile and Venus’s exaltation as kind of spiritual aspect of love, this universal greater love. It’s different than like, “Oh, I’m married to this person and we’re together and it’s this legally binding thing,” which of course is amazing in its own right and makes sense. But there’s this author, Flannery O’Connor, who was a devout Catholic, Southern Gothic writer, and she wrote about relationships in this way. It’s in her diaries. And it says basically she wants her relationships, like the ideal relationship is a channel to the Divine. Like us coming together we’re not looking for each other, we’re looking for God through each other, almost. So I think that’s very Venus in Pisces. And I think she had Aries in Pisces placements, she was an Aries-Sun with I think Mercury in Pisces or something like that. So I think of Venus in Pisces as being like relationships with each other as a way of reaching a higher power rather than relationships with each other kind of being the means to an end.
CB: That makes sense. Having more of a transcendent sort of love for something, like a transcendent love for the universe or for nature or something like that, or for God or a deity or something like that, as opposed to the interdependent focus on a singular other person. And wanting to be one half of an equation with another person where once you’re together with another person, it sort of creates a whole singular unit of itself.
RR: Which I think is nice, but also has its limitations. That’s just controversial, it’s the most controversial I’m gonna say, I think. [laughs]
CB: Why do you think that’s controversial?
RR: Um, I don’t know. What did I say? I just blacked out. [laughs]
CB: Yeah. One of the things we haven’t focused on too much, partially because I’ve tried to avoid too much of the 12-Letter alphabet thing of equating the signs with the houses too much and the tendency sometimes in modern astrology to equate Libra with the seventh house of marriage and relationships, but there is. This is one of those areas where sometimes a relationship component does come up or relationships as being important to Libra, especially through that rulership of Venus. Are there any things related to that that we haven’t explored or fleshed out enough in terms of relationships with Libra?
CU: Yeah, I think Libra just naturally likes the company of other people, likes to do things with other people. And yeah, there’s definitely the stereotypes about Libra always being in a relationship, I think, or trying to position themselves to be in a relationship. And obviously not all Libras, right? But it’s pretty true. It’s pretty true. And yeah, I think especially Mars and Libra prefers to do things as a team like to be on a team with someone. Because I think what Libra, going back to the strategy component of Libra, Libra understands that “I don’t have all the skills, so I can be more effective as a cardinal sign, I guess, if I team up with somebody else who has skills different from mine.” So there’s that opposition quality too of opposites attract, and Libra does look for that. I think that that’s a strategic thing of looking for people who can be on your team that bring something to the table.
CB: That makes sense.
CU: Yeah, and definitely for Venus in Libra, too. I think a lot of what I’m saying speaks more to Venus in Libra than anything else about the relationship thing.
CB: Yeah, and relationships being very important. Camille Michelle Gray put together some example charts I was looking at for this episode. One of them which is a really prominent relationship in recent times is Megan Markel who is married to Prince Harry. She has Cancer rising and the ruler of her Ascendant is the Moon, which is in Libra, along with Saturn and Jupiter and Pluto and the IC in the fourth whole sign house. And this whole complicated thing on the one hand of that relationship being very important and in some ways for Libras, a relationship– especially Sun sign Libras but other Libras in general to some extent of a relationship coming sometimes to define your identity, or your identity being defined to the world, or part of your life story being defined sometimes in terms of your relationships and the way that you relate to other people. For her with Saturn there in her night chart, there’s also been challenges though in terms of coming into and becoming part of this family, and all of their own internal problems and dynamics and things like that sort of being imported into her life through this relationship. And then eventually them having to leave the UK and move away relinquish some other family titles and things like that in order to get away because that family dynamic was becoming actively harmful to her or other things like that.
CU: Yeah, her chart is just profound to look at because that Saturn actually rules her seventh house and it being in her natal fourth house, it really tells that story in quite a literal way of, you know, Saturn and Libra. There’s an order to who you’re supposed to curtsy to and when, and there’s all this protocol. So when we talk about Libra etiquette and social expectations, it’s to an extreme in the case of her experience and how that shows up in her chart.
CB: Yeah, for sure. Is that an example you looked at much, Randon?
RR: I actually haven’t. I’m not so familiar, I tend to avoid the news. [chuckles]
CB: Sure, that’s fine.
RR: It’s not the best strategy for the astrologer because I think it’s good to be informed but yeah, I don’t really know much about the story.
CB: Yeah. Well, we’ll say just even the most limited famous example; it was a famous royal wedding that took place over the course of the past decade and was notable in that ways in the ways that her life has come to be characterized. She was an actor prior to that or an actress, but then became known as marrying somebody who was like a prince basically.
CU: Right. He was next in line or something, wasn’t he? And then they were like, “We are out. We’re Saturnian, we’re not going to be part of this anymore.”
CB: Yeah, there was a lot of weird stuff going on with both how she was treated in the press and how some things going on behind the scenes with the family, and it was affecting her mental health so they took off and went to… I think they moved to the US or Canada or something like that.
RR: Okay, I remember this now.
CU: They’re doing their own thing.
CB: We don’t have to get into all of that. Another one that came up that Camille pointed out as a famous Libra stellium recently was Will Smith. He’s a really interesting example of somebody who until recently, one of the things that’s interesting about him is just being super successful in curating his public image to be super squeaky clean.
CU: Right, no cussing.
CB: Right, no cussing in his rap famously when he was still doing different rap albums in the 1990s and stuff like that, or taking certain film roles. He picked his film roles very deliberately over the course of his career. Yeah, so he has that element but then also earlier this year there was the whole controversy with the slap of when at the Oscars his wife was insulted by Chris Rock and he took it really personally and then went up and slapped or assaulted this comedian who was hosting the Oscars. And suddenly another part of him sort of came out that the public at least hadn’t seen, but it was interesting a lot of the debate at that point became how much was that him acting versus how much was that him doing what he thought his partner wanted him to do in that instance, or doing something to defend his partner who he thought was being insulted for her hair and other things like that. It’s interesting that the dynamic of that fundamentally was about his relationship somehow at its core.
CU: These Libra celebrities or celebrities with Libra stelliums, often their relationships are extremely part of their image. Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, the relationships are just such part of their image and their story in the public eye.
RR: Gwen Stephanie.
CB: Bill Clinton. Even one of the ones I mentioned briefly earlier, Eminem, if you think about a lot of his early albums are complaining about his ex-girlfriend basically.
RR: His girlfriend, his mum.
CB: Yeah, right. Or saying that he’ll murder them in very eloquent rapping ways, very Libra like.
CU: Oh, gosh.
CB: Yes, so that’s a really good point about Libra that sometimes relationships being part of the person’s public image in some ways.
CU: That reminds me of a chart, of a Libra stellium chart. I found Nick Cannon. He has Sun, Moon, several planets in his Libra fifth house, and he’s known for having 10 kids. [laughs] So yeah, and all the different relationships there.
RR: Yeah, Mariah Carey. I feel like his relationship with Mariah Carey was extremely publicized.
CU: Yes.
RR: Wasn’t it? Am I remembering this right?
CU: Yes. And that was his first. I think he had twins with her and that was how he got started having kids. But yeah, he has a tonne of Libra placements in the fifth house, which is pretty fun. [laughs]
RR: Her Jupiter in Libra really just did its thing.
CB: Also meant to clarify earlier when I was talking about Eminem, talking about murdering his ex-partners is not actually a good thing that was glorified, I was just mentioning it in terms of him having that Mars-Pluto conjunction there and some of the things that come along with that or the ways that he’s expressed that in better or worse ways.
RR: The lyrics are definitely so Mars-Pluto. I had an old song come on, I was at a salon and an Eminem song came on and I was like, “Oh, my God. He’s [unintelligible] It’s awful.
CU: Maybe he didn’t really do that and he did it in this Libra passive way through his music.
RR: Yeah.
CB: Right. Then Mercury in Scorpio also plays a role in that. But one other one that we didn’t mention that had come up earlier was Beyoncé and then it makes me think of her. Even though she’s created and defined herself very much in her own terms how she was initially defined partially in terms of the group, the group that she was in– Destiny’s Child– early in her career, but then separating herself from that being part of her defining story when she eventually transcendent and went beyond that group. But then also around that time, we also have her marriage to Jay-Z and them collaborating and building this empire together in different ways.
And the interesting interdependence but also going back and forth between dependence on another and defining yourself in terms of another but then also sometimes balancing the skills and going it alone and swinging outside of that to develop and present yourself independently, I feel like that’s part of the ongoing narrative as well. It’s not just doing it with somebody else, but also sometimes going in and out of the partnership in terms of developing your identity.
CU: Oh, definitely. Yeah, that’s a huge part of the Libra journey. It’s like, learn how to stand on your own two feet. It’s so important. And it’s part of the balance, right? But that reminds me of another Libra chart that I found. This person is also famous for being in this relationship, right? Serena Williams, you know, she’s known for being part of a duo with her sister primarily, you know, like the two tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams. Serena has a Libra stellium and when I first saw that I was like, “Huh, she’s an athlete. I’m not really sure how that connects with Libra, but then it’s in her sixth house.” So she has this sixth house stellium that happens to be in Libra. And obviously her likeness has been featured at a lot of different places as she has that Libra presentation and receptibility with the public people. Everyone knows who she is. So, yeah.
RR: The two seconds that I got to look at her chart I immediately was like, “Okay, Venus is in a Mars-ruled sign so there’s maybe a more likely to be seen sweating. I feel like Libras are a lot sweating.
CU: And look good doing it. [laughs]
RR: Of course, fashion.
CU: Fashion is a big part of tennis, I would say.
RR: It’s all I know about tennis, it’s about outfits.
CU: Tennis and golf. Those are two of the sports that people care about what they’re wearing. [laughs]
RR: And I feel like the sort of aesthetics of tennis and golf have been appropriated in fashion.
CU: Oh, yeah.
RR: People who don’t play either of those sports kind of wearing clothes related to the sport.
CU: Mhm.
CB: That’s a good point. All right. Well, I think that is all the major contrast. We’ve pretty much contrasted all of the 12 signs at this point or all the 11 other signs to Libra. Are there any other contrasts that come up or that we didn’t mention that are worth mentioning, or any final thoughts on Libra as we start to get towards the end of this episode?
CU: No, I think that covers it for the contrasts.
RR: I feel like between Aries and Libra…
CU: Sorry, go for it.
RR: Between Aries and Libra, people like to say Aries is like… I don’t know, there’s this paradox that I’m trying to wrap my head around as I’m speaking. Excuse me. But Aries is ruled by Mars, it seems to be so about the separation of people. While Venus ruled by… I mean, Libra ruled by Venus seems to be about people coming together like marriage and union and social harmony. But really, sometimes the more I think about these two signs in contrast to each other, Aries seems to be also more so about unity and the oneness and this sort of wholeness that already exists. And then Libra is not so whole, it’s two parts. Ironically they balance each other out but I feel like they have this paradox that exists between them.
CB: That’s a really good point because Aries just in terms of numerology, it’s like the starting point. It is One. It is the conjunction. So there’s nothing outside of it, it is a whole and it is complete unto itself. And the completeness of being independent in some ways versus when you get to Libra and the opposition, that’s when you have two points. So suddenly there’s duality and there’s twoness and there’s othernesss, and they are the same sides of the same coin so that there are qualities of both in each of them.
CU: Gosh, as a Libra stellium person, I need Aries. Aries do have this warmth and this ability to make you feel comfortable in their presence, I think, and I don’t know if that’s just a general thing we could say about Aries. I feel especially warmed up by them being a Libra, but I feel like that fire energy that Aries brings there is this quality of like, “Yeah!” and getting amped up about something and it’s easy to get into it with them. And so they do have this ability to… There’s that charisma that I think Aries gets maybe from being opposite Libra, like being able to pull in some of that charisma that we normally associate with Libra I think Aries really does have it. But they have it in a way that is just so genuine. And yeah, I think Libras need Aries and Aries need Libras
CB: Yeah. And then just to go back to the point you were making, Randon, about it’s not just… You know, Mars is not always the one that’s severing or separating things but because Libra represents the concept of two or of duality, there is a separation inherent in Libra in and of itself as well essentially, right?
RR: Yeah, I think so. But it’s just ironic because it’s ruled by Venus and we’re all about cohesion and things kind of coming together. And then Aries gets all the heat, I think. But I feel like Libra, Libra does some bad stuff in terms of like the world politics.
CB: Yeah, there can be some contentiousness there as well and some opposition sort of acting to Libra or Libra acting in the opposition category or in pulling things apart. Maybe part of that is just sometimes we have two one-dimensional view of the nature of Venus and the Venus archetype, when especially like in ancient astrology and different types of astrology you had the Morning Star Venus versus the Evening Star Venus. And sometimes that concept of the Morning Star Venus being more warlike in some ways and playing the role that we traditionally ascribe to Mars.
CU: Yeah, this makes me think about the role of Libra as a mediator, too. A mediator as being like a bridge, someone who’s trying to bridge two things that seem to be very separate or different. That makes me think too about how in terms of the astrological glyphs, something all the air signs share is that there seemed to be these two currents. So like in the Gemini symbol, there’s the two pillars. And then in Aquarius, you have the two wavelengths. And then with Libra, you have what sort of looks like a sunset. But either way you have these different currents that make me think about maybe the different sides of the brin or a two-way street or a two-way conversation. And it’s like, how do we get these things to relate or come into cohesion sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. And just that relating or communication requires more than one person to exist. In order to talk to somebody or to have the whole purpose of developing words and communication and the ability to communicate is to convey something to another party, whether it’s a one-on-one communication or whether you’re communicating with a group. It’s really the air signs that develop something in order to bring people together but they do it through words and concepts and ideas, as well as creating structures around that, which is creating social conventions and different things like that.
CU: Yeah, the air element is a triangle. It’s symbolized by the triangle pointing up just like fire. So there’s an elevation quality with air, there’s a stimulation quality with air, and yeah, so I think that that’s what the element of communication is about. It’s the exchange of ideas and how that can be stimulating.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, brilliant. Well, I think we’re about two hours and 20 minutes. This is probably one of the longer episodes I’ve done on the signs of the zodiac, but I think it was worth it and we covered a lot of ground today. So thank you both for joining me, this was great.
CU: Thanks, Chris.
RR: Yeah, it’s awesome to be here. Thanks.
CB: Yeah. I want to ask both of you what you’re working on and where people can find out more information about your work. Catherine, you do consultations and other things through your website?
CU: Yeah, I offer one-on-one consultations like Natal predictive work. I also offer Horary, that’s another one I’m pretty big into these days. I guess you can find me at my website, catherineurban.com, that’s where you can book with me. And I’m on all platforms at AstroCatherine, so I’m on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.
CB: Brilliant. And you’ve been killing it lately with the forecasts on your YouTube channel and just pumping out a tonne of great astrology videos and stuff.
CU: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I love the forecast. Yeah, we’ve been doing these little short videos to cover some of the more important aspects. So yeah, I’m still keeping up with those and that’s what I got going on. I don’t have anything big coming out in the near future other than this baby. [laughs] Yeah, that’s why I don’t have anything super big to promote right now is because I’m just kind of keeping up with the bread and butter right now because I have a new baby coming.
CB: Awesome. Well, I look forward to hearing what birth chart they end up with and maybe a future episode of the podcast I’d love to invite them on as a guest.
CU: Yeah. Find out their Moon sign.
CB: Right. Yeah, once you know for sure do an interview about the birth chart. Okay, we’ll save that for a possible later episode in the 400s or something.
CU: Cool.
CB: All right. Randon, what do you have going on and what do you offer?
RR: So I have my Substack, which is just goodhoroscope.substack.com. I also am making a Telegram channel, which is just Good Horoscope on Telegram. And then this way I send everything that I’m writing. I mostly just write right now and I’m trying to move my practice more into the real space. I do offer online consultations but I’m thinking about soon only keeping those to people that I’ve already spoken with and focusing more on building community on the ground in person. It’s what I’m moving towards now.
CB: And you live in Berlin, right?
RR: Yeah, I’m in Germany. So I want to kind of connect with people here in Europe, and also the people that I’ve already connected with over the past however many years of consulting online. But I really want to do something in person. I’m, Yeah.
CB: Nice. What is your website?
RR: Oh, it’s a randongabrielle.com and that’s just going to have links to absolutely everything, I think. Just click through.
CB: Okay, awesome. Well, I’ll put links to both your websites in the description below this video on YouTube or on theastrologypodcast.com website in the entry for this episode so that people can check out both of your pages and find out more information about you. Awesome. Well, I think that’s it for this episode. Thanks both of you for joining me, this was a lot of fun.
CU: Oh, as always, thanks so much Chris for having us.
RR: I wish we could record for another two hours. [laughs]
CB: I know. I absolutely would keep going but I know for my editor’s sake, we’ll cut it off here and maybe we’ll do a part two on Libra maybe next year during the next Libra season.
RR: Okay, I think there’s gonna be eclipses in Libra next season.
CU: Uh, oh.
CB: Okay, that’s true. Actually, the nodes are going to shift in their next year so maybe that would call for a follow-up possible.
RR: Mh, possible.
CB: Well, to be continued. All right everyone, thanks for watching or listening to this episode of the Astrology Podcast and we’ll see you again next time.
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If you’d like to learn more about the approach to astrology that I outline on the podcast, then you should check out my book titled Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, where I traced the origins of Western astrology and reconstructed the original system that was developed about 2000 years ago. In this book, I outline basic concepts but also take you into intermediate and advanced techniques for reading a birth chart, including some timing techniques. You can find out more about the book at hellenisticastrology.com/book. The book pairs very well with my online course on ancient astrology called the Hellenistic Astrology Course, which has over 100 hours of video lectures where I go into detail about teaching you how to read a birth chart, and showing hundreds of example charts in order to really demonstrate how the techniques work in practice. Find out more information about that at theastrologyschool.com.
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