Libra isn’t sure. Libra isn’t necessarily trying to flirt with you on purpose. Libra doesn’t want you to hate them for being pretty and popular. Libra sprinkles *aesthetic* over everything they touch. The surface-level hype around Libras is that they’re basically an embodied Instagram filter, but this gets weirder when you realize that Instagram itself is a Libra (yes, anything can have a birth chart, and Instagram launched on a day when there were three — maybe four, depending on the moon — planets in Libra).

There is more to Libra than meets the eye, but to be fair, the eye is doing a lot of work.

Actually, if you dig into the etymology of the word “fair,” you get the apparent double meaning of something that’s “beautiful” and something that’s “just.” The deep mystery inherent to the Libra archetype is that symmetry can be pleasing to the senses, and equity pleasing to our internal longing for divine order. Beauty is justice and justice is beauty. You can sort of imagine that Libra represents a golden ratio, or divine proportion, that’s at work behind all the natural beauty and cosmic balancing acts that keep the universe in check.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that Libra is the air expression of Venus, which gives the enjoyment principle a more abstract or intellectual quality. The other Venus-ruled sign, Taurus, expresses itself through tangible delights. If Taurus is a spa or a fancy restaurant, Libra is an art gallery or an opera house.

In its breezy air castle, Venus delivers social graces, art, culture, beauty, style, peace, diplomacy, and charm. Don’t tell a Libra not to judge a book by its cover or buy wine according to the coolest-looking label, because they’re already envisioning the way it’ll look on the shelf. Libra is basically Venus’ sophisticated face that’s good at hosting parties, being up on all the trends, playing well with others, and being the subject of a lot of crushes. Not all Libras are necessarily huge flirts — at least not on purpose. Most Libras have probably charmed people they weren’t intentionally trying to charm, though. Lest you forget, “Oops I Did It Again” was catapulted into the Top 40 by a LIBRA RISING.

If you believed all the popular lore, you would probably stop at this characterization of Libra as a symbol of all things somewhat vain and superficial. But there’s probably something more profound at work when people joke about Libras being obsessed with mirrors. The Sun’s entry into Libra marks the equinox, a time of mirroring in the natural cycle — a fulcrum point between light and dark. The sun does this when it moves into Aries, too, but the sun exalts in Aries, aka “shines with no apology or second-guessing of itself.”

Libra is the sign of the sun’s fall, which means our bright, shiny solar qualities are no longer centralized inside ourselves in a self-referential way, but externalized as a request for validation. In other words, Libra doesn’t see things from the inside out. It seems itself from the outside in, as a constellation of various snapshots that were taken by satellites in its orbit. Libra sees itself through the mirror of The Other, which may or may not make Libra incapable of being single, which is probably what you’ve heard.

Their famous people-pleasing tendencies are both a Venusian inclination — a desire for harmony — and a symptom of “sun sads,” or a special knack at being self-effacing. Libras are fastidiously considerate of other people because they simply take up less space in their own minds.

Libra is a strange place for the sun, and it’s a strange place for Mars. Mars experiences its debility, or exile, in Libra, which is a pretty satisfying explanation for why Libras can never seem to make up their minds or feel comfortable with conflict.

It’s not necessarily true that people with Libra placements will always avoid a confrontation, especially when things are feeling imbalanced or unfair. It is probably true that people with Libra placements will try to deliver their bullets with tact, to do the social gymnastics of being somewhat agreeable in their disagreeableness. When none of that is possible, they’ll probably just cringe their way through the pain of being unlikable, because they can see where the other person is coming from. They really can.

All of this brings us back full circle to “fairness” and “balance” as being the mandates of divine order. What’s often underappreciated about Libra is that it’s not all cute clothes and puppy love — it’s the sign of Saturn’s exaltation! It’s an elevated throne for the stern, unsmiling gatekeeper of “how things must be” and “how things must end.”

Libra’s Saturnian qualities give it the backbone to model things like justice, equity, and “right relation” to the rest of us. It’s almost a cliche that Libras all have law degrees, but it’s also kind of true?

It’s the golden ratio, the golden rule, what is arguably the most universal ethical concept in the world — do to others as you would have them do to yourself. Because holding yourself to a lower standard is as tacky as a pair of gaucho pants from 2006.

This post was originally published on 11/9/2021 on thedailyhunch.com.