Almagest

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The Libra Ascendant

general summary for a Libra Ascendant (rising sign)

What the tradition reads

A Libra Ascendant is read as an instinct for balance worn as manner. Libra is ruled by Venus, and the tradition, following Alan Leo's delineations for the rising sign, describes those with Libra rising as sweet natured, flexible and easily influenced by whatever surrounds them, courteous and fair minded almost by reflex, though prone to a lack of decisiveness that leaves them waiting to see what others will do before committing to a course themselves. The manner is diplomatic and pleasant, a first impression built on tact rather than force, paired with genuine artistic and constructive taste that shows in how a Libra rising person arranges a room or a conversation as readily as a project. The tradition reads this Ascendant as sociable and quick to learn, someone whose appetites and passions run stronger underneath than the composed surface suggests, and notes that the trait is least settled early in the sign, most fully integrated late in it. The shadow is an indecision that avoids the very conflict a situation actually needs resolved; its ease is a fairness that makes this Ascendant, more than most, genuinely pleasant to be dealt with.

The story

The Ascendant has marked the seat of manner and first appearance since Hellenistic astrology first tied a horoscope to a precise hour, the ecliptic's crossing of the eastern horizon at that moment fixing a point the Sun's monthly sign alone could never provide. Libra, the sign that can stand at this door, is itself a late addition to the zodiac: for most of antiquity this stretch of sky was read as the claws of the neighbouring scorpion, and it was Roman astronomers who separated the claws into a sign of their own and reshaped them into a set of scales, a change that held because it suited something the Romans already valued in this part of the year, the equal balance of day and night at the autumn equinox the Sun crosses into as it enters the sign. The scales are also the attribute of Astraea, goddess of justice, said to have lived among mortals in a golden age before withdrawing to the sky as the world grew corrupt, the last immortal to leave the earth. A rising sign built on an instrument that cannot be tipped without someone's interference gives the tradition its picture of Libra's own claim to fairness, worn now as the very first thing met.

Written from

Corpus key ascendant:Libra.