The Libran Aries Idealism

While the Virgos are known to be perfectionists, the Librans and Aries are the true perfectionists of all signs. The Virgo perfectionism involves correcting, re-calibrating, fixing things so that they fit a certain “order”, a standard definable easily within the human reality. The Libran / Aries’ perfectionism lies outside of human reality. It involves achieving an ideal beyond what’s normally achievable in human life. Hence this type of perfectionism is better described as idealism. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines idealism as “a literary or artistic theory or practice that affirms the preeminent value of imagination as compared with faithful copying of nature (compare realism)” or “a theory that ultimate reality lies in a realm transcending phenomena”. As both definitions suggest, idealism involves a realm beyond practical, mundane existence. Being idealistic may breed ambition and inspire one to achieve great things. Idealists may be servants of Spirit leading and led through battlefields who die heroic deaths and leave a stubborn mark in history (Joan of Arc is an example!). Yet when facing the sometimes harsh reality of life, an idealist can easily fall flat on his face.

Astrology, besides, being the study of the correlation between movements of planets and human behavior and fate, is really a study of life, as behind the surface meanings of each commonly discussed zodiac sign, (eg. I’m a Libran if I’m born in October, you’re an Gemini if you’re born in June etc..), lies great truths about existence depicted through the archetypal essences or stories of each sign.

The sign of Libra, for example, depicts the ideal of equality and fairness. Its symbol is the object of a balance. Yet, balance or fairness is not easily found in our world where every individual, for better or worse, has within its capacity, the ability to exercise a large degree free will which may be driven by anything from greed, fear, lust, or more positively, love and cooperation. The fact that the majority of human population is living in poverty, the fact that there are people dying from accidents and horrible diseases, (and probably good percentage are normal good people who have not done much harm to another human being in their lives). And even if you believe in incarnation and therefore believe that every circumstance has arisen from a cause, a cause which, however enlightened you may be, still escapes your conscious awareness, while the effect, when you have to experience it, still feels like utter misery, life, still probably cannot really be deemed to be that “fair”. And if such is the case, holding a paradigm that life needs to be fair can be quite a hard hit for a person psychologically. Yet, if we’re willing to realize that life isn’t always fair, and that it is alright to hold grudge, have contempt, be resentful, immerse in a whole lot of grumpy, distasteful moods, get down right real and just let yourself be sad, upset, angry and so forth, when a so called “unfair” experience arises, then perhaps you’ll discover that, at the end of it all, life is actually, not so difficult, and at times, pretty fair. The reason you’ll start to think that life may actually be quite fair is because, through such an experience, hopefully, it’ll force you to grow and expand in some way, the purpose behind you may give you some fuel to transcend that place within you that yelled "life is unfair!". You’ll start to be able to intuit into the root cause of the misery you have somehow thrown yourself into, and realize the perfect formula to get yourself out of it, to take a little more responsibility for yourself. If you’re ill, maybe you’ll start to pay more attention to your health, love your body a bit more, and having suffered, cultivate more compassion for others’ people’s vices and pain.