Leo Sign's Mortal Flaw

Image courtesy of Darkmoon Art

Leo season has entered, and it will remain the dawn we face up until late August. It is the mane of the sun. Most people associate this particular constellation with strength and resilience. In fact, even in tarot cards, the Major Arcana card of Strength is painted with a woman tending to a large lion. 

Although it harbors some hints of truth, but it’s undeniable that it’s simply a tired cliche and a bland archetype deprived of humor, depth or originality. 

Lions have long been the kings of their savannah, their kingdom inspired real life kings to adopt their image into their emblem. But to me, observing sun born Leo individuals I encountered personally, and reading of accounts of so many, you can’t help but wonder that there’s somewhat a puzzle piece missing in the picture.

Leo constellation has always been believed to have been pictured by the ancient pharaohs in the body of the sphinx at the Giza Plateau in Egypt. Whether the pharaohs of the ancient Old Kingdom were the true architects of that monument or not, whether the head of the sphinx was of a Lion itself, or different beast or even of a human, we would never know. 

The sphinx surviving today is a body of a lion with the head of a pharaoh on top. The layers of time studied by archeologists speak of nothing urgent rather than the tales passed down to us, and what could be more intriguing than the religious systems believed by the pharaohs. 

The closest manifestation to a lioness in ancient times was in the form of a deity called Sekhmet. She was a lioness Goddess with a sun disk upon her head, she was believed to inhabit a fierce aura as she lead men into battle. A leonine. She was also the goddess of healing, and the daughter of the sun’s destructive powers. The sun can heal too, it provides us with life sustaining elements, but it can also be deadly. 

The constellation of Leo is one of the fixed signs—fixed signs are long believed not to be the strongest, but the weakest in terms of character because they lack fluidity. Fixations is not a quality to be hailed or to be sought after, because the more rigid an individual is, the more unlikely they develop successful connections. Along Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius, Leo makes the list of the four fixed signs in the entire belt of the 12 constellations. Each element has its own fixed star sign, taurus is the earth’s fixed sign, while Scorpio is the water’s. And if Aquarius is the air’s fixed sign, Leo can only be the fire’s fixed sign. 

Fire can’t be fixed, in better terms, it can’t be tamed. And yet, under the paws of the lion, who is obsessed with taming others, there’s a sense of committed, relentless control that Leo-born individuals tend to have. They might incubate a sense of insecurity within them, but it is always masked and disguised by a faint armor of strength. Leo signs born people are not inherently strong, nor do they receive mysterious support from an invisible jungle beast that dictates their behavior, they assimilate to their environment, watchful and alert and almost always, with a deep sense of dread growing from the inside. This makes them appear ready to push back, attack and even kill, but their pompous heart is anything but frail. 

Perhaps, that very dread is thought to be the Hunter’s curse. Lions are hunters, and with each soul they kill, a ghost is born. Their prey is a thought, an experiment of an idea, an idea of a person perhaps, or an experience—they might hunt it, they might not, in either way, the detritus of their persistent failure at times is the refusal at looking, really looking and acknowledging the sources of their pain. 

Each ‘’prey’’ they pursue, they ignore the spiritual aspect of the hunt, they think of it as a divine justice and an obvious track of events that cannot and will not change. I am a lion and I am supposed to hunt, you are the prey and you are supposed to be hunted, no afterthought and no romance. 

Lions learn to pick up speed only when they learn not to ignore the ghostly presences around them, demons of their own doing.

Their roar won’t suffice in the eternal struggle to make dissolve their internal fears, because lions naturally tend to ignore self reflection. They either hunt or lounge lazily by the savannah, successfully managing to silence inner doubts and mental barriers overtime until it all becomes an unbearable sport, bordering on self struggling violence and disaster. 

Lionesses are thought to be more in tune with their inner worlds, they’re more agile and ready for strike, but they’re endlessly jealous or tragically victimized, not by anyone but themselves. 

A lioness can only tolerate some sort of misbehavior if it’s targeted towards her, she has the ability to justify others’ low bar behavior and withstand their cruelty, yet she’s immensely fierce when it comes to her cubs, and she might exhibit a funny brush of jealousy when other females are nearby, but she never attacks unless she’s provoked multiple times, and when she attacks, the world listens. And yet, there’s a soft spot in the lion’s heart that forgives not only the innocent, but the outright evildoer. 

A lion, or a lioness, with their sharp perceptive skills fail to actually analyze their radar. And even when a sin is made and the lion forgives, the lion quickly forgets. The wound heals but the dagger remains sharp, and the attacker who meant to harm the lion the first time can think of better tactics to end a lion’s legacy, but the lion’s trustful nature doesn’t dwell on these dilemmas, which ultimately ends up in their own demise. 

Their environment might be filled with the most hated individuals, the most absurd and the macabre, and you’d find them prancing proudly about, deluding themselves into thinking that all is under control. All the subjects around them are of benevolent nature and they cannot possibly perceive of doing any harm to them. 

Unlike Scorpions, who trust nobody but their own, Lions put on a hierarchal trust that somehow never changes, in their own undoing, they exhibit the ‘’tendency of fixed sign’’ mentioned above. A slain king, a slain Lion is an ancient metaphor told by hunter gatherers, not just to entertain or appease, but to warn of the dangers one might be endowed right up on the throne. The lion, in his own blind pride thinks of himself invincible, a personage that inspires fear and devotion at all costs, but fails to realize at times that rallies when gathered can destroy his kingdom anytime they wish. 

The lion, still deep in his own well of prideful vision, thinks of the revolution as a typical outburst that lead to little effects, one powerful roar and the whole universe will be back once again at a perfect order. This profoundly blind illusion is what comes in between most Leo-born individuals and others in relationships. 

In the cycle of the astrological chart, Leo sign is positioned exactly opposite Aquarius. Aquarius is a sign of humanity and groupings, it’s the general consensus, the democracy, the rights and the goodwill for all and not for the one. It’s the majority rather than the personal. Leo sign enjoys an adversary position. Leo born individuals are not specifically egoistic, but their line of thinking ends up being too narrow to allow any other possible outcomes. They’re not the victims of other hunters, they’re not the victims of any other powerful jungle beasts, they’re the victims of their own perception of the world. 

There’s simply no way you can make a Leo see things from an objective perspective—arguably, all objectivity is in a sense, subjective to a certain degree since it’s the product of one or many mixed notions—but Leo’s perceptions of other subjectivities, other colors of the spectrum is an abomination to the structure of their worlds. 

Unless in their astrological chart, there’s an organic balance in the first house sign or the moon sign which might help in a more healthy outlook of life. If we rely solely on the sun sign being from Leo, it becomes evident how difficult it is to even begin a well rounded conversation on any topic. Not only they’re mechanically stubborn due to their fixed sign designation, but their special attributes when magnified bring forth a number of troubles that should put into focus, studied, and with the right mindset and attitude, be mitigated for a rather egalitarian reality.

Leo born individuals can only find wisdom and real pride when they realize that the universe doesn’t revolve around their kingdom, and the subjects they own through fear or love might slip or abandon them just as day changes into night, nor do their perspective in life is the only righteous in existence. 

When they finally realize that their true power lies in the total absolution of deeply engraved ego-filled wishes and desires, when they experience a total stripping away of social guises and decide to open their inner worlds, face them and sit down with themselves, when they learn how to feel comfortable with their own solitude without the need to gather an army of followers to feel safe and appreciated, love or feared, only then they can truly beam like sunshine, ascend the solar throne and roar high in the sky as the hottest summer phase is fixated in the cosmos.