Welcome to Libra season, where love – and war! – rule supreme. Many people don’t know that, but Libra is traditionally associated with conflict. Libras are born where there is a need for mediation. All of our diplomatic skills cannot be for nothing, after all. What else do people not know about Libra? Let’s hear what brilliant Liz Green has to say on the topic. From her classic “Astrology For Lovers:“

Libra Principles

Your ruling planet is Venus, the mythic goddess of love and beauty. Because of this, lots of people think Libra should be the easiest sign to understand. All you need is love, right? Wrong. Libra is an air sign. And air is concerned with ideals and principles above all else. Ah, love. Of course you think a lot about love. But the operative word here is think.

Your idea of love isn’t really an intimate, steamy tête-à-tête or a chaotic explosion of uncontrolled passions. More likely it will involve a quiet meeting in a pleasant environment, where you can expound on one of your many theories on the perfect relationship, your concepts about how people ought to behave toward each other, and your clear, faultless vision of a world where everything is balanced, ordered, symmetrical and harmonious.

All that discussion about love can drive more emotive types mad. Although you can be as sexually inspired as any other sign, in the end the sharing of ideas is as important to you as the sharing of bodies. If there’s no communication, you can get bored pretty quickly. Your sign has less to do with ordinary sweaty human coupling than any other, and for you love must always be stylish, never coarse.

Libra is the great perfectionist of the zodiac. You use the words “fair” and “equal” a lot. You believe passionately in fairness, which can cause you unhappiness, because life and people aren’t always fair. You also believe passionately in equality, and here, too, you may encounter unhappiness, because finding a relationship where each partner gives and takes exactly the same amount and loves the other equally is like finding a unicorn.

No doubt you believe in unicorns too, and you’re prepared to go on searching for that perfect companion, that perfect career, that perfect environment where no human mess intrudes. You’re forever seeking the Good, the True and the Beautiful. And in your eternal efforts to change the world and make it a place where the Good, the True and the Beautiful can make their abode, you’re likely to genuinely succeed in making life just that bit better and more beautiful.

Librans have the gift of creating style, grace and harmony wherever they go. You pursue your goals with diplomacy, tact and statesmanship, since you know much more gets accomplished when you’ve managed to convince people that your idea is their idea by a liberal use of the royal Libran “We”. Of course, you usually do exactly what you want. But you have the knack of getting everyone around you to co-operate.

You have a positive hatred of emotional storms, so you probably have trouble expressing your own emotions honestly. Anger, hatred, jealousy, neediness, intense desire – frightening stuff, all of it, and expressing it can get you into trouble (meaning that other people might get hurt or angry with you).

Librans, those great lovers of Truth, are often emotionally dishonest with themselves and with others, although it’s never intentional and never out of a desire to deceive. But when your anger blows (and it always does, when you’ve saved it up for too long), it can really blow. You can be the original “meek as a lamb or mad as a hornet” personality. Yet neither of these is really a true reflection of your essentially harmonious nature.

No matter how many times you get out of balance, the path between the extremes will always beckon with its gentle light, and the search for perfect equilibrium will always ensure that your life never stagnates. And maybe you recognise a secret that lots of other people don’t see: that it’s genuinely possible for human beings to be more than they are: more Good, more True and more Beautiful.

The Libra Partner

In one sense, Librans are always lovers, even when they’re programming computers, making political speeches or designing a garden. Everything they do, they do with refinement, grace and style. They show their best qualities in a civilised relationship which contains plenty of harmony, compromise and clear, open communication.

If you enjoy tempestuous, violent scenes with slammed doors and smashed crockery and lots of tears and torn clothes, choose another sign. If you’re big on heavy silent atmospheres, that’s not going to go over well either. Although it’s certainly possible to drive a Libran to the point of real explosiveness, it takes a lot of work, and afterward you’ll find that, far from enjoying all that passionate intensity, your Libran partner loathes every minute of it, loathes you, loathes himself for reaching that disgracefully bestial level of behaviour, and never forgets it.

If you want to discuss love problems with a Libra, you must discuss them. With words, in clear, logical, grammatically sound sentences. You can’t just emote. And make sure you temper your accusations with a good helping of, “Yes, I know that part is my fault”, because otherwise the Libran sense of fairness will be offended. In short, learn diplomacy.

It can all get too intellectualised for some people. Libra is capable of spending hours discussing a relationship – what’s wrong with it, what’s right with it, how “we” (don’t forget the royal Libran “we”) can make it better. In the end, Librans, for all their extraordinary intelligence, can show a surprisingly small capacity to act on these ideals in an emotionally convincing way.

Libra’s feeling nature is quite childlike, very powerful, and usually repressed. When they become horribly rational and discuss emotions like a political debate with pros, cons, and suggested fair compromises, you might feel like doing something really basic, like setting the house on fire and screaming. Yet having a reasonable partner can be a great boon. It means you can reason with him.

Of course there are times when reason has no place in love, and this is often Libra’s most difficult and painful lesson. You may wait a long time for your Libra partner to offer a genuine and spontaneous emotional response which hasn’t been thought out carefully first. But if you can truly understand and respect Libra’s need for harmony and civilised behaviour, it can make a big difference.

Librans can be gently coaxed into trusting their emotions, if the relationship is mutually respectful. But they can’t become somebody else. If you can’t accept the innate Libran tendency to rely on reason, try something a little more explosive, like an Aries or a Scorpio. The need for companionship makes Libra very companionable, and if you’re a ferociously independent type who likes to do everything alone, you may have a difficult time with Libra, who likes to do everything together.

They aren’t in the least bit weak. Far from it. Librans can be determined, tenacious and unstoppable if they believe in an ideal. It’s just that they’re people-lovers, and even a quiet, introverted Libra needs an understanding and interested mate and companion with whom to share ideals and dreams. Librans are deeply interested in making relationships work, and if you get involved with a Libran, you’re the beneficiary of that romantic idealism. For such a priceless gift, it’s well worth learning to communicate with your Libran partner rather than just dissolving into tears or shouting and slamming the door.