Leo

Fixed fire, ruled by the Sun

Fixed fire is fire kept burning. The tradition reads Leo as warmth that stays in one place long enough to be felt: generous, proud, loyal and theatrical, needing its light to be seen and willing to give it freely when it is. Aries, the cardinal fire sign, is read as the first flare, and Sagittarius, the mutable one, as fire that travels; Leo is the hearth. Its steadiness makes it dependable and warm-hearted, and the same fixity is read as vanity and a refusal to be told it is wrong.

Leo is ruled by the Sun, the only sign the Sun rules, and it is read as the Sun on its own ground: identity, vitality, the wish to make something and be recognised for it. Saturn, the ruler of the opposite sign, is in detriment here, restraint and duty uncomfortable in a sign of display, and modern astrologers who give Aquarius to Uranus put Uranus in detriment in Leo too. The traditional scheme gives no planet its exaltation or its fall in Leo. Its decans run Saturn, Jupiter and Mars as faces, or the Sun, Jupiter and Mars through the fire signs.

Leo as Sun, Moon and rising sign

The Sun in Leo

The Sun in its own sign is read as a self that shows. A Sun in Leo is described as open-hearted, dramatic in a good cause, generous with praise and attention, and most alive when making or leading something other people enjoy. The tradition attaches a strong sense of dignity to it, and a need to be taken seriously; the same reading lists pride, sulking when overlooked, and a taste for the centre of the room.

The Moon in Leo

A Moon in Leo is read as needing appreciation in order to feel secure: to be noticed, thanked and loved out loud. Its feelings are warm and shown with some flourish, and it is read as loyal and protective towards the people it has taken to heart. Hurt tends to show as wounded pride. The Moon crosses Leo in about two and a half days, so the birth date gives a likely answer and the birth time a sure one.

Leo rising

Leo rising is read as a confident bearing, a certain presence in a doorway and care over appearance, and it makes the Sun the ruler of the chart, so the Sun’s own sign and house carry extra weight. Leo is the natural sign of the fifth house, play, romance and making things. In the northern hemisphere it is among the slowest signs to rise, close to three hours at the latitude of London; at the latitude of Sydney it takes about an hour and a half.

Leo is high summer in the north and the depth of winter in the south. About 7 August, halfway through the sign, the Sun passes the cross-quarter point that older calendars kept as Lammas, the first harvest, also called Lughnasadh. The Sun spends a little over thirty-one days in Leo, still moving slowly just after the Earth has passed its farthest point from the Sun.

The lion

The lion is the Nemean lion, whose hide no weapon could pierce, strangled by Heracles as the first of his labours. The glyph is usually read as the lion’s mane or its tail. The reading keeps the animal rather than its defeat: the king of beasts, courage and a certain magnificence.

Leo and Aquarius across the wheel

Across from Leo is Aquarius, a fixed sign of air. The pair is read as the axis of the individual and the group: Leo the heart that wants to shine as itself, Aquarius the mind that thinks in terms of everyone. It runs through the fifth and eleventh houses, personal creation and shared hopes. Weight across it is read as the question of how to stand out without standing apart, and how to belong without disappearing.

The sign and the constellation

The constellation Leo does look like a lion, a crouching figure whose front is marked by a backwards question mark called the Sickle, with Regulus, the lion’s heart, lying almost exactly on the Sun’s path. The Sun is in front of Leo from about 10 August to 15 September, the end of tropical Leo and most of Virgo. For the first half or so of the sign Leo the Sun is before the faint stars of Cancer. Sidereal Leo begins about 17 August. The page on signs and constellations explains why the three differ.

Common mix-ups

Leo is often described only as vain, which the tradition would call half a reading: pride and generosity come from the same fixed warmth. Births on 22 or 23 July and on 22 or 23 August need a time and a place to say whether the Sun was in Leo, which a birth chart works out. And a Leo Sun does not bring a Leo ascendant with it; the two are independent, and only people born around sunrise have both.

What this page claims

This page sets out how Western astrology reads Leo and where each part of that reading comes from. It describes a vocabulary rather than a person, and it predicts nothing about anybody born with the Sun, the Moon or the ascendant in Leo.