It's Libra Season!

A Moodboard for the Lover

Sep 24, 2023

Please note this post focuses on the Zodiac for the Northern Hemisphere and is mostly based on personal taste & for fun. However, uncomfortable subject matter may be mentioned. Always check reviews or a resource like Unconsenting Media for TW: before watching any film recommendations.

IT’S LIBRA SEASON!

Getting lost as an art, purveyor of passion pursuits, “choose your own adventure”, Libra is the angel who can see many different angles of a situation. The “fuck around and find out” baby AND stumble across an ancient prophecy, tasked to restore the balance of the universe. Yes, can be indecisive, shameless flirt, whirling dervish, 180000 interests, delicious gossip girl or damsel-in-distress transformed to dark-sided mistress… but whether flighty fae frolicking from party to party or the Aphrodite draped in riddles and rhinestones, Libra always keeps people on their toes.

Libra Season marks the start of the Autumn Equinox for the Northern Hemisphere, much to the delight of the pumpkin-spice obsessed cardigan creatures who have no sorrow for Summer-tide’s leave. Closing out Virgo’s residency in the Astrological Wheel, the Earth Maiden associated with Harvest develops into Libra as a Persephone Princess, shimmering in a moment of perfect balance the way no store-bought highlight can achieve. Darkness encroaches on Light and Libra, whose lovely glow is now partly cloaked in a gown of fog, gifts to the world a mythology of Light and Dark.

JUMP TO: Stats | Archetype & Symbolism | Film in Big 3 | Style Museboard | MuseMix

LIBRA STATS

Uma Thurman as *The Birth of Venus* in *Baron Munchausen*

Element: Air

Symbol: Scales

Ruling planet: Venus

Modality: Cardinal

Duration (tropical): September 22-October 22 (approx)

Body: Kidneys, bladder, veins, sense of touch, lower back

ARCHETYPE & SYMBOLISM

Represented by The Scales, the symbol for Libra is associated with Lady Justice. HOWEVER, though delighting in optimizing logic, options and lessons, the modern Libra doesn’t exactly fit the strict descript of judicial jurisdiction. In a sense, her mischief and compassion awards her the most whimsical and heartfelt of Air Signs. Being propelled in the pursuit of Balance and ruled by Venus, the luster for Beauty and Love is prevalent for Libra. Some refer to Libra as The Lover, and seeing as our 2023 release The Sensual World focuses on the transformative nature of the amorous, we’re embracing this alt archetype for Libra Season.

Libra is a creative conversationalist & Queen Supreme of narratives.

Aa bit of flair for the dramatic, either in oversharing - gushing with details - or opposite - intense vigilance, Libra is able to behold a breadth of mental material to ponder upon. Whereas the cliche towards fickleness is based in Libra’s fall in Mars, within the Cardinal Air brews an intense craving for connection and harmony, yet she can also spar for what she believes in and strive valiantly towards her aspirations when push comes to shove.

Supplemental archetype articles for your enjoyment:

LIBRA LETTERBOX’D

David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly in *Labyrinth*

Libra Sun as the Dreamer dwelling into the Dark Side, an echo of origin story Persephone and a deceptive Underworld King. Tasked through riddles of the interpersonal, fantasy cinema such as Ridley Scott’s Legend, Henson’s Labyrinth and much of Miyazaki highlights Libra-coded lore. Furthermore, the mischief masculine lurking around the adventurous femme is a chicken or the egg question, often a grey area of understanding and empathy. Classics grew new life in early film variations (Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast), trickling into adult retellings (In the Company of Wolves), and carried into comedic good-and-evil, women-vs-men tropes (Witches of Eastwick).

Libra Moon touches on the Lovers against all odds, tragic or quirky in their range. Whether Shakespearean or indie, romantic or grim realism, the inner Libran film trajectory breaks barriers to reach the core of the heart. Combining restrictions and harsh reality of justice or social consequences, movies from Moonlight to renditions of Romeo & Juliet to the personal breakthroughs in Secretary and the intense yearning of In The Mood for Love, each film for Libra Moon is bigger than just the nature of one relationship. Challenging concepts around longing and trauma, the intimacy, care and struggle of desire versus the obstacles of unity and the want to be understood are emphasized.

Libra Rising as the mediator on a mission, who learns a great deal on the journey, can be seen in sugar-sweet stories of finding one’s values or questioning society (Edwards Scissorhands, Barbie), searching for stability but unsure of themselves as they make their path (Frances Ha, Princess Diaries) or learning to be confident but taking it a little too far (Mean Girls, Someone Great). The decisions-making dilemma in comedy is common thread for the green Libra, where friendship and keeping the peace becomes a slapstick and/or heartfelt script in the third Libra Letterboxd list.

HEAVENLY CREATURES

As Cardinal Air, Libra is a bold but detailed taste-maker, blessed by Venusian appreciation, adorning oneself in ethereal edge and boudoir layers of refined mystery and pristine presentation. Libra’s friendliness does NOT mean she’s entirely an open book. With a juxtaposition of restraint under lock and key, a signature of clandestine concealment (corsets, chokers, gloves) is the secret spice. Even with the utmost of accentuation (bustiers, defined shape), there is a royal touch of fancy frills, big ballroom sleeves and bridal chic. It isn’t uncommon for Libra to be a collector of shiny pretty things, getting dressed as a ritual. Her otherworldly flirtation with fashion is exemplified in our Libra Pinterest Museboard.

CHERRY-COLOURED FUCK

Despite an intense middle school love of The Cure, Robert Smith found himself swept aside by one single song. A mixed tape from a LARPing vampire goth named Victoria exposed me to the one and only Cocteau Twins. Though I hold the Cure close, adoring the Baudelaire or Camus stolen lyrics, “my favorite band” was eclipsed by the ethereal gibberish of Elizabeth Fraser and co. Amongst the dreamy library of Dead Can Dance and solo Peter Murphy, hearing "Cherry-Coloured Funk" the first time was transformative, a veil-lifting to an awakening.

I acquired every single song by Cocteau Twins (including Fruitopia commercials and Xmas EP), my “data cave” of slow Usenet server downloads glowing into a romance of discovery. Long past teen black eyeliner as lipstick and morosely goofy poetry penned at any available classroom lull, swirly “goth”-kissed sounds blend into a strong association to the arrival of colder mornings and Autumn leaves. Dreampop serenades a synesthesia of purple-pink sunsets, meddling into blazing coral, dancing with the last fireflies, carefree careening the bleed of navy ink night as we inch towards Halloween.

AUTUMNAL ADDITIONALS

Additionally The Femme Moon’s Autumn specific playlist is a nod to Americana dreaminess with a sordid twist. Intentionally themed around the sounds and feel of Twin Peaks, which had an influence on me and so many of the elder millennial I grew up with… though dated and purposefully crafted to be a U.S. melodrama that David Lynch found odd in all their earnestness, mixed with the esoteria of the forest and the curse of generational trauma, it was a show that still reaches audiences across the board with a longevity in its surreal small town tale of demons.

There isn’t an Autumn where I don’t think about this early ‘90s series. Teen queen who lived a double life fits the Libra tale of the Underworld - though Laura Palmer was a Leo - and her memory was revived for the AnarchAngel zine. Enjoy the additional playlist below, an homage to Julee Cruise croons and Bookhouse Boys leather jackets and switchblade combs, the smell of pine trees and sound of broken hearts, on a hayride to Hell.