The trouble with all these big, bold, colourful strokes on the
canvas of life is that somebody has to clean the paintbrushes and
wash up the paint tins afterward. And also during. And you can be
pretty sure it won't be a Leo, who feels trapped and miserable when
he has to deal with the details of everyday life. When you read
mythology, you don't often find the hero considering what chemist
he should visit for his mouthwash so that he's acceptable to the
princess. No, details like that aren't part of the mythological
world. Who ever heard of King Arthur shopping at Marks and Spencer
to save a quid or two on chain mail? You may have heard that Leo is
extravagant. Yes, that's perfectly true. His extravagance stems
from two sources: firstly, he loves things to be quality, beautiful
and luxurious, as well as distinctive and stylish. Secondly, he
can't be bothered to see whether there's enough in the account to
cover it. Leo resents having to adjust, and hates limitations. If
he wants something, he believes he ought to have it. Save? Budget?
Don't be silly. Somehow it'll get covered.
Leo's intuition also gives him an unquenchable optimism. Find him
on the dole and he'll have his mind focused years ahead when he'll
be on top again. The trouble with all this is that in the meantime
it's always somebody else who has to do his worrying for him. It
might be reasonable to say that Leo behaves as though he needs a
twenty-four-hour secretarial and accounting service at his
disposal. Now your more successful Leo might have this very thing,
and life is truly a myth for him, since he can indulge his fancies
as he pleases. For the more limited Leo, life can be hell. Or he'll
make it hell for his partner, who's the one stuck for reminding him
he's got a doctor's appointment, reminding him he owes an
electricity bill, reminding him to take his clothes to the
cleaners, reminding him
.You probably have the picture. Leos can
give the impression, quite unconsciously, that they expect to be
taken care of and cleaned up after, because they're concerned with
much more important things.
This can naturally become a classic scenario, and often does. Leo,
being a fiery sign, is often attracted into relationships with
earthy partners, who seem to offer the stability and realism he
needs to complement his big dreams. But you should listen to those
earthy partners complain: Why do you always assume you have more
important things to do and leave me to clean up the mess afterward?
It really isn't deliberate autocracy. Remind a Leo that he is
behaving badly and he'll usually be both astonished and hurt. He
doesn't mean to treat people like a crowd of courtiers. But his
mind is so often in the future, or in his imaginary world of
creative vision, or on the big picture, that he fails to notice the
difficulties he makes for others. Yet his gifts are often so
outstanding that others make allowances for him. For a while.
This connects with another curious facet of Leo's psychology.
Because of the slightly dramatized world he lives in, he often
can't conceive of the fact that the world outside doesn't orbit
around him like his inner one does. So it's often difficult for him
to realize that life goes on without him. He needs to feel
important to himself, and often tries to find his sense of
self-esteem by being important to others. When they don't notice
him, he's hurt. Objectivity is not one of Leo's strong points. I
once had a friend - a double Leo, both sun and moon being placed
there - who, one day finding his tennis shoes too tight, cut off
the toes. A couple of days later, a new fashion appeared in the
shoe shops (it was Hollywood, the natural habitat of many Leos) -
open-toed boots. My Leo friend observed this phenomenon with a
certain charming mixture of amazement and complacency, and then
said in utter seriousness, 'I wish people aren't always copying me
like that.'
There you have it. The thing is, people do frequently copy Leos,
because they often have style and charisma; and it's easy to see
how a little personality inflation goes a long way. Nothing in the
world is quite so important to Leo as his own world. It is
genuinely painful and difficult for him to see beyond the lens of
his own consciousness, and comprehend that other people are truly
different, think and feel differently, and most importantly, that
they have a right to be different. At heart Leo is the Divine Child
of the zodiac. And to a child, the world is a mysterious and
exciting extension of himself. The sun shines for him, the clouds
rain on him, and good and bad luck are personally related to the
heavens favouring or disliking him rather than being either
products of his own efforts or the tracks of random chance.
Leo men and women often find it very difficult to share the
stage.
Sharing it with somebody else means taking away the possibilities
for their own creative expression. It also means being limited,
because they must adjust to somebody else's needs and feelings. So
Leo will always find ways, overt or subtle - and there are many
subtle Leos about who don't really look like Leos, but actually
just as true to their sign as the more charismatic ones - to claim
back the space which has been usurped. If you are the timid and
secretly resentful type, stay away from Leo. Fire signs are not
known for their sensitivity to the feeling currents around them,
and they don't make good telepaths of other people's needs if those
needs aren't voiced. Leo may inadvertently trample over others'
feelings without ever meaning to, or ever realizing it, simply
because he's so caught up in his own vision. Therefore, you have to
make a noise, if you want a piece of the stage. If you have set a
precedent of ten years of meek subservience and then discover
you've got a stomach ulcer or migraine headaches because you're
seething with anger over Leo's clumsy insensitivity, blame
yourself. Remember the child. Although he loves to preen and appear
to others in the height of style, Leo is terrified of being
unloved, mediocre, unappreciated, unnoticed. And his pride will
often not permit him to admit it.
It's something difficult to understand that these flamboyant,
always individualistic people are not always the extroverts they
seem. Leo is often shy and deeply introverted, but depends so
ferociously upon the love and acceptance of others that he will do
virtually anything to earn their approval. It is a problem of
identity. The first task that challenges Leo in life is the issue
of who he is, why he is here, why he is uniquely himself. It's a
lifelong challenge. If he can't muster the self-esteem he needs
from his inner resources, he'll crave it like a drug from the
audience. But his real journey is within, into the source of his
own being. Leo at heart is a religious sign, using the word here as
its originally meant: to reconnect. It is the secret of his intense
need to create something which mirrors his own essential substance
- be it a company, a book, a painting, a political movement, an
airline, a scientific achievement, an empire, a photograph. It is
in this process of creating that he finds his real sense of
self-value. Leo is a disaster when he tries to follow the advice
and instruction of others. A lifetime of following will often kill
him with heart disease and frustration. He needs, in some way, to
create something, however small, that is wholly and completely his
own.
From others, Leo requires the same nobility that he strives for
himself. He can be an intolerable perfectionist both with others
and with his own behaviour. Nothing less will do. Shatter his dream
and you cause him pain; but pain is the only thing that shakes him
out of his pride and complacency. His heart is that of a noble
knight. But he needs realism and earthy wisdom, and above all a
sense of humour about himself and his own foibles. Heroes, in myths
and fairy tales, are not the funny characters. That role is left to
the court jester. It seems that when Leo learns how to be the
jester himself, and can laugh at himself a little, his true
nobility emerges. Flexibility is important, too, for him to learn,
for he often lacks this as well. Most of all, he needs faith in
himself, in what he stands for, in what he is trying to become. Leo
is the most human, the noblest, the most tragic - in the ancient
Greek sense - of the signs. This is because the sign is the epitome
of Man, that bewildered creature who is half-animal and half-god,
and who has not yet understood either his own origins or the fact
that the world is populated with other human beings different from
himself. The Leo who learns this is indeed the hero.
