It is the equinox so the day hours are equal to night hours. In the northern hemisphere it’s the fall equinox, and southern spring. I’m in Berlin, so that’s the sky I write under, except the weekly horoscopes I publish for Vice are written with the eastern time zone, northern hemisphere.

If day is life and night death, Libra season marks a gate into a sort of 6-month-long, seasonal “dark night of the soul”. Is it hell or just the second half of the zodiac? There is a renaissance term “via combusta” (fiery way) which refers to certain degrees between Libra and Scorpio that are analogous to hell. I can’t find a lot about via combusta. Source texts are probably in Italian, which I am willing to learn (but honestly translating the Bible myself from Greek is my classics goal).

Intuitively it makes sense that the path to the tropical, seasonal underworld happens mid-autumn. And maybe that’s why we think hell is underground instead of, like in outer space or over the ocean, or on earth existing as the consequences of our own actions.

You know that Sartre quote “hell is other people” is very Libra to me. Is that a stretch? He had a 7th house stellium, of course.

Annabel Gat and I are still writing the Libra personality traits article, so I won’t give it all away here, but I texted her: 

“ thinking about how libra and the sign of fall is about people and relationships… we need other people whenever it gets colder! relationships help us fare the elements”

As it gets colder we retreat into our minds. Into collective reliance, and thus into religion. The two signs of Jupiter’s domicile, Jupiter being the planet of spirituality and religion, bookend the winter, with Sagittarius welcoming winter, and Pisces defrosting everything. So I have this theory that this half of the zodiac, from Libra to Pisces, is about a more collective spirit.

Libra is the sign where the sun appears to die and descend into darkness. Aries, Libra’s opposite, is the sign where the sun is reborn (and when Easter is celebrated which I rang the alarm about and then felt insecure that everyone hated me for having religious ideas).

If Aries is about the responsibility we have to ourself and our own ability to do good, then Libra is how we do good by others and through relationships.

In Chapter 9 Book I of St. Augustine’s City of God (one of the better books I’ve found on the street in Berlin), he writes about the virtue of passing judgement... Although it was published in 426 when Rome was converting from Paganism to Catholicism, it’s still relevant in some form.

This chapter basically goes into how seeing other people do wrong and not saying anything about it is spiritually reprehensible, and, according to St. Augustine, why good people are punished. People shouldn’t be afraid of confronting others in order to bring more harmony to our world. And that’s what Libra/Aries does best!

“What is reprehensible, however, is that, while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of wicked men some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their malice.”

He writes about people being afraid to reprimand because they don’t want to risk their reputation or security, not because they’re such kindhearted people.

“[…] they shirk this duty of fraternal correction because of a certain slavishness to avarice, not because of the obligations of charity.”

Libra is a diurnal, masculine sign. This means it deals less with earthly life and more with spirituality and intellect. The discovery of how to treat one another with dignity, respect, and grace, is one that marks this zodiac sign.