Zodiac calendar flips to Libra on Sept. 23…bless their hearts

Share some love with those poor souls among us who were born between Sept. 23-Oct. 22, under the zodiac sign of Libra.

 Libra is the only one of the 12 zodiac signs that was assigned an “inanimate object” for its representative symbol – a set of balancing scales.

 

How lame is that? While Scorpios have their poisonous scorpions, Leos have their roaring lions, Capricorns have their mystical sea goats and Sagittarians have their fierce centaurs, Libras have their scales…posing absolutely no threat to the other zodiac creatures. 

Do we blame it on the Babylonians? They were the people who invented this whole zodiac thing many moons ago (approximately 4,000 years ago) when great minds thought the sun and the moon revolved around planet Earth.

 

Babylonia was a region of Mesopotamia that existed in the Middle East, extending roughly from Baghdad into the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and running on down to the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea. (Today, much of the ancient Babylonia is within the borders of Iraq.) 

Journalist Sara Coughlin interviewed Judith Hill, an internationally known astrologer and author, on this apparent slight to Librans. On the contrary, Hill said Libra “makes perfect sense.” 

“Libra is the halfway point in the seasonal cycle, symbolizing autumn and sunset,” Hill remarked. It’s the balance between light and dark, day and night.

 

“Libra’s solar season coincides with the fall equinox, marking the midpoint between nature’s ‘youth’ and its ‘old age,’” Hill said. Thus, Libra’s image of “perfectly balanced and symmetrical scales” is visually accurate. 

Hill said that from a more metaphorical standpoint, the scales encapsulate how Libras tend to go through life – stopping, observing, contemplating,” she said. 

The scales’ “lack of action” is right in character. “Libras tend to think (and think…and think) before they act. People born under this sign are known to take an even-keeled, thoughtful approach to questions and problems (in a less flattering light, this is where Libras get their reputation as indecisive).” 

“They wish to be fair, collaborative and balanced in all things, and the scales capture this desire,” Hill said. 

Sometimes, "Lady Justice" is incorporated into visuals to depict Libra.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor at Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He is a regular contributor to Space.com. He shared a story about the time one of the planetarium’s senior lecturers “reprimanded me after I had given a night sky show and pointed out Libra to my audience.” 

“Listen,” he said, “the correct pronunciation is ‘Lī-bra,’ not ‘Lee-bra.’ Remember, you go to a ‘Lī-brary,’ not a ‘Lee-brary!’” 

“Now, whenever I look at Libra, I always think of my former Hayden colleague and as a remembrance to him, stress the Lī,” Rao said.

 “And have you ever wondered why the abbreviation for the word ‘pound’ is ‘lb’? It is in deference to the first and third letters of Libra, the scales,” Rao said. 

Now, we can blame the Babylonians for throwing a 13th zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, under the bus. He is known as the “serpent-bearer,” a man charming (or wrestling with) a snake.

 

“The Babylonians omitted Ophiuchus for convenience,” wrote Jamie Frank, a 2021 graduate of Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School in Union County, N.J. 

Perhaps, it had something to do with the awkward spelling of “off-FEE-you-cuss.” 

On a zodiac wheel, Ophiuchus would claim Nov. 29-Dec. 17, squeezing in between Scorpio and Sagittarius. It would throw the whole calendar – not to mention Libra’s scales – totally out of whack. 

Jamie Frank said it would be “an astrology student’s nightmare.”