Libras are the romantics, the lovers, the dreamers. So to love a libra, you must love love and all the adventure, delight and worry it can bring.

---

We all wish we had a blueprint for understanding our partners; sometimes, we’d even love to have a blueprint for understanding ourselves. That’s why some of us tilt our faces to the stars to understand the tendencies, the troubles, the emotions that run just under the surface of our skin.

“We love the things we love for what they are.” — Robert Frost

A Libra longs for partnership, it is her heart’s forever-wish; but to love a Libra, you must love her completely.

A Libra will need space; she’ll need freedom to be who she is in any given moment. She wants to suffer, celebrate, hate and adore who she is. These things are always changing and often conflicting, because she’s constantly discovering new pieces of who she is.

She’ll never tell you something critical straightaway, criticism drains too much from her vessel. Instead, she’ll sit with things until the perfect words ring true in her heart and ever-so-carefully move into her mouth. Even then, she might write you a letter. Because the intensity of her feelings can make the speaking of words so tricky.

She adores words. She loves the magic they hold, the way they can free her (because there are so few things that can).

So to love a Libra, understand the words always matter—they are the brush strokes of her heart. She won’t lie, she’s no good at it. She won’t brag, for her heart is humble and she holds words in too high esteem. Steer clear of unfulfilled promises or patronization, they’ll damage her. She’ll remember and the words will never hurt less.

She’s an artist, through and through. But a Libra, to survive in the world, must find her medium. She must find her muse. The words, or paints, the delicate, mindful crease of a freshly-made bed—it’s all art to her. Beautiful pieces of anything. She needs objects and sounds and smells and textures to resonate with that place deep inside that says, “Yes. That’s it, now it is exactly right.” To love a Libra, you must know this.

She’ll need her art like you need your breath—without it, she will lose sight of who she is.

You must watch the curve of her mouth; her lips will sometimes purse. And when they do, know her mind wanders because her heart is not still. You’ll notice her gaze, so away; in that moment, you must let her go there—to the place where the words find their way to the air—but not for too long. She’s always in danger of leaving for too long.

She seeks stillness like she seeks the night sky.

A Libra will love her body. She’ll loathe her body, too. But you… you must love it, you must always love it. You must look into her eyes and lose yourself. Move her hair from her face so you can soak in her features. You must touch the places that hardly get touched—her neck as she washes dishes, her collar bone as she types at her desk, her hip as you stand in line at the grocery store. You must weave the ordinary with the erotic. Slide your hands firmly over every inch of her skin as if it were the last time you’ll ever touch her. Devour her. Because she’ll crave your embrace and wither without it.

She needs old-Hollywood romance. And so many kisses.

She needs to be whisked away to see the world and she needs a safe home to return to.

She’ll cry. A lot. She’ll cry and you won’t know what’s wrong. She won’t tell you what’s wrong, not at first, because her heart and head will mix things up, muddling the source of her woe. There will be difficult moments when she simply needs to feel sadness, she needs to feel the struggle of being alive. In these moments it might feel hardest to love her, but know the you love so dear is waiting to make her return.

Whatever it is, she feels it more deeply.

The weight of her fears, her curiosities, everything: of being human, of responsibility, of hate and violence and injustice, of beauty and lightness and joy, all of it. It frightens her, but amazes her too. So she’ll need time and space to explore, to expand, to dance and to fall to pieces, because there is nothing more lovely than a Libra experiencing the world. She sees magic where others do not.

She needs to believe in magic. Ferociously.

And when the leaves are changing and she feels most herself—you’ll be mindful of her feelings; because, even if aging on this planet isn’t a big deal, it is a big deal and the tears that stream for no particular reason come from a place of fear and shame in her heart.

To love a Libra, you must celebrate; you must celebrate her, life, the amazing, the plain, everything and anything.

To love a Libra is to love the very essence of love.

When your heart is Libran, there’s a delicate balance—a perpetual tug-of-war—between feeling fierce and worthy against feeling misunderstood and lost. Always trying to find that place of center, she never quite knows who she is.

To compensate for this non-knowing she’ll make elaborate strides to please everyone around her. She’ll accommodate, fix, and help until you resent her for it; but, to love a Libra is to see that her self-sacrifice, no matter how destructive, is how she loves. Her bleeding heart is how she finds her place in a world that can be unkind.

A Libra needs you to push her toward self-care. She’ll never choose her needs first, so you’ll have to teach her this craft. You’ll need to teach her that self-care is not the same as selfishness, because she sees selfishness as ugly.

Ugliness scares her.

Loneliness too.

Her heart will break often. Her heart will feel confused and sad about many things, but you must never be the one to break it completely.

To capture a Libra’s heart is to capture her heart forever. There are no partners more committed, more attentive than your Libra. A Libra is not to be taken for granted; a Libra’s heart will grow uneasy when neglected, her heart will close and you risk never finding your way in again.

Her heart knows the secret to everything. Protect it.

Sometimes she’ll feel lost. She’ll need hot tea and blankets, black-and-white movies, a quiet home, and lots of space. Other times, she’ll need people. Gatherings and midnight walks and deep, frenzied conversation—she likes literature and culture and philosophy best. She likes whiskey, too. To love her, you’ll most certainly need to know that.

She’ll need constant reminders that she’s a lovely being, that she’s loved—better yet, adored. She needs mindful smothering, she needs adventures. A Libra wants autonomy, but can’t stand the thought of being left alone. You must learn to accept her, even as a contradiction.

She’ll require decisiveness, as she has none of her own. She’ll surprise you with spontaneity and you’ll admire the commitment she shows to her heart’s content. But if she has time to think, any decision will be difficult—be it where to eat, what to wear or who to love. This will frustrate you, but understand.. for the Libra, there is no such thing as an easy choice.

Loving a Libra means loving love itself. She loves everything about love: the spark, the discovery, the ache, the ecstasy, the very idea of love—it’s all the same. She yearns for the safety of commitment, but she thrives on the excitement of love’s blossoming.

She wants passion.

She can see the good in any person, but in a lover she requires intelligence and humor. To her, there is nothing sexier than wit.

She loathes discord, as it makes her feel the scary weight of vulnerability; but to love her is not to worry too much. She believes in forgiveness and trust—enough to repair almost any wrong done to her. When you quarrel with a Libra, she’ll think every fight is the end of everything and this will destroy her a little; you must remind her that every argument is a moment to grow in the relationship—it is the beginning of a new everything. To love a Libra, know there are few things more crucial than make-up sex.

She loves falling in love, so to love a Libra you’ll have to fall in love hundreds and hundreds of times. She’ll require perpetual evolution, and inspiration, and a little dose of sin.

To love a Libra you’ll need to see the good intention she always has in her heart; to ignore this well-meaning piece of her is to deny her a personal truth. She cannot survive without this particular truth. When she’s awful, or rude, or arguing because she’s right, you must breathe. Then trust her tears and her words sprout from an authentic place.

She cares too deeply to ever inflict intentional harm.

But if you witness the flash of anger in her eyes, you must let her rage. For gentle, compassionate Libra will storm fiercely in the face of intolerance. Allow her the space to be a warrior when her heart says it’s time to fight. You must stand beside her, admire her devotion, and take part in the cause—see it for what it is, a manifestation of her heart’s deepest purpose.

Believe in her and she’ll believe in you.

When a Libra is happy, she can take over the world. She need only be equipped with the proper music, laughter and her smile.

Your challenge will lie in keeping her there; for in that moment is an ocean of contentment that only her huge heart can appreciate. If you can keep her in that moment, you can keep her forever. But the Libra mind drifts and worries. It will linger on the memory that cut her too deeply. She will scrutinize over the words you used—or the words that were left unspoken. She’ll wonder about security and what each embrace or touch or quarrel will mean in the long-term; to love a Libra, you must gently guide her back to the now time and time again.

Libra blossoms in the blessed now.

She believes in the goodness of people, in magic and (above all else) in happily ever after.

To love a Libra, you must elevate her for everything she is.

 

“What it Means to Love a Libra” was originally published with elephant journal; revised and republished with the kindest permission. 

[featured image: via shutterstock]