Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Virgo | Libra | Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces

they asked "Merlin" Mervin:
 
"Who Is Leo?"
©1999, Rudy Mervin, All Rights Reserved.

 
Leo

Fixed on his fiery throne,
The center of his domain -
Sign of Royalty, and Gifts -
Romantic, with pageantry,
Representing the Grand Trine.
In his past is Cancer,
Sitting in a rocking chair
Nurturing her future,
Which is Leo.
Cancer, secure behind four walls
Which Leo expands into the homeland.
Leo, the child,
And the fulfillment of Cancer.
Leo, the Sign of Children
Of a new kind of home.

The future of Leo is Virgo,
Bent over his forge
Fashioning with his own hands
That which Leo
Can only conceive of.
Virgo, the Sign
Where Leo learns to serve.
Virgo, where Leo's pride
Is humbled by his circumstance
So that he may come to understand
His subjects.

Opposing Leo
Is Aquarius, with the people
Massed behind him.
Aquarius, who calls for democracy
Wherein each may have a small voice
In the destiny of the nation.
Aquarius, who can call to revolution
With the rallying voice of Reason
And speak with silvery words of the Utopia
Where all may have an equal share,
Leo and Aquarius,
One fixed in Command,
And the other fixed in his ideals
Of brotherhood,
Must bend or break.
If they effect a compromise,
The Divine Right
Is reduced to a constitutional Right,
And the King will represent the People
And not himself,
And his ultimate authority
Will derive from the people
And not from a Divinity
Who told his disciples to separate
The interests of Caesar and God.

If Leo vanquishes Aquarius,
He must vanquish the people,
And to vanquish the people
He must control their voices
And block up their ears
For truth always appears
Where many gather
In the form of Aquarius,
Who pours the water of Enlightenment
Upon the burdened brows of his brothers,
Awakening them to the possibilities
Of Reform.
When Leo summons Aquarius before him
And offers enlightened compromise,
Wherein each may have what he needs,
And not just what he desires,
He displays the greatest attributes of kingship.
And when Aquarius
Answers with the will of the people,
In moderation,
And does not throw down the gauntlet
Of Revolution
Before considering the true interests
Of his brothers,
Then Aquarius serves the ideals of Brotherhood.

Crossing the Royal Highway
Which leads to the Meeting House
Of the People,
Where Leo is counseled
In partnership with Aquarius,
Is another road at right angles.
This road represents Taurus and Scorpio.

The road to Taurus
Wends its way through broad valleys
Ripe with Grain and Cattle
And finishes at the homely farmstead
Of that obstinate peasant,
Who in prosperity
Blocks his ears to the entreaties
Of his brothers
Because he finds it hard
To share his possessions.
But when Leo excercises Tyranny
And humbles the peasant into poverty,
Then he resists the Royal Command
And joins the Secret Society of Scorpio,
Or opens his ears to the ideals of Aquarius,
So that he may recover
What Royal corruption and greed
Took as its own.

The road to Scorpio
winds its way
Through dark forests
And steaming swamps
Into narrow cul de sacs
Where the unwary
May be trapped by Highwaymen,
And every part of that road
Offers the possibility of death
By secret means, and the unknown grave.

If one survives the secret traps
And the attacks from ambush
One eventually finds himself
Traversing the Underground Maze,
Which is the real domain
Of Scorpio.
To safely travel through
The Land of Death, and Transformation
One must attach to his waist
The silver cord of Life,
So that he may safely return
To his physical body,
For Pluto, who rules the land of Scorpio,
Rules the center of the Earth,
And one may not pass to the center
In material presence.

Leo is limited most greatly
In his Royal Mandate
By the opposition of humanitarian ideals,
By the obstinacy and resistance to change
Of his royal subjects,
And by conspiracy, and intrigue
And death through assassination.

Leo forms a Grand Trine in Fire
With Aries and Sagittarius.
These are his natural allies
Whom he must enlist to his cause
So that his rule will be wise and enlightened.

Aries, the soldier and headstrong general
Who will risk his life
In adventurous combat,
And drives forward, head down,
To smash through resistance to his king.
Aries, whose sword enforces the King's Peace
So that Taurus may cultivate in safety
And Cancer's home be secure
So that Gemini may carry on his trade
And Virgo practice his craft.

Aries, the King's policeman
Serves the law of Libra
By bring transgressors to justice
And guards them in the prisons of Pisces.
He defends, as the law requires,
The free speech of Aquarius
And reluctantly fills out the forms
Demanded by Capricorn.

Sagittarius
Takes the wisdom he learned as a young man
Travelling to foreign lands
And brings it back to his nation,
So that his people will benefit
Through higher knowledge
And understanding,
And counsels his King
With the wisdom he has earned,
And his King, if he opens his ears to Sagittarius,
Will be an enlightened ruler
Who will establish institutions of Higher Learning,
Where will be taught Philosophy
And other great things.

Leo needs the knowledge
Of the Traveller to distant countries,
The judgement of the Philosopher
And the wisdom of the Sage
To rule his kingdom
With true nobility and justice.

Sextiling Leo
Are Gemini and Libra.
The footloose Merchant
Promotes prosperity through Trade
So that Taurus may have the tools
Crafted by Virgo,
Which he pays for through the grain he grows,
And Gemini trades this for lumber
Fashioned by Cancer
And spreads the news throughout the Kingdom,
And his gossip is gleaned by Leo
For the information he needs
To make his rule secure.

And as for Libra
The King must deliver justice
And only Libra can make everything seem fair
And even-handed.
And it is Libra whose art
Praises the King's reign
And gains glory for the nation.

Capricorn and Pisces
Are Quincunx to Leo.
Capricorn is irritating to Leo,
Because he is the only one who can
Organize Leo's bureaucracy,
And Leo recognizes him as a necessary evil.
Capricorn's ambition is threatening
Because he knows Leo's weak points,
And Leo may command,
But in most cases, it is Capricorn
Who must execute those commands.
Leo doesn't know all the right buttons to push.
He just has a few big buttons, and then it
Is up to the Big Buttons to push all the little buttons.

Pisces irritates
Because Leo suspects
Pisces is another kind of King.
Here is Leo, footloose and inconsequential
Hand on violin, rather than sceptre,
Representing Faith
Rather than power and command.
Here is the achilles heel of Leo:
Religion, and the allegiance
To the King of Kings,
The raising of humility
Over Royal Pride,
And compassion over pity.
Pisces is the ocean of Space,
And Leo is the Sun,
And the commands of Leo
Pass through Pisces
Like the rays of the Sun
Pass through Space
-Without effect.

But lest one think
That Leo is all politics,
Even the King is just a man,
After all, and like all of the Signs,
There is the ideal archetype,
And there is the Man,
And there is the woman,
And not all Leos are Kings
And Queens.
Let them speak for themselves.

"We are his Royal Majesty
And stride with hauteur and pride."

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