Leo - Aquarius Polarity: Understanding Oppositional Energy

The Leo-Aquarius axis is a hot topic right now on account of the powerful Mars - Pluto Opposition that is underway in these two signs. While I’m not here to talk about that transit specifically, it serves as the inspiration for the themes I am presenting here. 

With any oppositional energy, we are embarking on the task of integration which can sometimes feel like mixing oil with water. In this article, I hope you’ll come to understand in greater depth the unique evolutionary rite of passage of both Leos and Aquarians and how these opposing signs can work together to find wholeness. 

So let 's dive in! 

In August last year I met a man who I was both attracted to and equally challenged by. As someone with an Aquarian Sun, I have often found myself attracted to Leo men, although this energy has proven to be challenging and provoking to my Aquarian wounds (i.e. not belonging in the world). As it turns out, both his Sun and Moon were in opposing signs to mine. Not only was his Sun opposing my Sun by sign, but by house placement too (5th-11th house).

Oppositional energy can be tricky business because of its polarizing effect. Where there is polarity, there is both attraction and aversion of equal measure. We know we have met someone who polarizes us when they have the capacity to allure us and repel us at the same time. Some people will naturally experience more polarizing relationships because it's a part of their evolutionary aim to learn how to navigate the challenges of tension and thus learning how to diffuse it. I'm sure we can all think of one effective method for achieving this. In this case, sex was out of the equation. 

The question of how much tension is required for a relationship to flourish through a healthy dose of challenge is a personal one. I have discovered that for me, the initial stages of an intimate relationship are likely to exhibit more challenging behaviours. Why? My energetic make-up is set up that way!  My Moon opposes the Decendent (7th house cusp) which translates to having “hard feelings” with respect to prospective partners. To make matters even more complicated, Black Moon Lilith is in an even tighter opposition to the 7th house cusp which implies it is smack bang on my Ascendent - eek! 

Black Moon Lilith is a complex energy who by position, holds a lot of weight in my chart. She symbolizes the repressed wild feminine that has been denied and shunned in the dark ages of the patriarchy. She is reprimanded for being too argumentative and insistent in having her voice heard. Her intensity is an expression of the emotional karmic residue of the repressed feminine that is seeking to be reintegrated into the world. It's a big energy to carry and can be antagonising to those who have not properly dealt with the dormant dark feminine inside of them that has been held captive by societal and cultural constraints. 

Repressed energy will always be explosive at first, until it has time to settle, hopefully through the realization that the conditions of the past are not the same as the present. When approached with a supportive counterpart, a deeper level of understanding can help to erode away the tension and allow for her darkness to be reintegrated into the light. She can also seek to find herself in a segment of society where Truth trumps any courtesies that serve to maintain false appearances. 

Like Lilith, Aquarius (my sun sign) also represents the darkness (winter) while Leo represents the light (Summer). As an Aquarian Sun, a part of my soul is said to be at odds with Leo energy (the sign in opposition to Aquarius). In other words, Leo holds the key to understanding some of the shadow aspects of my psyche that I have disowned through the course of my soul’s journey. 

In other words, as I begin to understand the nature of Leo, I can begin to diffuse this “field of opposition” which is held tightly through my own unconscious rejection of my shadow or that which opposes me. By being willing to understand the evolutionary aim of Leo, I can allow my Aquarian nature to find solidarity with my inner Leo counterpart. 

To demonstrate the very beginnings of my Leo-Aquarius integration journey, allow me to rewind a little…

Some years ago I created two characters to help me embody my shadow qualities. Their names were Javier and Sabrina. I made up skits and played out scenes where I was essentially making fun of myself. Through the very nature of my theatrical performances and explorations of the ego, I had unknowingly found myself basking in Leo territory. 

The two characters I developed were highly righteous, self-inflated and attention seeking. At the time I considered these character traits as ghastly parts of myself that I could come to accept and love with the adage of humor. 

Since this time, I have come to understand that there is really nothing inherently bad with righteousness, attention seeking or any character trait for that matter. Like Black Moon Lilith, these qualities are symptomatic of something once denied that is seeking to resolve itself through compensation (the balancing of extremes). If something is denied forcefully, it seeks to be seen with equal force until the energy is tempered. 

In this sense, someone’s “shadow” does not point to the character trait itself, but to the quality of the relationship we have formed with it. If in a previous life, our opinion ends up causing devastating consequences, understandably in this life we may feel inclined to keep our thoughts to ourselves. This is just one of countless examples of the law of karma and how we can end up disowning parts of ourselves because of the memorable effects this particular expression has caused. 

At this time of my life, I had an unmet need for attention and yet I also shamed and belittled myself for wanting it. Now, if a child were to seek attention from his mother after doing a backflip in the pool, we would consider this completely normal and acceptable. Somewhere along the line, I had convinced myself that attention seeking was a right reserved for children, and apparently I wasn't a child any more. Creating and playing out the character of a child (the offspring of my shadow masculine and feminine) soon resolved that apparent obstacle!

Time is not biological.

From a psycho-spiritual point of view, there are times in life where we regress into the deep recesses of our mind and find ourselves operating from different states of consciousness that are not defined by our biological age. At this time, I was a 30 year old woman, yet deep inside of me lived a child that I was compelled to let be expressed through me. 

In terms of archetypes, Leo represents The Child and The Performer. This serves to explain why developing the ego through appraisal and attention make up the evolutionary rite of passage for the Leo archetype. 

Karmically, Leos are healing from rejection in a prior life which merits them a position of greater authority and attractiveness in this lifetime. Despite this evolutionary privilege, many Leo’s still struggle to claim their seat in the throne due to the residual effects of their karma. 

In other words, they have received a leg up in this lifetime because at a soul level, they need it.  Yet even when love and appraisal come without effort, many Leo’s may find themselves questioning their worthiness to receive it. In this way, denying a Leo acknowledgement and appreciation is a huge dishonour to their evolutionary path and a good way to never see a Leo ever again! 

Unfortunately, spirituality is seldom understood through the lens of “Ego Development” and instead, people on a spiritual path are steered towards methods that aim at dissolving the ego. While methods in the latter category are perfectly suited to the Pisces archetype, where Leo is concerned, ego development must not be skipped over. (ref: “Methods of Spirituality according to your Zodiac” -the book I never wrote). 

So, where does this leave me in the process of integrating my opposite sun sign and why might the qualities of Leo both fascinate and frighten me? 

Similar to Leo’s karmic wound of rejection, the Aquarian shares a not dissimilar wound of being the outsider. Where Leo’s wound is more personal, the Aquarian wound is more social/systemic. Bearing this in mind, perhaps Leo’s natural capacity to attract people into his or her orbit is seen as threatening to the Aquarian psyche who has endured experiences of severe isolation and estrangement from society. The notion of being adored, loved and cherished is thus rejected out of an underlying belief that this reality is simply not available to them. 

The complex psychological landscapes of the Aquarian mind (like Lilith), can also make them more difficult to love in the simple sense of the word and yet such simple love and affection provides them with the antidote to healing their existential wound of not feeling they belong in the world - especially as the unique individuals that they often are.

As a whole, oppositional energy offers so many gifts in knowing the parts of ourselves we have become most estranged from. When viewed on the zodiac wheel, there is no greater distance than the sign that opposes you. The two positions on either side of this axis represent opposite ends of the same evolutionary process. Through becoming more familiar with the energies that polarize us, we get to develop and build a bridge of connection to those parts of us which have been shot across the cosmos.  Whatever your sun sign may be, you may like to consider walking in the shoes of your opposite sign and see what it’s like to identify with who you think you are not.

✏️ Luna Feyth