By Dorian Grimault, astrologer · Published · updated
Leo is the fifth sign of the zodiac, a Fire sign of the fixed mode, running from about July 23 to August 22 depending on the year. It is the sign of radiance, creation and the need to exist in broad daylight. It is also the only domicile of the Sun, and a sign sparing in dignities: no exaltation, no fall. This page sets out its character, the planets that are at home or against the grain there, its three decans, then the case of Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data), whose Leo holds neither a planet nor a cusp.
Ptolemy (Tetrabiblos, book I, chapter 17) starts from heat: Cancer and Leo, the most northern of the signs and the closest to our zenith, were given to the luminaries, and Leo, a masculine sign, to the Sun. The houses of the five other planets are then shared out on either side, in a solar semicircle and a lunar semicircle. In chapter 11, he places Leo among the solid signs, those where the season touches us most firmly: this is our fixed mode.
Lilly, in Christian Astrology (1647), book I, in the chapter on the nature of the twelve signs, writes that Leo is “the only house of the Sun”, fiery by nature, hot and dry, choleric, diurnal, “commanding”, masculine, of the East and of the fiery triplicity, which it shares with Aries and Sagittarius. Among the places he assigns to it are kings' palaces, castles and, within a house, the spot where the fire is kept, near the chimney.
You work through the heart and through pride. You need to be seen and recognized for who you are; when you feel you are in your rightful place, you become generous, warm, able to light up a room. Your strengths: charisma, generosity, courage, loyalty, a confidence that reassures. Your blind spots: pride, a thirst for recognition, touchiness about criticism, the urge to run everything.
In love, you love on a grand scale and turn the relationship into a story people remember; you need admiration and tenderness. The trap: taking all the light, or sulking as soon as attention turns elsewhere. At work, you bring people together and take on the responsibilities others avoid; the stage, management, creative work, teaching or running a business suit you. Anonymity dims you. Your lesson: shine without waiting for applause, and let your team shine too.
The Sun is in domicile in Leo in every system. Detriment, however, depends on the table. For AstralPro, which places detriment opposite the modern domicile, it is Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, that is in detriment in Leo. Tradition put Saturn there. Ptolemy had given him the two signs opposite the houses of the luminaries, Capricorn and Aquarius, adding that this diametrical aspect does not accord with beneficence; and Lilly defines detriment as the position of a planet in a sign opposite one of its own houses. A Saturn in Leo, in detriment for a traditional astrologer, therefore shows only a dash in your Dignity column.
No exaltation, no fall: neither Leo nor Aquarius appears in Ptolemy's list of exaltations (I, 19), and the AstralPro engine follows that list. Like Gemini, Sagittarius and Aquarius, Leo therefore involves only two planets.
By element, Leo divides as follows, the sub-ruler being the modern ruler of the associated sign:
The third decan goes to Aries: the series wraps around the element. Al-Biruni, in his Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology (1029, § 451), describes this principle among the Indians (the ruler of the sign, then that of the fifth, then that of the ninth), and his table gives the same sequence for Leo, Sun, Jupiter, Mars: the rulers of these three Fire signs did not change with modern rulerships.
The Chaldean faces (§ 449) give Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. The two readings differ only on the first third, and the gap is striking: Saturn, which tradition placed in detriment in this sign, receives the first face there. Your report writes the decan by element; the face comes in only in the scoring that weighs the degree of the Ascendant.
Camille Morel's Leo holds no natal planet and no cusp. Her 9th house begins at 22°06' Cancer, her 10th house at 0°15' Virgo: the whole of Leo fits between them, inside the 9th house. Her cusps table therefore has no line in Leo, and the Sun, ruler of the sign, rules no house in her chart. Some astrologers then give a second ruler to the house that contains the sign; AstralPro sticks to the sign on the cusp, and the 9th house stays ruled by the Moon. Fire, for its part, weighs only 5% in her dominants.
Leo still shows up in three places. Among the fixed stars, Regulus, a royal star at 29°45' Leo, is conjunct her Midheaven (orb 0°30'), which is itself at 0°15' Virgo: the contact crosses the border between the two signs. Through the decans, her Lilith, at 14°01' Aries, has the Sun as sub-ruler, by way of Leo. And her 2026 Solar Return places Mars (25°00') and Jupiter (25°43') in Leo, both in the 9th house of the return.
To find out what Leo does in your chart, start with the positions table: a planet in Leo shows “Domicile” if it is the Sun, “Detriment” if it is Uranus, and a dash in every other case. Then look at the cusps table. If a house begins in Leo, the position of your Sun tells you how that domain is channeled. If none begins in Leo, as with Camille, the sign is contained within a house and the Sun rules nothing; it keeps its role as a luminary, and that of sect light if your chart is diurnal.
In chapter I, the decan paragraph of each block places the planet in the first, second or third third of the sign. And the list of fixed stars in conjunction flags, as it does for Camille, a contact with Regulus when it falls within the orbs your report uses.
These entries describe astrology for everyone. Your birth chart, though, is unique: discover what your birth sky reveals about you.
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