Libra

The sign at a glance

Place in the zodiac

7

Persian month

Mehr

Element

Air

Quality

Cardinal

The element and the quality are the classical groupings: every fourth sign shares an element, and every third shares a quality.

The seventh borj

Libra stands seventh in the twelve-sign order, at the hinge where the zodiac leaves the first half of the circle for the second. In Persian it is Mizān, the scales — the same word used for a balance, for a weighing, and for measure in the ordinary sense. The name is a translation of the older figure of the beam and its two pans, and it has carried into Persian with all of those senses intact.

Borj is the Persian word for a sign of the zodiac, and it is also, historically, a month name. When the Persian solar calendar was reckoned by the sun's passage through the zodiac, each month took the name of the sign it covered, so the twelve borj served as twelve months. Iran's modern calendar keeps the same solar months but gives them Persian names, while the borj names remain in use for the signs themselves and in traditional almanac writing. In Afghanistan the older practice continues in civil life: the Solar Hijri months there are still called by their borj names, and Mīzān is simply the name of the seventh month, printed on documents and spoken in conversation without any astrological weight attached.

This product follows the calendar rather than the sky. The sign here is the month, counted from the start of the Persian year, which is why the sign and the month share a single entry.

What the tradition associates with Mizān

In the tradition, this borj is read straight out of its name. Mizān is the balance, and the tradition associates the sign with weighing, with proportion, and with the effort to give each side of a matter its due. Where other signs are read through a creature or a body, this one is read through an instrument of measure, and the tradition treats that as significant in itself.

The tradition places Mizān among the airy signs, and to the air it assigns speech, exchange, comparison, and the turning of a question over in company rather than alone. Classical Persian usage further assigns the borj to Venus — Zohreh — and with that assignment the tradition brings in an attentiveness to harmony and to made things: pleasing arrangement, courtesy in dealing, an ear for what is fitting. In the same texts the sign is called a sign of justice and of settlement, and the tradition connects it to the work of judging fairly and of bringing two parties to agreement.

The tradition also records a difficulty in the same figure. A balance that is still being read has not yet come to rest, and the tradition notes that the weighing can be held open longer than the matter needs, with both pans watched and neither chosen. It names this plainly as the cost of the sign's own care, not as a separate fault, and the older readings tend to place it beside the virtue rather than against it.

As a cardinal sign the tradition counts Mizān among the signs that begin things, and it reads that beginning as an opening outward — toward the other party, the other view, the other pan of the scale.

These are readings the tradition carries, recorded and retold over centuries. They describe the sign, not any person born in its month.

The sign, the month, and the moving date

The Persian year begins at the vernal equinox, at the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator, and the months were cut to follow the zodiac from there. Because of that, the sign does not float free of the calendar: the month is the sign. Counting forward from the first month of the year brings you to Mizān as the seventh, and its quality is cardinal, which here means that it stands at the head of its season. It opens the autumn quarter rather than resting in the middle of it or closing it and handing over to the next.

The equinox is an astronomical event, and it does not fall at the same Gregorian moment every year. The Persian year therefore starts a little earlier or later against the Gregorian calendar from one year to the next, and every month inside that year shifts with it. So the Gregorian date on which this month opens is not a constant. Across the long run of years covered here it lands on more than one date, and the page is arranged by that opening date, with the years grouped beneath each one.

This is why a printed table that gives one fixed Gregorian range for the sign will disagree with the calendar for some years. The table is not being read wrongly; it is a summary, and a summary of a moving quantity is an approximation. This product treats such disagreements as the limits of the fixed range rather than as errors of its own, and it reports the month boundary the calendar actually produces for each year.

Because the mapping is to whole calendar months, there is nothing finer here than the month itself — no degrees, no divisions within the sign, no dependence on the hour. A civil birth date gives the month, and the month gives the borj.

Why a printed table disagrees

What Mehr, the month itself, is called in Iran and in Afghanistan

When Libra began

The Persian year starts at the spring equinox, so each month starts on whichever Gregorian day the equinox falls on. That is why these dates move.

Across the 101 years below, Libra began on 3 different Gregorian dates. A printed table prints one of them.

From 1950-09-23 to 2050-10-22.

1. September 22

   20 yearsEnded October 21.

   1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024, 2028, 2029, 2032, 2033, 2036, 2037, 2040, 2041, 2044, 2045, 2048, 2049

2. September 23

   78 yearsEnded October 22.

   1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2030, 2031, 2034, 2035, 2038, 2039, 2042, 2043, 2046, 2047, 2050

3. September 24

   3 yearsEnded October 23.

   1951, 1955, 1959