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Sharing it with somebody else means taking away the possibilities for their own creative expression. It also means being limited, because they must adjust to somebody else's needs and feelings. So Leo will always find ways, overt or subtle - and there are many subtle Leos about who don't really look like Leos, but actually just as true to their sign as the more charismatic ones - to claim back the space which has been usurped. If you are the timid and secretly resentful type, stay away from Leo. Fire signs are not known for their sensitivity to the feeling currents around them, and they don't make good telepaths of other people's needs if those needs aren't voiced. Leo may inadvertently trample over others' feelings without ever meaning to, or ever realizing it, simply because he's so caught up in his own vision. Therefore, you have to make a noise, if you want a piece of the stage. If you have set a precedent of ten years of meek subservience and then discover you've got a stomach ulcer or migraine headaches because you're seething with anger over Leo's clumsy insensitivity, blame yourself. Remember the child. Although he loves to preen and appear to others in the height of style, Leo is terrified of being unloved, mediocre, unappreciated, unnoticed. And his pride will often not permit him to admit it.
It's something difficult to understand that these flamboyant, always individualistic people are not always the extroverts they seem. Leo is often shy and deeply introverted, but depends so ferociously upon the love and acceptance of others that he will do virtually anything to earn their approval. It is a problem of identity. The first task that challenges Leo in life is the issue of who he is, why he is here, why he is uniquely himself. It's a lifelong challenge. If he can't muster the self-esteem he needs from his inner resources, he'll crave it like a drug from the audience. But his real journey is within, into the source of his own being. Leo at heart is a religious sign, using the word here as its originally meant: to reconnect. It is the secret of his intense need to create something which mirrors his own essential substance - be it a company, a book, a painting, a political movement, an airline, a scientific achievement, an empire, a photograph. It is in this process of creating that he finds his real sense of self-value. Leo is a disaster when he tries to follow the advice and instruction of others. A lifetime of following will often kill him with heart disease and frustration. He needs, in some way, to create something, however small, that is wholly and completely his own.
From others, Leo requires the same nobility that he strives for himself. He can be an intolerable perfectionist both with others and with his own behaviour. Nothing less will do. Shatter his dream and you cause him pain; but pain is the only thing that shakes him out of his pride and complacency. His heart is that of a noble knight. But he needs realism and earthy wisdom, and above all a sense of humour about himself and his own foibles. Heroes, in myths and fairy tales, are not the funny characters. That role is left to the court jester. It seems that when Leo learns how to be the jester himself, and can laugh at himself a little, his true nobility emerges. Flexibility is important, too, for him to learn, for he often lacks this as well. Most of all, he needs faith in himself, in what he stands for, in what he is trying to become. Leo is the most human, the noblest, the most tragic - in the ancient Greek sense - of the signs. This is because the sign is the epitome of Man, that bewildered creature who is half-animal and half-god, and who has not yet understood either his own origins or the fact that the world is populated with other human beings different from himself. The Leo who learns this is indeed the hero.
The Leo Lover
Love makes the world go round for Leo. And love, like every other experience in life, is something mythical to him, something which must be dramatized to the utmost. Love too must be big, bold, spectacular and dramatic. He's a romantic and a generous one; and one of his ways of showing love is to lavish gifts on the loved one.
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