Leo rising

People look up when you arrive, and you would be lying if you said you had not noticed.

Leo was the sign on the eastern horizon as you were born, and the rising sign is the face your chart turns to the world. Leo belongs to high summer in the northern year, when the Sun is strongest, and it lends you some of that light wherever you go.

The entrance

You have a big laugh, a warm handshake and hair that gets mentioned. You dress with some thought for who is watching, and you are generous with attention: you learn names, you praise the thing a person is proudest of, and they leave a little taller than they came.

Behind the warmth is pride, and it bruises. A small slight, a laugh that came a beat late, the friend who forgot to ask about your news: each stays with you longer than you let anyone see.

Ruled by the Sun

Leo is the only rising sign ruled by the Sun itself, so the Sun is the ruler of your chart twice over: the centre of every chart, and the planet in charge of yours. Its house in your chart shows where you most want to shine, and where your confidence comes back from on low days.

The cool one opposite

Your seventh house, where your partners stand, begins in Aquarius, the sign that was going down in the west at your birth. You are drawn to people who are cool where you are warm: independent, unimpressed by display, as loyal to an idea as to a person. They do not clap on cue, which is exactly why their applause means so much.

Let someone else tell the story now and then, and enjoy hearing it from them.

Warmth that stays

People remember who made them feel funny, or talented, or seen, on a day nobody else did. More than once, that was you.