She asked where he lived. "Second to the right," Peter
said, "and straight on till morning."
"What a funny address!"
Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps
it was a funny address. "No, it isn't," he said.
Well, hurray and hallelujah! Give that Virgo man with the peculiar address a
hearty handshake and a bear hug! He's off to a racing start with the half-Horse,
half-Human female Centaur, for whose love and admiration he's willing to give
up his treasured loner's existence. For her, he'll even sacrifice his bachelor pad's
peace and quiet. But for her (or for anyone else) he should never sacrifice his
sense of personal dignity and self-confidence, especially not his self-respect. A
man has a million uses for self-respect, so it's not sensible to allow even the
woman he adores to rob him of it.
You'll notice that at first he hesitated, nearly submitting to the sinking feeling
of inadequacy a bright and cheerful but distressingly candid and forthright
girl Archer can unthinkingly instill in a Virgo man's solar plexus (which, if he's
not careful, can develop into an annoying attack of Virgo indigestion). But our
hero triumphed over the impending danger of inferiority, the challenging threat
to his masculinity. Never mind her frank (or amused) opinions and comments
about his perfectly proper address. Never mind what she thinks of his apartment,
his socks, his ears, his hair, his nose, his job, his careful and modest
dreams, his car - his habit of buying Ivory soap by the case, or his medicine
chest, well stocked with aids to "gentle elimination." She thinks his address is
funny? He'll tell her a thing or two. And so, he speaks right up to her, firmly
and sternly - "No, it isn't. It is not a funny address."
That's the first thing he tells her. The second thing is that she should learn
to close her mouth before she speaks, and keep it closed while she's analyzing
what she was about to say - and if she thinks it over carefully, with a little consideration
and forethought, she might decide not to open it at all - until she has
something nice and kind to say to him. Surprisingly, she'll probably love it. Actually,
this girl is searching for a firm but tender man, who will keep her in her
place - as long as he doesn't keep her there by sitting on her puppy-dog friendliness,
optimistic enthusiasms and fiery ideals. It's an undeniably delicate task,
but the Virgo man who loves her is gifted with the art of delicate diplomacy, and
he just may be able to handle it. He possesses an almost mystical talent for finessing
things through to a smooth finish.
Happily, he's solved one problem between them in their tense 4-10 Sun
Sign Pattern relationship, already. He's trained her to soften the tips of her Jupiter
arrows a bit, and not pull so hard on the bow. He's made her see that her
thoughtless remarks can really hurt - and with Virgo's curious ability to be
sweetly polite, even while scolding, he's made her realize that he does comprehend
her lack of malicious intent, her basic good will and naivete. She may bequite sincerely, moved to tears. She's wanted and needed someone to understand
her real self for the longest, longest time, someone who won't judge her
harshly for just being true to how she feels - and spontaneous when she has
something to express. Therefore, instead of starting a quarrel between them,
her Virgo lover or husband's firmness may have the opposite effect of bringing
them closer together than they were before. Beautiful. Bravos and posies.
Good for him, and good for her. Now, the next problem. (You surely didn't expect
them to be fated to struggle with just one problem, did you? After all,
their natal Suns are squared, remember.)
Her practical jokes. Sagittarians of both sexes are absolutely addicted to
puns and practical jokes. She'll think it's hilarious as puns go, that a Connecticut
town, in celebration of ERA's birth, officially changed the description of a
public occupation as "building personholes," avoiding discreetly the use of the
no-no word "man." (Virgo might think that one is pretty funny himself.) Then
he'll ask her what time the mailperson is due, because he wants to post a letter,
she'll ask him if he doesn't mean "personperson," he'll tell her that "mail" isn't
"male," and she'll say it doesn't matter how it's spelled - he'll ask her how she
would know, since she's such a dreadfully poor speller herself, and they'll crack
up laughing together. One of the nicest things about Sag is that she's a genuine
good sport, and is never up-tight about enjoying a joke on herself. Most Sagittarians
can take it as cheerfully as they dish it out. And he must admit that's a
shining virtue, only too rare in this dreary world. All right, we've covered her
penchant for puns, and he handled that problem quite nicely too, don't you
think? With just the right amount of good humor and careless teasing, adding a
pinch of her own kind of truth that stings. And she laughed. She was pleased,
she didn't pout, and they're still friends. The practical jokes may be a little
tougher.
Excuse me. You'll NEVER BELIEVE what just happened! I've been writing
this book for a little over nine months now (it takes nine months to create a
human child or a brain child, a tad longer for elephants) and this is the FIRST
TIME EVER that my IBM typewriter ribbon ran out at precisely the exact
same second the IBM correctional tape ran out! Isn't that one for the Guinness
book? The Virgos reading this are now busily calculating the percentage possibilities
of such a double fade-out. The Archers will want to know if I'm making
it up to be funny, or if I'm being honest. Sag has a thing about integrity. I am
not making it up, and I'm not trying to be funny. It's true. It happened, and I
have a witness. So there. I'm either approaching the end of this book, or the
end of my Virgo-like cool. There are unmistakable signs and I do hope the
former occurs before the latter. (No, I'm not a Virgo, I'm Aries, but Vulcan is,
I'm sure, conjunct my natal Sun. I'll let you know when they discover it (Vulcan)
and are able to calculate its orbiting movements.) Now back to the Sag
practical jokes, with which the Virgo man will have to contend sooner or later in
their relationship.
As briefly as possible, I'll give him a sample of how gigantic a Sagittariantype
practical joke can be. I mean, some of them are harmless little bits of fun
and foolishness, but since Jupiter, the ruler of Sag, is the planet associated with
expansion, an occasional Archer prank can get a little out of hand, so to speak.
Briefly, then, there is this man named Steven Masover, who is enrolled in college
at Berkeley (California) in pursuit of a higher degree in physics (on a scholarship,
and he was also Valedictorian of his high school graduation class). Steven's
Sag-type caper, which news stories referred to as a "Robin Hood prank"
(Robin Hood has a tight affinity with all Archers), was to hold up a bank, with
an unloaded gun and a fake bomb, making off with $78,000 in cash. His defense
was that he had no intention of stealing the money, he had only borrowed it to,invest it in colonies in outer space, as a way for Earthlings to escape pollution
and overpopulation, and planned to pay back every penny in 20-odd years or so.
(Pollution, Love Signs can't help Steven solve, but the overpopulation problem
is tackled in A Time to Embrace, in the back of this book.) Masover was acquitted
by the jury (in a Jupiter-type stroke of pure luck) because the D.A. couldn't
prove he "intended to deprive the bank of the cash permanently" (a prerequisite
for stealing) although the latter commented that he felt "spending the money
on space stations would amount to the same thing as depriving the bank of it
permanently, using common [Virgo] horse sense." Or Sagittarian horse sense.
Or whatever. The big fear now is that the "flukey" acquittal of the perpetrator
of this flakey but eloquent practical joke will encourage other "Robin Hood robberies."
The fear is groundless. Real criminals don't have the kind of genius
and imagination to come up with that sort of laden-with-hidden-truth rationale
of invisible but powerful integrity. However, it certainly may encourage other
Sag practical jokers, heaven help us all.
The Virgo man may wonder why I chose a male example of a practical joker
to warn him about his female Archer's playful, filly foibles. I had an excellent
reason. I wished to emphasize to the Virgo man that, while he was born under a
"feminine" Sun Sign, and is also actually ruled by the feminine planet Vulcan
(see Virgo-Virgo chapter), which doesn't mean that he's a sissy (Virgo Elliot
Gould, a sissy?), only sensitive and perceptive - his girl Archer was born under
a masculine Sun Sign, and is also guided (puns, truth arrows, integrity, practical
joking and all) by the masculine planet, Jupiter. Double feminine influence versus
double masculine influence, adding up to a clear conclusion. He was absolutely
right to tell her a thing or two when she made fun of his address, because
he's going to have to keep a firm rein on this lady Centaur, or she'll kick over the
traces. As we've already proven, she'll enjoy it secretly more than she resents it,
if the rein is held in loving and kind, considerate hands, which it surely will be
with a Virgo man who really loves her.
With his double feminine influence, of gentle wisdom, he'll be able to perceive
that this girl-woman is a trusting, vulnerable creature, for all of her double
masculine macha, and she doesn't win every race. She's stumbled and fallen
more times than she can bear to remember, trusting people who hurt her and let
her down, just when she needed them most. He'll soothe her painful memories
with his affectionate concern, and help her analyze why she should forget them,
now that there are only the old scars to remind her - assure her the scars will
disappear sooner if she looks to the future, not to the past. Then he'll promise
her that he'll never make her sorry she had faith in him, if he can possibly help
it - and he'll mean it. She'll look into his clear, quiet Virgo eyes (that twinkle
with the silvery streaks of his foster ruler Mercury when he's happy) and she'll
know he's wholly and completely earnest. She's right. A Virgo never makes a
promise he's not willing to do everything humanly possible to keep. That counts
for a lot, and if anyone realizes it, she does. There's an alarming shortage these
days of honest people, who live from the inside out, not from the outside in. So
many get it backwards, the way to find happiness, like Hiawatha's mittens.
Since she can't stand hypocrites or phonies, she should thank her lucky stars for
the love of her Virgo gentleman (meaning gentle-man). That's something I forgot
to tell him. This girl is lucky. No matter how many times she makes a mistake,
her misjudgments have a way of landing on their feet, and sailing her into
the winner's circle. Knowing this astrological certainty will comfort him when
he's suffering through some of those really huge goofs, caused by her wellmeaning,
impulsive enthusiasm.
The physical closeness they share, if he continues to keep a firm grip on the
reins, and if she doesn't bruise his sensitivity and subconscious need for purity,
has the potential of being as passionate as her Fire Element nature, yet also as
cool and as deep as his "Earthy" desires can make the togetherness between a
man and a woman. There's something of calm and stillness about him that
channels her longings gracefully into the direction of a kind of fulfillment that
makes her know how much more important affection and peace are than winning
all the games in a romantic challenge. The warmth of him beside her is
something she senses she'd be empty without, if they ever allowed their clashing
personalities to cause them to say goodbye. And he knows too, though he may
never express it in words, that the emotional storms they sometimes endure may
leave his spirit weary and tired of trying, but if she ever went away... who else
would awaken him on Christmas morning (as she did their first December together)
wearing holly berries in her hair, breathlessly telling him to look under
the blanket she holds in her arms? (No one.) Peeking out of the blanket were
six black, shiny noses, belonging to six wriggling puppies born to their St. Bernard,
Amelia (for Earhart), the night before, while he slept, at exactly midnight
on Christmas Eve, she told him . . . her eyes shining with glittering stars of excitement
and childlike wonder. Every time he remembers that crisp, cold, winter
morning... the way she'd tucked the holly berries in her hair, like a small
girl, to surprise him . . . the snow frosting her lashes (she'd just come in from
checking the drifts in the yard, to see if they were deep enough to make a snowman
.. they were . . . so they later did).. every time he thinks about the way she
smelled like clean, cold ozone when she kissed his forehead lightly, and merrily
told him to hurry and come downstairs, because she'd made a fire, and couldn't
wait for him to look under the tree to see what the reindeer had left there
he gets that funny lump in his throat he can't swallow. And he knows how
right he is to keep trying to understand this lovable, graceful, funny and vulnerable
. . . bright-eyed and intelligent but awkward girl clown, whose nose always
turns red when she cries.
She gets the same kind of lump in her throat every time she remembers the
morning he shyly brought her a tiny bunch of violets when she was aching inside
from something very personal and sad she didn't even know he was aware of
.. but he was. He handed her the violets so softly, without a single word. What
other man she ever knew would have done that? (No one. Not in quite the
same way.) So what if he's occasionally cranky and cross, a little stuffy about
money? He's a quiet man, of many dimensions and levels of loving. He may
not talk much around others, but they're both Mutable, and he talks a lot with
her . . . telling her things he'd share with no one else, because he knows he can
trust her to keep his confidences, and treat them tenderly. He had to train her
to listen and understand the value of privacy . . . but Sag is super intelligent (Jupiter
ruling the 9th house of higher education) so she learned quickly . . . many
things he taught her. It's only because she's careless and disdainful of detail
that she keeps spelling committment with two "t's" and commited with only
one. Never mind. She can't spell it, but she knows what the word means. It
means the same thing as a promise,doesn't it?Yes it does.
If the Virgo man and his girl clown-philosopher really care, they can turn
their 4-10 square of tension into a gigantic Jupiter-Vulcan trine of steady contentment
over the years, and celebrate Christmas every morning, with one sort
of gift or another.
