"It is so naughty of him not to wipe," Wendy said, sighing.
She was a tidy child.
Virgo girls turn up their pretty noses at messes. Most of them are as neat as pins. There may be a Virgin here or there whose surroundings are a little cluttered.But her mind is always well dusted, and sliced into precise thoughts -and there's probably no loose tobacco in the bottom of her handbag.
In August of 1974,1 was having lunch with a Virgo newspaper reporter. We were discussing her Sun Sign, and she remarked, "I'm not at all hooked on that Virgo neatness compulsion. I let my trash can overflow for days before I get around to emptying it."
"Sure," I told her, "that's because you don't like to get your hands dirty."Then I stared pointedly at her fingers, and her poise shattered like fragile glass.
"Why are you staring? Oh, this smudge? That isn't dirt. It's my ring. I have a lot of acid in my system, and gold turns my skin green when I get nervous.I thought I got it all off when I washed my hands an hour ago, but - well.* From Venus Trines at Midnight by Linda Goodman.I know it looks like dirt, but it isn't, and - uh, waitress! Where is your powder room please?"
One of the barriers between a Virgin and a Bull is that a Taurus man is inclined to be a teeny bit untidy. Some of them are downright sloppy. And a few Bulls are just plain slobs. They love beauty and luxury around them, but they're too busy making the bread that buys it to be bothered picking lint off their trousers, combing their forelocks into neat curls, sweeping up their crumbs and ashes,draping their sweat shirts on satin hangers, or polishing their shoes to a high gloss. The practical Bull may worship currency, but not to the extent where he feels compelled to launder all his bills and press them with a hot iron.To Taurus, wrinkled money is still money, as good as gold. Just like a man with a wrinkled shirt is still a man (perhaps more so than those chaps with their ruffled cuffs and velvet lapels) - and also as good as gold. An occasional Taurean will place an emphasis on grooming, but he won't make a fetish of it. As long as he's scrubbed and clean, he's not going to worry if his shoelaces aren't tied in neat bows or one sock dips down a quarter of an inch lower than the other.
There's a misconception about Virgo girls which may shock the Bull who discovers it. Naturally, all Virgos aren't Virgins, but it goes deeper than that. Her love of order and her sharp foresight, based on a highly developed critical sense, make her seem conventional to the point of being puritanical. But she is not necessarily Beth, of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The Virgo puritanical morality is an astrological myth. After all, you can be courteous, gracious and discriminating without being a prude. She investigates the facts, observes the action, works it all through her mathematical thought processes, and forms a clear opinion (usually unspoken) of what's best for everybody. However, what her acute observations have led her to believe is best for everybody can be anything from building more convents to encouraging more nude group therapy. It depends. Her moral attitude is intellectual, and her emotions are seldom involved (unless she has the Moon in a more sensitive Air or Fire Sign). Virgos are as curious as they are critical. How can you correct a flaw if you haven't examined the vase? So, this girl is often accused of (or given credit for? ) a stuffy sort of morality she doesn't possess.
The Bull doesn't talk much about his ethics or morals. He feels what is right or wrong, then acts with blind determination, and very little reflection on the intricacies of the issues. When their different methods of arriving at the truth lead them to the same conclusion, things are pink and rosy. But when
they take a mental detour, these earthy lovers can bury each other in frozen silence and unbending stubbornness.
I was once a helpless bystander during a quarrel between two friends, a Virgo girl and her Taurus lover. We had all three been rapping about the Aquarian Age sexual revolution, its implications and various by-products, from the vulgarity on the newsstands to capitalizing on sexual lust and violence in films, all in the name of glorious freedom from censorship. Before I had a chance to air my personal views, these two began to challenge each other.
TAURUS: Sex, sex, sex, I'm so tired of hearing about it, and reading about it.You'd think it was only discovered yesterday, the way it's headlined as news continually.
VIRGO: (musing thoughtfully) Maybe if prostitution were legalized everywhere,it would help.
TAURUS: Help what - the prostitutes?
VIRGO: Well, sex isn't going to disappear, and it's possible that these women serve a useful purpose for their customers.
TAURUS: (his neck turning bright red, and bristling in anger) Yeah? Well, their"customers" are buying a lie.
VIRGO: True. Nevertheless, a lie may be just the fantasy needed by the emotionally crippled, and these women could be providing a sort of physical therapy for such men.
TAURUS: (beginning to paw the ground) I'm sure glad I found out your attitude toward morality before I married you.
VIRGO: (still cool and unruffled) To accuse human beings of wrongdoing, and then condemn or punish them, will never change anything. If you must be so judgmental, try to learn to hate prostitution, not the prostitute. Direct your anger toward the crime, not the criminal. The problem with your attitudes is that they're always so dogmatic, and you never attempt to exercise discrimination (Virgo's favorite word).
TAURUS: (now aroused to the full fury of the Bull) The problem with your attitudes is that you don't know how to be firm (the Bull's favorite word)about anything, including your opinions. You can't place a financial value on emotion. It's less than human. I never thought you would defend such a thing. I thought you were a nice, decent woman. What's wrong is wrong. And it's wrong to sell love. So that's that.
VIRGO: It's only natural that men would prefer to have women give their "human emotions" away, free of charge, rather than sell them.
TAURUS: Don't give me that feminist double-talk.
VIRGO: I think it's curious that most people who are so critical of prostitution are quite permissive regarding sexual promiscuity. The very ones who despise prostitutes (excluding you, of course, dear) are the same ones who believe that casual sex, without commitment, is very glamorous and "in," and anyone who doesn't go along is hopelessly straight and square. That's disgustingly hypocritical. I still say that prostitution exists because it treats an illness of society itself, the same society that condemns the prostitutes.
TAURUS: It treats a symptom.
VIRGO: Then, like I said, why not treat the cause?
I'm sorry I can't tell you the final outcome of their argument, because mytaxi came, and I had to leave before it was resolved. However, that brief (and actual) portion of their conversation should clear up any muddy, preconceived astrological notions that every female Virgo Virgin is a nun-like Miss Innocent- and every male Bull is a coarse, erotic creature of lust, snorting in passion at all the cows in the pasture.
If Carrie Nation reincarnated today, and began waving her hatchet at prostituteson street corners, there might well be more "sensual" Bulls and "sexy"Scorpions following behind her and yelling "Right on!" than supposedly "puritanical"Virgos - which would surprise everybody but astrologers. The Virgins would probably be eloquently urging Carrie to use her hatchet on the porno theatres and newsstands where the concentration on sexual excess is first encouraged- to attack the root of the matter, not its branches - with the typical Virgo-like ability to analyze and discriminate, while remaining cool to misleading emotional attitudes.
It takes Virgo to figure out that the massive rise in sexual abuse of children,venereal disease, abortion, and the great increase in rape the feminists are so outraged about, is not the fault of the prostitutes. Prostitution has always been around - as an outlet for the emotionally deprived and disturbed. Virgo calmly comprehends that the true guilt for deliberately arousing the emotionally healthy to join and increase the ranks of the disturbed lies elsewhere - in places other than the brothels.
After a while, the Taurus man will grow to appreciate his Virgo girl's own special brand of honesty, and realize that her tendency to avoid labels, and to analyze things before hastily judging them, is a definite virtue, not a vice. It takes time. She might even someday cause her affectionate Bull to admit that a woman who was once a prostitute was the only one who really believed the man who promised her he would conquer death - the only one of all his fervently devout apostles and followers to go to his tomb on Easter morning to seek him -while all the hypocrites were either weeping in lack of faith, or running around trying to figure out how to escape the wrath of the Roman soldiers, some even going so far as to deny they ever knew him.
A Virgo girl who's in love with a dogmatic-type Bull may have to convince him that her views on public morality don't necessarily reflect her private code of behavior. Like Caesar, a Taurus man expects his woman to be above reproach.She probably is, although she may not be above reproaching him, if heturns sex into a subject for humor. To her, sex is a beautiful, pure emotion that deserves respect - and a good deal of concentration and practice to make it perfect.Her cool, analytic approach may initially chill the Bull's more direct and sensual lovemaking attitudes, but they'll probably find a way around such a temporary impasse between them. As with the other 5-9 Sun Sign Patterns, romantic love and sentimental affection will play equally as important a part as passion in their sexual union. Most of the time, this man and this woman will be wonderfully able to fulfill each other's silent needs, through the rare intimacy of understanding common to all 5-9 vibrations, especially to those of the Earth Element.
Practicality may not sound like a romantic word. Yet, with these two, it can form a deep and comforting bond between them, a strong cord to encircle their love. Neither Virgo nor Taurus is the kind to indulge in passionate emotions for no reason, or to become enraged over things that can't be helped by anger. He may brood a little - and she may have some mild attacks of indigestion - but on the whole, they'll both agree with the alcoholic's creed: "Give me the grace to change the things I can, to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference." (It's doubtful, though, that they heard the words at an AA meeting. It takes tremendous pressure and unbearable anguish to drive a typical Earth Sign to either drink or drugs.) When the rest of the world seems to be crazily dipping back and forth, she feels safe only with him - and should he happen to bump into the uncontrolled, abrasive emotions of a stranger, he'll run back to the security of her arms, the refreshing, quiet stream of her controlled feelings. He'll say something richly humorous that strikes her funny, she'll laugh her little Virgo silver bell laugh and then "practicality" can become a very romantic word. She may be finicky, yes - but unreasonable? Never.
There's a chain of sympathy, bright and golden, connecting the Virgo girl's obsession for "little things" with the Taurus man's enjoyment of the senses. He likes the way new pencils smell like cedar. She adores sharpening them to a fine point. He likes the crisp, clean, cold feel of falling snow on his cheeks . . . . she's fascinated by the tiny, glittering stars it makes on the sidewalk. He likes to chew pine needles, to taste their fresh, green, spicy Christmas smell. She loves to pick them up and place them in neat stacks, one by one.
The Virgin and the Bull can spend their lives together drenched in the ecstasy of contemplating all the small and ordinary wonders around them. It's such a fiercely gorgeous (and natural) "high" - if only they don't smother it by expecting too much. The eternal perfection she seeks is a mirage. The eternal
security he seeks - likewise. They're both looking for a sure thing. But the nearest they may ever come to a sure thing is each other.
