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 be,quite 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 Sagittarian type 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 well meaning, 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.
