The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need
Page 4
The Inner You
On the surface you’re the picture of calm and strength, but underneath you tend to feel insecure and inadequate. You are positive that other people know what they’re doing while you’re just winging it. You also imagine the worst outcome to a scenario, never the best. You are a very emotional person; you are constantly feeling. Hearing a song on the radio makes you feel sentimental, and a particular scent, flower, or picture can jar your memory. You are also extraordinarily in sync with other people’s feelings. In fact, you get almost as involved in your friends’ problems as you do in your own. When you’re close to someone, you believe you are supposed to help that person. Harmony is important to you—any kind of conflict or quarrel leaves you feeling depressed. However, you’re definitely not wishy-washy; you have the courage of your convictions and the strength to stick up for what you think is right. You don’t welcome change, and are hesitant about going ahead with something untried, yet this doesn’t stop you from doing what has to be done.
How Others See You
Those in your circle think of you as a den mother—the one who tries to fix other people’s problems and make sure everyone is happy. They like your concern for their well-being and cherish your wise counsel. But why, even if they follow your advice, do they keep it a secret from you? Because they think you’re controlling and don’t want to be a puppet on your string. They also think you’re moody. One minute you seem to care about them, and the next you’re crabby and to be avoided at all costs. In your career, you’re viewed as someone who can quickly spot an opportunity for financial gain.
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH THE SUN IN CANCER
* * *
Alexander the Great
Louis Armstrong
Polly Bergen
Ingmar Bergman
Bill Blass
David Brinkley
Mel Brooks
Yul Brynner
George W. Bush
James Cagney
Pierre Cardin
Barbara Cartland
Marc Chagall
Gower Champion
John Chancellor
Van Cliburn
Jean Cocteau
Bill Cosby
Tom Cruise
Olivia de Havilland
Oscar de la Renta
Diana, Princess
of Wales
Phyllis Diller
Marty Feldman
M. F. K. Fisher
Harrison Ford
Bob Fosse
Stephen Foster
Erle Stanley Gardner
John Glenn
Merv Griffin
Susan Hayward
Tom Hanks
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ernest Hemingway
Al Hirschfeld
Judy Holliday
Lena Horne
Anjelica Huston
Randy Jackson
Derek Jeter
Frida Kahlo
Franz Kafka
Helen Keller
Rose Kennedy
Ann Landers
Janet Leigh
Lindsay Lohan
Gina Lollobrigida
Sidney Lumet
Tobey Maguire
Nelson Mandela
Mary McCarthy
George McGovern
Marshall McLuhan
Bess Myerson
Clifford Odets
George Orwell
Camilla Parker-Bowles
Ross Perot
Prince William
Marcel Proust
Gilda Radner
Nancy Reagan
Erich Maria Remarque
Diana Rigg
Geraldo Rivera
Nelson Rockefeller
Ginger Rogers
Linda Ronstadt
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Françoise Sagan
Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry
George Sand
Carly Simon
Neil Simon
Jessica Simpson
Jimmy Smits
Sylvester Stallone
Barbara Stanwyck
Ringo Starr
Isaac Stern
Patrick Stewart
Irving Stone
Meryl Streep
Donald Sutherland
William Makepeace
Thackeray
Twyla Tharp
Henry David Thoreau
Mike Tyson
Abigail Van Buren
James Whistler
E. B. White
Billy Wilder
Robin Williams
Andrew Wyeth
Your Most Likeable Trait EXUBERANCE
YOUR LOYALTY is beyond question. You are devoted to yourself. All Leos possess a kingdom. The kingdom may be big or small, it may be your home or a lover or a piece of creative work or your whole career. But whatever it is, you are unquestioningly ruler of this kingdom. Self-assurance surrounds Leo people like a ghost image on a television set. While others wait in the wings, you bask in the spotlight. Whatever you do, you do with a flair for the dramatic—everything about you is theatrical. You don’t have to look for a role to play in life. You’ve found it. You are the monarch of all you survey.
When you enter a room you secretly hope everyone will stand up and sing a few stanzas of the Hallelujah Chorus! At a party it isn’t long before you assume control of the evening. Witty, vivacious, a fluent talker, you are a born entertainer who can lend spice to any occasion. Your energy is electric, and people gravitate to you as steel filings to a magnet.
Your Sun sign confers a great flair for drama and an instinct for getting attention. Because your nature is flamboyant and expansive, you despise the humdrum, the ordinary, and the dull. When real life does not supply all the excitement you need, you try to create your own. Hyperbole is second nature to you. You are born to do things in a r-r-really big way.
If you invite people to your castle (which is how you think of your home), you entertain them royally. You are a splendid host.
Others may become reconciled to accepting second best; not Leos. Born under the most royal sign of the zodiac, there is absolutely nothing Leo people can think of that’s too good for them. Luxury is as vital to you as breathing. You want to enjoy the good life, and never mind what it costs. You are not a good haggler or bargainer because basically you want what you want when you want it.
Your public image is very important to you. When a Leo woman’s checking account is down to two figures somehow she’ll find the means to buy a glorious new dress, and when his credit cards are overdrawn a Leo man will still make reservations at the best restaurant in town. Leos are the most lavish spenders in the zodiac (Librans run a close second).
Generous, kind, and openhearted, you find it hard to believe ill of others. If injured, you strike back quickly, but you also forgive easily and never hold a grudge. Marvelously affectionate and cheerful, you have genuine joie de vivre. The Sun is your ruler, and you always bring some sunshine into the lives of others. Obviously, this is one of your most endearing traits. In many ways you are like the Sun itself—life-enhancing, radiating energy and magnetism, burning with steady fixity. Astrologers call Leos eternal children, for you take pleasure from the moment and are uninhibited in giving affection.
No one could ask for a better friend. If approached in the right way (flattery is the right way), you will do almost anything, but you expect praise and appreciation and admiration in return. Pride is your Achilles’ heel. Your ego demands not respect but adoration, not compliments but flattery, and when you receive lavish praise you never stop to wonder if it is insincere. Despite your self-centeredness, you need others to give to if only to get back their appreciation. However, because you’re too proud to ask for appreciation, you often suffer silently from a wounded ego. Your hidden secret is you need to be needed.
In business you are the one in command. Another sign that gravitates toward authority is Capricorn, but its natives steadily climb toward a high
position. Leos simply assume that they were born to high position. One of your most useful assets in career is an unerring instinct for getting along with people who are in a position to be helpful. You know the value of socializing and work best in group enterprises rather than solitary pursuits. You’re an order-giver, not an order-taker, but you’re usually so cheery and enthusiastic others don’t mind taking orders from you. You are also a hard worker who doesn’t ask more of anyone else than you do of yourself. You won’t quail before a challenge or flinch from a confrontation. You will do the thing that scares you because to do otherwise spells failure to your eyes. You are ambitious, but not ruthless. All you ask is to be in the limelight.
Among your most striking characteristics is a refusal to be hampered by petty rules. Day-to-day routine quickly leads to boredom and makes you desperately unhappy. Your unhappiness doesn’t last long, because you simply won’t put up with it. You have an unshakable belief in your luck and quickly bounce back from despondency.
It is difficult (though not impossible) to dislike a Leo. True, you can be bombastic and overbearing at times. True, you love to give advice and tell people how to run their lives. Like your symbol, the Lion, you can be quite indolent and lazy; you like to sit back and bask in your own glory. But your great warmth and sunny disposition is very hard to resist. The world would be much less fun without Leos.
The Inner You
You have larger-than-life emotions; whether you’re experiencing joy, despair, excitement, or love, it might as well be playing on a giant movie screen. You feel you have an important role to play in life and you’re going to find it. You need to be involved in the world; in fact, you tend to think of any plan or project that you’re part of as an extension of who you are. You believe in taking action. Your immediate reaction to any problem is to do something about it rather than sit around pondering it. But you’re extremely sensitive and you try to hide this fact under a lot of bravado. It’s very important to you to get others’ approval. What makes you special, though, is that in spite of all your inner qualms, you jut out your chin and walk head-on into any challenge. You have a deep-seated need to prove your worth—not to others but to yourself. You’ll tackle any job just so you can say, “I wasn’t afraid to try!”
How Others See You
You have a regal quality, a way of standing out in a crowd. The unique combination of the excitement you project, your sense of style, your way of speaking, and your laugh is what draws people to you. They’re also seduced by the fact that you think big, which feeds their own fantasies of success and power. They’re attracted to your energy and enthusiasm and your take-charge attitude. They assume you’ll take a leadership position. But some people dislike what they consider your king-sized ego. They think you hog the spotlight and that you’re performing even when you’re perfectly serious and sincere; they question your sincerity. Others regard you as a showoff who merely talks a big game. And there are those who think you have the temperament of a demanding, spoiled child.
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH THE SUN IN LEO
Ben Affleck
Gracie Allen
Neil Armstrong
Lucille Ball
Antonio Banderas
Count Basie
Ethel Barrymore
Tony Bennett
Simon Bolívar
Napoleon Bonaparte
Barry Bonds
Ray Bradbury
Diamond Jim Brady
Sandra Bullock
Claus von Bulow
Ken Burns
Fidel Castro
Ramond Chandler
Julia Child
Bill Clinton
Paula Creamer
Guy de Maupassant
Cecil B. DeMille
Robert De Niro
Elizabeth Dole
Madame du Barry
Marcel Duchamp
Leo Durocher
Amelia Earhart
Zelda Fitzgerald
Jerry Garcia
Frank Gifford
Kathie Lee Gifford
Jeff Gordon
Al Gore
Melanie Griffith
Mata Hari
Alfred Hitchcock
Dustin Hoffman
Whitney Houston
John Huston
Aldous Huxley
Mick Jagger
Peter Jennings
Magic Johnson
Carl Jung
Garrison Keillor
Francis Scott Key
T. E. Lawrence
Monica Lewinsky
Jennifer Lopez
Madonna
Steve Martin
Maureen McGovern
Herman Melville
Robert Mitchum
Benito Mussolini
Annie Oakley
Barack Obama
Carroll O’Connor
Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis
Peter O’Toole
Dorothy Parker
Maxfield Parrish
Sean Penn
Roman Polanski
Robert Redford
Gene Roddenberry
Kenny Rogers
J. K. Rowling
Yves Saint Laurent
Pete Sampras
Arnold Schwarzenegger
George Bernard Shaw
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Kevin Spacey
Danielle Steel
Martha Stewart
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Leon Uris
Andy Warhol
Mae West
Shelley Winters
Orville Wright
Your Most Likeable Trait CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
THE REAL DRAMA of Virgo’s personality is interior. To the world you may give an impression of calm authority, but you are aware of your own nervous, restless, controlled intensity, the desire to be up and doing, rearranging, improving. You can exhaust yourself more by simply sitting still than others do moving around.
The planet Mercury, which rules both Virgo and Gemini, inclines its subjects toward constant activity. However, in Gemini the nervous energy is directed primarily toward stimulation and adventure, while in Virgo the ceaseless drive is to accomplish and perfect. It’s impossible for Virgos to put off until tomorrow what might be done today, or to do later what might be done now. You are, in a word, organized. Your idea of taking it easy would seem like hard work to most people. You are not a daydreamer, you’re a day-doer.
Your emotional life is a constant striving to bring order out of chaos. Although you have a great capacity for love, love alone is not enough for you to be happy. You need more than a mate, home, children, friends. You must justify your life, conduct yourself as a good bookkeeper keeps a ledger—always ready to give a reckoning on whether there’s a profit or a loss. You’re ambitious, but not just for money. You want to know more, to gain in wisdom, and put this wisdom to practical use.
Your astrological symbol of the Virgin tends to be misunderstood. It does not mean you’re a prude or lack sensuality. The Virgin stands for purity of purpose. You’re not in the game of life to cheat or extract from others. You have higher motives. You want to be of use. In ancient times Virgo was the sign of the harvest—and the symbolic meaning of the Virgin holding a sheaf of wheat is that Virgo people take what has been sown (knowledge, information, skills) and harvest this energy to do something of practical benefit. In the same way wheat is turned into bread to feed our bodies, you want to utilize the gifts you were born with to nourish the world.
Intelligence is the hallmark of your sign. You have an excellent memory, an analytical mind, and are known for crystal-clear thinking. You also have a keen ability to probe into human motivations. People like to check their plans with you before putting them into action because you have microscopic vision when it comes to detecting a flaw. Your superb logic cuts through muddled thinking like a laser beam. You instantly zero in on a problem, take apart difficulties, and put them back together in proper order. Because yo
u believe life should be approached rationally, you are without peer in solving knotty problems or tangled disputes. You are convinced that a reasoned presentation of the facts will carry the day. Until you have the facts before you, you are reluctant to make a decision; you want to know why and how a thing will work. Your faith is not in Chinese fortune cookies but in facts, and you distrust vague ideas that don’t stand up to critical appraisal or people who make emotional judgments.
Yet it would do you a world of good to have a little more faith in general and to trust in synchronicity—that certain events occur or people connect for a fortuitous reason. Your important life lesson is to expand your vision, to look at things in larger terms and believe in the power of faith. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the planet of thought and mental perceptions, and your ideas form your reality. If you hold on to a negative attitude, then your reality will also unfold negatively.
You tend to have difficult getting in touch with your deeper feelings because your mechanism of denial is so firmly set in place. “I’m not upset,” you’ll say. “I feel okay about [this other person being promoted instead of me, him dating another woman, etc.]” Saying you feel “okay” covers a lot of messy feelings you’d rather not examine.
Also, you often don’t see the forest for the trees. A preoccupation with neatness and precision sometimes limits your breadth of vision. That estimable faith in logic also confines your imagination and leaves you a little shy on inspiration, too dependent on established practices and methods. Your nature is to look back and analyze rather than push forward in a new direction. You must know the why and how of everything. Virgo is a mutable sign, however, so you can adjust easily to change once you find a way of fitting the new situation into your routine.
You may run into difficulty because of a tendency to complicate everything. No problem is ever simple for Virgo. For every answer you’ve got a question, and making mountains out of molehills is one of your specialties.
Your nature is shy and reserved; it’s hard for you to relax, to make small talk or be gregarious with strangers. You prefer one-on-one encounters, in which you can offer the full benefit of your sharp insights and discerning opinions. That’s also when people discover how well-read, perceptive, charming, and witty you are.
The first thing you learned about money matters is that money does matter. Although you tend to downplay your own ability in financial affairs, no one is better than you at staying within a budget. You aren’t tempted into foolish ventures. Your bank balances usually jibe to the decimal point. You want the finest but rarely overpay, and you have a built-in resistance against self-indulgence.