Linda Goodman's Sun Signs

by Linda Goodman

  There’s also a possibility that a Taurean with a Gemini ascendant or Mars in Gemini would make a superior radio or TV announcer. The typical, musical tones of Taurean speech coupled with Gemini charm and glibness can make him a natural in such media. Then, too, if the right planets were in Aries at birth, their influence could conceivably combine with his Taurus Sun to give him exceptional promotional or public relations abilities, though he would never he a high-pressure type. I’m afraid that just about covers the territory for a Taurus salesman. In most other areas, and without the proper additional planetary influences, he’s much better off doing things that come more naturally to his imperturbable nature.

  One of those things is known in politics as holding the center together, an ability which is also extremely valuable in the business world. Whatever desk he’s assigned to, he’ll root himself behind it with determination to succeed, and he probably will. He’ll work slowly and aim for perfection, which he usually achieves if he’s left alone and not pushed too fast. The more responsibility the position requires of him, the smarter you’ll be to put him in charge. You’ll seldom enjoy the services of a more dependable, trustworthy and honest employee. He’ll seek to help your company expand, not his own ego. A successful Taurean wears the same hat size as he did when he was still trying.

  Much as he dislikes change, if he’s an exceptional Taurus, you won’t keep him forever. He won’t leave because he’s flighty, but for a basic reason that’s part of his nature. Once he’s established the growth of your company, he’s not the type to remain there and run it for you. Taurus is more interested in building power and wealth. He likes his freedom too much to be tied to the constant manipulations of guiding a complicated business, or of being the unseen cog. He’s reliable and content to stick, but he wants to be free to continue to build instead of being tied up with intricate details. When there’s no more incentive to grow with your firm, he’ll feel the legendary Taurean itch to lay his own foundation and erect his own empire, minor or major.

  A Taurus employee, whether he’s exceptional or average, is always an outstanding worker, and one of his most endearing qualities is his willingness to take orders without resentment. The reason behind it is simple. He has an inner conviction that the way to become a boss who gives orders is to be first a cheerful subordinate who takes orders. His respect for authority is based on his knowledge that when he becomes an executive, he’ll expect his employees to follow his directions. As a boss himself, he’ll have definite and probably rigidly set ideas and methods. Therefore, he finds nothing strange or unpleasant about your insistence on adhering to a fixed pattern when he works for you. As far as he’s concerned, you’re in charge.

  Such an attitude is obviously quite a bonus, but don’t let his kindly disposition nor his sensible acquiescence to superiors fool you into thinking he can be easily shoved around. He has a sort of Machiavellian detachment toward those who think they’re manipulating him, and he’ll handle them with smooth tact and diplomacy. Yet, if you look closely, you’ll see his tongue is in his cheek while he’s humoring the aggressive people who try to drive him. In the end, Taurus will have his own way. His success is even more assured by his ability to wait as long as necessary until he wins out over the pushy types. However, when his personal emotions are trampled on or his deep pride is hurt, his cool steadiness may disappear and be replaced by a childish stubbornness. Remember, that while he’s pouting, he’s combustible, and liable to explode finally in a fierce display of temper. It won’t last long, and the bull will be ominously quiet after such a “charge,” but if the cause isn’t rectified immediately, he’ll simply leave, and he won’t glance behind him. When a Taurus goes out the door, he has left. There won’t be any sheepish returns to try again. The back of his broad shoulders will be the last you see of him. Nothing you can say or do will persuade him to reconsider. The bull makes up his mind so slowly in the first place, there’s never any need to take a second look at the matter. Taurean foresight precludes the need for hindsight. Since his is such a sensual, loving nature, you can probably find plenty of ex-sweethearts, who will sadly tell you that when he waves goodbye, he doesn’t come back for encores. In both love and business, people frequently make the mistake of thinking the Taurean’s patience is eternal, just because it takes him so long to lose it.

  The female Taurean employee is usually a real jewel. If she’s a typical Taurus, she’ll have a quiet, low-pitched voice and soothing manner. These women are great at putting out fires. Emergencies don’t throw them off balance. A crisis brings out the best in them, and that’s considerable. She’s not exactly a fireball, and you’ll never see her riding a motorcycle to work, but she does her job well. Exceedingly well. Like the males, she feels that, if a job is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well, to the very best of her ability. Every May person has that motto chiseled somewhere permanently. This Taurus won’t yawn in your face when you’re expounding your pet theories. If the ideas are practical, she’ll probably converse with you about them like a man. Her views will be worth hearing, and her approach will be sensible and logical. But don’t let that give you the impression she’s not a real female.

  Be careful. This is not a woman who will ordinarily become involved in casual office flirtations. She can cut up and be loads of laughs, but underneath her warm, bovine humor is a mind firmly set on marriage. If she accepts a dinner invitation twice, she’s probably already sizing you up as a good provider for a lifetime, not just an exciting date for a rainy Thursday. These women are quite serious about the stakes in any romantic game. If you fit the qualifications of a Taurean female as husband material, you’re not an ordinary man by anybody’s slide rule. The man in the company who’s the recipient of the Taurus woman’s attentions is the man to watch. He’s going somewhere.

  Female Taurus employees are pleasant to have around because they smell nice, they look nice, they’re hard workers and they don’t smoke cigars, among other things. (Unless you happen to have one with an Aries Moon or ascendant, who would smell and look just as nice, but who might very well smoke cigars and shout a little.)

  Taurus people of both sexes hate to sleep in strange beds, a phrase they’re fond of repeating. Therefore, most Taurean men and women prefer to spend their vacations at home. Barring a Gemini Moon or Sagittarius ascendant, the grass will always look both greener and thicker in the bull’s own backyard. When he’s on vacation, sensually sipping lemonade and inhaling the scent of flowers from his hammock, you can safely call him in for an office emergency. He’ll probably oblige with a good-natured grin, and even feel it’s his duty to help out. But don’t impose too often. There’s a limit to his patient acceptance of repeated impositions, and it’s foolhardy to risk making him angry to discover that limit. Stop while you’re ahead.

  The bull works happily as a florist, in the livestock or poultry industry, in supermarkets or in the wholesale food industry. He makes a good doctor or engineer, too. And he can be quite contented in an artistic career. The sound of music and the visual hypnotism of art pull him magnetically. He’s never more at home than when he’s expressing himself creatively, through his senses, as long as the financial rewards are sound and the foundation isn’t shaky.

  A Taurus songwriter is usually miserable, especially during the lean years, before he writes his first big hit. But when he combines his creative talent with the more stable, secure task of producing CDs or arranging scores, he’s in his own element. You’ll find that every Taurean singer or composer, without exception, eventually ends up in the production end of the music business to some degree.

  After the bull has found the right meadow, where the opportunities grow plentifully, he seldom seeks change or new fields to conquer. He’ll weigh, balance and soak up knowledge of his career through years of devotion to it. He can put up with a lot, if he’s convinced himself there’s a future, and if the occupation fits him snugly or “feels good” to him. Taurus is incredibly capable of persevering until the
reward comes, but only when he’s at the center of things, never when he’s insecurely chewing around the edges and hoping for a break. Once he feels the necessary sense of achievement and security beneath him, and once he’s planted himself in a position where he can build ever higher, he moves forward with confidence. Then he becomes irresistible to the elusive, fickle goddess of success. It won’t turn his head. He’ll stay faithful to her, but he’ll put her in her place—and it will be a lifelong love affair.

  GEMINI the Twins

  May 22nd through June 21st

  “It takes all the running you can do,

  to keep in the same place.

  If you want to get somewhere else,

  you must run at least twice as fast as that!’

  How to Recognize GEMINI

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing

  And vanishing so suddenly

  You make one quite giddy!”

  This time it vanished quite slowly,

  beginning with the end of the tail,

  and ending with the grin,

  which remained for some time

  after the rest of it had gone.

  If there are times when a Gemini person makes you think you’re seeing double, don’t run out and change your glasses. Just remember that Gemini is the sign of the twins, and there are two distinct sides to his changeable personality. Now you see it, now you don’t. Was it love you thought you caught fleetingly on those mobile features? Hate? Ecstasy? Intelligence? Idealism? Sorrow? Joy? The mercurial changes of a Gemini’s expression are as fascinating to watch as the psychedelic lights in a nightclub. It’s hard to tell where reality ends and illusion begins. They blend—then they separate.

  Knowing where to look for this versatile creature requires a little forethought. He may be one place today and somewhere else tomorrow. Suddenly, too. A Gemini can change his clothes, his job, his love life or his residence as fast as he changes his mind, and that’s pretty fast. Finding a good example to study may keep you hopping. You could try a bookstore. He’s a browser, because he can get the gist of the contents in a brief scanning of the pages. (It’s no accident that John F. Kennedy was a speed reader.) Mercury people also have that nasty habit of reading the last page first. If you know a Gemini who has ever read a book from beginning to end without getting bored halfway through, send him to the Smithsonian as a curio (or check his natal chart to see if he has Taurus, Capricorn or one of the more persistent signs on the ascendant). Geminis like to skip back and forth in a book, a pattern of action they also prefer when it comes to things other than reading.

  You’re sure to find a Gemini or two skimming through the halls and matching wits with people in a radio station, a public relations firm, a publishing house, a telephone answering service, an auto showroom or an advertising agency—if you can catch one between appointments. When you’ve found this quicksilver person, study him carefully, even if you do get exhausted following him around. The first thing you’ll notice is a nervous energy that fairly snaps, crackles and pops in the air around him. If he has a Scorpio, Libra, Cancer or Capricorn moon, he may not vibrate with so much obvious crackle, but the snap and pop are latent, and you’ll sense their presence under the influence of the other planetary positions. An occasional Gemini will speak slowly, but most of them talk fast. All of them listen fast.

  Man or woman, Gemini is impatient with conservative, stick-in-the-muds, or with people who can’t make up their minds where they stand on particular issues. Gemini knows where he stands, at least for the moment.

  Unless there’s a conflicting ascendant, the Gemini build is generally slender, agile and taller than average. Many of them have small, sharp features, as if they were cut in a cameo. You’ll find some with brown eyes, of course, but the majority of those ruled by Mercury will have beautiful, crystal-clear hazel, blue, green or gray eyes, that twinkle and dart here and there. Geminis never rest their eyes on one object for more than a few seconds. In fact, their alert, quick-moving eyes are often the easiest way to recognize them. The complexion tends to be rather pale, yet they usually tan easily, and that’s the way to spot them in the summer. (In the winter, they often have wind burns from swooping down a ski slope.)

  There’s an eagerness about Geminis, an immediate, sympathetic friendliness, and unusually quick, but graceful movements. The hair can be light or dark or both—like, streaked. Twins, remember? The nose is likely to be long and straight or dainty—in either case, probably well formed. There’s frequently a receding hairline in the men (from all that activity in the brain, perhaps), and both sexes normally have rather high foreheads.

  It’s usually a mistake to try to pin Geminis down to either one place or one idea. It’s always a mistake to challenge them to a battle of wits, because they can talk themselves in and out of situations with the greatest ease. They think fast on their feet (or in any other position); they can be sharply satirical, and they’re more clever than almost anybody. Some Mercury people take a mischievous delight in disconcerting slower minds with their lightning fast mental processes. How would you like to get into an argument with Gemini Joan Rivers?

  A June person will sometimes appear to light near you, like an inquisitive bird, survey the scene with excited curiosity, then dart off in a different direction almost before you can say hello. I often join a Gemini friend in Lindy’s for cheesecake and some casual conversation. He’s thirty-five to forty years old, but he looks like a college student, which is typical of Gemini’s ageless appearance. For a while we’ll talk pleasantly, interrupting each other and easily bouncing from one topic to another. Then I’ll search in my purse for a compact or a pencil, look up—and like some disappearing artist in a magic act, my Gemini friend has vanished into thin air, taking the check with him. (The more un-evolved types use this agility to leave you with the check.) When he pulls one of those fast dissolves, I glance around the room anxiously, and suddenly, there he is—making a phone call or waving to me gaily as he skips out the door to who-knows-where.

  This particular Gemini was recently engaged to a wonderful Aquarian woman (if anyone can cope with an elusive Gemini, it’s an Aquarian), and a week before the wedding, five would get you twenty anywhere on Broadway that he would find a way to slip out of the noose—that somehow, he wouldn’t make it to the church on time. But he did. Geminis can surprise you. Especially when they’re in love.

  One of my favorite Geminians is a Mercury woman who—typically—runs her own business which requires her to be glued to the telephone twenty hours a day. Despite seldom being able to leave her desk, she still gives the impression of flying around. Like most Gemini females, she has an extremely pretty, interesting face, with intelligence stamped on every feature, and her quick Mercury hands flutter in the air like lively birds. Using more charm and wit than the law allows, she cheerfully solves everyone’s problems in the twinkling of one of her clear, blue eyes. I’ve watched this woman find a baby sitter and a pair of gerbils for a customer, make out the grocery list, write thirty-two checks (one of her favorite occupations), phone a Broadway producer on a yacht in the Caribbean, fold the family laundry, figure the week’s working schedule for her employees, find her husband’s blue tie, write down the directions for the shop where he could pick up some tropical fish for their son, snap four pictures of the dog, open and read her monthly bills (then absently file them in the wastebasket), help a casting office locate an actress who speaks six languages, and give twelve clients a wake-up call—all in the space of a little over an hour without leaving her swivel chair. Go top that.

  The secret is in the Geminian duality. They can do two things at once with less effort than it takes most of us to do one. Mercury mothers often fold laundry, feed the baby and talk on the phone at the same time. Some people swear that all Geminis were born with a phone in each hand.

  Any kind of routine can make a typical Geminian feel like a droopy bird in a cage with his wings clipped. These people resent drudgery and monotony almost fiercely
. Usually, they aren’t the most punctual souls in the world (unless they happen to have a Virgo ascendant, in which case they become human alarm clocks). The typical Gemini, however, always arrives late, not because he forgets the time, but because something caught his interest on the way and sidetracked him. The restless Mercurial nature demands constant excitement and change or the spirit becomes dejected and morose.

  If you have a Mercury friend, you’ve probably already experienced a common Gemini habit that can be so annoying it can give you ulcers. He’ll suggest some activity to you, like dropping over to his apartment (it will seldom be a house—too permanent), catching an old Humphrey Bogart film followed by the latest romantic comedy (double feature, naturally—he doesn’t play singles), driving out to the golf range to practice a few swings or stopping in Shula’s for a few rounds of Scotch. You’re tired and you’re on the way home. You thank him anyway, but ask for a rain check. The Gemini argues with you. Convincingly. He turns on those baby blues (or greens or browns) and weaves a cocoon of charm around you. He talks so fast and his smile is so persuasive that, after a while, you give in. You’ll go. He has a few errands to run, so he says he’ll meet you on the corner in about an hour. That you didn’t expect so you start to back out, but he turns on his technique again, and you finally agree to meet him. It’s a real drag, killing the hour, and besides, your feet hurt, but you manage to do it, and you show up on the corner at the appointed time. Good old Jim is a half hour late and a little out of breath when he gets there. Guess what? He’s changed his mind. He’s really beat. He’s decided to call it a day, hit the sack—and make the scene tomorrow night. You don’t mind, do you? Only a Gemini could avoid a sock in the jaw at that point. But he does. You forgive him, and what’s really ridiculous is that you’ll actually meet him the next night, like you had good sense or something. You’ve only yourself to blame for succumbing to the irresistible Gemini sales pitch. If you get stood up again the following evening, you have it coming. It serves you right for letting him sweet talk you.