Sun Sign, Moon Sign: Discover the personality secrets of the 144 sun-moon combinations. Charles Harvey

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       Chapter Three ELEMENTARY, DEAR READERS

       Walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, sleep soundly.

      WILLIAM HAZLITT

      The zodiac divides people into 12 different types. Underlying the signs, however, is an even more basic division into what the ancients called the four elements: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. These were seen as the basic building blocks of all life. In this chapter, we will look at this four-fold division in detail.

      PEOPLE AS ‘TYPES’

      The 19th-century English critic William Hazlitt may not have known much about astrology, but his off-the-cuff summing-up rhyme of how a person should behave (quoted above) actually touches closely upon the four element types and the thing they each tend to do best. But before we look at these four types and why they are good at certain things, it is helpful first to think about categories and why we categorize people at all.

      People are different, and yet the same. Sameness and difference are what make the world go round. The sameness and difference about human beings has been argued about since the dawn of human life on Earth, but the differences are in fact what attract us to one another and bind us together in the tension of creative conflict. We say tension because if we can be attracted, we can also be repelled, but we are still bound by that repulsion – the repulsion of difference – and remain in some kind of dynamic relationship because of it.

      Something which is very different from us tends to fascinate us, and often we are compulsively attracted to it in order to develop and nurture something which is deficient in ourselves. An example, and a very common occurrence: the well-organized, logical ‘thinking’ type of man is often found in relationship with the romantic, somewhat dreamy and chaotic, emotional woman. Both irritate and yet fascinate each other. Communication is often difficult; each thinks the other quite odd at times; and their own particular realities are so different. They each develop typical defences which become more pronounced if they cannot recognize their mutual dependence on each other’s strengths. They may become accustomed to a habitual sort of tension and conflict and yet they need each other. They live in different universes but each affords the other more than a glimpse into another universe that enriches and expands their own. If they want more than a superficial understanding of the differences between them, they would be well advised to look into their own astrological strengths and weaknesses – and differences.

      So categorizing difference is just a natural way of trying to make sense of what we experience in life in all kinds of ways. People are different, need and want different things, see and value different things, and understanding just how ‘we’ are different from ‘them’ makes us feel better about ourselves. It gives us a starting point, a handle with which to negotiate with the ‘unknown’. Categorizing is also about defining, and defining is about affirming and respecting uniqueness.

      Harking back to Hazlitt’s rhyme, an astrologer can see the four element types poetically evoked by this ditty. The earthy individual tends to ‘walk groundly’ and seems rooted in the world like a 200-year-old oak. In fact, we rely on him to be that way: solid, СКАЧАТЬ