The instinct under pressure is to speak. Such a person telephones a friend, writes the long letter, narrates the trouble at length, and is genuinely calmed by the narration itself; the problem does not need solving so much as articulating. Silence in a house is felt as unease. Reading before sleep, several conversations a day and a mind supplied with new material are not luxuries here but the ordinary conditions of feeling well. Boredom produces something close to real misery.
The characteristic manoeuvre is to think a feeling rather than have it. Grief is explained, anxiety is researched, heartbreak is analysed with impressive accuracy while remaining largely unfelt, and the sorrow surfaces months later on an unremarkable Wednesday. This is not dishonesty; the intellect is simply where this nature retreats when it is frightened. Moods change quickly and visibly, which those nearby learn not to over-read, since the black hour at breakfast has genuinely lifted by noon.
Nervousness is the standing weather, situated in the hands, the sleep and the running commentary of the mind at two in the morning. Comfort is best offered as information and company: a plain explanation, a distraction, another person talking in the room. The developmental task is unglamorous. Some feelings will not resolve into sentences, and this nature must learn to sit with an unnamed weight for an evening without immediately converting it into an anecdote for somebody else.
What It Gives
- ◆articulate about feeling
- ◆adaptable moods
- ◆soothed and soothing through talk
- ◆quick emotional recovery
What It Costs
- ◆intellectualising distress
- ◆nervous unrest
- ◆needing constant stimulation
This is one line of a whole chart. The rest of it — every placement, house and aspect at once — is a birth date away.
Cast Your Birth Chart