Salon.com > Lucie Chevalier

The whole menagerie

Fri, 15 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

This week, we contemplate a question from perhaps the sweetest guy on the planet. Evan isn't worried about whether he's compatible with his girlfriend. He knows he is. He just wants to make sure that, if the two of them get married, the pairing will be felicitous for his two very little girls, Ruby and Saskia. Evan writes, "I'm a single dad with two young daughters and I have been seeing a wonderful woman for the past year. Things seem well, but I'd like to get perspective on how the four of us work, especially with my feisty younger daughter, Saskia." Every person in this prospective family has a different Chinese birth year, and a different Western Zodiac sign as well. Can the stars orchestrate this family circus into a successful act?

Evan: April 4, 1973, 4 p.m. Aries Water Ox, hour of Monkey.
Lily: Jan. 4, 1973, Capricorn Water Rat, hour unknown.
Ruby: July 2, 1995, 11 a.m., Cancer Wood Pig, hour of Horse (Snake cusp).
Saskia: Feb. 21, 1998, 1 a.m. Pisces (Aq cusp) Earth Tiger, hour of Ox (Rat cusp).

Fur and feathers

Fri, 08 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

When somebody explains that a relationship has tanked due to lack of fighting, it takes a special subtlety to unravel what actually may have transpired. This week Amanda writes in to ponder the "Girl-Girl gray zone" that exists between her and Jasmine, and to ask if the stars will cooperate in nudging them back into the hot zone. For four years, she and Jasmine had the perfect relationship, she writes, marred only by "too little fighting" and some of the "Dharma and Greg" effect. "Full of laughing and loving, our relationship served as a touchstone for both of us. It almost seemed like we hit the lotto in finding each other."

And yet, she wavers, "We never quite jumped in with both feet, and though we're compatible in many, many respects, I'm still a little bit of a wild child with self-destructive tendencies, and Jasmine plays grown-up too much and sinks into bouts of passive-aggressiveness." They both want to date others, but don't want the affair to end -- a proposition known as having your cake and eating it, too. "Should we gently put our relationship in the over-and-done-with stack," Amanda asks, or "should we get into a counselor's office now so as not to risk losing a lifelong love to the cauterizing barriers we will build without each other?"

He who hesitates …

Fri, 01 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Ideally, once a couple is married, flirtation (with others) becomes an end, not a means. But what gives when a man and a woman who are not married to each other, or to anyone else, flirt with each other for weeks or months, but never pounce? What holds them back? Could it be fear of rejection ... or might it be fear of acceptance?

This week, Clive, a Virgo Boar who calls himself "Dumbfounded in Dumbville," writes to vent his perplexity at his sustained, booty-free campaign against Ida, a hard-to-get Leo-Virgo cusp Rabbit. "Both of us are never married, and she is what I would call a shy Leo, maybe a bit conservative by Leo standards. I am a bit more open than your average Virgo. The question is: Why am I so incredibly attracted, and why is it that she, who also seems attracted, runs away often and has emotional walls higher and more impenetrable even than mine? Her silences and flight confound and madden, while they intrigue also."

What coy stars are toying with this couple, pushing them into perpetual orbit without letting them collide?

Clive: Sept. 10, 1959, 2:37 p.m. Virgo Earth Boar, hour of the Sheep

Ida: Aug. 21, 1963, Leo-Virgo cusp Water Rabbit

A Pig and a Monkey make crazy love

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:00:00 +0000

So you have a crazy love, and somehow it lasts. Year after year, the two of you roll around like pouncing kittens, see the sun rise and set in each other's eyes, and skip love-drunk through life, stopping to smell the flowers in every garden and to sip a drink from every lemonade stand. So what if you still live in the spare room at your parents' house? Who wants a mortgage! Who cares if you share a thin futon instead of a king-sized Serta? Togetherness is what you crave. The two of you survive on peanut butter and cabbage sandwiches because you're too besotted to remember to go to the grocery store. Why does it matter that he doesn't have a job? The way he says "chair" turns you on. And the way you hold a pencil makes him helpless with desire. Is this a problem? Or is this what we're all looking for?

Wild horses

Fri, 08 Feb 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Why can't the people we love be exactly what we want them to be? The famous exchange from "Twelfth Night" shows the perennial struggle of headstrong lovers who seek to control each other:

Olivia: I would you were as I would have you be.

Viola: Would it be better, madam, than I am? I wish it might, for now I am your fool.

Each of them admires the other, but neither is willing to compromise to suit the other, and each is insulted by the other's wish to dominate. This week, a pair of Horses have written in, asking why their partnership has been so stormy. Vincent writes, "Four years ago, Matt and I started seeing each other and had a turbulent affair. We met again for a while in 1998, and seven months ago, in 2001, we started seeing each other for the third time. There are many differences between us, but there are also strong feelings and a strong attraction -- and the fact we've decided to give us a try for the third time disturbs me (not necessarily in a negative way). What do the stars have to tell us?" When two Horses are hitched, do they make a good team?

Vincent: May 26, 1966 Gemini Fire Horse, born 3:20 p.m., hour of the Monkey

Enter the dragon, fasten your seat belt

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 20:00:00 +0000

So. You find someone, you fall in love, you get married, you have a child. Do you then live happily ever after? Well ... not necessarily. Have you considered the question of whether the two of you will be compatible with your child? In places where astrology is taken very seriously -- India and many parts of Asia, for example -- prospective parents often plan ahead and consult experts to choose a birth year, even a birth month, for their child, to increase the chances that the child will mix well with them and be a blessing, not a blight, on the family escutcheon.

I know of two parents, an Aquarius Rooster and a Pisces Rat, whose struggle to get along with their Aries Sheep daughter has been lifelong. They are meticulous, conscientious, hard-working people, much concerned with duty and reputation; their daughter is a creative, free-thinking, self-involved, criticism-averse whirlwind of energy, who finds her parents' relentless chiding and rule-dispensing hurtful and suffocating. The three of them love each other dearly, despite decades of tearful scenes, but any pundit would have told Rooster and Rat parents-to-be that if they wanted a smooth family dynamic (considering the temperaments of their own melds), they would have done well to avoid a Sheep year, to say nothing of Aries.

The mystery of One Great Love

Fri, 25 Jan 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Some people -- it is not certain if they are the lucky ones or the unlucky ones -- have had One Great Love; a love whose intensity and mutuality allowed no doubt that it was the real thing; a love that never lost its quality of strangeness; a love that, years later, still makes the throat catch when it's remembered; a love whose unfolding remolded the selves of both people, as when a graft on a branch forms a new tree. In some cases -- may they be happy! -- these couples stay together. In others, the couple resist the graft, spooked by the power of the enchantment that entwined them, or disliking the new hybrid. They separate, and the separation is damaging; it is like surgery. The two people stagger off their separate ways, unentwined, fiercely seeking to resume their prior independence, but it cannot be fully restored. They retain the twists of the joint self they formed against the now-absent other half. How can they stop feeling the loss of the vanished lover when their shape still reflects his outline? How can they learn to grow separately, how can they bring themselves to bend to a new suitor? And will they ever find a new graft to complement their hybrid nature?

Will rocking the boat rock her world?

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 20:00:00 +0000

The stars make us susceptible to many different kinds of love, and stir up different types of attraction. It's easy to be drawn to more than one constellation -- just think of Zeus! But what do you do when you've found love with one sign meld, but stumble into a powerful attraction to another meld that seems better attuned to you? Can you flirt with other appealing constellations without getting sucked into a black hole? This week, Ottilie, a Gemini Dragon married to Edward, a Libra Rabbit, finds herself tempted by Fritz, an alluring, confident, funny Pisces Dog. She is confused and worried about what she should do, or if she should do anything, to further her friendship with Fritz. Will magnetic affinity trump fidelity? If Ottilie slips, would Fritz's sign meld make sparks with hers long-term, or would their affair fizzle out -- and leave her with burnt fingers? And can fair-minded, observant, passive Edward give Ottilie enough fire to keep her around, and keep his own toes toasty? Read and decide for yourself.

Ottilie: May 28, 1964, at 2:15 a.m., Gemini Wood Dragon, born in hour of the Ox

Edward: Oct. 20, 1963, 6:10 a.m., Libra Earth Rabbit, born in hour of the Rabbit

Playing with fire signs

Fri, 11 Jan 2002 20:00:00 +0000

Gene: Nov. 28, 1968, 6:36 p.m. Sagittarius Earth Monkey, born in the hour of the Rooster

Polly: April 8, 1972, 12:08 a.m. Aries Water Rat, born in the hour of the Rat

Gene writes that he and Polly are "trying to patch things up after a tough autumn apart," and he'd like guidance. There is good news and bad news; the good news is that both their moon signs (Monkey and Rat) and their sun signs (Sagittarius and Aries), which are both fire signs, are highly compatible, so there is undoubtedly a powerful attraction between them. The bad news is, stellar accord alone can't keep a relationship in orbit!

Despite the outward compatibility of these two melds, several booby traps put their harmony at risk, and the couple will need to defuse them if they wish to overcome their difficulties. As a Sagittarian Monkey, Gene is lively, creative, intelligent, and clever at assessing social power dynamics. The lovable but often tactless Sagittarian will be made more subtle by the Monkey's shrewdness; the Monkey will be made less rank-conscious by the Sagittarian's expansive soul. Gene will probably attract talented and amusing people and inspire them with his ideas, or encourage them in theirs. In return (why not?) he expects to be liked and respected. Nonetheless, he is not as genuinely gregarious as many Sagittarians; he keeps the Monkey's assessing eye on which socializing profits him, and which is a waste of time.

Can a Dog and a Dragon be more than friends?

Fri, 04 Jan 2002 20:00:00 +0000

What sign are you more compatible with? Do you prefer Virgos, Libras or Scorpios? Or would it embarrass you to say that one-twelfth of the world turns you on? Maybe you would feel better knowing that, astrologically speaking, you're much more selective than that. Chances are that only one in 8,640 people in the world really makes you wild with desire!

You don't like all Libras -- you like Libras born in the Year of the Sheep -- particularly itinerant Fire Sheep, as opposed to calmer, home-loving Wood Sheep -- and you especially like the ones born between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. -- in the hours of the mysterious, strong-willed Snake. But, since you don't happen to know that you're a Fire Horse Sagittarius born in the hours of the Rat, how will you know to keep an eye out for alluring Libra Sheep melds, and shun the toxic Virgo Rabbit combo, which can be practically fatal to horse sag? Relax. I can help you before it's too late.