Glenda May Richards

If you can change your name by deed poll, can you change your horoscope sign too? I sure hope so because I am fed up with being a Virgo.

It began in my teens, when in true bookworm mode, I was working at a library. While shelving books, I picked one on horoscopes – I was born in early September, that made me a Virgo…what are they like, I wondered? Then I read these horrifying words: ‘Virgos often work in libraries and grow up to be wallflowers at parties.’ Eeek! I was already halfway there. At sixteen, with flood pants and geeky glasses, I had yet to be invited to a party but it was clear that way lay certain doom. According to the stars above, I had been cast as a four-eyed social misfit with excellent reading skills.

Further research was not encouraging. One book claimed each sign had two definite attributes. Let’s see, Virgo: Health and Duty. How dull is that? Made me sound like a nun with nose-drops. Definitely not a party animal. Oh, and look at Scorpio: Sex and Death. Only the two most important things in life. Perhaps, I suggested in a politely-worded letter to the author, we Virgos could do a swop with Scorpios…..give us sex and we’ll give them duty. Take our health and give us death….anything to make us sound less boring!

I never got a reply. I kept my library job until college when I chucked the specs and got contact lenses. I also started binge-drinking and sleeping with Scorpios. Not unsurprisingly, sexual relationships with people ruled by sex and death usually die. Probably not helped by my tearful telephone accusations when dumped: “Is it because I’m a Virgo?”
Then a friend who was a bit of an amateur astrologist said she would determine my rising sign. “Your rising sign is more important than your star sign,” she asserted. “Your rising sign is who you are socially, the persona you present to the world.” Aah, so the real me.

The rising sign is determined by your time of birth – I was born at 8.30 in the evening. As my friend checked my charts, I looked through her papers and began to fantasise. Perhaps I was really a poetic Pisces or a groovy Gemini. ‘Gemini shares the same ruler as Virgos, the quick-silver planet Mercury.’ Yet somehow, for Geminis, I learned, being ruled by this planet means they’re clever and witty, for Virgos it means they’re ‘intellectual and discriminating’. In other words, critical and picky. Oh, hell, who wants to be a two-faced twin anyway?

As it turned out, my rising sign was the very first sign in the zodiac, Aries. All rather exciting, as Aries are dynamic, energetic, positive, pushy, impatient, overbearing, bossy … oh dear. No wonder it’s the Ram. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be known in my social circle as a head-butter.

“Don’t worry”, said my friend. “Your innate modesty as a Virgo means you’ll never be that obnoxious. Or a boss.” Great, the natural tendency to downplay myself completely suppressed my rising sign’s obvious career prospects. That may explain why I’ve never bumped my head on the glass ceiling…

Despite being a Virgo, I eventually turned to that most un-discriminating of tools, the internet. After wading though 13,656,332 sites on astrology, I came upon, for me, a previously unknown aspect of the zodiac – the moon sign. ‘The moon sign represents instinct and memory and dictates one’s emotional response to situations and experiences’. Yes, the moon would light the way to the true horoscope sign hidden sensitively inside me.

No complicated charts on the web, of course, just pop in your birth-date and birth-time and voila, your moon-sign is calculated. I only had about 30 seconds to fantasise this time. Perhaps it was my dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Perhaps I was really an idealistic Water Bearer – a purely independent thinker who championed the highest principles. I hope it didn’t mean giving up meat.

There it was, click on the link, print, your moon sign is…. Aries. What!! Again?? Will I never be shot of the brutal Ram? ‘Emotional outbursts are frequent with you due to your fiery temper and emotional impulsiveness’, I read. Then ripped up the report. Then picked up the pieces of paper (tidy Virgo). Then saw other ‘Moon-in-Aries’ included Pamela Anderson and Ellen DeGeneres. Mmm, a busty Canadian and a funny lesbian. I am not stacked and not gay, but I was born in Montreal and can tell a joke. Let’s see, a Virgo walks into a bar and says: “Ooh, the floor is really sticky, I’m leaving.” Sorry, that’s no joke, that’s my local.

But recently, I had a breakthrough. I was leafing through the Chambers dictionary (I know, I know, a typical tedious Virgo activity) when I came across the definition of Leo: ‘ Constellation of The Lion, the 5th sign of the Zodiac, the constellation was between Cancer and Virgo, it is now in the sign Virgo.’ Hurrah! I was wondering how star signs set thousands of years ago had relevance today and here was the proof: every horoscope sign has actually shifted one ahead!

Which means I am really a proud, dramatic fire sign… confident, entertaining and glamorous. Up there with other famous Leos like Zelda Fitzgerald, Jackie O. and Madonna. And all those nasty Scorpios I slept with? They were really um, charming Libras. And my husband, the generous, long-suffering Taurus? He’s really a…oh dear – Aries.

So I’ve given up on astrology and accepted the fact I’ll be a Virgo for life. I’m looking into numerology now. I was born on the 7th of September and we all know 7 is a lucky number…. or is it 3?

Glenda May Richards is that most exotic of immigrants, the Canadian Brit. A cocktail goddess who lives in south London, her writing can be found on modgoddess.com