The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year

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For example, the personality of someone born on September 12 can be predicted to some extent by some accepted theories about the earthly, mutable, Mercury-ruled sign of the Virgin. In the area of psychology, Erik Erikson modified Freud's more static ideas of developmental stages (oral, anal, phallic) into a more human format which defined a stage dynamically (for example, trust vs. mistrust) in his seminal work Childhood and Society. Yet, until about twenty years ago, most psycholo­gists concentrated principally on childhood as the time of development, neglecting middle and old age. Only the Rosicrucians gave equal emphasis to all the periods of man's life, from the youngest to the oldest. Sun-sign astrologers have mostly commented on human personality by applying some generalizations about signs to people. Although Gregory seemed to have solved the problem, a snake lurks in the grass for birthday gath­erers, since only those Catholic countries under the influence of Rome (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg) immediately followed his lead. The Protestant countries (or parts of countries in the case of Holland or Germany) made the change at different timesthereafter. The biggest problem, how­ever, rests with British birthdays, since the British did not go along with the proposal until 1752. Of course, a British old style (OS, Julian) birthday from the seventeenth centwy can be con­ve1ted with certainty to a new style one (NS, Gregorian) by sim­ply adding ten days. However, which birthday should be used for a seventeenth century British figure like John Milton--­December 19 (NS) or December 9 (OS)? And furthermore, what do we do about those figures like George Washington in whose lifetime the changeover took place? Should Washington's birth­day be observed on February 11 (OS) or February 22 (NS)?

We are connected to a cycle of life on Earth, the pace of which (in the Northern Hemisphere) dictates that beginning with the winter solstice, around December 21, the shortest day and longest night, the days will become progressively longer and the nights shorter. Will continue to happen. The spring or vernal equinox is reached around March 21, at which time day and night will be equal.

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Thus, bringing astrology, history and psychology together in concentric cycles or spirals--stressing evolutionary rather than static models for the individual--is at the heart of personology. The personality types presented under the twelve signs, forty-eight periods and three hundred and sixty-six days (including the leap year extra day) are flexible and fluid, each evolving from one to the next, constantly in motion, constantly changing, rather than fixed in stone." pg. 9 Wintertime people are less concerned with the state of the world as it is now and more with how it could and should be. A real reforming spirit can show itself in this personality, and an interest in matters concerning political and economic justice is very common." pg. 19 Many people have long suspected, as astrologers believe, that the day you were born affects your personality. While no one knows exactly how or why, birthdays do tend to be uncannily accurate predictors of psychological tendencies. The Secret Language of Birthdays by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Effers describes in detail the characteristics and quirks of personality associated with being born on a particular day of the year.

If one considers astrology to be heaven-oriented, personologyis earth-oriented. That is, the basic structure upon which per­sonology is built is that of the year as it is lived, and as far as we know has largely been lived here on earth. The rhythms of the year are mostly determined by the changes of the seasons themselves, along with the lengthening and shortening of the days and nights. Each year these solar changes are roughly the same. We are fixed to a wheel of life here on earth, whose motion dictates (in the northern hemisphere) that beginning with the winter solstice, around December 21, the shortest day and longest night, the days will get progressively longer and the nights shorter until the vernal or spring equinox is reached around March 21, at which point day and night willbe equal. We call this season betweensolstice and equinox winter, expecting that only certain plants willgrow, that some animals willsleep or hibernate while others grow a full coat to warm them against the biting winds. As the days grow longer in spring,highly varied forms of lifebegin to emerge culminatingfinally in the heat of the summer,beginning on the longest day of the year,the summer solstice, around June 21. With harvestcomes the fall and again a period of equal day and night (fall equinox, around September 23). Finally the days grow shorter, the sun no longer rises high in the sky, and the world moves inside to prepare for winter once more. Historically seen, we may be looking at a partial explana­tion for why similar personalities are born in different time periods under the same sign, cusp or on the same day. The cyclical unfolding of repetitive "incarnations"--much like Yeats's gyres-suggests a cettain personality type arising at ahigher or lower level of the spiral, but always in the same loca­tion in any given year.

My Book Notes

Out of all the books in the three I respect by Goldschneider, I love the Secret Language of Birthdays a little more since it appeals to everyone compared to just a few. Destiny is something everyone pursues but it is a general description given without any details to the person and as for relationships, well relationships are different among everyone and so the general is for a general understanding how two people will mesh. In fact, popular astrology found in magazines and newspapers is far more common, as it is based on “Sun-sign astrology”, in which we are given advice based only on what sign the Sun was in on our date of birth. (for example Gemini). .Aquarius or Scorpio), regardless of the special day.