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garden-variety Water Bearer, pouring out questions which are really answers, in typical Uranian fashion.
An Aquarian almost never apologizes for his or her shortcomings or eccentricities, whereas the typical Virgo graciously and appealingly says, "I'm sorry" every time he or she commits the most minor offense against tradition or popular ideas of behaviour. I once saw a Virgo say "I'm sorry" to his elbow after he carelessly bumped it. It's an endearing trait, to be sure. Male or female Virginians will worry-wrinkle their brains and hearts when they think others disapprove of something they've said or done, but Aquarians of either sex hardly even hear the person who repeats gossip to them, especially when the rumours are about themselves. It's in-one-ear-and-out-the-other to an Aquarian who possesses the helpful wisdom of knowing it's impossible to please everybody - so the Water Bearer does his or her own thing and doesn't try to please anybody. They love to be liked, and are puzzled and hurt when friends criticize them, but the reaction doesn't last long. Maybe for two or three moments. Then Aquarius happily trots off, whistling a tune backward… and tosses some more wishes into penny wells. (No, I didn't mean pennies into wishing wells. I meant wishes into penny wells. You have to learn the knack of upside-down communication if you're ever going to be able to play tic-tac-toe with these people.)
Aquarians are the most curiosity-motivated Earthlings you'll ever meet. Virgos are, too, but the latter are often torn between caution and curiosity. They fret and analyze and want to think things over carefully before they act, which deprives them of spontaneity, a quality they can learn from Aquarius, while Aquarius is learning the much-needed lesson of discrimination from Virgo. One thing they usually agree on (relatively) is how to spend money. Carefully. However, Virgo may be somewhat more careful than Aquarius, because Virgo believes that if one is to practise generosity, one must first practise thrift. Rams and Lions and Fish and Archers, who go around flinging cash to friends and strangers alike, upset the Virgins, who will caution the extravagant ones against such careless giving by warning that charity begins at home. If that doesn't work, they'll try again with the warning that, "As you grow more wasteful, you must grow less generous."
I'm a Ram, so I don't agree with that philosophy for an instant, but I only report astrological characteristics, I don't endorse them. Anyway, neither Virgo nor Aquarius is likely to squander money, or spend it with a great deal of looseness on himself or herself. However, influenced by a powerful humanitarian urge, Aquarians do worry more than a little about the future of mankind and womankind, about their brothers and sisters who may go hungry and starve, as the Earth faces possible famine. Virgos will worry right along with them. Worrying is Virgo's specialty, they pride themselves in it, and have refined it to an art. Their sympathies, you see, are similar, but their manner of expressing them is somewhat different. Both are sincerely concerned, but Virgo is decidedly more specific about it.
AQUARIUS: Just think how much less food the children of other countries are fed, compared to our American youngsters. It's sad, and it's shocking.
VIRGO: Yes, it is. I wonder if people realize that exactly thirty Biafran children, for example, must survive on the same amount of food eaten by only one healthy American child. It's really appalling.
AQUARIUS: Do you know that all the fertilizer we use each year for ornamental purposes in this country alone - such as on golf courses, lawns, and flower gardens, all of which could easily do without it for a short while - would mean the difference between life and death to some nations?
VIRGO: That's entirely correct. We know it, but if only there could be a way to make other people in the United States know that by doing without their fertilizer for ornamental purposes for just twelve months there would be enough fertilizer to more than double the harvest grains of India, where so many millions of people are literally starving to death.
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