Читать книгу Sun Sign, Moon Sign: Discover the personality secrets of the 144 sun-moon combinations - Charles Harvey - Страница 44

The elements can at times be taken literally. Thus those with a strong Earth element in their charts will be strongly physical in some way – they will like and feel at home with the earth, gardening, farming, pottery, building and working with their hands to make things. Water types will often thrive beside the sea or next to a lake or a stream. Fire types can quite literally enjoy piling up a roaring open fire and even being the blacksmith. Air types often love the open air, walking in the wind, bird-watching, flying, gliding, or simply flying a kite or listening to their wind chimes.

It is not quite that simple, however. A person may be strongly Water, yet be an airline pilot, or strongly air and be deeply attached to farming or become a master builder. Strength in an element or elements shows us an approach to the world. This can be illustrated by considering the chart of Gertrude Ederle. One of the great pioneer women swimmers of early this century, she became, in 1926, the first woman to swim the English Channel. Surely someone who spent so much time in the water would have to have her Sun, the focus of her life, in a Water sign? In fact, Ederle had Sun in Libra and Moon in Capricorn, making her an Air-Earth type. So what is an Air-Earth type doing spending their days immersed in the salty deeps?

First of all, it should be said that her birth chart does have a great deal of Water in it, not least a conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Cancer trine Saturn in Pisces, indicating watery ideals and ambitions, and Mercury in Scorpio, indicating a mind attracted by oceanic depths. But what is her approach to swimming? Listen to what she has to say on the subject:

To me the sea is like a person – like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there.

So although she spent much of her life immersed in water, her approach and attitude to swimming was utterly airy.