May 15

Who you are

You live in your body more than most people live in theirs. Food, weather, fabric, the temperature of a room, whether a chair is actually comfortable: these register with you as information, not luxury. When you say a situation feels wrong, you usually mean something physical happened first, a change in someone's breathing or a hand that did not quite land.

You are also willing to do the unglamorous preparation that pleasure actually requires. The shopping, the cleaning up, the hours before anyone arrives. Other people want the good evening; you are the one who put the evening together. And you know, in your own limbs, exactly how much strain you can take before something in you gives.

Your gifts

• Judgement by feel. Your hands and your appetite tell you things about a situation before your reasoning does.
• Stomach for the dull part. You will do the preparation that other people skip and then complain about missing.
• Honest about limits. You know the point at which you stop working well and you generally respect it.

Your shadow

Left unwatched, pleasure becomes anaesthetic. The good meal, the second bottle, the expensive comfort bought on a bad afternoon: each one is reasonable and together they become a way of not looking at anything. You are hard to reach at that point, warm and present and completely unavailable. Comfort was supposed to restore you for the difficult conversation, not replace it.

Your soul work

Your work is to prepare things that hold up under real use, including yourself. Learn the level at which you function best and stop there. Pushing past your limit does not make you more serious about the work. It just leaves less of you for the people waiting at home.

Days you get along with

Your sign

The second sign turns the spark into something that lasts. Taurus carries the gift of steadiness, the love of the senses, and the lesson of letting go.

Someone else

Look up another birthday

Check a friend's day, or your partner's, and send it to them.