May 26

Who you are

Your humour is a delivery system. The joke gets in under people's defences and leaves the serious point behind it, which is why you can say things at a family table that would start a fight if anybody else said them. Your timing is exact. You have known since school how long to wait before the last few words.

You also prefer setting a puzzle to giving an answer. If someone asks your advice, they often leave with a better question instead, and three weeks later they work out what you meant. It is a generous way to teach, when it works. It is also slower than people need when they are frightened and want a straight sentence tonight.

Your gifts

• Timing. You know exactly how long to leave a pause before the line that does the work.
• Serious point, light delivery. You can raise the difficult subject in a way a room will actually accept.
• Patience with process. You are happy for somebody to arrive at the answer three weeks after you did.

Your shadow

Cleverness makes an excellent wall. When something actually hurts, you reach for the joke, and everyone laughs and the moment closes and you are alone in it again. The people closest to you have learned not to ask twice. They know the funny answer is the last answer, and they have stopped waiting for the one underneath it.

Your soul work

Learn which rooms deserve the riddle and which deserve the plain sentence. Save the games for work and for strangers. With the three or four people who matter, say the obvious thing badly and on time rather than the clever thing perfectly and too late.

Days you get along with

Your sign

The third sign carries the gift of curiosity and the burden of its own quickness. Gemini is the zodiac learning to speak, and learning to land.

Someone else

Look up another birthday

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