May 8

Who you are

Nothing gets wasted around you. A job that ended badly becomes the experience that gets you the next one. A friendship that collapsed becomes the reason you now say what you mean early. You are not sentimental about loss and you are not crushed by it either. You look at the wreck, decide which parts still work, and take those.

There is a sharpness in you that came out of all that. You can cut through a flattering story in one question and you rarely get sold anything twice. Friends value it. Family sometimes finds it hard to be around, particularly when they wanted sympathy and got an accurate diagnosis instead. You are usually right, which does not make the timing any better.

Your gifts

• Use for everything. You turn bad years into working knowledge instead of leaving them as damage.
• Clear sight. You can tell in one question whether a story someone is telling you holds together.
• Durability. What you build after a loss tends to be sturdier than what you had before it.

Your shadow

The sharpness needs pointing somewhere. Unsupervised, it goes at people: the friend who is being naive, the partner whose plan has a hole in it, the relative who never learns. You are accurate and you are corrosive, and being right does not repair what accuracy takes off. Some people come to you for comfort, and you hand them the audit they did not request.

Your soul work

Your soul work is to turn what went wrong into something the people around you can actually use, and to keep the sharp edge aimed at problems rather than at persons. Ask what someone came for before you answer. Accuracy with warmth is worth ten times accuracy alone.

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.