Hour of the Monkey

The secret self

Those born in this double-hour carry the Monkey as their hidden hour-self, the private creature only the closest people meet. The clock remembers it like this:

• Born in the Monkey hour, your secret self finds the loose stitch in any plan and a sense of humour about the problem itself. Under whatever face you wear, there is a mind that refuses the obvious answer.
• The late-afternoon animal in you needs a puzzle or it starts eating itself. The gift is invention; the shadow is the cleverness used to dodge the slow honest work where competence is actually built.
• Your hidden hour is the lively hour, the monkeys in the trees. There is a fast lateral mind in you that makes the connection others miss. Aim it at the thing you keep joking past, not only at the easy laugh.
• Inside you is a trickster that, turned inward, can become a liar, sometimes only to itself. Your secret self keeps the inside of the mind more private than it keeps its jokes. Let one person in past the wit.
• The Monkey in late afternoon is the friend who knows the back way into the building and tells the best stories. Your secret self is generous with knowledge and stingy with the heart. End one thing slowly, on purpose.

More on the Monkey

Quick hands, quicker mind, eyes that find the loose stitch in any plan. The Monkey is a problem-solver born with a sense of humor about the problem itself. There is a relentless inventiveness here, a refusal to take the obvious answer when the second answer is more interesting. You will hear about mischief, about trickery, about charm that opens doors charm should not be opening. All true. The longer story is hunger, intellectual hunger, the need to be working on something puzzling or the mind starts eating itself. The Monkey is the friend who tells the best stories, who knows the back way into the building, who is bored at the dinner party and turns it into something memorable by the end of the second course.