What's In A Birthday?

How Astrology, Sabian Symbols and Numerology Reveal All.

THE DAY YOU WERE BORN CONTAINS A CODE. It’s just two or three numbers, but the numerology, astrology and Sabian Symbol attached to it, can show you both your personality and destiny. I began researching this in a desultory fashion, when my agent suggested it.

One single date (not even the year) and the numbers, symbolism and horoscope data just didn’t seem enough. And then I realised why Matthew Perry was like Chanel. Both born on August 19th.

The Strange Case of Chanel and Matthew Perry

Chanel paid tribute to her own birthday with the perfume No. 19. Numbers mattered to her. So did astrology - she strongly identified with Leo, her sign. Perry was more interested in the piano.

Yet both were dominated by their vision of mothers and children. That’s in their horoscope charts. Perry neither married nor had a family. His mother separated from his father when he was one - and remarried.

Chanel was born to a laundrywoman in a charity hospital. Her mother died when she was 11 years old and she was then sent to an orphanage. Like Perry, Chanel neither married nor had children.

I FOUND OUT MORE ABOUT CHANEL WHEN my friend Justine Picardie wrote her definitive biography and asked me to look at the designer’s Lenormand card oracle.

August 19 birthday people are forever haunted by the memory of a mother-child relationship; the vision of their own children (if female) or a partner’s child (if male); the meaning of the maternal bond. It’s at the beating heart of this very particular Leo birthday.

The Sabian Symbols

The Sabian Symbols were channelled to the medium Elsie Wheeler in 1925. Lynda Hill wrote her life’s work, The Sabian Symbols as an Oracle, to update the original symbols, every one of which describes a zodiac degree.

I recently spent a week in Katoomba, where Lynda lives and she guided me through the fascinating complexity of the symbols.

They can also work for just one day - your birthday. Take the zodiac sign and degree of your sun and let the symbol speak to you.

Both Perry and Chanel had the Sun at 26 degrees of Leo. When using the symbols, always go to the next degree along.

DAYBREAK – THE LUMINESCENCE OF DAWN IN THE EASTERN SKY describes people born on August 19. For all that the brilliant actor and legendary designer had difficult lives, they shone. They were luminous. Perry shone on television and always will. Chanel still has a glow around her.

Astrology is a Numbers Game

Astrology is a numbers game, based on 12 zodiac signs, 12 houses, 360 degrees in a round horoscope and aspects, based on 0 degrees, 30 degrees, 60 degrees and so on.

When decoded, something as basic as a date of birth can reveal what makes you tick. The Sabian Symbols also run very deep.

Daybreak - The Luminescence of Dawn in the Eastern Sky works on many levels. If your Sun is at 26 Leo, you clearly shine. You stand out, even without a camera spotlight on your face. This is in line with the sign itself, ruled by the Sun since antiquity.

It also describes a person who rises, again and again. Any dark night of the soul is followed by re-emergence. Chanel did that. Perry did that, until he didn’t.

It’s in the way of these things that August 19 people go on, however (almost as if they were still present) on camera. So we wait for Perry to rise again, just as we know Chanel will always rise again, in time for the next collection, or the next perfume launch.

You can find out more about Lynda Hill’s Sabian Symbols here. She is a powerful astrologer and a very old friend.

Justine Picardie’s biography of Chanel has emerged in a new edition recently and she regularly speaks about her work, including her most recent, dazzling biography of Dior.

If you would like to pre-order Your Birthday, you can do so at your favourite bookshop, from Shakespeare and Company in Paris, to Hatchard’s in London. The ebook is on sale worldwide in a few weeks. I’m excited and hope you will be too. My fellow author Rachel Wells is here on Substack too.