Dear Nigel,
None whatsoever. Nor do Leos make particularly 'hungry babies'. I sometimes wonder where all this rubbish comes from.

Dear Stephanie,
Many books suggest as much. But most animals have a seasonal birth pattern. They are only ever born under two or three zodiac signs. Even if your pet could be born in any month, how do you know precisely when it entered the world? Breeders don't always pass on the exact date to buyers. One day, we may develop a credible form of astrology for animals but I don't think it is here yet.

GOD'S HIDDEN PATTERNS
by John Michell
The first words of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, are, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth'. All traditional stories of creation say the same. Ancient philosophers observed the harmony that prevails throughout the universe, and saw it as evidence of a creative mind. They said nothing about the Creator, except that he must be benevolent to have made such a beautiful world.

They called him the Great Geometer, because everything seems to have been made in accordance with geometry and musical ratios. The original state of the universe was chaos. Nothing in it was fixed or permanent, but it was inhabited by a spirit which meant that it was one creature. In creative geometry this primordial spirit, or soul of the world, has the number 7, the symbol of the eternal goddess.

The Creator's first act was bring order to chaos by enclosing it in a sphere - the most perfect figure in geometry, containing the most space within the least amount of envelope. He then "separated the light from the darkness" That operation is depicted in creative geometry by drawing a circle around a central point and constructing a square inside it. A circle contained within that square has an area of half the original circle, so the light within it and the darkness around it are equal.

Next, according to Genesis, he separated the dry land from the ocean. To imitate that, you divide the inner circle into six parts by use of the compass. Inside it you can then draw a rhombus, a diamond shape made up of two equilateral triangles. This is called the 'vesica piscis', the 'fish vessel', because it looks rather like a fish. The 'vesica' can also be drawn by making two equal circles with the circumference of each passing through the centre of the other. This figure gives birth to many others. It is likened to the female orifice from which life proceeds. The diagram now contains an inner circle and two concentric rings. Their respective areas, beginning at the centre, are 1, 2 and 3.

This diagram has numbers and measures attached to it. The first, outer circle represents the whole universe and the 12 gods or astrological dominants that rule it. Its area is therefore 'factorial 12' - meaning the numbers from 1 to 12 multiplied together. From that you can calculate that the radius of the inner circle is 5,040, or factorial 7.

This inner circle with radius 5,040 (or 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7) represents the 'sublunary' world, or world beneath the moon, in which we live. It is called the cosmological circle or Holy City diagram. We shall look further into it next week.

WAS GOD A WOMAN?
Throughout today's article, God is referred to as a "he". But of course the ancients did not always see the Creator as a man. Many worshipped an earth mother - or supreme goddess. Some academics claim that even the notoriously patriarchal, old testament God was once revered as a female!

Happy Birthday!
Jennifer Lopez (Leo born July 24, 1970) People born under the sign of Leo are shy, retiring and unselfconscious, They hide their light under a bushel and find it difficult to cope with a lot of attention. Classic examples include Mick Jagger, Madonna and the most timid wallflower of them all, Jennifer Lopez who turns 33 on Thursday.
Happy birthday also to: Today July 19; Brian May (56), Anthony Edwards (41) and Ilie Nastase (57), Tomorrow July 20; Paul Cook (47), Edmund Hillary (84) and Diana Rigg (65), Monday July 21; Janet Reno (65), Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) (55) and Robin Williams (51), Tuesday July 22; Willem Dafoe (48), Danny Glover (56) and Terence Stamp (64), Wednesday July 23; Slash (Guns 'n' Roses) (38), Martin Gore (42), Woody Harrelson (42) and Monica Lewinsky (30), Thursday July 24; Lynda Carter (52) and Jennifer Lopez (33), Friday July 25; Iman (48) and Matt LeBlanc (36).