If it’s Aries, Taurus, Libra or Scorpio, you’re in luck!

This week, after much ado in my mind, I launched the Zodiac Signs section of my website, with the addition of four complete sign pages. The other eight signs will roll out over the next few weeks.

These pages go beyond the usual textbook descriptions of each zodiac sign, digging deeper into each archetype to get at the psychological dynamics underlying each common trait and behavior. So even if you think you’re all read out on your Sun sign, check it out — you might get new insight after all.

The pages also include some shopping links so you can explore birthday or holiday gifts sign by sign. Currently there are shopping links for all four signs listed above, plus Gemini and Sagittarius. Enjoy!

May 22-June 22

• Mutable Air, symbolized by breath, wind chimes, laughter, chatter and movement.
• Music Gifts for Gemini: The Ramones • They Might Be Giants • The Locust • Paul McCartney, Ram • B-52s • Barenaked Ladies • Weezer • OK Go • The 88• The Gispy Kings
• Movie Gifts for Gemini: Peter Pan • Finding Neverland • The Little Prince • The Music Man

After the physical form, solid security and holding-tight of Taurus, Gemini energy arises, encouraging us to spread our wings, lift our feet and test our voices – to explore the world and connect with others. From solid ground, we take off in flight, delighting in our surroundings, finding out about life and telling everyone what we’ve learned. Like a bird, Gemini doesn’t stay long in one place. It’s too busy – collecting and delivering, learning and informing – to stop and ponder too much.

Gemini’s symbol is the Roman numeral II, made manifest by the twins, Castor and Pollux. In a mundane sense, we can see Gemini’s concern with two-ness in the toddler period. Babies believe they’re one and the same with their mother until about the time they start walking and talking. Before then, they think there is only one, that they’re fused with the mother, that everything she says and does is part of themselves as well. It is Gemini’s job to separate a little, to create a space between “me” and “you,” to begin exploring the world on their own. And then it is Gemini’s job to bring back what they find, to reconnect across that space with their own messages and observations about the world.

This is a monumental development in the life of a child. It changes self-perception dramatically, implying freedom from dependence and bestowing responsibility for one’s own mind. Knowledge joins attachment as a foundation of belonging, self-esteem and growth.

The importance of knowledge to Gemini cannot be overstated. Gemini is ruled by Mercury (Hermes in the Greek), messenger of the gods, and by the hands and the arms and the brain. A messenger is someone who carries news from one to another – the deliverer only, not the judge or the king or the slave. The messenger makes no moral statement or value judgment. He or she is essentially neutral. Here we can see Gemini’s democracy in that each message, each piece of news, each bit of data is no greater or lesser than any other. Knowledge is not power here but rather the currency that fills the spaces between people, the connector that brings two separated beings together for one brief moment, or for many. (Music, poetry and art fill similar purposes, and Hermes was known as a musician and poet as well.)

So Gemini must know the news of the day, must trade in common knowledge in order to fulfill his role as messenger, to connect what is separated, to fit the right pieces into the right places. His is not the visionary, moral-driven speculation of the opposite sign, Sagittarius, but rather objective delight in the wide variety of what is. My three-year-old likes to inform me of things: “Mama, some boats can be tippy.” “Mama, the kitty likes to sleep on my bed.” “Mama, the teacher has a big purse!” He is determinedly self-possessed. He wants to be free to explore – sitting down for dinner is a tragic demand – yet he wants and needs to connect with people through the prism of his own experience, his own collected knowledge.

Astrologers often associate Mercury with speaking. But speaking is only one side of Gemini’s coin. Before we can speak, we must have something to say. To have something to say, we must learn something. And to learn something, we must separate from others a little, must be willing to create space for newness even between our ears. And after we learn, in order to speak, we must believe our experience and knowledge are both unique among others and interesting to them. This may be where Gemini gets its reputation for being fickle, restless and flighty. New knowledge must be constantly gleaned so that connections can be continually forged. The world is a bottomless repository of information, waiting to be mined and shared.

Gemini is also mutable air: the winds of change, the inhale and exhale through our lungs, the breeze that blows between us. Air does not discriminate. It is everywhere, without judgment. The Santa Ana winds are gusting through Los Angeles as I write this, and everything in its path is affected: Rich houses and poor houses and those in-between; the beach, Beverly Hills and South Central; dogs and snakes and raccoons and deer; commuters and street people and stay-at-home dads; the leaves, the screen doors, the back porch downspout that fell apart this morning.

In one sense, this lack of discrimination is Gemini’s gift. We all need to breathe, no matter our station in life. Gemini casts out nothing and nobody because it sees inherent and equal value in everything, in everyone. This is the basis of its compulsion to speak to everyone at the party, its tendency to have many varied friends from all walks of life. Coupled with an inherent zest for life, this democratic bent makes Gemini very friendly, curious and knowledgeable. But the trait also makes it hard for Geminians to place value on things, which can make this sign seem scattered, fickle or two-faced. Presented with a pie, she might exclaim in sheer delight, “I love pie!” – and then, with equal zest a moment later, “I love cake!”

It’s important for friends of Gemini to know that, unless there are darker dynamics at work, the exuberance generally isn’t phony. Gemini is an in-the-moment energy, a call-and-response dynamic that reflects and reacts to the current situation. It is the energy we all strive for, to some extent: to be present, without judgment, with what is. To meet each moment as it comes and then allow it to drop away as the next one arises. This gift – and it is a gift – can make Gemini frustrating for people accustomed to planning, consistency and Monday morning quarterbacking. But Gemini will become shriveled and depressed (or even angry) if you try to pin it down. Getting a toddler to sit through a full meal requires restraints – and often results in screaming protests anyway. Why force it?

On the positive side, Gemini lightens what is heavy (remember this is moving, breathing air following the heaviness of fixed-earth Taurus). The rule of law and sense of boundaries to which other signs adhere just doesn’t seem applicable to Gemini. This, again, can be fun and exciting or, alternately, just maddening. Gemini can remain forever in Mercury’s puer form – eternal youth, Peter Pan – or, with a measure of seriousness and focus, it can deepen into its esoteric job of weighing the value of things. It can begin to recognize that not all news, words and people have equal value in its life, that the compulsion to know everyone and everything begins to detract, to diminish what is really important.

This task returns Gemini to the recognition of duality, but this time it is the duality within. Having to choose a person, or a thing, or a belief for oneself calls on the native to turn inward, to recognize, now, the space between ego and shadow, the space between ego and soul. Placing value on an idea, or an object, or a person – choosing this one but not that one – requires me to tolerate my own duality, to reconcile immediate gratification with long-term growth, to choose the difficult but healthy path over the easy but diminishing one.

It also requires of Gemini, perhaps, some silence, some stillness, some dropping-down and turning-inward that can be uncomfortable for this lively, extraverted energy. When your Gemini friend becomes quiet, retreats to a journal or closes her eyes to absorb the music, be aware that this is a different kind of in-between space for this type. Help her create the space for that work. Stand back to make room. And wait for her singular voice to reemerge.

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Gemini energy is best balanced by its opposite sign, Sagittarius. Read the description of that sign to understand what “shadow” traits you might need to integrate. Contact us at (310) 592-0435 or kathy@depthastrology.net for a detailed chart reading that reveals the entire scope of your personality, gifts and challenges.

Image credit

What’s Your Sign?

It’s not as easy to answer that as you might think!

You probably know your Sun sign -– the one indicated by your birthday. But that’s not the whole story.
Though the Sun is important in astrology, a full horoscope chart includes all 12 signs, 10 planets (yes, 10!), 12 houses and a variable number of aspect lines. Astrologers analyze all these elements together to understand the personality and guide clients toward healing, self-understanding and self-realization.

The Sun sign is a good place to start, and it rings true for many people — but not for everyone. For example, you might be an Aries, but if your Moon is in Cancer and much stronger than your Sun, you would probably read descriptions of Aries and think, “That’s not me!” Similarly, you might have five planets in Virgo, or a strong Aquarius, and feel more like those signs than your Sun in Capricorn. Or whatever.

Each planet represents a different way of relating to the world, and not everyone relates primarily from their Sun. A full chart reading can give you more insight and affirm the total you, not just the part of you that aligns with your Sun sign. That said, click on your Sun sign below to get started — and then contact us at (310) 592-0435 or kathy@depthastrology.net to schedule a full reading!

Each sign description also includes links to books, movies and other products that reflect the energies of that sign — great for gift-giving and embracing hidden aspects of yourself. Check them out!

Please note: We are rolling out two signs per week starting October 24, 2008. Check back for your sign on the following schedule:

Friday 10/24: Aries, Taurus, Libra and Scorpio

Friday 10/31: Gemini and Sagittarius

Friday 11/7: Cancer and Capricorn

Friday 11/14: Leo and Aquarius

Friday 11/21: Virgo and Pisces

The Second of a Three-Part Series
Click here for Part 1

Day 3: Jenny’s friend Jessica moved to L.A. about the same time I did, and came for a visit on Sunday to see her old pal. The Dragon was a little disappointed when he realized that Jessica hadn’t come to play with him. Though he mostly kept a polite distance from the two as they caught up on each other’s lives, he punctuated their conversation with a few well-placed strategies for interacting.

First, he offered them popsicles and, when they accepted, carefully carried each one, its stick wrapped gently in a cloth napkin, to present to his guests. Next, he invited them to shoot Nerf rockets from his crossbow in the backyard and was thrilled when they agreed. Finally, when Jessica asked Jenny if she wanted to go out for lunch, the Dragon looked up at me with big eyes. “I want to go out to lunch!” he said. I had to break it to him that we wouldn’t be going. He cried as they drove away, said how much he missed them.

The Moon, ruler of Cancer, symbolizes children, feelings and relationship needs: What do we need to get from someone in order to feel secure, to feel we belong, to expect kindness to visit again? Childhood relationships give us a template for negotiating all other future relationships. The feelings we get from everyday interactions, like those the Dragon experienced on Sunday, are the feelings we ultimately expect to have throughout life: supported? rejected? appreciated? scorned? loved? hated?

It’s not saying “yes” or “no” to every request that’s important; it’s how you say “yes” or “no.” Jenny and Jessica could have sighed and rolled their eyes but said “yes” to Nerf rockets anyway. The Dragon would have caught the tone, and that’s what he would have taken in. But, the Moon strong in both of them, they didn’t respond that way. Similarly, it was okay that we couldn’t go to lunch with them, because what was important was that the Dragon felt his disappointment was an acceptable response. He was supported in it and allowed to feel it. And, when the time came, he was eased out of it, into the next moment.

The Moon is perhaps best described as a mirror. It reflects the light of the Sun: It can only give out what it receives. It can only shine in the manner it is shone upon. A child cannot generate compassion or appreciation for himself if he doesn’t learn how to by those around him.

I’m grateful for Jenny and Jessica and others around my son who understand this, instinctively.

Day 4: Jenny went to her Web 2.0 workshop and I went to work. We’re both embroiled, right now, in figuring out how to disseminate information and products we love across a worldwide electronic network of people who may or may not care.

In other words, we’re selling stuff online.

Sales has long been the domain of Mercury, ruler of Gemini, god of commerce, connections and fast talk. But these days, some Uranus stuff — ruler of Aquarius — is thrown into the mix. Mercury is no longer walking door-to-door, opening his briefcase and showing off the stuff inside. Now he requires the aid of people who know about a quirkily structured system that innovates and evolves at lightning-quick rates. He requires an Internet guru.

As quickly as we can take in the information, organize it in our minds and implement its new forms in our work, the Internet changes. This is where Uranus is truly at home: in a system that changes and innovates constantly; that keeps wriggling out from under the thumb of authorities; that serves, as best it can, the egalitarian principles of equal access, freedom of information, and opportunities for all.

The term “Web 2.0″ seems so quaint now. Surely we’re several generations past that moniker. I want to call it “Web Two-Point-Whoa.” Though, for the most part, I love its values and principles, the pace of the Internet is uncomfortable for me. Mostly, it’s too fast for my style. I’d rather roll a bit slower through my thoughts, let them dry like mud in the sun or ooze through me like water in a sponge. Internet marketing overwhelms me. Sometimes, I fantasize about an Internet for people who like to ponder sloooowly. I’d call it the Ruminet.

So in the evening, overwhelmed with information, a wakeful toddler on our hands, Jenny and I and the Dragon drove up a narrow mountain highway above the city to see the lights spread out below. I can’t help but think, facing a scene like that, about how small I am, how much I’m just one person, how many quintillions of connections are constantly being made not just on the Internet but in real life, electricity buzzing down wires, into homes, into light bulbs — on, off, on, off, on, off — and microwaves and UV rays and X-rays and all those unseen undulations connecting people with people and things and words everywhere.

And also the connections between people all over, face to face, in the dark clay huts huddled in the hills of north Africa, and in the concrete block homes braced against the Caribbean winds, and in the tall office towers rising over the megacities of East Asia, and in the burning desert heats and the pouring-down tropical rains and the silent snowfalls of elsewhere. And I always wonder what they’re saying, and how the response forms in the other’s mind, and what happens to their words when they rise up, or sink in.

And then the connections between people and plants and animals, in so many ways, and between people and images and words, and between Sun and Moon and Earth and other spheres, and between elements, and between the neurons in each individual’s mind, and between molecules and cells and atoms, and between chemicals and matter and energy.

And between what else, we don’t even know.

And we drove back down the mountain, and came home, and went to sleep, and I dreamt that Uranus himself was stealing people from my bed.

Photo credits: Crescent moon, computer, observatory view, telephone pole

The cusp of Gemini barely at our backs, it’s hard not to think about thresholds, margins and in-between spaces, since sign ruler Mercury (Hermes in Greek myth) is the messenger, the go-between, the slipster, the one breezing in and out of the doorways from here to there, all backwards sometimes, upside down, inside out.

Gemini is sometimes written off as the chipper trickster, the perfect party-goer, the motormouth or chatterbox or data bank who can catalogue and spit back astounding amounts of seemingly useless information, from restaurant menus to the latest e-gadget specs to the most crucial words needed to get around town in a dozen different foreign cities.

But lying beneath all the motion, the movement, the hyperactivity is just that: the need to get around town, to be the pen connecting the dots between various points on the map, to be not just the mover of news and information, but the agent of exchange, the one whose vast knowledge of places and people and pieces can move a coin from one person’s hand and into another’s, and a bag of spices back in the other direction.

Hermes is the consummate traveler, the guide of souls from life in this world to the world beyond, the underworld where everything was upside-down and not at all as it seemed. He is Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole, the Little Prince who questioned with simple words the old man set in his ways, the Peter Pan in each of us who refuses to grow up and so is unafraid of death, of risk, of taking off out a window in the wild faithful flight of the young.

Hermes is also the patron of commerce and thieves, who rely on the movement of hands to trade and grasp and take — yes, even thieves; Hermes is not, like Jupiter/Zeus, concerned with what’s right, with moral context or human righteousness. Like Mercury and Gemini, Hermes is an amoral energy — a facilitator, an agent, a gatekeeper, not a judge. He is the messenger, not the decider. It’s not the content of the message that’s important, it’s the fact of being the messenger, of being the agent of exchange, the carrier of information, the connector. The glue along the edges.

Hermes can span the margin between two people to create a momentary connection, an exchange, a circulation of energy from one to the other and back and beyond. When the breath moves in and out of the nose, stopping briefly at the top of the inhale before making its quick descent, its release back out into the world, that is a Hermes task. We take in, we give back, we take in, we give back. It’s exchange; it’s one for one; it’s tit for tat. There is no judgment — no thought, even, really, to speak of. It just is.

It’s not that Hermes, Mercury, Gemini are thoughtless, it’s more that there are so many thoughts that require circulation, there is little time to stop and think about each one, no life energy allocated to differentiating one from the other. That’s not Gemini’s job. It’s someone else’s job: the recipient, perhaps; the person or people affected. Gemini, appropriately symbolized by twins, by two, spans the margins between two people, provides the pathways for exchange, lives in the margins around the boundaries of each of us, connects them up with other people’s margins, creates doorways where none had before existed, in order to help each of us travel between worlds from which we would otherwise isolate, retreat or shy away.

Ironically, Gemini — a sign so brimming with information — is often quite misunderstood. It is not lightheaded or fizzy. Its currency, though often invisible, is the currency of life. It is astounding and crucial and encompassing.

And, yes, it can be a lot of fun at parties.

doorway breath