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.
–
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.
Recent Comments