Date of Rulership: 21st May-22nd JunePositive, male; Quality: Mutable; Ruling planet: Mercury; Element: Air; Body part: Arms, hands, shoulders, collarbone and lungs; Colour: Yellow; Gemstone: Agate; Metal: Mercury.
In the first two zodiacal signs, we saw raw formative powers associated with the beginnings of complex life. Like all rudimentary organisms, Aries set the wheel of heaven into motion with a Big Bang of pure spontaneity and creative activity. Taurus then neutralized these fiery irruptions of vital life force by stitching together an earthenware blanket that funnelled them away from the rest of the cosmic banter, enough to stubbornly work up a sense of self-discipline so that Life could achieve some multiple and visionary aims. Whatever else they may be, Ares and Taurus are intensely self-focused, self-styled, self-serving, and self-motivated. For General Aries and Commander-in-chief Taurus, it’s all about self and satisfaction of self. This all changes with Gemini, a sign which forces a binocular split of life’s hitherto monocular vision; pure instinct has now relegated its position to a rudimentary intelligence acquired through observation and past experience.
Facilitated by a split into two distinct entities than inhabit the space of one conscious being, this formative power is all about mental dialogue and communication. It orientates itself in the world by observing the actions and reactions of others around it, pocketing them into airtight pigeonholes as past memories, and then calculating the direction and angle of its own movement accordingly. Gemini is uninhibited, brave, experimental and multidimensional in its habits. Why race along a straight line at the speed of a bullet train like Aries or dawdle along a perpendicular one to that like Taurus when there are innumerable other options available. Gemini won’t follow a tribal leader or top dog or father figure when it comes to paving out its own life path. Instead it might take a few vigorous little steps forward, take a lunge to the side, trace out a zigzag course diagonally and then proceed to trace out circles on the spot. It needs to experience things from different angles and vantage points; Gemini might start off swimming across an uncharted ocean one minute before deciding that’s its best to grow wings and fly over it instead. Minutes into the flight it might decide that sailing, an endeavour that didn’t quite appeal at first, is indeed a superior option. In the end it decides it doesn’t really want to embark on a lengthy journey to a foreign land and so transmutes itself into a feather which floats about for some time before settling on the surface of an oscillating sea. At any rate, the courses of action it chooses never quite last for extended periods as such, for consistency and method bore the mercurially-natured Gemini. This zodiacal sign exudes mutable energy and derives from ethereal air, and so people born beneath the stars of its constellation are likely resemble breezes and tempests, scattering bits of themselves everywhere but never quite committing or infusing themselves wholly into one specific avenue of inquiry, goal or task. Like air, the “souls” born under Gemini can be wistful, light-hearted and frivolous or tumultuous, dangerous, blind and irrational, depending on which way the daily current blows. And like all lovers of brain noise, they love talking to themselves, to one another, and to everyone else, irrespective of whether their listeners are attentive or not.
“Why would you want to be an Arian or Taurean when you can be me,” says Gemini. “I’m quite the bargain you see. I’m double trouble, two twins that think they’re the same person. With me, you get two pairs of hands, legs, brains, and anything else that tickles your fancy. You’ll never be bored, not even at Sunday Christenings or conventional weddings. Sometimes, you might even feel like you’re an honoured guest at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Of course, I’m the one who gets to pick the roles and tell everyone how it’s going to work; I get to play the Mat Hatter who entertains everyone with my nonsensical riddles, entangles myself in a verbal labyrinth of speaking out aloud, and laughs at my own jokes. You, my friend, can be the passive observer who doesn’t utter a word yet pretends to be interested. Okay? A little bit of this and a little bit of that will keep things interesting and our bodies looking youthful, so let’s get stuck into it. When I want answers about why things are the way they are make certain that what comes out of your mouth is short and sweet; I don’t have the patience for verbosity, longwinded soliloquys or esoteric philosophies for that matter. I find academics, intellectuals and anyone with depth to them intimidating and sometimes excruciatingly boring. I’m a bit like a dogmatic religion sometimes; anything that stands outside my sphere of knowledge frightens me so. Hihi… I know I can be an annoying pain in the neck but I’ll make up for it by acting as your third eyes and ears. You’ll be the first to know the latest gossip on what your enemies are all up to, and that way you can remain that one step ahead of them and look twice, if not four times as bright. When I’m feeling blue, you’ll start getting all the “why” and “what” questions, one after the other. But don’t worry, seldom do I have downers and you’ll love my blasé attitude to the human condition. What of the human condition could ever be of any importance anyway…?’
Gemini is all about the law of twos–dual states of consciousness and mind, a propensity for double vision. One is inwardly turned, tuned into an internal world of thought, memory and imagination, and the other is outwardly turned, thriving in the exterior realm of verbal communication and physical contact. Geminis have an innate talent for living in both at the same time, and can flit between the subjective and objective planes as effortlessly and mindlessly as a circus clown juggling a quartet of coloured balls. This indicates a profound talent for mimicry and deception; they can counterfeit the emotions, feelings and images projected by others to perfection and wear them with such authentic conviction as to attract an Academy Award nomination. Hence Geminis usually make good actors and actresses, and can be quite successful in the denomination of visual arts.
The eternal unrest of their dual vision confers a supernal power seldom realised by any of the other zodiacal archetypes; the ability to chance upon reality through sheer intuition, or to encounter it with the aid of scientific instruments and measurements. A young Gemini is just as likely to become a shy and unobtrusive female artist as it is a dominant and poised male scientist. Sometimes, he or she might turn out to be a bit of both. In fact, the duality of being can be such a dominant characteristic in their psychic makeup that one can easily be fooled into thinking that there’s two individual and well-developed personalities trapped inside the same body. In encompassing polygonal and multilayered views of reality, they come equipped with a valuable philosophy that is easily transposed to a more practical level. Gemini understands that rationality offers the best lens through which life should be viewed. Rationality bestows upon its viewer a sense of providence, the feeling that life is a previous gift not to be wasted. Physical or emotional ideals distort it and imprison one within their own worries and troubles, so much in fact that one might begins to feel that life isn’t quite worth the struggle or effort anymore. Gemini’s inclination to avoid this way of thinking makes its existence a happy and harmonious one.
If Gemini were to be represented by a different totem, it would no doubt have been the butterfly. The latter is a symbol of transformation; it begins life as larva, grows into a caterpillar, and eventually undertakes a major transformation to become a butterfly. The soul of Gemini is like a butterfly, a light-hearted and transient winged entity that flits about here, there, and everywhere, never quite knowing what to do or where to stop. Wings imply breadth of experience and freedom, a quality quite dear to Gemini; freedom abhors law, especially laws of censorship that restrict its self-expression and development. The way of Gemini is not compatible with conservative views, or moral ones even. Like the ephemeral butterfly, people born under this sign can display flashes of ingenuity but rarely does it last. This is probably a by-product of its ruling planet, Mercury, which renders it restless, somewhat unstable, volatile, and most importantly, protean.
Like Aries and Taurus, there are also two symbols associated with the zodiacal sign of Gemini. The first, a pictorial representation of two figures holding hands, has been a subject of some controversy. Astrologers can’t seem to get their heads around whether the pair are two males, two females, a male and a female, androgynous beings, and what the nature of the relationship between the two actually is; are they fraternal twins, identical twins, or unrelated lovers? The ancient cultures were just as divided on this issue as we are today: the ancient Babylonians and Greeks perceived the respective constellation as an image of male twins; the ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, were convinced it was a male-female pair; the primordial Indians saw star-crossed lovers; and the Imperial Romans saw their gods, the Delphic twins Apollo and Diana. The renowned Tarot identifies them as two lovers. Irrespective of gender or relationship status these figures were always depicted with their arms interlinked, illuminating the concept of harmony, internal and external cohesion, and requited love. The second symbol is a shorthand version utilized by astrologers in the creation of horoscopes and is comprised of two upright columns conjoined along the top and bottom. This sign, as the exposition has thus far revealed, has everything to do with duality of being and with the conunctionis or marriage of opposites. Esoterically, one might choose to view this glyph as a conjunction of the Chinese yin and yang or the alchemical mercury and sulphur. It is also a fine representation of an inexplicable link between an upper, heavenly realm of spirits, ideas, and telepathic communication and a lower, earthly plane of concrete and clearly demarcated physical forms.
Both signs draw attention to the fundamental nature of complex life. The one becomes two and the two become one again. Everything that exists in the cosmos seeks contact, union, and co-existence with an immediate likeness without having to forfeit its own identity or personality in the process. Both signs represent opposition and conjunction, and both draw attention to a mortal state of division whose primary purpose is to reconcile all opposites within itself and unite with God. Of course the condition of being alienated from one’s source also has the adverse effect of inciting restlessness and mental agility.
