On November 23rd, 2018 we have a Full Moon at 0° Gemini.
The Full Moon in Gemini is a culmination of what you have started 6 months ago, when we had a New Moon in Gemini.
6 months ago, I wrote a blog post called “New Moon in Gemini – 50/50” where I talked about the concept of duality.
This is what I wrote:
“Gemini is the sign of duality. The Gemini Glyph is represented by the Roman number two, signifying the sign’s dual nature. The two parallel vertical lines are joined by two crescents. One cannot exist without the other.
Geminis are known for their ability to shape-shift and change in a flash. One personality is there one minute, only to be taken over by the other, the next minute.
But it is only in this space of duality and apparent conflict that life can emerge. Before we make a decision, we are firstly faced with the paradox of duality. Duality is a condition of life.”
That was at the time of the New Moon. 6 months have passed. The seed has blossomed into a beautiful flower. The beautiful flower is the Full Moon. Full Moons are times to bring what we have started to the highest form of manifestation. The 50% becomes 100%.
Gemini’smental chatter ultimately becomes a vision.
Uncertainty ultimately leads to certainty.
Ambivalence ultimately leads to action.
Every new beginning (even if it goes unnoticed) ultimately flowers into an output.
Every 50% eventually becomes 100% – that’s simply how life works.
The duality of 50/50 is where everything is possible. If 50% is the phase where you have complete free will and the power to shape your destiny, 100% is the result of the actions you have taken.
The closer we get to 100%, the less free will we have – at least in theory. In reality, the 100% is the result of every action, or every decision we’ve taken along the way.
When we don’t understand, when we are not aware of the actions we’re taken, of the choices we’ve made every day, along the way, we call the 100% fate.
When we pay attention to what we’re doing, (and Gemini is the sign that teaches us just that – to pay attention, to be curious) then 100% is not fate, is conscious co-creation with the divine.
The Full Moon’s ruler, Mercury, is now retrograde in the opposite sign, Sagittarius. The output, the 100% of the 50% you’ve started back in June might not be quite what you expected. It will likely come as a surprise. But you shouldn’t discount it by any means.
Mercury is conjunct Jupiter, the planet of the higher mind. The puzzle comes together. You can finally see the bigger picture now.
You can finally see the compound effect of what you’ve been doing in the last 6 months.
On 13 June 2018, we have a New Moon at 22° Gemini.
New Moons are about new beginnings. Every month, every time the Moon rises from the darkness, you have a chance to start something new.
The zodiac sign where the New Moon takes place gives clues about what kind of energy you will work with in the coming month.
This New Moon is in Gemini. Gemini is the 3rd sign of the zodiac.
The 1st sign of the zodiac is Aries. Aries is the spark of life, the impulse to leave the dark, watery Pisces, and emerge as a new soul. Aries corresponds to the phase of conception.
Taurus is the 2nd phase – Taurus takes what is initially only an idea, and makes it real. Five to six days after fertilization, the embryo finds a safe zone and implants itself in the uterus.
The 3rd phase of development is Gemini. Gemini is similar to the cellular division process. In order for life to grow, it has to divide and multiply until it reaches a stage where differentiation can take place (Cancer).
The Paradox of Duality
Gemini is the sign of duality. The Gemini Glyph is represented by the Roman number two, signifying the sign’s dual nature. The two parallel vertical lines are joined by two crescents. One cannot exist without the other.
Geminis are known for their ability to shape-shift and change in a flash. One personality is there one minute, only to be taken over by the other, the next minute. To the outside world, they seem as though they have a split personality.
But it is only in this space of duality and apparent conflict that life can emerge. Before we make a decision, we are firstly faced with the paradox of duality. The Yin / Yang symbol is a great representation of the constant change of balance between one state of being to another.
“I can’t split myself in two”
One day, the lion, the king of the jungle, asks all the animals to come together. All the animals in the jungle gather at the expected date in front of the lion. Then the lion says: “Now, I want you two split into two groups. The smart group and the beautiful group. If you think you’re smart, go to the right. If you think you’re beautiful, go to the left.” All animals do as they are told. They form two groups. Only the monkey stays. The lion asks: “What about you? Please choose your group”. And the monkey, desperate, with tears in her eyes, says. “I cannot do that. I cannot split myself in two”.
Jokes aside, this is a good example of a Gemini duality conflict.
Duality is a condition of life. Most of the time we don’t like it. We want to make a decision just because we are uncomfortable with not knowing.
But by rushing in, we skip an important phase of the individualization process which can otherwise teach us so much about ourselves and about the world.
Be a little bit ‘schizophrenic’
Interestingly enough, Gemini is also the sign of research, numbers, and unbiased data. If the opposite sign, Sagittarius is all about dogma and information you don’t question, Gemini is about raw data and information you do question. It is about approaching everything with curiosity, from a position of ‘not knowing’.
It’s about believing the numbers, even if they go against your beliefs.
The lesson Gemini can teach you is one of embracing duality. Learning to work with the two twins inside of you. Let them co-exist, even if you feel a bit schizophrenic at times. Let them both investigate, research, discover the world, build on their own experience, and grow.
The New Moon in Gemini is a great opportunity to start a project on a topic you feel uncomfortable with, on a topic you know little about. All you need to do is start with a beginner’s mind. Make sure you track information in an unbiased way. And then take in the outcome, even if it goes against what you believed to be true.
The Full Moon in Gemini takes place on December 3rd, the same day that Mercury goes retrograde. This Full Moon is also a Supermoon, which means its energy is going to be amplified.
The Moon is most powerful when at Full Moon, when her light outshines the light of the Sun and our emotions are stronger than our Solar consciousness. Just look at the Full Moon. The Full Moon is honest, the Full Moon reveals herself entirely. When full, the Moon wants to expose everything, to show things as they really are.
The Full Moon on the 3rd of December is in Gemini, and will be all about illuminating the truth.
But if you want to find it, get ready to get your mind blown.
The Full Moon is in an exact square to Neptune, forming a mutable T-square – we have the Moon (in Gemini), Sun (in Sagittarius), and Neptune (in Pisces). Facts (air, Gemini) come into conflict with our faith (fire, Sagittarius) and our emotions (water, Pisces).
In this symphony where the mind, the spirit and the feelings – all want to get their voice heard, it is worth noticing what keeps them together – that is, the mutable energy. Gemini, Sagittarius and Pisces are all mutable signs. The only constant is change.
Jazz is the only type of music characterized by spontaneity and improvisation. Jazz payers go on stage often without knowing what they are going to play. They have one thing in common: the willingness to listen and to adapt to what other members are playing, the ability to improvise, and as a result, they create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Jazz music in very Neptunian and Gemini-like in nature.
To tune into the Full Moon in Gemini you have to be a bit like a jazz player.
To say Neptune will make this Full Moon interesting is an understatement. Neptune is the abstract understanding of life. Where the mind fails to understand abstract concepts such as time, space, infinity, Neptune has the answers. But Neptune’s answers are not clear definitions, cook book recipes.
“Lady, if I told you, your mind would explode.” — Louis Armstrong, when a woman asked him what he thought about when he played
Neptune got the bad rap of planet of confusion and lies. But how many of Neptune’s lies are really lies? And how many are truths in disguise, truths we don’t want to accept because we don’t understand, and out of comfort, we label them as lies? Neptune is about going beyond the here and how, and beyond form and spirit.
The Neptune square to the Full Moon can make you doubt your own sanity, but if you push through, you can go through to the other side. You can finally understand things you were never able to understand before.
Let’s not forget that the Full Moon is in Gemini, the sign of the mind.
Gemini is all about observable facts. Gemini’s superpower is its ability to pay attention to what is going on and discover the world though immediate experience.
Remember when you were a child and you were curious about everything? Children learn how to speak, how to learn, how to relate to the world through trial and error. So does Gemini, and even when we grow up, our innate curiosity to explore and make sense of the world is what keeps us sane.
Sagittarius, on the other hand, believes without seeking evidence. Sagittarius is the sign of faith. If Gemini is Google, Sagittarius is Wikipedia. If Gemini is one detail at a time, Sagittarius is the big picture.
Sagittarius is the cook book recipe. It’s the news on television. Is the books you read, the ‘truths’ you don’t question.
The full Moon on the Gemini / Sagittarius axis is a quest for the truth. Do you explore the world in your terms (Gemini) and risk to have a one-side vision, or do you follow the tested path, with the risk that the path you walk is someone’s else (Sagittarius)? The Full Moon, which is an opposition, will strike to find a balance. As a result, you can have an epiphany.
You can have a sudden and striking realization, something you completely overlooked can finally come to place to give you an unblurred vision. Mercury, the ruler of the Full Moon, stands still in the sky in that very moment, preparing to turn retrograde.
When Mercury changes course its energy is the most powerful. Mercury turns retrograde in the last degree of Sagittarius.
Sagittarius stands for the big picture, for the truth…or more exactly, what you believe to be the truth.
Retrogrades are about going back in time, to review and process events and dynamics that have not been fully processed. What knowledge have you taken for granted?
Mercury will walk the sky path from 30° Sagittarius back to 13° Sagittarius twice – firstly in retrograde from December 3rd until December 22nd to ‘fix the problems’. The 2nd time Mercury (now direct) will walk the path will be from December 22nd until January 10th.
Mercury goes retrograde exactly at the time of the Full Moon, just when he was about to complete his journey in Sagittarius.
Mercury in Sagittarius is about the big picture – Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius will ask you to de-construct the big picture and look at each individual piece of the puzzle. How do you arrive to conclusions? How does your mind really work?
Most of the time, our decisions are emotional, reptilian, and the mind just comes with a narrative to justify what our reptilian brain has already chosen.
Mercury will press the rewind button in the last degree of Sagittarius. “Wait a minute…just when I thought I got this right, just when I thought I am done with the Sagittarian lessons, there is still something that I don’t quite get”.
Right at the end of Sagittarius, Mercury is also conjunct Saturn, which is about to leave Sagittarius in the coming days. Before Saturn leaves Sagittarius for good, he passes the torch to Mercury and says: “Go back. See if you did not miss anything. But this time, take it slowly, be diligent and cautious just like I am. Don’t let anything escape your sight”.
Mercury is in detriment in Sagittarius. The path he is asked to explore is awkward and unfamiliar. Not only that, but he has to walk it backwards. Not an easy task, but he has no choice. He needs to clear the path and sort things out.
This is not the path of knowledge as we know it. Mercury’s backwards journey in Sagittarius will expose a basic truth: you cannot ‘download’ knowledge, you cannot copy paste it, you cannot take it from someone else. You have to walk the path yourself.
Just imagine what would have happened if Adam and Eve hadn’t been tempted to eat off the tree of knowledge, hadn’t been seduced into taking a shortcut.
Today, in the era of instant gratification of knowledge, the message of the Full Moon in Gemini with Mercury retrograde conjunct Saturn couldn’t be more actual: Take your time, do the research – you only get to knowledge through real experience, by walking the path yourself. There is no such thing as universal truth, you have to find your own.
The path of true knowledge combines Gemini’s quest for discovery with a beginner’s mind, with Sagittarius’ faith that we already have all the answers we need, and that the Universe has our back.
The coming weeks are a time to (re)discover the truth, beyond any stereotypical ideas and outdated beliefs, a truth that shines so bright that cannot be dimmed.
We have a New Moon at 4° Gemini on May 25th. The New Moon is unaspected and the New Moon ruler, Mercury is unaspected as well, so we will have pure Gemini energy, curious, movable, playful, like a dandelion sweetly wafting on a gentle breeze.
This New Moon in Gemini is great for learning and explorations of any kind. Not the type of learning you get when you enroll in a class, when you listen to what others have to say, but the learning you do by yourself, by touching, smelling, tasting, making your own sense of the world, exploring life with a beginner’s mind.
I love unaspected planets. Although we can find at times the free energy of an unaspected planet uncomfortable, the unaspected planets are in fact the pure expression of the genius of the Universe. When a planet is aspected, it cannot express itself freely, it plays by the other planet’s rules.
Imagine you want to make a song, or to write a poem, but your Mercury is conjunct Venus – in this case you will start thinking “what would the others like to hear? …or is opposite Jupiter – and you start wondering “what other songs sound like the one I am trying to write?” or gets a square from Saturn – “which nodes should I use for the bass guitar in C minor?”. You see, the free expression of Mercury is blocked. You cannot write a song playing by the rules, music knows no rules. An unexpected Mercury is a like a jazz player who is not “owned” by the music, but instead is able to spontaneously express himself through music.
“You cannot tread the path before you become the path yourself” – Zen saying
Gemini rules the mind, so the New Moon in Gemini is a great time to get rid of our “autopilot”, of our habitual tendencies, preferences, prejudices. If we choose to shut down the autopilot and open to the present moment, to our intuition, we can experience the reality in a completely different way, we can finally lift the veil of illusion, and for the first time be able to see things how they really are. Trust your intuition to alert you to your true priorities and the chances you need to make.
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders” – Lao Tzu
But don’t let the lighthearted, curious nature of Gemini fool you. We have a very tight Venus square Pluto in Cardinal signs which is almost exact at the time of the New Moon.
Venus square Pluto is an extremely passionate aspect, is the aspect of “desire”. When we want something desperately nothing can stop us. Desire can turn into fascination and obsession. We can literally fall under the spell of our consuming desire and want to “get” the object of our interest, no matter what.
Although you may not want or you may not be ready to give course to your intense desires, try to stay with this energy and understand where it comes from. Something you’ve been neglecting in your life is now asking for chatarsis. What is it? How can you honor it?
Venus square Pluto can also point to some inner lies – how do you find your false comfort? In emotional eating, in excessive drinking? What about your false sense of control, by overthinking, overanalyzing, overscheduling? The false sense of avoidance? Procrastinating, saying “yes” when you mean “no” – all these false beliefs will be challenged as Pluto will ask us to face them for what they are.
Venus square Pluto will blend with the energy of the New Moon in Gemini, giving us an insatiable desire to discover the world around us.
The sabian symbol of the New Moon ruler, Mercury is “A woman watering flowers in her garden”. You choose which thoughts to water and grow, which skills to focus on. You are your own master.
Every New Moon is a time for new beginnings. Because both the New Moon and the New Moon ruler are unaspected, the New Moon in Gemini is giving us the opportunity to manifest whatever we want. Write down your wishes and intentions. Imagine yourself becoming one with the seed of intention you are planting.
On December 13th and 14th, depending where we are in the world, we have Full Moon at 22 degrees in Gemini.
We are invited to open our eyes wide to a world of fascinating experiences. Open your mind to the variety of experiences and wealth of knowledge outside as well as inside you.
Full Moons are times when the hidden comes to light, when things below the surface bubble up to be seen.
The December 13-14 Full Moon will be culminating events, feelings and emotions that took place around the New Moon in Sagittarius on the 29th of November. Back then, you’ve been asked to awaken that adventure seeker inside you.
Now, the possibilities you have invited in your life will start to materialize.
We are not only feeling ready for renewal, for a fresh start, but we also have fresh ideas on how to put our intentions into action.
We have a hunger to learn as much as we can, from every source: books, social media, experiences, people.
We may find difficult to get our brain to shut off, because things we haven’t noticed before start catching our eye.
The ruler of the Full Moon, Mercury is about to turn retrograde in achievement-oriented Capricorn, drawing attention to matters of mind, ideas and communication. In Capricorn, Mercury is very practical and won’t mess around with things which are not likely to move us a step forward. Mercury in Capricorn loves recognition and, and in most of the cases, he really deserves it. If you are a Gemini or Virgo, or have a Gemini or Virgo rising, this Full Moon will speak to you very strongly.
But what is really special about this Full Moon is that we have three amazing and rare configurations – a grand trine, a mystic rectangle and a kite. It is very rare to have one or two of them, but to have all three it is really unheard of.
Firstly, the Moon forms a Grand Air Trine with Jupiter in Libra and Mars in Aquarius. Your mind will be more clear than ever and you will be able to articulate yourself with confidence and ease. Brainstorming and public speaking will come so much more natural to you now.
Secondly, we have a Kite, which is actually an extension of the Grand Trine. In addition to the Moon / Jupiter / Mars trines, we have of course the Sun/Moon opposition (Sun is also conjunct Saturn) and a sextile Jupiter –Sun/Saturn and another sextile Mars – Sun/Saturn. The influence of the Kite adds extra motivation and potential. The opposition is especially productive in showing us the “how” – what we need to do to put our ideas into practice.
And finally we have one of the most rare configurations, a Mystic Rectangle. A Mystic Rectangle forms when two sets of oppositions are sextile to each other. With Sun, Saturn, Moon, Jupiter and Uranus in the mix, the Mystic Rectangle is a portal of manifestation of extraordinary insights. We will see things for what they are, we will start noticing nuances, and how things are connected with each other. The combination of tense and harmonious aspects produces the best dynamics for the constructive use of natural talents.
With these amazing configurations, the Full Moon in Gemini will be truly special. Let your mind flow wherever it goes, without any restrictions. Use your voice, speak up, talk about your interests and your ideas. Learn about the interests and ideas of others.
Put yourself in places that spark your interest. Find outlets for your curiosity. Analyze trends and measure data. This is a good time to check out the Astro Butterfly calendar for 2017 here
The Full Moon in Gemini will make our mind run a mile a second and will give us an insatiable desire to learn and discover. Because this Full Moon is supported by some amazing configurations, we are likely to gain tremendous insights and achieve extraordinary results. Gemini rules the cognitive processes in our brain. Visualize yourself succeeding, achieving every goal, completing every task.
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve” – Dr. Napoleon Hill
