I would love to live
like a river flows
carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding
John O’Donohue
During the window of the May 22 Gemini New Moon, set an intention that sparks new pathways for communication and exchange of ideas. The larger astrological landscape reveals that we are evaluating what we want to communicate and exploring the motivations that propel our communications.
Our minds are highly active, but it may be difficult to focus, as if we are channel surfing throughout the day, flitting from one topic, one activity to the next. We may feel frustrated if we wish to be one-pointed and focused on a select task.
We are meant to meander, meant to take detours, to go off script and do something we hadn't thought to do when we first got out of bed on a given morning. We have entered a period of exploration and discovery. There is not only permission but encouragement to let the mind wander, to give ourselves to activities or conversations that we think are a distraction, and enjoy where they carry us.
Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus & North Node are all in Gemini
The finish line is for the ego.
The journey is for the soul.
Pattie Gonia
Gemini is fueled by what is most compelling in the moment. Motivated by curiosity to learn and engage something new, Gemini thrives on exchange. We may find ourselves exploring new ways to conduct exchange.
Communication is the primary vehicle to enact an exchange.
We are looking for novel ways to exchange information, love, products or services. We are more apt to learn new modes of communication, invent new ways to communicate and explore mediums that enhance communicate. Virtual and online platforms are likely to appeal in a new way. We may feel inventive, even playful around discovering alternative ways to conduct business or connect with family and friends.
Adaptability is a predominant theme as 7 planets and the nodal axis are in mutable signs. Like a reed in a fast flowing river, we are encouraged to bend and flow with the motion of current events and engage information streaming towards us. It is not so much that we initiate or invent a new way to communicate, it is more that we stumble upon it because we remain curious and interested in what crosses our path.
Gemini favors the intellect, is keenly observant, and absorbs empirical data like a sponge. While crafty, it is also practical and has an eye for what is useful. Our minds are stimulated, perhaps overstimulated. We light on an idea and then jump to another when something new catches our fancy. There is a fickleness, a reticence to land on any one solution or plan of action. It is okay if we are drawn to dip a toe in different pools of thought and activity and find ourselves going in multiple directions. Gemini, after all, is a sign of duality, believes that variety is the spice of life and enjoys keeping several balls in the air.
It is beneficial to look at the next month as a time of exploration, of gathering information, of trying out new things, and being willing to see where our curiosity takes us. Committing to any one course of action may actually stir mischief. Much wisdom can come if we open to what we don’t know rather than asserting what we believe we know.
New Moon square Mars - Our desire to learn and gather information is fueled. Conversations can be heated with passion and earnestness. We may be eager to communicate our ideas and to even devour information about available options. As long as we are not trying to pressure another to our way of thinking, conversations can be enlivening.
Great knowledge is universal
Small knowledge is limited.
Great words are inspiring.
Small words are chatter
Zhuangzi
New Moon trine Saturn – There is a soberness to our exploration. Naturally light-hearted and fleet-footed Gemini is less interested in adventure for adventure sake when tied to Saturn. Gemini's tendency for idle chatter or being a social butterfly is tempered by a need to have words, what is spoken, what is thought to be generative. While green-lighted for giving ourselves to diversions and letting our curiosity lead us, Saturn's bridle harnesses the exuberance of Gemini, of the inquisitive mind, to use its time, curiosity, and wit to give substance to ideas and connections that can pave the way to something enduring.
Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people
Eleanor Roosevelt
Mercury, ruler of Gemini conjoined with Venus and Squaring Neptune
Geminis tend to be talkative and gregarious, able to converse on multiple subjects. Mercury, rules Gemini and represents our mind - how we perceive, process and utilize date and experience. The Gemini mind likes to make quick decisions and to keep moving. Speed reading was probably invented by someone with an emphasis in Gemini. Social Media is built for the Gemini personality.
To listen requires a slowing down, and an ability to reflect.
The art of listening is an aspect of communication that can readily take a backseat to the hunger to share or explore a viewpoint. Mercury saddled up alongside Venus in Retrograde and squaring Neptune introduces the element of confusion. Our thinking is not clear. It may be fantastical. We may be overwhelmed or questioning ourselves or our motives. What we previously knew and understand about ourselves and life is being turned on its head. Mercury's current position further emphasizes that this is truly a period of learning.
When the eyes and the ears are open,
even the leaves of the trees
teach like pages from the scriptures.
Kabir
While we may be inclined to connect and communicate with others, there is an undertow that is carrying us inward, where questions fuel a new way of thinking, a new way of conversing. It is prudent to heed the pull to slow down, to listen, reflect on information being received, and even questioning the mechanism in which we perceive, sort and make decisions is also built into the next month as Mercury begins to slow down and ready for its next retrograde phase June 17 – July 12.
Venus is in Gemini for Four Months (April 3 – August 7)
A lot of the pain we are dealing with is really only thoughts. Abishek Shukla
Venus Retrograde (May 13 – June 25) lingers in the sign of Gemini. While the Gemini New Moon encourages outward adventure, Venus is pointing us to the inner adventure that has us learn about the nature of our mind, and what motivates us to communicate at all.
During her extended stay in Gemini, Venus is currently retrograde. She has a retrograde phase every 18 months that lasts 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and nights and Noah’s ark sheltered the animals of the earth for 40 days and nights of rain. It is a time of retreat, of descent to recover something of value, that has been previously devalued or lost.
Venus is what we value. It is self-value and the value we assign to things, people, ideas. She rules relationships, money, and pleasure. When Retrograde, we are called to examine our values, where we have compromised them, and how they might be better expressed and incorporated into our relationships and lives.
During this time, we may withdraw into ourselves or get some distance from others so we can get perspective. We may also be contacted by people who we lost track of or we may reach out to a friend or old lover. The friendship or romance may or may not be renewed, but the contact is a means to recovering or reconciling with something that was lost, some essential value that we compromised or minimized along the way.
With Venus Retrograde in Gemini, we are looking at what we value about communication and how we wish to communicate. We inevitably find ourselves looking at what information draws and repels us and what shapes our perspective on something. We look at the very nature and structure of our thinking mind. Where does a thought originate and what life experiences have shaped the way we perceive and take in information? We are invited to go down to the very roots of what inspires our thinking, our interests, our values and the way our mind works. We have the potential to shed thoughts, like old skins, that once gave our identity its definition in a process to unearth an enduring value and potential for thought and communication.
The central problem
Is not that you think
Too highly of yourself.
Nor is it that you think
Too lowly of yourself.
Instead,
It is that you think
Constantly of yourself.
WuHsin
Venus square Neptune. Our imagination is activated. Our mind is opened and deepened. We are highly creative and idealistic. The energy is fantastic for creating art, meditating, communing with nature or flights of imagination, but not so good at problem-solving or seeing things in a practical or realistic way - especially in regard to relationships and finance.
As we realign with the fundamental values that enliven and give our life meaning during this Retrograde, we naturally want to see these values better incorporated and expressed in the life we have. Initially, within our relationships we may want more from another than is realistic. If we place expectation is put upon someone to live up to an ideal we have of them or the relationship, that person may feel burdened by the expectation and not equipped to meet the need. Likewise, if we fall in love during this period, we likely will idealize the relationship and not see the other person clearly until the Retrograde is over.
Until both Venus and Mercury turn direct on July 12, it is best that we don’t make decisions or give ultimatums based on the disappointment we may be experiencing in relationship. We are reconnecting with our own self value, and when both these planets move forward, we will have better clarity on where we can compromise and where we cannot. If we must make decisions during this period about finance, relationship, real estate or large purchases, all may go well if we have done our due diligence and not taken short cuts in weighing all the variables. It is the rash decision, the one made from impulse or a sense of urgency that will create mischief for us.
The engine of the world economy is firing up again, and there is a general enthusiasm to get on with it. The Gemini New Moon quickens our adventurous spirit to meet new people, enjoy generative conversation and to try new things. Yet, as 3 planets, including Venus went Retrograde the middle of May just following Pluto turning Retrograde, and Mercury who will join the Retrograde parade in a few weeks, there is no clear pathway to moving forward. Charging ahead with plans and decisions will likely leave us frustrated or disappointed. Something has changed within us and within the world. Decisions that worked several months ago need to be rethought now.
There is a voice
That doesn’t use words.
Listen.
Rumi
Let us embrace the coming weeks as a time of meandering, of ruminating and exploring. Enjoy conversation. Enjoy the journey. Let go of the thought that we need to know where our life is headed right and soften the urge to make concrete plans for how to meet specified goals. Plans are essential, but allow the plan to be more a starting point and accept that plans will be readjustment as new learnings, new information, new insight emerges.
May we all listen, and from this listening encounter a wisdom and a way forward. We may or may not have heard this wisdom before, but we are now ripe to follow a new way as never before.
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