New Moon in Gemini: Coming Up For Air
With eclipse season, Mercury in retrograde motion, and world events it has felt a little intense lately to say the least. This dual natured Gemini New moon is appealing us to come up for air. To take a much needed deep breath.
As I was writing this an excerpt from a blog post I wrote a little over two years ago at the start of the pandemic arose in my consciousness (ironically the transiting North Node of the Moon had just entered Gemini when I first wrote this):
“In the past two years the word selah has often dominated my thoughts. Occurring between verses or paragraphs in parts of the Hebrew Bible, it is a mysterious word of enigmatic meaning at the end of verses in the Psalms: sometimes viewed as a musical direction(the Psalms were originally sung), to indicate a pause for contemplation.
Selah also appears in music, believe to be a cue to hold a holy silence for a few moments to pause in reverence between the notes. Right now, in this moment, there is a unique opportunity to listen to our lives from this profound space. An invitation to use this brief pause from the frenetic pace that life often moves along to deeply reconnect with ourselves and hear the melody of our heart.” (For the full post please click here)
The Gemini archetype is known for its dual nature. Endlessly curious Gemini energy craves options. Exploratory and full of multiplicity by nature Gemini is the querent rather than the oracle. It both asks and listens, potentially learning through this process how to reconcile seeming opposites. Things that are the mirror image of the other.
In recent weeks I had repeatedly found myself being internally pulled in at least two directions and was exhausted by the process. To be completely transparent, it had occurred like a fierce battle within but it was actually a shadow war taking place out of the line of sight of my conscious awareness. I wasn’t sleeping, I even became ill. I would find myself alternating between one part of myself that needed quiet, stillness after the past few years of caring for my mother and then the other who has a multitude of projects gestating within that I am truly delighted by and working to bring into form. These differing parts my psyche were battling for dominance, effectively trying to kill each other off rather than coming to any sort of an internal reconciliation and honoring of each other. And as we all know, a divided house cannot stand. Then two weeks ago in conversation with a dear friend, perfectly timed by the universe on the day of the lunar eclipse in Scorpio, I realized I was in an all too familiar shame storm, one that had haunted me from my early years that I was somehow not living up to my potential if I wasn’t working as diligently as possible at all times. I had somehow made it into an either or situation where no one wins. The funny thing about old habitual patterns of consciousness is they can arise when we least expect them, when we think we have finally put them to rest.
It is a gift to bring an internal battle from the shadowy underworld into conscious awareness. At that point I consciously took a holy pause. I entered a selah and I breathed deep. From the sanctuary of this brief interlude my inner world realigned. I reemerged experiencing a sense of inner attunement that on many levels had been missing in my life since early March.
There is an aspect of Gemini ‘twin’ consciousness that is often overlooked. In Greek myth the twins Castor and Pollux, also known as the Dioscuri, are forever immortalized when the mortal twin is killed in battle and the immortal twin goes to his father, Zeus/Jupiter, because he feels he cannot live without him and they strike as bargain; that from that moment forward they alternated each day, one twin brother being alive, the other dead and then vice-versa the next day.
This theme was originated in Babylonian myth, here the Great Twins of Gemini guard one of the two entrances to the underworld, in particular the route new souls use to rise to the world of the living.
To truly use the experience of this New Moon in Gemini we must realize we are being invited to breathe again. In essence take a selah, pausing to open the floodgates of fertile imagination and profoundly listen to the varying voices within. To ask ourselves how do we hold these parts of ourselves? How do we release them from the underworld allowing all of them fully live? Because they need each other. We can’t be fully alive without our many internal animals (the zodiac was original referred to as the circle of animals). This is how we grant ourselves grace.
Wherever we find ourselves at this moment in time, this Gemini New Moon illuminates this recollection of a timeless truth: The wheel of life is always moving. Our lives are always in motion, dancing to an ever mysterious rhythm of change that at its core, like the Moon, affects the emotional tides within each of us. Gemini reminds us to be in awe of the enchanting beauty of this. The best of Gemini is to always be listening to our lives from a place of discovery.
Which calls to mind another friend, who of course is a Gemini. Years ago she asked me to go with her on a tour to Italy. My initial reaction was that it would be impossible as I was directing Vagina Monologues in the middle of when the tour would take place which meant I literally had to be at every rehearsal. Her response changed my life: “You’re the director," she asked "How can you make both things work?"
Yes, I did indeed make both things work and go to Italy but more importantly this twist of imagination in response to that question changed the way I approached everything. I began to look at how I could make things work in life instead of having to choose.
Imagining a way to let multiple possibilities live is one of Gemini’s superpowers.
The Moon moves quickly she is ever changing, as we all are. But in the midst of daily life, of crisis, we forget that. To me so much of the reminder of this New Moon is the reminder that we are in a constant cycle of change, of death and rebirth. And it is so important that we remain open to that ever changing cycle rather than become resigned or cynical to our current circumstances. To reconcile that varying parts. To the possibility of change, even when things that break our heart seem hopeless.
