Gemini Season: Virtues of the Double Life.

Robert Rauschenberg's Grand Black Tie Sperm Glut

As we embark on Gemini season, let’s quash some of the misgivings about the twins, and celebrate the benefits of being neither here nor there. The Gemini archetype often gets a bad rap: jack-of-all-trades, master of none, the superficial chatterbox, or worse, the glib double-dealer. People often forget that Gemini also rules equity, diversification, and synthesis. Writing, thinking, lungs, and hands are also its domain.  It’s ruled by the planet Mercury which governs movement, transportation, communication, and versatility. Its astrological symbol is a boy and girl set of twins.

I live a very Gemini-type of existence that used to drive me crazy until I learned how to pay attention to the unique experience it affords. It’s a perspective you can only get from being in motion. For instance, it’s only a two-hour drive to Kingston, NY from New York City, but the distance between my two homes feels vast. Distance is something I’ve always craved because it requires the act of bridging. Distance creates objectivity and a deeper appreciation for the people and situations I think I know so well. I’m also a sucker for the thrill of leaving something behind for the anticipation of whatever’s next. I relish the freedom to experience something from all sides because you’re not locked inside. The “refresh button” and I are on intimate terms.

Come to think of it, I’ve always preferred dualism: multiple careers, relationships, and residences. It’s been less of a juggle, more of a fusion––a stitching together of a wide array of knowledge that intersects at me. I double majored in undergrad and grad school. I used to work on Wall Street (NYC) at the same time I was choreographing dances in LA. I currently work as a medical movement specialist and an astrologer in the city, and co-run an artists’ residency/farm in a smaller city that feels more like a shire. Art and finance, doctors and mystics, town and country. What seems contradictory at first glance actually opens gateways of dialogue. I can’t tell you how many times working with one client’s motor skills has helped me crack another client’s astro-mystery; how departures helped me stay the course.

Gemini often gets called to the carpet for being non-committal. I’ve actually found that commitment isn’t the real issue. It’s exclusivity. Gemini can commit with the best of them, but it needs at least a couple of things to move between. Gemini is BUILT to shapeshift. It is capable of great mastery and longevity if it’s allowed to dance with other partners and change the choreography (from time to time).

I do New York City so much better with Kingston in my rear view mirror. The spiky crackle of city energy, throngs of bodies, and variety of encounters I can have in a day is heady. Sometimes too heady. Certain types (me) can get drunk on that kind of stimulation. But, after a few days of voluptuous stillness (which I can get drunk on too), unstructured time with close friends, and trees—city life feels exhilarating. When I first bought the house in Kingston, I feared I would get bored (a common Gemini concern) or that it would be too quiet. Maybe without the contrast of city life, it would. I know this makes sense to those of you who can spend a whole summer’s day jumping into a cold pool after soaking in a hot tub, and then sinking back into the hot tub after a refreshing dip in the pool, and on and on and back and forth…

Gemini energy at its best dives into the contradictory with all 4 hands and both tongues (remember, they’re a pair). It extracts the essence, dare I say, “truth” of divergent streams of information. There is nothing truer than the present. The present is always in motion.  This is where Gemini can get in trouble with accusations of fickleness or straight up lying. The twins are attuned to what’s happening right now, from all perspectives. There is no loyalty to what was true yesterday because the twins instinctively know that the grand truth of life is change. This is Gemini’s deep end. Yes, it has one. Happy Gemini season. Happy spring-moving-into-summer.

Gemini new moon/Saturn-Uranus trine reading list:

Especially the Interregnum section of this political piece.

And this essay about the body writing, movement, the patriarchy, academics, and poetics.

Full moon Scorpio 5/10/17 Your Nether Regions

Scorpio is not just about the nether regions of your body or hell itself.  It's also about the nether regions of your psyche and your heart. At this full moon light is shed on the things we hide from ourselves and others. We have conversations about the things we never wanted to talk about. We face desires we wish we didn't have. But, there they are.

It's a time when we get stripped down and scrubbed sparkly—a big, sexy slough of old identities, fake smiles, and toxic secrets collects at our feet.

We step out into the world, exposed.

Personally, I like a good scrub. Inspect my bathroom and you’ll find all manner of exfoliant, loofah, and body brush. Once in a while I’ll treat myself to a microdermabrasion facial. It’s just a very deep exfoliation that’s done with a diamond-tipped wand (doesn’t hurt). This wand removes dead skin cells and makes microscopic cuts in the skin that cue the skin’s own regeneration process (it lives!). The removal of dead cells reveals brand new skin that can breathe and absorb whatever it comes into contact with more deeply (so hopefully you’re putting good, nutritious stuff on your skin).

I know, not exactly a conversation for the dinner table…dead skin, clogged pores, and all. But, that’s Scorpio. Scorpio has no use for anything superficial; it wants to know what’s underneath. It has the stomach for all the gory details, and always wants to “go there.”

“The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”--Hunter S. Thompson (Mars in Scorpio 8^th house trine Sun-Pluto conjunction, moon 8^th house. That’s a lot of Scorpio)

A Scorpio full moon is always opposite a Taurus sun and sheds light on this dynamic:

Taurus	Scorpio
Amassing	Sharing
Control	Release
My $tuff	Our $tuff
Accept at face value	Nothing is as it seems
Leave well enough alone	Intervene
Preserve	Transform
Holding	Elimination
Constipation	Diarrhea

Yeah. I went there. Couldn’t help it. It’s such a perfect example of the extremes between Taurus and Scorpio. Everyone can relate to these body functions, and the metaphors can go on ad nauseam. Poop is also fitting because Scorpio rules the waste disposal process and reproductive organs. Yeah, all that “down there” stuff. Most people think of Scorpio as the sexy sign, which it is, but we forget it also rules forensics, investment banking, psychology and death. Believe it or not, these things have EVERYTHING to do with the KIND of sex Scorpio wants to have.

There are a million ways to do sex that are healthy and fun, and may or may not involve physical penetration (jeez, do we as a culture get hung up on phallic penetration as the defining act of sex or what), and may or may not involve other people. There’s recreational (Leo) sex, sensual (Taurus) sex, affectionate (Libra) sex, animal (Aries) sex, and on and on. The kind of sex Scorpio wants to have is going to cost you something. Now before you get all proud of yourself because it’s so easy for you to share, chances are that if it’s that easy, it’s not actually costing you anything. When something costs us, we’re talking about loss, our sense of security—being vulnerable. Scorpio wants the parts of you that are hardest for you to part with.  The price is high because what Scorpio offers in return is new life and higher power. I think that’s fair. Except when it’s not. Unchecked Scorpio energy manipulates in the name of absolute power. It can become obsessed with power, and boy is it shrewd and ruthless.

There must be stakes or else Scorpio is not interested. If Scorpio doesn’t walk out of an interaction a different person with a whole new perspective on life---if they didn’t leave a chunk of their soul behind or take a chunk of your soul with them, don’t expect to see them again. Anything short of a religious experience won’t be worth the effort. The Scorpio sex-perience needs you to invest---give up a precious part of yourself in the name of a merger that’s transformative. Through this merger, Scorpio is scrubbed clean with diamond blades. It dies unto itself so it can regenerate with tender new skin and be penetrated. Scorpio sex is alchemical. It is the penetrator and the penetrated—the scalpel and the incision.

Scorpio also has x-ray vision and wants what you got. The psychotherapist needs YOUR deepest feeling/thought material to create new solutions, the investment banker needs YOUR hard earned assets to turn them into something bigger, and a detective would be out of job without YOUR secrets to uncover. In the wrong hands, this ability to work with other people’s stuff can lead to ttrademark Scorpio jealousy.

Hence, typical reactions to Scorpionic people and situations:

“You see right through me. It feels so good to be seen, warts and all. It feels so good to trust. I want to bare my soul to you. Tell you all my secrets.”  Or,  “You see right through me. Get the fuck away from me. That’s not for anyone to know but me. You’re intrusive and creepy.” 

Where might you fall on the possession/power axis that is Taurus-Scorpio?  Right around this time we’re likely to go to one extreme or the other. This full moon should reveal how much exposure you can stand (emotionally, financially, psychologically) and how close you’re getting to the edge. There’s no tightrope walking during a Scorpio full moon. You either jump into to the abyss or retreat into familiar territory. All or nothing. High stakes.

This full moon chart speaks to the closing of a chapter. The full moon (fruition) in Scorpio (death/rebirth) sextiles Pluto (modern ruler of Scorpio), and is accompanied by the changing of the lunar nodes on the Virgo-Pisces (final rest) axis. We’ve been exploring our capacity wake up-and-deal and retire-and-heal for 18-months. We’re sure to feel a palpable shift as the nodes move onto the Leo-Aquarius axis. The nodal shift and the apex of the full moon happen within 24 hours of each other. Something in you or your life is wrapping up. Can you feel what it is? And, no. You are not exempt from Scorpio. It’s represented somewhere, to greater or lesser degrees in everyone’s chart.

We’re all made of the same stuff…just put together differently. It’s YOUR job to find how your relationship to the world works. It’s YOUR job to uncover all the ways you’re similar to your fellow humans, animals, plant life, and cosmos.

That’s astrology.  It’ll cost you some effort---maybe a leap of faith and imagination. The rewards are plenty.