Artful Astrology : Gemini Season & The Magic of the Mind
Gemini Dream: The Magic of the Mind
From the fixed and grounded middle of spring comes dynamic and curious air in the mutable form of the twins. Welcome to the third sign of the zodiac, Mercury-ruled Gemini. The Gemini archetype is oft misunderstood or relegated to the flighty and fickle follies of youth domain. I’ll attempt here to unravel my understanding of the third sign of the zodiac.
Gemini sprung from the quick and illusory planet of Mercury i.e. Hermes or Thoth — mystical messenger, dispatcher, and record keeper of the gods. Mercury is ruler of the mind and communication but also knows that to transmute one’s thoughts into language is a kind of alchemical magic. This is the domain of the twins. Gemini walks the fine line between stimulation and overstimulation, between the exhilaration of idea and the slump of overwhelm. Gemini knows that there are endless options and this knowledge can send the twins into paralytic upheaval. This way, no that way, both ways, or no way.
But this every-which-way is also the key to Gemini’s dynamism — his ticket to the magical underpinnings of which Mercury brings and sings. Gemini is a wordsmith, a magician, and a communicator and as such, knows that the mind contains god-like mysteries and horrific drudgeries. The devil is in the details and this means that god is in there, too. Somewhere.
We know that Gemini split himself in two so that he could have someone with whom to speak. But what about the splitting itself? When something, formerly whole, splits in two, we get two things that exist of their own accord, are their own wholes, while also yearning for the one whole thing they used to be. We also get the space of the split, the hole where new information, perspective, and perception shines through — offering us some new air where there was once just matter.
Gemini rules the hands and as I type this I am ultra-aware of the mercurial quickness at which my tattooed fingers tap the slippery keys. Gemini knows that this electrical circuit which connects the mind to the hands is our gateway to Truth, that we can get free through the mind and its conversions, through transmuting the physical and spiritual into mental processes, through splitting buildings and studying the aftermath — doubled, bleak, and bright.
The third house in astrology, the house of Gemini, is about writing, communication, and intellect. It’s when we start to scatter the information that Taurus fixed in place, it’s when we realize that knowledge needs to be disseminated, gathered, and disseminated again. Gemini operates in bursts and no one can accuse it of being steady. The rhythm goes — disrupt, adapt, disrupt, and adapt and the twins are best suited for life with the Other and the Other should be of quick wit and challenge because when Gemini is left unchallenged, it will summon quandary from wherever. The devil finds work for idle hands, minds, feet, lungs. Let’s end this airy Gemini journey by visiting its home planet, Mercury.
The ancients thought Mercury was two different planets because of its changeable nature. Mercury is magic, strangeness, damage, quickness, and heat, as it is the planet closest to the sun, is our very visible star, is quick and wit-filled, tricky and ever-changing. As life is ever-changing, as humans are ever-changing, embrace the twins their ability to see both sides, to be, in fact, both sides of the same whole and to look see world through that lopsided split. Geminis are multi-hyphenates and they learned this on their home planet. The original millennials. Though Gemini is considered the masculine Mercury sign, of which Virgo is the feminine — Gemini is the actually the many-gendered and non-gendered youthful energy that is fond of ideas, of turning ideas around and around in the mind and mouth. The Babylonians considered Mercury to be of both sexes, as it can be seen as both a morning and an evening star, allies itself with night and day, and is illusive in its plasticity, its affinity for multi-whatever. Integrate the feminine and masculine of the twins, for the lesson of Gemini is that we all contain multiple directions in one mind-body.
Practical & Mystical Applications of this Gemini Energy
Look to what house is ruled by Gemini in your chart, for it’s getting illuminated by these mind-centered energies all month.
Mind your communications.
Write!
Get poetic.
Get handsy, i.e. work with your hands
Ask yourself:
What do I intellectually value?
How do I use my mind and with what is it occupied?
How do I make decisions?
How am you split?
Ponder the mercurial and ultra-Gemini sentiment of Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jeane, who once poetically said, “The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or smiling into your eyes, or just by staring into space.”
A different version of this essay first appeared in The Avant-Galaxy Journal.
About the Author
Emmalea Russo (she/her) is an artist, writer, and astrologer. After her whole system got shocked by her first grand mal seizure at age 19, she started to wonder how the stars and planets influence our minds and bodies. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on edge spaces in human consciousness, art, and epilepsy. Her books, which combine visual art and writing, are G (2018) and Wave Archive (2019). She received her MFA from Pratt Institute and has been an artist in residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and 18th Street Arts Center.
She has taught classes and workshops on the creative process at RA MA Institute, Parsons School of Design, The Art Institute of Cincinnati, and elsewhere. She writes about astrology, art, and culture at The Avant-Galaxy Journal and hosts The Avant-Galaxy Podcast. She lives between the New Jersey shore and Los Angeles. Book a chart reading or astroplanning session with her here. A version of this piece first appeared on Emmalea’s journal, The Avant-Galaxy.
