Gemini New Moon

The darkness of the New Moon in Gemini will be fertile with numinous meaning, illusory visions, and the truth that can only be discovered through inward searching, exploration, and incubation. The monthly union of Moon and Sun always delivers a reanimation of meaning and intention, a reseeding of ideas to develop and distribute in the times to come. The Gemini New Moon on June 17 or 18, depending upon your time zone, is particularly potent in terms of its alignment with the Solstice. The Cancer Solstice that will take place on 21 June 2023 is one of the peak moments of the year, the time of the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere when the Sun at its greatest height of declination creates the longest day of the year. It is a time period of extremes, in the northern hemisphere delivering an extremity of solar light and noetic radiance, in the southern hemisphere bringing the nadir of the Winter Solstice. The Gemini New Moon being aligned with the fiery fertility of the solstice will amplify the mental and intellectual potency already possessed by the living image of Gemini, the airy home of Mercury.

The Gemini New Moon is applying closely to a disorienting square aspect with Neptune in Pisces, with the Gemini Sun forming an exact square aspect with Neptune one day later on 18 June. In recent years as astrology has become more popular I’ve noticed that Gemini and Neptune are two of the most misunderstood and stereotyped signs and planets, perhaps due to the echo chamber of astrology on social media and podcasts, as well as the tendency for students of astrology to focus on learning keywords as part of their developing understanding. For example, many on social media will be stating that the Gemini New Moon will involve being lost in an illusion due to viewing Neptune as a nefarious influence that always pulls people into deceptive illusions. This is interesting as a fundamental aspect of being human is being in illusion and learning how to navigate through our own illusions. This is always occurring whether we are experiencing a Neptune transit or not. Also due to many factors intersecting with the widespread influence of misinformation and manipulation through the Internet, the need for critical thinking and reflecting upon our own illusions and projections has become a constant need whenever we open one of our technological devices streaming the worldwide web. It is also true that the transit of Neptune in Pisces as well as larger planetary cycles related to Neptune have been a major part of the astrological influence shaping our present predicaments with illusion. But there is much more to the meaning of Neptune than false distortions.

While the Gemini New Moon is applying to Neptune, the Moon is flowing away from a conjunction with Mercury in Gemini and sextile aspects with Venus and Mars in Leo as well as Chiron in Aries. Experiences of disillusionment and probing through inner chambers of imaginal illusion will be necessary for many during the inception of the new Gemini lunar cycle, but the insightful agility and facility of Mercury in Gemini can help facilitate realizations of deeper truths and revelations of meaning that help in reorienting to a more profound understanding of our developing life narrative. Moreover, the combined influence of Gemini with Neptune can help open awareness and relationship to unseen forces present in places such as the land we occupy and the lineages of our ancestry. Neptune can dissolve the illusions fed to us by cultural conditioning and the limitations of mainstream thought, but this involves doing the difficult work of questioning our long established beliefs and the ways in which we have been led to believe reality operates by human constructed institutions.

The Gemini New Moon is in the airy home of Mercury, while the star of Hermes is also present in Gemini and heading into the darkness of its morning setting. Mercury will be visible as a morning star for the final time in the days following the lunation, a critical solar phase for Mercury in which the divine presence of Hermes becomes intensely alive in the world and full of important messages to deliver. Pay attention to the underlying importance and meaning of incoming news, messages, signs, and synchronicities as the star of Hermes will be delivering insights and significant pieces of information and new perspectives in need of consideration. As Mercury moves into darkness, the star of Hermes will be guiding us through a liminal period of Mystery during which we may realize ways in which our perspective and understanding needs to undergo a regenerative process of death and renewal.

Crucially, Mercury in Gemini is moving away from a critical square aspect they formed with Saturn in Pisces on 15 June into a creative sextile aspect with Venus in Leo that Mercury will form in the hours leading up to the exact union between Sun and Moon on 17 June. Mercury is in position to bring a critical eye to developing plans and visions, inspecting the underlying foundation of dreams while also being open to the creative inspiration of Venus. Venus has recently moved through her maximum elongation as an evening star and into her solar phase in which she is becoming increasingly bright in the sky as well as heated in temperament. Combined with her position in the radiant home of the Sun, Venus in Leo is full of fiery desire and creative impulses that can be transmitted through Mercury into the intentions we form during the inception of the new lunar cycle.

“The tension of the future is unbearable in us. It must break through narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable. Running away is deception and detour. Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.”

Carl Jung, Liber Novus (130)

In the days surrounding the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, the days of the most extreme solar light, Saturn and his scythe will saturate the astrological atmosphere due to the star of Kronos stationing in stillness. Saturn will station retrograde at 7º13’ Pisces on 17 June, the same day as the New Moon in Gemini. The stationing of Saturn will demand an examination of your present use of time and space, as Saturn brings tests that take time and will ultimately help lay the foundation of subsequent creations. Saturn will remain retrograde until 4 November, offering a period in which to re-evaluate the foundational structures you have been building during the first half of the year. At the same time Saturn stations, it will form a harmonious sextile with Jupiter in Taurus that will become exact on 19 June. This sextile is unusually important as it will be the first major aspect Saturn and Jupiter have formed since their epochal conjunction at the end of 2020.

As a result, the Gemini new moon will be helpful not only in orienting toward the coming month, but in reflecting upon everything that has happened since 2020 while re-conceptualising plans for the years ahead. Although Jupiter is not in a place where Saturn has any essential dignity, Saturn is in the watery home of Jupiter and so the stationing of Saturn can coincide with a meaningful injection of purpose. There is a fortuitous synchronicity involved in the alignment between Jupiter and Saturn forming their waxing sextile at the same time as the Solstice, making it an incredibly auspicious time for soul searching, creative visualization, and planning.

There will be a heightened mental and imaginative atmosphere to create within from the solstice until the full moon in Capricorn on 3 July. However, we will also need to be mindful of navigating through the volatility of Mars in Leo forming a catalyzing square aspect with Uranus on 26 June followed by Venus forming a square aspect with Uranus on 2 July. After Mercury enters the watery sign of Cancer on 27 June, the star of Hermes will form harmonious aspects with both Saturn (on 29 June) and Jupiter (on 1 July). At the same time, Mercury will become reanimated by a conjunction with the Sun in Cancer, also on 1 July. Moreover, Neptune in Pisces will simultaneously incite a tidal wave of imaginal activation due to stationing retrograde on 30 June. During the waxing phase of the coming lunar cycle, take the time needed to question motives and potential directions while digging deeper into any further research required in the formulation of long-term plans.

Gemini 3 Decan

The New Moon in Gemini is in the third face of Gemini associated with the Ten of Swords card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. The image is dreadful at first glance, as it features a figure laid low by ten swords plunged into his backside. However, the appearance of this image is also an important reminder that we need to pass through periods of death and loss as part of acquiring the renewal of deeper understanding. While the card’s image contains dark skies and death, there is also brilliant light present in the sky revealing new beginnings. T. Susan Chang in 36 Secrets wrote that the Ten of Swords can show up in readings for those dealing with depression or endings, but it can also involve the cathartic rebirth that often follows “a big ugly cry” or “a crucial reset button after it seems you have exhausted all your options.” The regeneration that follows death and loss present in the image fits well with the fact that the Sun and Saturn are the rulers of the third face of Gemini. The Sun’s rulership of the third decan of Gemini is further fitting due to the Sun being in process of climbing to its greatest height of declination in the northern hemisphere during it’s journey across the third face of Gemini that takes place in the week leading up to the Summer Solstice.

The death and regeneration within the image of the Ten of Swords also aligns with the influence of Egyptian culture upon Hellenistic astrology and the Thema Mundi chart for the birth of the universe which lies at the foundation of numerous astrological concepts. From this perspective Cancer is the beginning of the cycle and the first house of the nativity, making the third decan of Gemini the end of the cycle, the final of the thirty-six faces of the zodiac. Austin Coppock ascribed the image of “An Executioner’s Sword” to the third decan of Gemini, writing that though “the other decans of Gemini involve discovery, exploration, and simultaneity, in the third wait choices- judgments that must be made. To achieve actuality, a multitude of possibilities must be sacrificed.” Thus the image of a dead man with ten swords plunged into his back resonates with surrendering to the end or death of a cycle, as Coppock described this face as “the final bloom of internal and external polarization,” a place where the “depth of polarization necessitates a choice between the Twins, a resolution to interminable bifurcation.”  To Coppock the third decan of Gemini “is the climax of a story of polarity,” a face in which a sacrificial death “reduces a warring pair back to a stable unity.”

The Hellenistic text 36 Airs ascribed Praxidike to the third decan of Gemini, goddess of judgment and exactor of vengeance, signifying the complex karma encountered here in decisions made and actions undertaken. The Orphic hymn to Persephone connects Praxidike to the subterranean queen, signifying the psychopomp side of Gemini that holds space between worlds and between cycles. Austin Coppock in 36 Faces linked the decan’s image of “An Executioner’s Sword” to Praxidike through the “sword of judgement.” To Coppock, “to hold or face such a blade is to understand the consequences of one’s choices. Those entrusted with this blade grow wise and judicious, else fall to the very tool they wield.”

Though Gemini is a sign of multiplicity and holding the complexity and paradoxical interplay of binaries and dualities, the third decan of Gemini involves the deep understanding and revelation that ultimately emerges from patiently tending to the tension of oppositions. Rather than forcing an “either/or” or “black and white” choice and decision, we often need to live with and contemplate the tension of oppositional dilemmas before we can realize the judgement that needs to be made or receive the inspirational answer that transcends the conflicts we have endured. Demetra George’s translation of The Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius (a Greek language text ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus during early Roman Imperial period, possibly around 50 CE) reveals a potent image for the third face of Gemini: “It is the figure of a woman who seizes a thunderbolt in her right hand and holds a small water urn in her left hand. Her body is winged from her middle to her feet and she has a crown upon her head.” May this image serve as an intermediary symbol for the understanding that may emerge from the Gemini New Moon pouring down revelations from the heavens, and the awakening that may occur like a lightning strike that suddenly bridges sky with earth.

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References 

Chang, T. Susan. (2021). 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. Anima Mundi Press.

Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: the history, astrology, and magic of the decans. Three Hands Press.

George, Demetra. (2021). Egyptian Decans: Star Gods of Time. Astrology University.