Full Moon in Gemini

Like heavenly fire reflecting phantasmic images amongst fluctuating, oceanic waves, the Full Moon in Gemini on 15 December 2024 will illuminate the swirling formlessness of potential vision so we may commit to the next phase of forward directionality. Whatever hopes, fears, inspirations, ideals, and desires have been commingling within the inner recesses of your imagination, the lunar light of the Twins will render formerly unseen dimensions of the crossroads visible, enabling choices to be made and decisions discerned. The lunation spotlights the final week of peak darkness in the northern hemisphere, peak light in the southern hemisphere, an annual quality of time ripe for deep dreaming as the Capricorn Solstice will occur less than a week later on 21 December. However, due to the monumental changes and accelerating developments signified by the astrology of 2025, the ending of 2024 holds an unusually palpable feeling of stark transition and the approach of a gateway we must cross and not return from. The Gemini Full Moon will serve as a beacon of light for navigating the transition from the first half of the 2020s into the second half of the decade that promises extraordinary volatility and the kind of primordial chaos that always emerges with the dawn of a new era.

The mutable nature of Gemini signifies transition, its lord Mercury a god of thresholds and the in-betweenness we experience when crossing doorways from one state to another. The star of Hermes will take on an intensified presence under the silvery light of the Full Moon, as Mercury will station direct about twelve hours after the Gemini Moon reaches peak light. Mercury stationed retrograde on 25 November and in the past month has passed back and forth over aspects with Jupiter and Saturn, weaving the intimate meaning of our personal lives into the much vaster cycles of societal change signified by Jupiter and Saturn. Once Mercury begins moving forward again in the week following the Gemini Full Moon, Mercury will complete its final aspects with Jupiter and Saturn on 26 December only two days after Jupiter and Saturn reach a critical phase of their cycle on 24 December. While this means that there will be a lot of development with present storylines occurring during the waning half of the present lunar cycle, it also means that the combination of Mercury stationing with a Full Moon in its airy domicile will be extremely powerful for practices of centering, mindfulness, and inner visioning. The weeks ahead will help in releasing whatever has not been effective and gaining clarity for what to focus on and develop.

Accentuating the capacity for visionary insight is the fact that the Full Moon is also forming a conjunction with Jupiter retrograde in Gemini. As the Sagittarius Sun sets on the night of the lunation and bright Selene arises over the eastern horizon, the star of Zeus will also be rising over the horizon in its brightest phase of light. The union of the Gemini Full Moon with Jupiter can help in lifting vision beyond present predicaments to view the larger field and coalesce insight into the next moves to make that will support your goals for the year ahead. Since the Gemini Full Moon is not only separating from a conjunction with Jupiter, but also applying toward a square aspect with Neptune, the lunar tides will strongly activate the imaginal dimension of perception. The Gemini Full Moon’s activation of Jupiter and Neptune will make it a powerful moment for enlarging the scope of your visions and dreams and the possibility for what you can create with your life in the next year. The key will be keeping in mind the necessity of working within limitations and not taking on more than you can manage.

At the same time visions of future possibility will be activated by the Gemini Full Moon, we will also need to contend with the fiery intensification of inner transmutation brought by Mars retrograde in Leo. Mars retrograde in Leo is applying to an opposition with Pluto in Aquarius that will continue to intensify for the rest of December, and as it will continue to correlate with massive power conflicts and discord in world events, it will also deliver revelations concerning where we have been giving our power away so we may begin claiming our authority to empower and pursue the creative directions that will most fulfilling. Venus in Aquarius recently activated the Mars and Pluto dynamic by passing through an exact opposition with Mars on 12 December. While the activation of Mars and Pluto by Venus could have dredged up difficult inner material that requires processing, it also could have placed you in touch with the emerging desires that hold vibrant new life to come into deeper relationship with. Fortunately, in the week following the lunation Venus in Aquarius will be applying toward a flowing trine aspect with Jupiter that will become exact on 19 December, only a couple of days before the Capricorn Solstice. The abundant accord flowing in between Venus and Jupiter is another symbol for how the Gemini Full Moon can illuminate restorative vision for new hope and possibility, in spite of whatever disillusionment or despair you may be feeling about the present state of the world. This means that the Gemini Full Moon will also herald a period for strengthening alliances with those whose vision of the world they wish to help create aligns with yours.

The underlying reason why the Gemini Full Moon can open a portal into much larger trajectories of change is the fact that it is intersecting with a critical phase in the Jupiter and Saturn cycle. Four years ago at the time of the Capricorn Solstice, Jupiter and Saturn began a new cycle in the first degree of Aquarius. They have now reached their first waxing square aspect of their cycle, similar to the first quarter Moon in the lunar cycle that brings an acceleration of growth, except applied to much larger cycles of societal change. Jupiter and Saturn will form their second of three exact square aspects on 24 December 2024. You may gain additional insight by reflecting upon personal developments when Jupiter and Saturn formed their first square aspect on 19 August, keeping in mind that they will eventually form their final square aspect of the sequence on 15 June 2025 once Jupiter has moved into Cancer and Saturn has moved into Aries. This means that the square between Jupiter and Saturn this month is their final one while occupying the mutable signs of Gemini and Pisces, symbolizing the extraordinary state of transition being activated by the Gemini Full Moon.

While Saturn places the limits on the endless potentialities of growth fertilized by Jupiter, Saturn also can help us in being grounded and patiently discerning, rather than being inflated and wasteful. Jupiter can also help us find meaning and realization within whatever loss and constraints are being brought by Saturn, as well as the opportunities for new growth that will eventually come out of whatever death and endings are being overseen by Saturn. Since Mercury rules the Gemini Full Moon and is not only stationing direct on the same day as the lunation, but also will then move forward into forming exact aspects with Jupiter and Saturn at the same time that Jupiter and Saturn are reaching their critical phase, the rest of December will be an ideal time for letting go of what needs to be put to rest from the past while coming to terms with how to begin implementing plans for the year ahead. Since there will be a New Moon in Capricorn on 30 December shortly before the new year, altogether the astrology for the ending of 2024 will be more supportive for the formation of new year resolutions than normal.

Yet since the Gemini Full Moon is also moving in between square aspect with Saturn and Neptune in Pisces, we will also become more aware of whatever personal issues will be deepening with Saturn and Neptune coming to the end of their cycle. The ending of the Saturn and Neptune cycle that began in 1989, and the approach of their new cycle that will begin in February 2026 is the most important out of all the extraordinary astrology occurring in the next couple of years. Saturn and Neptune are both moving direct and heading toward the end of Pisces and the beginning of Aries, with Neptune reaching Aries at the end of March 2025 followed by Saturn at the end of May 2025. Saturn and Neptune at the end of their cycle can correlate with great disillusionment, confusion and disorientation, but as we may have to contend with the death of a dream and the shedding of old ideals, it also means that there will be vibrant new dreams and inspiring ideals emerging in the next year.

One of the crucial necessities of contending with Saturn and Neptune periods is being deliberate about structuring time for joy, pleasure, and enriching community and so the light of the Gemini Full Moon aligned with Jupiter can be helpful for making plans with friends in community. Saturn and Neptune ending and beginning a new cycle can also correlate with a great awakening, and so the activation of their cycle by the Gemini Full Moon may also deliver crucial insights into self realization and the role you wish to play in the ways the world will be undergoing great change in the years ahead. Whatever insights are realized under the light of the Gemini Full Moon may be deepened on the day of the Solstice when the Sun enters Capricorn on 21 December, as the Moon will be in Virgo and activating a potent configuration of Mercury in Sagittarius, Jupiter in Gemini, and Saturn and Neptune in Pisces. It’s true that the Solstice is always powerful for deep dreaming, but this year will be especially the case.

Gemini 3 Decan

The Full Moon will illuminate the third decan 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. Since this is the Full Moon in the third decan of Gemini, the lunation is instead illuminating the approach of the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere and the Summer Solstice in the southern hemisphere.

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 in 36 Faces, 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.” The presence of Praxidike is especially potent in relation to the way the Full Moon in Gemini is marking a critical phase in the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn, the ending of a Mercury retrograde phase, the beginning of a Mars retrograde phase, and the fact that we are approaching an unusually climatic transition from one calendar year to the next. Decisions will need to be made and all potential pathways cannot be followed. Praxidike will be lending her sword to the intensified presence of Mercury stationing direct, and as Mercury generates forward movement we will gain clarity for the choices of necessity we must face. The Full Moon in Gemini will shed light on the many nuances and complexities involved in present circumstances, information we will need to process before making final decisions.

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 Full 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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I also recently created this video going more into the dynamics of the Gemini Full Moon as well as a forecast for each of the twelve zodiac signs:

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.