Certain astrological concepts come, it would seem, with an ominous soundtrack of organ music and thunderclaps: Mercury retrograde, Saturn returns, nearly anything related to Scorpios. Right now, we’re in the much-feared Gemini season. From about May 21-June 21, depending on the year, the sun transits Gemini, and we’re all thrust into a period of energy and motion and, depending who you ask, weird and total drama.
A candidate for Congress punches a reporter, then gets elected anyway? Gemini season. Theresa May loses seats in the election she never had to call in the first place? Gemini season. Your energy feels scattered and wild, or you can’t seem to stop talking, or you’re feeling rude and you don’t know why? Maybe you’re just a human person having a weird day, but maybe, too, it’s Gemini season.
Gemini, the third astrological sign of the zodiac, is represented by the twins. It’s ruled by Mercury, the planet of expression and communication. Gemini’s element is air: think abstract, fair, but maybe a little cold. Its modality is mutable: think open, flexible, but maybe inconsistent. A sun sign in Gemini is typically said to make a person responsive and adaptable, curious and social.
At their best, Geminis are delightful to be around, charming and engaging and smart. But each astrological sign has its so-called “shadow side,” too. For Geminis, their adaptability can come to look like two-facedness; their flexibility can appear as unreliability or untrustworthiness; and their restless, social nature can give an overall impression of too much-ness.
Prince, hero of the sexual and the sublime, is a Gemini, but so is Donald Trump. Laverne Cox, goodness and charm personified, is a Gemini, but so is Joyce Carol Oates. Naomi Campbell and Gena Rowlands are Geminis, but so is Newt Gingrich.
When the sun transits Gemini — when it moves through Gemini’s segment of the sky — it activates our Gemini-ness. The effects will vary, depending on your own birth chart, but in general, the sun’s transit of Gemini pulls at our sociability; our wide-ranging, curious natures; our desire to talk and live and communicate. It activates, too, our contradictions, our multitudes, our inconsistencies and unreliability. It’s a time for high highs and low lows.
The really fearful thing about Gemini season, for a lot of non-Geminis, is that you don’t have to be a Gemini, or even have any major planets in Gemini, to feel its effects. It’s not just about our Gemini friends acting up, but about this acute, uncomfortable awareness of the wild multitudinous unpredictability inside our own selves. When we’re not used to it, it’s difficult to live with our own emotional messiness. It’s not easy to allow ourselves, too, to sometimes be too much.
Gemini can be a lot to handle, but it isn’t evil — no sign really is. There’s no sign that’s bad, only signs that can mess with you, signs that can surprise you, signs that can interrupt your plans. Gemini season will ask you to rise to its weirdness, and you’ll probably have a better month if you’re willing to try. Don’t get too attached to any one idea of the world. Let your friends shift and grow and surprise you. Gemini season will ask you to be flexible, likely more flexible than you’re prepared to be, more than feels easy or good. Still, there are worse things.
