After the lazy, sensual groundedness of Taurus season, Gemini season arrives with an energy that’s sharper, less solid, more diffuse. If Taurus season is earthy, focused on the body and the five senses, Gemini season — which usually runs from about May 21 to June 21 but this year starts on May 20 — offers the chance to turn our energies outward again to the social world. If Taurus season is a time for earthy work and earthy luxury, Gemini season is a time for fresh air and sparkling light, for ideas and conversation.
Gemini is the first air sign of the zodiac year, and as an air sign, its energy is bright and social and intellectual — less tethered to some of the more solid practicalities of life. Sometimes this “airiness” is misunderstood as an indicator of an empty head, but if anything, it’s the opposite: Air signs are always buzzing with ideas, schemes, and mental energy that can move too fast for the rest of us to even notice.
Because Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication and connection, this air-sign energy can take on a chatty, highly verbal, extra-extroverted shine. Think about how expressive, how charming, how totally fun and delightful Stevie Nicks always is in her interviews! Geminis are intellectually curious and broadly observant of the world and people in it. Even if you’re typically more of a thinker than a talker, even if you’re typically someone who hammers out your thoughts before sharing them, in Gemini season, you might feel compelled to think out loud, not to hoard your best ideas but to share them, to connect with other people.
This drive to connect can manifest as a desire for different kinds of experiences. While some signs find routines comforting, too much predictability feels mind-numbingly tedious for Gemini. Regardless of whether you are a Gemini, this month is a good time to switch things up — take different routes to work, talk to strangers, or simply watch a movie that ordinarily might not interest you. Don’t imagine that you must travel to the ends of the earth to find variety. Gemini is a champion of finding what is new and exciting in our own neighborhoods and everyday lives.
The downside to this, of course, is that routines provide necessary structure, discipline, or focus. While Gemini’s hunger for a broad range of knowledge and experience can be intellectually exhilarating, it can sometimes feel like a frustrating lack of focus. During this season, your attention will likely be more scattered than usual. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing! If you simply let yourself be dazzled by the world and all it holds, the universe will reward you for embracing your curiosity.
All of this affable, open-hearted curiosity gives Gemini an undeniable charm — this is a sign that knows how to have real fun with just about anyone. Gemini’s symbol, the twins, points to its essential adaptability. It’s so innate that Geminis can seem like two separate people — able to be just as happy in the club as in the library, as much at ease on a crowded bus as in business-class seats.
It’s this bright sociability, this ease in adapting to be comfortable anywhere, that can lead other people to imagine Gemini to be “two-faced” or duplicitous — as though in order to feel so at home in so many disparate contexts, some kind of fakery or inauthenticity must be involved. This can manifest in some weirdly strident anti-Gemini sentiment. Remember when Lizzo, a Taurus, dedicated a song to every woman who has ever “been victimized” by a Gemini? (“Should I slander Gemini? … You know what? Yes. Give us a reason to like you, Gemini.” Ouch!) Like every sign, Gemini has its shadow side, and all of its magnetic charm can easily be used to selfish, nefarious, or just chaotic ends. Still, there are so many reasons to love the sign. Gemini season has so much to offer!
In Gemini season, you can let go of the idea that you can only act one way, that you can only be one thing, that you have to choose between all the different sides of yourself. In Gemini season, you can recognize that every part of yourself is equally authentic, equally real. See Walt Whitman’s classic statement of Gemini intent: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” See Agnes Varda’s signature two-toned hair! In Gemini season, you can follow your curiosity, and you don’t ever have to be bored.
