I AM a Gemini

I am a Gemini. Being a Gemini comes with many positive and negative attributes, as do all zodiac signs, and I am the best and the worst of them all.

The following traits are just a few of the universalities of my sign:

On the positive side we are said to be curious, adaptable, intelligent, quick-witted, literary, inventive, congenial, dexterous.

Ah yes, I breathe, here is the artist in me, the writer, the thinker of lofty thoughts, the survivor, the capable me. I am not so sure that being congenial is such a positive trait, however that could be up for debate another time.

On the negative side we Geminis are changeable, scattered, restless, irresponsible, lacking in follow-through, lacking in concentration.

Oh yes, here I recognise my procrastinator, the indecision that can plague me, the list of unfinished projects that get waylaid through a penchant for perfectionism. The crippling place where great ideas go to be parked until they reach perfectionism before they eventually roll over and die.

Like waiting for Godot that never comes, ideas and inspirations are meant to be acted on, not waited on. They don’t care if they are perfect or not. They just want to be born, like us, to be born into the world of stars, to be perfectly imperfect, or imperfectly perfect.

And so, I can see both sides of the coin so to speak, but is that just a convenience of universality? If I read my Angel oracle cards, I-Ching or Tarot, there is enough universality in the cards to adapt to any situation in question or recess of the mind jostling to be heard among the noise. Can the alignment of the stars, the cards, the tea leaves really tell you something about your own future I wonder. And wonder and wander I do…

I have spent my days looking at clouds and my nights looking at stars, contemplating this world and the world beyond. Seeing so much more in the shapes that change, the light that emanates, the shadows that are cast, and the spaces in between.

Without the spaces in between, nothing would make sense. There would be no breath, no wind, no star signs, no space to contemplate the other. It is in the spaces between that we can make sense of form, measure it against the other and find its differences, it’s shape, it’s scale, it’s placement among the world of other forms, its uniqueness.

These spaces are also where our minds go to contemplate, to dream. Where ideas drop in from the universal ether. Without the spaces in our minds, we would not have time to think lofty thoughts. Imagine that, with no space to dream, what a dreary world this would be, full of facts and figures. In fact, without the spaces in between, perhaps we would all be mad with minds full of crowding thoughts that have no space to take shape or form in the world of ideas.

Just think to the times you have a problem and the days you can’t stop the thoughts. They come in at lightning speed, jostling for attention and validation. Not all of them wanted. In fact, some of them should be banished back to the ether from where they came. However, some thoughts are jewels to be caught and polished into the radiance they deserve. To become the stuff of artistic or literary beauty, or the stuff of invention and innovation.

To quieten this crowded world of thoughts, meditation or bodily actions can settle the mind. Both mediation and action can take the mind away from the barrage of competing thoughts and give space to the rise of new thoughts, private answers, and the organisation of ideas.

This can also be when we turn to fortunes such as our astrological positioning to help sort out our tangle of thoughts into flow. Our flow in flow with that of the universe and our position within it.

So, what is astrology but a form of alignment? An alignment in the deeper space of our universe. Alignment of the position of the planets and the stars within that universal space relating to the time when our own star was brought into the light of this world. With that alignment we have learned to attach meaning, to give it a shape and form of its own, that at once has an individuality and universality about it.

Along with the position of our birth among the stars, we are universally said to inherit a set of attributes and personality traits. How much does this ring true for us all? I can only look at my own alignment with the attributes of my sign, the Gemini. How much these traits influence my understanding of myself or my personality I cannot be sure. Through the study of quantum science we now know that the mind can effect the outcome of a scientific experiment.

Here are a couple more things about being a Gemini take my mind through a journey of the lofty. Gemini is an Air sign along with Libra and Aquarius. This thought brings me back once again to the spaces between, the ether. The space where we can see and find alignment and meaning in the forms around us and at the same time, the highway, the conduit of ideas and universal thoughts.

I like to think that being an air sign is spirit-like, the air, the ether, carrying vibrations across the cosmos. The wind sometimes feels like a spirit wind that blows in gently alerting a consciousness that cleanses, revives and frees the negativity from my body. Sometimes it is so subtle, it appears like a breathe in the stillness and seems connected to my thoughts.

The air we breathe is vital to our existence, and the lack of air, oxygen, can put out a fire. The fire we carry within, the spark of our energies is vitally ignited by the air we breathe. So being an air sign has great meaning for me in the world of ideas and communication from the universal intelligence.

This brings me to the fact that I am a Mercurial Gemini. I remember being fascinated by the metal mercury as a child in our science classes. The teacher rolled mercury across the desk. This wouldn’t be allowed now as we now know how poisonous mercury is for our bodies. I loved the way it rolled in raised and gleaming grey silver balls and blobs. It was fascinating that this is what our thermometers held inside them to measure our body temperature or the temperature of the air.

This was the kind of science I liked, the kind that provokes thought rather than cold hard facts. The science that set an imaginative mind in a trail of connected thoughts that had nothing to do with the actual mechanisms of the thing itself.

As you can see, my nature as a Gemini was not to just accept the learnings, but to use them to travel into other dimensions of the mysteries of the world around us. Somewhat lofty and ungrounded, leading to other ways of seeing the worlds that are not concrete, but of the mind. The realm of the daydreamer.

This leads me to the other thing that I love about being Mercurial which is that Mercury is the sign of the winged messenger. The winged messenger, winged feet and winged cap, fleet of foot and winged mind that links to the messages from the universal intelligence. The conduit between earthly realms and the realms of the other, the spiritual, the universal guidance from the ether.

When I think of the conduit, I think of St Elmo’s fire, the name given to the weather phenomenon generated by thunderstorms or volcanic eruption. Sailors relate it to an electrical discharge observed around masts that can cause, ionization of the atmosphere, crackling radio disturbance and of luminous plasma light effects often having a bright blue or violet glow. A phenomenon that sailors took as a good sign, signaling the end of the storm and the clearer weather to come.

The story of St Elmo’s Fire is also linked to the two brightest stars in the Gemini constellation, Castor and Pollux which are of ‘high marine navigational significance’.

Castor and Pollux derive from the ancient Greek myth of twin brothers and the story of Leda and the Swan. Leda was the Queen of Sparta whose husband was King Tyndareus. The god Zeus fancied Leda and disguised himself as a swan in order to 'have his way' with her. Leda became pregnant with two eggs both bearing twins.

One egg was fertilized by the immortal Zeus and the other by her husband the king. The egg fertilized by Zeus contained both a girl (later to be known as Helen of Troy) and a boy, Pollux. The other fertilized by her mortal husband the King also contained both a girl and a boy, Clytemnestra and Castor.

The story of the twins is epic and I invite you to read the journey of the twins. If only my ancient history teacher had lit my fire with juicy and intrinsically linked stories such as these that hold meaning in the world of today as well as the pages of history books.

The basic thing I take away from this story without going into detail is that the twin sons with different fathers loved each other dearly and joined the voyage of the ship The Argo in the quest for the Golden Fleece. They became known for their ability to calm stormy seas and Poseidon, God of the Sea made them defenders of shipwrecked sailors, and gave them ‘the power to create favourable winds at the drop of a hat’.

Somehow, the twins fought over two women resulting in Castor being killed and taken to the underworld. Pollux was beside himself in grief and prayed to Zeus to take him as well. Zeus offered Pollux to come and live on Mt Olympus with the other Olympian gods, but Pollux could not leave his brother in Hades, the underworld.

A compromise was reached where both the brothers would divide their time daily between Hades, the underworld and the heavens of Mt Olympus. Zeus also placed their images in the stars forming the constellation Gemini where they shine as the brightest lights within that constellation and be the guiding lights of sailors below.

There are other versions of this myth, but I like this one and note that in fact it was the ancient Greeks that gave us the 12 signs of the zodiac relating to the 4 elements and the 12 constellations in the sky at different times.

I contemplate this myth as relating to the positive and negative traits of the Gemini at work. The heavens and the underworld of the psyche, and the journey through both that allows for insight and empathy for the joys and sufferings of others through their journey of life.

Finally, I would like to mention that a Google search of Gemini also now brings up the well known and well respected US based cryptocurrency exchange. This connection now represents to me a journey of histories and futures, a journey into Hades, the underworld of coin that is set to become the Mt Olympus of futures.

This is a world of trade that challenges the known structures of the now, gives hope for the financial futures of many, plays the game of fortunes told and fortunes lost, and where our world of finance now plays into the very ether of the cyberworld.

Jacki Fleet