The Logical Gemini

I learned I was a Gemini at the same time I learned how to spell my name. I was a Gemini, in the same way, I was a girl. In the same way, I knew I loved art and hated broccoli. It’s who I was. 

I was two people trapped in one body. I could be anything I wanted to be, change to fit any environment, be many different versions of me. I was smart and passionate and loyal to those I loved, which made me ardent in my desire to share what I learned. I believed this, in the same way, I believed in the sun rising and that the waxing moon would soon wane. I saw it with my eyes. And with the doubtless mind of a child, I took it as it was presented. The proof was all around me. But the evidence betrayed me. 

As I grew up I fell in love with science, I was smart as being a Gemini and taught me to be. And I learned that the sun did not rise, the earth turned on its axis as it spun around this glorious ball of fire. The moon did not change its shape merely sometimes our planet got in the way of the light it would reflect, which created the pattern. I began to question what I had once known as fact. Did the stars floating all the way up there in the universe beyond our reach and their relative positions at the time of my birth somehow determine who I was as a person? My mind rebelled. What a ridiculous notion.

And if I believed in logic and reason how could I believe in something as irrational as astrology? It was pseudoscience at best and at worst a tool used by con men to extract financial gain from the weak-minded and lost souls. And I began to notice that those who believed used their faith as an excuse for their behavior. I saw a friend reject a love interest because their star signs were not compatible. I saw my mother refuse to go on a holiday because the skies spelled a potential travesty. A colleague explained to me that they simply couldn’t multitask because that’s not what Scorpio’s did, it was too hard for them. 

If this collection of beliefs were merely excuses and there was no solid logic behind the conclusions how did I come to be the perfect embodiment of what I had known a Gemini to be? I found myself wondering if I was strong and kind because I was a Gemini or was I strong and kind because I was told that that’s what a Gemini was. And I was a Gemini after all. 

And here I found the solution in my mind for why so often those that could read the stars would be right when my scientific brain knew that it had no reason to be. If you believed you were incompatible, you would be looking for what was wrong in the relationship. If you believed there was danger coming for you, you would find it even on a perfect day. If you believed you could not multitask then you wouldn’t ever try and thus that skill of toggling between activities would never be discovered. This was no great mystery after all. Merely the act of directing your brain to confirm what you already knew to be true. The same as when you decide to look for red cars you suddenly notice how many red cars there are on the roads. Your brain wants to comfort you with the knowledge you are right and so it happily provides the proof that you are. 

My star sign was placed in the back of my mind, a fact about myself no longer offered but merely presented as the answer to a question. My universe was neat and ordered again as it had been when I learned to spell my name. I was no longer a Gemini, I was now logical instead but it amounted to the same thing. I knew who I was and how it affected my existence. 

And yet I would still find myself on a day when nothing went right, checking to see if Mercury was in retrograde. When I found that I simply couldn’t make a choice I would glance at my horoscope for guidance as to which brain to use. And when I wanted to avoid explaining my behavior to myself and avoid reflecting on my choices I would shrug my shoulders and remind myself I couldn’t help it, I was a Gemini. But I did all this in secret. I would never admit to anyone I still looked to the skies. I had chosen logic. I could not let the stars decide. And yet when things did not go to plan I found myself looking for a reason outside of who I was and what I was doing.

To believe in nothing greater than yourself is to carry the weight of your world as Atlas did. And as strong as that may make you over time, it was Zeus’ punishment and not a trial of growth, to carry the world on your shoulders and hold up the skies for Earth. And I could think of no good reason that I should be punished every day of my life. So why not share some of the weight I carried with the skies. And here again, I found another puzzle piece. Did it matter if astrology was true or false if it provided comfort to those who believed?

It seemed no more ridiculous to believe that the stars affect who we are than to believe that a bearded man lives in the clouds and takes attendance in certain buildings on a Sunday. And I had never thought that those who believed in any of the many gods needed to change how they feel because they could not prove it was true. If any belief gives you comfort and a sense of order to the chaos we experience as life, why not believe? 

Here I stumbled. I could think of many reasons not to believe. To seek irrational comfort for the sake of an easier life is not the way in which we grow and change. And what was worse was beliefs like these were the cause of so many wars, so many arguments. So many problems that we have, are created by the story we lay over our reality with our beliefs. 

The map is not the terrain. It was something that I struggled to understand. The map is the path you know, the guide for how to get through this thing called life. But it is not life itself. It is not the terrain. It is only one way of looking at what is around and creating order so that you may travel. And while life is not a journey and there is no destination we are trying to reach, there is a terrain, which we traverse in our time that is made easier by a guide. Was it not worse to be without a map, to have nothing to believe in? No higher power with which to surrender to for the sake of peace in this life. I made a bargain with myself that belief was fine as long as you never told anyone else what to believe in. It was a bargain I had to learn to keep. 

I had resolved I could be both logical and a Gemini but it seemed the world did not share my view. I found amongst those that shared my intellect mentioning my star sign was met with a scoff. And to those who asked what my star sign was, found my explanation of our desire to order the universe as dismissive and rude. I tried in vain to help each side understand the other. 

I explained to the scientist that knowing as we do that everything is connected through quantum physics it is not ridiculous to think the stars have an effect on us. I reasoned that if the moon creates the tides in the ocean it must have an effect on us as humans who are sixty percent water. I spoke of the same things to the lovers of stars and asked ‘Is this not proof that science supports who you are?” 

Some people gave leave that my argument could be true. But no one ever really agreed that astrology was logical, and that logic made astrology true. The answer remained; no. We are opposed. We cannot exist together. And while I did not understand why at the time, I felt it ruffle my feathers. 

Despite my promise to myself, I would always leave others to their own beliefs, I could not accept this. I wanted them to get along. I spoke again and again in different ways, finding new metaphors, so sure that with the right words I could make them understand each other. Until one day someone asked me; ‘Why is it so important?’ And I realized it was not them I wanted to fix. 

It is never the external world that needs to be healed. When we see a problem in the world it is only a reflection of a problem we have within. It was the two diametrically opposed views I held. I may have accepted that I could believe in the magic of the universe while still letting my logic rule but they still felt like two sides of the coin, they existed as two parts of the whole. But they could not exist at the same time in the vision the world held of who I was. 

The journey from internal conflict to peace is an ever-changing road. The only thing I knew for sure is that if this problem existed outside of myself then it was inside as well. I knew where I was and that I wanted to move somewhere else but I had no map for how and no specific destination to move to. Instead, I stumbled to the left, tripped on the right, and began the wobble from side to side. Until the stumble became a catch of the shoe and the trip became a false fall. And soon I was walking smoothly along the line I had created between my two worlds. 

And so it seemed that I had found a way to create harmony within myself. And while the world around me did not change it seemed no longer to be my business that the people I spent my time with could not see all sides of me at once. I could blend into the room of academics and share banter with the four element’s signs but it seemed I was destined to live in two separate worlds. My persona straddling the dividing line. I never lost my ardent desire to explain what it was I think. But I loved them all too much to bombard their ears with words they did not want to hear. 

And so I was right all along, from the day I learned how to spell my name. I was a Gemini. Two people in one body, adaptable to any environment, smart and passionate, and loyal to those I loved. Was it merely the self-fulfilling prophecy of intention in the mind? Or was it written in the stars the day I was born? Does it even matter, after all, can’t both be right?