Some years ago, I spent a few months happily devouring Alexander McCall Smith’s series of novels about The #1 Ladies Detective Agency. The series follows the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, the first lady detective in a small town in Botswana. What makes the series singularly appealing is the peek into a gentle way of life that is passing away (and for all I know, might never have existed, just as Mayberry represented an idealized version of 1950s rural life in the United States). For instance, whenever Mma Ramotswe wishes to invoke “the old ways” and establish immediate rapport with a countryman, she simply calls the other “sister” or “brother.”
In astrology, ties between siblings are represented by Gemini – the sign of this New Moon – and by the third house of the chart. Naturally, not everyone shares the same idea about what it means to be a brother or a sister. As an astrologer, I’m supposed to be unflappable; but in many years of astrological counseling I admit I’ve been truly shocked by stories of sibling rivalries, of betrayal and estrangement, even incest. Such stories have made me feel all the more fortunate for having shared close bonds with my brothers and my sister. We don’t always get along, of course. But without them I can’t imagine who I would have become. And I imagine the same could be said even for those who have a toxic relationship with their siblings.
Brothers and sisters teach us our earliest lessons about relationship. When we become infatuated with ourselves, they cut us down to size. When others bully or mistreat us, a sibling might offer backup. Siblings teach us the talismanic power of words, of promises and proprietary claims, of nicknames and teasing. Identical twins are famous for developing secret languages no one else can understand, but if you spend ten minutes with any pair of siblings who are reasonably close you will quickly encounter an impenetrable fog of in-jokes and verbal shortcuts.
Not surprisingly, Gemini also rules communication – the skills of encoding and decoding messages, of understanding our world and making ourselves understood. Our interactions with siblings teach us how to argue and negotiate, how to twist the knife, how to tell a joke, and how far we can go without completely alienating someone. Brothers and sisters teach us how to curse with real distinction, how to outwit authorities (especially our parents), and how to navigate the dynamics of competition.
Our brothers and sisters teach us how to interact with others and by extension, they teach us who we are. By negotiating a role for ourselves among our siblings, we define ourselves. To a lesser extent this is also true of our neighbors (also ruled by Gemini and the third house of the horoscope), to whom we’re also yoked by common turf, mutual interests, and subtle competition. Few of us would admit that we feel pressure to “keep up with the Joneses,” but it’s difficult not to compare your old jalopy and crabgrass-infested lawn to your neighbor’s bright new sedan and expensive landscaping. We naturally compare ourselves to those whose circumstances closely resemble our own – just as we might compare ourselves with a brother or sister.
This New Moon in Gemini (June 10, 2021, 3:52 am PDT) is a Solar Eclipse. Eclipses tend to poke at sensitive spots in the psyche; this particular bruise may be sibling-shaped. When a family loses a sibling, it’s like losing spokes on a wheel: it may still turn, but the vehicle becomes wobbly. One of my brothers died suddenly and young. Our mother died two years later, and as devastating as that was, I realized that the loss of a sibling is in many ways an even graver tragedy. After all, as my mother once suggested, you can reasonably expect to someday lose your parents, but subconsciously we expect our siblings – our partners in crime – to walk with us to the end of our journey.
Whenever I gather with my sister and our remaining brother, we speak of our parents and we miss them; but our departed sibling is there with us, tingling like an amputated limb. At the last June 10 Solar Eclipse, in 2012, we siblings made a pilgrimage to our hometown for the first time since we left for good, over forty years ago. Our late brother didn’t much like the old haunts. If he were alive, he’d probably dig in his heels and refuse to go. In death, he didn’t have that option. Like it or not, he was there with us.
Few people in our lives get the opportunity to influence us when we are so malleable as in childhood, when brothers and sisters leave their hand prints on us as they might in wet cement. But the truth is that while the emotional connection may be less compelling, we share similar bonds with people who share our neighborhoods, our communities, our alma mater, our mother tongue, the country of our birth. Before I met up with my siblings in our hometown, I joined hundreds of my astrological brothers and sisters for a big conference in New Orleans. For a week, we luxuriated in spending time with others who speak our peculiar language, like expatriates who’ve found each other far from home and converse enthusiastically in the mother tongue. And like siblings, we spatted among ourselves about that language, how best to interpret its symbols, whose voices deserve to be heard and celebrated. There are be rivalries, laughing, sharp words, in-jokes, and tingling, phantom limbs.
At this Gemini New Moon and Solar Eclipse, we celebrate our brothers and sisters – our siblings by birth, as well as siblings under the same Spirit. When we call each other “brother” or “sister” we, like Mma Ramotswe, invoke the bonds of sharing, memory, and community. We summon visions of a native landscape on a sun-dappled summer’s morning; of weeping in front of a television on November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001; of childhood dreams of a remarkable future. When we call those who share our day-to-day lives “brother” or “sister,” we acknowledge the simple truth that we are family. That we make each other what we are, and we are more alike than we know. And although we may not always get along, who would we be without one another?
Writing and images © 2012-2021 by April Elliott Kent
