Confession: I’ve got a crush on Curious George.
What I love about this happy little storybook monkey is his insatiable interest in the world around him. George colors outside the lines, so to speak, and regularly runs afoul of rules and authorities. Partly, he’s motivated by pure mischief, but mostly he’s just … well, curious; and his lively interest in the world leads him to see possibilities the rest of us might not consider.
George sees birds sitting on a telephone wire and wonders, “What would that be like?” And utterly without fear, he climbs the pole and dances across the wires. He makes paper hats out of the newspapers he’s supposed to be delivering, puts a baby bear in his newsboy satchel, and dangles it from a high tree limb. He infiltrates a circus. He frees pigs from their pen. Most of all, he makes friends.
Like a toddler, George is easily distracted, highly impressionable, and always very, very busy.
Basically, Curious George represents the Gemini part of you. It isn’t hard to make Gemini happy – just provide a change of scenery, introduce a new idea, or dangle something sparkly. Let him wander someplace where he can see new things and make new friends. It doesn’t even have to be anyplace far away. A typical person with Gemini prominent in his chart probably knows enough people within a five block radius of his house to fill an address book.
During the time of year when the Sun is in Gemini (in 2013, between May 20 – June 20), happiness beckons from the neighborhood produce market, the radios blaring on the beach, and a fast car headed for an interstate highway. “Gemini” is a synonym for the enthusiasm you felt as a kid during the first weeks of summer vacation, when freedom was a novelty and you were filled with ideas about how to get into trouble. “Gemini” is a name for the pack of neighborhood kids you rode your bike with, and for that tinkling, irritating music that cranked out of the ice cream truck as it drove down your street at about 3:00 every afternoon.
Gemini is also the sign of the learning. Not the kind of learning that takes place in classroom, necessarily, but rather the kind that happened when an older neighbor taught you how to shoot baskets, or when you learned about applying makeup by watching your older sister. Gemini is the prince of mimicry, the part of you that learns how to be in the world by watching how other people do it. And Gemini is the principal of the School of Hard Knocks, too, of lessons we can only learn the hard way – by overreaching due to a lack of information (such as the reason it’s safe for birds to sit on a wire is that they can just fly away if they topple off – unlike you), falling down, and skinning our knees.
In Gemini, we find happiness through communication. A friend with Gemini rising likes to tell the story of a dating seminar he took many years ago. The instructor’s reply to the unmarried person’s perennial, often frustrated question, “But where do you meet people?” was simple: “Everywhere – you just have to talk to them!” My friend took that advice to heart, eventually managing to baffle a variety of women on several continents. Even today, happily married, he never passes up an opportunity to chat with people. Wherever he goes, he strikes up conversations, asks questions, and usually finds a way to get a laugh out of even the crustiest sourpuss.
Somewhere in your birth chart is a lively little Gemini monkey, eager to talk to everyone he meets. Look for planets in this curious sign, and the house that has Gemini on the cusp. This month, the Sun is shining a bright light on this part of your life and inviting you to find happiness in play, in learning, and through engagement with the world.
What will you do to play along? What can you do this month that’s fresh, new, and different? Something as simple as reading a new book, striking up a conversation with the supermarket checkout clerk, or brushing the cobwebs off your beach cruiser and touring the neighborhood can entertain your inner monkey.
You don’t have to travel to far-away places to experience a world of new and exciting sights, smells, thrills, and people. You just have to keep your eyes open to the possibilities that are all around you. You just have to stay curious.
© 2013 by April Elliott Kent
