New Moon in Gemini: A World in Motion

Some people have a knack for language. Perceptive and quick, they’ve been kissed by Gemini and his Mercury ruler, knighted with the rapier of wit. Like birds or bees, they flit from person to person, situation to situation, in an eager dance of verbal cross-pollination.

Gemini’s children have a love of words that borders on the insatiable. But a way with words does not guarantee that you’ve got anything much to say. And it certainly doesn’t solve an even larger problem, which is that not everything can be communicated easily through language.

This dilemma is at the crux of the Gemini New Moon in a nearly precise square to Neptune in Pisces, the planet of dreams in the sign of the ineffable. Gemini effortlessly converts the world of ideas into language and communicates it readily, joyfully; Pisces finds language somewhat inadequate for expressing the enormity and subtlety of its feeling nature. So Gemini and Pisces generally have to struggle to understand one another; but when they find common ground, they produce beautiful prose, poetry, art, music.

Both are restless, mutable signs, though, so assuming you can get the them to agree on something that needs to be said, good luck getting them to sit still long enough to get it said. Sitting still for hours, facing a screen or scratching a pen across a tablet, or composing a song or a sonnet, can make Gemini, in particular, feel like a bird in a cage. Movement, oxygen, and variety bring Gemini happiness, and more than most signs, she chafes under constriction. One tends to imagine that writing is pretty much the same as reading—relaxed, absorbing—but it’s entirely different, and surprisingly difficult.

I’ve often heard that writers need to have some kind of connection in their charts between Mercury/Gemini and Saturn. One might have an aspect between Mercury and Saturn, or Saturn in the third house, or Saturn in Gemini. Within a writer, there must be a delightful bird—but also, a cage. And ideally a little Neptune, and the desire to give voice to the things that mean the most to us but can be hard to express.

Just before the last Full Moon, I was approached to write my third book, and a few days ago I signed the contract. It’s the best moment of any new enterprise, the space between the offer and the commitment. The offer is all about possibility and being wanted, and the commitment is the moment when the door of the cage slams after you, and you enter a sort of 12th house/Pisces realm of confinement.

Born with the Moon in Gemini, I love almost nothing as much as I love words. Yet nothing makes me yearn to leave the house more than the feeling that I should be sitting at my desk, slapping words together. Normally I don’t spend much time hanging out in cafes, but when I’m working on a book I itch to distance myself from the delightful distractions of cats, email, and laundry.

Apparently, it’s a condition universal among writers. When Amtrak recently announced a residency program for 24 lucky writers, Facebook exploded with excitement. And why not? The thought of “writing” the rails for hours on end, with nothing to do but watch the scenery go and tap away at the laptop sounds like writer’s heaven. It’s so much less painful to write while in motion – or while the world is, which is why you’ll find so many writers sitting in cafes, watching the world pass by, dreaming of Amtrak.

If Gemini’s children can’t move, we have to at least watch movement.

In the first five months of this year, movement has been hard to come by. Astrologers have feverishly documented every difficult aspect, every eclipse, every retrograde. And yes, after a sequence of Venus retrograde, then Mercury, then Mars, all since December, we’re back to where we started, when on June 7 when Mercury turns retrograde yet again.

But I’m of the belief that the universe isn’t punitive in nature, and that it is in fact designed to give us precisely the opportunities we need to have exactly the experiences that will make us everything we could be. This many fast-moving planets in retrograde motion, for months in a row, must be telling us something. To slow down and reconsider before we act, perhaps. To read the fine print. To reclaim territory that we ceded too soon. To revel in slowness, in stillness.

Gemini blended with Pisces is a songbird who craves constant movement. But from time to time, as when Mercury is retrograde, you’ll catch him in repose. Recently, a Black Phoebe has gotten into the habit of sitting on the fence outside my office at various times throughout the day, quiet and still, peering at me through the window while I peck away, almost motionless, in my little cage. My restless Gemini Moon is happy to see him, but I wonder what brings him to that spot, day after day. I wonder whether he’s composing something, and whether the creative process of a creature who is so often in motion is inspired by stillness and focus.

I imagine that is the lesson of the first half of this retrograde year—that a world in constant motion must slow down from time to time while we get our bearings. So jump on a train or take a walk or catch a plane if it helps you finish your book or study for your exam. But don’t overlook the possibility that in the month ahead, some of the sweetest creative notions may find you only when you’re sitting still, focusing on the things that don’t much change.

© 2014 by April Elliott Kent