EPISODE 123 | Gemini Season: Birds, Bees, and Twins!
Welcome to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast with your host, Astrologer and Author, April Elliott Kent.
April: Hello, invisible friend, April here, and the date today is May 16th, 2022. Welcome to Episode 123 of The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. And welcome to Gemini season! The Sun enters the sign of connection and communication on May 20th, a nice palette cleanser after an aspect to Pluto. Mars makes aspects to Neptune and Pluto this week, Mercury – still retrograde – revisits Jupiter and backs into Taurus, a Pisces Last Quarter Moon heads up the Moon Report, and I answer a listener question about the astrology of twins.
Mars conjunction with Neptune (May 17, 11:33 pm PDT)
Beginning the week, Mars makes a conjunction with Neptune on May 17th at 11:33 PM Pacific Time, which means of course that it’s May 18th most every place else. The conjunction happens at 24°59′ Pisces on the now familiar Sabian symbol, 25 Pisces, The Purging Of The Priesthood. Mars comes together with Neptune normally every two years, so this is beginning a new two year cycle of acting on our beliefs. Mars is what we will fight to defend or fight to get done. In the case of Mars in Pisces with Neptune, this usually has something to do with our beliefs, our fate. If we’ll just want to put together the key words for Mars in Neptune, it would be, ‘Holy Wars’. Also, it can be ‘Battling Illness’.
We are coming into the very late stages of the pandemic that began around the time of the last Mars-Neptune conjunction, so this does speak of sort of a turning point in that particular public health crisis. Mars has been in Pisces since about April 14th and Pisces is not a sign that’s particularly strong for Mars. Mars is a warrior, an action taker, and likes to just hit the ground running and get things done. Pisces ,on the other hand, wants to consider the emotional ramifications of any action that it’s going to take, and likes to kind of go along a meandering path instead of a straight line. So Mars being in Pisces has been really interesting. As it comes together with Neptune, it’ll be very close to the end of Pisces. It will be going into Aries next week. Mars always prompts us to ask, “What am I willing to fight for?” And Mars in Pisces is willing to fight on behalf of those who can’t fight for themselves. I think this is generally true of the water signs, Pisces Cancer and Scorpio. And Mars in those signs, has a particular affinity and empathy for the downtrodden, for the weak, for those who truly cannot look after themselves.
The Purging Of The Priesthood, which is the Sabian symbol for this degree, is one that we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks, because Neptune has been sort of hanging around this degree, it moves pretty slowly. So, The Purging Of The Priesthood to me has been about this process of weeding out what is inauthentic in our belief systems. So, if we had to sum it up, we could say Mars coming together with Neptune at this degree in Pisces symbolizes where we are willing to fight hypocrisy. The Purging Of The Priesthood talks about getting rid of those who are not really guided by faith and instead are guided by what they stand to gain personally,
Sun trine Pluto (May 19, 2022, 5:11 am PDT
Next up, the Sun makes a trine aspect to Pluto on May 19th at 5:11 AM Pacific Time, at 28°30′ of Taurus and Capricorn. We’ve spoken before about the Sun in aspect to Pluto, and the fact that these symbols are kind of diametrically opposed, really. The Sun is about the importance and the primacy of the individual, of how important and unique we are and the unique contribution that we were born to make. Pluto, on the other hand, tends to represent large forces that are quite beyond the individual. So, I always think that the challenge and the promise when Sun and Pluto come together is, first of all, for the individual to be empowered, and usually the way that happens is by aligning ourselves and our gifts with some cause or interest that’s bigger than ourselves.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun, 29 Taurus, is Two Cobblers Working At A Table. And perhaps at the very least, even if you’re not the kind of person that really wants to be involved in organizations or big groups, even collaborating with one other person, brings in the nicer qualities of this Sabian symbol, and just instructs us that ywo of us working together can achieve more than just one of us. The Sabian symbol for Pluto is 29 Capricorn, A Woman Reading Tea Leaves. Again, a symbol and a degree that we’ve been seeing quite a lot over the last few weeks, and that is about grappling with the idea of fate. Is there any point in expressing some unique creative vision of trying to exert our personal will when we might tend to believe Pluto might tend to have us believe that everything is preordained anyway, you can’t fight city hall, everything’s much bigger than you are. The aspect between the two is a trine, a flowing aspect which suggests that it should be fairly easy for us to find our place and our way to make our unique contribution.
Mercury sextile Jupiter (May 19, 2022, 6:33 pm PDT)
Next up, Mercury makes the second of three sextile aspects to Jupiter on May 19th at 6:33 PM Pacific Time, at 1°42′ of Gemini and Aries. We had the first of these aspects on April 26th, then Mercury returned retrograde, and it is revisiting Jupiter in a second sextile, and then it will finish the series with a final sextile on June 20th. Now that Jupiter is in Aries and it is full of exciting fiery ideas of things it would like to do, it’s wonderful for it to connect with Mercury. Because, Jupiter does have a lot of big ideas and large concepts, but it can be a little hard for us to break those down into bite size chunks that we can work with. The vision I always have with Mercury and Jupiter is that it’s like a funnel. Jupiter is the wide end of the funnel where there’s lots of room to dump everything in there, all of the visions, all of the ideas, but then it has to eventually make its way out through that tiny little aperture on the other end – that’s Mercury, the part that speaks, that writes, that communicates the vision.
So, having these two working together is a tremendous advantage. And if you have found yourself in this time since Jupiter moved into Aries of suddenly just being overwhelmed with great ideas about things that you might want to do over the next year or so, this is a terrific week for sitting down and writing it out because Mercury is retrograde right now, it might mean going back to that last week in April and picking up the trail of breadcrumbs to lead you back, figure out what it was that you were thinking about that you wanted to do, and, picking up the thread there. And know that this is going to be a little bit of a process, something that might take you at least a month or so until the final sextile on June 20th. So, if you’re thinking about a huge project that you would like to get going, now is the time to really be taking your time and thinking it through, writing down plans and articulating the vision.
Sun enters Gemini (May 20, 6:23 pm PDT)
The very next day, May 20th at 06:23 PM Pacific Time, the Sun enters Gemini, and we enter the season of socializing, communing and communicating. The vision for the Sun in Gemini for me is always a little bird or a bee that is taking things from one flower and taking them over to another flower and cross pollinating. It is a networking sign and it wants us all to be getting together and sharing our ideas. Mercury, which is the planet that rules Gemini is still retrograde, and it kind of, to me does have that feeling of going back and reconnecting. So seeing people we haven’t seen in some time and in some cases for a really long time, it’s very common when Mercury or Venus are retrograde, for people from our past to show up.
I was watching television the other night, an old TV series, and somebody I went to high school with showed up in this show! It completely stunned me. So, they don’t necessarily show up in person or even on the other end of the phone or a text, but they can show up in unexpected ways. So look for that during this Gemini season. And I think Jupiter being in Aries now and Mercury, which is the ruler of Gemini, of course making that sextile to Jupiter that we just talked about, really gives a lovely warm quality to this Gemini season. I don’t know about you, but I just cannot believe that we’re only one month away now from the Cancer Solstice. That has come on so quickly. Gemini season is about the pollination, going from one plant to another plant, that then results in conception and what we are carrying at the Cancer Solstice, where the mandate is to slow down and just take something that we began or thought about or conceived during the Sun in Gemini season.
Sun/Mercury inferior conjunction (May 21, 12:18 pm PDT)
On May 21st, the Sun makes its inferior conjunction with Mercury. Mercury will be passing between the Sun and the Earth, and Mercury will pass its perigee, that’s the time in its cycle when it’s the closest to the earth. At about the same time, the conjunction of the Sun and Mercury is on May 21st at 12:18 PM Pacific Time. Mercury’s retrograde periods are particularly good for going within and reviewing your thoughts, your ideas, taking a sort of subjective view of what you think about things. And this is doubly true when the Sun and Mercury are together in a conjunction. Because a planet that is that close to the Sun is rendered invisible. It’s so close to the Sun, the Sun is so bright, that it’s a little bit hard to see it and to access it.
Now, there comes a moment at this particular conjunction when the planet close to the Sun is in a state we call “Cazimi”. We’ve talked about that on the podcast before. And it is a moment when the planet close to the Sun kind of ignites in this conflagration of power and creativity. So, very close to this conjunction, things might come clear. The process of going within and examining your thoughts as you’ve hopefully been doing during this Mercury retrograde period so far, suddenly there is something that comes clear that we have been trying to get clarity on for some time. So, I suppose, mark it on your calendar, on May 21st: trusting what comes up for you. If you do have some kind of insight, a brilliant insight that seems to come almost from nowhere, know that actually it’s coming from a place really deep inside you, and that it is something that you can trust as authentic.
Pisces Last Quarter Moon (May 22, 2022, 11:43 am PDT)
And now for the Moon Report for the week of May 16th. For many of us, probably I would say most of us, this week is technically beginning with the Scorpio Lunar Eclipse that I talked about in Episode 122, in the very early hours of May 16th. But, I would invite you to go back to that episode and hear what I had to say about that Full Moon. It’s a really powerful one. But for this week, I’m going to focus on the Pisces Last Quarter Moon on May 22nd at 11:43 AM Pacific Time, at 1°39′ Pisces with the Sun at 1°39′ Gemini.
The Last Quarter is when we evaluate our progress in really objective terms. And, we’re asked to take action for one last time in the cycle to try to move towards what it is that we want. But whereas at the First Quarter Phase, we act on instinct and on faith, at the Last Quarter, we act based on past experience. And that’s the two-edged sword. On one hand, we’re wiser than we were at the outset. We’ve gone through more experience, we know the pitfalls and we know probably what we need to do to direct our efforts in the last part of the cycle. But the downside of the Last Quarter Moon is sometimes we can put too much weight on what has gone wrong during the rest of the cycle and we kind of psych ourselves out. We go, “Oh, I thought it was going to go like this. And instead, this thing happened, and that probably means that moving forward, I’m going to have that same problem again and again”. And we over-correct. We get a little too pessimistic about a possible outcome.
This Last Quarter is the last critical point in a Lunar Phase Family Cycle that began on February 23rd, 2020 at 4°28′ Pisces. And, if that timeframe sounds a little bit familiar, all we have to do is go back earlier in this episode where we were talking about the Mars conjunction with Neptune, that I think was right around that time. And of course, that’s when the pandemic was getting going, things were shutting down and the world really took an interesting sharp turn. So, this last quarter moon marks, I think the closing chapter in what was begun at that time. At this point, we’re looking at the impact that this process has had on the world, as a society, as a public health issue, how it was handled, how it might be handled differently going forward, still a lot of questions remain. And, I think we do have to be careful at a Last Quarter in looking back and judging ourselves too harshly or our society too harshly.
And I think, this is the moment to learn from it at the Last Quarter, but not judge ourselves and our reactions at that time too strongly. So, this Last Quarter is again, it’s going back to February of 2020, we’re finishing up a long difficult cycle that is Pisces in nature, and this Last Quarter Moon this week is a little bit of a turning point with that.
Void-of-Course Moon Periods
Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon times for this week. On May 16th, the Moon in Scorpio makes a sextile aspect to Pluto at 02:28 AM Pacific Time, it’s then Void-of-Course for about two and a half hours before entering Sagitarius at 04:50 AM Pacific Time. This is one of those that where I’m at on the west coast of the United States, we’re mostly sleeping through it. If you are on the east coast of the United States, it is the Void-of-Course period that will start your working day. If you’re in Europe and so forth, it’s kind of happening later in the morning. Moon in Scorpio sextile Pluto, is an opportunity to reflect for a couple of hours on what the previous two days have brought in terms of how clearly you are seeing your own motivations and the motivations of others, and how you can use that information to empower yourself emotionally and to hopefully change emotional habits that are not working for you.
On May 17th, the Moon in Sagitarius makes a sextile aspect to Saturn at 08:59 PM Pacific Time, it’s Void-of-Course for eight hours before entering Capricorn at 05:02 AM Pacific time on May 18th. Again, here in the United States for most of us, this is going to be something that happens overnight. So, if you’re up kind of late on May 17th, be a little cautious about what you take in, in terms of media, news, things you’re watching on TV, because that is stuff that you are going to take into your sleeping time with you, especially when the moon is Void-of-Course.
On May 20th, the Moon in Capricorn makes a trine aspect to the Sun at 04:59 AM Pacific Time, it’s Void-of-Course for only one hour before entering Aquarius at 05:53 AM Pacific Time. This is another one that, although it’s very nice, the Moon’s last aspect being that trine to the Sun, and we feel that what we need and want are in harmony with each other, but it’s only Void-of-Course for an hour and it’s very early in the morning. For many of us, it will not be super impactful. So, in terms of Void-of-Course Moons, it’s kind of a quiet week, a lot of it’s happening overnight or early in the morning. The final aspects that the Moon will make tend to be gentle ones, but I think that this is a less challenging week with our Void-of-Course Moon periods.
Mercury retrograde re-enters Taurus (May 22, 2022, 6:15 pm PDT)
Next up, Mercury will retrograde into Taurus on May 22nd at 6:15 PM Pacific Time. So, basically what it’s doing is covering the same ground that it did in the last week of April. It makes that sextile to Jupiter, which is a continuation of what it did the last week of April and it makes a trine aspect to Pluto, that will be coming up on May 25th. Mercury will turn direct in late Taurus on June 3rd, and then it gets back into Gemini on June 13th. So, this is kind of an intermission for Mercury in Gemini. And, Mercury retrograding back into Taurus says, “Hmm, maybe there were some steps that we missed”. Mercury has been very excited getting into Gemini, making the most recent sextile to Jupiter in Aries. We feel excited. We have plans. We have things we want to do. But I think this Mercury retrograding into Taurus just says, “Well, is it practical? Have you laid the groundwork? Have you taken the practical steps that you need to take in order to move forward and do the things that this Mercury in Gemini will really want to be doing when it gets back there in the middle of June?”
Mars sextile Pluto (May 22, 2022, 3:15 pm PDT)
Also, on May 22nd at 03:15 PM, Mars makes a sextile to Pluto, and this is getting very close to the end of Mars in Pisces, it’s at 28°28′ Pisces. So, this is Mars finishing up its work in Pisces before moving into Aries next week. And it’s a bit of a handshake I think between Mars and Pluto. Mars is saying, “This is what I’ve tried to do while I was in Pisces. I have tried to act on faith. I have tried to defend what is important to me from a spiritual point of view. I have tried to empathize with others and help them fight their battles as well”. And hopefully then, Pluto in Capricorn saying, “Yes, you’ve done a pretty good job. I really like what you’ve been doing. Well done.” It’s about as nice as it gets in terms of aspects between Mars and Pluto.
Listen Question: The Astrology of Twins
In this week’s listener question, we have a question about twins. Listener Emily writes, “I’ve always been curious about reading natal charts of twins. Their charts would almost be exactly the same, but twins are always so different. If you have any insight, I would love to hear it?”.
Well, Emily, that is a great question. This is a good opportunity to point out what actually is involved in a birth chart. All of the information that an astrologer asks you for when they calculate your chart helps us narrow things down. The day that you’re born in year shows the basic positions of the planets. The exact time of your birth narrows down the position of the Moon, because it moves quickly, it moves a degree every two hours. The exact time plus the exact location of your birth, determines the degrees of the ascendant and the Midheaven and lets us calculate the house cusps. These degrees of the house cusp can change every four minutes. So sometimes twins are born more than a few minutes apart, and that can actually make a big difference in the birth chart. You can even get a different rising sign, the moons position can be quite different.
But, mostly what we’re seeing are people who are born with essentially the same chart born just minutes apart. So why do they seem so different? I think a lot of the time, what we’re seeing is the development of different sides of the same chart. There are lots of different ways that people can play out the Sun in Gemini or Venus conjunct Saturn . There are lots of different ways that those can manifest in a personality. And what will often happen is you’ll see very similar milestones along the way for people who are twins. They might go into similar professions. You hear these dramatic stories of twins who are raised apart from each other, and they unite later in life and they’ve married spouses that have the same name and they’re in the exact same career and all of that. I think that personality is determined by so many factors. We had a pair of twins in my family who developed absolutely opposite personalities. And this seems pretty common among identical twins. Because, they feel a strong need to differentiate themselves from each other. They get tired of being mistaken for one another and really will play up different dimensions of the same chart.
So much in astrology in a birth chart, especially is built on the concept of polarity that there is a light side to each sign and a dark side to each side, there is a bright potential in each planetary aspect and a difficult challenging one. So much of how we respond to the symbolism in our charts comes down to things that probably have very little to do with astrology, our environment, how we’re treated by our parents and other people in that environment. And twins are as similar as two people can be, but they’re not the same person. And we could say they have different souls, they have a different path. And the chart will tell us a lot about how they can probably most easily navigate that path, but it’s not going to say exactly what the outcome is, they still have free will after all.
So, I suppose, if you asked a lot of astrologers, they might have different answers, but that would be mine, is that all things being equal, they will probably have the potential of very similar lives, but this idea of needing to differentiate themselves, if they’re raised with the other twin, I think is a really big determining factor. And also just the fact that they are not exactly the same person, they will make different choices and they will experience the symbols in their chart in their own unique and personal way.
I hope that answers the question, Emily? And if you listening have a burning question about astrology that you would like me to answer, please leave a voicemail of one minute or less at speakpipe.com/bigskyastrologypodcast. Or you can email me april@bigskyastrology.com. Be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.
Donor Thanks
Well, that is everything I have on my show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. Thank you for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, please do me a favor and hit subscribe or follow in this podcast app. You could also leave a rating or a review, and I love it if you would help spread the word about the show by telling a friend. You could read show notes and full transcripts and leave your comments about each episode at bigskyastropod.com.
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That is it for this episode. Join me again, bright and early next Monday – and until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars.
© 2022 by April Elliott Kent
