I often draw attention to clients and student in whose charts a pertinent Gemini motif is present (eg. Sun, Moon, ruling planet, Ascendant, MC etc.) the sign’s twin nature, and its myriad ways it can manifest in a life. Often light paired with dark, up with down, yang with yin. Obvious stuff, I know, yet it’s incredible how often it draws forth nods of recognition and validation, as synapses start to form bridges.
The painting above, Dante and Beatrice, from Pre-Raphaelite-influenced British painter Henry Holiday (himself a Gemini, born 17th June 1839), captures something of this important twin-ship theme beautifully. For Dante, also a Gemini, Beatrice was his real-life beau and then, after her early death, his muse. But, of course, she was also his ‘twin’, his companion through the ascending planetary spheres in Paradiso, the third part of his famous Divine Comedy. To the Jungian, she’s Anima to his Ego. To the Gnostic, as Sophia to Jesus.
I think also of the bi-polar struggles of the great, Gemini, American poet, Theodore Roethke (25th May), so poignantly captured in his torturous poem ‘In a Dark Time’, in which the reader is drawn into intense wrestling between his two polarising voices.
Or of many of the compositions of Gemini Robert Schumann (8th June), such as the poignant and eerie Gesänge der Fruhe, written towards the end of his rather tragic life. He, too, suffered with bi-polar disorder, and died in a mental institution. Much of his music conveys the turmoil of living within an inner- and outer-world of opposites. I find Mary Oliver’s short poem on him so touching.
By the way, I am not at all meaning to give the impression that strong Gemini placements in a chart indicate mental illness, but perhaps such conditions of soul express naked truths out of these astrological pictures. And these two examples suggest that often society fails to adequately make space for Gemini’s light-dark contrasts, something which gives it, of all signs, the wonderful possibility of being able to sit within paradox, with no moral obligation to commit to one side or the other. G.K. Chesterton (29th May), one of my literary heroes, referred to as “Prince of Paradox”, typifies this quality in his writing and life.
Arthur Conan-Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and another Gemini (22nd May), held concurrent careers as physician and writer, and embraced science alongside a deep commitment to spiritualism. He expressed the sign’s characteristic ‘two-ness’ through the polarity of detective Sherlock (cold, brain, thinking) and doctor Watson (warm, heart, feeling).
Drawing Hands, M.C. Escher, 1948.
Theosophist Alice Bailey (16th June) showed her Geminian duality in her channelled co-authorship of the majority of her 24 books with D.K., ’the Tibetan’, a spiritual master. And think of artist M.C. Escher’s (17th June) geometric black-and-white perspective-bending woodcuts (eg. his Drawing Hands shown here). So Gemini!
Many of you may react to my seemingly superficial approach: drawing connections with simply the Sun sign of an individual, when ‘proper’ astrology should be working from a horoscope populated by many planets and several highlighted signs of the zodiac. But I am adamant our Sun signs should shine forth. And especially through our vocation, our calling into selfhood. As the overseer of individuation, the Sun, to me, holds the key to one of the most significant spiritual imperatives for humanity today: the gift of the making of our unique self, in deeds outer and inner, as an invaluable contribution to the Divine. Living our Sun as fully as we can also stimulates its healing power, physically, psychologically and karmically.
This is what makes the Sun’s often so recognisable in a life well-lived. Which is why I often set my students the task of reading random newspaper obituaries - which normally include the deceased’s date of birth - in order to see how clearly the Sun sign reveal’s itself through a person’s public - and private - works. More than just a fun exercise, it hones our astrological senses, those which allow us to experience the cosmos working, endlessly, in everyday, earthly ways. As I say to them, as students of this sacred craft we must come to experience astrology in all of life, not just in the horoscope.
But back to Gemini! I hope the above musings on this sign’s twin motif in a few public figures, their creative outputs, and their lives helps to show how these primary symbols that are associated with each astrological sign have unlimited potential for highlighting deep and life-shaping truths, so important for the long-term evolution of the human being.