HAVE I MENTIONED that the planet Chaos is in your sign?

Like a lot of things, this began in late 2000. I speak of Chaos, not the phenomenon of Legos and half-eaten cookies in your bed, but rather the source of all life as told in the creation myth of the Greeks. It was Chaos who (in some versions of the myth) gave birth to Eros and primeval Gaia, the two primary creation deities in the Greek version of the story of existence. Chaos (discovered in 1998), which moves far slower than Pluto, will be in your sign until 2023.

Here is what I had to say about Chaos a few months ago, when writing about the planets beyond Pluto:

Chaos was the supreme Greek creation deity -- the forebear of the primary gods including Gaia (Earth) and Eros (the love that softens hearts). A planet in the 'Cubewano' class discovered in 1998 with an orbit of just over 311 years, its theme is potential made manifest and contacting the hidden order of reality. Its presence reminds us that the cosmos or creator is the source of all life and existence, and is our ultimate destination beyond the end of time. We return whence we came; we are infinitely connected with our own origins. In the psyche it’s the process of giving names to the unnameable so we can enter into relationship, and becoming a vehicle of creative expression so we can become like our source. Chaos is a personal access point to the fertile void, the space-out-of-mind that is the richest creative source available. To those attempting the uncreative use of power as a control method, Chaos can bring the condition for which it’s known in modern usage.

At the same time, as you know from both your relationships and from reading about astrology, Pluto is in your opposite sign Sagittarius (where you receive information about partnerships, marriage and lovers) and has been there since 1995. That's good for about a 12-year process. Then there's Quaoar (discovered 2002, which deals with family patterns), which has been in Sagittarius since 1993 and will be there through 2017.

How do you feel considering time such long time spans? Gemini is a pretty quick vibration. Your planet orbits the Sun in about 84 days, and goes retrograde every four months. One of my editors, who has a Gemini Moon, claims to have the attention span of a house fly. The theme of living amongst these slow-moving planets, it seems to me, is about slowing down your consciousness and tuning into your observation powers, looking at and planning long stretches of your life, and most vital, consciously adapting to the psychic landscape by which you are surrounded.

Though many planets will come and go from many signs in the decades mentioned above, you are living under the direct influence of deeply formative energies, ones that are shaping you on a level far beneath and beyond what some call normal consciousness. You are on a path of soul work, and this soul work has, as its primary field of experience, your most personal relationships.

If it seems like everything is different for you than it is for others, you're correct. Your life will be easier when you remember that. Your relationships occur on a different level, and you are presented with the possibility if experiencing them on a level deeper and more influential than most everyone else around you. They compel you to change more deeply, to deal with more pressing inevitabilities, and to penetrate your very being.


I guess different is a pretty fine word to describe what the Venus occulation of the Sun in your sign will feel like, or be like to experience. As explained throughout other areas of this site, this is rare astrology, and for you it's a most personal experience on at least two counts. The first is that it happens around your birthday and sets the tone of many months to come.

This event shifts the entire wavelength of Gemini, for you and for everyone. It will slow down your perceptual and mental process, for one thing; for another, it will heighten your sensitivity to the aesthetic realm profoundly. And it will help you resolve the dualistic nature for which Gemini is so famous (and must endure). I've noticed that there is at least one glaring way that most Geminis are two entirely different people, and often that changes at different stages of your life.

If we look at the astrology more closely, we can see what it is your spirit is working to express. Venus, the star of this show, is the ruler of your 12th solar house, or the sign prior to your own. Venus is an emissary of your deep unconscious, the foetal world, the formative and formless sphere. Then, while the Sun is in Gemini, it makes a conjunction in your 1st house of identity, form and consciousness. There is a merging of the unconscious and conscious identities, shaping them into one reality that functions on all levels. It's the ultimate marriage of Mac and PC, of apples and oranges, dogs and cats and language and art.

To appreciate the second mitsvah here, we need to check in with Alice A. Bailey's Esoteric Astrology. Baily holds Venus as the esoteric ruler of Gemini. Like all the esoteric rulers, this one makes perfect sense if you give it a moment of thought. Venus is extraordinarily mental, intelligent and perceptive -- like Gemini. But also she is creative, steady, and fierce. She represents the hidden dimension of Gemini, and this hidden dimension comes on strong as you approach your birthday. Venus is very much your planet, and she is coming home to your sign this year in grand style.

With so many other factors pointing to change (Uranus over your 10th house of profession, for example) you have the inclination, the power and the creative juice to do something very different with yourself and to reach escape velocity. The key here is that you can actually identify now as what you want to be, rather than thinking it's something that you have to eventually become in the future. Even if this identification is temporary, it's going to leave its impression on you, and you will have a guidance system or homing signal leading you to what is an inevitable and truly major stage in your personhood.


All of this will help you provide the sense of continuity that links the themes and experiences of all your relationships. They are not separate! What you experience with one person directly affects what you experience with another. Rather than compartmentalize your experiences of people, it would be easier and more effective to maintain an open-door policy and keep the truth out in the sunlight, where everyone can see it, and where it can do more good and less (if any) harm.

Looking at the influence of Mercury on you this year, I can put this in very worldly terms. Your current mission is to raise your level of passion in all areas of being, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what spiritual level the events reach you on, and no matter how challenging this may be. To do this, you may have to experience certain plans seeming to get foiled. Then, with your plans out of the way, you can get about the experience of living life. Slowly, your obsession with practical concerns will give way to an a craving for direct experience -- not ideas, not theories, not plans, but feet first, heart first exploration of passionate living.

The thing about these far-flung worlds -- Pluto, Chaos, Quaoar -- is that they don't usually think in anything resembling words. You, however, do. There is, I think, an excellent opportunity to reach beyond language and in a sense to allow yourself to be overwhelmed.


The influence of Saturn, though, and the memory of recent shocks and traumas (going back to 2001) may have you feeling somewhat personally reticent, and facing restrictions on your cash flow that are presently making life a little difficult for you. I don't suggest you worry about the past. The future is here with such power and vividness that it will wipe out what you have left behind. When in doubt, try the Course in Miracles lesson, The past is gone. It cannot touch me.

On the financial front, the message is self-sufficiency. Because money is exchanged, nobody is really self sufficient, but some people are very much under the thumb of ones who serve as power brokers over their lives.

The first thing you can do is look at every limitation as an opportunity. I don't throw this at you as New Age jargon. Industrialists and PR experts have used this formula for a long time. It works.

But there is something more you can do. You are learning, through all the outer-planet activity in Sagittarius, to meet people on equal terms. If you haven't figured that part out, give it a try. Command or, alternately, demand respect and you're likely to get it, at least the second time you ask.

Some say that respect is never something you ask for; it's either there, or it's not. I'm not sure about that. One's level or self-respect has a lot to do with how the world responds, and how we feel about ourselves changes frequently. It has taken a long time for you to feel in yourself the same kind of primal power that emanates from people around you. That inner sense is what you are accessing when you communicate with others on a level where a real exchange happens. This is not about ideas; it is about a direct path of access to the natural world within you.

Yet it's also clear that respect is often a learned phenomenon, rather than a natural one. We all need to learn, and slowly, we do.

Message from Eros

These days the psychology of sex promises you a measure of salvation from something you've struggled with much of your life: sex partners acting like parents, and not just any parents. We can rarely stomach the thought of our parents as sexual, but kid, you need to. I would bet my butt that your parents had some money issues that were a control trip that merged with their sex life. Therefore vulnerability equates to total submission of your will to that of another. Get on top. Don't stop there.

I suggest you get a real discussion about sex and the meaning of commitment going with your partner. While certain recent events may seem to point to a fundamental misunderstanding, actually it's far from a hopeless situation. If you have a sense that you're transgressing into 'inappropriate' territory, you're in the right place. It'll be difficult for about 30 seconds, then you'll find out how much you really did need to talk and clear the air. Honest talk always leads to honest passion, and these are two things the world could stand to have a lot more of.

Gemini Moon
Imagine your life has been divided in half by a screen and all the important changes you feel are developing on the other side of this partition. Since you can't actually see what's going on, the experience may feel more like a mental exercise than an actual project of improving and expanding your world. The screen is about to lift, revealing some daring goals you may have forgotten about. If you pursue those goals, the outcome is uncertain, a measure of conviction will be necessary, and you're unlikely to recognize your life when you look back. Thank God for miracles.