Eris in the 11th solar house. Spiral Door aspect, Quaoar and Ixion in the 7th solar house. Pluto working toward the solar 8th house. Saturn in the 3rd solar house heading for the 4th. Chiron-Nessus conjunct in the 9th solar house. Mars retrograde in the 2nd solar house. Venus retrograde in the 3rd and 4th solar houses.   Gemini is the relationship house for Sagittarius, the career house for Virgo, and the home and security house for Pisces. This interpretation works for Gemini rising as well.

WHEN I first began writing horoscopes in 1995, Pluto had just begun its transit of Sagittarius. I remember writing every Gemini horoscope with caution, taking care to handle the energy of this planet seeking the most beneficial possible interpretation and reaching beneath the surface for what the psychological message might be. The intensity of a Pluto, the deepest known energy at the time, transiting your relationship house (your opposite sign), called for attention and awareness, and I am going to presume that's what you've learned in the 12 years since then.
 
In sum, the picture looks like this: you've encountered, again and again, how powerful people can be. You have probably learned they do not always have the best intentions, though another factor says this in particular was a theme of the first few years. I am fairly certain that the beginning of this transit was the most difficult, through 1999, when Nessus, a Centaur planet, was accompanying Pluto in Sagittarius. In a sense, Nessus accelerated the transit, pushing a lot of the darker material normally associated with Pluto out into the open.
 
The rocket fuel effect of Centaur transits has been noted by other astrologers, who notice the increase in intensity. Nessus in particular has a way of revealing the interpersonal dynamics that comprise betrayal and cruelty. In other words, these things are not lacking for a cause. When they are present, we play some part, be it through expecting these qualities to be there, not recognizing them when they are there, or having a blind spot about the same qualities in ourselves.
 
The 7th house is sometimes described as the "zone of projection" in the chart, a place where our inner qualities are played out in the world of our relationships. What is crucial is that we take the opportunity to keep choosing. At first, we may choose to get drawn into the game; then we may choose to see the game; and finally, to make adjustments and consciously sidestep it, and choose another way. Pluto is basically a process of making what was hidden available to work with, and one of the advantages to working with astrology is that process, in itself, can be seen for what it is.
 
By late 1999, Nessus had left Sagittarius and another influence had come in -- Chiron. The conjunction of Chiron and Pluto in the fall of 1999 (coinciding with the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, the opening of the anti-globalization movement) marked a turning point, or at least a checkpoint in your progress, the first of three extremely significant ones. Rather than interpret this, I am going to suggest that you make some notes about what was going on in your life, what you thought it meant at the time, and what you think it means now. It was certainly an unusual time in history and an unusual time in your personal history.
 
By mid-2001, Saturn had entered your sign, which was the first placement of a slow-moving planet in Gemini in quite a few years. This had the effect of putting the focus back on you, no matter what was occurring in your relationships. Saturn will always focus its energy on the house it's transiting, even despite other seemingly stronger factors. In the summer of 2001, Saturn and Pluto met in a rare opposition aspect, and as far as the outer world is concerned, we all know the results. Once again, I suggest you consider what this meant to you at the time, and what it means to you today.
 
Through the rest of 2001, Chiron was close to the Galactic Core, where Pluto is today, and I would suggest that there is information from late 2001 about what you are experiencing today -- something that I would suggest is valuable for all the signs. This was a kind of warm-up to the Spiral Door experience that we are living through today.
 
To sum up, I would propose that the transit of Pluto through Sagittarius has provided one continuous opportunity to meet the world on its terms, and for you to insist that it meet you on your own. This has been a long journey, like scaling a mountain, but more like learning to handle yourself under any circumstances. The world is full of power games; you have learned the rules of these games, learned to play them to your advantage, and most important, learned to get out of the way when you need to.
 
Pluto on the Galactic Core is now a chance to leave all this behind. Pluto has a way of reorienting us, setting up expectations about how life is, and causing us to completely reorient ourselves around those feelings and in that environment. The Spiral Door phase is about loosening up that orientation, consolidating your knowledge and getting ready to move onto something new. With important Pluto transits, this can be a challenge because they can take so long to get used to. Then, once we have gotten into the process, the years have slipped by and it's time for something new.
 
But in summary, I want to say this. A Pluto transit is one thing; a Pluto transit with the support of two Centaur transits is another. In other words, had you experienced this transit in a time before the Centaur planets were known, it would have been a different thing entirely, less aware, with you having less power. The fact that you have integrated that material as well puts you on another level than you might ordinarily be. In essence, Chiron and his cousins increase the volatility of our growth. They work like psychic grease cutter, creating a more soluble state of mind, allowing for rapid changes in perspective and moreover, raising awareness of what might not otherwise be there. And that awareness you take with you as Pluto begins its process of changing signs, marking a gradual close to what has obviously been a significant period of your life.
 
The Spiral Door phase, Pluto crossing the Galactic Core, is about taking all that you have learned and reorienting in your relationships in the most aware and constructive way -- based on what you have learned. I daresay, much of that learning has involved what you do not want, but if you sift through the experiences, you'll see that there is quite a lot that you now know you want. This is the time to remember. It may also be a time of forming or developing existing partnerships that you will carry into the future. These are the relationships that can stand awareness, that are agents of change, and where your agenda is aligned enough with that of your fellow travelers that you can both relate from the soul level. And that, it would seem, is the moral of the story: relating from the soul level, indeed, making that your priority.
 
If you feel comfortable with the term, all the activity in your 7th house has spiritualized your relationships, and if nothing else, taught you to experience them, and yourself, and the people in your life, on an ever deeper and more essential level. This, in turn, has done something profound for you: it has helped you deal with being a Gemini more gracefully, and resolved something that I would imagine is both challenging and at times annoying for those born under your sign, which basically involves dualism.
 
Pairs of opposite signs bear a close relationship, and the two need one another dearly. The properties of one are often the necessary ingredients for the other. Indeed, opposite signs have a way of masquerading as one another, and there is often a deep mission in the lifetime of integrating the material of the opposite sign. In the book "Esoteric Astrology", Alice A. Bailey describes Gemini as "the light of interplay," adding that it reveals "that which opposes, or the basic duality of manifestation, the relationship between spirit and form. It is the conscious light of that relationship" [on p. 329 of the softcover edition].
 
Read that a few times (with esoteric writing, you have to), and then please allow me to paraphrase. Gemini's main job is to reveal consciously the relationship between spirit and form.
 
We live in a world that is hung up on forms. We have different names for them: status, appearance, perception, roles and so on. Within the forms is the content, the essence of life, but we tend not to notice. Indeed, the world is all about not noticing, and what we call the spiritual path is all about going beneath the surface (of oneself and of others) and experiencing what is below. So, here, we have another image of what it has meant to experience Pluto in Sagittarius, or to say that you have grown into a space where you've learned to relate on the soul level. This is the level below the form; what many spiritual paths call reality. You have also learned to experience yourself on this level.
 
While you have been going through this process, the world has been going through something similar, though at the moment it's not apparent. Indeed, something quite the opposite is apparent, as shadow material is getting projected all over the place, accusations are flying and divisions within divisions of dogmatic ideologies are appearing. Individually, though, I trust that many of us have integrated the "beam of directed, focused light" of Sagittarius, wherein "the point of light becomes the beam, revealing a greater light ahead and illuminating the way to the center of the light" [p. 330].
 
When this takes effect on a collective level, we shall see. Clearly, it will be based on dire necessity for survival, the only thing non-artists seem to respond to. One sense I have about 2012 is that along the way to this transition, we are experiencing a series of events that are gradually awakening the human family to the fact that we live on one planet, and are part of one living entity. Consider how hard it is for individuals to change, to make up their mind about something simple. Then magnify that by about 6.5 billion, then add governments and corporations manipulating everyone into doing various harmful things, or delaying progress.
 
This makes a strong case for the strongest progress, in the long run, coming from individuals and individual growth, as this seems to be the most difficult to block and the easiest to effect.
 
And now, for more practical matters. One extremely practical subject that comes into focus is money. While the astrology affecting this occurs later in the year, you can go a long way toward making life easier for yourself by doing what I will call taking a less emotional approach to the subject.
 
It is one thing to be intuitive, but that is different than emotional, and indeed, you can be quite intuitive when it comes to finances. This is not always true, however, and the ebbs and floods of your financial life need some stabilizing. The financial story of this year involves your coming to understand all of your beliefs about money that don't work. Many of them are based on insecurities. Many of those come from your mother. To successfully handle money, we need to act like an adult, not like a child under parental authority, or a parent controlling a child.
 
Another layer of this story is that you are likely to perceive your value in what you have to give, and this may preclude or at least create an obstacle to the possibility of receiving. I would, again, urge you to look at your parents and see who among them had this kind of attitude, because it likely comes from one of them, and was reinforced in you by their conduct and teaching.
 
Cancer on this house involves cycles, both financial and of self-esteem, and the two are related. Indeed, not enough has been said about this relationship, to which astrology points vividly. Wherever Cancer is in one's chart, there will be dependable cyclical movement. But the question is, what is driving those cycles forward? And what states of mind do they represent?
 
The sign Cancer can most frequently take two states: mother, and child. Each will have different expectations about the worth of things, how money is supposed to flow and what the rules of the game are. However, until you see and experience these different states consciously, and get acquainted with the various rules they imply, it is unlikely to be something you can work with consciously. Each will have a different idea of what money is, where it comes from, and what you do with it. Sometimes self-esteem will be connected to financial success; other times, low self-esteem will create failure.
 
When Mars makes its retrograde in this house, a lot of past stuff is going to come up, and you may want to get ahead of the curve. Retrogrades and other major events are available to work with long before they occur. So it's not really practicing but accessing an energy that is available. When the personal material becomes more apparent at the time of the retrograde, you will know what is happening and be able to identify solutions, more or less on the spot. The big questions are likely to involve certain past values about effort and labor.
 
One of these involves the question of sacrifice, which seems to have been pre-programmed into you from a young age, and connected directly to the value of your efforts. I have had a discussion a number of times with young people considering going into the esoteric arts as a profession, who often say some form of, "Yes, but is it right to charge money to help someone?" to which I reply, "Would you rather charge money to hurt them?"
 
Perhaps this is the working of my twisted mind, but I love the expression on people's faces as they work this concept out. The logic, though, is impeccable. At some point, you're going to need to feel great about being paid to help people, and getting paid well. This is your natural mode of expression -- you were indeed born to help. The trick will be making this work for you rather than against you: in essence, never being the victim of your own willingness to help others. And, to do this, you will need to be alert to the games that can and often do come with the act of helping or being helped.
 
I have a feeling that most of this is emotionally rooted, and thus tends to not express itself in words. And this is, in part, why you insist on such clear and at times oppressive agreements with people, contracts that have an odd tendency to trap you in places and situations you don't want to be, but which offer you a kind of pseudo stability. As you understand what is holding you down, and put it into terms you can understand, and address consciously, I think you will be able to relax a bit. This will help you slip into the natural flow of abundance that can really be yours -- in all respects, and in all kinds of relationships. This will feel like a miracle, and it will be one: the miracle of awareness. And that, fortunately, is available all the time.


GEMINI
For more information about your relationships, please see Sagittarius. This will give you an idea what is happening for those closest to you, and how they may experience you. For more information about your career, please see Pisces. You can consider this an alternative take on your professional life, as it's an assessment of your 10th house. For more information about the home and security angle of your chart, please see Virgo. This will give you greater detail on themes just covered in this horoscope that relate to home and security. For an explanation of the houses, please see this article.