Dear Friend and Reader:
In the story left for us by ancient lore masters (known as the zodiac), Gemini is the first sign in the sequence that depicts the human form. It’s difficult to miss that the first human sign depicts not one but two critters, whom we are told are twins.
Yet in the symbolic language spoken by astrology, this image seems to be a metaphor for the divided nature of consciousness: soul and ego, body and mind, light side and dark side, inner adult and inner child, animal and human — we could go on for a while with these seeming inner divisions. Seeming divisions, though not without effects — many people feel divided against themselves, and it’s no shock why: numerous influences are exploiting our weaknesses and our lack of self-knowledge, and playing various ‘us vs. them’ games that serve mainly to weaken us as individuals and collectively.
One manifestation of inner division is all those people roaming the world searching for their missing piece. Has anyone not been there at some point? The belief that someone else will make us a complete person is different from wanting companionship. I’m talking about the sensation of feeling less than whole, combined with the expectation of being completed by another person.
It’s risky business, in part because any relationship with that as its premise is likely to be a little shaky, and thus not such a great place to fulfill that purpose — unless, of course, it throws you back on yourself (which sooner or later, it will) and you have no choice but to find yourself (which will happen sooner or later).
Part of how this manifests is in personal relationships in which, in their obsession with finding the soul mate, people skip over a lot of otherwise great friends, and also skip over the fact that people are whole individuals, or at least on a journey to wholeness. We can be helped, supported, loved, trusted and appreciated by others — but we cannot be completed because we already are complete.
Also on the Gemini channel, we take it for granted that we seem to live in a world so split over the issue of us and them. It’s really an inversion of the same equation: these people are so different from me that they’re, well, different from me and therefore they are [name your prejudice] and as a result I can [name your inhumane action] them. ‘Us and them’ is a projection of the same split-self phenomenon that leads us into all kinds of weird things like ‘culture wars’.
One of the boldest manifestations of us/them involves gender and sexual orientation. It’s almost unparalleled in any other expression of life — this history of families throwing out or torturing children (including adult children) for their sexual orientation, for example. Religions that are supposedly based on love take up political arms against the rights of certain people to love whom they choose.
In reality, humans are much more gender-fluid than we like to let on. We have every potential within us, but there is a big skew in the statistics due to rather enormous social pressure. We’ve all figured out that if you object to gay people that much, maybe you have a little something going on yourself. This works with so many facets of life that, for example, nobody is surprised when they hear the (probably false) claim that Adolf Hitler was part Jewish. We all know what projection is, even if it’s ‘unconscious’ when we do it.
Let’s pretend this whole scenario is described by Gemini, as it depicts mirror-consciousness, and the inner divisions (and conflicts) that are projected onto others, including onto the whole population. And, let’s consider for a moment that today’s transit of Venus represents a unifying principle, which will tangibly illustrate for us, and demonstrate for us, that we’re each our own unique critter.
The Venus transit of the Sun represents the merging together of two very different things in the sign Gemini, which is an image of mending the division implied by this sign. It may not happen overnight, though you tell me — are you experiencing your usual inner conflicts beginning to dissolve into something easier?
Some of the most scathing divisions of supposed difference involve sex and sexual identity, and this is often exploited by religion. Last night two different people sent me links suggesting that something is in the air — that something is on the mend. I would like to offer these in the spirit of the Venus transit of the Sun.
First, Marisa Black, my friend and fellow writer for Dodson and Ross, has been updating me on how Mormons in Salt Lake City are finally getting hip to the idea that it’s normal to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. Sincerely, it took me a few rounds of correspondence to figure out what a big deal this is, how significant a shift in energy it represents.
First she sent me this video produced by students at Brigham Young University (scroll down a bit for the video). It takes nine minutes to watch and will convince you the world is changing. Then a little while ago she sent this blog post, from Monday, about the Mormon church expressing what is in truth unprecedented and (to me) rather stunning tolerance, with its members marching in the pride parade.
Then a friend in China, who follows sex and gender issues carefully, sent me this article from Tuesday’s New York Times, about how Sister Margaret Farley was denounced by the Vatican (an honor on par with winning an Oscar). In part, the article says:
The Vatican office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” by Sister Margaret A. Farley, was “not consistent with authentic Catholic theology,” and should not be used by Roman Catholics.
Sister Farley, a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and an award-winning scholar, responded in a statement: “I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether.”
The book, she said, offers “contemporary interpretations” of justice and fairness in human sexual relations, moving away from a “taboo morality” and drawing on “present-day scientific, philosophical, theological, and biblical resources.
The transit of Venus is off to a fine start. What we can infer (among other things) is that there’s evidence of a conversation happening. There are actually many that need to happen, and while we’re here on this superstar day in Gemini history, let’s get them going.
I’ll be back on the Planet Waves main blog, Daily Astrology and Adventure, with more details on other situations (particularly Wisconsin) as the day develops.
Lovingly,
