Cosmophilia: You Belong Here for Gemini

By Eric Francis

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Gemini Part One

Gemini Part Two

Download mp3 archive.

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Cosmophilia prologue

Cosmophilia houses

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Gemini may be the most practical sign to be born under in our era, where multitasking, multiple identities and ADD are all basic necessities for existence. You know you belong on Earth because you’re so fascinated by life here. You are relentlessly curious, and your active mind resonates and responds well to the verging-on-chaos of our times.

Yet the astrology and the rapid movement of our culture in recent years has pushed even you to your limits. Some things that seem like they should be easy have proven to be challenging; it’s not simple getting close to people, especially if they don’t know what they want, which is a keynote of our time in history.

At the same time you’ve also felt called to aspire to far greater things than you’ve ever accomplished. What you’ve lived of life so far has felt like just a taste of what is possible. That calling is booming out now, urging you to reach higher than you ever have before.

The presence of one of the most energetic new discoveries in your sign — a Chiron-like planet called Asbolus — has given you the gritty determination to survive and to succeed at nearly any cost. Nothing will stop you. You have resolved never, ever, to fail. That determination is a good thing, though the astrology of 2015 is calling on you to do far more than survive or even succeed.

There is a passionate aspiration in your charts for creative vision and the drive to create something that nobody has ever seen or experienced. Yes, there is some desire for worldly success mixed in with that impulse, but it’s not the thing you’re after. To my reading of the charts, it seems the thing you’re wanting is to aspire to excellence, and to shape the world with some living, urgent, creative vision you have.

Some days this feels inevitable. Other days it feels like grasping a cloud. Other days it feels like your ultimate responsibility. And some days you get the idea that if only you could have perfect faith in yourself, you could accomplish anything. To some extent all of these things are true. Yet there is a higher calling, which you might say amounts to accomplishing the impossible.

To get there — and I have no doubt that you will — you need to blend your idealism and your determination with an extremely grounded approach to existence. Most people who have indeed achieved what was once considered impossible will tell you that the way they accomplished it was a little at a time, one day at a time, day after day, step by step.

It is this discipline that you need — patience, persistence and the ability to focus on one thing for what in your perception may be an unusual amount of time. If you’re already on this page, then even greater things are possible. Not only is your astrology giving you more than abundant energy, and brilliant ideas; you now have the structure to contain, direct and focus those things.

Let’s break those things down — under three basic headings: energy, ideas and structure. These come from three different places in your horoscope, which you will personally need to blend and integrate.

Mars, Mercury and Icarus in Gemini

On the day the Sun enters your sign in 2015 — the chart for this reading — there is a gathering of planets in your sign. Among them are Mars, the god of action; Mercury, the conscious mind; Icarus, the drive for peak experiences; Siwa, which is about listening; and Arachne, one of my favorite points, which is about networks, conspiracies and storytelling.

Mercury is retrograde that day. This is helpful because it turns your awareness inward, in a time when inner awareness is one of the most helpful things you can have as a tool. Mercury retrograde, you might read in an old astrology book, is about marching to the beat of your own drummer.

Mainly, it’s an invitation to listen for that beat, to pick up on it and to let it pulse through your mind at all times. Use the power of Mercury combined with Siwa to listen to yourself — to your own inner voice. That inner awareness should get the last vote in any decision you’re making.

As for Mars, this gives you a compelling force of both attraction and persuasion. Icarus is the drive to go higher, which in my experience will always find a way to express itself. You must make sure that expression is healthy. The combination of Mars and Icarus in particular can drive a person to do irresponsible things; you have too much to accomplish to take needless risks.

But you can use the power of Icarus to take the right risks — the ones you want, the ones you will benefit from.

If something, some external factor, seems to block you from taking a chance, consider whether it was really the right thing to do. When you choose to leap or to fly, make sure you have a way to come back to the ground. The airplane is a fine invention, but it benefits greatly from dependable landing gear.

As for Arachne — it’s the one that says “we’re all connected.” This can work two ways. One is the fear that some kind of conspiracy is afoot, and depending on your fear level, this may not be appealing. The alternative is to use your skills to find a way to connect with anyone, anywhere, for any purpose you need. Take over the whole conspiracy thing, and start one of your very own — a conspiracy involving your own success. Use the combined power of your drive and your communication skills to get people together; to get them onto the same page. If you strive to do this, you will succeed — many factors working for you this year are on the theme of bringing people together.

Arachne is about the weaving of stories. It is vitally important that as part of your quest for being and for succeeding, you tell your own story on your own terms.

That covers most of what is in your sign, except for one thing — Chaos. Yes, Chaos. This is not an asteroid — it’s a planet closely related to Pluto. As a slow-mover, it takes nearly three centuries to go around the zodiac. It entered your sign in 2001 and will be there until 2021. Like most things in the nature of Gemini, you get two choices with Chaos, which is named for the primordial Greek entity or state of affairs. It refers to the formless void preceding the creation of the cosmos. You might experience the presence of Chaos as disorder; and you have the choice to experience it as a state of creative potential.

The key to tapping into Chaos, as almost any artist will tell you, is that you don’t want to impose too much order on your work, your workspace or your ideas. Leave a little gap, an opening where the unpredictable can come into the picture and influence you.

These placements give you plenty to work with. You really have all the ingredients you need. If there seems to be a lack of feminine energy in your sign, remember that Chaos has that flavor, and I did not mention that Sappho is there as well. She’s not just about women getting together — she’s about everyone getting together, and she will offer a soulful quality to whatever you need to write. Sappho is named for the first woman whose words were ever recorded in the history of Western civilization, and she was quite a writer. We are still talking about her today.

The Pisces Factor

We all have Pisces in our charts. You have it in the house of achievement and success, calling on you to do visionary, artistic work; to be an artist in all that you may do. But the visions of Pisces can be difficult to manifest. Fortunately you have help — a lot of help. Over the years, planets have been gathering in Pisces, and that gathering is now coming into focus.

Included are Chiron, who is the master of concentrated effort, awareness and service; Borasisi, which is about the power of faith and belief; Neptune, which is refreshing the waters of Pisces with new ideas and idealism; and most recently, Nessus, which brings the single most important factor to the 10th house and the power that it represents — accountability.

The first few factors grant you the ability to write your own pass, because people will believe what you tell them. They will take what you say on faith, and what you say will be compelling and appealing. With Chiron’s presence, you wear the mantle of authority. It is easy to abuse this kind of power, or to let it run away with you. Once people trust that you’re an authority in something, you hold a lot of sway in their lives.

People want what you’re saying to be true, and that is why they will offer you their faith. There are bold ideas that you have, which is more than most people have to offer. That boldness grants you creative impulse, and also a measure of charisma.

Nessus will remind you to use your power judiciously. Even more so than with Chiron, there are consequences for exceeding your authority or failing to uphold the public trust where Nessus is present. Remember that in all you do, all that you reach for, the buck stops with you.

The idea here is not to prevent you from doing anything; to the contrary, the combined force of these planets, especially Nessus — serving as a kind of final check and assurance of responsibility — is designed to protect what you’re doing and grant longevity to your efforts.

Here is the thing about all this Pisces working for you: it can never really be satisfied by any earthly achievement. It can only be answered in a cosmic quest. That is how you must think of what you’re doing — as a mission that far exceeds the possibilities of this world, but which must be grounded in the present moment, suited to the circumstances our planet faces now. The more celestial your calling the more practical you will need to be. The longer-term your vision, the more carefully you must pace yourself; the more aware you must be of your steps.

Saturn in Sagittarius

Which brings me to Saturn in Sagittarius — a new transit that will be in effect all year except for a brief spell between June 14 and Sept. 15.

Sagittarius is your opposite sign — the sign of relationships, partnerships, and of your environment. Having Sagittarius on this house can be a wild ride; your relationships happen in the context of a fire sign, and one that has been very, very active with hot, fiery, newly discovered planets for years.

With each passing year this seemed to get more intense. But now two things are happening — planets are moving out of Sagittarius and into Capricorn; and Saturn has arrived and in effect taken over your relationship angle.

That is good news for you, because it represents a cooling off of your relationships, the ability to slow down and get serious, and something tangible to hold onto.

Saturn also gives you something tangible to push back against — a structure within which to contain your overabundant energy and ideas. Saturn is the perfect ingredient to compliment all that is happening for you in your own sign and in Pisces.

Where Saturn is present, one’s life calling can come into focus. Personal Saturn contacts like this often represent a stepping-up of business and career-related activities, which in this case is an increase of energy as well as granting the power of concentration that, when well-aspected, Sagittarius is famous for.

There is the necessity for maturity in these matters when Saturn is in the picture. While there may be frustrations, it’s important to sort out consciously what is a challenge, what is a block and what is suggesting you try a new approach. This will take some experimentation.

Saturn in Sagittarius will have an influence on your personal relationships as well. This is how most people experience Saturn in the 7th: it is the get-serious moment for their interactions with significant others. Even as you focus on your mission in life, you will be summoned, compelled or truly desire to focus on your personal relationships.

It is worth mentioning that too often, these things conflict. One way to avert that is to select people who are fully in support of your work, and who also know what it means to have a mission. I don’t think it will work to be with anyone with whom it feels like your life calling competes with the relationship you share.

Sagittarius is all about a vision. Saturn is about focusing that vision. This includes having a vision for your relationships.

Here are some ideas that I keep handy when the topic of Saturn in the 7th house comes up. It’s a basic assessment of the possibilities that are experienced by most people when Saturn meets the 7th house. One or more may speak to you:

The first is that you’re experiencing a clean sweep of your relationships. Old attachments, old ways of doing things, old patterns, and the relationships that were supported by those patterns, are either being transformed or eliminated from your life. You recognize this as a get-serious moment in your values toward relationship, and your life is reflecting this. The keynote here is emotional maturity. There is also the angle of spiritual maturity — hard to define, but closely related to one’s connection to existence itself.

The second possibility is that you are in an intense situation that rises to the level of a quest for deep bonding and intimate contact. The scenario may at times seem above your level or like more than you can handle, but you know it’s time for something like this to be happening. You may be finding yourself there, getting to experience what deep bonding is really like. It’s probably a little different from how you thought it would be, but more meaningful than you imagined.

The next possibility is that you’re in a relationship that is becoming confining. You may have outgrown the situation, or may be feeling like you need more room to express yourself. Yet you have a sense of commitment and an ethic to uphold. Here is the question to ask: what part of your emotional state is the product of past conditioning? The value on commitment? The guilt for wanting to be free of it? Or something else?

Another possibility is that you’re not getting anywhere with your desire to be in an intimate situation. Maybe your relationship life seems stuck, or nobody seems available. In this case, I suggest you go back to the first possibility above — the one about needing a clean sweep of your past tendencies. You may be in the midst of precisely that, and one way your energy systems are responding is through blocking contact with inappropriate people with whom involvement would be a setback. I suggest you set a high standard for compatibility, but also question our cultural mania with being “in a relationship” at the same time, as it discounts many, many concepts of relationship that could, and do, address the human condition of needing companionship.

Finally, you might notice that things are starting to materialize for you. This is a specific fact of Sagittarius being involved. That materialization will have a stabilizing factor; one that will probably feel good, because things have been so unworldly and perhaps chaotic in your relationship house for so long. Here is the thing: what you get is based on what you choose. You have learned many, many lessons in relationships, with many of them dating back 20 years (or some portion thereof, depending on your age).

Saturn will give you an opportunity to build a safe container. But remember, you’re a Gemini and one of the most mutable, changeable people around. Write this on your wall! A safe container must be a flexible container. The house must have windows, doors and utilities. The container of a relationship needs the same features.

Speaking of Home Spaces

One of the most vital aspects of belonging is the space you live in. How do you feel where you’re living? Is it the right size? Is there enough air and light? Is it organized the right way? The home angle of your chart is speaking of these things.

It’s saying on the one hand that you may be feeling a little cramped where you are, or just have some sense that you don’t exactly fit. But it’s also suggesting that you figure out what, specifically, you need. By specific, I mean really specific. I mean a description like: brick building, not wood; hardwood floors; southern exposure; high ceilings; not on the ground floor; two bedrooms (at least); gas stove, not electric. Not too big, not too small — about 1,000 square feet.

You are fussy about where you live as it is. But current influences are pushing that beyond all precedent. What is exciting is that there’s no rush to make a move, but in the late summer or early autumn, you may get an excellent opportunity, or feel the itch for more — or preferably better — space.

Someone, I’m not sure who, said to me a few months ago, “Space is intelligence.” I thought about that for a while, and then put it to use. It’s a brilliantly intuitive statement. Soon after, I had a dream that I occupied the whole second floor of the building I live in (that’s the office level). In one scene in the dream, I was walking around a space I am particularly fond of and decided it needed to be a painting studio. This was a dream about what I would do with all the space I could imagine — and what I came up with first is a painting studio. (I have borrowed that same space for photographic sessions.)

For you, who have Virgo on the 4th house cusp, the angle of your chart associated with the physical and also emotional space you occupy, space is definitely intelligence. Your physical space influences your mental space, and thus your ability to be productive.

Many people are working from home these days, and if you do, you have a need to arrange your space in a way that is both functional from a work standpoint, yet also harmonizes with the rest of your life. Take your time and figure this out. Learn from small adjustments and experiments.

Keep an eye out all the time for living spaces. Decide if you’re open to owning or if you want to rent. Check out anything that sounds interesting — physically go visit the place. Bring your checkbook in case it looks good. I have seen, everywhere in the world I’ve lived — and I’ve lived in many countries and regions of the U.S. — that it’s possible to find someplace that’s works for you and that’s affordable.

Jupiter’s arrival in Virgo in August hints that you can get more than your money’s worth.

Of Health and of Wealth

You may be keenly aware that time is passing. You may be noticing how vulnerable life, and health, really are. That’s a good thing. It will encourage you to live your life more fully and more consciously.

It’s vital to recognize that your wealth is your health — because without your health you don’t have much. With your health you have access to your energy, and to the freedom of movement. Your health is closely connected to your emotional state. That, in turn, is connected to your sexual wellbeing. In some quarters it’s trendy to think that sex is overrated or that it doesn’t count for much. But with Scorpio occupying your house of health and wellbeing, that theory is unlikely to work for you.

There is a connection between sexual impulses and your ability to earn money — though it’s a bit abstract to explain in a few words. Let’s just say that it’s there, and that the common ground is the attractive force that bonds people — and that changes them in the process.

It’s essential that you get over your sentimental or romantic visions of money, of wealth and of the value of your work. It’s essential, as well, that you eliminate this odd factor of co-dependency that shows up around money. It’s an emotional factor; that is the thing to remember.

I think the most important thing you can do for yourself is to work toward financial independence; that is, standing on your own feet with the work that you do. Notice the role everyone in your life has where money is concerned. Notice the emotional bonds and connections that surround money, the exchange of money and the exchange of value.

One important step to doing this is to become a master of contracts and agreements. You may think it’s harsh to create specific agreements and hold people to them, though that seems to be the most reliable antidote to the co-dependency factor. Ask yourself honestly: to what extent is money an issue in my relationships, and my family relationships?

How did things get to be the way they are? To what extent do you depend on people and to what extent do they depend on you?

Part of what you face is a situation where money is a power that can be used against you, rather than a tool you have access to. The difference is all the difference in the world. It’s not necessarily going to be easy to work this out, but certain developments this year will point out the need to do so. That in turn will give you resolve and help you drive your financial independence with some passion — just like you’re driving everything else in your life.

Your life is oriented on some unusual journey of success. Your potential is enormous right now. So too is your earning potential. As these things grow, your whole financial scenario will grow in approximate proportion. Best to work these matters out now so that as your ventures and your financial position increase in size and scale, you bring healthy values with you along the way.

By the way, this is an existential issue. Money is equated with survival. Survival is a matter of existence. You, personally, have few illusions about this. It’s when others enter the picture that you may get confused.

You don’t want to see anyone else struggle in the ways that you have. You have a real soft spot for that. It is actually a worthwhile goal to make yourself into a community resource, and to support the people you love — to a point. To a very definite, fine point — and to succeed in the ways you want to, it will help immensely if you know exactly what that point is.

Caring about others is a delicate balance. In essence that is the balance that makes a healthy community possible — whether that of a relationship, a family, a business or some other economic structure. I believe you will maintain that balance with your mind first, which will help you get clear about the lines of emotional and financial dependence.

In all things, sincere and reflective thought is vital to your success. That means more than thinking about your own life, your relationships and the choices you make — you need to think deeply, from several viewpoints and to some clear conclusions. Check your logic, forward and backward, until the facts and your perceptions align in a way that makes sense to you. From there, you will know what to do, and you will know why you need to do it. That kind of clarity is one of the highest states of awareness anyone can attain. It’s called clarity. That is a beautiful thing.

Charts

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