New Moon in Gemini: Poets, Priestesses & Magicians – Astrology of 5/20 – 5/26

We’re making magic this week when we engage with the generation of novelty. The Sun enters Gemini, and all of our exact transits this week (save for a Mars-Uranus sextile at the end of the week) involve aspects to the Sun, Mercury, and Venus which are all in Gemini, and we’ve got a New Moon in Gemini! Not only this, but there is a stellium of Venus, Mercury, fire and temple priestess Vesta, and the North Node of the Moon in Gemini. This translates to poet-priestess-magician energy flooding the planet this week, and we can tap in by doing something magical with our word.

Watch the video version of this forecast (with added commentary) here, or keep reading below! Please like and subscribe to help my new YouTube channel along 🙂

My favorite image for Gemini is the magician. Gemini is an extremely clever sign with a quick and flexible enough mind to perceive the subtle opportunities of the moment. Instead of just seeing one obvious, clear path of which to follow, Gemini sees forks upon forks upon forks along the path, and is capable of entering tangential universes of novel quality. This pattern is also correlated with Gemini’s common challenges around difficulty focusing or being scatterbrained. However, any book or completed work in its final form, no matter how coherent and focused, is a tapestry of countless divergent paths and tangents, random experiences, research, and the like. Gemini’s magical powers exist not just in the process of being able to take the fork in the path, but to make a connection between that fork and whence it came. So too is Gemini associated with the messenger, or the traveler between realms.  

(Image: The Visitation by Paul Ranson)

“This time when we have fallen from ‘the path’, when here seems to be no way, is often a reopening to the deep experience of the soul. Many old teachers suggest that we cannot revisit the garden by quite the same path we once did.” – Martin Shaw, from Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet, Black Branch of Language

This week it may be worth considering how you engage with novelty and where in your life novelty will be medicine. Our patterns and habits make a neat little track or map, and to the extent we remain in these habits we make hamster wheels of ourselves. Consistency has its magic, too, but that’s not the same as inflexibility or rigidity. Do we trust that our curiosity or our desire to explore a fork in the road or a tangential path may contain value, that our instincts and inspiration may be guiding us toward a unique discovery? When we generate new choices and open new doors, we create new mapping points and actual new experiences, which effectually changes our lives.

Considering Vesta’s quality in all of this, an archetype associated with devotion and temple space – it’s not that all choices in the pursuit of novelty are equal. Choose an energy/value, or several core energies/values that you are devoted to, and orient your map from there. This is how your magic can be intentional, instead of random.

Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe feels like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list here. This is also a great way to stay in the loop about special offerings and to be notified when Evolutionary Astrology Intensive opens up for enrollment!

Before we get into this week’s transits in more detail, a few announcements:

New episode of Magic of the Spheres! Arakai Moon and I have a conversation about daily self-pleasure 🌺 to kick off this Venus retrograde. I think of Venus retrograde as an evolution and internalization of the Venus principle, and self-pleasure is one way that we can deepen our relationship with ourselves. Arakai was on this podcast earlier (episodes 31 and 32) where we discussed the Taurus/Scorpio axis as a tantric axis.

Arakai Moon of Star Siren Astrology is a shamanic bodyworker and evolutionary astrologer, whose finesse in working with and naming subtle energy is truly inspiring – she and I met for the first time at last year’s Northwest Astrological Conference, and talked deep into the night, realizing that we had a connection – and not only had we been immersed in the same vein of astrology for years but we’d both come into contact with our own power through very Plutonic experiences in 2012 when Pluto squared our Suns. Arakai spent 6 years in the jungles of Costa Rica, merging deeply with the land, plants and animals, and I think you will soon tell from tuning into her presence just how truly enchanting and perceptive she is.

Listen where you tune into podcasts or on your browser here!

Kickstarter coming June 2020: June will begin the sixth year of writing these weekly forecasts and I’ll be asking for your support to crowdfund the year ahead. I’ll be offering astrology readings, discounted tuition to my Evolutionary Astrology course, and more. These forecasts have long been free and providing so much value to many people’s lives, and I truly need the support of you as my community to thrive. (Consider me like public radio!) I aim to keep sharing valuable free content for years to come and I ask for your help achieving a salary for the consistent high-value content I share with the public. This will be my first Kickstarter – please help me make it a success!

Here’s our week:

May 20, 2020

Sun enters Gemini: 6:49 AM PDT

(Image: The Two Graces by Paul Ranson)

• In Gemini Season we’re likely to be in touch with a desire for mental stimulation and novelty. We become more curious and open, if even hungry, for new information and a variety of perspectives.
• Gemini has a talent for synthesizing and building bridges, and can see connections between different schools of thought, modalities, and trivia.
• The open-mindedness that Gemini represents goes beyond simply being able to entertain different kinds of thoughts. New thoughts open new worlds. Gemini is actually very much a magician! We can both use words to describe what is, AND use words to create new realities.
• The experience of being mentally stimulated can have the result of shaking loose stagnant ways of thinking and offering new prisms to peer into our reality through. Gemini has a characteristic lightness to it – this capacity to freely flow in and out of different realities, collect novel experiences, and then cross-fertilize different realms by bringing messages from one into another and translating them, if need be.
• Pay attention to your own travels this Gemini Season – not your distant travels, but the different places you occupy in one conversation versus another, in the dreamtime versus waking, in one particular headspace versus another, in your home and when you cross the threshold into the outside world, and so on. Give texture and depth to the awareness of how much you travel in one day.

Venus retrograde in 20 Gemini square Neptune in 20 Pisces: 4:02 PM PDT

(Image: Alma Haser)

This is the second of three exact Venus-Neptune squares this Venus retrograde cycle. Venus recently stationed retrograde on the 12th, and now makes a square to Neptune on her way back through Gemini.

• Our self-image may be blurry or distorted at this time, if only to reveal that some objective truth that we seek is nowhere to be found. We say something like, “I’m confused” (which translates to “I AM confused. Hi, my identity, my name, is confused.”) and continue to be confused because in our naming of our current felt state, we are also creating our state with our word. Yet not to worry – it is all about the pivot. “I’m feeling confused and…. I am open to step into a new frame of time where I encounter clarity.” Or asking, “Self, why you are confused? What is confusion telling me?” And listening for the answers that bubble up from a mysterious source. You may have your own tricks for how you lightly inquire and step into different headspaces with your choice.

(Image: Alma Haser)

• It is not to say we do not have an inner-flame or inner-pillar of identity, a True Self, that we can uncover through introspection and meditation. However, there are many particulars about our experience and our identity that we do CREATE with our perception and our thoughts.
• To what extent have we unintentionally designed our self-image and our relationships through outdated thoughts? Have you been casting the spell that no one understands you, that you’re not beautiful, or that you’re only worthy of settling for something kind of safe and lukewarm instead of meeting your heart’s desires? Can you craft something new of your self-concept that builds an actual bridge between you and what you long for? It doesn’t even matter if it’s a fantasy. A fantasy acted upon becomes a reality.

• We sometimes associate Venus with people-pleasing but Venus is also related to the capacity of knowing what we value and therefore also owning our capacity to say no because we know the standards that we hold. Consider that if we change or thoughts, and therefore our mapping points (of self and how we as a self interface with reality) we are also going to become responsible for making choices that reflect these new spells. As a friend of mine Serena Portal has often said, “what would the version of myself who loves herself do today?” And do it!

• Perhaps consider this time period (Venus retrograde and Venus squaring Neptune most of the retrograde cycle) like gazing into a pool of water with ripples that haven’t smoothed out yet, so the reflected image of your face in the water is moving and bending. Rather than focus on how disorienting this may be, I invite you to consider it a wormhole of opportunity for something healing and creative to occur.

May 22, 2020

Mercury in 20 Gemini conjunct Venus retrograde in 20 Gemini: 1:41 AM PDT

(Image: Fallen Stars by Paul Ranson)

Mercury, Venus, priestess asteroid Vesta, and the North Node are all conjunct in Gemini which is an incredible line-up! There is poet-priestess-magician energy streaming onto Earth right now as represented by this signature. The North Node of the Moon correlates with energies that are flooding into our collective experience abundantly. I keep saying it, but consider your spells right now and the creative power of your word. I do not reserve the term “spell” for self-proclaimed magicians and witches only. The word is a magical power for all.

• Ritual is a basic human need and it’s deep in our DNA and soul memory – there are simply things we are able to move, process, and create through the liminal space that is ritual. In the potential absence of rituals to participate in (should you not be aware of or interested in any) you can create one yourself as simple or elaborate as you wish.
• A simple ritual example considering the energies of Gemini: Pick an intention of something you are wishing to call into your life. Clear and beautify your designated space, dress for the occasion, light a candle, and make the intention of entering a ritual space. Write, make music, move as though your intention has already come true and you are living it and embodying it through your expression. Find a symbolic way to close the ritual container and reflect on what you discovered. 

Sun in 1 Gemini trine Saturn retrograde in 1 Aquarius: 5:02 AM PDT

(Image: Winold Reiss, Langston Hughes.)

• Thoughts and ideas come faster than our application of them does, and inevitably we don’t act upon EVERY inspired idea that comes our way because we don’t have the energy or the time. However, just implementing some of our ideas is a way we become more grounded as a channel. Inspired ideas that float through the ether *want* to land into the life of someone who will actually do something to incarnate it.
• This is connected to why people who put in the time consistently to cultivating a craft, skill, or talent over hundreds or thousands of hours become masterful – they effectively become channels for inspiration to flow through them. The muses recognize a vessel.
• This is a good time to consider the strength of your channel that brings your particular genius into the world. Have you committed to a practice, and invented what that looks like for you?
• Many people get good ideas by running water (such as, in the shower) as Aquarius, a sign associated with downloads, is represented by the water bearer. You can build a channel by repetitively and consistently cultivating a practice or showing up in time and space for your creativity, and eventually the genius comes like the water comes gushing through a faucet.
• Saturn is known for discipline – Gemini is not. However, Gemini can work wonders with the right container (which discipline is effectively, a container for a process to unfold). Gemini brings novelty, magic, and cleverness to what it touches. So we may consider how there is some space for the routine or the discipline, and also spaciousness within that container of the routine to have novel breakthroughs or discoveries. Consider the ways you engage with discipline or design commitments into your life that actually make way for the birth of novelty and exploration.

Mercury in 20 Gemini square Neptune in 20 Pisces: 8:43 AM PDT

(Image: Paul Ranson)

• The boundaries between realms is thinner and oracular exercises like automatic writing may be particularly abundant as to what information can be revealed.
• Where we are used to going through the motions and completing tasks from a place of rigidity may feel unusually difficult or boring right now. Mercury and Gemini are tricksters, and the flow and sequencing of information (or order of operations on one’s to-do list) under this Mercury-Neptune transit may be more ideally based on feeling and inspiration than pre-existing forms of logic. Pay attention to crucial moments where inspiration challenges logic – and test what happens when you allow yourself to follow the energy current of your curiosity and inspiration instead of a preconceived (and perhaps stale) notion of how you are supposed to engage with the situation at hand.

New Moon in 2 Gemini: 10:38 AM PDT

(Image: The Flux of Becoming by Pam Hawkes)

The Sun and Moon align in early Gemini, forming a square to Mars and Ceres in Pisces, and trining Athena and Saturn in Aquarius. Gemini’s ruler, Mercury, is still in close conjunction to retrograde Venus and part of the stellium with Venus, Vesta, and the North Node of the Moon. 

• This lunation aspects two archetypes notably associated with grief: Ceres and Saturn. We say that time heals all wounds, but so does the generation of novelty, which is Gemini’s specialty. We ought to be careful of nostalgia, or the tendency to locate certain experiences of our deepest satisfaction or presence as living in the past. Nostalgia’s etymology comes from the Greek “nostos” meaning “return home” and the Greek “algos” meaning “pain”. Our favorite seasons of the past were likely time periods where we were present and engaging thoroughly with what the moment had to offer. When we are in nostalgia, not only are we pining after something unattainable, but we’ve greatly frozen our capacity to generate novelty. We think that repeating the past, in whatever ways we can, will bring us back ‘home’ to a place of connection and satisfaction, but the doorways home are actually always changing and it takes a freshness of mind to recognize the new doorways.
• The generation of novelty: the mutable signs (Gemini included) each follow a fixed sign in the natural zodiac. Mutable energy relates to change and the shaking loose of old patterns. It is the time in each season (fall, winter, etc.) where one season is transitioning into the next. Naturally, when we engage new experiences, we loosen up what has grown “fixed” in us. There is a time for focus and consolidation – and yet also a time, to transition.
• Transitions are connected to the liminal, or the in-between spaces, which are highly magical spaces full of many potentials – potentials which, once come into form, will be more ‘fixed’ eventually themselves. When we are working with the liminal, we have so many choices, and can shape current and future events while they are in potential. This is like the brainstorming phase before starting and completing a project.
• If you feel that you are in-between homes (literally or figuratively), or in-between seasons of connection and satisfaction in your life, or if you are processing something from the past and its is clouding your vision of the future – these are all domains of the wanderer archetype. If this is a space you find yourself in, I like to advise thinking of the time period like a walking meditation, or like life itself is a ritual. For a moment, the shoreline pulls back and is flat like a sheet, before a wave collects again. This is the natural flow. How can you breathe fully into the space?
• If you are feeling lighter or feeling spacious, this is also a time to be fully with that – to read the books, have the conversations and experiences, that interest you. To feel stimulated by life, with a lightness of feet – to savor something and easily move on to the next frame of time. To be in delight. Delight’s etymology comes from the Latin “delectare” meaning “to charm” and English “light”. 

May 24, 2020

Mars in 8 Pisces sextile Uranus in 8 Taurus: 11:48 PM PDT

(Image: William Hays)

• Many have us have inherited the conditioning that the natural environment around us is operating at a level lower than the brilliance of human cognition – that the trees are alive, but not exactly conscious, that the wind is a scientific pattern of energy, but not also a spirit. This conditioning has created a profound and all-encompassing sense of alienation. We begin to heal that alienation when we consider the relationships that we have with *everything*. The environment around us can become shockingly and startlingly ALIVE when we begin to dialogue with it and court it. 
• As an assignment for the week, if you’d like one – find a nonhuman being to befriend that is a being you’ve not yet forged a connection with. Introduce yourself, talk with it, ask it questions. You may notice new ideas bubbling up in your mind that are a result of the connection, or the answers or response might come delayed, by a dream or a synchronicity. The more you engage with this kind of practice, the more tuned in you will feel to recognizing when nonhuman beings are dialoguing with you.
• I think it’s worth a honest inquiry to what in this life has made you scoff (if you do) at the thought of talking to the wind and asking it what it wants to tell you today. If that were a normal way of life, would you not question it? What forces have separated you from the wind? What would it be like to have the wind as a friend again? Of course this is not limited to the wind, but any being that has become dull and not sentient through conventional societal norms, but who is in fact, alive, and in its quietness only reflecting our own disenchantment toward it. We can all be surprised at what we hear and see when we allow the world soul to speak more freely.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

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Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are soul family to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have.

If you enjoy these forecasts and would like more personalized guidance re your personal astrology, I would love to read your natal chart and transits for you! If you would like me to explore the themes in your chart, book a reading with me here. 

I meditate on charts before the reading and combine my knowledge of astrology with my clairvoyant abilities to offer you some insights about themes you are working with in this life based on prior lives, and what is the evolutionary purpose of this lifetime. I recorded an episode on my podcast recently titled Befriending your Intuition and Clairvoyance if you’d like to learn more about my relationship with clairvoyance along with tips for increasing yours!

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With love,

Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She is a novelist and has a M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

(image of monarch butterflies coming out of envelope by @chthonicbacchae)