Summer Solstice 2009: The Magic of Gemini, The Love of Cancer

Summer Solstice: Celebrating the Sun, Within and Without

The Solstice of the Summer Sun, the longest day and the shortest night of the year, is once again upon us, and the season of community and communication is in a high - albeit spastic - gear. As usual. Gemini is just not known for it's consistency. Or it's precision-craving ability to hold a laser-like focus. And as the Summer Solstice is always celebrated when the Sun moves from the sign of Gemini to the sign of Cancer, that restless energy is always at its most brilliant. Right here, right now. The actual day of the Summer Solstice varies slightly from year to year, and this year it officially occurs on Saturday, June 20th at 10:45 pm PDT.

All the Shabbat days are snapshots, in a manner of speaking. They are times when we get a brief glimpse of exactly what is going on now, and what is likely to take place in the future, given your prevailing winds and your current trajectory. The Solstices provide us with particularly important snapshot because they are - astrologically speaking - such a moment of imbalance. In the Northern Hemisphere, the imbalance of the Summer Solstice is a warm and glorious one. Though it can be fraught with Gemini-esque dualisms and juxtapositions of emotions: joy and grief, confidence and doubt, calmness and nervousness. After months of pursuing this year's version our own personal vision quest, we come back transformed to work together as families and communities to celebrate the lights that warm us - both internally and externally.

eddies sun

The period between Beltane and Summer Solstice is when the light bulb goes on - when you figure something out. Or several somethings. Especially if there was a Mercury Retrograde in the spring, which there was. A whopper of one, actually. From what I have been seeing in my office, many of y'all had epiphanies this spring much like Homer Simpson in The Simpsons Movie: facilitated by a total stranger you seem to have met randomly, and that showed you your part in your own foibles. Yay! But ouch. Or maybe d'oh.

So at the halfway mark in the year, you have found the solutions to your personal third act crisis, and it is time to take action. But taking action is another story entirely. For some of us, the actual motivation may come much later, and just having some clarity on it - figuring it out - is huge. This time of year, if all you can say is you are significantly clearer on and in tune with the needs of the moment, good for you, baby. You are further along than you were a short while back, and that is more than many can say. So just breathe and be grateful. Seriously. And trust that you are finding the path to your path. As always, I like to look to the stars for guidance. This time, let's start with that twin thing.

The Spirit of Gemini

The blessing and the curse of Gemini is that there are just two of you. And because one of you is significantly smarter than the other, you (and tragically, those around you) just never quite know which twin is showing up from one minute to the next. For the smarter twin, the magician, historically there is no better time than now to be a Gemini - in the Age of Information. I can tell you this from personal experience. Honestly, it's like being a kid in a candy store. All day, every day. I cannot begin to say how wonderful it is to finally find someone (or in this case, something) patient enough to answer all the questions I have in the course of a day. With a working Internet connection, there is always a wise and patient electronic adult on call. Now there is no longer an excuse to not know the things that you wonder about. Every single one. Which manager holds the Major League Baseball record for the most career ejections? Why, Bobby Cox, of course, with 132. Thank you, Google. Factor in forums and chat rooms, and there is absolutely nothing you cannot know. For Gemini's smarter twin, that provides a near-constant state of toe-curling mental orgasm.

The downside of Gemini is that relentlessly childish and bedeviling curiosity can annoy the living hell out of just about everyone else. Not to mention the naive, perennially eight-counts-behind-the-beat total Gemini moments we seem to have several times daily. You know, the ones that go something like this: Hey! What's going on? Really? Why? Really? Are you sure? Really? How do you know? Really? Shit! Why didn't somebody tell me? Oh, they did? Really? Oh. Wow. Sorry, dude. Okay, my bad.

guardian angel

Face it, baby. If you are a Gemini, your smarter, wizard twin just spends a lot of time apologizing for and then using all it's magical powers fixing all the things your dimmer twin has done. Gemini is so frequently lost and/or blown off course, it needs some serious navigational aids and devices: a transponder; a GPS system; a compass; a library's worth of books, maps, and handy-dandy reference manuals; a Sherpa guide and a chaperone. And an absolutely massive guardian angel. Now everyone has Gemini somewhere. Where Gemini is in your natal chart is where you are just going to have to become ever more creative, flexible, and and present. It is where you will need a lot of extra, external grounding mechanisms. And where you will have to be absolutely committed to using them. It is where your resolve will need to become rock-solid, cast-iron strong.

At times like this, when there is a lot of energy in the sign of Gemini, the same will hold true exponentially. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, which just recently went direct after a long, confrontation-laden retrograde in Taurus. In that retrograde, your values were tested and therefore clarified. Now with so much energy in Gemini, your resolve is tested. Your commitment to those values is tested. You are being asked to take all than transformation that just happened, take it out for a test drive and then bring it on home. To the sign that rules homes and families: Cancer.

The Spirit of Cancer

A water sign, Cancer has completely different priorities. While a Gemini native needs information, communication and a place to do it's voodoo, a Cancer native needs the continuous connection to and protection of a loving home and family. Bottom line. Preferably a large, extended one. And despite cliches to the contrary, Cancer needs to always be able to go home again. Preferably with any and all pets and children it has managed to acquire along the way, and with all their collective dirty laundry. Preferably where you - or someone - prepares all its favorite meals and makes it feel loved and safe and protected like it did when it was a child. It's not that Cancer doesn't care about information, it's that the information is useless if it cannot be used to further the aims and strengthen the connections of those it holds most dear.

Somehow in late June and early July our attention always comes back around to those Cancerian priorities in some way. Sometimes it is the annual family vacation or extended family reunion, sometimes it is simply that you just have the time (and the extra hands, as the kids are home from school) to fix the broken things and spruce up everything else around the house. Regardless of how it manifests, there is a real fundamental urge to either be in the nest or return to it. The tricky part, as always with family dynamics, is how.

Those perennial questions are always more poignant at the Solstices, the two times a year when families are far more likely to come together. Primarily those questions are something like these: How do I bend with the family breezes? How do I go along to get along, and how do I know where the line is? How do I know when I have gone too far? How do I become and remain a constructive family member without selling my soul, losing my voice and my identity, and becoming permanently mutated? Any family involvement - or increase in it - will provide ample opportunities to become clearer on the answers to those and similar questions. That is where you have to call on the graces of Cancer. And there are many.

Though it at times seems inexplicable, Cancer is simultaneously the toughest and the most tender of all the signs. It can be hard to wrap your head around, I know. It helps me to remember the Braveheart factor. Cancer rules Scotland - famous for the inexorable toughness and loyalties of it's clans and their members. And for their capacity fighting. Often for no real rational or even discernable reason, and often amongst themselves, instead of fighting the enemy at the gate. On the tender side, Cancer is ruled by the Moon, and governs emotion and intuition. Cancer's realm is anything that ebbs and flows, that waxes and wanes. The inherent wisdom of Cancer is that in order to best meet the changes and challenges of life, you have to be in tune with the natural orders and cycles of life. The lesson of Cancer is how to be powerful in a positive way, similar to what the Obama administration State Department is calling "Soft Power."

newgrange

In closing, remember no matter what time of year it is, there is always much to be grateful for, much to be celebrating, much to be sharing, and much to be observing. This time of year, I tend to see a lot of folks celebrating the epiphanies and breakthroughs they experienced in the spring. And all that has come of them. Every Shabbat is different, and the Solstices - due to the inherent imbalance of darkness and light - is always about returning to balance. Summer Solstice is about celebrating all that comes from life's temporary imbalances. And then gloriously beginning the process of returning to balance that culminates at the Fall Equinox. Now is when, after a period of separating and individuating, we return to the wealth and womb of the tribe in order to prepare together for the bounty of the harvest season and the cold trials of winter. But in order to be a functioning member of the tribe, our shadows have to be harnessed and properly deployed.

But you cannot make good decisions about that shadow if you don't have good information. Which brings us back to Mercury, ruling planet of Gemini. Mercury rules information, and it also rules analysis - the ability to sort and sift through raw data to find what is really important. And this is where we all get a little confused from time to time. There is a difference between drama and thorough analysis. There is a difference between drama and due diligence. There is a difference between drama and communicating. And there is a difference between drama and caring. As a general rule, drama tends to cost more, take longer, and be more upsetting.

That is where the love and compassion, insight and intuition of Cancer must be applied, both to yourself and others. Cancer rules mothers and mothering. A good mother listens as much as she speaks, learns as much as she teaches. A good mother is balanced. Use only the best of the Gemini's magic and Cancer's powerful love to stay flexible and positive and committed to what is best for your family and community. And if you get stuck, call me. We'll figure it out.

Blessings,

Beth