New Moon in Gemini: Both Hands Full of Seeds

New Moon in Gemini: May 20–21 (depending on your time zone)

New Moons are times of planting, sprouting, germinating––seed times when stuff gets started and we can't see where or how it's going to grow. New Moons with eclipses link us into larger cycles, and we're reminded of the long sweep of time in which we dance.

This New Moon in Gemini invites us to plant a million seeds, press the restart button on our lives, and watch the emerging newness with the eagerness and delight of a four-year-old. This is Gemini! Youthfulness, playfulness, trickery, and connections spark everywhere like fireflies on a summer night.

Raven Kaldera calls the Gemini New Moon the "Little Brother's Moon" to highlight its curiosity, inventiveness, energy, and cleverness. This is not the most tender of Moons, having a fondness for practical jokes and streak of sheer cussedness. Think Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes, or Dennis the Menace (Kaldera's suggestions) or the Weasley twins whose Wizarding Wheezes were the epitome of schoolboy pranks.

So, it's good that Venus retrograde is also in Gemini, and trining Saturn who is still retrograde in Libra, at this New Moon.

Retrogrades help us slow down, something Gemini absolutely hates to do. Venus, present as herself and as ruler of Libra, brings an awareness of others as hearts and souls, not just minds or targets for cleverness.

Gemini is not known for compassion, approaching other people with endless curiosity that often includes a willingness to poke and prod just to see what happens. Venusian sensitivity can be useful here.

Saturn is the old man to Mercury–Gemini's youth, the senex who potentiates and then seeks to control the puer's sparkling life. Saturn understands consequences and values responsibility while Gemini wonders what would happen if you connected these two wires together and flipped the switch. Saturn's presence and connection to Venus help us remember there are long, long consequences to the seeds we plant now.

Gemini is all about options, variety, cross-fertilization, and lots of it. I'm reminded of a book we had when my kids were little called More! More! More! Said the Baby … this is Gemini. With that in mind, here are links to other astrologers' writings on this amazingly open-ended New Moon. Read them all, see what happens!

Gneiss Moon Astrology is a wonderfully mercurial place to begin. April Elliott Kent focuses on the sibling bond at the hear of Gemini.  Molly Hall lists many options for engaging with this possibly scattered energy. For a cosmic perspective, read Anna Chapman's essay at The Cosmic Path.

Then dive into your birth chart. Where is 0 degrees of Gemini? (Probably in the house ruled by Taurus, so look there.) Which house does Gemini rule? (Most likely the next one.) Where is Mercury in your chart, and how strong is how presence?

At this New Moon, Mercury is conjunct Jupiter, both in Taurus, making the New Moon's mercurial energies even bigger and also more grounded than they might be. It's likely (not certain, so check your chart), that Mercury, Jupiter, and the New Moon will all fall into the same house for you. This brings a whole lotta change into that area of your life!

Look also at what the New Moon aspects. Anything in the early degrees, especially in mutable signs, or the very late degrees, especially in the fixed signs, will be strongly stimulated. Planets and points touched by this New Moon might feel as if they've been dipped in the Fountain of Youth, seeing the world with new eyes.

This New Moon arrives just after midnight on the 21st in the UK, where I am. I'll welcome this New Moon on the Isle of Iona, a multivalent, mutlilayered crossroads of time, space and worlds. Communications and connections are crowding in, and trickster-ish surprises popping up everywhere. This New Moon could open up so many channels, we might need new switchboards.

Remember that we're now in the last days of the waning Moon, so if you're already feeling Gemini's impatience to be out of the starting gate and down the track, channel a little Saturn and wait. Look ahead to what this New Moon will offer, and use the next day or so to clear the decks, making everything ready for the bags and bags of seeds we're invited to plant in this New Moon garden.