On Gemini Season & Finding My Twin

Permission to be both.

On Tuesday, May 20th at 1:55 pm Central Time, the Sun moves into Gemini and marks the beginning of Gemini season.

Gemini is a mutable, air sign—curious, adaptable, and perhaps one of the greatest shapeshifters of the Zodiac. I have a close connection to Gemini as it’s a sign that’s strong in my chart, and I’m often marveled by its multiplicity. New revelations keep on coming here. And just when I think I’ve figured out who I really am, Gemini seems to reveal a hidden door to a new part of myself demanding further exploration.

Gemini helps us learn more about our multitudes by lighting up the pathways, roads, and journeys that lie between our varying internal identities. It actually takes a lot of courage to allow your curiosity to take you on a path of discovery, because you never know what you’ll find there. Represented by the symbol of the twins, Gemini helps pave the way to our own inner duality—the good and bad, the dark and light, the soulful and the practical. It’s where two sides of us can dance together through life, constantly reminding us to consider ourselves from a different perspective.

Two of a Kind

If you look up at the Gemini constellation in the night sky, you’ll see two bright stars. These stars are said to be the souls of Castor & Pollux, the twin sons of Leda…

Leda was a beautiful Spartan queen that drew the interest of Zeus, King of the Gods. Although Leda was married to the King of Sparta, Zeus wasn’t really one to let something like fidelity deter him. He turned himself into a magnificent swan in order to seduce the beautiful queen into a sexual union. The next night, Leda laid two eggs. One egg eventually hatched two mortal twins—Castor & Klytaemnestra (fathered by the mortal King of Sparta)—while the other egg hatched two immortal twins—Hellen & Pollux (fathered by Zeus).

Already, we meet the complexity of Gemini, for the twins featured in this story are actually one half of a quaternity. But our story goes on to focus on the male counterparts of each set of twins, Castor & Pollux. The two boys grew close and were soon inseparable. One day, they got into a devastating fight with another set of twins, and Castor was killed. Castor then descends to the underworld as all mortal souls do after death, leaving Pollux in grief over the loss of his other half. Because Pollux was the immortal son of Zeus, he would have to live without his twin brother forever.

After Castor’s death, Pollux mourned for him and begged Zeus to not have to outlive his brother for eternity. Zeus showed compassion for the siblings and eventually granted them a split reality—they would alternate spending one day together in the underworld and the next day reunited in the heavens of Olympus. With this constant oscillation between night and day, the two brothers were eventually able to live out both their mortality and immortality in harmony alongside each other. And when you look up at the Gemini constellation, you’ll see Castor & Pollux living together in the heavens as those two brightest stars.¹

Our Secret Selves

True to Gemini’s nature, the Castor & Pollux tale is not quite what it seems. It tells the story of two twins that actually have different fathers, and thus are fundamentally quite different. With Castor being mortal and Pollux being immortal, one twin faces earthly limitations like death, while the other is destined for divinity. In some ways, they couldn’t be more opposite from each other. Yet, they show a quite beautiful commitment to never being apart.

Castor & Pollux’s separation and eventual reunification may say something about the journey we all face in the context of Gemini—one that not only highlights our inherent oppositeness, but also challenges us to take steps to reconnect with the hidden parts of ourselves that remain stuck in our own internal underworld, shunned from the light of our consciousness. Astrologer Liz Green points out that an inner conflict in the style of Gemini can manifest in many ways, such as the struggle between masculine and feminine expressions, or between intellectual and emotional values, or between spiritual and corporeal goals. And more often than not, one side of that duality gets expressed in our personality while the other side remains hidden to us or projected onto our siblings, lovers, or other external circumstances²—not unlike a twin we’ve left behind.

One thing that strikes me most about Castor & Pollux is their daily oscillation between the day and night realms, leaving neither twin the ability to really get comfortable in their own domain. They each had to commit to a new, constantly shifting reality in order to stay together. Gemini has a penchant for movement, and sometimes we have to get comfortable traveling to new worlds in order to get to know our own multitudes. As a person that goes by the name Sunny, I certainly tend to feature a certain side of my personality. Though it’s sometimes tempting to bypass my cloudier twin, I know she’s always with me, waiting for me to acknowledge her and frankly demanding that I remain a regular visitor.

Connecting the Dots

Gemini can often act like the connective tissue of our lives, highlighting the people, circumstances, or therapeutic modalities that might uncover how the opposite sides of ourselves relate to each other. One way I’ve explored my hidden self is through EMDR—a type of therapy where a clinician guides you in revisiting traumatic memories while you remain focused on something in the present. I gave it a try to process some difficult material from my past, and I found it to be quite powerful, and surprisingly connective, work. Each session left me incredibly tender (because ya know, trauma sucks). But I also found the whole process to be surprisingly creative and mystical, like sensing what it might feel like to be in two places at once.

Navigating the murky territory of traumatic memories seems to be something like traveling to the underworld to recover a hidden twin. Psychiatrist and trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk describes traumatic memories as “split-off, unmodified images, sensations, and feelings,” and describes the usefulness of EMDR with the following:

“To my mind the most remarkable feature of EMDR is its apparent capacity to activate a series of unsought and seemingly unrelated sensations, emotions, images, and thoughts in conjunction with the original memory. This way of reassembling old information into new packages may be just the way we integrate ordinary, nontraumatic day-to-day experiences.”³

I think what Dr. Bessel van der Kolk underscores here is that the act of forming connections, becoming separated, and then re-visiting or re-organizing ourselves into new iterations is not just useful for trauma therapy—it may actually be inherent to the art of living. You could be constantly seeking connections without even realizing it. And if you bravely explore the places that you’re afraid to go towards, you could connect the dots between parts of yourself in ways that are both healing and creative.

It was not too long after doing EMDR that I started this newsletter, and sometimes I wonder if the process liberated the part of me that was a writer but too afraid of being misunderstood to share my voice. I think that it’s important to remember that the hidden parts of ourselves aren’t always dark or limited; sometimes it’s the brighter star that’s waiting to be reunited with the rest of us. And meeting a new part of yourself is allowed to be both scary and fascinating at the same time.

This newsletter feels like a particularly special one, because it’s my 12th post on the signs of the Zodiac. I’ve given a lot of thought to how I would continue this newsletter after writing on all 12 signs. It feels fitting that I’ve landed now on Gemini, as it’s stoked my curiosity to continue my search for the hidden stories in the cosmos. One thing I love about astrology is that it’s always open to new exploration, deeper interpretations, and hidden meanings. This work really invites more questions than answers. And if you’re asking good questions, you’re lubricating a potential for new connections in a way that beautifully honors the essence of Gemini.

I can’t wait to keep exploring new layers of the Zodiac through this newsletter, and as the sun highlights the potential of Gemini’s duality, perhaps you’ll in turn get curious about your own inherent oppositeness. You might consider if there is a part of you that you tend to favor or one that you barely recognize. Perhaps you are darker than you realize, or brighter than you realize, or more mortal or more mystical. And maybe the light of Gemini will remind you that you have permission to be both.

With love and wisdom,

Sunny

1. Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate (Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1984), p. 190

2. Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate (Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1984), p. 192

3. Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. The Body Keeps The Score (Penguin Books, 2014), p. 261