Jupiter in Gemini: A Smorgasbord of Possibilities

6.14.12


As of earlier this week (Mon Jun 11), the benefic king-god Jupiter has left his yearlong perch in Taurus… and moved into Gemini, the twin-souled sign, where he'll stay through June 2013.

Jupiter spends approximately one year of every twelve in each zodiac sign, amplifying the impact of that sign's archetypal qualities in our lives… as well as blessing the natives of that sign with an added boost of optimism and luck.

Jupiter's arrival in Gemini at this time—while Venus is still retrograde in Gemini, after having transited across the face of the Sun, and shortly after a solar eclipse in Gemini—puts yet further spotlight on this astro-archetype. Gemini is best known for its quick-witted adaptability, which enables Geminis to swiftly connect with a mismatched array of different personality-types, even if the bases for such connections are limited to only a single area of common-ground among many facets.

Because Gemini at its heart is a social creature, this zodiac energy deploys its innate mercurial agility to, first and foremost, promote comfortably flowing interactions with whomever it encounters. Geminis are master linguists, naturally falling into the manner-of-speaking which best aligns with that moment's conversational partner, facilitating the smoothest exchange of information possible. This social adeptness allows the Gemini easy access to a wide range of individuals and experiences, helping to quench its near-insatiable curiosity about the many different ways-of-being enjoyed by us variable humans.

But despite being a great strength, this versatility is also a trait that often earns the Gemini a bad rap as superficial, insincere or 'two-faced'… a potential side-effect of the apparent personality shape-shifting which permits Gemini to dabble with different personae, in order to embody whichever necessarily-partial aspect of itself will most appeal to the current audience. Foregrounding only a certain side of your being, of course, can imply the rest of the self—especially those parts likeliest to clash with whoever's in front of you—will be downplayed, perhaps even actively concealed. Gemini sometimes rides that fine line between (1) emphasizing only what'll fuel the easy social connection and (2) outright deceptiveness. In fairness, though, all humans are inherently inconsistent and internally-contradictory beings; Gemini just illustrates this truth most starkly.

Jupiter in Gemini, then, promises an immediate boon in the social possibilities we see as available to us, inspiring us to circulate more busily among these different scenes, encouraging us to try out new encounters and allegiances which may hold potential interest. This is an ideal time to experiment with new activities and involvements that bring us in closer contact with all kinds of people, many of whom may be quite dissimilar from us… at least insofar as we've previously been identifying ourselves in a certain way.

In this speculative exploratory process, we may come to discover unfamiliar aspects of ourselves that haven't been receiving due expression. In these alternate settings and among fresh-faced acquaintances, we get to play at what it might be like for us to express these other aspects more fully. Of course, we could ultimately conclude this other way-of-being doesn't suit us well, but at least we've given it a try and learned from our direct experience.

This is the beauty of Jupiter in Gemini: We can don a different hat, with relatively little commitment, to see whether it fits. If it doesn't, no harm done; just take it off, and try another one on.

Then, there's the dark-side to it: Other people who are actually living the lifestyle we're merely trying on for size may not take too kindly to what they see as our inauthentic skimming. Where they thought they'd found a new ally in us, they now see a non-committal tourist just passing through, borrowing bits of what intrigues us while snubbing the rest.

We may welcome Jupiter-in-Gemini's influence into any area of our lives where we've recently felt unimaginative, stale or trapped—our professional arena, our romantic zone, our friend-circles or leisure-time activities. In Gemini, Jupiter opens our eyes to entire avenues of experience that perhaps we hadn't been considering, revealing whole other realities we could exist in, should we decide to simply turn a different direction. And the best approach for tapping into this broadened perspective? Checking out what other folks are doing: engaging casual pals or strangers in discussion, asking around with lots of open-ended questions, following links on blogs and social-media profiles, reading articles and snippets, attending events, mingling unshyly. The more people and ideas you expose yourself to, the more options you come to understand are accessible to you at this cosmic smorgasbord of possibilities.

Yet, to extend the all-you-can-eat-buffet metaphor a tad further, we only have the capacity to swallow and adequately digest so much before we overtax our systems… and we may lack the advance discernment to know which specific options to reserve our appetites for, since there's so much to sample and we haven't yet tasted enough to determine what we might like the best. It is impossible, after all, to try everything. In the heightened proliferation of potentially appealing possibilities forwarded by Jupiter in Gemini, we can swiftly grow overwhelmed with the multitude of engagements beckoning us at every turn. An individual only has so much personal attention to go around—and if we spread ourselves too thin, we end up unable to attend to much of anything very adeptly.

What makes Jupiter in Gemini an even trickier influence is, in many cases, it increases the difficulty in successfully assessing the benefits of one possibility over another. Gemini is the quintessential relativist, capable of producing a cogent list of pros and cons for nearly any option… but not as skilled at clearly prioritizing the choices in a ranked hierarchy. We must remember that Jupiter, the planet of wide-angle belief systems who leads us forward by faith in our integrity and higher-purpose, is in his detriment (or 'discomfort') in Gemini. The danger with Jupiter in Gemini, a Mercury-ruled sign, is that we can make too convincing a case on behalf of whatever appears before us, with a well-intentioned mix of the perfect-sounding phrases. Just because something sounds good in a certain conversational context, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

Jupiter in Gemini may open a variety of new doors to us, yet it doesn't help us determine which ones to pass over and which to enter. As such, it bears the likelihood of exacerbating confusion in those who are caught between equally-appealing-seeming options. This likelihood is fed by the square Jupiter makes to Neptune in Pisces, which clouds our mental faculties with the invisible illogic of Divine Intervention (or is that utter self-delusion?), making it harder to rely on our excessively-clever minds to yield definitive conclusions. Our wisest decision-making under this astrology may indeed entail, in the short term, answering a tentative 'yes' to multiple possibilities at the same time… followed by closely observing how each alternate-reality unfolds as we're in it, whether it feels like we've meshed with a true calling or are just losing ourselves in an ill-fitting role. 'Feel' is an excellent tie-breaker.

The enhanced mental flexibility afforded by Jupiter in Gemini is something of a godsend during this turbulent Uranus/Pluto epoch (first exact square: Jun 24), in which so many of our supposedly 'sacred' institutions are under rapid revolutionary pressure… for when our habitual responses no longer reap us the predictable results we are used to, we need such experimental ingenuity to thrust us ahead into the dramatically altered future. At its best, Jupiter in Gemini nurtures creative thought and spirited dialogue, improving our knack for exchanging ideas without a fierce ego-insistence on being 'correct'. Like a collage artist or an industrious feathered-friend building the family nest, we weave ourselves a beautifully enriched existence out of shreds and scraps snatched from a variety of sources… respectfully appreciating the commonalities among our differences, while displaying our own unique strategies for integrating these influences into a proud individuality.

We must also watch out for our overreliance on well-crafted communications or seemingly sound internal justifications that, in their efforts to sway us toward a particular outlook or outcome, conveniently leave out large chunks of relevant data. Propaganda is a powerful force, whether purchased by billionaires to aid a political campaign or fed to ourselves in an attempt to persuade away our gut-level doubts. One can present a cogent enough argument to support even the most hideous wrong-doings. At its worst, Jupiter in Gemini deploys its communicative astuteness to distract from glaring contradictions or gaps-in-thinking, understanding well that the art of 'messaging' is often implicitly sneaky or deceitful. Talk is not only a vehicle for social connection; it can also be pretty damn cheap, or even damaging, when it rings hollow or gilds the truth with a superficial plating of gold.