“The Shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious without considerable moral effort.”
C. G. Jung
With this New Moon in Gemini we are being asked to look at consciousness itself - our personal state of consciousness and the state of collective consciousness. And just like the twins who symbolize the sign of Gemini, we are asked to look not only at our ego personalities but also at our shadows. While it is easy to point fingers at our collective Shadow – which is so out there in the open at this moment of our history – it is through confronting and integrating the power of our own Shadow that we can truly help the world.
Gemini is the sign that rules our intellect, our use of language, our desire for more experience, and our need to classify our experience, which gives rise to the polar opposites of good and evil, light and dark, high and low. The ability to name something is one of Gemini’s gifts, and this ability is like magic, for once we name something we have power over it, just as King Solomon had power over the Jinn because he held the secret of their names. This ability can also repress certain aspects of the personality if it feels they aren’t helpful to its experience. This repression causes those aspects to be relegated to the Shadow. And we have lost the name of the Shadow, and so it runs free and creates havoc in the world.
Dane Rudhyar, the father of modern astrology, said:
“Gemini thinking is, on the one hand, related to the needs of the personality, and on the other, it is something absorbed from the environment. It is learnt. At whatever level it might be, Gemini thinking is transmitted thinking;”
And even more interesting,
“The Gemini thinker selects from the treasure-house of past civilizations words and concepts as a means for him to grow as a personality. He thinks psychologically: whereas the typical Sagittarian thinks socially. And this is why Gemini is POET rather than PHILOSOPHER. He builds with words, as the hands build with clay, stones and wood. But he builds because he personally must grow through that experience, because in that building he trains himself to function as an autonomous and consistent personality.”
This autonomous and consistent personality can only stay centered and whole if we look deep within ourselves – which means, first, looking at our Shadow. The Shadow, as Jung taught, is that part of our personality which we have rejected, whether because we were told by those in authority that it was bad, or because we were ashamed of it in some way. By repressing those parts of our personality that were not approved of, we create an autonomous complex in our psyche which acts through us, and yet we remain of unaware of it, unless we exert ‘considerable moral effort’ to recognize it and integrate it into consciousness.
The Shadow is where we hide, first and foremost, our cruelty to ourselves. It is the unconscious home of our anger, hatred, violence, jealousy, powerlessness, and love of death. It is the part of us that we project outside of ourselves, onto others, leaving us free to hate the “Other.” When we see toxicity out in the world, we would rather leave it there than look within and clean out our inner cesspools of dark emotions. Gemini, being a twin, reminds us that we are the “Other” and that we need to integrate those parts of ourselves if we are to become whole. We need to listen to the Shadow’s dark wisdom. We must grow up. We must listen to what’s wrong with the world and put a stop to it.
So this New Moon in Gemini is an opportunity for each of us to dive deeply into our own MIND. With Mercury, Gemini’s ruling planet, going retrograde on June 15th in Cancer, it is through our emotions that we will begin to get a clear idea of just who we really are. And what we really want. Pluto in Sagittarius, moving over the Galactic Center since last fall, is opposite this New Moon. Oppositions call upon us to integrate two opposing, but complementary, viewpoints. Pluto is the planet – yes, still a planet in Cathy’s world – that affords us a psychic purge and cleansing - and then a renewal. If we work with its energy, we can release the mental and emotional negativity of millennium of lifetimes. If we fight it, we can expect to be shattered like The Tower card in Tarot.
The Mayans believed that when Pluto is on the Galactic Center, new information from the center of our Galaxy is made available for our evolution. Since Pluto came within orb of the Galactic Center, the paradigm shift of quantum physics’ view of consciousness has become part of our collective vocabulary – our thoughts create reality. So isn’t it time that we took responsibility for our thoughts, our feelings and our beliefs?
Carl Jung said
“When an inner situation is not made conscious,
it appears outside as Fate.”
I believe we need to look at what happened to the Twin Towers – when Saturn in Gemini opposed Pluto in Sagittarius – as Fate appearing outside of ourselves. America needs a psychic purge – we need to grow up and take responsibility for our government’s actions in the world. Actions we have allowed because it was easier to let them ‘do their thing’ than to demand change. But obviously, we need to become that change ourselves before we can manifest it in the outer world.
This New Moon in Gemini calls upon us to look at our lives and go within - and work with and understand our Shadow, which will turn out to be 99% gold – pure energy for us to use creatively in our lives. The Sabian Symbol for 24 Gemini is: Children skating over a frozen village pond. The use of inhibiting circumstances for the development of character and a transcendent approach to the environment. This is our ability to use our minds to transcend the entropy of natural existence. As Jung said, becoming conscious is a great work that goes against nature.
Since we will experience the last of three oppositions between Saturn in Leo and Neptune in Aquarius next week on June 25th at 22 degrees Leo, let’s look at the outer and inner worlds to see how they reflect each other. (A friend of mine commented on how unbalanced the world seems at the moment. Well, we are hanging in the balance.) We may not like what we see, but we need to look at it. Neptune and Saturn are opposite types of energy – Neptune ruling the dreamworld, spirituality, imagination as well as illusion and delusion, and Saturn ruling our physical reality – and their year long opposition has goaded us to wake up from our unconscious dream world and see the bigger picture.
Saturn’s biggest emotional buy-in is FEAR. Our government is using fear as a manipulative weapon against us. They use Astrology too. But fear has always been the weapon of choice for rulers. So Saturn is asking us to really face our personal fears so we are not trapped in THEIR vibration of fear.
At the moment, with Mercury (the ruler of Gemini) stationing retrograde in Cancer and the moon out of bounds (meaning everything gets BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION) don’t let your thinking or feelings run away with you. You need to sit down and center. Then ask yourself these questions: What are you really afraid of? How does that fear control your life? What or who are you really afraid of? Why are you afraid? What old actions or decisions might be causing you fear? Find those limiting beliefs and assumptions that keep you in fear. And work to change them.
What is your worst fear? Is that what is confronting you now? Okay. So now you have to face it. This is YOUR SHADOW. It is Saturn, the Great Taskmaster, the Guardian at the Gate, asking that you finally face the lesson you were sent here to Earth to learn. Time to learn the lessons you’ve been putting off. Be brave – Mars is in Aries and can help you there. Uranus, slowing down to turn retrograde on June 23rd, might throw in some surprises – to help or hinder your progress. Stay flexible. Uranus in Pisces has opened the doors of our perception. What are we hearing from the hidden dimensions? Ask for help and it will be given to you.
An interesting historical note: Uranus is turning retrograde at the opposition degree of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that energized the ‘60’s.
Leo is all about Self-Confidence. When you are relating to your Saturn in an appropriate way – being disciplined, taking back your own authority, having correct structures in your life – there is no fear. You can be self-confident, because you are in touch with your SELF, or Higher Wisdom. And this is where that Neptune opposition comes into play. Open up and listen to your higher wisdom. It knows what is good for you. If you use your intuition, and remain open, you will not only receive the inner wisdom that you need for your life, but you will also be learning the wisdom that will ultimately be for the good of the whole world. This last opposition offers us the opportunity to manifest our real dreams – not the illusionary dreams of collective culture, but the true dreams of our souls.
Blessed Be to all of Us.
Cathy Pagano
Are you wondering how these energies are affecting your birth chart? It always helps to be prepared! Visit www.wisdom-of-astrology.com or call Cathy at 310-741-7013 for an appointment.
Are you interested in working with your Shadow? With dreamwork and Jungian analysis, as well as coaching, you can ‘know thyself’ the first and most necessary step on the path to spiritual awareness. Sessions can be conducted over the phone as well as in person. Call Cathy to find out more about how you can ‘meet the shadow’ and save the world.