Tomorrow evening at 7:40pm (30 May 2020) the Sun enters Gemini II, Austin Coppock’s “Hermaphrodite” from 36 Faces, while sitting just above the local western horizon — our partnerships and relationships (or lack them) are likely to be an important focal point in the next ten days for many of us.

Coppock called this decan “the Hermaphrodite” and relates the story of Cybele, to whom the Hellenistic era dedicated the next ten days — born with both female and male parts, they were separated into male and female through a castration; the male parts, being exceptionally fertile, grew into a new person, Attis; and Attis and Cybele eventually became lovers. Attis (also called Adonis in some versions of the myth) eventually is killed by Cybele herself… and Cybele and their nymphs sing mourning songs for Adonis at the summer solstice (at the end of Gemini III). Pamela Colman-Smith, the artist of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, designed the 9 of Swords which is attached to this decan: a man waking from a dream and sitting bolt upright in bed weeping, while the swords hang over his head. We have here an image suggesting regret at prior actions, as well as images of gender changes, gender unions, and transformations of self into other identities in a fluid way, shifting shape to suit the needs of the present moment. Where Tethys the queen of Gemini I indicated constant change, Cybele forecasts cyclical change, and the amendment of self through several fixed permutations — the cycle as a whole forecasts change, even as the individual stages forecast a kind of steadying stability.

Planetary Placements

With the Ascendant in Sagittarius, we can expect a significant shift in the next ten days as things already begun complete their cycle; the castration has occurred and Attis is growing in secret; or Cybele’s lover has been murdered and the nymphs assemble to mourn him. What’s done is done — now the consequences can begin to emerge. There may be little certainty about what the consequences are… yet they are still unavoidable. The South Node, recently ingressed into Sagittarius, promises a big pile of shit in the form of duty and responsibility and drive for many who are ill-prepared to compost this into valuable insight or completed effort.

The Sun in Gemini II, hermaphroditically simultaneously fertilizing the plants with heat and firming them up in its own womb, occupies a middle ground as both father and mother to the emergent springtime of the northern hemisphere of the planet. The seeds, gently heated in the earth, sprout by the Sun’s nurturing warmth and then climb the sun’s rays like children climbing their fathers’ legs and learning through imitation. With the Sun in both a Jupiter-ruled Decan and Term, we may expect this growth to have an expansive and generous quality, but touched with the sunny fierceness of the jovial planet’s own position in Capricorn.

Co-present with the Sun, we find the Descendant, indicating our relationship with others; Venus, signifying our creative and fecund gifts, and the recently-entered North Node in the last degree of Gemini. If the Sun represents our higher mind, turning over within itself the challenges of the present place in time’s cycle, these three places call us to new kinds of behavior: first, to generously offer the fruits of our own insights to others, and to accept their insight in return; second, to approach gendered (especially romantic) relationships with a level of ambitious creativity; and third to claim more responsibility for the execution of projects in our relationships. This is rather advanced and technical language, so let’s simplify: communicate with your most important partner(s) on a deeper level and with greater frequency; get creative with your lovemaking, with storytelling and role-play; do more to maintain the beauty of the relationship by taking on some of your partner’s duties as your own (cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening) all come to mind.

Mercury‘s position on the 8th house speaks to ancestral responsibilities, and how you earn money from others. In the First Decan of Cancer, the swift-moving herald invites you to consider your own maternal lineage — your mother’s father comes specifically to mind here. How did he earn money? How did he move in the world. How did he treat you? Mercury is close enough to the North Node to be in opposition to the South Node, so a deeper analysis of the lessons here is warranted.

The Moon occupies the height of the sky at 7:40 pm, conjunct the Midheaven, indicating that it’s halfway or so to being a full Moon. In Virgo, she’s ruled by Mercury — and their position is that it’s time for you to consider your mother’s father and his relationship to the world of wealth and professionalism. Virgo invites analysis of your career goals and professional attainments. Who do you intend to be “once this is all over”? At 21° Virgo, the Moon explores the tension between the Twelfth Mansion sidereally and the Fourteenth Mansion tropically. Readers are likely experiencing a fair degree of tension and strife between these positions, as one promises strife and constriction and hinderance; while the other promises dissolution of bonds and the breaking-apart of old connections. One way this may manifest is as people being called back to work before they’re ready to go into an office; or people choosing to leave their workplace because a boss is demanding they return an office space you yourself deem unsafe for you. Some may be able to protest, and continue to work from home; others may face an uphill struggle.

The Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Houses are empty, as is the Fifth. Perhaps we’ll have time for travel and education, or to spend time with friends, or engage in deep reflection on our quarantine time. However, the ruling planets of these houses — the Sun, Venus, and Mars twice — indicate a fertile two-mindedness on display, weighing the risks of visiting with friends versus the rewards; to seek avoidance of a lot of higher learning in favor of a low-level Wikipedia-and-that’s-it style of learning; and a fair bit of self-indulgent urgency at work in our approach to both pleasure and solitude.

Pluto and Jupiter continue to occupy the Decan called “the throne” — and you haven’t gotten your financial house in order, now is the time to do so. A thorough review of your particular inventory of moveable goods and cash is in order; you’re likely to find grace and poison both as you climb through that mess. You don’t necessarily have to act on what you discover, but see the urge-to-purge as a kind of mercy; while the fire-to-acquire is currently quite toxic at the moment.

Saturn retrograde in Aquarius holds the early degrees of the sign under its sway; Austin Coppock called this placement “The Mark of Exile”, and the rulership of Venus here suggests how sexy outlawry can be. Unusually potent in this Decan, the master of responsibility here takes the form of Dike, the scale-and-sword carrying queen of justice — and we’re all likely to encounter examples of obvious injustice in the days ahead, and have to sort out our own reactions and relationships to those moments (even as I write this, there is rioting in the streets of Minneapolis, MN over the death of George Floyd, who died with his neck under the knee of a city police officer). Let me be plain here— Saturn calls us to consider our relationship not with law — the transactional business of knowing rules and following them or facing consequences — but with justice, which is rooted in fairness, reasonableness and equality; and Saturn promises no tranquility to those who do not concern themselves with justice foremost.

In the fourth house, the realm of the household, the sign of Pisces holds sway — and here we find Mars, the Lot of Fortune, the Imum Coeli, and Neptune. The hottest planet, Mars, bubbles and boils in the ocean of Pisces — a kind of raging and upward directed fury expresses itself over the ‘Net (the middle decan of Pisces), even as dreams for a wealthier and healthier family and household trickle down through the turbulent surface into the still, dark depths. There’s risk of household violence here, as men and women long-confined go at each other with frustration; there’s also opportunity to turn the online side-hustle into a source of family well-being. Neptune, the giver of delusions and the madness of crowds, who turns illusions into reality and dissolves reality into vaporware, shakes the cup of blood (Pisces’ last decan) in his maelstrom or centrifuge with boiling ambition to find cures to the present pandemic— although nothing certain is likely to come of these endeavors.

Last of all Uranus the ungainly trickster puts on gardener’s drag and ploughs the ground for seed, hoping for a fruitful harvest. It might be a harvest of bones, though, as the pandemic continues to range wider than an effective response to it.

Horoscopes by Rising Sign

Sagittarius: The next eighteen months are going to see a lot of shit dumped in your lap by your partner, as the South Node transits your house of Self, and the North Node transits the house of your relationship; it starts with eclipses on June 5 (Lunar) and June 21 (Solar); at the core of this digestive distress is that they’re hungry for something bigger that you’ve resisted. Currently, the heat and the heart and the hunger is in them; you’re along for the ride here. Don’t have a partner? Be open in the right way, and you could be more entangled in love than you thought possible before the end of January 2022.

Capricorn: Every decision you make about your stuff and your cash seems involve balancing two options – one great and fulfilling but with huge and toxic side effects; or a cruel and difficult situation with slightly-beneficial side-effects. Nothing is just easy right now, and it won’t be until you’ve made up your mind. The next ten days (and to a different extent, the next 18 months), will have a strong component of assisting a partner with their work, even as you wrestle with problems in your own extended family’s households. Should you be asked to travel for work, consider a trial separation instead.

Aquarius: An issue of familial injustice is likely to be strongly on your mind in the next ten days, and affect a lot of your public persona and public speech. But it’s going to require a lot of fire in your ordinary, emotionally-detached attention to household finances. Isn’t there any way to get the fun back in your life? Look around whatever passes for your back yard, and see if you can imagine a better way to grow the richness of your life than what’s currently showing its face to the Sun.

Pisces: You’re likely experiencing an urgency about securing house and home right now, and expanding the boundaries of your current bubble. At the same time, unexpected distractions make it wise to cut back and cut off your connections to others due to a partner’s needs and concerns, as they wrestle with career issues. Friends are making decisions that bring you good on the one hand, bad on the other — establishing clear boundaries in creative ways is beneficial.

Aries: Fun is at the center of your experience right now, with desire trying to expand the limits of the present circumstance; and two major family considerations (probably on your partner’s side) getting in the way. Daily labor is currently affecting long-term career goals, and you’re expected to create new opportunities for the boss/company — which happen to screw over people you might actually care about. Set a limit with a friend, and work in secret on your special side project.

Taurus: time to disrupt your work habits, your health care routine, and your relationship with employees or servants… and not by commanding them to do better, but by changing yourself first. All the same, there’s an easy solution to your money problems – just convince your partner to open their wallet a little wider. Friends make financial plans without you. You want to travel but you know it’s very risky. Career matters place limits on hobbies and relationships with children.

Gemini: You and any partner you may have will find yourselves closely intertwined in the next ten days. It may not sound fun, using that intimacy to talk about money, but a heightened attention to household expenses over a nice lunch would be worthwhile; as you pick through that minefield, be alert to poisonous past stories and future graces. At the same time, giving your partner more space and time to themselves (difficult in a self-isolating household) would be beneficial; you’re likely to be more deeply entwined than ever over the next 18 months.

Cancer: More communication than normal is needed, especially about shared finances. Your partner is likely facing a lot of heightened awareness of loneliness… as are you. A long-dreamed-of chance for expanding your horizons is available, but it means taking potentially unwarranted risks. A disruptive conversation with a friend puts plans for a future beyond Coronavirus less clear than t used to be. Family members involve you in their career goal-setting and management.

Leo: You’re of two minds about upcoming travel or educational circumstances: safe, or no? A careful study of your finances may reveal that your career goals are costing you more than they’re worth, and some kind of severance may be needed. Study a couple of your more creative friends: what are you missing out on? Your daily labors bring a mix of pain and frustration, but also grace and wonder.

Virgo: Make a break with your career goals. Give them up for a while, and put some distance between you and your projects. Wrestling with that monster is a bit too much like chasing your own tail. When it overwhelms all your other living — house, happiness, the search for and the relationship with a partner — then maybe it’s time to stop for a while, and focus on other things. Of course, you’re unlikely to do that, so … at least try seeing it from a new angle, and recognize that any overly-large project is easier to manage when it’s diced into smaller chunks.

Libra: Home is kind of toxic, but also a place of grace — provided you do all the work yourself, of course. A significant source of creativity and fun for you is shut down, and in its place an ongoing heavy dose of work-from home with ever-swirling changes in requirements. More schooling or education might be an appropriate new outlet; but so might exercising your creative gifts on a project to shift a partner’s career goals a few crucial degrees toward more-mutual success.

Scorpio: Finding solitude a little too much to bear? Feeling like your home is a prison, or your desires to pursue your pastimes are boiling over in the face of household complications? Family bringing you grief and beauty, both at the same time? Dealing with relationship-disruptions aplenty in how your spouse or partner manages their daily work? Shine a light on what you have together, and where you hope to go someday, and maybe give some energy to thinking about what your future might be like with time enough for projects and children. In the meantime, though, network with friends to break free of your usual career-assumptions.

Colophon

I use iPhemeris for my charting software, and screenshot it to make charts. I want to thank the team that develops iPhemeris for the addition of Terms and Decans to their charts, appearing here for the first time!

I use Christopher Warnock‘s The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock‘s 36 Faces as the basis of some of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me. My own book, A Full Volume of Splendour and Starlight, is now available as PDF download from my Etsy website. 

Any errors in these columns are my own.

If you’d like to schedule a consultation with me, you can find additional information on the Services and Classes page.

If you want to read some of my other astrologically-oriented poetry, To the Mansions of the Moon is a collection of hymns to the angels of the Mansions mentioned in these columns. For the Behenian Stars is a collection of hymns to the first/brightest sixteen stars. The Sun’s Paces are hymns to the thirty-six Hellenistic-era deities and ascended souls of the Greco-Egyptian Decans-calendar. While not astrological, Festae contains hymns to some of the older Roman gods and spirits from the calendar created by Numa Pompilius, the second ancient King of Rome.