The Sun enters Gemini II, The Hermaphrodite, on May 31 2023, at 1:01 pm EDT — the realm of Cybele the Great Mother of central Anatolia (modern day Turkey), whose cult helped the Romans build a broad alliance against the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War — but which also created a significant challenge for Roman patrician society against a new and popular religious movement. Gemini II thus represents a number of doublings reduced to a unity: the extremes of masculine and feminine united in one person, the extremes of masculine and feminine united in a single state or religion, and the extremes of selfhood integrated in a single person.

Cybele was a major goddess, but only recognized as such in a relatively small part of what is now central-west Turkey, until Rome found itself in a major conflict with the Carthaginian empire for dominance across the Mediterranean. In secret, the Romans forged an alliance with the Phrygians — and as part of that process, a black meteorite representing Cybele, along with a college of her priestesses and priests, was moved from its home in Turkey to the porch of the temple of Jupiter in Rome. The rites and rituals around welcoming a new goddess to the city were elaborate, and included a literal dick-measuring contest, so that the “most manly of men in the city” was responsible for carrying the Great Mother ashore and into the city naked.

Cybele’s priesthood fascinated ordinary Romans in some of the ways that say, Zen Buddhism attracts modern Westerners: it was foreign, it had a deep theology, and its practices were a significant challenge to Roman models of social order. Similarities end there, though. Cybele’s cult was matriarchal, led by a high priestess; male priests were castrated as part of their ordination process. Yet Roman senators held power through a patriarchal aristocracy and saw the power of priestesses and eunuch priests as a foreign threat to their own leadership. No matter how great their need for Phrygian troops and support, they felt terror and unease at the deep changes the Great Mother’s presence wrought upon civic life. They passed laws barring their own sons from joining this priesthood, with heavy punishments imposed on Cybele’s followers each time they initiated a Roman citizen — but they couldn’t prevent the cult from gaining widespread popularity among their daughters and wives… or stave off the influence of Roman plebes and slaves who could join the Great Mother’s priesthood and rise through its ranks to a measure of influence and power. Additionally at least some modern followers of Cybele regard her assigned male at birth priests as seeking a path away from the rigors of their official gender roles. It’s likely we find echoes of our own era’s experience in the Romans’ encounters with Cybele —a necessary and inevitable social innovation being slowed and stymied by political forces unable to cope with their lost influence.

Austin Coppock‘s name for this decan The Hermaphrodite, reflects back to us that the current upheaval in our social order over the rights and identities of trans people is normative — there will always be more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our worldview, much less the governing principles of our city, our state, or our nation. The natural order of things is far more complicated, complex and chaotic than human social and economic systems can account for; the human tendency is to create a simplified model of reality for political, economic and social purposes, as a result… and yet when our models of reality become too simplified, reality has a tendency to break our models decisively. If you have to make laws to ban reality, you’ve already lost.

The decan called The Hermaphrodite reflects this — in a sign ruled by Mercury the non-binary planet, the decan is ruled by Mars while the Term/Bound is ruled by Venus, bringing three genders and two sexual orientations together in a chaotic three-way. Hermaphroditus in myth was the son of Mars and Venus, an equal balance of the genders of their divine parents; and the hermaphrodite of alchemy was understood to be the philosopher who held the philosopher’s stone, one in whom the qualities and potentials of both masculine and feminine natures were perfectly hybridized. Finally, the dodeks of Gemini II are Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn — signs that represent the balances of competing human interests; the extremes of sex and violence, and the hybridity of both human and natural worlds in which our technology is constantly changing us; and in which the natural world is constantly changing everything.

Planetary Placements

Summary: The Ascendant in Virgo and the Sun above the horizon makes this a Day-sect chart managed by Mercury in Taurus, who is nonetheless in an uncomfortable position: peregrine in Taurus and preparing for a conjunction with revolutionary Uranus. This elevates co-present Jupiter and benefits the Moon in Libra — but it constrains Venus, Mars, and even Saturn in the western stake. Seven planets are in the western half of the chart, too — making us respond to events beyond our control rather than directing them. In matters of personal ambition, creativity, connection, and an instinctive ability to manage our resources, we’re doing well — just be alert for the fact that we want to be in distant places, while aware that trouble can break out at home.

The Sun holds the noontime keystone, but is past the Midheaven, and sextile to Leo — our workplace is likely to be a place of focus in the next ten days, but we’re more likely to react to the news than to be making it. At issue, a choice between pursuing two customers or client-bases, one ‘masculine’ and one ‘feminine’, but not having the resources to do both. A solution can be found by drilling into the data and finding a hybrid arrangement that’s neither fully ‘male’ nor ‘female’, but has elements of both.

Venus in Cancer in the eleventh has triplicity rulership, and is favorably inclined to planets in Taurus but square to the Moon in Libra. She promises reconnection with both friends and professional associates, but also assures us that there will be more of the same as what it’s always been. Diplomatic nothings or elegant deals, whatever you’ve had in the past with your colleagues, it’s likely to be more of that. Beer pong or garden parties or fireside chats, your friends will provide as they have in the past. If you’re content with that, great; if you were hoping for more, prepare for disappointment.

Mars in Leo is peregrine, trine to Aries, and square to Scorpio. This tends to hamper local errands and community service, even as it favors the completion of our responsibilities… and increases our risky business when we’re on our own. Reach out for support from friends (even if it’s the same-old, same-old), but be aware that deeply personal discussions will involve a lot of tears and messy emotions.

The Moon in Libra in the second house is in the Mansion of the Moon called The Scorpion’s Crown, and square to both Cancer and Venus. It’s a popular diner; in the morning it serves soldiers getting ready to take cities — in the afternoon it hosts a crowd of salespeople and con artists telling tales of their latest grifts; overnight, the crowd turns toward nightclub-goers either pre-gaming or transitioning to the after-party, making firmer the deep eye gazes of the dance floor with flirtatious conversation. Here in the second house, a good many of these transactions are mercenary in nature — payment, not promotion, is the soldier’s goal; commissions and cash-only transactions suit the swindler well; is this pandering or prostitution? Is this friend genuinely borrowing money for lunch — or is this a more permanent gift of something you can’t afford. Hard to tell — hold on to your wallet!

The Nodal Axis creeps closer day by day to the transition point where it enters Aries-Libra. For now, the North Node conjuncts Jupiter in Taurus, greatly increasing our desire for long range travel and the interior journeys of education and spirituality. The South Node promises a whole lot of shit-talking and weaponized words in our local communities and among our relations — it’s hard to be faithful in meditation when you need to talk smack about your cousin or your neighbor.

Similarly, the Imum Coeli stands in the middle decan of Sagittarius. Home must be a place of refuge and relaxation, of course — but it also must be a place of labor and chore. Both are likely to be deeply satisfying, but in different ways. You can’t just come home and flop on the couch over the next ten days — the dishwasher must be emptied and the lawn mowed. Learn to find contentment in both the labor and leisure.

Both the Lot of Fortune and Pluto retrograde are in Aquarius I The Mark of Exile in the sixth house. In your daily labors, and in managing employees and contractors, you’re likely to find much to criticize: the work is never up to snuff, the labor lackadaisical, the service surly. Yet your feedback and critique is likely to be treated contemptuously and with mockery or disdain. You have a freedom here, of course, to ask to see their manager or bump it to a supervisor, to demand proper treatment as customer and regular. Or you can accept it in silence — it’s not necessarily about you, specifically; but the world as a whole is against everyone, and these folks, too, are up against the challenge of no one meeting their needs. Or you can address them with sympathy and kindness — “oh, it’s hard for eveyrone right now, isn’t it?” Every situation is different… exercise your discernment carefully if you don’t want to wind up a TikTok viral horror.

Saturn in The Labyrinth and Neptune in The Cup of Blood occupy different ends of the angle of the seventh house, warning us of what is coming. Structure is slow and deliberately built, with checks and balances, and with management of contrasting forces like gravity and windspeed, and the acceptance of facts and foundations… and rogue waves gain height and speed through randomness and tidal forces impossible to predict. Expect that your intentions with the most important people in your life are likely to go awry unless you plan them — and even then, have several back-up options available. Saturn is inconjunct to Aquarius and sextile to Capricorn — routine pleasures and nightly entertainments with your loved ones are easy to manage … but don’t try to schedule the plumber’s visit or the HVAC guy!

Jupiter, Mercury, and Uranus between them activate all three decans of Taurus…. which speak to the ideas of long-range “big picture” planning, detail-oriented “do it now” communication — and immediate changes to your spiritual habits in favor of a stripped-down aesthetic. Prayer need not be elaborate, but you have genuine need for religious sensibilities that allow you to interface with others without being dependent on them. Similarly, you need both a six month “30,000-foot view” plan for yourself, and a “what can I do today” agenda… and you won’t get these things by sitting on your duff. Make a plan, be aware that all of the parts of it will need to change, in both the short and long term.

In the meantime, pray.

Horoscopes by rising sign

I make horoscopes available to the public here for Decan I of any sign; only Patreon or Ko-Fi subscribers get access to Decan II. Decan III of any sign is reserved for people subscribed to my channels through Patreon or Ko-Fi, or to people who join my mailing list through MailChimp.

Virgo:

Libra:

Scorpio:

Sagittarius:

Capricorn:

Aquarius:

Pisces:

Aries:

Taurus:

Gemini:

Cancer:

Leo:

The Sun enters Gemini II, The Hermaphrodite, on May 31 2023, at 1:01 pm EDT — the realm of Cybele the Great Mother of central Anatolia (modern day Turkey), whose cult helped the Romans build a broad alliance against the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War — but which also created a significant challenge for Roman patrician society against a new and popular religious movement. Gemini II thus represents a number of doublings reduced to a unity: the extremes of masculine and feminine united in one person, the extremes of masculine and feminine united in a single state or religion, and the extremes of selfhood integrated in a single person.

Cybele was a major goddess, but only recognized as such in a relatively small part of what is now central-west Turkey, until Rome found itself in a major conflict with the Carthaginian empire for dominance across the Mediterranean. In secret, the Romans forged an alliance with the Phrygians — and as part of that process, a black meteorite representing Cybele, along with a college of her priestesses and priests, was moved from its home in Turkey to the porch of the temple of Jupiter in Rome. The rites and rituals around welcoming a new goddess to the city were elaborate, and included a literal dick-measuring contest, so that the “most manly of men in the city” was responsible for carrying the Great Mother ashore and into the city naked.

Cybele’s priesthood fascinated ordinary Romans in some of the ways that say, Zen Buddhism attracts modern Westerners: it was foreign, it had a deep theology, and its practices were a significant challenge to Roman models of social order. Similarities end there, though. Cybele’s cult was matriarchal, led by a high priestess; male priests were castrated as part of their ordination process. Yet Roman senators held power through a patriarchal aristocracy and saw the power of priestesses and eunuch priests as a foreign threat to their own leadership. No matter how great their need for Phrygian troops and support, they felt terror and unease at the deep changes the Great Mother’s presence wrought upon civic life. They passed laws barring their own sons from joining this priesthood, with heavy punishments imposed on Cybele’s followers each time they initiated a Roman citizen — but they couldn’t prevent the cult from gaining widespread popularity among their daughters and wives… or stave off the influence of Roman plebes and slaves who could join the Great Mother’s priesthood and rise through its ranks to a measure of influence and power. Additionally at least some modern followers of Cybele regard her assigned male at birth priests as seeking a path away from the rigors of their official gender roles. It’s likely we find echoes of our own era’s experience in the Romans’ encounters with Cybele —a necessary and inevitable social innovation being slowed and stymied by political forces unable to cope with their lost influence.

Austin Coppock‘s name for this decan The Hermaphrodite, reflects back to us that the current upheaval in our social order over the rights and identities of trans people is normative — there will always be more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our worldview, much less the governing principles of our city, our state, or our nation. The natural order of things is far more complicated, complex and chaotic than human social and economic systems can account for; the human tendency is to create a simplified model of reality for political, economic and social purposes, as a result… and yet when our models of reality become too simplified, reality has a tendency to break our models decisively. If you have to make laws to ban reality, you’ve already lost.

The decan called The Hermaphrodite reflects this — in a sign ruled by Mercury the non-binary planet, the decan is ruled by Mars while the Term/Bound is ruled by Venus, bringing three genders and two sexual orientations together in a chaotic three-way. Hermaphroditus in myth was the son of Mars and Venus, an equal balance of the genders of their divine parents; and the hermaphrodite of alchemy was understood to be the philosopher who held the philosopher’s stone, one in whom the qualities and potentials of both masculine and feminine natures were perfectly hybridized. Finally, the dodeks of Gemini II are Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn — signs that represent the balances of competing human interests; the extremes of sex and violence, and the hybridity of both human and natural worlds in which our technology is constantly changing us; and in which the natural world is constantly changing everything.

Planetary Placements

Summary: The Ascendant in Virgo and the Sun above the horizon makes this a Day-sect chart managed by Mercury in Taurus, who is nonetheless in an uncomfortable position: peregrine in Taurus and preparing for a conjunction with revolutionary Uranus. This elevates co-present Jupiter and benefits the Moon in Libra — but it constrains Venus, Mars, and even Saturn in the western stake. Seven planets are in the western half of the chart, too — making us respond to events beyond our control rather than directing them. In matters of personal ambition, creativity, connection, and an instinctive ability to manage our resources, we’re doing well — just be alert for the fact that we want to be in distant places, while aware that trouble can break out at home.

The Sun holds the noontime keystone, but is past the Midheaven, and sextile to Leo — our workplace is likely to be a place of focus in the next ten days, but we’re more likely to react to the news than to be making it. At issue, a choice between pursuing two customers or client-bases, one ‘masculine’ and one ‘feminine’, but not having the resources to do both. A solution can be found by drilling into the data and finding a hybrid arrangement that’s neither fully ‘male’ nor ‘female’, but has elements of both.

Venus in Cancer in the eleventh has triplicity rulership, and is favorably inclined to planets in Taurus but square to the Moon in Libra. She promises reconnection with both friends and professional associates, but also assures us that there will be more of the same as what it’s always been. Diplomatic nothings or elegant deals, whatever you’ve had in the past with your colleagues, it’s likely to be more of that. Beer pong or garden parties or fireside chats, your friends will provide as they have in the past. If you’re content with that, great; if you were hoping for more, prepare for disappointment.

Mars in Leo is peregrine, trine to Aries, and square to Scorpio. This tends to hamper local errands and community service, even as it favors the completion of our responsibilities… and increases our risky business when we’re on our own. Reach out for support from friends (even if it’s the same-old, same-old), but be aware that deeply personal discussions will involve a lot of tears and messy emotions.

The Moon in Libra in the second house is in the Mansion of the Moon called The Scorpion’s Crown, and square to both Cancer and Venus. It’s a popular diner; in the morning it serves soldiers getting ready to take cities — in the afternoon it hosts a crowd of salespeople and con artists telling tales of their latest grifts; overnight, the crowd turns toward nightclub-goers either pre-gaming or transitioning to the after-party, making firmer the deep eye gazes of the dance floor with flirtatious conversation. Here in the second house, a good many of these transactions are mercenary in nature — payment, not promotion, is the soldier’s goal; commissions and cash-only transactions suit the swindler well; is this pandering or prostitution? Is this friend genuinely borrowing money for lunch — or is this a more permanent gift of something you can’t afford. Hard to tell — hold on to your wallet!

The Nodal Axis creeps closer day by day to the transition point where it enters Aries-Libra. For now, the North Node conjuncts Jupiter in Taurus, greatly increasing our desire for long range travel and the interior journeys of education and spirituality. The South Node promises a whole lot of shit-talking and weaponized words in our local communities and among our relations — it’s hard to be faithful in meditation when you need to talk smack about your cousin or your neighbor.

Similarly, the Imum Coeli stands in the middle decan of Sagittarius. Home must be a place of refuge and relaxation, of course — but it also must be a place of labor and chore. Both are likely to be deeply satisfying, but in different ways. You can’t just come home and flop on the couch over the next ten days — the dishwasher must be emptied and the lawn mowed. Learn to find contentment in both the labor and leisure.

Both the Lot of Fortune and Pluto retrograde are in Aquarius I The Mark of Exile in the sixth house. In your daily labors, and in managing employees and contractors, you’re likely to find much to criticize: the work is never up to snuff, the labor lackadaisical, the service surly. Yet your feedback and critique is likely to be treated contemptuously and with mockery or disdain. You have a freedom here, of course, to ask to see their manager or bump it to a supervisor, to demand proper treatment as customer and regular. Or you can accept it in silence — it’s not necessarily about you, specifically; but the world as a whole is against everyone, and these folks, too, are up against the challenge of no one meeting their needs. Or you can address them with sympathy and kindness — “oh, it’s hard for eveyrone right now, isn’t it?” Every situation is different… exercise your discernment carefully if you don’t want to wind up a TikTok viral horror.

Saturn in The Labyrinth and Neptune in The Cup of Blood occupy different ends of the angle of the seventh house, warning us of what is coming. Structure is slow and deliberately built, with checks and balances, and with management of contrasting forces like gravity and windspeed, and the acceptance of facts and foundations… and rogue waves gain height and speed through randomness and tidal forces impossible to predict. Expect that your intentions with the most important people in your life are likely to go awry unless you plan them — and even then, have several back-up options available. Saturn is inconjunct to Aquarius and sextile to Capricorn — routine pleasures and nightly entertainments with your loved ones are easy to manage … but don’t try to schedule the plumber’s visit or the HVAC guy!

Jupiter, Mercury, and Uranus between them activate all three decans of Taurus…. which speak to the ideas of long-range “big picture” planning, detail-oriented “do it now” communication — and immediate changes to your spiritual habits in favor of a stripped-down aesthetic. Prayer need not be elaborate, but you have genuine need for religious sensibilities that allow you to interface with others without being dependent on them. Similarly, you need both a six month “30,000-foot view” plan for yourself, and a “what can I do today” agenda… and you won’t get these things by sitting on your duff. Make a plan, be aware that all of the parts of it will need to change, in both the short and long term.

In the meantime, pray.

Horoscopes by rising sign

I make horoscopes available to the public here for Decan I of any sign; only Patreon or Ko-Fi subscribers get access to Decan II. Decan III of any sign is reserved for people subscribed to my channels through Patreon or Ko-Fi, or to people who join my mailing list through MailChimp.

Virgo:

Libra:

Scorpio:

Sagittarius:

Capricorn:

Aquarius:

Pisces:

Aries:

Taurus:

Gemini:

Cancer:

Leo: