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so this letter is coming after the sun’s shift into Cancer, and i was feeling momentarily frustrated for not meeting my inconsequential self-imposed deadline merely for the sake of solar continuity…until Erica Joy reminded me that i was living in alignment with my values
because my family suffered a loss. we said goodbye to my aunt Maya’s bodily form this month. I don’t know how better to say it, because my whole family has felt her presence in one way or another since she’s passed. Her spirit is with us, strongly, but that does not mean this time is to go without mourning, putting things like inconsequential self-imposed deadlines aside, and being with family.
I wouldn’t use this segue if it weren’t just so remarkable, but Maya, a Gemini twin, embodied Gemini so much throughout her life, and in honoring her life during Gemini season, the blessings of and lessons in Gemini were on full display
When someone asks me about Gemini, I talk about talking, books, jumping from one thing to the next, having lots of friends and ideas and ways of being. cracking jokes and crafting words and having two or three or four minds about something, everything. Working with duality, being both/and, occupying extremes, dabbling in fugitivity.
Maya was all of these things: a writer, a talker, a shapeshifter, a contrarian,
she continues to be a reminder that being is an extremely difficult and continual assortment of tasks and responsibilities + that life is about music and theater and experiencing the full spectrum of human emotions and fighting to find our true place in this world
in honoring her life, people came to Atlanta from near and far. Siblings, cousins, neighbors, friends and community members from every decade she lived gathered, and we talked. We talked for days, into all hours of the night. I hadn’t realized going into the time that I’d feel love more so than sadness, that discouragement would be outshined by gratitude for who I come from and those who share my genes and stories. I left Atlanta in awe of the respect and responsibility I feel for my family and our dysfunctional, dysregulated history of surviving a vile, violent empire
I’m still sitting with Moten and Harney in the undercommons, where I found the Most Gemini statement ever: “The movement of things can be felt and touched and exists in language and in fantasy, it is flight, it is motion, it is fugitivity itself.”
Maya was a fugitive in the way that many who exist at odds with the dominant order are. Her mind was always moving, even when she was sitting still. She did not find fulfillment through working towards good grades or selling her labor. She was not satisfied with the false strides of progress for Black people. She would not shut up no matter who was demanding her to do so. She wove words to contrive falsehoods when it suited her. She was not complicit, she was complicated. She was ultimately a threat to everyone around her. She was loved, is loved, still.
Astrology is a literacy. It provides a way of reading people, events, time itself. Astrology helps me to understand the people in my life, helps me to ground my compassion in faith, helps guide me to an appreciation of the vast difference in roles we’re all playing in one anothers’ lives.
A zodiac sign is a series of lessons,
a multitudinal journey through a way of being, a sort of skillset,
a concentration of inclinations that range from the hyperpersonal and minute
to broad and ubiquitous.
As we move through the Zodiac, the signs build upon one another, expanding upon previous tenets and experimenting with the new.
Deducing, through the trip thru Taurus, that we have bodies, senses, and needs,
we then, begin learning how to meet those needs in Gemini.
drawing [as sextiles do] from the innovation found in the first fire of Aries,
that learning process is one of experimentation, trial and error,
questioning why, looking for help, pushing limits, asking for more
Gemini brings us into the interpersonal realm
now that we’re a person, we can develop a personality
in order to develop that personality, we learn from and play off of those who surround us.
Paradigms come into play, narratives are formed, mannerisms take hold.
With Gemini, the third sign, the first iteration of the element of air, and the first experience of mutable energy, we begin to connect some dots
air, in its essence, is mutable, and this should come as no surprise given the nature of air is ever-changing, always in motion, always escaping at the first opportunity,
this is why Gemini is where we locate fugitivity.
Gemini rules the lungs, is responsible for the circulation of air in and out of the body,
air is shared, exchanged, (trans)mutable
and along with the head [Aries] and throat [Taurus] this culmination brings us speech
we learn to share our needs, exchange ideas
moving through Gemini could manifest as a journey of voicing how you feel about something, how you relate to an idea, even if only for that fleeting moment, questioning what makes no sense to you, asking for help, and all the consequences and celebrations that come with these things, depending on your social positioning at the time.
air is cerebral, dealing with matters of the mind
Gemini, a heady, intellectual energy,
is a matter of reflection,
and projection and reception and impressions
personifiable as the twins,
one of the many joys the sign begets is mutual recognition.
i just learned from Ayurvedic practitioner, Anisa Shukla, that like attracts like and opposites provide balance
and whether Gemini finds itsthemself matching energy for fun, just to see how it fits, or morphing into an oppositional force just to make the other squirm, gemini is a (re)active sign that becomes self-aware through reflections in others, constructs the self in relation to their surroundings, and adapts themself to their environment.
We also find Gemini in the arms, responsible for extension,
for giving and taking
and dealing with all that falls within reach
Gemini is where we find ourselves curious about our surroundings,
chatting up our neighbors, learning the language(s) of our hood,
exchanging the books on our shelves, venturing to a nearby spot we’ve yet to try
In this way, Gemini is where communities thrive. You cannot hide in your neighborhood, if you don’t know where the alcoves are located, you cannot share secrets with your neighbors, if you haven’t cultivated trust. You cannot organize around a common goal, if you haven’t yet discussed what your common goals even are.
Gemini brings people together, and fires off synapses that forge connections. Gemini locates similarities and differences and inspires conversation around them. Community organizing begins with curiosity and communication. Valuing interdependence stems from awareness and respect for those around you — not just the human beings, but every type of being that resides on and moves through the same streets you do.
Gemini is also located within the hands,
and while we gain the ability to grab for what we want, we simultaneously develop the ability to grasp concepts
in Gemini, through interrogation and conversation, we get an insight into many possible perspectives, and undoubtedly find multiple “truths”, some of which can be in conflict with one another. The process of understanding can end up being a distracting process when engaged with compulsively to no end.
We learn that language can be manipulated to make anything sound justifiable, understandable. Despite there being a collection of truths available to us, we must come to the truth that aligns most with the values we derived through Taurus and the essence of our spirit that’s found in Aries.
Then, the successive mutable (integrative) signs: Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces reform these truths and bring them outwards to the collective. The mutable signs are the ones out here occupying the margins, and doing the dirty work of tryna figure shit out!
Gemini, a young, impressionable energy
makes me think about the ways in which i’ve been consciously impressionable, willingly affected by social conditioning
how when i was a teenager i would listen to songs about drinking, and i would just eat that shit up. before i could drink, i yearned(!) to be part of the collective experience of people drinking and dancing, all held together by a song encouraging us to do so, affirming that we’re living life right
together, convivial, full of mirth,
it was so enticing to feel like one of many, part of everything, a member of The Conversation.
just one of the gang, having a beer with the bros, maybe enjoying a dfmo
as someone with Gemini on my 7th house cusp and with my venus in sidereal Gemini, i sought people out in order to feel closer to that everything. love felt, still sometimes feels, like one of the most pure channels to that sense of everything,
that eternal conversation between desire and reception
Gemini, an interpersonal, mischievous energy,
corresponds with the planet of communication,
the messenger between entities and realms,
notorious trickster, mercury
in an earthly, human sense, governs street smarts,
manipulation shows up here as a tactic to meet ones needs,
miscommunication and deception are common too
as Gemini tests our limits and our judgement, we figure out what it means to be part of the many, how we ought to treat one another, and how we’d like to be treated ourselves
the lesson in Gemini is the art of learning a lesson. adapting with information as its being acquired.
i think that the Gemini in all of us requires outlets. There will always be a compulsion to receive information and speak our minds, to see ourselves in another, and to place ourselves into stories,
Gemini is where we generate the language of coexistence
as members of an ever-shifting, multifaceted organism, we’re always processing an infinite amount of information in front of our very eyes, in our mind’s eye of the past and our perception and anxieties of the future. it’s said that our attention spans are negligible, and YET we’re somehow able to last for hours on apps, sites, games, and shows, years in one relationship, decades at one job.
growing up, as children in the yt hot imperialist core of empire, we’re not exactly provided the time and space to talk to one another. early education is often structured in a way that discourages from lengthy conversations wherein we can explore different ways of imagining together, alternate ways of learning and thinking from those who are meant to teach us. we are expressly discouraged, over the course of a school day, from just sitting and chatting and making meaning of things together
and that continues on as we age. we’re not encouraged to talk at length with one another, except in particular circumstances,
so we develop shorthand, and often a shorthand that gets misinterpreted to the benefit of the dominant order
i think about laughter as being very Gemini in nature
how laughter is not always an affirmation of whatever joke, statement, or action expressed, nor the person(s) doing so, but can be skewed to mean as much
how making people laugh can be a tactic of interpersonal and/or situational manipulation
i think of how we talk about violence against marginalized genders
generations have learned how to cope, attempted to protect ourselves and one another, to do anything to save their parents, friends, siblings, and children from being hit, assaulted, and murdered in the names of misogy(noir) and patriarchy.
these coping and defense mechanisms, when passed down to our youths and shared as life lessons, should require in depth conversation explaining the true nature of the problem of patriarchy, where it all stems from, the facts that these survival skills aren’t the be all, end all, and that rebelling against the paradigms is always a valiant effort
and yet it’s often just “cover up, you’re exposing too much skin” or “don’t put yourself in an unsafe situation” and as the oppressed party already predisposed to feeling shame and self-hatred, the fault falls entirely on us
language is a primary building block for a paradigm, requiring reworking and recreating to change minds(ets). Bringing us back to the undercommons: “In order to bring colonialism to an end then, one does not speak truth to power, one has to inhabit the crazy, nonsensical, ranting language of the other, the other who has been rendered a nonentity by colonialism”
(i’d like to think of these letters as a bit of that crazy, nonsensical ranting that will save us)
this is where the importance of reading Black writers and authors is of the utmost importance, especially for non-Black people, as i don’t see them otherwise given the language to express their care and appreciation for the unique benefit Black people bring to their lives, to their minds…language that isn’t extractive, fetishization, platitudes, or lies
but this nonentity under colonialism can be many things: spirits, plants, animals, the land itself. within the human realm: disabled people, trans and gender non-conforming people, Indigenous people, Black people, houseless people, colonized peoples on occupied lands, incarcerated people, those who have been trafficked, raped, murdered by the state, anyone that anyone’s ever told you is too small a population to consider, too hidden to make any difference, too marginalized to deserve to be heard.
The importance of embodying the Other is found in Gemini
because Gemini is where social realities and relationship dynamics begin to form. sometimes, getting lost in the interest of why and how things are the way they are or getting swept up in the dance of participation, Gemini may forget that paradigms can be harmful and damaging to those who exist within them and at odds with them
as we inhabit the way of the Other, the sides of ourselves that are at odds with that which represents power, alternate pathways come to light
together, we can develop radical paradigms that center our bodies’ needs and the needs of the land we live on
conversation is necessary to build a community on trust and mutual understanding
as Alice Walker said in The Temple of My Familiar: “Talk is the key to liberation, one’s tongue the very machete of freedom”
and community is our most potent site of rebellion
consider the feeling of being held, understood,
truly cared for, provided for, fought for
by and within a likeminded community, together in mission and values
sharing intellectual thought, as we’re all experts in one way or another
and Gemini knows best that there’s always something you can learn from someone
Jack Halberstam introduces the undercommons by establishing a new connotation for the notion of study: “Moten and Harney propose that we prepare now for what will come by entering into study. Study, a mode of thinking with others separate from the thinking that the institution requires of you, prepares us to be embedded in what Harney calls ‘the with and for’ and allows you to spend less time antagonized and antagonizing.”
so i’m asking that when you engage with Gemini, that you engage in this form of study. that you get acquainted with the we that exists within you, the we who surround you, and the we who occupy space(s) that you don’t, the we who fill in the gaps in your knowledge.
I’ll finish off with a little Gemini Spotlight,
honoring two great Gemini suns, the late Gwendolyn Brooks and the prolific Akwaeke Emezi from their new book Bitter
<3 kay
again, if you’d like to show your support for this newsletter, please feel free to pay me, share with your people, and/or book a reading with me. community support is truly how my fugitive ass liveees, and it’s deeply appreciated.
u can zlle me: kaycalloway18@gmail.com or vmo me: @kaydarling111