The Full Moon In Gemini Will Have You Torn Between Logic and Intuition

During our full moon in Gemini on November 30, our Earth slips between the Sun in and moon in Gemini, creating a lunar eclipse. Earth and her concerns will cast a shadow, veiling the driving force of our full moon. A veiled force, we know, is not damned — in fact, a veiled force can thrive under cover. So, what is the force of the full moon, and how can we rise to meet it? It is said that full moon children must reckon between logic and intuition, between the Sun and moon as they oppose each other. "Logic" as a point of opposition cannot be taken for granted. If logic is sound and valid reasoning, then logic is a framework, and frameworks are not without bias. No framework is universal; no framework is outside the lived experience of the people who make it. So, it stands to reason that a child born between the Sun and the moon, between logic and intuition, must learn to walk the line between what they are told is true and the truth as they experience it. Under a full moon in Gemini, we are invited to spend time negotiating these truths, to lay down in the tension between them.

Balancing personal truth and collective truth, tempering faith and doctrine, is a full moon theme that is especially applicable when the moon is full in Gemini. While the Sun in Sagittarius deals with scholarship and explores the relationship between different sets of beliefs, Gemini is a sign that deals specifically with our intimate relationship to knowledge — how we experience something and how we turn that experience into knowing. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, and Mercury is known to travel between worlds relaying messages. In the sign of Gemini, Mercury is part switchboard operator, part yenta (Yiddish for a gossip), transmitting intimate missives and urgent communiqués while keeping their ear to the receiver just in case what transpires might be of use to them.

A Gemini moon has a whirling mind and a lot to get off her chest. She feels nurtured when she is given space and freedom to communicate her emotional experience. A Gemini moon craves an intimate circle that speaks her language, a circle that knows how to listen to a story and ask clarifying questions. A Gemini moon is always clarifying and enjoys company. Clarification is especially important to our full moon this month because her ruler, Mercury, transits Scorpio — a sign whose relationship to truth is often compared to that of a detective. A Scorpionic Mercury isn't just interested in what happened and where. A Scorpionic Mercury craves hidden motives and subconscious ambitions. A Scorpionic Mercury means to drag the past out into the light and see what there is to be seen.

Here, we return to the theme of shadow and the lunar eclipse. If the curious Sun in Sagittarius fuels our quest for knowledge and our anxious moon in Gemini aches to share her experience with others, how does the shadow of the Earth play a part? Of note is Uranus' transit through Taurus, the sign most often associated with Earth’s wisdom. During the full moon, Uranus in Taurus makes an opposition to Venus in Scorpio, an aspect that can make us suspicious of the values of others in relation to our own, causing us to feel distant from those we love. This opposition between Venus and Uranus — with some minor aspects — engages our Sun/moon opposition in what is called an “irritation rectangle.” The shadow of suspicion, of distrust, falls onto our Gemini moon and makes it that much more difficult to be candid and close with each other.

It’s not uncommon that those of us who crave closeness but fear judgement often turn toward conflict when conviviality won’t work. Fighting is its own form of intimacy, however destructive, it binds the energies of the people who meet in the ring. In some ways, the desire to fight with someone, to pull them into the ring with you, is evidence that they are valuable to you. To make of that evidence something useful is key. To hold your anger, your rage, your anxiety, and recognize it for what it is: your heart’s demand to be listened to, engaged, and clarified. Under this full moon in Gemini, may each irritation that finds you be an exercise in self-regulation. May every suspicion your harbor be a cobweb swept clean by the broom of transparency. May every conflict be a stepping stone toward mutual understanding. May you get a phone call from an old friend who asks you all the right questions to unburden your heart.