Gemini

And starry Gemini hang like growing crowns,
Over Orion's grave low down in the west. 

--Tennyson--

May 21-June 20 (although dates can vary from year to year)

Happy Birthday, Gemini.  This is your month.  Gemini is the third sign of the Zodiac   It is a mutable air sign. The main concern for a Gemini is change, adaptation and communication.  On the plus side, the Gemini person is intelligent, flexible, changeable, and communicative; they don't allow themselves to get locked into rigid patterns or belief systems.  Curious, sociable and  friendly, the Gemini individual is rarely found alone.    On the other hand, Gemini is quite changeable by nature and may, at times, suffer from a lack of focus.  

Gemini is traditionally ruled by the planet, Mercury and is strongly linked to the role of Mercury in Roman mythology who was the light-footed messenger of the Gods. He represents our ability to think, reason, and communicate.  In our charts, he shows us how we process information and exchange ideas with others. The Mercury glyph represents the link between the spirit and matter, and between the soul and personality. It is represented by the crescent, the circle and the cross. It indicates the receptivity of the soul through the exaltation of the spirit over matter. The glyph for Gemini is the Roman Numeral II which symbolizes the sign of twin identities.

More than 6000 years back, the Rig Veda mentions the two primary stars of the Gemini constellation as appearing as  two horseman early at dawn. They were part of the Ashvins known as Sahadeva and Nakula, the youngest of the Pandu princes. During that time, the two stars were only visible at dawn during spring season. This led to the idea that they were twins and linked with the Spring Equinox.

The mythology of the sign Gemini is particularly rich because it involves two sets of twins, one divine and one mortal.  The tale of Castor and Pollux is perhaps the most well-known in ancient mythology.  Both were mothered by Leda, and, therefore, were brothers of Helen, but the twin brothers  were from two different fathers, one being  Leda's official husband, the King of Sparta and the other from the god, Jupiter, who impregnated Leda when he shapeshifted into a swan.  Pollux was Jupiter's son; hence, he was an immortal.  Castor, being the son of the king, was mortal and was famous for his skill with horses....and the two brothers loved each other more than their own lives.  Both brothers were involved in the Jason and Argonauts search of the Golden Fleece  and then fought in the Trojan War, but they never, ever allowed themselves to be separated from one another.

One day Castor, the mortal, was killed, and Pollux was so overcome with grief that he pleaded with Zeus not to separate him from his brother.  Immortality meant nothing to him if it meant that Castor would forever remain in the Underworld.  Zeus relented and allowed the two brothers to remain together.  Thus, it was decided that the twins would spend half their time in heaven and half in the Underworld...and, to this day, the six months of light corresponds to the periods when the constellation of Gemini is visible in the sky.
  

Among the ancients, and particularly among the Romans, there prevailed a superstition that Castor and Pollux often appeared at the head of their armies  and led on their troops to battle and victory.  Thus, they were invoked on the field of battle to insure victory.

Have fought for Rome to-day,

These be the great Twin Brethren

To whom the Dorians pray.

Back comes the chief in triumph

Who, in the hour of fight,

Hath seen the great Twin Brethren

In harness on his right.

--MacCauley--

Castor and Pollux were worshipped both by the Greeks and Romans, who sacrificed white lambs upon their altars to them. In the Hebrew Zodiac the constellation of the Twins refers to the Tribe of Benjamin.  The Egyptians identified the two stars with a pair of young goats who return to their goat herd at dawn, and during the same time period, the twin stars were referred as Gilgamesh and Enkidu by the ancient Babylonians...the  twin brothers and two heroes who fought a series of classic battles against the gods for attaining immortality.  The Arabs saw in this group of stars Two Peacocks, and in Asia, they appeared as the Great Twins and the Heaven and Earth Pair.
 

A Buddhist zodiac had in their place a woman holding a golden cord indicating the idea of the sign...unity.   Castor and Pollux were regarded as twins by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Aborigines of the South Pacific Islands.  In Australian tradition, twins known as the Wati- kutjara, the two men, become the constellation Gemini after they performed heroic acts on the earth.  The South African Bushmen called them the Young Women, the wives of the eland,their great antelope.