URANUS IN GEMINI

On July 7,2025, Uranus makes its’ ingress into the sign of Gemini where it will spend the next seven years. Because Uranus is a “trans-saturnian” or “generational” planet we feel its influence primarily (although not exclusively) at the collective level. Because of this, most of what I will have to say about this transit will focus on our collective experience and what we can do to insulate ourselves from the potentially traumatic effects of the transit while leveraging the opportunities it is likely to bring.

TRANS-SATURNIAN GENERATIONAL PLANETS

From the earliest days of astrology, Saturn was thought define the threshold between the changeable world in which all mortal things live and the changeless world of the Gods. It had this distinction because it was literally the farthest and slowest of the visible planets. Saturn takes approximately 29.5 years to return to the same place among the fixed stars (the well-known Saturn Return).

The discovery of Uranus, among other disruptive influences, threw millennia of astrological tradition and understanding into upheaval. How was this “new” planet to be integrated into the ancient system of astrology. Over time, some astrologers began assigning “rulership” of various signs to the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). Others, not wishing to disrupt a system of essential dignities with its’ own well established inner logic, designated these newly discovered planets as “generational”. Unlike the traditional planets which remain in a sign for a comparatively short period (Saturn remains in each sign for just over two years), the generational planets remain in each sign from 7 to 30 years. These planets do not so much rule particular signs as shape entire historical epochs, thus they are “generational”. For example, nearly everyone born in the 1940s has Uranus in Gemini but no one born since then has this placement (though this will soon change).

While nearly everyone gets at least two Saturn returns, no one gets more than one Uranus return since the latter takes about 84 years to return to the same place in the zodiac. This is another reason we say that these planets are generational, each generation gets only one Uranus return. So far as we know, no one gets a Neptune return as it takes this planet over 160 years to return. Pluto, taking nearly 250 years to complete its orbital path. Perhaps these should be called “trans-generational” planets.

Although the trans-saturnian planets show their influence on entire generations and even historical epochs, they telegraph their influence into our lives via the aspects they make to the traditional planets and the houses they occupy in our birth chart. Thus, the influence that the Uranus transit of Gemini will have on our individual lives will show in whatever house Gemini happens to fall in in our birth charts.

THE NATURE OF URANUS

The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel on March 13,1781. Herschel was not looking for a new planet, rather, he was mapping a then new class of stars that could only be observed via telescope. During his observations he discovered a “star” which, instead of remaining in the same place relative to the background of “fixed stars”, seemed to move in a manner indicative of the known planets of our solar system. These planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury along with The Sun and Moon had, until that time, been the only planets “wandering stars” known to astronomers and astrologers from ancient times. Thus, the planet Uranus became the first planet discovered via instruments (the telescope) rather than the naked eye, and the first “new” planet to be observed since humans began watching the night sky.

In a single day, William Herschel ACCIDENTALLY changed our view of the cosmos. This momentous occasion granted Uranus two of its most important astrological meanings, sudden, unforeseen and world changing occurrences and disruptive technological advancement. In the synchronistic way of astrology, these two Uranian “personality traits” found resonance in other historical trends of the time.

1781, the year of Uranus’s discovery, was in the eye of a political storm that was transforming most of the western world. Along with political revolutions, Europe and eventually the rest of the world, was in the midst of Industrial Revolution which transformed both the global economy and the work lives of nearly all people living in rapidly industrializing nations. Along with these revolutionary movements, scientists were beginning to understand the nature of electricity after researchers like Benjamin Franklin definitive connected lightning with electrical energy. These and other developments concurrent with the discovery of Uranus gave the newly discovered planet a “reputation” for disruptive and often calamitous change at all levels of life. Due to the unforeseen and not always positive consequences of such changes, Uranus also came to be associated with a somewhat reckless “change at all cost” attitude which, although sometimes beneficial and even necessary, is not always welcome. The lightning strike that starts the forest fire might bring fertility in the long run but it often destroys life and property in the short.

THE NATURE OF GEMINI

Ruled by Mercury, Gemini is associated with communication. Because it is an Air sign, Gemini is more concerned with ideas than things, with logic and word play more than feeling and commitment to what is thought or said. We see an objective, intellectual detachment but also the trickster nature Mercury. Gemini is restless and indecisive. Planets in this sign seek as much information as possible, and, because it is the sign of the twins, to see all sides of a situation. Positively this means a lack of bias. But the shadow of this is a lack of commitment.

While all signs have their light and shadow sides, no sign shows the extremity and contrast between its different natures more than Gemini. Twins are the same but different. Difference and similarity are the primary duality by which we comprehend the world – this and that, now and then, I and Thou – unity and duality imply one another and lend each other meaning.

The more alike things or people are, the more they are inclined to amplify even minute differences to do so. We might consider the way we try to distance ourselves from our “shadow”, or the way enemies often share a great deal in common at a deep level. The psychological concept of projection, in which we dislike in others rejected aspects of ourselves, can be an important aspect of Gemini. At the same time, Mercury, Gemini’s ruling planet, tries to interpret differences between people and things by finding a common “language” in which one might comprehend the other. Sometimes he does this by tricking us into agreement with our opponent. Other times, he shows us that we might not have as much in common with “our own kind” as we might like to think. This can make Mercury antagonistic to a consistent world view, especially in his Gemini domicile. In the Orphic Hymn to Hermes (Mercury) language is both a “blameless tool of peace” and a “dreaded and respected weapon”. We do well to remember these two edges of the same Geminid sword as revolutionary Uranus comes for an extended stay.

PLANETS IN SIGNS.

When a planet travels through a sign, it is obliged to express itself in terms dictated by the sign’s ruling planet. Each sign is more conducive to some planets than others. This is the basis of the concept of “essential dignities”. Some planets “rule” a particular sign while others are “exulted”. Some planets are “fallen” in some signs while others are in “detriment”. Mercury rules Gemini and is most comfortable there. Mercury likes playing with ideas and “second guessing” all definitive assertions. Jupiter, by contrast, is idealistic and likes definite, well-defined ideas of purpose, beauty and truth. He is not at all comfortable in Gemini where he is “in detriment” or “in exile”.

Like most Hellenistic Astrologers, I do not include the trans-saturnian planets in the system of essential dignities. Because of this, I tend to think of the presence of one of these planets in a sign as casting a kind of “light” on what ever sign it is in and what ever traditional planet is passing through that sign.

In this case, Uranus brings a disruptive, revolutionary and potentially reckless atmosphere to Gemini. Because Gemini, is a sign in which we try to distinguish the differences and similarities between things, we should expect the ways in which we make these distinctions to undergo disruption. We may find that the spiritual, social, aesthetic and political frameworks we have employed to map and navigate these domains have become inadequate to the task. It may feel that we are using outdated maps and poorly calibrated instruments to negotiate once familiar landscapes. We may be confronted with a world that is suddenly bigger than we imagined (the way the discovery of Uranus expanded our view of the solar system). We may find that we have more in common with people that we have previously dismissed as “other” and less with those “like ourselves”. We might be forced to develop new coordinate systems and learn new vocabularies to accommodate these new conditions.

For all but the very oldest among us, we may experience a radical destabilization of all we have held true. Some of us will cling to out dated maps while others will embrace novelty to the point of “loosing the plot”. Many will careen between these two extremes, being dogmatic in one area on one day, open to the point of nihilism in other areas on other days.

It will almost certainly be difficult to impossible to determine where things are going. One of the consistent historical features of Uranus in Gemini transits is the rapid development and deployment of disruptive communications technologies. We will almost certainly see the widespread adoption of print, audio and video media generated via artificial intelligence. This will necessitate a radical change in our personal and collective media literacy as it will become virtually impossible to trust anything we see on a screen. While we will get through this turbulent period, the world we will inhabit will look as different from the one in which we live as 1940 looked from 1950. In that decade, nuclear power (including the bomb), television, magnetic tape recording and LSD all came on the scene. Just as it took decades to integrate adjust to the world these innovations brought, so it may be well into the later part of the 21^st century before we get to grips with what ever comes of the next seven or so years.

BE THE FOOL BUT DON’T BE FOOLISH

In Tarot, the planet Uranus is represented by The Fool

This is the first card of the major arcana. Everything else in that sequence of cards that extends from The Magician to Judgement will be encountered by The Fool along his journey. So it is with us at this moment.

The Fool is without guile. He has no goal in mind, no agenda to serve, he simply moves through his environment without a care in the world. But he also has his little dog. Note the way the dog paws at the ankle of The Fool as he nearly steps off the cliff. This is our animal spirit. We would do well in this time to tune into our little “companion animal”, the life within that responds almost exclusively to immediate urges. The little dog, like all such animals, responds instinctively to what is safe or not. He knows nothing of what will become of The Fool should he step off the cliff, he only knows it doesn’t feel safe. So he paws and barks and The Fool, without even knowing his peril, turns to see what his companion is on about and, hopefully, follows him away from danger.

But The Fool, like everyone else, has a shadow side. He can be naïve and gullible, easily distracted by novelty. He may try to recapture some lost innocence by clinging to what he imagined the world was like before he knew better. He may, once he has nearly fallen a few times, embrace an overly cautious attitude that makes him stop when he should go and vice versa. Such folly arises from trying to follow an image of the world that we carry in our mind rather than the immediate evidence of our senses. He has lost his little dog. We should not.

WHEN WILL IT END?

By late May of 2033, Uranus will leave Gemini for another 82 years or so. By that time it should be a little clearer what the new landscape of everyday reality looks like. When Uranus moves into Cancer, sign of care and commitment to new born things, we should have a better idea of what we should be cultivating, both individually and collectively.

The last time Uranus entered Cancer in 1949, America led the world into a brave new world of technological and cultural innovation. We made an unprecedented investment in our future in the form of education and enrichment of youth which the post war “baby boomers” being the best cared for, educated and later, most affluent generation the world had ever seen.

Of course there were shadows. America and the USSR emerged onto the world stage as the first superpowers with the capacity to unleash biocide on the planet. This led to a decades long cold war which shaped the inner and outer lives of generations to come. This period also saw the beginnings of all the cultural and political divisions that remain with us to this day. The coming Uranus in Gemini period will likely undo most of these divisions but, rest assured, new ones will emerge in the decades to come. But the problems of the future are not resolved from our current position.

One of the artifacts of the “Cold War” that has remained strong in our collective imagination is the idea of doom’s day preparedness. Starting in the 1950s, those who could, and were paranoid enough to devote there resources to it, built bomb shelters, stock piled food and weapons and made lists of who they would offer shelter to against the oncoming nuclear Armageddon. Although the perceived threat changed over time – race/class warfare, environmental collapse, pandemic – the assumption, that we could know what the danger is and how best to prepare for it, did not. I offer the somewhat counterintuitive notion that this is an idea who’s time has probably come. The crisis we face in the coming years is the culmination of an “epistemological crisis” that has been building for some time now. We simply do not know what we are preparing for and can barely trust any of the sources that might give us insight. So, instead of being prepared, I suggest we should stay FLEXABLE and ADAPTIVE and, above all, keep our animal spirits well fed.

Good Luck