According to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the following tarot cards represent Gemini:

• Lovers (VI)
• Knight of Swords
• Eight of Swords (Jupiter in Gemini)
• Nine of Swords (Mars in Gemini)
• Ten of Swords (Sun in Gemini)

In this article, I’m going to give some traditional ideas about Gemini, then three ideas I personally associate with Gemini, and last I will give my interpretations of each tarot card.

Traditional Ideas about Gemini

In her book “The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need,” Joanna Martine Woolfolk describes Gemini as “lively, energetic, versatile, and intellectual, lives primarily in the mind rather than the emotions, and is extremely adaptable to new situations.” (p. 18)

In his fifth lecture on Astrotheology, Manly P. Hall describes “Geminis the Twins” (as he calls it) as representing the virtues of reconciliation and mastery of the intellectual mind, and the vices of mental polarity and “paralysis by analysis.” He points out a curious fact about the human mind: “…the more stupid a person is, the more certain he is. The more thoughtful he becomes, the more uncertain he becomes.” (1:14:00) He describes the rationalizing/thinking mind as having two powers. The first is the power to divide the one into two. While the ability to divide is tremendously useful for things like discernment between cause and effect, inappropriate use of division causes all sorts of problems, such as imposing a separation between “us and them” or “soul and not-soul.” Hall said that all separation inherently makes a thing weaker: “Wherever there is division, there is loss. That which the Gods would destroy, they first divide.” (1:19:20) Thus, we arrive that Gemini’s second power: the power to unite the two into one—what he calls “reconciliation.” He says this is important, “…because actually, we are dealing with things substantially indivisible. Their unity must be acknowledged, not achieved by human defense. It is there to begin with, and we cannot defend it — we must discover it” (1:19:40).

Teaching from an esoteric astrology standpoint, William Meader said in his blog and lecture at the Theosophical Society that Gemini is the sign that governs all pairs of opposites, preserving the fluid synthesis between their magnetic interplay. With its lower ruler of Mercury, Gemini is associated with communication, because all communication and dialogue requires a pair of opposites called a “sender” and a “receiver.” Meader goes on to say that, while pop culture tends to associate Gemini with the two sides of someone’s personality (example here), esoteric astrology teaches that the duality actually resides between our “soul” (or “higher self”) and our “personality” (or “lower self”). With the help of Gemini, we can build a bridge of communication between that higher self and lower self, and to do that we must “…learn to quiet the lower self in order to hear the faint whispers of the soul.” (25:20) Lastly, he says that Gemini with its traditional ruler of Mercury will “think with the mind and feel with the heart.” However, Gemini with its higher ruler of Venus learns to “think with the heart and feel with the mind.” (26:53)

Now that I’ve touched on some traditional ideas, let’s move on to the ideas I personally associate with Gemini.

Concept #1: To Breathe Is To Pray

Every Zodiac sign is attributed to one of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth. Gemini is one of the three signs associated with the element of “Air.” In the Western mystery tradition, Air is connected to the idea of the self-conscious thinking mind, also known as the intellect. This metaphor of “thinking mind as air” is referenced by Friedrich Nietzsche in his book “Thus Spake Zarathustra” when the enlightened prophet Zarathustra approaches a youth who is sitting beneath a tree looking out into the valley with a wearied look on his face. Zarathustra says to the youth, “If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be able to do so. But the wind, which we see not, troubleth and bendeth it as it listeth. We are sorest bent and troubled by invisible hands” (Chapter 8). In other words, both the wind and the human mind are “invisible hands” which trouble us and toss us about.

Traditionally, every Zodiac sign is associated with a part of the human body. Gemini is attributed with the lungs. Considering the association with both “air” and “lungs,” I think it is only natural to associate Gemini with breathing and breathwork. The divine importance of “breath” is something deeply embedded into our culture and language. In Chapter 2 of the Book of Genesis, it is said: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The Hebrew word for this “breath of life” is Ruach, which was translated into the Greek word “pneuma” (where we get the root for “pneumatics” and “pneumonia”—both relating to air), which was then translated into the Latin word “spiritus.” In other words, the word “spirit” is synonymous with the word “breath.” Thus when we say we are “inspired,” we are actually saying we are full of God’s breath of life—the same breath that first brought Adam to life.

Richard Rohr in his book “The Naked Now” goes one step further and makes the case that the name of God is breath itself. Speaking of the name of God, he says:

“As we now spell and pronounce it, the word is Yahweh. For those speaking Hebrew, it was the Sacred Tetragrammaton YHVH (yod, he, vav, and he). It was considered a literally unspeakable word for Jews… but we now know it goes even deeper: formally the word was not spoken at all, but breathed! Many are convinced that its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound of inhalation and exhalation. The one thing we do every moment of our lives is therefore to speak the name of God. This makes it our first and our last word as we enter and leave the world… I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing… There is no rich or poor way of breathing. The playing field is utterly leveled… When considered in this way, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we all do constantly—breathe.”

Richard Rohr, The Naked Now, pp. 25-26

The importance of our breath on our thinking—something recognized by ancient traditions for thousands of years—is now well-recognized within the scientific community. Mark Tyrrell of Uncommon Practitioners advises his clients to do the 7-11 breathing technique as a way to reduce anxiety, which is inhaling to a quick count of 7 then exhaling to a quick count of 11. He says that anytime we inhale longer than we exhale, our body assumes we are “gulping air” because we are about to exert a lot of energy; thus, it triggers the “exercise response” inside us, which does things like elevate our heart rate and release adrenaline. When this exercise response happens while we are not exercising, we experience it as “anxiety.” However, if we exhale longer than we inhale (like in the 7-11 technique), the opposite happens. Our body assumes we are entering a state of rest and relaxation, and thus lowers our heart rate and calms us down. In fact, when we “let out a sigh” while we are stressed, that is our body attempting to trigger this “relaxation response.” When we are emotionally aroused (such as stressed, angry, or lustful), our rational mind essentially shuts down and we begin to see everything in binary/black-or-white/all-or-nothing thinking. In other words, the more relaxed we are, the more rational we are.

Thus, Gemini can serve as a reminder of the practical impact of conscious breathing on our ability to think clearly, and the spiritual impact of recognizing that every breath is a prayer to God. Conscious breathwork can be thought of as another way to pray for strength. We may not always feel like we are in control of our emotions or our thoughts… but we can always control our breathing, and that is the first step to controlling both our emotions and our thoughts.

This brings me to concept number 2.

Concept #2: Comparison Is the Root of All Gratitude

In his lecture on “The Self That Thinks”, Manly Hall said, “We have to recognize that the mind itself is a structure that does not automatically accomplish any good thing [or] automatically accomplish any evil thing. The mind is an instrument, a tool, like a workman’s hammer.” He goes on to point out that one function of the human mind is to compare between two objects. He then points out that, even if we are presented with only one object, the mind will compare it to another form existing in our imagination, such as a memory or a daydream.

These ideas are echoed by Dr. Paul Jenkins when he says that the best way to maintain our mental health is to know how to operate the equipment of our own brain. Toward that end, he says the following:

“I invite you in this moment to notice that you are constantly ‘judging.’ Aren’t you? Yeah! You judge yourself—pretty harshly sometimes. You judge the people you live with. You judge the economy, the government, your co-workers, your kids. You’re judging me. Just notice that it’s happening… you’re constantly judging. Well check it out—judgment or evaluation implies comparison with some standard.”

He goes on to say that, if we don’t consciously choose the “standard” we are judging against, then we will unconsciously choose one—whether it’s real or something we made up in our imagination—because just like Gemini, every judgment has a twin standard. While it’s a noble goal to stop our brain from “judging” everything all the time, it’s incredibly difficult to do. A slightly easier first step is to gain more conscious control over the standard we choose, picking one that steers us toward gratitude instead of sadness or fear. Now, I’m not saying that we should be in denial about our situation and our emotions, nor am I saying that we should just “sit down and shut up” instead of working to achieve better conditions. All I’m saying is that you will judge yourself and others against a standard, so why not choose that standard consciously instead of unconsciously? Why not choose a standard that leads to more gratitude instead of sadness and fear?

Here’s an example of how I recently implemented this concept. This past Tuesday, I attended an M83 concert in Chicago, because I’ve been religiously listening to their new album “Fantasy.” (Click here to see my article and my video about it.) I got to the venue somewhat early, but it was already packed for the sold-out show. I managed to get a spot halfway into the crowd with a great view of the stage. Halfway through the show, I noticed that I was the only person around me singing every lyric to every new song, and I also thought I saw the lead singer Anthony Gonzalez interacting with people in the front row. Suddenly, I became deeply saddened and disappointed with myself. I thought, “Dammit Derick! Why didn’t you get here sooner? You could have made it a priority to get here as early as possible, then you could have made it to the front row and showed Anthony much you appreciate his new album by singing every word with him!” It’s kind of embarassing (lol), but I began to ruminate on this thought. However, I quickly realized that my mind was in “comparison mode,” and I remembered how Dr. Jenkins said we can always imagine things being better, and we can always imagine things being worse. I figured that, since I’ve already imagined things being better, why not imagine things being worse?

This reminded me of how, earlier that day, when I checked my email for the ticket for the show, I discovered that what I thought was a confirmation email, was actually an email saying, “We’re sorry. Your payment went through, but your seller was unable to fulfill your request. Please select another ticket and we’ll get it to you within 7 days.” This was 4 hours before the show. I selected the alternative ticket and became distraught, thinking I might not be able to attend this sold-out show that I’ve been looking forward to for so long. Luckily, I received an email with my ticket about an hour later. Remembering this scary situation, I consciously decided to change my standard to the imaginary situation where I never received my ticket at all, instead of the imaginary situation where I made it to the front row. This helped bring me out my ruminating mind and right back into the present moment. I again felt a deep appreciation for my view of the show.

I’ve always thought that “gratitude” is more affiliated with our “emotional self” since it is like a love for the world. However, recently I’ve begun to think that “gratitude” is entirely the result of the intellect and our “thinking self,” because we feel grateful when we compare our present moment against a less fortunate moment. While the “comparing mind” is the “evil-doer” behind all of the judgments we make against ourselves and others, I’m beginning to think that “gratitude” itself is only possible because of our comparing mind. It is said that “comparison is the root of all unhappiness.” However, I’m starting to believe comparison is also the root of all gratitude, because as the old zen story goes, when you see the glass you are drinking from as already broken, every moment with it is precious. Thus, the comparing mind of Gemini can lead us, at its worst, to a headspace of sadness, anger, and frustration, but at its best, a headspace of gratitude, appreciation, and love.

Concept #3: Nonviolent Communication

Being a set of twins, Gemini is associated with “duality” of all kinds, whether it is the duality of a person, a situation, or our language. This ability to divide and separate—a power associated with both Gemini and the suit of Swords—is very useful at times, such as when we want to separate a cancerous tumor from the rest of our body. However, like I mentioned earlier, Manly Hall said that wherever there is division, there is loss and weakness. This lesson has been passed down for over 2,000 years through Aesop’s fable of “The Father, His Sons, and The Bundle of Sticks.” In it, the father shows his sons how a bundle of sticks tied together cannot be broken, but if you untie the bundle, each stick can be broken one-by-one. In other words, while there is definitely a time and place for division, unnecessary division can lead to unnecessary weakness, destruction, and suffering. (Sidenote for those of you who study Qabalah: I believe this is why Geburah emanates from Chesed—because ultimately Chesed’s power of the collaborative collective will always outweigh Geburah’s power of the heroic lone individual.)

Although Gemini represents this power to separate one thing into a pair of opposites, it also represents the power to reconcile and reunite a pair of opposites back into one unified thing. As Julie Cuccia-Watts said in her interview on the Tarot Maps YouTube channel, the whole idea of the twins is that “we have more things the same than different.” Although identical twins are technically two separate people, do not forget that they also look the exact same. Yes, twins represent separation, but they also represent union (or re-union).

Earlier in this article, I mentioned how William Meader teaches that the esoteric takeaway of Gemini is building a bridge between our soul (or Higher Self) and our personality (or Lower Self). I love this idea of the “bridge” as symbol of the reconciliation between a pair of opposites. He also mentions that the higher ruler of Gemini is Venus instead of Mercury. In my system of Qabalism, Venus represents our instinctual biological nature, which expresses itself through our emotions. According to Human Givens theory, every human is born with an innate set of “emotional needs” which we strive to satiate, either consciously or unconsciously. I associate these needs with Venus. Thus, Gemini’s rulership by Venus perfectly encapsulates the idea of communication that satiates both party’s instinctual emotional needs.

To this end, clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg spent 50 years of his life teaching about a type of communication which he called “Nonviolent Communication.” According to Wikipedia, Nonviolent Communication (commonly abbreviated to the acronym NVC), “is not a technique to end disagreements, but rather a method designed to increase empathy and improve the quality of life of those who utilize the method and the people around them.” One of the core assumptions of this model is that, if we increase empathy to the point where both parties genuinely feels like their needs are understood by the other person, then the resolution to the conflict will naturally arise.

There’s four components to the NVC process:

1. Say what is happening that you like or don’t like, without introducing any judgment or evaluation.
2. Say how it makes you feel. (Do not say what it makes you think!)
3. Say what need or needs of yours are connected to this feeling.
4. Give a very specific request (not a demand) that, if acted out, would help us meet our needs.

In his book “Nonviolent Communication,” Rosenberg gives the following example of the process in action:

“For example, a mother might express these three pieces to her teenage son by saying, ‘Felix, when I see two balls of soiled socks under the coffee table and another three next to the TV, I feel irritated because I am needed more order in the rooms that we share in common.’ She would follow immediately with the fourth component—a very specific request: ‘Would you be willing to put your socks in your room or in the washing machine?’”

Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, p. 6

However, honestly expressing your observations, feelings, needs, and requests is only half of the story, because all communication requires at least two parties—a sender and a receiver. The second half of the story is to become an empathetic listener who can help to clarify the other party’s observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Thus, before we can rush into the Mercurial process of coming up with problem-solving solutions to the situation at hand, we must participate in the Venusian process of becoming genuinely connected to the feelings and needs of the other person. Oftentimes, the empathy is the only thing the other person wants at all.

Thus, when a tarot card related to Gemini comes up, it is an opportunity to reflect upon our communication, whether it’s how we are talking to others or how we are talking to ourselves. Are we sabotaging our connection with our twin through our judgments and evaluations? Or are we strengthening the connection between us through non-evaluative listening? Instead of being a Gemini ruled by Mercury who speaks from the head before they speak from the heart, let us be the Gemini ruled by Venus who recognizes that communication is most effective when it builds a bridge of empathy between you and your twin.

Tarot Card Interpretations

Keeping in mind these traditional and new ideas, here’s some of my personal interpretations of each of the Taurus tarot cards.

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Lovers (VI)

In the Hermetic Qabalah, the Lovers sits on the path between the third sephira Binah and the sixth sephira Tiphareth. While Tiphareth can be understood as the Higher Self and a state of illumination, Binah is more easily understood in contrast to its partner Chokmah. According to Dion Fortune, Chokmah represents the raw unconditioned force of energy itself, which she calls “the Divine Masculine,” while Binah represents the conditioning form which receives that energy and channels it into something new, like a woman receiving sperm from a man in order to grow a child. This is why Binah is referred to as the Divine Feminine, the Great Mother, and the Giver of All Forms. Using the metaphor of the combustion engine, Fortune said Chokmah is like the raw force of the exploding gasoline and Binah is like the form of the engine that channels the explosion in a way that moves the automobile. Without the form of engine, the energy of exploding gasoline would just radiate out and dissipate into space. Without the force of the explosion, the form of the automobile would sit in a state of dormancy—full of potential, but inert. With this in mind, we can say that the path between Binah and Tiphareth is the connection between an individual and the latent potential of its form.

From a more mystical perspective, Paul Foster Case says in his book “The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order” that the path of the Lovers teaches us to “…depart from the illusion of separate selfhood… and arrive at the realization that the semblance of separate individuality is but the effect produced by the One Self’s power of concentrating its limitless energy at any particular point in time and space.” (p. 276) I interpret as an encouragement to mentally reframe to our entire sense of identity. Instead of identifying as a person who is separate from everyone and everything else, it’s more like our true self is the entire unified field of consciousness that expands throughout the universe—also known as the Monad, Source, and God. We are not the radio; we are the radio station.

From a more psychological perspective, Case describes this card as representing: “The perfect harmonious relationship between the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious aspects of the Life Power…” (p. 277) According to him and others in the Western mystery tradition, the male figure on the card represents the “self-conscious,” the female figure represents the “subconscious,” and the angelic figure represents the “superconscious.” The self-conscious can be thought of your consciousness that you are using to read this article. It allows us to reflect logically on our experiences, but it also has a tyrannical tendency to seek certainty and control in all situations. The sub-conscious can be thought of as everything that is alive in us that operates outside of the control of our self-conscious mind, such as our bodily functions, our instincts, our emotions, and our intuition.

Imagine what would happen if you subconscious decided to let your self-conscious logical mind run your body for five minutes. Would you know where to send all the blood, or how to get the lungs to absorb the nutrients in the air? The subconscious represents all of this intelligence alive inside us, that our self-conscious mind tends to be ignorant to. Sometimes, our self-conscious mind ignores and represses what’s alive in our subconscious; however, that subconscious life is still alive, and after enough pressure builds up, it will explode out of us whether we like it or not. (As depicted in “The Tower” Tarot card.) The subconscious life our self-conscious life represses is what Carl Jung called the “shadow,” and working to reintegrate that subconscious life is called “shadow work.”

As long as our self-conscious and subconscious have different goals, they will fight against each other, and we will be a human being that is divided in nature. We will say one thing but do another, and have no idea why we are doing it. As Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” However, if we are able to bridge the connection between our self-conscious and subconscious mind, getting them to work in harmony toward the same goal, we become a supercharged human capable of accomplishing seemingly impossible things. The self-conscious becomes the visionary scout capable of seeing the future and guiding our present, and the subconscious becomes the engine of vitality capable of moving mountains and parting the sea. Together, they unlock a new latent power within the human soul—the ability to connect with the superconscious. The superconscious is that divine being we tap into when we allow the higher power to work through us. As Richard Rohr said in The Naked Now, “…after transformation, you seldom have the feeling you have found anything. It feels much more like Someone found you!” (p. 19)

So, how can we get our quarreling self-conscious and subconscious to work together? Just as all communication is a dialogue back-and-forth between two people, we must identify ourselves as our self-conscious and begin taking turns listening to and speaking to our subconscious. Since it’s very likely our self-conscious has been rudely ordering around our subconscious and ignoring its own desires, it is probably best we start by listening and empathizing with our subsconscious. We must turn our self-conscious from “judging and repressing” mode to “listening and validating” mode. What are our emotions telling us to do? Emotions are like a game of “hot and cold”—the closer we get to one of our goals, the better we feel, and the further we get from it, the worse we feel. As Dr. Paul Jenkins says, your emotions are never wrong. They are always true. Step one is to become an understudy of our emotions, to be conscious of what triggers us and how we feel on a day-to-day basis.

However, emotions are often blind and incredibly shortsighted, seeking instantly-gratifying goals related to the immediate environment—such as “Kick this person’s ass right now!”—without having any foresight—such as “I may end up in jail or shot.” Thus, we must not let our emotions run the ship entirely on their own; but at the same time, they MUST have a say in how the ship is run. If we simply lock them up in the brig and treat them like a slave, they will escape, they will revolt, and they will come back with a vengeance. But there are a few ways of influencing our subconscious. One is called the art of autosuggestion. This is the idea of consciously talking to yourself, similar to what we today call affirmations. (In fact, the Greek root “autos” means “self” and “suggest” means “to place before another’s mind.”) Mark Fisher writes in his book The Instant Millionaire, “Self-suggestion plays a major role in our lives. If you remain unaware of it, it will work against you more often than not. But if you decide to use it, all its tremendous power will be at your disposal.” (p. 74) To use it, he says we must write down our exact goals for life, then write down a plan and a timeline or deadline. He says that once we write down the plan, we must repeat it out loud every day and every night, as often as we can, 50 or more times a day. He says it is important to say the plan out loud because, “The order you are issuing to your unconscious seems as though it is coming from the outside, and thus sounds more commanding.” (p. 83) In other words, by reciting our clearly defined goals aloud instead of keeping them in our head, the sounds of the words become part of our environment—and our subconscious is very sensitive to our immediate environment. Thus, autosuggestion is one way for our self-conscious to communicate with our subconscious.

Another way to blend the self-conscious and the subconscious together is to participate in “active imagination” and “lucid dreaming.” I talk more about these concepts in my article here under the section “Occult Symbol #2: The Depths.”

Lastly, the Lovers card is also associated with the idea of “a choice.” I will talk more about that in our next card, which is…

Knight of Swords

The Knight of Swords represents “fiery air” which can be interpreted as a “fiery mind” amongst many other things. Joe Monteleone, the amazing teacher over at the Tarot Mysticism Academy whose Level 2 class inspired me to start this blog in the first place, associates the Knight cards with “active doing” whereas the Page cards are more about “receptive learning.” Thus, this card can represent the thinking mind charging swiftly into battle with its sword raised high, ready to strike and maim anyone who gets in its way—including yourself. It is the cruel mind that viciously attacks others and itself, coming up with all sorts of logically-sound rationalizations as to why its behavior is appropriate and justified. It is the mind that chooses hateful dominance, distancing itself away from the source of loving intelligence we call “wisdom.” I’m reminded of the quote by Theodore Isaac Rubin: “Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.” To learn more about how to keep this Knight of Swords mind in check, and to act in love instead of hate, check out this video by Dr. Paul Jenkins “Why Do We Hurt The Ones We Love Most.” When we pull the Knight of Swords, maybe it is time for us to become more conscious of our judgmental comparing mind, put away the sword for a while, do some deep breathing, become conscious of our standards, and practice some nonviolent communication with ourselves and others.

On top of the cruelty of the judgmental mind, I interpret this card as representing the overly active thinking mind that is causing “paralysis by analysis.” Sometimes, the thinking mind can get us into a “hamster wheel” situation where we expend a tremendous amount of energy and get absolutely nowhere. When the Knight of Swords is pulled up, perhaps there’s a choice or a decision that the querent has been viciously thinking over in their mind, but can’t decide on what to do. For help with this, check out Mark Tyrrell’s video “5 Ways to Help Your Client Make Tough Decisions.” Among his many useful tips, there’s one that stood out to me as especially relevant to Gemini, and that’s how it is a trap to wait to make a decision until you are 100% certain it is the objectively correct decision! He said, “Sometimes, we can never be sure we made the right decision—even decades later!” Instead, we just need to listen to our gut, make a decision that feels right, then trust that you will be able to handle whatever comes our way. Life is not black or white; life is the infinite gradient between black and white. Decisions are not right or wrong, but rather right in some ways and wrong in some ways.

If we make a decision and afterwards ruminate on the thought that we made the wrong decision (there’s that judgmental mind again!), then we can remember what Dr. Paul Jenkins said: “Your brain is constantly predicting what’s coming… and you suck at that!” He points out how, oftentimes we think to ourselves, “Ugh, this is terrible for me!” But the future is so complex! Can you REALLY accurately predict what is good or bad for you in the long run? If you analyze the stories of accomplished people throughout history, you’ll find that they faced horrible adversity and even tragedy in their life, and those experiences ended up shaping them into the powerful person they became. If you made a decision and you regretted it, perhaps that was exactly what your soul needed to help you breakthrough into your next level of growth, and achieve your full potential. The soul grows through both love and suffering. Whatever decision you make, remember that.

Eight of Swords

The Eight of Swords is composed of 4 building blocks:

• Swords as Air, representing the self-conscious and the intellect.
• Eight as Hod (Mercury), representing the linguistic thinking mind.
• Jupiter, representing construction and organization.
• Gemini, representing communication and connection.

In this card, we have three forces associated with the rational thinking mind—the suit of Swords, the planet Mercury, and the constellation Gemini. Because of this, this card runs the risk of using our magical power of “language” solely as a way to judge and evaluate the world, because that is what the linguistic thinking mind is REALLY good at and has a tendency to do. However, we have a saving grace here: Jupiter. Jupiter always represents good fortune, because Qabalistically he stands for the constructive principle. He stands for units of Life coming together to form a collective Life that is much larger than each unit on its own, just as our human body is a collection of cells that come together to form our consciousness. Within Jupiter, we get the ideas of Love, collaboration, morality, hospitality, and a “strength of the collective” which will always outweigh the strength of the lone individual.

With the combination of Mercury and Jupiter (whose Greek equivalents are Hermes and Zeus), this card can represent Xenia, which was the ancient Greek concept of “hospitality of strangers.” In ancient Athens, Xenia was a cultural custom taken very seriously, and was associated with Zeus—to the point where sometimes he was called Zeus Xenios. The idea of Xenia is perfectly encapsulated in Ovid’s fable about Baucis and Philemon, which goes like this: One day, the gods Jupiter and Mercury decided to disguise themselves as peasants and ask the people of the town to let them stay the night. Everyone rudely rejected the two, except the poor elderly couple Baucis and Philemon. Despite their poverty, they shared what little food and wine they had with the guests. After a while, Baucis realized that despite having refilled their guests’ cups many times, the pitcher of wine was still full! They then realized they were in the presence of gods. The story ends with Zeus destroying the town in a flood, including everyone and everything except for old Baucis and Philemon, whose home Zeus turned into a temple which Baucis and Philemon became guardians of forever more.

The moral of this story is clear: be hospitable to every stranger you meet, for it may be a god in disguise. By associating this fable with this card, we see that we ought to embody the ever-loving spirit of Zeus Xenios and use our words to feed people’s souls and build them up, instead of judge and reject them. It might sound strange, but it might help if you think of everyone you meet as your child, and you are their loving, benevolent parent. After all, everyone you meet is someone’s child.

05-30-2023 Update: Hod (Mercury) is the Sephira most associated with magic, I believe partially because it’s also most associated with language—and language is magic. It is no coincidence that we “spell” words, and witches cast “spells” with “spell books.” Witches “curse” people with words from a “grimoire” which is the French translation of the Latin word “grammaire”—the same word we get the word “grammar” from. Magic also often involves the use of “symbols” (called “sigils”), and symbols are the basis of all written language. With its heavy emphasis on Air and Mercury, I think this card serves as a reminder that every word we say and think is a “magic spell,” and that we can change our entire world just by changing our language. As an example of this, check out James Clear’s “How to Be Thankful For Your Life by Changing One Word.”

Nine of Swords

The Nine of Swords is composed of four building blocks:

• Swords as Air, representing the self-conscious and the intellect.
• Nine as Yesod (The Moon), representing generation and imagination.
• Mars, representing courage and willpower.
• Gemini, representing communication and connection.

In the Smith-Waite tarot deck, this card shows a person sitting in bed—presumably in the middle of the night—sobbing into their hands. In the Thoth tarot deck, this card shows blood dripping from 9 swords with the word “Cruelty” printed at the bottom. Yikes. Why does this card has such upsetting associations? I believe it is because its combination of thoughts of Gemini and Swords, the imagination of the Moon, and the destruction of Mars can represent a concept that psychologists know cause a tremendous amount of suffering: rumination.

Wikipedia says that: “Rumination is the focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions, according to the Response Styles Theory proposed by Nolen-Hoeksema (1998).^[1][2]” Rumination is the tag-team duo of your imagination replaying memories of your worst behaviors and daydreaming of a hopeless futures, while your judgmental thinking mind says things like, “I can’t believe how stupid you are. There’s no hope for you. You’re not going anywhere.”

In her video “Two Things You Can Do To Stop Ruminating,” Dr. Tracey Marks describes two types of negative ruminations. “Depressive” ruminations are things like, “Why do I always get the short end of the stick?” or “Why can’t I be happy like everyone else?” “Anxious” ruminations “tend to be worrying about things that happened in the past, like analyzing past situations and worrying about what kind of impression that you left, or what that person meant by that.” In both types of rumination, you are repetitively analyzing the past in a non-productive way.

Mark Tyrell at unk.com says the following about rumination:

“Rumination is what cows do when they chew over cud, then swallow it, then regurgitate it, then chew it again… and so on. Eventually they will process it. We, on the other hand, can psychologically chew stuff, and regurgitate it repeatedly, but not digest or process it. People can mull over the same old stuff for years on end and still be no better off than when they started.”

In his video “What Is The Best Way To Stay Positive In Such A Depressing World,” Dr. Paul Jenkins talks about the idea of “clean pain” and “dirty pain.” “Clean pain” is the suffering we experience from an unfortunate circumstance. This is the authentic pain of a lover leaving us, of getting fired, of making a poor decision, and so on. This pain is must be honored and experienced. However, there’s another pain that rides the coattails of these unfortunate experiences, which Dr. Jenkins calls “dirty pain.” Dirty pain is all of the unnecessary suffering that is caused by our rumination after the fact—what he calls “stinkin’ thinkin.” Clean pain is inevitable, but dirty pain can be avoided.

So how can we avoid excessive rumination? Mark Tyrrell has some tips for us at his blog here. The first thing to remember is that a signature of “rumination” is that it is all thought and no action. In other ones, one antidote to rumination is action. If you begin to ruminate, then ask yourself, “Is this problem solvable?” If it is solvable, then sit down and write out a plan to solve it. (This is a better use of the intellect, imagination, and courage of the 9 of Swords.) After you have your plan, spend 5 minutes every day working to solving it. Anything beyond the 5 minutes is a bonus.

Tyrrell then says, “If the problem seems insoluble at the moment, then we ‘solve’ it by feeling and thinking differently about it.” In other words, we must reframe the problem. If you experienced trauma in your life, it is a classic trope in our culture that superheroes rise from the ashes of traumatic experiences. If your trauma provided you with a superpower, what would it be? Would it be power of the “wounded healer” who can empathize and help others who also experienced trauma? What about “conscious gratitude” for every moment of your new life beyond the trauma? (That being said, I understand that trauma will often require way more work than just reframing the trauma. However, reframing is one of the things necessary in order to grow past traumatic experiences.)

I remember hearing a more light-hearted reframe that Alex Grey said on the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast probably a decade ago. Duncan was lamenting about how he’d been in a really great routine of daily meditation, but he’d recently fallen out of the routine and he wished he was meditating more. Alex Grey responded that you don’t need to meditate to be mindful, so whenever Duncan has that thought again, use it as a trigger to become mindful in that exact moment—whether you’re at work or doing dishes or driving. The Nine of Swords can be about asking yourself, “What trigger can I tie to my rumination?”

Ten of Swords

The Ten of Swords is composed of four building blocks:

• Swords as Air, representing the self-conscious and the intellect.
• Ten as Malkuth (The Earth), representing physical reality and manifestation.
• The Sun, representing higher consciousness and awareness.
• Gemini, representing communication and connection.

In this card, we have the self-conscious mind (Air) shining its higher awareness (The Sun) onto the physical world (ten) in a way that establishes better connection and communication (Gemini). To accomplish this, I associate two concepts with this card—Mark Tyrrell’s “meaning vacuum” and Marshall Rosenberg’s “observing without evaluating.”

In his video “How to Dispute Irrational Beliefs (Without Arguing),” Mark Tyrrell says the following:

“…it’s not always immediately clear why someone is taking longer than usual to reply to our email, or why they made a certain comment, or why they didn’t seem to greet us in the morning, and so forth. It’s easy to jump in too quickly, and stir up the mud of our imagination, and assume that know what something must mean. When an event is ambiguous, a meaning vacuum occurs that can be far less comfortable for us to tolerate than the clarity that we prefer in life.”

In other words, anytime we are uncertain about a situation, our pompous confident analytical mind tends to jump in and say, “Uhhh… I know EXACTLY what this means!!!” These premature conclusions tend to pile all sorts of additional problems and unnecessary suffering on top of the original event. Thus, the power of the 10 of Swords is the power to sit within this “meaning vacuum” without rushing to conclusions and assuming that we know exactly what was going on in the other person’s mind. As Tyrrell says, it is the power to “wait for clarity to come along at its own time… [even accepting] it’s possible that you’ll never truly understand what happened.”

While the idea of the “meaning vacuum” is more about the relationship between our awareness of an experience and our thoughts about the experience, Marshall Rosenberg’s concept of “observing without evaluating” (as discussed in his book “Nonviolent Communication”) is about how we communicate about the experience to others. When we bring up the experience to others, we often use moralistic judgments that imply that they did something wrong or bad. Rosenberg says, “Blame, insults, put-downs, labels, criticisms, comparisons and diagnoses are all forms of judgment.” (p. 15) He then gives some examples of these judgments:

• “The problem with you is that you’re too selfish.”
• “She’s lazy.”
• “They’re prejudiced.”
• “It’s inappropriate.”

In the Ten of Swords, we must learn to communicate the visible facts of an event without introducing any judgmental opinions. We can still share our thoughts—but we must be careful not to imply any wrongdoing of the other person. On pages 30 and 31, Rosenberg gives some examples of evaluations vs. observations:

• Evaluation: “Doug procrastinates.”
  • Observation: “Doug only studies for exams the night before.”
    
• Evaluation: “Immigrants don’t take care of their property.”
  • Observation: “I have not seen the immigrant family living at 1679 Ross shovel the snow on their sidewalk.”
    
• Evaluation: “You seldom do what I want.”
  • Observation: “The last three times I initiated an activity, you said you didn’t want to do it.”

When we learn to get off our high horse and communicate with others in a way that excludes all moralistic judgment, it is more likely that our communication will build a bridge of empathy between both parties, re-uniting us with our twin instead of driving us further apart.

Conclusion

To summarize, Gemini is all about the division of “the one into two,” and the reconciliation of “the two into one.” There is a time and a place for division, but remember Manly Hall’s warning: “That which the Gods would destroy, they would first divide.” When we are communicating with others, we must assume that, just as the twins of Gemini are more similar than they are different, we have more in common than not in common. Mercury, who is the lower ruler of Gemini, helps us express of thoughts and opinions, but Venus, who is the higher ruler of Gemini, helps build the bridge of empathetic emotional connection between both parties. If you let your brain drive the communicative interaction, then it will focus on proving itself right. If you let your heart drive the interaction, it will focus on establishing a connection. In order to help us clear our head, we can always focus on our breathing, recognizing that we are saying the name of God with every inhale and exhale. Comparison is the root of all suffering, but once we consciously control the standard we judge ourselves against, I believe comparison can become the root of all gratitude. Using the Tarot cards associated with Gemini, I believe we can recognize our latent potential, escape the stinkin’ thinkin’ of our ruminating brain, and focus on communicating in a way that builds bridges instead of destroys them. Remember: You and “the other” are twins. You have the same parent, the same genes, and the same potential. It is your duty to use your communication as a way to help your sibling, not hurt them.