Duality
THE GEMINI FULL MOON & LUNAR ECLIPSE
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 6:39 am PST
The Moon and Sun Opposed at 18.11 degrees Gemini/Sagittarius
The Full Moon occurs when the Sun and Moon face each other from opposite signs of the zodiac wheel highlighting a different polar pair each month. Magnetic complements, opposing signs are dualities that naturally attract, but just as often repel each other, one possessing gifts the other needs, but doesn't always want. Tomorrow's perfect circle of light will fall in the dynamic oppositional duo of Sagittarius and Gemini; however, this Full Moon is no ordinary one. This time around, the light of the Moon will be obscured by our very own home planet. Earth's shadow will fall across Luna's bright face. Tomorrow morning is the last lunar eclipse of the year, and a total one at that.
Tomorrow's eclipse can be viewed from Alaska, northern Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and central and eastern Asia. Folks in western North America and Hawaii will see the moon set while still in eclipse. Unfortunately folks on the east coast of North America will not be able to see it, Luna will have set prior to the eclipse commencing. The best viewing of all will be in central and eastern Asia. The total phase will lasts for 51 minutes. People on the west coast of North America will see the beginning of totality just as the moon disappears below the western horizon, and if they have a good view of the horizon, they may be able to see a rare sight: an eclipsed Moon setting in the west as the Sun rises in the east. Pretty cool!
Eclipses are often likened to the workings of wildly, unpredictable Uranus, which happens to be especially active right now stationing direct tonight on the powerful Aries Point no less, the genesis degree of the zodiac marking the equinox. Uranus, after running seemingly backwards since July 10, has covered four degrees of zodiac arc from its retrograde station at 4.34 Aries. A Uranus station concurrent to an eclipse adds to the Wild Card effect eclipses impart anyway, with or without Uranus's help. If you have been feeling a rising anxiousness lately, join the club! Adding to this, three days following the eclipse, Mercury, planetary ruler of Gemini and thus "Lord of the eclipse," will be arriving at his station direct as well, also contributing in his mercurial way to the shifting energies, upheaval and intensity brewing right now. Mercury does his seemingly backwards dance three times a year for a three-week stretch of time, bringing us all sorts of trickster fun: wrecking havoc with our computers, cars and communication essentially. Mercury retrograde is a time when the past can come back to haunt us, or bless us. Old memories pop up out of the blue, and sometimes even old friends (and adversaries) come back into our lives. Sometimes, if you pay attention, you can see funny little connections from one retrograde to the next. A project is started during one retrograde cycle, put on the back burner, picked up again and finished at a subsequent retrograde. I've even noticed that certain friends seem to pop up more readily during retrograde cycles too.
So we have a lunar eclipse tomorrow morning with its planetary ruler in retrograde motion, approaching its station. A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the Sun, Moon and Earth align in such precision that the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. Because of the tilt of it's orbit around Earth, the Moon usually passes above or below this shadow, and so no eclipse occurs. Lunar eclipses happen every six months when a Full Moon falls close enough to one of the lunar nodes, 
which mark the intersection of the Moon's orbit around the Earth, with the Earth's orbit around the Sun — appropriately called the "ecliptic." The nodes mark the "sweet spot" where all three bodies line up and an eclipse is the result.
During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon does not completely disappear, instead it turns a shade of red that can vary from a light coppery orange-red to a deep rose red, shown here in this photo taken a year ago at last December's total eclipse. The color is due to the scattering of sunlight by particles in the Earth's atmosphere. Since shorter wavelengths are more likely to be scattered, longer wavelengths prevail which we perceive as red.
In order to fully understand the astrological effects of a lunar eclipse, it helps to reflect on the fundamentals: lunar eclipses occur only at Full Moons, when the Sun and Moon are in opposition. Oppositions carry a special brand of dynamism and magic, as well as challenge. They are pairings of energies that when integrated provide the missing nutrients the other sign lacks, the necessary minerals needed to balance the system. Oppositions are seeking their fulcrum point always, but when this process fails, when these opposing signs dig in their heels and refuse to budge, that is when we often see the extremes in sign expression. For any sign, like any human quality, taken to excess, their ordinarily fine assets can rapidly turn sour and become vices. The counterbalance is to bring forth the higher expression of the sign that sits and watches from the other side of the ring.
The two opposing signs of a lunar eclipse reveal what is currently "up" collectively and personally, where the eclipse action will be playing out. So let's look at these two signs to see how these eclipse "winds of change" might be swooping into your life.
Gemini is concerned with the transmission of relevant information needed to function effectively in life, so we see some of our finest writers and journalists with this sign emphasized in their charts. While Sagittarius, the Archer, is primarily concerned with our the higher ideals, guiding principles, foreign cultures, languages, spirituality, religion, as well as travel and adventure. Here we find our philosophers, explorers, spiritual leaders, professors, and theorists. Sagittarius is about journeying into other realms, literally and figuratively, physically and imaginatively. Sag is dedicated to the expansion of one's perspective, in the varied ways that can be achieved.
When Gemini is overdoing it, he tends to miss the forest for the trees. Geminis are excellent communicators and inexhaustibly curious learners, but they can (and I am talking about the "pure sign" here not a specific individual) overemphasize trivia, information exchange and have difficulty placing the details into the grander scheme, clarifying the "part" within the context of the whole. Mercury-ruled Gemini tends to report, rather than inspire. So down comes Sagittarius in her hot air balloon with her exciting observations of the bigger picture, that long-range, wide-screen vantage point of possibility. For her, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, any day and for darn sure. High-flying Sagittarius is the perfect remedy for fact-bound Gemini. Whereas light-hearted Gemini is just the right medicine for ponderous Sagittarius who all too often takes herself way too seriously!
"Overripe" Sagittarius, can result in a lack of sufficient regard for the important details and facts of life, and an undisciplined, rambling mind. Concise is not to be found in Sag's dictionary. Every thought seems to expand into a long-winded opus with Sagittarius — and the tangent is always tantalizing. A single-minded focus on "just the facts" is not the archer's strong suit. We see this same issue in the mythological Jupiter, off philandering with his favorite kind of "tangent" — nymphs — conveniently "forgetting" the minor detail of matrimony, his marriage to Juno. Sagittarius would rather not concern herself with the "minor" issues. She hasn't yet learned the lesson that Gemini knows so well: little things tend to add up to big ones.
Sagittarius and Gemini are also both strongly associated with issues of duality within their own sign-symbolism, in addition to their opposition in the zodiac. Sagittarius, symbolized by the centaur, half horse, half man (shown above), represents our inherent dual nature: the human and the animal. We possess both intellect and instinct, body and soul. 
Mercury-ruled Gemini, whose symbol is a pair of twins, represents a fundamental, basic polarity into which spirit is made manifest. The Gemini twins are the celestial and primeval twins, sons of the sun god, the brothers who represent the two sides of human nature, twin powers of good and evil. The building blocks of life itself derive from the double spiral, the twin helix of DNA. It is remarkable how similar the helix resembles Mercury's twin-snake-entwined caduceus.
Gemini is evident in the diverse myths and religious stories that feature twins, often at odds with each other, often enemies. Some examples from a variety of sources include the biblical twin pairs of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau; Egyptian twins Osiris and Set, Shu and Tefnut; the Scandinavian twins Baldur and Loki; and in Roman myth, Romulus and Remus, and Castor and Pollux. Especially relevant are Castor and Pollux. Most commonly associated with Gemini, they are the two bright stars in the constellation of Gemini.
In the Roman story of Castor and Pollux, one is often depicted as light and the other dark. The domed caps they wear represent the Cosmic Egg, for they were born from the union of the mortal woman Leda and the god Zeus. Zeus had disguised himself as a swan in order to seduce Leda, apparently she was fond of birds. Leda, however was married and so a second father was involved in the twin offspring that resulted from this union. Thus Castor was fathered by Leda's mortal husband Tyndareus, and Pollux by Zeus. Castor was therefore mortal and represents our earth-bound, mortal, human nature, while Pollux was immortal and symbolized the soul that endures beyond physical death. The two are joined in their twin symbolism. Castor and Pollux represent our own dual nature, that we are, in essence, spirit in physical form, both mortal and immortal.
So the astrological symbolism of the opposition — which we experience each month at the Full Moon — is very much what you would presume: potential conflict, clashing forces and urges that can pull us in different directions. Oppositions mark contradictory and sometimes incompatible values and life purpose, yet they are also complements ultimately seeking balance through some kind of creative integration and synthesis. This fundamental relationship of opposition and integration is encoded in an interesting way in the ancient symbolic language of astrology. For every polar pair in the zodiac shares the same, identical polarity, both either yin or yang. They also share the same "mode of energy" or essence, one of the basic building blocks of astrology which are expressed in three variations: cardinal, fixed and mutable. 
The phenomena of wholeness and division are basic to astrology and are shown in each of the 12 signs. The four astrological elements (fire, earth, air and water) combine with the three modes to give rise to the 12 signs of the zodiac circle, each a 30-degree slice of the entire astrological pie.
With the opposition, a fundamental and dynamic astrological aspect, the division of the circle is by two. Many aspects of astrology reflect this geometric division and relationship, evident in the twin symbolism of Gemini, the dual nature of Sagittarius, and all polar, zodiac pairs. Astrologer Clare Martin, elaborates on this fundamental astrological truth, the underlying oneness inherent in polarity:
The 'problem of opposites' has always been a subject of fascination in many different fields of study, such as mysticism, philosophy, mathematics, science and psychology. The Gurdjieff scholar Maurice Nicoll observes: "Opposites are inseparable, and although one is against the other, you cannot have one without the other, any more than you can have a stick with only one end." In other words, darkness implies light and light darkness. They are mutually destructive and yet neither can exist without the other. The law of opposites keeps everything in balance since, taken to extremes, they become one another. For example, taken to extremes, east becomes west, day becomes night, love becomes hate, attraction becomes repulsion.
— Clare Martin, Mapping the Psyche, Polarity in the Birth Chart
This sacred geometry and mystical import of the division of the circle are also shown the mandalas of India and Tibet and the familiar male-female, yin-yang dualism symbol of China. The masculine principle (yang) in Chinese symbolism is represented by a white circle (depicting heaven), while the feminine principle is denoted by a black square (representing earth). The white circle indicates energy and celestial influences while the black square stands for earthy telluric forces.
Separation and Synthesis
With an opposition, we tend to highly identify with one end of the spectrum while disowning and projecting the other. Sometimes, the opposition is experienced through adversarial relationships, yet just as often we can be drawn to people who display the qualities we deny in ourselves. Sometimes the internal conflicts associated with the opposition arise from early experiences in which we were taught that certain natural impulses were unacceptable, and instead of finding a healthy and responsible way of expressing these inclinations, we shear them off, pack them away, relegating them to the land of shadow where they work us anyway, below the surface of awareness. "Whenever we are attracted toward a desired object, or repelled away from a hated object," Clare Martin writes, "we are caught up in the drama of the opposites."
This is perhaps the deeper significance of the natal Seventh house which falls in opposition to the First house of "Self," the Seventh being traditionally considered the House of Open Enemies, and a sector of the chart associated with "fateful encounters." This chart axis represented by the First and Seventh houses, the Ascendant-Descendant, symbolize the same internal dynamic that Jung was referring to when he wrote about the shadow: what we disown in ourselves, we tend to project and experience as conflicting outward events, as fate. Energies linked by opposition in the natal chart are often combined in such a way that they produce instability and change through conflict.
The Ascendant-Descendant axis inscribes a line of symmetry that bisects our natal chart into two perfectly symmetrical half-moons, and symbolizes how we tend to meet life (Ascendant) and respond (Descendant) to it. The "relationship axis" as it is also called, when combined with another important chart angle and oppositional axis, the Midheaven and Nadir, which represent career and home, they comprise our personal, astrological axis mundi, or grand cross of matter — or cross we bear given those conflicts inherent in oppositions and squares! Most of us work these fundamental dilemmas out within our most intimate, committed unions, the place where we ultimately meet ourselves. Seeing the self in others, the inherent unity in polarity is at the heart of this relationship axis in the natal chart, all oppositions, and Gemini, the Twin's core meaning. What significance does that hold for you personally at this Full Moon and lunar eclipse, this high tide of energetic change?
December 10 Update: We woke up at 5am this morning, made coffee and packed up to drive to the beach to see the eclipse. The beach is about 20 minutes from our home, but on the way down the ridge where we live, there was Luna higher in the sky than we expected with eclipse in progress. So we pulled over, set up the chairs, and sat down to watch the show. A show which fell, incidentally right on the horizon here in the Pacific time zone, with the eclipsing Moon setting, while the Sun was rising. The horizon is represented by none other than the Ascendant-Descendant in astrology. So there I was with my Gemini Sun, Sagittarius Rising husband, my significant other, watching a Gemini/Sag Full Moon lunar eclipse playing out right on the horizon.
Libra, the astrological sign associated with the Seventh house of relationship, the Descendant side of the relationship axis, reflects this connection. Its glyph, shown here, is the rising Sun on the horizon.
The Geminid meteor shower also supplied us with several shooting stars, owls hooted to each other, and to the left of Orion, the lovely "dog star," Sirius, twinkled in multiple colors just above the horizon to the south. As the dawn broke in the east, the eclipsing Moon was setting over a neighboring ridge with just a sliver of light showing, a rose-colored crescent. I took some photos and wanted to share them with you.
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Related Essays
Sunlight and Shadow — The Gemini New Moon & Solar Eclipse (June 1, 2011)
The Full Rose Moon — The Sagittarius Full Moon & Lunar Eclipse (June 15, 2011)
The Winds of Change — The Gemini Full Moon & Solstice Lunar Eclipse (Dec. 21, 2010)
The image at the beginning of this essay is the Ulysses butterfly (Papilio ulysses), also known as the Blue Mountain Butterfly or the Blue Mountain Swallowtail, a large swallowtail butterfly native to Australasia. Photo and info courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of the Dec. 20, 2010 total lunar eclipse from Cochranville, Pa. taken by Kevin R. Witman, using a Meade LX50 10" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope and a Canon XS DSLR camera.
For more information on the astronomy and geometry of Lunar Eclipses, here's a comprehensive Wikipedia article with helpful charts and diagrams.
The Castor and Pollux marble statuettes shown here date from the 3rd century CE. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo credit: Ann Raia, 2009.
© 2012 Elaine Kalantarian, all rights reserved