This week we have an interesting mix of energies confronting us. On Thursday the 22nd. many in the U.S. will be celebrating Thanksgiving Day. This day by most accounts started as a harvest festival. A time to gratefully celebrate our harvest bounty by joining together with family and friends and sharing a feast. While not so many will have literally reaped foodstuff from fields they planted this year, the idea of gratitude for what we have is still a valid theme for this time of year.
A Feast and a Full Moon
It is a good time to ponder exactly what you have put your time and energy into growing and bringing to fruition this year. It is also a good time to be grateful for surviving, and for all who helped you to do so.
The ideal to strive for is that of being able to count your blessings. For some this may be easier than for others. As it is also a time to gather with kith and kin, what for many is a joy-filled tradition, for some is a stress-filled, triggering event. With the Full Moon in Gemini the day after Thanksgiving Day, emotions might be a little rough around the edges for some folks now. The Sun will be shifting from Scorpio into Sagittarius over the 22nd.-23rd, and it is conjunct Jupiter. This paired with Venus in Libra in opposition to Uranus retrograde in Aries is a recipe for a stress inducing tightrope walk between wanting to keep the peace and sudden urges to tell your truth in a big way.
As long as you try to stay mindful of when your truths may be painful for others you can mitigate your response to these urges. Is now really the best time to tell Aunt Ruth loudly in front of everyone that you have always hated her cranberry sauce? Maybe you can find a way of politely passing on it instead, or getting too full to clean your plate of it?
This would be a good time to find a happy middle ground where you can be in your truth but still be polite. Being polite is not the same as doing things you don’t enjoy simply to please others, and now (or anytime) really isn’t best for that.
Full Moon In Gemini
A Full Moon in Gemini can be social and changeable energy, which the moon itself has a harder time expressing in. It is fine for light talk and new experiences, like mingling and small talking with a group of people. The Full Moon is a great time to release and let go of what is not working.
The sign of Gemini is a mutable, masculine, air sign that is ruled by the planet Mercury. It is a sign of duality. Key concepts for this sign are communication, and connecting lower and higher mind, siblings, neighbors, travel, transportation, and education. Physically it rules the arms, shoulders, hands, lungs, and nervous system. The symbol is the Divine Twins, Castor and Pollux. Geminis are quick witted, curious, and also changeable and prone to extremes.
Gemini Magic
This is a good time for magic related to anything you want to learn or are curious about. It is a good time for divination, and spells for writing, luck, success in education, and improving communication, especially in romantic relationships. Garden planning, harvesting, weeding, or mulching are best garden activities now as Gemini is said to be a dry, barren sign. Working magic with herbs or flowers for Gemini use orchid, gladioli, iris, snapdragons, parsley, and dill. The colors are white, yellow, and orange. Crystals like Icelandic spar, moss agate, Aquamarine, tourmaline, onyx, diamond, jade, and topaz. Oils and incense like jasmine, orchid, sandalwood, and wormwood.
Among the totem animals are many types of small birds. Birds in general are said to be messengers of spirit, and Mercury (Gemini’s ruling planet) as messenger of the Gods was also a messenger of spirit able to travel between the worlds. This is a wonderful example of connecting, or bridging the higher and lower minds as well.
Plan Ahead
This full moon on the heels of Thanksgiving Day should provide plenty of food for thought as to what you would like to release that has not borne fruit for you. Additionally it would also be a great time to plan what you would like to plant and grow in the coming year ahead so that by next Thanksgiving you could be grateful for that harvest.