The In-Between Space

June 2024

• Gemini Season

• Herbs for Gemini Season

• Herbal Steam

Gemini Season

Happy June, and Happy Gemini Season! At the time of writing this, there are 4 celestial bodies in Gemini (Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter), and I have been feeling the energy of duality, opposition, and balance characteristic of the sign of the Twins. We recently completed a deep dive into yīn and yáng ( 阴 阳 ) in my Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine class, so the theme has been theming all month for me!

As we approach the summer season, there’s an increase in the energy of doing. This is heightened by Jupiter (the planet of abundance) entering Gemini. We suddenly feel called to do more with the same 24 hours we have each day. The last few weeks, I’ve had to work on juggling school, work, business, and my personal life. This newsletter is reaching your inbox a little late this month because I’m still working on mastering this delicate balancing act. I was reminded that balance is not an arrival point—yīn is always transforming into yáng and yáng is always transforming into yīn. The peak of Night immediately starts its transition into Day, and vice versa. This is the energy of mutable Gemini—always shifting, always moving, existing in the nexus of “this” and “that,” yīn and yáng.

To varying degrees, we all struggle with rigidity or inflexibility, and Gemini season is the time to lubricate any stiffness we have in our lives. It’s about letting go of the old and welcoming the new and the multiple. There’s never just one perspective with Gemini energy. We see this theme of letting go mirrored in Gemini’s body correspondence: the Lungs. Gemini is ruled by the air element, and the act of respiration involves the intake and almost immediate release of breath, one of the many expressions of yīn and yáng. Our bodies require a fresh exchange of oxygen roughly 22,000 times each day. Discomfort and even death arise when this free exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is inhibited: an inhale must transform to exhale and an exhale must transform to inhale. One obvious sign that we are inflexible or resistant to change is the quality of our breath, which can manifest as respiratory disorders.