The Invitation of the New Moon in Gemini
From the Archives AND Why I Keep Writing This Newsletter
In this newsletter:
New Moon in Gemini Details
Why I Keep Writing These Newsletters
Loving the Other: The Wisdom of the Lovers Card
Signs You Need Lovers Medicine
Getting Started with Lovers Medicine
Happy New Moon in Gemini ♊👯🌑
At approximately 8:02pm PT tonight, May 26, 2025, the moon will renew itself in the sign of Gemini--the sign of the twins. This is a great opportunity to get curious about your own dual nature. Do you even realize you have a dual nature? How do you feel about that? Is there a part of you that gets suppressed? Or is socially oppressed? And how might you create more self-acceptance and integration of these aspects of yourself? And why would you do it in the first place?
If you’re not sure what I mean, read on. The Lovers card of the tarot—associated with Gemini—offers insights and wisdom for working with our own duality and this particular new moon energy.
Why I Keep Writing These Newsletters
I’ve had family in town the past couple of weeks and not much spare time to write. So I thought I’d revisit and revamp one of my more popular posts on the Lovers tarot card—since the Lovers correspond to the sign of Gemini.
But also, I’ve been asking myself lately: Why do I keep writing these newsletters?
And the answer always circles back to this: the importance of shadow work.
One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves—and the world—is to become more conscious of our unconscious. That includes the parts of us we’ve been taught to disown: the feelings, instincts, and truths that feel too shameful, too messy, too “other.” In other words, our shadow self.
Some say 80-90% of our behavior is driven by the unconscious. That statistic always stuns me. If we’re mostly reacting from a place we don’t even fully see or understand, then where is that taking us? If we don’t consciously work with the shadow, we risk letting it run the show—and shape the world.
We’re seeing the result of that right now, aren’t we?
For me, shadow integration isn’t just a personal healing journey—it’s spiritual work with collective implications. The more aware I become of my own buried stories, wounds, and inherited patterns, the more I can become aware of my reactivity, take responsibility for myself, to raise my own consciousness, and hopefully, the consciousness of the collective.
This is what draws me to tarot. And why I want to share its wisdom and medicine.
Each tarot card reflects back a piece of the psyche. Especially in the Major Arcana, the cards offer a roadmap to wholeness—starting with the Fool and ending with the World. And along the way, we’re asked again and again to recognize and reclaim what’s been pushed into the dark.
The Lovers card is one of those invitations.
Loving the Other: The Wisdom of the Lovers
Often considered a card about romance, the Lovers card speaks beyond traditional concepts of partnership between genders as seen in the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the card. Instead, the card is a mirror for our own internal duality:
The male and female figures representing the masculine and feminine principles within
The trees behind each of them—the tree of knowledge (behind the female) and the tree of life (behind the male)—represent the dual nature of intellect and the body
The gaze of each figure: the male focusing on the woman representing human desire and love, and the woman focusing on the angel above representing spiritual desire and love
Dual forces we each carry within us.
This card asks: Can you love and create a union or integration of these complementary parts of yourself?
Are there aspects of yourself which you’ve been taught or conditioned to hide? Your "otherness"—the parts that felt strange, different, or too much?
As children, we learn to tuck those pieces away to be accepted and conform to external demands. On some level, we may have felt we had to hide these parts to survive.
But what’s relegated to the shadows doesn’t disappear! As adults, these shadowy aspects leak out in some form or another—anything from feeling a sense of dissonance and disconnection from ourselves and others to projecting our shadow onto others, to addictions, to physical symptoms in the body, and much more.
The Lovers invites healing through acceptance of our shadowy aspects. When we love and integrate the disowned pieces, we become whole. We find more peace in our lives. We stop projecting division onto the world and start weaving harmony into it.
This is the deeper path of love: not just connection with others, but a radical union within.
Signs You Need the Lovers’ Medicine
You are hard on yourself and/or your inner critic is loud. Self-criticism and perfectionism have become so debilitating in our culture. The Lovers teach us how to be in relationship with both the inner critic and inner perfectionist.
You feel disconnected, negative, and hopeless about the world. Inundated with negative news and realities, it’s easy to despair. And while it’s important to acknowledge these realities (lest we create more shadow territory!), as one of my teacher’s said recently, there are always multiple realities happening at one time. Love is everywhere—even in the midst of cruel and horrific situations. The medicine of the Lovers’ card reminds us to look for the love too, so that our minds, energy, and actions can focus more on the love to transform the hate.
You tend to isolate yourself or focus on your “flaws.” The Lovers help us gain perspective on the “othered” parts of us. With love, you may find that your “flaw” is also your strength, or at the very least, an excellent teacher.
If you’re feeling this—check out the Getting Started With Lovers’ Medicine section below to learn some simple but powerful ways to begin loving more of your “other.”