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May 27, 2025May 28, 2025

Uranus in Gemini – Trickster from Another Dimension?

On July 7, 2025, the planet Uranus will enter Gemini for approximately 7 years. Since Gemini is an air sign, this will be a noticeably different Uranian energy than has been expressed in Taurus. Although Uranus, the ‘higher octave’ of Mercury is said to be the planet of change, rebellion, discovery and so on, in Taurus, this was often felt more as rumbling urges and irritation. (We did see a significant amount of volcanic activity and earthquakes). Think of how mutable earth sign Virgo experiences ruler Mercury’s flighty, buzzing frequency in her earth body as stress. Now imagine Mercury on steroids (Uranus) stuck in in fixed earth (Taurus). So it’s going to be quite a release for Uranus in the Mercury-ruled, intellect-driven, mutable air sign of Gemini.

Traditionally, Saturn – who, like Mercury is a god of alchemy – rules the signs of Capricorn and Aquarius*, and sits in opposition to Cancer (Moon/Silver) and Leo (Sun/gold). The most dense and toxic on one side, the most pure and luminous on the other.

In medieval medical manuscripts, Capricorn was sometimes depicted as a unicorn. The unicorn’s horn was thought to purify any body of water it touched. Powdered, it was a supposed cure-all. Vikings would sell narwhal horns to Europeans, who valued them more than gold for their mythical properties.
A spiralling, calcified growth emerging from the third eye – what a very Saturnine embodiment of awareness, spiritual awakening …. or upgrade/refinement of the caduceus. Commerce and fast talking Vikings.

“We caught the beast called the Unicorn
That knows and loves a maiden best
And falls asleep upon her breast:
We took from underneath it’s horn
The splendid male carbuncle stone
Sparkling against the white skull bone.”

The unicorn is a beloved mythical beast, but it’s also a monster, in the literal sense. And Uranus can, with its touch, create monsters – bombs, deformities, disasters, etc. Astrologers have been pointing out that the US, with its Uranus and Mars in Gemini, was involved in major wars (WW2 and Civil) during the last two Uranus returns. (Mind you, when has it not been at war, directly or by proxy?). ’47’ has Uranus in Gemini conjunct his Sun and North Node, conjunct the US’s Mars. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Uranus and Mars in Gemini were conjunct the midheaven (MC).

Uranus can be the ‘terror of the scientific sun’ but it can also be freaks, weirdoes, and, in Gemini, a very odd twin. Alice Cooper has Uranus in Gemini sextile Pluto/Saturn and opposite Jupiter/Moon (47 also Uranus opp Moon). He was able to profit from his goth, nightmarish ‘other self’, but like Jekyll and Hyde, he said it began to destroy him, requiring drugs and booze to keep the stage persona alive.

In a radio interview, Alice Cooper told of how, at the premier performance of “Welcome To My Nightmare”, he was greeted backstage by Groucho Marx, who shook his hand and congratulated him for bringing back Vaudeville. “He got it. He knew what we were up to,” said Cooper.

Happy Birthday Vincent Price! Watch the two Vincents (Price and Fournier) perform ‘The Black Widow’ here.

Mercury and Gemini have a special relationship with theatre and acting (taking on personas/fakery/camp, etc). So with higher-tech Uranus here, the whole issue of AI in the film industry will likely be amped up. Aquarius and Gemini have to do with ‘friends’ and already we see there’s a whole new trend of inventing chatbot AI friends and other relationships. But we could be talking something more along the lines of alternate/mirror universe, with Gemini being doubles. Or a hidden universe that is like a ‘vanishing twin‘ to ours.

Twin flames? Aurora consurgens, St. Gallen 15th century

Uranus in Gemini will make a trine to Pluto in Aquarius and sextile to Neptune and Saturn in Aries. So two air and two fire planets all in cahoots. This is a completely new, volatile, un-formed energy which these planets will now be giving form to or being formed by (or de-formed by, as the case may be). Major ‘upping of frequencies’ going on. Some will find it difficult to handle the new air/fire vibration, and we are already seeing evidence of this, with things like plane crashes (Pluto in Aquarius, but also a metaphor for how our brains are having to cope with increased ‘air traffic’), and this disturbing new trend of cars being driven into crowds of people. Yes, the transit hadn’t officially started, but the apprehension felt at the last critical degrees of the previous sign is enough. There will be adaption, eventually.

Another already visible manifestation of Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Gemini is of course crypt-o currency. Pluto is god of the dead and of riches beneath the earth. The amount of minerals/mining required for bitcoin is monstrous and it is why 47 is so keen to have Greenland and Canada. 47’s pimply-faced bazillionare crypto-bromancing dinner (yes, the Banana Duct Tape kid was there) was a prelude. His Gemini stellium slid right into the crypto like well-fitting shoes. Leo is polarity of Aquarius, though, so I don’t imagine gold will lose its value, no matter how many kitschy objets were made from melted down Fort Knox bull-lion. [Look to Ancient Egypt, in the Age of Taurus, as an example of how strongly the polarity sign comes into play (Scorpio). Now we’re at the beginning of the Aquarian Age, which squares Taurus-Scorpio, the two signs governing ‘resources.’]

The Uranus/Gemini combination is very intellect-driven and can even be ‘out-of-body’. In fact, we can expect angels and aliens, ‘friends’ from other realms. There is already much more opening of awareness and communication to the spirit realm, judging by all the YouTube videos. Mediums abound. Gemini, when not grounded (and Uranus is anything but grounded, rotating on its side like a wheel), can also attract unwelcome entities.

So look to where Gemini is in your own chart, this area is going to become lit up and Uranus will demand you up the frequency, upgrade the equipment, open your mind, think different, sky’s the limit. ~rb

*Personally I’m not completely convinced we should be handing off Uranus, Neptune and Pluto [‘the alchemists’] to individual signs, since they have such long transits and powerful, generational effects. Astrological Uranus is by definition less like the sky god and more like Prometheus, who stole fire and gave it to humans, causing Jupiter to chain him to a rock with an eagle pecking out his (continually regrown) liver every day. Stealing fire to give to humans sounds like something Aries would do! So I do acknowledge the ‘modern’ rulership, but am still informed by the ‘traditional’. (There’s my Uranus/Saturn opposition talking, heh).

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All written content, except quotations, is copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reused without permission. A short pull quote is ok, but you must provide a credit and link to this article. Feel free to share the whole thing via link, so that others can read it. Thanks for being mindful.

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024

Mars and Uranus and Algol, Oh My! – All 12 Houses, with B-Movies

Algol card from Le Tarot Astrologique, George Muchery

“A series of shocks – sneakers fall apart”
~ David Bowie/Up the Hill Backwards

We’ve heard the buzz, we’ve witnessed heads rolling on the collective stage. So what does it all mean, Algol ‘conjunct’ Mars and Uranus?

Ra’s al-Ghul, the ‘Demon’s head’ was not always associated with Gorgon and her blinking eye (the Hebrews knew it as the ‘Devil’s head’ but also the vampiric Lilith), but whatever, same evil connotations. The word comes from al-kuhl – meaning kohl, specifically referring to powders produced by alchemical sublimation. So already we find Algol linked to alchemy (and thereby chemistry), if only by name. Also, might ‘turning to stone’ have a double meaning?

Algol’s declination is way outside the ecliptic – it is not within the zodiacal constellation belt – so we can’t truly say it is ‘conjunct’ Mars and Uranus. But it does align latitudinally with 26 degrees of Taurus. A distant, fixed star like Algol becomes most potent at the time and place where it is a) rising, culminating or setting b) doing so with a planet or in aspect, or c) doing so with/aspecting another fixed star, which is calculated differently than with planetary aspects.

Trump’s transit chart at the time of his near-Kennedy moment showed Mars and Uranus (and thereby Algol, by latitude) all right on his midheaven (top point/angle of the chart), which is very significant. However, for the time and location, Algol was in fact below the horizon, having already set and not yet risen. So this might explain why the bullet only clipped his ear, the star’s power wasn’t at its peak. (Am hoping the Teflon Don will now fall on his knees, a changed man, due to Jupiter’s grace, but won’t hold my breath). I have always thought Trump looks like he’s begging to be put out of his misery. As it turns out, the shooter himself had natal Mars conjunct Uranus which landed on Trump’s natal descendant, and opposed Trump’s Mars/ascendant. (Descendant can signify shadow projection). Tragic, in every aspect.

Uranus has been in Taurus a while now, urging change in a sign that hates being urged to change. It’s been a slow burn, especially for Taurus, earth signs and anyone with significant aspects to it. Uranus is electric, original, can be irrational, weird or totally scientific and detached. It is also futuristic. Just about every kind of horror B-movie monster created in a lab by a mad scientist or met in outer space is under Uranus’ jurisdiction, but so are downloads of inspiration and information from outer to inner space (strokes of genius or ‘daemon’). These I like to attribute to Urania, its feminine side, muse of Astronomy, Astrology and all things cosmic.

Mars is a firebrand, firecracker, firearm. He’s our ammunition, our physical energy and will power, our will to live. He’s now oriented. Whether hero saving the day or toxic masculinity personified, he works alone. In Taurus, he is somewhat restricted to working underground, it’s a sign he can’t be his spontaneous, bravado self in. So again, in terms of the shooting, the sniper acted alone, probably fancied himself a hero, and secretly plotted the whole thing out, over time (he didn’t just wake up with the idea that morning).

The two planets together, in exact conjunction today, are explosive. Avoid confrontation for the next several days, please. Ask yourself is it worth ‘losing my head’ over? Because with Algol in the mix, it could happen, one way or another. Headaches are another possibility. Algol mojo is the most powerful of any fixed star. We now know it is not a binary system (two stars) but actually a trinary one (three stars). There were three Gorgon sisters, and they had three sisters called the Graeae, who were born old with grey hair. They shared one eye and one tooth between them, passing it around (Perseus stole these as ransom until they told him where to find Medusa). Coincidence?

We want to make this alignment work for us, but to do this, our own Mars must be a noble hero, not a blow-hard with a big ego. Perseus, Medusa’s assassin, can be seen as either. Solar heroes tend to be not very bright, but very brave and willing. They have a particular bias toward anything that slithers – serpents, dragons, sea monsters – which symbolize the untameable, irrational, lunar (dark) forces of the creative feminine, but also monsters we create from shadow.

[I’ve written about Medusa and her relationship with Athena pre-Perseus, so search her name herein if you are curious, but this article concerns the classical, Perseus myth, forever preserved in constellation lore. The Perseus/Medusa myth goes back to around 500 BC, and gorgon/gorgoneions probably before that, but Andromeda’s rescue was added much later.]

Perseus, our Mars/Taurus hero, didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to go kill Medusa, Athena put him up to it. Athena represents the rational, cooler expression of Uranus in this scenario. Medusa (flip side of the same coin) represents the B-movie monster created by an out-of-control experiment (Athena ‘turning her into a gorgon’ in the first place). Asteroid Pallas Athena is currently opposite Mars, in his home sign of Scorpio, getting a ‘removed’ perspective.

In our own lives, depending on which house of our chart this conjunction occurs in (find 26 Taurus in your chart), here lies something which has ‘come to a head’ – a head that has become a monster that petrifies everything (ie, can no longer move/grow). Your inner Athena has taken an objective view of the situation and has decided something drastic must be done. Hopefully you are conscious of this, because then you can be in charge of deciding what form your Perseus will take. Unconsciously, outer events seemingly come out of nowhere (Uranus) and take you by (sort of) surprise. Stay safe!

[Note, if you don’t know your birth time, then let first house = Aries, second house = Taurus, and so on. Not as precise, but still bears similarity.]

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First house of self (or Aries):
You are done to death with the way you look/feel or how others see/don’t see you. Who are you really, today, now, and how can you let your freak fly or let go of being a freak? Don’t hold back! This is transformation time and you can be a trend-setter. A new hairstyle might suffice, but wait a few days, avoid sharp objects about the head today. Wear your fanciest helmet. Taurus is Venus’ sign, after all.

Second house of personal resources/values (or Taurus):
What has been accumulating so much that it has taken on a life of its own and has begun calling the shots? The mould in your fridge? The property you own? It’s time for a cull, to make room for new growth, seek fresh resources. Pegasus and Chysaor were born out of Medusa’s severed neck, and with the use of her severed head, Perseus was able to save the Venusian Andromeda from Cetus. Beauty and love can be radical.

Third house of communication (or Gemini):
Be honest, where does your speech, way of speaking, novel, or life story need editing? It’s possible you need to call in outer help, get a second opinion from someone with a more objective view (or you might be that person for someone else). At least get some distance for a while, stop trying. (Practice Wu Wei). You might just get a brainstorm. There is vast space in the moment. But do stay alert on the road, watch out for those Martian red sports cars.

Fourth house of home/mother parent (or Cancer):
Looks like that reno or repair can’t wait any longer. There may be upheaval, uprooting, cutting of an umbilical chord, or weaning of the infant, whether literally or metaphorically. Comfort zones become (even more) uncomfortable. Something rocks the cradle or the foundations. Practice compassionate un-attachment, letting go. Mothers of those with the 4th house transit might have similar issues now.

Fifth house of creativity/children (or Leo):
For creativity, this is a great boost. You could conceive some original new ideas now. Algol with Uranus can bring strokes of genius. Be open to new daemons, but also note that future-directed Uranus-Taurus genius is not always appreciated in one’s own lifetime. Pro-creatively, this could mean one of those un-planned events, so take extra precautions if not your plan. Existing kids might have head bumps or headaches. No trampoline today, ok?

Sixth house of work/health (or Virgo):
Are your work habits making you sick? You need to change them now and taking more time for self-care and exercise, if this is the case, to prevent a chronic condition from developing. I’m sorry but this can’t be put off any longer. If you are already doing this, fantastic. This conjunction can bring a boost of will to change or a boost of energy. You might also decide to change your work/job.

Seventh house of partners (or Libra):
Can we talk about contracts, shadow projection and who is bearing the other’s what? If you are in an abusive situation (be it with a spouse, business partner or otherwise), and are trying to leave, consciously use the Perseus-Medusa myth to take back the power you gave to the other person, which is also your anger. Athena gets her mojo by wearing Medusa’s head on her breastplate. Reclaim, do not fear.

Eighth house of shared resources/death (or Scorpio):
One of the psychic houses, where what is hidden from sight could take the form of an ‘outer’ surprise. Here is where Medusa might have the upper hand. Also, vials of the blood spurting from her two, severed neck veins – right/healing and left/toxic – were given to Asclepius the healer, on whom Ophiuchus is based. His constellation straddles Scorpio and Sagittarius. It’s where we get the word ‘medicine,’ Use it wisely.

Ninth house of higher mind (or Sagittarius):
Here, this conjunction can be a mind-opener. If your moral standing is in order, Algol aloft should be fine. But if you’ve been pontificating ‘do as I say not as I do’, look out. She doesn’t like falsifiers and will turn you into a relic. Traveling or just reading this Summer should ideally take you as far away as possible, not to escape, but to be a-ston-ished, from ‘attonaire’, a Latin word meaning, ‘as if being struck by lightening.’ (ie, ‘turned to stone’).

Tenth house of career/father parent (or Capricorn):
I could save time by just putting a picture of the Tower card here. What the card actually depicts is a release from a prison tower, by divine intervention. It also has sexual connotations – le petit mort describes the ego death that happens with orgasm. Has your career, persona or reputation become a prison? It’s said the subject draws the lightening to itself. Did Medusa just want out of her misery? Or was Pegasus kicking in his stall?

Eleventh house of friends/groups (or Aquarius):
Are you living for others to the point where you’ve lost yourself? Are you sick of the company you’ve been keeping, not wanting to be in a club that would have you as a member? You might want to speak your mind – just be sure that your intent is for the betterment of everyone, or that you are ok with burning a bridge. Otherwise, it’s you they’ll eat. Stay on the high road, don’t take things personally.

Twelfth house of subconscious/unselfing (or Pisces):
You shouldn’t have trouble with the ‘letting go’ aspects of this conjunction, unless you are attached to things for sentimental reasons, but the acceleration might take you for a spin, if you’ve been just ‘going with the flow’ of changes up until now. This is the house of ‘self-undoing,’ so chopping off your own head is not out of the question. But is it that of the Gorgon or of the Hydra – the monster whose heads keep regrowing – that you sever? ~rb

If you want to know more about your own, fixed star placements and what they mean, here’s a good blog.

And here is a very good book which I invite everyone to buy and read:
KARMA: What it Is, What it Isn’t, Why it Matters by Traleg Kyabgon

Thanks for reading! All written content ©copyright Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reused anywhere without permission. Please share LINK only.

September 14, 2022January 7, 2023

Queen of the Night – part 2 – Medusun

The mystery of Medusa’s mythos is so deep, convoluted and extensive, it’s no wonder most people are happy to just accept the classical version : Beautiful, young Medusa is caught in the act – either by or against her will – with Poseidon, in Athena’s temple. Unforgiving Athena turns her to a snake-haired monster so frightful, her gaze can turn men to stone. Solar hero Perseus decapitates her (presumably also putting her out of her misery), en route to rescuing chained Aethiopian princess, Andromeda from the sea-serpent, Cetus. Neither Perseus or any of his incarnations were fond of reptiles, it seems. The myth of Perseus slaying Medusa first comes about in the 7th c BC, when the Greeks were establishing colonies in North Africa, but the Andromeda rescue operation seems to have been added, later.

Athena Polias, from her temple and illustration from a ceramic vessel

Athena had long been a major, scale-clad, snake-wielding Goddess, in her own right. Most Goddesses of any clout had a relation to serpents, for obvious reasons – in antiquity, snakes, who dwelt in the ground, among the rocks and in crevices of temple ruins they ‘protected’ were believed to be the children of Mother Earth. The oldest religion was snake worship.

‘The Mask’, Eurasian Upper Paleolithic, approx 23 mm wide, translucent chlorite

However, the Olympian, virgin Athena was born motherless and mess-less, from Zeus’ mind, his contractions merely a bad headache. Her power over life and death was based in rational judgement, not the voices of chthonic, belly spirits. Likewise, the Greeks distinguished themselves from the ‘barbarians’*.

Why have you hated me in your councils?
For I shall be silent among those who are silent,
and I shall appear and speak.
Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?
Because I am a barbarian among (the) barbarians?
For I am the wisdom (of the) Greeks and
the knowledge of (the barbarians.
I am the judgement of (the) Greeks and the barbarians.

– from The Thunder : Perfect Mind (Nag Hammadi Texts)

At first, Gorgons were not imagined as having a massive wig of writhing serpents. They had some mixed in with their plaits/dreads, plus a pair interlocked as a girdle around their waist. In the first depiction we know of, Medusa is a centaur with no sign of snake hair, but possibly wearing a snake skin/skirt. Medusa appeared on the temples of other deities and the Gorgon face** was an apotropiac, used on buildings, shields, jewelry, etc…or to protect a mystery. Suffice it to say that Medusa is the face of Athena, once you’ve had a few cups of ergot wine.

Minoan ‘eye’ octopus jug, bronze volute krater handle, 500 BC (Taranto), Corinthian alabastron depicting Athena Owl flanked by lions creating a Medusa face/wings, 595-500 BC, Greek hydria with Gorgon face, sphinx and turkeys or vultures

There’s so much more to her tale than ‘meets the eye’, but perhaps more than any other myth, the decapitation and demonization of Medusa, who was likely a Libyan seer-queen, signifies the final and often brutal conversion from Goddess worship to patriarchal religion. Also, the white-washing. For this ‘Orientalist Fantasy’, I drew inspiration from the romanticized face of the ancient Goddess, subject of symbolist painters and goth horror. But the title, like ‘Lilimoth’, harkens back to natural source, the Sun’s too-powerful gaze, which snakes like basking in.

Fun fact: The Gorgon also had another three sisters, the Graiae (essentially the Fates), who shared one, prophetic eye and one tooth between them, also taken by Perseus. Interestingly, in the Perseus constellation, Ras al-Ghul or ‘Algol’, the blinking star in Medusa’s severed head and most feared star in the sky, is in fact not just a binary, but a trinary star system. One theory is that two of the Gorgon sisters were immortal and one mortal (Medusa), because of the three day period of Algol’s variation – the star ‘winks’ out on the third day. We’re the ancients aware of three stars dancing around each other, like Fates?

dread; fearfulness, but also (archaic) the emotion aroused by something awe-inspiring (awful) or astonishing, fear of God (Rasta).

astonish; to stun, to render senseless as by a blow, to strike with sudden fear or wonder (from Latin ‘attonare’ – to strike with lightening/’tonare ‘ – to thunder).

North African hairstyles, Theda Vamp and Prudence Hymen as ‘The Gorgon’ 1964

*To Hellenists, a ‘barbarian’ was anyone who didn’t speak Greek, typically from North Africa (the word comes from ‘Berbers’).

**Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, also suggests there was never any Medusa Gorgon, but that the face had always been a mask worn by the Goddess. He claims Perseus takes it to protect what’s in the sack, her magical alphabet.

HERE is a wonderful site with lots of pictures of Medusa and Gorgons

Watch Christopher Lee being Perseus to ‘THE GORGON’ (Hammer, 1964):

*All text except quotations copyright ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and may not be reproduced without permission.* You may share via link only. Any of my own artworks that are shared must include a credit: ©Roxanna Bikadoroff and link to this site. Thanks for being respectful.

Read part one of this three part blogpost HERE