In Asia many years ago, I sought an acupuncturist for a minor physical problem. As was his standard, he provided a full medical assessment and recommended diet. Until recently, I remembered only one of the medical diagnoses and most of the diet recommendations. While I had some treatment from this acupuncturist, I left the country soon after meeting him.

This summer through a series of unrelated events I came upon a journal that documented that visit. A great shock awaited me – all those medical diagnoses came to pass in the subsequent three decades in ways I hadn’t recognized while they were occurring. Only in hindsight do I see it.

And, older now, I found my way to the diet – including avoiding milk – all through accidental trial and error.

While this is certainly a testament to the superiority of traditional Asian medicine, I see how I couldn’t respond to the information because I wasn’t sick. Aside from the minor problem that led me there, none of the information related to an existing physical symptom.

Let’s say I was able to stay longer and understood the accuracy of the information, I might be different now but were I to say to a Western doctor that an acupuncturist cured me before I was ill, the logical allopathic mind might have believed it was genetics or coincidence.

The lesson here is that I couldn’t be warned about something I couldn’t see, taste, hear, smell or feel. But it was occurring, was real.

And this helps me understand why today as humanity we ignore the warnings we receive.

A lifetime of warnings

All my life there have been dire warnings of future catastrophe from both religious and secular sources: the end of “the world”; great earthquakes; diminishing fresh water supplies; polluted air and food; global warming; Year 2000 (everyone has forgotten this non-event); World War [insert number]; alien takeover; global pandemics and, economic meltdown.

Possibly we ignore warnings because many of us get our first warnings through religion, which can be the direst. Consider the promises and threats of religion are never experienced IN LIFE. Like my medical diagnoses, I’ll ignore something I do not experience.

And, of course, there are false warnings, like Year 2000. While it was a ridiculous non-event it did describe something very, very important – we are run by our technology, not running it. It was a warning of a longer, deeper pattern.

Uranus in Gemini

Uranus, the planet of sudden change – shock depending on how we respond – is moving from Taurus to Gemini in July. Uranus ultimately provides clarity and if we pursue it, enlightenment. But shock can be the result if, say, we’ve ignored the fact our spouse seems to work late hours at the office and claims to fall asleep at the desk. It’s only shock to learn that’s not true if we ignored our intuition and feelings as it occurred.

In Taurus our shocks, clarity, and enlightenment occurred in the realm of body, assets, property, and values. Taurus rules the neck and thyroid area. Americans learned about supply chain amidst disappearing household items such as toilet paper. We learned how much is used in the office versus the home. We learned where it came from, why it’s not overproduced and stored, and profit margins associated with storage of large items. We also learned about new medical technology in the body.

In Gemini our shocks, clarity, and enlightenment will occur in the realm of communication, socialization, siblings, immediate environment, journalism, and education. Physically it’s body parts of a Gemini “twin” nature – hands, lungs, ears – which relate to communication.

In the US, there is no longer consensus information – even something appearing factual like the number of people at an event is debated as though it were an opinion. Much of this can be attributed to Neptune in Pisces which has dissolved shared reality. Neptune will be moving too soon, into Aries, so folks will come out of the fog of information war.

When the fog lifts, Gemini will provide to us individually and communally some shocks of information – what is, what was, what might be.

Gemini lungs, breathing and communication

After our Uranus in Taurus experiments with the body, I do wonder if Uranus in Gemini will reveal how medical experimentation has impacted our lungs and breathing.

Buddhism informs that “breath is life.” That’s both physical and metaphysical. When we have trauma, we hold our breath which creates a blockage – psychologists know all about this and help try to remove the block.

In the book The End of Stress as We Know It, author Bruce McEwen describes how “stress protects under acute conditions, but when activated chronically it can cause damage and accelerate disease.” Stress activated chronically is “allostatic load.”

The book also describes how a medical researcher in the 1930s found that when people were stressed and ill, the symptoms were similar. Sickness itself is a “general adaptive syndrome.” Wellness practitioners call this “dis-ease.”

Some of the illnesses traveling this winter are respiratory as they usually are – RSV, Covid, flu, pneumonia – i.e., Gemini and breathing. Gemini, breathing and lungs also relate to the ability to communicate and express our needs. Much change has occurred in these first few weeks of the 47^th president (a Gemini) that are creating shocks, allostatic load, and feelings of powerlessness – this will affect the lungs.

In addition to economic, social and familial disruption, we must protect our lungs and ability to both give and receive valid, meaningful information. Disinformation and the dissolving of trusted information is physically as well as mentally damaging.

Uranus in Gemini will take your breath away

“Taking our breath away,” seems like the very thing of a trauma response but refers to the shock of a positive, thrilling event. It’s often used to describe falling in love.

For most of my life during election time, someone will say, “It doesn’t matter who gets elected, it’s all the same.”

The “same” referred to here is a certain economic and social stability, even though not shared by all. Stores stay open, have products on shelves, the traffic lights work, the garbage is collected.

This round of Uranus in Gemini, it may not be all the same. This time may “take our breath” away both physically and spiritually through continual allostatic load.

It’s critical during this transit to keep breathing, keep communicating, keep expressing the information as we see it. It’s our experience. We chose it.