When learning a foreign language as an adult you learn “scripts” like how to order food and how to explain all the activities occurring when walking through the park (for some reason, there is always a walk in the park in language training). You’re all set for your travel or other foreign-language encounter!

Then with your textbook learning you meet your first native and their normal speech cadence feels like rapid-fire words hitting you in the face.

But that’s not what’s happening. In our own language, we hear something and respond without planning our sentences. It’s the normal cadence.

Gemini rules language and communication, which, everyone says, is super important in relationships. Gemini, ruled by Mercury is fast, the messenger between the gods, always in motion, always delivering. Wings on his feet. Restless. Curious.

Over my life of astrological learning, I would say Mercury is not simply language and communication but the entire interpretation of reality. Science tells us the world is molecules in motion – you hit your toe on moving molecules, not a table. We don’t even know how our eyes create the visual world.

And in learning foreign languages, you may come across words that don’t exist in your language (the “ki” in reiki for example). Or many words for a single word in your language such as “love.” In English we love people and french fries but in other languages different words may be used for potato love versus people love.

Mercury may not create the world but tells us what’s “out there.” Mercury interprets molecules as a tree. And Mercury also interprets whether your late-arriving spouse was really working late or doing something else. It depends on your Mercury.

We humans teach ourselves – and believe (Neptune, not Mercury) – that we are rational creatures. My own Mercury interpretation is that we are rationalizing creatures. Mercury – the mind – can create an accommodating story from any set of data, any situation.

We all do it. We “fit in” when we can share the same reality regardless of how that reality is named or seen by those outside of the group (democracy, autocracy, cult, family, community).

Dissolved reality

Neptune in Pisces from 2011 – 2025 dissolved shared reality. Neptune in Pisces followed Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn then Aquarius which created our current, digital world in the 1990s and 2000s. The digitized world contains both idealized Aquarius technology and Capricorn control mechanisms.

To dissolve reality, Neptune needed Pluto in Capricorn 2008-2024 to destroy all the social structures that were in the way of Aquarian egalitarian dreams and idealized “perfect” societies.

Pluto is now in Aquarius. What will it destroy? In 20 years, it will move into dissolving Pisces. What will it then dissolve?

Our “perfect” societies?

Chaos or cycle?

For many (OHA included), these times appear chaotic. Chaos is another interpretation of reality. Yet the astrologer in me knows this is simply a cycle of never-ending cycles within even larger, never-ending cycles.

Let your Mercury spin with that!

Uranus in Gemini for the next seven years will illuminate and enlighten on language, communication, and the interpretation of reality. Gemini is curious, explores, and needs stimulation. There is plenty of that in digital; in fact, it’s endless.

We’ll have seven years of endless stimulation, new ideas, new information, new ways to look at reality.

Gemini represented by the twins is doubleness, duality, polarity, duplicitousness. Libra, the next air sign, is where we achieve balance in that doubleness. Gemini is the exploration stage, represented by youth.

Our sense organs all have a doubleness: eyes, ears, nostrils, hands, tongue. The sense organs are how we perceive reality. Spiritual disciplines of the East pointed out over a thousand years ago that what we perceive from our sense organs is illusion.

It’s starting to make sense.

Double vision: your lying eyes

According to an Internet search the ridiculous response, “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” comes from a 1933 movie Duck Soup said by Chico Marx. In 1933, it was understood that the eyes were correct and the words a lie.

It’s not so simple these days.

Where to begin? The image of a small crowd professed to be large? The video of a man being beaten where some say it’s wanton violence and others say it’s justified? And since January 2025 I could compile a very long list of these examples.

Sight appears to be the most influential sense for those with all five senses. We have to “see it to believe it” but today we see a lot of images created in the digital space. We’ve already learned that we can’t tell the difference between real and AI generated.

How can we “see” reality?

Double hearing: your lying ears

The 1957 file A Face in the Crowd has Gemini Andy Griffith playing a charismatic, articulate, demagogue who discovers the power of influence through radio and television. Exploiting this gift, he – spoiler alert – becomes corrupt.

In true spoiler alert his true nature is revealed one day to the unsuspecting audience who learns he says cruel things about the public when no one is listening. And hearing it for the first time, the public is outraged.

It’s not so simple these days.

The current president – Gemini sun – is very similar to this character. Yet, he doesn’t hide his words which wins him accolades, even by those insulted. As with his first presidency, this Mercury hears what sounds like an abusive relationship.

My ears and supporter ears hear different things.

Double taste: your lying tongue

Today The Guardian reported that the US Food and Drug Administration is proposing to allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review.

Welcome to the land of freedom!

If you eat real food or live in a country that primarily eats real food, it may be surprising to come to the US and see how much processed food is eaten. The more processed food is eaten, the more the taste buds adjust. I have a horror story of my own involving the soft drink “Tab.”

Sweet is extremely pronounced with artificial or enhanced sweeteners. It’s essentially an addictive rush that promotes continued consumption.

Real food with original taste – which today are called “organic” – are difficult to find. Only in travel abroad did I learn the true meaning of fresh food.

I didn’t know! My tongue was lied to, and believed it.

Double smell: your lying nostrils

One symptom of the infamous Covid-19 virus was loss of smell. One of the five senses – 20% of our reality interpretation – gone!

Do you smell a rat?

Let’s keep our sense of smell pure – it may be the last, best interpreter of reality.

My only thought on lying smell is the fact that grocery stores in the US have no smell. Where is the food smell? Are certain smells being masked?

True story – there was brown meat in the case at the local grocery, the first time I’ve seen such a thing at this large retailer. Maybe I now have “freedom” to eat spoiled meat.

But it didn’t smell. The eyes were the truth finders here.

Small, gourmet groceries do still have smell.

Double touch: your lying fingers

Touch seems pure still, like smell.

During the Uranus and Neptune transits of Capricorn and Aquarius in the 1990s – 2000s, a generation of children were born that have more neurodiversity as it’s called. I like that.

The medical profession refers to some of this as autism or ADHD and traits of both appear to be precursors to our own societal development including lack of focus and extreme but isolated focus.

Touch was more common in my youth, hugging, kissing on lips or cheek for non-romantic encounters. Holding hands.

Yeah, fear of germs – led by the anxious Pluto/Uranus in Virgo generation – keeps us apart.

Less physical, in-person contact, more virtual contact. More chance to misunderstand one another.

Double meaning: your lying mind

In Eastern spiritual practice, the “mind” (as a sense, different than the brain) is called “the monkey mind” in that it jumps from topic to topic. The digital world encourages the monkey mind (and the medical establishment diagnoses it as illness).

Like Hollywood movies, the mind tends toward common themes which are often polarity: good vs evil, individual vs collective, and now humanity vs technology. Even a love story must go through adversity before being true.

Take humanity vs technology – where is the humanity with technology? Or a generally good society that manages the bit of evil that arises?

Duality is polarity out of balance. Balance is the antidote.

Movies aren’t interesting without imbalance. If we were at peace, would we want to see movies?

The Language of Chaos

The current US president, Gemini sun with Sagittarius moon/Uranus opposite, is an excellent example of Monkey Mind and Lying Mind. He’s all over the place every day – strange at his advanced age. It’s fascinating that every accusation lobbed at others is something he does.

It’s a very simple formula, fully transparent, and with his supporters very effective.

If later times look back to account for the current chaos, the president can say he was 100 percent honest. It’s the followers that must explain themselves.

And the continued antagonism of the entire globe? These directives appear to be leftover projects of the past 45 years. A study of US foreign policy brings the chaotic together in a very clear pattern. Other patterns of racial organization are as old as the republic.

The language of chaos is the Mercury “trickster.”

But what is the trick?

Does the trick encourage us to actions not truly in our hearts? Or is the trick to allow us to act in ways we suppress but truly desire?