With another turn of the zodiacal wheel, on May 21st the Sun enters Gemini, mutable air sign of quick wit and bright ideas.
Whichever sign the Sun transits during a particular month is the sign which flavors the fuel we run on, for that month. It activates us in very specific ways, strengthening some of our innate personal qualities, flexing energetic muscles and bypassing others almost completely. So when the Sun moves through Gemini, keeper of air energy, this element is activated in each of us. Air: in its physical, emotional and spiritual guises, is invigorated and charged through our systems differently than it is, during other astrological seasons.
But what does this really mean?
And what will it feel like?
UNDERSTANDING THE ENERGY OF AIR
In Shamanic traditions around the world, each of the 4 elements (Air, Fire, Water and Earth) hold different properties and play different roles in the modes of creation and destruction. They express strength and supremacy in certain areas and weakness in others. They carry concepts distinct from those of each other element, and these reverberate through all levels of our experience. So you’re probably familiar with the physical properties of air, but what about its emotional, or purely energetic characteristics? Do you know how it feels when the Spirit of air blows energetically through your being? Or how it feels when it’s channels are blocked?
No? Well, Gemini season offers a powerful opportunity to find out and to play a little with the ideas and experiences which accompany the element of air.
I’m going to give you a little more insight into what it means to work with air, and few tools to take with you so that you’ll be able to enter into this elemental world and use the power of air enhance your experience of life in general.
PHYSICAL AIR
On a physical level, air may be the hardest of the elements to actually connect to, being completely invisible. The only evidence of its existence is the effect it has on the things around it, yet by employing this extra effort and observing where it likes to play, there are SO many lessons it can offer!
As with all of the elements, the best way to learn from them is to take your physical self and go and BE in their environment. When you do this, you’ll very quickly see that the nature of air can and does change according to its source, and the conditions it finds.
Air can manifest as a raging tornado or as a whispering summer breeze. It may be found billowing inside a plastic shopping bag caught in the branch of a tree, or warm beneath the wings of a soaring eagle in the Andes.
Like water, air flows.
But whilst running water carries a weight of its own and seeks out the lowest level it can, air flies free. It embodies a natural lightness and resists nothing. Its constant touch can be both comforting and wickedly harsh: Air presses gently against your skin, it holds your body safe in its form, for every single one of your living moment. But if conditions get wild and you meet it in its extreme, it will tousle your hair and “windburn” your face just as easily… or worse. Air teaches us to be flexible. Wherever it goes, air carries what it can and just as easily drops and leaves behind what it cannot.
Spend time with the many different ‘physical’ manifestations of air over the next month, as the Sun spends time with Gemini. Whenever you feel stuck and unsure of how to proceed in your life, expose yourself to this element, and allow its wisdom to lead you to freedom.
EMOTIONAL AIR
Air is associated with East – direction of the rising sun. Because of this, air is synonymous with what is new. Air is the first idea that is sparked in a clear mind. It’s your initial felt response before limitations, learnt behaviors, and programmed patterns move into your consciousness. Air is fresh, it is pure, it is innocent.
Because of its boundless nature, air forms the spaces between things. Emotionally, this is cognition and those “aha” moments which always result from more than the sum of their parts. They are leaps in thoughts, “knowings” which exist just beyond the realms of logic and evidence and proof.
Air Inspires Social Connection
Those people with a lot of air in their charts and their personal make-up are often very relational. They connect people, they are sociable and part of many different groups and networks. I know somebody with a lot of air energy and he does pretty much all of his work over the phone. It’s because his need for connectivity doesn’t have to be tangible and grounded and based on what he sees in front of him: his life exists in the spaces in between.
So on this level of our beings, embracing the nature of air can help us to join the dots within our lives, and to push those dots a little further apart. Air encourages us to trust in the unseen and the unknown and to ascend beyond the structures which keep us small and separate. Air will push us up and out beyond our limits and offer us freedom.
SOUL AIR
On a soul level, air is Spirit.
Its boundless nature represents one-ness and unity because within this element, separateness simply does not exist. Rising up, air offers a higher vista, and through also permeating all things, air offers a perspective which is multi-leveled and multi-directional.
Air is an abundance of every potential and the lightness of needing nothing at all, so it offers transcendence. Air flows through our systems of faith and belief and IS the sacred breath of life.
We can embrace air here, on this energetic level, by honoring the inhalation and exhalation, both physically, and metaphysically. This month, b-r-e-a-t-h-e. Air teaches us that undulation is to be welcomed, that it is safe to trust in the ebb and flow of life. Air teaches us to let go of our resistance.
UNCOVERING A PERSONAL CONNECTION TO AIR
These are starting points. Shamanically, the element of air will mean different things to you, than it will to me, so I encourage you to be the explorer and fly inside its magic for yourself. It’s the best way to uncover the personal guidance that YOU need!
Have you been inspired to embrace the shamanic wisdom of air as we move through Gemini season?
Do you have a sense of the lessons Air has for you?
Share your insight with the community, so we can grow and learn together!
K
