Gemini Full Moon: Unexpected Uplift

As the holiday season of 1938 approached, Chicago-based Bob May wasn’t feeling very joyful. The 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward was exhausted and almost broke. His wife was bedridden, at the bitter end of a two-year battle with cancer, leaving Bob to look after their four-year-old, Barbara.

Barbara didn’t understand why her mommy was so different from other mommies. Bob wanted to comfort her and show that there was nothing to be ashamed of. So, one night he began to spin a tale about a misfit reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her dad tell it every night. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Since he couldn’t afford to buy her a gift for Christmas, Bob turned the story into a homemade picture book.

Just before Christmas, Bob’s wife died. The grieving widower’s co-workers urged him to attend the company Christmas party anyway, and to read from his picture book. After he did so, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted a copy. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to shoppers at Christmas. Every major publishing house wanted the book. And in an incredible gesture of goodwill, the store returned the rights to May so he could sell it.

Four years later, now a millionaire and remarried with a growing family, May felt content, blessed by his good fortune. But it turns out there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter, set the uplifting story to music, and country star Gene Autry recorded it. Within a few years, it became the second best-selling Christmas song ever (after White Christmas), spawning TV specials, cartoons, movies and even a Ringling Brothers circus act. All this from a desperate dad’s desire to bring comfort to his little girl.

The Gemini Full Moon (Dec. 15, 1:01 a.m. PT) mirrors this duality of sadness and unexpected uplift. As it illuminates the Gemini-Sagittarius axis of communication (books, songs), this lunation brings an anything-can-happen quality. The Sun and Moon’s square to nebulous Neptune is one reason for this dynamic. It hints at confusion and nostalgia – but also the potential for transcendent beauty and heartfelt healing.

The other X-factor at this lunation is that it happens on the same day that trickster Mercury, Gemini’s ruler, stations direct in don’t-fence-me-in Sagittarius. The stationary period can be a bit squirrely. It will take our normally fleet-footed friend Mercury at least another week to regain its forward momentum. And we’re still experiencing the retrograde of Mars in Leo, another action-craving fire sign. If you’ve been feeling a lot of frustration or having setbacks over the last few weeks, they may not magically disappear once Mercury turns direct. Yet retrogrades are an excellent time to finish things up and return to ideas and projects that you’d left on the back burner. They’re also good for inner reflection, especially here in the Northern Hemisphere where the weather is getting chilly. Yet this call to turn inward happens just as holiday festivities are pulling us outward. If you’re feeling frazzled, there’s no harm in bowing out of an event. Soak in a hot bath, listen to some music or even, as Bob May did, read a story to a favorite child.

While feisty Mars is still retrograde through late Feb., give yourself plenty of time to plan things out, instead of jumping into the fray while the warrior planet is stirring up heated passions. In particular, Mars is calling us to examine our relationship with anger. I’ve been using EFT (tapping) a lot lately to work through anger and sadness, both of which I tend to automatically suppress – to my body’s detriment. Many of us do this, since we’re taught that rage and tears are not acceptable. Yet anger, especially, can be a positive and exhilarating emotion if acknowledged and harnessed toward a productive outcome.

Sunday’s Gemini Full Moon is apt to reveal much. It can be an uplifting, celebratory time. If Luna is visible, go outside and salute her. Surrender to her potent energies – whatever they may feel like. Just try to not overindulge in holiday food and drink, which the square from addictive Neptune may tempt you to do. And be extra careful while driving! If you’re really lucky, this wordsmith-oriented lunation might even bring the inspiration for a story or song that, like Bob May’s, will end up moving and uplifting millions.