Storyteller's Night Sky 2026-05-13 (Venus, Gemini, and Our Footprints Among the Stars)

This week I want to talk about feet, so if you’re driving, or walking, or even just sitting right now while you’re listening, juts take a moment and consider your feet. There are 88 recognized constellations in the night sky and plenty of feet among them. But only 12 of those 88 constellations belong to the zodiac, and of those 12, only three depict the human form with feet: Aquarius the waterman; Virgo the maiden; and Gemini the twins. Aquarius is often associated with a future state of human beingness; Virgo, as the Great Mother, is associated with the ultimate realization of earthly evolution; and Gemini with freedom in that here the human being is depicted in both the mortal and the immortal nature, as the twins, Castor and Pollux. When we look at the constellation Gemini in the sky, we see these twins standing together on the shore of the Milky Way River of stars. So consider, in the cycle of the year, when the Moon, the Sun or a planet arrives at the stars that mark the feet of the Gemini twins, it is as though this celestial body has crossed the river of the Milky Way, has moved through the galactic plane, to arrive at the opposite shore. And here, we are as though faced with the reality of our mortality, and the prospect of our immortality. In the Paradise of his Divine Comedy, Dante gave pride of place to Gemini stars, which he honors as being the stars among which the Sun moved when he was born. But much earlier in the epic poem, he drops some Gemini hints, when he writes int eh first canto of the inferno: Just as a swimmer, still with panting breath, now safe upon the shore, out of the deep, might turn for one last look at the dangerous waters, so I, although my mind was turned to flee, turned round to gaze once more upon the pass that never let a living soul escape. I rested my tired body there awhile and then began to climb the barren slope (I dragged my stronger foot and limped along)…