Culture shock. Suddenly I’m talking a lot, and all in English, instead of spending the day quietly writing. All the emotions are powerful, as I first say goodbye to my lover in Quito, and then hello to my family in Northern Virginia.

And there’s the highway. It’s been nine months since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car, and here I am, whirring down the road. I stop at a light, look around, and notice that the cars are all bigger this summer, although gas seems to be way more expensive.

I spent two intense days in Northern Virginia. The cicadas were frenzied too. Whenever I went outside, I crunched on their fallen bodies. But there were also plenty of living cicadas, looping madly around the trees in my dad’s front yard. They were hopeful and improbable as skywriters.

For 17 years, they had been buried in the earth, living a contemplative and self-contained existence. And now the sun’s rays and the experience of flight were making them a little crazy. I could relate.

Yesterday, I loaded my car up with a sleeping bag, ephemerides, and copies of my book to sell, hugged my dad goodbye, and started on my first summer road trip. I forgot that Friday of Memorial Day weekend is not the best time to set out on a US highway, and only moved twenty miles during the first hour of driving.

But as I moved west in Virginia, the road opened up. I started to experience that thrill to which most Americans are addicted - the swallowed miles, the purr of the engine, the golden line in the highway leading you on, burning fossil fuels as if there’s no tomorrow.

The sun is in Gemini, and Gemini is the sign of roads, intersections, and human connections. Venus is still in Gemini too, still retrograde this month, and on the 8th, it will be at its closest point to the earth and eclipsed by the sun.

This is a rare enough event so that there is a lot of new age buzz about it. It’s being heralded as a time when interdimensional portals can open, and when spiritual guides can pass through more easily. It makes sense that we would come into contact with beings of love and light, at the time when the planet of love is at her closest and most intense.

This Venus cycle does seem very relevant to gay issues, since last month the first legal gay weddings in the US occurred on the day that Venus first went retrograde. Does this mean that the gay community is taking on the role of humanity’s spiritual helpers? Is that a stretch? Are we presuming here?

If you read my column last month, you know that I think that gay people are uniquely tied to the Gemini/Sagittarius axis, by virtue of our being twin-souled, as some Native American people would say. Mercury, Gemini’s ruler, is the hermaphrodite planet, and Gemini is the sign of open doors and multiple options. We are less rigidly enclosed in our gender roles than straight people, and so we can play with them more freely.

So perhaps this powerful Venus in Gemini is putting us in the position of gate-keepers. Are we are the elevator operators of the moment, asking humanity, “Okay, what floor? Is it going to be about war or intolerance, or about love and acceptance?”

This is certainly not to say that everyone in the gay community is spiritually enlightened. But merely by virtue of our existence, we raise thorny questions for the greater community. We test their mental agility. We teach them that it’s possible to hold different perspectives in the mind at once, without ranking them in any way except for personal preference. We are an effective remedy for the US tendency to see everything in either/or, black/white, friend/foe terms. The awareness of alternatives is the first step to peace in the world, and we are the embodiment of alternative lifestyle for many people in the US.

Am I saying that we have a mission here? I guess I am. Of course, this mission is not unique to our community. There are many other expressions of alternate lifestyles, from the artist to the social activist. But it’s certainly true that the right wing has singled out the gay community as its open enemy, and so we’ve been put on the front lines despite our many attempts to blend in.

They say that you should choose your enemies carefully, since they will be your teachers. It seems that by choosing us, the right-wing Christian movement in the US has also unleashed our power. And our power is the ability to see power itself in a different way. Our power comes from the connections we make - to each other, to our straight friends and allies, and to the outside community. Our power comes from coloring outside the lines, exploring the middle ground, raising alternatives to prevailing ideas.

Gemini is the sign of mental activity, and so these challenges are all mental ones. We challenge this country to make new connections. The Gemini/Sagittarius axis is about turning these new ideas into passionate action and new community structures, since Sagittarius is the sign of growth, expansion, philosophy and community consciousness. But there is always tension between opposing signs, and so this process is not simple. Gemini resists being codified, and Sagittarius is always trying to build definite principles on the subtle shifting ground of human awareness.

Gemini is the prominent zodiacal influence in June, with Venus, Mercury and sun all spending all or part of the month there. But Pluto is still in Sagittarius, and so all three will oppose Pluto at some point during the month - and Venus, moving most slowly, lingers over this opposition. The full moon on the 4th will also highlight the Gemini/Sagittarius axis. And so, though we’ll all be manifesting our buzzing, curious Gemini sides, there will also be a fierce drive for Sagittarian passion and commitment.

There’s also a strong Cancer influence in June, with Mars and Saturn together in this sign. This is especially strong during the first half of the month, when they’re closest. Cancer is a more conservative and possessive sign than Gemini, and so there will some underlying reluctance to move and to change, during the next month. This doesn’t eliminate change, but makes it a slower and more conscious process. Cancer is also a very emotional sign, and it modifies all the light, airy Gemini energy.

When I left the DC area, it was the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, and lots of people were flocking to the Mall to see the unveiling of the new World War II monument. My dad, a World War II vet, was going, too, and I watched him pin his medal onto his T-shirt. This commemoration typifies the Mars/Saturn conjunction in Cancer, with its emphasis on the past, and on protection and conservation.

But not everybody was focused on the past. Just as many people were leaving town, taking to the roads. This is the month when people leave their ordinary lives and their usual habits, and wing crazily out into the unknown. I’m doing that too. Who knows what ideas I will come across? Who knows where I will spread them? Anything could happen.

And now it’s time to get out my map, and to trace the little blue highway lines to my next destination.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com