In this series, I’m going to break down each and every rising sign and every house of your chart, based on the rising sign. I’m going to be using whole sign houses, which is a house system where every sign is a separate house.

This isn’t so much of a breakdown, actually, and more of a synthesis. When you look at everything in a chart isolated and dissected, ultimately you’re not going to get much of a narrative about your entire chart. By relating every house back to your rising sign, you can understand your entire chart in a more holistic way.

If you’re not using whole sign houses already, I highly encourage you to apply it to your understanding of your chart. While Placidus is still the most popular house system being used, it’s actually more relevant to electional astrology than using your natal chart to understand your personal drives. Whole sign houses are more relevant when you use astrology to build self understanding.

Gemini Rising, Sagittarius Descending: The most powerful type of bitch

Almost every Gemini rising I’ve met has had a great smile. Gemini, ruled by Mercury, is sweet, charming, and persuasive. However, Gemini risings also have Sagittarius in their seventh house. This is a rising that talks back and condemns everything that you ever bought into while smiling in a way that makes you feel like you want to be on their side. Gemini risings are people who have the ability to insult you to your face without you being aware of it.

But Gemini risings are not arguing just for the sake of arguing or, rather, learning not to argue for the sake of arguing is something that every Gemini rising learns to grow through. Sagittarius on the descendent can mean that Gemini risings argue as a survival mechanism rather than a response to the actual situation in front of them. They may have been taught that being wrong about something can make you unworthy.

Gemini risings are political people who speak their truth. What they have to learn is that speaking their truth does not mean being right in every argument or that speaking the truth has to happen in a confrontation. They are here to learn that truth grows in consensus and cooperation just as much as it does in debates and arguments. They’re here to learn to prioritize differences they want to resolve over the conflicts that retrigger old fears and anger that aren’t useful to their situation.

Cancer Second House, Capricorn Eighth House: Responsive

For Gemini risings, security is not a constant thing. It’s a thing that changes day to day and moment to moment. Their security is emotional, which means that how good they feel about themselves is something that changes depending on whether they’re hungry, whether they’ve showered, whether they’ve slept enough, and whether they’ve brushed their hair. Cancer is the beach, which is always in a state of change. Second house is how we perceive reality. Cancer in the second house means that Gemini perceives themselves and the world differently depending on whether they’re wearing their rose colored glasses that day or their night vision goggles.

Capricorn is the sign in which the malefics either exalt or rule. Capricorn shows us something that’s a little challenging. The eighth house is what we share with other people. Gemini rising is a sign that takes intimacy very seriously. This is why Gemini risings find the sharing of their time, their bodies, and their ideas so difficult. Gemini is about sharing and Gemini risings feel the duty to share but they want facilitated and structured sharing so that they can protect themselves.

Gemini rising’s values are something that is quite changeable. They’re dependent upon the social relations that Gemini risings live under. This means that their values and principles are things that slowly get built over time and it also means that it’s something that fluctuates a lot in reaction to the responses of others. Gemini risings change their minds a lot because they want to exercise responsibility to the world. Response is the foundation of responsibility.

Leo Third House, Aquarius Ninth House: Love to talk

Wherever we have Leo in our charts, it’s where we feel the most alive. Gemini risings have Leo in the third house and they feel alive when they are talking about things they’re passionate about, participating in subculture, and making an impact in their neighborhood and communities. They love to listen and be listened to, to talk about everything under the sun, and to just feel the pleasure of sharing interesting things.

With Aquarius in the ninth house, Gemini risings know everything but don’t really care what other people think. They want to stand apart in terms of their opinions and knowledge. In classrooms, Gemini risings are the ones who say the unexpected things that surprise everyone else and raise points that no one else is thinking about. Whenever there is a dialogue between two perspectives, Gemini risings come into the room with a completely different third perspective.

Because Gemini risings have Leo and Aquarius in the third and ninth houses, they stand out from other people using conversation. They can be sometimes overwhelming in terms of what they bring to a conversation, thinking light years ahead of everyone else and pushing new topics through over and over. They don’t do this in a way that alienates people to them and neither do they simply parrot talking points back. They spin everything they heard and offer an original take on everything that they’re pulled from the world into the dialogue.

Virgo Fourth House, Pisces Tenth House: Tongue in cheek

Gemini risings can be a little tricky with their Pisces midheavens. They are capable of seeming like completely different people in different surroundings. Part of their survival strategy is about adopting different mannerisms, voices, or vocabularies based on who they are around and how they feel they need to be seen by. Pisces is the sign that Venus becomes exalted or visible through and Gemini risings can feel like they are meant to mean something different to everyone and anyone.

With Virgo in the fourth house, Gemini risings come into the many worlds that they inhabit from a foundation of critique. They may be moving from a bourgeois art gallery to a basement anarchist talk all in one night but they’re critiquing both settings in their own heads in private. Just because Gemini risings are able to go into any setting and blend in doesn’t mean that they do so in a complacent way. They go into their worlds ready to fire a snarky comment or two.

The Virgo and Pisces axis is about subtleties. Gemini risings notice and reframe the subtle ways in which banal reality asserts itself. They know that hidden assumptions are not didactic but mundane and they know that power asserts itself in mundane ways. Gemini risings notice all the things that most people don’t notice and they are always ready to argue back.

Libra Fifth House, Aries Eleventh House: Mediator

Love, for Gemini risings, is often expressed through mediation. They feel loved when someone is willing to take a moment to reside in their perspective even when engaging in their perspective triggers emotions of shame and judgment in the other person. A lot of Gemini risings are taught to be mediators of the different groups of people who they can take with. Love that feels like a relief comes when someone allows them to put away their mediator hat by doing the work of understanding them. This understanding work necessitates the putting away of egos.

A lot of the times, imagined community does not feel peaceful or innately healing for Gemini risings. The concept of community is complicated. Aries in the eleventh house is a Mars ruled eleventh house and Gemini risings might have related to the communities that they grew up in from a place of alienation or conflict. Gemini risings are aware that community is not an universal term and that some communities are prioritized over others.

Gemini risings, often, find that their creativity shows up when they express it through other people. Gemini risings need creative community and to see the values that they respond to enacted through the people around them. They need to know that people are willing to understand across differences while sharing their struggles.

Scorpio Sixth House, Taurus Twelfth House: Works in spurts

Gemini risings tend to work in spurts. They don’t work in a way that it managed and controlled over a long period of time. They’re here to do short projects or do long term projects that use their energy in abbreviated ways.

With Scorpio in the sixth house, Gemini risings get completely pulled into whatever it is that they’re doing in the moment. They’re capable of doing an immense amount of work in a fraction of the time that someone else might do it in. Whether they need to stay up for two nights or whether they pull a muscle doing the things, they’ll finish whatever it is they set out to do.

However, Gemini risings do not spend most of their time working on things. They don’t need to. They work in such an intense way when they do. They spend most of their time just relaxing and pondering the state of things. They’re people who need to spend a lot of time doing nothing. With Taurus in the twelfth house, Gemini risings can only reflect on the state of things when they’re comfy in their homes. They’re much too stimulated to do so otherwise.