by Matt Savinar

Combine an Aquarius Sun’s passion for both technology and truth-seeking with a Gemini Moon’s instincts for communicative arts and the result is a Sun/Moon pairing that’s innovative, intelligent, and incredibly advanced when it comes to use of the written or spoken word. Astrologer Jefferson Anderson calls Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon the Sun/Moon pairing of “the Journalist” while Bil Tierney says this is a liberal minded, freedom loving pairing that doesn’t do well in “societies that heavily censor information . . . or environments that suppress free speech”. (Source) To illustrate: journalist Michael Hastings is an Aquarius/Gemini renown for his efforts at exposing heavily censored information. (Chart) A number of his investigative pieces caused profound consternation for high-ranking members of society who wish to suppress free speech, most notably his June 2010 piece in Rolling Stone magazine that led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal. Hastings had been working on an expose of CIA director John Brennan when his brand new Mercedes sedan mysteriously exploded at a Los Angeles intersection in June 2013.

According to astrologers Suzi and Charles Harvey, a metaphoric image for the Aquarius/Gemini pairing is “A child in balloon drifts over the city reporting back by portable phone on all below”. (Source) That’s an uncannily accurate description of Michael Hastings. He obviously wasn’t a child but at the relatively young age of 33 Hastings had managed to drift over the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan and report back on all that he saw. He also routinely reported back on two other “wars”, those being the U.S. government’s wars on both privacy and journalism.

Unfortunately, the Harvey’s image is an equally uncannily accurate metaphor of another Aquarius/Gemini albeit one that is to Michael Hastings what one of Darth Vader’s TIE Fighters is to Han Solo. Using its first flight as its date of birth, the MQ-9 “Reaper” Drone is also an Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon. (Chart) MQ-9 drones aren’t children drifting over cities in balloons but they are tasked with patrolling geopolitical hot spots and using radically advanced (Aquarius) communication (Gemini) capabilities to report back on everything below. Aquarius/Geminis are often fascinated by other cultures and, indeed, the majority of MQ-9s deployed around the world do spend most of their waking hours reporting on people of other cultures. Sometimes they’re even tasked with more than just “reporting”:

Astrologer Stella Hyde says Aquarians who turn to the dark side of this cerebral sign make for great “stalkers, snipers, and spies” while dark side Geminis do well in professions that require no moral perceptions such as gun running and drug smuggling. (Source) The MQ-9 is essentially an airborne stalker/sniper whose capacity for remote, video-game style killing requires little in the way of moral perception. This morale patch from an MQ-9 squadron captures the morally troublesome aspects of its sniping/stalking missions with a great deal of accuracy:

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Of course proponents of technologies like the MQ-9 Reaper will argue that they’re an incredibly valuable tool when it comes to stalking/spying/surveilling (Aquarius) bad guys such as international gun runners and drug smugglers (Gemini). If that’s really the case then one can’t help but wonder why a squadron of “Reapers” aren’t busy surveilling the “lawless border region” that is the headquarters of HSBC, the Wall Street bank recently caught laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. (Source)

Charts with the same Sun/Moon pairing will often express in eerie similar fashions even if one chart belongs to something life-and-death serious like a piece of military hardware and the other belongs to someone or something associated with fun and games. To illustrate: using its initial launch date as its date of birth, the way-ahead-of-its-time 1962 video game Space War! is also an Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon. (Chart) According to recent Yahoo Games article, Space War ushered in the era of video games as we now understand them. (Source) In true Aquarius/Gemini fashion, the game involved star-ships (Aquarius) piloted by two (Gemini) players orbiting a star in the center of the screen.

Space War is an Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon. Photo: Joi Ito, Wikipedia
Space War is an Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon. Photo: Joi Ito, Wikipedia

Strangely enough, MQ-9 Reapers are controlled by soldiers sitting in front of video game style computer systems that are the technological progeny of the IBM mainframe computers on which Space War was played back in the 1960s.

As you have probably ascertained by now, in addition to being a quick-witted communicator and something of a shock jock, the textbook Aquarius/Gemini is often involved in the propagation of futuristic technologies. This is true whether the Aquarius/Gemini in question is an airborne killing machine in the age of networked warfare like the MQ-9 or a computer scientist working in the age of post-Constitutional America like Aquarius/Gemini Phil Zimmerman. (Chart) If you haven’t heard of Zimmerman before he’s the peace activist who in 1991 invented “Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP), a data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. (Source) In short, PGP is one of the few tools regular citizens can use to keep their communications free from the prying eyes of “high tech hitmen” on the payroll of three letter agencies and their corporate allies. Zimmerman’s invention worked so well that the U.S. government initially classified it as a “military technology” and subjected him to a three year long criminal investigation for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control. (Source)

As far as how exactly PGP works, the University of Pittsburgh has published an in-depth primer for those who might be curious. If, however, you’re the sort who prefers an astrological explanation over a technical one then take a look at what Linda Goodman says about the Aquarius/Gemini capacity for highly experimental (Aquarius) forms of data transfer (Gemini):

. . . both signs are masters of the twisted phrase, mind blowers. With their upside down cakes of phraseology and crisscross alliteration, Aquarius and Gemini would make a great team writing verses for Chinese fortune cookies . . .

. . . they can be a delightful pair, an exasperating puzzle to everyone else, but an open book to each other . . . It’s impossible to predict with these two. They’re both too complex with the average Earthling.

. . . both are able to substitute one word for another, as they do with all polarities, completely comprehending what many people do not: that one thing always contains particles of its opposite. (Source)

Curiously enough, the mechanics of Zimmerman’s PGP technology bear a strong resemblance to Mrs. Goodman’s description of the Aquarius/Gemini pairing. PGP apparently works by making encrypted emails as difficult for prying eyes to understand as a “twisted, mind blowing upside down cake” of computer algorithms more complex than “Chinese fortune cookie verses written in crisscross alliteration with one word substituted for another” while each PGP key (literally) “contains the inverse particles of its opposite” key. The resulting electronic transmission is “an exasperating puzzle” to anybody except the intended recipient for whom it’s as delightfully easy to read as “an open book”. PGP is still so “complex for average Earthlings” to decode that Digital Trends magazine recently compared cracking it to “building a national park on the Moon”. (Source)

As far as the circumstances surrounding Michael Hastings’ death are concerned, they’re still as shrouded in complexity as PGP encrypted email. One thing, however, is absolutely certain: the computer systems embedded in modern day cars like the one Hastings was driving the night of his death are disturbingly easy for computer hackers to get into. Here, for instance, is a DARPA program manager explaining how easy it is to perform a “high tech hit job” on the typical late model vehicle:

What’s even more disturbing is that the story Hastings was working on is rumored to have had him on the trail of a consortium of shadowy cyber-security firms staffed by high tech hitmen capable of sabotaging a car’s computer systems as easily as you or I can send an email. According to an article in L.A. Weekly magazine, Hastings had begged to borrow a friend’s car a few hours before his death as he feared his has been tampered with. In other words, it’s entirely plausible the future (Aquarius) was communicating (Gemini) with him right up until the day he died.

About the Author: Matt Savinar is a California licensed attorney (State Bar #228957), voluntarily inactive as of June 2013. He can be reached for questions, comments, or astrological consults at his contact page.