I must admit, when I first began exploring which Goddess to work with for each astrological season, Gemini left me puzzled. Air is perhaps the element I connect with the least. My path is rooted in the darker divine feminine and its watery depths. I’d assumed I’d be drawn to a dual-natured Goddess for Gemini with it being the sign of the twins. But no one stepped forward. No name stirred a familiar recognition in my soul or bones.
Instead, I was gently nudged to look closer to home.
I live in York, though I was born in Leeds, and something called me to explore the Goddesses once honoured in the land I now call home. Under Roman occupation, York- then called Eboracum- was a cultural crossroads. A place of convergence, where traders, settlers, raiders and soldiers from across the world brought their culture. Excavations showed mention of Isis (Egyptian mythology), Venus (Roman mythology), and Tethys (Greek mythology), among other names that have been lost to time. It reminded me of a Goddess whose statue can still be found in the streets of York…Minerva.
The Roman Goddess of wisdom, justice, crafts, arts and inspiration.
Suddenly, the duality of Gemini made sense. A Goddess who holds many aspects in a city that I call home, even though I wasn’t born here.
Minerva became my guide for Gemini season.
As I journeyed deeper, I explored her origin and lineage, tracing the root of her name and counterparts, both Roman and Greek. Athena, her Greek counterpart, is similarly associated with wisdom, strategy, and the creative arts. But Minerva holds roots that may go even deeper: she may have originally been an Etruscan Goddess named Menrva, one who governed not only medicine and poetry but weather phenomena too-something her Roman and Greek forms were never linked with. The more I uncovered, the more she resonated.
Minerva mirrors the dueled and layered nature of Gemini. She is not just one thing, she is all.
Her presence reflected back the many facets of my own identity. I began to think of the roles I hold: mother, wife, daughter, sister, priestess, writer, creator. I could feel the tension between these roles in the way they overlap and stretch me into new cycles and new becoming’s. Balancing those roles is where the tension lies, and within that tension lies something sacred. Minerva sanctifies the routines I follow. She is the ritual woven through my domestic life- the reminder of the magic in the mundane. She is the quiet strength required to mother a soul, a family, a business, and a calling-all at once.
So, when the Strawberry Full Moon rose, I sat in sacred ceremony for Athena, Minerva, and me. I honoured the Goddess and I honoured myself. In doing so, I was reminded that I don’t have to choose between the many selves I hold. I am not one or the other- I am all. I was reminded that the dance between them all-the balancing- is what makes them sacred. To honour this devotion and the creativity that Minerva inspires, I began a new project: a crocheted blanket. Each colour planned representing one of the roles I hold. Each stitch uniquely me, but only one part of the whole.