Astrologers Suzi and Charles Harvey write of the Gemini/Scorpio couple: “Your life seems very simple until you start to notice the monsters from the deep coming up for air.” (Fountain) Snowden’s life certainly seems to have been very easy until very recently. In March of this year he was living with his pole-dancing girlfriend on the island of Hawaii and earning $200,000 a year working for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton despite having little formal education beyond a GED. (Fountain) He then decides to confront the NSA, the “monster of the deep” par excellence, and is now a high-profile enemy of the State.
Snowden is a sympathetic figure and his story compelling, but given the paradoxical, shifting, and multifaceted nature of his Sun/Moon combination, he may turn out to be as much a “prism” as the “PRISMA” surveillance program the NSA has been running. As explained in a previous postboth Gemini and Scorpio “are associated with espionage, smuggling, and special operations, although in very different ways.” Gemini is the information broker who traffics in flash drives, Scorpio is the power broker who traffics in secrets. Gemini is the system administrator who knows where the phone lines are buried, Scorpio is the undercover cop who knows where the bodies are buried. The Gemini/Scorpio pairing, therefore, makes for a great investigative reporter who uses his mental prowess to unravel high-level criminality, a cunning double agent who plays multiple sides of a complex conflict, or a fiction writer whose fascinating stories leave you completely screwed (Gemini) (Scorpio), but loving every minute of it.
If, according to James Bamford’s books on the history of the NSA, the Scorpio/Gemini couple can be compared to a “Puzzle Palace” or a “Shadow Factory,” then the Gemini/Scorpio couple can be compared to “a riddle wrapped in mystery within an enigma,” to quote Winston Churchill. Gemini is duality, while Scorpio is secretive, so whenever you see these two signs paired, there is a high probability that multiple layers (Gemini) of concealment (Scorpio) are going on. This is because the ruling planet of each sign stands out for disguising itself. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the fast-moving planet of conflicting messages and multiple personalities. Scorpio is ruled by Pluto, the profound Lord of Hades whose cap of invisibility allows him to operate undetected. At best, the combination of duplicity (Gemini Sun) and depth perception (Scorpio Moon) allows a person to get to the bottom of complex and dizzying situations. At worst, it turns you into someone who wanders into traps that are part endless house of mirrors (Gemini) and part bottomless pit (Scorpio), like something out of one of those old Choose Your Own Adventure children’s books, except with decidedly more malevolent plots.
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information about the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program to British Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, is a Gemini Sun and Scorpio Moon. (See box above) Snowden’s Gemini-Scorpio couple has some things in common with the NSA’s Scorpio-Gemini couple, but there are some key differences. The Sun, symbol of the conscious mind, can be compared to the part of a tree that expresses itself on the surface. The Moon, a symbol of the unconscious mind, can be compared to the roots of the tree that go deeper into the earth. While the Sun and Moon are equally important when analyzing a person’s map, it is the Moon that tells us which components of the person’s psyche are deeper. Snowden, with his Moon, not his Sun, in the most cryptic of signs (Scorpio), is actually more deeply secretive than the agency whose operations he wishes to expose.
If the Scorpio-Gemini couple at the NSA is the “town gossip” who takes their secrets to the grave, Gemini-Scorpio is the “double agent” who takes their secrets to the cable news network. Scorpio-Gemini likes to tap phone lines (the more lewd the conversations, the better). Gemini-Scorpio likes to tell stories (the more complex the plots, the better). Astrologers Suzi and Charles Harvey write about the Gemini-Scorpio couple: “Your life seems very simple until you start to notice the monsters from the deep coming up for air.” (Source) Snowden’s life certainly seems to have been very simple until very recently. As of March 2013, he was living with a beautiful acrobatic dancer girlfriend on the Big Island of Hawaii and earning $200,000 a year working for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, despite having little formal education beyond a GED. Then he decided to confront the NSA, the ultimate “monster of the deep” and is now a high-profile enemy of the State.
At their best, this is the Sun-Moon pairing of the investigative reporter who uses his mental prowess to unravel high-level criminality, the high-stakes negotiator who understands multiple layers of a complex conflict, or the writer whose fascinating stories leave you completely screwed (Gemini-Scorpio), but you love every minute of it.
While the Scorpio-Gemini couple can be compared to a “Puzzle Palace” or a “Shadow Factory” (according to James Bamford’s books on the history of the NSA), the Gemini-Scorpio couple can be compared to “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” to quote Winston Churchill. Gemini is duality, while Scorpio is secretive, so whenever you see these two signs paired, there is a high probability that multiple layers (Gemini) of concealment (Scorpio) are going on. This is because the ruling planet of each sign stands out for its disguise. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the fast-moving planet of conflicting messages and multiple personalities. Scorpio is co-ruled by Pluto, the profound Lord of Hades whose cap of invisibility allows him to operate undetected. At best, the combination of duplicity (Gemini Sun) and depth perception (Scorpio Moon) allows a person to get to the bottom of dizzyingly complex situations.
People with the same Sun/Moon pairing often have biographies that share strikingly similar themes. George Orwell is a Gemini Sun and Scorpio Moon like Snowden. He is best known for writing. 1984the book that imagined a dystopian future characterized by a ubiquitous surveillance state, a future that the Snowden leaks have made clear is now a reality.
Mars conjunct the north node: medals for bravery
Snowden’s Mars (fighting planet) is conjunct her North Node (point of destiny), an aspect Celeste Teal associates with “receiving medals for bravery.” 39 Your Mars/North Node conjunction is in Gemini, so the bravery indicated by this aspect would likely involve Gemini issues such as communication, computer disks, and data sharing.
This Mars receives a trine (supportive contact) from a Saturn-Pluto conjunction in Libra, the sign of justice, in your fifth house of self-expression; this aspect is associated with “fighting the powers that be,” according to astrologer Adrian Ross Duncan.40 Snowden is unlikely to win medals for his efforts, but no one doubts the enormous bravery it takes to fight the powers that be who run the NSA.
As for what lies ahead for Snowden, with his North Node in Gemini he will need to take full advantage of the Twins’ quick-thinking nature to the best of his ability if he is to stay out of the catacombs of the American justice system. As he knows very well, these days the hills really do have eyes.
