Three
Three is the holy trinity, consisting of the mother, the father, and their child. These represent the feminine and masculine sides of the individual, with the child being the individual itself, an amalgam of the two.
The third star sign is Gemini, ruled by Mercury, the messenger of the Gods. Mercury facilitates communication between the gods and mortals, creating a link between the masculine, the heavens, and the feminine, the world. The symbol of Gemini shows the two circles of Taurus apart from one another, but joined by two lines, the twins of Gemini. The twins are Castor and Pollux, sired by a mortal king and the king of the gods respectively. Castor is eventually made immortal at his brother’s request, and so you have a heavenly being born into the world and a worldly being ascending to the heavens. The two lines are the twin snakes on the caduceus, the staff held by mercury, which is also associated with the channels through which energy flows between one’s chakras.
The trinity represents the threefold nature of the individual psyche. The father is the conscious, rational side; our thoughts. The mother is the unconscious, irrational side; our emotions. The child is the active part of the individual, making choices in the world with a parent in either ear. The struggle is in finding balance between the two, using the strengths of both and allowing them to complement each other rather than oppose. Actions are best taken thoughtfully but guided by emotions. Too much of the father and one becomes cold and distant, detached from the world. Too much of the mother and one loses direction and self-control, like a ship without its sails being tossed around by the ocean’s waves.
Gemini is the sign of mutable air: The wind. Air symbolises the realm of thought and ideas, so wind represents the movement of ideas. This means both the flow of thoughts within one’s mind, and the communication of thoughts to others. The air becomes the collective mind through which we hear each other’s thoughts. Like the voices we hear upon the air, so to do thoughts drift into our minds from elsewhere, from gods or from spirits, or, if we are lucky, from the muses.
The relationship between two is direct. Now, with a third member, the group begins to gossip. One will talk to another about the third, creating a rendition of events of which the second has no experience. This is the creation of a world that lives upon the air, both in the sky and in the mind. With two of the mind and one of the world, the third begets a fourth to accompany it. Another of the world, an other to himself.