Why can’t they ever sit still?

Are Taurus and Gemini compatible?

Taurus and Gemini are a semi-sextile: earth and air, fixed and mutable, one sign apart on the zodiac wheel. It is not one of Ptolemy’s five classical aspects; astrologers call it a minor angle. But that compares two Suns and nothing else. Venus, Mars, the Moon and the descendant decide how it actually feels.

You're here because of someone.

The Sun signs say not quite. Two whole charts say far more.

Your card is worked out from the day, the minute and the place you were born, not from a sign you share with a twelfth of the planet.

Every Taurus and every Gemini reads this page. Only your card knows you.

Find out your true compatibility.

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Admit one Taurus Earth · Fixed Apr 20 – May 20

Admit one Gemini Air · Mutable May 21 – Jun 21

⚺︎ Semi-sextile · 30°Earth + air · fixed + mutableA minor aspect, added long after Ptolemy

What it is: synastry, the art of comparing two charts

Comparing two people's charts has a name: synastry. Astrologers lay one chart over the other and look at the angles between the two sets of planets, the same angles the old books use inside a single chart.

Sun-sign compatibility is the shortcut version. It compares only the two Suns, and the angle between them is the aspect: four signs apart is a trine, two apart a sextile, three apart a square, six apart an opposition. Ptolemy called the trine and the sextile harmonious, and the square and the opposition disharmonious. ¹

Elements describe temperament (fire, earth, air, water) and modes describe pace (cardinal starts, fixed holds, mutable adapts). A pair can share one, both or neither. Taurus and Gemini share neither.

Full synastry goes much further: whose Venus lands on whose Moon, where one person's planets fall in the other's houses, how the two descendants line up. Ptolemy himself compared the Sun and the Moon of both charts, not just the Suns. That is why the same Taurus can get on beautifully with one Gemini and not at all with another. ²

Why do Taurus and Gemini feel so close and so far apart?

The traditional portrait: the same for every Taurus and every Gemini.

Taurus in love

Taurus courts slowly, in the old portrait, and means it. Dinner cooked properly, the same table every anniversary, a hand on your back in a crowd. The books make Taurus the most faithful sign in the year and the most possessive, happiest with someone who'll stay put. Rush a Bull and it just plants its feet.

Gemini in love

Gemini, traditionally, falls in love through talk. The messages at 1 a.m., the running joke, the person who can keep up. The old books give Gemini a short fuse for boredom and a long one for curiosity, and say it needs a partner who's also a friend. Go quiet on a Gemini and it'll fill the silence with someone else's conversation.

Together

Air and earth. Air redraws the map halfway there; earth packed the snacks last night. Tradition calls it the idea meeting the plan. Who's holding the map?

Fixed meets mutable, the rock and the river in the old reading. One holds still and the other flows around it.

Taurus wants the same booth at the same diner. Gemini wants the new place, and the one after that. The old system finds nothing in common between them, though a Taurus can be oddly charmed by someone who never runs out of stories, and a Gemini by someone who actually listens to the end of one.

Where it comes from: comparing charts, from Babylon to your phone

Era by era, with sources. More in the Reading Room.

Ancientc. 450 BCEThe Babylonian zodiac settles into twelve equal zones, the frame later comparisons of signs are built on. ³
Ancient410 BCEThe earliest known horoscopes, from Babylon and Nippur, date to this year. ³
Classical2nd century CEPtolemy's Tetrabiblos names the aspects between signs and calls the trine and sextile harmonious, the square and opposition disharmonious. ^4,1
Classical2nd century CEPtolemy's chapter on the planets' houses puts Taurus under Venus and Gemini under Mercury. ¹
Classical2nd century CEPtolemy calls signs one apart disjunct, or alien: they share none of his aspects. Neighbours, he says, are turned away from one another. ¹
Classical2nd century CEIn his chapter on marriage, Ptolemy compares two charts: the Sun and Moon of one against the Sun and Moon of the other, reading trines and sextiles between them as concord and squares and oppositions as friction. ²
Classical2nd century CEHis chapter on friends and enemies does the same with the Sun, the Moon, the rising degree and the Lot of Fortune of both people. ²
Medieval12th centuryAbu Ma'shar's introduction to astrology circulates in Latin; the University of Edinburgh holds a 12th-century copy. ⁵
1800s1890Alan Leo's Astrologer's Magazine offers its annual subscribers a free horoscope by post. ⁶
1930s1937R. H. Naylor's newspaper horoscope, begun in 1930, is organised by the twelve sun signs. ⁷
1970s1978Linda Goodman's Love Signs is published by Harper & Row. ⁸
1980s–90s1980–1999Chart services run by computer arrive: Astrodienst in Zürich sells birth charts from 1980 and goes online in 1996. ⁹
Today202430% of US adults consult astrology, tarot or a fortune teller at least yearly, mostly for fun, according to Pew Research Center. ¹⁰

Worked out, not guessed

Taurus is sign 2 of 12 and Gemini is sign 3: one sign apart, 30°. Semi-sextiles always share nothing the old system counts: element, mode and polarity all differ. Of the 78 possible sun-sign pairings, 12 are semi-sextiles.
Venus never gets more than about 47° from the Sun, so a Taurus's Venus is in one of five signs (Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini or Cancer) and a Gemini's in one of five (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer or Leo). Which one is a matter of the year and the day.

Why does it feel like you’re on different clocks?

The Sun can’t answer that. These four can, and your card reads every one of them.

Venus · how you love

How do you love, and how do they want to be loved?

That's Venus. It never strays far from the Sun, so a Taurus's Venus can only sit in Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini or Cancer, and a Gemini's Venus can only sit in Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer or Leo. Two people with the same sun sign can want completely different evenings.

Your card reads your Venus.
Mars · what you want

Why does their restlessness make you dig in?

That's Mars: desire, temper, the way you chase what you're after. It can sit in any of the twelve signs, so two Geminis born a season apart can want, and fight about, completely different things.

Your card reads your Mars.
The Moon · what you need

Why do they feel like home one day and a stranger the next?

That's the Moon: what you need when the door's shut and the day's gone wrong. It changes sign every two and a half days. If their Moon falls in your sign… well.

Your card reads your Moon.
The descendant · who you’re drawn to

Why do you keep falling for the same type?

That's your descendant, the edge of the seventh house: the sign setting in the west at your birth minute. Tradition reads it as the partner you keep noticing. It needs your birth time and place.

Your card reads your rising sign and your descendant.