COMMUNICATION TOOLKIT: PING PONG!
If you want to learn the art of communicating in true Gemini style*—here is a prime instrument for your toolkit.
You can apply it to communicate about any subject or theme that strikes your fancy.
These are the (common) ground guidelines to keep in mind:
Mindset: Gemini is by nature neutral and without agenda. Ideally, your mindset should reflect this. Any assumptions about the goal of the communication, or any attachment to a particular outcome, already kills the process before it has even begun. Embrace the wisdom of not knowing (everything else is hubris, anyhow). Before the exchange, “zero yourself out”—set your gears to neutral. The only agenda in a Gemini-style communication is to find out—through the process itself—what the message is for you in this particular context or situation. (Not for the other person—they have to find that out for themselves.)
In line with point 1): You're coming from the wrong premise if you're trying to convince the other that you’re “right” (and they’re “wrong”). There is no right or wrong in the Gemini world—only an exchange of information meant to create shared understanding.
You open the ping-pong with a neutral “I” statement. That’s the first ping. Two to three sentences—no more. Then you pass the ball to the other. (Or vice versa, depending on who initiated the exchange.)
Now the other can respond with their pong. The art here is for both players not to hold the ball—but to return it with a sentence or two.
Thus, the ball of communication is played lightly and quickly back and forth.
Important hints: No long monologues. No ranting. No “you” messages. No blaming or shaming.
Speaking of: the fewer emotionally charged words you use, the less likely you are to fire up the other person. Gemini belongs to the air element, so the idea is to stay as “airy” as possible. Fire, astrologically speaking, is always opposite air.** In the Gemini context, we want to train our communication skills—not our inner drama queen or prince. That’s why we’ve sent the fire element outdoors to compete in a sports event, while we work on refining our inner dialogue tools.
No competition. No one “wins.” Air seeks equality; fire competes.
The more you ping-pong the ball of communication back and forth in this way, the more the actual message for each of you will begin to emerge—on the wings of the words.
And: the more clearly each of you receives your message, the more a shared ground will naturally emerge in the process. That’s the real win-win for community.
PS: If you take a closer look at the Gemini symbol, you might imagine the double parallelograms (above and below, left and right) as the lines the ping-pong ball bounces between: ping-left, pong-right, ping-up, pong-down—and so on.