Perhaps Gemini ascendant is the luckiest of the lot. If you were born with Gemini rising, you have slightly lesser problems and set-backs in life. Your life is generally average, not much ups and downs. But if your ascendant lord, Mercury, is in an auspicious Budh-Aditya yog or influenced by powerful planets etc you can have a happening life with power and the ability to exercise it. Mercury owns your 1^st and 4^th houses so check if the kendra-adhi-pati combination applies to you. If so you have to be more careful in life, cultivate confidence and command. Mercury is an impressionable planet, able to adapt himself to any situation. He has skills, logic, intelligence and his primary focus is first survival and then coming first in everything he does. Gemini is a dual-natured, airy, intellectual sign, its Gun is Tama, its Gan/group is human/ Manushya. (I have written about the Gemini-Sagittarius axis in depth do go through those three posts.)

Gemini rising gives you an attractive personality, you stand out in a group. You are considered to be beautiful by the norms of your culture. You have a touch of shyness in your demeanour which makes you even more attractive. You are intelligent and this is reflected in your behaviour, you have pleasing manners and are good company. Interact and exchange are your watchwords.

You are quite skilled at small talk, business talk and in fact all sorts of talk, persuasive, communicative. You are ambitious and bursting with ideas, quite imaginative. You can negotiate or romance with your words, charming, a good sense of humour, fun to be with. You can be a good diplomat or a good host, tactful. You know what to speak and to whom, the master of conversation. You do not speak much, ie you are not a chatterbox but when you speak, others listen. You can influence people with your words, inspire them to achieve heights. You can be a good motivational speaker. (If there are some malefic influences you will go to the other extreme of sarcasm, biting wit and hurt with your words.)

You like travelling, you do travel a lot and have extensive knowledge about humans, habits and cultures. You can be a good tour guide or a history teacher! You like social life and alone cut off from your fellow humans makes you unhappy. In social gatherings you are often the one mingling around, you know everyone and everyone knows you. You like people, interacting with people, analysing people, observing people is your hobby. You can meet and make contacts with strangers very fast. Your special skill is to divine others thoughts and predict their actions. A keen observer of human nature and highly intuitive, you can understand people’s thoughts. And then you influence them with your words. Your style of speech can be very emotional and intense. You know which buttons to push. Thus you can push people in the direction you want them to move in. You have a knack of maintaining relations with important persons who can be of advantage to you. Your social group is very large but you are not deeply attached to individuals.  If you feel that a friendship or relationship has run its course you can easily cut ties without a second thought.

Your typical friends are the bold, outgoing, innovative and interesting types. You will get help from your peers and seniors in life. But do guard against cheats and fake people who can enter your friend circle and cause you problems. You are generally open, unsuspicious and sympathetic so dubious characters can take advantage of you. Your ‘friends’ can also become enemies, so beware about trusting them too much.

You have an aptitude for the stage, you can act. And if you sing, you have a good voice. But in a way you are always ‘acting’. Not much on the stage, you act in real life, you are always performing. You can modulate your personality depending on whom you are interacting with, you generally hide your emotions and your true opinions you always conceal. You do not display strong emotions, you do not strongly support any cause in public, mostly ambivalent to the situation, you take it as it happens. You may have your strong personal opinions but you do not let them come in between you and your business.

You are creative and can be a good writer or poet. You use this medium to express your hidden personal emotions and opinions. And because you are the master of communication you can sway others with your written world also. Gemini is a dual sign represented by two human figures. Thus you too have a dual personality, moody at times, you change your behaviour depending on the situation and your mood. Adaptable. so Generally you are more focussed on the broader society rather than your selfish interests. Your like thinking about higher philosophical things even if you are outwardly in material stuff. (But this can go the other extreme way if malefic planetary combinations exist, then you will be very selfish in your actions and highly self-focussed mentally.)

You like spending time with the opposite sex, girlfriends/ boyfriends are possible before marriage. You marry well, the spouse is generally good-natured and the marriage. After marriage, you can make a good spouse as you have an active interest in domestic life and in the children. But generally family relationships are not always very stable. You travel a lot and are interested in humanity as a whole, so a family to you seems to be a very small group and you can lose interest in it very soon. Your involvement in the family life is rather irregular and relationships may not be very deep. This behaviour can lead to a deep sadness in life as warmth in relationships is reduced. This is also related to a mental or intellectual incompatibility with the marriage partner. Both of you think differently. You or your spouse can go through one major illness after marriage which can affect physical intimacy. But overall the married life is generally satisfactory as both you and your spouse are broad-minded, gentle and overall hopeful about the institution of marriage as such.

 Your health is generally average. You might suffer from some typical life-long chronic diseases. Nervous or skin related diseases and minor surgeries are possible in life. Some of your aliments will be more of the psychological planes. You always try to keep an overall cheerful personality, so possibly repress your negative emotions, do not give them a healthy outlet. Also you cannot relax easily as your mind is always active. You need to come up with some solution which can silence the mind, only then you will be able to relax thus recover from your illesses. (Soham mantra is a good option as the mind cannot concentrate on two things at once!)

You are analytical, logical, very practical, trade and business can be your expertise. Quite powerful, courageous and ambitious, you can achieve professional heights. You have to earn money by your own hard work and sincere efforts. Initially you may be in service in some routine job, but this does not suit your mindset. You need some profession where you can be personally active, going about and actually doing stuff. You might change jobs from time to time.  Some professions suited to your personality are journalism, architecture, engineering, software, TV, medicine, education, law etc. Any field where public relations are important is yours, as you are characterised by harmony and helpfulness. You can work in groups also as you easily get along with your teammates. You like money and tangible wealth and you earn well in your chosen field. You may also have secret sources of income. But take care and invest your money properly, as maintaining the bank balance can be an issue.

Gemini ascendants have some aptitude for the occult. How this actually develops will depend on the other combinations in the horoscope. There is considerable potential for spiritual progress too. (planets placed in the 9^th house will give more pointers). You have a religious bent of mind and follow conventional philosophies and morals. You like getting involved in charitable causes. You are already a student of humanity. When you observe people, you also cryptically infer why they are like that or why typical things are happening to them. You analyse and infer. This sensitivity of the perceptions is a valuable tool enabling spiritual progress. You have the rare knack of leaping to correct inferences even without insufficient data. In a way you are sensitive to ‘other/inner’ cues and pick up hints which others cannot. If your 9^th house planets push you towards the inner spiritual you can progress quite fast. Intelligence ie mental ability is a requirement of the student of the occult/ spiritual/ esoteric.

Your most significant drawback is that you are impatient. You cannot sustain interest in one thing for long and are not persistent in your efforts. This denies you your true successes in life. There is a lot of restless energy in you which demands release, so you engage yourself in so many activities that focussing on one of them, pursuing one with full focus is a challenge. You are unpredictable because of your dual nature, you can change course mid-stream and be  happy about it. This can come across as being fickle-minded, as you become indecisive and change your mind frequently. You are light-hearted and do not fully appreciate your responsibilities in life. This does not mean that you will ignore your commitments but just that you do not appreciate their seriousness. You can get argumentative at times and generally these arguments are about small juvenile issues. One thing you must guard against is trusting anyone beyond limits, you are a gentle soul at heart and this can be used against you.

So overall Gemini is a good and easy-going ascendant to have, a bit of everything, from the material to a possibility of the spiritual. This sign of duality in the 1st house grants you choices and also the boldness to choose. So make the most of it.