Earth & Sky Medicine Pilot Program

Balance & Harmony throughout the Astrological Year

Integrating Natural Medicine & Energy Psychology

 

Gemini Air Moon - ready for a huge download of information?

Gemini is unquestionably ruled by Mercury and most astrologers would agree this third house territory is about the communication, thinking and the mind.

The question, however, is which mind?

How many minds or intelligences do we have and by whose measure? TCM / Traditional Chinese Medicine would say five and clearly place the Heart as the Emperor. Many recognize the concept of HeartMind from Eastern religions such as Buddhism. This ancient system, interestingly enough, correlates Mars with the Heart and Mercury with the Kidneys.

The Mind - a Beautiful Servant but a Dangerous Master

Gemini likes an open and inquiring mind - let us look at what a modern Eastern mystic had to say in "The Mind: a beautiful servant, a dangerous master": 

“If you move on any path – any methodology – and it brings joy to you, more sensitivity, more watchfulness, and gives a feeling of immense well-being, this is the only criterion that you are going on the right path. If you become more miserable, more angry, more of an egoist, more greedy, more lustful, those are the indications you are moving on a wrong path.” -- Osho, Acharya Rajneesh

Where are we going with this? In mercurial fashion, let us take inspiration to deviate from the TCM path - absolutely NOT calling it wrong - but not either going with Mars as Emperor of the Heart. Mars makes a better General. Thereafter, we might note that the list of qualities indicating the wrong path could sort under Mars' shadow. And the indications of right path sound something like Venus!

What lies between the complexity of five organ intelligences and the duality of right-wrong thinking - all of this already a stretch for those who thought the mind simply resided in the brain? What might a methodology using the sacred trinity, triangle, triad look like?

Three Minds: Positive - Negative - Neutral Mind?

Looking again to the East, here is input from the founder of Kundalini yoga, Yogi Bhajan:

“You have three minds: positive, negative and neutral. Negative Mind is the first mind; it gives you life, the right to life. It tells you where the danger is, therefore it has to act first. Then you must reach the right mind (the Positive Mind), and it must tell you what is good for you. But it won't tell you because the subconscious will start supporting the Negative Mind! The subconscious will say: "Hey idiot, these people betrayed you before, they have come to betray you today." Then your Neutral Mind has no place. If the Negative Mind gives you what is negative and the Positive Mind gives you what is positive, the neutral mind will give you what you should do. That has to become a habit. That has to be created as a discipline.”

Head - Heart - Hara:  The Intelligence of Mercury - Venus - Mars

This model of three minds fits well with the growing scientific acknowledgement of the gut as the enteric brain and heart as a cardiac brain in addition to the head containing the cranial brain. Note the neat fit with the three energy centers of Taoist philosophy found in the head, heart and hara (Japanese for gut) also called the Upper Tan Tien, Middle Tan Tien and Lower Tan Tien.

Hara / Gut - Mars - COURAGE

I  postulate that Mars is correlated with the Negative Mind and with its seat in the gut. The new modality of mBraining* states:

"...the prime functions of the gut brain are to physiologically maintain your sense of core identity (physically govern what is 'you' versus 'not you'"), keep you safe from harm or danger, and mobilize you into action or immobilize you as needed (fight, flight, or freeze). Subsequently, the gut brain's highest expression of its innate intelligence can be called gutsy courage."

Prime functions are of the gut brain are mobilization, self-preservation and core identity.

Heart - Venus - COMPASSION

The Positive Mind is easy to identify as Venus residing in the heart. Again citing mBraining:

"The heart is the seat of love and desires, goals, dreams and values.  When you are connected to something, you feel it and value it in your heart."

Prime functions of the heart brain are emoting, relational affect and values.

Head - Mercury - CREATIVITY

Finally, the Neutral Mind will be Mercury with seat in the head. Final input from mBraining:

"...prime functions of the head brain are obvious, they involve the mental cognitive functions of logical thinking and include the processing of reasoning, perception and how we make meaning. Thought processes involve mental imagery, language expression, abstraction and symbol manipulation. The main job of the head is to intellectually make sense of the world and to provide executive control."

Prime functions of the head brain are cognitive perception, thinking and making meaning.

Choose the Right Mind for the Right Job?

There is much more to say about this than can be covered in this intro post today. Ultimately, we want to listen to all three minds and have them well aligned and integrated. The primary directional flow, for example, of the vagus nerve from the gut and heart up to the brain points to the head brain's role creatively thinking through the feeling input from below.

Let's close with a quote from a Westerner, the father of modern pyscho-analysis:

“When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.” -- Sigmund Freud

We will save the Taoist energy exercise for the upcoming Cancer Moon. For today, we stay in the Head brain, just thinking about all these dots that we do not need to connect yet!

E X E R C I S E: Awareness of Neuro-linguistic Language

Inspired by the following examples, jot down other lines that 'leap to mind' using clear head, heart or gut language. Above all, grow your awareness of when you are using such language in daily life and see if that brain is well aligned and serving you.

 

• We had a heart to heart talk
• She lost heart
• My heart goes out to you
• I'm holding you close in my heart
• Put your heart at rest
• I am hungry for success
• It was a gutsy move
• Deep in my guts, it felt right
• It took a lot of guts to do that
• She has a voracious appetite for life
• Try to wrap your head around it
• Learning has given him a head start in life
• Just use your head
• They put their heads together to solve the problem

May your Mercury listen well to your Venus and Mars under this Gemini Moon,

Laura

*mBraining with mBIT (multiple brain integration technologies) is the name given to a new modality developed by Grant Soosalu and Marvin Oka integrating the three brains I have detailed above.  The little 'm' in mBraining stands for multiple, leaving open the possibility we may discover yet more neural brains in the body!