When an idea has been thoroughly examined, and its dignities and disasters differentiated from each other, we will discover it again along side its opposite, only now it is re-situated within a higher order unity. Thus is the collaboration of pairs of opposites, where once, as rivals, one side denied the virtues of its counterpart, it now attests to the necessity of the other and depends on it for the improvement of its own position. As written in the Kybalion, “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”
Gemini is fascinated with all things mental, intellectual and logical. I would go so far as to say Gemini is the sense maker of the Zodiac. Ruled by mercury, the messenger of the Gods, Gemini is the archetype that, in its flexibility and mutability, is able to reach across different domains of specialized skills and knowledge with proficiency. In its fluidity it can enter new unfamiliar fields, finding commonality with insights from other domains. It is the great synthesizer, bridging thesis and antithesis in a higher order harmony.
With mercury being related to thought and logic, why then would I be suggesting here that it is a technology of intuition?
The Gemini symbol, being composed of twins, shows a duplicity or the presence of a mirror reflection. It has within in it an alternate and opposite perspective next to which it can achieve objective awareness. In the mystery tradition Gemini is assigned to the faculty of consciousness called “the disposing intelligence” or “the discriminating intelligence”. It is that capacity of consciousness that can discriminate this from that, identifying the differences between things. This discerning ability provides an objectivity that through analysis can bring clarity.
To sort out contrasting qualities is the basis of intelligence. Imagine if you could not tell the difference between a straight line and a curve, or the color red from the color blue, or a table from a chair, or yourself from other people, inside from outside, subjectivity from objectivity. The world be a so different a place, we could hardly navigate it. The discrimination of patterns through the sorting out of differences is so fundamental to our consciousness that we often take it for granted. One of the very first distinctions the life power ever made was in the form of a single celled organism swimming through the primordial sea. Using photo sensitive chemicals it was able to differentiate light from darkness and learned to go toward or away from it, to find its “Goldilocks zone” of opportunity.
Millions of years later we are differentiating qualities of a much higher level of complexity. We’re distinguishing thousands of high, mid and low notes in aromatics making an art-form out of concocting perfumes and craft cuisines, we’ve named hundreds of the millions of colors we can see, and we sense a plethora of variations across vast spectrums of qualities in every domain of human experience. From our favorite foods, to the sense of style we prefer, and even the subtle personality traits of the people we choose to date and be friends with, the disposing intelligence is a part of every aspect of our decision making and sense making, and as we will see, our intuition as well.
The capacity to sense subtle variation, according to the mystery teachings, is assigned to the Hebrew letter Zain, meaning sword. It is a sword because it cuts one thing from another sorting out, and dividing off qualities from each other. For light to be different from darkness they must be cut apart. For anything to exist then, there must be separation. This archetype teaches us that Creation itself is a process of division where definite qualities come into being because they are sorted out from the total potentiality of undifferentiated existence.
Paradoxically, the tarot key used to describe Gemini, the sword and the disposing intelligence is Key 6, the Lovers. It is an interesting inquiry to consider how it is that a weapon of war should be used to describe the lovers, is it not? In this key we are shown a profound principal of consciousness that describes how we might achieve the harmony of opposites. It hints to us that the fundamental distinctions that make up polarities, including maleness and femaleness are in fact two parts of one greater whole.
One of the primary distinctions we find within our own consciousness is in the contrast between the conscious and subconscious minds. One aspect functions automatically, running the body and all its myriad complex processes including the storing and maintenance of memory, belief and values, which together make up the interpretive faculty. The other, the conscious mind and its felt sense of “I” is responsible for aiming attention to take in sensory data. These two aspects of our consciousness are in a sense differentiated, although it might not be clear where one ends and the other begins, they each have their domain and specializations. Attention is pointed to receive information, which subconsciousness receives and processes, generating the meaning it has to us.
This collaboration of functions is similar in our intellect and intuition. We consider these faculties quite different from each other, although they are never really functioning in isolation. The intellect peruses intuitive hunches to innovate and invent, while intuitions are examined for their accuracy and utility by analysis. Each polar opposite in consciousness supports and enhances its compliment. They depend on each other for either of them to function properly. Unfortunately however, in some cases these faculties of consciousness, the conscious mind and unconscious mind, intellect and intuition don’t co-exist in harmony. Instead, like bickering spouses or rivals, they can be at odds with each other competing for dominance. When this happens errors in both intuition and sense making are inevitable. Taken to the extreme, the errors each make on their own compound themselves becoming illusions and delusions. Apart from its consort, in the war of ideas, virtues become vices, and dignities become disasters.
For some, intuition is stronger while in others intellect calls the shots, but when both of these aspects are in communion with each other, aligned in their proper function and appreciated for their respective strengths, the whole person functions better. The ability to make fine grain distinctions and the penetrating observations that cut beyond surface appearances can seem like magic or psychism. To detect deception, correct distortions and errors, to identify hidden motivations, moderate extremes and spot the presence of fortuitous opportunities is not in the least bit a result of magical powers or psychism. It is not the result of either intellect or intuition alone. It is the result of good observations and interpretations. It is the result of fine grain distinctions being made and correctly interpreted as a result of a deep harmony and alignment of the conscious and the unconscious minds.
All intuitions have a basis in observable phenomenon, although the observations will often escape conscious detection. Micro-muscle movements in the face might tell us how someone actually feels about something we’ve said, though they don’t want us to know it. The use of particular words or the vagueness of speech might reveal the presence of a hidden agenda or emotion. The presentation of certain details and the omission of others might reveal how we are being lead to believe something which is not entirely true. We’ve all seen how the media and politicians use this tactic to promote their agenda and cultivate a favorable appearance – i hope. Even though the life power has been developing the capacity for discrimination over millions of years of evolution, we are still vulnerable to sense-making errors. Its still common for us to out source our thinking to the populace or to the consensus, taking things at face value, without much scrutiny. To our detriment, and the detriment of society as a whole, we often default on collective perceptions, unable to detect or dispose of errors with the swift sword of discernment.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” Mathew 10:34
The ability of the disposing intelligence to sort out truths from false-hood is also the ability to reveal the hidden nature of things. In periods of mankind’s intellectual and ideological breakthroughs, our world-view was updated as the result of deeper, more penetrating observations being made of the natural world that had been, up to that point, over looked. From the profound observations of the Tibetan masters identifying the topography of consciousness in nuanced detail, to Copernicus’s identification of the Sun as center of the local universe, progress on the long road of evolution is won through careful observations of the proper weight and measure of some portion of our inner or outer environment.
To cultivate the capacity for discrimination then, involves the joining of our intuition with our intellect and our subconscious mind with self consciousness. As self conscious awareness increases the granularity of subtle variations it can observe, and subconsciousness becomes better able to translate those observations, serving them up again to conscious awareness with accuracy, we increase our overall comprehension. Then, the errors that in the past produced our unresourceful responses to life are corrected in the light of a new clarity. When we harmonize and integrate these two dimensions of our being we expand our consciousness, empowering ourselves to make more accurate interpretations of our inner and outer world. Illusions are dispelled, mass-mind errors are overcome, and the fundamental error of separation, which holds us in bondage to appearances is undone. The dualisms which once where a source of discord now become polar pairs in a glorious dance of unity. Like lovers enraptured in mutual embrace, what was cut apart is One again.
With this full moon in Gemini our mercurial power is activated, enabling us to potentially up level our sense making and intuition. With our intuition conjoined with our reasoning capabilities, like the inner masculine and inner feminine parts of our nature aligned in deep rapport and love, our capacity for right observation and right interpretation are radically enhanced. Tonight then we will participate in a meditation aimed at helping to bring about a conscious communion between these two aspects of our being. I hope you join us for Meditations Beyond the Zodiac as we explore The Technology of Intuition.
