He compares this to higher states of consciousness and peak experiences where people have a kind of ‘spiritual awakening’ and experience a more vivid and expanded perception of reality, which they often describe as being more ‘real’. Often these higher states of consciousness, or awareness, last for a few days or possibly even months before the individual eventually returns to a more mundane level of consciousness. In rare cases it becomes a permanent state of being, in which case the individual is then said to be ‘awake’ or ‘enlightened’.
So now let’s look at this journey from lower mind, to spiritual awakening. In Astrology there are three planets which are specifically associated with our mind, and the workings of our mind. These are Mercury, Saturn and Uranus. For simplicity, we’ll use the analogy of ‘lower mind’ and ‘higher mind’. It isn’t really like that because that would be an either/or, black/white polarity and when we really ‘awaken’ into higher consciousness we are beyond such duality, but before it gets too confusing, let’s stick to our simple metaphor of lower and higher mind!
We can think of Mercury and Saturn as both being associated with lower mind. According to Soul Astrologer
Alan Oken, Saturn rules the structure of mind (your ability to think methodically, plan and organise your thoughts, your brain wiring, and how Saturn plays a role in building your belief system), while Mercury rules the movement of mind (the thoughts themselves and the repeating cycles and patterns of those thoughts). He uses the analogy of a bee hive where Saturn is the structure (the structure of the hive and the honeycombs) and Mercury is the movement of the bees themselves going about their daily business!
Saturn rules our established brain wiring, the neural networks through which our thoughts are created and experienced, but when it comes to re-wiring our brain (changing our neural networks so something can be experienced differently) then Mercury and Saturn work together. Esoterically Mercury is said to be responsible for creating the antahkarana or rainbow bridge between lower and higher mind. One thing we know about mind is that it is changeable. If it weren’t we could never learn and grow and this changeability, this capacity to learn, comes under Mercury’s domain.
Much of our mind works by association. If you have been watching your mind closely you will see this. On a daily basis we associate certain experiences people, thoughts, feelings and memories, like movies and popcorn or even having sugar and cream in our coffee. In his book "
Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One" Neuroscientist Dr. Joe Dispenza explains how
“nerve cells that fire together, wire together”*. Which means such associations become our brain wiring. It’s like that game where one person says a word and you say the first thing that comes into your mind. The first thought that comes is likely to be one that is currently ‘wired’ to the other word, for example ‘coffee’ and ‘cream’.
On a daily basis we tend to unconsciously follow the habitual patterns of our brain wiring. In the past I have said this is the result of our following the movement of Mercury and the ‘monkey-mind’, but we can also see that Saturn is just as involved here, because Saturn is holding the neural network in place. All that needs to happen for that to change, is for us to stop following our thoughts. Once we no longer energise the neural networks with our thoughts, they actually shrivel up and die, and our thoughts seek out new neural pathways. Mercury will seek out alternative pathways (change and learning) and then Saturn will create neural networks so we can easily remember and take our new path.
Mercury is able to create the Rainbow Bridge from lower to Higher Mind because Mercury can help us to change habit patterns that have us stuck, and allow us to step into new ways of being. However, we also need consciousness otherwise we can simply substitute one habit for another, which keeps us equally stuck. This is where Uranus comes into the picture.
Uranus is the planet of intuition and is associated with Higher Mind. Uranus is associated with electricity, lightening, and flashes of insight. It used to be thought that the our nervous system was one continuos, unbroken, network like a railway track upon which our thoughts run like trains (a train of thought)! However, modern science and high-powered electron microscopes tell a different story.
Our nervous system is a network of individual nerve cells that appear to be connected but if we look closely there is a gap between each one called a synapse. As thoughts pass through our nervous system, they actually leap across this synaptic gap in the form of an
electrical charge. If you could see your brain at microscopic level while you are thinking, it looks like a lightening storm*. So
if the gap between our thoughts is electrical in nature (like lightening), then it comes under the rulership of Mr. Uranus! If Saturn rules the structure of mind (our neural network) and Mercury rules the movement of mind (the thoughts themselves) then Uranus rules the gap between our thoughts, and that is the domain of intuition. It is in the space between our thoughts that we are able to access higher perception and discern a higher reality beyond the normal limitations of our senses and our brain wiring. So what is intuition?
Alan Oken describes intuition as:
“The ability to perceive that quality of energy—the true essence of meaning—within any form of expression”
Mercury governs the bridge between lower and higher mind because our thoughts are a vehicle for our consciousness. When we follow our thoughts, we are actually giving our attention to them. We are allowing our consciousness to follow the thoughts. But it is when an individual thought leaps into the gap that, for the very briefest of moments, we have an opportunity to drop the thought, get off the train, release the vehicle, and experience pure perception: pure consciousness itself, uncontaminated by thoughts, ideas and concepts.
It is in that moment that we can ‘wake up’ and directly perceive our true nature as spiritual beings.“There may come to you an awakening of the intuition which will translate modern astrology into something of real moment and significance to the world”
