Nine of Swords/The Star reversed. Worry, worry, worry, all magnified beyond what it should be because I cannot or will not see the light at the end of the tunnel. All of life is a gift, both the good times and the bad times, and I need to remind myself that brooding and worrying are wasting and using up the gift in ways that are totally useless.

My Thoth card for today is the Nine of Cups. “Happiness”! I need some of that. This card tells me that much of its energies seem to depend upon luck. However, when I take into consideration the other two cards of my day, I am being given a message that sometimes I need to make my own luck!

I spoke to Jim Priest on the phone last night. Jim is the brother of Ellen, an artist who we know from Cape May, and Jim has written a trilogy of books about magickal creatures he calls Kirins. I spoke to Jim in order to encourage him to advertise the books within the Pagan community. I think the time is right for his trilogy in several respects: he is offering the first book free as a download/podcast, he is able to advertise without cost on such venues as FaceBook and YouTube, and stories about magickal entities who exist in secret alongside human beings in the modern world are very popular right now. It will be interesting to see how things work out for Jim.

I am still feeling as if something big is just beyond the horizon; however this time the feeling is different from any other time in the past. I feel as if the “horizon” is within me this time, and I feel that I should not be sitting back waiting for the event to come closer on its own, but instead should be actively looking for it in the vast worlds within me. I sense that there are upheavals approaching that are a part of this “something big,” and I sense that they will not all be pleasant and exciting in nature. But *I* need to make this happen, I need to choose to make whatever this is happen.

In this regard, I felt the need to perform an elemental meditation, and chose to do so by recreating some of the meditations and pathworking that I performed while I was taking the Progressive Magick Class with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone. I decided to begin the meditation as I was taught in the Class, by walking along a path that led up a mountain. The first entity that appeared to me was my Earth Guide, standing between two torches; as always, he led me down and to the right, away from the path and toward the small clearing in which was the standing stone. I walked slowly around the stone, examining the carvings there: a clockwise spiral, an equal sided cross within a circle, an octahedron, and a palm print, right hand. I placed my right palm against the print, and for a moment a deep awareness of Earth filled me.

Then, I smiled and thanked my Guide, and went back to the path. Soon enough, I came to my Water Guide, standing between two torches. I sipped from her Cauldron, and instantly dropped down into the rapids from my past pathworkings. I floated along in the cool, refreshing and rapidly moving water, with the night sky, filled with the twinkling of stars, framed by the trees on the bank. I came to the small clearing, lit with torches, where people dressed in late 1800’s attire were playing croquet; there on the bank was my ancestress, waving to me as I floated by and reminding me of the hereditary power within me that I have passed on to my son. Eventually, the land flattened out and the river slowed; I came to the place where the path led away from the river and into the hills. I could feel the cool earth against my wet feet as I walked toward the waterfall. Once I arrived, I stood beneath the gentle flow of water, washing myself clean. Once I was cleansed and refreshed and renewed, I found the left hand print on the rock wall and pressed my left hand into it; instantly I was filled with a deep awareness of Water.

I moved on, following the path until I came to my Fire Guide, standing between two torches. She smiled as I approached her, and then she took my hand and led me off the path to a huge bonfire, burning in a clearing. She nodded and then we both stepped into the flames. I felt no burning or intense heat, but rather little pinches and places of warmth, and something that was almost like tickles against my skin. After a bit, I stepped out of the flames, and found myself transformed. This was not the usual, intense transformation of shedding my physical body that had come to me in the past; rather, my clothes had been burned from my body, my hair, every last strand, had been burned from my body, and the top layer of skin had been burned from my body. I was naked and pink and new, the top layers of what I was had been removed to uncover the “inner me” as I stepped out of my awareness and connection with Fire.

I moved on, following the path to the top of the hill; there stood my Air Guide, hooded and robed, holding a large golden sword with rubies imbedded in the ornate hilt. He beckoned me forward, and I stood at the summit of the mountain and looked outward. The sky was the blue of a clear Fall day, but I could not see the sun. I could feel its warmth on my fresh, new and sensitive skin, though, and I could feel the clear and crisp air as it filled my lungs and caressed my skin. I shut my eyes in order to take a deep breath and instantly my ears were filled with the sound of Tibetan monks chanting “Oooohhhhmmmm.” I opened my eyes, startled, and the sound disappeared, but when I closed my eyes I could hear it again, the intensity of the combined voices causing a vibration deep within me. I connected to the pure spirituality of the sound and was filled with a deep awareness of Air.

When I opened my eyes once again, my vision was filled with the bright yellow light of the Sun. I allowed myself to see with my physical eyes at the same time that I “saw” with my other senses. The “blue bird of happiness” (LOL) asleep in the back of my mind, placed there by Archangel Uriel, awoke and stretched, and flapped his wings, covered with rapidly emerging feathers, and cried out with joy.

I finished the meditation with an awareness of the elements that seemed to be different from other meditations. This time, not only was I feeling the different effects of the elements themselves, but I was also beginning to sense a bridge of sorts between the worlds of the astral planes and the vast universes of my mind, and the realms of the physical.

I feel like I am checking my supplies before going on a camping trip, or studying before a final exam. Am I prepared?