Ten of Swords/Page of Cups. Today, it may seem to me that my brain has given up and shut down, or a crisis (or several crises) may appear that will leave me without apparent answers or solutions. But that Page of Cups, standing on the steady rock while surrounded by the spray of waves breaking around him as he steadily holds his cup, brings me a message that carries all the good emotions that will counteract the dry heat of too much intellect that is blinded to the answers. I am being told that no matter how dark it gets before the dawn, I need to remember that soon enough, light will return. I will be able to sense the returning light not by watching for it, but by feeling for it.

My Thoth card for today is . . . drum roll . . . a Cups card!! The Ace of Cups, which in many ways corresponds with that Page of Cups from the Welsh Tarot, tells of the power of the Holy Grail and the sustenance of pure, unconditional love. All I need is love.

My horoscopes: “Your freedom is more important to you than anything else in your life. It is often very difficult for you to get involved, whether personally or professionally. Nevertheless, dear Sagittarius, today you may have to think about it. Could it be that your thirst for freedom is just an escape? You may feel it necessary to think about this question. Who knows? You may just decide to take the leap!”

And: “You may feel as if your battery has run out of juice today, Nancy. You may be asking yourself if what you are doing is really worth it. Don't despair. A car will be along soon that can help give you a jump. Once you get your engine started again, there will be no stopping you. Don't be afraid to go out in the middle of the road and flag someone down. No one will know that you need help unless you ask for it.”

Another day of attempting to be adaptable and positive despite whatever minor plan changes happen. Things may not go as planned today, at least according to my cards and my horoscopes, but I sense that if I keep in contact with the energy within me that I have strengthened and purified of late, I will end up with a smile on my face.

I did my first meditation with the Fire Bird last night. I have been told that the Fire Bird is a part of an old Slavic myth, and given tidbits of information and some names and pictures by a student of Sacred Mists, Maeve, and instructed to find the Fire Bird. I did look at a few of the pictures, but decided to wait until my first attempt before looking at them all. Here is what happened in my meditation.

I began by bringing myself to darkness, to no sensations at all, and then began to wait and watch. Soon enough, there below me, was a light. I moved towards the light, and found an opening in the dark, as if I was looking at a black wall and someone had broken a hole into the wall, a hole with rough edges and a little over a yard in diameter. Through that hole I could see golden light, light that hurt my eyes because it was so bright after the sensory deprivation of the darkness.

But I did not let that discomfort stop me; I crawled right through that hole, into the warm and bright light. LOL, looking back on it now, it was almost like being born, going from the quiet darkness into the much brighter sensory overload of another world. Once through, I stood up and looked around.

I was standing in what seemed to be an endless field of tall grass. Each stalk of grass was over waist high, topped with a small tassel of seeds, and was that golden yellow-brown of late summer. The sky was the bright blue-white of an August noon, but I could not see the sun anywhere, just feel and see its intense light. I could hear crickets everywhere, chirping and humming a steady, diligent chorus. Every so often there were patches of small light purple flowers, five or six star-like blooms growing on stalks that were the same height as the grass, so the flowers seemed to be floating amid the sea of gold that was this meadow.

Okay, not the place that I would have expected to contact the Fire Bird, but I won’t let that stop me. I flattened a circle around me so that I could see, and began to visualize the picture of Vasilissa and proceeded to introduce myself to her and tell her that Maeve sent me to her with the hope that she would help me to meet the Fire Bird. To my joy, she immediately smiled sweetly and then turned and pointed.

Up in the bright sky I saw a speck that tuned out to be a bird, soaring on the updrafts. The bird had the broad wings with finger-like primaries at the tips, like my totem animal, turkey vulture, but her tail was longer, more like the blue and gold macaw that I lived with for over a decade. She circled, a dark shape against the bright sky, eve lower, until she landed at my feet.

She was smaller than I expected, larger than a bald eagle, but not beyond the realm of possibility as far as existing in the physical realms. She was an orangy red color, more orange than red, with a touch of brown. Her eyes were red, with a black pupil that dilated as she examined me carefully for long moments. Then, she looked around and then moved toward the edge of the area that I had flattened, and she bit off two long strands of the golden grass. She then moved toward me. I crouched down so that I was at eye level with her, unsure of what was expected of me. She stopped when she got close to me, and looked at me expectantly, so I put out my right hand; she promptly dropped the two strands of grass into my palm, and then suddenly crouched and then sprang upward with a flap of wings.

She moved a bit away, and then turned and hovered, again watching me expectantly. Okay, I was game; I began to move toward her, pushing through the surprisingly tough grasses. She let out one loud, strident call and then flew further and a little to the right, and then hovered until I caught up with her, when she moved on once more. We zig-zagged forward, and I became hotter and more sweaty and more tired. Just as I was ready to give up and sink down into the grass, I broke through, stumbling forward.

I ended up in a place that I had been to before during a meditation, many years ago, when I first connected with turkey vulture and used to fly with him. I was on a beach that stretched out forever, with cliffs behind me. There were rough pillars of rock here and there in the almost glass-like still waters before me. All was quiet and nearly motionless, no wind, only the tiniest of lapping waves, and nothing else alive appeared at all. What made the scene so alien and strange was that the sky was a lilac color, dark along the horizon and lighter at the zenith, and there were two moons, one a little lower and a little smaller than the other, riding low in the sky. I stood there, looking around, waiting to see what was going to happen, but all was quiet and empty. The Fire Bird had disappeared. Just as I realized that I was still clutching those two strands of grass, the meditation faded.

One surprising thing and food for thought today: the blue bird that Uriel had placed into my mind was not surprised to see the Fire Bird.

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