Strength/Queen of Cups reversed. Strength is about the ability to not only control the emotions, but to rise up over them as well. And boy, are there emotions in this card, for its astrological correspondence is Leo (who is ambitious, charismatic and competitive). Interestingly enough, the Hebrew letter that corresponds with Strength is Teth (which means “basket” or “sieve” or “ear” and seems to tell of the ability to discern or separate). The Queen of Cups is Water of Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts), and since she is reversed, I am being told that today is a day to be very aware of my emotions and my inner self, so that I can maintain balance. There may be a tendency today for me to have difficulty with the concept of “compromise” due to the emotions-support-emotions nature of this card.

My Thoth card is the Ten of Pentacles reversed. I love Crowley’s thoughts on this card. He feels that when wealth accumulates beyond a certain point, as it does in the number 10 card, which represents the successful completion of a cycle, it either needs to be transformed to a new beginning of some kind or it will smother itself under its own weight. The card is reversed, so I have not yet reached that point, but because the card is there at all, I must be aware of its potential.

My Legacy card is The Sun. Marchetti sees The Sun as telling of a time when light disburses doubt and illuminates the path ahead; the energies of this card indeed represent a period of enlightenment. However, Marchetti also warns us of the dangers of trying to cling to this time of serenity and enthusiasm, for in order to be balanced and healthy, we need a few rainy days mixed in with the sunshine; we need to experience both the day and the night. The Hebrew letter associated with this card is Resh, which means face; like our Sun, which is about awareness of self and connection to Will, Resh tells of the ability to reason, but it also is about sterility, probably because it sees only itself.

As I type this, I realized that the traditional image of Strength contains a lion, and the lion represents the Sun. Interesting card pair! And this could be what drew me to sit and look for a moment at the sun’s progression across the sky, before beginning my usual morning meditation. There is a tree in our front yard that I call the Yule Tree because from where I park my car, the sun only moves past the right side of the tree during the few weeks right before and right after Yule. When I can see the sun shining to the right of my Yule Tree, I know that Yule is almost upon me. LOL, kind of like my very own Stonehenge!

Perhaps my element to focus on today is Fire, and it seems that this time, rather than focusing on the heat and transformative powers of Fire, I am to focus on its light.

Here is a bit of information regarding Fire:

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible material that releases heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water. Fires start when a burnable material is given the right mixture of oxygen and heat; commonly called the fire tetrahedron (in the list of Platonic solids, the tetrahedron represents the element of Fire; the other four correspondences are octahedron/Air, cube/Earth, icosahedron/Spirit, and dodecahedron/Water). Once ignited, a chain reaction takes place that allows fire to sustain its own heat and light, and even to propagate, provided there is a continuous supply of an oxidizer and fuel. There are two basic methods of distributing the required components of combustion to a flame. Diffusion flame: oxygen and fuel diffuse into each other; where they meet the flame occurs. Premixed flame, the oxygen and fuel are premixed beforehand, which results in a different type of flame. Fire can be extinguished by removing any one of the elements of the fire tetrahedron.

A flame (from Latin flamma), is the visible part of a fire, a mixture of reacting gases and solids emitting visible and infrared light. The color of the flame depends on the chemical composition of the burning material and its impurities, and is directly related to the efficiency of the fire, ranging from white, the hottest color possible for organic material in general, or yellow, to orange, which is cooler, then red, which is cooler still; finally the uncombusted carbon particles are visible as black smoke. The glow of a flame is complex and involves a large number of chemical reactions, including black-body radiation and photon emission, whose explanations will have to wait for another day.

The temperature/color correspondences:

Red: Just visible: 525 °C (977 °F); Dull: 700 °C (1,292 °F); Cherry, dull: 800 °C (1,470 °F); Cherry, full: 900 °C (1,650 °F); Cherry, clear: 1,000 °C (1,830 °F)
Orange: Deep: 1,100 °C (2,010 °F); Clear: 1,200 °C (2,190 °F)
White: Whitish: 1,300 °C (2,370 °F); Bright: 1,400 °C (2,550 °F); Dazzling: 1,500 °C (2,730 °F)

NASA has recently found that gravity also plays a role in flame formation and color. Under normal gravity conditions a flame depends on convection, as soot tends to rise to the top of a general flame. In outer space, convection no longer occurs, and the flame becomes spherical, more blue in color, and more efficient, although it may go out if not moved steadily, as the CO2 from combustion does not disperse.

Early humans used fire to generate heat and light for cooking, to stay warm in cold weather, and to keep nocturnal predators at bay. The first technical application of fire may have been the extracting and treating of metals. In its broadest sense, fire is used by nearly every human being on earth in a controlled setting every day. Fire has been used in warfare for as long as humans have had the knowledge to control it and was the basis of all early thermal weapons. Fire is also used as a tool in landscape management, typically through controlled burns or “cool fires” (as opposed to uncontrolled “hot fires” which damage the soil, destroy plants and animals, and endanger communities), conducted in the spring and autumn to clear undergrowth that could trigger a hot fire should it get too dense.

I guess in all fairness, I will need to go back and look at Water. Oh, and one thing I forgot to include in my Watery musings of yesterday is related to the illusion I experienced in the car, and The Horned One. That illusion, of the water not moving and the car moving, directly relates to the energies of The Horned One because often when we are involved in an addiction, we have trouble perceiving the downward spiral in which we are moving; instead we tend to see no problems with ourselves and rather, see the issues as being within those around us. Cool, isn't it? Love those elemental absorption exercises!

I just love my horoscope today: “Scientists are sometimes pretty strange people. They might be so engrossed in reality that they seem almost absent from it. It's as if they floated around above the Earth, and that's a bit how you feel about things, too, dear Sagittarius. You would like to tell yourself about the world in your own special way, the way you see it and not necessarily the way it really is. That's your secret: you know that no one else could tell you about the world the way you do.”

*psssst* I’ve got a seeecreeett!!

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