Temperance/Ten of Swords. Temperance is one Major Arcana card that I have recently connected with, partially because its astrological correspondence is Sagittarius (mutable Fire, “I seek,” philosophic, adventurous, seeking knowledge, scattered, blundering; Samekh: tent-post or foundation, support and control), and partially because Balance has become so important to me of late. Today in particular, I am being told that Balance should be on my mind, for there may be powers beyond my control that will finally have an effect today. There is hope for a silver lining, though, because along with that Balance is an innate ability to analyze the events of the day and learn from them.

My Thoth card is the Eight of Cups. “Indolence” is my card for today, and I think I am being warned of the possibility to become weighted down by everything that is coming at me from all sides. Water always seeks the lowest spot, and if too much accumulates, its own weight will be destructive.

My Legacy card is The Magician reversed. In an upright position, this card tells of having the skills and knowledge necessary to apply wisdom and the ability to use Will to impact the physical world in order to perform magick. The Magician corresponds to Air (hot/separates and wet/adapts) and Mercury (reason, intelligence, education, skill). When I take into consideration the aha! moments I am experiencing, I believe this card in a reversed position tells of the approach of a focus on learning the ways of The Magician. However, I am also being told that I need to remember that all the skills and knowledge and wisdom that comes to me does not originate from within me; I must not loose sight of the real Source of all that I am and all that I am becoming.

I am still getting deeper understanding of the gift of information and instructions that were given to me by Cernunnos on Sunday. Now, I understand what Tara means when she tells of experiencing a “cosmic download,” for unlike most of my aha! moments, which tend to come to me as a blow-your-mind momentary glimpse of the Machinery of the Universe (such as my DNA mindblow of several weeks ago), this one really does feel like a download of an application update, which tends to take a while to install completely. Sometimes, the update requires a restart of the system before the final components can install and run properly. Could this be what I am experiencing now?

Anyway, I was applying Reiki to my sacral chakra as I drove to work as part of my 40-day Reiki Project, thinking about how Cernunnos told me that this was one of the chakras through which I was to understand the cycles of living, when I was suddenly filled with a simple yet profound sense of literally being a part of a cycle. For a moment, I was overcome with emotion! I was reminded of my recent thoughts regarding the importance of a single tiny seed in a large seed pod, and how significant that one tiny seed could be in the bigger picture. I realized that both my body and my life force are a part of the entire macrocosm, a part of what makes it all work.

Like a plant that sprouts, matures, reproduces, and then dies and decomposes in order to feed the next generation, my body is a part of a closed cycle. Everything is renewed and reused, and if my “footprint” is responsible, the cycle will not break down. Life is indeed eternal because the living must die, and death is as important as birth and living.

I am learning more and more about how my emotions and my intentions and my Will affect not only myself and my own experiences in life, but my entire world and everything else that is also alive, right down to that pond scum I mentioned in my DNA aha! moment. Some of these effects are on the quantum level, but hey . . . for the want of a nail!

Humans seem to have civilized themselves into complete isolation from this closed cycle, or at least they are attempting to do so. We give birth in sterile operating theaters, with the actual birth process being treated like a surgery to cure an illness rather than a miraculous and completely natural process for which the female body is well prepared (or should be if the physical body is maintained properly). During my childhood I spent the majority of my spare time outside, touching and playing in (and yes, probably eating!) dirt and germs, getting sunburned and wet from the rain, picking cherries or pears right from the trees and eating them with dirty hands, playing in the snow until the beginning of frostbite set in on my toes, which hurt enough to make me cry as they thawed. Now, children are sterilized and brought to playgroups and tend to experience life through computer games and FaceBook and the text messages of their friends. We reach maturity, and end up spending eight hours or more inside a sealed, climate controlled building, and then drive home in rush hour traffic and struggle to take care of all of our “stuff.” We don’t strive to find food and in doing so, exercise our bodies; instead we “forage” in the aisles of the grocery store, stocked with processed foods filled with unhealthy levels of sugar, salt and chemicals. We get sick, and we go to doctors who are focusing mostly on the physical body, and get pumped full of chemicals in order to dull the symptoms that are shouting at us, warning us of a severe unbalance within the connections of the mind, the emotions, the physical body and the spirit. In fact, those connections are only recently becoming acknowledged as valid by this very community of doctors who are striving to keep us healthy. Then we die, and our physical body is again pumped full of chemicals after most of the body fluids are removed and disposed of, and we are placed in a sealed coffin which is then placed in a cement vault, protecting that empty shell of a physical vehicle from its rightful final resting place: back into the cycle that created and supported it through its life.

What is wrong with this picture? No wonder humans are ending up as psychotic despots desperately trying to rule their individual worlds with iron fists; we are each subconsciously aware of the breakdown that is coming, but none of us want to fix it. Instead, we wall ourselves up into the ivory tower of the blindly entitled, trying in vain to prevent the changes and unstoppable movement that are life and living. Perhaps if we use our Will to force everyone to keep things exactly as they are **now** and impose our version of how things should be onto everyone else, the disaster won’t happen! This reminds me of the picture I saw once of a bus after an accident, hanging precariously out on an overpass over the busy roadway below. I can hear the bus driver yelling in panic: “Nobody move!!!”

This awareness of these cycles is the “gift” of Cernunnos to me. I realized this morning that I am a small link in the giant chain that is this cycle of life. I belong, I have incredible value, just like that tiny seed in the large seed pod; and this realization is empowering and validating. However, the awareness comes with the burden of an awareness of humanity’s effects on these cycles, for in coming to understand the “how” and the “why” of these cycles (both very important to me), I am also seeing how much the cycles are being abused by humanity as we incorrectly assume that we and we alone are made in the image of Deity and have been given our world and everything in it to do with as we please.

LOL, don’t worry; I am not about to become the newest and hippest despot, calling for humanity’s forced return to the primitive life. I do understand that while each of us shares the responsibility of being a balanced consumer who is aware that he or she is not the only consumer out there, I am only responsible for my own choices. Cernunnos has told me that my efforts to understand my own energy field and the Universal Life Force have brought me to the point where I need to learn more about the physical manifestations of life and how they all fit into the workings and maintenance of the cycles of life. I have come to believe already that there is nothing wrong with eating the flesh of animals, with using the fur or other parts of their bodies, with mowing my lawn or eradicating that ant nest under my stove, because living and dying and the survival of the fittest (along with the culling of some in order to maintain other species), and all the individuals striving to survive and reproduce, are all a part of what makes life itself vibrant and immortal. As long as each of us only takes what we need and as long as each of us acts responsibly, keeping in mind that all of life in its myriad of forms has a right to survive just as much as we do, then even eating a good steak can be seen as a sacred act.

Am I putting down the vegans and vegetarians of this world? Not at all. We each define “acting with responsibility” in our own individual way, and my way is not right for everyone. I respect each definition of the term out there, and I respect anyone who strives to be true to themselves and their own ethical standards. One thing this omnivorous Witch has in common with her vegan and vegetarian friends is that we each are choosing to understand the value and sacredness of all life, and we are choosing our actions with awareness of that sacredness.

And the cosmic download continues . . .

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