Justice/Page of Pentacles reversed. Justice corresponds with Air (hot/separates and wet/adapts), Libra (“We are,” balance, cooperation), Lamed (the ox goad, training and teaching), and the Path between Tiphareth (the hub of the creation process which harmonizes and focuses in order to illuminate and clarify) and Geburah (forms and structures are challenged or affirmed). In an upright position, the Page of Pentacles focuses on getting tangible manifestations or results in the physical world; because the Page is reversed, these focuses may not be appropriate. Today I am to ponder cause and effect and karma, but not necessarily in relation to my physical world or my career.

My Thoth card is the Nine of Disks reversed. The “Gain” card, and in an upright position, it tells of rubbing ones hands together with satisfaction at what has been accomplished. Enjoying evidence of the fruit of ones labors is one thing, but there is danger of stagnation. Because the card is reversed, the danger may not be too great because the satisfaction is not too great, but the card is there.

My Legacy card is The Magician reversed, flavored by The Lovers. In an upright position, The Magician also corresponds with Air, as well as Mercury (reason, education, skill), Beth (the house, builder), and the Path between Binah (female receptive energy, the origin of form and structure) and Kether (the source, limitless possibility). He usually tells of a strong and useful connection both to the Divine and to the physical realms, and having strong skills for integrating Divine energy with the effects of the physical world in order to achieve goals. Because this Magician is reversed, I am being told that today will be about attempting to understand not the physical realms but the hidden information which can only be obtained and understood through having to work very hard to both obtain and understand, on my own. The Lovers is also an Air card, also corresponding with Gemini (“I think,” duality, social, intelligent), Zayin (the two edged sword, personal choices), and the Path between Tiphareth and Binah; both of those paths have been mentioned already within my other Major Arcana cards, Tiphareth in Justice and Binah in The Magician reversed. I am being reminded that choices come with responsibility, and I need to be aware of my choices, and infuse them with love.

My Pearls of Wisdom Lammas card is the Ten of Swords. Disastrous consequences lead to mental anguish and grief; this will pass though, unless I allow despair to override my natural tendency to move forward. Eeep! Not very optimistic.

My 6-digit date number is 11, Archangel Uriel (again!), which reduces to the number 2, the number of balance and distance.

My horoscopes: “Much has happened recently, Sagittarius. Have you allowed enough time to process it? It's likely that big changes are brewing at home or work. Stay focused on the job at hand rather than fret about events over which you have no control. You may feel as if you're on a roller-coaster ride, but everything will settle down in a few days. Blink to adjust your eyes to the strange new light.”

And: “A roadblock may appear in the form of a sudden impulse to gobble down a pile of salty junk food, blow off big deadlines to play Bejeweled or chase after some hottie who is plainly bad for you. Stamp out those self-destructive urges as soon as you spot them! The biggest obstacle may be just noticing that they exist, rather than mindlessly obeying them. If you can pull it off, the rest is a cakewalk!”

And: “Too many people may be making unjust demands on your time today. Be careful, however, not to get too angry. Your anger won't hurt those making the demands -- only you! Just learn to say no politely but firmly. You have other things on your mind right now -- like a passionate evening alone with your current love interest! Remember: you're not serving anyone by allowing them to take unfair advantage of your good nature.”

What a wild and crazy weekend I have had. First the physical world; wonderful times in Cape May. We spent time at both the beach and the bay, we had Mark and Laura for dinner, and Sunday Greg and I spent hours watching the tide go out and Davey’s Lake empty. Bob and I also bought two rockers for the front porch. All in all, a lovely time was had by everyone!

I had been expecting Archangel Uriel to show up at some point because I was seeing lots of the number 11, and 11:11; when one of my Tarot cards for Friday was The Lovers (and actually it was reversed, which told me that I was missing out on something), I knew the time had come. So as I drove down to Cape May on Friday night, I put on the meditation music that usually brought him around.

I immediately found myself in a canoe, paddling through the Wildwood channels; it was low tide, or at least near the lowest part, and the sun was low in the sky. I paddled quietly as gulls swooped overhead; suddenly I was drawn to turn off of the main channel in order to follow one that was more overgrown.

I took that one to its end, even though I needed to use my paddles as poles; once I could no longer move the canoe while in the channel, I stepped into the sun-warmed shallow water and pulled the canoe to the end of the channel. Small fiddler crabs scattered as I began to walk along the path. The mud was wet and soggy, and at times I waded through ankle deep water, but after a short while the path began to climb and the marsh grass was replaced by trees. After a bit longer, I came to a small clearing; there were logs arranged as seats, and in the center was a smoldering, recently doused fire. I sensed that this was where I needed to be, and so I sat and waited. And waited. And waited. Patiently. I senses that waiting patiently was a part of this test, so I cleared my mind and relaxed.

The sky got dark and the mosquitoes came and went; the waning moon appeared between the trees. Finally, I heard someone coming, and out of the shadows of the other side of the clearing appeared a robed and hooded figure carrying a pack. The figure came and sat next to me, and in the moonlight all I could see was a strong nose and a bit of a beard. Was this Mystery’s Merlin? He reached into his bag, took out a short wand, whispered a few words and pointed at the smoldering wood; I smiled when the sparks flared and then small flames began to lick at what was left of the wood. Soon a small and cozy fire lit the clearing.

Then, my mysterious companion got to work. He reached into his pack and took out a metal cauldron, which he carefully arranged within the small fire so that it was level. Next was a small mortar and pestle, and then came some herbs and berries, which he mashed and ground together and then dumped into the cauldron in the fire. Finally, he withdrew a small canteen and poured a clear liquid into the cauldron, and began to stir everything as it heated.

It did not take long before I could smell the aroma of the mixture; it reminded me of the scent of a meadow under a hot noon sun. Just as steam began to come up out of the cauldron, my companion reached into his pack once more, this time for a wooden bowl, which he dipped into the mixture.

He then turned to me, and for the first time I saw his face clearly under the hood. He had a strong nose, a full beard and mustache which were originally dark but now were mostly grey; he had dark, piercing eyes and bushy grey eyebrows. What facial skin I could see was creased, as if he spent a lot of time outside in extreme weather. He looked straight into my eyes, and held out the bowl to me.

For a moment, I remembered the discomforts associated with the beverages offered to me by hooded figures in the past, but I knew without a doubt that I was not afraid to continue, so I took a steadying breath and accepted the bowl. I took a small sip first, just to make certain that I did not burn my mouth, and once I had determined that the liquid was hot but not too hot, I drank it all.

The hot brew was heavy in my stomach, very heavy, and as my head began to spin and the ground seemed to tilt, a wave of extreme nausea washed over me. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, and I struggled to keep from vomiting as a clammy sweat covered me. Ugh, that was horrible!

Finally the uncomfortable sensations began to fade. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was that my bearded companion had changed. Now it was Archangel Uriel’s face that looked out at me from the hood! His eyes glowed like two suns, and I found that for a long moment I could not look away. A tension (for lack of a better word) seemed to flow into my body from his eyes. After some time, he gave a small nod. And then I looked around.

Everything glowed! The trees and the bushes and the logs and the fire all glowed. At first I thought I was seeing everything through night vision goggles; then everything shifted and it looked as if I was clearly seeing the auras around everything in my surroundings. Then everything shifted again, and it appeared that I was seeing glowing holograms superimposed or laying over the physical objects around me.

This shifting continued as I looked around, almost like looking through a microscope and shifting to a stronger lens. Each time the shift happened, it took a moment or two for my brain to process what I was seeing, but then everything was crystal clear for a short while, until the shift happened again. The holograms stayed as they were for a bit of time, and then that stronger lens was applied, and I could see the sap pulsing through the trees, glowing; I could see the sap rising into the plants, and I could see energy and fertility pulsing in the ground, everything pulsing and flowing and glowing with life and potential. I was just past the Summer Solstice, and everything was still filled with life force!

As I watched the sap pulse in a tree trunk right next to me, the lens shifted again. I could see the particles that made up the sap, the same way that we can see the red corpuscles flowing and pulsing through our blood vessels. Wide streams of particles were flowing in the wider channels and being gradually siphoned off or divided into smaller channels, until the channels were so narrow that the particles could only flow slowly, in single file. What were those particles? They were not blood corpuscles or cells, or any other organic matter. They were zeros and ones!!

Holy computer programming, Batman! Now I know what J of the Pagan Brain Trust sees. I was reminded of the movie, “The Matrix,” and I thought about all that I had learned about the brain’s powerful ability to affect what I perceive as reality.

Then everything shifted again, and my world suddenly went flat, two dimensional, and it appeared that it was being projected onto a bad drive-in movie screen, complete with bumps and ripples. I looked around, trying to find the “projector,” the “source,” but He/She/It was nowhere. Once again, the lens shifted, and I saw that the projection was coming from me!! Every cell of my body was projecting a thin beam of light onto the movie screen, radiating out from my body, and as I moved, all those little movie projections moved, too. Cool!!

Suddenly, though, it was not so cool any more. If I am making the movie, if what I could see was being created within me, does that mean that all the trees and birds and other living entities are made by me? Am I being told that everything I see, smell, hear, taste and feel is a creation of my mind? Am I being **told** anything? Or am I just coming to the realization myself because there is no one to **tell** me but me?

Is everything I have come to believe is true actually a construct of my mind??

Oh, that was a terrible moment, let me tell you. I had worked soooooo hard to find a spiritual path that worked for me, to connect with Deity, to understand my world and my body, and I thought I was making progress, but what if I was actually making it up as I went along? No, that could not be true, could it? Realizations came to me without prompting, and my Gods and Guides spoke to me all the time, in their own voices. Are those the voices of my subconscious, and thus they sound like they are coming from other entities? Am I actually insane? Do my Deities exist?

I felt empty and very disillusioned. I asked for help. Danu did not respond, and I did no sense Her at all, as I usually do as part of the background “hiss” of energy. Cernunnos was also gone; no voice, no presence at all. Ailm was gone, and The General was gone, and quiet Hawk, who stood in the background, was gone, all of them as if they never existed. I felt betrayed; all these years of effort, for something that did not really even exist.

Then, I received help from a surprising source: Kali Ma. I did not see her or sense her, but a voice whispered what I know to be Her message: you cannot carry physical concerns as you evolve; you must surrender them and leave them behind. Okay, I can do this. Okay. I took a deep breath.

So what if all this was fake? So what if no one else will ever experience exactly the same “movie” that is playing around me, and I will never be able to prove to anyone else that everything I know and believe to be true is real? Yeah, so what? I am a witch, and I know from personal experience that I can control and affect my world and my life. Why shouldn’t I make it all exactly as I need it to be? The sacredness of all around me and the sacredness of the cycles that keep everything immortal even as the parts of each cycle are born, live and then die is a necessary ingredient in my life; I **need** all that. I want to continue seeing my life as I am living it as a celebration of the sacred feminine and sacred masculine, of Goddess and God. So what if it only seems real to me? I need this. I want it. I CHOOSE it.

Yes, I choose this. I am going to continue learning about it all and living it all because I choose it. I felt a sudden peace within me.

I opened my eyes, and I was alone in the clearing. Tendrils of fog swirled around, and the fire was totally out; the sky above me was beginning to get light in the east. I had sat there, experiencing all of this, for the entire night. Suddenly, once again, I heard someone approaching. There, from out of the mist, was Cernunnos, Young Cernunnos, the Messenger of the Unexpected. He smiled when my eyes met His, and then he threw his head back and laughed with joy.

“You have chosen!” He said, joy in His tone. “This is important! Yes, you have been chosen by Me and by My Lady, and that is important, too. But in order for this cycle to be complete, YOU MUST CHOOSE, TOO! Do you understand how important this is?” He grinned again.

Ka-thunk. The puzzle piece fell into place. I choose to make my world and everything in it, and my life, infused with sacredness. I choose this willingly, and I open myself to all the effects of this choice. Tears came to my eyes, and I felt once again that background hiss of energy, filled with the presence of the Gods and Guides who I had come to love, as I heard Danu speak.

“And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the mystery: if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold . . . I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.”

I have truly completed this cycle of The Great Work. As an aside, my mind has always known what I discovered today, but my heart has not, at least not until today.

My only question is: how does Merlin relate to Uriel?

Pagan Brain Trust tonight; I can’t wait to hear their reactions to this meditation!

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