Three of Cups reversed/The High Priestess. Wwwhhoooa! My significator; today is going to be a powerful day. The Three of Cups in an upright position tells of my connection to the group, but it’s reversed, so that kind of connection will not be easy to attain today. And maybe I’m supposed to be focusing more on myself. The High Priestess corresponds with Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts), the Moon (feelings, illusion, imagination), Gimel (camel, hidden knowledge), ant the Path between Tiphareth (the hub of the creation process which harmonizes and focuses to illuminate and clarify) and Kether (the source, limitless possibility), and she tells me that the answers to my questions lie within me, but they are not easily accessed. However, the efforts to understand will serve me well, so I need to get to it!

My Thoth card is the Queen of Disks. I love the image on this card! This queen is seated and is serenely looking back and down onto her realm: the land bisected by a slowly winding river. She is Water of Earth, after all, and when you combine the stability of a flat landscape with the liquid that needs rough terrain in order to move fast, you get that nice, slow feeing that is the Queen of Disks. She has ambition, but only directed at useful goals; she is not necessarily intellectual, but she is very connected to her instincts; she is able to care deeply about people, and about the land around her. She is practical and slow to move, but she is content with that.

My Legacy card is The High Priestess flavored by the Six of Wands. My significator again! Today will certainly no be about attaining measureable or quantified or easily contained results, but it will be a powerhouse of a day, just the same. The High Priestess is the Guardian of the Gateway, and she protects the most ancient and powerful wisdom and hidden knowledge. Her task is to make certain that all who are allowed a glimpse of what lies within the Gateway are well-prepared to receive what is within, and she is a hard taskmaster. She reminds me that today I must be receptive, assimilating and aware in order to benefit from the energies presented. The Six of Wands tells me that everything is in my favor, and because I have done the work I needed to do thus far, I just might go to bed tonight with a satisfied smile on my face.

My 6-digit date number is 5, the number of movement that prevents stagnation.

My horoscopes: “Slow down and take a more reserved, sensitive, and calculated approach to things today, Sagittarius, especially when it comes to matters involving love and beauty. You'll find a greater level of sensuality waiting for you when you're willing to open up the door even wider. Go after the object of your desire, but make sure that your approach is sensitive and disciplined.”

And: “It may seem unnecessarily complicated -- really -- but now is a great time to keep quiet. Shutting your mouth isn't exactly normal for you -- after all, no one loves aimless chitchat quite the way you do -- but if you resist the impulse to overshare, you might just avoid catastrophe. Be sure to parcel out information sparsely so you don't see the situation slip away from you. Remember that silence is golden!”

The lesson for today is that being an effective spiritual mentor is not easy. It is not difficult to draw upon my own experiences and my own knowledge and my own wisdom, and then offer suggestions to someone I don’t know very well, but assisting someone who has become a dear friend, having the courage to even listen to their tale and then respond, is not quite the same.

This friend is expecting things from a relationship that she may not attain, and is feeling frustrated. Words tend to be empty in these situations, but words are all I have to offer, and I chose my words very carefully for I am quite aware that a casual statement can have unlooked for consequences, not always good ones.

And so I offered my words, the best I could gather together, and now I need to hope that the seeds I scattered fell on fertile ground. Now comes the hardest part: waiting for the seeds to germinate and take root. Yep, I can water them, and pull out the weeds that would compete for resources, and cultivate the soil so that tender shoots are not prevented from seeking the sun, but I cannot do more than watch and wait, and hope that the miracle will occur and the seed will sprout.

I think one facet of mentorship is understanding that there comes a point where any other assistance becomes manipulation, mainly because it will affect the outcome and taint the manifestation, neither of which are mine to affect or taint. I have been told that my Purpose is to bring Balance, but I am not to do the work for those I assist but merely provide the catalyst. It is up to these others to choose to do the work necessary to grow and be whole and healthy, or not to do the work. I can only offer the gift of an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on, and arms that can hug and a heart that can share the joy of victory.

No matter how deeply I care, in the end the best and most valuable gift I can offer is the opportunity for the other person to find their own way.

*Raushanna sighs, looks at her two High Priestess cards, and then puts her Tarot decks away*

$