Three of Cups/Nine of Cups. The Three of Cups (Mercury, reason, intelligence, orderliness, communication, in Cancer, “I feel,” sensitive tenacious, nurturing, moody) tells me that the possibility of experiencing emotional abundance and support are a part of the day. To me, they are both important, and the loving support of those I respect is just as pleasing as feeling good. This card also reminds me that it is similarities that bring people together; if I want to be certain that any group has a strong connection, I have only to look for the common thread, and nurture it. The Nine of Cups (Jupiter, expansiveness and growth, justice, fortune, in Pisces, “I believe,” feeling, duality, soul growth, spirituality) is about powerful satisfaction on all levels (emotional, physical and spiritual) and a fulfilling sense of accomplishment. This is the “Happiness” card, and it shows that emotions are flowing in a nice and even manner, affecting many different parts of the day in a positive fashion. What a nice pair!

My Thoth card is the Five of Swords . . . again. “Defeat” ” is Crowley’s keyword for the Five of Swords (Venus, beauty, allure, relationships, pleasure, in Aquarius, “I know,” friendships, cause-oriented, the group, aloof), and this card shows up in my Thoth card pull often. It focuses on victory and defeat, but not your usual, run-of-the-mill versions of these two results. This card tells of a possible attack of some kind and of victory attained by unethical methods, and whether I am on the winning side or the losing side of the issue, this card is telling me that there is a potential for harm, or even for me to have to deal with vengeance. Crowley calls the Five of Swords “Defeat” for a reason; since the quarrel has broken out at all, we are all losers because we were not able to find a solution. The image on this card is of a reversed pentagram, with the crowned point, representing Spirit, being shown on the bottom and being ruled by the points representing Earth and Fire. Perhaps this gives me a hint as to why this card keeps showing up with this deck in this position (which I personally see as the card that connects to my throat chakra and the manner in which I connect with my own energy and with the world, through my aura and chakras). The defeat is possible because of an imbalance; too much focus on passions and the physical realms, and not enough focus on Spirit. Perhaps that imbalance will be alleviated by the Cups in the first part of my spread today if I am able to experience those pleasures in a spiritual manner. Another danger associated with the energies of this card is disillusionment. Despite the fact that most of the cards I threw today are telling of the potential for fulfillment and feeling good, I should be certain that I don’t feel empty at the end of the day. Especially potent is the message of that Nine of Cups, for while it is the Wish Card, we need to be careful what we wish for, because we just might get it!

My Legacy card is the Queen of Cups reversed, flavored by The Devil reversed. The Queen of Cups (cusp of Gemini, “I think,” curious, sociable, dual, and Cancer, “I feel,” sensitive, tenacious, nurturing, moody) in an upright position is at ease in emotional situations, and she is sensitive to the emotional states around her. She understands very well that the way to get meaning into life is to love, to love others and to love oneself; because the card is reversed, I am being told that I am not connecting to the power of love in the correct way. In an upright position, The Devil corresponds with Earth (cold/binds and dry/shapes, and stable, material, practical energies that are slow to change), Capricorn (“I build,” ambitious, competent, cautious, cunning), Ayin (the eye, senses), and the Path between Hod (which provides analysis and communication) and Tipareth. The Devil is about bondage, addiction and restrictions of all kinds, often connected to the physical world; because the card is reversed, I am being told that today, any restrictions that have in the past held me back from moving forward will now be fading away. I am believing in myself, and thus I am defeating the bondages of The Devil.

My 6-digit date number is 10, the number of completion of a cycle, which reduces further to the number 1, new beginnings and the concept of position.

My horoscopes: “Things may seem a little cloudy today, Sagittarius, but this is no reason to be blue. It could be that you need to make adjustments before you can smoothly relate to others. Take this opportunity to attend to things that you normally wouldn't think of. See things from the perspective of someone in another walk of life. Realize the fun of just staying home and falling asleep on the couch.

And: “Finding a new way to celebrate is the perfect task for you, and right now you're seeing that the traditions you and your family and friends have built could absolutely use some creative augmentation. Look for ways to strengthen your little community, and ways to ground it in the larger one. Spending a day volunteering together may be the best gift you could ever give -- and all those warm and fuzzy feelings don't cost a dime.

And: “Stress from whatever career pressures you've been experiencing might cause you to feel a bit under the weather. Yet, you're probably unwilling to take some time off, because you're too concerned about finishing what you're doing in a timely manner. It's important to remember that you won't finish it at all if you exhaust yourself. Move slowly and steadily, and take time out to relax a little, and all will go more smoothly than you think.

I am presently a Third Degree Dedicant and Second Degree Initiated Priestess of the Sacred Mists Coven. While “tail end” is not exactly the right term for the status of my studies at Sacred Mists for it will probably be at least another year, if not more, before I am ready to Initiate as a Third Degree Priestess, when looking at the time and effort that I put into my First Degree and then Second Degree Training, and what I have already accomplished so far in my Third Degree Training, I would be justified in saying that I am at the tail end of my goal of becoming an ordained Wiccan Priestess.

My husband, Bob, on the other hand is a professed atheist. While he supports my studies and my Path completely, he does not believe in the existence of any kind of God. Today, as I did my morning walk, I pondered a subject that has bothered me lately: how do I explain to a “non-woo woo” person exactly what I believe Deity to be. I think I’ve finally managed to make the pieces fit in my mind, and now would be the perfect time to document my thoughts.

So, here goes. First, I will say that while Bob defines himself spiritually as an atheist, I think a better label for him would be agnostic. I believe that Bob can’t say that he believes in a supreme being because he has not found a description of a supreme being that works for him, that makes sense for him. He does not connect with organized religion at all. This day and age, with some of the crazy things being put out in the public by some of the more fundamentalist versions of the Abrahamic religions, I can certainly understand why Bob is turned off completely by the version of God put out there by some Christians, despite the fact that his maternal lineage is Irish Catholic, and his aunt is a Dominican Nun. He comes from a spiritual family, and has grown up like many, seeing God as the entity presented by his family’s religious tradition as the correct version.

To me, Deity is not a person, or a person-like form; Deity in its natural state does not resemble an animal or a tree or a cloud or a volcanic eruption. All of those things contain the “life force” or “style of manifestation” that can be said to be proof of the existence of that “pure catalyst” that is Deity, or they can be said to be “manifestations” that happen because of the effect of the presence of Deity, but those things are not themselves Deity.

My own view of exactly what Deity is has changed and evolved as I have learned about myself, the workings of the human body and psyche, and about my spiritual Path. Do I sometimes communicate with a specific image of Deity? Yes, I do. But I also have connected to “something” that identifies Itself as The Source, which has no form, only effects.

The problem here is that the human mind identifies things and feelings and effects by matching them with similar patterns within its experience. I have likened this concept in previous entries to this journal as a “pattern catalogue” in the mind that contains patters which define all the experiences of a particular lifetime. This is the part of the mind that causes you to walk into a dark house and, for a split second, see a coat hanging on a coat rack as an intruder hiding in the corner. Your eyes see a shape, and your mind instantly flips through its pattern catalogue and presents to your conscious self the first match. This might not be the right match in the end, but since at least initially, the mind perceives the unknown as a threat, it attempts to identify the shape as soon as possible. Each person has one of these pattern catalogues, and because of the uniqueness of each life’s experiences, no two pattern catalogues are exactly alike.

That which we all define as God or Goddess or Supreme Being is not an individual entity with shape and form at all. It is an energy (for lack of a better word) that is pure, vibrating or pulsing at the highest frequency possible. This energy is responsible for life of all kinds, discernable effects of all kinds, and physical matter (including bio matter) as we know them. And, this energy is also responsible for all the things that we maybe can perceive, but certainly can’t understand and explain.

We are still evolving; Deity is not. And unfortunately, none of us has a single entry in each of our unique pattern catalogues that can correctly represent this hard to describe energy that is Deity. My description is lacking because, like every other Mystery associated with true spiritual growth, we don’t have words to describe this inner “knowing” that manifests through methods other than words. Like the blind man who understands in principle the definition of the color “orange,” but cannot comprehend what orange looks like because he does not have the way that color looks in his pattern catalogue, we are unable to comprehend completely or perceive what Deity actually is.

We seem to be programmed to need the presence of Deity in our lives. Interaction of some kind with a Supreme Being is one very effective way to feel fulfillment; not the only way, by any means, but it seems to work well. The cool thing is that I believe the pure energy that is Deity is programmed to respond to the attempts of communication offered by beings that are of “lower vibration” than He/She/It is, such as humans. When I attempt to connect to and communicate with Deity, Deity will respond to me.

Okay, here’s where that pattern catalog comes into effect. In order to identify with Deity and to connect with Deity and to be able to comprehend at least partially what Deity is and what Deity says to us, we need to match Deity to at least one entry in our pattern catalogue; otherwise our brain will refuse to acknowledge the validity of the existence of God, and the validity of any message. Because each of us grew up within families and traditions and cultures and common experiences, we seem to be predisposed to see Deity in certain ways. Most modern civilized humans tend to see God as a person, a man or a woman. In other words, they see God as existing in their own image because this allows the mind to accept and understand and visualize that which cannot be understood or visualized. We humanize our Gods, and even if they look like an animal, they usually have human traits and abilities; and after all, there are entries in our pattern catalogues for animals.

The difficulty in believing happens when a person experiences a personal trauma that completely shakes up all beliefs, or when a person becomes educated enough to know that a literal interpretation of sacred texts or certain core beliefs attached to a particular religion can no longer be seen as literal truths, but rather as myths which may have an important ethical moral, but which are not about real, scientifically provable beings.

Of course, the reason that person can’t successfully fit the piece into the puzzle is that Deity is not an individual entity. While the “energy” that is Deity can take form (and can personalize that form for us so that we can more easily accept and understand and believe in Him/Her/It), in His/Her/Its natural state, it is more of an effect than a form. And since this energy is not of the physical world, it is difficult to measure using physical world measuring devices. A pattern catalogue entry cannot even be created for that person.

I have stated elsewhere in this journal that if I had to choose an image to represent the Feminine Sacred that would be in most people’s pattern catalogue, I would choose DNA. DNA is a part of life, every kind of life, from pond scum to Stephen Hawkings; DNA is an instruction booklet that offers a recipe of ingredients that will create a specific individual life form. To me, DNA is an “image” of Goddess.

If I had to choose an image to represent the Sacred Masculine that would be in most people’s pattern catalogue, I would choose the existence of the actual life form, its creation and manifestation occurring according to the recipe of its DNA. To me, the actual following of the recipe to create the end product, and the life and living of the end product, is an “image” of God.

Neither of these are exactly right; we have that problem once again of finding the right words to describe a non-verbal concept such as a belief or feeling. But neither of these are individual entities, either. Because God/Goddess/Deity is **not** an individual entity or “force with form” in its natural form.

So are all those images false? Not really. The energy that is Deity can present Himself/Herself/Itself in a way that enables us to connect with and understand Him/Her/It. And, our own beliefs have an effect on how Deity appears to us. We want, no, we **need** to be able to find that entry for God in our pattern catalogue, and so that need ends up creating a shape or form that works for us. So the image that comes into my mind when Danu speaks to me is the correct image of Her for me.

**sigh** Well, that still is not a simple explanation, is it? LOL, I guess I need to study my own thoughts in order to understand them.

Merry Christmas!

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