Ten of Swords reversed/Queen of Wands reversed. The Ten of Swords (the Sun, the inner core of a person or situation, in Gemini, “I think,” curious, sociable, dual, talkative) tells me that failure is not fun, but we can’t release the failure unless we play it through to the end, without feeling sorry for ourselves. The Queen of Wands (cusp of Pisces, “I believe,” feelings, duality, soul growth, spirituality, and Aries, “I want,” action oriented, assertive, competitive) is Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts, and emotional, sensitive and imaginative energy which prefers to take the same path) of Fire (hot/separates and dry/shapes, and spontaneous, impulsive and energetic change), and because Water and Fire tend to cancel each other out, we are left with Air and Earth. She knows what she wants, but she can be stubborn. That sums this card up perfectly. Because she is reversed, that stubbornness might end up being a liability for me today, especially when flavored by the energies of the Ten of Swords. I may end up feeling sorry for myself, or I may feel unable (or unwilling) to make the effort to work with others.

My Thoth card is the Eight of Cups. “Indolence” is Uncle Al’s keyword for this card.. Low expectations are presented by this card, which also represents Saturn (discipline, responsibility, limitation, law and order) in Pisces (“I believe,” feeling, duality, suffering, soul growth); combined with the Ten of Swords above, we get a soggy, pitiful mess.

My Legacy card is The Fool reversed, flavored by the Seven of Swords. The Fool is an Air card (hot/separates and wet/adapts, and challenges that tend to require the use of the intellect to solve), and it also corresponds with Uranus (technology, science, radical change), Aleph (the head, youthful learning) and the Path between Chokmah (male in the electric sense, dynamic energy and the origin of vital force and polarity) and Kether (the source; limitless possibility). The Fool has some pretty powerful energies at his disposal, not to mention his enthusiasm and optimism; because the card is reversed, I might do better today if I plan for all possible outcomes rather than assuming that things will just fall into place on their own. The Seven of Swords (Moon, feelings and emotions, illusion, imagination, in Aquarius, “I know,” friendships, cause-oriented, the group, aloofness) tells us that cunning will work better than forcing the issue, but the use of cunning is fraught with danger. Sometimes we are too smart for our own good and in the process, ethics become blurred. This kind of energy is in play today, whether it originates from me or affects me through the actions of others. I cannot see the day through rose colored glasses.

My 6-digit date number is 11, the number of Archangel Uriel, which reduces to 2, the number of balance and polarity.

My horoscopes: “Break through the potential moodiness of the day, Sagittarius. Burst into song while walking down the street. Encourage others to sing back to you, as if your life were an opera. Your creativity is extra strong at this point, so let it shine in unexpected areas of your world. You have the wonderful ability to turn even the most mundane situations into something exciting.”

And: “The concept of having fans is nothing new to fire signs like yourself. In addition to the well-known hypnotic effect that fire has on us all, the energy and enthusiasm you guys put out can't help but attract a following. At the moment, however, you'd better wield this weapon carefully, because your already lethal charm will be even more irresistible. It won't just be tough to say no to you, it will be downright impossible -- for mere mortals, anyway.”

And: “Whether you willingly partake or not, you will most certainly play a key role in the action that is taking place. There will be times in which you feel like the pivotal player whose decision or physical movement will decide the fate of the entire game. This is a time when you must close your eyes, take a deep breath, and find the answer from your heart. Don't look to others for support, because they will have their own agendas and biases about what you should do. Only you know what is best.”

My Sun reading: “Start something big when the Leo Moon trines Jupiter this afternoon. Today the powers that be applaud ideas, and they could be in the mood to reward you financially. Romantically, a Moon-Pluto quincunx represents smiles and a thumbs-up for change. Expect an unexpected, interesting new meeting tonight.”

Paths 27, 28 and 29 are said to explore personality. Since I am ready to move on, today I will begin to think about Path 29. This Path, the Corporeal Intelligence, brings me in a different direction than the first three Paths (which bridged the physical and astral realms so that we can understand the non-physical, and then accept with our hearts and our minds that the non-physical realm is real and valid). Now that I have left my physical body, I am being asked to return to it.

The 29^th Path is of the physical realms, and the cycles that happen there. This Path is about the survival of the fittest, about the deaths that are necessary for life to be immortal, and it is about the necessity for adaption and evolution, in order to survive. The interesting thing here is that civilization and the effort to be civilized are actually going against the energies of this Path. After all, our civilized culture has separated us from our world. Many of us never walk on the earth, never see fruits or vegetables growing in a field; many of us forget that the wealth of provisions available to us, nice and neat and sterilized, in our supermarkets actually came from living beings which gave their lives so that we can survive.

I don’t believe that studying this Path requires me to not eat certain foods, or to move out into the country. What I believe this Path is asking of me is that I make myself a consumer who is aware of where the “stuff” in my life comes from, a consumer who is grateful for the bounties that are a part of our world.

Interestingly enough, the Hebrew letter associated with this Path is Qoph, which corresponds with the back of the head. The back of our brain controls our faces (the eyes, nose, lips, etc.), the part of us that has some of the most basic contacts with our world. Our facial expressions can sometimes speak without words, or they can act as masks, hiding who we really are.

I have been given the go-ahead to move on to Lesson 5 of my Third Degree Training at Sacred Mists. I just took a look at the Lesson; this is going to be another exciting one! I only have one more Lesson after this one before I need to choose a focus, and the Pathways Crossroad is on my mind. I want to make certain that I choose correctly.

This is not a one time only choice, and once I complete the rest of the Lessons, I can go back and choose another focus, and another, until I have taken each turn of the Crossroad, but I want to be certain to choose correctly the first time. Since first beginning my Third Degree Training, I have thought about this moment, and I will admit that what I felt was the correct choice back then is not the choice that I would make now, if the time had come to choose.

I will be thinking of this choice as I go through the next two Lessons.

Tomorrow night, I will be with the Pagan Brain Trust. This will be a pure PBT evening, and I am looking forward to it.

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