Eight of Cups reversed/The Lovers reversed. The Eight of Cups (Saturn, discipline, responsibility, limitation, law and order, in Pisces, “I believe,” feeling, duality, suffering, soul growth) tells of an ending or a change of direction, often one associated with emotions.  My Eight is reversed, though, and thus I am being told that today just might be a day of strength and perseverance, rather than endings. The reversed Lovers (Air, hot/separates and wet/adapts, quick and animated, intellectual, problems or challenges; Gemini, “I think,” curious, talkative, sociable, dual; Zayin, double-edged sword; and the Path between Tiphareth, the hub of the creation process where energies harmonize and focus to illuminate and clarify, and Binah, female receptive energy and the origin of form and structure) can tell of the possibility of rejection or separation, but it could also be reminding me that for today, tried-and-true methods might work better for me.  I might be able to focus better because I am alone, because there are no distractions.   

My Thoth card is the Nine of Cups.  Whew!  The “Happiness” card; I’m glad to see it. The Nine of Cups (cusp of Aquarius, “I know,” friendships, the group, cause-oriented, and Pisces, “I believe,” feelings, duality, suffering, soul growth) is about emotional satisfaction and the ability to find pleasure in my feelings and in my expectations for the day.  Some call this the “wish” card, and the gifts of this card come with a warning: be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.  We need to visualize very carefully when we are trying to manifest our desires.

My Legacy card is Death, flavored by The Lovers.  Bookends! The Death card corresponds with Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts, and sensitive, imaginative energy that strives to stay the same or take the same course), Scorpio, Nun (fish head; liberation), and the Path between Tiphareth (the hub of the creation process where energies harmonize and focus to illuminate and clarify) and Netzach (the stimulating factors of emotion and inspiration), and tells of natural change that cannot be stopped.  Death is about transitions, and sometimes when a transition is upon us, for a little while we feel cut adrift.  Not fun.  But this is the best card for moving forward; LOL, once the movement forward begins, there is no turning back.  My Death card is being flavored by my upright Lovers.  The upright Lovers card is about intimate connections, and thus, about values and ethics.  Hmmm . . . I think these two cards together are telling me to **choose** to move forward, to walk willing through that one-way door and accept what comes next willingly.

More about my Bookend card, The Lovers.  The initial response of most people when they see this card is a good one.  After all, the energies of The Lovers are about union, important, life-changing union.  The bond represented by this card is powerful; after all, this is the Great Rite, the symbolic union of polar opposites that creates something new.  Only a Major Arcana card could have this kind of far-reaching yet intimate and personal power.  And yes, to some extent, this is about sex, about opening to another through Perfect Love and Trust.  However, this card is more than just good nookie.  After all, in order to trust, we need to be ethical, and we need to know that our partner is ethical, too.  If we continue on this track, we will realize that to some extent, The Lovers is also about dealing with temptation, and about the importance of our personal choices, of choosing with awareness.  A reversed card can certainly mean isolation, rejection, separation or a bad time in a relationship.  However, the reversed Lovers card can also be pointing us towards tried-and-true beliefs, or towards decisions that are right for a group, rather than for ourselves. 

My 6-digit date number is 11 (Archangel Uriel), which reduces further to 2, the number of balance, polarity and “distance between.”

My horoscopes: “The need to complete an important task could have you mustering a far higher level of self-control than you're used to, Sagittarius. Perseverance and determination could dominate your mood, and therefore you could accomplish wonders. However, be sure to take breaks occasionally, and remember to relax from time to time. Above all, don't be so focused on your work that you forget to eat. Your work will only suffer if you neglect your body. Pace yourself!”

And: “Recent successes haven't made you feel as if you could sit back and rest on your laurels. Rather, you're more likely to work that much harder and today you might spend a lot of time considering different options that could continue to build your socioeconomic status. Among them might be enterprises connected with the earth. Partners, both business and romantic, could provide inspiration for you. Go to it!”

My Shadowscapes Insight is regarding the Eight of Wands.  The image on this card is of someone blowing a dandelion flower which has gone to seed.  This is the image of this card: a sudden outburst of energy that sets things in motion.  This is the momentum that activates the catalyst, and begins the journey towards the goal.  Fasten your seatbelts.

I taught a lovely little 2 hour belly dance workshop this afternoon.  No choreography, just some great drills.  What fun!  I listened to belly dance music all the way down to Cape May; Egypt Unveiled by my buddy, Hossam Ramzy, my current favorite, and then I revisited good old Pete List, the Human Beatbox, and his Songs For Kassar.  Then on to a new compilation CD called Café Bellydance.  Luuuvly.

Alchemy.  The Great Work.  Nigredo.  The Dark Night of the Soul.  How is that for a progression that scares the crap out of you?  The Nigredo is the most difficult part of the Great Work; it usually takes the longest to accomplish, and suffering is a huge part of the process.  After all, in order to scrape and chip off everything that is preventing me from seeing, I might need to use a rasp, or a chisel, or a knife, or a blow torch.  This is about reducing myself to my basic building blocks, and in order to do this, all vestiges of civilization need to be knocked away. 

This is kind of like the basic training part of the process, like military basic training, where the dedicants are pushed beyond their limits in order for them to learn that there actually are no limits.  And in order for them to determine what is really, really important; when you are being stressed at this level, you only want to carry with you what is really, really important.  Unnecessary baggage will just complicate things later on, and a Dark Night is the perfect method for determining the worthiness of the baggage we are carrying with us.  The term for the baggage we decide to discard is “dross.”  Dross is the scum of solid impurities that float the to top of a pool of molten metal (as opposed to “slag,” which is the oily liquid that can float to the top).  Skimming the dross from the top of a pool of molten metal is easier than skimming the dross from the psyche. 

Alchemists call this process “mortification.”  And yes, just like emotional mortification, it can include feelings of shame, embarrassment, guilt, and poor self-esteem.  According to Jungian psychologists, this discomfort is an important part of the Nigredo process and the Dark Night.  I guess humans tend to need a strong hard kick in the butt sometimes to get us moving.

$>