Ace of Swords/The High Priestess.  The Ace of Swords (Capricorn, “I build,” ambition, caution authority, cunning, Aquarius and Pisces, “I believe,” feeling, duality, soul growth, artistic) tells me that I should be making the effort to be objective today, and I should exercise my Will in order to overcome adversity, with justice to all my first consideration.  The High Priestess (Water; the Moon, feelings and emotions, illusion, imagination; Gimel, the camel who safely crosses Da’ath, the Abyss, and thus, has the secret of life; and the Path between Tiphareth, the hub of the creation process where energies harmonize and focus to illuminate and clarify, and Kether, the source, limitless possibility), is the source of the power of The Magician, the feminine version of The Hierophant, and the Keeper of the Mysteries.  She tells me that silence and patience will be useful tools today, and that most of the answers to any question that present themselves will be found within me.  I need to look beyond the obvious, and I do have the ability to see clearly and to understand what I’m seeing.  Hmmm . . . might be a good day to ponder my own truth.

My Thoth card is the Six of Wands.  “Victory” The Six of Wands (Jupiter, expansiveness and growth, justice, fortune, in Leo, “I am,” passionate, dramatic, noble, authoritative) expresses the celebration we feel when we have passed some test.  This is not an ending card, so the cycle is not yet complete, but today I may feel I’ve accomplished enough to be able to lean on my own abilities rather than looking to others for support and protection.  For a little while at least, I can rest on my own laurels and bask in my own glow.  But this is not a permanent situation.

My Legacy card is the Knight of Wands reversed, flavored by The Fool reversed.  The Knight of Wands (cusp of Scorpio, “I desire,” intense, controlling, deep, obsessive, and Sagittarius, “I seek,” philosophic, fun-loving, blundering) is a person of passion, courage, enthusiasm and boundless energy.  My Knight is reversed today, and so I need to be careful that my enthusiasm does not blind me to good sense.  The Fool corresponds with Air (hot/separates and wet/adapts, and challenges that tend to require the use of the intellect to solve), 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).  Upright, he tells of new beginnings and of the unexpected, but since The Fool is reversed, he is kind of validating that warning regarding the reversed Knight he is flavoring.  Today, there is a danger of making foolhardy decisions, thanks to my reversed Fool, and that Knightly enthusiasm could be like pouring gasoline on a fire. 

My 6-digit date number is 8, the focused and conscious response to the pause and beginning of degeneration of the number 7, in order to maintain the harmony of the number 6.

My horoscopes: “You may be anxious to fit things in your life into pigeonholes, Sagittarius. When it comes to matters of love and romance, this may be hard to do, especially on a day like today. Call upon your pioneering spirit to seek something new and not limit yourself to what you originally had in mind. Perhaps there is something bigger and better waiting for you. You’ll only find it if you dare to accept something outside the norm.”

And: “The influence of your mother may be on your mind today. Your mother is likely to have a tremendous effect on how you think, act, and feel both in the past and in the present. For every sign, there is an opposite sign. For you, Sagittarius, your opposite sign is Gemini. If your mother is your opposite sign, conflict and misunderstanding can happen more easily. Take the time to learn about her sign today to help you understand her and the relationship you have.”

My Shadowscapes Insight is regarding the Ace of Cups. This card represents the first stirrings of intimacy, emotions and feelings.  As that first ripple expands, the force or effect of feelings and emotions will become more and more apparent.  But even now, they can be perceived, if I look for them with awareness.

What a difference a week makes!  I am moving along nicely within the Great Work and its efforts at self-understanding.  I am still keeping the metabolic discipline of the Nigredo Phase and the Calcination process a part of each day.  I have been doing my stretches each morning, and I have finally brought some Yoga back into my morning routine.  I have been walking each day as well.  I have been making use of my neutral zone, created through the process of Dissolution; it is a great place to mull things over in silence, without outside interference.  I feel more grounded yet more alert and ready, and I think that part of this is because I am more connected to my responsibilities and efforts both in the physical world and through my spiritual growing and learning process.  Talk about Spring cleaning!

I am also thinking quite a bit about the revelations I received from my Younger Self during that meditation last week.  I have been reminded through that meditation that focusing on negative or uncomfortable events of the past ends up empowering them, feeding them so that they can live on.  Mind you, there is nothing wrong with revisiting an old would to make certain that we have learned what we needed to learn from it, and to make certain that there are no lingering ill effects attached to that memory.  But owning that memory (which is what we do when we allow the memory something that is over and done, and unchangeable, to affect us now in an unproductive way) means that we are giving it validity.  We are in effect accepting that judgment presented by another person, and becoming that judgment. 

When we examine these kinds of issues, we do need to look at them in detail and we do need to acknowledge the feelings elicited by the memory, but we can’t become those feelings.  If we do that, we are offering new life to something that should be a dried up husk. 

I think this concept applies to good thoughts and feelings as well.  Don’t get me wrong, we should enjoy good feelings and we should be pleased and excited when we experience success.  But we can’t become those instances, because they will end up a necessary part of our continued success.  This is kind of like becoming dependent on one particular athame in order to cast a sacred circle or direct energy, or on one particular pendant in order to connect with Deity.  If we lose that athame or that pendant, we will be totally stuck because our entire process of connection with those energies or that Deity is dependent upon that one individual tool. 

Please note that this is different from the storing of feelings of validation in the core worth anchor.  That storage of powerful feelings and emotions as a positive reinforcement is accomplished totally by my own visualizations, and is not dependent on any other entity, person, thing or object. 

I like this kind of progress!

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