Nine of Cups/Justice. Today will be a day of satisfaction and perceived success on all levels. There is nothing like doing the hard work and enduring, and then reaping well-earned rewards. There is a sensual pleasure to be had from these times! Today I will experience the fruits of my labors, well-deserved!

My Thoth card is The Fool reversed. “Pure folly is the key to initiation.” In an upright position, this card encourages us to believe that the impossible is possible, and it foretells the coming of an impulse the indulgence of which could be valuable. Even reversed, as the card is today, I am being told that no matter what the outcome the impulse is important. It is my state of mind alone that will tip the balance towards either positive or negative results and I need to act accordingly.

My Legacy card is the Six of Cups. This is one of the few cards in the Tarot that specifically refers to the past, and it is usually a pleasant card to experience.

Last night I donated blood, which I do every three months or so. Somehow this form of giving back to humanity resonates deeply for me, and this donation was no exception. Before giving blood I gave myself (specifically applying to my physical body) a whole bunch of Reiki with the intent that the Reiki go into my blood and assist the recipient of my blood to their highest good. I watched as the technician took four tubes of my blood for testing; seeing the thick dark fluid shooting into those tubes is always an amazingly potent experience for me. Blood is life in a lot of ways, and thus seeing your own blood out of your body can be strange. But giving blood is a powerful act; it is like giving of yourself. This time especially, as I remember my DNA aha! moment of last weekend and as I deal with the energies of the dark phase of the solar year (which have been affecting me this year with incredible power), I was very aware of my gift, and of life itself. There was a sensual fulfillment that was almost a sexual pleasure to this experience, along with the energy pleasure of giving an important gift that no one else can give and the primordial awareness of all those cells and platelets and DNA of mine, unique to me, in those tubes. Blood certainly does represent the life force, on several levels!

I am filled with anticipation today; this evening at sunset (4:39 pm) I will officially begin my “weekend of darkness” in preparation for Yule and the rebirth of the sun, per the instructions of Uriel. I will maintain to the best of my ability my “awakeness” and “awareness” throughout the weekend, experiencing the final ebbing effects of the dark phase of the solar year in preparation for sunrise (7:14 am) on Monday, Yule morning. Already, my awareness is heightened and I had a mini-aha! moment during my Reiki application this morning (day 18 of my 40-day Reiki project).

I usually begin at the root chakra and work my way up, customarily completing my application of Reiki into the first three chakras during my morning commute, with the middle two being completed during lunch and the last two during my commute home. This way, I am giving myself bursts of Reiki throughout the day. I always connect with my Elemental Guides when connecting to each chakra.

This morning, my Earth Guide smiled in greeting as usual, but then he did something unusual: he pointed to the standing stone behind him (which is engraved with four symbols: a circle containing an equal-sided cross, representing the elements, a spiral, representing meditation and the connection between the worlds, an octahedron, representing the concept of “as above, so below,” and a hand-print, which is my on/off switch to the powers of Earth). I thought about each of those symbols, and in light of my tasks of the weekend I gave detailed thought to each one in turn until the Reiki cycle ended; then I brought my awareness up to my sacral chakra. My Water Guide appeared as usual and smiled in greeting, only this time she also lifted the chalice in her hands a bit, also in greeting. I thought about her specific gift that I received in a meditation/pathworking with her and the element of Water: the awareness of the value of my ancestors, who have brought me to this moment in time.

I thought about that long line of men and women who are my ancestors, and as I compared that “thread” of the microcosm to the macrocosm of all humanity, for a moment I felt insignificant; not that I and my ancestors did not matter in any way, but more that we were all a small part of a huge multitude and while I can certainly affect my own life and my own experiences, in the big picture of things I can’t do much standing alone. I thought of myself in relation to a seed within a seed pod. When that pod bursts and the seeds are scattered, the actions or loss of one seed has a very small impact when viewed from the overall picture.

But then it dawned on me. The aha! moment was upon me! The plant that grew the multiple seed pods within my metaphor, within one of which seeds my life force was represented, itself sprang from one tiny seed. The one tiny seed from which the parent plant grew may have seemed insignificant when viewed before its germination into the mature plant ready to reproduce, but without that one tiny seed, all these many seeds in these many pods that were bursting and scattering their contents would not have been there at all. One tiny seed, filled with incredible potential (in a sense, containing all the yet-to-sprout plants to come), certainly had quite a bit of value and ability to manifest effects, when seen from that different vantage point.

Still vibrating from the potency of this revelation, I began applying Reiki to my solar plexus chakra, and my Fire Guide smiled in greeting; she then waved her arm and created a visualization for me of the sun shining down upon the plants, warming the flower buds and coaxing them to open so that they could be fertilized and thus create the pods filled with seeds that are the next generation of plants. There it was, my reminder of what exactly I am celebrating this weekend. The miracle of birth, and the immortality of life.

Blessed be!!

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