Five of Cups reversed/The Moon. The Five of Cups (Mars, action, aggression, drive, in Scorpio, “I desire,” intense, controlling, mysterious, obsessive) tells of the cloudy sludge that is stirred up when still waters are disturbed. In an upright position, this card is about wanting to turn back the clock or about focusing on what might have been. Because it is reversed, the day may be more about feeling like a winner than a looser, and perhaps I won’t regret past discomforts but rather find benefits from enduring them. The Moon corresponds with Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts, emotional and sensitive energy that strives to stay the same), Pisces (“I believe,” feeling, suffering, soul growth, duality), Qof (the back of the head), and the Path between Malkuth (the physical world of action and physical, outer reality) and Netzach (the stimulating factors of emotion and inspiration), and talks about the imagination, perception, and fear of the unknown or at a minimum, bewilderment because of it. I hope this does not mean that the sense of being a winner is an illusion! Maybe these two cards are telling me that I can use my imagination in order to tap into good stuff, even if that good stuff does not exist in the physical world.

My Thoth card is The Aeon reversed. The Aeon is Crowley’s Judgement card. Judgement corresponds with Fire (hot/separates and dry/shapes, and spontaneous, impulsive and energetic change), Pluto (power, metamorphosis, cycles of dying and becoming), Shin (fang), and the Path between Malkuth (the physical world of action and physical, outer reality) and Hod (provides analysis and communication), represents the integration of my entire self by answering for my actions and receiving the appropriate response. Crowley sees this card in an upright position as indicating a final decision regarding some event or influence of the past, and in any event, the taking of a definite step. Because the card is reversed, it might be telling me that I am being a bit wishy-washy about some event or effect that has been around for a while.

My Legacy card is the Two of Wands, flavored by Judgement. Bookends!!! The Two of Wands (Mars, action, spontaneity, aggression, drive, in Aries, “I want,” action oriented, pioneering, assertive, enthusiastic) tells of the concept of applied power, and I love the feel of this card. Not only does it tell me that I will feel as if I’m calling the shots today, but I just might end up inventing some new way to call those shots! My upright Judgement card is flavoring my Two of Wands, and I see that as a good thing. The influence of Judgement will keep me clear sighted and will remind me to think about past mistakes and successes, and to allow what I learned from them to influence my decisions as I call those shots.

I haven’t had bookends for a while! More on the Judgement card. Besides the obvious meaning of being judged in some fashion, or of receiving a judgment of some kind, this card often is seen as representing the occurrence of a big decision or life experience that will have a big impact, or the approach of one. Some believe that if the card is upright, that decision or experience will probably have positive results, and if the card is reversed, those results may not be positive in the long run. I have also seen this card as representing a psychological event, rather than a physical world one, which may interfere in a Seeker’s life in some way. Whatever happens, the Seeker will most likely directly experience the event, rather than being an observer, although he will most likely not be the one doing the judging but rather the one being judged. There most likely will be some sentence imposed here (although it may not be a horrible one), and no appeals are allowed. But enduring clears the slate. Judgement corresponds to the 31st Path of the Tree of Life, connecting the physical world and outer reality to the intellect the ability to learn (particularly, to learn from the past).

My 6-digit date number is 6, the number of vertical and horizontal balance. Oh-kay!

My horoscopes: “Today could provide an interesting opportunity to show your assets in a professional setting. People will be impressed by your personality and may even offer you a new job or exciting business proposal. You won't be able to turn down the proposition and you will feel totally free and satisfied.”

And: “Sometimes it feels like you're living through the same episodes over and over, and you'll feel that familiar sense of deja vu at double the strength when a common (if harmless) obstacle pops up yet again. It represents a lesson you've never quite mastered, and unless you do, this 'Groundhog Day' experience won't ever end. Try an approach that seems counterintuitive -- if you don't figure out what you need to know, at least you'll rule out one approach.”
Technical: “Some seriously cool mental energy is kicking around upstairs at the moment, and you may feel like sharing your thoughts with the gang. Find an empty conference room and let your brain spew forth -- your people are totally ready to hear your thoughts.”

My Sun reading: “Mars trines Saturn, making it easier to overcome difficulties and finish unfinished business. You will find that problems look manageable. Do you know why? Because they are. People get along swimmingly tonight and could easily become new fast friends when the Libra Moon positively aspects Neptune.”

Since I am in a Tarot sort of mood (and since I read an interesting article in the Llewellyn Worldwide July Tarot Update entitled “Love Symbolism in the Tarot,” by Richard Webster), I am going to talk a bit more about The Lovers, and some other Majors that are connected to The Lovers through the emotion of love. Each card represents one type of love, and together they give us a well-rounded definition of love, if love can be defined at all.

The High Priestess has an inner focus, and is about insight and intuition as well as the task of looking within for answers. Thus, this card teaches us how to love ourselves.

The Empress has an outer focus, and is about fertility, creativity, maternity, nurturing and the life force. This card also tells of fulfillment and of pleasing the senses, and thus teaches us to love others and to be loved by others.

The Emperor also has an outer focus, and is about virility, power, leadership, and fatherhood in a male authority kind of way. This card is also about fertility, in an active, outer way, for the sacred masculine is the catalyst which activates the fertility of the sacred feminine. This card teaches us how to love with firmness and authority in order to nurture and protect.

Temperance is considered a virtue; this card is about moderation, and about harmony that happens through openness and cooperation. This card teaches us how to compromise with others and to foster a spirit of cooperation in order to create a strong, supportive and loving relationship.

The Star is about hope, guidance, renewal and potential abundance. This card is about giving generously with no expectation of being compensated, and about being able to see through the dark illusions to the light and love that is within all life. The Star is not about loving one person, but rather it is about loving humanity, all life, and the cycles that support us.

The Moon has an inner focus, and is about the subconscious, imagination, change, perception, creativity and fertility. This card is seen to represent women’s mysteries, and thus to represent pregnancy and new life, and the fertility of the imagination. It is connected to both The High Priestess and The Empress, and thus to love of self, and to our perception of what love actually is.

This article mentions two other cards that are at least indirectly connected to love. The Sun is about joy, enthusiasm, optimism and satisfaction; it is a positive card to receive in a spread that focuses on love and romance. The World/Universe is about wholeness, fulfillment and success, and the foretelling of the coming of a new cycle of life experiences; it is also a positive card to receive in a spread that focuses on love and romance.

Next up is the 16th Path!!

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Three of Cups/Queen of Swords reversed. The Three of Cups (Mercury, reason, intelligence, orderliness, communication, in Cancer, “I feel,” sensitive tenacious, nurturing, moody) tells of the possibility of experiencing emotional abundance, emotional connections to others (mainly due to things in common), and emotional support as a part of the day. Isn’t this a great feeling??!! The most important message this card brings is that if I share the love and joy, it will grow. The Queen of Swords (cusp of Virgo, “I serve,” practical, sensible, work and service oriented, and Libra, “We are,” partnerships, balance, cooperation, grace) represents a disciplinarian, and a thinker, and an experienced person who is not afraid to laugh at herself. This Queen may appear to be a bit aloof, but that is because she tells it like it is, and while she is straight-forward and honest, her sharp wit comes in handy sometimes. Paired with the Three of Cups, her humor and sense of camaraderie will soften the bluntness a bit.

My Thoth card is The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man corresponds with Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts, and emotional, sensitive and imaginative energy that tends to move deep, and attempts to take the same path as in the past), Neptune (inspiration, spirituality, magick, enchantment, dreams, altered states), and the Hebrew letter Mem (water, stability and balance, the reflective quality of thought). Uncle Al sees The Hanged Man as the “redeemer” who brings redemption not because the task is forced on him, but because he willingly offers himself as the sacrifice or as the necessary energy exchange. The redemption offered by the Thoth Hanged Man is usually on a spiritual or emotional level; this redemption is often presented to us in the guise of failure or loss. “No pain, no gain” just might be his advice of the day, and I need to remember that when the beam of light shines down from Kether to Malkuth, it might hurt my eyes, but that temporary blindness will allow my other senses to come into play.

My Legacy card is the Page of Cups flavored by The Emperor reversed. The Page of Cups corresponds to Libra (“we are,” partnerships, balance, cooperation), Scorpio (“I desire,” intensity compulsion, mystery) and Sagittarius (“I seek,” philosophic, adventurous, blundering), and corresponds to my connections to others and to my own inner self. This Page is in touch with his own feelings, and while this means his moodiness might be intense, so is his ability to feel joy and to open his heart to everyone without judgment. My Page of Cups is being flavored by The Emperor reversed, which actually supports The Hanging Man above. The Emperor (Fire, hot/separates and dry/shapes, and spontaneous, impulsive, energetic change; Aries, “I want,” action oriented, assertive, competitive; Heh, window, illumination; and the Path between Tiphareth and Chokmah, dynamic male energy and the origin of vital force and polarity) in an upright represents the power of the mind and of intentions to shape the world. The Emperor is about taking responsibility, about personal power and about control over himself and/or others; there is a bit of ambition mixed in as well. Because he is reversed, he is actually encouraging the Page of Cups to bring emotions and feelings into everyone’s day, even those who tend to be more rigid and orderly!

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

My horoscopes: “It may be hard for you to make a decision about anything today, Sagittarius. Things may seem wishy-washy and unclear. Don't worry about it. There is plenty of air to fuel your fire. Be aware that people may pop up from the past and unexpected events may disrupt the flow throughout the day. Best-laid plans are apt to be broken. Don't sweat it. Just go with the flow.”

And: “There's a time to move forward, and a time to stay back and just watch the world go by -- today is a day when you should stay back. Sure, you might want to get going on a fun, new project or play with a fun, new toy, but you should think twice about it. Patience will come to you right when you're at the end of your rope, so don't worry about getting caught off guard. Just wait for everyone else to take their turn, and then you'll know how to take yours.”

Technical: “It's a good time to focus on work issues that have been troubling you for some time. Your mental energy is powerful, and you should be able to come up with new solutions and unique alternatives to deal with the circumstances at hand.”

My Sun reading: “A sensitive Cancer Moon trines Neptune. You're intuitive to your own and others' needs and can take care of them quickly. The Moon aspects Uranus, Jupiter, and Pluto today, and they translate into fireworks. Let the games begin! Fortunately with Jupiter, your luck holds.”

Still more about the 17th Path. Pairs are not only about connections. Yes, that is the first thing that comes to mind when most people look at The Lovers and think about pairs or duality. But remember, we are looking deeper into this card because it is connected to the 17th Path, one of the bridges over Da’at, and so in order to understand the duality of this Path, we need to also take into consideration the Law of Opposites. Basically, the Law of Opposites states that in order to understand something, you need to understand its opposite. You can’t know light unless you know darkness, which is the absence of light; you can’t know heat unless you know cold, the absence of heat. This ability to **discern** is one of the gifts of the 17th Path.

And so, we cannot know our conscious mind unless we experience our unconscious mind; we cannot know love unless we have experienced isolation and we cannot know pleasure unless we have experienced pain. The duality of the 17th Path and its connection between Beauty and Understanding brings us a glimpse of the Machinery of the Universe. And when we love ourselves and strive to evolve, we not only benefit ourselves but those around us.

In “The Witches Tarot,” Ellen Cannon Reed has this to say about the 17th Path: “Our task in this lifetime may be only to illuminate ourselves, but that is a wonderful and mighty task, for each step we take forward takes the rest of humanity an infinitesimal amount forward.” My Patroness, Danu, has taught me that it is life itself and the living of that life that is the gift of Deity, and I have come to believe that we each have a responsibility to experience everything about life and living that is presented to us, whether pleasant or uncomfortable. Here, then, is a reason why we need to do this.

Reed goes on to say: “Gaining knowledge is a loss of ignorance, and oh, how often we have wished we could return to ignorance! It is in many ways so much easier to not know how much more there is to existence. Learning that other people are real, that they have feelings, is to gain a sense of responsibility, but it is also a loss – for you can no longer give your feelings, your actions, your words, free reign. Learning of the world beyond, the world of spiritual things, is a gain beyond price. Yet, at times I have found myself wishing to be ignorant of it – regretting having learned of its existence, because, having gained purpose and direction, I’ve lost the freedom to let my life go, to float along the river, moving only as fast as the river does. Having found direction and purpose, having gotten a glimpse of what is at the end of the river, I must swim – and not only with the current.” I just went back to read my entry on June 24th regarding the 18th Path; I said something similar there regarding that Path and The Chariot. Here it is again, that acceptance of responsibility.

Will this be the common thread through all the Paths that cross The Abyss? We shall see.

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Five of Cups/Queen of Swords. The Five of Cups (Mars, action, aggression, drive, in Scorpio, “I desire,” intense, controlling, mysterious, obsessive) tells of the cloudy sludge that is stirred up when still waters are disturbed. The thing to remember about the Five of Cups is that often when we focus on that sludge, we end up missing the good things that are still around, untouched by the muck. The Queen of Swords (cusp of Virgo, “I serve,” practical, sensible, work and service oriented, and Libra, “We are,” partnerships, balance, cooperation, grace) represents a disciplinarian, and a thinker, and so she just might be the one to help me see past the sludge to the good things hiding in plain sight. This Queen may be a bit aloof, but she is the best writer and researcher around. She provides her rulings, suggestions and insights based on her own experiences, and provides justice with honesty and ethics.

My Thoth card is the Princess of Swords reversed. The Princess/Page of Swords (Capricorn, “I build,” ambitious, competent, cautious, cunning, Aquarius, “I know,” friendships, the group, society, cause-oriented, and Pisces, “I believe,” feelings, duality, soul growth, spirituality) brings the message of the Ace of Swords (the potential for challenges which can be solved through the use of the intellect and which can offer opportunities for growth) to the day. This Princess in an upright position imitates her Queen (who happens to be in my card throw for today) but in a less experienced manner. She always asks “why?” and she can be a bit suspicious and argumentative. Because the card is reversed, I may not fall into the trap of only reacting to what is presented to me; that is a good thing.

My Legacy card is the Seven of Wands reversed, flavored by the Nine of Cups. The Seven of Wands (Mars, action, spontaneity, aggression, drive, in Leo, “I am,” passionate, dramatic, natural leader, egotistical, selfish) has a personal significance for me, given to me by Archangel Uriel; for me this card represents the approach of a Threshold, and the need to pass the tests of the Guardian. However, the card is reversed and I am interpreting this card in this position as telling me that I have just passed through a threshold. The Nine of Cups (Jupiter, expansiveness and growth, justice, fortune, in Pisces, “I believe,” feeling, duality, soul growth, spirituality), which is flavoring my Seven of Wands today, validates this interpretation. This Nine is about powerful satisfaction on all levels (emotional, physical and spiritual) and a fulfilling sense of accomplishment. Granted, the happiness and fulfillment associated with this card may be present because I am in the right place at the right time, but I’ll take it, gladly.

My 6-digit date number is 10, the number that represents the completion of a cycle, which can be further reduced to the number 1, new beginnings, potential and position. More validation of my interpretation of the reversed Seven of Wands.

My horoscopes: “You may feel like you're ready to get the party started today, Sagittarius, but for some reason, the people around you aren't exactly following suit. Perhaps you need to slow down and wait for others to catch up. They may end up not coming around at all. If people say they're doing fine, don't necessarily believe them. There's most likely something brewing beneath the surface that needs attention.”

And: “Sometimes when you finish a journey, you arrive at a place that looks very different from what you thought it was going to look like. You might be disappointed, you might be pleasantly surprised; but you should definitely be hopeful that things will get better. You are where you need to be, and if you aren't happy about the accommodations, be patient. Learn to live with it and explore what it offers. This place you are in has much more to offer than you realize.”

Technology: “When it comes to the workplace, you will be dealing with more global issues -- even after you go home. Try not to get in too deeply with the details; however, make sure you take care of the most important stuff first.”

My Sun reading: “This morning's Moon/Saturn trine stimulates the desire to settle matters of importance, search for answers to questions, or overcome obstacles in general. Although Mars and Pluto are dynamic helpers, however, temper the impulse to race to the finish line. You have several days to work things out.”

I am now blogging on Tumblr as well as here on Blogspot. This Blogspot Blog will continue to offer detailed Tarot card interpretations and descriptions of my evolution as a Mystic, Witch and Woman. My Tumblr Blog, also named Dancing Sparkles, will be more light-hearted and fun. The posts will be shorter, and many of them will contain images of cards from the Legacy of the Divine Tarot with explanations, or quick, down-and-dirty readings offered for someone or some thing in the news. Please Follow me there [dancingsparkle.tumblr.com]; my first reading posted on my Tumblr Blog will be a one-card reading for the USA in honor of the 4th of July. Also, as a reminder, if you Follow me on Twitter [@ Dancing_Sparkle] or Like the Dancing Sparkles FaceBook Page (or both!), you will be instantly alerted to any Blog posts I submit. I’ve posted the necessary info above and to the left on this Blog; no more shameless plugs, promise.

More on the 17th Path. This Path connects Beauty with Understanding; thus we can say that the 17th Path bring us an Understanding of Beauty, and it shows us the Beauty of Understanding. Two different experiences.

I think one useful way to understand the difference between the 18th Path (which evolves from Might to Understanding) and the 17th Path (which combines Beauty and Understanding) is to look at the Tarot Major Arcana card associated with the 17th Path, The Lovers.

Yep, everyone shudders with pleasure when they see this Major, but in actuality The Lovers is so much more than the name implies. First of all, this card is connected to a Path which bridges The Abyss, Da’at; that alone should wave a few red flags. Within the Major Arcana, The Lovers can be seen as connected to The Hierophant (which is about the group), and The Devil (which is about bondage, dependencies and addictions). Often, the traditional images of The Hierophant, The Lovers and The Devil have similarities; each often show s two people standing before some figure of authority.

The Lovers corresponds with the element of Air (hot/separates and wet/adapts), which is about quick and animated energies or actions. The element of Air corresponds to the intellect and the workings of the mind, and thus Air is associated with problems or challenges that are difficult to solve and yet offer opportunities for personal growth. The Lovers corresponds to the astrological sign of Gemini (“I think,”), which is dual in nature, and is curious, talkative and sociable. The Hebrew letter associated with this card is Zayin, the dagger or double-edged sword. A bit different from The Chariot of the 18th Path (Water (cold/binds and wet/adapts, and sensitive, emotional and imaginative energy that likes to stay the same or follow the same course), Cancer (“I feel,” sensitive, tenacious, nurturing, moody), Cheth (the fence)), which is about feeling rather than thinking.

Read that again: The Lovers is about thinking, and The Chariot is about feeling. Interesting, yes? I bet you expected the opposite! After all, The Lovers is connected to the archetype of those who feel love!

If we look at all the correspondences associated with The Lovers, we will see a common theme: pairs or duality. The Lovers is about connections for sure, and most of these connections happen through the emotion of love. But this card is about a one-to-one connection, an important one-to-one connection; a connection that you choose to allow, or not allow. Because the choices associated with this card are so important, they can either help us or hinder us; hence the two-edged sword associated with Zayin. We’ve all experienced both the pleasures and the pains associated with loving someone else, and so trusting in the power of love, even though our minds may be giving other advice, is a very brave personal choice. In fact, we really can’t truly open ourselves to love unless we’ve experienced both the joys and the sorrows associated with love. More duality.

And for anyone who believes in the existence of Deity, any love that we humans may feel or experience is an echo or a reflection of the purest and most powerful love offered to us by Deity. Since Tiphareth can bee seen as the Lesser Countenance which reflects or hints at the Greater Countenance of Kether, the 17th Path can be seen to bring us a true understanding of the beauty of love, an emotion which can cure us or kill us, and to show us the Divine nature of the choice to open ourselves to love.

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