If you look up “coincidence” on m-w.com, one of the definitions is that two things happen at the same time “by accident.” And in pursuing this notion, I came across a quote that said (and I’m paraphrasing because of course I didn’t take a screen shot), that there is indeed a reason for co-incidents, we just may not be able perceive the how or why … yet.

All that by way of saying that I have been thinking about sandhill cranes recently. This is the time of year when they would fly past our Hill Country house, kettling over the floodplain, taking a breather before continuing their migration north.

So it was a co-incidence, but no accident, that I drew the Knight of Cups, which I had planned to be a sandhilll crane. The problem was, there were way too many amazing photos of sandhill cranes in USA.gov … a great problem to have, I suppose.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First off, here’s the Smith-Waite version of the Knight of Cups, complete with winged helm and footwear …

Followed by my usual Tarot researches …

• 78 Degrees: dreams dominate this card … a figure committed to action … sex may pull him (and here I pause to note the prime motivation for Sandhill migration is to reach nesting grounds) … he follows a genuine vision … an exploration of his own inner world.

• Kitchen Table Tarot: he is so romantic I can’t even stand it

• The Creative Tarot: the romantic knight … here the fight is for the heart or for the soul … one guy who is more interested in wooing maidens than in fighting wars … willing to get lost … to let their intuition be their guide and stumble upon their sacred prize … persevering … dream of worlds that do not exist yet … build castles in the sky, then learn how to replicate them on solid ground.

Finding bookcovers was a snap, especially the one that looks like a globe with a northwest trending line. Of course, I cut them up before taking a picture, so here are some Amazon screen shots instead …

Then there was the challenge of which pictures to use. I wanted to include at least one from our days in the Hill Country, so I used one from here. The other three USA.gov pictures I chose to print in somewhat equal size, but in decreasing scale to give a sense of a sandhill moving up and away.

A bit of cutting a pasting later I had yet another card/collage to add to my rapidly warping notebook (and I’m okay with that, by the way … this whole exercise is more meditative than end-product driven) …

But wait … that’s not the end of the story. There was one more co-incidence. As Don and I headed out to walk around downtown Buda yesterday, I heard the unmistakable sound of sandhills overhead. They were kettling, as if waiting for me …

I had just enough time to put the phone onto video, just enough time to hear them fading into the distance …