It is what it is

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today it is what it is with the six of cups

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the six of cups.

This is one of those cards that landed like a dud grenade right in my wheelhouse. It speaks to exactly how I’m feeling. I hope it is little bit helpful to one of you too.

Emotional content is optional.

It is what it is. It is a peaceful, happy thing to be able to take things at face value. As long as what needs done gets done, you don’t have to be all bubbly and enthusiastic about it. It’s as exhausting to be all cutesy unicorns all the the time as it is to be down and worried all of the time.

Some days just are what they are.

It’s not even that “chop wood and carry water” zen proverb kind of energy. There is room in that proverb for joyful wood chopping and water carrying. There is room in the proverb for dreading your chores too. I’m talking about complete beige lukewarm shoulder shrug of a “MEH” kind of day. Not that it’s a bad thing. Raging neutrality is restful. It’s a kind of a relief really. That’s is the beauty of the six of cups card. It’s a take things at face value card. It is the 180 degree opposite of the the overthinking seven of cups card.

Cups, along with all of their water, intuition and relationship connotations, can also symbolize emotions. Pamela Smith depicts two children and flowers and seemingly peaceful play on a sunny afternoon. The card is often connected with innocence and beauty and that is very much present in the card. The key part today is the innocence. It is about an utter lack of artifice. These kids aren’t ginning up emotional content. Their afternoon is what it is. They are taking cups full of flowers as they are. There is actually a deep authenticity and honesty around this energy. That is so important for a day like this. While the day is what it is we are free to be who we are and feel what we feel. Even if what feel is a little “meh.”

I was watching the winter Olympics earlier today. I have a minority opinion: I don’t like women’s figure skating. Who gives a flying Hamil camel about emotional content, artistic content and how much they were smiling? It’s an athletic competition. Do they throw the technique or don’t they? Nobody says anything about the emotional quality of the people throwing themselves head first down the side of of an icy mountain on a cafeteria tray. Like skeleton, out here in the real world away from the performing arts and multi media, action speaks louder than the feels. It is perfectly OK to go through a day without the rollicking feels. Do the essentials and accept your emotions (or lack thereof) at face value. They are what they are.

Like I was talking about in the Valentine Q&A post a few days ago, in Tarot and romance readings, the clients emotions and everyone’s privacy are of prime importance. The six of cups reminds me of a few more things for the list of important Tarot things. Add authenticity and dealing with things as they are to the list too.

You all know that I’m a huge Adam Savage fan. I think it was a short Q&A video on Tested or maybe on Tested’s instagram feed, but one time he was talking about how he feels a little down or low energy after wrapping up a big project. At least I think that’s the words he used. I may be paraphrasing. I’ve found that to be true, on a much smaller scale of course. I’ve knitted blankets for family members as gifts. I don’t know if you’ve ever knitted a blanket but it is less of a work in progress and more of a lifestyle choice. It takes some serious time to make one of those babies. Weirdly, the next day after the blanket was finished I felt compelled to knit something else. Maybe it was simple inertia. Maybe it was to fill the void a big project leaves when it’s done. After putting so much time and attention and emotional investment into a project, it leaves a noticeable gap when its gone. The same it true of eBooks and essays, even the teeny tiny little ones that I write.

Yesterday I put My Tarot Valentine out in the world for purchase from the ko-fi shop. I’ve been writing early February My Tarot Valentine posts for the blog since 2015 and tinkering with the eBook collection of those posts off and on since last year. I’m beyond over it. Still, clicking that upload button always has a little bit of a ripping off the bandage feel. Wrapping up that project led to a minor case of the snarky BLAHS today. I almost didn’t do a short sip post because I just wasn’t feeling it. But did it anyway and here comes the six of cups to remind me that taking a day as it is and working with the BLAHS for what they are actually is today’s short sip Tarot.

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Thanks again and see you at the next sip


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Short Sip Tarot: Wood & Water

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to Short Sip Tarot on the TaoCraft Tarot Blog, the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and shorts, and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. The Short Sip posts are a Tarot reading and thought for the day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.

Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.

Knight cards are associated with action, and pentacles are associated with the element of earth.

Earth – as in grounded, rooted, solid energy.

Some days are like that. When you work with Tarot most days, you can see the ebb and flow of energy. Even if you do just quick daily one card meditations over time you see the larger patterns of energy. Patterns is a little bit of a misleading word in this context. It isn’t as if there is anything predictable or regular about it. It isn’t to say there is a set pattern like day and night or the progression of the seasons. It’s more like observation over years teaches you the kinds of clouds that roll in the with the weather for the day.

The Zen proverb “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water” captures this particular energy very well. The idea idea isn’t necessarily attached to any one particular Tarot card, but it does come through Pentacle cards more often than the others. Both the suit of cards and the proverb are grounded and practical. Both remind us how important it is to balance mind, spirit AND body. Physical health supports mental and emotional health and mental while mind and spirit support the body as well. It is no better to be overly occupied with spirituality than it is to be wrapped up the the physical realm and ignore the spiritual altogether.

With the focus on balance, you would expect this energy and message to be attached to the TWO of pentacles. Often, it is. In this case there is a little extra message behind the mind – body – spirit balance idea.

Sometimes you have to DO something to achieve that balance.

Exercise. Eat well. Take a nap if you need it. Change the shelf paper. Do some mundane task that you’ve been putting off.

The spiritual is still there. There is magic in the mundane, but there is also a little mundane in the magic. To paraphrase the poet Duane Toops … a miracle is still a miracle even if it doesn’t feel like one.

A day is still a miracle even when it feels and needs to be ordinary.

Today’s Tarot: The woo isn’t everything

Gremlins

Some people blame these things on Mercury retrograde. My genX brain calls technical glitches that I can’t figure out gremlins. I still kinda want to be a computer geek when I grow up.

Just spent two attempts and more time than I wanted to spend trying to get today’s youtube tarot short to upload. I think the problem is in the processing on YouTubes end, actually. Either way, enough bashing against a road block.

In fact, that is the message this last attempt gave: put it down and come back later.

It’s a good general message. The woo isn’t everything. No every minute of every day has to be a spiritual success. Not every moment has to be some grand enlightenment. When the energy is wrong for spiritual things, and you run into one wall after another, it is perfectly OK to set aside the spritual and spend some quality time in the practical physical realm.

It’s more of the meatspace energy we’ve talked about lately.

If you want some woo…today is a good day for grounding, balancing, centering. Get your head out of the clouds and your feet planted on the ground.

It’s a good day for the Zen proverb: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Or the Alan Watts quote “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

So chop your water, carry your potatoes and peel your wood, set aside the gremlins and have a good day in spite of it all.