Seven of Pentacles:
“You reap what you sow” cuts both ways.
It is a promise of consequences to your actions, effects that you cause.
It can be a warning of unkindness coming home to roost, but by the same token it can be a promise of good things coming home as well.
Sow well, reap well.
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I like to think it’s a writer’s thing.
I call it the niggles when a thought captures your creative imagination and keeps poking at you until you write it. The Ten of Swords has been a little like that the past couple of days.
Had the niggling notion to draw a card for Wednesday (two days ago) but didn’t get anything posted after drawing the card because life, day job and everything. I drew the card with the intention of expanding Sunday’s Action Eases Anxiety reading, Cresting Wave.
I originally wrote Action Eases Anxiety as a 2 card layout showing, essentially, what it is and what to do. The cards describe current energies and give a suggestion about how to best navigate them. My thought was to add a third card …. a how-to-do-it card, which would flesh out the sentence, and let the layout echo parts of speech: subject-verb-object in a vague sort of way.
The new, third card was the 10 of swords and it prompted an avalanche of random sayings and platitudes plus a bonus earworm of a song from one of my favorite albums back in the day. It all pointed toward the 10 of swords keyword surrender. Often this surrender is the wave a white flag and admit defeat kind that the dire-looking Pamela Smith artwork would indicate.
In this case the surrender word has a different connotation. It is more like acceptance but not acquiescence. There is an element of going with the flow that we see in the six of swords, but with a much more disturbing undercurrent and context than the six would carry. This card connects to the previous reading in a way the six could not.
Surrender is a way to persist.
Someone on Twitter several years ago captured the absolute essence of this card as it presents today. I can’t remember who it was, but I want to say it was author Chuck Wendig in his You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton era. Whoever it was, they described the Ten of Swords something like “yeah, you are laying on the floor in utter defeat, but while you are down there you look under the sofa and find the car keys you lost two weeks ago.”
Today, the so-called negative aspects of the card are only negative or bad from a hyper active, frenetic, pushing, over-achieving point of view. Sure, it’s bad from an all-yang sort of perspective. If you look at it from a more yin-balanced perspective, surrender IS persisting.
Surrender lets you understand your situation and deal with it honestly and rationally (after all, intellect is a swords thing.)
A psychiatrist at a hospital where I worked a long time ago once said that “the decision not to decide is still a decision.”
So by that same token, waiting and watching IS doing something.
Yes, it’s true that if you wait for the perfect time to do something you’ll never do it because the time is never perfect, BUT timing can be better if not perfect. Waiting for perfect is the problem – being thoughtful and strategic is not (again a swords / air / intellect thing)
Surrender and retreat isn’t defeat, it is advancing in a new direction.
“He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.”
Adaptation is survival, and that is the key to persisting in this energy.
It tracks.
Today is a good day for the three of cups.
Cups represent emotion, and our emotions have been, collectively speaking, taking a breathing the past few months to years. The energy has been intense lately, especially here in the US. The world rightly hates us. We hate us. Terrible things are happening and if the people in power aren’t actively instigating it, they are tacitly allowing it.
Which only makes it more important to claw back a moment of simple pleasure when you can.
It’s St. Patrick’s day weekend. Enjoy the parades. Enjoy the beer. Enjoy being with friends if you can. Take a breath or take a nap and then get back at it.
Happy Pi Day to all who celebrate.
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Change is inherent to life. Change is inevitable. Change is at hand.
The energy in today’s reading is entirely about world events, not an individual situation – but it tells us all something we can do ease the anxieties for all of us during war, fascism and all of the overwhelming things in the world today.
The Action Eases Anxiety layout hints at what current energies ARE and what to DO about them.
What is is: The Scythe. This symbol clearly resonates with the Death card from the RWS major arcana. The energy now is ripe for making changes. In this deck’s book, Christopher Butler adds a connotation of precision. The advice here is to make smart, precise, efficient, effective changes. Be focused and targeted in what you decide to do. Do small things that you feel confident and comfortable doing….think of a magnifying glass that focuses sunlight so strongly it could ignite paper. When you are confident and comfortable, you are focused and effective. Don’t feel comfortable calling your congressional representatives? Send an email. Don’t feel comfortable carrying a big sign to a protest? Stand quietly at the protest. Quiet presence and small but persistent action counts too.
The Death card is ‘sea change’ … any big, life altering change. Like the Death card, the change isn’t always disastrous. When I was a professional reader, I saw the death card all of the time – at bachelorette parties, and even a baby shower once. Change can be very, very good change. Sure it may be the death of the maiden phase of life, but it is also the birth of wife and mother phases of life. Symbolic death of the old is necessary to make way for the new. The Scythe card here emphasizes that aspect. The Scythe clears the way for better things to come. It clears the way for you to move forward in the way that you want, the way that you must.
Here I am reminded of the powerful quote from the movie The Last Jedi where the character Kylo Ren says “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become who you were meant to be.” That captures the feeling of the Scythe card today.
What to do: The Whip is a disturbing image, typically associated with quarreling and conflict akin to the 3 of swords or 5 of wands. This connects to the underlying “Change…but in a good way” message here. To make positive, effective changes, old patterns are necessarily disrupted. This connects to the John Lewis “good trouble” reference.
Clearly this is a time of upheaval. I intuitively ‘hear’ “sea change” along with “good trouble.”
I also ‘hear’ “we are in the thick of it” and “this the darkness before the dawn”
My mind is drawn to the number 5 and the month of May. I don’t know why or what that’s about – but I hold on to hope just the same. May is only a couple of months away.
But that should NOT draw our focus away from the moment at hand. That is exactly what the first card warns us about. Any diffusion to our focus could keep the critically needed changes from sparking.
Now is the time to add your drop into the ocean of change, now is the time to add your weight to the work of bending the arc of history toward justice.
Thank you, as always, for reading. See you at the next sip!
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Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission as published on Llwellynpublishing.com
Over the past several months I have been given images and messages about letting go, moving on, releasing what no longer serves.
That especially included romance Tarot questions which always makes people hurt and angry, understandable so. Heartbreak and loneliness are some of life’s sufferings that no one wants to experience.
Still, there is a tiny glint of encouragement, a little bit of shimmer among the ashes.
Astrology isn’t my strong suit, but according to internet memes, things are turning a corner, at least on individual levels. I’m not touching world events here. If I can give a little encouragement on an individual by individual basis, that’s plenty enough of a win. Encouraged individuals are then a little bit more resilient and able to speak and resist and do whatever else we can in the flaming, toxic social / political environment that has been dropped in our collective lap through no fault of our own.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with anything, but my sun, moon, and rising signs are all on this particular list. They are on to something with this meme. I was really feeling it when I wrote the Standing in the Ashes post a few days ago and can personally relate to that post.
Since I have a full time day job now and have had to remake my professional Tarot practice into something entirely different, I am basically standing in the ashes of 20+ years of work. If you resonated with that post – me too.
This corner-turning energy that has cropped up this week in spite of world events really does beg the question of NOW WHAT. Now that we’ve done the hard things, now that we are standing in the ashes of the bridges we’ve burned, what are we going to do?
Here is where the encouragement part comes in.
Reading Tarot isn’t just about the cards. To be really good at it, you also have to draw in present-moment intuition that relates to the person, situation and energy of the moment at hand when you are doing a reading.
Last week was one of those weeks where I wrote for the blog in bits, little times fit in between other necessary things. It was interesting to see the energy shift even as I was working on a post about a single card here and there over the course of the week.
The day after the post published two days ago, the mental image the card prompted came back to mind, but with a subtle but important change.
The figure on the card was facing a different direction. Not back the way he came, but at a different angle than is on the card. There was less water, no cups (symbolizing less emotional upset, more clarity, and a greater sense of calm)
Most of all, the ground was all grey, like the ashes in the post BUT with a silver and gold shimmer. It reminded me of the simulated moon dust from an old episode of Mythbusters but with the tiny glitter they add to nail polish mixed in.
Yeah, everything has been burned to ash, but that ash is shimmering with potential. The shimmer is new, compared to the same mental image from writing the other post a few days ago
The Standing In The Ashes post put the onus of rebuilding on us. Then the energy was reminding us that our intention matters. Causes have effects and we are the cause of our next experiences. It’s a little bit of a dark and burdensome message, but there is no light without the shadow. Or as Carl Jung wrote “…the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
Yes it is our responsibility to choose what we do next as we stand among the ashes of the past. Yesterday is gone…so what shall we do today to make tomorrow better?
The shimmer reminds us that among the loss, among the ashes is great potential. The ashes remind us that the same old Phoenix is there is we choose to let them rise. But the shimmer reminds us that change is forever present. Change is life. We can choose the Phoenix that rises this time.
image public domain via Wikipedia commons @lychee532
“…the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and stability.”
Life can be a dumpster fire. Or a sudden storm. Or a dumpster fire in a storm.
When that happens…and it always does at some point for everyone…you do what you have to do to make it through.
During those times stability and comfort zones are sometimes more helpful than striving, goals or lofty ideals – even our so-called “personal growth.”
When the dumpster fire is particularly raging, it can help to get granular, get smaller but more stable. A lower center of gravity is more stable.
But so is flexibility. The tree that bends in strong winds doesn’t break. That is why coastal cypress trees are a classic symbol of strength in the storm.
When the storm comes, it is an opportunity to be the creator and protector of your own little bubble of strength and stability. You alone can’t stop the storm, but you can control your reaction to it. You can control your hunkering down and seeking shelter, protecting you and yours as best as you can.
The protective, competent, powerful, self-confident energy of the Emperor card reminds us of this.
Anything helps. Anything is better than nothing. This is where all the little milquetoast platitudes and meme-ish affirmations take on some actual value. Anything you can do to create a little stability for yourself, anything that will foster the strength and flexibility that you need has benefit. Meditation for even a few minutes, sitting and staring at your morning coffee for a few minutes, say that affirmation to yourself in the mirror, scroll and inspirational social media feed – draw that Tarot card.
You don’t have to be a towering redwood. A short and supple pine tree will do just fine.
If enough of us become our own little cypress tree, soon we can have a whole forest that can withstand any storm.
It’s a shocker, I know.
I follow a number of Taoist, Buddhist, Accupressure, Traditional Chinese Medicine and other such social media feeds.
This being the waning weeks of the year of the snake has popped up several times over the past few days, associating the end of the year with a metaphoric shedding of skin, as a snake does when it grows and enters a new cycle.
It reminds me of the ouroboros, the image of a snake or dragon eating its own tail that is said to symbolize cycles destruction and rebirth.
Drawing the Star card from the major arcana fits exactly that energy today.
This card is sometimes associated with guidance – like ancient sailors using the stars for navigation. Of course, this winter holiday season, the Christian minded among us might think of the star in the three kings legend. But that isn’t the energy this time at all.
Reference after reference connects The Star with rebirth and renewal.
This is much more cyclic. This is snake skin and ouroboros circles. It’s not about a singular point of guidance. It’s much more complex than that.
When I drew the Star card, I intuitively ‘heard’ “echoing silence” and was reminded of winter nights with a clear sky over snow-covered ground. Even if you are in a city parking lot or a suburban driveway, the night and silence are profound, the quiet echoing behind any noise you might hear.
We are at a cusp. We are at the tail of the ouroboros snake. No one star guides us through this transition.
An entire galaxy of stars promise rebirth.
As dark as this night may be, as anxious and terrifying as the echoing, frigid silence may feel, the stars burn on.
Even the stars move. Everything changes. And that includes changes for the better just as much as the tragedies our fears so often imagine.
This week we had our first snowy day of the season.
It’s one of those things where you just have to roll with it. You can’t stop it. Not much you can do about it except brave the bread and eggs crowd at the grocery store and shovel when it’s all said and done.
Life is one big snow day in that respect. Do what you can when you can and roll with it otherwise.
The six of swords is giving that energy today. Go with the flow is the best way through. All is not always as it seems anyway.
The swords are on the boat…not blocking the boat;s way.
The figures behind the swords seem huddled and seem miserable while the standing (and steering) figure sees the way ahead, the direction the current is flowing, and can nudge things toward a brighter horizon.
Why fight the current if you can use it to your advantage? Why huddle behind imagined blockages when the natural flow of is taking you in the general direction that you want to go?
Mindfulness and being aware of the present moment is like standing up for a minute and seeing the current flow, the bigger picture, and the way ahead.
The six of swords is a reminder to enjoy unexpected snow days, so to speak.
See you at the next sip!
Action Eases Anxiety layout shows ‘what it is’ (left – current energy or situation) and ‘what to do about it’ (right- advice to help move forward) Having a plan makes things less scary, even if the plan goes off the rails (which is usually does – being adaptable helps too)
Three of Pentacles: the physical realm, especially when it comes to work and career feels inside out and upside down. And it isn’t all under your control. The system or teamwork may be falling apart or under stress.
Knight of Wands: Now is the time to make a move in favor of yourself. You are your own best mentor and support team in this moment. Don’t be petty or hurtful or throw anyone deliberately under the bus, but do what you need to do for you. This is that moment where the oxygen masks are dropping and you have to put yours on before you can help anyone else. You are no good to anyone, yourself or otherwise, if you are metaphorically unconscious. Tend to your own physical and mental health this week so you can be present for new situations and other people later on.
Often this strategy brings guilt about not helping others in this moment, or worry that there will be pay-back or blow-back. Think of it as a short term investment for a long term gain. If there is blow-back for giving yourself a short amount of time to do what you need to do for yourself – then that shows the true colors. A time like this where the energy supports taking care of yourself shows who supports you and who doesn’t. Use that information to know how best to spend your energy and efforts moving forward. This time not only benefits you directly, but also lets you help others with sincerity and dedication in times to come.
The knight of wands carries most of the energy in this reading. It often reminds me of the book/series Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. In that, the Knight of Wands turns out to be a harbinger of “magic returning to England”
The Knight of Wands is here to let us know that this is a time for our magic to come home. It is a time to pay attention to your passions, your loves, the things that make life most magical for you.
Your magic is returning. This is the week to welcome it.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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