Keeping it real never stops in this business, but sometimes it helps to turn up the volume.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the ace of swords.

Each of the minor arcana suits have a variety of associations. They are connected to a classic, alchemical element. Swords are air. Each suit has a handful of keyword connections that apply to the whole suit over and above the individual card meanings. For swords you have things like action, intellect, logic, and the realm of mind.

I deliberately chose the Ace of Swords for today. It wasn’t a random thing. It was the best card I could think of that would represent what I want to talk about. The topic is reverse engineering the card instead of the card inspiring the topic for a change. Reverse engineering your daily card is kind of fun to do every now and then, and a good way to help learn the deck if you are just starting out. Think of something abstract – a feeling, an idea, any intangible concept – and then browse the Tarot cards or an oracle deck or any visual image anywhere that resonates with that intangible idea.

The Ace of Swords is associated with keywords like “truth” and “communication.” That makes it a good card for what I’m aiming to do today. It’s an exercise in disclosure and transparency.

In the excerpt from my upcoming e-booklet TaoCraft: Portfolio on the blog page “How To Find a Psychic You Can Trust” open, consistent, mundane, ordinary business policies are one of the hallmarks of trustworthiness. If a psychic is open and honest and patient with you when you talk about run of the mill business things like hours and payment and scheduling and refunds and all of that stuff, then chances are they will treat your Tarot reading or psychic reading with the same respect. And this long post today is me walking that talk. Once a year or so, I try to re-introduce my policies and philosophies – restate my mission statement if you will.

None of this is new. If you are familiar I won’t be offended if you bail out now. I would too if I were you. All of this is always available on the “ABOUT” and “POLICY” pages on the blog website. I probably have too much information on the website but it is all there out in the open for you to read any time you want. The contact email for customer service is right on the home page, and you can ask any question you have there or in the blog comments. You are always more than welcome to browse the whole website including all of the old blog posts. The last time I tried it, the search box in the right hand column worked perfectly. If you want to know about a particular Tarot card, or anything about Tarot really, just type it in the search box and you’ll get a whole list full of old posts to read. If you can’t find what you want, just ask. If it’s not in the blog already, I’ll put it there. Consider this the world’s longest lasting and slowest ask me anything session. Seriously. Ask me anything. If it’s spam or offensive it will be annihilated in the blazing hellfire of my delete button. If I don’t have the answer I’ll either point to a better resource that might have an answer. Or I’ll recruit Zombie Cat to answer. The cat gets pretty snarky but will come up with some kind of Tarot answer for almost anything. The cat and I tend to answer in the form of blog posts but don’t worry, I always always always protect everyone’s identity.

Which is a good policy place to start: privacy. I don’t talk about clients and I don’t share your contact information with anyone. I don’t even keep records older than 30 days. Readings tend to be less useful as time goes on and things change. Updating your contact information each time and asking you for a question, topic, or permission for an open reading each time is how I form a connection to your energy and your specific message. Once I make the shift out of clairvoyant mode into normal mode, I don’t remember details about the reading very well. This kind of Tarot is like the pre-technology psychic equivalent of telegram or something like that.

That’s what ephemeral means when I say that I do Tarot exclusively as an ephemeral folk art service. It was never intended to last a long time. Yes, it is so called entertainment only, but it really is spiritual guidance and emotionally engaging and uplifting and inspirational and empowering and stress relieving and so much more. I’ve called art with heart for the past 30 years and in my experience that has proven true. There is a certain emotion and spark created in each unique individual reading, that can’t really be re-created. With each passing moment, one reading fades and a new connection with energy, spirit and universe sparks into being. Because of that constantly changing, ephemeral nature of this kind of work, exchanges are impossible. You know all of this going into a Tarot reading, so no refunds are available. That being said, I promise to work with you to make a reading as enjoyable and helpful as possible. Every email reading includes a follow up email at no extra charge for any questions or clarifications. To paraphrase the ebook “I want to show you the art of Tarot and this blog is my portfolio.”

There is more. Policy is pretty boring, so let’s stop there for now. I’ll bore you to tears with more of this on another day.

Thanks for listening so far! Next time it will be a little juicer when we talk about predicting the future.

The socials are going to be quiet this week but stay tuned here to the blog and podcast. It’s turning out to be a good week for bigger reads and behind the scenes.

If you are enjoying this peek into what life is like on the Clairvoyant’s side of the Tarot Table or if you enjoy the usual short sip posts, please be sure to follow the blog, follow the podcast, follow the socials (links are on the blog homepage) like, share, and support the blog and podcast on ko-fi.

See you at the next … post.