Are you in synch with the natural cycles of energy? Are you jumping the gun or lagging behind? Synch up with the cycles of things.
Today’s Tarot: Detective Work
Category: Tarot Cards
YouChoose Interactive Tarot 25 July – 1Aug. 2020
Take your week, and the Tarot guidance for it into your own hands. Pick a card, right, center or left. Take your time, pause the video then restart for the reveal…or pick which ever card feels right on an impulse. Both ways work just fine.
Left: Seven of Swords. Mischief is afoot. Stay on your toes. Watch out for pranks, be kind to unintended mistakes
Center: The Magician. Create your world. Like attracts like. A shift in perception and point of view can change the world like magic
Right: King of Pentacles. Focus on the practical. Generally, energies are turning toward the spiritual and esoteric, but this week still needs a grounded and practical approach. Don’t let your head get stuck in the clouds.
Kitten Whiskers: TaoCraft Tunes
Hi there and welcome to this week’s episode of unabashed Friday fangirling!
“Kitten Whiskers,” and “More Kitten Whiskers” are a nod to the song from The Sound of Music and are simply intended to share some of my favorite things with you. These posts have absolutely noting to do with Tarot. Well, almost nothing. Ideas like “Rediscover simple pleasures” and “little things mean a lot” have been turning up in quite a few readings lately. I really do take my own advice – sometimes. All of the things in the “Kitten Whiskers” posts delight me, and I hope they will lift your spirits a little bit as well.
Today: Music. Like laughter, it’s good medicine. LIstening to music expresses, acknowledges and validates whatever mood I’m in the healthiest possible way. It helps mental focus (I’m listening to the new playlist as I write this.) Music generally celebrates life in all of its aspects. I don’t know squat about the technical side of music. I am lucky beyond measure to have married a wonderful guy who just happens to be an excellent musician, to be the mother of a music therapist and to have had access to music ever since I was old enough to change the dial on my parents’ radio.
You may not have heard of some of these artists, but I really hope you’ll give a listen or better yet, buy the music and support their work. Where possible, I’ve linked directly to their website or bandcamp page. I’ve also cobbled together a handy Spotify playlist for this post, oh so creatively titled “TaoCraft Tunes”
In a previous “Kitten Whiskers” post, we met my friend Jose Johnson and his life coaching, martial arts teaching, and book writing work. There is another side to Jose. He is a professional musician and has recorded both as a solo artist and with bands including Big Tubba Mista. The title track of his early 2000s album Side Street of Dreams is bones-deep calming and meditative while other tracks like “Tribal Mists” are energizing and empowering enough to get you through wushu warmups. It brings a smile to your face and does your heart good either way. Listen here:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/josejohnson/side-streets-of-dreams
Or learn more about all of Coach Jose’s work at JoseJohnson.com
Dinosoul is a local Pittsburgh duo. When their website says that they are here to “love, connect and inspire” they mean every bit of it – and they achieve it. Having met Donny and Carolyn, plus living in the city where the music was composed gives their album Eleven a strong sense of presence and place for me. Sure, Pittsburgh has the surface vibe of football, perogies, beer, bridges, yinz, n’at, but Dinosoul (especially the songs “4 am” and “Dimension”) capture the deeper energy of the place, like the legendary ‘fourth river’ aquifer captures the deeper waters of the local geography. Through their music you can feel the city at night or sunset at the point looking down the Ohio river. You can listen (and buy) Eleven and Dinosoul’s other music on their Bandcamp page. Check out some of Donny and Carolyn’s other projects: Empath Sober Bar and Free Will Pgh on Instagram. Pro tip – While you are there, FOLLOW @Dinosoulmusic A new song is coming! Squee!
While I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Jose since 2000 or so and talking with Donny and Carolyn in person, but when it comes to Strangeletter it was fangirl at first TV ad. I became an instant Browncoat and Strangeletter fan all in one 30 second promo for the series Firefly that featured Strangeletter’s song “Here Comes A Chopper.” I can’t for the life of me remember how I got from a TV ad to Strangeletter’s YouTube channel and Bandcamp page, but I’m glad it happened whatever it was. I don’t know a thing about music genres. I have seen their music tagged with alternative, dark wave, and post-progressive rock, but the adjectives I would use are words like ethereal, experiential, and evocative. Their music invokes mental images in a way that verges on intuition, almost like a sonic Tarot card. For example, with “Chopper” I ‘see’ night, a futuristic suburb, dsytopia and and organized underground resistance. (Apparently, ‘futuristic’ means about a week – I rough drafted this part of the post a few days before the stormtroopers landed. All love and good vibes to the good people of Portland.)
Darkwave, shoegaze, triphop, ambient…whatever you call it, that part of the music spectrum is my favorite. But sometimes all you want is a cold drink and some reggae. It all started with the reggae influence you can hear in the Police and other 80s bands. Then I stumbled on to a cd of Julian Marley’s Lion in the Morning at a yardsale and the rest is history. Fast forward 20 years, and I finally started to learn Esperanto. Put those two things together and you get the one and only Jonny M. I’m not sure, but I think he speaks more languages than the Pope and is an gifted musician in any language. Always hopeful, just like his chosen language, his music ranges from light, pleasant songs like “Dankon” to richer, deeper songs like “Eterna Lumon” and “Sonon De La Viv'” You don’t have to speak a word of Esperanto to appreciate the spirit of the music. To prove that point, also listen to En Natura on his Bandcamp page. I can’t speak a word of German and can still enjoy the album, especially “Die Germanen.” Music really is a transcendent language all its own. Mi sxatas lia muzikon tre multe!
Many thanks to Jose, Donny, Carolyn, Steven and Jonny for granting permission for me to fangirl their music and link to their art and sound.
There is a metric crap-ton of other music out there that I straight up adore. I don’t know if it’s ok to mention any of it without permission. Rather than get anyone’s copyright shorts in a bunch, I just made a random fangirl Spotify playlist to share a few other favorites in no particular order.
Happy weekend everyone!
Today’s Tarot: I AM doing something
“Just a moment, Mary. I’m having an idea” – Young Einstein
Today’s Tarot: Five of Wands. Keywords – conflict, inner world, element of fire. Inner conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can take you to a powerful place.
Not all work is visible. Mental focus can be exhausting. Personal growth and spiritual work is work. It may not be obvious to other people, but inner conflict is as valid as the physical combat depicted on today’s card. It is arguably more important.
“Conquering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power” – attr. Lau Tzu
Small changes that you integrate into who you are and can sustain permenantly are the most powerful. It is as true of perception as it is of a healthy diet, new exercise routine, adding a meditation practice to your day…any change really. It can be the most challenging…and challenged … part of real self improvement. Others may confront you about small changes without even realizing it. “Don’t you…” “When did you start…” “Just one time won’t matter…” and other little off handed comments can derail the best intentions without meaning to. If you are supporting someone, respect the small as much as the big. If you are making changes, lots of small step can get you to where you want to go just as much as a giant leap….just like a mouse can frighten an elephant or a tiny little mosquito can drive you up a wall. Little things mean a lot. They are worth any challenges they may bring.
Especially since these kinds of small steps and inner challenges are winnable conflicts. The five of wands often connotes conflict, but with an undercurrent of success in the end. Yes, long term small changes may not be evident to an outside observer, or show immediate success, but the Five of Wands gives encouragement to go along with its heads up message. Sure, little challenges and possible inner conflicts may be on the horizon, but they are winnable, do-able things. It may not be obvious on the outside, but you ARE doing something, even when you are busy having a new idea.
Today’s Tarot: Seven Coins and One Hundred Thank Yous
THANK YOU each and every one. No matter if you are seeing this directly from your YouTube subscription or if you are on the blog or social media – thank you. As you can tell, (insert Star Trek Dr. McCoy voice) dammit Jim, I’m a writer not a YouTuber. I really didn’t know what to expect when I started the channel. Triple digits are both a surprise and a priveledge. I’ll do all I can to make the channel and blog only get better from here.
I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to comment on YouTube. I’ll reply individually in time (once I get my almost boomer brain around how to do that effeciently) But yes, you are absolutely right. These videos ARE short – for a reason. They were always intended to be a starting point. I hope you’ll follow the description link to get the full written reading. There are plenty of speech to camera talking head Tarot videos out there. I want this to be about the cards and the *intuitive process*. Intuition and mental processes don’t make for exciting video.
And yes, I’ll be making videos of actual readings on a variety of topics, career included. Comments on the website are closed, but you are welcome to use the feedback page or email to send any questions, comments suggestions or topics you would like to see covered both on the YouTube channel and in the blog.
But now back to the reason we are all here…
Seven of Pentacles: Give stuff time and space to grow. Tarot evolved in medieval Europe, even if it was initially just a game. Even if it didn’t make the jump from game to fortune telling device or spiritual practice until the eighteenth or nineteenth century, the culture was still more agrarian than industrial. That would explain why this card is so rooted in gardening images and metaphores. You reap what you sow – literally. It is both warning and a promise. If you plant artichokes, you are going to get artichokes, not a field of daisies. It is a warning that if you throwdown bad stuff, bad stuff will come right back at you, in some form or another. It is a promise, that if you put in the effort, that if you plant seeds there will indeed be a harvest, in one form or another. Warning and promise take time. To get the good stuff, you have to put in the work, invest good things, and let nature take its course a little bit, but nature promises some sort of return, symbolically speaking. Sure, real life farming can take disasterous turns that are no fault of the farmer. Metaphorically speaking: nature gives back, always, sooner or later. What nature gives is in many ways up to you, what you do, and how you perceive the result. A tomato may not be picture-perfect, but still taste delicious.
Thank you, times hundreds
Thank you all a hundred times over. Each and every one of you
Blog readers, YouTube subscribers, social media friends, anyone kind enough to be reading this – I appreciate it. Thank you. You are why I spend time doing this. If any little thing in any of this has sparked half an idea, given a half second of encouragement, or was a moment of entertainment, it’s been worth it.
I about fell over when I the notice popped up on the phone that the TaoCraft Tarot YouTube channel has 100 subscribers. YouTube is a big challenge for me. My brain is hardwired to spew intuition out of my fingertips. Speaking in person is a little easier, just from the organic conversation of it all. The performative quality of making a YouTube video is a whole different animal. I suck at it. That’s why I link the videos to the blog for the full readings. I want to do my best for you, and my best is here, in print.
So lots of respect to everyone in YouTube land who makes all the content that I’ve grown to love over the past couple of years (due in large part to my daughter cluing me in to the good stuff.) Thank you for your kindness and patience while I learn this new thing. I ideas to make it better as time goes on. Thanks for watching, and as they say, watch this space. I’ll do my best to make it worthwhile.
YouChoose Interactive Tarot July 20-25
Choose a card. Pause the video if you need more time, the restart for the reveal. Don’t over think it, though. Just pick whichever cards seems right at the moment. Or use them all if you like. Then scroll for card highlights.
Here is where things get a little different from before.
As we talked about in last night’s blog post, the basic blog is going to stay largely the same…all the same “my side of the table” behind the scenes and how to posts, all the same Q&A posts, Reiki, Meditation, Niggles….all of that is free to read and follow just like before. “YouChoose” interactive Tarot reading videos will still be here on Sunday or Monday. I expect/hope/intend to do “Today’s Tarot” every Wednesday.
The difference is MORE content, not less. I’ve added a subscription tier to the basic free blog. For a low $5 per month, subscribers will get value-added content over and above the usual free posts that you have seen over the past year and a half of TaoCraft Tarot. Subscriber benefits include longer “YouChoose” card interpretations, extra “Today’s Tarot” posts, subscription only special offers and giveaways, and best of all, access to personal one card readings by email (one reading per month per subscription) The reading alone is a $5 value if purchased separately in the TaoCraft Tarot Shop.
Left: Three of Coins. It’s a ‘nose to the grindstone’ kind of week. Success needs effort.
Center: The World. Good omen card, but don’t forget to look for the big picture so you don’t miss the good stuff.
Right: King of Cups. It is ok to get advice. Look for a mentor or a guide – two heads are better than one.
Tarot You Can Touch
MINI INKMAGICK READING IN A FREE PRINT COPY OF PEACETAROT
I’m calling this “PeaceTarot: the punk graffiti edition” These are second quality paper copies of PeaceTarot with single sided printing and side staple binding that I’ll thoroughly vandalize with an InkMagick one card Tarot reading in the white space. Handwritten with my favorite glass dip pen, a mini InkMagick reading includes card interpretation, sigil element illustration, affirmation, crystal energy and aromatherapy suggestions plus anything else that comes to mind. You can personalize the reading with a specific question or topic, or leave the personalize option blank for an open style reading.
PeaceTarot is an easy method of doing DIY daily meditation Tarot readings. You can use the book even if you don’t have access to a Tarot deck. PeaceTarot gives you alternative ways to choose your card for the day and use the card meaning included in the book. Downloadable copies of the ebook are available in the TaoCraft Tarot shop too.
These handwritten readings are extra special to me for several reasons. While I know right down to my bones that written distance readings gives the same quality and information that you would get in a live in-person or phone reading, as a writer nerd at heart, for me, the readings I give in writing might actually be a little bit better. Symbolism is the language and life’s blood of Tarot and this kind of spiritual work. In the physical, work-a-day world, anything that is written (or recorded) has permanence, even a legal gravitas over and above the spoken word. That carries over here. Written Tarot session add weight to the words and help pull the path you desire out from the ethers and help you to manifest them in physicality. Speech, is more potent than a passing thought…it has actual physical energy, moving actual air particles sparking real neurological activity. Email or video has permanence and the ability to be stored in memory outside of your own. Pen, ink and paper has that same permanence, but adds even more weight. You can store electronic images but you can’t really touch them. Pen and paper Tarot is a chunk of something you can actually hold in your hands. It is a personal reading raised a dimension in time and drawn into physical space. It is a special, unique experience to create each and every InkMagick reading. I hope it is just as moving for you to experience one. Writing unites art and ideas with the tangible world. This is Tarot you can touch.
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
– Carl Sagan
Today’s Tarot: Homecoming
In numerology they do this thing where they add the individual digits of higher numbers to reduce them to a single digit equivalent. Why, I don’t know, but they do. But it is an interesting concept when applied to the 10 cards of the minor arcana suits. Not only is it the largest of the numbered cards, the threshold to the court cards, but 1+0 = 1 which hints at a full circle, satisfying completion, a return to origens, a homecoming.
On the surface, the Ten of Cups has always been the ‘happy family’ card, akin to the Ten of Coins/Pentacles that we’ve seen in recent days. Instead of reminding us that relationships and loved ones are our most valuable treasure, this card lifts 10 cups in pure celebration of them. Homecomings of all sorts are celebrations.
Not all homecomings are the literal with all of those people, food, home and hearth goodnesses. There is a thread here connecting today’s card to the past two cards.
The Devil card reminds us that there are still storms on the horizon and that there are, in reality, some legit bad stuff out there. The Two of Wands reminds us that within any journey or project, a planned detour is possible. You can steer around the storms and get where you were originally wanting to go if you are heads up, eyes open, and plan on the fly. New phases, new plans, new turns don’t have to be stumbling blocks. Fluid, effective adaptation is very possible.
We’ve also seen a turn in energy that was outside of the cards and their artwork. That shift connects the other two cards to today’s Ten of Cups. While the first half of the year was focused on the physical realm and doing what needs done (even when what needs DONE is to stay home, wear face masks and wash your hands. Now that we are in the dog day doldrums of summer, the energy has turned toward spirituality and introspection. Now the time has come for spa retreat, soul searching, growing, deciding, planning for the Fall and Winter ahead. That is where the homecoming comes in.
Author Richard Bach is known for saying “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” The same is true of our internal philosophy-home. It is time for a spiritual homecoming. It is time to celebrate whatever path embues life with the most respect and joy possible. It need not be the path you started on.
Bad things happen, steering away from those things can happen. Taking your place among people and ideas that give you respect and joy can happen – and must. For me that comes through the lens of Taoist and Buddhist philosphies paired with Tarot and other magickal things. Whatever it is that you respect, that respects who you truely are, and brings you happiness – that – I hope that for you. If you have an iota of inclination, the energies are right to celebrate the esoterica that makes you happy.
If you have tried new ideas and new ways of doing things and find they are off course after all, then it is perfectly fine to change back. Going back to a spiritual path that brings good things is wonderful sort of homecoming. If you seek out new spiritual ideas and find something that perfectly fits you, then that is your homecoming too. Just as family is defined by respect and joy and love, spirituality is defined the same way. No matter whether you are going back to the old, or taking up residence with the newly discovered, the energies are flowing toward homecoming.
Today’s Tarot: A Journey Begins
Pro tip from my side of the table: When a message from a minor arcana card mirrors the basic meaning of a major arcana card, it serves to modify the intensity or impact. It can serve as a “major arcana light” sort of meaning.
In this way, the two of wands connects to the major arcana Fool card by suggesting a beginning. No only does it differ in intensity, but in quality too. The beginning or new-thing in question here isn’t the giddy thrill of a totally new project, or new path as is the flavor of the Fool’d kind of new beginning. This is a new beginning within an older, over-arcing journey or project. It doesn’t have the quality of cycles or phases that you might see with a moon card, it is more like a course adjustment, or adaptive change that has the luxury of time. Planning is a strong component of the two of wands as well. Think of it as a new phase, a change in plans, heavy on the plan part.
It connects with the Devil card reading from yesterday, but in energy, not artwork. Remember that storm on the horizen image that has been coming through lately? It’s back. Energy shifts and flows, day by day. The point in time today is slightly different from yesterday, even though that was a short 24 hours ago. On the whole, general energies are turbulent and fast moving these days, even though things may be stagnant or stuck on the individual level. It’s the difference between a general blog reading and individual custom reading. These posts are free, but apply to the group mindset. some days they are like throwing cooked spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (metaphorically speaking – don’t waste food. Love, mom) A custom, individual reading is like a plate of your favorite dinner made exactly to your taste with your favorite seasonings. Shameless plug aside…back to the devil card yesterday.
Today that storm on the horizon energy has backed off a tiny bit, and seems more horizon-ish again. We are at a point where we can navigate again. Detour, might be a better word. It is still possible to get where we want to go, but we might need to detour around the worst of a storm, like a plane or ship might. That leads right in to the two of wands with planning, a new turn, a new direction, adaptation and newness within an older journey. Like real life hurricane warnings, at least we can try to prepare, with the spiritual equivalent of boarding up windows (define and honor healthy boundaries between self and others, personal emotions and general energies) and gathering supplies (self-care, disengaging from social media or draining relationships, etc.)
Introspection and a spiritual turn are parts of both day’s message, in energy if not in art work. Wands are associated with the element of fire, inner passions, relationship with self.
The Two of Wands has another connection to the major arcana. A globe is a common art element for the card across many decks. Connect that to the World card of the major arcana. That hints at success in the end if the plan/adaptation/new direction is enacted. It also hints that plans and actions need a gestalt, big picture, global aspect to help steer things toward that success.
Not every beginning is giddy and pure. Some beginnings are held within any given journey, project or plan. Sometimes, as now, we begin a new direction and a new plan within the old one.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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