Category: Tarot Cards

Tarot readings and card discussions

YouChoose Interactive Tarot for May 3 – 9

 

You Choose: Pick a card. If you want more time, pause the video and restart it for the reveal.

You Choose: read the interpretation below or use PeaceTarot ebook (download from the Etsy shop)  Use it along with the card draw videos to learn to do DIY one card Tarot meditations, even if you don’t have a Tarot deck!

Left: King of Wands. Being the leader of your internal kingdom is a big responsibility. The buck stops with you for the things you say and do whether you own up to that responsibility or not. At the same time, it is good to be the king. You don’t have to have every answer at every moment. You are perfectly allowed to make yourself comfortable within that internal space, within your own skin. Being who you are, where you are and engaged with this moment of living is leadership enough. 

Center: Three of Wands. Every moment is a new horizon. Watch for your chance. Watch for your moment. A fresh start is always at hand. Wait and watch for the perfect one for you. There is a positive, optimistic energy around the card, like watching the sunrise. Watch for good things.

Rignt: Four of Wands. Solid and stable, the four of wands is associated with family foundations, and a celebration of the things that keep you grounded. “Put down roots” comes to mind. What makes you feel grounded, balanced, solid and stable? Look for those kinds of people and things. It’s been a weird couple of months. This is a good week to steady yourself.

Announcements: 

Apart But Not Alone

We are all connected. Emerson tells us that the greatest gift one can give is a portion of ourselves. With that piece of generosity, through the interconnectedness of everything, if we give that piece of ourselves we discover the Cosmos – and it is us.

Today’s Tarot: Grind

 

The Five of Wands has long been associated with conflict and challenge – but it is not insurmountable. I don’t know of any Tarot cards that are hopeless. There are “change course”, or “cut it loose and move on” types of  messages, but never an “give up it’s over” kind of message. This may seem close. It isn’t going to be easy. Life seldom is. The message from the Five of Wands isn’t give up. It’s quite the opposite. It is a call to persist. We’ve made it to the point where now we know what to do (stay the heck at home, etc.) Now is the time to do it. And keep doing it. Then do it some more. It’s time to grind.

Yes, things are inside out and upside down. In an ideal world, our future selves will look back, figure out just what went wrong, and try to figure out what we need to do to stay out of this particular sh*tstorm. But how is that going to help here and now that everything has hit the fan and we are right in the middle of it?

Grind.

Just do it. Fake it until you make it. “Don’t think yourself into a new way of doing, do yourself into a new way of thinking.

On that big, gestalt, general energy, zeitgeist level, it feels to me like there has been another shift in the wind. The past several days have been a pleasant respite. That was the eye of the hurricane. Now we are headed back into it for the second half of the initial storm. There are more waves on the horizon, but we’ll cross that energy bridge when we get to it. 

For now, do what needs done without over thinking it. Persistence will overcome.

It may not be a good time for spirituality. There may not be energy to spare for that. If that is where you mind, heart and energy lies, this card suggests a present moment attention, like a minor arcana echo to the Chariot card. This card suggests that Zen is a good spiritual approach to take in the challenges to come. Think Shaolin Monk. Think Samurai. Whatever level of potato peeling you may be doing, the idea is as Alan Watts said:

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

– Alan Watts

 

Today’s Tarot: The Art of Art

The Knight of Cups is typically about chivalry, and romance, and that Arthurian kind of knight-in-shiney-armour kind of thing. It is sometimes related to art and artists.

As always these days, it is relatable to those of us staying at home. The art piece of this is getting my attention today. When we look back on the social media of these months, I hope everyone remembers the museum at home art challenge thing. I have no idea how it started. I think ultimately it came from museaums posting pictures of pieces from their collection (something MOMA, Musee D’Orsay and others do all the time anyway) on Instagram. When the shutdow happened, other museums became more visible, sharing famous works with the hash #museumfromhome. From there it evolved to people replicating famous artworks with whatever they have on hand during quarantine. It is nothing short of amazing. Please, please, please check it out. The ones that work in a roll of toilet paper or a few are my favorites because that was such a thing and a source of giggles early on in this.

Someone once said that art is something that exists only for its own sake. I don’t 100% agree. I’m fond of art that has usefulness. Tarot for example. It is ephemeral folk performance art of sorts, but has psychological, stress relieving, diversion and entertainment utility.

I define art as that which evokes emotion.

Other than that, no rules about aesthetics or utility. A hand knit sweater can be art because it evokes feeling of comfort, warmth, or associations with the person who created it if it was a gift and so on. The Dada movement appreciated art that was provokative, confronting unpleasant emotions. Even if your response is “eeeww” or “pfft – I could do that” it is still a response, it is still engaging with the artwork, and it is still art. True enough, not all emotion eliciting art has a practical use. If one of Bob Ross’ trees make you happy, then that is more than enough.

And there you have it folks…my college art minor put to good use.

Which brings us back to the Knight of Cups. It is a good reminder that not everything musst have a purpose, and that we can emotionally engage with anything.

Interestingly enough, this also reinforces the message from yesterday about simple pleasures. If you want to re-create a painting and post it online because it amuses you, then that is reason enough to do it. I you want to wear your rattiest old sweater because it makes you feel comfortable, that is reason enough. If you want to gaze out the window at a dandilion in the grass because it is so bright yellow in the sun and it takes your mind off other things for a split second…that is reason enough. That dandilion become art. Life is art and art is life, connected, engaged, and mindful.

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Speaking of Instagram….I’m @ Taocraft.Tarot and that is the social media I’m most often on lately. Stop by and say hi if you want. Comments are closed on the website to prevent spam, trolls and unhealthy energy out of our little Tarot studio, but comments are open for converstatio on IG and Twitter (@TaoCraftTarot) See you there!

Today’s Tarot: A Well Stocked Cookie Jar

With all the pentacle cards that have been showing up lately, I’ve taken to re-reading old reference books to see if there is some obscure meaning, or some facet of the cards I’m missing. Call it due dilignce, although it is probably closer to trolling for inspiration.

Today was browsing the book that came with the deck in the video. It is my far and away favorite deck right now, the Witches Tarot. The book is by Ellen Dugan and the georgous artwork is by Mark Evans.

The keyword “homemaker” jumped out from the description for today’s Queen of Pentacles. My first knee jerk response was drudgery, housework, negative connotations of leaving the workforce that still get foisted on stay-at-home moms who are seen as somehow lesser, or giving in to old strictures of patriarchy.

Ok, let’s let that go, let the cultural programming wash a way for a second. Deep breath.

Now let’s connect the word homemaker to the more common, more resonant, overarching meaning of nurturing and self care that typically comes through with this card. Now lets connect that further to the pandmic that was such a huge wave of energy coming through the pentacle cards lately.

Rather than the HGTV Martha Stewert version of homemaking, think “nesting.”

Think comfortable. Think of making a soft cozy little nest of pillows and blankets and watching TV in bed or from your favorite seat. Think pillow forts and cookies and comfort foods. It is sourdough season.

There is the potential for good things to come out of this experience. Those out and working have found strengths they may not have known before. May they also discover a vast pool of support they have never had before as well. Delivery trucks, supply trucks, and grocery stores have my eternal gratitude to go right with the healthcare and first responders.

We’ve been given the chance to face up to…and befriend who we are right here and right now. What better way to make a friend than sharing a cookie or two? We’ve been handed the chance to rediscover childhood pleasure, and create new ones. We don’t need mass consumerism and a constant drive to heal, to grow, to progress or to succeed. To bake a loaf of bread, put on our jammies, to become OK with a being on earth…even on who likes the occasional sweet treat or second (or fourth) cup of coffee, or letting yourself sit and finish listening to that song, a stretch, a yawn … any of a million tiny sensual physical realm pleasures that are close at hand with minimal effort.

We can get back to obsessing over appearances and diets and progress and consuming and doing and achieving later. For now, stock the cookie jar and deeply, mindfully enjoy the simplest, smallest pleasures at hand. Little things mean a lot, even when you are the Queen.

May we always have well stocked cookie jars and appreciate the simple pleasures close at hand.

Today’s Tarot: When life hands you unbranded gelatin dessert

I dunno who writes them, but their kind of a comic genius, whoever they are.

I don’t know if they still make them, but Hallmark had a series of cards featuring the lovably salty Maxine. That is exactly the flavor of the advice that is coming through the Ten of Swords today.

Like Maxine says, when life hands you lemons, stuff ’em in your bra. Knowing how to deal with adversity can be, as she said, as “easy as nailing Jell-o to a tree”

Sometimes life sucks. The beautiful thing about Tarot is it has that covered, too. Not everything is all sparkly rainbows and ice cream cones. Cards like the Ten of Swords can be a pep talk about getting up the eighth time after being knocked down seven, or it can validate how you really feel. It is a card that gives permission to take a little time and space when you need it. It’s for when you just want to forget the get-ups and math lesson, and just stay down there a minute. You don’t heal, emotionally or physically by neglecting a wound.

When you get knocked down you don’t have to hop right up and nail gelatin dessert to the nearest shrubbery. Just don’t stay down there stuffing citrus in your underwear forever and it’ll be ok.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Leading Indicators

 

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” – Richard Bach

It’s not the no-pentacles thing.

Do you feel it? It isn’t over. The whole pandemic energy is still there, not the buzzing initial panic, but a low key, solid comfortable existential dread. From a place of both logic AND intuition – the switch flipping open the economy folks are insane. It is not time to go whole hog. We need to keep doing what we are doing a few more weeks. Even then there should be limits and cautions and this is nowhere near over until there is a vaccine.  

There is a leading indicator shift in the energy, akin to the resonance of panic and the foreboding ping that came in February and the run up to stay at home orders. This is advance planning. This is a nudge to think about what you are going to do or not do when official restrictions change. Trust me, the work from home freelancer….you don’t HAVE to go out if you don’t want to.

This reading, as a group of three, is about the good things this problem of staying in has brought, and once again this is more for the privileged than for those essential workers in the thick of this. They have bigger fish to fry than the getting and giving of Tarot readings. This is about “This is your chance to appreciate this while you have a chance before this opportunity goes away” This group of cards remind us to take whatever small gifts and good memories from the quarantine with us when it is all, finally and later, over.

Left: Two of Cups. This card, in normal times, is about marriage and other meaningful long term relationships. This is about holding on to long distance friendships that may have been forged online during social distancing. This is about the relationships that were strengthened or stretched to the limit being quarantined together. Think about what relationships have proven themselves to really matter over the past couple of months and think about which ones, if any, have proven themselves to be unnecessary. In short, trim and nurture where needed, cherish the precious from now on.

Center: Knight of Wands. Act on your passions. The rah-rah “toxic positive” vibe was way ahead of this curve. You still l don’t have to achieve or do anything except make it through, day by day. It wasn’t time yet, for many people, to do that spring cleaning or do their equivalent of Shakespeare writing King Lear during the plague. If you have some pet project or dreams to pursue, the energies are turning more toward that. Comfort yourself and those around you, yes. You will need that strength later. But the energies are shifting so it is easier for us to shift from hold-and-survive to once again chasing the dream.

Right: Eight of Swords. We are still trapped. It isn’t time to fully move yet. Now is the time for planning and creative problem solving. The energies may not have started to shift for you. If you have been thinking of these times as prison, now is the time to see them as protection. What do you need to guard that you haven’t seen? Where have you let your guard down….either getting your shields up too late, or dropping them too early?

Want a reading just for you, not from the public youtube / blogaverse cyberspace? You can get a private reading just for you, in a format that suits your taste and style: 

  • Email – typed doc with photo of your unique cards sent as an email attachment – no appointment needed
  • Video – your unique cards with verbal interpretation that you download with a unique (and private) link that comes to your email. (the files for the bigger readings are too large to attach directly) No appointment needed.
  • LIVE phone reading (by appointment only – prepayment required – schedule with the contact form HERE)
  • InkMagick Tarot is old school, and as magic as the name implies. The written word is powerful and tangible. This is a unique keepsake reading rarely offered. Experience a Tarot reading that you can touch even as it touches you.

 

 

Today’s Tarot: It’s OK to be OK

“There is no problem without a gift for you in its hands” – Richard Bach

“If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, then you probably haven’t checked with your answering service lately” – Hawkeye Peirce

Energies are starting to shift.

Pentacles have been in our face the past month or so, with good reason, calling our attention to the physical realm and asking us to be practical. It was time to “work the problem” and do what needs done, even if what needs done is to stay the heck at home.

The Ten is different this time. The ten, being the largest of the number cards, not only symbolizes a good ending or a good outcome (and reassures us that better times are ahead) but also points to intangible things more than the other numbered pentacle cards. The ten reminds us of a good outcome that is made of all the things that money can never buy. Health, happiness, love, family, peace, contentment and all of the abstract things essential to the human spirit.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing those things, even in the middle of chaos, boredom or isolation. We aren’t a victim of circumstance if we deal with our circumstances and move on to value the important things beyond it. It is OK to be OK in spite of it all. It’s OK to give up diversions for a while when the important things are still there. It is OK to adapt to circumstances, especially when weird circumstances are teaching us what our important things are.

Update: The $5 off email readings has been extended to May 8 to match our local stay at home orders. I’ve tweeked the website just a little bit in spots to make it a little more useable on phones and tablets. Mobile or not, feel free to browse around, check out the new organization on the pages and menu. Eyes open! The free one card digital  InkMagick Tarot reading by email is still available, so look for the free Tarot and special offer links.

Phone a Friend

Thank you, thank you.

I SO appreciate everyone who reads this, follows on the socials, trusts me to do readings for you…you all are unfailingly awesome!

I had a really enjoyable phone reading this afternoon. (Thank you so much you-know-who-you-are!) Shout out to WordPress for the PayPal buttons that are making phone readings work out this time. In the past, payment and scheduling were so confusing for clients and there was such low demand that I mothballed phone readings ages ago.

But (insert Poltergeist move voice) they’re baaa-aaack!

Due to the Pandemic and my desire to oh, I dunno, stay alive,  in-person readings are closed until a vaccine comes along. Phone sessions are the only real-time reading I can offer right now. I have to admit, it is kind of nostalgic and fun. We are talking old school friendly psychic phone readings, only without the triple digit surprises on your phone bill, high per-minute charges or sneaky connection fees.

Interested? It’s easy. Just go to the PHONE READINGS page in the menu.  Buy the session (5 or 7 cards) using the PayPal button – just like you would order anything you buy online. Then use the contact form provided to schedule your reading. Call me at the scheduled time and POOF! Live Tarot happens.

So stay home! Phone readings are available now, and the discounted prices on email readings have been extended to May 8 to match the local stay at home orders.

Now go wash your hands and stop touching your face!

Hello from Pandemicland

Lordy.

Being from a medical background, the old B.S. Med. Sci.  part of my brain has been following Covid-19 medical reports, including unexplained hypercoagulability, unexpected pulmonary thrombosis only discovered at autopsy, silent hypoxia in the presence of near normal CO2…and that a second wave of  sars-cov-2 is expected to hit right at the start of typical flu season AND be worse than the initial wave we are having now.

#holycrap! #staythefuckathome #washyourdanghands

I won’t bore you with my medical history, but long story short, in-person sessions are closed until somebody squirts a vaccine in my arm. Anything else would be A. crazy and B. irresponsible.

THE GOOD NEWS is that we still have distance readings. Truth be told, I do my best work that way. Typing on a keyboard is like a broadband download right from my intuition. I can do deep dives into the spirit message without the really awkward social silences that would happen if I did that in a live session.

Deep dives aren’t for everyone. If you want something a little lighter, warmer and chatty…video readings are a great option. You get the conversational style of a live reading but with the no-appointment convenience and reduced cost of distance work.

Or, if you want the full live reading experience – phone readings are back! Just like those old school psychic friend phone readings…but without the triple digit surprises on your phone bills, per minute charges or connection fees. We are going to do this the modern way:

  1. Buy the session with the paypal button HERE
  2. Schedule the session HERE
  3. Call at your appointment time (by phone, Skype or Hangouts)
  4. POOF! Done! Live reading!

I’ve also updated the website with mobile users in mind. It’s all up front and obvious at the top of the landing page reducing amount of scrolling and rummaging around the menu.

FREE “digital InkMagick” one card readings by email are still available on the special offers page

Did I mention stay home? Email reading prices are $5 off for the duration of the stay at home order or April 30, 2020 whichever comes first.

Stay tuned for more YouChoose Interactive Tarot. I want to give you more POOF for your time out of those, too. Instead of random interactive readings by day, look for them on Sundays or Monday morning to serve as a look ahead to the week to come. Other videos will be the usual “Today’s Tarot” one card meditation style.

Other good stuff in the works, stay tuned, and as they say “watch this space”

Now go wash your hands.

Stay safe and be well – Ronda