“Money can’t buy happiness. But it sure can rent it for a while.”
Kim Grunenfelder, comedien
Invest in your happiness. It helps if you can be happy with things that fit your budget.
“Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.” – Oscar Wilde
I’m so not a morning person.
One of my absolute favorite lines from any series ever was in Stranger Things when Sheriff Hopper said that “mornings are for coffee and contemplation.”
*raises mug of dark roast to THAT idea*
The Four of Cups has that sort of feel to it. Cups cards reflect close circle relationships. You can’t get any closer to you than you. Tarot is first and foremost an art form of personal development and personal internal spiritual practice. All that crime drama horror movie predict the future fix your love life nonsense is exactly that. Unsurprisingly, all of the cards have some aspect, even a minor one, that can help us to engage with life in a more satisfying way. You know, like the “personal enrichment” use in the small print disclaimer.
When I say satisfying I mean satisfying like a hot cuppa coffee on a day that starts just a little too early.
The Four of Cups has been read to mean all sorts of things: dissatisfaction, (look at the guy’s pouting toddler body language on the card) moping, abiding, meditation, abiding with emotional pain, thoughts or activity below the surface, serenity, meditation, contemplation.
The idea that steps most forward to my mind is the meditation and contemplation one.
I ‘hear’ (meaning that the intuition comes as mental words instead of mental images, so no, when I say that I’m not hearing things for goodness’ sake) – but “meet your meditation where it lives.”
And I do mean meditation.
For some a long run is meditative. Knitting is meditative. Braiding bullwhips is meditative. For others it is the classic cushin sitting zazen TM meditation style. As I understand it, there is a lot of overlap between zen, ch’an, taoist and transcendental meditation styles and it seems that everyone who tries it, loves it. Meditation is a pleasure. If not, I suspect you’ve been told something if not wrong, at least unhelpful.
But anyway, the point is you can sit under any tree to meditate. You don’t have to sit under a tree at all. Meditating is easy. Finding where and how it naturally, easily fits into your life is a good first step.
Even if your first meditative step of the day is contemplating a good mug of coffee.
Of the different meanings for the Two of Swords, “of two minds” comes to mind. A lot of times when we think of that, it means that two options are equal, and there is no obvious, logical, good way to decide between the two. There is six of one and half dozen of the other as they saying goes.
So what do you do when you are of two minds and both options are equal: equally bad that is? What do you do when you don’t know what to do at all? What do you do when you are of two minds and neither one of them knows what to do?
It’s ok not to know. It’s ok for some things to be unknowable. And it’s ok to try and find out. If you don’t know, ask. If you don’t know, learn. If you don’t know, welcome to the universe. It is like that sometimes. We haven’t figured it all out, and that’s OK too.
“I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
Richard Feynman
What do you do when the lights go out? Darkness is a normal, natural thing. It happens every night.
We are the children of technology, descendants of fire and flame. We like light. It tells us what is in the darkness, it tells us we are safe and whether immediate danger exists or not. We don’t like it when the lights go out. When they do we grab flashlights, light candles, build campfires…as we should. If it’s an emergency, we need that to secure our surroundings and our loved ones. For the sake of argument, let’s assume for a moment that it isn’t an emergency, and you are safe, but it’s night, there is no electricity, and no place to build a fire.
Night is fundamental to our world. It’s just how things are. It’s the primordial soup we all evolved in. So why do we fight the darkness so much? What do we do when the lights go out? Why did we turn them on in the first place?
We are daytime creatures. For the vast majority of us, we rely on our vision for almost everything. Dark makes it harder to do just about anything…except sleep.
What do we do when the metaphoric lights go out? It happens. Night falls. Every. Single. Day. And so, times of uncertainty come to everyone.
The King of Wands is often associated with passion, energy, leadership, fire. When it comes to times of darkness this card often has a “light your own torch” “find your own unique light in the dark” sort of vibe. It can be a very Dylan Thomas “rage against the dying of the light” kind of card.
What if the lights going out is an incredible stroke of luck because we are looking at the wrong thing? What if the darkness comes because you need a good night’s sleep?
Do the best you can with what you have. Of course “it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” Sometimes, when the candle just won’t light for you, maybe it is better to nap until dawn.
Sunrise is as inevitable as dusk.
Just a reminder: In-person readings are once again on hold until community covid transmission rates go back down and we see what happens with this delta variant thing.
If there is a better name for it, I’m not sure what it would be.
Psychic attention a thing. It may be related to Jung’s synchronicity, Yes, my dear nay sayers, it probably is full on cognitive bias and it may be Baader–Meinhof phenomenon for all I know, but that is perfectly fine. Tarot IS psychology from days before psychology was was psychology as founded by the likes of Wundt and Freud and that crowd. Some things need scienced, like business policy during a pandemic. Other things need art-ed. There is nothing paranormal about psychic attention either. It enriches our human interaction with our physical environs. It definitely enriches our ability to do a Tarot reading.
We as humans are pretty good at filtering out background details. So if something, be it in our daily life or on a Tarot card, grabs our attention it likely is for some reason. It might be trivial. It might be subconscious. It might carry meaning. It might not. When something grabs your attention why not give it the attention it is asking for? What is the harm in paying attention to coincidences when all you are doing is paying attention to your own mind and your own awareness?
Try it with the video. After you choose your card and see the reveal, pause the video and look at the card again. Of all the rich detail this deck has to offer, what part of your chosen card grabs your attention first? What detail grabs your attention and holds it the longest? What connections do you make with that specific thing? Even if it something general instead of granular detail, like for example, the color GREEN. What does green mean to you in this moment? What pops to mind or what feelings bubble up as you look at this particular shade of green? Does it related to the meaning of the card or is it purely intuitive?
Wandering attention is sometimes hard to catch. When it is captured, it is worth a little consideration, no matter what modern psychology calls it.
Here is the Tarot part: 7 card readings by email are $30 (instead of the usual $40) These 7 card readings are $1 for every year of card reading experience that I put into each and every session, regardless of whether it is in-person or distance. Email and phone readings are EXACTLY the same information that you’d get in-person. You get it FASTER with email, too. No appointment is needed, you can order distance readings any time, 24/7. The reading is usually in your inbox within 24 hours although nights, weekends and holidays can slow things down a little bit. This reduced price ends on the equinox…September 20, 2021 so get ’em while they’re hot.
Here is the science part: Starting now, I’m using the CDC reported community transmission rates for Allegheny County as the determining factor whether in-person / party readings are available or not, because reasons and logic and an abundance of caution. If you want the details, or want to know the current status of in-person readings please don’t hesitate to email TaoCraftTarot@gmail.com or text me at the contact number listed.
Vaccination rates have stalled, and community transmission rates have increased back into the moderate range. Since in-person readings use public venues and parties are typically indoor groups, rather than risk exposing my clients or their contacts to this crazy contagious new varient in-person services are back on hold until community transmission rates return to the low range.
Who am I to second guess the AMA for goodness’ sake?
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Page cards in Tarot are about learning. Swords can denote several things: the element of air, taking action, our relationship with culture, society and authority, or they can symbolize the mind and intellect. My attention is drawn to a combination of intellect and action. It reminds me of that quote where Emerson describes common sense as “genius dressed in its working clothes.”
Genius at work is our learning mode, which can apply to anyone, anywhere, in any stage of life. Learning is a lifelong thing whether we are running particle accelerators or poking something with a stick to see what happens. Mind and body are one whole, so learning and action are an integrated whole as well. Even if big genius ideas drop into our head seemingly out of nowhere, something triggered it or some unique set of material experiences hit critical mass and turned on the proverbial light bulb over our head. However they happen, genius insight doesn’t help us much unless we do something with them. Physical realm interacts with the intellectual realm which prompts action in the physical world and so on in an unending dance of learning and experience gathering. It is about figuring out a method and trying something, admitting failures and trying again. That applies to all sorts of learning. Science is a way of learning about the outer, tangible world. Tarot is one method of learning about the inner, intangible one. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, far from it. If anything they are bound together as intimately as space and time, locked in the complex dance of our humanity.
Today’s card is asking us to use what we know, and fearlessly learn what we don’t.
In the spirit of learning and doing, I have a quick announcement.
As you know, I don’t keep an office or any sort of brick and mortar location, primarily to cut my overhead and keep my prices lower than they otherwise would be.
Since that means bringing people out into the public sphere for an in-person session I’ve decided to use CDC reported community transmission rates for Allegheny county as the guide for in-person sessions. The rate is on the rise, and we have been upgraded from low to moderate. Due to that, starting Sunday July 25 in-person services are on temporary hold again until community transmission rates drop back to low.
I say that because I’m just as good at writing and doing readings by email as I am doing them in person. I know a lot of psychics and Tarot readers who do both in-person and distance readings equally well, but several of them have commented to me that they don’t enjoy working by email as much as they do in person or by phone. I do both equally well and I enjoy both too.
So PLEASE – while we all endure these last hills, bumps and turns of this roller coaster ride of a pandemic, don’t hesitate to make use of the email version if you are interested in getting a reading. I promise you will get the same information as you would if we were meeting face to masked up face.
Plus don’t forget the cutesy pants promotional $1 TAROT SALE where 7 card email readings are $1 for each year of Tarot reading experience that I bring to your reading (AKA – $10 off the usual price). Offer ends 20 September 2021
Order email readings 24/7 on the home page or HERE
Dammit Jim, I’m a writer not a…..
At this point, low production value sucky YouTube videos and awkward podcasts are practically my BRAND in the social media Tarot world. This is no different.
But it IS different in base content. This shows you how I do my yes-or-no readings. The layout came up in conversation with a client and ever since it has been niggling at my attention.
Sooo….
After all these years (30 of them, remember?) I’ve learned to listen to the niggles when the capricious muses hit me over the head with a cosmic shillelagh if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor.
I think Zombie Cat wants a summer shamble. The paws are itching to do some yes or no layouts for you good folks. No, this isn’t a cutesy pants special offer, this is something straight up NEW.
Individual results and delivery times may vary, all policies and disclaimers apply, no lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk, wash your hands, eat your vegetables and ffs consult with your doctor and get your friggin’ vaccine.
Sifu Gracenin told us that the best way to train for a thing is to do a thing.
The same is true of creative work – or anything really.
Creativity, new ideas, or enthusiasm for a project are all mercurial, wispy, unpredictable aspects of the human psyche. No wonder ancient Greeks and modern creatives alike blame the whole thing on a bunch of capricious Muses. You never know when you are going to get whacked with the cosmic shillelagh of creativity.
Which begs the question of what to do in the times in between, when your capricious Muses are missing in action and you are hit with an equally unpredictable time of uninspired apathy. To borrow a phrase from the sneaker people, just do it. “The best way to train for a thing is to DO a thing.”
Here is an analogy for the “My Hero Acedemia” and superhero fans out there…if you can only bring your superpower up to 5% today, OK, but DO that. But by doing that, you might be able to dial up the full cowling to 8% another day. If you persist at 5% power today and 8% later and so on, then you’ll be more ready and in a better place when time for full power comes along.
Or in other words, if you are feeling uninspired today, take it easy on yourself – on the inside – but still do what you need to do. The inspired feeling will come in its time. “Fake it until you make it” has its moments of utility. Work within your limits but don’t stop altogether. Continue to act within your ability, and in time your capability will increase whether you feel enthusiastic about it or not. Then you can be in a better, bigger place to act on creative inspiration whenever it does hit. That’s the sweaty part of the Thomas Edison quote “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” but an important part just the same. Hiking along with your ordinary walking stick is as important as getting whacked with the cosmic inspiration stick we see on the Ace of Wands.
Hang in there. One way or another, you got this.
Back from a long weekend, normal hours the test of this week…email distance tarot, no appointment needed MOST readings delivered within 12 hours. Fastest service is daytime weekdays US eastern time. In-person individual sessions ard back, all the usual policies and restrictions apply, details HERE
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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