Today’s Tarot: Union of the Devine

Striking a balance requires that decisions be made.

It amazes me that humans have figured out how to teach robots to maintain physical balance. It is a surprisingly complex thing that the human brain does effortlessly, easily. Test the theory: stand on one foot. You don’t have to lift one foot very high off of the floor, but there you stand, on half the support ( more or less, I dunno, I’m not an engineer) that you had a moment ago.

The emotional, mental and spiritual balance that Tarot deals with is no less intricate. Temperance and the number two cards of the four minor suits all speak to different aspects of balance. The Two of Swords is classically associated with indecision, or being of two minds about something. Sometimes that is exactly the energy I get from it in a reading. Other times it is something different, something more. Diane Morgan interprets the card as “mystical unity.” This in a deeply essential way defines balance. A lever isn’t a lever without the fulcrum. Balance isn’t balance without the center spot where the opposites connect, around which balance does its adaptive dance.

For there to be balance, decisions must be made.

Swords are associated with air and intellect. Swords are associated with action. Think and choose.

Choose your balance point. What calls to you today? The balance of magic and mundane? Spiritual versus intellectual? Intellectual versus emotional? Choose where you want to be, and then make choices about what needs changed or shifted to achieve the balance-point that you want. OR change your balance point to suit the conditions that exists. Or some combination thereof.

In the earlier example, you had to choose which foot to stand on. Then you had to choose how high to lift the other one off the floor. You chose when to put it down. Your body automatically made an untold number of tiny muscle adjustments to make it all happen.

Choose, act and find balance. That balance, that being in harmony with the state of being that you happen to find yourself in is indeed a mystical unity where the mundane unites with the divine.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Don’t Give Up Now

I learned a long time ago that the fastest way to torpedo a plan is to 1. make one and 2. publish it on the blog.

Which is precisely why I like the quote that Adam Savage had on Tested.com…”Follow the process, not the plan.” Very Taoist, that. Follow the natural flow of things, which changes, often randomly. It looks like these YouChoose posts are going to be either Saturday afternoon or Monday morning. Hopefully. In one time zone or another. Maybe. I find myself unable to get pedantic or fussed up about it. In my opinion/experience being to rigid, or finicky about these things is antithetical to good Tarot. Tarot and intuition is about reading the dynamic flows of the energy. Imposing your will, your schedule, your expectations on the Tarot experience is seldom helpful. At the same time, it helps to have some internal structure, some common ground or else we can get disoriented and drown in the flow. It is a little like a soft stuffie with a poseable wire skeleton. Adaptable underpinning is what I think I’m trying to say. And the adaptable underpinning for these videos will be to look for them on Monday mornings. Except when they post early, on Saturday – but they will still be here waiting for you come Monday. You get the idea, so let’s get on with this.

If I were to put all three cards together in a sentence, it would be evaluate and persist. Or, look how close you are – don’t give up now.

Left: King of Swords. The air and intellectual aspects of swords step forward, along with the decisiveness of a king. “Be the decider” comes through along with “Evaluate.” Let your head lead this week. Fly by instrument. Feelings can bubble and surge, but use logic and reason to navigate it all. Evaluate where you are – you might be farther along in the process of things than you thought.

Center: Five of Pentacles (coins) Times have been tough, many have been generous. Don’t stop giving, helping, cooperating just yet. Keep doing what you have been doing to survive. “Some winters are long” Don’t give up now. Persistence is our way out of the cold.

Right: Nine of Cups. Nine is the largest single digit card. Things are close to wrapping up. The nine of cups has to do with family celebrations. “Don’t be tied to time.” again with a feeling of head rules heart this week. “Do what needs done to prepare” because things delayed before may be coming back to play in days ahead if we are disciplined and prepare just a little more.

I can almost hear some of you out there asking “when?” Tarot does not predict the future…it tells you how to create it. Our three dimensional universe runs on an engine of cause and effect. If you give up or change course you get one set of results. If you keep doing what logic, intellect and reason dictate then you get another, different (in this case better) result. And yes, as a matter of fact I am referring to keep wearing a mask until a real expert and not an idiot right wing politician says to change. The virus is a prime example of why persistence is valuable. If we stop masking and distancing too soon, then the mutant strains keep mutating and we lose the ground we’ve gained with vaccines and people die necessarily. Public health has two parts to it. One part is the community at large: what you do affects how many people get sick and die in total. The other part is your personal health: what you do affects your chances of getting sick or dying. Wearing a mask and staying home away from indoor groups helps BOTH parts.

Thus ends my public service announcement for today, the same as it was roughly a year ago…wear a mask, stay the heck at home and wash your hands.

Don’t stop. A year is an arbitrary thing that human beings made up. The virus don’t give a damn about calendars, so you have to give a damn about yourself and the health of others. Don’t give up now.

Today’s Tarot: Dam it

Or more accurately, don’t.

Accidents happen. Poor choices are made, more often than not unintentionally. We wouldn’t set out to hurt anyone, but sometimes we are less careful with ourselves than with others.

There are some times, hopefully minor ones, where we are our own worst enemy and our self sabotage is our own damn fault. I have a theory that is the precise time when obstacles are a potent spirit message and life lesson.

When the challenge comes from things outside of us, all of the adages and advice about persistence come into play. When the obstacle is our own doing, then it is more a matter of beating our own head against our own wall until we get our own clue.

The feeling with the card today is not really preventative. It feels like the message is about something now, something in progress, something where the cosmos is telling us to knock it off already. Where are you putting on the brakes (or building a dam) when you need to go with the flow?

I’ve discovered that I like making playlists. Not going to put the brakes on that just yet. Here is another one for your enjoyment: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6hDnolAabh3u3g4vcGpS68?si=19ee6787bdcd47be

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Booking

Sorry about that. When I said this would post “Monday morning” I didn’t realize it would be Monday morning in some other interdimensional cross rip parallel universe Monday morning. Today has been an interesting week.

As for the cards, I’ll let the video interpretation stand. Since books stepped forward a tiny bit as the closest thing to cards-working-together theme for the week, here are some books and links that might go along with this week’s cards.

Leave a comment or send an email if you are interested in more reading suggestions – always happy to spout an opinion!

The Moon (psychic development)

  • The Healer’s Manual by Ted Andrews
  • How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews
  • Psychic Witch by Matt Auryn

Knight of Pentacles (Career Related activity)

  • Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar by James Marcus Bach
  • Kahn Acadamy

Nine of Cups (celebrations, traditions)

  • Twoseven – watch video together online
  • Allrecipes – has recipes from various traditional cuisines, American comfort food

Today’s Tarot: Wordless

Connect your heart

Some things are beyond words.

Mat Auryn superbly and poetically describes the idea of mystery tradition in magick (and in some ways, I might add, Tarot.) There are some things that can only be directly, wordlessly experienced. That is the essence and definition of spirituality to my mind. Spirituality is our individual experience of the wordless and intangible parts of our human experience. Religion, on the other hand, is exernal experience, not internal. Religion is social, and group focused. Spirituality is wordless, expressed from the inside out. Religion is codified, group behavior that influences from the outside in.

Expression, experience and wordless are the key words here.

The High Priest and High Priestess cards also deal with these great wordless mysteries. Although this and other contemporary Tarot decks don’t have the explicit Christian religious imagery for the High Priest/Pope/Hierophant card that you see on the Marsielle, RWS and other older decks have, the nature of the tradition keeper and even the mystery seeker priestess cards are outside-in, just a hairbreadth on the religious side regardless of their visual depiction.

So what does any of this have to do with the Knight of Cups?

The Knight of Cups has always had some degree of spiritual connotation. He carries a message. Cups are associated with water (deep water is often a symbol for deep spiritual and cosmic mysteries) and intuition (often a wordless experience.)

Knights are associated with action. We are three dimensional creatures. Even the purest, wordless, silent, direct experience if the spiritual and intangible still has some physical third dimensional corollary or action. To have direct spiritual experience requires some action or doing be that sitting in meditation, gazing at the sky, performing a ritual, or taking a shower. Whether you call it spontaneous enlightenment or simply a moment of insight, this direct, wordless experience of emotion and insight is a normal, natural, inherent part of being human.

If you have chosen to read and watch this, if you have chosen the knight of cups card today, there is a sense of urging. There is a strong push to do the spiritual things that put you in a mental and physical space where wordless experience of the profound and spiritual is an open possibility. Follow your heart to the doing of it. Do the thing that connects your heart to the wordless.