Is there a problem?

Thank you for watching, reading, and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot.

Today’s card is the Ten of Swords. It is always one of the more dire looking cards in the Waite Smith or RWS derived decks. Being stabbed in the back with ten swords can’t be a good thing.

In fact, it would suck. Is there a problem here? Why yes, yes there is.

You can’t stop the sucking until you admit it exists. Panic doesn’t help. Denial doesn’t help. Seeing things as they are, even if they are a big problem, is the first step in solving the problem. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to be happy or chipper or brave about it. I can’t quite put my finger on it but there is a movie reference or some sort of pop culture trope here, kind of like the Witcher’s deadpan f-bombs, or Eddie Murphy’s character in Trading Places asking if there is a problem, or something very Tony Stark about the energy here. Or maybe that meme where somebody’s famous last words were probably going to be “well (expletive) THAT didn’t work!”

My hunch is that if you feel drawn to this card and this reading today, that there may be a problem that you are resisting or denying. It isn’t predicting that something dire will happen, it’s asking you to consider that a problem already has.

“Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens.”

Here, the what to do that comes to mind is best described by dharma drum mountain global website

“Four Steps for Handling a Problem —A Proposition for Resolving the Difficulties of Life

Face it :  face the difficulty squarely
Accept it :  accept the reality of the difficulty
Deal with it :  deal with the difficulty with wisdom and compassion
Let it go :  afterwards, let go of it”

Is there a problem? When the answer is yes, it is ok to not be ok and it’s ok to be not ok for as long as you need to deal with the problem and heal.

Thank you for again for reading, watching and listening. I hope you’ll like, subscribe, follow and share. See you at our next sip of Tarot.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Have at it

This video is about as Monday as it can get, but here it is in all of its rough, rambling, boy-do-I-need-another-cup-of-coffee glory.

If you want a more coherent private reading, distance tarot is always available

order email readings 24/7 no appointment needed HERE

or email taocrafttarot@gmail.com to schedule a live online reading

Gift Certificates for the holidays are HERE

Elfcon 2021

Holiday Elf-ing around here is about to hit def-con 1. Truth be told, I love all the baking and making and knitting and cinnamon everything.

E-mail readings will be OPEN all season long. It might take me a little longer to get the reading to you depending on what’s in the oven and what the fam needs.

Social media will be taking a back seat however. Call it a meatspace sabbatical. The general plan is to do blog-exclusive “Sunday Turnover” intuition exercise Tarot readings on Sundays, YouChoose Interactive Tarot on Monday’s (if you follow the blog, it works great as a week-ahead reading when you read it same-day) then have Short Sip Tarot post the rest of the time. I also plan to have more blog-only content during the holidays. I’m reviving my personal blog “Stuff” and will re-post some of that here as an act of elf care and elf preservation as I try to get this stuff knit on time.

Email is still the best and quickest way to contact me to get more information and check scheduling for live online readings.

PLEASE feel free to comment or send questions for the podcast. Even though it is mostly the Short Sip Tarot readings, I’ll still be doing confessional episodes and will do Q&A episodes IF you all submit a question, that is.

.Too late to knit something? Gift Certificates for an email Tarot Reading are available HERE

Happy Thanksgiving to USA folks celebrating this week. Merry Happy everything to all!

Elfcon 1 – engage

Short Sip Tarot: Strong Suit

TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot is an idea to ponder and guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee

Thanks for watching, reading and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot where you get an idea to ponder and guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Or Tea. Or whatever beverage starts your day.

Today’s card is Strength from the major arcana portion of the deck.

This card is vulnerable to cheer leading. It is easy for it to slip in platitudes about be strong, hang in there, find ways to be strong for others, and so on. It also goes with connotations of honesty, integrity and strength of character.

Not today.

Today the Strength card is a reminder that you are already strong. You got this.

No one is perfect. No one is perfectly imperfect. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We are all heros and cowards in one way or another, to one extent or another.

The classic Tao Te Ching is often translated as Integrity and the Way. The integrity part points to the same strength of character as today’s card. Take as a whole, the Tao Te Ching talks about being the best person you can be and living in harmony with the nature of things while you do. One spin on all of that is self improvement through being your most genuine self. Whenit talks about living in harmony with nature, it doesn’t totally mean the rocks and trees and flowers and leaves kind of nature. The idea of it includes working with your nature too. Use your naturally good parts to adapt the less fantastic parts. Self-improvement doesn’t have to be a war with yourself. It is a celebration of the good parts so loud that it drowns out the bad.

Thank you again for listening. All the follows, subscribes, likes and shares that you can spare is always appreciated. Your support through the virtual coffee mug and Reading Room membership support the production of the blog, podcast and card draw videos.

I’m taking my own advice. If you are listening to this on the podcast, your are in the right place. Clarivoyant Confessional is now TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot. The Confessional Episodes are still available and more will come as the inspiration arises. The majority of the content is changing to Tarot readings because that is my strong suit. Your questions are still very welcomed. Blog comments are open, as is the voice messaging on the podcast’s anchor.fm page.

See you for the next sip!

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Stand, Act, Think

YOU choose how this video / reading is to be used. A look at the week ahead, guidance for your day, or guidance about a particular question or topic….you choose. 

BUT it works best if you have your purpose clearly in mind when you choose your card. 

Take a minute, or choose on impulse. If you want more time to think, pause the video and restart when you are ready to see your card revealed and hear the interpretation.

If you would like additional clarity, private readings are available by email HERE, no appointment needed – order anytime! I’m open for the holidays, but delivery may take longer than usual.

Thank you so much for reading and watching! I really appreciate your support.

your tips to the virtual coffee mug support this free blog and the podcast

Sunday Turnovers: Clarity

Sunday Short Tarot Turnovers are a blog-only intuition exercise for you where we turn a Tarot Reading on its head. Instead of YouChoose – ing a card, I choose the card and you interpret it. There aren’t any trick, tips or how-to.

My martial arts teacher always says that the best way to train for a thing is to do a thing. That is exactly the kind of routine low-pressure practice that will help you be able to read well when the emotional heat is on.

This is easy. Just read through the list of meanings and see if and how any of them speak to you or guide you….or make up a meaning of your own just for you, just for today. This is an exercise in following your own intuition. If no meaning jumps out as the right one, just ponder the card every now and then and see if anything comes to you as the day goes on. That’s the kind of “daily meditation” Tarot that my ebook PeaceTarot teaches you to do. (It’s inexpensive and available right now as a pdf download in the ko-fi shop.)

Today’s card is the Five of Swords

  • Gain clarity. Make sure you are understanding clearly before you act
  • Self-defeat, self-sabotage
  • feeling defeated, feeling attacked
  • victory, but at great cost
  • stubbornness, it’s time to change or adapt

Even though the podcast is shifting to the short form daily meditation format, I’ll still do “confessional” or Q&A episode occasionally. YOUR QUESTIONS ARE WELCOME in the comments or by email.

Thanks for reading! I hope you will follow the blog, that way all of the free TaoCraft Tarot content will come to your inbox – short sip tarot, video demonstrations, YouChoose Interactive Tarot, announcements…all of it.

For an extra reading every month, the Reading Room membership is available through ko-fi. For $5 per month you get a three card members only three card pathway reading through the ko-fi blog, newsletter, random special offers and giveaways and a personal, just-for-you “Year Ahead” Tarot reading by email when you join.

Tips to the virtual coffee mug support this blog and the Short Sip podcast

Knock it off!

Thank you for tuning in to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot guidance for the day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee

Today’s card is the Ten of Wands. It is generally about carrying a heavy mental or emotional load, or feeling burdened somehow. The advice is to evaluate your connections, obligations. Think about hat is really needed, and what can be let go.

The same is true when it comes to things getting in your way. Here the card is asking if the block or road bumps or challenges that are on your mind are really as bad as they seem. Is there any chance that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill? Are you putting undue pressure on yourself? It’s not uncommon for people to be their own worst critic sometimes.

When a card turns up with these kinds of ideas attached to them, it doesn’t mean that it is something you are doing. Tarot sometimes can show us mistakes we are making without realizing it. More often than not it is about suggesting the right question. Tarot is a prompt and a conversation starter in a way.

So this card isn’t saying you are definitely getting in your own way or sabotaging yourself. It is only asking you to look for that, to consider that possibility. If you give it some thought and don’t see self-sabotage, exaggerating a problem, or carrying undue burdens, then you can move forward with confidence and look for different solutions. If the answer is yes, at least you’ll know where the real problem lies and you can knock it off.

Enjoy

Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot: a one card meditation Tarot reading in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.

Today’s card is the Fool, traditionally the first card in the major arcana part of the Tarot deck.

Here we have yet another example how one card can have multiple layers or threads of meaning. Over time, every card has picked up about a bazillion and a half key word meanings and short interpretations.

As we talked about with the Judgement card yesterday, just because one meaning is given for one reading, and another meaning is used in another session or by another reading doesn’t mean that one interpretation was right and the other was wrong. It just goes to show how Tarot has been able to stay relevant as useful tool for insight, understanding and personal growth. With the abundance of key words, a card can adjust to meet the needs and energies of the moment while staying true to its key symbolism and core meaning?

That’s where personal intuition comes in. We all have it. We can all develop it. But sometimes it is easier to just ask someone. I mean, generally speaking anyone can learn to change the oil in their car. With practice and study they could become a really good card mechanic. I could do that – but I don’t want to. I take it to a pro for that. If you don’t want to sort out which thread of meaning a card holds for you, that’s what I’m here for. Not only can I do a full on reading for you, I can consult with you to get a better understanding of a reading you’ve done for yourself. But that’s beside the point.

The Fool card has a couple of core meanings. When that happens in a Tarot card, most of the smaller keyword meanings tend to fall under the heading of the larger core meanings. In this case, the Fool can point toward a new beginning in some way, or it can be a reminder of the value of play and lightheartedness. It is a matter of pure intuition which to use in any given reading that you are doing.

Today, my sense of it the vast general energy out here in the world wide webbernet is pointing toward the playful side of things. I’m not talking about some cutsey sit-com sillyness. Sometimes the Fool card will point to the wisdom that can be spoken through comedy.

In an interview about his book Scorpion’s Gate, author Richard A. Clarke said that sometimes more truth can be told through fiction than nonfiction. The same is true of comedy. A spoonful of laughter helps the difficult ideas go down.

That’s not quite right for today. This is a subtle shift within that core. The energy isn’t as much with the new beginnings side of things, althought if you’ve been needing a push to start something, this could easily be that nudge you’ve been needing.

This isn’t talking about giggly silly play. This isn’t quite talking about learning through humor. It feels like permission.

We’re told that it’s OK to not be OK. That’s true. But it is also OK to be OK. Even in the middle of a time where things are not OK, it is perfectly fine to have a moment where you enjoy something. It is OK to take a moment to play, to allow yourself a moment of enjoyment. Don’t worry – you can get back to being stressed and depressed and all that other stuff in a minute.

Whatever it is, take a deep breath, take a minute, and enjoy.