TWO OF WANDS (reversed) Don’t use planning as an excuse to delay or to be too rigid. Be adaptable. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Roll with the punches if you have to but stop yearning and start doing.
“There are only four rules you need to remember: Make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan.”
“Captain Cold” (DC comics)
Deck: Black Cat Tarot by Maria Kuara copyright 2013 all rights reserved used with permission granted on llwellynpublishing.com
Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
“At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.”
Brendan Behan, poet
Though not as extreme as the passion, lust and desire embodied in the major arcana Lovers card, and despite the overlay of watching, waiting, and expecting, there is a wistful, yearning quality to the two of wands.
The Lovers asks what is your passionate flaming desire.
The Two of Wands asks what is your nagging, persistent emptiness? What is your constant yearning? Sometimes this is the greater motivator and the greater suffering by virtue of being a constant companion.
Two of Wands: Prepare. Plan. Get ready. Change or travel may come soon.
Nine of Wands: Live your enlightenment. Live the hard-won lessons you’ve learned. May them your own before you press on
Hierophant: Know what you don’t know. Don’t guess or feel your way through this time. If you don’t know, get help. Go find the knowledge you don’t have right now.
Looking at all three cards, there is a sense of “on the precipice” but in varying degrees. There is a feeling of something about to happen – soonest for those who chose the two of wands, slightly less soon for those who chose the hierophant, longest for those who chose the nine of wands. For all three cards, moving forward depends on you. Either there is some piece of knowledge or information you need to find in order to move forward well, or there is some bit of preparation you need to do for a good outcome, or it just plain isn’t time to move. Go for quality, not quantity in all three cases.
It’s President’s day here in the U.S. so the fam is home for the day – That’s where my energy is at the moment.
If you have any questions or comments, leave ’em below. I’m happy to answer any questions you have here in the blog. Next time: Learn With Me: BTS
I’ve made minor attempts at this since New Years Day, but this time I’m going to back up and do a proper run at some introductory material and give you a real behind the scenes look at how my particular style of Tarot really works. No nonsense, lots of transparency and plenty of shameless self promotion.
My Tarot Valentine is a series of one card romance themed Tarot readings from the collective energy. Private readings are available through the link below
It’s easy to say the number two cards of the minor arcana are about balance. Pentacles talk about moving balance, swords about the known vs the unknown and so on. Beyond the easy to say idea of balance, the two cards hint at something more philosophical: duality.
To say “balance” is to imply that there are two or more things that need to be balanced. Even if you have just one plate spinning on just one stick in the circus act of life, you are still balancing the plate vs gravity vs angular momentum vs why are you doing a circus act in the first place…
The Two of Wands is particularly dialed into this aspect of balance. Where there is duality there is choice.
When it comes to relationships, choice isn’t control.
You have total agency over what you do and say and give and take from a relationship, but you have no say in your love interest’s response.
It is heartbreaking when their response is rejection.
Which shows how precious it is when the response is love in return
But whatever happens, the choice always returns to you. When you are given the precious thing, it is up to you to make choices that protect and nurture it. If you are given the heartbreaking thing, it is up to you to make the choices that help you heal. That includes the choice to reach out to other people in other ways and get help when it is needed.
Either way, our response is our choice and our responsibility. Like the two upright wands on the card, our choice is our portal. It our doorway to relationship, to the great privilege of loving and nurturing others but also to loving and nurturing our own path through life, whatever shape that takes.
The Two of Wands’ Tarot Valentine for you is simply this: choose love.
That doesn’t mean other people will choose to give it back to you. It does mean that you always have the option of giving love be it to another person or to healing your own life path.
It takes two to tango and two to make a romance happen but it only takes one person to choose love even when it is out of our control where that love lands.
When past and future, logic and intuition, planning and action all meet it can seem like magic.
Few quick announcements:
The podcast is going on short hiatus until December 1
Email readings are OPEN order anytime.
Check out the new, improved, PayPal secured, single contact ordering process. (No more sending your question in a separate email!)
My schedule now through December is pure unadulterated Elfcon 1 chaos so I’m not making any promises about anything until after New Year’s Day. Delivery times for email readings will vary – a LOT – but don’t worry. Your reading will indeed happen. Thanks in advance for your patience.
Happy Thanksgiving U.S. folks! Have a great weekend everyone!
Turn Tarot on its head while you practice your intuitive and card reading skills.I sip the coffee, you read the card. Today’s card is the Two of Wands
Hello and welcome to the Weekend Tarot Turnover. I’m glad you are here.
Let’s turn the Tarot reading process on its head. I’ll sip the coffee while you contemplate and interpret the card. For those of you reading the blog or getting here through the YouTube channel, you can see the real-world, authentic card draw on video. Those of you listening on the blogcast will just have to take my word for it or check it out later. A link to the blog is always in the episode description, at least on Spotify and Anchor FM it is.
Today’s card is the Two of Wands.
Read or listen to this list of possible card meanings, as use your intuition to see which one fits you or feels right to you. Or better still, use your own intuition to make your own meaning. Honing in on the right meaning provided in the references and resources direct inspirations you have on hand is integral to reading Tarot for yourself. I don’t certify or teach anyone to read for other people but I can teach you to read Tarot for yourself really, really well. Watch this space for more on that.
But back to the Two of Wands. Two cards in general deal with balances.
Balance your inner world with the outer world. Don’t get so caught up in the physical that you forget to care for your emotional and spiritual side. And vice versa – don’t live in your head so much that you neglect the practical side of life.
Balance your attention to time. If you allow your thoughts to dwell too much in the future, anxiety or unhappiness can come.
Look to the future sometimes. Hopes and plans are important too. Tomorrow has to start somewhere.
Reassurance or validation that you are on the path to success, watching the horizon for your ship to come in
So, what do you think? Feel free to drop your card interpretation or thoughts about the weeknd turnover exercise in the comments. Questions are welcome and answered in the blogcast. Will trade my opinion and expertise for some of that sweet, sweet content. Let’s talk!
Thanks for listening! I’ll see you at the next sip.
None of the authentic TaoCraft Tarot content is monetized. Any ads you see benefit the hosting platform, which means the Tarot part of the content is 100% listener supported. The blogcast and YouTube channel depends on email Tarot readings purchased through the blogcast website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi. I always appreciate your support as well as any likes, subs, shares and follows you can spare. Thank you.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Threshold
Today’s card is the Two of Wands
The two cards of all the minor arcana suits point toward balance of some kind. The two of wands today feels more like a tipping point than any sort of long-lasting balance.
How many times do you walk through a doorway in a day? Going through a literal door is something we do so much that it is beneath notice. When we add in the elements of time and change, doorways take on a great deal of symbolic meaning. Liminal spaces are not just transitional, they can be transformational.
These places and times of change have always been thought of as being a little bit magic. It’s no wonder that we celebrate New Years, birthdays and anniversaries. Such times can bring the gift of healing and sealing the past in one hand with hope and optimism in the other.
Think of your favorite sunrise or sunset. The time just before sunset is called the golden hour. To me it is more than the natural light being perfect for photography, it is the feeling of the time as well. It brings to mind a nearly forgotten line from Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicals about feeling as if you could reach out and touch time, touch eternity itself. Threshold places and transition times can feel a little like that.
Transitional times and places touch both past and future. Transition times are an extra dose of eternity living in the present moment.
The Two of Wands is a very forward-looking card. It has some elements of waiting, watching, contemplating and planning, but today it feels like change is close at hand but relative to a much larger picture. It’s close, but in terms of months relative to years, not close as in minutes or days. This threshold is built out of transition time. This threshold is wide. The energy in the card today reminds me of the impromptu year ahead reading we did here on the blog and podcast in the “old is new again” post and episode. If time before the pandemic was “the before times” it feels like we are entering a long threshold, like a hallway really, to the “after times.”
The card has a surprisingly intimidating feel despite the pleasant artwork on the card. I guess that is to be expected – any change, any threshold can be intimidating when you aren’t 100 percent sure what is on the other side. Yet there is also a sense of hope and anticipation as well. Things change, but for once, in spite of being burned before, things might just change for the better this time.
In short hope for best, prepare for the worst, but if you can, appreciate the magic inherent to the thresholds we cross.
TaoCraft Tarot podcast is the audio version of the TaoCraft Tarot blog. Short Sip posts and nano-episodes are Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. You can see the real-world card being drawn for the day on the corresponding YouTube short video.
I am so glad that you are here. Thank you for watching, reading and listening. I really do appreciate your support through likes, subs, shares, follows. None of this Tarot content is currently monetized so if you enjoy any of it, please support the blog and podcast through the virtual tip mug, shop and tier memberships on the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi.com page (convenient links are in the episode description for podcast listeners)
Thanks again for dropping in. See you at the next sip.
Suggested reading: Weaving the Liminal by Laura Tempest Zarkoff
On of the author’s favorite paintings “Keeper of the Threshold” by Eliju Vedder, 1898 at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh PA.
They used to call a half caf skim milk latte a “why bother?”
Good question, and not just about coffee (she says as she sets down her double shot)
Don’t get me wrong…not every single solitary thing in life has to have a point, purpose or goal. Just being, abiding, enjoying is reason enough for anything. At the same time, life without some degree of point, purpose or goal leaves one languishing in a sea of ennui.
Sips
With anything that you do a lot or a long time, in my case Tarot, it pays to revisit the point, purpose and goal of it every now and again. What’s the use of Tarot? What good is it doing anyone? Why bother?
I think the answer is in the reason why we ask questions like this: clarity.
If something is going to have a pointed, productive goal-oriented role in our life, we have to have clarity about what that goal or purpose really is. The purpose of Tarot is to gain clarity. An yup, that is rooted in the same ‘clair’ as in ‘clairvoyant’ which literally means clear sight ability. We use our intuition and the mental-imaginative echoes of our senses to cut through the noise of daily life and all of its twist and turns – expected and unexpected alike.
A number of cards have the quest for clarity at the forefront of their meanings and connotations. The seven of cups, for example, points out times of decision paralysis, an abundance of choices and the possibility we are overthinking things. The advice has an outward, yang quality. The advice is to gain clarity by simplification. It is an active solution, to go out and cut away the unnecessary.
Here the energy is more yin, zen and passive. Sometimes these solutions are more challenging when other needs are pressing, like a job, income, or general frustration. With the two of wands we find clarity by waiting, watching. It is advice straight from the Tao Te Ching: In a river or pond, churned up water is cloudy, but if it is given time and allowed to be quiet the mud will settle out. The water becomes clear.
When you read for yourself, you can read the cards for clarity.
When you read the cards for others, you read in service to clarity, namely helping them to find theirs.
Keep a weather eye on the horizon, or so the pirates say.
At least that’s what they say in the movies, sometimes. Horizons are special, like any doorway, transition, or liminal space. The horizon is the visual boundary between earth and sky, between far, and too far to see.
The Two of Wands connotes just that kind of watchfulness. It isn’t change in progress like the Wheel, it isn’t foreboding, but much more like a routine boarder patrol, just keeping a casual eye on things. In today;s case, the energy is even more hopeful than that. It is more of a positive connotation, like waiting for success to come, like waiting for a package that you know is out for delivery, literally waiting for your “ship to come in” as the saying goes.
It resonates with this time of year. At the turn of the year and the winter holidays, we always seem to take a collective look back over the year and at the same time turn a hopeful eye forward. Next year can’t suck as bad as this one, can it?
And so we eye the time horizon with hope.
Sometimes a joy, sometimes a sadness, sometimes a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, right now is the eternal horizon. Right now is the boundary line and liminal space between past and future. Today is a good day and this is a good time of year to stand, quietly watch, and keep a weather eye on it all.
Time is woven into the fabric of the universe. How we measure it and talk about it, however, is made-up and arbitrary. A necessary arbitrary, to be sure. We need that common touchstone to communicate. It’s a whole wibbly-wobbly Doctor Who kind of thing. If you invented a time machine, it would have to be able to move, too, or else the Earth would rotate right out from under you while you were gone.
Time is a thing, and setting arbitrary measurements for it are a necessity, but it doesn’t have to be an stress or an enemy. There is a yin and yang too it, and ebb and flow to it. Yes, Eistein showed that time is relative to speed, literally, but there is also fluidity within our perception of it. Psychological stress can be described as feeling time-pressure equally across all tasks. Everything is a coming-in-hot emergency.
The Two of Wands reminds us that nah, it’s not.
Full speed ahead mach 2 overdrive 24/7 is a problem waiting to happen. When this card comes along, it’s time to cool your jets. Look, listen, wait, think. Those are things too. Those are things that need doing as much as anything else. A quality journey is a win as much as getting to your destination is a win.
Putting pressure on yourself is counterproductive in today’s energy. Allow yourself, your projects, your goals, your hopes have the time they need. A turtle doesn’t need to run to live well. Thoughtful persistence is as beneficial as outright speed.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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