2020 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Throwback: I dunno

Hello everyone and thank you for reading and listening to the TaoCraft Tarot blog. This is a post from 2020 before the podcast started, even in its original Clairvoyant Confessional form. I’ve edited the post a tiny bit to make it more podcast friendly, but I’m still not sure how well it will convert to audio. But if you’ve listened before, you know that I’m a terrible narrator, so Siri’s second cousin Remy is still going to do a better job for you, wonky pronunciation and all.

The card for this November 2020 post was the Queen of Wands. Here we go.

I dunno

Life is a mystery.

Some would say its like a box of chocolates. Others of us might lean more toward a word that sounds like bit snow. Chocolate or otherwise, sometimes you just don’t know what is going to happen or where it is going to splatter.

Not knowing is part of life, and and it is unnerving as heck. Nobody likes it.

Trying to cope with the unknown comes in different forms. One way is to try prepare for it and make contingency plans as best as you can. It is warm and comfy to wrap ourselves in that kind of logic. If X happens, then I’ll do Y, but if A happens then I’ll do B, if C happens then –

have mercy….

I don’t blame people for wanting predictions.

Predictions, however, are uncertain in and of themselves. They only push life’s uncertainty back a step and hold it at arm’s length until facts and reality set in. Advice and guidance are more effective. Rather than a prediction that still might or might not materialize, guidance adds a degree of information, a tiny bit of knowing that increases both our comfort levels and our ability to make contingency plans.

Imagine driving on a long road trip, and not quite knowing where you are. But ah-ha! A little sign on the side of the road lets you know that you are on highway I 79 going north. If you keep going straight you’ll get to Lake Erie, as long as you don’t have an flat tire or get stuck in a surprise snow storm or something. If something unexpected happens, you can look for more signs to help. So of course, you should start with the logical, practical things. In this analogy that would be putting gas in the car, making sure your cellphone is charged, dress for the weather and such. Tarot readings are to life what gps is for a highway trip. It can’t predict what will exactly happen along the way, but it can give you an idea about the direction you are headed and the conditions ahead.

Other than a chance to practice facing our fear of it, is there any value to the unknowns in life?

I think the mysterious and unknown is our portal to meaning and spirituality.

The mysterious and unknown are key to defining spirituality. As I see it, spirituality is how we, as individuals, deal with and engage with the mysteries of existence. Spirituality is the diametrical opposite of religion. Religion is concerned with the social group. Religion strives to make the unknown into something that is known and in turn impose that understanding from the outside inward. Spirituality is concerned with the individual, and is purely internal. Spirituality expresses from the inside out, rather than impressing from the outside in. Spirituality makes the unknowable – not into the knowable – but into our friend.

It is ok not to know everything. It is ok not to have easy answers to everything. If the journey is more important than the destination, then the contemplation of the mysterious is more important than the comprehension of it.

I make meditation beads. I made one for myself recently. I have no idea how many beads are on it. I just strung however many beads were in a loose package. It’s not a size of bead I typically use, so there was no easy guess how many wound up on the strand. I could have counted them, but I chose not to. I could count them now, but I still choose not to. That mala stands as a symbol for me of the mysterious parts of life. Because it is unknown, but could be, it symbolizes a tangible connection to the mysterious. It is a reminder that the unknowns in life are something to work with rather than eradicate.

It’s OK to not know everything, even if it is a little frightening.

As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune:

“I will not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that leads to total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will allow it to flow around me and through me. When the fear has passed, I will turn my minds eye to the path where the fear has gone and only I will remain.”

Thank you all for reading TaoCraft Tarot blog and listening to the podcast. Your questions and comments are welcome on both platforms. I’m glad you are here, and I appreciate you. Any likes, subs, shares, follows and virtual coffees are also greatly appreciated. There are links to all of the formats in the blog post and in the episode description.

Short sip Tarot should be back tomorrow. See you at the next sip!

Cardless: Thoughts on an anniversary

What a year.

Perception of time is so fluid and so individual it’s no wonder humans created clocks and calendars just so we can navigate our way through the tine drop of time we are given for our lifetimes. If nothing else, the year of the pandemic has taught us that. After all it’s been blursday the 363rd of Marchish for about three years now, hasn’t it?

Let’s set the cards aside for a moment. I have an interesting intuition flexing exercise for you: Look back over the past year since the global Covid-19 pandemic was declared, but look at it exclusively through the lens of intuition. What were your intangible, intuitive perceptions over the course of that time? When and how did you become aware of them? What did life look like intuitively to you in January 2020? March 2020? Summer solstice? Fall equinox? At the American election? The holidays? January 2021? How did the intuitive feelings connect to actual events as they unfolded? Did you learn anything about your intuitive perceptions in the empathic pressure cooker that was 2020? Seriously, I’m interested in your meta-assessment of your intuition this past year (stay private – you don’t have to share details) The comments are open if you’d like to add your two cents to the topic today.

I live in the eastern United States. The cultural zeitgeist energies and emotions were so strong last year that looking back at the intuitive landscape has a certain tangible quality, almost like the memory of actual events. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the mental images of a U.S. map with little black tornado shapes spinning and wiggling and moving around all over the map. I remember the image of the ocean with a hurricane on the horizon. I remember a shimmering iridescent soap bubble or force field whenever setting empathic boundaries came into the conversation. I remember the image of survivors peeking out of storm wreckage. I remember the map again with the little tornadoes fading to grey.

Part of me wants to take pride in how well the images matched the events that unfolded after – I’d call the insurrection riot a hurricane among many, metaphorically speaking. It feeds into the cassandra complex my ego has brewing. Actually, it was just a clear-eyed view of energies that were current at the time of the mental image. It was in no way prophetic or predictive, just as Tarot and intuition always is. It helped me to do good readings for clients. It helped me know when to feed the spiritual side of life and when to stick to my knitting (literally) and take care of practical things. Sensitivity to energy helped me to ease up on the spiritual stuff (especially when it was getting way too judge-y and taking on a fearful edge) That is exactly what Tarot and intuition is supposed to do both in ‘normal’ times and times of extreme duress. It gives a read of where we are and suggests a better way forward. Tarot and intuition didn’t predict a damn thing in any of this. Still, intuition worked. We all have it. You can use it too. All you have to do is take the lid off and give your ESP a little bit of TLC. (Of course, me and my ego are happy to help you in that process)

If it is any consolation, though, the image today is a clear map and the wreckage is gone. My attention is drawn to the physical (perhaps another aspect of all the coins/pentacle cards that have turned up during the past year) There have been storms and fires and floods and accidents the same as any other year. Those literal changes and disasters increase the pandemic disaster exponentially for those who experience those losses too. The change is even more heartbreaking and profound for those who have lost loved ones. The fortunate rest of us, whose closest loved ones and physical environment is as intact and unchanged as it would be after any other year can take consolation in that. Look out the window. For the vast majority of us, the streets and houses are all the same as last year. What we DO and how we do things has changed quite a lot. Sure, there are plastic shields and hand sanitizer dispensers in the stores, but for most of us all of the physical infrastructure of our lives has been left untouched by the pandemic year.

I have another suggestion for today. Find something familiar. Any tangible thing that is the same as it was in the before time. A place. A park. Your home. Your backyard. An article of clothing. A favorite song. A coffee mug. Anything. Drink in the familiarity. Ground and center yourself around that. Life, attitudes, energies – many things have irrevocably changed in the past year. Soak up some comfort and courage from the stuff that hasn’t.

On second thought, maybe Tarot does have a card for this. It is one of life altering change, some tragic but some also for the better.

In memory of those lost. In gratitude for lessons learned.

Happy September!

Second Anniversary website-only free tarot reading offer ends October 31, 2020

It’s actually been two years.

In some ways it seems like two days, in others it seems like two decades, but a couple of years ago I began the process of re-branding Modern Oracle Tarot and the Quirk & Flotsam shop on Etsy under one new name. TaoCraft Tarot officially launched under the new identity on October 31, 2018.

If you have been with me since the before time, and made the trip over from Modern Oracle, thank you. I am well and truly grateful, old friends. I hope you’ll hang in there a little more over the next few posts without getting too awfully bored.

If you have arrived since the 2018 unveiling, welcome new friends. I am grateful for each of you too. There are enough of you that introductions are in order. Starting with “Which Layout Should I Get” some of the posts over the next couple of months will re-introduce the basics of what TaoCraft Tarot is all about. Of course, all of that stuff is always available under the “About” tab at top of the page or in the mobile drop-down menu. Even so, I like to dust it all off and post new, current versions as a pure vanity project. Happy Anniversary to me. I hope it makes you feel more comfortable in this cyberspace. As 2020 enters its final third and we all look forward to 2021 (may all your dumpster fires extinguish) there are two new features to the website compared to last Fall: Live phone readings are back and the website comments are open!

Open, but moderated. Please use the comments to ask anything you like. I’ll answer in the blog and/or social media. I’m still going to protect the energy of TaoCraft’s cyberspace. Any spam or inappropriate comments will be obliterated in a blinding flash of white hot hellfire…I mean….deleted before they appear.

Also, you might want to take a peek at the special offers page. I’d bake an anniversary cake for all of us, but maybe this will suffice instead. Because, you know, cyberspace.

Peace to all-R.