Tag: 4 of swords

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Rest and Contemplate

Cut through the noise of social media and the static of online Tarot posts to get something a little more personal. You choose your card and get it’s interpretation.

https://youtu.be/OHkR9YXdeNQ

Welcome to YouChoose Interactive Tarot on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

This post works just like the name says: you choose. You choose your card and you choose how to apply it. It’s Monday morning where I am right now, so my mind is drawn to the flow of energy for the week ahead. Overall it feels like a time to rest and contemplate. This feels like a time to gather your energy and regroup, recover from recent efforts or as “Bob the Writing Cat” on instagram often says – to “gird your loins” because it is Monday and the week is coming.

But, of course, it could be something entirely different for you.

If you are listening to audio only on the podcast, there is a link in the description to the blog post where you can watch the youtube video and see how all this is playing out with the real-world card draw. I’ve added the shape cards as a reference to make it easier to imagine and to pick a card from the audio only, but if seeing it would help, the visual is here for you.

First things first. Let’s choose. I’ve shuffled the Tarot deck and picked three random cards out of the five shape cards. Today we have square, triangle and wavy lines.

Choose a shape. Take a minute, take a deep breath. If you are watching the video, pause if you need more time then restart to see the card reveal. If you are listening, imagine the shapes. Choose the one that feels right for today; square, wavy lines or triangle.

Square gets the Four of Cups

Triangle get the Ace of Pentacles or Coins

Wavy Lines gets the Four of Swords

Four of Cups feels like validation. People are closed as it seems. Lines of communication are not flowing well, but it is temporary and it’s ok. It just isn’t a time to push on the giving or receiving in. If others are up in your grill but you need them to step back and wait a little, honor that feeling. If you are the one trying to get the message through and other people just can’t get the message or seemingly won’t listen honor that too. It just isn’t the time. Let them have their moment. There is no sense in beating your head against the wall. This isn’t a good time to push or be too assertive any more than it is a good time to be imposed upon.

The Ace of Pentacles feels like a good news is on the horizon card. It feels consistent with the physical world, money and career vibe that is traditionally associated with pentacles. It’s no wonder some decks call them coins instead. This feels like payday in a small way. It feels like getting a return on work already done, time already invested. Time transforms. Things are coming back around, but it feels like it is in unexpected but valuable ways. It feels like a transformation toward something very different but more valuable to this moment. The mental image is a diamond. Diamonds are made of carbon, but elemental carbon is a very different thing when it isn’t in the high pressure crystal lattic form we call diamonds. Don’t overlook the diamond that is coming back from the carbon you gave a long time ago. If you gave grape juice, don’t walk around looking for more grape juice when you are being handed a glass of wine.

The Four of Swords really captures the essence of that rest, repair, regroup energy we were talking about earlier. Swords cards and knight cards carry a sense of activity and motion and doing. This card balances that. It is the yin to the knight of swords yang. This card is all about rest, but rest with an active purpose. This is resting deliberately so you can be at your best during the next battle, the next active time that is going to come. For those of you who picked this card, rest and contemplate fast. I have a hunch the restful, contemplative mode will shift for you before it does for everyone else.

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See you at the next sip!

Microwavable Enlightenment

There is no substitute for time. You can’t fool Mother Nature – or gluten. There is no such thing as microwavable enlightenment.

Even if enlightenment seems to happen in a flash it took some amount of time to build the lightbulb that come on over your head. It takes some amount of time to build up to the tipping point, or reach critical mass or any of a dozen analogies you could use here.

Personal growth and our spiritual journey is like a good brisket – it takes time. Microwaving the same cut of meat just isn’t the same no matter how much liquid smoke you use.

No-knead bread is just another name for biscuits. You can’t shortcut a good knead and rising time on a warm kitchen counter.

This card is reminding us that you can’t rush repose. Some things unfold in their own time. The best things take as long as they take.

Stay tuned for one more “equinox” announcement later today.

Today’s Tarot R & R

Maybe it’s a message for me as much as anyone else. But that’s how these things often work. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? My intent is that the blog will help somebody out there somewhere at some time or another, whenever they happen to see this. At risk of sounding like Prince lyrics, the whole point of Tarot is to help any and all of us get through this thing called life

The Four of Swords ties in to several energies that have already stepped forward lately. I still get a strong mental image of the different color flecks in stones from this weeks interactive reading Speckles. It feels like we are at long last getting a respite from the communal, zeitgeist energies that have so strong for the past year or so. It isn’t so much that we are being asked to stay in our lane and stick to our knitting – but rather the communal energy has disengaged and left us to our own devices. It is almost as if the universe has given us a day off to have a play date with ourselves. We are a collective of individuals. There is beauty in diversity. In a very gentle way, today feels like permission to get down with your bad self in a sense, whatever level of frenetic or zen energy that may be for you.

There is also the idea of lifelong learning (Growing Ogres) It is a mark of excellence in any profession. It seems the best of the best are always learning, evolving, growing new onion layers and letting old ones fall away. That’s what a sabbatical is; an opportunity for professors to study more stuff.

It doesn’t have to be forever. A break in the energetic action is a very different thing from being stuck or stagnant or lazy. It certainly isn’t a sign of failure. In Reiki, the five core precepts (letting go of worry, letting go of anger, working honestly, being grateful, being kind) are focused on the present moment. “Just for today” is a liberating, enabling, empowering thought. Just for today, take the Four of Sword’s advice. Just for today, get some rest. Just for today, give yourself a break and work on something else. “Respite”and “Sabbatical” doesn’t mean be unproductive. You can rest one thing while doing something else. Or not.

“Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted”

John Lennon

My Tarot Valentine: Don’t Romance Hangry

It’s a reflex.

It’s so easy that it is almost impossible to stop yourself from snapping at loved ones when you are stressed, cranky, tired, hangry or pushed to the limit by whatever. It’s proximity, just like the nerve reflexes your doctor checks with the little rubber hammer thingy. Particular nerve reflexes are wired so that they basically short out across the spinal cord and bypass the brain entirely. Your leg moves with the hammer boink without you thinking about it or willing it to do it…or not do it. It’s the same brain-bypass that lets you snap your hand back from a hot pan so you don’t get burned.

Reflexes bypass language editing centers. I don’t know about you, but when one of those injury avoiding ‘ouch’ reflexes happen, it is usually accompanied by at least “OW” and usually a swear or two. Reflexes happen faster than cognitive processing, they don’t go all the way to the brain and have a shorter distance for the nerve impulse to travel, for a simplified way to look at it.

The same is true when we are under stress. It is quick and easy to take it out on loved ones because, with any kind of luck, they are relatively close at hand. The stress has a short distance to travel. If you are the stressed one, it is hard to stop yourself from doing that. If you are the one in the splash zone of your loved one’s stress, it is hard to stop yourself from getting reflexively defensive and splashing a little bit too.

I’ve learned this from my spouse who is a freaking saint to put up with me my crankies, but taking care of yourself is an act of love for the ones you are closest to. Get a nap, have a snack, whatever it is that works to manage your stress…DO it. You’ll be doing a favor for your own mental health as well as giving a token of affection to those who you love…and who love you.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: The Moment (that got away)

Whelp, that was unexpected.

Sorry for the delay. We were out of some staple basics, and silly me thought I could mask up, go grab a few things from the grocery store, heave something in the oven for supper and type this baby right up.

I forgot: It’s a Saturday, right before Christmas. So here I go right into one of our worst traffic areas in the worst traffic time of the year. One thing led to another including putting some cucumbers into start a dill pickle ferment and feeding George the Second, my latest sourdough starter, and here we are. *sips hot cuppa and sits it down* Now, *rubs hands together* where were we?

Left: Four of Swords. I love the Witches Tarot. It’s probably my favorite deck. The Four of Swords is the one and only card where the artwork is dissonant with the message. Energetically, I get the typical rest, respite, repose message that is more evident in other decks if they are based on the RWS originals. Take this public domain image of Pamela Smith’s artwork on a a circa 1910 deck for example.

See the difference? Sometimes a feeling of readiness or fierceness akin to the Mark Evans artwork will come through. My feeling today is more with the Smith artwork and the respite interpretations.

If you selected this card, this is a week to be in the moment with your thoughts and plans. Don’t exhaust yourself with worry or regret. It is the intellectual, emotional, stress management equivalent of a quick catnap. Your not being asked to shirk responsibility, be in denial, or put off urgent action. The energy this week, or at least today is taking a breath compared to how it has been during 2020 to date. Allow your mind and emotions to rest in the present moment, and set aside worry and regret just for a little while. The present moment is very restful to the part of our mind that worries.

Center: Ace of Pentacles. This is a very sunny, upbeat positive feeling card. I associate it more with inspiration and solutions that physical benefit or money luck, although if your inspiration helps your work, then it could daisy chain or chain-of-events into money luck. The mental image that came with the card was a baseball catcher behind the plate with their glove up and ready. The word hurtling seemed important and strong, as in something good is hurtling toward you so be ready to catch it. Be in the moment, ready to embrace it when a good thing comes. It may be unexpected, but it feels more like it is coming in fast. As I typed “embrace” the mental image was of a baseball glove with a fast pitch hitting hard and the glove snapping shut around it.

If you selected this card, be in the moment but be alert so you can grab stuff when it comes your way on short notice. Be alert, be quick.

Right: Three of Coins. This is very physical realm, very work and task related. I get a little bit of “stick to your knitting” plus a little bit of Luke Skywalker and the Death Star “stay on target”. I am also reminded of a lyric from an old Kate Bush song “press execute” If memory serves, at the time (maybe it is still this way) British computer keyboards used “execute” instead of “enter” I could be wrong. But “execute” is the feeling here. Maybe the Nike slogan. But DO-ing is front and center. “Task at hand” comes through as well. Planning is great. Revisiting and revising are helpful. This week is all about productivity in this moment.

If you selected this card, energies are wind at your back. This week is all about getting stuff done. It is a good week to go beast mode on your to-do list.

Today’s Tarot: Sightline

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.” – Micheal J. Fox

Taraffirmation #14: I see things as they really are, and work for the best with the resources at hand.

Don’t let old experiences or expectations for the future cloud your vision. Solving a problem requires that you see the problem for what it really is. Sometimes when accept things as they are for what they are, there aren’t as many obstacles in your line of sight after all.

Today’s Tarot: Four of Swords (2-23-2019)

4 of Swords…comtemplating….deciding…IS doing something. The mind needs space to work. That workspace at times takes the form of rest, inactivity, watching what thoughts come and letting them go…you know…meditation.