Tag: alleymans tarot

Now Works

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – quote attributed to Lau Tzu.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

And the blog of a few paragraphs begins with this one quote, the first in a whole cascade that came to mind with this card:

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” is attributed to Voltaire. The eighteenth century French writer that is, although I am very fond of Aurelio Voltaire and Gothic Homemaking too.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” by Wayne Gretzsky is another favorite

There are bunches of quotes about it never being the so-called “right time” and all of these quotes connect to the spirit of the Two of Wands card.

The suit of Wands, as we know, is connected to fire, inner fire, passions, philosophy and the like. Two cards tend to hint at some sort of balance. This card has a sense of tipping point or being on the edge of something and in this case it feels positive. like being on the precipice of something good.

For all of you new Stranger Things Kate Bush fans out there who love “Running Up That Hill” as much as I have loved it for the past 35 years – check out my other favorite song from her 1985 Hounds of Love album. “Cloudbusting” strongly comes to mind here with the line “I know that something good is gonna happen.”

Precipice is a good word here, too. Whether it is obvious or a little hidden, two cards very often hint at some sort of tension or balancing act. Today the two of wands is pointing to that balance point between active waiting with alert watching and active, well, acting. Other than emergency plans that we all fervently hope we never need, what good are plans that are never implemented?

Waiting for the right moment to maximize an opportunity is important. I wonder how much human genius has been lost because of being just a teensy out of step with the right time and place. It is hard to catch lightning in a bottle when the weather is unexpectedly good.

But on the other hand, if you wait for the right moment you’ll be waiting forever because the just-right moment lives in the future and the present moment is the only one we have.

What is the harm of taking that first step if you do it knowing you just might have to change directions with your second step? Or third? Or fourth?

The adventure of your lifetime has to start sometime. Now works.

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* card draw video on the blog features the Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission.

Turn Around

Sometimes you need to circle around a problem to nab the solution from behind.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Hanged Man. This card is different-looking from the usual Hanged man. You can see the card being drawn in the blog and on the YouTube channel. This particular card was created by Emma Daues for the Alleyman’s Tarot Deck. I uses a cat curled up in a space bubble turning and drifting endlessly to get at the same message as the better known Pamela Smith card. That oblique approach pretty much is today’s message.

Regardless of the deck or artwork you use, the Hanged man most often has to do with stagnation, frustration, feeling stuck, going in circles making no progress.

Circles have been a bit of a theme the past couple of days. Remember how the Page of Wands was circling around to the back and nabbing the point from behind? Today has a little bit of that energy too. Endless space circles certainly captures the stuck, stagnation aspect of the card.

Sometimes the Hanged Man is connected to self-sacrifice or fearless sacrifice. I don’t get any sense of that lesser known interpretation from our space cat at all. Although, I imagine a good sci fi writer could use a self sacrificing bubble cat in space as a story prompt and come up with something.

The main energy today lies with one of the most common messages I get with this. I suspect it is a very repeated idea because it is, in my opinion, the most useful one. This part of the card talks about seeing things from a different point of view.

As you think about problems or decisions turn things around. Turn it upside down. Kick the tires. Take outlandish options out for a spin mentally.

My all time favorite analogy for this energy is an interview I watched on TV once with one of the Disney “imagine -eers.” I can’t remember the gentleman’s name or any exact quotes but the essence of it was they would use physical models of new rides and attractions during the creative development process. A key they would use the model was for specific creative problem solving. If a problem turned up they would look at the physical model from physically different angles. They would stand on chairs and look down on it, sit on the floor and look up at it. I imagine they would circle around it too. A physical shift in perspective could spark inspiration for a creative solution or bring focus to a diffuse, poorly understood problem.

If there is something you are pondering, the Hanged Man reminds you to look at it from all sorts of angles. Circle around, maybe you need to nab the solution from behind. Turn around, see what the problem looks like behind you instead of perpetually chasing it down.

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The blog & podcast are not monetized, so we are working for the highest and best energy message, not for advertisers. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships, commissions and virtual coffees all support the creation of this free to access (almost) daily Tarot content.

Thank you again. See you at the next sip!

Conquest Through Surrender

TaoCraft Tarot Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Conquest through surrender with the Death and Hawkmoth cards

Welcome to Tao Craft Short Sip. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is a new one for me. It is the Hawkmoth card created by Literal Crow for the Literal Crow Tarot and used here in the Alleyman’s Tarot deck.

This is a new card for me. So far this has been one of the most easily readable decks I’ve owned yet. Maybe it’s because it’s Monday, but I had to look this one up to even begin. The Alleyman’s notebook begins by connecting this to the death card and the life cycle of insects. Like the death card, this card is about change but with less foresight.

It reminds me a little bit of insect related quotes.

I’m not sure who actually wrote it, but the Morticia Addams character said “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

Author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach wrote “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.”

One of my favorite quotes lately is related, but thankfully leaves out the bugs. Adam Savage reminds us to “follow the process, not the plan.”

In essence, change is inevitable. With the death card, the change is a foreseeable, knowable thing. I’ve seen the death card most often at bachlorette parties of all things. Not because marriage is death or any such 1950’s tropes like that. It’s because marriage is a life altering change. You’ll never be an unmarried single person again. Even if the marriage ends you are not single again, you are divorced or what have you. The death card speaks to a known, forward looking albeit life altering change. The quality we assign to the change is beside the point. Marriage is a perfect example. The old single you is gone forever, but old dies to make way for something wonderful.

I think the Hawkmoth card is less deliberate. It is about a change that blind-sides you. It is about blurry, unplanned, undirected change. If the Death card walks up and lops your head off, the Hawkmoth card is change by a thousand paper cuts. It is about long term, gradual, almost imperceptible molding of a new you.

For a new you to emerge from that process, it takes a degree of surrender. In a cave, stalagtites and staligmites don’t fight the dripping water, they surrender to change and process that builds them up and makes them strong.

Some changes require our evolution. Some changes require that we surrender to them in order to conquer the greatest challenge of them all:

ourselves.

Thank you so much for listening!

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See you at the next sip!