Tag: captain mal

Today’s Tarot: Worth the Effort

The Seven of Wands specifically is associated with effort, challenge, sometimes conflict. When you combine that with the wands’ suit meaning of your relationship with yourself (the element of fire, inner passions, philosophy, spirituality, etc.) It brings mental challenge to mind.

It may have to do with setting healthy boundaries, protecting your inner world and mental health from unhealthy connections. That is work, but it is worth the effort.

It may have to do using planning and strategy to overcome a challenge. Working smarter, not harder, is always worth the mental effort.

There is an element of success, or being on the path to success, over conflicts and challenges even though effort is required to achieve that success. On of my favorite interpretations comes from Ellen Dugan who adds overcoming conflict with “Style, wit and humor” to the mix. That always brings characters like Han Solo from Star Wars, Captain Mal from Firefly or Deadpool from Marvel comics to mind for me. Thom Pham dials in to this same energy when he portrays the Seven of Wands with Obyron, the bon vivant warrior in Game of Thrones. So the advice here would be to keep your sense of humor and meet challenges with your own flourish. That will be worth the effort in how it helps to keep your stress levels down if nothing else. Laughter is good medicine.

Wishing you a day of style, humor and overcoming any obstacles that comes your way.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot July 11 -18

Pause the video if you need a minute to choose your card. It isn’t a hard and fast prediction. It is just a thought to guide you, a light that shines in dark corners where you might otherwise missed something kind of cool. So no pressure. I don’t add crystals and trinkets and make the YouChoose pictures all instagram pretty for a reason. Those things help intuition and make the choice more pleasant, but this is swinging a weighted bat in a way, for those of you who want to give raw intuition a little more of a workout. In a plain picture like this, you have to follow your heart as much as your eye to the right card.

Left: Seven of Cups There are two seven cards in this weeks group of three. I’m choosing to see that as good luck and a bit of hopefulness for everyone this week. Goodness knows we Americans could use some of that. But this card is also permission to take it easy on yourself. Go easy on the decision making and embrace the KISS with both arms. Keep it simple. Cut to the chase. Brush away every bit of the minutae and get to the heart of things and the path will become crystal clear.

Center: Seven of Wands. This is the second of our two 7 cards this week. I’m still going to deliberatly choose to hold space for something good to come along this week, even if the sh*tshow continues unabated here in America. In fact, digging deep in our comic / geek / sci fi culture is just the thing this card is giving for advice. There are going to be challenges, but they are deal-able, especially if we do it with a little style. This is the week to channel your inner Deadpool, Ironman, Spiderman, Star Lord, Captain Mal, Han Solo or whatever other wise-cracking antihero you have lurking in there. You can save your world with two swords and warp factor 9.

Author unknown, presumed public domain

Right: Three of Wands. Watch and chill. No, I don’t mean Netflix. This is a wait until you see the whites of thier eyes, everyone stay frosty kind of watch and chill. This isn’t a moment to act, but rather watch for the just-right moment to act with precision and impact. Think cat. Think watching, ready, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Meta: I’m a gestalt kind of gal. Maybe that’s why I’m good at this Tarot thing. The more big-picture I can understand things, the happier I am. Taking all three cards as a whole, the energy is flowing toward a state of relaxed but awake and ready. Don’t stress, just deal, roll with it. It reminds me of paramedics and other rescue types. One of the best bits of advice I ever heard from one of them, back in my hospital days: “Prepare for the emergency and the emergency goes away.” True. Worrying never solved anything. My martial arts days taught me that a relaxed punch is faster than a tense one. That’s true too. If you are relaxed knowing that shot in the arm is going to pinch a little, it may not hurt at all. Staying chill is the path to overcoming whatever life throws at it. It will be ok, so have some fun along the way.

A Year of….Sinatra?

malodds

2019 is a year of new beginnings.

Yeah, I know. We say that every New Year, then nothing changes. The world is covered in resolutions, predictions & good intentions when January 1st rolls around. This year, the energy of it seems different. It feels like it just might be real this time. The energy for transformation and re-invention has been building for a while now. For me personally, it began in when my daughter started college. Newly empty-nested, I let Modern Oracle go and began the moderately terrifying work of re-inventing my Tarot work from the ground up.

queenswords

I’ve seen that kind of new purpose happening all around. A personal trainer turned tarot reader, a musician turned personal trainer, an energy healing created her personal brand, a perfume maker reformed her old brand, and a long time martial arts friend passed the teaching baton to his students and began a new career altogether – just to name a few. If you are thinking of stepping into your power and becoming who you truly are, then join the party! You are most definitely not alone.

Last week, I started to do the typical Tarot reading for the new year thing. I even went so far as to pull cards and stare at them for a long while before realizing I’m done with this particular exercise. I’m done with predicting the national energy for the masses. TaoCraft is about talking with you. Yes, YOU. You, right there reading this screen. I’m done worrying about “getting it wrong” with the yearly predictions. I’m over trying to be inoffensive and neutral in order to convince everyone of the value of Tarot and trying to coax people into buying a reading. Don’t get me wrong. I WANT business. I want all the paying customers willing to work with me. I NEED the work and money as much as anyone else. I might shell out a little for traditional advertising, but I am no longer willing to pay the price of being less-than or inauthentic in order to pander to the public. Like that movie said “If you build it they will come.” TaoCraft is built on authenticity. I’m here to help YOU, not to enlighten the general public. If you don’t resonate with what I offer, no worries, no judgement. It just checks one more thing off your list in the search for the thing that does resonate with you. Sometimes finding what you don’t want is a big step toward finding the very thing that you do.

For my part, authenticity keeps negative energies at bay. If someone objects to what I do, fine. There is the door. No more bending to fit. No more coaxing, cajoling, or convincing. This is about lighting a candle and let those who need this particular light come and be welcomed.

So a new year Tarot spread is out the window. The next thing to go is the “word for the year” idea. Usually a particular word or concept would slowly emerge as as a theme for the new year. This year is very different. Right away it is clear 2019 is going to need more than one word.

chariot

When I looked intuitively at 2019, the mental image that came was like a storm of mad hornets. No one word is getting us through that. How DO you navigate something like that? What came to mind then was high skill close formation flying like they do at air shows, combined with pure instinct like schooling fish, flocking birds, or Han Solo in the asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. Each individual does their part, so everyone doesn’t bash into everyone else. That not only does that take skill and instinct, that takes mindfulness. You can’t re-invent yourself in the middle of a storm of hornets if your mind is somewhere else. In short, 2019 is asking us for transformation, authenticity, and mindfulness.

No general, nation wide, tarot spread this year. No idealistic, pie in the sky words or themes. For 2019 we simply have things to do, people to be and moments to live mindfully. Let’s do this.

“To do is to be – Socrates

To be is to do – Plato

Do be do be do – Sinatra”

-ancient and wise T shirt of unknown origins
image: creator unknown. assumed public domain. Tarot card images from the public domain via sacred-texts.com