Apt title for the renaming fest that always seems to happen in October. I hope you’ll give Clairvoyant Confessional podcast “Confession #8” a listen to hear what this “sip of tarot” thing is about.
Today’s card is the Six of Cups.
It is most often associated with innocence, nostalgia, childhood, simplicity.
As you can guess, the simplicity thing resonates for me.
But today it is the childhood/child-like aspect that is most energy forward.
A long time ago, I read an interview with Luc Bessom, the director and writer for The Fifth Element, one of my favorite movies. When it was released in ’97 I was training and teaching both tai chi and kung fu, so the scene where Leeloo takes out a room full of Mangalores was high on my list of reasons to like the film. The interview with the director was talking about casting and why he chose Mila Jovovich to play Leeloo. He said she captured that sense of innocence, the feeling of seeing things for the very first time. At the same time, the character required that she have a sense of strength and competence and the essence of the “supreme being” that she was. Star Man and Dr. Vanderspeigle from Resident Alien are other fiction characters with this quality.
That is the head space that the six of cups is pointing toward today. A fresh, child LIKE look at a problem or a situation doesn’t have to abandon your hard earned competence and knowledge in the process. Brain bleach doesn’t exist. There are some things you can’t un-see, but you can always re-see for the first time.
The October announcement included the NEW membership tier on K0-fi. This blog is STILL 100% free, will contain everything in one place, including reminder links to the memebers-only content. Of course, only members can view the post at the end of the reminder link.
There will STILL be blog-only content here that you can’t get anywhere else on the web. What I’m trying to say is be a member & follow this blog and you get EVERYTHING, every scrap of Tarot content I create. The monthly premium is the same cost of a one card meditation reading except that you get a three card reading per month plus all the rest. Since domain and web hosts won’t take Tarot readings in barter, there is a nominal fee to support the blog, the podcast and the time put in to creating it all including the YouTube shorts (almost) everyday.
*infomercial voice* That’s right folks! For the low, low cost of $5 a month, you get a three card member’s reading each month PLUS random special offers and giveaways PLUS a private, personal “Year Ahead” reading by email when you join.
Here is an example of what the “month ahead” members only reading look like each month, with each card serving as a them for about 10 days or so in the first, middle and last thirds of the month.
As I type this,* that sounds way more complicated than it actually needs to be. Come to think of it, I’m going to do “pathway” style readings instead…your path through the month.
Either way, bottom line, you get a THREE card member’s reading for the price of ONE card meditation reading.
Witches Tarot used with permission
October is the anniversary of TaoCraft Tarot’s “grand opening” in 2018. It fits that October is our first members-only monthly reading.
Just for this first layout, I’ll open the reading up to everyone on the main website in a few days, to let them know about this new feature. After that, you’ll have to be a member or supporter to see the three card “month ahead” readings. ONLY monthly members get a free “year ahead” reading by email when you join.
October has a regal energy. I’m no astronomer or astrologer, but I get the mental image of Saturn. I don’t get a general – energy sense about what that could mean, but let’s just mention it in case it resonates with someone…a birth month or astrology association would be my guess.
The early part of the month has a practical get-things-done sort of feel. The energy reminds me of when I was young and my grandmother canning everything under the sun from their garden. Things may be busy, but it seems short lived and will pay off later. Like the soup she would make in the winter. Don’t wait for someone else to lead the way. It’s up to you to decide what to can and what soup to make later, to extend the analogy.
Pages are learning, swords are mind and intellect. The middle part of the month is time to feed your mind, to free your mind. New ideas are important. Curl up with a good book
Wands are fire and passion. Toward the end of the month, take what you’ve done, take what you’ve learned and light it up, metaphorically speaking. Apply the ideas that the page part of the month brought to you.
This month, the reading is mostly an example of what to expect in the months to come. You can roughly apply each card as a theme for 10 days at a time or just follow your intuition and sense the shifts in energy as the month goes on.
As an extra celebration for TaoCraft’s anniversary month, I’d like to offer a free Zombie cat yes/no reading to the supporters and members who claim it before October 31, 2021 – my Halloween treat to you! Just email TaoCraftTarot@gmail with your question. Ask anything and Zombie Cat will have at it! The usual disclaimer of a 50% chance of being dead wrong applies.
Who’s Zombie Cat? My slightly snarky feline alter ego inspired by Schrodinger’s thought experiment and an episode of Menage A Tarot (a 2015 podcast I did with David Dear, of “Ninth World Journal” and Kate of “Daily Tarot Girl” You can read the original Zombie Cat blog post here.
* “No plan survives first contact with implementation” – Adam Savage, I think.
photo: Witches Tarot, art by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans used with permission http://llwellynpublishing.com/permissions
Today’s Tarot card is the High Priestess from the major arcana.
In physics, or at least in popularized science shows, they say higher dimensions are in contact with us. The fifth dimension and higher are described as being impossibly close to each and every object, each and every cell in our bodies. The mysteries of the universe are literally close at hand. Magic lives within the mundane.
Arthur Clark famously said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” To my limited education in the matter, higher dimensions and quantum physics more than sufficiently advanced to seem that way. I wonder if all the sturm and drang about writers connecting advanced science to esoteric philosophy being “pseudoscience” is really just a matter of semantics. If a person is untrained in physics and calculus but adept at philosophy and spirituality, of course they are going to default to non-scientific language to communicate difficult ideas. It isn’t “pseudo” any more than English is a pseudo language compared to Swahili or vice versa.
Arguably saying “the apples fall off trees” has more real life value than saying “gravitational force is equal to the mass of two objects multiplied together, divided by the distance between their centers then multiplied by the gravitational constant” Both are true, both are valid and both have their own kind of importance.
Whether you call it higher dimensions, universal life energy, the Force, the Tao, or just plain magic, the mystical parts of life are integrated within the mundane. Mystery is a close layer beneath everything.
Thank you for reading and listening.
Today’s Tarot short format card readings by Ronda Snow of TaoCraft Tarot are available on multiple platforms starting in October 2021. Find these sip of tea sized Tarot readings on YouTube Shorts, Clairvoyant Confessional podcast, the blog page on Tao Craft Tarot .com and on the Tao Craft Tarot’s ko-fi .com blog.
The main blog contains print-only content not available anywhere else.
The ko-fi blog contains members-only content not available anywhere else.
Basically, it’s a day to just do normal stuff. Grind it out. Get it done. There are no big spiritual or aspirational energies around the card today. It’s all about just building a life brick by brick, step by step, moment by moment.
Even in Tarot, not everything is a big spiritual revelation. Not everything in life has a big symbolic purpose. Like Freud said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Come back tomorrow for the spiritual stuff. For now, at least for today, go grind the cigars.
The Ace of Pentacles could be called the essence of things.
On the top layer you have success, abundance, and all the positive top-line meanings.
For all the attention that is given to court cards, the aces fascinate me. They speak to that simplicity that is so near and dear to Taoism’s heart. They are about the essence and nature of the minor arcana suit, in this case pentacles (coins in some decks.)
Pentacles are associated with the earth element. They are our relationship with the physical realm, tangible, practical things. Which begs the question of what is the essence of those things? What is the nature of stuff?
I’ll leave that to physicists, which is fascinating as heck, especially once you start getting into the whole Schrodinger, Heisenberg quantum thing. Especially for someone like me who can’t even explain why its bad if the lights dim when the refrigerator comes on.
For our purposes, let’s look at the role stuff plays in life. Of course, now my mind is stuck on the old George Carlin bit…
I’m talking functionality. We want stuff. It pays to know what you want. Achieving, manifesting (however you want to look at it) works better when you have a specific and clear vision of what you really want. If you get to the essence of it, then window dressing and expectations are less likely to get in the way. When you work from a place of simplicity and essentials, the things you REALLY want can take a multitude more forms, and have a multitude more ways to find a way into your life.
That’s wants. Today’s card is, energetically, talking about needs. Physical need is the example, but the energy idea can be extended to mental, emotional and spiritual needs too.
This feels like a moment in time, but possibly an important one. Just for a minute, just for today, what is a literal need. An immediate, pressing, life-depends-on-it need.
Your next meal.
Your next drink of water.
Your next breath.
Now give it your full attention and gratitude as you meet that need. Try it. Just once. Just for today.
How does that feel?
Today’s Tarot card is available as a blog post, a Clairvoyant Confessional episode, and on YouTube Shorts.
Your feedback is always welcome on any of these platforms.
And a special thank you to everyone who has supported the blog and podcast on ko-fi!
It’s not a day for high flying ambition. That kind of day will come. Some days are for stepping on the gas, other days are for coasting a little. Today’s energy is a little bit of a drift. DO, it isn’t a vacation day – but DO things without a big push, without ambition or high expectation. Be productive, but not tied to the outcome. Do the best you can with what you got and be happy with the result whatever it turns out to be. It is a day for low expectation and ample simple pleasures.
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.
This time, if you want to hear the more detailed card interpretation, it’s in the video. I’m not telling you which meaning is which card, so I hope you’ll watch at least the first bit of the video to choose your card and see the reveal. If you want to spend a little time and feel it out, just pause the video then restart to see which one you picked.
Nothing in Tarot is 100%. The card might not feel right. That’s OK. Claim one of the others if it feels more helpful. Or find another video / blog post and try again to find guidance that resonates with YOU – here, now, today. It doesn’t matter when the video was made or the post was written. The right message has a way of finding you sooner or later.
I hope you’ll follow the blog if you haven’t already – that way you get ALL the new content, video and print-only, right in your inbox or WordPress reader.
The Heirophant: How are you being too much (or not enough) of a people pleasing rule follower. Thank you to all activists who speak for us whenever we’re not sure what to say.
Nine of Swords: Is the thing that’s keeping you up at night really worth losing sleep over? What are you making bigger than it is? Let go what needs to go and get some real sleep.
Eight of Pentacles: Just do it. Set aside any high minded spirituality or over-intellectualizing and peel the potatoes, chop the wood and carry the water.
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The Equinox announcement list so far:
Zombie Cat yes/no Tarot readings by email are $5 off until Halloween. Get yours HERE
the ko-fi shop is open with ebooks available for purchase and instant download
The virtual tip mug is open, which supports the production of this blog, podcasts and YouTube videos
Clairvoyant Confessional season 2 begins soon, such as it is. Evil villian monolog style still applies. Send your questions for a free on-air Tarot reading to ClairvoyantConfessional@gmail.com
The death card usually is an indicator that things are going to get interesting, if they aren’t already.
But, as with the Firefly crew, it might not be in the fiery crash sort of way that you were thinking. After all, it’s pretty bad story telling to kill off all of your main characters in the five minutes of a tv episode.
I remember watching totally enjoyable brain candy movie back in the late 80s where a Tarot reader pulls the death card just as The Warlock sneaks up from behind and murders her. Classic trope. That was before I learned to read Tarot much less read professionally. That classic trope has gone from fairly cheesy to downright laughable.
Everyone knows that the death card doesn’t mean actual death. So much so that revealing the actual meaning has become a trope in itself. The best example of that is Lisa Simpson and the Happy Squirrel card. Makes me giggle every time…
The Simpsons were created by Matt Groening and are the property of 20th century studios
For real, I’ve seen the death card more often at bachelorette parties than any other time. It makes sense. With a wedding, you have a whole group of people celebrating a transition and irrevocable change – a big happy one.
Even if that marriage later winds up in the messiest divorce ever, it still happened. It still changed people from who they were before the wedding. The event goes on their permanent record so to speak.
Transition and change as a death image is a common thing in both fact and fiction. To gain a butterfly, you lose a caterpillar. To gain a cupcake, you lose some flour, sugar and eggs. To gain wisdom blissful ignorance must vanish. Life altering change can be as terrifying as death itself even though change is the essence of life.
Change for the better is a grim reaper no one needs to fear.
I watched the one and only season of Cowboy Bebop for the first time surprisingly recently. Funny how all of that adulting can get in the way of your TV watching time. The whole thing was as awesome as I’d always heard.
Spike Spiegel came to mind with the Two of Pentacles this morning because of the episode on Venus where he was teaching the kid in the airport how to fight. I was all about being relaxed which gives you clarity, control and speed.
That’s a real thing, by the way. Staying relaxed and breathing was my biggest nemisis in my brief spin through martial arts sparring back in the day.
Spike pretty much summed up the classic Bruce Lee “be water my friend” interview:
If Taoist influenced Jeet Kun Do isn’t your cup of water, then a weather report captures the same idea.
Storms are driven by low pressure. The most destructive hurricanes have the lowest atmospheric pressure at the center.
Beware the quiet ones. Relaxed fighters are the ones in control. Like the figure on the Two of Pentacles, you might have to juggle your way through a life that is a circus on the outside. If you can find SOME way to find your calm, find your low pressure center, then you aren’t just another circus act. You are, as the popular internet meme says, the storm.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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