Tag: card meaning

Pick a Winner

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Choose choosing

The seven of cups has turned up in several readings lately, and when that happens it makes me think there is a message for everyone, a read on general energies.

It does fit. Vaccine availability rolls on and people are starting to think about what’s next. Legit decisions have to be made about how to get through this last critical time of mitigation, vaccination and evaluation (of how variants progress and THAT piece of it unfolds) There are decisions to be made and courses to be set.

The Seven of Cups talks about decisions. First and foremost, that you should make them. Even if you keep doing the same thing that you are already doing, it has a different energy if you deliberately CHOOSE to keep doing it. It is the difference between a mindful, purposeful choice and mindlessly letting it all happen. Choices are empowering even when the choice is to do nothing or the choice is to wait and decide later.

One of the psychiatrists I used to work for used to say deciding not to decide is still a decision. Making a decision has real psychological implications. It is a step toward emotional health and balance for any of us. Making a choice is not only empowering, it is anxiety relieving. Once you choose where you want to go, then it easy by comparison to decide how to get there.

That isn’t to say that decision making is easy. The more important it is, the more intimidating the choice becomes. Choices have consequences. That includes the choice to act on a decision – or not.

The seven of cups also talks about the challenges of making a decision. Sometimes there are too many good choices and we dither. Too many good choices and are decision making process freezes like a deer in headlights. Marketers call it decision paralysis. Or you can get the opposite, where there are no good options and we freeze in a different set of headlights. In these situations the advice is to simplify as much as possible. Then, all things being equal follow your heart – or you gut, whichever seems to be leading the way. This is tied to the other thread of decision-problem energy in the card. Sometimes we over think. We make choices much harder than they have to be and go in circles upon mental circles over the potential outcome of the decision. Again, the advice is to simplify. When all else is equal and logic doesn’t suffice, then let love, intuition and a good old gut feelings lead the way.

If the seven of cups comes to you, brace yourself for blunt, confrontive adages: “Suck it up buttercup” “shit off the pot” “you can’t sit on the fence” “lead, follow or get out of the way.” “Choose wisely.”

Indecision is uncomfortable. Even a bad choice is a learning opportunity. A good choice is a liberating thing.

“I don’t think we can sit on the fence anymore. We have to make up our minds. And if one wants to choose the path of darkness, then so be it, but be conscious of what it is you’re doing.”

Seal (via brainyquote.com)

YouChoose Interactive Tarot

This is one of those times, where the video actually seems to get to most of the message. The theme, it seems is “pay attention.” Interestingly, the theme touches a little bit on mind, body and spirit.

As always, stop, rest a moment. Let your self set aside work or whatever has been on your mind for a moment. It will all still be there when you are done reading this. It is OK to be here, now, looking at the screen. Take a breath, pick a card, think about something different for a moment. Pick a card. If you want a few more nice, quiet moments, pause the video. Stare at the screen, let people think you are doing something important (you are – you are paying attention to your intuition and inner world for a moment) When you are ready, restart the video to see the reveal. Read more about your card below.

Four of Cups: Pay attention to other people. It is easy to get wrapped up in our thoughts and live inside of our own heads. You don’t always have to have answers or know the right thing to say. Sometimes platitudes and easy advice is the worst thing to hear. Presence, being with a person, being with the moment is the best thing of all. In a way this resonates with obsidian as a protector, because you are championing the person you share your mindful presence with.

The High Priestess: Pay attention to the subtle things. Spirit speaks in whispers. Hints and signs and omens are there. There are some who believe these things are a reflection of ourselves. The world around us reflects our innate wisdom back to us in forms that we are able to accept and understand be that cards or stars or tea leaves or simple coincidence. If it seems meaningful, it is. This resonates well with the amethyst as it is associated with the crown chakra and spirituality.

King of Swords: Think. Pay attention to what needs done but also when to hold back. Waiting, watching, understanding ARE actions. Deciding to move ahead…and deciding not to decide until later…are both decisions, both leadership actions. Whatever the choices may be this week, whether you choose to act or to not act, it is the deliberate mindful choosing that matters as much as the chosen path itself. Rhodochrosite is connected to the heart chakra. Making decisions and taking action ….especially when that action is to wait or decide later… takes heart, takes courage.

Today’s Tarot: Union of the Devine

Striking a balance requires that decisions be made.

It amazes me that humans have figured out how to teach robots to maintain physical balance. It is a surprisingly complex thing that the human brain does effortlessly, easily. Test the theory: stand on one foot. You don’t have to lift one foot very high off of the floor, but there you stand, on half the support ( more or less, I dunno, I’m not an engineer) that you had a moment ago.

The emotional, mental and spiritual balance that Tarot deals with is no less intricate. Temperance and the number two cards of the four minor suits all speak to different aspects of balance. The Two of Swords is classically associated with indecision, or being of two minds about something. Sometimes that is exactly the energy I get from it in a reading. Other times it is something different, something more. Diane Morgan interprets the card as “mystical unity.” This in a deeply essential way defines balance. A lever isn’t a lever without the fulcrum. Balance isn’t balance without the center spot where the opposites connect, around which balance does its adaptive dance.

For there to be balance, decisions must be made.

Swords are associated with air and intellect. Swords are associated with action. Think and choose.

Choose your balance point. What calls to you today? The balance of magic and mundane? Spiritual versus intellectual? Intellectual versus emotional? Choose where you want to be, and then make choices about what needs changed or shifted to achieve the balance-point that you want. OR change your balance point to suit the conditions that exists. Or some combination thereof.

In the earlier example, you had to choose which foot to stand on. Then you had to choose how high to lift the other one off the floor. You chose when to put it down. Your body automatically made an untold number of tiny muscle adjustments to make it all happen.

Choose, act and find balance. That balance, that being in harmony with the state of being that you happen to find yourself in is indeed a mystical unity where the mundane unites with the divine.

Today’s Tarot: Dam it

Or more accurately, don’t.

Accidents happen. Poor choices are made, more often than not unintentionally. We wouldn’t set out to hurt anyone, but sometimes we are less careful with ourselves than with others.

There are some times, hopefully minor ones, where we are our own worst enemy and our self sabotage is our own damn fault. I have a theory that is the precise time when obstacles are a potent spirit message and life lesson.

When the challenge comes from things outside of us, all of the adages and advice about persistence come into play. When the obstacle is our own doing, then it is more a matter of beating our own head against our own wall until we get our own clue.

The feeling with the card today is not really preventative. It feels like the message is about something now, something in progress, something where the cosmos is telling us to knock it off already. Where are you putting on the brakes (or building a dam) when you need to go with the flow?

I’ve discovered that I like making playlists. Not going to put the brakes on that just yet. Here is another one for your enjoyment: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6hDnolAabh3u3g4vcGpS68?si=19ee6787bdcd47be

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Booking

Sorry about that. When I said this would post “Monday morning” I didn’t realize it would be Monday morning in some other interdimensional cross rip parallel universe Monday morning. Today has been an interesting week.

As for the cards, I’ll let the video interpretation stand. Since books stepped forward a tiny bit as the closest thing to cards-working-together theme for the week, here are some books and links that might go along with this week’s cards.

Leave a comment or send an email if you are interested in more reading suggestions – always happy to spout an opinion!

The Moon (psychic development)

  • The Healer’s Manual by Ted Andrews
  • How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews
  • Psychic Witch by Matt Auryn

Knight of Pentacles (Career Related activity)

  • Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar by James Marcus Bach
  • Kahn Acadamy

Nine of Cups (celebrations, traditions)

  • Twoseven – watch video together online
  • Allrecipes – has recipes from various traditional cuisines, American comfort food

Today’s Tarot: Wordless

Connect your heart

Some things are beyond words.

Mat Auryn superbly and poetically describes the idea of mystery tradition in magick (and in some ways, I might add, Tarot.) There are some things that can only be directly, wordlessly experienced. That is the essence and definition of spirituality to my mind. Spirituality is our individual experience of the wordless and intangible parts of our human experience. Religion, on the other hand, is exernal experience, not internal. Religion is social, and group focused. Spirituality is wordless, expressed from the inside out. Religion is codified, group behavior that influences from the outside in.

Expression, experience and wordless are the key words here.

The High Priest and High Priestess cards also deal with these great wordless mysteries. Although this and other contemporary Tarot decks don’t have the explicit Christian religious imagery for the High Priest/Pope/Hierophant card that you see on the Marsielle, RWS and other older decks have, the nature of the tradition keeper and even the mystery seeker priestess cards are outside-in, just a hairbreadth on the religious side regardless of their visual depiction.

So what does any of this have to do with the Knight of Cups?

The Knight of Cups has always had some degree of spiritual connotation. He carries a message. Cups are associated with water (deep water is often a symbol for deep spiritual and cosmic mysteries) and intuition (often a wordless experience.)

Knights are associated with action. We are three dimensional creatures. Even the purest, wordless, silent, direct experience if the spiritual and intangible still has some physical third dimensional corollary or action. To have direct spiritual experience requires some action or doing be that sitting in meditation, gazing at the sky, performing a ritual, or taking a shower. Whether you call it spontaneous enlightenment or simply a moment of insight, this direct, wordless experience of emotion and insight is a normal, natural, inherent part of being human.

If you have chosen to read and watch this, if you have chosen the knight of cups card today, there is a sense of urging. There is a strong push to do the spiritual things that put you in a mental and physical space where wordless experience of the profound and spiritual is an open possibility. Follow your heart to the doing of it. Do the thing that connects your heart to the wordless.

Today’s Tarot: Two Cup Tuesday

Let’s pour ourselves a second cup and do the thing.

This is not a high wattage card today.

I thought about sharing my favorite salty language internet meme that features the Knight of Pentacles, but the energy isn’t even up to that. The earth connection and the grounded quality is so strong that it escapes levity. This card is 6 am staring across your coffee mug at a chipper morning person. This card is the zombie shuffle to the kitchen for a second cup.

Today’s energy is strongly connected to the physical realm. It is OK to set aside big spiritual questing every now and then. The mind and spirit must be balanced with the physical. This is a day to pour that second cup and do the thing. Grind. To borrow from a shoe company – just do it.

Doing is key. Knights are about action, after all. But this is effective, ruthlessly efficient action, not fidgeting, fuss, emotion or bother. Don’t waste energy on drama. “Work the problem” as was said in the Apollo 13 movie. Or as has been said “Follow the process, not the plan.” (as I read it on Tested.com – this might be my new mantra, just like “simple but elegant” got me through dissertation)

Arguably, this kind of practical, down-to-earth, just-do-it energy IS a high level of spirituality, like the adage “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” or, as I’ve often quoted here before, Alan Watts taught “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while you peel potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes.”

The practical needs done and the physical realm needs tended to, not matter what our mental, spiritual or emotional state might be. The knight reminds us that immersing in routine work or physical exercise can be very soothing to churning thoughts or upset emotions.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Look

Time and space isn’t such a big deal in Tarot. Viruses be damned, we can read Tarot together any time, anywhere. You may be reading this years after it was posted – thank you! If I just smashed the old publish button and you are reading this – Wow! Thank you! You may be watching this for the fourth time…it still has some message for you, even if it isn’t the week in the video or the interpretation that is stepping forward right now. Follow your intuition.

Choose a card at random, left, middle or right. Choose on impulse, or if you want to think about it, pause the video and then restart it to see the reveal.

The video get things started, then here in the blog we take all three cards together for a theme too. For this week’s theme, I get a sense of “look.”

Left: Seven of Swords. Look around. Watch your back. Mischief is afoot. It is NOT a prediction. This isn’t to say anything bad will happen. The energy feels like a minor heads up, think critically, question things. It could be as innocent as a prank by kid, or it could be more adult office politics. Use your head, don’t be taken in by social media hysteria or a deep fake. This is a good week to question everything. But then, aren’t they all?

Center: Knight of Wands. Look inward, then DO something about it. Whatever your spiritual tradition, spiritual leaning or life philosophy might be, this is a good week to DO it. LIVE it a little bit. For me, that is in the realm of lighting a stick of incense or meditating with a mala. Or it may be to do nothing at all. Celebrate your nonbelief by celebrating SOMEthing you love. I mean, they are going to fly a drone on Mars soon – go Percy & Ingenuity!

Right: Ten of Wands. Look inward, and persist. The Ten of Wands is about slowed or blocked energy, a strong sign of obstacles, more than simply a reversed card would be. It is a spiritual time and energy, but chances are you just aren’t feeling it….which is perfectly OK. If all the peace, love and positivety is more annoying than not, it is fine to find your vibe. Don’t force yourself to listen to new age harp music when you really want to crank up the thrash metal. Acknowledge your true mood, and keep one eye on the spiritual stuff. Time will work it’s magick and your moment of peace and Zen will come in its own time.