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.
If there is a time in history for the Devil card to be the first Tarot Valentine’s card of the season, I suppose this would be it. The separation imposed by the Pandemic has been a devil of thing for a lot of people, especially those with very social or extroverted personalities. This year you can go out with your love interest and risk their death. At least it seems so here in the U.S. where so many people have done so many things so wrong.
If there is advice in this card in this context, it would be the same as every other year and Valentine’s season…don’t let loneliness drive you into making bad decisions. Never go into a relationship that you know isn’t right or safe just for the sake of being in a relationship with someone. Lonely hurts, but alone isn’t lethal.
In a sense the advice is also to be a Devil. Not to other people, but to preconceived ideas. Be a pink hearts and lacey romance rebel. It is OK to be alone. It is OK to not be in the mood for kissy kissy romance after the past year. It is OK to be an dark expresso latte in a candy heart world. Harm none, and do what thou will. Find love in what is, not what is wished for.
Take a deep breath, clear your mind and relax as best as you can in this one moment.
Watch the first part of the video and pick a card from the three taken face down from the deck
Choose left, center or right purely on impulse, or if you want more time pause the video then restart to see the reveal.
Read below for your card’s energy
Taken together, the three cards talk about perspective and problem solving. This week is about finding the answer that is already inside, finding an answer outside of the box, and being on the lookout all around for a problem that sneaks up behind and needs solving.
The overall energy is sluggish and slow. It isn’t brick-wall kind of blocked, but feels thick, and just this side of stagnant. Be patient. It might be an annoying slog, but we’ll get through it.
Left: Three of Swords. This card is part of the reason the Swords cards have a little bit of a foreboding reputation. You can’t solve a problem or avoid a trap unless you know it exists. The danger isn’t dire, but warrants your attention. This card always seems to carry an energy of manipulation and petty power plays. Watch your back. If something gives you the creeps, or someone makes you feel uncomfortable, pay attention to that. Follow your gut in that respect.
Center: Eight of Swords. Also dire-looking, this card is already trapped, bound, feeling overwhelmed and helpless. It is less so in this deck, but in the Pamela Smith artwork for the card, the swords are less evenly spaced, leaving an out that must be gingerly sensed, so the woman does not cut her feet if she is to find and use the gap, the way forward to escape. “Careful, shrewd VERY out of the box thinking” comes to mind and may be what is asked of you in the near future.
Right: The Hermit. Just because it isn’t fun doesn’t mean you don’t have things well in hand. If you picked this card, you already have an answer that you need. You may well have what you need already. The trick is to drag it out into the open. Find a way to shut out the distraction and the noise. Not to go all Dune on you, but look within. You already have what you need, it is just a matter of sorting through the noise and clutter to find it. Set boundaries, say no, find some me time to do just that.
This card doesn’t feel cautionary at all. If anything, it is encouraging us to jump in. The idea here isn’t combativeness or a conflict based on an external threat, but rather teamwork and mutual problem solving. The energy is basically “healthy competition.” I’ve don’t have any personal experience with team sports but I’d describe the feel here more like a scrimmage or an intramural tournament sort of thing rather than out and out competition with other teams.
Practice makes perfect as the adage goes. There is also a bit of a fire drill feeling here. No actual threat at the moment, but practice and prepare the tough stuff as well as the easy. A paramedic instructor once told me “prepare for the emergency and the emergency goes away.” Preparation and knowing what to do turns an emergency into just something you have to do, just really fast.
Ruckus is going to happen. A little practice, training, and healthy competition takes some of the scary out of it when it does.
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Make a general internet Tarot reading more your own.
Take a deep breath and clear your mind as best you can
Pick a card: left, center or right
Choose on impulse or if you need a minute simply pause the video and restart when you are ready to see the reveal.
Listen to the rest of the video and read below to get the full message for your week
It’s all in your head
When we put it that way, it has a dismissive, judgmental quality, as if we are blaming someone for making up an illness rather than acknowledging the fear, anxiety or mental illness that might be underneath it. Actually, something being ‘all in your head’ might be a good thing. Some pretty nifty stuff can happen in there.
Individual perspective can be a powerful thing. Shift the paradigm for a minute, and your whole world can change – at least for that minute. “All in your head” isn’t simply an out of hand dismissal of a hypochondriac’s complaints. Neitzsche put it that “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Or as Tim Burton put it “One person’s craziness is another person’s reality” Of course, there is Morticia Addams’ “What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” and my favorite, J.K. Rowlings’ Deathly Hallows Dumbledore line “Of course it is happening inside your head Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?” Perception so influences our interaction with reality, some have argued that perception is reality.
Put together, these cards remind us of that. Individually, the card suggests which lens of perception is the best filter to fit the energies for you this week.
Left: King of Swords. Swords are connected to the element of air, mental ability, intellect. Try to let your head rule. When you feel a rush of emotion, that is your cue to stop…look…analyze. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, throw the baby out with the bathwater, or cut off your nose to spite your face or any of those other classic cliches. In Feng Shui, fire destroys metal, so don’t let passion rule intellect this week.
Center: Queen of Cups. If you selected this card, your individual advice is the opposite of the King of Swords. Cups are associated with the element of water, our closest relationships, intuition and emotion. If you chose this card, let your heart lead the way. Logic and science are important, but they don’t rule affairs of the heart. Love is love is love. Let the intellectual guards down, and let your heart out to take a peek around. Take a sip from the cup of life and humanity, then give a little back to the community well. Some small act of caring for another living thing, even watering a houseplant or fixing someone a favorite meal, or forwarding a cat picture on social media just to say hi…any and every little thing … feeds your heart as well as theirs.
Right: Ten of Pentacles. If you have been reading along, but chose this card, your call is to do both. This card has a very balanced, contented feel around it. Ten is the largest number card of the suit. Pentacles (in some decks coins) speaks to the physical and realm, so this max-coin card may bring a little money luck BUT it is also a reminder that money can’t buy love or happiness. Use your head to manage physical realm money and career things, but look to your heart when dealing with private live and loved ones.
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The Lovers card from the major arcana has a reputation for being the big romance card, the one that means THE one is on the way. Not so much. Sure, the Lovers has a big, passionate, lustful, torrid romance energy around it but it doesn’t necessarily connect to a meaningful or lasting relationship. The lovers represents any strong desire, any lust we may have in life.
If you are hoping for a long lasting, satisfying, really meaningful relationship, then the two of Cups is the card you want to see. As I read the cards, Cups reflect our closest relationships. It might mean marriage, but it could also be children, parents, closest friends or any of your most inner circle.
If you are hellbent and fixated on finding that special someone, then reversed two of cups is the worst possible news. That aspect of life is hitting some bumps in the road. It doesn’t mean you’ll never get married, it means that other important relationships that aren’t marriage related are suffering or that the energy flow to do with marriage is slowed, blocked, or otherwise problematic (probably because of the hellbent and fixated part.)
Any relationship, even the ones in your life that are already loving and committed can hit rough patches. Anyone can get on anyone else’s nerves. It’s only human. If you are in a relationship and you see this, don’t panic. Give the love of your life a little extra TLC. Or a lot.
If you are in a relationship that is in real trouble and you see this card, don’t panic. Look inside. Is this really news, or is it confirmation of what you already know but don’t want to admit? You may be asked to give love to yourself, to healing, instead of to another person for a time.
If you aren’t in a marriage-like relationship but really want to be and you see is card, don’t panic. Just put your energy, love and attention into something else. Don’t chase, attract. Magnetize. Live. Be. Let’s just say it. Content and self confident is sexy.
Attract love to you by turning your cup upside down. Call love to you by giving love to people and things that are already in your life right now. A cup has to turn to pour. Love is the one thing you get more of by giving it to other people.
Today’s Tarot with the 6 of Swords: Flow and perspective.
I haven’t canoed much.
I grew up in a very rural, mountainous place. It was great for outdoor things, known for rock climbing and white water kayaking. Not a lot of paddling across a placid lake going on there. But, like surfers, kayak enthusiasts know a fair bit about going with the flow, navigating the fast currents and avoiding the kill-you-dead rocks.
I don’t kayak either, but I appreciate the flow thing. When I first read about yielding, go with the flow interpretations for the six of swords, it made immediate, innate sense. That’s kind of how canoes and kayaks work.
Often there are minor arcana cards that echo a major arcana card only with lesser intensity and sometimes a bit more optimism. I see two connections between the six of swords and the major arcana. It is an antidote to the Hanged Man. Flow is forward movement.
Sometimes the card has a perspective, broad view, gestalt feel to it, like a lesser known interpretation of the Tower card. Here that connection to perspective and the big picture is unlocked in the artwork on the card. Think of the view for the person paddling and steering the canoe. The close and narrow view is filled with obstacles, sharp swords. The larger view, where the figure is looking, is open, smooth, obstacle free water. In short, use the larger to steer by, while giving an occasional glance to the near obstacles and issues. It always amazes me that there is never any leaks or breaks around the swords. But let’s not be pedantic. The artist might just be showing the card suit and number. It feels like an important aside: Keep an eye on near terms obstacles and potential problems, but steer according to the larger view. Look to the wider horizon then flow toward the good parts.
Daily meditation style one card tarot reading with the nine of wands.
“Wear your experience, you’ve earned your scars.” comes through here.
It isn’t to say wallow in past experiences or let past injuries dominate your mind now. There is a difference between release and denial. We can’t deny extant fact. Our experiences don’t disappear. They are part of the path that brought us to where we are now. They are in part of us. The difference lies in how those things are integrated. They are part of us, yes, but what part, how big of a part and what part that part plays in our current life are malleable.
I also relate this to a mental image that came through near to New Year’s Day. The swarm of small tornadoes across a USA map outline is still there, but not as strong, as if the lines are drawn in grey instead of black. The sense of taking stock, of crawling out of the wreckage to begin to survey the damage is starting to strengthen. Here I mentally/intuitively ‘hear’ the song “Beyond Thunderdome” by Tina Turner from the movie of the same name. In particular, the lyrics “Out of the ruins, out of the wreckage, can’t make the same mistake this time” come to mind. Granted, this is one of my favorite movies and songs from the mid 80s, but it fits this time, and this energy.
Whatever your Thunderdome has been, you don’t have to live in it. Walk out and walk free, move beyond it, but own the fact that you were there.
Today’s Tarot: The Empress. Get some fresh air, or at least refresh the feed on a webcam
The Empress is a major arcana card, and in many ways the feminine counterpart to the Emperor card as you might expect. Minor arcana king cards are protective, outward, proactive leadership and queens are nurturing, care taking leadership. The Emperor and Empress are the same, but with the energy turned up to 11. They are the power couple of the major arcana.
Like many, if not most cards, there are multiple threads of meaning and energy. In addition to nurturing leadership and a sometimes association with growth and fertility, the Empress broadly represents nature. Nature in this case also has multiple connotations. It can talk about the literal, physical natural environment; the plants and birds and rocks and things we can directly experience. Nature includes the inner world, as in nature vs. nurture or being true to your nature.
When a card has multiple threads of meaning, I stop, listen for a minute and see if one thread seems to draw attention more than the others. Today, the part that catches my attention is the simplest and most pleasant: nature-nature. The rocks and trees one.
I vaguely remember a study about natural images. I don’t remember the source or details enough to even try and search for it. I have the impression it was a small study at a college (Emory springs to mind, though I have no logical justification for why) In any case, I can speak to study size or methodology, but the result was the same as the Empress’ advice. Humans benefit by interacting with nature. Naturally (ha!) actually being outside is best. Even a walk down the street or a few minutes on the porch is something. If that isn’t available, the study, if memory serves, suggested that substitute interactions can have a stress reduction benefit, even something as simple as looking at pictures of nature on a computer.
The advice from today’s card is just exactly that. In a world of social distancing and self quarantines, enjoy nature (six feet away from any other humans) or at least find small natural indulgences. A brief touch is better than none: water a houseplant, step out on a porch or fire escape, go to a park, find a live webcam of a zoo or aquarium (or a live volcano – why not?)
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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