Getting cozy here in the blog and blowing off social media for a few days, Not exactly meatspace, but a sabbatical just the same.
I like cyberpunk novels from the 80’s: William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, Snow Crash…you get the idea.
Gibson (in Neuromancer, I think) coined the term “meat puppet” which referred to the physical body as ‘meat’. So when people talk about “meat space” they mean the physical realm, in other words NOT cyberspace (another term coined by Gibson as I remember it)
I need to unplug from social media for a few days, yet I have some of that ridiculous anxiety that a few days away can provoke. I don’t want to show up here Monday and do a Choose your Card Tarot reading for an empty cyber-room.
That worry is proof in itself that a little time in meat space is needed. But only by half. I still want to do a little polishing on the website (not as done as I thought I was) and work on some other writing. So I’m basically visiting old familiar blog-only cyberspace. It feels like going home to be in this corner of cyberspace without pandering to social media. It feels like putting the toddlers to sleep and pouring myself a nice glass of wine and putting my feet up in front of a fireplace with a good book. Pull up a chair and glass of whatever you want to sip, and let’s do some old school blogging.
Speaking of homecoming, here’s a lightly edited Q&A from the archives:
Q: Nothing you said came true. Why not?
A: I. Don’t. Make. Predictions.
I’ve said it a thousand times. Tarot doesn’t predict the future. That is the dark ages, flat-earth way of using Tarot.
It doesn’t matter if predictions are “true” or not. I could sit here and make perfect, on-target, 100% accurate predictions all day long, but then you could go out five minutes later and do something that changes everything. (See: Predicting the Future and a Big Cube of Jell-O)
Remember Yoda from Star Wars? The future really is fluid and always changing. Life is cause and effect. If you drop an apple, it will fall down. If you strike a match, it will catch on fire. If you pour water on something it will get wet.
Cause and effect is the way Nature works. It is science. Your future is created by what you choose and do. Tarot is a way to look at options, then choose the flow of energy that is best for you. It is a chance to choose the things that will help cause the effect you want. Tarot helps you to choose the path most likely to take you where you want to go in the long run…not describe every inch of dirt along the way.
Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Usually Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. You might want to pour yourself a full mug for this one. Possibly a full mug of something stronger than coffee. Or maybe not. I don’t know – let’s jump in and see where this takes us.
This is the joker card from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. The thing I love about exploring this outsized deck with you is the way it pushes me to the edge of my comfort zone. It also lets me interact with cards, decks and art I wouldn’t have otherwise.. This card is a little bit of both of those things.
As always, I read the card as-is before looking at the deck creators intentions and was rewarded for that pattern with this card. Intuitive reading is the whole intended point of the card which was originally drawn by Christian Ellingstad for the Arcadia playing cards. All of the cards in the Alleyman’s Tarot were either created by its author, created specifically for the deck, or used with direct permission. The author in me respects the work it took to make that level of permission and scholarship happen.
Here, the Joker card and its lovely line drawing pulls in two directions. The lighter, easier of the two talks about cartomancy. Technically, cartomancy means divination or an intuitive reading with any cards. Lenormand Tarot, Marseille style Tarot, oracle decks, playing cards – reading with all of those fall under the term cartomancy. You could use old maid cards if you really wanted to. Just as often, if not more so, when you hear the word cartomancy, it usually refers to using playing cards for the reading.
How do you do that, you might ask? The coffee mug isn’t big enough for that this morning. More on that some other day.
Long story short, readings with playing cards are at the same time the easiest and the hardest readings you can do. There are no details or complicated symbolism on playing cards. There isn’t much to memorize, so playing cards are a good way to start learning cartomancy in its largest sense.
Which is precisely why playing cards are the most difficult to use. There aren’t established meanings. There aren’t a lot of details or images for your intuition to use as fuel to find the right message. You have to read playing cards intuitively or you are screwed. Unless you add a big dose of pure intuition, playing cards are only good for playing games. But, on the other hand, if you are willing to take that chance and make the leap into intuitive reading, then playing cards are as good as any other deck for finding the insight and guidance you need.
OK, great. But what else is the Joker telling us about today?
After working with the Alleyman’s deck, I’m starting to take reversals more seriously. But even if we stick with my usual practice of deciding with pure intuition whether a reversal is indicating a slowing or blockage of energy or just happenstance, my hunch today is this card rightfully should stay upside down. So much so that this is in the old-school flip the meaning territory, which is rare in my experience.
This joker is serious.
Period. Underline. Exclamation point.
Ok, fine. But what is this joker so serious about?
I live in America. I’ll let you decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing because after the past 6 or 7 years, I’m honestly of two minds about it. Especially after the past couple of weeks.
99.999% of the time I avoid religion and politics in readings. My job is to try to bring clarity, not stir up muck. Despite that deliberate effort, sometimes intuition steps in, yoinks the good intentions right out of your hands and spits the real talk. Most of the time if it comes up, it is encouragement to get literally involved in civics; volunteer at an animal shelter, plant trees, that sort of thing. There is more to it this time. Full on politics has come crashing into a pretty little playing card.
After 4 July 2022 I can only see an inverted Joker one way: This is serious.
What the actual freaking fuckitty frack was that yesterday, America?
To the rest of the world, all I can say is – I’m sorry. I did all I had the means to do. I voted, yard signed, contributed – at one point I even volunteered and phone banked – which sucked – for a candidate who, luckily, did not suck. Yet here we are, screaming down the highway to theocracy and oligarchy and a bunch of other -archys and -isms that are – um – bad.
Democracy is in danger. Look at yesterday as if it were a Tarot reading. Consider the implications and symbolism if you drew a card that was an assault rifle slaughter of innocents at an Independence Day celebration. I’m at a loss for words. On top of the death, horror and tragedy you have a literal representation of democracy and decency under fire.
Maybe it was the movie JFK, but the phrase “kill box” keeps coming to mind. And, too, there was just an interview with Andrea Mitchell and a retired agent who worked in Dallas at one point in his career. He spoke about the paralles between the Highland Park shooting and Lee Harvey Oswald. I encourage you to listen to reliable news reporting and get the information directly for yourself. I’m not a journalist. It’s my job to stand here and point to the symbolism of it all.
This is serious.
I am worried for all religious and spiritual minorities (atheist, agnostic and secular included) as well as our LGBTQIA and our POC brothers and sisters.
This joker is not joking. All good and decent people have to band and act together, including voting this fall in hordes and droves. We have to make the polls look like that scene from the movie World War Z.
Meanwhile. Stay safe, be careful. Protect your privacy. Protest smart. Be aware of your surroundings in both cyberspace and meatspace. You are precious. We need you.
Thank you for reading and listening. Short Sip will be back tomorrow, hopefully with a little better mood for you. Take good care of yourself.
I’m a clairvoyant and I have a confession: I’m a lazy, lazy psychic
This is a question that crossed my path out in meatspace, you know, in real life as the kids call it. They wanted to know if I keep anyone in mind when I do one card meditation readings on the blog
The lazy answer is no.
And yes.
When I do readings for the blog, youtube or social media, I don’t think of any ONE person in particular but I do try to keep everyone in mind.
Don’t try this at home kids. It really is as vague and confusing as it sounds.
Energetically speaking, it is a TON easier to do a big, complex layout with 5 or 7 or 10 cards for one specific person than it is to do a quick single card meditation reading for basically the whole internet.
That’s why I’ve been asking all of you to please please please submit your questions. It is SO MUCH easier to connect with all of you when we all have a shared question or topic in mind.
It really doesn’t take much to make a long distance connection like that. I’ve done email Tarot readings for clients in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea which is about as far away as it gets from the eastern united states. The part where you ask your question or give permission for an open reading is pretty much all it takes. Once you have that. Tiny spark of a connection, it dorsn’t matter whether we are using one card or a dozen, working across a table or across time zones, talking to one person or an entire internet audience.
That’s one reason why I am always EXTREMELY grateful when people let me share their questions with all of you like this. That one little bit of focus makes this whole blog and pod thing so much easier.
Aaaand as we have established – I’m lazy.
But no, MOST of the time I don’t have any one person or one question in mind when I do my “Today’s Tarot” posts, although I really enjoy it when I can.
At the same time, the whole *point* of doing a general audience reading IS to think of everyone and not just one person or question. I start each blog or youtube reading with the intention that the card will help the most people possible.
I don’t get a lot of feedback about these things, so I never know how well that plan works out. Even if my starting intention is to appeal to a lot of people, if a post or a video or a podcast helps just ONE person, then it was still worth it.
The public nature of all of this is another reason why I’m so grateful when people share their questions. Some people are understandably shy about asking questions in a public venue like this. I mean, why WOULD any rational person trust some rando stranger on the internet with an important or emotionally charged question?
So the casual, off hand question that YOU ask might turn out to be a big help to someone else out there in cyberspace.
If that’s all there was to it, doing an internet reading with the vague hope that it might resonate with somebody would be easy enough, BUT when you work with subtle energies, other subtle things can mess with the process.
Just like out in meatspace, cyberspace is … a space.
You know how in the real world a place or a room can carry a vibe?
Being outside in a forest FEELS different from being alone in a basement or overhearing an argument on the bus or being at a party with friends. The same is true in cyberspace. In my experience, websites and social media feeds have an energy to them too.
Energy is everywhere and intuition absolutely works at a distance. In most ways, doing readings in cyberspace is *exactly* like doing readings in real space. I think it is possible to set the tone and atmosphere in a website…or a podcast… just like you can decorate a room in the real world. Doing email Tarot readings or writing for the blog is as comfortable as sitting in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee . Reading on youtube is kind of like working at a fortune teller booth at a festival. Some places like snapchat and tictok are just not right for this kind of energy work.
When the idea for Clairvoyant Confessional came along, I imagined doing readings or answering questions here would be like a conversation among friends over a cup of coffee by a fireplace. I want the tone for the podcast to be calming and comfortable. I want it to FEEL like a relaxed space where you can feel safe asking questions
OR … you can just sit back and listen to me monologing like like some kind of comic book supervillian.
Either way, I hope that this podcast is a little bit entertaining or a little bit helpful for someone somewhere out there. If you DO have a question, any question, send it to me using the contact info in the episode description. I’ll do my best to give you an answer and I might even use an on air Tarot reading to do it.
The outro music that you hear is “Dimension” by the Pittsburgh band Dinosoul. Copyright Donny Donovan and Carolyn Hilliard, all rights are reserved, used here with permission. Please support local artists and musicians wherever you are.
Thank you so much for listening! I’ll see you on the print side and talk to you next time in the clairvoyant’s confessional.
Clairvoyant Confessional podcast is also available on Anchor Fm, Stitcher, Google podcasts, pocketcast and more.
PLEASE…consider this your slow rolling AMA…ask me anything. Bonus points if it about Tarot, intuition, clairvoyance, and such. Use the handy contact form below OR email ClairvoyantConfessional@gmail.com
Whenever I take a break from thinking about the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve been thinking about the YouTube channel. It is harder to transition to speaking on video than I thought it would be. To be honest, I HATE the way I’ve been sounding this past week. I’m not always like that, I swear. Co-hosting on David Dear’s Menage A Tarot podcast with he and Kate was one of the most fun things I’ve ever, ever done! The clumsiness lately is a lesson for me. It will get better, I’m sure, now that I’ve figured out the what if not the why of what’s going on. I am hugely grateful to all of you who have watched the videos for coming on this bumpy start with me.
It’s not like my goal is to be the Markiplier of YouTube Tarot world, and I have no intention of trying to compete with speech-to-camera pros like Benebel Wen or Theresa Reed. If you are looking for polished, articulate, edited, or high production values…I can’t help you there. Writing is my forte, but I had the thought that the videos would give you a taste of what a live in-person reading would be like, but that isn’t happening right now either. It’s an energy thing. Let me explain.
I can connect to energy and spirit with a keyboard as well as anyone and (in my less than humble opinion) better than most. I can type your message from spirit to you with all the power and clarity of speaking to you face to face. Maybe more, because live sessions don’t have spell check, and grammar hints. I love to read and a writer by nature. I connect to your energy seamlessly just by reading your name and question (or permission for an open session) on a screen. It’s like turning on a light switch.
When I write blog posts like this, it isn’t with a particular person in mind, but the switch trips just the same. I send these out with the intent that whoever needs it will find and that the message helps someone somewhere. I’ve gotten enough feedback from readers over all of these years to know that it works. YouTube may not capture that, but here, now, this blog and these words, this time with you captures every bit of it.
I can connect to your energy during your live session very easily. We chat and talk a little bit at the beginning, and that brings the connection clear and bright, just like lighting a candle.
YouTube, is a different energy animal. It’s like trying to do a reading during a middle school dance in a giant gymnasium. There is a megaton of energy, lots of connections to be made and, I suspect, some folks that are interested in Tarot. Maybe YouTube isn’t the best place for me to be…that’s why I decided to not sweat it or pour a lot of editing and production effort into it. YouTube for me is instructive, it shows the mechanics of Tarot more than the message of it. It shows that each card draw is random and genuine and the real thing. Raw and down to earth is just fine. I think of the “YouChoose” videos as a hand scrawled poster board taped to the wall of the gymnasium free-for-all that lets everyone know that there are some Tarot readings over here if you are interested in one-to-one, affordable, quiet, calm, zen like time with the cards. “If you build it they will come” is a thing. It’s an intention and manifestation thing. It’s a I’m here for you thing, in all kinds of cyberspaces.
But again, thank you to everyone who reads the blog, watches the vids, and follows along with social media. You all are the BEST and you are the ones that make this kind of work worth doing.
If you have any questions, suggestions, feedback, or just want to say hi…PLEASE click HERE for the easy contact form.
Hang in there everyone. Weird times and complicated energies are afoot. We’ll get through it. If I can help by listening to the howling winds of intuition … I’m right here and will do my best for you. Y’all got this. All of you.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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