Proceeds from the sale of PeaceTarot ebook in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop in 2022 will be donated to Doctors Without Borders / MSF
All proceeds from the sale of PeaceTarot (first edition) in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop in 2022 will be donated to Doctors Without Borders who provides medical services to all places in need including times of war.
PeaceTarotis a downloadable .pdf ebook that teaches you DIY one card daily meditation Tarot readings. Includes peace themed card meanings for a full deck of RWS style Tarot cards. $5 or more (pay what you want) 25 pages formatted to 8.5 x 11 standard printer paper
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplations in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Strength from the major arcana
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today’s card is Strength from the major arcana.
This card is easy to sum up with the adage “He who conquers others has force. He who conquers himself has strength.” There are dozens of different iterations for the quote just as there are I have no idea how many different translations of the Tao Te Ching. The same basic concept exists in Zen, Buddhism, the Bhagavad Gita and probably every school of thought or organization that espouses personal growth and self development. As we’ve seen with the recent war in Europe, personal strength is far more rare and far more valuable than raw political or military power.
That kind of personal growth, self-development, and strength of character is exactly what this card is always about.
While we all agree that this is a valued thing, it all falls apart when we start trying to figure out how to do it.
The title “Tao Te Ching” has been as been translated a variety of ways including the way of Virtue. Virtue means lot of different things to lots of different people. That is the point where interpreting the Strength card gets dicey. It’s not the what that’s the problem, it’s the how.
So how do we become better people? What IS a good person?
Books, religions, entire philosophies have been dedicated to just exactly that, and we sure as heck aren’t going to solve anything here.
When the Strength card comes along it might just be validating the strengths you have. It might be validating the strength choices you’ve made or the importance of a decision that you are pondering. Regardless of the context, the Strength card always reminds us to do the right thing, the difficult thing, the strong thing, not the easy or cowardly thing. It’s no accident that lions are iconic and used in many many Tarot decks for this card. To put it in Disney terms, this is a card that asks you to be Mufasa, not Scar.
But on second thought, maybe the how of inner strength isn’t so hard after all. Look at the woman figure on the card that seems to be tending to the lion.
Maybe a little Zen Taoist Hakuna Matata is the key. As always, it is the present moment to the rescue. Harmonize with your nature as it is to find your path to strength.
Nurture the strengths you already have. Restrain the flaws you already have. This strengthens (aka conquers) the inner self.
Thank you so much for listening! I’ll see you at the next sip.
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Welcome to the first YouChoose Interactive Tarot of the year. What’s old is new again, because these work the same way as always. You choose how you want to apply the reading (guidance for the day, inspiration/prompt, guidance for a particular problem, etc.) Then you choose your card. Choose on impulse or pause the video and then restart to see the reveal.
The new-new part is the audio from these videos will also be available on the newly re-named TaoCraft Tarot podcast. Clairvoyant Confessional is re-purposed as an episode name. I’ll only be doing confessional-style episodes when the mood strikes. For the most part, the podcast is going to be the audio version of this blog read by a professional computer. I’m not sure but I think it’s Siri’s second cousin twice removed, Remy
Thank you so much for listening, watching and reading!
When I was 4, dad woke me up one midnight to watch men walk on the moon. I wanted to be a cowgirl nurse astronaut in space and campaigned hard for a later bedtime to watch Apollo launches. I’ve been a card carrying member of The Planetary Society, starting in 1987. These days, I’ll settle for being a Firefly fan and watching SpaceX launches.
Today as I filmed the card draw and write this, news coverage of the Blue Origin flight with William Shatner aboard is playing in the background. The word “frontiers” came to mind along with the Peter Gabriel song “Games Without Frontiers.
It was a joyride. It was pure tourism. The only science in it was developing the vehicle and procedures. After watching NASA and SpaceX watching this felt like watching baseball players squirt champagne while wearing safety goggles after just watching the Stanley Cup final. But then Mr. Shatner started talking.
As much as I adore science and technology, I equally adore language and powerful communication. The color, the universe, the thinness, the fragility: I can’t begin to sum it up. I urge you all to please, find a tape, listen to him.
The frontier line is different for everyone. Everyone has different skills, experiences, resources.
The experience of that frontier line, wherever it falls relative to other people’s is different as well. For some people, skydiving might be as easy as a trip to the grocery store, for others a trip to the grocery store is as terrifying as skydiving.
It’s one thing for humanity to send scientists and explorers to the frontier. It’s important to fling a poet at space every now and then too. They are the ones who can bring the frontier back to the rest of us.
Must be a vibe today. A short time after I first uploaded this, saw an Instagram post from @philosoph with a quote from Rumi “The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires.”
They used to call a half caf skim milk latte a “why bother?”
Good question, and not just about coffee (she says as she sets down her double shot)
Don’t get me wrong…not every single solitary thing in life has to have a point, purpose or goal. Just being, abiding, enjoying is reason enough for anything. At the same time, life without some degree of point, purpose or goal leaves one languishing in a sea of ennui.
Sips
With anything that you do a lot or a long time, in my case Tarot, it pays to revisit the point, purpose and goal of it every now and again. What’s the use of Tarot? What good is it doing anyone? Why bother?
I think the answer is in the reason why we ask questions like this: clarity.
If something is going to have a pointed, productive goal-oriented role in our life, we have to have clarity about what that goal or purpose really is. The purpose of Tarot is to gain clarity. An yup, that is rooted in the same ‘clair’ as in ‘clairvoyant’ which literally means clear sight ability. We use our intuition and the mental-imaginative echoes of our senses to cut through the noise of daily life and all of its twist and turns – expected and unexpected alike.
A number of cards have the quest for clarity at the forefront of their meanings and connotations. The seven of cups, for example, points out times of decision paralysis, an abundance of choices and the possibility we are overthinking things. The advice has an outward, yang quality. The advice is to gain clarity by simplification. It is an active solution, to go out and cut away the unnecessary.
Here the energy is more yin, zen and passive. Sometimes these solutions are more challenging when other needs are pressing, like a job, income, or general frustration. With the two of wands we find clarity by waiting, watching. It is advice straight from the Tao Te Ching: In a river or pond, churned up water is cloudy, but if it is given time and allowed to be quiet the mud will settle out. The water becomes clear.
When you read for yourself, you can read the cards for clarity.
When you read the cards for others, you read in service to clarity, namely helping them to find theirs.
Some days, the cards are breathtakingly elegant in their utter simplicity.
I turned on some of my favorite music from Yogetsu Akasaka because of the energy and headspace this card evokes. It’s so simple. So beautiful – both the music and the card’s energy. It’s like the empty circle of the enso, or the legendary wordless sermon of Buddha when he simply held up a lotus, or the nameless Tao.
It isn’t the typical energy you see with swords, or pages for that matter, but it’s kind of perfect, as Obi Wan said, from a certain point of view. Instead of European style knights, armour and sword fights, think of today’s page of swords as being a Samaurai, or a Shaolin Monk in training. Yes, martial skill is a big part of it, but they are also taught mental and spiritual disciplines as well.
The idea is that we need to take refuge in something. At least every now and then. It’s stress management 101. Everyone needs a rest, a safe place where they can be at ease for some measure of time.
Page cards have to do with learning. In this case it is more about remembering. Taking time to find a little refuge is natural, instinctual, innate. Even the old testament folks figured that out with their weekly day of rest. These days, it is a matter of remembering to meet that basic need. The body needs rest, we all know that. Mind and spirit need it too. That is the simple message the card brings with a single word: Refuge.
Buddhists talk about “taking refuge in the dharma.” Buddhist philosophy may not be the thing that gives you a mental break and an emotional safe place – but something does.
Whatever that is for you – today’s card reminds us to find it – use it.
We can all use a little refuge.
Please support artists and musicians whose work gives you a few minutes of mental sanctuary.
Instant gratification is fun, rare and something to be savored.
Slow motion gratification is fun, less recognized, but still something to be savored.
In a way, time is an arbitrary thing. The only time that exists is eternity. Anything else is human beings carving eternity up into understandable bits.
If, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” then time is under no obligation to meet your needs either. You can’t instant pressure pot a good brisket, only time and smoke can do that. You can’t speed rise a good sourdough loaf. Some things take as long as they take but end up as something wonderful.
The eight of wands denotes something up in the air, something that is in process, but hasn’t come to fruition. It’s on its way, but hasn’t manifested quite yet. Most of the time we don’t know and can’t control how long that part might last. Luckily today the word flight comes to mind, like the phrase “arrow in flight.” There is a strong sense of speed with the card today. The up side is that the flight part of shooting an arrow tends to happen quickly. The down side is that we have no control over that particular part. We can control how we aim, pull, release and react to the result, but there is no tweeking the arrow while it is zipping through the air.
There is a strong sense of anticipation and optimism today. Something good is on its way, or at least there is a thread of hope that something good is at last possible. I can’t really tell if that is individual or cultural, I hope it is both.
Today is a good day to look for little things to turn up quickly and turn out surprisingly well. Keep an eye out for symbols and synchronicities. Look for quick and satisfying little delights that encourage you. Savor the feel of it, and use that as inspiration to set more intentions, take more actions, plant more seeds – symbolically shoot more arrows to fly, land and manifest good things later.
Cause and effect is magic. The work you do that pays off in the long run is magic. When the time in between is short and quick, the magic seems magic-er.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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