Dressed for work

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Page cards in Tarot are about learning. Swords can denote several things: the element of air, taking action, our relationship with culture, society and authority, or they can symbolize the mind and intellect. My attention is drawn to a combination of intellect and action. It reminds me of that quote where Emerson describes common sense as “genius dressed in its working clothes.”

Genius at work is our learning mode, which can apply to anyone, anywhere, in any stage of life. Learning is a lifelong thing whether we are running particle accelerators or poking something with a stick to see what happens. Mind and body are one whole, so learning and action are an integrated whole as well. Even if big genius ideas drop into our head seemingly out of nowhere, something triggered it or some unique set of material experiences hit critical mass and turned on the proverbial light bulb over our head. However they happen, genius insight doesn’t help us much unless we do something with them. Physical realm interacts with the intellectual realm which prompts action in the physical world and so on in an unending dance of learning and experience gathering. It is about figuring out a method and trying something, admitting failures and trying again. That applies to all sorts of learning. Science is a way of learning about the outer, tangible world. Tarot is one method of learning about the inner, intangible one. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, far from it. If anything they are bound together as intimately as space and time, locked in the complex dance of our humanity.

Today’s card is asking us to use what we know, and fearlessly learn what we don’t.


In the spirit of learning and doing, I have a quick announcement.

As you know, I don’t keep an office or any sort of brick and mortar location, primarily to cut my overhead and keep my prices lower than they otherwise would be.

Since that means bringing people out into the public sphere for an in-person session I’ve decided to use CDC reported community transmission rates for Allegheny county as the guide for in-person sessions. The rate is on the rise, and we have been upgraded from low to moderate. Due to that, starting Sunday July 25 in-person services are on temporary hold again until community transmission rates drop back to low.

Distance Tarot is my specialty

I say that because I’m just as good at writing and doing readings by email as I am doing them in person. I know a lot of psychics and Tarot readers who do both in-person and distance readings equally well, but several of them have commented to me that they don’t enjoy working by email as much as they do in person or by phone. I do both equally well and I enjoy both too.

So PLEASE – while we all endure these last hills, bumps and turns of this roller coaster ride of a pandemic, don’t hesitate to make use of the email version if you are interested in getting a reading. I promise you will get the same information as you would if we were meeting face to masked up face.

Plus don’t forget the cutesy pants promotional $1 TAROT SALE where 7 card email readings are $1 for each year of Tarot reading experience that I bring to your reading (AKA – $10 off the usual price). Offer ends 20 September 2021

Order email readings 24/7 on the home page or HERE

It’s my mind, and I’ll change it if I want to

I know, I know…I said no more cutesy pants promotions

But thirty years of card reading is something. And I wanted to do something to commemorate it. Get ’em while you can. It’s prolly going to be the last cutesy pants promotion for the next thirty years.

Offer good for website purchases only. Poloicies and disclaimers apply.

Decide to balance

In the video, we said that two cards in general can allude to either balance, or a decision. Usually, the decision in question is relatively minor and one of those “six of one and half-dozen of another” all things being equal kind of decisions.

As I give today’s energy a little thought, it still seems that balance is the thread of meaning that carries more energy, but at the same time the idea of “it’s both” steps forward, too.

What about deciding to balance?

Decisions are inseparable from balance. My favorite example is riding a unicycle. The rider is constantly making small adjustments in order to keep the unicycle upright. For those of us who don’t ride unicycles, you can see the adjustments the rider makes with the pedals and the movement of the wheel. The rider has to learn…to know and decide in the moment how to move the pedals in order to keep their balance.

Balance might serve as a good tie-breaker if you have a practical decision to make between two equal seeming things. Of the two, what will make your life more balanced? Little things mean a lot. Small decisions can add up to big effects. Opt for balance in little things to avoid big tipping points later.


Sometimes it really is hard to choose between two eqal things. They are intended to be lighthearted and fun, maybe a little snarky, but a Zombie Cat yes-or-no readings can help you sort out small choices where all things seem equal and bigger connections (like balance) are hard to see. Distance Tarot is my specialty. Order anytime, no appointment needed, HERE

Today’s Tarot: All in this together

Whenever I do readings, in the middle portion when we are going through the layout card-by-card, each card gives a different type or category or spin or ‘flavor’ of message. Some are advice (something to think about doing) others are cautions (something to think about avoiding) but they can also be validations & acknowledgements.

Today, the three of pentacles has elements of all of these. To me it looks like a tie-dye wavy gravy swirl of it all, which isn’t uncommon when you are doing a general audience, blog type reading.

As an aside, that’s probably why you see so many of those “I don’t know who needs to hear this but….” posts on social media. I stop reading the minute I see that, an more often choke back the urge to block them. It strikes me as arrogant and not an energy I want in my cyberspace. Of course you don’t know who needs to hear something. It could be that nobody needs to hear what you have to say. If you need to know that someone needs your advice, you aren’t in a good headspace to be giving advice. Just say it. Own it. Give the advice with no “need it” strings attached on either the giving or receiving end. Trust the universe to get the right message to the right person at the right time. If it is right for them, people will know and take it to heart. If it isn’t they’ll just keep scrolling.

Now back to the three of pentacles –

The caution thread here is to “watch out for falling down.” That can be construed two ways. One is to take care to do your part of a team effort. It feels like you’ll be called on it if you do and bad feelings could happen. It’s not talking about something accidental or truly inadvertent. It feels more like an act of anger, frustration, or deliberate negligence. Take care keep things in proper priority and try not to drop the ball when others rely on you if you can help it. It is also a caution against being a doormat in a team situation. Clearly communicated expectations feel important to any team situation today.

Validation feels like someone who has been a real mensch through it all. This feels like a validation and a thank you for all the times you have gone over and above the call of duty for the good of a team, of a project or generally in service to others. Logically, given the world situation, there are lots of you out there for whom this applies. Well done and profound thank yous.

The validation, interestingly enough, was for me. When you read for other people be on the lookout for messages for you that piggyback in on their message. That way you GET your intended message and you don’t accidentally muddle your message and theirs together. The validation here has to do with clairaudience. Music that you are not in the mood for is a nice validation. Music that is not to your taste is a good hint that it is genuinely from intuition and not just a random something you heard recently. I am NOT in the mood for a chipper little Disney tune, but seeing this card definitively brought through “We’re all in this together” from a movie my daughter used to like. High School Musical or something like that? I dunno.

As cute and happy and positive as the song might be, it IS right. We are all in this together. It is ok to expect others to do their part. It is important to set clear expectations as well as to do your part. Don’t drop the ball but don’t be a doormat. Ask for help. Delegate tasks. And if a bright chipper song comes at your intuition way too early in the morning, pay attention. Then go get that second cup of coffee and try to find a better earworm.

Here is a playlist for you if you are in the mood for something with a little more spark to it. I’ll leave it to you to get your musical on. Now, where’s that coffee?

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4FGxubTJ6EIgGJrgDh3Ctd

Want a reading that is all for you and not a blog post written for planet earth? The NEW Distance Tarot format combines both print and video for an enriched Tarot experienced close to an in-person session but with the affordability and convenience of email. Order yours HERE.

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: Persistance is a superpower

Anything can be a superpower if it is something that you can do that is needed, wanted or in any way appreciated.

For example, I am always amazed at my husband’s near magical ability to pack stuff into small spaces. I swear he’s part Timelord, and makes anything bigger on the inside.

I’m better at knitting. I get satisfaction from taking string and two sticks and making something actually useful.

The Queen of Swords is about learning, accepting, incorporating and using your superpowers, whatever they may be. It is about living your truth. It is about all the been there, done that in your life. Yes, by all means, keep learning – always – but at the same time it’s OK to know stuff. To paraphrase a television commercial, you know a thing or two because you’ve seen a thing or two. You are the only judge of what your thing or two may be. If your superpower is that you are a brain surgeon – thank all goodness you exist. If your superpower is that you give a great manicure, that’s cool too.

Anything you do that makes you happy counts.

One thing that we all can do is – do. Some days, just to put one foot in front of the other, to keep moving through your day is superpower enough. Even if you have to stop, retreat or endure in a different direction than before, persistence is a superpower.