Tag: distance tarot

My Tarot Valentine: Sweet

As Sigmund Freud purportedly said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The adage that “it is what it is” isn’t as bad as it has been used in recent politics. It speaks to a rugged acceptance of the situation at hand in the present moment.

That sort of accepting mindfulness is the essence of childhood innocence. The energy around today’s card brings to mind the simplicity of a child’s lollipop, pink and red heart shapes, and the small paper valentines school children make and exchange. Even we gnarly old folks can get a sip of that sweetness when we let go of worries and expectations and sink into the present moment with that same acceptance.

That kind of sweet innocence and acceptance is the six of cups message for Valentine’s Day. It’s been a devil of a year. As sexy as self confidence may be, whatever your opinion of all the cards and flowers and high expectations, this Valentine’s Day isn’t the usual. The advice is to let go of this year’s expectations. It is what it is, however lonely, however different, however simplified. Let it be a sweet and simple day. Let it be as open and empty and innocent of a moment as you can.

We can get back to the worry and mayhem soon enough. Let the moment be as it is, and let your heart love however it can.

My Tarot Valentine: Compassion in Power

The Queen of Swords rests in power, but in an alive sort of way.

Today’s card keeps with the self-confidence theme that keeps popping up this Valentine’s season.

  • The Devil: the confidence to be counter-culture and ignore Valentine’s Day outright if you want to.
  • 3 of Wands: the confidence to set aside self and pay deep attention
  • 4 of Swords: self-care allows you the ability (and/or confidence)to care for others.
  • Knight of Wands: um, did I mention self-confidence is sexy?
  • 2 of Pentacles: confidence to balance of self and others
  • 5 of cups: the confidence and courage to face difficult emotions with direct communication
  • King of Cups: the confidence to get advice from trusted sources

Today’s Queen of Swords is similar self-confidence but more. This card has an energy of deep and abiding self-acceptance, not mere confidence. It is the difference between knowing something and iternalizing, itegrating and BEing something. There is great peace that comes with that. That peace spills over into all sorts of relationship. The more you accept and the more you authentically live your highest truth and truest self, the less other peoples judgement matters. The more happy you are with yourself, the less you depend on others for happiness to exist. The more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more accepting you are of others in theirs. The more you are compassionate toward yourself, the more you can be compassionate to others.

The knight cards, and the other cards so far may be self confidence in action, but today, the Queen of Swords is self confidence at peace.

My Tarot Valentine 2021: Into every life a little funk must fall

It’s a mood.

The Five of Cups is one of those cards that means nearly the same right side up or upside down (reversed as we Tarot types say.) No matter how you approach reversals in your readings, this card is a mood and a vibe either way.

It’s a time for a little smooth jazz or ambient electronica kind of day. I have a feeling we are heading for a Valentines season just like this. No matter how small the “hallmark holiday” is to you as an individual, the collective energies might catch up with intuitives, empaths and sensitives a little bit today. Plus, importantly, it is OK to catch a genuine mood yourself and not blame it on the general zeitgeist. Into every life a little funk must fall.

I call myself a Taoist (among other things) because I tend to see life through a yin-yang lens. Life is ever changing, the taijitu (yin-yang symbol) is ever moving and you can never step into the same river (or quite the same mood) twice. Flowing water is a fairly consistent image for the Five of Cups among Waite-Smith influenced deck, which in turn is consistent with the suit of cups’ association with the element of water. When a mood hits, honor it. Flow with it. It will change soon enough.

So what does that have to do with Valentine’s Day? It gets right back to the emerging pattern from all the cards so far: The best thing you can give the ones is you at your best. The best way to find a soulmate is to find your own happiest life in this present moment. Self-confidence is sexy. Moods come for us all, so flow with yours and be understanding of other people’s.

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Comfy is good

Get comfy.

The comforts of home is something no in-person psychic or Tarot session can give. It’s like the whole Schrodinger thing. An observer just observing changes the whole thing. Sort of. Or something like that.

No matter how it is done, a live spoken reading can never have the mind to mind impact of reading your message at your leisure and in your greatest comfort. Calling this a READING is no accident of language. It’ a cosmic hint as I see it.

If you go to a psychic, then you have to put on your shoes and your public face. No matter how familiar, homey or welcoming their workspace may be, some degree of social conditioning kicks in – on both sides of the Tarot table. Even if the psychic comes to your home or party, the same idea applies. With a stranger in your home, you are in a different mind space than you would be under everyday circumstances. The message given by spirit is identical to any other format, but the way the message lands in your mind and heart might just be a teeny tiny bit different because of those social filters. It brings another person into the system, just like peeking in the box adds an observer into the system and interacts with the results of Schrodinger’s thought experiment. Or it least that is my meager understanding of it.

Social isn’t bad. Having another person affecting the system is in many ways the whole point of it. If you could figure this out on your own, you wouldn’t want a reading in the first place. Two eyes see with greater depth and clarity than one (related post: “Parallax“) In-person readings meet a basic human need for human interaction that written readings can’t quite replace. Phone readings fill that roll too. They are live, real-time, fill a social need while being covid safe. In-person work is valua ble, which is why I plan to bring them back on a part time basis for Halloween 2021, depending on how the vaccination distribution goes.

A Tarot reading that you actually read is something entirely different, and something very special.

With a distance Tarot session…be it email, video, or handwritten pen, ink and paper…there is no social filters, no schedule, no expectations. The words from spirit stream to you directly, in whatever cocoon of comfort and privacy that you choose to create. Wear your comfiest clothes. Listen to your favorite music. Grab your favorite bevorage or snack. When you engage with a distance reading in your own way, in your own place, in your own time, you engage with spirit from a place that is most fully and authentically youriself. You engage with energy and spirit on an more intense and mentally intimate level.

It’s that elfcon time of year. Even staying home, scaling down, and celebrating inside of your own four walls, why add to the season’s to-do list? Why tie yourself to a scheduled phone call when you can take in your reading in a time and a place and a way that suits your schedule best?

Intuition has a comfy bias. In my experience, the most powerful messages are given when we are both deep inside our comfort zones, with the cozy turned up to 11. On my end, coffee and fuzzy slipper socks will most likely be involved.

Spirit is everywhere. Energy is everywhere. Where we are relative to each other makes no diffrrence at all. The connection to that everywhere-energy and everywhere-spirit is strongest when we connect to it from our respective places of comfort and confidence.

Order a reading any time you like on the website home page. All of my layouts are available all the time now, at the lowest price possible. Please scroll down through the whole list here. It’s the widest variety of layouts and prices anywhere that I know of. I’m confident that you’ll find something you are comfortable with.

Wishing you all a cozy evening.

I Still Dunno

from Bitmoji free app

I still dunno.

The Queen of Cups turned up again, and once again it feels like it is connected to process of facing the unknown.

The word “ponder” comes to mind. I don’t think I’m missing any big message from the Queen. I think she is back just because she has more to say, not because the original message is being missed. Maybe she is just hanging around to help us face the unknown with grace and wit and style. The mental image here is that the cup (rather than a symbol for plumbing psychological and spiritual depths, deep soul scrying) is now a cup of wine, of cheer in the face of challenges. It is an obscure reference, but I think of drunken monkey style Kung Fu or that scene in the anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure where the protagonist had to fight the bad guy attacking them without spilling his goblet of wine.

If you aren’t familiar with martial arts, you might think this is all about fighting and violence and wine. Not that there is anything wrong with wine. I could go for a nice chilled Riesling myself, but that’s not the point. That’s not where the energy of the card or the intuitive references are flowing. Flowing is the point of it, actually. Relaxed muscles move faster. A relaxed mind reacts quicker and with more clarity.

The fear of the unknown and and the fear of all of the bad stuff that we know can happen in life is as much of a challenge as the bad stuff itself. In other words, as President Roosevelt said, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Staring into the depths, into mysteries, into the unknown is staring into the fearsome. People come to psychic readings to remove the fear of the unknown with the illusion of predictions, the illusion of knowing. Psychics are psychics not because they see the future, but because they see the unknowable and help us move forward anyway.

YouChoose on the Print Side

Whelp, yesterday was a day and days happen. The website and Etsy shop are ALWAYS open and you can order readings 24/7/365 – but this was a reminder to both of us that there might be some hiccups and delivery delays nights, weekends and U.S. holidays. Now that my daughter is older, TaoCraft has my attention most of the time, but there will always be days here and there where family gets first dibs and it might take a day to get content up here or on the YouTube channel.

There is still a learning curve for me on this YouTube thing. The lighting with this new deck on a rainy day is a prime example. While part of me wants to produce a “banger every time” edited, media production quality video there are three main reasons why I chose not to do that.

1. I don’t know how. TaoCraft Tarot is made up of me, my tablet, my deck and that is IT. I have neither the computing power nor the know-how to be the Markaplier of Tarot channels.

2. I HATE being on camera. This whole re-branding adventure is about authenticity. I don’t want to be yet another talking head speech to camera Tarot Vlog.

3. I want the YouTube videos to be as authentic as the rest of TaoCraft Tarot. If the videos are crap, it’s because I’m still authentically suckish at making them. (Not saying that won’t change as I learn on the fly) Live Tarot sessions don’t come with an edit button. If we ever work together in real time, either in-person or by phone, there will be times where I pause to listen to intuition, or have to try a couple of times to get the just-right word. It isn’t perfect but it is real.

The whole reason for having a YouTube channel is so you can get a feel for what a live session would be like. It isn’t quite there yet. In a live session is WAY more comfortable and articulate. Kind of like the blog. Ah well, it will get there. Meanwhile, let’s get comfy here on the print side.

Left: The Hierophant. Some decks call this the pope. This and the Judgement card are big triggers for me because of the overtly christian imagery. Two things brought the card into focus for me: Diane Morgan’s interpretation of the card as general “social conventions” and JoAnn Dinelli’s “keeper of the traditions.” Of those two threads of energy, this week the card leans toward the social convention side. I hear “play the game” not in a manipulative sense or to suggest hiding your true self. It is more like the adage discretion is the better part of valor. Know your audience. Dress the part for that job interview. Now is not the time to overshare. Take care who you show your true self to. It is OK to protect the pearl that is the true you when there are so many swine around. Doing the social dance might just keep you from being trampled.

Center: Four of Cups. Don’t push. Look inward more than outward. It’s a good week for introspection, meditation, and generally mulling things over. Inward can go forward or backward in time. Mull over what has happened, assess things as they are, then ponder what to do next. There isn’t any sense of urgency. Take your time, do it right. Mr. Franklin was right. This is a week where haste might make waste.

Rignt: Eight of Wands. Stay frosty. You aren’t in control at the moment but your time will come. You did what you could at the time, but now decisions and actions have moved elsewhere and you have to wait for new developements before you can make your next plans and steps. Some bit of information you need may not yet be known or clear. It is very much like archery right now. You did your part, when you pulled the bow and took aim, metaphorically speaking. The arrow is in the air now, no longer under your control. Watch where it lands. Then you’ll know the score, and what you need to do next.

Thanks for your patience with the YouTube foray outside of the comfort zone. We’ll figure that out as we go along, just like anything else in life and Tarot.

The One Big Same Thing

From what I’ve seen, universal life energy is all over the place.

It’s kind of like ports.

No matter whether you put your big boat in the water in New York or Charleston or Savannah or Buenos Aires or Capetown or Glasgow or Seville, you are still getting into the same great big Atlantic Ocean.

No matter whether you work with Tarot or Reiki or mediumship or magick or taijiquan or meditation or what have you, you are still touching that great big everywhere and everything of universal life energy.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” as they say in Star Wars.

I’ve lost count of the Tarot readers I know who also do other energy work: Reiki, Yoga, Magick, you name it.

That is one big reason that I re-branded Modern Oracle back in 2018. The everywhere all of the time energy that we use in Natural Health (in Reiki, Tai Chi, aromatherapy and more) is the same energy that speaks through a Tarot reading. Benebel Wen connected exactly those dots in Holistic Tarot. Distance Tarot very much is a matter of working with qi (chi, ki, prana etc.) Mat Auryn makes the same connection in the first chapter of Psychic Witch. I’m paraphrasing, but basically magick uses the energy, and a psychic reads that same energy. It is two sides of the same coin, as he points out.

Since it is all different facets of the same diamond, or different sides of the same D&D dice or SOMEthing like that, it just didn’t make sense to try and keep them separate. It was time to open the door of authenticity wide and embrace the wholeness of it all. If you were interested in Natural Health but was frightened off by Tarot (or vice versa) then we likely weren’t going to be a good fit to work together anyway. There are lots of folks around who do the blissed out strictly positive rainbows and unicorns herbology, nutrition and the like so I stepped fully in to the energy side of things. And so, here we are.

Distance is my gig. My specialty within the world of Tarot is distance readings, and my interest within the world of Reiki is enhancing and deepening the distance treatment experience with another of my loves, rocks and crystals (sorry again, mom, for all those rocks I forgot in my pants pockets that pinged the inside of the washing machine when I was a kid)

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Reiki and Meditation are permanent parts of TaoCraft Tarot. If you imagine the website as a brick and mortar place (it isn’t, really) think of one side of the room having shelves of crystals, plants, a water fountain, a statue of Quan Yin, incense and a table for Reiki sessions.

The middle third is the Etsy shop with meditation beads and ebooks. The other side of the room has a table and big cozy chairs for doing Tarot readings. If it is a chilly day or at at night, go ahead and imagine a fireplace and simmering teakettle just there.

In your minds eye, how does a space like that feel? It is all of a piece for me, flowing together, all the one same room with just slightly different things to do in the different parts of it. Energy is like that. Just different things to do in different areas of the one big same thing

Want to try a distance Reiki session using crystals? Get the details HERE. I don’t charge for the sessions but I do ask that you answer a few feedback questions as a fair energy exchange.

Still celebrating the two years since the big re-branding name change. Happy Birthday TaoCraft! But the present is for YOU. Visit the special offers page and use the contact form there to get a free one card handwritten Tarot reading by email to celebrate. Offer ends October 31, 2020. All policies and disclaimers apply.