introspection – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Tree Sitting

It doesn’t matter who YOU think the wisest man who ever existed is, the point is that their philosophy – whoever they were or whatever that philosophy is – it is derived from introspection. The introspection is the thing.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Admittedly, my brain is getting in the way of intuition a little bit today. Or maybe this really is the energy message. I don’t know. I’ll let you and how much you resonate with the card decide that piece of it.

Often the four of cups has to do with someone who is sulking, or closed off. I see it often in relationship questions, which fits the suit of cup’s symbolism and connection to love, romance, and inner circle closest relationships of all types. It is often an energy of futility and unrequited emotion. It’s not good news in that context. Adages like “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,””throwing good money after bad” and “throwing pearls before swine” come to mind. Often this thread of meaning shows up in readings that are asking the “will I get back together with my ex-” variety of questions. You can’t control how other people feel and you can’t predict what they will feel or do, so the answer in that circomstance is sadly, no, the focus is internal. The message then becomes the advice of introspection….look within to do what you need to do to heal and hopefully progress to the move-on energy that the 8 of cups can offer.

But that, as they say, is another story.

Today, the card skips over all the closed-off energy and relationship advice. Today it cuts right to the chase and talks about introspection.

It resonates quite a bit with “Mr. Venn And His Nifty Diagrams” from yesterday on Sage & Stuff, my personal blog. That post was inspired by Hustle & Meditate the substack newsletter by meditation coach Jim Martin aka “The Unusual Buddha” plus an instagram post by I think it was Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch that spoke of mysticism and mystery teachings within witchcraft and magick.

In a nutshell, they both said the same thing although from different areas of expertise and separated by several months in time. The things they were saying were influenced by different cultures who came to similar conclusions a long time ago….despite being world apart in a B.C.E time where there was no trade or internet connecting northern Europe, India and China.

Both the Martin newsletter and the Auryn Instagram post conclude with the notion that, while we have much to learn from the masters who came before, we must each walk through the portal of learning for ourselves. We each have to walk our own path, carve our own way, experience the mysteries of the universe for ourselves and look at the moon with out own two eyes.

It is a bit of Isaac Newton meets Bruce Lee. Newton acknowledges that quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” end quote. Centuries later and inspired by a completely different culture, Bruce Lee admonishes his student in the movie Enter the Dragon quote “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” end quote.

Blind faith takes you nowhere. Accomplished masters can show you A way, but only you can walk it. Only you can see your true path through your own thoughts, contemplations and introspections.

Nineteenth century journalist, philosopher and father of Frankenstein author Mary Shelly, William Godwin once said that “The philosophy of the wisest man who ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.” Who you consider to be the wisest man person to have ever existed is up to you, but that too is derived from introspection – yours. Introspection is the thing, with this card and Godwin’s quote, but more than that, YOUR introspection is the key thing. The wisest person who ever existed may be a guide and a giant for you to stand upon, but it is still you that must do the standing, walking and moon gazing.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! I appreciate any likes, subs, shares, questions or comments that you can spare.

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Thanks again. See you Monday for the next short sip Tarot!

Sugar Devil

You can’t sugar coat this.

It’s just one of those gnarly sh*tshow kind of years. All politics aside for the moment, there has been a lot of funky mojo energy out there. We’ve talked about it through the past several months and made friends with the word “zeitgeist” along the way. It started with multiple, multiple clients who never thought of themselves as intuition sensitive or empaths. Time and again readings were saying that the anxieties they were feeling were actually a resonant response to the outer energy environment. The advice was to to reinforce their boundaries, to do something protective. The 2020 funk started ringing those assorted psychic and empathic bells as early as January and February. Then came the avalanche of pentacle cards telling us to hunker down, get our proverbial ducks in a row, and pay attention to the physical realm nuts and bolts of things. For those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home, paying attention to the physical realm while staying home day after day after day wasn’t exactly helpful advice – at least not on the surface. Dig a little deeper, and we were being called to wring enjoyment out of the simple things, to recapture the things that delight us, and remember that little things really do mean a lot. That, in turn, inspired the “Kitten Whiskers” off topic series of “my favorite things” posts this summer (more of those to come, btw)

The energies have shifted recently. The boundary challenging, empathic bell ringing quality has abated. The focus-on-the-physical, avoid life altering decisions if possible, enjoy-the-little-things-while-you-can energy has become the spiritual retreat many of us expected at the beginning. Ready or not, we were thrown into a cocoon by worldwide crisis. Now, we are facing a new crisis. This time it is internal. NOW is the time for that spiritual introspection and evolution. NOW is the time to decide our path forward. We were chucked involuntarily into a cocoon. Now we are being forced to decide how, and in what form we will emerge.

No matter what the external lockdown orders may or may not be, the time has come for that spiritual retreat. Just because you are permitted to go out doesn’t mean have to do it. When we do emerge, are we going to bring the same hate and prejudices out with us that we took in with us from the before time? Are we going to face what we’ve avoided both out there in the world and within ourselves?

That is where the Devil card comes in. It isn’t a prediction of doom. I still get that mental image of a storm front on the horizon. Actually, that distant hurricane image is honestly starting to look like a tornado of sand and glass at our doorstep ready to grind everything flat if certain people and forces prevail. But that isn’t today’s Devil card.

In this case, the Devil card is reminding us that some people have come out of the cocoon a good deal worse for the wear. This is our reminder that the sh*t is still storming and there are dark forces out there. It really isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. We are leaving the cocoon and entering the crucible.

One of the greatest things about the Devil card is the reminder that it serves. Yeah, things may suck, they may continue to suck for a time to come, but we can nevertheless do SOME thing to make the world a better place in spite of the general suckishness. Volunteer. Protest (with a mask, outdoors, standing apart) donate, vote a straight blue ticket come November. Be at peace for a moment. Even just one little moment. Even at that, you have added a moment of peaceful energy to a world that really needs it right now.

Taking the Advice the Cards Keep Giving

Now is not the time to press, to strive, to make big decisions – or try to learn to make good youtube content. Now is the time to be mindful. Pay attention to the here and now, even if it is isolated or terrible. But that’s easy for me to say, because right now I’m ok. I forget who said it, but mental and emotional suffering lies between how things are and how we wish them to be. Now is a time to gather in our energies and make friends with where we are and who we are, no judgements, no goals, no expectations.