Tag: manifestation

Week Ahead Tarot: Summit and Crossroads

This is different.

When I do these week ahead readings, typically I either use my Action Eases Anxiety layout with my one and only Lenormand deck, or I use another layout with one of my several RWS decks, whichever one intuitively seems right for the moment.

Oddly, today’s energy asked for a TaoCraft Path layout with the Lenormand deck. Gives me the feeling that either this is going to land with someone personally OR that the collective energy has something to say and wants to be heard. With any kind of luck, it’s both.

Anyway, here’s what we got.

Influence from the past: The Mountain (right)

OK – maybe the storm lasted 6 years instead of two. I ‘hear’ (meaning the intuition comes as mental words or music instead mental images) both the words “end game” and an old 1970s song “Looks Like We Made It” (Barry Manilow? – ugh. OK, message received. I’ll brain bleach that with music I actually like now)

The feeling and imagery reminds me of images given toward the end of covid lockdown, of cautiously coming out of a storm shelter to see what damage has been done. Maybe that was actually the eye of the hurricane and 2024 was the second side of the 2020 storm.

It also gives me of the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy crawls over the edge of the cliff where his dad is staring over the edge thinking Indy was dead. So Indy just stands there too, trying to see what everybody was looking at.

Long story short, this card is letting us know we made it – again. We’ve climbed another cliff, and now it’s time to drag ourselves over the edge, see what everyone else is looking at and figure out what to do next.

Current Energy: Crossroads (middle)

With this I ‘hear’ “Hekate” and “keys”. The mental image is coming to the top of the mountain or dragging over the cliff edge as with the last card and immediately being faced with a crossroads. The straight ahead path immediately heads down the other side of the mountain. Left and right paths go along the summit ridge in opposite directions. All are equally lit by the setting or rising sun, all three seem equally compelling. My instinct is to stay still and gather a better sense of things. Choosing to do nothing just now is still a choice. I hear “this needs time”

For YOU as individual, I hear “the key is imagination.” If you imagine that your stresses are winding down (regardless whether they FEEL that way or not right now)…imaging that they are. Imagine that you have survived your stress, it is behind you, and you have four clear choices of how things go from here in the near future. Left, right, straight ahead or stand right the hell here for a minute, which pulls you? Which looks brighter in your mind’s eye? Where are each of those choices headed? Which direction do you WANT to go?

“No rest for the wicked” as the saying goes. We are being hit with a deliberate, mindful choice as soon as the wave of stress and challenge begins to pass. The time to choose your next steps is NOW. It’s about the mindfulness of the choice. Even if the choice is to stop and rest for a minute, MAKE that choice deliberately. It doesn’t matter as much what you choose, only that you choose it with full awareness and purpose.

You can change your mind later, the point is to at least make up your mind for now. Don’t just let this week happen to you. Experience it on purpose.

Best Next Steps: The Stork (left)

The Stork symbolizes newness and cycles. Not all change is bad, but new change is hot on the heels of old change. This last phase, this last storm is rapidly closing, but there is no fence to straddle, no flat path to follow. Standing still is a choice on the razor’s edge. New movement and change comes quickly. In this mental image of the summit and the paths, the top is narrow, maybe a meter wide. Straight ahead slopes down quickly, right and left remains flat but narrow along the ridge. Every direction is equally light, equally compelling.

You can always change your mind later. This feels less about which direction you choose…less about WHAT you choose and more about making a choice NOW and even more importantly choosing AT ALL. Don’t let this week just happen to you. Be deliberate and mindful about what you do, even if it is to nothing. Stay the course if you want, but do it on purpose.

Astrology isn’t my strong suit, but it is the full moon, a blue moon, in Saggitarius for whatever that is worth. The astrology side of social media caught my attention with it because it is supposed to be good or lucky for my sun, moon and rising signs. It is supposed to be at time to plant seeds of intention as this is an opportune time for the to come to full and good fruition.

I’ll take that.

But I get the sense that this is an opportune window of time, a favorable energy environment for deciding your direction. Nothing has to be finished now. The Stork card hints at birth and beginning. Take it all in for a moment, but plant the seeds now. Or as social media’s Tank Tolman says….begin where you stand.

For some, standing is a beginning.

The past has been hard. You’ve seen things and done stuff, and crawled back up and over the edge of the cliff. Right away we are hit with the likelihood of more change, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Level and downhill is easier than dragging ourselves up a steep climb. It is all sunlit and warm (gives pleasant sunset vibes) The thing to do to move forward in harmony is just to do it – do anything or nothing so long as we do it deliberately

Here is to a sunny summit kind of week for us all. See you at the next sip!

The loudest quiet

A magnet just sits there.

It doesn’t chase after anything. Yet, just being itself, a magnet attracts and sticks with the just-right things. It’s a quiet process, but a powerful one. Watching, waiting, just sitting there letting your light shine in the universe is a powerful something to do, possessed of great optimism. Although they are outwardly quiet, confidence, optimism, contentment, and intention can be very energetically loud.

“My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud”

Henry Rollins

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Weekend Oracle: Focus

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Expectations can choke manifestations. Sometimes the answer is to look wider, focus broader. Visualize already having what you really want and need.


Work and physical actions in service of your vision is often just the magic you need, too.

Have a clear idea about what you want is half the battle in making it happen

The Star That Guides You

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

The light that you shine is a reflection of the star that guides you.

I’m currently reading The Witches Coin by Christopher Penczak. In it he writes: 

“The way you look at the world is the way the world looks back.” and “how you see the world is how the world sees you.”

This reminds us of the two way flow, the interconnection between our inner intentions and the outer world. Affirmations, actions all conspire to co-create the world we desire. 

Like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock together. 

The Star is traditionally a card of hope and success. Today it feels like a promise. If you look for good, you’ll find it. If you look for connection, you’ll find it because if you make that the lense through which you see your world, that is how the world will see you, attracting like-minded people and like-energy circumstances to you.

Choose well the star that guides you because that is the light by which the world sees you – and the kind of world you will see. 

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It’s Own Magic

If everything changes in time, doesn’t that mean time is magic?

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Short Sip episodes are Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the Magician. It’s nice to see some major arcana cards showing up lately. That in itself is a nice little validation for me, that some of the energy and effort that I’ve been investing into refreshing the website and migrating the shop to a different platform in an effort to keep prices down on readings just might pay off.

It’s also an interesting compliment to the summer energy that’s out there. As a whole, the major arcana has so called “higher energy” That’s kind of a confusing way to say it. Sometimes higher vs lower energy is used qualitatively. Higher connotes something more esoteric, more spiritual, somehow “good” or virtuous while lower is sometimes used to connote something more banal and mundane, perhaps lesser quality or even malicious.

When I think of major arcana cards as having higher energy, it is a quantitative thing. Electromagnetic waves that have more cycles per unit of distance are said to have higher frequencies. There are just plain more waves in the wavelength not that they are any better or worse – unless of course you are talking about radiation and living tissue but that’s another story that we’ll ignore for now, since we are talking about Tarot card symbolism, not hard science & physics.

What I’m trying to say is that major arcana cards aren’t any better or any worse than the minor arcana. There is a surprising amount of overlap between some minor arcana cards and the majors. The minor cards have a gentler touch with the advice. They hand you a cookie and tell you that by the time you are done it will all be right as rain. Major arcana cards are more ka-pow. They are Oda Mae looking you straight in the eye and telling you that you in danger, girl.

I’ve been told by my Lenormand Tarot reading friends that the whole Lenormand deck is a little like that, all no holds barred frying pan to the face type stuff. It’s on my list of stuff to check out, but I have some other oracle exploration to get out of my system first. I’ll tell you more about that when it’s closer to ready for cyberspace.

Meanwhile, back at the Magician, this is fairly blunt. It reminds me of those internet memes from around the time when the movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was released where Wong would portal in, throw down some random weird statement and portal back out again. Today’s card is a little like that. There aren’t any circles here. No sneaking up and nabbing the point from behind like with the Turn Around or Tools of the Inner Trade post / episodes.

source: @imgur

The Magician card symbolizes transformation as much as it does manifestation. The only difference between life and magic is our preconceived expectations. The flow of time and life change and transform everything. If you are still alive, you are still magic.

Thank you for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare are always appreciated. Comments are open on the blog, which podcast listeners can reach through the link in the show description.

Just a reminder that the blog, podcast and socials will be on a short summer hiatus July first to July sixth. Email readings are open on the blog website throughout that time. So is the ko-fi page where memberships, the shop, commissions and virtual coffees all support the creation of this free to access Tarot content. The blog and podcast are not monetized. That let’s me serve up a sip of spirit message without the taste of corporate messaging.

Thank you so so much! See you at the next sip.

Different Wealth

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude taks what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth.

Hello and welcome to Tao Craft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Four of Disks from the Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, art by Dark Synevyr.

There is a strong sense of juxtaposition and contrast with the card and energy today. It’s like double vision in your mind’s eye of all freaky things. Ah well, it is Friday.

There is face value meaning here. Coin cards in general are associated with wealth, career, or our relationship with the physical realm.

The four of coins in particular (or the Four of disks, or pentacles or whichever name you prefer) is associated with being conservative and watching the budget. If the card is reversed it can mean the need to watch the budget because of low or dwindling resources. Taken to an extreme it can have a tone of hoarding and greed. In this case it has a tone of smart money management. It is about living within your means. It’s about making do and making more.

That’s the surface.

It also feels like there are watery depths here, like the deep inner wisdom we were talking about in the “It’s there” blog post and podcast episode a few days ago. The mental image is like one of those tiktok videos where they make fancy drinks or swirly color artwork with spheres of partially frozen, very clear ice. The surface of the ice they use is solid and crystal clear with a swirling, watery center. The energy with this card is a little like that.

On the surface we have solid practical advice: Use your money smarts. Mind the budget. This is a time to be practical with money and not frivolous. The energy is definitely not right for impulse buys.

Beneath that surface is something much more esoteric and spiritual. Beneath that is volumes about mindset, manifestation and how powerful thoughts and words can be.

It’s that glass half full, glass half empty thing.

Think about it. Or plunk a glass of water on the table and LOOK at it. What you think about glass doesn’t change the literal amount of water. 8 ounces is 8 ounces and 4 ounces is four ounces and what you think, feel or believe isn’t going to change that objective measure by one molecule.

The glass half full versus a glass half empty doesn’t have anything to do with the physical glass or water at all. It is all about words and perceptions and mental habits and emotional paradigms. Think about that glass of water. When you think of it as half empty, it creates a phantom. It alludes to water that that used to be there but is gone now. This way of thinking focuses on the empty space and what the glass doesn’t have when that extra volume may never have been there in the first place. What if the glass used to be only a quarter full and a half is a big improvement? The adjective “empty” shifts our perception, not the water that is, was or will be.

By the same token, if we think of the glass as half full, the adjective “full” shifts our perception in the other direction. This way of thinking focuses on certainty, reality, the water that is definitely there and hits at more to come.

Here I get that annoying platitude to “have an attitude of gratitude.” There is some sort of new-age-y idea out there that being grateful for what you have will create a feeling of abundance and in turn manifest what you want through some twist of the Law of Attraction. Gratitude isn’t some magic bullet. Forcing yourself to feel grateful in general isn’t going to attract some specific object of desire.

Genuine feelings of gratitude are, however, a definitive inner shift in perception and thus a change in our experience of the outer world as it stands now.

My mind is drawn toward a line from the Starz series version of Neil Gaimon’s American Gods. The character Salim hints at the difference between mainstream Christianity in America and Islam as he knows it. If memory serves he said something like “That is the difference between us – you pray to get the things you want. I pray to say thank you for what I already have.”

That is exactly the energy today. Gratitude will not magically bring what you want and don’t yet have…but instead that gratitude will change your perception of what wealth really is for you. Manifesting wealth, prosperity gospel, think positive, be grateful to get what you want nonsense not only risk your money, but they can rob you of your peace of mind and spirit.

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude takes what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Being thankful for what you have instead of praying for what you don’t have is potent alchemy. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth, but a priceless one.

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Thanks again! See you at the next sip!

A sip of Tarot: magic in many forms

Today’s card is the Magician from the major arcana.

The magician card is traditionally associated with transformation and manifestation. Today’s energy goes along with both. To change things, to transform them, you have to do something differently. To make something, to manifest anything, you first have to first do something.

The broader concept of change would, of course, fall under the Death card. The focus here is cause and effect. The focus here is in the doing. Do nothing and there is no change for the death card to symbolize. The science folks call that inertia.

The magician card often has the symbols of the four minor arcana suits on it. The magician uses all of the elements, all of the concepts from the minor suits and applies them to the concept of transformation and manifestation. The magician incorporates all the ways of doing. All of the suits have various connections to thinking, doing, deciding, withholding, experiencing, all of which are elements of transformation and manifestation.

First decide what you want to change or create. Then do something to start on that new path. Lay the foundation. Do the thing that becomes the cause for the desired effect. Anyone can work that magic.

Thank you for reading and listening to “A sip of Tarot.” on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. Stay tuned for more (almost) daily meditation style Tarot readings in the time it takes to sip from a cup of morning coffee.

The need for speed

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.

Wishing you all a magic feeling Monday.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot 25 July – 1Aug. 2020

Take your week, and the Tarot guidance for it into your own hands. Pick a card, right, center or left. Take your time, pause the video then restart for the reveal…or pick which ever card feels right on an impulse. Both ways work just fine.

Left: Seven of Swords. Mischief is afoot. Stay on your toes. Watch out for pranks, be kind to unintended mistakes

Center: The Magician. Create your world. Like attracts like. A shift in perception and point of view can change the world like magic

Right: King of Pentacles. Focus on the practical. Generally, energies are turning toward the spiritual and esoteric, but this week still needs a grounded and practical approach. Don’t let your head get stuck in the clouds.