Tag: mind body balance

Under Doing

That old shoe commercial was on to something.

Hi and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here. TaoCraft Short Ship is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the seven of cups.

Cups, very generally speaking, have to do with emotions. The seven in particular has to do with emotions that are overwhelmed, typically by overthinking or too many options. Marketing calls it “decision paralysis” as I recall.

I’ve talked about this with some other Tarot readers. We tend to be thinkers, and overthinking can really bog things down, believe me.

It is a natural thing. There are reasons why startled frozen indecision is compared to “a deer in headlights.” Being put suddenly on the spot can stop decision making in its tracks just as much as overthinking or overwhelming options can.

Regardless of why, what do you do when you can’t decide what to do?

Not to sound too much like a bad fortune cookie, the answer is right there in the quetion.

Do.

If you are overthinking, get out of your head and into your body. Exercise. Wash the dishes. Take a warm shower. Sip a tea. Go for a walk. They call stuff like that “clearing your head” for a reason.

Do.

Turn your attention from the mental realm toward the physical realm for a while. Don’t worry. You can get right back to your overthinking when you are done. You might just discover that after a short break to do something in meatspace that the overthinking is so overwhelming anymore.

The same thing works when the thing that has you stopped in your tracks is big, difficult emotions. Emotions may follow you around while you do it, but again, shift your focus to the physical for a while. Intense emotions might need a little more physical effort. This might need a run instead of a walk, or some serious housework instead of just doing the dishes, and it certainly isn’t going fix everything. Don’t walk away from your emotions forever, but a short walk around the block so to speak isn’t a terrible idea.

It’s the balance of opposites, balance of yin and yang thing.

Sometimes when your emotional self or your mental self is over-doing things, the physical self might be under-doing things a little bit. Turn up the physical a little bit to help balance the overworked and overwhelmed mind and spirit.

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Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Short Sip Tarot: Wood & Water

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to Short Sip Tarot on the TaoCraft Tarot Blog, the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and shorts, and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. The Short Sip posts are a Tarot reading and thought for the day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.

Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.

Knight cards are associated with action, and pentacles are associated with the element of earth.

Earth – as in grounded, rooted, solid energy.

Some days are like that. When you work with Tarot most days, you can see the ebb and flow of energy. Even if you do just quick daily one card meditations over time you see the larger patterns of energy. Patterns is a little bit of a misleading word in this context. It isn’t as if there is anything predictable or regular about it. It isn’t to say there is a set pattern like day and night or the progression of the seasons. It’s more like observation over years teaches you the kinds of clouds that roll in the with the weather for the day.

The Zen proverb “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water” captures this particular energy very well. The idea idea isn’t necessarily attached to any one particular Tarot card, but it does come through Pentacle cards more often than the others. Both the suit of cards and the proverb are grounded and practical. Both remind us how important it is to balance mind, spirit AND body. Physical health supports mental and emotional health and mental while mind and spirit support the body as well. It is no better to be overly occupied with spirituality than it is to be wrapped up the the physical realm and ignore the spiritual altogether.

With the focus on balance, you would expect this energy and message to be attached to the TWO of pentacles. Often, it is. In this case there is a little extra message behind the mind – body – spirit balance idea.

Sometimes you have to DO something to achieve that balance.

Exercise. Eat well. Take a nap if you need it. Change the shelf paper. Do some mundane task that you’ve been putting off.

The spiritual is still there. There is magic in the mundane, but there is also a little mundane in the magic. To paraphrase the poet Duane Toops … a miracle is still a miracle even if it doesn’t feel like one.

A day is still a miracle even when it feels and needs to be ordinary.