motivation – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Choose Your Card: The Outer World and You

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

Choose your card, left or right

Pause the video if you need time to think. Restart to see the reveal

The Hierophant: The energy is a little toxic this week. Know when to lay low and when to fight the power. Camouflage is a legitimate tactic. Guard your boundaries regarding social norms and institutional authorities.

Three of Cups: You are dealing with the same energy zeitgeist but have more leeway to be direct and open, to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. You do you, but don’t forget to keep friends and support close at hand for validation if you need it.

I don’t know if this is true everywhere, it may be a fairly local read – local meaning the U.S. at the moment. There is an enormously important election soon, there have been natural disasters, the change of seasons (or for some the hot-as-heck summer that just won’t quit), a comet, freakishly southern northern lights: It’s all screaming climate change, both literally and metaphorically. The energy out there is, for lack of a better term, weird.

I think the foundation of both cards’messages is how to deal with that weird, general, Zeitgeist, collective energy. It reminds me a little bit of the run up to the pandemic – big looming energy on the horizon that isn’t a personal or individual crises but can feel that way. Sensitive intuitions may be resonating strongly right now. If you feel like something’s not quite right but can’t put your finger on what it is, or if you feel like you are reacting with more fear, anxiety, or emotion than usual that could be outside energy pushing on your psyche. It’s like when the sound of a tuning fork of one frequency can cause a bell or another tuning fork of the same to vibrate too.

I have logical reasons for this that may be intruding on this intuitive read, but the good news is this isn’t covid related. My guess is that this uncomfortable energy is being driven by the election. There is an old saying that when the US catches a cold the rest of the world sneezes. Lately it feels more like if the meth lab that is the US explodes, the rest of the world will get flaming debris landing on their roof.

If there is a single carry away message for this week – this coming month really – it is to pay attention to your personal energy and where it touches the outside world. Pay attention to how opaque vs transparent the boundary is. Over sharing feels dangerous. Choose your battles, but fight bravely when do engage. Guard your energy, and feed it when needed. Get support and validation when you need. Isolate if that is what you need to be healthy, protected and strong.

During re-entry from orbit, the Apollo astronauts experienced radio communications blackout for a few minutes. I feel like that is where we are in this election energy thing. It feels like we are locked in and whatever is going to happen is going to happen. The cake is backed, the spam is in the can, and we are surrounded by the ionizing atmosphere of re-entry headed toward splash down.

I just hope it is a good landing that we can all walk away from.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

Watch this space. I plan to be back Wednesday with something much happier and more fun for Spoopy Season.

See you at the next sip!

Today’s Tarot: To what end?

“Love: The heart wants what it wants. It doesn’t seek other people’s opinions; sometimes not even your own.”
Steve Miraboli, author

The lovelorn love the Lovers card.

Every card has its dark side, and for this one I’m seeing fixation. When you get stuck on finding one particular thing, like your “soulmate,” it also fixates on the lack of that thing. Lacking creates more wanting creates more fixating creates more lacking. A vicious cycle like that is very hard to stop because cycles and circles by definition don’t really stop. Think physics and the conservation of energy. Cycles aren’t so much stopped as they are transformed.

Having some idea of why you want something, especially when you want it with desperation, can help achieve it. The word achieve in itself implies and endpoint, a goal, a reason for being. Wanting something badly enough motivates us to do the work we must do to get the wanted thing.

Not all wants need to be tied to achievement. Not all wants are what we think they are.

We say we want a “soulmate” but perhaps what is really wanted – or needed – is feeling heard, feeling understood, having companionship. Relationships are complex things that deserve a little thought and attention, even before they begin.

Sometimes the trick to finding your hearts desire is to desire a better thing. If the lovers speaks to you today, it is asking you to think about what you want and why you want it. Is it the right thing to chase?

I don’t share my private life here a lot, but here is an example. I have a very convenient opportunity to study martial arts again. It was at one time very important. I competed. I taught. I won a few blue ribbons along the way. Why? I don’t really know, other than I loved doing it, and wanted to be the best at it that I could possibly be, like everything else. Then because of an assortment of life and health stuff I had to set it aside. Did I miss it? Not as much as I thought.

You learn a lot about life in 20 years.

Do I want to pick it up again? Yes, I want that. Why? I enjoy it. If I get some health benefit that’s just frosting on the cake. I could put in the work and teach again – but I don’t want to. I could get up early and do all the shit they tell you to do to be an accomplished Tajiquan player….but I don’t want to. I could brush up on Chinese, and find work-arounds for the physical limitations. But I don’t want to. I value different things now. And that is perfectly OK. You don’t have to be driven and perfect about every thing. Not everything in life is goals and attainment. I could fixate on wanting to do high level tai chi again … I could use that as motivation to drive and work toward acheiving that….or I could want the peace and serenity and mindfulness that Taijiquan represented all along.

It turns out I really just want to enjoy a little tai chi every now and then. Bam. Done. Mission accomplished. Goal achieved. It pays to want what you already have.

12 Second Tarot: King of Wands (12 October 19)

Let your passions light the way. Follow your interest, curiosity and enthusiasm. Not feeling interested or curious or passionate about anything? That is your cue to wait for the right spark before you act.

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