Tag: nine of disks

Heck if I know

You don’t have to know. All you need is to know how to know, you know?

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here. Short Sip Tarot episodes like these are Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee – or whatever you happen to be drinking at the time of day when you read or hear this.

I’m using the Alleyman’s Tarot today. This card is the nine of disks, used as the nine of pentacles, or coins. Pentacles, disks, coins: the name is up to the deck author, but they all symbolize the basic things. There may be other names for the suit, but these three are the ones that I’ve seen. The Nine of Disks in the Alleyman’s Deck is from the Sola Busca Tarot used via Wikimedia commons. This is a public domain deck from the 1400s.

When I first drew the card. I honest to goodness had no idea what it was or what it was about. The little dude getting squashed under a flaming barbeque grill filled with a bunch of pot lids in it could be anything. It is a world apart from that happy, truth-y, good conclusion, earned reward vibes we see from the 1909 Waite Smith Tarot and later decks based on the RWS structure.

Seven Dane Asmund’s interpretation in the Alleyman’s Guidebook is entirely on point for this striking, remarkable card. I can see why he chose to put it in the deck. In the guidebook he, in the guise of the Alleyman, he writes about the cost of success and the crushing emotional and mental burdons of striving for (and maintaining) success, particularly the material type of success and that defined by those outside oneself.

In other words, what price victory? What is true success and is it worth the toll it takes? In my experience, those questions and concepts attach to the five of swords in a typical deck. The Alleyman’s Deck, however, is different. The artwork here is perfectly aligned with the caution against pyrrhic victories. I’m glad he picked up on that. Totally blew by me.

So back to me staring at the card and thinking “heck if I know” I didn’t recognize the deck, I didn’t recognize it as a nine of disks or or nine of pentacles analog, and I sure as heck didn’t have any sense of a message from it.

I think that, in itself, is part of the day’s energy and message. Again it is something I typically get with or through another card, in this case The High Priestess. Mystery and the unknown is, to my way of thinking, under the priestess’ purview. The mysterious is the High Priestess’ expertise. Living with the abstract & unknown is very much a part of the lessons that this card teaches.

The message here is an important one. In my opinion,life’s mysterious, intangible, abstract, and perhaps unknowable aspects are more fitting to a major arcana card rather than the nine of disks. But that’s just me, and that is drawing from other decks, not the Sola Busca.

You know that adage where if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, then you feed him for a lifetime?

The same is true of knowing things.

You can’t know everything, but if you learn how to learn, if you learn how to go out and find what you don’t know now, it’s the next best thing to knowing in the first place. Only an empty cup can be filled. You can only learn something when you know that you don’t know something.

Knowing that the unknown can be learned, takes the fear out of the dark corners of life’s uncertainty. Both Tarot and science shine this light. Neither offers absolute knowledge, but both offer a method of learning about the inner and outer cosmos respectively.

It’s ok to not know what you are seeing or what to do when a flaming grill full of pot lids falls from the sky like some sort of medieval Sputnik. Life is like that sometimes. It’s ok to not know stuff. The trick is being willing to learn what the space grill means to you.

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See you at the next sip!

Be Yourself, Be a Hero

Be a Superhero. Be yourself. The 9 of Pentacles is today’s short sip tarot reading.

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

Today’s card, the nine of pentacles, is as light and simple as yesterday’s card, the hierophant, was heavy and complicated.

Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars third edition deck was the absolute perfect one to carry today’s message. I don’t know that this energy could come through quite this way with any other deck.

This deck has a lot going for it including Mr. Pham’s raw artistic talent, and excellent guide book writing not to mention the color palette and the watercolor aesthetic. But it’s his use of movie and TV references that drew my attention to the deck in the first place and makes it a favorite deck to this day.

My intuition works exactly that way. If you have ever had a reading with me, chances are that some sort of song, tv show or movie came up. I’m not a super deep-cut kind of media watcher, so if something comes to mind that I actually recognize, chances are that it is popular enough to be relatable to most clients.

Like right now for example. This probably is nothing more than an example, but if it is meaningful to you somehow, that’s perfect, roll with it. Right now the mental image of baby yoda grogu sipping soup comes to mind. Even if you didn’t watch the Mandalorian series, the snippet of baby yoda sipping from a cup has been a fairly viral internet meme. For me, it is symbolic of utter calm in the middle of utter chaos. It is a more recent image that carries the same feeling as that scene in the 1991 version of Robin Hood where the Sheriff of Nottingham comes into a room and starts pacing and yelling and in a brilliant bit of stagecraft Alan Rickman stabs the dinner ham to bits while the sheriff’s witch-sister deadpan asks “something vexes thee?”

Or, if you are middle aged gen x vanguard like me, you might remember that Hawkeye quote from the TV series MASH “if you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, then you probably haven’t checked with your answering service lately.”

Whichever pop culture image you most resonate with, it carries the advice to stay chill no matter how chaotic it gets. Be the cooler head that prevails.

See how that works?

But back to the nine of pentacles. Thanks to the Heart of Stars deck, it has a superhero vibe to go with the picture of Wonder Woman. Classically, nine of pentacles is associated with truth, happiness and, as the artist himself put it , quote This card represents self-reliance and the need to question your biggest assumptions in order to challenge the status quo and things that seems so normal because everyone around you is accustomed to the same beliefs. End quote.

Raise your hand if you see the connection to yesterday’s card.

Some people, for their own health and safety, cannot express their authentic selves. It is a harsh reality and necessary choice. When someone does that, they do so in quiet service to their own health, safety and sanity. That choice is as worthy of our love and support as any other.

Today’s card is the opposite side of the same coin. If you have the wherewithal and opportunity to live your truest most authentic self (and only you can decide what that is) then you have the obligation to do so.

Here, instead of a clairvoyant mental image, I’m getting a clairaudient mental snippet of a song. It’s Odd Future by Uver World that was one of the opening themes for the anime My Hero Academia, although I forget which season.

So there you have your soundtrack for today’s Tarot. Be a hero by being yourself. Be a hero by living and speaking your truth. Without even trying you might inspire someone who can’t do the same thing right now. If you are heroically out there living your best life, you might just heroically comfort someone who really needs to see someone like them.

Or if anime themes don’t convince you, maybe psychologist Carl Jung can. He once said that quote the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are end quote.

Today the nine of pentacles is asking us to exercise our privilege, be our glorious true selves and maybe inspire other people to become the same kind of hero too.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments are always appreciated. If you enjoy these free to access tarot readings, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot Page on ko-fi. There is a link in the episode description. The shop, memberships and virtual coffees all support the creation of the blog and podcast.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Speaking of the next sip…that will be in two days. Like the meme says, I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are hosting a rave. The squirrels are a little out of hand tomorrow so short sip will be back on Thursday June 9