obsidian – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Members Only: Crystal Casting, 2 August ’25

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Crystal Cast for the week of 26 Dec 22

CrystalCast psychic reading – a look ahead to the week of 26 December 2022

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

It’s been quite a year for me, and this cast for the final week of 2022 rubs a little lemon juice into a private emotional paper cut. That being said, I’ll leave it to you to decide if this resonates for you or not. That being said, it isn’t about us per se as much as it is a confirmation or explanation of other people or of some of the unkindnesses we may have experienced or witnessed this year.

It might be a pitfall of being a people pleaser. It might come from some deep seated desire to do the right thing above all.

Or it might come from being elitist, egotistical, holier-than-thou and judgemental.

The take-away message that I see here is that people are more important than ideology. When I say ideology, it could extend to anything but top of mind right now is religion. Use it interchangeably in this post, if you like. Damage is done when we put religion or politics or policy over the people they were originally intended to help.

I tend to look at life through a very secular humanist lens. True to pareidolia, our natural neurological tendency to see patterns where likely none exist the pattern I see here is a human form reminiscent of the constellation Orion. If the upper blank rune stone is considered the face, the left hand could be the largest obsidian chip. Left is considered the yin or receiving hand. Give and take is a consideration this week. Don’t leave your receiving hand closed. Give a little love to yourself even as the main focus is caring for others. The black color of the obsidian also resonates with yin, resting, receiving, accepting, abiding: All things to remember.

The right hand is the larger raw quartz bead. If we consider this patter as looking at another human face to face, the quartz would be the sending, giving, yang right hand. Our task this week is to care for others. It’s our turn to give that extra little bit of care and consideration be it literal, like taking out the extra holiday garbage, or giving a little tlc to the emotional bruises the holiday season can inflict for some while celebrating all the good that comes of it for the rest of us.

The “m” shaped rune is ehwaz, which Thom Pham visually likes to two people holding hands. It has to do with relationships.

Your relationship with people and with yourself is pre-eminant. In my opinion any person that puts organization and dogma over people are making the wrong choice. Organizations and their leaders that ask that of their members are barking up the tree of cultism and psychopathy in my non-expert opinion.

The extended diamond shape next to ehwaz is othala, which has to do with homeland, legacy, or ancestral home. I get the purely intuitive sense of that ancestral legacy being self-knowledge in the vein of Socrates. I want to associate it with the treasure of being confident and comfortable within your ancestral home, your own skin. The more you know thyself, and the more comfortable with that authentic self, the more impervious you are to other people’s petty judgements. More importantly, it makes you less likely to judge or demean others, even inadvertently.

Yoda was right. Fear and anger and dare we say emotional pain of any kind leads to the dark side.

Socrates was right. The more you know yourself, the more you can accept and abide with the unique, amazing person that you are.

The art form of Kintsugi is right. Brokenness has the potential to become beautiful.

In this last week of the year, in the flow of yuletide, in the hope of brighter days to come, give freely of your compassion and be generous your ability to see the beauty in cracks and crinkles. Give all of these things freely to yourself as well.

Zombie Cat’s Tarot Reading for 2023 is coming later this week. Zombie Cat doesn’t give a flying brain cell about how Tarot really works, how probabilities really work or if his so-called predictions come true or not. He’s a zombie. And he’s a cat. All of Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong. I hope you’ll stay tuned for the fun.

As for me, I want to say thank you here and now for your kind attention. I appreciate your following the blog and the podcast. It means a lot that you are willing to spend a few minutes and few sips of coffee to consider these little Tarot contemplations.

Both the Blog and the Podcast will be back right after New Years. I’m considering a few superficial updates, maybe even a name change as my Tarot work continues to adapt to some off-line meatspace changes. From your end of things, it will all be pretty much the same. I want to make things more regular and predictable for all of our sakes. Hang in there with me. We got this.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, peaceful and abundant 2023!

CrystalCast for the week of 14 November ’22

CrystalCast reading for the week ahead,: vibe and chill.

I don’t know what I did, but I lost the video of this one. Backed it up with a static photo, so hopefully this will do.

Hi and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and audio blog, A.K.A. the podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Since it’s new, and since I screwed up the video anyway, I hope today’s reading will work as a super short nano-sip of a podcast, just to let you know that these crystal cast things exist. Between now and at least January, life here is an elfcon 1 squirrel rave at full volume, so I’m not promising to do anything blog, podcast or social media related at any given time on any given day. Still, it’s my intent to post these “crystal cast” readings on Monday mornings.

Ish.

Hopefully.

But don’t hold your breath. I don’t want to contribute to anyone dropping their oxygen levels.

My intent is also to film the crystals and runestones so you can see them as they fall. Seeing the actual cast might spark something within your own mind and intuition. Just like with a Tarot reading, your hunches and feelings about what something means takes precedence over anything I might say about it.

That’s what readings are about after all. As I see it, professional psychics with all of our woo woo cards, crystals, runes, tea leaves, star charts, chicken bones or what have you are all in service to one thing: the human experience. It isn’t about predicting the future. If that is what you want, then I’m not the reader for you. Buyer beware is all I’m saying about that kind of psychic sales pitch.

Intuitive readings aren’t about any external spirit or deity unless you want them to be. I don’t see it a reading as one bit supernatural. They are no more supernatural than an image in a mirror showing us a point of view we might not have otherwise seen. It is about emotion, perspective and our individual connection to the wholeness of everything. Are psychic readings subtle? Yes. Objectively measurable by science? No. Valid and valuable and enriching to the human experience? Absolutely.

I’m hoping that those of you listening today on the podcast will at some point visit the blog to see the card draw and crystal cast videos. The crystal cast posts will be a blog exclusive after today. There is a link to the blog website in the episode description. Some podcasting platforms allow for video podcasting. I tried a few test episodes, but it seemed to defeat the whole purpose of having an audio version of the blog in the first place. If you are in it to listen while you work or work out or drive or what have you, then for safety’s sake you shouldn’t be looking at a screen. If you want to see the visuals, please, by all means visit the blog or the youtube channel. But if you just want to listen, by all means, please, grab the podcast version and just listen. I value your attention and your thoughts no matter whether you are looking or listening or both.

But, as usual, I digress.

Back to this week and these crystals.

The first and obvious thing is the row of four touching runestones, like a literal wall across the path of the other crystals.

The clustering of clear chips under the wall of rune stones reminds me of last week’s reading. It isn’t a forever blockade. The energy here isn’t a NO – it’s a “slow down and cool your jets” kind of vibe. In my minds eye I see a school crossing guard telling everybody to slow down.

Last week’s reading had a lot of sparkle with an emphasis on productivity and progress. This isn’t a full stop to that previous message, but it is a little bit of fine tuning to the speed of it all. In a way, it is a validation of what you are doing. As dynamic as last week’s reading was and as often as the chaotic Tower Tarot card has shown up lately, this pattern is saying two things:

First, it is ok to cool it with big changes and the frenetic pace.

Second, all that stuff you started is good. Keep up the good work.

Here I get the mental image of that ridiculous looking shirt from the 70’s that said “keep on trucking.” I’m also reminded of Harry Connick Jr. on American Idol talking about singing “in the pocket” or being “in the groove” with the band or some such thing. Now I’m reminded of one of my favorite Twitter memes, your friend and mine, vibing cat.

Whatever you’ve been doing, if it’s working, keep doing it. To borrow some more cliches, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it and just keep on keeping on. Stay in the groove. Vibe with things as they are for a little while.

Of the four rune stones, three are blank. I don’t get the sense of brimming “potential” that I did with last week’s blank stones. There is more of a “stay” or “hold” feel. That would go along with the one rune that is showing – Isa, symbolic of ice.

It doesn’t get much more to the point than that in the intuition and symbolism business.

Chill.

Do, but don’t push. Continue, but at a relaxed pace. You are sliding along, not frozen solid in the ice.

Just to prove that a sense of humor exists in the world…as I write that I get the mental image of olympic curling, and the slow, smooth slide of the curling rocks.

The individual crystals in the top right hand corner of the photo remind me that there are always outliers. This reading doesn’t apply to every single person who hears it. This is a collective energy, general audience kind of reading that should never bear the burden of prediction, even if such a thing were possible. If this reading doesn’t resonate with you, that’s normal. No one reading can be everything to everyone. Keep listening and your perfect message will find you in time.

Thank you so much for reading and listening today. I welcome your questions and feedback through the comments below or the contact in the right hand column over there ->

There are links in the episode description for the podcast.

The blog, the podcast and the youtube channel are not monetized in any way, so they 100% rely on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi page where purchases and memberships all support creating these free blog and podcast Tarot readings for everyone.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

CrystalCast for the week of 11-6-22

Introducing CrystalCast look at the week ahead.

I want to know what you think.

Seriously.

I do.

Hello and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast.

I don’t clutter up comments with a sales pitch and I never ever ever target an individual to offer a reading under any circumstances (if anyone does that to you…RUN AWAY!) so I expect the same courtesy, but other than that, I love hearing from you all. I want to know what you think of this fun little reading.

At its heart, this is a scrying type of psychic reading. Scrying just means gazing. Think of the Queen in Snow White gazing at a mirror or the classic trope of the fortune teller staring at a crystal ball. The famous astrologer Nostradamus is said to have used water scrying, gazing at a bowl of water and reading the ripples and reflections in order to write his famous quatrains. As best as I can tell, the practice of scrying takes the natural, innate human psychological trait of pareidolia … seeing meaningful patterns in randomness … and puts it to good psychological use for personal growth and enrichment.

Just like with a Tarot reading, your impulse and instinct about the images comes before all else. It is what YOU think it is. The reading refers to whatever YOU know it to mean. The best readings are the ones where you walk away with the feeling of confirmation, validation and empowerment. The best readings are the ones where you walk away saying I KNEW it!

These readings, when you watch the video, let’s you engage your inner knowing with the reading in the strongest possible way. All readings, Tarot included, are about amplifying, engaging and empowering your part in all of this.

That’s the up side

With a purely intuition driven scrying reading, there are no established, collective, accepted meanings for anything we see on the tabletop. It’s a big leap of faith. It’s a leap of faith for me to trust my intuition and to lay an advanced level of trusting claim on my intuitive ability and my years of psychic experience. It takes a much larger leap of faith from you to trust the reading’s validity, to trust me. It means a lot that you’ve read this far. I hope that the years of blogging have earned your trust. I’ve been doing this professionally since around 2003, so I hope by now everyone has figured out this is legit. It’s art, but with a heart. This stuff can help in a lot of ways that we’ll talk about on another day.

To start with, let’s keep this light. It is a small leap of faith to do a fun little look at the energies for the week ahead. Honestly, the vibe today reminds me of those old school newspaper horoscopes. That is pretty clost to what Crystal Cast readings will be here in the blog and podcast. The ones you order will, as always, be deeper, more detailed and personalized.

If you are listening on the podcast, I hope you’ll make time to use the link in the show description to come watch the video of the cast itself. Scrying is, by definition, visual.

Now that we’ve talked about gazing and scrying and crystal casting, there are a couple of other things I want to define before we talk about this weeks rocks.

Most of the time, the intuitive impressions come as mental images. That is true for me no matter what amplification tool I’m using be it Tarot cards or playing cards, or crystals or runestones or I ching coins or nothing at all. It all works pretty much the same on the mental and intuitive level. That’s why I originally called the podcast “Clairvoyant Confessional.” This kind of intuitive mental image is the kind of clear-seeing that the word clairvoyant means.

The thing that led me to using runestones in this reading is none other than Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars Tarot that you’ve seen me use here in the blog, with his permission of course. It’s one of my favorite decks because of its pop culture references. When I’m doing readings for individual private clients, my intuition loves pop culture references. It is a wonderful communication tool. A song or a movie or a TV show can communicate exactly what spirit, or energy or intuition (whatever you like to call it) is trying to say. Typically this kind of information comes as words or music. When that happens I’ll say “I hear.” And no, it doesn’t mean I’m hallucinating. Saying “hear” simply means the intuition is presenting as words or sounds instead of mental images.

I’ve worked with aromatherapy, so fragrance will chime in for me more often for me than for the majority of psychics. If I get anything like that it is always intended as a general room fragrance which can support emotional states. I never suggest physical applications. That is best left in the hands of an aromatherapist in a proper holistic health consult. That sort of thing does not belong in any psychic reading.

Other senses can pop up too, but that is fairly rare. If a taste comes through, it probably means I’m hungry or it’s something I like and enjoy too.

All of that being said, let’s kick off this new kind of reading post and take a look at these pretties.

As I scattered the crystals, I heard the word “busy” The clear pieces caught attention more than the obsidian. They seemed very sparkling and glittery despite the overcast skies and subdued light. The general impression is that this is going to be a busy and likely productive week. If this were Tarot cards, I would expect to see plenty of pentacle cards around with that kind of practical, productive, real-world vibe. These lapis runestones have really nice pyrite inclusions. The gold flecks are prominent on the backs of these particular stones, with resonate with a career and money pentacle-like energy. The rune stones fell blank side up. As I learned it, that is called “Odin’s stones” Whatever that may traditionally mean, I ‘hear’ “blank slate” which hints at a lot of potential here. This week is a blank canvas eager for you to paint. I also hear “lay a foundation” looking at these stones. This week is a blank slate for you to start laying a foundation for future plans.

hmmm, interesting.

That word & hearing thing is called Clairaudience like the mental images are called clairvoyance. If this reading is any indication, crystals are going to be as chatty and mental word hearing as Tarot cards are mental image inducing. Cards show, crystals talk if this is any indication of the direction this is heading.

This is going to be fun.

There you have the short and sweet of it. I hope you enjoy your productive, busy, foundation-laying week.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! I appreciate your thoughts about this new reading. Actually I appreciate any questions, comments or feedback about any of the readings we do together.

These free to access readings depend on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where your purchases, memberships and virtual coffee tips all support the work that goes into bringing you this blog and podcast. Links to the blog page with the video and the ko-fi page are in the episode description for those of you listening on the podcast.

Thanks again see you at the next sip!