Tag: pittsburgh taort reader

Tipping Point

Thanks for watching, reading and listening today. TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.

The Two of Pentacles is the quintessential balance card in the deck. In some ways it is even more balance oriented than Temperance in the major arcana. Temperance has a feel of balance by mixing. The Two of Pents is balance through the adjustment and tension between opposites. In this kind of balance, the balance point is also a tipping point.

In the yin-yang symbol of Taoism, the opposite colored dots in each side of the circle remind us that in anything lies the seed of it’s opposite. Anything take to extreme can become its opposite. Anything in perfect balance can tip into its opposite.

In Dune, Frank Herbert writes “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” Both beginnings and balances are delicate things. Both are dynamic, changing things.

The yin-yang symbol is meant to be in motion. The trailing tail of the black and white parts hint at that motion, as apposed to showing perfect pie-slice halves. Balance is a thing in motion too. This card always brings to mind a unicycle rider who can stay upright in one place by making small forward and backward movements . In the big picture, they may not seem to be moving forward, but in order to stay upright, there is a lot of movement going on in the wheel, just in balanced opposite directions.

Pentacle cards are often read as being about work, career, money, practicality or some aspect of the physical world. They are also associated with the element of earth and by extension the idea of grounding and balance. Everybody talks about “finding balance.” But what do you do once you have it?

Balance is easier to maintain than to get in the first place, but once you have it, it takes a little attention to maintain it because life is in motion. Opposites are always at the doorstep. Which one would you invite in? Which one would you use to maintain a delicate balance when a balance point is also a tipping point.

Thank you for watching, listening and reading! Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or reading orders you can spare are always appreciated!

See you at the next sip.

POV upside down

Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip – Tarot guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the Hanged Man from the major arcana.

Usually this card is associated with stagnation or being stuck or “hung up” somehow. Today another meaning is stepping forward. It is all about perspective. It is all about point of view.

The things coming to mind today are the same ones I’ve talked about for years in the print blog. Like I’ve always said, one person’s stuck in the mud is another person’s spa treatment.

There is a lot of subjectivity in the passage of time. A few weeks might be a nice break when you’ve been busy or under stress. Mental respite is as important as physical get-aways. But what if waiting IS the stress? Then waiting a few weeks more might be intolerable. It’s unreasonable to expect to change your point of view all that quickly. Frustration doesn’t turn off and on like a faucet.

If you feel stuck, are you measuring progress by the right thing? If your love life is going nowhere, look to other parts of life to see if there is opportunity for movement, for happiness – and vice versa. If, for example, work has been moving too fast, look at other area of life for opportunities to slow down.

It seems simple and obvious, but sometimes when we are caught up in stress of one kind or another the simple and obvious gets out of focus. We lose the forest in the trees as the saying goes. Tarot not only teaches far flung grand ideals spooky spiritual stuff. It is just as likely to give calm, practical advice.

Sometimes even Tarot turns its point of view upside down.

Thank you for watching, reading and listening to today’s short sip Tarot. Follow the blog to get all of my Tarot content. Short sip daily meditation Tarot card readings are available on the blog, on the TaoCraftTarot YouTube Channel and on the Podcast by the same name. The podcast is available on Spotify, Anchor FM, Stitcher and more. Any likes, subs, shares, follows or reading orders you can spare are always, always appreciated.

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.

Short Sip Tarot: Imagine

Short Sip Tarot is a a Tarot reading in the time it takes for a sip (or two) of your morning coffee.

Today’s card is the Page of Cups.

I’ve always loved the fun and absurdity of a fish in a cup, which is probably the most iconic image associated with this card.

It takes an active imagination to really enjoy it, I think. That’s the cool thing about imaginations. All it takes to activate it is to want to do it. Want to be imaginative? Imagine what it would be like and POOF it’s there.

We tend to associate imagination with children and artists. I disagree. I think we are all wired to be imaginative. It’s what gives homo sapiens our evolutionary advantage. We can imagine something out of impossible nothingness and then figure out a way to make it tangible. Logic and science and imagination and intuition are all deeply interdependent

That’s why I believe we are all capable of intuition. Imagination and intuition are closely linked. Try this sometime: Imagine what your day will be like tomorrow. It can be anything. It can be what you WANT to happen or it can be what you EXPECT to happen. It can be as realistic or as fish-in-a-cup absurd as you want it to be. Close your eyes and imagine it as best as you can for a minute. Write a few notes about what you imagined if you want. Written or remembered revisit your bit of imagination at the end of tomorrow.

It isn’t going to be predictive. What actually happens might be – probably will be – totally different from the way you imagined it. Think of your minute of imagination more broadly and abstractly than that. Was there anything your moment of imagination taught you about how to deal with today? Did it show you anything about bias and expectations that may have tripped up the day that happened?

Or, of equal importance, how did the minute of imagination affect your mood?

Did imagining the day to come make you more anxious for what might happen? Did it really happen that way? Imagination can teach us about anticipatory anxiety, like the Mark Twain quote “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.”

Maybe imagination helped you feel more prepared and calmer about the unexpected. The possibilities are endless and also useful. Imagination can be a very grown up thing. Although grown ups can have fun too. You never know when you are going to need to play stare eyes with a fish in a cup.

Your Attention Makes It Sacred

mindfulness consecrates

Today’s card is the Chariot from the major arcana portion of the Tarot deck.

I always think of this as the jet pilot card. That is probably influenced by all of the Richard Bach books I read in my 20s. Whether it is a chariot in a race like the old movie Ben Hur, driving the beltway at rush hour or flying a supersonic aircraft, you have to pay attention to what you are doing or end up in a crumpled heap somewhere. I’ve never done any of those things, but I imagine it is a heck of a lesson in mindfulness.

Besides helping you to survive at high rates of speed, paying attention does some other nifty stuff at the complete other end of the velocity spectrum.

Mindfulness consecrates.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein hints at this too. Toward the end of the book, I think it was Mary Jane who described the title character, Valentine Michael Smith “…when Mike kisses you he isn’t doing anything else. You’re his whole universe and the moment is eternal…”

When you pay full attention to where you are it makes that place special. When you pay full attention it makes that moment special. When you pay full attention to another person it makes magic for both of you.

Thank you so much for reading the blog and listening to the podcast. If you have any questions, please contact me at the email listed in the right hand column on the blog or in the episode description of the podcast. Don’t be shy! You might get a free Tarot reading in a podcast episode. Don’t worry. I keep any identifying information out of the conversation. Someone else might be in the same boat, and you’ll be helping them, too.

Just a reminder: if you follow Tao Craft Tarot blog you get everything, the whole enchilada, every bit of Tarot content I create including links to Clairvoyant Confessional podcast, notices when member only content goes live, card draw videos and the print only blog posts. See you on the print side!

A Sip of Tarot: both directions

Today’s card is the six of wands.

Wands cards in general have to do with the element of fire, and our relationship with ourselves. Wands cards are about our inner world, but our feelings are not entirely separate from physical events.

The six of wands in particular often symbolizes peace, a rest after a struggle of some kind. Pamela Smith’s famous artwork has a knight, a warrior, on horseback carrying a laurel wreath which is a symbol of peace. The tone isn’t so much one of a conquering hero or occupying force, but the feeling is of being on the winning side. This card is about peaceful feelings, and feelings of satisfaction after a job well done, despite the hints of recent combat or struggles.

Compliments feel good, especially when they are linked with a personal sense of achievement like this. If you haven’t received a pat on the back for doing work, try giving a word of encouragement to someone else. Any tiny little thank you will do. Then enjoy, because with compliments the good feelings flow in both directions.

Time to make the sausage

Today’s card is the King of Pentacles

It’s Monday.

At least it is as I pulled this card and type this post.

Intuition is weird. It is very Heisenberg uncertainty principle. If you look at a card reading through the lens of a moment in time, it cuts it off from the greater flow of time. Kind of like screen capturing a movie as it plays.

Some readings, like today, are meant for that. They are intended for the moment.

Doing Tarot readings on the internet is weird.

Whatever you read or write can be accessed anywhere at any time by anyone. Tarot, intuition, energy and spirit are good with that. After all, this present moment is a connected, unified part of that big giant wibbly wobbly lump of everything. If you look at a card through the lens of that unified timelessness, it cuts it off from the present moment a little bit.

Like Heisenberg, you can know a particles exact location or you can know how fast it is moving but not both at the same time. Same thing here. You can connect a card to this present moment and hope it resonates with whatever other moment someone stumbles across it, or you can connect it to the larger energy which doesn’t capture the moment of the reading.

This card, here, now today is resonating with a reading for the moment.

It’s Monday.

Be kind to the head of your household, whoever it might be. Mom. Dad. You.

It is one of those pour some coffee, time to make the donuts, this is how the sausage gets made, get to it, get through it, no frills kind of Mondays. Good luck and godspeed *raises mug of coffee*

Speaking of mugs, any support you can spare goes toward creating the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast, the card draw videos, and the blog. A Sip of Tarot (almost) daily meditation nano-episodes are available on multiple platforms. Thank you so much for listening, watching and reading!

Your Turn

Tarot Turnovers flips the script on YouChoose Interactive Tarot readings: I choose the card, YOU give the meaning.

Today’s card is Judgement.

Possible meanings include

  • consequences for your actions
  • karma is coming into play
  • rise from the ashes – a second chance is coming
  • don’t keep punishing yourself. Pay your dues and move on
  • use reason and sound judgement to make the decision
  • Where are you being too lenient or judging too harshly

Few quick reminders:

  • Zombie Cat yes/no Tarot readings by email are $5 off until Halloween 10-31-21. Ask Zombie Cat ANYTHING. The readings are 100% GUARANTEED to contain words, but have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
  • All tips given to the virtual coffee mug supports this blog, the YouTube videos that show the (almost) daily real-world card draw and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast.
  • The podcast now features the (almost) daily “Sip of Tarot” nano episodes. Get a one card Tarot meditation in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee
  • The NEW membership tier, only available on ko-fi is now live. For $5 per month you get a seat at the reading table with a monthly members-only pathway reading, random special offers and giveaways, and a private “year ahead” reading by email when you join.
  • in-person readings are available on a *very limited* basis and face masks are required throughout the reading, no exceptions. No mask = no reading & no refund.
  • Watch for a special new feature to be announced here in the blog on Halloween

Midweek Reminders

I dunno what the heck happened, but today’s “sip of tarot” post just isn’t loading into the podcast so we’ll just have to settle for blog , ko-fi, and YouTube Shorts for today’s card.

That being said, I want to run through some quick announcements – as much to get myself organized as much as anything

Barring mysterious technical gremlins, the (almost) daily one card meditation readings will be on multiple platforms so you can look, listen or both. Instead of “Today’s Tarot” these posts will all be titled “Sip of Tarot” to keep them distinct from “YouChoose” interactive posts and other blog-only content. Sips of Tarot can be found here on the blog page, on YouTube, Clairvoyant Confessional podcast (Spotify, Stitcher, googlepodcasts, anchor fm & more) and the Ko-fi blog

Speaking of ko-fi: The membership tier is OPEN. For $5 per month, members get a three card “pathway through the month” reading, member-only specials and giveaways, and a private, individual “year ahead” reading by email when you join.

The ko-fi virtual tip mug supports the podcast, the channel and this blog.

Speaking of this blog, you can follow it over there –>

Everything goes through here: links to podcasts, youtube videos, announcements of new member-only content, print-only blog posts exclusive to this site – all of it is right here.

TaoCraft Tarot social media is on Facebook, Tumbler, & Linkedin, but I only really interact with Instagram and Twitter. Drop by and say hi sometime!

I expect to pull all of that stuff together in a few weeks with a little something for Halloween, to celebrate the third anniversary of TaoCraft Tarot’s grand opening.

A Sip of Tarot: Frontiers

I love space.

When I was 4, dad woke me up one midnight to watch men walk on the moon. I wanted to be a cowgirl nurse astronaut in space and campaigned hard for a later bedtime to watch Apollo launches. I’ve been a card carrying member of The Planetary Society, starting in 1987. These days, I’ll settle for being a Firefly fan and watching SpaceX launches.

Today as I filmed the card draw and write this, news coverage of the Blue Origin flight with William Shatner aboard is playing in the background. The word “frontiers” came to mind along with the Peter Gabriel song “Games Without Frontiers.

It was a joyride. It was pure tourism. The only science in it was developing the vehicle and procedures. After watching NASA and SpaceX watching this felt like watching baseball players squirt champagne while wearing safety goggles after just watching the Stanley Cup final. But then Mr. Shatner started talking.

As much as I adore science and technology, I equally adore language and powerful communication. The color, the universe, the thinness, the fragility: I can’t begin to sum it up. I urge you all to please, find a tape, listen to him.

The frontier line is different for everyone. Everyone has different skills, experiences, resources.

The experience of that frontier line, wherever it falls relative to other people’s is different as well. For some people, skydiving might be as easy as a trip to the grocery store, for others a trip to the grocery store is as terrifying as skydiving.

It’s one thing for humanity to send scientists and explorers to the frontier. It’s important to fling a poet at space every now and then too. They are the ones who can bring the frontier back to the rest of us.