Tag: pittsburgh tarot reader

Rain

If you want to catch lighting in a bottle you have to stand in the rain.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: a Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is Lightning in a Bottle, one of the expansion pack cards created for the Alleyman’s Tarot deck by Seven Dane Asmund. It’s one of two lightning in a bottle cards. It is interesting to compare the two. You can see the other in the April 2022 blog post “The Makings of Magic” The other card is more ethereal while this one has almost a steampunk, industrial feel. The other card emphasizes the luck aspect of success, this one emphasizes the action part of it.

This card is akin to the famous Thomas Edison quote that “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Anything is possible but not everything is remotely probable. Tarot is a little like that. It doesn’t predict – it inspires us with the possibility and guides us with practical probabilities, but never exact certainties. You can’t predict exactly where lightning will strike. But you can read the weather report to see where the rain will be.

According to the national weather service, lightning can strike 10 miles or a little more away from a storm. So sure, it’s theoretically possible to be hit by a bolt of lightning while you are sitting in your back yard on a sunny afternoon, but it is far more likely to happen if you climb a tall tree in the middle of a thunderstorm.

If we think of this metaphoric lightning as creative inspiration, you can just sit around waiting for an idea to hit. Especially if just sitting around is part of your personal creative process. But that’s the trick isn’t it? That’s the climbing a tree in the rain part. That’s the perspiration part. It isn’t the sitting around in and of itself that sparks the genius. It comes from knowing what inspires you. It comes from thinking about and understanding your creative process, whatever your creative process might be. When you know yourself and know your process then you can put yourself in circumstances where the lighting will find you instead of you constantly chasing it.

So now you have your spark in a jug. What are you going to do about it? Anything? Or is just knowing you captured it enough?

It might be. Happy is the person who defines success in their own terms and achieves that instead of striving for other people’s expectations.

But let’s suppose that your success includes other people. What if you want to show or share the lightning? That’s when the work starts. That’s when climbing out of our imaginary tree and doing something with the bottle comes into play. This is the part of the process where the makers are going to make and Thomas Edison starts to sweat.

It takes work to do anything else but sit in a tree with your lighting bottle. If abiding with your lighting bottle what you want and need, by all means do that. There is a great deal of light and satisfaction in doing that and it is 1,000 percent enough. In this scenario, I think of the lightning bolt as being a metaphor for Zen style enlightenment. It is for you alone. It is for you to take home, make a part of your life, and let it light your way from now on.

If the lightning represents creative inspiration, then there might be more that needs done, a different tree to climb so to speak. Catching the idea is the first stroke of luck, making it exist in physical reality is another tree climb. If the thing you create is popular with other people, then that becomes another lucky lightning strike altogether.

Both bolts require us to spend time out in the rain.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always appreciated!

Neither the blog nor the podcast are monetized so your Tarot message comes first, not the advertisers. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi (link in the episode description.) The memberships, commissions, shop and virtual coffees all support the creation of this unique, (almost) daily Tarot content.

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Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Tarot Turnover: The Nitty Gritty

Hello! I’m glad you are here.

I start my day with coffee and contemplation. It’s not as Zen spiritual as you might think. It definitely has more of a Sheriff Hopper (from the Stranger Things series) and doom scroll until the static from just waking up clears kind of vibe.

Was taking my morning scroll when I came across a Instagram post about some minor detail about the hand of the figure in the 10 of swords being in the same position as the Hierophant card and how that was the reference to the assassination of some historical pope or another or something. My response was bah…too pedantic…and kept rolling.

While the Pope seems like a nice enough little grampa guy these days, Papal history is not something that typically flies on my radar, but the post and the notion of hand detail sunk through the static enough to make a couple of points.

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Easiest Wound to Heal

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Three of Swords: the easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens

Welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Good news! The turbulent energy from the past few weeks has settles just the tiniest bit, just in time to draw…

The three of swords.

Hoo boy. It never stops, does it? On the other hand stopping isn’t good either. Change and turbulence, peace and calm are all different facets of the same big gemstone we call life and any day above ground, as they say, is a good one. With life comes change. With life comes risk. With life comes all sorts of fears and feels.

Classically, the three of swords is a pretty dire looking card. The image of a pierced heart. It is a card of hurt and heartbreak.

It is a reminder to guard your heart. The easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens. Healthy boundaries is key, emphasis on the healthy. Prickly, guarded, disconnected and unapproachable is no better way to live than being an unappreciated doormat. The middle way is, once again, best.

Not to go all Nancy Reagan on it -ewww- but it is ok to just say no. Know your limits. It’s important that those limits aren’t crossed by other people, but it is important that you don’t stomp on them either. That is an easy part to forget in a world of social media and normalized extreme oversharing.

It doesn’t matter so much if the potential harm is from the outside or accidentally self-inflicted, but good old Ben Franklin nailed it again. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens. Mind your boundaries both incoming and outgoing.

Healthy boundaries means keeping the right things out, but it also means allowing the right things in. Sometimes the harm is in the lack. Without the challenge of exercise, bodies become weak. The over-sheltered plant dies from lack of sun and water. Saying yes is as important as saying no. The three of swords is also a reminder to mind your boundaries to make sure they aren’t over guarded causing you to live, act, intend and energize from a place of fear.

Cue Yoda and that thing about fear and anger leading to the dark side.

Ben Franklin and Yoda. Those two will get us through just about anything don’t you think?

Thanks for reading and listening! Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always appreciated.

Please support this non-monetized blog and podcast on the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships, commissions and virtual coffees all contribute to the web hosting and other costs to create this free to access, (almost) daily Tarot content.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

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The not-joking joker

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

Usually Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. You might want to pour yourself a full mug for this one. Possibly a full mug of something stronger than coffee. Or maybe not. I don’t know – let’s jump in and see where this takes us.

This is the joker card from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. The thing I love about exploring this outsized deck with you is the way it pushes me to the edge of my comfort zone. It also lets me interact with cards, decks and art I wouldn’t have otherwise.. This card is a little bit of both of those things.

As always, I read the card as-is before looking at the deck creators intentions and was rewarded for that pattern with this card. Intuitive reading is the whole intended point of the card which was originally drawn by Christian Ellingstad for the Arcadia playing cards. All of the cards in the Alleyman’s Tarot were either created by its author, created specifically for the deck, or used with direct permission. The author in me respects the work it took to make that level of permission and scholarship happen.

Here, the Joker card and its lovely line drawing pulls in two directions. The lighter, easier of the two talks about cartomancy. Technically, cartomancy means divination or an intuitive reading with any cards. Lenormand Tarot, Marseille style Tarot, oracle decks, playing cards – reading with all of those fall under the term cartomancy. You could use old maid cards if you really wanted to. Just as often, if not more so, when you hear the word cartomancy, it usually refers to using playing cards for the reading.

How do you do that, you might ask? The coffee mug isn’t big enough for that this morning. More on that some other day.

Long story short, readings with playing cards are at the same time the easiest and the hardest readings you can do. There are no details or complicated symbolism on playing cards. There isn’t much to memorize, so playing cards are a good way to start learning cartomancy in its largest sense.

Which is precisely why playing cards are the most difficult to use. There aren’t established meanings. There aren’t a lot of details or images for your intuition to use as fuel to find the right message. You have to read playing cards intuitively or you are screwed. Unless you add a big dose of pure intuition, playing cards are only good for playing games. But, on the other hand, if you are willing to take that chance and make the leap into intuitive reading, then playing cards are as good as any other deck for finding the insight and guidance you need.

OK, great. But what else is the Joker telling us about today?

After working with the Alleyman’s deck, I’m starting to take reversals more seriously. But even if we stick with my usual practice of deciding with pure intuition whether a reversal is indicating a slowing or blockage of energy or just happenstance, my hunch today is this card rightfully should stay upside down. So much so that this is in the old-school flip the meaning territory, which is rare in my experience.

This joker is serious.

Period. Underline. Exclamation point.

Ok, fine. But what is this joker so serious about?

I live in America. I’ll let you decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing because after the past 6 or 7 years, I’m honestly of two minds about it. Especially after the past couple of weeks.

99.999% of the time I avoid religion and politics in readings. My job is to try to bring clarity, not stir up muck. Despite that deliberate effort, sometimes intuition steps in, yoinks the good intentions right out of your hands and spits the real talk. Most of the time if it comes up, it is encouragement to get literally involved in civics; volunteer at an animal shelter, plant trees, that sort of thing. There is more to it this time. Full on politics has come crashing into a pretty little playing card.

After 4 July 2022 I can only see an inverted Joker one way: This is serious.

What the actual freaking fuckitty frack was that yesterday, America?

To the rest of the world, all I can say is – I’m sorry. I did all I had the means to do. I voted, yard signed, contributed – at one point I even volunteered and phone banked – which sucked – for a candidate who, luckily, did not suck. Yet here we are, screaming down the highway to theocracy and oligarchy and a bunch of other -archys and -isms that are – um – bad.

Democracy is in danger. Look at yesterday as if it were a Tarot reading. Consider the implications and symbolism if you drew a card that was an assault rifle slaughter of innocents at an Independence Day celebration. I’m at a loss for words. On top of the death, horror and tragedy you have a literal representation of democracy and decency under fire.

Maybe it was the movie JFK, but the phrase “kill box” keeps coming to mind. And, too, there was just an interview with Andrea Mitchell and a retired agent who worked in Dallas at one point in his career. He spoke about the paralles between the Highland Park shooting and Lee Harvey Oswald. I encourage you to listen to reliable news reporting and get the information directly for yourself. I’m not a journalist. It’s my job to stand here and point to the symbolism of it all.

This is serious.

I am worried for all religious and spiritual minorities (atheist, agnostic and secular included) as well as our LGBTQIA and our POC brothers and sisters.

This joker is not joking. All good and decent people have to band and act together, including voting this fall in hordes and droves. We have to make the polls look like that scene from the movie World War Z.

Meanwhile. Stay safe, be careful. Protect your privacy. Protest smart. Be aware of your surroundings in both cyberspace and meatspace. You are precious. We need you.

Thank you for reading and listening. Short Sip will be back tomorrow, hopefully with a little better mood for you. Take good care of yourself.

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It’s Own Magic

If everything changes in time, doesn’t that mean time is magic?

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Short Sip episodes are Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the Magician. It’s nice to see some major arcana cards showing up lately. That in itself is a nice little validation for me, that some of the energy and effort that I’ve been investing into refreshing the website and migrating the shop to a different platform in an effort to keep prices down on readings just might pay off.

It’s also an interesting compliment to the summer energy that’s out there. As a whole, the major arcana has so called “higher energy” That’s kind of a confusing way to say it. Sometimes higher vs lower energy is used qualitatively. Higher connotes something more esoteric, more spiritual, somehow “good” or virtuous while lower is sometimes used to connote something more banal and mundane, perhaps lesser quality or even malicious.

When I think of major arcana cards as having higher energy, it is a quantitative thing. Electromagnetic waves that have more cycles per unit of distance are said to have higher frequencies. There are just plain more waves in the wavelength not that they are any better or worse – unless of course you are talking about radiation and living tissue but that’s another story that we’ll ignore for now, since we are talking about Tarot card symbolism, not hard science & physics.

What I’m trying to say is that major arcana cards aren’t any better or any worse than the minor arcana. There is a surprising amount of overlap between some minor arcana cards and the majors. The minor cards have a gentler touch with the advice. They hand you a cookie and tell you that by the time you are done it will all be right as rain. Major arcana cards are more ka-pow. They are Oda Mae looking you straight in the eye and telling you that you in danger, girl.

I’ve been told by my Lenormand Tarot reading friends that the whole Lenormand deck is a little like that, all no holds barred frying pan to the face type stuff. It’s on my list of stuff to check out, but I have some other oracle exploration to get out of my system first. I’ll tell you more about that when it’s closer to ready for cyberspace.

Meanwhile, back at the Magician, this is fairly blunt. It reminds me of those internet memes from around the time when the movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was released where Wong would portal in, throw down some random weird statement and portal back out again. Today’s card is a little like that. There aren’t any circles here. No sneaking up and nabbing the point from behind like with the Turn Around or Tools of the Inner Trade post / episodes.

source: @imgur

The Magician card symbolizes transformation as much as it does manifestation. The only difference between life and magic is our preconceived expectations. The flow of time and life change and transform everything. If you are still alive, you are still magic.

Thank you for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare are always appreciated. Comments are open on the blog, which podcast listeners can reach through the link in the show description.

Just a reminder that the blog, podcast and socials will be on a short summer hiatus July first to July sixth. Email readings are open on the blog website throughout that time. So is the ko-fi page where memberships, the shop, commissions and virtual coffees all support the creation of this free to access Tarot content. The blog and podcast are not monetized. That let’s me serve up a sip of spirit message without the taste of corporate messaging.

Thank you so so much! See you at the next sip.

Turn Around

Sometimes you need to circle around a problem to nab the solution from behind.

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

Today’s card is the Hanged Man. This card is different-looking from the usual Hanged man. You can see the card being drawn in the blog and on the YouTube channel. This particular card was created by Emma Daues for the Alleyman’s Tarot Deck. I uses a cat curled up in a space bubble turning and drifting endlessly to get at the same message as the better known Pamela Smith card. That oblique approach pretty much is today’s message.

Regardless of the deck or artwork you use, the Hanged man most often has to do with stagnation, frustration, feeling stuck, going in circles making no progress.

Circles have been a bit of a theme the past couple of days. Remember how the Page of Wands was circling around to the back and nabbing the point from behind? Today has a little bit of that energy too. Endless space circles certainly captures the stuck, stagnation aspect of the card.

Sometimes the Hanged Man is connected to self-sacrifice or fearless sacrifice. I don’t get any sense of that lesser known interpretation from our space cat at all. Although, I imagine a good sci fi writer could use a self sacrificing bubble cat in space as a story prompt and come up with something.

The main energy today lies with one of the most common messages I get with this. I suspect it is a very repeated idea because it is, in my opinion, the most useful one. This part of the card talks about seeing things from a different point of view.

As you think about problems or decisions turn things around. Turn it upside down. Kick the tires. Take outlandish options out for a spin mentally.

My all time favorite analogy for this energy is an interview I watched on TV once with one of the Disney “imagine -eers.” I can’t remember the gentleman’s name or any exact quotes but the essence of it was they would use physical models of new rides and attractions during the creative development process. A key they would use the model was for specific creative problem solving. If a problem turned up they would look at the physical model from physically different angles. They would stand on chairs and look down on it, sit on the floor and look up at it. I imagine they would circle around it too. A physical shift in perspective could spark inspiration for a creative solution or bring focus to a diffuse, poorly understood problem.

If there is something you are pondering, the Hanged Man reminds you to look at it from all sorts of angles. Circle around, maybe you need to nab the solution from behind. Turn around, see what the problem looks like behind you instead of perpetually chasing it down.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! I appreciate any likes, subs, shares, follows, questions, comments or feedback that you can spare. Comments on the blog are open.

The blog & podcast are not monetized, so we are working for the highest and best energy message, not for advertisers. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships, commissions and virtual coffees all support the creation of this free to access (almost) daily Tarot content.

Thank you again. See you at the next sip!

Tools of the Inner Trade

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: the page of wands and learning along the spiritual path.

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

I’m a big fan of freethinking. I recommend it. Free your mind, question everything and all of that. Those of you who know my background know that I’m a downright expert at parachuting out of organized dogma.

On the other hand, repetition and tradition can be deeply comforting, especially in times where it feels like the world is on fire and evil is winning. For some reason this reminds me of a quote from G.K Chesterton that I found browsing brainyquote.com once. Paraphrasing quote “A warrior fights not because he hates what is before him, but because he loves what is behind him.” End quote.

Forgive me if this is all a little circular and confusing. The energy is like that some days. Sometimes it is blunt, short and to the point like a frying pan in the face. Other times it is like a connect-the-dots puzzle or a Rube Goldberg machine. Today, instead of getting to the point, the energy is circling around and nabbing it from behind.

Page cards are connected with learning. They are the first step in training to be a knight. Historically, they were young boys which brings to mind brightness, curiosity, high energy and unbridled enthusiasm. Wands are associated with fire, passions, the inner world. Today it is particularly pointing toward our inner spiritual path. Part of the circling around to the point is to think about our chosen spiritual rituals and traditions. What is it that we turn to in times of emotional crisis? What is our go-to rock and foundation….it’s almost like the page is waving hello to the Hope card and the “Anchor Rock” post as it circles around to today’s point, if there is one.

The Pew Foundation does scientific, unbiased, highly reliable surveys. Their work on the religious landscape in America is interesting to say the least. It turns out that agnostics and atheists know quite a lot about religion in general compared to most other American adults. You can read more for yourself on the Pew Foundation website HERE. This takes a step closer to today’s message.

The next step after that is the famous Socrates quote “know thyself.”

Here is where we jump the card’s message from behind and wrestle it to the ground.

The Page of Wands asks us to know the tools of our chosen spiritual path.

I’m not talking about religious indoctrination or dogma. I’m allergic to that stuff. You will never hear any of that here.

I’m talking about the rituals and symbols and acts of your personal chosen spiritual path whatever that may be. This is talking about the ideas and philosophies that feed your soul, soothes your heart, lifts you up and makes you happy. If your religion does that for you, cool. This energy is talking about spirituality, which is a very different thing. Sometimes spiritual paths are shored up by ritual and tradition, too. The page is asking us to know our motives and symbolism and rituals and habits along our spiritual path. We are being asked to know the difference between the outward social trappings of religion and the physical realm expressions of our personal inner world. The page of wands is asking us to intellectually know our spirituality in addition to deeply and mindfully experiencing it.

When you are finding your own way in or if you are eclectic and solitary by nature, it is easy to reject tradition as stifling or constricting. The page reminds us to know before we throw so to speak. Knowing something well makes it all the more fulfilling when it is right for you. By the same token, you have to know something to some degree before you can rightly reject it.

Thank you for reading and listening. As the squirrels are raving at the moment, this should be the last late night post for a while. We should be back to posting late morning U.S. eastern time most weekdays. For the moment, anyway.

This blog and podcast are not monetized. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships and virtual coffees all support the creation of this (almost) daily Tarot content. There is a link in the episode description for podcast listeners. Thank you all so so so much.

See you at the next sip!

Reminder: there will be a short blog, pod, and socials hiatus the weekend of the July 4th holiday. Email readings will be OPEN throughout. You can order email readings 24/7 no appointment needed. Delivery times vary for orders placed nights (eastern time), weekends, & U.S. holidays

Inescapable Unity (both edges apply)

No matter how thin you cut a coin, it still has two sides.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today the emphasis is on short. As in a short week. I don’t want to do half-assed readings for you. I want to do the best Tarot reading I can for you be it here on the blog and podcast or be it in a private individual session. Usually I straight up take a couple of weeks off around this time of year. This year, I thought I could fit a little Tarot work in and around other things, but it isn’t quite working out that way. Like my new favorite internet meme says, I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are hosting a rave. Long story short, E-mail Tarot readings are open, but the blog, podcast and social media will be on a short hiatus from now until June 27, 2022 and again over the weekend of July 4. After that it is right back to the usual squirrel rave playlist.

With that announcement out of my system, let’s get to today’s card, the two of swords.

Swords are associated with the mind, intellect and the element of air. They are a symbol of power and authority, society and culture too. Swords were the weapons of war for a broad swath of human history. If we take a more contemporary, relational point of view of the suit of swords they can symbolize our relationship with authority, and with the bigger definitions of society; your nationality, your ethnicity, your religion, your political affiliation. Sometimes swords carry a thread of Hierophant or Pope type energy. Social conventions are a minor background energy today.

More often than not, Tarot is intensely personal. It isn’t often that a spirit or energy message connects to society at large. Today’s card, however, is reminding us that we are never not connected to it. We are never not connected to anything. We are never not connected to everything.

The two aspects of this card are interesting. Two cards vary in theme from suit to suit. Two of pentacles is the essence of balance and has a similar vibe to Temperance in the major arcana. Two of cups is about committed one to one emotion, marriage and long term relationships. Two of wands is about watching, hope and preparation within an individual. The two of swords speaks to mental state, things like indecision, being of two minds about something, or somehow in an unwinnable situation with equal good and bad consequences…something that cuts like a double edged sword as the saying goes

In her book Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao, Diane Morgan interprets the two of swords as mystical unity.

However sharp or dull the edges of a sword may be, they are still a part of the same sword. Even if you split a sword down the middle, you get more edges, each connected to its mate.

We are three dimensional beings. There is no one side to anything. As strongly as the two of pentacles points a dynamic balancing dualities, the two of swords points to an inescapable unity. No matter how thin you slice a coin it always has two sides. You can’t deny the existence of the sword’s other edge, the coin’s other side – or your many sides either. Sometimes you just have to choose which edge you use, which side of the coin to show, and which facet of you to that you use to interface with the rest of culture or or your larger social groups. Whatever side you choose to show, the other sides of you, even the sides you may not like so much, still exist.

It is a dangerous thing to ignore one side of sword when all the edges apply.

One of those edges is feeling like it is useless to choose or stop caring about important decisions. Remember…whatever sad, angry, terrifying thing makes you want to give up, you are equally connected to happy, kind, supportive, comfortable things. Out there, somewhere in the universe, in there somewhere on a bone deep molecular level, there is a connection to love and support. You are star stuff, and many people love stars.

The edges may cut, but the center connects.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always appreciated!

The blog and podcast are not monetized and depend on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where the shop, memberships and virual coffees all support the creation of this unique Tarot content.

Helpful links are in the episode description for podcast listeners.

See you in a few days at the next sip.

Different Wealth

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude taks what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth.

Hello and welcome to Tao Craft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Four of Disks from the Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, art by Dark Synevyr.

There is a strong sense of juxtaposition and contrast with the card and energy today. It’s like double vision in your mind’s eye of all freaky things. Ah well, it is Friday.

There is face value meaning here. Coin cards in general are associated with wealth, career, or our relationship with the physical realm.

The four of coins in particular (or the Four of disks, or pentacles or whichever name you prefer) is associated with being conservative and watching the budget. If the card is reversed it can mean the need to watch the budget because of low or dwindling resources. Taken to an extreme it can have a tone of hoarding and greed. In this case it has a tone of smart money management. It is about living within your means. It’s about making do and making more.

That’s the surface.

It also feels like there are watery depths here, like the deep inner wisdom we were talking about in the “It’s there” blog post and podcast episode a few days ago. The mental image is like one of those tiktok videos where they make fancy drinks or swirly color artwork with spheres of partially frozen, very clear ice. The surface of the ice they use is solid and crystal clear with a swirling, watery center. The energy with this card is a little like that.

On the surface we have solid practical advice: Use your money smarts. Mind the budget. This is a time to be practical with money and not frivolous. The energy is definitely not right for impulse buys.

Beneath that surface is something much more esoteric and spiritual. Beneath that is volumes about mindset, manifestation and how powerful thoughts and words can be.

It’s that glass half full, glass half empty thing.

Think about it. Or plunk a glass of water on the table and LOOK at it. What you think about glass doesn’t change the literal amount of water. 8 ounces is 8 ounces and 4 ounces is four ounces and what you think, feel or believe isn’t going to change that objective measure by one molecule.

The glass half full versus a glass half empty doesn’t have anything to do with the physical glass or water at all. It is all about words and perceptions and mental habits and emotional paradigms. Think about that glass of water. When you think of it as half empty, it creates a phantom. It alludes to water that that used to be there but is gone now. This way of thinking focuses on the empty space and what the glass doesn’t have when that extra volume may never have been there in the first place. What if the glass used to be only a quarter full and a half is a big improvement? The adjective “empty” shifts our perception, not the water that is, was or will be.

By the same token, if we think of the glass as half full, the adjective “full” shifts our perception in the other direction. This way of thinking focuses on certainty, reality, the water that is definitely there and hits at more to come.

Here I get that annoying platitude to “have an attitude of gratitude.” There is some sort of new-age-y idea out there that being grateful for what you have will create a feeling of abundance and in turn manifest what you want through some twist of the Law of Attraction. Gratitude isn’t some magic bullet. Forcing yourself to feel grateful in general isn’t going to attract some specific object of desire.

Genuine feelings of gratitude are, however, a definitive inner shift in perception and thus a change in our experience of the outer world as it stands now.

My mind is drawn toward a line from the Starz series version of Neil Gaimon’s American Gods. The character Salim hints at the difference between mainstream Christianity in America and Islam as he knows it. If memory serves he said something like “That is the difference between us – you pray to get the things you want. I pray to say thank you for what I already have.”

That is exactly the energy today. Gratitude will not magically bring what you want and don’t yet have…but instead that gratitude will change your perception of what wealth really is for you. Manifesting wealth, prosperity gospel, think positive, be grateful to get what you want nonsense not only risk your money, but they can rob you of your peace of mind and spirit.

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude takes what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Being thankful for what you have instead of praying for what you don’t have is potent alchemy. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth, but a priceless one.

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