pittsburgh tarot reader – Page 19 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Hold Space

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Ace of Cups and holding space for good things to flow in.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft 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 Ace of Cups. Cups are associated with emotion, inner circle relationships, romance, and the classic element of water. The ace is the essence of the deck. Today, the ace of cups has a feeling of abundance overflowing like a cornucopia. The universe provides. It may be in unexpected or under appreciated ways, but if we are alive it has provided that much and that is extraordinary.

The water part is catching my attention too. It reminds me of the famous interview where Bruce Lee says to quote Be water, my friend, end quote.

Water takes on the shape of whatever hold it. If there is no room for the water, it spills over and goes somewhere else.

Today’s card is simple and to the point. If you want good things to come into your life, then they have to have somewhere to land. If you want good things to flow into your life, they have to have some place to flow into.

This can be as literal or esoteric as you want it to be. For example, it is standard issue boilerplate advice for those who are looking for a long term romantic partner, their soulmate if you will, to make literal space for that person. Clearing out a drawer, getting an extra toothbrush to have on hand, getting a pair of matching coffee mugs, having figurines around in pairs; all of those physical things can send an energy signal that you are living your life, but have made space in that life for a special someone.

Creative visualization, alters, journaling all sorts of things can hold space on an energetic level for good things to flow into.

No wonder spring cleaning and decluttering is believed to remove negative energy and attract or positive energies. Remember that Zen proverb that only an empty cup can be filled? I’m not saying you have to get rid of your stuff, but maybe dust it off and get it organized.

Be specific. Never invite just any old thing into your life. In my mind’s eye, I see one of those reserved parking spaces for a particular person or a particular building.

I also see a figure holding a bowl up to the sky, to be filled with golden light. Nice visualization there. Feel free to use it. The more we all lift our empty bowls to the sky, the more we can call an energy of abundance and provision into the world.

Thank you for reading, watching and listening.

This blog, podcast and the companion videos are not monetized – they depend on your support. Tarot readings purchased through this website*, Tarot Table memberships, likes, subs, shares, and follows all support the creation of this unique Tarot content for you.

Once again I’m working with my new Alleyman’s Tarot deck, which features both original cards by Seven Dane Asmund, creator of the Normal Tarot and cards gifted and licensed from a hundred or more decks and artists. The card shown was made by Vicente Molina for the Tarot Morandi.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip.

*email readings are available for purchase 24/7, no appointment needed

Fear of the Unknown and the Shower Cap Lady

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: fear of the unknown and the annoyed shower cap lady.

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

When this card turned over, my first and only thought was “what the actual heckin’ heck is that?”

It’s got a horse, a sword (or maybe it is a stick) and a pissed off looking woman in a shower cap. Queen of swords maybe? Knight of wands? Bad hair day card?

At first, I didn’t even know what the card was much less what to think or say about it. Which, I think, is the message. The words “fear of the unknown” popped to mind. Which makes logical sense because I wasn’t sure if it was a knight, a queen, a sword or a wands card.

For a flash, I had a snowballing moment of fearful not-knowing. Not knowing the card means I’ll write a terrible post, so I’ll never get paying work as a Tarot reader ever again, which means decades of effort goes down the drain because I’ve wasted my life on woo woo spooky shit and oh-my-god-we’re-all-gonna-die.

That, my friends, is a living example of psychological stress and exactly what Tarot and mindfulness is designed to help.

Sometimes, the best thing you can know is that you don’t know. It prompts you to prepare, think, act and adapt.

Sometimes the worst thing you can do is let fear of the unknown drag you into dwelling on the future instead of being mindful of the present reality.

Fear of the unknown isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fear unbridled puts your heart in prison. Fear utilized sets you free. As has been attributed to all sorts of people from Mark Twain to President Roosevelt quote courage is not the absence of fear but rather the ability to act in spite of it end quote.

Turns out all I needed to do was walk into the next room and pick up the deck guidebook and do a little googling. Looks like we might survive after all, folks!

On a small scale that’s exactly the kind of thing that goes with the Knight of Swords which is what shower cap chick turned out to be.

The Cary-Yale visconti tarot deck published by US Games in the 1980s is made up of reproduced images from a 15th century partial Tarot deck. According to author Stuart R. Kaplan as quoted by google books, the original deck is in the Cary card collection in the rare books and manuscripts library at Yale University. New cards were created to fill in the missing cards and create a full, functional deck. I don’t know if this particular card is original or a fill-in, but Kaplan also points out that the court cards in the original deck is a mixture of male and female figures, which is interesting for the time period. I don’t know about the shower cap, but it turns out that it really is an annoyed looking woman on a horse. The way she is holding the sword reminds me of an internet meme of Qui-Gon from Star Wars jumping up and drawing his light saber with the caption of “When you are home alone and you hear a noise”

Seven Dane Asmund writing as the Alleyman interprets the card as sudden opportunity, rapid movement, advice to take advantage of sudden opportunities or you could miss it. This is spot-on for the Knight of Swords imagery in every other deck I’ve seen.

So NOW what do we do? Is there anything that reconciles the Cary-Yale image and the flash about fearing the unknown with the typical daring imagery of the knight of swords we see in so many other decks?

I think the idea of being on guard combined with taking advantage of sudden opportunities builds the bridge between this very old card and the common modern interpretations for the knight of swords.

If fear of the unknown paralyses us, and keeps us from acting, then we might miss key opportunities. If fear of the unknown takes us into a new situation prepared and alert and ready to make the most of a sudden opportunity, then fear of the unknown has served us well.

Just don’t forget to take your shower cap off.

Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening.

The TaoCraft Tarot blog, podcast and youtube channel are not monetized and depend solely on audience support. Your reading purchases and ko-fi memberships contribute toward creating this unique Tarot content. Links to them are clickable in the blog or located in the podcast episode description.

Your likes, subs, shares, and follows are always appreciated too!

See you at the next sip.

It’s Not All That

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today is the 6 of cups and the monday gremlins

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

Todays card is the six of cups.

I’m still getting to know this new Tarot deck. The Alleyman’s Tarot is full of surprises. I wasn’t expecting a Japanese influenced card, but enjoy this one. I’ve always liked anime. I’ve been watching it since around 1970 when my kindergarten self was fangirling Kimba the White Lion. There is something vaguely Inuyasha about the energy today.

It’s a good one for a Monday too. As the workweek starts and the weekend ends, our thoughts sometimes turn to the serious and the ponderous. Mondays aren’t usually a play day.

This energy is asking us to lighten up a little bit. It ain’t all that. The advice is not to build things up to be bigger than they really are. The classic RWS deck shows children playing in a field of flowers.

Mondays often are not a field of flowers. Life can be full of annoyances any day of the week. Mondays are just another day. Nuisances are just another part of being alive on plane Earth. It is what it is but not more than it is.

By the same token, just because something is pleasant and easy doesn’t mean it is somehow lesser than if you struggled or it was unpleasant. It is what it is but not less than it is.

The Six of Cups reminds us to, even in the face of Mondays, and annoyances and inconveniences, and things that happen astonishingly easy, to stay chill and roll with it. It’s not all that one way or the other.

The card was originally made by Buboplague for the Yokai Yochi Tarot deck. A fast and superficial google shows that yokai are mischievous spirits from japanese folklore. As playful as the card looks, broken umbrellas with legs are vaguely disturbing too. It makes me think of how “gremlins” from the movie have come to mean any unexplained glitches like “computer gremlins.” The Alleyman’s Notebook describes the card as innocent joy, just like the RWS interpretation. It too reminds us to have a fun like a child despite all the adulting we have to do.

Thank you for reading and listening. Any likes, subs, shares or follows you can spare are always appreciated. Private email Tarot readings through this website and Memberships on Ko-fi.com support the creation of these free Tarot posts and podcast episodes.

See you at the next sip!

Delay of Coffee

announcement – delay in short sip tarot reading for Friday. Please stay tuned for a longer behind the scenes the post featureing the four of wands tarot card in reverse

Today’s short sip Tarot full reading will post tomorrow, because of ….stuff.

This card’s energy was kicking me in the shins a little bit, and hitting a bit close for comfort. I don’t want to over-share, so I won’t. It did, however, make today’s post take longer to wrangle into something kind of understandable. It’s too late in the day to be useful as a coffee and contemplation for your day kind of reading so we’ll try again in the morning. Please let me know what you think about any post….comments on the blog are open, as are comments on the YouTube channel and voice mail on Anchor FM. Ask me anything! (Just remember that answers will post in the blogcast.)

You choose how you interact

You choose your Tarot card and your message for today with this innovative blend of Tarot guidance video, blog and podcast.

You know, I really want to re-work how I do these interactive readings. I want to make them more audio friendly for the podcast and honestly, I just don’t enjoy the monologuing into a microphone thing. It has such a performance feel. I know I’m not a good extemporaneous speaker and that makes it hard to bring the level of communication and authenticity I can give you in a live one to one conversation or in a typed format. I think I’ve said this before. Conversation is one thing, but broadcasting to a general audience is another. One to one versus general audience readings aside, you can compare the You Tube video to the typed transcript here in the blog and the text to speech version in the podcast. Dang it Jim, I’m still a writer, not on camera talent. At the same time, I really do like the what the video brings to the blog, especially for the interactive, pick-your-own-card readings like this. I think it brings an important level of transparency and authenticity to the posts. You know it is a totally genuine, heartfelt, raw, unedited, real-world card reading. You get to see it happen as well as read or hear the words of it. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems fairly symbiotic – the two together are greater than the sum of the parts. Especially for people like me who think they are some kind of Shakespeare until the mic turns on and it all turns into babbling incoherance.

Here’s my thought and I really want to know what you all think. It would genuinely help me to have this feedback. Just being here and reading or listening to this is wonderful support – and I thank you for that – but I could really use an extra hand with this interactive idea. Please leave any thoughts or suggestions or questions in the blog comments, the youtube comments, answer the question on spotify or leave a voicemail on anchor fm. Are these interactive readings interesting or helpful at all? If I put a pithy card contemplation in the video description and a full card reading on the blog and podcast would it still be as helpful and interesting? Honestly, I’d kind of love the mystique and anonymity if everyone to thought that I actually sound like Siri’s second cousin and have my voice be as big of a mystery to Tarot YouTube as Corpse Husband’s appearance is a mystery to gamer YouTube. I may tinker with captioning the longer you choose videos and leaving the short ones as, you know, shorts.

Using “left, center or right” to indicate your card choices is hard to visualize. Or at least I think so. Sometimes you see these kinds of readings on social media using still photos and they create such pretty Instagram level picture. Often they will use crystals or charms or feathers or different small objects to help you feel your way to the right card. I love me some rocks and crystals, but again, that doesn’t translate well into an podcast. Using color was a thought, but not the best one. Color have emotional and psychological connections. Marketing experts use it all of the time. I was concerned that I can’t think of any good way to connect the cards to sounds without making it ridiculous and cumbersome for the blog readers and video watchers. The answer seems to be to use something that is easier to describe and visualize than objects or spacial relationships like left – center – right.

Have you ever seen the original Ghostbusters movie? There is a scene where Dr. Venkman is testing two volunteers ESP ability by drawing cards and having them guess the shapes on the cards. If you take out the comedy bits, the card test is an actual thing. There are random image generators online that let you guess at the cards and see if you can guess above random. It’s all based on controversial parapsychology research in the 1930s. And it has absolutely nothing to do with this other than taking some inspiration from the cards. The cards I’ll use for the visual part are different than the the actual Zenar cards, but like the Zenar cards they are simple shapes that are easy to visualize. As a nod to one of my favorite movies, though, I’m using a star and wavy lines. I made add some shapes just for interest and to increase the randomization. You’ll see and hear how it works as we do a few of theses you choose readings together.

But speaking of you choose readings, that’s enough behind the scenes. Let’s do this thing.

First I’ll draw three shape cards from this tiny handmade deck of note cards.

Today we have wavy lines, star and circle.

Now lets draw three Tarot cards from the shuffled and cut Tarot deck and put one by each of those shape cards.

Next – you choose.

You choose how you use the reading. It can be guidance for your day, guidance for your week or guidance for anything that is on your mind right now.

Imagine the three shapes, star, wavy lines and circle. Which one feels right? Does one light up in your mind’s eye more than the others? Does one catch your attention more than the others? If you need a minute, pause the video, stop reading for a second or pause the podcast to give yourself a little time. Then restart to get the reveal. Or just pick a shape on impulse and listen for your card as we go along.

Wavy lines is Temperance. The Waite Smith deck echoes the wavy lines in the water that is being poured from cup to cup. Temperance is the ultimate balance card. Today there is a strong energy of “slow your roll” and “bring down the temperature” a little bit. Here the Temperance card is very much like tempering in cooking where you change the temperature of sauces or custards gradually to prevent the eggs from curdling and getting lumpy. Tempered glass is another example. Tempered again refers to temperature. The temperature of the glass is controlled and manipulated to make the glass stronger. The advice from the card is about bringing emotional tempers and and emotional temperaments and group discussion temperatures down. It is about choosing your response to external circumstances just like you chose this card.

Star is The Hermit card. Interestingly, the star shape is also found on the card artwork as the shape of the light in the hermit’s lantern. The Hermit is about finding inner wisdom through changing the external environment. Carve out some me time for yourself. If you at all can manage it, get away from it all. Create a little quiet time and meditation because that will let you hear your own inner wisdom. Walking away for a minute to collect yourself is a way to respond to external circumstances as much as a spiritual retreat is.

The Circle isn’t directly represented on the card art, unless we really stretch things to include the chariot wheels. The chariot is what I call the supersonic test pilot card. It is a call to be fully in the present moment and mindful, but not impulsive. If a test pilot lets their mind wander or if they act too randomly bad stuff can happen. Being fully present and bringing all of your training to bear making good but fast decisions is one way to respond to external circumstances. If you chose this card that is a clue that you CAN bring that kind of mindfulness and clear-headed decision making to your situation.

Which format suits you? How do you like using shapes instead of spaces? How do you like the way the videos combine with text and audio. I kind of like this unpolished multi-media blend of things.

Thank you for watching, listening and reading. Any likes, subs, shares or follows you can spare are always greatly appreciated. None of this media mash up is monetized. Your blog website purchases and ko-fi memberships all contribute to creating this unique Tarot content just for you.

The short sip format returns Friday March 24. See you at the next sip!

Part of it All

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today The Alleyman, a Carl Sagan quote, and the Seven of Bells Tarot Card

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

Today’s card is the seven of bells from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck and originally from the Floetner deck. The Alleyman’s Tarot is used with the permission of its creator Seven Dane Asmund. To learn more about Seven’s work and what is rapidly becoming my new favorite deck please visit the link below or in the podcast episode description. Yesterday, I posted a short first impression of the deck on the blog. I’ll put a link to that in the podcast description as well.

As an exercise in learning the deck, I’d like to use it for our daily short sip readings. I’ll give you my first impression purely intuitive reading from the card and then I’ll go to the guidebook written meaning and let you decide which resonates more for you on whatever given day you read or listen to this. To take a phrase from the Alleyman Podcast – it will be a collaboration, with the Alleyman’s blessing.

Not to mention that fits my lazy girl M.O. – I won’t have take the time to read the guidebook ahead of these first look. Doing an intuition-only first-look reading like this before reading the guide book page only goes to show how readable this deck and this deck’s concept really is.

When I drew this card, my attention was drawn to the central figure and the similarity between the figure’s texture and the rocks and surrounding ground. It reminded me of the Taoist principle that we are an inseparable part of the larger whole. Carl Sagan said that the Cosmos is “all that is or was or ever will be.”

That. Includes. Us.

Just like the cliche joke about the Dali Lama asing the hotdog salesman in New York to make him one with everything.

We are integral part of our life and circumstances. Because of that deep connection, we can impact it just as it impacts us in that eternal dance of cause and effect.

The notebook talks about this card representing a feeling of being trapped by circumstance and expectations, quote “you have been made into something other people need you to be” end quote. The guidebook agrees that you can shake off this dried-mud entrapment. You can return to feeling more yourself if you quote “find what made you this way and confront it” end quote.

To put it all together, it may be a sudden change or move at a glacial pace, but we can use our deep interconnectedness with the universe and we can use cause and effect to break free of what others expect of us and begin to be true to our expectations of ourselves instead.

Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening. There are companion video shorts on YouTube that show the Short Sip cards being drawn. Neither the videos or the blogcast are monetized so they rely on your support. Purchases on the blog website and monthly memberships through ko-fi all contribute toward creating this (almost) daily Tarot content.

Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated.

See you at the next sip.

For more information about The Alleyman’s Tarot and Seven Dane Asmund’s other work please visit Publishing Goblin, llc

Weekend (just barely) Tarot Turnover

TaoCraft Weekend Tarot Turnovers are an intuition building exercise. I sip the coffee and you practice the Tarot reading. This week compassionate insight with the Queen of Cups.

Welcome to the Weekend Tarot Turnover where we turn the weekday short sip Tarot readings upside down. I’ll sip the coffee and you interpret the card to practice and stretch your intuition.

I picked a card at random. The idea is that you choose the meaning from the list below that that you think is the best guidance or message for you just now. Instead of me looking outward to read the energy, it’s your turn to look inward to listen to what your bones, guts and intuition are telling you.

Today’s card is the Queen of Cups, which is a particularly good card for this exercise. The queen of cups is very much aligned with intuition.

Some meanings include:

Knowing without a clear logical reason
Inner wisdom
Understanding mysteries through study
Emotional intelligence
Understanding people’s emotions
Kindness and compassion is needed
Pay attention to your dreams, learn to remember them

Comments are open, so feel free to let us know what if any of this resonates with you. Questions are always welcome, and will be answered in the blog.

Thanks so much for reading the blog and listening to the podcast. Next up is the unboxing-ish review of the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. Then back to short sip posts for the week. Your likes, subs, shares, and follows are always appreciated.

The blogcast and youtube channel are not monetized and depend on audience support. Your private tarot reading purchases through the blog website and your Tarot Table memberships on Ko-fi contribute toward creating this unique Tarot content.

See you at the next sip

Q&A: Whoops

Tarot behind the scenes Q&A: Do you ever pull the wrong cards?

Q: How do you know those are the right cards for me? Do you ever draw the wrong cards?

A: There are no wrong cards AND they happen all the time.

As always, there is no easy answer to this. Tarot is all about nuance and context.

Let’s break this down a little bit.

Do I ever draw the wrong cards? Sure. Before we look at that part, let’s think about what makes a care right or wrong in the first place.

Tarot doesn’t predict the future. Tarot is all about ideas, inspiration, creative problem solving, empowerment, and spiritual enrichment. There is nothing external or definitive to “come true” so there is nothing measurable to prove that a card is the right one or the wrong one.

Our feelings are the only thing that can define a card as right or wrong in any given reading in any given moment. Often you’ll hear people use the word “resonate” to define that feeling. When we say a card “resonates” with us it means that the card’s inherent message rings true to our individual situation, makes some sort of logical sense or it just seems to vibe with the energy of the moment. A card or Tarot reading that “resonates” with a person is analogous to two music notes that literally resonate and vibrate together..

When a card or a message doesn’t resonate that means there is a mis-match in energies, like two music notes that don’t harmonize even sound outright unpleasant. Musicians call that dissonance.

So for now, let’s define a card as being “right” when it resonates with the reader or the person getting the reading.

The cards I draw really are random. The weekday Short Sip blogcast is a good example. The companion videos lets you see the real world random card drawing process. I start each Short Sip episode by shuffling the cards, even though that part happens off camera so that the video can fit into the Shorts and Reels time limits. Then I’ll either cut the deck and grab a card out of the middle of the freshly shuffled deck or fan them out and grab a card that way.

The vast majority of the time the card resonates with the general energy of the day so well that it will highlight which one of the card’s many meanings is the best one for the episode. Some days the card just doesn’t feel right. When you have been reading Tarot as long as I have, the difference between right cards and wrong cards is immediate and obvi0us. It usually takes one good look to know whether the card resonates with the energy of the day or whether there is some sort of mis-match.

To borrow from the sound analogy again, a card that feels right is like the DING on a cell phone when you get a notice. A card that is off-energy feels like something between like the annoying choppy static of a radio station that is almost out of range and a leaf blower outside your window just as you are trying to concentrate. When that happens in a Short Sip video, I just delete and start over until the DING happens.

And yes, the off-energy thing happens in private readings and full layouts too.

If it is a live reading, I’ll point out the parts that feel off and suggest we re-draw that card. I’ve never had anyone refuse a new card. 99% of the time the person I’m reading for senses the dissonance with the card too.

If I’m doing an email reading I’ll just swap out the card and go on. There have been times where I have scooped up whole layouts and started over.

There are hunches to follow for email readings too. Scoop and re-deal feels like right thing to do for wrong feeling cards most of the time. Every now and then, with clients I know well and who are fairly intuitive themselves, I’ll get the I’ll feel pushed to let THEM decide if they want to stick with the original cards or scoop and shuffle for new cards.

So yeah, wrong cards happen all the time and that’s what I do about it.

BUT

At the same time, there is no such thing as a wrong card.

We have been talking about the cards as if they are an outside source of information that has the ability to be accurate or not. If only it were that simple.

Let’s keep up the analogies with sound.

Go back to that radio. Sure, sometimes the station doesn’t come in well. But if we tune in to the news station does that mean the rock channel is playing the wrong song?

That’s the kind of question non-linear logic we deal with in Tarot. Tarot cards aren’t anything magic or mystical. They are bits of paper with stuff drawn on them. Cards, runes, pendulums, stars, tea leaves or what have you only serve to amplify our inner human intuition. The cards help make our intuition loud enough that we can tell if our intuition is resonating with the energy of the message or the energy of the day – or not.

Spirit speaks in whispers. Tarot just helps us to hear it better.

Even if a particular card isn’t the best symbol for the energy message, spirit and energy have the capacity to whisper just a little bit louder. Somehow the right message finds its way through. The message gets through by making one card uncomfortable and prompting us to draw another card that is a better conduit for the energy message. The message gets around the cards all together with purely intuitive mental images, words, sounds and pop culture references separate and apart from any specific card. When intuition is allowed to do its thing, there is no wrong cards. Either through the impulse to re-draw a card or through direct intuitive input, we get to the right message in the end.

So yeah, there is no such thing as a wrong card because the energy gets the right message to you one way or another.

Thanks for hanging in there through this longer behind the scenes blog post and listening to this bonus Q & A episode of the podcast.

The blog, the podcast and the YouTube channel are not monetized and depend on your support. Private Tarot readings purchased through the this website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi all contribute toward creating this freely available Tarot content. Your likes, subs, shares, follows, purchases and memberships are always, always appreciated.

Please stay tuned over the weekend. I’m hoping to upload a new interactive Tarot in addition to the the usual Weekend Tarot Turnover intuition building exercise. I’d be interested to hear which meanings you choose and why for the Turnover exercise. Let me know your questions – ask me anything. Comments are open on the blog and the podcast. I’m on instagram and Twitter all the time – maybe too much. give you an answer of some sort in the blog cast, maybe even one using Tarot cards. If I don’t know, I’ll give you my best guess how to find out. It’a been a long couple of years and it really does feel like its time to get social and chatty again.

Thanks again for reading and listening. See you at the next sip of some kind of Tarot post or another.

Choose Wisely

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today the Seven of Cups helps us to choose wisely and with a little less stress.

Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s Card is the Seven of Cups.

Right away the pop culture reference popped in with our idea for today.

I don’t know if it was a deliberate choice on the part of the director or the set designer, but there is real resemblance between this card and the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where there is an array of cups and Indy has to choose the true holy grail from among them and the ancient knight guardian says that “He chose …. wisely.” So naturally I’ve been intoning the “chose wisely” line and movie reference since watching the movie 1990 -ish.

Indy’s father’s life was on the line. So was his given the giant side effect demise of the bad guy who “chose poorly.” It was a dire, emergent, irreversible choice to be made. Luckily most of us don’t face that magnitude of circumstances in the choices that we make.

Despite the visual similarities, there are circumstantial differences between the energy today and the drama of the movie. Most of the time we aren’t going to POOF and loved ones die because of the choices we make.

There might not be special effect poofing, but choosing poorly can lead to bad things happening. It’s the fear of those consequences that can turn decision making into an anxiety riddled, brain-locking experience. That emotion driven reaction is all the worse when logic leaves us in the lurch. When logically, factually all things are equal it is easy to fall into over-thinking things. That’s where perceived stress comes in, even if the danger isn’t particularly real. We may feel like we are going to be special effects poofed if we choose poorly even if there is no poofing involved. This is where a little stress management and stress reduction comes in handy. Tarot can help. Tarot can help tip those all-things-equal scales one direction or another and help you make a choice a little more confidently. Or, as is often the case with the seven of cups, Tarot can help you get past the logic and overthinking. Tarot can help when it comes time to use your intuition and follow your heart when making an intimidating choice.

Decisions are important. So is staying chill and remembering that if we screw up, chances are we will eventually get a whole new set of choices to make. We may not get to make the exact same choice over again, but we can make new choices that can nudge things in new direction.

We may not choose wisely this time but we can try to choose again all the wiser next time.

Thank you so much for reading and listening!

Thank you for listening! They’re not monetized, so please support this blog and podcast through your likes, subs, shares, private email Tarot readings and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi.

See you at the next sip!

Controlled Burn

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: the King of Wands and the controlled burn.

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

Today’s card is the King of Wands.

The connection between the whole suit of wands and the classic element of fire steps forward this morning. My attention was particularly drawn to the salamanders on the tapestry or throne behind the king in the classic Pamela Smith artwork we see here. There is no doubt in my mind that the artist used them and the little guy on the ground to signify the elemental connection with the cards.

The myth of salamanders as fireproof inhabitants of hearth and flame is a whole thing in itself. Books have been written about elementals and nature spirits and such. That’s not quite the point here. It’s interesting that the artist draws the salamanders on the throne as curled in a circle, nose touching tail, just like the classic Ouroboros symbol with a snake or dragon biting their own tail. The Ouroboros symbolizes wholeness and infinity and the cosmos among other things, akin to the simple enzo circle in Zen philosophy. Books have been written about that, too, and it’s not quite the message for today either.

When I first noticed the salamander motif, for just the smallest tic, just for a split second, I thought it was a yin yang symbol which in turn reminded me of the Tao Te Ching’s advice about leadership. Lao Tzu was not a fan of micromanagement. To paraphrase “when a good master governs, the people hardly know he is there.” That is closer to the energy today.

Another way to say it might be “Slow your roll, Karen.”

Don’t be a doormat, certainly, but a little diplomacy might be go a long way.

When gasoline explodes in small amounts inside an engine cylinder, we go far. When gasoline explodes in large amounts outside of an engine, we get disaster. When a campfire toasts marshmallows we get a treat. When a wildfire starts from a campfire, destruction follows.

I’m also reminded of the character Ang learning firebending in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The scene particularly comes to mind were he is given the exercise of lighting the center of a small leaf and controlling the small ember so it only burns to, but not over, the edge of the leaf. Later, in a burst of enthusiasm and carelessness, he accidentally burns his friend Kitara’s hands. Ang then refuses to ever fire bend again which in turn leads to its own set of problems.

It serves no one to extinguish your passions. By the same token passions that burn out of control can lead to disaster. Passion with discretion, passions with a controlled burn can light the way to something better.

Thank you for reading and listening.

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See you at the next sip!