Tag: pittsburgh tarot reader

Dearly Beloved

For my own sanity, I really, really, REALLY try to avoid politics and that other powderkeg word that starts with R.

But, in full disclosure, the idea for today’s card dropped into my head while I was watching coverage of President Biden’s remarks in Tulsa about the Greenwood “Black Wall Street” massacre of 1921.

Most of the time when you work with an oracle tool to access your intuition (like Tarot, runes, scrying, I Ching or what have you) a random item sparks the meaningful idea. Sometimes, it’s happened the other way around. A meaningful idea drops into my head inspired by some other source; muses, spirit guides, something I’ve seen, something on TV, a song from the radio, a scroll through social media…anything. Those ideas are usually the ones that niggle at you for a while. I turn them into a post for “The Niggles” category here in the blog, or sometimes I’ll reverse engineer the idea into a Tarot card.

It’s an interesting exercise, really. It doesn’t even have to be a spontaneous, inspired niggly thought. Take any concept that seems important to you and browse a Tarot deck (or decks) to see which card best resonates or exemplifies the idea. It is a great way to build your relationship with your deck(s) and expand your intuitive understanding of the cards when you do a reading. In this case, the Two of Cups seemed best.

Today’s – or really last evening’s – niggly concept is “beloved.”

President Bidens remarks in commemoration of the Tulsa Massecre were so filled with compassion, insight, inspiration. Especially in contrast to the last administration, the kindness and humanity so evident in his words and voice were inspiring, heart wrenching and breath taking. I encourage you to listen to his speech. If you consider yourself one drop intuitive, listen with your heart and with your third eye. Bring your full intuitive attention to what he said as well as what historically happened.

Perhaps you will wonder, as I did, why isn’t he the most beloved President in American history. Perhaps he will be. If there is one bit of justice, if the species survives long enough to do it, I hope that those who look back at the early 21st century see Presidents Biden and Obama for the compassion and intellect they embody. Again…look with your third eye, listen with your heart, not with your usual political leanings.

Out of that moment, that fleeting thought, the word BELOVED grabbed my attention.

It takes a lot of people to make a President “one of the most beloved.” It takes a solid plurality (and enough popular vote to overtake gerrymandering and electoral college bias) to make a person a President at all, but what does it take to make a historical figure beloved?

One person.

Perhaps you.

All it takes for anyone to be beloved is for one person to love them, for any measure of time. That measure of time exists. Always. If you love or are loved for any moment, then you are loved for an eternity because that moment always exists in the larger eternity, no matter where else in time you view that moment from.

Every moment you give love to the universe, to any person, to any idea – to yourself – that moment counterbalances and functionally erases a moment of hate given elsewhere.

Even for a moment, if you love someone – or yourself – then that person is beloved.

As for President Biden, I suspect Dr. Jill has it covered.

As for the rest of us, love someone for a moment. They are then beloved. Think of the whole earth and everything living being on it just for one tiny little fleeting moment and send your love to that entirety. Now you too, are forever beloved.

All it takes for anyone to be beloved is one person.

Perhaps you.

The need for speed

Instant gratification is fun, rare and something to be savored.

Slow motion gratification is fun, less recognized, but still something to be savored.

In a way, time is an arbitrary thing. The only time that exists is eternity. Anything else is human beings carving eternity up into understandable bits.

If, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” then time is under no obligation to meet your needs either. You can’t instant pressure pot a good brisket, only time and smoke can do that. You can’t speed rise a good sourdough loaf. Some things take as long as they take but end up as something wonderful.

The eight of wands denotes something up in the air, something that is in process, but hasn’t come to fruition. It’s on its way, but hasn’t manifested quite yet. Most of the time we don’t know and can’t control how long that part might last. Luckily today the word flight comes to mind, like the phrase “arrow in flight.” There is a strong sense of speed with the card today. The up side is that the flight part of shooting an arrow tends to happen quickly. The down side is that we have no control over that particular part. We can control how we aim, pull, release and react to the result, but there is no tweeking the arrow while it is zipping through the air.

There is a strong sense of anticipation and optimism today. Something good is on its way, or at least there is a thread of hope that something good is at last possible. I can’t really tell if that is individual or cultural, I hope it is both.

Today is a good day to look for little things to turn up quickly and turn out surprisingly well. Keep an eye out for symbols and synchronicities. Look for quick and satisfying little delights that encourage you. Savor the feel of it, and use that as inspiration to set more intentions, take more actions, plant more seeds – symbolically shoot more arrows to fly, land and manifest good things later.

Cause and effect is magic. The work you do that pays off in the long run is magic. When the time in between is short and quick, the magic seems magic-er.

Wishing you all a magic feeling Monday.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to wish you all a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend. Daytime for me will be busy with some non-Tarot obligations, but I still have time for email Tarot if anyone wants a reading. The podcast and youtube channel will be back next week, although probably a day late because of the holiday. Zoom / phone readings are closed until June 1, and in-person & party Tarot return in September with updated appointment times and service area. 2019 prices remain in effect throughout the website, and the blog is still totally free (no member or premium content)

Both science and intuition point toward us turning a corner. It feels like a transporter jump or some sort of blurry force-field wormhole foldspace science fiction kind of boundary transitioning us to a post-pandemic world. Things have been disrupted. NOW is our time and our chance to solidify things into something better. NOW is the time to stay laser-focused on the world we want to live in. NOW is the time to pour our energy into kindness, equality, inclusiveness – all the things so lacking in the 2016-2020 era. NOW is the time to manifest something better but, as Richard Bach reminds us, it may take some real work.

And so it begins

Best Wishes to everyone – Ronda

Back Next Week

New episodes of the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast (available on Anchor.fm Spotify, pocketcast, googlepodscast and more) return next week along with Today’s Tarot and YouChoose interactive tarot on YouTube.

Now’s your chance to catch up on the first six episodes of the podcast

Headspace

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.” – Leonard Nemoy

Tarot lacks an opinion.

It doesn’t judge, opine, or pronounce dogma. It is a tool to access our own inner wisdom and intuition. Tarot doesn’t care who you are or what you do any more than your bathroom mirror does. In fact, the two have something in common. They both show you what is, not what you want to see.

I once read a story. I can’t remember when or where. It was meant to give an example of Confucian thought in general. As the story goes, Confucius was giving advice to two student who were both ready to graduate and go begin their adult lives. He told one student he should be bold, go out into the world and follow his dream as soon as possible without worrying about other people’s opinion. It was sort of a 500 BC version of Nike’s “just do it.” When Conscious talked to the other student, he told him to talk to his multiple people, get all the advice he could, use that advice to make a solid plan and start out carefully and deliberately. A person who had heard the advice for both students asked the teacher why he gave such opposite advice to two student in such similar situations. The answer was that even though their circumstances were similar, each of the two students were very different personalities. The first student was timid by nature, and tended to put too much stock in other people’s opinion, so Confucius  encouraged that student to act on his own and put some heart over head. The second student was stubborn and impulsive by nature, so Conscious encouraged him to slow his roll, make a plan and put some head over heart. Conscious told his students what they each needed to hear, not necessarily what they wanted to hear.

Any given Tarot card can do the same thing for us.

Some critics might use the long lists of key words and varied associations given to Tarot cards to say psychics are BS because you can make any card say any thing. I say the cards are dead on useful for the that exact same reason. When you combine Tarot or runes or tea leaves or any oracle along with your inner wisdom, you get the message that you most need. Like Confucius, Tarot cards don’t give the same advice to everyone all of the time, but they do give the advice that any one individual needs at any one particular time.

Today’s Tarot card, the page of swords, is a prime example. Swords can mean action, but they can also mean mentation. Swords are associated with the element of air and with intellect just as much as they are with action and authority.  Which begs the question of how do you know which thread of meaning applies? How do you know which set of Confucious’ advice to follow?

Resonance is one way to describe it. That’s how we sometimes say it when you immediately recognize the right meaning for you. If your reflex response is “yeah, that sounds right” or “yeah, I knew that” then you know that is the bit of advice for you.” If your gut reflex is “oh heck no” then of course you should look at other meanings. If they are a half-bubble off too, then go back to the original. That “oh heck no” response might juuuust mean be the cards telling you something difficult that you really need to hear.

Today, the page of swords is still associated with action…BUT it action AFTER thinking. Crawl into your headspace before you start swinging your sword. Look before you leap. Use your head instead of your heart at least just for today.

Confession #3 : The floor is your friend

I’m a clairvoyant and I have a confession: The floor is my friend.

I write a lot of one card meditation readings for the TaoCraft Tarot blog. I pulled the Ace of Pentacles, which means that it’s a good day to make friends with your floor.

I’m not suggesting anything weird. Well, at least not THAT weird. You won’t even have to sweep up when you are done. All you need is your feet.

We hear about being “centered” or “grounded” but what does that really mean?

In physics, or at least in my puny understanding of it, electricity goes along the path of least resistance. That’s how lightning rods work. Metal wires provide a safe path for lightning to go into the ground instead of blasting its way through a building.

The emotional kind of grounding is similar. Instead of re-routing a lighting bolt, emotional grounding reshapes strong emotions.

So what does lightning and emotions have to do with the Ace of Pentacles? Emotional grounding is one of the classic meanings for the card. Pentacles as a group are associated with the alchemical element of earth. The literal earth is a safe place to send lightning but symbolically the earth is a safe place to send strong emotions like fear or anxiety.

Connection is key to both types of grounding. Wires connect electricity to the ground. When we feel connected to another person, to a group or to some identity outside of ourselves it helps with the emotional type of grounding.

The mind is a powerful thing. Imagination and visualization are like the wires in a lightning rod. You can use them to make friends with your floor and find a little emotional grounding.

The science kind of grounding was discovered through experiments. Let’s try a mental experiment to see if we can find some of that emotional grounding.

Put your feet flat on the floor.

That’s it.

It doesn’t matter if you are sitting or standing. Just pay attention to your feet touching the floor. Allow yourself to be aware of the actual physical sensation. Let your sense of touch remind you that you are connected to the floor

… and to everything else for that matter. You are part of this whole planet and a member of the entire human race whether you feel that connection right now or not.

It’s a big planet. Earth can handle your worry, your fear, or your anxiety. Imagine any stress that you have right now going through your feet, out into the floor then safely out into the ground – just like lightning goes through the wires of a lightning rod. Give it a try for a few seconds. Right here, right now as you listen to this, feel the floor through your feet and let the floor carry your stress safely away.

Now, how do you feel? How did that little experiment work for you? If you were feeling good when you started, has the quality of that feeling improved at all? Maybe it feels a little more solid or a little more durable than it did at the beginning.

If you were feeling stressed at the beginning of the experiment, did that feeling change at all? Does anything feel even a tiny bit calmer or a little bit more confident?

If not, that’s ok. Failure is always an option in these kinds of exercises, no harm done. You can learn by doing no matter what the results are. It is an easy thought experiment to do. Try this visualization a few different times and you’ll get a sense of whether it is right for you or not.

That’s it. That’s the confession. When emotions run high, the floor is our friend.

Do you have a question about clairvoyants or tarot readings that you’d like to have answered on the podcast? Please visit the clairvoyant confessional podcast page on taocrafttarot.com to submit a question. It doesn’t cost anything except a minute of your time. The link is in the episode description. While you are there, feel free to browse the website for the print only Tarot readings and other blog content.

As always, any podcast follows, blog follows, likes, or shares that you can spare are always greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for listening! I’ll see you on the print side and talk to you next time in the clairvoyant confessional.

public domain

Hauling the edges back in

Sometimes a line from a movie lodges in my brain and sort of lives there for a while until it proves to be real-life useful idea. I use them here in the blog all of the time: “Work the problem” from Apollo 13, Curly’s “one thing” from City Slickers, and now one from The Right Stuff.

I don’t even remember this one exactly. Writing a blog and professional Tarot was over a decade away and not at all on my radar when I first watched the movie and heard the line. I think it was Pancho, in the bar scene where Chuck Yeager had his cameo, but she said something about test pilots “pushing the edges of the envelope and hauling them back in again.”

Everybody seems to love the first part. We’ve all heard about “pushing the edge of the envelope” since the movie was released way back in 1983. Nobody seems to remember the “haul it back in” part. It’s just as important. If you have all intense bright light you can’t see any more than you can in pitch dark. Or as somebody said, “any landing you walk away from is a good one.” You can’t walk away from a landing if you don’t have one. As laudable as “pushing the envelope” may be, the things you learn at the edge serves no purpose if you don’t bring them home to use.

The 4 of pentacles has a reputation for meaning miserliness or greed. Or it can be a reminder to be careful with the budget. I’ve seen it interpreted as a protected, hoarded or very secret treasure that isn’t shared. Today is one of those days where the card is hinting at a bigger message, a half-bubble off of the strings of keywords attached to the card. This is one of those days where a purely intuitive connotation steps to the front. Pay attention to those whenever you do a reading. Energy and spirit really have something to say when that happens.

Be yin. Today is a day for hauling the edge of the envelope back in. It isn’t a day for pushing or striving or extravagance either literally with money or spiritually or emotionally.

It is a good day to rest and abide, and integrate, and learn how to live and use the things you’ve learned. It’s a little like the spiritual equivalent of putting away the groceries you’ve brought home. It’s time to put your spiritual learning into it’s real world place and start using them. There is a careful deliberate feel about it. Protect your spiritual treasures by solidifying them, living them. It’s a good day to turn off the afterburners and bring this Monday in for a landing.

“If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.” – Chuck Yeager

Today’s Tarot: Fear and Indecision

Fear and desire are at the root of indecision. We desire to do the right thing. We fear the consequences of doing the wrong thing. We fear harming others with the consequences of our choice. We desire to avoid the responsibility of choosing. We want to avoid the nuisances of minor choices. Fear paralyses.

Consider the alternatives, have a plan B, remind yourself if/when you can reverse directions should you unintentionally make the wrong decision. Think: is your decision (or lack of one) motivated by some desire – including th desire to avoid? Addressing fears about potential outcomes might make a difficult choice little bit easier to make.

New Podcast episode coming soon.

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