pittsburgh – Page 11 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Today’s Tarot: Sightline

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.” – Micheal J. Fox

Taraffirmation #14: I see things as they really are, and work for the best with the resources at hand.

Don’t let old experiences or expectations for the future cloud your vision. Solving a problem requires that you see the problem for what it really is. Sometimes when accept things as they are for what they are, there aren’t as many obstacles in your line of sight after all.

Dirk, DeGrasse Tyson, and the connected symphony

“…Learn to see. Realize that evertything connects to everything else” – Leonardo Da Vinci

“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the Earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.” – Neil Degrasse Tyson.

“The bond that links your true familyis not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” – Richard Bach

“Everything’s connected.” – Dirk Gently TV series

We long to be together, to talk, to touch, to eat, love and laugh. It is the good and right human thing to do. Often, life demands separation in the typical sense. Loneliness forgets. It forgets the neither space nor time can break the bonds of love, of familial respect and joy. Our lives play out all on the same pale dot within the same wider Cosmos and within the same winding eternity.

You can purchase Melody Sheep’s excellent music on Bandcamp. https://melodysheep.bandcamp.com/album/symphony-of-science-collectors-edition

Gift of a Lifetime Wrapped in a Pen

Sallie Christensen, one of the most skilled and gifted psychics I’ve ever met, once told me that “A thought is powerful, the spoken word is more so, but the written word is the most powerful of all.” That one sentence was a gift of a lifetime wrapped in a pen. In essence, she had handed me a magic wand.

I had that reading with her in the early 1990s, roughly around the time I’d started exploring oracle cards with Tarot soon to follow. That adage has proven true time and again in the decades since.

Journal writing is a powerful thing. I suspect those years of journaling is the reason why I can communicate messages from spirit as easily through pen and keyboard as through speaking. Written Tarot is definitely more sophisticated, since live sessions don’t have edit buttons or grammar check. Speech may transmit ideas quickly, but writing is a superconductor. Hearing is here and now. Even recordings have a sense of immediacy. Writing transcends space and time. It’s the closest thing we have to telepathy. When I write something and you read it, the message from spirit is communicated heart to heart and mind to mind with none of the mechanics of speech or hearing in between. Hearing happens at Mach 1, the speed of sound. Reading happens at the speed of light.

As Carl Sagan wrote:

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”

Written Tarot is potent to both give and receive. The experience of reading something that resonates with you spiritually is very similar to the experience getting an intuitive message directly from spirit. Reading anything that is spiritually resonant, be it books, letters, Tarot cards, blogs or emails, is a breathless melange of emotion, empowerment, and enlightenment. Many books have been like that for me, Ted Andrews’ and Christopher Penczak’s in particular. Perhaps written Tarot can capture some of that experience for you.

Intuition happens inside of your head and heart. It is an entirely subjective experience. For me, the internal process of writing is more closely aligned to the internal intuitive message itself. The flow from spirit to written language is immediate and effortless, while putting things into spoken words takes the tiniest bit more thought and effort. In wireless terms, spoken words work at 4G while my writing operates at 5G or above.

How you enjoy taking in the words and messages of a session is another story. If you like to read, written Tarot is as comfortable as breathing. It doesn’t matter if the actual thing you read is a computer screen or a piece of paper. The experience of reading your message is equally intense regardless of media.

In-person Tarot readings are wonderful, mind expanding, heart warming, and sometimes life changing things…just like the session I had with Sally when we talked about journal writing.

An email or handwritten paper Tarot session is its own kind of mind expanding, heart warming and life changing experience … just like reading the Andrews and Penczak books.

All of that being said, I’m hoping this will let you feel confident in ordering Distance Tarot. While this post is a glimpse to the writing process on my side of the table, the message is the same no matter how you prefer to receive it, written or spoken, email or live. It’s just a matter of deciding which experience resonates with you.

This one is for all of the book lovers. I’m working on a second edition of PeaceTarot. Both editions teach you how to do DIY daily Tarot meditations even if you don’t have a Tarot deck on hand. The second edition adds expanded, pandemic-era card meanings for all 78 RWS Tarot cards.. During the caronapocolypse, we have all been making do with stuff on hand. As life “re-opens” I hope we can carry a little bit of that ingenuity with us. In the spirit of that resourcefulness, I want to upcycle some second quality paper copies* of PeaceTarot and hand customize one just for you. I’ll write a one card reading just like the kind of readings the book can teach you to do PLUS include a sigil element (or sigil glyph or psych-a-doodle or whatever you want to call it) crystal energy and aromatherapy suggestions, an affirmation, add whatever else comes to mind AND use my favorite schmancy glass dip pen. There are a limited number available. All you really pay for is postage and handling. The “graffiti edition” PeaceTarot with custom handwritten one card Tarot readings are available in the shop HERE.

*First edition, single side print, side staple bound

Just a quick reminder: Distance Tarot is always OPEN, with phone readings by appointment. Even though our area is partially out of lockdown and starting to re-open for retail business, in-person individual and party readings will remain closed until a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available.

Today’s Tarot: Just Because You Can

The Two of Swords is an interesting card. I’ve seen a wide variety of interpretations for it, all of which ring true at one time or another. The classic interpretation is to be of two minds about something, or to have difficulty choosing between two nearly identical options. Diane Morgan broadens that duality beyond the mundane to include the spirit realm. Here, the two of swords is more about identifying and connecting to subtly different realms of being rather than subtly different physical realm choices. Ted Andrews uses elements of both. He connects the physical and spiritual, but points out the choices we make as we integrate the spiritual into daily living. He puts it in terms of right use of power.

As I drew the card, I got a strong mental impression of the Colossus of Rhodes, the ancient wonder, a statue so large that is believed to have stood with a foot on either side of the entrance to the port at Rhodes in ancient Greece. Today, Brea Fisher spook of “a foot in two worlds” in her ever lovely and wise @quanyingongfu feed on Instagram. The interplay between the physical world and the spiritual world is asking for our attention.

We each live with a foot in both worlds You experience the solid, physical realm all of the time, but also have continuous access to the ethereal realm of thoughts, emotions, imagination and intuition.

The two of swords is reminding us to make wise choices about which foot we use and how. My attention is particularly drawn to the esoteric energy side of this and the old adage “Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.”

Those who work with energy professionally bear the greatest responsibility in that respect. I don’t feel pushed to say that because I’ve seen anyone being irresponsible. “Psychic” scams have been around forever. Today, I feel pulled to mention this out of deep respect for everyone out here doing it right.

Today the Two of Swords is a bow of respect for those who act out of compassion. Yes, we advertise and post and tell everyone what we do so those who need us can find us. We ask for fair payment or donation in exchange for our expertise and skilled services, but we do so out of compassion for ourselves and our families. We communicate not out of ego but to build trust. Beware the shifting and shady. The trustworthy write the rules, expectations and boundaries for all to see.

Also a bow of respect to those who speak their truth but have the strength to speak their truth but then let go. Ego is needy in this line of work. A wise person can let others about their life and make all the mistakes they need to find wisdom for themselves.

There are many excellent teachers out there and I am so grateful to have found the words of so many of them: Ted Andrews, Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Christopher Penczak, Scott Cunningham, Brea Fisher, Nick Gracenin, Jose Johnson and many more.

We walk through life with a foot in two worlds. Sometimes physical circumstances carry the greater weight and demands our attention, as it has with the pandemic. But to keep moving forward, to keep living, the spiritual foot must move forward and have its day before the physical realm demands its due again.

My hunch is we are in a brief liminal time when things are shifting. The moment is twilight quiet, the eye of the hurricane. Personal power and inner spirituality must be used rightly. This isn’t the time for bluster and show, not a time for group-think, blind positivism or outward dogma. We’ve survived for the moment, so now is the time to turn quietly inward give our hearts and souls their turn even as we prepare to return our attention to the practical in times to come.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot for May 17-23, 2020

Left: Eight of Cups. This card always has a bittersweet feel to me, but in the end it is a very triumphant sort of message. It validates courage that has been gathered, progress that has been made. It take both to be able to move on emotionally from difficult situations. Moving ahead does not require that you leave memories or behind. This is more about going on with life with those things, neither abandoning nor stagnationg with them.

Center: Two of Wands. This is a week of opportunity, you can have the world in the palm of you hand, but timing is critical. Discretion really is the better part of valor. Be thoughtful, diplomatic, careful … look before you leap … but when the time comes, when the time comes, jump in. Watching, analysing and couragous action may all be needed.

Right: Seven of Pentacles. Plant seeds that are worth the wait. Thus is the week for foundation building, not instant gratification. Plant seeds that will a good harvest. Build a foundation for something to stand the test of time. In my minds eye I see precisely cut white marble or granite like greek temples or the Washington monument. Precision, attention to detail, and best effort (here Deadpool pops up with “two swords and maximum effort”) Long story short, focus on quality now to create domething that will be worth the wait later.

Philosophy

Tarot doesn’t tell you what is going to happen in life; Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

Today’s post is my philosophy about Tarot in a nutshell. It’s still kind of a big read, but I hope you will stay with it. By the end you’ll know if I’m the right intuitive Tarot reader for you or not. The full version of TaoCraft Portfolio will cover all of this in detail. The free download version tells you about the practical side of readings (formats and such.) You can get the free download HERE and visit the other links on the “about” page for more details

Predicting The Future

It’s impossible.

I’m not going to hand you a platter of easy answers. I’m not going to blow a lot of feel-good smoke at you. This is advanced Tarot and spiritual work intended to inspire you, to empower you, to expand your horizons or best of all, to validate the things you already know.

If all you want is 100% accurate predictions, then you should find someone else. If you want razzle-dazzle mentalism and someone to fix everything then [Jedi hand wave] I’m not the psychic you are looking for.

BUT if you are ready for growth and self-discovery, if you are ready for imagination and exploration and possibilities, then this style of Tarot can help. I hope we can work together soon.

Relationship Questions

Your reading will focus on you, and you alone.

Why not? You are paying for it. A reading should be something special just for you.

Tarot can’t read minds or tell what other people will do. Tarot doesn’t know what other people think, feel or want. Out of respect for everyone’s privacy and personal dignity, I never read anyone’s energy without their direct knowledge and consent. So no, my readings can’t tell if you and your ex will get back together. Instead, a reading can explore how you can heal, if that is what you need. It can help you discover the path to being your best and happiest self. Loving life and feeling at ease right here, right now, is the most powerful way to the discover the right relationship for you.

In some very rare and very special times, the other person will lend a little energy to the reading and give us some vague sense of them. Again, it is very rare and a loving gift from them to you. It is a special experience that should always be respected but never expected. If it does happen for you in a reading, please be careful about talking about it with the person who sent the energy. Many times they are unaware of what happened on a conscious level. Finding out about the reading after the fact is a pretty big intrusion. It may make them feel uncomfortable or hurt. Discretion and kindness are always the best way to handle such things.

Medical or Pregnancy Questions

No. Nope. uh-uh. Not happening.

It isn’t about some fancy Tarot “ethics.” Taking medical questions is a big liability in a litigious society like ours, but that is only part of why I won’t touch medical or pregnancy questions. The main reason is that Tarot is wildly ineffective at dealing with medical concerns.

It. Just. Doesn’t. Work.

I’ve worked in mainstream medicine. I’ve worked with holistic and natural health. You have to have the right tool for the right job. You wouldn’t use your cell phone to hammer nails. You wouldn’t use a hammer to make a phone call. By that same token, you don’t use Tarot to deal with health and healing. There are lots of tools in the wellness toolkit: Diet, exercise, Reiki, meditation, aromatherapy, herbs, acupuncture, acupressure, ayervedic medicine, hypnotherapy, physical therapy, art therapy, music therapy, and yes, mainstream medicine too.

Tarot is not one of these health tools. It is true that some physical ailments heal quicker once you discover their emotional or spiritual roots of the disease IF there are any. Tarot might help that process to a limited extent. Sometimes there is no deep spiritual connection. Some health issues are random and out of our control. Medical issues might be a product of injury, environment or genetics. Tarot can help manage the stress these kinds of problems cause, BUT AGAIN, Tarot is not the best option. Reiki and meditation are more effective tools for discovering the spiritual roots of illness and managing the stress health concerns can cause. As for Tarot….

None of the books, blog posts or services offered on TaoCraftTarot.com can diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or illness whatsoever. Nothing offered here can take the place of professional health or mental health care. I accept no liability of any kind real or implied. Use these books and services entirely at your own risk. Scheduling any session with me indicates that you have read, understood and accept these terms and the policies listed HERE.

All Are Welcome

I want my readings to be comfortable and welcoming for everyone.

To do that, I avoid divisive topics like politics and religion. If anything like that comes up in a reading, I will give the message as I get it. Beyond a few references to religious rituals and practices, I have never had religious or political ideology come up as a message in a reading. I will not allow antagonistic or inappropriate conversation to mar a session. I reserve the right to terminate a reading at any time at my sole discretion with no refund in order to maintain a safe and respectful reading environment.

I shouldn’t have to say these things, but I want to be very clear about a few things: I am a LGBTQIA+ ally, and all are absolutely welcome with me – as are secular people and those of non-mainstream religions. Like I said, I don’t do religion and politics. I believe humans are wonderfully complex, like a faceted diamond. Many facets coexist just fine, in all of us. I’m atheist, spiritual, Taoist, Buddhist, witchy, and Reiki-y all at the same time. All the parts of you are welcome here too.

Interested? Please visit the home page to order a distance reading or please contact me at TaoCraftTarot@gmail.com to schedule a live phone or skype reading.

Todays Tarot: Every Little Thing

“We can “read” anything in our world as an answer to an issue or question. The answer is in our heart and the world reflects it back to us. If you asked a question and your eyes caught a spider web, this web would reflect the truth that was within and be an answer to your question.” – Joy Star

One contemporary way of understanding the four minor arcana suits in is terms of relationships: how we related to the physical realm, to our inner selves, to society at large and when it comes to cups, our relationship with relationships or our innermost circle of loves, friends and family. In a nutshell, all of the king cards symbolize leadership. Cups also relate to the alchemical element water. Water in general relates to intuition (think of the fish in a cup, mysteries from the depths of our psyche connotations from the Page of Cups card.)

Stir all of that together and it eventually boils down to intuition leading you, or leading through a deep trust in your intuition. One of my favorite interpretations for this card over the years is the king of cups as pointing to a spirit guide. A more literal spin is that of a mentor who guides your development in a specific area but in more connected, long term, developmental way than you would associate with a teacher or manager or organizer.

For now, I’d like to focus more on the spirit guide side of it. If you feel drawn to the mentoring side (either as mentor or mentee) I strongly suggest reading Chunliang Al Huang’s excellent book Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom.

Spirit guides are a fascinating subject. Books could, and have been, written about them. My absolute go-to favorite is Ted Andrews’ How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides. Some people think of them as something very separate from themselves like a patron saint sort of figure. Some see them closer, like a guardian angle or the one to one spirit guide described by Andrews, Bach and others. Still others see a “spirit guide” as a reflection of our spiritual side, our “higher selves.” This is the kind of guidance that Joy was hinting at when she wrote about the world reflecting our truth. Things like Tarot cards, planets, stars, runestones, I Ching lines….whatever it is…don’t give answers in and of themselves. They are the carrier signal, the pipeline, that lets the message come through. Oracles deliver the message from our inner wisdom and higher selves through the noise of everyday living to our everyday consciousness. The cool thing is every little thing can be an oracle. Remember that lyric from the song by the Police “every little thing she does is magic” ? It is just as true that every little thing is magic. Anything can be a tiny little validation, or an itsy nudge toward the way you should go. Every little thing is magic when you look with intuitive eyes.

PeaceTarot: Introduction to the Second Edition

The First Edition of PeaceTarot is available both on amazon.com for kindle and in the the TaoCraft Tarot Shop on Etsy.

In 2012 the mass shooting of children in a Newtown, Connecticut school shook the souls of the nation’s parents. For those of us who had young children it was an emotionally charged and terrifying event, even if we were geographically far removed from Newtown. It was followed over the next several years by the Boston Marathon bombing, the Mother Emanuel shooting, Orlando, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas High School and our hometown in 2018 with the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. The litany of violence and political inaction continues here in the United States. We can never forget that war and violence have been with the human race across the globe throughout history.

After many years of doing Tarot readings, I knew first hand the comfort the card’s ideas and symbolism could bring. I’ve seen a reading ease the tension in a person’s face and body language time and time and time again. The comfort I’d personally taken in the cards naturally found its way into “Tarotbytes,” my blog on the Modern Oracle Tarot website and again in this self published ebook.

Now here we are in 2020 experiencing a deadly global pandemic and the worst economic depression in nearly one hundred years. I had intended to use the great stay-at-home lockdown quarantine of 2020 to do other writing and other things. Catching up on some sleep was high on the list.

Yet, as is often the case, the cards have other ideas. Tarot has a role to play again.

It wasn’t clear at first, but the readings since late February (both for individual clients and generally for the blog and social media) have been overwhelmingly focused on the pandemic. You don’t have to be intuitively sensitive for the feelings of these times to hit you like a tidal wave. Then and now, 2012 and 2020, the point of Tarot work is to help us to honor our true feelings. The process of doing a reading can help clear stress and find a path forward that may have otherwise been hidden behind turbulent times and equally turbulent emotions. One thing is clear. It’s time to bring PeaceTarot out of mothballs and let Tarot work its magic on our current challenges.

All of the original PeaceTarot material still exists in the second edition with two new features. PeaceTarot still begins by teaching you to do one card daily meditation style readings for yourself. It still gives the peace-minded card meanings from the 2010 – 2012 era. For each card, I’ve added the pandemic focused interpretations that have stepped forward in the early months of 2020. Next, the internet allows me to give you a brand new resource for choosing a daily card when you don’t have a Tarot deck on hand. The TaoCraft Tarot YouTube channel has a growing number of videos that you can use to see a card being randomly drawn. You can then reference the reading for that card in the video description or coordinate it with the ones here in PeaceTarot as you build your daily Tarot meditation practice.

The one thing that never changes is that everything always changes.Despite those changes, peace of mind and a quiet Tarot moment are ideas that never go away. Through it all, I wish you health, happiness and many moments of peace.

Ronda Snow

Pittsburgh, 2020

Taking the Advice the Cards Keep Giving

Now is not the time to press, to strive, to make big decisions – or try to learn to make good youtube content. Now is the time to be mindful. Pay attention to the here and now, even if it is isolated or terrible. But that’s easy for me to say, because right now I’m ok. I forget who said it, but mental and emotional suffering lies between how things are and how we wish them to be. Now is a time to gather in our energies and make friends with where we are and who we are, no judgements, no goals, no expectations.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Plant

Pick a card. Pause the video if you need some time. Restart to seee the reveal, then you can scroll down to get your reading below. OR you can do you own reading. PeaceTarot ebook download can teach you how. (https://www.etsy.com/listing/248936426/peacetarot-e-book-how-to-do-daily)

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Left: Ace of Pentacles. “Bloom where you are planted.” The energies are a wind at your back, the near future is an opportune time for productivity and creativity in a very tangible way. Both the muses and the maker’s energies are with you. Be on the lookout for inspiration and opportunity to make or do something tangible.

Middle: Seven of Pentacles “Let the planted seeds grow.” In the 27 years that I’ve been reading cards, I’ve never seen a pattern so repeated, so loud, so clear as the energies have been for the past couple of months of the global pandemic.

Now is not the time for big innovation, change or being overly high-minded, or woo woo spiritual about things. Let the seeds that were sown grow. This is one of those time to leave well enough alone. Sit with what is and what has happened so far. This is very different from the major arcana Hanged Man energy. It isn’t stagnation…this is a needed, necessary quiet. We aren’t stuck, the best thing to DO is nothing, is to wait. Being at peace with that will reap harvest in its time. Finding out that you are not at peace with quiet and your own company is important too. Both are needed now in order to move forward at harvest time.

Right: Queen of Wands “Tend to your garden.” Again this is a clear, repeated message of the times. Take care of yourself and those near to you. Do what needs done. Protect yourself. Do the right thing to protect those around you. The Tarot is on the experts side. Again, just like with the Seven of Pentacles, no is not the time to push or innovate or be overly woo woo spiritual, Tend to the physical. The spiritual will come back in its time. Your endurance is needed. Sleep. Eat. Get outside when you safely can.

Social Distance is my Tarot specialty! I write Tarot as easily as speaking it face to face. A keyboard is a hotline to intutition for me. The connection comes from information, not physical presance. Spirit and energy exists everywhere, so I can get your message and send it anywhere. Order on the home page. Prices reduced through at least the end of April to help out during the pandemic.