psychological stress – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

If you don’t stop, life will stop you.

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

This is one of those days when Tarot proves it is just a tool, an amplifier, a sort of google translate for our natural inner intuition.

Swords are the element of air, intellect, mind and our relationship with authority and our relationship with culture and society at large.

When I turned the card this morning, the clairvoyant mental images were much stronger than the usual keywords for the card.

I giant red stop sign sprang to mind, along with those running obstacle course video games, like Mario Brothers, Temple Run or Fall Guys. Believe it or not, there is strategy and timing to the games. If you just run flat out fast as you can go start to finish you often don’t finish at all. Especially with swinging obstacles back in the day. You’d have to pause between the swinging things and get the timing so you are not knocked over the edge.

Taking a pause to get your timing right is a real world life hack too.

Many long years in the before time, before stress management and the mind-body connection were as normalized as they are now, it was still recognized that pushing too far was a thing. Students were learning their limits and it was easy in our ambition to leave those limits in the dust.

If you don’t stop, life will stop you.

Luckily, for the majority of us that stopping consisted of a walloping flu or bronchitis or something, but more serious consequences happened too. Books and entire tv dramas could be written, and have, but that is beside the point here. The Eight of Swords is here today to let us know that the stopping happens in whatever form it may take for you as an individual.

Most often when the eight of swords comes around, it reminds us of creative problem solving. Usually it draws my attention to the figure’s unbound feet, and that other senses can lead to freedom despite the obstacles ropes and blindfold and swords.

Today the energy moves one step earlier. Instead of encouraging persistence and creative problem solving, today’s eight of swords begs the question of why was this person tossed in sword jail in the first place?

Ambition and action and effort are all necessary to success, but you can’t make any forward progress when your battery is drained.

Psychoneuroimmunology is a thing. Stress, be it physical, psychological or both, can ding your immune system and open you to a common cold or flu that will slow you down when you don’t have the good sense to do it yourself before you get sick.

Before someone goes all Karen Q. Ivermectin on me, I’m talking about run of the mill take a nap level stuff, not the cure for covid. The suit of swords asks you to use your head, and so do I. They symbolize air and intellect, remember?

But again, the eight of swords is here today to tell us to stop a minute. Listen to your stress levels. Listen to what you mind, body and spirit need. Listen, and for goodness’ sake don’t ignore what you hear. Give your life what it needs. Give yourself what you are asking for. Stop if you needed so life doesn’t have to do the stopping for you.

Thank you all for reading and listening. I appreciate you! I also appreciate any likes, subs, shares, questions or comments.

I’ve opened the comments on the blog, and invited ko-fi members to pick the cut for the short sip readings in the month of September. When I draw each short sip card (you can see the video of the real world short sip card draw on the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel or here on the blog. The blog link is in the show description for podcast listeners. If I don’t get a majority from the ko-fi members, you all get the chance to chime in. Choose between left, right or center and leave your choice in the blog comments and that is the cut of the deck I’ll use for short sip readings in September. To become a Patron of the Tarot arts, and get access to exclusive Tarot content, shop discounts, private readings and more please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi or click the link in the episode description. Private readings are available to order in the commissions menu if you aren’t interested in the monthly membership part of it. Proceeds from the ko-fi page contribute toward the creation of this blog, podcast and the free-for-everyone Tarot content.

Thanks again. I’ll see you at the next sip!

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.

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See you at the next sip.

Tag: psychological stress

Stop

Fear of the Unknown and the Shower Cap Lady