Tag: quote

Today’s Tarot: I AM doing something

“Just a moment, Mary. I’m having an idea” – Young Einstein

Today’s Tarot: Five of Wands. Keywords – conflict, inner world, element of fire. Inner conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can take you to a powerful place.

Not all work is visible. Mental focus can be exhausting. Personal growth and spiritual work is work. It may not be obvious to other people, but inner conflict is as valid as the physical combat depicted on today’s card. It is arguably more important.

“Conquering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power” – attr. Lau Tzu

Small changes that you integrate into who you are and can sustain permenantly are the most powerful. It is as true of perception as it is of a healthy diet, new exercise routine, adding a meditation practice to your day…any change really. It can be the most challenging…and challenged … part of real self improvement. Others may confront you about small changes without even realizing it. “Don’t you…” “When did you start…” “Just one time won’t matter…” and other little off handed comments can derail the best intentions without meaning to. If you are supporting someone, respect the small as much as the big. If you are making changes, lots of small step can get you to where you want to go just as much as a giant leap….just like a mouse can frighten an elephant or a tiny little mosquito can drive you up a wall. Little things mean a lot. They are worth any challenges they may bring.

Especially since these kinds of small steps and inner challenges are winnable conflicts. The five of wands often connotes conflict, but with an undercurrent of success in the end. Yes, long term small changes may not be evident to an outside observer, or show immediate success, but the Five of Wands gives encouragement to go along with its heads up message. Sure, little challenges and possible inner conflicts may be on the horizon, but they are winnable, do-able things. It may not be obvious on the outside, but you ARE doing something, even when you are busy having a new idea.

Today’s Tarot: Homecoming

In numerology they do this thing where they add the individual digits of higher numbers to reduce them to a single digit equivalent. Why, I don’t know, but they do. But it is an interesting concept when applied to the 10 cards of the minor arcana suits. Not only is it the largest of the numbered cards, the threshold to the court cards, but 1+0 = 1 which hints at a full circle, satisfying completion, a return to origens, a homecoming.

On the surface, the Ten of Cups has always been the ‘happy family’ card, akin to the Ten of Coins/Pentacles that we’ve seen in recent days. Instead of reminding us that relationships and loved ones are our most valuable treasure, this card lifts 10 cups in pure celebration of them. Homecomings of all sorts are celebrations.

Not all homecomings are the literal with all of those people, food, home and hearth goodnesses. There is a thread here connecting today’s card to the past two cards.

The Devil card reminds us that there are still storms on the horizon and that there are, in reality, some legit bad stuff out there. The Two of Wands reminds us that within any journey or project, a planned detour is possible. You can steer around the storms and get where you were originally wanting to go if you are heads up, eyes open, and plan on the fly. New phases, new plans, new turns don’t have to be stumbling blocks. Fluid, effective adaptation is very possible.

We’ve also seen a turn in energy that was outside of the cards and their artwork. That shift connects the other two cards to today’s Ten of Cups. While the first half of the year was focused on the physical realm and doing what needs done (even when what needs DONE is to stay home, wear face masks and wash your hands.  Now that we are in the dog day doldrums of summer, the energy has turned toward spirituality and introspection. Now the time has come for spa retreat, soul searching, growing, deciding, planning for the Fall and Winter ahead. That is where the homecoming comes in.

Author Richard Bach is known for saying “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” The same is true of our internal philosophy-home. It is time for a spiritual homecoming. It is time to celebrate whatever path embues life with the most respect and joy possible. It need not be the path you started on.

Bad things happen, steering away from those things can happen. Taking your place among people and ideas that give you respect and joy can happen – and must. For me that comes through the lens of Taoist and Buddhist philosphies paired with Tarot and other magickal things. Whatever it is that you respect, that respects who you truely are, and brings you happiness – that – I hope that for you. If you have an iota of inclination, the energies are right to celebrate the esoterica that makes you happy.

If you have tried new ideas and new ways of doing things and find they are off course after all, then it is perfectly fine to change back. Going back to a spiritual path that brings good things is wonderful sort of homecoming. If you seek out new spiritual ideas and find something that perfectly fits you, then that is your homecoming too. Just as family is defined by respect and joy and love, spirituality is defined the same way. No matter whether you are going back to the old, or taking up residence with the newly discovered, the energies are flowing toward homecoming.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot 15-20 June 2020

Welcome to the “link in the description below.” This is the blog page I talk about in the video. If you came here directly … thank you! Following just on YouTube gets all of the “Today’s Tarot” and “YouChoose Interactive Tarot” posts, but there will always be plenty of print-only content that you can only get here. I hope you will follow the blog (free of course…opt in with your email over in the right hand side of the screen on laptop or scroll WAAAYYYY down to the bottom of the page on mobile)

Thanks for reading!

Left: Ten of Wands. Don’t carry old emotional burdons. If it isn’t useful for you to lug around, then put it down. It opens up bandwidth in your energy and attention for better things. By the same token, don’t be afraid of saying yes. Shouldering something that seems trivial to you might mean the universe to someone else who needs you.

Center: Knight of Sword. This is the card of daring and self-confidence. It doesn’t mean you are necessarily going to FEEL it. It also means that the time is right to step outside of your comfort zone and see what you can do. Courage isn’t the absence of fear; courage is doing what must be done in spite of feeling terrified.

Right: Nine of Wands. Stake your claim. This week is not the time to be a shrinking violet. Stand up for yourself, defend your emotional perimeter. Remember Eleanor Roosevelt – “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

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

Ink Reading Glass 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.

Related post: The Power Grows.

 

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.

Today’s Tarot: Be The Stability

 

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Ghandi

So far, 2020 has been a helluva decade. 

We are all awash in change. If you look at Tarot as being predictive, then this is good news, an omen of increased stability on the horizon.

Nope.

I don’t see it that way in general principle or in this particular card on this particular day. In fact, if I listen with intuition to the general, zeitgeist, energy-at-large feelings then it feels opposite, well, actually kind of sideways from a return to stability or any sort of prior normalcy. It doesn’t feel like a hopeful, optimistic sunrise or a gentle stable reliability of the returning sun as is usually the connotation with this card. At the same time it isn’t a sense of decent into interminable darkness, either. 

The feeling is more akin to “Brace yourself for part 2. It’s gonna be a doozy.” Remember that eye of the hurricane turn in the energy last week? Or was it the week before…you know, last blursday the 77th….

It feels like the eye of the hurricane is about to pass by and we are facing the other side of the eyewall. In my minds eye I see black clouds blowing sideways in a circular wind, like farm soil picked up in a tornado. The biggest difference is this time we know what is in there. We know what we are in for. The sense of optimism that was there for a tiny bubble of time when New York City reported mitigation was working and the rate of increase was slowing down. 

Now is when the storm moves from New York City and spreads like a mud flow across the nation, at it thickest where partisanship reigns and mitigation / health science does not. Not pleasant, not neutral, but that’s the image, that is the facts of it. Tarot and science are not at odds…but are rather different windows into the same human experience.

So what does all of that have to do with the Sun card you are probably asking. It’s an advice card, not a predictive one. It is time to be your own stability. In chaotic times, the change you want to see in the world is a change toward more stability. We can’t count on that coming from the outside in. Just like we can rely on the outside world or other people for our happiness, we have to be our own stability right now. This isn’t a time for reaching, forcing, or inspirational charging ahead. This is a time for watching, prioritizing, doing what the present moment needs, preparing, being. Just be. That we can do with great consistency and stability. If you allow yourself to be, without expectation or goal or judgement, just as the sun simply IS in the sky, then that is both enough and as reliable as the sunrise.

Consider these two things:

First, a Zen parable, author unknown – 

A student asks the master “I want to be happy. How do I do that?” The master said “First, drop the ‘I’ because that is ego. Then drop the ‘want’ because that is desire. Then all that remains is ‘be happy’.”

Second, a quote from lovely Brea Fisher, Qi Gong instructor and vlogger (please support her on Patreaon www.kwanyinkungfu.com)

“Being is a current theme right now for me and many others. Beingness sends a pulse out into the world like the beating of a drum so continuous is drone. You are enough simply by existing. You don’t need to do anything more to be worthy of this life. You are whole in this moment no matter what” – Brea Fisher

That being said, being is enough. Being is your stability. Anything else is desire and perception. You can be the stability you want in this world.

Apart But Not Alone

We are all connected. Emerson tells us that the greatest gift one can give is a portion of ourselves. With that piece of generosity, through the interconnectedness of everything, if we give that piece of ourselves we discover the Cosmos – and it is us.