Tag: quote

Whacked with the Cosmic Shillelagh

Sifu Gracenin told us that the best way to train for a thing is to do a thing.

The same is true of creative work – or anything really.

Creativity, new ideas, or enthusiasm for a project are all mercurial, wispy, unpredictable aspects of the human psyche. No wonder ancient Greeks and modern creatives alike blame the whole thing on a bunch of capricious Muses. You never know when you are going to get whacked with the cosmic shillelagh of creativity.

Which begs the question of what to do in the times in between, when your capricious Muses are missing in action and you are hit with an equally unpredictable time of uninspired apathy. To borrow a phrase from the sneaker people, just do it. “The best way to train for a thing is to DO a thing.”

Here is an analogy for the “My Hero Acedemia” and superhero fans out there…if you can only bring your superpower up to 5% today, OK, but DO that. But by doing that, you might be able to dial up the full cowling to 8% another day. If you persist at 5% power today and 8% later and so on, then you’ll be more ready and in a better place when time for full power comes along.

Or in other words, if you are feeling uninspired today, take it easy on yourself – on the inside – but still do what you need to do. The inspired feeling will come in its time. “Fake it until you make it” has its moments of utility. Work within your limits but don’t stop altogether. Continue to act within your ability, and in time your capability will increase whether you feel enthusiastic about it or not. Then you can be in a better, bigger place to act on creative inspiration whenever it does hit. That’s the sweaty part of the Thomas Edison quote “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” but an important part just the same. Hiking along with your ordinary walking stick is as important as getting whacked with the cosmic inspiration stick we see on the Ace of Wands.

Hang in there. One way or another, you got this.

Clarity of the Inner Voice

Back from a long weekend, normal hours the test of this week…email distance tarot, no appointment needed MOST readings delivered within 12 hours. Fastest service is daytime weekdays US eastern time. In-person individual sessions ard back, all the usual policies and restrictions apply, details HERE

Best Evidence of Gravity

“And then, for fun, he pretended that he was climbing down the wall. He did it almost instantly in his mind, convinced himself against the best evidence of gravity.” – Ender’s Game by Orsen Scott Card

I read Ender’s Game several years ago. It reminded me of the movie version of Heinlien’s Starship Troopers, but with a completely unnecessary, gratuitous final chapter. The final chapter blew it in my opinion, but like everyone else, my favorite parts where the zero gravity games and Ender’s first person descriptions of spatial orientation in that environment.

Apply that thinking to Tarot.

When Ender was floating around in zero gravity, did it change him as a person when his feet pointed in a different direction? Does the meaning of card change if you sit facing north instead of south? The Earth moves roughly what? 20 miles per second around the sun. If a card’s position in physical space really made that much difference in a card’s meaning, the meaning would change second by second wouldn’t it?

Maybe it does, but that’s for another day.

If a client is sitting directly across from me, every card that is upright from my point of view is reversed from theirs, and vice versa. A sideways card to both of us would be perfectly upright to someone sitting to the side. Early in the book, as he first travels from Earth to space, Ender realized that the names of surfaces and their function is determined by gravity. Gravity is what made any given flat surface the name of floor vs wall or ceiling. Gravity is what defined the subjective experience of down vs up or sideways. The same applies to a Tarot layout. Before you can consider reversals, you have to have some defining anchor point, some relative reference point (yeah, that kind of relative, as in Einstein’s theory of Relativity.)

The obvious reference point is the person doing the reading. But even when you have that clear definition of what a reversal IS, does really MEAN anything? Classically, a card reversal changes the meaning of the card somehow.

We’ve come to a time in human technology and civilization where we can (an in my opinion should) think larger. It’s time to take Tarot big picture. An obscenely rich guy just went to space on a lark yesterday. It’s time to connect Tarot and intuition to energy rather than physicality, to a cosmic perspective rather than an earth-bound surface one.

Even without considering upright vs reversed card position, there are lots of meanings and keywords bundled into any given card. It takes practiced intuition to draw out the right meaning for the moment and the message.

Your own good internal intuition is the way to understand reversals the same as any other meaning for a card. Reversals don’t change the meaning, they enhance it.

The reversal is about the energy flow around the card, not the card meaning itself. All the good/bad, positive/negative, advising/cautioning aspects of a card’s meaning should be considered normally, regardless of upright vs reversed presentation. In this case, think of the energy flow like water flow. In an upright card, the flow is like a river, generally moving in one direction. The flow might be fast or slow, deep or shallow. Sometime, in some places, under some conditions, the flow swirls in circles, even flows backwards or sideways. Usually that happens when large rocks or bridge pilings that block the natural flow. Reversed Tarot cards hint at a block in the natural flow. Reversed Tarot cards hint at swirls, blockage and back flow connected to all of a card’s potential meanings.

The reversal of a card in a readings isn’t a definite reversal from good to bad. It could just as easily be a reversal from bad to good. Stagnation could be sweeping into a new lane of progress. A reversed card is a hint to look at energy flow and larger context.

It isn’t about the rote direction of your feet. It is about the best evidence of gravity.

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

A little time, a little look

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

Just a reminder that distance email readings will be OPEN with no appointment needed all summer.

There may be some delivery delays May 13 – June 1

Clairvoyant Confessional podcast, the YouTube channel and social media will be on hiatus May 13 – June 1.

Thanks!

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.

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: Twinkle On Little Star

I’m not the deck collector some readers are, but I have accumulated a fair few. A favorite is the Heart of Stars Tarot by Thom Pham who very graciously gave his permission for me to share the images (and the ones from his new deck, The Runes of Mannaz) with you.

It’s one of my favorite decks for two reasons. The most obvious reason, of course, is the gorgeous artwork. The other reason is his use of famous characters and scenes from movies and TV for most of the cards. That is just how my brain an intuition works. Pop culture is a wonderful communication tool. Not everyone is familiar with the classic Tarot images, but lots and lots of people are familiar with movies and TV. Movies, songs, TV shows come to mind all of the time when I am reading for clients It works. It communicates the idea of a card in a familiar, relatable way far over and above the classic symbolism of the Marseille or Waite Smith Tarot alone.

For example, when I drew the Star card today, the Madonna song “Lucky Star” from her self titled 1983 album popped to mind and is ear-worming there as we speak. That is in no way paranormal considering how much I like 80s music and the fact that this was one of my favorite albums in its time. But at the same time, it can’t be dismissed out of hand when it comes to understanding the card’s message for today.

Since it’s actually been a long time since I’ve heard the song, I googled the lyrics to see if there were any message hints there. It’s just a nice little bubblegum pop puppy-love kind of thing. The line that caught my attention is “you shine on me wherever you are.” That in turn reminded me of how we all, everyone on Earth, see the same stars in the same patterns. Stars connect us as a unified audience for the night sky as well as reminding us that we are, all of us, connected to the larger cosmos. Stars made the stuff that we are made of – literally. As Carl Sagan famously said, “We are star stuff.”

It’s significant, too, that The Star is one of only two cards in this deck NOT based on a famous character or movie scene. The woman on the card is anonymous, the every-woman or every-man. She is both uniquely individual and she is all of us.

Even with pop culture references, getting to the right message for a client (or blog/podcast/youtube audience takes a few steps. Sometimes, like today, a card will daisy-chain widely different ideas into one cohesive thought.

Lucky star reminds us we are connected, stars shine on all of us wherever we are. The figure on the Heart of Stars card is both unique, unknown, and symbollic of any or all of us. We are individuals, yet deeply connected. We are individuals together. Although the small points of light in the sky might look the same, there are many sizes and types of stars, all at a unique distance from us that is constantly changing. Stars are individuals together in the cosmos, as are we.

The Star, and the domino chain of intuition reminds us that we are each wonderfully, gloriously, beautifully unique and wonderfully, gloriously, deeply connected.