TaoCraft Tarot by Ronda Snow – Page 30 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Today’s Tarot: Hanging Around

In Carl Sagan’s fiction work Contact, Ellie Arroway is a scientist involved with SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intellence (which is a real thing.) In it, at one point, she considers not only the vast distances between Earth and other potential homes to intelligent, communicative life, but also the role that time inherently plays. Obviously, it take a heckuva long time, even at the speed of light, for one side of message to get from there to here and vice versa. What if there is also a vast difference in lifespan and local experience of time. A few days to us is a lifetime to a fruit fly, and many generations to a germ. As she was driving she noticed crack or bumps in the road at fairly regular intervals. What if, she wondered, the pulses in a signal came so slowly, so widely spaced that we didn’t even notice the signal, with each blip of the message just being dismissed as an anomaly.

Makes me wonder if the universe isn’t really teeming with intelligent, communicative, technological life but each at such widely disparate time scales, that nobody can connect with anybody so that everybody thinks they are the only ones…but that something for another time.

The same phenomenon can happen when it comes to our interaction with Tarot, or any form of esoteric guidance, even pure intuition. Sometimes the whole idea gradually unspools over days, weeks or months until finally the last piece falls into place. If we miss a piece, the message goes on until finally the “ah-ha” happens.

A single card daily meditation practice is an excellent way to get a feel for this among many other things. Not only do you get a specific read of the energy for that specific day, you can see patterns emerge over the course of days, weeks, even years. My personal example of that is the strong presence of pentacle cards during the first part of the pandemic and the evolving intuitive images of the U.S. map with all the little tornadoes and the hurricane on the horizon that both reflected the overwhelming cultural zeitgeist energies that were so strong during 2019 & 2020.

What say you empaths? Has the cultural and environmental energies stopped ringing your bell quite so hard? I think that is the impetus behind the speckled stone image. Boundaries are firmer, individual concerns are at the fore and the existential political crisis (at least locally here in the US has dropped into the background somewhat.)

Today’s card connects to yesterday’s Four of Swords card which connected to previous readings. There is a continued thread of change & rest themed energies.

The Hanged man connotes stagnation, but this energy hasn’t been hanging around long enough to take on that interpretation. Hanged Man can also mean surrender, changing your way of looking at things – it can take on exactly the wait, don’t push, change what you are doing, rejuvenate, and contemplate energies we’ve been seeing. My hunch is that this kind of energy is going to be around for a while since we’ve seen it in a multi-day pattern like this. Astrology might ascribe this to some planet in retrograde or something. I don’t know anything much about astrology, so I attribute this to a yin phase, a time of quiet, of taking in, minor adjustments. It is a time of plugging in to recharge in whatever metaphoric sense you want to give the phrase.

If there is a message specific to today, I sense “patience.” Not everything unfolds at the pace we want or expect. There are reasons patience is considerd one of the great treasures of Taoism. Just like messages from aliens, life unfolds at its own natural pace, not according to our wishes.

“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you”
Neil DeGrasse Tyson via brainyquote.com

Today’s Tarot R & R

Maybe it’s a message for me as much as anyone else. But that’s how these things often work. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? My intent is that the blog will help somebody out there somewhere at some time or another, whenever they happen to see this. At risk of sounding like Prince lyrics, the whole point of Tarot is to help any and all of us get through this thing called life

The Four of Swords ties in to several energies that have already stepped forward lately. I still get a strong mental image of the different color flecks in stones from this weeks interactive reading Speckles. It feels like we are at long last getting a respite from the communal, zeitgeist energies that have so strong for the past year or so. It isn’t so much that we are being asked to stay in our lane and stick to our knitting – but rather the communal energy has disengaged and left us to our own devices. It is almost as if the universe has given us a day off to have a play date with ourselves. We are a collective of individuals. There is beauty in diversity. In a very gentle way, today feels like permission to get down with your bad self in a sense, whatever level of frenetic or zen energy that may be for you.

There is also the idea of lifelong learning (Growing Ogres) It is a mark of excellence in any profession. It seems the best of the best are always learning, evolving, growing new onion layers and letting old ones fall away. That’s what a sabbatical is; an opportunity for professors to study more stuff.

It doesn’t have to be forever. A break in the energetic action is a very different thing from being stuck or stagnant or lazy. It certainly isn’t a sign of failure. In Reiki, the five core precepts (letting go of worry, letting go of anger, working honestly, being grateful, being kind) are focused on the present moment. “Just for today” is a liberating, enabling, empowering thought. Just for today, take the Four of Sword’s advice. Just for today, get some rest. Just for today, give yourself a break and work on something else. “Respite”and “Sabbatical” doesn’t mean be unproductive. You can rest one thing while doing something else. Or not.

“Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted”
John Lennon

Function & Finesse

Throwing a ball isn’t difficult to do.

Almost anyone can do it, one way or the other. Tossing something is a skill we all learn at such a young age, that we almost never give it a second thought. We can throw any little thing and have it land somewhere. If we are going to put the wadded up paper in the garbage can from 6 feet away, it takes a little more thought and focus but is the same basic body mechanics as any throw. Still, it isn’t major league baseball, either.

This is another way of saying one of the things I was rambling in circles about in “Growing Ogres.” Reading Tarot for yourself is easy to do. I can teach you in a 90 minute workshop, or in a short ebook. Doing a single card draw for yourself is the throwing equivalent of tossing your socks in the general direction of the clothes hamper.

Every card you add to a layout increases the level of difficulty. Not only are you dealing with the card’s assigned meaning combined with direct intuitive input, you add each card’s position meaning within the layout PLUS the way that the cards connect to each other to read the layout as a whole (not just a series of card + position meanings). With each added position, with each card increase in a layout’s the complexity increases. I don’t know if increasing exponentially is the right way to describe it, but it’s close. We are still talking about reading for yourself, so we are not talking about landing on Mars. Still, the food for thought from a multi-card layout can be a lot to digest. It’s moving up in difficulty from tossing socks to playing trashcan paperball, to little league, to a full on juggling act where the balls can fall down very easily.

Reading as an amateur at no charge IS an exponential increase in skill from the sock tossin’ DIY daily meditations. We are talking full-on March Madness, college playoff level ball handling. Not only do you have the multiple cards in multiple positions to knit together, you have the added layer of language that falls over the whole thing. It’s one thing to understand a card’s message and symbolism inside our own head for your own self, but it is a whole other enterprise to communicate those things to another person in a way that they can understand.

Reading professionally is playing hard ball with the big boys. When you do that, you are going to the show. Professional is professional whether you are throwing card or throwing balls. You not only have the basic card meaning, your intuitive impressions, they layout position meanings and the interconnection between the cards, when you go pro you have ethics and business practices to consider.

We all have perfectly good intuition. We are all “gifted” psychics. It is as much a matter of learning, practice and technique as throwing a baseball. We can all toss one. Not everyone wants to put in the work to get really good at it. Natural talent can play a part, but I’m not sure how much of a factor it really is. Not everyone has the drive, desire, natural ability, luck and opportunity to be a professional athlete. Or mechanic. Or doctor, or lawyer or therapist or grocery bagger or Tarot reader or professional anything-you-can-name.

If you can functionally do something, and you are happy with it, by all means do it for yourself. I think it is laudable. I like to make things. I could buy a sweater, but I have the ability to knit one for myself and I don’t mind the wait and less-than-professional result. But on the other hand, I like to listen to music. I probably could functionally learn to make amateur music for myself, but I don’t want to. I want to listen to music made by artists with talent and finesse as well as basic functional skill.

We all have intuition. It is, I believe, a natural function of the human psyche just like throwing a binkie on the floor is a natural function of being a human baby. Using Tarot cards to access that normal intuition is like learning to aim that binkie toss. Time, practice, technique, desire and sprinkle of luck and talent can give the intuitive function a good deal of finesse.

Learn to do DIY daily meditation single card Tarot readings with PeaceTarot, available in the TaoCraftTarotShop on Etsy.

copyright Ronda Snow, all rights reserved

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Speckles

No pressure.

There is zero big deal here. Pick a card, think about the vibe. If it is helpful, use it. If it isn’t, ignore it. I believe that, at risk of sounding like an old Blondie song, one way or another the message you need will get to you if you let it. It might be through the card you choose here. It might be through the crystal that goes with it. So choose quickly on impulse. Stop the video and think about it…it’s all good. Even if your cue(s) don’t come through this at all, heads up, eyes open. Synchronicity is your friend. Spirit whispers through random coincidence if you listen well.

Blue Kayanite – loyalty, fair communication, throat chakra

Red Jasper – nurturing, endurance, warrior stone, base (sacral) chakra

Rose Quartz – inspires compassion & peace, attracts love & romance, heart chakra

Left: Devil. This isn’t predicting something bad will happen. Many times it is a “heads up” acknowledging the reality of evil in the world. There are people out there doing not-good things. The world doesn’t always have your best interests at heart, protect yourself. But that isn’t the vibe today. Oh no, it’s WAY worse than that. It is about you facing the worst of yourself. Some call this shadow work, coming to terms with parts of your own personality and psyche that make the rest of you uncomfortable. If you choose this card, I suggest researching some Carl Jung. *

Center: Six of Pentacles. Generosity and Reciprocity. The card symbolizes generosity of both money (or other physical resources) and a generosity of spirit. There is also a sense of connection to Queen of Wands energy…you can’t be generous with others if you are tapped out yourself. Curate your resources, your health and your energy. When you feel and are abundant in resources it is easier to give generously, and more importantly, authentically of yourself. Doing something because you should or you have to is far more draining than the same thing given spontaneously without attachment to the should or have to part of it.

Right – Five of Cups. A card of melancholy, mourning and bittersweet endings. This feels oddly targeted. It lends itself the most of the three cards to that individuals connected, individuals within a joined matrix impression (like the stones in the video card) It boarders on that trope “I don’t know who needs to hear this…” This is targeted to those who have had a romantic relationship end recently. The advice is to honor the pain. Acknowledge it and feel it in order to move on to healing it. You don’t have to sweep sad, upsetting things under the rug. You don’t have to pretend hurtful things didn’t happen. Whatever the hurt or loss may be, walk through the hurt and the feelings at your own pace. It may not seem like it now, but a time will come when you can move on, even it is a bittersweet progress. Now the energy moves into a regretful letting go, a realization that it is time to move on. The rose quartz is gentle and loving. It can help heal heartbreak, then help attract new, healthy love when the time is right.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Carl Jung

Tarot is an excellent tool and method for just the kind of self-discovery that Dr. Jung speaks of here. I’m not a psychologist, but I can help you learn to use Tarot for yourself or give you an individual advice and guidance reading that can help you with your self-discovery, personal enrichment, spiritual expression or heart-healing learning.

* The morning after this post first published, this showed up in my Twitter feed: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/matauryn/2018/04/29/integrating-the-shadow/

I recommend the article along with Mr. Auryn’s book Psychic Witch.

Order PeaceTarot (a how-to guide to diy daily meditation Tarot readings) available as a .pdf instant download from the TaoCraftTarotShop on Etsy HERE

Order distance Tarot readings (my specialty) with no appointment required HERE

Duly Noted

“Growing Ogres” was a challenging post to write. You can tell because it’s long. Einstein was right – “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

There are three basic layers to talking about layers in Tarot: easy, hard and hot mess.

Reading for yourself is easy. I can teach you to interact with the cards by yourself for yourself in no time. In a short ebook in fact. You can order it HERE. And yes, I’m still working on a second edition. We’re gonna need it when this whole pandemic thing is over. Adjusting is hard. Adjusting BACK is hard too.

Reading for other people is hard. Interacting with the cards, plus the intuitive messages from energy/spirit plus communicating that message effectively to the client, plus business ethics plus ethics ethics…professional Tarot reading has several layers of complexity and levels of difficulty above grabbing your favorite deck for a little guidance every now and then.

Describing my side of the table and the inner workings of intuitive readings is wildly complicated because it requires taking a reader right up to the edge of silent mysteries and individual experiences. Trying to put the wordless into words can turn into a hot mess in a heartbeat. Or, in the words of Lau Tzu, “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

All I really needed to say was the combination of video and text wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped, so I’m changing it back.

I’ll circle back to personal growth, evolution, authenticity, inner growing new layers, shedding old ones and all of that stuff another time. Meanwhile, if you have any feedback about the tweek in the layout names or the audio/visual combo experiment, I’d love to hear it.

If you are interested in the video & text combination, check out the “Today’s Tarot” posts and the weekly “YouChoose Interactive Tarot” posts.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
Jeff Rich

Growing Ogres

Shrek: ….ogres are like onions
Donkey: They stink?
….
Shrek: No! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers
from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com

Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.

Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)

Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.

Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot (related: what’s in a name, Shakespear’s Roses, Spell Your Name)

That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.

In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is a condition of licensure and employment. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.

And so, the “Modern Oracle” layout is evolving. I’m calling abort on the video / text hybrid format. It was an experiment that failed, and I’ve learned something important from it.

Remember how deeper layers are often perceived as more authentic and how old layers of growing onions turn papery and fall off? It’s time for the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle layouts to evolve, to become more authentic, to show more of their inner complexity. The video hybrid isn’t the way for that to happen. The names of layout card positions are changing. It’s a tiny detail that you may not even notice from your side of the Tarot table. On my side of the table it is important shift in mindset. This allows me to fully and authentically follow what intuition and spirit shows me.

I wrote the initial layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the Modern Oracle layouts specifically to show the power of your choices over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in the old style became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.

Now it will go one step further. I in my minds’s eye, I see a reading in terms of dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. As Modern Oracle layouts become TaoCraft layouts, we will let go of time and predictions entirely. If the Modern Oracle layout was like GPS map for your path ahead, the TaoCraft layout is like a GPS traffic update with a weather report.

Card 1, lessons from the past, will become Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are moving away from you. These are things that need less of your attention.

Card 2, current situation, will become Current Energies, the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention in this moment.

Card 3, moving forward will become Growing Energies, energies moving toward you, or gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is still intended to guide you, help you prepare for possible conditions ahead. Think of it like a weather report. It doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen to you during your day, but it can give you the chance of rain or sun while it happens.

Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. The choices card will take on a more advisory tone than before. Instead of suggesting how to persist or how change your path, it focuses on whether changing or whether staying the course is the wisest thing to do.

Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed. (Or it can help keep you on your path if you like the way things are headed.)

Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are the same as always, and speak to exactly what the name implies.

Long story short, if you are dead set on a specific “accurate” prediction, you aren’t going to like the new TaoCraft layouts. If that’s the case, you need the Zombie Cat yes/no readings like we did the other day. Even then, you have to realize it isn’t 100%.

If you are ready for next level, dynamic energy readings, I can help. Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot.

Today’s Tarot: All in this together

Whenever I do readings, in the middle portion when we are going through the layout card-by-card, each card gives a different type or category or spin or ‘flavor’ of message. Some are advice (something to think about doing) others are cautions (something to think about avoiding) but they can also be validations & acknowledgements.

Today, the three of pentacles has elements of all of these. To me it looks like a tie-dye wavy gravy swirl of it all, which isn’t uncommon when you are doing a general audience, blog type reading.

As an aside, that’s probably why you see so many of those “I don’t know who needs to hear this but….” posts on social media. I stop reading the minute I see that, an more often choke back the urge to block them. It strikes me as arrogant and not an energy I want in my cyberspace. Of course you don’t know who needs to hear something. It could be that nobody needs to hear what you have to say. If you need to know that someone needs your advice, you aren’t in a good headspace to be giving advice. Just say it. Own it. Give the advice with no “need it” strings attached on either the giving or receiving end. Trust the universe to get the right message to the right person at the right time. If it is right for them, people will know and take it to heart. If it isn’t they’ll just keep scrolling.

Now back to the three of pentacles –

The caution thread here is to “watch out for falling down.” That can be construed two ways. One is to take care to do your part of a team effort. It feels like you’ll be called on it if you do and bad feelings could happen. It’s not talking about something accidental or truly inadvertent. It feels more like an act of anger, frustration, or deliberate negligence. Take care keep things in proper priority and try not to drop the ball when others rely on you if you can help it. It is also a caution against being a doormat in a team situation. Clearly communicated expectations feel important to any team situation today.

Validation feels like someone who has been a real mensch through it all. This feels like a validation and a thank you for all the times you have gone over and above the call of duty for the good of a team, of a project or generally in service to others. Logically, given the world situation, there are lots of you out there for whom this applies. Well done and profound thank yous.

The validation, interestingly enough, was for me. When you read for other people be on the lookout for messages for you that piggyback in on their message. That way you GET your intended message and you don’t accidentally muddle your message and theirs together. The validation here has to do with clairaudience. Music that you are not in the mood for is a nice validation. Music that is not to your taste is a good hint that it is genuinely from intuition and not just a random something you heard recently. I am NOT in the mood for a chipper little Disney tune, but seeing this card definitively brought through “We’re all in this together” from a movie my daughter used to like. High School Musical or something like that? I dunno.

As cute and happy and positive as the song might be, it IS right. We are all in this together. It is ok to expect others to do their part. It is important to set clear expectations as well as to do your part. Don’t drop the ball but don’t be a doormat. Ask for help. Delegate tasks. And if a bright chipper song comes at your intuition way too early in the morning, pay attention. Then go get that second cup of coffee and try to find a better earworm.

Here is a playlist for you if you are in the mood for something with a little more spark to it. I’ll leave it to you to get your musical on. Now, where’s that coffee?

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4FGxubTJ6EIgGJrgDh3Ctd

Want a reading that is all for you and not a blog post written for planet earth? The NEW Distance Tarot format combines both print and video for an enriched Tarot experienced close to an in-person session but with the affordability and convenience of email. Order yours HERE.

Something new has hatched for you

Happy Spring equinox!

I’m happy to announce a NEW format for all email readings on the TaoCraft Tarot website (Etsy shop readings are unchanged)

Now you get a video introduction with every reading. Not just text and a photo, not just a lengthy video file to download. You get the best of both worlds in one private document because…

Vox humana

There is something special about a human voice. That includes real people voices not just YouTube or professional media voices. It’s a human touch that that technology still can’t quite replicate.

We all respond to the human voice one way or another, but we all learn from voices differently. Language touches our hearts and lives in our brains in individual ways. Some, like me, are bookworms. I love to read, I learn from books easily and I write very well. It’s my thing. Other people are audiophiles. I have multiple family members who learn and engage with ideas magnitudes better when it comes to them through the spoken word. Audiobooks and podcasts are invaluable to them. Still others need an immersive experience that uses both seeing, hearing and hands-on interaction.

That’s why I’m introducing a unique kind of distance Tarot reading that combines audio, video AND text to provide an enriched distance Tarot experience that works for all kinds of people.

With the new TaoCraft Tarot distance readings, you get the no-appointment-needed convenience of email but also a taste of the immersive in-person experience.

All at the same price as before. LIVE phone readings are still available and the same as always. I hope you’ll try a session.

There is more to come. I have other plans, and will be re-doing “The Big Explainer” behind-the-scenes peek at card layouts on the YouTube channel as I hone some some video & presentation skills. (ie fuck it I’m reading from a script) and putting some examples here on the blog. I’d LOVE it if one of you would send me a questions (or permission for an open reading) that I could answer in the blog for you (no names or identifying information, of course. You’d know who you are. Use the comments, because I moderate them and wouldn’t make that one public OR just email me at TaoCraftTarot@gmail.com)

But welcome to spring, a little change and a seed planted with the intention that it brings happiness and prosperity to all.

Flow and perspective

You can’t go with the flow until you get in the boat.

But then where are you going to go, and why?

Whenever I cite a Tarot deck, I always, always, always cite the artist no matter who wrote the book that goes with it. The book is nice, it gives the particular spin to match the particular deck for each card, but the art is where the real utility of a deck comes in. After all, there is nothing inherently special about Tarot cards, oracle decks, runes, tea leaves, I Ching coins and the like. They are all tools, gateways that help us access our normal, natural, innate intuition. They are the microphone, not the ear. They are the telescope, not the eye. Just as these things were brilliant, world-changing innovations in enhancing physical senses, putting detailed artwork on pip cards was equally revolutionary in the world of Tarot.

You can do intuitive readings just fine with the game-playing deck and no artwork at all. Like all oracles, the pip decks and gaming deck are just a tool to help access intuition. They are just a bit less sophisticated of a tool. Pip cards are a fine enough set of screwdrivers, but a fully illustrated Tarot deck is a set of watchmaker’s tools by comparison. The artwork raises the utility and versatility of the deck exponentially.

Today’s card is an example.

The deck resource books from Edward Waite talks about travel on water. Ellen Dugan talks about “smooth sailing ahead.” Diane Morgan talks about “yielding.” I’ve written here about perspective. All of these things, although different, are perfectly valid in the time and the background energy context of the time that the card interpretation was done. The human brain is a brilliant information filter and triage device. Attention is a real and very valuable psychic tool. Pay attention to something when it captures your attention. This is precisely how the artwork expands our Tarot understanding so dramatically. In the previous six of swords post, perspective and point of view stepped forward as a message after drawing attention to the swords stuck in the canoe. Today, my attention is much more strongly drawn to the image of the water, which in turn connects to the idea of flow, going with the flow, and the “yielding” that others have seen.

A full intuitive message often comes as a daisy-chain of ideas or a line of falling dominoes. Connect these ideas with the ideas from the Lovers card yesterday: goals, drive, desire and achievement from yesterday.

Put it all together, and we get to a point of balanced energy that I’ve seen be a bit out of balance lately. There needs to be balance between goals, achievement and progress toward a defined end point and the flow of life, of experience, of mindfulness of the present moment, of simple being.

We need both direction and mindfulness. Desires can both guide and frustrate, motivate and imprison. It is a balance of experience vs aspiration. It is a diet vs a lifestyle. My sense is we need more mindfulness and attention to the present moment. As we vaccinate and all too many people abandon mitigation too early we need to stop fixating on when we “get back to normal” and stay in the flow of the moment or else we may sink the boat.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Tao Te Ching

Pick a Winner

Choose choosing

The seven of cups has turned up in several readings lately, and when that happens it makes me think there is a message for everyone, a read on general energies.

It does fit. Vaccine availability rolls on and people are starting to think about what’s next. Legit decisions have to be made about how to get through this last critical time of mitigation, vaccination and evaluation (of how variants progress and THAT piece of it unfolds) There are decisions to be made and courses to be set.

The Seven of Cups talks about decisions. First and foremost, that you should make them. Even if you keep doing the same thing that you are already doing, it has a different energy if you deliberately CHOOSE to keep doing it. It is the difference between a mindful, purposeful choice and mindlessly letting it all happen. Choices are empowering even when the choice is to do nothing or the choice is to wait and decide later.

One of the psychiatrists I used to work for used to say deciding not to decide is still a decision. Making a decision has real psychological implications. It is a step toward emotional health and balance for any of us. Making a choice is not only empowering, it is anxiety relieving. Once you choose where you want to go, then it easy by comparison to decide how to get there.

That isn’t to say that decision making is easy. The more important it is, the more intimidating the choice becomes. Choices have consequences. That includes the choice to act on a decision – or not.

The seven of cups also talks about the challenges of making a decision. Sometimes there are too many good choices and we dither. Too many good choices and are decision making process freezes like a deer in headlights. Marketers call it decision paralysis. Or you can get the opposite, where there are no good options and we freeze in a different set of headlights. In these situations the advice is to simplify as much as possible. Then, all things being equal follow your heart – or you gut, whichever seems to be leading the way. This is tied to the other thread of decision-problem energy in the card. Sometimes we over think. We make choices much harder than they have to be and go in circles upon mental circles over the potential outcome of the decision. Again, the advice is to simplify. When all else is equal and logic doesn’t suffice, then let love, intuition and a good old gut feelings lead the way.

If the seven of cups comes to you, brace yourself for blunt, confrontive adages: “Suck it up buttercup” “shit off the pot” “you can’t sit on the fence” “lead, follow or get out of the way.” “Choose wisely.”

Indecision is uncomfortable. Even a bad choice is a learning opportunity. A good choice is a liberating thing.

“I don’t think we can sit on the fence anymore. We have to make up our minds. And if one wants to choose the path of darkness, then so be it, but be conscious of what it is you’re doing.”
Seal (via brainyquote.com)