TaoCraft Tarot by Ronda Snow – Page 9 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Weekend Tarot Turnover: Two of Wands

Turn Tarot on its head while you practice your intuitive and card reading skills.I sip the coffee, you read the card. Today’s card is the Two of Wands

Hello and welcome to the Weekend Tarot Turnover. I’m glad you are here.

Let’s turn the Tarot reading process on its head. I’ll sip the coffee while you contemplate and interpret the card. For those of you reading the blog or getting here through the YouTube channel, you can see the real-world, authentic card draw on video. Those of you listening on the blogcast will just have to take my word for it or check it out later. A link to the blog is always in the episode description, at least on Spotify and Anchor FM it is.

Today’s card is the Two of Wands.

Read or listen to this list of possible card meanings, as use your intuition to see which one fits you or feels right to you. Or better still, use your own intuition to make your own meaning. Honing in on the right meaning provided in the references and resources direct inspirations you have on hand is integral to reading Tarot for yourself. I don’t certify or teach anyone to read for other people but I can teach you to read Tarot for yourself really, really well. Watch this space for more on that.

But back to the Two of Wands. Two cards in general deal with balances.

Balance your inner world with the outer world. Don’t get so caught up in the physical that you forget to care for your emotional and spiritual side. And vice versa – don’t live in your head so much that you neglect the practical side of life.
Balance your attention to time. If you allow your thoughts to dwell too much in the future, anxiety or unhappiness can come.
Look to the future sometimes. Hopes and plans are important too. Tomorrow has to start somewhere.
Reassurance or validation that you are on the path to success, watching the horizon for your ship to come in

So, what do you think? Feel free to drop your card interpretation or thoughts about the weeknd turnover exercise in the comments. Questions are welcome and answered in the blogcast. Will trade my opinion and expertise for some of that sweet, sweet content. Let’s talk!

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

None of the authentic TaoCraft Tarot content is monetized. Any ads you see benefit the hosting platform, which means the Tarot part of the content is 100% listener supported. The blogcast and YouTube channel depends on email Tarot readings purchased through the blogcast website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi. I always appreciate your support as well as any likes, subs, shares and follows you can spare. Thank you.

One Step Win

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Four of Wands and a one step win.

Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Todays card is the Four of Wands.

It’s kind of weird being both a music fan and a little bit clairaudient.

Today is exactly why.

Clairaudience is like clairvoyance except it’s your intuition communicating to you through mental sounds or words instead of mental images. Most of the time it’s great, because like I said, I like a wide range of music. It’s not often that I’ll get an intuitive song reference that I don’t know well or don’t like.

Today, the split second the card turned over I immediately got a song, but had to google it in order to be able to talk about . All I heard was the line “na na na na na na life goes on” clear as a bell, music and all. It was vaguely familiar as the opening for some old TV show that was popular at the time, I guess, but not one I never watched for whatever reason.

Turns out it was Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da (Life Goes On) which was from an early 90s show called “Life Goes On” or so sayeth the Google. Not my favorite Beatles song. I know it may be heresy to some people, but I can take or leave a lot of their stuff and this is a leave one.

Which begs the question what does that have to do with the Four of Wands? Usually the card is associated with celebrations. These celebration are more community & society oriented, or celebrations that extend beyond the immediate family….like a large wedding or christening.

Now juxtapose that with the frightening news of war in Europe. How do you entertain the idea of community celebration when there is real chance of global implications for these events.

That leads to a pop culture reference that I enjoy more. Remember the wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Ginny wonders if it isn’t a bit silly having a wedding “given everything that is going on.” Harry replies that maybe everything that is going on is really the best reason TO have it.

That’s the spirit of the Four of Wands today. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, life goes on. When you are feeling tired and discouraged or demoralized, taking that one more step is a win worth celebrating.

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to TaoCraft Tarot on the blog, in the podcast and on YouTube Shorts. None of it is monetized and it all depends on your support. No appointment needed email Tarot purchases on the blogcast website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi all contribute to creating this unique Tarot content.

Any likes, subs, shares and follows you can spare are always appreciated too!

See you at the next sip!

Persist, but not like that

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Ten of Swords.

There’s no way around it. The Ten of Swords is kind of a dire looking card. In the classic Waite Smith deck, you have some dude face down on the ground with a whole collection of swords sticking out of his back. That can’t be good.

It’s not.

Nor is it intended to be.

Tarot wouldn’t be a useful life guide if it was all rainbow sprinkles and fairy dust because life itself isn’t a collection of vanilla scented unicorn farts. Stuff happens. Like the three deer that just walked through the yard and past my window. Hello ladies.

Life is random, just like that. And it doesn’t always bring a few sweet natured neighborhood deer.

Sometimes the Ten of Swords is about persistence. Sometimes it talks about energy akin to that proverb “fall down seven times get up eight.” Persistence is not quite the vibe today. Today is more about zombie emotions.

I forget exactly how it came up in the conversation, but a reading for a client recently reminded me of a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud. He said that “Unexpressed emotions never die. They are buried alive and come forth later in uglier ways.” You know. Zombie feelings.

It is also said that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is the essence of insanity not to mention a good way to create zombie feelings.

Choose your battles wisely. If we persist in just getting up time and time again it not only gets a little crazy from the repetition, it also buries the emotions about the situation in a heap of blind effort.

It sounds crazy, but sometimes you have to face the swords in your back. The first step in fixing something is admitting it is broken, not by burying the broken-ness under a veneer of repeated effort.

Yes, by all means persist, but not like that.

No one is going to thing less of you if you take a minute to get your bearings, asses the situation and figure out something different to try next time. If they do, that’s on them for being judge-y and awful, not on you for being honest with yourself about your situation and how you feel about it.

Take minute, reassess, identify the problems and feel the feels. If you ask me, using the swords in your back to slay zombie emotions sounds like a pretty persistent, get-up-eight kind of thing to do.

Thank you so much for listening! I appreciate you and any likes, subs, shares and follows that you can spare. The blogcast and youtube channel are not monetized, so they depend on your support through your no appointment needed Tarot readings purchases and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi.

See you at the next sip!

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Circles of Life and Fortune

You choose the Tarot card. Pause the video or blogcast if you need some time. Then restart to see or hear the reveal and get your Tarot reading

https://youtu.be/0TC3suFRkGM

Today’s YouChoose works the same as always: pick a card. You choose the card, you choose how to apply it. Pause the video if you want a minute to think about which card you want, then restart to see the reveal and hear the card interpretation.

To keep the reveal a surprise (because I know you have good instincts and will pick the right card for you) the video will stand alone without a transcript so there is no peeking.

Stay tuned for more short sip Tarot reading posts and an update about Spring ’22 hours.

Thanks for watching!

Comments and questions are moderated but welcome below. Select replies post in the blog.

Weekend Tarot Turnover: Knight of Wands

Weekend Tarot Turnovers on TaoCraft Tarot by Ronda Snow flips the script on a typical Tarot reading to let you stretch your intuition and learn to read single Tarot cards.

Hi and welcome to this special weekend evening edition of I’m going to try something new with this text to speech thing. I’m glad you are here.

My cyberpunk self is loving this whole concept. In my overly robust imagination, I can conjure up getting an award for my Tarot brilliance and giving a thank you speech with the AI voice dubbed over it as if that was my actual speaking voice so we can all pretend that I actually sound like this. Big spontaneous not-sponsored, unpaid thank you to Anchor FM, WordPress and Siri’s second cousin Remy for making this whole construct possible. And thank you to William Gibson for writing Neuromancer and sparking off the whole cyberpunk analogy in my mind. I love that book.

But anyway, these “Tarot Turnover” exercises are just that. We flip the script on one card Tarot readings like the ones in the weekday short sip episodes. Except today I sip the coffee and YOU contemplate the card. I’ll pull a card and list some interpretations for the card either from old blog posts or partially inspired by some of the books on the suggested reading list here on the website.

Speaking of references, I get the feeling that one authors is a little extra sensitive about citations so I’ll remind everyone that every deck that I show in the blog, on the YouTube channel or in social media has permission for use granted by the author, artist or publisher. In the case of Animal Wise Tarot, I was kindly given direct permission from DragonHawk Publishing. I’ve been a huge Ted Andrews fan since the early 1990s, so I was pretty geeked over that one. Tham Pham, the brilliant artist behind the Heart of Stars Tarot deck and the Runes of Mannaz card deck, kindly granted permission directly to me for its use. Once it arrives, I also have permission via a kickstarter conversation from Dane Asmund and Seven Thirteen Books to use the Alleyman’s Tarot. I can’t wait to get my mitts on that one. But rest assured that if you see a deck here, I bought it, paid for it, evaluated it, used it, and deemed it one of the best within reach. It wouldn’t be in the blog otherwise. I’ve been using a Waite Smith public domain deck a lot lately just because it is easier to type “public domain” than it is to type a full deck information. After dissertation, the academic in me won’t let citation discipline go. I have to give SOME level of citation because I can’t not. Besides, my luck with citations is that if I get tired and forget ONE FRIGGEN TIME, in ONE FRIGGEN instagram post, complaints ensue. That being said, the deck pictured today is The Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans used with permission granted by Llwellyn Publishing via https://www.llewellyn.com/about/permissions_tarot.php

But again…..back to the turnover

There are a huge number of interpretations for any card. You can use your intuition to choose the meaning that fits you the best from this short list OR -even better – create your own direct understanding of the card. Your direct intuitive understanding doesn’t even have to be put into words. No one needs to know your message from the card except you. It can be a feeling, mental image, or physical sensation. But if you have any questions about your interpretation feel free to ask in the comments or contact the email in the right hand website column for a response in the blogcast, identifying information withheld of course.

Knight cards are associated with action and chivalry. Wands have to do with fire, passions, your inner world and your relationship with yourself. The vibe I get today is an advice type message to act on your personal spirituality with integrity.

Other possible meanings might include:

Calm self-assurance, comfortable within your own skin
Adventure, travel
new job or new house
survival instincts / acts of self preservation

Look for an updated blog post or in the podcast episode description for a list of helpful Tarot references. There is nothing wrong for looking to books for inspiration about a card interpretation. Bibliomancy is using a book for intuitive guidance. Both the books and the cards are all just inspiration. They are the spark and the amplifier. You and your intuition is really the thing at work here.

What does your intuition tell you about the knight of wands this evening?

Thank you for reading, watching and listening. The blog cast and YouTube channel are not monetized in any way so they depend on your support. Email Tarot reading purchases, Tarot Table memberships and “Buy me a coffee” donations all contribute to creating this Tarot Content for everyone to read or hear.

Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated too.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Whose Expectation Is It?

TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Hanged Man from the major arcana portion of the Tarot Deck.

Major arcana cards are about the major life lessons, about the twists and turns life can take. Sometimes they are guidance for a big choice you have to make, but in this case, it can be more along the lines of a general wake up call. That’s the kind of energy around today.

There was an episode of TV show we used to watch where the mom of the family was YouTube famous for a few days because of a video of her yelling “knock it off!” at her kids. She was the “knock it off” lady.

That’s the vibe the Hanged Man has today. Major arcana cards can be just that blunt and to the point sometimes. They are most often the cards to give the frying pan over the head kind of messages. I always enjoy it when Tarot drops the diplomacy and tells it like it is.

To borrow from another bit of pop culture, this kind of vibe is a little like the scene in the 1990 movie Ghost where the ghost, speaking through a psychic, asks psychic Oda Mae to be tactful and gentle when she talks to the bereaved character Molly. So of course, she gently and famously says “Molly, you in danger, girl.”

This card isn’t telling you that you are in danger, but it is telling you to knock it off.

If you think that life is stuck and not making any progress, whose expectations are being frustrated? Neil DeGrasse Tyson said that “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” Even more so, the universe is under no obligation to operate according to your timeline. The major arcana cards specialize in difficult life lessons. “It’s not about you” is one of those lessons.

So if you are feeling stuck or frustrated, the Hanged Man’s gentle, diplomatic advice is to KNOCK IT OFF! The universe is under no obligation to work according to your calendar.

Thank you for reading, listening and watching. The blogcast isn’t monetized and depends on your support. Email Tarot readings purchased on this website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi contribute to creating these (almost) daily Tarot readings for you. Any likes, subs, shares and follows that you can spare are always appreciated too.

See you at the next sip!

Busy isn’t bad

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.

When you look at a fine art sculpture the space it defines around it as sometimes as much a part of the composition as the space it occupies. Today’s card has a little of that energy. It’s not a caution energy, but it isn’t quite straightforward advice either. It feels a little like a power slide into a parallel parking space in a movie, or one of those internet memes where Wong portals in, gives some disturbing trivia and leaves out the same interdimensional portal.

Or maybe that’s just me because I’m a lazy, lazy girl.

If someone says “self care” to me, my first thought is coffee, readings a good book or taking a nap. The thing that the Two of Pents pointing toward is the fact that mental rest and re-balancing is not dependent on physical inactivity. Physical rest is easy. In modern America, we need a reminder to easy up on the mental stress.

You can do stuff without stressing over it. Arguable, you do more stuff and do it better when you are in a calm, relaxed state of mind.

This goes along with that Two of Coin’s quality of dynamic equilibrium. Maintaining balance often requires movement and adaptation. Spinning things are more stable, like a top or a bicycle or a gyroscope.

The sweet spot is a balance between activity and calm, being physically busy but not psychologically stressed about it.

Taoist philosophy describes it as wu wei. Chinese is notoriously difficult to translate. Sometimes wu wei is translated as inaction or not-doing. That isn’t to say that Taoists somehow think things will magically get done while we sit and to nothing. The translation “effortless action” seems more apt, especially in the context of this card. Both wu wei and the two of pentacles are pointing toward physical activity without mental stress.

A sense of accomplishment and productivity is a pretty nice feeling at the end of the day. Mental stress is not. A significant amount of stress is pressure we put on ourselves. It is almost as if we think easy things are somehow less valuable or less worthy of our precious little time. Again, the two card points us toward a sweet spot of balance. You don’t want to underestimate, neglect or minimize a situation, but you don’t want blow a molehill up to be Mount Everest either. That’s the balance the Two of Pentacles brings to us today.

Busy isn’t bad when it is balanced with inner calm. Mental rest and quiet is still self care, even when it happens in the center of a storm of external activity. Moving meditation is the perfect example, and a perfect way to practice mental calm in the middle of physical business. Walking meditation is very much a part of some Buddhist traditions. Of course, Tai Chi is the best known example of meditation in motion. Which circles back around to one of my very favorite Alan Watts quotes “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while one is peeling the potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes.”

It’s ok for things to be busy. It’s just as ok for busy things to feel easy while you do them.

Thank you for reading and listening. The blogcast and YouTube channel are not monetized and depend on reader and listener support. Email Tarot readings purchases here on the blogcast site, Tarot Table memberships and buy me a coffee donations all contribute to the creation of this Tarot content. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated!

See you at the next sip!

Birds of a Feather Inspire Together

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is The Star from the major arcana.

Birds of a feather flock together. Like attracts like. You are what you eat.

Adages and Proverbs become adages and proverbs because they have proven themselves true for a long, long time. And they tend to apply to a variety of situations.

That whole birds of a feather, like attracts like thing is huge advice for lonely hearts in search of a soulmate. In other words, be the soulmate you want to bring into your life. Do you want the romance of your life to be with a person who is all tied up knots and focused solely on their own feelings or would you rather be with someone who is happy and engaged with life? Be the bird you want to feather with.

It isn’t all soulmates. Like attracts like applies to many other things too. It begs the question of what, exactly, attracts you.

Human beings, it seems, are absolute geniuses for projection and confirmation bias. We see our own desires and our own opinions everywhere we turn. Who you follow, the things you support, the things that inspire you tells the outer world as much about you as much as those things tell you about the outer world.

Curate your inspirations. Actual conversations with actual people aside, would you want to have your social media “likes” as real world meat-space friends? Would you want to be part of their group?

Social media platforms are literally called a feed. We consume media. What would happen to your body if you constantly fed on toxic things? Why would you take any less care with the media you consume? Block and unfollow buttons are powerful protectors is you use them.

I love my social feeds. I’ve met beautiful, kind, wise people from opposite ends of the continent that I never could have met otherwise. Instagram is especially fun since I tend to be a bit visual. My feed is filled with artists, photographers, poets, Taoism, meditation, witches, civil rights groups, some of the best Tarot readers out there, recipes, coffee memes and a fair bit of yarn porn.

There are some pretty wonderful things out there in cyberspace, not just doom and gloom. Of everything out there, what things grab your attention? Who inspires you? The Star card reminds us to take care that those things and people are worthy of our attentions and our aspirations.

Thank you for reading, listening and watching. The blogcast and youtube channel are not monetized and depend on your support. Email Tarot purchases and Tarot Table memberships contribute toward creating TaoCraft Tarot online content. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated too.

See you at the next sip!

The deck pictured is Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell used with permissions granted on llwellyn publidhing dot com.

It is what it is

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today it is what it is with the six of cups

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the six of cups.

This is one of those cards that landed like a dud grenade right in my wheelhouse. It speaks to exactly how I’m feeling. I hope it is little bit helpful to one of you too.

Emotional content is optional.

It is what it is. It is a peaceful, happy thing to be able to take things at face value. As long as what needs done gets done, you don’t have to be all bubbly and enthusiastic about it. It’s as exhausting to be all cutesy unicorns all the the time as it is to be down and worried all of the time.

Some days just are what they are.

It’s not even that “chop wood and carry water” zen proverb kind of energy. There is room in that proverb for joyful wood chopping and water carrying. There is room in the proverb for dreading your chores too. I’m talking about complete beige lukewarm shoulder shrug of a “MEH” kind of day. Not that it’s a bad thing. Raging neutrality is restful. It’s a kind of a relief really. That’s is the beauty of the six of cups card. It’s a take things at face value card. It is the 180 degree opposite of the the overthinking seven of cups card.

Cups, along with all of their water, intuition and relationship connotations, can also symbolize emotions. Pamela Smith depicts two children and flowers and seemingly peaceful play on a sunny afternoon. The card is often connected with innocence and beauty and that is very much present in the card. The key part today is the innocence. It is about an utter lack of artifice. These kids aren’t ginning up emotional content. Their afternoon is what it is. They are taking cups full of flowers as they are. There is actually a deep authenticity and honesty around this energy. That is so important for a day like this. While the day is what it is we are free to be who we are and feel what we feel. Even if what feel is a little “meh.”

I was watching the winter Olympics earlier today. I have a minority opinion: I don’t like women’s figure skating. Who gives a flying Hamil camel about emotional content, artistic content and how much they were smiling? It’s an athletic competition. Do they throw the technique or don’t they? Nobody says anything about the emotional quality of the people throwing themselves head first down the side of of an icy mountain on a cafeteria tray. Like skeleton, out here in the real world away from the performing arts and multi media, action speaks louder than the feels. It is perfectly OK to go through a day without the rollicking feels. Do the essentials and accept your emotions (or lack thereof) at face value. They are what they are.

Like I was talking about in the Valentine Q&A post a few days ago, in Tarot and romance readings, the clients emotions and everyone’s privacy are of prime importance. The six of cups reminds me of a few more things for the list of important Tarot things. Add authenticity and dealing with things as they are to the list too.

You all know that I’m a huge Adam Savage fan. I think it was a short Q&A video on Tested or maybe on Tested’s instagram feed, but one time he was talking about how he feels a little down or low energy after wrapping up a big project. At least I think that’s the words he used. I may be paraphrasing. I’ve found that to be true, on a much smaller scale of course. I’ve knitted blankets for family members as gifts. I don’t know if you’ve ever knitted a blanket but it is less of a work in progress and more of a lifestyle choice. It takes some serious time to make one of those babies. Weirdly, the next day after the blanket was finished I felt compelled to knit something else. Maybe it was simple inertia. Maybe it was to fill the void a big project leaves when it’s done. After putting so much time and attention and emotional investment into a project, it leaves a noticeable gap when its gone. The same it true of eBooks and essays, even the teeny tiny little ones that I write.

Yesterday I put My Tarot Valentine out in the world for purchase from the ko-fi shop. I’ve been writing early February My Tarot Valentine posts for the blog since 2015 and tinkering with the eBook collection of those posts off and on since last year. I’m beyond over it. Still, clicking that upload button always has a little bit of a ripping off the bandage feel. Wrapping up that project led to a minor case of the snarky BLAHS today. I almost didn’t do a short sip post because I just wasn’t feeling it. But did it anyway and here comes the six of cups to remind me that taking a day as it is and working with the BLAHS for what they are actually is today’s short sip Tarot.

Thank you all for listening. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated. Neither the blogcast nor the YouTube channel are monetized so all of this Tarot content depends on your support through “buy me a coffee donations” and Tarot Table memberships.

Thanks again and see you at the next sip

Your purchase of private email Tarot readings also supports this blogcast and YouTube channel. No appointment needed for email. Working at distance is more than pandemic safe…You get my 30 years experience at one of the most affordable prices ($40 flat rate for a full reading)

New in the shop: My Tarot Valentine

Click to purchase – instant download from the ko-fi shop

My Tarot Valentine is a collection of vintage love and romance Tarot blog posts, condensed instruction how to do one Tarot meditations, and a peek behind the scenes of doing a professional romance Tarot reading. (pdf download, 44 pages formatted to A4, standard us copy paper)