Tag: taoism

Distance Tarot is open now and all holiday season long

I’m not making up the coffee part. Intuition works best when you are comfortable and can be in the flow of it (a rather Taoist – like notion, don’t you think?) Although meeting people in-person and doing Tarot parties is total fun and one of the real joys of being a Tarot reader, the writer in me loves curling up with my TarotCards, my laptop, a hot cuppa joe and diving in. It’s a different, more energy attuned way of connecting with intuition and spiritual guidance for people. Handwriting with pen and ink is even more so. I call it my specialty just because I enjoy it so much. I’d like to do even more distance work in 2020 than I have in the past. But I’m happy to help with either style. In-person appointments resume January 2. Distance readings are available now (order on the home page, noappontmentneeded)

Image via @picsart free backgrounds

The Niggles: Bookends

I am head over heels for the new name and look.

I’ve had a good time with the one year anniversary. Halloween was the perfect day for the re-branding and re-launch last year. Thank you all so much. It means a lot that you stuck with me through the transition and I am grateful for all the new friends made along the way.

It just doesn’t feel quite complete without a matching bookend of a post about the TaoCraft name.

It is a sweet spot, philosophically, authentic and real. To my mind it feels like equal parts Alan Watts, Ted Andrews and Carl Sagan. It has been a joy to raise the tricolor freak flag of Taoism, Energy & Magick, and being openly secular. Hmm. That is an interesting mental exercise I’d not thought of until just now. If you were to make a flag to symbolize your true self, what would it look like? I’ll have to think about it. I’m thinking a white field with a taijitu, a pentacle and an atom. Hit me up on Instagram or Twitter – what would your own personal flag look like?

What is in a name after a year of living with it? Labels are still as meaningless or as empowering as we wish them to be. After this re-branding exercise, I think George R.R. Martin got it exactly right in Game of Thrones when Tyrion told Jon “Never forget what you are, the world will not. Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you.” I don’t regret taking a run at being all modern, trying to educate the world about the realities of predictions, putting energy into a professional, sanitized presentation. It was camouflage to protect my dragon baby. Now that she is grown and fierce and wonderful and breathing fire on her own, it was time to burn that whole house down.

Pippin Miller, of https://hyggelightwork.com/ did an oracle card reading for me summer 2018 when I was having a mid life empty nest only child goes to college crisis. I can’t remember exactly what she said, but a storm of broken glass shards crystallized into place. I don’t remember her exact words (sorry Pip) but the idea of it was crystal clear in my mind, and I could hear AJR’s “Burn the Whole House Down” earworming in my deep intuition. I’d been tinkering with the idea of “TaoCraft” as a concept and a name for years. Her reading was the starter’s gun at the beginning of a sprint. It was time.

So no more sanitized, blue, modern, suburban mom face.

Now it is all owls, black and gold, intuition, magick, wisdom, Reiki, meditation, and unabashedly secular.

The benefits for me have been many. The benefits for you are one simple thing: Better-than-ever Tarot readings. Authentic and honest, I can do better, more confident work for you from this comfortable place.

To that end, I’ve added a few things. Click here to see the map of my in-home individual reading and party service area. If you live outside of the area, no worries. I’ve found some quiet public places where we can meet. I’ve meet people there lots of times and never had a problem.

If your party is outside of the service area…don’t hesitate to contact me anyway. I take parties outside of the service area on a case by case basis depending on location and my schedule. I have added a travel fee for anything too outrageous.

Distance readings are still my specialty. A computer keyboard is a direct hotline bat signal right to my intuition, so you get as good of a reading as you would in person. Since I can work from my favorite chair, wearing fuzzy bunny slippers and sipping coffee, it might even be a little bit better. It helps when I can sit and think a minute without the silence that makes some people feel little awkward in a live reading.

Also there is a shiny new ebooklet that tells you all about a reading. A reading with me will only meet or exceed your expectations after reading it because you will know exactly what to expect. Click here for your free copy: TaoCraft Portfolio free download

I’m working on an expanded version with essays about Romance relationships, predicting the future and all sorts of other behind the scenes stuff. That will be coming to the Etsy shop soon, along with other titles hopefully.

One year, and we are just getting started.

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot.

 

 

Today’s Tarot: The Fool / Taroko Por Hodiaŭ: La Malsaĝulo

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“A journey of a thousand miles (kilometers) begins with one step” – proverb, Tao Te Ching

I’ve always wanted to be bilingual.

It’s a bucket list kind of thing. Had 2 years of French in high school, but never quite made it past the three most important sentences in any language: J’ai faim. J’ai perdue, Ou sont la toilette pour la femme s’il vous plais (I’m lost, I’m hungry, where is the ladies room please?)

I also discovered that I do not like noun gender. The whole bilingual thing was not as interesting if it meant climbing over noun gender to get there. Then along comes Esperanto. It is a language that makes freaking sense: no exceptions, no irregular verbs, no friggen’ noun gender. The concept of Espranto, its raison d’etre if you will, speaks to why I want to be bilingual in the first place. It was designed from the ground up to be able to be communication for diverse, eccletic people anywhere, everywhere, no matter where you were from. Being bilingual seemed global. It was worldly. Speaking another language was urban and streetwise and cool, especially to a kid growing up in rural Appalachia where being different is a sort of cardinal sin. Any other language, natural or constructed, was a way to touch the world from inside the evangelical shoe box without anyone noticing. I mean, you had to have foreign language credits for college, right?

Fast forward 10 years. The kid from Appalachia started studying martial arts, and picked up a few words of Mandarin, at least enough to order my favorite take out, no noun gender required. Global and cool was mine! Those pesky full time jobs, though. They tend to get in the way of things, especially language lessons in the days before the internet. No fluency there.

Now we have TA-DAH….technology! Back to Esperanto (because noun gender). Still global, still cool, and FREE on DUOLINGO . The language name Esperanto is based on the word for hope, espero. The idea was to create an accessible second language any one can learn so everyone can communicate, with the hope of gaining understanding, conducting business and diplomacy all from an equal footing. The hope of Esperanto was to create a better world through communication. I hope to learn a bit of fluency before I croak. To that end, I’m also taking advice from a TED talk about language learning, do something fun in your new language. I’m combining hope with passion and writing Tarot posts in Esperanto.

Richard Delamare, “Evildea” of Youtube fame once mentioned in an episode that part of his inspiration for starting an esperanto YouTube channel was its uniqueness. How many Esperanto vlogs were there at the time? I wonder the same. Even now, I wonder how many people read Tarot online in Esperanto. I haven’t stumbled across any yet. But on the other hand, my skill level isn’t high enough to do a real dive into the Esperanto speaking internet. Even if there are a zillion of us, so what? There are a zillion English speaking Tarot readers and I still manage to contribute a little somethin’ somethin’ every now and then.

Mi estas komenkanto. I am a beginner. Mi faros multejn erarojn. I will make many mistakes. Mi foje faros Tarokajn lagelojn en Esperanto cxi tie. Sometimes, I will do Esperanto Tarot readings here. Gi estos amuza se nenio alia. It will be fun if nothing else.

It’s all magick now

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It’s been half a year since TaoCraft Tarot’s official launch on Halloween, 2018. Today is half-o-ween (halfway to Halloween) or, if you want to be traditional about it, Beltane. This is the first spring that I have been open with all of you about my Taoist / witchy tendencies. If TaoCraft can launch on Halloween, it is only fitting to do something for Beltane.

It’s all magick now.

In honor of days of light and summer fire, I’ve made all the readings InkMagick Sigil Tarot. All of the readings now feature a sigil element and reading-based affirmation. Lucky for you, these won’t be handwritten unless you specifically order a pen and ink snail mail paper version from the Shop. The photo of your layout and the typed explanation part will stay the same. So will Zombie Cat with all of his snark and sly advice in the form of yes/no readings and the new Ask Zombie Cat page

I’ve thought of making layout changes, but it doesn’t feel right. The layout and position meanings are going to stay the same, in the old, reliable, trusty “Modern Oracle” layout that works so well. If it ain’t broke, far be it from me to fix it.

If you would like a reading in the new “InkMagick Sigil Tarot” format, you can order on the HOME page. If you want the handwritten version using my increasing beloved and magic wand like ink dip pen, those can be ordered from the TaoCraftTarotShop on Etsy, along with all the e-books, mala and jewelry (pssst….check out the necklaces. Mother’s Day is coming soon).

To those who celebrate, Merry May and Blessed Beltane, and to everyone else, Happy Tuesday! It’s all good. It’s all magick now.

Tarot Without a Net: The Heirophant

I like Marvel.

I was as happy to see Professor X as I was to see who I thought was ObiWan Kenobi on the Emperor card. It is a perfect bridge between what I see and what the artest saw in these two cards.

It’s been a long year coming, but waaay back when the third edition of Heart of Stars third edition deck was released by Thom Pham, he very graciously gave permission for me to share these posts with you. I am so looking forward to exploring this deck with you because it is very much how I work. If you have ever had a reading with me, there is a good chance that spirit and energy gave a pop culture reference at some point…a song, book, movie or tv show.

It is interesting to me that the very thing I missed by mis-understanding Odin from Thor as Obi-Wan from Star Wars is the exact thing that drives my impression of this card.

The Hierophant (or Pope card in some decks) has always been a nemesis for me personally. The Hierophant / Pope is often associated with social rules and conventions. On the RWS deck it is rife with religious imagery. As an adult child of evangelicals recovered fundamentalist, that is a hot button pushing reflex issue for me. Lucky for me AND my clients, that only happens when I engage with stuff like this, outside of a reading. In a reading, the Hierophant is smooth as silk and clear as a bell because it has to do with connecting with THEIR  energies and messages. Please don’t take my wrangling matches with this card to be an indication of what is to come in YOUR reading should this card turn up.

It is much better than it used to be, actually. It took a dozen re-writes to do the “Arcana in Balance” post (I’ll updating and reprising that series here later this year.) Since coming out secular, it has been easier to deal with this card. It is even easier still since Johanne Dinali explaned the card in her twitter feed as the keeper of traditions, like a grandfather or a shaman.

Here, I get the word teacher very strongly from this card. It still has undertones of rules and conventions because the Professor teaches discipline and ethics and how to deal with mutation super powers. It has the same threads of mystery and power. All that Professor X has learned has been long and hard-won….and about mysterious powers. So yes, the Hierophant is the keeper of rules, traditions, social conventions….but to teach them. He teaches mysteries through the same, not just all law and order. It is a subtle, even nonexistant distinction to those who embrace religion, perhaps. To those of us who have experienced and deliberately, mindfully left mainstream religion, it is an important one. The hierophant is more kindly kindly monk-teacher-scribe than lay-down-the-law, missals and diatribes Pope.  Professor X and the heart of the Hierophant card is more like teaching us to find and use our X-men powers than it is law-and-order, lock-em-up and throw away the key. The Hierophant is a spiritual teacher – not a religious  officer, judge, jury and executioner.

I was browsing for a quote to post with the card as I often do on Instagram (@Taocraft.Tarot) This one by Thich Nhat Hahn caught my eye:

“Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst for more and you will get a higher kind of proof”

That resonates with teaching in a very real world way on multiple levels for me. If we go back to my personal religious issues (obviously not something that will relate to everyone, but shout out to all the ex-vangelicals out there) anything worth learning will stand up to doubt and questioning. Christianity, for me, disappeared in a poof of dust at every question, every doubt. Taoism has stood up through everything life has thrown at me. Tarot has never ending wisdom so far for me AND my clients. That isn’t bragging about my skill…it is bragging about what a reliable, testable, doubt-and-question-tolerant tool Tarot has proven itself to be in my experience.

That is just from the one sided perspective of a student. I’ve taught. This card and this quote has something to say to teachers as well: Questions and doubts are a wonderful thing. When I was teaching Kung Fu and Tai Chi I LOVED it when students had questions. They took the whole class to some really cool wonderful places…to hell with what I had planned. When students question us and doubt us and push us….they are doing US, the teachers and enormous favor. They are showing us the dead spots that need pruned away. They are showing us the empty gaps that need feed. If I don’t know an answer, it is only an embarrassment if I fail to try and find and answer or at least try to point the student in the direction of other possible sources for their answer.

When Professor Hierophant rolls in to a reading, it is a good time to ask questions, face our doubts, test the rules, then follow those guides and lessons that prove trustworthy.

Unsurprisingly, given his choice of Professor X, the artist makes teaching a primary focus, instead of a supporting focus behind the paternal / protector emphasis of the Emperor card.

Deck: Heart of Stars Third edition by Thom Pham, used with permission.