tarot reading – Page 24 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Tree Sitting

It doesn’t matter who YOU think the wisest man who ever existed is, the point is that their philosophy – whoever they were or whatever that philosophy is – it is derived from introspection. The introspection is the thing.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Admittedly, my brain is getting in the way of intuition a little bit today. Or maybe this really is the energy message. I don’t know. I’ll let you and how much you resonate with the card decide that piece of it.

Often the four of cups has to do with someone who is sulking, or closed off. I see it often in relationship questions, which fits the suit of cup’s symbolism and connection to love, romance, and inner circle closest relationships of all types. It is often an energy of futility and unrequited emotion. It’s not good news in that context. Adages like “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,””throwing good money after bad” and “throwing pearls before swine” come to mind. Often this thread of meaning shows up in readings that are asking the “will I get back together with my ex-” variety of questions. You can’t control how other people feel and you can’t predict what they will feel or do, so the answer in that circomstance is sadly, no, the focus is internal. The message then becomes the advice of introspection….look within to do what you need to do to heal and hopefully progress to the move-on energy that the 8 of cups can offer.

But that, as they say, is another story.

Today, the card skips over all the closed-off energy and relationship advice. Today it cuts right to the chase and talks about introspection.

It resonates quite a bit with “Mr. Venn And His Nifty Diagrams” from yesterday on Sage & Stuff, my personal blog. That post was inspired by Hustle & Meditate the substack newsletter by meditation coach Jim Martin aka “The Unusual Buddha” plus an instagram post by I think it was Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch that spoke of mysticism and mystery teachings within witchcraft and magick.

In a nutshell, they both said the same thing although from different areas of expertise and separated by several months in time. The things they were saying were influenced by different cultures who came to similar conclusions a long time ago….despite being world apart in a B.C.E time where there was no trade or internet connecting northern Europe, India and China.

Both the Martin newsletter and the Auryn Instagram post conclude with the notion that, while we have much to learn from the masters who came before, we must each walk through the portal of learning for ourselves. We each have to walk our own path, carve our own way, experience the mysteries of the universe for ourselves and look at the moon with out own two eyes.

It is a bit of Isaac Newton meets Bruce Lee. Newton acknowledges that quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” end quote. Centuries later and inspired by a completely different culture, Bruce Lee admonishes his student in the movie Enter the Dragon quote “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” end quote.

Blind faith takes you nowhere. Accomplished masters can show you A way, but only you can walk it. Only you can see your true path through your own thoughts, contemplations and introspections.

Nineteenth century journalist, philosopher and father of Frankenstein author Mary Shelly, William Godwin once said that “The philosophy of the wisest man who ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.” Who you consider to be the wisest man person to have ever existed is up to you, but that too is derived from introspection – yours. Introspection is the thing, with this card and Godwin’s quote, but more than that, YOUR introspection is the key thing. The wisest person who ever existed may be a guide and a giant for you to stand upon, but it is still you that must do the standing, walking and moon gazing.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! I appreciate any likes, subs, shares, questions or comments that you can spare.

It’s that renew the website time of year, so any support you can give through reading commissions, shop purchases, memberships or virtual coffees on the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi page all goes toward creating these (almost) daily Tarot readings for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks again. See you Monday for the next short sip Tarot!

Listen

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

Many long years in the before time, a wise man spoke.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

A lifetime and a half ago, I used to work in health care. How we got from there to Tarot blog & podcast is another story for another day. When I was a student, I was very lucky to do my ER rotation with a Canadian doctor who used to work in a very rural, northern part of the country. He was a private pilot and literally flew from one remote clinic to another to provide basic, general practice health care. Here in the land of bankruptcy prices, brainless shotgun labs and cookbook internal medicine, his expertise is arguably a lost art. He gifted me with a pearl of wisdom that applies to damn near everything and has proven true time and again for the past 35 or so years.

Listen.

He said “Diagnosis is easy. Listen to your patients and they will tell you what is wrong with them.”

By that same token, supporting your own well being is easy. Listen to what you body is telling you. Listen to what your emotions and intuition are telling you. Let logic tell you if things are getting too far off track.

Listen to yourself. Listen to what you and your true nature need and do that. Or at least try to accommodate your night owl or morning person self as much as your schedule allows.

Today’s card is the Night Owl card from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck, illustrated by WolfSkullJack. Seven Dane Asmund interprets the card as “that thing you know but won’t or can’t admit to yourself.” It feels akin to the energy that Ted Andrews writes about for another nocturnal creature, wolves, for his version of the Moon card. He writes that “When wolf shows up it is time to trust our inner guidance…”

So how do you do that? How do you trust your inner guidance? How do you come to terms with unacknowlable inner truth?

Listen.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that Asmund’s night owl and Andrew’s moon wolf are nocturnal beings.

When the day is gone and the night arises, when all of the distractions go dark, you can’t escape yourself. All that is left is to listen.

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Tarot Turnover: The Nitty Gritty

Hello! I’m glad you are here.

I start my day with coffee and contemplation. It’s not as Zen spiritual as you might think. It definitely has more of a Sheriff Hopper (from the Stranger Things series) and doom scroll until the static from just waking up clears kind of vibe.

Was taking my morning scroll when I came across a Instagram post about some minor detail about the hand of the figure in the 10 of swords being in the same position as the Hierophant card and how that was the reference to the assassination of some historical pope or another or something. My response was bah…too pedantic…and kept rolling.

While the Pope seems like a nice enough little grampa guy these days, Papal history is not something that typically flies on my radar, but the post and the notion of hand detail sunk through the static enough to make a couple of points.

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Easiest Wound to Heal

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Three of Swords: the easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens

Welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Good news! The turbulent energy from the past few weeks has settles just the tiniest bit, just in time to draw…

The three of swords.

Hoo boy. It never stops, does it? On the other hand stopping isn’t good either. Change and turbulence, peace and calm are all different facets of the same big gemstone we call life and any day above ground, as they say, is a good one. With life comes change. With life comes risk. With life comes all sorts of fears and feels.

Classically, the three of swords is a pretty dire looking card. The image of a pierced heart. It is a card of hurt and heartbreak.

It is a reminder to guard your heart. The easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens. Healthy boundaries is key, emphasis on the healthy. Prickly, guarded, disconnected and unapproachable is no better way to live than being an unappreciated doormat. The middle way is, once again, best.

Not to go all Nancy Reagan on it -ewww- but it is ok to just say no. Know your limits. It’s important that those limits aren’t crossed by other people, but it is important that you don’t stomp on them either. That is an easy part to forget in a world of social media and normalized extreme oversharing.

It doesn’t matter so much if the potential harm is from the outside or accidentally self-inflicted, but good old Ben Franklin nailed it again. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The easiest wound to heal is the one that never happens. Mind your boundaries both incoming and outgoing.

Healthy boundaries means keeping the right things out, but it also means allowing the right things in. Sometimes the harm is in the lack. Without the challenge of exercise, bodies become weak. The over-sheltered plant dies from lack of sun and water. Saying yes is as important as saying no. The three of swords is also a reminder to mind your boundaries to make sure they aren’t over guarded causing you to live, act, intend and energize from a place of fear.

Cue Yoda and that thing about fear and anger leading to the dark side.

Ben Franklin and Yoda. Those two will get us through just about anything don’t you think?

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Please support this non-monetized blog and podcast on the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships, commissions and virtual coffees all contribute to the web hosting and other costs to create this free to access, (almost) daily Tarot content.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

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Different Wealth

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude taks what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth.

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

Today’s card is the Four of Disks from the Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, art by Dark Synevyr.

There is a strong sense of juxtaposition and contrast with the card and energy today. It’s like double vision in your mind’s eye of all freaky things. Ah well, it is Friday.

There is face value meaning here. Coin cards in general are associated with wealth, career, or our relationship with the physical realm.

The four of coins in particular (or the Four of disks, or pentacles or whichever name you prefer) is associated with being conservative and watching the budget. If the card is reversed it can mean the need to watch the budget because of low or dwindling resources. Taken to an extreme it can have a tone of hoarding and greed. In this case it has a tone of smart money management. It is about living within your means. It’s about making do and making more.

That’s the surface.

It also feels like there are watery depths here, like the deep inner wisdom we were talking about in the “It’s there” blog post and podcast episode a few days ago. The mental image is like one of those tiktok videos where they make fancy drinks or swirly color artwork with spheres of partially frozen, very clear ice. The surface of the ice they use is solid and crystal clear with a swirling, watery center. The energy with this card is a little like that.

On the surface we have solid practical advice: Use your money smarts. Mind the budget. This is a time to be practical with money and not frivolous. The energy is definitely not right for impulse buys.

Beneath that surface is something much more esoteric and spiritual. Beneath that is volumes about mindset, manifestation and how powerful thoughts and words can be.

It’s that glass half full, glass half empty thing.

Think about it. Or plunk a glass of water on the table and LOOK at it. What you think about glass doesn’t change the literal amount of water. 8 ounces is 8 ounces and 4 ounces is four ounces and what you think, feel or believe isn’t going to change that objective measure by one molecule.

The glass half full versus a glass half empty doesn’t have anything to do with the physical glass or water at all. It is all about words and perceptions and mental habits and emotional paradigms. Think about that glass of water. When you think of it as half empty, it creates a phantom. It alludes to water that that used to be there but is gone now. This way of thinking focuses on the empty space and what the glass doesn’t have when that extra volume may never have been there in the first place. What if the glass used to be only a quarter full and a half is a big improvement? The adjective “empty” shifts our perception, not the water that is, was or will be.

By the same token, if we think of the glass as half full, the adjective “full” shifts our perception in the other direction. This way of thinking focuses on certainty, reality, the water that is definitely there and hits at more to come.

Here I get that annoying platitude to “have an attitude of gratitude.” There is some sort of new-age-y idea out there that being grateful for what you have will create a feeling of abundance and in turn manifest what you want through some twist of the Law of Attraction. Gratitude isn’t some magic bullet. Forcing yourself to feel grateful in general isn’t going to attract some specific object of desire.

Genuine feelings of gratitude are, however, a definitive inner shift in perception and thus a change in our experience of the outer world as it stands now.

My mind is drawn toward a line from the Starz series version of Neil Gaimon’s American Gods. The character Salim hints at the difference between mainstream Christianity in America and Islam as he knows it. If memory serves he said something like “That is the difference between us – you pray to get the things you want. I pray to say thank you for what I already have.”

That is exactly the energy today. Gratitude will not magically bring what you want and don’t yet have…but instead that gratitude will change your perception of what wealth really is for you. Manifesting wealth, prosperity gospel, think positive, be grateful to get what you want nonsense not only risk your money, but they can rob you of your peace of mind and spirit.

Gratitude doesn’t magically bring you what you want. Gratitude takes what you already have and transforms it into treasure. Being thankful for what you have instead of praying for what you don’t have is potent alchemy. Contentment with the present moment is a different kind of wealth, but a priceless one.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always appreciated!

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Thanks again! See you at the next sip!

A Strange Sort of Keeper

Weakness is a strange thing to keep, but only the things you keep can be transformed.

Welcome to TaoCraftTarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here

I’m not an expert on Taoism. The philosophy has been a big part of my world view and how I live life for well over 30 years. It has held true for me and I come back to it time and time and time again. I’ve been reading The Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Alan Watts, Chinliang Al Huang, Deng Ming Dao and more since the 1980s. Taoism predates Tarot for me, which is saying something.

Like Tarot and magick, exoteric Taoist philosophy (I can’t speak for the religious aspects or for esoteric Taoist practices) is broadly inclusive. If you think of the Tao as the multiverse sort of meta-everything then anything written within our universe about it is part of the greater whole and a valid point of view. Therefore, as someone once wrote, everything written about the Tao is canon. Be that as it may – if you are interested in Taoism, go grab a book and have at it. Good stuff, that.

If you want to learn more about the esoteric side of Taoism I highly recommend Benebel Wen’s excellent book The Tao of Craft. It was published just as I was beginning to lay the groundwork for rebranding Modern Oracle Tarot into TaoCraft Tarot. I took it as an omen that I was on the right path even though that path is more on the philosophical, exoteric side of things.

I mention it Taoism because today’s Strength card brings to mind probably one of the most Taoist ideas to come out of a card reading in a while. This deck hasn’t touched the Taoist vibe very much. Speaking of decks, today I’m working from the Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund. The artwork on this particular card is by Madam Clara for the Five Cent Tarot.

Taoism is about being in harmony with nature. Sure, that means the rocks and flowers and trees and bees kind of nature, but it also means your nature. Taoism is about living in harmony with your authentic self.

Being in harmony with your authentic self doesn’t mean you can’t do better next time. Authentic self does not mean static self. People change. Ideally people grow and mature and hopefully become wiser and kinder as time goes on.

Part of that nature, for some of us, is to be hard wired people pleasers. The idea of strength and weakness and being a better person is often tied to idealism more than realism. The path to being a better person is often fraught with “should” and “ought” and external definitions of good and external measures of character. We tend to want to eradicate or drastically change anything that is considered a weakness or a character flaw.

The major arcana Strength card is all about strength of character, not at all about the physical variety. Internal progress is measured internally, not measured to outside signposts.

It is a strange thing to say consider keeping your weaknesses. Perhaps instead of getting rid of our weaknesses, we should keep them, but learn a new relationship with them. Find and use the good aspects.

Repurposing a weakness into something beneficial still gets rid of the so-called weakness. It is a strange sort of keeper, to hold on to what some people might label as weakness. Transforming our downfalls into superpowers is a Strength all of its own.

Thank you for listening! Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always appreciated.

Private readings with the blog author are available on the blog website.

None of these blog posts or podcast episodes are monetized, and it all depends on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi page. The memberships, shop and virtual coffees support the creation of this free to access Tarot reading content.

Links are in the episode description for podcast listeners.

Thank you again. See you at the next sip!

Embrace the Strange

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Deal with old demons when they come around. They might be more afraid of you than you are of them.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today we are back to the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. This is what Friday vibes look like. Fridays aren’t about re-capping the week, as much as it is a shift in energy from outward to productivity to inward self care, from work to rest or play, from yang to yin.

Today is the Boogeyman card. Of course I’m geeking out over it. But that’s no surprise to any of you who have heard my incessant fangirling over the Alleyman’s Tarot the past few months since it arrived on my doorstep. This particular card was created by the Alleyman’s deck creator Seven Dane Asmund for his upcoming Blood and Rust: The Misery Tarot. I can’t wait to see the Magician for it. He describe the new deck as quote Inspired by survival horror genre titan, Silent Hill, the Misery Tarot focuses on the traversal through grief, trauma, and suffering as a kindness to ourselves using imagery of the horror genre. End quote.

As the week closes and energies shift a bit toward self-care, the boogeyman isn’t as much of a paradox as it might seem at first glance. Weekends are a happy thing, usually. So is surviving a challenge.

Here I intuitively get the Madonna song “Survival.” to go along with the the survival-horror movie reference in the deck description. The suffering itself isn’t the kindness to oneself…but the acknowledgement of suffering, the acknowledgement of all you’ve done to emotionally survive, the acknowledgement of the things you feel now and the acknowledgement of old issues that bubble up every now and then … all of these conscious acknowledgements are the kindnesses that the boogeyman brings today.

We’ve been talking about some tough stuff lately. Tarot, like life, doesn’t have any easy answers. It helps us ask the right questions. It helps us to acknowledge the right things we need to face to live vibrantly.

I think this same message would come through in the classic RWS deck in the form of our friend the Page of Cups, or maybe Page of Cups with a little Devil thrown in. Sometimes life is weird. Sometimes life is chaotic. Sometimes life is devilish. But you can stare a fish full on in the eyes and get through it.

It has been said that religion is for those who want to stay out of hell and spirituality is for people that have already been there. If that’s the case, then Tarot in general and today’s energy in particular is all about spirituality. It’s about admitting the suck, embracing the chaos, and feeling the feels with unabashed gusto.

It’s funny how some old demons and boogeymen just vanish when you give them a big old hug hello. That is where I think the boogeyman as described by the artist is going. Being real about how bad (or good) things might (or might not) be is a kindness to oneself.

Cue “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkle (although I’m not usually a metal fan, I definitely prefer the Disturbed cover. Wow.)

Hello Darkness, my old friend.

I hope you have a good weekend, evening, day or whenever you happen to see this. Thank you for reading and listening. I always appreciate any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare.

If you are enjoying the blog, podcast or the companion YouTube videos, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships with their exclusive content and special offers, and the virtual coffees all support the creation of these Tarot readings.

Want more than a sip? Full size readings with the blog author are available on the blog website.

For podcast listeners, links to all of this is in the show description.

Thanks again, and I’ll see you at the next sip

The Quiet Why

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Every superhero has a super villain. Every Tarot reader has a nemesis card or two. This one is mine. I’m allergic to religion and this card is dripping with it today.

The classic question “Why ask why?” also springs to mind.

Usually that question comes in a context that implies a certain laissez faire attitude or a go with the flow sort of vibe. In Tarot we often work with the unknown or mysterious. Being OK with not knowing things is sometimes as important as knowing the reasons and motivations behind the stuff we do. That level of mystery is, however, the purview of the High Priestess card.

There are several threads of meaning for the Hierophant card. I get along with it better when it’s called the High Priest. Mark Evans’ artwork on the Witches Tarot deck is far and away my favorite rendition of the High Priest. His art captures the card’s grandfatherly, kind, storyteller, tradition-keeper qualities. It is still a belief system and social order oriented card, but with a softer, wiser, more ancient, more organic feel.

From medieval decks to the 1909 Waite Smith to contemporary decks the Hierophant is most often shown as a Christian religious authority figure. Some decks go so far as to call it the Pope card as the 17th century Marseilles deck did.

This pope-like aspect of the hierophant card speaks of a stricter social order, of dogma, and clear-cut cultural expectations. Why ask why? Why not ask why!?When it comes to dogma and blind faith you bet your backside I’m going to ask why. Sometimes why really matters.

But realistically, not everyone has the privilege of questioning.

I rage with heartbreak at the racial, religious and LGBTQIA bigory that floods America like a Tsunami – and always has. It isn’t new to recent politics. Right wing political power has only ripped the top off of a rotting underground septic tank and allowed it to ooze .

Why ask why? To know who you serve, that’s why.

Think, for a minute, about small rural communities.

There aren’t many homeless shelters, if any at all. There aren’t the same community resources that cities and suburbs have. If there are any such civic or secular organizations, they are tiny, underfunded and making miracles out of nothing at all.

Imagine you are keeping a secret in that small town. Imagine being in a closet, be it a sexual orientation one or a gender identity one or an atheist one or a witchy one or any other kind of closet. It eats at you. Especially if you are a teen where self-discovery, self-definition and gaining independence is pretty much your job in life.

Now imagine the heart-rending and mind-bending emotional and intellectual dissonance for someone who has been told their whole life not to lie, because you are a bad person if you lie. Yet, if you DON’T lie to every single body every single moment about your essential self then you put yourself at risk. The same honesty that was held up to you as so very virtuous now puts you at risk for losing important relationships, outright abandonment or possibly violence.

The hierophant is pointing to these dire realities today.

We said earlier that ‘why’ is important because it shows who you serve. Why matters in the context of social expectations and institutional dogma.

WHY are you a member of the groups that hold your allegiance? Do you agree with them? Do they express who you really are? Are you there in service to a set of beliefs? Are you there to serve the advancement of beliefs that mirror your own? If you are an adult, if you are part of a group and if there are no consequences to you if you left, you are there by choice however habitual or mindless that choice may be. If you are a knowing adult with no threat to your well being, then you are a willing part of your social, political and religious affiliations. You are a part of them and they speak for you unless and until you choose otherwise. Agreement is why you are there.

But if, at any age, there are real consequences to leaving a dominant group, a different and vastly more important WHY comes into play. Are you in a group not out of agreement, but rather in quiet service of your own well being. Safety and life is why you are there.

If your why is the preservation of life, health, safety and relationships, know that you are not alone. We see you in your closet because we are in there too – or have been at some point. In your quiet service to your well being, in your quiet why, know that you are loved.

Anchor Rock

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Want a whole cuppa Tarot all your own? Private readings with the blog author are available by email and can be ordered 24/7 no appointment needed

Welcome to the blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here. TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. If you are enjoying these blog posts and podcast episodes, I hope you will visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on K0-fi and consider becoming a patron of the Tarot arts. The link is in the episode description for podcast listeners. Proceeds from the ko-fi shop and memberships all support the creation of posts and episodes like this one. Thank you so much for your support. Your likes, subs, follows, shares, questions and comments are always, always, always welcome and appreciated!

Let’s start today with one of my favorite ideas on the planet: wabi sabi.

No, it isn’t that green paste that comes with sushi, although I like THAT a lot too.

As I understand it, wabi sabi is a philosophy and an aesthetic that values things as they are and sees beauty in natural, spontaneous imperfections and asymmetries. Old but valued ceramics are preserved and repaired with great care, sometimes highlighting the repairs with precious metals. I’m no expert. I’m not even average-level knowledgeable about Japanese or Chinese thought or culture. All I know is that everything I’ve ever learned about Taoism, Zen and wabi sabi has helped me to live a better life and be a better person. For that, I am deeply grateful. These ideas have time and time and time again proven to be my unshakable rock in every storm, just like the rock and anchor on today’s card, the Hope card from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck.

Speaking of spontaneous imperfections, the card is mislabeled in the video. The intuitive message from the card was, however, clear, concise and clairaudient (meaning the intuition came as mental words this time instead of the usual clairvoyant mental images.) It came in two parts.

First, “Storms will always come.”

The first noble truth of Buddhism is the truth of suffering. First on the list of world religions on that old 80’s T shirt is Taoism with the assertion that “shit happens.” Things break. Things are uneven. Stuff happens and sooner or later storms always come.

And it’s beautiful, because it is alive and it is real.

L’esperance, as the card is actually named, is a French word meaning hope. Storms will come. Sometimes the only hope is to find a rock and hang on.

The second half of the clairaudient message is “Know your rock.”

A paramedic instructor once told me that if you prepare for the emergency, then the emergency goes away. The same thing applies here. Knowing which ideas and philosophies you can trust makes life’s inevitable stress just that much less intimidating. Question everything. When it comes to beliefs or dogma or other peoples unsupported assertions, questioning is invaluable. It may take a trial by skeptical fire to find out what really is your philosophical storm shelter. If you know your rock, if you know where to find your anchor when the storm comes then you just might make it through to the other side intact enough to glue things back together and paint the cracks with gold.

I’m not here to tell you what your rock or your anchor is or should be. It is difficult, if not impossible for one person to determine that for another. The things I was taught as a child should be my strength and stronghold crumbled to dust and nothing at first contact with adulthood. I’ve since learned that it is much better to scout out the territory for yourself. Trust yourself to know what gives you hope. Trust yourself to lean on ideas and know what holds you up and what doesn’t. Explore new ideas and challenge old ones. Give them all a good hard kick and see if they hold strong for you. If they do, grab on because storms will always come and it pays to know your rock.

Thank you so much for listening. See you at the next sip.

L’Esperence (Hope) image from the Fancy Minchiate Tarot, cited copyright “BnF” This card from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck by Publishing Goblin LLC, used with permission.