YouChoose Interactive Tarot: you choose the card and get a one card meditation style Tarot reading.
You know how this works:
Pick a card. Hit pause if you want some time to think about it before you see or hear the reveal.
The podcast audio is coming directly from the video, so the video speaks for itself today, without a transcript.
Thanks for watching, reading and listening! See you tomorrow for the usual weekday short sip: Tarot in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.
Thank you for listening, watching and reading TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your favorite beverage. Mine is coffee. Thank you all for your support through the virtual coffee tip mug, and all of your likes, subs, shares, and follows. I appreciate you and I am glad you are here.
Today’s card is the seven of pentacles:
Typically, the pentacles are work, career, practical real-world related ideas. Today the energy is more thoughtful than usual. Overall, it feels connected to the Hermit energy that came through for the Quiet Night post a few weeks ago. I’ll link to the blog post in the show notes for those of you listening through the podcast.
Speaking of the podcast – I’m really loving this text to speech automatic conversion thing wordpress and anchor fm has going. It puts the best of me – my writing – into the podcast. I know some people don’t like the robot voice, but I’m just cyberpunk enough to enjoy letting Siri’s second cousin Remy do the heavy lifting with the narration thing.
But back to the seven of pentacles
When I was very young, my father was manager of a local retail store in a small Appalachian town. Other than a mechanical cash register I don’t think they had calculators much less any sort of computer. Every January, it was common for businesses like that to close for a few days in January to take inventory of all of their goods and to go over the books and reconcile everything and who knows what all. I just remember it was a lot of work and a few very long days for dad. They always had inventory clearance sale to get as much stuff out of the store before starting that whole process. That was always a big thing, It’s how I got my favorite mickey mouse umbrella. Yay clearance sales!
There is a little bit of that kind of energy here.
Tarot cards, especially these one card daily meditations, are more helpful when they are put into context.
In a larger, multiple card layout, you get context from the client’s questions and concerns combined with the layout as a whole. That’s why multiple card layouts are more difficult and time consuming to do. Not only do you have more individual cards to interpret, but you have more connections and context to knit together too.
In a single card draw, you can get context from purely intuitive cues, but also, as is the case here, from the environment around you. My attention is drawn to the cold weather, the snow I can see out the window, the time of year, and that memory of inventory time. The context for this card is, in a way, the time of year.
All things considered, I think this card is telling us it is inventory time.
If the part about clearance sales and mickey mouse umbrellas appeals to you, then yes, maybe it is time to clean and clear and let go, as is traditional at new years, including next week’s lunar new year.
Happy Year of the Tiger by the way.
I see a greater energy flowing toward the inventory part. It is a very introspective energy, again it feels similar to the Hermit energy. Today feels like a good time to stop, take a deep breath and take account. What is the realistic situation around you? What are your hopes and aspirations, really. When you dig down to the root of it all, what is the cause, what the reason behind what you hope and dream and do. What resources do you have at hand? What seeds do you need to plant? What seeds do you need obtain to plan to plant later when spring comes?
It’s not a time to beat up on yourself for falling short of goals. But it may be time to make new ones. Sometimes you have to count your ducks before you worry about getting them in a row.
A deep breath and a little mental quiet time can help figure it all out.
Thank you again for reading, watching and listening. See you at the next sip!
Alan Watts quote with the nine of swords tarot card
Or, as I see it, opening to life in all of its emotions risks experiencing the greatest heartaches, but to do otherwise is to risk missing life’s greatest joys.
Hi everyone!
Sorry to go silent for a couple of days. This is the part we talked about back at the new year where you have to make a plan before life can blow it apart. That was the plan. This is blowing it part. Although I have to admit – I like the SpaceX description “unplanned rapid disassembly on the launch pad” much better.
BUT all is well and is well and back on target after just one of those weeks, so here we are at another Sunday Tarot Turnover. This is a blog exclusive intuition building exercise where I turn the card reading over to you. I use one of my my real-world decks (public domain image used here instead of photo) to draw a card for today. It’s followed by a list of keywords and interpretations from the blog archives or inspired by favorite sources coming soon to a suggested reading list.
MOST important is YOUR own interpretation. What does the card mean to you? What is your inner intuition tell you when prompted by the card?
Today: Three of Wands.
If you have any questions about this card or intuition/Tarot in general, feel free to drop them in the comments. Mostly I answer questions in the blog rather than individually, so we all can benefit. You never know who your question might also help! Don’t worry – it’ll still be private. I never use names or identifying information in any blog post.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for today in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Ace of Cups and following the feels. Private email readings are OPEN.
Thank you so much for listening, watching and reading TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot. It’s a Tarot reading for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Or afternoon coffee. Or whatever beverage you enjoy.
Today’s card is the ace of cups.
Ace cards carry the essence of their suit of cards. In many ways they are the most abstract cards of the minor arcana. Being the first card of the suit, there is also a trace of connection to the Fool card, the first of major arcana cards. All of them connect to the idea of beginnings and newness in one way or another.
While cups cards are often read as symbolizing romantic relationships, they also include other inner circle relationships, both our family of birth and our family of heart. In the abstract, cups are connected with water, intuition, and emotions
Deep running emotions are sometimes a double edged sword. They can get us through our most difficult moments in life. Lau Tzu, writer of the Tao Te Ching is credited with saying that being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Strong emotions can also be paralyzing instead of strengthening. Frank Herbert describes fear as “the little death that leads to total obliteration.”
Either way, emotions have real world implications and effects. At a minimum, emotions affect our experience of life. They aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Emotions can be difficult to face, and difficult to experience, but that isn’t to say they should be suppressed with stoicism to rival Mr Spock from Star Trek. Emotions don’t have to take over and run the show, either.
I’m not sure who first said it this way, but my first encounter with the notion that “the feeling is the power” was in a book by Scott Cunningham.
In a middle way approach, we can have a relationship with emotion that empowers life. Emotion can motivate and enrich. Emotion can work in balance with logic and intuition.
Whatever day you are reading or listening to this, whatever day this card crosses your path, this may be your clue that it is a day to listen to your emotions. If you can’t follow your heart 100%, at least give it a listen. Allow your honest emotions to be heard and they may help you to begin something new and wonderful. Follow the feels to find the power.
Thank you for reading, watching and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot. If you can spare a minute, please like, subscribe, follow and share these nano-episodes. Your support for the blog and podcast through the virtual coffee mug / tip jar and membership tieris always appreciated.
See you at the next sip!
Reminder: in-person readings are on hold again but no appointment email readings and live online readings by appointment are wide OPEN. Please click HERE to order email or click HERE for live online reading information.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Today: Queen of Swords and the skills of a magpie
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Thank you so much for watching, reading and listening. Your support through likes, subs, shares, blog follows, podcast follows, reading orders and the virtual tip jar coffee mug is always greatly appreciated!
Today’s card is the Queen of Swords.
Magpie birds have a reputation for taking shiny objects. The Audubon Society web page suggests that they collect stuff to attract a mate, that they don’t necessarily gravitate toward shiny things, and it tends to be food.
I think people have a little bit in common with magpies. I’m down with the collect food part. I do like to keep the pantry stocked in winter so I can hide from the occasional snow or ice storm when they come along.
My parents were collectors. Not in a random magpie or hoarding sort of way, but in a collector hobby sort of way. There was this sort of expectation that everyone had something that they liked and collected and you would get that thing for birthdays and holidays until you gave up in a muffled voice from under the pile of whatever it was.
I never did quite get on that bandwagon. I tried to think of something I could collect, but in a way I was the most magpie of all because I’d rather have one of a wide variety of things rather than a wide variety of just one thing. The older I got, the more intangible the collection became. I like collecting ideas and when possible, skills. If memory serves, Adam Savage called it “task directed learning.” It’s not necessary to be an absolute master of absolutely everything. It’s ok to magpie a few useful skills along the way. You don’t have to be an electrician to change a light bulb. You don’t have to be a New York designer to sew on a button.
I’m so impressed with odd skills people pick up as they go through life, especially the really surprising ones from people’s childhood. They are so pure and give such open, innocent unabashed pleasure. You know, things like a card trick or being able to burp the alphabet on command.
It seems we all have some skill that we have magpie-ed at some point in time.
The Queen of Swords is classically a card of stepping into your power and owning the things that you do well. Today the energy is like that, but on hobby collector sort of scale rather than the major life epiphany sort of scale. Some quirky little thing you’ve learned along the way just might be the answer you are looking for.
Thank you again for watching, listening and reading. See you at the next sip!
Sunday Tarot Turnovers on Taocraft Tarot are a weekly blog exclusive intuition building exercise where I choose a card at random but turn the reading over to you.
It’s a new year. My resolution is to roll with the flow “marketing best practices” be damned. To paraphrase an old T-shirt about world religions, I’m Taoist. Shit Happens. Whammalammadingdong. Or, in the words of the Allen Toussaint song “Everything I Do Gone Be Funky (from now on)” Consider yourself warned n’at.
But as for the Sunday Tarot Turnovers – they work like this:
Some Sundays they won’t work at all. Will try to give you heads up when I can’t post, but weekends family comes first. Full stop. I’ll drop this without warning like a hot potato if it mean getting an extra few minutes with the hubster and the padawan.
Otherwise, Sunday Tarot Tunovers turns a Tarot reading over to you. It is a blog-exclusive intuition building exercise. I post a random Tarot card, but the interpretation is turned over to you. I’ll put some classic keywords and prompts from old blog post card meanings, but you use your instincts to pick which meaning is right for you…or if none of them feel right, use pure intuition to gather the message spirit is sending to you.
Feel free to drop your chosen interpretation or ask any questions in the comments.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today the Seven of Cups and how to make a close decision.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Why don’t you follow the blog or the podcast so we can sip our way to a whole coffee break?
Today’s card is the Seven of Cups.
Please don’t take offense when I yell focus. Believe me, that’s as much my message today as anyone’s. I’m definitely in coffee and nap mode this lovely chilly snowy winter morning.
But that is what weather like this is for. The card is a little more interesting and complex than that. This card is typically associated with many choices, over thinking and indecision.
In a way, indecision is a privilege. Deciding is easy if you have limited resources and few or no viable options. It’s easy to choose when you have no choice. Indecision because of many good options isn’t a bad problem to have.
Still, decision paralysis as it is called is a problem to be solved. Logic is always a good tool for that. Focus comes in handy because if you can focus and clarify your real need or your real goal, then the choices neccessary to move toward your goal often will become clear. It has a little bit of a “dominoes falling” feel here. Once you have a clear idea, the process to bring that idea to fruition will often fall into place. Or, at least, that kind of focus starts other processes like making a pro and con list to help sort through your choices.
If logic fails, and you find yourself with a “six of one, half dozen of the other” sort of decision to make, then pick up your intuition as your other decision making tool. It seems to me that is the more common advice when it comes to the seven of cups. Cups in general are associated with water, emotions and intuition. Cups cards advise us to follow our heart while swords cards often tell us to use our head.
Sometimes intuition can leave you in that six of one half dozen of the other lurch, too. That’s where Tarot or other intuition helpers come into play.
When things are logically equal, and there are only two top-tier options, and things are coming down to one of those follow your gut kind of decisions, I find the yes/no three card Tarot layout is helpful. It can validate your gut instinct as well as nudge you one direction or the other if you are feeling truly indecisive.
Stay tuned (did I mention that if you follow the blog you get all of my free Tarot content right here, and all the new posts are delivered fresh right to your inbox?) I’ve done this several times recently but MY instinct this morning is to post another yes/no example soon.
When the Seven of Cups crosses your path, it is a hint that you are going in circles and overthinking. It’s time to focus. First, use logic to sort and prioritize. If that doesn’t work, follow your gut and your heart or any other internal organs that might have something to say. If that doesn’t work, see if a divination tool or intuition helper like Tarot gives you a nudge or a validation.
If that doesn’t work, take a nap.
Just don’t forget to focus and try again when you wake up.
Thanks for reading, watching and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot. I always appreciate your support. See you at the next sip!
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today’s card is the eight of cups.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Today’s card is the eight of cups.
The eight of cups always seems to have a bittersweet sense of resignation about it, and today is no different. Cups cards have to do with emotions and our closest relationships in life. Very often the eight in particular has to do with a needed, healthy, healing, necessary parting of ways. Often when we see this card, something is being left behind, even if it is as minor as a bad habit. It reminds me a little bit of an exercise the therapists would give the clients when I worked as medical support on an inpatient rehab unit long ago. They would write a letter breaking up with their addiction, essentially saying goodbye to their drug of choice.
I’m not suggesting that everyone hearing this is addicted to something or anything so dramatic, by intuition seems a little stuck on the idea of a bad habit. This is the time of year for making those healthy lifestyle resolutions. If you have any inkling that you need something like that, then this is a good time of year for it. The collective energy is working in your favor and you have plenty of company along that path.
That’s on the nuts and bolts physical level. It feels like there is something more subtle, more esoteric, something on the emotional and spiritual level coming through for this card as well. That piece of it is not connected to the “bad habit” idea.
I want to connect it to the famous quote by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who said that “no man can step in the same river twice. It’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
We all leave everything behind all of the time whether we like it or not just by virtue of the passage of time. It’s kind of a terrifying prospect when you put it in those terms. But moving forward can include moving to a place of remembrance and appreciation.
We are always moving forward through and ever-changing river of time. That unavoidable forward movement is easier if we move our attention forward with it. Turn to the past too much for too long and you get an awful lot of water splashed right in your face. You can carry the good parts of the past with you, and you can leave the harmful parts behind but you can never walk through the same river twice. We can only flow forward.
Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening to these (almost) daily short sip Tarot clips. The virtual tip mug and memberships on ko-fi supports the creation of the blog, podcast and youtube shorts. Your likes, subs, follows and shares are always, always appreciated. See you at the next sip.
TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: deep roots and the 2 of pentacles
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. The blog, podcast and YouTube channel are not monetized or sponsored in any way, so I super appreciate any support you can give with likes, subs, shares, follows, reading orders, memberships or coffee mug donations.
Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.
Theoretically, any of the number two minor arcana cards can point to some aspect of balance. Out of the entire Tarot deck however, the two of pentacles seems to be the most focused on the idea of balance in and of itself.
It seems to me that balance is important to a healthy human psyche. When we get out of balance, when we get out over our skis as the saying goes, that’s when falling down happens. That’s stressful. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a terrible skier. It’s an apt analogy for dynamic equilibrium, just like the unicycle image that has come to mind so much lately. Whether you are riding a unicycle or sliding down a mountain, that kind of moving, changing balance requires constant adaptation and lots of little adjustments to stay upright and get to where you want to go.
Today the card brings to mind a different aspect of balance. This time, the energy is continuing in the theme for January that has emerged over the past several days. The Hermit, the four of cups, the five of cups – they’ve all been showing up in year ahead and month ahead readings and they all keep banging on the notion of laying low and “playing your cards close to the vest” for a time.
Which brings us to today’s version of the Two of Pentacles.
Throwing down roots is essential to balance too.
It’s not something that comes up much in the Tarot part of things, but I’ve studied Taijiquan (Tai Chi) since the early ’90s. Tarot, Taoism and Tai Chi all came into my life in my twenties and we all sort of grew up together. (She said gesturing to the TaoCraft name splashed all over everything.) At one point back in the day the hubster and I had a part time martial arts school where I taught Tai Chi and a little kung fu. Physical balance and strong footing are essential to Tai Chi practice. We call it rooting.
When strong winds come, a supple willow tree keeps its balance. It will bend instead of break. But even the most supple, bendable willow will still fall down if it has no roots.
That is exactly the kind of balance the Two of Pentacles is bringing to mind today. It’s like martial arts where you plant your feet, use your feet and leg position and drop your weight to stay solid when you need to.
It’s the same in life. There is dynamic equilibrium always, but there are moments within the big picture of that equilibrium that call for deep roots and solid strength.
The past two years have been weird. If the year-ahead Tarot readings I’ve been doing so far are to be believed, 2022 isn’t going to be all that different at the start. It’s going to take a while for the changes to kick in if we allow them to happen and if we can somehow throw down our roots and stay solid in the meantime.
I think the advice in the midst of continuing weirdness, is that it’s more than ok to self-soothe just a little while longer. In a circular sort of way this is our permission slip to throw down our roots, reach for the things that anchor us and nourish us like roots anchor and nourish tall trees. So what if you’ve watched that movie 50 times? Watch it 50 more if it helps. Hungry for comfort food? Why not? Eat your vegetables, wash your hands, wear those comfy pants and fuzzy socks. Being down to earth helps in lots of ways. Down to earth is a good place to grow roots and find some much needed balance.
Thanks for reading, watching and listening! See you at the next sip.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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