Welcome to the first YouChoose Interactive Tarot of the year. What’s old is new again, because these work the same way as always. You choose how you want to apply the reading (guidance for the day, inspiration/prompt, guidance for a particular problem, etc.) Then you choose your card. Choose on impulse or pause the video and then restart to see the reveal.
The new-new part is the audio from these videos will also be available on the newly re-named TaoCraft Tarot podcast. Clairvoyant Confessional is re-purposed as an episode name. I’ll only be doing confessional-style episodes when the mood strikes. For the most part, the podcast is going to be the audio version of this blog read by a professional computer. I’m not sure but I think it’s Siri’s second cousin twice removed, Remy
Thank you so much for listening, watching and reading!
Sunday Tarot Turnovers are a blog exclusive intuition building exercise for your weekend. Most Mondays I post “YouChoose” on YouTube where you choose when to watch the video, you choose how to use the reading (daily inspiration, answer to a top of mind question, etc) and you choose the card for the reading.
On Sunday, we flip the scrip. Instead of choosing a card, you choose an interpretation. I’ll list a variety of meanings that have come up for the card over the years either from the sources cited or from my own readings. If you use the search bar, you can see old posts about the card on this blog or visit my old Tarotbytes blog on the Modern Oracle Tarot archives which is searchable too. If you see “Quirk & Flotsam” my old two owl logo then you’ll know you are in the right place.
Anyway…let’s get to this.
Today’s card is….
Natural cycles, ebb and flow (Ted Andrews, Animal Wise Tarot)
manifestation (A.E. Waite, A Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
There is no answer to this. All of these interpretations are valid. You can’t deny the expertise of people like Ted Andrews and Edward Waite. Still, the only way to know the right meaning for the card for you today. Knowing and researching card meanings is the foundation, the beginnig. These Sunday Turnover exercises are a way to practice elevating your DIY Tarot a step further. This will help you use the cards and documented meanings to connect to your own intuition and decide which meaning is best for you right here, right now, today, whatever day you read this.
If that day happens to be today, I hope you are enjoying this lovely Sunday. All the best to you!
Knight cards tend to speak of action or implementing an idea. Wands reflect the inner world; our passions, our interests, spirituality, philosophy and more. Wands can reflect your relationship with yourself.
This card isn’t a permission slip to go on a wild bender and indulge in self-destructive passions, but it is permission to actively, deliberately engage with passions that make you happy. What is it that makes you light up and the words flow from you? What in life makes you feel charismatic – at least to yourself, even if no one else notices. More than being comfortable inside your own skin, this card asks you to find the thing that makes you feel confident and alive and happy within your own skin.
It worries me that there may be someone out there who feels that they can find nothing, or who says there is nothing that they feel happy about. If anyone is truly that despondent there may be more going on than Tarot can help. There is no shame in getting help when it is needed. That is what the knight of wands would do. The knight of wands would take action to help the world within.
Thom Pham hit the bullseye for today’s energy when he put Top Gun Maverick on a motorcycle on the card. The character alludes to so much. There are elements of self discovery as well as that sense of all-out, mach 2 with your hair on fire passionate living. What would the day be like if we turned that passion toward something we already know and already have that makes us happy?
The card reminds me of a few quotes.
I don’t know if it is accurate, but Abraham Lincoln is cited as saying “People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
The other is the story from who-knows-where. The internet in its wisdom attributes it to Buddha. A person asks what he should do. “I want happiness,” he said. Buddha answered that the first thing to do is to remove the word “I” because that is ego. Then remove the word “want” because that is desire. Then look to see what is left. It’s just happiness sitting there waiting for you.
Happiness is already on hand. It’s just waiting for you to pick it up.
Thank you for watching, reading and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip – Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or reading orders you can spare are always appreciated.
Short Sip Tarot readings are available on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and as a podcast. The Clairvoyant Confessional Podcast will become the TaoCraft Tarot podcast starting in 2022. Watch the real world card draw for these short sip readings on the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and instagram reels.
As we go into the December 2021 holiday season, readings will post a little less regularly, but will resume a normal schedule after new year.
My name is Ronda. I read Tarot, write stuff and make things. I also wish everyone a very happy, healthy, safe and prosperous holiday and New Year.
Thanks for watching, reading and listening today. TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.
The Two of Pentacles is the quintessential balance card in the deck. In some ways it is even more balance oriented than Temperance in the major arcana. Temperance has a feel of balance by mixing. The Two of Pents is balance through the adjustment and tension between opposites. In this kind of balance, the balance point is also a tipping point.
In the yin-yang symbol of Taoism, the opposite colored dots in each side of the circle remind us that in anything lies the seed of it’s opposite. Anything take to extreme can become its opposite. Anything in perfect balance can tip into its opposite.
In Dune, Frank Herbert writes “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” Both beginnings and balances are delicate things. Both are dynamic, changing things.
The yin-yang symbol is meant to be in motion. The trailing tail of the black and white parts hint at that motion, as apposed to showing perfect pie-slice halves. Balance is a thing in motion too. This card always brings to mind a unicycle rider who can stay upright in one place by making small forward and backward movements . In the big picture, they may not seem to be moving forward, but in order to stay upright, there is a lot of movement going on in the wheel, just in balanced opposite directions.
Pentacle cards are often read as being about work, career, money, practicality or some aspect of the physical world. They are also associated with the element of earth and by extension the idea of grounding and balance. Everybody talks about “finding balance.” But what do you do once you have it?
Balance is easier to maintain than to get in the first place, but once you have it, it takes a little attention to maintain it because life is in motion. Opposites are always at the doorstep. Which one would you invite in? Which one would you use to maintain a delicate balance when a balance point is also a tipping point.
Thank you for watching, listening and reading! Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or reading orders you can spare are always appreciated!
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your favorite drink. My favorite is coffee (said as she raises her gingerbread spice latte in your honor) Cheers!
Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows, reading orders, Tarot Table membershipsor tips to the virtual coffee mug are always, always deeply appreciated.
Today’s card is the Four of Cups.
The suit of cups is associated with emotion, intuition, the element of water, and our closest relationships of whatever type be it romance, friends or family.
Like many, if not most of the Tarot cards, this one has a few different threads of meaning that can step forward at different times. Sometimes this card can feel very spiritual, and the imagery is sometimes associated with meditation and contemplation. It has been compared to the Buddha meditating under the bohdi tree and being given a cup symbolizing enlightenment. As it turns out, today is December 8 Bohdi day. Greetings and peace to all who celebrate.
Other times the card feels more petulant. That is the thread of energy stepping forward for this reading. The figure under the tree often is shown with crossed arms and legs. I’m guessing in the time and culture where the cards were first popular, and in Pamela Smith’s Edwardian England, this posture would seem more closed off than meditative. The crossed arms in particular bring to mind a tantruming child. The card hints at something being gently and lovingly given, but stubbornly refused for good or ill.
If you are in the energy space of the person under the tree, the card is asking you to look where you are being stubbornly and unnecessarily closed off. What message or gift is being handed to you on a silver platter that you are too closed off mentally or emotionally to see?
If you are the hand giving the goblet, the card is asking for your patience. It could be the person you are trying to reach just isn’t ready to receive what you are giving. Your task is to evaluate if the situation has any hope of changing. Wait and see if it is best to persist, or to let go of an intractable situation.
Either way, the card points out the value of a good pout.
If you are in a sour mood, then by all means – sit yourself down, sit with those emotions, and pout it out, so you can move on. Indulging an emotion in a safe place for a time (under a tree or otherwise) is often more helpful than trying to just crash through the wonky-ness or trying to ignore it. Pouty people don’t usually like a lot of social interaction, which is probably for the best so the tantrum doesn’t get unleashed on innocent bystanders.
If you are in the position of dealing with aforementioned pouty person, stay chill, be as buddha-like as you can muster. Stand there with the goblet in your hand and let them pout it out. Once the storm blows over, then we all can get back to business. There is value in the pout from this perspective too. No need to put yourself in the splash zone of a tantrum if you don’t have too.
Whether you are in a mood or dealing with someone who is, a short time with a good pout can have some value. Wait, watch and listen. Sudden storms blow over quickly.
TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot is available as a print blog post and as an audio podcast. The live, real-world card draw is also available as a short on TaoCraft Tarot’s YouTube Channel and as a reel on Instagram. My Tarot content is available on several social media platforms. Please feel free to say hi! Your feedback and especially your questions are always welcome.
Thanks again for reading, watching and listening. See you next time.
Sunday Short Tarot Turnovers are a blog-only intuition exercise for you where we turn a Tarot Reading on its head. Instead of YouChoose – ing a card, I choose the card and you interpret it. There aren’t any trick, tips or how-to.
My martial arts teacher always says that the best way to train for a thing is to do a thing. That is exactly the kind of routine low-pressure practice that will help you be able to read well when the emotional heat is on.
This is easy. Just read through the list of meanings and see if and how any of them speak to you or guide you….or make up a meaning of your own just for you, just for today. This is an exercise in following your own intuition. If no meaning jumps out as the right one, just ponder the card every now and then and see if anything comes to you as the day goes on. That’s the kind of “daily meditation” Tarot that my ebook PeaceTarot teaches you to do. (It’s inexpensive and available right now as a pdf download in the ko-fi shop.)
Today’s card is the Five of Swords
Gain clarity. Make sure you are understanding clearly before you act
Self-defeat, self-sabotage
feeling defeated, feeling attacked
victory, but at great cost
stubbornness, it’s time to change or adapt
Even though the podcast is shifting to the short form daily meditation format, I’ll still do “confessional” or Q&A episode occasionally. YOUR QUESTIONS ARE WELCOME in the comments or by email.
Thanks for reading! I hope you will follow the blog, that way all of the free TaoCraft Tarot content will come to your inbox – short sip tarot, video demonstrations, YouChoose Interactive Tarot, announcements…all of it.
For an extra reading every month, the Reading Room membership is available through ko-fi. For $5 per month you get a three card members only three card pathway reading through the ko-fi blog, newsletter, random special offers and giveaways and a personal, just-for-you “Year Ahead” Tarot reading by email when you join.
Tips to the virtual coffee mug support this blog and the Short Sip podcast
Thank you for watching, listening and reading. TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot is a reading to guide your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee…or whatever your beverage of choice may be. Any likes, subs, shares, follows, reading orders or membership subscriptions you can spare are always, always greatly appreciated!
Today’s card is the Seven of Wands.
The classic meaning has to do with success after struggle. You are going to get what you want to go – but you are going have to work for it, maybe a little harder and longer than you expected.
Back and forth, yin and yang, good stuff comes after hard stuff – even when the hard stuff is internal and about personal development rather than literal, physical realm struggles.
Matt Auryn, in his book Psychic Witch reminds us that “everything you touch touches you.” That connectivity and reciprocity is inherent to many if not all Tarot cards. It applies to the Seven of Wands even though it is tempting to see it as the surface meaning portrayed in the picture on the card. It is easy to see the Seven of Wands as an omen of a conflict or a struggle that is in progress, eminent, or looming on the horizon.
Underneath the struggle there is a thread of potential success that you may not sense in cards like the three of swords or the devil card. There is a hint that the struggle will be worth it on some level, even if it isn’t necessarily a victory by surface definitions.
I’m especially fond of Ellen Dugan’s added advice to meet challenges and overcome them with “style, wit and humor.” In his Heart of Stars Tarot, Thom Pham points to the character Obyron from Game of Thrones. Mr. Pham emphasizes Obyron’s persistence, and 100% dedication to the battle at hand. He’s all in and never gives up. But, just like Ms. Dugan, there is a nod to a great sense of style. Obyron is the essence of self confidence, beyond comfortable in his own skin and as much of a bon vivant, racountour and hedonist as he is a fierce warrior.
Both of these give us a hint about how to cope with our daily battles. If you touch daily struggles with your own unique style and personal sense of humor, it may touch you back with a little bit of hope. It might let you see the thread of victory and silver lining that helps you doggedly persist. Challenges that stretch beyond our comfort zone are often just the way of things. A little style and humor makes that way of struggle leading to success just a little more worth it.
TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot: guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.
Thank you SO much for listening, watching and reading! I appreciate your support and any likes, subs, shares, follows, comments, questions or reading orders that you can spare. The virtual coffee mug supports the blog and podcast. Contact information is below or in the podcast episode description. Have a question for the Clairvoyant? Speak right up and send it right in! Ask anything and everything (within reason) will be answered in upcoming podcast episodes, possibly with an on-air Tarot reading.
Today’s card is the World from the major arcana.
Back in the day, the world was all there was. Humans have been looking to the stars as long as we’ve had clear nights and eyeballs. Our perspective has changed a great deal since then.
Tarot was in use a hundred years before the telescope was invented. Don’t get your knickers in a bunch, I’m not equating the two. What I’m saying is that Tarot is still a product of the largely pre-scientific times in which it emerged. Tarot was psychology before psychology was invented. It was stress management and personal development and creative problem solving long before we had words for those things. The world was bigger then so the World card carries connotations that it wouldn’t had the deck evolved as an oracle in a more technologically advanced culture. Today, we might be better served calling the card “The Universe” or “The Cosmos” or something that implies a true gestalt.
We are often told to keep our eyes on the prize. That is good advice. Staying focused and avoiding distraction certainly helps us to progress. To focus like that, however, we have to narrow our field of vision. It is a mental reflection of how optics and our vision tend to work. It makes me wonder. What are we missing if we focus “eyes on the prize” too much? Focus is good, but narrow. It’s also a good idea to zoom out, look at the biggest big picture you can muster. It lets you see where the prize you are eyeing fits in the big picture. It lets you see your progress toward it. The big picture lets you see what other prizes are out there and if the original is the right treasure for you. It’s hard to adjust your direction with narrow-focus blinders on.
Eyes on the prize is important, but eyes on the big picture can be very helpful too.
Today’s Card is the Hierophant. Some decks call it the Pope or the High Priest.
One of my favorite interpretations for this card is a grandfather figure, the keeper of family stories and tribal histories. The past couple of years have been crazy. Don’t feel bad if you seek comfort in a more traditional holiday season, old routines or some sort of spiritual ritual. It can be comforting.
The card brings the movie Cloud Atlas to mind. There are scenes of an old man telling stories around a campfire. On one hand it is an ancient image, but we find out through the course of the movie it is actually happening in the distant future.
There are threads of time together in language, story, tradition. They are kept alive through adding, adapting…the same as living species adapt and survive. There is deep comfort in old ways, even as they are adapted to our needs living here in the future.
Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening to these new TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot readings. These are (almost) daily short format Tarot readings to give guidance to your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Longer Clairvoyant Confessional episodes will be coming, but not in any regularly scheduled way, at least for the time being. If you have a question for the Clairvoyant, please send it to the contact in the podcast episode description or leave it in the comments. Don’t forget to like, follow, subscribe share and do all of those wonderful things that you do. All best wishes to everyone. See you in tomorrow’s TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot.
Thanks for listening, watching and reading! I appreciate you!
To get all of the TaoCraft Tarot content, please follow the blog. It can connect you to everything including the print-only Tarot content. Tarot Short Sips and YouChoose Interactive readings are on the TaoCraft Tarot YouTube channel. And of course, the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast has both sip and confessional episodes and can be found on anchor fm, spotify, stitcher, googlepodcasts and more.
Today’s card is Judgement from the major arcana.
The word judgement has to do with assessment and decision making as in “use your own judgement.” But like everything it has a dark side. Good judgement implies wisdom and experience. Poor judgement implies mistakes in reasoning and decision making.
Simple enough, right?
Judgement is my grand nemesis in the Tarot deck. To my mind, it is the essence of that inward looking personal growth and spirituality versus outward, social religion. In my experience, Tarot is all about the former and not the latter. The Judgement card is one of the cards most strongly allied with the Christian influence in the cultures where Tarot first gained popularity. Angelic and “Judgement Day” images are on this card in almost all decks that I’ve seen except for a handful that deliberately step away from the Marseille and Waite – Smith imagery. The Witches Tarot, Animal Wise Tarot, and the Osho Zen Tarot are my favorite examples of this deliberate separation.
In addition to pushing my personal psychological buttons and activating my religion allergy, the downside of all the judgement day/ angelic/consequences images is the way it can slip into judgmentalism rather than reason and judgment. Zealotry and blind idealism can slip in very easily here.
The up side to this line of thinking is the idea of second chances. The judgement card is also associated with a fresh start after paying your dues. It’s about cleaning up the mess you made and moving on.
On one hand you have judgement and reasoning. On the other hand you have judgement day and judgementalism. On the other other hand you have second chances and taking responsibility for your actions. How do you bring all of that into one card?
Compassion.
It is the one measure of it all. Good judgement is guided by compassion. Judgementalism is kept at bay by it. Compassion grants second chances.
Compassion is the ultimate judge and judgement. If it isn’t compassionate, it isn’t good judgement.
Thanks again for watching, reading and listening. See you on the print side!
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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