Tag: tarot reading

A Sip of Tarot: Back Burner

Today’s card is the Seven of Cups

It’s easy to think yourself into circles. This is a card for all the over-thinkers of the world, but anyone can become overwhelmed.

Sometimes the seven of cups is a good problem to have. If you only have one really viable option, then deciding is easy. This card is about an embarrassment of riches when it comes to options and choices. That’s not the worst problem to have. But however good or bad the problem may be, how do you solve it?

The back burner is your friend.

I grew up in a very rural place south of the Mason Dixon line. Whatever else you may think of southern culture in the U.S. the food is fantastic. It seems like everyone is born knowing how to cook and cook well. In that elite company, regardless how many potluck dishes or helping hands you have in the kitchen, making the turkey for Thanksgiving was the black belt test. In our family the hoopla was at the house wherever the turkey baker lived and everyone helped but if you own the kitchen and you make the bird you are in charge. To put it in Star Trek terms, if you are Captain Turkey, you have the con. The way they could get everything together, hot and tasty, all on the table all at the same time was a wonder to behold.

Even cooking a comparatively small meal for our own little household, getting it all in the same place at the same time takes a little strategy. The Thanksgiving meals I make are far more Cowboy Bebop than Captain Kirk. But it is still a hint about how to deal with an overwhelming number of choices, tasks or side dishes: Shift your attention.

Take a break and work on something else. It works for too many choices and for a lack of ideas. If you feel like a deer in headlights or feel like you “got nothin'” to give to the situation. rotating your attention to a different project works a magic of its own.

Sip of Tarot: Flow by Moonlight

Change is afoot. Everything ebbs and flows like the tides. The moon reminds us to use our intuition to sense those cycles and flow with them. You can’t fight the whole ocean alone. Flow with the energy, allow yourself to sense it, and you are not alone. The whole of the ocean and the whole of the cosmos is with you.

It’s not forever. Good times will come again and again like waves on the shore.

A Sip of Tarot: On Schedule

Today’s card is The Hanged Man from the major arcana.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson famously said that “the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” By the same token, life is under no obligation to meet our time schedules. Sometimes things take a frustratingly long time to happen. Sometimes things go so slowly nothing seems to be happening at all. Other times life goes lightning fast and takes us by surprise.

Time is literally changeable at super high speeds. Even right here, with both feet firmly planted on the ground, our perception of time seems entirely fluid. Perception is part of the key energy around the card today.

I’ve often said that with the Hanged Man, one person’s stuck in the mud is another person’s day at a spa. As with so many things, a small shift in perspective can change your feeling and experience enormously. One pattern I’ve seen in readings over the years is that a narrow focus on the path ahead breeds frustration. If one aspect of life is taking too long to happen, or if you feel stuck and making no progress, maybe that is another area of life grabbing you by the elbow and trying to get you to pay attention to something else. If things are going slowly, maybe it is because life doesn’t want you to whizz right by the scenery on the side of the road. If you feel stuck, it might be an opportunity in disguise to rest, stop, really see and appreciate where you are right now before running ahead to something new.

Thank you all for reading and listening! I’ll see See you next time on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and the next Sip of Tarot episode of the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast.

A Sip of Tarot: No Big

Today’s card is the two of pentacles.

Most of the time we say it is a card about balance. It’s also fair to say it is about dynamic equilibrium. Think of a spinning coin or a bicycle in motion or a toy top or a gyroscope. There of lots of examples of things that keep their balance through motion. I’ll leave it to the physics people to explain how that happens and angular momentum and such.

The Tao Te Ching reminds us of a similar but very very broad principle: Living things are supple, able to be in motion. Stiff and motionless is, well, dead.

Movement, and by extension movement as a gateway to balance, is the normal way of things. Feeling overwhelmed when there is too much going on is also the normal way of things.

Life can be a juggling act. Multitasking can make each individual task seem bigger than it really is. But try not to let it get to you. Simplify as much as you can, then have at it. You got this!

Thank you for watching, reading and listening to A Sip of Tarot from TaoCraft Tarot blog and Clairvoyant confessional podcast. You questions and comments are always welcome.

A sip of Tarot: magic in many forms

Today’s card is the Magician from the major arcana.

The magician card is traditionally associated with transformation and manifestation. Today’s energy goes along with both. To change things, to transform them, you have to do something differently. To make something, to manifest anything, you first have to first do something.

The broader concept of change would, of course, fall under the Death card. The focus here is cause and effect. The focus here is in the doing. Do nothing and there is no change for the death card to symbolize. The science folks call that inertia.

The magician card often has the symbols of the four minor arcana suits on it. The magician uses all of the elements, all of the concepts from the minor suits and applies them to the concept of transformation and manifestation. The magician incorporates all the ways of doing. All of the suits have various connections to thinking, doing, deciding, withholding, experiencing, all of which are elements of transformation and manifestation.

First decide what you want to change or create. Then do something to start on that new path. Lay the foundation. Do the thing that becomes the cause for the desired effect. Anyone can work that magic.

Thank you for reading and listening to “A sip of Tarot.” on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. Stay tuned for more (almost) daily meditation style Tarot readings in the time it takes to sip from a cup of morning coffee.

Time to make the sausage

Today’s card is the King of Pentacles

It’s Monday.

At least it is as I pulled this card and type this post.

Intuition is weird. It is very Heisenberg uncertainty principle. If you look at a card reading through the lens of a moment in time, it cuts it off from the greater flow of time. Kind of like screen capturing a movie as it plays.

Some readings, like today, are meant for that. They are intended for the moment.

Doing Tarot readings on the internet is weird.

Whatever you read or write can be accessed anywhere at any time by anyone. Tarot, intuition, energy and spirit are good with that. After all, this present moment is a connected, unified part of that big giant wibbly wobbly lump of everything. If you look at a card through the lens of that unified timelessness, it cuts it off from the present moment a little bit.

Like Heisenberg, you can know a particles exact location or you can know how fast it is moving but not both at the same time. Same thing here. You can connect a card to this present moment and hope it resonates with whatever other moment someone stumbles across it, or you can connect it to the larger energy which doesn’t capture the moment of the reading.

This card, here, now today is resonating with a reading for the moment.

It’s Monday.

Be kind to the head of your household, whoever it might be. Mom. Dad. You.

It is one of those pour some coffee, time to make the donuts, this is how the sausage gets made, get to it, get through it, no frills kind of Mondays. Good luck and godspeed *raises mug of coffee*

Speaking of mugs, any support you can spare goes toward creating the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast, the card draw videos, and the blog. A Sip of Tarot (almost) daily meditation nano-episodes are available on multiple platforms. Thank you so much for listening, watching and reading!

Your Turn

Tarot Turnovers flips the script on YouChoose Interactive Tarot readings: I choose the card, YOU give the meaning.

Today’s card is Judgement.

Possible meanings include

  • consequences for your actions
  • karma is coming into play
  • rise from the ashes – a second chance is coming
  • don’t keep punishing yourself. Pay your dues and move on
  • use reason and sound judgement to make the decision
  • Where are you being too lenient or judging too harshly

Few quick reminders:

  • Zombie Cat yes/no Tarot readings by email are $5 off until Halloween 10-31-21. Ask Zombie Cat ANYTHING. The readings are 100% GUARANTEED to contain words, but have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
  • All tips given to the virtual coffee mug supports this blog, the YouTube videos that show the (almost) daily real-world card draw and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast.
  • The podcast now features the (almost) daily “Sip of Tarot” nano episodes. Get a one card Tarot meditation in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee
  • The NEW membership tier, only available on ko-fi is now live. For $5 per month you get a seat at the reading table with a monthly members-only pathway reading, random special offers and giveaways, and a private “year ahead” reading by email when you join.
  • in-person readings are available on a *very limited* basis and face masks are required throughout the reading, no exceptions. No mask = no reading & no refund.
  • Watch for a special new feature to be announced here in the blog on Halloween

A Sip of Tarot: Go to the source

Today’s card is Strength from the major arcana part of the Tarot deck

The strength card is so iconic. It is one of those where the images and symbolism seem pretty consistent across many if not most Waite-Smith based Tarot decks. You almost always see a lion, or some reference to one. Lions have long been a symbol of strength, and yes, I am currently suppressing the urge to imitate the opening line of the “Lion King” movie.

The infinity symbol in the upper left corner of this particular card by Tarot reader and artist Thom Pham is fairly consistent on all Strength and Magician Tarot cards. That is the part that draws my attention this morning.

What is an infinite source of strength?

The answer will, naturally, be different for everyone. It’s the question that matters. Tarot will often ask individual questions rather than give universal answers. There is no universal answer that fits every individual person, but in answering these key questions for yourself, then you will find your way.

In BBC tv show Doctor Who, Clara often says something like “the souffle isn’t in the souffle, it’s in the recipe.” It’s the same idea here. The answer isn’t in the answer, the answer is in the question.

On one hand, Tarot cards asking questions seems evasive and vague and fuel for all of those pedantic skeptical arguments against this kind of spiritual contemplation. On the other hand, asking the just-right question for you to find your own, intimate, individual answer is like a giant flashing neon arrow pointing to exact tree you need in a dark, dense forest. The right question gives as much guidance as the right answer.

Everyone feels tired, injured, fragile or vulnerable sometimes. This card isn’t a pep talk, cheerleader or empty platitude to just go be strong every minute of every day. It’s asking a key question. It’s asking what is your individual source of strength? What is your inspiration, your restorative and your spiritual nourishment? It’s asking you to find it now so it is there when you need it.

Don’t forget: Zombie Cat yes/no Tarot readings by email are $5 off until 31 October 21. “A Sip of Tarot” daily meditation Tarot readings are available here, in even shorter form on YouTube, and wherever you listen to Clairvoyant Confessional podcast.

A Sip of Tarot: For the First Time

Apt title for the renaming fest that always seems to happen in October. I hope you’ll give Clairvoyant Confessional podcast “Confession #8” a listen to hear what this “sip of tarot” thing is about.

Today’s card is the Six of Cups.

It is most often associated with innocence, nostalgia, childhood, simplicity.

As you can guess, the simplicity thing resonates for me.

But today it is the childhood/child-like aspect that is most energy forward.

A long time ago, I read an interview with Luc Bessom, the director and writer for The Fifth Element, one of my favorite movies. When it was released in ’97 I was training and teaching both tai chi and kung fu, so the scene where Leeloo takes out a room full of Mangalores was high on my list of reasons to like the film. The interview with the director was talking about casting and why he chose Mila Jovovich to play Leeloo. He said she captured that sense of innocence, the feeling of seeing things for the very first time. At the same time, the character required that she have a sense of strength and competence and the essence of the “supreme being” that she was. Star Man and Dr. Vanderspeigle from Resident Alien are other fiction characters with this quality.

That is the head space that the six of cups is pointing toward today. A fresh, child LIKE look at a problem or a situation doesn’t have to abandon your hard earned competence and knowledge in the process. Brain bleach doesn’t exist. There are some things you can’t un-see, but you can always re-see for the first time.

Experienced eyes can be innocent eyes again.

Sunday #Short Tarot Turnover: Strength

With these videos, let’s flip the script. Instead of you choosing the card, and I give you an interpretation, this time I’ll choose the card….but YOU choose the meaning that best fits you: Today’s Card is Strength from the major arcana

  • Be strong – someone around you needs somebody to lean on
  • Be strong – Take the high road. The best way is almost never the easiest
  • Be strong – “just do it” is sometimes the best way to discover just how strong you really are.

LEARN TO READ TAROT

Think of these Sunday videos as a way to strengthen your relationship with your own intuition. If you want to improve your Tarot skills watch these “Tarot Turnovers” every week and practice the techniques and exercises in my ebook PeaceTarot available for download HERE

Reminder

New stuff announced on the equinox includes: “Reiki and Relaxation” (my doctoral dissertation) is available for download is the newest item in my NEW ko-fi shop. Watch form more updates to come. ZOMBIE CAT IS BACK on the home page and yes/no readings are $5 off until Halloween ’21.