Soulmates and the sum of the parts

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today, Soulmantes and the sum of the parts with the two of cups.

Hey there. Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: a Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card it the Two of Cups.

Nevermind the Lovers from the major arcana, THIS is the card you want to see in a love, romance or relationship reading. This is a card that most often resonates with long term, committed, loving, satisfying relationship. It is associated with marriage, handfasting or any life long commitment between any two human beings.

But like anything this is a yin-yang, giving-getting two-sided coin.

Remember that old candy commercial about chocolate and peanut butter? Peanut butter is delicious on its own. It’s something to eat by the spoonful if you ask me. Chocolate is sublime, the more cacao the better in my book. Love the dark stuff. Together they are extra. Together they are more than either alone.

The best romances are like that.

The worst ones are too, except the “extra” is added to the not-good side of things. Kind of like those generic candies that use terrible quality ingredients and are tasteless, weird textured and generally unpleasant.

Personally, I don’t buy into the whole other half, twin flame idea. I mean, think about it for a minute. Who would you rather spend your life with? Would you rather be with someone who expects you to complete them or someone who is a true partner adding their battery to your mutual light? Would Ironman have flown away yelling “you complete me” if Pepper was anything less than a fully independent phenomenon in and of herself? If you need someone to complete you, isn’t that a way of controlling you too? If someone needs you to complete them isn’t that controlling you too?

Good romance isn’t built on need. In a good romance both parts give and get, get and give. It isn’t about two parts completing a circuit, it is about two fully charged batteries powering up the full circuit and shining a light brighter than either one battery could alone.

Romances are like those candies. The best result doesn’t come from peanut butter looking for more peanut butter in order to make them into better peanut butter. The best result doesn’t come from cocoa butter looking for a cacao beans to make it into better chocolate. The symbiotic extra can’t happen if you are looking for another half to make a whole. The extra only happens when two free standing and fully good things work together to make the magic happen.

TaoCraft Tarot blogcast depends on your support through “buy me a coffee” donations, Tarot Table memberships and purchases through the website. Links are clickable in the blog and are found in the episode description of the podcast.

Thanks for reading & listening. I’ll see you at the next sip!

Weekend Tarot Turnover: Two of Wands

Turn Tarot on its head while you practice your intuitive and card reading skills.I sip the coffee, you read the card. Today’s card is the Two of Wands

Hello and welcome to the Weekend Tarot Turnover. I’m glad you are here.

Let’s turn the Tarot reading process on its head. I’ll sip the coffee while you contemplate and interpret the card. For those of you reading the blog or getting here through the YouTube channel, you can see the real-world, authentic card draw on video. Those of you listening on the blogcast will just have to take my word for it or check it out later. A link to the blog is always in the episode description, at least on Spotify and Anchor FM it is.

Today’s card is the Two of Wands.

Read or listen to this list of possible card meanings, as use your intuition to see which one fits you or feels right to you. Or better still, use your own intuition to make your own meaning. Honing in on the right meaning provided in the references and resources direct inspirations you have on hand is integral to reading Tarot for yourself. I don’t certify or teach anyone to read for other people but I can teach you to read Tarot for yourself really, really well. Watch this space for more on that.

But back to the Two of Wands. Two cards in general deal with balances.

  1. Balance your inner world with the outer world. Don’t get so caught up in the physical that you forget to care for your emotional and spiritual side. And vice versa – don’t live in your head so much that you neglect the practical side of life.
  2. Balance your attention to time. If you allow your thoughts to dwell too much in the future, anxiety or unhappiness can come.
  3. Look to the future sometimes. Hopes and plans are important too. Tomorrow has to start somewhere.
  4. Reassurance or validation that you are on the path to success, watching the horizon for your ship to come in

So, what do you think? Feel free to drop your card interpretation or thoughts about the weeknd turnover exercise in the comments. Questions are welcome and answered in the blogcast. Will trade my opinion and expertise for some of that sweet, sweet content. Let’s talk!

Thanks for listening! I’ll see you at the next sip.

None of the authentic TaoCraft Tarot content is monetized. Any ads you see benefit the hosting platform, which means the Tarot part of the content is 100% listener supported. The blogcast and YouTube channel depends on email Tarot readings purchased through the blogcast website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi. I always appreciate your support as well as any likes, subs, shares and follows you can spare. Thank you.

One Step Win

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Four of Wands and a one step win.

Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Todays card is the Four of Wands.

It’s kind of weird being both a music fan and a little bit clairaudient.

Today is exactly why.

Clairaudience is like clairvoyance except it’s your intuition communicating to you through mental sounds or words instead of mental images. Most of the time it’s great, because like I said, I like a wide range of music. It’s not often that I’ll get an intuitive song reference that I don’t know well or don’t like.

Today, the split second the card turned over I immediately got a song, but had to google it in order to be able to talk about . All I heard was the line “na na na na na na life goes on” clear as a bell, music and all. It was vaguely familiar as the opening for some old TV show that was popular at the time, I guess, but not one I never watched for whatever reason.

Turns out it was Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da (Life Goes On) which was from an early 90s show called “Life Goes On” or so sayeth the Google. Not my favorite Beatles song. I know it may be heresy to some people, but I can take or leave a lot of their stuff and this is a leave one.

Which begs the question what does that have to do with the Four of Wands? Usually the card is associated with celebrations. These celebration are more community & society oriented, or celebrations that extend beyond the immediate family….like a large wedding or christening.

Now juxtapose that with the frightening news of war in Europe. How do you entertain the idea of community celebration when there is real chance of global implications for these events.

That leads to a pop culture reference that I enjoy more. Remember the wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Ginny wonders if it isn’t a bit silly having a wedding “given everything that is going on.” Harry replies that maybe everything that is going on is really the best reason TO have it.

That’s the spirit of the Four of Wands today. Step by step, one foot in front of the other, life goes on. When you are feeling tired and discouraged or demoralized, taking that one more step is a win worth celebrating.

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to TaoCraft Tarot on the blog, in the podcast and on YouTube Shorts. None of it is monetized and it all depends on your support. No appointment needed email Tarot purchases on the blogcast website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi all contribute to creating this unique Tarot content.

Any likes, subs, shares and follows you can spare are always appreciated too!

See you at the next sip!

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Circles of Life and Fortune

You choose the Tarot card. Pause the video or blogcast if you need some time. Then restart to see or hear the reveal and get your Tarot reading

Today’s YouChoose works the same as always: pick a card. You choose the card, you choose how to apply it. Pause the video if you want a minute to think about which card you want, then restart to see the reveal and hear the card interpretation.

To keep the reveal a surprise (because I know you have good instincts and will pick the right card for you) the video will stand alone without a transcript so there is no peeking.

Stay tuned for more short sip Tarot reading posts and an update about Spring ’22 hours.

Thanks for watching!

Comments and questions are moderated but welcome below. Select replies post in the blog.

Birds of a Feather Inspire Together

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

Today’s card is The Star from the major arcana.

Birds of a feather flock together. Like attracts like. You are what you eat.

Adages and Proverbs become adages and proverbs because they have proven themselves true for a long, long time. And they tend to apply to a variety of situations.

That whole birds of a feather, like attracts like thing is huge advice for lonely hearts in search of a soulmate. In other words, be the soulmate you want to bring into your life. Do you want the romance of your life to be with a person who is all tied up knots and focused solely on their own feelings or would you rather be with someone who is happy and engaged with life? Be the bird you want to feather with.

It isn’t all soulmates. Like attracts like applies to many other things too. It begs the question of what, exactly, attracts you.

Human beings, it seems, are absolute geniuses for projection and confirmation bias. We see our own desires and our own opinions everywhere we turn. Who you follow, the things you support, the things that inspire you tells the outer world as much about you as much as those things tell you about the outer world.

Curate your inspirations. Actual conversations with actual people aside, would you want to have your social media “likes” as real world meat-space friends? Would you want to be part of their group?

Social media platforms are literally called a feed. We consume media. What would happen to your body if you constantly fed on toxic things? Why would you take any less care with the media you consume? Block and unfollow buttons are powerful protectors is you use them.

I love my social feeds. I’ve met beautiful, kind, wise people from opposite ends of the continent that I never could have met otherwise. Instagram is especially fun since I tend to be a bit visual. My feed is filled with artists, photographers, poets, Taoism, meditation, witches, civil rights groups, some of the best Tarot readers out there, recipes, coffee memes and a fair bit of yarn porn.

There are some pretty wonderful things out there in cyberspace, not just doom and gloom. Of everything out there, what things grab your attention? Who inspires you? The Star card reminds us to take care that those things and people are worthy of our attentions and our aspirations.

Thank you for reading, listening and watching. The blogcast and youtube channel are not monetized and depend on your support. Email Tarot purchases and Tarot Table memberships contribute toward creating TaoCraft Tarot online content. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated too.

See you at the next sip!

The deck pictured is Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell used with permissions granted on llwellyn publidhing dot com.

You Can’t Make Them Drink

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: Four of Cups

Hello. Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip – Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Four of Cups.

There is an old adage that says “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.”

Maybe it is because the hallmark holiday is in four days. Today’s vibe is a lot like that old My Tarot Valentine vibe I was telling you about the other day. Or was it yesterday? Anyway, cups are back into romance mode.

You can lead a relationship to water but you can’t make it drink. And I’m not talking about adult beverages.

The heart knows.

The heart knows when words are empty or actions are made of inertia and habit.

Not everyone is present and focused on the two of you every. Single. Moment. People get tired, stressed and distracted. It’s easy to understand that and it’s easy to give a little extra TLC to someone you care about who is having a bad day. Bad days happen for everyone, and they are just that – a day. You do what you can to help and life goes on. This is also a good time to remind ourselves to leave stress at the door and love your loved ones. They know when something is up.

They know when a bad day turns into a bad month, or a bad year.

The heart knows when words are empty and actions are built out of inertia and habit.

The message the card gives today is scary for both people involved and oh so hard to give. I’ve seen it in relationship readings lately. It brings to mind one particular reading I did for a client a few months ago. The energy here feels exactly like it did then. Specific past readings almost never come up in a general blog reading like this. Maybe someone somewhere out there is in a similar situation as that client was. All light and best wishes to you, listener and client, wherever you are. Or it could be that this is just a matter of the universal energy giving me a specific cue to a specific message. Here goes.

Sometimes you pour everything you have into a relationship and for whatever reason, the other person just can’t give anything back. At some point you have to stop the bleeding, turn off the faucet that is flooding the bathtub, stop digging the hole you are trapped in. Love is a precious thing to pour away into an abyss. If it can’t be given to another, perhaps it is time to give it to yourself.

Sometimes absence is better than empty presence.

None of this blog, podcast or YouTube Tarot content is monetized and it all relies on your support. The private email readings you purchase and Tarot Table memberships on Ko-fi all contribute toward producing this free Tarot content. Likes, subs, shares and follows all help too.

Thank you so much for watching, reading and listening. I’ll see you at the next sip!

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: The Face Value of Bull Horns

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.

Take A Breath

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!

Today’s Short Sip, but even shorter

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.

Sunday Tarot Turnover: Inspiration from Anywhere

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.