Tag: tarot readings

Parallax

Originally published 5-27-2010

“Camera 1, Camera 2, Camera 1, Camera 2” ~ Wayne’s World 2

Ever play with that trick of eyesight? Close one eye, and hold up a pencil so it lines up with an object in the distance. Then switch eyes and the pencil seems to jump to one side. Things don’t line up the same way.

In astronomy, this is called parallax. In anatomy, this phenomenon where the brain combines two slightly different views from two slightly different viewpoint gives us depth perception…it allows us to see distance. Two eyes lets us live in three dimensions. It helps us to not walk into objects and learn our environment the literal hard way.

A similar idea is true in Tarot and psychic work. Getting a reading isn’t predicting the future…it is getting a second look, a separate viewpoint to combine with our own that lets us see with greater clarity and understanding. It helps us be a bit more perceptive, and not have to learn every lesson the hard way.

Two third-eyes are better than one, in other words.

Even those of us who do readings professionally will sometimes GET one to improve our understanding and fill in any blind spots. 

I like to think that when psychics read for themselves or consult a fellow psychic, it works like binocular vision. Two readings from two people gives two views that can be fused together into a higher quality, more useful vision.

Another example is the VLA, “very large array” of radio telescopes. It is made of 27 or so radio antennae all linked together to work together like one big dish, one configuration is over 20 miles across. Working together, the telescopes have capabilities magnetudes more than any individual telescope. If we combine our logic, know-how, and life experience to work together with oracle tools (tarot, runes, palm lines, what-have-you) and other intuitives, we can increase our understanding and spiritual growth by magnitudes.

If one eye is closed, then depth perception doesn’t work. If one telescope is down, the array doesn’t work as well. We each bring our part to a reading. The sitter (learner, seeker, client) has a part to play too. When we do a Tarot reading, we work together. I translate spirit, but it is up to you to understand and apply the message. We work together like the telescopes in the VLA or two eyes together to see farther. Working together, we see with more clarity. Together we are clairvoyant.

 

Tarot Without a Net: The Heirophant

I like Marvel.

I was as happy to see Professor X as I was to see who I thought was ObiWan Kenobi on the Emperor card. It is a perfect bridge between what I see and what the artest saw in these two cards.

It’s been a long year coming, but waaay back when the third edition of Heart of Stars third edition deck was released by Thom Pham, he very graciously gave permission for me to share these posts with you. I am so looking forward to exploring this deck with you because it is very much how I work. If you have ever had a reading with me, there is a good chance that spirit and energy gave a pop culture reference at some point…a song, book, movie or tv show.

It is interesting to me that the very thing I missed by mis-understanding Odin from Thor as Obi-Wan from Star Wars is the exact thing that drives my impression of this card.

The Hierophant (or Pope card in some decks) has always been a nemesis for me personally. The Hierophant / Pope is often associated with social rules and conventions. On the RWS deck it is rife with religious imagery. As an adult child of evangelicals recovered fundamentalist, that is a hot button pushing reflex issue for me. Lucky for me AND my clients, that only happens when I engage with stuff like this, outside of a reading. In a reading, the Hierophant is smooth as silk and clear as a bell because it has to do with connecting with THEIR  energies and messages. Please don’t take my wrangling matches with this card to be an indication of what is to come in YOUR reading should this card turn up.

It is much better than it used to be, actually. It took a dozen re-writes to do the “Arcana in Balance” post (I’ll updating and reprising that series here later this year.) Since coming out secular, it has been easier to deal with this card. It is even easier still since Johanne Dinali explaned the card in her twitter feed as the keeper of traditions, like a grandfather or a shaman.

Here, I get the word teacher very strongly from this card. It still has undertones of rules and conventions because the Professor teaches discipline and ethics and how to deal with mutation super powers. It has the same threads of mystery and power. All that Professor X has learned has been long and hard-won….and about mysterious powers. So yes, the Hierophant is the keeper of rules, traditions, social conventions….but to teach them. He teaches mysteries through the same, not just all law and order. It is a subtle, even nonexistant distinction to those who embrace religion, perhaps. To those of us who have experienced and deliberately, mindfully left mainstream religion, it is an important one. The hierophant is more kindly kindly monk-teacher-scribe than lay-down-the-law, missals and diatribes Pope.  Professor X and the heart of the Hierophant card is more like teaching us to find and use our X-men powers than it is law-and-order, lock-em-up and throw away the key. The Hierophant is a spiritual teacher – not a religious  officer, judge, jury and executioner.

I was browsing for a quote to post with the card as I often do on Instagram (@Taocraft.Tarot) This one by Thich Nhat Hahn caught my eye:

“Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst for more and you will get a higher kind of proof”

That resonates with teaching in a very real world way on multiple levels for me. If we go back to my personal religious issues (obviously not something that will relate to everyone, but shout out to all the ex-vangelicals out there) anything worth learning will stand up to doubt and questioning. Christianity, for me, disappeared in a poof of dust at every question, every doubt. Taoism has stood up through everything life has thrown at me. Tarot has never ending wisdom so far for me AND my clients. That isn’t bragging about my skill…it is bragging about what a reliable, testable, doubt-and-question-tolerant tool Tarot has proven itself to be in my experience.

That is just from the one sided perspective of a student. I’ve taught. This card and this quote has something to say to teachers as well: Questions and doubts are a wonderful thing. When I was teaching Kung Fu and Tai Chi I LOVED it when students had questions. They took the whole class to some really cool wonderful places…to hell with what I had planned. When students question us and doubt us and push us….they are doing US, the teachers and enormous favor. They are showing us the dead spots that need pruned away. They are showing us the empty gaps that need feed. If I don’t know an answer, it is only an embarrassment if I fail to try and find and answer or at least try to point the student in the direction of other possible sources for their answer.

When Professor Hierophant rolls in to a reading, it is a good time to ask questions, face our doubts, test the rules, then follow those guides and lessons that prove trustworthy.

Unsurprisingly, given his choice of Professor X, the artist makes teaching a primary focus, instead of a supporting focus behind the paternal / protector emphasis of the Emperor card.

Deck: Heart of Stars Third edition by Thom Pham, used with permission.

ElfCon 5 2018: Bring it

This is the most low stress, laid back downright holiday season in years. My daughter is adult now, the Terry’s oranges are already in the cupboard, it’s a jewelry not knitting year for gifts (less time intensive by a loooong shot)

This year, instead of straight up closing for the holidays, I’ve decided to keep distance Tarot and Sending Stones Reiki open. In-person and party sessions are cut back December 15 – Jan 15 but I have lots of time for Distance work, which suits my introverted eggnog loving, cookie baking, knitting, and mala making holiday plans just fine.

My gift to you was easy to make this year too: use YULECRAFT18 at checkout to get 10% off everything in TaoCraft Tarot Shop except e-books.

The holidays are spookily in hand this year. I’m here to help you deal with your holiday stress with Distance Tarot, Distance Reiki, and handmade mala and other surprises for out of the ordinary gift ideas. I’m only at ElfCon 5 so all of you hectic Santa’s Helpers…bring on the readings and the relaxings 🙂

Don’t forget: If you contact me and don’t get a reply of some kind within one business day PLEASE try again. I’m closed Sundays and US holidays so please be a little extra patient during those times.

I’m on Telegram now (@TaoCraftTarot) if you want to text privately.  The phone only answers daytime business hours (eastern usa time zone) IF I’m not with a client. Otherwise, please leave a voicemail. I get voicemail notices all the time, and that is a pretty reliable way to get through. Ditto for email.

Let the ElfCon Days begin!

 

 

 

 

A Door Opens….

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot

Stop me if I’m over explaining here. I don’t know if it is anxiety from this whole re-branding thing, or just good old fashioned trying to convince myself….but I feel like I owe all of you an explanation. I hope there is an “all of you” to explain TO. It feels a little hollow and echo-y in there at the moment. Let me give you a little tour anyway.

Things here are rustic and real. I’m done trying to make Tarot palatable to the mainstream. Neither the very religious or the very atheist will like this I suspect. But like the Knight of Pentacles Internet meme…my field of fucks has grown barren. If this darker aesthetic, a little snark and humor, and talk of magick and Taoism is offensive to someone, then fine. We are not a good match to work together anyway. Modern Oracle had a tendency to pander to respectability and evangelizing for Tarot. TaoCraft is about deep authenticity, simplicity, and humanity.

Imagine it like this.

Imagine a one room stone cottage at the edge of an evergreen forest. The large storefront window and glass door let in abundant diffuse natural light. To the right as you walk in you see a fireplace with a bright, fragrant, crackling fire. There is a table with two comfy chairs for doing Tarot readings. In the middle, bookshelves line the walls and are filled with the books I will write. There is a display with all sorts of mala meditation beads almost vibrating with the Reiki and good intentions placed in them for their new owners. In the far left corner, a fountain burbles next to a table for Reiki sessions. The table is surrounded with shelves of crystals of every color and kind. Under the floorboards we have the same strong foundation that has been there since the beginning. This foundation is made of strict but transparent business policies that protect us from any suspicious, litigious, potentially harmful people. The sprinkles of salt in the corners and the warding spells in the walls are  the zero spam policy and closed comments that protect us all from the dreaded internet trolls. Anyone can have a say – in an email, or in their own blog, just not the comment thread. This is a safe and sacred space, a place where spirit can speak and kindness can thrive.

The door is open. I hope you visit often.