Tag: tarot

Happy Star Wars Day 2019

The Force, vital force, life energy, qi (chi), Tao, ki, prana, magick: so many words with such similar meanings. No wonder the Star Wars mythology us so beloved by so many.

“I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.”

– Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) in Star Wars Rogue One

It’s all magick now

InkMagickPen1

It’s been half a year since TaoCraft Tarot’s official launch on Halloween, 2018. Today is half-o-ween (halfway to Halloween) or, if you want to be traditional about it, Beltane. This is the first spring that I have been open with all of you about my Taoist / witchy tendencies. If TaoCraft can launch on Halloween, it is only fitting to do something for Beltane.

It’s all magick now.

In honor of days of light and summer fire, I’ve made all the readings InkMagick Sigil Tarot. All of the readings now feature a sigil element and reading-based affirmation. Lucky for you, these won’t be handwritten unless you specifically order a pen and ink snail mail paper version from the Shop. The photo of your layout and the typed explanation part will stay the same. So will Zombie Cat with all of his snark and sly advice in the form of yes/no readings and the new Ask Zombie Cat page

I’ve thought of making layout changes, but it doesn’t feel right. The layout and position meanings are going to stay the same, in the old, reliable, trusty “Modern Oracle” layout that works so well. If it ain’t broke, far be it from me to fix it.

If you would like a reading in the new “InkMagick Sigil Tarot” format, you can order on the HOME page. If you want the handwritten version using my increasing beloved and magic wand like ink dip pen, those can be ordered from the TaoCraftTarotShop on Etsy, along with all the e-books, mala and jewelry (pssst….check out the necklaces. Mother’s Day is coming soon).

To those who celebrate, Merry May and Blessed Beltane, and to everyone else, Happy Tuesday! It’s all good. It’s all magick now.

Ask Zombie Cat Anything

NEW!

That  snoo-wearing website has nothing on us. You can ask Zombie Cat anything RIGHT HERE

Use the contact form on the Ask Zombie Cat page to – um – ask Zombie Cat. Ask any question you like – I won’t promise the answer will involve Tarot Cards or anything else for that matter.

Questions will be chosen at random to be answered (yeah, it probably WILL use Tarot come to think of it). Your answer will appear as a blog post or a YouTube video. Don’t worry, we’ll edit the daylights out of it so no one will know it is you.

Pro Tip: subscribe to the blog over there –>

and follow TaoCraftTarot on Instagram (TaoCraft.Tarot) Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and subscribe on YouTube so you don’t miss your answer.

Inappropriate comments and spam will be immediately set on fire and ignored.

Zombie Cat is a fairly snarky fictional character. Anything labeled Zombie Cat is purely for entertainment and should be used at your own risk. After all, he has ZOMBIE right in his name.

Send your question HERE

 

Today’s Tarot 22 April 2019

InkMagick Sigil Tarot (both email and paper versions) are still at a special price until the end of April. Each one card meditation style reading includes a sigil element given by intuition that you may use to inspire your own sigil crafting plus a positive affirmation based on your reading.

Please visit the home page to order

customized artistic service, for entertainment and personal enrichment only

The Power Grows

The more digital becomes the norm, the more power handwriting gains as it slips into the realm of the quaint, the old-fashioned, and the arcane.

I’ve seen it called both a day and a month of commemoration, but April has been dubbed “National Letter Writing Month” here in the US. It isn’t about pretty callegraphy, it is about heart to heart communication in written form.

In honor of the month, my favorite format (writing) and my Tarot specialty (distance, e-mail, mail) “InkMagick Sigil Tarot Readings” are $1 off the regular price until April 30, 2019. Order yours on the home page.

Each reading, both paper and digital, gives a sigil element, a symbol or doodle given by intuition. You are welcome to use it in your own sigil crafting. In the me pictured above, the pinaform (feather) shape symbolizes a pen or writing. the line paper, plus our connection, the circles hint at electrons, distance communication.

If you are interested in sigils, writing, and magick (yes, I use the k, it just looks cooler and I’m no Penn and Teller, you know?) I suggest reading Sigil Witchery by Laura Tempest Zakroff and Write Your Own Magic by Richard Webster.

TaoCraft Tarot is on YouTube! Please visit, like and subscribe: https://youtu.be/nfV6eP_G4RM

How To Find Your Soulmate

This is an updated, combined version of my two-part post from 2009. Stay tuned for a more soulmate themed posts from the Tarotbytes archives.

The question of “how do I find my soulmate” (or some version of that) comes up in Tarot readings a LOT. I asked the question a LOT when I was younger and first started going to get psychic readings. Little did I know then that I would wind up doing this kind of work. After seeing the soulmate question from both sides, I have a few ideas that to offer. 

 

First, don’t worry about time. Love is one of those cosmic truths beyond time. Love has no need to respond to our time schedules or expectations because it exists beyond time. It is everywhere, always. The time and place for it to take a specific form is not something we control, cause or find.  “It happens in its own time” and “you can’t hurry love” are both very true. So don’t worry about WHEN. Once you take that “when” pressure off of yourself, and off of your unknown soulmate, then that creates more energetic space for the relationship to step into.

If the loneliness gets to be too much, and sometimes it does, remember that Love exists. It is an inseparable part of the cosmos. So are you.  Look up. You and your soulmate exist under the same sky. Love touches you even in the times when you least feel it.

Second, why not let your soulmate find you? The outward flowing, struggling quality of “finding” a soulmate is often counter-productive. If it is meant to be, it will happen naturally. Fighting the current, not ‘going with the flow’ only makes things harder. Think about a crowded amusement park. If you are constantly on the move, in among the crowd, what are the chances you will find that one person? What are the chances they can find you? Now, imagine standing on a bench and waving hello. What are the chances they will see you in the crowd now? If you are happy, relaxed, loving, compassionate, and being your genuine self, then you are more likely to attract your perfect mate to you.

Third, use the spiritual law of similars. “Birds of a feather flock together” is a thing. Soulmate energy seems to vibrate along the law of similars – like attracts like. Or as Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you are going to attract people who are like you, what kind of soulmate do you want to draw into your life? One obsessed with being lonely, impatient, constantly seeking? Or do want a soulmate who is happy, and enjoying life just as it is right now? You do you…and enjoy every minute of it, and that sends a signal to the perfect match FOR you. That happiness is lighthouse, signaling to your soulmate. Nothing calls out to your perfect soulmate like being your genuine, happy self. Remember that other spiritual law: Confidence is sexy. Learning to feel comfortable in your own skin is an essential step.

Fourth, do things that you love to do. Going to bars or whatever with the sole purpose of “finding a soulmate” seldom works. Do something you love and that love, that light, will shine out to the people who love you for that thing you do. They say common interests are a good foundation for building a relationship. If you love, love, LOVE going to smoky bars and hanging out with drunk people, by all means that is the way to find a soulmate. If not, skip that idea and do whatever it is that you really do love. Do things that you really care about and things that feel like they feed your soul. You might find your perfect someone at that same spiritual buffet.

Feeling lonely, feeling like someone or something is missing from your life is difficult. Soulmates are deeply important, which is why they capture so much of our thoughts and emotional energy.  There are no glib or easy answers to finding love and acceptance. It comes in many forms. Love saturates the universe. Perhaps the key to finding out soulmate is finding love where ever it exists and, most of all, living the Love that exists within yourself.

Want more personalized guidance? Order Distance Tarot HERE

 

Ghost of Zombie Cat

First published 17 May 2015

“There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies” – William Shakespeare

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Arthur C. Clarke

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost” – Ghostbusters

In the first Zombie Cat post we talked a little bit about the intersection of Tarot and science. Now lets shift gears yet again and add in the  spiritual, fringe, and frankly, “woo-woo” aspect of things. Tarot intersects all of those, too.

When I’m not looking at the world as a giant Taoist Taijitu (yin/yang symbol) I tend to see a lot of things in terms of a Venn diagram. That’s why I chose a triquetra as the main symbol in my old Modern Oracle logo. This “trinity knot” is essentially an excerpt of a three circle Venn diagram which in turn symbolizes much in my work…mind/body/spirit (for holistic health) or mother/maiden/crone (for the stages of life) or sea/sky/land (our connection with Nature) and many more such groups of three. I see Tarot as overlapping with self,  science and spirituality, again giving us that lovely triquetra shape.

So, back to Tarot and spirituality. Any good thesis defines its terms. In this case we have to define spirituality. I’ve noticed a tendency for people to use spirituality and religion almost interchangeably. They aren’t. As I see it, they are totally different, damn near opposite things. I define spirituality as internal and individual. Spirituality is how we as individuals engage with the wordless, intangible aspects of the universe and our existence within it. Religion, on the other hand, is external, codified, ritualized, other, outside of our individual self. Religion is how a collective of people over time has engaged with the wordless, intangible aspects of the universe and pronounced them to be. We express our spirituality in out external lives. Spirituality goes from the inside out. Religion structures our external lives as a way to instruct the internal. Religion is outside in. Tarot is intuition – it is inside to inside. It has everything to do with spirituality, nothing to do with religion.

Spirituality is unlimited. It is in this vast inner world where Tarot applies and finds its usefulness. Yes, the cards are external. But they don’t instruct our inner world from the outside in as a religious practice might. They are a mirror to reflect out inner world back to us and lens to help us understand what we see there. They reflect and shine light in the dark corners, allowing that inner world of spirituality to illuminate and expand, grow and thrive. 

The cards are nothing more than just pieces of paper. It is centuries of projected wisdom and symbolism written on the cards combined with the intuition and insight of the Tarot reader’s living modern mind that leads the way to enlightenment…not the pieces of paper alone. The cards are the Venn diagram intersection of mind and matter that lets us catch glimpses of the possibilities and probabilities afforded to us by the physical/quantum universe of which we are an intimate and inseparable part.

Tarot cards are our portal into the trinity of humanity, science and spirituality. They are a magnet that draws wisdom, guidance, insight and empowerment out of a melange of known, unknown, explicable, inexplicable, and the heart that seeks to know more.

There is more in heaven and earth than we have yet to dream and discover. There is more inside ourselves as well. There is more than just a dead or living cat in Schrodinger’s box. Woo-woo as they may seem, disappearing cats and zombie cats are part of the bigger multiverse of the human heart, mind, imagination and spirit.

Zombie Cat is in the house! Yes-or-No Tarot is now available to order on the home page. These 3 card Tarot readings answer any ONE yes-or-no question. Fun, lighthearted and tongue in what’s left of his cheek, Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to have words in them and a 50% chance of being dead wrong. Order HERE.