Acknowledge the Bittersweet


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New Year traditions around the world often include literal housecleaning. New Years, whenever on the calendar you celebrate it, is a big ‘out with the old, in with the new’ kind of vibe.

The ten of wands energy that has been around for the past few days or s0 isn’t finished with us yet and has called for reinforcements in the form of the five of cups.

The idea of releasing the broken things that no longer serve us and letting them be repaired, refreshed, renewed or reused by others is still here. The idea of releasing old obligations and giving yourself permission to deeply enjoy scaled-down holidays feels just as strong for the new year phase of the holidays as it was for the christmas part.

Letting go of obligations or dialing down the observance of traditions is liberating, but also wistful. Feelings of loss or grief can come hand in hand with the lightness and release. Change is a two edged sword. The wheel of change moves up and down at the same time. It is OK to acknowledge the emotions of this season just as much as it is OK to release the obligations of the season. Releasing the old is an act of courage and hope, one of trust that the void will be filled with the right thing for this place in time.

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Today’s Tarot: In The Quiet

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The strongest people are often the quietest, gentlest, and kindest.

Integrity and power often work in silence.

Listen –

Do you hear the electrons as they move to power the screen you are looking at right now?

An industrial magnet might make a humming sound….but it can lift a car.

Beware the loud and bombastic. Often it cloaks more hypocrisy than integrity.

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Today’s Tarot: Choose Your Ambition


The five of wands has always had a note of success about it. Sure, there is striving, effort, even conflict around the situation on your mind – but the effort isn’t futile. Some sort of progress can be made here.

I’ve always liked the spin that challenges can be met with style, panache, even a little humor. Effort and challenge doesn’t have to mean being up tight, stressed and anxious while you do it.

There is a trace of that old adage that if you do what you love, then you’ll never work another day. Combine that with the notion of choosing your battles. When you choose your battles you are managing your resources. Those resources include your internal energy and mental/emotional bandwidth. Choose your ambitions and your striving in life wisely. If you spend effort on the things you love then stress and striving melt away.


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Today’s Tarot: Echoing Silence


It’s a shocker, I know.

I follow a number of Taoist, Buddhist, Accupressure, Traditional Chinese Medicine and other such social media feeds.

This being the waning weeks of the year of the snake has popped up several times over the past few days, associating the end of the year with a metaphoric shedding of skin, as a snake does when it grows and enters a new cycle.

It reminds me of the ouroboros, the image of a snake or dragon eating its own tail that is said to symbolize cycles destruction and rebirth.

Drawing the Star card from the major arcana fits exactly that energy today.

This card is sometimes associated with guidance – like ancient sailors using the stars for navigation. Of course, this winter holiday season, the Christian minded among us might think of the star in the three kings legend. But that isn’t the energy this time at all.

Reference after reference connects The Star with rebirth and renewal.

This is much more cyclic. This is snake skin and ouroboros circles. It’s not about a singular point of guidance. It’s much more complex than that.

When I drew the Star card, I intuitively ‘heard’ “echoing silence” and was reminded of winter nights with a clear sky over snow-covered ground. Even if you are in a city parking lot or a suburban driveway, the night and silence are profound, the quiet echoing behind any noise you might hear.

We are at a cusp. We are at the tail of the ouroboros snake. No one star guides us through this transition.

An entire galaxy of stars promise rebirth.

As dark as this night may be, as anxious and terrifying as the echoing, frigid silence may feel, the stars burn on.

Even the stars move. Everything changes. And that includes changes for the better just as much as the tragedies our fears so often imagine.


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Today’s Tarot: Look


This is the Normal Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, the brilliant creator behind my favorite Alleyman’s Tarot deck. Used with permission by ‪@publishinggoblin1072‬

The Waxing Crescent Moon symbolizes a silver lining or unexpected benefit. The card being reversed gives the impression that the silver lining is buried deep, any benefits to the current situation being hidden – but worth finding.

Richard Back wrote (in Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, if memory serves) that “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in your hands.”

Buddhist wisdom and common aphorisms like “every cloud has a silver lining all advise the same thing: There is always some small way to turn some small part of a problem into some small benefit. It’s wise to do that whenever you can.

The waxing crescent card is a cue that there is a silver lining there for you. There is some gift from some problem around you. The card’s reversal is a hint that you might be missing the good thing, or have to dig for it – but it is there.

Look for your gift, look for your silver lining, whenever you can.


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Today’s Tarot: You know what to do

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HIGH PRIESTESS: Trust what you know, then do it. Spiritual power is greatest when you feel it, but it is still there even when you don’t. Some days, there is no grand mystery. Some days, just going through the motions is plenty enough. Ritual is never empty when it is mindful of the present moment.


May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. Tarot is part of both.

There have been countless times that I’ve seen jaws unclench, shoulders drop and frowns disappear in a Tarot reading.

Tarot can offer you a peaceful moment in troubled times.

This month I’m returning to where it all started: One Card Daily Meditation style readings. You can order a personalized meditation style Tarot reading by email or you can learn to do them for yourself with PeaceTarot: Tarot as a Way to Peaceful Thoughts in Troubled Times, available for download in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop.

Today’s Tarot: Grind the Cigars

Today’s Tarot card is the 8 of Pentacles.

Basically, it’s a day to just do normal stuff. Grind it out. Get it done. There are no big spiritual or aspirational energies around the card today. It’s all about just building a life brick by brick, step by step, moment by moment.

Even in Tarot, not everything is a big spiritual revelation. Not everything in life has a big symbolic purpose. Like Freud said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

Come back tomorrow for the spiritual stuff. For now, at least for today, go grind the cigars.

Today’s Tarot: meet a need

The Ace of Pentacles could be called the essence of things.

On the top layer you have success, abundance, and all the positive top-line meanings.

For all the attention that is given to court cards, the aces fascinate me. They speak to that simplicity that is so near and dear to Taoism’s heart. They are about the essence and nature of the minor arcana suit, in this case pentacles (coins in some decks.)

Pentacles are associated with the earth element. They are our relationship with the physical realm, tangible, practical things. Which begs the question of what is the essence of those things? What is the nature of stuff?

I’ll leave that to physicists, which is fascinating as heck, especially once you start getting into the whole Schrodinger, Heisenberg quantum thing. Especially for someone like me who can’t even explain why its bad if the lights dim when the refrigerator comes on.

For our purposes, let’s look at the role stuff plays in life. Of course, now my mind is stuck on the old George Carlin bit…

I’m talking functionality. We want stuff. It pays to know what you want. Achieving, manifesting (however you want to look at it) works better when you have a specific and clear vision of what you really want. If you get to the essence of it, then window dressing and expectations are less likely to get in the way. When you work from a place of simplicity and essentials, the things you REALLY want can take a multitude more forms, and have a multitude more ways to find a way into your life.

That’s wants. Today’s card is, energetically, talking about needs. Physical need is the example, but the energy idea can be extended to mental, emotional and spiritual needs too.

This feels like a moment in time, but possibly an important one. Just for a minute, just for today, what is a literal need. An immediate, pressing, life-depends-on-it need.

Your next meal.

Your next drink of water.

Your next breath.

Now give it your full attention and gratitude as you meet that need. Try it. Just once. Just for today.

How does that feel?

Today’s Tarot card is available as a blog post, a Clairvoyant Confessional episode, and on YouTube Shorts.

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Because Your Choice Matters

If there is an overarching idea to all three cards together, it would be that your choice matters, which is the core essence of all of the YouChoose video posts. These readings are designed to cut through the noise of social media and let you personally touch your reading. As Mat Auryn said in Psychic Witch “What you touch, touches you” or something very akin to that.

If you like this personalized touch to the readings please let me know! If you tell me the kind of Tarot content you would like to see, I’ll do my best to create it. Talk to me! Ask me anything* and I’ll do a Tarot reading for it in the upcoming season of Clairvoyant Confessional podcast (new episode expected Sunday, September 26) Drop a comment below or email your questions to ClairvoyantConfessional@gmail.com.

Six of Swords: Go with the flow, but choose which current you float in. The dog you feed is the one that grows strong.

Page of Cups: find wisdom and inspiration in the absurd. Laugh your way into a better frame of mind.

King of Pentacles: Control what you can – but remember that control seldom occurs in the physical realm. Most of the time your only dominion is over yourself. How you react to things is where you greatest power and most impactful choice can be found.

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