Q: What do we most need to know right now in the United States following Lindsey Graham’s death and conjecture about Mitch McConnell’s.
I drew this card with this question in mind, right after seeing a social media post from someone who I typically has good points and real food for thought. This may well be the first time I’ve disagreed with him.
But no, this isn’t a time for tut-tutting about “speaking ill of the dead” from either side of the political divide. Graham was not a good person who, because of his political power, inflicted real harm on real people and contributed much to the rise of fascism and white christian nationalism in America today.
I’m sorry for the loss of any kind person who feels his – or their – passing. But at the same time it is fair to think they are lying in the bed they made during their lifetime.
The social media person clucked something on the order “saying these things says more about you as a person than it does about them.
Not this time.
If making fun of a powerful bad man says something about the person saying it….what does a powerful man’s silence about the death of school girls at the hands of unnecessary war, the death of women at the hands of politically and religiously motivated abortion bans, the death of schoolchildren at the hands of our lack of gun control….and on and on and on. What does silence about these dead say about THEM? I’d rather people make merciless fun of the politicians who caused harm than remain silent in the face of the harm they caused.
It’s more important to be kind to everyone living than to worry about what is said about the dead.
Laughter is good medicine. Public figures who caused real harm aren’t going to be any less dead if we only say nice things about them after they’ve been rendered harmless by the inevitable. Momento Mori.
In the noise of current events, the Ace of swords reminds us to cut to the chase, get to the point, simplify. Tune out the static and get right down to what really matters. In the end, kindness is the only measure of what that is.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
The Alleyman’s Tarot deck was extra rowdy this morning. It was sliding out of my hands and spewing all over the table after just one shuffle.
Today’s card is the Ace of Cups.
I’m sure it is just because of the great finish on the cards and the fact that I’m not exactly little miss coordination this morning, but it seems like chaos is part of the message today.
Cups have to do with the element of water, so you have all of those metaphors. Of all the properties of water, the movement is what comes to mind. It’s the “water can crash” part of Bruce Lee’s famous “be water my friend” interview. Cups also traditionally symbolize emotions. Another way of understanding the suit of cups is our closest relationships. Nothing touches our emotions like love, romance, marriage, family, children – all of our closest relationships.
The ace always touches on the essence of a suit. The ace of cups today is pointing square at our emotions and emotional state.
It is, after all, storm and hurricane season.
A couple of years ago, at the end of 2019 when the pandemic hadn’t fully hit, I did a series of readings. It seems like the energy environment was ringing everybody’s bell – hard. I must have had at least half a dozen different people say that they were having intense emotions or anxieties that they couldn’t explain which drew them to the reading. In some ways it’s hard to believe that is already two and a half years ago, almost three. In other ways it’s hard to believe that it has been ONLY two and half years ago.
Still, time has passed and that particular storm of emotion and energy has passed right along with it.
The same advice still applies, however.
I’m not talking about true mental health issues here. Those deserve respect, and the skills of a professional. Tarot isn’t for that. It can help, certainly, but Tarot is excellent for coping and gaining insight into normal ups and downs that we all experience at one time or another. Tarot helps all of us surf the crashing waves of human existence.
It’s like the extra slippery-slidey Alleyman’s deck today. Sometimes life just gets chaotic energy sometimes. Over on my personal blog “Sage & Stuff” I call it the squirrel rave after that internet meme that says “I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows. I have squirrels. And they are having a pagan rave.”
When you are in the middle of a squirrel rave or a hurricane or life’s crashing waves or whatever metaphor you like, the ace of cups is reminding us that our emotions are still our own, regardless of the surrounding slippery crashing chaos. You don’t have to take on the energy and emotions around you.
For some people that is easier than for others. We all have our own unique levels of empathy. We all have our unique levels of stress tolerance. We all have our own individual skin thickness when it comes to stress and emotions.
Which reminds me of a pediatrics lecture I heard a very long time ago where the doctor quoted some sort of old adage along the lines of “some kids are carrots, some kids are eggs. If you put one in hot water it goes to mush, but the other just gets hard boiled.”
Whenever a wave of emotion hits, especially if it feels out of character for you or feels disconnected sometimes it pays to do a little bit of an empathy check or an intuitive sensitivity gut-check.
This is one time where we can bring imagination, visualization and the mind-body connection into play for our benefit.
Imagine this:
Think of something that you can imagine to be protective. This is imagination, so it can be anything. Imagine a shield of energy like a comic book superhero. Imagine a wizard’s invisibility cloak. Or a Faraday cage that real-world screens out electromagnetic signals. I like to think of it akin to Violet’s shield power from the Incredibles Disney-Pixar movie. Imagine you are surrounded by whatever force field invisibility cloak fortress-of-solitude symbol that you chose.
Then do an emotions check. With that protective visualization in place, what are your emotions now? Is that thing you’ve been feeling quieter now, as if it was something outside of you that has been pushing your buttons? Or is it inside your super-shield with you?
It is easy to shrug off difficult emotions and blame it on things like being empathic or mercury in retrograde or whatever. It’s natural to want to keep difficult emotions at arms length at least until a situation settles down or we heal enough to actually deal with them.
There is an up side to it. Sometimes the emotions really are out there and once you sort that out you can get back to being the laid back zen low pressure center of the hurricane.
Sometimes emotions are the tempest in a teapot, all yours to deal with. Sometimes emotions are a storm warning vibrating to let you know what the energy environment holds. The still waters inside your cup are still yours to keep no matter what is on the horizon. Both take courage to keep the cup strong. The emotions inside the cup are your feels to feel either way.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate each of you and a special hello and welcome to new subscribers and social media followers. I’m always grateful for any likes, subs, shares, follows, questions or comments that you can spare.
The blog, podcast and youtube channel are not monetized by me: your energy message comes first here, not advertisers’. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where the shop, memberships and virtual coffees all support the creation of this unique (almost) daily Tarot content.
Thanks for readng! Any follows, likes, subs or shares are much appreciated!
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.
Thanks again for reading! See you at the next sip!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.