Have you ever seen an official balance beam for gymnastic competitions? They are 10 cm or around 4 inches wide. It’s hard enough to walk on one, much less do what olympic gymnasts do. Staying centered and balanced and in the middle of one of those is a darn good trick.
Now think of a flat path or sidewalk that is, lets say, about 1 meter or a little over 3 feet wide. Compared to a balance beam, how hard is it to find and walk down the middle of that?
Or walk down the middle of a football field?
The advice here is don’t make your path narrower than it has to be. Don’t make life narrower than it is. When life is wide, the middle way still encompasses a lot of territory.
The middle way of a wide path is big enough to encompass your comfort zone.
The middle way of a wide path is big enough for everyone.
Be kind to yourself and be kind to those who walk alongside of you. In a path as wide as the cosmos, there is plenty of room for all of us and every definition of middle, balanced and OK.
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A few thoughts on the Two of Pentacles and the time-space continuum.
Lau Tzu, Ben Franklin and Dirk Gently walk into a bar…
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here. These short sip posts & episodes are Tarot contemplations in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
It sounds a little like some sort of bad “walks into a bar” joke, but the Tao Te Ching, Benjamin Franklin and Dirk Gently all factor into the collective energy today.
Before we get to today’s Two of Pentacles card, I want to thank Madam Adam on Tik Tok for reminding me of the word collective. “Collective energy” really is the perfect way to describe how these general audience reading for social media or a blog feel. It is a much better word for it than the “zeitgeist” or “general audience” energy that I was calling it. It simplifies and clarifies the message when we can refer to ‘the collective’ in the way that energy often refers to the client or sitter or seeker or quierant or whatever word you like to use there. So with thanks for the reminder. Collective is the new adjective.
OK. Back to the collective energy and our unlikely trio of loosely related ideas, all of which comes back to the Two of Pentacles, our penultimate balance card second only to Temperance in the major arcana.
I doubt Benjamin Franklin was influenced by the Tao Te Ching quote “Nature does not hurry, yet all is accomplished” when he wrote that “haste makes waste” but I like to think he would have enjoyed the Tao Te Ching, not to mention the Dirk Gently novels or my personal favorite, the 2016 Max Landis TV adaptation with Dirk’s whispery, excited “everything’s connected.”
Everything IS connected.
The haste and hurry that Franklin and Lau Tzu talk about both are inseparable from physical space and the passage of time. It is science and physics – velocity is distance divided by time. The stars we see in our sky are boggle-your-mind old because they are boggle-your-mind far away and it has taken that long for the light to get here. Time, space, human perception, human activity, haste and waste are all, you know, connected.
Now lets walk around to the other side and look at this from a psychological or spiritual point of view instead.
When do you get stressed? How does time or the perceived lack of it factor into those stressful feelings for you? It seems like excess demands and looming deadlines play an outsized role in perceived stress. We have too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. How much is too much varies from one person to another, but too much for you is too much however much that much may be.
Sooner or later, something has to give. It’s better to change the circumstances than have the circumstances change your mental or physical health.
You know how when you are resizing an image in a photo editor you can grab a corner and it keeps the proportions the same? The length and the width are connected and if you change one, the other changes right along with it. That is the kind of connectivity that we are talking about here. And that connectivity can be used to improve stress and life balance just as much as it may have helped cause it.
Too much stuff to do? Change that and your perception of time slides right along with it to a more comfortable state of being. That idea of triage and prioritizing and cutting out the unnecessary is a Ten of Wands thing, but it applies here because that is the means and method of finding the balance that the Two of Pentacles is referencing. In this scenario, if we were doing a multiple card layout, the Ten of Wands may well appear as a way to support the Two of Pentacle’s message.
Time passes.
There isn’t anything we can do to stop that, but how we measure time is completely arbitrary and under our control. Deadlines? Move them. If there are bad consequences to doing that, then the deadline might be the better option. If you look at it from a consequence perspective, then your schedule may not shift, the amount of activity needed may not shift, but instead our perception shifts. The deadline and work level may be better than the alternatives. It may all still suck, but it sucks less when you deliberately choose it compared to something worse. Perception isn’t a physical shift, but it is a shift toward increasing balance and decreasing stress just the same.
*sips coffee*
Which is all well and good, but what about the Two of Pentacles here, now, today.
I guess what all of this is saying is that when you are feeling stressed or out of balance, change and adapt what you can, and the rest of it will flex in the direction of less stress because everything is connected, haste makes waste and Nature never hurries and yet all is accomplished.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Some days flow beats fight.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Of all the meanings for the Two of Pentacles, adaptability and to a lesser degree multitasking are grabbing my attention.
That brings me back to the same image and analogy that always seems to come with the two of pentacles: dynamic equalibrium.
Pentacles brings the card into the practical real world realm of things. The two card of a suit almost always points to a balance of some sort. Most of the time a unicycle comes to mind. Most of us have seen a clown or performer on a unicycle at some point in our lives, at least on YouTube or TV. We get it how they make those constant small back and forth adjustments with the wheel to keep their balance. When we see it the process is understandable whether we could actually do it ourselves or not.
Today, my science geek intuition takes me back to high school chemistry and dynamic equilibrium across a semipermeable membrane, which isn’t nearly as entertaining of a mental image as a clown on a unicycle juggling bowling pins. But you’ll have that.
I think there is a reason for the nerdiness. It adds an, ahem, counterbalance, to the notion of dynamic equilibrium.
Rigidity isn’t as successful as adaptability.
The whole science thing is about two solutions on either side of a membrane that lets the -oh, let’s say salt molecules – cross the membrane. The water molecules are the same on either side of the membrane – oh, let’s say it is a bag. Imaging a plastic zip bag filled with way too concentrated salt water, sealed and plunked down in a big bowl of plain water. Imagine your goal is to season your water for cooking pasta. You don’t want just plain water, or your spaghetti will taste pasty and bland. Too much salt and you can’t even choke it down.
If the bag of salt water allows salt through, eventually molecular movement will let the salt adapt to the total amount of water and boom…good spaghetti. But if the bag isn’t adaptable enough to allow that salt through…no go with the pasta water. Same with our metaphoric clown. If he is too rigid and doesn’t move his unicycle wheel to adapt his balance then boom…clown down. Movement and adaptation is needed on both obvious and subtle levels to be successful.
Whether it comes from Charles Darwin, H.G. Wells or a Brad Pitt movie, “adapt or die” is the message here.
It isn’t the energy for every day or every situation. Sometimes the right thing to do is to stand your ground and protect those you love who stand behind you.
Other days, it pays to let water roll off the hill rather than plant your flag on it. Today’s energy asks for adaptability and gives us a list of quotes to back it up:
Adam Savage is quoted as saying “follow the process, not the plan” Do what you know works, even if that wasn’t the original plan.
Bruce Lee famously said “Be water, my friend” Today is a day for water that adopts the shape of its teapot. A drop of water falling from a cave ceiling changes it shape to match the contours of the cave floor, but over millennia it builds an immovable column of stalagmite rock.
A little adaptability now can show you the way to success later.
Thank you so much for reading and listening!
I’ll be going on another short summer hiatus in the middle of August so please stay tuned to the blog for more detail. Private email readings and everything is open and available, the same as always until then.
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No matter how thin you cut a coin, it still has two sides.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today the emphasis is on short. As in a short week. I don’t want to do half-assed readings for you. I want to do the best Tarot reading I can for you be it here on the blog and podcast or be it in a private individual session. Usually I straight up take a couple of weeks off around this time of year. This year, I thought I could fit a little Tarot work in and around other things, but it isn’t quite working out that way. Like my new favorite internet meme says, I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are hosting a rave. Long story short, E-mail Tarot readings are open, but the blog, podcast and social media will be on a short hiatus from now until June 27, 2022 and again over the weekend of July 4. After that it is right back to the usual squirrel rave playlist.
With that announcement out of my system, let’s get to today’s card, the two of swords.
Swords are associated with the mind, intellect and the element of air. They are a symbol of power and authority, society and culture too. Swords were the weapons of war for a broad swath of human history. If we take a more contemporary, relational point of view of the suit of swords they can symbolize our relationship with authority, and with the bigger definitions of society; your nationality, your ethnicity, your religion, your political affiliation. Sometimes swords carry a thread of Hierophant or Pope type energy. Social conventions are a minor background energy today.
More often than not, Tarot is intensely personal. It isn’t often that a spirit or energy message connects to society at large. Today’s card, however, is reminding us that we are never not connected to it. We are never not connected to anything. We are never not connected to everything.
The two aspects of this card are interesting. Two cards vary in theme from suit to suit. Two of pentacles is the essence of balance and has a similar vibe to Temperance in the major arcana. Two of cups is about committed one to one emotion, marriage and long term relationships. Two of wands is about watching, hope and preparation within an individual. The two of swords speaks to mental state, things like indecision, being of two minds about something, or somehow in an unwinnable situation with equal good and bad consequences…something that cuts like a double edged sword as the saying goes
In her book Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao, Diane Morgan interprets the two of swords as mystical unity.
However sharp or dull the edges of a sword may be, they are still a part of the same sword. Even if you split a sword down the middle, you get more edges, each connected to its mate.
We are three dimensional beings. There is no one side to anything. As strongly as the two of pentacles points a dynamic balancing dualities, the two of swords points to an inescapable unity. No matter how thin you slice a coin it always has two sides. You can’t deny the existence of the sword’s other edge, the coin’s other side – or your many sides either. Sometimes you just have to choose which edge you use, which side of the coin to show, and which facet of you to that you use to interface with the rest of culture or or your larger social groups. Whatever side you choose to show, the other sides of you, even the sides you may not like so much, still exist.
It is a dangerous thing to ignore one side of sword when all the edges apply.
One of those edges is feeling like it is useless to choose or stop caring about important decisions. Remember…whatever sad, angry, terrifying thing makes you want to give up, you are equally connected to happy, kind, supportive, comfortable things. Out there, somewhere in the universe, in there somewhere on a bone deep molecular level, there is a connection to love and support. You are star stuff, and many people love stars.
The edges may cut, but the center connects.
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The blog and podcast are not monetized and depend on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where the shop, memberships and virual coffees all support the creation of this unique Tarot content.
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TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: add power to your words with the power of silence.
Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here
Today’s card is the two of disks from the Alleyman’s Tarot originally from the Serravale-Sesia Tarot.
This is a presumably public domain card from 1880s Italy. It is an interesting contrast to the better known Waite Smith Tarot and shows the difference in working with a deck that has only pips and a deck with complex narrative images on the numbered minor arcana cards.
Image cards and pip cards function the same way within a reading. Both are two paths to the exact same destination. They both take us to the message for everyone’s day, for our client or for ourselves. The emphasis shifts a little bit between the two types of cards, however.
With images, as we see in the RWS cards, there is a rich supply of detail to prompt your intuition. Despite the many prompts, all of them are thematically tied to the overall image and card meaning. Picture cards can lend themselves to a little more specificity, clarity and context.
On the other hand, pip cards give your intuition free reign. Pip cards are not bound by details or images, although they retain the same general conceptual meaning as an image card. This two of disks talks about balance much the same as the RWS two of pentacles .
Coins, pentacles or disks all refer to the same suit of the deck and you will see the terms used interchangeably. I tend to say coins because that was the name used in one of my first decks and it’s an old habit by this point. Coins are associated with the element of earth and ideas about work, career and money. From a more contemporary perspective it helps to think of coins as our relationship with the physical world. The suit has a very practical down-to-earth vibe generally speaking, so it all fits.
More than the number two cards of the other suits, the two of coins symbolizes balance. Usually it’s a very dynamic balance, like a unicycle rider who constantly makes small corrections and movements in order to balance upright. The taijitu, the yin yang symbol, is another example. The black and white parts of the circle are comma shaped instead of q straight line half to show motion and a dynamic interplay of opposites.
Today, the balance is more akin to the unicycle example. The message has a subtle, nuanced quality to it. It isn’t black and white. It is dynamic and speaks to the way we move through life.
In a way, it is just how human brains are wired and how our brains deal with the onslaught of sensory input from our environment. You get used to things, and they don’t get the attention commanded when something is new or changes. It’s like a busy caretaker tuning out a chattering preschooler a little bit. The message for all of us adults is the same. If you want to be heard, if you want your words to carry power and command attention, use them sparingly. As Mahatma Ghandi said “speak only when it improves upon the silence.”
Outside of a Medieval monastery, it is hard to go through life not saying anything. Communication is essential. In our wired, cyberspace connected world, we often forget the necessity of silence. When TMI takes we are immersed in too much information the tune-out-the-toddler reflex kicks in. We become numb to the input.
It’s a balance between communication, self expression, and losing your words to the noise. Nothing makes your words more powerful than the silent spaces in between.
Thank you so much for reading and listening.
The blog and podcast are not monetized and rely on audience support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi and consider becoming a Patron of the Tarot Arts. The proceeds from ko-fi and private readings through the blog website all contribute to the creation of this free to access Tarot content.
Hello and 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 Two of Pentacles.
When you look at a fine art sculpture the space it defines around it as sometimes as much a part of the composition as the space it occupies. Today’s card has a little of that energy. It’s not a caution energy, but it isn’t quite straightforward advice either. It feels a little like a power slide into a parallel parking space in a movie, or one of those internet memes where Wong portals in, gives some disturbing trivia and leaves out the same interdimensional portal.
Or maybe that’s just me because I’m a lazy, lazy girl.
If someone says “self care” to me, my first thought is coffee, readings a good book or taking a nap. The thing that the Two of Pents pointing toward is the fact that mental rest and re-balancing is not dependent on physical inactivity. Physical rest is easy. In modern America, we need a reminder to easy up on the mental stress.
You can do stuff without stressing over it. Arguable, you do more stuff and do it better when you are in a calm, relaxed state of mind.
This goes along with that Two of Coin’s quality of dynamic equilibrium. Maintaining balance often requires movement and adaptation. Spinning things are more stable, like a top or a bicycle or a gyroscope.
The sweet spot is a balance between activity and calm, being physically busy but not psychologically stressed about it.
Taoist philosophy describes it as wu wei. Chinese is notoriously difficult to translate. Sometimes wu wei is translated as inaction or not-doing. That isn’t to say that Taoists somehow think things will magically get done while we sit and to nothing. The translation “effortless action” seems more apt, especially in the context of this card. Both wu wei and the two of pentacles are pointing toward physical activity without mental stress.
A sense of accomplishment and productivity is a pretty nice feeling at the end of the day. Mental stress is not. A significant amount of stress is pressure we put on ourselves. It is almost as if we think easy things are somehow less valuable or less worthy of our precious little time. Again, the two card points us toward a sweet spot of balance. You don’t want to underestimate, neglect or minimize a situation, but you don’t want blow a molehill up to be Mount Everest either. That’s the balance the Two of Pentacles brings to us today.
Busy isn’t bad when it is balanced with inner calm. Mental rest and quiet is still self care, even when it happens in the center of a storm of external activity. Moving meditation is the perfect example, and a perfect way to practice mental calm in the middle of physical business. Walking meditation is very much a part of some Buddhist traditions. Of course, Tai Chi is the best known example of meditation in motion. Which circles back around to one of my very favorite Alan Watts quotes “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while one is peeling the potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes.”
It’s ok for things to be busy. It’s just as ok for busy things to feel easy while you do them.
Thank you for reading and listening. The blogcast and YouTube channel are not monetized and depend on reader and listener support. Email Tarot readings purchases here on the blogcast site, Tarot Table memberships and buy me a coffee donations all contribute to the creation of this Tarot content. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated!
TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: deep roots and the 2 of pentacles
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. The blog, podcast and YouTube channel are not monetized or sponsored in any way, so I super appreciate any support you can give with likes, subs, shares, follows, reading orders, memberships or coffee mug donations.
Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.
Theoretically, any of the number two minor arcana cards can point to some aspect of balance. Out of the entire Tarot deck however, the two of pentacles seems to be the most focused on the idea of balance in and of itself.
It seems to me that balance is important to a healthy human psyche. When we get out of balance, when we get out over our skis as the saying goes, that’s when falling down happens. That’s stressful. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a terrible skier. It’s an apt analogy for dynamic equilibrium, just like the unicycle image that has come to mind so much lately. Whether you are riding a unicycle or sliding down a mountain, that kind of moving, changing balance requires constant adaptation and lots of little adjustments to stay upright and get to where you want to go.
Today the card brings to mind a different aspect of balance. This time, the energy is continuing in the theme for January that has emerged over the past several days. The Hermit, the four of cups, the five of cups – they’ve all been showing up in year ahead and month ahead readings and they all keep banging on the notion of laying low and “playing your cards close to the vest” for a time.
Which brings us to today’s version of the Two of Pentacles.
Throwing down roots is essential to balance too.
It’s not something that comes up much in the Tarot part of things, but I’ve studied Taijiquan (Tai Chi) since the early ’90s. Tarot, Taoism and Tai Chi all came into my life in my twenties and we all sort of grew up together. (She said gesturing to the TaoCraft name splashed all over everything.) At one point back in the day the hubster and I had a part time martial arts school where I taught Tai Chi and a little kung fu. Physical balance and strong footing are essential to Tai Chi practice. We call it rooting.
When strong winds come, a supple willow tree keeps its balance. It will bend instead of break. But even the most supple, bendable willow will still fall down if it has no roots.
That is exactly the kind of balance the Two of Pentacles is bringing to mind today. It’s like martial arts where you plant your feet, use your feet and leg position and drop your weight to stay solid when you need to.
It’s the same in life. There is dynamic equilibrium always, but there are moments within the big picture of that equilibrium that call for deep roots and solid strength.
The past two years have been weird. If the year-ahead Tarot readings I’ve been doing so far are to be believed, 2022 isn’t going to be all that different at the start. It’s going to take a while for the changes to kick in if we allow them to happen and if we can somehow throw down our roots and stay solid in the meantime.
I think the advice in the midst of continuing weirdness, is that it’s more than ok to self-soothe just a little while longer. In a circular sort of way this is our permission slip to throw down our roots, reach for the things that anchor us and nourish us like roots anchor and nourish tall trees. So what if you’ve watched that movie 50 times? Watch it 50 more if it helps. Hungry for comfort food? Why not? Eat your vegetables, wash your hands, wear those comfy pants and fuzzy socks. Being down to earth helps in lots of ways. Down to earth is a good place to grow roots and find some much needed balance.
Thanks for reading, watching and listening! See you at the next sip.
Thanks for watching, reading and listening today. TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.
The Two of Pentacles is the quintessential balance card in the deck. In some ways it is even more balance oriented than Temperance in the major arcana. Temperance has a feel of balance by mixing. The Two of Pents is balance through the adjustment and tension between opposites. In this kind of balance, the balance point is also a tipping point.
In the yin-yang symbol of Taoism, the opposite colored dots in each side of the circle remind us that in anything lies the seed of it’s opposite. Anything take to extreme can become its opposite. Anything in perfect balance can tip into its opposite.
In Dune, Frank Herbert writes “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” Both beginnings and balances are delicate things. Both are dynamic, changing things.
The yin-yang symbol is meant to be in motion. The trailing tail of the black and white parts hint at that motion, as apposed to showing perfect pie-slice halves. Balance is a thing in motion too. This card always brings to mind a unicycle rider who can stay upright in one place by making small forward and backward movements . In the big picture, they may not seem to be moving forward, but in order to stay upright, there is a lot of movement going on in the wheel, just in balanced opposite directions.
Pentacle cards are often read as being about work, career, money, practicality or some aspect of the physical world. They are also associated with the element of earth and by extension the idea of grounding and balance. Everybody talks about “finding balance.” But what do you do once you have it?
Balance is easier to maintain than to get in the first place, but once you have it, it takes a little attention to maintain it because life is in motion. Opposites are always at the doorstep. Which one would you invite in? Which one would you use to maintain a delicate balance when a balance point is also a tipping point.
Thank you for watching, listening and reading! Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or reading orders you can spare are always appreciated!
Welcome to Halloween weekend 2021. Today’s card is the Two of Pentacles.
The two of coins is a positive, upbeat card. It is the pentultimate card of balance, second only to the Temperance card in the major arcana. Balance is a bid deal in the holistic health world. Our banner tagline is pretty much “mind, body and spirit in balance.”
Balance implies opposites. It really is like the classic balance scales we’ve all seen, like on the justice statues at court houses. If one side is given more weight than the other, the scales are thrown out of balance.
Around Halloween and Winter Solstice, this kind of balance reminds me of Lynn Andrews’ book Crystal Woman. In it, light and vision are used as another example of balance. In complete darkness, we can’t see anything. By the same token, if there is complete light, our eyes are dazzled and we still can’t see a thing. It is only in the interplay between light and dark that we are able to see anything.
Halloween is a valuable holiday. In reminding us of returning darkness, we are reminded how necessary that darkness is in the balance of things.
Yesterday we talked about Sitting Bulls quote “Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.” It’s all well and good to feed the good dog but I think there is more to it than that. It pays to come to know, train and perhaps befriend the bad one. Just as shadow is integral to good vision, knowing our dark side is intergral to personal growht and a truly authentic life.
Long story short, we live in a world of light and dark, good and evil. Balance is the way. Starved dogs become desperate and more violent increasing the fights. Make choices and feed the inner good dog, but don’t ignore or try to starve the other into oblivion. Rather train it, perhaps befriend it. Compassion is the thing to feed both dogs.
Most of the time we say it is a card about balance. It’s also fair to say it is about dynamic equilibrium. Think of a spinning coin or a bicycle in motion or a toy top or a gyroscope. There of lots of examples of things that keep their balance through motion. I’ll leave it to the physics people to explain how that happens and angular momentum and such.
The Tao Te Ching reminds us of a similar but very very broad principle: Living things are supple, able to be in motion. Stiff and motionless is, well, dead.
Movement, and by extension movement as a gateway to balance, is the normal way of things. Feeling overwhelmed when there is too much going on is also the normal way of things.
Life can be a juggling act. Multitasking can make each individual task seem bigger than it really is. But try not to let it get to you. Simplify as much as you can, then have at it. You got this!
Thank you for watching, reading and listening to A Sip of Tarot from TaoCraft Tarot blog and Clairvoyant confessional podcast. You questions and comments are always welcome.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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