Tag: youtube shorts

A Sip of Tarot: Two minds, one heart

Today’s card is the Two of Swords

Swords symbolize the element of air. They can denote action. Historically they are sometimes associated with negative things because swords were at one time the primary weapon of war. It would be like trying to find spiritual guidance from a card with a machine gun on it.

Today, the energy is lying with the air, mentality and intellect side of the card. A classic meaning for the card is being of two minds about something. Logic and reason are – or at least should be – our first go-to for making major life decisions. Sometimes, however, intellect fails.

Emotion seldom makes the best decision. But neither does cold hard logic and intellect when it is used in isolation, with no emotion or compassion at all.

The figure on the card is blindfolded. That signals the indecision that is part of the card’s meaning, while it also hints that following emotion or intuition might seem like a blind leap of irrational faith to the outside observer. Only the person with their hands on the swords, the person who knows both their logical rationale.

The figure on the card is also seated in front of water, the classic symbol for emotions, wisdom and intuition that we so often see on cards from the suit of cups. That’s not surprising, because people are more than one thing. People are complex. Ideas and experiences have a great deal of overlap as do the card’s symbolism and meanings. Water – emotion and heart – has the person’s back so to speak.

When logic is blinded, heart and compassion supports. When you can’t see the answer, resting in a place of compassion is enough.

A sip of Tarot: magic in many forms

Today’s card is the Magician from the major arcana.

The magician card is traditionally associated with transformation and manifestation. Today’s energy goes along with both. To change things, to transform them, you have to do something differently. To make something, to manifest anything, you first have to first do something.

The broader concept of change would, of course, fall under the Death card. The focus here is cause and effect. The focus here is in the doing. Do nothing and there is no change for the death card to symbolize. The science folks call that inertia.

The magician card often has the symbols of the four minor arcana suits on it. The magician uses all of the elements, all of the concepts from the minor suits and applies them to the concept of transformation and manifestation. The magician incorporates all the ways of doing. All of the suits have various connections to thinking, doing, deciding, withholding, experiencing, all of which are elements of transformation and manifestation.

First decide what you want to change or create. Then do something to start on that new path. Lay the foundation. Do the thing that becomes the cause for the desired effect. Anyone can work that magic.

Thank you for reading and listening to “A sip of Tarot.” on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. Stay tuned for more (almost) daily meditation style Tarot readings in the time it takes to sip from a cup of morning coffee.

A Sip of Tarot: both directions

Today’s card is the six of wands.

Wands cards in general have to do with the element of fire, and our relationship with ourselves. Wands cards are about our inner world, but our feelings are not entirely separate from physical events.

The six of wands in particular often symbolizes peace, a rest after a struggle of some kind. Pamela Smith’s famous artwork has a knight, a warrior, on horseback carrying a laurel wreath which is a symbol of peace. The tone isn’t so much one of a conquering hero or occupying force, but the feeling is of being on the winning side. This card is about peaceful feelings, and feelings of satisfaction after a job well done, despite the hints of recent combat or struggles.

Compliments feel good, especially when they are linked with a personal sense of achievement like this. If you haven’t received a pat on the back for doing work, try giving a word of encouragement to someone else. Any tiny little thank you will do. Then enjoy, because with compliments the good feelings flow in both directions.

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.

Your feedback is always welcome on any of these platforms.

And a special thank you to everyone who has supported the blog and podcast on ko-fi!

Today’s Tarot: Ample but Simple

It’s not a day for high flying ambition. That kind of day will come. Some days are for stepping on the gas, other days are for coasting a little. Today’s energy is a little bit of a drift. DO, it isn’t a vacation day – but DO things without a big push, without ambition or high expectation. Be productive, but not tied to the outcome. Do the best you can with what you got and be happy with the result whatever it turns out to be. It is a day for low expectation and ample simple pleasures.

Microwavable Enlightenment

There is no substitute for time. You can’t fool Mother Nature – or gluten. There is no such thing as microwavable enlightenment.

Even if enlightenment seems to happen in a flash it took some amount of time to build the lightbulb that come on over your head. It takes some amount of time to build up to the tipping point, or reach critical mass or any of a dozen analogies you could use here.

Personal growth and our spiritual journey is like a good brisket – it takes time. Microwaving the same cut of meat just isn’t the same no matter how much liquid smoke you use.

No-knead bread is just another name for biscuits. You can’t shortcut a good knead and rising time on a warm kitchen counter.

This card is reminding us that you can’t rush repose. Some things unfold in their own time. The best things take as long as they take.

Stay tuned for one more “equinox” announcement later today.

Today’s Tarot: Big sudden picture

Towers are tall.

The Tower card is usually associated with sudden chaos, a surprise big event. It makes a sort of practical, real world sense. Tall buildings and trees are more prone to lightning strikes, so it stands to reason that a tower would be a good symbol for a bolt from the blue, literally and figuratively.

Tarot doesn’t predict the future any better than it can predict where, precisely, lightning will strike during the next thunderstorm. But, like life, Tarot can suggest what to do when it does.

Towers are tall. You can climb them to get big picture understanding of the landscape around you.

Maybe during the lightning strike, a tower isn’t a great place to be. But if you re-climb the tower and get the biggest picture possible, it can help you get your head around the chaos afterward.

Today’s Tarot: What it Doesn’t Mean

Wash: “This landing is going to be interesting”

Mal: “Define ‘interesting'”

Wash: “Oh god oh god we’re all going to die”

– Firefly television series by Joss Whedon

The death card usually is an indicator that things are going to get interesting, if they aren’t already.

But, as with the Firefly crew, it might not be in the fiery crash sort of way that you were thinking. After all, it’s pretty bad story telling to kill off all of your main characters in the five minutes of a tv episode.

I remember watching totally enjoyable brain candy movie back in the late 80s where a Tarot reader pulls the death card just as The Warlock sneaks up from behind and murders her. Classic trope. That was before I learned to read Tarot much less read professionally. That classic trope has gone from fairly cheesy to downright laughable.

Everyone knows that the death card doesn’t mean actual death. So much so that revealing the actual meaning has become a trope in itself. The best example of that is Lisa Simpson and the Happy Squirrel card. Makes me giggle every time…

The Simpsons were created by Matt Groening and are the property of 20th century studios

For real, I’ve seen the death card more often at bachelorette parties than any other time. It makes sense. With a wedding, you have a whole group of people celebrating a transition and irrevocable change – a big happy one.

Even if that marriage later winds up in the messiest divorce ever, it still happened. It still changed people from who they were before the wedding. The event goes on their permanent record so to speak.

Transition and change as a death image is a common thing in both fact and fiction. To gain a butterfly, you lose a caterpillar. To gain a cupcake, you lose some flour, sugar and eggs. To gain wisdom blissful ignorance must vanish. Life altering change can be as terrifying as death itself even though change is the essence of life.

Change for the better is a grim reaper no one needs to fear.

Cue the cowbell.

Today’s Tarot: The woo isn’t everything

Gremlins

Some people blame these things on Mercury retrograde. My genX brain calls technical glitches that I can’t figure out gremlins. I still kinda want to be a computer geek when I grow up.

Just spent two attempts and more time than I wanted to spend trying to get today’s youtube tarot short to upload. I think the problem is in the processing on YouTubes end, actually. Either way, enough bashing against a road block.

In fact, that is the message this last attempt gave: put it down and come back later.

It’s a good general message. The woo isn’t everything. No every minute of every day has to be a spiritual success. Not every moment has to be some grand enlightenment. When the energy is wrong for spiritual things, and you run into one wall after another, it is perfectly OK to set aside the spritual and spend some quality time in the practical physical realm.

It’s more of the meatspace energy we’ve talked about lately.

If you want some woo…today is a good day for grounding, balancing, centering. Get your head out of the clouds and your feet planted on the ground.

It’s a good day for the Zen proverb: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Or the Alan Watts quote “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

So chop your water, carry your potatoes and peel your wood, set aside the gremlins and have a good day in spite of it all.