Hello everyone
Thanks for watching, reading and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today’s card is the Nine of Swords.
Nine cards strike an interesting balance. Cups and coins are often associated with completion, satisfaction or a job well done while wands and swords are more somber and challenging. The nine of swords, as portrayed by Pamela Smith in the 1909 Waite Smith deck, is often interpreted as restlessness, insomnia, worry and useless regrets.
Today, the energy is a little different.
The Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans is one of my favorite decks for a few different reasons. First and foremost is Mark Evans’ gorgeous artwork. The color palette has richness, depth and substance without being overly dark. To my eye, his color choices have just the right mix of warm and cool, reds and blues in any given card. The colors enhance the underlying tone and message of the card. My other favorite part is the composition of the images in general. While it generally follows the Rider Waite Smith model, it has less of the religious imagery that can be frankly toxic to many of us in the modern era. As I understand it, Dugan and Evans deliberately made it more culturally and religiously neutral than the RWS deck. Ellen Dugan’s writing about the cards definitely resonates with my own views about Tarot much more than Waite’s writing.
That’s not main reason why the Witches Tarot came to mind today. In this case, Evans’ portrayal of the nine of swords emphasizes a different thread of energy: The drama queen. The Smith artwork is very sympathetic, even empathetic in the way it reminds us of sadness, worry, and upset. Evans’ image reminds us of the unnecessary aspect of the suffering. Earlier card interpretations write about that unnecessary aspect, but this image shows it visually, too.
The older card is gentler, more kindly, almost grandmotherly about the message, something akin to “I understand how much this hurts, but take care not to dwell on it over long.”
Today’s energy has a very modern, blunt, to the point message. It is closer to a “Suck it up buttercup and stop blowing things out of proportion” vibe.
We’ve all had big worries. We’ve all had big things happen. Sometimes those things keep us up at night or wake us up in the middle of it. And at times we’ve probably all made things out to be harder than they really are.
So many of us are work-ethic oriented. Things and activity and experiences have a so-called sweat equity. Easy things somehow seem less valuable or less satisfying.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Something that is easy and no-drama can be just as important and valuable as something that is difficult. The other half of yang, is yin. The other half of pushing the envelope is hauling it in. The other half of wakeful worry is being at easy peace.
Quite a few years ago, I consulted with editor and “professional muse” Gina Mazza. She said something that was an epiphany for me at the time and still resonates with the nine of swords today. Even though it was the early days of self-published e-books, she told me of author who had just published his first book. In three weeks. After describing the process, she wrapped up the conversation with “I can be just exactly that easy. Why not?”
Why not, indeed. Suffering for your art (or work or whatever) doesn’t necessarily make it inherently better. NOT suffering for your art doesn’t necessarily diminish it. Enjoying your creative process and life experience just might make the end result better. Ease and enjoyment of what you are doing has its own value.
That is a lesson I intend to take to heart here in my own work.
This combined blog post and podcast episode wraps the podcast for season 2. In January, the podcast will morph from Clairvoyant Confessional into TaoCraft Tarot Podcast. It will functionally be the audio version of the blog. The podcast won’t have 100% of everything. There will still be some print-only features like the Sunday Turnover intuition building exercises. At the same time that the podcast name changes, the content will expand too. It will have Short Sip episodes most weekdays but will add weekly “YouChoose” interactive readings, Q&A, behind the scenes and other blog content. If you get the podcast through Spotify, the YouChoose episodes are in video format. On other platforms YouChoose will be audio only.
Clairvoyant Confessional will drop back to be a rare episode title. The pirate radio evil villain monologue didn’t turn out to be quite the way I’d hoped. I’m happy to hand over most of the vocal performances to Siri’s cousin Remy. It’s easier that way. Dang it, I’m a writer not a media presenter. The text to speech technology makes the whole podcast thing more enjoyable for me. In turn, I’m hoping it will all make the podcast more enjoyable for you, too.
Thank you again for watching, reading and listening. I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. May we all enjoy the time, and let our easy and happy light shine. See you at the first sip of 2022. Happy New Year!
*Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans used with permissions granted by Llwellynpublishing.com
Sage Words Tarot 