Tag: 7 of pentacles

Pause, not stop

It’s like the difference between taking a lunch break and quitting your job.

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Seven of Pentacles. It picks up on a thread from yesterday’s Ace of Cups. Remember how there was a sense of a seasonal shift in season toward a quieting to balance peak summer. You have to give the seeds time to grow before the harvest can happen.

The same idea applies generally, not just to medieval farmers on Tarot cards. Persistence is important. Perseverance is a key to success.

The other day I was browsing the Psychology Today website (as one does) and stumbled on a review of Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion of Perseverance by Michael Page. Angela Duckworth is a psychologist who studied the psychology of success. She listed the qualities exemplified by successful people in a wide variety of careers and industries. According to the review, grit was defined as perseverance combined with passion and it was more often present then talent or genius. Grit and persistence topped genius and giftedness.

The seven of pentacles is reminding us to protect our grit.

There is a difference between a pause or a short rest and giving up altogether.

The occasional pause to rest and reevaluate is as essential to success as the passion part is essential to the persistence part to create Duckworth’s grit of success.

Blindly, rigidly plowing ahead keeps us from adapting and it can be a recipe for burnout. Even if you manage to persist through the burnout, you lose the passion that is equally a part of the overall success.

This strikes me as the yang side of the four of swords’ rest and contemplation vibe. The four of swords is inwardly contemplative. This card, the seven of pentacles is more outwardly focused, evaluating and assessing and re-evaluating more than meditative. It’s physically quiet but mentally active. This kind of rest is full of evaluation, planning and mentally preparing for the next step (as opposed to more active preparation advice that you might see with the three of wands)

Pentacles represent our relationship to wealth, career, and the physical realm. It is only fitting that a pentacle card would remind us to preserve a key element of long term success.

Take a pause, protect your grit, then get back to persisting.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! Your likes, subs, shares, follows, questions and comments are always appreciated!

The blog and podcast are not monetized. Your Tarot message comes first, not advertisers’ but I need your support to create this (almost) daily Tarot content. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where the shop, memberships and virtual coffees all help. Again, thank you.

See you at the next sip!

Look

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: 7 of pentacles. Feedback is a gift that is payed forward.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Today’s card is the seven of pentacles.

The energy environment has been trying to tell us something for the past few days. We are being asked to pay attention.

If this message came from the major arcana, it would come thundering in on the Chariot card. This is a very similar sort of message but with less hoopla. The Chariot is about being in the present moment and paying attention to your surroundings in the way a test pilot might. Keep your head where you are at or risk slamming into the side of a mountain at mach 1.

Today’s energy is more low key. It is more earthy, grounded, and less urgent, but still important to our well being. You can’t be on Chariot level high alert all of the time. It is important to be present and pay attention to pleasant things too.

I am reminded of that scene from the 1994 version of The Crow with Brandon Lee where Eric Draven said that “Little things used to mean so much to Shelly. I used to think they were kind of trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial.” Today’s energy reminds us that little things mean a lot and are worthy of our attention.

Instead of a test pilot level “pay attention” message, this is more of a whistling teakettle level of “pay attention” For some reason the word “hygge” (forgive me, I’m not sure how to pronounce it) Comfort comes to mind. Like a cold morning in wooly socks and fixing a cup of your favorite tea kind of comfort. Or in my case this morning, cinnamon spiced coffee.

Yesterday, the king of cups asked us to listen to the subtle hints from intuition. Today the seven of pentacles is asking us to soak in the subtle hints on the physical level.

A few key words for this card include assessment, feedback and planning. That takes information first of all, and attention to things both big and small to do.

It may seem a little self-serving, but the feedback part especially caught my attention.

I had been reading product reviews for something I’d like to get, and it amazes me how tantrum-ish and emotive so many of them are. There wasn’t much substance to many of them. One, however, got my attention. It gave specific details, point by point, how the item differed from the description and made it lesser value for the money spent.

I appreciate what that person said, both as a consumer and as a service provider.

You know that meme that says kindness costs nothing so sprinkle that stuff everywhere? The same is true about feedback. I’ll admit, I delete the eternal spambot surveys from big box stores that are probably going to ignore it anyway, but I try to give feedback for small or local businesses whenever they ask. It costs just a few minutes of time and might be a legitimate help to someone. Thoughtful feedback, attention to little pleasures in life, giving a little time and attention to the mundane everyday things is a gift to the people that receive that information. Thoughtful, calm, kind feedback is a gift that is payed forward when that information is used to make things better for everyone.

Thank you for listening to the blogcast and taking a look at the blog. Comments are open on all platforms so your feedback and questions are welcome. But they are moderated so spam and anything I think is inappropriate will be obliterated. Ask me anything about Tarot, intuition, Reiki, natural health, spirituality, or whatever is on your mind. Even if you ask me a medical question, a pregnancy questions or ask about what is on your boyfriend’s mind, I’ll just tell you I don’t take those kinds of questions and why. If you are kind enough to give me the gift of thoughtful questions I’ll pay it forward by giving equally thoughtful and privacy protected answers in the blogcast. If you give me your thoughtful feedback, I’ll pay it forward by making this Tarot blogcast better for everyone.

And, as always, the blogcast and it’s companion YouTube channel is not monetized. It is all audience supported. Your Tarot reading purchases from this website and Tarot Table memberships on ko-fi all contribute toward this freely available, unique Tarot content. Please contribute as your are able. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always, always appreciated too.

See you at the next Sip

Take A Breath

Thank you for listening, watching and reading TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your favorite beverage. Mine is coffee. Thank you all for your support through the virtual coffee tip mug, and all of your likes, subs, shares, and follows. I appreciate you and I am glad you are here.

Today’s card is the seven of pentacles:

Typically, the pentacles are work, career, practical real-world related ideas. Today the energy is more thoughtful than usual. Overall, it feels connected to the Hermit energy that came through for the Quiet Night post a few weeks ago. I’ll link to the blog post in the show notes for those of you listening through the podcast.

Speaking of the podcast – I’m really loving this text to speech automatic conversion thing wordpress and anchor fm has going. It puts the best of me – my writing – into the podcast. I know some people don’t like the robot voice, but I’m just cyberpunk enough to enjoy letting Siri’s second cousin Remy do the heavy lifting with the narration thing.

But back to the seven of pentacles

When I was very young, my father was manager of a local retail store in a small Appalachian town. Other than a mechanical cash register I don’t think they had calculators much less any sort of computer. Every January, it was common for businesses like that to close for a few days in January to take inventory of all of their goods and to go over the books and reconcile everything and who knows what all. I just remember it was a lot of work and a few very long days for dad. They always had inventory clearance sale to get as much stuff out of the store before starting that whole process. That was always a big thing, It’s how I got my favorite mickey mouse umbrella. Yay clearance sales!

There is a little bit of that kind of energy here.

Tarot cards, especially these one card daily meditations, are more helpful when they are put into context.

In a larger, multiple card layout, you get context from the client’s questions and concerns combined with the layout as a whole. That’s why multiple card layouts are more difficult and time consuming to do. Not only do you have more individual cards to interpret, but you have more connections and context to knit together too.

In a single card draw, you can get context from purely intuitive cues, but also, as is the case here, from the environment around you. My attention is drawn to the cold weather, the snow I can see out the window, the time of year, and that memory of inventory time. The context for this card is, in a way, the time of year.

All things considered, I think this card is telling us it is inventory time.

If the part about clearance sales and mickey mouse umbrellas appeals to you, then yes, maybe it is time to clean and clear and let go, as is traditional at new years, including next week’s lunar new year.

Happy Year of the Tiger by the way.

I see a greater energy flowing toward the inventory part. It is a very introspective energy, again it feels similar to the Hermit energy. Today feels like a good time to stop, take a deep breath and take account. What is the realistic situation around you? What are your hopes and aspirations, really. When you dig down to the root of it all, what is the cause, what the reason behind what you hope and dream and do. What resources do you have at hand? What seeds do you need to plant? What seeds do you need obtain to plan to plant later when spring comes?

It’s not a time to beat up on yourself for falling short of goals. But it may be time to make new ones. Sometimes you have to count your ducks before you worry about getting them in a row.

A deep breath and a little mental quiet time can help figure it all out.

Thank you again for reading, watching and listening. See you at the next sip!

Solstice #Short: making magic

Thank you as always for watching, reading and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot. Email Tarot both short and long are open for the holidays, and your support is always greatly appreciated!

Today is something new. I wrote this layout inspired by both the solstice and a trend I’ve seen on Tarot Instagram. I’ve seen a variety of people suggest shuffling the deck then finding a particular card related to a particular topic and then reading the card or cards adjacent to it to get your particular message. For example, thinking of general guidance, you might shuffle then look through the deck for the Magician card, and look to the card right behind it for insight into what you are manifesting or transforming or calling to you in this moment. I’ve seen a half dozen variations of that. Here is mine.

Today where I am is the winter solstice. Dark moves away a tiny bit and the sun steps forward again. Of course, in the southern hemisphere it’s reversed where daytime has peaked and night will advance a bit. So when we get to the cards, read them according to your location. For your winter solstice, look for the sun card for energies moving toward you and read the card right behind it. At the same time, look for the Moon card and read the card behind it to see the energies that are beginning to move away from you. For the summer solstice, reverse the direction – use sun for energies moving away and the moon for energies moving toward you.

Whichever hemisphere you are in today, you can adapt the context to your location.

Since I’m in a sunny but frosty winter place, I’ll write this from a winter solstice perspective and leave it to our southern friends to adjust for their location.

Moon / Queen of cups: reliance on intuition and instinct

Sun/ Seven of Pentacles: results of labors, return of energies

I won’t belabor the point since this is supposed to the a Tarot short, but basically, intuition steps back and practical application steps forward, but only a little bit of each. It is the solstice, and the underlying foundation of the whole thing is, naturallly, a balance.

I see this as being the same essential message for BOTH hemispheres now that I think about it for a minute. The advice is to use, trust and apply intuition, but not too heavily. Don’t use intuition to the exclusion of practical action.

On the other hand, don’t just shotgun out a lot of hard work and effort without some degree of thoughtful guidance. It will pay off. You will reap what you sow, but you’ll reap even more if you take the time, effort and though to sow good seeds and care for the garden in a “work smarter not harder” sort of way.

It’s a balance of intention and effort. It’s a balance of making and manifesting. It’s solstice. It’s magic.

Today’s Tarot: Squint and Stare

“You reap what you sow” is both the threat of consequences for the bad choices you make and the promise of the good things you give coming back to you. Sometimes you have to stop, lean on your garden hoe, squint and stare at things a bit to figure out which is which.

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” – Nicolaus Copernicus

“And I know what I know girl. But I don’t know what I know when I know it” – The Kongos

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Knuckle Down, Buckle Up and Get Cozy

Interactive Tarot Reading: You choose the card, guidance for the week ahead.

It’s that time of year where time flies by far, far to fast. How is everyone feeling on the energy side of things? I don’t know why the general America-energy has come in so many weather metaphors this year, but that continues. It feels like there has been a shift. From a map with lots of scattered tornadoes all over the place, to hurricanes on the horizon, to now a snowstorm. There is such enormous relief about the election, combined with such grief and anxiety about the pandemic. It is like admiring the beauty of a deep snow while worrying what you’ll do if the electricity goes out and if there will be enough food if you get snowed in. It’s an odd energy as I read the cards today, underneath each cards message. That being said, let’s get to those cards. Pause the video if you want to take a moment, then restart to see the reveal, or just pick a card on impulse. Here we go…

Left: King of Pentacles. Kings are always to some degree about leadership. Pentacles or Coins are earth element, down to earth, practical and real-world, nut-and-bolts level stuff. There is a big sense of protection or protective energy. First impulse is to say protect what you have, budget or anything really, err on the conservative side given the choice. Here is why it really helps for the YouTube videos and the blog here to compliment each other. My brain really is hard wired to be a writer, I suppose. Keyboards and pens really do hotwire right in to a deeper intuition some days. This is one of those days. I missed it earlier but there is a sense of spirit guide or guardian angel or something on that order. There is a second sub-wave here. In addition to the obvious physical – realm message, there is a reassurance that you are among the protected. Even when the money and physical realm aspect of things seem terrible, there is an esoteric protection, a heart protection. “Where there is Love” comes through here. You are connected and protected and loved on a deep esoteric, energetic, subtle emotional/mental level of things. Reach for that, if nothing else this week.

Center: Seven of Pentacles. “You reap what you sow” is both a threat and a promise. Sow bad seeds, give neglect, and that is what you will harvest…but inherant to that is the promise that there WILL be a harvest of some kind if you but plant the seed, good or bad.

Like was said earlier, I do sense a shift in energies. It’s not the red lights and sirens, ring every single empath’s bell sort of energy from last winter. This is more a crazy swirl of often contradictory energies. In my mind’s eye I see the general zeitgeist energy as just that…big snowflakes in the wind of a night time snow storm (stay safe all of you in the midwest that are / have recently experienced this for real)

The advice is clearly to plant and plan. Prepare for the weather to break on the energy level of things. Hold the space open for what you hope to achieve. There is sense of movement, almost like a roller coaster. Hang on, the turn, the shift the end to stagnation is coming. Be ready. Be ready to plant when the moment is right, because things are likely to grow quickly if you do.

Right: Queen of Wands. Queen cards embody leadership too, but a much more nurturing kind. While the King defends the boarders, the queen makes sure there is enough food. That isn’t to say historical, actual, monarchies worked that way…Tarot is symbolic and archetypal. Classically, the message is one of self-care to build the strength and reserves to care for others, but today the energy is more nesting, home-and-hearth, “facilitate the cozy.” In this iteration, it is care, for self and others and everyone within cookie flinging distance. Whether you are male or female, this week is your chance to shop smart, buy the extra milk and toilet paper and put the kids in front of a Christmas special with a bowl of popcorn, pour yourself a cup of mulled something or another and put your feet up. You can do it. You got this. You are the Queen of Cozy this week.

Thanks for reading and watching. If you would like to unleash the hot-wired keyboard intuition brain onto an email reading just for you, you can order any time 24/7 on the HOME page.

Today’s Tarot: Seven Coins and One Hundred Thank Yous

THANK YOU each and every one. No matter if you are seeing this directly from your YouTube subscription or if you are on the blog or social media – thank you. As you can tell, (insert Star Trek Dr. McCoy voice) dammit Jim,  I’m a writer not a YouTuber. I really didn’t know what to expect when I started the channel. Triple digits are both a surprise and a priveledge. I’ll do all I can to make the channel and blog only get better from here.

I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to comment on YouTube. I’ll reply individually in time (once I get my almost boomer brain around how to do that effeciently) But yes, you are absolutely right. These videos ARE short – for a reason. They were always intended to be a starting point. I hope you’ll follow the description link to get the full written reading. There are plenty of speech to camera talking head Tarot videos out there. I want this to be about the cards and the *intuitive process*. Intuition and mental processes don’t make for exciting video.

And yes, I’ll be making videos of actual readings on a variety of topics, career included. Comments on the website are closed, but you are welcome to use the feedback page or email to send any questions, comments suggestions or topics you would like to see covered both on the YouTube channel and in the blog.

But now back to the reason we are all here…

Seven of Pentacles: Give stuff time and space to grow. Tarot evolved in medieval Europe, even if it was initially just a game. Even if it didn’t make the jump from game to fortune telling device or spiritual practice until the eighteenth or nineteenth century, the culture was still more agrarian than industrial. That would explain why this card is so rooted in gardening images and metaphores. You reap what you sow – literally. It is both warning and a promise.  If you plant artichokes, you are going to get artichokes, not a field of daisies. It is a warning that if you throwdown bad stuff, bad stuff will come right back at you, in some form or another. It is a promise, that if you put in the effort, that if you plant seeds there will indeed be a harvest, in one form or another.  Warning and promise take time. To get the good stuff, you have to put in the work, invest good things, and let nature take its course a little bit, but nature promises some sort of return, symbolically speaking. Sure, real life farming can take disasterous turns that are no fault of the farmer. Metaphorically speaking: nature gives back, always, sooner or later. What nature gives is in many ways up to you, what you do, and how you perceive the result.  A tomato may not be picture-perfect, but still taste delicious.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot for May 17-23, 2020

Left: Eight of Cups. This card always has a bittersweet feel to me, but in the end it is a very triumphant sort of message. It validates courage that has been gathered, progress that has been made. It take both to be able to move on emotionally from difficult situations. Moving ahead does not require that you leave memories or behind. This is more about going on with life with those things, neither abandoning nor stagnationg with them.

Center: Two of Wands. This is a week of opportunity, you can have the world in the palm of you hand, but timing is critical. Discretion really is the better part of valor. Be thoughtful, diplomatic, careful … look before you leap … but when the time comes, when the time comes, jump in. Watching, analysing and couragous action may all be needed.

Right: Seven of Pentacles. Plant seeds that are worth the wait. Thus is the week for foundation building, not instant gratification. Plant seeds that will a good harvest. Build a foundation for something to stand the test of time. In my minds eye I see precisely cut white marble or granite like greek temples or the Washington monument. Precision, attention to detail, and best effort (here Deadpool pops up with “two swords and maximum effort”) Long story short, focus on quality now to create domething that will be worth the wait later.

Related post: https://taocrafttarot.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/todays-tarot-worth-the-wait