Plus it gives me pleasure to write about the deep spirituality and unending fascination that Tarot provides.
I like to think my readings help the people who get them.
And it is all fueled by your private reading purchases, membership/subscriptions (psst! Hey! join Sage Sips on Ko-fi for $5/month and get DISCOUNTS on Tarot readings by email plus access to FREE one card readings in the ko-fi shop)
Not to mention coffee. Both real and virtual. If you feel so moved, virtual coffee is gratefully accepted. Click the mug on the right side of the page ->
The day job* is the main focus today, but I’ll be back on the blogs tomorrow with a “Learn With Me” post and another Oracle Dice throw.
Thank you so much for reading and following along with this all. See you at the next sip!
You don’t just see with your heart. Look with your heart and you see with compassion.
There are many ways to see, including with your heart.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate it.
I still haven’t done the review I wanted to write for the blog, but I wanted to get my hands back on the Alleyman’s Tarot deck today. Today’s energy wanted to speak through this particular card it seems. It’s the ten of eyes, a card from the strange suit, some of the non-standard cards that are part of the Alleyman deck’s genius. It was originally drawn by Bobby Abate for the Outsider Tarot deck. My read today differs from the meaning given in the guidebook – but you’ll have that. Guide books are important. They provide context, intent, and inspiration. In the lore Seven Dane Asmund created around the deck, the Alleyman wrote his own guidebook with notes on this own organically mismatched deck. In essence, that is what intuitive style readers do all the time. We write each card meaning in the moment guided by energy and insight that changes day by day, sometimes hour by hour. To call a Tarot reading ephemeral folk art is an understatement, but it’s the best descriptor I know for the actual process.
But back to the Ten of Eyes.
Like almost all cards, this one has multiple threads of meaning, and it is up to pure intuition to see which thread best resonates with the current energy environment.
At first glance, this could be read like the ten of pentacles or ten of coins just superficially based on the round shapes. That could connect with the aspect of the Waite Smith Ten of Pentacles that has to do with our greatest treasures being the intangible ones that money can never buy. The ten eyes could conceivably see through physical wealth to those invaluable intangibles.
The image on this card doesn’t really reflect the super-happy good outcome vibe that goes with the classic Smith art and the ten of coins however.
The Alleyman’s guide interprets it as, essentially, doom scrolling.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a hot cup of “I told you so” flavored schadenfreude as much as the next person. Especially with the great American political dumpster fire of twenty aught fifteen to the present day. Everybody loves to see the bad guys get theirs, both in fiction and in politics. But it can be taken to extreme. The Ten of Eyes is a cautionary tale, to not let news get to you personally. USE the information, yes, but don’t let it change you or affect you. Don’t let information make you bleed out of the eyes as the movie and anime trope goes.
The message I’m getting today differs from both of these. The message has come through before, but I don’t remember when or which card.
Look with your heart.
The part of this card that most catches my attention is the sheer number of eyes.
So.
Many.
Eyes.
Intuition and mental clairvoyance is often represented by the so-called third eye. I think we have other eyes too. There are the physical ones, of course, for our literal sight. The third eye speaks to intuition and mental images. That is mind-sight. But what of emotional or spiritual sight?
Often intuition is conflated with spirituality, but intuition serves us all no matter what our spiritual framework may be. Raging egos and scam artists can still be psychic to some degree. Intuition is a normal human faculty that could arguably had evolutionary advantage. I like Neil Degrasse Tysons description of the sixth sense and exactly that. A functional, purposeful, useful function of human existence like, I believe it was his grandmother, who know just when to propare supper and how many places to set even without tangible, five-sense knowable input.
The heart governs both physical and mental sight with emotional and spiritual sight. Look with your heart and see both physical and mental inputs through a lens of compassion and kindness. That guides not so much what we see but what we do about what we see, what we know, what we learn, and all the information we take in about our world.
So go ahead. Doom scroll. Sip that schadenfreude. Unleash all of your glorious human curiosity on whatever is out there. Gaze upon the world but be aware of the filters you (and other people) place on what you see. Then filter that through the one lens that really counts – kindness.
I hope you are enjoying these (almost) daily Tarot contemplations that happen in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
It’s that renew-the-website time of year, so any support you can give through the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi is greatly, appreciated. Shop purchases, exclusive content memberships, private reading commissions and virtual coffees all contribute toward making this blog and podcast possible.
No appointment is needed for private email readings, which are my specialty by the way.
You wouldn’t necessarily expect a lady with a sword to be talking about a peaceful state of mind, but there it is.
Hello and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the Justice card from the major arcana.
At first blush this card has all of the usual admonishments to wisdom, fairness, balance and, well, justice. I was listening to news updates a few minutes ago, so of course all the current politics is top of mind as I saw the card.
But I am also reminded of a slightly older current event. Here in the United States, judges on the supreme court are called justices. The senate confirmation hearings for the newest justice, Kitanji Jackson, were publically broadcast and nerd that I am, I watched them. At least sort of. If I’m not listening to music, have a habit of letting the news play in the background during the day. Yes, it is a lot of repetition but enough bits and pieces make it through my foggy inattention to stitch together a picture of the day’s events. During the confirmation hearings, Justice Jackson said something about her early work as a defense lawyer that landed in my brain with a thud and has been there ever since. It was interesting on level because it was an epiphany out of context, an ah-ha moment apropos to nothing I was actually doing at the moment. It was interesting because it was an epiphany. I’d always suffered under the wrong understanding. She disabused the nation and history of that misunderstanding in a handful of sentences.
Defense lawyers.
Like many other people, I always had the vague impression they defended the criminal or the crime, in other words advocating for the wrong side.
Nope.
Defense lawyers defend the criminal’s civil liberties, not the crime. They protect the constitution and equal justice under law and the principle of innocent until proven guilty. THAT is what they were defending.
Of course in my brain, there is a cut scene right to Jim Carry’s character in the movie Liar, Liar where he screams legal advice over the phone to his most recalcitrant client and tells him to “STOP BREAKING THE LAW!”
It is an interesting, complex balance between protecting innocent society from criminal behavior and protecting equal justice from the very system that claims to have created that self-same equal justice.
All of which begs the question: what on earth does any of this have to do with a Tarot reading?
I have a hunch that this high-minded esoteric kind of thinking is why the Justice card has a reputation for presaging a fair and correct decision in any literal legal proceedings, especially in the prediction-oriented days of Tarot readings.
A number of readers comment on the similarities between images on the Justice card and on the High Priestess card. Justice is thought to be worldly while the High Priestess is of course purely spiritual. That last Sage & Stuff post about Venn diagrams might hold a clue for us today. With the similar visuals, what is the conceptual overlap between the cards?
Wisdom.
The High Priestess deals with mystery and esoterica while Justice is faced with nitty gritty action within the real world. Both act from a place of great wisdom, but move in different directions. One is wisdom drawn from ineffable mystery the other is wisdom applied to implacable reality and practicality.
As Baruch Spinoza reminds us, justice, wisdom and indeed peace all go hand in hand when he says “peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.”
Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate any likes, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare. The blog and podcast are not monetized and depend on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where memberships, shop purchases, commissioned private email tarot readings and virtual coffees all support the creation of these (almost) daily Tarot readings for you.
If everything changes in time, doesn’t that mean time is magic?
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Short Sip episodes are Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today’s card is the Magician. It’s nice to see some major arcana cards showing up lately. That in itself is a nice little validation for me, that some of the energy and effort that I’ve been investing into refreshing the website and migrating the shop to a different platform in an effort to keep prices down on readings just might pay off.
It’s also an interesting compliment to the summer energy that’s out there. As a whole, the major arcana has so called “higher energy” That’s kind of a confusing way to say it. Sometimes higher vs lower energy is used qualitatively. Higher connotes something more esoteric, more spiritual, somehow “good” or virtuous while lower is sometimes used to connote something more banal and mundane, perhaps lesser quality or even malicious.
When I think of major arcana cards as having higher energy, it is a quantitative thing. Electromagnetic waves that have more cycles per unit of distance are said to have higher frequencies. There are just plain more waves in the wavelength not that they are any better or worse – unless of course you are talking about radiation and living tissue but that’s another story that we’ll ignore for now, since we are talking about Tarot card symbolism, not hard science & physics.
What I’m trying to say is that major arcana cards aren’t any better or any worse than the minor arcana. There is a surprising amount of overlap between some minor arcana cards and the majors. The minor cards have a gentler touch with the advice. They hand you a cookie and tell you that by the time you are done it will all be right as rain. Major arcana cards are more ka-pow. They are Oda Mae looking you straight in the eye and telling you that you in danger, girl.
I’ve been told by my Lenormand Tarot reading friends that the whole Lenormand deck is a little like that, all no holds barred frying pan to the face type stuff. It’s on my list of stuff to check out, but I have some other oracle exploration to get out of my system first. I’ll tell you more about that when it’s closer to ready for cyberspace.
Meanwhile, back at the Magician, this is fairly blunt. It reminds me of those internet memes from around the time when the movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was released where Wong would portal in, throw down some random weird statement and portal back out again. Today’s card is a little like that. There aren’t any circles here. No sneaking up and nabbing the point from behind like with the Turn Around or Tools of the Inner Trade post / episodes.
source: @imgur
The Magician card symbolizes transformation as much as it does manifestation. The only difference between life and magic is our preconceived expectations. The flow of time and life change and transform everything. If you are still alive, you are still magic.
Thank you for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare are always appreciated. Comments are open on the blog, which podcast listeners can reach through the link in the show description.
Just a reminder that the blog, podcast and socials will be on a short summer hiatus July first to July sixth. Email readings are open on the blog website throughout that time. So is the ko-fi page where memberships, the shop, commissions and virtual coffees all support the creation of this free to access Tarot content. The blog and podcast are not monetized. That let’s me serve up a sip of spirit message without the taste of corporate messaging.
Holiday schedule? Did I actually say that?? Yeah – nah. Email readings are OPEN all season long because they don’t have schedule either. Order anytime, 24/7 , no appointment needed. Otherwise, things are going to be pretty random around here from now until Jan 3 or so.
For my own sanity, I really, really, REALLY try to avoid politics and that other powderkeg word that starts with R.
But, in full disclosure, the idea for today’s card dropped into my head while I was watching coverage of President Biden’s remarks in Tulsa about the Greenwood “Black Wall Street” massacre of 1921.
Most of the time when you work with an oracle tool to access your intuition (like Tarot, runes, scrying, I Ching or what have you) a random item sparks the meaningful idea. Sometimes, it’s happened the other way around. A meaningful idea drops into my head inspired by some other source; muses, spirit guides, something I’ve seen, something on TV, a song from the radio, a scroll through social media…anything. Those ideas are usually the ones that niggle at you for a while. I turn them into a post for “The Niggles” category here in the blog, or sometimes I’ll reverse engineer the idea into a Tarot card.
It’s an interesting exercise, really. It doesn’t even have to be a spontaneous, inspired niggly thought. Take any concept that seems important to you and browse a Tarot deck (or decks) to see which card best resonates or exemplifies the idea. It is a great way to build your relationship with your deck(s) and expand your intuitive understanding of the cards when you do a reading. In this case, the Two of Cups seemed best.
Today’s – or really last evening’s – niggly concept is “beloved.”
President Bidens remarks in commemoration of the Tulsa Massecre were so filled with compassion, insight, inspiration. Especially in contrast to the last administration, the kindness and humanity so evident in his words and voice were inspiring, heart wrenching and breath taking. I encourage you to listen to his speech. If you consider yourself one drop intuitive, listen with your heart and with your third eye. Bring your full intuitive attention to what he said as well as what historically happened.
Perhaps you will wonder, as I did, why isn’t he the most beloved President in American history. Perhaps he will be. If there is one bit of justice, if the species survives long enough to do it, I hope that those who look back at the early 21st century see Presidents Biden and Obama for the compassion and intellect they embody. Again…look with your third eye, listen with your heart, not with your usual political leanings.
Out of that moment, that fleeting thought, the word BELOVED grabbed my attention.
It takes a lot of people to make a President “one of the most beloved.” It takes a solid plurality (and enough popular vote to overtake gerrymandering and electoral college bias) to make a person a President at all, but what does it take to make a historical figure beloved?
One person.
Perhaps you.
All it takes for anyone to be beloved is for one person to love them, for any measure of time. That measure of time exists. Always. If you love or are loved for any moment, then you are loved for an eternity because that moment always exists in the larger eternity, no matter where else in time you view that moment from.
Every moment you give love to the universe, to any person, to any idea – to yourself – that moment counterbalances and functionally erases a moment of hate given elsewhere.
Even for a moment, if you love someone – or yourself – then that person is beloved.
As for President Biden, I suspect Dr. Jill has it covered.
As for the rest of us, love someone for a moment. They are then beloved. Think of the whole earth and everything living being on it just for one tiny little fleeting moment and send your love to that entirety. Now you too, are forever beloved.
All it takes for anyone to be beloved is one person.
First and foremost, thank you all from my very core for reading this. I appreciate all of you so much!
It goes without saying that in-person readings are on hold until the stay-at-home order is lifted and the coronavirus dangers have passed. No Tarot reading is worth risking so much as a nose cold over, much less something like this.
Fortunately, I am a distance Tarot specialist. A keyboard or pen and paper has always been a bright red bat-phone right to the heart of spirit and intuition for me. I don’t know why….it just is. Talking with someone, having that chatty little conversation at the beginning of a session, creates an equally powerful connection. Talking to my tablet to upload to YouTube – not so much.
Blog posts are different. I can write a general post with the intent that it will help (or at least be of interest) to someone, somewhere. Keyboards are a hotlink to intuition, but talking isn’t quite wired to do that – yet. It will come with practice. Meanwhile, I am enormously grateful to everyone who has muddled through the YouTube learning curve with me. It will get better, I promise. I really want to make it work: Here is why.
I have a friend who learns and remembers better from the spoken word than from the written. Audio books are a big asset for her. I want to learn to do YouTube video Tarot readings for her and for auditory learners like her.
So long story short:
In-person readings are on hiatus for the time being
YouTube readings continue but expect some changes. At some point I may delete all the old readings and re-boot the whole thing. If there are any readings you want to download, now’s your chance before they randomly disappear
The price of 5 and 7 card email readings have been reduced for the duration of the PA stay at home order. Order on the home page, no appointment needed.
Sage Words Tarot 