gestalt – Sage Words Tarot

Go Gestalt

Sometimes the big picture is the best picture.

Sometimes the big picture is the best picture

Hi and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot Blog and Podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Yay! We made it to September. Consider this place magically totally decorated for Autumn and Halloween just like the internet memes. Because it is officially pumpkin spice season, and because I say so. Cinnamon everything for the next six months!!

Today’s card is The World from the major arcana and it fits the mood. The World is a generally positive card, associated with yes in the really old, complicated ways of doing yes-or-no readings. I’m not burning brain cells on memorizing the yes or no implications for all 78 cards, so I’m sticking with my three stack deal and aces method. It works really well for that kind of reading. Older isn’t always better, even in Tarot.

The world card is a good omen card if you work from a predictive stance. The world is the last of the major arcana cards. The Fool is the first card and has come to be associated with new beginnings. In much the same way, the World card connotes happy endings. I’ve always associated it with that saying “the world is your oyster.” The interwebs say the phrase originated with Shakespeare and signifies life giving riches and good things like an oyster produces a pearl. I’m guessing that it might also hint that you are able to make good things happen for yourself no matter what life throws at you just like an oyster makes a pearl out of a grain of sand. That idea in turn resonates with that whole make lemonade out of lemons thing. Put all of those impressions together, and today seems to be a good day to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps despite this avalanche of homespun aphorisms and be confident about it because energies are flowing toward a good outcome if you do.

Looking at life through the biggest of big pictures is a way to help you to create that good outcome, it seems.

German must be a fun language. Part of me wants to learn it, but the part of me that dislikes noun gender tends to win that debate. Still the German language has given us some pretty cool words, like geshundheit to say for sneezes, schadenfreude for when political tea is spilled, Reinheitsgebot for their beer purity laws and the one that always makes me giggle like a 12 year old – krankenwagen for an ambulance.

Gestalt is another useful German word. According to the Google machine, gestalt literally translates as “shape” As it relates to the World card, however, it is more like the gestalt branch of psychology and psychotherapy. In a shorthand sort of way, it is about understanding the shape of things. I think of it as starting from the biggest big picture point of view that you can muster, then see how everything fits together into that – if you will pardon the pun – world view. It’s no surprise that gestalt and wholeness have been added to contemporary meanings for the World card.

When the World card turns up in a reading, consider it a good omen and a sign of a happy conclusion on the way. If that doesn’t fit then consider it a reminder to keep the big picture in mind. Look at how all the pieces fit together. Look at the whole forest, not just one bothersome tree.

Which is why astronaut Ron Garan’s The Orbital Perspective is on my enormous want-to-read list. I’m a gestalt kind of gal. The more I see and understand the big picture the better I like it. That is also why I would urge all of you to read Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot.

Problems shrink when you stack them next to the whole world.

Thank you so much for listening and reading. I appreciate you for doing that. I’d also appreciate any follows, likes, subs, shares, questions or comments that you can spare.

The blog and podcast are not monetized in any way and totally rely on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi.com (it sounds like no fee or coffee) Proceeds from the virtual coffees, shop purchases, private readings and exclusive content memberships all help me to create these free to access Tarot readings for everyone.

Thank you again, and I’ll see you at the next sip.

Short Sip Tarot: Eyes on the big picture

TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot: guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.

Thank you SO much for listening, watching and reading! I appreciate your support and any likes, subs, shares, follows, comments, questions or reading orders that you can spare. The virtual coffee mug supports the blog and podcast. Contact information is below or in the podcast episode description. Have a question for the Clairvoyant? Speak right up and send it right in! Ask anything and everything (within reason) will be answered in upcoming podcast episodes, possibly with an on-air Tarot reading.

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

Back in the day, the world was all there was. Humans have been looking to the stars as long as we’ve had clear nights and eyeballs. Our perspective has changed a great deal since then.

Tarot was in use a hundred years before the telescope was invented. Don’t get your knickers in a bunch, I’m not equating the two. What I’m saying is that Tarot is still a product of the largely pre-scientific times in which it emerged. Tarot was psychology before psychology was invented. It was stress management and personal development and creative problem solving long before we had words for those things. The world was bigger then so the World card carries connotations that it wouldn’t had the deck evolved as an oracle in a more technologically advanced culture. Today, we might be better served calling the card “The Universe” or “The Cosmos” or something that implies a true gestalt.

We are often told to keep our eyes on the prize. That is good advice. Staying focused and avoiding distraction certainly helps us to progress. To focus like that, however, we have to narrow our field of vision. It is a mental reflection of how optics and our vision tend to work. It makes me wonder. What are we missing if we focus “eyes on the prize” too much? Focus is good, but narrow. It’s also a good idea to zoom out, look at the biggest big picture you can muster. It lets you see where the prize you are eyeing fits in the big picture. It lets you see your progress toward it. The big picture lets you see what other prizes are out there and if the original is the right treasure for you. It’s hard to adjust your direction with narrow-focus blinders on.

Eyes on the prize is important, but eyes on the big picture can be very helpful too.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot July 11 -18

Pause the video if you need a minute to choose your card. It isn’t a hard and fast prediction. It is just a thought to guide you, a light that shines in dark corners where you might otherwise missed something kind of cool. So no pressure. I don’t add crystals and trinkets and make the YouChoose pictures all instagram pretty for a reason. Those things help intuition and make the choice more pleasant, but this is swinging a weighted bat in a way, for those of you who want to give raw intuition a little more of a workout. In a plain picture like this, you have to follow your heart as much as your eye to the right card.

Left: Seven of Cups There are two seven cards in this weeks group of three. I’m choosing to see that as good luck and a bit of hopefulness for everyone this week. Goodness knows we Americans could use some of that. But this card is also permission to take it easy on yourself. Go easy on the decision making and embrace the KISS with both arms. Keep it simple. Cut to the chase. Brush away every bit of the minutae and get to the heart of things and the path will become crystal clear.

Center: Seven of Wands. This is the second of our two 7 cards this week. I’m still going to deliberatly choose to hold space for something good to come along this week, even if the sh*tshow continues unabated here in America. In fact, digging deep in our comic / geek / sci fi culture is just the thing this card is giving for advice. There are going to be challenges, but they are deal-able, especially if we do it with a little style. This is the week to channel your inner Deadpool, Ironman, Spiderman, Star Lord, Captain Mal, Han Solo or whatever other wise-cracking antihero you have lurking in there. You can save your world with two swords and warp factor 9.

Right: Three of Wands. Watch and chill. No, I don’t mean Netflix. This is a wait until you see the whites of thier eyes, everyone stay frosty kind of watch and chill. This isn’t a moment to act, but rather watch for the just-right moment to act with precision and impact. Think cat. Think watching, ready, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

Meta: I’m a gestalt kind of gal. Maybe that’s why I’m good at this Tarot thing. The more big-picture I can understand things, the happier I am. Taking all three cards as a whole, the energy is flowing toward a state of relaxed but awake and ready. Don’t stress, just deal, roll with it. It reminds me of paramedics and other rescue types. One of the best bits of advice I ever heard from one of them, back in my hospital days: “Prepare for the emergency and the emergency goes away.” True. Worrying never solved anything. My martial arts days taught me that a relaxed punch is faster than a tense one. That’s true too. If you are relaxed knowing that shot in the arm is going to pinch a little, it may not hurt at all. Staying chill is the path to overcoming whatever life throws at it. It will be ok, so have some fun along the way.

Today’s Tarot: Gestalt and Context

Today’s card picks up and continues the theme from this week’s YouChoose Interactive Tarot, finding the unity behind the duality. The advice here again is to look for the big picture. Look to the background context to understand whatever your top of mind concern might be. The old adage “don’t lose the forest in the trees” is another way to say it. You know how photos of something to buy online often has a person’s hand or a coin or a pen or other common object to give you an idea of the actual size of the object being sold. That is the kind of relative perspective the Tower card will sometimes point out to us. The World calls for a bigger big picture. Look at the thing, the other thing shown, the relative size AND the background AND the lighting in the photo. See the difference?

Another example is one of those crazy hard jigsaw puzzels that have a lot o little pieces but big areas of the same color. If there is just one piece missing, it is easy to focus on the hole and make the piece fit. But early on, you have to look at the big picture….the shape of the puzzle, the piece relative to all of the others plus the picture on the box.

Sometimes there isn’t any one big AH-HA moment. Sometimes you have to piece together the big picture from all of the clues around you.