Tag: happiness

Modern Magic of a Different Sort

  • Private Readings by email are OPEN to order 24/7, no appointment needed
  • Email readings give the IDENTICAL information you would get in a live reading
  • Usually delivered within 24 hours of your order (some delays nights, weekends and US holidays)
  • Live in-person and phone/online Tarot readings require advance appointment and pre-payment by secure PayPal invoice.
  • Members-only ko-fi blog is the only place for Tarot Content every weekday plus 5% shop discount
  • This blog is the only place for long reads, Q&A, and weekend content – please follow to have new posts delivered right to you!
  • Reiki page update coming soon
  • Free e-booklet offer coming soon
  • This blog and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast are FREE to follow

Joy and Potential

Be the sparkly fireworks you want to see in the world.

Boom!

Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot and the Crystal Cast reading for the week of January 21-28. Happy New Year to our friends celebrating the Spring Festival and year of the yin water rabbit!

I’m still working on the physical mechanics of casting the crystals. Have to admit, this shake and toss and see what comes blowing out of the top of the bag is kind of fun. This one might have been a little overly-enthusiastic on my part. It will take some more practice and experimentation to dial it in. We’ll see how it goes. I’m curious as heck whether or not you all like these crystal reading or not. Good, bad or indifferent, please leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments. Heck, I’d even answer reading questions in the blog comments just for the practice. So have at it. No promises, but if you leave a question, there is a fair to middling chance that I’ll do a crystal reading for it. Which means that podcast people will have to use the link in the show description to leave their questions in the blog comments, but hey, it’s a free psychic reading so what can you say?

Back to these crystals.

The mental image that came when the crystals scattered like this was fireworks. Specifically those extra sparkly ones that glitter and shimmer as the remnants fall. It also reminded me a little bit of those holographic glitter nail polishes. The explosive quality to the energy and the way the crystal felt like they were volcano spewing out the top of the bag is a key point, but the happy glittery shiny celebratory quality to the feel and the energy is the bigger focus. It goes right along with the Lunar New Year celebrations. The sparkle is the thing. Joy and happiness is the fuel for the expansiveness of this week’s energy.

I am reminded of the FDR quote that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. And also the famous Mark Twain quote “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

This is such a warning against thinking or dwelling on potential problems that I don’t even want to bring it up as a thing to avoid.

The focus is on the sparkle, on the joy.

And it is all inside you.

You are the firecracker. You are the sparkler. This week it is up to you to light the fuse, not wait for external circumstances to do it for you

Don’t let fear be the wet blanket. If you feel it, don’t hold back. Let yourself be an explosion of joy. It’ll help everything go better for you, not to mention elevate the energy and help things go better for everyone around you.

It is said that like attracts like. Think of yourself as a magnet dragging through the week. If you were given the choice, what would you want sticking to you at the end of the week; ridiculous unreasonable happiness in SPITE of everything, or worry and stress BECAUSE of everything?

The visual for that in today’s reading lies in the clear quartz crystal chips. They are a happy sparkling POOF of happy when you look at them intuitively. They are pretty close to being just that literally as well.

The top of the two runes showing is Sowilo, associated with the sun, happiness, light and love. It is an interesting optical coincidence that this particular stone is reflecting light so strongly in the video that it is hard to read the rune.

The other, lower rune is Algiz, which has to do with protection, security, and guidance. It is much easier to feel happy when you feel safe.

Here, too, there is a sense of fearlessness, in a good way. I forget who posted it, but there was an Instagram post a few years ago that has stuck with me. I call it to mind whenever I start to feel any vague or general worry creeping in, especially about stuff that may or may not happen.

The context was a feed about paganism of some sort. They contrasted mainstream or Christian prayer to be protected vs the Germanic pagan mindset of petitioning Odin for the wisdom and strength to be able to protect ourselves.

I prefer the latter point of view.

Why? It just feels better, but also because of compassion.

Which petition has the greater potential to foster compassion? If we seek to be strong and wise, that strength and wisdom can in turn lead to protecting and caring for others. Asking to be pre-emptively protected doesn’t afford that same opportunity.

The desire to grow wise and strong and be a better person is a type of compassion toward oneself.

There are several runestones with their blank side showing. I also read that as potential, as one would expect from any reading that is looking forward. The future is all about seeing the potentials, not making predictions.

Look ahead to this week. Face it with all the courage and happiness you can muster. Light the fuse on a glittering explosion of joy, or at least indulge in a little sparkle. Your little POOF of happiness just might draw the best possible things out of a week full of potential.

Thank you all for reading and listening. Any likes, subs, shares or follows are always greatly appreciated.

Private readings by email are open. Your purchases, memberships and virtual coffees all support the blog and podcast.

Thanks again. Next up for me is the weekly learn to read Tarot post for the members only blog on ko-fi. After that, it is back to the usual Sage’s Sip of Tarot.

See you at the next sip!

Inexpensive Treasure

We all have at least one – go get yours with today’s short sip Tarot and the Ten of Pentacles

We’ve all got one. Or a bunch. It’s the weekend. Go get yours.

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

We’ve all heard this one before. I’d say this card is a broken record, but since digital and streaming doesn’t have that particular glitch I’ll skip the reference that no one this side of gen X would really get.

The song remains the same. We’ve all heard this one before. Which, in the Tarot and personal growth business, is more of a validation than being a mere cliche.

I like to think that when a card, like today’s ten of pentacles, keeps harping on the same idea, it adds to the meaning instead of diluting it. Things like “money can’t buy happiness” or “little things mean a lot” or “the simple pleasures are the best” are all platitudes and aphorisms for a reason. The generalized truth behind them is potent enough that it is like archetype and aphorism combined. Whatever big word you want to call it, these repeating messages woven through a long time Tarot practice are worth listening to.

Pentacles are associated with the element of earth. They symbolize wealth, money, career, practicality and our relationship with the physical realm. Ten is as large as the number cards get.

In the I Ching, the Chinese “book of changes” which has been used for guidance in a way very akin to Tarot, there is the idea of changing lines. When you use three coins to methodically choose with I Ching hexagram to read, three of either heads or tails is considered a “changing line.” The line in the hexagram is maximum yin or maximum yang. There is an idea in Taoism that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. If life is always changing and in motion, then I see that as meaning a tipping point. Like that old children’s game – it is a pot so full that one more bean can tip it over and spill into becoming something else.

That is what is happening with the ten of pentacles. Sure, it shows an idealized happy family, pets included. There is a tipping point here – and it isn’t what you might think.

The opposite of maximum coins isn’t bankruptcy. The opposite of the happiness depicted isn’t misery. The tipping point here is from the tangible into the intangible. Of all the contentment depicted in the card and in all those RWS derived decks, none of them are dependent on being rich. Food, water, shelter, basics sustain life. Beyond that, the truly precious things are at once both practically free and unspeakably priceless; people who care about you, a friendly dog wagging their tail when they see you, a little sit in the shade on a hot day or a soft chair near the heater on a cold one.

Innocent or guilty the little pleasures are what the ten of pentacles is talking about today. Think of those photos of President Biden in his aviator sunglasses smiling and enjoying an ice cream cone. That’s what we’re talking about. He is well paid and as powerful as it gets. Yet, how much does an ice cream cone cost? Change from the sofa cushions would close to cover it. Almost anyone can access it. Yet the pleasure the ice cream can bring – that part is priceless and even easier to get. All you have to do is let yourself have it. The ice cream is just the carrier, it’s the delivery method for the happy. Pick your delivery method. It can be any little thing that delights you. It can be any little thing that you have on hand right here, right now. Mine today is my Spotify playlists.

Go.

Go get your inexpensive treasure. Then let yourself have the happy.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate you, your follows, likes and any shares you can spare.

The blog and podcast are both not monetized in any way and are supported through your private reading purchases and the TaoCraft Tarot shop and memberships on ko-fi. Thank you for helping to create this (almost) daily Tarot contemplation for everyone.

See you at the next sip!

It can happen

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today the Ten of Cups reminds us that it get better. Happiness is yours to claim.

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog & podcast. I’m glad you’re here.

Heck, I’m glad I’m here. Yesterday was a little extra, so for this week the squirrel rave is letting me post on a Thursday, although that might not always be the case. Because this squirrel rave we call life can be like that.

It is only Thursday, and this isn’t a weekly wrap up kind of post but the energy is circling back around to the same ideas that we have been talking about for a few days.

When messages cycle and repeat like that, the boilerplate interpretation is that an important life lesson is being ignored. Repeating energies and messages are supposed to mean that someone just plain isn’t getting it.

I don’t think that is why the energies are dwelling in one spot this time. I think the energies are circling to give us a better look, like a tourist helicopter circling an attraction to give everyone a clear view. I think spirit is doing a slow circle to let us get take our time with this message, make friends with the energy and, to borrow a word from the Dude in The Big Lebowski, abide with the ideas for a while. Spirit and energy doesn’t care about clocks and calendars, so dwelling on one topic for a while is neither bad nor uncommon.

My thoughts and my heart are dwelling and abiding with Pride month.

With the growing intolerance and hate filled legislation in some parts of the American, I legit worry about the health and safety of people whom I care about very deeply.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt. In my experience, that is sometimes true. My early life and extended family familiarity with evangelicals and Republicans has bred a great deal of contempt for those bigoted ideologies.

Familiarity can also breed compassion.

It’s harder to hate a person on grand principle once you get to know them as individuals. There is a 2014 study reported in U.C. Berkely’s Greater Good Magazine (a neuroscience and behavioral psychology newsletter) that suggested that racism really is taught by social groups and is not an inherent genetic-based behavioral trait in rats. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/are_rats

It might not rise to the level of scientific study, but everyday experience seems to hint that the same is true of humans. Or at least for humans with some toe hold on reality.

Where humans have the capacity to make things bad, as a species we have the same capacity to make things better. Difference and diversity teaches us that being a little weird yourself is a good thing. When you meet a lot of different people you can find the ones where you can be weird together. When you meet diverse people, you meet ones who think the same things are important as you do. You find the people who think you are important. Whether you know them or not, whether you feel it or not, there is someone on earth who enjoys and supports people like you. Like it or not, you are loved.

Getting older does make that process a little better. It is easier for adults than it is for kids and teens because we’ve been around the block a few times. . We know the feeling comes back; adults have experienced its return. We’ve met people very different from ourselves and lived to tell the tale. It’s easier to know that things get better when they’ve already been better – and worse, and better, and worse, and better again. To quote that insurance commercial – we know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.

It gets better because when you find that little bit of connection outward, it helps you connect inward which where all the happiness really lives. That little bit of outward support and belonging helps you lay claim to the inward happiness that has always been yours and always will be.

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

If you enjoy the YouTube shorts that show the real world card draw that inspires the blog and podcast – or if you enjoy the blog and podcast – please support them all through the TaoCraftTarot page on Ko-fi. The shop, memberships and virtual coffee all help me to create these Tarot readings for you.

Want more than a sip of Tarot? Have a full cup! Full size private Tarot readings with the blogcast author are available on the blog website.

See you at the next sip!

Happiness at Hand

Today’s card is the knight of wands.

Knight cards tend to speak of action or implementing an idea. Wands reflect the inner world; our passions, our interests, spirituality, philosophy and more. Wands can reflect your relationship with yourself.

This card isn’t a permission slip to go on a wild bender and indulge in self-destructive passions, but it is permission to actively, deliberately engage with passions that make you happy. What is it that makes you light up and the words flow from you? What in life makes you feel charismatic – at least to yourself, even if no one else notices. More than being comfortable inside your own skin, this card asks you to find the thing that makes you feel confident and alive and happy within your own skin.

It worries me that there may be someone out there who feels that they can find nothing, or who says there is nothing that they feel happy about. If anyone is truly that despondent there may be more going on than Tarot can help. There is no shame in getting help when it is needed. That is what the knight of wands would do. The knight of wands would take action to help the world within.

Thom Pham hit the bullseye for today’s energy when he put Top Gun Maverick on a motorcycle on the card. The character alludes to so much. There are elements of self discovery as well as that sense of all-out, mach 2 with your hair on fire passionate living. What would the day be like if we turned that passion toward something we already know and already have that makes us happy?

The card reminds me of a few quotes.

I don’t know if it is accurate, but Abraham Lincoln is cited as saying “People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

The other is the story from who-knows-where. The internet in its wisdom attributes it to Buddha. A person asks what he should do. “I want happiness,” he said. Buddha answered that the first thing to do is to remove the word “I” because that is ego. Then remove the word “want” because that is desire. Then look to see what is left. It’s just happiness sitting there waiting for you.

Happiness is already on hand. It’s just waiting for you to pick it up.

Thank you for watching, reading and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip – Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or reading orders you can spare are always appreciated.

Short Sip Tarot readings are available on the TaoCraft Tarot blog and as a podcast. The Clairvoyant Confessional Podcast will become the TaoCraft Tarot podcast starting in 2022. Watch the real world card draw for these short sip readings on the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and instagram reels.

As we go into the December 2021 holiday season, readings will post a little less regularly, but will resume a normal schedule after new year.

My name is Ronda. I read Tarot, write stuff and make things. I also wish everyone a very happy, healthy, safe and prosperous holiday and New Year.

See you at the next sip.

Today’s Tarot: Rent Well Spent

“Money can’t buy happiness. But it sure can rent it for a while.”

Kim Grunenfelder, comedien

Invest in your happiness. It helps if you can be happy with things that fit your budget.

“Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.” – Oscar Wilde

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Make Happy

NEW: $1.00 Tarot sale…get a five or seven card Tarot reading by email and pay 1.00 for each year of Tarot reading experience that I bring to your reading. Special price available until the autumn equinox, September 20, 2021

Today’s Tarot Is … Up To You

card image from the public domain. please support sacred-texts.com

Remember that old meme “Happiness is…” from the Peanuts? A quick snoop(y) around Google and you can find dozens of Happiness is… memes, along with the tidbit that the song “Happiness” (that seems to have spawned the whole “Happiness is….” thing) comes from 1967’s You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown musical. Happiness is… has been around a while.

The ellipsis is the part that connects the meme to today’s card. Sure, this card is all happy, sunny, positive, hopeful, optimistic and all of that jazz. But at what point does it tip over into toxic positivity? What do you do if you pull this card when things are terrible and the last thing you need is a bunch of shallow platitudes and superficial think-positive happy talk?

The first thing to do is take it easy on yourself. You are not wrong. “Positive” isn’t always right. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns all of the time. The very first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is the truth of suffering. It exists. Shit happens. Rather than drown said shit in denial, minimization, avoidance, platitudes or thoughts & prayers, it seems better to honestly acknowledge these so-called negative emotions than to sweep then under the proverbial rug. If you acknowledge them, then maybe you won’t inadvertently take them out on other people. The sunlight of honest acknowledgement is the best disinfectant. Sometimes a short wallow in what we are really feeling is the best way to deal with those emotions and move on.

That is the beauty of the Tarot deck as a whole. It covers a wide range of human emotions and experiences from the idyllic ten of Cups all the way through the Devil and Death cards and then some.

That’s the beauty of each card. In each one, there is a little seed, a little glimmer of its opposite. Some readers prefer to only consider that seed when the card presents as reversed (upside down relative to the person doing the reading.) I think that seed of the opposite is worth considering all of the time, and would rather leave reversals to be a clue to slowed, challenged or blocked energies.

That’s the beauty of the ellipsis in the “Happiness is….” meme. The definition of happiness is 100% up to you. Happiness may be a warm puppy, an ice cream sundae, or good friends. Happiness may be black mascara and a Bauhaus album. As it harms none, do what thou will….you get to decide what makes you happy as long as you wear a mask, stay six feet apart, wash your hands, don’t commit any felonies and don’t hurt anyone.

By that same token, just as you get to decide what your own happiness IS, you get to decide to BE happy. Things can suck. Shit happens. Suffering is a truth of life….and you can still decide to be happy in spite of it all.

Today’s Tarot, the Ten of Cups, happiness is….

up to you.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: know, share, flow

Left: The Lovers. Know your real desires, and prioritize them. Some days living your dream and working toward long term goals is the place to put your energy. Other days, the priority is just to make it through the day. Not every day has to be spent chasing lofty goals. Some days are best spent on the basics like food and sleep. I helps to know what your heartfelt desires really are and where you are in the hierarchy of those desires.

Center: Ten of Coins. Even though coins / Pentacles are associated with the element of earth, and the practical physical realm…typically things like career and money / wealth….the ten reminds us that money can’t buy happiness. There a treasures beyond coins. Happiness is a treasure trove that can never be spent…the more you give, the more you have.

Right: Six of Swords. Go with the flow to see where obstacles really exist…and where they are illusions. Swords have to do with air, intellect and mind. Things that seem in front of us (like the swords stuck in the canoe) may not be as much of an obstruction as it seems. In astronomy and science they can infer information from other direct observations. Newton figured out gravity from seeing an apple fall from a tree. Astronomers can get proof of Einstein’s theory by observing the way starlight bends around the sun during an eclipse. They can discover other planets by observing the way other stars appear to dim and brighten. You can do the same. By watching the natural flow of life, you can see where there are really rocks in the stream ahead, and what is just something in your boat blocking your view. Remember Bruce Lee and “Be water my friend.”