Tag: healthy boundaries

Identify Your Nemesis

The Devil card reminds us to guard our energies, pay attention to the gate and know your nemesis.

No.

Nope.

Wrong address. Try again.

Sorry, no.

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

Today I’m back to the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. Today’s card is the Devil from the major arcana. This card is clearly based on the classic Pamela Smith art. I’m curious to see what the Alleyman’s guide has to say about it and who this artist is, but first let’s talk about the energy that this little effer is spontaneously resonating with this morning: I’m getting both “guard your energy” and “know your nemesis”

And yes, I am very deliberately and specifically using the word resonating.

Energy resonance is important to both of threads of the message coming through the Devil card today.

Even though I say a message is “coming through” a particular card, I don’t want you to get the idea that the cards are a portal for spirits like something out of horror movies or 1970s TV.Our language tends to anthropomorphize things like this, but in reality they are pieces of paper with pictures on them. Tarot cards, ouija boards, rune stones, I ching coins, chicken bones…all the divination and oracle whatevers…are all simply amplifiers for our own inner, innate intuition.

Anyway, here is where the message starts to scatter into different directions. The starting point about resonance has to do with that portal for spirits vs intuition amplifier piece of it. I hear “guard your energy. “

The Devil card isn’t a happy card. It is as much of a majority-dark card as the Sun card is majority-light. The Devil card is a good card in that it serves as an important, real-talk reminder that there are indeed harmful things that exist in the universe.

When I say “hear” I mean that the intuition comes as words, sounds or music instead of mental images. In this case, I hear “don’t invite in” as in don’t think of Tarot cards as a portal to invite energies in for a personal visit. Use them like hearing aids to better listen in to what the universal energies are broadcasting for us all to hear.

It doesn’t matter what the energy seems to be. Sure, give it a listen but then make your own decision about it and don’t “invite it in.” We’ve all heard about the devils in disguise or wolves in sheep’s clothing. That can go for anything. That born-again christian thing about “invite jesus into your heart” is red lights and sirens four alarm emergency creeping heebie jeebies level stuff. Don’t invite other people’s definition of good into your heart of hearts any more than you would invite other people’s definition of evil. The only thing that deserves to be in there is your own light, love, compassion and all the wonderful things that you already are.

The best way to guard your energy is to up its wattage. I forget where I heard this example, but think of a cozy, warm, well lit house on a cold winter night. If you open the front door, does the cold and dark come in or does the light and warm spill out? The Devil card is the weather report. Our responsibility in that dark night is to close the door and save on the heating bill.

That’s one thread.

The other is akin to Socrates telling us to “know thyself.” It also came through as “the phone call is coming from inside the house.” I’ve never seen the movie that is from, but I have heard it referenced a lot. This goes back to the empathy check we’ve talked about in the past. Especially when you are reading cards or doing any sort of psychic work, It pays to stop and pay attention every now and then and ask yourself if what you are feeling is your emotion alone (which is perfectly OK, whatever that feeling may be) OR are you just empathically resonating with the zeitgeist energy or group of people around you. An easy visualization for that is to imagine a force field, light or being surrounded by your favorite protective crystal or symbol. Just for a minute, let that visualization shut out the resonance and outer noise and listen. In that quiet, protected space that you’ve imagined up for yourself, what do you feel? What are the conditions inside your protective bubble compared to how they were before?

And what do you do if they are the same?

What if the call is coming from inside the house, so to speak?

I’m reminded of a couple of more quotes. Sun Tzu in The Art of War tells us “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Know your enemy and know yourself, you say? What if they are both the same?

So know your nemesis. Is there a real world threat, is what you are feeling resonance with external energies, or is the enemy within the gates?

This particular Devil card is very similar to Pamela Smith’s 1909 rendition, but it differs in a couple of ways that I think are significant.

Most notably the chained figures and the monolith they are chained to are all proportionally larger compared to the Baphomet / Devil figure on top. The face on the monolith particularly captures my attention. There is so much here.

Are you the one holding yourself prisoner? Are you your nemesis? Are you the one inside the house making scary phone calls?

Only you can defeat that nemesis.

It also brings me back to where I started with this card this morning. In true Taoist style we remember that when there is resonance there is also dissonance. If there is no enemy within, then the gate is rattling from the vibe outside of it. As Winston Churchill said, “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

When it comes to Tarot readings and professional psychic work like this, sometimes the enemy at the gate has the wrong address. This is a consideration particular to anyone who is thinking about taking on the onus of reading for other people.

Sometimes the energy at the gate isn’t yours at all. Resonance to a degree, for sure, but less of a general zeitgeist energy but an energy that is directed toward a particular client – or in this case, a particular audience. I suspect that is where all the “I don’t know who needs to hear this but…” posts on social media comes from.

That is where I am with this card today. Zero personal resonance. I am so not in a place to work with the Devil card. Still here is this message that the Tarot muses want delivered. So here we are, paragraphs into this card reading, done with the hope that it helps someone somewhere out there in cyberspace.

I hate to say it as “I don’t know who needs to hear this but…”

It always gets my hackles up when people say that. It strikes me as a bit egotistical. Ego. Now THAT is the inner nemesis of a good professional psychic. Maybe nobody needs to hear any damn thing we say, and we need to stay cognizant of that little fact. Overblown ego is a warning sign of a grifter or a sincere psychic who is struggling a bit with their own spiritual growth. Know your limits folks. All this talk about guarding your energies, guarding your boundaries, asking for help if needed and taking time to heal goes double if you read for others as an amateur, times ten if you work professionally. I think dissonance, not resonance, is the process behind the “I don’t know who needs to hear this but…” trope. That sounds like a message you’ve been entrusted to deliver, BUT it doesn’t resonate either personally or with general energies.

I’m not sure how to say it any better, but there has to be something a little more down to earth, something a little more along the lines of “for your consideration, take or leave it as you like, but this message delivery is not for me.

Nope.

Wrong address.

Sorry, try again later.

If this sparks an idea for you, great. If not, that’s cool too. There is big, clear energy with this card, but it’s 100% not for me today.

I just finished a big project that I’ll be talking more about in September. For now I’m going to go sip some iced coffee and go into self care mode for the rest of the day.

Before I forget….this is the second of two Devil cards in the Alleyman’s deck. I just read the guidebook and it talks about not owning up to your inner desires as opposed to projecting them onto other people or onto your circumstances. I guess I was in that ballpark with minding boundaries and inner awareness and all that. The artist for this card is I.S.N.Y.R. It puts a focus on the “temptation” version of the classic Devil image rather than the “evil in the world” aspect which differentiates the card from the desire aspect of the Lovers card. Hmm, maybe I should read that part of the book too. Or maybe this is my cue to sit down, read the guide book and be done with this my interpretation then theirs motif. Seven Dane Asmund of Publishing Goblin, LLC wrote the guidebook and created the Alleyman’s Tarot and is used here with permission from back in the early days of the kickstarter. I am so grateful for that! Whether a short sip or a long quaffe, this deck really is elevating my Tarot skills even after all of these years. This thing really is the Stradavarious of Tarot decks.

Just a reminder that all things TaoCraft will be taking a short hiatus mid August. Probably around the 16th to the 20th give or take a little.

Meanwhile, think you so much for listening! I appreciate you.

Thank you for any likes, subs, shares, follows, questions or comments that you can spare. I hope you’ll visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where the shop, commissions, memberships and virtual coffees all support the creation of this blog and podcast. There is a link in the episode description for podcast listeners.

Have a great weekend everyone! See you at the next sip!

Today’s Tarot: Worth the Effort

The Seven of Wands specifically is associated with effort, challenge, sometimes conflict. When you combine that with the wands’ suit meaning of your relationship with yourself (the element of fire, inner passions, philosophy, spirituality, etc.) It brings mental challenge to mind.

It may have to do with setting healthy boundaries, protecting your inner world and mental health from unhealthy connections. That is work, but it is worth the effort.

It may have to do using planning and strategy to overcome a challenge. Working smarter, not harder, is always worth the mental effort.

There is an element of success, or being on the path to success, over conflicts and challenges even though effort is required to achieve that success. On of my favorite interpretations comes from Ellen Dugan who adds overcoming conflict with “Style, wit and humor” to the mix. That always brings characters like Han Solo from Star Wars, Captain Mal from Firefly or Deadpool from Marvel comics to mind for me. Thom Pham dials in to this same energy when he portrays the Seven of Wands with Obyron, the bon vivant warrior in Game of Thrones. So the advice here would be to keep your sense of humor and meet challenges with your own flourish. That will be worth the effort in how it helps to keep your stress levels down if nothing else. Laughter is good medicine.

Wishing you a day of style, humor and overcoming any obstacles that comes your way.

Today’s Tarot: The Watcher

Apologies for the delay in posting, because, well, 2020.

On to the Three of Wands. Yes, again. Different deck, different day, same card. Cool thing happened; about an hour after I filmed the card draw above, I did a one card reading for an individual with a different deck (Steampunk, their favorite) and wouldn’t you know it – Three of Wands. This card is really trying to get our attention.

It also gives us a little insight into how Tarot can be such a broadly useful tool for something as subtle, complex and personal as spiritual guidance or personal growth. The math is pretty much un-do-able, but let’s just look at these one card daily meditation type of readings. You have one card position, with one position meaning, raised to the power of 78 possible cards, raised to the power of all the card keywords and meanings that have attached to each card over the years. Now, multiply all of that by multiple cards, various layout position meanings, different intuitive messages, different intents or flavors of each card’s message…try knitting all of that together into a coherent message that someone can actually understand and put to practical use. Now you know why we charge the rates that we do. The more cards in a reading, the more complex it becomes, and the more effort it takes to make sense of it all for a client.

The Three of Wands is often associated with things like watchfulness, active waiting, observation, proper timing, or vigilance.

Recently, the energy seemed to flow toward the watching for the right timing, watching for events to happen that would in turn prompt you to action.

Today, the energy is more toward the vigilance end of things. The watchfulness isn’t times to a particular action. It isn’t about timing your action just right. It has a more general sense. This is tied to the idea of healthy boundary setting that has been front of mind of late as well. Now that we know where the boundaries ARE, the Three of Wands is asking you to maintain them, patrol them, defend them. The words “perifory” and “vigilance” step forward. Now that we know, based on logic and historical fact, that more turbulent times are likely on the horizon, be politically or pandemic related, the card is further reminding us to guard our energy and mental health. It is always better to over-prepare than to under-react in such things, be it literal storms, public health, or your energetic and emotional well being.

Don’t forget to check out the special offers page for details about the anniversary free Tarot giveaway. Distance Tarot NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED always available to order on the home page.

Taking My Own Advice: Introduction Edition

Let me give you the one room grand tour.

I take my own advice, occasionally.

But not exactly as I write it for the general audience blog, and neither should you. This is reason, rationality and freethinking friendly Tarot. As we talked about yesterday, I’ve been intuitively getting a big picture, national level, storm-on-the-horizon-ringing-epaths’-bells sort of energy lately, akin to the vibe from the early days of 2020. Thankfully, today local energies are capturing my attention. It is a sunny peaceful morning in the neighborhood. I’m taking advantage of that and turning my attention from counting down the days until the current heat wave passes to thinking about autumn and TaoCraft Tarot’s second anniversary.

The whole thing is a little bit of a head trip, really. On one hand, the whole exercise is way too egotistical and self referential. On the other hand it is like having a birthday party for your creation-kid. Even though it is all my readings and my writing, it is also all about the readings, the blog and the books. That’s why I refuse to appear on camera on the YouTube channel. It’s not about me, it’s all about the cards and how they can help you. Same for here on the blog. But I can’t help you if you don’t know this stuff is here and. let’s be honest, I need to do paid readings to keep the business, the blog and the free social media going (I like to buy food every now and then too) so we are right back to self promotion and on and on. The best solution I know is to talk about TaoCraft Tarot as an extant thing, a place in cyberspace, a place where you can come for Tarot readings, Reiki and Meditation to help you sort through difficult emotions and just plain day-to-day living.

I am, as always very grateful to each and every one of you. If you have been here and have gotten readings here…thank you, thank you, thank you. If you are new to the blog or the YouTube channel, welcome. Let me give you the one room grand tour.

That will do something nice for both of us. Yesterday’s Five of Pentacles reading gave strong advice to batten down the hatches and set healthy boundaries, especially if you are at all empathic or energy sensitive. I’m taking my own advice. Re-introducing TaoCraft to everyone sets boundaries and reinforces our shelter from the crazy energies that swirl around out there sometimes. If you need to come inside and warm up from the storm, there are comfy chairs and a free digital one card Tarot reading over there by the front window. Help yourself.

Over here is a big table by a crackling fireplace where you can sit for a Tarot reading. Words spoken through the phone, or printed on a screen or written on a page are all the same here. The ideas, the messages, the love from the energy/spirit realm for you are all the same no matter how they are delivered to you.

On the other side of the room, there are shelves of crystals that lend their energy to both Tarot readings and distance Reiki sessions. I don’t sell crystals. That way there is no conflict of interest or ulterior motive to recommending them. But they are darn pretty, and I do have my own collection to use for Sending Stones Reiki in real life.

In the middle, here are the meditation beads I make and the ebooks I wrote, all with the same uplifting intention and empowering energy as all the rest.

Whether you have been here before, or are here for the first time, welcome to TaoCraft.

TaoCraft Tarot logo, 2020 – Ronda Snow

Today’s Tarot: Universal Experience

How compassion can flow

It’s a fundamental idea. In Buddhism, the first noble truth is the existence of suffering.

Or, as the T-shirt defining Taoism says, shit happens. The five of pentacles in Tarot reminds us of the same thing. Difficult things happen to all of us sooner or later. It isn’t for us to judge the type or magnitude of that difficulty relative to our own life experience. It is enough to know that a fellow human struggles. Big or small, serious or trivial, true crisis or laughably minor, real world challenges and emotional upsets are a universal experience. Or to put it in t-shirt terms, shit happens to absolutely everybody at one time or another.

The card doesn’t stop there. It calls us all to compassion, sympathy and empathy whenever and wherever the aforementioned shit happens – always, everywhere.

There is much going on. The energy environment (I can’t tell if it is local, regional, national or global) is starting to feel like it did back in January or February, on the cusp of the maximum lock-down we had here in the U.S. I’ve been repeatedly, for months been getting the mental image of a storm on an ocean horizon and a sense of foreboding. Over the past few days it is as if the outer bands of the storm are starting to touch shore. Yes, I’ve probably been watching too much news, and yes, it probably is tied to the toxic mashup that is American public sentiment right now. If you are to any degree empathetic or energy sensitive, now might be a good time to batten down the hatches, grab your favorite protection crystal and start reinforcing healthy boundaries between your energy and external energies. Healthy boundaries are crucial.

Compassion flows best when it flows both inwardly and outwardly at the same time.

“I kinda like it in here. It’s private.”

Mythbusters was on TV. I needed that.

One of my many, many favorite moments from the show is the time when Jamie was wearing a silver fire suit. You couldn’t see see him through the face mask at all, only hear him deadpanning “I kinda like it in here. It’s private.”

Here is why that moment comes to mind:

If you work with energy, intuition or do professional readings there are times when you need a mental fire suit.

If you want a real deal, deep dive, time tested and reliable resource on the topic, go get yourself a copy of “Psychic Protection” by Ted Andrews. It is far and away the best resource I’ve ever read about healthy psychic work, bar none. But for the purposes of our little blog post, there are two basic concepts I want to focus on: Empathic sensitivity and Zeitgeist sensitivity or energy resonance.

As I understand it, empaths feel other people’s emotions as if they were their own. The boundary between their own true feelings and the feelings of other people is often thin, blurry, or difficult to find. Very sensitive empaths regulate this through proximity. They know (or can learn) their boundaries and respect their limits. When emotional levels become too intense or overwhelming they exit the situation. Highly sensitive empaths are careful where and how they engage with crowded environments like bars or shopping malls for example. I know of two very skilled, very wise, very kind psychic readers who are selective about where they go and how long they stay in busy public places. It’s not in any way the product of anxiety or agoraphobia. It’s pure self care. It takes time, experience and a great deal of self awareness for these high vibration folks to learn where their boundaries are and how to manage them.

For those of us who are generally energy sensitive, but not emotionally empathic, it is quite a bit easier to see that boundary between our own emotions and general environmental energies. I like to think of it as zeitgeist sensitivity or energy resonance separate from any empathic process.

Zeitgeist means the general mood of a time or a cultural phenomenon. In my experience, this is the energy we tap into when we post a general reading for a blog or on social media without a specific individual in mind. The cultural mood of the time, the zeitgeist, is the general-public parallel with the higher self, spirit guides or divine that we sense in an individual Tarot session.

In times of great emergency like the current pandemic, the cultural energy is so strong, so ubiquitous, and so pervasive that the lines become blurred even for those of us who are not usually empathic. It is helpful to think of this like resonance from physics. Think of the tuned bells in a hand bell choir. If you strike a tuning fork and hold it very close, a bell tuned to that some note could in theory vibrate along with it. If our intuition is sensitive to cultural zeitgeists then we can resonate with that environmental energy. The general zeitgeist, through resonance, rings our bell too.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a giant bell-ringer for everyone. I worry for our very empathic friends. There is very real danger, illness, grief, and hardship out there. I can’t imagine any sane person who is NOT experiencing SOME level of adjustment. Imagine feeling the real things we are all facing, plus the emotions of others on top of it all. For those of us lucky enough to be safe and well at the moment, it still might be a good idea to get our mental fire suit out.

In order to do our best readings for our clients, and to maintain our own psychic / spiritual health, I think it is important for all sensitives, intuitives, Tarot readers and the like to take care of their emotional boundaries in a time like this. It is important to know what is your own, inner, real, valid, valuable, genuine emotions and what is the outside world ringing your bell.

Intention, as always, is everything. Finding your emotional boundaries and putting on your fire suit can be as simple as visualizing. Imagine yourself surrounded by white or golden light. When I was in my teens, before I was at a place in life where I could quit, I would sit in the more toxic Sunday services at my parent’s church and visualize myself wearing an orange hazmat suit. It helped. Now I have a whole variety of energy protecting, boundary fortifying, zeitgeist clarifying tools: black tourmaline, discreet pentacles and sigils, aura clearing aromatherapy spray, visualizations and more. Yes, it is all full-throttle woo woo but it has value. It helps me understand my emotions with greater clarity, it helps me understand the outer situation, and helps me keep logic and reason close at hand. That makes it worth it, no matter how woo-woo it might seem to some folks. It may take some trial and error, but you can find your fire suit too. I encourage you to find the things that help you see what is your emotion (so you can honor it) and what is the outside world pinging your boundary lines (so you can put that information to good use.) If you aren’t sure, try a little visualization and active imagination. Imagine yourself wearing a protective fire suit that keeps out any vibe not coming from your own true heart. The suit doesn’t cut you off from the world. You still feel the heat of it all. The suit lets you know that you aren’t the one on fire.

You Choose Tarot for 22 Jan 20

Right: 6 of wands. Sometimes you have to fight the war to find the peace on the other side. Protect your boundaries.

Left: 5 of Pentacles. No need to deny how difficult it is. If times are tough, face up to the fact that they are. That doesn’t mean you have given up hope. Admitting you are cold doesn’t stop the first spring flower from blooming through the snow.

Middle: 7 of Cups. A good time to choose. This present moment is the axel around which the wheel of the future spins. This is where you make the choices that steer your path where you want it to go.