Tag: heart of stars tarot

You are alive, aren’t you?

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: You’re alive, aren’t you?

Hello Sippers! I’m so glad you are here.

Today’s card is the page of swords.

The card is full-on advice mode today, no sense of caution and as straightforward as it gets. Pages are learning, swords are mind and intellect. Learn something. It’s that simple.

From Arthur Waite’s authority, overseeing, and vigilance to Dugan’s intense young man to Andrew’s unexpected energy or magic, the Page of Swords can cover a lot of territory. Today I see it akin to the Thom Pham, artist and author of the Heart of Stars Tarot deck used with his permission in the blog video today. The page of swords is all about curiosity and learning today. Pages are knights in training, so page cards tend to carry elements of ambition, action and unrealized potential. Swords are associated with mind, intellect and the element of air. For all of its scope and nuance, today the page of swords is being – sorry about this – straight to the point.

When we hear about life long learning, it is easy to think of senior citizens getting long delayed college degrees, or some big project like learning a second language. It doesn’t have to be anything of that magnitude. Lifelong learning is learning as long as you have life. You are alive today aren’t you? Learn a little something. It doesn’t have to be rocket surgery. It might just be learning to put a little less mayonnaise in your egg salad tomorrow, or where the best parking is at that new store, or when the next season of your favorite TV show starts. It can be anything. Science it up. Not everything has to be super intellectual. There are reasons the human species has a reputation for poking things with a stick to see what happens. Give something a go. If things work out, great. If not, you’ll know not to do THAT next time. Wordle it up. Read the back of the cereal box or do a crossword puzzle. If you survive that stick poking episode, doing some little thing with words will help keep your brain awake too.

This reminds me of the Neil DeGrasse Tyson quote

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Let’s give it a try. Let’s learn just how far lifelong learning and a little kindness can get us all.

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Or tea. Or soda. Or adult beverage. It’s up to you.

None of the TaoCraft Tarot online content is monetized, which means that all of this is 100% supported by you, the readers and listeners, through your private reading purchases, Tarot Table memberships, and the buy me a coffee virtual tip mug. Any likes, subs, shares, follows, reading orders, memberships or virtual coffees you can spare are always greatly appreciated.

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

Path Forge

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today features the Queen of Wands and forging your own path forward

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Available most weekdays here, on the podcast, Instagram reels and YouTube #Shorts.

Today’s Card is the Queen of Wands.

Historic realities about queen aside, in Tarot Queens are leaders. Today the image that comes to mind is a unique and strong leader akin to a Boudica or Elizabeth the First sort of figure. This is not a person to be messed with. As I read them, the Queen and King cards are two sides of the same coin. Queens and Kings are the yin and yang of leadership. The king protects the boundaries facing outward and the queen organizes, inspires and nurtures the inner kingdom.

Wands have to do with the element of fire and the inner world, which translates to creativity and passions.

Very often queen cards turn up for people who are actively engaged in caring professions. Absolutely the advice is to care for oneself. Our caretaker are the ones who we want to have the strength and mental, emotional and physical reserves and resources to continue their vital work. At the same time, they are the ones most likly to overextend, and some of the most vulnerable to burnout. In a rare social conversation with a physician, I’ve learned that the pandemic is as crushing and exhausting to healthcare providers as it is portrayed on the news. I didn’t intend for this to veer into a public service announcement, but please do every little thing you can to keep yourself healthy so they don’t have to do it for you in a bigger way.

That being said, in this age of the pandemic, the notion of self-care and trying to protect the care-takers is a constant undercurrent with the queen of wands card.

Today, however, another energy steps forward as well. It has that “step up” strength and leadership quality that all of the queen and king cards posses. It is akin to that notion of taking care of the caretakers by lessening their load by being responsible for yourself. But it is a little more abstract than public health.

Today’s energy is about your inner passions, whatever they may be, and independence.

Following your dreams isn’t easy. Sometimes it exacts a high price in the form of independent creativity. You would expect the word “forge” to step forward with a swords card, but today the word isn’t very literal. In this case the word “forge” is pointing toward the act and process of creating something brand new from raw materials. The energy is about something cut from whole cloth as they say…if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphors. Forges and cloth don’t mix well in real life.

For our purposes, it is a little more apt. The fire and flames imagery offers a hint at the kind of dream following the card is pointing toward. This is no ordinary goal. Beyond some misty, ill-defined aspiration this is talking about your passion.

It’s not about some burning, all-consuming enthusiasm about the thing in the moment. It is about the effect the object of your passion has on you. What is it that lights you up and makes you happy? What is it that, to your mind, makes sense out of everything else? What is the one thing that makes you feel like it is all worth while?

Anything that improves the quality of life that much might ask a lot in return. Finding and following a passion that gives you happiness and meaning to life can exact a high price. The price it asks is nothing less than asking you to create something brand new. It asks you to carve out your own path and forge ahead, very often independently and on your own.

Right now the energy isn’t so much focused on the diadactic steps or about how you forge the path to following your passion. Right now, the first step is to be clear about what that passion really is. Second, think about the personal and emotional costs to following your passion. You may well be asked to act independently, responsibly, and alone. That kind of independent creativity is the flame in which life paths are forged.

Thank you so much for reading, listening and watching today’s short sip Tarot. Short sip readings and other Tarot content is available here, on the TaoCraft Tarot podcast, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and more. I appreciate your support through likes, subs, shares, follows as well as the virtual coffee mug and memberships on Ko-fi. Thanks again and I’ll see you at the next sip.

The video features the heart of stars tarot deck by thom pham, used with his kind permission. For a limited time you can order this unique deck at the heart of stars tarot website.

Dearly Beloved

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.

Perhaps you.

Today’s Tarot: Twinkle On Little Star

I’m not the deck collector some readers are, but I have accumulated a fair few. A favorite is the Heart of Stars Tarot by Thom Pham who very graciously gave his permission for me to share the images (and the ones from his new deck, The Runes of Mannaz) with you.

It’s one of my favorite decks for two reasons. The most obvious reason, of course, is the gorgeous artwork. The other reason is his use of famous characters and scenes from movies and TV for most of the cards. That is just how my brain an intuition works. Pop culture is a wonderful communication tool. Not everyone is familiar with the classic Tarot images, but lots and lots of people are familiar with movies and TV. Movies, songs, TV shows come to mind all of the time when I am reading for clients It works. It communicates the idea of a card in a familiar, relatable way far over and above the classic symbolism of the Marseille or Waite Smith Tarot alone.

For example, when I drew the Star card today, the Madonna song “Lucky Star” from her self titled 1983 album popped to mind and is ear-worming there as we speak. That is in no way paranormal considering how much I like 80s music and the fact that this was one of my favorite albums in its time. But at the same time, it can’t be dismissed out of hand when it comes to understanding the card’s message for today.

Since it’s actually been a long time since I’ve heard the song, I googled the lyrics to see if there were any message hints there. It’s just a nice little bubblegum pop puppy-love kind of thing. The line that caught my attention is “you shine on me wherever you are.” That in turn reminded me of how we all, everyone on Earth, see the same stars in the same patterns. Stars connect us as a unified audience for the night sky as well as reminding us that we are, all of us, connected to the larger cosmos. Stars made the stuff that we are made of – literally. As Carl Sagan famously said, “We are star stuff.”

It’s significant, too, that The Star is one of only two cards in this deck NOT based on a famous character or movie scene. The woman on the card is anonymous, the every-woman or every-man. She is both uniquely individual and she is all of us.

Even with pop culture references, getting to the right message for a client (or blog/podcast/youtube audience takes a few steps. Sometimes, like today, a card will daisy-chain widely different ideas into one cohesive thought.

Lucky star reminds us we are connected, stars shine on all of us wherever we are. The figure on the Heart of Stars card is both unique, unknown, and symbollic of any or all of us. We are individuals, yet deeply connected. We are individuals together. Although the small points of light in the sky might look the same, there are many sizes and types of stars, all at a unique distance from us that is constantly changing. Stars are individuals together in the cosmos, as are we.

The Star, and the domino chain of intuition reminds us that we are each wonderfully, gloriously, beautifully unique and wonderfully, gloriously, deeply connected.

Today’s Tarot: Eight of Wands

“Work the problem people! Let’s not make things worse by guessing.”

– Gene Krantz in the Apollo 13 movie, written by Jim. Lovell, Jeffery Kluger and others.

There are a lot of things out of our control at the moment, but you are still the human inside the superhero suit. What would Tony Stark do?  Stay chill, work the problem and do what needs done – even if what NEEDS done is to cool your jets at home.

In light of the covid-19 pandemic I’m suspending in-person and party Tarot readings for a couple of weeks so we all can do just exactly that. It’s like I’ve been telling you for years, distance Tarot really, truly is 100% the exact same identical reading you would get in-person … the only difference is I use electrons instead of air molecules to get the message to you.

It works just like buying anything online. Go to http://www.TaoCraftTarot.com and use the secure PayPal buttons to order the layout you want (prices range from $5 to $40) Send an email with your question, topic, or permission for an open reading (or to schedule your session if you order a phone or skype session.

https://youtu.be/V5qyOKmg2tI

12 Second Tarot: Knight of Pentacles

Settle into this present moment, this current situation and grind out what needs to be done. “…work the problem” as Gene Kranz said in the Apollo 13 movie. Look for practical, physical realm actions to take.