Tag: jojo’s bizarre adventure

A little love for here and now

You know that light bulb that has been on since the early 1900s at that fire department?

According to wikipedia, the Centennial Light has been in almost continuous operation since 1901 (longer than the RWS Tarot has existed!) with untold shifts of first responders who can attest to it. It has never burned bright – maybe 40 watts when it was brand new – but it has burned long.

That is the kind of energy this week seems to have.

The here and now deserves our love and attention just as much as our dreams and aspirations do.

The four of pentacles is the fading energy card. Pentacles have to do real world practical things, often money, wealth or career. The four in particular has to do with watching the budget and minding your money, always a good thing. But taken to extreme, it can also symbolize greed or hoarding based in fear. The fact that this card is in the fading position hints that the issue around physical things or monetary / budget issues are likely to be short-lived. The advice is to not let fear drive decisions this week. Logic and practicality is always the primary advice for money matters.

In other words, be careful with the budget, use logic and practical knowledge and don’t take financial advice from Tarot cards.

The Chariot is our current energy card, and the core of this week’s message. It is from the major arcana so even if it is a low-wattage kind of week the ideas here still carry importance. The message may speak softly, but it really really means what it says.

The Chariot card is classically about focus and attention to the present moment. I typically see it during more high energy, high intensity times, but the message today is still the same: Pay attention.

I often call this the ‘test pilot’ card. If you are flying a supersonic jet, you have to keep your mind on what you are doing as you are doing it or bad things are going to happen and happen fast. Whenever you see the Chariot card pull your head out of the past or future or wherever else your thoughts are lingering and be mindful of the present moment. Be as fully in this moment as you can be.

As I write this I am reminded of Polnareff and his Silver Chariot stand from the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime. I have no remote idea what that has to do with anything, but if it resonates with you, you are welcome to the connection.

There we have body and mind. The four of pentacle makes a point about the physical realm. The Chariot makes a point about mental focus. Now the Hermit, also a major arcana card, brings spirit and emotions into the mix.

The Hermit card almost always has a lamp or light of some kind on it. It can symbolize enlightenment or wisdom in a high spiritual sense. In this time, it feels like the wattage is turned down on that too. The Hermit’s light is not aiming for ultimate truth, but rather simple illumination.

Whatever your emotions are, point the light at them and see them for what they are. Accept them as they are. You don’t have to act on them. You don’t even necessarily have to express them, unless you want to.

Whatever they are, let them see the light of day. Are you happy? Enjoy! Are you angry, anxious, afraid, or stressed? That’s OK too. Let the so-called negative emotions have their moment in the light too. Accept that they exist and are what they are. Abide with the tough stuff for a little while. You may be surprised how simple acknowledgement and allowing them to be will help uncomfortable emotions to simply dissolve. Or at least lessen intensity for a while.

The trick is not to let that turn into dwelling or energizing them. That’s where we get back to the central message of the Chariot again – of bring our mind back from whatever caused the difficult feelings and refocus on the present moment.

In this present moment, I have a few fast reminders for us. The comments are open to everyone here on SageWordsTarot.com plus there is the contact form on the Ask Me Anything page where you can, you know, ask me anything. There is a chance you might get a one card Tarot reading in reply or that your questions might inspire a Q&A blog post. Of course anything that goes into the blog is always very, very edited to protect privacy.

Also a reminder that none of this is monetized. I don’t see a penny from any advertisements you see, so these free Tarot readings are fueled by you through private Tarot reading purchases, paid subscriptions and virtual coffee tips not to mention plenty of real world coffee too.

Thanks so much for reading! I’ll see you at the next sip!

Ride and Abide

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today, ride and abide with the Knight of Cups.

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

Today’s card is the knight of cups. I’m using the Alleyman’s Tarot deck, with the knight of cups card by Lacy Martin & Christine Scanlon.

The knight of cups has a little bit of surface contradiction to it. Knights are action oriented, while cups are water and emotions. At first glance, the obvious interpretation would be put your feelings into action.

That might be the case for you, that is the right thing for some days, but I don’t get a sense that is the message we need today. That isn’t the overall vibe I’m getting this morning.

Card reversals pop to mind a little here too. It’s a fair question. If this is about NOT acting on something, why wouldn’t the knight card be reversed?

We’ve talked about this in previous episodes where the card was reversed. Reversals aren’t all that. Like I said then, I take all aspects of the card into consideration during a reading be it positive, be it negative, be it neutral be it what have you. Today’s card is an example of that multifaceted consideration of an upright card.

There is nothing blocked, turbulent, complicated or cautioning about this energy message, so the card is not reversed. It sounds a little like a double negative when we talk about it this way. It’s sort of like the cartoon where a student tries to trick the teacher into letting him out of class by asking to please not never be dis-excused to the restroom or something like that.

“Sit down Carl!”

It also reminds me of a TikTok that I watched earlier today from Senator Cory Booker. If you have access, I encourage you to look for it and watch it too. It posted on Tuesday April 26, 2022 and was captioned “How I learned a lesson in nonviolence.” In it he talks about how emotions inform us less about the people and situations that provoke them and more about the places where we need to heal and grow. He wanted to act, but instead found a way to nonviolently abide with the situation and his emotions about it. Again, I urge you to find it and watch it and hear Senator Booker’s wisdom in his own words in this short but powerful video.

Here is another less elegant, less kind, less wise but perhaps more relatable example. It imagery is closer to older decks like Marseille and Waite Smith decks. On these you have your standard issue knight in shining armor on horseback, so you can read in all the usual tropes about chivalry and defensive honorable combat and so on. He is holding a chalice, which presumably holds water or wine or some drink.

Now, bring in a fairly well known anime. In the early seasons of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, our hero Jonathan had to fight an enemy while holding a goblet of wine without spilling any in order to graduate to the next level of his Sendo (Hamon) training. Good-guy hero in action with a glass of wine: See the similarities?

You have to be fully accepting and comfortable with your cup of wine to fight without spilling anything. You have to be fully comfortable and accepting of your emotions to move with them without sloshing your stuff all over other people. In short,make friends with your emotions as you move through your day.

Today’s advice isn’t to act ON our emotions but rather act WITH them. Today is a day to ride AND abide.

Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support including likes, subs, shares, follows, questions and comments.

Thanks again. I’ll see you at the next sip!

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The Craziest Diamond

I’ve been an anime fan since Kimba the White Lion reruns circa 1970.

My daughter is an anime fan too (so proud!) She and I have been watching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. We’ve made it to season 4 “Diamond Is Unbreakable.”  It would take an entire blog to begin to explain this behemoth of a story line, but let’s just say a  “stand” is like the personification of a superpower. “Shining Diamond” (the name is a reference to the Pink Floyd song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”) has a superpower where the things it hits, attacks or destroys reassembles to a changed condition that is better than the original…or it can directly heal wounds and injuries inflicted by others.

What if this ability is an analogy for one possible silver lining in all of this? I’ve been talking with friends and clients about how these pandemic times have been affecting energy sensitive people. What if one silver thread in this terrible dark cloud is a re-alignment on a spiritual or energetic level, akin to Shining Diamond’s healing objects or people who were previously torn apart?

What if our social connections are being stretched thin, even being smashed to bits in order for them to be put together into something new and better? What if we are being separated to make room for new relationships that resonate with our spiritual growth and our hearts rather than social connections of convenience?

It is a common thing for friendships to fade during times of spiritual growth and evolution, especially for people in their 20s and 30s. Old friends drift apart (or blow apart) and new, more attuned connections fill the space left behind. What if this is happening on a global cultural scale? What if we are being pummeled apart in order to be reassembled along like-minded spiritual strata? What if we are being blown out of our old tribes in order to find the tribe that matches our hearts rather than our habits?

I’m not saying that is what is actually happening, but it is an intriguing thought experiment, don’t you think?

There is nothing like a little social distance and time alone to put you face to face with your own heart and mind. Yogis, gurus, monks, shamen and spiritual people of every tradition have deliberately sought this kind of isolation. Stay home orders and social distancing has put us all on our own little mountaintop spiritual retreat. Or it should. It says something tragic about the inner peace of those who can’t make some adjustment at the cost of human lives.

For the fortunate, who have food, shelter, a job to do from home…for those, this is a gift. If, under those fortunate circumstances, “social distancing” is uncomfortable for you, could it be because you are uncomfortable with yourself? If you are uncomfortable in your own company, this is an ideal time to figure out why.

When you are good with you, it is a lot easier to be OK with other people. The popular thing on social media among the uber-positive happy people is to advocate for “self-love”. That seems strong. Why not aim for a little self-OK first? Self-love flirts a little too much with narcissism for my taste.  Self-acceptance seems more real to me.

The first step to being OK with others is to be OK with yourself. We are one. We are all connected. Bigotry, hatred and intolerance are twisted forms of self-loathing.

A little time apart might help that. It’s like we are being hit full force by Shining Diamond. We are being blown apart to give us the opportunity to reassemble healed.