Tag: knight of pentacles

Making donuts

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.

One of the best clues that your wrinkled backside is getting older is when you get the references that old an old commercial made when people younger than you don’t remember the ad making the reference.

Way back in the 1980s, a certain very popular and rather delicious donut chain had a tv ad where a hardworking and longsuffering baker would plod out of the front door ridiculously early in the morning because it was “time to make the donuts.” This repeated until one time he opens the door to find – himself coming home.

Never mind any jokes about him “finding himself, ” I don’t know how many people remember the “Time to make the donuts” commercial much less the visual reference to the phrase “meet yourself coming and going” which is an old school way of saying that you are so busy and bothered and working so hard and moving so fast that well,you meet yourself coming and going. Which is pretty sci fi violate-the-time-space continuum notion for the ancient before times if you think about it.

But anyway – donuts.

Beside the fact that donuts are a pure soul-level goodness in and of themselves especially when paired with a cup of coffee, the making the donuts thing speaks to the knight of pentacles and today’s Monday morning energies.

Some days are mystical and magical and ideal for contemplating the spiritual. Other days are for just doing, focusing purely on the physical. Some days are for frenetic effort where you meet yourself coming and going. Other days are for regular, reliable and routine donut making. Today feels like the latter type to me. Pentacles are earth element, focused on practicality, the physical realm, work and career. Knights are symbolic of action and activity. Put them both together and you have a reminder that it is time to make the donuts.

Sometimes the simplest donuts are the best. They all don’t have to be jelly filled with sprinkles on top. Some days there is nothing better than a no-frills sour cream old fashioned.

The word “plodding” comes to mind. Pamela Smith uses the posture of the horses to communicate the energies of the knight cards. This guy is standing still, as opposed to the full gallop you see on the knight of swords card. This is another reference to the solid, rooted, balanced, grounded energy that the Pentacle cards posses.

Not every moment has to be joyful. Not every moment has to be tragic. Some moments you just make your donuts without any drama. That resonates with the Taoist notion of wu wei, accomplishment without undue effort. Just because it isn’t a big struggle doesn’t make it lesser. Donuts that were easy and routine to make taste just as sweet.

By the same token, it’s not about doing nothing at all. It’s not about being neglectful and careless and just phoning in the bare minimum. Bakers who make donuts like that won’t stay in business for very long. The Knight of Pentacles today captures an energy of wu wei, of doing what needs to be done and doing it well but without a lot of unnecessary fuss or bother. It’s a day of making easy but excellent donuts.

Thank you so much for listening! Your support for this blogcast through Tarot reading purchases, likes, subs, shares, follows and Tarot Table memberships is always, always appreciated.

Just a reminder that things are going to be a little chaotic this week on the blogcast and on social media. For example, if I do a “You Choose Interactive Tarot” reading at all this week it will probably be tomorrow. Maybe. It’s spring break 2022 at our house so social media is low on my priority list. Email Tarot readings, however, are the same always. Email Tarot is open and available to purchase 24/7 without appointment.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

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Do the thing

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today its the knight of pentacles and do the thing.

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Your support through likes, subs, shares, blog follows, reading orders and the virtual coffee mug is always, always appreciated.

Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.

Knights evoke the image of action while pentacles are connected with earth, work, career, wealth, and our relationship with the physical realm.

Today the vibe is very down to earth. Often pentacles brings in an element of practicality. Today the energy is so rooted, so down to earth, so low key that it verges on drudgery instead of practicality. At the same time there is a short duration feel. It is a little like bit like the notion of just ripping a bandage off and getting the pain over with.

Today’s advice is to do what needs done, just do it and get on the other side of it.

Your emotional energy and enthusiasm are optional as long as you can ride up on your horse and do the thing and get the job done. It isn’t suggesting that we phone it in as they say, or slack off on effort. There is a knight’s sense of chivalry. Do the thing, do the job well with all of your usual brilliance and competence, just don’t waste any energy on extra fanfare or drama.

Do the thing and you are free to ride off into the sunset.

And there the energy of the card does the thing and rides off into the sunset.

These aren’t called nano-episodes for nothing. Tarot is like that. It never fails to amaze me how the energy adjusts the length and intensity of a reading to a person’s individual needs…or in this case, the individual day’s needs.

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

Short Sip Tarot: Wood & Water

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to Short Sip Tarot on the TaoCraft Tarot Blog, the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and shorts, and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. The Short Sip posts are a Tarot reading and thought for the day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.

Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.

Knight cards are associated with action, and pentacles are associated with the element of earth.

Earth – as in grounded, rooted, solid energy.

Some days are like that. When you work with Tarot most days, you can see the ebb and flow of energy. Even if you do just quick daily one card meditations over time you see the larger patterns of energy. Patterns is a little bit of a misleading word in this context. It isn’t as if there is anything predictable or regular about it. It isn’t to say there is a set pattern like day and night or the progression of the seasons. It’s more like observation over years teaches you the kinds of clouds that roll in the with the weather for the day.

The Zen proverb “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water” captures this particular energy very well. The idea idea isn’t necessarily attached to any one particular Tarot card, but it does come through Pentacle cards more often than the others. Both the suit of cards and the proverb are grounded and practical. Both remind us how important it is to balance mind, spirit AND body. Physical health supports mental and emotional health and mental while mind and spirit support the body as well. It is no better to be overly occupied with spirituality than it is to be wrapped up the the physical realm and ignore the spiritual altogether.

With the focus on balance, you would expect this energy and message to be attached to the TWO of pentacles. Often, it is. In this case there is a little extra message behind the mind – body – spirit balance idea.

Sometimes you have to DO something to achieve that balance.

Exercise. Eat well. Take a nap if you need it. Change the shelf paper. Do some mundane task that you’ve been putting off.

The spiritual is still there. There is magic in the mundane, but there is also a little mundane in the magic. To paraphrase the poet Duane Toops … a miracle is still a miracle even if it doesn’t feel like one.

A day is still a miracle even when it feels and needs to be ordinary.

Today’s Tarot: The woo isn’t everything

Gremlins

Some people blame these things on Mercury retrograde. My genX brain calls technical glitches that I can’t figure out gremlins. I still kinda want to be a computer geek when I grow up.

Just spent two attempts and more time than I wanted to spend trying to get today’s youtube tarot short to upload. I think the problem is in the processing on YouTubes end, actually. Either way, enough bashing against a road block.

In fact, that is the message this last attempt gave: put it down and come back later.

It’s a good general message. The woo isn’t everything. No every minute of every day has to be a spiritual success. Not every moment has to be some grand enlightenment. When the energy is wrong for spiritual things, and you run into one wall after another, it is perfectly OK to set aside the spritual and spend some quality time in the practical physical realm.

It’s more of the meatspace energy we’ve talked about lately.

If you want some woo…today is a good day for grounding, balancing, centering. Get your head out of the clouds and your feet planted on the ground.

It’s a good day for the Zen proverb: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Or the Alan Watts quote “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

So chop your water, carry your potatoes and peel your wood, set aside the gremlins and have a good day in spite of it all.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Big Simplification

Pick a card, any card. Well, any of three. Take your time or choose quickly. It’s your choice – like everything. If you want some extra time to ponder, pause the video then restart to see the reveal.

The weird thing is that I am finally, finally getting a sense of how to dial into these YouTube videos. The intuitive signal is on a completely different wavelength than working with an individual or writing for the blog. Actually, download speed would be a better analogy for how it feels to intuition. If doing a YouTube video is OG dial up, speaking in person is broadband. Typing on a keyboard is cat 5 hardwired cable. The message is the exactly the same. The core, underlying process is the same. It is a subtle difference from my side of the table, but on your side of the table the only difference is how artfully I verbalize your spirit message. Not that you need to know that – but I wanted to give you fair warning. I want to try something and YOUR feedback would be very, very helpful.

I’m thinking that for “YouChoose” posts, I’ll post the video and let it stand on its own. That way, you can choose your card with no potential spoilers on the page below. If anything, I’ll put a general energy, zeitgeist kind of read, like the speckled stones image that returned this week. That image may hint at a longer wave of energy akin in length to the hurricane image from last year (although certainly much different in meaning and tone.)

Once caveat in doing things that way: locality. The general cultural energy impression might be very local. It most likely will be limited to the US, the eastern time zone or possibly my million or so close neighbors here in Allegheny County. I won’t know about that part until we work with this format for a while.

I would like to know what YOU think!

Do you like the YouChoose format at all in any iteration?

Do you like the cards in print under the video or the video alone?

Is there anything else that you want to see in the blog? Tell what content you want to see, and I’ll create it. Easy as that.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Booking

Sorry about that. When I said this would post “Monday morning” I didn’t realize it would be Monday morning in some other interdimensional cross rip parallel universe Monday morning. Today has been an interesting week.

As for the cards, I’ll let the video interpretation stand. Since books stepped forward a tiny bit as the closest thing to cards-working-together theme for the week, here are some books and links that might go along with this week’s cards.

Leave a comment or send an email if you are interested in more reading suggestions – always happy to spout an opinion!

The Moon (psychic development)

  • The Healer’s Manual by Ted Andrews
  • How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews
  • Psychic Witch by Matt Auryn

Knight of Pentacles (Career Related activity)

  • Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar by James Marcus Bach
  • Kahn Acadamy

Nine of Cups (celebrations, traditions)

  • Twoseven – watch video together online
  • Allrecipes – has recipes from various traditional cuisines, American comfort food

Today’s Tarot: Two Cup Tuesday

Let’s pour ourselves a second cup and do the thing.

This is not a high wattage card today.

I thought about sharing my favorite salty language internet meme that features the Knight of Pentacles, but the energy isn’t even up to that. The earth connection and the grounded quality is so strong that it escapes levity. This card is 6 am staring across your coffee mug at a chipper morning person. This card is the zombie shuffle to the kitchen for a second cup.

Today’s energy is strongly connected to the physical realm. It is OK to set aside big spiritual questing every now and then. The mind and spirit must be balanced with the physical. This is a day to pour that second cup and do the thing. Grind. To borrow from a shoe company – just do it.

Doing is key. Knights are about action, after all. But this is effective, ruthlessly efficient action, not fidgeting, fuss, emotion or bother. Don’t waste energy on drama. “Work the problem” as was said in the Apollo 13 movie. Or as has been said “Follow the process, not the plan.” (as I read it on Tested.com – this might be my new mantra, just like “simple but elegant” got me through dissertation)

Arguably, this kind of practical, down-to-earth, just-do-it energy IS a high level of spirituality, like the adage “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” or, as I’ve often quoted here before, Alan Watts taught “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while you peel potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes.”

The practical needs done and the physical realm needs tended to, not matter what our mental, spiritual or emotional state might be. The knight reminds us that immersing in routine work or physical exercise can be very soothing to churning thoughts or upset emotions.

YouBoo Interactive Tarot: Halloween Week 2020

Happy week everyone! I have no idea when you are actually viewing or reading this, but at the time of writing it is a week before Halloween and a week before the second anniversary of TaoCraft Tarot’s second anniversary. I seems really weird to celebrate the second anniversary of what amounts to a name change and a new coat of paint to a Tarot practice that has been going since around 2003 or so (my website used to be Modern Oracle Tarot) but name changes can mean a lot. This one did to me, so there you have it. To celebrate, I’m giving away free one card digital InkMagick readings. You can get yours on the Special Offers page. All the fine print applies, and delivery time varies. Thank you everyone for reading, getting readings and being here the past few years and beyond. More important then a name, is the people who know it. Thank you.

Left: Ten of Wands. This card lives around that intersection of the mental and physical. It represents carrying a burden, particularly the mental and emotional side of weighty situation. That isn’t to minimize very difficult, frightening situations. It isn’t to minimize hard work. It is about perceptions of those very real physical situations. It is easy to shoulder very real and necessary burdens when they don’t carry the added weight of expectations or regrets. Sometimes the mental weight is the hardest to set down.

Center: Knight of Wands. Magic is afoot. But it all happens on the inside. A shift in outlook or perception can change everything. This could signal that it is an opportune week for personal growth, taking stock of the direction you are actively going and taking active steps to go a different direction if needed.

Right: Knight of Pentacles. The energy around this card feels very “hygge” or cozy. Pleasures of the senses aren’t as “adult” as you might be thinking. Enjoy innocent physical comforts, like a stretching, yoga, running (whatever your favorite exercise might be) Have a soak with your favorite bath bomb, or light a scented candle. Have a cup of your favorite tea, coffee, or cocoa. Get out of your head and appreciate the physical. Mindfulness and a Zen approach comes to mind, as with that famous quote by Alan Watts “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.” Indulge in enjoying our brief moment as incarnate beings. Imma going to knit now.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Scout, Patrol, See

Choose a card, scroll down to get your reading.

Use the video to pick a card; left, center or right. Go on quick impulse, or if you need some time to think about it you can pause the video and restart it to see the reveal. Once you have your card, scroll down for the reading.

Looking at all three together doesn’t give much of a message this week. It is all kind of low key, and more individualized than usual. Your chosen card might resonate with you as an individual more than usual. Or not. You know how these general energy, general audience readings go sometimes.

Not much going on this week by way of announcements. The anniversary month give-away continues until October 31, 2020, so visit the special offers page if you would like a free one card handwritten “mini digital InkMagick Tarot reading” by email.

The interesting thing this week is the way all three cards are coming through as more verbal than feelings or mental images. In other words, I’d call it clairaudient rather than clairsentient or clairvoyant.

Left: Two of Wands. “Look to new horizons.” The energies this week suit pushing the envelope a little. If you are given the chance to try something new, been thinking about trying something new, or are being nudged outside of your comfort zone, not to worry. Scope it out, if it seems right, why not?

Center: Knight of Pentacles. “Patrol the perimeter.” Knights denote action. Although Pentacles are often associated with career or wealth, I get more of a grounded, centered, practical energy as one would expect from the earth element. I forget the source but I’ve seen the card associated with “active upkeep” and that kind of routine, proactive maintenance is very much the energy here for this week. This is a good week to keep to the schedule, patrol your fence, repair what needs repaired, and do other such mundane chores.

Right: Six of Cups. “See with the eyes of a child.” Disappointment and frustration come from reality being different from your hopes and expectations. If you don’t know (or care about) what to expect, like small children at play, you can take things as they come. No expectations, no disappointment. See things at they are, then you can use your imagination to invent a way to move a little closer to your dream.