Awakening (quote)
Tag: meditation
Tree Sitting
It doesn’t matter who YOU think the wisest man who ever existed is, the point is that their philosophy – whoever they were or whatever that philosophy is – it is derived from introspection. The introspection is the thing.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Admittedly, my brain is getting in the way of intuition a little bit today. Or maybe this really is the energy message. I don’t know. I’ll let you and how much you resonate with the card decide that piece of it.
Often the four of cups has to do with someone who is sulking, or closed off. I see it often in relationship questions, which fits the suit of cup’s symbolism and connection to love, romance, and inner circle closest relationships of all types. It is often an energy of futility and unrequited emotion. It’s not good news in that context. Adages like “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,””throwing good money after bad” and “throwing pearls before swine” come to mind. Often this thread of meaning shows up in readings that are asking the “will I get back together with my ex-” variety of questions. You can’t control how other people feel and you can’t predict what they will feel or do, so the answer in that circomstance is sadly, no, the focus is internal. The message then becomes the advice of introspection….look within to do what you need to do to heal and hopefully progress to the move-on energy that the 8 of cups can offer.
But that, as they say, is another story.
Today, the card skips over all the closed-off energy and relationship advice. Today it cuts right to the chase and talks about introspection.
It resonates quite a bit with “Mr. Venn And His Nifty Diagrams” from yesterday on Sage & Stuff, my personal blog. That post was inspired by Hustle & Meditate the substack newsletter by meditation coach Jim Martin aka “The Unusual Buddha” plus an instagram post by I think it was Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch that spoke of mysticism and mystery teachings within witchcraft and magick.
In a nutshell, they both said the same thing although from different areas of expertise and separated by several months in time. The things they were saying were influenced by different cultures who came to similar conclusions a long time ago….despite being world apart in a B.C.E time where there was no trade or internet connecting northern Europe, India and China.
Both the Martin newsletter and the Auryn Instagram post conclude with the notion that, while we have much to learn from the masters who came before, we must each walk through the portal of learning for ourselves. We each have to walk our own path, carve our own way, experience the mysteries of the universe for ourselves and look at the moon with out own two eyes.
It is a bit of Isaac Newton meets Bruce Lee. Newton acknowledges that quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” end quote. Centuries later and inspired by a completely different culture, Bruce Lee admonishes his student in the movie Enter the Dragon quote “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” end quote.
Blind faith takes you nowhere. Accomplished masters can show you A way, but only you can walk it. Only you can see your true path through your own thoughts, contemplations and introspections.
Nineteenth century journalist, philosopher and father of Frankenstein author Mary Shelly, William Godwin once said that “The philosophy of the wisest man who ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.” Who you consider to be the wisest man person to have ever existed is up to you, but that too is derived from introspection – yours. Introspection is the thing, with this card and Godwin’s quote, but more than that, YOUR introspection is the key thing. The wisest person who ever existed may be a guide and a giant for you to stand upon, but it is still you that must do the standing, walking and moon gazing.
Thank you so much for reading and listening! I appreciate any likes, subs, shares, questions or comments that you can spare.
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Thanks again. See you Monday for the next short sip Tarot!
Birds of a Feather Inspire Together
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is The Star from the major arcana.
Birds of a feather flock together. Like attracts like. You are what you eat.
Adages and Proverbs become adages and proverbs because they have proven themselves true for a long, long time. And they tend to apply to a variety of situations.
That whole birds of a feather, like attracts like thing is huge advice for lonely hearts in search of a soulmate. In other words, be the soulmate you want to bring into your life. Do you want the romance of your life to be with a person who is all tied up knots and focused solely on their own feelings or would you rather be with someone who is happy and engaged with life? Be the bird you want to feather with.
It isn’t all soulmates. Like attracts like applies to many other things too. It begs the question of what, exactly, attracts you.
Human beings, it seems, are absolute geniuses for projection and confirmation bias. We see our own desires and our own opinions everywhere we turn. Who you follow, the things you support, the things that inspire you tells the outer world as much about you as much as those things tell you about the outer world.
Curate your inspirations. Actual conversations with actual people aside, would you want to have your social media “likes” as real world meat-space friends? Would you want to be part of their group?
Social media platforms are literally called a feed. We consume media. What would happen to your body if you constantly fed on toxic things? Why would you take any less care with the media you consume? Block and unfollow buttons are powerful protectors is you use them.
I love my social feeds. I’ve met beautiful, kind, wise people from opposite ends of the continent that I never could have met otherwise. Instagram is especially fun since I tend to be a bit visual. My feed is filled with artists, photographers, poets, Taoism, meditation, witches, civil rights groups, some of the best Tarot readers out there, recipes, coffee memes and a fair bit of yarn porn.
There are some pretty wonderful things out there in cyberspace, not just doom and gloom. Of everything out there, what things grab your attention? Who inspires you? The Star card reminds us to take care that those things and people are worthy of our attentions and our aspirations.
Thank you for reading, listening and watching. The blogcast and youtube channel are not monetized and depend on your support. Email Tarot purchases and Tarot Table memberships contribute toward creating TaoCraft Tarot online content. Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated too.
See you at the next sip!
The deck pictured is Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell used with permissions granted on llwellyn publidhing dot com.
Getting the band back together
Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars Tarot is hands down one of my favorite decks. The colors and artwork are beautiful plus his writing on each card is adept and thought-provoking. Best of all, most of the images are based on movies and television.
That is exactly how my intuition often works. Almost every reading has a movie or song reference tied to one or more of the cards. Those kinds of references have multiple benefits. Not only does it communicate the message more clearly to me so I can do the best possible reading for the client, a pop culture reference is something that we might have in common which makes it very easy to describe the energy to them. I always mention any pop-culture references that come through when I ‘m doing a reading. Not only does it clarify the current message and improve overall communication, the client may have some private connection to the reference that gives extra background context that the card alone couldn’t give.
Pop culture references by way of intuition keeps Tarot relevant to our time at the same time that it’s connecting us to timeless wisdom.
Today’s motion picture feature is the Blues Brothers. I’ve been earworming “we’re getting the band back together” the whole time I was writing a post by that name on my personal blog. I’m getting the band back together, except Tarot is singing lead this time.
A long time ago in a blogisphere far, far away, I started doing Tarot readings to help finance my tuition and dissertation. After I finished getting my Ph.D off the internet like Dr. Duffenshmirtz, I tried to bundle the Tarot under a holistic health consulting practice I was trying to start on the aforementioned blog. It didn’t work. So I put the natural health work under my name, kept the Tarot separate on what was then ModernOracleTarot.com with its Tarotbytes blog and added Quirk & Flotsam on Etsy which again combined the meditation tutorial supplies with Tarot readings.
With all of those names and scattered focus, it was a little bit of a hot mess.
BUT it was a hot mess that I learned a tremendous amount from.
One of the most pivotal things that I learned was that I am not a healer.
I. Am. NOT. A healer.
As much as I may have wanted to think of myself as a healer at one point in time, I’ve come to realize that it was an aspiration that came from an unhealthy place, not an authentic one. Psychic advisor, spiritual guide, coach, tutor, Taoist, Buddhist, atheist, witch, knitter, hockey fan – sure, why not? But healer? No thank you, not any more.
I never set out to be a teacher, but that is largely what the natural health has always been about. Old school naturopaths in every discipline and culture used education as a way to make a lasting impact on their patient’s overall health and well being. By teaching and encouraging a healthy lifestyle, these tutorials can give you the tools to build a healthier lifestyle for yourself. They call it complimentary care for a reason. I’m not here to heal you any more than I’m here to predict the future with Tarot.
I’m here to encourage, inspire, facilitate processes and spark ideas. Healing implies fixing a specific something which equates to giving a person being given that one proverbial fish. I’m here to teach you to fish or at least give you some ideas how to improve your own fishing net, so to speak.
It wasn’t my intention to become a coffee sipping yoda, yelling suggestions and encouragement from the cave opening while Luke fought his dark side, but here we are.
Cue the yoda related pop culture song reference.
That is why this time around I’m calling them natural health tutorials. I give you information so you can decide if you want to pursue ongoing in-person treatment with a practitioner near you or just generally help you craft a healthy lifestyle for yourself.
Whatever you name it, this time around, all the original band members are back together under one Tarot themed roof, or at least under the Reiki menu tab. Click HERE for more information or to schedule.
OR Tarot is always here, no appointment needed. It’s all here for you to explore.
The choice, as always, is yours.
YouChoose Interactive Tarot
Happy Holidays everyone!
This is the last YouChoose reading of 2021, and if everything works the way it should, it will be the first video in the podcast stream before the name changes in January 2022. I’m changing Clairvoyant Confessional to TaoCraft Tarot Podcast, and it will be, at least partially, an audio version of the blog here. This is still going to be the only place with ALL of the content in one place, so I hope you will sit tight and follow the blog BUT you have the option to listen if you prefer.
Speaking of listening – I’ll leave you to listen to the YouChoose video. I hope your time of winter quiet and contemplation is a wonderful one.
Holiday Hours: still have no idea exactly what time things will happen this week. All I know is that E-mail Tarot is OPEN all season long. The holidays can be as weird as they are wonderful, as disconcerting as delightful…all alliteration aside, if a Tarot reading would be of some comfort, I got you. Order anytime, 24/7 no appointment needed.
In-person and Party Tarot are currently closed and will re-open based on covid-19 community transmission rates as reported by the CDC for Allegheny County PA. As of today, 12-14-21 the transmission rate is HIGH.
Tesla coils and the Ringing Bell
Today’s “sip of tarot” card was the Chariot.
I’ve been thinking some more about it, so I guess today we are getting a whole cuppa Tarot here on the blog. This is one of those print/blog only posts exclusive to the website I’ve been yammering about. I hope you’ll take a look at / give a listen to the new “sip of tarot” (almost) daily one card meditation readings that are all over the place too. Besides all that, I’m feeling very fond of the Chariot card today. It’s energy is pointing toward mindfulness more than mere attention.
Mindfulness is not only consecrating and connecting but it is protective, healing and self-saving on the esoteric level. Here’s what I mean:
Many people who are drawn to Tarot (or any psychic/intuitive style) readings tend to have an above-average degree of energy sensitivity themselves. In late 2019 and early 2020 I had a long run of clients and blog readings that focused on resonant energy. It’s one of those physics things that I may not explain well. The best example I know came from being in the room during a violin lesson. When one string is pressed correctly to make a certain note, when you play that string, a nearby open (untouched) string that is tuned to that note will vibrate too. If you correctly press an E string to make it sound a G note, the open, untouched G string will vibrate and sound a little bit too.
Intuitive, energy sensitive people people will resonate with communal, cultural, zeitgeist energies much like the G note open string vibrates along with the fretted-to-make-it-a-G-note string in the violin example.
Pay attention when that happnes.
On the physical level, pain is a signal that something is wrong. All sorts of physical symptoms can signal a problem.We pay attention to those, or at least we should. If the danger is high enough, our reflexes will pay attention for us.
The same is true in the emotional realm. Feelings of something being off or wrong or troubling are worth your attention just as much as physical symptoms. The tricky thing, especially if you are energy sensitive, is knowing when a bubble of emotion is a genuine internal state that needs your attention when that thing you feel is actually a resonant vibration, a response to external energies.
When you are a professional reader, knowing that boarderline is part of the job. Take it from someone who has been paying conscious deliberate attention to that boundary line between internally generated feelings and externally sources resonance for a looong time – it’s HARD to do. It’s easy to think that funky mojo feeling is all you, and equally as easy to blame your stuff on the outside world (looking at you Mercury-retrograde-o-phobics)
It’s hard, but isn’t the place for blame, either. The trope of “setting boundaries” tends to feel like blame or fault or failure if one energy is mistaken for the other. That isn’t the case. From one point of view, those boundaries are just arbitrary. Our inner emotions are part of the outside whole just like we as individuals are a seamless part of the entire wholeness of the Cosmos. No matter how much we might wish otherwise, the outer world does have an effect. The mind-body connection flows both ways.
So how do you know when your bell is ringing for your attention or when the outer world is a hammer ringing your bell?
Protect.
Think of that boundary between inner emotion and outer resonance as a protective layer rather than a border fence. That is especially helpful when the uncertain feelings are frightened or anxious, as was the case early in 2020 pandemic an lock-downs. For a sensitive, the fear and worry of that time was almost palpable.
The energy has indeed shifted. More on the out-there social zeitgeist energies another time.
Imagination is fuel for intuition. Visualization is imagination in overdrive. Imagine…visualize that there is something surrounding you and insulating you from outside influences.
One way to think of it is like a force field or energy shield in science fiction. Or think of it like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak. Or a tent or room or cave that you can go into. Here is a fun one for you science and physics folks – a Faraday cage. Metal cages isolate the equipment inside them from stray radio waves. Or the metal cages that contain tesla coil arcs (like “Arc Attack“)
But anyway….the next time you feel worried, or anxious, or just not yourself, or that things are just feel off and you can’t figure out why – imagine you are surrounded by your energy-isolating protection layer of choice.
If it is outside cultural group energy ringing my bell, then the imagined shield feels good. It feels like a sigh of relief. I remember the first time it worked for me. I’ll spare you the details, but I was faced with a barrage of negativity and a legit stressful family-in-the-hospital stress.
You know that feeling when the neighbor stops using the leaf blower and there is a sudden, jarring, blissful silence? It’s kind of like that. My first thought was HEY!! It’s actually HAPPY in here! In that moment, you know it is the outside and not an internal emotional injury.
If you imagine eliminating the outside influence, but still feel something is off. Pay even more attention. But for goodness’ sake don’t take that as personal blame….take it as a hint to get help or at least do some serious self-care.
It isn’t a 100% guarantee either way, but it is a helpful mental exercise. Since that experience of shutting out the waves of negativity for a little while, it is my go-to visualization/meditation when things feel a little hairy. It refocuses my attention away from the stress and on the here and now. If it’s happy “in here” then it’s just resonant funky mojo and will pass. If it is gnarly “in here” then it’s time to do something, although that will often pass too.
Today’s Tarot: Coffee and Contemplation
I’m so not a morning person.
One of my absolute favorite lines from any series ever was in Stranger Things when Sheriff Hopper said that “mornings are for coffee and contemplation.”
*raises mug of dark roast to THAT idea*
The Four of Cups has that sort of feel to it. Cups cards reflect close circle relationships. You can’t get any closer to you than you. Tarot is first and foremost an art form of personal development and personal internal spiritual practice. All that crime drama horror movie predict the future fix your love life nonsense is exactly that. Unsurprisingly, all of the cards have some aspect, even a minor one, that can help us to engage with life in a more satisfying way. You know, like the “personal enrichment” use in the small print disclaimer.
When I say satisfying I mean satisfying like a hot cuppa coffee on a day that starts just a little too early.
The Four of Cups has been read to mean all sorts of things: dissatisfaction, (look at the guy’s pouting toddler body language on the card) moping, abiding, meditation, abiding with emotional pain, thoughts or activity below the surface, serenity, meditation, contemplation.
The idea that steps most forward to my mind is the meditation and contemplation one.
I ‘hear’ (meaning that the intuition comes as mental words instead of mental images, so no, when I say that I’m not hearing things for goodness’ sake) – but “meet your meditation where it lives.”
And I do mean meditation.
For some a long run is meditative. Knitting is meditative. Braiding bullwhips is meditative. For others it is the classic cushin sitting zazen TM meditation style. As I understand it, there is a lot of overlap between zen, ch’an, taoist and transcendental meditation styles and it seems that everyone who tries it, loves it. Meditation is a pleasure. If not, I suspect you’ve been told something if not wrong, at least unhelpful.
But anyway, the point is you can sit under any tree to meditate. You don’t have to sit under a tree at all. Meditating is easy. Finding where and how it naturally, easily fits into your life is a good first step.
Even if your first meditative step of the day is contemplating a good mug of coffee.
Confession #3 : The floor is your friend
I’m a clairvoyant and I have a confession: The floor is my friend.
I write a lot of one card meditation readings for the TaoCraft Tarot blog. I pulled the Ace of Pentacles, which means that it’s a good day to make friends with your floor.
I’m not suggesting anything weird. Well, at least not THAT weird. You won’t even have to sweep up when you are done. All you need is your feet.
We hear about being “centered” or “grounded” but what does that really mean?
In physics, or at least in my puny understanding of it, electricity goes along the path of least resistance. That’s how lightning rods work. Metal wires provide a safe path for lightning to go into the ground instead of blasting its way through a building.
The emotional kind of grounding is similar. Instead of re-routing a lighting bolt, emotional grounding reshapes strong emotions.
So what does lightning and emotions have to do with the Ace of Pentacles? Emotional grounding is one of the classic meanings for the card. Pentacles as a group are associated with the alchemical element of earth. The literal earth is a safe place to send lightning but symbolically the earth is a safe place to send strong emotions like fear or anxiety.
Connection is key to both types of grounding. Wires connect electricity to the ground. When we feel connected to another person, to a group or to some identity outside of ourselves it helps with the emotional type of grounding.
The mind is a powerful thing. Imagination and visualization are like the wires in a lightning rod. You can use them to make friends with your floor and find a little emotional grounding.
The science kind of grounding was discovered through experiments. Let’s try a mental experiment to see if we can find some of that emotional grounding.
Put your feet flat on the floor.
That’s it.
It doesn’t matter if you are sitting or standing. Just pay attention to your feet touching the floor. Allow yourself to be aware of the actual physical sensation. Let your sense of touch remind you that you are connected to the floor
… and to everything else for that matter. You are part of this whole planet and a member of the entire human race whether you feel that connection right now or not.
It’s a big planet. Earth can handle your worry, your fear, or your anxiety. Imagine any stress that you have right now going through your feet, out into the floor then safely out into the ground – just like lightning goes through the wires of a lightning rod. Give it a try for a few seconds. Right here, right now as you listen to this, feel the floor through your feet and let the floor carry your stress safely away.
Now, how do you feel? How did that little experiment work for you? If you were feeling good when you started, has the quality of that feeling improved at all? Maybe it feels a little more solid or a little more durable than it did at the beginning.
If you were feeling stressed at the beginning of the experiment, did that feeling change at all? Does anything feel even a tiny bit calmer or a little bit more confident?
If not, that’s ok. Failure is always an option in these kinds of exercises, no harm done. You can learn by doing no matter what the results are. It is an easy thought experiment to do. Try this visualization a few different times and you’ll get a sense of whether it is right for you or not.
That’s it. That’s the confession. When emotions run high, the floor is our friend.
Do you have a question about clairvoyants or tarot readings that you’d like to have answered on the podcast? Please visit the clairvoyant confessional podcast page on taocrafttarot.com to submit a question. It doesn’t cost anything except a minute of your time. The link is in the episode description. While you are there, feel free to browse the website for the print only Tarot readings and other blog content.
As always, any podcast follows, blog follows, likes, or shares that you can spare are always greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for listening! I’ll see you on the print side and talk to you next time in the clairvoyant confessional.
Today’s Tarot: Fear and Indecision
Fear and desire are at the root of indecision. We desire to do the right thing. We fear the consequences of doing the wrong thing. We fear harming others with the consequences of our choice. We desire to avoid the responsibility of choosing. We want to avoid the nuisances of minor choices. Fear paralyses.
Consider the alternatives, have a plan B, remind yourself if/when you can reverse directions should you unintentionally make the wrong decision. Think: is your decision (or lack of one) motivated by some desire – including th desire to avoid? Addressing fears about potential outcomes might make a difficult choice little bit easier to make.
New Podcast episode coming soon.
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Tree Thinking
Timing is a thing.
The queen of cups and the four of cups have been showing up a lot lately. Most of the professional Tarot readers I know have had the experience where a message for us will piggyback through the same cards as the message for our clients. Especially if there is a repeating meta-pattern. You’ve seen it. Remember the way Pentacle cards kept turning up and gave a pattern of advice that seemed relevant to the general pandemic zeitgeist in addition to the individual messages for the blog (that you saw) and the individual messages (that you didn’t see)
The same thing happened here. There has been a little tweek to the website and business-y end of TaoCraft that has been niggling at me. It was one of those six of one vs half-dozen of the other kind of things. It was super minor, no hurry stuff, so I just hadn’t yet done a reading for myself (it is, after all, that elfcon 1 time of year and handmade gifts don’t care about pandemics) Then, wrapped up in a bow like a gift from the universe, cards piggybacked my answer in along with all the other messages.
Not only does that give me my personal answer right along with the other information, it reaffirms what I’ve observed and believed alabout Tarot all along: The right message will find you one way or another. It might be through cards that repeat until you get the clue. It might be a sudden epiphany of unrelated dots that suddenly connect. It might be pure synchronicity. But one way or another, your guidance will come. My advice is to, whenever you can, respond to the tap on the shoulder before life has to hit you in the face with a frying pan.
The four of cups is associated with meditation. I tend to fall into the trap of thinking that an answer will come DURING meditation time itself. But that isn’t always the case, I’ve found. Ideas still come at the usual weird times as when I’ve let meditation practice slip. The light bulb still clicks on in the shower or while washing dishes or on a long drive. That spontaneous process seems to happen more easily and with more clarity during days and weeks when meditation was part of the overall mix of life.
Life will bring answers sooner or later, in one form or another. The right message will find its way to you. A relaxed, quiet mindset helps that process flow.
Answers come in their own time and timing. We may not all be able to go sit under a tree and think. But we can all make time to just let our thoughts flow by. In those times without striving or grasping, the way is made for the answer to find us.
Sage Words Tarot 