re-posted from Sage’s Other Words blog with permission.
2022 was a long year. It’s nice when time lingers. Hopefully that gives us the luxury of savoring the present moment, as each moment is unique in all the history of the universe, never to return.
Each moment seems miniscule, negligible compared to that enormity, but it is exactly that enormity of time that makes each unique moment all the more precious.
Looking back through energy eyes, or energy third eye as it may be, last January seems distant, different, almost unrecognizable. Tiny as it was in the cosmic perspective, 2022 looms large in the personal perspective. Tarot occupies a different space in the schedule, but also in my mind and energy and attention.
It’s all about the Tarot. It’s always been about spirit and intuition and living in this precious unique moment. The business part of Tarot needed to change. The hustle diminished the flow.
The business part is dressing down, changing into metaphoric pajama pants and fuzzy bunny slippers. The focus isn’t crazy pants promotions or regularly posting social media.
The focus is you.
My time, experience (did I mention I’ve been doing this since the early 1990s?) and my skill is worth the price of a session the same as the time and experience and skill of a therapist or an artist or a writer or a personal trainer or a plumber or anyone with any of the other skills we humans value is worth the cost of their services.
There is another shared thread between the art of therapy and art of Tarot readings. Neither has a bit of benefit unless the person getting it wants it. you can’t push either one on people. The best service we can offer is to create and facilitate a healing space for those who want, need and seek it.
Because of that, I’m not going to worry about posting every single on social media. Dang it, I’m a writer and a Tarot reader, not media personality. Instead of trying to be one, I’m rolling with my strong suit and putting my energy into doing the best Tarot readings for you that I can do.
Despite dropping the word Tao from my web presence, I’m following last year’s natural flow of energy from Yang to Yin. I’m closing party Tarot and reducing the available appointment times for in-person Tarot. I’m putting all of my energy into doing the email readings that I love, love, LOVE to do instead of bleeding off energy to the side hustle of promoting and marketing those selfsame readings. My attention is shifting from doing all of the “right” business things to holding space for us to work together and making a little intuitive magic. If you find me and this magical space, wonderful! It was meant to be. Let’s get to it. You are welcome here. Let’s listen together and find out what spirit and intuition have to say to us.
While a Tarot reading in any format is a spiritual space, apart from the world, the world is still waiting when we are done. There is a hustle to do, even if it isn’t related to marketing and promotion. The practical, logical business side of being a professional, trustworthy Tarot reader still exists. I have bills to pay the same as everyone else. Any support you can give, word of mouth referrals, virtual coffees on ko-fi, repeat readings, anything will help keep the stressful side of social media hustle out of our Tarot energy flow. None of it is really going away. It really isn’t as big of a change as it might sound. It’s all just getting way, way more comfortable and casual.
Speaking of social media, I’ve left Twitter and migrated to Mastedon where people really are the algorithm. I’m @sage@mstdn.social. I meant it when I said “Boosts matter. They are how we find each other. There are a lot of tremendously fascinating, cool human beings out here in cyberspace and boost help us find – and appreciate – each other and that is the whole social media ballgame. Thanks everybody *raises coffee mug* cheers!” I won’t be promoting the blog, podcast or readings there, but if you want to say a real hello, I’m there at least once a day.
But all of this can start tomorrow. After the weight of an old year rolling away we’ve all earned some quiet and routine, like the hush of January snow. I wish you a light and lovely New Year.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot Blog and podcast.
Today’s episode is truly short, because I want to leave you with this one simple idea: indulgence can serve as a way of showing gratitude.
There is a tendency, at least in our puritan-influenced American culture to hold back the things we find most precious. From a place of fear, we lock life away in an attempt to revere and protect it.
I tend to think and feel that way. Probably far too often.
That is where the indulgences of the holiday season serve an interesting subtle purpose. Yes, by all means it is – and should be – a celebration and a stress relief. But it is also a means of expressing gratitude for life and all the little pleasures it provides.
For example, a cookie isn’t just a cookie at the holidays. It is a treat and a tradition. Eating that cookie and a half dozen others with joy and abandon is not only celebration, it our gratitude in action, our thankfulness for the flour and sugar in the cupboard and the bakers in our grocery stores. It is a child-like enthusiasm and unpretentious thank you.
Now substitute cookie for your favorite parts of whatever winter holiday you happen to celebrate.
And with that, I reach for another cookie and raise my gingerbread spice coffee to you in a wish for health, happiness and prosperity for us all in 2023!
I’ll talk to you in January, but Zombie Cat will be stopping by later this week with his so-called predictions for the New Year.
Merry Happy Everyone!
Thank you all so much for reading and listening in 2022 and always! I’m still pondering a name change. TaoCraft Tarot resonates with me because it is a reflection of my deep-down, life-long philosophies.
BUT
It is more important that this Tarot website resonates with YOU. Tarot readings, the really good ones, are a conversation and a collaboration between the reader and the sitter (seeker, querent, whatever term you like to use) I want to make this a warm, inviting cozy place for us both to contemplate Tarot and related topics together.
Conversations are made up of words. Words are the net we throw over ideas to draw them into our conversation.
In 2023, TaoCraft Tarot will (probably) become Sage Words Tarot to match my personal blog. It’s still me (under my pen name Sage) and we’ll use our words to talk about Tarot and do readings for you.
I hope everyone who has followed this Tarot work under Modern Oracle (1002 – 2018) will stick around through one more, hopefully more welcoming name change.
Every day can be new year’s day. These cards show the energy around to help your fresh start happen.
Today doesn’t feel like the day for the annual tongue in cheek New Year’s reading with a bunch of rubbish predictions.
While rummaging around for easy throwback content this week, I found this old post from August 2021. Weirdly, it feels like as good of a New Year’s reading for the new calendar year in January as it did for the new school year in August.
August cards aside, I think this year is going to be palpably different from the past half dozen or so. I get the feeling it is going to be a year of…OK.
It’s OK to be ok. There is a real risk of slipping into seeing ourselves as victims and falling into a lava-pit of blame or continuing the acid-bile anger and hatred that has been so stoked over years…no, decades. It is OK if you don’t feel euphoric or joyous about 2022 considering what the world has been through and still endures. OK is OK. We could all do with a little luke warm, middle of the road cozy goldilocks zone, I think.
In 2017 it felt like a zombie apocalypse with a feeling of impending doom considering who was about to be sworn in as president. Then, after a swirl of disaster and destruction on a political level came 2020 where every intuitive’s bell was ringing red alert for one reason or another. The reading for that year gave a mental image I still clearly remember. I can still see that U.S. map with tiny tornadoes all over it followed by the mental image a hurricane on the horizon. 2021’s reading brought the mental image of peeking our head out of a mental and emotional storm cellar to survey the damage.
This year continues the narrative…but with a whole different feel. In my mind’s eye it is the same disaster scene, but the sun is brighter this time and we are all fully climbing out of the shelter, not just taking a cautious peek to see if the coast is clear. The mourning and cleaning and binding of wounds is beginning. It all hasn’t ended, but we may well be at the beginning of end instead of the end of the beginning like we were a year ago.
Mourn. Heal. Sweep up. Abide with this precious moment we have now. This isn’t a time to be paralyzed in terror of an uncertain future. This isn’t the time to dwell in resenting the past. This isn’t the time for trying to recreate a past that will never be again. This is our time to lay the foundation for a future that is right for for us, right for the times that are the here and now, not for the forces that created the disaster that has so profoundly changed us over the past 5 or 50 years. When Ghandi said to BE the change you want to see in the world, I think he meant BE as a very active verb. It is time to protect the important things that were almost lost, and time to create the important things that were neglected before. It is time to live and do and be.
It doesn’t start on New Years Day. It starts every day. Every minute. Each new breath can be a fresh start. Inhale deeply.
My New Years wish for you is that the first thing you can be is at peace with the moment we are in, even just for the moment we are in it. One moment strings into the next. The colors and surroundings and circumstances of that moment constantly changes. Any tiny moment of inner peace we can capture within all of the changes need not transform along with everything else. If we are a little careful and a little mindful, a moment of peace is a moment we can keep and revisit.
This is the post from August 2021: “Every Year Has a New One In It”
A bunch of new ones, actually.
When something is a circle, it doesn’t particularly start or stop at any one place. That is true of a year. Not only is it a circle, it is kind of an arbitrary way to chunk up time into manageable pieces. People invented the year as a way to describe time. Naturally, one of the best ways to do that is, well, nature. Seasons turn in the great circle of a year (yes, I know seasons are caused by planetary tilt and orbit which is actually an elipse, but I’m in no mood for pedantics)
Either way, when and how you mark the new year is pretty arbitrary. Celebrate it any time you like…or multiple times. Perception and emotions change in a blink. Each new moment can be a fresh start. Any day can be New Year’s Day.
This is that new school year time of year. We parents, I suspect, are a bit sentimental at the passage of time. Students, I suspect, are a mix depending on how they feel about school. I’m not sure what anyone is feeling or doing with the pandemic sized wrenches that have been thrown in everyone’s schedules.
I’m a fan of Fall, so I always look to this part of the year with a fairly high degree of anticipation. Even now that I’m no longer connected to the school year per se, I still feel a sort of anticipation. It brings the hope of cooler weather, back to business and a more predictable work flow, and of course, pumpkin spice everything. Harvest and Halloween as the mark of a new year resonates with me as much as confetti and champagne in January, maybe more so.
It felt right to do a Year Ahead reading today.
I’m still trying to think of a better name for this layout. If you have a suggestion, please, feel free to drop it in the comments. By any name – any day is a good day for a new year. All you need to do is choose your moment and begin. Two “nine” cards is particularly draws my attention to September. Whether you are connected to the American school year or not, it feels like September might be an opportune energy environment for productivity. The song “Danger Zone” comes to mind, especially the part about “overdrive” In all fairness and full disclosure, that is when I’m planning to let some schemes out into the wild, so this bit might be projection on my part…take all of that with whatever size grain of salt you’d like.
Like the year ahead layout says, let’s begin with right now.
OK – back to New Year’ Eve, in December 2021. I’m going to follow an intuitive impulse right now and re-read and re-frame these cards for the actual New Year tonight. You are welcome to watch the original reading on YouTube, on the blog, or through the link in this podcast episode description
I would say the Nine of Cups still applies right now. We are finishing up the Fall holidays and that energy still resonates as much at the end of the season where we are now as it did at the beginning when I first pulled the card. Keep it up, in other words. This seemed to be a subdued year as far as the holidays were concerned. Warm, cozy, intimate small circle gatherings, connecting with your closest of close relationships is the thing for the winter too. That’s the part to keep up more than any indulgence or raucous celebration. Even though the Fall season has ended, its energy lingers a bit.
Cups is often the suit of romance. The winter card, the Two of Cups from the August reading is still a perfect fit, even as we begin the winter instead of looking ahead to it from the early days of Fall. (If you are wondering, I’m mentally doing the arms up for-the-win, stuck-the-landing gesture. I love a good intuitive hit.) This is a season where little things means even more than usual and this is a season to lavish warmth and TLC on those you love. The Two of Cups is the card of committed, intimate relationships. It often goes with weddings, and marriage. As every jewelry commercial on television will tell you, this is a good time of year for that sort of thing too. No matter what the relationship is, by any definition, give it as much warmth, appreciation, attention and tender care as you can muster this season
For Spring, The High Priest, I ‘hear’ “Teach them anew.”
I’m glad that for whatever reason I picked up this deck for the reading back in August. This deck is my favorite for the High Priest. Right now it definitely has that shamanistic, keeper of the mythology sort of feel to it much more than the social convention, pope-ish rules and regulations energy that so often comes with the Pamela Smith and Marseilles artwork for the card. It make me feel that it might just be a mild winter and will let us turn to spring quickly and easily. It has a heady, philosophical feel about it. It has a “teach the children” feel about it. Care for the little ones. It is a time of gentleness and appreciation for nature. and following the flow of things in the process.
Full disclosure, this might be a private issue popping in, so please forgive this break from my usual rules about this kind of topic…but I feel pushed that someone else out there might benefit. My recovering fundamentalist brothers and sisters….if Easter is toxic for you, don’t do it. Consider this a cosmic permission slip to reject, avoid or run away. This isn’t a rear for spiritual law and order. This is the year for spiritual diversity and inclusion. If a particular tradition speaks to you, then yes, by all means follow it fully. If not, by all means follow whatever spiritual path that allows you to live a life of compassion and contentment and be at peace with yourself. In my mind’s eye, I see the High Priest as the Dali Lama who said “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” The spring energy pulls us to kindness and teaching it by example if nothing else.
The Nine of Swords is another card where I love Ellen Dugans interpretation and Mark Evans’ representation. Calling it a “drama queen” sort of card is just the energy for summer. Here I’m reminded of the Disney TV show “Wizards of Waverly Place” where the mom is made into a local internet celebrity with a montage of her telling her kids to “knock it off!” This card is playing the “knock it off lady” for us. There are enough real world crap to deal with without adding psychological drama on top of it all. This is a call to “knock it off” and get over ourselves and get to whatever work is at hand. It will really be time for storm clean-up during the sunny days of summer, metaphorically speaking.
The Page of Wands still fits as the year card, too. Pages are symbolic of learning. Wands are symbolic of our inner world, our inner passions. Wands are related to the element of fire.
The word “crucible” just stepped forward.
The heat and pressure of the past several years may have changed us on a deeper, more molecular level than we realized. 2022 might be a year of getting re-acquainted with ourselves. May we all find more strength and peace and health and happiness and love and kindness than we expected.
Thank you again for watching, reading and listening. I hope you will join me in 2022 for more short sip daily readings, you choose interactive readings, the new membership tier on ko-fi plus a few exciting new things that will unfold probably over the winter season. Of course, private email readings are always available with no appointment needed. Your attention and support for all of this means so much. I appreciate each of you. Thank you and Happy New Year to all.
The card deck pictured is Witches Tarot with artwork by Mark Evans, used under the permissions granted on the Llwellyn publishing website.
When something is a circle, it doesn’t particularly start or stop at any one place. That is true of a year. Not only is it a circle, it is kind of an arbitrary way to chunk up time into manageable pieces. People invented the year as a way to describe time. Naturally, one of the best ways to do that is, well, nature. Seasons turn in the great circle of a year (yes, I know seasons are caused by planetary tilt and orbit which is actually an elipse, but I’m in no mood for pedantics)
Either way, when and how you mark the new year is pretty arbitrary. Celebrate it any time you like…or multiple times. Perception and emotions change in a blink. Each new moment can be a fresh start. Any day can be New Year’s Day.
This is that new school year time of year. We parents, I suspect, are a bit sentimental at the passage of time. Students, I suspect, are a mix depending on how they feel about school. I’m not sure what anyone is feeling or doing with the pandemic sized wrenches that have been thrown in everyone’s schedules.
I’m a fan of Fall, so I always look to this part of the year with a fairly high degree of anticipation. Even now that I’m no longer connected to the school year per se, I still feel a sort of anticipation. It brings the hope of cooler weather, back to business and a more predictable work flow, and of course, pumpkin spice everything. Harvest and Halloween as the mark of a new year resonates with me as much as confetti and champagne in January, maybe more so.
It felt right to do a Year Ahead reading today.
(I’m still trying to think of a better name for the layout. If you have any suggestions, please drop it in the comments. I’ll do a ‘year ahead’ email reading for you if I pick your name for the layout.)
By any name – any day is a good day for a new year. All you need to do is choose your moment and begin. Two “nine” cards is particularly draws my attention to September. Whether you are connected to the American school year or not, it feels like September might be an opportune energy environment for productivity. The song “Danger Zone” comes to mind, especially the part about “overdrive” In all fairness and full disclosure, that is when I’m planning to let some schemes out into the wild, so this bit might be projection on my part…take all of that with whatever size grain of salt you’d like.
Like the year ahead layout says, let’s begin with right now.
********
Speaking of seasons and the equinox – That’s when the $10 off special price (website only) for the 7 card email Tarot reading disappears. Until then, you can get a full 7 card reading (the same layout used for in-person sessions) by email for only $1 for each year I’ve been reading Tarot cards.
Tarot isn’t about predicting the always changing future. Tarot is about navigating and adapting to the future. Tarot doesn’t tell you what is going to happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
2021 is HERE. Now what?
Everyone and a monkey’s uncle are all making resolutions, breaking resolutions, swearing off things, going on diets, declaring their word for the year. I have questions.
How does a resolution fit into the big picture, connected everything in life? Is it a temporary goal or a permanent lifestyle change? Why do something new for the new year at all? What if you aren’t organized enough to drum up even a poorly thought out hot take new year resolution? Do these start-of-year resolutions really fail, do we really give up on them, or is it really just a sign of adapting to evolving circumstances? What if….seriously….what if resolutions don’t last long because they weren’t the right resolution to make or just weren’t needed in the first place?
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems to me it is less about the details of the resolution itself, and more about the process that the new year milestone triggers: evaluate -> adapt -> execute. Resolutions might just be a little frivolous fun and a new year tradition of sorts. That’s cool. If that’s the case, then it is no big deal when they don’t work.
But if you make a serious resolution, it’s because you’ve identified something to change. It might be a problem to fix. It might be a goal to work toward. It might be a consequence to avoid. Whatever the specifics may be, the bottom line is you have evaluated the situation and found something you want to change.
A martial arts teacher once said that if you keep doing what you are doing you will keep getting what you are getting. If you evaluate things and like them and want to keep them…cool. Just keep up what you are doing. If you take that look, and find something to fix, change is necessary. You have to adapt what you are doing to go in a new direction.
Easy right? I don’t think so. I’ve never found it to be that easy. Humans are pretty complex creatures. No one change is all it takes. It is a process, and we usually are juggling several processes at once. It isn’t about just a one-off resolution one time in a year. Solving problems and improving life is a multi-step process. Along with evaluate, adjust and execute, sometimes you have to throw prioritize into the mix too. That’s where the “TimeFlow” reading can help.
In general, Tarot is broad and intuitive, which allows it to be holistic. It can help you see which area needs attention, and where to focus your energies. This layout helps put things into first things first order. Not to get all yin/yang and such again, but it is a balance. Tarot, like life, is big picture and holistic but this particular layout helps you see the smaller, more manageable steps within that whole. It helps you find both the one resolution and see the whole process, both. It is helpful any time of year, or multiple times per year. Or at least I’ve found the structure useful. I hope you will too.
The TimeFlow layout has 4 cards:
Let It Rest: A watched pot never boils as the old adage goes. Some of the best food has simmered in a slow cooker all day. Good things can take time. This card symbolizes an area of life that needs some time to simmer, time to develop, maybe a little time left to it’s own devices. This card let’s you know when something needs less time and attention from you, and is often a validation that it is OK to back-burner an area of life and come back to it later. It shows where you have put too much time and energy unnecessarily.
Let It Go: The key word here is GO. This is a spring house cleaning sort of card. This hints at something that can be taken to the curb next trash day. It might be something minor (throw out those dead batteries in that one drawer) or it might be major (no, your ex isn’t coming back, so move on) but either way it is a clue to disengage your attention and energy. It shows where you may have been wasting time, energy and emotion.
Que It Up: Timing, they say is everything. I have no idea where the adage came from or what it is originally about, but in this context it is about energy flow. Sometimes the wind is at your back and things flow easily. Other times you are fighting the currents, stuck, stagnant and going nowhere. This may be something that was rested in a previous reading. This may be something where, as another adage says, the tides are turning. This is an idea or action whose time has not yet come, but is worth investing some time and attention because soon the flow and tide will be right. Or if you are more baseball minded – this is the energy and idea that is in the on-deck circle. Don’t let it rest totally, but get ready, but this thing’s time is coming.
Let It Roll: This is a clue where the energies are flowing. This is the thing whose time has come. This card is a hint at the priority issue where your most focus attention and energy is most needed.
When I do these readings, it has the same general pattern opening and intuitive summary closing as all the other layouts, to general intuitive impressions, crystal energy and/or aromatherapy suggestions to come through.
If you would be interested in trying this layout, it is available on the home page HERE for $20 with secure PayPal checkout. For fastest service, please use the “contact merchant” button or send an email to taocrafttarot@gmail.com with any topic, question or request an open reading.
You have to HAVE a plan before life, circumstances and general random crap can blow it all to pieces. Life can get pretty Darwinian sometimes. Adapt or die. But you have to have something TO adapt. You have to be in the water before you can go with the flow. Plan/adapt, yang/yin: I doubt anyone is surprised to see me go kind of Taoist with all of this.
My original plan lasted all the way through 9 am yesterday. So step one is declare time and calendars to be merely arbitrary (they are) and just roll all of this out now instead of a nice, neat Monday morning. This is my general game plan for 2021, subject to change. Everything is, subject to change that is.
Video/blog combos twice per week: YouChoose week ahead on the weekend (or early Monday morning) and Today’s tarot on Wednesdays
One card Tarot readings on the blog other days as often as possible, with longer reads sprinkled in as the inspiration (or reader questions) hit.
No more cutesy pants marketing promotions. The prices are very affordable and the quality of the readings are high. What I offer is a solid value as it is. I’m good at this. I love doing this. I’m here to help. Let’s do some Tarot together.
20% of the proceeds from all one card distance Tarot readings by e-mail will be donated to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank throughout the year.
No more seasonal shenanigans. All the readings I do are available all of the time. You can find a price and layout to fit any budget, mood or question, all on the home page.
Announcements weekly in the youchoose posts, or in the blog / Twitter for emergencies/cancellations
Expect delays nights, weekends and U.S. holidays.
In-person sessions and parties will remain closed until the Halloween season 2021
Comments and social media are OPEN. Talk to me people! Let me know the kind of content you like, don’t like and want to see and I can, you know, adapt. (comments are still curated and spam is still obliterated in a blinding flash of hellfire)
That being said, let’s DO this thing.
The energy IS different than it was last year. I still get the mental image of the U.S. map with lot’s of little tornadoes all over it, but they are fading. I also get a dry, windy ‘aftermath’ feeling, like a scene from a disaster movie, with a feeling like coming out of the storm shelter with a rock in the pit of your stomach as you see the damage, and start to process what just happened and that it was just as bad as it seemed. Or maybe that is just my gut twisting when I hear how many people traveled over the holidays. We’ve turned a sort of corner, but now comes damage assessment, realizing the losses, and the first inklings of the beginnings of the beginning of recovery. Don’t put away your chaps just yet. There is still plenty of Mad Max style dystopian post apocalyptic energy out there. They aren’t kidding. It is probably going to be a dark-energy winter, at least locally (U.S. vs global) Spring and summer have that ‘aftermath’ feel. I feel pretty optimistic about Fall, although I usually do since it is far and away my favorite time of year.
Nature is adapting, but it is also cycles. No new forward looking new year planning is complete without a little retrospective. Thank you all for reading, following, commenting, liking and making this all worth doing. I’m grateful.
The idea of time niggles at me when it gets close to a new year. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Doctor Who. Consider this if you will: Time is arbitrary and a portion of time is as much under our control as it is for the fictional Gallifreyans.
Actually, not time itself, but rather the way we name and talk about time is arbitrary. This present moment is the one time under our control.
Right now for me it is a Friday night in November 2020. Cool. Gregorian is good. According to the Julian calendar, it’s something like two weeks ago. 2020 a crazy year? No problem – just call it 5780 as it is on the Hebrew calendar. Let’s hear it for 2563 B.E.!
“Time has no meanings except the ones we give.”
I honestly don’t remember if that is something I read, saw on a poster somewhere, or if is from one of the poems I chucked out in the final edit of Triquitera – but it captures the niggly idea about the arbitrary side of time. Take Thanksgiving, for example. It’s less the day than it is the things we DO. No doubt holidays are deeply tied to the time of year in their aesthetic and energy. I suspect it comes from a time when we celebrated the natural seasons rather than cultural or religious things. Thanksgiving is, essentially, a harvest festival. Regardless of season, couldn’t any gathering with family to enjoy a special meal be Thanksgiving? If you can’t celebrate on the exact day you usually celebrate, would it be any less meaningful if you did the exact same things with the exact same people a week later? Or months later?
Have you caught where this is going yet? Yes, I’m looking at you bare faced germ bags that value your individual fleeting entertainment over human life. Cultural events and social stuff change all the time. It won’t kill you to stay home, wear a mask and celebrate differently this year – but catching a potentially lethal contagious illness just might. Or kill someone you love. Or kill someone that someone else loves. If you put your “freedom to celebrate the holidays” over life and love, then you are a slave to present moment, not a master of it.
With the slightest effort we can all be Time Lords.
We are the ones to place meaning on time…we are powerful enough to observe and celebrate whatever thing at whatever time we choose, either individually or collectively. Thanksgiving or Christmas or what-have-you can happen any day or time that we say it happens. That’s exactly how it all started. Thanksgiving happens on the fourth Thursday in November in the U.S because the 1941 congress said so. Or it is celebrated the second Monday in October because Canada said so. Christmas is the 25th of December NOT because of anyone’s actual birthday, but because Emperor Constantine ordered it – probably as a tactic in archaic culture wars.
Holidays and traditions derive their meaning from the intense personal emotions and connections we place on them. If we give holidays their power, then we have the power to assign when and how they happen. If by necessity, the time and manner of celebrating a holiday has to change for the sake of human life, so be it. We have the power to change it. We have the raw power to imbue any time, any place and any activity with all the love, all the emotion, and all the meaning of a holiday. We have the power to help each other through the normal, natural feelings and disappointments that come in times of change and uncertainty. And we have the power to change it all right back again when the crisis is over. We can dominate time through compassion and adaptation. We can take time itself in our stride if only we have just the tiniest bit of the compassionate, protective strength that the Emperor card teaches.
Or, if you prefer, the lesson the Grinch teaches. Even if a green furry dude take all the stuff, the holiday still happens. Even if one year out of your life is different, the holiday still happens because your intention makes it so. Holidays happen inside of you, not out in the world in the best of times. If you give the day meaning, if you suffuse any time with emotion, meaning and commemoration, then that holiday – that time – is yours.
It’s just too soon. After the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference, I can’t see the word “seasons” without giggling. ‘Year Ahead’ reading works, after all that’s what it IS, but something more creative might be fun for the holidays don’t you think? I got nothin’ so I need your help coming up with a new, fun name.
Comment on the page linked above, and the winning layout name (as chosen by me) will be announced here and on social media December 1, 2020. If multiple people submit the same idea, the first one received gets it. No monetary value, entertainment only, all policies and restrictions apply, void where prohibited, swim at your own risk, no lifeguard on duty, wash your hands and wear a damn mask.
Click play to see the cards for this reading. If you were to order a Four Seasons distance reading for yourself, it would work exactly like this one, except it would be a photo of your unique card layout, not a video of the card draw.
The Cards Are:
Winter (now-March) The Hermit
Spring (March – June) Queen of Pentacles
Summer (June – September) Ace of Swords
Fall (September – December) The Empress
Year (as a whole) The Sun
General Pattern
Every year, it has been fun to play with the idea of predictions. With all the social media zeitgeists, precedent defying politics here in the U.S. and assorted crisis around the world, the energies look like a swarm of tiny tornadoes more than any clear path. This is more like a weather report than a prediction about how 2020 will go. The word “unstable” comes to mind just now. When I drew the cards, I did with the intention that this reading will help someone somewhere who reads it, and capture the energies well enough to help us all navigate what could be a truly unpredictable time.
Three major arcana cards hint that it will be a high energy year, again my attention is drawn to volitility. Major arcana cards typically hint at big energies, and times of significant choices. I am reminded of that adage of where there is chaos there is opportunity. In some readings I’ve done lately there has been a ‘choose’ energy…lots of opportunities, lots to choose from. In this case, it feels like it is hard to choose because every time you do, the rub moves out from under you. The sense of it is “choice is your security, but entrench at your peril”. Choose, pick a direction, choose SOMEthing to be your guiding star. That inner structure, that skeleton, will be your salvation among the chaos, BUT remain adaptable. Be willing to change, adapt. In my minds eye, I see that contest show “Face Off” where they make masks and costumes. They have a ridged cast of their models face, and they design the costume in clay on the form underneath for a custom fit. If things don’t work with the original design, they change the clay on top and make changes, but the solid form underneath stays the same so the end product still fits the model, no matter how many times the initial clay design changed. The same seems important here, for this year as a whole…the Sun represents steadiness. Usually the format for a reading is to talk about an individual card in it’s turn. Yet, here, the sun and stability steps forward right away in the ‘general pattern’ part of the reading structure. So we adapt. But we keep to the structure otherwise so we can move through the reading in a way that makes sense. (If you would like more behind the scenes information about how all of my readings are structured, click TaoCraft Portfolio free download)
The minor arcana cards include two special cards, a queen and an ace. Pentacles (in some decks coins) resonate with the element of earth, and reflect our relationship with the material world. Swords resonate with the element of air and can hint at either action, intellect or our relationship with culture and authority. For both of these cards I feel pulled more to ward the more contemporary relationship with the material world / culture than with the older elemental associations.
Winter
The Hermit is a good card for winter time. Winter is a time when maximum yin energy is the norm. The weather is cold, we naturally hibernate a bit. While we are home in our cozy clothes, sipping tea or hot chocolate or what have you, it is a good time to think and plan. Activity is largely mental and intellectual. The light on the Hermit card seems very important. Read, listen, watch…however you take in new ideas and inspiration, do that. Think of gathering wood in the distant past. It was fuel for not only survival, but preparation for the coming spring. Feed your mind and creativity, gather what you need and get the rest you need so you can spring into action. Once the winter passes and the energy shifts, the shift happens quickly. Here I get mental images of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and the starter’s gun at a track meet sprint.
Spring
The Queen of Coins is all about “hearth and home”. Queens are a caretaking, nurturing sort of leadership. The energy points to “bloom where you are planted” particularly where work and career is concerned. If you want a change, it is a time to lay a foundation to make a smart, safe move later in the year. This is not the energy for a flamboyant walk-out. If you are thinking more in terms of promotion or working within the system where you are, this is your time to shine. I can’t quite pull it into focus, but there is a reference to some saying about a lotus blooming in mud. Be the lotus in spite of the mud. Energies are favorable for making the most of things as they are. If that doesn’t work, keep an eye out, lay the foundations for opportunities to present themselves later on. There is also a sense of literally staying near home. Staycationing might be a better choice than traveling.
Summer
The Ace of Swords has to do with creation, creativity. Steve Jobs making a ding in the universe comes to mind here. Swords denote action, but at the same time are association with doing, making, creating, and our relationship with culture and society at large. If you are a politically active rabble rouser…get to rousing, Civic duty looms large, be in a campaign, which of course speaks directly to the US presidential primary. This is politics as bloodsport, no one can stay on the sidelines. It really is the crisis the media has portrayed it to be. “Things are getting real up in here” comes to mind.
On a more personal level, if you have been wanting to shake things up, and the “bloom where you planted” energy just isn’t working out, this energy is more favorable to make a move, especially if you have done your homework and laid your foundation during the winter and spring months. That energy feels especially strong later in the season, and may spill over into the Fall.Do it right. Do it with courage, strength and integrity. This is your time to put your ding in the universe. Rise.
Fall
The Empress is about nature but also about bringing about something new. Often the card is associated is motherhood, and the Empress on the card is often drawn pregnant. It feels like coming to term. This was one fast growing baby (flash pop culture reference: Renesmee in Twilight.) There is a sense of completion or coming to full term. Here all the swirling energies start to find their footing again, and all the changing and adapting may slow just a bit. Projects prepared for in the winter/spring, and begun in the summer will either come to completion in the fall or come to a place where you can more reliably see the road ahead. Decisions become a bit easier, planning moves from short term fast adapting to something more long term.
Year
The Sun card stepped forward early. The advice about having strong inner armature that is able to adapt and change very much stands. Now I see jointed armature for a statue…a bendable metal skeleton that holds the weight of the sculpting clay that can also move and change. The early appearance of the card was a reassurance for us. As chaotic as the spring and summer may be compared to winter and fall, the sun always rises, where there is yang there is yin, chaos rises, chaos falls. I’m not touching the election results with a 20 foot pole, but whichever result there is, the response will be vigorous. There will either be great ecstacy, or a deep entrenchment and readying for more storms to come. Either way, Fall will let the pressures of spring and summer escape for a time. There will be a relief of knowing, a moment for a breath, then move on to whatever is next.
The pattern seems to be think and prepare, decide, adapt, do, adapt, see results, then adapt some more within that end of year fullness, fulfillment and respite.
I hope this helps somewhat for someone somewhere somehow.
Left: Two of Cups. A good time to follow those romantic impulses. Give your love their favorite dessert. Buy yourself some flowers. Hold the door for a stranger. You don’t have to be in a romance with another person in order to be in a relationship with life.
Middle: The Hanged Man. People invented calendars. Life doesn’t care what year it is or how fast you want things to happen. Whatever name you give this day, make it a good one.
Right: Two of Wands. This is the time when we naturally want to look to the future. Look ahead, make plans. Then think about what you are going to do when those plans blow apart and nothing goes as expected. “I always say don’t make plans, make options” – Jennifer Annisten (via brainyquote.com)
Deck: Heart of Stars, third edition, by Thom Pham, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
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Sage Words Tarot 