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You wouldn’t necessarily expect a lady with a sword to be talking about a peaceful state of mind, but there it is.
Hello and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the Justice card from the major arcana.
At first blush this card has all of the usual admonishments to wisdom, fairness, balance and, well, justice. I was listening to news updates a few minutes ago, so of course all the current politics is top of mind as I saw the card.
But I am also reminded of a slightly older current event. Here in the United States, judges on the supreme court are called justices. The senate confirmation hearings for the newest justice, Kitanji Jackson, were publically broadcast and nerd that I am, I watched them. At least sort of. If I’m not listening to music, have a habit of letting the news play in the background during the day. Yes, it is a lot of repetition but enough bits and pieces make it through my foggy inattention to stitch together a picture of the day’s events. During the confirmation hearings, Justice Jackson said something about her early work as a defense lawyer that landed in my brain with a thud and has been there ever since. It was interesting on level because it was an epiphany out of context, an ah-ha moment apropos to nothing I was actually doing at the moment. It was interesting because it was an epiphany. I’d always suffered under the wrong understanding. She disabused the nation and history of that misunderstanding in a handful of sentences.
Defense lawyers.
Like many other people, I always had the vague impression they defended the criminal or the crime, in other words advocating for the wrong side.
Nope.
Defense lawyers defend the criminal’s civil liberties, not the crime. They protect the constitution and equal justice under law and the principle of innocent until proven guilty. THAT is what they were defending.
Of course in my brain, there is a cut scene right to Jim Carry’s character in the movie Liar, Liar where he screams legal advice over the phone to his most recalcitrant client and tells him to “STOP BREAKING THE LAW!”
It is an interesting, complex balance between protecting innocent society from criminal behavior and protecting equal justice from the very system that claims to have created that self-same equal justice.
All of which begs the question: what on earth does any of this have to do with a Tarot reading?
I have a hunch that this high-minded esoteric kind of thinking is why the Justice card has a reputation for presaging a fair and correct decision in any literal legal proceedings, especially in the prediction-oriented days of Tarot readings.
A number of readers comment on the similarities between images on the Justice card and on the High Priestess card. Justice is thought to be worldly while the High Priestess is of course purely spiritual. That last Sage & Stuff post about Venn diagrams might hold a clue for us today. With the similar visuals, what is the conceptual overlap between the cards?
Wisdom.
The High Priestess deals with mystery and esoterica while Justice is faced with nitty gritty action within the real world. Both act from a place of great wisdom, but move in different directions. One is wisdom drawn from ineffable mystery the other is wisdom applied to implacable reality and practicality.
As Baruch Spinoza reminds us, justice, wisdom and indeed peace all go hand in hand when he says “peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.”
Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate any likes, follows, shares, questions or comments that you can spare. The blog and podcast are not monetized and depend on your support. Please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi where memberships, shop purchases, commissioned private email tarot readings and virtual coffees all support the creation of these (almost) daily Tarot readings for you.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
This is one of those days when Tarot proves it is just a tool, an amplifier, a sort of google translate for our natural inner intuition.
Swords are the element of air, intellect, mind and our relationship with authority and our relationship with culture and society at large.
When I turned the card this morning, the clairvoyant mental images were much stronger than the usual keywords for the card.
I giant red stop sign sprang to mind, along with those running obstacle course video games, like Mario Brothers, Temple Run or Fall Guys. Believe it or not, there is strategy and timing to the games. If you just run flat out fast as you can go start to finish you often don’t finish at all. Especially with swinging obstacles back in the day. You’d have to pause between the swinging things and get the timing so you are not knocked over the edge.
Taking a pause to get your timing right is a real world life hack too.
Many long years in the before time, before stress management and the mind-body connection were as normalized as they are now, it was still recognized that pushing too far was a thing. Students were learning their limits and it was easy in our ambition to leave those limits in the dust.
If you don’t stop, life will stop you.
Luckily, for the majority of us that stopping consisted of a walloping flu or bronchitis or something, but more serious consequences happened too. Books and entire tv dramas could be written, and have, but that is beside the point here. The Eight of Swords is here today to let us know that the stopping happens in whatever form it may take for you as an individual.
Most often when the eight of swords comes around, it reminds us of creative problem solving. Usually it draws my attention to the figure’s unbound feet, and that other senses can lead to freedom despite the obstacles ropes and blindfold and swords.
Today the energy moves one step earlier. Instead of encouraging persistence and creative problem solving, today’s eight of swords begs the question of why was this person tossed in sword jail in the first place?
Ambition and action and effort are all necessary to success, but you can’t make any forward progress when your battery is drained.
Psychoneuroimmunology is a thing. Stress, be it physical, psychological or both, can ding your immune system and open you to a common cold or flu that will slow you down when you don’t have the good sense to do it yourself before you get sick.
Before someone goes all Karen Q. Ivermectin on me, I’m talking about run of the mill take a nap level stuff, not the cure for covid. The suit of swords asks you to use your head, and so do I. They symbolize air and intellect, remember?
But again, the eight of swords is here today to tell us to stop a minute. Listen to your stress levels. Listen to what you mind, body and spirit need. Listen, and for goodness’ sake don’t ignore what you hear. Give your life what it needs. Give yourself what you are asking for. Stop if you needed so life doesn’t have to do the stopping for you.
Thank you all for reading and listening. I appreciate you! I also appreciate any likes, subs, shares, questions or comments.
I’ve opened the comments on the blog, and invited ko-fi members to pick the cut for the short sip readings in the month of September. When I draw each short sip card (you can see the video of the real world short sip card draw on the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel or here on the blog. The blog link is in the show description for podcast listeners. If I don’t get a majority from the ko-fi members, you all get the chance to chime in. Choose between left, right or center and leave your choice in the blog comments and that is the cut of the deck I’ll use for short sip readings in September. To become a Patron of the Tarot arts, and get access to exclusive Tarot content, shop discounts, private readings and more please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi or click the link in the episode description. Private readings are available to order in the commissions menu if you aren’t interested in the monthly membership part of it. Proceeds from the ko-fi page contribute toward the creation of this blog, podcast and the free-for-everyone Tarot content.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
A new plan is in motion and you can play a part.
Welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the three of wands from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck.
This card, along with a couple of others, suits August energy particularly well -at least here in the northern hemisphere. The seven of pentacles reminds us to be hands-off and let nature do its thing. The eight of wands is hints at hands that are tied. Things are in progress but out of your control and there is nothing you can do until the penny drops and the arrows land.
The three of wands has an outward appearance of waiting, like the other cards, but with a greater degree of mental alertness and engagement. This card signifies a time of expansion and growth, but with inner attention as much as outward motion. In that sense, it is a little bit like a Chariot light card. It’s akin to the major arcana’s chariot card but less intense. It’s watching your homemade caramel sauce like a hawk to make sure it doesn’t burn. It isn’t slam into the side of a mountain level stuff like the test-pilot chariot card, but it is about being alert and watchful. It’s like chef Anne Burrel says. You can go “from master to disaster” in a few seconds if you aren’t careful.
The three of wands lets us know that stuff is happening. It is a wide horizon, expansive energy. There is plenty of room here to flex your intellectual muscle and emotional maturity. This is a big open mental space where you can fuse logic and intuition into foresight.
Personally, I identify with the “stuff is happening” part of this. I’m streamlining my email readings so people can send their questions and order the reading in one seamless process when you use the commissions menu on the ko-fi page. I hope to have more ebooks coming online as the Fall and Winter progress. I’m working on some options that will hopefully allow me to inflation proof my private reading prices, although I still need your support for this blog and podcast through the shop, commissions, memberships and virtual coffees on the ko-fi page.
Please stay tuned for all of those announcements. BUT for today I have something else in mind. Today is August 1, mid season between summer solstice and the fall equinox, and that seems like an auspicious time, and the three of wands seems like an auspicious card to introduce card cuts into all of my readings.
Cutting the cards is a Tarot tradition. Sometimes it is just a part of shuffling the deck. I like the tradition of cutting the cards and letting the client choose which portion of the deck we use to draw the cards. I’ve done this forever for in-person readings. It really does bring your intuition and your energy into the reading in a more powerful way. Even though the connection isn’t affected by time or distance, when we are working individually at a distance through email readings or collectively at a distance through the blog and podcast, it still helps to forge some sort of connection. Of course the most potent connection is your decision to read the blog, listen to the podcast, or purchase a private reading. Making a connection with an individual reading is easy. In person or online we talk about your question or whatever it is that prompted you to get the reading in the first place. Individual email readings are just as easy. Whenever I see your name and question (or permission for an open reading) in print, that’s when the connection clicks into place.
I’ve been experimenting with making the connection to blog and podcast and you tube readings more personal. You might have seen those in the “You Choose Interactive” posts. It clicked, but not as well as I’d hoped even with embellishments like crystal or shapes or something else to help the choice besides “left, center, or right.”
If individual choice is awkward, let’s try a collaborative choice. You choose. We’ll try left, center anr right again but as a group.
Want to play along? Just put a comment somewhere with your choice of left, center or right. Drop it here on the blog, over on the you tube channel, or on any of the socials (I’ll put links in the podcast episode description). In upcoming videos and posts, I’ll cut the deck into three piles. Tell me whether you want me to draw the short sip card from the left, center or right. I’ll watch the comments, and whenever there is a clear majority, that’s the cut I’ll use for the next week or so in the short sip readings. I’ll put the call out for a new cut, and you can comment your choice again. And so it goes. Even if you choice isn’t in the majority, the whole process is energized by your effort and intentions, making it better for everyone. I wonder what Carl Jung and his collective unconscious theory would say about this exercise? Put a little energy in, get a more energized reading back. Fair enough, right?
Thank you so much for listening. Feel free to take your time, browse the blog, and please leave a comment with your choice of deck stack for the next few readings. Heck, comment about anything in the blog / cast. Or go all out and ask a question! I won’t promise it will all make it into the blog, but all questions are welcome. I look forward to hearing from you soon and I’ll see you at the next sip!
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today, the eight of pentacles and the stuff you do for you.
Welcome to Tao Craft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the eight of pentacles, which points to work and productivity.
Which is too bad because I’m a lazy, lazy girl this morning.
Headphones on, listening to one of my favorite playlists on Spotify, drinking coffee and writing about Tarot (or knitting) is pretty much my happy place. Life is good at the moment.
But life isn’t always comfy chairs and cinnamon latte.
Shit happens, and when it does, empty platitudes and pep talks are no help whatsoever. Today’s energy could too easily slip into that. On the surface it could sound like some kind of suck it up buttercup, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps puritanical platitude.
Today’s energy isn’t suggesting that you can just cheer up, work hard and everything will be ok. Far from it.
It is suggesting that there is a whole world of coping mechanisms out there. A healthy lifestyle is something that you do for you. The emphasis today is on the word DO. Work isn’t all bad. The hack is finding the right kind of thing do for where your head is at.
When I saw the card, it reminded me of another life long ago in a galaxy far far away. One of the psychiatrists I used to work for back in my long abandoned physician assistant days always said that a job is as good as therapy. It wasn’t for all of the toxic anti-welfare, racism tinged, right-wing-ish reasons that might spring to mind these days. He was talking about structure, diversion, and self esteem.
As supportive as structure and getting something – anything – done in a day can be, I’m not talking about actual depression or real world problems here.
The same kind of advice about structure, diversion and accomplishment re-emerged during pandemic quarantine. For the average person under stress or in the occasional normal doldrums, accomplishing something – anything – in your day can be the little boost that you need. The degree varies from individual to individual and from day to day. Some of us secretly get off on going mach 2 with our hair on fire. For others, fresh pajamas and getting the dishes done is enough.
Self care is as much about mindset as action. For some people self care and a mood boost is all bubble baths and candle light. For others it is turning up the punk rock and cleaning the house. Anything, even being productive at some kind of work or project, can be self care.
The point in all of this is to do the thing that is right for you and your day in the amount that is right for your needs…but for goodness’ sake do SOMETHING. It might make you feel better than you think it will. Even if you are a lazy, lazy person like me.
Like everything for me, it gets back to Zen and Taoist philosophy akin to the old adage “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” Self care and stress management doesn’t have to be fancy, high minded or separate from life. Like Zen spirituality, self care and stress management is all about the moment to moment mundane living of life.
If you will allow me to indulge in a moment of fangirling, Madam Adam, one of my favorite social media follows, put it absolutely brilliantly. It was spot-on perfect when I first his post yesterday, and the eight of pentacles this morning confirms it. As he said “self-care is doing what you do anyway, but doing it with intent.”
Bullseye!
Through simple intention, anything can be self care including a day of work and productivity. Through simple intention, the mundane becomes magick.
Thanks for reading and listening! I always appreciate any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments you can give.
For those of you listening on the podcast, a link to the blog website are in the episode description. You can find episode transcripts, private readings to purchase and other non-podcast Tarot content there.
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Sage Words Tarot 