ten of coins – Sage Words Tarot

Sight

You don’t just see with your heart. Look with your heart and you see with compassion.

There are many ways to see, including with your heart.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate it.

I still haven’t done the review I wanted to write for the blog, but I wanted to get my hands back on the Alleyman’s Tarot deck today. Today’s energy wanted to speak through this particular card it seems. It’s the ten of eyes, a card from the strange suit, some of the non-standard cards that are part of the Alleyman deck’s genius. It was originally drawn by Bobby Abate for the Outsider Tarot deck. My read today differs from the meaning given in the guidebook – but you’ll have that. Guide books are important. They provide context, intent, and inspiration. In the lore Seven Dane Asmund created around the deck, the Alleyman wrote his own guidebook with notes on this own organically mismatched deck. In essence, that is what intuitive style readers do all the time. We write each card meaning in the moment guided by energy and insight that changes day by day, sometimes hour by hour. To call a Tarot reading ephemeral folk art is an understatement, but it’s the best descriptor I know for the actual process.

But back to the Ten of Eyes.

Like almost all cards, this one has multiple threads of meaning, and it is up to pure intuition to see which thread best resonates with the current energy environment.

At first glance, this could be read like the ten of pentacles or ten of coins just superficially based on the round shapes. That could connect with the aspect of the Waite Smith Ten of Pentacles that has to do with our greatest treasures being the intangible ones that money can never buy. The ten eyes could conceivably see through physical wealth to those invaluable intangibles.

The image on this card doesn’t really reflect the super-happy good outcome vibe that goes with the classic Smith art and the ten of coins however.

The Alleyman’s guide interprets it as, essentially, doom scrolling.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a hot cup of “I told you so” flavored schadenfreude as much as the next person. Especially with the great American political dumpster fire of twenty aught fifteen to the present day. Everybody loves to see the bad guys get theirs, both in fiction and in politics. But it can be taken to extreme. The Ten of Eyes is a cautionary tale, to not let news get to you personally. USE the information, yes, but don’t let it change you or affect you. Don’t let information make you bleed out of the eyes as the movie and anime trope goes.

The message I’m getting today differs from both of these. The message has come through before, but I don’t remember when or which card.

Look with your heart.

The part of this card that most catches my attention is the sheer number of eyes.

So.

Many.

Eyes.

Intuition and mental clairvoyance is often represented by the so-called third eye. I think we have other eyes too. There are the physical ones, of course, for our literal sight. The third eye speaks to intuition and mental images. That is mind-sight. But what of emotional or spiritual sight?

Often intuition is conflated with spirituality, but intuition serves us all no matter what our spiritual framework may be. Raging egos and scam artists can still be psychic to some degree. Intuition is a normal human faculty that could arguably had evolutionary advantage. I like Neil Degrasse Tysons description of the sixth sense and exactly that. A functional, purposeful, useful function of human existence like, I believe it was his grandmother, who know just when to propare supper and how many places to set even without tangible, five-sense knowable input.

The heart governs both physical and mental sight with emotional and spiritual sight. Look with your heart and see both physical and mental inputs through a lens of compassion and kindness. That guides not so much what we see but what we do about what we see, what we know, what we learn, and all the information we take in about our world.

So go ahead. Doom scroll. Sip that schadenfreude. Unleash all of your glorious human curiosity on whatever is out there. Gaze upon the world but be aware of the filters you (and other people) place on what you see. Then filter that through the one lens that really counts – kindness.

I hope you are enjoying these (almost) daily Tarot contemplations that happen in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

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Thank you again.

See you at the next sip!

Inexpensive Treasure

We all have at least one – go get yours with today’s short sip Tarot and the Ten of Pentacles

We’ve all got one. Or a bunch. It’s the weekend. Go get yours.

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

We’ve all heard this one before. I’d say this card is a broken record, but since digital and streaming doesn’t have that particular glitch I’ll skip the reference that no one this side of gen X would really get.

The song remains the same. We’ve all heard this one before. Which, in the Tarot and personal growth business, is more of a validation than being a mere cliche.

I like to think that when a card, like today’s ten of pentacles, keeps harping on the same idea, it adds to the meaning instead of diluting it. Things like “money can’t buy happiness” or “little things mean a lot” or “the simple pleasures are the best” are all platitudes and aphorisms for a reason. The generalized truth behind them is potent enough that it is like archetype and aphorism combined. Whatever big word you want to call it, these repeating messages woven through a long time Tarot practice are worth listening to.

Pentacles are associated with the element of earth. They symbolize wealth, money, career, practicality and our relationship with the physical realm. Ten is as large as the number cards get.

In the I Ching, the Chinese “book of changes” which has been used for guidance in a way very akin to Tarot, there is the idea of changing lines. When you use three coins to methodically choose with I Ching hexagram to read, three of either heads or tails is considered a “changing line.” The line in the hexagram is maximum yin or maximum yang. There is an idea in Taoism that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. If life is always changing and in motion, then I see that as meaning a tipping point. Like that old children’s game – it is a pot so full that one more bean can tip it over and spill into becoming something else.

That is what is happening with the ten of pentacles. Sure, it shows an idealized happy family, pets included. There is a tipping point here – and it isn’t what you might think.

The opposite of maximum coins isn’t bankruptcy. The opposite of the happiness depicted isn’t misery. The tipping point here is from the tangible into the intangible. Of all the contentment depicted in the card and in all those RWS derived decks, none of them are dependent on being rich. Food, water, shelter, basics sustain life. Beyond that, the truly precious things are at once both practically free and unspeakably priceless; people who care about you, a friendly dog wagging their tail when they see you, a little sit in the shade on a hot day or a soft chair near the heater on a cold one.

Innocent or guilty the little pleasures are what the ten of pentacles is talking about today. Think of those photos of President Biden in his aviator sunglasses smiling and enjoying an ice cream cone. That’s what we’re talking about. He is well paid and as powerful as it gets. Yet, how much does an ice cream cone cost? Change from the sofa cushions would close to cover it. Almost anyone can access it. Yet the pleasure the ice cream can bring – that part is priceless and even easier to get. All you have to do is let yourself have it. The ice cream is just the carrier, it’s the delivery method for the happy. Pick your delivery method. It can be any little thing that delights you. It can be any little thing that you have on hand right here, right now. Mine today is my Spotify playlists.

Go.

Go get your inexpensive treasure. Then let yourself have the happy.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate you, your follows, likes and any shares you can spare.

The blog and podcast are both not monetized in any way and are supported through your private reading purchases and the TaoCraft Tarot shop and memberships on ko-fi. Thank you for helping to create this (almost) daily Tarot contemplation for everyone.

See you at the next sip!

Turnovers are tasty at night too

Sunday Tarot Turnovers on Taocraft Tarot are a weekly blog exclusive intuition building exercise where I choose a card at random but turn the reading over to you.

It’s a new year. My resolution is to roll with the flow “marketing best practices” be damned. To paraphrase an old T-shirt about world religions, I’m Taoist. Shit Happens. Whammalammadingdong. Or, in the words of the Allen Toussaint song “Everything I Do Gone Be Funky (from now on)” Consider yourself warned n’at.

But as for the Sunday Tarot Turnovers – they work like this:

Some Sundays they won’t work at all. Will try to give you heads up when I can’t post, but weekends family comes first. Full stop. I’ll drop this without warning like a hot potato if it mean getting an extra few minutes with the hubster and the padawan.

Otherwise, Sunday Tarot Tunovers turns a Tarot reading over to you. It is a blog-exclusive intuition building exercise. I post a random Tarot card, but the interpretation is turned over to you. I’ll put some classic keywords and prompts from old blog post card meanings, but you use your instincts to pick which meaning is right for you…or if none of them feel right, use pure intuition to gather the message spirit is sending to you.

Feel free to drop your chosen interpretation or ask any questions in the comments.

Happiness
Money can’t buy the important things in life
Contentment
wealth
Success by any definition
Happy family
Abundance
ancestors/legacy

Today’s Tarot: Big Little Things

In the taijitu (the yin yang symbol) each half contains a dot of the opposite color. The idea is that anything in the extreme can become its opposite. There are different ways of reading the I Ching, the book of changes. Throwing three coins is the method I know best and have used the most. I’ll spare you all the details, but you use three coins to determine if a given “line” is yine or yang. Six throws, gives you six lines, and that in turn tells you which part of the book to read for your guidance. Using coins, heads mean yang and tails mean yin. If you get two of three coins showing one way or the other, that tells you the definition of the ‘line’ as either yin or yang. If you get all three coins the same it is considered a “changing line” which means it is SO yin or SO yang that it can easily tip over into being its opposite (or is in the process of doing so)

The Ten of Coins is a liminal symbol like a transition line. Coins (or Pentacles, depending on the deck you use) have to do with the physical realm, wealth, career, etc. 10 is the largest of the number cards before you move into the esoteric, idea-driven court cards. 10, in this case, is something coming to fruition or completion. It is the uber-pentacle of all the number cards. Given all of that, you might expect to see material successes represented, the Tarot equivalent of a mansion and a yacht.

Not so.

The Ten of Pentacles is the happy family card. It shows simple contentment, in the RWS tradition usually mom, dad, their 2.2 kids, white picket fence, grampa and the dog. Granted, that sounds like a 1950s surburban ideal gone wild, but that’s kind of the point. The pinnacle of material success isn’t material at all. The pinnacle of material success is the people you love and simple contentment with the cycles and flows of life. Life, love and simple mindful pleasures are, after all, the greatest of treasures. All those little things are really kind of big.

Today’s Tarot: It’s OK to be OK

“There is no problem without a gift for you in its hands” – Richard Bach

“If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, then you probably haven’t checked with your answering service lately” – Hawkeye Peirce

Energies are starting to shift.

Pentacles have been in our face the past month or so, with good reason, calling our attention to the physical realm and asking us to be practical. It was time to “work the problem” and do what needs done, even if what needs done is to stay the heck at home.

The Ten is different this time. The ten, being the largest of the number cards, not only symbolizes a good ending or a good outcome (and reassures us that better times are ahead) but also points to intangible things more than the other numbered pentacle cards. The ten reminds us of a good outcome that is made of all the things that money can never buy. Health, happiness, love, family, peace, contentment and all of the abstract things essential to the human spirit.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing those things, even in the middle of chaos, boredom or isolation. We aren’t a victim of circumstance if we deal with our circumstances and move on to value the important things beyond it. It is OK to be OK in spite of it all. It’s OK to give up diversions for a while when the important things are still there. It is OK to adapt to circumstances, especially when weird circumstances are teaching us what our important things are.

Update: The $5 off email readings has been extended to May 8 to match our local stay at home orders. I’ve tweeked the website just a little bit in spots to make it a little more useable on phones and tablets. Mobile or not, feel free to browse around, check out the new organization on the pages and menu. Eyes open! The free one card digital InkMagick Tarot reading by email is still available, so look for the free Tarot and special offer links.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: know, share, flow

Left: The Lovers. Know your real desires, and prioritize them. Some days living your dream and working toward long term goals is the place to put your energy. Other days, the priority is just to make it through the day. Not every day has to be spent chasing lofty goals. Some days are best spent on the basics like food and sleep. I helps to know what your heartfelt desires really are and where you are in the hierarchy of those desires.

Center: Ten of Coins. Even though coins / Pentacles are associated with the element of earth, and the practical physical realm…typically things like career and money / wealth….the ten reminds us that money can’t buy happiness. There a treasures beyond coins. Happiness is a treasure trove that can never be spent…the more you give, the more you have.

Right: Six of Swords. Go with the flow to see where obstacles really exist…and where they are illusions. Swords have to do with air, intellect and mind. Things that seem in front of us (like the swords stuck in the canoe) may not be as much of an obstruction as it seems. In astronomy and science they can infer information from other direct observations. Newton figured out gravity from seeing an apple fall from a tree. Astronomers can get proof of Einstein’s theory by observing the way starlight bends around the sun during an eclipse. They can discover other planets by observing the way other stars appear to dim and brighten. You can do the same. By watching the natural flow of life, you can see where there are really rocks in the stream ahead, and what is just something in your boat blocking your view. Remember Bruce Lee and “Be water my friend.”