Tag: trigger

Ugh – you again

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Sometimes apathy is an accomplishment.

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

This card again. Ugh.

I don’t know if this is true of all professional readers, but I have a couple of cards that are my arch nemesis. They poke a bony finger at old sensitive scars and rub salt in spots that still aren’t all they could be. For me, the hierophant is defininitely one of those nemesis cards, if not THE nemesis card. It isn’t clinically correct, but a common, understandable way to say it that this bad boy is triggering.

Or you could say it is a pain in the ass. Either one works for me.

Either one is Tarot at its best doing its best thing. Tarot really isn’t about blowing happy smoke up your aura or making you feel good. It is about holding a mirror up to what we are doing in life at the same time it is giving context to the nonsense. Sure, Tarot inspires and empowers, but that is only part of it. Sometimes part of the healing, helping, inspiring and empowering process is to challenge us.

A good friend will tell you when your zipper is down or there is spinach stuck in your teeth. Tarot is a good friend. Both best friends and Tarot decks are truth tellers and support systems all rolled into one.

It is standard issue boiler plate advice that when a Tarot card keeps turning up in a reading that it signifies a lesson that we haven’t learned, an aspect of life that keeps coming around until we finally deal with it in the right way.

I wonder if it isn’t part desensitization therapy too. I don’t know if this is legit, or if it is a disproven trope, but at one point people would manage specific phobias, flying for example, by gradually increasing small exposures to the thing that triggered their anxiety until they were inured enough to the trigger that it wasn’t a problem anymore. In other words, repeated exposure helped them let go of the fear inducing thing by repeating the thing until they were just sick and tired and totally over it.

That’s kind of how I feel about the Hierophant today. I wonder, what card or what issue in life are all of you completely over? The religious imagery and symbolism in the Pamela Smith artwork for the RWS deck isn’t trigger-y for everyone, but to my minds it begs the question: What is your personal IDGAF totally over it topic today?

Whatever it is, celebrate your accomplishment of attaining a state of apathy. Celebrate your apathy about that thing that used to send you up a wall and over an edge, whatever that is for you individually. If you can’t think of anything like that, then it may just not be the right time for you to take on your triggers. Or maybe you are one of the fortunate ones who don’t have a nemesis card or maybe you just don’t need this message today. Either way, it’s all good. Despite what the dogmatic religious folk might think, nature is unfolding as it should.

If it does apply, however, enjoy your apathy. You’ve earned it.

Thanks so much for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments you can spare is much appreciated. I’d also appreciate it if you’d take a look at the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi page where the exclusive content memberships, shop purchases, private email Tarot readings, and virtual coffees all help me create these non-monetized, free to access (almost) daily Tarot readings for you.

Enjoy your weekend. Next sip comes Monday. See you then!

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Today’s Tarot: Raise Your Chalice

This is one of those times where the card feels, to me, to be way out of synch with today’s energy. It just doesn’t capture the momentum of the moment. Something’s off.

Sometimes when this happens I’ll just re-draw the card and take the “off” feeling as my cue that some other message is more urgent or pressing than the first card can convey.

Other times I’ll just let it stand in the hope that it helps some unknown someone somewhere out there in cyberspace. This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about the other day in the podcast:

BUT, as I go along, today’s card is turning out to be less about the card, less about a somebody-somewhere message and more about the Tarot reading process. This is a message for folks on my side of the reading table. Any card could potentially carry this energy thread, not just the three of cups.

The “I don’t know who needs to hear this but….” trope has always made me feel a little annoyed and agitated, but I never understood why until now. Not only is it overused and cliche, but strikes me as a little arrogant self-serving. It is as if the person writing it thinks they have some special, secret, better knowledge than everyone else. Maybe they do, but why not just say what’s on your mind without the “I don’t know who needs to hear this” part? It sounds like a power play over that unknown someone that you think you know better than. You were going to post the idea anyway. It serves no purpose to amp it up like you are some hero messenger from on high going out of your way to drop some wisdom on some poor wretch who doesn’t even know they need helped.

Of COURSE we don’t know who needs to hear it. We are pushing our ideas out into a public forum, not responding to a specific person. If we publish a reading about a particular person, then that flirts with violating their privacy (unless they give conscious consent for the reading to be used that way, which some people have…for which I am very grateful.)

OF COURSE we don’t know who “needs to hear this.” They never ASKED to hear it. That unknown someone out there might not WANT our almighty opinion. Who are we to say what anybody NEEDS to hear whether we know who they are or not? We are interpreters, neither judges of need nor arbiters of truth.

It’s a roundabout way to get there, but this mis-matched energy today is a good reminder of why I want to bring Reiki and medical ethics and professionalism to my Tarot work. In Reiki we don’t do energy work with someone without some level of consent. One of my Reiki teachers once told a story about a time where they saw breaking news on TV. Out of kindness and an impulse to help they sent energy to a person in the live news feed. The energy bounced back hard because it wasn’t requested or wanted. Since then, they use and teach the intent of sending energy unconditionally and without expectation, so the energy can be accepted OR rejected as the recipient sees fit – even in planned distance sessions. I’ve tried to adopt that same stance in Tarot blogging and social media. The Reiki in our teacher’s example was sent out of sincere compassion and a desire to help, not at all intended to be arrogant. The same is true of those “I don’t know who needs to hear this” posts online. But as the adage goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – and tired social media tropes. There is such a thing as unintended consequences. We may not intend to be egoistic, but our work can still drift in that direction if we aren’t careful. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, maybe more than most.

Sometimes the lines between simple enthusiasm, a sincere desire to help, passionate evangelism and outright arrogance are very narrow. It is up to us to keep our ego in check. It is up to us to respect the universal life energy we read and the ones we read it for, both known and unknown.

That is exponentially true for those of us who have been raised in the American evangelical subculture. Our lives were so saturated with arrogant holier-than-thou pronouncements that it seems normal…but it’s not. Making holier-than-thou arrogant pronouncements is one of those things that a recovering fundamentalist has to be constantly on guard against. It really does have a certain kinship with the way that chemical dependency requires lifelong vigilance against triggers and relapses.

So no, I don’t know who needs to hear this unusual, convoluted energy message today. I won’t presume to think anyone does. I give it without expectation, for you to accept or reject as you see fit. Which is a very freeing, comforting thing on my side of the Tarot reading table. Being right all the time and the inerrant source of higher knowledge must be exhausting.

So let me raise a virtual chalice of thanks to all the many unknown someones out there. We mean well, but we also rely on your discretion and discernment. If we tell you something you needed to hear, great. We are happy to have helped. If not, then thank you for ignoring the BS and hanging in there with this until a useful message does come along. Here is to you, dear reader, for silently, energetically helping us online types to respect our audience.