Choose your sip

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!

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Change Will Change

Pause the video if you need a moment to choose your card for today, then restart the video to see the reveal. You know what I wrote on the blog about Pentacle cards repeating? Scratch that…nothing has changed about the pandemic. It’s an eneregy shift today, NOT a physical realm one. More on that in another post. Meanwhile, we have to stay in Samuel L. Jackson mode…. STILL wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and stay the f*ck at home. New York City is still in the thick of it, so the worst is yet to come for the rest of us. Be safe, and take good care of yourselves as best as you can.

Left: 3 of Cups. Even the introverts are starting to catch a little cabin fever…until we listen to the news or scroll social media. Forget mass media. Take a loooong break from your socials. The human spirit is thirsting for real, genuine one to one conversation. We can’t feed our need for physical interaction so it is all the more important to feed our need for genuine conversation and a meeting of the minds. Use technology for genuine conversation and connection, not mass broadcast. Leave that for the professional journalists. Write a letter. Make a phone call. Text. Zoom if that’s your thing. It is a two for one offer. The conversation just might lift the whole group’s spirits.

Middle: The Moon. The physical moon moves through cycles in its appearance to us on earth, so this card is often associated with the natural cycles of things. That daisy-chains to effect of the moon on the tides, connecting the card to water and intuition. The energies today are right to experiment with your own intuition. Listen with your heart, extend your feelings. What shifts in mood and energy do you sense? What is in your energy environment right now that needs your attention? Is it within you, hinting at a need for self-care or is it outside of you calling you to help others?

Right: The Wheel. Freud was right. Sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar. Sometimes the message from a card is just as obvious, simple and straight forward as it seems. This will all change. Life changed from normal to pandemic mode and will change again in time. It will never go back to what once was because this will always have happened…this time and this experience will always exist. Time will move on, things will change. It will become our choice whether we let this time scar us, strengthen us, empower us or haunt us. Change is inevitable, but the choice is yours about how…and if…you embrace it.

You Choose Interactive Tarot Reading: Coronavirus the 13th edition

Left: Death. Momento mori. Valar Morghulis. Wash your dang hands, listen to experts, mitigate viruses…if not for yourself, then for someone you love.

Middle: The Emperor. It’s ok to be ok. It’s ok to take it all in stride. That just means that this is your time to shine, to be hero and protector for the vulnerable ones. Valar Doheris.

Right: Five of Coins. We are all riding this space rock together. Just be excellent to each other.

You Choose Tarot Reading

https://youtu.be/4MT6glHzKpY

Left: King of Swords. Who has had your back? Who has taught you useful things? Who gifted you with your best life hacks? Why not send them a thought of gratitude right now?

Center: Four of Wands. Celebrate the steady. If everything around you is chaos, find your inner calm and make that the guest of honor at the steadiness party.

Right: Seven of Wands. Taking the easy way out leaves the door open to “what if…” Take on the challenge, and then you’ll know.

You Choose Tarot (9 January 2020)

Left: King of Wands. Nevermind how things are going with other people for a minute. Are you at peace with yourself? What would it take for you to comfortable in your own skin? Peace with others is difficult if you aren’t at ease with yourself first.

Center: Ten of Swords. Chaotic energies are afoot that could leave you feeling ambushed. Heal your wounds, get up again, make changes to protect yourself next time.

Right: Seven of Wands. “If people get defensive, it’s because they have something to defend.” – James Marcus Bach. If you feel angry, understanding why can help. Defensive isn’t so bad when important things are at stake.

You Choose Tarot (29 Nov 19)

Left: Ace of Pentacles. Imagine, just just for a day or just an afternoon, imagine that you are lucky. Then watch how things unfold for a day or two. Who knows? Maybe you are.

Middle: Knight of Wands. Something magick this way comes. Indulge the mystical if ghat is how you feel. Feeling more black than Friday? Honor those feelings, but best not to take them out on unsuspecting retail workers or random happy people. Play that metal music. Watch that horror film. Binge Jonatan Strange and Mr. Norrel. Honest emotion honored well fits any time of year.

Right: Two of Pentacles. Keeping work and fun in balance is a challenge any time of year. If you HAVE to do it, might as well make a game of it. Who says you can’t wear an elf hat to the office?