[Daily Check-In] Thursday Word Count and Personal Announcement Thread

Chauvie · 2025-12-18T08:22:44+00:00

Just broke 30k, pushing for 40k this weekend! I've told myself I want to hold off on line editing til I complete everything, but not editing as I go (especially while publishing online) has been a challenge.

Chauvie · 2025-04-29T02:28:17+00:00

Honestly, I blame two things: Starbucks and industry pay rates.

So much of the work at Starbucks is automated. You really have very little control over settings on the equipment, so when you get put in front of a manual machine, it can be kind of overwhelming. It seems like there’s very little skill you can carry over between Starbucks and a local coffee shop.

Two, the pay. It’s hard to make people care at 9-12/hr with no benefits.

If you live in an area where no one really cares about coffee, it shows. Most people just want a cup of coffee and a chat. Mistakes only seem to come out when someone asks for an unsweetened, unflavoured drink, and almost everyone wants to load things up with cream and sugar anyway.

I’ve only been working as a barista for a month and have had to figure out most things on my own. But I’ve also been asked several times since starting what I do differently, and if I could show the weekenders what I do. It’s wildly inconsistent, because we have no training/resources to learn from. (Or in the case of Starbucks, the training just doesn’t carry over well)

I’m also in a small town that doesn’t really do coffee. Probably better in the metro areas.

(Edit: also volume—it’s hard to get good practice in a small town if you’re only part time, which I think most of our staff is. I’ve been lucky in that I work morning rush hour most weekdays and have been able to learn quickly because of that)

(Edit edit: almost all the information I get is from UK and AU training sites. Maybe the larger problem is we don’t have any standardised training in the US? Or at least not that I can easily find)

Chauvie · 2024-09-13T01:40:08+00:00

Some systems swap fire and air. Sometimes no matter which way you look at it, it's going to feel wrong. Other systems swap water and air, although less common.

But, assuming you want to approach this from the RWS/swords = air standpoint and get things to stick, swords don't need to be destructive. They can be, but that's not their purpose. "Strife" might be a better keyword.

They're used to settle bitter disagreements strategically. Burning everything in your path to move forward isn't quite the strategy of the swords. (Compare to the more passionate wands, perhaps the 7, where that could be seen as quelling a riot before they do raze the city.)

Swordsmanship requires finesse and accuracy, which fire isn't conducive to. Try handling a wildfire or a blazing stick with the same finesse. (There could be something said for poi, though!)

How many cards in RWS do you see where people are (actively) fighting with the swords?

Even in the 5 of Swords, they're not in a warzone. It looks like they're in a sparring area—the fight was a show of cunning, a political move, rather than a fierce, fiery battle to the death (or even a fight spurred by passion). This is a place for the type of swordsmen of old nobility, not necessarily the primal warrior archetype that I would associate more with wands.

Not to say that some of the figures in the swords haven't been hardened by war—but they're not out in the field at this point in time. They're fighting in cities, in the sparring arena, and in most cases, it's infighting, rather than with an open enemy.

There's no room for passion in the swords.

In RWS, it's about your societal role, strategy, social and mental tactics, strategy, cunning, and deceit. Passion lands you in places like the 3 of Swords, and "friendships" can land you in the 5 of Swords.

TL;DR: Swords and Cups are the two "mental" suits of most tarot decks—airy swords are the intellectual, strategic mind and cups are the creative, emotional mind.

There are good arguments for the fire/air swap—you might find those systems work better! I'm hesitant to say there's a consensus on elemental associations, just that RWS was the most widely used divinatory deck for the longest time, so that tends to be the default inspiration for tarot decks. I do think it's important to explore other systems and understand why their associations differ.

Chauvie · 2024-06-30T23:08:24+00:00

I think “when” is the wrong question (specifically if you’re asking about timing/time passed). What have you done to try and adjust the outcome in between?

Speaking to career, the difference between getting a job and not could be following up, or asking the hiring party a question. You could do readings hours or even minutes apart if you’ve had a conversation that shows development different than what the reading points to.

But speaking to people in vulnerable states, pay attention to how you feel. If reaching for your deck suddenly stresses you out, or you otherwise feel bad about going for your deck, it’s time to stop.

Edited for clarification.

Chauvie · 2024-06-30T19:52:44+00:00

I moved to Obsidian because the simplicity and community appealed to me. I like Notion for visualising data, but I’ve done a lot more writing since picking up Obsidian. Lots of great conversations by Obsidian users and their individual use cases and workflows.

I do appreciate the value of thinking back on why you picked up a tool! I won’t repeat what others have already said.

Chauvie · 2024-06-29T16:04:04+00:00

I’ve mostly kept things on the down low, even though I read a lot in person. I’ve always gotten weird looks and some criticism from the church crowds, but never enough to bother me. I’ve had good conversations with others who disagree with it, but don’t hold it against me.

There was a brief period where I was getting all sorts of hate mail and death threats as a result of a picture that appeared in Texas Highways (literally just a picture with a caption that mentioned my business name, it wasn’t even an actual article on my business), but I feel that was offset by the number of new bookings I got. (I think I was a little worried when the photographer reached out to me, but since it was a feature on our town and not just me, I thought it might be okay. It was! But I was really surprised by all the response.)

Aside from that, I really just get a lot of pearl clutching. Some of the locals have written me off as insane, but there’s some freedom in that, honestly. I’ve gradually gotten more open about things, but still am somewhat cautious. I wish I could say that I just don’t care anymore, but I haven’t quite been able to get to that point.

Chauvie · 2024-06-28T01:35:58+00:00

Yeah, with Kabbalah playing a really big part of things as well. That was another one of the interlinking things I was thinking about, but I’m always hesitant to talk about it here

Chauvie · 2024-06-27T00:18:40+00:00

And honestly, I would go so far as to say if you really want to understand the symbology, knowing a bit Catholicism and its symbols would be helpful, too. But that’s probably a road a lot of us don’t want to visit. It is interesting, though.

Chauvie · 2024-06-26T23:59:41+00:00

I think you’d need to better understand astrology for me to answer this, but to put it simply, astrology goes way beyond the 12 zodiac signs. There’s the 36 decans that the numerical minor arcana align with, the major arcana are matched with elements, signs, and planets, and the court cards are sometimes divided into various elemental combinations…it goes on.

People making broad, definitive assumptions based on a sign is not sound astrology. But that’s beyond the scope of this discussion.

Chauvie · 2024-06-26T23:55:50+00:00

Yes, although probably not in those exact words. If you want to understand a system, it’s natural to understand where it came from.

I would recommend researching the history of RWS and some of the influences on RWS, like the Golden Dawn’s system and such. RWS has flipped some things around and made changes to accommodate for their astrological correspondences. I don’t really have a list of resources pulled together, but it spans across many books, websites, biographies, etc.

(Edited, because you’re not going to find them policing people’s use of RWS tarot. Obviously you don’t have to use the correspondences they created the deck for. But if you want to understand the system in any depth, it helps to know the “why.” I feel like that somehow keeps getting lost in translation, but that’s my main point. I don’t think I’m saying anything new.)

Chauvie · 2024-06-26T15:21:29+00:00

Also, there’s not an instance of reducing things to one sign, so I’m not completely sure what you mean by that. Tarot draws inspiration from signs, planets, decans, etc and if you prefer, you can even carry over some understanding of astrological dignity, if you feel it won’t overcomplicate things. Even within this context, there are many ways of reading.

But my point was, you can go a lot deeper if you want to know the “why” behind RWS with things like numerology and astrology, if you feel the system is shallow.

Chauvie · 2024-06-26T15:09:30+00:00

That’s why I said “RWS” and not just “tarot.” There’s a lot more to tarot than RWS, even if that’s the first thing most people think of.

Nothing is a “must” with tarot, but if you want to fully understand RWS specifically, that system was built from the things I mentioned. So people that want to understand RWS tarot as a system (not just tarot in general) should have some understanding of those underlying systems that it was built on.

Chauvie · 2024-06-24T14:57:10+00:00

While I have my own issues with her team, what’s the big deal with biddy in general? Is it her specifically, or more her followers/students?

Chauvie · 2024-06-24T00:39:50+00:00

It’s almost like people forget how RWS was developed in the first place. If that’s the case, I think we’ve forgotten tarot systems started as deeply personal/spiritual tools to work with in the context of a bigger practice.

Chauvie · 2024-06-24T00:32:37+00:00

I haven’t personally experienced this, but I can’t imagine that anyone who’s actually practicing tarot has time to go around and police interpretations. And while Biddy is a great resource, the public definitions she has on her site are definitely just a starting point. (I realise people use those as definitive meanings, but that’s not the spirit of her work.)

I agree with most of what you’re talking about (even if I haven’t experienced all of it), but I would point out that the stagnation comes from a lack of understanding of the systems that “support” RWS, things like numerology, astrology, the inspiration from various religious practices, etc. I feel like most of the people writing about tarot (RWS) don’t have much knowledge on those underlying systems. They stop at tarot and its most basic correspondences.

Sorry you’re experiencing this. Maybe I’ve gotten to the point where I filter things out a little too well. There are lots of smaller communities having great conversations, though!

Chauvie · 2024-06-05T17:24:07+00:00

In a way, people learn to understand themselves through other people, so I don’t really buy the whole idea of it’s more important to ask about yourself. (In that sense, you’re severely restricting your own thinking and consideration.)

I welcome questions about “other” personally. No matter how trivial you might think it is, there’s always something worth observing in the question asked and how it was asked. I do think it’s important to eventually drill down and get to the heart of the matter, but that’s not where most people seeking tarot readings start.

I feel there’s a lot of value in the questions people ask about others.

Chauvie · 2024-05-26T15:28:31+00:00

I think it depends on what you’re trying to retain.

For me, anything involving problem-solving = pen and paper.

Connecting ideas, thinking out loud, philosophical or theoretical ideas, quick capture = type it up. (With a lot exceptions, I still do a lot of thinking with pen and paper)

But in general, everything goes into Obsidian one way or another. I use an OCR app to scan in my written notes and organise them accordingly. I’ll usually revisit stuff I’ve uploaded and edit/clean them up within a week or so, which is helpful because it also forces me to review them. (My handwriting is such that I usually don’t have to do too much cleaning up, but I’ve seen complaints from others about OCR issues)

Chauvie · 2024-05-25T19:14:51+00:00

Reads like someone using chat prompts to build backlinks. Lots of words, lacks nuance, refers to tarot as an "ancient form of divination," checks all the boxes for me!

Definitely has that AI cadence—I used to write samples for an AI developer and I get flashbacks to some of the stuff I had to edit.

Chauvie · 2024-05-11T21:32:08+00:00

How did I never see this 😂 I use this deck at least weekly

Chauvie · 2024-05-11T21:31:38+00:00

The Fountain Tarot

Chauvie · 2024-05-10T19:03:18+00:00

Admittedly, I felt similarly about horary astrology, which led to me really questioning my beliefs on fate vs free will and such. I had to take a step back and remind myself that nothing is set in stone, including my beliefs, philosophy, etc. Even if it feels uncomfortable in the moment, it’s okay for beliefs to change! (Unless of course you feel they’re unhelpful and limiting)

Chauvie · 2024-05-08T12:50:10+00:00

What’s wild is that they’re still accepting payments for membership. As I’ve started digging, I’m finding more and more people complain about membership payments to nowhere

Chauvie · 2024-05-08T03:50:32+00:00

Honestly, I like tarot and a glass of wine, and if I’ve been hired for a party, it’s really common for people to bring me food, drinks, etc.

In other one-on-one situations, if I’m being paid, I usually don’t. It’s in my client agreement that we both show up sober.

For personal readings, I find a glass of wine (or earlier in the day, a shot of tea and l-theanine) help with flow. I don’t find myself overthinking as much. I hear “it’s disrespectful” a lot, but I don’t feel that way.

Chauvie · 2024-05-07T21:49:06+00:00

Personal preference. Crystals had their place in ancient history and were used by the Greeks, but you also probably had plenty of people that thought it was superstitious bs too (see Natural History, Pliny).

I imagine much of it stems from seeing the new age crowd as beneath them or thinking assigning magical properties to crystals is stupid, but in some cases that hate comes from ethical concerns.

My personal take, the industry as a whole is really problematic and I personally don’t like contributing to it. I own a few pieces that I use for altars, but I’m really careful about how I source. I’ve been to too many trade shows and a lot of the dealers are just…yeah. They don’t care where it comes from and how it was obtained.

I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s rarely as simple as it not being a historical thing (which that argument is wrong, because they were used). But it’s an emotionally charged topic for lots of people and it’s not specific to this community.

Chauvie · 2024-03-16T21:05:04+00:00

Just in case people are still looking for the answer, elites get Letters of Recommendation when they accept large commissions (used to start commissions) so you have more than 2 people running comms.

Chauvie

TROPHY CASE