You have to make it before you can break it.

Layouts are easy. Titles are hard.

Tarot layouts are no great secret. You can write one any time you want. We pro (retired, semi-pro, just reads cards a lot) tarot readers do it all the time. This is where you ask the questions you want answered. Basically you name what you want the cards to tell you. When you go into a reading with a clear, firm idea about what each card represents, then you get a clearer idea and a more usable message

Owl and Bones Tarot and Daily Tarot Girl are especially good at it.

Granted, Lenormand and some readers are a little more chaotic and free-form, but in my experience it pays to have a layout in mind before you start a reading. It is a foundation and reference point that keeps things anchored when you are in the flow of intuition.

If you are going to pull a message out of the aether, it pays to have some place solid for it to land.

Last night’s lunar eclipse was a potent one, associated with closure, release, and transformation. That Glasgow Witch describes it as the bookend to the September 2024 eclipse. If the past two years are a cycle, a liminal space in time, a phase of transformation, now that the second bookend has been set in place it begs the question of “now what?”

Chances are you already have a good idea about the direction things are headed. If not, however, that can spark a little worry and that is where the Action Eases Anxity layout comes into play. Coming up with an idea about what to do can reduce anxiety just as much as actually doing the thing. Action Eases Anxiety is a good, fast look to help bring things back to center when life is going off the rails

But what about making the original plan before it all goes sideways?

I wrote a four card layout for just exactly that. I tried to call it “Timeflow” or something overly clever. Now I think I’m just going to call it “The Plan”

I’m more of a Marvel fan, but I am a bigger fan of adaptability, so my planning is always going to be in the vein of DC comic’s Captain Cold:

• Make a plan
• Execute the plan
• Expect the plan to go off the rails
• Throw away the plan

So if Action Eases Anxiety is for step three when it all goes pear shaped, The Plan is for step one. This is for making the plan that you expect to eventually toss and the method for making a new one in its place.

The four cards layout spots are:

• Let it rest (things to set aside for now. Come back later when the time is right)
• Let it go (things release. Cut this loose and move on)
• Cue it up (things that need some attention or preparation)
• Let it roll (put your attention here. Conditions are good)

Another reason that Tarot works is because a picture truly is worth a thousand words. Subscribe to Sage Sips on WordPress or Substack (it’s free!) so you’ll get a notice when a post an example Reading of “The Plan” layout sometime over the next couple of days, probably Sunday (it’s Friday now) That will give you a good picture of what “The Plan” layout is like.

See you at the next sip!

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