Tarot Cards – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Introducing Sage’s Second Cup

I’m resuscitating my other blog that has the old Modern Oracle archives for you to explore.

Hi! I’m Sage.

I’m also a Tarot reader and the author of Sage Sips blog on TaoCraftTarot.com. If you are looking for anything Tarot related, it’s there.

THIS on the other hand is my other blog.

Sage Sips is all Tarot: collective energy general audience readings, behind the scenes, how-to, Q&A (submit a question HERE)

On this blog I settle in for a second cup and write about anything else.

Here is the back story of it all if you are curious:

I started reading Tarot and Oracle cards in 1992 or 1993 (ish) At first I read for myself and my friends (why pay $$$$ to the phone psychic people when you can do it yourself?) My bestie encouraged me to read online (forever grateful!) I worked under the handle Baihu with Keen, Advice Trader and AllExperts. In 2003 (ish) I went full pro and opened my own Tarot practice and Modern Oracle Tarot website doing party, in-person, live online and email readings.

I wrote the Tarotbytes blog (2009ish – 2018) and in 2015-16 was a regular on David Dear’s Menage A Tarot podcast (one of my favorite things ever! David and Kate are the BEST readers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with)

Throw an Etsy shop in the mix and things were getting messy, so in 2018 I rebranded everything as TaoCraft Tarot and renamed the blog Sage Sips.

In late 2024 l ife happened and in January 2025 I retired from the professional part of TaoCraft Tarot. Now I only write the blog as a hobby and I only do private readings as a thank you gift for Sage Sips supporters on Ko-Fi. The Ko-fi support goes toward web-hosting the main blog without ads or paywalls.

It’s liberating, honestly. Without the professional part, I can be as erratic and sweary as I want to be. When you fully follow intuition, Tarot and esoteric topics can be like that.

That’s about it. It’s been a while since I’ve used this blog. It may or may not cross post on Sage Sips or Ko-fi for the long term (haven’t decided yet) but it will initially just to help get the ball rolling with the Second Cup blog.

And yes, in real life I really like coffee, so I’m all in with the analogies.

See you at the next sip!

Happy Mid-April

How are you doing? Whew…what a week. For a couple of hours there on Tuesday I actually wondered if it all was going to disappear into a flash of nuclear mutually assured total annihilation.

It’s probably just as well that I was taking a little mental health break this past week. I hope you all are taking good care of yourself, too.

Members read more HERE

Support me on ko-fi to help keep Sage Sips ad-free. Members get free private email Tarot readings anytime at your request. Please visit my ko-fi for details

Today’s Tarot: OK Is OK

It’s ok to be ok.

We’ve had a stressful week here in the US. Even I thought we were going to all die in a flash of mutually assured nuclear destruction at the hands of the republicans. (BTW – this is a personal opinion blog and not a public business. As of today, if you are a Republican, support Republicans, want bipartisan cooperation with Republicans, are Chistian evangelical, are Christian nationalist, racist, or any variety of bigot please f**k right the hell off. That energy is not welcome here.)

THAT being said, today is a good day for a shift in focus. Things have been very yang, very outward, very existential crisis lately. It’s ok to turn off the big world news, pull in your energies and focus on you, your immediate personal space for a minute.

You…yes, you. Take just a moment away from the screen. Look around you.

So, how is it? Are you out of the weather? Hungry? Thirsty? Warm/cool enough? Sitting or standing comfortably? Is the room literally on fire? Are you in any immediate danger?

If not, take a deep breath. It’s ok to be ok for a minute.

Sometimes the best dream to chase is being OK with things as they are right here, right now. It is a dream that is forever already true.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoy Sage Sips, please support the blog on Ko-Fi to help me webhost it ad-free. See you at the next sip!

Reflection

I’ve seen the idea attributed to Keanu Reeves, but don’t judge yourself harshly for what you didn’t know. Some things, some emotions, take time to process. Respond to circumstances as best as you can now, but respond differently as you learn more. In the words of Alan Watts “you are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

Today’s Sip: Both Ways

Seven of Pentacles:

“You reap what you sow” cuts both ways.

It is a promise of consequences to your actions, effects that you cause.

It can be a warning of unkindness coming home to roost, but by the same token it can be a promise of good things coming home as well.

Sow well, reap well.

New Times, Old Meaning

Today we are using the Normal Tarot deck by Seven Dane Asmund in the Action Eases Anxiety layout.

What it is: The Fifth of Winter (peak of the test)

What to do: The Masterless Knight (wild card)

How to do it: The Courteous King (tragedy and compassion)

I am reminded of the old adage that “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is taking action in spite of it.”

This old meaning of courage is important in these new times.

These cards hint that things are just as bad as they seem. Denial serves no good purpose. The old ways are gone, beyond repair.

The only way forward is to create something new, something courageous and something profoundly compassionate. Here I ‘hear’ the song “Miss Couragous” by the 1990s band The Nixon Clocks.

Old institutions can no longer guide us. I ‘hear’ “religion must fall.” Given my personal background, this feels particularly directed at American evangelicals. May they become social pariahs.

Find your own unique way. You are the king of your own inner kingdom but with no control or dominion over other people. Rule your inner world with wisdom and compassion. Compassion directed toward yourself and toward others.

Wishing you a courageous week

Persistent Surrender

Support Sage Sips on ko-fi to help me keep the blog ad-free

I like to think it’s a writer’s thing.

I call it the niggles when a thought captures your creative imagination and keeps poking at you until you write it. The Ten of Swords has been a little like that the past couple of days.

Had the niggling notion to draw a card for Wednesday (two days ago) but didn’t get anything posted after drawing the card because life, day job and everything. I drew the card with the intention of expanding Sunday’s Action Eases Anxiety reading, Cresting Wave.

I originally wrote Action Eases Anxiety as a 2 card layout showing, essentially, what it is and what to do. The cards describe current energies and give a suggestion about how to best navigate them. My thought was to add a third card …. a how-to-do-it card, which would flesh out the sentence, and let the layout echo parts of speech: subject-verb-object in a vague sort of way.

The new, third card was the 10 of swords and it prompted an avalanche of random sayings and platitudes plus a bonus earworm of a song from one of my favorite albums back in the day. It all pointed toward the 10 of swords keyword surrender. Often this surrender is the wave a white flag and admit defeat kind that the dire-looking Pamela Smith artwork would indicate.

In this case the surrender word has a different connotation. It is more like acceptance but not acquiescence. There is an element of going with the flow that we see in the six of swords, but with a much more disturbing undercurrent and context than the six would carry. This card connects to the previous reading in a way the six could not.

Surrender is a way to persist.

Someone on Twitter several years ago captured the absolute essence of this card as it presents today. I can’t remember who it was, but I want to say it was author Chuck Wendig in his You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton era. Whoever it was, they described the Ten of Swords something like “yeah, you are laying on the floor in utter defeat, but while you are down there you look under the sofa and find the car keys you lost two weeks ago.”

Today, the so-called negative aspects of the card are only negative or bad from a hyper active, frenetic, pushing, over-achieving point of view. Sure, it’s bad from an all-yang sort of perspective. If you look at it from a more yin-balanced perspective, surrender IS persisting.

Surrender lets you understand your situation and deal with it honestly and rationally (after all, intellect is a swords thing.)

A psychiatrist at a hospital where I worked a long time ago once said that “the decision not to decide is still a decision.”

So by that same token, waiting and watching IS doing something.

Yes, it’s true that if you wait for the perfect time to do something you’ll never do it because the time is never perfect, BUT timing can be better if not perfect. Waiting for perfect is the problem – being thoughtful and strategic is not (again a swords / air / intellect thing)

Surrender and retreat isn’t defeat, it is advancing in a new direction.

“He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.”

Adaptation is survival, and that is the key to persisting in this energy.

Action Ease Anxiety: Cresting Wave

Please support me on Ko-fi to help keep Sage Sips ad-free

The Action Eases Anxiety layout gives us a look at the current energy for today or the week. It shows what the energy is, then suggests a good way to deal with it. Whenever you have some small bit of understanding and an action plan, those ideas together can ease anxiety and worry a little bit. It’s no grand prediction about what will happen, but a solid suggestion how to move through this current energy with a little bit more peace of mind.

Like I’ve always said: Tarot isn’t about predicting what will happen in life – Tarot is for figuring out what to do when life happens.

What it is: New Moon (reversed) – fragile potential

What to do: Five of Winter – persist

There is much potential around you, but it can be easily thwarted. Don’t sell yourself short. Persist. Don’t bail out just when the worst is about to be over.

I ‘hear’ (meaning the intuitive interpretation comes as words or sounds instead of mental images) “It can’t rain all the time” from the 1994 movie version of The Crow.

I am also reminded or the adage to not change horses mid stream.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

It’s also said that it’s darkest before the dawn. Don’t give up just before the sun peeks over the horizon.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

And all the platitudes and proverbs like that.

In other words, yes it’s hard. Yes it’s a mess. Hope is over the crest of the next wave. Don’t wimp out at the last minute. Dig deep you’ll make it over the crest of the biggest wave sooner or later.

shown: The Normal Tarot deck by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission. Learn more at publishinggoblin.com

Ease Up

It tracks.

Today is a good day for the three of cups.

Cups represent emotion, and our emotions have been, collectively speaking, taking a breathing the past few months to years. The energy has been intense lately, especially here in the US. The world rightly hates us. We hate us. Terrible things are happening and if the people in power aren’t actively instigating it, they are tacitly allowing it.

Which only makes it more important to claw back a moment of simple pleasure when you can.

It’s St. Patrick’s day weekend. Enjoy the parades. Enjoy the beer. Enjoy being with friends if you can. Take a breath or take a nap and then get back at it.

Happy Pi Day to all who celebrate.

Inevitable

Support Sage Sips on Ko-Fi to help keep the blog ad-free

Change is inherent to life. Change is inevitable. Change is at hand.

The energy in today’s reading is entirely about world events, not an individual situation – but it tells us all something we can do ease the anxieties for all of us during war, fascism and all of the overwhelming things in the world today.

The Action Eases Anxiety layout hints at what current energies ARE and what to DO about them.

What is is: The Scythe. This symbol clearly resonates with the Death card from the RWS major arcana. The energy now is ripe for making changes. In this deck’s book, Christopher Butler adds a connotation of precision. The advice here is to make smart, precise, efficient, effective changes. Be focused and targeted in what you decide to do. Do small things that you feel confident and comfortable doing….think of a magnifying glass that focuses sunlight so strongly it could ignite paper. When you are confident and comfortable, you are focused and effective. Don’t feel comfortable calling your congressional representatives? Send an email. Don’t feel comfortable carrying a big sign to a protest? Stand quietly at the protest. Quiet presence and small but persistent action counts too.

The Death card is ‘sea change’ … any big, life altering change. Like the Death card, the change isn’t always disastrous. When I was a professional reader, I saw the death card all of the time – at bachelorette parties, and even a baby shower once. Change can be very, very good change. Sure it may be the death of the maiden phase of life, but it is also the birth of wife and mother phases of life. Symbolic death of the old is necessary to make way for the new. The Scythe card here emphasizes that aspect. The Scythe clears the way for better things to come. It clears the way for you to move forward in the way that you want, the way that you must.

Here I am reminded of the powerful quote from the movie The Last Jedi where the character Kylo Ren says “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become who you were meant to be.” That captures the feeling of the Scythe card today.

What to do: The Whip is a disturbing image, typically associated with quarreling and conflict akin to the 3 of swords or 5 of wands. This connects to the underlying “Change…but in a good way” message here. To make positive, effective changes, old patterns are necessarily disrupted. This connects to the John Lewis “good trouble” reference.

Clearly this is a time of upheaval. I intuitively ‘hear’ “sea change” along with “good trouble.”

I also ‘hear’ “we are in the thick of it” and “this the darkness before the dawn”

My mind is drawn to the number 5 and the month of May. I don’t know why or what that’s about – but I hold on to hope just the same. May is only a couple of months away.

But that should NOT draw our focus away from the moment at hand. That is exactly what the first card warns us about. Any diffusion to our focus could keep the critically needed changes from sparking.

Now is the time to add your drop into the ocean of change, now is the time to add your weight to the work of bending the arc of history toward justice.

Thank you, as always, for reading. See you at the next sip!

Support Sage Sips on Ko-Fi for a private Tarot reading by email as a thank you gift. Proceeds help to keep Sage Sips ad free.