Tag: opinion

Reasonable Second Chance

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Today’s Tarot: Judgement

The past is the price we pay for the second chance each new moment gives.

And it’s a reasonable one. The past doesn’t disappear, but how emotionally attached you are to it is up to you. If it is a cherished memory – then by all means cherish it. If it is a painful, harmful one, you are perfectly free to let the attachment go.

I’ve always wrangled with the Judgement card in this form, with all the christian religious imagery here. If familiarity breeds contempt, my evangelical upbringing has bred a great deal of contempt for that ideology. The only good thing about the political climate in America since 2015 is now everyone can see what we-who-left have been talking about. Now everyone knows how toxic and insane evangelicals and Christian nationalists are. So dear everyone who said I was over-reacting when I said Republicans and Evangelicals were a bunch of fascists (middle finger) I TOLD you so.

BUT that is also an example in point for the energy of this card today. I can’t pretend that my parent’s and extended family’s religion isn’t a steaming pile of toxic, harmful bullshit. BUT I can choose to make my life a secular sanctuary, free from religion as much as a functioning adult living in America in 2026 can make it.

Alan Watts’ observation rings perennially true “You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

And THAT is the aspect of the Judgement card that steps forward today: Second Chances.

The judgement has been made (you have decided some aspect of past experience is unhealthy, or somehow unworthy of including in your current circumstances)

The dues have been paid (you lived it, learned from it and made the reasoned choice to shift your perspective)

Another chance is in hand (every moment is a fresh start and a chance be a different person than you were five minutes ago.)

Here is to reasonable second chances.

See you at the next sip

Sage’s Second Cup Sunday

I have no idea if cross posting between blogs is a good idea or not. Nor do I give a fk at this point. That’s the whole idea of being an amateur hobbiest instead of trying to be a professional side hustle. Here goes nothin’

Clearly, this blog is going to be inspired by current events and take the place of the void screaming in my old blog Baihu’s News Haikus.

Lately I’ve been following Dan Harris. His approach to meditation very much resonates with my own (“Inner Peace Mthrfkrs!”) His posts about action easing anxiety came just when I needed to hear it in my personal life and it inspired the Tarot layout by that name. It’s true. I’ve lived it. I’ve used it. And I’ll be posting a reading later today on Sage Sips – if I get the laundry done, supper cooked and the garbage out in time. Funny how these full time jobs tend to take up so much time.

Woke up this morning to more insanity between U.S. and Iran. To those Gen X among us, did you ever in your 1079 remembering life imagine that Iran would wind up sounding almost reasonable in comparison to the White House? Am feeling the Lenormand deck. I think we can use one of it’s pull-no-punches kind of readings.

I’ve recently added a third card to the layout. The first is ‘what it is’ to show the current energy environment. The second is ‘what to do’ suggesting a helpful response to that energy, probably a shift in perception or understanding. The third is ‘how to do it’ which I hope will both support the second card and encourage us to implement it out in the real world. I think of swords cards as sort of the patron saint of this layout….air, intellect AND action.

Making an action plan can go a long, long way toward easing anxiety. But putting the plan into actual action goes that one step further. Even if the action plan goes entirely off the rails as plans so often do.

I’m such a tiny little speck of nothing when it comes to current event and US politics. All I have to offer in this situation at the moment is an internet connection and three congressmen to yell at. Online contact may not do anything, except as one tiny electron tick to some aggregate statistic. But at least I can go sleep tonight knowing I did what I could.

I encourage to send your tiny electron to your representatives, contribute whatever else you can, and above all vote. Check your registration, jump through as many of their obstructive hoops as you can and if you can’t, see if anyone can help.

In the words of TV’s firefly “When you can’t run, you crawl and when you can’t do that you find someone to carry you.” That. Only voting.

Make the midterms look like the Avengers assembling.

People were joking online about being willing to crawl over covid covered broken glass to vote against the fascists in the past couple of elections. (Hopefully it won’t come to that, but don’t give them any ideas) But the idea. Do whatever you can. It doesn’t only help the greater good, it helps you. Action eases anxiety.

Will talk to you later on the main blog. Hang in there. Wishing you some little thing that gives you a ridiculously large amount of happiness in spite of it all. Imma have a second cup of coffee.

YouChoose Interactive Tarot: Big Simplification

Pick a card, any card. Well, any of three. Take your time or choose quickly. It’s your choice – like everything. If you want some extra time to ponder, pause the video then restart to see the reveal.

The weird thing is that I am finally, finally getting a sense of how to dial into these YouTube videos. The intuitive signal is on a completely different wavelength than working with an individual or writing for the blog. Actually, download speed would be a better analogy for how it feels to intuition. If doing a YouTube video is OG dial up, speaking in person is broadband. Typing on a keyboard is cat 5 hardwired cable. The message is the exactly the same. The core, underlying process is the same. It is a subtle difference from my side of the table, but on your side of the table the only difference is how artfully I verbalize your spirit message. Not that you need to know that – but I wanted to give you fair warning. I want to try something and YOUR feedback would be very, very helpful.

I’m thinking that for “YouChoose” posts, I’ll post the video and let it stand on its own. That way, you can choose your card with no potential spoilers on the page below. If anything, I’ll put a general energy, zeitgeist kind of read, like the speckled stones image that returned this week. That image may hint at a longer wave of energy akin in length to the hurricane image from last year (although certainly much different in meaning and tone.)

Once caveat in doing things that way: locality. The general cultural energy impression might be very local. It most likely will be limited to the US, the eastern time zone or possibly my million or so close neighbors here in Allegheny County. I won’t know about that part until we work with this format for a while.

I would like to know what YOU think!

Do you like the YouChoose format at all in any iteration?

Do you like the cards in print under the video or the video alone?

Is there anything else that you want to see in the blog? Tell what content you want to see, and I’ll create it. Easy as that.

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Thank you for your response. ✨