TaoCraft Tarot / Sage Sips blog

Choose Your Card: The Magician

Sage Sips blog is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

Does this collective energy reading resonate for you? If not, private readings are available HERE

In this series of “Choose Your Card” posts, we are looking at topics instead of time. Instead of a “Card of the day” or a “look at the week ahead” let this reading guide whatever is on your mind.

At the same time, I’ll frame the reading through the lens of a major arcana card. We can grow our understanding of they major arcana card through the other cards.

I love when things have a little nuance, depth and complexity. This format adds YOUR intuition to the reading because YOU CHOOSE which card carries the best message for you. The lower cards help us understand the upper card and vice versa.

Choose a card.

Pause the video if you need more time to decide.

Restart to see the reveal.

Today’s major arcana companion card is the Magician. The magician often symbolizes manifestation, transformation, attraction. These are all about energy and energy is all about flow.

King of Pentacles: Manifesting money is one thing, but knowing what you want the money FOR is the real magic. If you want money to pay your bills and meet your needs focus on having those things, not on the money itself. Focus on the thing, not the money that helps you get it. More so if that thing the money helps you get is something intangible, one step beyond material things.

For example, think of someone who thinks they want money for an expensive car, but what they really want is the attention the car brings or the self worth that the attention brings. Focusing on manifesting or attracting money won’t be as powerful as focusing on the end product and core issue. In this example, don’t focus on gaining money, focus on gaining feelings of self-worth. Something like that is the real treasure that the Magician manifests and the King of of Pentacles protects.

Nine of Swords: Sometimes worry is worse than useless. Use real world stress management strategies to calm anxiety so your fear doesn’t become self fulfilling prophecy.

In their brilliant 1988 Oracle deck “Medicine Cards” Jamie Sams and David Carson frame the seemingly timid rabbit as a fearless warrior.

A rabbit could easily be paralyzed by fear. Bunnies are small, soft and don’t have a lot of protection. There are a bunch of bigger animals who would love to eat rabbit for dinner. But no. Rabbits use their small size to hide and their speed to run to that shelter. They are alert and literally get the jump on danger by being quick to run. Rabbit lives in happiness and contentment in the middle of a dangerous world by using its strengths which aren’t obvious at first. . Rabbit is a lesson in how to live with fear by facing it and dealing with it without wallowing in anxiety and potentially calling those fears into reality.

The nine of swords, as with rabbit, reminds us to deal with fears in real world ways so we don’t unintentionally activate the magician’s powers and call empty worries to us.

The Fool: A new beginning is the easiest magic of all. Take a deep breath. Remember every moment is a new one. Now begin again.

It’s said that every day above ground is a good one. It is also said that there is no time like the present. Clocks and calendars are man-made inventions. Life and energy is under no obligation to follow them.

There is only one moment: right here and right now. You can use it as a fresh start any time you want.

Thanks for watching and reading! Sage Sips blog is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee See you at the next sip!

Zombie Cat’s Summer Shamble Starts this evening.

Private Tarot readings are open this weekend. No appointment needed for email.

After stepping back and sending love and support to Pride Month, Zombie Cat will start to Shamble for the summer.

Ask Zombie Cat Anything on the AMA page OR order a private three card yes/no Tarot reading by email.

As always, Zombie Cat tells it like it is. All of Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.

ps – I NEVER use AI in your readings. This is the first time I’ve tried it just because dammit I’m a writer not a cartoonist.

Ask Zombie Cat: Calm Will Come…Eventually (2024)

Zombie Cat Yes/No readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.

It’s almost that time of year.

Life and the squirrel rave have finally forced me to get a little organized and simplify for 2024

Short and sweet: I have THREE layouts and THREE prices all of the time

Modern Oracle (5 cards, $30)
Eclipse (3 cards, $15)
Sage’s Sip (1 card, $5)

BUT I have lots of other layouts that are only available seasonally by email only.

June 1, 2024 is the start of ZOMBIE CAT’S SUMMER SHAMBLE

June 1 to September 1 Zombie Cat Yes/No readings are $10 for members, $15 for non-members. This layout gives a yes or no answer to ANY question (see disclaimer) plus insights based on the three cards we use to get your yes/no answer. What follows is an actual reading, used with permission, but lightly edited to protect privacy. More about yes/no readings coming soon.

Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans copyright 2012 used with permission Llwellynpublishing.com

Q: I’ve been going through a lot lately. Things are changing fast and I’ve been learning so many things the hard way. Are things ever going to calm down?

A: Maybe but leaning yes.

My hunch is that it is actually more yes than maybe, but with the downside that it won’t kick in for a few more months yet. In my minds eye I see the dogs howling at the moon that you see on some many Moon cards. For some reason that says “dog days of summer” to me. Maybe this is pure projection on my part, because this time of year with the sun, heat and humidity makes my fur more gnarly than usual. It feels like the current energy pattern is going to hang around at least as long as the hot weather. “Things will turn with the weather, bluer skies and sweaters.” Knowing where you are, I’m remembering painting outside on a 80 degree November not so long ago. I’m thinking don’t hold your breath for any real relief until a serious, growing season ending, killing frost. Sort of a big harvest moon, October–December vibe. That would go along with the 4 of Wands, which is about foundations, and community celebrations.

The 4 of Wands also speaks to the new place to live. Yes, it will become foundational, in time. I ‘hear’ “make a house a home” plus something about grounding or earth…this is gonna sound more nuts than usual. I don’t know what the issues are around the new address, but it feels like the energy there needs both cleared and grounded, swept of a lingering funk that pre-dates you and rooted and grounded … settled if you will… on an energy level to make a way for more literal grounding and calming to manifest. This is weird, purely intuitive, and has no basis in science or tradition that I know of on a conscious level. I get the image of sprinkling a 50/50 mixture of salt and diatomacious earth….literally just by pinches at a time…along the baseboards, along the perimeter walls of the house. Don’t worry about inner walls, or specific rooms, just the walls that join the outside. No need to make a big mess, just a ceremonial line using little pinches and clear intention. Sage and smuding are too airy and ethereal. This calls for a tangible bam of something.

The Ace of Swords is associated with air. This feels a little more cautioning than reassuring / advising like the 4 of wands was. Swords and air have to do with intellect. Don’t overthink during this upcoming season, now through the end of the year in any case. This also would go along with the literal grounding / clearing house thing, as being needed to balance the airy creative energy.

The Ace of Swords also reminds me of something you said when we were talking about which deck you’d like to use for this. You were talking about being more “ethereal….like a good spiritual student” with the other deck, but went with this one because it was “bubbling up inside.” I warrant that listening to the stuff that bubbles up inside IS what it means to be a good spiritual student. It is easy to equate spirituality with ethereal, good with serene and so on. This card, this part of the yes/no reminds me of what we were saying yesterday, if it seems like life is beating on you…it is. And that is ok. It first of all is probably because Life knows you are badass enough to deal with it, and second of all, chaos and pains in the ass are just as spiritual as rainbows and unicorns. Remember that article you sent, and that Alan Watts quote? “You are a function of what the whole universe is doing just like a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”

In other words, don’t sweat it, you GOT this. The ocean of life, love and spirituality touch the great white shark the same as the angelfish. Rest will come in its time. Meanwhile, enjoy the swim. You wouldn’t be in the deep end if you couldn’t handle it. This is a chance to discover your inner orca, have a glass of wine, watch Shark Week on TV….that kind of thing. Recharge? Sure. You eat stress for breakfast. You got this.

The Ace of Wands continues in that vein with a more inward turn. Knowing that spirituality takes all forms, so does self-care. Like the human has said before about this card….carry a torch for yourself. Accept your passions and desires, strengths and weakness for what they are…both your increadable resiliancy and your sincere desire for a day off. Need a break? Take it! With gusto and passion! Tell it all to leave a message, and take a spa day. Which I guess takes us back to wine and shark week, but you get the idea. Let your passions shine, even if it is a passion for kicking things to the curb and carving out the peace and quiet you want. Want peace and quiet with burning passion! Or something like that.

So YES things will settle, but that process can be helped along. You have been answered “the hard way” because you can handle it. Rest hasn’t come yet because you still have a bit more to do. It may not feel like it, but you can keep on keeping on. Plus maybe this is a time to explore the gritty, gnarly, not–so-ethereal side of spirituality. Don’t ask me why, but Sam Elliot style movie characters come to mind…the grizzled antihero, Deadpool kind of thing. Not saying that you are that way, just that might be a good mental cosplay, a way to find a way to have a little fun with the chaos until the rest really does come, which it will, but later. Kind of like when the human let’s me come out and play and unleash a little Zombie snark on the world. It’s all just in good fun to get you through until that change in the literal and energetic weather.

Braaaiiiiinns!

Zombie Cat

Entertainment only. Zombies don’t exist and these readings don’t predict anything. Use with caution – the ideas here might change your perspective and improve your life choices.

Mystical Moon

Private Tarot by email is always open for orders, no appointment needed.

In Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao, Diane Morgan interprets the moon card as our “spiritual journey.” The moon means so much in so many parts of our humanity; art, literature, lore, mythology, science, environment. It seems to be one of the most revered and mystical cards among 78 revered and mystical Tarot cards.

Arguably, our spiritual journey is simply the journey of being alive. If we are spiritual beings having a human experience, whatever path we choose we are doing our spiritual journey right. Light incense, dance, pray, meditate, go on long runs or peel potatoes; everything is connected and it is all sacred. Feel it or not, it is all still our right spiritual journey because we not only learn, but we experience the pain and the pleasure of it all.

Thank you for reading.

See you at the next sip!

Do you want it fast or do you want it Mona Lisa?

A behind the scenes look at the philosophy and thinking behind Tarot readings

I love pithy advice.

So naturally, I’m a little bit of a Ben Franklin fan.

Through his Poor Richard’s Almanac he tells us that “haste makes waste.” He also wrote that “Well done is better than well said.“

I agree – except for Tarot readings. In that case, well done IS well said.

Written or spoken, words have power. Why else would we be talking about some pithy little aphorisms from the 1700s? Actions do speak louder than words, but it is often words that crawl into your head and live there rent free.

That is especially true when the person speaking or writing the words are afforded some sort of authority or expertise. Filler writing from a nearly 300 year old almanac might not get any attention at all if the author wasn’t also a revered figure from American history.

It doesn’t have to be that magnitude of authority. The inept rantings of a random stranger on the internet can impact your mood if you let your guard down and stumble across a troll at a vulnerable moment. Ill-intended, ill-considered words can, regrettably, have power too.

In the world of Tarot, both in-person and online, the psychic reader is assumed to have special knowledge, a skill or expertise that we have not developed in ourselves. Not in any real power or control sort of way, but their words are given that tiny bit more credence. Their words hit a little harder and can get in your head a little easier.

Tarot is all art and heart, not certification and certainty. Whether any one reader is a good match for your personality, your nature, your needs is up to you, and only you, to decide.

One factor in that decision is time.

Tarot is an art. Writing a book takes time. The Mona Lisa wasn’t painted in a day. Quality takes time. If you can find it in yourself to make an advance appointment or spend an hour in conversation with the reader or wait a day for an email reading you’ll get much in return for your time and money investment. Thoughtful Tarot is often the best Tarot.

That is where my side of the Tarot table comes into play. It is up to a professional reader to take whatever time is needed to do a good reading. It is up to us, the professionals, to set time, set boundaries, set working hours, make transparent policies, set clear intentions and manage expectations. It falls to me to let you know that a quick 10 minute at a party is all fun and giggles, while giving my fullest attention to a hour-long private session.

I’ve worked for online psychic services. I’ve called as a client to the old school 800 services. A couple of those impulse phone calls were the precise right message at the precise right time and I’ll always be grateful. But the key is again, time. The call may have been spur of the moment on my side, but the artful words I received were not. Those wise words were given by practitioners who were there for working hours, unhurried and ready to serve.

The instant gratification of getting a reading right away during a time of emotional upheaval has its place. By the same token, Tarot isn’t a crisis hotline. Tarot isn’t an emotional emergency room. Tarot’s real power lies in inspiration and empowerment. Tarot’s long term superpower is guiding your choices in a way that steers your whole life in a better direction. That takes time. A lot of time and effort on your part. In the short term of any one reading session, it still takes a little time to listen to spirit and to choose the best way to say something that we can.

So please pardon the odd little pauses silences in the conversation while we do that. Or, in the case of email, if it takes more than an hour to get a well written reading to your inbox. Wise words are worth the wait. Choose the ideas that live in your head rent-free carefully. Evict the ones that no longer serve you well.

Tarot is all art and heart and haste can waste your time.

Well said IS well done.

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Choose Your Tarot Card: 23 May 24

Don’t vibe with your collective energy card? Private distance readings are open. No appointment needed for email or paper.

PAGE OF WANDS: “Know thyself” Act natural. Do you, and the path of least resistance will nudge you in the right direction.

That isn’t to say we should melt and fade at the first sign of a challenge. There is a lot to be said for persistence. At the same time, insanity is defined as doing the same thing persistently while expecting a different result. Sometimes roadblocks are there for a reason.

As a general rule, walking in harmony with the real you is the best way to go

THREE OF WANDS: Make plans, but keep your eyes open for unexpected opportunities. Good things come to those who wait.

Another way to say it is don’t sleepwalk through this thing on your mine (today, tomorrow, the upcoming week, a relationship, a career – whatever you had on your mind when you picked your card) Observe deeply. Little details might be the bright light bulb you need to light the way.

FIVE OF WANDS: Life is never all rainbows and roses. Train. Know what to do when the inevitable bad day happens for things to be ok in the end. Charge your batteries before the storm.

A paramedic instructor once said “prepare for the emergency and the emergency goes away.” When you are ready for life’s little stresses, the stress can go away even if the situation doesn’t fundamentally change.

Thanks for watching the video and coming to the blog for a few extra thoughts.

See you at the next sip!

Ace of Pentacles continued

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Distance Tarot is my specialty. Private readings are OPEN.

Card of the Day: Ace of Pentacles, 21 May 24

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Like I’ve said in PeaceTarot and a bizillion other times, a daily one card meditation is the bread and butter and workhorse and utter delight of learning to read Tarot. And, I’ve found, of living Tarot too.

It’s one thing to learn a skill or philosophy or spiritual practice. It’s another to live with it every day and let it become part of your skin and bones and morning coffee.

The best way to build a relationship with anything like this is bit by bit, day by day. Kick the tires. Test drive it. Take it on a shake down cruise. Lean on it. If it holds you up in troubled times, it will help shine a light on the good times too.

It’s not a religion, it’s nothing special.

In Chinese style martial arts its call gong fu…diligence and practice and work over time resulting in masterful skill. Tarot is the same. Anyone can read them. We all have innate, natural intuition and psychic ability. But it takes diligence and practice and work over time for it to become deeply useful – to become a part of your life and spiritual practice.

Pentacles speak to just that kind of work. Pentacles are aligned with the Earth element and are about exactly this kind of real-world, rubber-meets-the-road work. That is the suit’s window on it’s common meanings: work, career, wealth, and the physical realm.

When you add the images, words, music, sound that imaginatively come to mind, it nudges us toward the best key words to use for the card for the day at hand.

In this case I ‘hear’ the TING sound effect of something metal being hammered – like railroad spikes and railroad building sounds from old western movies.

It’s like movie Esperanto for hard physical work.

The hand holding a gold coin has a TA-DA! feel about it.

Put them together and work TA-DA! has results. In other words, the energy supports a productive day at hand. If it’s late in the day when you read this, no matter what kind of day it has been, do what you can to set up tomorrow to be productive.

And there the energy steps back.

Stop back tomorrow: Another one card like this tomorrow than on Thursday (hopefully, fingers crossed) we’ll do a Choose Your Card video.

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Learn to read Tarot and bring a moment of peace to troubled times. Peace Tarot is available now for instant download in the ko-fi shop.

Every Little Thing Can Be Magick

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

What is magic, really?

Being raised on a steady diet of 60s sitcom re-runs, part of me still wants nose twitching, wand waving, hand gesturing, incantation mumbling, midnight margarita saturated POOF! magic.

It’d be fun, you have to admit. But out here in the real world things aren’t so simple. There is magic, and then there is magick. I like making the distinction between stage or fictional magic and the spiritual practice of magick by using the ‘k’ at the end for the latter.

Besides, the K just looks cool.

Regardless of whether you think magic is fictional fun or if magick is your path, The Magician is a very powerful card. It is a card of transformation, in essence, of initiating and controlling change. This differs from the kind of big life change we might see with the Death or Tower card. The key is initiating the change, controlling the change and, importantly, working for the change. They don’t call it working magic(k) for no reason.

TV magic is alluring because it is all instant gratification but it lacks potential and possibility. Real magick is full of potential and possibility, but the gratification it brings is slow, inexorable, deep and lasting.

In a daily collective energy Tarot reading like this, the message is in that potential…and the change. Change really is possible. In this case it is self-initiated and primarily internal. New attitudes, new habits, new feelings, new lifestyles, new philosophies all take time.

The magician is powerful. Tap in to that power – however long it takes. Real magick is absolutely possible, given the necessary time and willingness to put in the most difficult kind of work: personal growth. Change your perceptions and expectations and POOF! you are magick.

The magician extends one arm up and one arm down. We are reminded of Hermes’ quote “as above, so below” but we shouldn’t forget the next part…”as within, so without” Our world can transform by changing the lens through which we view it.

We might not be able to change an adversary into a toad or make a coin appear out of thin air or change lead into gold, but the world within can be expressed without in an instant.

The lyrics to Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero” include “Love and compassion, that day is coming.” That day can be here the moment we decide to be loving and compassionate.

That is the magick that can be found in every little thing and in every passing moment. That is the magick that can change our world.

Thank you so much for reading! This post was originally published in 2020 and updated May 2024

Want a little taste of Tarot magick of your own? Private readings are available HERE. This blog isn’t monetized so a portion of the proceeds from private reading sales support the free Tarot readings on this blog and the YouTube Channel.

Post originally published 2020

Ogres, Onions and the Tarot Reader

Shrek: ….ogres are like onions

Donkey: They stink?

….

Shrek: No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers
from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com

Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.

Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)

Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.

Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot and re-branded again to Sage Words Tarot.

That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.

In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is required. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.

As I’ve learned and gained experience, the original “Modern Oracle” layout has evolved too. I’ve re-named it as it changed and changed it back to “Modern Oracle” as my website and blog evolved.

Back in the early 2000s I wrote the initial Modern Oracle layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the layout specifically to show the power that your choices have over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in older readings became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.

Now it goes one step further. The reading is about dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. Now, the layout is both about your choices and a read of the energy conditions ahead. Think of it as being like a GPS traffic update with a weather report. It is a guide to help you decide which way to travel and a general idea of the conditions you will most likely be travelling in.

Card 1, lessons from the past, became Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are decreasing in influence and things that need less of your attention than before.

Card 2, the current situation, is now Current Energies. This reflects the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention most needed in this present moment.

Card 3, moving forward, is Growing Energies, reflects the energies that are growing, might need more attention soon or are gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is information for decision making. Just like with gps driving condition updates, if you know about a traffic jam ahead then you can choose another road.

Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. In the GPS analogy, this suggests a better road if traffic is heavy ahead, or it can encourage you to stay the course you are on if conditions are good. Either way, you are still the driver. In the end you are the one who chooses where to drive and how to get there no matter what the GPS or the Tarot cards say.

Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed.

Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are just what the name says they are. Change the five card Modern Oracle layout into the 7 card TaoCraft layout that is only available seasonally.

Over the years. the five card layout has proven its value. It’s useful, insightful, practical,gets right to the point and is affordable. It has the best balance of quality, detail and affordability.

Ogers and onions are complex, but they are always evolving and growing new layers. Reading Tarot is the same way. There are complexities, but sometimes the best new thing is taking off those old outer layers to reveal the green and fresh life underneath.

This is the summer of simplification.

Starting in May 2024 my private readings will have 4 formats, 3 layouts and 2 levels of availability.

Four Formats:

Email: my specialty
Pre-recorded video: private – only you will get the link to the video.
Pen and Paper: old school snail mail, archaic but powerful
Live phone or zoom call

Three Layouts

Modern Oracle (Five Card) – $30
Eclipse (Three Card) – $15
Sage Sip (One Card – $5

Two availabilites

No appointment needed, order anytime (email, video, paper)
By appointment only (phone/zoom)

One Reader – me! Meet Sage HERE