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Happy New Year! Re-introducing the re-introductions
Happy 2024 everyone!
We’ve made it to the other side of blurry time and it was, well, blurry. Did you make any resolutions for the new year? Mine is resolution is to give up on resolutions.
One of the reasons I flirted with the “TaoCraft” name for a while is because year after year, time and time again Taoist philosophy proves itself right and useful. I’m gratefully at a point where I can let the nature of my Tarot work be what it is.
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Intuition, like the universe, is under no obligation to make sense OR to follow best marketing practices OR to follow any calendar or schedule. I’ve been doing this professionally since 2003 and it hasn’t fit into a set schedule yet.
It’s time to be in harmony with the nature of Tarot. I’m willing to be at peace with the fact that the schedule for 2024 is that there is no schedule at all.
Do you have anything that is free form and flows like water into the empty spaces of life? It’s really relaxing to have SOMETHING like that. Tarot, by its naturea, is one of those things.
Here, now, as we look at this screen together outside of time – thank you for reading this blog. I hope we can go on through 2024 flowing as a river of peace and relaxation in these moments together. That is what Tarot is really for – finding moments of peacefulness in life’s torrent of emotions and bustling activity.
I’ll be the first to admit that blurry time got the better of me this year, although the cookies were really very good. (More about stuff like that on Sage’s Other Words blog.) I had originally intended to use the holiday time to “reset” as they say in broadcasting. I wanted to pause for station identification and to re-introduce my work, the new name, the website, Tarot in general – all of it – to everyone. I introduced myself and the Sage Words / Sage Sips name in
Just because we ate all of the cookies doesn’t mean the guided tour has to stop. You can still expect those re-introduction posts to filter in over the next few, slightly less blurry weeks.
For clarity, let’s start with the easy stuff like the 2024 schedule.
There isn’t any.
For the whole year. Nada. Zip. Zero. None.
I have a general plan, but absolutely no promises about consistency. I do, however, promise to keep the blog up to date. If you ever want an affordable, convenient Tarot reading this is the first and best place to look. All the socials are @SageWordsTarot (add a YT on YouTube) and they are pretty caught up as well. I’ve been enjoying Threads a lot lately so that’s the best place to catch me for an actual conversation.
In any case, I’m aiming for a loose structure but letting it do whatever it is going to do in the end. I’m not forcing my Tarot to fit a schedule or forcing the rest of my schedule to fit Tarot.
It is what it is.
There are reasons why Lau Tzu, purported author of the Tao Te Ching, is the one looking smiley and chill in the classic motif of The Three Vinegar Tasters. The others are reacting to the bitterness and sourness that they taste. Our buddy Lau Tzu is just happy that the vinegar tastes just like vinegar should.
You may or may not like the taste of vinegar. You may or may not like an unpredictable blog or social post schedule, but both are true to their nature, just as they should be.
The not-really-a-plan plan:
P.S. The New Year 2024 Tarot reading is HERE.
See you at the next sip!
#KofiChallenge
Pathway Tarot readings for the New Year. Happy 2024 everyone!
Tarot doesn’t tell you exactly what is going to happen in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
What path do you choose for 2024?
So much is up to you – it’s your choice what you do with what you are handed. Emotions bubble up, but you choose what you do about them.
Sorry about the shreddy sounding voice and disorganized presentation (there are reasons why I’m a writer type Tarot reader and not a social media influencer) but watch the video, pick a path.
This shows some of my choices for 2024.The YouTube channel is all companion videos showing the real world card draw for the day. The video has short commentary in the description, but the full reading is here in the blog. I don’t like talking on video, so there you are. I hope you’ll watch and read to get the best of both worlds.
Looking at all the rows together we see lots of major arcana and court cards. I think that is hinting at a big energy year. Lots of change, a real roller coaster ride. Plant good seeds, set a good foundation now so our roller coaster ride ends up in a good place.
Top Row – Quartz
Clear quartz is the universal amplifier. It turns up the volume on your connection to universal energies and the effects of other stones and crystals. This may be your year to be the helper. Speak your truth and let it be heard.
Fading Energy: 10 of Swords. I’m guessing that 2023 was a heckuva year for you. This card isn’t hinting that anything dire is going to happen. It’s hinting that it already has. HEAL. Let yourself be down, make a full assessment of everything that has happened so you can stand up again. I always connect this card to the proverb “fall down seven times but get up eight.”
Current Energy: Queen of Swords. This is a card of accepting your power. Give yourself a little dose of confidence. It isn’t arrogant to do the things you are good at doing. If you don’t want to think of yourself as being good at something, then do the things you LOVE to do. Often they are the same thing.
Growing Energy: Strength. This card is just what it seems. Heal from what has happened, get up again, claim your strengths. Confidence and strength can grow as time goes on.
Middle Row – Orange Calcite
Calcite comes in a variety of colors, but the orange calcite here is especially associated with the second chakra, below the navel. Orange is the opposite of blue on the color wheel, so orange calcite can poetically speaking “chase away the blues.” Of all of orange calcite’s properties cleansing and uplifting step forward here.
Fading energy: Judgement. This also gives me the feeling that you center row folks had a heckuva year, but more on the mental and emotional level than in the physical / career realm. Let go of other people’s judgement of you and give yourself a second chance whether anyone else does or not. Humans are a diverse lot. There is someone, somewhere who accepts you just exactly as you are, no judgments or second chances required.
Current energy: Hermit. Nothing is better for letting go of old hurts than a little alone time. Give yourself the space to shut out all the judge-y voices. Set some boundaries, find your one guiding light. When you come out of your hermit cave, a fresh start will be right there waiting for you. Any day can be the first day of a new year.
Growing energy: Queen of Wands. This is a card of self care too, but it has an element of claiming your own time, skills, strengths and powers. The energy feel of this card is very much like the queen of swords and it feels like the queen of wands is standing in as surrogate simply because the queen of swords can’t be in two places at the same time. Putting it in those words, I get a sense that the year may be growing in activity. It could get busy. Whether that heaping plate of things to do is a good thing or a stressful thing is up to you.
Foundation Row – Red Carnelian
Red carnelian is a stone of courage, endurance and leadership. You never know what you have inside until it is put to the test. One way to discover your comfort zone is to step outside of it. But don’t worry, if you can’t step back in to the old zone, it will grow out to meet you. You got this.
Fading energy: The High Priestess. This is a card of mystique and mystery. When mystery fades it often leaves certainty in its wake. This card reminds me of a quote by scientist Richard Feynman “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” Know with confidence, but question everything with equal energy.
Current energy: Five of Swords. Sword cards often denote action. Now that I think about it, the word aftermath is stepping forward here. The past three years have been pretty unhinged on the macro scale, if not on your individual one too. This card is validating what you feel, but also challenging you to rise to the circumstances. “Yeah, that sucked, but now what are you going to DO about it?” is the vibe.
Growing energy: The Empress. Get back to nature, baby. This is a big reminder to touch some grass this year, literally and figuratively. Somewhere I read about a study where people’s blood pressure came down a little bit whenever they looked at pictures of nature. That isn’t to say pictures of nature cure high blood pressure, but that objective, measurable change showed that we associate nature with relaxation and even that tiny bit of contact was enough to elicit a tiny bit of measurable, physiologic stress reduction.
Whether it is a new computer wallpaper, a walk in the park, a day at the beach or a week long camping trip…anything you can do to connect with nature is nothing but good this year. For goodness’ sake get outside and breathe some fresh air, will you?
And everybody wash your hands, wear a mask when you need to, get enough sleep and eat an occasional vegetable while you are at it.
I wish everyone a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
See you at the next sip!
Sage Sips is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
Using blurry-time to reintroduce myself. Hello & Happy Holidays!
Happy Festivus to all who celebrate! Welcome to what I’m calling Blurry Time ’23. Elfcon is over, the preparations are done. It’s all cookies and coffee from here.
I subscribe to Outlined, the web comic by Chaz Hutton. My favorite comic is the drawing of a December calendar page where the second half is basically a bunch of wiggly lines.
That perfectly captures the feel of the season. Even for those of us working a normal day job schedule, there is a sense of shared down time and camaraderie among those out and about actually doing the things for that week between Christmas eve and New Years day.
It’s truly liminal space and time. It is magical time. It is time disconnected from time – or something like that.
2023 as a whole felt very liminal and transitional. It was a blurry-ish year moving from the extended pandemic / dumpster fire years 2020-22 (2016-22 if you live in the U.S.) We’ll get back to how 2024 is looking when we do the annual just-for-fun (and wishful thinking) year-ahead Tarot reading next weekend (-ish)
In the meantime, I want to use blurry time to bridge years.
2023 was the first full year of Sage Words Tarot. I want to circle back around and use the blurry time re-introduce it all for the bright, shiny new year on the way.
I don’t know why – probably no reason at all – but it always seems to start with musing about names.
Hi! I’m Sage.
I’m also a Tarot reader and author of Sage Sips blog with its “Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee.”
I’ve been reading Tarot and oracle cards since around 1992 which adds up to 30 years of experience with Tarot and intuition development (!)
I didn’t originally start out to be a Tarot reader (who does?) At first, I did readings for myself and friends (why PAY for it when you can DIY it?) After close friend suggested I go online with my readings (eternal gratitude!) I offered psychic Tarot readings through Keen, Advice Trader and AllExperts under my old internet handle, Baihu. After doing hundreds of online readings (I stopped counting after 400) I opened my own Tarot practice in 2003 which grew to include ModernOracleTarot.com, the Tarotbytes blog and the now-defunct Quirk & Flotsam shop on Etsy.
It was all good, but had become a hodge-podge of names and logos over the years. Then along came the Covid pandemic and changed things even more. After a short interim as TaoCraft Tarot (2018-2023) I’ve been working as SageWordsTarot.com and writing Sage Sips blog ever since.
TaoCraft lingers in layout names. TaoCraft was drawn from my love of Taoist philosophy. My Tarot work will always be guided by the principles of simplicity, authenticity, and kindness. It was also drawn from my affinity for solitary eclectic witchcraft. The TaoCraft name means a lot to me, but not so much to anyone else who sees it and that’s a problem because these Tarot readings aren’t about me – they are for YOU and about YOU.
Sage is a pen name, which helps to protect our privacy. Christian nationalism and religious bigotry is a very real thing here in America. I will do all I can to make this a safe space for everyone, especially for the lgbtquia+ community and those of us who are not Christian.
The herb sage has a comforting, familiar scent and flavor that most of us know from home cooking and holiday turkeys.
In aromatherapy, sage incense and essential oil can clear negative energy, calm anxiety and promote a feeling of general well being.
The word sage also means something or someone who is wise. The word sage describes the wise advice Tarot gives.
Safety, comfort, calmness, wisdom and a feeling that things are going to be alright are all qualities I hope you’ll experience when you read the blog, visit my social media or best of all get a private reading of your own .
Click HERE if you would like to order a private Tarot reading by email, no appointment needed.
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Things here are as ready for the holidays as they’ll ever be. I love my pagan/heathen/secular Yuletide. Verrrry low key compared to the frenetic family xmases past.
What about you? How is your December decembering? I hope it is heavy on the holly jolly and light on the drama and stress.
I’m of two minds about eggnog vs gluhvein this year, but there are a variety of homebaked cookies at the ready, a sweater on the needles, a couple of good books on the side table and I am READY for a few days off from the day job.
Which translates into some quality family and Tarot time. With cookies and eggnog (or maybe gluwein, in honor of my Dad and his amature geneology discovery of our German roots, which explains our shared love of gingerbread, and, well, gluhwein at the holidays.
Yeah, break out the cinnamon sticks. The mulled wine is winning this year. Happy Festivus!
Email readings are OPEN, no appointment needed – ORDER HERE
Some new readings and blog posts are on the horizon. Social media will be random as heck during blurry time until January 2.
Talk to you soon
weekly weekend newsletter on substack
Chaz Hutton draws Outlined here on Substack. One of my favorite follows here, he created the perfect visual for this time of year – a calendar page where the last two weeks of December are a bunch of wavy lines.
Beth Owl’ Daughter wrote a lovely piece about the halcyon days of Yuletide HERE.
Both things capture the blurry, soft-focus energy this time of year. I think it is stronger this year, because 2023 needs it. It’s been a heckuva 4-8 years and we all could probably use a little cocoon time during the dark time and down time with a cup of coffee and a good book, or a nap on a grey and cloudy afternoon or a cup of eggnog or all of the above.
That dark, quiet sort of energy is beneficial in the context of the larger, chaotic stressful energies that have dominated the past several years. It is a much needed yin time in the furious roar of recent yang times.
Today’s card, the nine of swords, gives us a heads up to the pitfalls of this kind of down time. Blurry time can slip in to despair time.
That isn’t to minimize the very real issues of post traumatic stress, depression or healing from any sort of emotional trauma.
This is a reminder for the more fortunate of us to don’t drama.
The real ghosts of emotional healing and loneliness are bad enough without adding imagined drama on top of it all.
So do care for yourself and your loved ones. Do sit with your emotions and honor them. Don’t make drama. Let unnecessary details go. Focus on the things that speak to your heart, not to habits, traditions or other people’s expectations.
Smaller than usual holiday celebrations are good, memorable ones too. Sometimes the best things come in the littlest packages.
Learn Tarot: lenormand fish and snake
Learning Tarot is a process, and part of that process is repetition.
Last time we looked at Lenormand cards, we started to explore two card combinations, which seem to be a big part of the Lenormand style of Tarot reading. Often when particular combinations of cards are seen, the meanings for the cards change a bit, not unlike a reversal in RWS style cards and readings.
The best way to understand that connection seems to be two card sets. It makes sense to understand the foundation, the building blocks of a larger layout before using a larger layout. In RWS style, that foundational building block is the single card reading, which plugs into the individual positions of any layout which is then woven together in a meta-analytical, intuition driven way. I’m still learning Lenormand along with you, but it seems to me that building block isn’t single cards, but the underlying connections between 2 or 3 cards, like a flat mat with dots (single card meanings) stuck on top.
To put it in arts and crafts terms, RWS is knitting while Lenormand is paper-making with speckles on top.
Today we have snake and fish.
So starting with that foundational fabric, what is the common energy matrix behind the Flow and suppleness are common traits between the two.
The fish are associated with prosperity. The snake in the guidebook is associated with typical western cultural meanings like deceit and deviousness. Intuitively, however, I am reminded of Chinese astrology. People born in the year of the snake are said to be competent, wise, intuitive and passionate. When I put all of those aspects together the two-together message is to protect your resources through wisdom and know-how (akin to a four of pentacles combined with an ace of swords sort of vibe)
I’m not sure if or how the playing card insets factor into it. Queen of clubs with the snake is akin to the queen of wands – which reinforces the idea of self-care, in the form of caring for physical resources. The king of diamonds is like the king of pentacles, reinforcing the notion that this is about common sense, physical realm money management more than some sort of grand spiritual lesson.
Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes, as these cards seem to stay, you just have to mind the budget, even at the holidays. The energy here is all about practical, level headed things, unrelated to spirituality or emotion. Once we make the physical stable and safe, then we can turn our minds and hearts to the spiritual, emotional and intangible.
Between now and New Year I don’t intend to hold to any particular schedule other than doing email private readings as they come in.
Usually I try to do the Learn With Me on Wednesdays and the Substack newsletter as a weekly digest on the weekend, with one card posts as often as I can manage on weekdays.
I’m still of two minds about the “path through the week” thing on Mondays.
What do you think? What kind of readings or posts would you like to see in the blog? For goodness’ sake don’t be shy. As long as it isn’t spam, by all means post your questions or suggestions in the comments. Contact info is in the right hand column (or bottom of the page on mobile) too.
I’m planning to do a bunch of re-introductory and behind the scenes posts over the next few weeks sliding in and around day job, private readings and the holidays.
Thank you so much for reading! See you at the next sip!
Open for the holidays – announcing January hours
The elves are busy, but not panicked. The squirrels are taking it easy – kicking back munching nuts and drinking spiked eggnog, apparently. I’m going to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with the fam, the kitchen, the knitting needles and an actual library book.
I can slide an email Tarot reading into that scenario pretty easily. Email readings are my happy place, my specialty, my niche and my strong suit in the world of Tarot. Come in to that coziness and read a reading. No appointment needed for this kind of Tarot – order anytime HERE.
I’m @sagewordstarot on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and TikTok. Threads and Instagram are my favorites, so if you want to say hi that’s the best social media place to find me and have actual conversation. The socials might be sporadically quiet, but stay tuned here on the main blog. I have some new posts planned for the blurry-time between now and New Year.
Next up, however, is a Learn With Me: Lenormand tomorrow. See you then!
Party Tarot is pretty much closed for good except for very local, case by case special appearances. In-person individual readings and live online readings are closed until January 2024. In person will resume in January and be available by appointment on Mondays. Live online/phone readings return in January by appointment.
E-mail Tarot is ALWAYS OPEN. Order anytime 24/7. Delivery times are usually within 24 hours but may vary if you place your order nights, weekends or holidays (US eastern time)
What do you think?
Should I bring back “InkMagick” Tarot for 2024?
Sallie Christensen, author of “The Highest and Best” and gifted psychic (I had my very first in-person reading as a client with her) we were chatting about journaling and manifestation, when she advised “A thought is powerful, the spoken word is more powerful, but the written word is most powerful of all.”
Ask anyone who works with sigils regularly – I’m sure they would agree.
That is why I started doing handwritten, hand illustrated Tarot readings sent by snail mail.
The handful I did received great reviews. My favorite feedback was that the feel of the paper, and the smell of the hand dipped or fountain pen ink gave it the feel of reading a good book.
That’s what I’m aiming for with both the physical “InkMagick” readings and the email readings. I love a good book. I would like nothing better than do readings for readers. Be a reader for readers. InkMagick really is a reader’s reading.
I’m not claiming to have fantastic calligraphy or art skills. The skill is in the Tarot interpretation. The power is in the sigil-like illustrations and in the written word.
What do you think?
Maybe a seasons of the year layout would be the best place to start.
Does a reading like this interest you? Would you like a little touch of arcane magick in your coming year? Please leave a comment and let me know, send an email, find me on Instagram or Threads (@sagewordstarot) or use the “Ask Me Anything” page contact form.
Thank you!
Learn tarot and intuition with moon card and fish card from the lenormand deck.
I don’t think this works quite the way the guidebook says.
I could be wrong, so let’s stick with two card readings for a while and see what turns up.
With the Lenormand deck, a “tableau” reading puts the cards on the table in a simple grid, with the “Grand Tableau” using the entire 36 card deck.
I’ve used the classic 10 card Celtic Cross layout and one of the first layouts I learned was the 9 card in Sam & Carson’s Medicine Cards. It was interesting to compare those two. Even years into reading experience 9 cards was a tipping point for me. 9 was a lot, but it was a perfectly serviceable layout with plenty of detail, but it was a heavy lift at times to work through it, even later with plenty of reading experience behind me. As soon as I would use a 10 card cross, the energy would get knotty, and contradictory and verge on nonsense. Double digits seems to be a tipping point. Rather than perpetually dancing on the edge of spilling the beans, I wrote the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle and TaoCraft layouts that I’ve used for private readings from the beginning.
All along the time that we’ve been looking at individual Lenormand cards, the guide book has mentioned how pairings and connections with other cards could modify the individual card’s meaning. We saw energetic connections and flow in the three card reading we did last time, but it was more of a flow of meaning, like making a sentence rather than changing meanings through the series of cards.
It might be interesting to do some two card sets to see if any of those specifically meaning-modifying connections emerge.
In this case, the guide book doesn’t give a modification for either the moon card or the fish card relative to the other. I get the flow, sentence like connection again. The water connections to both cards gives the sense of intuition and flow as being the main message with the fish’s association with prosperity taking a little bit of a back seat to the mental image of actual fish swimming and in motion.
I get no sense of energy at all from the playing card insets, so will let that sit for now. Follow your own instincts if you think they are meaningful. Research the 8 of cups or King of Pentacles if either of those grab your attention.
My hunch is to keep up with the two card sets for a little while. Water, tides, depth all are associated with the images here. In RWS tarot deep water has to do with mystery, deep knowing. My hunch is that there is something here that hasn’t quite shown itself yet.
Let’s abide with it, and see what else two card sets have to say.
See you at the next sip!
Winter Hours: All of them!
While in-person sessions are closed for the holidays, email private readings are OPEN to order 24/7, no appointment needed. Most orders arrive in your inbox within 24 hours.
Delivery times may vary in December depending on the Elfcon status.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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