Category: Tarot Cards

Tarot readings and card discussions

Learn With Me: Meet the Alleyman

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This is an interesting post to write. My love of writing, my love of Tarot, my cynical desire to attract Tarot clients with the blog and socials and my sincere admiration for the Alleyman Tarot, Oracle and Podcast are all crashing into each other right now.

In his YouTube posts for the original Alleyman Tarot deck, Mr. Asmund hinted at vision of the deck creator, card artists, Tarot readers and Tarot clients all being a part of ephemeral, ethereal, muse-like collective I that co-creates the giving of messages and spiritual learning. My hope is to contribute. My impulse is to boost the signal in whatever small way I can. I don’t want to take inadvertent advantage of their hard work and popularity.

In the spirit of full disclosures, I feel compelled to take the usual detour to tell you that this isn’t a paid promotion, nothing was provided by Publishing Goblin except their kind permission to use these materials in my blogging and social media. I want to be a good member of the “Alleyfolk” so please, visit publishinggoblin.com and be sure to read the artist credits in the guidebooks if you can. Sometimes I get in the flow of reading and forget to be careful with attribution details. If you ever catch me doing that, please ask for source material. As woo woo as my Tarot side can be, I’m also equal parts science geek and academician so I’m happy to give credit where credit is due. According to the dice guidebook, the artist for today’s Lord Card is credited as Czarfunkle.

There are parallels between the oracle dice and Tarot cards. After we chose 7 of the 22 dice to use as a learning exercise, we looked at one individual side or face on each die. That single-face level felt very analogous to a single Tarot card. Each die has a name and theme. Additionally each die has an accompanying “Lord Card” that symbolizes the die’s guide and guardian. Those of you who have worked with your spirit guides might get a little of that vibe as we explore the oracle dice at the name and lord card level. The dice name and lord card resonates with the suit or arcana level meanings in a Tarot reading as I see it.

Today is the Alley die. We first looked at its single face, “scavenge.” Now we broaden the focus to include its card, The Alleyman.

At both the single face and lord card levels, I’ve found a lot of overlap between the dice and Tarot cards. Seven Dane Asmund is clearly a very skilled Tarot reader and deck creator, but it doesn’t feel like that is a direct influence as much as a by-product. Both Tarot and the oracle dice look at the same grand truisms and core human experiences.

As the energy looks today, this card / die combo resonates with a blend of the Queen of Cups, the Queen of Swords and the Emperor with a sprinkle of the World card for good measure.

“The Alleyman doesn’t exist…He exists to be the bogeyman of your uncertainty.”

Seven Dane Asmund

The Alleyman card and die challenge us to recognize our own deep competence when it comes to setting our own path. The Queen of cups is about finding our own deep inner wisdom and knowing. The Queen of Swords teaches us to accept and own our power. The Emperor teaches us to use that inner wisdom and self-acceptance with confidence.

The energy of the Alleyman Lord card resonantes with the energy of the Alleyman’s Tarot deck and feels like an extension of that lore.

From the moment I learned about it, I thought the Alleyman’s Tarot was to Tarot readers what a Stradivarius is to violin players.

This comparison draws a little bit on intangibles like ‘star power’ and ‘stage presence’ and thus draws on the qualities of the two queens and Emperor.

If a performer expect an instrument’s quality to make or break their performance, they give away their power, their part in the process. A poor player can make a rare violin sound mediocre. By the same token, a player who puts their best self into the performance will touch the audience’s heart with any instrument. A master player can give a virtuoso performance on a toy instrument. Give a Stradivarius to someone like Itzhak Perlman and magic happens. Inner wisdom, power and confidence alignt with outer circumstance to make something greater than the sum of the parts.

The same is true of Tarot and oracle readings.

If you surrender your power to the cards or dice, the guidance is mediocre. If you surrender your part in the reading, even if the professional you consult is the best on Earth, the impact on your well being is limited.

Own your part in creating your own fate and you can get an excellent reading with a pack of playing cards from the corner dollar store. The Alleyman…the right message for you…will find you one way or another.

This is where the World Tarot card comes in. All is one. We are part of the greater cosmos. Just as in the Alleyman’s podcast backstory those who encounter the deck and the alleyman co-create the reading and the experience. Our individual deep wisdom and knowing is as valid for ourselves and our place within the universe as anyone else’s insight.

More so.

Relying on a stranger’s advice or predictions is like relying on the instrument to make or break the performance. Taking that advice or insight under consideration but ultimately, relying on your own wisdom is the virtuoso performance.

Learning, growing, getting guidance from a metaphoric shadowy alley man when you need it – that is how you become part of this artist’s collective that we call life.

Thank you for reading along! I hope you will follow this blog and check out PublishingGoblin.com to learn more.

See you at the next sip!

Looking Forward to the Weekend

Two of Wands Tarot: Liminal space helps us look forward

Please think of me if you ever want an affordable, professional, ethical Tarot reading. Email Tarot readings are my specialty . They are available to order 24/7 no appointment needed. This free Tarot blog and social media content is fueled by your reading purchases, memberships and coffee – both irl and virtually through ko-fi.

Earlier this week, we looked at three cards for the week. The growing energy was…and is…the two of wands.

The collective energy is a little bit of a tough read this morning. It is a swirl of collective individualism. It feels a little like an abstract pointillist painting – any patterns or pictures that are made of uncountable individual dots. I’m also getting mental images of other abstract art: Jackson Pollack, acrylic paint pours or water marbled crafts. Even in social gatherings it feels like each individual is an island unto themselves with a inner focus, contemplative, day-dreaming quality.

For some, it might feel really lonely and isolated. I get a tinge of regrets, and looking back.

That might be where the two of wands comes in.

It is advice leaning even more today than it was 5 days ago. There is a sense that we are being asked to deliberately look forward, find hope, and hang in there with every claw on our little kitten paws, just like the meme.

More than that, my attention is even more strongly drawn to the idea of liminal space and the “standing on the threshold” quality of the figure between the two staffs, the two wands.

I’ve only started reading Laura Tempest Zarkof’s book Weaving The Liminal. I’m taking this as a hint to pick that up again this weekend.

For the collective, think of terms like liminal, terminal (like an airport terminal or travel hub with changes and connections) portal, gateway…

Places like that are intensely present-moment. It makes sense out of the natural retrospective energy combined with the advice to look ahead in hope…

It makes sense.

Evaluating where we are and understanding how we got here is essential to getting where we want to go next. They are necessary to calling what we need to us.

Pay attention to your connection to the universe on its largest scale. In that large, cosmic perspective you are never alone and there is always hope.

If you are part of the majority who has the weekend off from work, the energy now is a good chance to spend some quality time with yourself to think about the path that has brought you here and what is your next step.

If you are one of those at work – thank you. Whatever your next days off may be has a good chance of giving you this same opportunity for contemplation.

In short, find a mental and emotional sanctuary that helps you to transition from the past, however hard, to a more hopeful view of the future.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go read more of that book.

Next up, the energy path reading for next week. See you at the next sip!

Brighter Horizon

Sage Sips is Tarot for your week in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

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Today’s cards:

  • Fading Energy: Three of Swords
  • Current Energy: The Fool
  • Growing Energy:

I’ve been asked before why it is that different readers readers give different readings for the same card.

There are a variety of reasons, and any one or any combination of them could factor into it when you get very different readings about the same identical card.

First is the passage of time. As ancient Greek philosopher Hericlitus put it, a man can’t cross the same river twice because it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Time passes and your situation changes just like water flows through a river so it is different water each time you step in.

Past readings have an effect on you. Time passes and you grow and change. You are a different person than you were the last time that card was read for you.

Different time, different water, different person: you can’t cross the same Tarot card twice. If you do it is pretty astounding and you should definitely pay attention to what intuition / spirit is trying to tell you.

Three days ago we talked about the Page of Cups and last week’s end-of-week vibe. Things have shifted again already.

Sometimes the river current is faster than others.

Apparently it is flowing fairly quickly here. I expect this week will step through the three cards fairly quickly, too. It will be interesting to see if that proves true by the time we get to Friday’s “weekend update” post.

Because of that pace, I think the “fading energy” layout position of the three of swords is significant, to the point of giving a “don’t” or “kick this energy to the curb” sort of message.

The three of sword’s nature is cautioning anyway. Heads up, watch your back – don’t. I ‘hear’ “tiny heartbreak” When I put this card & energy into the context of the whole reading, I get “don’t make little disappointments into big heartbreaks.”

The Fool card is, of course, about beginnings.

In most RWS based Tarot decks, a human figure is shown posed between two poles, the two wands. This draws my attention to the “threshold” key word associated with the card. It looks like a doorway. This card hints at magickal, liminal space, a gateway to something important or a portal where we can draw in what is wanted and needed. Whatever your thoughts about attraction and manifestation, this card can be read as something new on the horizon.

The “new beginning” big major arcana energy from the Fool card combined with the liminal, doorway, portal, energy from the Two of Wands weights the whole layout on the side of forward thinking hopefullness.

Bring it all together and we get a week that starts off a little off kilter, on edge, on the lookout for who-knows-what kind of funky mojo, but rapidly moves to something new and more hopeful.

Today feels a little weird, but at the same time it feels like something brighter is on the horizon.

Hang in there.

Deep

Bringing the week in for a landing with a look back at the Page of Cups

If you enjoy this FREE Tarot content, please think of me when you want an affordable, professional private Tarot reading. Sage Sips free blog and social media is not ad monetized and depends on your support through private reading purchases, memberships and virtual coffee gifts.

Some weeks, energies linger. Some weeks they grow and fade slowly or by small amounts.

This morning feels like one of those 90 degree lightcycle turns from the movie Tron.

Last weekend and earlier this week there was a very active, warrior archetype energy. Today “spooling down” comes to mind. It feels like we’ve just landed a plane and are going through the power-down checklist. It feels like the end of a cycle much bigger than a day or a week. The cycle may even be something that has been brewing in the background for you for the past 12 to 18 months. I read somewhere that this is the time of year that the Maori people celebrate new year…a thread from Neil DeGrasse Tyson maybe? Something about the New Year for them being tied to the rising of Pleiades during southern hemisphere winter. Anyway – even though we are in the middle of the “dog days” of summer here, cycles of nature within cycles of nature can be found anywhere, almost anytime.

It makes sense that the Page of Cups energy is stepping forward today.

Usually the Page of Cups, the “growing energy” card from Monday’s Energy Path reading, has a playful feel, acting as a reminder of life’s absurdities. It has a much different tone today. All of the cup’s court cards have an element of emotional depth to them. Instead of the absurd, the fish is resonating with its classic symbolism representing the human psyche. Today instead of looking life’s absurdities in the eye, we are being asked to look ourselves in the eye and know our own depths.

When I’m reverse engineering a collective energy reading into a previously chosen card like this, sometimes I’ll browse quote sources like BrainyQuotes.com or Goodreads.com for inspiration. That’s how I found “I want you to be everything you feel is you, deep in the center of your being.” It is attributed to Confucius. I’m no expert on the Analects or Chinese translation, but it doesn’t strike me as something Confucius would say. It sounds vastly more contemporary.

Confucius or not, it does resonate with Socrates’ famous “Know thyself.” You have to have some idea about what is deep within in order to live it, to be it.

I connect this to today’s Page of Cups two ways.

First is just that. Look deep. Know thyself so you can be and live thyself fully and authentically.

Second I want to go back to the idea of resonance that we’ve talked about before.

When you are reading Tarot (for yourself or for others) you want to know what is internal and what is external – know what is really your mood and what is you vibrating along with the overall, general, zeitgeist sort of energies. That is as true for energies that are winding down as when they are starting up.

A helpful way to sort that out is to focus on your energy boundaries. Sometimes that is put into words as “strengthening your aura” or “Closing your energy field”.

Try this: Lace your fingers together, then close your eyes and imagine you are surrounded by a colorful soap bubble. How does it feel. What do you sense as the difference (if any) between ‘in here’ and ‘out there’? If your shielded energy is the same as before, the sense of things is coming from the inside – its you. If it is different – it is still you, but a you that is strongly vibing to external conditions.

Today ‘in here’ is jamming to Stanton Moore and feeling pretty nominal in the mission control sense of the word – everything is in normal limits, no alarms.

Out there is that end of cycle, coming in for an uneventful landing shift in energy.

Either way, this weekend is a good time for ‘normal’ not to push, shift into yin from a long time of yang

Either way, I wish you a good weekend. See you Monday for the next Energy Path for next week!

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip! – Sage

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Catwoman Had a Baby, reprise

This post throws WAY back to the Modern Oracle days. It is from the “Tarot Without a Net” series where I was working with Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars Tarot deck much the same way as I have been with the Alleyman’s Tarot and with the Publishing Goblin’s oracle dice. I’d do an intuitive read then follow that up with the author’s interpretation. Thom Pham and Seven Dane Asmund are both very skilled Tarot readers and very talented artists and I am very grateful they graciously gave their permission to use their work in my blogging and social media.

MEMBERS can read the full post HERE

I don’t like calling this exclusive content when I want my Tarot work to be warm, inviting, calm, cozy and inclusive. I’m taking inspiration from Joyce Vance’s excellent substack Civil Discourse and am calling this a thank-you post for paid subscribers.

Ko-fi Sage Sip members get much more than occasional members-only content! Members also get discounts on email readings and free one card reading by email through the Sage Words Tarot ko-fi shop. Join today to get ALL of the benefits.

image: Heart of Stars Tarot third edition by Thom Pham, used with permission

Momento Mori

Today: The Death card and lofi chill

Please remember me if you ever want an affordable, professional Tarot reading. Private readings by email don’t need an appointment. This free Tarot content is fueled by reading purchases, memberships, and coffee (both irl and the virtual ko-fi kind). Your comments, likes and social media shares are always appreciated.

The August blahs are starting early this year.

I blame the hot, humid weather and suppressed rage at anyone who doesn’t care about global warming. Republicans and oil companies are going to get us all killed at this rate.

But I digress. Sort of.

It’s interesting how the collective energy sometimes is reflected in private readings or vice versa. It’s a little chicken and egg. People who come to me as clients contribute to the collective energy, which would explain some threads of similarity. At the same time these perceptive folks may be drawn to a reading because of the collective energy, which also explains similarities. Either way it always feels validating as a reader to see the collective show up in a private session or cards from private sessions repeat a time or two in collective readings.

The energy has shifted from death card to death card. It feels like the resistance to change from earlier has shifted to a sort of weary acceptance. It feels like instead of resisting the inevitable, we’ve slipped into a semi-comfortable expectation of a certain degree of upheaval. It feels like time to take a sippy sip of our soupy soup and calmly watch the mayhem unfold.

I like to think that is the essence of Sage Sips. Calm. Reassuring. If my Tarot style was described in music terms, I like to think it is LoFi Chill.

Stay safe, stay chill and stay hydrated. See you Monday for next week’s energy path reading.

Learn With Me: Oracle Dice, The Crone of Summer

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

I don’t know much about Dungeons & Dragons, but I’d call this character chaotic good.

This is a really lovable card, and it’s tempting to join the chaos, but I’m in full sun-avoidant deep shade forest baby Grogu sipping soup and calmly watching the mayhem unfold mood. You don’t always have to participate in order to appreciate.

Let’s stay methodical this week.

Tarot, or any good intuition enhancing too, has layers of meaning just like ogres and onions.

The first we looked at a single face from the dice – analogous to drawing individual cards for a Tarot layout. By randomly rolling seven times we selected 7 “practice dice” out of the 22 dice set to work with as we get to know the Oracle Dice. Learning the oracle dice parallels the way I learned Tarot. I’ve distilled YEARS of trial and error into this step by step thing we are doing. I’m learning the oracle dice this way because I KNOW this way of learning and reading oracle tools … any intuition helper…works. I know it works well because I’ve been doing it for a hot minute. Longer than I care to admit most days.

You get the idea about the individual faces and how to look at those.

Now we are going through our practice dice one by one looking at it from the die cube meaning. The Oracle Dice’s creator, Seven Dane Asmund assigned a name and meaning to each of the 22 dice (one of which is a cool 12 face die) In this edition, he also created a card with the “lord” of each of the dice. The “lord” in this case is a parallel to the suit in Tarot. The “lord” is the essence of die’s meaning, its guardian, its protector, sort of the ace, king and queen all rolled into one.

Today’s die is “summer” depicted as the “Crone of Summer.” It’s perfect that the image on the card includes gold coins because this card encapsulates much of the same energies as the suit of coin (pentacles) in Tarot. There is easy, almost careless generosity around it. It is so fully and unabashedly about the physical realm that it rises above the physical realm and becomes something more esoteric, much as the ten of pentacles (coins) is so fully prosperous and abundant that it points to the intangible treasures of love and happiness that money can never buy. Such is the effusive joi de vie embodied by the crone of summer.

You know how I see the world through Taoism colored glasses

The dots in the yin yang symbol represent the idea that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. We see that in the ten of pentacles and the Crone of Summer. The physical realm taken to its extreme can hold the seed of its opposite. In excess creation lies the potential for destruction. In excess possession lies the potential for generosity and so on.

When we move on to the next layer – combining dice – when the summer die rolls in, think of it in unabashed and golden terms like full throttle summer and an exuberant generosity of self and spirit

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your generosity with your time.

If you ever want a private Tarot reading, please think of me. The free Tarot and other content here on the Sage Sips blog and on Sage Words Tarot social media is fueled by your reading purchases, your memberships and lots of coffee (both irl and the virtual kind on ko-fi)

Your likes, follows, shares and comments are always greatly appreciated!

*Publishing Goblin‘s Oracle Dice used with permission