I have a cold, so am scaling back a little this week after all. Prolly going quiet on the socials so I can chicken soup this thing. Am grateful it’s not covid this time.
Be good to yourselves. Eat your veggies, get plenty of sleep and wash your dang hands.
See you at the next sip!
Rise and grind, sunshine.
There are times to get creative and experiment. Other times it pays to just go with what you know, roll up your sleeves and let it flow.
Do the thing, then get some rest because more innovative days are coming.
*One free reading per calendar month. You have to ask for it (that’s how I connect to your message, plus I never read without getting consent every time) All website policies and disclaimers apply to readings – you know the drill.
I have a change in my day job schedule starting in November. Here’s the plan, such as it is.
Email Private Tarot is STILL open for orders 24/7, no appointment needed. Order anytime at the link above the video. Delivery times will vary depending on when your order comes through – I’m one real person doing real world readings for you, so holidays, nights and weekends slow things down a little bit.
In-person, phone and online readings are still by appointment only and schedule a few days in advance.
There are STILL free “Zombie Cat” Tarot readings in the blog now through October 31, 2023 for anyone brave enough to leave a comment (or use the Ask Me Anything page) with a nickname and question for the cards. It’s all just for Halloween funsies, entertainment only. Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have 50% chance of being dead wrong
I’m dropping the week ahead readings (for a while, anyway) and returning to the old daily meditation Tarot reading format from the “Tarotbytes” blog days on Modern Oracle. The Wednesday Learn With Me series and Thursday newsletter won’t change.
These daily readings aren’t about any kind of “forecast.” Daily meditation is about right here, right now. This is meditative mindfulness. This card applies to you in your moment whenever you read this. Even though I’m reading the collective energies for today, spirit or synchronicity will bring you to the card whenever YOU need its message, no matter when that is. Psychic, intuitive information comes from outside of space and time anyway. That’s why distance Tarot readings are perfectly valid and why you can get real guidance from books and blogs no matter when you read them.
Now for today’s card: Death in reverse. Death means big life changes. Reversals hint at energy that is blocked or turbulent. Change blocked doesn’t mean Hanged Man style stagnation. This feels like a simple “wait a minute.”/
It’s OK to be OK
There is a sense of solid, practical, advice life advice here all wrapped up in an avalanche of proverbs and old adages:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie. Watched pots never boil.
There is nothing wrong with striving to be better. There is nothing wrong with experimentation. But you have to know your results before you make further changes. Sometimes too many changes spoil the soup just as much as too many cooks can.
“Remember kids, the only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.” – Adam Savage
There is an urge to charge out there and take the week by storm, grab Monday by the beans and constantly strive, eyes on the prize and all of that.
Sometimes that a good thing.
Sometimes it’s good to give it a rest and enjoy the beans instead of grabbing them.
Merry Monday everyone! Cheers!
Sage Sips: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
Pictured- the author’s morning mug including home made caramel cream pumpkin pie spice.
I’m taking over the squirrel rave this time. Here’s the metaphorical playlist.
For the rest of October (longer if you guys tell me you like it) I’m reverting back to my old format from the Tarotbytes days on Modern Oracle: One card daily meditation Tarot readings for the collective energy.
That has a few advantages as I see it:
It will let me focus on some of the family / meatspace things I have coming up over the next few weeks without going on a full blog & social media hiatus.
It fits the new Reels/Shorts/TikTok social media environment better than the longer pathway readings.
It also fits the Sage Sips “brand” – Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee (or whatever you are sipping this time of day). I sip coffee every morning, so why not have a little Tarot to go with it?
The offer of free Zombie Cat Tarot readings for anyone brave enough to leave a comment asking for one (or use the ask me anything page to ask for one) still stands until midnight October 31, 2023. Just give me a nickname to use to protect your privacy, tell me your question for the feline and you get a free Zombie Cat reading in the blog. Entertainment only – you know the drill. Zombie Cat’s Tarot readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
If you are interested in a not-metaphorical playlist, I made “Haunt 23” on my now-defunct podcast Spotify page for you, just for funsies. Happy Halloween!
Squirrel meme image via google search, believed public domain
Social Media Update: With the advent of Threads, I spend most of my scroll time there these days. Threads and Instagram is the best place to actually interact. You are welcome to stop by and say hello. I post on FB, Tumblr, and TikTok, but don’t interact there very much. I will warn you that the Threads account has become a combination of Tarot posts and my ex-birdsite political and religious voidscreaming. But you probably know by now that secular humanism, Taoism, witchcraft, progressive/liberal politics and lgbtdq ally-ship is a big part of who I am and influences what I do here. If any of those things offend you then we wouldn’t be a good match for a Tarot reading anyway. But rest assured, no matter what you see on the Threads feed, I can set all of that aside and channel in the right energy message for you no matter what it says. That is what 30 years of experience will get for you. There are some advantages to being genX years old.
So what does that have to do with today’s card or Tarot at all? That gnarly online energy IS very much today’s energy and card. The growing energy from Monday has arrived. The Three of Swords has to do with sorrow, heartbreak, loss, pain and betrayal. The keyword betrayal steps forward with the most energy today.
This isn’t a good day to be expansive or ebullient unless the feeling is so strong that your happy emotion bubble can withstand a field of needles. The collective energy today feels prickly like trying to hug a porcupine. You may have all good intentions, the porcupine may be filled with love and kindness, but things are what they are. Being true to yourself and being true to your own nature can also mean facing up to hard realities. Your true self and other people’s true self isn’t always going to blend well. You don’t have to like everybody and not everybody has to like you. Oil is a part of nature. So is vinegar. That doesn’t mean that life has to be salad dressing. To borrow a phrase from Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss. But follow it knowing that not everyone has the same bliss.
Some people by their nature are counter to your nature. Deliberate and malicious or not, intended or not, it can feel like a betrayal when you hoped for some sort of relationship, but nature makes that difficult if not impossible.
There may be good intentions all around, but oil and water, bubbles and porcupines still happen. Some days just aren’t made for trying to make square pegs fit round holes and vice versa. This feels like one of those days.
To paraphrase another writer, John Le Carre, betrayal can only exist in the presence of love. You can only betray – or be betrayed by – those whose opinion you care about. You can’t be jabbed by the porcupines that you don’t try to hug.
Here my mind turns to some of those social media threads I’ve been reading lately. With the evangelical support for right wing politicians and the christian nationalist & “dominion theology” growing in our national awareness (and, arguably, growing as a threat to those of us with interests in Tarot or ANY spiritual path other than theirs)
There can be family betrayals, community betrayals, literal danger to vulnerable groups like our lgbtq loved ones. Like the meme says – you can’t say you love me then vote for someone who hurts me.
The Three of Swords reminds us that protecting oneself from real danger is an act of loving kindness too.
Which brings us back to yet another paraphrase of yet another author, G. Chesterson, who said “a [warrior] fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.”
When religion tears apart families and communities the prickly energy splatters everywhere.
It’s hard to hug a heart that deliberately surrounds itself with swords. It’s ok not to impale yourself on the sharp edges.
Thank you for reading. Heavy energy, heavy ideas today. Thanks for contemplating it all along with me.
Next time: Energy path reading for October 9-15.
The Blog and social media will be on a short hiatus October 14-17, 2023. Email readings are OPEN but may experience delivery delays on those days.
See you at the next sip!
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It looks like we are off to a very good start.
The general plan is to learn about this Lenormand deck in the same way we recently explored the Publishing Goblin oracle dice and before that my new and much used Alleyman’s Tarot Deck.
There is no teacher quite like experience, especially when it comes to something as subjective and individual as intuition and oracles. The basic strategy over the coming weeks is that I’ll pull a random card (and post the draw on YouTube Shorts. I did that this week but the the technical glitch gremlins got to it)
After the random draw, we’ll read it purely intuitively based on the collective energy of the day – just like we read the collective energies for the week each Monday.
Then I’ll go to the guide book, which in this case is sparse, around a paragraph per card, and summarize what it says.
A word on guide books in general:
Use them as a tool, but not as an authority.
There is no dishonor in finding inspiration when you need it.
Guidebooks are great in situations like this to help you get comfortable with a new deck or technique. Guidebooks are essential when you are very first learning to read cards at all, like the DIY one card meditation readings you learn how to do in my book PeaceTarot.
Even after reading for 30 years, there are still times when I look at a card and get exactly nothing. Tarot readers are human and nobody is perfect. If you hit one of those I-got-nothin’ moments then it is perfectly fine to fall back on either a guidebook or a memorized “meaning” It will prime the pump so speak, and spark the intuition that you need for genuine reading that is of the energy of the moment.
Today’s card is The Dog.
The image on this particular deck is warm and sunny, and I associated it with all of the positive happy energies of the RWS major arcana card The Sun. Dogs are the essence of loyalty and friendship.
Clearly this is a good start for making friends with a new deck.
It has a sense of reciprocity today, too. “To make a friend, be a friend”
In the moment, it feels like making friends with this deck is going to be easy.
The guidebook doesn’t add much, just reiterates the “faithfulness and loyalty”
The guidebook isn’t much help in this little learning project we have going. I may just give the key words in the beginning and just give it an intuitive read from there.
Do you have any thoughts which would be more helpful to you? Comment if you like. Guidebook keywords at the beginning or end?
It’s interesting that the card is connected to the 10 of hearts. You can read the suit of hearts much as you would the suit of cups in the RWS decks. It is about emotion, happiness, closest inner circle relationships….like your closest friends.
PeaceTarot also teaches you how to use playing cards in place of Tarot cards to use the guidebook meanings in PeaceTarot if you prefer playing cards or if you don’t have access to a RWS style Tarot deck. 10 of hearts is equivalent to the 10 of cups, which has to do with happy family and happy (and loyal) relationships. It all fits.
If this card resonates for you today, it is a reminder to appreciate the friends and emotionally close people in your life. Tell them. Show them. Check in with them. Be a friend today.
If you are feeling friendless, befriend yourself. Just be patient and kind. It’s like playing fetch with your favorite doggo…throw some kindness out there and life will fetch it back sooner or later.
Thank you for reading. The short and sweet newsletter for this week will post on Thursday morning.
See you at the next sip!
Spooky Season Special:
Use the Ask Me Anything page to submit a yes/no question and get a Zombie Cat style Tarot reading answer in the blog!
All Zombie Cat readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
entertainment only
Image: author photo of her purchased copy of Healing Light Lenormand by Christoher Butler copyright 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.
Every week, every day is full of potential.
It might have immediate blowback, or it might be building foundations or planting seeds that pays off later.
Potential lies in the hands of action.
All of the cards this week are swords. Swords are associated with air and action, intellect, and our relationship with authority, culture or society at large.
The fading energy card is the Page of Swords. Pages are students and learners. With this being in the fading position, it is a clue to a change of phase. It is the end of the beginning. It’s time to put on the big kid underwear and get to work. At some point you have to leave school and do the thing. For many, now is that time. Now is the time to make old efforts pay off, true to the harvest season, lending this card a sense of rapid expansion. The page is supposed to represent a knight in training. Knights can become kings. With these two cards side by side, it gives a feeling of rapid expansion, a rise through ranks, rapid progress after a dely.
Current energy is the king of swords. King cards are protectors and leaders. Again intellect and action mixed. This is a time of head over heart. Kings protect the kingdoms boundaries. This is a hint to set and protect and enforce our boundaries. Insist on respect but give it in equal measure and with equal discipline.
Anything in its extreme contains the seed of its opposite
Rapid expansion can also translate to ‘in over your head’
The growing energy card, the three of swords is a caution against falling prey to your own naivete and inexperience. Know what you don’t know, and know enough to ask for help when its needed to avoid problems. The faster you move, the harder it is to see and avoid pitfalls in time. Heads up. Problems may come at you faster as the week rolls on.
Thank you for reading. Good luck and be careful out there!
Next up: Learn with Me: Lenormand on Wednesday. See you at the next sip!
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When I’m looking at a new deck of Tarot cards, The Pope or Hierophant card is one of the first I’ll look at in order to decide if I want to add it to my collection or not.
Some cards have fairly uniform symbolism across most RWS / Marseilles / Visconti based decks. The Three of Swords is a good example. It almost always involves a heart and three swords – what better way to convey a meaning of heartbreak or betrayal.
The Hierophant card is as draped in religious imagery as you would expect from a medieval European card that is often called the Pope card. The old school cards, to my intuitive eye, are just as rigid, dogmatic and judgmental as their real world counterparts’ reputation. I gravitate to decks that take a different approach to the Hierophant card.
I don’t want that kind of religiosity to be part of my life or work, even in this tiny part. It’s exactly this card that first drew me to the Witches Tarot. Mark Evan’s rendering of Heirophant image captures a very different and entirely valid aspect of the card, one of the keeper of traditions. Evan’s artwork is more grandfatherly, like an old shaman telling stories by a campfire. It’s more of a kindly monk energy than an uptight priest.
The Hierophant in reverse was the growing energy card for Monday’s week-ahead reading. My hunch is that the reversal is significant, even more so if we use a deck that has only one Hierophant card in it. I was using the Alleyman’s Tarot deck at the time, which contains two – the one Monday that the deck author describe as “the good one” which seems to me to read that same as the classic Pope (“the asshole one”) in reverse. To avoid double negatives, let’s look at the Heirphant card as a whole, regardless of whether it turns over reversed or not.
As I see it, this major arcana card has two threads of meaning, just like most of the cards do.
On one hand it can symbolize dogma, strict adherence to tradition, social expectations, fundamentalism. This aspect of the card may be asking you to conform if your natural tendency is to rebel. Not permanently, of course, but more in the sense of playing their game just long enough to get the system to work for you. Pull your hair back, put on the suit, do their expected interview now, so you can live to fight the patriarchy later.
On the other hand, it still symbolizes social expectations, judgment and dogma, but it can advise the opposite, especially when the card is physically reversed like this.
This is a call to free thought.
The energy is still very much like Monday and continues for the weekend.
It is a call to be your fullest self, set aside the restrictions, reclaim the parts of yourself that you gave up in order to fit in and get along. If you are a people-pleaser by nature, this is a good energy environment to finally, once and for all, please yourself instead. Be safe, it is a dangerous world. It is a world (our at least a country – looking at you USA) of increasing hate, religious bigotry and yes, fascism. Still, the radical act of kindness and acceptance actually does exist. There are places where the Pope card really is turned upside down.
Question everything.
Find your tribe.
Your family of heart is waiting.
We love you for who you truly are, even if we haven’t met just yet.
Imagination, visualization, creativity, science and spirituality all live in the same friendly neighborhood. They certainly aren’t mutually exclusive. The places they take us are not always literal, but those imagined places are vital.
Page cards in Tarot symbolize learning, becoming a serious student of something, or the beginning of a new phase like a graduation. Cups cards are intuition and emotion. You wouldn’t expect emotion or intuition to be part of learning or logic or science. In a cosmos as vast as ours, imagination guides our curiosity to what we want to study next and indeed inspires us to study, learn and grow at all – both literally and emotionally.
Imagine the kind of person you want to be – then be it.
Imagine the kind of work you want to do – then study for it.
Imagine being happy, content, and engaged with the life you have right here, right now – then live and experience exactly that.
It’s as easy as having a staring contest with a fish.
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*All readings are a customized ephemeral folk art service intended for personal enrichment. Does not predict the future. Subject to website policies and disclaimers. Questions, free Lenormand readings will be answered in blog posts redacted of any identifying information
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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