Fresh Starts Aren’t Foolish

There is a difference between falling off of a cliff and jumping off of one on purpose.

Hello and welcome to the freshly renamed TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’ve jumped off the marketing best practices cliff and everything TaoCraft will gradually change over to Sage Words Tarot.

The name change feels totally different this time.

In 2018 when I re-branded from Modern Oracle to TaoCraft Tarot it felt like that scene from The Walking Dead tv series where they watch a cabin the woods burn down as a symbolic release of the character Daryl’s past and old self-image. The change from Modern Oracle to Tao Craft was moderately terrifying because it took every Tarot everything I’d built since 2003 and blew it to bits. It was like taking a step backwards off a cliff and hoping you don’t crash on the rocks below.

Sure, it was all rebuilt as a stronger, more cohesive brand that was following all the good marketing advice I could get my hands on. TaoCraft was far more organized from a business standpoint AND far more aligned with my authentic self. It’s a deeply meaningful as a name to me…but I don’t think it resonates very well with anyone else. I felt like I always needed to explain it. All the T and C sounds made it a little confusing to spell and that’s all a problem because Tarot is about making things clearer, not more confusing. Tarot isn’t about me, it’s about YOU.

Sage is a pen name, which protects privacy a little better for both of us in these days of openly growing theocratic tendencies in this country. Christian nationalism and evangelical bigotry is a real thing. I want to do all I can to make this a safe space for my fellow atheists and the lgbtquia community that is so important to me.

Sage the herb evokes cozy feelings. It has a familiar scent and taste from home cooking and holiday turkeys.

In aromatherapy, Sage incense and smudge sticks can clear negative energy, calm anxiety and promote a general feeling well being.

Most of all, the word sage means something or someone who is wise. The word speaks to all of the wisdom that has accumulated around the Tarot cards over the centuries.

Safety, comfort, calmness, wisdom and a feeling that things will be ok in the end are all qualities that I hope you’ll experience if we do a Tarot reading together. All of these are qualities I hope you’ll experience when you read the blog or listen to the podcast.

And THAT, my friends, is what I’m calling an introduction, not an explanation.

This time the Fool’s cliff feels more like the movie Ironman 2 where Tony Stark gleefully jumped off the side of a building while yelling to Pepper “you complete me!”

Fresh leaps of faith, fresh jumps off of buildings in your super suit aren’t necessarily foolish. Fresh leaps can make things better for everyone. No matter how long you’ve been doing something, you can always make a fresh start in the new year.

Or the new day.

Or the new moment.

Thank you for reading and listening. I’m glad you are here. See you at the next sip!

Weight of a Year

re-posted from Sage’s Other Words blog with permission.

2022 was a long year. It’s nice when time lingers. Hopefully that gives us the luxury of savoring the present moment, as each moment is unique in all the history of the universe, never to return.

Each moment seems miniscule, negligible compared to that enormity, but it is exactly that enormity of time that makes each unique moment all the more precious.

Looking back through energy eyes, or energy third eye as it may be, last January seems distant, different, almost unrecognizable. Tiny as it was in the cosmic perspective, 2022 looms large in the personal perspective. Tarot occupies a different space in the schedule, but also in my mind and energy and attention.

It’s all about the Tarot. It’s always been about spirit and intuition and living in this precious unique moment. The business part of Tarot needed to change. The hustle diminished the flow.

The business part is dressing down, changing into metaphoric pajama pants and fuzzy bunny slippers. The focus isn’t crazy pants promotions or regularly posting social media.

The focus is you.

My time, experience (did I mention I’ve been doing this since the early 1990s?) and my skill is worth the price of a session the same as the time and experience and skill of a therapist or an artist or a writer or a personal trainer or a plumber or anyone with any of the other skills we humans value is worth the cost of their services.

There is another shared thread between the art of therapy and art of Tarot readings. Neither has a bit of benefit unless the person getting it wants it. you can’t push either one on people. The best service we can offer is to create and facilitate a healing space for those who want, need and seek it.

Because of that, I’m not going to worry about posting every single on social media. Dang it, I’m a writer and a Tarot reader, not media personality. Instead of trying to be one, I’m rolling with my strong suit and putting my energy into doing the best Tarot readings for you that I can do.

Despite dropping the word Tao from my web presence, I’m following last year’s natural flow of energy from Yang to Yin. I’m closing party Tarot and reducing the available appointment times for in-person Tarot. I’m putting all of my energy into doing the email readings that I love, love, LOVE to do instead of bleeding off energy to the side hustle of promoting and marketing those selfsame readings. My attention is shifting from doing all of the “right” business things to holding space for us to work together and making a little intuitive magic. If you find me and this magical space, wonderful! It was meant to be. Let’s get to it. You are welcome here. Let’s listen together and find out what spirit and intuition have to say to us.

While a Tarot reading in any format is a spiritual space, apart from the world, the world is still waiting when we are done. There is a hustle to do, even if it isn’t related to marketing and promotion. The practical, logical business side of being a professional, trustworthy Tarot reader still exists. I have bills to pay the same as everyone else. Any support you can give, word of mouth referrals, virtual coffees on ko-fi, repeat readings, anything will help keep the stressful side of social media hustle out of our Tarot energy flow. None of it is really going away. It really isn’t as big of a change as it might sound. It’s all just getting way, way more comfortable and casual.

Speaking of social media, I’ve left Twitter and migrated to Mastedon where people really are the algorithm. I’m @sage@mstdn.social. I meant it when I said “Boosts matter. They are how we find each other. There are a lot of tremendously fascinating, cool human beings out here in cyberspace and boost help us find – and appreciate – each other and that is the whole social media ballgame. Thanks everybody *raises coffee mug* cheers!” I won’t be promoting the blog, podcast or readings there, but if you want to say a real hello, I’m there at least once a day.

The Year Ahead reading for 2023 is up on the main website thanks to Zombie Cat’s fine efforts yesterday.

But all of this can start tomorrow. After the weight of an old year rolling away we’ve all earned some quiet and routine, like the hush of January snow. I wish you a light and lovely New Year.

Zombie Cat’s Year Ahead Reading for 2023

Zombie Cat’s Tarot reading for the year ahead 2023

Happy New Year Hoomans!

Had my hooman pull the cards for this year for me because she’s the one with the opposable thumbs and all.

I’m Zombie Cat, black sheep of the feline family and Schrodinger’s Cat’s fictional renegade cousin who decided to come out of that famous thought experiment as “both” after the experiment was finished instead of during the experiment. Don’t think about it too hard…quantum physics will break your brain. Didn’t do much for the hooman when she made me up back in a 2015 blog post that was about Tarot, not science, so go all pedantic about it (it makes her cranky when people do that.)

Anyway, I decided to pitch in and help the hooman out so she can sit over there and knit and drink coffee and maybe do something about that hair that looks like post-explosion Veronica end of the movie Heathers. (The cat’s not wrong. 2022 finally caught up with me – I haven’t brushed my hair today and I am feeling very post-explosion Veronica. Now where is that red scrunchie…)

Ahem. My turn hooman.

Just as a brief introduction to this particular layout, here’s what is going on.

The human wrote this several years ago to be used at any time of year, not just New Year. It’s fun for birthdays, graduation, or any time really. There are four cards, one for each of the upcoming season, starting whenever the reading is done and going in order from there. It is intended to look at the direction energy seems to be flowing. It isn’t a definite prediction, but it is a guiding theme for the time period in question. Same for the fifth card which is the theme, over-arching energy or primary lesson for the year as a whole.

Or that’s what the hooman says.

I say it is what it is, I see what I see, I say what I say, you get what you get and we are all just going to have to cope with life however it actually turns out to be. But that’s the difference between us – she is the thoughtful human type, and I’m – not.

Here we go.

The general pattern makes me think there is going to be a lot of energy overall. Stuff is going to happen. You know how when you opposable thumb types are yanking on something that is stuck, and you keep yoinking on it until it suddenly gives way? That’s the feel for this year. We’ve spent the past two years trying to pull ourselves through and out of some real weirdness. 2023 might start out like more of the same but once it starts to move it is going to give way suddenly & move like crazy for a short bit until we get a new grip on it.

While there is only one major arcana card, all of the minor arcana cards are court cards. Court cards might not have the major change, major life lesson ka-pow of energy that the majors have, they still carry a little more catnip than the numbered minor arcana cards.

Winter

This covers roughly the time right now through mid-March or so. The Queen of Pentacles is the card for this season. Just like the peak pandemic times in 2020-21 there is a strong sense of practicality. Pentacles are about earth energy. Find your inner rock, find what anchors and grounds and centers you and do that. The queen is about nurturing and leadership. The king may protect the kingdom, but the queen nurtures it. This time is about taking care of business. This is close to home, hearth and family type stuff. When your efforts harmonize with the energy flows of the time, you get the most bang for your buck as the saying goes. If you try to be too expansive and far flung and boundary-pushing you might meet some resistance or have a rougher than necessary road ahead. If you focus on taking care of what you already have at hand, if you focus on care and maintenance close to the home front, the energies will life you up and your efforts go farther and need less, well, effort. Work smarter not harder so you can slide in a healthy dose of self care too. You know how health and fitness is a fad for five minutes every January? Take advantage, and take care of yourself. Who knows? You might accidentally stumble across something you actually like and can sustain all the way to maybe February this time.

Spring

We stay with the practical, earthy, grounded energy of Pentacles, but the Page of Pentacles moves it from the large-and-in-charge nurturing of the queen to a more intellectual, outreaching quality. Pages symbolize learning, which is something that can be done in the context of any minor arcana suit. The page of pentacles is softer, more practical, more application and less pure theory than the colder more incisive intellect energy we see in the suit of swords. Holistic health is stepping forward as a concept. The mind and learning aspects of sword cards is more like a modern surgeon, while the page of pentacles is closer to the mind aspect of holistic health where mind, body and spirit are one. The page of pentacles is reminding us to use our head, but not heartlessly. Spring is a time of logic and intellect, yes, but logic and intellect with compassionate practical application. Learn all you can, but you will go farthest when you put your energy into learning things that have practical, useful, helpful application.

To put it another way, this energy this spring is more helpful to practical engineering rather than cutting edge theoretical quantum physics.

What is that word? Hygge? Both winter and spring have that warm fuzzy sort of feel to them. Make yourself comfortable the first half of 2023, whatever comfortable means to you. This isn’t the time for pushing too hard outside of your comfort zone. 2020 & 2021 shoved us out of it hard enough already. 2023 may at last be our chance to re-define, re-establish, re-stabilize our new comfort zones to get ready for the next push, no matter whether that push come from us on the inside or from the outside of said comfort zone.

Summer

Here we pick up the spirit part of that mind, body, spirit holistic paradigm.

This is our only major arcana card, the Moon. The moon has long been associated with dreamyness, psychic ability, intuition, spiritual growth, spiritual journies and the like. First the soft jazzy song “Summertime” from Porgie and Bess comes to mind to capture the mood of the card. Then it shifts to the opening few lines from the Madonna song “Crazy For You” from the 1985 movie Vision Quest. Which is a real side-door into the concept that intuition is trying to communicate, I think. The vision question in question here is more like the genuine hamanic kind than the feel good movie 80s pop culture kind. Here my mind is drawn to the early books by Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan from 1968 in particular. It’s been so long since the human had read it, neither of us are entirely sure what that reference is about, if anything, other than to encourage all of us to explore our spiritual life with courage and openness. Here I see starry, moonlit night with warm wind, candle or firelight perhaps. Night steps forward strongly. Night time is particularly important during this season for some reason. It feels like sunset and night time is the most potent for you to indulge in your deepest thinking, deepest feeling, and most important spiritual questing.

Fall

Here, it seems, is where all the yoinking and nurturing and caring and questions pay off. The Knight of Swords is best summed up by screaming “Geronimo!” or doing your best Tenth Doctor Who impersonation and yelling “allonz-y.” Here is where things move fast albeit for a short time. Whether that rapid giving way results in something good or something problematic remains to be seen. But it will be seen. Here is get the word “clarity” good or bad, at the end of 2023’s burst of movement there won’t be any doubt about what the problem actually is now. It might be a brand new dilemma, or it might have its roots in everything that has been going on for the past few years.

We may not get much fixed this year, but by the time next winter rolls back around, at least we might have a clear idea what the fix is.

Year 2023

The card of the year is the King of Cups.

The message is simple, but multifaceted.

Kings are leadership. You are in charge of the whole mess. You own your own mind, body, and spirit so it is up to you to care for, nurture and respect all the facets of yourself within yourself. That inner autonomy and maturity will in turn allow you to be present, emotionally available and nurturing to those you love and care about. That intimate inner circle is the relationship that cups cards symbolize. Cups cards are about emotions and those most important relationships; romance, family, found family and more.

Cups are also about intuition so I would guess that the spiritual aspect of life will be a prominent thread throughout the year despite the other energies that may be slightly more dominant for a time. Spirituality will be the constant even as the other energies comes and go.

Taken together, the King of Cups as an individual card symbolizes a mentor, or some sort of emotional teacher. The word “guru” comes to mind here. I don’t see it as the traditional Yoda-ish meditation or martial arts master. It feels like something low key – a real person or a writer or someone somewhere that you admire in some respect and want to emulate their success. Not in a tangible or materialistic way, and not in toto as some sort of child-like hero worship. “Take the best parts” comes to mind. Little inspirations from multiple reliable sources is more the feel of it.

The color blue steps forward as a good color for this year. To my mind it looks like a lovely sapphire or cobalt blue. That would go along with supporting the third eye chakra (energy center) and the spiritual component to the year.

That’s the inner world for 2023. The outer world is anybody’s guess. Personally I’m hoping for a piping cup of hot political schadenfreude that is full to the brim of deserving indictments. I hope that the forces for inclusion, compassion, support, safety, and environmentalism own the year like Greta Thunberg owns pizza eating criminals on the internet.

With that, the energy steps back.

With that the human and I wish every one of you a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Enjoy The Heck Out Of It

Enjoy the heck out of the holidays.

You heard me – enjoy

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot Blog and podcast.

Today’s episode is truly short, because I want to leave you with this one simple idea: indulgence can serve as a way of showing gratitude.

There is a tendency, at least in our puritan-influenced American culture to hold back the things we find most precious. From a place of fear, we lock life away in an attempt to revere and protect it.

I tend to think and feel that way. Probably far too often.

That is where the indulgences of the holiday season serve an interesting subtle purpose. Yes, by all means it is – and should be – a celebration and a stress relief. But it is also a means of expressing gratitude for life and all the little pleasures it provides.

For example, a cookie isn’t just a cookie at the holidays. It is a treat and a tradition. Eating that cookie and a half dozen others with joy and abandon is not only celebration, it our gratitude in action, our thankfulness for the flour and sugar in the cupboard and the bakers in our grocery stores. It is a child-like enthusiasm and unpretentious thank you.

Now substitute cookie for your favorite parts of whatever winter holiday you happen to celebrate.

And with that, I reach for another cookie and raise my gingerbread spice coffee to you in a wish for health, happiness and prosperity for us all in 2023!

I’ll talk to you in January, but Zombie Cat will be stopping by later this week with his so-called predictions for the New Year.

Merry Happy Everyone!

Thank you all so much for reading and listening in 2022 and always! I’m still pondering a name change. TaoCraft Tarot resonates with me because it is a reflection of my deep-down, life-long philosophies.

BUT

It is more important that this Tarot website resonates with YOU. Tarot readings, the really good ones, are a conversation and a collaboration between the reader and the sitter (seeker, querent, whatever term you like to use) I want to make this a warm, inviting cozy place for us both to contemplate Tarot and related topics together.

Conversations are made up of words. Words are the net we throw over ideas to draw them into our conversation.

In 2023, TaoCraft Tarot will (probably) become Sage Words Tarot to match my personal blog. It’s still me (under my pen name Sage) and we’ll use our words to talk about Tarot and do readings for you.

I hope everyone who has followed this Tarot work under Modern Oracle (1002 – 2018) will stick around through one more, hopefully more welcoming name change.

Happy New Year to all!

Crystal Cast for the week of 26 Dec 22

CrystalCast psychic reading – a look ahead to the week of 26 December 2022

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

It’s been quite a year for me, and this cast for the final week of 2022 rubs a little lemon juice into a private emotional paper cut. That being said, I’ll leave it to you to decide if this resonates for you or not. That being said, it isn’t about us per se as much as it is a confirmation or explanation of other people or of some of the unkindnesses we may have experienced or witnessed this year.

It might be a pitfall of being a people pleaser. It might come from some deep seated desire to do the right thing above all.

Or it might come from being elitist, egotistical, holier-than-thou and judgemental.

The take-away message that I see here is that people are more important than ideology. When I say ideology, it could extend to anything but top of mind right now is religion. Use it interchangeably in this post, if you like. Damage is done when we put religion or politics or policy over the people they were originally intended to help.

I tend to look at life through a very secular humanist lens. True to pareidolia, our natural neurological tendency to see patterns where likely none exist the pattern I see here is a human form reminiscent of the constellation Orion. If the upper blank rune stone is considered the face, the left hand could be the largest obsidian chip. Left is considered the yin or receiving hand. Give and take is a consideration this week. Don’t leave your receiving hand closed. Give a little love to yourself even as the main focus is caring for others. The black color of the obsidian also resonates with yin, resting, receiving, accepting, abiding: All things to remember.

The right hand is the larger raw quartz bead. If we consider this patter as looking at another human face to face, the quartz would be the sending, giving, yang right hand. Our task this week is to care for others. It’s our turn to give that extra little bit of care and consideration be it literal, like taking out the extra holiday garbage, or giving a little tlc to the emotional bruises the holiday season can inflict for some while celebrating all the good that comes of it for the rest of us.

The “m” shaped rune is ehwaz, which Thom Pham visually likes to two people holding hands. It has to do with relationships.

Your relationship with people and with yourself is pre-eminant. In my opinion any person that puts organization and dogma over people are making the wrong choice. Organizations and their leaders that ask that of their members are barking up the tree of cultism and psychopathy in my non-expert opinion.

The extended diamond shape next to ehwaz is othala, which has to do with homeland, legacy, or ancestral home. I get the purely intuitive sense of that ancestral legacy being self-knowledge in the vein of Socrates. I want to associate it with the treasure of being confident and comfortable within your ancestral home, your own skin. The more you know thyself, and the more comfortable with that authentic self, the more impervious you are to other people’s petty judgements. More importantly, it makes you less likely to judge or demean others, even inadvertently.

Yoda was right. Fear and anger and dare we say emotional pain of any kind leads to the dark side.

Socrates was right. The more you know yourself, the more you can accept and abide with the unique, amazing person that you are.

The art form of Kintsugi is right. Brokenness has the potential to become beautiful.

In this last week of the year, in the flow of yuletide, in the hope of brighter days to come, give freely of your compassion and be generous your ability to see the beauty in cracks and crinkles. Give all of these things freely to yourself as well.

Zombie Cat’s Tarot Reading for 2023 is coming later this week. Zombie Cat doesn’t give a flying brain cell about how Tarot really works, how probabilities really work or if his so-called predictions come true or not. He’s a zombie. And he’s a cat. All of Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong. I hope you’ll stay tuned for the fun.

As for me, I want to say thank you here and now for your kind attention. I appreciate your following the blog and the podcast. It means a lot that you are willing to spend a few minutes and few sips of coffee to consider these little Tarot contemplations.

Both the Blog and the Podcast will be back right after New Years. I’m considering a few superficial updates, maybe even a name change as my Tarot work continues to adapt to some off-line meatspace changes. From your end of things, it will all be pretty much the same. I want to make things more regular and predictable for all of our sakes. Hang in there with me. We got this.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, peaceful and abundant 2023!

Offering

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

But you can have a long cool drink of your own.

This card’s advice and energy might be a little connected to a private reading I did earlier today, but nevertheless it is one of those proverbial truisms that applies to everyone.

We can’t control other people, but we sure as hell can control ourselves.

We can offer our love, but can’t make other people accept it – much less requite it.

We can accept the love that is given to us. We can choose to reflect, return and magnify that love.

We can choose to close ourselves off, but don’t dare be hurt when other people turn away and stop offering their emotions and energies to a closed up lump.

Let emotions flow – there are always more where that came from.

Yes, absolutely, choose, control and curate how you express them and who you express them to. You can control that much, but not how -or if-they will react.

“You do you boo” is as demeaning and dismissive as it feels when someone says it to you…but it is also full, unbridled permission to let your freak flag fly and to do just exactly that…you.

“People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln among others.

So what do you do about people who choose differently than you had hoped or just generally make up their mind to be miserable?

I don’t know.

I suspect the answer is to let them.

Respect their choices. Respect the mind they’ve made. But just as importantly, respect yours just as strongly.

Choose happy, and it is yours.

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous Yuletide Solstice time and New Year.

Thank you for reading and listening in 2022. Please stay tuned for a shiny new and improved blog, podcast and other new surprises coming in 2023.

Wishing all the best to everyone,

Sage