It doesn’t predict the future. I won’t use terms like ‘divination’ or ‘fortune telling’ here. Mostly because I see things as cause and effect driven – in spirituality as much as in physics. Magick happens when real world action harmonizes with subtle energies and the natural flow of things.
Tarot is spiritual GPS. It’s about navigating the current energies and making choices that both ease our current anxieties and helps us to do the things that cause the desired effects. Or, as I’ve said dozens of times:
Tarot isn’t about predicting what will happen in life, Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
Many times the Tarot message is about looking to the present moment. We need to be reminded to pay attention to the here and now. We naturally seem to look ahead and imagine. Often we imagine things that make us feel afraid but it is also why we, as humans, can see cause and effect and act accordingly.
Today’s card is a reminder we are able to look ahead and that is a perfectly good thing to do. The energy today supports a sort of quiet optimism and hopefulness. You need to decide what you want before you can lay the foundation to make it a reality. You have to decide where you want to go before you can take the first step in that direction.
It is ok to just stop and think about the what and where. It’s ok to look ahead.
Sometimes just having some sort of an action plan can help ease worry. Even small, imperceptible actions like focusing on your breathing, or looking at artwork on Tarot cards can help. That is what this two card layout is designed to do: Help to understand a little bit about current energies that might be a source of worry and suggest a small something to do about it.
Sometimes its fun being a little bit clairaudient when music is involved.
What it is: The Corpse
When I saw the corpse card, my first thought wasn’t dead, smelly and gross. It was the Gizmodrome (I’m a Police / Stewart Copeland fan) song “Zombies Are In The Mall” I really like that song and have proceeded to earworm it off and on since filming the card draw. If you prefer Michael Jackson, think “Thriller,” It fits – Pittsburgh has a connection with zombies. My first apartment was a 20 minute shamble from where Night of the Living Dead was filmed. The card has an important message, but it is wrapped in a little pop culture and humor. Pure brain candy vibe on the order of 1989 movie, Weekend at Bernie’s
The sense is of something that maybe isn’t actively harmful, but more along the lines of something that has far outlived its usefulness but just keeps rolling along in your life out of sheer habit and pure inertia. Think dead weight. Think 10 of wands. Think that old pair of underwear with holes and stretched out elastic that keeps being put back in your drawer wash after wash.
Let. It. Go.
This doesn’t warrant rolling out the Kylo Ren quote but it is a reminder to look out for any metaphoric zombies that have been following you around lately.
It could be anything. Things, habits, thoughts, beliefs. Here the Death card joins the chat with its connection to change. Again the phrase “outlived their usefulness” hinting at a gradual change. That outliving doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a gradual decay. We change, we grow, and old parts of us wither up and usually fall away like shedding skin cells or the papery outer layers of an onion.
Seriously, this could be as minimal as a cue to go ahead and try that new exfoliant face treatment or indulge in that spa sugar scrub. Or it could be a cue to let go of that now dead part of you that you worked so hard to deconstruct.
Change isn’t always easy, even when it is change for the better. Changes both big and small, gradual and fast, can leave us feeling a little anxious and unmoored.
What to do: The Familiar
There is nothing wrong with comfort food. Or a comfort watch on TV. Or wearing your favorite emotional support hoodie. If that is the meaning of the word familiar that this this card evokes for you, by all means follow that.
I feel drawn to the cards author-intended meaning of alliance.
Familiar in this sense is like a witch’s familiar, a helpful entity that takes the form of an animal. In traditional lore, the witch / familiar relationship is a master / servant one. I think this card is giving something far more nuanced, and far more powerful: symbiosis. This has a feeling of mutually beneficial cooperation, of teamwork.
When you discover the old parts of you are dead and gone, when you finally recognize the zombies that are following you around, let them go. Lop the heads off if you have to. But nature really does abhor a vacuum. Find your tribe. Find your allies. Find friendly energies to take their place. The Familiar card is reassurance that they are indeed like minded people out there if we allow ourselves to go out in the world and find them.
Deck: Alleyway Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission
Suggested reading
Spirit Allies by Christophr Penczak
How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews
The deck choice fits the feeling today. The energy seems light and playful, at least for the weekend.
I don’t know why I don’t use it more. This deck, the Kawaii Tarot by Diana Lopez is one of two decks that were given to me as gifts – late in my professional Tarot career, actually. Just want to say up front that I totally do NOT buy into that Tarot cards have to be given to you nonsense. It’s the right tool for the right job kind of thing and saying a tarot deck has to be gifted to you is like saying your favorite screwdriver or kitchen pot has to be gifted to you in order to be skilled at home repair or a good cook. But that is beside the point – back to feeling cute.
Let’s do this as an Action Eases Anxiety layout. Anxiety short circuits cute, which is the major part of the message here.
What it is (current energy): The Moon card has been popping up a lot lately. Natural cycles go at their own pace. I hear “gentle pirouette” It is like the gradual fade of ombre hair color. It’s isn’t the flip of a switch – it is more like dissolving a sugar cube into a hot cup of tea than running through a doorway.
Now I’m taken back yet again to the mountain ridge image from the Summit and Crossroads post. The path straight ahead is still the one in light, the one with pull. The side paths along the razor sharp narrow ridge are even darker. It is like climbing a cliff, standing a moment to look around the stepping forward from that rocky ridge into a wide gradual grassy meadow to walk down the other side of the peak.
When we look at ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do it’ we run right into reversed cards. As we’ve talked about before, there are a few different ways to handle reversals (cards that are upside down relative to the person doing the reading) Some people just flip the meaning from a positive to a negative meaning regardless of the intuitive feeling. Another strategy is to simply flip the card upright and go on taking all possible meanings into consideration, as is typical in the Lenormand tradition. Finally (my favorite) is to read the card taking all of it’s possible meanings into consideration BUT leave it inverted using the reversal as a hint that the energy is blocked or turbulent.
What to do is the Queen of Pentacles. The queen has to do with comfort and prosperity and meeting material needs and, as with all Pentacles, down-to-earth practicality. The reversal reminds us that times are tough. It isn’t yet time for a splurge or to be too spendthrifty. Plan purchases. Head over heart for a while longer while the gradual fade to better times happens.
How to do it gives us the Two of Swords. Swords are air and intellect, emphasizing head over heart. It is ok not to know what to do, or be able to plan with great confidence right now. It is enough to be responsive and aware. A cool head responding to situations at hand is enough. If you are of two minds about something, all things being equal, let logic lead the way for the next little while.
We’ll know when it is a heart-forward kind of time again.
Meanwhile, while logic and intellect lead, let the heart have a little time to play and feel cute – no need to delete now or later.
I’d really like it if you follow this blog. Not just because I enjoy the thought that somebody somewhere might enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it, but also so you can see the patterns unspooling with the same timing and sequence that I see it.
First the 8 of cups kept popping up and the overall vibe those days was of turning a corner, all very much attuned to the classic meaning for the card. Think walking away from a bad situation and toward a better one with all the Bittersweet painful nostalgia mixed bag of feels that experience brings.
Then the energetic turning-a-corner feeling faded into, well fading.
This morning, I did a different card draw for today with the intention of doing a collective energy, week-ahead, action eases anxiety type of reading for today. It was The Moon, The Ring and The Mice.
Don’t ask me why or how, but I lost the draft of the short before I could edit and get it uploaded to YouTube. Whatever boneheaded thing I did, I’m taking it as a hint that the card and message was wrong for the moment and tried again even though I had already reshuffled the cards and it was half an hour later.
Hello Moon.
I can take a hint.
The Moon card means it when it shows up twice like that. After all of this time with the card, I know a good synchronicity when I see it.
Today’s cards are:
What it is (current energy): The Child.
It seems like there is always that one card in a deck where the visuals don’t quite match the vibe. That can happen with any card in any deck in any given reading, but it seems like some of them are like that more often than the others in a deck. The Four of Swords in the Witches Tarot is one example. This is another. The art screams horror movie reboot to me, but the guidebook talks about new beginnings. Combine the visual with THAT and it does give a sense of crossing a threshold into something new. This is the mysterious something just out of sight and off screen with the RWS 8 of cups we’ve talked about in earlier posts. This is what we are turning a corner to face. This is what new thing we are or can fade into.
The current energy is one of becoming.
What to DO (to ease anxiety or move forward more peacefully): The Moon
Clearly this is where the emphasis is for today’s reading. DOing can be quiet and internal. The thing to do just now IS to be quiet. Both Lenormand and RWS decks have a moon card. Both styles point to introspection and intuition. There is a big pause and reflect message here. Give yourself the inner grace if not the literal quiet. Allow the wattage to be a little lower if you just aren’t feeling it. We’ve been through some stuff and seen some things, so is ok to slow down, take inner inventory – again “pause and reflect” comes through strongly here – before we tackle the new beginning, turn the corner, walk off the edge of the card and cross the glow-y threshold to something new.
I also hear “look beyond to the new cycle” … look to what is next BEYOND the corner, beginning and threshold. Cycles and circles don’t stop. Change doesn’t stop…it just happens at different speeds. The moon gradually fades from one phase to another, while Jupiter spins in the span of a typical workday. Change might be in fade mode right now, but a new phase is beyond. It’s a new moon now, in the real world. That will fade into a full moon soon enough.
Whatever place we might be in a cycle, however fast the cycle might be moving, something is always next.
What it is is something new. What to do is give yourself some grace and time to adapt.
deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler, all rights reserved. Used with permission llwellynpublishing.com
What it is: The Whip. Harshness or conflict is at hand. Even if it doesn’t directly involve you, it impacts the environment where you live and function. Think of war or inflation that makes things worse for everyone. Now is not a time for impulse. Prepare for any storms, real or metaphoric, as best as you can. A paramedic instructor once told me that “if you prepare for the emergency, then the emergency goes away” meaning that it doesn’t change what is actually happening but it seems like less of a scary big deal than it would have otherwise been. Calm is contagious.
What to do: The Key. The Key card indicates that a choice is at hand. The choices we make today are the key that unlocks (not predicts) our future. Choosing not to choose is still a choice. You can choose inaction. You can choose to watch, wait, learn. You can choose to accept the outcome of inaction or you can choose to do everything you can to unlock the outcome you want. In the words of David Axelrod of the Barak Obama presidential campaign “The least we can do is everything we can do.”
Even if things don’t go the way you want, at least go into that situation knowing you did everything you could to make it right.
The time has come to choose your side. The fence, the middle ground has thinned so that those who do not choose will fall unwillingly to one side or another. Action speaks louder than words. Inaction is no longer silent.
In the words of Desmund Tutu, “If you remain neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
How to do it: The Bear. The Lenormand Tarot deck gained popularity in the eighteenth century, but bears symbolized protection then just as much as our ‘mama bear’ meme does today. Important choices are seldom easy and even less often consequence free. Protection can guide some choices. Choose the thing that protects your path forward. Choose the thing that protects the people you love (including you.) Choose the thing that protects your resources during lean times. Choose what lets you see the happiness you already have. Choose the path that protects your inner peace.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission llwellynpublishing.com
Today we are using the Normal Tarot deck by Seven Dane Asmund in the Action Eases Anxiety layout.
What it is: The Fifth of Winter (peak of the test)
What to do: The Masterless Knight (wild card)
How to do it: The Courteous King (tragedy and compassion)
I am reminded of the old adage that “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is taking action in spite of it.”
This old meaning of courage is important in these new times.
These cards hint that things are just as bad as they seem. Denial serves no good purpose. The old ways are gone, beyond repair.
The only way forward is to create something new, something courageous and something profoundly compassionate. Here I ‘hear’ the song “Miss Couragous” by the 1990s band The Nixon Clocks.
Old institutions can no longer guide us. I ‘hear’ “religion must fall.” Given my personal background, this feels particularly directed at American evangelicals. May they become social pariahs.
Find your own unique way. You are the king of your own inner kingdom but with no control or dominion over other people. Rule your inner world with wisdom and compassion. Compassion directed toward yourself and toward others.
The Action Eases Anxiety layout gives us a look at the current energy for today or the week. It shows what the energy is, then suggests a good way to deal with it. Whenever you have some small bit of understanding and an action plan, those ideas together can ease anxiety and worry a little bit. It’s no grand prediction about what will happen, but a solid suggestion how to move through this current energy with a little bit more peace of mind.
Like I’ve always said: Tarot isn’t about predicting what will happen in life – Tarot is for figuring out what to do when life happens.
What it is: New Moon (reversed) – fragile potential
What to do: Five of Winter – persist
There is much potential around you, but it can be easily thwarted. Don’t sell yourself short. Persist. Don’t bail out just when the worst is about to be over.
I ‘hear’ (meaning the intuitive interpretation comes as words or sounds instead of mental images) “It can’t rain all the time” from the 1994 movie version of The Crow.
I am also reminded or the adage to not change horses mid stream.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
It’s also said that it’s darkest before the dawn. Don’t give up just before the sun peeks over the horizon.
Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
And all the platitudes and proverbs like that.
In other words, yes it’s hard. Yes it’s a mess. Hope is over the crest of the next wave. Don’t wimp out at the last minute. Dig deep you’ll make it over the crest of the biggest wave sooner or later.
shown: The Normal Tarot deck by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission. Learn more at publishinggoblin.com
Change is inherent to life. Change is inevitable. Change is at hand.
The energy in today’s reading is entirely about world events, not an individual situation – but it tells us all something we can do ease the anxieties for all of us during war, fascism and all of the overwhelming things in the world today.
The Action Eases Anxiety layout hints at what current energies ARE and what to DO about them.
What is is: The Scythe. This symbol clearly resonates with the Death card from the RWS major arcana. The energy now is ripe for making changes. In this deck’s book, Christopher Butler adds a connotation of precision. The advice here is to make smart, precise, efficient, effective changes. Be focused and targeted in what you decide to do. Do small things that you feel confident and comfortable doing….think of a magnifying glass that focuses sunlight so strongly it could ignite paper. When you are confident and comfortable, you are focused and effective. Don’t feel comfortable calling your congressional representatives? Send an email. Don’t feel comfortable carrying a big sign to a protest? Stand quietly at the protest. Quiet presence and small but persistent action counts too.
The Death card is ‘sea change’ … any big, life altering change. Like the Death card, the change isn’t always disastrous. When I was a professional reader, I saw the death card all of the time – at bachelorette parties, and even a baby shower once. Change can be very, very good change. Sure it may be the death of the maiden phase of life, but it is also the birth of wife and mother phases of life. Symbolic death of the old is necessary to make way for the new. The Scythe card here emphasizes that aspect. The Scythe clears the way for better things to come. It clears the way for you to move forward in the way that you want, the way that you must.
Here I am reminded of the powerful quote from the movie The Last Jedi where the character Kylo Ren says “Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become who you were meant to be.” That captures the feeling of the Scythe card today.
What to do: The Whip is a disturbing image, typically associated with quarreling and conflict akin to the 3 of swords or 5 of wands. This connects to the underlying “Change…but in a good way” message here. To make positive, effective changes, old patterns are necessarily disrupted. This connects to the John Lewis “good trouble” reference.
Clearly this is a time of upheaval. I intuitively ‘hear’ “sea change” along with “good trouble.”
I also ‘hear’ “we are in the thick of it” and “this the darkness before the dawn”
My mind is drawn to the number 5 and the month of May. I don’t know why or what that’s about – but I hold on to hope just the same. May is only a couple of months away.
But that should NOT draw our focus away from the moment at hand. That is exactly what the first card warns us about. Any diffusion to our focus could keep the critically needed changes from sparking.
Now is the time to add your drop into the ocean of change, now is the time to add your weight to the work of bending the arc of history toward justice.
Thank you, as always, for reading. See you at the next sip!
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Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission as published on Llwellynpublishing.com
This reading can resonate with anyone, anywhere, at any time – if it feels right for you, it’s yours. The reading also feels like it is directed at those of us in the US who are forecast to (GASP!!) get a bunch of snow in the middle of January. Get your snackies, beer, stuff for sandwiches if the power goes out and ingredients for soup and cookies if it doesn’t. It’s a good excuse to stay home, and stick it to capitalism by not buying a damn thing extra all weekend. Stay safe, stay warm and be good to yourself. This is an introvert’s paradise, so extroverts are on their own for this one. Imma knit and read and putz around on the website.
This layout lends itself well to Lenormand decks. It’s like a simple sentence, subject and verb. It shows us what the energy is and suggests a good thing to do about it.
Doing something (even if that something is wait, watch or conserve) can take the edge off of worries. Just having an action plan can help, even if you don’t wind up using it.
Current energy: The Stars.
I ‘hear’ “the road to riches is close at hand but hidden” This is a good omen type of card similar to the Star card in the RWS major arcana. It speaks to good fortune at hand, but it also has elements of subtle guidance. It hints at doing the necessary mental work for find your good fortune. Look before you leap, think before you act, but in the end, actions speak louder than words. You have to take steps in order to walk the road to good fortune.
What to do: The Bear.
Protect what you have. Don’t be a spendthrift just now. As Ben Franklin said “a penny saved is a penny earned.”
The deck author, Christopher Butler describes this card as a very mama bear energy.
Don’t just stand up for what you believe in, sit with it. Share space and spend time with the things and people most important to you as far as you are able. Send your thoughts and check in with friends and loved ones if you can’t physically be there.
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See you at the next sip!
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Chrstopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved. Used with permissions granted on llwellynpublishing.com.
CURRENT ENERGY: The Tower. You can’t control the world, but you are 100% in control of how you respond to it. Don’t pray for protection or to be given something. Pray instead for the strength and resources to keep yourself safe, to make or create the things you want.
WHAT TO DO: The Stork. This is the birth of something new and different. Change strategies. DO things differently to get different or better results. This is it. It’s your time to step up and do what you need to do for your own well being and those you love. Now is a good time to be the change you want to see in your inner world, and maybe the outer one too.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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