When we talk about the “layout” or “card spread” in Tarot, we are referring to how the cards are physically placed on the table during a reading. The photo above shows a three card layout.
Some layouts are ancient and ubiquitous and no one really knows how they originated. Others are brand new and purpose written by the tarot reader. All are equally valid.
Regardless of its origin, the layout adds context and structure to a reading. It is the framework that connects the different cards into one, larger, cohesive message.
The real key in any layout is to have a clear idea what each position within the layout pattern will signify before the reading begins. You have to have a clear, fixed intention for the layout positions before you even pick up the cards. It serves as a solid foundation, which allows the individual card meanings to adapt and flow with intuition. Those two important things together elevate the quality of the reading as a whole. The card layout (along with a consistent overall reading format) helps to put the purely intuitive Tarot information into real world language we can actually use.
Here are the layouts that I’ve written for my private Tarot readings:
Year Ahead
five cards
advice over prediction – gives a sense of the energies ahead to help navigate the year
four cards for each upcoming season in order, no matter what time of year the reading is done
One card above the others to summarize the year as a whole
TaoCraft Path
Five cards
Intended for understanding the current situation and guidance navigating your life path ahead.
It goes right to left: influence from the past, the current situation, advice to move forward, how to keep this path, how to change this path if you want.
NEW! TaoCraft Taijitu
Three cards
Yin card: energies drawing toward you
Yang card: energies moving away or that need pushed away
Harmony: advice to take your next step forward in balance with all of the energies.
Yes or No
Three cards
Straight yes or no answer plus advice
inexpensive
fun and lighthearted, “Zombie Cat” style
Image credits:
Top and Taijitu image from the public domain
“Seasons”photo by the author using Witches Tarot deck by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans copyright 1996 used with permissions on Llewellyn publishing
TaoCraft Path photo by the author using public domain image tarot cards
I’m so grateful for each and every one of you reading this. I enjoy writing this blog so very much.
The time has come to just say it – writing is my forte and typed Tarot readings are my best work. I do live and in-person readings really well – video readings, online readings, and over the years I’ve built some serious party chops at big events (CMU, Nordstroms, Arthritis Foundation of Pittsburgh & more)
I want to spend time and energy in 2024 getting back to where it all started: typed distance readings. I want to give a little love to the blog with some longer reads and deeper dives. So thank you, thank you, thank you for coming along.
“I don’t have ducks. I don’t have rows. I have squirrels and they are hosting a pagan rave.”
unknown
As much as I enjoy a good squirrel rave, this needs a touch of logic and a methodical approach. The “there is no plan” plan is still very much in place, but the general rule of thumb is:
Monday – Choose Your Card. Watch the video in the post or on YouTube. PAUSE the video at first so you can CHOOSE your card, then RESTART the video to see the reveal. A short reading is in the video description and on social media. A more in-depth card of the week reading will be right HERE on the blog. A lot of our holidays fall on Monday here in the U.S so on those days I may not post.
Wednesday – BTS or Learn With Me: Starting today, I plan to do behind the scenes (- ish) posts that give you a peek inside my method and philosophy of Tarot reading. OF COURSE it is mostly shameless self promotion because I want you to buy email Tarot readings from me. But with a little luck we’ll all maybe find a little free fun and inspiration along the way
Friday – something completely random or a quick one card meditation to satisfy my completionist side and fit that nice M-W-F pattern
The weekend newsletter is going on hiatus until I can figure out how to switch it from Substack to WordPress. I’ll keep you posted on that, although I’m hoping you’ll follow the blog (right column on laptop, scroll waayyy down on mobile) Three posts a week isn’t bad and posts go straight to your inbox, just like a newletter would anyway. But that’s to sort out another day.
Comments are always open and you are welcome to CONTACT ME with any questions and get an answer in the blog. Unless it’s spam. Then I’ll prolly block you.
It’s all me
This ain’t my first rodeo as they say.
I’ve been reading cards in some capacity since the early 1990s. You know, when the whole world was black and white and computer memory was still 5 inches across.
At first I just read for friends & for myself because why pay the phone company and Dionne Warwick’s friends huge amounts of money for something you could do yourself? After a while, a friend suggested that I try working on one of those online sites (eternal gratitude, girlfriend!)
Taking her advice, I did Tarot readings on Keen, Advice Trader and Allexperts all under the nickname Baihu. Within a few years of some serious hustle, I’d done hundreds of readings. Yes, you read that right, hundreds. I stopped counting around 400 or so. After a while, enough was enough of the experience building for free or nearly free.
I started my own part time Tarot practice with ModernOracleTarot.com, the Tarotbytes blog, and Quirk & Flotsam Etsy shop. During those years I did in-person, party, phone and email Tarot readings.
The name was fun, inspired by The Oracle character from The Matrix. Despite that, I made sure Modern Oracle had a carefully curated, super sanitized, white-washed image that was nice and non-threatening to any random local conservative suburbanites that might stumble across it. I had a family to protect, after all.
Now, that family is all security minded working adults and I don’t have to be around school district soccer moms any more (whew!) Modern Oracle just didn’t fit anymore, so I re-branded in 2018 to TaoCraft Tarot which was a much more authentic representation of myself and my Tarot philosophy
I’ve studied Tai Chi, and Taoist philosophy as long as I have Tarot and Reiki almost as long. I’ve had an interest in magick and witchcraft longer than any of it, even as a very small person watching Bewitched re-runs on TV. The TaoCraft name was very meaningful to me, but it didn’t seem to make as much sense to new clients. People seemed to stumble over it a bit. That’s a big problem because these Tarot readings that we do together are not about me … they are all about and for YOU.
So re-brand number two: Sage Words Tarot
Easy to pronounce, easy to understand, basic, common words that get the point across on multiple levels.
Sage is an herb with a familiar flavor from sausage and holiday turkeys. Sage in aromatherapy calms anxieties, lifts moods and promotes optimism. Aromatherapy can come in the form of burned incense and dried leaf bundles. Sage smoke can be used to metaphysically clear the energy of a space but should not to be confused with the indigenous practice of smudging. They are two paths from two cultures that wind up in a similar place, but each deserving of its own respect.
I hope that a Tarot session with me leaves you feeling calm, comforted and hopeful, just like sage aromatherapy.
Sage is also a word meaning wise, symbolic of Tarot’s wise advice.
Sage is now my pen name and Sage Words Tarot is the website where it all originates.
TaoCraft is still under there a little bi. It’s like a new business in an old Pizza Hut building. You can’t deny the structure underneath. The same is true here. My work is still guided by the Taoist treasures of simplicity, honesty and kindness. I still follow the Reiki ethic of only doing energy work with those who give knowing consent. I never ever approach or spam an individual to get a reading.
Advertise? Sure. I have coffee to buy and web hosting to pay for. Your reading orders (no appointment needed for video or email) memberships and virtual coffee donations all go toward keeping the lights on in this humble little Tarot shop in cyberspace.
Thanks so much for reading! Next up: One Card Friday. See you at the next sip!
If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration
Nikola Tesla
I’m not saying that tuning forks can be used in any sort of psychic way. I’m saying that psychics sorta work like tuning forks – sometimes. I’m not saying that this science explains psychics or that there is any kind of causal relationship here. I’m using this objective physics demonstration as an analogy to describe and communicate something a psychic or intuitive might experience.
K?
So all of you pedantic skeptics out there just listen for a minute. Science is the best method we have for figuring stuff out – especially physical world stuff. But in 500 plus years of years of screwing around and writing stuff down as Adam Savage put it, science hasn’t wrapped its head and arms entirely around everything, particularly when it comes to things like consciousness, philosophy, and other internal, subjective esoterica. But that, again, is a post for another day.
For now, for all of you wonderful, terrific people who have been following the main website blog, to you first and foremost, I want to thank you. I know everybody says it, but really I couldn’t do this without you. That goes triple for my private clients and ko-fi Tarot Table members. I really REALLY couldn’t do this without you. Thank you, and thank you again.
image: bitmoji
Second – sorry for all the repetition headed your way. I want to use the next week of free-for-all posts to introduce Sage Words Tarot (plus some faves from the Modern Oracle / TaoCraft Tarot archives) to the paid subscription part of the Ko-Fi blog and Substack newsletter.
Which explains why I’m back to talking about resonance again today.
Looking back to late 2019 and very early 2020, it really is remarkable how many similar questions came to Tarot readings. It seems like there was a whole cadre of people who felt like something was wrong but couldn’t quite figure out what. They felt disconnected and worried about the future for no real reason. Those were the advanced students. They were the perceptive folks who sensed the storm on the horizon that we all were about to face: pandemic lockdowns.
To no one’s surprise that pattern continued for a year or so.
Reading after reading combined with a healthy dose of my own experience, it became pretty clear what was going on. All of the collective fear, anger and anxiety about the pandemic combined with the political climate in the United State was creating a toxic energy brew that was ringing a lot of intuitive bells regardless of our awareness of it.
I like the word zeitgeist, that German word for the mood and spirit of a time, or in other words the energy of the time. Sometimes energy sensitive people will vibe with the energy around them so strongly it feels like it is coming from the inside. Outside energy makes their own tennis balls bounce so to speak.
Please, take a moment and watch the publicly available demonstration on YouTube with the tuning forks. When the conditions are just so, the untouched tuning fork vibrates from the air pressure – the sound – created from the other tuning fork of the same frequency. The second tuning fork is energy sensitive. The second tuning fork wasn’t being whacked by a mallet. It was only being whacked by the air pressure waves created by the OTHER tuning fork that was being whacked by the mallet. The tennis balls are only hanging around so you can see when the second tuning fork is moving or not.
To put it in woo woo terms instead of physics terms…the second tuning fork was reading the energy environment. The tennis balls are like Tarot cards helping to make the whole energy thing more visible and understandable.
Now imagine a whole bunch of tuning forks. Only a few have tennis balls to make the energy a little more visual. Imagine the crowd of tuning forks all have a wide range of sensitivity. Some vibrate to sound a little easier than others. Now imagine the tuning fork that is getting whacked with the mallet is bigger and much louder than usual. It puts out much stronger air pressure sound waves. The non-whacked (resonant) tuning forks all around are vibing stronger than usual, and the ones that usually don’t react to the environmental sound start to vibrate.
Like I said, this isn’t any sort of explanation, just a broad analogy. So it isn’t perfect, but it is telling that matching frequencies are needed for the resonant phenomenon to happen. Moods and emotions can be as contagious as a new virus. When the world tipped into pandemic, all of the fear and worry zipped around the globe right along with it. Because the frequency was one of fear, anger and anxiety, that is the emotions the energy sensitives felt. That’s how the vibe felt to them.
Psychic sensitives didn’t predict it – they just heard the sound at a lower volume and their tennis balls started bouncing before everyone else’s. They read the energy and picked up on the zeitgeist early in the process.
Go back to the video demonstration. Now imaging what would happen if you put a big bell jar over top of the resonant second tuning fork with the tennis balls. You would dampen the sound and possibly stop the second tuning fork from sounding at all.
That’s great if you want to shut out an uncomfortable sound or metaphoric emotion, but the problem is that it would also shut out all of the sounds, all of the frequencies, all the vibes and all of the feelings. That’s generally not an emotionally healthy thing. If it’s your job to read energy and turn it into helpful communication, not being able to read the vibe is a straight up problem.
So what do you do?
A big scary thing is hammering away at a really big tuning fork set to the fear, isolation and anxiety frequency and it feels for all the world like YOU are afraid, isolated and anxious.
Here is what works for me.
Go shields up (or bell jar down) but just briefly.
My intuition is predominantly visual. We call that clairvoyant. I get a fair amount of mental words, sound or music to go with the mental images. That’s called clairaudient. Intuition can come as smells, tastes or physical sensations too, but that seems to be much less common.
If I ever wonder if a particular emotion is welling up for a reason or if it is just the collective zeitgeist making itself known, I tend to use a visualization technique. I use imagination, which is a valid and powerful thing. Imagination may be play for children, but it can be a powerful tool for emotional health when it is wielded by a thoughtful adult.
Try this and see what you think….
The next time you feel a strong emotion or a random mood hits or find yourself in a funk “for no reason” try a little self check.
Imagine something that protects you. Imagine something around you like a protective bubble. Something bigger like that big bell jar from before or a science fiction force field or that real force field that makes same-pole magnets repel each other. If it feels better imagine yourself in a cloak that protects you. Or literally put on a jacket or wrap yourself in a blanket. Whatever you choose, use your imagination to infuse that image or that thing with the ability to shield you from any outside influence. Use your imagination to set the intention that what you feel while you are thus protected is an true and clear insight into your own emotions. It is a fair amount of mental gyration just to simply focus on you and allow yourself to feel whatever you yourself genuinely feel…but we need that sometimes.
Sometimes we need some little bit of ritual or imagination to disrupt our mundane, everyday patterns and shake us out of our mental habits in order to face our emotions for what they are.
Most of the time, I’m pleasantly surprised.
I’ll go a little starship captain and give the “shields up” order and suddenly it is all “HEY! It’s kinda nice and happy in here!” Or, to continue the Sci Fi reference, if there are Klingons off the starboard bow, I can take action to handle it.
Once you know what is internal response and what is outside sensitivity, then you can do something to help the situation.
Setting owning your emotions and healthy emotional boundaries is doing something.
Thank you so much for reading and listening.
This free blog and podcast is 100% audience supported. Please consider a substack subscription, a ko-fi membership, tipping a virtual coffee, or accessing premium content when it appears here on the main website. Private readings are now OPEN and available by email with no appointment needed. That helps too.
Next up, pathway through the week reading tomorrow morning. See you at the next sip!
If you want to get to know me before you get a Tarot reading, this FREE ebook is a great way to do exactly that. “I want to show you the art of Tarot and this book is my portfolio.”
“I want my Tarot readings to be more like a conversation with a friend than a big drama. I want to earn your trust with this behind the scenes look. If you want to get to know me before scheduling a Tarot reading, then reading this ebook, this is a great way to do exactly that.
When an artist interviews for a job, they bring a portfolio of their work so the potential employer can decide if they are a good match for the company or project. This booklet will help you decide if we are a good match to work together.
I want to show you the art of Tarot and this is my portfolio.”
– Sage Snow from the introduction to TaoCraft Portfolio
Click the cover to get your FREE download
Thank you to #kofichallenge for the inspiration to finish this project 🙂
Throwback Thursday to ogres, onions, and peeling back the layers of the TaoCraft Tarot reading layout (available by email, no appointment needed)
Shrek: ….ogres are like onions
Donkey: They stink?
….
Shrek: No! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers
from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com
Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.
Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)
Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.
Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot (related: what’s in a name, Shakespear’s Roses, Spell Your Name)
That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.
In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is a condition of licensure and employment. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.
And so, the “Modern Oracle” layout is evolving. I’m calling abort on the video / text hybrid format. It was an experiment that failed, and I’ve learned something important from it.
Remember how deeper layers are often perceived as more authentic and how old layers of growing onions turn papery and fall off? It’s time for the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle layouts to evolve, to become more authentic, to show more of their inner complexity. The video hybrid isn’t the way for that to happen. The names of layout card positions are changing. It’s a tiny detail that you may not even notice from your side of the Tarot table. On my side of the table it is important shift in mindset. This allows me to fully and authentically follow what intuition and spirit shows me.
I wrote the initial layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the Modern Oracle layouts specifically to show the power of your choices over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in the old style became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.
Now it will go one step further. I in my minds’s eye, I see a reading in terms of dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. As Modern Oracle layouts become TaoCraft layouts, we will let go of time and predictions entirely. If the Modern Oracle layout was like GPS map for your path ahead, the TaoCraft layout is like a GPS traffic update with a weather report.
Card 1, lessons from the past, will become Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are moving away from you. These are things that need less of your attention.
Card 2, current situation, will become Current Energies, the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention in this moment.
Card 3, moving forward will become Growing Energies, energies moving toward you, or gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is still intended to guide you, help you prepare for possible conditions ahead. Think of it like a weather report. It doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen to you during your day, but it can give you the chance of rain or sun while it happens.
Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. The choices card will take on a more advisory tone than before. Instead of suggesting how to persist or how change your path, it focuses on whether changing or whether staying the course is the wisest thing to do.
Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed. (Or it can help keep you on your path if you like the way things are headed.)
Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are the same as always, and speak to exactly what the name implies.
Long story short, if you are dead set on a specific “accurate” prediction, you aren’t going to like the new TaoCraft layouts. If that’s the case, you need the Zombie Catyes/no readings like we did the other day. Even then, you have to realize it isn’t 100%.
If you are ready for next level, dynamic energy readings, I can help. Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot.
Page of Pentacles: Cleverness saves the day. TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the page of pentacles made by Eli Norvell for the Alleyman’s Tarot deck pictured above. If you are listening on the podcast, there is a link in the episode description if you want to take a peek at a super fun card. It has a sort of anime, kawaii, bubbly cuteness about it.
Today’s reading actually started yesterday, but it still feels relevant. As always, use your own feelings and discernment to decide if the card applies to you or not. That’s the difficult thing with these blog and podcast readings. It can’t be all things to everyone. If something is on your mind or giving you the feels and this reading doesn’t hit the mark, by all means please consider drawing a card for yourself or consulting with someone like me to get a more personalized reading. So if this helps – great! If not, don’t be discouraged. Keep looking. Your guidance is out there, somewhere, even if it takes some thinking and pondering and contemplating to get to it. That’s why the person getting a Tarot reading is sometimes call “the seeker” instead of “the sitter.”
Just after drawing this card yesterday morning, I got a call from my relatively new part time job at the local library. I love to write, so spending a few hours a week up to my eyeballs in books is a natural fit. It is a small place that our family has enjoyed and supported ever since we moved here years ago. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity to spend time in one of my favorite places AND make up some income from closing in-person Tarot during covid. When there was an unexpected staffing need, I was so there.
The Page of Pentacles is about newness and opportunities. You could take it to mean that the card predicted that I would be spending the day with my new opportunity half an hour before the phone rang. I wouldn’t mind imagining that I’m that good of a movie grade psychic but that’s not how any of this works. That’s not the message of the moment – yesterday or today.
I may not be TV style psychic, but my intuition is, however, clairvoyant. That means it works with mental images. It is also clairaudient, meaning it works with mental sounds and words. And, as you who follow the blogcast know, it also works heavily with pop culture references – mostly references filtered through my Gen X lens.
To go along with the cute, bubbly, almost anime-like artwork on the card, I was reminded me of an 80s pop song.
This shows a little bit how intuition works through a daisy chain of associations sometimes. Critics say this is stretching, or reaching or fishing for answers in the vein of psychic “cold readings.” When you are reading in person for someone else, it can certainly seem that way. We can talk about cold readings another day, but for now let’s look at one card meditation readings for yourself. How is searching for connections within your own mind something wrong?
It isn’t
It is prompt. It is a structured way to think things through. It is a topic for contemplation. THAT’s what Tarot is all about after all. No matter if you are reading for yourself or getting a reading from a pro, Tarot is food for thought. Sometimes that thought process takes a few steps. Sometimes food for thought takes a few steps to digest.
Ok, back to this intuition daisy chain.
The early 80s Culture Club album “Kissing To Be Clever” came to mind as did the scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone where Hermione talks about “books and cleverness.” The word “clever” seemed to be the thing grabbing my attention through this card.
Learning, training, books and cleverness is a concept we see in any of the Page cards. Pentacles bring the page into the realm of groundedness and practicality. Put the two together and that says life hack to me.
This feels like an advice card, reminding us to work smarter, not harder. Look for the life hacks that really work. Let practical experience teach you and make things better next time around.
Yesterday, I posted an announcement that I wouldn’t be doing this episode right after the YouTube short and Instagram reel like usual. That post led me to another piece of life hack advice: have a plan B
Sometimes you have to drop back and punt. Sometimes you have to adapt. The universe provides, but it provides what you need not necessarily what you want or expect. Look for some life hacks, develop a plan B for when life throws the unexpected at you.
And if you can do it all while cute and clever – then bonus points to you!
This podcast is not monetized and 100% relies on audience support. Your private emial Tarot readings purchases through the blog website and Tarot Table memberships all contribute to creating this unique Tarot content. There are clickable links in the blog and in the podcast episode description. Your likes, ratings, subs, shares and follows are always greatly appreciated!
Thank you so much for listening. See you at the next sip!
This is one of those times where the card feels, to me, to be way out of synch with today’s energy. It just doesn’t capture the momentum of the moment. Something’s off.
Sometimes when this happens I’ll just re-draw the card and take the “off” feeling as my cue that some other message is more urgent or pressing than the first card can convey.
Other times I’ll just let it stand in the hope that it helps some unknown someone somewhere out there in cyberspace. This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about the other day in the podcast:
BUT, as I go along, today’s card is turning out to be less about the card, less about a somebody-somewhere message and more about the Tarot reading process. This is a message for folks on my side of the reading table. Any card could potentially carry this energy thread, not just the three of cups.
The “I don’t know who needs to hear this but….” trope has always made me feel a little annoyed and agitated, but I never understood why until now. Not only is it overused and cliche, but strikes me as a little arrogant self-serving. It is as if the person writing it thinks they have some special, secret, better knowledge than everyone else. Maybe they do, but why not just say what’s on your mind without the “I don’t know who needs to hear this” part? It sounds like a power play over that unknown someone that you think you know better than. You were going to post the idea anyway. It serves no purpose to amp it up like you are some hero messenger from on high going out of your way to drop some wisdom on some poor wretch who doesn’t even know they need helped.
Of COURSE we don’t know who needs to hear it. We are pushing our ideas out into a public forum, not responding to a specific person. If we publish a reading about a particular person, then that flirts with violating their privacy (unless they give conscious consent for the reading to be used that way, which some people have…for which I am very grateful.)
OF COURSE we don’t know who “needs to hear this.” They never ASKED to hear it. That unknown someone out there might not WANT our almighty opinion. Who are we to say what anybody NEEDS to hear whether we know who they are or not? We are interpreters, neither judges of need nor arbiters of truth.
It’s a roundabout way to get there, but this mis-matched energy today is a good reminder of why I want to bring Reiki and medical ethics and professionalism to my Tarot work. In Reiki we don’t do energy work with someone without some level of consent. One of my Reiki teachers once told a story about a time where they saw breaking news on TV. Out of kindness and an impulse to help they sent energy to a person in the live news feed. The energy bounced back hard because it wasn’t requested or wanted. Since then, they use and teach the intent of sending energy unconditionally and without expectation, so the energy can be accepted OR rejected as the recipient sees fit – even in planned distance sessions. I’ve tried to adopt that same stance in Tarot blogging and social media. The Reiki in our teacher’s example was sent out of sincere compassion and a desire to help, not at all intended to be arrogant. The same is true of those “I don’t know who needs to hear this” posts online. But as the adage goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – and tired social media tropes. There is such a thing as unintended consequences. We may not intend to be egoistic, but our work can still drift in that direction if we aren’t careful. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, maybe more than most.
Sometimes the lines between simple enthusiasm, a sincere desire to help, passionate evangelism and outright arrogance are very narrow. It is up to us to keep our ego in check. It is up to us to respect the universal life energy we read and the ones we read it for, both known and unknown.
That is exponentially true for those of us who have been raised in the American evangelical subculture. Our lives were so saturated with arrogant holier-than-thou pronouncements that it seems normal…but it’s not. Making holier-than-thou arrogant pronouncements is one of those things that a recovering fundamentalist has to be constantly on guard against. It really does have a certain kinship with the way that chemical dependency requires lifelong vigilance against triggers and relapses.
So no, I don’t know who needs to hear this unusual, convoluted energy message today. I won’t presume to think anyone does. I give it without expectation, for you to accept or reject as you see fit. Which is a very freeing, comforting thing on my side of the Tarot reading table. Being right all the time and the inerrant source of higher knowledge must be exhausting.
So let me raise a virtual chalice of thanks to all the many unknown someones out there. We mean well, but we also rely on your discretion and discernment. If we tell you something you needed to hear, great. We are happy to have helped. If not, then thank you for ignoring the BS and hanging in there with this until a useful message does come along. Here is to you, dear reader, for silently, energetically helping us online types to respect our audience.
I’m old enough to remember when people wrote letters on actual paper and had actual conversations on landline telephones, so I still appreciate the technology that lets this blog and podcast happen. It warms my Gen X cyberpunk loving heart. I’m also self aware enough to know I’ve got work to do as a media speaker. Dammit Jim, I’m a writer and this automatic thing is going to make a better, more articulate, more entertaining podcast, right?
Right?
I’m not so sure.
Basically, I’m thrilled to bits if anyone reads or listens to any of this. I’ll be doing a full on happy dance if anyone decides to get a reading because of anything in the blog or podcast. But it bothers me that the automated audio doesn’t sound the same as the words sounded in my brain when I wrote them.
My narration may not be Webby worthy – yet – but at least it has more emotional tone and verbal context than the electronic version. It is, after all, human. Humanity is what intuition, clairvoyance, psychology, Tarot and personal development are all about. This tech part is fun as heck and only going to get better as time goes on. But it is what it is, and so is the human side of it all.
I propose a hybrid. When you see “Confession” in the title, you’ll know that’s me recording the episode. If you see “Today’s Tarot” or some other title, you’ll know to expect the cyber side of the podcast.
True to the renegade pirate radio motif, nothing about Clairvoyant Confessional is set in stone. It is naturally evolving to be short, little jelly bean sized episodes. There is no sense holding something like that to a regular release schedule. Text to speech will let me drop content more often, as the inspiration hits. The “confession” episodes will happen less often, BUT they will also be longer and take a deeper dive into the humanity of clairvoyance, psychics, intuition and Tarot. Q&A episodes will always be recorded and never automated.
Did you hear that sound? That was the loud thud of a hint being dropped. If you want to submit a question to be answered in the podcast, possibly in the form of a Tarot reading, just visit the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast page on TaoCraftTarot.com. There is a link in the episode description if you are listening to the podcast. The page is in the top menu for those of you reading the blog.
Thank you all for reading and listening. I really do appreciate any follows, subscriptions, likes, or shares that you can spare. And please, for the love of your own ears, send some feedback or some questions. I can’t read for a question until you ask it.
Thanks again, and I’ll talk to you all when the next jelly bean drops.
Shrek: No! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers
from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com
Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.
Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)
Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.
Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot (related: what’s in a name, Shakespear’s Roses, Spell Your Name)
That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.
In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is a condition of licensure and employment. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.
And so, the “Modern Oracle” layout is evolving. I’m calling abort on the video / text hybrid format. It was an experiment that failed, and I’ve learned something important from it.
Remember how deeper layers are often perceived as more authentic and how old layers of growing onions turn papery and fall off? It’s time for the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle layouts to evolve, to become more authentic, to show more of their inner complexity. The video hybrid isn’t the way for that to happen. The names of layout card positions are changing. It’s a tiny detail that you may not even notice from your side of the Tarot table. On my side of the table it is important shift in mindset. This allows me to fully and authentically follow what intuition and spirit shows me.
I wrote the initial layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the Modern Oracle layouts specifically to show the power of your choices over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in the old style became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.
Now it will go one step further. I in my minds’s eye, I see a reading in terms of dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. As Modern Oracle layouts become TaoCraft layouts, we will let go of time and predictions entirely. If the Modern Oracle layout was like GPS map for your path ahead, the TaoCraft layout is like a GPS traffic update with a weather report.
Card 1, lessons from the past, will become Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are moving away from you. These are things that need less of your attention.
Card 2, current situation, will become Current Energies, the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention in this moment.
Card 3, moving forward will become Growing Energies, energies moving toward you, or gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is still intended to guide you, help you prepare for possible conditions ahead. Think of it like a weather report. It doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen to you during your day, but it can give you the chance of rain or sun while it happens.
Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. The choices card will take on a more advisory tone than before. Instead of suggesting how to persist or how change your path, it focuses on whether changing or whether staying the course is the wisest thing to do.
Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed. (Or it can help keep you on your path if you like the way things are headed.)
Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are the same as always, and speak to exactly what the name implies.
Long story short, if you are dead set on a specific “accurate” prediction, you aren’t going to like the new TaoCraft layouts. If that’s the case, you need the Zombie Catyes/no readings like we did the other day. Even then, you have to realize it isn’t 100%.
If you are ready for next level, dynamic energy readings, I can help. Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot.
yes or no career tarot reading with behind the scenes explanation
Yes or no questions seem predictive: Will X happen, yes or no?
Yes/no readings are a fun to play with. I could sit here, play Zombie Cat* and make predictions all day just as long as everyone realizes that it is all really coin-toss random-ass probabilities and not really a serious “prediction.”
Yes/no Tarot readings can be much more than a magic black ball entertainment prediction. They can give legit, genuinely helpful, short term guidance. It is all a matter of focus and application.
Tarot’s greatest value is overarching, big-picture, life path guidance. It is all about spiritual enrichment, spiritual expression, personal cultivation….you know – generally trying to be a better person and live a good life. Tarot readings, especially the bigger 3, 5 and 7 card layouts, are all about understanding the current situation, making better choices and moving ahead in the best way possible. Big readings are like GPS directions to where you ultimately want to go.
Instead of long term GPS, a yes/no reading is like a single sonar ping of any given moment. It gives a very helpful, but short term, close range nudge in the right direction when you are choosing between two seemingly equal things or want a quick follow up to a previous big reading. Yes/no readings help you deal with right here and right now, but not much else.
Today’s question is a little bit of both. It is one of those all-else-equal things, and also follows up a longer reading from a few weeks ago. It is about a fine tuning a current solo project, nothing to do with long term plans or that would affect other people. Considering all of that, a yes/no reading is ideal for this question.
Q: Should I switch _____ back to _____ or should I continue as it is?
Ok, to start with, a yes-or-no layout can’t answer a this-or-that question. I don’t mean for that to sound harsh. I get it. It is hard to distill things down to a yes-or-no question when you have all sorts of options and resources and different possibilities all swirling around in your head. If you could focus things down to a clear yes or no question, chances are you wouldn’t need a Tarot reading to help make up your mind.
In the early days of my professional practice, I would ask the questioner/sitter to rephrase the question, thinking that it was important for them to put the question into yes/no format in order to properly connect to their spirit message. Learning from experience, I don’t do it that way anymore. They’ve got enough on their mind. That’s why they are here. I convert the question into yes/no format and then proceed with their consent.
Today’s question has two main components; changing and continuing, which begs the question of which part do you ask yes or no about?
After all these years of experience, I’m totally comfortable with just following intuition, and focusing on the component part that seems to carry the greatest energy signature….in other words, which part seems to step forward to carry the weight of the question. If you are reading for yourself I suggest doing the same. If you don’t feel comfortable with shoot from the hip pure intuition, there are lots of different randomizing strategies you could use to help you pick between “Should I change yes or no?” and “Should I persist, yes or no?”
In a two option question like this one, it really doesn’t matter which you choose. A no on one automatically gives you a yes on the other and vice versa. If it is a multiple componant question, things get a lot more complicated. You could do a series of yes/no readings on each of the components, but that gets muddy, convoluted, contradictory and very confusing super fast.
Don’t.
Trust me, just don’t. Write down the components and pick them out of a hat. Triage, and take the most time critical piece first. Do eenie meenie miny moe….anything. Just don’t do strings of of yes/no readings in a row. If the question is too complex, either use a larger, more nuanced layout OR simplify the question and focus on one key part.
The process of dealing into 3 stacks until you either get an to an ace or to 13 cards (whichever comes first) is an old, common knowledge, nobody knows where it came Tarot reading. I like to take it one step further and interpret the final three cards together as if they were a pathway reading in order to get more guidance from the whole process than just a yes or no answer alone.
If that seems like a big, complicated, pain in the ass process to get a good result from a simple yes-or-no question…it is. If you don’t want to yes/no read for yourself, please, order a yes/no reading from me. It’s affordable and I could sort the whole thing out in half the time it took me to explain it all just now.
New Q: Should I change?
A: Maybe but lean yes. Probably yes, actually.
The Fool card speaks to the fresh start and a new infusion of energy and enthusiasm that the new direction would bring to the project. Being a major arcana card, the Fool lends an extra push in the “yes” direction.
The Ace of Swords speaks to the creative and intellectual energy a change could bring. There is a very upward, uplifting quality to the energy.
Of course, seeing the Ace of Pentacles is always a good sigh in any kind of work or career related reading, even a quick yes/no like this one.
All things considered, this hints that making the change in the project is a good idea. Intuitively I feel very positive about it. My attention is drawn to the gold color on the Pentacles card. It isn’t so much about the precious metal as it is the color psychology and the resonance with the solar plexus chakra which in turn has to do with confidence and optimism and personal power. Wear gold or gold tone jewelry if you can. Pyrite or Tiger Eye are also good crystal energies here. It feels temporary…not a long term alliance between you and the tiger eye, however. Again the gold tone feels like a better fit. Grounding, centering woody scents seem important, like sandalwood in particular comes to mind. Pretty standard kinds of recommendations. After a time, I get the sense the tiger eye energy will drift back to the light blue and blue lace agate for communication that we talked about before, but for now the sun / yang energy and warmth of the brown and gold feels more forward.
Thanks again for your permission to do your reading as an example. I’m pulling for you and hope this works out really well, especially for a financial and name recognition boost.
Best Wishes – Ronda
*AZCA is still a thing . You can ask Zombie Cat Anything for free. Use the contact form HERE to ask anything, even for a prediction. Your answer will come in a redacted-for-privacy blog post (like this one, but without the video.) All Zombie Cat answers are for entertainment only, 100% guaranteed to contain words, and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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