Tag: card meaning

Liminal Foundation

Energy Path Tarot reading for the week ahead

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Merry Monday!

With these fresh cards, it finally feels as if we have moved past the focus on cycles and change and ebbing and flowing. No Moon card or tide images today.

In one sense it feels like we’ve cycled back to that still, “slack water” image that came through a few weeks ago when the big Moon card energy first appeared, but it isn’t “slack” at all, really. It feels more like alert, deliberate, poised, ready-to-move stillness. It is a liminal energy, and the word balance doesn’t quite capture it. It isn’t the dynamic balance or back-and-forth balance that we see in the Temperance and Two of Pentacles cards. It feels more like a flat out, steady, matter-of-fact “BOTH” It isn’t balance or tension between opposites, it is the steady presence of diverse things without tension among them, without a need to balance. That “coexist” bumper sticker comes to mind. 

Oxford Language defines liminal as “occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” The “both” part is key here. Not balance, not cycle, not give and take – flat out all of the above, all at the same time.

It is interesting that we have two aces and one major arcana card. If this was a ‘yes or no’ kind of just for fun reading, it would be a plain YES. We all know Tarot doesn’t really work that way, but I think yes or no readings can be helpful in limited situations. Usually in minor choices where the options truly are equal and the situation is something that could be decided by an actual 50-50 random chance coin toss. Yes/no readings are exactly that – a coin toss, but with slightly more food for thought from three randomly selected Tarot cards adding their two-cents to the conversation.

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September 11 – October 31 2023

Ask a yes/no question in the blog comments to get a FREE “Zombie Cat* yes/no Tarot reading in an upcoming blog post.

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The fading energy is the Ace of Cups. This is a card of creation, creativity and emotions. The current energy is the Ace of Pentacles. The real message is in the two side by side more than either one fading or growing individually. Here is where that liminal both-ness we were talking about earlier is strongest. It isn’t head over heart or emotions over intellect…it is BOTH in generous measure. Think “emotional intelligence.” These two cards together give an energy that is alert, engaged, feeling but thoughtful, active and effective – all at the same time. The two together are an extraordinary foundation upon which to build.

The growing energy, the Magician, is exactly that building process. The Magician is about transformation and manifestation – not just sitting and wishing. In “as above so below” the below is your part of the deal, your end of the table to lift. You do your part in the practical-pentacle part of life, and the universe helps the emotional-energy-spiritual-psychic part. Neither half is better or worse or more important than the other. It isn’t even a see-saw balance of the two. It’s both, all at the same time. The Magician’s magick is about having a foot firmly planted on each side of the “as above, so below” equation. 

That is what makes up liminal spaces and energies and that is what makes up our energy flow for this week. 

At least as it stands now. Please come back Wednesday for another “Odinsday Oracle” post and Friday for the Weekend Update where we’ll take another look at the Magician, our growing energy card to see how it unfolded during the business week and what, if anything, there is to see about the weekend.

Thanks for reading. See you at the next sip! 

*Meet Zombie Cat: This cartoonish alter ego does all of my yes/no readings. Tongue in what’s left of his cheek, Zombie Cat readings have a 100% guarantee to contain word and a 50% chance of being dead wrong.

Alleyman’s Tarot used with permission

Weekend Update Rolls On

The Wheel turns into the weekend.

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Yesterday was quite a week as they say. I personally am very glad to see the weekend get here. I’m also still into the idea of revisiting the energy path reading from Monday to see if and how anything has unfolded now that it is, thankfully, Friday. Four days is nothing so the changes won’t be dramatic, ever.

Time does keep turning, just like the Wheel major arcana card. “Churning” comes to mind as well as an active old-fashioned water wheel or the paddle wheel of an old Mississppi River steam boat.

On Monday, the “growing energy” card in the pathway layout was the Wheel. It is by nature a churning, changing, dynamic kind of energy. I think the Wheel’s energy has increased a bit over the past few days. My sense of it for the next few days life will be on the energetic side. This is a major arcana card, after all. I hear (‘hear’ meaning the intuition comes as words instead of mental images) “dating” “social” – in other words it is a good time to get out and around and be social if you are feeling it.

Spirit, energy, life, the universe and everything doesn’t care about our expectations much less our calendars and schedules. In the bigger picture of it all, four days really is next to nothing in the flow of time and energy. Let’s look at a bigger pattern that we’ve seen over the past few weeks of readings (August 21-28, August 28-September 9)

First there was Moon card energy both up front and underlying these current cards. There were a series of water and tide images. Tides are literally associated with the actual moon, so that certainly fits the card. First we were given the image of “slack water” that wasn’t moving much, then the tide turned and flowed inward, and now I get the image of an outward flowing tide, which would match that social, outward, dating and fun energy that came through a moment ago.

This week we have the Wheel card, which is a card of change. That part of the Wheel connects with the “natural cycles” meaning of the Moon card. The cycles meaning has been the dominant moon card meaning this whole time, and the wheel card is validating that. The wheel card is all about change, but also luck, good fortune, taking action so it gives an even stronger “the tide has turned” feeling. The Wheel takes the softer, gentler ‘natural cycles’ Moon energy and makes it much more active, energetic, churning. The tide not only has turned, but it is picking up speed.

Continuing with the water and ocean analogy, the idea of “undercurrent” comes through here. I get the feeling that a subset of us is still flowing inward, with an energy of deep introspection and a need for alone time to sit with difficult emotions and circumstances still exists. In my mind’s eye I see the Five of Cups again and now also the Hermit card.

So as always, follow and trust your own instincts. Allow what your emotions and body is telling you it needs. If you feel pulled to be out and about and are in the mood for a light, fun weekend then by all means indulge if you can. By the same token, if you feel gloomy and introspective, don’t fight it. Sitting with that side of things helps us to acknowledge, process and let go in a healthy way.

Weirdly, I get a sense that this won’t break along the expected introvert/extrovert personality lines or along any sort of pop culture stereotypical lines. It feels very individual with a mental image of mixed grains of salt and pepper. The best way I can describe the feeling is that this weekend may be a good chance of each individual of us to make friends with our inner opposite. Channel your inner Barbie – or inner Wednesday Addams – as the case may be.

No matter which side of the yin yang symbol you are feeling the most, have a good weekend! Next up: a new Energy Path reading for the week of September 11-18 will post on Monday.

See you at the next sip!

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Heal, Contemplate, Release – again.

Tarot reading for the week: it will get better when you get to the point that you can let it go.

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Hello and welcome to the Energy Path reading for the week of September 4 – 11. I’m glad you are here.

Change and cycles are still a thing this week, but in a different way. It feels like it has moved from a general environment thing to being more personal advice. The lingering Moon card energy from the past few weeks feels like it has turned a corner, ebb is beginning to flow. The mental image here is outgoing tide, not at all the “slack water” energy from a few weeks ago.

At the same time there is emphasis on change. Now it has shifted to a more intense, personal, evolutionary change more than broad, gentle, slow, tectonic shift natural cycles.

Two other things come to mind, generally.

First, we are responsible for who we are now. Yes, life has been hard. Yes, you have experienced trauma of all sorts. Yet, you can heal, you can rise again, you can overcome. Destruction becomes disappointment becomes release.

It gets better when you get to the point where you can, at last, let it go.

“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.” – Alan Watts

Second, as I listen to my favorite darkwave playlist-

If we choose who we are now, why do I and others choose dark, goth-ish, witchy, INTP, neon cyberpunk self-expression.

Yes, I said choose.

We could be all bright and karen and hot girl summer if we wanted to do that – but we don’t.

And we are doing right by ourselves and our souls and for society at large by doing so. I am reminded of the adage that religion is for people who want to avoid hell while spirituality is for those who have already been there. Perhaps the kindest people are the ones unafraid of the dark because they have walked there so often before.

Sometimes, the most revolutionary thing you can do for your shadow side is to admit it exists.

Why revel in what some call darkness? Consider the alternative: false, toxic positivism.

The Ten of Swords truthfully and directly acknowledges our injuries and our circumstances. The figure stays face down and flat to allow the profound change of either death or healing to begin.

This phase is fading. We’ve been down, so to speak, but the tide is turning. It is time to once again rise.

We rise, not fully transformed, but with lingering disappointment. Traces of old experience can cling. Now is a time of contemplation, of coming to understand what happened and is happening. Swords may be intellect and action, with a certain physicality to it all, if not from our physical person then from our social environment. The Five of Cups is about the emotional aftermath of whatever the Ten of Swords represents for you.

Growing energies are the Wheel. This is the change of the death card plus the cyclic nature of the Moon card plus the transformation energy of the Magician card all rolled into one. We are coming to a potent time of change, and a potent time of choosing the person we will be five minutes from now.

We are under no obligation to be the person we were before but we are under every obligation to choose who we will become five minutes from now.

Cruel or kind, the choice is yours.

Energy Path Tarot for 8/28 – 9/4

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Major arcana energy is right in the middle of it.

You know that moon energy that has been lingering the past few weeks? The same message is here but in a more direct, confrontational way. Major arcana cards tend to be more energetic, urgent, profound, far reaching…you name it.

The literal full moon is in two days. I chalk that up to a good old fashioned Jungian sychronicity – a meaningful coincidence. The Moon card has shifted to the Death card, but the energy of change remains.

As we all know from watching the Simpsons, the death card isn’t literal death…it is a big change. It’s not ‘you are going to get hit by a bus’ death, it is the death of an old view, action, persona…the “old” you that makes way for a new you. This is the ‘natural cycle’ energy from the past few week’s Moon card and the ‘only the empty cup can be filled’ energy we talked about last week but with the volume turned up to 11.

The cup is brimming, and is soon to turn over. The moon is nearly full, it’s time for tides to turn. This week feels like a tipping point of some sort.

Maybe it is the outrageously loud pavement cutting and water line work that is going on in front of my house right now, but I have a twitchy, gut churning ‘bad feeling about this’ worthy of Princess Leia. Something is up somewhere, but I don’t know what and I don’t know when. All I can do is sit here and take my own advice.

Fading energy: Queen of Pentacles, reversed. The Queen of Pentacles in any orientation is about nurturing. Often it is about nurturing yourself to preserve your capacity to help and nurture others. The reversal makes it feel like a reminder to let others nurture you. We all need a little care. If you don’t even have the reserves to care for yourself, allow others to help. Just ask nicely. It’s that simple. The fading energy here may be ours. It doesn’t feel like a go-getter, entrepreneurial kind of week. Astrology might blame it on the Mercury in the microwave phenomenon – it feels like a bigger pattern, more of a tectonic shift than a zippy little optical illusion.

Current Energy: Death. The funky mojo energy reminds me of the beginning of covid to be honest. Maybe we are finally shifting out of that phase of human history. It doesn’t feel quite like impending doom, but a sea change of some sort. Sea change is a good way to put it…it connects with the moon cycle, ebb and flow imagery that has been so prominent lately. The phrase “Brave New World” comes to mind, although it doesn’t feel like an Aldus Huxley reference at all. The unknown can be gut-twistingly frightening. Maybe that is the bell ringing resonant energy that is going on here. We are finally moving out of that storm, cleaned up a little of the mess and are being forced to face facts. Everything has changed and will never be the same again.

I’m going to go put “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Beyond Thunderdome)” on loop. Maybe we are looking at the unknown beyond Thunderdome so to speak. Ah – there it is – “I wonder when we are ever gonna change, change
Living under the fear, ’til nothing else remains.” Is this going to be fear or freedom for us? I suspect it will be whichever we choose.

Growing energy: Five of Pentacles

It’s interesting that the Pentacles are the only minor arcana cards showing this week. It’s right back to that hunker down and be practical vibe from 2020. Maybe this really is the unknown other side. Again, the sense of this card as fearful or freeing is again up to us to our choice.

The card also brings to mind a TikTok I saw yesterday. I forget the creator, it was something survival. It was a very sped up video of someone who dug a hole and built a survival shelter out of branches and dry grass & mud daub. They even dug out a fireplace (about the size of a small cooler) complete with chimney.

I looked like a totally warm, dry Hobbit hole when it was done.

The Five of Pentacles is about seeking shelter in a storm.

You can focus on the storm or you can focus on the sanctuary that is available for you to take. Again, our choice.

I ‘hear’ “wrap your wisdom around you like a cloak.” Sheltering through a storm means gathering in, yin, not pushing, not being ostentatious. But it also means being happy that shelter exists to take.

Sometimes humble but sturdy and reliable is a wonderful thing. Look for those kinds of things and take whatever shelter you need this week.

Thank you for reading! Your support through likes, follows, social media shares, and comments is always appreciated! Nothing on this blog is paywalled anymore, and none of my social media is monetized so YOUR Tarot message always comes first. Your support through private readings, memberships, and virtual coffee tips are what fuels it all.

Next up – Wednesday “Odinsday Oracle” – not because I’m not particularly Norse pagan but I am, however, fond of alliteration and Neil Gaimon novels.

See you at the next sip!

Energy Path Tarot for the week of 21-28 August 2023: Feel, heal, pour, repeat.

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There a cycle here.

You can read more about that over-arching, cyclic Moon major arcana energy in the Weekend Shift post. There is a new focus today, but that gentle, cyclic, guiding Moon card energy is still with us.

Welcome to Sage Sips, Tarot for your week in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Against the backdrop of Moon energy, I’m getting succinct, common sense, solid useful advice. Eat your vegetable, exercise, get enough sleep, drink enough water, wash your damn hands and when difficult emotions come around, follow this advice.

Interestingly it is an energy cycle very akin to what we were talking about a few weeks ago when Dharma Drum Mountain’s Four Steps for Handling a Problem came to mind. This is pretty much the same idea except it’s directed toward any strong, difficult emotions.

“You can’t fill an empty cup” is one of the best known Zen proverbs. Usually it refers to ego getting in the way of learning and mindful experience. In this case, the cups cards represent emotion. We can let old traumas cripple and pierce and fetter us, like the ten of swords or we can face them honestly and directly and masterfully, like the King of Cups.

Dwelling in the past isn’t a helpful thing in these cases. Just as Dharma Drum’s Ch’an Buddhism teaches us to let go of a problem once we’ve done all in our power to understand and solve it, today’s reading reminds us to let go of emotions that no longer inform us or serve us.

Full emotional cups that are dumped out unceremoniously dumped without thought or consideration just fill up all over again.

Full emotional cups that stay full beyond their time leave no room for growth or new happiness.

I’m not really sure what it means – it feels way out of context – but I ‘hear’ (meaning the intuitione comes as words or music instead of mental images) “Pour one out for your homies.” To me the vibe is like a ceremony or libation or communion with a symbolic pouring or drinking in honor of spirit or a crossed over loved one or something emotional and ceremonial and spiritual like that.

I wonder, too, if the growing energy Ace of Cups turned upside down is a reminder to pay attention to our spiritual life, our communion with whatever it is that we spiritually revere.

*raises mug of coffee to my spirit guide crew in deep gratitude*

Against the backdrop of last week’s Moon card energy, we are given a glimpse into the cycle of healthy human emotional experience: Feel. Abide. Release. Feel again.

Thank you all for reading. I appreciate your time and attention. Your likes, shares, blog follows, private reading orders, questions and comments are always appreciated. See you at the next sip!

Still Flowing

Tarot energies for the week ahead

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Tarot isn’t about time, and collective spirit energy doesn’t’ flow in a straight line.

I’ve said it dozens of times, and I’ll say it again: Tarot isn’t about telling you what will happen in life: Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

Right now life is happening in a very deliberate, circumspect way. If you feel stressed, or if you feel like you are getting slammed by life right now then one of two things is going on. Either this simply isn’t the reading for you and your guidance lies elsewhere OR the things that are happening are happening for some reason. The stressing and slamming has to happen to get you where you want (or more likely need) to go, be it physically, mentally or emotionally.

For those who feel like things are stuck or stagnant – don’t worry, the shift is still shifting, the flow is still flowing at the speed that needs to happen, not at the speed we want it to happen.

Here I am given the mental image of the Mississippi river at New Orleans again. It is a big river. It is wide, it is deep. It seems still. But stand on her shore and a mind boggling amount of water moves by you every minute. That is today’s energy. Seemingly quiet, but deep and powerful nonetheless.

And this energy isn’t going anywhere any time soon it seems. Two cards repeat from last week. In all of the time I’ve been doing these monthly (more recently weekly) three card readings I can only think of once or twice that ONE card would repeat from one reading to the next. Two repeating cards is remarkable.

This energy wants to be heard. And its willing to sit with us and abide with us until the time is right for it to move on. Take your time. Spirit will take time for you.

Abide.

Abide keeps coming through. Be patient with yourself, be patient with nature and circumstance and time. Be kind to the moment. Be kind to those around you. Be kind to yourself.

Abide.

Abide this pace of things. Fast flows and turbulence will return soon enough. Neil DeGrasse Tyson famously said that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Neither is under any obligation to meet your expectations or your schedule. The big river flows at its own pace. Flow with it, it will carry you effortlessly. Or stay on the shore, and wait for the next boat or bridge. It is up to you.

The fading energy, the queen of swords, doesn’t mean that your power is fading. It is simply stepping back from the forefront of your attention. True strength doesn’t need to be the center of attention. The Queen of Swords is about stepping up, stepping into and accepting your power.

Ok, you are powerful. So now what? Accepting time is over. Now that it is yours, it is time to begin using it. It is time to begin LIVING it

Which is why we are surrounded by the Three of Pentacles energy. Three of Pentacles is being part of a team or guild, of work. It is about success through work. Contribute. Support your team, they have supported you. Claiming your power within your own mind is great, but it has to be used, applied, and lived in order to become a real, solid, integrated part of you.

The Moon and its changes are still with us albeit with a different looking card. There are multiples of several cards within the Alleyman’s deck. The slack water of last week’s reading is just beginning to slowly, slowly tip in the other direction. Ebbs will flow and vice versa, but again in its own time in its own way.

“The message stands.” You can read about last week’s moon and three of pentacles energy HERE.

And there the energy steps back.

Thank you so much for reading! Next up, “Learn with me: oracle dice” returns Wednesday.

See you at the next sip!

How Tarot Still Works

Behind the scenes peek: what Tarot *really* does for you.

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Lightly edited reprise from Thanksgiving season last year:

You are just perfectly enough just exactly as you are.

Right here. Right now. You already are all you need to be in this moment. Take a deep breath. Are you in any real danger right this very second? If you are, what in the living heck are you doing reading a blog? Take care of yourself for goodness sake!

But if you are reading this, chances are things are OK enough to allow for a little screen time. Even if things are fantastic, take a little time off from that emotional energy and let the time it takes to read this be a bubble of emotional rest for you.

Today’s card is the King of Cups, in reverse. Like we’ve talked about before, I read inversions pretty much the same as upright cards, taking all of the keywords and meanings into consideration all of the time anyway. If the card turns over upside down relative to the person doing the reading, or “reversed” as we call it, it looks right side up to a person on the other side of the table. In three dimensional space, a card can be upright or reversed literally depending on your point of view. Considering the big picture is key in this kind of work. Abstractions, ideas, archetypes, and intuitive nudges all make a tiny bit more sense when you keep it all in perspective in mind during the whole card reading process. When you think big picture, the orientation of the card on the table matters less.

In any reading, public collective or private, a reversal speaks more to the position in the layout than the individual card. Layout position plus a reversed card is a clue to an area of life that may be conflicted, slowed, problematic or blocked. In a one card reading, a reversal can mean a broadly applicable slowing or turbulence in the person’s energies or in the collective, zeitgeist energy

Or not.

Freud once said that “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Sometimes a reversed card is just a random happenstance from shuffling the deck.

Except today. Today the King of Cups came up reversed and it feels like it means it.

The reversed King of Cups is about emotional maturity. It connects to the feeling of defeat and brokenness that the Ten of Swords spoke about in “The Lemonade” post recently.

Clairaudience (intuitive hearing) gives the words “Own what you feel.”

2022 may be more bittersweet in retrospect than we realized. (Which is what brought this old post to mind. It resonates a little with yesterdays reading and that trace of melancholy and bittersweet remembrance.)

My mind again goes to those lost to gun violence, or as one newscaster put it to all the chairs that will be tragically empty this holiday season. It is perfectly understandable how grief of this magnitude can leave its mark on the collective energy, both on a conscious and unconscious level. Emotions of every kind tend to run high during the holiday season.

Whatever the emotion, whatever the intensity, whatever the reason, you have to own them and validate them even if no one else will. The emotions exist. They are valid and they are real and, more importantly, they are yours. How you express them and how you act upon them are your responsibility just like a kingdom is the responsibility of the king.

Once acknowledged, emotions can be let go. Once understood, they are less likely to resurface in disruptive ways. It’s not magic. It’s social science. It’s human psychology.

And it’s how Tarot works. Tarot works, not to accurately predict the future, but to help us own and understand our emotions. Psychologist Carl Jung taught that “Until the unconscious is made conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Tarot helps us find exactly that kind of insight.

It’s not my intention to equate Tarot readings with qualified clinical therapy, or a cure for any sort of mental health issue. It is, however, a great tool for stress management and personal growth for a healthy individual. I say that based on hundreds of readings over the course of twenty years of doing public professional Tarot readings and thirty years of using Tarot for myself. Time and time and time over again I would see people relax as a reading progressed. As we talked about new ideas, explored possibilities and validated their own intuitive hunches, shoulders would go down, foreheads would smooth. As readings go on, people would sit back in their chairs and the tone of their voice would soften. The easing of emotional tension was obvious, even to someone with no formal psychology or body language training.

Tarot works by helping us all own our emotions, understand our situations and create a more reasoned way forward.

Tarot doesn’t predict our fate, it frees us from it.

Shift

Energy Tarot for the week ahead in our usual lofi chill style

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Merry Monday! Pour yourself a cup of something to sip and let’s see what energies are around this week.

I’m going to use the format I would use for you if this was a private, one to one email reading. Keep in mind that this is a collective energy, general blog reading so if it doesn’t fit, don’t worry. There are tons of free readings in the archives. Feel free to use the search bar or browse old posts. You might find something that resonates for you individually.

Today’s cards are:

  • Fading Energy: Three of Pentacles
  • Current Energy: Five of Cups
  • Growing Energy: The Moon

General Pattern: Energy has been low and languishing if not outright stagnant for the past few weeks. It still feels very calm and slow moving, almost stately. The mental image here is of a deep, wide river, like the Mississippi. There is movement but it is far from crashing rapids or a waterfall. This is not the kind of beginning you might see with a Fool card, but more of a gradual shift. Here the mental image becomes a sand dune, with a shallow layer of sand skittering down the side of the dune in a light breeze. I hear the sound of it, like a rasping droplet noise, like a rainstick toy. We see a lower number minor arcana card moving into a slightly higher minor arcana card before finally moving into the higher energy of a major arcana card. Things are beginning to shift, but slowly, in a relaxed, chill, natural sort of way.

There is a sense of advice here: don’t push. Let the shift happen naturally. Pushing could lead to falling down the dune and not landing well.

Fading Energies: The three of pentacles (coins) reflects the work environment. Teamwork is key. This is a card of collaboration. Again there is that sense of “don’t push.” This is not the week to make waves. Teambuild as best as you can and put career / work on autopilot as best as you can. It would be helpful to have this practical, physical realm part of life be stable as energies turn inward. Energies are starting to shift from head to heart, from physical to emotional.

Current Energies: There is a trace of nostalgia, melancholy, maybe even regret around this card. Not every moment of life is joy and euphoria. If it is – something is wrong. Not every moment of life is gloom and despair. If it is – something is wrong. This card doesn’t feel like it is touching either extreme of emotion. There is something vaguely goth about this energy. Sometimes it is ok to be very low energy, low key, apathetic and have a little mope. Again, it is back to lay back and channel your inner Wednesday Addams. Pushing or striving is the exact wrong vibe right now. The shift is beginning. Stay chill. Watch, wait, save the emotional wattage for when the time is right. Blandness is your friend for the moment. Don’t worry, it will all change soon enough

Growing energy: The moon. The moon is about intuition, psychic ability, spiritual journeying and all off that, true enough but this time it is pointing more toward cycles. The moon is tied to the cycles of the tides. The moon has the obvious phases plus it’s yearly drift from being at its farthest from Earth (apogee) and being a bit closer (perigee). The moon is cycles within cycles, gradual drifts and shifts. This month is a close-orbit time of year, what people have started calling a “supermoon.” All of this points to the cyclic energy. All the stagnation energy from the past several weeks might begin to move, albeit calmly and slowly. Let it take its own pace for the best outcome. You can’t make the tide rise any faster than it does. Let your energy level and emotional levels take their own natural pace, too. Things will cycle through, be patient.

Summary: In a private reading, I’d give any direct psychic / intuitive information that comes through whether it has to do with your question or cards or not. This part seldom offers much, if anything to a collective reading – although I did get a quick flash of a tumbled, polished citrine, for whatever that is worth.

Something about Grandmother’s here too. Find something comforting – a favorite sweater, a favorite food, a favorite song. Find something that comforts you and indulge a little in that.

And there the energies step back

I hope that helps.

Right now, I feel like I need a break from the Orale Dice series. I might just pull a card, maybe from an oracle deck instead of classic Tarot. Either way, I hope you’ll join me here on Wednesday when we’ll take another sip of something.

See you then!

Paranormal is normal

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“…we are the only thinkers in our minds. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.” – Louise Hay

Basically, make friends with yourself and your life.

Today’s card, Temperance, picks up where the Energy Path for the week left off four days ago.

On Monday, the Knight of Swords, the Queen of Wands, and the major arcana Magician reminded us of the courage to continue, the courage to connect to earthy, nurturing ordinary-ness and the audacity to find magic in the ordinary.

Temperance reminds us of that same balance. Not every day has to be striving or spiritual. We can live our spirituality in a comfortable, natural way. Not everything has to be bland, pedantic or mundane. There is balance. There is magic in the ordinary, and ordinary in the magic.

The paranormal is really just normal seen with our heart at the same time as we see with our eyes.

It’s a balance.

That being said, on to the shameless self promotion part of the Thursday newsletter available on the main website blog, the member’s ko-fi blog and now on Medium. I’m still new to medium so this introductory part will get shorter as time goes on.

If you want ALL of the free Tarot content on the day it posts, please follow the blog here on SageWordsTarot.com by putting your email in the box on the right hand side of the page (or scroll WAY down on mobile) New posts come right to your inbox as they are published.

Membership gets you on-demand one card private email readings, discounts on all larger email layouts plus occasional member-only content on the ko-fi blog.

Or, if you only want a once weekly summary, please subscribe to Sage Sips newsletter on Medium.

The Temperance card today is a nice validation for me – or at least I’m taking it that way. It’s been a year of changes around here since switching to the Sage Words Tarot name in January and it has taken a seven month long hot minute to find a new balance around here. This is my general plan for August. If it works, then this becomes the plan for the foreseeable future.

EMAIL TAROT

Email readings are available to order 24/7 – no appointment needed. How long it takes for your full write up to arrive varies depending on when you place your order, USA eastern time. Weekday orders usually get to you within 12 hours. Nights, weekends, and US holidays take longer. I’ll send a confirmation message with an estimated delivery time when you place your order. Getting an email reading with me works like ordering anything else online. Pick the layout you want – I’ve got lots of choices. There is something there for any question or budget from a $5 one card “Sage’s Sip” up to a full 7 card “TaoCraft Extended” layout for $40. Then you check out just like buying anything else online. I only take PayPal, but PayPal is secure for both of us and takes most credit cards. You’ll get a chance to enter your question or the topic for your Tarot reading as part of the checkout process.

PHONE / ONLINE / IN-PERSON TAROT READINGS

These only offer the 7 card layout.

I don’t do brick and mortar. By working mainly online, I can keep my prices lower for everyone. When we work in-person, we’ll meet in a local quiet public place. I have some routine spots where I’ve been going for years and never been bothered. If you live in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh PA and are interested in this kind of reading, just contact me for full detail or to schedule.

Same for phone or live online readings. Contact me to schedule. I’ll send you an invoice and confirmation email. A valid email is required, again I use PayPal for secure payment processing.

FREE TAROT

I don’t do free or discount private readings for non-members because of the years and years and metric craptons of FREE Tarot content that is already on the free website blog and social media.

If you want to actually talk to me, Threads and Instagram comments is the place to do that. DMs are a members-only ko-fi thing. You can find my Tarot content and blog links on Facebook, TikTok and Tumblr, but I don’t interact with those. As far as the free content goes, this is the general plan – subject to random unannounced changes of course.

  • MONDAY: Three card “Energy Path” Tarot reading for the week ahead.
  • TUESDAY: private readings only, no free content
  • WEDNESDAY: Learn With Me – currently posting an “Oracle Dice” series
  • THURSDAY: weekly newsletter with a Tarot card for the day & announcements
  • FRIDAY: some random something, maybe nothing
  • SATURDAY: “Sage’s Other Words” non-Tarot blog
  • SUNDAY: closed

Thank you so much for reading!

All of this promotion and re-branding stuff is getting pretty ICK for me too. I think *fingers crossed* that this is really truly it for the getting organized phase so I can put my energy back into Tarot and writing for you all.

I’d really appreciate it if you’d share this. All of this FREE content depends on YOUR support through reading purchases, memberships, & virtual coffee on ko-fi.

See you at the next sip!

Stay Frosty

The energy week ahead: Stay frosty, cooler heads will prevail.

I’m a writer and a Tarot reader. Are you a book lover? My style of Tarot is for you! Email readings are my specialty, no appointment needed. Members get discounts on all email readings and more.

Hello and welcome to the Energy Path reading for July 24-31, 2023. If you are reading this at another time, chances are it is a more personal reading of the path ahead just by virtue of you finding it when you did.

Apologies for the technical glitches last week. It looks like some important edits didn’t make it to the final posts, like the growing energy card. OOPS. No point correcting now that we have moved on to new cards. Like that river we can’t step in twice, energy keeps flowing. So let’s move on to this week’s cards

  • Fading energy: The Hanged Man
  • Current energy: Strength
  • Growing energy: Three of Swords

The Hanged man is back as our fading energy. The hanged man has been hanging around in a number of readings I’ve done lately. I forget exactly when it was or what card it was associated with, but there was a reading here in the blog that gave the feeling and mental image of a plane that had come in for a night time landing on its last flight for the day and was powering down for the night. It even gave the mental image of a stewardess saying goodnight to the final passengers to leave as the pilot was going through a close-down checklist of some sort.

I thought it was a wonderful feeling. Whenever it was a little powering down was just what I needed. Other people I’ve talked to lately are feeling a little frustrated with the pace of things. That powered-down feeling has been around for a while now. So if Hanged Man is fading, that is good news for them. Even for those of us who welcomed a much needed respite, a new influx of energy isn’t necessarily bad. To continue with that airplane image, it feels like the sun is coming up. Even though the rest is over, it feels like a return to routine, nothing overwhelming. “A good day of flying” so to speak.

“Strong silent type” comes to mind with the current energy Strength card. That meme of baby Yoda – Grogu – calmly sipping his soup as an absolutely chaotic battle rages around him comes to mind. Very Zen. Or, like a meditating Samurai, very focused strength. Save your energy for the important things. Work smarter, not harder. Cooler heads prevail this week. Head over heart this week. If you are into 1980s movies, think about the first Top Gun movie. Be Iceman, not Maverick this week.

Which is a pretty good trick when half the world is enduring health-compromising potentially lethal heat.

Sweltering temperatures have always gotten on humanity’s last remaining nerve. As the dog days drag on, there is potentially a LOT of irritability out there. over the next couple of weeks, potentially until mid August. I’m not saying be a doormat. I’m not saying to excuse the BS. The advice here is to just not add to the stinking heap of irritability if you can help it. This vibe is starting a little early this year it seems. I wouldn’t be surprised if things didn’t really break until mid-August or so. Until then the three of swords might be stabbing at everyone’s patience and goading our pettiness.

Thanks for reading!

You know what they say, sharing is caring – so any likes, subs, blog follows or social media shares are always appreciated. If you put your email in the follow box you’ll get ALL of my free content.

Thanks again. Stay chill and I’ll see you at the next sip!

Alleyman’s Tarot Deck used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC. End image: Bitmogi free app