card meaning – Page 13 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Holiday Tale

A cautionary tale for the holiday season from the King of Pentacles

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You don’t often start a sunny November and the holiday season with a cautionary tale, but here we are.

Maybe it’s because the social media collective declared an early spooky season this year in response to the apocalyptic heat this summer, and we are all feeling a little fatigue at the end of it. I get a strange sense of melancholy blowing in the wind today, which seems an odd way to start the Holiday season. It’s all turkey dinners and holiday shopping this month – I’ve already heard Carol of the Bells in advertising. That’s hard core.

A sunny Thursday like this doesn’t often start with a feeling of caution but here we are.

Today’s card is the king of pentacles, in reverse (meaning the card turned over upside down relative to the person doing the reading.)

“So what?” you might ask.

Every Tarot reader handles reversals in their own way. Some always reverse the meaning into ‘darker’ meanings. Some make it into the opposite of the upright meaning. Some disregard them outright. As we are learning in the Wednesday “Learn With Me: Lenormand” series, Lenormand readings handle reversals by not handling them. They just flip the card and go on as usual.

In true Taoism influenced style, I do a blend of both. The cards embody both light and dark, positive and negative aspects all the time anyway. I take all of those aspects into consideration with every reading regardless of the card’s orientation. When a reversal comes along, I let intuition lead. Either it is a hint that the card’s layout position is blocked or turbulent or somehow problematic OR it can feel energetically neutral and I just flip it upright and move on like the Lenormand folks do.

In this case, it feels like it is telling us something.

The phrase “risky buiseness” comes through. The King of Pentacles can reflect material success, a breadwinner, a provider, a good payoff for hard work.

Reversed, it can mean that sort of prosperity flow can get jumbled up.

To be literal about it – don’t get carried away this holiday season. Don’t go into debt or live beyond your means just for the sake of social expectations about how holidays are “supposed” to be celebrated, whatever your chosen holiday may be.

Here, I am reminded of a meme…”tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.” I have a sense that this meme might be particularly true this year. We’ve all been through a heckuva thing with the pandemic and such. We have an opportunity to re-define our Holidays. Let go of the peer pressure from dead people and make this year into something heartfelt more than material.

The suit of coins / pentacles is focused on the material realm, career, wealth and so on – but this is Tarot. The whole point of Tarot is understanding and spirituality, not physical realm predictions. Tarot isn’t made for physical realm except where physical and mental/emotional/spiritual all meet. The whole suit has esoteric threads intertwined with its real-world practicality. The whole suit has a “money can’t buy happiness” element to it.

My hunch that is what the inverted King is telling us. This isn’t the year for materialistic celebrations OR for forced traditions. Friendsgiving is a thing. This is a year for found family and perhaps a chance to let go of toxic or forced traditions that bow to the peer pressure from generations past.

That isn’t to say be overly austere. Celebrate. Indulge in the traditions and treats that speak to your heart. But don’t spend money or energy or emotion necessarily forcing yourself (or trying to coerce anyone else) into following old traditions that no longer serve or excesses that are no longer needed. Do, but do the truly meaningful, heartfelt things. Do, but let go of the forced, habitual, or ostentatious. Mind your bank account – both physical and emotional – this holiday season.

Thank you so much for reading!

There won’t be a newsletter next week or US Thanksgiving week.

In fact, the blogs and socials will go quiet November 9 – 13 and again November 22 – 27. I’m setting a pretty low bar for the holidays myself, but I do need to finish that sweater I’m knitting for a gift, sooo….

Merry Elfcon 5 for 2023!

BUT – private email Tarot will be OPEN those dates and all through the Holidays. You can order any time HERE. Your reading purchases, Sage Sip (ko-fi) memberships, and virtual coffees all support this FREE collective energy Tarot readings in this newsletter, the blog and the socials. None of this is ad monetized, so your Tarot message comes first with me. Any ads you see with any of my content is generated by the platform and all proceeds go to them – so in other words, please support me on ko-fi or by your likes, subs, follows and shares here and on social media.

Learn With Me: Lenormand, Snek

Let’s take a closer look at another card from my new Lenormand Tarot deck.

The more I work with this deck, the more it feels like a real-talk oracle card, really a thing of its own. Not a toxic positive overly optimistic oracle deck that sees the world through rose colored glasses, certainly, but not the depth and complexity that the 78 RWS or the 130+ card Alleyman’s Tarot. A bigger deck with smaller layouts seems to be the sweet spot for my intuition.

See, we learned something right there.

Finding – and frequently using – your intuitive comfort zone is not only OK but it is a good idea to better readings for yourself in the end. BUT at the same time learning, growing, and expanding that comfort zone is equally important. How else are you going to know what your optimum intuition conditions ARE?

That little bit of meta-analysis aside, let’s look at today’s card, the Snake.

All of the animal related ideas from the Bear last week still apply, just swap out the bear characteristics for snake characteristics.

Which I may not be super objective about.

I was born in the year of the wood snake – the green snake. After I learned about Taoism, feng shui, I ching and the like, I’ve always resonated with my chinese astrology symbol just as much if not more than my western Pisces sun sign. Although I don’t know anything about sidereal vs tropical astrology, all I know is that I’m Pisces in both, which in itself is supposed to mean something in itself, I think. I’ll leave that to the astrology adepts of you to figure out. But back to Snake.

The Christopher Butler guidebook to this Healing Light Lenormand deck reads the Snake as someone deceptive with malicious intent (Hey!)

Like owls, snakes are feared in some cultures, revered in others. Makes sense, because in the real world the old nope rope may be either harmless or lethal and you have to know something about them to be able to tell which is which. That’s not the snake being deceptive. It’s up to you to know “Red touches black, no worries for Jack. Red touches yellow, dangerous fellow.” and so on.

Knowledge arms you against deception, both literally and figuratively. But that’s another story.

Chinese astrology, the restaurant place mat edition, reflects the real world duality. Snake year people can be stubborn, opinionated, intimidating with a heaping helping of hubris to go with it. But at the same time they are viewed as intelligent, wise, creative and intuitive.

Or, as the Sirius Black character says in one of the Harry Potter books “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

Part of enlarging our comfort zone, part of learning new things is associating them with things we know well. Just like with the oracle dice from the last “Learn With Me” series I associate this with a few RWS Tarot cards, the Devil and the Three of Swords. Both acknowledge the malevolent side of human nature, cautions us to be on guard as well as asking us to be honest with ourselves about our deepest motives. Are we being deceptive, or are we being deceived.

As for the playing card inset, the queen of clubs, in my system of reading playing cards (I intend to write about that in an upcoming book) the Queen of Clubs is analogous to the Queen of Wands with a message of nurturing and self-care. Watching your back and taking care for your safety is, indeed, self-care.is

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Just say no

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I low key despise insipid platitudes.

But I will, begrudgingly, admit they sometimes have utility.

Most of the time, pithy little adages are either a shorthand reminder of something bigger. They also can also be empty headed, hollow, shallow and avoid the depth and complexity of a situation.

The Reagan era “Just say no” campaign was exactly the latter.

But today, in a vastly different context, it actually has a little bit of utility.

Today’s card is the six of inking balls (“Holy inkballs, Batman!) from the Strange Suit of the Alleyman’s Tarot deck (Jost Amman Deck, Museum of Tarot and Playing Cards)

The artwork says it all about this card. It asks who is the dunk-er and who is the dunk-ee and that it probably doesn’t matter because everyone is getting drenched anyway.

At heart, the card is about feeling overwhelmed. When you feel out of control, or just way out of your depth, who put you there? Or, more importantly, how do you prevent winding up there the next time?

Just say no has a place. It isn’t in dealing with the complexities of chemical dependence but it has everything to do with setting healthy boundaries.

You are allowed to say no. Just plain no. If it makes you feel better to give some explanation or excuse, go ahead. But you have every right not to overextend yourself. You have every right to take care of yourself, regardless of what other people’s wants, needs, or rampant self-indulgence may be.

If you don’t say no, or allow no to be said to you, then things can get real inky and real messy real quick.

Thanks for reading! There are just 48 hours left to get your 2023 FREE Zombie Cat Tarot reading in the blog by leaving a question / comment here on the blog. Free Zombie Cat offer ends midnight eastern time 10-31-23.

See you at the next sip!

*all policies and disclaimers apply. All readings are for spiritual practice and personal enrichment, they do not predict the future.

Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot Deck by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC

Learn With Me: Lenormand Tarot, The Bear

Mama Bear meets Lenormand Tarot

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Today, two points jump to mind about the Lenormand Tarot deck as a whole rather than the Bear card specifically.

It is interesting that Lenormand has several cards with (non-human) animals as the whole focus and symbolism: bear, snake, birds or owls, fox, stork, mouse and fish. Marseilles / Visconti / RWS format decks have animals sprinkled through the deck but never as the primary or sole focus of a card. The closest is the Strength card which prominently features a lion, but it is more about the human’s interaction with the lion and the symbolism about strength and leadership that is associated with lions rather than the animal’s actual characteristics or behavior. Other than that, we mostly see the knight’s horses, a few dogs, an ox, a fish in a cup and a lobster taking a moonlight stroll on a beach.

There are two full decks that share a similar energy to Lenormand’s animal cards: the Medicine Cards oracle deck by David Carson and Jamie Sams and Animal Wise Tarot by Ted Andrews. I’m sentimentally attached to both of these decks because Medicine Cards was my first deck and entry point to reading any cards, Tarot or otherwise. I have always had great respect for Ted Andrews and his writings have been utterly influential and invaluable to me. I was so fortunate to meet him at one of his Animal Speak workshops around the time that Animal Wise Tarot was first published. There is a significant intuitive connection from between these decks and the Lenormand, more than typical RWS decks seem to have. This is the first I’ve noticed that energy-similarity since this is the first animal-symbol Lenormand card we’ve drawn.

The Bear card is about that well-known “mama bear” protectiveness, and begs the question of who protects you? Who do you need to protect? Where do you need to protect yourself better? Where are you too guarded?

The other thing that captures my attention is the 10 of clubs on the Bear card.

All 36 of the Lenormand cards have a playing card on them in addition to their primary symbol. Not all of the playing cards can be represented in the smaller Lenormand deck. Christopher Butler’s guidebook that came with this Healing Light Lenormand deck is oddly silent about the playing card references. I’m looking for more information about that part of the Lenormand cards and will update you later in the series.

In my book Peace Tarot, I give you an easy technique for using regular playing cards to find your Tarot daily meditation card meaning if you don’t have a Tarot deck to use. There is a link where you can buy a copy of Peace Tarot above the video if you are interested in learning more about DIY daily meditation style Tarot, that works even if you don’t own a Tarot deck. Using that method, the 10 of clubs connects with the 10 of wands, which is a different energy than the bear. The bear to my mind today is connecting with a major arcana energy much more akin to the Emperor card is also connected with strength and protectiveness. It is difficult to access that kind of major arcana vibe with the playing deck (we talk about that in Peace Tarot, too)

If you live in the South Hills area of Pittsburgh PA, USA keep an eye on your local library websites. I’ll be presenting a Tarot for relaxation workshop based on the information in Peace Tarot at a few locations this Fall. It’s a very inexpensive .pdf in the Sage Words Tarot Shop, I hope you’ll consider giving it a read.

In honor of 10 years of Peace Tarot and how meaningful and useful a daily meditation Tarot practice has been for me over 30 years of card reading, I’ve decided to return to daily meditation Tarot readings for the collective energy in the blog through New Year 2024 which will mark the one year anniversary of TaoCraft Tarot relaunching as Sage Words Tarot. I’ll decide then what, if anything is next. After all the upheaval in the world since the pandemic (politically since 2016 here in the U.S.) a return to some steadiness and simplicity is probably a pretty good idea.

Instagram and Threads is still the best social media to catch me if you want to actually interact. I’m Sage Words Tarot on all the socials (except Twitter – X . I quit that mess months ago) I hope you’ll follow along here, on the socials, on ko-fi or the Substack weekly newsletter. The newsletter happens on Thursdays. Next Wendsday “Learn With Me” will be back with a review of the Healing Light Lenormand deck as a whole thing that I bought – on sale from Llwellyn Publishing. Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Enough Love

Ace of Cups: let compassion flow

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More from the Three of Swords

Rise and Grind

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Rise and grind, sunshine.

There are times to get creative and experiment. Other times it pays to just go with what you know, roll up your sleeves and let it flow.

Do the thing, then get some rest because more innovative days are coming.

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Change on Pause

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I have a change in my day job schedule starting in November. Here’s the plan, such as it is.

Email Private Tarot is STILL open for orders 24/7, no appointment needed. Order anytime at the link above the video. Delivery times will vary depending on when your order comes through – I’m one real person doing real world readings for you, so holidays, nights and weekends slow things down a little bit.

In-person, phone and online readings are still by appointment only and schedule a few days in advance.

There are STILL free “Zombie Cat” Tarot readings in the blog now through October 31, 2023 for anyone brave enough to leave a comment (or use the Ask Me Anything page) with a nickname and question for the cards. It’s all just for Halloween funsies, entertainment only. Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have 50% chance of being dead wrong

I’m dropping the week ahead readings (for a while, anyway) and returning to the old daily meditation Tarot reading format from the “Tarotbytes” blog days on Modern Oracle. The Wednesday Learn With Me series and Thursday newsletter won’t change.

These daily readings aren’t about any kind of “forecast.” Daily meditation is about right here, right now. This is meditative mindfulness. This card applies to you in your moment whenever you read this. Even though I’m reading the collective energies for today, spirit or synchronicity will bring you to the card whenever YOU need its message, no matter when that is. Psychic, intuitive information comes from outside of space and time anyway. That’s why distance Tarot readings are perfectly valid and why you can get real guidance from books and blogs no matter when you read them.

Now for today’s card: Death in reverse. Death means big life changes. Reversals hint at energy that is blocked or turbulent. Change blocked doesn’t mean Hanged Man style stagnation. This feels like a simple “wait a minute.”/

It’s OK to be OK

There is a sense of solid, practical, advice life advice here all wrapped up in an avalanche of proverbs and old adages:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie. Watched pots never boil.

There is nothing wrong with striving to be better. There is nothing wrong with experimentation. But you have to know your results before you make further changes. Sometimes too many changes spoil the soup just as much as too many cooks can.

“Remember kids, the only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.” – Adam Savage

There is an urge to charge out there and take the week by storm, grab Monday by the beans and constantly strive, eyes on the prize and all of that.

Sometimes that a good thing.

Sometimes it’s good to give it a rest and enjoy the beans instead of grabbing them.

Merry Monday everyone! Cheers!

Sage Sips: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Pictured- the author’s morning mug including home made caramel cream pumpkin pie spice.

Prickly Splatters Everywhere

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Social Media Update: With the advent of Threads, I spend most of my scroll time there these days. Threads and Instagram is the best place to actually interact. You are welcome to stop by and say hello. I post on FB, Tumblr, and TikTok, but don’t interact there very much. I will warn you that the Threads account has become a combination of Tarot posts and my ex-birdsite political and religious voidscreaming. But you probably know by now that secular humanism, Taoism, witchcraft, progressive/liberal politics and lgbtdq ally-ship is a big part of who I am and influences what I do here. If any of those things offend you then we wouldn’t be a good match for a Tarot reading anyway. But rest assured, no matter what you see on the Threads feed, I can set all of that aside and channel in the right energy message for you no matter what it says. That is what 30 years of experience will get for you. There are some advantages to being genX years old.

So what does that have to do with today’s card or Tarot at all? That gnarly online energy IS very much today’s energy and card. The growing energy from Monday has arrived. The Three of Swords has to do with sorrow, heartbreak, loss, pain and betrayal. The keyword betrayal steps forward with the most energy today.

This isn’t a good day to be expansive or ebullient unless the feeling is so strong that your happy emotion bubble can withstand a field of needles. The collective energy today feels prickly like trying to hug a porcupine. You may have all good intentions, the porcupine may be filled with love and kindness, but things are what they are. Being true to yourself and being true to your own nature can also mean facing up to hard realities. Your true self and other people’s true self isn’t always going to blend well. You don’t have to like everybody and not everybody has to like you. Oil is a part of nature. So is vinegar. That doesn’t mean that life has to be salad dressing. To borrow a phrase from Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss. But follow it knowing that not everyone has the same bliss.

Some people by their nature are counter to your nature. Deliberate and malicious or not, intended or not, it can feel like a betrayal when you hoped for some sort of relationship, but nature makes that difficult if not impossible.

There may be good intentions all around, but oil and water, bubbles and porcupines still happen. Some days just aren’t made for trying to make square pegs fit round holes and vice versa. This feels like one of those days.

To paraphrase another writer, John Le Carre, betrayal can only exist in the presence of love. You can only betray – or be betrayed by – those whose opinion you care about. You can’t be jabbed by the porcupines that you don’t try to hug.

Here my mind turns to some of those social media threads I’ve been reading lately. With the evangelical support for right wing politicians and the christian nationalist & “dominion theology” growing in our national awareness (and, arguably, growing as a threat to those of us with interests in Tarot or ANY spiritual path other than theirs)

There can be family betrayals, community betrayals, literal danger to vulnerable groups like our lgbtq loved ones. Like the meme says – you can’t say you love me then vote for someone who hurts me.

The Three of Swords reminds us that protecting oneself from real danger is an act of loving kindness too.

Which brings us back to yet another paraphrase of yet another author, G. Chesterson, who said “a [warrior] fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.”

When religion tears apart families and communities the prickly energy splatters everywhere.

It’s hard to hug a heart that deliberately surrounds itself with swords. It’s ok not to impale yourself on the sharp edges.

Thank you for reading. Heavy energy, heavy ideas today. Thanks for contemplating it all along with me.

Next time: Energy path reading for October 9-15.

The Blog and social media will be on a short hiatus October 14-17, 2023. Email readings are OPEN but may experience delivery delays on those days.

See you at the next sip!

Learn With Me: Lenormand, The Dog

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It looks like we are off to a very good start.

The general plan is to learn about this Lenormand deck in the same way we recently explored the Publishing Goblin oracle dice and before that my new and much used Alleyman’s Tarot Deck.

There is no teacher quite like experience, especially when it comes to something as subjective and individual as intuition and oracles. The basic strategy over the coming weeks is that I’ll pull a random card (and post the draw on YouTube Shorts. I did that this week but the the technical glitch gremlins got to it)

After the random draw, we’ll read it purely intuitively based on the collective energy of the day – just like we read the collective energies for the week each Monday.

Then I’ll go to the guide book, which in this case is sparse, around a paragraph per card, and summarize what it says.

A word on guide books in general:

Use them as a tool, but not as an authority.

There is no dishonor in finding inspiration when you need it.

Guidebooks are great in situations like this to help you get comfortable with a new deck or technique. Guidebooks are essential when you are very first learning to read cards at all, like the DIY one card meditation readings you learn how to do in my book PeaceTarot.

Even after reading for 30 years, there are still times when I look at a card and get exactly nothing. Tarot readers are human and nobody is perfect. If you hit one of those I-got-nothin’ moments then it is perfectly fine to fall back on either a guidebook or a memorized “meaning” It will prime the pump so speak, and spark the intuition that you need for genuine reading that is of the energy of the moment.

Today’s card is The Dog.

The image on this particular deck is warm and sunny, and I associated it with all of the positive happy energies of the RWS major arcana card The Sun. Dogs are the essence of loyalty and friendship.

Clearly this is a good start for making friends with a new deck.

It has a sense of reciprocity today, too. “To make a friend, be a friend”

In the moment, it feels like making friends with this deck is going to be easy.

The guidebook doesn’t add much, just reiterates the “faithfulness and loyalty”

The guidebook isn’t much help in this little learning project we have going. I may just give the key words in the beginning and just give it an intuitive read from there.

Do you have any thoughts which would be more helpful to you? Comment if you like. Guidebook keywords at the beginning or end?

It’s interesting that the card is connected to the 10 of hearts. You can read the suit of hearts much as you would the suit of cups in the RWS decks. It is about emotion, happiness, closest inner circle relationships….like your closest friends.

PeaceTarot also teaches you how to use playing cards in place of Tarot cards to use the guidebook meanings in PeaceTarot if you prefer playing cards or if you don’t have access to a RWS style Tarot deck. 10 of hearts is equivalent to the 10 of cups, which has to do with happy family and happy (and loyal) relationships. It all fits.

If this card resonates for you today, it is a reminder to appreciate the friends and emotionally close people in your life. Tell them. Show them. Check in with them. Be a friend today.

If you are feeling friendless, befriend yourself. Just be patient and kind. It’s like playing fetch with your favorite doggo…throw some kindness out there and life will fetch it back sooner or later.

Thank you for reading. The short and sweet newsletter for this week will post on Thursday morning.

See you at the next sip!

Spooky Season Special:

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