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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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.
Tarot reading for the week: it will get better when you get to the point that you can let it go.
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.
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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!
Sometimes that banging you hear is obstacles being removed.
It’s called a lithotripter.
Life takes you to some pretty strange places. Writing a blog post comparing an oracle card to a high end medical device was not on my bingo card for today, but here we are. That odd combination is what the collective energy – “spirit” if you will – is using to communicate today.
When we first rolled – drew – something – this die to be one of the seven learning dice, the single face we rolled was “ruin.”
It has all of the obvious parallels with Tarot’s Tower card.
When I first saw the Lord Card for the obstacle die, it was of those “I got nothin'” moments, so naturally I went to the source material, the guidebook, for inspiration. The moral of that story is you won’t always be able to read every little thing purely intuitively. I’m only talking about reading for yourself, I do NOT teach you to read for other people, ever. But that’s a topic for another day. Long story short, when you get nothing intuitively from a card or dice or whatever oracle you are using, it is perfectly valid to combine the silent oracle whatever-it-is (in this case the card/die combo) with other inspiration (the room around you, the song on the radio, the guide book, some other guidebook – anything can help.)
One aspect of the card speaks of wrongful accusations, anything from the dog ate my homework blame dodging to being the chosen fall-guy, the one rejected and reviled by those whom the fall-guy has faithfully served, and maybe still serves.
I get a black sheep of the family vibe there.
Rather than the bringer of underserved accusations and derision, the Accuser can also be the bringer of obstacles. That can be experienced as the doom, gloom, destruction and chaos of the Tower and Devil cards. There is, however, another layer of meaning proposed.
The most important lessons are sometimes learned the hard way, and in doing so that removes self-imposed obstacles and clears the way to better things.
The accuser, as with light-bringer Lucifer, challenges us and blocks us to show us our weaknesses, our ignorance, our undue attachments.
Or, as the adage goes, that which doesn’t kill us can make us stronger.
The Accuser bangs at us and challenges us – but maybe, just maybe, all that banging and destruction and chaos is the sound of obstacles being removed.
A lithotripter uses shock waves to break up a harmful kidney stones into small enough pieces that it can be passed harmlessly out of the body by the urinary system. The kidney stone is crushed and essentially destroyed. Sudden destruction removes the blockage and makes things better in a literal way.
The same is true of The Accuser’s energy. Yes, absolutely, sometimes The Devil, The Tower or The Accuser is a storm warning for us, asking us to take action because bad stuff happens in life and forewarned is forearmed.
Other times, obstacles come our way to make us stronger (spiritual weight lifting?) For we humans, the hard way is the only way we learn some lessons.
On occasion, if we learn well, that banging we hear is actually the sound of obstacles being destroyed instead of our impending doom.
The road to magick is lined with ordinary days.
*Po-tay-toes!* Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew… Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (movie 2001)
Some days don’t feel magical. Some days you just have to peel the damn potatoes.
But if you can do that, when you get through the ordinary, there is magic at the end. Or at least a meal full of filling, satisfying, starchy comfort.
Today is a little like potatoes for me. It is utterly, delightfully, magically ordinary. It is a day off from the day job – but no pressing errands, no frenzy of summer recreation. Just simple household things to do.
This is where the magic lives.
We talk about attracting and manifesting and living our dreams. But where will the dream live? Where are we attracting TO? Manifested dreams live in our ordinary world, regardless of whether you attracted them there – or if they were there all along just waiting to be seen. Either way, the path to magick is lined with ordinary days.
You may not think it takes courage to live an ordinary day. For some, an ordinary day is a monumental task, made large and seemingly insurmountable by every type and kind of human challenge. For others an ordinary day is a precious commodity made rare by stress and circumstance.
You never know when ordinary will make you a dashing hero or when the potatoes you peeled will light a child’s smile for the golden chips that they made.
Have courage, do the ordinary, and look for the magic that hides there every day.
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Sage Sips is Tarot for your week in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
None of my online content is ad monetized – your message comes first, not an advertiser’s. Please remember me when you want an affordable, professional private Tarot reading. This free content is fueled by your reading purchases, memberships and coffee (both irl and virtually on ko-fi) Thanks for reading!
Today’s cards:
I’ve been asked before why it is that different readers readers give different readings for the same card.
There are a variety of reasons, and any one or any combination of them could factor into it when you get very different readings about the same identical card.
First is the passage of time. As ancient Greek philosopher Hericlitus put it, a man can’t cross the same river twice because it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
Time passes and your situation changes just like water flows through a river so it is different water each time you step in.
Past readings have an effect on you. Time passes and you grow and change. You are a different person than you were the last time that card was read for you.
Different time, different water, different person: you can’t cross the same Tarot card twice. If you do it is pretty astounding and you should definitely pay attention to what intuition / spirit is trying to tell you.
Three days ago we talked about the Page of Cups and last week’s end-of-week vibe. Things have shifted again already.
Sometimes the river current is faster than others.
Apparently it is flowing fairly quickly here. I expect this week will step through the three cards fairly quickly, too. It will be interesting to see if that proves true by the time we get to Friday’s “weekend update” post.
Because of that pace, I think the “fading energy” layout position of the three of swords is significant, to the point of giving a “don’t” or “kick this energy to the curb” sort of message.
The three of sword’s nature is cautioning anyway. Heads up, watch your back – don’t. I ‘hear’ “tiny heartbreak” When I put this card & energy into the context of the whole reading, I get “don’t make little disappointments into big heartbreaks.”
The Fool card is, of course, about beginnings.
In most RWS based Tarot decks, a human figure is shown posed between two poles, the two wands. This draws my attention to the “threshold” key word associated with the card. It looks like a doorway. This card hints at magickal, liminal space, a gateway to something important or a portal where we can draw in what is wanted and needed. Whatever your thoughts about attraction and manifestation, this card can be read as something new on the horizon.
The “new beginning” big major arcana energy from the Fool card combined with the liminal, doorway, portal, energy from the Two of Wands weights the whole layout on the side of forward thinking hopefullness.
Bring it all together and we get a week that starts off a little off kilter, on edge, on the lookout for who-knows-what kind of funky mojo, but rapidly moves to something new and more hopeful.
Today feels a little weird, but at the same time it feels like something brighter is on the horizon.
Hang in there.
Sage Sips is Tarot for your day (or the week ahead) in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you like to sip this time of day)
Please think of me when you want an affordable, professional, ethical private Tarot reading. No appointment needed for email. This free Tarot content is fueled by your reading purchases, memberships, and coffee (irl & virtually on ko-fi)
Hi! Thanks for reading! I’m glad you are here.
This reading symbolizes our energy patterns through the week ahead. This particular layout is read right to left, opposite of how I turned the cards in the video. The first card shows energy that is drifting away, the middle card is the closest, largest energy around right now, while the left card shows the energy that is growing in influence. This kind of reading is closer to a weather report about the general energies right now. No predictions here. This gives you an idea of the energies ahead. It’s up to us to make the most of it, for better or worse.
The energies this week are pretty simple. Down to earth, grounded and balanced are always key words around pentacles. That is the suit in the majority today. It’s not so much a matter of head over heart. Practicality takes the lead over either one of those.
June is vacation season for families, with the kids fresh out of school. We are just past the July 4th holiday. Summer always seems to start off with frenetic hurry up and have vacation energy followed by hot doldrums. It feels a little like the doldrums are definitely setting in. It feels a little early compared to other years, but fitting for this year somehow. Sit in the shade, drink lemonade, and don’t push or pressure anything at the moment.
“Take comfort” steps forward as a the carry away message, at least for the first part of the week. After the vacations and picnics and typical flurry of activity, things are settling into a summertime routine. Take comfort in routine, in work, in something ANYTHING familiar that doesn’t ask much of you mentally or emotionally. The Zen spirituality of just peeling the potatoes comes to mind here in the spirit of my favorite Alan Watts quote. The eight of pentacles reflects this get down to business and do the thing energy.
Energies have been a little woo woo and ethereal with last week’s high priestess and memento mori vibes. The current energy brings that back into balance with two of pentacles. Just like the ace of swords yesterday…the current energy today also points to mind-body-spirit balance being a source of strength, and contentment.
The pendulum swings back later in the week from grounded and external to a little more esoteric and emotional. The page of cups reflects a return to fousing on feelings and emotions. The Page, gazing at a cup and the little fish that is said to be secrets or truths from the deep water, from the human psyche, reminds us to look for the hidden spirit behind the physical, the magic within the mundane.
Here’s the routine I’m aiming to take refuge in this week:
Thanks again for reading. See you at the next sip.
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one peels the potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes
Alan Watts
Today: The Death card and lofi chill
Please remember me if you ever want an affordable, professional Tarot reading. Private readings by email don’t need an appointment. This free Tarot content is fueled by reading purchases, memberships, and coffee (both irl and the virtual ko-fi kind). Your comments, likes and social media shares are always appreciated.
The August blahs are starting early this year.
I blame the hot, humid weather and suppressed rage at anyone who doesn’t care about global warming. Republicans and oil companies are going to get us all killed at this rate.
But I digress. Sort of.
It’s interesting how the collective energy sometimes is reflected in private readings or vice versa. It’s a little chicken and egg. People who come to me as clients contribute to the collective energy, which would explain some threads of similarity. At the same time these perceptive folks may be drawn to a reading because of the collective energy, which also explains similarities. Either way it always feels validating as a reader to see the collective show up in a private session or cards from private sessions repeat a time or two in collective readings.
The energy has shifted from death card to death card. It feels like the resistance to change from earlier has shifted to a sort of weary acceptance. It feels like instead of resisting the inevitable, we’ve slipped into a semi-comfortable expectation of a certain degree of upheaval. It feels like time to take a sippy sip of our soupy soup and calmly watch the mayhem unfold.
I like to think that is the essence of Sage Sips. Calm. Reassuring. If my Tarot style was described in music terms, I like to think it is LoFi Chill.
Stay safe, stay chill and stay hydrated. See you Monday for next week’s energy path reading.
Sage Sips blog is a contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
I don’t know much about Dungeons & Dragons, but I’d call this character chaotic good.
This is a really lovable card, and it’s tempting to join the chaos, but I’m in full sun-avoidant deep shade forest baby Grogu sipping soup and calmly watching the mayhem unfold mood. You don’t always have to participate in order to appreciate.
Let’s stay methodical this week.
Tarot, or any good intuition enhancing too, has layers of meaning just like ogres and onions.
The first we looked at a single face from the dice – analogous to drawing individual cards for a Tarot layout. By randomly rolling seven times we selected 7 “practice dice” out of the 22 dice set to work with as we get to know the Oracle Dice. Learning the oracle dice parallels the way I learned Tarot. I’ve distilled YEARS of trial and error into this step by step thing we are doing. I’m learning the oracle dice this way because I KNOW this way of learning and reading oracle tools … any intuition helper…works. I know it works well because I’ve been doing it for a hot minute. Longer than I care to admit most days.
You get the idea about the individual faces and how to look at those.
Now we are going through our practice dice one by one looking at it from the die cube meaning. The Oracle Dice’s creator, Seven Dane Asmund assigned a name and meaning to each of the 22 dice (one of which is a cool 12 face die) In this edition, he also created a card with the “lord” of each of the dice. The “lord” in this case is a parallel to the suit in Tarot. The “lord” is the essence of die’s meaning, its guardian, its protector, sort of the ace, king and queen all rolled into one.
Today’s die is “summer” depicted as the “Crone of Summer.” It’s perfect that the image on the card includes gold coins because this card encapsulates much of the same energies as the suit of coin (pentacles) in Tarot. There is easy, almost careless generosity around it. It is so fully and unabashedly about the physical realm that it rises above the physical realm and becomes something more esoteric, much as the ten of pentacles (coins) is so fully prosperous and abundant that it points to the intangible treasures of love and happiness that money can never buy. Such is the effusive joi de vie embodied by the crone of summer.
You know how I see the world through Taoism colored glasses
The dots in the yin yang symbol represent the idea that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. We see that in the ten of pentacles and the Crone of Summer. The physical realm taken to its extreme can hold the seed of its opposite. In excess creation lies the potential for destruction. In excess possession lies the potential for generosity and so on.
When we move on to the next layer – combining dice – when the summer die rolls in, think of it in unabashed and golden terms like full throttle summer and an exuberant generosity of self and spirit
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your generosity with your time.
If you ever want a private Tarot reading, please think of me. The free Tarot and other content here on the Sage Sips blog and on Sage Words Tarot social media is fueled by your reading purchases, your memberships and lots of coffee (both irl and the virtual kind on ko-fi)
Your likes, follows, shares and comments are always greatly appreciated!
*Publishing Goblin‘s Oracle Dice used with permission
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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