Weekend Oracle: Progress

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“Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.”

Noam Chomsky

Even though it is a long holiday weekend here in the US, it may feel like a continuation of the week with all of the travels and get-togethers and summer kick-offs and whatnot.

Maybe it is because of rumors of a new covid strain just as the vaccine program is being sabotaged. To be honest, this might be a projection on my part, but I think a little bit holds true for the collective energies as well.

It doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels like we are being thrown into dynamic, change-filled energy. Again.

One keyword for the Eight of Wands is “progress.” Progress is impossible with out change, without movement. Progress in any direction is still progress.

If you are moving toward failure, great! At least there is something to be learned.

If you are moving away from failure, great! At least you’ve learned from the situation and are making corrections.

If you are moving toward something better, great! Savor the moment.

If you are not moving much at all, great! At least you are getting a chance to rest and recharge. Enjoy it.

Change is a part of life and living. There is always the potential for progress.


The blog will be quiet over the holiday weekend and any reading orders will go out May 27, 2025 or after. Have a happy and safe weekend everyone! See you at the next sip!

Action Eases Anxiety: Trust Fall

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The “Action Eases Anxiety” layout is inspired by the sentence-like quality that Lenormand style tarot readings tend to have. We’ve talked about that before in he “learn with me” series about Lenormand

In this layout, the left card functions as the subject of the sentence. It is the thing that is, be it your current situation or our shared energy environment.

The right card is like the verb in a sentence, the action, the thing to do now that might help the situation – or at lease easy your worry a tiny bit.

Today, the mental image that came with both cards is an advertisement where a person goes “trust fall” and falls backward into a huge pile of dried plants to demonstrate the plant stems and leaves that they don’t use in their select flower-only suppliment.

As much as I like that product, I’m not here to endorse anything. The trust fall bit of it is the key to the intuitive image.

“When things seem terrible, it can feel impossible that they will get better. if the future is too big for a leap of faith, then all you can do is take a trust fall into the present moment.” comes through here.

The “what it is card” is the bouquet. If today isn’t stressed, enjoy the beauty of it. Enjoy the moment. If you are feeling stressed, try to sort out what of the stress is rooted in the past and future. Try to see the present moment for what it is. Look around you. Are you in life threatening danger? If you are – then you aren’t reading this. If that’s the case you have bigger things to do than read blogs and scroll social media. So if you are seeing this, stop: Take in this moment for what it is. Stop and smell the flowers the bouquet card is offering. It also reminds me of that quote attributed to Mark Twain “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, the most of which never happened.”

What it is is not so bad when you eliminate the parts that are actually worries about a future that may never happen.

What to do is the Clover card. It is a card of luck. The doing is simple in this case. Simple, but easier said than done when anxiety is raging. Acknowledging and accepting that things aren’t so bad and are getting better. When anxiety or sadness is raging in your brain, it’s hard to feel as lucky as you really are.

Acknowledging your luck attracts it to you.

Tell yourself that you are lucky.

Blind, rote, repeated affirmations even when you don’t feel them isn’t going to magically manifest the thing you want. They won’t do that even if you do feel it. But what that can do is bring your feelings and your energy into better alignment with the flow of things and help you find what you really need, even if it is different from your original desires and expectations.

You are lucky, it is just a matter of finding it. And it may look like something you never in a million years imagined.


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deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler c 2021 all rights reserved used with permissions on Llywellynpublishing.com

Cheating at Choosing

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Week Ahead Tarot is an interactive reading. Pause the video & choose your card. Restart the video to see the reveal, and get your reading in the description below the video. YouTube and the socials get a very short reading. The reading in the TaoCraftTarot.com blog, the Ko-Fi blog and the Substack newsletter are usually a little longer, with more background explanation and detail.

Q: Why do you show the cards at the end? Isn’t there some way to hide it? It goes so fast to pause. Isn’t it cheating if I choose my card after I see them both?

A: In Shorts, Reels, Tik Toks, or any short format video, it can be hard to read the instructions and pause in time before the cards are flipped. Especially if you are on an older device or have some lag for any reason.

But that’s just a glitch in the experience, not a problem with the reading itself.

Contrary to what you may think, seeing the card first isn’t cheating….it’s doing it the hard way. Choosing between two cards you can’t see operates on pure intuition and instinct almost subconsciously. When you can see the cards, you have to use your intuition more consciously and deliberately.

If you choose after you see the pictures, you suddenly have a bigger intuitive job to do because you add in the options of BOTH or NEITHER.

Of course, no matter when you choose, in the end you still have to use discernment along with intuition. You have to decide if the message is right for you or not. You have to decide whether you should take it to heart of let it go by.

The important thing is that all of the ways of choosing a Tarot card are equally valid, because in the end, it is still YOU making the choice.

Thanks so much for your question!

See you at the next sip!

Week Ahead Tarot: Steady Face Value

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Pause the video if you want more time to think. Think of a question, or simply think of guidance for the week ahead. Choose your card, then restart the video to see the reveal and get your reading below:

KING OF PENTACLES: If life has been chaotic, this is a reassurance that stability will slowly return. If life has been steady, don’t force change. All is as it should be, at least for now.

Take advantage of the steady, low key energy environment to get mental, emotional and spiritual rest as much as physical rest. This isn’t Hanged Man major arcana energy. This isn’t a sign of unhealthy stagnation no matter how frustrated you may feel with the pace that things are moving. Take advantage of this pace before things pick up and start moving – perhaps sooner than you think.

SIX OF CUPS: Consider taking things at face value this week. For better or worse, sometimes things really are what they are.

In other words, don’t make things harder than they really are. It’s OK for things to be easy. That doesn’t make them less valuable. People tend to complicate things or make them harder because we think the hard work or complexity somehow makes the result more valuable somehow. That very tendency is why simple and easy with no ulterior motives is a beautiful thing. Enjoy it when comes along.

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See you at the next sip!

Weekend Oracle: Vibe Check

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It will probably be majorly cringe in a few years. Saying cringe will be cringe. Still, vibe check is my current favorite way to describe what these collective energy Tarot readings really do.

It’s a vibe check for your next few days. If you are reading this, those next few days are a weekend. If you are reading this in the timelessness of cyberspace who-knows-when, then it applies even more. If this post and this card caught your attention, no doubt it is for some reason or another.

These “one card daily meditation” readings, be it with tarot or with Oracle cards, aren’t a prediction. They just let you know the energy environment around you. It’s a check of the vibes you’ll be dealing with and maybe give you some idea about how to best navigate those vibes over the next day or so.

Meanwhile, the NO! card reminds us that no is a complete sentence.

Help when you can…be kind always…but kindness extends to yourself too. Don’t Don’t put your responsibilities on others or expect the universe to hand you the good life on a silver platter, but at the same time, don’t take on responsibilities that aren’t really yours to carry.

In Tarot card terms, think ten of wands energy. This is a good weekend – or a good few days at any time – to think about the times you need to say no. Or as Scisavage says on instagram, “protect your peace”

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Deck: Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC

Daily Meditation Tarot

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Available for purchase in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop


May is both National Meditation Month and National Mental Health Awareness Month.

Tarot has a part to play in both, especially in the form of one card daily meditation style Tarot readings.

I explain how to start your own daily meditation Tarot practice, which is kind of a misnomer since you don’t have to do it every single day. As I see it, the “daily” part comes from the way the Tarot reading takes a “just for Today” approach, much the same as the Reiki precepts.

By not focusing on personal development, past events, predicting the future or any other thing, drawing a card just for today is very akin to mindfulness meditation.

Tarot in general can be very stress reducing, and have helpful mental and emotional benefits in that way. I’ve seen it dozens upon dozens of times when I was doing in-person readings. The body language was clear as a bell; people’s shoulders would drop, their face would relax, they’d sit back in their chair a little more. Tarot readings offer a degree of healthy mental and emotional relief.

Life is less stressful when we understand the situation a little better or can formulate a plan for moving forward, hopefully both.

Tarot can help with that understanding. Like a meditation practice, when you add up those small, incremental bits of relief it can amount to something larger.

Meditation and mental health advocates have been saying these things for years. Reiki’s “Just for today” precepts is an example. Taoism and Buddhism give us the idea of change and impermanence. Everything is always in motion and change is a part of life. Death, Temperance, The Moon, The Wheel, the Two of Pentacles and other cards carry many of the same ideas.

PeaceTarot can teach you to find this Tarot comfort for yourself, even if you don’t own a Tarot deck. This simple method teaches you how to draw and read a daily Tarot card, gives a peace-themed meaning for every card in a RWS style Tarot deck PLUS three different techniques for choosing a Tarot card meaning if you don’t have a Tarot deck at hand.

PeaceTarot is available as a .pdf download and is available for purchase now from the Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop

Week Ahead Tarot posted

Would love some feedback: Do you like it better when the week ahead type readings post on Sunday or Monday?

This week’s reading is ready in any case. Click HERE for the full reading. As a general rule, the readings in the social will truly be a little sip of Tarot, while the readings here, ko-fi, and Substack will be the whole gulp.

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Week Ahead Tarot: Steady Boundaries

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QUEEN OF SWORDS

No boundary can be respected if no one knows it exists. Defining then effectively communicating what the boundaries are is the first step to consistently protecting them. It is a necessary step toward protecting your inner peace.

“Setting boundaries” is a common pop psychology kind of term these days. But, as I understand it, it is rooted in real psychology and very real mental health.

“Self-care” is another term that is thrown around a lot on social media.

Both things boil down to Socrates “know thyself.” You have to know your inner world before you can define and protect that boundary line where the inner world and the outer world meet. You have to know your self before you can care for yourself and protect your inner self.

Setting boundaries isn’t about being antagonistic to other people or indulging in narcissism. Setting boundaries is self defense. Setting boundaries is knowing yourself, knowing what you need to be your best self, communicating that to others and not letting them harm your basic self respect.

It’s all easier to do once you realize that no one can make you happy, neither can anyone take it away. That boundary between you and the outside world is yours alone to set and protect.

KNIGHT OF PENTACLES

Stay steady, be patient. Too many changes can sabotage the plan. Stand strong and call what you need to you.

There is a meme with this card that always gives me a giggle. “Behold, the field where I grow my f* cks. Lift up thine eye and you will see that it is barren.”

There is a kind of happiness, a feeling of being content and at ease within your own skin when you let go of worry about what other people think of you. It is a steady place to stand.

Pentacles (coins, disks) cards are often about physical things; career, money, the nuts and bolts of being in the world. This is no different. Sometimes the key to what you need is steadiness and patience.

This connects with the seven of pentacles card in a recent reading. Sometimes you just have to lean on your rake and let the seeds you planted do their thing. Sometimes you just have to sit still on your horse and pull what you need to you, like Luke Skywalker using the force to pull his lightsaber into his hand.

Making too many changes or giving too many f*cks could throw a monkey wrench into the gears of life right now. It’s ok to be chill every now and then.

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See you at the next sip!

Today’s Tarot: You know what to do

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HIGH PRIESTESS: Trust what you know, then do it. Spiritual power is greatest when you feel it, but it is still there even when you don’t. Some days, there is no grand mystery. Some days, just going through the motions is plenty enough. Ritual is never empty when it is mindful of the present moment.


May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. Tarot is part of both.

There have been countless times that I’ve seen jaws unclench, shoulders drop and frowns disappear in a Tarot reading.

Tarot can offer you a peaceful moment in troubled times.

This month I’m returning to where it all started: One Card Daily Meditation style readings. You can order a personalized meditation style Tarot reading by email or you can learn to do them for yourself with PeaceTarot: Tarot as a Way to Peaceful Thoughts in Troubled Times, available for download in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop.