Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
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These two major arcana cards suggest a simple but powerful lesson: Only the empty cup can be filled.
What is (the current situation, current energies): The Magician What to do next: The Death Tarot card (change, not the literal horror movie thing – you know that, right?)
The energy is right for attracting the things you need. If it is right, doors will open. The flow of energy is strong enough to follow.
But change may be needed. Clear a space, mentally or physically, for the desired things to be. Clear the runway – make a space for good things to land.
Sage Sips blog is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
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Knight of Wands (the current situation, left) The time requires action. Boundaries are getting blurred and need reinforced. It is a good environment for rediscovery of your strengths and magic.
Three of Wands (next step forward, right) Watch. Asses. Know where the boundaries are and reinforce them where needed. Evaluating and planning IS action.
Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund. Used with permissions.
Thank you to Dan Harris for inspiring this layout. I highly recommend his books and Substack.
Thanks for watching and reading! Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Your virtual coffee donations and private Tarot reading purchases all support this always free to read blog.
Heirophant: The energy still lingers from this card’s message earlier this week. Live your own truth, listen to your higher self and your inner wisdom. Use critical thinking and a healthy dose of intuition before taking outside authority at face value.
Death (reversed) The change that is causing you pain may not be as bad or irreversible as you might think in this moment. But this is the death card just the same. The changes cut deep, and your feelings in this moment are valid regardless of the ultimate outcome. Give them – and the outcome their due each in their own time.
Right or Left: choose whichever card feels like the right one for you, then get the reading for your chosen card below.
I’m not interacting with Meta products during the #5dayBlackout protest January 20 -25, 2025. I encourage you to subscribe and read Sage Sips right here to get all of the new posts delivered to your inbox. The ko-fi blog gets all of the same uploads plus members-only content. “Choose your card” Tarot readings are also available on Tumblr and Substack. I scroll Bluesky daily, so feel free to stop by and say hello!
PAGE OF CUPS: Roll with it. Plans might go all to heck, but it doesn’t make the weekend wasted time. Go where life steers you and Monday will come soon enough.
HIGH PRIESTESS: Let sleeping mysteries lie. It’s a mystery for a reason. If you want to dig for details, be prepared to deal with whatever you might find.
Thanks for watching! Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Stay tuned for more contemplations this weekend.
Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Thanks for watching! See you at the next sip!
Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today’s sip: Page of Pentacles
It’s probably that Dan Harris book – or maybe a response to the national news over the past week or so – but stress management is stepping forward as a good idea of everyone.
Buddhist (in the philosophy, not the religious ritual sense) impermanence and detachment step forward.
In other words, this too will pass, so don’t get too wound up in thinking or worrying about it.
Pentacles are Earth, grounding, practicality. Pages are learning, maturing, graduating to the next level. It isn’t always easy, and it isn’t second nature to everyone to wait, watch, and learn before you act, but the wisdom of it is present in a whole list of adages and platitudes:
Keep your powder dry.
Hold your fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Stay frosty.
Good things come to those who wait.
“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen… Keep in the sunlight … He that can have patience can have what he will.”
Benjamin Franklin
Today the page reminds us to wait, watch, learn, then we can act and elevate our response to something extra beneficial.
“If turbid waters are stilled, they will gradually become clear.”
Tao Te Ching, Victor Mair translator
It is hard to see the way forward when emotions are running high. The suit of cups, in addition to close romantic or family relationships, symbolizes emotions in general. Cups are connected to the element of water, so water analogies are common, especially here with the Ace. Ace cards carry the essence of the suit. Today, the energy is more akin to water-emotion energy than its water-intuition connotations. Water can be the depths of our human psyche but also deep emotion.
Churning water stirs up all sorts of dirt and debris from the bottom of a stream. Stormy waters are dark. Raging rapids and a broad ocean is far beyond our ability to still them. Sometimes, as with real storms, we have to metaphorically take shelter until the storm passes, and the waters become quiet.
Still waters run deep it is said. We have more emotional resilience and maturity after the reflex response has passed and we’ve calmed down. When churning water becomes still, all of the dirt, sand and silt can settle out of it. Emotions settle down, debris settles out of water, both become more clear.
Nothing about this energy is suggesting suppressing or artificially quieting emotions, any more than it suggests you could (or should) stop a hurricane. By the same token, it isn’t suggesting that we should let emotions rule and ride the pure impulse of the emotions roughshod over the whole situation, either.
There is a middle way.
Sit still. Feel the feels however painful and difficult they may be. Abide your time. Waves can’t stay high unless energy is added to them.
Don’t feed the upset.
Sit still.
Just as gravity and friction and time will eventually quiet a stirred up cup of water, as long as you don’t keep stirring the cup, emotions can naturally get quiet too.
Hurricanes are an apt analogy too. On the leading edge, winds are high. Things caught up in the storm and pushed by the wind cause damage. Go to shelter. From the quiet eye in the center of the storm you can see what you need to do next.
The song “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House comes to mind with the lyric “trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup.” Let the deluge pass, and your paper cup can be filled in a puddle instead of destroyed by a wave.
Or, in the words from The Crow starring Brandon Lee – “It can’t rain all the time.”
Sit still, abide. It’s hard – but this too will pass. Stillness results in the calm and clarity you are looking to find.
a free intuition building exercise to practice your one card meditation
urgh.
Just for the record, I’m very pro universal health care.
I’ve been all day insurance wrangling, sitting in waiting rooms and (after spending too many contentious adversarial years with a certain personality mis-matched primary care physician) feeling defensive, stressed and on-guard. Everyone today was so freaking nice – not at all what I expected. And all just for routine maintenance for my weirdo rare-ish genetic thing. I could be Storm. Or Blink. Or Cypher. Or Professor X. Or something. But nooooooo I get to be Clot Woman. Sheesh.
I just don’t have it in me for a reading today, much less the youtube & podcast thing, even with text to speech. I know I said I’m shifting the Turnovers to be a membership* feature, but how would y’all feel about a bonus flip flop? I’ll sip the coffee, and you read the card. Pick the meaning that best suits you. If you have any questions, the professors door (aka the comments) is open
If you want to learn how to do one card daily meditation readings for yourself, it’s covered in detail in my ebook PeaceTarot available for instant pdf download in the ko-fi shop. As a double extra bonus, all proceeds from the purchase of PeaceTarot from the ko-fi shop in 2022 will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, who are giving medical care under the truly worst conditions and aren’t sitting here b*tching about our meat-grinder juggernaut price-gouging money-grubbing American healthcare system.
Tarot Turnovers is a good way to practice. Unleash your intuition. Today’s random card is….
long range planning
scouting, observing the situation
launching a new phase of a project
bright future
good prospects, your ship will come in
expansion, new frontiers
what does your instinct tell you?
what images come to mind as you look at the card?
any songs, tv, movie or book references pop to mind?
So what do you think?
*Tarot Table memberships include: three card members -only “pathway through the month” reading, newsletter, exclusive Tarot Turnovers not available in the free blog, members-only special offers and giveaways, and one private “Path through the year” Tarot reading by email when you join.
**NEW “Inner Circle” membership level – get your seat at the Tarot Table with all of those benefits PLUS a private one card Tarot reading by email whenever you want up to three per month. Join HERE
You choose your Tarot card and your message for today with this innovative blend of Tarot guidance video, blog and podcast.
You know, I really want to re-work how I do these interactive readings. I want to make them more audio friendly for the podcast and honestly, I just don’t enjoy the monologuing into a microphone thing. It has such a performance feel. I know I’m not a good extemporaneous speaker and that makes it hard to bring the level of communication and authenticity I can give you in a live one to one conversation or in a typed format. I think I’ve said this before. Conversation is one thing, but broadcasting to a general audience is another. One to one versus general audience readings aside, you can compare the You Tube video to the typed transcript here in the blog and the text to speech version in the podcast. Dang it Jim, I’m still a writer, not on camera talent. At the same time, I really do like the what the video brings to the blog, especially for the interactive, pick-your-own-card readings like this. I think it brings an important level of transparency and authenticity to the posts. You know it is a totally genuine, heartfelt, raw, unedited, real-world card reading. You get to see it happen as well as read or hear the words of it. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems fairly symbiotic – the two together are greater than the sum of the parts. Especially for people like me who think they are some kind of Shakespeare until the mic turns on and it all turns into babbling incoherance.
Here’s my thought and I really want to know what you all think. It would genuinely help me to have this feedback. Just being here and reading or listening to this is wonderful support – and I thank you for that – but I could really use an extra hand with this interactive idea. Please leave any thoughts or suggestions or questions in the blog comments, the youtube comments, answer the question on spotify or leave a voicemail on anchor fm. Are these interactive readings interesting or helpful at all? If I put a pithy card contemplation in the video description and a full card reading on the blog and podcast would it still be as helpful and interesting? Honestly, I’d kind of love the mystique and anonymity if everyone to thought that I actually sound like Siri’s second cousin and have my voice be as big of a mystery to Tarot YouTube as Corpse Husband’s appearance is a mystery to gamer YouTube. I may tinker with captioning the longer you choose videos and leaving the short ones as, you know, shorts.
Using “left, center or right” to indicate your card choices is hard to visualize. Or at least I think so. Sometimes you see these kinds of readings on social media using still photos and they create such pretty Instagram level picture. Often they will use crystals or charms or feathers or different small objects to help you feel your way to the right card. I love me some rocks and crystals, but again, that doesn’t translate well into an podcast. Using color was a thought, but not the best one. Color have emotional and psychological connections. Marketing experts use it all of the time. I was concerned that I can’t think of any good way to connect the cards to sounds without making it ridiculous and cumbersome for the blog readers and video watchers. The answer seems to be to use something that is easier to describe and visualize than objects or spacial relationships like left – center – right.
Have you ever seen the original Ghostbusters movie? There is a scene where Dr. Venkman is testing two volunteers ESP ability by drawing cards and having them guess the shapes on the cards. If you take out the comedy bits, the card test is an actual thing. There are random image generators online that let you guess at the cards and see if you can guess above random. It’s all based on controversial parapsychology research in the 1930s. And it has absolutely nothing to do with this other than taking some inspiration from the cards. The cards I’ll use for the visual part are different than the the actual Zenar cards, but like the Zenar cards they are simple shapes that are easy to visualize. As a nod to one of my favorite movies, though, I’m using a star and wavy lines. I made add some shapes just for interest and to increase the randomization. You’ll see and hear how it works as we do a few of theses you choose readings together.
But speaking of you choose readings, that’s enough behind the scenes. Let’s do this thing.
First I’ll draw three shape cards from this tiny handmade deck of note cards.
Today we have wavy lines, star and circle.
Now lets draw three Tarot cards from the shuffled and cut Tarot deck and put one by each of those shape cards.
Next – you choose.
You choose how you use the reading. It can be guidance for your day, guidance for your week or guidance for anything that is on your mind right now.
Imagine the three shapes, star, wavy lines and circle. Which one feels right? Does one light up in your mind’s eye more than the others? Does one catch your attention more than the others? If you need a minute, pause the video, stop reading for a second or pause the podcast to give yourself a little time. Then restart to get the reveal. Or just pick a shape on impulse and listen for your card as we go along.
Wavy lines is Temperance. The Waite Smith deck echoes the wavy lines in the water that is being poured from cup to cup. Temperance is the ultimate balance card. Today there is a strong energy of “slow your roll” and “bring down the temperature” a little bit. Here the Temperance card is very much like tempering in cooking where you change the temperature of sauces or custards gradually to prevent the eggs from curdling and getting lumpy. Tempered glass is another example. Tempered again refers to temperature. The temperature of the glass is controlled and manipulated to make the glass stronger. The advice from the card is about bringing emotional tempers and and emotional temperaments and group discussion temperatures down. It is about choosing your response to external circumstances just like you chose this card.
Star is The Hermit card. Interestingly, the star shape is also found on the card artwork as the shape of the light in the hermit’s lantern. The Hermit is about finding inner wisdom through changing the external environment. Carve out some me time for yourself. If you at all can manage it, get away from it all. Create a little quiet time and meditation because that will let you hear your own inner wisdom. Walking away for a minute to collect yourself is a way to respond to external circumstances as much as a spiritual retreat is.
The Circle isn’t directly represented on the card art, unless we really stretch things to include the chariot wheels. The chariot is what I call the supersonic test pilot card. It is a call to be fully in the present moment and mindful, but not impulsive. If a test pilot lets their mind wander or if they act too randomly bad stuff can happen. Being fully present and bringing all of your training to bear making good but fast decisions is one way to respond to external circumstances. If you chose this card that is a clue that you CAN bring that kind of mindfulness and clear-headed decision making to your situation.
Which format suits you? How do you like using shapes instead of spaces? How do you like the way the videos combine with text and audio. I kind of like this unpolished multi-media blend of things.
Thank you for watching, listening and reading. Any likes, subs, shares or follows you can spare are always greatly appreciated. None of this media mash up is monetized. Your blog website purchases and ko-fi memberships all contribute to creating this unique Tarot content just for you.
The short sip format returns Friday March 24. See you at the next sip!
Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the nine of cups.
When this card turns up around the Fall and Winter holidays, it often brings a celebratory energy, one of intimate family celebrations like Thanksgiving for example. It doesn’t have the community vibe or cultural celebration energy we see with the four of wands as we talked about recently in the post One Step Wins.
Cups are symbolic of emotions and very inner circle relationships. When the nine of cups turns up other than the holidays, it shifts energy to match the time and context. The emotional facet steps forward more than the close relationship aspect of the suit. It is still very positive, it is still somewhat celebratory. The nine of cups symbolizes something that comes into fullness, and fruition and to a good conclusion.
It is about wishes come true.
If you want to take that as a prediction of good fortune or a wish coming true, feel free. I don’t see Tarot as predicting anything. Tarot is a writing prompt – for life. It’s a life-prompt. Tarot gives us ideas for problem solving and direction setting.
Today the energy also asks “so now what are you going to do?” What would you do if your wishes do come true. What are you going to do if you suddenly become the dog that catches the car its been chasing?
Here is an interesting thought experiment for you. I think it is from one of Richard Bach’s books. I think it was Bridge Across Forever or somewhere thereabout in his writing. I forget the exact wording. But try this. Close your eyes. Imagine when you open you eyes the world will be exactly as it should be. Imagine that your wishes have already been fulfilled. Imagine there is a path forward to the things you need.
Then open your eyes and see how many ways that imagination is already true.
Thank you for reading and listening.
None of my online content is monetized, so it depends on your support through likes, subs, shares, follows, no appointment needed email reading orders and Tarot Table memberships.
Thank you for your support and thank you for finding a path that makes your wishes come true.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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