How to move forward in harmony with it all: Five of Cups
The energies are ripe for you to rediscover your true self, remember the things you genuinely love, and embrace all of the things that actually make you happy – to hell with what other people think or if it makes money. (Am taking my own advice there – hence the void scream)
Happy is valuable. A moment of joy is priceless.
The past year of death-card change and chaos energy is finally starting to move away. Things are still weird, but you are adapting to the weird and making friends with your inner demons. Adapting and rolling with whatever happens makes adapting and rolling feel like home.
Loss and release is sometimes necessary to make room for something better.
This is a perfect week for shadow work, very in keeping with the season. Don’t bury your dark side. Make friends with it, and make your light and dark combination greater than the sum of the parts. There is magic to be made in killing the past (a la Kylo Ren) to become who you really are. There is no part of you so bad that there isn’t someone who has been there with you at some point. There is no part of you so dark that you are excluded from the human race.
Dark is necessary for light to shine. Or as my favorite Affordable Floors song says – there is no calm without the storm.
Embrace the dark as a place to let your light shine.
THREE OF CUPS ( reversed ): Don’t be afraid to be the quiet one in the group. Be in an environment of like minded people even if you aren’ts feeling social. Now is a time to find and band together with your tribe, not to try and fit in.
DEATH (reversed) : What decision are you avoiding? Face the life – changing decision, make it, act on it. Life is change. Even if you CHOOSE to stay the same, make it a deliberate choice in order to unlock your best path forward.
Thanks for reading. I appreciate you! See you at the next sip!
Pause the video if you want some time to ponder your card. Restart for the reveal then read your card below. Or look at both cards and choose which one calls to you. Or look at the cards, read both interpretations, then choose which one fits you the best. It’s all equally valid. In the end it is still your intuition and your discretion that chooses which message – or none – that matters.
With two major arcana cards showing, this week might pack more emotion or energy in the next few days than we’ve seen for a while. We are on the downhill side of the dog days of summer, and stagnant energies may start to stir a little bit. I ‘hear’ (meaning intuition that come as mental words instead of mental images) “changes comes with a change in the weather”
STRENGTH: The more you do it, the easier it gets. Strength builds over time. It gets easy. Once it seems easy – let it. Don’t make easy things seem hard all over again just because they are important. You’ve earned the easy
DEATH: The difference between the change signified by the death card and the cyclic changes signified by the moon or the wheel cards is that it is one and done, final, irretrievable. This change is a fire that burns the old to ashes that are best left to be blown away in the wind.
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Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission
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.
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.
Sage Sips Blog is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
YOU CHOOSE:
Your choices are everything. They are the cause that brings your future into effect. Tarot helps to guide those choices so you can make good ones.
Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
Death: OF COURSE this is your eclipse day card. Eclipses symbolize change and transformation. That is exactly what the death card is about. Only an empty cup can be filled. Let the old and toxic go and welcome the new and better in.
Five of swords: The price of victory is too high. Is this really a hill worth dying on? Redefine your goals. Work toward a victory that makes sense. You don’t have to prove your point based on blind principle.
High Priestess: Magic and spirituality come only from within. Yes, it really is nothing more than the moon’s shadow. The magic and mystery is up to you to feel and find. music via youtube shorts Allyman’s Tarot Deck used with permission @publishinggoblin1072
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.
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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.
TaoCraft Tarot Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Conquest through surrender with the Death and Hawkmoth cards
Welcome to Tao Craft Short Sip. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is a new one for me. It is the Hawkmoth card created by Literal Crow for the Literal Crow Tarot and used here in the Alleyman’s Tarot deck.
This is a new card for me. So far this has been one of the most easily readable decks I’ve owned yet. Maybe it’s because it’s Monday, but I had to look this one up to even begin. The Alleyman’s notebook begins by connecting this to the death card and the life cycle of insects. Like the death card, this card is about change but with less foresight.
It reminds me a little bit of insect related quotes.
I’m not sure who actually wrote it, but the Morticia Addams character said “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”
Author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach wrote “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly.”
One of my favorite quotes lately is related, but thankfully leaves out the bugs. Adam Savage reminds us to “follow the process, not the plan.”
In essence, change is inevitable. With the death card, the change is a foreseeable, knowable thing. I’ve seen the death card most often at bachlorette parties of all things. Not because marriage is death or any such 1950’s tropes like that. It’s because marriage is a life altering change. You’ll never be an unmarried single person again. Even if the marriage ends you are not single again, you are divorced or what have you. The death card speaks to a known, forward looking albeit life altering change. The quality we assign to the change is beside the point. Marriage is a perfect example. The old single you is gone forever, but old dies to make way for something wonderful.
I think the Hawkmoth card is less deliberate. It is about a change that blind-sides you. It is about blurry, unplanned, undirected change. If the Death card walks up and lops your head off, the Hawkmoth card is change by a thousand paper cuts. It is about long term, gradual, almost imperceptible molding of a new you.
For a new you to emerge from that process, it takes a degree of surrender. In a cave, stalagtites and staligmites don’t fight the dripping water, they surrender to change and process that builds them up and makes them strong.
Some changes require our evolution. Some changes require that we surrender to them in order to conquer the greatest challenge of them all:
ourselves.
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The death card usually is an indicator that things are going to get interesting, if they aren’t already.
But, as with the Firefly crew, it might not be in the fiery crash sort of way that you were thinking. After all, it’s pretty bad story telling to kill off all of your main characters in the five minutes of a tv episode.
I remember watching totally enjoyable brain candy movie back in the late 80s where a Tarot reader pulls the death card just as The Warlock sneaks up from behind and murders her. Classic trope. That was before I learned to read Tarot much less read professionally. That classic trope has gone from fairly cheesy to downright laughable.
Everyone knows that the death card doesn’t mean actual death. So much so that revealing the actual meaning has become a trope in itself. The best example of that is Lisa Simpson and the Happy Squirrel card. Makes me giggle every time…
The Simpsons were created by Matt Groening and are the property of 20th century studios
For real, I’ve seen the death card more often at bachelorette parties than any other time. It makes sense. With a wedding, you have a whole group of people celebrating a transition and irrevocable change – a big happy one.
Even if that marriage later winds up in the messiest divorce ever, it still happened. It still changed people from who they were before the wedding. The event goes on their permanent record so to speak.
Transition and change as a death image is a common thing in both fact and fiction. To gain a butterfly, you lose a caterpillar. To gain a cupcake, you lose some flour, sugar and eggs. To gain wisdom blissful ignorance must vanish. Life altering change can be as terrifying as death itself even though change is the essence of life.
Change for the better is a grim reaper no one needs to fear.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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