And you thought I was kidding about the whole “I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are hosting a rave” thing.
Actually, ‘nibsnextdoor’ is one of my favorite new Instagram finds. Ranks right up there with Mr. Chicken, that animated duck dancing to “Hey Ya!” by Outkast and clips of Count Von Count from Sesame Street set to Dragula by Rob Zombie.
Here is the rave playlist….
I’m in the middle of changing jobs. I’m friggen’ 60 and basically starting a whole new full time job only vaguely related to anything I’ve done before. I’m stressed.
But what I HAVE done before is natural stress management. Tarot is part of that. Readings can help put your mind and emotions at ease. I’m walking, talking PROOF of that. 30 years worth.
My stress managing happy place in Tarot right now is one card daily meditations. I’m going to stick with that on the blog for a little while until I can settle in to the new normal
BUT
Rest assured that free readings are still fully available for members and for purchase from the READINGS menu. Worst case scenario it will just take me an extra day or two to get the reading to your inbox. But even that delay should abate in a few weeks.
Thank you all so much for patience, grace and understanding. I appreciate you!
Tarot inspired haiku for National Poetry Writing Month
Irrevocable
Change is death of the old self
The phoenix will rise
Sage Snow
“Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens”
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Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
Thank you for reading!
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 is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
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CHOOSE your card from the snapshot above, then watch the video to reveal your card and get the reading in video description or below.
Strength: Never confuse blind fanaticism with strength. The strength you need requires a presence of mind and compassion not just brute physical endurance.
“Digger” Death: Change is not only inevitable, sometimes it is a relief. Bury that thing and walk away. Let it go.
“Bones” Death: Look for what lies beneath. Knowing the whole story can change your perspective, your feelings, your decisions. In other words, knowing the whole story changes everything.
Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission
Pick a card from the picture above. Watch the video to see the reveal. Get your reading below.
Magician: This is a card of manifestation and transformation. It is also a card of co-creating, in other words working with the universe to bring your intentions into reality. Often this kind of magickal working is heavy on the WORK. The magician must do their part.
King of Pentacles: Survey your kingdom. Focus on what you have. Don’t spend your energy wanting what you don’t have this week. Once you see what you have on hand, it becomes clearer what you truly want, what you need and how to get what is really missing. Wanting what you have is contentment.
Death: Change is inevitable. Seven Dane Asmund, creator of this Tarot Deck (Alleyman’s Tarot, used with permission) He calls this the “dancing death” of the several versions of the Death card in this deck. Dance with this moment. Embrace it. Fully be a part of it because, for better or for worse, this moment will change momentarily.
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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.
Psychic ability, intuition, “weird ass mystical shit” as the one Alleyman Tarot card calls it – whatever you name it, it’s a normal human thing. It’s a sense, like warmth or sight or hearing. In my experience, that psychic intuition exists as a mental echo of the five physical senses.
That is where we get the word clairvoyance. It means “clear vision.” There is a “clair” for each sense. The vast majority of the time my intuition works with mental images or sounds, songs and words (clairaudience.) I always explain in a new private reading that is what I mean when I say “see” for the mental images and “hear” when the intuition comes to mind as words or songs.
I love it when intuition works with popular songs, TV and music. It is a shared experience for a lot of people so it is an easy way to communicate a concept.
I’m a bit of a foodie, and I’ve studied a little aromatherapy, which has opened taste and smell as an intuitive prompts, but they much less common than the other two.
Today we went straight to the classic rock radio station. Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” was the very first thing that came to mind when I saw today’s dice image. That was quickly followed by a snippet of The Doors that says “break on through to the other side.”
I didn’t have old 60’s (or was it early 70s) classic rock on my bingo card for today, but there it is. If you don’t know the songs I’m not surprised. I only know the Doors from snippets in movies and TV and The Wall was Junior High at the latest.
Ugh…I just realized that I was not only alive but in second grade when friggen’ Dark Side of the Moon was released. Damn. I’ve earned the GenX Tarot Xpert title just by kicking around this long.
Back to the dice. Put the image and the intuitive “wall” and “break through” prompts, I would read this image as being about mental blocks, overcoming challenges. The Ten of Wands comes to mind as a Tarot analogy. Granted with over 90 dice images, there may not be a good Tarot analogy for each one, but with 78 Cards in the Tarot deck, there is bound to be overlap.
When you are very first learning any oracle at all, you may not dial into intuitive sense or impressions right away like this. It comes with practice and that is exactly what we are doing here. Let’s use a brick wall as an analogy. Walls don’t just spontaneously appear out of nothing. They are assembled, board by board, sheet of drywall by sheet of drywall, brick by brick. Not every brick is going to trigger a spontaneous impression. That’s when you go to the guide book. That’s why it is there. Two heads are better than one. Start with the guide book, then add your own impression to get your message for the day.
Day after day, brick after brick. Next thing you know you can tap right into your own psychic skills and read dice like a champ.
OK – that being said, let’s go see how far I am from Seven’s original intent for the dice.
And in case you are wondering, no I’m not looking ahead. I did this when my copy of the Alleyman Tarot first arrived. I’d read the card then go to the guidebook and I wound up even more head over heels for the deck than I thought I’d be.
What I’m trying to say here is don’t get your underwear in a bunch over which comes first. It doesn’t matter if you go right to the guide book then add the impressions the dice plus guidebook inspires OR start with your own impressions and go to the guidebook to expand them and maybe spark some more. What matters is engaging with your intuition. All the dice and cards and guidebooks are here to help that process. All of those things “Pump Up the Volume” on your intuition if you want to throw some late 80s in with the 60s and 70s music references.
To the guide book:
The whole cube is the die of obstacles. No surprise there. The name of this individual face is “Ruin.” But wouldn’t you know it? I have it exactly upside down in the video. I don’t get the feeling there is any significance to that, as there might be with a reversed Tarot card. That is just me not knowing the dice.
Turned upright, it is easy to see the classic Tower image from the Tarot with the bolt of lightning and falling bodies. But there is a little more to this. This is about “calamity” as much as the suddenness. Seven writes it as being an irreversible life changing event…so shades of the Death and Devil card to go with the Tower card.
Which means little if you aren’t a Tarot card reader…we are here to talk about the dice.
So sudden, life altering disaster.
It happens to the best of us.
It happens to all of us.
And life altering chaos and disaster is a wall of sorts. How do you get back to living when your old life is no longer an option? How do you move past the pain and chaos?
The thing that caught my attention was Mr. Asmund’s reminder that it is ok to feel the pain of the things in life that hurt us. Numb isn’t necessarily better.
Pain is important. Both physically and emotionally it alerts that something is wrong. It lets us know when attention is needed, possibly action too.
Pain and loss and irrevocable change is inevitable during the course of a lifetime. But that doesn’t mean that this dice or any of those Tarot cards are predicting imminent disaster for you any time soon. Don’t talk yourself into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead allow this to be a gentle reminder.
If disaster has happened, then you can continue, brick by brick, to recover. Things may never be the same, but they can be made better. You survived.
If disaster is happening now…why are you reading this? Go do what needs done. Take care of yourself and matters at hand.
If you are ok now, drink it in. Savor it for as long as it lasts. Right now, this present moment is precious.
Momento mori. Momento vivere.
Remember all things die. Then go, remember to live.
On that blissful note…
Thank you for reading.
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See you at the next sip!
*Publishing Goblin Oracle Dice used with permission of Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC
Sage Sips: a Tarot look at the week ahead in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Hello and welcome to Sage Sips the blog, the newsletter and, so it seems, the podcast.
I think we finally and for real have everything set up under th new name. Sage words tarot is the main website with links to all the good stuff including private readings you can order anytime, no appointment needed.
Sage Sips is the name of the active podcast. The old feed under the title “Sage’s Short Sip Tarot” has been deleted or soon will be. Sage Sips is the name of this blog on ko-fi and substack where you can also get these Pathway readings for the week ahead on Mondays, but also subscriber exclusive content at other times.
Simple! And hopefully easier to spell and remember than the name Tao Craft was. So now that all of that is apparently nailed down for the moment, let’s look at the cards and energies ahead for this week. When I say energies ahead I don’t mean what is going to happen.
Nope.
That is 100% up to you and your individual circumstances. These pathway readings are all about the energy conditions that you have to work with, the vibe ahead can help you to make better decisions and take the best actions for you as an individual. It’s like how the general weather report for everybody helps you to decide what to wear out of your individual wardrobe.
You can decide to bring an umbrella if pouring rain is on the horizon, that sort of metaphoric thing.
This week has big energy, but it is big yin energy. There are two major arcana cards, death and the high priestess. Both cards are inverted, and that feels very significant this time.
If you’ve listened or read for any amount of time, you know that I use pure intuition when it comes to reversed cards, that is to say cards that appear upside down relative to the person doing the reading.
Every card has every shade of meaning: black or white, positive or negative, encouraging or discouraging and every shade of grey in between. I tend to reach for all the shades of feeling for every card anyway, so a physical reversal may or may not be meaningful. It might hint that the part of life represented by the card’s position in the layout is blocked, or hindered or difficult somehow. Just as likely, it could be a hint at a particular set of meanings or key words for the card rather than the layout position. Or, just as likely as either of those, it could mean nothing at all.
In this case it feels like a pull. It feels like advice so slow down, to pull back. I’ve never actually done this, but I imagine this is the mental and emotional equivalent of swimming in thick syrup. There is power here, but it is like the power a bowl holds…its usefulness is in the empty space as much as the bowl that defines it.
There is a sense of tension and expectancy, a period of necessary emptiness and quiet to give future progress somewhere to go. That’s why the two major arcana cards are standing on their heads.
The mental image here is two things:
First is the three of wands card. I don’t think that card is significant with regard to its meaning or key words. It’s more of the feeling that is evoked by the artwork on the card, usually of a figure gazing at the horizon. That lends a sense of waiting and expectancy and holding space for hopes like the bowl analogy earlier.
Second is a diagram that looks like a circle within a circle acting as a hinge or a joint. As quiet or empty as this time may seem, it is necessary in order for things to turn in a better direction. It feels almost like the stars are pivoting around this space in time.
The Eight of Cups is the fading energy. That suits the nature of the card so well, that it may not really begin to fade all that much until we are well into the week. It may stick around for a while, actually. The eight of cups is about endings, about walking away from something for your own good or for the good another. It hints at a bittersweet or melancholy separation that at the same time is utterly necessary. It’s about moving on toward something better even when letting go of the past isn’t a joy or delight. Bittersweet, yes, but very very necessary. This card hints at one of those times where you must acknowledge those melancholy or nostalgic feelings even as you definitively let go and move on.
The current energy is death in reverse. Death is the card of change. It is different from the change we see in the Wheel of Fortune card. This change isn’t cyclic. It isn’t about change within a larger or grander pattern. The change in the death card is more permanent, and much more transformational. There are reasons this is inverted death rather than the wheel card or the hanged man card. This isn’t a pattern of progress – wait – more progress. This is cocoon time. The caterpillar is dead and gone, but it isn’t quite time for the butterfly to emerge either. The cake is in the oven, the butterfly is in the cocoon. Profound change is happening, but it is happening slowly, quietly, and subtly.
The High Priestess is sitting in front of one black and one white pillar. There is a very Tao Te Ching feeling here. The Priestess is usually a symbol of cosmic mysteries with very yin, dark, hidden qualities.
Here is where the Taoism part comes in.
You can’t have darkness without light. The mysterious and obvious are opposites that define each other just like light and dark define each other and the solid parts and empty parts of a bowl define each other.
As for the growing energy card, the High Priestess in reverse reminds us that sometimes you can take things at face value or, as Sigmund Freud famously said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
As big and soul-shaking as the walking-away energies in the eight of cups and the death card may be, the advice here is to not read more into things than are already there. The recent past has been difficult and chaotic and changing enough without us heaping unfounded assumptions on top of everything else.
During this time of quiet transformation it is probably best to take the week at face value.
Thank you all for reading, and once the podcast is back up and running, for listening too.
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Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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