divination – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Action Eases Anxiety (9 Nov 25)

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The “Action Eases Anxiety” layout was inspired by Buddhist philosophy (I HIGHLY recommend Dan Harris’ Substack) and my “Learn With Me” series about Lenormand Tarot.

The layout is like a sentence…a noun and a verb. It represents the current energy, then what to do about it. It isn’t a prediction or a quick fix, but making an action plan like this takes the edge of worries. Any tarot reading can help us focus on the moment at hand, not what may or may not happen in the future. That in itself can help ease worry.

What it is (left card): Ace of Cups, reversed. Something is leaking or spilling. Where are your emotions being spent uselessly? Where is your creative energies being wasted? What fucks are you giving that would be better not to give, or to at least give somewhere else?

What to do (right card): Ten of Wands. Put down responsibilities that aren’t really yours. Remember that you can show the way, but you can’t walk through the door for someone else. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Your happiness is your responsibility, no one else’s. No one can give it to you, but equally, no one can take it from you unless you give it away.

Thanks for reading and watching! See you at the next sip!

Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permissions Publishing Goblin LLC

Card for the Week of 15 Sept 25

Here is something a little different for the card of the week.

Daily meditation Tarot is a fantastic way to learn Tarot. The same idea can be extended to a card for the week. It is a next-step exercise that is more about building your intuition and general energy sense.

It’s easy to do.

Shuffle your deck, however you like. Shuffling is helpful because it clears any old energy from previous readings and ‘wakes up’ the deck (for lack of a better way of describing it)

Choose a card, any way you like. Cut the deck, fan the deck, draw from the top….whatever makes you happy.

In fact, making yourself happy is kind of the point of the card I drew, the Five of Swords.

It is often about ego and conflict. But the vibe here is internal, and I get mental images of the Five of Wands to go along with this. Put it together and it is about internal conflict. What do you NOT want to do that you are forcing yourself to gut it out and do? Where do you feel resistance? What part of this coming week do you want to block or avoid. What about the current situation that feels blocked or like it is blocking you?

Learn from that. Road blocks have signs on them. Detours are still a path forward. Or a message that maybe you were going the wrong way. Or a confirmation that the new path you’ve been considering is indeed the right one.

Like a daily meditation, it can help to put the card somewhere you can see it during the course of the week – someplace safe, like a bed side table or something. Whenever you see the card, take a second to be in the moment. Feel the energy, think a little how your initial impressions have connected (or not) with the week as it unfolds.

If you want to learn more about how to do your own daily meditation Tarot, PeaceTarot: Tarot as a Way to Peaceful Thoughts in Troubled Times is available as a pay what you want .pdf download in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop.

Weekend Oracle 1 August 25

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Weekend Oracle isn’t just for weekends because it doesn’t predict any period of time. Like the “week ahead” readings, it is just a read or your energy environment for the next few days. Weekends tend to be 2 or 3 days, so think of this as being the energy you will be dealing with or the energetic opportunity that is most dominant for the next 2-3 days.

They tend to have an advice tone: “This is your best chance to…” or “Now is a great time to….” sort of feeling. Think of it as a read of what the energy around you will support the best right now.

Drawn into the Dark Corners of the World: The card name is pretty much the reading. No one is perfect. No one is complete without their imperfections. Knowing and accepting your shadow side can give a sense of peace and contentment that can be found no other way.

Many traditions teach this idea around the world. In Japan, the philosophy and aesthetic of wabi sabi tells of the beauty in imperfection. The psychology of Carl Jung speaks of our shadow, the unconscious mind. Magickal and pagan traditions actively face this kind of shadow work as well.

This card is a call to look for what you typically do not see. Learn from where and how you give your precious attention. Look for, listen to, and learn from the dark corners. Be open with all due discernment to the places you wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find wisdom. You might be surprised at the gifts such places give.

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

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Weekend Oracle: Yin, Yang and Harmony

Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee

Think of any question that is on your mind, or think of the weekend ahead. This “Weekend Oracle” is the premier of my newest layout, TaoCraft Taijitu.

Inspired by the famous yin yang symbol, this three card layout shows yin (energies you are pulling in) yang (energies you are pushing away) and harmony (a way to be at peace and flow with all of these energies)

As usual, I read the cards right to left. This disrupts the deeply ingrained, logic-driven pattern of reading English left to right. That small cognitive shift helps to improve intuition and keep thought-habits at bay.

Of course, if your native language is Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese or other language that reads right to left, then reading Tarot left to right would make more sense.

With today’s cards we get:

Yin, The World. The World from the major arcana is a very positive, hopeful energy. It points to the big picture, the Gestalt, the everything. This is the energy you are drawing in.

Yang, Seven of Swords. This is energy that is moving away from you, or better still, energy you have been empowered to release and push away. The Seven of Swords card is associated with mischief by others and self-serving deception. In the picture a man is stealing away with swords. I intuitively ‘hear’ the old song “Steal Away” – I forget the artist, it is so old.

But in any case, there is a validating energy. You have been taken, deceived or a general victim of our collective chaotic circumstances just as much as you thought.

Harmony, The Fool. Traditionally the very first card of a RWS Tarot deck, this symbolizes fresh starts and new beginnings.

Taken as a whole, the message seems to be very hopeful: Things have been as bad as you thought, but are getting better holistically even if the changes in any one area of life seem very small. To be at peace and to help this transition along, look for any opportunity to start new .

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

There! I fixed it for him.

Sage Sips blog is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee

I am LOVING this cooler weather, which means its cool enough to fire up the oven and bake something.

Believe it or not life isn’t all Tarot and out there in the world is where the rubber meets the road with intuitive and psychic learning. What’s the good of it if it doesn’t make everything else a little better? And Tarot can’t make other stuff better if there is no other stuff in the conversation.

I promised you occasional exclusive content, and I want to make good on that promise…with some non-Tarot fun stuff. This month’s “ko-fi challenge” is to share things that give you creative joy. You already know the creative joy of Tarot. Now I’d like to share some of the other little things that bring joy – creative and otherwise – to life for me. It may bore you to tears, and it certainly isn’t the right thing for everyone. I’m sharing these things not because you should do them, but as a little incantation – a little wish that you find the things that bring the same joy to you whatever that joy-bringer is for you. Today, my joy-bringer is baked tater tot hot dish

Y’all know my politics, especially if you follow me on Threads (also reverted to the @TaoCraft handle) And if there is any way on earth to entice me to donate to a political campaign it would be to offer a recipe in return. So who am I to turn down a chance to peep Tim Walz’ hot dish recipe.

Not disappointed in the donation one bit, but the recipe needed a little work. Sorry Tim, but if I have beer in the house Imma drinking it, not boiling onions and brats in it. But it does have plenty of cheese which is the important thing.

Every time I hear them give a speech or see them interact with the public, the more I appreciate, respect both Vice President Harris and Governor Walz. I mean listen to them and LOOK at their eyes and faces. This is real deal compassion and leadership. Governor Walz is amazing and does a million things super well, but I suspect cooking isn’t one of them. Hopefully Kamala will sort that detail out. I am 100% down with her turkey roasting method that went social media viral in 2020. Put those two in charge PRONTO.

All politics aside (sort of – vote Harris/Walz!!!!) here is my tweeked-up practically unrecognizable version of his hot dish recipe available on https://store.kamalaharris.com/tim-walzs-new-ulm-hotdish-recipe-digital-download/

Please donate if you can while you are there. It truly is existential. If you have any regard for spirituality or Tarot or ANYTHING other than authoritarian white Christian nationalism, you are in their culture war cross hairs. It is my deepest wish that we all have a happy, healthy, prosperous, well-fed future from this present moment on.

Join Sage Sips on Ko-fi to read more, including my slightly tweeked-up recipe

Members recieve:

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Sharing Tarot AND recipes with Sage Sips members brings me #KofiCreativeJoy

Select cuts of meatspace sabbatical

Getting cozy here in the blog and blowing off social media for a few days, Not exactly meatspace, but a sabbatical just the same.

I like cyberpunk novels from the 80’s: William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, Snow Crash…you get the idea.

Gibson (in Neuromancer, I think) coined the term “meat puppet” which referred to the physical body as ‘meat’. So when people talk about “meat space” they mean the physical realm, in other words NOT cyberspace (another term coined by Gibson as I remember it)

I need to unplug from social media for a few days, yet I have some of that ridiculous anxiety that a few days away can provoke. I don’t want to show up here Monday and do a Choose your Card Tarot reading for an empty cyber-room.

That worry is proof in itself that a little time in meat space is needed. But only by half. I still want to do a little polishing on the website (not as done as I thought I was) and work on some other writing. So I’m basically visiting old familiar blog-only cyberspace. It feels like going home to be in this corner of cyberspace without pandering to social media. It feels like putting the toddlers to sleep and pouring myself a nice glass of wine and putting my feet up in front of a fireplace with a good book. Pull up a chair and glass of whatever you want to sip, and let’s do some old school blogging.

Speaking of homecoming, here’s a lightly edited Q&A from the archives:

Q: Nothing you said came true. Why not?

A: I. Don’t. Make. Predictions.

I’ve said it a thousand times. Tarot doesn’t predict the future. That is the dark ages, flat-earth way of using Tarot.

It doesn’t matter if predictions are “true” or not. I could sit here and make perfect, on-target, 100% accurate predictions all day long, but then you could go out five minutes later and do something that changes everything. (See: Predicting the Future and a Big Cube of Jell-O)

Remember Yoda from Star Wars? The future really is fluid and always changing. Life is cause and effect. If you drop an apple, it will fall down. If you strike a match, it will catch on fire. If you pour water on something it will get wet.

Cause and effect is the way Nature works. It is science. Your future is created by what you choose and do. Tarot is a way to look at options, then choose the flow of energy that is best for you. It is a chance to choose the things that will help cause the effect you want. Tarot helps you to choose the path most likely to take you where you want to go in the long run…not describe every inch of dirt along the way.

Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

The Way of Zombie Cat

Zombie Cat’s unique way of yes/no Tarot readings. Order your private yes/no with Zombie Cat, no appointment needed

There are lots of ways to do a yes or no reading.

In my experience, the most essential thing is to have a question in mind and keep it mind throughout whatever process you use. It’s the same intention-setting process that Tarot readers use to write a layout. Throwing cards willy-nilly isn’t as helpful as having a clear layout and layout meanings clearly in mind before turning the cards.

For yes/no readings, there are lists of cards that are yes or no, and you do a single card draw for a succinct answer. Some of the lists I’ve seen don’t have much rhyme or reason for the yes or no connotations assigned to each card. I’ve seen some methods that say swords and wands mean no while cups and coins mean yes, which leaves a much shorter list of yes/no associations for the major cards.

Years ago in an intuition development class led by Joy Star, I learned a more complex, interesting and (in my experience) helpful three card method:

Deal the cards into three stacks. Stop dealing to a stack when it gets an ace or 13 cards, whichever comes first.

Three aces means yes

Two aces means maybe, leaning yes

One ace means maybe, leaning no

No aces means no.

Of all the possible yes/no methods, this was my favorite. It’s the only yes/no method I use, but with a couple of minor twists.

Most of the time, once you’ve determined the yes or no, the reading ends there, kind of like one of those Magic 8 ball toys. I add an extra layer of depth to take this reading over and above a simple yes, no, or maybe. I look at the three cards that are showing, whatever the yes/no answer turns out to be. That extra layer of meaning can either help you to support the answer if you are happy with it or give clues on how to change it if you aren’t.

Just like with the five card layout that I wrote in 2003, I want these readings to empower your choices and empower your control over your future through basic cause and effect. I changed the number of aces meaning to align with a three coin toss from Chinese I Ching divination.

The I Ching (Book of Changes) is rooted in Taoist philosophy, and the principle of yin and yang. In the taijitu, the familiar yin-yang symbol, the opposite color dots remind us that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. In I Ching, three coins are used to determine if any given line is yin, yang, yin “changing” or Yang “changing.” A changing line is one believed to be so strongly yin or strongly yang that it is in the process of changing into its opposite. We can do a “learn with me” later to describe the rest of the I Ching divination process, but the changing line is the only part we need for now.

To bring the changing line concept into Tarot yes/no, I adapted the meanings connected to the number of aces that wind up showing at the end of the three-stack dealing process. If the pattern is akin to a changING line in I Ching, I read it as a changABLE result in the yes/no Tarot layout. A yes-but-changable or no-but-changable answer puts the ball most strongly in your court so to speak. The time and place and energy is extra amenable to you making a real impact on the outcome.

So Zombie Cat does a yes/no Tarot reading this way:

The cards are shuffled holding the question clearly in mind

The cards are dealt into three piles, stopping when there are 13 cards in the stack or an ace appears, whichever comes first.

One ace is a hard no, it may be very difficult to change course

Zero aces is no, but things are easier to change

Two aces is a hard yes, this is the way things are likely to go if you do nothing

Three aces means yes, but can change if you act.

I write these under my Zombie Cat persona, which means the reading takes a more lighthearted, playful tone with plenty of cringe attempts at humor.

Zombie Cat is going to be the member’s special for March. Between now and March 31, 2024 Sage Sip members can get an upgrade to Zombie Cat readings as a substitute for any of the one card Sage Sip readings that are included in the monthly membership.

Non-members can order a zombie cat yes/no readings anytime HERE, no appointment needed. Scroll down through the menu list of readings to find the Zombie Cat layout.

Have a good weekend everyone! See you at the next Sip!

Sage

Zombie Cat doodle – by the author

Cat image from the public domain, modified by the author

You Choose: Card for the Week (29 Jan 24)

You choose your Tarot card to guide this week

Order private readings by email, video or pen & ink HERE

This is an interactive reading! Pick a card from the photo above, then click HERE to see the reveal.

Get the short reading in the video description or come back here to get the full reading below.

King of Wands

The kings have been conferencing! The right message will always find you even if it seems like a mistake at first. I’ve mis-typed ‘king of pentacles’ twice. It feels like the king of pentacles is chiming in along with the king of wands. It’s a blend, not a substitution, so there are two threads of energy running through this card’s message.

There is a sense of practicality from the pentacle’s energy along with a strong sense of self from the wand’s energy. Kings are leaders and protectors. Combine it all and go do what needs done. Pay attention to details. Do all due diligence. That kind of work, practicality and prevention are a form of self protection and self care. Remember it is always easier to put out small fires before they turn into big ones.

The Hierophant

Sometimes called the Pope or the High Priest, this major arcana card is all about internal growth and personal development. It feels like this is the week to break old habits, make new ones, step outside of your comfort zone – especially in terms of social conformity. Use your inner wisdom. If this is a week for other cards to share energy with the ones we see, the Queen of Cups is the one chiming in here. You have deep knowing. Use it to go your own way (in fact, the Fleetwood Mac song by that name pops up here) Take the wisest action, even if it is unpopular at first blush. Being a people pleaser isn’t always the wisest thing for you, or for the people you are trying to please.

The High Priestess

The High Priestess is the guardian of the mysteries. Unlike the other two cards, this energy is all her. The word “portal” comes to mind, along with “the flow of time.”

“Time and inspiration must intersect” is the core of it.

It’s ok to not know something. It’s ok to not have the answers. One of my all time favorite ideas in Tarot actually comes from a physicist. Richard Feynman, known for his work in quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, once said “I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

And there is more to life that facts and knowledge. Emotion, spirit, wisdom, experience and all the many facets of being human have their role to play. Those things come in time, at their own time.

So often people come to Tarot to know the unknowable future. Tarot doesn’t have all the answers. Sometimes its best function is to help you ask the right questions – and then wait for the right time for the answers to come.