eight of cups – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Standing in the Shimmer, no paywall edition

Over the past several months I have been given images and messages about letting go, moving on, releasing what no longer serves.

That especially included romance Tarot questions which always makes people hurt and angry, understandable so. Heartbreak and loneliness are some of life’s sufferings that no one wants to experience.

Still, there is a tiny glint of encouragement, a little bit of shimmer among the ashes.

Astrology isn’t my strong suit, but according to internet memes, things are turning a corner, at least on individual levels. I’m not touching world events here. If I can give a little encouragement on an individual by individual basis, that’s plenty enough of a win. Encouraged individuals are then a little bit more resilient and able to speak and resist and do whatever else we can in the flaming, toxic social / political environment that has been dropped in our collective lap through no fault of our own.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with anything, but my sun, moon, and rising signs are all on this particular list. They are on to something with this meme. I was really feeling it when I wrote the Standing in the Ashes post a few days ago and can personally relate to that post.

Since I have a full time day job now and have had to remake my professional Tarot practice into something entirely different, I am basically standing in the ashes of 20+ years of work. If you resonated with that post – me too.

This corner-turning energy that has cropped up this week in spite of world events really does beg the question of NOW WHAT. Now that we’ve done the hard things, now that we are standing in the ashes of the bridges we’ve burned, what are we going to do?

Here is where the encouragement part comes in.

Reading Tarot isn’t just about the cards. To be really good at it, you also have to draw in present-moment intuition that relates to the person, situation and energy of the moment at hand when you are doing a reading.

Last week was one of those weeks where I wrote for the blog in bits, little times fit in between other necessary things. It was interesting to see the energy shift even as I was working on a post about a single card here and there over the course of the week.

The day after the post published two days ago, the mental image the card prompted came back to mind, but with a subtle but important change.

The figure on the card was facing a different direction. Not back the way he came, but at a different angle than is on the card. There was less water, no cups (symbolizing less emotional upset, more clarity, and a greater sense of calm)

Most of all, the ground was all grey, like the ashes in the post BUT with a silver and gold shimmer. It reminded me of the simulated moon dust from an old episode of Mythbusters but with the tiny glitter they add to nail polish mixed in.

Yeah, everything has been burned to ash, but that ash is shimmering with potential. The shimmer is new, compared to the same mental image from writing the other post a few days ago

The Standing In The Ashes post put the onus of rebuilding on us. Then the energy was reminding us that our intention matters. Causes have effects and we are the cause of our next experiences. It’s a little bit of a dark and burdensome message, but there is no light without the shadow. Or as Carl Jung wrote “…the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

Yes it is our responsibility to choose what we do next as we stand among the ashes of the past. Yesterday is gone…so what shall we do today to make tomorrow better?

The shimmer reminds us that among the loss, among the ashes is great potential. The ashes remind us that the same old Phoenix is there is we choose to let them rise. But the shimmer reminds us that change is forever present. Change is life. We can choose the Phoenix that rises this time.

image public domain via Wikipedia commons @lychee532

Standing in the Shimmer

More on the 8 of Cups, a continuation of the recent post Standing in the Ashes

Over the past several months I have been given images and messages about letting go, moving on, and releasing what no longer serves.

That especially included the Valentines Day and romance Tarot questions – which always makes people hurt and angry, understandable so. Heartbreak and loneliness are some of life’s suffering that no one wants to experience.

Still, there is a tiny glint of encouragement, a little bit of shimmer among the ashes…

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Standing in the Ashes

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8 of Cups: You’ve let go of that which no longer serves you. That creates space. What are you holding that space FOR?

It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum. That space you’ve created will be filled with something. Are you going to fill it intentionally or let chaos and entropy take its course?

You’ve burned the necessary bridges so now you stand among the ashes. What will you build from them?

This is the why behind the “let it go” type of energy we’ve seen so much for many months now. When you let go and burn whatever bridges that need to be burned it creates the space and materials to build something new. It becomes necessary to deliberately and intentionally create whatever aligns with yourself and your needs as they are in this present moment.

Or you have the choice to surrender your intention and let the same old Phoenix rise.

What do you want? What will you do as you stand amid the space and ashes after you have let the right things go?

Action Eases Anxiety: Tarot for the week of 19 October 25

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This is a time of re-evaluation and release. Take a hard, honest look at the way things actually ARE so when the energy shifts to a mores active stance, you can do what truly needs done, even if the thing that needs done is letting go.

The dominance of female images points toward a very yin, quiet, drawing in energy this week. In autumn, many trees shed their leaves, so Autumn Queen reminds us of letting go, which can be filled with feelings of loss and sadness just as much as the experience is filled with empowerment and freedom. The energy truly is bittersweet this week. This energy is very much akin to the 8 of cups in RWS type decks.

The thing to do in this environment is to take a reality check. The Autumn Lady works with the queen like an advisor, keeping decisions grounded in reality and practicality. The action of taking inventory is a quiet, introspective one but an action nonetheless.

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Deck: The Normal Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission from publishing goblin llc.

Not So Lost After All

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THE LOST KING: This Normal Tarot card (deck by Seven Dane Asmund of @publishinggoblin1072 used with permission) wraps together elements of the Hanged Man, Death (reversed) and 8 of cups tarot cards.

Not only do I love the gold foil on black with skeletons aesthetic of this deck, each card seems to masterfully weave together multiple Tarot ideas with a modern sensibility. It is like getting an entire “action eases anxiety” layout in a single card.

In this case, the King element reminds us we are in charge of our inner world. This reminds us we are our own leader, decision maker and high priest(ess) The upside down image, the Hanged Man element, hints at something blocked, turbulent of being resisted. The thing being resisted is change, which connects this card draw to the death-card-change energy that has been appearing in multiple readings lately. There is also an element of 8 of Cups energy that advises some sort of letting go or walking away, which also entails big, sometimes frightening, sometimes much resisted change.

If this reading resonates with you today, let’s put it into the “action eases anxiety” layout model. The energy here is one of taking charge of your own decisions and actions. Change is happening, soon to happen, or much needed but delayed. Any of those scenarios can cause fear or worry. The action that can help is to face the changes, make deliberate (albeit painful) choices. Make the changes you know are the right ones for you. Difficult emotions and consequences of your choices may come, but a better path may well come right along with it.

Thanks again for reading. The next couple of weeks are going to be more squirrel-rave-ish than usual, so I’m not sure when it will be, but I definitely will see you at the next sip!

Action Eases Anxiety: Portal

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Current Energy: THE KEY. This is a time of transition, a liminal portal from one cycle to another – not quite finished, not quite begun. This energy is akin to a blend of the RWS eight of cups and the Magician energy than the pure beginning energy of the Fool card. This isn’t pure beginning. It is manifesting in the context of a new cycle. This resounding quiet is a potent time to plant the seeds of being and set intentions to manifest in the future.

Next Step: CLOUDS. Endings and beginnings both carry potent emotions. When endings and beginnings come close together, as in a closed circle, the emotions can be intensified. Be kind to yourself. Remember moods and emotions are transient as clouds. Let go. You can’t grasp the mist.

Action, doing something, can ease the anxiety and worries that can’t help but persist if we do nothing but wonder ‘what if…’ Action is necessary for there to be change, for anything to actually manifest. But the first step in any action begins in the invisible, begins with thought or decision. Making an action plan is as essential as the action itself, no matter how quickly that thought or decision or plan happens.

Making a decision – even the decision to do nothing – is in itself an action that eases anxiety.

At Face Value

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.

All of my free Tarot content is readers and listener supported. No monetization means your Tarot message comes first with me, not an advertiser’s message. If you like what you see in these weekly readings, please consider a private reading, subscribing the exclusive content on ko-fi or substack or sending a tip to the virtual coffee mug.

Thanks again, see you at the next sip!

Free Yourself

Healing requires a change of heart and mind

They don’t call it a hook for nothing.

Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sips: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m Sage and I’m glad that you are here.

Sometimes, when things go a little wonky, you just pick up the pieces and go on without a second thought. It’s like the upside down or reversed cards we’ve talked about before. Sometimes it feels like nothing so I flip the card and keep going. Sometime the reversal feels significant so I read it as a caution that some aspect of the energy is blocked or turbulent.

The same process applies to making the youtube videos of the real world card draw that inspires all of the short sip posts and pods. Sometimes things get clumsy or stuck filming the card draw for the day. Most of the time I just scoop up the cards and re-do it so it fits into a 15 second tiktok or youtube short. Today I was the stuck one instead of the two cards that stuck together for this video. I thought about scooping up the cards and re-shooting, but I felt stuck on this and got a niggly little feeling that the other card…both cards together really… might be important.

Today we get the eight of swords PLUS the eight of cups.

The second card surprised me by being an eight card too. Getting two eight cards back to back feels significant. It might just be validation that the two cards are indeed connected and working in together for today’s message, but it feels bigger than that. Eight isn’t ringing any bells for me personally. What about you? Anybody with an August birthday? Anyone connecting to any August event: a birth, death, or any anything from any August in the past? Any connection with the eighth of any month? Any eight connection at all with the number 8 that lights up for you?

Is that vague and stage cold reading enough for you? Anybody and everybody can probably drum up some connection with either the number 8 or the month of August. All of these suggestions are the standard, banal, boilerplate interpretations of repeating numbers in a Tarot reading. I only mention it because it feels important to the collective energy part of this reading. Like everyone on the planet, I can think of a connection for me with August…so trust me. Your gut will undoubtedly know if your 8 or August connection is energetically significant or not. You’ll know if this is something meaningful that you should pay attention to, or if it is just coincidental B.S. that you can brush right off.

That, I suspect, is where all the scammy hype rip-off Tarot readers and psychics go off the rails by making some big, ego-inflating deal out of common coincidence rather than supporting your individual intuition.

Don’t listen to me, don’t listen to the cards. Listen to your own instincts. The cards, and my role as a reader is just to support your understanding with a few little nudges, creative prompts and lots of food for thought. In the end, your thinking matters more than any coincidences that might come along to fuel it.

Which brings us circling right back around to the the two-card message for today.

Swords have to do with mind, intellect and action. I’m reminded of a line from some 90s song “free your mind, and the rest will follow.” It was some pop song girl group, and I don’t remember a single thing else about it other than that one lyric, but that one line has always stuck. They don’t call it a hook for nothing. This is the message from the 8 of swords today. The card is talking about freeing your mind.

The figure on the card is surrounded by swords and blindfolded. One of the key ideas of this card is that freedom is still possible even when the odds seem stacked against you. The key is to use creative problem solving. In this Pamela Smith card image, the figure’s feet are bare but unbound, and there is a gap in the swords encircling the person. They’d have to be really, really REALLY careful but they could feel their way to freedom given enough time. There would be a price to pay in shallow cuts, but the freedom is possible with the right action.

The eight of cups is connected to emotions more than the cutting intellect and precise careful action suggested by the eight of swords. The eight of cups is about the bittersweet moving on from heartbreak into the future, from emotional devastation into emotional healing. Sure – there were good times. Sure – there were painful times. But sometimes the only way forward is through, and the only way through is to let the past go.

Now put both cards together – free your mind AND free your heart. For true freedom, both mind (attitude, understanding) and heart (feelings, intentions) have to change AND move on from the old ways. Both cards imply movement from a bad situation toward a better future.

Thank you all so much for reading and listening today. I hope everyone, including podcast listeners will follow the free blog, as I always have some blog only content in the works. You can opt in by putting your email in the box in the right hand column of the blog website (link is in the episode description for podcast folks). You can unsubscribe at any time, although obviously I hope you won’t. Instead of unsubscribing, send a blog comment. I use the feedback to improve things or get content ideas. So thanks in advance for any comments, questions, likes, subs, follows or shares that you can spare.

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Thanks again! See you at the next sip!

CrystalCast for week of 5 Dec 22

The story continues. It always does.

Hi and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and Podcast. I’m glad you are here. I hadn’t planned on doing one of these this week, but when the time presented itself, well, the schedule is that there is no schedule so here we are.

This is a new blog & podcast feature that I’m developing. It’s purely intuition driven, using crystal chips and rune stones tossed randomly on a reading cloth as a prompt, or a sounding board, or an amplifier for the intuition. But then, that is exactly how Tarot readings work so it isn’t so much develop as practice. You get the idea.

I like the way this energy picks up where the last one leaves off. Remember how the runestones made a line, a wall of sorts a few weeks ago. The advice was to chill and not to push and wait for the energy to flow again.

This is our cue. We are past whatever that blockage or “wait” energy was. Energy is on an upswing. It’s time to climb. It’s time to move again…or time to move on.

Here the images go all pop culture. I get a snippet of that old Doors song, about “break on through to the other side” (Where did that come from? I’m listening to my goth playlist right now, for crying out loud.) Here is another reference for the gen X and boomers out there. Cue the kool-aid “oh yeah” commercials with the pitcher mascot guy breaking through walls and stuff. I think that means we are definitely on the other side of whatever that blockage might have been.

But it isn’t as lighthearted as flavored sugary sugar drinks might imply. There is a catch in the throat and a little heaviness in the pit of the stomach with this one. It is definitely time to move on, but it isn’t necessarily with with a light heart or a dry eye. This is a very nostalgic time of year. It is the hardest time to think of leaving anything behind, even things that have proven harmful or long past due. There is a strong eight of cups sort of bittersweet feeling here.

As much as I love Halloween, there comes a time to get rid of the moldy jack o lantern and that turkey carcass has got to go.

It is also a very forward looking time of year. We all hold hope that next year will be just a little better. That happens. I live in the United States so I can only compare the local energies, really, but compare 2022 to the toxic dumpster fire explosion that 2020 here. NOW covid vaccines and real treatments actually exist, unemployment is remarkably low, things are getting fixed because there actually was an infrastructure bill,there is a good man in the White House and toilet paper in the stores. I might have to make a loaf of sourdough just for old time’s sake, but that’s another story.

The larger piece of raw quarz at the top gives a sense of amplified energy “from above.” We are moving again, and headed in a good direction.

My logical side throws in “don’t screw it up” in what sounds a lot like Han Solo telling Luke Skywalker not to get cocky.

The Raidho rune is expansive, and speaks of will power, personal power, discipline, self-control, motivation, action…all of which fits the narrative of movement, rising, moving on.

Ihwaz speaks of an awareness of karma, and personal responsibility. We reap as we sow, and the seeds we plant now brings a future harvest. Act as if what you give to the universe returns to you three times as much.

The light and dark crystals seem even in amount, a reminder to be as steady and balanced as you can be. Solid footing is more important than speed. Slow and steady is still moving ahead, still moving on, just the same as a sprint. This isn’t a race.

The lone chip off to the side reminds that what is said isn’t for everyone. You must decide if it resonates or if you are an outlier to this cast’s message.

And there the energy steps back.

I was around more than planned in November, but the blog and podcast are going to be on for-real hiatus from December 5 to December 22. Happy Holidays to all of you, whatever holiday you may or may not celebrate.

I celebrate the human spirit that survives the long night and the diverse multitude of colorful lights that you all are. Best wishes to you. See you soon.

Flow Forward

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today’s card is the eight of cups.

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Today’s card is the eight of cups.

The eight of cups always seems to have a bittersweet sense of resignation about it, and today is no different. Cups cards have to do with emotions and our closest relationships in life. Very often the eight in particular has to do with a needed, healthy, healing, necessary parting of ways. Often when we see this card, something is being left behind, even if it is as minor as a bad habit. It reminds me a little bit of an exercise the therapists would give the clients when I worked as medical support on an inpatient rehab unit long ago. They would write a letter breaking up with their addiction, essentially saying goodbye to their drug of choice.

I’m not suggesting that everyone hearing this is addicted to something or anything so dramatic, by intuition seems a little stuck on the idea of a bad habit. This is the time of year for making those healthy lifestyle resolutions. If you have any inkling that you need something like that, then this is a good time of year for it. The collective energy is working in your favor and you have plenty of company along that path.

That’s on the nuts and bolts physical level. It feels like there is something more subtle, more esoteric, something on the emotional and spiritual level coming through for this card as well. That piece of it is not connected to the “bad habit” idea.

I want to connect it to the famous quote by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who said that “no man can step in the same river twice. It’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

We all leave everything behind all of the time whether we like it or not just by virtue of the passage of time. It’s kind of a terrifying prospect when you put it in those terms. But moving forward can include moving to a place of remembrance and appreciation.

We are always moving forward through and ever-changing river of time. That unavoidable forward movement is easier if we move our attention forward with it. Turn to the past too much for too long and you get an awful lot of water splashed right in your face. You can carry the good parts of the past with you, and you can leave the harmful parts behind but you can never walk through the same river twice. We can only flow forward.

Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening to these (almost) daily short sip Tarot clips. The virtual tip mug and memberships on ko-fi supports the creation of the blog, podcast and youtube shorts. Your likes, subs, follows and shares are always, always appreciated. See you at the next sip.