Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.
Tarot can play a part in both. This month, I’m returning to where it all began with daily meditation style Tarot readings on the Sage Sips main blog, the Substack and the socials. Your private readings, memberships and virtual coffees all support these free collective Tarot readings.
EIGHT OF PENTACLES: Meditation meets you where you live. It can be found in almost any simple, repetitive task. The mindless can be a portal to the mindful.
I’ve quoted Alan Watts so many times before, but it applies here again – “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.“
True to Tarot, even the earthy, ground oh-so-practical Pentacle cards have a spiritual side. Pentacle spirituality is particularly akin to Zen and Taoist spirituality.
Simple productivity can feed your soul as much as a job feeds your bank account and in turn your stomach. That isn’t to say that your job has to be ultra spiritual. Any work can be of service and finding a job that you love is a treasure beyond money.
Feeling and being productive improves mood: Action eases anxiety, literally.
Easy, repetitive, ‘mindless’ activity is relaxing. No wonder things like knitting, crochet, jogging, hiking, gardening, sports of all sorts are all popular hobbies. Anything that occupies your hands and body while bringing your mind to the moment at hand is meditation. In these million different ways, meditation meets you right where you live if you allow it to be there. Meditation meets you where you live and brings a little mental health help right along with it.
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deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC
“The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
Former MIT educator and author of Wherever You Go, There You Are (1994) – a title that I always assumed was a nod to one of my favorite movies, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension
“No matter where you go, there you are.” – Buckaroo Banzai (1984)
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Sage Sips is Tarot for your day (or the week ahead) in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you like to sip this time of day)
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Hi! Thanks for reading! I’m glad you are here.
This reading symbolizes our energy patterns through the week ahead. This particular layout is read right to left, opposite of how I turned the cards in the video. The first card shows energy that is drifting away, the middle card is the closest, largest energy around right now, while the left card shows the energy that is growing in influence. This kind of reading is closer to a weather report about the general energies right now. No predictions here. This gives you an idea of the energies ahead. It’s up to us to make the most of it, for better or worse.
The energies this week are pretty simple. Down to earth, grounded and balanced are always key words around pentacles. That is the suit in the majority today. It’s not so much a matter of head over heart. Practicality takes the lead over either one of those.
June is vacation season for families, with the kids fresh out of school. We are just past the July 4th holiday. Summer always seems to start off with frenetic hurry up and have vacation energy followed by hot doldrums. It feels a little like the doldrums are definitely setting in. It feels a little early compared to other years, but fitting for this year somehow. Sit in the shade, drink lemonade, and don’t push or pressure anything at the moment.
“Take comfort” steps forward as a the carry away message, at least for the first part of the week. After the vacations and picnics and typical flurry of activity, things are settling into a summertime routine. Take comfort in routine, in work, in something ANYTHING familiar that doesn’t ask much of you mentally or emotionally. The Zen spirituality of just peeling the potatoes comes to mind here in the spirit of my favorite Alan Watts quote. The eight of pentacles reflects this get down to business and do the thing energy.
Energies have been a little woo woo and ethereal with last week’s high priestess and memento mori vibes. The current energy brings that back into balance with two of pentacles. Just like the ace of swords yesterday…the current energy today also points to mind-body-spirit balance being a source of strength, and contentment.
The pendulum swings back later in the week from grounded and external to a little more esoteric and emotional. The page of cups reflects a return to fousing on feelings and emotions. The Page, gazing at a cup and the little fish that is said to be secrets or truths from the deep water, from the human psyche, reminds us to look for the hidden spirit behind the physical, the magic within the mundane.
Here’s the routine I’m aiming to take refuge in this week:
Tuesday: day job day – no blog or socials. Email readings are always OPEN no appointment needed.
Wednesday: Learn with Me – oracle dice and “lord cards” continues
Thursday – wild card (will post something if I have time)
Friday – weekend update. We’ll revisit these cards and see if and how they are unfolding and progressing.
Thanks again for reading. See you at the next sip.
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one peels the potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes
Sage Sips: Tarot in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
One of my all time favorite media personalities, Adam Savage once said “Remember kids, the difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.”
Part of my plotting with this rebranding and adding the Substack newsletter is to do the free three card path through the week reading on Mondays, then on Wednesdays, take a slightly deeper dive into the single “current energy” card. I’m thinking Fridays would be a good day to explore oracle cards or other divination tools like crystal casts, cold readings, channeling, pendulums, I Ching or whatever other intuition driven impulse comes along. Other posts, like Q&A or other longer reads will be entirely random. I count myself lucky to have things this organized. I enjoy having flexibility. Intuition or spirit or energy or whatever you want to call it – it doesn’t follow a schedule. Spirit guides and muses don’t give a flying rat’s patootie about social media or best marketing practices. I still don’t have ducks, I still don’t have rows, but this might make the squirrel rave playlist a little more fun for me.
And that, folks, is me following the eight of pentacles current energy advice.
All of the RWS Tarot cards have dozens of key words or phrases that have accumulated around them over the years – centuries, actually. Some are enduring and can be traced back to the writing of A.E. Waite and others, some are contemporary, either written into the guidebook for a specific deck or in a general Tarot book that can apply to any deck. The eight of pentacles (sometimes also called coins or disks) has been connected to skill, diligence, hard work, a project in progress, work, productivity, repetition, craftsmanship and more.
In addition to the long list of key words, each card can be read purely intuitively. The card and its keywords are simply a prompt or a springboard for the reader’s own human intuition or psychic skill. That opens up the reading to an infinity of meanings.
We can talk about intuitive vs key word Tarot readings later. For now lets focus on the eight of pentacles, since it seems to be resonating with one of the well-known meanings – diligence.
Or in this case it came to mind as the contemporary phrase “due diligence” which also brings to mind professionalism and discipline. Due diligence makes me think of doing what needs done to keep things right. It’s all about attention to detail, crossing of those Ts, finding out what needs to be known. It’s nose to the grindstone time. It is not a good time to phone it in and definitely not time for a f**k around and find out approach.
Do the science. Do the diligence. Write stuff down, metaphorically speaking at least.
Thanks for reading.
See you at the next sip!
*Waite Smith Tarot card image from the public domain
Hello and welcome to a whole bunch of stuff. I’m glad you are here. This is the first week of a new and hopefully stable web presence for Sage Words Tarot. Most Mondays you can find these three card Tarot readings for the week ahead in lots of places. So pour yourself a cup of whatever you like to sip this time of day and have a seat at the Tarot Table. The readings are the same no matter whether you came to the table by way of the Sage Words Tarot blog on wordpress and ko-fi, Sage Sips podcast, or Sage Sips on Substack. No matter how you got here, I’m happy you ARE here, so let’s take a look at these cards.
My hunch is to do this in the same format as I would for an email private reading. You KNOW I’m going to tell you that distance Tarot is my specialty and private readings are available to order 24 / 7 no appointment needed. Email Tarot has loads of advantages for both of us, and there is a web page and blog post about that coming soon, too.
That being said, this is my three card pathway layout. I based it on the old ubiquitous past, present, future layout but it doesn’t work with exact time or with predictions. This about the collective energy environment, sort of a psychic weather report that helps you to figure out your best way forward through whatever life throws at you. Like I’ve said for years now: Tarot doesn’t tell you what is going to happen in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
The layout is read from right to left, in the opposite direction of reading English. I do it that way for a couple of reasons. First, that’s just how I learned to do it a long, long time ago. It’s comfortable and it works. I think the part where we read cards in the opposite direction from reading words is important. Language and grammar is a logical process. When we flip the reading direction it disrupts that deeply ingrained logical thought pattern. That disruption helps to get past established mental habits and get to intuition a little bit easier.
The first card, the one on the right, symbolizes the energy that is fading. The middle card is the strongest energy around at the present moment. I’m writing this on a Monday morning – April 17, 2023 to be exact. Chances are, you are reading it at a different time. That’s where the customization comes in, even at a distance, even in a collective reading. In my experience, the inspiration we need is all around us. Whether you see it as psychic, spiritual, energetic or what have you, the message you need will find you one way or another and the moment you need it the most. Whenever you are reading this, the cards reflect your individual moment in time.
The left hand card is the energy that is growing in influence. Again, it is like an energy weather report of the vibe you might be dealing with later on. It is not a prediction of what is about to happen.
Another way to think of the layout is as the path we’ve already walked, the place where we stand now, and the path just ahead.
I tend not to use that metaphor because “path ahead” makes it too easy to fall into the trap of thinking in terms of predictions or some kind of archaic fortune telling. Tarot has evolved beyond that. If you are looking for someone to predict the future, I’m not the Tarot reader for you. I’m here for the personal growth, spiritual enrichment, inspiration and creative problem solving aspects of Tarot. I’m here to be a better person and better adapt to this squirrel rave we call life. Predictions can’t do regardless of whether they come true or not. But that’s another rant for another day.
My readings start with what I call the “general pattern.” That part isn’t as telling in these three card layouts as it is in a five or seven card layout. Here we see two minor arcana cards and one major. That is roughly the proportion of minor to major cards in the deck as a whole, so logically you would expect to see that same ratio in the layout. When that happens, I read it as “as expected” overall energy. No red lights, no sirens, no windfalls, no winning lottery tickets, just the normal, usual, average ups and downs of everyday living. In other words, chances are it is going to be a typical week, whatever is typical for you. The major arcana card is the growing energy position so the overall dynamics of the week will be building as time goes on as opposed to remaining steady or chilling out as we move toward the weekend. Things are on an upswing, which makes sense after the laid back energies of the past few weeks. It makes sense that the pendulum would finally start to swing in the other direction.
The fading energy is the Ten of Cups. Classically, the Ten of Cups is associated with all the happy family things you would expect based on the picture on the card. Cups cards are connected to the water element, emotions and our closest inner circle relationships. This isn’t to say that things are going to get unhappy or that you are going to lose the things that are dearest to you. In this case, it is the opposite. Words like “foundation” and “foundational” come to mind. Support systems, be it genetic family, found family or otherwise are very much there to support you.
I think this is the real cornerstone of this week’s reading.
The Ten of Cups reminds us that we have support. Know your foundation and your matrix. Before it was a movie or hair care line, matrix meant the environment something was in. Matrix is our milieu and the substrate of life. It’s glue. It’s the stuff that holds it all together.
Allow yourself to be supported. You are not alone. You don’t have to do this alone. There is a matrix and a life-glue out there for you. The trick is to find it and then to cherish it.
Current Energies are represented by the Eight of Pentacles. Pentacles are earth energy, career, wealth, and our relationship with the physical world. This is a cue that the conditions are right to be productive. Allow it to be easy. Just do it, as the shoe folks say. Stay busy. It has been said that work is good therapy. Focusing on a task can help you stay mindful and present in the current moment. That is exactly why simple, repetitive things like knitting, crafting, running, washing dishes or peeling potatoes can be meditative, even soothing, especially at times when emotions are running high. Again I hear “stay active” and “busy hands, quiet mind”
By the way, when I say “hear” it means that the intuitive information comes to mind in the form of words, sounds or songs. If I say “see” it means that the intuitive input is visual, coming through as mental images.
Finally we have the growing Hierophant energy. It took me a long time to come to terms with this card because of the religious imagery on older decks like the Marseille and the RWS card in the Youtube card draw video. That kind of imagery makes sense in the context of Tarot’s development in heavily Catholic Medieval Europe but it has little meaning for those of us who are not part of the Christian religious tradition. Depending on individual experiences, the religious aspects of the card’s appearance can be off-putting to say the least. It is thanks to Johanne Denelli’s writing and the Mark Evans artwork in the Witches Tarot deck version of the card that I’ve been able to work with the card at all. The Hierophant is the keeper of traditions. The hierophant tells old legends by firelight, and defines social expectation – even when social expectations evolve and change.
There are two threads of meaning for the card, and both apply in this reading.
First the Hierophant can symbolize tradition.
In this case it is calling us to set our new normal. Now it is our turn to say what is or isn’t traditional and if we choose to follow tradition at all or not. As someone on social media put it, we are the new ancestors.
After times of great change like the pandemic, people need some degree of sameness, some sense of a solid foundation. Whether it is based on old tradition, or the creation of a new one, after times of great change like the pandemic, we naturally gravitate toward things that are solid, and seem unlikely to change anytime soon. When you build a house, the foundation is the place to start. It might be a new building on a new foundation. It might be rebuilding on an old and proven foundation. Here again we are asked to find our matrix. What is our root, our cornerstone and our foundation? What is the glue that holds the whole thing together? What holds all of our parts in place? What is our matrix?
The other thread of meaning in this card has to do with social convention. It is about doing what is expected of us – or not. I relate this very much with that tension between expressing our true selves fully and authentically and the public face we put on in order to thrive, succeed, or at least survive in the society in which we live. Sometimes you have to take off your favorite goth band T-shirt and dress for a job interview. Sometimes you have to stake your claim for who you really are to heck with the cultural norms. Sometimes you can find a way to have both. Sometimes you have to stay closeted for your own safety. Sometimes you have to find new family and culture and walk your own path.
The message from the Hierophant is to know and define which path is best for you right now. Whether you are complying with the old or creating something new, do it knowingly, mindfully and deliberately.
In a private reading, I would finish up with a summary of any purely psychic intuitive impressions that come through. It may be related to the person’s cards or questions or it may not. That part is highly individual and very personal. It’s not really applicable to a general, collective reading like this. I do get the mental image of a lotus, if that means anything to anyone. That morphs into the image of a pine forest, along with the scent of pine. I’m guessing that’s our recommended candle or incense fragrance for the day.
And there the energies step back and here is where I would end things if I were reading for an individual.
For the whole group of you – thank you for reading and listening. Helpful links are in the text, in the right hand column, in the episode description. You know the drill.
Thank you again. Have a great week and I’ll see you at the next sip!
The two of pentacles is back to sandwich productivity between calls to seek balance.
Some times you have ebb and flow. Sometimes you have grab and sandwich and go.
Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blogs and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast. I’m glad you are here. As always, these short sip readings are Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. On Mondays we get close to the whole cup by taking a three card look at the week ahead.
Also as always, none of this is a prediction. That whole fix your love life, meet your soulmate, win the lottery nonsense stems from horror movies, fiction and fantasy. Genuine Tarot has more in common with weather reports, folk art and psychology than predicting the future. If someone approaches you individually and offers you a reading that is on a par with those Nigerian prince spam emails and should be treated as such.
Finding a psychic you can trust is one of the things I talk about in Tao Craft Portfolio, but I’ll shamelessly self promote that later. Back to this week. The three cards reflect the general, collective energy environment and give general collective energy food for thought. These readings are made of ideas to inspire you or strategies to help you navigate the energy environment.
Or, like I’ve said for years under the Modern Oracle and TaoCraft Tarot blog names….the future is yours to create, not mine to predict. Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen in life. Tarot helps you to figure out what to do when life happens.
Balance is what is happening – or what we need to create this week.
The fading energy is Temperance, the current energy is the eight of pentacles and the growing energy is the two of pentacles. Long story short, it is a productivity sandwiched between advice to stay balanced.
The Two of Pentacles was fading previously. Now it’s making a comeback on the other side of the layout compared to last week. That hints at ebb and flow, or dynamic equilibrium.
The idea of dynamic balance, of balance in motion like a gyroscope, has been attached to the two of pentales a lot lately. Lately meaning the past couple of years, really.
Both the Temperance card and the two of pentacles card are associated with balance. Temperance is the gentler side of balancing, and today has the feeling of little nudges on both sides of the balancing equation. It reminds us of moderation, and not letting things get too out of control in the first place, but it also gives little nudges when we need to up the volume or intensity of something to achieve balance, like pouring into an empty cup. Temperance reminds of gentle mixing back and forth in order to gently moderate opposites before either gets extreme. There are other keywords like combining, creating, experimenting, but the moderation kind of balance energies are prominent today.
The two of pentacles is more active, and feels like the bigger adjustments that are needed when things have already gotten out of balance. The two of pentacles is more about hauling in the edge of the envelope after pushing it to the limit or pulling back when you are too far out over your skis.
You’ll notice both of these are active, moving concepts. Unless you are stacking Zen rocks or something, when it comes to human life, balance is tied to change. Inanimate, motionless object don’t maintain balance. They just fall.
My favorite example of dynamic balance is a unicycle rider. Watch someone on a unicycle. Staying balanced upright on a single wheel is a pretty good trick. It is difficult enough when you are constantly moving forward, but the really impressive thing is the way they can stay upright without travelling forward. But even then, they are not completely still. If you watch, the unicycle rider is making constant tiny back and forth movements in order to stay upright even when they aren’t moving over a distance.
Movement lends itself well to progress and productivity too.
This week we have movement sandwiched between two other kinds of movement.
“In the zone” comes to mind. There is a lot of science and physics images coming through with this reading.
First we had angular momentum and gyroscopes. Now I see a wave graph. The balance we need this week isn’t about a single point, like a ballerina holding a perfect arabesque, its about wave amplitude and staying in a range. It’s about dialing in the ups and downs to stay within a managable range, not about stopping the changes.
If there is one piece of advice in all three cards put together for this week it would be to keep moving, but adjust your tolerances. Things may be active and changing and productive and busy, but the trick to get through it all is to adjust the amplitude of the ups and downs so that they are managable.
You might not be able to turn of the noise, but you can adjust the volume.
You might not be able to hold the unicycle of life perfectly still, but you can adjust the movements so that it seems like you are staying upright in one place.
Be productive – go for it. Just don’t forget to put the busy in a sandwich of balance.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today, quotes about Alan Watt’s potatoes and Mark Salzman’s donkey.
Welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the eight of pentacles.
The pentacles are always grounded, practical cards and today is no exception.
The interesting thing about today’s card is it is reverse engineered. I don’t know about you, but the phrase “reverse engineered” always makes me think of science fiction, alien technology, conspiracy theories and that time people were Naruto running around area 51.
Maybe retrofit would be a better word. If you are interested in elevating your intuitive connection to Tarot, one good way to do that is to come up with an idea and then see what cards come to mind that represent the idea rather than choosing a card at random and letting that prompt the idea. You retrofit the idea to the card instead of the other way around.
Today, the energy around here is decidedly NOT spiritual or woo woo. Which is fine. It is a western, puritanical notion to think that we must constantly strive and work for spirituality and personal improvement. Sometimes the best thing do is do what needs done without all the woo woo or striving or self-judging. Sometimes you just have to sit on your workbench and hammer the dents out of your pentacles before moving on. Today’s energy pointed to the Eight of Pentacles instead of the card pointing out the energy.
Think for a moment about Mark Salzman’s donkey and Alan Watt’s potatoes.
As I’ve said a hoo-zillion times, this is just like when Alan Watts said that “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while you peel the potatoes. Zen spirituality is to just peel the potatoes.”
In Taoism it IS personal growth and spirituality to live in harmony with nature. In this case nature means your feelings and energies for the day as much as the rocks and trees kind of nature.
Mark Salzmen, author and martial artist, once recounted the Chinese proverb that “it is the height of stupidity to go searching for the donkey you are already riding upon.
In Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner, author Scott Cunningham has said “the feeling is the power.” So if you are feeling pulled to the mystical or spiritual side of life today, by all means follow that feeling. If you are feeling like having a sammich and streaming your favorite movie, that’s an ok feeling to follow too.
It’s the trend line, not the individual day or data point.
All of those things point to letting the woo woo rest for a bit, and LIVE the things you’ve already learned. Do the things you already know to do. How is state of constant striving any better than not striving at all? Show yourself a little self love by accepting who you are right now and just go about your day with no pressure on yourself for a change. Immerse yourself in the day, and do the do. Do the do regardless of how stressed or how ordinary it all is at the moment.
Stop looking so hard and vibe with your donkey while peeling today’s potatoes. Live what you know for a while before striving to learn more.
Thank you so much for reading and listening.
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Basically, it’s a day to just do normal stuff. Grind it out. Get it done. There are no big spiritual or aspirational energies around the card today. It’s all about just building a life brick by brick, step by step, moment by moment.
Even in Tarot, not everything is a big spiritual revelation. Not everything in life has a big symbolic purpose. Like Freud said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Come back tomorrow for the spiritual stuff. For now, at least for today, go grind the cigars.
This time, if you want to hear the more detailed card interpretation, it’s in the video. I’m not telling you which meaning is which card, so I hope you’ll watch at least the first bit of the video to choose your card and see the reveal. If you want to spend a little time and feel it out, just pause the video then restart to see which one you picked.
Nothing in Tarot is 100%. The card might not feel right. That’s OK. Claim one of the others if it feels more helpful. Or find another video / blog post and try again to find guidance that resonates with YOU – here, now, today. It doesn’t matter when the video was made or the post was written. The right message has a way of finding you sooner or later.
I hope you’ll follow the blog if you haven’t already – that way you get ALL the new content, video and print-only, right in your inbox or WordPress reader.
The Heirophant: How are you being too much (or not enough) of a people pleasing rule follower. Thank you to all activists who speak for us whenever we’re not sure what to say.
Nine of Swords: Is the thing that’s keeping you up at night really worth losing sleep over? What are you making bigger than it is? Let go what needs to go and get some real sleep.
Eight of Pentacles: Just do it. Set aside any high minded spirituality or over-intellectualizing and peel the potatoes, chop the wood and carry the water.
******
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