THE OUTSIDER: If you ever don’t feel social, don’t push yourself. Sometimes being on the outside is exactly where you want – or need – to be.
Nothing about being a human is 100% defined 100% of the time. Seldom are things clearly black or white. Most of the time life is a million shades of grey and all the more beautiful for it.
Taking a little time alone doesn’t make you a hard-core introvert. Going out doesn’t mean you are a forever extrovert. Self-care means doing what you need in the moment to be as mentally, emotionally and physically healthy as you can be and keep it that way.
Taking a step outside is a shift in perspective, be it literally outdoors or a step away from the usual social group for an evening or a weekend. Things don’t look so large in your mind when you put them in a big-picture perspective.
The saying “Not my circus, not my monkeys” comes to mind. This isn’t the energy environment for drama. Step away and let the kids work it out among themselves. If it isn’t your issue, don’t engage with the fireworks.
Deck: Alleyway Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission
Yesterday was quite a week as they say. I personally am very glad to see the weekend get here. I’m also still into the idea of revisiting the energy path reading from Monday to see if and how anything has unfolded now that it is, thankfully, Friday. Four days is nothing so the changes won’t be dramatic, ever.
Time does keep turning, just like the Wheel major arcana card. “Churning” comes to mind as well as an active old-fashioned water wheel or the paddle wheel of an old Mississppi River steam boat.
On Monday, the “growing energy” card in the pathway layout was the Wheel. It is by nature a churning, changing, dynamic kind of energy. I think the Wheel’s energy has increased a bit over the past few days. My sense of it for the next few days life will be on the energetic side. This is a major arcana card, after all. I hear (‘hear’ meaning the intuition comes as words instead of mental images) “dating” “social” – in other words it is a good time to get out and around and be social if you are feeling it.
Spirit, energy, life, the universe and everything doesn’t care about our expectations much less our calendars and schedules. In the bigger picture of it all, four days really is next to nothing in the flow of time and energy. Let’s look at a bigger pattern that we’ve seen over the past few weeks of readings (August 21-28, August 28-September 9)
First there was Moon card energy both up front and underlying these current cards. There were a series of water and tide images. Tides are literally associated with the actual moon, so that certainly fits the card. First we were given the image of “slack water” that wasn’t moving much, then the tide turned and flowed inward, and now I get the image of an outward flowing tide, which would match that social, outward, dating and fun energy that came through a moment ago.
This week we have the Wheel card, which is a card of change. That part of the Wheel connects with the “natural cycles” meaning of the Moon card. The cycles meaning has been the dominant moon card meaning this whole time, and the wheel card is validating that. The wheel card is all about change, but also luck, good fortune, taking action so it gives an even stronger “the tide has turned” feeling. The Wheel takes the softer, gentler ‘natural cycles’ Moon energy and makes it much more active, energetic, churning. The tide not only has turned, but it is picking up speed.
Continuing with the water and ocean analogy, the idea of “undercurrent” comes through here. I get the feeling that a subset of us is still flowing inward, with an energy of deep introspection and a need for alone time to sit with difficult emotions and circumstances still exists. In my mind’s eye I see the Five of Cups again and now also the Hermit card.
So as always, follow and trust your own instincts. Allow what your emotions and body is telling you it needs. If you feel pulled to be out and about and are in the mood for a light, fun weekend then by all means indulge if you can. By the same token, if you feel gloomy and introspective, don’t fight it. Sitting with that side of things helps us to acknowledge, process and let go in a healthy way.
Weirdly, I get a sense that this won’t break along the expected introvert/extrovert personality lines or along any sort of pop culture stereotypical lines. It feels very individual with a mental image of mixed grains of salt and pepper. The best way I can describe the feeling is that this weekend may be a good chance of each individual of us to make friends with our inner opposite. Channel your inner Barbie – or inner Wednesday Addams – as the case may be.
No matter which side of the yin yang symbol you are feeling the most, have a good weekend! Next up: a new Energy Path reading for the week of September 11-18 will post on Monday.
See you at the next sip!
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In this Pathway through week Tarot reading, introverts and extroverts are two sides of the same important energy.
With an emphasis on individualism and alone time, this week’s energy is an introvert’s paradise. Extroverts might have a tougher time ahead and need to go out of their way to stay and feel connected.
Hello and welcome to the Sage Words Tarot blog and Sage’s Short Sip Podcast where you get Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
I’m Sage and I’m glad you are here. Thank you all for reading and listening. Personally, I’m thrilled for this kind of energy to come along. After changing the blog and podcast name and all of the re-arranging and updating that’s been going on since the new year began, I’m glad for a little low key time to recharge the batteries a little bit. I hope the respite is as welcome for you.
The cards are less chatty this week and the intuition is back to the typical visuals. First thing that comes to mind is a map of the US with no state lines on it, just an outline with red and blue dots on it, like a new graphic of some sort. I’m not sure exactly what else the visual might be trying to say, but my hunch is that it is pointing to individuality, like the individual dots. It’s a strange way to think about it, but that meme that has been so popular with Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal seems to have planted a seed with the music. The lyrics “Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song” may have planted themselves deeper in our social media loving psyche than we realized.
Unless you accept and include the diversity of everyone else on the planet, in your individuality you will walk alone.
For some alone time is a treasure, that allows us to rest from the drains and demands of life.
For others it is suffocating, isolation from the collective energy on which they thrive.
The energy this week is asking two things of us.
First is to know our own source of strength. If you are the type to need a little down time away from other people in order to rechard, that quiet is essential this week. If you thrive on unplugging for a while, then by all means do that. This isn’t the week to push outside your comfort zone. This is the week to build and protect and strengthen your comfort zone. By the same token, if you thrive on connection, this is the week to ensure that connection for yourself, yes, but also as a kindness to others who might be feeling over-isolated.
Second is to protect your energy. If your energy comes from connection, focus on those in particular. Protect your connection to groups and other individuals. The quality of connection is the important thing. Heath is the emphasis in both directions of the connection. Make sure your relationships and connections are healthy and not dependent or narcissistic or draining.
For those who thrive on disconnecting, do that. Protect your energy in total. Shields up, let it go. My go to reading recommendation when this energy comes along is Psychic Protection by Ted Andrews. That, and his earlier book The Healer’s Manual are two of the most useful books I’ve ever read. Taking care to guard and protect your energy feels especially important for the introverts among us.
Whatever your energy style – no matter whether you thrive on making connections or disconnecting, no matter whether you thrive on a rave or listing to rave music alone, whatever your recharging style may be – honor that style. Protect that energy because that will help you have the clarity to see your way through the path ahead. There is so much potential, so many choices and options for you if you let yourself be true to yourself.
Imagine this. Imagine a hall of mirrors where the reflections in the reflections seem to go on forever. Now imagine a crowd of people all dressed alike in that hall of mirrors. How do you see your way forward if you force yourself to be like everyone else? With that image we go from introvert paradise to introvert hell. That’s why the be true to yourself part is important. It is one good way to find your way forward in a dizzying array of energies and possibilities.
Here I get a sense of this crowded mirror room requiring us to adopt an attitude of radical and fierce compassion for others, for diversity and inclusion. There is room and reflections and possible paths for us all.
That’s the purely intuitive read of these cards that are from The Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC who graciously gave me permission to use the deck in my blog and social media.
The cards today are not traditional Tarot cards, which gives a sort of ‘time out of time’ or ‘time apart from the rest’ feeling.
The first card, the Hole is by Seven Dane Asmund, I’m guessing created for the Alleyman’s deck.
It speaks to the unspoken, the deduced and implicit. It highlights the missing. It is, as I see it, the arrow pointing to the things that are conspicuous in the absence.
There is a scene in one of the Star Wars movies where Qui Gon is was told of a planet, but can’t find it. So Yoda (and his class of younglings) pull up the star system where the mystery planet was supposed to be, but nothing was where the planet was supposed to be. What WAS there were aberrations and irregularities. The planets that were on the moving 3D map were moving as if a planet was there. They found the missing, or actually erased, planet by the evidence left behind where it was not. Qui gon proved the theory true by going there, to the place where the planet was calculated to be based on the movement of other things around the empty space.
As convoluted as that sounds, that is exactly the plane Neptune was discovered in our own star (solar) system.
Uranus was wobbling weird so scientists used Newton’s laws of gravity to calculate where another planet should be based on how Uranus was moving around space we thought was empty. We couldn’t go there yet, so they looked at the spot through a telescope instead and BOOM – hello Neptune. (source nasa.gov)
And such is the power of the empty, the hole, the alone. Introverts thrive on it. Extroverts need a little sip of it every now and then.
The Hole and The Comforter are less fading and current energies so much as they are opposite sides of the same, equally strong current energy. I don’t get the sense either is going to fade either time soon. Again I get the feeling the major message is to know which side of things is best for you and do that. Do that big time.
The comforter is all about the power of connection, of comforting ourselves through connection and the comfort of helping others through our connection with them. This card is urging us to celebrate and cherish, protect and strengthen all of the healthy connections in life or forge new ones if needed. This card was originally created by Natasa Ilincic for the Compendium of Witches Tarot.
The creator of the Thing among Reflections card is supposedly unknown, although I suspect it is the deck creator’s work. He reads the card as a vaguely disconcerted feeling that something is wrong or off. This card hasn’t turned up very often for me so this being a new (to me) card gives it that exact feeling just from its unfamiliarity. It feels more than the embarrassment of riches feeling that the many choices we see in the seven of cups card. This is about so many potential outcomes that it is disorienting and overwhelming. If the seven of cups is a big restaurant menu level of many choices, this card is multiverse, hot dogs for fingers, Everything Everywhere All At Once level of many choices.
Knowing yourself, being yourself, and knowing the best way to protect and recharge your energy will help us through a hall of mirrors if and when we walk through one.
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Thank you so much for reading and listening! See you at the next sip!
The Four of Swords gives us permission for a little self care – or to introvert hard.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today’s card if the four of swords.
The 1909 public domain Waite Smith card is pictured in the blog because following this advice was well underway when I sat down to write this. It’s been one of those days for about a few weeks now.
It’s been yang, so now it’s time to be yin. What goes up must come down. When you push the envelope, you have to haul it back in.
Or to paraphrase somebody on Twitter, if you’re down, stay down there for a minute, look around and recover. You just might find those keys you lost under the sofa last week.
In the Pamela Smith card, the reclined figure has their palm pressed together. Like any good sage or mirror, this reflects whatever we the viewer project onto it. Some might see it at prayerful, but it strikes me as more thought full, with a “things that make you go hmmm” vibe.
Here I am reminded of Benedict Cumberbatches portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, and the similar hand gesture he made when Sherlock entered his “mind palace” memory technique.
BBC image via screenrant.com
Folded hands can hint at outward directed thinking at a diety, or it can be deep inward contemplation, but either way the body rests and the mind is slowed. Either way it fits the four of swords card at least in today’s energy context.
Do you bristle at catchphrases and platitudes about this sort of thing, like rest, self-care or nurturing your inner cranky child who really really needs a nap right now? If you want something that feels a little more gritty & persistent with a can-do attitude, try this: introvert HARD for a little while. Think of napping as an endurance sport. Pretend that finding an excuse to stay in and give yourself a break as a mental acuity exercise. Who says finding and wearing your comfiest clothes isn’t making an extreme fashion statement?
The four of swords and I both wish you a great weekend. Get some rest – or if you prefer, introvert HARD.
Thanks for reading and listening. Your likes, subs, follows I’ll see you at the next sip!
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