Hello and happy almost September! I’m loving the cooler weather we’ve had this week! In honor of not feeling like we’re trudging through a flaming planetary death hellscape, back to roughly normal posting.
Today is a choose your own card Tarot for the week ahead. Pause the video if you want more time to think. Choose the card that feels right to you and tah-DA! You just got a free Tarot reading. It doesn’t matter if you choose before or after you see the cards and meanings. It is still intuitive discernment. It is your own good intuition deciding if one card, the other card, neither one or both are right for you.
ACE OF PENTACLES: Rest easy. Enjoy the simple pleasures that are already at hand. Contentment is a great treasure. Give yourself the freedom to dream a little while enjoying everything just exactly the way it is right now. If everything seems dark or dreadful, open your perspective. You might be missing something and focusing on one thing too much.
THREE OF PENTACLES: You got this. You are strong and capable, but you still don’t have to do everything alone. Enjoy being a strong, happy part of the team. It doesn’t mean you are weak. It might just mean you are the leader.
Fall Schedule
As always, there is none. Family first, always. When and what gets posted depends on the IRL day job. Here is the plan that fully expect to go off the rails:
Sage Sips Blog
Always free to read! No paywall!
Sunday/Monday: Week ahead interactive choose your own card readings
Sage Sips membership $5/month: One free Tarot reading by email each calendar month at your request – choose your layout (five card, year ahead, three card taijitu, three card yes-or-no, one card meditation)
Sage Answers $3/month: One free yes-or-no Tarot reading by email at your request.
Both tiers get DM access to request your readings
Both tiers get random special offers and exclusive content.
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
Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
The Chariot
All potential emotions, cosmic wisdom, and profound compassion are travel sized for your convenience in the size and shape of a single human being.
That human being is you.
Mood and mindset move with you. You can’t drive away from your sadness. Your happiness always comes along for the ride. The past is inescapably in the Chariot with you, but it doesn’t hold the reins. The past doesn’t control the future, only this present moment can set the cause for future effects. Only this present moment can decide if scars from the past debilitate you or make your stronger.
Only in this present moment can you touch the rest of time.
Touch it gently, and with great kindness.
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Tarot’s wisdom on this blog is free to read. Your reading purchases, memberships and virtual coffees all help keep Sage Sipping and reading those cards for you!!
Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee.
Think of your question or the coming week. Choose your card, right or left. Pause the video if you need time. Restart to see the reveal and get your reading below.
Page of Wands: “Know Thyself” You have to know your own nature before you become at peace with it. Look for a way to nourish the light within.
The Moon: Energy cycles. Look for the larger pattern behind whatever is troubling you. The moon shines by reflected light. Your world reflects your answer.
Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC, used with permission.
Sage Sips it tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
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The ADA (action Decreases Anxiety) layout shows
what it is / the current energy or situation
what to maybe do next because action Decreases anxiety
Today’s energy: The Tree – growth and stability. Your source of strength might not be obvious, but it there, underground, like roots to nourish you.
What to do next: The Cloud. Stay cool, enjoy the shade that cloudy days offer. Your social mask doesn’t have to high energy all of the time. Turn down that wattage and use some of that energy for your own recharge. Take a minute. Let the clouds clear and the muddy water settle…a pause can bring clarity. The better you understand, the less frightening it is to move forward. Knowledge is power, but make sure you see clearly.
Deck shown: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler all rights reserved, used with permissions via llwellyenpublishing.com
KNIGHT OF PENTACLES: Like they said in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,”…”put one foot in front of the other” One thing at a time, in the right order will get you through with energy to spare.
FOUR OF CUPS: “Everything you can do is all you can do” – David Axelrod. Show your love. Even if imperfect, that in itself is everything.
With all the news lately, it seems important to look at things from more than one angle.
I’ve been talking about that since 2010 when I originally wrote “Parallax” the blog post. It literally, physiologically takes two eyes for us to see with depth. The same idea applies to your third eye: other points of view add depth.
It seems like everybody and their uncle is reading RWS on social media these days. I wanted to see what the general energies look like from the point of view of my Lenormand deck. If you would like to Learn a little more about this deck, please visit the “Learn with Me: Lenormand” series
Today’s cards are the book and the fish. The book has one of those relative position kind of meanings so common in Lenormand layouts. From experimenting with the deck for the Learn With Me series, I really got the most from the two card draws. It can draw in the relative position thing that is so crucial to the very large Tableaux readings, without being too fussy, overwhelming or contradictory the way very large layouts can be. In this case the book symbolizes secrets, and when it is on the left like this, it hints that the secret is out. In other words, a key thing is out in the open and a known entity.
The fish typically has to do with material wealth but today I get a stronger intuitive sense of prosperity writ large – all good things, not just money.
Together the cards give a sense of reassurance. We know what we need to know to make it work. Everything will work out OK.
Knowledge is key anytime money or any physical realm thing comes into play. Facts, logic – all of that is your friend when it comes to practical matters. But if logic and knowledge driven decisions are backed up with intuitive feeling as validation, that makes it easier. Much easier.
Knowledge backed up by intuition yields confidence.
This blog is not monetized and is free for you to read and follow. If you enjoy Sage Words Tarot or Sage Sips blog, please buy me a coffee! Purchases and donations through my ko-fi page support this blog , the YouTube channel and free social media content.
I’m so grateful for each and every one of you reading this. I enjoy writing this blog so very much.
The time has come to just say it – writing is my forte and typed Tarot readings are my best work. I do live and in-person readings really well – video readings, online readings, and over the years I’ve built some serious party chops at big events (CMU, Nordstroms, Arthritis Foundation of Pittsburgh & more)
I want to spend time and energy in 2024 getting back to where it all started: typed distance readings. I want to give a little love to the blog with some longer reads and deeper dives. So thank you, thank you, thank you for coming along.
“I don’t have ducks. I don’t have rows. I have squirrels and they are hosting a pagan rave.”
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As much as I enjoy a good squirrel rave, this needs a touch of logic and a methodical approach. The “there is no plan” plan is still very much in place, but the general rule of thumb is:
Monday – Choose Your Card. Watch the video in the post or on YouTube. PAUSE the video at first so you can CHOOSE your card, then RESTART the video to see the reveal. A short reading is in the video description and on social media. A more in-depth card of the week reading will be right HERE on the blog. A lot of our holidays fall on Monday here in the U.S so on those days I may not post.
Wednesday – BTS or Learn With Me: Starting today, I plan to do behind the scenes (- ish) posts that give you a peek inside my method and philosophy of Tarot reading. OF COURSE it is mostly shameless self promotion because I want you to buy email Tarot readings from me. But with a little luck we’ll all maybe find a little free fun and inspiration along the way
Friday – something completely random or a quick one card meditation to satisfy my completionist side and fit that nice M-W-F pattern
The weekend newsletter is going on hiatus until I can figure out how to switch it from Substack to WordPress. I’ll keep you posted on that, although I’m hoping you’ll follow the blog (right column on laptop, scroll waayyy down on mobile) Three posts a week isn’t bad and posts go straight to your inbox, just like a newletter would anyway. But that’s to sort out another day.
Comments are always open and you are welcome to CONTACT ME with any questions and get an answer in the blog. Unless it’s spam. Then I’ll prolly block you.
It’s all me
This ain’t my first rodeo as they say.
I’ve been reading cards in some capacity since the early 1990s. You know, when the whole world was black and white and computer memory was still 5 inches across.
At first I just read for friends & for myself because why pay the phone company and Dionne Warwick’s friends huge amounts of money for something you could do yourself? After a while, a friend suggested that I try working on one of those online sites (eternal gratitude, girlfriend!)
Taking her advice, I did Tarot readings on Keen, Advice Trader and Allexperts all under the nickname Baihu. Within a few years of some serious hustle, I’d done hundreds of readings. Yes, you read that right, hundreds. I stopped counting around 400 or so. After a while, enough was enough of the experience building for free or nearly free.
I started my own part time Tarot practice with ModernOracleTarot.com, the Tarotbytes blog, and Quirk & Flotsam Etsy shop. During those years I did in-person, party, phone and email Tarot readings.
The name was fun, inspired by The Oracle character from The Matrix. Despite that, I made sure Modern Oracle had a carefully curated, super sanitized, white-washed image that was nice and non-threatening to any random local conservative suburbanites that might stumble across it. I had a family to protect, after all.
Now, that family is all security minded working adults and I don’t have to be around school district soccer moms any more (whew!) Modern Oracle just didn’t fit anymore, so I re-branded in 2018 to TaoCraft Tarot which was a much more authentic representation of myself and my Tarot philosophy
I’ve studied Tai Chi, and Taoist philosophy as long as I have Tarot and Reiki almost as long. I’ve had an interest in magick and witchcraft longer than any of it, even as a very small person watching Bewitched re-runs on TV. The TaoCraft name was very meaningful to me, but it didn’t seem to make as much sense to new clients. People seemed to stumble over it a bit. That’s a big problem because these Tarot readings that we do together are not about me … they are all about and for YOU.
So re-brand number two: Sage Words Tarot
Easy to pronounce, easy to understand, basic, common words that get the point across on multiple levels.
Sage is an herb with a familiar flavor from sausage and holiday turkeys. Sage in aromatherapy calms anxieties, lifts moods and promotes optimism. Aromatherapy can come in the form of burned incense and dried leaf bundles. Sage smoke can be used to metaphysically clear the energy of a space but should not to be confused with the indigenous practice of smudging. They are two paths from two cultures that wind up in a similar place, but each deserving of its own respect.
I hope that a Tarot session with me leaves you feeling calm, comforted and hopeful, just like sage aromatherapy.
Sage is also a word meaning wise, symbolic of Tarot’s wise advice.
Sage is now my pen name and Sage Words Tarot is the website where it all originates.
TaoCraft is still under there a little bi. It’s like a new business in an old Pizza Hut building. You can’t deny the structure underneath. The same is true here. My work is still guided by the Taoist treasures of simplicity, honesty and kindness. I still follow the Reiki ethic of only doing energy work with those who give knowing consent. I never ever approach or spam an individual to get a reading.
Advertise? Sure. I have coffee to buy and web hosting to pay for. Your reading orders (no appointment needed for video or email) memberships and virtual coffee donations all go toward keeping the lights on in this humble little Tarot shop in cyberspace.
Thanks so much for reading! Next up: One Card Friday. See you at the next sip!
A kitten is perfect for the Page of Wands today. The page is typically associated with youth and exuberance…we’ve talked about that new graduate vibe before.
Today the page is taking a sip from the six of cups too. There is a sense of the six’s innocence, guilelessness, utter transparency and default setting of seeing things as they are and taking them at face value.
It’s as good of a way as any to take on a routine day.
Please come back tomorrow as we look at a new Lenormand Tarot card as the Learn With Me series continues.
The Zombie Cat free reading offer is CLOSED, but you can always leave a Tarot question in the comments or “ask me anything” page to get a free Tarot answer in the blog.
Since nobody voiced an opinion one way or another on any platform, I’ll make the command decision.
The captain is turning the ship.
We are going back to frequent, daily-ish one card Tarot contemplations to go with our daily coffee sips. Learn with me and oracle card posts will continue on Wednesdays.
If somebody (anybody! please!) posts a question in the comments or through the “ask me anything” page, I’ll post a bigger Tarot reading in reply.
I’m discontinuing the Substack newsletter AGAIN. It just isn’t necessary. Instead, I hope you’ll just straight up follow the free blog, join the membership level on ko-fi or follow Sage Words Tarot on social media. You can get the same free collective energy readings in all of those places.
Socials will be quiet later this week while I’m out larking about and having fun with husband and the padawan. Email readings are always OPEN to order. Delivery times might be delayed if you order during nights (U.S. eastern time) on weekends, on U.S. holidays or during previously scheduled larking about with the family.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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