Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
ADA (action dissolves anxiety) Tarot are daily meditation style Tarot readings intended to bring a moment of reassurance in difficult times. They aren’t predictions – they are an idea to bring a little direction to the days when everything seems upside down and uncertain. The unknown can be frightening, and any little plan of action is reassuring. Action, even in idea and plan form, dissolves anxiety (at least a little bit.)
Knight of Pentacles: Today’s energy is practical, calm, logical, and down to earth. The day needs a calm, practical response, even if you arent’ really feeling it. When it comes to practical, down to earth, roll up you sleeves and tuck in, this time “fake it until you make it” might just work.
Ace of Swords: Creative problem solving is key. Use what you already know to solve new problems, and look for new ways to solve old problems. Either way, it’s hard to beat a good, practical life hack or piece of know-how. Work smarter, not harder. The trick is to find the right tool for the right job.
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.
Energy is energy, movement is movement, progress is progress.
Lately I feel pulled to use Wednesdays to take a second look at the “current energy” card from Monday’s week-ahead pathway reading. That will let us take a little deeper look at the card, and do a mid-week mid-card check-in to see how that “current energy” is actually unfolding.
As much as I love the Alleyman’s Tarot that we used for the full reading on monday and as much as I like the Marigold Tarot deck when it has crossed my path, the Waite Smith is still my favorite version of the knight of Pentacles for the sole reason it was a meme for a while. I don’t know who did it, but imagine the card (above) captioned with “Behold! The field where I grow my f*cks! Lift up thine eyes and you will see that it is barren!”
The farther into my genX INTP middle age, the more I appreciate the validity and value of that little sentiment.
The Knight is an action card. Pentacles are both the earth element suit and the suit representing the physical realm, the career and wealth part of life.
Earth moves at a different pace.
This is turning out to be a very earth element kind of week, with the fire and fury of the knight of wands moving away more quickly than I gave it credit for.
Pentacle knights are still knights, and action is still action. Even when it is at the pace of tectonic plates shifting. Even if it is on a geologic time scale, change is change, action is action. On the surface it might seem like not giving a f*ck, but that’s not really what is going on. Energy is never destroyed, it only changes form. A slow grind can reduce obstacles to dust just as much as an explosion can. The secret for that is to let your f*ckfield be barren when it comes to time.
The advice from this card is to persist, but let go of your expectations about how fast things happen. A horse, a bicycle and a motorcycle can all move you the same distance down the same road perfectly fine.
Don’t discount any slow or small progress you’ve made this week. It counts.
Moving in a direction you didn’t expect is still movement.
Unplugging is still doing something.
“Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time”
John Lennon
Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!
Free for all week! – all content on this blog, the ko-fi blog and the NEW Sage Sips newsletter on Substack is free this week!
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.
One of the best clues that your wrinkled backside is getting older is when you get the references that old an old commercial made when people younger than you don’t remember the ad making the reference.
Way back in the 1980s, a certain very popular and rather delicious donut chain had a tv ad where a hardworking and longsuffering baker would plod out of the front door ridiculously early in the morning because it was “time to make the donuts.” This repeated until one time he opens the door to find – himself coming home.
Never mind any jokes about him “finding himself, ” I don’t know how many people remember the “Time to make the donuts” commercial much less the visual reference to the phrase “meet yourself coming and going” which is an old school way of saying that you are so busy and bothered and working so hard and moving so fast that well,you meet yourself coming and going. Which is pretty sci fi violate-the-time-space continuum notion for the ancient before times if you think about it.
But anyway – donuts.
Beside the fact that donuts are a pure soul-level goodness in and of themselves especially when paired with a cup of coffee, the making the donuts thing speaks to the knight of pentacles and today’s Monday morning energies.
Some days are mystical and magical and ideal for contemplating the spiritual. Other days are for just doing, focusing purely on the physical. Some days are for frenetic effort where you meet yourself coming and going. Other days are for regular, reliable and routine donut making. Today feels like the latter type to me. Pentacles are earth element, focused on practicality, the physical realm, work and career. Knights are symbolic of action and activity. Put them both together and you have a reminder that it is time to make the donuts.
Sometimes the simplest donuts are the best. They all don’t have to be jelly filled with sprinkles on top. Some days there is nothing better than a no-frills sour cream old fashioned.
The word “plodding” comes to mind. Pamela Smith uses the posture of the horses to communicate the energies of the knight cards. This guy is standing still, as opposed to the full gallop you see on the knight of swords card. This is another reference to the solid, rooted, balanced, grounded energy that the Pentacle cards posses.
Not every moment has to be joyful. Not every moment has to be tragic. Some moments you just make your donuts without any drama. That resonates with the Taoist notion of wu wei, accomplishment without undue effort. Just because it isn’t a big struggle doesn’t make it lesser. Donuts that were easy and routine to make taste just as sweet.
By the same token, it’s not about doing nothing at all. It’s not about being neglectful and careless and just phoning in the bare minimum. Bakers who make donuts like that won’t stay in business for very long. The Knight of Pentacles today captures an energy of wu wei, of doing what needs to be done and doing it well but without a lot of unnecessary fuss or bother. It’s a day of making easy but excellent donuts.
Thank you so much for listening! Your support for this blogcast through Tarot reading purchases, likes, subs, shares, follows and Tarot Table memberships is always, always appreciated.
Just a reminder that things are going to be a little chaotic this week on the blogcast and on social media. For example, if I do a “You Choose Interactive Tarot” reading at all this week it will probably be tomorrow. Maybe. It’s spring break 2022 at our house so social media is low on my priority list. Email Tarot readings, however, are the same always. Email Tarot is open and available to purchase 24/7 without appointment.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot guidance for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today its the knight of pentacles and do the thing.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Your support through likes, subs, shares, blog follows, reading orders and the virtual coffee mug is always, always appreciated.
Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.
Knights evoke the image of action while pentacles are connected with earth, work, career, wealth, and our relationship with the physical realm.
Today the vibe is very down to earth. Often pentacles brings in an element of practicality. Today the energy is so rooted, so down to earth, so low key that it verges on drudgery instead of practicality. At the same time there is a short duration feel. It is a little like bit like the notion of just ripping a bandage off and getting the pain over with.
Today’s advice is to do what needs done, just do it and get on the other side of it.
Your emotional energy and enthusiasm are optional as long as you can ride up on your horse and do the thing and get the job done. It isn’t suggesting that we phone it in as they say, or slack off on effort. There is a knight’s sense of chivalry. Do the thing, do the job well with all of your usual brilliance and competence, just don’t waste any energy on extra fanfare or drama.
Do the thing and you are free to ride off into the sunset.
And there the energy of the card does the thing and rides off into the sunset.
These aren’t called nano-episodes for nothing. Tarot is like that. It never fails to amaze me how the energy adjusts the length and intensity of a reading to a person’s individual needs…or in this case, the individual day’s needs.
Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening. See you at the next sip!
Thank you for reading, watching and listening to Short Sip Tarot on the TaoCraft Tarot Blog, the TaoCraft Tarot youtube channel and shorts, and the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast. The Short Sip posts are a Tarot reading and thought for the day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee.
Today’s card is the Knight of Pentacles.
Knight cards are associated with action, and pentacles are associated with the element of earth.
Earth – as in grounded, rooted, solid energy.
Some days are like that. When you work with Tarot most days, you can see the ebb and flow of energy. Even if you do just quick daily one card meditations over time you see the larger patterns of energy. Patterns is a little bit of a misleading word in this context. It isn’t as if there is anything predictable or regular about it. It isn’t to say there is a set pattern like day and night or the progression of the seasons. It’s more like observation over years teaches you the kinds of clouds that roll in the with the weather for the day.
The Zen proverb “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water” captures this particular energy very well. The idea idea isn’t necessarily attached to any one particular Tarot card, but it does come through Pentacle cards more often than the others. Both the suit of cards and the proverb are grounded and practical. Both remind us how important it is to balance mind, spirit AND body. Physical health supports mental and emotional health and mental while mind and spirit support the body as well. It is no better to be overly occupied with spirituality than it is to be wrapped up the the physical realm and ignore the spiritual altogether.
With the focus on balance, you would expect this energy and message to be attached to the TWO of pentacles. Often, it is. In this case there is a little extra message behind the mind – body – spirit balance idea.
Sometimes you have to DO something to achieve that balance.
Exercise. Eat well. Take a nap if you need it. Change the shelf paper. Do some mundane task that you’ve been putting off.
The spiritual is still there. There is magic in the mundane, but there is also a little mundane in the magic. To paraphrase the poet Duane Toops … a miracle is still a miracle even if it doesn’t feel like one.
A day is still a miracle even when it feels and needs to be ordinary.
Some people blame these things on Mercury retrograde. My genX brain calls technical glitches that I can’t figure out gremlins. I still kinda want to be a computer geek when I grow up.
Just spent two attempts and more time than I wanted to spend trying to get today’s youtube tarot short to upload. I think the problem is in the processing on YouTubes end, actually. Either way, enough bashing against a road block.
In fact, that is the message this last attempt gave: put it down and come back later.
It’s a good general message. The woo isn’t everything. No every minute of every day has to be a spiritual success. Not every moment has to be some grand enlightenment. When the energy is wrong for spiritual things, and you run into one wall after another, it is perfectly OK to set aside the spritual and spend some quality time in the practical physical realm.
It’s more of the meatspace energy we’ve talked about lately.
If you want some woo…today is a good day for grounding, balancing, centering. Get your head out of the clouds and your feet planted on the ground.
It’s a good day for the Zen proverb: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.
Or the Alan Watts quote “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
So chop your water, carry your potatoes and peel your wood, set aside the gremlins and have a good day in spite of it all.
Pick a card, any card. Well, any of three. Take your time or choose quickly. It’s your choice – like everything. If you want some extra time to ponder, pause the video then restart to see the reveal.
The weird thing is that I am finally, finally getting a sense of how to dial into these YouTube videos. The intuitive signal is on a completely different wavelength than working with an individual or writing for the blog. Actually, download speed would be a better analogy for how it feels to intuition. If doing a YouTube video is OG dial up, speaking in person is broadband. Typing on a keyboard is cat 5 hardwired cable. The message is the exactly the same. The core, underlying process is the same. It is a subtle difference from my side of the table, but on your side of the table the only difference is how artfully I verbalize your spirit message. Not that you need to know that – but I wanted to give you fair warning. I want to try something and YOUR feedback would be very, very helpful.
I’m thinking that for “YouChoose” posts, I’ll post the video and let it stand on its own. That way, you can choose your card with no potential spoilers on the page below. If anything, I’ll put a general energy, zeitgeist kind of read, like the speckled stones image that returned this week. That image may hint at a longer wave of energy akin in length to the hurricane image from last year (although certainly much different in meaning and tone.)
Once caveat in doing things that way: locality. The general cultural energy impression might be very local. It most likely will be limited to the US, the eastern time zone or possibly my million or so close neighbors here in Allegheny County. I won’t know about that part until we work with this format for a while.
I would like to know what YOU think!
Do you like the YouChoose format at all in any iteration?
Do you like the cards in print under the video or the video alone?
Is there anything else that you want to see in the blog? Tell what content you want to see, and I’ll create it. Easy as that.
Sorry about that. When I said this would post “Monday morning” I didn’t realize it would be Monday morning in some other interdimensional cross rip parallel universe Monday morning. Today has been an interesting week.
As for the cards, I’ll let the video interpretation stand. Since books stepped forward a tiny bit as the closest thing to cards-working-together theme for the week, here are some books and links that might go along with this week’s cards.
Leave a comment or send an email if you are interested in more reading suggestions – always happy to spout an opinion!
The Moon (psychic development)
The Healer’s Manual by Ted Andrews
How to Meet and Work With Spirit Guides by Ted Andrews
Psychic Witch by Matt Auryn
Knight of Pentacles (Career Related activity)
Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar by James Marcus Bach
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.