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Learn tarot and intuition with moon card and fish card from the lenormand deck.
I don’t think this works quite the way the guidebook says.
I could be wrong, so let’s stick with two card readings for a while and see what turns up.
With the Lenormand deck, a “tableau” reading puts the cards on the table in a simple grid, with the “Grand Tableau” using the entire 36 card deck.
I’ve used the classic 10 card Celtic Cross layout and one of the first layouts I learned was the 9 card in Sam & Carson’s Medicine Cards. It was interesting to compare those two. Even years into reading experience 9 cards was a tipping point for me. 9 was a lot, but it was a perfectly serviceable layout with plenty of detail, but it was a heavy lift at times to work through it, even later with plenty of reading experience behind me. As soon as I would use a 10 card cross, the energy would get knotty, and contradictory and verge on nonsense. Double digits seems to be a tipping point. Rather than perpetually dancing on the edge of spilling the beans, I wrote the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle and TaoCraft layouts that I’ve used for private readings from the beginning.
All along the time that we’ve been looking at individual Lenormand cards, the guide book has mentioned how pairings and connections with other cards could modify the individual card’s meaning. We saw energetic connections and flow in the three card reading we did last time, but it was more of a flow of meaning, like making a sentence rather than changing meanings through the series of cards.
It might be interesting to do some two card sets to see if any of those specifically meaning-modifying connections emerge.
In this case, the guide book doesn’t give a modification for either the moon card or the fish card relative to the other. I get the flow, sentence like connection again. The water connections to both cards gives the sense of intuition and flow as being the main message with the fish’s association with prosperity taking a little bit of a back seat to the mental image of actual fish swimming and in motion.
I get no sense of energy at all from the playing card insets, so will let that sit for now. Follow your own instincts if you think they are meaningful. Research the 8 of cups or King of Pentacles if either of those grab your attention.
My hunch is to keep up with the two card sets for a little while. Water, tides, depth all are associated with the images here. In RWS tarot deep water has to do with mystery, deep knowing. My hunch is that there is something here that hasn’t quite shown itself yet.
Let’s abide with it, and see what else two card sets have to say.
See you at the next sip!
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Knitting together last week’s posts about imagination and accurate Tarot predictions.
I like to knit.
Sometimes that means making stuff out of yarn.
Sometimes it means weaving together disparate ideas in a Tarot reading. Or a Tarot blog post.
I’m doing both lately. It’s that Elfcon 5 gift making time of year, but I’d also like to knit together the past couple of blog posts. We’ve looked at a couple of narrow topics, now lets connect them back into the grand scheme of things a little bit.
The grand scheme is how Tarot and intuition actually works – at least the way I go about it.
My readings do not predict the future. So that kind of “accuracy” doesn’t factor into things even if it were possible, which it isn’t for all of those cause and effect sort of Heisenberg uncertainty-ish sort of reasons. In this case “accurate” means “it contains some sort of useful insight or idea.”
Can we get insight or inspiration from Tarot and imagination? Yes – absolutely. It’s about the most human thing I can think of to do.
Let’s go back to our imagination as intuition example – think of an elephant taking a shower.
When I first learned this concept in an email conversation with Chris Fleming, my first thought was a Babar-like, highly antropomorphized cartoon elephant in a cartoon human shower with a big white towel wrapped around it’s waist a la movie men’s locker room.
Was this a prediction? No, of course not. Was it accurate? Yes – it was whimsical and playful at a time in life where I needed a reminder to be more playful and find more humor in life.
In response to last week’s post, a client said she visualized a real life elephant being lovingly cleaned by an attentive caretaker and seeming to enjoy the experience.
Like a Tarot card in the context of a layout, this image in the context of the person who saw it is a beautiful message from and for a beautiful person.
This person is a natural caretaker in a care taking profession. Her visualization is a tremendous validation that she is on the right path in her work, and even if they don’t say it her clients appreciate her as much as her imaginary elephant was enjoying its shower.
It is also the classic reminder for caretakers to allow themselves to be cared for or at least give themselves a little TLC. It could be a reminder to let yourself be that happy elephant.
These aren’t “accurate predictions” relative to physical events. To make Tarot or psychic readings into that is to strip it of all its depth, emotion, beauty and humanity. Making Tarot and psychic readings about predictions is like taking a living breathing elephant and turning it into a two dimensional rubber stamp shadow image of an elephant.
Imagination is our window to intuition. Tarot is the battery sparks intuition. Together, they let us see marvelous things far beyond physical predictions.
Are you ready for something more advanced than pool ball toy predictions? Are you ready to glimpse the ideas that help you create your future rather than (maybe) predict it? Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
Hello and welcome to Sage Sips blog: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you like to sip whenever you read this). I’m glad you are here.
Just a quick review: Every now and then I’ll post a series of blog posts where we learn a new Tarot deck, Oracle Deck, or other oracle device together. While I’ve been reading Tarot for (I can’t believe I’m saying this) 30 years now, I don’t know every deck in existence. Each deck of cards or divination method has its own character that is worth exploring. Of course there is always something to learn process wise. If a psychic isn’t still learning, how can clients learn from their readings? Learning is change, change is life.
As we go through these new decks and tools, I’ll show you the methods I’ve used to learn intuitive reading in general as well as learning the particulars of the new thing.
My hope is that this process will build your trust in me as a reader, so you can feel confident getting a professional reading but also (more importantly) I hope this process will build your confidence in your own intuition.
Just like decks that use the Marseille, Visconti, or RWS structure the artwork can vary wildly from deck to deck. I’m glad for artwork on the Healing Light deck for a couple of reasons.
First, color on black is one of my favorite aesthetics. Gold on black is a particular favorite – no surprise if you’ve ever seen sagewordstarot.com
Second, like many contemporary decks, it is a bit more abstracted and drops a lot of the religious imagery that was the norm in the Victorian Era but is anathema to a 21st century freethinker. Hurray for that.
Especially with the ring card.
The guide book connects the Ring with “religious vows” or “religious commitment when it is connected or adjacent to the Cross card. The two together gives an energy akin to the Hierophant or Pope card in RWS style decks.
It also can symbolize a mutual, loving commitment akin to the hand fasting or marriage connotations of the RWS two of cups.
Intuitively I want to synthesize both of those things.
Commitment is a two way street. You have to give to get, and you get what you give (cue the New Radicals song). A commitment born of blind faith and adherence where all you do is give cannot last. A commitment where you sit and expect to receive can not last either.
The idea of a “twin flame” that makes you happy or “completes you” comes to mind – and falls into that take-only second category.
The circle of the ring connotes wholeness.
Commitments are both people all in, both giving and receiving in moving dynamic symbiosis.
Cue all the symbolism of the Zen enso
Ahhhhh…I get it – cue a big cartoon light bulb hanging over our head.
The guide book for the Lenormand deck is minimal. The grand tableau layout is so broad as to be unfocused and unhelpful. Lenormand is direct and to the point because it forces us to read intuitively if we are going to read it at all. Its small deck and broad symbolism can meld to whatever the message of the moment may be. It’s strength lies in touching the emotions of the moment.
In the ring card alone we can branch out to the Pope, the Two of Cups, The Moon and more as needs be. Lenormand utterly relies on our intuition as much as it prompts or amplifies our intuition.
Interesting, to say the least.
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This has been a learning experience for me – for you, too, I hope.
I think there is more to take away from this than just dice & image meanings.
This series has been a proof of concept experience: the REAL oracle is our human intuition. Tools and amplifiers like dice, cards, tea leaves, charms, chicken bones or whatever are truly just that. These things and techniques are portals, energizers and amplifiers that help us to access and communicate our own innate intuition and psychic ability better. Because they have a similar function in support of our innate intuition, different oracles can be learned and used in similar ways. There is a great deal of overlap on the energy / intuitive level despite surface differences.
Consciousness and the human experience is expansive and too enormous for any one oracle to encapsulate everything for everyone. The exponential combinations of a handful of cards or dice come close. There are 138 sides in the dice set, rolling 22 dice – if you calculate it out, you get a number so big I don’t even know how to name it. Still, we can learn to work within that enormity and use these intuition helpers in the same way we learn anything. Learning an oracle tool can be logical, methodical and intuitive all at the same time.
We’ve dug down through the layers starting with the individual images on the dice, the meanings associated with the individual dice cubes. In the last post, we talked about connecting all of those things.
The foundation goes full circle. Once you dig down to the nitty-gritty and build up all of the layers of meaning, you have to knit it all together. Think of language – it’s no coincidence we call these things readings. We’ve learned words (side images) and we’ve learned the syntax and grammar (dice, lord cards) now it’s time to make some sentences. It’s time to take this whole project and make it make sense and be use-able. A reading takes all of the digging and layerering and glues it all together into some sort of cohesive whole. THAT is the hardest part. The level of difficulty increases exponentially with each moving part in a reading and the trillions of potential combinations in the case of a 22 dice roll. That is why genuine psychics still exist – anyone can learn to do this, but not everyone has the knack or desire to do all of that digging and layering and gluing. If you pay for an authentic professional reading, you are getting real artistry and skill.
This is also why I cap my Tarot layouts at 7 cards. Larger layouts, like the Celtic Cross or a full 22 dice throw are certainly DO-able, I just find them unwieldy, potentially contradictory and just plain overkill. Why use a chainsaw when all you need is a pair of scissors?
Here is how I’m going to do this…it might not 100% align with the method described in the guide book, but I’m taking artistic liberty since I’m only using a portion of the dice instead of the full roll described.
Since the reading cloth image is a circle, and the dice can potentially orient in any direction of those 365 degrees, I’m going to read the image as-is, no consideration to reversals as you would in Tarot when the cards are all aligned along a single axis.
The dice on the “core” area hold more immediate importance and strength compared to the dice in the outer areas. You all know how I feel about predictions, so tying this to time just doesn’t work for me. I used this side of the reading cloth because as I was setting up for the video, this side felt most right – perhaps most needed by the most people of those who watch and read this. Rather than past, present, future and fated, I think of this in terms of strength of the energy’s influence: Core is the strongest then fated, future, present and past in descending order of influence. Yes, that is very much like the fading-current-growing energy card positions that I wrote into my Tarot layout. I’ve used it for years, and it. Just. Works. It makes sense to continue that proven foundation in this new oracle method.
Since all of the dice fell in the main center circle, that’s as far as I’ll take it. The guidebook talks about how to handle dice on the outer portions of the reading cloth or that fall off of the cloth or table altogether. I leave that for you to figure out if you are interested in getting a set of dice and reading for yourself.
Of the two dice that fell in the core circle, the slightly higher one, relative to where I’m sitting, most catches my attention. It is the grey relations dice on the “alone” face. It shows a single person in a bubble.
The guide book divides the interpretation of any die between when the die lands in the core and when it is elsewhere. In the core, the “alone” face speaks to the querent being the sole focus of the reading (which is my policy for all readings anyway.) This interpretation is a validation for me of something that has been niggling at me for the past few posts – this really is an intensely focused, intimate, personal, individual oracle. This oracle tool isn’t well suited to the at-large collective energy readings of the type we do here with Tarot cards. This is a fantastic tool and technique, but for private readings, not blog readings.
The other core is the action die. When we first rolled it, we saw the “judgment” face with scales and a lot of justice energy. This is the “sacrifice” face, intended (especially at the core) to represent something large and difficult that is being released or a big sacrifice that was made to gain something currently in the querent’s life. Seven Dane Asmund cautions that it “is likely to be a gut wrenching reading. Be prepared.”
Next in level of intensity, we have two dice in the “fated” area. The one on the right catches my attention the most of the two. That is the Elements die on the “wind” face and it relates to a fickle, difficult or changeable person or situation. I get an eight of wands sort of energy here – things up in the air, out of our control, and it is a matter of waiting to see where things land before we can assess and react.
The other high energy “fated” die is the Goblin on the “obsession” face. The guidebook mentions how this die is very often modified or characterized by nearby dice. In this case, the fickle, changeable, difficult, up in the air,beyond reach, not under our control thing has been top of mind, perhaps too much. Taken together with the sacrifice die face – we get a “let it go” message.
The next tier of energy, “present” gives us the same face of the Summer die that we first saw, “gain.” This die is off alone and gives a stand-alone vibe. It feels simple and good and an omen of good fortune – this is a good energy time for paying attention to your creativity and livelihood, especially if the two intersect somehow. All good vibes with that one.
The lowest energy brings the obstacles dice on the emergence face which edges out the Alley die and its “scavenge” face which feels very much on its way out of the door. Of those two the energy definitely lies with the “obstacles” die and its “emergence” image.
The image depicts escape from obstacles, or from a mental or emotional trap. This “getting unstuck” feeling resonates with Hanged Man in reverse in Tarot. There is also a similarity to the five of swords in Tarot with this “overcoming obstacles” energy, especially as Matt Evans drew the five of swords for the Witches Tarot deck. There is also a bit of the Queen of Swords in the way the die relates to “recognizing your power in the moment and rising up beyond what has kept you from feeling free” as the oracle author puts it.
Being in this low key position on the cloth, whether you look at it as time related or not, reminds us that breaking free, picking up the mantle of our power, living free and true to ourselves is not a one time event but instead is an ongoing process.
And there if feels like the energy steps back bringing this reading to a conclusion.
Once again, many thanks to Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC for permission to use his excellent Tarot, dice and oracle cards in this blog and associated social media.
In a few weeks we’ll start a new “learn with me” series looking at the Lenormand Tarot. I’ll be using the Healing Light Lenomand deck under the “free teaching” permissions granted by the publisher https://www.llewellyn.com/about/permissions_tarot.php
Newletter / digest will be on Medium later today. No “weekend shif” Friday post this week. Next up, it seems is next week’s energy path reading.
Thank you so much for reading today and following along with this first “learn with me” series.
Any likes, blog subscriptions (it’s free! Just enter your email in the right column or a the bottom of the mobile page) social media follows (@sagewordstarot) like, shares and comments are all much appreciated!
A big thank you to alert reader L.K. who caught that the dice from yesterday’s Learn With Me post was hard to see because of the video text!
See? I don’t bite. The comments are open, let me know whatever questions or feedback you have. Then I’ll post answers and make adjustments so that Sage Sips can be as relevant and useful as possible.
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I’m a big synchronicity fan (The Police album AND the Jungian concept)
Even after all of these years, I’ll still have days where I pull a card for the blog and get a whole lot of nothing intuitively. Luckily, thanks to the extra boost of energy from a client’s name and question / permission for an open reading – that doesn’t seem to happen for private readings. Even if it did, the solution is the same: prompts.
Have you ever seen those antique hand pumps for water? I’m not sure of the physics of the whole thing, I think Archemedes Principle has something to do with it – he was that ancient greek dude that was into sloshing water – but for the hand pump to do its thing sometimes you had to put a little water in it before you could use it to pump more water out of your well. “Prime the pump” came to mean anything that you put into something to make it work.
It’s kind of like lubrication too – oil changes for the car, oil on squeeky hinges or stuck locks – that sort of thing.
When intuition feels stuck, it is perfectly ok to prime the pump. It’s ok to look for a little extra inspiration outside of the dice or cards or whatever you happen to be using.
Look, listen and read works for me.
Look around you – does anything in view grab your attention? That might be an extra help for your intuition.
Listen – is the intuition coming through as a sound or bit of music instead of the card or dice or in place of anything visual at all? If listening doesn’t work pay attention to any scents or physical sensations that pop to mind.
Read – if nothing else works, pick up the guide book for the oracle your using or any other guides that are relevant. I have a whole collection of Tarot books, so if I’m not getting anything intuitive right off the bat I’ll browse through several to see if any of the key words hit as the right one.
Today’s dice toss was a little bit of both
My impulse impression was “infinity” because of the sideways it landed. Had a few quick thoughts that you can see in the video. After that nothing except the nagging feeling that I was missing something. The heart shape is obvious and shows Seven Dane Asmunds genius in designing these things.
Here is the Jungian kind of synchronicity here. I haven’t read the dice guidebook yet. 138 dice faces is a bit much to take on all in one go, so I’m learning the oracle dice little by little right along with you in these posts.
Just by pure but meaningful coincidence, the die lands with the image sideway, prompting the association with “infinity.” Combine that with the obvious heart shape, gives us “infinite heart.”
Go to the guidebook an the die itself is “elements” and this face means -SOUL!
(Doh! Why didn’t I think of that right off?)
Beautifully designed and communicative image – yeat again.
To quote the book “Soul, as an element, speaks to the human element of the world, and its positive and negative affects.”
Although “effects” would work there too.
The image has a light side and a dark side which also perfectly reflects human nature and warms the cockles of my Taoist philosophy loving heart.
This is the dice-face of humanity and the infinity of the human heart.
Thank you for reading!
The Publishing Goblin’s Oracle Dice is used with permission from Seven Dane Asmund (author of the Alleyman’s Tarot) and Publishing Goblin LLC
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The day job* is the main focus today, but I’ll be back on the blogs tomorrow with a “Learn With Me” post and another Oracle Dice throw.
Thank you so much for reading and following along with this all. See you at the next sip!
Learn how to learn an oracle method along with me as I explore the new Publishing Goblin Oracle Dice
Hi and welcome to Sage Sips: a contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Thanks for being here. This free content is fueled by your private reading purchases, paid subscriptions and virtual ko-fi coffees and plenty of real coffee too.
Figures.
Second roll of the dice and I get my old nemesis, Judgement.
I have to admit, I like this one a lot better than the religion influenced Judgment card from Tarot major arcana. Almost giggled when I saw it, because for a split second I thought it was a muppet face.
Luckily the energy today is on the “use good judgement” side of things and not the Judgey McHubrispants side that pushes my religious trauma buttons.
Off the cuff intuition is on the order of … once you make a reasoned decision, it is pretty worthless without some sort of action. It might be one task, or a million little nuanced lifestyle decisions, but good judgement is tied to action nonetheless.
Quick note before we move on with this post – or this series of posts, actually. I know the singular of dice is die. But this is cyberspace and America in 2023. There is a pretty good chance that something automated is going to confuse the singular-dice word with the become un-alive word. Grammar be damned, I’m calling them all dice. I’m out here trying to help (and hopefully entice you to get a private reading) I can’t do that shadow banned. Talk about your Judgy McHubrispants.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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