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Current Energy: THE KEY. This is a time of transition, a liminal portal from one cycle to another – not quite finished, not quite begun. This energy is akin to a blend of the RWS eight of cups and the Magician energy than the pure beginning energy of the Fool card. This isn’t pure beginning. It is manifesting in the context of a new cycle. This resounding quiet is a potent time to plant the seeds of being and set intentions to manifest in the future.
Next Step: CLOUDS. Endings and beginnings both carry potent emotions. When endings and beginnings come close together, as in a closed circle, the emotions can be intensified. Be kind to yourself. Remember moods and emotions are transient as clouds. Let go. You can’t grasp the mist.
Action, doing something, can ease the anxiety and worries that can’t help but persist if we do nothing but wonder ‘what if…’ Action is necessary for there to be change, for anything to actually manifest. But the first step in any action begins in the invisible, begins with thought or decision. Making an action plan is as essential as the action itself, no matter how quickly that thought or decision or plan happens.
Making a decision – even the decision to do nothing – is in itself an action that eases anxiety.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission Lo Scarabo / Llwellyn publishing.
In this simple layout is almost like a sentence: what it is and what it does – more accurately what you can DO with the collective energies around us all today. Actions eases worries, in this case worries about relationships or connections with people.
The ship hints at a time of prosperity & progress. The emphasis is on progress, on forward movement. The ship implies smooth sailing, much like with the smooth waters / go with the flow collective energy I’ve seen lately with the Six of Swords in collective and private readings alike.
The bouquet hints at affection and, more importantly, showing it. Not is not the time to bottle up feelings. If you feel kindness, compassion, love, amusement, or any good thing – now is the time to show it. Show it in no uncertain terms.
If you feel less pleasant things, show that too. Yes, by all means, communicate those feeling too, but the key here is to show it with emotional maturity and kindness. The Bouquet card with its pretty flowers reminds us of those wise old adages: “You catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.” and “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
Again the phrase “emotional maturity” comes to mind. Pitch kindness, not a fit. A little calmness and reason will go a long way for you in this energy environment.
The outer world may be chaos, but it is a good time to show love and kindness. If it is returned, soak it in. Even when it is unrequited, you can feel good about loving in the first place. That moment, that feeling existed and added to the good in the world and still does.
When you love, you win.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved used with permission llwellynpublishing.com
“Keep cutting away the unnecessary to find (and protect) the blessings beneath” Precision and minimalism are your allies. It is a time for scalpels, not sledgehammers.” Intuitively comes through here.
The key point of this card, as I understand it, is that personal growth is a double edged sword. The reversal of the card feels significant here, pointing toward shadow work in particular. It is painful to face the darker side of ourselves, but leads to peace and emotional health in the long run.
Shadow work is the emotional equivalent of a blade that cuts through our defenses causing painful feelings – but opening the way to calmer, more peaceful, more fulfilling emotions as well.
“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.”
Alan Watts
This is the same energy seen in the Heart and the Crane Lenormand cards from our previous reading. Cut away the excess. Clear away the unneeded. Love exists, whole and complete but obscured, just like the beauty within Michelangeo’s sculpture:
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Michelangelo
In this orientation, the sword on the Blessings oracle card resembles the Ace of Swords, which is associated with clarity and truth among other things. The Lenormand reading, the Oracle reading and the hinted-at RWS tarot card all point toward the same basic idea: simplify, clarify, do the hard personal growth work to uncover the obscured now and it will reveal great benefit in the end.
You can be yourself with me. Happy pride month!
Deck: Alleyway Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission from Publishing Goblin LLC
It’s an ancient idea. Buddhist teaching long ago realized that taking action – or even making a decision or making a plan of action – can ease worry and anxiety. Practice and role play are a crucial part of emergency training.
Action eases anxiety, even in tarot. Knowing your energy environment and thinking about a good next step can go a long way to easing turbulent emotions.
Today’s Energy
THE HEART: Hope and love exist. It is near, but tangled in the maze and weeds of daily living. Don’t lose the forest in the trees as the saying goes. Don’t lose the love in the background noise, either.
Next Step
THE CRANE: Something new must deliberately be created. Clear away the mindless, the outdated, the harmful, that which has lost usefulness and the love and hope surrounding you will become clear. It is like Michelangelo’s sculpting method:
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” ― Michelangelo
The love and hope energy is already there.
Clear away the extra and unneeded, and love will emerge.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand Tarot by Christopher Butler, copyright 2021 all rights reserved, used with permissions granted on llwellynpublishing.com
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The ADA layout, opposite to all of my other layouts is read left to right, just like reading English. There is a reason for both. Reading in a direction opposite of my native language disrupts the logical process of reading and grammar, which makes it easier for intuition to flow through.
In this case, the sentence-like structure is the point of it.
I was listening to a podcast that was talking about Lenormand Tarot, and it echoed my own (albeit limited) experience with the Lenormand deck. It is very language like and better suited to small 2-3 card layouts. These small Lenormand readings are often blunt, forthright, in the present moment with a subject and predicate, noun and verb quality. This layout focuses on exactly that: the energy thing that is and what to do.
Today’s energy: Clover. Just like the famous four leaf clover, this is a card of growth, luck
What to do: The letter. Communication is key. Take care to listen and not jump to conclusions. Take care about what you say and speak into being.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler c 2021 all rights reserved. Used with permissions on llwellynpublishing.com
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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
ADA (action dissolves anxiety) Tarot on Sage Sips blog are daily meditation style readings that don’t predict the future, they empower you to influence the future through your actions.
“Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.” – Sage Snow
The current energy: The Horse. Information is easier to get if it isn’t already close at hand.
The next step: The Crossroads. Make a decision that you have been putting off. Decisions are the hardest part sometimes. A decision brings relief and makes the way forward feel easier, obstacles seem easier to overcome. It’s a good time to take the bull by the horns, as they say, put on the grown-up pants and do what you deep down know really needs to be done. Even if it is terrifying. Remember: action dissolves anxiety and making a decision makes action easier.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christoper Butler copyright 2019 Lo Scarabo all rights reserved used under free tarot education permissions LwellynPublishing.com
Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or tea or adult beverage or whatever you have this time of day) – Action Dissolves Anxiety
Thank you for watching the very first ADA (Action Dissolves Anxiety) Tarot post here on Sage Sips. This feels like the reading layout we need.
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Left (what it is, current situation, current energy environment): The Stork – change, upheaval, cycles, deep cleaning
Right (what to do, a good next step): The Tree – Your stability depends on your growth. Increase your awareness, presence, and spiritual center of gravity. Be deliberate. Don’t sleepwalk through the chaos. Do what you can with what you have to grow, to put down roots, to stabilize things as best as you can.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all right resserved. Used with permission via https://www.llewellyn.com/about/permissions_tarot (free tarot education, electronic tarot readings)
Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee
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What the energy is: THE LILIES – folks are tired. It’s the end of winter, not quite spring. The energy environment is craving sincerity and stability. Provide that where you can to make the week better, but also protect your own peace of mind.
What to do about it: THE CHILD – the bear in Christoper Butler’s artwork here is key. Kids tell it like it is, so give your fullest honesty and authenticity as you can, but hold on tight to your teddy bear. The deck author writes that the bear symbolizes protection and empowerment. Being authentic is a place of strength. Protect your inner true self: from others, but also from your own inner critic, and let the real you shine.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christoper Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved Llwellyn Publishing, used with permission (free tarot education)
It’s a little bit like that Blondie song “One Way Or Another.”
If you are willing to listen for it, to pay just a little bit of attention, to let yourself accept that a coincidence is as meaningful as it seems, then your guidance is all around you. Anything can reflect your own good intuition.
Two heads are still sometimes better than one.
Sometimes that intuitive guidance needs a little focus for you to see it or a little amplification for you to fully hear it.
That’s where things like Tarot cards, professional readers, tea leaves, crystals, runes and the whole woo-woo thing comes into play. They aren’t anything bad or anything special about any of those things. All of these things help our intuition in the same way glasses can help us read a book or an amplifier can help us listen to a concert.
Psychologist Carl Jung called it synchronicity (just like the Police song also from the ’80s) Some coincidences seem meaningful. If you allow them to be, they are.
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to “The Circle is Podcast” with Mat Auryn, Rachel True and a Lenorman Tarot expert whose name escapes me at the moment. The one thing that stuck with me from the episode was how they experienced Lenormand Tarot as being very verbal in the intuition it gives, while RWS style decks tend to be visual.
That is my experience in the short time I’ve used this Lenormand deck as well.
It’s typical for me to get a mix of mental images (clairvoyance) and words or music (clairaudience) in any given reading, the Lenormand deck seems to almost exclusively verbal. It speaks in full sentences more than just keywords.
The person on the podcast said she tended to use 2 or 3 card layouts for rapid daily guidance more than using the “grand tableau” where ALL of the cards are out on the table. When I was reading about how to do a grand tableau reading, it struck me as being over-engineered, far to complex to be useful as anything other than an enriched environment to spark a straight psychic reading, will the cards themselves contributing very little in that situation.
The Lenormand is very verbal. The simplest, most basic sentence is a noun and a verb – a thing and an action. It seems to me that is where Lenormand has its most simple, yet most elegant, use.
I’d like to explore two card layouts with two Lenormand cards, one to reflect the current situation…the thing that IS…and another to give you some idea what to do about it.
Beyond that, I’m leaving it fluid. Regardless of which card comes first, or which direction you read them, one is the thing and the other is the action and so far it seems fairly obvious which is which. As per their reputation, the Lenormand cards do not mess around in that respect.
For example today’s cards are a clear “stability is coming” The tower is carrying the thing message. It symbolizes stability. The Rider symbolizes something coming, a message or a messenger.
What that short sentence means to you as an individual can vary wildly. But that is, again, how your personal message always finds you. It’s an internal process as much as an external manifestation. It is how you see the world as it is reflected back to you through your individual lens of understanding.
Coming stability may for some be welcome relief from a time of chaos. For others “coming stability” might mean continued chaos, and more of the same. The important thing isn’t as much as the card as it is how you resonate with it.
You’ll know. No matter what I write or say to you in a reading, your heart and bones will know the right message. You’ll know your message when it comes to you through how right it feels to you. Sometimes your message finds you through you recognizing wrongness.
There is a comical scene in the 1960s classic The Addams Family where Morticia is telling an insurance adjuster that a pile of ash is the remains of their highly insured stuffed polar bear. When he objects, she calmly says something like “Does it look like a vulture? Does it look like ….” and seemingly goes on to ask if it looks like every conceivable animal, ending with something like “there you go! Then it MUST be a polar bear!”
Your message will find you even through a ridiculously long process of elimination. If you know in your heart and bones that a reading is off, then at least you know one thing that your message is not and can keep listening for whatever it is.
As someone with the privilege of doing readings for others (now as a hobby, as commissioned folk art) when I put this together with that meta-message that was coming through so much around the holidays of “change followed by a happy ending” I read the the Lenormand duo as being colored both ways: Stability is coming with steady “new normal” chaos in the near future AND stability is coming with relief from the chaos in a more distant future.
Again, 2026 steps forward. I have no idea why. I’ll leave that up to your lens of understanding to figure out.
Thank you so much for reading!
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