liminal – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Action Eases Anxiety: Portal

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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.

Blurry Time ’23: Meet Your Reader

Using blurry-time to reintroduce myself. Hello & Happy Holidays!

Happy Festivus to all who celebrate! Welcome to what I’m calling Blurry Time ’23. Elfcon is over, the preparations are done. It’s all cookies and coffee from here.

I subscribe to Outlined, the web comic by Chaz Hutton. My favorite comic is the drawing of a December calendar page where the second half is basically a bunch of wiggly lines.

That perfectly captures the feel of the season. Even for those of us working a normal day job schedule, there is a sense of shared down time and camaraderie among those out and about actually doing the things for that week between Christmas eve and New Years day.

It’s truly liminal space and time. It is magical time. It is time disconnected from time – or something like that.

2023 as a whole felt very liminal and transitional. It was a blurry-ish year moving from the extended pandemic / dumpster fire years 2020-22 (2016-22 if you live in the U.S.) We’ll get back to how 2024 is looking when we do the annual just-for-fun (and wishful thinking) year-ahead Tarot reading next weekend (-ish)

In the meantime, I want to use blurry time to bridge years.

2023 was the first full year of Sage Words Tarot. I want to circle back around and use the blurry time re-introduce it all for the bright, shiny new year on the way.

I don’t know why – probably no reason at all – but it always seems to start with musing about names.

Hi! I’m Sage.

I’m also a Tarot reader and author of Sage Sips blog with its “Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee.”

I’ve been reading Tarot and oracle cards since around 1992 which adds up to 30 years of experience with Tarot and intuition development (!)

I didn’t originally start out to be a Tarot reader (who does?) At first, I did readings for myself and friends (why PAY for it when you can DIY it?) After close friend suggested I go online with my readings (eternal gratitude!) I offered psychic Tarot readings through Keen, Advice Trader and AllExperts under my old internet handle, Baihu. After doing hundreds of online readings (I stopped counting after 400) I opened my own Tarot practice in 2003 which grew to include ModernOracleTarot.com, the Tarotbytes blog and the now-defunct Quirk & Flotsam shop on Etsy.

It was all good, but had become a hodge-podge of names and logos over the years. Then along came the Covid pandemic and changed things even more. After a short interim as TaoCraft Tarot (2018-2023) I’ve been working as SageWordsTarot.com and writing Sage Sips blog ever since.

TaoCraft lingers in layout names. TaoCraft was drawn from my love of Taoist philosophy. My Tarot work will always be guided by the principles of simplicity, authenticity, and kindness. It was also drawn from my affinity for solitary eclectic witchcraft. The TaoCraft name means a lot to me, but not so much to anyone else who sees it and that’s a problem because these Tarot readings aren’t about me – they are for YOU and about YOU.

Sage is a pen name, which helps to protect our privacy. Christian nationalism and religious bigotry is a very real thing here in America. I will do all I can to make this a safe space for everyone, especially for the lgbtquia+ community and those of us who are not Christian.

The herb sage has a comforting, familiar scent and flavor that most of us know from home cooking and holiday turkeys.

In aromatherapy, sage incense and essential oil can clear negative energy, calm anxiety and promote a feeling of general well being.

The word sage also means something or someone who is wise. The word sage describes the wise advice Tarot gives.

Safety, comfort, calmness, wisdom and a feeling that things are going to be alright are all qualities I hope you’ll experience when you read the blog, visit my social media or best of all get a private reading of your own .

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Looking Forward to the Weekend

Two of Wands Tarot: Liminal space helps us look forward

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Earlier this week, we looked at three cards for the week. The growing energy was…and is…the two of wands.

The collective energy is a little bit of a tough read this morning. It is a swirl of collective individualism. It feels a little like an abstract pointillist painting – any patterns or pictures that are made of uncountable individual dots. I’m also getting mental images of other abstract art: Jackson Pollack, acrylic paint pours or water marbled crafts. Even in social gatherings it feels like each individual is an island unto themselves with a inner focus, contemplative, day-dreaming quality.

For some, it might feel really lonely and isolated. I get a tinge of regrets, and looking back.

That might be where the two of wands comes in.

It is advice leaning even more today than it was 5 days ago. There is a sense that we are being asked to deliberately look forward, find hope, and hang in there with every claw on our little kitten paws, just like the meme.

More than that, my attention is even more strongly drawn to the idea of liminal space and the “standing on the threshold” quality of the figure between the two staffs, the two wands.

I’ve only started reading Laura Tempest Zarkof’s book Weaving The Liminal. I’m taking this as a hint to pick that up again this weekend.

For the collective, think of terms like liminal, terminal (like an airport terminal or travel hub with changes and connections) portal, gateway…

Places like that are intensely present-moment. It makes sense out of the natural retrospective energy combined with the advice to look ahead in hope…

It makes sense.

Evaluating where we are and understanding how we got here is essential to getting where we want to go next. They are necessary to calling what we need to us.

Pay attention to your connection to the universe on its largest scale. In that large, cosmic perspective you are never alone and there is always hope.

If you are part of the majority who has the weekend off from work, the energy now is a good chance to spend some quality time with yourself to think about the path that has brought you here and what is your next step.

If you are one of those at work – thank you. Whatever your next days off may be has a good chance of giving you this same opportunity for contemplation.

In short, find a mental and emotional sanctuary that helps you to transition from the past, however hard, to a more hopeful view of the future.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go read more of that book.

Next up, the energy path reading for next week. See you at the next sip!

Refill

*slides into chair with second cup of coffee*

Hello Sitters

We need to think of an insider nickname for y’all. My inner 12 year old still gets a kick out of that sort of thing. I’m a Browncoat, a Whovian and more recently a card carrying, fan-pack downloading Space Monkey (fan of the Oz 9 podcast, my friend David Dear is a cast member) What do you think? Sitters? Sippers? Think about it and let me know and we’ll all try to forget about the bubble gum pop stars that do the same thing – swifty bieberheads or whatever the kids call it nowadays.

ANYWAY….

I just wanted to slide back in and see what you thought about the turnover this weekend. How do you like the exercise so far?

I thought it might be fun to touch base with you a day or two later, give you any brainwaves that might have popped up when I saw the card and see what you think.

WordPress energy is way more of a publishing platform. There is a definite shift in tone towards a formal, professional, public presentation which is great. I want that for Tarot. I want it to have a full professional trustworthiness about it.

But for us – you, me, the membership part of it all – I want this to be cozy and informal and a conversation. I want the ko-fi members blog to be a permanent AMAA – Ask Me Anything Anytime. If I don’t have a legit answer, I’ll happily spout a half-baked opinion for you instead….

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Threshold

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Threshold

Today’s card is the Two of Wands

The two cards of all the minor arcana suits point toward balance of some kind. The two of wands today feels more like a tipping point than any sort of long-lasting balance.

How many times do you walk through a doorway in a day? Going through a literal door is something we do so much that it is beneath notice. When we add in the elements of time and change, doorways take on a great deal of symbolic meaning. Liminal spaces are not just transitional, they can be transformational.

These places and times of change have always been thought of as being a little bit magic. It’s no wonder that we celebrate New Years, birthdays and anniversaries. Such times can bring the gift of healing and sealing the past in one hand with hope and optimism in the other.

Think of your favorite sunrise or sunset. The time just before sunset is called the golden hour. To me it is more than the natural light being perfect for photography, it is the feeling of the time as well. It brings to mind a nearly forgotten line from Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicals about feeling as if you could reach out and touch time, touch eternity itself. Threshold places and transition times can feel a little like that.

Transitional times and places touch both past and future. Transition times are an extra dose of eternity living in the present moment.

The Two of Wands is a very forward-looking card. It has some elements of waiting, watching, contemplating and planning, but today it feels like change is close at hand but relative to a much larger picture. It’s close, but in terms of months relative to years, not close as in minutes or days. This threshold is built out of transition time. This threshold is wide. The energy in the card today reminds me of the impromptu year ahead reading we did here on the blog and podcast in the “old is new again” post and episode. If time before the pandemic was “the before times” it feels like we are entering a long threshold, like a hallway really, to the “after times.”

The card has a surprisingly intimidating feel despite the pleasant artwork on the card. I guess that is to be expected – any change, any threshold can be intimidating when you aren’t 100 percent sure what is on the other side. Yet there is also a sense of hope and anticipation as well. Things change, but for once, in spite of being burned before, things might just change for the better this time.

In short hope for best, prepare for the worst, but if you can, appreciate the magic inherent to the thresholds we cross.

TaoCraft Tarot podcast is the audio version of the TaoCraft Tarot blog. Short Sip posts and nano-episodes are Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. You can see the real-world card being drawn for the day on the corresponding YouTube short video.

I am so glad that you are here. Thank you for watching, reading and listening. I really do appreciate your support through likes, subs, shares, follows. None of this Tarot content is currently monetized so if you enjoy any of it, please support the blog and podcast through the virtual tip mug, shop and tier memberships on the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi.com page (convenient links are in the episode description for podcast listeners)

Thanks again for dropping in. See you at the next sip.

Suggested reading: Weaving the Liminal by Laura Tempest Zarkoff

On of the author’s favorite paintings “Keeper of the Threshold” by Eliju Vedder, 1898 at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh PA.