Private Readings update

Eclipse inspired page update

Inspired by sitting on the back porch staring at the sun (with proper glasses of course) I’ve re-worked my private readings page. Here’s the latest…


Please scroll down for the full list of available layouts

Formats

  • Email (.pdf attachment, includes a photo of your unique card layout)
  • Video (spoken, shows your unique cards being drawn)
  • InkMagick (pen and paper, handwritten, delivered by mail, USA only)
  • phone readings by appointment – please contact me for details or to schedule

Features

  • Convenient: order 24/7, no appointment needed
  • Private: Experience your reading in a time and place that is right for you
  • Affordable: Flat rate prices per full layout, not per minute.
  • Transparent: Know your full cost before you order. Click here for policies

Available Layouts

  • Modern Oracle (Five cards): fading energy, current energy, growing energy, turning point, alternate path
  • Eclipse Three card: What needs released, your spirit message, growing energies
  • Sage Sip: (One card) meditation for very general guidance or follow up to a recent reading (email version is FREE for Sage Sip ko-fi members)

Seasonal (email only) special readings Click HERE for availability

  • TaoCraft Seven Card: Five cards as above with helping energies and potential challenges added.
  • Year Ahead: guiding themes for the year ahead, season by season.
  • Zombie Cat’s Yes or No: Light, fun, entertainment “tongue in what’s left of his cheek” Zombie Cat answers any question with yes or no answer that is 100% guaranteed to contain words and has a 50% chance of being dead wrong. Free for ZOMBIE CAT ko-fi members

Prices for 2024

  • Inkmagick Five Card Tarot (real paper by actual mail, US residents only) $35*
  • Modern Oracle Five card (email, video, phone) $30
  • Eclipse Three card (email, video) $15
  • One card Sage Sip (email, video, paper*) $5
  • Members save $5 on all email & video readings – click HERE to join

Seasonal Layouts

  • TaoCraft (Seven Cards, email or video) $40
  • Year ahead (Five cards, email only) $30
  • Find the Flow (Four cards, email or video) $25
  • Zombie Cat Yes/No (Three cards, email only) $15

These Tarot readings are a customized ephemeral folk art service intended for personal enrichment and spiritual expression. These advice style readings do not predict the future.

* Postage included. Membership discount does not apply to InkMagick paper readings.

No medical, legal, or third person questions please

All policies apply.

You Choose Card of the Week 3-11-24

Private readings by email or recorded video HERE (no appointment needed)


Three of swords : Trust must be earned, even when you want to give it easily

Eight of wands: Patience and time can work in your favor. Obstacles and challenges may be slowing you down enough to protect you from something you don’t see coming.

Five of pentacles: It’s not a good time for impulse buys. Wait, be sure first.

And there, the energy steps back. I guess we chalk this week up to a pithy and potent kind of card reading.

Next up is finally starting that behind the scenes series either Wednesday or Friday, depending on how much the squirrels rave this week. Either way, have a good week. See you at the next sip!

Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission (publishinggoblin.com)

Squirrel image: unknown / public domain

It’s Not Time Yet

I have plans. Plans within plans.

One of which is to (hopefully) go see Dune 2 this weekend.

Other than that, you would think I would have learned my lesson about the plan thing by now.

I HAD planned to do the first big, juicy behind the scenes post, but it just isn’t happening.

So for realz this time – no schedules, no plans. Intuition doesn’t flow that way. Once again for about the bazillionth time in this lifetime – Taoism proves its wisdom to me.

Here is our behind-the-scenes for today: If you are going to read the energy, you have to flow with the energy. You have to be in harmony with the nature of it – and in harmony with your own nature.

I’ve never surfed, but I imagine that Tarot is energy surfing – to read the waves, you have to ride the waves, flow with the waves, making millions of tiny adjustments to hold your balance along the way.

That.

Let’s do that and see where the waves take us.


Private readings HERE – no appointment needed.

Housekeeping!

New stuff! Same Stuff! Website update stuff!

Just finished a little light housekeeping on the website…

New! Handwritten “InkMagick” readings and video readings are back!

The same! Order Tarot readings 24/7 no appointment needed 

Limited availability! Live online and in-person readings are only available on Monday afternoons by advance appointment.

2024 Schedule: There is none

Blog: Monday (your choice card of the week) Wednesday (Learn With Me) and Friday (quotes, reviews, random stuff) – maybe.

Social Media: I’m on Threads most days if you want to say hello. You can find Sage Words Tarot content on Facebook, Tumblr, TikTok and Instagram, too.

Please enjoy the FREE collective energy Tarot readings here on the blog and social media.

Subscribe to the free blog in the right hand column on PC or scroll down on mobile.

If you want a weekly digest instead of every post as it publishes, please subscribe to the Sage Sips newsletter on Substack.

Hello 2024: Meet Your Reader – again

Happy New Year! Re-introducing the re-introductions

Happy 2024 everyone!

We’ve made it to the other side of blurry time and it was, well, blurry. Did you make any resolutions for the new year? Mine is resolution is to give up on resolutions.

One of the reasons I flirted with the “TaoCraft” name for a while is because year after year, time and time again Taoist philosophy proves itself right and useful. I’m gratefully at a point where I can let the nature of my Tarot work be what it is.

“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Intuition, like the universe, is under no obligation to make sense OR to follow best marketing practices OR to follow any calendar or schedule. I’ve been doing this professionally since 2003 and it hasn’t fit into a set schedule yet.

It’s time to be in harmony with the nature of Tarot. I’m willing to be at peace with the fact that the schedule for 2024 is that there is no schedule at all.

Do you have anything that is free form and flows like water into the empty spaces of life? It’s really relaxing to have SOMETHING like that. Tarot, by its naturea, is one of those things.

Here, now, as we look at this screen together outside of time – thank you for reading this blog. I hope we can go on through 2024 flowing as a river of peace and relaxation in these moments together. That is what Tarot is really for – finding moments of peacefulness in life’s torrent of emotions and bustling activity.

I’ll be the first to admit that blurry time got the better of me this year, although the cookies were really very good. (More about stuff like that on Sage’s Other Words blog.) I had originally intended to use the holiday time to “reset” as they say in broadcasting. I wanted to pause for station identification and to re-introduce my work, the new name, the website, Tarot in general – all of it – to everyone. I introduced myself and the Sage Words / Sage Sips name in

Just because we ate all of the cookies doesn’t mean the guided tour has to stop. You can still expect those re-introduction posts to filter in over the next few, slightly less blurry weeks.

For clarity, let’s start with the easy stuff like the 2024 schedule.

There isn’t any.

For the whole year. Nada. Zip. Zero. None.

I have a general plan, but absolutely no promises about consistency. I do, however, promise to keep the blog up to date. If you ever want an affordable, convenient Tarot reading this is the first and best place to look. All the socials are @SageWordsTarot (add a YT on YouTube) and they are pretty caught up as well. I’ve been enjoying Threads a lot lately so that’s the best place to catch me for an actual conversation.

In any case, I’m aiming for a loose structure but letting it do whatever it is going to do in the end. I’m not forcing my Tarot to fit a schedule or forcing the rest of my schedule to fit Tarot.

It is what it is.

There are reasons why Lau Tzu, purported author of the Tao Te Ching, is the one looking smiley and chill in the classic motif of The Three Vinegar Tasters. The others are reacting to the bitterness and sourness that they taste. Our buddy Lau Tzu is just happy that the vinegar tastes just like vinegar should.

You may or may not like the taste of vinegar. You may or may not like an unpredictable blog or social post schedule, but both are true to their nature, just as they should be.

The not-really-a-plan plan:

  • Blog posts are mostly going to be Monday and Wednesday but other random times too.
  • Social media will post whenever there is something new on the blog, but other random times too. Fair warning: I’m a bit of a rage re-poster so look out for that.
  • Member exclusive content on the ko-fi blog is going to be totally random (the main membership benefit is FREE one card private readings by email upon your reqest)
  • Good or bad, I’ve been enjoying Threads lately. If you want to actually communicate, that’s the best social media place. Email is the fastest and most reliable contact otherwise.
  • NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED: Private Readings by email (with photo) video or pen & ink can be ordered anytime, 24/7 in the shop. Delivery times vary depending on when you place your order.
  • Live online and in-person Tarot readings by appointment only are very limited this year. Please contact me for details.

P.S. The New Year 2024 Tarot reading is HERE.

See you at the next sip!

#KofiChallenge

OPEN for the holidays!

Open for the holidays – announcing January hours

The elves are busy, but not panicked. The squirrels are taking it easy – kicking back munching nuts and drinking spiked eggnog, apparently. I’m going to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with the fam, the kitchen, the knitting needles and an actual library book.

I can slide an email Tarot reading into that scenario pretty easily. Email readings are my happy place, my specialty, my niche and my strong suit in the world of Tarot. Come in to that coziness and read a reading. No appointment needed for this kind of Tarot – order anytime HERE.

I’m @sagewordstarot on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and TikTok. Threads and Instagram are my favorites, so if you want to say hi that’s the best social media place to find me and have actual conversation. The socials might be sporadically quiet, but stay tuned here on the main blog. I have some new posts planned for the blurry-time between now and New Year.

Next up, however, is a Learn With Me: Lenormand tomorrow. See you then!


Party Tarot is pretty much closed for good except for very local, case by case special appearances. In-person individual readings and live online readings are closed until January 2024. In person will resume in January and be available by appointment on Mondays. Live online/phone readings return in January by appointment.

E-mail Tarot is ALWAYS OPEN. Order anytime 24/7. Delivery times are usually within 24 hours but may vary if you place your order nights, weekends or holidays (US eastern time)

Winter Hours

Winter Hours

Winter Hours = All of them!

Distance Tarot is my favorite Tarot to do, so that is my focus for the winter and beyond.

It’s my specialty. Written distance Tarot gives you the best of my 30 years of Tarot reading experience.

Writing gives me richer, deeper access to my intuition than speaking does. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it works and written distance Tarot accesses the best parts of my psychic ability.

Don’t get me wrong. After all these years, my spoken, in-person readings are good. REALLY good.

My email Tarot is just that teensy itsy bit better. I can link you to the pop culture references that intuition throws at us. I can find images to help you see what I see intuitively. I can spell check and back up and find the exactly right words to elevate your reading and make it something extra special.

Email Tarot is available to order ALL of the hours: 24/7, no appointment needed ORDER HERE.

Keeping in mind that I am only one real world person, I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I get the order notice. Full write-ups usually arrive in your inbox within 24 hours, but that might vary a bit during the holidays. Because cookies. And knitting.

Warner Brothers The Matrix 1999

Email Tarot has a lot of advantages.

It gives you the best of my intuition.

You don’t have to wait for an appointment.

You get the ultimate in privacy.

You get a wider variety of layouts to choose from.

You KNOW it is genuine and real. You can’t answer leading questions or give body language cues. There is no way for stage mentalism or magic tricks to come into it.

Plus you get a better price. Working by email, I don’t need a brick and mortar location and can pass those savings along to you. With email, prices start as low as $5 for a one card meditation reading.

The $40 seven card layout is the SAME IDENTICAL reading as an in-person session. You get an hour-equivalent reading for less than the price of a 30 minute in-person session with most psychics.

AND (drum roll please)

I’m bringing back VIDEO distance readings. Instead of reading the distance session, you can listen to it plus see your cards as they are being drawn. If you like the experience of in-person readings but want the lower cost and no-appointment convenience, this is the Tarot for you.

The video readings use the Five Card TaoCraft layout. When you order, you get an instant download explaining the whole process. A link to your individual customized PRIVATE share video reading will come to the email that you specify in your order.

Get yours today before the price for video goes up to match the written readings in January.

Here is an example of a collective blog reading from a few years ago. Your reading will be more focused on you and your question, of course. Video readings for individuals feature the five card TaoCraft layout.

Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans © 2012 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125. All rights reserved, used by permission.

Contemplate, Connect, Do

Please think of me if you ever want a private Tarot reading. Sage Sips’ free Tarot content is fueled by private readings, memberships, and coffee (real and virtual.) Any likes, blog follows, social media follows, shares, or comments you can spare all help too! Thanks!

Well, this is interesting.

I’ve been doing these weekly readings for what, a couple of months now? I’d hoped this would happen, but this is the first time that a previous “growing energy” has moved through to be a “fading energy” card. That process alone is giving the Four of Swords special attention. It may be “fading” but honestly it feels more like “getting ready to maybe fade” The Four of Swords is still very much a prominent energy today, even if it isn’t the ONLY energy today by any means.

I’ll claim it. It’s a mood.

The Four of Swords is a big energy for me right now. It was a long week at the day job and I’m glad for the holiday today. More on that later, probably on Sage’s Other Words. I’m feeling my introverted, INTP aesthetic, cyberpunk, goth-ish side for some reason. Maybe pure rebellion to all of the sunny, hot weather we’ve had lately. I dunno.

Wherever the Four of Swords is falling into your personal energy arc – growing, strongly present, fading away, or maybe not there at all – it feels like it is asking for our attention just by virtue of showing up two weeks in a row from two different decks. This week I used the public domain Waite Smith, last week I used the Alleyman’s Tarot. The four of swords look almost opposite in the two decks, but both bark up the same tree: mind, intellect, thinking, introspection, all of the rest and abide with your thoughts and feelings sort of thing. Last week the card was asking us to engage with deep thoughts, to contemplate, to contemplate contemplation if you want to get really meta about it.

This week it is more of a think things through before you act kind of vibe. The word “ABIDE” is coming to mind here. Think the thoughts and feel the feels for a little bit before jumping into action.

The two of swords typically means indecision, being of two minds about something. I’ve always resonated with another, less known, interpretation from Diane Morgan’s excellent Tarot book Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao. No mystery why that is my favorite Tarot read ever, since it lands square in the middle of my personal wheelhouse, that liminal, Venn diagram overlap between western witchy Tarot and exoteric Taoism (meaning I follow the spiritual philosophy, not the religion)

Her interpretation is one of spiritual connection to the cosmos. The interconnectedness of everything. Oneness. Or as she put it “mystical unity” found in life. Think of the universality of the energy and the connection to the spirit and energy we talk about in Tarot. I think that is where the Two of Swords is pointing today. That connection to everything, that sense of cosmos, is a very internal, subjective, contemplative thing. If the two of swords in “mystic unity” mode is the current energy, it makes sense that the Four of Swords still seems strong because the two energies are closely related and it makes sense that the two cards would work in tandem to pull our attention to our internal world.

But in typical squirrel rave, strip your gears, 90 degree Tron-turn fashion, life switches from strongly internal to strongly external. We drop the airy, mental, esoteric swords cards right into the action side of swords and the earth element physical realm pentacles. Swords can also be associated with action (like the knight, for example) so the swords are also acting as a bridge from internal focus to real-world focus.

Even though they are nearly opposites, we begin and end with fours. I’ll let you figure out the numerology of that if numerology resonates with you. My instinct is to give a shoutout to all the April birthdays out there. A diamond ring and a sparkly, rainbow-y crystal suncatcher sort of crystal window decoration comes to mind here.

With the Four of Pentacles I get “eco-warrior” “ruthless conservation” but not on a political level…it feels very personal level. I connect it with looming potential drought. Save water. Water is life. Mind your budget and your resources. Instead of hunkering down to survive a harsh winter it feels like being disciplined in order to survive a harsh summer. Dune, both the book and movie, and the discipline of the Freman people need to survive in the desert comes to mind here. If you haven’t read the books, they are classic science fiction. I totally recommend them for a satisfying pool or beach read this summer.

But that’s the vibe on the horizon as it stands now. Mind your budget, conserve water and energy. Hopefully this is a good sign that the collective is gearing up for Plastic Free July both the Australian non-profit AND the just plain concept of reducing your single use plastics. I have it on good authority, that the blog How to Holistic will be talking more about that sort of thing in the near future.

Long story short: contemplate, connect, do

Thanks so much for reading! Next up, more oracle dice on Wednesday if all goes to plan.

See you at the next sip!


Email Tarot is my specialty! Affordable, professional, ethical Tarot by email is available to order 24/7, no appointment needed, with secure checkout with PayPal. Order HERE anytime

IMPORTANT

UPDATE STUFF!!!

Holey Smokes! I just realized it’s almost June and the TaoCraftTarot.com domain name is going to go away before too long.

PLEASE update your bookmarks, browsers and all of that online stuff….

Everything is going full SAGEWORDSTAROT.com this summer !!!

Everything will be fully changed by fall and I don’t want you to miss anything.

  • Email Tarot is always OPEN, no appointment needed (I’m eastern time zone, USA. Delivery times for readings are longer if you order during our nights, weekends and holidays)
  • Free week-ahead reading for everyone on the blogs on Mondays be sure to follow this FREE wordpress blog to get ALL of the free posts and announcements. It’s opt in, so put your email in the box in the right hand page column to get the good stuff (or scroll WAAYYY down on mobile)
  • SageWordsTarot is on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and TikTok
  • Paid subscribers on WordPress, Ko-fi and Substack get exclusive content
  • Ko-fi Sage Sip members get BONUS member perks including discounted email readings (readings menu) and free one card readings (shop)
  • In-person (select Pittsburgh locations) and live online readings are available by appointment – details HERE

Are You Evil?

Question: Is Tarot evil?

Answer: It depends. Are YOU evil?

It has been said that a wise person is like a mirror, holding no opinion, teaching only by reflecting things as they are.

Tarot is like that.

Tarot is an amplifier for our own innate, natural intuition just like the shiny surface behind the light bulb makes a flashlight seem brighter. The eyes are said to be a mirror of the soul. Tarot is a mirror that lets us look ourselves right in the eye, right in the soul. That can be a terrifying thing. Or it can be the ultimate liberation allowing us to see and therefore become our most genuine self.

That is the power of Tarot.

Sure, the prediction thing is all fun and giggles and a great storytelling device for books, movies and TV but the real power in Tarot lies in its ability to hold up a mirror to who we are and give us a hint about how to help that person in the mirror be a little better and live a little happier.

Everyone is at least a little bit afraid of the unknown.

If you don’t know what to expect from a reading and all you know of Tarot is poltergeist movies and religious hysteria, something would be wrong if you DIDN’T worry about Tarot being evil. No one wants doors slamming, knives flying around the kitchen or red eyes growling in the night. No matter how good a mirror may be, it can’t reflect light that isn’t there. Setting clear, strong, positive intentions is the thing that turns on the light and puts some safety rails around the whole thing. Clear, positive intentions and shining your own inner light will spare you from gut twisting dread when cards like the Devil or the ten of swords show up.

The Devil and all of the other ominous looking cards are important, but they aren’t evil. They are part of the mirror. Dark, uncomfortable, frightening, terrible things are necessary in the deck to accurately reflect life on Earth which has dark, uncomfortable, frightening, terrible things in it.

Mirrors don’t come with background removal software.

Let’s be very clear: when dark or frightening cards turn up in a reading for you, it doesn’t mean that YOU are evil or doing something wrong. It doesn’t mean that someone you know has done something wrong or is out to get you. Tarot readings aren’t always that personal. Sometimes they reflect the human condition in which we all live. A mirror shows you looking into it but it also shows what is behind you and around you. Like the mirrors in a car show the traffic around you and help to reduce your blind spots, the cards show the energy around you. Knowing the energy environment can help you to adapt and thrive even in the middle of life’s biggest gnarliness.

Mirrors don’t come with special effect filters. They show you life as it is, not sprinkle pixie dust on it just to make you feel better. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging that it exists and exactly what it realistically is. Good Tarot points out problems and suggests possible solutions.

The best Tarot does all of that with kindness.

Common courtesy and business transparency, with a generous helping of compassion while still telling hard truths are hallmarks of a genuine psychic or a skilled Tarot reader. If you are worried about Tarot being evil but still want to give it a try, it is all the more important that you find a trustworthy reader that makes you feel at ease without sugar coating everything.

I have some more thoughts about finding a psychic you can trust on the blog website. A link is in the episode description for podcast listeners. To help decrease the fear of the unknown by eliminating the unknown about my readings, the free ebook Tarot Portfolio is available for instant download in my ko-fi shop. There’s a link for that too.

Thanks so much for reading and listening. If you like Q & A posts like this, send some questions to be answered! You can use the AMA form on the website, use the blog comments, ko-fi DMs or the email contact listed on the website. If you like any of this Tarot content, virtual coffee and membership on ko-fi supports the creation of this free blog and podcast.

See you at the next sip!


Private readings by email are OPEN! Order 24/7, no appointment needed

Ko-fi Tarot Table members get free one card readings in the SHOP and discount readings in the commissions menu.