Tag: onion

Learn With Me: Oracle Dice, The Crone of Summer

Sage Sips blog is a contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

I don’t know much about Dungeons & Dragons, but I’d call this character chaotic good.

This is a really lovable card, and it’s tempting to join the chaos, but I’m in full sun-avoidant deep shade forest baby Grogu sipping soup and calmly watching the mayhem unfold mood. You don’t always have to participate in order to appreciate.

Let’s stay methodical this week.

Tarot, or any good intuition enhancing too, has layers of meaning just like ogres and onions.

The first we looked at a single face from the dice – analogous to drawing individual cards for a Tarot layout. By randomly rolling seven times we selected 7 “practice dice” out of the 22 dice set to work with as we get to know the Oracle Dice. Learning the oracle dice parallels the way I learned Tarot. I’ve distilled YEARS of trial and error into this step by step thing we are doing. I’m learning the oracle dice this way because I KNOW this way of learning and reading oracle tools … any intuition helper…works. I know it works well because I’ve been doing it for a hot minute. Longer than I care to admit most days.

You get the idea about the individual faces and how to look at those.

Now we are going through our practice dice one by one looking at it from the die cube meaning. The Oracle Dice’s creator, Seven Dane Asmund assigned a name and meaning to each of the 22 dice (one of which is a cool 12 face die) In this edition, he also created a card with the “lord” of each of the dice. The “lord” in this case is a parallel to the suit in Tarot. The “lord” is the essence of die’s meaning, its guardian, its protector, sort of the ace, king and queen all rolled into one.

Today’s die is “summer” depicted as the “Crone of Summer.” It’s perfect that the image on the card includes gold coins because this card encapsulates much of the same energies as the suit of coin (pentacles) in Tarot. There is easy, almost careless generosity around it. It is so fully and unabashedly about the physical realm that it rises above the physical realm and becomes something more esoteric, much as the ten of pentacles (coins) is so fully prosperous and abundant that it points to the intangible treasures of love and happiness that money can never buy. Such is the effusive joi de vie embodied by the crone of summer.

You know how I see the world through Taoism colored glasses

The dots in the yin yang symbol represent the idea that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. We see that in the ten of pentacles and the Crone of Summer. The physical realm taken to its extreme can hold the seed of its opposite. In excess creation lies the potential for destruction. In excess possession lies the potential for generosity and so on.

When we move on to the next layer – combining dice – when the summer die rolls in, think of it in unabashed and golden terms like full throttle summer and an exuberant generosity of self and spirit

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your generosity with your time.

If you ever want a private Tarot reading, please think of me. The free Tarot and other content here on the Sage Sips blog and on Sage Words Tarot social media is fueled by your reading purchases, your memberships and lots of coffee (both irl and the virtual kind on ko-fi)

Your likes, follows, shares and comments are always greatly appreciated!

*Publishing Goblin‘s Oracle Dice used with permission

Throw Back 2021: Ogres

It’s that retrospective, year-in-review time of, ahem, year.

I used to think it was fun and sentimental. You know, reflection, introspection, personal growth and all that. But now I’m older and wiser. It’s also easy content. Who am I to argue with that logic? (She says as she shuffles off for another cup of spiced coffed and a cranberry scone for breakfast)

Today we’re throwing back to April. If you are more in a mood to look forward, “Year Ahead” readings are available by email on the home page. Memberships get both an exclusive “month ahead reading” on the ko-fi blog and a private year ahead reading by email when you join.

That being said, here is “Growing Ogres” from April 2021.

Shrek: ….ogres are like onions

Donkey: They stink?

….

Shrek: No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers

from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com

Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.

Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)

Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.

Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot (related: what’s in a name, Shakespear’s Roses, Spell Your Name)

That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.

In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is a condition of licensure and employment. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.

And so, the “Modern Oracle” layout is evolving. I’m calling abort on the video / text hybrid format. It was an experiment that failed, and I’ve learned something important from it.

Remember how deeper layers are often perceived as more authentic and how old layers of growing onions turn papery and fall off? It’s time for the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle layouts to evolve, to become more authentic, to show more of their inner complexity. The video hybrid isn’t the way for that to happen. The names of layout card positions are changing. It’s a tiny detail that you may not even notice from your side of the Tarot table. On my side of the table it is important shift in mindset. This allows me to fully and authentically follow what intuition and spirit shows me.

I wrote the initial layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the Modern Oracle layouts specifically to show the power of your choices over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in the old style became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.

Now it will go one step further. I in my minds’s eye, I see a reading in terms of dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. As Modern Oracle layouts become TaoCraft layouts, we will let go of time and predictions entirely. If the Modern Oracle layout was like GPS map for your path ahead, the TaoCraft layout is like a GPS traffic update with a weather report.

Card 1, lessons from the past, will become Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are moving away from you. These are things that need less of your attention.

Card 2, current situation, will become Current Energies, the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention in this moment.

Card 3, moving forward will become Growing Energies, energies moving toward you, or gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is still intended to guide you, help you prepare for possible conditions ahead. Think of it like a weather report. It doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen to you during your day, but it can give you the chance of rain or sun while it happens.

Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. The choices card will take on a more advisory tone than before. Instead of suggesting how to persist or how change your path, it focuses on whether changing or whether staying the course is the wisest thing to do.

Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed.

Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are the same as always, and speak to exactly what the name implies.

Long story short, if you are dead set on a specific “accurate” prediction, you aren’t going to like the new TaoCraft layouts. If that’s the case, you need the Zombie Cat yes/no readings like we did the other day. Even then, you have to realize it isn’t 100%.

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