Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.
Tarot can play a part in both. This month, I’m returning to where it all began with daily meditation style Tarot readings on the Sage Sips main blog, the Substack and the socials. Your private readings, memberships and virtual coffees all support these free collective Tarot readings.
EIGHT OF PENTACLES: Meditation meets you where you live. It can be found in almost any simple, repetitive task. The mindless can be a portal to the mindful.
I’ve quoted Alan Watts so many times before, but it applies here again – “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.“
True to Tarot, even the earthy, ground oh-so-practical Pentacle cards have a spiritual side. Pentacle spirituality is particularly akin to Zen and Taoist spirituality.
Simple productivity can feed your soul as much as a job feeds your bank account and in turn your stomach. That isn’t to say that your job has to be ultra spiritual. Any work can be of service and finding a job that you love is a treasure beyond money.
Feeling and being productive improves mood: Action eases anxiety, literally.
Easy, repetitive, ‘mindless’ activity is relaxing. No wonder things like knitting, crochet, jogging, hiking, gardening, sports of all sorts are all popular hobbies. Anything that occupies your hands and body while bringing your mind to the moment at hand is meditation. In these million different ways, meditation meets you right where you live if you allow it to be there. Meditation meets you where you live and brings a little mental health help right along with it.
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deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day (or in this case, your evening) in the time it takes to sip from your coffee (or tea or whatever you like)
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
This evening’s card is the four of swords and it couldn’t be more perfect for this flipped schedule post and podcast.
I worked a different than usual shift on the day job…it really was a day job today. I like the evening shift, because I am so very extremely not a morning person. My favorite TV quote is Sheriff Hopper from Stranger Things sushing a secretary saying something like “Mornings are for coffee. And contemplation. Coffee. And contemplation.”
I am grateful for the privilege of starting most weekdays with exactly that, a steaming mug of coffee and spending time in my happy place chair writing Tarot contemplations for the day.
I’d forgotten how nice Tarot can be at sunset.
In the morning readings tend to be a pep talk, giving us a heads up about the energies ahead. Morning Tarot tends to focus on how to do our best work with the energy ahead and make the best choices possible with the physical, mental and spiritual resources we have at hand.
Not everyone has the mighty, mighty caffeine metabolism needed to sip coffee at bedtime. Hot chamomile tea works just as well for Tarot sips. If morning Tarot has a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” energy, evening Tarot has a introspective, decompressing, emotional processing sort of vibe.
Let’s make this as self referential as possible. Morning Tarot readings have a knight of swords style, while evenings have a – you guessed it – four of swords style.
Take a deep breath. A long, slow quiet breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
See how Pamela Smith drew the hands of the knight with the tips of the fingers touching. Touching fingers is an actual energy thing. What do you do when you are deep in thought. Do you touch your fingers like the card, touch your chin, run your fingers through your hair or something else? Give it a try. Adopt that posture, whatever it is for you. How do you feel? Does the physical change help you quiet the mental noise and stress of the day at all?
If you don’t know your particular physical tell that shows when you are in deep thought, try this: Unless you are driving or something, lace your fingers together. Keep them laced and rest your hands however is comfortable. This is said to seal your aura and stabilize your energies.
I like to think of this as a psychic emotional faraday cage. A Faraday cage is a container or enclosure that protects anything inside from electromagnetic energy from the outside. Imagine that while your fingers are interlaced it blocks out stress or any empathic influences from other peoples energies. Imagine that while your fingers are laced, your inner world is quiet, isolated from outside stress. Imagine that you can hear your own inner wisdom, feel your own emotions, all with perfect clarity and understanding.
If you try it, please let me know in the comments. I’d be interested to know if it works for you, and what you experienced with this simple little exercise.
Take that deep breath, lace your fingers. Now, how was your day? What is your energy level? What emotions do you feel? Does anything bubble up to top of mind wanting your attention? Is there anything inside your emotional faraday cage that needs to be kicked out of the door and dealt with on another day?
The hands on the four of swords card is our hint for this evening. It’s a small, harmless physical gesture that can help you find some evening style contemplation.
Contemplation isn’t just for mornings and coffee. Contemplation, like Tarot, is a soothing sip any time of day.
Thank you so much for listening!
If you enjoy these Tarot sips, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on Ko-fi. None of these videos, blog posts or podcast episodes are monetized, so the ko-fi shop, memberships and virtual coffees support the creation of this free to access Tarot content.
As far as I can tell, things back to the usual squirrel rave playlist of a schedule. Short sip posts and podcasts are on weekdays, usually much earlier than this one. There are at least 6 posts of exclusive members-only content on the ko-fi blog per month. Email readings are open all the time so you can purchase them anytime (delivery times vary a bit.) Your questions and comments are welcome and appreciated.
Now it is time for me to have a real world cuppa tea. See you at the next sip!
Time and space isn’t such a big deal in Tarot. Viruses be damned, we can read Tarot together any time, anywhere. You may be reading this years after it was posted – thank you! If I just smashed the old publish button and you are reading this – Wow! Thank you! You may be watching this for the fourth time…it still has some message for you, even if it isn’t the week in the video or the interpretation that is stepping forward right now. Follow your intuition.
Choose a card at random, left, middle or right. Choose on impulse, or if you want to think about it, pause the video and then restart it to see the reveal.
The video get things started, then here in the blog we take all three cards together for a theme too. For this week’s theme, I get a sense of “look.”
Left: Seven of Swords. Look around. Watch your back. Mischief is afoot. It is NOT a prediction. This isn’t to say anything bad will happen. The energy feels like a minor heads up, think critically, question things. It could be as innocent as a prank by kid, or it could be more adult office politics. Use your head, don’t be taken in by social media hysteria or a deep fake. This is a good week to question everything. But then, aren’t they all?
Center: Knight of Wands. Look inward, then DO something about it. Whatever your spiritual tradition, spiritual leaning or life philosophy might be, this is a good week to DO it. LIVE it a little bit. For me, that is in the realm of lighting a stick of incense or meditating with a mala. Or it may be to do nothing at all. Celebrate your nonbelief by celebrating SOMEthing you love. I mean, they are going to fly a drone on Mars soon – go Percy & Ingenuity!
Right: Ten of Wands. Look inward, and persist. The Ten of Wands is about slowed or blocked energy, a strong sign of obstacles, more than simply a reversed card would be. It is a spiritual time and energy, but chances are you just aren’t feeling it….which is perfectly OK. If all the peace, love and positivety is more annoying than not, it is fine to find your vibe. Don’t force yourself to listen to new age harp music when you really want to crank up the thrash metal. Acknowledge your true mood, and keep one eye on the spiritual stuff. Time will work it’s magick and your moment of peace and Zen will come in its own time.
Sometimes Tarot energy is local. There is a quiet, peaceful feel to the neighborhood as we enjoy the first gentlt cool, lightly breezy, amazingly pleasant day of the season.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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