PAUSE the video
PICK your card
RESTART to see the reveal
READ about your card below the video
The Fool: A week full of opportunity and new beginnings
Ace of Pentacles: The more grounded and balanced you can be, the more you efforts pay off
The Devil: Don’t panic. Use calm, common sense to stay on the safe side. Not the time for unnecessary risk
If you picked one of the two major arcana cards, that may hint at a high energy time near by. Both cards have a “shields up” cautioning energy. The Fool may be stressful in a good way. A lot of opportunity and business on your plate is still a lot on your plate, so take care to manage your stress even if the pressure is on because of very good things happening.
The difference between the two majors is The Fool feels an “it might be stressful and busy but worth it” feel. The Devil on the other hand is a “pull back” “be cautious” sort of energy. If you chose this card, take it extra easy this week.
The Ace of Pentacles is an all-good energy. Prosperous, but low-key. Not really any cautions to take it easy. I ‘hear’ “Things unfold but gently.”
When I say ‘hear’ in a reading, that’s shorthand for clairaudient intuition. It means the intuitive message takes the form of words, sound or music. Instead of a mental image, it’s mental words or sounds. I’m not hallucinating, honest. Intuition if often much like imagination with a purpose. Remember your favorite song – that memory gives you a sense of what clairaudient intuition is like.
Thanks for taking a look.
What do you think about this format? Comments are open and I’m on Instagram and Threads every day. (@sagewordstarot for both)
Wednesday I’ll post a collective energy example reading using the new “My Tarot Valentine” layout. I’d really like your feedback about that too. If you like it, it can stand as a regular “love and romance” themed reading. If no one voices and opinion, I’ll make it a seasonal thing. What say you?
My Tarot Valentine is a series of blog posts with one card Tarot readings from the collective energy with a focus on love, romance and relationships. I’ve collected the old posts from my previous blogs (TaoCraft Tarot and Modern Oracle Tarot) into an ebook. This year I’m continuing the series with a look at finding your soulmates (twin flame, life partner – whatever term you like to use) all through the lens of the Tarot suit of wands.
Wands are symbolic of fire, philosophy, spirit, and your relationship with yourself.
What does ‘self’ have to do with romantic relationships?
Everything.
Like attracts like. Be the soulmate you want to have in your life.
For example the Three of Wands is about active preparation, optimism, looking forward to a bright future.
If you have found your soulmate, actively cherish them. DO thoughtful things, emphasis on the the thoughtful. In this respect, all of the card suits are engaged, no just the wands. Even if you’ve been together for decades, it’s ok to show your emotion (cups) with thoughtfulness (swords) in any tangible (pentacles) way that hints at the depth (wands) of your feeling.
If you don’t have a relationship like that in your life, and if you want one, then the idea of preparation for something that may or may not ever happen seems odd.
But, on the other hand, how can that special someone step in where there is no room.
If loneliness and searching for your soulmate fills your psyche, there is little room for an actual soulmate to come in. If you are filled with certainty that they exist, the same thing can happen.
Only an empty cup can be filled. Hold space in your life for love to come in. The walls of that room, the sides of that cup are constructed of you – you being happy and healthy and living the best life that you can. That’s the thing that creates the space. That is the thing that prepares the place in your life for soulmate to walk in.
My Tarot Valentine is a series of one card romance themed Tarot readings from the collective energy. Private readings are available through the link below
It’s easy to say the number two cards of the minor arcana are about balance. Pentacles talk about moving balance, swords about the known vs the unknown and so on. Beyond the easy to say idea of balance, the two cards hint at something more philosophical: duality.
To say “balance” is to imply that there are two or more things that need to be balanced. Even if you have just one plate spinning on just one stick in the circus act of life, you are still balancing the plate vs gravity vs angular momentum vs why are you doing a circus act in the first place…
The Two of Wands is particularly dialed into this aspect of balance. Where there is duality there is choice.
When it comes to relationships, choice isn’t control.
You have total agency over what you do and say and give and take from a relationship, but you have no say in your love interest’s response.
It is heartbreaking when their response is rejection.
Which shows how precious it is when the response is love in return
But whatever happens, the choice always returns to you. When you are given the precious thing, it is up to you to make choices that protect and nurture it. If you are given the heartbreaking thing, it is up to you to make the choices that help you heal. That includes the choice to reach out to other people in other ways and get help when it is needed.
Either way, our response is our choice and our responsibility. Like the two upright wands on the card, our choice is our portal. It our doorway to relationship, to the great privilege of loving and nurturing others but also to loving and nurturing our own path through life, whatever shape that takes.
The Two of Wands’ Tarot Valentine for you is simply this: choose love.
That doesn’t mean other people will choose to give it back to you. It does mean that you always have the option of giving love be it to another person or to healing your own life path.
It takes two to tango and two to make a romance happen but it only takes one person to choose love even when it is out of our control where that love lands.
It doesn’t feel good to want to be in a romantic relationship but not be. It is painful to feel cut off if you are an extrovert and it is painful to be pushed into uncomfortable social situations if you are an introvert. That particular kind of romantic loneliness can take over your mood and your mindset. It can grow large and block out the view of other things. After all, that particular kind of love and connection is profoundly important to so very many people.
Shallow platitudes are everywhere: “Be grateful for the things you already have” “Happiness comes from within.” People in the throes of loneliness aren’t necessarily in the mood for a namby-pamby woo-woo hand holding kumbaya viewpoint. Sometimes you just want to have a glass of wine and feel sorry for yourself.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your search for that special someone is just give up.
Don’t look for your soulmate, be their soulmate first.
The ace cards are the first card of a suit so they carry a “beginning energy” but not necessarily the brand new beginning energy that you see with the Fool card in the major arcana. It’s not quite the full on second chance new beginning of the Judgement card either. Ace cards are more like a fresh direction within an ongoing process or project.
If you are feeling lonely the Ace of Wands is suggesting a new direction, an adjustment, a minor rethinking about romance.
Ace cards also carry the essence of the suit. Wands are associated with the classical element fire, inner passions, philosophy, spirituality and our relationship with ourselves.
How can something so seemingly self involved help you to find and nurture an intimate relationship with someone else? Isn’t this exactly the realm of Cups cards?
It has to begin with you.
What do you want in a soulmate? (Or whatever you want to call them. I’m an old school Richard Bach reader, so “soulmate” feels like the natural term.)
What would you think of a person who is attracted to a victim? What would you think of someone who was attracted to or aroused by someone who is hurting? Are they compassionate – or are they a predator? Do you want to be loved – or pitied?
Who do you find attractive? Would YOU be more attracted to someone who is laser focused on the very thing they lack and and wrapped up in an imagined but uncertain future – or would you be more attracted to someone who was happy and content and fulfilled right here and right now?
Like attracts like. Be the soulmate you want to have in your life.
Put your time and attention into all the OTHER things you love EXCEPT the search for a soulmate. Do every darn thing ELSE that you enjoy and that makes you happy and makes you fully you. Lighting those inner fires also lights a signal flare. It shines a spotlight on where you are so the right relationships for this place and time can find you.
Think of the ace of wands as giving you the spark to start the process.
My Tarot Valentine is a collection of romance themed Tarot readings from Tarotbytes blog and TaoCraft Tarot blog. It is available as an instant download in the Sage Words Tarot shop
Tarot is immensely valuable as a source of advice. It gives us good ideas about what we maybe should DO.
Tarot is equally valuable as a source of caution. It can give us good ideas about things we should NOT do.
It isn’t a matter of good vs bad. I’m talking about the descriptive quality of things, not our internal judgement about those things. Hot or cold, light or dark, attract or repulse, yin or yang, do or do not; any of it can be good or bad for an individual situation or reading.
Sometimes a good, old fashioned, terse, to the point, flat-out “nope” is the best answer you can get from a reading.
Friday’s blog post is a perfect example of how a resounding NOPE can lead to better things.
Friday’s post? You’re right. There wasn’t one.
I came rolling into the new year with the big idea of blogging Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with this, your friendly neighborhood weekend newsletter. I also came rolling in full well knowing that part time, creative and intuition driven ventures never go to plan. (Ducks? Rows? Nope. Squirrel Rave? Wouldn’t have it any other way.
This is the week when our block was getting line replacements and upgrades. I’m very OK with that because I personally am a huge fan of safe, clean water and functional indoor plumbing.
I’m equally good with shelving the post for the day when the jackhammers and trench diggers were bringing concentration and focus to a halt. Writing that day was a big nope.
Thus we were back to my second favorite internet meme
Interestingly enough, the post was about a three card yes/no reading with a big old nope for the answer.
We can talk about how to do a yes/no reading and the Zombie Cat alter ego persona thing on another day. I do yes/no readings for kicks and giggles mostly, but they always have a useful thread of real insight buried int them, too. They can be helpful in nudging things one way or another when you really can’t make up your mind about something. Really big, important life decisions are better served by a more traditional layout style, but this layout is for small but not ignore-able decisions. These readings really are like Two-Face’s coin toss in Batman or that famous pool ball toy.
click cover to order
My question was about should I do a “My Tarot Valentine” series this year, like the readings from past years that I have collected into an eBook by the same name. On one hand, I really am not feeling it this year. On the other hand, romance readings are fairly popular and top of mind around Valentine’s Day. and the whole point of doing all of this is to help people sort things out. (“Tarot doesn’t tell you what is going to happen in life, Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens”)
Long story short, the answer is no.
I don’t stop there with my yes or no readings. I look at what message beyond yes or no that the cards used to determine the answer may have to offer. In this case, The Sun, the six of wands, and the ace of pentacles. I’ll spare you the behind the scenes thought process, but I distill the message down to “do what makes you feel the most at peace with the topic an happiness and income will follow in time.”
The really cool/weird thing is that these two NOPEs conspired to spark a brainwave. If it weren’t for the coincidental nope to writing on Friday, I would have posted as scheduled and set it aside as done rather than have another two days to ponder the whole thing. If the cards had been a yes instead of a no, I wouldn’t be writing about this whole process at all and instead would be trying to drum up a new “My Tarot Valentine Series.
As is often the case with this kind of work, synchronicity conspired to spark an idea, one I hope will allow Tarot to be helpful to somebody, somewhere.
I’m doing “My Tarot Valentine” – but not in the usual romance focused pink hearts and roses sort of way. Oh no. You aren’t getting off that easy if you you dare read this year.
This year you will be asked to throw some love at your mirror. This year the romance will rebound. This year we are going to do a study in the suit of wands – your relationship with yourself. If you can’t be happy in a relationship with yourself alone, how can you hope to be happy in a relationship with someone else?
Don’t get me wrong. Love, romance, marriage, partnerships are all vitally important. Especially if you’ve found that person that fits you like air fits your lungs. But for those who want that, but haven’t discovered it yet, the hallmark holiday can be, let’s just say, annoying.
Wands are our inner passions Wands are our inner fire. Maybe their light can show us all a good way to go this February.
Interactive: Please watch the video and choose your card.
After the reveal, scroll down for your card reading.*
The people and the numbers have spoken.
I’ve gotten some nice feedback about the “you choose” style of readings. It makes the reading feel more personal than a single collective card BUT the shorter format is better than the longer layouts. I’m still tweeking the timing to give enough time to choose and enough time to see your card. That part will improve in coming weeks.
So BEHOLD! One card meditation readings are back but in you choose style! I plan to do these as a guidance card for the week, but if you have any suggestions or feedback as we go along, I’m open to that – and so are the comments below. Or click over to the Ask Me Anything page and, well, you know what to do. Unless I hear something drastically different, I plan to flow with this for a while. The general plan is for “You Choose” on Mondays, “Learn With Me” posts on Wednesdays, Freestyle on Fridays (I won’t promise those will even be Tarot related) and the weekly Substack newsletter at some point during the weekend.
THAT being said, let’s get on to the good stuff, the cards.
Nine of Cups
I hear “happy endings” from a song that I don’t recognize. Might be something from the 90s, but I can’t dial it in enough to tell. This card is about just exactly that – happy endings.
Classically this card is often associated with contentment and family / holiday gatherings. I often get a fall & winter holiday vibe from it. This feels more like a January card – the holidays are in the rear view mirror and last year is well and truly tucked away.
Earlier today, Theresa Reed posted her card of the week as the Fool…new beginnings. These cards are two sides of the same large zeitgeist energy.
If you chose this card, this is a good vibe week. Things are wrapped or wrapping up in a good way that makes room to roll up your sleeves and get after whatever is next.
Ace of Cups
Cups typically symbolize emotion, intuition, and our closest relationships be they friends, family or romance. The ace always seems closer to the emotion and intuition aspect of the suit than the relationship aspect of it. That is very much the case for today. This card feels more off to the side and individualized than the nine does.
The nine feels like the big, collective energy card but the ace feels much more one to one. There is no way for me to ever know this, but it would be interesting to how many people chose which card. I wonder if more people picked the “collective” card and fewer people picked this one because this is the one they really needed.
If you picked the Ace of Cups today, first of all, well done for following your own intuition instead of the collective energy. This card feels like a validation of just that – your own creativity and instincts. “Muse” comes to mind. Your creative muse may well drop something in your lap soon, if it hasn’t happened already. When inspiration comes, this card is encouraging you to follow it at the same time it is giving you a pat on the back for your natural ability to hear and follow that kind of inspiration.
Judgement
This card stands out as being the only major arcana card of the three.
The energies this week may be important for you and are worthy of your attention and contemplation. Pay attention to the spirit part of your mind, body & spirit life balance.
Give yourself second chances. Never waste a good second chance.
By the same token, use your heart and head so that a second chance isn’t needed. Honor what you know and need and what you know you need. the first time around.
As a secular person, the religious iconography in Pamela Smith’s artwork for this card is always more annoying than inspiring for me. If you picked this card but it just isn’t resonating, by all means, please look for the inspiration you feel. Try googling the Judgement card and looking at other decks to see if another version of the card speaks to you more than this one.
I’ve found that many decks rely on this kind of imagery and options are hard to find. My favorite right now is “Karma” from Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans’ Witches Tarot which uses and eclipse and the term karma to bring ideas like contemplating the consequences of our choices and renewal. There may be dark time during an eclipse but light returns on the other side.
Thank you all for reading. Next up, in Learn With Me, we continue two card Lenormand readings.
See you at the next sip!
*if it went by too fast – left was 9 of cups, center was ace of cups and right was Judgement.
This set of cards has the feel of a child who picks a wild flower and gives it as a gift. The energy of it is just that sweet, just that simple. The universe has gifted us with a bouquet of clover and wildflowers.
Life isn’t always good. It seems like we spend a lot of time talking about how Tarot is valuable because it can deal with the shadows and how it isn’t all toxic positive in denial of the realities of a situation. Life isn’t all love & light.
But neither is it all doom and gloom. “It can’t rain all the time” as The Crow movie told us. Sometimes you just have to take yes for an answer.
That is what today’s cards are all about. Lenormand cards have a reputation for being direct, no-nonsense, and not pulling any punches. Maybe it is because so many people turn to Tarot when they are in some sort of emotional upset, but we tend to assume direct and no-nonsense means bad news.
Tarot, both Lenormand and RWS, are excellent at easing that kind of emotional distress. They are equally good at bringing good news and straight up reassurances too.
This is a perfect example. And, coincidentally, this is the first two card combination that is in the guidebook. The combination of The Bouquet (Love, token of affection) and Clover (good luck, like any “four leaf clover” symbolism) is described as “the ultimate combination of good luck and happiness (Buler, p. 16)
For the collective, I think this is a good reminder to unplug from your worries and indulge in feeling that everything is going to be OK. The universe has our back, it’s all going to work out in the end. Let yourself believe in magic for one minute – or a million minutes.
Try it on for size. Just for one day, imagine you are a magnet for all the good things. If you like the feeling, it is yours to keep.
Maybe the best kind of good luck is the kind you believe you have.
Let’s do a few more two card readings to get back into the swing of things after the holidays
Today we have the key with an 8 of diamonds inset, and the ship with a 10 of clubs inset.
The author, Christopher Butler, connects this with locking vs unlocking, security vs openness, secrecy vs transparency. I associate the 8 of diamonds with the eight of pentacles, which is prospering through work, effort and craftsmanship.
The ship, logically, has to do with journeying and has undertones of prosperity (ships are connected to trade and transport, after all) The 10 of clubs resonates with the 10 of swords, which connotes defeat…but also the “fall seven times, get up eight” proverb. It could be read as “perilous journey” but the peril here feels connected to the unknown, the things locked away.
“Keystone” and “cornerstone” come to mind.
There is no logical reason for it, but I’m getting that finding the key, finding the cornerstone, finding that one thing that makes everything else fall into place THAT is what is needed for a successful journey with regard to career or finances.
Next up: Freeform Friday. Not sure what I’ll post, but it will probably be a re-introduction posts that I wanted to do in blurry time that never actually happened. Either that or a cookie recipe, I dunno.
I want to take a little break from exploring the Lenormand Tarot deck and talk about something that has been on my mind since a conversation with a potential client yesterday. We’ve talked about it before (don’t forget you can use the search bar to browse the 1500+ posts in the archive) but it’s time to revisit the idea of accuracy in Tarot.
As I see it, accuracy in psychic or Tarot readings begs the question “Accurate compared to what?”
Accuracy of anything is a measurement of that thing compared to some desired goal. Accuracy measures how on-target something is.
To measure anything, you have to make a comparison of one thing that you don’t know with something you do know, like a ruler. Even if one of the things you are using to measure is your eyeballing estimation based on experience – it’s still a comparison.
So what do you use as your ruler to measure the accuracy of a Tarot reading?
Is your measure predicting the future?
I can tell you that level of accuracy right now – zero.
If a Tarot reading tells you what actually happens ahead of time it is one of two things:
Self-fulfilling prophecy – Cause and effect is a real thing. If you choose to DO something based on the reading, that action contributes to the end outcome. In this case, the reading caused the future, it didn’t predict it. Which is a good thing! That means you can use a Tarot reading to help you decide your best course of action. You can use a Tarot reading to help cause (or at least contribute to) the desired effect. The drawback here is that you don’t have control over everything. You can increase the chances of something happening, but you can’t 100% control everything and you certainly can’t 100% predict anything.
Pure dumb luck. A broken clock is still right twice a day.
Is your measure getting good advice?
If that is the case, then there is a very high degree of accuracy, and it happens without regard for distance or delivery method (more on that tomorrow)
Is your measure stress reduction?
With that measure, Tarot has 100% accuracy.
People come to Tarot readings for a reason. There are as many reasons to get a Tarot reading as there are people and moments along their life’s journey.
A Tarot reading is a peaceful moment. A Tarot reading is a moment of hopefulness and optimism. A Tarot reading is a moment of calm, clarity and the hope of finding a solution.
If guidance, advice, and a peaceful moment is your measure, then my Tarot readings are as accurate as they come.
Want to learn to do DIY one card meditation readings to find a peaceful moment whenever you need it?
Sage’s Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Zen teaches us that only an empty cup can be filled.
So what do you do when your cup is full, when things are good?
That CAN happen, by the way. It’s probably happening right now. Check it out. Shift your attention away from your screen in 3, 2, 1 – NOW. Pay attention to what is around you.
Are you at work? Cool! You have a job and some degree of income! Are you doom scrolling? Cool! You have a device and internet access to scroll with! Are you in physical danger? If you are, get off your phone and do something about it for cryin’ out loud. Have you had something to eat today? Did you get a little bit of sleep last night?
I’m not saying that you don’t have anything on your mind. I’m not saying that you aren’t struggling with anything or that your health is perfect or you have no emotions or emotional pain. Everyone deals with something sometimes. Call it the price of admission to this brief and shining spark we call life.
Pay attention to just this minute for a minute.
Paying attention to right here and right now is what we call mindfulness.
What fills your cup right now?
If you spend your life waiting for champaign, you are going to miss the clear, cool, clean, life-giving water that is there right now. If things are good, drink up.
If things are good, drink it in with gratitude, and make room for more to flow in.
What if the water in a cup is stagnant, or bitter, filled with dirt or germs? Drinking from that would be a bad idea. Instead do what you can to clean out the cup and find a better drink. That requires emptying the cup to make room for more to flow in, too.
How do you know where the good things are to fill your metaphoric cup once there is room in it?
Today’s card is the King of Cups. It symbolizes emotional maturity, emotional protection and healing, mentors, teachers and spirit guides.
Cups and water are timeless symbols for exactly this kind of spiritual, intuitive, emotional learning. Going back to cups and water as an example.
How do you know where the clean, healthy, flowing water is? We don’t necessarily know. We don’t have to know that alone. Teachers, mentors, students and mentees all have a way of finding each other when the time is right. When you are thirsty and your cup is empty, ask for directions to the nearest water fountain. If you know where the clean safe water is, it is up to you to give directions to the empty-bottle thirsty people.
Knowledge and guidance and life flows like water. We all have cups. Drink from the flow even as you help others to do the same.
Thank you for reading and listening! I appreciate each and every one of you.
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The name change from TaoCraft Tarot to Sage Words Tarot is almost finished. There are still a few new things on the horizon, so please follow the free blog for all of the latest. Links are in the episode description for podcast listeners
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