quote – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Weekend Oracle: Apart

Even when you are apart from people, you are a part of people.

The southern hemisphere may be gearing up to rock and roll into spring, but here in the northern hemisphere, we are in fullest summer. Mid-August is hot, humid, filled with the sound of cicadas and with a sluggish energy. As it should be. It isn’t the season of planting, it isn’t quite yet the season of full harvest – even for us city dwellers.

It’s a time of maximum yang that is asking to be met with much yin.

This weekend is a time for introverts. The advice is to be gentle with yourself and your energy. Don’t force socialization if you aren’t feeling it. Don’t push or strive or emotionally expert if you aren’t feeling it. It is ok to spend some time at the edges of the action.

The energy of the Outsider card from Seven Dane Asmund’s Alleyway Oracle of Secrets deck reminds us that outsiders are different from outcasts – some choose the perifory as a way to protect their peace or nurture their healing and growth.

For those who find themselves feeling cut off or more alone than they want to be, the energy here is a reminder that we are all connected, even when other people seem physically or emotionally far away.

If you are feeling isolated or lonely, open your circle of perspective. You may be alone in your room, but you are still a part of the family in your house or the residents of your apartment building. You might be the only person in the building, but you are still part of your state, country or continent. You might be the only person on the moon…but you are still a member of the human species and that can never be taken from you.

“We are all connected: To each other, biologically. To Earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.”
Neil Degrasse Tyson

If you need to dial back, and have some alone time it is OK. You aren’t severing connections, you are nurturing your heart and spirit and self which makes the connections stronger, better – over any distance.

Wishing you a lovely weekend that is just as busy – or not – as you like.

Action Eases Anxiety: Move with Charisma

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Snakes aren’t evil.

The Lenormand Tarot reads them as threatening energy and a strong caution not unlike the three of swords.

This isn’t a time for impulsive action – but neither is a time to be frozen by fear.

In China and other Buddhist cultures, Snake is part of their astrology and revered as one of the 12 zodiac animals to heed the Buddha’s call. People born in Snake years are thought to be intellectual, wise, enigmatic and charming. Snake people got the rizz.

What it is (current energy): The Snake. Be Cautious, not frozen. Impulse and emotion should take a back seat to intellect and wisdom this week. This is a good environment to put your best foot forward and show off the best parts of you that are already here. Shift the focus from self development to self-shining. Polish what you have, instead of seeking what you don’t.

What to do: The Stork. Yep….the exact same card we saw last week. Repeats like this warrant our attention. My mind is drawn back to the same mountain top image as last week. We’ve waited, watched, gathered information. I’m pulled straight ahead to the downhill path. An easier road ahead. The side paths along the narrow mountain ridge are less lit, more shadowy. They are flat, but downhill is easier than flat. And in this new image, safer too. I hear “razor’s edge” (in reference to the narrowness of the paths, not the book) Joy can not be maintained and changes the same as sorrows change in time. All emotions come and go like clouds in the sky or leaves floating in a stream. The peak, as beautiful as the view may be, is unsustainable. Move ahead. The elevation changes, but is ultimately a wide, safe, sustainable way forward.

We are at the point where cautious watching could easily become frozen in fear. Cold, frozen, decay. Standing where we are is fraught with new challenges, new dangers. Standing still is no longer a healthy option in this image. The golden sunset light from last week has faded into an icy, snowy night. Moving forward again is where the warmth and light leads us.

I hear “follow the stork” and remember the “follow the white rabbit” scene from the movie The Matrix. Intuition isn’t entirely without value. Trust your inner guidance, trust what you know.

Snake and crane together are a symbol of the practice and art of Tai Chi. We often think of the yang side (crane) of things as being powerful, but Tai Chi and Taoism teach us that yin is powerful too and both in balance is best.

Climbing and mountains are yang, and need yang-style power. Downhill paths and valleys are yin energy, a power all of their own. Think of a magnet. Instead of going out hunting and capturing what is needed, yin draws what is needed in, like a magnet.

Negotiating a downhill path requires balance now just as much as climbing the mountain did not that long ago.

Snakes have a magnetic personality, cranes and storks have big powerful breaks and wings. Both together are balance in motion. Here is where searching the two of pentacles in the archives might come in handy.

The ultimate point of the reading is to not let the anxiety you feel stop you. Don’t be frozen by fear. Remember your charm. Make literal charms and talismans if it helps. Move forward. Let the new cycle begin.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. When it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path where the fear has gone and there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert, Dune

A Mask That Lets You Dance

Today’s card is from The Normal Tarot second edition by Seven Dane Asmund. They describe the card as being connected to dreams and deeper meanings. I get the sense of two threads of meaning connected to the card today. One, connected to the dreaming part, another tied to the visual image on the card of masks and dancing. Of the two, the mask part seems to carry the larger energy.

For the dream part, I get a sense of yes, you are right. If you have a hunch about what a dream meant, you are right, it is what you think. The next few days to maybe a week feel like the right time to do shadow work, dream journaling, read about dream symbolism and so on.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”
Carl Jung

Visually, my attention is drawn to the masks in the masquerade scene. Masks are a kind of safety. Literally when it comes to airborne viruses. Socially masks can be a shield of safey that shows a carefully curated portion of our authentic self so we can dance freely until our full face can be free too. You are not lesser if you protect some inner, precious side of yourself. Sometimes a mask is like the face shield on a hockey helmet. Sometimes a mask is the thing that can let you dance fearlessly.

“Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.”
Frank Herbert, in Chapterhouse Dune

Sage’s Second Cup: 3 June 2026

Echoed from Sage’s Second Cup blog:

I don’t feel like coming up with a clever title for this, so here’s the date. Happy Wednesday. Cheers.

Today started with my usual cup of coffee, and while scrolling I went on a tangent about Taoist vs Buddhist meditation styles.

A long time ago in a psychology class far away (back in the late twentieth century) we all took a mini version of the Myers-Briggs type indicator , not unlike the quizzes you can find online now. Turns out I’m an INTP.

The MBTI may not have any real use in clinical psychology. As someone said, it has become the new “what is your (astrology) sign.” I like my type. I think they kind of nailed it. In true INTP style, this morning I was thinking about thinking and it’s role in meditation. The part of me that is feeling a little tired this morning and is reaching for a second cup of coffee wound up thinking that just being a head in a jar Futurama style wouldn’t be a bad gig if you could get it.

But then I saw the shadow of the back yard trees in the morning sun on the curtains and remembered something Neil DeGrasse Tyson said about NOT wanting to be a head in a jar because he wanted to feel and experience, not just think.

He’s right. Without connecting to physical life … or at least connecting other heads in other jars as we do online … we’d run out of stuff to think about. Or at least the good stuff to think about.

Which kind of circles right back around to meditation. mindfulness, the present moment, and letting thoughts go.

Letting thoughts go means letting go of the thoughts about not thinking.

Right now I’m remembering a post on social media (I can’t for the life of me remember when or where I scrolled her feed) A lovely older lady was talking about a stressful time in life as a single mother. I kind of think she’s a modern day Buddha for coming up with “sit and stare time” as a way to cope.

She described the epiphany of just letting herself have a few minutes each morning to just sit, stare, and do nothing. Coffee was involved. Here’s to you oh kindred spirit whoever you are, wherever you are.

The problem isn’t necessarily the thinking part. Go ahead. Sit and stare. Think away if you want to.

Grinding away and getting emotionally caught up in OVER thinking any one thing that hasn’t happened yet or something that is over and done and not of this moment – that kind of thinking is a problem. THAT is some shit to let go.

Outside of that, though, so what if we sit and think a little or just sit and feel a little or just sit and do absofucking nothing? So what if we don’t think about letting go of our thoughts? What if we just sit and sip and abide with whatever bubbles up out of our brain and let it be what it naturally is? Thinking and feeling is not a bad thing for a brain and body to do.

Of the uncountable molecules in an infinite universe, each brainwave, each emotion, each experience, each moment is the cosmic privilege of a lifetime.

No wonder we hold on to thoughts so tight.

Tarot and the Lo-Teks

Yesterday’s post was, obviously, about a new shop item on my ko-fi page. All the proceeds from my ko-fi page go toward web-hosting Sage Sips without ads, keeping the Substack paywall-free, and maybe generating a few donations for causes I care about (more about that in a later post.) I’m not going back into business. Handwritten Tarot readings are not a money-maker.

Trust me, I’ve tried it before.

I originally offered tangible, pen and paper Tarot readings years ago, when AI was the stuff of cyberpunk fiction – not anything anyone actually used in normal day-to-day life.

I’ve always been a William Gibson fan, dating back to Neuromancer. I originally offered handwritten Tarot because it was cool and niche. Bringing back handwritten Tarot is more the Lo-Teks from Gibson’s short story turned Keeanu Reeves movie, Johnny Mnemonic.

I never imagined that a person to person email with a digital photo would seem low-tech next to computer-generated art and writing, but here we are. Physical paper and handwriting seems like ancient, mysterious wizardshit by comparison.

If you want a talking type of reading – eesy peesy. There are psychics by the dozens out there doing that and it is up to you to figure out if they are trustworthy or not. (The Tao of Finding a Psychic might help) As far as I know, there are only a handful of us working in the typed-word and email formats, and fewer still that do handwritten pen and ink readings.

“A thought is powerful, the spoken word even more so, but the written word is the most powerful of all”

Sallie Christensen, psychic and author

I’m not going back into business, but I am offering these readings as a quiet rebellion against AI. This is my Lo-Tek Tarot.

Handwritten Tarot is magical and powerful – arguably even more so than spoken in-person ones. This kind of Tarot can never be digitally replicated. My bad handwriting and cringy doodles show you they are 100% real, 100% HUMAN .

Handwritten Tarot has all the advantages of any distance reading: You can’t unintentionally give body language cues. There are no leading questions, no stage mentalism, no tricks – these readings are pure spirit and intuition. No drama, no AI slop – just quiet wisdom in the ancient way of pen and ink writing.

Please include your name, U.S. mailing address, and question for the reading with your order. If you don’t include a question or topic, no problem! I’ll automatically do an open style reading and let intuition lead the way.

Sent folded into a standard #10 envelope, this Tarot reading is discreet and private. This is highly customized folk art with no refunds or exchanges. Available to USA mailing addresses ONLY.

This nominal charge is only to cover the cost of paper, postage, driving to the post office and the extra effort that these take to create.

Just like always, these readings are highly customized ephemeral folk art for entertainment and personal spritual enrichment, and do not predict the future. No refunds or exchanges or any of that other business-y stuff. Caveat emptor and whatnot.

Order one from my ko-fi shop HERE if you are interested in giving it a try.

Action Eases Anxiety: Choose and Protect

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Reading left to right:

What it is: The Whip. Harshness or conflict is at hand. Even if it doesn’t directly involve you, it impacts the environment where you live and function. Think of war or inflation that makes things worse for everyone. Now is not a time for impulse. Prepare for any storms, real or metaphoric, as best as you can. A paramedic instructor once told me that “if you prepare for the emergency, then the emergency goes away” meaning that it doesn’t change what is actually happening but it seems like less of a scary big deal than it would have otherwise been. Calm is contagious.

What to do: The Key. The Key card indicates that a choice is at hand. The choices we make today are the key that unlocks (not predicts) our future. Choosing not to choose is still a choice. You can choose inaction. You can choose to watch, wait, learn. You can choose to accept the outcome of inaction or you can choose to do everything you can to unlock the outcome you want. In the words of David Axelrod of the Barak Obama presidential campaign “The least we can do is everything we can do.”

Even if things don’t go the way you want, at least go into that situation knowing you did everything you could to make it right.

The time has come to choose your side. The fence, the middle ground has thinned so that those who do not choose will fall unwillingly to one side or another. Action speaks louder than words. Inaction is no longer silent.

In the words of Desmund Tutu, “If you remain neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

How to do it: The Bear. The Lenormand Tarot deck gained popularity in the eighteenth century, but bears symbolized protection then just as much as our ‘mama bear’ meme does today. Important choices are seldom easy and even less often consequence free. Protection can guide some choices. Choose the thing that protects your path forward. Choose the thing that protects the people you love (including you.) Choose the thing that protects your resources during lean times. Choose what lets you see the happiness you already have. Choose the path that protects your inner peace.

Many Ways

Always free to read, this no-paywall blog is supported on Ko-Fi by Tarot fans like you

“Waste not, want not.”
Benjamin Franklin

Abundance comes in many forms. Sometimes it comes in the form of what you don’t spend. Sometimes it comes in the form of what is shared.

Wrapped in Melody

“I was never meant to be a role model. I was chaos wrapped in melody, a survivor of storms I didn’t see coming. But through it all the music kept me breathing”
Ozzy Osbourne

Weekend Oracle: Progress

Sage Sips is tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

My private readings by email are a bargain, and who doesn’t need that in this economy? The way I write them, a five card layout tells you the exact same things I would say to you in an hour (ish) live or in-person session. You get that plus my 30 years of Tarot experience for what other psychics charge for 15-30 minutes. Order yours on my ko-fi page

“Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.”
Noam Chomsky

Even though it is a long holiday weekend here in the US, it may feel like a continuation of the week with all of the travels and get-togethers and summer kick-offs and whatnot.

Maybe it is because of rumors of a new covid strain just as the vaccine program is being sabotaged. To be honest, this might be a projection on my part, but I think a little bit holds true for the collective energies as well.

It doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels like we are being thrown into dynamic, change-filled energy. Again.

One keyword for the Eight of Wands is “progress.” Progress is impossible with out change, without movement. Progress in any direction is still progress.

If you are moving toward failure, great! At least there is something to be learned.

If you are moving away from failure, great! At least you’ve learned from the situation and are making corrections.

If you are moving toward something better, great! Savor the moment.

If you are not moving much at all, great! At least you are getting a chance to rest and recharge. Enjoy it.

Change is a part of life and living. There is always the potential for progress.

The blog will be quiet over the holiday weekend and any reading orders will go out May 27, 2025 or after. Have a happy and safe weekend everyone! See you at the next sip!

Action Eases Anxiety: Trust Fall

Sage Sips is tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffeetarot

Private Tarot readings – no appointment needed HERE

Five card email reading gives you the same information as a 45-60 minute in-person session for much less – only $30. Three card readings are the same as a 30 minute live session, $15. Most orders are filled within 24 hours.

The “Action Eases Anxiety” layout is inspired by the sentence-like quality that Lenormand style tarot readings tend to have. We’ve talked about that before in he “learn with me” series about Lenormand

In this layout, the left card functions as the subject of the sentence. It is the thing that is, be it your current situation or our shared energy environment.

The right card is like the verb in a sentence, the action, the thing to do now that might help the situation – or at lease easy your worry a tiny bit.

Today, the mental image that came with both cards is an advertisement where a person goes “trust fall” and falls backward into a huge pile of dried plants to demonstrate the plant stems and leaves that they don’t use in their select flower-only suppliment.

As much as I like that product, I’m not here to endorse anything. The trust fall bit of it is the key to the intuitive image.

“When things seem terrible, it can feel impossible that they will get better. if the future is too big for a leap of faith, then all you can do is take a trust fall into the present moment.” comes through here.

The “what it is card” is the bouquet. If today isn’t stressed, enjoy the beauty of it. Enjoy the moment. If you are feeling stressed, try to sort out what of the stress is rooted in the past and future. Try to see the present moment for what it is. Look around you. Are you in life threatening danger? If you are – then you aren’t reading this. If that’s the case you have bigger things to do than read blogs and scroll social media. So if you are seeing this, stop: Take in this moment for what it is. Stop and smell the flowers the bouquet card is offering. It also reminds me of that quote attributed to Mark Twain “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, the most of which never happened.”

What it is is not so bad when you eliminate the parts that are actually worries about a future that may never happen.

What to do is the Clover card. It is a card of luck. The doing is simple in this case. Simple, but easier said than done when anxiety is raging. Acknowledging and accepting that things aren’t so bad and are getting better. When anxiety or sadness is raging in your brain, it’s hard to feel as lucky as you really are.

Acknowledging your luck attracts it to you.

Tell yourself that you are lucky.

Blind, rote, repeated affirmations even when you don’t feel them isn’t going to magically manifest the thing you want. They won’t do that even if you do feel it. But what that can do is bring your feelings and your energy into better alignment with the flow of things and help you find what you really need, even if it is different from your original desires and expectations.

You are lucky, it is just a matter of finding it. And it may look like something you never in a million years imagined.

Thanks for reading!

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