Tag: quote

Delicate Times and Door Kicking

I got it!

I know what to do with weekends! (as far as cyberspace and Tarot goes, anyway)

  1. Nothing! The schedule is that there is no schedule. Family is first priority all the time, but even more so on the weekends. Paid private email readings always get priority over the rest of cyberspace so sometimes there will be free Tarot content during the weekend, sometimes there won’t
  2. Exclusive Free-Blog content! If I write or create any free Tarot content at all on the weekends it will be my first and greatest love – writing. On the weekends I’ll post either here or on the associated but non-Tarot “Sage’s Other Words” blog (or both.) This long-read SageWordsTarot.com exclusive content, plus the occasional announcement or update, is why it is worth your while to follow THIS blog by itself or along with a paid membership.

This free blog has its exclusive posts, The Daily Sip subscription has its exclusive posts, both together gets you everything. I post to a variety of social media, but Instagram is the only one I really interact with so if you want to say hi – that’s the place. Simple!

And it all begins tomorrow.

Monday mornings are earmarked for three card pathway readings for the week ahead for everyone: members, free blog, and free podcast. The YouTube channel, Instagram Reels and TikTok will show the real-world card draw for the reading. Facebook and Tumblr will get links to the free blog when it publishes.

Only The Daily Sip membership will get daily Tarot for the rest of the week.

Some days will be a Tarot contemplation with a public domain vintage RWS card image:

Some days will be cards from a different public domain RWS deck that I own, photographed by me and paired with a relevant public-source quote:

Some days will be my card photo and my original card interpretation for the day:

Frank Herbert wrote that beginnings are a time for taking most delicate care. Or as the 1984 movie version put it “A beginning is a very delicate time.” That may be especially true in the planning stages…in the beginning of the beginning. Now it feels more like kicking in the door and getting the party started.

Let’s do this thing.

Everybody loves a free sample

I like samples, especially when they are free.

Those big box warehouse clubs are famous for their free food samples. I’ve found some of my favorite foods that way (looking at you chicken veggie dumplings and big chunk of aged cheddar cheese) Free appetizers are fun, but you don’t see them giving away the toaster oven.

Ever since the big pandemic lockdown back in 20 aught 20 when we were shopping a lot online anyway, I’ve been trying to transition to less plastic and more environmentally friendly versions of, well, everything.

Which is trickier than you might think when you have to factor in family allergies and skin sensitivities along with things like affordability and efficacy. Small and sample sizes, even when they aren’t free, are helpful in figuring out if a product is trustworthy or green washed. Small sizes helped me find good products and switch to the full size without wondering if they would give half of us a rash.

But that is all another story.

Free sample Tarot readings have a similar kind of utility. Free Tarot content is about helping you decide what works for you and what doesn’t. It is about a little sip or a tasty morsel. It’s not about taking home the whole toaster oven.

Over the years, I’ve had people call and ask for a “free sample” Tarot reading.

For private, individual readings? Nope. No free samples. This ain’t cheese and crackers. You gotta pay for toaster ovens and full size Tarot readings.

But I do offer other kinds of free samples. You are looking at it (or listening to it) right now. This blog is free. The podcast is free. The YouTube shorts and Sips of Tarot on social media are all free. Those collective energy readings may not be tailored to you individually the way a private reading would be but it gives a tantalizing little taste of what a one to one private email reading might be like.

I think this kind of openness and transparency is important to building trust like we talk about on the “How to Find a Psychic You Can Trust” page on the website.

Free Tarot readings are all over the place. Free Tarot content is lying around out in the open all over cyberspace but those free samples come at a subtle cost. You have to put in the work of discerning what applies to you and what doesn’t. Spirit speaks in whispers. With free online content you have to do the hard work of interpreting the message for yourself.

In my experience, spirit’s message will find you one way or another with all the energy and intensity of that old Blondie song. All you need is the chutzpah to listen or look for it. Spirit’s message always comes directly to you free of charge.

Spirit message hearing aids and translators are another story.

Even if you paid top dollar for the most famous celebrity psychic in the world, the nitty gritty work of applying that reading to your personal life and personal growth is still 100% up to you.

Paying for a professional reading is not paying for the message itself, it’s paying for a savings in your time and effort. Paying a professional to help you find spirit’s message spares you from a metric ton of trial and error, even though the final step of applying the message to your life will always be up to you. I got really good at intuition and Tarot readings the hard way through study and practice and time. You can get good at this too – through study and practice and time.

But that amount of time and effort is not something everyone wants to spend. The trade-off for borrowing my experience and expertise is paying the consultation fee.

Life and death emergencies aside, let me borrow an example from my friends in the medical profession.

All healing comes from within, from the living organism itself. Even the most advanced scientific medicine can’t create life where there is none. But they can help support the living being’s innate healing process. You could get over your sprained ankle on your own, but consulting a doctor might help you heal better or faster.

Intuition is a natural ability that we all have. Developing it to the level where it can be trusted to help other people is a professional skill. Consulting with a professional intuitive can help you find the message or inspiration that you need more quickly or more accurately than prolonged trial and error on your own.

Last week I combined the “Seat at the Tarot Table” and the “Patron of the Tarot Arts” memberships so that the lower tier price gives you the upper tier benefit of on demand email Tarot readings.You can get all of the details and disclaimers about that at the link below or in the podcast description.

Today I’m introducing a new membership tier. This is not an upper tier with all the benefits of the Tarot Table plus extras. it is an entirely separate and different thing. Right now it is an either / or choice. I don’t think you can do both memberships, but I can’t imagine that anyone would want or need both anyway.

Starting Monday February 20th, the new membership tier will be the only place to get Tarot every weekday. There will be some crossover, but the free content will be more random, less frequent and definitely not daily.

Today, however, I want to give you a sneak peek at what the weekday readings in the new membership level will be like.

The format on the daily post will vary to keep it visually interesting. Some days will have vintage public domain images from the Rider Waite Smith 1909 Tarot deck like the one below. Some will have my photos of a different public domain RWS deck that I have. Some will use my current favorite deck, the Alleyman’s Tarot used with the kind permission of the deck’s creator Seven Dane Asmund of Publishing Goblin LLC

Long story short, the free stuff isn’t really changing, it just won’t be as as frequent as before. The only way to get Tarot content every weekday is through the ko-fi members blog. I’m not sure yet how weekends will work, but watch this space and I’ll let you know what to expect.

What I’m trying to say, and not doing a very good job of it is that the only way to get absolutely everything, is to follow the free blog AND subscribe to the Daily Sip. Long read posts will be here, Daily sips will be there and social media will be whatever whenever.

It’s Saturday evening as I write this. Let’s pull a card for the collective energy for the rest of the weekend … or for whenever you happen to read this. If you are stumbling across this at another time, feel free to apply it personally. It’s a free Tarot reading and you can take it or leave it as you see fit. It’s up to you.

But in the spirit of those delicious free candy samples at the warehouse store, here is a free taste of what the Daily Sip posts will look like.

The King of Wands

A very broad brush rule of thumb for reading face or court cards is that the Queen carries the nurturing, maternal qualities of the suit, while the King carries the protective, paternal energies. Wands cards are associated with the classical element of fire, and can symbolize inner passions or our relationship with our inner selves.

I hear…and by the way, when I say hear that means that the mental intuition is in the form of words or sounds or music instead of images. In this case I hear “The king protects through teaching.” This brings to mind the value of education. Real education about objective facts and useful things. Neil DeGrasse Tyson famously said “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” That is the kind of education the card is referencing. This kind of education is the exact, polar and distant opposite from dogma and indoctrination.

An educated populace is a strong and safe populace. Good teaching does right by people. For the mental image piece of it, I am reminded of some of my favorite Instagram and TicTok creators: Dylan Hollis, GothDad, DadAdviceFromBo, bwb.positivity, MercuryStardust and PoppopBruce Johnson who all teach and inspire with great fun and equal kindness.

Today is a nurturing energy. It is a fostering and supportive energy. Do you have something to teach? Something to learn? Something to do together in mutual support? It feels like a good day for reading, studying, or practicing something you love. Read a book, go for a run, take a deep breath, soak up some sun…no matter whether whether it involves the mind or the body, do something today that nourishes your soul in the process.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. Please follow, subscribe, like, share or just generally stay tuned to the main (free) blog, the free podcast, the memberships and all the socials for the week-ahead reading coming up on Monday.

See you at the next sip!

Follow the free blog by entering your email in the right side column ->

Or by scrolling WAYYYYY down on mobile

Learn more about the Tarot Table and Daily Sip memberships HERE

Seneca on opportunity

Page of Wands meets Seneca on Luck and opportunity

Thoughts on the nine of wands, holding space, and the energy sensitive person tomorrow (or maybe Saturday)

Late winter schedule: none. We are in full pirate radio squirrel rave mode until further notice.

Have a good day! – Sage

Joy and Potential

Be the sparkly fireworks you want to see in the world.

Boom!

Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot and the Crystal Cast reading for the week of January 21-28. Happy New Year to our friends celebrating the Spring Festival and year of the yin water rabbit!

I’m still working on the physical mechanics of casting the crystals. Have to admit, this shake and toss and see what comes blowing out of the top of the bag is kind of fun. This one might have been a little overly-enthusiastic on my part. It will take some more practice and experimentation to dial it in. We’ll see how it goes. I’m curious as heck whether or not you all like these crystal reading or not. Good, bad or indifferent, please leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments. Heck, I’d even answer reading questions in the blog comments just for the practice. So have at it. No promises, but if you leave a question, there is a fair to middling chance that I’ll do a crystal reading for it. Which means that podcast people will have to use the link in the show description to leave their questions in the blog comments, but hey, it’s a free psychic reading so what can you say?

Back to these crystals.

The mental image that came when the crystals scattered like this was fireworks. Specifically those extra sparkly ones that glitter and shimmer as the remnants fall. It also reminded me a little bit of those holographic glitter nail polishes. The explosive quality to the energy and the way the crystal felt like they were volcano spewing out the top of the bag is a key point, but the happy glittery shiny celebratory quality to the feel and the energy is the bigger focus. It goes right along with the Lunar New Year celebrations. The sparkle is the thing. Joy and happiness is the fuel for the expansiveness of this week’s energy.

I am reminded of the FDR quote that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. And also the famous Mark Twain quote “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

This is such a warning against thinking or dwelling on potential problems that I don’t even want to bring it up as a thing to avoid.

The focus is on the sparkle, on the joy.

And it is all inside you.

You are the firecracker. You are the sparkler. This week it is up to you to light the fuse, not wait for external circumstances to do it for you

Don’t let fear be the wet blanket. If you feel it, don’t hold back. Let yourself be an explosion of joy. It’ll help everything go better for you, not to mention elevate the energy and help things go better for everyone around you.

It is said that like attracts like. Think of yourself as a magnet dragging through the week. If you were given the choice, what would you want sticking to you at the end of the week; ridiculous unreasonable happiness in SPITE of everything, or worry and stress BECAUSE of everything?

The visual for that in today’s reading lies in the clear quartz crystal chips. They are a happy sparkling POOF of happy when you look at them intuitively. They are pretty close to being just that literally as well.

The top of the two runes showing is Sowilo, associated with the sun, happiness, light and love. It is an interesting optical coincidence that this particular stone is reflecting light so strongly in the video that it is hard to read the rune.

The other, lower rune is Algiz, which has to do with protection, security, and guidance. It is much easier to feel happy when you feel safe.

Here, too, there is a sense of fearlessness, in a good way. I forget who posted it, but there was an Instagram post a few years ago that has stuck with me. I call it to mind whenever I start to feel any vague or general worry creeping in, especially about stuff that may or may not happen.

The context was a feed about paganism of some sort. They contrasted mainstream or Christian prayer to be protected vs the Germanic pagan mindset of petitioning Odin for the wisdom and strength to be able to protect ourselves.

I prefer the latter point of view.

Why? It just feels better, but also because of compassion.

Which petition has the greater potential to foster compassion? If we seek to be strong and wise, that strength and wisdom can in turn lead to protecting and caring for others. Asking to be pre-emptively protected doesn’t afford that same opportunity.

The desire to grow wise and strong and be a better person is a type of compassion toward oneself.

There are several runestones with their blank side showing. I also read that as potential, as one would expect from any reading that is looking forward. The future is all about seeing the potentials, not making predictions.

Look ahead to this week. Face it with all the courage and happiness you can muster. Light the fuse on a glittering explosion of joy, or at least indulge in a little sparkle. Your little POOF of happiness just might draw the best possible things out of a week full of potential.

Thank you all for reading and listening. Any likes, subs, shares or follows are always greatly appreciated.

Private readings by email are open. Your purchases, memberships and virtual coffees all support the blog and podcast.

Thanks again. Next up for me is the weekly learn to read Tarot post for the members only blog on ko-fi. After that, it is back to the usual Sage’s Sip of Tarot.

See you at the next sip!

The Great Teacher

Just because experience is a great teacher doesn’t mean the lesson is easy

Part of the healing process is learning from the experience, the great teacher.

Normal blog posts and podcast episodes return December 22. Ish.

Lots of free Tarot content here to browse in the meantime, both the daily short sips and longer reads. Use the search box over there ->

How Tarot Works

How Tarot really works

You are just perfectly enough just exactly as you are.

Right here. Right now. You already are all you need to be in this moment. Take a deep breath. Are you in any real danger right this very second? If you are, what in the living heck are you doing reading a blog or listening to a podcast? Take care of yourself for goodness sake! But if you are reading or listening to this, chances are things are OK enough to allow for a little screen time. Even if things are fantastic, take a little time off from that emotional energy and let the time it takes to read this or listen to the episode be a bubble of emotional rest for you.

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to all our U.S. friends. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the King of Cups, in reverse. Like we’ve talked about before, I read inversions pretty much the same as upright cards, taking all of the keywords and meanings into consideration all of the time anyway. If the card turns over upside down relative to the person doing the reading, or “reversed” as we call it in Tarot parlance, it looks right side up to a person on the other side of the table. Reversed or upright, considering the big picture is key in this kind of work. Abstractions, ideas, archetypes, and intuitive nudges all make a tiny bit more sense when you keep the cosmic perspective in mind during the whole card reading process. When you think big picture, the orientation of the card on the table matters less.

In any reading, public collective or private, a reversal speaks more to the position in the layout than the individual card. Layout position plus a reversed card is a clue to an area of life that may be conflicted, slowed, problematic or blocked. In a one card reading, a reversal can mean a broadly applicable slowing or turbulence in the person’s energies or in the collective, zeitgeist energy

Or not.

Freud once said that “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Sometimes a reversed card is just a random happenstance from shuffling the deck.

Some decks, I’ll grant you seem to be more reversal prone than others, no doubt due to mundane physical properties like card size and paper coatings and what have you. My beloved Alleyman’s Tarot Deck is especially wild and wooly in that respect, so I tend to give reversals from that deck a little more creedence for whatever reason. On the other hand, the back on my favorite RWS deck feels more staid and proper and it’s reversals chalk up to shuffling and general. It’s funny how we humans like to anthropomorphize our favorite work tools. I get it why BB King named his guitar Lucille. Some stuff has vibe and zing and personality, especially things that we have given our time, creativity and our life energy.

Except today. Today the RWS deck came up reversed and it feels like it means it.

The reversed king of cups is about emotional maturity. It connects to the feeling of defeat and brokenness that the Ten of Swords spoke about in “The Lemonade” post/episode.

Clairaudience (intuitive hearing) gives the words “Own what you feel.”

2022 may be more bittersweet in retrospect than we realized. There are ribbons of darkness in the onrush of holiday celebration.

My mind again goes to those lost to gun violence, or as one newscaster put it to all the chairs that will be tragically empty this holiday season. It is perfectly understandable how grief of this magnitude can leave its mark on the collective energy, both on a conscious and unconscious level. Emotions of every kind tend to run high during the holiday season.

Whatever the emotion, whatever the intensity, whatever the reason, you have to own them and validate them even if no one else will. The emotions exist. They are valid and they are real and, more importantly, they are yours. How you express them and how you act upon them are your responsibility just like a kingdom is the responsibility of the king.

Once acknowledged, emotions can be let go. Once understood, they are less likely to resurface in disruptive ways. It’s not magic. It’s social science. It’s human psychology.

And it’s how Tarot works. Tarot works, not to accurately predict the future, but to help us own and understand our emotions. Psychologist Carl Jung taught that “Until the unconscious is made conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Tarot helps us find exactly that kind of insight.

It’s not my intention to equate Tarot readings with qualified clinical therapy, or a cure for any sort of mental health issue. It is, however, a great tool for stress management and personal growth for a healthy individual. I say that based on hundreds of readings over the course of twenty years of doing public professional Tarot readings. Time and time and time over again I would see people relax as a reading progressed. As we talked about new ideas, explored possibilities and validated their own intuitive hunches, shoulders would go down, foreheads would smooth. As readings go on, people would sit back in their chairs and the tone of their voice would soften. The easing of emotional tension was obvious, even to someone with no formal psychology or body language training.

Tarot works by helping us all own our emotions, understand our situations and create a more reasoned way forward.

Tarot doesn’t predict our fate, it frees us from it.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. I wish you a happy and healthy holiday season.

The Lemonade

The hardest lemonade to make

And that’s how lemonade is done.

Hello and welcome to the TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Before we get to the ten of swords, I want to give you a quick reminder about my winter Tarot reading schedule.

There is none.

It was a nice surprise to have a few minutes to write this. I’m expecting a jam packed schedule between now and January. I’m so, so, so thankful for the text to voice audio blogging that WordPress, Anchor FM and Spotify have available.

And I’m also grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you for reading and listening despite the erratic, random posting non-schedule. I’m cautiously optimistic that I can get back to trying to follow social media best practices after the new year. I’m in awe of all of the wonderfully talented people who create “content” on a regular schedule. I have yet to make that work for Tarot. Energy, intuition and the ebb and flow of life doesn’t give a flying rat’s patootie about posting schedules. Intuition and creativity has its own agenda and I owe it to all of you to go where my real strength lies which is Tarot readings and blog writing, not social media presentation.

Speaking of which, the new “crystal cast” posts that I had planned for Mondays will have to wait until after Thanksgiving, possibly until after New Year, too.

But stay tuned. Right or wrong, accurate or not, Zombie Cat is going to try his paw at a fast and loose Tarot reading for 2023. That cat is a little unhinged (as zombies often are) so whatever predictions he makes – don’t blame me. Look for that in December.

All in all, I still like to think of this utter lack of a schedule gives the blog a little bit of an underground, renegade, pirate radio sort of vibe. I hope you’ll come along for the ride, such as it is.

On top of it all, Elf-con 1 has officially been declared at my house. I got knitting to do and stuff to bake.

So before I have to hop out to shop for flour, sugar and that one last skein of yarn, let’s take a look at the Ten of Swords.

Just to show that spirit and energy operates on its own schedule, here is some context for today’s card.

I had an appointment in the afternoon, so when the morning obligation rescheduled, I had every intention of indulging in a second cup of coffee and a leisurely scroll through Instagram. That’s when I stumbled across one of those social media talents we were talking about earlier. Digital creator Barry Brandon (instagram.com/forallhumans.co aka @queerindigo) posted a video about personal authenticity, the Colorado Springs shootings and a variety of other things. I can’t begin to capture it here, and urge you to watch it for yourself.

When he said “…it shouldn’t be this challenging to exist in one’s skin. It shouldn’t be this challenging to be oneself…” it made a solid landing right in my wheelhouse.

I’m an atheist, Taoist, solitary eclectic witch, Tarot reader and the hardcore evangelical christianity in my family has diminished if not outright severed most of those relationships. But that is nothing … NOTHING … compared to the level of hate and bigotry that the LGBTQIA+ community has to face every single day. As someone who cares very deeply for multiple people in the community, it is absolutely terrifying to even think about everything they face … and meet with such grace, courage and love.

When that ton of emotional bricks hit, I punted the leisurely scroll and followed the intuitive impulse to pull a card and see where that would lead. It led to the 10 of Swords card draw that you can see in the video above (the link is in the episode description as always for podcast listeners) and that led me here.

To my mind, that context and this card are all of the same collective energy in the context of the Club Q shooting this past weekend.

In these times, it is natural and so easy to be furious and terrified and just … done.

We all know the line from Yoda and Star Wars about “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Which, along with the ten of Swords, begs the question of how to deal with hate and anger and defeat and suffering.

There is no easy answer.

There may be no answer at all.

For me personally, the only answer I know is to be the best ally I know how to be, to advocate for gun control and equality legislation to the best of my ability and to urge those I love to be as careful and safe as it’s humanly possible to be while still living their happiest most authentic life.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

In lighter times and easier energy, the 10 of Swords is akin to that old adage of “fall down seven times, get up eight” or “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

To plan, to act, to be righteously angry, to rebound from defeat and to do so from a place of love is difficult, but it is the most potent lemonade we can make.

Thank you all for listening and reading.

TaoCraft Short Sip Tarot is a contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. If you enjoy them, please visit the TaoCraftTarot ko-fi page where shop purchases, readings, memberships and virtual coffees all support these free Tarot readings on this non-monetized blog and podcast.

Carry a Torch

Ace of Wands Short Sip Tarot: carry a torch for yourself, those you love, and the things you love to do.

I do love a good coincidence.

Thank you for reading and listening to TaoCraft Tarot. I’m glad you are here.

I drew the Ace of Wands for today’s Short Sip, found this excellent Nelson Mandela quote, then the same card and vibe turned up in a private reading for a client. The Ace of Wands intends to be heard today!

I am reminded of Joseph Campbell, American author and expert in comparative mythology and comparative religion. I read his book The Power of Myth 1990 – ish around the time I started reading Jamie Carson & David Sams, Ted Andrews, Scott Campbell, and you know…Tarot. The Ace of Wands today is akin to Campbell’s most famous quote about “follow your bliss.”

It also resonates with wise words from Nelson Mandela, “There is no passion in playing small – in settling for a life smaller than the one you are capable of living.” The Ace of Wands also reminds me of quotes from Steve Jobs that have been floating around social media lately “You’ve got to find what you love… the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

Or, put more succinctly, “…we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.”

If the Ace of Wands resonates with you today, that is your cue to let your light shine. Carry a torch…for yourself, for the people you love, and for the things you love to do.

Thank you for reading and listening. Questions and comments are always welcome, and your likes, subs, shares, and follows are always appreciated. TaoCraft Short Sip episodes are Tarot contemplations in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. If you enjoy any of this Tarot content, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The shop, memberships, readings and virtual coffees all support the blog, podcast and youtube channel. The link is in the episode description for those of you listening on the podcast.

As always, thank you. See you at the next sip!

Sources: brainyquote.com, entrepreneur.com