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.
Sage Sips blog is Tarot in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung
The Knight of Cups is classically known for symbolizing travel, flirting, and romance. It’s the card that most closely matches that “you’ll meet a handsome stranger” sort of trope in books and movies.
Dreams is another key word I’ve seen pop up. Intuitively I get “vision quest.” I don’t think it means the old 80s film with the Madonna song.
It’s not the achievement focused “chase your dream” kind of thing either.
This card reminds us of inner questing. Why waste time chasing what is right there inside, right now?
Actually the inner dreams, the gift of insights that our subconscious minds and Jung’s collective unconscious can give can be more elusive than the physical realm dreams of things.
I feel pushed to talk about dream journaling. Journaling as a whole is a wonderful thing. Just grab a pen and a notebook and have at it. The only rule is there are no rules. Keep it as private as you want, write anything you want as much or as little as you want. Write to understand. Writing a journal can explain yourself to yourself in amazingly healing, empowering ways.
The knight is bringing us a cup of water and intuition and an invitation to write our dreams as soon as we wake up and remember them – or just write to make up our dreams while we are wide awake. After all, you can’t chase a dream until you know what it is.
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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.
I was planning to make this a members-only offer, but it’s February, it’s cold out there, and love is for everyone.
So anyone can order –
Please visit the Tarot readings by email menu where you can get a personal one card Tarot reading focused on love and romance PLUS a copy of the My Tarot Valentine ebook.
*PRO TIP* scroll the whole readings menu! There’s something to fit any question, any budget. Prices start at $5. Zombie Cat will yes/no answer any question about anything – crazy cat.
Stay warm! That Nine of Wands part two we talked about yesterday will post over the weekend, so stay tuned! – Sage
Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sips: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m Sage and I’m glad that you are here.
Sometimes, when things go a little wonky, you just pick up the pieces and go on without a second thought. It’s like the upside down or reversed cards we’ve talked about before. Sometimes it feels like nothing so I flip the card and keep going. Sometime the reversal feels significant so I read it as a caution that some aspect of the energy is blocked or turbulent.
The same process applies to making the youtube videos of the real world card draw that inspires all of the short sip posts and pods. Sometimes things get clumsy or stuck filming the card draw for the day. Most of the time I just scoop up the cards and re-do it so it fits into a 15 second tiktok or youtube short. Today I was the stuck one instead of the two cards that stuck together for this video. I thought about scooping up the cards and re-shooting, but I felt stuck on this and got a niggly little feeling that the other card…both cards together really… might be important.
Today we get the eight of swords PLUS the eight of cups.
The second card surprised me by being an eight card too. Getting two eight cards back to back feels significant. It might just be validation that the two cards are indeed connected and working in together for today’s message, but it feels bigger than that. Eight isn’t ringing any bells for me personally. What about you? Anybody with an August birthday? Anyone connecting to any August event: a birth, death, or any anything from any August in the past? Any connection with the eighth of any month? Any eight connection at all with the number 8 that lights up for you?
Is that vague and stage cold reading enough for you? Anybody and everybody can probably drum up some connection with either the number 8 or the month of August. All of these suggestions are the standard, banal, boilerplate interpretations of repeating numbers in a Tarot reading. I only mention it because it feels important to the collective energy part of this reading. Like everyone on the planet, I can think of a connection for me with August…so trust me. Your gut will undoubtedly know if your 8 or August connection is energetically significant or not. You’ll know if this is something meaningful that you should pay attention to, or if it is just coincidental B.S. that you can brush right off.
That, I suspect, is where all the scammy hype rip-off Tarot readers and psychics go off the rails by making some big, ego-inflating deal out of common coincidence rather than supporting your individual intuition.
Don’t listen to me, don’t listen to the cards. Listen to your own instincts. The cards, and my role as a reader is just to support your understanding with a few little nudges, creative prompts and lots of food for thought. In the end, your thinking matters more than any coincidences that might come along to fuel it.
Which brings us circling right back around to the the two-card message for today.
Swords have to do with mind, intellect and action. I’m reminded of a line from some 90s song “free your mind, and the rest will follow.” It was some pop song girl group, and I don’t remember a single thing else about it other than that one lyric, but that one line has always stuck. They don’t call it a hook for nothing. This is the message from the 8 of swords today. The card is talking about freeing your mind.
The figure on the card is surrounded by swords and blindfolded. One of the key ideas of this card is that freedom is still possible even when the odds seem stacked against you. The key is to use creative problem solving. In this Pamela Smith card image, the figure’s feet are bare but unbound, and there is a gap in the swords encircling the person. They’d have to be really, really REALLY careful but they could feel their way to freedom given enough time. There would be a price to pay in shallow cuts, but the freedom is possible with the right action.
The eight of cups is connected to emotions more than the cutting intellect and precise careful action suggested by the eight of swords. The eight of cups is about the bittersweet moving on from heartbreak into the future, from emotional devastation into emotional healing. Sure – there were good times. Sure – there were painful times. But sometimes the only way forward is through, and the only way through is to let the past go.
Now put both cards together – free your mind AND free your heart. For true freedom, both mind (attitude, understanding) and heart (feelings, intentions) have to change AND move on from the old ways. Both cards imply movement from a bad situation toward a better future.
Thank you all so much for reading and listening today. I hope everyone, including podcast listeners will follow the free blog, as I always have some blog only content in the works. You can opt in by putting your email in the box in the right hand column of the blog website (link is in the episode description for podcast folks). You can unsubscribe at any time, although obviously I hope you won’t. Instead of unsubscribing, send a blog comment. I use the feedback to improve things or get content ideas. So thanks in advance for any comments, questions, likes, subs, follows or shares that you can spare.
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TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee, Today The Lovers card reminds us to be careful what we ask for, we just might get it.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
A few days ago, I put a few announcements just in the print blog with summer hours and how things stand now, in essence it was a post for me to get my proverbial ducks in their proverbial row and that we should all read it quick because my ducks are a bunch of anarchists and lining them up is closer to herding cats.
It turns out that today is one of those crazy duck kind of days, so no reels, shorts, or tiktoks. It’s also a lesson in being careful what you ask for. It’s true that you just might get it.
That’s what the Lover’s card is really about. Sure, there is a lot of steamy romance misconceptions about the card out there, but that’s not the core of it. If you want the get-married card, look for the two of cups. If there is a relationship connection with the lovers card I’d put it in the realm of pure lust, playing the field as the saying goes, and figuring out what you really want from your love life but not about an enduring healthy relationship with any one particular person.
That being said, the Lovers card has application in any part of life. It is about deepest desires. Do you want a long term committed relationship or do you want insert-any-warm-body here companionship? What do you want from your job: a paycheck or fulfilling work or some combination of the two? The same thing applies to anything you want in any facet of life. Sometimes it is all one giant multiple choice test question. Do you want this, that, both or neither.
Deciding what you really want is a critical first step in getting it.
In my experience, it usually turns out to be one of those little bits of both , middle way, yin and yang together solutions. It’s what puts the Tao in Tao Craft Tarot.
There are, however, times when things get black and white. Usually it is the bald faced goodness, yes or the oh-heck-no answers that spark the strongest emotional response. That response can be as telling as the card or the reading.
If you get a white hot flare of anger or rejection when you see a card or get a particular answer in a reading, that tells you what you really want. That tells you that you already knew the answer to what you want or you wouldn’t instinctively reject the card so hard.
If you know what you want, it is easier to get it. If you know what you really deep-down want, then you can’t kid yourself about it. If you know what you really deep down want, you can’t sugar coat the hard parts or BS your way through it.
That’s why the Zombie Cat yes/no layout is far and away one of my favorites. I use it for myself as much as any other, maybe more than any other. It echos the I-ching three coin readings. It can be a clear frying pan to the face kind of reading. It lets you know when to stop screwing around and come face to face what you really want and the buried decisions that you have already made for yourself. The i-ching notion of “changing lines” which are lines that are SO yin or SO yang they can easily tip into their opposite. That’s what the dots in the yin yang symbol are about. Each thing, in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite.
If you read the cards individually in addition to the top level yes or no answer, you can get a lot of nuance and guidance out of the whole thing. The Zombie Cat part makes it light and fun and snarky and playful in the process. I use it all the time as an ice breaker when I am doing fortune teller entertainment at events, like the one at CMU recently. I’ll sit and do yes-no readings for any silly little thing that pops into my head, like will the Pens win the Stanley Cup this year. The answer is always yes to that one, by the way, whether the cards say it or not because this is Pittsburgh and they are the Pens, after all. On an energy level, it sets the right playful, entertainment vibe for a “fortune teller booth.”
The Lovers card asks us to take a hard, honest look at what we really want. The yes or no layout is a good tool to help gain that focus and clarity. That’s the be careful part.
If you tweek the old adage to say be CLEAR about what you want BECAUSE you are PROBABLY going to get it, then you are suddenly living in a whole different universe and it is a pretty good place to be.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. See you at the next sip!
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TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: Ace of Cups and holding space for good things to flow in.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the Ace of Cups. Cups are associated with emotion, inner circle relationships, romance, and the classic element of water. The ace is the essence of the deck. Today, the ace of cups has a feeling of abundance overflowing like a cornucopia. The universe provides. It may be in unexpected or under appreciated ways, but if we are alive it has provided that much and that is extraordinary.
The water part is catching my attention too. It reminds me of the famous interview where Bruce Lee says to quote Be water, my friend, end quote.
Water takes on the shape of whatever hold it. If there is no room for the water, it spills over and goes somewhere else.
Today’s card is simple and to the point. If you want good things to come into your life, then they have to have somewhere to land. If you want good things to flow into your life, they have to have some place to flow into.
This can be as literal or esoteric as you want it to be. For example, it is standard issue boilerplate advice for those who are looking for a long term romantic partner, their soulmate if you will, to make literal space for that person. Clearing out a drawer, getting an extra toothbrush to have on hand, getting a pair of matching coffee mugs, having figurines around in pairs; all of those physical things can send an energy signal that you are living your life, but have made space in that life for a special someone.
Creative visualization, alters, journaling all sorts of things can hold space on an energetic level for good things to flow into.
No wonder spring cleaning and decluttering is believed to remove negative energy and attract or positive energies. Remember that Zen proverb that only an empty cup can be filled? I’m not saying you have to get rid of your stuff, but maybe dust it off and get it organized.
Be specific. Never invite just any old thing into your life. In my mind’s eye, I see one of those reserved parking spaces for a particular person or a particular building.
I also see a figure holding a bowl up to the sky, to be filled with golden light. Nice visualization there. Feel free to use it. The more we all lift our empty bowls to the sky, the more we can call an energy of abundance and provision into the world.
Once again I’m working with my new Alleyman’s Tarot deck, which features both original cards by Seven Dane Asmund, creator of the Normal Tarot and cards gifted and licensed from a hundred or more decks and artists. The card shown was made by Vicente Molina for the Tarot Morandi.
Thanks again. See you at the next sip.
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TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: Four of Cups
Hello. Welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip – Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
Today’s card is the Four of Cups.
There is an old adage that says “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.”
Maybe it is because the hallmark holiday is in four days. Today’s vibe is a lot like that old My Tarot Valentine vibe I was telling you about the other day. Or was it yesterday? Anyway, cups are back into romance mode.
You can lead a relationship to water but you can’t make it drink. And I’m not talking about adult beverages.
The heart knows.
The heart knows when words are empty or actions are made of inertia and habit.
Not everyone is present and focused on the two of you every. Single. Moment. People get tired, stressed and distracted. It’s easy to understand that and it’s easy to give a little extra TLC to someone you care about who is having a bad day. Bad days happen for everyone, and they are just that – a day. You do what you can to help and life goes on. This is also a good time to remind ourselves to leave stress at the door and love your loved ones. They know when something is up.
They know when a bad day turns into a bad month, or a bad year.
The heart knows when words are empty and actions are built out of inertia and habit.
The message the card gives today is scary for both people involved and oh so hard to give. I’ve seen it in relationship readings lately. It brings to mind one particular reading I did for a client a few months ago. The energy here feels exactly like it did then. Specific past readings almost never come up in a general blog reading like this. Maybe someone somewhere out there is in a similar situation as that client was. All light and best wishes to you, listener and client, wherever you are. Or it could be that this is just a matter of the universal energy giving me a specific cue to a specific message. Here goes.
Sometimes you pour everything you have into a relationship and for whatever reason, the other person just can’t give anything back. At some point you have to stop the bleeding, turn off the faucet that is flooding the bathtub, stop digging the hole you are trapped in. Love is a precious thing to pour away into an abyss. If it can’t be given to another, perhaps it is time to give it to yourself.
Sometimes absence is better than empty presence.
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Thank you so much for watching, reading and listening. I’ll see you at the next sip!
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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