Learn With Me: Oracle Dice, The Crone of Summer

Sage Sips blog is a contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

I don’t know much about Dungeons & Dragons, but I’d call this character chaotic good.

This is a really lovable card, and it’s tempting to join the chaos, but I’m in full sun-avoidant deep shade forest baby Grogu sipping soup and calmly watching the mayhem unfold mood. You don’t always have to participate in order to appreciate.

Let’s stay methodical this week.

Tarot, or any good intuition enhancing too, has layers of meaning just like ogres and onions.

The first we looked at a single face from the dice – analogous to drawing individual cards for a Tarot layout. By randomly rolling seven times we selected 7 “practice dice” out of the 22 dice set to work with as we get to know the Oracle Dice. Learning the oracle dice parallels the way I learned Tarot. I’ve distilled YEARS of trial and error into this step by step thing we are doing. I’m learning the oracle dice this way because I KNOW this way of learning and reading oracle tools … any intuition helper…works. I know it works well because I’ve been doing it for a hot minute. Longer than I care to admit most days.

You get the idea about the individual faces and how to look at those.

Now we are going through our practice dice one by one looking at it from the die cube meaning. The Oracle Dice’s creator, Seven Dane Asmund assigned a name and meaning to each of the 22 dice (one of which is a cool 12 face die) In this edition, he also created a card with the “lord” of each of the dice. The “lord” in this case is a parallel to the suit in Tarot. The “lord” is the essence of die’s meaning, its guardian, its protector, sort of the ace, king and queen all rolled into one.

Today’s die is “summer” depicted as the “Crone of Summer.” It’s perfect that the image on the card includes gold coins because this card encapsulates much of the same energies as the suit of coin (pentacles) in Tarot. There is easy, almost careless generosity around it. It is so fully and unabashedly about the physical realm that it rises above the physical realm and becomes something more esoteric, much as the ten of pentacles (coins) is so fully prosperous and abundant that it points to the intangible treasures of love and happiness that money can never buy. Such is the effusive joi de vie embodied by the crone of summer.

You know how I see the world through Taoism colored glasses

The dots in the yin yang symbol represent the idea that anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite. We see that in the ten of pentacles and the Crone of Summer. The physical realm taken to its extreme can hold the seed of its opposite. In excess creation lies the potential for destruction. In excess possession lies the potential for generosity and so on.

When we move on to the next layer – combining dice – when the summer die rolls in, think of it in unabashed and golden terms like full throttle summer and an exuberant generosity of self and spirit

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your generosity with your time.

If you ever want a private Tarot reading, please think of me. The free Tarot and other content here on the Sage Sips blog and on Sage Words Tarot social media is fueled by your reading purchases, your memberships and lots of coffee (both irl and the virtual kind on ko-fi)

Your likes, follows, shares and comments are always greatly appreciated!

*Publishing Goblin‘s Oracle Dice used with permission

Learn With Me: Oracle Dice, Collector of Selves part 1

Learn with me: Oracle Dice continues. Now that we have our 7 learning dice, we add another layer of meaning.

I’m presenting and learning the dice the same way that I’ve studied Tarot over the years for two basic reasons. First, I know this methodology works. I’ve used it. Been there and done that. Second, by learning the dice with me you can also get a behind the scenes peek into reading Tarot at the same time. There are parallels here. The oracle creator has created Tarot decks. Really good ones. If you’ve read this blog for a hot minute you know how much I like the Alleyman Tarot. I just bought the guidebook to his previous deck the Normal Tarot because it has the best cover art of any Tarot book ever – but more on that another day.

The oracle dice works so well with this method of learning because it was created by hands familiar with Tarot. The dice have all the depth and insight and use-ability of a 138 card Tarot deck.

Tarot is more than memorizing individual card meanings. There are layers, complexities and nuances. In the past it was called gifted. Psychic gifts are really more a matter of skill and practice. It’s like sports. Almost anyone can learn to play a sport – tennis for example. If someone has a natural gift for tennis, they are never going to get anywhere with it unless they learn the rules and swing a racket. Someone with no natural talent whatsoever can play tennis with learning and practice. The person who put in the time and work and practice would easily beat a person with natural talent who was playing their first game. Combine a small seed of Talent with work and practice over time – that can seem like some sort of special gift. No all of us can make it to Wimbledon, but any of us can certainly bang a ball around at the local park.

This series, this blog can’t teach Wimbledon level Tarot reading. It can’t teach you to read for other people, but you can learn some banging DIY Tarot reading for yourself.

But it take time, and blogging unfolds at a different pace. We could do this face by face together and move on to the next thing four months from now.

I don’t think you need that.

You’ve seen how this works.

Hurl dice at the table, get your hunches, mental images and intuitions about it. Combine that with the reference book and there you have it.

Now we are going to add another layer to it.

Seven Dane Asmund has given each dice its own topic and lord card. The topic is analogous to the the suit in the Tarot deck as I see it. Instead of the RWS Tarot’s four minor arcana suits with 14 cards each and the 22 card major arcana, we have basically 22 suits with six ‘cards’ each. In this second edition of the dice, the nuance is expanded and supplemented with the Lords of the Dice cards. The dice’s “lord” is a sort of symbolic spirit guide or guardian for that dice. The Lord card serves a similar purpose to the artwork on the ace cards of Tarot’s suits. The Ace in Tarot holds the core essence of the suit. By the same token, the lord card gives us insight into the essence of the individual die.

Interestingly, the influence flows both ways. After this, the ace cards feel even more important than they did before. I never thought of them as being potential guides and guardians before. But it works, at least for the number cards. The court cards in Tarot (page, knight, queen and king) have their own thing going on. That too, is a conversation for another day.

But that sets us up for the next little series within the series. We’ve looked at individual dice faces and at the same time chosen our seven learning dice out of the set of 22. Now instead of face by face, we’ll go die by die and look at each dice’s topic and lord card.

There really isn’t a good way to be very random about this, so that makes the active video pretty boring. For this next section of posts, I’ll be working from static photos of each die with its card. For YouTube, I’ll just share the tictok instead of filming the dice roll. It’s just more visually interesting at this point.

Please join me tomorrow when we pick up the “Collector of Selves” in more detail in part 2.

video / photo by the author of Publishing Goblin’s Oracle dice second edition, used with permission.

Middle of the week update-update

Another quick tour of Sage Words Tarot

Hi everyone!

First and foremost, as always, thank you so much for reading Sage Sips blog on Sage Words Tarot.

As I sit here sipping a real world cup of tea and as my coffee cold brews for morning I want to say hello, say thanks, and give you all a quick tour around the website now that I’m taking a break from changing and tinkering. Things will stay like this for the rest of summer at the very least.

Email Tarot readings are OPEN all summer! You can order a private Tarot reading by email anytime, 24/7, no appointment needed. It’s still just me doing this, and I live in the US eastern time zone, so it may take a hot minute to get your reading to you if you order nights, weekends or US holidays. Most of the time I get a reading to you inside of 24 hours, but it can take longer some days. I’ll be in touch whenever you order and give you my best estimate about when I can get the write up to you.

Ask Me Anything is OPEN. Just like the name of the page says (tab at the top on laptop, scroll down on mobile). You ask. I’ll answer in one form or another, maybe a Tarot reading, probably in the blog. You have my promise that no identifying information will ever be used in a blog post. If a post is inspired by and actual question, I change and redact it so that it could be a question from anybody that can help everyone.

The “reading room” tab has two pages, “frens and fam” is a list of links to people I know and trust around the web. Some of it is Tarot related, other not, but they are all good folks, real people in the real world that I trust. The reading list is just exactly that – my favorite reads over the past 30 or so years.

In-person Tarot readings and online readings are available with appointment and prepayment with the secure PayPal invoice that I’ll send to you along with the appointment confirmation.

Sage Sips membership on ko-fi get exclusive content, discount email readings, and free one card readings (one per month please) all for $5 / month. The exclusive content without the discount readings is available for $3/month through this blog and the Substack newsletter.

How to Find a Psychic You Can Trust is an excerpt from the free ebook “TaoCraft Portfolio” available in the ko-fi shop along with my other ebooks.

Sage Sips blog you know. Mondays have a three card energy path Tarot reading for the collective, general audience energies. Wednesday (including tomorrow) has “Learn With Me” as I explore other oracles or who knows what. These are free for the summer of ’23 , but may move to paid subscription this fall. Right now we are exploring the Publishing Goblin’s Oracle Dice, used with the permission of the oracle’s creator Seven Dane Asmund of Publishing Goblin LLC

Friday’s on the blog are my version of “Weekend Update” – at least until I can come up with a better title. There we’ll revisit the week’s energy path and see how it is – or isn’t – unfolding.

Other posts, cards, quotes and assorted other topics will post randomly as time and inspiration allows.

Thank you all.

I’m grateful for your support. The free Tarot content on Sage Words Tarot and Sage Sips blog / newsletter is fueled by your private reading purchases, memberships, and virtual coffees. Your likes, subs, free blog follows, and social media shares are always greatly appreciated!

Energy Week Ahead: Flow, Recharge, Think

Pathway Tarot reading for the week ahead

I’ve got adulting to do.

I’m not saying Tarot isn’t adulting. Learning, questioning, applying, doing all we can to be a better person; that’s actually the adultiest of adulting we can do.

I’m talking oil changes, errands and helping family kind of adulting. Tomorrow is shaping up to be a busy day, so here is your energy look at the week ahead a little early. I plan on taking this batch of advice myself, as I often do.

If these posts ever seem wrong or off or not for you….you can do like I do. Either draw a different batch of cards for yourself to get a more targeted individual read. If you aren’t the DIY type, no worries. Email Tarot is always open and I’m happy to help. Even when it’s busy, I can carve out time to pay attention to an email reading. It’s my strength. Just like our current energy card.

The fading energy card is six of pentacles.

Sometimes the six is about literal generosity, giving and sharing money or other tangible resources. Sometimes it talks about the intangible, speaking of a generous nature or a generosity of spirit. Today, the card brings in elements of both, reminding us give and take, ebb and flow. It feels like a reminder that we get out of life what we put into it. That in turn brings to mind the 90s song “Get What You Give” by the New Radicals.

Physical or philosophical, now is the time to find your flow before attention needs to shift to other things.

The other thing our attention my shift toward very soon, if it hasn’t already, is Strength. Just like the major arcana Death card always talks about change and not literal death, the Strength card always talks about strength of character and fortitude. This feels very simple and straightforward. Tap into your inner strength, endurance, and courage now while you can.

@bobthewritingcat is one of my favorite Instagram accounts. Bob the cat, through the opposable thumbs and internet access of his human Jenny Graves, often tells us to “gird our loins” against the inevitable approach of yet another Monday. That is the feeling here. The Strength card is like that today: gird your loins, spool up your best people skills, batten down any loose hatches, there might be a minor kerfuffle on the horizon.

The Growing energy is the three of swords. From the decks that I’ve seen, it is always a dire looking card. Like every other card, it has different shades and threads of meaning. The word “petty” is really stepping forward today, along with “quintessential ‘karen'” Be on the lookout for inane squabbles and back-stabby sort of pettiness “from all the usual sources” It might work your last nerve, but that’s where the strength and flow from earlier can come in handy. If you can see the petty squabbles as just that, and deal with the week from a place of strength and flow and calm, it will be easier to get through this particular burp in the energy flow. Girded loins will prevent frayed nerves if you’ll permit that really odd way of saying it.

Overall the feel of the week right now isn’t bad or foreboding as much as just plain weird and potentially annoying.

Assuming the adulting goes to plan (HA!) next up is Wednesday’s “Learn With Me” now that we have picked 7 random dice to learn with, we’ll get a little more meta with it and look at the general meaning of each individual die and it’s “Lord Card” which gives each one of the dice it’s own subject or realm, akin to the arcana and suit meanings in Tarot. In this series of posts, I explore the Publishing Goblin’s Oracle Dice and learn to use it in the same methodical way I taught myself to read Tarot back in the day and over the years since. The process gives you a small behind the scenes peek into the intuition development process.

Thank you for reading! This free Tarot content is fueled by your support through private Tarot readings, memberships, paid subscriptions, and ko-fi coffee. Likes, blog follows, and social media shares are always much appreciated.

See you at the next sip!


This free Tarot reading is fueled by your support: Your likes, social media shares, blog follows, paid memberships and virtual ko-fi coffees are all very much appreciated!

Weekend Update: Connect and Do/

Update from the last Energy Path Tarot reading

Email readings are OPEN. You can order 24/7, no appointment needed. June 23 – 27 might experience some delivery delays. I’ll be in touch with estimated delivery times when you order.

Since you can’t copyright titles, I’m using this one. Consider it an homage to one of my favorite Saturday Night live segments. I would never claim to be as good as theirs, but in the spirit of SNL’s update, I do intend to keep these Friday or Saturday posts light and short. I’m enjoying the end of week check in with Monday’s pathway reading. Instead of focusing on any particular card, I thought it might be fun to take a peek back at the whole layout to see how it is unfolding, if it is unfolding or if it has totally veered off course.

No veering this week.

The contemplative energy around the four of swords has dropped off the radar, but the two of swords and four of pentacles are very much intact. The Pentacles are the brighter of the two energies. The two of swords still is very much connected to the “mystical unity” shade of meaning we talked about during Monday’s reading.

Now is the time for a practical, down to earth point of view and frame of mind. Practical, budget friendly actions. Take the stairs to save electricity level of things. It doesn’t feel like a weekend to spurge or be overly restful. It feels like a good time to invest action into things that will conserve money and resources later. Kind of like making lunches for the week that will save you time and money later. Very much a mow the lawn, catch up the laundry kind of vibe right now.

I don’t mean to sound like your mother, but do stuff now so you can enjoy the July 4th holiday or whatever else you have planned in the near future.

That being said – enjoy the weekend in spite of any chores that need attention!

Next up – Energy Path reading for the week of June 26-July 3 (should post Monday afternoon)

See you at the next sip!

Give As You Claim

Six of Pentacles and quote from freethinker Rober Ingersoll

Quote via goodreads.com

Robert Ingersoll was a nineteenth century writer, speaker and lawyer famous at that time as an agnostic and freethought advocate.

The Six of Pentacles is about the flow of abundance and generosity. It often speaks about generosity of spirit as much as it talks about money or physical things.

Oracle Dice 5

A big thank you to alert reader L.K. who caught that the dice from yesterday’s Learn With Me post was hard to see because of the video text!

See? I don’t bite. The comments are open, let me know whatever questions or feedback you have. Then I’ll post answers and make adjustments so that Sage Sips can be as relevant and useful as possible.

Ask me anything! Get an answer here! In true Zombie Cat style, all answers are 100% guaranteed to contain words!


Publishing Goblin’s Oracle Dice are used with permission by Publishing Goblin, LLC

Please remember me if you ever want a Tarot Reading.

My private readings by email are affordable, professional, ethical and available to order 24/7 no appointment needed – order HERE.