sage sips – Page 2 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Go On, You Can Do It.

It seems like a good day for an “Action Eases Anxiety” layout with Christopher Butler’s Healing Light Lenormand.

The Action Eases Anxiety layout is inspired by conversations with a friend about Lenormand cards and an episode of The Circle is Podcast with Mat Auryn and Rachel True. My experience agrees with theirs: Lenormand tends to be direct, no-nonsense, and almost sentence-like. So I read this two card layout very much as a terse two word sentence, “What it is” (subject, noun, the current collective energies) and “What to do about it” (verb, suggested action to best navigate that energy)

The premise is, of course, that taking action about something that is worrying you reduces that worry. Even making a plan about what to do if an imagined scenario that might turn up can reduce anxiety about the imagined thing, show what is under your control – and what isn’t.

Which in turn always sends my brain back to that DC comic thing about ‘make a plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails….and throw away the plan. Equal parts calm, planning and adaptability is some superhero stuff we can all use.

But back to today’s cards.

It’s a pretty straightforward message, really. The Stars card hints at good fortune. This is a good energy place to be, or at least behind the scenes there may be more good fortune and opportunity than you are feeling at the moment. The Child card hints at a new beginning, much like the RWS Fool card combined with the innocence of the Six of Cups.

Do it. This is good energy to give yourself permission to start something new.

It doesn’t have to be big. It can just be a little try.

Permission is a powerful thing. When you were a small child, did you ever get a small permission to follow your natural curiosity or do something you already wanted to do but didn’t think you could do or would be allowed to do?

This energy feels a little like a cosmic smash cake.

I don’t know where this whole thing started, but you know people will make a small separate cake for a baby’s first birthday and let them smash it at eat it with their hands and just enjoy it. The look of astonishment and delight on the kid’s face makes my heart sing every time. Best. Idea. Ever.

What outrageous, delightful, life affirming thing do you need to give yourself permission to do today?

Grab a handful of cake why don’t you?

Meditation teacher and journalist Dan Harris frequently talks about the age-old Buddhist advice to talk to yourself as you would a friend.

If someone ten years younger than you was facing a situation you are facing or making a decision you are currently making, what advice – or even better – what encouragement would you give them?

Then take your own good advice.

The perfect time never comes. Good enough times happen. Often that good enough time is the only time we ever have – right NOW.

Give yourself permission to be as delighted with life as a kid with a smash cake.

Go on. You can do it.

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A portion of proceeds are donated to a public service organization each month. September 2026 is the American Library Association in honor of national Love Your Library month.

Remaining proceeds are used to create Sage Sips in a way that is open and free to everyone without ads or paywalls.

Thanks for reading and supporting Sage Sips if you can!

Tarot Q&A: Am I Psychic?

From the Tarotbytes blog archives from September 2016

Read more from my old Tarotbytes blog using the search bar on Sage’s Second Cup

Q: I think I have psychic abilities. Could you do a yes or no reading to give insight in to how to use them?

A: There is so much to say here, I’m not sure where to start!

In an academic thesis or dissertation one of the first things you do is define key terms, so let’s start there too. What do we mean when we say “psychic abilities?”

If you mean predicting the future, then the short answer is no. No reading can give you insight into something that is essentially impossible. Or at least highly improbable. For a deeper dive into that topic, here are some of my favorite rants from the blog:

But if “psychic abilities” means the normal, natural intuition that we all posses then that is a very different story.

You said that you think that you have psychic ability. Does that mean your yes-or-no question is really “Do I have psychic ability?” The short answer there is yes, you do. Everyone does.

We all posses a mind, an imagination and the ability to listen to them. Intuition is simply listening to our consciousness’ connection to the great big everything, the all-that-is, the Cosmos. We are a part of it all. Why wouldn’t we evolve with some sense of the universe as a whole in addition to sensing our immediate environment and some perception (albeit malleable) of the passage of time?

But that’s just my spin on it.

That still begs the question of “How do I use my intuition?” If you want to learn to better access your normal, natural, innate intuition then the best advice is what martial arts teacher, Master Gracenin always says: “The best way to train for a thing is to do a thing.” The best way to learn to use your intuition is to – you guessed it – use your intuition.

If intuition is your consciousness and your imagination connecting you to everything-that-is, then use that connection in a mindful, deliberate way.

Engage with your here-and-now everyday life on an intuitive level. You don’t just get up one morning and randomly win the Boston Marathon. Even the most talented natural athlete must practice, build endurance, get advice from coaches, and incorporate running-training into their routine daily life. Intuition trains the same way. Listen to the words and images that come to mind as you make small inconsequential choices. Pay attention to feelings and emotions when they bubble up. Read books or take classes. A runner training for a marathon needs good equipment, like shoes. Oracles like Tarot, runes, I Ching, astrology, tea leaves, palm lines, what have you are tools to help you access your intuition. Shoes are nothing special in and of themselves, but a person’s hard work and talent make them a part of winning a gold medal. Cards, runes, palm lines, etc aren’t special by themselves, but a person’s attention, intuition and practice make them a part of something special. Athletes in training have to take care of themselves with good food and hydration. Intuitives in training need to take care of themselves too…both physically and psychologically. Staying healthy, balanced, and grounded are all important to the process.

I have a small group workshop that helps you to make the connection between intuition and Tarot cards. Follow the blog here for details.* There are many good books to help you begin a solid spiritual growth and intuition development path (I think the two go hand in hand.) These books come to mind as a start-point for you:

The Healer’s Manual by Ted Andrews
Psychic Protection by Ted Andrews
The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot**

Not to mention a lot of good old fashioned trial and error. And that is only the beginning. Needless to say, developing and using your intuition is bigger topic than any one blog post or yes/no reading can touch. By a long shot.

“Neo, sooner or later you are going to realize just as I did that there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path” – Morpheus in “The Matrix”

“I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it is going to begin.” – Neo in “The Matrix”

* I don’t offer these any longer except as a volunteer free service at select local library branches to support the library. In the South Hills of Pittsburgh? Support your library! Interested in Tarot? Ask them to contact me at TaoCraftTarot@gmail.com if you would like the learn to read Tarot workshop at your library.

Don’t forget – September 2026 Brew It Forward donation is for the American Library association in support of Love your Library month and their upcoming Banned Books Week. Buy me a coffee for a portion of the proceeds to be brewed forward to a good cause each month

**I also suggest adding Mat Auryn’s 2020 book, Psychic Witch

Sitting With Nothing

Often this card reminds me of the famous Japanese proverb “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

That is the short answer to the core message of the Ten of Swords: What do you do when things go wrong. What do you do when you are face down in defeat?

It said STAND. Not leap up. Not bounce back. Not return to the same battle. STAND includes dragging yourself up after taking time to figure out how to get back on your feet. STAND includes limping off in another direction to do something entirely different.

Today’s card also reminds me of something author Chuck Wendig said on social media during the era of his book You Can Do Anything Magic Skeleton. I remember it as having this Tarot image and the advice that when life has you face down on the floor, look under the sofa for those keys you lost last week – or something like that.

If there is a theme song for this card, it’s Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping “I get knocked down. But I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.”

Getting up is the important part. This doesn’t say anything about when or how you stand up again.

It’s ok not to be ok. You don’t have to leap up and be happy about what just happened.

Here I am also reminded of a photo of Sidney Crosby just sitting on the ice, exhausted and dejected after a Stanley Cup loss. He was the picture of defeat kind of like our Ten of Swords dude. He wasn’t all spitfire and overjoyed after he stood up from the ice. But he did stand up, keep playing, won more Stanley Cups and is a record setting athlete. To put it mildly.

The important thing isn’t about when or how you stand up again. The important thing is that you do – eventually – stand up again. Sometimes when you have nothing left in the tank, you just sit with the nothing. Sometimes when you feel depressed, then you just by damn be depressed for a while. When you are laying face down on the floor with metaphoric knives in your back, the best thing to do is stay down there and look under the sofa for your car keys.

Feel the feels. Sit with the nothing. Do what you need to do to get ready to stand up again. You are allowed to move slow, hold on to something and make old man noises while you do.

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

It’s spooky season and I have itch Tarot fingers. Get a free email Tarot reading as my thank you gift when you support Sage Sips on Ko-Fil

A portion of the proceeds are donated to a different wellness, food support or civil rights organization each month. September 2026 Brew It Forward is for the American Library Association for their promotion of freedom to read and this years upcoming Banned Book Week

From the Archives: Find Freedom

Needing the attention and approval of others is a kind of servitude. Find your independence.

Adventures in Meatspace.

I’m re-reading Neuromancer. It’s an all-time favorite and has had a big influence on my blogger-life. William Gibson is credited with coining the term cyberspace after all. That’s also where we get calling the physical body ‘meat’ and the term ‘meat puppets’ I don’t know who came up with ‘meatspace’ for the offline world (Adam Savage maybe?)

The pull to Meatspace has been strong lately. I think that it is a general, collective energy for us all. We are all way past touching grass. I saw a meme on social media yesterday that said something like “I don’t need to touch grass I need to melt into the forest floor”

Personally, I’m caught between wanting to ground and take a little bit of meatspace sabbatical as I call my offline vacations – and wanting to plug into cyberspace hard and minimize some big meatspace stress I have coming up over the next few days.

I get called out by Tarot cards too. It’s not just you.

Pulled a card to write about here and found my own stress staring me in the face.

Welp, that fits.

I often sense the seven of swords in terms of a fiction character trope; a lovable scamp, untrustworthy but helpful petty thief, a character in a heist movie like Ocean’s Eleven or one of the informers in an old episode of Miami Vice.

Today, though, I’m drawn toward Seven Dane Asmund’s interpretation of carrying the burdens of our decisions. Decision making speaks to the mental, intellectual, active, air-element nature of the suit.

In other words, consider the consequences of your decision. If you choose to carry a few swords of your decisions, don’t forget they are sharp and it’s gonna hurt. But see the swords sticking in the ground? Don’t forget you can drop those babies any time you want, stick them in the ground to discharge and detox and get you back on your merry way.

The idea here is very similar to the 10 of wands except pointier, sharper, heavier. This is black belt level burden dropping stress management, not just tossing sticks that we make heavier than they really are.

Doing it all with a sense of irony and humor helps too.

I chose to do the stressful thing this weekend because the consequences of doing it are shorter term and less consequential. If I don’t do the thing, there is 100% chance of blowback. And so here I go with my hands full of swords. When you hear that big crash of dropping metal you’ll know I’m home.

Meet you back here in cyberspace for the next sip.

Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Like what you read? Buy me a coffee from the “readings” menu on Ko-Fi and a portion of the September 2026 proceeds goes to the American Library Association in honor of Love Your Library month and their upcoming Banned Book Week.

Action Eases Anxiety Tarot: The Plan

Last week, in the You Have to Make Before You Can Break It post we talked about card layouts, how making an action plan is in itself an action that can ease anxiety, and that a good plan also plans on the plan going completely sideways.

A two-card is great little reset when you are tackling the twists, turns and gone-sideways adjustments you have to make but, like we said last time, you have to make it before you break it. The Plan layout is about setting direction in the first place, making the plan that you plan on adjusting (or throwing away) later.

Reading left to right, the layout positions are:

Let it rest: You have been giving too much energy here. Dial it down, give it some space, let it simmer until the time is right again.
Let it go: This is getting unhealthy or is not serving you as well as it has in the past. This is something to consider releasing for good, or at least putting into cold storage for a good, long time.
Que it up: Pay attention here. Look for opportunities that aren’t quite here yet. This is something that isn’t quite ready but may be soon.
Let it roll: This needs your attention now. Full focus here. Roll with it.

Notice how the position names mostly start with “Let” that’s on purpose. This is about allowing the nature of energies as they are, not forcing things or fighting the flow. This is about navigation directions, not a list of do-or-die achievements.

Let it rest: Two of Wands

Well, isn’t this ironic in the middle of my little rant about planing. That is exactly what the two of wands is often about…strategic planning, preparation, watching for the right time.

The message here is clear. KNOCK IT OFF. The time will never be right. The only time is now. The only place to start is here. CHOOSE and START already.

Don’t let fear of making the wrong choice paralyse you. You can learn from your mistakes, change plans, adapt, re-adapt, re-plan and generally nope out of whatever direction you want to at any point you want to.

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

THIS is what Tarot is all about. It isn’t about predicting your future. It is about showing you your power, your choices, your part in creating your future. The two of wands in the let it rest position is nudging us to let the planning rest and do something. You can’t break it unless you make it. You can’t learn from mistakes until you make a few. You can’t change directions until you move in one.

Let it go: Seven of Wands

Pick your battles. Stop beating that metaphoric dead horse. Stop throwing good money after bad. Cut your losses. When you are in a hole, stop digging. Where are the costs too high?

Que it up: Nine of Swords

There is never a time for useless regrets or overwhelming anxiety. This isn’t talking about that. This is talking about stepping outside of your comfort zone. It isn’t time for emotional risk just yet, but what are you going to do when it comes? Even good things can put on pressure. Stress happens, even during good things. Something has to change for things to get better and emotions may bubble when they do. What are you going to do when that happens? Get ready.

Let it roll: Ten of Pentacles

What if….not saying it’s possible…but what if you could….

What would it be like to just be happy with things as they are now. Be happy that you’ve decided to do every single thing within your power to change every single thing you want to change – AND be happy with just having made that decision. What if, having made a choice to be happy with things as they are AT THE SAME TIME that they are changing and AT THE SAME TIME that things are in progress instead of waiting to be happen when things are done?

There is a parable about a student who asked a Zen master about how to be happy. “I want to be happy” they said. The master said to drop the “I” because that is ego and to drop the “want” because that is attachment. Then all that is left is “be happy.”

Happy? Let it roll.

Like what you see on Sage Sips? Buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi! A portion of the proceeds are brewed forward to a food security, wellness or civil rights organization each month. The rest goes toward creating Sage Sips without ads or paywalls.

September 2026 Brew It Forward will go to the American Library Association in honor of their protection of our freedom to read and in honor of their upcoming banned books week.

Brew It Forward, September 2026

Hi everyone!

September is Love Your Library month and national library card sign up month.

Civil liberties are vital to all of us who like Tarot or any sort of not-white-christian spiritual path. Every year the American Library Association promotes Banned Book Week – a perfect fit for a bunch of tarot-types like us.

On a personal level, I volunteer and donate to my local library but for Brew It Forward I wanted to do something with more national appeal.

September’s Brew It Forward will go to the American Library Association in honor of all of the science, philosophy, spirituality, and off-the-beaten-path witchy Tarot books I’ve borrowed over the years.

In August news: The Brew If Forward donation just went out to World Central Kitchen in honor of all of YOU.

Improve Your Groove

From the archives, September 1, 2019

I love it when people talk in T-shirts.

My husband is a drummer. This morning we were watching and interview / demo video on with Stanton Moore, the drummer for Galactic. If you like music and/or drums even a teensy bit, and you don’t know Stanton Moore or Galactic, run don’t walk YouTube or his website or where ever you listen to music and check it out. It may not be your taste in music, but it is worth a listen just for the sheer skill and musicality of it all. At the moment, my personal favorite is “Ha di ka” from the album Carnivale Electricos because it totally reminds me of The Magician card from the Black Cat Tarot.

But that’s another story.

In the middle of all the music stuff he said that you can always “improve your groove” which would make a pretty good t-shirt, I think.

He’s talking about a music groove and learning / improving your skill as a drummer, but to me the non-musician, it invokes the notion of dynamic balance, comfort, ease, being “in a rhythm,” a sort of wu wei state of mind. You know, just rolling with things as they come and it’s all good.

So how do you improve on that? Why would you want to? After all it is OK for everything to be OK, at least every now and then.

Acknowledging the groove improves it.

There is a vaguely toxic version of gratitude floating around out there. I had a client one time that was going to be grateful goddammit until she got the romance she wanted. She had heard that gratitude brings the things that you want, and was essential to the spiritual Law of Attraction. Being grateful for what you have brings you what you want. Valid point – sort of. I had to wonder how grateful she really, genuinely FELT if she was as miserably laser focused on her current loneliness and that new relationship as she said.

Scott Cunningham wrote that “the feeling is the power.” Empty gratitude as an exercise to gain something can’t feel all that terrific. The magick happens when you feel the gratitude for the stuff that is right here, right now. When that happens, the gratitude brings you a wealth of good things that were right there under your nose, perhaps unacknowledged.

Gratitude is a comfortable groove. It is not some ecstasy, not something you can force or do as a means to an end. If you aren’t grateful now – OK. If things are bad – OK. Acknowledge that realistically too. You have to understand how things actually are before you can improve them, right? Gratitude can come in the form looking around and feeling that things aren’t so bad after all. As I type that, I “hear” (which is how I describe intuition that comes as sounds, words or music instead of mental images) a song by Esperanto reggae artist Jonny M, “Malacxa” which means “not awful” or “not bad”

The Magician, all songs aside, is a good card for the concept. The process of finding a groove, being in it, acknowledging it, improving it, can work a sort of magic. Gratitude CAN attract good things, but not by doing it come hell or high water to get some specific thing. The groove magic comes when you appreciate and improve the groove you are already in more than you throw your mind and energy at something that is not in your groove right now at all.

You have to make it before you can break it.

Layouts are easy. Titles are hard.

Tarot layouts are no great secret. You can write one any time you want. We pro (retired, semi-pro, just reads cards a lot) tarot readers do it all the time. This is where you ask the questions you want answered. Basically you name what you want the cards to tell you. When you go into a reading with a clear, firm idea about what each card represents, then you get a clearer idea and a more usable message

Owl and Bones Tarot and Daily Tarot Girl are especially good at it.

Granted, Lenormand and some readers are a little more chaotic and free-form, but in my experience it pays to have a layout in mind before you start a reading. It is a foundation and reference point that keeps things anchored when you are in the flow of intuition.

If you are going to pull a message out of the aether, it pays to have some place solid for it to land.

Last night’s lunar eclipse was a potent one, associated with closure, release, and transformation. That Glasgow Witch describes it as the bookend to the September 2024 eclipse. If the past two years are a cycle, a liminal space in time, a phase of transformation, now that the second bookend has been set in place it begs the question of “now what?”

Chances are you already have a good idea about the direction things are headed. If not, however, that can spark a little worry and that is where the Action Eases Anxity layout comes into play. Coming up with an idea about what to do can reduce anxiety just as much as actually doing the thing. Action Eases Anxiety is a good, fast look to help bring things back to center when life is going off the rails

But what about making the original plan before it all goes sideways?

I wrote a four card layout for just exactly that. I tried to call it “Timeflow” or something overly clever. Now I think I’m just going to call it “The Plan”

I’m more of a Marvel fan, but I am a bigger fan of adaptability, so my planning is always going to be in the vein of DC comic’s Captain Cold:

Make a plan
Execute the plan
Expect the plan to go off the rails
Throw away the plan

So if Action Eases Anxiety is for step three when it all goes pear shaped, The Plan is for step one. This is for making the plan that you expect to eventually toss and the method for making a new one in its place.

The four cards layout spots are:

Let it rest (things to set aside for now. Come back later when the time is right)
Let it go (things release. Cut this loose and move on)
Cue it up (things that need some attention or preparation)
Let it roll (put your attention here. Conditions are good)

Another reason that Tarot works is because a picture truly is worth a thousand words. Subscribe to Sage Sips on WordPress or Substack (it’s free!) so you’ll get a notice when a post an example Reading of “The Plan” layout sometime over the next couple of days, probably Sunday (it’s Friday now) That will give you a good picture of what “The Plan” layout is like.

See you at the next sip!

If you like what you see, then please buy me a coffee on ko-fi or join the Brew it Forward membership. $1 from every virtual coffee and membership proceeds are donated to a different food security, disaster response, or public service organization each month. August 2026 will support World Central Kitchen.

The remaining proceeds go toward creating and web hosting Sage Sips so that it can be free for everyone without ads or paywalls.

When you buy a virtual coffee, it unlocks DM access where you can request a one time, one card email tarot reading as a thank you gift. Brew It Forward members get unlimited one card private Tarot readings anytime at your request. Please visit the Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi page for details

Tarot Q&A: Your Advice Didn’t Work

What to do when a Tarot reading doesn’t work for you

Q: Your advice didn’t work. I tried the finger lacing and imagining, but I still feel weird and anxious and I don’t know why. Why didn’t the reading work?

Back in the days of twenty ought and seventeen, in the days of the second civil war on a bird-logo social media site (I was on the side armed with BBQ spatulas and a sense of humor) my handle was “ffs NOW what”

I’m sorry the “Vibe Check” post didn’t help in the way that you hoped it would. Tarot is an art form. I have no answer for why it didn’t “work” any more than I can say why some people don’t like cookie dough ice cream. It’s all about individual preferences. There is nothing good or bad about any of it either way.

Buuuut….I would like to circle back to the part of the post that talks about how if the visualizations didn’t quiet the noise, then it is something individual to you.

If the anxious feeling doesn’t have a clear trigger, and it isn’t a matter of vibing off of *gestures wildly* everything that is going on in the world right now, then you are up against something much harder to deal with – yourself. Honestly facing your own emotions is one of the hardest things any human can do.

As a first step, not as a whole solution, it can help to shift from “why not?” to “NOW what?” Action Eases Anxiety layouts are my favorite for this.

Grab a deck of cards, think about the vague anxiety that is bothering you, do your thing with the shuffle, and draw two cards. The first symbolizes the situation now. You can revisit the why of everything later, in a different kind of layout if needed.

The second card gives you an idea of what to DO next. Most of the time, just having an idea about what you want to do helps, even if you never actually do it.

I only do private readings for Ko-Fi supporters. If you want a second opinion on a reading you do or have other questions please feel free to use the Ask the expert form like you did this time. I’m happy to help!

But again, I’m sorry that these uncomfortable emotions are hanging around for you. I’d like to help, but Tarot isn’t the answer for everything. Some people find more inspiration and guidance in astrology, runes, meditation, Tai Chi, book clubs, listening to music, going to museums, going for a run, going to therapy, playing dungeons and dragons, taking a nap, or sitting and staring into the psychological abyss while having a hot cup of coffee or tea – the possibilities are endless. It’s just a matter of finding the right thing for you.

Keep trying, keep looking, and you will find the perfect match for you.