Thank you for watching! Sage Sips is a free tarot blog. You can choose to get a private tarot readings as a thank you gift for your support on https://ko-fi.com/taocrafttarot. Likes, subs and shares are always appreciated.
GRAIN: They used to say “bread is the staff of life.” Grains reminds us of the stuff that the staff is made of. It speaks to the source of basics, the true essentials.
The grains card reminds us of the stuff that makes up day to day life, as simple and mundane as it gets. It speaks to food, clothing, shelter. This is a earth energy akin to the 3 of pentacles in tarot. It’s about doing essential tasks, and the hands on activities of daily living from the most mundane to the most sacred and creative. This is a weekend to take care of those things. Stay home. Sort your socks. Water those plants you’ve been forgetting. Put the laundry away and put your feet up with a glass of wine and a good book. Grain by grain, a wheat harvest leads to warm bread on a cold day. Do the little stuff that you’ve been putting off because little things, in the long run, can mean a lot.
This vibes with this harvest time of year, something reversed in every culture that I can think of.
This card and this weekend is a reminder that the mundane IS the sacred.
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
Alan Watts
Deck: Oracle of Secrets by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permissions Publishing Goblin LLC
Understanding a situation and making a plan of action nudges your thinking away from the future and “what if?” and brings it back to the hear-and-now. That shift in perception can interrupt and ease worries and anxieties. Lots of energy here today – it’s not often that we see double major arcana cards. This one is an attention-getter.
What’s happening – The World. Good, bad or indifferent, anything is possible. Sure, bad things are possible, but good things are probably just as likely. You steer toward where you look. Look at good things. This card traditionally has a positive vibe. “The world is your oyster” applies here.
What to do – The Tower. Be as OK as you can be with unexpected twists, turns and surprises. It doesn’t come naturally to many of us, but the ability to adapt is a survival skill. Adapt to find your good-future-building world oysters, so to speak.
If it isn’t natural for you, this is a time to push the envelope and deliberately work on mental, emotional, or even physical flexibility (a good stretch is stress-relieving. Mind follows body as much as the body follows the mind) If all else fails, if you can’t adapt to change, BE the change. BE the twist, turn and surprise.
Stay tuned for more Tarot. Likes, subs and shares are always appreciated! See you at the next sip! – Sage
Before or after the reveal, before or after reading the card’s message below. However you choose it is your choice, your instincts, your message. Take both. Reject both. It is still your own good intuition leading the way.
Death: You no doubt already know the Death card is never literal, but symbolizes change. Big change. It means the crossed-the-Rubican, no way back type of change. When that happens, and it does happen to everyone one way or another, only you can say if the change is for the better. Chance at a new life or fate worse than death: It’s up to you.
High Priestess: No one knows everything. Predictions aren’t real. There is real healing and personal power in becoming comfortable with not knowing. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. – “‘[Courage] is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
Together these bring to mind a social media meme that feels very true to me “Religion is for people trying to stay out of hell but spirituality for those who have already been there.”
Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!
Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC
Whenever you read ‘weekend oracle’ posts, it basically is a vibe check for the next 2-3 days that give you an idea how to make the most of the energy flows around you.
THE NIGHT’S PITY: Seven Dane Asmund, author of the deck, describes this card as “finding dark comfort in hard times.”
On one hand, I’m getting that this can be a literal thing. Honor you natural diurnal / nocturnal cycles. If you are a morning person, honor that and get some sleep as you need. If you are a natural night owl, indulge your dark loving inner nature. This is a time of resonance and power for the night owls. Embrace your inner goth if you have one. Day people, nap all you want, we got this.
On the other hand, this is also psychological. Very Jungian, really. This is a good time for everyone to explore their darker side. Not suggesting you do anything harmful to anyone. It’s a thought experiment. This is talking about a touch of cynicism and dark humor in the face of all of the real violence and tragedy that so many people are facing these days.
The idea for everyone is to sit with your dark side, deal with your demons by understanding them – even befriending them. It’s a radical form of self-love to find beauty in the flaws and downfalls, and accept yourself as-is, in whole, right here, right now. Allow yourself to feel at home in the literal or metaphoric night. The dark side might just bring you a warm blanket and cookie.
Some say anxiety is from thinking too much about the future. We can’t predict the future but we can make plans and, more importantly, take action to help create the future we want. Psychic predictions aren’t much of a thing, but cause and effect is a proven, real and powerful thing. Tarot is very much that – it is a tool to help you understand what is going on here and now, and helps give you ideas about what to DO. Those ideas and those actions create the future, not predict it. Those ideas and actions help ease anxiety.
In this layout, the left card reflects the current situation, the current energy. It helps us understand what it is that prompted us to want a Tarot reading, or scroll a Tarot blog, or watch the social post that brought you here, or whatever the case may be.
The next card suggest a good next step. It is an idea what to do now about the energy that is happening now. That one idea, that one next step, is all it takes to interrupt that habit of letting your mind live in the future and stop the spiral into anxiety, even its just for a little while.
Coming in October: Sage Sips blog on TaoCraftTarot.com will be partnering with the “How To Holistic” blog to bring you more stress relief options. The Ebook “Reiki and Relaxation” and pay-what-you-want distance Reiki sessions to the Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot Ko-Fi shop.
KING OF CUPS: The king of cups is about both literal and spiritual guides and mentors. Cups cards are connected to the element of water. Because of that, they are also connected to intuition, emotions, and close relationships (including family, close friends, not just romance)
The message here is that you are not alone. You are connected to all that is. You are part of the Cosmos at the grandest scale. You spirit-world companionship is at your side at the very least. On a more practical scale, this isn’t a time to go it alone in the mental and emotional real world either. Read, listen, learn, ask for advice. That takes courage. That is why this kind of mentorship and learning is connected to the KING card. Be brave enough and wise enough to know that you don’t know everything and go get the knowledge that you need.
HANGED MAN: This card has two very different traditional meanings rolled into one card. On one hand it is about stagnation, or at the very least, feelings of frustration at the pace at which life is moving. Your mental/emotional/biological clock is ticking at a faster pace than things are naturally moving. The message here is basically cool your jets. Let things unfold. Time is key, and some things can only happen with time. You can’t ferment fine wine …or even a mason jar of pickles…in a day. Time is a crucial ingredient right now.
The other meaning for this card is ‘fearless sacrifice’ or ‘self sacrifice’ The sacrifice that must be made here is your expectations. Give up the when. Throw yourself on the alter of being patient.
Sacrifice your expectations and impatience to allow room for either real world or spiritual guidance (or both). Find your mentors. Spirit guides don’t work on a time clock. It takes time and quiet to hear spirit’s whispers. Moving at a fast pace makes it all hard to hear.
Thanks again for reading. Hoping to get a ‘weekend oracle’ ready for you Friday. See you at the next sip!
Here is something a little different for the card of the week.
Daily meditation Tarot is a fantastic way to learn Tarot. The same idea can be extended to a card for the week. It is a next-step exercise that is more about building your intuition and general energy sense.
It’s easy to do.
Shuffle your deck, however you like. Shuffling is helpful because it clears any old energy from previous readings and ‘wakes up’ the deck (for lack of a better way of describing it)
Choose a card, any way you like. Cut the deck, fan the deck, draw from the top….whatever makes you happy.
In fact, making yourself happy is kind of the point of the card I drew, the Five of Swords.
It is often about ego and conflict. But the vibe here is internal, and I get mental images of the Five of Wands to go along with this. Put it together and it is about internal conflict. What do you NOT want to do that you are forcing yourself to gut it out and do? Where do you feel resistance? What part of this coming week do you want to block or avoid. What about the current situation that feels blocked or like it is blocking you?
Learn from that. Road blocks have signs on them. Detours are still a path forward. Or a message that maybe you were going the wrong way. Or a confirmation that the new path you’ve been considering is indeed the right one.
Like a daily meditation, it can help to put the card somewhere you can see it during the course of the week – someplace safe, like a bed side table or something. Whenever you see the card, take a second to be in the moment. Feel the energy, think a little how your initial impressions have connected (or not) with the week as it unfolds.
When we talk about the “layout” or “card spread” in Tarot, we are referring to how the cards are physically placed on the table during a reading. The photo above shows a three card layout.
Some layouts are ancient and ubiquitous and no one really knows how they originated. Others are brand new and purpose written by the tarot reader. All are equally valid.
Regardless of its origin, the layout adds context and structure to a reading. It is the framework that connects the different cards into one, larger, cohesive message.
The real key in any layout is to have a clear idea what each position within the layout pattern will signify before the reading begins. You have to have a clear, fixed intention for the layout positions before you even pick up the cards. It serves as a solid foundation, which allows the individual card meanings to adapt and flow with intuition. Those two important things together elevate the quality of the reading as a whole. The card layout (along with a consistent overall reading format) helps to put the purely intuitive Tarot information into real world language we can actually use.
Here are the layouts that I’ve written for my private Tarot readings:
Year Ahead
five cards
advice over prediction – gives a sense of the energies ahead to help navigate the year
four cards for each upcoming season in order, no matter what time of year the reading is done
One card above the others to summarize the year as a whole
TaoCraft Path
Five cards
Intended for understanding the current situation and guidance navigating your life path ahead.
It goes right to left: influence from the past, the current situation, advice to move forward, how to keep this path, how to change this path if you want.
NEW! TaoCraft Taijitu
Three cards
Yin card: energies drawing toward you
Yang card: energies moving away or that need pushed away
Harmony: advice to take your next step forward in balance with all of the energies.
Yes or No
Three cards
Straight yes or no answer plus advice
inexpensive
fun and lighthearted, “Zombie Cat” style
Image credits:
Top and Taijitu image from the public domain
“Seasons”photo by the author using Witches Tarot deck by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans copyright 1996 used with permissions on Llewellyn publishing
TaoCraft Path photo by the author using public domain image tarot cards
In this layout, the cards reflect the current energies and suggests a good next step – what it is and what to do. Having an idea and making a plan of action can take the edge off of worry.
Page of Wands: Pages are associated with learning. Learning requires taking in information. “Get the lay of the land” comes through here. Observe, attempt gently, feel your way forward gradually.
Four of Pentacles: Sometimes this is associated with hoarding or greed. Sometimes it is about a hidden treasure, protected. However you read it, it is a conservative, cautious energy. Proceed, but with great thought and care. This isn’t the time for all out, willy-nilly, thoughtless impulse.
Start slow, you can always hit the gas once you have merged safely onto the highway. Start with a little salt in your soup, you can add more if it’s needed but you can’t take it out. Salt your metaphoric soup a little at a time.
THREE OF CUPS ( reversed ): Don’t be afraid to be the quiet one in the group. Be in an environment of like minded people even if you aren’ts feeling social. Now is a time to find and band together with your tribe, not to try and fit in.
DEATH (reversed) : What decision are you avoiding? Face the life – changing decision, make it, act on it. Life is change. Even if you CHOOSE to stay the same, make it a deliberate choice in order to unlock your best path forward.
Thanks for reading. I appreciate you! See you at the next sip!
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.