Sage Snow – Page 11 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

You Choose Interactive New Year Tarot 2024

Pathway Tarot readings for the New Year. Happy 2024 everyone!

Tarot doesn’t tell you exactly what is going to happen in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

https://youtu.be/xwBulLPhaTc?si=O_6BHQeD3Q7OklEh

What path do you choose for 2024?

So much is up to you – it’s your choice what you do with what you are handed. Emotions bubble up, but you choose what you do about them.

Sorry about the shreddy sounding voice and disorganized presentation (there are reasons why I’m a writer type Tarot reader and not a social media influencer) but watch the video, pick a path.

This shows some of my choices for 2024.The YouTube channel is all companion videos showing the real world card draw for the day. The video has short commentary in the description, but the full reading is here in the blog. I don’t like talking on video, so there you are. I hope you’ll watch and read to get the best of both worlds.

Looking at all the rows together we see lots of major arcana and court cards. I think that is hinting at a big energy year. Lots of change, a real roller coaster ride. Plant good seeds, set a good foundation now so our roller coaster ride ends up in a good place.

Top Row – Quartz

Clear quartz is the universal amplifier. It turns up the volume on your connection to universal energies and the effects of other stones and crystals. This may be your year to be the helper. Speak your truth and let it be heard.

Fading Energy: 10 of Swords. I’m guessing that 2023 was a heckuva year for you. This card isn’t hinting that anything dire is going to happen. It’s hinting that it already has. HEAL. Let yourself be down, make a full assessment of everything that has happened so you can stand up again. I always connect this card to the proverb “fall down seven times but get up eight.”

Current Energy: Queen of Swords. This is a card of accepting your power. Give yourself a little dose of confidence. It isn’t arrogant to do the things you are good at doing. If you don’t want to think of yourself as being good at something, then do the things you LOVE to do. Often they are the same thing.

Growing Energy: Strength. This card is just what it seems. Heal from what has happened, get up again, claim your strengths. Confidence and strength can grow as time goes on.

Middle Row – Orange Calcite

Calcite comes in a variety of colors, but the orange calcite here is especially associated with the second chakra, below the navel. Orange is the opposite of blue on the color wheel, so orange calcite can poetically speaking “chase away the blues.” Of all of orange calcite’s properties cleansing and uplifting step forward here.

Fading energy: Judgement. This also gives me the feeling that you center row folks had a heckuva year, but more on the mental and emotional level than in the physical / career realm. Let go of other people’s judgement of you and give yourself a second chance whether anyone else does or not. Humans are a diverse lot. There is someone, somewhere who accepts you just exactly as you are, no judgments or second chances required.

Current energy: Hermit. Nothing is better for letting go of old hurts than a little alone time. Give yourself the space to shut out all the judge-y voices. Set some boundaries, find your one guiding light. When you come out of your hermit cave, a fresh start will be right there waiting for you. Any day can be the first day of a new year.

Growing energy: Queen of Wands. This is a card of self care too, but it has an element of claiming your own time, skills, strengths and powers. The energy feel of this card is very much like the queen of swords and it feels like the queen of wands is standing in as surrogate simply because the queen of swords can’t be in two places at the same time. Putting it in those words, I get a sense that the year may be growing in activity. It could get busy. Whether that heaping plate of things to do is a good thing or a stressful thing is up to you.

Foundation Row – Red Carnelian

Red carnelian is a stone of courage, endurance and leadership. You never know what you have inside until it is put to the test. One way to discover your comfort zone is to step outside of it. But don’t worry, if you can’t step back in to the old zone, it will grow out to meet you. You got this.

Fading energy: The High Priestess. This is a card of mystique and mystery. When mystery fades it often leaves certainty in its wake. This card reminds me of a quote by scientist Richard Feynman “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” Know with confidence, but question everything with equal energy.

Current energy: Five of Swords. Sword cards often denote action. Now that I think about it, the word aftermath is stepping forward here. The past three years have been pretty unhinged on the macro scale, if not on your individual one too. This card is validating what you feel, but also challenging you to rise to the circumstances. “Yeah, that sucked, but now what are you going to DO about it?” is the vibe.

Growing energy: The Empress. Get back to nature, baby. This is a big reminder to touch some grass this year, literally and figuratively. Somewhere I read about a study where people’s blood pressure came down a little bit whenever they looked at pictures of nature. That isn’t to say pictures of nature cure high blood pressure, but that objective, measurable change showed that we associate nature with relaxation and even that tiny bit of contact was enough to elicit a tiny bit of measurable, physiologic stress reduction.

Whether it is a new computer wallpaper, a walk in the park, a day at the beach or a week long camping trip…anything you can do to connect with nature is nothing but good this year. For goodness’ sake get outside and breathe some fresh air, will you?

And everybody wash your hands, wear a mask when you need to, get enough sleep and eat an occasional vegetable while you are at it.

I wish everyone a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

See you at the next sip!

Sage Sips is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Blurry Time ’23: Meet Your Reader

Using blurry-time to reintroduce myself. Hello & Happy Holidays!

Happy Festivus to all who celebrate! Welcome to what I’m calling Blurry Time ’23. Elfcon is over, the preparations are done. It’s all cookies and coffee from here.

I subscribe to Outlined, the web comic by Chaz Hutton. My favorite comic is the drawing of a December calendar page where the second half is basically a bunch of wiggly lines.

That perfectly captures the feel of the season. Even for those of us working a normal day job schedule, there is a sense of shared down time and camaraderie among those out and about actually doing the things for that week between Christmas eve and New Years day.

It’s truly liminal space and time. It is magical time. It is time disconnected from time – or something like that.

2023 as a whole felt very liminal and transitional. It was a blurry-ish year moving from the extended pandemic / dumpster fire years 2020-22 (2016-22 if you live in the U.S.) We’ll get back to how 2024 is looking when we do the annual just-for-fun (and wishful thinking) year-ahead Tarot reading next weekend (-ish)

In the meantime, I want to use blurry time to bridge years.

2023 was the first full year of Sage Words Tarot. I want to circle back around and use the blurry time re-introduce it all for the bright, shiny new year on the way.

I don’t know why – probably no reason at all – but it always seems to start with musing about names.

Hi! I’m Sage.

I’m also a Tarot reader and author of Sage Sips blog with its “Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip your coffee.”

I’ve been reading Tarot and oracle cards since around 1992 which adds up to 30 years of experience with Tarot and intuition development (!)

I didn’t originally start out to be a Tarot reader (who does?) At first, I did readings for myself and friends (why PAY for it when you can DIY it?) After close friend suggested I go online with my readings (eternal gratitude!) I offered psychic Tarot readings through Keen, Advice Trader and AllExperts under my old internet handle, Baihu. After doing hundreds of online readings (I stopped counting after 400) I opened my own Tarot practice in 2003 which grew to include ModernOracleTarot.com, the Tarotbytes blog and the now-defunct Quirk & Flotsam shop on Etsy.

It was all good, but had become a hodge-podge of names and logos over the years. Then along came the Covid pandemic and changed things even more. After a short interim as TaoCraft Tarot (2018-2023) I’ve been working as SageWordsTarot.com and writing Sage Sips blog ever since.

TaoCraft lingers in layout names. TaoCraft was drawn from my love of Taoist philosophy. My Tarot work will always be guided by the principles of simplicity, authenticity, and kindness. It was also drawn from my affinity for solitary eclectic witchcraft. The TaoCraft name means a lot to me, but not so much to anyone else who sees it and that’s a problem because these Tarot readings aren’t about me – they are for YOU and about YOU.

Sage is a pen name, which helps to protect our privacy. Christian nationalism and religious bigotry is a very real thing here in America. I will do all I can to make this a safe space for everyone, especially for the lgbtquia+ community and those of us who are not Christian.

The herb sage has a comforting, familiar scent and flavor that most of us know from home cooking and holiday turkeys.

In aromatherapy, sage incense and essential oil can clear negative energy, calm anxiety and promote a feeling of general well being.

The word sage also means something or someone who is wise. The word sage describes the wise advice Tarot gives.

Safety, comfort, calmness, wisdom and a feeling that things are going to be alright are all qualities I hope you’ll experience when you read the blog, visit my social media or best of all get a private reading of your own .

Click HERE if you would like to order a private Tarot reading by email, no appointment needed.

Click HERE to schedule a flat rate ($40) in-person, phone or online reading (valid email required to participate)

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Eggnog and cookies 2023

Things here are as ready for the holidays as they’ll ever be. I love my pagan/heathen/secular Yuletide. Verrrry low key compared to the frenetic family xmases past.

What about you? How is your December decembering? I hope it is heavy on the holly jolly and light on the drama and stress.

I’m of two minds about eggnog vs gluhvein this year, but there are a variety of homebaked cookies at the ready, a sweater on the needles, a couple of good books on the side table and I am READY for a few days off from the day job.

Which translates into some quality family and Tarot time. With cookies and eggnog (or maybe gluwein, in honor of my Dad and his amature geneology discovery of our German roots, which explains our shared love of gingerbread, and, well, gluhwein at the holidays.

Yeah, break out the cinnamon sticks. The mulled wine is winning this year. Happy Festivus!

Email readings are OPEN, no appointment needed – ORDER HERE

Some new readings and blog posts are on the horizon. Social media will be random as heck during blurry time until January 2.

Talk to you soon

Blurry Time

weekly weekend newsletter on substack

Chaz Hutton draws Outlined here on Substack. One of my favorite follows here, he created the perfect visual for this time of year – a calendar page where the last two weeks of December are a bunch of wavy lines.

Beth Owl’ Daughter wrote a lovely piece about the halcyon days of Yuletide HERE.

Both things capture the blurry, soft-focus energy this time of year. I think it is stronger this year, because 2023 needs it. It’s been a heckuva 4-8 years and we all could probably use a little cocoon time during the dark time and down time with a cup of coffee and a good book, or a nap on a grey and cloudy afternoon or a cup of eggnog or all of the above.

That dark, quiet sort of energy is beneficial in the context of the larger, chaotic stressful energies that have dominated the past several years. It is a much needed yin time in the furious roar of recent yang times.

Today’s card, the nine of swords, gives us a heads up to the pitfalls of this kind of down time. Blurry time can slip in to despair time.

That isn’t to minimize the very real issues of post traumatic stress, depression or healing from any sort of emotional trauma.

This is a reminder for the more fortunate of us to don’t drama.

The real ghosts of emotional healing and loneliness are bad enough without adding imagined drama on top of it all.

So do care for yourself and your loved ones. Do sit with your emotions and honor them. Don’t make drama. Let unnecessary details go. Focus on the things that speak to your heart, not to habits, traditions or other people’s expectations.

Smaller than usual holiday celebrations are good, memorable ones too. Sometimes the best things come in the littlest packages.

Learn With Me: Lenormand, snake and fish

Learn Tarot: lenormand fish and snake

Learning Tarot is a process, and part of that process is repetition.

Last time we looked at Lenormand cards, we started to explore two card combinations, which seem to be a big part of the Lenormand style of Tarot reading. Often when particular combinations of cards are seen, the meanings for the cards change a bit, not unlike a reversal in RWS style cards and readings.

The best way to understand that connection seems to be two card sets. It makes sense to understand the foundation, the building blocks of a larger layout before using a larger layout. In RWS style, that foundational building block is the single card reading, which plugs into the individual positions of any layout which is then woven together in a meta-analytical, intuition driven way. I’m still learning Lenormand along with you, but it seems to me that building block isn’t single cards, but the underlying connections between 2 or 3 cards, like a flat mat with dots (single card meanings) stuck on top.

To put it in arts and crafts terms, RWS is knitting while Lenormand is paper-making with speckles on top.

Today we have snake and fish.

So starting with that foundational fabric, what is the common energy matrix behind the Flow and suppleness are common traits between the two.

The fish are associated with prosperity. The snake in the guidebook is associated with typical western cultural meanings like deceit and deviousness. Intuitively, however, I am reminded of Chinese astrology. People born in the year of the snake are said to be competent, wise, intuitive and passionate. When I put all of those aspects together the two-together message is to protect your resources through wisdom and know-how (akin to a four of pentacles combined with an ace of swords sort of vibe)

I’m not sure if or how the playing card insets factor into it. Queen of clubs with the snake is akin to the queen of wands – which reinforces the idea of self-care, in the form of caring for physical resources. The king of diamonds is like the king of pentacles, reinforcing the notion that this is about common sense, physical realm money management more than some sort of grand spiritual lesson.

Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes, as these cards seem to stay, you just have to mind the budget, even at the holidays. The energy here is all about practical, level headed things, unrelated to spirituality or emotion. Once we make the physical stable and safe, then we can turn our minds and hearts to the spiritual, emotional and intangible.

Between now and New Year I don’t intend to hold to any particular schedule other than doing email private readings as they come in.

Usually I try to do the Learn With Me on Wednesdays and the Substack newsletter as a weekly digest on the weekend, with one card posts as often as I can manage on weekdays.

I’m still of two minds about the “path through the week” thing on Mondays.

What do you think? What kind of readings or posts would you like to see in the blog? For goodness’ sake don’t be shy. As long as it isn’t spam, by all means post your questions or suggestions in the comments. Contact info is in the right hand column (or bottom of the page on mobile) too.

I’m planning to do a bunch of re-introductory and behind the scenes posts over the next few weeks sliding in and around day job, private readings and the holidays.

If you want a private Tarot reading by email, you can order it HERE anytime, 24/7 no appointment needed. I’ll get the typed reading with a photo of your real-world card layout to you usually within 24 hours.

Thank you so much for reading! See you at the next sip!

Learn With Me: Lenormand, Two Cards

Learn tarot and intuition with moon card and fish card from the lenormand deck.

I don’t think this works quite the way the guidebook says.

I could be wrong, so let’s stick with two card readings for a while and see what turns up.

With the Lenormand deck, a “tableau” reading puts the cards on the table in a simple grid, with the “Grand Tableau” using the entire 36 card deck.

I’ve used the classic 10 card Celtic Cross layout and one of the first layouts I learned was the 9 card in Sam & Carson’s Medicine Cards. It was interesting to compare those two. Even years into reading experience 9 cards was a tipping point for me. 9 was a lot, but it was a perfectly serviceable layout with plenty of detail, but it was a heavy lift at times to work through it, even later with plenty of reading experience behind me. As soon as I would use a 10 card cross, the energy would get knotty, and contradictory and verge on nonsense. Double digits seems to be a tipping point. Rather than perpetually dancing on the edge of spilling the beans, I wrote the 5 and 7 card Modern Oracle and TaoCraft layouts that I’ve used for private readings from the beginning.

All along the time that we’ve been looking at individual Lenormand cards, the guide book has mentioned how pairings and connections with other cards could modify the individual card’s meaning. We saw energetic connections and flow in the three card reading we did last time, but it was more of a flow of meaning, like making a sentence rather than changing meanings through the series of cards.

It might be interesting to do some two card sets to see if any of those specifically meaning-modifying connections emerge.

In this case, the guide book doesn’t give a modification for either the moon card or the fish card relative to the other. I get the flow, sentence like connection again. The water connections to both cards gives the sense of intuition and flow as being the main message with the fish’s association with prosperity taking a little bit of a back seat to the mental image of actual fish swimming and in motion.

I get no sense of energy at all from the playing card insets, so will let that sit for now. Follow your own instincts if you think they are meaningful. Research the 8 of cups or King of Pentacles if either of those grab your attention.

My hunch is to keep up with the two card sets for a little while. Water, tides, depth all are associated with the images here. In RWS tarot deep water has to do with mystery, deep knowing. My hunch is that there is something here that hasn’t quite shown itself yet.

Let’s abide with it, and see what else two card sets have to say.

See you at the next sip!

Winter Hours: All of them!

While in-person sessions are closed for the holidays, email private readings are OPEN to order 24/7, no appointment needed. Most orders arrive in your inbox within 24 hours.

Delivery times may vary in December depending on the Elfcon status.

Imagination On Target

Knitting together last week’s posts about imagination and accurate Tarot predictions.

I like to knit.

Sometimes that means making stuff out of yarn.

Sometimes it means weaving together disparate ideas in a Tarot reading. Or a Tarot blog post.

I’m doing both lately. It’s that Elfcon 5 gift making time of year, but I’d also like to knit together the past couple of blog posts. We’ve looked at a couple of narrow topics, now lets connect them back into the grand scheme of things a little bit.

The grand scheme is how Tarot and intuition actually works – at least the way I go about it.

Recently we talked about the role of imagination in intuition and the idea of accuracy in intuitive processes like Tarot.

My readings do not predict the future. So that kind of “accuracy” doesn’t factor into things even if it were possible, which it isn’t for all of those cause and effect sort of Heisenberg uncertainty-ish sort of reasons. In this case “accurate” means “it contains some sort of useful insight or idea.”

Can we get insight or inspiration from Tarot and imagination? Yes – absolutely. It’s about the most human thing I can think of to do.

Let’s go back to our imagination as intuition example – think of an elephant taking a shower.

When I first learned this concept in an email conversation with Chris Fleming, my first thought was a Babar-like, highly antropomorphized cartoon elephant in a cartoon human shower with a big white towel wrapped around it’s waist a la movie men’s locker room.

Was this a prediction? No, of course not. Was it accurate? Yes – it was whimsical and playful at a time in life where I needed a reminder to be more playful and find more humor in life.

In response to last week’s post, a client said she visualized a real life elephant being lovingly cleaned by an attentive caretaker and seeming to enjoy the experience.

Like a Tarot card in the context of a layout, this image in the context of the person who saw it is a beautiful message from and for a beautiful person.

This person is a natural caretaker in a care taking profession. Her visualization is a tremendous validation that she is on the right path in her work, and even if they don’t say it her clients appreciate her as much as her imaginary elephant was enjoying its shower.

It is also the classic reminder for caretakers to allow themselves to be cared for or at least give themselves a little TLC. It could be a reminder to let yourself be that happy elephant.

These aren’t “accurate predictions” relative to physical events. To make Tarot or psychic readings into that is to strip it of all its depth, emotion, beauty and humanity. Making Tarot and psychic readings about predictions is like taking a living breathing elephant and turning it into a two dimensional rubber stamp shadow image of an elephant.

Imagination is our window to intuition. Tarot is the battery sparks intuition. Together, they let us see marvelous things far beyond physical predictions.

Are you ready for something more advanced than pool ball toy predictions? Are you ready to glimpse the ideas that help you create your future rather than (maybe) predict it? Tarot doesn’t tell you what will happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

Private tarot by email

Learn With Me: Tarot on Target

I want to take a little break from exploring the Lenormand Tarot deck and talk about something that has been on my mind since a conversation with a potential client yesterday. We’ve talked about it before (don’t forget you can use the search bar to browse the 1500+ posts in the archive) but it’s time to revisit the idea of accuracy in Tarot.

As I see it, accuracy in psychic or Tarot readings begs the question “Accurate compared to what?”

Accuracy of anything is a measurement of that thing compared to some desired goal. Accuracy measures how on-target something is.

To measure anything, you have to make a comparison of one thing that you don’t know with something you do know, like a ruler. Even if one of the things you are using to measure is your eyeballing estimation based on experience – it’s still a comparison.

So what do you use as your ruler to measure the accuracy of a Tarot reading?

Is your measure predicting the future?

I can tell you that level of accuracy right now – zero.

If a Tarot reading tells you what actually happens ahead of time it is one of two things:

Self-fulfilling prophecy – Cause and effect is a real thing. If you choose to DO something based on the reading, that action contributes to the end outcome. In this case, the reading caused the future, it didn’t predict it. Which is a good thing! That means you can use a Tarot reading to help you decide your best course of action. You can use a Tarot reading to help cause (or at least contribute to) the desired effect. The drawback here is that you don’t have control over everything. You can increase the chances of something happening, but you can’t 100% control everything and you certainly can’t 100% predict anything.
Pure dumb luck. A broken clock is still right twice a day.

Is your measure getting good advice?

If that is the case, then there is a very high degree of accuracy, and it happens without regard for distance or delivery method (more on that tomorrow)

Is your measure stress reduction?

With that measure, Tarot has 100% accuracy.

People come to Tarot readings for a reason. There are as many reasons to get a Tarot reading as there are people and moments along their life’s journey.

A Tarot reading is a peaceful moment. A Tarot reading is a moment of hopefulness and optimism. A Tarot reading is a moment of calm, clarity and the hope of finding a solution.

If guidance, advice, and a peaceful moment is your measure, then my Tarot readings are as accurate as they come.

Want to learn to do DIY one card meditation readings to find a peaceful moment whenever you need it?

Order my ebook PeaceTarot HERE

Want a bigger Tarot reading done by a pro, no appointment needed?

Order your Private Tarot by email HERE

Let the Imagination Flow

Daily meditation tarot reading with the ace of cups

Private Tarot is OPEN throughout the holidays! ORDER HERE

Imagination speaks many languages, and goes by many names. So does intuition. You could say they are twins.

Imagination is the portal to your intuition. Intuition enters our consciousness through the doorway of our imagination.

Imagine something. Imagine anything. Conjure up anything – a sight, a sound, a memory – anything. Psychic Chris Fleming uses the example of an elephant in a shower when he teaches about psychic ability and intuition. Let’s use that as an example. We had an email conversation once a long time ago. He said I could use his teaching point if I gave him credit. So here we go.

Imagine an elephant taking a shower.

Now what form does your imagination take? Is it a realistic elephant in a river spraying water on itself through its trunk? Or is it a cartoon elephant standing on two legs in a human shower and a gigantic towel wrapped around its waist? Is it a memory of watching Dumbo as a child? Or is it music that reminds you of elephants in a circus? (or my favorite, the song by Tame Impala)

Imagination is telling. By letting our daydreams and earworms flow, the intuitive answers you want just might come along for the ride.

Ace cards carry the essence of the suit. Today, the ace is carrying the water element association for cups, which is symbolic of intuition and deep spiritual wisdom (why, some say, the King, Queen and Page of Cups are typically portrayed near oceans. Deep water = deep wisdom & deep insights.

Most of all water flows. Let the imagination happen.

Thanks for reading! Next up, more Learning and Lenormand! See you at the next sip.

Winter Hours

Winter Hours = All of them!

Distance Tarot is my favorite Tarot to do, so that is my focus for the winter and beyond.

It’s my specialty. Written distance Tarot gives you the best of my 30 years of Tarot reading experience.

Writing gives me richer, deeper access to my intuition than speaking does. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it works and written distance Tarot accesses the best parts of my psychic ability.

Don’t get me wrong. After all these years, my spoken, in-person readings are good. REALLY good.

My email Tarot is just that teensy itsy bit better. I can link you to the pop culture references that intuition throws at us. I can find images to help you see what I see intuitively. I can spell check and back up and find the exactly right words to elevate your reading and make it something extra special.

Email Tarot is available to order ALL of the hours: 24/7, no appointment needed ORDER HERE.

Keeping in mind that I am only one real world person, I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I get the order notice. Full write-ups usually arrive in your inbox within 24 hours, but that might vary a bit during the holidays. Because cookies. And knitting.

Email Tarot has a lot of advantages.

It gives you the best of my intuition.

You don’t have to wait for an appointment.

You get the ultimate in privacy.

You get a wider variety of layouts to choose from.

You KNOW it is genuine and real. You can’t answer leading questions or give body language cues. There is no way for stage mentalism or magic tricks to come into it.

Plus you get a better price. Working by email, I don’t need a brick and mortar location and can pass those savings along to you. With email, prices start as low as $5 for a one card meditation reading.

The $40 seven card layout is the SAME IDENTICAL reading as an in-person session. You get an hour-equivalent reading for less than the price of a 30 minute in-person session with most psychics.

AND (drum roll please)

I’m bringing back VIDEO distance readings. Instead of reading the distance session, you can listen to it plus see your cards as they are being drawn. If you like the experience of in-person readings but want the lower cost and no-appointment convenience, this is the Tarot for you.

The video readings use the Five Card TaoCraft layout. When you order, you get an instant download explaining the whole process. A link to your individual customized PRIVATE share video reading will come to the email that you specify in your order.

Get yours today before the price for video goes up to match the written readings in January.

Here is an example of a collective blog reading from a few years ago. Your reading will be more focused on you and your question, of course. Video readings for individuals feature the five card TaoCraft layout.