Forward and Back

A Tarot reading for your week ahead in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Right here, right now is all there is. All we have is this present moment. Our superpower is that we can choose IF and how to connect it to the past and the future.

Merry Monday everyone!

I like the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach. Simple is always best. Right now, functionality seems more important than elegance. Unless and until I get feedback from all of you to the contrary, I’m going to write these free for all Monday Week Ahead Pathway readings in the same format as I would a private three-card Tarot reading. It’s comfortable. It works. And it’s a Monday where I could use a few extra sips of coffee. Here we go.

The cards today are:

  • Fading energy: Knight of Wands
  • Current energy: Knight of Rings (pentacles)
  • Growing energy: The Hermit

General Pattern:

The Two minor arcana cards are both court cards which holds a little more energetic ‘zing’ than the numbered cards or the ace. These two minor arcana cards lead into a major arcana in the growing energy position. I take that to be a clue that the vague ennui and introvert energy from the past few weeks has indeed swung in the other direction. This is the starter’s signal we’ve been waiting for.

Go!

Now!

If we are hearing the track and field starter’s pistol, the event is a sprint. It feels like a blip, a short lived window of opportunity to get a flurry of stuff done before things quiet again for a time. If today is not the day, then look for cues this week about when to hit the start button on a project or idea that you’ve been contemplating. Hints about timing may be on the near horizon.

Knight cards symbolize action.

In the card draw video above, I’m using my current favorite deck, the Alleyman’s Tarot with the permission of Publishing Goblin LLC. The Alleyman’s deck uses disks and rings for this suit, not just pentacles. Artwork on this particular card is by Amrit Brar for the Marigold Tarot. I don’t know if I’ll ever buy another deck, but if I ever do, the Marigold is high on my list of decks to consider.

Of course the meanings and energies are all fairly interchangeable no matter what deck you use or what name you call the suit. I still call them coins instead of pentacles much of the time because I read with the Art Nouveau deck for years before branching out into other decks. But we can talk about decks another time.

Today, let’s call it rings. The knight of rings is about steady, persistent action. It has a plodding but inexorable quality about it. Consistent, unending, persistent small actions can lead to big results. Raindrops can flatten a mountain given enough time.

Don’t give up on yourself even if your enthusiasm for something good and right starts to fade. Keep chipping away and you can move your mountain too.

The knight of wands also suggests action. The earth element knight of pentacles acts, but is OK with a glacial pace over geologic time. The knight of wands is fire element. This energy may be less focused, less enduring and more chaotic but it is, well, energetic. What it lacks in focus it makes up for with high wattage and unbridled enthusiasm.

I get the mental image of an old Wile E Coyote style cartoon bundle of dynamite wired to a big old fashioned alarm clock.

The think you’ve been ticking away at is ready to blow up, in the viral internet sense of the word.

If you want to catch lightning in a bottle, you have to study electricity and stand out in a few metaphoric thunderstorms. If you have been preparing and chipping and ticking away at something, then your storm front may be on its way soon. Ready your bottle and listen for the thunder, so to speak.

I still associate the knight of wands with the TV series “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.”

If you’ve worked and prepared and keep your eyes open for opportunity, magic might happen for you, too.

The Hermit is from the major arcana. Moving from court cards to a major arcana card hints that this is a time of growing activity and dynamics.

On the other hand, it IS the hermit card. By it’s nature it speaks of a return to quiet and contemplation. The lantern and guiding light that is so ubiquitous on Hermit cards is here again in the Aka Skyweb art. This energy speaks to inner guidance and self-discovery.

Slow persistant energy explodes to frenetic progress for a short time but then it needs to be reviewed. I keep getting the phrase “after action report.” Is that a law enforcement thing? Or military? Or both? I want to associate it with first responders of some sort. Preparation, followed by fast action, followed by assessment of the action followed by adjustment and improvement and preparation for the next time.

That pattern may be associated with emergency services or military readiness, but it can be a successful pattern for anyone. My attention is drawn back to the knight of rings with the notion that this advice is particularly targeted toward pentacle, coin and ring kinds of concerns. This week, this reading is very much focused on career and work and wealth. As always with this suit, there is a focus on logic, groundedness, and practicality – even when you are in the middle of a big cartoon ka-BOOM of energy and change.

I see black tourmaline as a helpful energy to protect and steady during the high energy times.

I get the scent of amber and sandalwood to also ground and balance but also support meditation and introspection and learning from experience when it is all said and done.

And there the energy steps back, with a spark of hope that you have all enjoyed the reading and find it helpful.

Thank you all for reading and listening.

The reading fits in here, too. It’s a free for all kind of week.

All of the posts on the Sage Words Tarot blog on both wordpress and ko-fi plus the Sage Sips newsletter on Substack are free for everyone the week of April 24, 2023. The Sage Sips podcast is always free on Spotify plus a variety of other platforms. None of this is advertising monetized – even if you see an ad, I don’t see a penny from it.

All of this Tarot content is supported by readers and listeners like you. If you enjoy these weekly pathway readings, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to see all of the other posts including Q&A, one card meditations, behind the scenes, quote of the day and more.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Are You Evil?

Question: Is Tarot evil?

Answer: It depends. Are YOU evil?

It has been said that a wise person is like a mirror, holding no opinion, teaching only by reflecting things as they are.

Tarot is like that.

Tarot is an amplifier for our own innate, natural intuition just like the shiny surface behind the light bulb makes a flashlight seem brighter. The eyes are said to be a mirror of the soul. Tarot is a mirror that lets us look ourselves right in the eye, right in the soul. That can be a terrifying thing. Or it can be the ultimate liberation allowing us to see and therefore become our most genuine self.

That is the power of Tarot.

Sure, the prediction thing is all fun and giggles and a great storytelling device for books, movies and TV but the real power in Tarot lies in its ability to hold up a mirror to who we are and give us a hint about how to help that person in the mirror be a little better and live a little happier.

Everyone is at least a little bit afraid of the unknown.

If you don’t know what to expect from a reading and all you know of Tarot is poltergeist movies and religious hysteria, something would be wrong if you DIDN’T worry about Tarot being evil. No one wants doors slamming, knives flying around the kitchen or red eyes growling in the night. No matter how good a mirror may be, it can’t reflect light that isn’t there. Setting clear, strong, positive intentions is the thing that turns on the light and puts some safety rails around the whole thing. Clear, positive intentions and shining your own inner light will spare you from gut twisting dread when cards like the Devil or the ten of swords show up.

The Devil and all of the other ominous looking cards are important, but they aren’t evil. They are part of the mirror. Dark, uncomfortable, frightening, terrible things are necessary in the deck to accurately reflect life on Earth which has dark, uncomfortable, frightening, terrible things in it.

Mirrors don’t come with background removal software.

Let’s be very clear: when dark or frightening cards turn up in a reading for you, it doesn’t mean that YOU are evil or doing something wrong. It doesn’t mean that someone you know has done something wrong or is out to get you. Tarot readings aren’t always that personal. Sometimes they reflect the human condition in which we all live. A mirror shows you looking into it but it also shows what is behind you and around you. Like the mirrors in a car show the traffic around you and help to reduce your blind spots, the cards show the energy around you. Knowing the energy environment can help you to adapt and thrive even in the middle of life’s biggest gnarliness.

Mirrors don’t come with special effect filters. They show you life as it is, not sprinkle pixie dust on it just to make you feel better. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging that it exists and exactly what it realistically is. Good Tarot points out problems and suggests possible solutions.

The best Tarot does all of that with kindness.

Common courtesy and business transparency, with a generous helping of compassion while still telling hard truths are hallmarks of a genuine psychic or a skilled Tarot reader. If you are worried about Tarot being evil but still want to give it a try, it is all the more important that you find a trustworthy reader that makes you feel at ease without sugar coating everything.

I have some more thoughts about finding a psychic you can trust on the blog website. A link is in the episode description for podcast listeners. To help decrease the fear of the unknown by eliminating the unknown about my readings, the free ebook Tarot Portfolio is available for instant download in my ko-fi shop. There’s a link for that too.

Thanks so much for reading and listening. If you like Q & A posts like this, send some questions to be answered! You can use the AMA form on the website, use the blog comments, ko-fi DMs or the email contact listed on the website. If you like any of this Tarot content, virtual coffee and membership on ko-fi supports the creation of this free blog and podcast.

See you at the next sip!


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If Einstein said it…

Sage’s Short Sip is a Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

If Einstein said it…then it must be true, right? I don’t know if the attribution is correct, but if it is a feel validated. We’ve been getting this exact kind of message from the Two of Pentacles for ages.

That sort of dynamic equilibrium – be it molecules across a permeable membrane, a clown on a unicycle, or an Austrian physicist on a bicycle, movement is a part of balance just like change is part of life.

Members read more HERE

Where Attention Flows

Keep your eyes on the road because you drive where you look.

Hi and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blog and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast where we take a Tarot look at the week ahead in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Or Tea. Or adult beverage. Or whatever it happens to be that you are sipping whatever time of day you happen to see this. No matter what is on the menu, I’m happy you are here. Let’s look at some cards, once again drawing from the Alleyman’s Tarot, used with the permission of deck creator Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC.

If you are reading on the blog, you already know this. If you are listening on the podcast, when you get a chance, take a peek at the blog or at the Sage Words Tarot YouTube channel. There is a companion video posted that shows the real world card draw for today’s collective energy reading. It’s real. It’s me. This is exactly what it would look like if we did an in-person reading together, just like the email readings I do are a written transcript of exactly what I would say to you in a live reading.

Actually no, I take that back. It would be better than live. That’s why I love this text to voice setup between WordPress and Spotify for podcasters. I am so much better as a writer than I am as a social media presenter. You are getting something next level when I can use a keyboard and get into writer mode. It’s a little like the old school Batman comics. Letting me use a keyboard to communicate is like using the big red direct line Bat Phone in the police commissioner’s office. Writing and typing for me is a direct hotline right to intuition. But that is all stuff you can read on the blog.

Let’s look at the cards for this week.

The “wait” energy is lessening, but it is still not time to start or run. The introvert vibe has not quite yet swung in the opposite direction. Don’t worry. It will. It always does. We’ll be back on the Be Strong! Persist! You got this! bandwagon soon enough.

For now – we’ve persisted. We’ve done the thing. We’ve made it through the 2020s decade so far. The worst may be over for the moment, but we are probably feeling worse for the wear it took to get to this moment.

The cards today are the “wound man” as fading energy, the Queen of Ravens as current energies, and the Seven of Cups as the growing energies.

The “Wound Man” card feels like the 10 of swords and the nine of wands rolled into one.

This time, this week, is less about assigning blame and more about understanding and solving the problems at hand.

In internal martial arts like Tai Chi from China, it is thought that energy flow is directed by our sight and attention. Looking where you want to place power not only helps bring the head and body posture into alignment, but it also leads the chi, the life energy where it needs to be.

It’s just like drivers education classes long ago in the dark before times. We were told to keep our eyes on the road because where you look is where you steer and that’s where the car goes. Attention is crucial, so we can add the Chariot card energy into the mix today too. The Wound Man card is bringing in elements of the nine of wands, the ten of swords through their connection with woundedness and

For physical wounds to heal, there has to be enough blood flow. Blood flow and the chi life energy go hand in hand. Healing needs attention. Neglected wounds are at risk of infection. That fits with both our modern scientific understanding of infections and with the notion of healing energy flowing with our attention. This is put into practice energy wellness systems like Reiki, acupuncture, acupressure and Reiki.

All of that, every physical bit of it is outside of the realm of Tarot. Emotional wounds, however is right in Tarot’s wheelhouse. Here I am very much reminded of the quote from psychologist Carl Jung who said that “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

It may not be long term psychotherapy, but Tarot can be part of the wound cleaning and fresh bandages for emotional injury. It helps to narrow our focus or broaden our understanding. When we are unseen or invalidated or demeaned by others or suppress or neglect our own feelings, problems can turn up just as certainly as allowing a physical wound to fester – as nineteenth century as that sounds.

The wound man reminds us that accidents can happen or we can caught in the crossfire of cruelty. But then what?

The Queen of Ravens is akin to the Judgement card without the religious overtones. There is also a sprinkle of the Seven of Pentacles with a reaping what you sow quality. There is a sense of quick and dispassionate karma. What you give reflects back to you quickly. I hear “choose”

The next bit is hard to put into words. It feels akin to “Treat your own wounds with kindness.” and “Allow the Raven Queen, punishment isn’t yours to give this time.” A richly colored natural sunstone comes to mind, with the sense that the Queen of Ravens is protective in the same way, reflecting ill intent back to the source, and providing a warm protected bubble for you to tend your wounds and begin to heal.

Finally the growing energy is the Seven of Cups, the card of abundant options. Often this card is a caution against dithering or overthinking. Sometimes this card is advice to, when all logical things seem equal, to follow your intuition. Today I hear “growing hope” and a connection with last weeks “wait” message, as if to say more options are coming. Be hopeful, and wait for the right thing. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but don’t let the good be the enemy of the better simply because of an inattentive lack of patience.

And there the energies step back.

Thank you all for reading and listening today. The whole thing turned out to be a little more ponderous and heavy than I expected. It will be interesting to see if there are any other big shifts when we look at the collective energy next Monday. I hope you will meet me here to find out how things feel then.

Have a great week and I’ll see you at the next sip!

Groot With Jingle Bells

Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

Today’s card is the Seven of Bells, from a woodcut print for a deck of sixteenth century playing cards by German artist Peter Flotner. This particular card is part of the Alleyman’s Tarot Deck, used with permission of Publishing Goblin LLC

On seeing the card, my impression was a clear, urgent single word.

Wait.

In all fairness, it is Wednesday morning as I write this and you could chalk this whole thing up to a rampaging case of the mid-week blahs. In fact that might be the whole point of it. A case of the midweek blahs might be a message to wait, to indulge in some stillness. If you ever feel hugely UNmotivated, listen to that feeling. Understand it and adjust accordingly.

This very much feels like a continuation of the energy from our week-ahead reading two days ago. It’s still an introvert’s energy paradise, but I’m getting a small sense of how an extrovert might be feeling a little restless today.

Still, I feel like the message is crisp, clear and succinct. It feels like a command to stop, be still, and wait. It feels almost like a being held still or caught in a science fiction tractor beam or force field. I hear the phrase “enforced stasis” Lots of science and science fiction words and images are coming through today.

Now I get the mental image of an old school mario video game. I don’t know if you have ever played a video game with those swinging or jumping obstacles. Running flat out at full speed will get you knocked down every time. The trick is to wait. You have to make your run in short bursts or to time the jumps just right.

Have you ever heard of psycho neuro immunology? Is that still a thing? It was in vogue back in the 80s during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Basically it is modern scientific medicine finally taking a side eye look at the ancient mind body connection and who would have guessed – lo, and behold! Stress impacts your health and can legit affect immunity. Shocker, eh? By measuring T cells and cortisols and all sorts of technical stuff that I can’t remember , mainstream medicine figured out a thing that holistic wisdom has known all along: if you don’t get rest on your own when you need it, Mother Nature will step in and make you rest through a cold, or flu or something. Go down for a nap or be taken down for a week. Taking care of yourself mentally and physically isn’t going to 100% prevent or cure infectious diseases, especially not very serious illnesses like AIDS or Covid, but it can help your immune system do its thing when minor things come along.

So wait.

Stop.

Be still.

Listen.

I’m taking this one personally. It has been a busy couple of months here in the cyberspace as TaoCraft Tarot was renamed to Sage Words Tarot, I finished & uploaded TaoCraft Portfolio (the free behind the scenes ebook) and the Tarot Table subscription blog was changed, updated and changed again. It is seriously time to stop mucking around with all of this. I hope you’ll visit the links in the podcast episode description or browse the blog website or browse the ko-fi page. Comments are open on the blog and DMs are open to supporters on ko-fi. I really hope that you’ll take a look and tell me the features you like, don’t like and what you would like to see in the future. I’m listening.

I think that may be part of the “pause” or “wait” energy that is coming through this week. Listening is part of the stillness and quiet. You can’t listen to other people when you are chattering nonstop. I have things situated so that it suits my needs. It has come to the point of simply letting you know what I have to offer and if it resonates with you then great! Let’s get to work! But if it doesn’t, no worries. There are a lot of us sincere, trustworthy psychics out here – someone is bound to match your vibe. You keep looking for what you need. And as the seven of bells suggests, I’ll keep listening for what is needed.

The figure on the card seems to be made of wood, like Marvel’s Groot surrounded by jingle bells, or maybe Treebeard from Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings or the Tree people of Cheem from Doctor Who – only centuries before any of those characters were created. Actual trees that aren’t science fiction humanoids are living beings, after all.

Listen to the wind in the trees. They may be listening back.

Seven Dane Asmund, the Alleyman’s Tarot creator connected this card to change – both changing to meet the needs of others AND more importantly reminding us that we can change back to our true selves.

Here I am reminded of the Face Dancers from the original Dune book series by Frank Herbert. Face Dancers were shape shifting assassins who could take on any person’s appearance and never showed their true form while on assignment. Take out the assassin part and we all do a little bit of behavioral face dancing. To one extent or another we adapt our language and behavior to the situation. I think the connection to the card comes from the idea of a strong inner core. Like an oak tree or towering pine, our authentic self can remain still, quiet, and strong no matter how our branches sway in the wind. Still, quiet and strong, our true selves wait for us to return no matter how our outer social face dances.

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

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Introvert Paradise

In this Pathway through week Tarot reading, introverts and extroverts are two sides of the same important energy.

With an emphasis on individualism and alone time, this week’s energy is an introvert’s paradise. Extroverts might have a tougher time ahead and need to go out of their way to stay and feel connected.

Hello and welcome to the Sage Words Tarot blog and Sage’s Short Sip Podcast where you get Tarot contemplations for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

I’m Sage and I’m glad you are here. Thank you all for reading and listening. Personally, I’m thrilled for this kind of energy to come along. After changing the blog and podcast name and all of the re-arranging and updating that’s been going on since the new year began, I’m glad for a little low key time to recharge the batteries a little bit. I hope the respite is as welcome for you.

The cards are less chatty this week and the intuition is back to the typical visuals. First thing that comes to mind is a map of the US with no state lines on it, just an outline with red and blue dots on it, like a new graphic of some sort. I’m not sure exactly what else the visual might be trying to say, but my hunch is that it is pointing to individuality, like the individual dots. It’s a strange way to think about it, but that meme that has been so popular with Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal seems to have planted a seed with the music. The lyrics “Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song” may have planted themselves deeper in our social media loving psyche than we realized.

Unless you accept and include the diversity of everyone else on the planet, in your individuality you will walk alone.

For some alone time is a treasure, that allows us to rest from the drains and demands of life.

For others it is suffocating, isolation from the collective energy on which they thrive.

The energy this week is asking two things of us.

First is to know our own source of strength. If you are the type to need a little down time away from other people in order to rechard, that quiet is essential this week. If you thrive on unplugging for a while, then by all means do that. This isn’t the week to push outside your comfort zone. This is the week to build and protect and strengthen your comfort zone. By the same token, if you thrive on connection, this is the week to ensure that connection for yourself, yes, but also as a kindness to others who might be feeling over-isolated.

Second is to protect your energy. If your energy comes from connection, focus on those in particular. Protect your connection to groups and other individuals. The quality of connection is the important thing. Heath is the emphasis in both directions of the connection. Make sure your relationships and connections are healthy and not dependent or narcissistic or draining.

For those who thrive on disconnecting, do that. Protect your energy in total. Shields up, let it go. My go to reading recommendation when this energy comes along is Psychic Protection by Ted Andrews. That, and his earlier book The Healer’s Manual are two of the most useful books I’ve ever read. Taking care to guard and protect your energy feels especially important for the introverts among us.

Whatever your energy style – no matter whether you thrive on making connections or disconnecting, no matter whether you thrive on a rave or listing to rave music alone, whatever your recharging style may be – honor that style. Protect that energy because that will help you have the clarity to see your way through the path ahead. There is so much potential, so many choices and options for you if you let yourself be true to yourself.

Imagine this. Imagine a hall of mirrors where the reflections in the reflections seem to go on forever. Now imagine a crowd of people all dressed alike in that hall of mirrors. How do you see your way forward if you force yourself to be like everyone else? With that image we go from introvert paradise to introvert hell. That’s why the be true to yourself part is important. It is one good way to find your way forward in a dizzying array of energies and possibilities.

Here I get a sense of this crowded mirror room requiring us to adopt an attitude of radical and fierce compassion for others, for diversity and inclusion. There is room and reflections and possible paths for us all.

That’s the purely intuitive read of these cards that are from The Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Goblin LLC who graciously gave me permission to use the deck in my blog and social media.

The cards today are not traditional Tarot cards, which gives a sort of ‘time out of time’ or ‘time apart from the rest’ feeling.

The first card, the Hole is by Seven Dane Asmund, I’m guessing created for the Alleyman’s deck.

It speaks to the unspoken, the deduced and implicit. It highlights the missing. It is, as I see it, the arrow pointing to the things that are conspicuous in the absence.

There is a scene in one of the Star Wars movies where Qui Gon is was told of a planet, but can’t find it. So Yoda (and his class of younglings) pull up the star system where the mystery planet was supposed to be, but nothing was where the planet was supposed to be. What WAS there were aberrations and irregularities. The planets that were on the moving 3D map were moving as if a planet was there. They found the missing, or actually erased, planet by the evidence left behind where it was not. Qui gon proved the theory true by going there, to the place where the planet was calculated to be based on the movement of other things around the empty space.

As convoluted as that sounds, that is exactly the plane Neptune was discovered in our own star (solar) system.

Uranus was wobbling weird so scientists used Newton’s laws of gravity to calculate where another planet should be based on how Uranus was moving around space we thought was empty. We couldn’t go there yet, so they looked at the spot through a telescope instead and BOOM – hello Neptune. (source nasa.gov)

And such is the power of the empty, the hole, the alone. Introverts thrive on it. Extroverts need a little sip of it every now and then.

The Hole and The Comforter are less fading and current energies so much as they are opposite sides of the same, equally strong current energy. I don’t get the sense either is going to fade either time soon. Again I get the feeling the major message is to know which side of things is best for you and do that. Do that big time.

The comforter is all about the power of connection, of comforting ourselves through connection and the comfort of helping others through our connection with them. This card is urging us to celebrate and cherish, protect and strengthen all of the healthy connections in life or forge new ones if needed. This card was originally created by Natasa Ilincic for the Compendium of Witches Tarot.

The creator of the Thing among Reflections card is supposedly unknown, although I suspect it is the deck creator’s work. He reads the card as a vaguely disconcerted feeling that something is wrong or off. This card hasn’t turned up very often for me so this being a new (to me) card gives it that exact feeling just from its unfamiliarity. It feels more than the embarrassment of riches feeling that the many choices we see in the seven of cups card. This is about so many potential outcomes that it is disorienting and overwhelming. If the seven of cups is a big restaurant menu level of many choices, this card is multiverse, hot dogs for fingers, Everything Everywhere All At Once level of many choices.

Knowing yourself, being yourself, and knowing the best way to protect and recharge your energy will help us through a hall of mirrors if and when we walk through one.

If you like what you hear on the podcast please visit the links in the episode description. Your memberships, purchases, and virtual coffees on the ko-fi page all help support this podcast, the free to access blog and social media Tarot content. Blog readers please click the coffee mug on the right hand side of the page to learn more.

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

It’s that time

The center of the busy sandwich is here with the 8 and 9 of pentacles

Monday, the current energy card was the 8 of pentacles (coins, disks – whatever name your deck uses.

Today is that day, the productive day sandwiched in between working to find and keep balance.

It’s not the productivity I expected

With the intent of one day, right here, right now, collective blog audience guidance the card is the 9 of coins.

The 9, like all of the coins cards is down to earth & practical. But in keeping with the nature of Tarot as a whole, the ideas are also esoteric. Tarot is more than mere predictions and more than pictures on a piece of cardstock paper. Like any fine art paintings, they represent ideas and emotions. Like the 10 of pentacles to come, the 9 of pentacles represents higher ideals and the most valuable things in life that money can never buy.

The nine re-states and re-emphasizes the maturity and the “apply lessons learned” message from the weekly reading . Like the 7 and 8 before it, there are shades of manifestation, where hard work pays off. The payoff in this case is more than monetary. It is about self-confidence, deep competence, and self-sufficiency. This card lets you know that you are enough. Which reminds me of Al Franken’s old Saturday Night Live character. I don’t mean to turn into some sort of Stuart Smalley parody, but your are good enough, smart enough and doggone it people like you.

Do what needs done in balance and in your own truth and good things will come of it.

But don’t forget to keep it in balance. Don’t forget that Temperance stands beside us and the two of pentacles is on the horizon.

This isn’t about frenetic activity or slavish goal orientation. It isn’t about single minded focus or work-a-holic-ness.

This is about doing something that touches your soul. This about action not waiting. This is about taking a step toward your dream.

There are reasons that a spell is called a magical working. There are reasons why dreams are chased and not just thought about. Actions speak louder than words. Actions are needed to speak your truth and chase your dreams too.

Yes, you have to do what you have to do to pay the bills and put food on the table. But if you can, today at least, spend a little time with your dreams, your hopes, your own inner authentic self and your truth as you know it.

Feed it. Nurture it. Most of all DO something for it, even if the only action that you can give your truth today is simply thinking about it. That attention and energy is something and something is better than nothing when it comes to giving thought, energy and action to your truth and to your dreams.

Thank you for reading and listening. Please visit the blog website or the Sage Words Tarot Ko-fi page. Your memberships, shop purchases, commissioned private readings and virtual coffees all support this free Tarot blog and podcast.

See you at the next sip!

Filtered light

Six of Cups and nostalgia turned upside down.

Thoughts inspired by the Six of Cups in Reverse


Busy Sandwich

The two of pentacles is back to sandwich productivity between calls to seek balance.

Some times you have ebb and flow. Sometimes you have grab and sandwich and go.

Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blogs and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast. I’m glad you are here. As always, these short sip readings are Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. On Mondays we get close to the whole cup by taking a three card look at the week ahead.

Also as always, none of this is a prediction. That whole fix your love life, meet your soulmate, win the lottery nonsense stems from horror movies, fiction and fantasy. Genuine Tarot has more in common with weather reports, folk art and psychology than predicting the future. If someone approaches you individually and offers you a reading that is on a par with those Nigerian prince spam emails and should be treated as such.

Finding a psychic you can trust is one of the things I talk about in Tao Craft Portfolio, but I’ll shamelessly self promote that later. Back to this week. The three cards reflect the general, collective energy environment and give general collective energy food for thought. These readings are made of ideas to inspire you or strategies to help you navigate the energy environment.

Or, like I’ve said for years under the Modern Oracle and TaoCraft Tarot blog names….the future is yours to create, not mine to predict. Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen in life. Tarot helps you to figure out what to do when life happens.

Balance is what is happening – or what we need to create this week.

The fading energy is Temperance, the current energy is the eight of pentacles and the growing energy is the two of pentacles. Long story short, it is a productivity sandwiched between advice to stay balanced.

The Two of Pentacles was fading previously. Now it’s making a comeback on the other side of the layout compared to last week. That hints at ebb and flow, or dynamic equilibrium.

The idea of dynamic balance, of balance in motion like a gyroscope, has been attached to the two of pentales a lot lately. Lately meaning the past couple of years, really.

Both the Temperance card and the two of pentacles card are associated with balance. Temperance is the gentler side of balancing, and today has the feeling of little nudges on both sides of the balancing equation. It reminds us of moderation, and not letting things get too out of control in the first place, but it also gives little nudges when we need to up the volume or intensity of something to achieve balance, like pouring into an empty cup. Temperance reminds of gentle mixing back and forth in order to gently moderate opposites before either gets extreme. There are other keywords like combining, creating, experimenting, but the moderation kind of balance energies are prominent today.

The two of pentacles is more active, and feels like the bigger adjustments that are needed when things have already gotten out of balance. The two of pentacles is more about hauling in the edge of the envelope after pushing it to the limit or pulling back when you are too far out over your skis.

You’ll notice both of these are active, moving concepts. Unless you are stacking Zen rocks or something, when it comes to human life, balance is tied to change. Inanimate, motionless object don’t maintain balance. They just fall.

My favorite example of dynamic balance is a unicycle rider. Watch someone on a unicycle. Staying balanced upright on a single wheel is a pretty good trick. It is difficult enough when you are constantly moving forward, but the really impressive thing is the way they can stay upright without travelling forward. But even then, they are not completely still. If you watch, the unicycle rider is making constant tiny back and forth movements in order to stay upright even when they aren’t moving over a distance.

Movement lends itself well to progress and productivity too.

This week we have movement sandwiched between two other kinds of movement.

“In the zone” comes to mind. There is a lot of science and physics images coming through with this reading.

First we had angular momentum and gyroscopes. Now I see a wave graph. The balance we need this week isn’t about a single point, like a ballerina holding a perfect arabesque, its about wave amplitude and staying in a range. It’s about dialing in the ups and downs to stay within a managable range, not about stopping the changes.

If there is one piece of advice in all three cards put together for this week it would be to keep moving, but adjust your tolerances. Things may be active and changing and productive and busy, but the trick to get through it all is to adjust the amplitude of the ups and downs so that they are managable.

You might not be able to turn of the noise, but you can adjust the volume.

You might not be able to hold the unicycle of life perfectly still, but you can adjust the movements so that it seems like you are staying upright in one place.

Be productive – go for it. Just don’t forget to put the busy in a sandwich of balance.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! Please visit the blog website or the ko-fi page. Your private readings, shop purchases, and virtual coffees all support creating these free weekly readings for everyone.

Want to learn how to find a psychic you can trust? Want to get to know me and the behind the scenes details of a reading with me? Read the new FREE ebooklet TaoCraft: Portfolio and a reading with me will meet your expectations because you will know exactly what to expect. Links are in the episode description for podcast listeners.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Free Ebooklet – TaoCraft Portfolio

TaoCraft: Portfolio is a behind the scenes look at our Tarot readings including how to find a trustworthy psychic, layouts, Q&A and more.

If you want to get to know me before getting a reading with me, this booklet is a great way to do exactly that.

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