Weird But Manageable


Now there is something you don’t see everyday, which is probably a good thing.

Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sip Tarot. Today we are doing a full on pathway reading to do a squinty eyed Tarot look at the week ahead. This layout is roughly based on the old school past, present, future layout but I modify it to make it more dynamic. I want to focus on our ability to choose and the cause and effect power our choices have over our path forward in time.

Like I’ve been saying for years now: Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen to you in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

That’s what these weekly look-ahead readings are all about. It’s not about a prediction, it’s about navigation. The reading is about ideas to help you navigate the energies swirling around right now. If you follow the blog or podcast and get the cards in the week that they were drawn, it can give you a sense of the current zeitgeist collective energies. If you stumble across this post or episode at some other point in time then the message is still valid, it just becomes more personal to you and less connected to the general energies.

For these weekly posts and in private three card readings, I change the meaning for each card position from past, present and future to make it all more dynamic. These cards are tied to the flow of energy instead of time. The timing is unique to you. The energy flow may not connect to you at all. That is up to you to decide if and how any of this resonates for you at all..

The first card points to an energy that is present, but fading in influence. The second card is the surrounding energy that is strongest at the present moment and the final card is an energy that is growing in influence.

I read the card order from right to left for a few reasons.

First, that’s how it’s done in the first layout that I learned way way back in the day. The nine card layout in the Medicine Cards guidebook by David Carson and Jamie Sams was one inspiration for the five card and seven card layouts that I wrote ten years later when I first began professional Tarot work.

Second, it’s how I learned to read auras. When you read a person’s aura, you look at them face on, and their past is on your right, which is their left. It might sound confusing, but it is surprisingly easy and natural if you have ever looked at medical x-rays.

Third, this is the opposite of how we read English, my native language. Reading words is a logical process. By flipping the direction of card interpretation, it disconnects the Tarot reading process from the logical language reading process and opens the way for a more purely intuitive understanding.

That all being said, let’s look at this week’s cards.

Logic is not a factor in the card of diminishing energies, the Devil. Today I’m using the Alleyman Tarot with permission from deck creator Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Gobline LLC . There isn’t information about this individual card save that the copyright for the image is held by the British museum. I couldn’t find anything on an internet search so why this Devil in what looks for all the world like a very vintage card is drawn with ophiological genitalia is beyond me. Snake-boy is not something you see every day. Snakes or no, it takes some outright chutzpah to run around naked with all the confidence and power this image portrays.

Other people may have been trying to take a mile from the inch you gave. People may have been trying to take a mile from an inch that you never gave in the first place. The energy around this card is weird and intrusive and hints at a time where everything has been out of kilter and working on every last nerve. Luckily it is starting to move away, so hang in there.

Next is the Strength card. That is the closest, biggest energy right now and the message is just as simple and clear as it can get.

You got this.

In my readings, “hear” means that the intuition comes as words or music instead of mental images. “See” means the intuition comes as mental images. Sometimes there are feelings, tastes and smell, but that is uncommon. At this point, I hear the phrase “strength comes from perseverance.” Being patient and persistent is your superpower right now. Be the mountain in the presence of chattering monkeys.

The final card is the energy that is growing, moving toward us in the near future if you will. The knight of wands has all sorts of passionate, active connotations and my instinct it to toss them all right out the window.

In the BBC seven episode adaptation of Suzanna Clarke’s novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel the knight of wands is connected with a the coming of a second magician that would allow magic to return to England.

That is the meaning that is front and center and loud for this card this week.

Find your magic. Be that second magician that re-ignites your connection with the magic that is inside. Be your own Jonathan Strange.

In short, this week may be weird but hang in there ’cause you got this.

Thank you for reading and listening! Please follow the blog and podcast for more of these three card readings for the week ahead (whatever week this may be for you.) I do mean both. There will be posts on the blog that don’t go out to the podcast. The free blog is the only place to get all of my free-to-access Tarot content and it has links to the podcast if you prefer audio.

Private readings are open. Ko-fi memberships have been upgraded. I’d appreciate any likes, subs, shares or virtual coffees you can spare. Links are in the right hand column on the blog and in the episode description for this podcast.

See you at the next sip!

Page update – memberships

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$5 per month gives you TWO “Short Sip Contemplation” Tarot card readings by email on demand per calendar month plus random member exclusive content on the ko-fi blog and a 5% ko-fi shop discount.

Members can claim their readings by sending a DM via ko-fi with your name, questions (or request an open reading) and your email.

The private reading arrives in your email inbox within 48 hours (US holidays and announced closures may experience some delays – I’m only one human)

Join me at the Tarot Table on Ko-fi and see what the cards have to say for you!

Page update – email readings

Check out the newly updated email Tarot readings page

Pro Tip: Scroll the whole list! I have layouts to fit any question…and any budget!


I’m not a bot! All email readings are done with real world cards by a human Tarot Reader with 30 years of experience. Distance Tarot is my specialty! Meet your reader HERE

All readings include:

  • a photo of your real-world card layout
  • card-by-card interpretation
  • psychic summary with crystal energies and intuitive aromatherapy.
  • See an example email reading HERE.

Choose from:

  • Power of 3 (9 cards) Set of three yes/no questions for complex “this or that” questions but with the clarity of a simple yes/no answer. Question or topic required. If you describe what you need, I can adapt it to this unique yes/no format for you – $45 only available to ko-fi supporters
  • Extended TaoCraft (7 cards) The same layout used in live readings in-person and online. Shows the 3 card path you are on, advice, alternatives, helping energies and potential challenges – $40
  • TaoCraft Tarot (5 cards) Written by me and in use since 2003, this layout empowers you and your choices with the original five cards in the extended layout above – $30
  • Year Ahead (5 cards) Gives a theme for the four seasons coming up and a card to symbolize the entire year ahead. Great for New Year, birthdays and more – $25
  • TimeFlow (4 cards) the get-organized reading with “Let it rest, let go, que it up, and let it flow” cards – $20
  • Pathway (3 cards) A modernized version of the classic past-present-future layout with a focus on navigating your path, not predicting the future – $15
  • Zombie Cat’s Yes/No (3 cards) reads ANY questions with 100% guarantee to contain words, and at least a 50% chance of being dead wrong – $15
  • Short Sip Contemplation (1 card) – Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. General advice or a focused follow-up to a longer readings we’ve done together – $5

Contacting me indicates that you agree with the policies listed HERE.

From the Heart

Four of Cups: You can speak from the heart, but you can’t force others to hear what you say.

Accepting people for who they truly are is an act of love, even when that includes a painful rejection, even when that requires that you let them go.

Other people’s happiness is not your responsibility. It’s up to you to give love. It’s not up to you whether or not it is accepted.

The only happiness you are responsible for is your own.


Available for instant download in the Sage Words Tarot ko-fi shop

Get a reading and e-book

Yeah, I know what I said. But it’s my blog and I’ll give a special offer if I want to. My Tarot Valentine is back for 2023


Special Reading for February by email – order HERE

I know, I know…I said no cutesy pants promotions.

I was planning to make this a members-only offer, but it’s February, it’s cold out there, and love is for everyone.

So anyone can order –

Please visit the Tarot readings by email menu where you can get a personal one card Tarot reading focused on love and romance PLUS a copy of the My Tarot Valentine ebook.

*PRO TIP* scroll the whole readings menu! There’s something to fit any question, any budget. Prices start at $5. Zombie Cat will yes/no answer any question about anything – crazy cat.

Stay warm! That Nine of Wands part two we talked about yesterday will post over the weekend, so stay tuned! – Sage

March 10, 2023 – special offer has closed.

Seneca on opportunity

Page of Wands meets Seneca on Luck and opportunity

Thoughts on the nine of wands, holding space, and the energy sensitive person tomorrow (or maybe Saturday)

Late winter schedule: none. We are in full pirate radio squirrel rave mode until further notice.

Have a good day! – Sage

Pigs and Squirrels

Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Some days you just call it a day

Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sip Tarot. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the five of swords. It’s one of those cards that gives the swords suit its reputation for being doom and gloom bearer of bad tidings. Not everything in life is all cotton candy and unicorns. It’s Tarot’s job to get in our face about the messy parts of life as much as it is to inspire us with the pretty ones. Tarot’s symbolism is both because life and nature is both, to borrow the sentence pattern from that line in that movie The Craft.

The five of swords is, at least in part, about winning at all costs and when the costs are too high. Hannibal and the elephants he used to cross the alps and win a victory in one battle against the Romans, but ultimately lose the war is the classic example of this. He started with 37 elephants and only one survived or some such thing.

Of course, my favorite telling of the Hannibal story is Eddie Izzard’s brilliant stand up bit about the Latin language including something about elephants looking like squirrels in the front and pigs in the back.

Thinking of that favorite piece of video (it’s on the internet, and I recommend it) might be a little carry over from yesterday’s Tarot Turnover where we talk about how to read Tarot on the members only blog. Yesterday’s card was the Page of Cups, which always carries a little bit of humor and absurdity. I mean, it shows a dude on a beach staring at a fish in a cup. Whatever other symbolism that may hold, it is on its face a little silly.

So are pigs and squirrels.

When we combine the two cards we get a reminder very apropro to a Monday morning like this.

Ridiculousness and absurdity might be a clue.

When things are dramatically not going your way, when you run headlong straight into a wall, it might be time to pack up your pigs and squirrels and cross the Alps another day.

Winston Churchill may have equated victory with survival, but is that really the victory we are stressing over? If this card speaks to you today, it may be time to stop and evaluate your goals. If it is survival, yes, by all means do that.

If your goal is a quick mocho-choco -frozo-latte when there is a line at the coffee shop, then this is your cue to ease up, and define victory a little differently. Be kind to yourself AND the local barista. Is this really as big of a deal as it feels? Is it worth it? What do we define as a success? Do we need to re-visit and change our goals and our definition of success? What is really, really worth every bit of your persistence and resources and what should be left for another day?

Thanks so much for reading and listening. I wish you and all of your pigs and squirrels a lovely Monday.

If you can, please visit the link in the podcast description or click the white coffee mug on the blog. Your support through private readings, memberships, shop purchases and virtual coffees is what makes it possible to bring these free Tarot readings to you.

See you at the next sip!

A Cup of Cigars

Some days are more absurd than spiritual

It’s not a particularly well known interpretation – but the Page of Cups with the Pamela Smith artwork always brings to mind a certain whimsy and a reminder to not take things so deadly serious all of the time. It’s ok to have a sense of humor about things, even the spiritual and abstract. It’s ok to embrace the absurd and let your freak flag fly and let life be what it is in all of it’s glorious absurdity.

I’m also reminded of the Sigmund Freud quote “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” I see an element of that in the Page of Cups. Some days just aren’t cut out for serious, ponderous, high flying, deep thought spirituality. Some days just hand you a fish in a cup, which is infinitely better than a cup of cigars, don’t you think….

Members can read the full post including the intuition development practice step on the Ko-Fi members only blog. Join today for exclusive content, shop discount, Three card path through the month Tarot reading on the blog and more.

Join us HERE

Speaking of cups…if you like what you read here on the free Tarot blog, please click the white coffee mug icon to support the blog and podcast on ko-fi!

When the Road is Wide

There is plenty of room for everyone.

The universe is a pretty wide road.

Have you ever seen an official balance beam for gymnastic competitions? They are 10 cm or around 4 inches wide. It’s hard enough to walk on one, much less do what olympic gymnasts do. Staying centered and balanced and in the middle of one of those is a darn good trick.

Now think of a flat path or sidewalk that is, lets say, about 1 meter or a little over 3 feet wide. Compared to a balance beam, how hard is it to find and walk down the middle of that?

Or walk down the middle of a football field?

The advice here is don’t make your path narrower than it has to be. Don’t make life narrower than it is. When life is wide, the middle way still encompasses a lot of territory.

The middle way of a wide path is big enough to encompass your comfort zone.

The middle way of a wide path is big enough for everyone.

Be kind to yourself and be kind to those who walk alongside of you. In a path as wide as the cosmos, there is plenty of room for all of us and every definition of middle, balanced and OK.

Look for slightly, not so slightly and completely unrelated content on Sage’s Other Words blog

Thanks for reading and watching. If you like this post, why not try a private reading? It supports the blog and the podcast and prices start as low as $5. Any likes, subs, shares, blog follows or virtual ko-fi coffees are always greatly appreciated!

Warmest Welcome and Hello Friends

Welcome Followers old and new! I’m so glad you are here.

Thank you so much to everyone who has ordered private readings and subscribed to the free blog over the past couple of months! It really means a lot.

A lot.

Part of my brain thinks changing names is Internet suicide while another part of thinks it is genius because, let’s face it, Tao could just as easily be a Chinese boy band member as could be a philosophy reference and Craft brings glue guns and Martha Stewart to mind just as much as anything witchy.

So much for trying to be clever. Thank you from the bottom, top and middle of my Tarot heart for sticking with this through all of the renaming nonsense. At least now we are back to normal words that everyone can recognize and spell and whatnot.

Here is the rest of the 2023 overhaul:

  • Email, this site, the podcast, Ko-fi (shop, member’s blog, email readings) the YouTube channel, Facebook page, Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok have been changed to the new name.
  • Closed the Twitter account because I wasn’t really interacting with it after the whole Musk/Trump’s back kerfuffle. If you want to say hi, and I hope you will, Instagram and TikTok have become the two accounts I actually scroll every day.
  • Party Tarot is CLOSED (let’s just say it didn’t survive covid)
  • In-person, live online, and small group Tarot are OPEN and available by appointment on a limited basis in select Pittsburgh (South Hills) neighborhoods.
  • EMAIL READINGS are open for purchase 24/7. Email is my specialty, my true Tarot love, and my priority. Reading orders are usually fulfilled within 12-18 hours but may take longer when you order nights, weekends or US holidays. Vacations and emergency closures are announced here on the main blog.
  • Social media content is not on any particular schedule. THIS BLOG is the one and only place to get ALL of the free Tarot content. If you follow the blog by email, it all shows up in your inbox – even if it isn’t on youtube, the podcast or the socials (like this post)

If you have followed for a while, you know I’ve sworn off sales, giveaways and all of those cutesy pants promotions. That will stay the same.

THIS on the other hand is a sincere thank you, from me to you, in appreciation of you being here at the end of the chaos and for joining up as everything moves forward. Welcome and THANK YOU.

As a way to say thanks, I’m doing this once, right here, right now, only on this blog and only until February 28, 2023. If you email me at the new address (SageWordsTarot@gmail.com) before with:

  1. Your name
  2. Your age
  3. Your question (or permission for an open reading)
  4. and the coupon code BLOGREADER

I’ll reply with a one card Tarot reading just for you …yes YOU…as an individual, not a general audience reading like we usually do for blog posts or the podcast.

That’s pretty much it.

I hope you like the new energy vibe. Names are symbolic mini-affirmations of who we are, what we have done and what we still hope to achieve.