Tag: Sage Snow

Weekend Oracle: One Touch

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“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”

William Shakespeare

Yes, by all means, go touch grass this weekend. Or any time.

I forget the source, but somebody somewhere did a small study of the effects of looking at photos of natural settings on real time blood pressure. Just looking at nature in a photo will bring blood pressure down.

Imagine what a small barefoot walk in the grass can do.

I don’t know if anyone has gone full science on it, or followed up the long term effects of engaging with nature on one level or another, even a photographic one.

It seems to me that one touch of nature is a good thing for humans, both psychologically and physiologically. We are wired that way.

It also seems to me that human nature is part of the nature that Shakespeare mentions, even though I doubt he meant it that way as he lived and wrote centuries before the advent of modern psychology. The Taoists were down with the whole idea centuries before Shakespeare.

Feeling connected is a basic human need, for everyone everywhere, throughout time. This weekend touch grass. If not the literally, touch something that is part of your own nature to enjoy. Enjoy some small part of the environment you are in, including urban ones. When you enjoy any little anything, you are connected to not only that thing, but all of your fellow humans that enjoy that thing too.

An ice cream cone, a barefoot walk in the backyard, a bike ride, jog in the park, a little phone scroll, a cup of coffee and a good book, play your favorite song just a little bit louder than usual; whatever it is in your nature to enjoy, touch that. As long as it harms no one, do what you will to paraphrase a saying. Touch your happiness, and you can connect with the energy of all the others who have found a similar joy.

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Find Your Tribe

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Today’s energy: Ten of Swords

Failures, obstacles, and betrayals take time to heal even as life demands that healing. The more painful the experience, the stronger the message that this is not the path for you.

You are not your failures, unless you accept them as such. Take them as a message and an opportunity to learn or to change direction then suddenly painful setbacks are just signposts along your way.

Next Step: Nine of Cups

This is a card of community and celebration. Found family heals. Found community supports. Your true tribe is a place of love and acceptance wherever and whoever they may be.

Your true tribe is the people and places that energize you, uplift you, comfort you, and make you feel most deeply at home. Only you can who your tribe is. No one can tell you who your tribe should be.

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Action Eases Anxiety: Hard Road to Wisdom

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What it is (left)

THE COFFIN: Something has ended. No one decides the depth of that loss for you but you. Grief and sadness are valid emotions. Honor them as you see fit for as long as you need.

The platitude “don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened” rings as profoundly toxic and wrong-headed here.

No one gets to tell your emotions but you. They are yours to be named, faced, and released in your own good time.

It isn’t a matter of healing. This assumes with great hubris that the processes of grief and loss are unhealthy. The feelings aren’t unhealthy. Processing them, sitting with them, feeling them IS the healthy thing. Suppressing them, bottling them, ignoring them, smothering emotions in toxic positivism….THAT is the thing that needs healed.

It’s hard to trust in the face of profound losses. Fault or blame is of no value. Even if you can’t trust others enough to share your emotions with them, trust yourself enough to feel them, face them – and survive the experience of it.

What to do (right)

THE LILIES: I don’t know how it is in other cultures, but in the Appalachian evangelical culture where I was born, lilies are a common flower for funerals. It has an almost exclusively religious meaning in that context. It was always connected to Christian symbolism like redemption, resurrection, a return of the soul to heaven – a litany of things that hold no truth or significance for me individually.

If those things are meaningful for you here, please, by all means embrace them in any way that they help you.

I think there is another message here, drawn from the general symbolism of giving flowers, any flowers, as a gesture of good wishes. We give flowers as a message of sympathy, condolences, love and support for those who grieve at a funeral, but we also give flowers in celebration of holidays, birthdays. They are a part of weddings for good reasons. This is the energy I see around the lilies card.

It is a reminder of the whole spectrum of human emotions. Flowers are a reminder of all we feel and all that is possible. Loss of any kind is never easy. Grief exists within its own timeline and it exists side by side with all the other emotions in life.

It takes particular strength to choose the flowers of love and compassion from the bouquet of everything that life hands us. Choosing kindness toward your own emotions and that of others is a beautiful flower within our humanity. Choosing compassion in the face of loss is perhaps the hardest thing to do, the hardest flower to grow.

Wisdom is always hard-won.

Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler copyright 2021 all rights reserved, used with permissions listed on llwellynpublishing.com

Today’s Tarot: You know what to do

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HIGH PRIESTESS: Trust what you know, then do it. Spiritual power is greatest when you feel it, but it is still there even when you don’t. Some days, there is no grand mystery. Some days, just going through the motions is plenty enough. Ritual is never empty when it is mindful of the present moment.

May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. Tarot is part of both.

There have been countless times that I’ve seen jaws unclench, shoulders drop and frowns disappear in a Tarot reading.

Tarot can offer you a peaceful moment in troubled times.

This month I’m returning to where it all started: One Card Daily Meditation style readings. You can order a personalized meditation style Tarot reading by email or you can learn to do them for yourself with PeaceTarot: Tarot as a Way to Peaceful Thoughts in Troubled Times, available for download in the TaoCraft Tarot ko-fi shop.

Action Eases Anxiety: Any Beginning

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What it is: The Fool. It may not be the opportunity that you wanted, but it is the second chance that you need. Only you can walk through an open door. No one can do it for you. Some journeys we have to begin alone. Don’t let fear of being alone stop you. Walk your walk, and your tribe will find you along the way. I intuitively ‘hear’ the Annie Lennox version of the song “Sisters are doing it for themselves.”

What to do: Seven of Swords. Take action. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Use your logic, intellect, and resourcefulness to the max. No one is going to save you but you.

Today’s Tarot: Meditation Comes To You

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee

May is both National Meditation Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.

Tarot can play a part in both. This month, I’m returning to where it all began with daily meditation style Tarot readings on the Sage Sips main blog, the Substack and the socials. Your private readings, memberships and virtual coffees all support these free collective Tarot readings.

EIGHT OF PENTACLES: Meditation meets you where you live. It can be found in almost any simple, repetitive task. The mindless can be a portal to the mindful.

I’ve quoted Alan Watts so many times before, but it applies here again – “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.“

True to Tarot, even the earthy, ground oh-so-practical Pentacle cards have a spiritual side. Pentacle spirituality is particularly akin to Zen and Taoist spirituality.

Simple productivity can feed your soul as much as a job feeds your bank account and in turn your stomach. That isn’t to say that your job has to be ultra spiritual. Any work can be of service and finding a job that you love is a treasure beyond money.

Feeling and being productive improves mood: Action eases anxiety, literally.

Easy, repetitive, ‘mindless’ activity is relaxing. No wonder things like knitting, crochet, jogging, hiking, gardening, sports of all sorts are all popular hobbies. Anything that occupies your hands and body while bringing your mind to the moment at hand is meditation. In these million different ways, meditation meets you right where you live if you allow it to be there. Meditation meets you where you live and brings a little mental health help right along with it.

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deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund,  used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC

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Choose Your Own Tarot: Contemplate the Upside Down

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Pause the video.

Take a deep breath and relax. Think about a question for the cards or think about your week ahead. Follow your first impulse and choose a card.

Restart the video to see your card and get the reading below:

The World (reversed)

I don’t always read a lot into reversed cards. If you think about it, it is right side up for someone sitting across from you. It’s a perspective thing. Reversed cards always ask for a little extra thought about context and perspective. Sometimes it can be a cue that a particular energy or topic or part of life is turbulent or blocked. Sometimes the context is this deck is printed on very glossy cardstock and chucks out reversals all of the time that don’t necessarily carry meaning.

In this case, the reversal is, intuitively, screaming for attention. It means something. The world is a major arcana card so it is a cue to high energies, key messages, possibly life lessons close around you.

The World is the final card in the major arcana suit. It has connections to completion, success, wholeness. It is also connected to connection…everything touches everything, and every part in a way contains the whole, touches the whole, hologram style. The card is pointing to this gestalt, holistic thinking today.

I’m not usually a heavy metal music fan, but thanks to family members I’ve heard some and “The Future is a Foreign Land” by Ghost, especially the part with the lyrics “when it all burns down.”

What do you do when your world has been turned inside out and upside down? What do you do when the person you thought was the one person who would be there for you when it all burns down is the one lighting the match?

Time may seem desperate, but when you get to the end of the major arcana then you go back to the Fool card and begin again, heartbreak and all.

Four of Cups

The pouring cup gets all of the attention here.

This is why I love the Alleyman’s Tarot deck. Sometimes it is profound. Sometimes it makes you feel “wut?”

That disconnected, ‘it’s just not resonating’ feeling is an element of the message today. The baseball imagery just isn’t getting it for me today…but that’s the message. It’s not about me.

And your concern may not be about you.

To be psychological about it, this is about intention and control. Despite our best intentions, we can’t control other people. You could pour a tanker truck of love and energy out but you can’t make someone feel any certain way. As the old proverb says: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.

Cups cards are about emotions. Regardless of the response, to love is the victory. To love is the means and the ends and all that matters. Pour your cup of love, hopefully it will water the roots of a tree rather than wet the feet of a statue.

Thank you so much for watching and reading.

I wish you all a deep drink of love and wholeness.

See you at the next sip!

Deck: Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission, Publishing Goblin LLC

Action Eases Anxiety: Landing

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What it is: Strength.

In this case, a test of your strength. Your patience and perseverance are being tested. Failure is always an option. It shows where to get help if you need it. It shows where you need rest and support. The test can show you weak spots before they break so damage can, hopefully, be avoided or lessened.

What to do: The World.

Finish. Complete the tasks at hand. Don’t change horses mid stream. Focus on the end goal and the big picture. There is a sense of reassurance. Success is possible if you see things through to the end. Think of an airplane. Things may be turbulent now, but focus on bringing this stressful time in for a safe landing. A pilot once told me that “any landing you walk away from is a good one.”

Deck:Alleyman’s Tarot by ‎⁨@publishinggoblin1072⁩  used with permission