Tag: sage words tarot

More from the Three of Swords

More from the Three of Swords card

It takes a hot, bright afternoon to make you really appreciate the cool shade of a tree, or a freezing night to make you appreciate the glowing warmth of a space heater.

As much as Tarot and Tarot readings are associated with western witchcraft, Taoist philosophy pops up a great deal, especially for a Tarot reader who has an affinity for Taoism like I do.

Sure, you could argue that this is a process of subjective confirmation bias, but I’m not the only one to find overlap between Taoism and Tarot, Reiki and Magick, East and West.

Diane Morgan’s Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao was one of my earliest Tarot influences. Christopher Penczak’s Magick of Reiki landed right lives right beside it, both squarely in the middle of my wheelhouse. I live in the liminal venn diagram space where Taoism, Tarot, Reiki and Magick all meet.

That eclectic, and often solitary mental space can have it’s drama.

Everybody loses their keys, spills their milk, or has some such tiny dramas in their life. It’s normal. That is also where the Three of Swords is pointing today.

The Three of Swords doesn’t have the darkest or most dire looking artwork. Usually it shows three swords stabbing something…more often than not a heart shape…but the heart is red and the background is seldom as literally black and dark as a death, devil, or 10 of swords cards.

Most of the meanings and keywords associated with the Three of Swords are warnings and cautions. It always feels like drama or complications from outside of ourselves. But for all of the heartbreak and betrayal keywords that go with this card, the connection to Taoist philosophy steps forward strongly today. It has to do with everything defining – and being defined by – its opposite. We find this concept in chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching, here in a public domain translation by J.H. McDonald.

“When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.
Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.”

Basically this is a message of encouragement, and a melange of hanging on and letting go all at once. Let go of that which has become toxic and harmful to make room for the good. Hang on through the dark times because that persistence will make the light all the more beautiful when it comes.

Darkness defines the edges of the light. Light defines the edges of the darkness. Without that contrast we can’t see anything at all.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment and let me which you like better: a card-for-today format or the three cards for the week and weekend revisit format. I’m leaning toward our old friend, the daily meditation Tarot readings. It’s like comfort food and personal growth all wrapped up in one thing.

What do you think?

Change on Pause

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There are STILL free “Zombie Cat” Tarot readings in the blog now through October 31, 2023 for anyone brave enough to leave a comment (or use the Ask Me Anything page) with a nickname and question for the cards. It’s all just for Halloween funsies, entertainment only. Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have 50% chance of being dead wrong

I’m dropping the week ahead readings (for a while, anyway) and returning to the old daily meditation Tarot reading format from the “Tarotbytes” blog days on Modern Oracle. The Wednesday Learn With Me series and Thursday newsletter won’t change.

These daily readings aren’t about any kind of “forecast.” Daily meditation is about right here, right now. This is meditative mindfulness. This card applies to you in your moment whenever you read this. Even though I’m reading the collective energies for today, spirit or synchronicity will bring you to the card whenever YOU need its message, no matter when that is. Psychic, intuitive information comes from outside of space and time anyway. That’s why distance Tarot readings are perfectly valid and why you can get real guidance from books and blogs no matter when you read them.

Now for today’s card: Death in reverse. Death means big life changes. Reversals hint at energy that is blocked or turbulent. Change blocked doesn’t mean Hanged Man style stagnation. This feels like a simple “wait a minute.”/

It’s OK to be OK

There is a sense of solid, practical, advice life advice here all wrapped up in an avalanche of proverbs and old adages:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie. Watched pots never boil.

There is nothing wrong with striving to be better. There is nothing wrong with experimentation. But you have to know your results before you make further changes. Sometimes too many changes spoil the soup just as much as too many cooks can.

“Remember kids, the only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.” – Adam Savage

There is an urge to charge out there and take the week by storm, grab Monday by the beans and constantly strive, eyes on the prize and all of that.

Sometimes that a good thing.

Sometimes it’s good to give it a rest and enjoy the beans instead of grabbing them.

Merry Monday everyone! Cheers!

Sage Sips: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee.

Pictured- the author’s morning mug including home made caramel cream pumpkin pie spice.

Prickly Splatters Everywhere

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Social Media Update: With the advent of Threads, I spend most of my scroll time there these days. Threads and Instagram is the best place to actually interact. You are welcome to stop by and say hello. I post on FB, Tumblr, and TikTok, but don’t interact there very much. I will warn you that the Threads account has become a combination of Tarot posts and my ex-birdsite political and religious voidscreaming. But you probably know by now that secular humanism, Taoism, witchcraft, progressive/liberal politics and lgbtdq ally-ship is a big part of who I am and influences what I do here. If any of those things offend you then we wouldn’t be a good match for a Tarot reading anyway. But rest assured, no matter what you see on the Threads feed, I can set all of that aside and channel in the right energy message for you no matter what it says. That is what 30 years of experience will get for you. There are some advantages to being genX years old.

So what does that have to do with today’s card or Tarot at all? That gnarly online energy IS very much today’s energy and card. The growing energy from Monday has arrived. The Three of Swords has to do with sorrow, heartbreak, loss, pain and betrayal. The keyword betrayal steps forward with the most energy today.

This isn’t a good day to be expansive or ebullient unless the feeling is so strong that your happy emotion bubble can withstand a field of needles. The collective energy today feels prickly like trying to hug a porcupine. You may have all good intentions, the porcupine may be filled with love and kindness, but things are what they are. Being true to yourself and being true to your own nature can also mean facing up to hard realities. Your true self and other people’s true self isn’t always going to blend well. You don’t have to like everybody and not everybody has to like you. Oil is a part of nature. So is vinegar. That doesn’t mean that life has to be salad dressing. To borrow a phrase from Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss. But follow it knowing that not everyone has the same bliss.

Some people by their nature are counter to your nature. Deliberate and malicious or not, intended or not, it can feel like a betrayal when you hoped for some sort of relationship, but nature makes that difficult if not impossible.

There may be good intentions all around, but oil and water, bubbles and porcupines still happen. Some days just aren’t made for trying to make square pegs fit round holes and vice versa. This feels like one of those days.

To paraphrase another writer, John Le Carre, betrayal can only exist in the presence of love. You can only betray – or be betrayed by – those whose opinion you care about. You can’t be jabbed by the porcupines that you don’t try to hug.

Here my mind turns to some of those social media threads I’ve been reading lately. With the evangelical support for right wing politicians and the christian nationalist & “dominion theology” growing in our national awareness (and, arguably, growing as a threat to those of us with interests in Tarot or ANY spiritual path other than theirs)

There can be family betrayals, community betrayals, literal danger to vulnerable groups like our lgbtq loved ones. Like the meme says – you can’t say you love me then vote for someone who hurts me.

The Three of Swords reminds us that protecting oneself from real danger is an act of loving kindness too.

Which brings us back to yet another paraphrase of yet another author, G. Chesterson, who said “a [warrior] fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.”

When religion tears apart families and communities the prickly energy splatters everywhere.

It’s hard to hug a heart that deliberately surrounds itself with swords. It’s ok not to impale yourself on the sharp edges.

Thank you for reading. Heavy energy, heavy ideas today. Thanks for contemplating it all along with me.

Next time: Energy path reading for October 9-15.

The Blog and social media will be on a short hiatus October 14-17, 2023. Email readings are OPEN but may experience delivery delays on those days.

See you at the next sip!

Learn With Me: Lenormand, The Dog

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It looks like we are off to a very good start.

The general plan is to learn about this Lenormand deck in the same way we recently explored the Publishing Goblin oracle dice and before that my new and much used Alleyman’s Tarot Deck.

There is no teacher quite like experience, especially when it comes to something as subjective and individual as intuition and oracles. The basic strategy over the coming weeks is that I’ll pull a random card (and post the draw on YouTube Shorts. I did that this week but the the technical glitch gremlins got to it)

After the random draw, we’ll read it purely intuitively based on the collective energy of the day – just like we read the collective energies for the week each Monday.

Then I’ll go to the guide book, which in this case is sparse, around a paragraph per card, and summarize what it says.

A word on guide books in general:

Use them as a tool, but not as an authority.

There is no dishonor in finding inspiration when you need it.

Guidebooks are great in situations like this to help you get comfortable with a new deck or technique. Guidebooks are essential when you are very first learning to read cards at all, like the DIY one card meditation readings you learn how to do in my book PeaceTarot.

Even after reading for 30 years, there are still times when I look at a card and get exactly nothing. Tarot readers are human and nobody is perfect. If you hit one of those I-got-nothin’ moments then it is perfectly fine to fall back on either a guidebook or a memorized “meaning” It will prime the pump so speak, and spark the intuition that you need for genuine reading that is of the energy of the moment.

Today’s card is The Dog.

The image on this particular deck is warm and sunny, and I associated it with all of the positive happy energies of the RWS major arcana card The Sun. Dogs are the essence of loyalty and friendship.

Clearly this is a good start for making friends with a new deck.

It has a sense of reciprocity today, too. “To make a friend, be a friend”

In the moment, it feels like making friends with this deck is going to be easy.

The guidebook doesn’t add much, just reiterates the “faithfulness and loyalty”

The guidebook isn’t much help in this little learning project we have going. I may just give the key words in the beginning and just give it an intuitive read from there.

Do you have any thoughts which would be more helpful to you? Comment if you like. Guidebook keywords at the beginning or end?

It’s interesting that the card is connected to the 10 of hearts. You can read the suit of hearts much as you would the suit of cups in the RWS decks. It is about emotion, happiness, closest inner circle relationships….like your closest friends.

PeaceTarot also teaches you how to use playing cards in place of Tarot cards to use the guidebook meanings in PeaceTarot if you prefer playing cards or if you don’t have access to a RWS style Tarot deck. 10 of hearts is equivalent to the 10 of cups, which has to do with happy family and happy (and loyal) relationships. It all fits.

If this card resonates for you today, it is a reminder to appreciate the friends and emotionally close people in your life. Tell them. Show them. Check in with them. Be a friend today.

If you are feeling friendless, befriend yourself. Just be patient and kind. It’s like playing fetch with your favorite doggo…throw some kindness out there and life will fetch it back sooner or later.

Thank you for reading. The short and sweet newsletter for this week will post on Thursday morning.

See you at the next sip!

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Image: author photo of her purchased copy of Healing Light Lenormand by Christoher Butler copyright 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.

In Potentia: Week Ahead Tarot

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Every week, every day is full of potential.

It might have immediate blowback, or it might be building foundations or planting seeds that pays off later.

Potential lies in the hands of action.

All of the cards this week are swords. Swords are associated with air and action, intellect, and our relationship with authority, culture or society at large.

The fading energy card is the Page of Swords. Pages are students and learners. With this being in the fading position, it is a clue to a change of phase. It is the end of the beginning. It’s time to put on the big kid underwear and get to work. At some point you have to leave school and do the thing. For many, now is that time. Now is the time to make old efforts pay off, true to the harvest season, lending this card a sense of rapid expansion. The page is supposed to represent a knight in training. Knights can become kings. With these two cards side by side, it gives a feeling of rapid expansion, a rise through ranks, rapid progress after a dely.

Current energy is the king of swords. King cards are protectors and leaders. Again intellect and action mixed. This is a time of head over heart. Kings protect the kingdoms boundaries. This is a hint to set and protect and enforce our boundaries. Insist on respect but give it in equal measure and with equal discipline.

Anything in its extreme contains the seed of its opposite

Rapid expansion can also translate to ‘in over your head’

The growing energy card, the three of swords is a caution against falling prey to your own naivete and inexperience. Know what you don’t know, and know enough to ask for help when its needed to avoid problems. The faster you move, the harder it is to see and avoid pitfalls in time. Heads up. Problems may come at you faster as the week rolls on.

Thank you for reading. Good luck and be careful out there!

Next up: Learn with Me: Lenormand on Wednesday. See you at the next sip!

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Learn With Me: Lenormand Tarot, introduction part 2

Learn With Me: Lenormand Tarot introduction part 2

Want to try a mini Lenormand Tarot reading for free? Leave a question on the Ask Me Anything page (or in the comments below)*

Ledoux, Jeanne Philiberte; Mlle M. A. Lenormand (1772-1843); The Bowes Museum (public domain)

Let’s meet one of the most famous card readers in history, Marie Lenormand through one of the most respected living Tarot readers, Mary K Greer.

This is only a quick thumbnail sketch about Marie Lenormand and the oracle / Tarot decks named for her. This is based on Mary Greer’s excellent article, the guidebook to the Healing Light Lenormand deck by Christopher Butler and our friend, Wikipedia. By all means, if you would like to learn more please visit and read the source material.

Last week, in part one of this introduction, we talked about being self-taught or self-initiated in Tarot. In a sense, it is unavoidable. Even if you take every class, read every book, only you can interact with Tarot. It is going to be your own unique experience and it is going to be wonderful and it is going to be just as valid as your teacher’s experience. Or mine. Or Marie Lenormand’s.

As best as I can tell from these few sources, Marie Lenormand as as self-taught as any of us. She is said to have received her first cards as a gift from “gypsies” (Butler) who taught her to read the cards. True or not, self-taught or not, Marie Lenormand seems to be a self-made person. Born in 1772 in France, orphaned at a young age and raised in a convent, Marie went on to be author, poet, and fortune teller to the stars and celebrities of the time including Robespierre and Empress Josephine.

As remarkable as Marie Lenormand was as a Tarot reader, it is even more remarkable that Lenormand Tarot we know today has little to do with her except her name.

A larger deck, “La Grand Tableau” was first published shortly after her death in 1843 and the more widely known 36 card “Petit Tableau” came significantly after that. (Wikipedia)

It seems that the Lenormand card decks were more interested in connecting with her fame as much or more than any techniques or particular cards. The Lenormand deck we’ll use in this series is the petite tableau which is based on a popular mid nineteeth century game “the game of hope” by Johann Hechtel (Butler)

While there may be little information about Marie Lenormand’s actual cards and methods, there is information about the how the cards with her name have been used over the past 150 or so years.

The entire deck is laid out in a grid….

And I stopped reading right there.

We just finished with a complex oracle.

Live is messy and complicated enough. I work best with people who want clarity and understanding. That, in my experience, is what oracles are for: clarity, comfort, creative problem solving. Oracles are for cutting through the fog, no a lot of smoke and mirrors. If there are people who can find comfort and clarity with that whole deck approach – have at it.

I’m going to approach the Lenormand deck with the same roll up your sleeves, tuck in and let’s learn this approach that we used with the 22 Oracle Dice and the 130 card plus Alleyman’s Tarot which is the same approach I used to learn Tarot in the first place 30 years ago.

It. Just. Works.

Or at least it works for me. I hope it is helpful to you, too.

Next week, we’ll start exploring one randomly drawn card at a time, connect them by pure intuition to the energy of the day, then coordinate that with the guidebook writer’s interpretation of the card. After a while, we’ll connect the cards using the Energy path and TaoCraft layouts that I wrote. Don’t worry I’m not going to hit you with the potential confusion and contradictions of large layouts. Seven cards is the largest number of cards I use in any reading ever with any deck.

Next week: Let’s do this thing – drawing a Lenormand card.

Tomorrow: weekly newsletter

Friday: revisit the growing energy card for this week, The Hierophant reversed

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Sources:

Butler, Christopher. Healing Light Lenormand © 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.

Greer, Mary K “Mlle. Lenormand, the most famous card reader of all time” copyright 2008 accessed via https://marykgreer.com/2008/02/12/madame-le-normand-the-most-famous-card-reader-of-all-time/ on September 27, 2023

Greer, Mary K “In the Sybil’s Boudoir” copyright 2015

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Anne_Lenormand#Early_life

Upside Divine: week ahead Tarot for 9/25 to 10/2

Upside down divine

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It’s full-on, for-real spooky season. It’s said that the “veil” between the subtle and physical realms becomes thin this time of year. Theoretically humans are more sensitive to the mystical, mysterious and spiritual.

This week the fading energy is the 10 of cups. Cups are emotion. Tens are the largest and only double digit minor arcana number cards. Emotions have surged. Put in astrology terms, the last full moon in Pisces, the mercury retrograde, something Saturn or another -not my area of expertise – may have had nerves on edge. Everything is out of the gatorade and the microwave isn’t on, so emotions may be a little smoother this week. There is a sense of advice around this card to find peace of mind and peaceful emotions. Cups are associated with the element of water. Where there has been splashing and flailing for some and stagnant slack water for others, things are now moving in a better direction. Let it go, let it flow, go with that flow….all of those nice, rhyme-ish platitudes. Choose your battles. This may not be the time to fight. Find your flow instead of looking for hills to die on.

The current energy is the knight of wands. Wands are fire and can symbolize inner fire, inner passions, spirituality, philosophy. This is a time to stand up for yourself, but opt out of the drama. Don’t find hills to die on, find for your flag to fly on. It is a time of finding yin power – of attraction, transformation. If this were a major arcana card, it’d be the magician. Here I am reminded how in Suzanna Clark’s novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, the knight of wands was a sign of magic returning to England.

You have no more right to change other people than they have to change you, but you every right to BE you. The mental image of a force field, of energy shields akin to Star Trek or Dune comes here. Knights are self confidence and action. BE is a verb. Be yourself apologetically.

The growing energy is the Hierophant card, in this case from the Minchiate Tarot from the early 1500s in Italy. It has images of monarchy ruling by divine right, but could also be seen as divine inspiration or a muse-like energy. It doesn’t carry the religious imagery of the pope-like Hierophant cards.

This card is a reminder that sometimes it is ok to be a bit of rebel. In these days, it pays to use your head and be safe, but as you are able, allow yourself to follow your own calling, regardless of whether it meets other peoples expectations. Follow your own path, be your own person. The wind may not be at your back for that sort of thing right now, but supportive energies are growing – especially if you actively seek them. Find your tribe. Again, fly your own flag. BE your own person. Honor your own divine calling even if it is counter to the social, political, or religious so-called authorities. Honor your own internal guidance. You are your own best minister. Guidance from your highest self is heard within. Your happiness depends on no one but you.

Internal guidance put humankind on the moon.

Thanks for reading! If you found this reading at all helpful, please consider a private reading or clicking the white mug to support the blog with a virtual coffee. Next up: Learn With Me, Lenormand introduction part 2 coming Wednesday 9/27/23

See you at the next sip!

Alleyman’s Tarot deck used with permission Publishing Goblin LLC

Have Mope

A second look at this week’s growing energy card

The five of cups was the growing energy card for this week in Monday’s Energy path reading. Now that the week ahead is mostly the week behind and we are looking forward to the weekend, let’s see what’s going on with the growing energy.

The vibe of it feels steady now. Yesterday’s one card reading, the Devil, puts this card into better perspective. The negative connotations of the Five of Cups are sometimes imposed from the outside more than they are experienced from the inside.

It’s the Addams Family. It’s goth.

It’s like seventeenth century philosopher Barauch Spinoza said – any objective thing can be viewed as good, bad or indifferent all at once.

Things that some might consider dark, brooding, melancholy or even evil or devilish, others consider to be their comfort zone. The “dark and melancholy” is a place of comfort and happiness.

Who are we to judge?

It’s far better to ask how you can help rather than just assume something is wrong in the first place.

Today the card brings to mind both the Addams Family and their unabashed enjoyment of their own life and lifestyle – and the Cure song “A Forest”. While I am a Cure fan from way back, I keep mentally hearing the iconic guitar notes, so that must be some sort of intuitive clue, or at least a confirmation of the “indulge your inner goth” vibe of today’s card.

I think the carry away message of all of this is to reassure everyone that you are not a bad person just for having a shoe-gazey emo kind of day.

Even professional performers don’t have to be up and on point every minute of every day. You don’t have to be up and talkative all the time either.

@jiraiya_boy90

#harrypotter #slytherin🐍 #professorsnape #meme

♬ original sound – Moon-Dog

Melancholy and moody is a human experience. It’s practically the definition thereof. Have a good mope if you feel like it.

Just don’t take it out on all the bright and chipper extroverts out there. They can’t help it they are cheerful.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever mood or mode it comes in. Now I’m going to go listen to one of my new favorite goth bands, Vision Video.

Back Monday for a new look at the next week ahead.

See you at the next Sip!

Feeling mopey enough for a private Tarot reading? Distance Tarot is my specialty, and email readings are available to order HERE 24/7 no appointment needed.

The Devil is in more than the details (Newsletter 21 September 23)

Weekly digest 9-21-23

The Devil isn’t just in the details…it’s all over the darn place.

Life isn’t always pretty, so Tarot isn’t always pretty. Sometimes the best thing a reading can do for us is break through walls of denial, yank the rose colored glasses off of our faces and set some jade ones into their place.

The Devil card from the major arcana is the ultimate card for that aspect of Tarot. It’s up in your face with cold, harsh reality -usually just when you need it most. It isn’t a call to fear. It is a call to courage.

There are reasons why positivity can go toxic. If there is nothing but light you are just as blinded as you are in pitch dark. It takes both light and shadow to see.

The Devil card’s reminder of the dark side can vary anywhere from the common sense to the dire and dramatic. The purpose isn’t to scare you – the purpose is to put you on an appropriate level of guard. Have batteries in the flashlight when a storm is forecast. Park in well lit areas and have your keys ready as you go to your car. Have the hard conversation with your significant other. Admit people you care about have the capacity to make bad political choices – and sometimes do.

There are gnarly things out there in the world. The Devil card reminds us that there are people out there who really don’t have your best interest at heart and this might be a good moment to take stock, face facts, and be safe.

Weekly Digest:

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