Do you want it fast or do you want it Mona Lisa?

A behind the scenes look at the philosophy and thinking behind Tarot readings

I love pithy advice.

So naturally, I’m a little bit of a Ben Franklin fan.

Through his Poor Richard’s Almanac he tells us that “haste makes waste.” He also wrote that “Well done is better than well said.

I agree – except for Tarot readings. In that case, well done IS well said.

Written or spoken, words have power. Why else would we be talking about some pithy little aphorisms from the 1700s? Actions do speak louder than words, but it is often words that crawl into your head and live there rent free.

That is especially true when the person speaking or writing the words are afforded some sort of authority or expertise. Filler writing from a nearly 300 year old almanac might not get any attention at all if the author wasn’t also a revered figure from American history.

It doesn’t have to be that magnitude of authority. The inept rantings of a random stranger on the internet can impact your mood if you let your guard down and stumble across a troll at a vulnerable moment. Ill-intended, ill-considered words can, regrettably, have power too.

In the world of Tarot, both in-person and online, the psychic reader is assumed to have special knowledge, a skill or expertise that we have not developed in ourselves. Not in any real power or control sort of way, but their words are given that tiny bit more credence. Their words hit a little harder and can get in your head a little easier.

Tarot is all art and heart, not certification and certainty. Whether any one reader is a good match for your personality, your nature, your needs is up to you, and only you, to decide.

One factor in that decision is time.

Tarot is an art. Writing a book takes time. The Mona Lisa wasn’t painted in a day. Quality takes time. If you can find it in yourself to make an advance appointment or spend an hour in conversation with the reader or wait a day for an email reading you’ll get much in return for your time and money investment. Thoughtful Tarot is often the best Tarot.

That is where my side of the Tarot table comes into play. It is up to a professional reader to take whatever time is needed to do a good reading. It is up to us, the professionals, to set time, set boundaries, set working hours, make transparent policies, set clear intentions and manage expectations. It falls to me to let you know that a quick 10 minute at a party is all fun and giggles, while giving my fullest attention to a hour-long private session.

I’ve worked for online psychic services. I’ve called as a client to the old school 800 services. A couple of those impulse phone calls were the precise right message at the precise right time and I’ll always be grateful. But the key is again, time. The call may have been spur of the moment on my side, but the artful words I received were not. Those wise words were given by practitioners who were there for working hours, unhurried and ready to serve. 

The instant gratification of getting a reading right away during a time of emotional upheaval has its place. By the same token, Tarot isn’t a crisis hotline. Tarot isn’t an emotional emergency room. Tarot’s real power lies in inspiration and empowerment. Tarot’s long term superpower is guiding your choices in a way that steers your whole life in a better direction. That takes time. A lot of time and effort on your part. In the short term of any one reading session, it still takes a little time to listen to spirit and to choose the best way to say something that we can.

So please pardon the odd little pauses silences in the conversation while we do that. Or, in the case of email, if it takes more than an hour to get a well written reading to your inbox. Wise words are worth the wait. Choose the ideas that live in your head rent-free carefully. Evict the ones that no longer serve you well.

Tarot is all art and heart and haste can waste your time.

Well said IS well done.

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Card of the Day: Ace of Pentacles, 21 May 24

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

Like I’ve said in PeaceTarot and a bizillion other times, a daily one card meditation is the bread and butter and workhorse and utter delight of learning to read Tarot. And, I’ve found, of living Tarot too.

It’s one thing to learn a skill or philosophy or spiritual practice. It’s another to live with it every day and let it become part of your skin and bones and morning coffee.

The best way to build a relationship with anything like this is bit by bit, day by day. Kick the tires. Test drive it. Take it on a shake down cruise. Lean on it. If it holds you up in troubled times, it will help shine a light on the good times too.

It’s not a religion, it’s nothing special.

In Chinese style martial arts its call gong fu…diligence and practice and work over time resulting in masterful skill. Tarot is the same. Anyone can read them. We all have innate, natural intuition and psychic ability. But it takes diligence and practice and work over time for it to become deeply useful – to become a part of your life and spiritual practice.

Pentacles speak to just that kind of work. Pentacles are aligned with the Earth element and are about exactly this kind of real-world, rubber-meets-the-road work. That is the suit’s window on it’s common meanings: work, career, wealth, and the physical realm.

When you add the images, words, music, sound that imaginatively come to mind, it nudges us toward the best key words to use for the card for the day at hand.

In this case I ‘hear’ the TING sound effect of something metal being hammered – like railroad spikes and railroad building sounds from old western movies.

It’s like movie Esperanto for hard physical work.

The hand holding a gold coin has a TA-DA! feel about it.

Put them together and work TA-DA! has results. In other words, the energy supports a productive day at hand. If it’s late in the day when you read this, no matter what kind of day it has been, do what you can to set up tomorrow to be productive.

And there the energy steps back.

Stop back tomorrow: Another one card like this tomorrow than on Thursday (hopefully, fingers crossed) we’ll do a Choose Your Card video.

Thanks for reading! See you at the next sip!

Learn to read Tarot and bring a moment of peace to troubled times. Peace Tarot is available now for instant download in the ko-fi shop.

Every Little Thing Can Be Magick

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

Deck pictured: Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans © 2012 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125. All rights reserved, used by permission.


What is magic, really?

Being raised on a steady diet of 60s sitcom re-runs, part of me still wants nose twitching, wand waving, hand gesturing, incantation mumbling, midnight margarita saturated POOF! magic.

It’d be fun, you have to admit. But out here in the real world things aren’t so simple. There is magic, and then there is magick. I like making the distinction between stage or fictional magic and the spiritual practice of magick by using the ‘k’ at the end for the latter.

Besides, the K just looks cool.

Regardless of whether you think magic is fictional fun or if magick is your path, The Magician is a very powerful card. It is a card of transformation, in essence, of initiating and controlling change. This differs from the kind of big life change we might see with the Death or Tower card. The key is initiating the change, controlling the change and, importantly, working for the change. They don’t call it working magic(k) for no reason.

TV magic is alluring because it is all instant gratification but it lacks potential and possibility. Real magick is full of potential and possibility, but the gratification it brings is slow, inexorable, deep and lasting.

In a daily collective energy Tarot reading like this, the message is in that potential…and the change. Change really is possible. In this case it is self-initiated and primarily internal. New attitudes, new habits, new feelings, new lifestyles, new philosophies all take time.

The magician is powerful. Tap in to that power – however long it takes. Real magick is absolutely possible, given the necessary time and willingness to put in the most difficult kind of work: personal growth. Change your perceptions and expectations and POOF! you are magick.

The magician extends one arm up and one arm down. We are reminded of Hermes’ quote “as above, so below” but we shouldn’t forget the next part…”as within, so without” Our world can transform by changing the lens through which we view it.

We might not be able to change an adversary into a toad or make a coin appear out of thin air or change lead into gold, but the world within can be expressed without in an instant.

The lyrics to Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero” include “Love and compassion, that day is coming.” That day can be here the moment we decide to be loving and compassionate.

That is the magick that can be found in every little thing and in every passing moment. That is the magick that can change our world.

Thank you so much for reading! This post was originally published in 2020 and updated May 2024

Want a little taste of Tarot magick of your own? Private readings are available HERE. This blog isn’t monetized so a portion of the proceeds from private reading sales support the free Tarot readings on this blog and the YouTube Channel.


Post originally published 2020

Ogres, Onions and the Tarot Reader

Shrek: ….ogres are like onions

Donkey: They stink?

….

Shrek: No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. You get it? We both have layers

from “Shrek” copyright 2001 Dreamworks Pictures, quote via imdb.com

Layers mean complexity. Layers apply to all sorts of things that are actually more complex than they seem at first glance; ogres, onions, cakes and – you guessed it – Tarot.

Reading Tarot for yourself is actually quite simple. In a couple of hours I could teach you to do good DIY readings for yourself. (Related: PeaceTarot ebook)

Reading for other people is another story. High level professional readings are, like onions and ogres, more complex than it seems on the surface. That’s the whole point of them. A professional reading can gives you extra layers of insight and experience that you can’t get alone. Two heads are better than one. Two eyes give depth perception (related post: parallax) The two of us working together gives your reading another layer of understanding.

Sometimes layers talk about authenticity. Sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to get to the real heart of the matter. We’ve talked about authenticity and public Tarot practice before, after my Modern Oracle Tarot work was re-branded to TaoCraft Tarot and re-branded again to Sage Words Tarot.

That’s all well and good, but consider another aspect of layers: growing new ones. Interestingly, actual onions grow on the inside. New layers are added at the core while older outside layers get dry and thin and ultimately fall away. In this, onions give us another useful metaphor.

In the medical field, and no doubt many other professions, continuing education is required. You have to keep learning and keep current if you want to keep working. Whether it is required or not, whether it is career related or not, lifelong learning is a respected mark of excellence. Learning isn’t just formal education. Learning comes from experience and experimentation and the living of life. Artists’ work evolves over time. Any person’s point of view can evolve over time.

As I’ve learned and gained experience, the original “Modern Oracle” layout has evolved too. I’ve re-named it as it changed and changed it back to “Modern Oracle” as my website and blog evolved.

Back in the early 2000s I wrote the initial Modern Oracle layout meanings to create a bridge from old fashioned, predict-the-future, fortune telling layouts to a more modern advice, guidance and empowerment reading. I wrote the layout specifically to show the power that your choices have over your future. Cards that once were called “past, present and future” in older readings became “lessons from the past, current situation, and moving forward.” Predicting the future evolved into making an action plan.

Now it goes one step further. The reading is about dynamic energy flows, not a concrete road through time. Now, the layout is both about your choices and a read of the energy conditions ahead. Think of it as being like a GPS traffic update with a weather report. It is a guide to help you decide which way to travel and a general idea of the conditions you will most likely be travelling in.

Card 1, lessons from the past, became Fading Energies, symbolizing energies that are decreasing in influence and things that need less of your attention than before.

Card 2, the current situation, is now Current Energies. This reflects the energies that are strongest, and deal with things that need your attention most needed in this present moment.

Card 3, moving forward, is Growing Energies, reflects the energies that are growing, might need more attention soon or are gaining influence in the path you’ve currently chosen. It still isn’t predictive. It is information for decision making. Just like with gps driving condition updates, if you know about a traffic jam ahead then you can choose another road.

Card 4 will remain Choices. It is still placed under the current energies card and at the center of the layout because that is still the place of power. Empowering your choices is still the heart of the reading. In the GPS analogy, this suggests a better road if traffic is heavy ahead, or it can encourage you to stay the course you are on if conditions are good. Either way, you are still the driver. In the end you are the one who chooses where to drive and how to get there no matter what the GPS or the Tarot cards say.

Card 5 is still Alternative Path just like before, showing the most open alternative path you if you decide a change is needed.

Card 6 Helping Energies and card 7 Potential Challenges are just what the name says they are. Change the five card Modern Oracle layout into the 7 card TaoCraft layout that is only available seasonally.

Over the years. the five card layout has proven its value. It’s useful, insightful, practical,gets right to the point and is affordable. It has the best balance of quality, detail and affordability.

Ogers and onions are complex, but they are always evolving and growing new layers. Reading Tarot is the same way. There are complexities, but sometimes the best new thing is taking off those old outer layers to reveal the green and fresh life underneath.

This is the summer of simplification.

Starting in May 2024 my private readings will have 4 formats, 3 layouts and 2 levels of availability.

Four Formats:

  • Email: my specialty
  • Pre-recorded video: private – only you will get the link to the video.
  • Pen and Paper: old school snail mail, archaic but powerful
  • Live phone or zoom call

Three Layouts

  • Modern Oracle (Five Card) – $30
  • Eclipse (Three Card) – $15
  • Sage Sip (One Card – $5

Two availabilites

  • No appointment needed, order anytime (email, video, paper)
  • By appointment only (phone/zoom)

One Reader – me! Meet Sage HERE

Ace of Cups: Have enough love

Have enough love to forgive yourself for who you used to be.

“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

Alan Watts

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Gifts to the tip mug always gratefully appreciated (goes toward web hosting costs)

CYC: The Fool

Choose Your Card: Collective energy readings with a personal touch

  • PAUSE the video
  • Take a breath
  • Decide how you want to use the card – guidance for the day, the week ahead, anything on your mind
  • Choose Your Card
  • Restart the video to see the reveal and hear a little bit about your card.
  • Collective energy card not resonating with you? Private one card readings are free on demand for Sage Sip monthly members and available for order 24/7 no appointment needed HERE for non-members

Judgement: Use your good judgement, reason. Head over heart for this decision. You must rationally decide when & how to begin.

Death: Something has to changed or released in order to make your start or to get a fresh start. Is this new thing worth what you must give up to get it?

10 of Pentacles: Yup. This is solid, practical, a good omen. Go for it.

Cheerleaders from the Great Beyond

Tarot behind the scenes

“Mood’s a thing for cattle and loveplay, not fighting!”

Dune by Frank Herbert, David Lynch screen adaptation

And not for Tarot readings when you are working for other people

Moods and Tarot make an interesting Venn diagram, and it all hinges on whether you are reading professionally or privately.

Should you read Tarot if you aren’t in the mood for it? If you are reading privately for yourself (or for someone you know and aren’t charging them) then no, if it just isn’t vibing for you, by all means wait until you are up for it. Or find someone who is in the mood. Or find a professional.

If you do put yourself in the public eye as a Tarot reader and ask for compensation for your time, skills and artistic service then something else has to happen. Either you have to put your own mood aside and listen to spirit / energy objectively on behalf of your client or you have to have the self-awareness to reschedule the client until such time as you are mentally, emotionally, and physically capable of doing a good reading for them.

There is no hard and fast rule for when to read or reschedule. You have to use your own good judgement about that, just like using good judgement about any adult thing. Don’t drink and drive, don’t stick a fork into a light socket, don’t read Tarot for money if your head isn’t in the right place.

But then, having good judgement and a little wisdom is why you are a Tarot reader in the first place, isn’t it?

There are a lot – a LOT – of things to consider before going professional with your Tarot readings, and we’ll get back to that at some point, but for now – what do you do with a mis-match between mood and message?

My core approach is to be an objective translator.

I’m not some word-from-on-high gifted expert. I just speak spirit pretty well and can translate for you. I don’t have to be in a particular emotional mood to do a reading any more than I need to be in a particular mood in order to speak Esperanto or read knitting patterns abbreviations.

Lately the mood of a couple of readings have not matched my personal mood at all. It’s hard to visualize, but imagine being in a Wednesday Addams mood and getting intuitive information that sounds like the blond haired girl scout.

Sometimes people need a little cheer leading, sometimes they just need someone to hear them out, and most of the time it isn’t for a Tarot reader to judge which time is which.

All I know to do is to give the intuitive message as honestly and true-to-tone as I can, regardless of my personal mood. That in turn relies on trusting the intuitive Tarot reading process.

But that’s also why the best Tarot readings are a conversation, regardless if that conversation happens by email or face to face. All of my distance readings include a follow up email. If something just doesn’t resonate with you or feel right to you or just doesn’t make sense, for goodness’ sake just say so! Spirit and I will try to find a better word, a better image, a better something to get a more helpful message to you.

So speak up! You won’t hurt my feelings and we’ll try to get the chirpy cheerleader from the great beyond to try again. When we reach out, the energies reach back however it takes. I really believe your true message will find you, one way or another, one translator or another, one means of communication or another.

My promise to you is to give the most accurate version of the energy message, no matter what our moods may be.

Thank you so much for reading. Private readings are open and available HERE

There is a new members only special offer running until the summer solstice on June 20, 2024. For only $5 per month, Sage Sip members receive:

  • Free Sage’s Sip one card Tarot readings by email upon request up to 3 per calendar month.
  • Discounts on larger layouts
  • Exclusive content
  • Special offers

Join Sage Sips members HERE

See you at the next sip!

Tarot rhymes with mayo

Members only post: click HERE to join and read

Sage Sips membership – $5 per month

  • FREE one card Sage’s Sip Tarot readings by email at your request up to three readings per calendar month.
  • DM access on ko-fi: ask me anything!
  • Discounts on all larger video / email layouts in the commissions menu
  • Exclusive content and special offers.

Remember: the free email readings are at your request only, meaning you have to contact me by DM or email each time you want one – it’s not automatic. Seeing your email, name, question (or permission for an open reading) is how I connect to your unique energy message.

One – time “buy me a coffee” tips to the coffee mug are always appreciated and give you DM access for “Ask Me Anything” – ask anything and get a free Zombie Cat style Tarot answer in the blog

Zombie Cat readings are tongue in what’s left of his cheek, entertaining, 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.

The Watcher

Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee – or whatever you are sipping at the moment.

Updated today from a September 2020 post

Heart of Stars Tarot, copyright 2007 Thom Pham, used with permission

 Three of Wands. Yes – again.

Different deck, different day, same card. A cool thing happened; about an hour after I filmed the card draw above, I did a private one card reading with a different deck (Steampunk, their favorite) and wouldn’t you know it – Three of Wands. This card is really trying to get our attention.

It also gives us a little insight into how Tarot can be such an endlessly useful tool for something as complex as spiritual guidance or the human psychology. The math is pretty convincing. Let’s start with a one card daily meditation reading. You have one card position raised to the power of 78 possible cards, raised to the power of all the possible keywords and meanings that have been attached to each card over the years, raised to the power of our limitless imagination and intuition.

Even if you leave out the intuition bit, and just look at card numbers, the cards are pretty amazing. Here – let a real expert explain this:

Now, let’s consider that kind of calculation for a full Tarot reading. Never mind a classic 10 card Celtic Cross – let’s just consider my 5 card Modern Oracle layout.

For five layout positions, regardless of the meaning you assign to that position, the first card could be any card from the entire deck. The first card has 78 possible results. The second position has the whole deck minus the first card, which gives 77 possibilities. The third position has the whole deck minus the first two cards for 76 possibilities and so on

If I’m using the online calculator correctly, that means there are over 2 million different card combinations for any given five card layout.

Now add all of the possible card meanings into that mix.

Then raise it all to the infinite possibilities that pure intuition can lend to the reading.

Now you know why we charge the rates that we do. The more cards in a reading, the more complex it becomes, and the more insight, wisdom and raw Tarot experience it takes to make sense out of it all for a client. When you add in ethical, professional conduct – $35 for a five card email reading is insanely affordable.

That is beside the point. The point is that when you consider the mind-boggling number of possible card combinations, a repeating card in disparate circumstances sustained over time is a card definitely worthy of our attention.

The Three of Wands is often associated with things like watchfulness, active waiting, observation, proper timing, or vigilance.

Recently, the energy seemed to flow toward the idea of watching for the right timing, watching for events to happen that would in turn prompt you to action.

Today, the energy is more toward the vigilance end of things. This feeling of watchfulness isn’t timed to a particular action. It isn’t about timing your action just right. It has a more general sense.

This is also an energy connecting the card to the idea of healthy boundary setting. First discover where your best boundaries ARE, then the Three of Wands encourages you to watch over them, maintain them and defend them. Words like “periphery” and “vigilance” come to mind. Based on current events, turbulent times are likely on the horizon. The Three of Wands card is further reminding us to guard our energy and mental health. It is always better to over-prepare than to under-react to such things, be it literal storms or political ones.

Thank you for reading this updated post from the archives. I hope you will use the search bar on the right hand side of the page (or the bottom of the page on mobile) and browse the archives. There are six years of Tarot readings here, more over on “Sage’s Other Words” so chances are you can find something interesting.

The day job is back on a typical schedule so I’m hopeful to have a new “Choose Your Card” Tarot reading for you on Monday.

See you at the next sip!