For September and October, I’ve decided to indulge in one of my favorite Tarot decks, The Alleyman’s Tarot and explore one of my newest ones, The Normal Tarot, both by Seven Dane Asmund of Publishing Goblin LLC who kindly gave permission to use his decks here in the blog.
My unboxing and earlier posts have all of the requisite fangirling about the Alleyman’s deck, which after a few years of using it is STILL a masterpiece. This deck (including the premise and lore built around it with the podcast and more is like a Stradivarius in the hands of master violinist. I know that sounds like a brag, and it is. I’m that good, and it is too.
When the chance came to 7DA’s first (I believe) deck, I didn’t hesitate, largely because the guidebook cover was love at first sight – a line drawing of a skeleton, cards and the title How To Normal Tarot: Staring into the Seething, Unknowable Chaos of the Universe for Fun and Profit.
That pretty much sums up Tarot work. Some folks really, REALLY don’t like the unknowable part. They want pat, canned platitudes and answers that they WANT to hear (not the guidance they NEED to hear.) Predictions are 1. impossible and 2. baby food for unready souls.
I’m not here for that. If you want “accurate predictions” you need to go find another psychic.
I’m here to give you a hearty soul-meal and some navigation tips for the seething unknowable chaos.
If you are ready for that ride, if you want to experience the wisdom that Tarot really offers, come along.
In September and October, I’ll be using the Alleyman’s Tarot deck for the Week Ahead choose your card readings and the Normal Tarot deck for our Weekend Oracle posts, simply because the deck isn’t a RWS clone. For the members only posts over on ko-fi I’ll post some longer-layout readings following (or inspired by) the layouts in the guidebook.
So fill up your metaphorical coffee (wine/tea/whatever) cup and come sip and stare into the chaos with me.
See you at the next sip
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Card: Death from L’oracle Des Dames as seen in the Alleyman’s Tarot deck
Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee
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New loot* from publishinggoblin.com and Seven Dane Asmund’s recent Kickstarters. With its consistent, stellar quality I recommend Seven Dane Asmund’s work. The story and lore he’s woven around the Alleyman / Alleyway card decks is almost burgeoning mythology. I’m looking forward to working with this new deck, just like the Alleyman’s Tarot has been a delight from the moment it arrived. It really is a masterful deck. It is the Stradivarius of Tarot decks. I suspect this is the equivalent in Oracle decks, or at least one of the best.
I suspect one of the things that raises it a notch above others is the way it lifts up and promotes the collective of artist who contribute to the deck. I see you, Seven. Bringing all of this together and giving the artists all due recognition, the storytelling of the Alleyman lore and podcast, the quality of the physical products…all of it together is genius. Respect.
Intuitively I feel pulled to do this a little differently. Instead of a methodical “learn with me” series like we did with the Publishing Goblin’s Oracle Dice. Let’s just jump in with both feet and USE this thing for daily meditation readings. I began reading cards with an Oracle deck (Medicine Cards by David Carson and Jamie Sams) There was nothing methodical there – just a Fool-like step off the cliff while still tethered to the guidebook. A sort of psychic bungee jump, it wasn’t until after I switched to the classic RWS that I began to really understand how card symbolism and pure intuition worked together. It might be fun to take the jump in and have at it approach but bring that hard-won understanding and years of experience along for the ride.
I hope you’ll join me. We’ll explore the deck together, but without a plan. You never know when or where you’ll meet the Alleyman.
*Not shown the other two death card enamel pins. They are already gifted to my son the scare actor. So proud. (shout out to Hundred Acres Manor – check them out if you are around Bethel Park PA this fall!)
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
There is something to be said for comfort zones.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.
It’s been a deeply weird couple of weeks. The hiatus I had hoped to take this week is pushed back until probably mid-September, because of life and stuff. We are back to the usual pattern for a little while, and we are back to the Alleyman’s Tarot. I know I keep saying this, but this card, “The Alley” by deck creator Seven Dane Asmund, truly is my favorite right now. This may be my cue to set aside the deck for daily short sip posts and write a proper, deep-dive review. I wanted to live with the deck and use it and post with it for a while before writing about it to any extent. This is something special, and deserves more than the usual hot take unboxing first look review. I could rant a paragraph about the visual of this card, all night and neon and cyberpunk and Neuromancer. Good book,that. I highly recommend it.
This card in particular landed right in my personal wheelhouse. I hope it speaks to you, too, but it is saying a lot to me. I hope you forgive this little bit of personal indulgence and a post that pays no attention to the outward, zeitgeist energy landscape.
Landscape is a good word here. The Alley card is important to the lore and backstory of the deck. The Alley is where the Alleyman lives out his life’s calling, where he finds his raison d’etre, so wrapped in his comfort zone that it becomes an extension of self more than mere solace. It speaks of our native landscape. By native I mean our most natural, most authentic environment, not necessarily the one of our biological birth.
I’m enjoying that music is available to put on YouTube shorts, TikTok videos and Instagram Reels. For once you get to “hear” what I intuitively heard with this card.
When I say the word “hear” in the context of a Tarot reading, I mean clairaudience. You’ve heard the word clairvoyant, right? That means clear seeing, and it talks about intuitive mental images. Clairaudience is “clear hearing” and it the word for when intuition comes as sounds, music or words instead of mental images. It uses auditory imagination to the same purpose as visual imagination in a reading. It is like ear worming a favorite song, except that it isn’t your song. It is meant for your client or as something you’ve both heard before to help you find a mutual point of reference as you talk through the Tarot reading. In this case it is a bit of both. “You Belong to the City” by Glen Frey came through intuitively and it was also one of my favorites back in the day.
It was inspiration to challenge my comfort zone and find my homecoming.
Seven Dane Asmund writes of the card as quote “my community” and “where everything belongs if there is nowhere else to be or go.” End Quote.
Another song came to mind. It is from the same era, “A Sort of Homecoming” by U2. Put all of this together and I think we get the essential message that we each define our home and homecoming. Just like the old adage that home is where the heart is.
It is a card of finding your natural habitat, whatever it may be. I floundered and felt profoundly misfit in the place where I was raised. It was a bath in itching powder. Suburbia was a warm sunset. Even for an introvert, there is life and light and energy to be found. I belong to the city at its edge.
For some, a foray into a city at night is an exciting adventure. For some – like my rural evangelical birth family – it would be intimidating, or even terrifying. More importantly, for many others, it is every night, it is life, it is home.
To state the overly obvious, a lot of people are born in cities. Being at home there would be the norm. The Alley card is outside of that ordinary. It speaks to me of found family and a found home, a liminal space even within a familiar urban environment. It is a place to belong when you’ve walked away from the places where you don’t.
I wonder if the Alley here can also hint at our shadow side, the unclaimed self. If you feel drawn to this card today, what alleyway lurks within? What dark and liminal space within you is calling to you to befriend it. What dark alley is inviting you home? Is your inner alleyway one that others fear but you know to be filled with shelter and neon light and other wandering spiritual orphans just like you? Urban neon may frighten some, but it is homecoming for others.
Seek your unique kind of light, the kind that makes the dark night into your own neon homecoming.
TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today The Alleyman, a Carl Sagan quote, and the Seven of Bells Tarot Card
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft 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 the Alleyman’s Tarot deck and originally from the Floetner deck. The Alleyman’s Tarot is used with the permission of its creator Seven Dane Asmund. To learn more about Seven’s work and what is rapidly becoming my new favorite deck please visit the link below or in the podcast episode description. Yesterday, I posted a short first impression of the deck on the blog. I’ll put a link to that in the podcast description as well.
As an exercise in learning the deck, I’d like to use it for our daily short sip readings. I’ll give you my first impression purely intuitive reading from the card and then I’ll go to the guidebook written meaning and let you decide which resonates more for you on whatever given day you read or listen to this. To take a phrase from the Alleyman Podcast – it will be a collaboration, with the Alleyman’s blessing.
Not to mention that fits my lazy girl M.O. – I won’t have take the time to read the guidebook ahead of these first look. Doing an intuition-only first-look reading like this before reading the guide book page only goes to show how readable this deck and this deck’s concept really is.
When I drew this card, my attention was drawn to the central figure and the similarity between the figure’s texture and the rocks and surrounding ground. It reminded me of the Taoist principle that we are an inseparable part of the larger whole. Carl Sagan said that the Cosmos is “all that is or was or ever will be.”
That. Includes. Us.
Just like the cliche joke about the Dali Lama asing the hotdog salesman in New York to make him one with everything.
We are integral part of our life and circumstances. Because of that deep connection, we can impact it just as it impacts us in that eternal dance of cause and effect.
The notebook talks about this card representing a feeling of being trapped by circumstance and expectations, quote “you have been made into something other people need you to be” end quote. The guidebook agrees that you can shake off this dried-mud entrapment. You can return to feeling more yourself if you quote “find what made you this way and confront it” end quote.
To put it all together, it may be a sudden change or move at a glacial pace, but we can use our deep interconnectedness with the universe and we can use cause and effect to break free of what others expect of us and begin to be true to our expectations of ourselves instead.
Thank you so much for reading, watching and listening. There are companion video shorts on YouTube that show the Short Sip cards being drawn. Neither the videos or the blogcast are monetized so they rely on your support. Purchases on the blog website and monthly memberships through ko-fi all contribute toward creating this (almost) daily Tarot content.
Your likes, subs, shares and follows are always appreciated.
See you at the next sip.
For more information about The Alleyman’s Tarot and Seven Dane Asmund’s other work please visit Publishing Goblin, llc
Photo of my newest Tarot deck, and brief deck review. Rave review that is. It’s a modern day masterpiece for an ancient art.
If I were a violin player, this is like finding a discounted Stradivarius online and getting surprise bonus bows, rosin and music besides. This is a modern day masterpiece for an ancient art.
I felt a kinship on the first page. Years ago, I wrote on my decks as the alleyman claims to do with his in his notebook. Cards are just tools while the process and experience of getting and giving readings is almost a living, breathing, evolving thing.
Add favorite cards from my other decks – or take some out as the guide suggests? Change and collaborate both with an unknown to the creatore – “with the Alleyman’s blessing” – as part of the unspoken collective of Tarot readers and artists? Count me in. This is something special.
I don’t give cards away like the fictional Alleyman because I want – need – to protect and possess my tools, and build a relationship with them. This deck had my attention at first sight. The hood and fingerless gloves is a whole mood. The deck is easily coated with my energy. There is delicious mystique and aesthetic to be co-created here. This deck speaks succinct truths with many mouths. There is art and poetry afoot.
Rubber duckie Fool? There is joy in a good beginning.
There is probably more to say, but unboxing isn’t my jam. A thoughtful review is more up my alley. And this one requires some thinking.
Bravo, Seven Dane Asmund. Bravo.
Learn more about this artists’ work and the Alleyman’s Tarot at PublishingGoblin.com
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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