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THE SNAKE: Stay quiet and camouflaged, use logic and observation to learn who you can trust – or not.
THE DOG: Someone trustworthy is near. Find them, and be as good of a friend to them as they are to you. The sum will be greater than the parts for all concerned.
If your individual intuition is the engine that drives a Tarot reading, symbolism is the steering wheel.
Like a car in Pennsylvania during pothole season, it’s very easy for that steering to get out of alignment. Symbolism is very influenced by culture and time and has to be kept in context. It has to be in alignment with the reader and the sitter and the intuitive vibe of the reading.
Take the color black, for example.
For some, black is seen as aligned with “evil.” In western traditions black has been associated with death, funerals and mourning, but also with evening elegance and fashion, men’s tuxedos for example.
In Japan, novice monks and many lay people wear black as a symbol of their dedication to practice and as a symbol of community.
The symbolism for snakes is just as varied. Sometimes they are seen as symbolizing lies or deception as in the Christian garden of Eden myth or someone being a “snake in the grass” in an old western movie.
In Chinese cultures, snakes are associated with wisdom, intelligence, charm and grace. In many places they are connected to personal growth and transformation through their ability to shed their old skin as they grow.
Dogs on the other hand, are all just good bois and gurls. How an individual person treat dogs and other small animal is the tell here more than any broad cultural reference. If a dog likes you, you must be OK. If you like dogs, there must be some kindness in your heart. Dogs symbolize great loyalty and deep friendship almost everywhere. Only after they have been through horrors do they devolve into aggression and threat.
If you chose the snake card, beware deception – use observation, cleverness and intellect to understand who to trust. Take inspiration for the snake to adapt and transform yourself.
If you chose the dog card, know others by their proven trustworthiness and kindness. Be a friend, find a friend, hold on to your friends.
Deck: Healing Light Lenormand by Christopher Butler, copyright 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.
Learning Tarot is a process, and part of that process is repetition.
Last time we looked at Lenormand cards, we started to explore two card combinations, which seem to be a big part of the Lenormand style of Tarot reading. Often when particular combinations of cards are seen, the meanings for the cards change a bit, not unlike a reversal in RWS style cards and readings.
The best way to understand that connection seems to be two card sets. It makes sense to understand the foundation, the building blocks of a larger layout before using a larger layout. In RWS style, that foundational building block is the single card reading, which plugs into the individual positions of any layout which is then woven together in a meta-analytical, intuition driven way. I’m still learning Lenormand along with you, but it seems to me that building block isn’t single cards, but the underlying connections between 2 or 3 cards, like a flat mat with dots (single card meanings) stuck on top.
To put it in arts and crafts terms, RWS is knitting while Lenormand is paper-making with speckles on top.
Today we have snake and fish.
So starting with that foundational fabric, what is the common energy matrix behind the Flow and suppleness are common traits between the two.
The fish are associated with prosperity. The snake in the guidebook is associated with typical western cultural meanings like deceit and deviousness. Intuitively, however, I am reminded of Chinese astrology. People born in the year of the snake are said to be competent, wise, intuitive and passionate. When I put all of those aspects together the two-together message is to protect your resources through wisdom and know-how (akin to a four of pentacles combined with an ace of swords sort of vibe)
I’m not sure if or how the playing card insets factor into it. Queen of clubs with the snake is akin to the queen of wands – which reinforces the idea of self-care, in the form of caring for physical resources. The king of diamonds is like the king of pentacles, reinforcing the notion that this is about common sense, physical realm money management more than some sort of grand spiritual lesson.
Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes, as these cards seem to stay, you just have to mind the budget, even at the holidays. The energy here is all about practical, level headed things, unrelated to spirituality or emotion. Once we make the physical stable and safe, then we can turn our minds and hearts to the spiritual, emotional and intangible.
Between now and New Year I don’t intend to hold to any particular schedule other than doing email private readings as they come in.
Usually I try to do the Learn With Me on Wednesdays and the Substack newsletter as a weekly digest on the weekend, with one card posts as often as I can manage on weekdays.
I’m still of two minds about the “path through the week” thing on Mondays.
What do you think? What kind of readings or posts would you like to see in the blog? For goodness’ sake don’t be shy. As long as it isn’t spam, by all means post your questions or suggestions in the comments. Contact info is in the right hand column (or bottom of the page on mobile) too.
I’m planning to do a bunch of re-introductory and behind the scenes posts over the next few weeks sliding in and around day job, private readings and the holidays.
Let’s take a closer look at another card from my new Lenormand Tarot deck.
The more I work with this deck, the more it feels like a real-talk oracle card, really a thing of its own. Not a toxic positive overly optimistic oracle deck that sees the world through rose colored glasses, certainly, but not the depth and complexity that the 78 RWS or the 130+ card Alleyman’s Tarot. A bigger deck with smaller layouts seems to be the sweet spot for my intuition.
See, we learned something right there.
Finding – and frequently using – your intuitive comfort zone is not only OK but it is a good idea to better readings for yourself in the end. BUT at the same time learning, growing, and expanding that comfort zone is equally important. How else are you going to know what your optimum intuition conditions ARE?
That little bit of meta-analysis aside, let’s look at today’s card, the Snake.
All of the animal related ideas from the Bear last week still apply, just swap out the bear characteristics for snake characteristics.
Which I may not be super objective about.
I was born in the year of the wood snake – the green snake. After I learned about Taoism, feng shui, I ching and the like, I’ve always resonated with my chinese astrology symbol just as much if not more than my western Pisces sun sign. Although I don’t know anything about sidereal vs tropical astrology, all I know is that I’m Pisces in both, which in itself is supposed to mean something in itself, I think. I’ll leave that to the astrology adepts of you to figure out. But back to Snake.
The Christopher Butler guidebook to this Healing Light Lenormand deck reads the Snake as someone deceptive with malicious intent (Hey!)
Like owls, snakes are feared in some cultures, revered in others. Makes sense, because in the real world the old nope rope may be either harmless or lethal and you have to know something about them to be able to tell which is which. That’s not the snake being deceptive. It’s up to you to know “Red touches black, no worries for Jack. Red touches yellow, dangerous fellow.” and so on.
Knowledge arms you against deception, both literally and figuratively. But that’s another story.
Chinese astrology, the restaurant place mat edition, reflects the real world duality. Snake year people can be stubborn, opinionated, intimidating with a heaping helping of hubris to go with it. But at the same time they are viewed as intelligent, wise, creative and intuitive.
Or, as the Sirius Black character says in one of the Harry Potter books “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
Part of enlarging our comfort zone, part of learning new things is associating them with things we know well. Just like with the oracle dice from the last “Learn With Me” series I associate this with a few RWS Tarot cards, the Devil and the Three of Swords. Both acknowledge the malevolent side of human nature, cautions us to be on guard as well as asking us to be honest with ourselves about our deepest motives. Are we being deceptive, or are we being deceived.
As for the playing card inset, the queen of clubs, in my system of reading playing cards (I intend to write about that in an upcoming book) the Queen of Clubs is analogous to the Queen of Wands with a message of nurturing and self-care. Watching your back and taking care for your safety is, indeed, self-care.is
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.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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