taoism – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

The Eye of August

I’m looking at the world through yin/yang colored glasses this morning. How are things going for you?

Drew a card for today’s post. It didn’t seem right. Drew again. Ditto.

When that happens, sometimes I’ll just start browsing cards to see if anything sparks an idea.

The first thing I realized is how very over the 1909 RWS deck I am. The pale colors and religiousness of it just don’t get it. Thankfully many more RWS inspired, off-RWS, and Lenormand decks exist, although I have that same pale colored, last-century looking beef with a lot of Lenormand decks too. My first and only Lenormand is Christoper Butler’s Healing Light Lenorman where the art and colors are bullseye right in my intuitive and aesthetic wheelhouse – 10 out of 10, no notes, no interest in any other Lenormand Decks.

But back to feeling uninspired which is really the whole point of this.

The only thing that caught my psychic-eye while browsing cards was the center of the Wheel in the Witches Tarot deck, which is a silver pentacle. I don’t have a graphic at hand to show you, but you can Google it easily enough.

The Wheel card did step forward for attention recently and I think it has more to tell us, but not in its typical Tarot meanings like twist of fate, or constant change, or a reversal of fortunes or what have you. My hunch was to slap on the taijitu glasses and remember the spin on this from Taoist philosophy:

Anything in its extreme holds the seed of its opposite.

When we are feeling uninspired or unmotivated, it’s natural to disengage. I’m not saying let ennui run rampant forever. But it just might be the early signal nature gives us to unplug a little.

In the matrix of nature where humans evolved, late August is a good time for that.

BUT not in a pressured way. HURRY UP and relax is one of the dumbest things humans do. During the first weeks of August I witnessed multiple people in multiple situations being absolutely vile to retail workers because they had to go on vacation the next couple of days. They were so profoundly out of step with the time, the season and what was needed it broke the space for everyone there.

And that is the message here. We need a little back to nature moment today. Nature in the energy sense. Nature in the esoteric sense.

In that naturally, evolutionary matrix – this time of year is the most intense part of the heat here, so we need intense yin to go with it. This is sip tea in the shade for a minute before the whole harvest / preserve for winter intensity kicks in. It’s eye of the hurricane time.

In Taoist influenced martial arts, like Tai Chi, calm is seen as strength, just like the low pressure eye of the storm is the powerhouse engine of a hurricane.

Combine that notion with the Tarot hint from the center of the wheel card. It’s a day to go to center. Go to the hub of the wheel where the motion and change is less than at the rim.

It’s the eye of August. Find your quiet center. That is where you will find the energy for the soon to come time when we will need to power up for fall.

Yeah, I know. Southern hemisphere. Same thing. Sip a hot drink in the doldrums of winter and gear up for spring and frenetic planting instead of frenetic harvesting.

No matter where you are in the world, go to the center. Go to the quiet. Unplug where you are. Start where you stand. Don’t break yourself and everyone around you to go relax.

Be the eye of storm right where you are.

See you at the next sip

Action Eases Anxiety: Move with Charisma

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Snakes aren’t evil.

The Lenormand Tarot reads them as threatening energy and a strong caution not unlike the three of swords.

This isn’t a time for impulsive action – but neither is a time to be frozen by fear.

In China and other Buddhist cultures, Snake is part of their astrology and revered as one of the 12 zodiac animals to heed the Buddha’s call. People born in Snake years are thought to be intellectual, wise, enigmatic and charming. Snake people got the rizz.

What it is (current energy): The Snake. Be Cautious, not frozen. Impulse and emotion should take a back seat to intellect and wisdom this week. This is a good environment to put your best foot forward and show off the best parts of you that are already here. Shift the focus from self development to self-shining. Polish what you have, instead of seeking what you don’t.

What to do: The Stork. Yep….the exact same card we saw last week. Repeats like this warrant our attention. My mind is drawn back to the same mountain top image as last week. We’ve waited, watched, gathered information. I’m pulled straight ahead to the downhill path. An easier road ahead. The side paths along the narrow mountain ridge are less lit, more shadowy. They are flat, but downhill is easier than flat. And in this new image, safer too. I hear “razor’s edge” (in reference to the narrowness of the paths, not the book) Joy can not be maintained and changes the same as sorrows change in time. All emotions come and go like clouds in the sky or leaves floating in a stream. The peak, as beautiful as the view may be, is unsustainable. Move ahead. The elevation changes, but is ultimately a wide, safe, sustainable way forward.

We are at the point where cautious watching could easily become frozen in fear. Cold, frozen, decay. Standing where we are is fraught with new challenges, new dangers. Standing still is no longer a healthy option in this image. The golden sunset light from last week has faded into an icy, snowy night. Moving forward again is where the warmth and light leads us.

I hear “follow the stork” and remember the “follow the white rabbit” scene from the movie The Matrix. Intuition isn’t entirely without value. Trust your inner guidance, trust what you know.

Snake and crane together are a symbol of the practice and art of Tai Chi. We often think of the yang side (crane) of things as being powerful, but Tai Chi and Taoism teach us that yin is powerful too and both in balance is best.

Climbing and mountains are yang, and need yang-style power. Downhill paths and valleys are yin energy, a power all of their own. Think of a magnet. Instead of going out hunting and capturing what is needed, yin draws what is needed in, like a magnet.

Negotiating a downhill path requires balance now just as much as climbing the mountain did not that long ago.

Snakes have a magnetic personality, cranes and storks have big powerful breaks and wings. Both together are balance in motion. Here is where searching the two of pentacles in the archives might come in handy.

The ultimate point of the reading is to not let the anxiety you feel stop you. Don’t be frozen by fear. Remember your charm. Make literal charms and talismans if it helps. Move forward. Let the new cycle begin.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. When it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path where the fear has gone and there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert, Dune

Two Way Doorway

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A doorway works perfectly fine in both directions.

Never mind the dedicated pressure triggered in and out doors at the supermarket, I’m talking about your ordinary door.

Threshold, portal, liminal space – its all the same basic idea here.

The collective energies have been niggling at us through the eight of cups for a while now, and it isn’t done with us yet. The energy hinted at turning a corner with it as we talked about the other day in the Standing in the Shimmer post and the brilliant @spiralseatarot on threads once again wrote the eight of cups and about holding space for good things to fill the gap where we have let go of the things that no longer serve us.

Inspired by the gap in the cups that she pointed out, I intuitively heard “portal in time.” Time is something worth exploring in connection with the eight of cups.

The card at its core is about letting go of something while at the same time walking toward something better. It looks back and ahead simultaneously from the portal, the gap in the cups, this bubble we forever live in, this present moment.

Setting mindfulness and the present moment aside for another time, let’s think of the two directions we can cast our attention with this card.

With the classic Pamela Smith artwork, we can’t see what the figure is walking toward. The future is literally out of view. The crescent and round face in the clear, cloudless sky very likely was mean to communicate moon energy, but the crescent and round shapes seem a bit of a moon and sun combination – yin and yang together. That with the clear, cloudless sky both hint at infinite potential held in that out-of-view future.

The Tao Te Ching tells us that one becomes two (the unified oneness of everything can be understood in harmony of opposites, yin and yang) and the two becomes three (I see it as an echo of biological reproduction) The three becomes five (the five classic elements) which in turn comprise the totality of the physical world to this system of thought.

Long story short, the future hold a LOT of potential with this card.

The portal to the future, the gap in the cups, the space Spiralsea advises us to hold is where we draw from that infinite potential. The gap/portal/space is this right-now moment where we make the decisions and take the real world actions that influence the way things go from here. The figure on the card is taking a step. It’s not the cliff dive we see on the Fool card. This has a deliberate quality. This is a decided first step in a new direction.

It takes courage to step in to a new and unknown direction.

It takes courage to deal with the past.

If the background of this image hints at an unknowable but potential laden future, and space in the cups is our portal to time and the sacred liminal space in which we hold our hopes and intentions for the future, then the foreground deals with the past. The ground is beige and barren, with the rest of the card filled with blue, sky and water. The cups rest solidly on the bottom edge of the card.

On one hand this card is about walking away from a bad situation, expunging something harmful or dismissing something from the past that is of no more value. You’ve heard me quote it dozens of times, this again reminds me of that quote from the movie The Last Jedi where Kylo Ren says something akin to “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. It’s the only way to become who you were meant to be.”

A change that profound should never be made rashly.

The past may be barren, lifeless ground, but it is ground just the same. It is solid. It exists. It happened, it ain’t changing, the memories are yours forever.

When you walk away from the past, you can’t change what happened but you have absolute control over how the past affects you. In the gap in the cups, in this present moment space we hold, we choose how much of the past we allow through to the present. When we let go of the past, the past events still exist unchanged, but the effect it has on us is transformed.

We aren’t letting go of the literal events of the past, we are releasing the mental and emotional hold those event have on our present moment – and in turn their hold on the future.

The doorway in time we see symbolized here goes two ways. It is a present moment liminal threshold where we can both plant seeds for the future AND stop the past from contaminating those seeds. We can let go of the past’s hold on us at the same time we can choose a new direction.

Please feel free to explore the archives. Type eight of cups or 8 of cups in the search bar on the right side of the page (laptop view) to see more thoughts about this card from old posts.

See you at the next sip!

A Beginning

Heart of Stars Tarot by Thom Pham, used with permission

If the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging its existence, then perhaps the beginning of wisdom is acknowledging it exists within you already.

Wisdom doesn’t come by striving. It comes by living what you already know while remaining willing to learn some more.

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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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Weekend Oracle: It’s Different

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May is National Meditation Month. I’m going back to where my blogging began with one card daily meditation readings all month long.

Today’s card is “The Patient” from Seven Dane Asmund’s Alleyway Oracle of Secrets, created by artist “a paranoid zombie” used used here with permissions from Publishing Goblin LLC

Right away the keywords that light up are about “the acceptance of things as they really are, not the version we wished them to be.”

This is a life lesson that comes to us both from Tarot and Taoism. Think of the classic Chinese painting The Three Vinegar Tasters which has been a lifelong philosophical touchstone for me

Very loosely, the figures represent the three major philosophies of ancient China. Confucius finds the vinegar bitter, and his solution is to teach the vinegar makers better knowledge and technique. Buddha finds the vinegar too sour, and his solution is to learn to deal with the unacceptable flavor. Lau Tzu, the mythical writer of the Tao Te Ching just smiles – because the vinegar tastes just exactly like vinegar.

It is what it is and that is exactly as it should be.

That is acceptance. But critically – acceptance is very different than acquiescence.

Just because you acknowledge and accept the harsh reality of a situation does NOT mean that you’ve given in to it. It doesn’t mean that it is impossible to change or to move forward into a new set of conditions.

The first step in solving a problem is accepting that it exists. The next step is to understand – and accept – what the problem really is. Then you can get to solving the problem and fixing things.

Acceptance is a first step, not the end result.

To take a journey of a thousand miles, the first step has to happen.

For the first step to happen, accepting the existence of the journey is required.

May your journey be a happy one this weekend.

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The Squirrel Rave This Week (30 March 25)

Hi everyone!

I don’t know what the squirrels have planned, but here is what I’m aiming for this week:

I’ve been putting off making an “introduction” video for my ko-fi page for ages. If all goes as planned, instead of the usual “choose your card” for the week ahead, I’d like to video and upload an intro video welcome message for the ko-fi page that ALSO introduces the new layout.

Inspired by the Taijitu (the name of the famous yin-yang symbol) I wrote the “TaoCraft Taijitu” layout to show three key things for the short term path ahead.

The first card is the Yin card, that symbolizes the energies that are growing in influence or are being drawn into your life. The manifesting / attracting energy is like the black part of the symbol. The growing influence part is like the white dot in the black side of the symbol.

The second card is the Yang card, showing the energies that are or need to be pushed away. That is outward pushing is like the white part of the symbol. The shrinking influence of this energy is like the black dot in the middle of the white field.

The third card puts it all together to show the movement. This card can show the best way to move forward in balance and harmony during the short-term path ahead.

Stay tuned this week to see a video of this new layout in action.

If all goes very well, I hope to post a Wednesday “action decreases anxiety” reading plus a Thursday or Friday “Weekend Oracle” if the squirrels behave.

Happy Sunday – see you at the next sip!

The Way of I Ching

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Sometimes when I write members-only posts we’ll talk about other forms of intuition and divination. Sometimes it will be something aimed at fun, with no spiritual meaning at all. In this series of member-only posts we are talking about the I Ching or book of changes as a spiritual guide, like Tarot.

Although “Sage Sips” is the more public facing blog name, under the hood the website and such is still TaoCraft Tarot, a name inspired by exoteric Taoist philosophy. Exoteric or philosophical Taoism is just that, a way of living and understanding, not a religion per se. Esoteric Taoism is closer to what we in the west think of as religion and it is often a closed cultural practice. If you would like to learn more about that part of Taoism and many other wonderful things, I highly recommend The Tao of Craft by Benebell Wen.

And no, I didn’t borrow from her title. It was one of those things where I’d been climbing the mountain and when I got to the Taoism meets spiritual ritual part, there was Benebel waiting – we took very different paths to kind of the same words.

Diane Morgan was there ahead of both of us with her book Magical Tarot Mystical Tao, which has been one of the biggest inspirations and influences for my own Tarot work over the years. But I digress, but still whole-heartedly recommend both books.

Openness and inclusion are so fundamental to the exoteric, philosophical type of Taoism that any book written about it is basically accepted as canon...

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Happy New Year 2025

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

I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee and a slice of leftover pizza (the breakfast of champions) wishing I had some earth shaking Tarot insight, brilliant read or the year ahead, or at least some good advice to offer.

After the traditional playing of U2’s “New Years Day” I have to admit Bono is right in the lyrics “nothing changes on New Year’s Day”.

You know what is same-est thing about New Years Day? It is the way everything changes on New Years Day – and every other day too.

Shift your inner perception, and the whole universe can look just a tiny bit different.

That being said, I still don’t have any particular wisdom to offer about 2025. I don’t have anything to say about today, except to let it be what it is, whatever it is. If it is exactly like yesterday, that’s OK. If it is a profound new beginning, wonderful! If it sucks in uncountable ways, I’m sorry. I feel you. We just have to hold on to the notion that it will suck a little less eventually. It’s New Years Day, and like any other day, it is whatever it is: joyous, tragic, or kinda average.

One of the things I like about Taoist philosophy is the way it embraces seemingly opposite things as part of a bigger wholeness. Today may be a brand new beginning. Today might be the pit of despair. Today might be a massive hangover. Whatever it is, it is part of the biggest big picture. Whatever it is you are not alone. Whatever today may be, old days are still with us and tomorrow brings another new day. Yet still, today is all we have. Might as well be at peace with it.

Whatever this new year may actually turn out to be, my hope and my wish for all of us is for a time of health, happiness, safety and ease.

Happy New Year, everyone!

If a Tarot reading would help you find your way through New Years Day and all of the other days, I’m here. Distance readings are my specialty, so they are open and available to order all of the time.

Most orders are delivered to your email within 24 hours. I’m not a big business, a scam or a media maven, so I don’t have ‘a team’ It’s just me, my laptop, my cards and my intuition. Sometimes there might be delays depending on the day job, holidays with family, needing to sleep and whatnot.

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Get the most from your holidays – or not.

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I doomscroll way too much.

Still, it’s amusing how you can read social media a bit like you read the cards to get a sense of the big picture, zeitgeist, collective energies. To do that you have to keep a meta-analytic mindset and look to the biggest big picture you can intuitively see. To read this level of energy, you have to look at the big picture.

Today’s big picture Zeitgeist is – the big picture. Perhaps perspective would be a better word. I wish I could give credit where credit is very much due, but as always, I can’t find the post I want to tell you about now that I’ve scrolled away from it.

I can’t even remember which platform it was on. Probably BlueSky or Threads (I’m @Sage.Sips on both) In any case the original post that caught my attention was from a small business owner who is stressing over the holiday rush and was told by her friend “It’s a craft show. In CLEVELAND” not to belittle this person’s efforts, but to in that oh-so-bestie way remind her that it wasn’t so earth-shaking when you keep it in the big picture perspective.

German has given the world some very fun and useful words. Zeitgeist is one. Shadenfreude is a personal favorite. Another is gestalt, the whole seen as the sum of its parts and occasionally more.

Mindfulness is like that.

Mindfulness is not just a supreme focus on the present moment or small detail of our current experience alone. It is awareness of the present moment AND the backdrop of the connected everything in which our current present moment experience is happening. Mindfulness and gestalt are connected. Small and large, this moment and eternity, yin and yang…now you know why I named my website and potential book “TaoCraft” in honor of the Taoist philosophies that have so enriched both gestalt and present moment for me over the years.

In her book Magical Tarot Mystical Tao, Diane Morgan reads the World major arcana card as being the gestalt, or a big picture point of view. That has always been my favorite interpretation of the card, even though as a practical matter that isn’t the meaning the World card most often brings. Most of the time it resonates with completion (World is the last card in the major arcana series) good omens, success, generally a “the world is your oyster” feeling. Major arcana cards carry more energy, and to my way of thinking, they all carry two or more potential threads of message. They can mean different things, and can bring one or more of those varying meanings to any given reading.

Every now and then, the World card carries its reminder to look to the gestalt, to remember the biggest picture. That is its energy today.

I want to connect that to the holidays. Usually this time of year is full “Elfcon 1” as they called it in the Santa Clause movie. For reasons beyond my control, it isn’t like that this year. This year the mood is less festive and more middle age INTP genX fresh out of fucks to give. But I’ve learned something important here. Getting the most out of the holidays isn’t about full throttle festivity, unless that is the thing that sparks full throttle joy for you.

It is just as fine to make the most out of the holidays by not making the most out of the holidays. Small, meaningful and thoughtful things ARE making the most out the holidays.

Mindfulness aware of and within the big picture is an excellent holiday gift to give yourself.

Happy Thursday. I hope it is a good one for you.

-Sage

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“Seasons” look ahead at the coming year are now available. Happy Winter Solstice everyone!

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