Private Readings by email / recorded video are OPEN, no appointment needed.
Three of Swords: The first step in healing a broken heart is acknowledging it exists. It’s ok not to be ok. You don’t have to be ok. You only need to be. Moment by moment, day by day it slowly gets better. Dharma Drum Mountain gives the best advice I’ve ever seen for dealing with heartache and problems.
Face it
Accept it (accept it is real, not that it is right – more on that later)
Deal with it
Let it go
Nine of Pentacles: It’s a good place. It’s a good day. It’s OK to be OK. You don’t have to be broken. You don’t have to be overjoyed. You might be (or be on the road to being) one of the lucky ones. At the same time, you don’t have to be anyone else’s savior either. You only need to be. The good things around you will take care of the rest.
The Wheel of Fortune: Up or down, we are all riding the same wheel. As the wheel of life turns, your direction up or down depends on which way you look. Shift your perspective and you are suddenly moving toward instead of away from and vice versa.
Even with your choice, this is still a collective energy reading. You get to choose which card was for you, but the card’s message was still drawn from the larger, Zeitgeist, collective energy today.
Choosing to participate at all led you to the three descriptions together. If one of the other interpretations matches you better – that’s OK too!! The process still brought you to a message that resonates with you. That’s what really matters. Keep eyes and ears open and your right message will find you, one way or another.
Want a truly personalized, private, just-for-you reading? Email and recorded video readings are open now – no appointment needed, prices from $5 to $30 total cost, no hidden fees or per minute rates.
Email readings have a picture of your individual real-world card layout. Videos show your cards being drawn. No matter whether I type it or say it – you get the same reading and the same message. It makes no difference to the process if I say it to a mic, type it on a keyboard to tell you live on a phone call. The words are the same regardless of how the words get to you.
Sage Sips is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee
Tarot readers are good listeners.
We listen to our clients so we can focus on their energy and their message. (That’s why I always ask you to restate your name and question, topic, or request for each reading, even if you are a Sage Sips members and getting one of your free readings. Reading that is how I connect to your energy message.)
Then we listen to intuition / energy / spirit to tell you what we see/hear/feel
Listening to spirit can be a little fuzzy and a learned skill, but listening to clients is basic. It’s the foundation that the best readings are built on. Listening to YOU is when explicit, plain-language conversation is needed.
Tarot isn’t about reading minds (nothing does that, really. Stage mentalism can trick you into thinking that it does, “trick you into thinking _____” is the operative phrase there.)
So to make Sage Sips and the collective energy readings better I need the collective, YOU, to use the big-kid words and tell me what you want, like and need from these readings.
Just like we chat or email at the beginning of a private reading to make it the best it can be, polls and questions are a way to converse with the collective and make those readings the best they can be, too.
The comments are always open for your feedback, or contact me through the Ask Me Anything page. I’ll be posting some polls every now and then to make it even easier for you. Here is one:
Sometimes the questions will be focused on improving your blog & reading experience. Sometimes they will be just for funsies. I hope you’ll play along either way.
Thanks! See you at the next sip!
Want a private conversation (reading) instead of taking the collective poll? Order private readings HERE. Prices start at $5. No appointment needed for email/video readings.
Ask Zombie Cat anything (link below) to get a free Tarot reading answer in the blog.
Happy Pride Month! I hope you know by now that this is a lgbtquia2+ safe space.
We are past the “unofficial” Memorial Day start to summer. It’s officially meteorological summer and hurricane season here in the northern hemisphere.
To make it super-duper official, Zombie Cat is shambling.
Zombie Cat yes/no readings throw caution to the wind and answer any questions you want with the caveat that these readings have at least a 50% chance of being dead wrong. So ask me, I mean, Zombie Cat anything – at your own risk of course. Zombie Cat readings are all tongue in what’s left of his cheek entertainment only.
Zombie Cat shambles through the summer until the equinox. For anyone new since last summer, meet Zombie Cat.
“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.”
– Doctor Who in the “Blink” episode written by Steven Moffat.
There are two words that make me cringe a little when I read (or hear) them in a Tarot question: “Will” and “When”.
Predictions and time are knotty subjects in this work.
Predictions are actually a scientific thing. A scientific prediction is in many ways an expert opinion about what should happen based on existing data and past results. For example, we can predict where in the sky Mars will be a year from now based on laws of gravity, planetary motion, existing observations and so on. As I understand it, that is the kind of “prediction” that a law of physics or scientific principle has to be able to make in order for the principle to be considered valid within the scientific method.
Science spends so much time and energy bashing and demeaning “psychic predictions” when they are, in essence, the same as the scientific kind of predictions. The psychic reader is an objective observer, knows human nature, and can see trends that the person getting the reading may not see. A Tarot reader can predict where things are going in a relationship just like a scientist can predict where Mars is headed over the next year. The only real difference is psychic predictions are based on non-linear logic and de facto psychology instead of linear logic and hard data.
And that is looking at it from a very superficial, everyday experience point of view. This is Isaac Newton kind of stuff. It’s like predicting that when an apple detaches from the tree, it will fall down. What if we go a just a little bit quantum about it?
In theory, once the experiment is set up and started, the cat could come out of it alive or not. But why not both if you are into zombies? Or neither one if the cat suddenly ceased to exist? Disappearing / Zombie Cat could happen…it’s just extreme magnitudes of unlikely as I understand the BBC Horizon Series’ program “Parallel Universes” (hosted by Dr. Michio Kaku, based on his book “Parallel Worlds”)
When the moment of discovery is still in the future, the possibility and attendant probability exists for all outcomes. In the mysterious and undetermined future, all four conditions exist, even our unlikely disappearing / undead pet. Can you predict which way THAT is headed using nothing but your brain and handful of Tarot cards? If you “predict” the more likely dead vs alive construct, is that psychic or science? If you predict Zombie Cat, is that quackery or was the intuitive vision simply dialed into a different part of a far flung multiverse?
Zombie Cat may well exist out there. We don’t know because multiverses, as the video says, is unproven. No-cat and Zombie Cat might be out there, but they just don’t make the jump from possible to probable to IS, at least not in this world. All potentials exists until “the wave collapses” and the moment becomes NOW instead of future, and then slips instantly into the past. Now and Past are fully collapsed probability waves. They exist – ska-doosh! – done deal, nothing to predict. The future on the other hand, that’s a different animal still.
Now, just to make things really interesting, let’s introduce Zombie Cat to Alice the Vampire.
In the movie Twilight, the psychic vampire Alice could see the future insofar as people have decided what they want to do. If someone changes their mind or changes their action, then her vision changes. She can predict but with uncertainty. Her predictions are predicated on the course people are on, not any one fixed outcome. Alice the vampire’s visions and Zombie Cat’s existence are a matter of probability, not “accurate prediction.” And so it is with Tarot and psychic readings.
Let’s say our cat has human-like intelligence and has a choice rather than being a victim of circumstance as in the classic thought experiment. Using the Einstein gunpowder version of things, what if there was some choice the cat could make or some action it could take that would keep the gunpowder from exploding? What if it could disconnect the fuse? Now how do you make predictions under that set of conditions?
Imagine your psychic vision was of a dead cat? (a 50% probable outcome in the original experiment.) What if the cat heard you make that “psychic prediction” and blew out the fuse when it otherwise wouldn’t have? Was the prediction wrong?
Will you get that job? I dunno. Did you apply for it? Update your resume? Schedule an interview? Check the classifieds for other options? (What has the cat done to keep the powder from exploding) Has the person doing the hiring made any decisions or taken any actions? (collapsed the probability wave)
A reading can’t predict a specific outcome, but it can give you advice and it can help you make decisions that nudge the probabilities of getting the job in your favor such as be flexible (4 of swords), emphasize your skills and experience (The Emperor) or show you’d be a hard working team player (3 of coins). A good advice reading is like the psychic yelling at the cat in the thought experiment bunker to blow out the fuse to improve the chances that it won’t blow up.
When will you get married? I dunno. The future is just as wibbly-wobbly as the Doctor told us. But Tarot can give you ideas about how to bring love and happiness of all sorts of things into your life. Intuition can help you make the best possible choices along the way, not predict what lies at the end of the road.
If you do nothing, take no advice, make no choices, then it is all just a coin toss. You might get anything from an explosion right up to a Zombie Cat. But who knows? Meeting a friendly Tarot reading Zombie Cat might be a lot of fun.
Seriously…meet Zombie Cat at 2015 prices…get your own private three card reading by email HERE ($15) or Ask Zombie Cat ANYTHING and get a FREE ZOMBIE CAT Tarot answer in the blog.
Videos by Minute Physics, via youtube.com creative commons permissions Please watch! I highly recommend them!
Zombie Cat Yes/No readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
It’s almost that time of year.
Life and the squirrel rave have finally forced me to get a little organized and simplify for 2024
Short and sweet: I have THREE layouts and THREE prices all of the time
Modern Oracle (5 cards, $30)
Eclipse (3 cards, $15)
Sage’s Sip (1 card, $5)
BUT I have lots of other layouts that are only available seasonally by email only.
June 1, 2024 is the start of ZOMBIE CAT’S SUMMER SHAMBLE
June 1 to September 1 Zombie Cat Yes/No readings are $10 for members, $15 for non-members. This layout gives a yes or no answer to ANY question (see disclaimer) plus insights based on the three cards we use to get your yes/no answer. What follows is an actual reading, used with permission, but lightly edited to protect privacy. More about yes/no readings coming soon.
Witches Tarot by Ellen Dugan and Mark Evans copyright 2012 used with permission Llwellynpublishing.com
Q: I’ve been going through a lot lately. Things are changing fast and I’ve been learning so many things the hard way. Are things ever going to calm down?
A: Maybe but leaning yes.
My hunch is that it is actually more yes than maybe, but with the downside that it won’t kick in for a few more months yet. In my minds eye I see the dogs howling at the moon that you see on some many Moon cards. For some reason that says “dog days of summer” to me. Maybe this is pure projection on my part, because this time of year with the sun, heat and humidity makes my fur more gnarly than usual. It feels like the current energy pattern is going to hang around at least as long as the hot weather. “Things will turn with the weather, bluer skies and sweaters.” Knowing where you are, I’m remembering painting outside on a 80 degree November not so long ago. I’m thinking don’t hold your breath for any real relief until a serious, growing season ending, killing frost. Sort of a big harvest moon, October–December vibe. That would go along with the 4 of Wands, which is about foundations, and community celebrations.
The 4 of Wands also speaks to the new place to live. Yes, it will become foundational, in time. I ‘hear’ “make a house a home” plus something about grounding or earth…this is gonna sound more nuts than usual. I don’t know what the issues are around the new address, but it feels like the energy there needs both cleared and grounded, swept of a lingering funk that pre-dates you and rooted and grounded … settled if you will… on an energy level to make a way for more literal grounding and calming to manifest. This is weird, purely intuitive, and has no basis in science or tradition that I know of on a conscious level. I get the image of sprinkling a 50/50 mixture of salt and diatomacious earth….literally just by pinches at a time…along the baseboards, along the perimeter walls of the house. Don’t worry about inner walls, or specific rooms, just the walls that join the outside. No need to make a big mess, just a ceremonial line using little pinches and clear intention. Sage and smuding are too airy and ethereal. This calls for a tangible bam of something.
The Ace of Swords is associated with air. This feels a little more cautioning than reassuring / advising like the 4 of wands was. Swords and air have to do with intellect. Don’t overthink during this upcoming season, now through the end of the year in any case. This also would go along with the literal grounding / clearing house thing, as being needed to balance the airy creative energy.
The Ace of Swords also reminds me of something you said when we were talking about which deck you’d like to use for this. You were talking about being more “ethereal….like a good spiritual student” with the other deck, but went with this one because it was “bubbling up inside.” I warrant that listening to the stuff that bubbles up inside IS what it means to be a good spiritual student. It is easy to equate spirituality with ethereal, good with serene and so on. This card, this part of the yes/no reminds me of what we were saying yesterday, if it seems like life is beating on you…it is. And that is ok. It first of all is probably because Life knows you are badass enough to deal with it, and second of all, chaos and pains in the ass are just as spiritual as rainbows and unicorns. Remember that article you sent, and that Alan Watts quote? “You are a function of what the whole universe is doing just like a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
In other words, don’t sweat it, you GOT this. The ocean of life, love and spirituality touch the great white shark the same as the angelfish. Rest will come in its time. Meanwhile, enjoy the swim. You wouldn’t be in the deep end if you couldn’t handle it. This is a chance to discover your inner orca, have a glass of wine, watch Shark Week on TV….that kind of thing. Recharge? Sure. You eat stress for breakfast. You got this.
The Ace of Wands continues in that vein with a more inward turn. Knowing that spirituality takes all forms, so does self-care. Like the human has said before about this card….carry a torch for yourself. Accept your passions and desires, strengths and weakness for what they are…both your increadable resiliancy and your sincere desire for a day off. Need a break? Take it! With gusto and passion! Tell it all to leave a message, and take a spa day. Which I guess takes us back to wine and shark week, but you get the idea. Let your passions shine, even if it is a passion for kicking things to the curb and carving out the peace and quiet you want. Want peace and quiet with burning passion! Or something like that.
So YES things will settle, but that process can be helped along. You have been answered “the hard way” because you can handle it. Rest hasn’t come yet because you still have a bit more to do. It may not feel like it, but you can keep on keeping on. Plus maybe this is a time to explore the gritty, gnarly, not–so-ethereal side of spirituality. Don’t ask me why, but Sam Elliot style movie characters come to mind…the grizzled antihero, Deadpool kind of thing. Not saying that you are that way, just that might be a good mental cosplay, a way to find a way to have a little fun with the chaos until the rest really does come, which it will, but later. Kind of like when the human let’s me come out and play and unleash a little Zombie snark on the world. It’s all just in good fun to get you through until that change in the literal and energetic weather.
Braaaiiiiinns!
Zombie Cat
Entertainment only. Zombies don’t exist and these readings don’t predict anything. Use with caution – the ideas here might change your perspective and improve your life choices.
Private Tarot by email is always open for orders, no appointment needed.
In Magical Tarot, Mystical Tao, Diane Morgan interprets the moon card as our “spiritual journey.” The moon means so much in so many parts of our humanity; art, literature, lore, mythology, science, environment. It seems to be one of the most revered and mystical cards among 78 revered and mystical Tarot cards.
Arguably, our spiritual journey is simply the journey of being alive. If we are spiritual beings having a human experience, whatever path we choose we are doing our spiritual journey right. Light incense, dance, pray, meditate, go on long runs or peel potatoes; everything is connected and it is all sacred. Feel it or not, it is all still our right spiritual journey because we not only learn, but we experience the pain and the pleasure of it all.
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.
Don’t vibe with your collective energy card? Private distance readings are open. No appointment needed for email or paper.
PAGE OF WANDS: “Know thyself” Act natural. Do you, and the path of least resistance will nudge you in the right direction.
That isn’t to say we should melt and fade at the first sign of a challenge. There is a lot to be said for persistence. At the same time, insanity is defined as doing the same thing persistently while expecting a different result. Sometimes roadblocks are there for a reason.
As a general rule, walking in harmony with the real you is the best way to go
THREE OF WANDS: Make plans, but keep your eyes open for unexpected opportunities. Good things come to those who wait.
Another way to say it is don’t sleepwalk through this thing on your mine (today, tomorrow, the upcoming week, a relationship, a career – whatever you had on your mind when you picked your card) Observe deeply. Little details might be the bright light bulb you need to light the way.
FIVE OF WANDS: Life is never all rainbows and roses. Train. Know what to do when the inevitable bad day happens for things to be ok in the end. Charge your batteries before the storm.
A paramedic instructor once said “prepare for the emergency and the emergency goes away.” When you are ready for life’s little stresses, the stress can go away even if the situation doesn’t fundamentally change.
Thanks for watching the video and coming to the blog for a few extra thoughts.
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.
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.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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