Sage Sips blog is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee
You can do anything you want.
Sure, there are consequences to our decisions, but you can choose anything if you are willing to deal with the fallout.
Unless you are a physician, health care professional, public safety first responder, military commander or one of some very special people, we typically don’t make irrevocable life and death decisions in our daily life.
Some decisions change us forever. The old version of ourselves is forever changed; Birth, death, marriage and more
The simple passage of time changes everything. Every moment is new. Every moment is forever gone after its brief spark of existence.
And there are some decisions that just don’t matter all that much. Wear one shirt today, wear the other tomorrow. Have whatever for lunch, have the other thing tomorrow. The ability to adapt and change – including changing your mind about things – is an essential skill. Adaptability is a survival skill.
In the big picture of things, the name of a side-business is a trivial thing.
You all know me, my work. I want it to reach new people and thrive. Sage Words just isn’t getting the traction I’d hoped and honestly, I just like the name TaoCraft better.
I made a bad choice, so now I’m rolling it back. Sure, it isn’t the best idea from a marketing or business standpoint, but that isn’t why I do Tarot. I read because I enjoy it, I’m good at it, it’s fun to do something you’re good at doing. If Tarot is some measure of comfort or entertainment for other people – double bonus!
And yes, I want the money. I’m earning it honestly through the writing skill, high level of professionalism and Tarot reading experience that I bring to your readings. Plus, I like being able to buy food and stuff, so getting paid for my time and work comes in mighty darn handy. Especially when it’s that web hosting bill time of year.
As the frosting on top, I just plain like the TaoCraft Tarot name better. It makes me happy. I don’t care that it sounds odd, or that I have to spell it for people all of the time. Taoism and witchcraft have brought joy to me over the years. It’s not cultural appropriation to honor that, as this name is intended to do.
I’m rambling on and on about names again because over the next few weeks I’m reclaiming my favorite one.
The writing name and blog name is staying though. I like those.
Just wanted to let you know to expect a gradual un-rebranding over the next several weeks. If you want a reading, and a link is broken or you can’t find what you want, please don’t hesitate to email directly to TaoCraftTarot@gmail.com OR to SageWordsTarot@gmail.com (both will work for a long time moving forward)
It’s still me, it’s still all the same quality, the same policies, the same coffee-loving blog metaphor.
It’s a little early, but I’m posting our seasonal hello and welcome to new readers for the #KofiPostChallenge that introduces the new pin a post function
Hi everyone!
My name is Sage. I read Tarot, write blogs and knit stuff.
I’ve read Tarot cards since 1993, professionally since around 2003. My specialty is email readings.
Why email? I’m a writer. These Tarot readings are an extra good fit for first time Tarot readings, book lovers, introverts, and very busy people who want a Tarot reading but don’t want to fit another appointment into their schedule.
Typing out the Tarot reading for you is a relaxed mindset that is closer to channeling or automatic writing. Your message gets my fullest attention. By working online I don’t need a physical location and pass those savings on to you.
All of my readings have flat rate, up front prices $5 – $40
You can order email readings 24/7, no appointment needed. Most orders are to your inbox within 24 hours or so. (It is just me, one real live person pulling real world cards, so the schedule has to be flexible)
You get a photo of your real world layout in your reading.
All of my policies are transparent, up front and spelled out on my main website HERE.
There are years of free general readings on the BLOG. Feel free to browse through them to see if you think we would be a good match to work together (and I hope we are)
If you enjoy a little (almost) daily Tarot, please check out my Sage Sips membership tier which includes on-request one card private Tarot readings for you along with discounts, special offers and exclusive content.
Sage Sips blog is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you like to sip this time of day)
Cheers!
P.S. It’s still the dog days of summer and the cat is still shambling! Zombie Cat yes/no Tarot readings are still available to purchase until the autumn equinox and are a FREE upgrade to member readings.
Private readings are OPEN. Order video or email HERE, no appointment needed
Deck citations: top row Alleyman’s Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund, used with permission. 2nd and 3rd rows Black Cats Tarot by Maria Kurara copyright 2013 all rights reserved, used with permissions granted on llwellynpublishing.com
Tarot readers are as bad as everyone else.
As deeply as we know that the future is fluid, subject to choice, controlled by simple cause and effect and not subject to exact Tarot predictions – we love a good game of magic 8 ball and will instinctively try to peek at the path ahead as much as anyone else.
Back when I used to work as a Tarot reader for parties and events, I would sit and do yes/no readings to amuse myself until the event opened or until guests wandered over to my table. Shuffling and turning the cards would also let people know exactly what was happening at a glance.
In any case, I’d do three card yes/no readings (exactly like the “zombie cat” yes/no readings available for the “summer shamble”) for silly, fun, trivial questions like “will it rain tomorrow” or more importantly (depending on who you talk to) “will the Penguins win the Stanley Cup next season?” or something like that.
The three card yes/no Tarot layout that I use deals three stacks of cards, stopping at thirteen cards or an ace card whichever comes first for that stack. no aces =no, but easily changed; one ace = flat no; two aces = flat yes; Three aces = yes, but easily changed.
For individual private readings, I’ll add any intuitive thoughts the individual card meanings prompt to fill out the total reading, including the usual psychic / intuitive summary paragraph.
The down side to this is that it doesn’t tell you squat for nothing about open ended questions like “who will win tonight’s presidential debate?” You have to break it down into multiple yes or no components to get any sort of insight at all.
In the photo above, the top row of three was the response to “will President Biden win tonight’s (27 June 2024) debate?
The second row is will (the fascist, racist, rapist, convicted felon whose name will never be mentioned) win tonight’s debate
Dealing and shuffling all of this was a little tedious to do much less video, so you are going to have to trust me that after shuffling 7 times each and dealing right to left to each stack these are the end results.
Will President Biden win? – flat yes
The ace of wands hints that the President will express his true self and true character. If he wins the election this would be his last term, he has nothing to lose by making an impassioned, authentic case. The knight of pentacles and ace of pentacles in the artwork used in this deck (a favorite for yes/no layouts) both hint at a journey in progress. Pentacles themselves hint at physical realm success and wealth – perhaps a bump in fundraising but both cards have an energy overall positive outcomes.
Will the fascist, racist, rapist, convicted felon win? – flat no
Interestingly, in spite of re-shuffling the cards seven times and re-dealing the stacks from scratch, both have the ace of wands in the same position. I think it holds the same meaning for both men, that they will show their true colors. How those colors are seen and received will, as always, depend on the lens through which the audience views them. But the Star card is interesting. I think it is directed more toward audience perceptions then evil orangefuhrers debate performance. The Star card is very much a ‘guiding light’ kind of star. Perhaps the debate will have a greater impact on voting decisions than originally thought. Maybe, must maybe, it will dawn on people who haven’t cared before or haven’t followed the news before what, exactly, is going on.
I have too much personal bias to fairly interpret the final card. In my eyes the Hierophant (Pope) card speaks to evangelical support for this candidate and their blind fanaticism for his candidacy, which mirrors their blind, dogmatic following of their religion so they will not be swayed. While not technically a ‘win’ overall or to 2/3 of the nation, his evangelical base will not be lost either.
But take all this with a giant grain of salt. I thought Bernie Sanders was going to win in 2016.
Let’s hope the timeline we land in tonight is a brighter one than we landed in back in November 2016.
Like with Tarot, your choice matters more than any thin attempt at “prediction” – political or personal.
James Carville’s famous quote applies just as much to Tarot and intuition as it does to politics: “…I’d rather not predict, I’d rather affect.”
Same.
I’d rather not predict. I’d rather give you the conceptual tools to make choices that will affect your future, to help you create the future you hope for.
See you at the next sip. Or rather large drink, depending on your political leanings.
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!
A kitten is perfect for the Page of Wands today. The page is typically associated with youth and exuberance…we’ve talked about that new graduate vibe before.
Today the page is taking a sip from the six of cups too. There is a sense of the six’s innocence, guilelessness, utter transparency and default setting of seeing things as they are and taking them at face value.
It’s as good of a way as any to take on a routine day.
Please come back tomorrow as we look at a new Lenormand Tarot card as the Learn With Me series continues.
The Zombie Cat free reading offer is CLOSED, but you can always leave a Tarot question in the comments or “ask me anything” page to get a free Tarot answer in the blog.
FREE to SageWordsTarot.com blog readers only: ask a question in the comments and get a Tarot reading focused on your question in an upcoming blog post.
image Bitmoji
“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.”
There are two words that make me cringe a little when I get them in a Tarot question: “will” and “when.”
Predictions and time are knotty subjects in psychic work. Mostly because they don’t legitimately exist. Tarot isn’t about predicting the future. They are about CREATING the future through your choices and your actions.
Tarot doesn’t’ tell you what is going to happen in life; Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
Predictions are actually a scientific thing. A scientific prediction is essentially a pronouncement about what will 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 Newton’s laws of gravity, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, existing observations and so on. As I understand it, that is the kind ofprediction 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.
Skeptics spend a great deal of time and energy bashing and demeaning “psychic predictions” in the name of science. Unlike overt scams, ego trips and outlandish fiction, authentic psychic predictions are essentially the same as the scientific kind. The psychic reader is an objective observer who is knowledgeable about symbolism and human nature. Because of that wider perspective the reader can see trends that the person getting the reading may not see. A Tarot reader can predict where things are headed in a relationship just like a scientist can predict where Mars is headed in the sky. The biggest difference that is that psychic predictions are based in non-linear logic, experience with human behavior and psychology instead of linear logic and numerical data.
That is looking at it all 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 a tree, it will fall down. What if we go a just a little bit more modern with it?
Think Schrodinger’s Cat.
Schrodinger’s Cat is a thought experiment that everyone seems to know. Often it’s used to take a swipe at non-scientific or spiritual thinking. If you want to understand the hard core science side of Schrodinger’s Cat, Star Talk with Dr. Degrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice is MWHA *chef’s kiss*. Watch it. You are welcome.
I’m no physicist but let me take a stab at this, more for the analogy of it than for the science of it. As Dr. Degrasse Tyson hints, this experiment is really about stuff we can’t observe and we can’t know. Tarot is one way people could talk about stuff we can’t know in a time long before quantum physics. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck dates back to the 1440s, predating both Galileo and Newton. The discovery of quantum physics doesn’t mean that Newton’s laws are untrue. The existence of objective science doesn’t mean subjective experiences of human intuition is untrue.
Thought experiments rely on your imagination. Intuition relies on your imagination. So it seems reasonable to use a thought experiment to talk about psychic predictions.
But back to the Schrodinger thing.
In the thought experiment, a poor unsuspecting cat from an era when no one cared about animal welfare was put in a box with a vial of poison gas. There is a trigger on the vial connected to a radioactive molecule that has a 50-50 random chance of breaking down within the next hour. During that hour we cannot know and we cannot predict what the result is going to be. Either the molecule decays and triggers the poison, or it doesn’t. Until the observation is made and the whole thing has happened the cat can potentially wind up in either condition. During the time that the experiment is in progress, the cat is both dead and alive up until the moment when we look in the box to see what happened.
Once the experiment is set up and started, the cat could come out of it alive or not. But why not both or neither? Why are those possibilities excluded when so much of life is on a spectrum like electromagnetic energy? Why are other possibilities excluded when so little of life is a strict dichotomy? Disappearing Cat or Zombie Cat could happen…it’s possible. As I understand the BBC Horizon Series’ program “Parallel Universes” (hosted by Dr. Michio Kaku, based on his book “Parallel Worlds”) anything and everything is possible. Some things are, however, wildly unlikely within the laws of physics of our particular universe.
Multiple universes is one possible explanation of it all. The cat is both…it just does it in different universes. It can’t be both dead and alive in the same universe.
Why not? I ask the computer screen every time I see the Minute Physics video about multiple universes. Why not a zombie cat that is both or a disappearing cat that is neither?
When the moment of discovery is still in the future, the possibility and attendant levels of probability exists for all outcomes. In the mysterious and undetermined future, all conditions potentially exist, even our wildly unlikely disappearing or 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 possibility becomes “entangled” with our reality 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! It’s a done deal with nothing to predict. The future on the other hand, that’s a different animal than any of our imaginary cats.
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 actions, 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 imaginary cat has human-like intelligence and has a choice rather than being a victim of circumstance as in the classic thought experiment. What if there was something the cat could think or do or meow or some action it could take that could detach the vial from its molecular decay trigger?
Now how do you make predictions under that set of conditions?
Imagine your psychic vision was of a dead cat which had a 50% mathematical probability in the experiment. What if the cat heard you make that “psychic prediction” and disconnected the trigger when it otherwise wouldn’t have acted that way? Was the the initial prediction wrong?
Now would be a good time to google “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Will you get that job?
I dunno.
Did you apply for it? Update your resume? Schedule an interview? Learned good interview skills? Has the person doing the hiring made any decisions or taken any actions that have connected the possibility to reality?
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 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 box to disconnect the trigger and improve its chances of survival.
When will you get married?
I dunno.
But in the meantime you can do social things that make you happy (3 of cups) be clear in your mind about the kind of person and marriage you really want (The Lovers) and engage with the life you have now as happily as you can (10 of pentacles)
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 types into your life.
Psychics, Tarot and intuition are intended to 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. Your might wind up with anything from a living happy cat to unalived cat right up to a Zombie Cat. But who knows? Maybe a friendly Tarot-reading Zombie Cat might not be such a bad thing.
Thank you for reading Sage Sips, where you get Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you drink the time of day that you are reading this.)
This blog and all of its socials are NOT monetized. You can support this free to access collective Tarot content through private readings, virtual coffees and Sage Sips memberships at the link at the top of the page.
FREE to blog readers only: Ask Zombie Cat anything and get a Tarot reading in the blog. No identifying information is ever used (to protect everybody’s privacy)
Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and has a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
The general plan is to learn about this Lenormand deck in the same way we recently explored the Publishing Goblin oracle dice and before that my new and much used Alleyman’s Tarot Deck.
There is no teacher quite like experience, especially when it comes to something as subjective and individual as intuition and oracles. The basic strategy over the coming weeks is that I’ll pull a random card (and post the draw on YouTube Shorts. I did that this week but the the technical glitch gremlins got to it)
After the random draw, we’ll read it purely intuitively based on the collective energy of the day – just like we read the collective energies for the week each Monday.
Then I’ll go to the guide book, which in this case is sparse, around a paragraph per card, and summarize what it says.
A word on guide books in general:
Use them as a tool, but not as an authority.
There is no dishonor in finding inspiration when you need it.
Guidebooks are great in situations like this to help you get comfortable with a new deck or technique. Guidebooks are essential when you are very first learning to read cards at all, like the DIY one card meditation readings you learn how to do in my book PeaceTarot.
Even after reading for 30 years, there are still times when I look at a card and get exactly nothing. Tarot readers are human and nobody is perfect. If you hit one of those I-got-nothin’ moments then it is perfectly fine to fall back on either a guidebook or a memorized “meaning” It will prime the pump so speak, and spark the intuition that you need for genuine reading that is of the energy of the moment.
Today’s card is The Dog.
The image on this particular deck is warm and sunny, and I associated it with all of the positive happy energies of the RWS major arcana card The Sun. Dogs are the essence of loyalty and friendship.
Clearly this is a good start for making friends with a new deck.
It has a sense of reciprocity today, too. “To make a friend, be a friend”
In the moment, it feels like making friends with this deck is going to be easy.
The guidebook doesn’t add much, just reiterates the “faithfulness and loyalty”
The guidebook isn’t much help in this little learning project we have going. I may just give the key words in the beginning and just give it an intuitive read from there.
Do you have any thoughts which would be more helpful to you? Comment if you like. Guidebook keywords at the beginning or end?
It’s interesting that the card is connected to the 10 of hearts. You can read the suit of hearts much as you would the suit of cups in the RWS decks. It is about emotion, happiness, closest inner circle relationships….like your closest friends.
PeaceTarot also teaches you how to use playing cards in place of Tarot cards to use the guidebook meanings in PeaceTarot if you prefer playing cards or if you don’t have access to a RWS style Tarot deck. 10 of hearts is equivalent to the 10 of cups, which has to do with happy family and happy (and loyal) relationships. It all fits.
If this card resonates for you today, it is a reminder to appreciate the friends and emotionally close people in your life. Tell them. Show them. Check in with them. Be a friend today.
If you are feeling friendless, befriend yourself. Just be patient and kind. It’s like playing fetch with your favorite doggo…throw some kindness out there and life will fetch it back sooner or later.
Thank you for reading. The short and sweet newsletter for this week will post on Thursday morning.
See you at the next sip!
Spooky Season Special:
Use the Ask Me Anything page to submit a yes/no question and get a Zombie Cat style Tarot reading answer in the blog!
All Zombie Cat readings are 100% guaranteed to contain words and have a 50% chance of being dead wrong.
entertainment only
Image: author photo of her purchased copy of Healing Light Lenormand by Christoher Butler copyright 2021 Lo Scarabeo srl, via Cigna 110, 10155 Torino, Italy. All rights reserved, used by permission.
Zombie Cat’s Tarot reading for the year ahead 2023
Happy New Year Hoomans!
Had my hooman pull the cards for this year for me because she’s the one with the opposable thumbs and all.
I’m Zombie Cat, black sheep of the feline family and Schrodinger’s Cat’s fictional renegade cousin who decided to come out of that famous thought experiment as “both” after the experiment was finished instead of during the experiment. Don’t think about it too hard…quantum physics will break your brain. Didn’t do much for the hooman when she made me up back in a 2015 blog post that was about Tarot, not science, so go all pedantic about it (it makes her cranky when people do that.)
Anyway, I decided to pitch in and help the hooman out so she can sit over there and knit and drink coffee and maybe do something about that hair that looks like post-explosion Veronica end of the movie Heathers. (The cat’s not wrong. 2022 finally caught up with me – I haven’t brushed my hair today and I am feeling very post-explosion Veronica. Now where is that red scrunchie…)
Ahem. My turn hooman.
Just as a brief introduction to this particular layout, here’s what is going on.
The human wrote this several years ago to be used at any time of year, not just New Year. It’s fun for birthdays, graduation, or any time really. There are four cards, one for each of the upcoming season, starting whenever the reading is done and going in order from there. It is intended to look at the direction energy seems to be flowing. It isn’t a definite prediction, but it is a guiding theme for the time period in question. Same for the fifth card which is the theme, over-arching energy or primary lesson for the year as a whole.
Or that’s what the hooman says.
I say it is what it is, I see what I see, I say what I say, you get what you get and we are all just going to have to cope with life however it actually turns out to be. But that’s the difference between us – she is the thoughtful human type, and I’m – not.
Here we go.
The general pattern makes me think there is going to be a lot of energy overall. Stuff is going to happen. You know how when you opposable thumb types are yanking on something that is stuck, and you keep yoinking on it until it suddenly gives way? That’s the feel for this year. We’ve spent the past two years trying to pull ourselves through and out of some real weirdness. 2023 might start out like more of the same but once it starts to move it is going to give way suddenly & move like crazy for a short bit until we get a new grip on it.
While there is only one major arcana card, all of the minor arcana cards are court cards. Court cards might not have the major change, major life lesson ka-pow of energy that the majors have, they still carry a little more catnip than the numbered minor arcana cards.
Winter
This covers roughly the time right now through mid-March or so. The Queen of Pentacles is the card for this season. Just like the peak pandemic times in 2020-21 there is a strong sense of practicality. Pentacles are about earth energy. Find your inner rock, find what anchors and grounds and centers you and do that. The queen is about nurturing and leadership. The king may protect the kingdom, but the queen nurtures it. This time is about taking care of business. This is close to home, hearth and family type stuff. When your efforts harmonize with the energy flows of the time, you get the most bang for your buck as the saying goes. If you try to be too expansive and far flung and boundary-pushing you might meet some resistance or have a rougher than necessary road ahead. If you focus on taking care of what you already have at hand, if you focus on care and maintenance close to the home front, the energies will life you up and your efforts go farther and need less, well, effort. Work smarter not harder so you can slide in a healthy dose of self care too. You know how health and fitness is a fad for five minutes every January? Take advantage, and take care of yourself. Who knows? You might accidentally stumble across something you actually like and can sustain all the way to maybe February this time.
Spring
We stay with the practical, earthy, grounded energy of Pentacles, but the Page of Pentacles moves it from the large-and-in-charge nurturing of the queen to a more intellectual, outreaching quality. Pages symbolize learning, which is something that can be done in the context of any minor arcana suit. The page of pentacles is softer, more practical, more application and less pure theory than the colder more incisive intellect energy we see in the suit of swords. Holistic health is stepping forward as a concept. The mind and learning aspects of sword cards is more like a modern surgeon, while the page of pentacles is closer to the mind aspect of holistic health where mind, body and spirit are one. The page of pentacles is reminding us to use our head, but not heartlessly. Spring is a time of logic and intellect, yes, but logic and intellect with compassionate practical application. Learn all you can, but you will go farthest when you put your energy into learning things that have practical, useful, helpful application.
To put it another way, this energy this spring is more helpful to practical engineering rather than cutting edge theoretical quantum physics.
What is that word? Hygge? Both winter and spring have that warm fuzzy sort of feel to them. Make yourself comfortable the first half of 2023, whatever comfortable means to you. This isn’t the time for pushing too hard outside of your comfort zone. 2020 & 2021 shoved us out of it hard enough already. 2023 may at last be our chance to re-define, re-establish, re-stabilize our new comfort zones to get ready for the next push, no matter whether that push come from us on the inside or from the outside of said comfort zone.
Summer
Here we pick up the spirit part of that mind, body, spirit holistic paradigm.
This is our only major arcana card, the Moon. The moon has long been associated with dreamyness, psychic ability, intuition, spiritual growth, spiritual journies and the like. First the soft jazzy song “Summertime” from Porgie and Bess comes to mind to capture the mood of the card. Then it shifts to the opening few lines from the Madonna song “Crazy For You” from the 1985 movie Vision Quest. Which is a real side-door into the concept that intuition is trying to communicate, I think. The vision question in question here is more like the genuine hamanic kind than the feel good movie 80s pop culture kind. Here my mind is drawn to the early books by Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan from 1968 in particular. It’s been so long since the human had read it, neither of us are entirely sure what that reference is about, if anything, other than to encourage all of us to explore our spiritual life with courage and openness. Here I see starry, moonlit night with warm wind, candle or firelight perhaps. Night steps forward strongly. Night time is particularly important during this season for some reason. It feels like sunset and night time is the most potent for you to indulge in your deepest thinking, deepest feeling, and most important spiritual questing.
Fall
Here, it seems, is where all the yoinking and nurturing and caring and questions pay off. The Knight of Swords is best summed up by screaming “Geronimo!” or doing your best Tenth Doctor Who impersonation and yelling “allonz-y.” Here is where things move fast albeit for a short time. Whether that rapid giving way results in something good or something problematic remains to be seen. But it will be seen. Here is get the word “clarity” good or bad, at the end of 2023’s burst of movement there won’t be any doubt about what the problem actually is now. It might be a brand new dilemma, or it might have its roots in everything that has been going on for the past few years.
We may not get much fixed this year, but by the time next winter rolls back around, at least we might have a clear idea what the fix is.
Year 2023
The card of the year is the King of Cups.
The message is simple, but multifaceted.
Kings are leadership. You are in charge of the whole mess. You own your own mind, body, and spirit so it is up to you to care for, nurture and respect all the facets of yourself within yourself. That inner autonomy and maturity will in turn allow you to be present, emotionally available and nurturing to those you love and care about. That intimate inner circle is the relationship that cups cards symbolize. Cups cards are about emotions and those most important relationships; romance, family, found family and more.
Cups are also about intuition so I would guess that the spiritual aspect of life will be a prominent thread throughout the year despite the other energies that may be slightly more dominant for a time. Spirituality will be the constant even as the other energies comes and go.
Taken together, the King of Cups as an individual card symbolizes a mentor, or some sort of emotional teacher. The word “guru” comes to mind here. I don’t see it as the traditional Yoda-ish meditation or martial arts master. It feels like something low key – a real person or a writer or someone somewhere that you admire in some respect and want to emulate their success. Not in a tangible or materialistic way, and not in toto as some sort of child-like hero worship. “Take the best parts” comes to mind. Little inspirations from multiple reliable sources is more the feel of it.
The color blue steps forward as a good color for this year. To my mind it looks like a lovely sapphire or cobalt blue. That would go along with supporting the third eye chakra (energy center) and the spiritual component to the year.
That’s the inner world for 2023. The outer world is anybody’s guess. Personally I’m hoping for a piping cup of hot political schadenfreude that is full to the brim of deserving indictments. I hope that the forces for inclusion, compassion, support, safety, and environmentalism own the year like Greta Thunberg owns pizza eating criminals on the internet.
With that, the energy steps back.
With that the human and I wish every one of you a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot Blog and podcast.
Today’s episode is truly short, because I want to leave you with this one simple idea: indulgence can serve as a way of showing gratitude.
There is a tendency, at least in our puritan-influenced American culture to hold back the things we find most precious. From a place of fear, we lock life away in an attempt to revere and protect it.
I tend to think and feel that way. Probably far too often.
That is where the indulgences of the holiday season serve an interesting subtle purpose. Yes, by all means it is – and should be – a celebration and a stress relief. But it is also a means of expressing gratitude for life and all the little pleasures it provides.
For example, a cookie isn’t just a cookie at the holidays. It is a treat and a tradition. Eating that cookie and a half dozen others with joy and abandon is not only celebration, it our gratitude in action, our thankfulness for the flour and sugar in the cupboard and the bakers in our grocery stores. It is a child-like enthusiasm and unpretentious thank you.
Now substitute cookie for your favorite parts of whatever winter holiday you happen to celebrate.
And with that, I reach for another cookie and raise my gingerbread spice coffee to you in a wish for health, happiness and prosperity for us all in 2023!
I’ll talk to you in January, but Zombie Cat will be stopping by later this week with his so-called predictions for the New Year.
Merry Happy Everyone!
Thank you all so much for reading and listening in 2022 and always! I’m still pondering a name change. TaoCraft Tarot resonates with me because it is a reflection of my deep-down, life-long philosophies.
BUT
It is more important that this Tarot website resonates with YOU. Tarot readings, the really good ones, are a conversation and a collaboration between the reader and the sitter (seeker, querent, whatever term you like to use) I want to make this a warm, inviting cozy place for us both to contemplate Tarot and related topics together.
Conversations are made up of words. Words are the net we throw over ideas to draw them into our conversation.
In 2023, TaoCraft Tarot will (probably) become Sage Words Tarot to match my personal blog. It’s still me (under my pen name Sage) and we’ll use our words to talk about Tarot and do readings for you.
I hope everyone who has followed this Tarot work under Modern Oracle (1002 – 2018) will stick around through one more, hopefully more welcoming name change.
Surprise! Blew off a couple of things, and wound up with a few minutes to spend here with the blog. That makes the hiatus into something of a typo…The podcast is for sure on hiatus until the 21, but if I get a chance to write on the blog, I will. Writing is a hotline to my intuition like the big red bat phone in the Commissioners office. I’m hardwired as an introvert if that myers-briggs thing we did in a training class is to be believed (INTP to be exact) so put the two together and writing be like breathing.
So here I am, to remind anyone interested in a reading, orders placed between now and Ded. 21 will be delivered Dec 22 or 23. The Podcast will be on full hiatus until around the 22 or 23, and socials will largely be quiet. I’ll be lurking on Instagram, mastodon and tiktok mostly, so say hello if you are there.
Speaking of writing fun, it’s always entertaining to throw caution to the wind and do a New Year’s Prediction reading. A you might have guessed if you read my other blog Sage Words, I have a raging case of the cynical blahs this holiday season so I’m handing the New Year prediction over to our zero-f**ks slightly-snarky prediction-friendly fictional feline alter-ego Zombie Cat. If you haven’t met Zombie Cat, let me introduce you. Here is the 2015 blog post that first adopted Zombie Cat, inspired by a Menage A Tarot podcast episode and Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment.
“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.”
There are two words that make me cringe a little when I get them in a Tarot question: “will” and “when.”
Predictions and time are knotty subjects in psychic work.
Predictions are actually a scientific thing. A scientific prediction is essentially a pronouncement about what will 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 Newton’s laws of gravity, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, existing observations and so on. As I understand it, that is the kind ofprediction 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.
Skeptics spend a great deal of time and energy bashing and demeaning “psychic predictions” in the name of science. Unlike overt scams, ego trips and outlandish fiction, when psychic predictions are made authentically and traditionally, they are essentially the same as the scientific kind. The psychic reader is an objective observer who is knowledgeable about symbolism and human nature. Because of that wider perspective the reader can see trends that the person getting the reading may not see. A Tarot reader can predict where things are headed in a relationship just like a scientist can predict where Mars is headed in the sky. The biggest difference that I see is that psychic predictions are based in non-linear logic and psychology instead of linear logic and numerical data.
That is looking at it all 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 a tree, it will fall down. What if we go a just a little bit more modern with it?
Think Schrodinger’s Cat.
Schrodinger’s Cat is a thought experiment that everyone seems to love. Scientists who try to explain it love to use it to take a swipe at non-scientific or spiritual thinking. If you want to understand the hard core science side of this, Star Talk with Dr. Degrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice is very understandable (and fun!)
I’m no physicist but let me take a stab at this, more for the analogy than for the science of it. As Dr. Degrasse Tyson hints, this experiment is really about stuff we can’t observe and we can’t know. Tarot is one way people could talk about stuff we can’t know in a time long before quantum physics. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck dates back to the 1440s, predating both Galileo and Newton. The discovery of quantum physics doesn’t mean that Newton’s laws are untrue. The existence of objective science doesn’t mean subjective experiences of human intuition is untrue.
Thought experiments rely on your imagination. Intuition relies on your imagination. So it seems reasonable to use a thought experiment to talk about psychic predictions.
But back to the Schrodinger thing.
In the thought experiment, a poor unsuspecting cat from an era when no one cared about animal welfare was put in a box with a vial of poison gas. There is a trigger on the vial connected to a radioactive molecule that has a 50-50 random chance of breaking down within the next hour. During that hour we cannot know and we cannot predict what the result is going to be. Either the molecule decays and triggers the poison, or it doesn’t. Until the observation is made and the whole thing has happened the cat can potentially wind up in either condition. During the time that the experiment is in progress, the cat is both dead and alive up until the moment when we look in the box to see what happened.
Once the experiment is set up and started, the cat could come out of it alive or not. But why not both or neither? Why are those possibilities excluded when so much of life is on a spectrum like electromagnetic energy? Why are other possibilities excluded when so little of life is a strict dichotomy? Disappearing Cat or Zombie Cat could happen…it’s possible. As I understand the BBC Horizon Series’ program “Parallel Universes” (hosted by Dr. Michio Kaku, based on his book “Parallel Worlds”) anything and everything is possible. Some things are, however, very very unlikely within the laws of physics of our particular universe. Multiple universes is one possible explanation of it all. The cat is both…it just does it in different universes. It can’t be both dead and alive in the same universe.
Why not? I ask the computer screen every time I see the Minute Physics video about multiple universes. Why not a zombie cat that is both or a disappearing cat that is neither?
When the moment of discovery is still in the future, the possibility and attendant levels of probability exists for all outcomes. In the mysterious and undetermined future, all conditions exist, even our wildly unlikely disappearing or 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 possibility becomes “entangled” with our reality 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! It’s a done deal with nothing to predict. The future on the other hand, that’s a different animal than any of our imaginary cats.
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 actions, 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 imaginary cat has human-like intelligence and has a choice rather than being a victim of circumstance as in the classic thought experiment. What if there was something the cat could think or do or meow that make or some action it could take that could detach the vial from its molecular decay trigger? Now how do you make predictions under that set of conditions?
Imagine your psychic vision was of a dead cat which had a 50% mathematical probability in the experiment. What if the cat heard you make that “psychic prediction” and disconnected the trigger when it otherwise wouldn’t have acted that way? Was the the initial 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? Has the person doing the hiring made any decisions or taken any actions that have connected the possibility to reality?
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 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 box to disconnect the trigger and improve its chances of survival.
When will you get married? I dunno. But in the meantime you can do social things that make you happy (3 of cups) be clear in your mind about the kind of person and marriage you really want (The Lovers) and engage with the life you have now as happily as you can (10 of pentacles)
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 types 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 wind up with anything from a happy cat right up to a Zombie Cat. But who knows? Maybe a friendly Tarot-reading Zombie Cat might not be such a bad thing.
Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot 
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