Now there is something you don’t see everyday, which is probably a good thing.
Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sip Tarot. Today we are doing a full on pathway reading to do a squinty eyed Tarot look at the week ahead. This layout is roughly based on the old school past, present, future layout but I modify it to make it more dynamic. I want to focus on our ability to choose and the cause and effect power our choices have over our path forward in time.
Like I’ve been saying for years now: Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen to you in life. Tarot helps you figure out what to do when life happens.
That’s what these weekly look-ahead readings are all about. It’s not about a prediction, it’s about navigation. The reading is about ideas to help you navigate the energies swirling around right now. If you follow the blog or podcast and get the cards in the week that they were drawn, it can give you a sense of the current zeitgeist collective energies. If you stumble across this post or episode at some other point in time then the message is still valid, it just becomes more personal to you and less connected to the general energies.
For these weekly posts and in private three card readings, I change the meaning for each card position from past, present and future to make it all more dynamic. These cards are tied to the flow of energy instead of time. The timing is unique to you. The energy flow may not connect to you at all. That is up to you to decide if and how any of this resonates for you at all..
The first card points to an energy that is present, but fading in influence. The second card is the surrounding energy that is strongest at the present moment and the final card is an energy that is growing in influence.
I read the card order from right to left for a few reasons.
First, that’s how it’s done in the first layout that I learned way way back in the day. The nine card layout in the Medicine Cards guidebook by David Carson and Jamie Sams was one inspiration for the five card and seven card layouts that I wrote ten years later when I first began professional Tarot work.
Second, it’s how I learned to read auras. When you read a person’s aura, you look at them face on, and their past is on your right, which is their left. It might sound confusing, but it is surprisingly easy and natural if you have ever looked at medical x-rays.
Third, this is the opposite of how we read English, my native language. Reading words is a logical process. By flipping the direction of card interpretation, it disconnects the Tarot reading process from the logical language reading process and opens the way for a more purely intuitive understanding.
That all being said, let’s look at this week’s cards.
Logic is not a factor in the card of diminishing energies, the Devil. Today I’m using the Alleyman Tarot with permission from deck creator Seven Dane Asmund and Publishing Gobline LLC . There isn’t information about this individual card save that the copyright for the image is held by the British museum. I couldn’t find anything on an internet search so why this Devil in what looks for all the world like a very vintage card is drawn with ophiological genitalia is beyond me. Snake-boy is not something you see every day. Snakes or no, it takes some outright chutzpah to run around naked with all the confidence and power this image portrays.
Other people may have been trying to take a mile from the inch you gave. People may have been trying to take a mile from an inch that you never gave in the first place. The energy around this card is weird and intrusive and hints at a time where everything has been out of kilter and working on every last nerve. Luckily it is starting to move away, so hang in there.
Next is the Strength card. That is the closest, biggest energy right now and the message is just as simple and clear as it can get.
You got this.
In my readings, “hear” means that the intuition comes as words or music instead of mental images. “See” means the intuition comes as mental images. Sometimes there are feelings, tastes and smell, but that is uncommon. At this point, I hear the phrase “strength comes from perseverance.” Being patient and persistent is your superpower right now. Be the mountain in the presence of chattering monkeys.
The final card is the energy that is growing, moving toward us in the near future if you will. The knight of wands has all sorts of passionate, active connotations and my instinct it to toss them all right out the window.
In the BBC seven episode adaptation of Suzanna Clarke’s novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel the knight of wands is connected with a the coming of a second magician that would allow magic to return to England.
That is the meaning that is front and center and loud for this card this week.
Find your magic. Be that second magician that re-ignites your connection with the magic that is inside. Be your own Jonathan Strange.
In short, this week may be weird but hang in there ’cause you got this.
Thank you for reading and listening! Please follow the blog and podcast for more of these three card readings for the week ahead (whatever week this may be for you.) I do mean both. There will be posts on the blog that don’t go out to the podcast. The free blog is the only place to get all of my free-to-access Tarot content and it has links to the podcast if you prefer audio.
Private readings are open. Ko-fi memberships have been upgraded. I’d appreciate any likes, subs, shares or virtual coffees you can spare. Links are in the right hand column on the blog and in the episode description for this podcast.
See you at the next sip!
Sage Words Tarot 