Tag: clairvoyant

The Week Ahead: More than meets the eye

The Tarot week ahead in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

My, my. Aren’t we chatty again today.

Hello and welcome to the Sage Words Tarot blog and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast. I’m glad you are here.

On Mondays, my hope is to do a Pathway Tarot reading for everyone, on all the platforms where you can find Sage Words Tarot. As always, it isn’t a hard core prediction. No Tarot or psychic reading ever is. As I see it this functions a lot like a weather forecast. It isn’t 100% definite most of the time (unless you hear the word “warning” which means it is already happening, so you should do something about it.) If you take a squinty-eyed look at what is probable, then you can be ready for the possibilities and opportunities that cross your path. It’s our mantra here: Tarot doesn’t tell you what is going to happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens.

​The energy this week is quite a bit like last week. Neil DeGrasse Tyson once said that “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” That is true of hard science, social sciences, and folk art like Tarot. The universe is under no obligation to make one iota of sense and by the same token, it is under no obligation to move or change according to our hopes, aspirations, expectations or schedules.

If a regularly scheduled Tarot broadcast seems repetitive, it isn’t necessarily because the person doing the reading isn’t skilled or that the whole technique isn’t valid. The collective energies are what they are and under no obligation to keep us entertained.

We’ve had this “yeah it’s an annoying pain in the backside but you got this” energy around for a few weeks now. But compare that to 2020 when it was all mental images of hurricanes and a sense of Holy Duck stay focused on the practical problems at hand and batten down the hatches. The feel is totally different. This is feet up sipping coffee time by comparison.

Sometimes the energy changes within a matter of hours. Sometimes things shift over weeks or months. It varies from time to time – and certainly from person to person.

The energy seems fairly steady and low-key at the moment. I personally, will take that. I could use a little steady for a little while. So good news for me, but frustrating news for anyone who is feeling stuck, frustrated or impatient. Like I’ve said before relative to the Hanged Man card…one man’s stuck in the mud is another man’s day at the spa. It’s up to you to decide if the energy reads we get here are good or bad news for you personally.

One of the clue for me that we are still in a bit of the same groove is how chatty the cards are.

By chatty, I mean that the reading is more clairaudient than usual.

Clairvoyant means “clear sight” and refers to intuitive impressions that come in the form of mental images. I use the verb “see” to refer to those.

Clairaudient is that same intuition, just in the form of something sound-related like words or music. When those come along I use the word “hear.” Very seldom are the sounds actual sounds, although right now I’m getting the screeching tires and breaking glass sound effect from a don’t text and drive public service announcement just as an example of what that would be like.

Try putting THAT into words for a blog and podcast.

But back to chatty.

I’ve been getting more than the usual amount of word-driven intuition rather than mental image intuition the past couple of weeks as we begin the new pattern of things under the new name.

The change from TaoCraft Tarot to Sage Words Tarot is mostly finished, by the way.

When I do a private email Tarot reading, the first thing we’ll do is take a look at the general pattern of the cards on the table. This week is starting off with a bang and every single card in the layout is from the major arcana portion of the Tarot deck. I genuinely don’t see that often. I don’t know the math of it. Only 22 of the 78 Tarot cards are major arcana, but there is still some crazy big number of possible combinations in a three card reading….what is it? 78+77+76 to the power of three or some ridiculous thing? I don’t know the precise science-answer, but there are a LOT of possible combinations and only a portion of them include all major arcana cards. So the fact that this layout beat the odds and gave us all majors deserves attention and consideration.

Thinking about this pattern gives sort of a blurry double image, like opening your eyes under water. I am reminded of that old adage about being a duck in an emergency…calm on the surface but furiously paddling underneath.

All major arcana cards are a high energy, rapid change situation. That is in direct opposition to the sedate, steady feeling of the energy.

So how do we reconcile the seeming opposites?

I think the weird juxtaposition is a hint at timing. In the big picture and the overall pattern of things the theme of sedate and steady rules the week, but there may be small or short-lived little “KER-POWs” of energy.

There is an example of both clairvoyance and clairaudience at work. I ‘hear’ or ‘get’ the word KA-POW plus I also get a mental image of it as a cartoon or comic book image of the word, like during the fight scenes in the 1960s Batman TV show that in itself was a parody of even older comic books.

I also see a pebble thrown into a pond…a little splash in a big quiet surface.

I don’t think there is anything much under the surface. We might have to do a little ker-pow of duck paddling at some point this week, but it isn’t a major upset, just a little burst of speed to scoot out of the way of a minor disturbance.

At least on the outside. Here I get the impression that most of the major arcana action is going to be internal, in the spiritual or psychological realm of things, which would certainly fit the symbolism of the duck who seems to be gliding calmly on top but paddling like crazy with its feet under the smooth glassy surface of the water.

The first major arcana card we see is the Justice card. With that I hear “Be fair, including with yourself.” “You are part of the mix and deserve equal fairness with everyone.” This card is in the diminishing energies position within this particular layout, at which point I hear “Let It Go”…. in the form of the song from that Disney movie.

Which in turn reminds us to keep it light, keep your sense of humor, and don’t turn this week’s splash into more of a tidal wave than it really is.

In the current energy position we have the Strength card. This card feels like pure validation and reassurance. You got this. I get the mental image of a weight room or a gym. This is practice. This is a normal workout for your resilience and persistence. Be strong. Don’t whine. Do the do and you can get back to your calm and steady energies shortly.

The growing energy position belongs to the Fool. I see underlines…so this card is reinforcing the idea of lightness and humor. Keeping your sense of humor about things seems important this week.

The Fool card is also symbolic of new beginnings. Our chatty cards are giving me the “break on through to the other side” lyric from some old song from the Doors. Don’t ask me which one. I’m not THAT old. If it grabs your attention as something for you personally, then by all means google it or stream the song or something.

​For our purposes, I think the “other side” is the other side of whatever stress or burst of energy this week brings. Be it next week, next month or next year, this feels like a reassurance that something good is available to us if we put a little effort into it.

It’s weird, but I see grass, and colored eggs on grass on the other side of clear plastic kitchen wrap. Good thing are waiting for us if we are fair to everyone and ourselves, stay strong and make the little effort of breaking on through to the greener grass on the other side of this week.

So stay calm but keep paddling my duckie friends!

Daily Sip members on ko-fi get Tarot every weekday (plus a standing shop discount) Tarot Table members get that plus a personal Sage’s Sip Tarot reading by email on request one per calendar month that they are an active member. People who follow the free blog on SageWordsTaot.com get exclusive weekend content, and the socials are whatever whenever although Instagram is the only one where I actually interact with the comments.

And that is the online week in a nutshell.

Or in a Tarot reading in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. See you at the next sip!

Sight

You don’t just see with your heart. Look with your heart and you see with compassion.

There are many ways to see, including with your heart.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate it.

I still haven’t done the review I wanted to write for the blog, but I wanted to get my hands back on the Alleyman’s Tarot deck today. Today’s energy wanted to speak through this particular card it seems. It’s the ten of eyes, a card from the strange suit, some of the non-standard cards that are part of the Alleyman deck’s genius. It was originally drawn by Bobby Abate for the Outsider Tarot deck. My read today differs from the meaning given in the guidebook – but you’ll have that. Guide books are important. They provide context, intent, and inspiration. In the lore Seven Dane Asmund created around the deck, the Alleyman wrote his own guidebook with notes on this own organically mismatched deck. In essence, that is what intuitive style readers do all the time. We write each card meaning in the moment guided by energy and insight that changes day by day, sometimes hour by hour. To call a Tarot reading ephemeral folk art is an understatement, but it’s the best descriptor I know for the actual process.

But back to the Ten of Eyes.

Like almost all cards, this one has multiple threads of meaning, and it is up to pure intuition to see which thread best resonates with the current energy environment.

At first glance, this could be read like the ten of pentacles or ten of coins just superficially based on the round shapes. That could connect with the aspect of the Waite Smith Ten of Pentacles that has to do with our greatest treasures being the intangible ones that money can never buy. The ten eyes could conceivably see through physical wealth to those invaluable intangibles.

The image on this card doesn’t really reflect the super-happy good outcome vibe that goes with the classic Smith art and the ten of coins however.

The Alleyman’s guide interprets it as, essentially, doom scrolling.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a hot cup of “I told you so” flavored schadenfreude as much as the next person. Especially with the great American political dumpster fire of twenty aught fifteen to the present day. Everybody loves to see the bad guys get theirs, both in fiction and in politics. But it can be taken to extreme. The Ten of Eyes is a cautionary tale, to not let news get to you personally. USE the information, yes, but don’t let it change you or affect you. Don’t let information make you bleed out of the eyes as the movie and anime trope goes.

The message I’m getting today differs from both of these. The message has come through before, but I don’t remember when or which card.

Look with your heart.

The part of this card that most catches my attention is the sheer number of eyes.

So.

Many.

Eyes.

Intuition and mental clairvoyance is often represented by the so-called third eye. I think we have other eyes too. There are the physical ones, of course, for our literal sight. The third eye speaks to intuition and mental images. That is mind-sight. But what of emotional or spiritual sight?

Often intuition is conflated with spirituality, but intuition serves us all no matter what our spiritual framework may be. Raging egos and scam artists can still be psychic to some degree. Intuition is a normal human faculty that could arguably had evolutionary advantage. I like Neil Degrasse Tysons description of the sixth sense and exactly that. A functional, purposeful, useful function of human existence like, I believe it was his grandmother, who know just when to propare supper and how many places to set even without tangible, five-sense knowable input.

The heart governs both physical and mental sight with emotional and spiritual sight. Look with your heart and see both physical and mental inputs through a lens of compassion and kindness. That guides not so much what we see but what we do about what we see, what we know, what we learn, and all the information we take in about our world.

So go ahead. Doom scroll. Sip that schadenfreude. Unleash all of your glorious human curiosity on whatever is out there. Gaze upon the world but be aware of the filters you (and other people) place on what you see. Then filter that through the one lens that really counts – kindness.

I hope you are enjoying these (almost) daily Tarot contemplations that happen in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

It’s that renew-the-website time of year, so any support you can give through the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi is greatly, appreciated. Shop purchases, exclusive content memberships, private reading commissions and virtual coffees all contribute toward making this blog and podcast possible.

No appointment is needed for private email readings, which are my specialty by the way.

Thank you again.

See you at the next sip!

Cosmic Gutter Bumpers

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Today: cosmic gutter bumpers

Welcome to Tao Craft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Lovers from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck, art by Nate Hillyer.

Today’s energy is absolutely positively not in any way about Romance or romantic relationships. The card isn’t really about that anyway. The card is about what you want from life. Of course that includes romantic relationships, and the desire for love, romance, and companionship are vitally important and shouldn’t be trivialized. By the same token, that’s just not where the energy is going today. This is about your relationship with yourself, and desires related to your overall life path. As important as romantic, platonic and familial relationships are, this is important too. Relationships have the whole suit of cups to address them. This energy is closer to the inner fire, the suit of wands, but turned up to major arcana sized volume.

Today’s energy is begging a question to which Tarot doesn’t necessarily have an answer. As good as Tarot is, it is nevertheless only a tool in the hands of your intuition. Tarot, runes, astrology, pendulums, scrying mirrors; oracles can nudge your attention in the right direction. In the end, it is only your heart, your feelings, your instincts that can answer some things.

Today’s energy is asking us to consider when to persist and when to change.

Persistence can overcome the obstacles that life randomly throws at our feet. But what if those obstacles are a message in and of themselves? What if those obstacles are a cosmic safety net trying to get us to adapt to an ever changing situation. What if our obstacles are not meant to elicit persistence but rather to save us from ourselves?

In times of challenges, sometimes it is helpful to question why and to understand the root cause of our desires. Do you really want to get back together with your ex, or are you really wanting to heal the wounds of rejection and to know that you are desirable after all. Do you really want that one particular job, or do you really want the attention or creative outlet or steady income it would bring?

Motives change as circumstances change. What was top of the list one day can slip in importance over days, weeks, months or years.

Cue today’s music reference. I just intuitively heard a snippet of Reeling in the Years by Steely Dan. I was 7 when it was released, and early 70s music isn’t my favorite, so I’m calling this pure intuition. In a reading, it doesn’t matter when a clairaudient song was released. What matters is any association your have with a song that comes up like this. What memories does it bring to mind, no matter when that memory actually happened? What feeling does the song evoke for you? What was going on the last time you heard the song, if it is one you’ve heard before?

Life changes. I also clairaudiently hear the words “chord changes.” I’m not a musician so I don’t really understand what that means. I’m guessing that chord changes within a song make the song better. So I would guess that means that changes in desires and changes in goals, hopes and dreams would make life better too.

And now for something completely different. Now I get the image of a bowling alley and hear the phrase “gutter bumpers.”

In bowling alleys, they usually have guide rails that pull up or some kind of bumpers that they can put in to keep the bowling ball out of the alley gutters and make the game more fun for small children or physically challenged players.

It has been said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes challenges teach persistence and build strength of character.

It has also been said that “I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are having a pagan rave.” I’ve enjoyed that meme of unknown origins a lot this past month. Sometimes challenges are a source of clarity and new directions.

The squirrel rave has been tiring, but it has also forced some clarity. It has been a validation for this text to speech format and a few other plans I have in mind for TaoCraft Tarot. This isn’t what I’d originally wanted for the podcast, but it is what life needs it to be right now. I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am.

Thank you so much for listening!

If you enjoy these posts and episodes, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot page on ko-fi. The link is in the episode description for podcast listeners. The shop, memberships and virtual coffees support the creation of the blog and podcast.

Private readings are available by email HERE

Be Yourself, Be a Hero

Be a Superhero. Be yourself. The 9 of Pentacles is today’s short sip tarot reading.

Hi and welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card, the nine of pentacles, is as light and simple as yesterday’s card, the hierophant, was heavy and complicated.

Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars third edition deck was the absolute perfect one to carry today’s message. I don’t know that this energy could come through quite this way with any other deck.

This deck has a lot going for it including Mr. Pham’s raw artistic talent, and excellent guide book writing not to mention the color palette and the watercolor aesthetic. But it’s his use of movie and TV references that drew my attention to the deck in the first place and makes it a favorite deck to this day.

My intuition works exactly that way. If you have ever had a reading with me, chances are that some sort of song, tv show or movie came up. I’m not a super deep-cut kind of media watcher, so if something comes to mind that I actually recognize, chances are that it is popular enough to be relatable to most clients.

Like right now for example. This probably is nothing more than an example, but if it is meaningful to you somehow, that’s perfect, roll with it. Right now the mental image of baby yoda grogu sipping soup comes to mind. Even if you didn’t watch the Mandalorian series, the snippet of baby yoda sipping from a cup has been a fairly viral internet meme. For me, it is symbolic of utter calm in the middle of utter chaos. It is a more recent image that carries the same feeling as that scene in the 1991 version of Robin Hood where the Sheriff of Nottingham comes into a room and starts pacing and yelling and in a brilliant bit of stagecraft Alan Rickman stabs the dinner ham to bits while the sheriff’s witch-sister deadpan asks “something vexes thee?”

Or, if you are middle aged gen x vanguard like me, you might remember that Hawkeye quote from the TV series MASH “if you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, then you probably haven’t checked with your answering service lately.”

Whichever pop culture image you most resonate with, it carries the advice to stay chill no matter how chaotic it gets. Be the cooler head that prevails.

See how that works?

But back to the nine of pentacles. Thanks to the Heart of Stars deck, it has a superhero vibe to go with the picture of Wonder Woman. Classically, nine of pentacles is associated with truth, happiness and, as the artist himself put it , quote This card represents self-reliance and the need to question your biggest assumptions in order to challenge the status quo and things that seems so normal because everyone around you is accustomed to the same beliefs. End quote.

Raise your hand if you see the connection to yesterday’s card.

Some people, for their own health and safety, cannot express their authentic selves. It is a harsh reality and necessary choice. When someone does that, they do so in quiet service to their own health, safety and sanity. That choice is as worthy of our love and support as any other.

Today’s card is the opposite side of the same coin. If you have the wherewithal and opportunity to live your truest most authentic self (and only you can decide what that is) then you have the obligation to do so.

Here, instead of a clairvoyant mental image, I’m getting a clairaudient mental snippet of a song. It’s Odd Future by Uver World that was one of the opening themes for the anime My Hero Academia, although I forget which season.

So there you have your soundtrack for today’s Tarot. Be a hero by being yourself. Be a hero by living and speaking your truth. Without even trying you might inspire someone who can’t do the same thing right now. If you are heroically out there living your best life, you might just heroically comfort someone who really needs to see someone like them.

Or if anime themes don’t convince you, maybe psychologist Carl Jung can. He once said that quote the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are end quote.

Today the nine of pentacles is asking us to exercise our privilege, be our glorious true selves and maybe inspire other people to become the same kind of hero too.

Thank you so much for reading and listening! Any likes, subs, follows, shares, questions or comments are always appreciated. If you enjoy these free to access tarot readings, please visit the TaoCraft Tarot Page on ko-fi. There is a link in the episode description. The shop, memberships and virtual coffees all support the creation of the blog and podcast.

Thanks again. See you at the next sip!

Speaking of the next sip…that will be in two days. Like the meme says, I don’t have ducks, I don’t have rows, I have squirrels and they are hosting a rave. The squirrels are a little out of hand tomorrow so short sip will be back on Thursday June 9

Today’s Tarot: Clarity

They used to call a half caf skim milk latte a “why bother?”

Good question, and not just about coffee (she says as she sets down her double shot)

Don’t get me wrong…not every single solitary thing in life has to have a point, purpose or goal. Just being, abiding, enjoying is reason enough for anything. At the same time, life without some degree of point, purpose or goal leaves one languishing in a sea of ennui.

Sips

With anything that you do a lot or a long time, in my case Tarot, it pays to revisit the point, purpose and goal of it every now and again. What’s the use of Tarot? What good is it doing anyone? Why bother?

I think the answer is in the reason why we ask questions like this: clarity.

If something is going to have a pointed, productive goal-oriented role in our life, we have to have clarity about what that goal or purpose really is. The purpose of Tarot is to gain clarity. An yup, that is rooted in the same ‘clair’ as in ‘clairvoyant’ which literally means clear sight ability. We use our intuition and the mental-imaginative echoes of our senses to cut through the noise of daily life and all of its twist and turns – expected and unexpected alike.

A number of cards have the quest for clarity at the forefront of their meanings and connotations. The seven of cups, for example, points out times of decision paralysis, an abundance of choices and the possibility we are overthinking things. The advice has an outward, yang quality. The advice is to gain clarity by simplification. It is an active solution, to go out and cut away the unnecessary.

Here the energy is more yin, zen and passive. Sometimes these solutions are more challenging when other needs are pressing, like a job, income, or general frustration. With the two of wands we find clarity by waiting, watching. It is advice straight from the Tao Te Ching: In a river or pond, churned up water is cloudy, but if it is given time and allowed to be quiet the mud will settle out. The water becomes clear.

When you read for yourself, you can read the cards for clarity.

When you read the cards for others, you read in service to clarity, namely helping them to find theirs.

It’s my mind, and I’ll change it if I want to

I know, I know…I said no more cutesy pants promotions

But thirty years of card reading is something. And I wanted to do something to commemorate it. Get ’em while you can. It’s prolly going to be the last cutesy pants promotion for the next thirty years.

Offer good for website purchases only. Poloicies and disclaimers apply.

Parallax

Originally published 5-27-2010

“Camera 1, Camera 2, Camera 1, Camera 2” ~ Wayne’s World 2

Ever play with that trick of eyesight? Close one eye, and hold up a pencil so it lines up with an object in the distance. Then switch eyes and the pencil seems to jump to one side. Things don’t line up the same way.

In astronomy, this is called parallax. In anatomy, this phenomenon where the brain combines two slightly different views from two slightly different viewpoint gives us depth perception…it allows us to see distance. Two eyes lets us live in three dimensions. It helps us to not walk into objects and learn our environment the literal hard way.

A similar idea is true in Tarot and psychic work. Getting a reading isn’t predicting the future…it is getting a second look, a separate viewpoint to combine with our own that lets us see with greater clarity and understanding. It helps us be a bit more perceptive, and not have to learn every lesson the hard way.

Two third-eyes are better than one, in other words.

Even those of us who do readings professionally will sometimes GET one to improve our understanding and fill in any blind spots. 

I like to think that when psychics read for themselves or consult a fellow psychic, it works like binocular vision. Two readings from two people gives two views that can be fused together into a higher quality, more useful vision.

Another example is the VLA, “very large array” of radio telescopes. It is made of 27 or so radio antennae all linked together to work together like one big dish, one configuration is over 20 miles across. Working together, the telescopes have capabilities magnetudes more than any individual telescope. If we combine our logic, know-how, and life experience to work together with oracle tools (tarot, runes, palm lines, what-have-you) and other intuitives, we can increase our understanding and spiritual growth by magnitudes.

If one eye is closed, then depth perception doesn’t work. If one telescope is down, the array doesn’t work as well. We each bring our part to a reading. The sitter (learner, seeker, client) has a part to play too. When we do a Tarot reading, we work together. I translate spirit, but it is up to you to understand and apply the message. We work together like the telescopes in the VLA or two eyes together to see farther. Working together, we see with more clarity. Together we are clairvoyant.