Learning by repetition includes the person writing this stuff
I’m letting my INTP personality show a little with this one. Admittedly I live in my head a little too much and can get repetitive with saying things…for the simple reason that it helps me wrap my mind around what’s going on and try to stay a little bit organized in this Pagan Squirrel Rave that we call life.
Pagan Squirrel Rave you ask?
It’s from a meme.
“I don’t have ducks. I don’t have rows. I have squirrels and they are having a pagan rave.” is one of the best, and most entertaining metaphors for the way life has been lately, especially for the Tarot part of things.
So I’m running through all of this again in the guise of keeping you up to date (and introducing myself to new followers) but it is just as much to help me “stay on target.”
Here we go:
Monday: Three card week ahead readings free for everyone!
Tuesday – Friday: One card “Daily Sip” blog Tarot by paid subscription.
Weekends: unscheduled long read, Q&A posts exclusive to the free blog
Follow BOTH the free and subscription blogs to get everything!
Everything is defined by its opposite, so both are necessary. Dark is defined by light and vice versa. Healthy means having both. Euphoric days, in-between days, and emo goth mopey days are all perfectly normal and OK.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go put on my favorite black hoodie and listen to The Cure now.
Members get the full reading HERE – memberships are the ONLY place for Tarot EVERY weekday
Daily Sip membership
One card Tarot every weekday
5% shop discount
DM access for questions, comments
$4 per month
Tarot Table membership
One Card Tarot every weekday
5% shop discount
DM access
one private Sage’s Short Sip Tarot reading by email on request per calendar month.
$5 per month
SageWordsTarot.com Blog
long reads (mostly Tarot topics) on the weekends
Q&A posts
open (but moderated) comments – ASK ME ANYTHING!
updates and announcements
Reiki
Random one card weekday Tarot
FREE
Social Media
Random-assed Tarot content
Dunno what
Dunno when
I only interact with Instagram – so those comments are the best social media place to catch me. No DM.
You’ve heard the term “hold space” but what kind of space are you holding?
What is inside that space we are always talking about holding?
Hello and welcome to Sage’s Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Or tea. Or adult beverage. Or whatever it is you are sipping this time of day. I’m glad you are here.
Every profession loves its jargon and jazzy acronyms. Spiritual or psychic work is no different. Speaking just for Tarot readers, we have a whole glossary of terms that make sense to us, but may or may not make sense to people who don’t spend their day immersed in the woo woo.
The phrase “hold space” is an example.
It is a little hard to imagine, since there isn’t a really good physical world analog. How do you hold space? In a jar with a lid? Does a bowl or coffee mug count?
Holding space is a mental and emotional process more than a tangible thing, although there are tangible things that one can do to symbolize and support the internal process of holding space. That’s why sometimes people who want to find long term romantic partnership are sometimes advised to clear out a drawer or a closet and literally make space in their life for the soulmate that they hope to find. It creates a mindset as much as it creates a later convenience.
It’s a hard thing to put into words, but I would define holding space as “mindfully allowing” combined with the far more familiar “save my seat.”
When we say hold space it also relates to the principle from science that “nature abhors a vacuum.” When we create space, nature tends to flow something into it. If you put a bowl out in a rainstorm, it collects more water than a brick because of the space the bowl holds that the brick doesn’t have. When you pull back on the plunger of a syringe, it holds space in the barrel for the medicine to flow in.
When we admit that something can be a part of our life, then we save its seat, we save that thing’s spot in line next to us. Admit can mean confess or confirm the truth of something, or it can mean allow someone in, as a ticket to an event is admission to that event. When we admit that we want something, that is a step toward admitting that thing into your life.
Doing the literal work or preparing a literal space is another step.
Today’s nine of wands points out another aspect of that process. It’s an aspect that I don’t think gets much thought or attention sometimes.
Desire and a fear and desperation that you may never get what you want can make the whole holding space thing messy if not impossible .
If you want to save space, to hold space for something or someone to come in, the quality of the space may affect the admission process.
Think of a literal room.
If a room is cold or noisy or missing a window or missing a big part of the outside wall…who or what would want to inhabit that space? If a room is secure, comfortable, quiet and inviting, who or what is going to want to stay there?
If that room is metaphor for part of your heart, mind, awareness or emotions, what are you asking in? What is that inner room going to attract? More importantly, is that inner space you are holding one you are willing to live in one the hoped-for person, thing or situation arrives?
The theory applies to anything. If you hold a peaceful place within, then you can be safe and warm and comfortable and happy while you are waiting for your invited guest to arrive. You can be safe and warm and happy even if the invited guest never comes.
Whether you are hoping for prosperity or a soulmate or whatever it is, pay attention to the mental and emotional space that you are inviting the wanted person or thing to enter. The more peaceful the space, the happier the end result.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. I have a few more thoughts about this card and empaths, but we can pick up that thread another day.
Private Tarot readings are open, and help support this blog and podcast. Memberships on ko-fi give you a monthly pathway reading, exclusive content, shop discount and more. Links are in the episode description for podcast listeners.
It’s not a particularly well known interpretation – but the Page of Cups with the Pamela Smith artwork always brings to mind a certain whimsy and a reminder to not take things so deadly serious all of the time. It’s ok to have a sense of humor about things, even the spiritual and abstract. It’s ok to embrace the absurd and let your freak flag fly and let life be what it is in all of it’s glorious absurdity.
I’m also reminded of the Sigmund Freud quote “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” I see an element of that in the Page of Cups. Some days just aren’t cut out for serious, ponderous, high flying, deep thought spirituality. Some days just hand you a fish in a cup, which is infinitely better than a cup of cigars, don’t you think….
Members can read the full post including the intuition development practice step on the Ko-Fi members only blog. Join today for exclusive content, shop discount, Three card path through the month Tarot reading on the blog and more.
Speaking of cups…if you like what you read here on the free Tarot blog, please click the white coffee mug icon to support the blog and podcast on ko-fi!
Welcome Followers old and new! I’m so glad you are here.
Thank you so much to everyone who has ordered private readings and subscribed to the free blog over the past couple of months! It really means a lot.
A lot.
Part of my brain thinks changing names is Internet suicide while another part of thinks it is genius because, let’s face it, Tao could just as easily be a Chinese boy band member as could be a philosophy reference and Craft brings glue guns and Martha Stewart to mind just as much as anything witchy.
So much for trying to be clever. Thank you from the bottom, top and middle of my Tarot heart for sticking with this through all of the renaming nonsense. At least now we are back to normal words that everyone can recognize and spell and whatnot.
Here is the rest of the 2023 overhaul:
Email, this site, the podcast, Ko-fi (shop, member’s blog, email readings) the YouTube channel, Facebook page, Instagram, Tumblr, and TikTok have been changed to the new name.
Closed the Twitter account because I wasn’t really interacting with it after the whole Musk/Trump’s back kerfuffle. If you want to say hi, and I hope you will, Instagram and TikTok have become the two accounts I actually scroll every day.
Party Tarot is CLOSED (let’s just say it didn’t survive covid)
In-person, live online, and small group Tarot are OPEN and available by appointment on a limited basis in select Pittsburgh (South Hills) neighborhoods.
EMAIL READINGS are open for purchase 24/7. Email is my specialty, my true Tarot love, and my priority. Reading orders are usually fulfilled within 12-18 hours but may take longer when you order nights, weekends or US holidays. Vacations and emergency closures are announced here on the main blog.
Social media content is not on any particular schedule. THIS BLOG is the one and only place to get ALL of the free Tarot content. If you follow the blog by email, it all shows up in your inbox – even if it isn’t on youtube, the podcast or the socials (like this post)
If you have followed for a while, you know I’ve sworn off sales, giveaways and all of those cutesy pants promotions. That will stay the same.
THIS on the other hand is a sincere thank you, from me to you, in appreciation of you being here at the end of the chaos and for joining up as everything moves forward. Welcome and THANK YOU.
As a way to say thanks, I’m doing this once, right here, right now, only on this blog and only until February 28, 2023. If you email me at the new address (SageWordsTarot@gmail.com) before with:
Your name
Your age
Your question (or permission for an open reading)
and the coupon code BLOGREADER
I’ll reply with a one card Tarot reading just for you …yes YOU…as an individual, not a general audience reading like we usually do for blog posts or the podcast.
That’s pretty much it.
I hope you like the new energy vibe. Names are symbolic mini-affirmations of who we are, what we have done and what we still hope to achieve.
New episodes of the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast (available on Anchor.fm Spotify, pocketcast, googlepodscast and more) return next week along with Today’s Tarot and YouChoose interactive tarot on YouTube.
Now’s your chance to catch up on the first six episodes of the podcast
“The Niggles” series of blog posts is about ideas that prickle the psyche. It’s that nagging dry hangnail feeling that intuition puts in the way whenever I haven’t understood a message or if I haven’t given a message that needs to be heard by someone.
Today, the niggly thing is gratitude.
I think it is a misunderstanding, really. Or maybe it’s the toxic-positive version of gratitude. There is a sense in some parts spiritual social media that gratitude is a pathway to achieving something that you want.
“Being grateful for what you have” as a means to an end perverts gratitude. It turns being thankful into something artificial even if the end goal is something very good like happiness, a healthy romance, a feeling of abundance or what have you.
I worry that some things I’ve said or written about so-called soulmates may have been misunderstood. When I said that the best way to attract the love of your life is to be happy with your life as it is right now, I never meant that you have to be grateful for being alone.
But when I said be happy, I meant precisely that. I meant to deliberately find the good stuff in the present moment rather than go through life laser focused on something you don’t have. Think about it. Who would you rather have as your soulmate, a person wrapped in the joy of living, or a person wrapped in worry about the future?
There is a difference between a social convention and a genuine emotion. Yes, by all means, say thank you and be polite even if you don’t feel all that. appreciative. If you spontaneously, naturally, authentically feel that way, then by all means live that. BE grateful with gusto.
I’m old enough to remember when people wrote letters on actual paper and had actual conversations on landline telephones, so I still appreciate the technology that lets this blog and podcast happen. It warms my Gen X cyberpunk loving heart. I’m also self aware enough to know I’ve got work to do as a media speaker. Dammit Jim, I’m a writer and this automatic thing is going to make a better, more articulate, more entertaining podcast, right?
Right?
I’m not so sure.
Basically, I’m thrilled to bits if anyone reads or listens to any of this. I’ll be doing a full on happy dance if anyone decides to get a reading because of anything in the blog or podcast. But it bothers me that the automated audio doesn’t sound the same as the words sounded in my brain when I wrote them.
My narration may not be Webby worthy – yet – but at least it has more emotional tone and verbal context than the electronic version. It is, after all, human. Humanity is what intuition, clairvoyance, psychology, Tarot and personal development are all about. This tech part is fun as heck and only going to get better as time goes on. But it is what it is, and so is the human side of it all.
I propose a hybrid. When you see “Confession” in the title, you’ll know that’s me recording the episode. If you see “Today’s Tarot” or some other title, you’ll know to expect the cyber side of the podcast.
True to the renegade pirate radio motif, nothing about Clairvoyant Confessional is set in stone. It is naturally evolving to be short, little jelly bean sized episodes. There is no sense holding something like that to a regular release schedule. Text to speech will let me drop content more often, as the inspiration hits. The “confession” episodes will happen less often, BUT they will also be longer and take a deeper dive into the humanity of clairvoyance, psychics, intuition and Tarot. Q&A episodes will always be recorded and never automated.
Did you hear that sound? That was the loud thud of a hint being dropped. If you want to submit a question to be answered in the podcast, possibly in the form of a Tarot reading, just visit the Clairvoyant Confessional podcast page on TaoCraftTarot.com. There is a link in the episode description if you are listening to the podcast. The page is in the top menu for those of you reading the blog.
Thank you all for reading and listening. I really do appreciate any follows, subscriptions, likes, or shares that you can spare. And please, for the love of your own ears, send some feedback or some questions. I can’t read for a question until you ask it.
Thanks again, and I’ll talk to you all when the next jelly bean drops.
Frank Herbert famously wrote “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct” which in turn was adapted into the more famous movie line “A beginning is a very delicate time.”
Beginnings, I would add, are also tipsy, unpredictable, even mildly terrifying times.
The Fool depicted as Captain Jack Sparrow is one of my favorite cards from Thom Pham’s Heart of Stars Tarot deck. The character, as played by Johnny Depp, captures all sorts of threads held within the card.
The Fool card isn’t about “foolish” as contemporary language might make you think. Humor and play are certainly connotation within the card. But there is more to this kind of humor than meets the eye. Just like Captain Jack. He turns out to have both unexpected cleverness and ulterior motives. Contemporary stand up comedy is another analogy for the Fool card. Think of comedians who deeply insightful social observations in their humor; Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Fallon, Eddie Izzard and George Carlin to name a few personal favorites. Author Richard Clarke once said that you can tell more truth through fiction than non-fiction. You can tell more truth through humor than you can say outright. Such is the nature of the Fool card.
A beginning is the best known connotation of the card, ostensibly because it has long been the first card in the major arcana part of the deck.
Beginnings are weird. No matter how much you expect them and prepare for them, then there is still a pretty good chance something is not going to go according to plan. Sometimes we think about something, but for some reason we never set a hard start or take the leap. Sometimes that is a by-product of uncertainty, lack of confidence, or outright fear. Sometimes it is a matter of timing. Going back to Frank Herbert, enough time has to elapse and conditions have to be right for the spice mass to reach critical mass and blow. That is why it is a classic Tarot trope for the Fool to be off balance, one footed, or on the edge of a cliff. If you don’t begin something that needs begun, life will often come along and begin you. Maybe that’s why Captain Jack moves the way he does.
copyright Ronda Snow
This is my new beginning: Clairvoyant Confessional is my new podcast available on Spotify, Anchor.fm, PocketCast with more outlets on the horizon. If you would like a private distance session with a podcast psychic – here’s your chance.
Sage Words Tarot 