The center of the busy sandwich is here with the 8 and 9 of pentacles
Monday, the current energy card was the 8 of pentacles (coins, disks – whatever name your deck uses.
Today is that day, the productive day sandwiched in between working to find and keep balance.
It’s not the productivity I expected
With the intent of one day, right here, right now, collective blog audience guidance the card is the 9 of coins.
The 9, like all of the coins cards is down to earth & practical. But in keeping with the nature of Tarot as a whole, the ideas are also esoteric. Tarot is more than mere predictions and more than pictures on a piece of cardstock paper. Like any fine art paintings, they represent ideas and emotions. Like the 10 of pentacles to come, the 9 of pentacles represents higher ideals and the most valuable things in life that money can never buy.
The nine re-states and re-emphasizes the maturity and the “apply lessons learned” message from the weekly reading . Like the 7 and 8 before it, there are shades of manifestation, where hard work pays off. The payoff in this case is more than monetary. It is about self-confidence, deep competence, and self-sufficiency. This card lets you know that you are enough. Which reminds me of Al Franken’s old Saturday Night Live character. I don’t mean to turn into some sort of Stuart Smalley parody, but your are good enough, smart enough and doggone it people like you.
Do what needs done in balance and in your own truth and good things will come of it.
But don’t forget to keep it in balance. Don’t forget that Temperance stands beside us and the two of pentacles is on the horizon.
This isn’t about frenetic activity or slavish goal orientation. It isn’t about single minded focus or work-a-holic-ness.
This is about doing something that touches your soul. This about action not waiting. This is about taking a step toward your dream.
There are reasons that a spell is called a magical working. There are reasons why dreams are chased and not just thought about. Actions speak louder than words. Actions are needed to speak your truth and chase your dreams too.
Yes, you have to do what you have to do to pay the bills and put food on the table. But if you can, today at least, spend a little time with your dreams, your hopes, your own inner authentic self and your truth as you know it.
Feed it. Nurture it. Most of all DO something for it, even if the only action that you can give your truth today is simply thinking about it. That attention and energy is something and something is better than nothing when it comes to giving thought, energy and action to your truth and to your dreams.
The two of pentacles is back to sandwich productivity between calls to seek balance.
Some times you have ebb and flow. Sometimes you have grab and sandwich and go.
Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blogs and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast. I’m glad you are here. As always, these short sip readings are Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. On Mondays we get close to the whole cup by taking a three card look at the week ahead.
Also as always, none of this is a prediction. That whole fix your love life, meet your soulmate, win the lottery nonsense stems from horror movies, fiction and fantasy. Genuine Tarot has more in common with weather reports, folk art and psychology than predicting the future. If someone approaches you individually and offers you a reading that is on a par with those Nigerian prince spam emails and should be treated as such.
Finding a psychic you can trust is one of the things I talk about in Tao Craft Portfolio, but I’ll shamelessly self promote that later. Back to this week. The three cards reflect the general, collective energy environment and give general collective energy food for thought. These readings are made of ideas to inspire you or strategies to help you navigate the energy environment.
Or, like I’ve said for years under the Modern Oracle and TaoCraft Tarot blog names….the future is yours to create, not mine to predict. Tarot doesn’t predict what will happen in life. Tarot helps you to figure out what to do when life happens.
Balance is what is happening – or what we need to create this week.
The fading energy is Temperance, the current energy is the eight of pentacles and the growing energy is the two of pentacles. Long story short, it is a productivity sandwiched between advice to stay balanced.
The Two of Pentacles was fading previously. Now it’s making a comeback on the other side of the layout compared to last week. That hints at ebb and flow, or dynamic equilibrium.
The idea of dynamic balance, of balance in motion like a gyroscope, has been attached to the two of pentales a lot lately. Lately meaning the past couple of years, really.
Both the Temperance card and the two of pentacles card are associated with balance. Temperance is the gentler side of balancing, and today has the feeling of little nudges on both sides of the balancing equation. It reminds us of moderation, and not letting things get too out of control in the first place, but it also gives little nudges when we need to up the volume or intensity of something to achieve balance, like pouring into an empty cup. Temperance reminds of gentle mixing back and forth in order to gently moderate opposites before either gets extreme. There are other keywords like combining, creating, experimenting, but the moderation kind of balance energies are prominent today.
The two of pentacles is more active, and feels like the bigger adjustments that are needed when things have already gotten out of balance. The two of pentacles is more about hauling in the edge of the envelope after pushing it to the limit or pulling back when you are too far out over your skis.
You’ll notice both of these are active, moving concepts. Unless you are stacking Zen rocks or something, when it comes to human life, balance is tied to change. Inanimate, motionless object don’t maintain balance. They just fall.
My favorite example of dynamic balance is a unicycle rider. Watch someone on a unicycle. Staying balanced upright on a single wheel is a pretty good trick. It is difficult enough when you are constantly moving forward, but the really impressive thing is the way they can stay upright without travelling forward. But even then, they are not completely still. If you watch, the unicycle rider is making constant tiny back and forth movements in order to stay upright even when they aren’t moving over a distance.
Movement lends itself well to progress and productivity too.
This week we have movement sandwiched between two other kinds of movement.
“In the zone” comes to mind. There is a lot of science and physics images coming through with this reading.
First we had angular momentum and gyroscopes. Now I see a wave graph. The balance we need this week isn’t about a single point, like a ballerina holding a perfect arabesque, its about wave amplitude and staying in a range. It’s about dialing in the ups and downs to stay within a managable range, not about stopping the changes.
If there is one piece of advice in all three cards put together for this week it would be to keep moving, but adjust your tolerances. Things may be active and changing and productive and busy, but the trick to get through it all is to adjust the amplitude of the ups and downs so that they are managable.
You might not be able to turn of the noise, but you can adjust the volume.
You might not be able to hold the unicycle of life perfectly still, but you can adjust the movements so that it seems like you are staying upright in one place.
Be productive – go for it. Just don’t forget to put the busy in a sandwich of balance.
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Contented? More please! Sage’s Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it take to sip from your coffee
In Tarot, we talk a lot about what to do when things get bad. What do you do when things get good?
Hello and welcome to the Sage Words Tarot blog and Short Sip podcast where it is all Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. I’m glad you are here.
This week’s energy has a lot of the Zen and Taoist philosophy influence that I wanted to honor in my previous blog name, TaoCraft Tarot. To be clear, I don’t mean any of this as any sort of cultural appropriation. When I was in my twenties, at a time when I was running for my life from a toxic subculture, I finally found a safe space and indulged in all of the Tarot, Taoism, Zen and magick reading I could get my hands on. Those ideas and philosophies helped me to grow into a much better person and made my life magnitudes better. Taoist principles like simplicity, honesty and authenticity are the foundation of my Tarot work to this day. The foundation of everything, really.
This week’s cards weave together around that core. The three cards together bring to mind the idea of suffering and satisfaction.
When you say it that way, it reminds me of the scene from Harry Potter where they are learning to read tea leaves and Ron reads Harry’s as something along the lines of “you are going to suffer, but you’ll be happy about it.”
The energy today brings to mind the opposite and begs the question:
Are you happy but suffering about it?
I follow a lot of artists on social media. Bruce Brackett is as fierce and fearless in his self-expression as you would expect a professional artist to be. The fan snaps, cups of love, and “negativity be gone” catchphrase is brilliant. I forget the main point of what he was saying the other day on TikTok. A side comment captured my attention so much I don’t remember the rest of it or even exactly when it posted.
It was about how he was able to take an accomplishment in stride, and wasn’t feeling overjoyed about it, “just” content. I’m paraphrasing heavily, but he said something along the lines of “I suppose I’m not supposed to be overjoyed at everything.”
No, no you’re not. None of us are as far as I can tell.
Where there is yin, there must be yang. Where there is light there must also be dark. Where there is overjoyed, there is also sorrow. Where there is lasting, there is also fleeting. Given the big picture and broad spectrum of all that life can be, content is a pretty darn good thing.
Buddhism talks about suffering. Set illness, aging, injury and physical suffering aside for a moment and let’s think about the mental and emotional side of things. No, not really set it aside – just make it the second domino in our cascading line of thought. Mind affects body and vice versa, so all of this can get around to the physical benefits of stress reduction and so on…but I’ll leave that to the holistic health folks to think about.
Suffering in the philosophical Buddhist sense can be thought of as dissatisfaction, or in other words a lack of that precious content feeling Mr. Beckett described. Suffering can be, and often is totally subjective and completely within our frame of mind.
It’s like that pastina recipe that has been popular lately. Being hungry is a physical suffering . Among those who are well fed, however, a bowl of humble pasta might leave one person comforted and content while a meal at the best restaurant in town might leave another person dissatisfied and secretly filling up later at the fast food joint down the street.
Things are good.
There is a pretty, floaty, quiet little snow happening outside my window right now. I have a private Tarot client this afternoon as tasty leftovers in the ‘fridge for lunch between now and then.
Right here, right now, in this precious moment life is good and I am content. I want to take this opportunity to tell the universe how deeply grateful I am. More of the same please. I wish contentment for us all.
For this week, the two of pentacles is the fading energy card. I don’t think that means things are becoming unbalanced. The two of pentacles hints at a dynamic kind of equilibrium. I think this means the need to pay active attention to our life balance may be fading a bit. It feels like things may be settling into a new normal.
Three years ago this week the world was tossed into the global pandemic. I’m not saying that’s over. That is outside of anything Tarot and way outside of my expertise. But wearing a mask on occasion and keeping up with new vaccine boosters is a new normal that is easy enough to live with. Things are striking a new balance that is solid enough to let us turn our emotions to other places.
Current energy is the nine of cups. The suit of cups symbolizes our emotions, which is why they are so closely tied to romance and relationship issues. This reflects the subjective nature of contentment. Nine symbolizes fulfillment, or a good outcome to something. When is enough ever enough? This hints at that feeling of contentment were just talking about.
Growing energy is back to the practical pentacles. The seven reminds us that you reap what you sow, so might as well sow good things.
That there will be a harvest at all is a magical, comforting thing.
All in all, these cards are reminding us of all the changes we’ve been through. It may have been a struggle to find balance, but we are at a place where we can find new balance points and find a new normal. This new balance (the energy, not the shoes) has brought new good things with it, but it is up to us to realize the good things about here and now. Dwelling on the changes robs us of a new sense of contentment. We may not be overjoyed at life, but neither do we have to despair. Like that old adage says, people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
What are the good parts of our new normal that we can seed for the future and hopefully hang on to for a while?
Sage’s Short Sip blog posts and podcast episode are a Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee. Thank you so much for reading and listening. I appreciate each of you.
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Sage’s Short Sip is Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Zen teaches us that only an empty cup can be filled.
So what do you do when your cup is full, when things are good?
That CAN happen, by the way. It’s probably happening right now. Check it out. Shift your attention away from your screen in 3, 2, 1 – NOW. Pay attention to what is around you.
Are you at work? Cool! You have a job and some degree of income! Are you doom scrolling? Cool! You have a device and internet access to scroll with! Are you in physical danger? If you are, get off your phone and do something about it for cryin’ out loud. Have you had something to eat today? Did you get a little bit of sleep last night?
I’m not saying that you don’t have anything on your mind. I’m not saying that you aren’t struggling with anything or that your health is perfect or you have no emotions or emotional pain. Everyone deals with something sometimes. Call it the price of admission to this brief and shining spark we call life.
Pay attention to just this minute for a minute.
Paying attention to right here and right now is what we call mindfulness.
What fills your cup right now?
If you spend your life waiting for champaign, you are going to miss the clear, cool, clean, life-giving water that is there right now. If things are good, drink up.
If things are good, drink it in with gratitude, and make room for more to flow in.
What if the water in a cup is stagnant, or bitter, filled with dirt or germs? Drinking from that would be a bad idea. Instead do what you can to clean out the cup and find a better drink. That requires emptying the cup to make room for more to flow in, too.
How do you know where the good things are to fill your metaphoric cup once there is room in it?
Today’s card is the King of Cups. It symbolizes emotional maturity, emotional protection and healing, mentors, teachers and spirit guides.
Cups and water are timeless symbols for exactly this kind of spiritual, intuitive, emotional learning. Going back to cups and water as an example.
How do you know where the clean, healthy, flowing water is? We don’t necessarily know. We don’t have to know that alone. Teachers, mentors, students and mentees all have a way of finding each other when the time is right. When you are thirsty and your cup is empty, ask for directions to the nearest water fountain. If you know where the clean safe water is, it is up to you to give directions to the empty-bottle thirsty people.
Knowledge and guidance and life flows like water. We all have cups. Drink from the flow even as you help others to do the same.
Thank you for reading and listening! I appreciate each and every one of you.
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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!
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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!
Churning the corner: a Tarot look at the week ahead
It’s Monday. Let’s talk motivation. Mostly because I don’t have any at the moment.
Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blog and Sage’s Short Sip Tarot podcast. I’m glad you are here.
It’s week two of the new schedule where a three card pathway reading for the week ahead posts for everyone on Monday. I appreciate any day that you read or listen. Thank you.
The cards are chatty this week. The intuitive impressions are words as much as mental images. Typically I get more images than words. I don’t thing that shift is particularly significant, I’m fairly clairaudient anyway so let’s just roll with it.
The first card is the knight of cups with the words “emotional churning.” come through here. Knights are generally very active, confident, forward moving cards. In this case, it is in the “diminishing energies” position within the layout. Put those together, and it hints at a time of high emotions, but when that time happens for you as an individual is impossible to say. It may be happening, or it may be close at hand. Either way, I’d guess this time of emotional upheaval and wonkiness shouldn’t last long.
I’ll grant you I’ve had a morning of app and website technical gremlins, so I feel fairly annoyed with that, but those are resolved now and I still feel a sense of malcontent. I get a sense of short tempers, irritability, or of the world getting on every last nerve. Again I get that idea of emotional churning. It might be a residual feeling from the earlier inconveniences, but it it crossing that boundary line we’ve talked about before. If I focus on that boundary between my own mood and the general zeitgeist energy, this feels like more than a stupic app crashing would warrant. Yeah, I was annoyed, but now it feels like so are a lot of other people and over bigger things than that.
Mind that your mood is your own. This card reminds us of two things. First mind your emotional boundaries. What is the objective reality around you right now? Is the stress or emotion you might be feeling objectively warranted, or is it a by-product of worry about the future or dwelling on the past? If that is the case deliberately focusing on right here, right now can help. That’s the mindfulness that people are always talking about.
Let’s try it. Just for a quick moment. Then you can get right back to your regularly scheduled agitation.
First take a deep breath and think about what you feel and how you feel. Good, bad or indifferent, don’t judge it, just name it. How the heck do you feel right now? Is a just a little or is the volume turned up to 11?
Take another deep breath. Now pay attention to right here. Where are you? What is your environment? Pull your attention back from the words on the screen and notice other things like the device itself, the sounds around you, the temperature, how comfortably you are seated or standing.
All of those details.
Pay attention to right now. Forget the past, forget the future, just for a minute. Put all of your thoughts on
This.
One.
Moment.
Is this moment quiet? Does it suddenly feel like “HEY! It’s kinda happy in here!” If that’s the case, you might be resonating with outside energies. If you still feel gnarly and churning, then it’s time to face those emotions. Own them. Even if they are uncomfortable, it’s ok. They are legit. As best as you can, give them…and you…whatever T.L.C is needed. It’s not a personal failure to experience uncomfortable emotions. At worst it’s a signal there is something up that needs some attention, comprehension and problem-solving. At best it’s just you being human.
The good news is that as a diminishing energy, the emotional churn that is our Monday Motivation toward mindfulness (ooooh I do love me some alliteration) probably won’t last long. The high emotional state will churn the corner soon.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
The second thing is mind your own emotions. More than just being aware of the boundary, shore it up and don’t leak out. Feel what you feel. Embrace it, accept it, abide with it. Just please don’t spew it on other people. You never know what is brewing inside their emotional boundary bubble so be nice. We are are annoyed in this together – or so it seems.
The surrounding energy for this week is the Ace of Wands.
I hear “carry a torch for yourself.” which is a phrase that I’ve heard before with this card. Wands are associated with fire, our inner world, and our inner passions. Once we get on the other side of annoyance day, then carrying a torch for ourselves…self love, self improvement, self care….whatever name you want to use for it…give yourself a little of that.
If the emotional churn initially motivates, this self care is one thing that the emotions are pushing us toward.
“Spark an idea” comes through too. I also hear “lightbulb” and see that cartoon trope of a light bulb over someone’s head to show they have had a sudden good idea.
When you get the right idea, your instinct and emotion will light up too. When you know, you know, and when you know where you want to go it lights up the path to get there lights up too.
Churning emotions are a hint that something needs to change, that you need to turn a corner. A spark of an idea will let you know when the change is at hand and just what corner to turn.,
The growing energy is the two of pentacles. That’s where we are headed, and that’s a releaf. I ‘hear’ it will all wash out in the end.
I see pancakes.
Here is why.
Have you ever made pancakes from scratch? Most recipes tell you not to mix too much at the end, and that lumps are OK because they will cook out in the end, and mixing them out now will make the pancake chewy and tough.
That’s sort of the flow of energy here. It’s lumpy and weird at the start, but if we hang in and roll with it, it will all cook out in the end. We’ll churn the corner to a more balanced energy fairly soon.
Hang in there my friends.
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“Let your brain abide” is advice from the Nine of Swords that is easier said than done.
Hello Sippers!
One of these days, I’ll come up with a creative, fun way to begin and end these things. In the meantime, hello! And welcome to the Daily Sip membership on ki-fi, Sage’s Sip of Tarot podcast and the Sage Words Tarot Blog.
The Daily Sip will sometimes share a card with my posts on other platforms, but the Daily Sip gets it first – sometimes by a lot. The Daily Sip is the one and only place where I post every single weekday. The free blog is the only place for long reads and weekend posts. The podcast, the YouTube channel and the socials are not on any schedule whatsoever. Following both blogs is the only way to get absolutely everything if you are at all interested in doing that, and believe me I am grateful if you are. Member or not, you might as well follow the free blog on my main website because it is, you know…free.
As much as we might not want to admit it, Friday is technically a weekday, so here we are. Weekdays I focus on the “short sip” one card format where we get a Tarot contemplation for our day in the time it takes to sip from our coffee. Or tea. Or adult beverage. Or whatever it is that you sip at the time of day when you read (or hear) this.
The nine of swords is one of those cards where the interpretation seems to strongly rely on the artwork of the particular deck you are using. The Three of Swords, for example, always seems to give the same vibe regardless of the deck or image. This nine gets some interesting refinements in the way it connects with the image on the card. The classic Pamela Smith artwork prompts key words like regrets, worry, anxiety – anything that keeps running through your mind and keeping you awake at night. Corrin McCullough’s Nine of Swords from the Alleyman’s Tarot deck hints at genuine terror, and any overwhelming dark emotion.
The Witches Tarot with artwork by Mark Evans is one of my favorites all around, but particularly for the nine of swords. It hints at a whiff of self-sabotage and the guidebook author Ellen Dugan nails it with the phrase “drama queen.”
Underneath it all, however factually serious the objective, external situation may (or may not) be, the subjective, emotional, internal situation is dark, intense and dire.
So what do we do about that. My philosophy about Tarot has always been that Tarot (or any psychic reading or divination method for that matter) does not tell you what will happen in life, it helps you figure out what to do when life happens. So what do you do when you life over-runs you with intense dark emotions?
Oddly enough – nothing. This totally falls into the “easier said than done” category of advice.
Actually it’s not nothing … it is more like allow the emotions to run their course. When it comes to something as painful as this level of so called negative emotion, allowing is not nothing. The hard part is convincing your brain to abide with profoundly uncomfortable emotions for a while. The crushing and terrifying moments are as much a part of a normal human existence as the joyous and euphoric moments.
This is where life’s inevitable change is your friend. Where there is capacity for change, yes, there is the possibility of things getting worse, but there is equal capacity for change toward the better, too.
When it is the darkest night, dawn follows. When a tide of emotions wash over you know that they will, eventually, recede.
I’m a science fiction fan. The famous litany against fear from 1965 classic novel Dune actually works. In its full version, it talks about exactly the same strategy in the face of strong emotion that the nine of swords card points toward today. In the words of Frank Herbert:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Thank you all for reading the blog and listening to the podcast! I’ll see you all Monday for the big sip, for the whole cuppa Tarot when we do a full three card pathway reading for the week ahead.
Hello and welcome to Sage Words Tarot blog and the audio podcast version Sage’s Short Sip Tarot.
Merry Monday everyone!
This is what I call a Pathway layout for our reading that is intended to look ahead at the week coming up. I’m writing this on February 20 for the week from now until the 27th, but you can apply it anytime that you watch it if it feels right to you. The way I read Tarot isn’t tied to time any more than it is tied to physical space. That’s how and why that Tarot over distance by email, phone, zoom meeting, blogs and podcasts all work. That’s why they are as valid of an art form and as valid of a source of inspiration as any other Tarot reading.
A private reading with this layout will have a slightly different focus, intensity and level of detail compared to these general energy reading that we do here, but they function the same way at the core. The focus is the energy environment. This is a read of the zeitgeist to give you ideas how to best navigate the energies and situations at hand. Like have said for years – Tarot isn’t about predicting what will happen in life, it is about figuring out what to do when life happens.
The Pathway layout parallels the old style past, present, future layout that inspired it, but it is more about the flow of energy rather than the flow of time. It can help us navigate the near future, but the near future for the collective energy can mean hours, days or weeks for an individual. It really is up to you to consider, accept or reject, and then apply any given intuitive information no matter whether the reading is in person or at a distance, individual or collective.
In my version of the pathway layout, instead of past, present and future the cards symbolize energies that are fading, the strongest energy around right now and energies that are growing in strength or influence. It is very much like a weather report. There are no inevitable warnings in Tarot like there is with weather, but it can hint at what is possible, even probable. It’s the personal enrichment version of take your coat because a cold front is coming.
When I do a private reading, I start with a paragraph I call the “general pattern.” That part looks at the layout as a whole and considers things like repeating numbers, the ratio of major to minor arcana, and in the longer readings, the proportions of the various minor arcana suits. This is also a good time to talk about any purely intuitive impressions that pop up right off the bat.
If you have followed the blog or listened to the podcast for any amount of time you already know about the see, hear and feel thing.
When I say “see” it means the intuitive impression comes in the form of a mental image. “Hear” means it is an impression of words or music. “Feel” most often a vague hunch, one of those “I don’t know why but…” sort of things. It almost never means a physical sensation, so that gets special mention if it happens. Don’t hold your breath for that one.
In this case, three cards aren’t really enough to comment about minor arcana ratios. The flow reads from right to left. I’m an English speaker, so it helps the connection to intuition to disconnect it from the way language reading flows. Here we see two minor arcana cards flowing into a major arcana card which hints at building energies just ahead. Things are heading in a direction of more energy, more change, and a faster pace. I also intuitively hear the song “People Are Strange” by The Doors. I’m guessing this means there is a chance of things sliding off the rails, going a little pear shaped or just plain getting weird. Remember, it is easier to put out a small fire than a big one. Forewarned is forearmed as the old adage goes. This isn’t predicting that something bad is going to happen. This saying that there is potential for strange days – like the weather analogy. Bring a jacket because it might be chilly this evening – that sort of thing.
The diminishing energies are represented by the Ace of Wands. Wands cards are connected to the element of fire and our inner passions. This connects to some one card readings I’ve been doing the past several days. Not all of them were public, so no details, but the basic vibe of it all was plant your seeds now. The energy is right for new projects to have good outcomes.
The window for that is closing…so don’t wait. Plant those seeds, follow those passions so you can move on to the business ahead and also protect those delicate beginnings you just planted so to speak.
The Page of Cups is one of my personal favorite cards. For it I ‘hear’ “embrace the strange” which is another way of saying roll with it. The more adaptable and fluid you are, the better the week will go for you. It fits that this message comes through a cups card, since cups are associated with the element water. Here I am reminded of the famous Bruce Lee quote “Be water my friend.” It might be weird, but go with it. This is the vibe that is strongest right now and will be the greatest help in the transition from the diminishing Ace of Wands energy to the growing Tower energy.
The Tower is the surprise, big, sudden game changer of an event or energy shift. Some associate The Tower with chaos, and the opportunities that can lie within chaos. I like to think it can also be a world changing shift in perception. It can represent a sudden insight, the brain wave, the AH-HA moment that changes everything, especially if you are able to put it into action. Here I am also reminded of the “Lighting in a Bottle” card from Dane Asmund’s excellent Alleyman’s Tarot deck. Not all sudden change is bad. It can hold opportunity like the classic meaning for the card and the old proverb says.
Making the most of those kind of bolt-from-the-blue situations is seldom fun or easy, but worth the effort in the long run. Like we talked about in the “The Makings of Magic” post and podcast episode, if you are going to catch lighting in a bottle you have to stand in some thunderstorms.
At this point in private readings, I talk about any crystals, aromatherapy or other intuitive impressions that may come through. Those are far to individual to put in a general audience reading like this. The best advice I can give at this point is to use whatever supports your adaptability. Use whatever healthy coping you knows help you stand strong in a sudden storm. This is a chance draw from your experience…or maybe learn some new things for later…but now is the time for rolling with any lightning strikes so you can catch it in that proverbial bottle.
Thank you so much for reading and listening. Any likes, subs, follows, shares or virtual coffees you can spare are always gratefully appreciated. Podcast folks can, as always, find the related links in the episode description.
Tune in next Monday for our next look at the next week ahead. Daily Sip members, tune in every weekday for a Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee every weekday.
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