Quick reminder that the podcast is back on hiatus for a short time. I don’t want to subject you to my lame recording skills, but no luck yet finding an affordable text to speech conversion.
Tell me Tarot folks – do you like to listen? Is a podcast helpful to you at all? When it comes back, IF it comes back, it will be an audio echo of the slightly longer week-ahead Energy Path readings that are free for everyone on the blogs.
Comments are wide open. What do you think? Listen or no?
Ask a question and get a psychic answer or Tarot reading in the blog.
Web page updated to include a contact form so you can ask your question right there.
Visit the ASK ME ANYTHING page and well, ask me anything!
All answers are edited to protect privacy, but feel free to use a nickname. Please omit any sensitive or personally identifying information.
Free Tarot (or oracle) content on Sage Sips is fueled by paid subscriptions, private Tarot reading purchases, virtual coffee and sips of literal coffee. Please support this free blog – and let me know in the comments if you are interested in an audio version (Sage Sips podcast)
Alleyman Tarot by Seven Dane Asmund used with permission
Energy path Tarot reading for the week of 15 May 2023
Hello and welcome to Sage Sips. I’m glad you are here and right off thank you for hanging in with this through all the changes in 2023. With the demise of WordPress to Spotify integration and PodCastle not being as free as they made themselves out to be, the podcast is once again on hiatus, possibly permanently.
As we go along, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask. Blog comments are open, or you can use the “ask me anything” page on sage words tarot dot com. Substack chats and ko-fi DMs are open to subscribers.
This week we are working entirely from the minor arcana. Sometimes all minor arcana can hint at a low key or low energy week but it doesn’t mean it is an inactive or stagnant week. There is a sense of rootedness in the physical realm thanks to the king of pentacles card. When pentacles are around, there is always a sense of practicality. This is the suit of the physical realm and the classic element of earth and all of the no-nonsense no-drama style that you would expect. The other two cards are both from the suit of swords. Swords is connected to the element of air, but there is nothing airy-fairy about them. Swords also symbolize mind and intellect and action. Put all of that together and this week definitely calls for a head over heart approach. Cool incisive logic is your friend. Compared to the high flying ideals of recent weeks this might seem low energy by comparison, but careful precise action is action just the same. This isn’t the withdrawn or introverted energy we’ve seen recently either. This is deliberate, inexorable forward movement.
The mental image is a glacier flattening the landscape or the slow crumbling ah-ah lava that is just as powerful as the fast flowing type. The energy for this week may be slow, but it is oh so focused on being efficient, effective and enduring. The energy this week seems to be putting the level in level-headed.
Kings are leaders, so if the pentacle card represents concrete wealth, money or career, then the two together hints at a wise use of resources. Don’t let things waste either by sitting and mouldering or by being used frivolously or unwisely. Don’t allow things to sit and spoil, but don’t be a spendthrift either. This is in the fading energy position. Going back to the glacier mental image, I see small rivulets of melted ice, small streams of water flowing quickly down the front of the glacier. That feels like a quicker movement, an influx of resources may come, but not quite yet. It’s not a forever thing, but right now is a time to play the cards you are dealt and work with what you have on hand.
I get the sense of a short time or a not-serious wait. Here I get the mental image of that TV show where chefs compete to make the best dish from the ingredients given to them in a basket.
The current energy card is the knight of swords in reverse. I’ll spare you yet another explanation about how I handle reversed cards. If you have questions about reversals, what that means or how to handle them in a reading – please, ask away in the comments, ask me anything page, or other contacts as listed.
The knight of swords is usually a card of daring, or action and supreme self-confidence. Today the reversal feels significant, it feels like all of those things are blocked or hampered. It feels less like the afraid side of timid and more like a lack of confidence, or negative self-talk. This card isn’t talking to the part of you that is afraid…fear is there for a good reason sometimes. This is talking to the part of you that says “I can’t.” You can. You can do something. Who says you have to do what is expected? Who says you have to do what other people do? Instead of saying “I can’t” figure out what IS within your reach and your resources and do that. Every little bit helps and something is better than nothing in this case.
The growing energy is the eight of swords. Sometimes in a reading a card can serve as a highlight, an underline or an exclamation point to another card’s message. I think that is the case here. The energy of practicality, and level-headed, mind over emotion, deliberate, considered action may with us for a while. The eight of swords is working with the reversed knight to remind us that working within our means and doing what we can do is better than stopping dead in your tracks and giving up, doing nothing.
Take inventory. Make a no-nonsense plan. Act within your means and resources but act. Don’t let “I can’t” take you prisoner. Just because you can’t do one thing doesn’t mean the other things you CAN do aren’t needed or valuable. When it comes to doing the things within your means, what are you waiting for?
Thank you so much for reading and listening.
This free Tarot content is fueled by real coffee, the virtual coffees on ko-fi, paid subscriptions and your private Tarot reading purchases. That allows me to put your message first, not an advertiser’s. Please buy me a coffee or become a “Sage Sips” member with a Ko-fi or Substack subscription today.
Thanks again. See you at the next sip!
Sage Sips: a Tarot look at the week ahead in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Hello and welcome to Sage Sips the blog, the newsletter and, so it seems, the podcast.
I think we finally and for real have everything set up under th new name. Sage words tarot is the main website with links to all the good stuff including private readings you can order anytime, no appointment needed.
Sage Sips is the name of the active podcast. The old feed under the title “Sage’s Short Sip Tarot” has been deleted or soon will be. Sage Sips is the name of this blog on ko-fi and substack where you can also get these Pathway readings for the week ahead on Mondays, but also subscriber exclusive content at other times.
Simple! And hopefully easier to spell and remember than the name Tao Craft was. So now that all of that is apparently nailed down for the moment, let’s look at the cards and energies ahead for this week. When I say energies ahead I don’t mean what is going to happen.
Nope.
That is 100% up to you and your individual circumstances. These pathway readings are all about the energy conditions that you have to work with, the vibe ahead can help you to make better decisions and take the best actions for you as an individual. It’s like how the general weather report for everybody helps you to decide what to wear out of your individual wardrobe.
You can decide to bring an umbrella if pouring rain is on the horizon, that sort of metaphoric thing.
This week has big energy, but it is big yin energy. There are two major arcana cards, death and the high priestess. Both cards are inverted, and that feels very significant this time.
If you’ve listened or read for any amount of time, you know that I use pure intuition when it comes to reversed cards, that is to say cards that appear upside down relative to the person doing the reading.
Every card has every shade of meaning: black or white, positive or negative, encouraging or discouraging and every shade of grey in between. I tend to reach for all the shades of feeling for every card anyway, so a physical reversal may or may not be meaningful. It might hint that the part of life represented by the card’s position in the layout is blocked, or hindered or difficult somehow. Just as likely, it could be a hint at a particular set of meanings or key words for the card rather than the layout position. Or, just as likely as either of those, it could mean nothing at all.
In this case it feels like a pull. It feels like advice so slow down, to pull back. I’ve never actually done this, but I imagine this is the mental and emotional equivalent of swimming in thick syrup. There is power here, but it is like the power a bowl holds…its usefulness is in the empty space as much as the bowl that defines it.
There is a sense of tension and expectancy, a period of necessary emptiness and quiet to give future progress somewhere to go. That’s why the two major arcana cards are standing on their heads.
The mental image here is two things:
First is the three of wands card. I don’t think that card is significant with regard to its meaning or key words. It’s more of the feeling that is evoked by the artwork on the card, usually of a figure gazing at the horizon. That lends a sense of waiting and expectancy and holding space for hopes like the bowl analogy earlier.
Second is a diagram that looks like a circle within a circle acting as a hinge or a joint. As quiet or empty as this time may seem, it is necessary in order for things to turn in a better direction. It feels almost like the stars are pivoting around this space in time.
The Eight of Cups is the fading energy. That suits the nature of the card so well, that it may not really begin to fade all that much until we are well into the week. It may stick around for a while, actually. The eight of cups is about endings, about walking away from something for your own good or for the good another. It hints at a bittersweet or melancholy separation that at the same time is utterly necessary. It’s about moving on toward something better even when letting go of the past isn’t a joy or delight. Bittersweet, yes, but very very necessary. This card hints at one of those times where you must acknowledge those melancholy or nostalgic feelings even as you definitively let go and move on.
The current energy is death in reverse. Death is the card of change. It is different from the change we see in the Wheel of Fortune card. This change isn’t cyclic. It isn’t about change within a larger or grander pattern. The change in the death card is more permanent, and much more transformational. There are reasons this is inverted death rather than the wheel card or the hanged man card. This isn’t a pattern of progress – wait – more progress. This is cocoon time. The caterpillar is dead and gone, but it isn’t quite time for the butterfly to emerge either. The cake is in the oven, the butterfly is in the cocoon. Profound change is happening, but it is happening slowly, quietly, and subtly.
The High Priestess is sitting in front of one black and one white pillar. There is a very Tao Te Ching feeling here. The Priestess is usually a symbol of cosmic mysteries with very yin, dark, hidden qualities.
Here is where the Taoism part comes in.
You can’t have darkness without light. The mysterious and obvious are opposites that define each other just like light and dark define each other and the solid parts and empty parts of a bowl define each other.
As for the growing energy card, the High Priestess in reverse reminds us that sometimes you can take things at face value or, as Sigmund Freud famously said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
As big and soul-shaking as the walking-away energies in the eight of cups and the death card may be, the advice here is to not read more into things than are already there. The recent past has been difficult and chaotic and changing enough without us heaping unfounded assumptions on top of everything else.
During this time of quiet transformation it is probably best to take the week at face value.
Thank you all for reading, and once the podcast is back up and running, for listening too.
All of my free Tarot content is readers and listener supported. No monetization means your Tarot message comes first with me, not an advertiser’s message. If you like what you see in these weekly readings, please consider a private reading, subscribing the exclusive content on ko-fi or substack or sending a tip to the virtual coffee mug.
Thanks again, see you at the next sip!
I think I’ve found a new text to speech alternative.
I get it. Audio is a good thing. I love to listen to music and live with a family of musicians, so I appreciate the whole audiophile sound quality thing. It is helpful when words make sounds at all. Some folks just learn and retain information better from the spoken word. Some people have vision issues and rely on spoken word media. Some people just like to listen while they drive or do other things (that’s me – I listen to podcasts while I knit.) There are any number of reasons why it is a good idea to have an audio echo of this blog.
I get it about listening to spoken word content.
On the other hand, creating spoken word content isn’t my strong suit. Put me in front of a keyboard and I’ll write anything you want and imagine I’m giving Shakespeare a run for the money in the process. Put me in front of a microphone to speak and I’ll sound like drunk Yoda at best.
Spotify pooched the old podcast (with the Clairvoyant Confessional episodes) in the switch from Anchor Fm to Spotify for Podcasters and of course things are weirder still as WordPress integration ends. I’m closing the old feed.
If you are an audio person, please be sure to follow the “Sage Sips” feed that matches the free posts here, on ko-fi and on substack.
Right now, the podcast will consist of the Monday week-ahead pathway Tarot readings, but that can change – so this is your chance to influence what content goes into the podcast. Let me know in the comments below what else you want in the podcast and I’ll see what I can do.
Sorry this popped up just when I thought everything was consistent and settled. Ah well, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Life is nothing if not change.
See you tomorrow for the Path reading for the week of May 8-14!
Sage Sips is Tarot wisdom in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.
Giant P.S. to people who like to listen…
The Podcast might not be ending after all….
Am exploring a new text to speech ways to continue the audio blog on the same Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcast and other platforms.
Stay tuned to the free print blog on Sage Words Tarot dot com and to the current podcast channel for new details OR new episodes in the coming weeks.
Second look at this week’s “current energy” card
It’s Wednesday! Let’s revisit the middle card (current energy) from our look-ahead reading from Monday and see how the energy is unfolding for this week.
It’s an interesting phenomenon in professional Tarot reading.
Sometimes the cards will piggyback a message or energy for me along with the collective message for the blog or the specific message for a private client. Sometimes it feels sort of disconnected, like being the pizza delivery person with no connection to the party going on inside the house.
Today it’s a little bit of both.
Three card Pathway reading for the week ahead. Sage Sips is Tarot contemplation in the time it takes to sip from your coffee
Modern art!
Matt Smith was so excellent as the Doctor, when he left and Peter Capaldi came into the role, I wasn’t sure what to think, as is the case for most Doctor Who fans when regeneration time comes around. Then they showed the old “Fires of Pompeii” episode where Capaldi had previously played the role of Caecilius the marble merchant during David Tennant’s time as the Doctor. When toga-clad Capaldi raised his arms in a BEHOLD gesture and declared the Tardis to be “MODERN ART!” I’m like ok, ok…he can be the Doctor now.
If Tom Baker was the Doctor you wanted to be your dad, and Tennant and Smith were the Doctors you wanted to be your very best friend, then Capaldi was the Doctor I wanted to BE.
Why is my Whovian fan-girl side bringing up this obscure Doctor Who reference? Because Caecilius’ enthusiasm is exactly the vibe for this week’s reading, except maybe turned up to volume 11.
This is the week for passionate artists and creatives. It’s giving me itchy knitting fingers.
The fading energy card feels like early week energy more than anything that is fading, really. There is a ‘ get while the getting is good’ vibe about it. If you are feeling inspired, act sooner rather than later. This is the knight of cups after all. Knight cards are all about action. Cups are emotions. Grab the chance to express yourself and how you feel as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Don’t wait to appreciate your modern art!
The current energy card, which we will revisit later this week with paid subscribers, is the Ace of Swords. Sword cards are more precise and intellectual than cups, but they too can hint at action. Swords are connected to the classic element air, and the single upright sword on the ace card has a sweeping, lifting, rising energy. The word INSPIRATION comes strongly to mind here. If you have been in a creative slump, or feeling uninspired in any context, keep your eyes open and be ready, that may turn around soon. Inspiration is on the way, it seems.
For those of us who have had to focus on practical, mundane day-job energies this past weekend, the ace feels more like getting a second wind, a revitalization rather than some sort of beginning inspiration. Which energy carries the week for you depends on where you are starting out today (Merry Monday everyone!) If you are coming into the week fresh after the weekend, then fresh starts ahead. If, like me, you have been in practical, time-to-make-the-donuts mode, hang in there. A fresh gust of wind beneath your wings is on the way.
The Chariot from the major arcana is the growing energy. This also gives the impression of growing energy and movement through the week as a whole. I get the mental image of that Japanese painting The Great Wave. That’s the nature of the Chariot card, but we are also moving from minor arcana into major arcana energy. Heads up, pay attention, stay on target. The energy this week is on the upswing, a growing wave that hasn’t crested yet. Growing energy and faster movement also needs more focus and attention. Early week may be the time for daydreams and wandering minds that make the initial creative connections, but later in the week comes the time to execute. Later on, as the energy grows, we will need focus and attention to make those misty drifting creative ideas into a more tangible reality.
There is absolutely no logical reason why, but clear quartz points and herkimer diamonds come to mind too. Lore around clear quartz is that it is an energy amplifier. Quartz points, especially tourmalated quartz (clear with small spiky inclusions of black tourmaline) are thought to support guidance (the spikes and points symbolize something ‘pointing the way’ for us.)
The keys for the week are self expression, creativity, art, increasing energy, increasing need for focus and attention.
So go, make life into your own work of modern art.
And if you like what you see in these general audience collective energy readings, I hope you’ll consider a private reading. I’ve really been vibing with email readings lately. No ‘bots here. Just me, my deck, and my laptop creating something unique and special, attuned to you individually plus a photo of your real world cards. We both can have a high level of confidence in email readings because let’s face it, there is no room for shenanigans in email Tarot. I can’t read your body language or ask leading questions – suspect cold readings or stage mentalism just isn’t possible this way. On my side, not only do I get to stay in my comfy work from home clothes and sip all the coffee I want, it’s easier mental work. I don’t have to be on guard for some sort of ego trip from unconsciously slipping into a body language leading question kind of cold reading. Doing email readings keeps you honest. It’s just us and intuition / energy / spirit, no buffer or go between or shady stuff for either of us.
I hope you enjoyed the free for all posts last week. Please consider joining the Tarot Table on Ko-fi or subscribing to Sage Sips on Substack to get the deeper dive Tarot long reads and Q&A posts that are on the way.
Thanks again for reading. I appreciate you.
See you at the next sip!
Sage Words Tarot 