13 cards · advanced

Year Ahead

Twelve months in a wheel with a thirteenth card at the centre for the year's overarching theme.

Draw the Year Ahead spread

Optional, and worth doing. Questions starting with what or how, about you, get far more out of a reading than yes/no or predictive ones.

Changes which part of each card's meaning is surfaced.

Reversals

New to tarot? Turn these off until the upright meanings feel automatic.

How to read the Year Ahead

Traditionally drawn at the new year or on a birthday. Thirteen cards is a large reading and it is better treated as a map you return to than as a sitting you complete in one go.

How to use it: photograph or save the spread, then revisit each month's card at the start of that month. Cards read very differently when the month is in front of you rather than eleven months away.

The centre card governs everything. Read it first and read every monthly card against it. The theme card tells you what kind of year this is, and the monthly cards tell you how that theme shows up.

A caution about fatalism: a difficult card on a future month is a weather forecast, not a sentence. It tells you what to prepare for.

Full guide and layout diagram

The positions

  1. The Year's ThemeThe governing pattern of the whole year. Read this first and read everything else against it.
  2. Month 1The first month of the cycle.
  3. Month 2The second month.
  4. Month 3The third month.
  5. Month 4The fourth month.
  6. Month 5The fifth month.
  7. Month 6The sixth month.
  8. Month 7The seventh month.
  9. Month 8The eighth month.
  10. Month 9The ninth month.
  11. Month 10The tenth month.
  12. Month 11The eleventh month.
  13. Month 12The twelfth month, closing the cycle.

For reflection and entertainment. Not medical, legal, or financial advice.