Year Ahead

When to use this spread

The Year Ahead works at turning points: on your birthday, at New Year, after a move or a break-up, whenever one chapter ends and you want to begin the next one consciously. Because it starts with the current month, you can lay it at any time of year. It needs time and calm, ideally a free evening and a notebook, because its effect only unfolds over the course of the year. For pressing questions it is too broad; for those there is Three Cards or the Horseshoe.

The positions

1. Month 1 – The current month, your standpoint in the circle. The card describes what is shaping things now and is your touchstone: if you recognise yourself in it, you can meet the remaining cards with trust. It sets the tone in which the year begins.
2. Month 2 – The first movement out of the here and now. What shapes this month, what is emerging that was only hinted at in the first month? Read it as a continuation: which direction does the first month’s card take here, strengthened or slowed down?
3. Month 3 – The first quarter comes to a close. This card shows what shapes things once the initial momentum has settled. It is often a first small review after the start: what has become of the first two months, and what of it will hold up?
4. Month 4 – A transition. With this month the second quarter begins, and the card often shows a change of mood or of scene. Notice whether it picks up from the third month or opens up something new that was still missing in the first quarter.
5. Month 5 – Deepening. Here the card shows what you are seriously engaged with in the middle of the first half of the year. It is the month in which plans either gain substance or quietly fizzle out. So read it especially closely in the light of the theme of the year.
6. Month 6 – Halfway, and the opposite pole to the first month. What shapes the point at which half the year is behind you? Place this card in your mind next to that of the first month: the two show how far you have moved in six months.
7. Month 7 – The start of the second half. This card shows the attitude with which you enter it. Often a theme from the first months comes up again here, in a more mature or changed form. Look out for repeated suits or numbers.
8. Month 8 – Ripening and first results. What was set in motion in the second month shows its consequences here, in the position opposite it in the circle. The card describes what takes shape in this month and invites you to acknowledge results, even if they look different from what you planned.
9. Month 9 – Three quarters of the way. This card shows what shapes things as the year enters the home straight: harvest, testing or one more effort. Compare it with the third month, its opposite, and ask what has become clearer since then.
10. Month 10 – Sorting and letting go. The card shows what you are grappling with this month as room for something new wants to open up. It can mean completion just as much as a decision. Don’t read it as a loss, but as preparation for the ending.
11. Month 11 – The penultimate month, opposite the fifth. What was deepened back then shows its effect here. The card describes the mood just before the close and is often calmer or more reflective than the months before it, a pause before the ending.
12. Month 12 – The close, which leads back to the starting point. This card shows what shapes things as the circle closes, and what you take with you from this year. Read it together with the first month and the theme of the year as a triad: beginning, end and centre.
13. Theme of the year – What is the theme of the coming year? The card in the centre is the leitmotif, the lens through which you view all twelve months. It explains why the months fit together the way they do. Read it first and last.

How to read the spread

Begin with the theme of the year in the centre and let it sink in for a moment before you look at the months. Then go once round the circle, from the first to the twelfth month, and sum up each month in a short sentence. On the second pass you read quarters: three months at a time as a little story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Write the sentences down, because with thirteen cards your first impression fades quickly.

Then connect the opposites in the circle, the first and seventh months, the second and eighth and so on; they show developments over half a year. Count the Major Arcana: the months that have them are the heavyweights of the year, and the others arrange themselves around them. If a suit recurs, that area of life shapes the year, such as Pentacles for work and everyday life or Cups for relationships. Reversed cards mark months in which something stalls or turns inwards; these are often the months in which you learn the most.

An example

Nina lays out the Year Ahead in November with the Waite-Smith tarot. Her theme of the year is The Star: confidence after a strenuous time, recovery in small steps. She reads the months through this lens. Month 1, November, shows the Four of Swords: rest that she is finally allowing herself after a demanding year. Month 2, December, brings the Ten of Cups, family and belonging, a celebration she isn’t organising this time but enjoying. In month 4, February, stands The Fool: a fresh start, perhaps the training course she has been thinking about for a long time. Month 6, April, shows the Seven of Pentacles, patience while the new thing is still growing, and lies opposite the resting November: exhaustion has turned into waiting with prospects. Month 12, October, closes with the Nine of Pentacles, independence and joy in what she has achieved. Nina sees the movement from retreat to self-reliance and resolves not to miss the Fool in February.

Tips

• Note down each month in a single line and reread it at the start of that month.
• Don’t read the months as appointments. A card describes a mood, not an event.
• Lay the Year Ahead only once a year. Repeating it blurs the view.