The Turning Year: A tarot spread & ritual
A tarot reading ritual for the turning of the year – for reflecting upon the year that is passing, and grounding intentions for the one that is just beginning.
Spread positions:
1. The passing year (consciously chosen card)
2. (Two cards) Supportive messages, lessons from your year
3. Something to let go of
4. Something to keep
5. The coming year (consciously chosen card)
6. Skills or practices you already possess that can help you this year
7. Skills or practices you may choose to cultivate this year
8. A word of guidance for your year
Tarot reading ritual
Take an hour or more for this self-loving ritual. Make sure you won’t be disturbed. Take the time to clear your space, make it comfortable. Lay a cloth if you wish. Fetch your journal and your tarot cards, bring a candle, and a drink to warm and soothe you.
Sit comfortably, holding your tarot cards in both hands. Close your eyes, then take three deep, long breaths and feel yourself relaxing into your seat. Notice whether your mind is calm or busy, whether your body feels soft or tense. Say aloud “I am whole, I am enough.”
Take another really deep breath.
Begin to shuffle your cards, still with your eyes closed. Think back over your year, let memories come to you and drift away. Feel into the quality of your year, remember how it felt in this moment, or that.
Keep shuffling, and when you feel ready, open your eyes gently. Begin to look through your cards, keeping your gaze soft.
Try as much as you can not to think about the cards. Simply gaze at them as you leaf through the deck.
You are seeking the card that will represent the passing year – your year. Without overthinking, allow yourself to find that card. This may take a while – let it. Allow colours, shapes, images, symbols, feelings, to speak to you, without questioning why.
When you have your card, place it in front of you. Allow yourself a few moments to simply look at this card, feeling into it, its energy, how it represents your year.
Now, close your eyes and shuffle again.
Lay two more cards beside the first.
These cards offer messages, gifts – key lessons you have learned this year.
Place another card below the first, and another above.
The first is something to let go of this year. The second is something to keep, to bring forwards with you.
Take as long as you like here to journal about the cards you chose and pulled.
How do these cards represent your year? How will you let go of what needs releasing? How will you integrate the gifts and lessons of your year?
When you feel ready to focus on the coming year, close your eyes again, holding your cards, and take a few more deep breaths. Re-ground yourself in your seat.
Begin to shuffle your cards. This time, you will consciously choose a card that represents the coming year.
How do you want this year to feel, what themes or energies do you want to centre as you move through the coming months?
When you are ready, open your eyes, and begin to leaf softly through your cards again. Take as long as you need, until you land on the card that speaks to you. Lay this in front of you, to the right of the first card.
This is your card for the coming year.
Shuffle your cards again, then lay two more – one below and one above the card you just chose.
The first represents skills or practices you already have that can help you this coming year. The second represents skills or practices you may wish to cultivate that will benefit you.
Now close your eyes and shuffle one last time. When you are ready, lay one last card to the right.
This card is a supportive message to guide you into the coming year.
Again, take the time to journal. How do these cards make you feel? How do you want your new year to feel, to look? What practices will you build on or bring in? What guidance did you receive and how does it show up for you?
Take as long as you like reflecting on your reading, on the passing year and the one you are welcoming in.
When you are ready to finish, close your eyes again and take three more long, deep breaths. Say aloud: “I am whole, I am enough.”