Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Happy New Year Everyone!

New year, same story for these posts. Every year, I say I’m not going to play this game of looking to the year ahead, predictions are impossible, blah, blah, blah.

Yet, here we are, pulling cards for the new year. Why? Two reasons, I think.

First, it’s fun.

It is fun to make predictions about the new year as if they could be as true as they are in fantasy books and movies. The chances of making an accurate prediction are small. Still, it’s fun to try. It’s playful imagination and there is nothing wrong with that.

Second it is useful.

It’s helpful in the real-world way that Tarot can help every day of every year: It helps get our minds and hearts around the events of the past, contemplate ideas to navigate the future, and maybe, just maybe, find some peace and solace in this present moment.

This year I’m using the “seasons” layout that can look at the year ahead at any occasion (or no occasion at all) not just the new calendar year. Birthdays, anniversaries, graduation, solstice, equinox – any time, really.

There picture explains the layout. There is one card for each of the next four seasons. It’s winter now, so we begin there and read from right to left. Reading it opposite of English disrupts that logic & flow, and makes it just that tiny bit easier to look and listen to intuition. Someone used the word “Theme” to describe a card. I like that. Each card gives a theme, a thought, a vibe for the season it represents, not a definite prediction. Although I will tell you about mental images (clairvoyance, what I intuitively “see”) or any intuitive sounds / music / words (clairaudience, what I intuitively “hear”) Not that it is a prediction, but because it might mean something to somebody, somewhere. That’s the whole point of doing these so-called collective energy or general audience readings on the blog or social media. It might be of use to somebody somewhere at some point in time whenever they stumble across this.

The only problem with that is that collective energy is very mixed and diffuse. Private readings are by nature different. Reading your energy message especially just for you is going to wind up with a very different feel than this. This is a ‘one size fits all’ reading. A private reading is custom tailored to fit you.

If all of this also happens to entice someone to try a private email reading with me, all the better. I’m happy for that, too.

Let’s do this exactly as I would if this were a private reading. I feel like following that structure might be comforting for both of us.

General Pattern

The general pattern section talks about the layout as a whole.

In this case, two of the central cards, Justice and The Magician, are from the major arcana. Major arcana cards are hint at higher energy, more changeable times. All those internet memes about 2025 being as chaotic as the past 4 years may not be off the mark. I hope it is wrong, but spring and summer may have some intense moments to say the least. Whether that intensity is good or bad is up to each of us to judge. Objective, outer circumstances are neutral. The physical universe isn’t good or bad…it just IS. We project our judgement about those objective qualities on the dispassionate physical realm.

It’s like the weather. Drought or flood, rain isn’t good or bad, it just is. Rain doesn’t give a crap how we feel about it, it is water falling from the sky either way. And so it is with change and high energy times. Big changes and big events bring big feelings, but the rain will still fall and the sun will still shine again.

Long story short, brace yourself for big energies and feels, especially mid year.

The minor arcana cards are cups (emotions, close relationships) and wands (passions, philosophy, spirituality, your relationship with yourself). My hunch is that we are heading for a year of big emotions and big passions where the heart rules the head more often than not.

Be kind – to yourself and to others when the feels come along. Nerves may be raw at times. A little patience and compassion might go a longer way than any of us might think at first.

No pentacles or wands showing at all. Not sure if that means that logic and practicality isn’t going to be an issue, or if it means those things are going to be absent from the year to our peril. That being said, don’t forget to be practical and logical and be the cooler head that prevails – at least every now and then.

Winter (now – March) Ten of Wands

Wands is fire and passion. Ten cards are the volume turned up to 11 on the essence of the suit. The only double-digit, and the pinnacle of the numbered cards before entering the court cards. The Ten of Wands is traditionally associated with heavy weights that have been taken on with or without justification. In the classic Pamela Smith artwork, the figure on the card looks like he is hitting his head on a wall of his own making that he is carrying. The array of sticks isn’t touching the ground. I “hear” pie in the sky. Not so much in the usual sense of that phrase, that something is an unrealistic dream, but in the sense of the barriers and burdens being an illusion as well. What heavy weights do you carry because you think you have to, and what is genuine responsibility. What is truly yours to carry, and what can be put aside?

From the other side of the sticks, what have you neglected to carry? What do you do if you are the thing set aside?

As I look at this card, the most important thing to consider are blockades we imagine. What are the blockages that we have set for ourselves? What fences and walls exist because we carry them around unattached to the ground?

Spring (March-June) Justice

In the past, the Justice card was tied to literal legal concerns and the court system. Now it is associated with abstract ideas of justice, fairness, wisdom, balance, integrity and accountability.

Of all of these key words, fairness steps forward as key. Looking at the card, the upright sword grabs my attention as important.

It isn’t a card from the suit of swords, which to my mind underlines the sword’s importance in this context. The sword’s connection to mind and intellect is crucial here, as well as the balance the scales symbolize.

This isn’t an impression directly from the card or its tradition, but I get the mental images of a driving rainstorm and get a sense of be the eye of the hurricane. During this season, keeping your cool is more important than at any other time. This season may well draw on every ounce of wisdom and clarity and balance and sense of fairness that you can muster.

Summer (June – September) The Magician

I get the feeling that the transition of seasons may not be smooth and the energy might not be clear-cut. It feels like a gradual slide from turbulent energy that draws on every ounce of cool-headed, intellectual, balanced fairness that you have into a calmer, much more spiritual energy. Lazy days of summer comes to mind. Later, hotter doldrums may seem like a relief after the spring storms so to speak. Of course, I’m talking about energy feels, not the literal weather.

I hear the word opportunity. The energy climate of late summer might offer an opportunity to deliberately work with the idea of manifestation for those so inclined. It’s not just magical thinking. In fact, this feels like the exact opposite of the think-positive, vision board, woo woo manifestation. This is grit and hard work and hand blisters kind of manifestation.

I hear you reap what you sow. From the real-world agriculture time of year, this isn’t the time for planting literal seeds. Energetically this is a time to build a stone foundation. You don’t plant corn seeds in the spring and get an apple tree in the fall. I hear know what you want and DO something toward getting it.

It can be a frightening prospect that re-awakens old issues with self-confidence or the responsibilities and burdens that were symbolized earlier by the ten of wands. Be kind to the fear. It isn’t irrational. It needs your love.

The Magician is also about transformation. The old may be gone, but that doesn’t mean it can be made into something new and different. I get the mental images of kintsuge from Japan where broken pottery is repaired with precious metal and thought to be more beautiful than before.

Fall (September – December) Ten of Cups

The Ten of Cups is one of those all-good cards associated with love, fulfillment, belonging and joy. This is the second “seasons” reading where I’ve gotten this card in the fall spot. I’m guessing there may be something trying to put our attention on October. Especially with another 10 in the layout this time. I can’t quite recognize it or pull it into focus, but I keep hearing a song with the lyrics “happy ending.” It reminds me of a 90s Alanis Moressette sort of song, something grunge era-ish. I hope its right. Heads up and eyes open for October.

2025 – Nine of Cups

Big number cups cards = big feels and emotions in store would be my guess. Nine of cups is a generally positive card with connotations of community and warmth. Mutual aid society comes to mind for some reason. There is the image of a small, familiar place with a large fireplace and plenty of beer. It has the stereotypical look and feel of a medieval inn or a seventeenth century pub or a fantasy adventure tavern on Tik Tok (Nod to the Lucky Gryphon, Quincey’s Tavern, one of my absolute favorite of the genre)

Storms may rage, feelings may run equally high, heartbreak or triumph, love and close community will save the day. Give it freely, accept it freely, allow yourself to be comforted when you need it. It is a big world. There are lots of us in it. Enough so that you are not alone, even if it feels that way.

Storms may rage, but cups will eventually be filled. With what is yet to be seen, but there is hope for a happy ending in time.

Summary

This part is practically impossible to do for a collective audience reading. In a private reading, this is where I would give any purely intuitive images or impressions that come through whether they are connected to the cards & question or not.

In this case, the impressions seem wildly random. If something resonates with you, it is yours. If it doesn’t resonate, then its for someone else. May there be lots of someone elses who read this and get some little morsel of something from the cards.

For what it is worth, I see rough aquamarine or maybe blue kayanite. Both connect to the throat chakra and have to do with communicating. There is more here than general communication. The feeling focuses on bridge-building. It is about effective communication and connection building more than simply being heard.

For aromatherapy, I get the scent of lemon, which is clearing and energizing, Lemon drops – lemon cookies – bright, tart, clean.

Mixed with that….

For some it is lemon, but for others it is woody, powdery and soothing, like sandalwood or sandalwood with vanilla.

I see a snowstorm. No idea of time or symbolism. Just a feeling of being very glad to see it through a window instead of being out in it.

Now the snow and clouds fade grey like sunset or twilight when it is very cloudy.

Here I get a sense of all of us being asked to be courageous and strong.

There the energy steps back.

Thank you all for reading! I hope everyone has a Happy New Year Holiday, and a happy, safe, prosperous 2025. See you at the next sip!