New Year 2016 Tarot Reading
A new year is upon us, and with it comes an energy of new beginnings, new plans, and new excitements. This is a great time to take some time and contemplate what you have accomplished, where you are at with your goals, and consider and plan out how to move forward with your life. I designed a special tarot spread to help me examine my life situation, determine where to focus my energy in the coming year, and get inspired for new projects and dreams. Check it out below and consider ordering your own or one for a friend as a New Year's present for 2016! This spread is completely customizable so feel free to ask me to focus in on any one area of your life or expand to other areas. Right now, I have a SPECIAL OFFER of $5 off if you sign up for my mailing list or even if you are already a newsletter subscriber! That makes this amazing 7 card reading just $35 instead of the normal $40. Whoot! Happy 2016! My 2016 Tarot Reading
- Reality Check- This card explores where you are at right now in your life. Is this where you want to be?- The World reversed
- Course Correction- This card asks what will help you get on track moving forward. How can you focus your goals?- The Fool reversed
- Watch Out Ahead- This card examines road blocks and challenges ahead. What will lead you astray this year?- II of Swords
- Theme for 2016- This card brings up the central theme or overall outlook for your year 2016. What is your superpower for the year that will give you strength and guidance? What energy will be pervasive this year?- Knight of Wands reversed
- Love Outlook- The Hanged Man
- Career Outlook- V of Wands reversed
- Well-being Outlook- III of Pentacles reversed
Part I: My Reality Check
The first three cards of this reading bring into the light where I am at right now in my life. The World reversed really resonates with me after being a constant traveler through this world for the last year and some. The reversal shows that this period of travel is not quite over yet! In February I planning on getting an apartment after 18 months on the road in the USA and abroad. The World reversed reminds me that I'm still wrapping up this time of travel. I am in a period of culmination. I have many life lessons accumulated that I still need to integrate into my consciousness. I have goals that I have not accomplished which require my attention. There are challenges cropping up that are preventing me from reaching my goals, and I need to push through these challenges toward completion.
Now is a great time to ask myself how I can effectively draw this era to a close and get ready to settle down a little bit, starting a new chapter of my life. How can I meet my challenges head on and overcome them? My plan is to move to Nashville, get an apartment, adopt a rescue dog, and perhaps find some part-time work to supplement my income from The Willow Path Tarot. What do I need to do to get ready for that transition? Where do I need closure before I can move forward? How do I deal with potential lack of closure until I can move into the next phase of my life? The next two cards have some advice for me.
The Fool reversed tells me that a lot of time and energy need to go into wrapping up my current life situation before I can move on. It's a signpost saying: "Stay in the moment." I want so much to focus on the future and all the great things that I have dreamed up, my fresh beginning, my leap of faith into the unknown, but unfortunately it isn't just the right time for that. I'm still bringing closure to the present and need to focus on some mundane life things: getting my doctors appointments made before I lose my health insurance, earning money so that I can make rent payments soon, packing up my things and making sure I have everything in order to move. I'm not quite ready for my new beginning just now. First I have to take care of this year's business. This is hard for me because I'm so excited, but it's necessary in order to start out on the right foot when I do get to Nashville. It's time to address what has to get done first so that my fresh start has the best chance of being successful and free.
My biggest challenge ahead is making decisions with an open heart and a clear focus. The II of Swords brings up my issue of not wanting to choose one way over another, not wanting to reveal myself, and trying to hide my emotional processes. It can be really hard for me to make decisions and I see this indecision as a major character flaw. I can be super hard on myself when I come up against a tough choice, thereby making the situation even worse through self judgement over taking too long to decide things. Working with the II of Swords is my challenge and also a positive change goal for 2016.
I'm making this move to Nashville with my fiancee, Kristen, and we both have a strong desire to make things fair and equal. This is a natural drive coming from the prominent placement of Libra in both of our astrological charts. Sometimes this gives us common ground but it can also be a bit maddening with it's exactitude. It's important that the move to Nashville be good for both of us. We both should have our needs met. No one should have an unfair advantage or win more compromises than the other. The II of Swords represents this balancing act that can end up closing doors and keeping us blocked and separate. Constantly being fair and asking what is logical or reasonable can throw a wrench into the march of progress. My challenge is to not get stuck in the tangle of decisions (II of Swords) that need to be made to close one chapter (The World reversed) and start another (The Fool reversed).
Part II: My Theme for 2016
The energy of the Knight of Wands reversed is going to color my 2016. This is an energy of haste and delay. It is one of frustration and varying degrees of effort and concentration. It tells me that 2016 is going to be a bit of challenge for me! I'm constantly going to be confronted with obstacles and setbacks. Even now, as I try to bring closure to last year, I feel like there is too much to do, and I can't focus my attention on any task long enough to complete it. If I do try and finish something up, things that are out of my control crop up to prevent me from finishing. The Knight of Wands reversed is a bad ass though, and I'm working up the stamina and courage to drive my creative dreams forward. There is a need for action and advancement this coming year.
The key to working with an energy like that of the Knight of Wands reversed is by first acknowledging that it exists. Knowing is half the battle, they say. That is the great thing about a tarot reading, it can help you acknowledge what is going on in your life in a very straight forward way so that hopefully you can pull your head out of the sand and start working towards solutions. This is not my destiny, I have personal power over my life that allows me to shape my own future. Now that I know there are a lot of road blocks, delays, and frustrations ahead of me this year, I can be prepared for a choppy flow ahead. I can adopt strategies to deal with frustrations and remember to focus on gratitude and my successes, more than wallowing in my delays and failures.
The Knight of Wands also has a personal significance to me, as this card often represents Kristen in my readings I do for myself. Last year, we traveled the country promoting her music. Almost everywhere we went and everything we did was dedicated to her music career. This year, I want to focus more on myself. In order to do that, I need to set aside time for my goals and projects and allow less time for hers. I know that sounds simple, but relationships are often like this. How do we get stuck in a rut and how do we get out of it?
I see the Knight of Wands reversed as a personal challenge to spend more time on working for myself and working on myself. This Knight has a tendency to get anger when situations are out of his control, so I will benefit greatly from finding techniques and practices that keep me calm in the face of opposition. When I grow impatient or restless, as I most certainly will time and again this coming year, having mechanisms in place that soothe and diffuse these situations is going to be crucial. The impulse to rush ahead will need to be tempered with reasoned thinking about consequences and desired outcomes. Things will not just fall into place, so having a system by which I can check in on my progress and my feelings will help me a lot. I need to focus on the things I can control and not give fuel to the fire of that which is out of my hands.
Part III: Your 2016 Outlook
Things seem to be at a pretty calm status quo with my love life in 2016. It's not very exciting, but it's nice to hear! The Hanged Man represents a time of being, as opposed to a time of doing. Some times relationships are just fine the way they are. We don't have to be growing and progressing every single day of our lives. It is fine to take a pause and just enjoy where we are at in the moment. We will both benefit from spending quiet time together, as opposed to always working and manifesting our shared dreams. This year, the best thing we can do for our relationship is find quiet chill time together, especially as we are planning a wedding. Finding time to just enjoy each other and our love is going to be a priority.
The Hanged Man can also bring to mind sacrifice and martyrdom. As this relates to my overall year card of the Knight of Wands reversed, I might find myself making compromises that I wasn't intending to make. This could add to my overall frustration that I'm not focusing enough on myself and instead spending too much time doing things for my partner. Ugh. Yet, The Hanged Man takes lots of time to make decisions and knows how to calmly access his inner knowledge in order to sense the right direction for himself. When I am feeling pulled in too many directions by my love, I can sit with the peaceful, slow energy of The Hanged Man and get my priorities back into focus.
More fiery wands show up in my career outlook for 2016 with the V of Wands reversed. This card suggests a strong desire to avoid conflicts and comparisons. One of the worst things we can do to ourselves is constantly compare ourselves to other people working in the same field. This weighing of ourselves against what other people do, accomplish and have, mostly just serves to make us miserable. What about finding my own path? What about doing things my own way? I can play outside of the rules. I can do things the way that works well for me. I can define success on my own terms. The V of Wands reversed encourages me to be an individual and do things my way.
When I stop spending all my time comparing myself to what others are doing and seeing if I measure up, I can focus my time and energy on my actual goals. This increased focus is a positive sign for my career in 2016. A V energy is a middle energy though, so this is just an initial hurtle to clear in my journey toward creating a sustainable tarot reading career. I still want to incorporate my work as a tour manager and a librarian into my future career, so this struggle isn't over yet. It's just a time when I can put some clear focus into my business and make some progress.
The Knight of Wands reversed combined with the V of Wands reversed emphasizes the creative struggles that lie ahead for me this coming year. The suit of wands is all about passion, fiery creation energy, the spark of new plans and projects, and the motivational desire to get things going. The reversal may point to a need to work through this creativity on an internal, personal energy. Not having much fire in my chart, the reversals may also indicate a blockage or inability to get things started. This is yet another warning note from the tarot that I may have a frustrating and challenging year ahead of me. I'm can heed this warning though and stay present, doing my best to confront challenges and deal with my obstacles in a calm and straightforward way, instead of flying off the handle.
Finally, my physical and spiritual well-being in 2016 is represented by the III of Pentacles reversed. This is a card of creating strong foundations and working as a team to accomplish practical goals. When it is reversed, these aspects my not come so easily. I need to dedicate more time to my well-being. I want to create a firm foundation based on simple principles for keeping myself healthy. This includes eating right and exercising, two things I have not been doing regularly. I may benefit from finding people with common goals who can be my support network. Or I need to find the personal reserves and strength to do these things by myself. The Knight of Wands reversed as my partner combined with the III of Pentacles reversed can be a sign that Kristen will not be a helpful influence, I may need to find other workout buddies or healthy eating supporters instead of relying on her in this aspect.
As far as spiritual well-being in the coming year, one of my goals is to better define what my spirituality actually is. The III of Pentacles reversed tells me that I'm unlikely to find a clear definition of this in the world from other people. This is something I need to figure out on my own, on my own terms. The Knight of Wands reversed is not going to help me here either, as this energy of frustration and delay will only sweep me further away from my quest for a spiritual foundation that is strong and clear for me. I'm interested to see how this well-being card shapes up for me in 2016. Hopefully, all of my internal efforts to achieve greater harmony with my physical body and develop my spiritual practice will succeed in creating a powerful foundation from which I can grow even after 2016.
Part IV: The Wrap Up I found this reading to be truly insightful. I loved the numerology that showed up in the energy of my current situation with the closing and beginning card 22 The World reversed, then card 0 The Fool reversed, followed by the II of Swords. What a natural progression! I'm in a phase of finding closure before I can move into an excellent new beginning. My challenge is be patient and present in the moment without being distracted and overly involved in a future that cannot evolve without a culmination in the present. Still, I need to plan for that future in order to make it productive and true to myself. The big obstacle is to cut through indecision and keep growing. I kind of want to wait and see what happens but that approach isn't going to work here, I need to plan and act! It's a tricky moment I'm in, finding a balance between the present and the future that allows for deep focus on each almost simultaneously.
The Knight of Wands reversed shows me that 2016 is going to present me with many challenges. These will probably leave me frustrated and angry much more than this watery Cancer is used to feeling. It's great that I'm going to be fired up, creative, and inspired, especially about my career with the V of Wands, but delays and situations which are out of my control, could cause me some real heartache and anger. I know I can always find solace and comfort in the deep, peaceful and tranquil oasis of my love and relationship ruled by The Hanged Man. I know I have a safe haven to retreat to when things get ugly out there. I should be careful not to rely too heavily on inaction and being though, as the Knight of Wands energy of movement will be constantly present and pushing me forward. Too little forward motion will only cause me more frustration. Building a strong and thoughtfully crafted place in my physical body and spiritual being will be a worthwhile project, but probably a solo effort of internal journeying. Overall it looks like an interesting year ahead! Lots of moving parts inside, but a calm surface for the outside world!
Well, there you have it, my tarot reading outlook for 2016! Please get in touch if you would like to order one for yourself or a friend for the holidays. This reading will only be available till the end of January, so that you can gain that fresh perspective on the year when it is still new. Right now I have a SPECIAL OFFER of $5 off if you sign up for my mailing list or even if you are already a newsletter subscriber! That makes this amazing 7 card reading just $35 instead of the normal $40. Just send me an email at thewillowpathtarot@gmail.com for this special offer code after you sign up for the mailing list :) Whoot! Happy 2016!