For quite a while I offered a Year Ahead twelve-month forecast reading, but I received so many requests in 2017 that the reading type burned me out. So I won’t be offering it in 2018, but it’s an incredible tarot reading methodology and one you can absolutely do for yourself. So in this post I’ll show you how you can do my Year Ahead forecast reading all on your own.

The Year Ahead forecast reading consists of the following steps:

1. Solar Return Astrology Analysis
2. Preliminary Four Worlds Reading
3. Elemental Key for the Year
4. Twelve-Month Four-Quarter Projections
5. Six Points Revelation Spread
6. Power Word for the Year

Now let’s address each in turn.

Solar Return Astrology Analysis

Okay, this I don’t think I can explain concisely in a blog post. This is, like, a whole course. Or chapters in a guidebook! That’s right! If you order my Metaphysician’s Day Planner, then you’ll get, free and included with your order, a 200+ page digital Guidebook (though formatted for standard print-on-demand sites to print a paperback for you if you’d like a hard copy…will cost you under $10 for it) that has a couple of sections to guide you through a very rudimentary, beginner-level solar return astrology analysis for your birth chart and solar return chart for the year.

Order the Day Planner and read through the content on personal astrology. Although it isn’t a professional solar return analysis where specific degrees are brought into consideration and angular aspects are calculated to the degree, it will give you a really good “big picture” forecast for your coming year.

Preliminary Four Worlds Reading

If you’ve taken my Learning the Opening of the Key online tarot course over at Tarot Readers Academy, then this is just the First Operation, or the first part of the First Operation, to be more accurate. This preliminary step is known as the Opening of the Four Worlds and calls upon Kabbalistic mysticism.

However, even if you haven’t taken the course, I have plenty of material in past blog posts to walk you through the Opening of the Four Worlds. Check out this blog post, The First Operation: Adapting a Traditional Method in the “Opening of the Key” to Contemporary Tarot Applications. Then there’s more info about the procedure here, A 10-Week Independent Study Course with Paul Foster Case: A Review of Oracle of the Tarot (1933).

In short, you select your significator or signifier card, shuffle the deck with that signifier, cut into four card piles following a specific method, then start sifting through the four card piles for your signifier. The card pile of the four your signifier is in is your preliminary divination result. It’s going to tell you which area of life will come into the foreground for the coming year.

If you’re not familiar with astrology and you just want to focus on tarot, then skip the previous solar returns step and start here with the Preliminary Four Worlds Reading.

By the way, yes, you can run through this divinatory process with an oracle deck instead of a tarot deck. Conceptually, I think it should work just fine.

Elemental Key for the Year

Based on the revelation from the Opening of the Four Worlds, we see which area of life Spirit would direct you to prioritize in the coming year. We also see that there will be more for you to focus on in those corresponding areas of life, and one way to ensure your success and prosperity is through the supplement of metaphysical energy, as prescribed by the divinatory results from the Opening of the Four Worlds. In other words, the corresponding element of the card pile your significator was found in during the Preliminary Reading is going to be your elemental key for the year.

Note which of the four card piles you found your significator in and the corresponding element is your elemental key for the year. Hyperlinked below you’ll find PDF downloads for each elemental key. Download the PDF that corresponds with your element for more information and insights about your elemental key.

Your Elemental Key is Fire: Click Here to Download PDF

Your Elemental Key is Water: Click Here to Download PDF

Your Elemental Key is Air: Click Here to Download PDF

Your Elemental Key is Earth: Click Here to Download PDF

Then think about a metaphysical plan for the coming year to harness more of that elemental energy. For instance, according to feng shui principles, certain parts of your home, like acupuncture points, correspond with certain elements, so activate those areas of your home to optimize your elemental key. Charge personal talismans, stones, crystals, or jewelry that correspond with your elemental key and keep them on you at all times. Choose a wardrobe for the year with a color palette corresponding to your elemental key.

Twelve-Month Four-Quarter Projections

This step of the divination is a month by month forecast, one card drawn for each month, and the cards arranged by fiscal quarters. The spread is as follows:

Draw 12 cards into the formation as noted above, in the order as numbered. As a personal preference, I like to create a cross first, by lining up gemstones and crystals. Then draw the cards into the four quadrants as noted above, around the stone cross.

Cards 1, 2, and 3 represent January, February, and March, one card per month, or the first quarter.

Cards 4, 5, and 6 represent April, May, and June, the second quarter.

Cards 7, 8, and 9 represent July, August, and September, the third quarter.

Cards 10, 11, and 12 represent October, November, and December, the fourth quarter.

If you do a birth reading or you’re doing this tarot divination in the middle of the year, then start with identify the quarter the current month is in.

For example, if it’s February, then you’re still in the first quarter, so nothing changes. Stick with the above tarot spread and you get a “past” reading for January. If it’s May, then “Cards 1, 2, and 3” would be the second quarter (April, May and June), you skip the first quarter of the year altogether, and then “Cards 4, 5, and 6” would be July, August, and September, and so on. Cards 10, 11, and 12 in the May example would be the first quarter of the subsequent year. In other words, each set of three cards will represent a full fiscal quarter and you mark the quarters around the present time.

If you’ve got my Metaphysician’s Day Planner, then you’ll recognize the above page spread. Here’s where I write in my twelve month card by card projections. Under each month, I’ll note the title of the card drawn. In the center column, I’ll jot down some notes and phrases for my interpretation of the card and how I’m reading the card to mean for that month.

By the way, in the back “grimoire” pages of your Day Planner, there’s a page spread of tarot card keywords. I’ll write in the corresponding keyword for each card I drew here in this section. If you’re using Lenormand to do the twelve-month spread, there’s also reference material in your Day Planner for Lenormand keywords.

Then I leave the right column blank until after the month has ended. I do a reflection on that month to think about how the implications of that card manifested in the given month.

That simple process isn’t just about doing a divinatory reading for yourself. It’s a really great training or educational tool to help you advance your own abilities with reading tarot. It gets you to start seeing patterns you weren’t seeing before. It gives you new insights into the layers of meaning for each card. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced tarot reader, this practice never fails to give you new insights into real world applications of the tarot.

Six Points Revelation Spread

Next, using a six-point spread to cover six categories of life, this step of the divination calls for pulling six more cards. One will express the main theme for your career trajectory in the next twelve months, another will cover financials, yet another will cover physical health and overall mind and body wellness. The category “personal relations” covers love, relationships, family, etc. A card is drawn to see what comes up with regard to life purpose and milestones on that front for the next twelve months. Finally, this step of the divination closes on some thoughts with regard to spiritual practices for your consideration.

The card positions are as follows:

1. Career Trajectory; Professional Goal-Setting; Your Work
2. Financials; Material Security; Money Matters
3. Health and Wellness; Matters of the Physical Body
4. Personal Relationships; Domestic Matters
5. Life Purpose: The Coming Year’s Milestone
6. Spiritual Practices; Personal Spirituality

My tarot spread arrangement is the way it is because I consider Points 1, 2, and 3 to be related. It’s my physical, material concerns. Point 4 is what anchors me, what gives me a sense of social belonging, my tribe, my peoples. Whether we want to acknowledge it our not, our personal relationships and domestic matters are what tend to define us and also define our outlook on everything else. Then Points 5 and 6 are paired because they represent my sense of purpose, mission statement in life, and how I can advance myself

Power Word for the Year

You’ll need to click over to this blog post, Your Empowerment Word. There’s a list of 88 key power words for you to divine from. You can and should use any methodology for divining your power word that calls to you, whether that’s a form of bibliomancy, with your pendulum, a random number generator, using your tarot deck somehow, dice, whatever divinatory methodology you design.

Now if you’re interested in my method, it’s rather simple. I begin my focusing and channeling my intentions. Then I recite a prayer, invoking my patron deities, and ask for an omen, a sign through a power word that will keep me focused, on track, and give me power throughout the coming year. Then with the random number generator, minimum at 1 and maximum at 88, I generate that random number, then cross-reference it with the numbered listing.

Power words can be like magical incantations, connected to us in some divine way, and used by us like the utterance of a spell to bring about the positive change we seek for ourselves. Like animal totems, amulets, talismans, prayer, and mantras, there is power in this one word, power keyed specifically for you, to bring divine blessings to you.

This power word will be a key to unlocking your magic for the year. It’s connected to you. You’re attuned to its power and implications. This is the word that brings the blessings you seek for the success you have asked for. The word shall come to you throughout the year in moments of synchronicity, as a whispered voice, bring to you the magic you seek, to be that inexhaustible source of magic that launches you closer to the greatness you’re intended for.

Reading for Yourself

Since this is a hefty tarot reading that’s to cover the whole year to come, I’m going to take it rather seriously. If you’re reading for yourself, go the extra mile to make sure you’re in an optimal state for divination. Make sure mind, body, and spirit are cleansed, de-toxed, empowered, and revved up to connect to your higher angels and Spirit. Don’t even bother sitting down to do this unless you really feel “ready to go.”

Does that mean you want to check astrological transits to make sure it’s an auspicious date for divination? Does this mean you want to watch your diet for a couple of days prior to the divination so your physical temple is in tip top condition? Does this mean meditation or prayer before you proceed? Does this mean the consideration of an invocation or evocation? Do you want to make a ritual out of it, light incense and candles, be in your sacred space, and in a spiritual state tuned in for divination? All these factors are up to you.

The above is another page spread from the Metaphysician’s Day Planner that I offer. This is the quarterly plan section. I’ll incorporate insights from the forecast reading into the quarterly plans.

For instance, in that twelve-month spread, perhaps the first quarter was Wands-dominant, so I might make a note about focusing on career and work matters in the first quarter. If a Major Arcanum pops up in a prominent way for one of the quarters, I’ll make a note of that in this section. I also start to think about what the forecast of cards is telling me about planning my life and curate my goals based on those cards, memorializing my goal-setting by quarter here.

Give this Year Ahead divinatory process a try, especially if you’re learning tarot (or Lenormand). It is my far my favorite and most effective tarot reading method for casting insights into an entire personal year.