applied arcana’s good guidance for the year ahead
navigating the twists and turns of 2024 comes down to one thing: trust
We don’t need to pull tarot cards to know that 2024 is going to be a tornado of transitions, both personal and collective. And if the first three weeks of the year are any indication of the arc we’re going to experience as we move through this year, we’re in for something of a ride.
So what does the tarot have to say about navigating this whirlwind?
I want to know how we might improve our understanding of the path ahead, how the weather of the year might align with the world within us, and what we can focus on that is likely to yield the most fertile results.
So with that in mind, here’s what the cards can contribute to our collective care.
about the spread
The spread I designed for this reading uses five cards total. Two to outline the character of the shift from 2023 to 2024, two to help us understand what we’re leaving behind us and what we need to cultivate instead, and a final card to offer us orientation as we face down whatever this year has to offer.
If you look at the illustration of the spread above, you’ll see that there are three different gestures. The first addresses the shift in energy from where we’ve been (1) to where we’re going (3) over the course of this year. The second helps us get clear on what we need to get rid of (2) and what we need to cultivate over the next 12 months (4). And finally, the last gesture is a recommendation for what we need to keep “in our pocket” as we continue to move through the energy of the months that follow (5).
I love using this kind of vectorization in a spread because it allows you to interpret the cards “along the line” in relationship to one another, and it gives a sense of development or progression that’s not always clear or available when the spread is arranged more statically.
I’m going to break it down gesture by gesture, and then we’ll look at the spread as a whole.
the shift we’re sensing as we leave 2023 behind
Something you might have noticed if you’ve started to pay attention to any sort of natural cycle is that a lot of this more intuitive or organic stuff doesn’t “break” along clean lines like a clock or a calendar does.
Let’s take seasons, for example. Even though we have a precise moment when one season ends and another begins, that date on the calendar doesn’t actually determine when it starts to “feel” like spring.
The “energy” of years operate in a similar way. Yeah, it’s 2024 now, but the whole period between January 1st and mid-February always feels like a liminal period, where we’re wrapping up the last year and moving into another.
I say that to encourage you to think about what we’re leaving in 2023 in a similar way. While it might already feel complete, there might be something that’s still unresolved that could use your attention even now. If there are still loose ends from last year, or something that’s still unsettled, or finishing touches that still feel relevant, take this beginning of the year to complete them.
So, with that being said, here’s what I pulled.
What I see first in this gesture is how internally oriented both of these years are.
We’re coming out of a year where a lot might have happened under the surface but it didn’t result in much we could really “see.” Just like a plant or a seed that tends to build out a lot of its root system before it sprouts, this last year was a lot more about the underground prep work than it was about anything that offered us a sense of external completion.
The growth we experienced was real and deep. But you might have felt like everything was kind of “there” but not really resolved—like the puzzle pieces were all laid out on the table, even in the right configuration, but there was something that made it so things didn’t quite “click.” If that was the case, I’d encourage you to chalk it up to the energetic weather and keep trying.
The year we’re moving into isn’t going to rock the boat in the other direction, but I suspect by the end of it you’ll feel a bit more collected on the whole.
This still isn’t going to be a year of big showmanship or awards. But if 2023 is the year that we all laid deep groundwork, 2024 is the year we’re all going to get to use that groundwork to pull something together for ourselves, something coherent and complete within itself, something that we’re capable of offering to ourselves and to others, something that is unique to us.
The Queen of Cups excels at knowing herself and what she has to offer, but she’s also adept at creating something from that place of deep knowledge; that’s what her fancy cup represents. So while we might have come to understanding or internal awareness of a sense of something last year, this next year is when those things are really going to coalesce and be prepared in a way that they’ll be able to be carried out into the rest of the world—even if we don’t actually accomplish that externalization in 2024.
More than anything else, I think it’s really important to center patience during this process. Our social constructs tend to undervalue anything that really takes a long time to emerge or come together, and both of these cards represent a deep kind of subterranean work that can result in massive payouts if you can tend to the work required with patience.
Just because something takes a long time, is hard, or doesn’t result in an immediate sense of satisfaction, doesn’t mean it’s not working, not worthy, or not wise.
Trees take a long time to grow, and an acorn is going to drive its roots down deep before its first leaves see the sun. So let yourself go deep too, and use whatever ground you covered last year to source nourishment and support for whatever seems to be germinating within you this year.
As much as you can, try to see if you can let yourself take it slow.
picking our priorities as we grow into 2024
So this second gesture is all about intentional development. Given infinite options and the discomfort of change, what things will be fruitful to lean into, build, or cultivate over the coming year—and what should we let go of, bury, or cast away?
So if we look at these cards as a pair, it becomes immediately clear that we’re not being encouraged to isolate ourselves. In both cards there is curiosity, concern, and the opportunity for connection; what is different between the two is the nature and orientation of that connection.
We’re moving away from focusing on the wants and needs and perspectives of others and instead showing up in a way that allows us to center our own experience in order to be nourished by ourselves.
This doesn’t mean we don’t care about others anymore—it’s just different. In the first card, you get the sense that a tornado alarm couldn’t pull these two away from one another. In the second card, the figures are are focused on each other, but not enraptured by one another. And four blooming cups have been left on the cusp of the card, almost as if they’re there for you.
What I see in this shift is that we acknowledge others, but center ourselves. We care about others, but we care first for ourselves. And we let the very human desire for self-definition shift from how we’re perceived in relationship to our conception of ourselves.
It’s safer to be validated by another. But it’s more satisfying—and sustainable—to be met with enthusiasm by ourselves.
What we’re being asked to leave behind is the habit of asking others to help us figure out what we need.
Instead, we get curious. We ask ourselves what will quench us and then fill our cups ourselves, creating a surplus. We hand deliver the first cup to our past self, keeping the second on reserve, before we put the rest on offer. This is the generative abundance that comes from the work we do in the Queen of Cups…as long as we don’t give it all away.
It’s not about trying harder. It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what’s right for you, offering the right intervention or medicine to ourselves for the moment, and not worrying about what other people will think.
And if that seems like a challenge, the key to the solution lies in the relationship illustrated in the six: the closer you can get to the vulnerable heart of your small self, your child self, or your past selves, the easier it will be to know exactly what you need. They already know! You just have to ask them.
Just be gentle as you go. Just like all sensitive sorts, your inner self will sense your impatience or frustration with them and be slow to share their secrets. But if you can get down on their level, there isn’t anything about them you won’t know.
what to remember as we go
I’m not sure if this is because of the nature of tarot or just because of me, but whenever I do a reading like this for myself, I want a lens or a lighthouse I can keep orienting back to as I move forward from the reading. I find it easier to remember the centering perspective a single lens can offer and I find it can be easier to apply globally.
For this reading, the final card offers us that lens.
The lens that I associate most profoundly with the empress is the lens of trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your environment, trust in others, and the trust that you are worthy of meeting the trust others might have for you.
What we need to remember as we go is to practice our capacity for trust.
Sometimes when I reveal the cards I’ve pulled while doing a reading, I feel that I couldn’t have picked a better card for a position had I done so intentionally.
Thinking about everything else here: feeling like things don’t quite come together, struggling to give yourself space to focus on pulling together your own solutions, the reason we reach out to others to show us what it is we need, and the challenge that keeps us from getting down and engaging with the parts of us that need our attention the most—what mitigates all of these struggles besides trust?
And what can be the hardest thing to offer ourselves, especially when we’ve seen all the ways we’ve failed?
What the empress knows is that a field that is sometimes fallow is a field that is fertile. She knows that the blossom begins below ground, that the wheat needs to be sown, and grown, and sorted, and ground before it becomes grain that can produce bread.
Not having a loaf of bread in hand doesn’t mean the bread doesn’t exist.
She trusts the process, and she trusts herself. And so, she says, should you.
making it personal
There can often be a tendency with intuitive information like this to ask whether or not if “feels true.” And if that’s a question on your mind, and it doesn’t feel true, I would encourage you to interpret that perception as a signal that this guidance is just not for you. And that’s okay!
But more than asking if it’s true or not, which is a very binary question, I would encourage you to ask “how does this apply?” That question will invite you into an enhanced sense of inner awareness. It will make space for your intuition to speak up, and it will encourage you to get into the practice of pattern matching, noticing where the shape of something you encounter matches up with something else you sense inside or see elsewhere.
The tarot excels at bringing intangibles to our attention, so the most important work here is to see what you can notice when you use these lenses to look around your inner landscape.
For example, you might ask yourself:
What about last year felt productive but still hasn’t produced in the way I was expecting?
What feels like it might be germinating deep inside me, and what kind of nourishment or considerate care can I offer to whatever that might be?
Where in my life is there an opportunity to take more responsibility for knowing my own needs?
What does my inner child need from me to feel safe opening up so I can help them?
When did I learn that it was more important how fast something happened than how rich or deep or safe the process felt? How can I provide a different story for myself now?
You might also examine your own relationship with trust. How safe does it feel to trust others, or yourself? How much trust do you have that things will emerge in their own time? Or are you someone who finds yourself obsessing over the square of earth in your purview, trying to optimize, anticipate, or control what might be preparing to arise?
Wherever these questions take you, remember to ask them with compassion. And whatever truth you might uncover, try to remind yourself that these considerations are capable of being evoked by the tarot because you’re not the only one who struggles with them.
Anything that the tarot dredges up is hard for all of us.
So stay soft, take it slow, and look for the patterns, not the particulars.
take it to heart all year long
One of the deepest challenges of any intuitive practice is carrying what you know forward from the contemplative space.
My desire to embody what I was learning from my own inner work in every avenue of my life is what drove me to create Applied Arcana in the first place. When the empress showed up as the final card in this spread, I was inspired to make the trust tarot balm—supported by the energies of rose and red jasper—the first featured balm of the year.
If the call to carry trust forward into 2024 resonates with you, and you’d like a little support making that something that’s present in your life, day by day, I’d encourage you to check it out.
May we all take our own trust deep to heart in this coming year.
Until next time, shine on. ✨
