New Year's Readings: Your Heart's Desire

It's a fairly common practice for people who use the tarot to do a reading on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1 to see how the new year might play out. I've done this myself and really, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. But practices like this can set us up, in a way; whether or not we're strongly conscious of it, broad general readings of this nature become set in our expectations and we might find ourselves making decisions or taking attitudes based on what the cards seemed to say.

You might be wondering now, "but isn't this what the tarot is for?" And the answer, of course, is "yes and no."

The tarot really works as a mirror of our lives, and like our lives, is fluid and ever-changing. It reflects the situations and people and opportunities around us at any given point in time, like a snapshot. "What will happen?" questions are notoriously badly framed for the tarot, and even the most basic and ill-informed books on tarot meanings suggest the better course is to ask "What is most likely to happen IF ..." Additionally, the tarot only takes into account the person who is asking the question, and while it can highlight the potential actions of others, it obviously has no control over them and no insight into any sort of guaranteed future actions of anyone. We all have free will, and we are all interconnected. We can set up the dominoes in a certain way, and the tarot can tell us that yes, they are set up to form a certain pattern, but a sudden choice by one of those free-will dominoes to fall in the opposite direction can completely change the outcome we expected and that the tarot seemed to predict.

So, for the New Year, I want us all to try something different. Instead of letting the tarot tell us what we expect, let's use the tarot to tell the Universe about how we would like our 2011 to go. Here's what I want you to do:

Select your favorite spread; it can be elaborate or simple, traditional or one you invented yourself.

Take your tarot deck and turn the cards FACE UP.

For each position in your spread, thumb through your cards. If a card speaks to you, pull it out of the deck and place it in the position.

Now, think about this card. What do you think it says about your year ahead? Is this what you WANT? Be careful here to note the difference between what you expect and what you really WANT. Sometimes those two things are the same, but oftentimes they are not!

If the answer is "yes, this is what I truly want to see in 2011," then leave the card in place. If the answer is "this is what I expect to see" or "this is what will probably happen" or "it would be okay if this happened," PICK THE CARD UP. Replace it in your deck. Now thumb through your deck, looking carefully at your cards, and select the card that symbolizes what you really, truly WANT to see in 2011.

Continue this practice for the rest of your layout. Yes, it will take longer. It will also take some serious thought about what you want versus what you think is possible or probable. But at the end of your spread, you will have a beautiful picture not just of your "best possible outcome" but instead of your heart's desire. And once we truly know our heart's desire, it becomes easier for us to work toward fulfilling it, or to work toward changing it should it be a desire that is inherently harmful to us or those around us. We cannot act without first knowing. Comprehension is the key.

Additionally, it sets a tone of positivity for the coming year, and reminds us that in the final analysis, we are in control of ourselves. We control our reactions to people and things and situations, we get to choose how we move through and address and feel all the different aspects of our lives. That power is ours and cannot be taken away, no matter what situations we find ourselves in. Pretty amazing stuff.

Happy 2011! May we all realize our hearts' desires this year ... and yes, as always, I mean that in at least a couple of different ways!