A Year-End Tarot Spread: 6 Cards to Close the Old Year and Welcome the New

The end of the year is the right time to pause, look back and ask yourself what to take with you. This six-card spread helps you do it with the tarot: three cards for the year that is ending, three for the one ahead. At the end you will also find how to work out your card of the year.

When to do it

The classic moment is between Christmas and the first days of January, when the old year is almost over and the new one has not really started yet. Your birthday works too: for many people it is the true start of their personal year.

Choose a time when you are not in a hurry: this is not a quick question, it is a small review of your year.

How to prepare

• Find a quiet place and keep a notebook at hand: you will want to come back to this reading in a few months.
• Shuffle the cards while thinking about the year just gone, without a specific question.
• You can use the whole deck, Major and Minor Arcana. If reversed cards are not part of your method, turn them upright and read them all upright.

The spread, position by position

Lay the cards in two rows of three. The top row speaks of the year that is ending, the bottom row of the year ahead.

1 What I let go	2 What I learned	3 What I take with me
4 What is being born	5 What to watch out for	6 Advice for the new year

1. What I let go

A situation, a habit or a way of thinking that has had its time. It is not necessarily something negative: sometimes it is simply something you no longer need.

2. What I learned

The lesson of the year. It is often linked to the difficulties you went through, and it is the card worth rereading most calmly.

3. What I take with me

The resource you discovered or strengthened: a quality, a relationship, a skill. It is what you can count on next year too.

4. What is being born

The seed of the new year. It points to an energy, a project or a wish that is taking shape, even if you may not see it clearly yet.

5. What to watch out for

This is not a prediction of misfortune: it is the weak spot to keep an eye on, the behaviour that could slow you down.

6. Advice for the new year

The card that sums up the attitude to bring into the coming months. Read it together with cards 4 and 5: it tells you how to help the seed grow without falling into the obstacle.

A sample reading

To see how the positions talk to each other, here is an example using traditional meanings.

• 1. Five of Cups: letting go of a regret, no longer looking only at what was lost.
• 2. The Hermit: the year taught the value of time alone and of listening to yourself.
• 3. Three of Pentacles: you take with you the ability to work well with others and care for what you do.
• 4. Ace of Wands: a new drive is being born, an idea or a creative project.
• 5. Knight of Wands: beware of haste and of enthusiasm that burns out quickly.
• 6. Temperance: the advice is to pace your energy and move forward with patience and balance.

Read as a whole, the spread tells of a year of withdrawal (the Hermit) that makes room for new energy (the Ace of Wands). The Knight and Temperance speak of the same thing from two sides: the idea is good, but it needs to be carried forward calmly, perhaps together with others, as the Three of Pentacles suggests.

The card of the year

To complete the reading you can add a seventh card, which is not drawn but calculated with numerology. There are two cards of the year: the collective one and the personal one.

The collective card of the year

Add up the digits of the year: 2 + 0 + 2 + 7 = 11. So 2027 is linked to Major Arcana XI.

There is a detail worth knowing here: in the Tarot de Marseille, card XI is Strength, while in the Rider Waite Smith it is Justice, because Arthur Edward Waite swapped the two cards (in the Marseille deck Justice is VIII). Use the numbering of the deck you work with.

Your personal card of the year

Add up all the digits of your birth day and month together with those of 2027. If the result is more than 22, add its digits again. If you get 22, your card is The Fool.

An example: someone born on 15 March calculates 1 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 7 = 20. Their card for 2027 is Judgement, the card of rebirth and important decisions.

Other calculation methods exist and may give different results: choose one and always use it, so you can compare one year with another.

After the reading

Write down the cards and your first impressions before looking up the meanings in the booklet. Then reread everything in the middle of the year: a card that seemed obscure in January often becomes crystal clear in June. That is the beauty of a year-end spread: it becomes a diary.

Which deck to use

This spread works with any 78-card deck. To calculate the card of the year, the 22 Major Arcana are enough.

If you like to add an astrological layer, Vera Petruk's Samiramay Tarot is a good choice: besides the figure, each card shows its matching planet or zodiac sign and alchemical symbols, which enrich the reading. It comes both as a complete 78-card deck and with the 22 Major Arcana only.

Happy reading, and happy new year.