A Tarot Reading for 2025

For the last few years, I have been enjoying John Beckett’s year ahead divinations, but it’s only this year that I’ve had the presence of mind to look at his predictions for the previous year to see how accurate his read was for me. I wouldn’t be writing about this if I had anything bad to say about his reading. (I try to avoid criticizing people in public whenever possible.) There were delightfully a few places where his reading was accurate for me in a way that shows the humor of the wyrd. If you’re a polytheist who is interested in a thoughtful take on the current moment, I recommend checking out his reading for 2025.

That said, John is careful to say that his reading will be most relevant to people in his inner circle, and I am an outer planet in his orbit. Because John’s reading wasn’t specifically for me and my people, I thought it might be interesting to brazenly copy him and do a tarot reading for the local stars in my galaxy.

Like John’s, my reading will be most relevant to you if you are close to me. My family and I already discussed it and decided that it’s exactly what we needed to hear. If you are a friend, client, or member of the Narrative Astrology Lab, it is likely that there is something in here for you, too. If you’re none of those things, I think that you are most likely to get something out of this reading if you have been concerned about the state of the world (especially if you use the word “collapse”) and tend to need help balancing anxiety and/or pessimism.

This post is long because I talk about my divination philosophy and walk you through my process. If you just want to know what the cards said, skip to the last section (“Bringing It All Together”).

How I Read Tarot

I am a professional astrologer, not a professional Tarot reader, even though I have been reading Tarot longer than I’ve been studying astrology. Tarot has always been a personal practice for me, a thing I do to help me keep my head on straight.

When I read tarot for myself, I am trying to see around my blindspots. I almost always read with a copy of 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack close at hand. Rachel was my first tarot teacher, and her voice through the pages of 78 Degrees has talked me down from more than one metaphorical cliff. Consulting her book when I read allows me to continue to benefit from her wisdom, even though she is gone. I have been reading like this for over a decade, and 78 Degrees never fails to show me ways that my biases and assumptions are tripping me up.

For this reading, I read the cards once on my own without consulting 78 Degrees. (If you’re reading this, I don’t think it’s too arrogant to assume you might want my opinion on things.) Then, I read the sections in 78 degrees for each of the cards, looking for ways that Rachel’s perspective balances my own. Then, I synthesized these two approaches into a new interpretation of the spread.

I used a traditional RWS deck. In most areas of my life, I’m a heretic, but I have a deep emotional attachment to my very first deck, which happened to be RWS.

The spread I used was the “work cycle” spread from 78 Degrees. It is Rachel’s adaptation of the Celtic Cross. I like it because it works well with my divinatory philosophy. When I read, I don’t want to know what will happen. I want to know what will happen if we continue down this road, and I want directions to the nearest exit if I don’t like where we’re going.

The Celtic Cross often implies a plan of action, but I like my advice direct and to the point, and there are three cards in the "work cycle" that are just for advice.

My Interpretation of the Reading

Like the Celtic Cross, the work cycle spread begins with a cross. In this reading, the Empress was crossed by the Page of Pentacles. I read this as saying that 2025 is about abundance and pleasure supported by a beginner’s mind approach to life. A willingness to learn and the eagerness of a student will be an asset this year, but beware of mistakes that come from inexperience.

What lead us here? The 8 of cups. We left (and may continue to leave) a situation that was no longer working for us. This card showed up in John’s reading for 2024. The agency in this card feels important to me. We don’t always have choices in life, but it is appropriate to focus on the ways that we are where we are because of the choices we made. Where have we chosen to walk away?

Our contribution to the current situation is the 6 of wands. We admitted defeat. If we are are going to be in a position to benefit from the Empress’s abundance in our current situation, it’s because we didn’t try to force something that wasn’t working. We up and left.

If we continue on in the same direction, the road leads to the Page of Swords and 10 of Cups reversed. It was difficult for me to not interpret those cards together as an unhappy result, so I was motivated to know how to avoid that potential future.

The advice cards said:

1. Look at the state of the world and strategize (2 of wands).

2. Control what you can, namely yourself (see also the serenity prayer) (The Chariot).

3. Avoid ostentatious displays of wealth on the eve of the French Revolution (4 of wands reversed). “Don’t fiddle while Rome burns” was another way I read this card. (The second interpretation is more personally relevant to me, in case anyone is wondering if I have any hidden emerald mines anywhere. (I don’t.))

Overall, my interpretation was pretty grim. Even the work cards seemed oriented toward keeping your head down and reading the room, so I was eager to see how Rachel’s read of these cards might provide an alternate perspective.

Insight From 78 Degrees of Wisdom

Rachel says that the Page of Pentacles is a student who studies for the joy of the work itself. Reading this shifted my interpretation of the cross slightly. The focus of this year is on pleasure, and that pleasure is supported by the joy we take in our work.

(I am taking a year-long course with George Kao called Joyful Productivity. I've been enjoying it so far, and this read of the Page and the Empress made me wonder if I'm going to get more out of the course than I expect.)

Rachel’s interpretation of the 6 of Wands reversed was sharply different than mine. She says that the card isn’t about defeat. It’s about defeatism, the belief that defeat is inevitable in a way that makes defeat a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm inclined to accept Rachel's interpretation of this card because I already know that defeatism is one of my worst biases (when it comes to myself. I tend to be an obnoxious cheerleader for everyone else.)

Rachel says that a bad outcome often comes from the “your contribution to this situation” part of a reading. In this case, I think that my initial interpretation of the 6 of Wands as defeat may have lead to the negative outcome I read. My initial grim interpretation will be accurate, if I give into defeatism, in other words.

Rachel begins her section on the Page of Swords by saying that it is lighter than the other swords card, which made me read with more attention. She says that the problem with the page is their detachment and aloofness. They feel like they are above it all while presenting a defensiveness that alienates people in advance. That sounds like a pretty good, if preventable, recipe for conflict.

And the unhappiness I saw in the 10 of Cups? Rachel says, while it can point to unhappiness, it’s more likely that there is a secret or unconventional happiness available that we’re just not able to see. Her interpretation of the work cards further supports this conclusion. She says that the 2 of Wands shows someone like Alexander, depressed because they’ve conquered the world and don’t know what to do with themselves. It reminds me of a cautionary tale someone told me recently about a friend who couldn’t get herself to stop working, even though she and her husband had more than enough money to retire. Her addiction to work didn’t come from the fact that it brought her joy but because she had become unable to imagine doing anything else with her time. Like Alexander, a life without struggle terrified her.

For the Chariot card, Rachel talks about the ability to work with contradictions. This reminded me of work that I’ve been doing a lot lately with dialectics. (I talked about this in my lecture on Libra in the Narrative Astrology Lab a few months ago.) The work of the Chariot is learning to balance two opposing truths or values. The Empress and the Page of Pentacles balancing pleasure and work and the way that they weave in and out of each other.

Rachel’s interpretation of the 4 of Wands was the icing on the cake. Happiness so strong that even a reversal can’t…well…reverse it. The work here is cultivating the belief that, if you can’t see good in the world, it’s because your eyes have failed, not the world.

Bringing It All Together

I don’t think it would be responsible to dismiss the possibility of difficulty this year. There has been too much speculation from too many corners, and too many people are smiling at the possibility of conflict before Saturn and Neptune have even reached Aries. But because of the current state of things, I don’t think adding any more swords to the mix is useful.

The thing that I take away from this reading is that no matter what state the world is in, this is a year for joy. We are leaving an old world behind. There are things that we are leaving that we liked very much, and we’re not so sure about the direction we’re going in, but no one has to convince us that there are things that need to change.

It's important to focus on our agency in this situation. What are we choosing to leave? What are we turning toward?

It would be a mistake to wallow in defeatism or to decide that the story we are in no longer needs our contribution. There is joy to be had if only we will join in.

Where we are going, we will need the page’s strategic thinking, the 2 of Wands’ ability to read the room, and the Chariot’s ability to be self-aware and self-controlled. But hard work and discipline must be balanced. No matter how dire the situation, we mustn’t work so hard (even joyfully) that we don’t know how to take a break… or don’t know what to do with ourselves when a break is needed.

This is a year for rediscovering pleasure. How else will we build a world that we actually want to live in?

If you would like to talk more in depth about what is coming up for you this year, I offer astrology readings. Let’s talk about your astrology of 2025 over a cup of tea.