Love Tarot for the Year Ahead: How to Read Twelve Months of Your Heart

The usual layout is one card for each of the twelve months, plus one for the year as a whole. Our year-ahead reading uses thirteen cards in exactly this way. Each monthly card is a theme you are likely to meet, and the thirteenth is the thread that ties them together.

If you are new, tarot for love explains how the suits behave in relationships. Keep it nearby, since Cups and Swords will carry most of the story.

Decide what you want this year to teach you about love. If you are single, that may be "How do I want to be treated next time?" If you are together, it may be "Where have we stopped paying attention?" A clear intention makes twelve cards feel like one conversation rather than twelve fortune cookies.

Avoid "Will I find someone this year?" It has only two answers and neither helps you in March.

Ace of Cups in a month marks an opening, perhaps a new person or perhaps your own heart softening. Ten of Cups is contentment shared, and it asks what home means to you. The Star is healing after a hard stretch.

The Hermit may be the most misunderstood card here: a quiet month is not a failed month, and it often does the most for your next relationship. The Tower is a sudden truth, which is rarely pleasant and often clarifying.

Write the thirteen cards down. At the start of each month, reread that month's card and its card meaning, and ask where it is showing up. At the end, note what actually happened. By autumn you will have a record of your own patterns, and that is worth more than any prediction.

If a month's card worries you, remember that it describes a theme to work with. It is not a sentence, and you still choose what to do in that month.