Future tarot reading from your past to a year ahead
Where is your life heading, and do the choices you are making now lead somewhere? This reading lays five cards in time order, from the past to a year from now. The last card sits outside time and names the theme you keep coming back to.
Your reading
Reading your cards
The five-card future spread
Four of the cards follow time and the fifth stands apart. Read from the past forward to a year ahead, then check the fifth card for the thread running through all of it, and the events of each period start to connect.
Past
Something from the recent past, an event or a choice, that shaped where you are now.
Present
Where you are right now and what you are facing.
Near future
Changes within roughly three months. This is the most concrete place in the spread.
A year from now
How things look a year from now if the current flow continues. What you do in the near future can change it.
Your life theme
A theme that returns throughout your life. Read with your birth cards, it shows how your nature and your path connect.
Cards that matter most for the future
Wheel of Fortune
A turning point. In the near future or a year out, it marks a big change of direction.
Death
An ending and a new start. In the past or present, it shows a chapter already closed.
The World
A stage completed. A year out, what you are working on now bears fruit.
The Fool
A fresh start. As your life theme, a life that refuses a fixed mold is what makes you you.
The Tower
Sudden change. It looks frightening, but it clears old foundations so you can rebuild.
The Star
Hope and recovery. It often follows a period that felt like rock bottom.
Sample reading: five cards on the road ahead
DeathPast
The Hanged ManPresent
The FoolNear future
The ChariotA year from now
The HermitYour life themeThe past is Death. Not long ago a chapter closed, and the old shape of your life or a relationship ended. That decision is where the current flow began.
The present is the Hanged Man. Frustrated at not being able to move, you are also seeing things from a new angle. The near future is the Fool, a light new step. Start on the thing that interests you, even before you feel ready, and things will move.
A year out is the Chariot, moving past doubt in a direction you chose yourself. Your life theme is the Hermit: finding your own answers instead of following the crowd. The more time you give to thinking alone, the clearer your choices become.
A sample reading for someone who has recently changed jobs and moved house.
Reading the near future and the year ahead together
Read the near future and the year ahead as a pair. If the near future is an active card and the year ahead a settled one, what you do in the next few months builds that stability. Even if the near future looks stuck, a bright card a year out means now is the time to gather strength.
For how to spend today, use the daily tarot reading. To see the year month by month, use your year ahead reading.
When life feels like it is going nowhere
With the Tower or the Devil in the present, it can feel like rock bottom. When that happens, read the life theme and the year ahead first. Seeing where the hard stretch sits in the longer flow makes the next step easier to find.
Future tarot questions
Is the future already decided?
The cards show where things go if the current flow continues. How you spend the near future changes what the year-ahead card means, so treat it as a signpost.
All five cards came up reversed.
Lots of reversed cards mean a time when things are turned inward. Sorting out your thoughts or resting suits it better than pushing outward. How to read reversals is also explained in tarot card meanings.
I only want to see my career.
For work alone, the three cards of the career tarot reading fit better. The future reading covers your life as a whole, love and work included.