I don’t generally do end of the year recaps or new year new me resolutions, but I do do (hehe) an annual tarot year recap and reflection. I do these somewhat randomly in the first quarter of the year because tarot years actually have influence for more than a year (about 18 months, though the energy peaks around your birthday) and technically you can be in two tarot years at once. But anyway, since this past tarot year is thoroughly waning and the new tarot year is waxing, January is as good a time as any to reflect!
2024 (technically, starting October 2023 and ending April 2025) was my Hanged Man year. I didn’t know much about what to expect for this year other than the obvious (new perspective; making sacrifices to gain something else; releasing the old ways and welcome in the new; uncertainty; etc) so I looked back on previous Hanged Man years to get an idea of what might be in store for me. (I have a spreadsheet!)
1997 – Age turned: 12 Dude I was 12, I barely remember. ‘Twas the last half of 6th grade and the first half of 7th. I made very poor hair choices that summer, but it was also the year I discovered my hair had gone from stick straight to curly (fun thing to discover with a pixie cut…). It was the first year I began experiencing symptoms of depression and started to feel like an outsider among friends, but also the year I really dove into one of my first special interests: spirituality (the other obviously being writing). To me this meant researching religions, mythologies, and other spiritual practices; I became very interested in secret societies, the occult, and witchcraft. October of 1997 was when I first officially declared myself as a witch (to myself, at least), and that has remained true ever since.
2006 – Age turned: 21 I started at UB after some miserable years doing independent study at Empire State and decided to major in Anthropology. I also moved out of a bad living situation and into a somewhat worse situation (bad landlord; terrible downstairs neighbors) but at least it was all my own. My soulmate kitty The Bean passed unexpectedly that spring and the landlord situation got so toxic I had to move back in with my parents (thank the stars I had that option though). That was also the first year we participated in the 48 Hour Film Project, which would eventually lead me to change my major to Media Studies the next year. I started dating someone new and for a little while that was good for me. I thrived as an anthropology major (though it ultimately wasn’t for me) and I think I was still actively running a writers group and having a great time.
2015 – Age turned: 30 I can’t remember much from this part of my life because this was when depression/anxiety really had their hooks in me and my brain was marinating in sexy, sexy stress hormones, but I do recall applying for and being accepted into what I saw as an elite writing course that changed my life, writing the first 100 pages of The Wilderness of Girls, and going on the first of many hermitage retreats to heal my soul. For my birthday that year I drove to Salem, MA so I could watch the sunrise over the ocean on my actual (30th) birthday…and it was overcast. The end of 2015 I was super depresso. Early 2016 was when I decided to go to grad school though, and that helped.
2024 – Age turned: 39 This year has been a wild ride! I’ve been sent around the country to be a Professional Author at various events; my debut novel released in June; I’ve found a measure of success in treating my chronic illness intuitively instead of spending horrifying amounts of money on medical care; and the most insane part: my day job is coming to an end and I will be starting 2025 working as a full time author and all that entails. I can type that so calmly now, but that’s what my Hanged Man year was mostly about: coming to terms with the idea of being allowed to live my dream in a world where some people aren’t even allowed to live. I had some serious doubts about whether or not I was permitted to walk away from my steady paycheck (and massive amounts of stress) and pursue the vocation that has been my guiding light since before I hit puberty. Likewise, I was uncertain whether I was allowed to walk away from the doctors who had been unable to help me overcome my chronic illnesses. Wasn’t I morally obligated to do everything in my power (and in this case that meant spend all my money) to heal? Wasn’t it irresponsible and cowardly to stop getting IVs and taking injections and going for bloodwork and taking a million and one pills on the off chance one might do the trick? And wasn’t it “delusional” to think I might know more about what my body needs than expensive medical experts?
And on top of that: was I allowed to pursue a diagnosis for autism? If I had functioned well enough (I hadn’t), and if even I sometimes had doubts (and yet also I supported self-diagnosis because the ASD community overwhelmingly sees self-diagnosis as valid), did I have the right to spend my money on pursuing a diagnosis?
In all instances (work; health; diagnosis), I had to learn to trust my gut. As a witch, you’d think this would be something I would be good at: instincts and intuition and whatnot. But in reality my intuition has been fucked for a long time because, as someone socialized female, I had been trained to put my feelings and needs aside for the benefit of those around me. If I was “strong enough” to endure, surely that meant I must endure rather than make someone else deal with how they had hurt me or crossed a boundary or shown me disrespect. But I’ve been doing a lot of work on recovering my relationship with my intuition, and this year I made lengthy strides: I pursued my ASD diagnosis despite the nagging voice saying “you’re just doing this because you want to be special” (WRONG) and now I understand myself better than ever before. I walked away from a potential $25,000 medical bill to more or less pay a doctor to experiment on me, and instead have been following my instincts to a lifestyle that has vastly improved my daily functioning without spending a dime. And finally, this summer, after waffling back and forth for months, I committed to my decision to walk away from my day job no matter what by the end of 2024.
I regret nothing. All of this feels good and right. In fact, it feels like the first time I’ve been able to relax in a whole lifetime. I’ve been hustling for decades—I haven’t had weekends free for as long as I can remember. It’s always been work and writing; or school, work, and writing; or work and chronic illness management and writing. Now, it’s just writing. Just writing. And real weekends for the first time in my adult life. I mean, the chronic illness stuff is still there, but it requires less and less management as I keep the promise to myself of slowing down, listening to my body, and not over-exerting physically, mentally, or emotionally.
Overall, I think my Hanged Man year was the year I finally really and truly understood that rest, play, and joy are just as important, if not moreso, than hard work. That’s definitely a huge shift in perspective.
As 2025 begins, I am well on my way into my Death card year. I know that can sound a bit scary (especially when one has elderly pets, sick family members, and their own ongoing mystery illness), but I’m actually very excited. The Death card is all about transformation, endings, and new beginnings, and well…I don’t have a giant phoenix tattooed on my leg for nothing. Plus, for the first time ever, a “word of the year” has come to me quite naturally, and I think it’s incredibly fitting as I enter my Death Year: nurture and/or nourish. I will nurture the grief and anger I carry, just as I will nurture the compassion and delight. As I make decisions moving forward, I will ask myself: does this nourish me? I hope to create a life that nurtures me, day in and day out, instead of constantly rationing myself to fend off exhaustion. Perhaps 2025 will finally be the death of my deep-seated need to be productive above all else.
If you’d like to figure out what your Tarot Year is, simply follow this formula:
Add up the whole numbers of the Current year + Your Birth Month + Your Birth Day
2025 + 5 + 17 = 2047
Add up the individual numbers of that sum
2+0+4+7 = 13
If your sum is 22 or less, find the correlating card of the Major Arcana
Death (XIII) is the 13th card of the Major Arcana
If your sum is greater than 22 (there are only 22 cards in the Major Arcana), you would continue to add the individual numbers of the sum together until you got a number under 22. I have seen other ways of calculating this, but this is the method that works for me.
Happy New Year friends!