TAROT FOR THE NEW YEAR 2021: A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

Last night, which was New Year’s Eve of 2021, I did a reading to learn the general quality of the year ahead for society at large, and the central, focal card was “The World” reversed.

Actually, the card was “The Worlds” with an “s” on the end, because I was using The Victorian Fairy Deck, and this deck uses Worlds plural, indicating the interpenetrating realms of the human and fairies, the wild and the domestic, the material and the imaginative, etc.

I used the Victorian Fairy deck because I had received it as a Christmas present, so it seemed appropriate to use my newest acquisition.  Through different eras, our cultural imagination has perceived the fairy folk differently, and so portrayed them differently in art and literature.  As it has been jokingly said that the Victorians liked to imagine fairies as ordinary Victorians with wings on them, the creators of this deck, (Lunaea Weatherstone, with illustrator Gary A. Lippincott), have taken up this idea for the images.  In the case of “The Worlds” card, we see a ring of fairies in Victorian costume, dancing in a clearing in the woods.  However, the towers of a city are shown off in the distance, conveying the idea of connected world systems.

I interpret this reversed Worlds card as a caution that things won’t get back to normal all too quickly, due to COVID and other social upheavals, including the transition to a new presidency.  Among other things, it might take longer for vaccines to turn the situation around, and/or for the transfer of political power to be effective.

This New Year’s Eve reading was done as a three-card spread, where the flanking cards were The Queen of Autumn and The Herald of Spring.  (In this deck, Autumn corresponds to Pentacles, and Spring to Wands.)  Both were upright, so in their full expression.  One can put different lenses on a three-card spread, so if viewed as something of a timeline, the old lady Autumn comes before the young fellow Spring, which also suggests a certain reversal of the natural order.  In practical terms, however, the Queen of Autumn might indicate that society at large has the resources and experience to manage the world situation, and the Herald of Spring might denote the breath of fresh air we’ll be feeling when we get some good news and the world opens up again, so we can go out and enjoy ourselves.

By the way, in reference to my previous post on The Dollhouse Oracle and the House of 2020, I did a reading for myself this morning, to see what the House of 2021 will look like for me.  I again used The Victorian Fairy Deck, and I also used the Victorian House pop-up book, and found the color scheme of the cards worked very well with the color scheme of the house.  Color scheme is not a big deal, but I do appreciate harmonious graphic relationships.  (Note—Last year I used the Edwardian House by Brian & Lizzie Sanders as authors, and designed by Suzanne Ferguson; the Victorian House was designed by Willabel L. Tong and illustrated by Phil Wilson.)  Two cards came up that do suggest the ongoing COVID situation:  for the entryway, I got the reversed Chariot, which suggests staying inside, and in the upstairs hallway, denoting one’s ability to get around, I got The Hermit—again indicating the need to self-isolate.  I don't know whether these cards foretell a worsening COVID situation and therefore a greater need to stay at home, or just the fact that I have the privilege of being able to work from home.