I can’t believe that 2025 has already come and gone. Now it’s time for me to set my intentions for 2026, work out my goals, let go of things that no longer serve me, and draw my annual New Year’s Tarot reading. Since many of you may be getting set up for the new year with your own goal-setting and tarot spread, I thought I would share my process here.
I found this awesome 12-card spread on the blog of Biddy Tarot, one of my favorite tarot instructors on the internet. Rather than a month-by-month breakdown of my year, this one focuses on key lessons, aspirations, and specific life areas, including relationships and emotions, work and finances, health and well-being, and spirituality and fulfillment. I love this because it aligns with my goal-setting.
I started with a bit of meditation just to clear my head of any stray worries or obligations. It’s always good to have an open mind and heart. I used the Wild Unknown deck by Kim Krans, given to me by a friend. I love this deck for the striking visuals. It’s not so great if you need clues from the artwork to recall the card meanings, though. I also noted that the Strength card (#8 in the traditional tarot deck) and Justice (#11) had their numbers swapped in this deck. I assumed it was a printing error, and since the cards are Major Arcana, the number doesn’t really matter so much as the subject of the card, so I read them that way.
As I turned each card, I jotted down the keywords and meanings, noting any reversals. Because I am not as familiar with this deck and because I have other decks and descriptions I like a lot, I also referred to those. In all, I read the cards four times, noting the meanings from the Wild Unknown deck, Biddy Tarot’s website, the Light Seer’s deck, and the Original Rider Waite: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by A. E. Waite. Some of you might be surprised to know that while most of the meanings were the same or similar, there was quite a bit of divergence between them, which is one of the reasons why I like to refer to as many different resources as possible and not just rely on my own memory and/or intuition when reading cards for myself. Sometimes, the meaning just doesn’t fit.
If you’ve been following along on the podcast, you’ll recall that Amber, Christen, and I have been using AI quite a bit lately for various things. I mainly use it to clarify my thoughts and distill them into actionable lists. Since so much information was gathered in this 12-card draw, I decided to share my notes with ChatGPT to see if the results matched my own conclusions. I gave a brief description of myself:
Assume that I am a 61 year old white female, widowed with 3 grown children, a son-in-law, step-granddaughter and several couples who consider me a second mother figure who is a part-time travel agent, podcaster and blogger that loves to craft, what would the following 2026 New Year Tarot reading mean for me? Break it down by each card using the descriptions provided.
I followed this with my complete notes for each card, including all four resources. I was delightfully surprised by the accuracy of the interpretation. ChatGPT even managed to derive several highly relevant points that I completely missed – almost as if I’d had a reading from someone else because it eliminated the natural bias that occurs when reading for yourself or someone you know.
If you’d like to see my complete notes, I’ve linked them below. You can also view the ChatGPT results. I’m going to keep these two versions together to refer back to throughout the year. I know that Christen has used ChatGPT to help her with her goal-setting for 2026 (hopefully she’ll share that with us!), so I might do the same, adding this tarot read to the prompt for further clarity.
Let me know what you think! Was ChatGPT spot-on, or way off? Would you use it yourself or would you just go with your own instincts? I’d love to hear about it!
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