Sabbats, Seasons, and Tarot Spreads

One of the highlights of my morning is sitting here each day, feeling the anticipation that always comes before I begin a tarot reading. It doesn’t matter if I’m performing a 10-card Celtic Cross spread or just getting ready for a single-card draw, there’s a definite sense of excitement. That excitement comes, in large part, from curiosity. Before I turn over any card, I sit here for a moment wondering what tarot has in store for me today.

When doing a “Weekly Reading” such as this, where the full reading is spread out over a period of time, I also like to mentally review what’s come before. We’ve spent time with the Master/King of Pentacles and met the Artisan/Queen of Wands. Will yet another “court card” appear for us today?

No, today’s card is the Ace of Winter Cups, one of the four “seed cards” — Aces — in the deck.

The Aces in tarot are often called “seeds” because they represent beginnings, the start of new things, the spark or inspiration from which the future grows. Each suit relates to a different aspect of life:

• Wands relate to physical energy, movement, actions, plans and projects
• Cups are the emotional suit, relating to love in all forms, to family, to friends, and to creative ideas
• Swords correspond with our mental processes — our thoughts, our ability to communicate with others, our ability to be strategic in pursuing our goals
• Pentacles represent the mundane, practical and material aspects of daily life

Our Ace of Cups here represents our emotions, the people, places, and the things we love. This includes the things we love to do! How kind of her to come to us on this last day of the year. We so often think of “endings” on New Year’s Eve, but this lovely maiden holding a cup near her heart is whispering that we should be focusing on what’s beginning.

A new year brings new opportunities. Today’s message, however, isn’t a simple acknowledgement of that fact. It’s more of a call to action, asking us what new opportunities we want to manifest? We’re not intended to sit around waiting for opportunity or inspiration to come knocking on the door. We have the right to go out looking for them. We can knock on a few doors of our own, seeking out new things, looking for people who can help us pursue our dreams and achieve our goals. We can go off in search of resources, information, knowledge, advice.

Today’s task? Place your hand over your heart and ask yourself what you would truly love to do in 2026. Want to write that novel you’ve talked about for how long? Are you ready to find “the one” and fall deeply in love? Are you wishing you could go back to school and earn a degree? Whatever it is that your heart desires, think about it now. Visualize it. Imagine it happening.

Now, make a promise to yourself. Pledge to act on this desire. Make a commitment to yourself to set a goal and work steadily toward it in the coming year.

The Ace of Cups offers you the seed you need. The card doesn’t promise success; that’s up to us. But one thing for certain is that if we don’t plant the seed, it’s not going to grow.

Got your plan or project in mind? Great! Let’s meet here again on next New Year’s Eve and share our stories.