Your Year Ahead readings are now open 🕯️

I have been reflecting on how intimate and vulnerable it is to set a goal.

To put into words (or a word) what we want to bring into our year. How humbling that is, to want to humble ourselves before what we desire. To dare to put it into words. How bracing it might be to reflect on goals from previous years. To begin articulating what we might intend to come next. If you're anything like me, there may be some shame mixed in with the pride at what you've accomplished, or maybe, what hasn't yet come to pass. There might be the glow of satisfaction mixed in with a yearning.

I say this to simply to name a dynamic that underpins so many of these hopes and dreams we hold. When we reflect on where we want to be, the gap between our actual self and our aspirational self can feel enormous. It strikes me as such a deeply human experience. We are so cute, us silly humans.

There are many ways to build lives of intention, and there is so much advice coming out at this time of year especially: to pick a word of the year, to fill out a workbook to digest the year that's come before, to set SMART goals with quarterly targets. These have worked for me sometimes, and they might feel enticing and delicious for you to work with too.

Yet, being in the habit of setting goals that are wildly out of sync with what I've done before seems to have broken trust within me before. I have gotten ambitious and been let down by how the specifics have panned out in practice. The actions I need to take become held at a distance, separately from the way I live my life, with goals that are too strict, too lofty, too accelerated from where I'm at today, moment by moment.

More than a plan, I need a map that moves alongside me.That's why I love a Year Ahead tarot reading.

Reading for my year ahead has been my most consistent self-reflection practice for years. And part of what makes it successful for me is that it's loose. It works with what I know, when I know it, and it gives me clues about the energetic quality of what's to come. It works with images, consistent ones, ones that continue to reveal new clues and stories and secrets to me the longer I sit with them and revisit them.

Maybe you don't need a word. Maybe you don't need a number. Maybe you need to be in conversation about what really matters to you, and what might be incoming, and how best to support yourself through the highs and lows. Maybe you need to try leaving yourself a different kind of evidence and working with it over a year.

My practice of reading tarot is intimate and vulnerable too. My ways of seeing the cards, my stories and knowledge, have come hard-won, through more than a decade of practice, and through years of studying mindfulness, somatics and human development. Honestly, it feels raw for me to open this private practice to you. I have parts that are afraid of being misinterpreted. When I read for you (and when I write for you), I am laying myself bare on these pages, assembling meaning through my experiences and expressions. I wait to feel into what is resonant for me and do my best to speak into it plainly. It's a leap of faith for me that you are waiting on the other side.

You might have read tarot before, or you may not have ever tried it. You might have a deck that you practice with, or maybe it sits patiently, waiting for a someday. Maybe you just want to try something new, and feel a call coming from within the house.

The way I read tarot is from a spirit of curiosity — of taking a leap into the unknown. Of noticing what happens when I invite in more abstraction. Of guiding myself gently to the edges of my comfort zone. Of receiving compassionate scaffolding around what matters most.

As always, I am curious to hear if something comes for you. I am curious if something resonating within me resonates with something within you. To see how sharing conversation might awaken something fresh. And to see how it unfolds in your year.

My books are open, if you'd like to step into 2026 together. (At least I think they are open. I have been trying to connect all the bibs and bobs on my end of the internet for so long that my eyes are crossed. If you run into anything weird, please let me know!)

Simply reply to this email if you have any questions. Sending you peace and patience for crossing the threshold into 2026.

Take care and be well,
AC

​Amanda Caswell (she/her) is a human being who wants to know what life feels like for you. Forwarded this by a friend? ​Subscribe for reflections + events to support your self-inquiry.

​
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​