Author’s own image: cards from the Smith Waite deck
Prescience is not omniscience, and the reader makes no claim to know more than anyone else. Context is key, obtaining the most detailed, directed and precise feedback or forecasts from a Tarot reading. This Elemental Spread will only paint the broadest and most general picture of Aries Season 2024. We throw a net over the side of the boat and see what the Tarot fishes up.
But it is typical of the uncanny synchronicity of Tarot that the central card, drawn blindly and selected entirely at random, is the Queen of Wands, the court card representing Aries in the Tarot deck. This gives the reader a benchmark, affirming that the oracular entity that is the Tarot has “heard” the question; i.e., “what may we see, experience or expect or prepare for this coming Aries Season 2024?”
The Elemental Spread may be read in several ways:
Top to bottom (e.g. past-present-future)
Left to right (e.g. situation-challenge-outcome)
There are many other possible permutations. The Elemental Spread can also be read clockwise:-
North/Earth: Job, money, home, material affairs, present and immediate issues
West/Water: Relationships, well-being, creative and artistic matters, recent past
South/Fire: Passion, drive, inspiration, purpose, challenges, obstacles
East/Air: Intellect, strategy, planning, law, medicine, next steps, near future
But whatever the method, the central card represents the crux of the matter in question.
Reading the cards from top to bottom, The King of Wands sets the tone with assertive and expansive Fifth House Leo energy. This is the element of fixed fire. This is also political, financial and business energy. It also reflects the tradition or superstition of a solar eclipse, “a man departs.”
On the public stage this card could, just for instance- although he is a Gemini sun sign native- include a reference to Donald Trump and his presidential election campaign. The King of Wands, among his many other descriptors, is described as a “ A fair haired man of business.”
The campaign seems to be going well for Donald Trump, but reading across the benchmark card of the Aries Queen of Wands, there may be more speculation, news or legal issues attached to a fair-haired lady who is a writer. (I didn’t know who this lady might be. I had never heard of this court case, but I subsequently gather the tarot might have been picking up on Trump v E Jean Carroll)
The Justice card has been drawn reversed. His campaign is off to a strong start but there may be some significant legal setback for Donald Trump this coming month. The King of Wands, Seven of Wands and the Five of Wands are making repeated appearances surrounding Donald Trump, possibly indicative of challenging developments that occur for him during Leo season, late July-August, and/or again, at the end of the year when Mars enters Leo. These cards are not necessarily bad news in a reading, but it adds up to a picture of constant fire-fighting.
How difficult can it be to get a prediction here for the next President of the United States? Two candidates. Two parties. This should be clear and simple, right? So why isn’t it? The cards remain unclear about the election outcome, and with a dark haired legal woman hovering via repeated appearances of the Queen of Swords, or alternatively, the Queen of Pentacles. Maybe Nikki Haley isn’t done yet after all, or maybe it is Kamala Harris.
For now, I bow to the gods and conclude the die is not yet cast. Trump could still win for sure. I keep drawing The Hermit (Virgo) for Biden…old age, and I am not a particular fan of Biden, or of Trump either, but The Hermit does say he is still sharp on detail and analysis, whatever the signs of frailty in public. In general, my cards are detecting Biden as the more likely winner but it’s messy. I will keep looking, and will be commenting further as and when I detect a shift.
On a personal collective level, both the King of Wands and that combustible Five of Wands also in Leo, says that the month of April only gets hotter and busier as the days go on…and quite possibly, increasingly demanding and challenging on the domestic front. The Fifth House looms large in this card reading for this Aries season 2024. The Fifth House is all about self-expression and the inner child: the things that make us happy. It is about our relationships, our children- and our personal projects and passions.
This comes into conflict with our First House of the Self and our Seventh House of marriage and partnerships this coming month. There are only so many hours in a day. But we may be feeling a powerful drive to do something new, differently, bigger or better. This may entail, reviewing, revising or breaking free of some commitment, contract or agreement that is not working as well as before.
We can also read this spread from left to right in terms of the decans. The first decan of Aries season is represented here by The Hermit, associated with Virgo and the Sixth House of conservation, health, nutrition, service and old age.
Virgo is ruled by Mercury. The Hermit is picking up on the coming Mercury retrograde in Aries between April 1 and April 25. The Tarot is alerting us to be on guard against administrative, travel or medical glitches in advance of the coming retrograde.
The second decan of Aries season is represented by the Queen of Wands herself, ruling Aries and the First House of the zodiac. This is us, sitting centre stage. This Queen (male or female, it makes no difference) has been quietly but intensely preoccupied lately with family and business duties, possibly health matters too, or matters to do with caring for older relatives. She is shown here in the second decan, 1-10 April, leaving a relatively quiet zone and preparing to enter some kind of bustle or fray, shown by the card representing the third decan of Aries season 2024, the Five of Wands, coming up 10-20 April.
Update: This Queen of Wands card could also be understood as a foreshadowing of the public announcement issued just now on the UK media at 6 PM by Princess Catherine, aka Kate, of her cancer diagnosis. Princess Catherine is a Capricorn sun sign native, and the Queen of Pentacles and the “dark haired” lady I mentioned earlier apropos of the United States elections and Nikki Haley or Kamala Harris, was also picking up on Princess Catherine/Kate. I had not wished to use my cards to inquire specifically into the health of the princess. I had already noted The Moon card in passing, so to speak, and surmised a chance that she was dealing with an issue of feminine health. Hormones are signified by The Moon card and so is the risk of infection, poisoning or cancer. I now ask about her onward recovery and I draw the Star card. Here is a hopeful card.
In summary
Fire is the dominant element in this simple but versatile spread. We have three fire suit cards, one earth suit card and one air sign card. And Justice is the challenge. Justice, the Air sign card of Libra in the south node has been drawn reversed here, working against Aries in the north node, and not with it. On the world stage, Justice drawn reversed shows little prospect of any lasting peace this Aries season.
On a personal level, we may experience a “eureka” moment, or feel an energy surge with no immediate available outlet for expression. Or we may feel as if we are fighting one kind of fire after another. The challenge is self-control and patience. The wise old Hermit of the Tarot understands this better than any other card except for Temperance.
The Hermit has seen it all before.
Meanwhile, a reminder…
March 25: Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse in Libra
This penumbral lunar eclipse begins at 4:53 UTC on March 25, 2024 and 12:53 a.m. EDT in North America. Greatest eclipse is at 7:12 UTC on March 25 (3:12 a.m. EDT.) Its total duration will be 4 hours and 36 minutes. The spring awakening of the spring equinox 19 March is reinforced a week later by the March 25 Libra full moon, the first eclipse of 2024.
This lunar eclipse is at 5 degrees and 19 minutes of Libra, the seventh house of justice, law and partnerships of every kind and at every level; personal, professional and political. Libra is ruled by Venus, planet of finance, love, beauty with public finance going through periodic upheaval. This cycle of Aries-Libra eclipses will not be completed until March 2025.
Justice is “eclipsed,” while lunar eclipses in Babylonian astrology, more so even than solar eclipses, have been associated with removals of heads of state, based on the symbology of the head (Aries)
Skullduggery.
The year of his birth is open to debate, but Vladimir Putin is a Libra sun sign native. And now he has won an election victory with almost 88% of the votes, meaning another six years in power, at least in theory, the nasty little maggot. Every sun sign has its heroes, antiheroes…and maggots.
The presence of armed police in polling booths, barging in on individuals as they cast their votes supposedly in private had nothing to do with it whatsoever. My cards are not detecting any sign of an end to Putin’s war in Ukraine before March/Aries 2025 as signified by The Hanged Man (Pisces + “compromise”.) The best hope before then looks like the timing around solar eclipse in Libra in October 2024.
The Tarot cards of this Aries-Libra axis lunar eclipse are Justice, and because this eclipse is at 5 degrees of Libra, we have the first decan card of Libra, the Two of Swords, signifying a pause, indecision, a truce, a standoff, impasse or a stalemate.
Aries could be imagined in the simplest crude terms as Law and War, and Libra on the other end of this nodal axis see-saw as Law and Jaw.
Someone- on the world stage, but this also could be us, closer to home- is acting as a go-between in a dispute (or a war.) But neither of the other parties is going to give an inch until they are forced to, and who has the bottle, the clout and the means to do that enforcing. This applies in Gaza as well as Ukraine.
In general this is a time to stand back, reassess, and re-negotiate family and/or financial plans, bookings, commitments, and terms of engagement, especially as we enter the frazzle of the retrograde shadow of Mercury in Aries from March 21-April 19 when any plan is more than usually liable to go to pot.
Cardinal Aries is upbeat, bouncing, and all about the new and brave. Cardinal Libra is suave, personable, worldly, smooth and calculating. It is also known as the sign of “the iron fist in the velvet glove”. Both can be impatient, abrupt, and potentially ruthless.
This eclipse links back to the new Moon and solar eclipse in Libra October 14/15, 2023 and the calamity which happened in the immediate build-up. The Two of Swords suggests we now see, if not a ceasefire, then a bristling standoff to do with international efforts of diplomacy in the face of a threatened humanitarian disaster in Rafah.
Putin sees no need to engage in diplomacy, at least just for now. The USA meanwhile, and although this is nothing new, is quietly modelling security strategies for the safeguarding of security infrastructure and supply chains in Louisiana and other states in case of an outright conflict with China over Taiwan or the Philippines, while confirming that this seems unlikely.
On a personal level, this first lunar eclipse to aspect Pluto in Aquarius may cast an eerie or melancholy light on troubled relationships, partnerships or social arrangements. Something has changed. The nostalgia is strong but it has had its time. We may be considering whether we need to review our commitments, remit and terms of engagement at home or at work. Relationships or contracts come under a spotlight. Is this a fair and workable arrangement? Is this mutually productive and sustainable, and at what cost?
Thank you for reading.
Back soon with more from True Tarot Tales.