It’s the last pick-a-card reading of 2025, and I decided to choose a ‘best of’ theme — inviting you to reflect on your hardest (but best) wins this year. Some of these wins may be great things that happened in your life, but many may be challenges you overcame or lessons you are working through as this year comes to an end. It is easy to identify the wins that present as shiny new accomplishments, but harder to acknowledge those that arrived as intense struggles.
For this reading, every card came up reversed. This indicates wins that are harder to identify as a positive shift. Before you continue, take a moment to center yourself, and be open to reflecting on your toughest wins and what they mean for you. You can read every section, or just the ones that resonate with you. As always, remember that these pick-a-card readings are intended to serve as a general starting point for reflection and will not reveal the same things to everyone. Feel free to journal or take notes as you go.
Card One: Four of Wands
The Four of Wands is a card reflecting success and celebration, happening in harmony with your life and your goals. As a Wand card, it speaks to our passions and ambitions. In the reversed position, this card can indicate a period of stress and lack of harmony, marked by changes in relationships, career, housing, or a combination of these and/or other stressors. This could be a moment that makes you feel like you are far off the intended path. However, in tarot, the question shapes the outcome, and in the context of the focus for this reading, the message of this card is that what feels like a huge series of setbacks is actually what leads us where we need to be.
Perhaps over the past year, you experienced a lot of intense shifts, threatening your sense of stability. How can this be perceived as a win? You are surviving it! You have been doing far more work to build your own sense of harmony than you may realize. The things you see as ‘failures’ may reveal themselves, in time, to be your biggest successes. In the context of this reading, I would expect the Four of Wands to follow those who have done the hard but right thing for themselves (such as leaving a toxic relationship or job). You may not yet perceive the reward for your tough decisions, but it is time to take a moment and thank yourself for setting up future you for success. Take time this month to celebrate the good things and the hard things that happened this year. Honor your bravery and resilience!
Card Two: The Emperor
The Emperor is a card of stability, resources, long-term planning, and the structures that provide lasting benefits. It is a card that reflects quality leadership. But when this card is reversed, it indicates the energy of leadership gone sour. Corrupted leadership operates from a place of control and fear. When this card appears, it can indicate that you are surrounded by something (or someone) that makes you feel out of control.
If you feel drawn to this card, now is the time to reflect on all the ways you have set yourself free from controlling influences. Whether you have left an unsafe situation or you are still surviving it, your efforts to reclaim your agency and identity matter. Your wins this year may be in the form of little choices you have made or in big efforts of resistance. No matter the size, all of them are wins that are difficult to recognize in the moment, because it takes time to no longer feel as if you are fighting. It is vitally important that you reflect on your efforts and replenish your energy stores, as battles like these are draining and can easily burn you out. You have a lot to be proud of!
Card Three: The Hierophant
The Hierophant is a card about the traditions and structures that humans tend to conform to. These can be social expectations, holiday traditions, or rules and guidelines in religion or culture. When the Hierophant’s energy is balanced, this card can indicate a wonderful display of community. The holidays are a great example — there are many traditions people adhere to over the approaching festive season, and when approached appropriately, they help us find guidance and comfort within our social groups. However, when this card is reversed, it indicates conformity, oppression, and feeling trapped in a system that no longer serves you.
This card is calling you to examine your old patterns and relationships with the traditional structures in your life. This can look like healing from religious trauma, deconstructing ideals that stem from colonization or the patriarchy, or rethinking a career that prioritizes values that no longer align with your goals. It is time to assess the ways you go against the norm, and how you can shed the values that never belonged to you, so you can discover the ones that do. Congratulations on doing this hard work and on making room for a more authentic version of yourself, even if it feels isolating and terrifying to be different.
Jae Melland is a tarot, rune, and palm reader. You can visit seidrwhispers.com to schedule a reading or see her at her shop, Luna Apothecary, on Clearwater Avenue in Kennewick.
