The world feels confusing and uncertain. It’s the kind of situation where tarot can help us the most, however, so I’ll pull a card for each sign of the zodiac as a message about how to get through these trying times.

The reading for this issue indicates that achieving the “new year, new me” mindset has been difficult for a lot of us. I pulled five Major Arcana cards and three cards from the Daggers suit, the most severe in the deck.

It’s time to stay focused on our goals as the Sun moves into Aquarius. Aquarius energy can motivate us to innovate — but it can also lead to distractions. We may want to fix everything all at once and lose sight of what’s important. If you’re feeling confused or unsure which direction to follow, look for your sign to see where you should most focus your growth this year. 

Are you feeling stagnant? As though you’re at the mercy of circumstance? That’s a theme I’m noticing in my reads and my interactions with others lately — it’s common to feel like a victim of the tumultuous world we live in. For that reason, I want to talk this week about receptive versus projective energy.

The tarot cards I drew this time were intense and sometimes foreboding, which is absolutely in line with this heavy Scorpio and Mercury retrograde energy. The majority were Major Arcana cards, promising true, long-term change; the fall of old power and the rise of new power. 

Welcome to Clusterscopes, a biweekly tarotscopes column. I’ll pull a tarot card for each sign of the zodiac to help guide you through the next two weeks.

Like asking someone their zodiac sign, reaching for a tarot deck when life gets confusing isn’t considered as strange as it once was. But what is the tarot, and how is it really used?