As we move into the new year, it helps to consider the months ahead through different lenses. Astrologers and numerologists have shared forecasts for planetary transits and numeric cycles, and Tarot offers a complementary way to explore the themes likely to shape both personal life and collective experience in the coming months.
What Is the Year of the Lovers?
In numerology, 2022 reduces to the number 6, which corresponds to the Lovers card in the Tarot’s Major Arcana. This alignment suggests the coming year will emphasize the qualities of the sixth archetype of the Fool’s journey: union, choice, and the ways relationships and values help define who we are.
The Lovers card speaks to partnerships, meaningful connection, and authenticity. It asks: Who are you spending time with? Where are you allowing vulnerability? How are your connections helping you to become more fully yourself? It also prompts a deeper look at choices—opting for what feels true rather than what feels convenient, and cultivating the freedom to explore who you are.
Tarot Spread to Use for 2022
This simple spread focuses on desire, openness to experience, and a goal to develop across the year. Before you draw cards, reflect on any resolutions or intentions you set for 2022 and consider whether they arise from your true self or from external pressure.
Questions to consider:
- Are these goals authentic to you?
- Do you feel pressured, insecure, or uncertain about direction?
- How are you stepping into your true self, and what actions reflect that intention?
Locate the Lovers card in your deck and journal about what it means to you. Use these prompts:
- How does the Lovers card bridge the structure of the Hierophant and the forward motion of the Chariot?
- What does the Lovers card teach about freedom, connection, and vulnerability?
Keep the Lovers card visible while you shuffle and draw, letting its themes frame your reading. The example below demonstrates how to use the spread; it is illustrative, not a reading for any specific person.
Card One: Insight into a Personal Desire
Wheel of Fortune
The Wheel of Fortune represents fate, cycles, and forces beyond our control. It reminds us that not everything is directed by conscious will; sometimes the healthiest choice is to surrender to patterns and timing larger than ourselves. This card can point to a desire to slow down, rest, or follow a natural flow rather than continually steering against the current.
In the context of the Lovers’ year, the Wheel encourages exploration without rigid expectations and invites reflection on which stresses are worth holding and which can be released.
Where might you be ready to follow the current instead of always steering the ship?
Card Two: How to Open Yourself to New Experiences
Temperance
Temperance brings balance, moderation, and a gentle acceptance of mystery. Appearing after transformation, this card asks for patience and presence—encouraging you to trust intuition and savor the moment rather than getting stuck in past losses or future anxieties. It asks what in your life is already available and worthy of deeper exploration.
Rather than overanalyzing change, Temperance suggests focusing on experience and integration. Consider what you’re learning about yourself and how those lessons refine your desires and discard what no longer serves.
What are you learning about who you are, and how does that illuminate what you truly crave?
Card Three: A Goal to Explore Throughout the Year
Knight of Swords
The Knight of Swords symbolizes intense focus, rapid movement, and intellectual drive. This card invites you to assess where your attention is fixed and whether that focus is expansive or limiting. In the suit of Swords, queries around perspective, communication, and mental agility come to the fore.
Ask: Are you collaborating or dictating? Are you open to new ideas or convinced you already know the answer? The Knight calls for a balance between confidence and humility—affirming your aims while staying curious and receptive to others’ input.
Consider how ego might cloud judgment and what a genuinely inquisitive mindset looks like in your pursuits.
2022: A Year for Meaningful Growth
Overall, a Lovers-centered year encourages leaving assumptions behind and letting lived experience inform belief. Change brings fresh information, and 2022 can offer unexpectedly joyful growth that reveals who you are in new, vivid ways.
Final reflections:
- How can you prioritize authenticity over conformity?
- Where are you being invited to stand out, and how can presence in each moment help you do that with joy and integrity?
This reading features cards from the Marigold Tarot. Photographs by Meg Jones Wall.