I thought I would start the new year with a tarot reading for myself from my tarot deck collection. I decided to use Deborah Blake’s Everyday Witch tarot with illustrations by Elisabeth Alba.

The card I picked was the Page of Cups. The guidebook to Everyday Witch says the card is about creativity and embracing the new, but it also warns not to run from one enthusiasm to another. I could definitely apply this to my life, because I often have new projects on the boil and it’s a matter of finding the time to do them all.

I also wondered if I should take the image on the card literally and start painting again, which I’ve been neglecting for a while.

Being concerned about the bushfires still raging across Australia, I decided to do a general reading for the country. I choose Laura Bowen’s Dreamtime Reading Cards, a deck of oracle cards featuring Aboriginal spiritual messages.

I opened the box, and the Bush Fire card was on top of the deck.

I remembered I’d picked this card a little while ago, but I hadn’t known how to apply it to my life at the time.

It seemed very relevant now. The explanation of the Bush Fire card in Laura Bowen’s guidebook describes the traditional Aboriginal methods of employing fire to take care of the country through controlled burning, allowing the land to regenerate itself. The card is about new life emerging from the old.

This card gave me hope.

Let’s hope new landcare practices will emerge from these disasters, with the Australian government finally integrating Indigenous fire technologies into fire management practices nationwide.

This is a prediction I definitely want to come true for 2020.