Major Arcana · XIV

The Temperance Year

Fire

A Temperance year blends what doesn't obviously go together. You love someone and stay angry at them in the same breath, and let both be true instead of picking one. The recovery holds because you stopped white-knuckling it and let it take its time. This is slow alchemy, a year that works by mixing rather than perfecting, and it rewards patience practiced as an actual skill. You can hold two things that seem to contradict and find they both live in you. Healing this year doesn't have to look like anyone else's, or be finished, to be real.

What to do with a Temperance yearPractice patience as an actual skill this year, not a personality trait. Hold two true things at once without forcing them to resolve early, and pace yourself before the burnout rather than after.

Your twelve months

Each month steps one place forward through the cycle. The same twelve, in the same order, for any Temperance year.

January
The DevilFebruary
The TowerMarch
The StarApril
The MoonMay
The SunJune
JudgementJuly
The WorldAugust
The FoolSeptember
The MagicianOctober
The High PriestessNovember
The EmpressDecember
The Emperor

Element weather

How the twelve months balance across the elements.

4Fire months3Air months3Earth months2Water months

The rest of the cycle

The nine Majors a Temperance year doesn’t touch.

The HierophantThe LoversThe ChariotStrengthThe HermitWheel of FortuneJusticeThe Hanged OneDeath
The full year-ahead reading

The whole Temperance year, woven

This page is the theme. The full reading walks all twelve months in the Almanac’s voice, reads the element weather, brings in how your Bearing meets the year, and closes with the skills and reflection questions a Temperance year calls for.

See a sample reading →

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More on this card: Temperance, the full meaning · Temperance as a Bearing · all seventy-eight cards