Year Ahead Reading - The Fertile Void Tarot

Greetings to all of the wonderful backers of The Fertile Void Tarot and Illuminated Magazine Kickstarter campaign (and current paid Substack subscribers!)

This is my special offering to you in gratitude for your understanding surrounding the unexpected increased shipping costs for The Fertile Void Tarot Kickstarter. While the world we live in may be unpredictable, The Fertile Void will always be there for you to gain insight and ground out restless energies. It can act as your eternal companion for life’s queries - so thank you for sticking with it.

I have also given all of you a comped paid subscription to Fang Girl Chronicles for the next few months to access this reading. If you don’t wish to continue the paid subscription ($5.00 monthly) after the trial but you still want the reading, a download link will be provided to you. Please email me at serpentwolfe@gmail.com and I’ll send it over!

This offering is a twelve card year ahead reading for all of you who have been bonded together through this project.

Near or far, north or south, east or west or somewhere in between, you all believed in this vision. This connects you, and that’s beautiful. This reading spread is featured in The Fertile Void Magazine that you’ll be receiving (and is also available in the ebook which will be sent out soon) - and it serves as a glimpse into the remainder of 2026 all the way to Augu.st of 2027

Each card, which has been randomly pulled from The Fertile Void Tarot, will represent a month beginning in August of this year. So sit back, relax, and let the below words (or my voice through the audio recording) guide you, as this will likely be quite lengthy. Have a journal ready to jot down any points that you feel may be important. Return to this post anytime throughout the next year. I’d love to hear in the future if any of this ended up resonating so be sure to comment or message me!

We begin August with a spark. Many of you who are familiar with astrology have probably been hearing a great deal about Barbault’s Basket which is a rare astrological configuration featuring Pluto in Aquarius, Uranus in Gemini, Neptune in Aries, and Jupiter in Leo. If you’re not familiar, no worries at all - the point in mentioning this is that this basket is allowing us to peel back many of the layers of illusion and complacency which the current systems and structures have held us under for a long time.

We have the fire sign of Leo governing the majority of August and the Ace of Wands is ruled by all fire signs. With global illusions being uncovered and systems that we’re beholden to thrown into question, many of us may be receiving a spark that shifts how we move through the world. This energy is inception, initiation, creation. Sometimes this comes as a surprise after a long time of feeling dormant, depressed, apathetic, or uninspired. The point is that we want to receive this spark and hold its nascence closely to our chest. This is our ability to see in the dark. We’re all connected - each human being, animal, plant, the sky, the ocean - and we all have been feeling, to one degree or another, the heaviness of the earth under capitalism. We forget sometimes that this is a collective weight that we all carry, but it’s there. This spark of the Ace of Wands allows us to remember why we’re alive and what we’re here to do. And it is only the beginning.

1. What illusions are being uncovered in my own life?

2. What energy within me feels nascent? How can I protect this spark?

3. What is my soul telling me I need to express?

The Hermit is ruled by Virgo, the season that primarily dominates the month of September. This is a perfect energy to follow the spark of the Ace of Wands - as we need to grow the spark carefully and with mindfulness. The Hermit is all about cocooning ourselves, going inward, paying close attention to what the inner eye sees, listening to our own internal compass and quieting all outside noise. This allows us to gain a healthy perspective - something that is sorely lacking in today’s world which is rife with everyone’s hot takes, outrage, advice, ‘life hacks’, politics, and on it goes.

Our modern world is LOUD. Too loud, if you ask me. The Information Age is turning into the age of AI and misinformation faster than we can shed a tear. Whether this serves you or not, it still doesn’t allow for inner quiet and contacting your inner compass and wise one. The only way to do that is to weave your cocoon and remain in it for as long as it takes to grow the spark that began in August.

In this cocoon it will just be you and this fire, processing how to exist together. The other aspect of the cocoon - or chrysalis - to note is that when we go inward, we transform. The main event which occurs in this liminal space is one of utter surrender and transmutation into something wholly new. On the other side of this experience, we suddenly have wings and can fly. We’re afforded a bird’s eye view on a situation that we once were too mired in to see clearly. So for the month of September, build your cocoon. Listen to yourself, and surrender to the changes that are being asked of you.

1. How can I work to quiet the external noise?

2. What inner voice needs to come through?

3. What information downloads am I receiving as a result of my cocooning?

Things that percolate in the liminal space of your September cocoon may lead to some collapse in October. The Tower is ruled by the sometimes aggressive but always momentous energy of Mars. This planet has its way, there is a tenaciousness to it which tends to erode even the most stubborn of foundations. The themes we encounter as Barbault’s Basket takes effect remind us that systems that have been created macrocosmically (aka the society we live in, the governments that rule us, the corporations which rule them, the billionaires that have been allowed to wreak their megalomaniacal havoc upon our precious world) - these systems always collapse in time. Nothing lasts forever. And the macrocosmic systems obviously have a major effect on how we, the individuals living within this system, this monolithic tower of society, move through the world. Although most of us align our values in more gentle, fair and loving things we are still, of course, a part of this society. So we may feel our own inner collapse as well as the outer begins to crumble. Things we once identified with no longer serve or resonate. We evolve and that means structures within us - those having to do with how we see ourselves - fall apart. But the important thing to remember here is that these structures are not who we are in essence. That can never been altered or ruined. The Tower deals with real monoliths that we erect in our identities and our societies, yes - but it’s important to remember that these monoliths are creations, constructions - and therefore ultimately fleeting illusions. So as you navigate the rubble of October know that better things will emerge from the soil.

1. What have I been holding onto that needs to give way?

2. How can I support myself and be supported by my loved ones during this transformation?

3. What insights are coming through this collapse?

Swords are the element of air. The Tower from last month, though Martian in nature, also absolutely has a Saturnian energy to it - destruction is chaotic in nature but the atmosphere it leaves us in often feels restrictive. However illusory The Tower was to begin with, it allowed us to climb to the top and see for miles. Now we are grounded again. We don’t have the clear sight. To release that Saturnian constriction we have Jupiter, the planet of expansion. We emerge from the nucleus of the collapse.

Whatever Jupiter touches it expands, so we have a couple of things to cover here - the first being the element of air. Where I live the landscape is dominated by an oak savannah. Once a year a prescribed burn takes place in the forest near my home and this has been done for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples before the city workers took over the task. This burn is to maintain balance in the ecosystem. They control invasive species and clear away dead vegetation, making way for new growth. When the air is cleared, a new forest emerges. Libra is always bringing things back into balance. So this month, Jupiter is resetting things after October’s collapse. It is the fire that seems like it is simply scorching the earth, but is actually bringing things back to life better than ever. In this renewal, we will find clarity again like never before.

1. What has been asking to grow within me for some time?

2. How can I tend to renewal and new growth?

3. What do I feel really clear about now?

We continue with the fiery theme from November. We do not go backwards - instead we refine and make simple the lessons we’ve been learning over the last couple of months. This card is ruled by the Moon in Libra - our emotions, our deepest self, who we are when no one is looking - this all comes back into balance. This is where we re-form ourselves, or come back into true form, after the cocoon and the collapse. In this peace and clarity, we are able to download many insights - in December they may be coming to you rapid-fire, so be sure to write them down, or record them in a voice app - don’t forget them.

With insight may come even more movement and unsettled energy. Sometimes when we have such clear sight it means that things we’ve been clinging to out of comfort no longer provide that ease. But this is for the best. This insight will also unfurl a great deal of creativity as we navigate Sagittarius season - a fire sign, and Capricorn, earth - allowing that fiery energy to have a grounded place to settle. These insights will carry you gently yet swiftly into 2027, which is where we will enter next.

1. What are my most urgent creative impulses?

2. What impulses and/or visions have I been placing on the backburner?

3. How do I feel about myself as a creative person?

A beautifully fitting card to freshly unseal this new year. The creativity I spoke of which will culminate towards the end of 2026 will overflow in January of 2027. The Ace of Cups is ruled by all water signs - Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio - and water is the element of emotions. We cannot embody our creativity without accessing our deepest and most potent emotional self. This month becomes a perfect time, as we flow through the mystical waters of the chimerical Capricorn season, to explore emotions which perhaps have been buried. Remember: Capricorns are not just goats, they are also fish. Many forget about the wonderfully mysterious and mystical side of Capricorn - it is where we access our magic - and it is in the darkest abyss.

We are all artists, all creators, whether we see ourselves this way or not. What brews in the subconscious is what ends up on the canvas, the piano, the interpretive dance, the page, in the clay, or whatever our forms of expression are. But we need to be open to receiving this download, this energy. Cups are bowls in essence. We can let these emotions fill our cups and this water to nourish our creativity. As Capricorn moves into Aquarius at the end of the month, this is where creativity can become unbridled and ungovernable. Allow it to flow where it wishes.

1. What emotions have I not wanted to feel?

2. How can I embrace all parts of myself?

3. What do these different parts need to say? What voice can I give them?

Ruled by Sagittarius and therefore Jupiter - again, this planet expands what it touches. In the sequence of the major arcana in tarot, Temperance comes after the Death card. So we have been whipped through a portal, and we are not the same person as we were before the event horizon. On the other side, where we are now, our capacity has been expanded. This is what Jupiter touches. The fire that burns within grows, as it has seen some real shit, gone through some real shit, and has learned to weather many storms.

In February we are now in the thick of Aquarius season which is all about the collective - so you may wish to use this newfound capacity and understanding of hardship and pain to help others. Why else would we experience it, other than to pay it forward, right? Temperance is a very feminine energy, pulling in themes from both The High Priestess which is our intuition and The Empress which is the divine feminine archetype. So use this intuitive, nurturing force for good - embody it for yourself, and for others. We can create the world we wish to see with sustained effort. Let the pain you’ve experienced in your life alchemize and soften you so that you are saturated with empathy and compassion. And let this compassion drive you forward to enfold others in your embrace.

1. During times when I didn’t think I’d make it, I did. What were some of the insights I gained during past difficulties, that I can offer myself now?

2. When I have capacity, what do I spend it on? Do I spend it wisely?

3. How can I pay my wisdom forward to those who need it?

Again, we have Jupiter acting upon us and this time it is during Pisces season. Pisces is ruled by Neptune - the planet of dreams, the subconscious and intuition. The Wheel of Fortune is the halfway point through the journey of the major arcana cards, and while it deals with change with a capital “C” in general - little change, or big, sweeping change that takes us on unexpected journeys - it is also marks a pivotal moment in the psyche.

The first 9 major arcana cards are about outward growth and expansion - the kind we do when we are very young, not just in our bodies but in terms of how we form our identities. When we’re children and young adults, we look to the outside world to help form our personalities. Again, who we truly are in essence is untouchable by external influence, but that doesn’t stop us from forming identities based upon family, friends, media and the world at large. As we enter our Saturn Return around age 29-30, and the then later enter midlife around age 40, we have two major shedding moments where these externally-derived identity structures shift, and we begin looking inward for The Self.

Pisces season, which dominates most of March, is often thought to be the ‘last’ or ‘eldest’ sign of the zodiac. So it follows that during this season, we’re being asked to shift how we see ourselves from what is around us to what is within us. We’re being asked to expand the inner self so that we can see how it really works. The psyche will be loud this month and it will come in the form of potent dreamscapes. So again, be sure to write these down and see what the inner world want to say. Begin moving away from deriving your sense of self from any external influences. They have an effect upon you, but they aren’t you.

1. What is my relationship to change?

2. Where have the most pivotal parts of my identity been formed?

3. Who am I in essence?

In April we will be in the midst of Aries season, so there will be a ‘charge forth’ flavour and momentum to our relationships whether they’re platonic, erotic, or anywhere in between. The Lovers card is certainly about love connections, but it is about why those connections matter.

Gemini is the sign of duality and polarity, but there is a spectrum in between black and white which, of course, is all shades of grey. In our world there is a great deal of ‘us vs them’ and that is what gets us into wars and violent acts of other kinds. This idea that there is ‘self’ and ‘other’ instead of just ‘us’ - and that we are all one under the sun.

In nature there is a concept called ‘mutualism’ where two species absolutely need one another for survival and mutually benefit from relating to one another. Flowers and pollinating birds and insects are a wonderful example. Bees and flowers are one of nature’s most ancient and wonderful lovers. They are as different as can be, but they intersect like they were made for one another. With The Lovers card, we can ask ourselves how we can be made for others - not so we utterly lose ourselves, become embroiled in drama or toxic relationships, boundaries still matter - but how can we dissolve these ‘us vs them’ narratives within ourselves so that we can merge and be more unified? So we can move in concert with one another not against each other? The aggressive nature of Aries season will see us coming up against this theme in our relationships. Ask yourself time and again, does this work towards harmony, or discord?

1. Getting honest, what are some of the ways I myself perpetuate an ‘us vs them’ mentality, even in small ways?

2. How can I be of service to my loved ones?

3. How can I build or grow my community?

In May we’ll be moving from Taurus season into Gemini. Taurus is the youngest earth sign, and this card is ruled by the Sun in Capricorn, the eldest earth sign. So as we enter springtime we will make a quantum leap. The foundations we have been laying all winter through work with our creativity, intuition, subconscious and finding balance will bear wonderful fruit in May. This work that has been done all lends itself to the alchemizing of our integrity, our principles, morals and ethics - creating a strong foundation for the new self which has emerged out the other side of the cocoon and the collapse we experienced last year. Our character is strong and unshakable and - like the goat part of the Capricorn archetype and the bull of the Taurus archetype - we land on all four cloven hooves feeling solid and grounded. The number four and the suit of pentacles remind us of what we need to ground and and downshift. As we burst into spring, all that we’ve been working on feels alchemized and it resounds within the body and soul in a beautiful way.

1. What are my non-negotiable principles and ethics?

2. How can I ensure I remain steadfast to them?

3. How can I lead by example?

Whenever I pull two cards from the same suit in sequence and the second is a lower number than the first (as has happened twice now in this reading) I see it as a kind of refinement or a release of the quality of the first card.

Last month we had the Four of Pentacles and now we have the Ace. Aces in tarot are always all of the signs the suit represents - in this case all earth: so we have Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. The solid ground we found in May with the Four now becomes liberated by the Ace. This card is about how the body and soul intertwine - but also how the soul expresses itself through the body. But we must not get lost in the singular-feeling experience of the body, as it is not just mechanical and machine-like.

What does the soul say? What does it wish to express? What is it here to do? To feel? To be? Now that we’re grounded from all we’ve experienced over the last year, it’s time to explore the true nature of consciousness in an unbound, curious way. Let that be your guide as you navigate the exploratory season of Gemini.

1. What is one word my soul wishes to say to me this month?

2. How can I tend both to my body and my soul each day?

3. When I think of the soul or spirit, what does it invoke in me?

This card is ruled by the Moon in Taurus - our subconscious desires, our emotions. We may be desiring stability this month, as we’ll be in the thick of Cancer season and the moon will already be moving our awareness inward and swelling our emotional self. Most of us are not experts at feeling - so this can always be refined and tended to.

Remember that success is not always visible outward and that the most efficient way to regulate the nervous system is to allow emotions to simply be. We can allow emotions by not judging them, fearing them or shooing them away. They are visitors - some stay longer than others, and that can be frustrating. But they can and do depart in their own time. This month, tend to your feels. Stabilize them with the Taurus energy by actually feeling them all the way through. This moves mountains within the body and psyche, releasing tensions that have been long held. As other themes which have been presented throughout the year come and go, this is the anchor you can return to time and again. Feel your feelings fully as they arise. When in doubt, return to this poem by Rumi.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

1. How can I remain with my emotions even when they’re triggering?

2. What tensions within my body are potentially stored emotions, and how can I honour them?

3. What judgements do I often place upon my emotions when they arise?

This card serves as lovely inner work to accompany the previous month’s theme of learning to feel our emotions without judgement. In Taoism, it is believed that many of the narratives that we ascribe to our emotions are due to unresolved tensions in the body or other somatic experiences. In other words, it is a ‘bottom-up’ type of experience where they body feels something (tension, tingling, buzzing, rushing, whooshing, throbbing) and we end up narrating it and giving it a story. Of course it doesn’t always happen this way - sometimes our thoughts themselves are disruptive, intrusive or disturbing. But however it shows up, the narrative is what we are being asked to work on with this card.

Ruled by Pisces and therefore Neptune and the subconscious, The Moon is the expression of all that is occult, hidden, underground, underwater, and therefore relegated to the shadow. It is the fear that arises in the darkness. It is the fear of the unbridled mind left to catastrophize or ruminate. Last month you were tasked with sitting alongside your emotions without judgement. The Moon serves as a final test for this. When old, dusty, painful inner narratives rear their ugly heads and we’re mired in mental ache, what is actually happening? Chances are we aren’t tending to an emotion. Chances are, something is happening in our bodies that requires our attention and we’re simply narrating the feeling with our old stories.

Not all thoughts are useful or true. In fact, most are not. According to neuroscience we have an 80% bias (meaning 80% of our thoughts have a negative bent due to the fact that the brain, as an organ, is geared solely towards our survival and is always looking out for danger) - so bear this in mind - or maybe in heart - as you confront old stories.

1. What are some of the narratives I can identify that arise when I’m upset or exhausted?

2. Are any of these stories true, or are they simply fears?

3. How can I be more of a friend to my mind?

That wraps up our 2026-2027 year ahead reading. I hope you find it resonant and that there is some wisdom in there for you. Again, thank you so much for sticking with the project. I can’t wait for you to have it in your hands. This will be my last project of this nature - it is time for me to pivot and take my creativity elsewhere. I feel very content to leave my journey with creating tarot on The Fertile Void, as it was such pure joy to make.

For those of you who choose to remain a subscriber here at Fang Girl - welcome, and I hope you enjoy your stay!

Until next time,

Love and wolves.

D xx

A fae, a feral beast. A gentle collection of imaginal cells in a cocoon, not what she once was, and not yet what she will be. Fang Girl Chronicles, a branch of Fae Wolfe, is an exploration for neuroqueer, neurocurious existentialist philosophers.

This is a sacred space where I often discuss…

• neurodivergence: how to navigate a neurotypically-dominated world with self-compassion and tenderness

• chronic illness and disability justice: honouring the natural rhythms of the body, not the algorithm

• perimenopause: how this era of personal wilderness changes and shapes us, and how to be with the radical shifts in mind, body and spirit

• late-stage capitalism + ableism: remaining vigilant about these damaging systems while treating ourselves with the kindness that our animal bodies deserve

• big tech: how social media and AI impact us, and how to remain grounded

• sifting through big emotions while remaining present + soft

If you have a question that you’d like me to discuss, send it here.

So, welcome + introduce yourself if you feel so inclined.

Love and wolves,

D