Gem Blackthorn

Adding whimsy to this chaotic month.

April 2026 Tarot Spread - World and personal predictions on the blog.

Card 1: What boundaries need to be clarified? Emotional exhaustion and blurred lines between your own duties and those you took on for others will be highlighted early in the month. Remember that boundaries are yours to enforce.

Card 2: Where I am likely to face miscommunication? With all the overconfidence floating around this month, people in your life may be wrong and certain at the same time. This card will show you what area of life you can expect to experience this. 

[specific example on the blog]

Card 3: What kind of financial shift can I expect? Finances will be volatile this month, but that doesn't mean it’s a negative. Some people may experience a windfall of cash (fingers cross that you’re one of them).

[specific example on the blog]

Card 4: How will my relationships be affected? You or people from your past may feel a pull to revisit old relationship wounds early in the month. Towards the end of the month, new and old relationships may feel intense, flirtatious, and unexpected. This card will show you how your relationships will be affected by these energies.

Card 5: What project or initiative should I start or prioritize? Mars in Aries likes action, action, action. Now is a great time to prioritize projects that need to be initiated by you. What will you start this month?

Card 6: How can I best channel restlessness? Think about how restless you feel when you have pent up energy. This card is meant to show you constructive ways to deal with restlessness.

[specific example on the blog]

Card 7: How can I work with (rather than against) impatience? A season of high energy and restlessness comes with a dose of impatience. It’s only natural. So why fight it?

[specific example on the blog]

Card 8: Where do I need to be extra careful to avoid accidents, conflicts, or burnout? Impatience, restlessness, and overconfidence is a recipe for accidents and conflicts. Be extra careful on your commutes, but also in any situation where you might butt heads with others.

The burnout may appear if you are motivated to start too many projects at the same time and with little support.

Card 9: What mindset will keep me centered You can’t walk around all of April feeling impatience and restless or getting into fights with everybody. This is where spirituality can benefit your secular reality. Card 9 will help you find tools to keep yourself grounded and centered while the energy builds in your life and around the globe. 

Card 10: Where can I find support or collaboration? There will be opportunities to trip and fall over new characters. For most people, these will appear at social events, creative spaces, or through technology (social media, forums, etc). Where will you find purposeful collaboration? Where can you build community and build something meaningful together? 

Card 11: What illusion or hidden influence do I need to see clearly? The word of the decade is propaganda. Learn it. Study it. Don’t fall for it. (Unfortunately, no one is immune to it and we can all fall for some it at any given time. Just don’t make it easy for them.) 

Illusion and hidden influences come in many forms. Besides propaganda, you may see experience it through over-optimism, over-confidence, or some other form of self-deception. 

Card 11 will show you where you are most vulnerable. 

[specific example on the blog]

Card 12: What is the overarching message for me this month? Self-explanatory, I hope. This is your summary card. What will be the overall vibe this month? What will be the long-lasting impact of this month in your personal life? 

Is It Too Late to Start Posting Tarot Content Online?

If you’re anything like me when I was a beginner tarot reader, there comes a point when it is tempting to post tarot readings online. Maybe you’ve been memorizing the cards for months and had people in your life say, “Wow! That’s so accurate!” or “How did you even know that?” And it’s made you wonder if it’s time to expand your pool of querents.

But every time you go to TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts, you see hundreds of other tarot readers. They have better lighting. Better presence in front of the camera. And way more experience than you. That’s when the doubt hits.

“What if my interpretations are wrong?”

“What if people think I’m too woo‑woo?”

“What if I have nothing meaningful to say?”

“What if I just talk into the void and no one cares?”

These concerns are normal for beginners. In fact, even seasoned tarot readers experience some of these doubts from time to time. And this is exactly why I encourage you to post anyways.

Sales Funnel vs Customer Lifecycle Loop in a Spiritual Business

This distinction matters profoundly for spiritual entrepreneurs. Your work is inherently relational. When clients feel seen by you in the metaphysical space, they will seek ongoing guidance. Building your marketing around just one framework can leave you constantly chasing new customers while neglecting the value sitting in your past client list.

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The funnel and the loop are complementary phases of a complete business model. The funnel brings new people in. The loop keeps them there and deepens the relationship over time.

Invest in funnel activities (content creation, platform presence, discovery calls) to attract new clients. Invest in loop activities (onboarding sequences, nurture emails, membership offerings, referral programs) to maximize the value of every client the business acquires.

Full explanation: Valentine's Day 2026 Tarot Spread.

The numerology of this year's Valentine's Day reduces to the number 8.

2 + 1 + 4 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 17

1 + 7 = 8

In matters of love and relationships, this brings a focus on balance and cause and effect. How do you combine the practical with the emotional?

Listen, you're seeking connection while trying to survive, and that is not easy. This tarot spread is meant to help you examine where you might be over-investing. Personal ambition (surviving feels ambitious these days, I know) at the expense of intimacy. Or vice versa. Dissociating into intimacy because the real world feels like too much. 

2026 Tarot Spread

Your Next Career Move (A Tarot Spread)

This career tarot spread is designed to help you break out of feeling trapped. It will guide you to define a new type of work, visualize your future work environment, and skills you need to learn or unlearn.

Besides being free, the bonus to doing your own career tarot reading is that it will help you cultivate self-empowerment and a sense of self. Your intuition and inner wisdom will kick in and guide your interpretation of the cards. I promise, you are not as powerless as you feel.

Best Tarot Deck for Beginners

If your local metaphysical shop is anything like mine, it has a floor-to-ceiling selection of tarot and oracle decks to choose from. A wide selection is great for people who appreciate art, but it can be overwhelming for tarot beginners. The symbolism is inconsistent (or even absent if you choose a deck drawn in a minimalist style). When you are learning tarot, it’s best to stick with a tarot deck that has standard tarot symbolism. This is why I recommend starting with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck...

The 2026 Tarot Spread is shaped like a seed, where everything begins.

The seed shape tells the complete story of your 2026. It begins with the rupture that starts the year’s major themes, moves through growth forged by challenges and community exchange, and culminates in a new, lasting foundation.

Numerology of 2026

In numerology, 2026 is Universal Year 1.

2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 10

10 = 1 (because you don’t count zeroes)

The last Universal Year 1 was 2017. Donald Trump was inaugurated that year. Now consider how much the world has changed since then.

Alright then.

Astrology of 2026

Neptune moves into Aries on January 26, 2026. Neptune is the planet of spirituality, dreams, illusions, and the so-called collective unconscious. When Neptune moves into Aries, collective ideals are infused with pioneering, impulsive, and self-assertive energy, potentially leading to revolutions in spirituality, the glamorization of aggression, and mass movements driven by idealized individualism or chaotic inspiration.

Neptune will remain in Aries until 2039. Any move that lasts 13 years will bring something long-lasting change, but on top of the planetary move itself, we have to consider that Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. So this shift is Neptune restarting its cycle through the entirety of the zodiac, which is a new 165-year cycle.

If that doesn’t convey the enormity of the change, maybe this will: The last time Neptune restarted its trip around the zodiac was in 1861. That was also the first year of the American Civil War.

The Civil War redefined citizenship and freedom. The war’s outcome, cemented by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, ended chattel slavery, established birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law, and (theoretically) granted Black men voting rights. The telegraph and newspaper reporting, including photographs from the battlefield, brought the horrors of war into living rooms with a new immediacy, creating a more connected, though anxious, national consciousness. The federal government expanded through the first federal income tax and the creation of a national paper currency. Not to mention the first military draft in the United States.

While history won’t repeat itself 100%, we can expect changes to day-to-day American life of this scale over the next 13 years, and the nation will experience its rewards and consequences over the next 165 years.

October 2025 Tarot Spread + Predictions

I took a break from predictions because most of it was repetitive. I’m not the “let’s meditate until the world gets better” type of practioner, but I also didn’t want to keep reminding you that things were bad when you could just look out the window. 

My poem, MIAMI THE TRAIN STATION, is included in Livina Press' Homeland edition.

This is the summary by the editor-in-chief:

With so much hate, violence, death, and destruction in the world, I wanted to give others an outlet to express their thoughts and feelings while also supporting a very important cause. The use of “Homeland” for this issue is multifaceted. It can be a reflection on belonging or the feeling of when “home” is taken away. It can also be used to express the frustration and feeling of betrayal from others within your homeland.

Inside this issue you will find works from people from across the world sharing their personal experiences, thoughts, and laying their emotions bare. Everyone has their own take on “homeland” and what it means to them–a person, a place, a feeling. It is an honor to share it all with you.

A practice drill to develop your intuition as a new tarot reader

In this post, I am assuming two things: You are new to tarot and you are new to divination as a whole. This means that tarot is probably your first time dabbling in anything that requires you to flex your intuition like a muscle. If neither of these are true, then this exercise may be too introductory for you. 

You may have experienced déjà vu and other funny coincidences here and there, but you have not developed your intuition the way an athlete develops their skill through consistent practice and conditioning.

How Do You Receive Messages

One tarot card may have several meanings. Take the Ten of Swords for example...