Chapters do not start on New Year or on birthdays. They start when something ends quietly enough that you do not notice for weeks — and then one day the old routine simply does not fit. If something in your life has that feeling right now, hold it in mind and turn a card.
The Empress is the universal mother, symbolizing abundance, fertility, and creation. This card indicates growth, prosperity, and connection with nature. A favorable time for creative projects and nurturing relationships.
Read against this new stretch, The Empress puts the weight on abundance and fertility. Read against a beginning, a card describes what the new stretch will ask of you. Beginnings feel like freedom for about a week; after that they feel like a demand. Knowing which demand is coming is what turns an ending into a start.
The same card has an opposite face, and it is worth holding both. Reversed, may indicate creative blocks, excessive dependence on others, or neglect of self-care. Reconnect with what nourishes your soul.
So sit with the question you arrived with — What is actually beginning here? — and notice which of the two readings you flinched at. That flinch is the reading. It is the one piece of this page that came from you rather than from the deck, and it is the only piece that can change anything.
Allow yourself to receive abundance. Nurture your dreams as a mother cares for her children.
You do not get to choose when the chapter turns. You get to choose whether you walk in reading the page or looking backwards over your shoulder.