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 High Priestess represents inner wisdom and the mysteries of the subconscious. Listen to your inner voice and trust your intuition. The answers you seek are within you, accessible through meditation and silent reflection.
Read against this new stretch, The High Priestess puts the weight on intuition and mystery. 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, it may indicate you are ignoring your intuition or secrets are being revealed. Perhaps you seek answers externally when you should look within. Reconnect with your inner wisdom.
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.
Quiet your mind and listen to your heart. The answer is already within you.
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.