Tarot is best used as guidance rather than fortune-telling. The cards draw attention to elements in your life that require focus.

The major arcana, cards 0 to 21, represent the major lessons of life in sequence. The minor arcana split into four suits – cups, pentacles, rods (wands), and swords. Each suit represents respectively, emotions/relationships, physicality and practical matters, action, and intellect.

The reversal of a card flips its meaning, but no card is inherently negative.  The position of each card in a spread represents what it is directing you in.

Who am I?

This is one particularly for freshers: half-settled in, half-still new, it’s a good time to look into your identity.

Your innermost self is the knight of swords. Intellectually, you are incredibly focused – almost to your own detriment. You are neglecting other facets of life and are potentially being overly forceful with your thoughts. However, your outward personality, in the reversed page of pentacles, shows you are projecting a careless and unmotivated image. Perhaps you are struggling with the academic demands of Cambridge – particularly after the unbridled success of A-Levels – and are trying to act as though you are okay with suddenly struggling.

Others see you as very much in transition, the reversed king of cups. You are moving necessarily, away from an older influence (perhaps your parents) and some kind of attached love situation, but it shouldn’t cause much pain. Interestingly, the knight of rods indicates some challenging aspects of your personality – optimism, an anticipated happy event. Perhaps you thought university would be something different, and are struggling to come to terms with its reality.

The reversed knight of cups is developing in you – unfortunately, a sense of unrequited affection. You may be learning more about adult friendships as groups begin to solidify, and you might be struggling with feelings of rejection or confusion as things develop from the decidedly more hectic and social first days of term.

However, the person you are becoming is still very much transitional, the page of swords – very natural for this stage of life. There is an element of experimentation, and risk – and now is certainly the time to do it, with so many new things to take up – but beware of overconfidence.

Single card: Romance

The six of cups signifies nostalgia and happy memories. You are sentimentally remembering things past, and it is increasingly informing your knowledge of how to bring about a happy future. Knowing you have been happy before will enhance your ability to believe you can be happy in the future.