Dear Oracle,
I was once with a man I thought I was going to marry. I ended things because I was young and couldn’t see how to work things out and he married someone else. I know that he is the love of my life. I don’t have any way to contact him, but he had a milestone birthday coming up, and I just want to know if he’s happy and if he’ll have a good year. Thank you.—True love lost
Cards for his feelings right now: The Lovers (reversed), Page of Swords (reversed), The High Priestess
Cards for his next year: Knight of Pentacles (reversed), Knight of Swords, The Seeker (reversed), Ace of Swords
Dear TLL,
While I have answered plenty of questions on behalf of other people throughout the years, I don’t know if I’ve ever answered one on the complex question of happiness.
While “are you happy?” seems to be a simple “yes or no” question, the answers are usually complex and mercurial. What is happiness to someone about to turn 30 compared to someone turning 90? Are they happy when they’re content? Satisfied? Joyful? Are they even looking for happiness right now or are they in the middle of something that doesn’t leave room for that?
Because “happiness,” like life, can be ever-changing, I don’t believe that I can answer that question with Tarot. Instead, I asked how your old love is feeling right now as he gets ready for his milestone birthday—and I think he’s feeling deeply introspective.
The High Priestess is the mistress of both the unconscious and our higher calling. She can appear when we are in “the zone” creatively, when we feel like the universe is giving us a sign, when we have been keeping our true desires to ourselves. I think your old love might be examining his life right now and seeing if it’s fitting with his higher calling or his true desires.
With The Lovers, I do think he’s reflecting on his marriage and/or things he deeply values. This reflection might be “how lucky I am to be married to my spouse?” or it might be a shifting through complex emotions. I don’t know. Regardless, this reflective period is not an excuse for you to try to find a way to contact him. Just like I can’t tell you if he’s happy, I can’t tell you what he’s thinking or if he would welcome any contact. He’s a twice-removed stranger whom I can’t ask follow-up questions to.
Because of this, it’s also difficult to see the context for the Page of Swords. This might be a representation of who he was in his youth and his reflection on that. It might be his own child and his reflection on his role as a father. You did tell me in a subsequent message that you are unsure if he has any children, so it’s a difficult thing to parse.
(My gut feeling, however, is that he does have a little whip smart babe, and the Lovers and Page of Swords represent his family, and his reflection is on his role within that system.)
Because of the lack of context, it is also difficult to say what exactly his upcoming year will look like, because the cards can be read one way or the opposite. But I do think that it’s going to be an eventual, existential year for him.
The energy that he is bringing into the next three months is represented by the Knight of Pentacles, who is calm in the face of chaos, steady-handed and responsible. This could mean that he is going to be steering the ship through some choppy waters. This could mean that he’s going to take on some more responsibilities or challenges.
Or, it could mean that he hits a midlife crisis and chucks all responsibility out the window.
Which…might explain the energy of the Knight of Swords, which will dominate his following 3 months. The Knight of Swords is a wild creature, a Romantic’s romantic, a soul possessed with want and longing but one that is focused. If the passion of the Knight of Wands is a forest fire, the Knight of Swords is a laser. Whatever his goals or responsibilities he took on (or chucked) in the first three months, now he’s ready and focused on making those desires happen.
For the third quarter of his year, he is going to be doing a lot of soul searching. The Seeker, a card unique to my deck (Uusi’s “Pagan Otherworlds”) represents searching for deeper knowledge. He’s really getting into the thick of it. This might be him searching for and discovering a new faith, shifting his perspective on his true self, or experiencing a flat-out existential breakdown. Again, things can go a few different ways.
But, whatever happens over the next year—if he digs in or drops out—I think he will arrive at his next birthday as someone who truly knows himself. The Ace of Swords is the raw material that makes us individuals. It is where our unique thoughts come from, our sense of self, how we take charge of our own lives. I think whatever shift of identity your old love is going through, things will solidify by the end of the year.
I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know if it means he finds his true calling as a poet or he gets a convertible or if he decides to become a priest. I don’t know if he’ll be happy this year.
But I do know that when you are living a life that feels true to yourself, when you are able to drop the masks, that you can feel a bit of peace. I hope your old love finds peace this year, and I hope that you do, too.
Thank you for trusting me with your question.
Send your questions to oracle@cltampa.com or DM @theyboracle on Instagram. See more of Caroline and learn about her services via carolinedebruhl.com.
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This article appears in Sept. 4-10, 2025.