The Bonfire Festival of Brazil
Sao Joao — the Feast of Saint John the Baptist — falls on June 24 and is one of the most beloved festivals in Brazilian culture, especially in the Northeast. Along with Santo Antonio (June 13) and Sao Pedro (June 29), it anchors the entire month of June as Festas Juninas, the June festivals, with bonfires, quadrilha dances, corn-based foods, colored flags strung between houses, and a calendar full of parties that goes back several hundred years. The festival originally came to Brazil through Portuguese colonization, merged with indigenous and African traditions, and became something distinctly its own.
What makes Sao Joao useful for divination is the overlap with midsummer folklore traditions from both Europe and Latin America. On the longest nights of the Northern Hemisphere summer — which in Brazil falls just as winter is beginning, since the Southern Hemisphere flips the seasons — the boundary between the ordinary and the magical is said to thin briefly. In Europe, this became the midsummer night of Shakespeare’s play. In Brazil, it became Sao Joao night, with its tradition of simpatias: small folk rituals and fortune-telling games meant to reveal what the rest of the year will hold for love, money, and health.
We approach these simpatias with respect for the tradition. They are not stage magic and they are not meant to be laughed at. They are folk practices that have carried meaning for generations of people, and when we combine them with tarot we are participating in a living tradition rather than inventing something new.
The Card of the Season: The Wheel of Fortune (10)
For Sao Joao we read with The Wheel of Fortune (10), and the match is almost too perfect. The Wheel is the card of cycles, destiny, turning points, and the sudden shifts of luck that cannot be predicted in detail but can be prepared for emotionally. Most decks show the wheel with figures rising and falling on its rim, guarded by creatures at the corners. The core message is that nothing stays the same forever — and that, crucially, this is a blessing as well as a challenge. The bottom of the wheel always turns back toward the top, given enough time.
On Sao Joao night, when the bonfires are lit and the simpatias are performed, The Wheel of Fortune gives us exactly the right framing: the year is turning, your fortunes are shifting, and the ritual is how you pay attention to the shift.
The Sao Joao Fortune Spread (5 Cards)
Traditional simpatias often involve objects like slips of paper, folded and unread, to be picked at random. Tarot works similarly when the reading is about fortune — we shuffle blind, we draw without premeditation, and we trust the result. Shuffle with the question, “What is the midsummer fire showing me about the second half of this year?”
Card 1: Your fortune for the next six months
The overall energy shaping your luck and destiny from Sao Joao to the end of the year. Read this card as a weather report, not a verdict.
Card 2: Love prediction
What the midsummer fire reveals about your romantic life. Whether you are coupled, single, or uninterested in romance, this card will speak to where your heart is heading.
Card 3: Financial outlook
The prosperity or challenges awaiting you in material matters. This is not a card about winning the lottery. It is a card about the steady flow of abundance in your daily life.
Card 4: A hidden message from the bonfire
The secret the fire wants to share — something you have been ignoring, avoiding, or simply not yet noticing. Give this card extra time.
Card 5: The simpatia blessing
The folk-magic blessing the night bestows upon you. Often a specific quality: patience, courage, generosity, trust.
Traditional Simpatias You Can Still Do
These are the simpler, gentler simpatias that travel well across cultures and require no harm to anyone or anything.
The three wishes under the pillow. Take three small pieces of paper and write a different wish on each. Fold them tightly without looking again. Place them under your pillow on the night of June 23 or 24. In the morning, reach under the pillow without looking and pick one. That is the wish the universe is leaning toward granting first. The other two are not rejected — they are simply not this year’s priority.
The bay leaf over the bonfire. If you have a safe way to burn a single bay leaf (a small fireproof dish counts as a bonfire for this purpose), write one question on the leaf and drop it into the flame. The way the leaf curls is your omen: toward you means the answer is yes, away from you means not yet, curled into a spiral means ask again at the next new moon.
The glass of water and the egg. This is an older simpatia we mention because it has a long history in Brazilian folk tradition. Fill a clear glass with water and carefully crack a raw egg into it. Let the egg settle for a few minutes, then look at the shapes the white forms under the water. People have been reading these shapes for centuries. Do not over-interpret; trust your first impression. Pour the water and egg away afterward — do not eat it.
Pairing the Spread with the Simpatias
We recommend doing the five-card tarot spread first, then one simpatia afterward as a way of sealing the reading. The tarot gives you the structured message; the simpatia gives you the embodied gesture. Together they feel like a complete ritual rather than a single reading.
If you have access to a real bonfire — a backyard fire pit, a beach fire, a village festival — bring your deck to the fire and do the spread by firelight. If you do not, a single candle is enough. The fire is a symbol; the symbol is what matters.
Crystal and Food Companions
Citrine for the warm, prosperity-focused quality of the festival. Tiger’s eye for courage and discernment in love readings. Sunstone for the solar vitality of the midsummer theme. For foods, Sao Joao traditionally features corn in every form — boiled corn on the cob, popcorn, corn cakes, canjica, pamonha — plus sweet potato, peanuts, and a cinnamon-spiked hot drink called quentao. If you want to honor the festival while you read the cards, make a mug of hot cinnamon tea and keep it beside your deck.
A Note on Cultural Context
If you are not Brazilian, you are still welcome to celebrate Sao Joao. What we ask is that you do it with curiosity and respect. Festas Juninas are a living cultural tradition for millions of people. Use the simpatias gently.
The Midsummer Pause
Whether the bonfire is real or symbolic, the core of the festival is the same: we pause in the middle of the year and ask the fire what it sees. The Wheel of Fortune turns. We notice the turning. That is the ritual.
