by This year’s Tarot card calculation offers a bit of a twist.
It is common to identify The Hanged Man (card XII of the Major Arcana) as the year card for 2019. The numerological process for determining this is simple: add the digits 2 + 0 + 1 + 9 together and get 12. I’ve seen it highlighted on my social media feeds, on email newsletters I receive and on blog posts. (Biddy Tarot’s post is a great example.)
The Hanged Man is associated with ‘stuck-ness’ and suspension. It calls for a pause in the noise. It calls us to explore new perspectives. After all, we’re hanging upside down! What else do we have to do?
For the upcoming year, it might cause us to ask collectively:
What are we just hanging out and waiting for?
What do we feel/hear/see differently while ‘hanging upside down’?
What must we surrender to help us move from this position?
While reflecting on this calculation practice, I was reminded of a process I first came across years ago in Mary Greer‘s Tarot for Your Self. This process had me determining my Personality Card and my Soul Card based on the digits of my birth year, month and day. (This book is an incredible resource and, if it isn’t part of your personal library, it should be!) Because my birth date digits reduce to a two digit number, Greer’s process had me further reducing the results until a one digit number remained. The two-digit number was my Personality Card and the one-digit number was my Soul Card.
This inspired me to include a second dimension to Year Card of The Hanged Man by adding the digits of this card together. The result is 3; The Empress.
I took The Empress (III) as the arena in which our year card might choose to operate. We need to pay close attention to the sphere of the Empress: fertility, abundance, Nature. I’ve been imagining this as Gaia herself taking in a deep breath, holding it, and waiting.
This is the image that sits with me now…
The archetypal feminine is sternly staring at humanity with arms crossed, foot tapping, and thinking to herself:
“Oh dear humanity, I think you’ve really screwed this up. Like any loving Mother, I’m prepared to wait. But not much longer. Perhaps just one more year. Next year’s Tarot card is The Emperor (2 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 4). The card of leadership. The card of structure, rationality and order. Maybe you’ll get yourself out of this jam with a new perspective. Maybe you’ll take charge. But, maybe you won’t. I’ll just have to wait and see before I really shake things up a bit and send you to your room… Without dinner.” 😉
Please feel free to leave comments below. (Next year, The Emperor will sit on the Year Card’s throne all by himself).
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