It's time to stop blaming the year.
A look at the astrology, numerology, and tarot of 2022 to make the best of an uncertain thing
Each December I see countless angry posts on social media, declaring the old year a dumpster fire or some other oddly specific visual metaphor for disaster with a laundry list of unfortunate occurrences all thanks to the calendar date. Midnight on New Years Eve brings high expectations which live about as long as our holiday vacations and then the daily grind returns with its daily stream of bad news.
I'm not saying the last few years haven't been particularly wonky but I can certainly say it wasn't the fault of the numbers on our pages.
2020 and 2021 both brought unique challenges through their astrological aspects and numerology. We've seen old cycles end and new ones begin all under the banner of staunch archetypes and rigid energies. And 2022 brings its own. A quick glance at the ephemeris or forecast from any serious astrologer might send up alarm bells, warning that the new year might be just as disastrous as the last.
But this doesn't have to be true: the energy is only one part of the year.
What we do with it is totally up to us.
It is absolutely possible to make the best of a bad situation.
After the first Saturn/Jupiter Pluto conjunction of 2020, the world was thrown into the turmoil of Bad Air and Home Imprisonment. Many took the time to reevaluate their daily lives, to get back into alignment with their highest selves and weed through the unpleasant influences in order to clear space. It was a 4 year, aligned with the Emperor, a time for stability and sovereignty. But for those who simply waited in the purgatory, it was an endurance test of increasing rigidity and a return to reliance on parental authority. This was a theme continued in 2021 as the Hierophant, the annual archetype, set some on a journey of higher understanding while others fell to the promises of false messiahs. As a 5 year we could have expected instability and conflict, but continued clashes between Saturn, Uranus and Mars brought a particular breed of confusion and division to our lives.
2022 will bring a new eclipse cycle, continued Uranian weirdness, a conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, and an extended trip through Gemini by Mars. Like any year really, there will be peaks and valleys, and it's up to us to navigate the path ahead to the best of our individual abilities.
But unlike the last two years' authoritarian archetypes, we have a vastly new energy in play: the Lovers.
As a numerological 6 year, 2022 holds incredible potential for healing and connection. It's the number of the heart, synonymous with loving, nurturing relationships both with the self and others. This alone is a radical departure from the energies of previous years--the iron-fisted authoritarian and the prove-your-worth gatekeeper. But this is not to say the year will necessarily be love and light.
Love is one of the hardest trials we ever face, responsible for both the heights of ecstasy and pits of despair.
Think back on your love life. How many relationships have brought stars to your eyes and filled your cup to overflowing?
How many of those continued paradisaically into eternity?
How long until you blamed the other for your soured experience?
On New Year's Eve many will greet midnight with those same starry eyes, overjoyed that the old year is behind them, intoxicated by the unspoken promises of the new. Just like a new lover, all our hopes and dreams get hung on the calendar with January 1st. And for many, the relationship will go stale well before December.
It doesn't have to be so.
The annual archetype, the Lovers, speaks to much more than the energy of partnership and love.
It teaches us about choice.
The Tarot tells the story of the Fool's Journey, an initiation into individuality through fated meetings and divine revelations. It's a valuable tool for personal development, framing situations and periods in our lives within timeless archetypal tropes. We begin life as the Fool, a childlike spirit of infinite possibility, and--hopefully, with care and introspection--grow into a master of our own destiny with true command of the World around us.
2020 was the year of the Emperor, an encounter with age and authority which teaches the Fool about the Law and Order required to keep a kingdom whole. At its highest expression the Emperor is the Divine Masculine, the embodiment of the conquering spirit and generative spark which keeps the world spinning. At its lowest, it grows rigid and punitive, the disapproving father threatened by the youthful strength of his son.
And this expression makes all the difference laying the foundations for what's ahead.
2021 was the year of the Hierophant, a spiritual counterpart to his royal predecessor. The Hierophant initiates the Fool into spiritual brotherhood, teaches him the unseen mysteries which guide all he's experienced and opens new doors on the path ahead, but he is still an external authority to be respected. It will be some time before the Fool recognizes the spiritual authority within himself. At his highest, the Hierophant is a priest of ancient mysteries, the caretaker of traditions which build strength and understanding. At his lowest, these traditions become hollow rites of necessity which keep the wheels of the empire spinning. He's a spiritual bureaucrat who upholds the authority of the highest bidder.
And the Fool has an awfully hard time distinguishing the difference...
This is still our introduction into higher purpose.
Whether or not the Hierophant has been assimilated does not necessarily matter--the Fool still sees the world as multifaceted, spiritual and physical at once thanks to his influence. If he can retain this separation and recognize that these authority figures are still human--and therefore flawed--representations of divine concepts, the Fool begins to engage with the world on a totally different level.
This is the first choice he must make: perspective.
The Lovers returns the Fool to himself, albeit a more mature and experienced incarnation. He has a deeper understanding of the world around him, the systems that keep it in order, and his place within them. He may accept them, he may rebel--that remains to be seen. Because this is the point where he meets the Other, and his world changes forever.
As the 6th card of the Major Arcana, the Lovers holds all the idealism and warmth as the number itself, thrusting us into the optimistic rush of new love. We feel the deep desire to nurture this new beginning, to merge ourselves with our fresh vision, and time stops around us as we relish the height of this experience. But this is not the higher expression--in fact, it's quite low on the spectrum. The Lovers can represent blindness and willful ignorance, the codependent clinging to an unrealistic expectation or ideal. When things (inevitably) stall out, we place blame on the other seeing only where they've failed to uphold our fantasies. We cling to the rigidity of the systems we've learned to live within, projecting them in new ways onto new situations with the same disappointing results.
But there is another way.
We can choose to sever our ties to outgrown authority and take what we've learned from them into ourselves.
We can use our union with Other as a source of strength and inspiration, bolstering our own innate talents while encouraging others to do the same.
We can meet this new day with all the optimism and idealism afforded by self-confidence and love.
We can see ourselves as a creative force, a generative spark of a world to come, created by us and nurtured by those we love.
And we can protect this new life with all the ferocity of our untethered soul.
This is the energy with which we meet the new year, and this is the energy we need to maintain our experience.
Until we've learned to frame an experience within our own cycles of growth we'll continue to experience the same pains and disappointments. The truth is we rarely experience the outside world and its events for what they are--we experience ourselves within them. 2022 could be this point of recognition for many: the moment where we recognize ourselves as more. If we choose love--love of self, love of purpose, love of the divine--we may be able to take external forces in stride. By understanding that we navigate life as a journey rather than something which happens to us, we can avoid distraction and remain on our path. This does not mean bad things will not happen or that we deserve the things which come, but hardship serves a specific purpose within the narratives of growth.
2022 will not be a magical reset. No year ever is. Nor will it be a return to the "normalcy" of 2019 so many people still crave. Like any breakup we need to accept that time is gone and focus instead on what it is we felt we gained from it. 2022 will not bring back these exact qualities, but you can choose to create them for yourself. Nurture them within your own experience, become the embodiment of the year you wish to have. This is a year to find Divine Inspiration, to align yourself Love as a universal force of strength and direction, and take sustenance in moments of heaven hidden within the toil. Recognize your own authority, pick up the sword, and forge on--no matter what comes.
Thank you for being a subscriber and welcoming my thoughts into your inbox! If you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a member for additional exclusive content and forwarding this article to others who may enjoy it. You can also gift memberships here through Substack! I rely entirely on recommendations and reader support to continue making content. Tips are not expected, but Ko-Fi donations are deeply appreciated. You can book one-on-one appointments for personalized astrological consultations and tarot through my website, ThatAstrologer.com, and hear more candid thoughts on my podcast, Love and a Little Magic as well as Instagram and Youtube.