SNEAK PEEK: The Year of Yearning - January 2024
see the cards & the topic that will kick things off!
What’s up, swimmers?! Happy Mercury Retrograde?
This year seems determined to go out swinging, so I hope that your next couple of weeks are filled with anything and everything that makes you feel cozy, supported, gentle, and relaxed. There’s no need to press ahead yet. Just be where you are now and be tender with yourself.
I think you’ll find that January 2024’s energy is also hoping for this too!
But first! Before we get into today’s meat and potatoes, I wanted to share an article on the numerology of 2023 New Year’s Eve weddings that I had the pleasure of consulting on! Beyond weddings, the numbers reveal some patterns and insights that may be important to remember for anyone throwing a NYE party! Read all about it here: Countdown to Epic '123123' Wedding Date: Numerologist Rebecca Scolnick Shares Tips for NYE Nuptials 🌟🥂🗓
Now, let’s look even further ahead to January 2024 and the cards that will kick off twelve months of intentional study here at SITS.
If you haven’t already, you can check out my post Introducing The Year of Yearning for all of the dirty details on this year-long syllabus.
Then, snag the Early Bird Rate of $44 for the whole year until EOD today!
I decided to pull cards on Wednesday the 13th, after the moon had moved into Capricorn, in order for us to embark on this journey with a little Sagittarius fire at our backsides and Earth energy below our feet. The numerology of the day also offered a creative and magical energy, totaling 14 (1+2+1+3+2+0+2+3 = 14), which in rules the tarot card Temperance, which is sometimes renamed as Art.
To prepare for pulling our cards, I did a shit-ton of cleansing! This is partially due to the fact that I haven’t done much ritual craft since before my health issues started in the summer. In hopes of ruling out environmental allergens or toxins, I was advised not to burn anything, especially anything scented, so I had to put away my Florida water, my Scandinavian wood sticks, my juniper bundles, and all of my candles! BIG SAD!
But now, I’m 99.9% certain that my experiences are not due to any of my witchy tools, so what a triumphant return this has been!
Perhaps a little too triumphant 😚…
Our cards for January 2024 are…
0 - THE FOOL with RESET
THE NINE OF WANDS with DON'T WORRY, YOU CAN DO NO WRONG
God, I love these cards.
We’re kicking things off with The Fool, because of course we are!
When the clownish twins of The Dreamer’s Tarot by Marcella Kroll popped out of the deck, I’m pretty sure I said something along the lines of, “Hey babes! Of course it would be you!” After all, the void, the womb, the zero space that The Fool hangs out in is the perfect incubator to get us growing and going.
But more than that, we’re starting off with the combination of The Fool and the Nine of Wands, a potent pairing that I’m excited to explore with y’all in January, under the umbrella of our titillating topic:
BURN (OUT) BABY, BURN (OUT) 🔥🚫
That’s right. We’re talking about burnout.
Looking at our spread, I immediately heard the question:
“When is it foolish to keep going?”
According to Merriam-Webster, burnout is defined as, exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.
Three years into a global pandemic, and with violent wars continuing around the world, and the cultural divide deepening here in the U.S., it can feel absolutely impossible to continue to wake up day after day and put our best foot forward.
However, this trajectory isn’t new. In fact, the World Health Organization classified burnout as an occupational phenomenon back in 2019.
It’s not just feelings of depression, lethargy and cynicism that make the experience of being burned out so dangerous, but also “the mountain of mental and physical health problems that often come along with it, including headaches, fatigue, heartburn, and other gastrointestinal symptoms, as well as increased potential for alcohol, drug, or food misuse,” says Psychology Today.
So, in January, we’re going to explore:
Burnout statistics — just how prevalent is this experience?
What does it mean to burnout? Online? In person? As a witch or other spiritually-minded, magical person?
What external and internal pressures do we face that want us to keep going?
What does it look like to recover from burnout?
Can we every really stop?
Maybe this seems like an ironic way to start the year, but maybe it’s actually the most natural approach. After all, the Gregorian calendar, which dictates January 1st as the beginning of a new calendar year, was just made up by a bunch of really smart guys that were hired by the Pope to keep Easter in the Spring.
Numerology, however, which is simply the art and practice of decoding patterns and feeling into energetic rhythms, tells us that January of 2024 is a nine month (1+2+0+2+4 = 9)—the culmination, the wrap-up, the end.
February 2024 (2+2+0+2+4 = 10) is going to bring us one energy to work with, and of course, one rules the start, the beginning, and the first steps. I trust that our future card pulls will reflect this directive as well.
But first, we’re going to pause and reflect on the soup we’re still swimming in.
This is where the Nine of Wands comes in.
In the guidebook to The Dreamer’s Tarot, Marcella offers that the Nine of Wands asks us questions like:
What is still in need of acknowledgment?
What still needs to be processed before you can proceed?
At the start of a new year, we may want to just push forward with the mindset that the past is in the past, and we’re living for the present and the future, bayybeee. But how can the art of sankofa (more on this in January!) teach us the wisdom of the rear-view mirror? Especially when we’re energetically not finished with whatever has us burned out in the first place?
It’s our humanness that tells us that we have to do things in a certain order or at certain days, places, times, etc. But it may not be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
If you’re feeling daunted by this work, remember that the Nine of Wands tells us that we’re so close to the end. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. The end of what? Who knows. In reality, it’s probably just the entrance point to a whole different spiral of experience. But still, there’s hope. There’s always gotta be hope! And as Leia tells us in The Last Jedi, “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it you'll never make it through the night.”
This January, we’re going to make it through the night.
What if you dedicated yourself to the ending for the month of January?
What if you let the world start spinning again, but you moved at your own pace?
What if you actually paused to tend to yourself and your current state of affairs before forcing yourself to move on?
What if you committed to exploring and recovering from burnout instead of ignoring it once again?
All of this, and much, much, more, is coming your way. I hope you’ll join!