The Fool - “Pack Your Bags, Check Your Water Supply”
We are going to jump around a bit today based on our card, the Fool and its various Tarotlogical, Numerological and Astrological correspondences, both in general as always, this year specifically, and right now particularly. Uranus entered Taurus last year, on March 6, 2019 to be. He will move around within that sign to various degrees for the next many years, until April 2026. Before we go any further however, let us receive our daily Tarot blessing from our Many Queens Tarot author and artist Lettie Jane Rennenkamp, “The time to start is now. Big hopes, blind luck. Prepare yourself to start. Pack your bags, check your water supply.”
Numerology and the Hierophant
We are going to take a long-ish but important sidetrack down the tangential path of numerology to understand why every calendar year has either one or two presiding thematic Major Arcana cards. We are doing this because I am probably going to spend a fair bit of time talking about our card of the year, The Hierophant from here-on-out in these daily articles. And what better timing for a deeper didactic day than one where we have Fool energy on our side - open, fresh, ready to learn and change. Also, we have already received one Taurus-related card so far this year, The King of Pentacles on January 12 and I sense that we are going to be working with many directly corresponding thematic cards as well as those, such as today’s Fool, who have timely astrological chart-specific reflections and projections that bounce over to Taurus.
Numerologically, every year can be reduced to a single digit. It has been more common than not in the lifetimes of all humans presently alive to have had 2 annual numbers, for example my birth year 1983, 1+9+8+3=21 which can then be reduced again, 2+1=3. Thus my birth year was associated with the archetypal energies of both the World/Universe/Aeon (21) and the Empress(3). Pretty exciting combo if you ask me. 2019 was also “an Empress year”, however the other corresponding card was not the World, but the Hanged Man (12) 2+0+1+9=12. When we work with years such as that and are given two archetypal themes to bounce off of each other throughout the year, we are given a lot of opportunity to expand and grow both personally and collectively as so much of the human capacity for learning comes through relationships.
When we work with years such as 2000-2007 for example, we work with hyper-focused Tarot and numerology energy as these years reduce immediately to a single digit. As of last year, we are again in one of these chapters. We will not have another double-digit numerological year, until, you guessed (or mathed) it, 2026, the same year that Uranus will leave Taurus and head into Gemini. Last year, 2020=2+0+2+0=4 and had corresponding Emperor energy, which we worked through in, I would say, exclusively unexpected ways which now make total sense. Because we didn’t have a second card as a reference point for the Emperor, it was harder to anticipate what we would be working with. We will also end this decade with a 4 year, 2029, 2+0+2+9=13=4. So we will revisit Emperor themes with the expanded vision and understanding that comes also with the Death (13) card, before clicking over into another series of 5 single digit years from 2030-2035.
Now that we have that bit of reference for understanding why this year “is a Hierophant year.” Thus, when we receive cards that “rhyme” with the Hierophant through astrological placements, aspects and transits, we will also take a few moments in our daily reading to check back in with the Hierophant in general. We’ll start small today and just go with the Rennenkamp prompt so as to plant the seed for of thematic awareness. “What benefit do you find in conforming to the collective? Which history was written to hold you inside it? Put your voice inside the system to be heard.” I do not “read reversed”, but we always take into account reversed descriptions, as we are here to learn, and we cannot properly learn as people on the spiritual path without committing to integrating the challenges and shadows of our messengers, so here Lettie Jane gives us the blessing to: break free of the system, color outside the lines and leave the church behind.
The Fool - Let’s Get This Party Started
I am inclined to take today’s reading as a suggestion that today may actually be the first day of the year. Let’s imagine that yesterday’s Chariot reading , significant as it was our first Major Arcana reading of the year, was us driving away from the old, and today, with the Fool, we walk, fresh, into the new. The energy of the Fool is so distilled and clear, it almost feels silly to write it out, but it’s always good to re-check in with all of our cards. This is the beginning of a new journey, a leap into the unknown. Maybe you’ve created a new opportunity for yourself through making a major decision, or maybe something has fallen into your lap out of the blue. Do you feel like you’re on a new path? Have you met a strange and unconventional person who is shaking things up in your life? Encouraging new personal or professional growth?
Be open to new ideas. Be receptive to surprising solutions to old problems. Don’t be totally blindsided if a status-quo situation suddenly feels like a total emergency. Accept lack of energy or nervous energy with grace and gentleness towards yourself, staring down the unknown can totally shoot our adrenals as we prepare to take a leap of faith.
The Fool and Uranus
Uranus is the planet of freedom, revolution, rebellion and reform. No wonder it is aligned with the energy of the free-thinking, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Fool. Both share the fuel of idealism which pumps through the engines of initiation, change, fresh starts and new beginnings. Both also have a tendency towards the extreme; it’s all or nothing when it comes to destroying the old to make way for the new. Uranus and the Fool are both also considered eccentrics who simply will not (or can not?) conform to norms, customs and expectations.
Uranus specifically is the planet of sudden and unexpected changes. As the ruler of independence and originality, Uranus, like the fool, embodies radical ideas and people, revolutionary events that upset the established structure. Especially when the establishment has outlived its useful life span, Uranus and the Fool will roar in with revolution in the name of progress, invention, innovation and freedom. However, as with all things in life, I implore us all to align with the truth of change: pressure builds slowly over a long period of time before we witness a breaking of the surface. Or a more gentle analogy, like falling asleep- change happens slowly and then all at once.
Deprogramming Judgment
It is hard to write about this revolutionary energy (as also came through in our 7 of swords reading last week) without worrying that it sounds like I am ascribing either specific characters or sides to the Tarot card or planet, or that I am specifically ascribing a negative or positive judgment to either the Tarot card or planet. What I love about Tarot and astrology, and the reason that they are powerful medicines is that they act as holographic plates upon which the quantum reality of everything can be projected. The Fool is everyone, every side, every group. It is not just you, or them. Every card is everyone and every event. Every planet is everyone and every event.
We engage quantum medicine in order to disengage from judgment and to see more deeply into reality. I truly believe that our deeply ingrained judgment program is the cause of many of our modern pathologies and that once we know this, it is our duty to deprogram judgment at every turn. I cannot urge us, myself included, strongly enough to do the following: every associate a card, planet or sign with a particular to follow that thread to its end, beyond judgment and into detail, and then to turn around and associate it with “the other side” of the situation. So really every card/planet/sign gives us the opportunity for 4 phases of deepening: 1. Your initial reaction, 2. Its opposite. If you read 1 and 2 through the lens of “personal” now approach 3 and 4 through the collective lens. If a collective correspondence was your initial reaction, zero in your focus for 3 and 4 to the personal level.
Uranus in Taurus
Let’s break-up the wall of text and approach this through some prompts that can help you assimilate the significance of this placement in our lives:
What is it that you really really really want in life right now? For yourself personally? For the collective? Can you open your mind to new understandings of the costs of these desires? What price will you pay to get what you want? What price are you willing to let others pay in order for this goal to be achieved?
So we all have our core beliefs that make up who we are. At a certain point in adulthood, even if we are seekers and curious learners, we stop questioning a lot of our beliefs. Is there a situation that you feel trapped in? Can you stir in the ingredient of patience in order to make your belief system a tool for expansion rather than constraint when it comes to this situation? Perhaps even setting a brief meditation timer for 5-20 minutes to just be with this, rather than trying to figure it out.
Can you continue challenging the mind and invent a new and extremely direct way to get what you need?
A cousin to our beliefs, let’s tune into our values. How do values and beliefs differ? Can you take a more Taurean, by which I mean practical, look at your values? The machinations of how your values function in your life can help you use your resources in a more productive way. This can dislodge some of the blockages that may be preventing Uranus from allowing the change you’ve been craving in your life from coming through.
Uranus and the Age of Aquarius
As we know from the Great Conjunction last month, it is widely considered that Saturn and Jupiter’s transit out of Capricorn into Aquarius was a significant harbinger of either our true entrance into the Age of Aquarius, or a deeper step into that realm. We note this today as not only is the Fool associated with Air element energy, but Uranus also rules Aquarius, the sign of futuristic thinking where great change for idealistic causes can happen through the power of our social groups. I also find it interesting that Uranus is associated with these parts of the body which are basically the Fool’s primary vehicle: lower legs, ankles, circulatory system.
Build Your Intuition With The Tarot
If you’ve enjoyed today’s column, I invite you to join my weekly email group where we practice the mystical art of scrying with Maria DiStefano’s Circle of Life Tarot to improve our psychic senses and deepen our relationship to the Tarot. You can also get email notifications for this very weekday Tarot-Astrology collective readings posts that you’ve just read. Last but certainly not least, we use Lettie Jane Rennenkamp’s Many Queens Tarot for all of our weekday readings this year which is the source of the beautiful images in these posts.