It all adds up to 9

Happy New Year’s everyone!  The 21st century is turning a quarter of a century old.  There’s a lot going on.  During this month we’ll do the big reveal on the planetary movements, but that deserves a blog post all its own.  Today we’ll look at the way one Surrelealist did the big reveal. In one of her works. 

The Numerology:

If we add up the digits in 2025, 2+0+2+5 =9.  9 is the end of a cycle.  It represents completion.  It asks us to pay attention to the endings and beginnings of cyclical experience, and to look at the way life operates cyclically.

In psychology there are many kinds of developmental theories.  There are stage theories that imply that in order to move to the next stage, one has incorporated or learned everything from the previous cycle.  Stages have a quality similar to steps.  You can’t move smoothly to the next step on a staircase if you haven’t stepped on the stair before it.  However, humans rarely learn ‘everything’ the first time they go through an experience.

Astrology, numerology and in many cases psychology benefit from a different approach. The idea that the spiral is a better metaphor for development is relatively new and aligns with the cyclic perspective of the planets orbits.

In the Major Arcana, the 9 is The Hermit.

Major Arcana:

The 9 is The Hermit in most decks.  Let’s talk about that first.  This first card is from the Leonora Carrington deck, a brand new holiday present for me!

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a Surrealist artist who emigrated from the UK to Mexico.

Her deck of major arcana only, was discovered in 1917 and published by Fulgur Press.  Surrealism is an art movement with which I resonate.  It has fascinated me for many years.  I was first introduced to it in Art History classes in college. The visual art and the writing that was born during that period emphasize the unconscious being made conscious through the process of making art. It’s associated with the synchronicity that Jung emphasized in his spiritual explorations.  As both a process oriented artist and a psychotherapist, I’ve felt drawn to this art movement.

The booklet accompanying the deck is co-written by Susan L. Aberth and Tere Arcq.  Carrington’s process is described.  Carrington first covered the page in gold leaf and then added a second layer of color in grey.  She, then, used an instrument of some kind to scrape away  the grey over layer and reveal her version of the hermit.  Carrington’s version has the essentials: the light, the staff and the cloak.  

As we go into this year, 2025, which will have endings and new beginnings, the Hermit directs us to follow our light, the lamp we carry within.  We are sharing this light and I am reminded of the gospel song: This Little LIght of Mine.  Here’s lyrics and a little history about the song. Years ago, this was the graduation song for my daughter’s kindergarten.  It was beautiful to hear all those children’s voices singing these lyrics.  (I think they must have left off the third stanza! I don’t remember that part.)  We could make it our anthem for 2025.

Synchronicity & Serendipity

So much of life leads us by serendipity and synchronicity.  Serendipity is the happy accident.  Synchronicity is when things come together in a way that allows us to make meaning from events.  These processes are valuable.

Synchronicity: can you think of a time when you connected with something that had meaning in your life?  Tarot reading, something that has been meaningful to me since I was a young teen, has that process inherent.  I ask a question, or a client does.  Cards are pulled.  A story comes through that seems to make sense for the given moment.  Often when I do Past Life Readings at the NYRenFaire, the aspects of past lives that come through have great meaning for the person I’m reading.

A few years ago, there was a young man who was dressed in a costume, a cape, leather boots, some accessories that went with the black shadow warrior he was portraying, or perhaps it was him expressing his inner self. He sat down and the past life that came to me was of a man who had travelled a great deal in the maybe, 1700’s in Eastern Europe.  He traded goods and peddled his wares from town to town.  Keep in mind, the people who sit down with me at the Faire are typically people I don’t know.  He was in this group.  At the end of the reading he was excited, he turned to a companion and said, “this explains why I feel I never belong.”  What I had told him had meaning for him.  

Serendipity:  Have you ever gone into a bookstore looking for an answer to a question like “what is the next step I’m meant to take?”

Definitely, I have and others have told me that they do this too.  There used to be a great bookstore on 5th Avenue and 14th Street called East West Books. 

I went to grad school across the street at the New School for Social Research in the early 1980’s.  Often, I would wander through that store looking for answers.  Not answers to exam questions in grad school, but the overwhelming question we often ask ourselves, what is the meaning of my life?  I’d open a book in, perhaps, the philosophy section and run my fingers down the page at random, sometimes with my eyes closed.  The answer, when I opened my eyes, would give me something to ponder and sometimes when one is wondering what one’s life is about, that can be helpful.

I’ve been reading Ancestral Tarot by  @NancyHendrickson.  So far I’ve done 2 free masterclasses called Ancestral Ties and Past Lives.  I post on Instagram @idivinations is my handle.  Follow me and your find out when I do the next masterclass.  Would love to have you there.  

Reading this book has been my serendipity and synchronicity.  It’s leading me and fueling me to explore my own ancestry and past lives and how they weave together.  Definitely let me know if this is something you’d like to explore.  Love to hear from you.

Best,

Mera