“Resonance: a quality of evoking response” – Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Everything in the Universe resonates, or evokes a response, from everything else. The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars all influence each other, and the Earth, and all that is on the Earth. Every person on the planet has a particular vibration or frequency. Tarot, in all its forms throughout history, has been used to measure those vibrations.
The numbers in every year have a vibration, producing a resonance. 2+0+1+7 add up to 10, whose digits in turn add up to 1. The numbers correspond to cards in the Major and Minor Arcana, and so point to the influences or resonance for the year.
The 10 card in the Major Arcana is the Wheel of Fortune, while the 1 card is the Magician. In Tarot, we generally reduce the numbers down to a single digit, but for the purposes of this article, and going forward, we will be looking at all the influences.
This is a year of Opportunity (Wheel of Fortune), of having situations presented to you based somewhat on what got set up last year – the year of endings, of recalibration, of deciding what seeds to keep and what chaff to discard. In my experience, Opportunity shows up and most people watch it go by. Opportunity appears in many forms: it could be a new career move; it could be a creative project idea that floats through your head; it could be a car accident. It could be a new relationship showing up (romantic or otherwise; human or otherwise [kittens, anyone? It’s the season!]) or abruptly ending, leaving space for something new.
The trick with Opportunity: be curious! “I wonder where this path could lead?”
The 10’s in the Minor Arcana usually bring the suit to come kind of conclusion – which is an opportunity to move forward. For Swords, it’s really all over. For Cups and Pentacles, it could be a very happy ending. Wands can be more ambivalent – it’s either about having done all you could, or it’s realizing that the path you were on didn’t align with your goals, that you got off track somewhere.
Having explored the end (kind of like flipping to the back of the book to see how it comes out), now we go to the beginning. The Magician is the manifestation card. He or she invokes the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, to express desire and to manipulate reality. The energy of the Magician allows you to focus on what you want, and to be specific about it.
The Aces, or 1’s, concentrate each of those elements and their associated experiences. For the Cups, the Suit of Water, it’s about Emotions and using emotional energy to fuel the manifestation. Swords is the Suit of Air, and lets you focus your Mind and Will on specifying exactly what you want. Pentacles represent the Earth, and what practical aspects will be needed. Wands as the Suit of Fire represents the Quest and the power to move in the direction of the goal.
Circling back to the Wheel of Fortune, it’s clear that the opportunities that show up result from the manifestation created by the Magician. Now that we’re at the midpoint of the year, can you notice what you invoked at the beginning of the year, and what opportunities appeared? The good news: you can always change the parameters of the manifestation, and invoke the energy of the Sun – another resonance as the number 19 card in the Major Arcana – to launch your creations with solar power.
For more information, come to Sue’s Friday Flock Night on Friday, June 23, come by her walk-in hours on Mondays from 11-2, or check out her website.