“You can only lose what you cling to.” ~ Buddha

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As the calendar year of 2021 chugs to completion, the time is ripe for reflecting on the past year and setting intentions for the coming one.

Personally, it has been a year of processing and healing. I was fortunate to travel to Texas, California, and Oregon in May and June to visit friends and family with my daughter during a calm era of the pandemic in the United States. I was blessed to spend the rest of the year at home in rural Guatemala.

My own natural state of being is of joy, optimism, and playfulness, but that energy has been somewhat stifled over the last year. Did anything similar happen to you?

For most of this year, I wasn’t teaching yoga and I wasn’t writing, two of the activities that give me the greatest joy. I unconsciously stifled my joy. I’ve just recently remembered how essential joy really is. I’ve rediscovered what brings me joy: yoga teaching, writing practice, laughter, and lightheartedness.

I heard my friend’s simple advice loud and clear: “Make sure you’re having a little more fun!”

The more authentic joy I have and express, whether through my words or simply my energy, the more I can inspire others to be joyful.

I pulled a few cards on the night of the Winter Solstice, as I projected forward to the coming winter, spring, summer, and fall of the numerologically stellar year ahead, 2022. I used The Mythic Tarot deck and the Mayan Oracle in this endeavor.

I thank you for reading and wish you and yours a most magical and blessed 2022. May all beings be peaceful, safe, happy, healthy, and free!

Winter

The Seven of Wands represents a struggle with other people’s creative ideas. It could indicate entering into stiff competition. We must learn to value our ambition and competitive instinct, which may seem counterintuitive.

The 10 in the Mayan cosmovision is manifestation. “The key to manifestation in all realms is clear intention and embodiment of your divine essence,” according to the Mayan Oracle. It’s time for each of us to look closely at our own roots and foundations. What motivates our choices? When we are in resonance with the universe, manifestation is a natural by-product.

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Spring

The Star is a feminine card of feeling, instinct, imagination, and intuition. All the things of the third eye (the brow chakra in the forehead between and slightly above the eyebrows).

In the Mythic Tarot deck, she is Pandora, having opened her box. She is waiting and hopeful, but “this quality of hope has nothing to do with planned expectations.” It instead refers to faith amidst difficulties and challenges. The Star is the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

The number 11 in Mayan cosmovision is dissonance. Change, disintegration, letting go, and connecting with our core essence are the themes. It’s time to reexamine our cherished beliefs, ideals, and images and to clear space.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.” ~ Tao Te Ching

Summer

In the Eight of Pentacles card, a hardworking apprentice is learning and acquiring a new skill. What new skill are you learning or will you learn? Have you noticed a recently developed talent that’s worthy of your effort to develop? Be in tune with your enthusiasm and energy for a new field of work. Be willing to start over with a beginner’s mind.

The Language of Light card relates to feelings, transcendence, and direct access to Source. “Let your heart be your compass,” says the Mayan Oracle. Notice recurring symbols, numbers, and colors.

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” ~ Martha Graham

Fall

The Queen of Pentacles is about learning the full expression of sensuality and the value of the body. She reminds us of the importance of pleasures that preserve and enrich life. Money as energy is a prominent theme. This card signifies that energy of strong, sensual, self-sufficient, and diligent women may be within and/or around us this autumn.

The nahual Kan (Chicchan) represents serpent power, or kundalini. Its key themes include vitality, passion, body wisdom, motivation, desire, instinct, creativity, integration, purification, and intimacy.

“We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.” ~ Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

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