2022 reduces to the number 6: a number of compassion in the Kabbalist tradition, a number correlating with our intuition (the sixth spiritual body) in the Tantric tradition, and a perfect number in the Mathematics tradition, a moniker likely rooted in the Judeo-Christian origin myth where God completes his creation of the world by making the first humans on day number six. In the tarot, the sixth card is home to The Lovers, and that OG couple, the once perfect Adam and Eve, are often depicted in the card’s imagery.
There’s a relational quality to all of these ideas. They convey the condition of being in relationship with someone/something beyond ourselves. What is intuition, after all, if not our capacity for sensing “the other” and what is love if not our capacity for bonding with it?
For the past two years most of us have had to sequester away at home more than perhaps in any other period of our lives. Maybe the 6 arrives this year to shepherd us all out into deeper relationship with the world, into deeper relationship with loved ones known and yet known, and hence into deeper relationship with the messy parts of ourselves we’ve been othering away. Maybe all of the home-work we’ve been engaged in these past two years will be put to the test this year in some very real world applications calling each one of us to stand in our compassion, to trust in our intuition and to let ourselves l-o-v-e love these sorely imperfect humans and holdings around and within us with a fierceness and devotion heretofore unknown.
The stuff of love is not for the faint of heart. Love-making is world-building, a creationary feat of sacrifice and surrender, and maybe this year we’re being called to love this world anew.
Image of “The Lovers” card from the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot by Uusi
