Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...Who's the Strongest of them All?
Well, you are of course!
Hello Everyone!
I hope this finds you well and enjoying your holiday season! I'm enjoying the season with Sampson and some solitude. I'm wrapping up the year with a powerful spiritual clearing, a purge of residual negative thinking and stress from the past year. It's been quite a year.
Back in June, at the age of 51, I committed to Martial Arts classes and I'm loving it! It's challenging, shows me where my weaknesses are and I'm just now starting to feel a little familiar with the flow. But the community is great, it's energizing and empowering at the same time.
I'm looking forward to moving into 2024 with a pretty clean karmic slate. Now that's something to look forward to!
In the meantime, I wanted to share some thoughts I have about 2024 and some helpful tips on navigating the way forward.
Also, you may have noticed that I'm rebranding the business! I have some help from a fantastic young woman and apprentice, Kayla, who has helped me launch Firefly Kix Tarot on Instagram. If you'd like, check us out and follow us to stay up to date on events, card definitions and the card of the week. We'd love to have you on board! And, as always, we'd love to hear what you think.
Seasons Greetings to you and Yours!
Much Love,
Rebecca
Strength(8) 2024 = 8
2024 represents the number 8 which is the Strength card in the Tarot. The Star card relates because the number 17 reduces down to the number 8.
We’ll begin with Strength and follow-through a little later with The Star card.
In a nutshell, Strength as a year card is an energy of compassion, healing, endurance and putting the discipline of the Chariot (7) card into practice.
With the Chariot (7), we utilize both willpower and drive to get our light and our dark aspects on the same page, moving in the same direction. We saw where we were out of balance and we begin to find our center again. If finding your center for the first time, then you could be setting the intention for a balanced life, as your priority. That’s a fantastic and effective goal that brings tremendous rewards on many levels.
The Strength card says that we find the courage to do what we need to do for ourselves.
With a strong foundation we can build something sturdy and enduring in any climate with any goal in mind.
It's a great year to build a business, quit a bad habit, rurn a marathon, get involved in politics, start a new exercise routine, change your diet, move to a new home/city/country, start a family, commit to healing deep seated wounds, etc. These are all situations that require commitment, endurance, intellegence and will bring lasting positive changes to your life as you commit to the process.
Here are some concepts that might help you navigate 2024:
Balance
When there’s too much chaos we crave balance. When there’s too much balance we feel the need to shake things up. It’s the eternal flow and flex of Universal law of Rhythm, the only constant is change. This can be smooth and flowing or pushy and brute depending on the personalities and the situations. This is what the lemniscate on the Strength card represents. It’s also the number 8 on its side.
Leverage
We learn to leverage the energies around us and offset them as in conscious counterbalancing. The opposing forces don’t actually stop us, they guide us forward, akin to guardrails when driving around a winding cliff. The energy that’s available is our survival drive, the primal material of passion, intuition, need and hunger. And any obstacles become our teacher. When dealing with powerful energies inside and out it’s helpful to carry a respectful attitude with awareness that the opposition is just as strong as you, just in different ways. A balance can always be struck.
Try leaning in, you’ll be more effective that way.
Healing Trauma
Imagine meeting a lion face-to-face in real-time and how your body might react. Fight, flight or freeze. You wouldn’t say ‘I’m human and therefore more powerful than that lion so there’s no danger.’ You would automatically shift to your peripheral, focus on your environment, look to your intuition, slow your breathing and do what you need to do. You become fully present, aware and awake.
I’m not saying that you’ll actually meet a lion but you may deal with some intense situations, triggering old trauma’s or requiring character, balance and focus. So why not begin strengthening by practicing presence, love, compassion and summoning the courage to heal on profoundly deep levels now.
The energy of the Strength card is powerful yet non-threatening and with a respectful
attitude we’re able to befriend our lion, building a trusting and nurturing relationship over time with self first and then with others. We can build a bond with ourselves unlike any before and committ to finding better, more fulfilling and better paying ways forward.
We can’t offer something we don’t have so cultivating compassion and understanding for our own life experiences allows us to grow and then extend that outward. If we overextend ourselves prematurely and unnecessarily we’re only weakened in the process. We’ll experience emotional starvation and spiritual malnutrition. This comes from fear not love. That's Strenght reversed.
The lion can represent the predator and the most dangerous predator is that which lives within. This predator is fear itself. We’re in an ever-increasing psychic world with humanity feeling traumatized, insecure and lacking resolve and therefore being weakened. It’s similar to being kicked in the gut. Or akin to the dogs smelling the fear.
Conspiracy theories running rampant don’t help this state of being and do more damage than spur any real or effective action. With heightened psychic qualities there’s a tendency to project falsehoods and with social media/technology platforms being aggrandized as the new ‘savior’ for everything from reputations to businesses and relationships alike, confusion about truth is at an all-time high.
Commit to strong Mental & Psycho-Spiritual health practices.
The combination of fear, trauma, ego-aggrandizement and outright lies can create a mass downward spiraling of mental and emotional health creating the exact catastrophe that’s being feared. It may not have existed but with the projection of fearful beliefs onto just about everything, vitriol spreads like wildfire and the only proper end to it is to allow it to consume itself. Just like a tornado, get out of it’s way and let it burn itself out.
But at what cost?
Human beings could certainly stop creating more things to be afraid of and start finding more ways to love and bring more balance. This might solve some real problems in a
Strength year. Commit to nurturing yourself and others with courage, proactive challenges and good companionship. No need to be anything your not simply be unabashedly yourself.
Do we allow all the goodness, kindness, courage and strength that these times will organically summon go to waste on two-bit thinking and ignorance simply because some refuse to make the changes that life requires of us all?
Is that the ultimate entitlement of humanity’s ego? To believe that everybody is against you or out to get you?
That’s simply not true.
There are many people willing help, support and guide others forward with courage and compassion, fun and excitement. And we may be seeing more of that in 2024 and beyond. Look for what feels good and move past the obstacles of the ego.
With courage and curiosity, intelligence and compassion we can all make a difference. Many hands make the work go faster.
Growing and changing, opening to the unknown, the fresh and the new. That’s one thing that humanity has in common. It’s a requisite for being alive. The cells in our body are changing every second. Literally, every day we’re a new person with fresh skin, hair and nails and replenished organs. And more life experience than we had the day before. What a difference a day makes.
The necessity for change is always present and we do have some control as to how that happens.
By connecting with our higher selves we heal and become a source for clearer, stronger and more compassionate ways of perceiving, being and doing. We live with more love, understanding and mindfulness.
We change.
When we reach up for something higher, we elevate ourselves and then we can’t help but elevate others. We’re more inspired and creative, living more joyful lives than that of frightened constriction.
We turn fear into excitement.
Humanity definitely hit the gas on its need for change and I think, at least in part, the cause was Pluto going into Capricorn in 2008. Pluto represents powerful movement and dramatic change and Capricorn is stalwart and structured, it stands still.
An unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Review the events that have occurred since 2008 and you’ll see Pluto’s footprint everywhere you look. Especially trampling on Democracy, testing the strength of its fabric as that’s also ruled by Capricorn.
Pluto is moving into Aquarius on January 20th, 2024. Is this the Age of Aquarius? That’s debatable. Some say we’re already in the age of Aquarius and some say we won’t be in the Age of Aquarius for another 700 years. Either way Aquarius will be prominent for the next 20 years so let’s take a look at some of its attributes when relating to the Strength card.
Humanitarian efforts will be needed says the energy of Strength’s courageous attributes. When everyone does a little, a lot gets done. No need to storm the castle, it’s enough to lend what you have without breaking the energetic bank.
Stoke your joy with warmth and humor while healing and moving forward. That’s the best way to conserve energy and refill the tank.
Warm blankets and healthy food will be more appreciated than golden toilets.
Most of us have had to make do with less over the last few years and it’s taught us a lot about what we really enjoy and want, but especially it’s taught us about what we really need. Gratitude is simple and it’s part of Hygge, comfort and goodness during dark times.
That’s part of the Strength energy.
Creativity will be at an all-time high. Enjoy it! Necessity is the mother of invention and Aquarius (Air) carries the creative gene. Leo (Fire), that rules the Strength card, isn’t afraid to take the lead and put the wares out into the marketplace. Don your best DaVinci hat and join the Creators brigade. Even if you think you don’t belong to that pool I promise you, you do.
Progressive women can lead in the everyday world not just in traditional roles of
power. New thought will pave the way as the women of the next few generations take the stage in enduring and compassionate ways. With strength of character and an edge that has never been seen before we won’t be going back. We will however, be forging new paths forward as the feminine takes more responsibility for its independence and the desire for respectable companionship increases.
Oh, Yes we are, oh yes we can and oh yes we will.
2024 will prove to be another interesting year I’m sure. With another presidential election coming in November our strength of character, endurance, courage and tenacity is sure to be tested, I won’t lie. We'll see the light and the dark of all of this.
However, we have more tools at our disposal to heal, connect, learn and grow and if you’ve made it this far on the journey I’m sure that you have the tenacity and fortitude to make 2024 a great year on your spiritual journey.
2024 is a year to heal, grow, level-up, challenge yourself, commit to your creative and spritiual path, expand your horizons, connect with new like-minded friends and to live life to the fullest.
I hope you enjoy this and I look forward to seeing you in 2024.
Happy New Year!
Rebecca