Friends, soul writers, lovers of prayer, and everyone waiting with bated breath for the 2021 forecast,

As I sit down to write this final Notes from the Field for 2020, my internal eye skims over the 50 letters I’ve written this year. In the stillness, I listen for a theme, a story, a song to emerge.

I look back at all the ways 2020 invited us into The Mystic. Not despite the pandemic, or even because of it, but within it.

Is it possible that somewhere in all the sorrow and suffering this year delivered, there is a seed of a future we want? A future we wish to live in.

As I ponder this question, The Buddha pops into my mind.

He always pops into my mind in December as I complete looking back at the year that is ending and create a mystical mandala to welcome the year to come.

I am not a Buddhist and never felt called to study Buddhism. But on January 1, 2010, as I sat down for an intense day of soul writing to call in what I hoped would be a better year than the one before, The Buddha showed up with a transformative message.

It could only have happened on that day.

You see, 2009 had been a strange marriage of the absolute best and the scariest worst. My first book, Writing Down Your Soul, came out on January 1, 2009, and sold out in 8 months, which was something to celebrate.

But—and it’s a big but—a year of traveling the country teaching thousands of people deep soul writing had left me bankrupt.

This felt so unfair. Excuse me, I shouted on my soul writing pages, I’m doing the holy work I’m given and my reward is bankruptcy! The Voice on the page shouted back with clear instructions to look back at how I got to where I was AND—this was the hardest part—spend a week doing nothing but forgiving.

I did not like my instructions, but I had learned to follow the guidance on the page, so I spent the month of December 2009 doing the deepest deep soul writing I had ever done. It was exhausting, but oh so cleansing.

When dawn broke on January 1, I felt ready to describe the life I wanted in my journal. But just as I reached over for my journal, a little yellow library book caught my eye. It was You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I started to read it. Which made absolutely no sense. No intellectual sense. No linear sense. No logical sense. But oh, did it make mystical sense.

Because The Buddha was waiting for me inside that little book.

In You Are Here, Thich Nhat Hanh explains that The Buddha’s greatest teaching is, “This is because that is.” Now, that sentence looks enticing. But it’s a bit of a conundrum.

I didn’t really understand and I think Thich Nhat Hanh knew his non-Buddhist audience would be a tad lost, so, a few pages later, he brings this esoteric teaching down to earth with this sentence:

“The Buddha said when conditions are sufficient there is a manifestation.” 

That sentence landed so hard in my body, I jumped up and ran in circles screaming: “Everything we think we know about manifestation is 180 degrees wrong! It’s not about the manifestation. It’s about the conditions!”

I grabbed my journal, told my Divine Voice all about the Buddha’s teaching (because sheesh, maybe She didn’t know) and demanded in no uncertain terms, “What are my conditions?!”

And poof there they were. Six ways of living that I still chant every day to remind myself how I want to live.

What they are is irrelevant. Because they are the conditions I need to allow the sacred to move through me. Your conditions will be your own, inviting the sacred to move through you to nourish your own unique holy life. (details in my 2nd book, The Lotus and The Lily).

So, as I sit here looking back at 2020, not just for myself but for all of us, I hear The Buddha’s voice with greater and more universal reverence.

Because his teaching means that the suffering—and bravery—we’ve witnessed in 2020 are the manifestations of seeds planted long ago. Patriarchy. Greed. Racism. Income inequality. Environmental abuse. All of it.

And I wonder if those seeds were described in the astrology forecast for 2020 that I offered last January.

I’ve offered a forecast every year since 2015. And every year you fill those forecasts to overflowing. Last year over 300 people came to the forecast.

So it’s an interesting question to look back and wonder if the celestial choir was singing a song about 2020. And I think the answer is yes.

Although no astrologer predicted a pandemic, they had all been saying for years that massive change was coming and the only way to stay steady through the chaos would be an intense daily mystical practice.

I remember one detail in particular: that there would be six eclipses in 2020. And there were. And they were wild.

I wanted to offer an astrology forecast for 2021 but my gut said it had to be different this year. Instead of one astrologer talking about the year ahead, I felt called to offer several voices.

And so I asked my personal elemental astrologist and depth numerologist, Emma Kupu Mitchell, for her thoughts on how to structure something like this.

Emma loved the idea and invited three of her own astrology teachers to be in the forecast. All three said yes. A miracle in itself, because at this time of year astrologers are swamped.

And, then after all three were recorded, I asked Emma if she would record a forecast of her own adding her depth numerology wisdom--because it's a 5 year coming. A 5. The number of change.

And so, I invite you to the 6th Annual Forecast.

Only I shouldn’t call it a forecast. That word doesn’t capture the mystical magical approach of these magnificent teachers to the art and science and mystery of astrology.

It’s more like a fore-taste or a fore-seeing. I think I’d like to call it a fore-listening.

It’s a way to begin to hear the song of 2021. And it’s going to be quite the mystical song!

Emma and I recorded conversations with:

• April McMurtry, the creatress of The Moon is My Calendar.

  I’ve used this calendar all year and cannot say enough good things about how it transforms how you see time and how you hear our Mother Moon speaking to you. I loved this conversation so much I invited April to lead us in a full lunar cycle prayer intensive next April!

• Marcia Wade, Star Sister Astrology. 

  Being with Marcia is like being with the Cosmos herself. She weaves the story of the stars, their goddesses and myths so elegantly that you swear the stars are singing directly to you. And they are! Because they are you. She began her forecast by walking us through the profound meaning of 2020. And then, she taught us the Cosmic Breath.

• Gemini Brett. 

  I don’t know how to describe Gemini Brett. He’s a professional musician and engineer and word magician. All those art forms give a flavor and structure to his approach to astrology which is unlike any other. I wanted this conversation to go on forever.

• And finally my precious sister in The Mystic, Emma Kupu Mitchell. 

  Emma weaves her great loves, the elements and Pythagorean numerology, into the story. And oh does 2021 have a profound numerological story to tell!

So, when it’s all over, you might ask, what does the forecast say?

And I don’t have an answer to that question. In fact, I’m sensing I don’t want to even ask that question or look for an answer.

Thanks to these four delicious soul-stirring conversations, I’m now viewing astrology as the Feminine Divine dancing across the sky and as she moves, her skirts drop tiny seeds and it is up to us to catch our seeds and plant them and nourish them. It is we who create the world we live in.

I see her dancing with The Buddha and together they are singing, “This is because that is.”

All I ask of 2021 is that I be shown how to nourish seeds of hope and love and possibility, doing my part to create a world filled with reverence for all.

The 2021 forecast is ready for you.

After you register—of course the cost is $21—click on the active link on the receipt and you’ll get the link and password for the forecast resource page.

2021 Astrology Forecast

The page will be up throughout 2021, so take your time. Savor these four conversations. And then put your hands out to receive the seeds that you and only you can nourish in the sacred year ahead.

to dancing with the song of the stars, 

Janet