The theme for 2023 emerges
2023 the year we learn to listen to...
Week 0--in which we ponder the strange in-between place we are in, neither the old year, not yet the new
Friends, soul writers, mystics, witches, and lovers of prayer,
I started tracking the number of each week at the top of these Notes from the Field newsletters in 2021. That was also the first year I had a named theme. Having a year-long theme helped me look back at the week and notice how the theme was showing up in the reality of our lives.
I’ve talked about the numerology of each year for almost a decade. (This is what happens when you hang out with a Pythagorean numerologist like Emma Kupu Mitchell!) And opened each year with newsletters that talked about the numeric vibration of the year, but it was only in 2021 that I put all the pieces together: a theme, the number of each week, and a little headline to give you a sense for my reflections on the week that just ended.
As 2020 ushered in a whole new 10-year cycle, I wrote about the quality of 4 vibrating not just through that year but throughout an entire decade.
What does it mean to be given ten years to explore the deep meaning and possibility of one number, the number of “structure?”
But I didn’t give 2020 a named theme. Wish I had. It would be so interesting to look back at how the themes in this four decade have led one to another. Guess we won’t really be able to hear the whole song with all 10 stanzas until 2029.
This is an interesting dilemma, isn’t it? Because we are the ones signing each year’s theme song, but we are singing it without benefit of music or lyrics. Yet, sing we must! We are quite literally singing the world into being. And the world is clearly screaming for new structures, new ways of living, new definitions of what it means to be alive, to be whole and holy.
On Friday, I spent the morning in soul writing listening intently for the theme for 2023 and wondering how it might be the next stanza in the decade’s song. I began by looking back. See if you notice a big theme developing:
2020—didn’t have a named theme, but four is structure. So the theme for the year and the decade might have been—the year of structure
But wasn’t that a paradox! The year of “structure” was the year seemingly invincible structures were felled by a virus. That should have been a clue to the real meaning of structure. And the real power of transformation that this decade is demanding of us.
Transformation sure came for me. It was in August 2020 that mystic witch arrived, and as she swept in, all my plans flew out. Late in December, I received instructions to create something to be called The Return of the Witches. And I did.
2021—the year of the body
I wrote constantly about the wisdom and beauty of the body with all her fives: five fingers, five toes, five appendages, five senses. Stretch out your arms and legs, and voila—you are a human pentagram. No wonder the pentagram was, and is, a perennial symbol of the union of the human and the divine.
What long-buried wisdom surfaced in your body, and the bodies of people around you, during that second year of Covid?
For me, diving into research on what was done to the bodies of witches—and the Indigenous and everyone patriarchy considers expendable—was a horror story, but a necessary one. We cannot heal what we are unwilling to see. And that year, we saw a lot of suffering bodies, then and now. And seeing clearly what patriarchy does to people it values only for whatever profit it can extract, changed me. And changed everyone who read these letters or came to any of my events.
2022—the year we learn to listen to love
This theme surprised me. It crept up when bell hooks died in December 2021 and I became a tad obsessed with her. This famous quote entered my bloodstream and would not let me go:
“I believe wholeheartedly that the only way out of domination is love, and the only way into really being able to connect with others, and to know how to be, is to be participating in every aspect of your life as a sacrament of love.”
Sacrament of love. When I sat down to create my 2022 mandala, the mandala demanded to be called “Her Sacrament of Love.” “Sacrament of Love” took over my prayer intentions for the year. And, as you well know, became the theme for last year.
So here we are. Entering the fourth year of this four decade. The song thus far might sound a bit like this:
In this decade of structures crumbling to the ground
we listen to the beauty of the body—all bodies
and we learn to listen to love
So what’s next? What is 2023—a 7 year—all about?
I didn’t know. Until I recorded the 2023 Astrology Forecast with cos-mythologist Marcia Wade and shamanic astrologer and depth numerologist Emma Kupu Mitchell.
There is so much happening this coming year, that the forecast kept expanding and expanding and expanding. It ended up in three parts:
- Part 1 tells the story of what began in 2022 and bringing us into Spring.
- Part 2 tells the story of the wildness of July into the Fall.
- Part 3 tells the wild winter story with the second Great American Solar Eclipse.
WHEW!
So to hear the theme for 2023, I went back to my notes on the forecast.
This is how Marcia opens the forecast:
- no one on earth has experienced this
- we are the ones walking between ages
- as the Age of Pisces gives way to the Age of Aquarius, we are waking up from who we’ve been to who we know ourselves to be
- we are moving out of prediction and into possibility
- something is happening that is changing everything
- we are in the crucible, the container where alchemy happens
And that’s just for openers!
As these two brilliant women riffed on the wonders of the cosmos, I kept taking notes, knowing somewhere in there would be the holy line of the song of 2023. And sure enough, it surfaced in Part 2.
Marcia was talking about the magic of the 0 degree point of Aries that births a seed of a whole new cycle of life. She kept saying we are in a birth canal. And we can’t rush the process. We have to really listen to life, listen to what life is asking of us.
My eyes popped. My ears focused. My hand shook. YES!
2023—the year we learn to listen to life
The wonder of this theme is that I had already created the first three events for 2023. Without knowing the theme. But LISTENING is the key. Listening has always been the key. Listening is central to my life. It is the subtitle of Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within. I’ve been listening to that wild Voice for 25 years.
And She comes in so many guises. One of Her favorites is Lilith.
Lilith popped out of nowhere to take over the role of teacher in the year-long mystery school, Re-membering the Songlines of the Witches, that will end this coming June. (It is no longer open for registration.) Through sacred artist, Cathy Pratt, Lilith started demanding we listen. And Lilith is not kidding. This is just the closing bit of Lilith’s intense mantra:
“Reset yourself by saying ‘I am listening.’ During work, ‘I am listening,’ during sleep, chores, all the time, ‘I am listening.’ Keep listening. Before long, this will become second nature and your allies here will be able to fully support you at all times. I am listening.”
So, of course, “listening” fits.
It fits the emerging song of the decade.
It fits the how of the mystical life.
And it fits perfectly the wild energy of the 7—the divine lightning that changes everything.
But what are we listening to?
Life. Life in all her forms. All her magic. All her mysteries. Life as she wants to be seen and felt and honored. Life as she wants to be expressed in and through and as each of us.
Here is how our year of listening to life will unfold:
2023 Forecast: Aquarius Gets Her Power On—available now
The forecast will help us begin to listen to the song of the cosmos. A whole new song we’ve never heard before. The first two parts of the forecast are ready for you. Emma and Marcia and I will record the third part plus more bonuses later this month. It’s a feast.
Archangel Luci and Archangel Michael Speak: Healing the Wedge Patriarchy Has Hammered Between the Sacred Feminine and the Sacred Masculine—opening Sunday January 29
We are blessed to hear the original voices of the two highest vibration archangels—voices patriarchy has silenced, twisted, and often vilified. Watch for an invitation to this radical intensive next Sunday.
The A.R.T of Becoming a Witch: How to Activate, Remember, and Trust Your Body’s Natural Intuitive Senses—a 12-week exploration coming in March
We will explore the profound wonders of our bodies, the mystical wisdom patriarchy has tried so hard to prevent us from remembering. We will explore our natural powers of:
Blind Vision—see what you do not see
Silent Listening—hear what you do not hear
Touchless Touch—feel what you do not feel
Unconscious Knowing—know what you do not know
Timeless Travel—be where you are not
It's a whole year of deep sacred magical listening.
I think with the alchemy of the Cosmos, the protection of the archangels, and the wisdom of our holy bodies, we will have the tools we need to do our part to birth the Age of Aquarius.
Somehow it seems fitting that this first letter of the magical year of 7, the year we learn to listen to life, isn’t actually week 1!
This came as quite a surprise. So I counted the Sundays again. And once more. Our 52nd week will be Dec 31, 2023.
So what does that mean today is?
It isn’t week 1, that’s next Sunday. So it’s week ZERO, I guess. I don’t think we’ve ever had a week zero.
We’re in an in-between place. A place of stillness and quiet. A perfect moment to begin to listen. Listen to your own body. Your own heart. Your own life.
I’ll be offline all day today creating my 2023 mandala. And for that I need to deeply listen.
Have a blessed ZERO day!
Here's the Forecast Page again. Click on the link in your PayPal receipt to get access to the resource page and password.
to learning to listen to the whispers of life
Janet
website: janetconner.com
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