For most of us 2016 was a challenging year of incredible highs and the deepest of lows. The intensity of the energetic shifts has been tough on our physical bodies as they have struggled to integrate the frequencies that our spirits have welcomed so warmly and easily. My sense was that for the last 12 months we’d been journeying through a transforming but sometimes searing fire and that the new year would offer some respite from this, so I was delighted to turn over the card for 2017.

The card I drew is the Nine of Cups, which in my Thoth deck bears the subtitle of happiness. Do I hear sighs of relief? Well I’m right there with you! The first thing that leaps out at me is that this is a key number of the divine feminine. We gestate for nine moon cycles in the Mother’s womb so this card shows the fulfillment of that promise – the celebration of the birth of Her presence, once again fully felt and seen in our world. Like the champagne fountain this image always reminds me of, Her golden, restorative and life-giving waters are going to pour abundantly down on us during the next 12 months.

So this will be a year when we can expect to see more women stepping into leadership roles, blessing the authority they take on with the feminine gifts of love, compassion and healing. Those men who want to keep or move into positions of power must also learn to include these qualities in their approach; we see this happening already in Canada, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the USA?! For all of us, it’s time to put boundless love and overflowing joy at the top of our list, and the only real way to get there is to become deeply rooted in peace within our souls. When we hold and radiate this peace as individuals first, we then impart its ultimate blessing to everything and everyone we encounter. It’s impossible not to because it flows effortlessly and naturally from our very Being.

Numerologically, the number 9 holds the frequencies of taking the big picture into consideration with broad visions, global thinking, and universal problem solving capabilities. The number nine is always looking to improve on any situation or project, and is determined to complete and finish whatever it undertakes. So I see that in 2017 there should be some improvements and innovative solutions appearing for the many issues that are facing us globally. Ones that don’t seek to merely patch up the current crumbling structures, but instead look bravely to new ideas that support what’s best for the planet and for humanity as a collective (there’s the feminine influence again).

Of course for this to happen, we first have to be willing to let the old go because we can see clearly that it’s outlived its usefulness. 2016 showed us clearly in many ways that so many of our systems – financial, political, social, economic – are built on extremely shaky and unsustainable foundations. So letting go of the old, whatever is not working for us, wherever the happiness and love is not flowing freely, and trusting in the beneficence of what’s to come (rather than letting fear of the unknown keep us clinging blindly to things way past their sell-by date) is something we all have to be aware of.

This is a minor arcana card, so it places the outcome of the year very firmly in our human hands – how we approach, think and feel about the next 12 months will shape its outcome. Traditionally this is the wish card when it appears in a reading, and it tells us that we are in blessed time when we can have whatever we wish for. Wishes are good and give us hope, but they can carry the energy of things that are always somewhere off in the future, always just out of reach. So we must own our power as creators, and we must all grasp and wield that manifesting ability now to ensure the best possible outcome for this year. Let’s set our sacred intentions, attune to our deepest desires, and then let all our actions flow from this place and space.

2017 is a year for aligning ourselves spiritually with the love that comes from a personal connection to All That Is, however we see or feel that. When we do this, we step fully into implementing our part in the plan of God to break down all barriers to love and lift humanity and this planet to its highest potential – it’s the astrological placing of Jupiter in Pisces on the Nine of Cups. This can be a year of celebration, when we get to see beautiful things coming to fruition and completion in our world that have so far just been pipe dreams and yearnings. But we have to want it, we have to be it, and then we have to live it in our local and global communities. It’s us, it’s YOU in all your fullness, that the world is wishing for this year.