Alright everyone, there’s now two months left of 2019.

Those last two months of the year are a big deal to me for a lot of reasons, but especially on a personal and spiritual level. Samhain was yesterday, of course, and though not every pagan considers it their “new year” of sorts, it certainly feels that way to me. There’s always an energetic shift this time of year, ushering in November and December with all their holidays and special traditions and crisp weather and pumpkin flavored things, and all of it starts with Halloween.

But it’s more than a holiday season. We’ve all got three annual cycles in our lives. One is personal, from birthday to birthday, marking out cycles of development and growth in our lives. One is universal, the calendar year, which brings different external challenges to us each cycle. And the other is spiritual, start and end varying depending on your belief system, marking our progress along whatever path we walk.

It just so happens that, in my life, my birthday and Samhain (the start of my spiritual year) are just a few days apart, so the start/end points of all three cycles bracket out a neat two-month period at the end of the year. But even if you’re not lucky enough to have a Halloween-adjacent birthday (the world can’t be completely full of Scorpios, after all), there’s a lovely sacredness to this two-month period between Samhain and January 1 in which the beginning of the pagan spiritual year overlaps with the end of the calendar year and sets up a time of transition, preparation, and celebration.

Samhain is, of course, a traditional time for divination, and it’s a perfect time to do some looking ahead to what spiritual lessons or opportunities are on the horizon. This is something I certainly turn to tarot for. My readings last night point to this year being a time of meditation and connecting with my inner and past selves. Last year was a somewhat chaotic and unfocused spiritual year for me, so I know I’ll need to set aside time and space for some more focused spiritual work.

And everyone knows New Years is a time for resolutions and making changes, but I look at it a bit differently. Each year brings new challenges into our lives, different external energies which have nothing to do with what we intend for ourselves and everything to do with universal cycles and patterns. This is where I look to numerology. For me, 2019 has been a 6 year, focused on home and responsibilities. It’s been all about settling down and finding joy in the daily grind rather than chasing excitement and adventure. 2020 will be a 7 year for me, shifting to a time of rest and spiritual exploration. So it’s time to wind down projects and commitments which might take my attention away from that, wrap things up so I can start January 1 with a clean slate.

So that’s what I’ll be focusing on for two months. Tying up the loose ends which need to be tied up and setting myself up for the new cycles to come.

I’m not entirely sure yet what direction this site and my tarot/writing practice will be taking, but it would seem this coming year is going to be the time to find out. But I want to challenge you to look at your own cycles and transition periods and give some thought to the how the next two months can be a time of purposeful change and refocusing, getting in touch with the annual cycles and how we evolve through time.

After all, we can either let time change us as it will, or we can be active participants in the process. And what’s the point of spirituality if we don’t actively participate?