It is one of the gifts of great spiritual teachers to make things simple. It is one of the gifts of their followers to complicate them again. Often we need to scrape away the accumulated complications of a master’s message in order to hear the kernel of what they said.
Julia Cameron
As discussed in the previous two articles, the Hierophant Year follows the Emperor Year, and so it can be considered the second year of a “power and authority” cycle, as birth card pioneer and Tarot legend Mary Greer describes them.
Certainly, on the global stage, the issues of power and authority have been front and center. In the U.S., we barely escaped a dictatorial takeover of our government. Now we turn to our experts, our wisdom-keepers, and we hope that the power of the social contract will not fail us after the excesses of the shadow-ridden 2020 Emperor Year.
Your Tarot Year
As an individual, the collective Tarot year, The Hierophant, is impacting and interacting with your personal Tarot year.
Your Tarot year is based on the numerology of your month and day of birth, added to the current year.
And the way I work with it, everyone’s Tarot year renews each Jan. 1, but actually reaches its full power at the time of your birthday. This energy will change on the next New Year’s Day, although your previous Tarot year will still affect you until your following birthday, when the changeover is complete.
For example, if someone’s birthday is July 4, 1975, this year (2021) will be their Chariot card year:
7+4+2021=2032, which reduces to 7; which is the Major Arcana card, VII: The Chariot.
The Chariot’s influence would have gotten underway on Jan. 1, but will not fully take over until their July birthday.
So for the first part of the year, they would still be under the waning impact of The Lovers, which was their 2020 Tarot Year (7+4+2020=2031, and 2+3+1=6: The Lovers).
Then on their birthday, The Chariot will have fully overtaken and replaced The Lovers, driving the energy of the year (so to speak!).
For people born early in the year, this changeover is often dramatic and quite clear. But the later in the year your birthday is, the more subtle this blending of last year’s and this year’s influence.
Then we can add to that the global Tarot Year, The Hierophant.
Under the Hierophant’s Influence
This could be a very important time for you, because during this period, you continue a process you began last year, learning important skills, especially how to lead, organize, and expand your sense of self-mastery.
It is also a time when you may be more deeply in touch with your “father” issues – either your own father (whether living or not) or how you cultivate, or defer to traditional male authority as it shows up in your life.
As explained in my previous articles, The Hierophant is the “speaker of mysteries,” so you may be hungry for the “inside knowledge” that is reserved only for those who have moved beyond beginner’s levels.
Hierophant people are not limited only to spiritual teachers and leaders. They can be anyone who is fluent in arcane, complex, or highly technical knowledge, and who acts as a bridge or intermediary to the layperson in need of their services.
This would include attorneys, physicians, data analysts, architects, and other extensively trained professionals. The Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who translates extremely complex data models and information to a conflicted, stressed out public, springs to mind.
In addition, this may be a time of promotion or initiation into a higher tier of work or some other group with which you are associated.
You may consider taking classes, getting a coach or other guidance, or exploring some other activity that can improve your lifestyle and skills.
If you enjoy sharing your own wisdom with others, depending on your other Tarot Year influence, this could be an exceptional time for you to develop yourself more fully and be of service.
It can also be a time for new explorations of your spiritual interests.
Be Willing to Adapt and Change
Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone describe a range of how The Hierophant can develop for better or worse, from his talents to his shortcomings, in their brilliant Birth Cards course:
Personality develops in The Hierophant as an acquired capacity for patience with the shortcomings of those around him, and the willingness to slowly improve everyone and everything. He is a natural teacher and guide, believable and forgiving, but overbearing and demanding of everyone, including himself.
It may be that you will be called upon to offer these sorts of skills to those around you, but as you can see, they come with a caveat.
His gifts may be accompanied by a time of testing, with some important lessons for you, thanks to the issues particular to The Hierophant.
Ruled by Taurus, he can be stubborn, and often prefers his security and comfort over going out of his way. So it will be important for us to try to stay open and relaxed, and take care not to make important choices strictly on the basis of stability and our need for certainty.
Another of The Hierophant’s weaknesses is that he can be tempted to turn his powerful knowledge into intolerance and dogma. But rigidity will not serve you, and neither will guilt. Look closely at your “shoulds” and “oughts.” Are they for your best good?
Be prepared to release attitudes and values that no longer serve you. Do your beliefs still apply to your life as you want to live it now? Which ones limit you, and which ones stimulate growth?
Take a fresh look at some of the teachings you accepted long ago, and let your heart be in accord with your own inner wisdom.
For the greater collective, and for each of us individually, may this Year of the Hierophant bring healing, wisdom, and blessings.
Please find my previous essays here: