by Jean Haner
The theme of influence is very strong in a Four year, and this can mean that now you show up as an influential person with friends and in your career. But it can also mean that you’re more easily influenced by others’ opinions, and they may make you feel uncertain about your own. You might make a decision, and then your best friend says, “Are you kidding?” and you’ll back off to rethink things. So while it’s helpful to bounce things off advisors this year, be discerning about whom you choose to listen to.
Keep in mind that a very beneficial aspect of this theme can also affect you now, as someone of great influence might show up in your life. The Chinese would call this person an Elder, which they define as someone who’s in a superior position to you in life such as a boss, a mentor, a teacher, or an older family member. This year, it may be that someone higher up in your profession takes on the role of a mentor for you, or someone of power and influence helps you go to the next level in your career or life overall.
It’s not that you have to go out and find this person, as the energy of the year will just naturally support their appearing in your life. But you do need to be able to recognize what’s going on and say yes to the opportunity. Of course, this individual probably isn’t going to ring your doorbell, but life will create opportunities for you to meet them, and all you have to do is say yes at those times.
Five Year: Eye of the Hurricane
If your first number is One: 2008, 2017 If your first number is Six: 2012, 2021
If your first number is Two: 2007, 2016 If your first number is Seven: 2011, 2020
If your first number is Three: 2006, 2015 If your first number is Eight: 2010, 2019
If your first number is Four: 2005, 2014 If your first number is Nine: 2009, 2018
If your first number is Five: 2013, 2022
Fasten your seat belt—the Five year is an intense one, and it can be quite a roller-coaster ride! Wonderful opportunities may fall into your lap, and a lot happens overall. It can be a year of extremes; by the fall of your Five year, you may be ready to just go sit on the beach and watch the waves, longing to be bored for once!
The good news is that the Five year is considered a time of fulfillment, when all the hard work you’ve been doing for the past four years starts to produce results. You may finally feel like you’re getting somewhere, aren’t having to fight so hard to get noticed, and can settle in with a growing sense that you’ve accomplished something and can now work to deepen your results.
In fact, anything that you start in a Five year is said to be very powerful and has the potential to grow deep roots. If you partner with someone to start a business, it can be quite a significant and long-lasting collaboration. A marriage formed in a Five year can be quite a deep and strong relationship. But a Five year is called a time of both beginnings and endings, so while the things you start are powerful, it’s also possible that something may come to a close in a powerful way as well. If a divorce is going to happen, often the decision is made during the Four year, but the official split will take effect in the Five year. It’s also not uncommon for surprise divorces to happen in a Five year, when one partner suddenly says to the other, “You know I haven’t been happy for a long time, and I can’t take it anymore!” Yet the other person may not have been aware of how bad things had actually gotten.
The energy of the year also brings up your own issues of dissatisfaction, but this doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to split with your partner! The Five year gives you the opportunity to look at your relationship and heal or improve anything that needs attention. It can be a powerful time of reconnecting.
The advice for a Five year is to try to stay as centered as you can. (Remember that the energy of the Five nature is all about the center.) Being in this stage is really like standing in the eye of a hurricane: if you make one move, you’ll get swept up by those strong winds. Another way to imagine it is the way the Chinese think of it—as staring into the eyes of a dragon. If you’re eyeball to eyeball with a dragon, you don’t want to blink, let alone make any sudden movements!
It’s best not to move house this year, but to stay put. That can sometimes be difficult, because the year may bring you opportunities that require you to move. It’s best if you can make all the plans during this year, but do the actual moving the following year. If you absolutely have to move in your Five year, just make provisions for the possibility of complications that may affect you during the transition or for a while afterward, or at least allow extra time to rest and adjust after you’ve arrived.
Overall, the patterns of the year arrange it so you can end up at the center of things in some way. It may seem like everyone’s coming to you for advice, or you’re being called on to help others solve problems. Be aware that even if you’re not usually the type to over-give, this year inclines you to feel too responsible for others’ welfare, and you may have to watch your boundaries and mind your own good self-care. This is a wonderful time to enjoy home, family, and friends, and to soak in all the blessings you’ve received so far!
Six Year: Own Your Power
If your first number is One: 2009, 2018 If your first number is Six: 2013, 2022
If your first number is Two: 2008, 2017 If your first number is Seven: 2012, 2021
If your first number is Three: 2007, 2016 If your first number is Eight: 2011, 2020
If your first number is Four: 2006, 2015 If your first number is Nine: 2010, 2019
If your first number is Five: 2005, 2014
With the Six year, you enter a two-year cycle of reaping rewards. This particular year is a phase when people tend to graduate, retire, get a promotion, inherit money, or in some way feel that they’re achieving a new level in life. It’s a time when you can ease up a bit. For instance, you won’t have to chase clients to try to get their business as much as you used to because they’ll come to you. People will give you more respect and may spread the word that you’re the one to hire because of all your knowledge and experience. So the phone will ring more often, and you may end up working harder than ever, but in a different way from before.
And in this kind of year, it’s very likely that you’ll feel a growing sense of pride, perhaps for the first time in years. You start to see that you have indeed reached a certain level of achievement, and you feel good about that. Some of your ambitions may have been fulfilled—or at least you feel that you’re standing in your power now in a way that you weren’t before. It’s important to let those feelings soak in. Don’t judge yourself as being egotistical; right now, it’s like vitamins for you to allow yourself to feel proud and more sure of yourself. It gives you the sense of power you need to make clear decisions from here.
One caution about a year like this is that you can tend to be a bit brittle in your outlook. You’re more likely to see things as too black and white and miss the nuances. You can get too caught up in principles and not be able to just let things go. You may come across to other people as more critical or fussy than usual, and you’ll definitely be inclined to be too self-critical. You’ll certainly notice criticism from others more in this year; when that happens, try to just breathe through it and not take it personally.
In a Six year, you’re naturally drawn to examine how meaningful life is, and you may suddenly find that you can no longer deprive yourself just to get by. If your job hasn’t felt like it’s really “you” for a while now, this may be the year when you can’t stay in denial. If any of your relationships seem inauthentic, now is the time when you’ll feel the need to find more people you can really be yourself with.
One essential task is to take time to reflect on your vision for your future. But this vision isn’t so much what you want in terms of a fancy car, nice house, and loving family; instead, it’s your sense of what your ideal life is meant to be, what your sacred purpose really is. The theme of the Six has to do with your connection with the Divine, however you define it. This is about the long view and the highest use of who you came here to be.
We all have a calling in life, and in a Six year, two things can happen around that theme: (1) You may feel as if you’re finally moving further into your true calling; or (2) you may begin to realize that in all the fervor to achieve your goals, you’ve gotten caught up in the hard work and lost touch with the original inspiration that sent you in this direction in the first place. This is the year to refine your sense of what your ideal life really is. Take some time to evaluate the quality of your current lifestyle and see if it includes enough sacred space.
A Six year is an excellent time to have subtle energy work, such as acupuncture or energy clearing. Don’t disregard the energy of your environments, either; a space clearing can be the best gift you give yourself this year, releasing any stuck or stagnant energy that may have invisibly built up over time. You can hire a professional to do it or devise your own personal form of clearing to make the house feel truly blessed.
Seven Year: Experience Beauty
If your first number is One: 2010, 2019 If your first number is Six: 2005, 2014
If your first number is Two: 2009, 2018 If your first number is Seven: 2013, 2022
If your first number is Three: 2008, 2017 If your first number is Eight: 2012, 2021
If your first number is Four: 2007, 2016 If your first number is Nine: 2011, 2020
If your first number is Five: 2006, 2015
In the distant past, when everyone lived off the land, the time right after the harvest had been brought in was particularly special. They’d toiled all spring to sow the seeds, tended them through the summer, and then worked hard at the end of summer to bring in the crops at the peak of their ripeness so that there would be plenty of food to last through the winter. But once all the work was done, they’d do what people do whenever they complete a big undertaking—have a party to celebrate their accomplishment!
This is that year for you. It’s meant to be a time of celebration, of doing things to reward yourself for all your hard work and many achievements. In a Seven year, it’s important to give yourself opportunities for pleasure. Take a vacation, buy yourself something nice, enjoy wonderful meals, and give yourself special experiences. Of course, do this within your means! If you can’t afford that round-the-world cruise, then go away for a weekend. If a three-star restaurant isn’t in the budget, have a beautiful meal somewhere that won’t break the bank. You must find ways to give yourself rewards—in a Seven year, life usually gives you ample chances to celebrate, so you won’t have to go looking for the opportunity to do so.
The theme of this year is really about experiencing beauty and appreciating the preciousness of your life. And that can be done even without spending extra money. When you serve a meal, use your good china, arrange the food beautifully on your plate, take a few moments to look at how lovely it all is, and then savor every bite. Bring a flower in from the garden and place it in a little vase on your desk before you get down to work. Look around your house to see if there are ways you can make it a lovely place for you to be. Most of all, take time each day to soak in the beauty all around you. Notice how the sun warms your skin, savor your cup of tea, breathe in the scent of a flower, and delight in all the moments of your experience.
In a Seven year, there’s also a risk that you can flip into the opposite of celebration and rewards. What can happen so subtly that you hardly notice is you start worrying about finances: Wow, the economy is still in terrible shape, and they’re talking about layoffs at work. I’d better cancel my vacation this year, just in case. And I’m going to stop eating out so much—in fact, meat is so expensive now that I’m going to try to live on rice and beans. Hmm, maybe I should rent out a room in my house …
Instead of embracing beauty and pleasure, your energy can contract into deprivation, and that goes against the flow of the year. If you do this, you set your entire system off balance, which can affect not only what happens this year, but how future years go for you as well.
It’s important to watch for ways in which your mind starts heading in the direction of making life smaller and catch yourself before you go too far down that road. Of course you shouldn’t make careless choices with money, but the worst thing you could do this year is fall into stinginess.
One challenge that can happen in a Seven year is that you’re suddenly given the responsibility for taking care of another person, such as an elderly parent or someone who’s ailing or in difficulty in some way. Part of the pattern of energy here centers around responsibility and the fact that if it’s given to you in this particular year, there’s a chance that you’ll let it weigh too heavily on your shoulders and not ask for help when you should.
If you find that you’ve been handed this kind of challenge, don’t try to tough things out on your own without letting people know how hard it is for you. Find ways to share the load, delegate some of the responsibility, and make very sure the situation doesn’t result in your depriving yourself.
Sometimes this is called the Year of Joy, and it can be a lovely time, when everything seems to happen with more ease, including the chance of falling in love. It doesn’t mean that “bad” things can’t happen, but that if they do, either they’ll happen more easily than in any other year or will be easier for you to handle. No matter what this year brings, you can make the best use of it by always remembering to see the beauty around you.
Eight Year: Caterpillar in the Cocoon
If your first number is One: 2011, 2020 If your first number is Six: 2006, 2015
If your first number is Two: 2010, 2019 If your first number is Seven: 2005, 2014
If your first number is Three: 2009, 2018 If your first number is Eight: 2013, 2022
If your first number is Four: 2008, 2017 If your first number is Nine: 2012, 2021
If your first number is Five: 2007, 2016
We know that in nature, the caterpillar goes into the cocoon for the process of transforming into a butterfly. But this can’t be a comfortable experience for this creature—its whole body has to break down and re-form! I often equate an Eight year to that phase in the cycles of nature when the caterpillar endures the process of breaking apart its previous identity through this powerful transformation.
For you, this year is a time when deep change begins to stir inside, but it may not be immediately apparent to you that this is what’s going on. In fact, what often happens in an Eight year is that you feel like things just aren’t right. As you move into the influence of this year, you can begin to think, This is not what I ordered! You’ll be confronted by all of the ways you’re not feeling satisfied or fulfilled with where you stand at this point. It may be that life arranges events to force the issue, or it may just be that these thoughts and feelings arise without much stimulation from the outside world.
This is actually a time of deep reevaluation, when you’re given the opportunity to look at what’s not working and what you really need in order to be happy. It can be so reassuring to understand that there’s a reason for how you’re feeling and that there are specific ways to navigate this year successfully. Just like the caterpillar doesn’t turn into a butterfly overnight, this is a process that develops slowly for you over several months. You can’t just sit down on a Sunday afternoon and figure out what to do.
This is change that begins deep inside, out of sight for quite some time as you journey through the year. If you’re not aware this is happening, you can feel as though you’re stuck and stagnating, but that’s not the case. You can best support this process by taking time to ponder what you want to be different, but what’s most important to understand is that this is a time when you just have to stew in your own juices. Surrender and trust.
If you resist, the year will be a struggle; if you let yourself get too exasperated, the temptation to take action, to blast out of this stuck place, can be strong. But that decision would be premature and wrongheaded. It’ll be hard to think things through clearly, so it’s best to be patient and wait to act until the following year.
&nbs
p; At the extreme, it can seem like things are falling apart, but this usually happens when you’ve been going too far in the wrong direction and life is giving you a course correction. While it can be difficult to just let go, understand that there’s a reason for this experience and benefits will come down the road. Remember, what’s going to result from this process is a butterfly!
The image for an Eight is the mountain. In the mountain, there is a cave; and the cave is where the treasure is. That treasure is the ageless wisdom that gives you the power for deep transformation. Another way of understanding an Eight year is that it’s a time to retreat into the mountain cave to engage with that alchemical process that will change your future. So if you feel like spending more time alone this year, this is the reason.
Of course if you’re deep in a cave, it can be hard to communicate with the outside world, so this year there can be communication problems. For instance, you thought your ticket says the plane leaves at 3:00 but it left at 2:00. You signed the contract but didn’t notice clause 18 that included that impossible deadline. In an Eight year, triple-check your travel plans and have someone else go over that contract; and if it’s important information, don’t assume that someone else understood what you told them or that you got their message clearly.
An Eight year is a great opportunity to hit the pause button, go within to take quiet time to evaluate your life, and watch your feelings come up. But don’t act on your frustrations—just feel them and then let them move on. Think, study, read, take classes, enjoy home and family, and know that change is slowly happening deep within.