2025 is going to be pretty punk rock. It’s the year we claim our birthright as creators of our personal realities – we take up the torch, the pen, the mic, the ladle. It’s the year we divest more deeply from the powers that be. It’s a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, and the more earnestly we get in touch with our dreams, the faster we can begin to trust that our dreams are inevitable realities waiting for us to claim the path to their actualization. Our dreams are necessary balms and platforms for a sinking ship. And, if we choose to not pick up this torch, it’s going to be a bit kinky, sticky, and rough (which is also ok)! \
In 2025 we’re scaling the mountain, and the way to the top is not a direct line. There is a fresh romancing of the journey, a reminder that often a resonant zigzagging is actually the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. There’s vitality and substance in encountering unexpected vista points, campfires, caverns, and challenges. We’re scrapping our conditioning, calling in synchronicity and laughter as our lanterns illuminate the path. The esoteric lenses of numerology, the Tarot, and astrology, can help us understand the kaleidoscopic energies of 2025. In numerology, 2025 is a “9” year. Nine is a number of mastery, completion, harmony, creativity, and new truths. There are things we’re ready to leave behind in order to continue forward. Nine years offer portals of reflection, where we can relish how far we’ve come and regenerate our vision for the future, all within a moment of pause and gratitude. It’s a potent frequency to connect to our dreams and desires from a resourced place: Being rooted deeply in the present allows us to stretch outward into expansive pursuits while remaining stable.
This is a year to dissolve the perceived limitations and ceilings over our heads, to play with possibility, and to engage devotedly with the routines and practices that help us feel connected to possibility and purpose. Nine years are also known for their profoundly magical properties and capacity for wish fulfillment. Dream big, besties. In the Tarot, card number nine in the major arcana is The Hermit. The Hermit is the mystic, the wanderer, both the seeker of wisdom and holder of wisdom. The Hermit as an archetype leads us by lamplight towards the depth and insight of our own inner caves. We enter the cave to understand who we are, what we feel, what we want. In 2025, we are returning to the vast terrain of our inner world to explore and cultivate mystery and desire. There is a renaissance of choosing resonance and seeking spiritual gnosis. While solitude can be an important theme with this archetype as well, it’s not necessarily about spending tons of time alone (but it can be, if you want). It’s more focused on becoming intimately acquainted with the Unknown, and learning to trust ourselves there. This journey of embracing the Unknown is inevitable. We can resist it or court it, deny it or embrace it. The Hermit offers us patience and nonlinear magic for our deeply personal experiences with this journey. It’s about making the unconscious conscious, through curious exploration and acknowledgment. There are no rules.
Conditioned expectations, systems, and purveyors of “news” mean nothing to the Hermit without internal resonance or syncopation. Whether on the road or in the cave, the Hermit keeps their antenna tuned to spirit radio. They aren’t swayed by the media. But I do like the image of them enjoying some DIY punk shows in the caves of the mountain once in a while. They might even bring a generator. The Lunar New Year, as celebrated in Chinese Astrology, occurs with the new moon on January 29th, ushering in the Year of the Snake. Snake years offer ample opportunities for initiation, shedding old selves, transformation, and embracing poison as the antidote. There is something both charming and intimidating about serpent energy, and I encourage everyone to get intimate with that intersection on a personal level. How do our own depths entice and scare us? The snake can symbolize the unknown, as well as initiation into the unknown. There has to be faith and trust in our vision so we can trust the path as it emerges, dutifully, strangely, step by step. The snake keeps its eyes on its destination and slithers gleefully the whole way there. As far as poison being the antidote, there’s a big message this year about allowing ourselves to learn in real-time. Perfectionism, cancel-culture, and people-pleasing are out – messy, awkward, genuine action is in. Sometimes we need to experience mistakes to churn up unconscious or stuck sediment in our energy that’s ready to be felt and released. This is how our biggest transformations occur, and often how we most open up to presence and love. Is it uncomfortable? Heck yes. And life is reveling in it all anyway.
In 2025, we’re shedding what we’ve outgrown and shimmering our fresh scales in the mountain sun. We’re romancing the journey, soaking in the inspiration and activation of the human spirit alive in our bones. We’re generating portals of possibility and growth. We’re also doing some serious deconditioning work. There’s going to be a lot of change on a collective level, and systems are going to continue disintegrating. It’s our willingness to engage with our desires, each other, and the Unknown that will determine how well we thrive. Complicity and playing it safe are deadweight. It’s our dreams that act as boats when the storm comes. Visionaries, this one is for us. Or in the words of the band Television: “I remember how the darkness doubled. I recall, lightning struck itself. I was listening, listening to the rain I was hearing, hearing something else…” •
Have questions about your year, your dreams, your life? Write to Beth Metal for a chance to have your question answered in Motif’s new Ask a Witch Column! Beth will consult her oracles and draw from her own experience to offer spiritual advice for what ails, intrigues, or mystifies you. Write your questions to askawitchmag@gmail.com or the Motif office at 545 Pawtucket Ave, Pawtucket, RI, 02860.
