12.31.23

On the cusp of a new year . . .

Hello everyone. It’s another special date—reading 123.123. And this particular sequence of numbers won’t appear in our calendar until December 31, 2123.

In fact, dates that can be turned into this sort of number are fairly rare. I made several attempts to coax ChatGPT into calculating future dates that would do the same trick, and in the process found out there’s no easy way. 12.31.23 only reduces this way because it’s in a format that uses only the last two digits of the year. And because both the month and the day have two digits.

There are so many variables that I couldn’t teach Chat a pattern than would turn up future instances. (Not surprising, since I’m a very amateur AI wrangler, and I didn’t spend much time on it.) So finally I just asked for 6-digit numbers that could be divided into two identical groups and began with either 11 or 12, then worked out a couple of potential dates for myself.

• November 11, 3011 will be 11.11.11, or 111.111.

• December 11, 3021 will be 12.11.21, or 121.121.

Anyway . . . that started me thinking about pattern recognition, which I believe is the most important element in the art of Tarot divination. And though you can look up a card meaning, there’s no Little White Book for pattern recognition.

Yes, a spread or layout is a pattern—but it’s a pattern chosen by the reader. And it’s meaningless without the Tarot cards themselves. A Celtic Cross laid out with pieces of blank pasteboard doesn’t convey any information.

Once a deck of Tarot cards is shuffled, then laid down in whatever arrangement, a meaningful pattern emerges. But it can just lay there, unnoticed, unless the reader is looking for it, and able to recognize it.

There might be one big pattern in a reading, or there may be many patterns. If many, they might be separate, or connected, or overlapping. So there’s a lot involved in identifying not only the patterns but their relationships and levels of energy.

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That’s not at all what I meant to write about today, but as often happens, I tumbled into a rabbit hole! I’ll return soon, though—and in the meantime, here’s a perfect exit, courtesy of Nakisha’s delightful The Rabbit Tarot:

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Thank you all so much for reading EP in 2023. And wherever you are, have a safe Eve and just the sort of Day you would like most. C