The 2020s seen through three different systems

People ask whether next year will be a good one. There is no general answer, because each system divides time on its own rhythm and that rhythm depends on your birth date.

Numerology: your own nine-year cycle

The personal year comes from your birth day and month plus the current year, so two people living through 2027 may be in personal year 3 and personal year 8 — two quite different stretches. Year 1 is for sowing; year 9 closes things down. This is why a year that is hard for one person is the year another finally pushes.

The sexagenary cycle: sixty years

• 2020 Canh Tý, 2021 Tân Sửu, 2022 Nhâm Dần, 2023 Quý Mão, 2024 Giáp Thìn.
• 2025 Ất Tỵ, 2026 Bính Ngọ, 2027 Đinh Mùi, 2028 Mậu Thân, 2029 Kỷ Dậu, 2030 Canh Tuất.
• A sign that clashes with the year's branch is traditionally read as a year to move more carefully.

On 21 December 2020, Jupiter and Saturn came closer than at any time since 1623

These two meet in the sky roughly every twenty years, and astrologers treat each meeting as the turn of a cycle. The 2020 conjunction was unusual in that the apparent gap between them shrank until the naked eye could barely separate them — something that had not happened at an observable position since the seventeenth century.

Astrologers called it the start of an air-flavoured period: less about material things, more about information and networks. The idea was repeated a great deal through 2020, and it is easy to see why — that was the year the world moved onto screens.

Which is exactly where care is needed. A forecast written after the event always fits. The pandemic began in late 2019, a full year before that December date, so testing the claim means asking the other question: did anyone use this conjunction to predict something specific, in writing, before it happened?

That is how to read any forecast for a decade. Do not ask whether it sounds plausible; ask whether it says anything specific enough to be wrong. A forecast that cannot be wrong cannot be right either.

Holding all three without getting lost

The healthiest use is to treat each system as a prompting question rather than a forecast. The personal year asks whether you are at the start or the end of a cycle. The sexagenary year asks whether this year sits well with your sign. Astrology asks which part of the chart this period touches. Three questions worth thinking about. Three predictions are not.