Image: A World of Symbolic Intelligence by Astrrid and AI
27th September 2026
I increasingly spend a large part of my life paying attention to symbols. Astrology, numerology, and tarot are perhaps the most obvious examples, but symbolic information can reach us through many other channels. Think of sacred geometry, the natural world around us, dreams, recurring images or themes, and even words, ideas or actions that simply seem to ‘pop’ into our heads for no apparent reason. I have placed real focus on observing these, and what I actually I find myself interested in something slightly harder to define. It is what happens when we stop simply looking at symbolic systems and begin noticing what appears to be a conversation developing between those systems, the wider world, and our everyday lives.
Back in June, I wrote about messages from Spirit, synchronicity, and the teachers we do not expect, which explored those strange periods where particular people, subjects, and experiences seem to arrive in clusters. Whether we interpret this as spiritual guidance, synchronicity, unconscious pattern recognition, or something else entirely, I am possibly less interested in proving the mechanism than in observing what actually happens. Recently, however, I have begun noticing something slightly different. It is almost as though, after spending so much time learning about and working with these symbolic languages, the symbols have started answering back.
When the pattern appears after the choice
Numerology has been one of the most obvious places for me to observe this because numbers have played a significant role in many of the decisions I have made around my own name, brand, and identity. It took me months to settle on a new name, and this careful attention followed through into the development of my business. Every name I chose was carefully selected according to the number expression associated with it. These not only had to support my commercial aspirations, but I also looked for names that were complementary to my own numerology birth and name chart. So, for example, “astrrid.com” was chosen as it matched, and therefore supported my 31/4 Life Path. When “Astrrid Numerology System” just naturally matched 80/8 - a core number expression in my chart to introduce legacy products into my work, I put this down to coincidence, and then continued with the same approach.
So apart from a few examples, there was nothing particularly mysterious about discovering numerical correspondences in things I had deliberately designed to contain them. If I calculated a name, liked the numbers, and then chose it partly because of those numbers, I had quite consciously participated in creating the pattern.
Lately, however, something rather different has been happening. I have found myself choosing words and names because they simply feel ‘right’, only to calculate them afterwards and discover relationships that I could quite easily have engineered deliberately, but didn't.
For example, I immediately thought of “This Symbolic Life” for the name of my Substack publication. After all it is a personal exploration of the patterns, symbols, and ideas that help us make sense of who we are, and the lives we are creating. Yet having then checked it’s numerological values, hey presto! it was the same 54/9 key value of “Astrrid Lovelett”, which not only further supports the expression associated with my name, but is also a core supporting platform vibration that I have been consciously working to bring more of into my business. Even the three individual words of This Symbolic Life are each some of the most important compound numbers from my chart.
This then continued with “The Superdate Report”, which came out at another legacy-building 80/8. I mean, come on – what are the odds of this type of thing happening by chance? Repeatedly?
But something else is occurring and what particularly interests me with this is that the order seems to have changed. Previously, the process was calculate, interpret, choose. Increasingly I seem to be experiencing something closer to choose, calculate, discover, validate. So I am not using numerology to decide what something should be called and instead am following what feels right - only to discover the most beneficial numerology already sitting underneath it. The fact that this is happening is totally awe-inspiring to me!
There are a number of possible explanations for this. Perhaps I have internalised certain patterns around letter values more deeply than I consciously realise. Or perhaps my unconscious mind is making connections before my conscious mind catches up. Perhaps I am particularly good at noticing meaningful correspondences simply because I have trained myself to look for them. Or perhaps synchronicity really does operate in ways we do not yet fully understand.
I look at all the reasons, and I really don’t know. I think what has changed in me is that I am increasingly comfortable with not knowing, and just happy to let the magic happen. And maybe what interests me far more is that my relationship with the symbolic system appears to have changed. I am no longer always using numerology to tell me what to choose. Instead sometimes I choose, and numerology seems to meet me afterwards.
Does a tarot card predict the day, or participate in it?
I have been noticing something similar through one of the daily practices I have started. In order to strengthen the intuitive connection between myself and the energies around me I draw some tarot cards each morning. As many as I ‘feel’ I want to draw for that particular day. Yet I don’t ask the cards tell me exactly what is going to happen – instead I ask the question, What lies beneath today? I like the openness of this because it does not seek an itinerary of future events, and instead looks at the underlying current. Increasingly the results have been striking, particularly when I have drawn cards in the morning without really understanding what they relate to - only for its symbolism to become remarkably clear as the day develops.
For example, yesterday morning the first card drawn was the Six of Wands. This carries positive meaning around success, public recognition, progress, and self-confidence. This was curious as having had an unsettling dream, I was anticipating something related to that. Yet yesterday was the morning I put some of my fears around visibility aside and actually took some effort to promoting my writing. So it was very much a Six of Wands type of day, with me starting to conquer some fears. Yet it was not at all what I had planned or expected when I sat down to draw the cards.
So the more this happens, the more I find myself questioning what is actually taking place here. Yes, once I have drawn a card, I have seen it, and cannot remove it from my psyche and conduct the rest of the day as though the reading never happened. If I draw the Six of Wands in the morning and later find myself doing something unusually visible, has the card predicted the experience? Or did seeing the Six of Wands activate something within me that made me slightly more willing to behave in a way associated with that archetype? Perhaps I noticed an opportunity I might otherwise have ignored, or the image gave unconscious permission to a part of myself that was already waiting to emerge. Or perhaps the card was simply describing an energetic or psychological process that was already underway before I shuffled the deck.
This is where the distinction between prediction and participation becomes surprisingly difficult to maintain. A symbol might be describing something that is already developing whilst simultaneously bringing it more fully into consciousness. That greater awareness might then influence what we notice, which could affect the choices we make, which in turn alters what subsequently happens. Or perhaps there really is something occurring that cannot be completely explained by any of these mechanisms. I find that although this peaks my curiosity, I don't particularly feel the need to decide. Instead I am just incredibly grateful that these type of things happen in my life at all.
Perhaps symbols are something we participate with
We often talk about signs and symbols as though communication moves in one direction. We get sent a sign from wherever our belief system accepts, and we receive it. Yet I increasingly wonder whether symbolic experience is more participatory than this. The moment we engage with a symbol, we enter into relationship with it. We contemplate it, connect it with previous experiences, notice where it appears around us, and perhaps begin seeing aspects of our lives through a slightly different lens. That changes what we notice, and what we notice may change what we subsequently do.
At that point, where exactly does the symbol end and our participation begin? Perhaps the question is impossible to answer because we are attempting to separate things that were never completely separate in the first place.
This is one of the reasons I have become increasingly interested in the idea of Symbolic Intelligence. For me, it is not simply about knowing what an astrological placement means, understanding the vibration of a number, or memorising the traditional meaning of a tarot card. Those things provide a vocabulary, but the more interesting skill is learning how to enter into dialogue with symbolic information whilst remaining capable of thinking, questioning, observing, and ultimately making our own choices.
Guidance is not the same as governance
This last point has become increasingly important to me because there is a potential trap in becoming highly attuned to symbolic systems. We can become so interested in guidance that eventually we stop trusting ourselves without it. At what point does this symbolic guidance quietly acquire authority over decisions that we are perfectly capable of making?
I have been noticing this particularly in my relationship with timing. When I started publishing articles I would only ever do this on one of my pre-determined Superdates. Even if the next one was a fortnight away I would wait doggedly for this ‘fortuitous’ date. Yet as I publish more frequently I recognise that much of this was entangled with fear and insecurity. I felt I needed those dates to support me in doing something that made me feel anxious. Yet as I have found my voice and create more articles, I literally cannot wait around for these dates. For example, there are no more listed Superdates in September, so was I really going to hold off publishing this, or my new articles in Substack to wait for a perceived golden date?
No, quite rightly I posted when finished, and have decided to leave these Superdates for really important choices and decisions. Not for something as simple as posting an article.
Perhaps this is one of the more mature relationships we can develop with any symbolic practice. We can listen without automatically obeying. We can notice without becoming superstitious. We can allow symbols to provoke questions without requiring them to provide every answer. Yet they are there to support us, so it is worthwhile noticing them. When we do this, some of the language becomes internalised and we begin to think within it without quite knowing how we are doing so. That is the real gem here.
When symbols start answering back
So whether tarot cards predict, or they subtly change how decisions are made that day. Or whether for me, the fact that I live and breathe numerology and astrology means it now operates at an unconscious level, or whether I am genuinely receiving messages from Spirit, do we really need to know why?
What I am increasingly interested in is not establishing exactly what causes these moments, but in paying attention to what happens when I engage with them. Perhaps symbolic systems are at their most valuable when they become neither rules to obey nor curiosities to dismiss, but languages through which we can enter into a richer conversation with our lives.
Sometimes we consciously ask the question and sometimes life seems to present the symbol first. Every so often, after spending long enough learning the language, something rather strange happens.
It begins to feel as though the symbols are answering back.
~ Astrrid
Continuing the Conversation
The more time I spend working with astrology, numerology, tarot, and other symbolic languages, the less interested I become in using them to provide absolute answers. What interests me far more is what they help us notice - the patterns already developing around us, the questions we might not otherwise think to ask, and sometimes the curious synchronicities that seem to appear when we begin paying closer attention.
This is also central to the way I work with clients. Astrology and numerology can provide remarkably rich maps of identity, timing and development, but I see them as tools for exploration rather than systems that should make our decisions for us. If you would like to explore the symbolic patterns operating within your own life, you can find out more about working with me here.
Or join The Astrrid Journal (below) to stay connected and receive future articles exploring astrology, numerology, Symbolic Intelligence, and the many different ways meaning seems to weave itself through our lives.
Further Reading
Messages From Spirit, Synchronicity, and the Teachers We Do Not Expect — an earlier exploration of recurring patterns, unexpected teachers, and the question of whether the themes appearing around us might carry meaning.
Behind the Scenes: How I Use Symbolic Intelligence — a closer look at how I bring different symbolic systems together without expecting any single system to provide all the answers.
Manifestation, Intention, and the Question of Timing — an exploration of intention, timing and what happens when we begin considering when we act as well as what we want to create.
The Human Search for Meaning Through Symbolic Systems – From Astrology to Symbolic Intelligence