C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 , 2022will be driving all over the state of
Tennessee, where he is a wedding
officiant licensed by American
Marriage Ministries. He had re-
ceived more than a dozen re-
quests from couples planning to
wed that day, and had to turn
most of them down — he can’t be
in two places at once.
But there are three lucky cou-
ples who managed to get on his
schedule. Overall, Rivera-Baggott
will travel “probably over 300
miles that day.” The first cer-
emony is a courthouse wedding
scheduled for 8 a.m., about a
two-hour drive from Chattanoo-
ga, where he lives: “They’re goingto get their certificate then, and
then we’re going to do a little
short, legal, bare minimum-type
thing and then make it official.”
Then, he’ll drive another hour to
preside over a quick noon cer-
emony for another couple. Thenanother hour and a half of driv-
ing, where he’ll head to the big-
gest wedding of the day — a 2 p.m.
affair with more than 50 guests,
which will be timed so the couple
will seal their vows with a kiss
exactly at 2:22 p.m.He’ll “have one of those little
digital clocks like they have at
TED Talks so that people know
not to go over,” he says, adding
that there may be a need to
improv: To “add a little bit of fluff
in there to make sure it gets to
that point where that is exactly
2:22, or if I need to cut some stuff
out to make sure that’s the case, I
think that’s the plan.”
Meanwhile, Janelle Paulson,
27, and Ashlee Stepp, 28, will be in
Mexico’s Riviera Maya, getting
hitched. The Kansas City, Mo.,
couple met in college on Feb. 21,
2015 — “but we probably stayed
up till midnight,” notes Paulson,MATT FREEDMAN PHOTOGRAPHYFAMILY PHOTOAMANDA NELSON/CAPTURED YOURS
ABOVE: Janelle Paulson, left, and Ashlee Stepp will wed in
Mexico on 2-22-22. TOP: Chelsea Campbell hopes to have her
second child on the big day. RIGHT: Ashley Brauer O’Connor,
who dreamed that she was scheduling a Caesarean section for
Feb. 22, 2022, shortly before she found out she was pregnant,
has indeed scheduled one for that day. BELOW: Tutu Tuesday is
a Burning Man tradition that Amanda Casteel will be re-creating
in Portland, Ore., on 2-22-22.pattern-recognition parts of our
brains? Is it the ultimate Taco
Tuesday?
Better: It is “Nacho Average
Taco Twosday,” according to a
novelty shirt that brands Feb. 22
as “a fun way to mark the unique,
once-in-a-lifetime... d ate for
taco lovers, families and friends.”
(What the shirt fails to mention is
that it is also National Margarita
Day. Kismet!)
Kanye West, now known as Ye,
has scheduled a live performance
in Miami on the 22nd, ostensibly
to preview his newest release,
“Donda 2.” The Atlantis resort in
the Bahamas is offering 22 per-
cent off, starting at $222, on hotel
rooms (guests must stay a mini-
mum of two nights). A purveyor
of NFTs plans to mint 2,222 of
them that day. And celebrity as-
trologer Aliza Kelly is going on
“The Drew Barrymore Show” —
it’s the actress’s birthday — to talk
about what it all means.
First of all: “When we have a
repeating number such as two
two-two two-two, we have this
sort of metaphysical thought
which says that this evokes a
feeling within us because it is
connected to these higher esoter-
ic metaphysical frequencies that
align us,” Kelly says.
Okay.
“For some people, they may see
a repeating number... a s an
affirmation of sorts, a sort of
green light from the universe that
they’re on their right path or that
they’re protected, or that they
have, you know, a guide or a spirit
who is communicating with
them, who is not earthbound.” As
Kelly wrote in Allure, some peo-
ple refer to those repeating digits
as “Angel Numbers.”
Okay...
And if we look to the stars and
planets? Well, on Feb. 22, 2022,
our great nation is making its
first “Pluto Return,” meaning Plu-
to will be in the same place it was
on July 4, 1776.
“Pluto, in astrology, is associat-
ed with transformation and
metamorphosis, and really pow-
erful epic change that really origi-
nates from the interior before
revealing itself on an exterior
level,” says Kelly, who notes that
although the planet’s placement
will be precise on the 22nd, we’ve
been feeling its effects for the last
few years. Which — okay! —
explains a lot, if you happen to
believe in that sort of thing.
Morten Heedegaard does not.
“Literally, it’s useless, because
what should make that day any
different from any other date,
apart from the fact that humans
have invented a way of counting
days, and years, and months? And
by coincidence, that date is going
to be a date full of twos, and we
originate our timing from a day
and a year at which a certain guy
named Jesus was born,” he says.
“I’m not sure there’s any bigger
meaning for it.”
Nevertheless, since 2016, he
has maintained a website count-
ing down to the time 22:22 on
2-22-22 (expressed as 22-2-22 in
Denmark, where he lives, he
notes).
“It started actually as a bit of a
joke,” says Heedegaard, 50. “I’m
kind of a numbers geek.” To the
point where he researched the
places in the world that lie at 22
degrees latitude and 22 degrees
longitude. There are four of them:
Two in the Atlantic Ocean, one in
the desert in Libya, and another
in western Botswana. He’s not
sure what people there are doing
to celebrate the momentous occa-
sion, but he has heard from other
fans of the date: Numerologists,
engaged couples, and even doom-
sayers, some spouting unsubstan-
tiated claims that Feb. 22 will be
the date tensions between Russia
and Ukraine escalate.
Time has gotten a bit jumbled
for people in the last two years,
between lockdowns and working
from home and the general way
that living in a pandemic has
unmoored us. Maybe 2-22-22 can
help us restore our sense of time,
Heedegaard thinks.
“I tried to make a tweet at one
point, addressing the United Na-
tions to make that date the day of
self-celebration and self-care,” he
says. “They didn’t respond.”I
t’s definitely going to be a day
of celebrations, though. Espe-
cially weddings. The county
clerk who presides over licenses
in Las Vegas expects it to be one of
the busiest days ever, beating the
previous marriage record from
July 7, 2007 (7-7-07). In Singapore,
about 500 couples will get
hitched, nine times the usual
number of marriages in one day.
The date is considered to be
auspicious in the Chinese calen-
dar, reports the South China
Morning Post, because of its even
numbers, and the fact that it is a
palindrome in countries that rec-
ord dates as day/month/year:
22/02/2022.
And Blake Rivera-Baggott, 30,2-22-22 FROM C1 so they can claim the 22nd as an
anniversary, of sorts. They con-
sider 22 to be their lucky number.
The two twos signify two people
coming together, says Stepp,
whose last name Paulson will
take. And they’ll always remem-
ber their anniversary.
“We plan on doing our first
look at 2:22 p.m.,” says Paulson.
“We thought about doing the
ceremony at 2:22, but the lighting
would be bad.”
Meanwhile-meanwhile, Aman-
da Casteel, 43, will be donning
tulle for Tutu Tuesday, a Burning
Man tradition that she’s bringing
to her hometown of Portland,
Ore., where she expects to be
joined by “a couple hundred peo-
ple” for a massive dress-up party
she’s organized in a local park.
The plan is for everyone to gather
from 12:22 p.m. to 2:22 p.m., at
which point they will take a big
group picture in their tutus.
Then, they’re going to “find pubs,
probably along Second Street or
22nd Street” — hopefully with
tacos and tequila — “and the
night will end at 22:22 military
time, probably [with me] distrib-
uting $2 bills at some dance club
somewhere.”
Wait, $2 bills? When’s the last
time anyone saw one of those? “I
just went into the bank a week
ago and I told them why. And they
laughed and they went and talked
to their manager, and she was like
‘We’ll order them, and they’ll be
here in a week,’ ” Casteel says.
And meanwhile! In hospitals
across the country, there will be
babies. Perhaps some will even be
born at 2:22, which will make for
amusing stories on local news
channels.
Alex Armstrong, 30, of Boston,
is having twins.
“A lot of people are like, ‘You
have to hold on as long as you
can,’ you know, to try to make it to
2-22,” she says. “But if I get any
more uncomfortable than I am
now, I think I’ll just be happy for
it all to be over.”
And Chelsea Campbell, 32, is
due with her second child on the
22nd — and hoping the baby has a
keen sense of timing. The Port
Orange, Fla., resident is in a
Facebook group for families ex-
pecting February babies.
“Everybody in that group is
like, ‘Oh, I’m trying to get labor
started now,’ and I’m trying to
keep her in,” she says. “I want to
last that long, so that way, she can
have that birthday.”What does a 2-22-22 birth-
day portend? What will
the special children of
Feb. 22 have in store for their
lives? Numerologist Ann Perry
has some thoughts on that, but
they involve taking the much-
hyped date down a peg or two.
There are “Popular numerolo-
gists out there that like to throw a
whole bunch of hype at stuff and
say, ‘Oh, it’s a portal opening up,’ ”
she says. “I get a little frustrated
with it.”
First of all: “The energy of the
number two relates to partner-
ship, to patience and diplomacy,
balance, sensitivity and collabo-
ration,” says Perry. But numerolo-
gy doesn’t stop there. It’s time to
do some math.
“So if you want to crunch the
vibration around what February
22, 2022, is all about, you have to
break it down in three parts. So
February is the second month,
right? So that’s going to be just
the number two,” she says. Then
there’s the date: 22 “Repeats it-
self, that’s referred to as a master
number.” And then the year, for
which numerologists add all the
individual digits of 2022 togeth-
er: 2+0+2+2=6.
Add that to 22, and then add a 2
for the month to get 30, and 3 + 0
equals ... Oh.
“February 22, 2022 is actually a
three universal day,” says Perry.
“But is anyone talking about that?
No. Why? Because the three isn’t
as sensational as talking about all
those twos.”
It’s not necessarily a bad thing
that 2-22-22 is all about threes. “A
three vibration, that’s encourag-
ing us all to express ourselves. For
example, telling people you’re no
longer going to be their doormat,”
says Perry. “It’s a lot heavier
energy than all this airy, fairy,
flaky stuff, talking about wed-
dings and babies and engage-
ments.”
Passell, the soon-to-be 22-year-
old who has waited for this birth-
day her whole life, senses the
heavy stuff. A few years ago, she
met a set of twins who shared her
exact same special birthday, and
the trio became close friends.
“Suddenly, I was a triplet,” she
says. But a few months ago, one of
the twins took his own life. She’s
decided to spend the 22nd birth-
day they thought they would all
spend together in Hawaii, swim-
ming in the ocean. It’s not what
she thought 2-22-22 would be, but
she’s still optimistic.
“Twenty-two is going to be the
year for me,” says Passell. “That’s
always been a feeling of mine.”People who have had Twosday circled on their calendarsFAMILY PHOTO“It’s been the birthday I’ve waited for. I actually Ididn’t care about my 21st at all.... My whole life,I’ve been trying to find the meaning for it.”
Jules Zia Passell, who turns 22 on Tuesday