The Tarot’s Major Arcana are derived from archetypes of the human experience. Together, they weave a tale that starts with the Fool and ends with the World.
You will at some point in your life’s journey become each and every Major Arcana Tarot card.
Find out which Major Arcana card best describes you at this moment and how the energy associated with that archetype may be affecting your life by taking this quiz!
In This Article...
How can I determine which Tarot card I am?
According to Alvarez, the simplest way to determine your tarot card is to “let your intuition be your guide.” “Choose a card at random, face down, from a shuffled deck. You can get some direction for the day by performing this action every morning or evening.”
This method of reading tarot cards is different from some others in that you don’t ask any questions (like you would with a Magic 8-Ball), you just take cards out of the deck. Then, she advises, “check up the meaning and consider your day to see if the card had any importance or emphasized an underlying theme.” This procedure “assists newcomers in becoming more theoretically acquainted with the cards as well as in viewing them as a link to personal and practical experiences.”
Find your zodiac card
According to Alvarez, this method is based on your solar sign and the traits that correspond to it (the one you say when someone asks you, “What’s your sign?”). “This card assists in highlighting your strengths, areas that may need improvement, and recurring themes in your life that may be caused by imbalances. Look up the Major Arcana card that usually corresponds with your sun sign, then your sun sign.” Although each card has multiple levels of meaning, Alvarez suggests the following descriptions:
What do zodiac tarot cards represent?
The astrological signs that correspond to the major arcana tarot cards are as follows:
- The Emperor rules Aries. Aries people enjoy taking charge of situations and being in leadership roles.
- The Hierophant is in Taurus.
- The lovers sign of Gemini.
- The Chariot of Cancer
- The Hermit, or Virgo.
Can a specific individual be questioned in tarot?
Tarot readings can be focused on a different person or thing. The Other Reading is what I refer to as. When you merely want to learn more about someone or something that doesn’t directly affect you, an Other Reading is fine. Other Readings are not for or about anyone in particular. When you provide a reading for someone else, they write the question, and you just assist them in interpreting the cards.
Other Readings are entertaining and educational. They are also a helpful tool for tarot education. You can only examine a small number of difficulties while using the cards for yourselfyour own! You can learn a lot more from other readings.
The process for an Other Reading is essentially the same as the one in lesson 8, with the exception of picking the subject.
Here, the few distinctions are mentioned. (A step-by-step outline is also provided.)
selecting the topic
Selecting the topic for your reading should be your first step. As long as you choose the subject in advance, you can concentrate on almost anything, including a person, animal, place, issue, or current event. It usually serves as the focal point of a circumstance, however this is not necessary.
A group entity, like a marriage, family, team, or neighborhood, can be your subject. The information will be very broad for such vast entities, regardless of whether you concentrate on a nation or the Earth.
You could be tempted to conduct an Other Reading on a friend, family member, or work colleague who is close to you. I discuss the value of putting yourself first in readings that affect you in lesson 7. Here is a quick test you can use to determine whether it would be wise to read something else. Make three inquiries to yourself:
- Do I get powerful feelings when I consider this person or this circumstance?
- Do I have a personal stake in this matter?
- Do I have a specific goal in mind for this situation?
If you said “yes” to any of these inquiries, you ought to probably conduct a reading focused on you as opposed to an Other Reading.
You must now formulate a question. Observe the advice in lesson 7, but include a question regarding your topic. Pay attention to the area of your subject that most interests you. If you have a query regarding a politician who is seeking the presidency, you might ask:
“What are the factors impacting Mr. or Ms. Candidate’s chances to become the next president?”
To improve your reading focus, keep a picture of your subject close by. It also works nicely to use a memento of your subject.
Question You Want to Ask
Describe the other person or explain why you are performing an Other Reading. Mention that you only have good intentions for your subject and ask for advice that is in the best interests of everyone involved. (If you are unable to say this honestly, think about getting a reading for yourself.)
- Rearranging the Cards
- Taking the Cards Away
- Organizing the Cards
- Answering the Cards
Keep in mind that the cards refer to the other person, not you, as you answer to them. But don’t be shocked if you find some intriguing parallels to your own life in the cards!
Evaluation of the Cards
An Other Reading allows you to view the scenario from your own perspective. There may or may not be a connection between what you see in the cards and what the person actually goes through.
- Establishing the Story
- The Summary Statement’s composition
- Making Use of What You’ve Learned
Even if an Other Reading is primarily concerned with another person, there is still a lesson for you to learn. In order to use this lesson in your own life, try to identify it.
What kinds of Tarot cards are there?
Despite their vastly different designs, all tarot decks share a few characteristics. Each one has 78 playing cards, divided into the main and minor arcana. The major arcana, which are the deck’s 22 trump cards, generally allude to bigger influences and disclosures when they are revealed during a reading. These cards stand alone without a suit and represent key occasions or people in a person’s life.
In contrast, the minor arcana refer to influences and issues that are more commonplace. Wands, swords, pentacles, and cups make up the four suits that these 56 cards are divided into. (Occasionally, tarot decks will use different terminology, such as “Pentacles for coins, but they are exact equivalents to the four original divisions.) A different aspect of life is represented by each outfit. Wands typically represent imagination and passion, swords intelligence, pentacles work and wealth, and cups emotion. Additionally, each suit is associated with a certain set of astrological signs, such as wands being associated with fire, swords with air, pentacles with earth, and cups with water.
Since we’re beginners, the meanings you’ll most frequently refer to are the functional definitions, albeit these meanings can be used when cards symbolize people and their zodiac signs. For example, a three-card spread with three pentacle cards strongly denotes a financial concern. (More on the various spreads will follow.)
While much of this is up to the deck’s owner and what resonates with them, there are a few conventions that apply to the majority of tarot readings. If you’re reading cards for someone else, you should ask them to provide you with a question or suggest something they’re interested in, and keep that question in mind while you shuffle the deckalso referred to as “removing the effects of earlier research and readings. (An illustration would be, “When will I discover love?” Am I pursuing the correct career? “How can I get through my block?
Then you could query the person you are reading for (also known as “cutting the deck, once more concentrating on the querent. Although some readers will cut the deck for the querent, we prefer this option since it gives the querent a chance to feel linked to the deck personally. In any case, you will draw the necessary number of cards for your spread and, if you’re reading for yourself, place them between you and the querentor directly in front of you.
How do I determine my yearly Tarot card?
By the way, depending on where you think the parentheses in the math formula belong and the subsequent order of operations, I think I might be calculating the year card a little differently.
My strategy is to separate out three sums for a trinity that has spiritual significance. Your birth month and day are combined to create one number. If the year is your birth year or a transiting year for a Tarot Year Card calculation, add the digits for that year separately.
You have now completed two operations. When you combine the two together, you get the third order for that beautiful, tidy trinity. Theosophic reduction is only performed once three operations for the trinity have been completed (i.e., if the sum is over 22, add the digits together for a single digit sum).
That is the intriguing riddle with metaphysics.
There are numerous alternative methods and correspondence schemes. Consider my investigation of elemental directional correspondences and resolving the conflicts in a prior blog article.
It’s crucial to comprehend your justification and to choose a strategy or correspondence system that supports your personal philosophy.
You should do such procedures independently before combining them in a math problem where parentheses denote the separation of ideas (left to right). Since the idea of a Base Year has been established, it only makes sense to calculate the Base Year using a different order of operations. It supports the viewpoint that each Base Year is “predetermined to the point where, simply by adding up the numbers, we can predict what the Base Year tarot card will be.
The degree of the sun in astrology is equal to the month plus the day. That then becomes an idea in and of itself. What is the sum of our birthday’s month, day, and sun sign degree? “changes a Base Year determination’s overall generalities. Therefore, it makes sense that the degree of the sun sign, as an independent concept transferred to numerology for this purpose, would be its own distinct idea and require a different set of parentheses. It seems logical to me to carry out this step in a separate predetermined order of operation, and to combine the two preset sums in the third and last predetermined order of operation.
This technique of calculation produces three operations for a trinity, matching it with Hermetic and Neo-Platonic philosophytwo ideas that have a significant impact on esoteric tarot.
So that’s the justification behind my strategy. However, it differs from the conventional approach advocated by Archetypal Tarot and the literature on tarot birth cards.
My advice is to investigate the many strategies, choose the one that works best for you, and then stay with it, i.e., be consistent. The most important factor is ultimately personal consistency.
The Fool is card 22 in the Archetypal Tarot. Key 0: The Fool can be a birth card or, in the case of the practice in this workshop, a Tarot year card.
I don’t follow 22 because my own philosophy favors the continuity of trinities and the hallowed sevens. I perform the theosophic reduction if the total exceeds 21. I prefer to view The Fool card as a symbol. But this is solely a matter of personal taste. Just do what seems to work for you; there is no right or wrong answer here.
If your birthday occurs between January 1 and June 30, according to Archetypal Tarot, your Tarot Year Cycle is more likely to be felt from one January to the next, neatly aligning with the calendar year.
However, if you were born in a late calendar season, between July 1 and December 31, you are more likely to experience the Tarot Year according to the appropriate Major Arcana card from your birthday through the next birthday or solar return.
I suggested a three-card oracle reading when considering the lessons your Tarot Year Card will teach you, but you are welcome to approach the journaling prompts as you prefer. Yes, you could use a tarot deck for this, but I’ve found that using a non-tarot deck works far better. Pick your favorite modern oracle deck, like as Lenormand, Kipper, or another.
Because there is a wider range of artistic expression when you take your Tarot Year Card from many modern decks, this is an extremely enjoyable practice. I had a Key 20: Judgement year in 2021, so if I’m studying the Judgement card, I’ll take a Key 20 from one of the several tarot decks I own and lay it out in a spread.
If you have a sizable collection of tarot decks, choose your Tarot Year card from seven, eight, or even ten different decks, and arrange the cards in a spread as you respond to the journaling questions on the handout.
Tarot Year card variations should be read as their own spread, which means you should look for symbols that strike out to you and make a note of which signs or symbols are drawing your attention. Summarize the various ways that Major Arcana card has been interpreted. As you explore the Tarot Year, take a picture of the spread.
The Tarot Year Card is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can accomplish with it; birth cards, personality cards, soul cards, and other cards are all covered. Learn more about Base Years, Cycle Themes, and your Karmic Year while also reading about them. This book also has an amazing reference on how to interpret your Year Cards.
Get a copy of Archetypal Tarot: What Your Birth Card Reveals About Your Personality, Path, and Potential if you desire to use the tarot for introspective psychology work, journaling, and self-exploration. Theresa Reed, the Tarot Lady, wrote the Foreword for this edition from 2021.
The 2011 book Who Are You in the Tarot: Discover Your Birth and Year Cards and Uncover Your Destiny has been updated. I own both and adore them.
How can I figure out what my Tarot card for the year is?
By the way, depending on how you interpret the placement of the parenthesis in the math equation and the subsequent order of operations, I believe I may be computing the year card in a slightly different method.
To create a trinity with spiritual significance, I will isolate three amounts. Your birthday is calculated as the product of your birth month and day. When calculating a Tarot Year Card, add the digits for the given year, whether it is your birth year or a transiting year.
You’ve now completed two orders of action. When you combine the two together, that nice, tidy trinity is in third order. Theosophic reduction is only performed after performing three operations for the trinity (i.e., if the sum is over 22, add the digits together for a single digit sum).
That is the amusing paradox with metaphysics.
There are a variety of methods and correspondence schemes. As an illustration, consider a prior blog article where I discussed elemental directional correspondences and how to resolve the conflicts.
Understanding your rationale is crucial, as is choosing a method or a communication system that supports your personal philosophy.
In math problems, parentheses denote the separation of ideas, therefore you should perform those operations individually before combining them (left to right). It only makes sense to calculate the Base Year as a separate sequence of operation now that the concept of a Base Year has been established. It is consistent with the notion that each Base Year is “predetermined to the point where we can determine the Base Year tarot card by adding up the numbers.
In astrology, the sun’s degree is equal to the month plus the day. That then becomes a separate conceptual unit. What is our birthday (month plus day and degree of sun sign) “changes a Base Year determination’s general parameters overall. It follows that the sun sign degree, as a distinct concept transferred to numerology for this purpose, would be its own separate idea and require a different set of parentheses. It seems logical to me to carry out this step separately according to a preset order of operation, and to combine the two specified sums in the third and last step.
Running the calculation procedure in this way results in three operations for a trinity, aligning the method with Hermetic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, which have a significant influence on esoteric tarot principles.
That justifies my strategy, then. It is not, however, the most popular method as advocated by Archetypal Tarot or as is more frequently found in the literature on tarot birth cards.
Explore many strategies, choose the one that works best for you, and then stick with it, i.e., continue to be consistent with it. In the end, personal constancy is what matters.
22 corresponds to The Fool in the Archetypal Tarot. Key 0: The Fool can be a birth card or, as it applies to this workshop practice, a Tarot year card.
I personally choose to follow the sacred sevens and the continuation of the trinities, hence I don’t observe the number 22. When the total exceeds 21, I perform the theosophic reduction. The Fool is a card that I consider to be symbolic instead. But this is entirely a matter of taste. There is no right or wrong answer here; only what seems to work for you.
Your Tarot Year Cycle is more likely to be felt from one January to the next, being perfectly matched with the calendar year, if your birthday occurs between January 1 and June 30. This is something that Archetypal Tarot points out.
The Tarot Year as indicated by the appropriate Major Arcana card is more likely to be felt from your birthday until the next birthday, or solar return, for individuals who had a late calendar season birthday, that is, if you were born between July 1 and December 31.
Although you are encouraged to approach the journaling prompts as you choose, I suggested a three-card oracle reading when considering the teachings your Tarot Year Card will impart upon you. You can certainly use a tarot deck for this, but in my experience, utilizing a non-tarot deck yields much better results. Choose your favorite modern oracle deck, such as the Lenormand or Kipper.
This activity is particularly enjoyable when your Tarot Year Card is taken from a variety of modern decks because there is a wider range of possible artistic interpretation. If I’m studying the Judgement card, I’ll take a Key 20 from one of the several tarot decks I own and lay those Key 20s out in a spread for study since 2021 was a Key 20: Judgement year for me.
If you have a sizable collection of tarot decks, choose your Tarot Year card from seven, eight, or even ten different decks, and spread the cards out as you answer the journaling questions on the worksheet.
Tarot Year card variants should be read as a separate spread, so look around for any symbols that particularly catch your attention and make a note of them. Compile the various readings of that Major Arcana card. Take a picture of the spread, then come back to it frequently over the Tarot Year.
Without even touching on Birth Cards, Personality Cards, Soul Cards, and other cards, this course barely scratches the surface of what you can do with the Tarot Year Card. Here you may read about your Karmic Year, discover more about Base Years and Cycle Themes, and get a fantastic reference on how to interpret your Year Cards.
Get a copy of Archetypal Tarot: What Your Birth Card Reveals About Your Personality, Path, and Potential if you wish to use the tarot for self-discovery, journaling, and more introspective psychology-based work. The Tarot Lady Theresa Reed wrote the Foreword for this edition from 2021.
This is an updated version of the book Who Are You in the Tarot: Discover Your Birth and Year Cards and Uncover Your Destiny, which was first published in 2011. Both of which I possess and adore.
Leo is what Tarot card?
The Strength card is a representation of your emotional, mental, and spiritual strength as well as your physical strength, like the strong Lion on your card. You have a lot of courage, much like the lion, which enables you to go beyond challenges and hurdles.
Discover your Chinese Zodiac Sign, Celtic Tree Sign, Tarot Birth Card, and more for FREE. Find out more about your sign and the other cosmic aspects of yourself.
The Virgo Tarot card is which?
This is the Major Arcana and Zodiac follow-up book for those who have been waiting. There are no single cards that are assigned to a single sign, unlike the Major Arcana. Instead, the Tarot’s suites are separated into the twelve zodiacal components. Despite the generality, knowing the traits associated with particular signs and the Minor Arcana can be quite beneficial when getting a Tarot reading or giving one to others. It’s common to see a lot of cards from a particular suite in your reading that match to your zodiac element, just like some Scorpios will always find the Death card in their Tarot reading and some Geminis will frequently find the Lovers turning up. I recommend reading each part and keeping this knowledge in mind the next time you conduct a reading because we utilize all the cards when we receive Tarot readings and because each of us has a natal chart that represents the entire zodiac. As with the elements, our modern methods of divination are rooted in antiquity and are inseparably tied to one another.
Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio are the zodiac signs associated with water. These signs are represented by the suite of Cups in the Minor Arcana. Each suite consists of 14 cards, with four face cards, one ace, and in this example, a range from the Two of Cups to the Ten of Cups. The typical images of the face cards are a Page, Knight, Queen, and King (although many contemporary decks will vary their interpretation and naming to include non-binary and non-colonial representations). And these are the cards that Tarot readers frequently interpret as a particular individual in the client’s life. For instance, it’s common for a Queen of Cups to represent a Pisces, Cancer, or Scorpio lady who plays a significant role in the reading. The traits most frequently ascribed to water signs, like as emotional receptivity, relational fluidity, intuition, and psychic aptitude, are related with the suite of cups. These characteristics give feelings of loss, friendship, heartbreak, and romantic connection an emotional depth and perspective. In a reading, the Three of Cups, for instance, denotes enduring friendships, the development of a community, imaginative teamwork, and reciprocity from those in your selected circle. The Five of Cups, on the other hand, denotes a person who is full of regret, someone who is mourning, and someone who is unable to see the benefits and offerings before them because the ghost of what was lost and irretrievable is blocking their vision. Although this is less of a rule and more of an affirmation given that water signs are frequently driven into emotional labor and psychic development, it is also frequently the case that water sign dominants tend to find a lot more Cups in their Tarot reading than the other signs. Noteworthy is the analogy between the Tarot’s Cups suite and a deck of playing cards’ Hearts suite (the symbolism is not lost here). It is thought that playing cards are descended from the Tarot and can thus be used, in a pinch, for divination in a manner similar to that of the Tarot.
Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are the zodiac signs associated with fire. These omens are connected to the Tarot’s Wands (or Rods). The suite of Wands largely depicts the same themes of creative drive in one’s daily life because the element of fire is connected to inspiration and generative creativity, primordial energy and ambition, passion, and sexuality. The Six of Wands, for instance, in a Tarot reading, is probably a sign that the inquirer has recently succeeded in their goals and received some type of recognition or reward for their work. It is a card that encourages the seeker to further harness their desires by validating their creative endeavors. The Ten of Wands, on the other hand, may represent a person who has taken on too much responsibility and must now decide what is essential to their success and what can be shed or assigned to others in their team or community. When the King of Wands occurs in a Tarot reading, it is stated that he represents an authoritarian (king) fire sign (Wands) in the querent’s life because face cards are frequently connected to individuals in a querent’s life or the querent themself. The suite of Clubs in a deck of cards stands in for the Wands.
The three Earth signs of the zodiacTaurus, Virgo, and Capricornare connected to the Tarot’s suite of pentacles, often known as coins. These symbols stand for attributes such as realism, sensuality, toughness, service, and outward manifestation. These characteristics are mostly the same in the equivalent suite of Pentacles, and the cards depict the various elements of creating and maintaining one’s surroundings, particularly in regard to prosperity, physical health, the accomplishment of goals, and foundation construction. Earthly matters, or that which grounds, supports, and maintains us, are the focus of the pentacle suit. Additionally, since the Tarot may be used for both divination and introspection, these cards can help us identify areas of ourselves where we have room for improvement. Consider the Four of Pentacles as an example. This card frequently represents someone who is secure in their position and who believes they have built a commendable reputation and skill set. This card serves as a kind of confirmation and assurance. However, seeing this card in a reading can also point to someone who places too much importance on material things and lives by the scarcity paradigm and is hesitant to step outside of their comfort zone for fear of instability or failure. This person’s demand for security can prevent them from fully experiencing the varied sensualities of a broad style of living. A face card from the suite of Pentacles, like the Page of Pentacles, generally denotes a Virgo, Taurus, or Capricorn in the querent’s life, just like with the other components and suites. One can substitute the suite of Diamonds for the suite of Pentacles in a deck of playing cards.
Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius are the air signs of the zodiac, and they are represented by the Tarot’s Swords suite, which is also represented by the Spades suite in a standard deck of playing cards. Air signs are renowned for their adept communication, dedication to learning, dissemination of concepts and information, promotion of a sense of community through shared interests and ideals, and the preserving and carrying of stories. The querent’s capacity to uphold agreements, resolve conflicts, remain mindfully present, use introspection as a tool for progress, and accurately identify and react to their social situations are examples of how these qualities and themes appear in the Tarot. In any reading, the Swords suite can be exceptionally difficult. The Three of Swords, for instance, denotes a potential betrayal or separation. Like the other cards in the Swords suite, the Three of Swords is a penalty card and a teaching opportunity. The Three of Swords can be used by the inquirer as a tool for contemplating loss and what is and isn’t inevitable. Is suffering lessened if we anticipate it will happen? The Nine of Swords is a card that similarly denotes agitation, anxiety, and despair. Nine mounted swords are seen behind a sobbing individual in bed who is unable to relax. The seeker is tasked with identifying the swords on the card as being ornamental, mounted, and in the figure’s possession. They no longer pose a direct threat because they are merely symbolic items. The figure instead sobs at their meaning and the reality of their existence. The card challenges the reader to consider how we construct our own reality by clinging to fantasies of what might-have-been rather than what actually exists. Similar to Aquarius, the Swords suite aims to comprehend rather than to react. The wind is what moves the wave from one coast to the next. A face card from the Swords suite in a Tarot reading frequently represents a Libra, Gemini, or Aquarius in the querent’s life.