✦ Tarot · Numerology ✦
Your Tarot Birth Card
Your birth date hides one, two or three Major Arcana. They describe the way you move through life, and the lesson that keeps coming back.
Please enter a full birth date.
How it works
The birth card method
A single addition turns a birth date into a Major Arcana number. The method comes from tarot teacher Mary K. Greer.
Split the date into four numbers
Month, day, and the year cut in two: the century and the last two digits. A birth date of July 14, 1985 becomes 7, 14, 19 and 85.
Add them together
7 + 14 + 19 + 85 = 125.
If the total is above 22, add its digits
1 + 2 + 5 = 8. The result must fall between 1 and 22, because there are 22 Major Arcana. A total of 22 is The Fool, whose number is 0.
Find the pair
If your number has two digits, add them once more to find your second card. 17 gives The Star and 1 + 7 = 8, Strength. A single-digit number stands alone; 19 is the only one that gives three cards: The Sun, the Wheel of Fortune (10) and The Magician (1).
What it means
Reading your cards
Your birth card is not a prediction. It is a portrait of the energy you came in with: the way you tend to face things, the gift that comes easily, and the lesson that returns in different costumes across the years. When there are two cards, the higher number describes the part of you the world sees first, and the lower number the deeper current underneath. When there is only one, that card is both at once.
The best way to use it is quietly. Look at the card’s page, read the upright meaning as a description of your strengths, and the reversed meaning as the shadow you know well. Then notice how often the card shows up in your daily draws: birth cards have a way of appearing exactly when you need to remember who you are.
Questions
Birth cards, asked and answered
Is my birth card the same as my life path number?
They are cousins. The life path number reduces the date down to a single digit (or 11, 22, 33). The birth card stops at 22, so it keeps more of the original number and gives you a pair instead of one digit.
Why do some people get three cards?
Only a total of 19 does this: The Sun (19) reduces to the Wheel of Fortune (10), which reduces to The Magician (1). Three cards, one story about light, luck and will.
Does the reversed meaning apply to a birth card?
Think of it as the shadow side of your own card rather than a bad omen. The Emperor’s reversal, for instance, is the control you reach for when you are afraid. Knowing it is the point.
Can I use my birth card in a reading?
Yes. Many readers place it in the centre of a spread as the “self” card, or draw a card next to it each birthday to see the year’s theme. Our combination pages explain how your birth card speaks with any other card.
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