Man, I was a wreck. A total, actual wreck. You know those times when your apartment looks like a bomb went off and you can’t even remember what day of the week it is, let alone where you put your keys? That was me last month. I was staring down this massive work project, trying to figure out if I should move houses, and dealing with a leaky faucet all at the same time. I felt like I needed a cheat sheet for the universe just to survive the next two weeks.
I called my friend, Sarah, who is generally pretty chilled out but occasionally drops deep metaphysical knowledge bombs on me. I was venting about how I just wanted some sort of roadmap for the next year, something simple, not one of those deep-dive psychic readings that costs three hundred bucks and leaves you more confused than when you started.
She just laughed and said, “Dude, you don’t need a psychic. You need the Tarot Card of the Year calculator. It’s just simple addition, and it gives you one Major Arcana card to focus on for the whole cycle.” I figured, what the heck. I’m good at addition, mostly. So I grabbed a piece of paper—the back of an old grocery receipt, naturally—and decided to actually track how I found this stupid number.
Setting the Stage: Gathering My Numbers
The first thing I learned is that this isn’t some complex astrology thing; it’s pure numerology applied to the Major Arcana. You need three simple bits of data. That’s it.
- Your Birth Month (M)
- Your Birth Day (D)
- The Current Calendar Year (Y) – The year you want the reading for.
For my practice run—and you guys know I keep this stuff real—I used my actual birthday. Let’s just say, for the sake of not doxxing myself entirely, that my birthday is in December (which is 12) on the 10th. And since I was trying to figure out what the next year was going to dump on me, I used 2024. So, I had my numbers lined up:
Month: 12
Day: 10
Year: 2024
Executing the Calculation: Summing It All Up
This is where I always get tripped up with numerology stuff, because you have to keep reducing numbers until they’re single digits, or until you hit those weird special numbers (11 or 22, the Master Numbers). Sarah told me to just add everything together first and then reduce the final total. Made sense, less messing around in the beginning.
Step 1: Adding the Components
I took the month (12) + the day (10) + the year (2024). Now, if you’re lazy like me, you just use your phone calculator for this big chunk, but I used the receipt and a dull pencil just to prove I could do it.
12 + 10 + 2024 = 2046
Step 2: Reducing the Sum
Okay, 2046 is a big number. We can’t use 2046 to find a Tarot card, because the Major Arcana only goes up to 21 (or 0, but usually 1-22). So, I had to reduce 2046 by adding its individual digits together. This is the crucial, messy step where people always make mistakes.
2 + 0 + 4 + 6 = 12
Step 3: Finding the Final Single Digit (or Master Number)
So, I got 12. Twelve is a number that corresponds directly to a Tarot card (The Hanged Man), so theoretically, I could stop there. But most numerology sites insist you keep reducing to get the personal year number unless it’s 11 or 22.
Since 12 is not 11 or 22, I kept going:
1 + 2 = 3
Bingo. My Personal Year Number for 2024 was 3.
The Final Result and My Practice Record Interpretation
Once I had the number 3, the final step was just mapping it to the Major Arcana. This is the easiest part, you just Google “Tarot Major Arcana numbers.” I didn’t even have to look it up, Sarah already told me what the main ones were.
- Number 1: The Magician
- Number 2: The High Priestess
- Number 3: The Empress (Mine!)
- …and so on.
My Result: 3 – The Empress.
I wrote it down on the receipt and felt a slight sense of accomplishment. I had successfully executed the practice! But the real work was figuring out what that meant.
The Empress is all about abundance, creation, nurturing, and fertility. When Sarah explained it to me, she put it simply: “Stop worrying about the little administrative garbage, and start creating something, whether that’s a new job, a garden, or just a really good routine. Focus on growth.”
Honestly, the simple act of breaking down a complex problem (my entire messy life) into three simple addition steps, and ending up with one word (“Creation”), was exactly the kick I needed. I didn’t need to consult the stars; I just needed a structured way to look at the next twelve months.
I grabbed a new notepad—not a grocery receipt—and started writing down the things I wanted to create this year. I’ve started sketching out the garden plan, and funny enough, that big messy work project? It’s about building a whole new system from scratch. The universe, or maybe just simple arithmetic, was telling me to lean into the chaos and build something beautiful out of it.
If your life feels like a giant bowl of scrambled eggs right now, seriously, try this calculator. It’s maybe five minutes of easy math, and it gives you a singular focus word for the entire year. It actually works, even for skeptical idiots like me who can’t find their socks.
Go ahead. Run your own numbers. Just remember:
- Don’t skip the reduction step.
- If you hit 11 or 22, stop there.
- Don’t overthink the card.
Good luck!
