Man, I remember staring at those Tarot cards, feeling pretty lost sometimes. I’d pull a card, read the little book that came with the deck, and get the general idea. But it always felt like there was something deeper, something I was just missing. It was like I was getting the words, but not the whole melody, you know? The pictures were cool, the stories made sense, but it didn’t really click in my gut. I felt like I was just memorizing stuff instead of actually understanding the cards from the inside out.
Then one day, I was just poking around online, trying to figure out why some cards just felt… connected, even if they looked totally different. And that’s when I bumped into this thing called numerology. Honestly, at first, it sounded a bit out there. Like, numbers having meanings? But then I started seeing how every single card in a Tarot deck, especially the Major Arcana and the pips in the Minor Arcana, has a number. And it wasn’t just a random number; it was the number.
So, I thought, okay, let’s try this. I pulled out my deck. I started right at the beginning. The Fool is 0, the Magician is 1, the High Priestess is 2, and so on. I laid them all out, just the Major Arcana first, in order. I’d stare at the Magician and think, “What does ‘1’ mean?” It felt like new beginnings, singular focus, making things happen. Then I’d look at the High Priestess, number ‘2’. That felt like duality, hidden knowledge, choices, waiting. I literally just sat there and pondered each one, trying to feel the number’s energy in the card’s image.
My Hands-On Process: Breaking Down the Numbers
After I went through the Major Arcana, I got a bit bolder. I started pulling out the Minor Arcana, specifically the numbered cards, the pips. I’d grab all the ‘Aces’ together, then all the ‘Twos’, ‘Threes’, and so on. This was a real eye-opener. I looked at the Ace of Wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords, Ace of Pentacles. They all looked totally different, but they all shared that ‘1’ energy. It was always about a spark, a start, a pure potential, but in different areas of life. That blew my mind a little.
Then I moved to the Twos. Two of Wands, Two of Cups, Two of Swords, Two of Pentacles. Suddenly, all those themes of partnership, choices, balance, reflection – they all started making sense together, even across suits. It wasn’t just about what the Wands or Cups meant, but what the number two meant when it showed up. It gave me a new way to group and understand cards without even reading their individual interpretations yet.
I even got into adding up numbers for the Major Arcana cards that had two digits. Like, if I pulled the Wheel of Fortune, which is X (I’m not gonna spill all my secrets now, you gotta do some digging yourself!), I would add those two digits together to get a single digit. That single digit, that’s what I call the root number. And that root number, man, that’s where the core vibe of the card really came from for me. It often tied back to one of the earlier Major Arcana cards, creating this neat little loop of meaning.
Putting It Into Practice
When I actually started doing readings for myself and some friends, instead of just relying on my memory of what each card “meant” from the book, I’d first look at the numbers. If I pulled a spread with a lot of ‘threes’ in it, whether they were the Empress, Three of Wands, or Three of Cups, I immediately knew there was a strong theme of growth, creation, collaboration, maybe some real creative juices flowing in the situation. If it was a bunch of ‘fives’, then it’s probably about conflict, change, freedom, or something shaking things up big time.
This completely changed how I saw connections in a spread. Before, I might have just seen three separate cards. Now, I saw them talking to each other through their numbers. It was like I unlocked a secret language within the deck. The more I practiced this, the less I had to consciously think about it. It just started to flow. When a card showed up, its number’s meaning would just pop into my head alongside its traditional symbolism, giving me a much richer and deeper understanding of the message.
It helped me get past the “good card” or “bad card” mentality too. Every number has its light and shadow, its challenges and its gifts. So, a ‘five’ might represent conflict, but it also means freedom and the drive to change things. This new layer of understanding made my readings so much more nuanced and personal. It truly helped me understand my cards better, not just conceptually, but on a gut level. It wasn’t just about memorizing anymore; it was about feeling the energy of the numbers themselves woven into the fabric of the Tarot.
