What Are Tarot Birth Cards + How To Find Yours

Tarot birth cards, also called soul cards, are cards based on the numerology of your birthday that can give you more information about who you are.

Birth cards can give you more information about your identity, your inner world, and your journey in this lifetime including your potential, key themes, strengths, and struggles.

Keep reading to learn how to calculate your cards and discover their meanings!

HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR BIRTH CARD(S)

As with most things in tarot, there is no hard and fast rule on calculating birth cards. There are a couple of methods, and here I’m going to share the method that I use personally and have found the most powerful!

1. Write out your birthday numerically. For example, if your birthday is October 19th, 1994, the digits you’ll be working with are 10-19-1994.

2. Add up each individual number in your birthday. Keeping with the example above, that means I’m adding 1 + 0 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 4 to get 34.

3. Add up any remaining digits if they are greater than 22. Since I got 34 in the step above, that means I’ll now add 3 + 4 to get 7. So the number of your birth card is 7!

If you received a number greater than 22 in step 2, like in this example, then that’s it! But if you received a number equal to 22 or less, then you’ll actually have two birth cards.

Say the number you received in step 2 was 18. The number of your first birth card will be 18, and the number of your second birth card will be 1 + 8 = 9. So you have 2 numbers to work with!

Mary K. Greer is a prominent tarot teacher who has a specific method with birth cards. In her practice, the number 18 will identify your personality card, what you are here in this lifetime to learn. The number 9 will identify your soul card, which shows your purpose across multiple lifetimes.

4. Look up the major arcana tarot card that corresponds to your number(s). I’ve made it easy for you! Keep scrolling to learn what card is associated with each number and what it means.

WHAT YOUR BIRTH CARD MEANS

1: THE MAGICIAN

The Magician, the first card of the major arcana, is a path of manifestation. You may have a lot of ideas, and you’re learning in this lifetime how to channel them, pull them down, and make them manifest in this physical reality.

2: THE HIGH PRIESTESS

In this lifetime, you are learning to embody your lunar nature. You may have a naturally strong intuition and psychic abilities, or this may be something you work to cultivate throughout your life. Working on your psychic development as well as connecting to and honoring your intuition is important for your life path.

3: THE EMPRESS

The Empress as a birth card is an invitation to connect with your creative energy and your Venusian nature. This card is about magnetizing and attracting to you, rather than pushing or forcing. It invites you to nurture yourself and to learn how to receive in this lifetime.It can also indicate a need to explore your relationship with your mother or heal something in your matrilineal line.

4: THE EMPEROR

The Emperor is an invitation to take up space. Throughout your life, you will need to work with the theme of owning your right to take up space, to expand, to be an authority, and to build what you desire without apology.

5: THE HIEROPHANT

The Hierophant teaches us how to be a channel for the wisdom of the Universe, of our guides, of the angels and other cosmic beings. In the Hierophant, we learn to channel truth and to share it with others without overly attaching to outcomes, getting stuck in our ego, or recreating harmful systems of power and authority. Throughout your life, this is a lesson you are learning and an energy you are stepping into.

6: THE LOVERS

With the Lovers as your birth card, you will be learning how to honor and unite duality within you. Throughout your life, you learn how to accept and love all the different, sometimes conflicting, parts of yourself. Evolving through your relationship with others is another big theme of this card, inviting you to allow your relationships (platonic, romantic, business, family, etc.) to trigger you, open you, and evolve you for deeper healing.

7: THE CHARIOT

The Chariot brings an energy of fierce will and determination. But it’s also the number 7 and is ruled by Cancer, adding a more watery flavor and indicating a deeply spiritual path. With the Chariot as your birth card, you’re learning to explore sacred action, action as a spiritual practice, and to trust in the power of your will to bring you where you want to be.

There’s this idea of success and victory with this card as well, indicating that you’ll need to continually redefine over your life what success means to you and what you’re actually moving towards. Is it based on your ego? Or is it truly based on your soul’s mission and purpose?

8: STRENGTH

Strength as your birth card means that you are learning about your relationship to your own power in this lifetime. Strength invites us into a deep knowing of our own power, but it’s a soft, subtle power - not one that dominates, that harms, or is in your face.

It’s a more lunar sense of power, a deep trust in your power that allows you to surrender, to open, to be vulnerable, and to trust yourself and the universe. Stepping into this energy and this sense of power is an important theme on your life’s path.

9: THE HERMIT

The Hermit teaches us how to integrate our own knowing. The Hermit isn’t looking for teachers or knowledge outside of themselves, they know they have a path where deep internal seeking is required.

This isn’t about having a lonely life, it’s about knowing that your evolution comes when you allow yourself the time alone to go inside of yourself, to close off from the external, to integrate and process whatever has come up for you.

10: THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

The Wheel of Fortune as a birth card indicates that in this lifetime, you are learning the balance between action and surrender. You’re learning to trust the balance of fate and free will, of control and trust. Major changes may tend to be a pattern for you, but know that they’re always in your highest and best good.

11: JUSTICE

Justice as a birth card is all about truth. You are learning to believe not what you wish was true but what is actually true - a difficult and powerful lesson. Justice holds a sword to cut away that which is not true - inviting us to look at the truth of who we are, the truth of who others are, and the truth of injustice in our personal lives and in the greater systems that overlay it all.

In the more literal sense, your life might be involved with law, contracts, and partnerships in some way.

12: THE HANGED ONE

The Hanged One is an invitation to step into a new perspective and to get comfortable with discomfort. You are learning how to surrender to what is, to be in the liminal space between where you’ve been and where you desire to be, and to sit with uncomfortable situations, emotions, and thoughts without judgement.

13: DEATH

Death, ruled by Scorpio, is a path of transformation. Your life is about death and rebirth, about shedding the snakeskin of the ego, continuously evolving into the most soul-centered version of you.

14: TEMPERANCE

Temperance is a path of alchemy and magic. Temperance teaches us how to alchemize our pain, our trauma, our shadow into our greatest gifts, into our purpose, into our unique magic. This is what you are learning in this lifetime with Temperance as your birth card.

15: THE DEVIL

The Devil teaches us how to see, claim, and love all the darkness within us. When we see, claim, and love all of our shame, our fear, and our shadow, it becomes a source of our power. With the Devil as your birth card, your invitation is to get deeply acquainted with your shadow rather than letting it run as unconscious programming, controlling your life.

16: THE TOWER

The Tower is a path of cleansing and burning down old structures- internally and externally. The burning down of internal structures can look like: deprogramming unhealthy ways of talking to the self, releasing old emotional patterns like codependence or manipulation, or finally releasing self-hatred and loving yourself. The burning down of external structures can look like moving homes or cities, fighting for restorative justice, ending unhealthy relationships, changing jobs, etc.This is an energy you are moving through throughout your life.

17: THE STAR

The Star, ruled by Aquarius, is a healing path. The Star is an invitation for deep personal healing of core wounds and traumas (from this lifetime and past lifetimes) that has a ripple effect into the collective, into your ancestral line, into your descendants.

With the Aquarius ruling of the card, your path could also involve humanitarian work and efforts, helping facilitate healing for humanity.

18: THE MOON

The Moon is a path of re-wilding. With this birth card, you are learning to tap into and connect to your wild, primal nature - who you were before the world told you who and how to be. Connecting with your wildness is a sacred path of connecting with yourself, your needs, and your desires - and being brave enough to claim and step into them.

19: THE SUN

The Sun is a path of being seen. With this card as your birth card, throughout your life you are learning how to allow yourself to be seen - not as you have been, or think you should be, or wish you were - but how you actually are in each and every moment.

Bringing all the parts of you - even the parts of yourself you don’t love yet - into the light to be honored and witnessed is how you release shame and step into your fullest potential.

20: JUDGEMENT

Judgement, ruled by Pluto, is a path of breakthroughs around judgement and criticism. You are learning that every judgement we have for someone else is just a mirror of what we don’t love within us. With this card, you’re learning to release judgement and criticism towards yourself first and foremost, and all beings everywhere.

21: THE WORLD

The World is a path of endless potential, of closing karmic loops. With the World as your birth card, there is the potential to end painful cycles that may have gone on through generations in your ancestry or through many past lives by doing your own healing work.

22: THE FOOL

Technically, the Fool card is actually 0. But in this practice, you can use the number 22 to identify the Fool card. With the Fool as your birth card, you are learning to release the ego mindset of “I know” or “I should” and step into a curious mindset or “what if?” Or “I could.”The Fool is the embodiment of a seeker, willing to take leaps into the unknown, trusting that they are fully guided and supported.

The meaning of your birth card will likely evolve over your lifetime. At certain points in your journey, you may relate to the card in different ways or feel into a different aspect of it. That’s great! Like life, each tarot card is complex and multifaceted.

You can start to get to know your birth card on a deeper level by meditating on it, journaling with it, putting it on your altar, and working with embodying it.

Interested in learning more about birth cards? I recommend getting Mary K. Greer’s famous workbook Tarot For Yourself and diving in!

What Are the Astrological Houses & How to Understand Them In Your Chart

So you’re learning astrology and understand the planets and the astrological signs in your birth chart or natal chart. Beautiful! Now you’re ready to mix in another piece of the puzzle: houses.

[To download your own free printable birth chart, click here.]

WHAT ARE THE ASTROLOGICAL HOUSES & HOW TO FIND THEM IN YOUR CHART

If you look at your birth chart, you’ll see that it’s divided up into 12 pie pieces. You should see a circle in the middle of the chart with some lines, and branching out from that circle are the pie pieces. Each of these pie pieces is a house.

Depending on the software you use, there may be little numbers at the top of the pie pieces, closest to the inner circle of the chart. If not, you can find the first house by thinking of your chart as a compass, with the line extending out of the top of the inner circle as north (your midheaven), the line to the bottom as south (your IC), the line to the right as east (your descendent) and the line to the left as west (your ascendant). You can learn more about understanding your birth chart here.

The pie piece that starts with your ascendant line, that line to the left, is the beginning of your first house. The houses continue to move counterclockwise around the circle- so starting with your first house, move right to find your second house.

These astrological houses show us where in our lives certain energy may show up. Each house has a specific meaning and is ruled by a particular sign, which I’ll get into below.

FIRST HOUSE

The first house is ruled by Aries. This is the realm of the self, identity, appearance, leadership, fresh starts, and beginnings. If you have a lot of planets in your first house, you may bring a lot of pioneering or initiating energy to your life.

SECOND HOUSE

The second house is ruled by Taurus. It represents income, money, self-esteem, and all things related to your material and physical world, like the senses. It’s said that if you have a lot of planets in your second house, you may manifest things easily in the physical realm.

THIRD HOUSE

The third house is ruled by Gemini. This house is the guardian of all forms of communication as well as siblings, neighborhoods, learning, local travel, community, and the giving and receiving of knowledge.

FOURTH HOUSE

The fourth house is ruled by Cancer. This house rules the foundation of all things and is the foundation, the very bottom, of your birth chart. Think of it as the root chakra for your chart! It covers the home, your basic security, your parents (especially your mother), and how you nurture yourself.

FIFTH HOUSE

The fifth house is ruled by Leo. This house is the guardian of creativity, play, self-expression, romance, fun, drama and attention.

SIXTH HOUSE

The sixth house is ruled by Virgo. This house governs health, service, and daily work. Think schedules, routines, organization, the health, and wellness of your physical body, and being of service to others.

SEVENTH HOUSE

The seventh house is ruled by Libra. This house governs relationships, including all kinds of intimate partnerships (business, romantic, best friends), as well as things associated with relationships such as marriage, contracts, and business deals. This house begins with your descendent, the part of your chart I mentioned above on the far right.

EIGHTH HOUSE

The eighth house is ruled by Scorpio. This house is the realm of birth, death, and rebirth. It covers sex, transformation, bonding and merging at the deepest levels, as well as taxes and other people’s property and money.

NINTH HOUSE

The ninth house is ruled by Sagittarius. This house covers expansion, philosophy, religion, long-distance travel, the higher mind, inspiration, optimism, publishing, broadcasting, higher education, and adventure.

TENTH HOUSE

The tenth house is ruled by Capricorn. This house is at the very top of your chart, beginning with the midheaven. It is the realm of structure, tradition, public appearance, rules, discipline, authority, and the father. With the border of this house as the midheaven, it can reveal truths about your career path.

ELEVENTH HOUSE

The eleventh house is ruled by Aquarius. It governs teams, friendships, groups of all kinds, society, humanitarian causes and social justice, technology, and the internet. It rules all things futuristic, original, eccentric, and surprising.

TWELFTH HOUSE

The twelfth and final house is ruled by Pisces. As the last house of the chart (which ends with your ascendent, bringing us back into the first house), it rules endings. It’s thought to be the most mysterious house, governing the afterlife and past lives, institutions, mysticism, the arts, imagination, the subconscious mind, surrender, hospitals, and jails.

THE HOUSES IN YOUR CHART

Each house has a traditional rulership, as you saw above. This gives us insight into the meaning of the house. But in your chart, the house will likely be ruled by a different sign, which all depends on your rising sign.

Your rising sign is the sign on the ascendant — you should see a little AC to the left of that line, but it’s the line on the far left side of your chart that I mentioned above. Your rising sign will rule the first house.

For example, I’m a Virgo rising. So my first house, which has Aries energy, is ruled by Virgo. My second house will be ruled by Libra, my third house by Scorpio, and we continue around the wheel.

Click here to download your free printable birth chart

HOW TO INTERPRET YOUR HOUSES

Now that you know what the houses mean, how do you interpret them with the other pieces of your chart: the signs and planets? (We won’t get into aspects in this post!)

You can weave these three aspects of your chart together by looking at planet + sign + house.

For example, my Venus is in Scorpio in the third house. So we can look at Venus + Scorpio + 3rd House.

Venus is the planet that shows us where we find great soul satisfaction. It shows us who, what, and how we love. Scorpio is an energy that is about transformation, deep bonding, mystery, and the occult. The third house, as we saw above, rules all things communication and community.

Astrology is an intuitive art, so use your intuition! I would say that this means there is great soul satisfaction for me in communicating about the occult, deep bonding, and transformation. It could also mean that I love to deeply bond with others through communication.

For another example, say you have your Mars in Leo in the 11th house. So we would look at Mars + Leo + 11th house.

Mars is the warrior in our chart, the planet of aspiration, drive, motivation, and willpower. Leo is a sign that loves to be seen, to express, to create, and to be an individual. The 11th house, as we saw above, is the realm of group energy, technology, innovation, humanity, and authenticity.

So one way to look at Mars in Leo in the 11th house is having a lot of drive and motivation to express yourself in a group setting, or to express yourself for the good of the collective - all of humanity.

Try this out with one placement at a time in your chart, and see what mysteries about yourself are revealed!

Want to explore more of your natal chart? Learn about your north node and how it can reveal your life purpose here.