Those of you who have been practicing Tarot for a while may be familiar with a technique called the Tarot card of the year. Many different websites and books go into how to calculate this so I’ll only go over it briefly. In this article I’ll teach you how to get even more depth and nuance from your yearly card with two different techniques so read on!
To summarize the calculation of your yearly Tarot card, all you need to do is add the day and month of your birthday with the current year. So if you were born on December 15th you would add 12+15+2023 to get 2050. Then add 2+0+5+0 to get 7 which corresponds with the Chariot of the major arcana. Therefore your card for the year is the Chariot and themes around drive and ambition would highlight 2023 for you.
Yearly card sandwich (Significator):
Let’s assume your card of the year is indeed the Chariot. You can get more detail about what this card pertains to by using it as a significator card. To do this, shuffle your deck while thinking about your yearly card. When you’re ready, flip the deck over and start sifting through the cards until you come across the Chariot within the deck. Now look at what cards are immediately before and after the Chariot. These two cards will give you more insight about how the themes of your yearly card will play out in your life. The card before the Chariot represents the context and what you have already experienced leading up to this year. The card after your significator represents what comes next.
Here’s what this looks like in action using my yearly card for 2023 as an example. My birth day and month added to the current year equals 14 which corresponds to the Temperance card of the major arcana. Keeping this in mind, I shuffled my deck and then turned it over to find my card of the year. I found Temperance in between the 10 of Swords and 6 of Wands which you can see in the picture below.
For me 10 of Swords as the card before Temperance made a lot of sense because my yearly card for 2022 was Death. I am going into 2023 with the context of having been through a lot of endings and transformation. The card after Temperance being the 6 of Wands tells me that this year won’t be so heavy (yay!) and will feature plenty of creative opportunities to direct my willpower rather than being stuck in a rut.
Considering the three cards together, my yearly overview can be summed up by balancing past endings and failures with the desire to not give up and allow myself to explore new avenues of creative expression; to learn from my mistakes and use those experiences to keep learning and growing.
From this I can consider my goal for 2023 to be balancing (Temperance) negative self-talk and ruminations around things that previously didn’t work out for me (10 of Swords) with the ambition to define success on my own terms and keep my creative spark alive (6 of Wands).
Wheel of the year (annual profections):
The next technique to jazz up your yearly Tarot card uses an astrological timing technique known as “annual profections”. If you aren’t too familiar with astrology, don’t worry, this is one of the easiest things to learn as a beginner. In a nutshell, annual profections split up your entire life into 12 different areas or realms of experience called “houses” that become especially relevant for that year of your life. When you are born, the first house is activated which has to do with your physical body and of course, physical incarnation is the major theme of your birth year. When you turn one year old, the second house is activated which has to do with your personal resources. At age two the third house is activated, age three activates house four and so on.
To figure out which house is activated for you, check out the chart below and find your current age, then read on to see what each house represents. For example, if you are 25, you’ll find that age 25 corresponds with house 2 in the bottom-left of the chart. If you are 33, you’ll find that in house 10 at the top of the chart.
Here’s a brief summary of what each astrological house represents:
1 = self, body/mind/soul
2 = your stuff and resources
3 = immediate environment, siblings, communication
4 = your home, ancestry, private life
5 = pleasure and creative projects, children
6 = health, service, daily responsibilities
7 = one-on-one partnerships of all kinds
8 = endings, resources of your partners
9 = higher education, travel, spirituality
10 = career and reputation
11 = social networks and shared ideals
12 = isolation, seclusion, unseen forces working against you
Now that you know your yearly Tarot card and your current annual profection, you can combine the meanings to get a clearer idea of what area of your life the significations of your card will manifest in your life. Let’s look at a few examples to illustrate:
If you were born on August 13th then your Tarot card of the year calculation would be:
8+13+2023= 2044
2+0+4+4= 10 (Fortune)
Let’s say you are 21 years old. That would place you in a 10th house profection year which just means that career and reputation are the overarching themes of your life for age 21. Now compare themes of public reputation and career goals with your Tarot card of the year. This example got Fortune so what could that mean? Career + turning point, reputation + impermanence, legacy + changes are a few possible examples.
Here’s another example: if you were born on January 1st the calculation for your Tarot card of the year would be:
1+1+2023= 2025
2+0+2+5= 9 (Hermit)
If you were 23 years old this would mean themes surrounding seclusion would be active as you are in a 12th house profection year. Combining that with the Hermit would pretty much double up on significations regarding periods of isolation and turning inward instead of a publically active and visible year.
Using a little bit of astrology in addition to Tarot is an easy way to get a much more specific and nuanced look at your year ahead.
If you would like to go deeper with the combination of astrology and Tarot to explore your year ahead, book a session with me where we can work together to get to know your year ahead in a personalized setting in depth.
If you’re interested in learning more about annual profections, you can also check out this video by Chris Brennan. To learn more about using Tarot year cards, check out Archetypal Tarot by Mary K Greer.
What Tarot year are you in? Does your card for 2023 resonate with your annual profection? Let me know in the comments! Have any questions? Send me an email by using my Contact Form! I would love to hear from you 🙂
M. M. Kelly 