intro to major arcana archetypes

Today on CARD TALK, I’ll cover:
-recommendations for other CARD TALK episodes if you’re a beginner
-four ways to look at the major arcana
-why archetypes are medicine
-three ways to identify an archetype that you might want to work with
-starting an archetype study

Overview of the major arcana's story
Life path number calculator
Life path number info
Astro.com for birth chart
Major arcana astrology correspondences
Yearly numbers and cards
Strength & Starlight: tarot & numerology journaling for 2024
CALL YOUR COVEN podcast
Archetype Medicine lecture

For more on Meg, check out 3amtarot.com, and order your copy of Finding the Fool through Bookshop.org or your favorite local bookstore.

Find episode transcripts and more over on the CARD TALK website. And as a special thank you for CARD TALK listeners, click here to download a completely free, exclusive workbook for building your best personal tarot practice.

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Chapters

• 0:11 Exploring Major Arcana in Tarot
• 7:16 Calculating Birth, Zodiacal, and Yearly Cards
• 18:23 Exploring Major Arcana Archetypes in Tarot

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

I'm Meg Jones-Wall and this is Card Talk, a mini podcast for tarot basics and evergreen insights. I'm here to help you build a tarot practice that works for you. Glad you're here. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about the major arcana. Now, if you are brand new to tarot and you are still learning to understand and unpack the structure of the deck itself, I would actually recommend pausing this episode and listening to some of my earlier episodes on Card Talk. So I would check out the introduction to tarot episode, I would check out the reading versus learning a tarot episode and I would also check out the unlocking tarot with stories episode, because all of those are going to kind of talk about how the major arcana fits into the broader structure or organization of the tarot deck. And look, if you don't want to, that's your business, live your life. But if you have absolutely no idea what the major arcana is, those episodes might be a little bit more helpful for you. However, if you have a good understanding of the fact that the major arcana are the 22 named cards that live within the tarot, then we're in great shape and we can move forward. Now the major arcana can be seen and understood and described and categorized in a lot of different ways, but I think it is important and helpful to remember that for a lot of history these cards were defined first as the fact that they sat outside of the more structured cards of the minor arcana, or the numbered pip cards and court cards, which means that you'll often see, especially in older tarot texts or tarot histories, these cards referred to as trumps.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Now I'm not going to explain how the original tarot card game was played, because I've never played it, but suffice to say it's usually compared to bridge or hearts or spades, or even lost air. If you're like me, I have some Canadian heritage, or rook, I think that's a more Americanized version. But anyway, a trump card is really a card that's in a trump suit which, according to dictionarycom, is held in reserve for winning a trick. Trump means that it's really just a resource that can be played at an opportune moment to win the trick or book of the hand that you're playing. In other words, they're kind of just special cards that have a little bit more importance, a little bit more power and in a card game is able to win the hand. But when we're thinking about it from a more divinatory perspective or from a story perspective, these are really going to be significant cards that demand our attention or ask us to pay a little bit more attention.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Trump cards have extra correspondences, they have layers of meaning, they have deep symbolism and there's just a lot to unpack within Trump cards. And, of course, with Jung and psychology and the framework of collective unconscious, we start to have these ideas of more universal archetypes or story figures or familiar ideas that are theoretically familiar to everyone, regardless of culture, age, gender, et cetera. But the idea of, or language of, archetype is relatively new I would say like less than a hundred years old but I really like thinking about the major arcana cards as archetypes, in particular, because it allows them to be these kind of larger than life figures or energies that can be familiar to people, regardless of how familiar they are with the tarot. Besides describing major arcana cards as trumps and archetypes, we can also think about them as story beats as well as teachers. Now again, I did a whole episode talking about viewing tarot through the lens of story, and it's one of my favorite ways to break down not only the cards themselves but also the transitions from one card to the next and help us understand the interconnectedness between the cards in their linear form Plus. That's something then you can translate to your readings. But really, story beats are ways to think about the cards as aspects of the journey or experiences or moments that we have as part of a larger narrative. And separately from all of this, we can also think about major arcana cards as teachers or mentors, as energies who can teach us something, who can embody something, who can model something for us, really like cards that we can learn from, or figures that we can look to or archetypes that we can dive into and study. There are plenty of other ways to understand major arcana cards, but these kind of four categories trumps, archetypes, story beats and teachers help me the most really contextualize these cards, both in readings and out of readings.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Now, while major arcana cards, especially in readings and like in media and movies and stuff, often feel like they're supposed to be more important than other cards, I don't think they necessarily have to be. I think there's a lot of richness and power that can be found in the minor arcana, but the majors do tend to be kind of flashy and they often feel really significant or extra weighty when they come up in readings. Now, while you can work with any card in the deck outside of readings in terms of studies or meditation on altars as part of spell work or anything else, I do think that archetypes feel particularly delicious for tarot studies and journaling practices and personal work. There's just so much to dig into between correspondences and histories and stories and artwork and alternative names and symbolism and color, and there's just so much to explore when we're looking at particular archetypes, which is why in a lot of my work, I have archetype studies and different ways of engaging with these cards, because I think there's just so much to dig into and so much that we can discover.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Archetypes can offer really profound medicine because no matter where you are in your life, no matter how you're feeling physically or mentally or emotionally or spiritually, no matter what you're craving or grieving or hoping for or working through or reaching for, there is an archetype that can represent that moment in the story. In other words, there is an archetype that can sit in that moment with you and teach you about where you are, and I just find that really comforting. No matter where you are, there's going to be an archetype that can serve as a companion for you, and there's going to be also an archetype that can serve as a next step or a next thing that you want to accomplish or reach for, or way to take care of yourself or whatever. The archetypes have so much to give us, and when we allow ourselves to work with them, both within and outside of readings, there's just really no limit to what we can do and what we can find. They can really help us learn more about who we are and how we want to take up space in the world. But archetypes can also teach us a lot about the tarot itself. Now, while I do offer a number of in-depth archetype studies and containers and examinations, I'm always writing more. It's one of my favorite things to do, and I'm also actually working on a lecture called archetype medicine that's going to cover much more in depth Some of the things we're going to talk about here. I also just want to offer you a few really simple ways that you can start to work with archetypes and you can start to think about which archetypes might already be really relevant for your life. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 7:16

The first technique that I want to suggest is to calculate your birth card. Now, your birth card is really. It's actually a numerological technique, but it's really just a way of looking at your life path number in numerology and kind of translating that over to the tarot. Now I hope to do an episode with B Skolnick, who is a really fantastic numerologist and also the numbers specialist on the other podcast that I work on, call your Coven. I want to do a whole episode with her about birth cards.

Speaker 1: 7:42

But if you're not familiar with calculating your birth card, here's how you do it. All you have to do is add together all of the numbers or digits in your birth date. So, for example, if your birthday is April 7th 1969, you're going to add seven plus four plus one plus nine plus six plus nine to equal 36. And then you're going to consolidate that further and add three plus six to equal nine. So what that means is not only is your life path number a nine, but it also means that then we can map that number onto the core archetypes of the tarot, which means that this person's birth card would be card number nine. In other words, it would be the hermit. So the hermit is this person's birth card.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Now I will also share mine, because I'm a November baby, and if you have an 11 or a 22 in your birthday. You're going to want to keep that doubled number whole, at least for the first round of calculations. So let me talk you through it. My birthday is November 4th 1985, which means I'm going to add 11 to four, and then add one plus nine plus eight plus five, which gives me a total of 38. Now then I'm going to consolidate that number, and three plus eight once again is 11. Now I can stop there. I really hate the term master numbers, but that's what 11, 22, 33, 44, et cetera are considered. But because I consider 11 my life path, it can also mean that then I'm looking at either justice or strength as my birth card. But I often also then will consolidate it, which means that I can work with both justice and the high priestess as my birth cards, depending on how your numbers consolidate. If your numbers consolidate to 21, for example, then you might want to work with the world. But two plus one will also give you three, which means you might want to work with the world and the Empress. Depending on how your numbers calculate or shake out. You might have two cards, like I do, instead of just the one, and you can really decide which ones you want to work with, if you want to work with both or if you just want to work with one, and I will just say I'll put a calculator in the show notes If you don't feel like doing math. There are lots of websites that will calculate this for you and just tell you what your life path number is.

Speaker 1: 9:58

There are lots of ways to work with your birth card, but this is going to be an archetype, or a set of archetypes that might feel relevant for you throughout your life. So starting by working closely with these archetypes, figuring out what you have in common with them, what you love about them and also what might feel sticky or hard to understand about them, what confuses you about them, what you want to better explore or understand about them, can be a really great place to get started with a deeper archetype study. You can look at these cards in different decks, you can research where the different imagery and symbolism for these cards came from, you can look into alternative names for these cards and you can also just spend time in meditation with these cards. You can talk to them, you can journal to them, you can pull cards around them or for them. Really, the sky's the limit when it comes to working with your birth card, but I recommend that everyone do this, because everyone has a birth card and the archetype that you work with closely can reveal a lot about who you are and what might be supportive for you in a regular way through the course of your entire life. Now it's possible.

Speaker 1: 11:01

You've also heard the expression birth card used and calculated not from a numerological standpoint, but from a zodiacal or astrological standpoint. I've seen the word or the expression birth card used in a few different ways, so I'm going to differentiate by also saying that you also have a zodiacal card which, if you're really not into math or not into numerology, this could be a simpler way to find another card, another tarot archetype that really aligns with who you are in various ways. So this one's a little bit easier to calculate because all you need to know is your sun sign. Now, if you're not an astrology girly, gender neutral, and you don't know what your sun sign is, you've never looked at your birth chart before. I'm going to put a link to astrocom in there. Just plug in your birth information and look to see where your sun was at the moment of your birth.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Now, all sun signs whichever of the 12 astrological signs your sun is in at the moment of your birth, have a corresponding card from the major arcana. Now, the ones that you'll commonly see were developed by the order of the golden dawn in the early 1900s. Some people love them more than others, but it can be a nice place to start if you're looking for a zodiacal or astrological correspondence for yourself. So, for example, I am a Scorpio, I was born on November 4th, as I said, and so my corresponding card is death. So I have death as one of my birth cards. Our example of this person born on April 7th 1969, they would be an Aries, which means that they could look to the emperor as their birth card or as one of their birth cards.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Now it can be really fun to look at your numerological cards and your zodiacal cards side by side and kind of see what they have in common. When I look at all of my cards together, I've got death, I've got the priestess and I've got justice, which honestly feels pretty loud, given who I am and what I do. Sometimes you might find that some cards feel more strongly aligned with who you feel you are than others, so you really can pick and choose which cards you really want to work with and which ones you might want to set to the side. You might find that at a later point in your life different cards start to feel more relevant than others, but I always think it's fun to calculate all of them and see which ones really resonate the most for you. And again, I highly recommend working with your zodiacal card in different ways seeing what comes up when you work closely with it, seeing what comes up when you meditate with it or journal to it, seeing how often it comes up in your readings, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 13:33

The last kind of universal way that I want to talk about choosing an archetype to work with in a particular moment is by calculating your yearly card. Now, just like we are all in universal numerological cycles which we find by adding together the digits of the year which we're in 2024 right now, two plus zero plus two plus four is eight, so we are in a universal eight year. But you are also in your own cycles. Now yours might align with the universal cycles, but you also might be in a completely different number, and so, thinking about those broader cycles of one to nine, it can be really interesting to not just calculate which number you're in and which part of the cycle you're in or which part of the story you're in. But it can also be really cool to look at what your yearly card or cards are and think about how they really reflect different themes that you might be working through, different goals that you have for the year, et cetera. Right, there's a lot of different ways that these cards can be relevant for us.

Speaker 1: 14:33

So, to calculate your yearly card, you're going to add the digits for the month and the day of your birth together. Then you're going to add that to the number of the year. Now I just told you 2024 is an eight year, so really all you need to do is add the number for your month and day of your birth and add it to eight. You might need to consolidate those, but you're going to come back to having that core number for your year and then again being able to map that onto the tarot. So, for example, our example of April 7th right, we're going to add four and seven to get 11 plus eight is going to be 19. Now, this is a really fun one because 19 is already one of the cards in the major arcana, right? This is the sun. So you could stop there and just say that this person is in a sun year. But if you want to consolidate down, you can add one and nine and get to 10. So then you also have the wheel, and then you can also add one to zero and get the magician. So this person is actually in a year where they could work with the sun, the wheel and the magician, or they could just pick one or two of those cards to work with closely. But this is a really fun example because you do have multiple cards for this person for this year.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Now mine's a little bit simpler. My birthday is November 4th, so I'm adding 11 and four to get 15. We add eight for 2024 and we get 24, and two plus four is six, which means that I personally am in a six year this year, or I'm in a lover's year. Looking at this card that's going to change alongside these kinds of steady cards right, our our life path card, our birth card, as well as our zodiacal card or our astrological card, we can think about this as a little set that's really going to represent who we are always, but also who we are this year, or what energy is going to be significant for us this year.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Now, these are just three techniques for ways to find an archetype that might feel really relevant for you or that might be worth working on or with, or to or towards. You know right, there's a lot of different things that we can do with these archetypes, but I've also created a lot of different courses and I have an upcoming lecture that I'm releasing called archetype medicine. I'm planning to release it on October 20th, which I think should be just a couple of days after this episode comes out, and it's really about figuring out which archetype might suit your emotions in the moment. So, beyond just these kind of general archetypes that we can always come back to and always work with, archetype medicine is really about connecting with how we feel or what we might be craving or what we could really use for support in a particular moment, and working with these archetypes in a way that's going to be incredibly supportive and therapeutic and medicinal. So if you're interested in that, I will drop a link in the show notes that you can check out and you can sign up for that to have it delivered straight to you as soon as it's ready to go.

Speaker 1: 17:19

I always like to end these episodes with a tip or a trick, and for this I just want to say there's so much that we can say about the major arcana archetypes. There are so many different ways to work with these and understand them and explore them, and so what I will say is that, while these cards can feel often really intimidating or really intense or even really scary, I would really encourage you to be curious about them instead of intimidated by them. There's so much to dig into with these cards, and while there are certainly some archetypes that might really scare you or feel really negative or really overwhelming, all of these archetypes have medicinal qualities to them. All of them have beauty and power. All of them have strength and resources that we can tap into that are going to be useful for us in different points of our life. Right, all of these archetypes represent something that we might need, depending on the moment.

Speaker 1: 18:12

So it's okay to be afraid or to be nervous or to be intimidated by these cards, but I would really encourage you, if there's a card that really scares you, instead of avoiding it, to actually just try to spend some time with it.

Speaker 1: 18:23

If you find yourself consistently intimidated by a particular archetype, I would really encourage you to dig into it and explore it, rather than avoiding it. Archetypes are really cool and there's so many different ways to work with them, so I sincerely hope that this episode has given you some places to go and some things to explore when it comes to working with the major arcana archetypes. That is all I have for you today, but, as always, thank you so much for spending this time with me, and I will be back again soon with more Card Talk. Card Talk episodes are always free for everyone to enjoy, so if you love what you hear, please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing, recommending Card Talk to a friend or two or donating to help with production costs. You can find episode transcripts, learn more about me and join my signature Tarot Conservatory membership program through my website, 3amtarotcom. Thanks for listening and see you next time you.