I have stopped counting the number of numerologists who tell me I am wrong. They have the right key, the true key, the one and only key that will decipher the mysteries of ALL THE WORDS.

**Sigh**

The key they refer to is the “Pythagorean” key, which doesn’t come from Pythagoras. It comes from Aso Neith Cochran, who most likely adapted it from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s letter-number key. It was made popular by author Sarah Balliett and her friend, Dr. Julia Seton, MD, in the early 1900s. Across the ocean, occultists Cheiro and Sepharial were busy hanging out in the British Museum, getting high off dusty old scrolls, and concocting their own versions of numerological word analysis, each using keys that were, again, different. I’ve written about that already, here.

After nearly 40 years of study and practice, I have come to the conclusion that they are all correct. They will all tell you something about yourself or the word you are investigating. I have linked a document below. I will share it on the Free Resources page also.

The Pythagorean key is the one that we are all familiar with. It is sequential, making it easy to learn. The Chaldean key is not sequential, but it isn’t difficult to follow. I do prefer results using this key, but the main site uses the Pythagorean key strictly for now, simply because it is the best-known one. I have also included the sound key I use. You do not use it for spelling letter by letter, but by how a word is spoken, and that can be different for every person who speaks. It is my favourite key to use when I have the privilege of hearing a client speak their name to me.

Letter Keys

Well, it’s September, and with the falling leaves and the pumpkin spice comes the time when I start shuffling things around — don’t ask why. I don’t have a good reason for doing this every fall; just know that if there is going to be a shift in direction around here, it will happen close to Mabon. That just seems to be my way.

I have spent the last couple of years having a very public karmic shift in direction. It’s probably all that transit Pluto tap-dancing on my North Node. Earlier this summer, I experienced my Mars return and, with it, a huge surge of energy (I laughed when I had a look back at my chart). The Mercury retrograde in Cancer did a big number on me as well, although it was a VERY GOOD TIME for me; lots of things that I thought I would never see again (mostly books that I had to leave behind when I left a miserable and manipulative relationship in 2016) came back to me. This made my heart happy and, in part, greatly helped push this shift.

Since that retrograde, I have found myself returning to the things I used to do in my practice that I put down when they seemed too simple and I wanted to advance. One of those things is going back to my old chart style. Another is the Pythagorean letter-number key. We parted ways in the 90s when I discovered Chaldean and Vedic numerology, but lately we have been meeting for quiet dates. I think we’re officially seeing each other again because I created 78numbers.com, and in order to keep it simple, I went with the Pythagorean key. Chaldean and I still see each other on the side, and one day we may all be a throuple, but for now, the site just contains the one alphabet key.

78numbers was born out of the ashes of Codex Numerorum, which, while it suited me greatly, was terribly overwhelming for beginners. Since beginners are most of the online spiritual community and 99.9% of the numerology online revolves around the (Western) Pythagorean key, it was pointless to keep moving forward with the colossus of a web app that Codex Numerorum had become. 78numbers is an actual website and, at present, does not have a membership option. It is 100% free to use. You only pay a small fee if you want to keep the chart that you cast.

I used this site to speed up my chart calculations at the fair over the weekend before it got too hot to use my phone, and I had to stick it in the cooler for the rest of the day. The response was very good! Those that I couldn’t read for due to time constraints were referred to the site. I haven’t done a full and proper roll-out…..is this my roll-out? Naaah. Maybe? I’ll do a big splashy over on Patreon once I’ve got my dusty old podcast rebranded.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. It’s time to go to the gym and shake some o’ the lard off me arse! Everyone, as you were!

Just sit back and have a look at it.

One of the things I tell seekers, regardless of which numerology system they use, is this:

Before you reduce a letter to a number, look at the actual letter. That sounds almost too obvious, but sometimes we overlook the simple approach. I am certainly guilty of that!

People get very invested in whether a letter belongs to this number or that number, whether the Pythagorean key is better than the Chaldean one, whether or not a letter should be connected to a Tarot card, a planet, or a sign. Those things can be useful, but before any of that, there is the letter itself:

• The shape of the letter.

• Its balance: does it rock back and forth, stand precariously, or would you need a storm to bring it down?

• It is opened or closed?

• Where does it appear to hold energy, and where does it appear to release it?

• Does it stand upright straight and tall?

• Does it gather energy, contain it or spill it, point backward, or face forward?

I have always found that the physical form of a letter gives you information before any numerical value is assigned to it.

Take the humble letter A:

A looks like a person standing with their feet planted apart and their arms folded. It is not a passive shape. It stands securely. There is a sense of presence and self-possession in it.

Now look at B:

B is closed. Both the upper and lower spaces are contained. The mental and physical planes, if you want to describe them that way, are both full. And despite being enclosed, B is soft. Rounded. It holds.

C is entirely different:

C looks like a tilted cup or cauldron. It is open. It gathers, but it does not hold indefinitely. Eventually, something spills out.

D has no separate upper and lower compartment. It is one solid enclosed field. Full and stable. It stands there. Like A, it is not falling over.

Then there is E:

E is stable, but both the upper and lower parts are open to the right. In many metaphysical systems, the right side is associated with the future. E does not hold onto things for very long. It receives, processes, and releases, always looking forward.

F looks similar, but it lacks the stability of E. It is straight and upright, almost like a 1, but structurally it is top-heavy, unbalanced toward the future, and easier to knock over.

G behaves more like C. It rocks. It gathers. But unlike C, it has that little gate. Some things are held back, at least temporarily. Of course, that tiny gate is not exactly Fort Knox. The dam will break eventually.

H looks like a ladder. Open at the top, open at the bottom, with a bridge in the middle. Energy moves through it rather than being stored.

I is straight, singular, upright, independent. It is also rigid. There is not much flexibility in the form. And if pushed hard enough, it can fall.

Then we come to J:

J is upright like I, but it is less rigid. It rocks more easily. And that hook faces backward.

That is one of the reasons I pay attention to J when I teach letter interpretation. There is often something about the past in it. Memory. Prior experience. What happened before. Sometimes that becomes wisdom. Sometimes it colours the present more than it should.

K moves forward. Its upper and lower energies are open and directional. It is walking towards the future like a person in profile with arms up to draw down from spirit and one foot in motion while the other tries to hold it still. Like its number correspondence, Master 11, it can be dramatic.

L gathers energy and faces forward. It stands independently and securely, but it does not retain what it gathers for very long. Like C, L likes to share, but it has sharper edges.

M is a storehouse. Energy flows down into that central valley, but it also rises through the open lower spaces. It holds energy coming up from the earth like A, H, and K. Like a mountain, it stands securely..

N does something similar to M, but the openings are reversed. The opposing flow creates balance.

O is one of the most obvious containers in the alphabet. It is an open mouth, a monad, a whole field. Everything is in there waiting to come out.

P is like F, but the upper mental space is enclosed. There is more containment in the mind than in the lower portion.

Q resembles O, but the tail gives it direction and additional stability. It rocks less and stands still, the tail pulling everything forward.

R resembles K, but the mental energy is contained. There is less flailing and more directness. Less drama. Less, shall we say, Karen energy.

S cycles energy like N, but it is rounded and softer. It rocks. It bends. It moves without necessarily breaking.

T stands tall like I, but it is top-heavy. Energy extends outward in both directions at the top, toward past and future. It can be impressive and commanding, but it can also be knocked over.

U is a chalice. It collects like C, but it holds more effectively. Unless the force is strong enough to overflow it, the energy stays inside. It is soft, curved, and able to rock without falling.

V resembles U, but the angles are harder. It stands tall, but it is less stable.

W is what happens when M has had a few martinis, and everything starts flying out. The basic structure is similar, but the energy behaves very differently. W is more stable than V, but nowhere near as contained as M.

X stands firmly, like A. It balances upper and lower movement like H, N, S, B, and others, but it does not hold energy. It redirects it.

Y stands tall like I. Like V, M, and W, it has a valley that can trap energy, but it holds on to less, so things cycle out more quickly. It is also open and can become top-heavy.

And Z moves opposing energies the way S and N do, but there is nothing soft about it. It is angular, stable, and open to both past and future.

This is why I tell people not to begin with the number. Yes, the number and the numerology system that you use can matter. Yes, correspondences also matter, but the letter itself came first.

The number tells you what family the letter belongs to in the particular numerological system that you practice. The shape tells you how that energy moves regardless of the numerological system you practice, and it informs the base interpretation. That is the part I think people skip too quickly.

If you are using Pythagorean numerology, look at the letter first.

If you are using Chaldean numerology, look at the letter first.

If you are mapping the letters of the English alphabet to Tarot, astrology, the Kabbalah, planetary rulerships, or anything else, look at the letter first.

Before you decide which system is right, ask what the letter itself is already telling you, because sometimes the letters have been sitting there explaining themselves this whole time.

Edit: I wrote this and loaded it into September’s content in the spring, before Alex Reads Tarot did her thing and sparked a huge conversation across WitchTok about all the young people positioning themselves as experts, and then collapsing under the weight of the expectations of their peers who also don’t know enough to know that they are elevating beginners to deity status. I came back to this, thinking I might remove it, and realized it was preemptively relevant.

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Divination is often introduced as an intuitive art. “Trust your gut!” says the enthusiastic social media creator as she pulls a card. “Look!” she holds up the 3 of Swords. “If you’re seeing this in your fyp, your angel guides want you to know that he’s thinking about you all the time and really needs to hear from you.” I have lost count of how many “readers” I’ve seen on TikTok, some with over a million followers, pull this exact card while reciting almost word-for-word what I have written above. It has become something of a cosmic joke.

For those of you feeling seen by that paragraph, yes, your intuition matters. The sudden flashes of recognition matter. There are moments in a reading when meaning arrives whole, like a bell striking inside your belly. You see the cards, numbers, transits, or patterns in the smoke, and you just know something in your bones, before your rational mind has had time to catch up and assemble its argument against your feelings.

I’m not saying that it isn’t real.

But intuition is not the whole of divination, especially when you are using a system that has developed over several centuries and has an established body of work.

If intuition is the spark that jumps from the flame, then study is the hearth. The fire needs somewhere to thrive.

Divination without study can become impressionistic and vague, or reactive and overly dependent on the mood of the moment. The reader may confuse their own anxiety for insight, projecting their own isms into the session. If there isn’t any study, every reading risks becoming a mirror of the reader’s current emotional state and gives nothing useful to the client.

Yes, divination requires intuition. I’m not trying to take the woo away from it. But it also requires literacy. A reader must know how to read the symbols they are looking at within their chosen system.

Symbols Are Language

Tarot, numerology, astrology, runes, geomancy, tea leaves, oghams, bones, dice, and other systems are not random things with “fake” meanings. You can’t just make stuff up and have it be true, in spite of what skeptics might say. They are all languages that communicate someone’s inner world in a way that makes the goings-on in their lives comprehensible.

Like any language, these systems can be approached casually. A person can learn a few words in a new language and still say something meaningful. There is nothing wrong with beginning there. Everyone begins somewhere, but fluency requires study.

A person who knows a few words of French can order coffee, greet someone, or recognize a phrase in a song. That does not prepare them for a deep discussion on the works of Voltaire with a French speaker. A person who knows the keyword “transformation” for Death can receive a meaningful insight. That doesn’t mean they understand the card’s deeper relationship to endings, transition, severance, the development of a thing, or how other cards might modify it.

The problem is not beginner knowledge. We all start out with beginner knowledge. The problem is mistaking beginner knowledge for mastery. The internet is rife with “beginner experts”, and AI is not going to help this.

Divination requires study because esoteric languages all have their own unique syntax. A Tarot card changes according to position, question, neighbouring cards, deck tradition, sequence, number, suit, direction, and the lived situation of the client. A number changes according to whether it appears as a Life Path, Destiny, Heart, Expression, Personal Year, whether or not it’s a compound value, or a master number. An astrological chart placement changes according to sign, house, aspect, dignity, motion, and the chart as a whole.

Intuition Needs a Container

Some people worry that too much studying will kill their intuition.

This fear is understandable when we realize that most of us were taught to distrust our own perception. We’re still taught that what we see or sense is not the truth and that it is untrustworthy. When some of us finally begin reading intuitively, we do not want a pile of rules to silence the voice we have worked so hard to hear.

But real study does not kill intuition. It strengthens and develops it.

Yo Yo Ma does not just play scales. He is extremely skilled, and he has an intuitive/psychic ability that is channelled through his skill and cello. William Shakespeare did not become less inspired because he was a master of iambic pentameter. A dancer does not become less expressive or less able to connect with an audience at an energetic level because they studied their technique. A good cook does not become less creative because they understand heat, salt, fat, and acid.

I would argue quite vociferously that study and practice help these people to become better at channelling their unique “je ne sais quoi” into whatever they do. Skill gives inspiration more ways to move.

The same is true in divination. Study gives intuition a container to move around in, safely. It helps the reader know what kind of information they are receiving, where it belongs, and how much weight to give it.

Upon glancing at a day chart or card spread, an intuitive flash might say, “This person is exhausted.”

Study asks:

• What sort of exhaustion is this: physical, emotional depletion, spiritual burnout, or responsibility fatigue?

• Is the reader describing the client, another person, the environment, or projecting their own issues onto the reading?

• Is this the main message or a supporting note?

The intuition may be correct, but studying the body of work associated with their system helps the reader place it more accurately. Without that container, the flash of intuition may become too large, too vague, or too personal. The reader may overstate it, attach it to the wrong part of the reading, or treat it as the entire message when it is only one thread in the chart.

Study does not silence intuition. Instead, it teaches intuition how to become useful.

The Difference Between Seeing and Interpreting

Divination is not only the act of seeing. It is also the act of interpreting what is seen. A reader may see The Moon. They may feel anxiety, secrecy, dreams, memory, confusion, or psychic atmosphere. But interpretation asks what the Moon is doing in this particular reading. Is it describing the client’s perception? The environment? The past? The unconscious? A hidden factor? A timing issue? A warning against projection? A spiritual process that has not yet become conscious? Is the client emerging from a recent situation, still not sure of their emotional footing? Are they navigating new mental or physical territory on their own?

Seeing the symbol is only the first step.

Interpreting it requires a method.

The same is true in numerology. A 7 may indicate study, solitude, analysis, crisis, spiritual inquiry, detachment, secrecy, skepticism, or the need to look beneath appearances. But what kind of 7 is it? Is it a birth lesson? A Personal Year transit? A day number? A major planetary cycle? An Expression? A repeating number in their external environment? Is it showing up as detachment, or is it operating more as crisis analysis and nervous system withdrawal?

A reader who has not studied may simply say, “7 means spirituality.”

That may not be wrong, but it may be greatly insufficient. Study teaches nuance. It teaches the reader how to ask the next question.

Study Protects the Seeker

Divination is powerful because the clients who seek us out bring their vulnerability to the table. They ask us about love, grief, money, career changes, family problems, illness and injury, spiritual confusion, loss, power, longing, and an assortment of decisions they may not feel ready to make on their own. Even when a reading is lighthearted, the chart can still touch on something deep.

This means the reader has a responsibility.

A careless interpretation can frighten someone unnecessarily. A dramatic statement can lodge in the psyche like a curse. A vague reading can keep someone confused. A projection can send someone down the wrong path. A premature prediction can narrow a person’s sense of agency. This is why, in many places, we have to paraphrase our readings with statements like, “For entertainment purposes only,” because the only standard we really have is the one we set as individuals working within a chosen system. Like the example I opened with, how many emotionally vulnerable (mostly) women in TikTok chats see a reader hold up a random card, say something like, “He misses you SO MUCH and really wants you to call,” and then they do exactly that, because why would AshleeTarotGdss2010 steer them wrong? If they’re lucky, they only get their heart broken twice.

Study does not make a reader perfect, but it makes them more responsible.

A studied reader is more likely to understand when something in a reading is describing fear rather than fact. They are more likely to know that a difficult transit or placement is not automatically a disaster. They are more likely to distinguish a symbolic death from literal death, a karmic lesson from punishment, a delay from denial, a warning from doom, and an entrenched pattern from a one-time event.

They are also more likely to know when not to overreach. This is one of the great signs of real study: humility.

The more deeply we study divination, the more we understand that symbols are precise, but our interpretation of them must be handled with care. We learn to say, “This reflects,” rather than “This absolutely means.” We learn to distinguish signal strength, noting when the reading is clear and when the field remains ambiguous. Study protects the client and their free will because it protects the reading from the reader’s ego.

Study Protects the Reader

Study also protects the reader. Without a strong foundation, diviners can become overwhelmed by their own sensitivity. All the cards feel urgent. Every synchronicity feels like a command to drop everything and rush toward some mythical future. Every dream becomes a prophecy. Every repeated number becomes an emergency message from untested spirit guides. Every client’s crisis enters the reader’s body and stays there.

This is exhausting.

A studied system helps the reader sort the field and prioritize the information they are receiving via their system of choice. Not everything is equally important. Not every sign is an omen, and not all omens require action. Repetition of symbols is not always destiny. Not every difficult card is a crisis. Most importantly, not every emotional reaction is intuition or “That’s totally your angel guides telling you how great/awesome/dangerous [insert person, place, or thing here] is.”

Study gives the reader tools for proportion, and it teaches boundaries. Study also teaches context and that a symbol can be meaningful without also being catastrophic. It teaches that timing can be important. It can teach us that a single card should not be forced to carry the whole reading. Study can also teach us necessary boundaries so that the reader is not required to become a lightning rod for every possible meaning.

This is especially important for highly sensitive readers who unwittingly absorb their client’s energies like sponges. Being highly sensitive without having a structure to function within can become overwhelming, but on the flip side, structure without sensitivity can produce a bunch of interpretations that just feel flat. Divination requires both.

The Hermit carries the lantern, but he does not set the whole forest on fire.

Tradition Is Not a Cage

Some spiritual seekers resist studying a system in any rigorous way because they associate it with dogma. They have good reason to feel this way. Many people come to metaphysics period after leaving restrictive religious environments, authoritarian teachers, rigid institutions, or systems where their intuition and lived experience were either feared or dismissed. For them, “study” may sound like returning to someone else’s rules.

Tradition and dogma are not the same thing, though. Dogma says, “Do not question this.” Tradition says, “Many people walked this road before you. Here are their mistakes, discoveries, warnings, and wins.”

Having a tradition to draw on does not require blind obedience. It gives us something to inherit, challenge, expand upon, and revise. An established tradition or a body of work to learn from keeps us from having to invent everything from scratch. It also keeps us honest when our personal associations drift too far from the symbolic structure we claim to be reading. This is especially important in Tarot.

A person can read Tarot entirely through personal intuition, and sometimes that may work beautifully. But Tarot is also a historical, visual, numerical, and symbolic system. The Marseille deck does not speak exactly like the Rider-Waite-Smith. The order of Justice and Strength matters. The pip cards invite a different kind of literacy than scenic illustrated minors. The cards have relationships to number, suit, gesture, colour, rank, sequence, and tradition. For that matter, illustrated minor cards can seem helpful at first, but limiting later if you can’t see past the scene depicted on the card.

Ignoring tradition may feel freeing at first. Eventually, it can become limiting because tradition is not so much authority from the past, but accumulated memory. La Papesse has an open book in her lap for a reason.

Study Creates Range

A reader who does not study often has a small interpretive range. The same cards always mean the same things. The same numbers always reduce to the same keywords. The same astrological placements always produce the same personality statements. The reading becomes familiar, and it may catch the algorithm online, but it is not necessarily accurate.

Study expands range:

• The Lovers becomes more than romance. It becomes choice, value, alignment, temptation, union, moral crossroads, and the consequences of wanting to leave familiarity behind.

• The Devil becomes more than toxicity. It becomes attachment, appetite, shame, material power, forbidden pleasure, unconscious contracts, and the misuse or reclamation of desire.

• The Tower becomes more than disaster. It becomes structural failure, liberation, revelation, collapse of false architecture, and the release of trapped forces.

• The 4 becomes more than stability. With study, it becomes structure under pressure, the gifts of the outsider, ambition, obsession, systems, rupture, and the desire to build what conventional order cannot provide.

• The 9 becomes more than compassion; it becomes completion, heat, courage, severance, protection, final actions, and the struggle that must be put down.

This range matters because life has range. People and situations are not keywords. A client’s marriage, career, grief, creative work, spiritual crisis, or ancestral patterns cannot always be served by the simplest meanings. Study gives the reader more rooms in the house.

Study Teaches Timing

One of the most neglected parts of divination is timing. A symbol does not only say what. It may also say when, for how long, in what sequence, under what conditions, or at what stage of development. Without study, timing can become guesswork or wishful thinking.

The Hermit understands timing. He knows that some truths are not ready for action. Some beginnings require preparation. Some endings have already happened internally but have not yet become external. Some delays are protective. Some opportunities are temporary. Some cycles are ripening, while others are closing.

Numerology is especially useful here because numbers unfold through time. Personal years, months, days, name transits, pinnacles, challenges, dashas, and other cycle systems teach that life does not express the same lesson at all times. A 1-year asks for initiation differently than a 9-year. A 4-month in a 5-year has a different feeling than a 4-month in an 8-year. A 7-day may be a contemplative pause, an investigative window, or a small crisis of perception, depending on the larger cycles that modify it.

Study allows timing to become layered. Without study, a reader may treat every reading as if the message exists outside time. Divination is often most useful, though, when it helps us understand time itself. Most of the people who seek you out will do so not just because they want to know what will happen, but when it will happen or when they should act.

Study Teaches Ethics

Ethics are not separate from technique. How we read affects what we read. A reader who believes they are always right will interpret differently from a reader who understands that they are not there to tell the client what to do. A reader who wants to impress will interpret differently from a reader who wants to serve. A reader who fears disappointing the client may soften every difficult card. A reader who enjoys drama may exaggerate every warning.

Study helps us notice these tendencies.

It teaches us to ask:

“Am I….

• actually reading the symbol, or am I reading my own reaction?”

• helping the client see clearly, or am I trying to be impressive?”

• turning uncertainty into certainty because certainty feels more powerful?”

• using spiritual language to avoid practical reality?”

• giving the client agency, or am I trapping them in a prediction?”

• interpreting this through fear, bias, hope, resentment, or personal history?”

Good divination requires self-study as much as system study. The reader is the instrument. If the instrument is badly tuned, the message distorts. This is why I sneak those journaling questions in every week. It isn’t necessary to do all of them, but if you do enough of them, you’ll notice a shift within.

Study Makes Intuition Testable

One of the most valuable things that studying provides is a way to test intuitive impressions. This does not mean reducing divination to laboratory certainty. This work will always involve art, subtlety, and mystery. But a reader can still track their impressions, compare outcomes, review old readings, notice recurring patterns, and refine their method over time.

This is where journaling becomes essential. Write down:

• The reading.

• The context.

• The first impression.

• The method used.

• What actually happened later.

• Where the interpretation was accurate.

• Where it was incomplete.

• Where personal bias entered.

• What the system taught you after the fact.

This is not glamorous work. It’s long, tedious, and boring. It’s not nearly as fun as having your ego stroked by people online when you deliver vague isms about how to make money using Jupiter this month. It is Hermit work. It is also how divination becomes reliable.

Over time, the reader begins to notice the difference between a true hit and a charged-up guess. They learn how certain cards behave for them in particular contexts. They learn which numbers show up before pressure, opportunity, endings, study periods, relational shifts, or material consequences. They develop memory, which is one of the foundations of mastery.

Study Allows Mystery to Stay Mysterious

Strangely, study does not eliminate mystery, for those who fear this very thing. It actually protects it. Those with a shallow relationship with symbols often try to solve everything too quickly. They want the meaning now. They want the answer now. They want the mystery reduced to a sentence that can be posted, packaged, or consumed.

Deeper study teaches reverence.

The more we study, the more we realize that a symbol can be known and still remain alive. The Moon can be studied for a lifetime in astrology and still appear in a chart with a new tone every time. The Hermit can be analyzed through image, number, and placement, and still lift the lantern in a way that surprises us. The number 8 can be understood through Saturn, Justice, karma, material accountability, power, and law, and still teach differently every time it appears in a birth chart. Study does not flatten the symbol.

The Student Becomes the Reader

In every divinatory tradition, the reader must remain a student. This is not a sign of inadequacy. It is the condition of the work. A student’s mind is wide open, and they want to learn. The reader who stops studying begins to repeat themselves. They rely on old meanings, old habits, old confidence, old stories. They may still be helpful, but the work slowly loses vitality.

A good reader keeps learning. We never stop being students, and a smart reader knows that they do not know it all.

They return to the cards. They recalculate the chart. They reread the old book and look at new sources of information. They compare systems. They test techniques. They listen to clients. They revise interpretations. They notice when a symbol has changed meaning through experience. They admit when something did not work. They develop a relationship with uncertainty that is neither fearful nor careless.

The best readers are not those who have memorized the most. They are the ones who remain teachable. The Hermit is old because wisdom takes time. But he is still walking forward. He has not become a monument to what he once learned. He carries the lantern because the path is still unfolding. Even he can’t see more than a few steps ahead with his lantern.

A September Practice for Diviners

September is an excellent time to recommit to studying. Choose one subject within the vast field of divination that you want to deepen. Not a bunch of them. Just choose one. This list is a suggestion only:

• Tarot

• Tea leaf reading

• Runes

• Planetary hours

• A specific deck tradition like RWS, Marseille, or Thoth

• Tithis

• Numerological name analysis

Then give it a month of daily, disciplined attention. Even just fifteen minutes each day can make a difference.

• Read about it.

• Journal about it.

• Pull it intentionally, if it’s a card or some type of lot.

• Track what appears in daily readings or charts.

• Compare interpretations.

• Look at how it reflects in your life.

• Notice any assumptions you may have held.

• Take note of what you missed.

• Pay attention to what becomes clearer through repetition.

At the end of the month, ask:

• What did I know before?

• What do I know now?

• What knowledge did my studies correct?

• What area of my chosen method did my studies deepen?

• What did my intuition help me to notice first?

• What still remains mysterious?

This is how a reader grows, through sustained attention.

The Lantern and the Book

The Hermit carries the light to illuminate the way, and La Papesse holds the book of world memory/knowledge. Together, they teach the heart of divination.

The lantern illuminates the next few steps. It shows what is present, immediate, and ready to be seen. The book is accumulated knowledge. It preserves what has been learned, tested, recorded, and remembered.

A reader needs both.

With only the lantern, the reader may wander from impression to impression with no record, no method, and no grounding. With only the book, the reader may become rigid, flat, and unable to recognize the importance of the moment in front of them. Together, the lantern and the book create wisdom.

Intuition sees

Study remembers

A method organizes

Ethics restrain

Regular practice refines

All of this creates experience

This is why divination requires a certain amount of study. It’s not because intuition is false, nor is it because tradition must dominate the living soul. It also isn’t because there is only one “correct” way to read. Divination requires study because the symbols that we interpret deserve to be read well, clients deserve to be held carefully, readers deserve structures that protect their gifts, and mysteries deserve more than a quick keyword. The cards, numbers, stars, signs, and omens are always speaking. Study teaches us how to become good listeners.

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September is here, bringing the closing energy of the late summer and the shifts of autumn. In the numerology of this year, September is carrying the vibration of 19/1—a karmic blessing number cycle that we experience within a Master 11 Triad and a 10/1 Year.

This creates a powerful, urgent spark of brand-new beginnings. Everything can feel THIS MUCH IMPORTANT.

Navigating this intense energy can feel like an emotional rollercoaster. That is why today’s episode is all about ways to manage that energy.

Full disclosure: I did not do the Tarot reading for myself that I talked about. I’ll have to figure out where I can fit that in as the week wears on. It is busy busy!!

Paid tier folks, I’m still working on the Expansion Pack Numeroscopes™. They’re coming!! 🍁🍂💗

TL;DR:

It’s a busy time because the year is heavy on 1 energy, 11 is intensified 1 energy before it is anything else, and the month energy is a karmic 1. That’s a lot, and 1/Sun is always strongest at the beginning of its cycle, so you can expect a little spice.

If you like reading along with your cards, pull out the Wheel of Fortune for the year, Strength for the triad, and the Sun for the month.

I can’t upload the video from Google Drive, nor can I seem to download it from YouTube to my Chromebook, so here is the embedded video:

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This was originally posted on Patreon. I have never shared monthly journaling pages here. Crossposting is lazy, yes, but I don’t have time to make separate posts for everyone, and I want to share paid content here, too. Sorry.

I’ve been rethinking what I want the monthly Numerology Journal Pages to actually do.

The original journal pages are built around prompts, and they’re perfectly good at what they were designed for, and they have worked out well for the last couple of years. The Expansion Pack Numeroscopes have developed, though, and I’ve found myself wanting something different: a practical way for everyone to track the Universal cycles as they unfold.

So that’s where the journal pages are heading.

Instead of giving you a collection of questions to answer, the new pages are designed to become a working record of the numerology of the month.

Each monthly set includes space to work with:

• The Universal Year

• The three Universal Triad transits

• The Universal Month

• Every Universal Day

• The Tarot correspondences for each cycle

• The action points and peak points within the longer cycles

• Your own goals, observations, predictions, and ways of working with the energy

You can use them alongside the Expansion Pack Numeroscopes to follow the larger patterns, or use them independently as a month-long numerology experiment.

Maybe you want to see how a Universal Day actually manifests in your own life.

Maybe you’re tracking mundane events or predictions.

Maybe you want to compare what you expected from a cycle with what actually happened.

Maybe you simply want one place to keep your notes instead of trying to remember six weeks later what was happening during that particularly weird 7/Ketu day.

That’s what these pages are for.

You can keep them on your device and type or write on them digitally, or print the entire set and scribble all over it.

A gradual change

I’m not immediately getting rid of the old prompt-based journal pages.

For the rest of 2026, both versions will run alongside one another so nobody has their journal abruptly changed halfway through the year. Beginning in 2027, these cycle-tracking pages will become the standard.

I think they’re much closer to what I originally wanted these journals to become: not just something to fill out, but a tool for learning to recognize the numerical cycles while you’re actually living through them.

You can download them here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wvH8fQcBEFgiJvi3zbL3ygq5Sn9jXwWd/view?usp=sharing

A lot of people don’t like pip decks. I get it; they’re hard to read, especially in a magickal community that was collectively socialized and imprinted with the RWS Tarot and the Golden Dawn teachings baked into it. When you come across a pip deck, particularly one that predates the RWS and comes from an entirely different Tarot tradition, it can feel very frustrating to read.

This is where a little knowledge of numerology and an imagination can come in handy. If you’ve ever looked at pip cards (the Minor Arcana aces, twos, threes, etc) and thought “Well, this is just a bunch of cups. How does it mean anything?” You are in the right place. I work with the TdM (Tarot de Marseille), and let me tell you, once you disrupt the mindset of “picture on card must always equal X,” your world opens up, and it is much easier to do with pips than with pictorial scenes. I look at picture decks the same way I look at movies and pip decks the way I regard books.

Let’s review some basic numerology:

Ace/One: initiates, has the idea

Two: grows and nurtures, protects

Three: bursts into reality and grows

Four: the first attempt at stability and control, tries to preserve

Five: the challenge, disruption, or growth spurt of a thing

Six: balance, stability, and control (Four may be the square, but Six is the cube!)

Seven: Disruption and crisis points, options, and reconsidering direction

Eight: Taking stock, perfecting, making final edits

Nine: The wrap-up, that last struggle/burst of energy as we complete and move towards a new cycle

Ten: Basically a one with a purse or some extra baggage (that pesky zero!). New beginnings are happening whether you put the purse down or not.

Now let’s have a look at the pips from each suit. This won’t be comprehensive, but it should give you a place to start:

Look at that Ace! It’s a branch, cut straight from a tree. Its cut ends are all red like blood because this is fresh. It’s unhewn. The energy of the tree, the aura, is still present in this branch. The hand that holds it is emerging from what people have described as a cloud. Sorry not sorry, but when I look at it, I see uterine muscle. Maybe I’m just biased, but that is what I see: watery blue waves from the primordial ocean and muscle tissue. To me, that = womb. The auric sparks hover in the air. The muscle/womb/cloud that the hand is emerging from is trimmed with gold rickrack and reminds me of the crown tucked away behind the lemniscate atop the head of La Force, the second crossroads escort of the Major Arcana, but we can talk about that later (reminder to me to write about degree numerology and the TdM). The hand emerges from whatever you want to call that, which is to say, it comes from within. Keep that in the back of your head for later.

The Two of Wands is our first liminal Wands space; a crossroads. There are more of them along the way, but this is the first. Here the thing that was birthed and inspired with great passion and enthusiasm is held in a time that is not a time and a place that is not a place, to stabilize, consider itself, and grow. There are flowers and vines here, growing and unfurling. Things are balanced as direction and pace are considered.

The flowers disappear in the Three of Wands. The vines are still there, connected to the center, but they are more tightly curled and also facing outwards as if looking for somewhere to go. They are running out of room. Replacing the flower is a third wand being contained by the first two. The golden bands on the wands in the Two were soft and egg-shaped, but in the Three they harden into form with sharp edges. The third wand can no longer be held back; it is strong, straight, and taking up space.

In the Four of Wands, balance has been reached, but it is only temporary. The flowers have returned, and the leaves are facing inward again. The gold bands have fused, giving this the illusion of permanence. In the center of this crossroads is a blood red spot. The flower petals are red and gold now, with a full bloom at the top and a younger bloom at the bottom. They’ve had their stems cut, unlike their counterparts in the Two. Something is pushing at the balance that exists, so don’t expect the party to last.

In the Five of Wands, another wand has been introduced to break the stalemate and the first attempt at order found within the Four. The flowers are gone again, and the leaves are still turned inward. Disruption remains, but there is still room to grow. The four wands are still fused, and the fifth pushes from behind them. The top half of the fifth wand covers the fused gold bands of the four interlaced wands. The bottom half sits in between them; the wand is struggling. The center is still bright red; action continues there.

At the point of the Six of Wands, the crossroads is restored. The flowers have returned; their cut stems have healed. The top flower is older, with ragged petals and long ribboned leaves. The bottom flower is newer. The leaves on the sides are long and ribboned, older, and have produced small buds. The active center has increased by four. As before, the wands are carefully interlaced, and the gold bands have fused again to stabilize this space. It is stronger than the Four, but the blood red center has grown, so not only do we know that this state is temporary, but there won’t be any surprises from here on out because it’s not like we don’t see those little blood-red diamonds and understand their significance.

The crossroads of the Six is strong and durable, and what was achieved at that point will put up a fight to keep it. When the seventh wand emerges, the struggle is real. If you look closely at this wand, its pieces are crooked, as if it has become injured or misaligned. It is pushing out above the top gold bands of the six interwoven wands and still trapped under them at the bottom of this crossroads. The crookedness of this seventh wand is subtle, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it: whatever is emerging here is an upward battle, and victory comes at a price. The four blood-red spots in the center are still there, but now the emerging leaves are yellow and look like flames fed through red stems from the bloody center, where conflict keeps emerging. Even smaller leaves are emerging from this and will need attention.

At the point of Eight, the lattice is thoroughly woven and strong. The flowers have returned and this time they are the same, save for the direction of lines on their cones. One cone’s lines flow toward spirit, the other toward matter, like a dance between opposites. The energy is organized and flows with ease. There is more energy in the centre of this crossroads because it is no longer feeding outside sources (the leaves and vines). Order has been restored.

With the Nine of Wands, we have an interruption again. Something wants to come forth from the crossroads, but this time the wand is not fighting to break free. It is perfectly balanced, top and bottom, not struggling. There are no plants; all of the energy is spent, and unlike the other cards, we can not see this wand actually continuing through the center. It has merged, then stopped, and seems to have found peace, even if it has upset the balance.

As we reach the Ten, we may expect a balanced crossroads, since we have been primed to assume that based on the other even numbers. What we see instead is that the crossroads formed and perfected in the Eight of Wands still holds. Two wands now emerge, fused together, from behind the crossed eight. Plants once again grow on the outsides of this arrangement, as they did in the earlier odd-numbered cards. Tens are ones; 1+0=1, so the cycle has begun again. Sometimes this card reflects a beginning that hesitates to acknowledge or act on a new cycle (ten is a one with a purse!), and sometimes that zero bumps things up another notch, reflecting a transition period of upheaval.

The Ace of Cups has confounded a lot of people over the years because they don’t understand what they’re looking at. The TdM is a medieval Tarot that reflects Christian mysticism. The item perched on top of the chalice in this card is a reliquary. To be frank, a reliquary holds a magickal item of great power. There are going to be Christians that take umbrage with this definition, but that’s what it is: a magickal strong box to both protect an item of magickal power from being damaged or destroyed and to protect people who don’t understand the item’s power from inadvertently or purposely doing harm to themselves or others. This elevates the Ace of Cups from a card that talks about romance to something greater. After all, look at the waves spilling forth from the spot where the reliquary covers the cup; what is trying to escape from that chalice/cauldron of creation? Something great is trying to emerge, and because it is water, it will simply push and build until that trickle becomes a roiling storm and you can no longer contain it.

The Two shows perfect balance. Here we see two fish leaping up alongside a central flower that emerges from solid earth. The flower is blooming and healthy, and has room to grow. Things feel safe and steady, held in place by the earth and the royal-type seal beneath the cups. The lines in the cups are different. One cup is spirit, and one cup is earth. They are both full, and quite possibly they are kindred spirits that “fill each other’s cups.”

From this union of opposites we get the Three of Cups. Something new has been born. The vines and leaves are curling around this third cup, directing their nourishment and energy toward it. The flowers are still buds, and the stems/vines emerge from a single pod that resembles a cup. Two tendrils above it curl to form a heart.

In the Four of Cups, we see a stable framework being established. Everything is perfectly balanced. The flowers all look healthy, and the leaves are spread out. Things are flourishing. The cups are still full at the point of the Four. They are all angled toward matter and physical concerns, which fits the nature of the Four. This creates a feeling of continuity and emotional stability, but also boredom. With a focus entirely on the spiritual and not what is in front of us, we all know that this stability won’t last.

With the Five, we see the element of something new added to what was a harmonious and well-ordered, if somewhat predictable, arrangement or relationship. In most decks, this is an unhappy event. Here, though, we see that the central cup is surrounded by flowers, vines, leaves, and flourishes that direct energy upward to the cup and then outward to be showered over the other cups. The cups are still full, and they are still focused on the spiritual or heavenly world (the direction of the lines in the liquid). Could this be the disruptive five that we see in the RWS and Thoth-based decks? It certainly could be, but that would have to be determined by the position in the spread, elemental dignity or reversal (if you read with either of those ideas in mind). For now though, this card shows the nurturing and feeding of a new element or new person, and the ability to accept someone or something new into the established order.

Balance, order, and harmony have been reestablished in the Six. There is a repeating pattern of three pairs of two cups each. They are organized around a singular axis of flourishing leaves and flowers with a full bloom in the centre. This flower and the one below it both have astrological Sun glyphs, indicating some indirect solar involvement. There is warmth, happiness, and with three pairs of two, the suggestion of community or family, or at the very least, others. The focus is more on continuity and community than it is on the individual.

An additional cup has appeared, and this time it would seem that resources are stretched a bit thin. The cups are still spirit-focused, but now they are half full. The central cup is sequestered away from the others by leaves and vines, but there are no flowers. The bottom leaves point towards the single cup, but the rest all direct energy away, funnelling it to what appears to be a double guard of two groups of three cups each. They could symbolize a community of like minds sizing up a new addition or opportunity. They could also be two groups taking sides and arguing about bringing this new thing into their periphery. The central cup in the top row is almost but not quite sequestered from the central cup. This could symbolize a turn in the tide regarding something, an opportunity presenting itself after a stalemate, or perhaps a peace offering during a standoff.

As we reach the Eight of Cups, two cups are in the centre, separated from each other but both encircled and protected by the vines and flowers. They have a fully open blossom between them that could be the Sun glyph or perhaps an all-seeing eye with a message. The central cups of both the top and bottom rows are also encircled with leaves. This could be a 6+2 situation or perhaps a 4+4. It is a flexible situation that can be judged a few ways. Two might be joining the community of six joyfully with eyes open, or four could be sequestered/protected while the four outside cups stand like watchtowers. There is harmony here, though, and the cups have regained their fullness, along with integration, perhaps because decisions were made.

Nines are about fulfillment, and here we see the complex dynamics of 3 x 3. Not only is this a well-ordered community, but we still have watchtowers. Something has been created, welcomed, and nurtured, and whatever it is, we do not want to let go of it. The three central cups form a column where each one is protected by the vines and leaves that direct energy outward to the remaining cups. As a matter of fact, each cup has its own compartment, separate but together, all drawing energy. The lines in the liquid still show that the energy is being directed towards spirit, creation, love, or other such higher endeavours, but once again the cups are half full. While the image is overall harmonious, maintaining this level of fulfillment takes work!

Here we are at the Ten, the end of the line. There are no flowers, leaves, or vines to direct energy or feed the cups. They are half full and won’t be replenished. They are organized into a 3 x 3 formation, still expressing collective unity and community spirit, three manifestation triads working together, but a tenth large cup is lying on its side over them. This cup has a lid, resembling the emblem on the coins. Quite possibly this cup will pour earthly delights and energy upon these cups, who have been doing only the higher work of spirit since the Three of Cups. They need grounding, and possibly, if the size of this cup is an indication, a specific leader or directive in order to allow the new cycle to truly begin.

Here we see the mysterious wavy blue mass in the second of the “hard suits” (Wands and Swords). This time, though, the hand is not coming from the centre of the mass. It is on the outside edge. The energy of the Wands came from within, but the energy of the Swords is external. This can be in the form of a situation that happens to you or perhaps an idea that disrupts your ordered world. The same sparks of energy are here in this card that are in the Ace of Wands. The sword is red, the colour of passion, and it pierces the crown of gold. The inside of this crown is blue and light sienna, which can symbolize being informed by the opposing forces of spirit and matter since they would be in contact with the head of whoever wears the crown. The two plants are laurel and palm. One has an open end, and the other is closed, indicating an open circuit, meaning, actually, that energy is disrupted - it can not flow properly. They both have cut bottoms that are red/bloody, so the disrupted energy is fresh. They are both plants associated with victory and sacrifice. Unlike the hand that holds the wand, this hand faces away from us so we can not see if it conceals anything else.

In the Two of Swords, we see our first vesica piscis, the fish shape formed when two monads/circles/universes intersect. This shape is a portal of emergence. The gold bands around the two swords are round like eggs. This portal is new and not really strong. Each sword contains opposing colours that sit in balance, though. The flowers outside the barrier formed by the portal are new and have not yet bloomed. Inside the vesica piscis, there is a large flower in full bloom with a Sun glyph at its centre. The leaves are curled towards it, and it appears to float in the centre with some room to grow, but not much. It will need to leave this safe space sooner rather than later. For now, it can rest and take advantage of the protection offered by this portal and emerge fully on its own time.

At the point of the Three of Swords, we have a breakthrough victory. Perfectly balanced and upright, gilded in the red blood of passion, the sword thrusts through the barricade created by the two worlds overlapping and starts to force its way out. The barricade is still weak; the gold trim is still soft and egg-like. Three of the external buds are red, and one is white, so the balance of energy in the world beyond the portal is shifting. The two swords forming the portal have also switched sides. Instead of a flower, the sword is decorated with two laurel branches, the symbol of victory given to competitors. This is a victory and breakthrough, but it has not been difficult because the portal is still new. Our seeker needs to consider what things in the outside world might be like, though, given that the flowers are starting to change.

The flower returns in the Four of Swords, but the portal of emergence is starting to become more of a barricade than a birthing canal. The outside flowers are all the same and look healthy, so things are at peace away from the vesica piscis. The gold egg shapes have hardened, and the swords have switched sides again. The walls are thicker, and both ends now have spots of blood in the lattice, indicating that what appears to be stable and peaceful won’t be for long. The flower inside has not fully bloomed and looks young and healthy but has little room to grow. The leaves can’t open, and while things may be safe right now, eventually that flower will wither if it doesn’t leave its “safe space”. This shows a limited situation or perhaps trying to grow or work against all odds.

With the Five of Swords we have another breakthrough, this time through a challenge or other disruption that provokes us to act. The barrier has not grown, but the swords have changed sides. This is continual through almost the whole suit. It is still balanced, but it is too big for its enclosure and does not appear to be fighting its way out. This is the largest sword of all the swords after the Ace. Its blade is red with blood and passion as it pushes with steady force. The flowers in the external world are balanced; it is the internal world where the issue exists. Things are literally tight, and something needs to give. As this is the largest sword, we could see this cutting as the imposition of one’s will upon what is a balanced situation and stirring the pot.

The flower returns with a smaller red cone than before in the Six of Swords. The little branching leaves and bud have been replaced by a single small bud branching off the side. It is small, hard, and black. The flower has accepted its limitations in this “safe space,” and as the walls get thicker, it shrinks accordingly. There are no more patches of red blood in the weave of the swords. One could say that perhaps passion has left the chat and that the ambitions and competitiveness in the earlier cards have been put aside so as not to disturb the present balance.

In the Seven of Swords, much like in the Seven of Wands, we have one against six. This sword is smaller than its predecessor; sleeker and sharper. With a handle made of blue, the colour of spirit, whose lines also move toward spirit and higher thinking, the sword pushes through the now larger barricade. There are two red spaces in this lattice. You might confuse them for the sword itself but they don’t carry the line in the blade. The sword is coming out from under the barricade, not trying to weave through it. There is one subtle difference in the external flowers, so things are changing in the world around the portal/barricade. The single sword does not change colour. It stays red, so it is with its own concentrated will (and a little bit of creative thinking choosing to conceal its exit by sliding under the red) that it creates its own victory.

The barrier has grown considerably, and the space within is very small. The flower has shrunk down to a small and symmetrical square. It has the Sun glyph centre. It’s colours blend in with the centres of the swords, as if it is trying desperately to shrink itself and fit in. The flower may be safe, but it has to rationalize its choices to stay there. It is isolated from the flowers in the external world and will have to continue to shrink itself in order to fit an environment which keeps shrinking. Being ultra protected also means being isolated and blocked.

At the point of the Nine of Swords, the barricade has not grown. The sword is small and is still trying to push its way out underneath the lattice. We could see the red spots that don’t carry blade marks as possibly being blood that is pushed to the surface, either from the barrier suffering blows or from the sword becoming injured. In spite of the thick barricade, this sword keeps on pushing, but if you look closely, the sword is disjointed. It looks like it has been broken and put back together. Courage and determination keep it moving ever forward to win what might feel like an unwinnable battle against more evolved or better-armed adversaries. It pushes forward by working with what it knows and has.

At the point of the Ten, we expect flowers because this is an even number, but there is no flower in the barricade. It is gone. The swords in the barricade have stopped switching sides. Everyone and everything in this fight is exhausted or gone. There are only two flowers left in the external world beyond the barricade. The flowers inside have been replaced by two swords. This time the handles are the red of passion, and the blades are the colour of spirit and righteousness or higher intelligence. They are unbalanced and caught up in the strong weave of the prison they try to escape. Although they are struggling, the colour of their blades is indicative of taking a more sophisticated approach to finally putting something to rest. That there are two can also indicate asking for help, although at this stage, they may be a day late and a dollar short.

The Ace of Coins is the only ace we behold by looking straight down at it. It is a two-dimensional image of a coin. The other three aces are upright. This reflects a more basic and grounded nature in this suit. The coin represents the ground from which all of the other suits grow. While they all show intangibles, the Ace of Coins is very much of the material world. Without a body, there is no home for passion, creation, or intellect. It has been theorized that the four petals in the centre symbolize the structure of the Tarot suits, with the circle in the middle symbolizing the Major Arcana. It also symbolizes the monad, the contained universe of potential from which all things emerge. It contains within it the potential for all the other suits. Within this ace are solid starts, physical stability, and a practical “ground up” perspective.

In the Two of Coins, we see an apparent balance, but at the same time the ribbon gives a sense of movement. There are options here, side by side, but as is always the case with the two vibration, if anything is happening between these two coins, we aren’t privy to it. They undulate with the ribbon, separately but yet together. We can see safe options or safe choices in this card as well as growing or nurturing something perhaps at a bit of a distance. Becuase the coins/monads are not joined, they have not yet produced the vesica piscis that will allow for the emergence of the three. Things are happening…..slowly.

The solid base formed by the two coins eventually gives way to the Three as the ribbon, which contained leaves and flowers on both ends, transforms fully into what looks like a circulatory system nourishing and supporting new life. They enclose the third coin, directing energy into it. This is a productive, if not modest, turn of events. Any tension in the situation being read will probably be eased if the seeker quietly tends to the little things showing up for them.

In the Four of Coins, we see four coins surrounding a shield. Vines and leaves come out from this shield and direct energy around the coins. They are like watchtowers, protecting this object and also being supported by it simultaneously. This shield is actually the coat of arms of the Kingdom of France and Navarre. It shows absolute power and divine sovereignty at the centre of this card. Practically, it was also a place for cardmakers to put a stamp showing that tax or duty had been paid. Esoterically, it is the ultimate axis of stability. It can also show the sort of balance and continuity by doing things in very specific, time-tested ways, as well as notions of honour or loyalty.

Everything was great until the five vibration showed up to throw a wrench in the works. It disrupts the stability of the four. The shield is gone; divine authority and tradition have been done away with. Instead, we have a singular coin surrounded by four outside coins. The leaves and vines surround it but do not direct energy. This is not the happy welcoming of the Five of Cups (and yes, I know in RWS decks this is not a happy card, either). There is little tolerance or acceptance here. The leaves that point toward the centre coin are pointed and spiky, reminiscent of the leaves in the Seven of Wands, but coloured the blue of righteousness. The leaves around it look almost like profiles of people looking away. Within this card is reactionary “low vibe” behaviour and a desire to isolate someone or something. Clearly the coins aren’t thrilled with things that disrupt the order.

Harmony returns in the Six of Coins - or does it? The central flower is a bit small and tight, directing energy to all the coins through its leaves and vines. Two coins are sequestered away from a central square of four coins. Order is occurring, like the townsfolk reassembling and coming together. Seen from another point of view, these are two triangles, one up and one down, with each coin being nourished in its own cell. This doesn’t have the disruptive, hostile feel of the Five. This feels integrative, as though everyone is trying to get to know each other. Things are settling down, people are being good to each other, and everyone is being fed.

This is a more peaceful Seven than the last one we saw. The four stable coins are at the bottom of the card, with a descending triangle integrating. The circulatory system of plants found in the Coins and Cups is nourishing and protecting everyone. Once again, each coin has its own cell to exist in, yet is still connected to its neighbour. One coin is encircled completely, and the largest flower feeds/protects it. It is possible that this points to a healing or convalescence, or a community project to help an individual (like turning out to help someone rebuild their home after a storm). Whatever is going on, it does not feel hostile or unbalanced even though this is an odd number.

At the point of the Eight of Coins, we see uniformity and order. Each coin is still in its own cell, its own private space, yet all are joined by one central flower that produces four other blossoms as well as four leaves. All is symmetrical, all is predictable. We have the stability of the four without the blind obedience to a commanding power - it looks like power to the people here: everyone on the same page, no one better or worse off than anyone else. Within this layout are patient routines, consistent efforts, and a lot of hard work to keep everyone in the same state - but at the same time, the flowers are healthy, so this is not draining work. It is aligned effort; this is what should be happening.

Looking forward to the future, the Nine of Coins plants a seed right in the centre of the card. Flanked by beautiful flourishing leaves and (mostly) symmetrical blossoms on either end, this coin is watched closely as it grows. It can also be seen to be isolated and pressured by the flank of two squares of seemingly immobile coins. Often when I look at this card I see the sort of positive “motivation” (pressure) placed on one person within a family - “your parents were the first to graduate high school so you will be the first to go to university” - that kind of pressure. Not bad, but there is an expectation of results when you look at the energy and protection being channelled into this one coin. Perseverance and “good stress” can bring great yields and success.

Here we are at the end! Two fives bring everything into full realization via challenges and new ways. The central flower is large and branches outward, actually going underneath two of the coins instead of around them all. Looked at another way, two manifestation triangles flank the ever-present “four square” of solidity and stability. There is an abundance of energy and resources in this card; everything is flourishing. It’s stable, but there is the possibility for more. This is comfortable and let’s face it - hard to leave, but we will eventually have to find a new challenge because this is a ten, after all, meaning that the new cycle has already begun whether we can see it or not. We can use this bounty to invest in the next great thing.

There are new faces here, and older blog posts tend not to be seen, so this bears repeating.

A member of my Patreon community asked me recently what it means when we keep seeing repeated numbers. The short answer is that repeating numbers are often a nudge from our higher selves, which is more or less saying: “Hey, you! Pay attention! Something is happening here!”

And now, for the longer answer. Pee, get your tea, and strap in:

I do not believe numbers like 111, 222, 333, or even the almighty 11:11 come with one fixed message for every single person who sees them. I also do not believe that angels or spirits are necessarily arranging clocks, receipts, license plates, or order confirmation numbers to get our attention. I’m told that I’m a bit of a killjoy that way, but it’s what I believe.

I believe energy takes the path of least resistance, and that includes our higher selves. After all, if a pattern is already available, visible, and can be seen as meaningful enough to make us take a pause, why give that power away to an outside entity? Our brains are wired to seek meaning and to observe patterns. This is part of what has kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years.

There is a very practical reason that people seem to notice repeating numbers so often now, and I have mentioned it in the past, but it bears repeating every so often: we live in a digital world.

The repeating number phenomenon actually began slowly in the 1970s, but it didn’t catch on quickly because although things like digital alarm clocks entered into existence around 1968-69, not everyone used them. As we progressed through the 70s, more and more things began to have digital displays, but analog was still in abundance. People still kept time with old-fashioned clocks that had hands.

Before digital clocks and appliances became ordinary household objects, people generally read time from the hands moving around a clock face. You would not look at a clock like this in 1948 and exclaim, “11:11! Your spirit guides want you to make a wish!” You would have looked at the clock and said, “Oh, it’s about ten after eleven,” or “It’s almost quarter after eleven.” 11:11, 2:22, 3:33, 4:44, and 5:55 all existed as times, of course, but they were not blinking at you from a digital display.

By the time the early 90s rolled around, many people had computers in the home; some even had the old-school modems and were going online before the Internet was cool and pretty, and there were far more digital appliances in our lives, showing us repeating numbers. In the mid-90s, cell phones started to become less clunky and their use more widespread. By the year 2000, we were seeing repeating numbers everywhere, because of an abundance of digital tech in our homes and our pockets, and also because the Internet connected us to a lot of New Age ideas that we may not have known about otherwise. By that time, a few books had even been written as people theorized about the meaning in the New Age community online. Some writers from the Doreen Virtue school of thought saw it as evidence of angel guides or spirit guides. Some writers from the “we are science projects created by aliens” line of thinking theorized that it had some connection to “junk DNA”.

My belief has always been that we have been socialized for a damned long time to give away our power to external sources like God, angels, kings, or the government, and so we seek an answer outside of ourselves when we have always held the key. We have not entered a more angelically communicative age; we have entered an age in which technology has shifted and repeating digits are unusually easy to see. A hundred years ago we might have seen portents in clouds or tea leaves. How many tea leaf readers are still around vs people billing themselves as angel number experts?

The number is the bell that rings, but it may not be the message. So when a number catches your attention, it may be your higher self taking the path of least resistance, telling you to look around:

• What were you thinking about immediately before you saw it?

• What decision have you been circling around and around in your head?

• What has recently changed for you - or is about to change - that you may be aware of?

• Are there any feelings that you have been trying to ignore?

• Is there a particular conversation, worry, event, or person that keeps returning to your mind?

Over the years, I have noticed that repeating numbers appear frequently for clients who were contemplating major life changes. For others, the change was not something they had chosen. It arrived on their doorstep and announced itself rather loudly: a relationship was ending, a layoff was forecast, a move was imminent. Something they had known privately was becoming more and more difficult to avoid publicly.

In these cases, the repeating number did not predict the exact event. It marked a period of heightened awareness around it as some part of the client’s consciousness knew that life was switching direction.

For some people, the patterns become very specific. I always encourage my clients to keep notes and discover what a particular repeated number means for them over time. These clients start to see patterns emerge. One person may see 111 before travelling. Someone else may see it when a new work opportunity is approaching. For another person, it may appear when they are about to make a clean break from an old situation. The important thing to remember is that their repeating number is not your repeating number.

Fixed “Angel Number” lists tend to fall short. There are countless list posts and videos online telling us that 111 means manifestation, 222 means partnership, 333 means spiritual support, 444 means protection, and so on and so on. These lists can be entertaining, and they may even offer a useful prompt for reflection. The thing that I see, though, is that they’re often presented as definitive, as though the universe has issued a single numerical phrasebook and everyone gets the same edition.

This is especially true on social media, where creators confidently tell you, “If you see 11:11, your angel guides need to tell you that you’re about to experience wonderful things!!” or my favourite eye-roller, “If you’re seeing (insert number here), then your spirit guides need you to know that everything will be OK and they are helping you.” It’s amusing until someone in a malleable state of mind, because they are experiencing something exceedingly crappy, takes this seriously and then doesn’t do what they need to do because now they’re going to hand power over because so-and-so on TikTok said everything was going to be OK.

The human experience is not tidy, and everyone is experiencing their own universe in their own way. Numbers do carry symbolism, and they are reflective: as a numerologist, I would hardly argue otherwise. 1 has a different character than 2; 3 does not behave like 8; a set of repeating 1s in a chart does not behave like a set of repeating 7s. Traditional numerical symbolism can give us a broad spectrum of meanings depending on whether the number is showing up in a birth or transit chart, or is personal vs mundane. Repeating numbers existing outside of that realm - numbers that follow an individual through ordinary life can become a personal symbol that has nothing to do with the body of work understood as “numerology”.

Personal association is built through repetition and observing the context while also recording the experience. It is the same way a particular song, scent, or catchphrase can acquire a meaning for you that it would never carry for a stranger. A book on herbal magick can tell you what rosemary has traditionally represented, but it can not tell you what the smell of rosemary means to someone whose grandmother grew it beside her kitchen door. Repeating numbers can work in much the same way.

If you start to notice a particular number over and over, resist the urge to look it up immediately. First, write it down and then start recording:

• The number or numbers you saw

• The date, time, and place

• Where it appeared

• What you had been thinking about or feeling

• What was happening generally in your life

• Any decision, conversation, change, or uncertainty currently occupying your thoughts

• What happened over the next day or two

Do not just record the dramatic moments of your life. Record the things that seem boring or uneventful, too. It isn’t just the exciting things that can produce a story.

After you’ve recorded a pattern of these sightings, start studying your notes for patterns. You might find that these numbers appear around travel, money decisions, family news, creative breakthroughs, periods of anxiety, or moments when you already knew the answer but perhaps had not admitted it to yourself yet.

Over time you’ll build a personal lexicon of meaning that is far more useful than some generic internet definition.

Are repeating numbers the new premonition? Sometimes they can feel that way. We are all balls of energy connected to every other ball of energy out there, constantly exchanging information. We do not need to imagine an outside intelligence sending a warning from some distant realm. Our higher self is simply noticing changes before our everyday mind has articulated them in a way that makes sense to us. We are always taking in more information than we can consciously process: shifts in people’s behaviour, changes in the atmosphere at work, an opportunity beginning to form, or our own growing readiness to leave a thing behind. Repeating numbers give your conscious mind a reason to step off the train and take a pause. That pause may feel premonitory because it occurs before the event becomes obvious. Perhaps it is premonition, but it can also be an early recognition of something already gathering momentum. Either way, the useful response is the same: pay attention!

None of this makes repeating numbers less spiritual. If anything, it places the experience closer to home. You do not have to believe that an angel has been assigned to manipulate events on your behalf. You can understand the higher self as the part of you connected to everyone and everything else. It sees the wider patterns, recognizes movements before the conscious mind does, and knows just how to grab your attention. In a digital world, numbers are everywhere. They are familiar, immediate, not closed to anyone, and require no special equipment to experience. The higher self does not have to shout when it can simply make one common pattern stand out from all the others.

I’m going to link a worksheet for you to print off and use for your own repeating number experiences. You can find it here. You can open it up in Word, Google Docs, Proton, or wherever else you do your word processing and edit it to suit your needs.

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I haven’t done a set of number correspondences in a while. These are - as always - suggestions. Your research, life experiences with a crystal, and intuition will all serve you better than just taking my word for it. You will find as many correspondences as there are quartz crystals.

Enjoy!

Grab the sheet here!

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The links will move to the page tabs of the main page here, and that page will grow as I find documents and upload them to Proton. If you are interested in Tarot and Numerology, these may be helpful to you.

PDF: One Word Tarot Descriptions

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I primarily use a Tarot de Marseille, and so the placement of Justice and Strength is reversed, compared to the more recent Rider-Waite-Smith decks. This document reflects that. You can flip them; it’s fine.

PDF: Core Chart Placements

There is really no standard chart casting method in numerology. Different numerologists consider different placements to be of importance, depending on which author or (these days) internet creator they learned from. This is what I start people with. There are quite literally dozens upon dozens of placements and they can become redundant very quickly if you try to add them all to one chart.

PDF: Order of the Tarot

This is a straightforward 1-78 list of the Tarot cards in their order. This is primarily for esoteric purposes and isn’t necessary to know for doing standard Tarot readings. It comes in handy, though, when you want to look at Tarot-Numerology. There is the “regular” way of combining Tarot with numbers (all the Aces, The Magician, Wheel of Fortune, and The Sun relate to the number 1, all the Twos, plus the High Priestess, Strength, and Judgment relate to the number 2, etc), and then there are compound numbers. Compound numbers are two-digit numbers that are ordinarily reduced in numerology (ex: 25 becomes 2+5=7. If you use compounds, this is expressed as 25/7).

Now say you have worked out that you have an Expression number of 38/11/2 and you want to explore it in more depth. The 38th card of the Tarot is the Queen of Cups and the 11th card is Strength. Taking it a step further, this number reduces all the way down to a 2, which corresponds to the High Priestess. If you really wanted to complicate matters, you could take all the minor arcana twos and investigate them, but now we’re just getting silly....or are we? Using the Tarot as a means to study at least the first 78 compound numbers (there are 99) is a great way to dive into things and give your noggin a stretch, especially if you were raised on the New Age crapulence that is “Angel Numbers”.

You could spend years studying here, but not to worry; as soon as I can find my documents about planetary correspondences and how to have fun with them, then you’ll really be cooking with heat, and you’ll never look at numerology, astrology, and Tarot the same way ever again.

We know them best by their legendary professional monikers: Cheiro, the celebrity seer who read the palms of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, and Sepharial, the intellectual giant of the British astrological revival. But if you strip away the grand histories, their real genius wasn’t ancient magic; it was their absolute mastery of personal branding. They didn’t just practice arythmancy or astrology; they engineered multi-layered personas specifically designed to capitalize on the esoteric.

Long before anyone coined the term “social media influencer,” these two men were running the exact same digital playbook. They are part of the direct lineage of today’s internet gurus who claim they’ve “cracked the cosmic code” or “fixed” a system like astrology or numerology.

Cheiro: The Charismatic Lifestyle Guru

Born in Ireland as William John Warner, Cheiro quickly realized that a mundane name wouldn’t open the doors to London’s high-society drawing rooms. He was a journalist, war correspondent, editor, and well-travelled media professional before becoming the seer to the stars. Like a modern creator launching a high-end personal brand, he crafted a brilliant dual identity:

• The Mystic Brand (Cheiro): The mysterious, worldly initiate who supposedly lived in hidden caves with master Brahmins and possessed ancient, prehistoric red-leather books written in gold leaf.

• The Elite Access Card (Count Louis Hamon): To move seamlessly among the aristocracy, he claimed a fabricated aristocratic lineage, eventually legally changing his name to Count Louis Hamon.

It was a brilliant marketing funnel. As “Count Louis,” he gained access to kings, popes, and tech pioneers like Thomas Edison. Once inside the room, he deployed “Cheiro” to read their fortunes. He curated the mystery to build the hype and used the aristocratic title to justify his premium pricing.

Walter Gorn Old: The “Rabbit Hole” Podcaster

While Cheiro was busy climbing the social ladder, his colleague Walter Gorn Old was running the intellectual side of things. A medical and pharmaceutical student with an interest in Orientalism before becoming an astrologer, Old didn’t change his legal name to a count, but he knew exactly how to manufacture authority. He became Sepharial for his astrological audience, and when he wanted to launch a specific system of sound vibration, he created Sheikh Habeeb Ahmad.

If Cheiro was the lifestyle influencer, Walter was the research-oriented rabbit hole podcaster who claims he’s read the hidden archives. His scientific education influenced his writings, and he approached charts, numbers, and planets with the mind of a pharmacist measuring out ingredients for a prescription. In spite of his scientific education, he took a variety of odd jobs, like a probate clerk, when astrology wasn’t paying all the bills.

He claimed his “Sheikh” system was an ancient, exotic secret from the Middle East, but Walter hadn’t been initiated by a secret Middle Eastern order; he was sitting at a desk in London. As a high-ranking member of the London Theosophical Society, he lived and worked alongside people such as Madame Blavatsky.

Walter’s true “secret source” wasn’t a hidden temple—it was the British Library reading room. In the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, London was flooded with the first major English translations of manuscripts from around the world. The Department of Manuscripts and the Department of Printed Books grew enormously during this period. This was driven by the expansion of the British Empire, technological leaps forward in transportation and printing, and a massive wave of global archaeological discoveries.

Walter sat in London, devoured academic translations from Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, India, and many other parts of the world. He reverse-engineered teachings from ancient mathematicians and philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plotinus, and Hypatia, and from the Hodgson Papers (a massive collection of works that preserved information on Buddhist and Hindu manuscripts and became a well-regarded repository of Mahayana Buddhism). Among these papers were translations of Sanskrit and Greek writings detailing complex cosmologies of numbers. He put all of this into a modern system that involved Western naming conventions. Then he wrapped it all up under a Middle Eastern pseudonym, wrote appendices on predicting British horse races, and sold this system to a hungry Western public.

The “Cave of Brahmins” Myth vs. The Receipts

Just like a modern YouTube creator filming a video that starts with, “The hidden ritual the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know about,” both men knew that a good backstory sells books.

But if you look for objective colonial paper trails, ship manifests, or independent local registries in India from that time, Cheiro’s grand cave initiations and Walter’s Eastern masters completely vanish. Mark Twain, after having his palm read by Cheiro, famously noted that while the man possessed a terrifyingly sharp, genius-level intuition for reading human psychology, his elaborate backstories were pure theatrical mystique.

The ultimate giveaway is right inside their own texts. If either man had actually been initiated into a pure, ancient Sanskrit lineage, their systems would reflect traditional Vedic grammar and phonetic laws. Instead, their books are meticulously tailored to analyze the English alphabet and Western calendar dates. They took ancient planetary concepts involving numbers, stripped away their complexities, and grafted them onto an English-language framework.

The Direct Descendants of the Edwardian Hustle

Watch any modern spiritual influencer who claims they have either “fixed” a traditional system or are practicing the “one true something or other” (the “I fixed astrology” guy comes to mind, as does GG33) or uncovered a “forgotten galactic light code,” you are watching Cheiro and Sepharial’s direct digital descendants. They use the exact same tactics:

1. The Manufactured Crisis: “The mainstream systems are broken/lying to you.”

2. The Exclusive Origin Story: “I discovered a secret lineage/had a sudden download/uncovered an ancient text.”

3. The Mask of Authority: Using pseudonyms, exotic titles, and curated aesthetics to signal a specific level of elite spiritual power.

Cheiro and Walter didn’t have algorithms, but they had society columns, publishing houses, and a public desperate for spiritual vocabulary and spiritual experiences. They leaked their own accurate predictions to the press, built an aura of extreme exclusivity, and made sure that using their ciphers was the ultimate metaphysical status symbol.

The Hidden Influencer

Missouri mystic Aso Neith Cochran is probably the one modern number mystic that I would call a true Pythagorean numerologist. She was very interested in vibration and sound/music, much like the ancient mathematician and philosopher was. She also never published any works and got into serious trouble with the authorities, much like Pythagoras. I have written about her before; you can check in the collections for information about her and also “Mrs L Dow Balliett” (Sarah Balliett). There is no historical evidence linking her to either Sepharial or Cheiro, but she did spend several years in Europe, using “mystical numbers” and “vibrational science” to consult with physicians in private clinics and to see high-end clients for readings, as Cheiro did. In fact, they moved in much the same circles in Europe and at about the same time.

They had systems that operated in parallel to each other. Aso Neith was a pioneer of the American “Vibrational” school, which focused more on musical harmonics, sound, and personal psychology. Sepharial and Cheiro were products of the British/Theosophical school, heavily rooting their systems in Hindu (Vedic) and Hebrew (Kabbalistic) sources. Recent scholarship (such as by M. Marble for the Philosophical Research Society) suggests Aso Neith actually preceded the more famous American numerologist Sarah Joanna Balliett (c. 1904). It was Balliett’s work that eventually cross-pollinated with European ideas, but Aso Neith was the forgotten original source for the American side of that tradition. Aso Neith’s teachings would also show up in the numerology taught by financier and mathematician W.D. Gann and Harvard mathematician Dr. Kevin Quinn Avery.

So once again, even though I am writing about two men from the UK who profoundly influenced (and most likely created) the modern practices of Chaldean and Vedic numerology, the trail winds back to two American women: Aso Neith Cochran and Sarah Balliett, who never seem to get remembered in popular culture, especially “Mother Cochran”, who was probably the one who started it all!

Some Final Words To Close This Up

Why does this matter for us as modern practitioners?

Because when you realize that some of the foundational builders of modern numerology were actually creative and smart, but self-promoting and very ordinary human beings who built their systems out of dusty libraries and the teachings of others who came before them, the pressure to find a “sacred, unbroken ancient system” completely dissolves. They weren’t defending a holy, unchangeable law handed down by gods or aliens; they were part of a community of people building dynamic, metaphysical tools designed to map human experience. They brought ancient teachings into a modern context.

If we go back through all the modern numerology books influencing people today that have been published since WWII, whether they call themselves Vedic, Chaldean, or Pythagorean, the closer we get to Sepharial and Cheiro, the more alike these systems all become. I can actually see the split among these three streams emerge in books by people like Harish Johari, Ashok Bhatia, Shirley Lawrence, Dusty Bunker, Norman Shine, Matthew Oliver Goodwin, Kristyna Arcarti, Heather Alician Lagan, Doris Chase Doane, and so many more.

Over the last thirty years, these three main streams have become more closed off from each other, I am sure, spurred on at least in part by the Internet, with offshoots claiming to be from unbroken Egyptian or Sumerian lines (yet using a format that is 100% lifted from authors like Dusty Bunker and Matthew Oliver Goodwin). Since the late 1980s, some people have created completely new schools of numerology that draw heavily on the work of the people I mentioned earlier, and these schools are closed ecosystems with specific levels and/or certifications (Matrix of Destiny, Human Design, and the Soul Contract Readings system come to mind).

The next time an internet gatekeeper pops up on your feed claiming they are the sole keepers of an ancient Pleiadian-Pythagorean-Vedic-Starseed secret, smile and recognize the hustle for what it is. It’s just a modern-day Walter or William, putting on a digital mask, looking for an audience to conquer. Use the tools and understand their history, but never fall for the theatrics.

This blog post is about entry-level Tarot-numerology and shows you how to start mixing these systems by pairing the Major Arcana with the Minor Arcana suits that share the same numerical vibes. It’s been a while since I shared any entry-level information about the cards, and we have new faces here.

If you enjoy reading these articles, please consider subscribing or sharing. Every share helps this publication to grow!

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The original Tarot decks from France and Italy had numerology baked right into them, offering greater insights into our lives. People usually look at these two systems separately, but putting them back together can give you a much richer, more detailed reading of the cards.

If you want to learn more about Tarot-Numerology, Tarot By The Numbers, by Liz Dean, is a fantastic starting place. It’s an excellent book for absolute beginners.

If you’re not a beginner and you’re looking to link Tarot and numerology in a more meaningful way, I (always) recommend Chaldean Numerology For Beginners, by Heather Alicia Lagan. I’ve had a copy since this book first appeared on the shelves, and it is well-worn and tabbed to death.

If you want to take things a step further, I absolutely love Numerology: Key To The Tarot, by Sandor Konraad. Sandor’s number-letter associations are different than Heather’s, and so are his placements/calculations, but don’t let that stop you. He presents a comprehensive exploration of a system that could keep you busy for a very long time.

I consistently talk about these books across all platforms because they are excellent sources of information. The last two have helped me immensely in my prognosticating journey. Liz and Sandor are Pythagorean Numerologists, and Heather is a Chaldean Numerologist. While they may be different, they have more in common than not.

Group 1: The Magician & The Aces

Key Themes: New beginnings, potential, initiation, willpower, self-expression, creation, and individuality.

The number one represents the spark of creation, raw potential, and the courage to begin something new. It’s about stepping into your power and initiating action.

• The Magician: The ultimate manifester, the Magician embodies the active principle of creation. He has all the tools at his disposal and the will to use them to shape reality.

• Aces (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): Each Ace signifies the pure, unadulterated energy of its suit – a new passion, a fresh emotion, a clear thought, or a tangible opportunity.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: A potent time for new ventures, creative breakthroughs, manifesting desires, taking initiative, and asserting your individuality. It speaks of strong will, leadership potential, and the ability to make things happen.

• Negative: Can indicate impulsiveness, ego-driven behaviour, a lack of foresight, self-centeredness, or scattered energy without a clear direction. Be wary of beginning too many things without finishing any.

Group 2: The High Priestess & The Twos

Key Themes: Duality, intuition, balance, choice, partnership, hidden knowledge, reflection.

The number two brings awareness of opposing forces and the need for balance, often leading to choices or the formation of partnerships. It emphasizes the inner world and intuitive guidance.

• The High Priestess: The guardian of the subconscious, intuition, and sacred knowledge. She represents the hidden truths and the power of listening to one’s inner voice.

• Twos (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards highlight decisions, partnerships, contemplation, or the beginning of a journey or connection. They often present a crossroads.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Strong intuition, harmonious partnerships, thoughtful decision-making, diplomatic resolutions, and the discovery of hidden truths. It suggests a time for reflection and trusting your inner wisdom.

• Negative: Indecision, stalemate, passive-aggressiveness, secrets being kept, or an inability to commit. It can also point to feeling stuck between two options or a lack of clarity.

Group 3: The Empress & The Threes

Key Themes: Growth, creativity, nurturing, abundance, expression, harmony, fertility.

The number three represents expansion, synthesis, and the blossoming of ideas into tangible forms. It’s about bringing creativity to fruition and experiencing joy and abundance.

• The Empress: The archetype of fertility, creativity, and abundance. She nurtures growth, brings beauty into the world, and represents the harmonious flow of nature.

• Threes (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards often depict the initial fruits of labour, celebration, collaboration, or the expansion of an idea or project.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Creative expression, successful outcomes, celebration, strong friendships and communities, natural growth, and abundant blessings. A time for joy, connection, and seeing your efforts bear fruit. The Hanged Man, when appearing here, suggests a necessary pause for perspective that ultimately leads to greater understanding and creative solutions.

• Negative: Overindulgence, stagnation in creativity, superficiality, gossip, or a lack of focus. It can also indicate creative blocks or neglecting the practical aspects of growth.

Group 4: The Emperor & The Fours

Key Themes: Structure, stability, order, authority, foundation, control, practicality.

The number four is about establishing solid foundations, bringing order out of chaos, and creating secure structures. It represents stability and a sense of control.

• The Emperor: The ruler, the father figure, embodying authority, structure, and the establishment of order. He provides security and governs with logic and discipline.

• Fours (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards typically represent stability, rest, security, established routines, or a temporary halt for consolidation.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Security, stability, strong foundations, disciplined action, effective leadership, and practical problem-solving. A time for creating order and building something lasting.

• Negative: Rigidity, authoritarianism, feeling trapped or restricted, stubbornness, or a lack of flexibility. It can also indicate a fear of change or an excessive need to control.

Group 5: The Hierophant & The Fives

Key Themes: Tradition, challenge, conflict, change, freedom, learning, belief systems.

The number five introduces a dynamic shift, often bringing challenge or conflict that forces re-evaluation and growth. It’s about breaking free from limitations or questioning established norms.

• The Hierophant: Represents tradition, institutions, spiritual guidance, and conventional wisdom. He teaches us established beliefs and rituals.

• Fives (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards consistently depict conflict, loss, challenge, or a sense of discomfort and dissatisfaction.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Seeking spiritual guidance, learning from tradition, questioning dogma to find personal truth, overcoming challenges, and finding freedom through change.

• Negative: Dogmatism, rigid adherence to rules, rebellion without purpose, unnecessary conflict, loss, or feeling overwhelmed by change.

Group 6: The Lovers & The Sixes

Key Themes: Choice, harmony, love, relationship, responsibility, compassion, balance.

The number six focuses on harmony, relationships, and the choices we make that impact others. It’s about finding a balance between personal desires and collective well-being.

• The Lovers: Represents significant choices, unions, love, and the harmony that comes from aligning with your true values.

• Sixes (of Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles): These cards often depict reconciliation, balance, generosity, fond memories, or a way forward after conflict.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Harmonious relationships, compassionate actions, making ethical choices, finding balance, healing, and experiencing a sense of homecoming or peace.

• Negative: Indecision in relationships, feeling burdened by responsibilities, disharmony, unrequited love, or being swayed by external opinions rather than true values.

Group 7: The Chariot & The Sevens

Key Themes: Victory, self-mastery, spiritual quest, introspection, determination, courage.

The number seven is a mystical number, representing spiritual exploration, introspection, and the pursuit of truth. It’s about pushing past obstacles through inner strength and will.

• The Chariot: Symbolizes victory, determination, and overcoming obstacles through self-control and focused will. It’s about moving forward with confidence.

• Sevens (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards often depict challenges, illusions, hidden motives, or a need for perseverance and inner reflection.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Achieving victory through willpower, deep introspection, spiritual awakening, strategic planning, and overcoming challenges with courage and determination.

• Negative: Being scattered or unfocused, indecision due to illusions, feeling overwhelmed by choices, hidden fears, or avoiding necessary self-reflection.

Group 8: Justice & The Eights

Key Themes: Balance, karma, truth, fairness, consequence, power, action, achievement.

The number eight represents balance, consequence, and the manifestation of power. It’s about reaping what you sow, taking decisive action, and achieving mastery. The decks that I use are pre-RWS, and your Justice/Strength cards may be swapped.

• Justice: Represents truth, fairness, legal matters, and the consequences of actions. It calls for integrity and balance.

• Eights (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards often show swift action, movement, mastery, hard work, or being trapped by one’s own thoughts or circumstances.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Fairness, accountability, achieving mastery through effort, swift progress, karmic balance, and taking powerful, decisive action. The Strength card, when appearing here, highlights the inner fortitude and compassion needed to wield true power and overcome challenges.

• Negative: Injustice, unfair outcomes, being overwhelmed by responsibilities, stagnation, feeling powerless, or being bound by limitations (often self-imposed).

Group 9: The Hermit & The Nines

Key Themes: Completion, wisdom, introspection, solitude, humanitarianism, fulfillment.

The number nine signifies completion, the culmination of a cycle, and the wisdom gained through experience. It often involves a period of solitude for reflection and integration.

• The Hermit: The seeker of truth, embodying introspection, wisdom, and the light of inner guidance. He withdraws to find answers within.

• Nines (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards represent completion, satisfaction, self-sufficiency, wish fulfillment, or a final push towards a goal.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Reaching completion, attaining wisdom, finding personal fulfillment, self-sufficiency, a time for reflection and spiritual growth, and the culmination of efforts.

• Negative: Isolation, loneliness, feeling unfulfilled despite achievements, fear of completion, or intellectual pride that prevents further learning.

Group 10: The Wheel of Fortune & The Tens

Key Themes: Cycles, destiny, turning points, culmination, new beginnings within endings, totality.

The number ten represents the culmination of a cycle, often leading to a new beginning. It signifies destiny, fate, and significant turning points.

• The Wheel of Fortune: Symbolizes cycles, destiny, good luck, and inevitable change. It reminds us that fortunes can turn.

• Tens (of Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles): These cards represent the absolute end of a cycle, whether joyous fulfillment, heavy burdens, or the complete ending of a situation.

Divinatory Information:

• Positive: Major turning points, positive karmic shifts, good fortune, the successful culmination of a long journey, and the promise of a fresh start after completion. The Judgement card, when appearing here, signifies a powerful calling or an awakening that leads to a profound new chapter. The World card indicates ultimate completion, integration, and universal understanding.

• Negative: Feeling overwhelmed by fate, a sense of being powerless to change circumstances, burdens of responsibility, or the painful end of a cycle.

Other Major Arcana

• Strength (XI): This card is all about inner power, compassion, and self-mastery. It connects with the vibes of the Twos.

• The Hanged Man (XII): is a variation of the Threes that is all about hitting the pause button, and going within to manifest the change. It means you need to stop and intentionally change your perspective. That shift in viewpoint is key to getting a deeper grasp of things or kickstarting a new creative path.

• Death (XIII): This card is all about an unavoidable end or a major change, kind of like the solid energy of the Fours. Think of it as the necessary clean-up that has to happen to make room for building new, stronger foundations.

• Temperance (XIV): This one’s about finding that sweet spot—balance, healing, and keeping things moderate when you’re going through a tough time or a big change. It’s linked up with the Fives.

• The Devil (XV): This card is tied to the Sixes. Think materialism, feeling stuck because of choices you’ve made, or relationships being out of whack, leaving you feeling less than free.

• The Tower (XVI): This card is like the Sevens—it’s all about sudden shake-ups. Think unexpected chaos, illusions crashing down, and old ways getting totally busted open, clearing the deck for a much better, more honest reality.

• The Star (XVII): Hey, good news! Just like the Eights, this card is all about hope, healing, and getting some divine direction after a rough patch. It’s a fresh start with a clear path forward.

• The Moon (XVIII): This card is linked to the Nines, showing the subconscious path we take to find greater wisdom. It’s all about intuition, facing illusions, and diving into your hidden self to discover who you really are.

• The Sun (XIX): Represents the number One, signifying joy, clarity, vitality, and success. It illuminates the path and brings a successful beginning, but as the 19th card in the procession, it can also mean that there is light at the end of the tunnel!

• Judgement (XX): This one is all about ultimate completion, really bringing everything together, and hitting a major high point. Since it’s a variant of Ten, it means you’ve successfully wrapped up a big cycle!

• The World (XXI): This card connects to the number Three’s significance, which is all about ultimate completion, integration, fulfillment, and successfully finishing a major cycle.

• The Fool (22/0): This card is all about fresh starts and endless possibilities. It’s truly unique—it sits outside the regular numbers, representing the very beginning of the journey. Think of it as the “spirit” of all the numbers, holding the core energy of the whole adventure, both before it kicks off and after it wraps up.

The Court Cards

Everyone who writes about these places the Tarot court with different numerical groups. The Court Cards tend to confound people. I see them as relating to the master numbers 11, 22, 33, and 44. Other teachers see them as 11, 12, 13, and 14. Some see them all as corresponding to the number 10.

• The Pages: Pages symbolize transformative events on the horizon. They can also be seen as messengers. As people, they can symbolize learners and beginners who are earnest and well-intended but still need a lot of support. They can also represent someone stepping out into anything new and uncharted.

• The Knights: Knights bring the movement and change heralded by the Pages. They build, and then, in a heartbeat, they tear it all down and do something else. Things are in flux when the Knights arrive on the scene. As people, they can symbolize someone who has just enough skill to work independently, but pushes the envelope because they still don’t know what they don’t know.

• The Queens: The Queens bring things like acceptance, balance, and negotiation to a situation. Things are starting to simmer down when they appear. As people, the Queens embody the nurturing and creative power to guide those around them to master their respective elemental domains. The Queens are influential mentors who teach, inspire, and advocate for those around them.

• The Kings: The Kings bring closure to an issue and demonstrate mastery of lessons related to their respective suits. At the point of the kings, things are either done or internalized. Everyone is moving on to something else. As people, the Kings are those individuals with a capacity for powerful, tangible manifestation and building lasting legacies.

Does anyone else remember 2021-2022? It feels like it was a good fifty years ago. Does anyone remember the Moldavite Girls from TikTok? Where are they? What are they up to these days?

Moldavite took social media by storm after the 2020 Shitshow. The funny thing is, I don’t think most of those young women were wearing actual moldavite.

If you’re wearing a 20-gram stone wrapped in a cute little spiral wire around your neck, that you got on Etsy for $45 back in those halcyon TikTok days, then you aren’t wearing moldavite; you’re wearing some very convincing and fancy glass or lab-generated crystal made in India or China. If your world was upended after putting said stone around your neck, then it was entirely your own mental doing because you heard about it online, the algorithm fed you a bunch of confirming material, you went down a rabbit hole and POOF — you were having a crisis. The old mystical adage about thinking something into existence 150% tracks.

But let’s talk about real moldavite for a moment. I’m seeing more woo about it on the apps; it seems to be enjoying a little resurgence, perhaps because social media memories are so short. I’m not going to bother looking online for any information because everything is the same now that everyone is using AI. Since AI scrapes the internet to learn, it’s learning from itself, and that particular cycle has become a perpetual motion machine of silliness.

I’m going to refer instead to Love Is In The Earth by Melody, one of the books from back in the day that has informed a couple of generations of woo-woo folks.

In general, tektites, which are meteoric glass rather than crystals, encourage gathering knowledge from a wide variety of areas of life. They also encourage travel and movement. Tektites balance the order of things, and while they will hinder pitching a tent and camping out in negative patterns of behaviour, they won’t stand in the way of you learning from your less-than-stellar moments. In fact, the energy of tektites encourages this.

Tektites are known all over the world. I can’t think of a single pre-Industrial culture that didn’t pick up a crystal or stone and not feel something. Tektites in particular were seen as stones of great power. Ancient people knew they were remnants of meteors that had fallen from the sky, and everyone seemed to have held them in high esteem. They were believed to bring wealth, power, fertility, and longevity, and to aid in telepathic communication or in the extraction of knowledge from all over the universe. Having one tektite is believed to increase your chances of finding more tektites, much like the Universal Cat Distribution System guarantees that cats will find you, especially if you already have one.

They can also be used to treat fevers, although I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you to put down the stone and call your doctor if you get sick. Apparently, they can also be used to reduce the transmission of diseases, but again — wash your damned hands, don’t hang out around sick people, and call your doctor if you feel unwell. As a class of stones, they’re considered to be stones “of light”. In general, this class of stones vibrates to the number 9, which is ruled by Mars, although individual tektites will have their own numerological correspondences.

Moldavite is a member of the tektite family. It comes from the former Czechoslovakia ( now the Czech Republic — this book was written before the fall of the Soviet Union). It was formed over fifteen million years ago when a meteorite crashed in the area and created a “strew field” of the glass. Per Melody, “it carries one beyond the mirage of life, to a home from which one has been absent, providing the image of eternity and the vision and energy to translate the image into reality.” It also “expands the scope and magnitude of the vibrational spectrums which one can approach, while allowing a more encompassing passageway to those spectrums of which one already has access; that is, one will ‘see’ more clearly and ‘see’ with an expansion of vision within the vibrational territory to which one has ventured, and/or one will be provided the inter-connection with the multi-dimensional horizons not yet experienced.”

God, I love New Age language; it’s like reading the minutes from a mystical HR meeting out there in the astral plane. It’s so sanitized and soft. No wonder so many young people raised in complete and total political correctness got sucked in. When you’re raised on sanitized therapeutic language, you’re primed to accept dangerous or destabilizing ideas that come wrapped in soft words — and that extends to more than just playing with rocks, folks.

Maybe it’s just my age or the lack of estrogen as I claw my way through perimenopause, but it’s hilarious that New Age writers are describing something with a vibration that could create a mental crisis in a language that sounds like it has been approved by the Department of Galactic Wellness:

“It carries one beyond the mirage of life, to a home from which one has been absent…”

In Plain English: It can make ordinary life feel fake, flimsy, or too small. The person may have an experience of “this cannot be all there is,” or “I have been living inside a cardboard cutout version of reality.” That type of realization can feel beautiful for about five minutes, but it can also make someone suddenly dissatisfied with their job, relationship, identity, routines, beliefs, or entire identity.

…providing the image of eternity and the vision and energy to translate the image into reality.”

In Plain English: You get a glimpse of something vast, meaningful, or transcendent, and then you feel compelled to completely reorganize your life around it. Sometimes this is positive, and it becomes about getting your life in order, seeking sobriety, reinventing yourself, and/or finally leaving the thing you knew you needed to leave. Maybe you write something brilliant or birth some masterful art. These epiphanies can also turn into “I am going to walk away from my spouse, kids, and secure and prosperous life, and move to Sedona and open a starseed cacao temple by Thursday as the Light Lords commanded.” Either way, reorganizing your life around an epiphany, whether it is a positive or negative thing, can be an absolute shitshow during the process.

“Expands the scope and magnitude of the vibrational spectrums…”

In Plain English: Your bandwidth gets wider, and you notice more. You can connect more of the dots at a faster rate. You become more sensitive to symbolism, emotion, synchronicity, intuition, atmosphere, and the patterns of the world that were already there.

And here is a hard truth about that: not every dot is actually connected. Mind-expanding experiences can increase perception, but they can also increase projection. You may see more clearly, or you may simply see more and assume all of it is meaningful.

“…inter-connection with the multi-dimensional horizons not yet experienced.”

In Plain English: You may encounter material outside your usual frame of reference. That can mean spiritual insight, spiritual beings codified in the world’s folklore, psychological material, ancestral stuff, repressed grief, old trauma, creative visions that can come from bright or dark places in your head, or the sudden realization that your entire personality has been held together with a customer-service voice and cold brew.

Translated from New Age corporate astral-speak, this is basically saying that moldavite can blow a hole in your ordinary perception of reality. It can make your regular life feel like a set piece and bring on the sense that there is something larger, older, or more real behind the daily routine, and once you have seen it, you may not be able to comfortably unsee it.

That sounds lovely when softened into phrases like “expanded vibrational spectrums” and “multi-dimensional horizons,” but in plain language, it means this: the filters come off, and you may start noticing more than you know how to process. It can be way too much and cause a mental meltdown. You may become more intuitive, more emotionally porous, more pattern-hungry, and more convinced that everything means something. Your psyche is opening every drawer in the house at once, and the end result can be catastrophic, particularly when you’re taking advice from a bunch of Chapter Three Witches who only became old enough to sidle up to the shooter bar last month and are positioning themselves as experts in 30-second sound-bites.

Nothing is new. Melody’s books were written decades ago, and she most likely dined out on the work of others who had written the same things decades earlier. The authors you’re reading now more than likely have copies of her work, just like I do.

Do I “believe” in any of this? Well, I have a bloodstone sphere that I can hold in my left hand, which starts to tingle, and within thirty seconds, my right hand starts to tingle. On days that I do this, really nice things happen. It’s been like that since the day I found this stone in a shop and picked it up.

I saw a genuine 5-gram piece of moldavite on sale from a reputable seller for about $400, but remember, for a budget-friendly $45 for a fabulous fake on Etsy, you can think yourself right into an existential crisis or spiritual psychosis, Galactic Council optional.

So a friend has written an article on the astrology of the Titanic. He's a Vedic astrologer. I was nosy because numerology originally came to us in the West from Eastern teachings. I decided to see what the numerology of the sinking of the Titanic was all about. I was not disappointed.

If you're interested in the astrology of India, visit Joey's site and read his post here.

Here are the dates and letters that I worked with:

• The Titanic was laid down on March 31st, 1909. For those who don't know what that means, it is when the keel of the ship is laid; when the ship officially starts being created.

• She was launched on May 31st, 1911. I am using this as her "birth date" information.

• Her maiden voyage, which would be her last, began on April 10th, 1912.

• She hit the iceberg at 11:40 pm on the 14th of April, 1912.

• She sank at about 2:20 am on the 15th of April, 1912.

• Her name was RMS Titanic

The Life Path and Day of Birth Information of the Titanic

The day of "creation" and the day of "birth" were interesting to me right away. They are both the number 31. If we add the digits across, this number reduces to a 4. The number 4 is ruled by Rahu also known as the North Node. The energy of the number 4 vibration is chaos and disruption. Rahu's energy is strong in this ship's birth and creation numbers. Notoriety and lasting fame are also part of the Rahu vibration, for better or worse.

The day she was laid down is not something I normally look at because if we look at her launch day as the birth, the day her keel was laid was the day of conception. In this case, though, we have this day and it is significant to the overall energy patterns in her cosmic blueprint.

Her life path is 21/3. It is symbolized by The World card in the Tarot. The day her keel was laid down is 26/8. Those of you who have followed me for any length of time know that I lobby for 26/8 to be included as a karmic number. Symbolized by the Page of Wands, this number speaks of rapidly changing situations and impulsive actions coming home to roost. When this number shows itself things must be done properly. Corners may not be cut! It is also a number pattern of loss. The World is the final card of the Major Arcana portion of the Tarot deck. It speaks of closing out one book and opening another. It also symbolizes eternal cosmic energy and rebirth. There is also a strong desire to break free from one's bonds and travel.

The other thing that I noticed in her birth information is the year, 1911. Expressed through Tarot this would be 19/The Sun and 11/Strength. Together, these two numbers indicate a background energy that provides lasting fame but also touches the darker side of life. This aspect would be emphasized with the presence of 31/4 in the date, with Rahu bringing karma into play. The year 1911 reduces to 12, symbolized by The Hanged Man. This is a number pattern that is deeply connected to secrets and sacrifice. I haven't looked at the month yet, which is May. This is the fifth month and as such is ruled by Mercury. The aspect created between 5 and 1911 creates an energy that supports lies and propaganda. The aspect between 5 and 31 creates an energy that supports profound and lasting communication that affects large groups. Indeed, after the Titanic sank, the international community responded strongly. There was a frenzy of legislation, including the creation of the first International Convention For The Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) in 1914.

The Personal Year and Triads

The Personal Year runs from birthday to birthday, so in the case of the Titanic, her PY runs from May 31st to May 31st. In the first year of life, the PY is the same as the Life Path, which is 21/3. The PY can be further broken down into Triads, or three blocks of four months each. The first triad vibrates to a 13/4 (Death) and covers the time period from May 31st, 1911 to September 30th of that year. The second triad vibrates to a 16/7 (The Tower) and covers the time period from September 30th 1911 to January 31st, 1912. The third triad is also a 16/7 vibration and covers the time period from January 31st, 1912 to May 31st of that same year.

If this was a person's chart I would look at this first year of life as being particularly challenging, with the possibility of grave illness or injury. I will be honest, I never paid much attention to the story of the Titanic before, but given these Triads, I need to read a book to see what the year leading up to that first and last voyage was like.

The Maiden Voyage

Titanic left port in Southampton, England on April 10, 1912. From there she made her way to Cherbourg, France and Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland before heading out into open ocean to begin her voyage to New York City. The universal day energy for the voyage commencement was 18/9, symbolized by The Moon in Tarot. The 18 vibration does reduce to 9 and therefore symbolizes endings and fulfillment of cycles, but as a compound number, it symbolizes war, deception, upheaval, secrets, illusions, and danger from water. That's very telling!! The personal day energy for the Titanic that day was 26/8 - remember that number from the very beginning? This was the energy at play the day her keel was first laid. 26/8 is a number of karma and returns. Her maiden voyage occurred during the final triad of her first personal year. This triad was under a 16/7 (Tower) vibration. This is a number pattern associated with danger, destruction, and overthrow.

Colliding with the Iceberg

The Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40pm, on the 14th of April, 1912. She did not sink, though, until 2:20am, on the 15th of April, a few hours later. It should be noted that 14 is a karmic number that relates to retribution for inaction that causes harm or suffering to others. The universal day energy for that day vibrated to a 22. I know that New Age creators on social media have people conflating 11 and 22 with manifestation and abundance but they are reflections of powerful forces relating to Pluto and Uranus. Clusters of repeating 1s and 2s - particularly 11 and 22 - often show up around accidents and disasters. The time that she sank - 2:20 am - can be looked at numerologically as 22/0 - which relates directly to The Fool in Tarot - card 22/0. The Fool occupies that liminal in-between space between the beginning and end.

The personal day energy for the Titanic vibrated to 39/3 which is symbolized in Tarot by the Knight of Cups. He brings emotional messages that have profound effects. The number 39 contains a hidden sacrifice, as it first reduces to 12 (The Hanged Man) before it reduces to 3. The aspects formed between the 3 and 9 reflect sudden and large amounts of energy, the potential for destruction, but also great courage and selflessness.

The Sinking of the Titanic

Now the Titanic was "birthed" or launched, at 12:13 pm on May 31st, 1911. This means that her personal 24 hour day runs from 12:13 pm on one day to 12:13 pm the next day. I also didn't realize until JUST NOW that 12 and 13 are showing up again!! The Hanged Man and Death in Tarot are the corresponding cards to her birth time.

What this means is that although she sank on the next calendar day, she was still experiencing her personal day energy of 39/3. Using her "birth" time of 12:13 pm, her personal hours run 12:13 to 1:13, 1:13 to 2:13, etc. So at the time that she sank - 2:20 am - she was experiencing a personal hour vibration of 54/9 which reflects endings, messages, and secrets coming to light. It is symbolized by the Page of Swords in Tarot.

The Titanic disaster is a great study in the clustering of karmic numbers and other numbers that reflect endings, disasters, accidents, and secrets. We can study this at leisure, easily seeing the patterns for what they are after the fact but this knowledge can be applied to present events as they unfold when we know what patterns to look for. It also underscores the importance of constructing a chart that contains both universal and personal aspects because events like the sinking of the Titanic are as much subject to the mundane numerology as they are to the personal. Forewarned is forearmed!

Now and then I get a client who thinks it is somehow contrived or fake that numerology or astrology runs in cycles. They seem to be disappointed that - for example - their personal day energy will run in an ordered 1-2-3 cycle instead of something random. Or that astrology has regular cycles as well. Things are only chaotic when we don't understand them but when we stop to look, we can always find the order underpinning the chaos. There are times when it is more obvious and times when you need to search a little harder.

If you've got a Facebook account, which most of us do, then you know that every day it shows you "memories"; a collection of posts made on that date in years past. If you are reading the blog, you probably have Facebook because this is where I share my posts. The next time you are feeling out of sorts and don't know what to expect, try this little experiment:

Open your Facebook memories and look back to nine years ago. Don't worry about any numerological calculations, just look at what was going on in your life nine years ago. Numerology runs in nine-year cycles. Now there may not be any heavy-duty information in your Facebook memories if you are not the sort of person who posts everything going on in their life online. Still, there is enough to jog your memory about past events.

Life runs in nine-year cycles. The cast of characters may have changed and the specific issues you are dealing with may be different but if you look back to your memories in all likelihood the themes are the same. Every year we have what is called "personal year energy". This is a calculation based on your birthday and the year in question. This number can be reduced to a single digit from 1-9. These numbers repeat in nine-year cycles.

There is another, larger cycle at play that runs even more deeply in the background than the above-mentioned cycle and that is three cycles of twenty-seven years each (ever heard of the 27 Club?) but they are a discussion for another day.

So if you want to make predictions about what will happen this year in 2024, look at what was happening in 2015. There is a fairly good chance that the background themes present in your life then are occurring now. If you can remember what you were up to in 2006, nine years back from then, those themes were probably playing out in some fashion then, too. Remember, the people around you may change and other aspects of your material environment may change - but the lessons keep on keeping on.

If you read blogs/articles about divinatory systems or watch videos on social media you will see people write or say things like "Well Mars is opposing Saturn and that's going to make you blah...blahblah....blah" or "This is The Lovers card so that means your girlfriend is blah...blah...blah"

Those statements, while well-intentioned, are not entirely true. Divinatory systems (and I am lumping astrology, numerology, and Tarot together as such for the sake of brevity) are reflective, not causal. This means that they follow the axiom "As above, so below" and they reflect what is either happening, has happened, or is yet to come but they don't cause these things.

This is important! You aren't acting like an asshole because of what Mars is doing up there in outer space, millions of miles away. Over the centuries metaphysicians have noted that when certain elements in the natural world did certain things, certain behaviors and events here on Earth were more apparent. Mars is reflecting the potential for impatience or argumentativeness here on Earth (as above, so below) but it isn't causing it. You are causing it. You are choosing to be an asshole, from the myriad of choices available to you in each moment, in that one instance, you narrowed it down to one option and chose jerk.

Another way to look at this is through the lens of support. Those who have heard me on TikTok in the past will note that I frequently said, "[Insert number here] supports self-soothing behavior and that might look like over-eating, drinking, or spending." Why? Because numbers, planets, and cards don't cause you to do certain things but they can certainly highlight or reflect the energy that is supported. So while you can have any day under the sun, if the energy supports (in this example) emotional responses that might provoke self-soothing activities AND your chart also reflects a tendency towards such behavior, then you might find the energy that day lends itself to leaning into bad habits - but it isn't causing it. You can still put down the Hefty bag of Doritos and go do some jumping jacks instead. No one said you couldn't, or that you shouldn't.

So remember, divinatory systems don't cause things to happen. They reflect patterns already at play and support certain things over others. After all, energy takes the path of least resistance - but you don't have to give in. Don't blame Mars, Mercury retrograde, the number 11, or the 5 of Swords - you always have choices.

Everything in numerology revolves around the number 9 and 9-year cycles. Numbers that are not personal to you are called universal numbers. They apply to everyone. Most people who are into numerology have an idea of what their core numbers are: Life Path, Expression, Heart, and so on. It's important to remember that we have other numbers lurking in the background, beneath the surface. These universal vibrations that get used in calculations influence what we see and know about our charts, helping to create our own personal algorithm.

Let's look at your birth year. You share it with everyone born in that year. Numerology has universal long-term cycles of nine years. Reducing your year of birth shows you where in that universal cycle you were born, but it also shows you what background qualities you share with others the same age or those born nine years apart or multiples of nine years.

If you do know your chart, then you can check to see if these underlying qualities are emphasizing what is already visible or if they are waiting in the wings to be brought out into the light.

Add the numbers in your year of birth. Reduce this sum to a single digit. I was born in 1972:

1 + 9+ 7 + 2 = 19   1 + 9 = 10   1 + 0 = 1

I was born at the beginning of a 9-year cycle. I work with compound numbers so I would actually write this as 19/1. This is a fortunate number, but I'll get into that another time.

Even if you don't particularly feel that you have the qualities of your year of birth, you do have them within you along with everyone else born that year. This isn't a core number, it's a background energy so it may not feel as accessible as the energy in a placement such as your Life Path or Expression, but it is there for you to use.

1: You carry a leadership and innovation vibration. Even if you don't feel like a motivator, a great starter, a leader, or a particularly assertive individual, you do indeed have that energy to draw upon.

2: You carry a nurturing and compassionate vibration within you. You also have patience to draw on and the ability to trust the process when you can not see.

3: You carry a communicative vibration within you. The ability to ferret out clues, network, be a great salesman or marketer, and a magnetic force that draws a crowd - it's in there! Some of you may have to work hard to pull it out, but I promise, it's part of your personal algorithm.

4: You carry within you the ability to create order from chaos. If your year of birth reduces to 4 then you and everyone else born in that year have hard-working, practical, grounded energy to draw upon.

5: Within your year of birth is an insatiable curiosity and desire to know all the things. There is a draw towards the new and exciting, and to cutting loose and getting into mischief. So if you need to lighten up, you have this energy to draw upon.

6: A love of beauty, luxury, and the finer things exists within the vibration of your birth year. You also carry within you a background vibration connected to responsibility and service to family and friends.

7: You carry a discerning and discriminating vibration within your algorithm. If you cultivate it, you will fine-tune your bullshit detector.

8: Everyone born in your birth year carries a desire for power, success, and authority. So if you think you don't have the moxie to go after something and your year of birth reduces to 8 - think again. You do indeed have the backbone required to get the job done.

9: Your birth year contains a go-getter vibe that wants to save everyone from all the things. A caped crusader who stands up for the little guy lives within everyone born the same year as you.

I have heard over the years that the number ten is ruled by the Sun. If you use Tarot as I do, then ten is the Wheel Of Fortune and that card is seen by some as being ruled by Saturn. Or Uranus. Or Pluto. It's going to depend on which deck you are using if it's been worked into the art or which author you are reading. A lot of numerology books stumble through the tens because of the zero so they mumble something about the meaning being "more spiritual" or something else that reeks of "I don't know, now let's get through this number quickly to move on to Master 11"

After several years of half-arsed thinking about it and almost a year of full-arse thinking on the subject, I am starting to look at the 10/1 energy pattern as being ruled by Eris. 

Let's look at some of the things that the 10/1 vibration (and The Wheel Of Fortune) symbolizes:

• Breaking ties, especially old ties

• Breaking with tradition 

• Upheaval

• Sudden rise or fall of fortune - fortune not necessarily being money but most definitely luck or success

• Events coming out of left field, whether good or bad

• Unconventional ideas that can bring breakthroughs or open a can of worms

• Discord in the environment whether by events or people

• Situations or people that come from out of nowhere, happen too quickly or forcefully to be stopped, leaving chaos and mess in their wake, and ending/disappearing just as soon as they came. 

• Unexpected choices that no one wants to make, conversations no one wants to have - uncomfortable and discordant stuff that just shows up at your door that needs to be dealt with NOW

Let's look at Eris. For those of you who don't who Eris/Discordia is, she is Aries/Mars's sister/companion and she is as much a bag of kittens as her brother. In mythology, Eris is best known for having the last laugh when she was not invited to a wedding feast to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. For some reason, they didn't want the goddess of strife and chaos there. Hmmmm. Being a deity she was really mature and thoughtful in her response to this social faux pas. She threw a golden apple on the dining table and announced that it was for the most beautiful goddess there. Naturally, three of the goddesses felt it was for them. Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera all wanted the apple. Some poor mortal named Paris was brought forward to decide. 

Each of the goddesses made him the promise of a gift if he picked them: 

• Hera promised to make him lord of Europe and Asia. 

• Athena promised to make him a great military leader and let him storm and plunder all over Greece.

• Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for a wife.

In the end, he picked Aphrodite because her promise appealed to him the most. The woman in question happened to be Helen of Troy and this choice caused the Trojan War because her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta, wasn't at all pleased about his wife being given out as a door prize. No matter how Paris chose, the outcome would have been awful because he would have disappointed two goddesses.

The story about this terrible choice was the image chosen for The Lovers card in The Mythic Tarot, and I have pictured it here. I wouldn't have wanted to be him in that moment. I'm sure Eris thought it was funny as hell.

Eris the planet only entered our collective consciousness in 2005. When she was discovered, scientists initially dubbed her Xena and when she was found to have a tiny moon, they called it Gabrielle. She was renamed Eris, though, and her moon was called Dysnomia. This is Eris' daughter in mythology. Dysnomia is the demon goddess of lawlessness. They're a fun family at summer cookouts, just ask Helen and Paris. 

Eris is new to astrology and it will probably be another decade or two before she starts showing up in the regular lexicon. It took a while for astrologers to warm up to Pluto when he was discovered. Eris moves slowly and takes about 560 years to make a full revolution around the Sun. She entered the constellation of Aries in 1926 and will be there until 2048. Like Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus her influence is currently seen as largely cultural. Where it becomes personal is if she is conjunct with another planet in the natal chart or if the transits form an aspect.

Eris represents tremendous cosmic energy. She brings disruption, transformation, and chaos to certain areas of life. Regardless of where she is placed in a chart, Eris challenges traditional views on identity and self-expression. She encourages people to embrace standing out. Make it weird. It may well lead to a "journey" of self-discovery. This is a euphemistic term for identity crisis. This is a goddess of chaos. She's not going to lead you down the path laden with rose quartz, cute festival outfits, and oracle cards. That's not her awakening. You're thinking of Fashionistia, Goddess of the Galleria. 

Eris's aspects will disrupt your happy relationship in progress, She leaves events lying around for you to step in and you end up questioning the societal expectations of your relationships. All of them. Not just the naked ones. You may find yourself suddenly yearning for something extremely unconventional. You may start stripping away layers and come to the realization that you've been living a lie. Cry it out. Blow some snot bubbles. I'll be here when you're done. 

Like the 10/1 vibration and The Wheel Of Fortune, Eris brings unexpected and sometimes sweeping shifts to your life. They don't just have to be to self-identity or relationships. Your career. Your education track. Where you live. Your money. All of your life can be disrupted by this energy pattern and what you'll find is that one change begets another and another and another. Trying to stop the changes initiated by a transiting 10/1 energy pattern is like pissing in the wind. Discord will happen to you whether you like it or not. None of us can escape the turning of the wheel. 

I don't mean to make it sound negative, because it certainly doesn't have to be. Despite legions of White Lady Life Coaches handing out infographics full of well-meaning tips on how to smile our way through a "shift", it doesn't change the fact that we are wired by nature to see things negatively or suspiciously. It keeps us safe. We don't like change for a reason. We like what we know which is why when the 10/1 pattern shows up it can carry hesitation. Like a drop of water quivering on the edge of a tap, we try to stay where we are, where the normal is, but eventually, gravity takes over and that drop of water falls into the drain, just like we have to jump headlong into whatever life brings us. 

While the sort of change brought on by the 10/1 vibration and The Wheel Of Fortune can feel terrible at the moment, these events generally set us free from things that have run their course. I know it sounds like a tired old cliche but we really are better for it when we come out the other side of discord and the turning of the wheel.