Tarot of life: which card represents your age

Although the tarot is popularly known as a predictive tool, it is a complex and ancient map of symbols that relates the experiences lived by humanity for centuries. Its deep symbolism provides a more comprehensive understanding than the cut-off personal perception that we usually have about our own existence. What does the tarot of life show?

Tarot of life

Let’s imagine the tarot as a great test of images that announces the climates to live in and that also provides tools to be able to go through them with greater awareness. The language of the tarot makes human beings equal: we all have similar life experiences, but we can only make a difference and evolve as humanity according to the level of consciousness with which we go through them and resolve them.

Tarot cards speak to all of us, they remind us that we are part of a collective experience, expressions of consciousness of a human ocean and that we live very similar emotions, feelings, illusions, and fears. Whether we define ourselves as American, Russian, Hindu, or Muslim, we are human; we are the human body, consciousness, and emotionality.

The archetypal images of his letters denounce our predictable and repetitive lives and insist on reminding us that we have all incarnated in the same “human matrix”, that we are part of a common experience: we are droplets of consciousness deciphering the meaning of our lives. We share emotional reactions, fears, and anxieties, as well as searches, answers, and transcendent paths.

The tarot suggests shared learning on this collective path of life. Understanding human unity helps us feel more accompanied in our complex and mysterious destiny, knowing that we are traversed by similar illusions and suffering seems to lighten our load.

Tarot cards relate to our collective human drama and help us not to feel so alone in the pain of life. Sharing with others seems to help overcome fears and heal our repeated suffering destiny. The tarot, rather than being a prediction tool, motivates us to better understand our experiences in order to resignify them and modify harmful choices or unnecessary repetitions.

The 78 arcana of the tarot

The tarot has 78 cards or arcana that are divided into two large groups: 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana. The word “arcane” means secret or mystery, that which is treasured or encrypted.

The major arcana reveal, therefore, the most complex and sacred mysteries of life. Within these 22 majors, there are keys to our life lessons, they provide clues regarding the direction of our destiny, and they speak of the different climates and challenges that we will go through on our spiritual route.

Each one of these major arcana also announces the experiences that we will live according to the age we are. Each major arcane alludes to four years of our life: from number 1 to 21 we can symbolize 84 years of human life. The arcane number Zero the Fool is free from being pigeonholed in age since it operates a creative spark that activates our entire existence.

Let’s look at each of the major arcana representing a particular four-year period of our life. Find yours and recognize his message.

• From 0 to 4 years
• Ruled by number 1: The Magician

Meaning of the card: Beginning, enthusiasm, because life is lived feeling that the facts coincide with one’s dreams. Joy, exciting beginnings.

Stage marked by the principles: speak, walk, manifest the “I”. Exaltation prevails and the impulse to discover oneself. Self-referenced consciousness: “one in the world”.

• From 4 to 8 years
• Ruled by number 2: The High Priestess

Meaning of the card: Presence of feminine and familiar energy that protects, exacerbates feeling beyond rational logic, proposes trusting intuition, and gives time to processes.

Period of recognition of affective environments, the family matrix is ​​discovered, and it is understood that “prior” to the birth itself the others already existed. The emotional is put to the test at the beginning of schooling.

• From 8 to 12 years
• Ruled by number 3: The Empress

Meaning of the card: Appreciation of tastes and situations that give pleasure, exacerbates bodily enjoyment and confidence in one’s own creativity.

Stage of discrimination from the family and beginning to develop one’s own tastes, awakening of the body that suggests imminent sexuality. Preteen.

• From 12 to 16 years old
• Ruled by number 4: The Emperor

Meaning of the card: Assessment of structure, order, safe method, and responsibility.

A period where you still have to respond to solid and clear rules, you still go to school and you are under parental rules. The desire for independence arises and obedience or rebellion is revealed to accept the guidelines of family or school authorities.

• From 16 to 20 years
• Ruled by number 5: The Pope

Meaning of the card: Crisis of what was believed to be safe, the need to overcome the guidelines, fear of growing. The appearance of a new power that frightens; own power, money, and sex.

Period to strengthen and open up to the world beyond the family. Facing one’s own power, vocational crisis, initiation, and fears in economic, relational, and sexual spheres.

• From 20 to 24 years old
• Ruled by number 6: The Lovers

Meaning of the card: It symbolizes the need to open one’s mind, accept one’s own contradictions, not rush to decide, tolerate ambivalence, and play with options.

Opening period, to be encouraged to investigate and learn about new options, an opportunity to play with the diversities of life, fall in love and explore, and venture into a new life.

• From 24 to 28 years old
• Ruled by number 7: The Chariot

Meaning of the card: Announces the need to take risks, to be brave to independently face what is being asked, personal courage, and power to start a more autonomous path.

Time of independence, it will be necessary to make decisions even if they involve risks: become independent, live alone or with a partner, project your own family and children, assume economic independence, stop waiting for your parents to solve what you cannot achieve.

• From 28 to 32 years
• Ruled by number 8: Justice

Meaning of the card: Announces a reordering of past excesses to continue more mature and light. It proposes to take charge and purify the egoic exuberances.

Times of maximum efforts and work and family demands. The dream may seem demanding and it is avoided or we discover that we achieve the dream but it is still required or does not seem to be enough, forcing us to reevaluate desires and fantasies.

• From 32 to 36 years old
• Ruled by number 9: The Hermit

Meaning of the card: Announces the need for a deeper search, to go towards the essential to rediscover the spiritual being that inhabits us. Need for isolation and introspection.

During periods of loneliness, the couples are the same as one, sustaining family and work achievements, beginning a more transcendent, spiritual, or therapeutic search.

• From 36 to 40 years old
• Ruled by number 10: The Wheel

Meaning of the card: Announces a change, a 180-degree turn with new and better beginnings. Growth and expansion.

Age-associated with great changes: “life begins at 40”. Awareness of finitude begins a new cycle where one goes in search of what has not yet been achieved, both in love and in the profession. The flip flop is “thrown” or the possibility of starting genuine and creative projects arises.

• From 40 to 44 years old
• Ruled by the number 11: The Force

Meaning of the card: Announces standing up with the many personal tools that have been achieved. Emotional maturity together with a vital body suggest good tools to act.

Period of commitment to what was chosen in the previous stage, bodily power, and great maturity to take charge of one’s own happiness, and stop blaming others.

• From 44 to 48 years old
• Ruled by number 12: The Hanged Man

Meaning of the card: Detention, things do not happen as expected, time of sacrifice or sacred office. A new perception of life, where the body ego will no longer be preponderant.

Period of change of consciousness, the same things are no longer desired. Wisdom and compassion are valued, we run away from the need to be the most beautiful or the most successful, if they resist, the feeling of not being socially valued begins, and the fight against imminent bodily decay.

• From 48 to 52 years old
• Ruled by number 13: Death

Meaning of the card: Announce changes with pain, ask to work on detachment, and let go.

The period in which someone who was believed to die, the time dedicated to one’s own children is minimized and the parents themselves begin to leave. Time of mourning and radical changes in habits and daily occupations. It is usually synchronous with menopause in women.

• From 52 to 56 years old
• Ruled by number 14: Temperance

Meaning of the card: Resurrection, the ability to perceive and trust in a sacred order, beyond one’s own will, surrender to designs that exceed those of one’s ego.

A period of commitment from the heart needs to alleviate social or family approval to be faithful to what gives genuine joy. Activities and links that provide liberation and genuine enjoyment begin to be prioritized: the first grandchildren usually appear.

• From 56 to 60 years
• Ruled by number 15: The Devil

Meaning of the card: Encounter with one’s own shadow. Exacerbation of fears about their own economic and vital survival. Be aware of material handling.

Period to discover what was received from life. The presence (or absence) of social recognition and economic achievements are proof of the –good or bad- management of one’s own power. Fears and contradictions are exacerbated to release control and leadership.

• From 60 to 64 years
• Ruled by number 16: The Tower

Meaning of the card: Announces a liberating blow, the more attachment and fear the more it destroys, the more you let go and trust, the more it releases.

Time to encourage yourself to let go of work and/or family responsibilities and demands. It is opportune to recycle the energy dedicated to being parents or to having social successes, detaching from the effort of what has been achieved and freeing oneself towards genuine, creative, and liberating projects.

• From 64 to 68 years
• Ruled by number 17: The Star

Meaning of the card: Detachment from material and affective possessiveness. Delivery capacity and fluidity. Importance of friends and groups as they bring creativity.

Time to share achievements, to trust that others will recreate their own in a more creative way, both in the family and at work. Let go of control so that personal creativity spreads to others and improves one’s own experience.

• From 68 to 72 years
• Ruled by the number 18: The Moon

Meaning of the card: Make contact with the matrix, the human matrix that conditions with its bewitching fears, time to recognize them and free yourself or stay stuck in your own world of apprehensions.

Period, where social acknowledgments or family requirements to face ourselves, is usually minimized. It is necessary to abandon the fear of loss, overcome the fantasy of control or denial of death, the danger of being trapped in the panic of old age, wisdom, and detachment or suffering from a true emotional ghost train.

• From 72 to 76 years
• Ruled by the number 19: The Sun

Meaning of the card: Vitality and joy, life is to be lived, confidence and creativity in every moment.

If the previous card was overcome, this period of life proposes to enjoy and not get into trouble because everything has already been done. It is time to understand a new spiritual path that prioritizes the awareness of the here and now.

• From 76 to 80 years
• Ruled by the number 20: The Judgment

Meaning of the card: Announces a time of commitment, of a new consciousness, asks to wake up and “stop being dead in life.”

This period can be lived from true wisdom that prioritizes the legacy that will be left to others. Become aware that one is no longer so significant, the important thing is in the good distribution towards the future, in the good sowing of seeds that continue with one’s own economic or ideological legacy. Or, on the contrary, to be “dead in life”, feeling that nobody cares.

• From 80 to 84 years old
• Ruled by number 21: The World

Meaning of the card: Announces great ability to take advantage of everything that exists here and now.

The period where more than ever the phrase “do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today” is appropriate. Take advantage of every present possibility because it is not known how much future there will be. The tarot suggests that at this age you should have reached a consciousness that allows you to live as you should have always lived: the present is all there is. Overcome past conditioning and fears and not postpone for the future.