Tarot and the Wheel of the Year: a ritual calendar

This is a system I developed a long time ago to connect the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana to the Wheel of the Year, a calendric system used in modern neopagan movements. Over the course of a year, I set aside one day each to do some individual work with these cards, and I wanted a structure to my ritualized Tarot work. The Wheel of the Year follows the passing of time and the changing of the seasons, so it seemed like a natural choice.

The biggest problem with this, of course, is that there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana and only eight festivals in the Wheel of the Year. Working only with these festival dates, a Tarot reader would have to work with three cards on each holiday, and that seemed like too much to accomplish any meaningful work.

To address this problem, I decided to add in the Wheel of the Zodiac. Using the Golden Dawn's zodiacal attributions, I assigned one card to each sun sign, and decided that I would work with those cards on the full moon while the sun was in their respective signs. (If there was a blue moon, then that lucky card would get two celebrations.) Thus, for the most recent full moon (sun in Scorpio), I worked with Death; for the one before that, I worked with Justice, and so on.

With the twelve zodiacal cards taken out, that left ten cards to fit to the eight spokes of the Wheel of the Year. Much more manageable.

0. The Fool (א)
I. The Magician (ב)
II. The High Priestess (ג)
III. The Empress (ד)
X. The Wheel of Fortune (כ)
XII. The Hanged Man (מ)
XVI. The Tower (פ)
XIX. The Sun (ר)
XX. Judgment (ש)
XXI. The World (ת)

I toyed with a lot of different ways to assign these cards to the Wheel of the Year, mostly using the astrological attributions of their Hebrew letters in the Sepher Yetzirah. There were always problems--the Sun was at Samhain or the High Priestess was at Beltane, but something was always misplaced. Eventually, I split them into the triad assigned to the Mother Letters (א, מ, ש) and the heptad assigned to the Double Letters (ב, ג, ד, כ, פ, ר, ת). I abandoned the astrological associations and just decided to fit the heptad to seven spokes of the Wheel based on how I felt that their card meanings best corresponded. This is what I came up with:

Ostara - The Empress
Beltane - The Magician
Litha - The Sun
Lughnasadh - The Wheel of Fortune
Mabon - The Tower
Samhain - The High Priestess
Yule - The World

I was pretty happy with this arrangement. I felt like all of the meanings corresponded well. That left only the triad of the Fool, the Hanged Man, and Judgment, as well as the festival of Imbolc (the first festival of spring, whose name translates roughly as "in the womb"). And actually, having the Mother Letters at this festival made perfect sense to me, because of the imagery of gestation and new life associated with Imbolc and with the Mother Letters in the Sepher Yetzirah. Individually, I would never have thought to put any of these cards with this festival, but the three of them together balanced each other quite well.

Looking at this calendar in the Golden Dawn system of astrological correspondences, it actually shows a nice symmetry, as well. The Empress (Venus) and the Tower (Mars) are opposite each other, as are the Magician (Mercury) and the High Priestess (Luna).

This is just a system I developed for my personal use, but I'm quite happy with it. Has anyone else done something similar? Does anyone have thoughts about what does or doesn't work in the elaboration of this set of correspondences? I'd love to hear the community's thoughts on the matter.

I follow the Greenwood wheel
http://quirkeries.blogspot.com/2010/01/greenwood-wheel-of-year.html
because I'm not smart enough to custom design one
Yours is over my head because I've only been studying Kaballah for about a year
but I'd love to see it laid out, a visual would really help, I like your thought path.

thank you, Sharyn

Hi Sharyn,

Thank you for sharing this. I hadn't been aware of the Greenwood Wheel's existence, and I think it's interesting to compare. That wheel is, in some ways, much more complex and comprehensive than my model--especially since it also includes the Minor Arcana and the Court cards--but as I developed my system, I was worried about trying to assign as many cards per holiday as Greenwood does lest I find myself lost in the milieu.

I think it's also interesting to compare the assignments on each wheel; for example, Greenwood and I have the Tower (the Blasted Oak) and the Wheel switched. I definitely considered putting the Tower at Lughnasadh, but ended up electing for it in a position closer to winter: to me, it's not the point where the light first starts to fade, but the accelerated unraveling of, well, everything, as well as the realization that there's nothing you can do to stop winter from coming and the best thing you can do is stock up And be prepared for the challenges ahead. The Chinese applies to the Wheel of Fortune for me: in my mind, it represents all change, and is in some sense a microcosm of the Wheel of the Year itself, but in particular, I think of it as that moment where things are just beginning to shift--to light or to dark. That's why I wanted it on the Lughnasadh/Imbolc axis.

I will see what I can do about putting a visual glyph up in the next day or so.

Thank You. If you'd like a better Greenwood Wheel image I can email you one.
I expect the addition or inclusion of the minors happened over time.
In thinking on it I seldom consider the Wheel minors anyway...

"Tarot and the wheel of the year"

Many thanks for this train of thought that works out the use of the Tarot for the 'Wheel of the Year' JackofWands.

How interesting and fitting! - since I was just beginning to wonder about how I could do just that - and began jotting down some ideas.
Nothing as detailed as your reasoning through following Kabbalah though, as this system is of much interest to me, but too complicated for me to grasp. Lol.
And that Greenwood spread looks even more detailed - thankyou Sharyn.

So erm - I hope you're OK for me to happily skip off and start using the 10 cards you've named
in my annual explorations... (I'm thrilled about how you arrived at the choice).

Hi Tanga,

Absolutely! Please, by all means, feel free to use my system. I'm glad you liked it. The Kabbalistic elements of my wheel structure are really rather bare (I use the idea of the Mother Letters to help filter ten cards down to three, but this wheel doesn't incorporate a lot of central Kabbalistic elements like the Sephiroth our the four worlds), so I think it should probably be just as usable even if you're not into Kabbalah. And to be honest, the cards are assigned the way they are mostly because of my interpretations of their non-Kabbalistic meanings.

For AJ: Alas, I'm not an AT subscriber, so I can't attach an image of my version of the Wheel of the Year, but let's see what I can do about reconstructing it here. The general structure of the Wheel (with only the festivals and no astrological associations) is as follows:

---(אמש)--(ת)---(ג)
-----\---|----/
------\--|---/
-------\-|--/
--------\|-/
(ד)____/|\____(פ)
--------/|\
-------/-|-\
------/--|--\
-----/---|---\
----/----|----\
--(ב)---(ר)---(כ)

(Sorry to have put the Hebrew letters instead of the names of the cards, but drawing the diagram was difficult enough without trying to fit in all the names. The correspondences follow.)

ד Ostara - The Empress
ב Beltane - The Magician
ר Litha - The Sun
כ Lughnasadh - The Wheel of Fortune
פ Mabon - The Tower
ג Samhain - The High Priestess
ת Yule - The World
א| Imbolc - The Fool
מ| Imbolc - The Hanged Man
ש| Imbolc - Judgment

Hope this helps!

I'm sorry to resurrect this post, but I'm considering altering the structure of my Wheel slightly and would like some input; it seemed easier to respond to the OP than to re-explain the context of the Wheel of the Year I've constructed.

Because my Wheel is derived in part from Kabbalistic symbolism, I've toyed for a long time with the idea of trying to have its structure reflected in the assignments of the Major Arcana to the 22 paths of the Tree of Life. For a while, I had a version of the Tree that I used exclusively for the calendar (and all other Tree of Life work I did was connected to a more established Tree structure), but of late, I've been feeling dissatisfied with this. I think I can do better.

I don't want to pawn myself off as a Kabbalah expert here--my ego isn't quite that inflated--but a little bit of basic information about the structure of the Tree of Life for those who aren't familiar*: It consists of ten Sephiroth connected by twenty-two paths, which are often likened to the cards of the Major Arcana. Of these paths, twelve are diagonal, seven are vertical, and three are horizontal. In some versions of the Tree, the paths are assigned to different Hebrew letters (and Tarot cards) based on their linguistic qualities (i.e. the three Mother letters are put on the horizontal paths and the Double letters are put on the vertical paths).

I had constructed a version of the Tree with the Mother letters (linked to Imbolc) on the horizontal paths and the remaining seven festival-related letters on the vertical paths. I had put the three remaining Celtic festivals (Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain; corresponding to the Magician, the Wheel of Fortune, and the High Priestess, respectively) on the central column, the equinoxes (the Empress and the Tower) on the left column, and the solstices (the Sun and the World) on the right.

Phew. So much background information. Sorry if this is boring or unnecessary. Anyways, I've worked with this system for a while, and it's decent, but I've always been the slightest bit bugged that it doesn't align with more conventional placements of the cards on the Tree of Life (and the symbolism derived from those placements). It felt like I was forcing the Tree of Life into an unnatural shape just because I wanted it to fit with this system I had conjured up for myself.

I've done some work in the past with the Gra Tree of Life, and I really like the structure of it. I also really like the arrangement of the letters on the vertical paths, and I've started to wonder if I could use these letters in a Wheel of the Year structure instead of the ones I came up with on my own.** Were I to do this, not too much would change; the three Mother letters would still be connected to Imbolc, and I see no reason to change the correspondences for the Magician, Empress, or Tower, none of which have moved from their original locations.

However, the High Priestess, Wheel of Fortune, Sun, and World have all moved. If I'm to keep my aesthetically pleasing split of the three vertical columns, that would mean that the Sun and the World would have to be assigned to Lughnasadh and Samhain (or vice versa, but just based on the symbolism associated with the cards, this is the way I would do it). The High Priestess and the Wheel of Fortune would take Yule and Litha (with the same caveat as with the Sun and World). The final Wheel would look like this:

Imbolc - Fool, Hanged Man, Judgment
Ostara - Empress
Beltane - Magician
Litha - Wheel of Fortune
Lughnasadh - Sun
Mabon - Tower
Samhain - World
Yule - High Priestess

All in all, I do like these associations, and I'm especially pleased that they lay out on the Tree of Life as well as they do, but I have a few qualms. First off, the Sun seemed like such a perfect fit for Litha that I'm not sure how I feel about switching it with the Wheel of Fortune. Both of those cards could easily fit to their new slots, but I'm not sure if the change is really better. Similarly, I liked the death-and-rebirth symbolism of the World at Yule, although I suppose that card is equally fitting for Samhain since that festival is often called the neopagan New Year. And lastly (although this is silly***), I'm not sure how I feel about the seasonal progression of the cards. The central column runs from the summer (Beltane) at the top to winter (Samhain) at the bottom, but the column on the right goes from Yule to Litha. That feels inconsistent to me, and inconsistency is anathema.

Anyways. These are some of my thoughts. Since tonight is Yule (and a happy one to those of you who celebrate it), I may do some work with both the World and the High Priestess, to investigate a potential transition to the new system, but I would also welcome any and all thoughts from real-world people. What do you think of this new system? Do you like it or dislike it (both in itself and relative to the previous one)? Do you have any thoughts on how it could be improved?

For the more visually minded, below is an attempt to reconstruct the potential new version of my Tarot Wheel of the Year:

Magician********WoF************Sun
(Beltane)*******(Litha)*******(Lughnasadh)
*******\*********|*********/*******
********\********|********/********
*********\*******|*******/*********
**********\******|******/**********
***********\*****|*****/***********
************\****|****/************
*************\***|***/*************
**************\**|**/**************
***************\*|*/***************
****************\|/****************
Empress-----------------------------Tower
(Ostara)*********/|\*********(Mabon)
***************/*|*\***************
**************/**|**\**************
*************/***|***\*************
************/****|****\************
***********/*****|*****\***********
**********/******|******\**********
*********/*******|*******\*********
********/********|********\********
*******/*********|*********\*******
F/HM/Jud********HP*********World**
(Imbolc)********(Yule)******(Samhain)

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read this and respond.

*I know that this all belongs in the "Kabbalah and Alphabets" subforum, but this is just contextual information that I think might be necessary before discussing the changes I'm considering to my Wheel of the Year correspondence system. I'm sorry if this post is overinflated. Brevity is not my strength.

**Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Well, I have two deeply ingrained worldviews that often clash when it comes to trying to apply esoteric systems to the Tarot. On the one hand, I like to see the origins of various practices and associations, and I tend to reject correspondences/interpretations/symbolism out of hand if it feels contrived or irrational to me. This has actually gotten me into a lot of hot water with several Kabbalistic concepts in the past, because I feel like they're invalid unless I can see and agree with the reasoning and sources that led to their creation. However, on the other hand, I want to validate my Tarot practices through a connection to some larger consensus or tradition. I feel like things I come up with on my own might work for myself, but they have no legitimacy when I try to talk about them in the outside world. For this reason, I'm more comfortable working with a Tree of Life structure that's been previously established and is recognized by some others, even though I know that theoretically the person who created that version of the Tree is just as mortal as I.

***Then again, isn't this whole exercise rather silly? The footnotes themselves are ludicrous.

Tarot and the Wheel of the Year

JackofWands said:

I'm sorry to resurrect this post, but I'm considering altering the structure of my Wheel slightly and would like some input...

Click to expand...

Cut out the lush apologies! - you are who you are. Just the way you should be.
Now as I hinted before - this is a huge subject for me which I can barely begin to wrap my little brain around (I can dream on) and I had to read through your post several times and then sleep on it before replying (plus I'm still uncertain about half of what you're going on about in it ). So er... I'll be failing on the quality of input that you might be looking for here.
But I shall comment all-the-same as best I can.

JackofWands said:

All in all, I do like these associations, and I'm especially pleased that they lay out on the Tree of Life as well as they do, but I have a few qualms. First off, the Sun seemed like such a perfect fit for Litha that I'm not sure how I feel about switching it with the Wheel of Fortune...
Similarly, I liked the death-and-rebirth symbolism of the World at Yule, although I suppose that card is equally fitting for Samhain since that festival is often called the neopagan New Year. And lastly (although this is silly***), I'm not sure how I feel about the seasonal progression of the cards. The central column runs from the summer...That feels inconsistent to me, and inconsistency is anathema.

Click to expand...

Re: Inconsistency and validation etc. All I can say is - as Tarot and Kabbalah are not from the same place, it will be impossible to make them fit together perfectly. Therefore - you must just come to terms with the 'edges not quite meeting exactly', and ultimately choose for yourself - just as one may come to terms with the Scientist and the Mystic within oneself never quite weaving smoothly (What comes to mind just now, is a conversation had over the dinner table with family last night - 'All of mathematics is an approximation - so really, as we know - we know nothing!' i.e current thought - 'there are 11 dimensions in existence' - why? Because when you do the math - it's at 11 that everything can be 'made to fit' approximately.).

Imo - The Sun must remain as Litha - as when I first read this it just felt 'right'.
And I would leave Fortune at Lunasa/Lughnasadh, as Fortune is about inevitable change in natural cycles and I therefore see it match up here because with Lunasa comes the cycle of rolling down to the darker half of the year, with a great deal of harvest work/preparation to be done to ensure survival through winter.

After 'sleeping on it' - I've decided I prefer your new positions for Samhain and Yule however. And here what brought me to a final decision was taking a 2nd look at the 'Sacred Days of Yule' spread that I have joined in with on AT (12 card spread, for 12 days from December 20th - a 'Year Ahead' spread).
The 'Year Ahead'/'Days of Yule' spread is about guidance on ones path and unforseen future events (The High Priestess), whilst 3 interpretations of The World - magick and wonder of the natural world, rebirth, and the strengthening of spiritual connections - fit better for me at Samhain. As the veils are thinnest at Samhain - so is it a time for greatest clarity in communication. And communication - is ones access to power (From 'The Landmark Forum' http://www.landmarkworldwide.com/) - the power to have your finger in every pie and pull all the strings = 'The World is your Oyster'.

So the Wheel would now look like this:

Samhain - The World
Yule - High Priestess
Imbolc - Fool, Hanged, Judgement
Ostara - Empress
Beltane - Magician
Litha - Sun
Lunasa - Fortune
Mabon - Tower

Very many thanks for your sharing and thoughts - making a lasting impact on my spiritual practice, and thus facilitating my own personal development.

nisaba said:

You might be interested in the Blue Moon Tarot, predicated on Pagan symbolism and the passage of the moon through the skies/time.

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What a beautiful deck! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention. Not only is it exciting to see that other people have undertaken this task, but the artwork of the deck itself is absolutely stunning. Too bad it seems to be out of print again.

Tanga said:

Re: Inconsistency and validation etc. All I can say is - as Tarot and Kabbalah are not from the same place, it will be impossible to make them fit together perfectly. Therefore - you must just come to terms with the 'edges not quite meeting exactly', and ultimately choose for yourself - just as one may come to terms with the Scientist and the Mystic within oneself never quite weaving smoothly (What comes to mind just now, is a conversation had over the dinner table with family last night - 'All of mathematics is an approximation - so really, as we know - we know nothing!' i.e current thought - 'there are 11 dimensions in existence' - why? Because when you do the math - it's at 11 that everything can be 'made to fit' approximately.).

Click to expand...

Ah, yes. You're right, of course, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it. There's no one correct way to draw these associations, because there's no objective external relation between the two concepts. Still, if everything doesn't fall perfectly into place, I always feel that I'm doing something wrong.

Tanga said:

Imo - The Sun must remain as Litha - as when I first read this it just felt 'right'.

Click to expand...

I agree that the Sun at Litha makes sense. After all, even if we reduce ourselves to the most literal interpretation, Litha as the longest day of the year is the time when the sun is at its strongest.

That said, at least in the parts of the world where I live, summer usually doesn't hit in full force until about Lughnasadh. (I've noticed in general that the changing of the seasons in terms of weather seems to be about one spoke behind the motion of the sun on the Wheel of the Year.) Although the light is starting to fade come Lughnasadh, summer itself has come in full force, and the presence of the sun's heat is perhaps more noticeable than any other time of the year.

I'm not necessarily saying that this makes Lughnasadh a better placement for the Sun than Litha, or even as good (it really is hard to beat the Sun and the Summer Solstice together), but I'm just trying to see both sides.

Tanga said:

And I would leave Fortune at Lunasa/Lughnasadh, as Fortune is about inevitable change in natural cycles and I therefore see it match up here because with Lunasa comes the cycle of rolling down to the darker half of the year, with a great deal of harvest work/preparation to be done to ensure survival through winter.

Click to expand...

Once again, I do agree with you; that's the main reason I put the Wheel at Lughnasadh to begin with. However, I do think that in some sense the Wheel of Fortune is a wild card that can be put on any spoke of the Wheel of the Year. This card represents the overall cycle of change, and in a sense is representative of the Wheel of the Year itself, as the changing of the seasons is the underlying theme of every one of these festivals. For that, it almost seems fitting to put the Wheel of Fortune at the top of the Wheel of the Year, giving it a sort of central significance that parallels the common imagery of a king sitting atop the Wheel of Fortune itself.

Plus, if we limit ourselves once again to more literal interpretations, the Wheel of Fortune can often represent luck and positive change, the sorts of themes I associate with the mild, summery weather of Litha. But once again, I'm just playing the Devil's advocate here.

Tanga said:

After 'sleeping on it' - I've decided I prefer your new positions for Samhain and Yule however

[...]

So the Wheel would now look like this:

Samhain - The World
Yule - High Priestess
Imbolc - Fool, Hanged, Judgement
Ostara - Empress
Beltane - Magician
Litha - Sun
Lunasa - Fortune
Mabon - Tower

Click to expand...

It's interesting to see that some of the changes make sense for you, and I understand why. I, myself, am not yet sold on any decisions regarding a potential switchup in the system (or keeping things the way they were before), but I appreciate seeing what makes sense to someone else's eyes. I'm glad you've been able to adapt the system for your use.

Tanga said:

Very many thanks for your sharing and thoughts - making a lasting impact on my spiritual practice, and thus facilitating my own personal development.

Click to expand...

Of course! Thank you so much for taking the time to read through and help me hash out my thoughts on the matter. I'm thrilled that you've found my ramblings useful, and I hope your practice continues to grow.