Interpret the 2026 Tarot Cards of the Year
Deep peace of the dark wolf moon to you
Here when you need me
I hope this practice sets a beautiful tone for your holiday season! If you’re ever in need of additional personalized support, I’m here for you.
december 19, 2025
Numerology and the Tarot Cards of the Year
All the cards in the Tarot’s major arcana are numbered. And these 22 archetype cards take you on a journey from a naive/innocent sense of adventure starting with card 0, The Fool, to wholeness and integration at card 21, The World. And enjoy it while it lasts, because then you cycle right back to The Fool to start the journey over from the beginning.
To calculate the card of the year, add each individual digit of the particular year together: 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 10. Card 10 is The Wheel of Fortune. Some people then reduce the number even farther and add these two digits together. And of course 1 + 0 = 1. That gives us The Magician.
And I always advocate for choice and autonomy in any spiritual practice, so I like that we get to take our pick between the two. I encourage you to engage both of these cards and see if one resonates more than the other.
You can also calculate your personal card for the year using your birthday. Mine is: 0 + 2 + 2 + 7 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 21, The World. Or I could choose to reduce it farther and do 2 + 1 = 3, which is The Empress.
I use tarot as a tool for reflection, not as divination for what is to come. So for the cards for the year, I encourage you to consider not what they’re predicting, but how you might tap into their energy in 2026. We don’t know what’s coming next year. All we can do is be mindful of how we respond to events out of our control and move mindfully and with intention in the areas that we can control. And hopefully these cards will have an invitation for us to consider for the coming year.
Personally, I think I’ll start with The Magician and The Wheel of Fortune together and then do a round two with The Empress and The World. Maybe after that I’ll do a round three where I’ll reflect on how I could integrate messages from both readings with each other. I’ll do an example here of what round one looks like for me. Use this as a jumping off point for your own interpretation.
Here are the two cards. These are from The Wild Unknown deck by Kim Krans. Whatever deck you have access to is perfect. This one just happens to be my favorite.
Interpreting the Cards
Here is the order of operations I like to go through when I read tarot cards:
First, just look at the cards and see what you notice.
Are there images or colors that jump out at you?
Are there images you’re drawn to or that are off-putting to you?
Do any memories, relationships, or feelings surface as you look at the cards?
Do any questions emerge?
If you’re reading with others, share what’s coming up for you, and receive interpretations from your co-readers. Maybe something stands out to them that you didn’t notice. Maybe there are totally different interpretations within the group. If so, wonderful! It’s lovely to have a variety of perspectives when doing a reading.
Next, if you choose, you can engage with other interpretations of the cards like books, blogs, podcasts, or YouTube videos. Most decks come with their own guidebook, which is an excellent place to look for more information. Here are some other resources that I really like:
Contemporary Tarot on YouTube
Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast
Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack
Modern Tarot by Michelle Tea
Red Tarot: a Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy by Christopher Marmolejo
Tarot Diagnosis podcast
A Few Thoughts
Here are a few thoughts that I have on these two cards. I’ll keep it brief because I don’t want to overly influence your reading. Let’s start with The Magician. Here are some things I notice as I look at the card:
The Magician has all four elements at their fingertips (…pawtips). The sword, pentacle, wand, and cup are the four suits of the minor arcana, and each one represents one of four elements: air, earth, fire, and water, respectively.
They’re looking a little nonchalant—gazing into the distance (at The Wheel of Fortune next door, in this case) but with all this power surrounding them. The sun behind them is this big burst of energy, bathing The Magician in its warmth, but The Magician doesn’t seem to be basking in it, almost like they’re taking it for granted. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, just like, “yeah, the sun lends me its power, why wouldn’t it? I’m fabulous.”
And I see these elements at The Magician’s feet as being sources of power as well. So the sun is projecting power from the background, and The Magician props themselves up on the pentacle—earth—and can easily reach out for their other powers (air, fire, water) at any time.
Lastly, they have an infinity symbol incorporated into the markings on their fur, which makes me think that all this energy/power is infinitely renewable. And speaking of markings, I don’t know what various traditions may say about the leopard as a symbol (I’m also assuming this is a leopard), but I definitely feel inspired to go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole learning about leopards. Not only to identify this magical creature, but to be inspired by this species and all the cool things there are to learn about it.
The question I’m left with, and what we’ll work on together at our moon circle is: how do I want to channel The Magician’s energy in 2026? And/or what invitation is there for me and for our community in 2026?
Here are a few thoughts on The Wheel of Fortune, just to spark some ideas for you to take and run with:
I love that the owl, a symbol of wisdom, is on the dark side of the card. It makes sense for a nocturnal animal, but I also find the darkness to be way juicier than the light. To me, the darkness is where wisdom lives. I also appreciate that the dark side is at the top of the card, making it feel more prominent than the sun side.
Somethings I think about how people often say, “this too shall pass,” when things are bad. But we rarely say it when things are good—even though it’s equally true then. The Wheel of Fortune, I think, is often seen as a “good” card—i.e., whatever is coming is something that will make you feel happy or fulfilled. But that’s not necessarily true.
Between the sun and the moon, I see a spinning planet. This reminds me that, as much as we try to shape the Earth we live on, we cannot stop its course. We dig mines, reroute rivers, and build sky scrapers. We have changed the seasons and made way for enormous hurricanes, devastating floods, and fatal droughts. But as much as we do, the Earth was spinning before we got here and she will continue to do so long after we have passed on.
So when I sit with this card, I’m reminded that throughout our days, our years, and our lives, sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. All we can do is gather up the blessings and lessons along the way and share them with each other as we go. I can share what it’s like to be down. You can help me appreciate the strange disorientation of being up. And then we’ll trade places.
And the rabbit hole I want to go down with this card is, doesn’t “fortune” just mean “fate”? And isn’t fate a neutral concept, as in, it can turn out good or bad? So when/how did fortune come to mean wealth and prosperity? Because to me, The Wheel of Fortune is neutral—unfortunately, not a sign that I’ll win the lottery this year.
And looking at these two cards together, my question for myself as an individual and for us as a group is, “what resources do I have under my paws that I can reach for to support not only myself, but my community as we ride these waves? What resources do others in my community have that I can receive as they share their bounty?”
Join us!
If you’re in the Baltimore area, join the Wild Maven community to do this practice together! We’ll gather Thursday, December 4, at 7pm at The Space Within in Hampden. Tap the button for details and to RSVP.