Arcana 20, Judgement, in the Destiny Matrix

What does the 20 arcana have to do with family?

On the Judgement tarot card an angel blows a trumpet and whole families rise to answer it, parents and children together, arms open. In older readings it was the call to awaken. The matrix keeps the call and adds the family: the 20's keywords are family, awakening and calling. It is the energy of the lineage and of the moment you realize what you are here to do, often by understanding where you come from.

People with a strong 20 are often the ones who hold a family together, organize the reunions, research the family tree and remember everyone's birthday. They also tend to carry the family's unfinished business. In minus, an old wound or an old judgment between relatives gets passed down, and the 20 lives a story that was never really theirs.

The 20 arcana destiny matrix point by point

Like every number above 12, the 20 cannot be your higher self, because months stop at 12. Everywhere else, the tradition reads it like this.

• ✦Calling card (born on the 20th): warm, mature and family minded; people see someone responsible and dependable.
• ✦Talent ray: a gift for bringing people together, for history and genealogy, and for helping others find their calling.
• ✦Material karma (born in 1946, 1955, 1964, 1973, 1982 or 1991): family business, inherited property or work that serves families; money tangled with relatives is the lesson.
• ✦Karmic task: to make peace with your family, accept them as they are, and then follow your own calling.
• ✦Center: rare, about 1 in 217; a comfort zone of family, tradition and belonging, with a risk of never leaving it.
• ✦Love point: a partner who wants family and roots, and a relationship strongly shaped by both families.
• ✦Money point: income through family, heritage or long term community work.
• ✦Purpose: to heal or unite your family line and to answer your own calling.
• ✦Family lines: the 20 is at home here; it shows the strength of the lineage and the wounds it still carries.
• ✦Year on the age ring: a year of family events, reunions, and a sudden clear sense of what you want to do.

Hearing the call versus repeating the past

The canon, in table form.

Counting the 20: center, tails and corners

From every birth date between 1940 and 2012, 26,664 in all, a 20 was the center of 123 charts, 0.46 percent, or about 1 in 217. It was on the love point for 5 percent and the money point for 5.1 percent of people, and at the karmic task for 2.6 percent. As material karma it covers 8.2 percent of the dates we counted.

Three tails contain it, and 13.7 percent of people, about 1 in 7, carry one: the 6-8-20 karmic tail, about a family's disappointment and forgiving it; the 6-20-14 karmic tail, about choosing yourself without losing love; and the 15-20-5 karmic tail, about making peace with your roots. The family theme runs through all three.

Answering the call

Learn your family's story, the good and the hard parts, and decide consciously which parts you will carry on. Write a letter, sent or not, to the relative you judge most. Notice which of your choices are really your parents' wishes. Then make one choice this year that is purely yours. A 20 in plus is not free of its family; it is at peace with it, and that frees it to follow its own calling.

A real date with a calling card of 20

Someone born on 20 April 1997 has a calling card of 20, a higher self of 4, material karma of 8 and a karmic task of 5. The center is 10, and the tail is the 15-20-5 karmic tail, so the 20 appears twice, as the face and in the tail. A chart like this is strongly about family: what was inherited, and the call to make peace with it. Neighbors: arcana 19 and arcana 21. Draw your own on the destiny matrix chart.

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