Meaning
Richmond's Fives are change, a cross in the path, a journey, and his Five of Hearts carries all three into the affections: “Change in feelings”, a removal of home, a parting from friends, travel. In his practice these were things a spread might show for a sitter in the months ahead; we keep them as his wording only.
Our reading is about temperament. People born under the card are read as needing variety and room in their relationships, drawn to new places and new circles, and sometimes leaving before anything has had time to settle. The tradition places their lasting warmth in holding freedom and commitment together rather than setting one against the other.
In the spreads
In the Life Spread the Five of Hearts sits in the Saturn row, Venus column, the 30th place. The Queen of Diamonds stands before it as its Moon card, and its path runs on through the Three of Clubs and the Three of Spades, then the Nine of Hearts, the semi-fixed card under the Saturn column.
Its karma cards are the Four of Diamonds, which it gives to, and the Five of Clubs, which gives to it: the Five of Clubs is the card the deal has put in this card's natural fifth place, so the two Fives face each other across the spreads. Its birthdays fall under Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn; for 30 October the ruling cards are the Nine of Hearts and the Nine of Diamonds.
Life path and karma cards
Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Five of Hearts, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.
| Place on the path | Card |
|---|---|
| Moon (the card before it) | Queen of Diamonds |
| Mercury | Three of Clubs |
| Venus | Three of Spades |
| Mars | Nine of Hearts |
| Jupiter | Seven of Clubs |
| Saturn | Five of Diamonds |
| Uranus | Queen of Spades |
| Neptune | Jack of Clubs |
| Pluto | Nine of Diamonds |
| Result | Seven of Spades |
| Cosmic Lesson | Two of Clubs |
| Karma card it gives to | Four of Diamonds |
| Karma card that gives to it | Five of Clubs |
Birthdays and ruling cards
The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards.
| Birthday | Sun sign and its ruler | Ruling card |
|---|---|---|
| 30 October | Scorpio (Mars and Pluto) | Nine of Hearts and Nine of Diamonds |
| 28 November | Sagittarius (Jupiter) | Seven of Clubs |
| 26 December | Capricorn (Saturn) | Five of Diamonds |
For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Nine of Hearts; Taurus (Venus): Three of Spades; Gemini (Mercury): Three of Clubs; Cancer (the Moon): Queen of Diamonds; Leo (the Sun): Five of Hearts; Virgo (Mercury): Three of Clubs; Libra (Venus): Three of Spades; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Nine of Hearts and Nine of Diamonds; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Seven of Clubs; Capricorn (Saturn): Five of Diamonds; Aquarius (Uranus): Queen of Spades; Pisces (Neptune): Jack of Clubs.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)
- The emblem of spring and of the first quarter of life, when “love is the master passion” sourced
- The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)
- Spring; Venus, ruling “from a point of friendship and love”, and Mercury, “from a point of passion”. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced
- Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)
- Fives: change, a cross in the path, a journey sourced
- Richmond's table for the card (p. 84)
- “Change in feelings”, a removal of home, a parting from friends, and journeys sourced
- Our keyword line (2026)
- A heart that likes to move. our construction
- Our theme for the suit
- Love, Feeling, Friendship, Family our construction
- A suit element or a single planet
- None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed
How the schools read it
- Olney H. Richmond (1893)
- An emblem of solar value 5 and spirit value 50, read through its suit, love and friendship, and its number, change: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 84).
- Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)
- Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as a heart that likes to move, at its best when freedom and commitment are chosen together.
Claims about it
-
Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.
disputedWhat the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.
-
Each card has a traditional nickname.
disputedWhat the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.
Elsewhere on EsoTerrier
- Four of Diamonds its first karma card, the card it gives to
- Five of Clubs its second karma card, the card that gives to it
- Queen of Diamonds its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
- Three of Clubs its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
- Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out
