Product Descrpition：
Welcome to A Grieving Tarot, a deck that gently examines tarot solely through a lens of loss.
When my father died in late 2024, I turned to my creativity for support. I have created several tarot and oracle decks over the last few years, which I have found deeply meaningful and therapeutic. When I lost my dad, I began drawing these cards because my other tarot decks weren’t speaking to me the way I wanted. I wanted my grief to be the centre of the conversation, and not something I was wishing away. I wanted to see my losses gently highlighted, with the hopes muted. This deck was born from that experience.
A Grieving Tarot is absolutely not a how-to guide for using tarot through all losses. These drawings, and my words, are not here to tell you how to live your own wild and personal grief. It is simply a gentle reflection of my own experiences and interpretations, as I’ve walked my own grey path. It is my hope that it finds the right people, and that maybe it can be a gentle way to introduce more grief-informed perspectives to your readings.
About the Artwork
All artwork has done by me lovingly over the last 9 months. The artwork is done digitally via Procreate, with absolutely no AI involved. All of the writing is my personal handwriting, aside from the contents of the guidebook. None of my other decks have ever featured humans, but this one features a small, plain, genderless figure on every single card. Even in the cards that typically feature more than one figure, I’ve gone out of my way to re-imagine the artwork using this one lonely figure. The 3 of Cups is a perfect example of this, with the figure connecting to a plant rather than a person. In the 3 of Pentacles, about collaboration, there are birds and mountains. The Lovers features the figure connecting to a little plant, rather than another person. I wanted the figure to be alone on each card, which reflects the loneliness of loss. As a passionate nature lover, nature has been my community especially when people can not be, and so that is reflected in many places throughout the deck.
The Messages
My grief-focused interpretations still generally align with a standard tarot reading, and I don't completely turn everything around on its head for the sake of it. What changes gently is the perspective. The 3 cards shown above are a good example of this. The 4 of Pentacles is about keeping resources to yourself, often suggesting greed or a lack of sharing. My interpretation suggests that's a good thing. Keeping energy to ourselves, focusing inward rather than outward, and keeping our one Self as our focus rather than other people is important. In healing work, this can be necessary. Take a break from the constant giving, and aim it inward. You aren't being selfish.
The 5 of Pentacles traditionally suggests grief and loss, but often with the suggestion that hope and comfort are being ignored. Or that hope is there and we should be focusing on it, instead of wallowing in sadness. But in this deck I suggest that misery is absolutely sometimes where we should be. Hope and comfort just aren't always accessible, and that's the truth of it. And it isn't our fault. Hope is still there (in this card, I draw it in the stars) but we are allowed to feel grief without beating ourselves up for not being positive enough.
The Fool speaks of new beginnings, but these can be so bittersweet. Death brings beginnings that we did not ask for, ones that bring heartache along with every happiness. I suggest compassion for ourselves (always, always compassion) for the guilt, resentment, and resistance we might feel to Newness right now. Yes, a new beginning is here. No, we didn't ask for it. So lets allow that complicated response in how we move forward.
About the Deck
- Cards are standard 70x120 tarot size with 3mm rounded corners, in a standard 2-part rigid box.
- As with all of my standard sized decks, these are printed on 310gsm Heretic Smooth Black Cored Playing Card Board.
- The deck comes with a small perfect-bound guidebook that fits inside the box.
- Printed in Cambridgeshire, England by Ivory Graphics, without any shrink wrap.
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