The first tarot deck I ever bought was on a trip downtown with a friend when I was sixteen. We wandered into one of those esoteric shops that smelled like incense, beeswax, and unspoken wisdom. The kind of place where time feels slower and the air hums with mystery. I knew I wanted to be part of whatever that was.
But I didn’t believe I belonged in that world. It felt like a secret club with velvet ropes and ancient passwords. I kept waiting for someone to give me permission, a step-by-step invitation into magic.
I carried that deck with me for years. I even made a little pouch to keep the cards safe. Sometimes I’d use it; other times, it sat untouched in a drawer. Occasionally, it would make an appearance at parties, passed around with giggles and furtive curiosity. But it wasn’t until I got sober that tarot stopped being a novelty and started becoming a compass.
Tarot for Recovery
In those early years of recovery, I was building a spiritual practice from scratch. Not one handed down to me, but one I had to piece together from intuition, longing, and the quiet ache for connection to something greater than myself. Tarot re-entered gently, one of many tools woven into a morning ritual of reaching for wisdom beyond my own mind. What drew me in was the art, the intellectual history, the poetic symbolism, and the mystery.
This time, I wasn’t grasping for easy magic. I was reaching for something honest. Something that looked like faith. A daily practice to stay awake to my own unfolding. Tarot became a mirror. A language that let me listen past the ego and hear something quieter. Truer.
After years of walking this path, and walking alongside others in their healing, I felt called to go deeper. I have studied with teachers, devoured books, and used the cards as muses in my artwork. Through it all, I have learned to trust what stirs when I pull a card. Not for answers, but for better questions.
A Tarot Journey of Discovery
Now, I bring tarot into my work with clients. No fortune-telling, but rather intuitive reflection. A way to surface unconscious patterns, reframe stories, and move through uncertainty with curiosity and a sense of adventure. The cards hold the arc of our human experience. They help us track ourselves through time. Who we’ve been, who we’re becoming, and who we’ve always been beneath doubt.
I’m beginning a project, part personal ritual, part public offering. A way to deepen my relationship with the tarot and stay in conversation with what stirs beneath the surface. I want to explore how each card reflects not just a moment or a mood, but a movement through recovery, creativity, leadership, and the ever-widening path of becoming.
My intention is to sit with one card at a time. To let it speak. To share what emerges: a reflection, a sketch, maybe a meditation. Each piece will be anchored in the terrain of my own healing and in the work I do alongside others. This is not about producing content. It’s about creating a living archive; rooted, rhythmic, and real.
If you’ve read my first post, Hi. I’m New Here, you know this practice of sharing is still a little raw. This project is one way I’m building a sustainable structure, something meaningful and ongoing. A tether to what I care about. A way to stay close to the learning, the mystery, and the work.
And of course, the tarot begins with The Fool: the innocent, the wanderer, the one willing to leap without knowing what comes next.
That feels like the right place to begin.