THE SWT ORIGIN STORY
The Sacred Web Tarot deck was co-created out of a traumatic brain injury sustained in 2017 by my son, James, who, at the time, was 25. Out of his pain and throughout his recovery, James drew images that I came to understand were the beginnings of a tarot deck. Our reimagining of cards that typically elicit fear or concern when they appear to a reader into images of beauty convinced me that we needed to complete this tarot creation journey. We discovered that The Sacred Web Tarot (The SWT) knew at its essential center that the shadow and the struggle are the great teachers; that there is nothing to fear when you perceive the challenging experiences of your life as opportunities to evolve and grow.
Through the experience of creating The SWT, James and I realized that each card is a threshold to new beginnings, to the profound nature and power of archetypes and to the human experience as a journey of liberation through non-judgement, self-acceptance and release. This creative project has brought us into a deeper understanding of the reconciliation that comes with forgiveness, the strength that can be found in trust and alliance, and the unassailable power of love. We have channeled this gift of love into our deck and believe that it was born to bring healing to those who work with it.
We believe that the themes of unity, connection, compassion, and love that we have woven into The SWT come to the world at exactly the right time to help guide all of us who are currently experiencing feelings of separation, pain and fear. To honor all beings and remove any bias, we have reimagined several names of the cards to remove gendered language. While we do feature human hands, a genderless human face and a genderless being floating in space (our extra card offering - The Sacred Cosmic Self), all of the other cards in our deck present animals and birds as the messengers of tarot. Because we believe that everything is connected and everything is sacred, we thought it was important to honor the energy of the natural world. We all play our roles in this web of life and it is critical that we humans acknowledge our interconnected relationship with the Earth and how we can better support her.
James and I have also been inspired by the many people who bravely claim their human right to express themselves authentically in a world that more often than not perceives people in a limiting, binary manner. James’ sibling and my youngest child is one of these beautiful beings. In the SWT, because we envision a world without separation - a world that embraces all beings - we have chosen to use the pronouns “they” and “them” to describe the cards. In doing so, it became clear just how much more inclusive and expansive the experience of working with tarot could be. I hope that those who choose to work with the SWT find this to be true as well.