As a side project, I’ve started making the beginning stages of a deck of tarot cards. It’s themed with feminism, but without the extremist radicalism. Both mythical and real, it’s about empowerment for all women. It sounds cheesy, but it feels thrilling to render. The quiet hearth, the eternal flame, keeper of sanctuary — The Hermit. Baba Yaga does not guide; she waits, unseen, until the seeker has earned the right to walk their own path. She calls for self-reliance, courage, discernment. Her knowledge arrives through trial before revelation. To meet her, one must cross the wilderness of the mind, shed naïveté, endure uncertainty. Only then does she offer the lantern of insight, often hidden in shadow, often cloaked as threat.
Wielder of compassion as power, Strength is earned through sacrifice. Too many believe power is a weapon to be used against others and not a shield to be used for others. Harriet Tubman is courage yoked to mercy, the quiet mastery of fear rather than its absence. Through repeated returns into danger guided by moral clarity rather than force. She holds the jaws of violence closed not with brutality, but with steadfast will.
The queen of magic herself, the worker of will, the master of crossroads, Hecate.
The Magician says: You have all the tools. Choose how you use them.
Hecate asks: Which road will you take, and what are you willing to leave behind?
The intimacy of transformation, stripping away illusions of control and permanence, Santa Muerte teaches that what is shed must be honored. That endings are not cruelty but necessity, and that devotion to her is a vow to face change without denial. Death is a companion who equalizes all lives and sanctifies passage rather than punishment.
The Dakini embodies sacred risk. A leap into emptiness that is not ignorance, but radical freedom aligned with truth already in motion. The Fool steps into the unknown with trust and openness, and the Dakini moves through reality unencumbered by attachment, hierarchy, or fear of dissolution.
The High Priestess is the keeper of mysteries rather than their proclamation. Isis teaches that true power is not seized, but received through reverence for the unseen. From her breath comes the hidden knowledge.
Creative force can be just as powerful as the mechanical. Like the Empress, Frida Kahlo does not ask permission to exist fully. She cultivates life from what has been broken. Turning suffering into lineage, identity, and enduring abundance.
The Star follows collapse, offering renewal through vulnerability rather than authority. Pouring water back into the world, Princess Diana restored faith not in institutions, but in kindness. Without expectations, she poured from both cups.
The Chariot is not chaos, but directed force. Will in motion. Boudicca held opposing forces together to be a force of nature herself. Steering rage and strategy, mourning and command, the sacred and the martial toward a single horizon.
Spinning the thread that sets destiny in motion before rise or fall can be named, Clotho embodies when fate is cast into existence. Indifferent to human preference, she does not judge outcomes or intervene in endings; she simply begins the weave, releasing lives into motion where chance, choice, and necessity entangle. Like the Wheel of Fortune, her power is absolute yet neutral. Reminding us that fortune is not moral, only inescapably in flux.
I struggled with The Hanged One. After deciding Greta Thunberg represents the card, I had to decide how to respectfully render this. Leaning away from stereotypical, I wanted the still body, the suspended breath, the weight borne willingly, to be a beautiful dance. She occupies the pause that the world resists, holding herself in the tension between action and surrender. She endures discomfort, visible and unwavering, demanding we shift our view, confront inertia, and face truths we would rather ignore. Her power is quiet, paradoxical: rooted not in force but in steadfast refusal to move until perspective is reckoned, until awareness turns.
The presence that dwells among, the light that guides without command — The Hierophant. Shekhinah stands at the threshold between mystery and practice. A vessel of covenant and care. She does not impose. She invites alignment. Offering ritual, structure, and continuity so that the sacred may be known, felt, enacted. She is the bridge between the ordinary and the transcendent, a reminder that wisdom lives in communion, and devotion is always a dialogue, never a dictate.
Empowerment for all women means honoring every voice, story, and body, without hierarchy or exclusion. It is the right to claim space, make choices, and lead with confidence, regardless of background, identity, or circumstance. True empowerment thrives when equality is the foundation and solidarity the practice.
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