A trauma-informed viewpoint:

The SPIRICAL Tarot has a psychological, trauma-informed concept and structure. One of the hallmarks of trauma is that it locks us into seeing the world through the lens of our own reactions. The advantage of The SPIRICAL Tarot is that it presents a different lens for us to look through – it allows us to see old issues in new ways, and gently nudges us into considering different ways of thinking and feeling about ingrained patterns. 

The Major Arcana of this deck represent the Journey: our psychological development from birth, through trauma and recovery, to the integration of our full personal potential. The meanings of these Major Arcana cards are quite similar to traditional tarot card meanings, but I’ve renamed them all to stay in line with my trauma-informed viewpoint, and reordered them somewhat to more closely fit with my understanding of psychological development.

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The Minor Arcana represent the Guidebook – the way we get back to the Self:

• The Suit of Vitality (Wands) uses a fire symbol and yellow-orange colors to symbolize creativity and spirit, and our connection to our essence and energy.

• The Suit of Affinity (Cups) uses a heart symbol and pink-red colors to represent emotions and connection, and our ability to relate to ourselves and others.

• The Suit of Inquiry (Swords) uses a spiral symbol and gray-blue colors to symbolize thinking and reason, and our ability to productively struggle toward healing.

• The Suit of Ability (Pentacles) uses an infinity sign connecting the mind and body, and green colors, to symbolize embodiment, the physical world, and the skills we develop to help in our journey.

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I find that Minor Arcana card numbers are quite informative, and I’ve incorporated their context into the larger card meanings. To keep in line with this idea, I’ve switched the traditional upright and reversed meanings for a few cards to better match the context of the card number.

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The Role Cards (Court cards) represent the energetic roles we bring forward to the various situations in our lives:

• Learner (Page): exploring, open to new things, child-like

• Doer (Knight): idealistic, changeable, adolescent-like

• Feeler (Queen): inward-focused, inner knowing, nurturing energy

• Thinker (King): outward-focused, power in the world, purposeful energy

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The Dreams card is neither Major nor Minor, but exists in the liminal space between them; it is a card that brings our dream lives to our attention.

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