Younger Self Tarot poker size deck

This new deck, done in a very quick spontaneous way with Sharpies and crayons, harks back to my childhood love of drawing with felt-tip pens! Partly for that reason, it is called the “Tarot of the Younger Self”, but another reason is the influence of The Spiral Dance by Starhawk — to me, as to many others, a life-changing book about paganism. Starhawk talks vividly about different aspects of ourselves using the names Younger Self and Talking Self, and these terms have stuck in my mind thirty years or more since I first read her groundbreaking book.

The images are based on the classic designs of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but aiming for greater diversity and less sexism in the people pictured. As in my "Fiery Wands" and "Airy Wands" decks, I am absolutely not going to have any blindfolded women in my designs. I have also aimed to give a more active role to women and girls in some cases, replacing male characters in e.g. the Six of Wands, Six of Pentacles and Eight of Pentacles with female ones.

In 2020, I returned to the Younger Self Tarot and drew another version of basically the same designs, using water-colour pencils this time. The alternative version is also on sale on the Game Crafter: the Glowing Tarot.