The Green Tarot project began life as an online get-together in 2023, where a group of us from around the world got together weekly to ask the Tarot, ‘What do we need to learn or experience with Nature this week?’

The course was a gorgeous experience that has gone on to become a yearly offering, as well as birthing this blog: a celebration of Nature, inspired by my work as an eco-therapist and Tarot therapist.

This blog was initially written as a book manuscript. Many of the posts that will be revealed over the coming year were drafted long before I will be posting them. However, I will be tweaking, adding and editing as I go along, the way an author writes a final draft before the manuscript is completed. For various reasons, the idea of turning each chapter into a blog post, rather than publishing a tarot book, began to really excite me – something more flexible and malleable, yes! (Plus, at the time of writing this, I am working on a folkloric novel that I’ve been crafting for almost two years now … and one book is enough at any given time, thank you!)

And so, what is this space for, then? This blog is a fluid experiment: a piece of spiritual writing that is part Tarot exploration, part Nature-connection guide, part whatever-else-unfurls. Here, I will celebrate the illogical and the beautiful and express my love for this stunning planet through the mysterious cards of the Tarot.

Influenced by the clarity of Zen Buddhism, each post comes with its own rules, presenting one (or occasionally two) of the 78 cards with a unique voice every week. That’s 78-ish weeks, beginning in July 2024. Whereas one post might walk us through a memory of a beautiful landscape related to the card, another might offer you a Tarot spread relevant to the symbolism, guiding you towards a deeper connection with Nature. 

This, at least, is my plan from the outset. I have enough experience of running online projects to know that things don't often work out as you planned them, and nor should they. That's the beauty of online working – it can grow or change however it likes. Maybe I will eventually write about other tarot related topics, or invite guest bloggers to contribute, who knows.

(Seasoned tarot readers can skip the next section, until you meet the river photograph – you probably already know all this!)

More about the Tarot and its links with Nature

Tarot is a fascinating and beautiful deck of cards that are, in fact, imbued with symbols of Nature. It began life as a 15th-century card game and depicts the story of human life. As we will discover throughout this project, it explores our connections with other life-forms, too.

The Tarot deck is split into five sections, four of which make up the Minor Arcana (‘lesser secrets’). These four suits each contain 14 cards: ten Pip cards (ace to ten) and four Court Cards which are often (but not always) called Page, Knight, Queen and King. These four suits can be understood to represent the earthly elements of:

Water – the suit of Cups, symbolically linked to our emotional lives and relationships

Earth – the suit of Coins (or Pentacles), symbolically linked to practicalities such as home and work

Fire – the suit of Wands (or Batons), symbolically linked to our drives, passions and creativity

Air – the suit of Swords, symbolically linked to Mind (eg thoughts, ideas)

Obviously, these are not the chemical elements of the periodic table. We are speaking of an ancient spiritual concept, where these four groupings are understood to mingle and create all that we experience on Planet Earth. Interestingly, I began practising Zen Buddhism long after I discovered Tarot (over 20 years ago) and I was delighted to discover that Buddhism, too, pays homage to the same elements of Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Tarot and Buddhism compliment each other more than many people realise. Nature is the glue that binds them.

A fifth, larger suit of 22 cards is referred to as the Major Arcana (‘greater secrets’) and it is this mysterious sequence of cards – as bizarre as they are relatable – that makes the Tarot so distinct from its cousin, the standard deck of European playing cards. We might understand the Major Arcana to be a fifth, more mysterious element of Spirit or Consciousness, with each card representing a major life stage or a psychological archetype. In these images, we meet parent-type figures; we encounter people falling in love; we experience death. In the final card in the sequence, we connect with The World, which is what this blog is all about – in the most literal way imaginable.

We live in revolutionary times which are sometimes, frankly, terrifying. Our beautiful planet is warming, flooding, choking on plastic. Wacky species of animals and plants are dying off in mass extinctions, never to return. Many people cope with these turmoils by turning away from Nature and consuming even more crap to mask their anxieties, furthering the problem. Others, however, are turning to Nature for support, caring for it, recognising that our disconnect from nature was the problem to begin with.

Connecting with nature is proven to help with mental health difficulties such as anxiety and depression. The fact is, when we consciously connect with Nature, we usually feel better than we did beforehand. It also seems to do another very interesting thing: it encourages us to take better care of the planet. In my work as a professional eco-therapy practitioner and trainer, where I connect people with Nature for a living, I can confirm that this is a regular process that takes place. When people simply slow down and connect with Nature, they begin to take better care of it. It happens naturally. Perhaps that is because we are nature: as natural as the birds, the rivers and the Moon. And so, as the planet suffers more, year upon year, so do we, so does our mental health. We see this clearly when we slow down for a while, letting our thoughts and anxieties rest and tuning into all of this. We breathe the fresh air, and something shifts. All beings win when we connect.

In my work as a Tarot therapist – another significant part of my working life – it is true that I often employ the symbolic understandings of the four elements in my Tarot sessions (for example, Water as Emotion). And yet, at this stage in human history – with so many people trying to find a healthy relationship with Nature again – it makes sense the suits of Water, Earth, Fire and Air can be understood literally in a session, too. Perhaps, for example, we are being asked to explore our relationship with Fire, with the Sun, when we receive a Wands card.

Part Two of the introduction to this blog continues here. Thanks for reading!