The story of Discovering Beauty Tarot

I created Discovering Beauty Tarot to be a tool for everyone: those who have never used Tarot before, those who have a history with the cards. It is for spiritual seekers, art lovers, and anyone who hopes to discover beauty. 

I have always had Tarot in my life. 

I was raised by a single mother, who created ritual space for us. I was raised believing in community. I was raised understanding community as being inclusive of the plants, and animals, the rocks, and all of the magical parts of nature I knew were there.

XIX The Sun, Discovering Beauty Tarot

Despite the raw courage taught to me by my mom, despite the interconnectedness I grew up believing in, for much of my life I have been “sucking on stones,” and pretending to be satisfied (Jessica Dore, Tarot for Change, 262). 

IX Justice, Discovering Beauty Tarot

Too afraid to ask for more, giving in to consumerism, to isolation, to individual modalities of healing that left me feeling frayed, off kilter, and even more alone. The world ceased to be the secret garden of magic that welcomed me as a child. I was afraid all of the time, constantly working to earn a place.

IX The Hermit, Discovering Beauty Tarot

The year my Tarot practice deepened was also the year I experienced my first panic attack and the year I started therapy. In the midst of my Saturn Return, I felt like I was suddenly awake. 

I could no longer swallow and bury and ignore the sense of unease. I identified how people-pleasing had been guiding my life. How inauthentic I felt, trapped within a shell that I had built out of my own fear and shame.

III Air, Discovering Beauty Tarot

I wanted to be an artist and I wanted to be an activist. But I still believed that I had nothing real to offer. That my skills were useless, that my worth lay in my appearance, my desirability, my sweetness, my ability to do the best job at guessing exactly what everyone wanted.

XX Awakening Discovering Beauty Tarot

The stories contained within the cards helped me identify patterns in my life. Tarot helped me create time to spend alone, time to be connected to the magic I have always known lies underneath my skin. 

Magic that I see in the veins of the leaves, in the birds taking dust baths, in the faces of children. The cards also share practical magic and have helped me to learn usable skills like identifying my emotions, showing up for hard conversations, labeling my thoughts.

Root Earth, Discovering Beauty Tarot

I am still learning. I feel every toe on the ground. I still repeat patterns, I still have to return over and over to myself after moments where I feel like I have abandoned my own well-being, where I have chosen someone else’s desire first. But I now know that I am just as worthy. No more, no less. 

These are the lessons contained within the cards. Lessons that I learned and tried to turn into image, into illustration, into this deck. They sprang from subconscious knowing and were built through seven drafts of copious study. They come from my personal daily practice, which has been a steady heartbeat.

II Water, Discovering Beauty Tarot

The process

The images in the deck began with quick marker sketches, inspired by lessons on Notan, a word which describes the Japanese concept of Light and Dark in balance. I wanted the images to be legible through intuition, separate from language. When I needed Tarot the most was at times when my capacity for language was most limited.

Discovering Beauty Tarot, Version 1

From quick marker sketches, the drawings evolved.

Discovering Beauty Tarot, Version 4

Next came color palettes that lent themselves to intuitive reading, the traditional suits turning into the Elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Nine colors of watercolor paint, glazed in different patterns, are overlaid with colored pencil. iPad drawings became 11 x 17 inch India ink drawings, became paintings, 78 times over. 

Palettes for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and Justice practice painting

The process became a part of the practice, working steadily through cycles of healing, of heartbreak. One card, one coat of paint, one draft at a time. “I discover possibilities for beauty.” Impossible to rush, cyclical, imperfect, requiring faith and sweat. Requiring a dedication to keep looking.

The Fool Process, Discovering Beauty Tarot

I have always kept journals, and created one dedicated to this Tarot deck. I captured teachings from my favorite Tarot creators and decks, and explored my relationship with the cards as I pulled them. These pages have become the guidebook, taking the form of poems, questions, meanings, and affirmations for each card.

The Lovers Note Page, Discovering Beauty Tarot

The deck in the world

I took the images out into the world at every draft. The first rough marker sketches became a tool for fundraising, became tattoos, became the first deck I ever printed (which you can print for yourself here). 

The first Discovering Beauty deck I printed on copy paper,  at 1 inch x 1.75 inches

The color roughs became decks that I started using to read for the public: in Central Park, in Philadelphia, at holiday fairs and pop-up candle events. I printed them at home, and then had them professionally printed, one deck, one prototype at a time.

I practiced reading with the cards at every stage, seeing how the images worked in the World. I painted them as images on the ceiling at Symposium, and got to share them with a new audience in New York.

Sweet Juice Fest, Philadelphia, PA, July 2024

Another home-printed version of Discovering Beauty, in its 4th draft

The first professionally printed version of the deck using the color roughs (draft 4) of the images

I had my drawing for the back of the cards turned into a rubber stamp, and hand-stamped this deck.

I finished the paintings in December of 2024. I used them to read for people in different countries, in different languages, relying on the images to speak. And they did. They shared Magic, they spoke truths.

The final 78 images, at 11 x 17 inches in India ink, watercolor, and colored pencil

My first "final" deck in Paris

The day after I launched the project on Kickstarter, I had a show of all 78 paintings at my home yoga studio in New York City. It was incredible to see them together and I hope to display them again.

Photos from the exhibition show at Upper West Side Yoga and Wellness, March 2025.

Thank you

I am constantly working to be more awake. I am constantly remembering that it is only possible to help the World if I am being kind to myself. Tarot helps me remember every day.

I am so grateful to be here. I love this place and I claim it as my home. This exact spot. This exact Planet. I offer my gratitude in the form of my presence, in my daily interaction and choices. 

I offer my gratitude with this deck.

I am honored to be able to offer it through this campaign, and I am so grateful you are here. If you want to dive deeper into this project and the Tarot, I wrote a thesis about it. I have more writing available over on Substack.

Please reach out with any questions. I am over on Instagram @sophialitwak, and can also be reached by email, sophia@sophialitwak.com

Photo by @joycezhang_55 for Palermo Body