Tarot Pink for Cancer is a collaborative tarot deck project organized by Ron Leong, founder of Tarot eCards, a digital app for storing electronic versions of whole tarot decks on your smartphone. The mission of the collaborative tarot deck project is to raise funds for breast cancer research. The concept is to reach beyond the tarot community and introduce tarot to the greater public as a tool for emotional, spiritual, and physical healing, with a focus on fighting breast cancer.

The theme of the deck is “Tarot Pink,” with an emphasis on the tarot’s ability to inspire, empower, and support in a person’s physical wellness journey. Although the financial cause is dedicated to breast cancer research, the deck itself is keyed to all forms of physical healing and the path to wellness. The color pink evokes that healing, compassion, empathy, and soft, understanding, non-judgmental support.

You’re going to want to get this deck. Mary Greer is writing an introduction in the guidebook. You’ve got contributions from some of the biggest names in the tarot world: Robert Place of Alchemical Tarot and Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery; Ciro Marchetti of Gilded Tarot and Legacy of the Divine; Eric Dunne of Tarot Illuminati; Marie White of The Mary-el Tarot; Kris Waldherr of The Goddess Tarot; Pamela Steele of Steele Wizard Tarot; Mary Griffin of The Hezicos Tarot; Emily Carding of The Transparent Oracle and Tarot of the Sidhe; Roxi Sim of Pearls of Wisdom Tarot; Major Tom Schick of Major Tom’s Tarot of Marseille; James Ricklef of Tarot of the Masters; Carrie Paris of the Magpie Oracle; J. R. Rivera of Beautiful Creatures Tarot, and oh my goodness, so many more.

You are going to recognize a lot of the names on the contributors list. Tarot Pink will be available as both a mobile app. and a printed deck. The app. will be available as early as July, 2015 and the printed deck available in September, 2015. Please support our efforts over at Indiegogo and please help share news of this deck and our fundraising via social media with #TarotPink.

This is definitely going to be a keepsake deck. A lot of incredible folk have infused these cards with the kind of positive, empowering Qi energy that would help in any path to healing, so use it for yourself, use it for those reading the cards for their healing journey, get it as an inspirational gift for someone, or heck, get it as a collector’s deck. Considering the kind of efforts that have been devoted to the creation of Tarot Pink and the practitioners who’ve worked on it, this deck is going to vibrate at a very cool higher frequency, if you ask me.

If nothing else, please get the tarot app for your smartphone. It’s only a $2 donation. Do it! That is less than your morning cup of joe!

I was so honored and red with delight when Ron invited me to contribute to this amazing project. I hope by sharing about my card contribution, you’ll be inspired to go out and read about all the other amazing tarot people and artists and what they’ve done for this deck. And then, of course, actually get a copy! I’m not sure I have the authority to show you other works, so I won’t, but you have to go searching for them. My below doodle looks rinky-dink compared to what others have done. AH-MAZING! stuff.

The caption underneath the card image is the card meaning blurb that will be accompanying the smartphone app version of the deck. The deck’s accompanying guidebook will have a longer description, which I’m providing after the jump. For my card design, I went for an RWS clone. Yeah, I know. I’m so creative. To me, this deck wasn’t about my interpretation of the Two of Wands, not exactly. In a way, for me, it was about taking the tried and true iconography of my assigned card, raising energy for healing, and casting something with my card that could be put out there to do some good.

So I wanted to stay pretty close to the RWS tradition and preserve certain elements, like the positioning of the two wands, the center figure looking out at the horizon, the orb that the figure holds, body of water to the left, mountain peaks in the background to the right, and the stone masonry platform, with red roses and white lilies appearing somewhere. You’ll also see the astrological attributions– the Mars glyph on the shirt sleeve and a stylized Aries on the helmet. I’ve also added imagery that reflect my personal interpretation of the Two of Wands.

The above shows my preliminary pencil sketch. At this point, I was thinking that the way my interpretation of the Two of Wands would relate to the theme would be by the rose quartz orb that the figure would be holding and the rose quartz terminated crystal points at the tips of both wands. Instead of the world (per Pamela Colman Smith), I’d turn that into a rose quartz crystal ball, with the rose quartz symbolic of healing, wellness, emotional support, and compassion.

The dome thing with the pillars in the middle ground would also have decorative elements on the dome that were reminiscent of pink hearts. The figure, by the way, may appear male, but in my mind, that warrior is female. Female shouldn’t have to mean long lashes, lipstick, and a slender hourglass figure with slender, tiny little feet. I want this female to look strong, ready for battle– the fight against cancer, ready to conquer the illness.

I sacrificed my beloved Dior eyeliner pencil sharpener for this project! I’m surprised that the photo above doesn’t show all the awful eraser marks. There’s a ton.

I hadn’t done this kind of pencil work since high school. Funny, I went through a phase in high school when I was so sure I was going to pursue a career in the creative arts. I loved doodling and my notebooks for Calculus class, and Physics, and Social Studies could have been mistaken for an art sketchpad with the amount of doodling that went on in those books. I was that kid who took every art class the high school had to offer, who had canvases and paintbrushes and pastel chalks cluttering my bedroom.

After high school, though, I diverged sharply from that intended path and never really dabbled much in art since then. So to partake in this Tarot Pink project, I had to first rummage through boxes and bins in our basement, searching for my old Prismacolor colored pencils and sketching out on regular computer copy paper. I thought about painting my card design, but lately some of my favorite published tarot decks have been hand-drawn ink and colored pencil, so inspired by those decks and that medium, I went for simplicity.

Of course, naturally, I chanted mantras for health and healing while I colored my drawing in. Incense was burning and some of the ash from the sandalwood, frankincense, camphor, cedarwood, lemon grass, and jasmine that I was burning got mixed in with the coloring.

And here is my write-up for the card that will go in the accompanying guidebook:

TWO OF WANDS Go forth to plan out an ambitious future. You are called to aspire for the horizon beyond. The orb symbolizes healing and the power that love has for overcoming obstacles. Gaze into that orb and you will see: you walk the path of a soldier. Progress. A good omen, but even with favorable opportunity comes more mountains to climb. Prepare for a journey through mountains.

You face the moon, trusting your intuitive side. The moon is waxing, a warrior moon toward abundance. You discover and you conquer. The powerful om hand mudra carved into the stone precipice brings you calm, inner peace, and healing. Hands in prayer remind you to keep your faith. The orb of rose quartz symbolizes healing, compassion, and the power that love has for overcoming obstacles. The orb will illuminate for you the best path to walk, and when you gaze into it, you will see your future, one of abundance and achievement.

The key is balance, between the moon and sun, left and right, faith and science, the yin and the yang. You wield that orb in your hand, while the strength from loved ones shelter you. Note the cho ku ray reiki symbol on the right pillar, which draws healing energy toward you.

The berkano rune symbol on the warrior’s left leg prophesies rejuvenation and renewed health. Watch the Mars in Aries influence here, as it can indicate an impulsive nature, though it prognosticates an inspirational leader, one who can motivate others on their paths to healing.

Mars in Aries is the revelation of a leader—after you reach your destination across the horizon, others will look up to you for inspiration and follow.

About the Artist. Benebell Wen is the author of Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth (North Atlantic Books). Learn more at benebellwen.com.

Medium. Ink and colored pencil.

Beyond the big-namers of tarot (and seriously, there are some big, big names), many of the artist contributors are people I’m good friends with, so I really hope you’ll support this cause and order the deck. Keep an eye out for cards by three of my artist friends who I’m close to in real life–Heewon Sohn, Jason Ng, and Kenji Liu. Heewon was my roommate sophomore year of college, Jason has known me since our sorority-fraternity days, and Kenji and I have worked together in numerous creative and literary endeavors in the past. So I was really excited to see them involved. All three of them are incredible, impressive well-established artists/designers in their own right, and to see them try their hands at interpreting tarot cards, aka my world, was–one word–awesome.

Please support Tarot Pink in any way you can. Contribute just $2 to get the app on your phone, or (if you’re in the U.S.) $35 for the deck. For $100, you not only get the Tarot Pink deck, but you also get a 30-minute reading with a superstar tarot professional. Check out the link to see who. I know most of you will recognize at least half of those names if not all of them. So given the super-stardom of those readers, $100 for deck and reading is a really good deal.

Help spread the word about Tarot Pink. It’s for a great cause, one close to many of our hearts, and for you, the end result can be a beautiful, incredible, and very powerful collector’s tarot deck.