On the afternoon of May 14, 2026, after months of sitting in reflection and preparation (with a 3-week trip to Europe in between), I finally pulled myself out of my self-induced Hermit mode (a state I am quite fond of) to begin painting my tarot cards.
Starting with the Ace of Wands…
Jungian Tarot Ace of Wands
As many of you who have followed my Yonic Tarot deck creation process know, my deck is meant to serve as a visual companion guide to my Yonic Theory approach, which outlines women’s psycho-spiritual self-actualization process. Therefore, it is one part therapy, one part “spiritual” guidance, but ultimately it is meant to serve as a pathway to deepen one’s relationship with their inner feminine aspects of the Self - regardless of one’s gender expression.
I began the process of creating my own tarot deck in April/May 2025, using AI to help guide the “rough draft” of my cards and the elements I wanted to include in my design, which I then printed out, traced, and changed/edited/added my own design elements to once I had a template established.
Thus, in many ways, my deck is a metaphor for how important it is to combine the “Spirit” of the mind, which governs reason, logic, and structure, which are associated with more “masculine” qualities, with the “Soul” of the artistic, intuitive, felt sense of the feminine.
Which is ultimately what I believe the practice of tarot can offer each of us, and is essentially no matter what path towards self-actualization one chooses to follow.
Thus, now that the drawing portion of my tarot deck creation process is complete, as well as the first rough draft of its accompanying guidebook, it is time for me to begin the process of painting and outlining my cards to get them ready for printing so that I can eventually make them available for purchase.
But which card to start with…
The Ace of Wands
Oddly enough, the Ace of Wands was the very first tarot card I pulled for myself when I began reading tarot back in Fall 2022. Before then, I had received tarot readings and was intrigued by the practice, but I never felt confident in my ability to read for others or understand the symbolism of the cards…
That was until one night, I had a dream in which I found myself lying in a coffin and then subsequently ushered into a juxtaposing room where I saw a man dressed as a magician (an obvious reference for those familiar with this card) shuffling a deck of tarot cards. Thus, once he had finished shuffling the cards, he handed me his deck and told me I needed to acquire my own.
Since I am never one to doubt the wisdom of my dreams or my unconscious, even if I don’t entirely understand their symbolism at first, I took this mandate very seriously and the next day purchased my first tarot deck, which happened to be the Jungian Tarot deck created by Robert Wang, since during this period of my life, I was absorbing all I could on Jung and felt I needed to acquire a more “academic” deck as I navigated my PhD program.
Now, of course, a Jungian interpretation of this dream was that the Magician character was my Animus attempting to get my attention and thus “sparking” me to explore my love for tarot…and that is a valid interpretation.
However, a crucial detail I left out about this dream was that it was first a female figure who greeted me at my coffin, who then ushered me into the other room where the Magician was awaiting me.
In other words, it was the feminine, specifically a dark feminine aspect of myself, that led me to seek out the Magician who would “spark” new life into my subconscious.
Thus, in confronting my own symbolic death through the dark feminine, I was metaphorically “reborn.”
And this would be what Jung refers to as the role of the Anima, since Jung himself often equated the Anima as being the “purveyor of the Self.” Yet, in exploring tarot and my own and other women’s self-actualization process, I have come to understand that while Jung was insightful and his theory helpful for understanding the Self from a masculine perspective… There were a few things he overlooked…
Not to mention that he neglected to acknowledge that it was a woman herself, namely Sabina Spielrein, who ultimately represented his own dark feminine aspects, which would lead him to discover his own self-actualization process.
Spielrein
It is for this reason that I argue that Jung’s theory is just one side of the spectrum, the masculine lived experience in which the Ego and Shadow represent the light and dark aspects of the masculine principle – that which he called the Animus.
But what he failed to consider was that there is also a light and dark aspect of the feminine principle, or his Anima (that which I call in my Yonic Theory approach the Psyche/Soul), and makes up what I refer to as the Aura and Veil functions of the Self for all individuals.
Thus, I argue that Jung’s theory, while again a valid approach to reflect his and men’s personal experience of self-actualization, is only half the story, since it does not consider the feminine experience of self-actualization.
Which is what I came to discover through my tarot practice and the many female clients I worked with...
What I discovered was that the more I leaned into my own intuitive understanding of the practice of tarot, and my relationship with the cards, their images, and the stories that would come to me when I was reading, the more I came to understand my own lived experience as a woman.
As opposed to just regurgitating and repeating the “high-brow” wisdom of the great (mostly male) occultists like Crowley and Waite, who again, like Jung, are valid in their own approaches…yet still lack the ability to fully understand the feminine perspective in the cards’ wisdom.
This is because their experiences, or their own interpretations of their cards, didn’t speak to me or my lived experiences. Or the women I worked with and interacted with experiences either.
It was as if these individuals’ desire to dissect and intellectualize the cards and their meanings overlooked the symbolism right in front of their noses, which held the truth of the magic of the feminine within.
And while I do think there is merit in this more intellectual approach which embodies elements of what I refer to as the dark masculine, it again fails to acknowledge the fact that one can not access the wisdom of the dark masculine without first surrendering to the feminine, as I had to surrender to my own death or Kundalini awakening in my dream to be able to listen to my dark feminine aspects (i.e. Aura function) to encounter the Magician.
Thus, in my Yonic Tarot deck, as I stated above, I decided to combine the wisdom of these traditional occultists, Jung, and my training as a Counselor Educator/Psychotherapist, while also leaning into my own intuitive wisdom to reflect mine and other women’s experiences.
Thus, making my deck and its creation process inherently feminine by design.
This choice led me not to the hidden occult societies and fraternities of the great “tarot experts”, but instead, to my grandmother’s kitchen table, my Celtic and Eastern European ancestors, and the folk and Indigenous healing practices of women all over the world.
It led me to my roots, back to nature and the Earth, and to the voices of women like Sabina Spielrein, whom history has ignored.
Most of all, it led me to understand how tarot can serve as a guide for women to return to themselves through my Yonic Theory approach, which is why I decided to label my deck the Yonic Tarot™.
So I share all this background and history of my deck and my own self-actualization process to say it is fitting that I am beginning the next phase of this journey in my deck’s creation with the card that “started it all,” the Ace of Wands.
© M. Robichaux, 2026 Ace of Wands for her Yonic Tarot™
And while this next phase will have many steps, as I will need to both paint and outline my remaining 79 cards before they are ready for print (yes, I added two cards). Not to mention revisit my guidebook, which I have just completed the first draft of, I invite you to join me in this process and consider supporting my deck’s creation by donating to my ko-fi account below:
And while I can’t promise an exact timeline for the “birth” of my deck anytime soon (I’ve learned that my creative process is much more cyclical than linear and thus timelines always seem to become lost on me), it is my hope that by embodying a more feminine approach to my tarot deck creation process, the wisdom of the feminine is what shines through.
For I have learned that the more we surrender to the power of the feminine, the more magical our lives become.
OX
Your Dark Fairy Godmother
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Roby’s courses on her Yonic Theory approach, check out the resources below:
If you would like to donate to her Yonic Tarot deck creation fund, please do so through her ko-fi account: