Deck Review: The WayHome Tarot

I got the WayHome Tarot after it had sat on my wishlist for a little while. I was a bit uncertain about it, and now I own it I do find it a bit of a mixed bag. I feel some of Autumn Whitehurst‘s art, while gorgeous, is internally incongruent and it gives a haphazard vibe to the deck I don’t always connect to. But there are so many cards where the imagery is so clever that I am OBSESSED. Simple. Perfect. On point. You can tell the co-creator, Bakara Wintner, has a deep affinity with the message of the Tarot, and she has an uncanny knack for making difficult concepts seems straightforward.

The WayHome Tarot doesn’t come with a guide/LWB, but the creator, Bakara Wintner, has written ‘WTF Is Tarot?‘, a sort-of Tarot guidebook, and it includes the same/similar images as the cards. As such, if you buy the book you can simply treat it as a very in-depth LWB! I REALLY enjoyed this book: it’s funny, poignant, approachable. There’s also some weird similarities between me and the author (we both lost our mums at the exact same age and experienced almost identical encounters with them the day after their deaths – super spooky!), so I felt a natural affinity with the text. The only thing that didn’t really resonate for me was I feel she takes an almost exclusively negative view of some of the court cards, that doesn’t really gel with my interpretations. Not a criticism, just it was jarring as up to that point I had felt completely in tandem with the author!

“Dance with the cards. Learn how to let something else take the lead. Be soft under their touch. They are just and only you.

And you. You are allowed to use magic. It is your birthright. It has always belonged to you”.

Bakara Wintner, WTF is Tarot?

I love these card backs 😍! What an asbolutely stunning design, so full of power and hope.

The cards themselves are super slippery, high gloss, and quite thin. I’m not wild about them, but it does mean they’re easy to shuffle. They do tend to fly off a bit if you deal them on top of each other, though, so be warned.

The WayHome’s Emperor is one of my favourite all-time Emperor cards, and I love it even more when paired with the Empress. She nurtures through love, he through logic – both of these things together bringing stability and growth. The hopefulness in this 9 of Wands is a gorgeous change from the normal “exhausted but hanging on” energy.

The Wheel of Fortune is such a clever rendition of the idea of both the cycles of fate (ferris wheel) and answering to our higher selves (written in the stars). I didn’t get the Devil card at first, and when I did I was like “huh, this is really f*cking meta, and I LIKE it!” All the lights and beauty and fun of the carnival, but those horses are in bondage. The Father (King) of Wands really captures his rampant – yet harnessed, earthed – electrical energy.

9 of Cups is just lush. I want to be in that moment! 8 of Swords reminding us that even when we feel the walls are closing in and we’re on our last legs, there is a light that never goes out. We’ve just got to remember who we are. The self sabotage in the 5 of Swords here is brutal and perfect.

I love how frequently the Wands are matches in this deck, and the burnt out matches of the 10 are my favourite. And the Sun has all the joy and abundance I normally get from this card, but a little hint of the dangers of overindulgence too. And the Hanged Man perfectly illustrates the sense of slow, painful yet purposeful, metamorphisis.

Two Pents to finish up with; nothing can encapsulate the whole ‘teamwork makes the dream work’ motto of the 3 of Pents as effectively as ants, the most team-y-est of all the Earth’s creatures. And I love this close-up image of planting your seeds in the 7 of Pents – now you must wait to see if they bear fruit.

Deck Interview with the WayHome Tarot

1. Tell me about yourself? What is your most important characteristic as a deck?

8 of Cups: This deck is good at helping me to let things go, to give up trying to hold on to or repair a broken thing. It is good at giving the advice necessary to leave situations that cannot be fixed.

2. What are your strengths as a deck?

5 of Wands: Relatedly, this deck is good at helping me to re-evaluated the conflict in my life and the value of furthering it.

3. What are your limits as a deck?

The Wheel of Fortune: OK, very drole, WayHome. I get it. You can tell me to know when to quit, but if I insist in repeating cycles of self sabotaging behaviour over and over, you can’t stop me.

4. What do you require from me in return? How can I best collaborate with you?

3 of Pents: I can best collaborate precisely *by* collaborating. I need to be open to working closely with the deck and listen to it. Success is within reach but will not be achieved alone.

5. What is the potential quality of our relationship?

4 of Cups: Hmmm. Difficult. I guess the above is hard for me? I’ll be a brat and wallow in my misery, ignoring the deck’s sage advice. Worrying! Maybe it just means working with this deck will encourage introspection to fix harmful patterns of behaviour.

6. In what space / with what type of query will you best communicate?

Father of Pentacles: The deck is a kindly father, ready to dispense advice on material and spiritual wealth and success.

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