Tarot Fellow
Herbal Tarot by Tierra & Cantin
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Herbal Tarot by Michael Tierra and Candis Cantin — this classic tarot deck uniquely integrates medicinal and magical herb symbolism into the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith framework. Each card is paired with a specific plant: its healing properties, folklore, and magical associations inform and enrich the card’s meaning. A beloved deck for herbalists, kitchen witches, and anyone who wants their tarot practice rooted in the green world of plant medicine and earth wisdom.
Description:Quick Specs
- Creator: Michael Tierra (herbalist) and Candis Cantin (artist)
- Publisher: U.S. Games Systems
- Contents: 78 cards and instruction booklet
- Best for: Herbalists, plant practitioners, tarot students, dual botanical-tarot learning
A Dual Learning System: Tarot and Herbalism Combined
The Herbal Tarot is the only major tarot deck designed explicitly as a dual study tool. Artist Candis Cantin illustrated each of the 78 cards under the direction of herbalist Michael Tierra, assigning a specific medicinal or magical herb to each position in the deck. The result is a reading system where every draw produces two simultaneous layers of meaning: the archetypal tarot symbolism of the card, and the traditional properties of the herb depicted on it. This is not decorative botanics; the herb assignments were made by Tierra based on astrological, energetic, and intuitive correspondences between the plant's known properties and the card's symbolic territory. The Emperor gets the herb for authority and structural strength. The Moon gets an herb associated with dreams and the unconscious. The pairings reward sustained study.
Michael Tierra is a significant figure in American herbalism. His book The Way of Herbs, first published in 1980, introduced a generation of practitioners to both Western botanical medicine and Chinese and Ayurvedic herbal systems. That cross-traditional background informs the Herbal Tarot's herb selection, which draws on European folk herbalism, Native American plant knowledge, and Tierra's own clinical herbalism practice. Candis Cantin's illustrations are vibrantly colored and botanically recognizable, with each plant rendered in enough detail that a reader can identify it in the field or in a seed catalog.
Elemental Correspondences and Suit Organization
Tierra organized the deck's four suits by elemental affinity following the classical Western herbalism framework that assigns plants to fire, water, earth, and air. Wands are fire herbs, stimulating and energizing. Cups are water herbs, cooling, soothing, and associated with emotion and the unconscious. Pentacles are earth herbs, grounding and nourishing. Swords are air herbs, clarifying and mentally activating. This means the Herbal Tarot has a built-in logic that herbalists will recognize immediately: a cup of chamomile tea as the Ace of Cups isn't just poetic, it reflects chamomile's genuine energetic classification as a water herb in the folk medicine tradition. Browse my tarot deck collection to compare this deck alongside others in the divination category.
Practitioners who work with plant magic will find this deck particularly useful because each card functions as a direct bridge between a divination reading and a practical herbal action. After drawing a card in a reading, you have an immediate herb reference for a tea, tincture, or bath that aligns with the card's theme. This makes the Herbal Tarot one of the few decks that extends naturally into active practice beyond the reading table. Unlike the Moon Garden's purely visual botanical atmosphere, the Herbal Tarot is genuinely instructional, naming specific plants with specific properties you can look up and work with in the physical world.
How to Use the Herbal Tarot
Three practices that take full advantage of the Herbal Tarot's dual botanical-divination design.
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Identify the Herb Before Reading the Card
When you draw a card, read the herb name printed on the image first. Look it up briefly in a basic herb reference to understand its traditional properties, then read the tarot meaning and notice how the two layers of symbolism reinforce each other.
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Use the Elemental Suit-Herb Correspondences
Tierra assigned herbs to suits by elemental affinity: fire herbs in Wands, water herbs in Cups, earth herbs in Pentacles, and air herbs in Swords. Use these correspondences when crafting herbal teas or remedies aligned with your current reading.
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Build a Dual Study Practice
After each reading, look up one herb from the cards you drew. Over a year of daily single-card draws, you build working knowledge of 78 medicinal herbs alongside your tarot vocabulary, two separate practices continuously reinforcing one another.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I carry the Herbal Tarot because it is the most practically integrated deck I stock. The dual-learning structure means it serves two communities at once: tarot readers who want to deepen into plant symbolism, and herbalists who want a divination tool that uses the plants they already know. The Tierra-Cantin collaboration is substantive, not decorative; the herb assignments were made by a working clinical herbalist and hold up to scrutiny if you know the plants. If you want to pair this deck with hands-on herbal materials, explore my herbs and accessories collection for supplies that complement the botanical practice the deck introduces.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Herbal Tarot pairs each of its 78 cards with a specific medicinal herb, creating a dual system where readers build tarot vocabulary and herbal knowledge at once. No other widely published deck uses this botanical correspondence structure.
Herbalist Michael Tierra, author of The Way of Herbs, directed the design. Artist Candis Cantin illustrated each card. Published by U.S. Games Systems, the deck integrates Tierra's background in both Western herbalism and traditional plant medicine.
The Herbal Tarot contains 78 cards in the standard structure of 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. Each card features a specific herb identified by name, with Cantin's illustrations rendering each plant in recognizable botanical form.
Yes. The Herbal Tarot follows Rider-Waite assignments for all 78 cards, making it compatible with any standard tarot resource. The botanical additions layer herbal symbolism on top of the familiar RWS meanings rather than replacing them entirely.
