Ashe Alma · Companion Guide
For the Blessed and Highly Favored
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The Refusal to Die
Every tradition that survived the Middle Passage survived because the people who carried it refused to let it die. They prayed to the Orishas in the names of Catholic saints. They buried their conjure roots under church foundations. They kept Ifa in their hands and the rosary around their necks simultaneously. They did this not because they were confused, but because they understood something about the sacred that the institutions on both sides of the Atlantic could not: that truth does not belong to any one tradition, and that the Divine does not require our permission to speak through any vessel it chooses.
This deck was built from that refusal.
The Ashe Deck is a 78-card tarot built entirely from within the Black spiritual tradition — not borrowing from it, not inspired by it, but built of it. The Major Arcana maps to Orishas, Lwa, and the spiritual forces of the African diaspora. The Minor Arcana speaks through the language of rootwork and ancestral wisdom.
Threaded through it all are the mystics — Catholic saints who died and returned, who saw what happens to the soul after the body is done with it. They are here because they confirmed, in their own tradition, what the African traditions have always known: that death is not an ending, that the soul's journey continues, and that the prayers of the living matter profoundly to the dead.
"The first two days after death, the soul is permitted to roam the earth, visiting familiar places. On the third day, it ascends to worship God. Then it is shown the joys of paradise. On the ninth day, prayers are especially important as the soul encounters the torments of hell. On the fortieth day, the soul's place is appointed until the Final Resurrection."
St. John of Shanghai wrote this in the Orthodox Christian tradition. Baron Samedi, the Haitian Vodou Lwa of death, governs the exact same crossing from the other side of the theological world. St. Faustina Kowalska saw the same souls in purgatory that the Yoruba Egungun tradition has known about for centuries.
The traditions are not the same — they are parallel witnesses to the same truth. This deck holds all of them simultaneously, the exact same way Harriet Tubman held God, the North Star, and a loaded pistol at the same time: because surviving requires using everything available.
The Architecture of the Deck
Every Major Arcana card in the Ashe Deck is built on three layers that speak to and corroborate each other. When you pull a card, you are not reading a flat symbol; you are reading a three-dimensional spiritual reality.
This is an Orisha, Lwa, or spiritual force from the Yoruba, Vodou, Candomblé, or Hoodoo traditions. This is the divine, foundational energy animating the card's core meaning. It is the root.
Where applicable, this layer features a Catholic mystic who experienced visions of the afterlife, divine mercy, or spiritual reality. These witnesses appear specifically in the cards dealing with death, transition, and the soul's journey (Cards 12–21). They do not overwrite the African tradition — they corroborate it, standing as proof that the veil is thin across all continents.
This features a historical Black American figure whose life embodies the card's spiritual energy in the material world. These are not symbols — these were real people who did real things that have shaped the world the reader is living in. Frederick Douglass is not a "symbol" of The Emperor. He is the actual thing The Emperor describes, made flesh, in history, with documented consequences.
The 40-Day Soul Journey Arc
Cards 13 through 20 (Death through Judgement) form a continuous theological narrative within the Major Arcana. They map the complete journey of the soul from physical death through the 40-day passage, culminating in the moment of divine recognition. When you pull these cards in a standard reading, they speak to profound transitions. But together, they form a dedicated map for grief, loss, and ancestral elevation.
The Departure. The moment the cord is cut. The 40-day clock begins.
Death is not the end of the book; it is the turning of the page. This card represents the first two days when the soul roams the earth, visiting familiar places, confused by its sudden lightness. It asks the living to open the windows and cover the mirrors. A major ending has occurred in your life, and you must allow the old form to depart without grasping at it.
Sacred Timing. The 3rd, 9th, and 40th-day prayers. The alchemy of grief.
Temperance is the careful pouring of water from one vessel to another, representing the precise timing of ancestral rites. It highlights the 3rd day (ascension), the 9th day (shadows), and the 40th day (final placement). In a reading, this card demands patience and ritual. You cannot rush the healing process; it has a sacred, unalterable timeline.
Regions of Shadow. The soul encounters the regions of shadow and false bindings.
Around the 9th day, the soul faces its earthly attachments, addictions, and regrets. The Devil is not an ultimate evil here, but the heavy gravity of the material world trying to pull the spirit backward. When drawn, it signifies that you or the departed are grappling with unresolved earthly debts, guilt, or toxic ties that must be consciously severed.
Revelation. The false structures fall. Revelation in destruction.
The ego's final collapse. In the afterlife, all titles, bank accounts, and earthly armor burn away. The Tower is the terrifying but necessary realization of absolute spiritual vulnerability. In life, this card means your false foundations are being violently cleared away to make room for truth. Let the building fall.
The Mercy Light. First sight of grace after the darkness.
After the exhaustion of the Tower, the Star appears. It is the soothing water of Oshun, the profound, unearned mercy seen by St. Faustina. It represents the soul's first realization that it is profoundly loved by the Divine. It brings hope, healing, and a quiet, shining clarity after a period of immense devastation.
The Deep Crossing. The soul in the unconscious passage.
The Moon represents the deep, murky waters of the ancestral realm—the subconscious, the dream space, the things hidden in the bloodline. The soul is navigating by intuition rather than sight. In a reading, this card asks you to trust your dreams, honor your intuition, and beware of illusions that look like truth in the dark.
Foretaste of Heaven. The harvest of survival. The light of clarity.
The soul emerges from the night crossing into the brilliance of divine light. It is the warmth of survival, the joy of having made it through the Middle Passage of the spirit. The Sun brings absolute clarity, vitality, and the lifting of all shadows.
The Final Summoning. The ancestors recognize you.
The 40th day. The soul's place is appointed. This is not a courtroom judgment of damnation, but an ancestral calling by name. The spirits recognize their child. In a reading, this card means you are being called to your highest spiritual purpose. You are being awakened. Answer the call.
The Parallel Witnesses
In the Ashe Deck, several cards carry explicit Santería syncretic pairings—Orisha and Catholic saint mapped together as they are in the Lucumí tradition (Regla de Ocha). This is not poetry. This is survival technology.
Describe a current struggle, goal, or situation. The book will consult the spirits and reveal which syncretic Orisha/Saint pairing is currently guiding your path.
Including Catholic saints in an Afro-diasporic tarot requires explanation, because the Catholic Church has a complicated and often violent relationship with African people.
The decision to include these mystics is deliberate. St. John of Shanghai, St. Faustina, St. Macarius, and St. Drithelm were not colonialists or enslavers. They were seers. They received visions that perfectly corroborate the African theological understanding of death and the soul. They are included as witnesses, not authorities. They do not translate or interpret the African tradition; they stand beside it as evidence that the exact same spiritual geography exists, no matter what name humans give it.
The syncretism in this deck honors the genius of enslaved Africans, who hid their gods in plain sight, turning the oppressor's statues into altars for the ancestors.
Spreads & Practical Application
"Before reading the Ashe Deck, pour a glass of cool water. Light a white candle. Acknowledge the spirits who walked the road before you."
For directional guidance, sudden choices, and times of confusion.
Elegba stands at the crossroads. Use this spread when you do not know which way to turn.
For deep spiritual alignment and understanding the forces at play in a complex situation.
For grief, navigating a major loss, or a profound life transition (a breakup, a death, a career ending).
For major life reviews.
Draw eight cards in sequence. Read them as a complete narrative arc from beginning to completion. Each card represents a sequential station of your current spiritual journey. The first card is your departure; the eighth is your arrival.
Do not have your physical deck with you? State your intention and allow the spirits to pull a virtual reading for you using the Ashe Deck framework.
The Ashe Deck does not belong to the airy realms of pure abstraction. It is rooted in dirt, in blood, in survival, and in the profound grace of the ancestors. When you shuffle these cards, you are shuffling history.
May the water be cool.
May the road be open.
Ashe.