created by amber arnold
with art by Jenni Kotting
this living 56-card oracle + tarot deck emerges from the land and the practices that shape SUSU commUNITY farm. four suits, time, sou sou, land, and homeplace, move from ace through ten and four ancestral face cards, bringing together divination, the living Black archive, plant and land knowledge, collective care, ancestral wisdom, and the teachings of Black women and knowledge keepers.
this deck is open for use and purchase by allies and accomplices. learn more below.
cards pictured are prototypes, not final quality.
the deck’s structure draws from tarot, while its oracular readings grow from SUSU commUNITY farm's own symbology and practices. pull one card as a question for the morning. lay several together to notice relationships between them. move through an entire suit as a meditation. bring a card to the garden, altar, journal, kitchen table, or community gathering. there is no single way to be in relationship with the cards.
the four suits
sou sou · pentacles
this suit draws from the Black diasporic practice of rotational saving alongside SUSU’s larger practice of reciprocity. sou sou is practiced in many places and helps redistribute resources already among us and opens up portals of possibility when they move. sou sou expands wealth beyond money to include food, medicine, knowledge, labor, care, relationship, pleasure, ritual, and collective capacity. the journey of this suit is about thriving in this material realm based on what we have, what we need, what we can contribute, what must circulate, and how abundance grows when resources are kept in relationship. its ancestral face cards offer teachings in stewardship, healing, exchange, and the many forms wealth can take.
land · wands
the land suit moves through creative cycles of planting and tending, abundance and harvest, clearing and return. within those rotations, our creative energy can engage with the land as kin without operating in extractive ways. land re-members what has been. it makes new life from what has fallen, decomposed or turned to ash, replenished and returned. the journey asks us to bring our inner fire and creative force while recognizing that we enter cycles and relationships already in motion. its face cards teach us when to cultivate, when to gather, when to burn away, and when to begin again.
time · swords
the time suit gives space for mental practice to loosen the straight line between past, present, and future. it offers examples of ways to do this through Black and Indigenous thinking on embodied, ancestral, sonic, ecological, cyclical, geological, dream, embodied, and fugitive time. the suit explores how memory travels, how history remains present, and how different ways of keeping time make different futures possible. its ancestral face cards bring us into relationship with Black women whose work teaches us how to remember, imagine, survive, and move through time otherwise.
homeplace · cups
the homeplace suit is a journey of emotion through the lens of sanctuary and homeplace in the scholarship of bell hooks. first, we arrive at a threshold, a door, and we gradually move into homeplace and community through tea, braiding, nourishment, pleasure, softness, interior life, rest, trust, and responsibility. the suit explores the emotional and relational practices through which a place/ self/ community becomes somewhere we can more fully inhabit ourselves and each other. Black feminist traditions of homeplace, love, the erotic, and collective care share the journey, which culminates in the praise house, where memory becomes collective practice and the living Black archive is realized. its ancestral face cards teach ways of making art, tending, remembering, loving, and becoming whole in relationship.
your deck is alive and growing.
you start out with 56 cards but your deck can expand to 78 as the hidden arcana reveal themselves through your participation in the living practices of SUSU.
major arcana cards available now:
abundance
earned through participation in #802givesBlack in 2026. this opportunity will resume in august - october 2027. put it on your calendar!
a token of gratitude for new end of year donors or you can pass along something that has helped you survive or grow. tell us what you received, where you sent it next, and why. more details on botanica page.
interdependence
in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer’s birthday, make a concerted effort to learn about Fannie Lou Hamer, freedom farming, Black farm collectives. details on the card’s botanica page.
how it works
in the coming two years, from 2026 - 2028, SUSU commUNITY farm will release 22 major arcana expansion cards, bringing the evolving deck to 78 cards. these cards will mark opportunities to practice the values held within the deck through real relationship with SUSU commUNITY farm: gathering, giving, tending land, learning, volunteering, creating, remembering, sharing knowledge, participating in community, and other practices still to come.
each major arcana card can be purchased individually through the botanica for $22.22, but they are meant to be free gifts rewarded through the practice connected to that card. some cards will be easy to encounter, some more challenging, and some may arrive as a surprise when you don’t expect it. over time, each person's expanded deck can become a small archive of the ways they have been in relationship with SUSU commUNITY farm.
when someone earns a card, they receive a code to order it from the botanica as a gift from SUSU commUNITY farm. deck purchase is not required. international shipping fees may apply.
reciprocity
pleasure
collectivity
send seeds in the mail SUSU seeds with the story of where they came from, SUSU selects appropriate ones to grow, share in the farm store for free, or archive. read all details in the card’s botanica page.
available from day one as a surprise gift to followers, commenters, and others who engage with SUSU on Instagram - especially folks who are consistently and organically in relationship with us. we’ll dm you with details.
what can the land teach us about abundance?
how can we interrupt the oppressive linearity of time?
how do we cultivate homeplace in our communities and lives?
what changes when we treat the land as our family?
a note for our allies and accomplices
this deck is open for purchase and use by allies and accomplices who support SUSU and the living Black archive. these cards offer relationships to deepen, questions to carry, and practices to learn from. approach plant medicine, ritual, divination, and culturally held knowledge with care for your body, your own lineages, and the communities from which these practices come.
a few cards share practices and knowledge that are closed, initiated, culturally specific, or held within particular communities. these cards are marked with this key symbol, a leaf from a “sensitive plant.” when you turn that card, treat it as an invitation to modify with a practice from your own background or to learn more to appropriately honor the symbols and practices on the card.
for example: cowrie shells carry complex histories of currency, adornment, protection, spiritual power, and divination across multiple African and diasporic traditions. anyone may learn from the history this card opens. if cowrie divination is not part of a tradition you have been taught to practice, let the shells remain teachers rather than tools.
