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Meet the Author: Nyasha Williams of Black Tarot, Interviewed by Jordannah Elizabeth of Astrology for Black Girls

Image of the Strength card from Black Tarot

RP Mystic’s offering of tarot decks and journals welcomes the empowering Black Tarot: An Ancestral Awakening Deck and Guidebook and the accompanying Ancestral Illumination guided journal by Nyasha Williams, illustrated by Kimishka Naidoo. Previously, RP Mystic hosted Nyasha as she interviewed Jordannah Elizabeth, author of Astrology for Black Girls. Today, we share Part Two of this series, with Jordannah interviewing Nyasha.

Black Tarot reinterprets the classic 78-card deck with stunningly illustrated Black figures and imagery to awaken ancestral ties and enhance your connection to the divine. The companion journal Ancestral Illumination is filled with prompts, questions, advice, and plenty of writing space to help you chart your tarot journey – plus four full-color sticker sheets. Read on to learn more about the creation of these tools, and their unique place in the African Diaspora!

Jordannah Elizabeth: When did you begin to read tarot cards?

Nyasha Williams: My first exposure to a tarot deck was in college. My then and now best friend, Amber, had a deck, and it piqued my interest. But when I moved back to Colorado in my mid-twenties, I started stepping into the craft. I don’t consider myself a collector in any sense, but children’s books and divination tools are two items that may change that original truth. I started with just reading for siblings and friends, expanding through curious and trusting connections of mutuals. Consensually, I ask before accessing an inquirer’s energy, as divination is an intimate practice. Learning discernment around who to allow to access your energy is no light matter. I take great care in deciding who I get spiritual consultations or readings from. Many of us, including myself, learn this life lesson through boundaries the hard way. I honor all who welcome me to support and connect with spirit as we navigate our soul’s journey.

Image of The Hermit card from Black Tarot

JE: What’s your take on Black mysticism, and why did you decide to create this deck?

NW: This question made me laugh because the answer is far from simple. While there is much to say on the topic, I will get my thoughts across as best as possible.

While as both a descendant of Ancestors who were stolen from Africa and enslaved and a transracial adoptee, I have done my fair share of processing around loss and seeking Ancestral kinship. Decolonizing and indigenizing have been my movement toward liberation. In decolonizing and deconstructing my spirituality, at first glance, I believed that The Church, through colonization and white supremacy, had stomped out our link to our original African spiritual practices. With further examination, traditional religion was kindled by our fore-parents covertly woven within Christian practices, still being carried out today and often our first exposure to rootwork, conjure, and the craft. Even in my Lutheran-Anglican-Mennonite religious background, I experienced traditional practice in churches my family attended.

Ancestors and Deities have been relabeled as Saints; baptisms function as spiritual baths and cleansings; possession as catching the Holy Ghost; light language voiced as speaking in tongues; offerings and sacrifices as tithing and communion; Ancestral altars as church altars; songs, spells, and manifestations are spoken as prayer; and oils, mojo bags, talismans, and divination tools operate as the cross, anointing oil, incense, the Bible, and rosaries. The ‘old ways’ or traditions of Black mysticism are more than superstitions used to connect with or repel spirits but are a system of beliefs built around Ancestral connection and wisdom.

Image of the Justice card from Black Tarot

Before brick-and-mortar Black churches were built as sanctuaries to convert to Christianity cosmetically, we made our own ‘church’ spaces. We connected in tobacco fields, at riverbanks, in secret cabin meetings at night, within the trees and wilderness of parts of the Underground Railroad, and in the song of Negro Spirituals. Our Blackness was our first church home.

The United States was born into Christianity. As a people, we were not. We are born into the lineage and survival of our Ancestors, carried in our DNA. Our ancestors are us and we are our ancestors. Our blood knows that nothing is new. The way our hearts beat in rhythm when we hear drumming. Why our community dreams of fish when someone is pregnant? We cannot appropriate African or Diasporic Traditions that are ours. We must, however, acknowledge that we can cause the same systemic harm as anyone if we don’t decolonize and decenter whiteness. We are generations deep in spiritual double consciousness. It is both captivating and disheartening in the ways we know and unknow ourselves. The unknowing stems from fear and colonial attempts to disbar us from being practitioners or becoming privy to how Black mysticism permeates our daily lives.

There is much to the world that cannot be seen or understood by the bare eye. If interested in beginning, start in a place of grounding – cleansing, protection, shadow healing, and work. We naturally do this work communally in places of worship. Take time to reconceptualize and feel out what this practice looks like at home, openly living out our traditional practices.

I wrote the deck in the movement of uncloaking Black mysticism while reclaiming my Ancestral divination traditions. Decks were the first tool I started working with, but as much as I resonated with the practice of tarot, I struggled to find a deck that felt perfectly aligned for me, visually and in the message. I started reimagining the tarot deck, and the Ancestors spoke through me to shape the message. The journal complements the deck to aid in helping encourage reading rituals and gratitude as everyday practice.

Image of the Ten of Baskets card from Black Tarot

JE: How did you land on the final illustrations, and how do they inspire you?

NW: The deck illustrations were part of reimagining the Rider-Waite deck. I have never visually aligned to Rider-Waite, and I wanted to change due to the lack of diversity in divination decks. In deciding what visual went on each card, I sat with the meanings of each card and allowed inspiration to flow around what image would best embody its energy. My inspiration comes from the illustrator magic of my high school friend, Kimishka. She resonated with and heard my vision for the deck artistically and carried out my voice beautifully. I get immense joy from seeing the gorgeous drawings of Black community working to provide clarity, guidance, and inspiration through engaging with the deck.

Photo of Jordannah Elizabeth

Jordannah Elizabeth

About the Author

Jordannah Elizabeth is a music journalist and author of She Raised Her Voice! by RP Kids as well as the forthcoming A Child’s Introduction to Hip-Hop. She’s studied astrology, mysticism, and tarot since she was twelve years old and recently studied under the world-renowned American astrologer Acyuta Bhava Dass. She’s written on a number of topics for Ms. Magazine, POPSUGAR, O Magazine, and Cosmopolitan.

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Nyasha Williams

About the Author

Nyasha Williams, a passionate social justice griot, grew up living intermittently between the United States and South Africa. Nyasha’s mission is to use words and stories to decolonize literature, minds, and spiritual practices.

Nyasha is a firm believer that the story lives within each of us and that it is our mission to use stories to spread understanding, healing, and empowerment. Nyasha encourages us to uncover and share our stories through her work so that we can all learn, grow, and create meaningful change.

Nyasha’s writing is rooted in her understanding of the powerful potential of stories to create transformation and reveal truths that have been hidden for too long. She strives to use her words to ignite new conversations, inspire action, and ultimately help create a more equitable and just world.

“As BIPOCs, we are operating and navigating systems that weren’t made for us and are actively working against us,” says Williams. “My efforts as a creator, author, and activist are to combat the systems of White supremacy, colonization, and the patriarchy, working towards decolonizing, liberating, and indigenizing our minds and world.”

Writing to Change the Narrative is Nyasha’s way of bringing her passion for storytelling to life and helping us all to write our own stories. With her help, we can all find our voices and use them to write a better world.

She is the author of five picture books, including the forthcoming Once Upon a Kwanzaa (Fall 2025) and the Ally Baby Can board book series. She is also the author of Black Tarot: An Ancestral Awakening Deck and Guidebook and the journal Ancestral Illuminations. You can find her on Instagram at @writingtochangethenarrative. She lives in Northglenn, Colorado, with her husband.

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