Guide
Tending to Endings is a card deck that supports richer, more meaningful engagement with endings.
The culture of western modernity is trapped somewhere between novelty and nostalgia.
Our economies compulsively increase growth and consumption, while a rising tide of populism promises to revive the ‘greatness’ of lost empires.
At the root of this is a deeply broken relationship with death and endings; one that is characterised by fear, avoidance, and repression. The consequences are proving catastrophic for the health of our societies, and for the planet.
We are living through a moment which calls, urgently, for skillful forms of dying, ending, and letting go.
This deck aims to help by asking: What if we could reimagine endings — not as something to resist, or survive, but as a process that we might tend to with care?
The garden offers a useful place to start, offering an accessible, organic vocabulary with which to make sense of our predicament.
In tending a plot and caring for plants, we find ourselves participating in constant change. The natural cycles of growth and decay help us to understand that death is not only necessary, but generative.
How you might use this deck
Prescribe the cards
Suggestions for solo use: Lay all cards out face up. Pick a few that speak to qualities of an ending you are processing. (Don’t overthink this.) Spend five minutes journaling using the prompts on each. What do they reveal? Take the most relevant affirmation forward for your daily practice.
Pick the card you feel the most resistance towards. Sit with it for 5 minutes. What would it look like to adopt the qualities of this card in managing your ending? Examine your aversion. Does it change with time?
Suggestion for group use: Let the group explain the dynamics of the ending they are working with. Prescribe three cards that most represent (or challenge) the qualities of the ending. Let sub-groups deepen into the qualities of each. Do this in a garden if you can. How do the groups plan differently? Which card provides the most fruitful guidance?
Give each person in the group a card to represent their role (or let them pick themselves). Invite them to advocate for the qualities of that card’s ending to the group.
Leave the cards to chance
Lay all cards face down. Pick a card at random. What can this card teach you about how to approach your ending? If there is resistance, where and why?
When you might use this deck
As an end-of-month, season, year reflection aid //
leaving a job // closing an outdated institution or practice // leaving a place // departing a relationship // letting go of a hope or dream // retirement // releasing unsustainable habits, behaviours, beliefs // making redundancies or closures // building capacity to say no & strengthen resolve // finding agency in an unwanted ending // as an aid to sobriety, temperance, recovery // at a sharing circle // to process collective grief
Content Warning
This card deck was not intended as an aid in periods of acute grief and the makers are not trained grief counsellors. In some contexts this tool may be too blunt an instrument. We always suggest you exercise your own judgement about what will be helpful.
Bias disclaimer
The makers of this deck all live in the United Kingdom, and the contents reflect gardening norms dominant in the UK (with all their limitations).