Meet Samantha Rose Hicks of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Rose Hicks.

Hi Samantha Rose, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As long as I can remember I have been someone who wanted to understand what was happening beneath the surface. I have been drawn to the questions people do not always know how to ask, the feelings that are difficult to explain, and the ways we make meaning out of our lives. Today, I am a tarot reader, medium, spiritual educator, author, and community curator, but getting here was anything but straightforward.

My path into this work was not linear in any way. It was shaped by grief, curiosity, spirituality, and a deep desire to understand myself and the world around me.

I found tarot during a time when I was searching for language for things I could feel but did not yet know how to name. What began as a personal practice quickly became a way of helping other people feel seen, supported, and more connected to their own inner knowing. Over time, that work expanded into astrology, Reiki, coaching, mediumship, ritual, and spiritual education.

I come from a family and cultural lineage where intuition, spirit communication, and connection to the unseen were not entirely foreign. As a Sappony woman and the granddaughter of a spirit communicator, I have always felt that there was more happening beneath the surface. Still, I wanted my work to stay grounded. I never wanted spirituality to become a way of avoiding real life. I wanted it to help people meet their lives more honestly.

A lot of my work has also been shaped by loss. I lost my father when I was very young, experienced pregnancy loss, and later lost my mother. Grief changed the way I understood healing, spirituality, and what it means to sit with someone without trying to fix them. It taught me that healing is not about becoming untouched by pain. It is about learning how to remain in relationship with yourself through it.

What started as reading tarot for others eventually grew into teaching, writing, community building, and creating spaces where people can explore spirituality without fear, shame, or pressure to perform. I became a certified grief coach, a Reiki Master Teacher, a professional tarot reader and medium, and eventually an author. My book, Talking with the Tarot: Conversations with Your 78 New Best Friends, grew out of my belief that tarot should feel accessible, relational, and human.

Today, I teach classes and workshops, offer readings and spiritual mentorship, speak at conferences, and run The Ritual Garden, an online community centered around tarot, astrology, witchery, grief, self-development, and real connection. I also work in person through Equinox Provisions in Woodstock, GA, where I get to bring this work into a local community setting.

At the heart of everything I do is the same intention I started with: helping people trust themselves, feel less alone, and build a spiritual practice that supports their real life.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been a smooth road, although I do not think I would have the depth, compassion, or perspective I have today without some of the harder parts of the journey.

One of the biggest challenges has been building a spiritual business in a way that feels both authentic and sustainable. There is often pressure online to constantly produce, grow, perform, and turn every part of yourself into content. I have had to learn how to listen to my own capacity, set boundaries, and build something that supports my life instead of consuming it. That has included navigating burnout, self-doubt, financial uncertainty, changing platforms, and the very real trial and error that comes with working for yourself.

I have also had to learn how to trust my voice in an industry where there are many strong opinions about what spirituality should look like. My work is intuitive, but it is also deeply grounded. I do not believe spirituality should disconnect us from reality or encourage people to give their power away. Finding the confidence to teach from that perspective, even when it differs from what is popular, has been an important part of my growth.

Grief has shaped my path in profound ways as well. There have been seasons when I was building my business while also trying to survive enormous personal changes. Those experiences slowed me down, changed my priorities, and made me reconsider what success actually means to me.

There have also been moments when I questioned whether I was doing enough, growing fast enough, or reaching enough people. Over time, I have learned that meaningful work is not always the loudest work. Sometimes success looks like a book on a shelf, a room full of students, or a growing community. Other times, it looks like one person leaving a reading feeling less alone.

The road has been messy, personal, and full of redirection. But each struggle has helped me become more honest about who I am, what I value, and the kind of spaces I want to create. I am still learning, but I am much less interested in appearing polished and much more committed to building something real.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work lives at the intersection of tarot, mediumship, spirituality, education, grief, and self-development. I am a professional tarot reader, medium, spiritual educator, author, and community curator.

At the center of my work is a desire to make spiritual practices feel accessible, grounded, and useful in everyday life. I specialize in helping people understand themselves more deeply, strengthen their intuition, and build a spiritual practice that supports them without asking them to abandon discernment, personal responsibility, or reality.

I am especially known for my conversational approach to tarot. I teach people to see the cards as living archetypes and trusted companions rather than something intimidating or reserved for a select few. That approach became the foundation of my book, Talking with the Tarot: Conversations with Your 78 New Best Friends. I wanted to create something that helped readers understand how every card can show up in real life, including the cards people are often taught to fear.

My work also includes teaching classes and workshops on tarot, mediumship, psychic development, astrology, witchery, ancestor work, grief, and ritual. I run The Ritual Garden, an online spiritual community where members can learn, practice, ask questions, and connect with others in a space that values curiosity, compassion, and grounded spiritual exploration. I also teach in person, speak at conferences, offer private readings and mentorship, and create educational resources for people at different stages of their practice.

I am most proud of the communities I have built and the trust people place in me. Getting my book published by Llewellyn was a major milestone, but I am equally proud of the quieter moments. Watching someone understand a tarot card in a new way, trust their intuition, feel connected to a loved one in spirit, move through grief with more tenderness, or feel less alone in their spiritual practice means a great deal to me.

What sets me apart is the way I blend warmth, education, intuition, and honesty. I do not believe spirituality should be used to bypass difficult emotions, create dependency, or make people feel powerless. I am not interested in presenting myself as someone who has all the answers. I see my role as helping people ask better questions, recognize their own wisdom, and develop practices that are ethical, sustainable, and deeply personal. I am happy just being a bridge.

My Sappony heritage and family lineage of spirit communication also inform the way I approach this work. I carry a deep respect for relationship, reciprocity, ancestry, and the responsibility that comes with spiritual practice. I try to honor that by teaching in a way that is thoughtful, culturally aware, and rooted in care.

Ultimately, I think people know me for making complex spiritual subjects feel human. I want people to leave my work feeling informed, supported, understood, and more connected to themselves.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I am a lifelong student, so many of the resources that help me do my best are the teachers, communities, and educational spaces that continue to challenge and expand the way I understand my work.

Jamie Waggoner has been so influential on my spiritual and professional development. Jamie is an author, witch, community leader, and creative professional whose work brings together research, ritual, mythology, folk traditions, and thoughtful spiritual practice. I deeply appreciate the way she balances reverence for tradition with experimentation, creativity, and a willingness to ask difficult questions. Her work continually reminds me that spiritual education can be well-researched, imaginative, ethical, and accessible at the same time.

For nervous system education, Neurosomatic Intelligence, or NSI, has become one of the most valuable resources in both my personal life and my work with others. Its approach combines applied neurology, somatics, and neuropsychology to help practitioners better understand stress responses, regulation, trauma patterns, and the brain’s ability to create new responses. This work has helped me move beyond simply understanding healing intellectually and toward recognizing what is happening within the body and nervous system. It has also made me more thoughtful about how I teach, facilitate groups, hold space, and care for my own capacity.

Michael Mayo has been an especially meaningful resource in my mediumship development. He is a medium, psychic, author, and teacher who has spent more than 18 years developing his practice, including extensive training in the United Kingdom. I appreciate his evidence-based approach to mediumship and the way he emphasizes education, continued practice, ethics, and discernment. His teachings have helped me deepen my understanding of how mediumship works while staying grounded, responsible, and committed to development rather than performance.

I also return often to books, podcasts, classes, and conversations about grief, psychology, history, mythology, ancestry, and community care. I do not believe spiritual work exists separately from the rest of life, so I try to learn from many different disciplines rather than staying inside one spiritual framework.

Ultimately, the resources that support me most are the ones that encourage curiosity without asking me to abandon critical thinking. They help me stay teachable, remain accountable to the people I serve, and continue growing as a tarot reader, medium, educator, author, and community curator.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.samantharosehicks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samantharosetarot/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SamanthaRoseTarot
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@samantharosetarot