the shop
offerings for moving through life’s most challenging seasons with empathy, connection + care
ambika creative studio is rooted in the understanding that the human experience has always unfolded in seasons — loss, transformation, renewal, celebration — and we were never meant to move through them alone.
our empathy card collections, books, journals, and prints are rituals of care and connection, rooted in the fierce, nurturing wisdom that lives in all of us.
as a slow media studio, we create in small batches and release with the rhythm of seasons, not markets. each offering designed to create sustained presence, rather than consumed and forgotten.
a percentage of every sale from the studio supports organizations working for the good of our communities and our planet — because true connection means tending not just individual relationships, but the broader systems that sustain all life.
seasons of grief + loss
empathy cards
offerings for walking alongside someone navigating a season of grief + loss
grief doesn’t begin and end with death. it lives in so many other kinds of pain the world rarely stops to honor. our empathy cards for seasons of grief + loss are an invitation to sustained presence and rituals of care.
one box. six cards. shared with one person over time.
coming november 1
seasons of caregiving
Caregiving touches nearly every life, and yet the weight of it is often borne by the caregiver alone.
For many caregivers, unacknowledged grief can feel expansive and overwhelming — grief for who someone used to be, a relationship that is changing, a future that may never be. But because these losses are ongoing, there is no funeral, no ritual, no closure. Instead, caregivers are left holding them quietly in the background, alongside other realities of caregiving like exhaustion, compassion fatigue, moral injury, fear, and a loneliness that deepens over time.
Our newest collection of love in action empathy cards are designed to be small rituals of empathy and care, meant to restore the language of connection. Each card offers an invitation to sustained presence between sender and receiver, and a way to walk alongside someone in their season of caregiving.
One box. Six cards. Shared with one person over time.
A living practice of love in action.
join studio notes to be the first to hear when the collection goes live.
the story behind the studio
When my mom passed away in 2019, my sister and I traveled to India to perform her last rites, and being surrounded by family in those early days gave me something I didn't know I needed — a place to set down grief that overwhelmed me.
It was a beautiful reminder that humans have always built ceremony around loss — honored it as a part of life. A way to say this person mattered. This moment matters. We are changed by this.
When I came home, the world had continued turning as if nothing had happened. Many people didn't know what to say, so they said nothing at all. But month after month, a small group of friends kept sending cards and notes — quiet, consistent proof that I hadn't been forgotten. Those cards became a lifeline, and eventually, a calling.
That experience led me to a question that has guided everything I've done since: how do we stay rooted in our humanity to honor and care for each other across the most challenging seasons of life? ambika creative studio, and our empathy cards as its first offering, grew from that question.
introducing
We know that care professionals are some of the most under-resourced people doing the most important work in service of humanity. We created the care collective because we want to be part of changing that in a small but meaningful way: by making it easier to bring our empathy cards into your work, and by offering a reminder that the people who care for others deserve care too. There is no fee to join.
meet dimple
Dimple Dhabalia, JD | CAPP | ICF ACC is the daughter of Indian immigrants — her mother born and raised in Uganda, her father in India — and a former public servant who spent nearly two decades in U.S. asylum and refugee operations. She is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, author of Tell Me My Story – Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self, and creator of love in action empathy cards. Her writing, speaking, coaching and art explore moral injury, institutional betrayal, shared grief, and dehumanization in care work, and map pathways back to conscience, care, and sustainable service across mission-driven sectors. Connect with her @dimpstory on LI | IG | FB.
care beyond the box
A percentage of every sale of season-based empathy card sets goes directly to organizations doing the quiet, steady, often unrecognized work of making the world more empathetic, connected, and human.
This is built into the business model because we believe empathy, connection, and care exist inside webs of reciprocity. So, when you buy a box, care moves in more than one direction.
Grief doesn't just begin and end with death.
It also lives in the heartache of caregiving, illness, and broken relationships — in the loss of a job, the loneliness of aging, the separation from loved ones, the erosion of freedom, the degradation of the environment — in all kinds of pain the world rarely stops to honor. And when grief arrives, we're expected to move through it quickly.
But grief doesn't follow a timeline.
So after the initial wave of support fades, and the world has moved on but our grief has not, sympathy offers the language of platitudes, while empathy gives us the language of connection.
love in action empathy cards for seasons of grief + loss offer a bridge of connection through sustained presence —
one box,
shared with one person,
a ritual of care,
unfolding slowly,
offered steadily over time,
through a season of loss.
A living practice of love in action.
Read about what inspired these cards here »»»»»»»»»»
in the box
Each box includes:
6 blank folded cards + envelopes
6 reflection cards
6 envelope seals
1 writing practice tracker
2 love in action wooden empathy tokens
All cards are printed in small batches on high quality recycled paper and made in the U.S.A.
For orders of 12 boxes or more, please email us at hello@rootsintheclouds.com and let us know how many boxes you’d like and when you need them by.