Reading the Wind
From Appalachian Kitchen-Table Magic to the Grand Tarot
You know how grown-ups always say they’re just going to sit on the porch to “shell beans and watch the redbirds”? That’s a fib. Leastwise, it was when my great-aunts would do it.
I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I wasn’t not supposed to be either. I was right in behind the screen door, holding my breath and peeking out into the hot afternoon sun. That’s when I saw ‘em pull out the secret stuff.
The Two Aunts and the Secret Map of the Hollow
The first aunt, the quiet one who always smelled like lavender, baby powder, and old paper, reached into her old sewing basket. But she didn’t pull out thread. She pulled out a bundle wrapped up tight in faded purple silk. When she unwrapped it, I saw these giant, strange cards full of pictures that looked like an old storybook—there were kings with gold crowns, tall towers struck by lightning, and a lady holding a giant lion’s mouth open with her bare hands.
She didn’t play a game with ‘em. She laid ‘em out like a map, and when she talked, her voice went all soft and serious. She was looking right inside the person sitting across from her, telling ‘em secrets about their own heart—stuff they hadn’t ever told a living soul. It felt like she was reading a book that was written on the inside of their forehead.
But then her sister—the sharp one who always keeps a peppermint in her apron pocket—let out a little snort. She didn’t have any use for the painted kings. She reached right into her apron and pulled out a deck of regular old playing cards, the kind my cousins used to play Rummy, all soft and greasy from the kitchen table.
I thought she was just going to perform a trick, but she didn’t. She shuffled ‘em so fast they sounded like a bird flapping its wings, and then she slammed ‘em down on the wood. She didn’t look at the pictures because there weren’t any—just red hearts and black spades. But she looked over the top of her eyeglasses, pointed a finger, and said:
“You see that Jack right there? That means that boy down the creek is telling a bald-faced lie, and you’re gonna lose your grocery money if you keep listening to him.”
My eyes got as big as saucers. She wasn’t playing a game at all. She was reading the cards like a newspaper from the future, telling ‘em exactly who was gossiping behind the barn and what trouble was coming down the road before it even crossed the property line.
Right then, watching the two of ‘em through the screen, I figured out the biggest secret in the whole hollow: between the two of ‘em, my aunts knew absolutely everything. One knew who you were on the inside, and the other knew exactly what was waiting for you around the next bend. You could never, ever hide a single thing from either one of ‘em.
The Four Suits of Appalachian Cartomancy
I couldn’t have been more than four or five years old when I picked up my first old deck of playing cards and started looking for my own answers. The old folks used to say that a poker deck was just fifty-two pages of a book that already knew your name. When my aunt laid them out on that faded oilcloth, she wasn’t just playing a game; she was mapping the weather of a human life, suit by heavy suit.
Hearts (The Wellspring): They weren’t just about sweethearts and hand-holding; they were the deep-down love that makes a person stay when it’s hard, the warmth kept alive in the middle of a bitter winter, and the tender places we protect behind our ribs.
Spades (The Iron Shovel): Sharp and dark as a newly forged shovel, these were the cards of anger, grief, and the hard, frozen earth. They spoke of the righteous fury that builds up when a person’s been pushed too far, the cold cutting-away of things that no longer serve, and the heavy storms of the mind that leave a scar long after the clouds have cleared.
Diamonds (The Tangible World): Catching the afternoon light like a clean windowpane, Diamonds represented the physical world—the cold cash in a man’s pocketbook, the deed to the acreage, and the sweat of a day’s labor turned into something you could hold in your hand. They told you if the cupboard would be full or if the winter would be lean.
Clubs (The Heavy Lifting): Clubs were the thinking cards—the quiet nights spent pacing the floorboards, trying to untangle a knotty problem. They stood for sharp wit, schemes hatched by the woodstove, stubborn intellect, and the deep, silent processing a mind has to do before the mouth ever opens to speak.
When she shuffled them together, the cards didn’t just clash—they sang. Love and anger, money and thought, all turning over and over in her hands like the seasons themselves, waiting to tell you exactly how the wind was going to blow.
Stepping Into the Grand Tarot: The Rider-Waite
Sit yourself down right there and let me pour you a fresh cup of chicory coffee. I see you eyeing that velvet wrap on the corner of the sideboard. Go on, pick it up.
That right there is what they call a Rider-Waite Tarot deck. I know, I know—it looks a sight different than the worn-out poker cards we usually lay out on the oilcloth when we’re looking to see if your uncle’s going to win his lawsuit or if the rain’s coming. These ones are bright, colorful, and full of high-falutin’ pictures from across the ocean, but don’t you go thinking they’re too fancy to speak the truth. Magic is magic, whether it’s born in a mountain hollow or an old European stone castle.
Unwrap that velvet. See how thick they feel? They’ve got a different weight to them. When you shuffle ‘em, they don’t whisper like the playing cards—they talk back with a heavy thwack.
Look at this one right here on top: the Three of Swords. Now, if you drew the Three of Clubs in the old way, we’d be talking about a disappointment in your business or a missed letter. But look at this picture. It’s a big, red heart right out in the open, with three cold steel blades driven straight through it against a rainy, gray sky. You don’t need a book to tell you what that means. That’s the kind of heartache that takes the starch right out of your knees. That’s the middle of the night when the fire’s gone out and the wind is howling through the floorboards. It tells you exactly where the hurt is, plain as a broken fence post.
And see this fellow here? The Fool. He’s marching right off the edge of a high cliff with his nose in the air, a little dog barking at his heels, and nothing but a small sack on a stick. In the poker cards, he’d just be the Joker—a nuisance or a trickster. But here, he’s the start of everything. He reminds me of your cousin when he packed up his old truck and moved out West without a nickel to his name. A total fool to the world, sure, but he’s got the sun at his back and the whole road ahead of him. Sometimes you have to be a little foolish to get out of a place that’s keeping you small.
These cards, they don’t just tell you what is coming down the ridge; they ask you why you’re standing in the middle of the road waiting to get run over. They’re like my old auntie who looked you dead in the eye after Sunday dinner and says, “Now, tell me what’s really going on.”
The Midnight Storm: Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
Now, the deck that called out my name is a whole sight more intense than all that.
If the Rider-Waite deck is a sermon preached on the Sunday porch, Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot is a midnight storm rolling in over the high ridges. Painted by Lady Frieda Harris during the dark days of World War II, this deck doesn’t just hold a mirror to your daily life—it cracks the world wide open to show you the raw, churning currents underneath.
It trades the familiar, comforting pictures of country lanes and simple virtues for geometric webs of deep color, Egyptian mysticism, and the sharp edges of alchemy. When you lay these cards out on the table, they don’t whisper sweet reassurances. They talk in the language of pure energy, showing you the grand, cosmic machinery behind your quiet thoughts and heavy burdens. It is a deck for the deep diving, meant for those moments when you are brave enough to stand at the crossroads and look at the absolute naked truth of your own power.
Bringing it Back to the Front Porch: Jake Richards’s Conjure Cards
Whatever the deck, Tarot cards are a fine thing when you want to sit quiet and look deep into the dark corners of your own mind—they’ll hold up a mirror to your soul and ask you the kind of big, heavy questions that take a week to answer.
But sometimes, honey, you don’t need a sermon; you just need to know if the check is in the mail or if somebody’s talking behind your back. That’s when you wrap up that fancy velvet, wipe down the kitchen table, and reach for something a little closer to home. That’s where Jake Richards’s Conjure Cards come in. They take all that deep, hidden mystery and bring it right down to earth, trading those big European castles for the honest, plain-spoken truth of the porch.
If you’ve got the hills in your blood, or if you just respect the old ways of the porch and the parlor, this little deck is going to feel like a long-lost cousin coming home.
Now, out here in the hollows and the old coal towns, nobody was running down to a boutique shop to buy a fancy, gold-trimmed Tarot deck. No, sir. But you could find a worn-out deck of Bicycle playing cards sitting right there on the oilcloth kitchen table. The grannies, the yarb doctors, and the ones who had “the sight” knew that those everyday cards could talk if you knew how to listen. Jake took that exact kitchen-table magic and put it right into these cards.
The Spirit of the Cards: Real Mountain Telling
This isn’t your usual high-falutin’ fortune telling. Jake has woven old-fashioned Appalachian dream lore and regional superstitions right into the very fiber of these cards.
How They Speak: If you’re used to standard cards, you’re going to have to clear your mind a bit. The Ace of Spades still carries that heavy, dark warning of trouble or passing on, and the Diamonds will still talk to you about your pocketbook. But it’s the dream signs mixed in that make you read with your gut. It forces you to listen to that little whisper in your ear—the one that tells you when a storm’s brewing before the clouds even turn gray.
Built Like the Old Ways
When you hold this deck, you can tell it wasn’t spit out by some big, unfeeling machine. It feels hand-made, because it mostly was.
The Humble Stitch: Jake drew every single one of these pictures by hand. And if you look real close, you’ll find a tiny, intentional mistake on one of the cards. That right there warmed my heart. It’s the old mountain way—whether you’re piecing a quilt or carving a piece of cedar, you always leave a little flaw on purpose, because only the Almighty makes something perfect.
The Feel of the Wood: The cards themselves are a good, sensible size—not so big they cramp your hands, and not so small you lose ‘em. They aren’t slick or shiny, but they feel stout. And the box they come in is a heavy paper made to look just like a weathered old cedar chest. It looks like something you’d find tucked away in the bottom drawer of your great-aunt’s dresser.
Laying the Cards Out on the Table
The little book that comes with it doesn’t waste your time with fancy, ten-dollar words. It gets straight to the point: here’s what’s coming, here’s who’s lying to you, and here’s what to watch out for. He gives you a couple of old regional layouts that are worth the whole price of the deck just to try:
The Jusem Sweet: This is a 9-card spread that’ll lay two people’s business right out in the open. It tells you exactly what someone is thinking, what they’re feeling, and whether they mean you good or mischief.
The Bullfrog: Now, this one takes a whole 36 cards and a good bit of patience. It’s a big, deep look at a person’s life. It takes some time to untangle, but it’ll show you things coming down the road months before they ever cross your property line.
The Final Word from the Porch
If you’re looking for something soft, airy, and full of cosmic talk, you’re barking up the wrong tree. But if you want an honest, plain-spoken deck that feels like sitting down with an elder who doesn’t sugarcoat the truth, Conjure Cards are the real deal. They carry the dust of the ridges, the smell of woodsmoke, and the absolute truth of the hills.
Book a Reading at 13 Bones Card & Conjure
If your soul is feeling a bit heavy or you’ve got a knotty problem you just can’t seem to untangle by the woodstove, you don’t have to walk that road all by yourself. The porch light is always on, and the cards are ready to speak the plain-spoken truth at 13 Bones Card & Conjure.
Whether you need a deep, quiet look into the machinery of your soul with the grand Tarot or a sharp, no-nonsense reading with the old playing cards to see what’s coming around the next bend in the ridge, you can sit a spell and book a reading right online. Go on and lay your burdens down on the table—let’s see exactly how the wind is fixing to blow for you. Until then,
Stay magical!
Join the Circle!
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