Hidden Magic: How My Mother Read Energy Through a Deck of Cards

Every night, my mother played solitaire.
A simple deck of cards, a cup of tea, and the kind of silence that hummed with something sacred.

As a child, I’d sit nearby and watch the rhythm of it, the shuffle, the soft thwip of cards falling into place, the pause between her moves. Sometimes she’d ask me things in passing, questions that seemed random at the time.

Back then, I thought it was just a game.
Now, I know she was listening, not just to the cards, but to something deeper.

We were a Catholic family, and I think in her own quiet way, she was doing what many women of that era did: finding spirit in secret. 

Tarot wasn’t exactly encouraged, but a deck of playing cards? That was safe. Acceptable. Disguised magic.

Looking back, I can feel the energy that lived beneath those nights, the whispers between the shuffles, the way she seemed to read more than she let on.
It wasn’t fortune-telling.
It was an energy reading in its most humble form.

Maybe that’s where it began for me, that deep curiosity about what exists beneath the surface, about how energy moves, speaks, and shows itself in everyday moments.

When tarot came into my life, it didn’t feel new.
It felt like remembering. Like I’d seen this dance before, only now the cards had pictures, symbols, a language that matched what I’d always felt.

And I realised: tarot isn’t about cards.
It’s about connection.
It’s about listening to what’s already there, even when it’s hidden in plain sight, like my mother’s solitaire games, her quiet communion disguised as habit.

Now, when I shuffle my own deck, I think of her.
I imagine her at the table, solitaire in hand, smiling, knowing that the magic she once hid out of fear of judgment now flows freely through me.

Her way was subtle.
Mine is open.
But the energy? The knowing?
It’s the same ancient current, just finding new ways to be seen

Maybe that’s what tarot really is, a remembering.
A language passed through hands, through hearts, through generations of women who always knew how to listen, even when they couldn’t speak it aloud.

- Grace ✨