When I was fourteen, my grandma Esme handed me a small, worn book.

It was torn, fragile, and yellowed with age.

“Here,” she said. “This was your great-grandma’s. I’ve never had any use for it, but you might like it.”

On the front, it read: Fortunes: For Ladies to Obtain Good Husbands.

At first, I thought she was joking—trying to marry me off before I’d even sat my GCSEs. But when I opened it, I realised it was something else entirely.

It was a spell book.

A guide to divination. Card reading. Everyday magic.

Inside the front cover, one name was written in careful ink:

Harriet, 1901.

I remember sitting cross-legged on the swirly carpet in my grandma’s house in Hartlepool, the sound of horse racing blaring from the TV in the background. Not exactly the mystical setting you’d expect for the beginning of a tarot journey—but that’s the truth of it.

Magic doesn’t always arrive at midnight and candlelit. Sometimes it shows up in ordinary living rooms, passed down quietly between generations.

I read that book cover to cover.

On the surface, it was deeply outdated—full of advice about pleasing men, becoming the “ideal” woman, finding security through marriage. In many ways, it read like a strange ancestor of modern glossy magazines.

But underneath that?

It was something far more powerful.

It was about women taking control.

At a time when their choices were limited, this book offered something radical: influence, intuition, agency. It placed power back into their hands—even if it had to disguise itself in the language of the time.

That’s what struck me.

Not the spells for love. Not the outdated ideals.

But the quiet rebellion woven through it

The book itself had been covered in wallpaper—carefully hidden. Protected, maybe. Or kept secret.

Because at that time, this kind of knowledge wasn’t something you displayed openly.

And yet, it survived.

It made its way into my hands.

That little book is where I first learned to read the cards.

At the beginning, I followed it like a manual—meanings, layouts, instructions. But over time, something shifted.

I stopped reading the cards…

…and started feeling them.

Because tarot isn’t really about memorising meanings.

It’s about intuition. Connection. Honesty.

It’s about seeing what’s really going on beneath the surface—and having the courage to face it.

Today, tarot and magic is everywhere. You can walk into any bookshop and find shelves filled with guides on manifestation, spirituality, and witchcraft.

It’s no longer hidden.

But real, grounded, intuitive reading? That’s something else entirely.

Because tools are easy to buy. Insight isn’t.

Because the truth is—your life isn’t waiting to be predicted.

It’s waiting to be understood.