How the Bones Found Me
An excerpt from our upcoming book, "Get Boned," by the Wyrd Sisters
We didn’t find the bones. The bones found us.
Dr. Odd’s Story
Unlike Sister Spike, I was not initially drawn to bones. In fact, you might say I was the last person you’d expect to find communing with dead things.
You know that one girl at the goth club who shows up dressed as a Unicorn, covered in rainbows and glitter, smiles at everyone, and generally cheerleads for anyone and everyone in her path? Yeah. That was me.
Though you could never convince me that magick is not real, until a few years ago, my practice was confined to sparking genius as a writer and performer (my Ph.D. is in Dramatic Art, in case you’re wondering), and sporadically celebrating the wheel of the year sabbats (any excuse for a party). I’ve always been fascinated by natural cycles of life, death, and rebirth, but like most people, I valued life over death, creation over destruction, “light” over “dark.”
That is, until I started delving into shadow work as part of my healing journey / spiritual awakening. That’s when I started interrogating the power structures propping up that kind of binary thinking and intentionally reintegrating the “darkness,” a.k.a. the divine feminine. As I began to see the bigger picture, I recognized the same four-part cycle, DOER (Dreaming, Organizing, Executing, and Revising) cropping up all over the place: in the lunar cycle, the seasons, the creative cycle, and more. As I became increasingly aware of the cyclical nature of all things, my biases started to shift, and I found myself increasingly willing to embrace the parts of the cycle I had previously judged and shunned as bad, dark, icky, creepy, morbid, etc.
Once I opened that door, all kinds of downloads started pouring in, including the blueprints for the DOER deck. I saw a matrix of 64 energies, each with an affirmation and action, demonstrating how the chakras map to the creative cycle. I poured out all the words, drew up the chart (which included suits as well as colors), and realized this must be some kind of oracle deck.
That’s when I called up my sister, who, in addition to being a bone witch, also happens to be an incredibly talented artist, to ask if she could help me design said deck. Happily, Sister Spike said yes, and the DOER deck was born.
In return, however, she asked me for a favor: could I join her behind the table where she’d been selling her beautiful artwork, jewelry, and magickal tools at various markets? That sounded like a great excuse for sister time, so I happily agreed. And once the DOER decks were printed, we started selling those, too.
As spooky season approached, Spike floated the idea of offering free bone readings to attract more business. My response was: “Why wait?” I encouraged her to put up a “FREE BONE READINGS TODAY” sign, just to see what would happen.
Almost immediately, someone inquired about a reading, and as we read for them, curious onlookers started to gather. Soon there was a line, and by the end of the day, Spike was completely spent. Clearly, there was a market for this.
At the next market, we knew we needed to start charging for the readings, not only to help conserve Spike’s energy and make the endeavor more sustainable, but to keep from inadvertently stealing business from other readers who rely on that income. Having no idea what to charge, we set the price at $20 per reading.
At the end of one of those $20 readings, I realized something was missing.
At first, the woman who’d just gotten a reading was all lit up from the inside, having received clarity on her current situation and validation that what she had intuitively understood to be true actually was.
“That’s uncanny!” she marveled. “How could you possibly have known all that?”
“I didn’t,” Sister Spike explained cheerfully, “the bones did. I just interpreted them.”
Then the querent’s energy shifted. She furrowed her brow, saying, “Okay. So now I know what’s going on. But… what do I do about it?”
That’s when I realized what was missing: a prescription.
“One moment,” I told her, and picked up the DOER deck I’d set out as a display. Just as I did when doing a card pull for myself, I asked her to hold the deck between her hands. “Now take a deep breath in, and envision colored light pouring into your body. Then tell me what color, or colors, it is. No wrong answers.”
She looked a bit thrown, but did as I instructed. I took back the deck and started to shuffle it when a card came flying out. As I handed her the card, I could see her body relax as she read the affirmation and took in the action.
“Okay!” Her eyes were once again lit up from the inside as she focused her energy toward this “next right step” I’d just handed her.
I was hooked. I started pulling a card at the end of each reading, offering a prescriptive punctuation to cap off the experience.
A good bone reading is like a mirror: held up to a willing querent, it provides a map with a nice, clear “YOU ARE HERE.” The card pull provides direction, guidance, and an arrow pointing out the first step on the path from where they’re stuck to where they deeply desire to be.
All was well until Imbolc, when Spike got hit with a debilitating migraine mid-market. She went to the bathroom to vomit and do her best to rest and recover, leaving me alone at the table. Though I’d taken down the signage, word had spread, and a fellow walked up and sat down across from me, saying, “I’d like a bone reading, please.”
I was just about to apologetically announce that our bone reader was out of commission until further notice, when I was struck with one of the strongest intuitive messages I can recall receiving.
No, it insisted, this one is yours.
I’d been watching Spike cast and read for half a year, and was even starting to chime in with my own observations and insights, so I really had no excuse not to give it a try. I took a deep breath, grabbed Spike’s set, and went for it.
By the end, the man sitting across from me was smiling through tears, saying, “Thank you so much, this was exactly what I needed.”
Now I was really hooked. It felt wonderful to provide that depth of insight to a stranger, just by doing something as enjoyable as throwing and reading the bones.
That night, when I returned home, I noticed something odd: sitting on my desk, right in front of my keyboard, sat an old-fashioned skeleton key. At first, I thought my husband must have left it there, but he had no idea what I was talking about. Same story with everyone else who had access to that area of the house.
I tried that key in every lock in the household; it didn’t belong to any of them. It was a mystery.
That’s when it hit me. Oh! It’s not a key, it’s the key. The first piece in my very own bone set.
Stay Tuned…
People keep asking us for our reading recommendations on the ancient art of throwing and reading the bones. But the truth is, the pickings are slim. So, by popular demand, we’ve decided to write the book we wish had existed when we first fell in love with the bones: Get Boned by the Wyrd Sisters.
As we progress in our writing process, we’ll be sharing excerpts like this one here on Substack for you, our loyal subscribers, to enjoy. Let us know what you’d most like to see in a sneak preview, and feel free to share your feedback, as we’re still early in the process.
Go make magic!