Hey friends. How’s your summer going so far?
I’m thrilled Leo season is here! It’s my most magical season baby!! As an Aquarius Moon, Leo Sun, this past Super Full Moon in Aquarius left me feeling electric and alive. And I am using that energy to lay down a solid foundation for rocking some massive goals I’m setting.
So before I get into today’s episode, I’ve got a couple of announcements!
First, next week will be the first ever Listener Readings episode!! On these special episodes, I'll be doing mental health tarot readings for your submitted questions. Up to five questions will be read on the podcast, so be sure to get your question in ASAP to have it shared on the first release of the series. I'll be reading them first come, first served, and I’ve received a few submissions over TikTok also! But it’s not too late to get your question to me!!
Send in your questions to tarotreflectionsquestions@gmail.com. Be sure to include your question and any context you might want shared, the name you want me to refer to you as (it can be your first name, it can be a fake name, or it can be one of those fun quote-unquote names people would create when writing into advice columnists!), and your Sun sign, if not your Big Three. Keep in mind, everything in your email would be shared on the podcast unless you specifically request a piece to remain private.
My second announcement is that I’m facilitating a Mental Health First Aid course this September. It’s a virtual course, which means wether you’re listening in Vancouver, BC or Dildo, Newfoundland - a community I dream of visiting during ice burg season - you can get your Mental Health First Aid Certification! It is only available for Canadians, but there are Mental Health First Aid programs in over 30 countries by now I believe.
Like a physical First Aid course, Mental Health First Aid fosters the skills you need to help someone experiencing a mental health challenge or crisis. I do this work because I genuinely believe, like I feel it in my bones that the more people who are certified in Mental Health First Aid, the stronger our collective, community mental health becomes.
Now let’s get into this week’s episode.
This year, my identity as a Queer person has been at the forefront of a lot of my work. I’ve talked about it a lot on my social media and this podcast even. I’ve been openly bisexual for a long time now, but this year has called me to be more engaged in Queer activism.
And we don’t have to get into why, you can just read the news.
My activism work has pushed me to explore my Queer identity in new ways, and in genuinely unexpected ways.
Before I had gotten intensely involved in activism and addressing Queer oppression, I was lightly exploring and questioning what gender identity meant to me. As I became more invested in the Activism work, I began feeling out using she/they pronouns. As those became more comfortable, I began to feel out the nonbinary label. But it never felt quite right. It wasn’t sitting as comfortably with me.
And I began to struggle with what that meant. If I didn’t quite feel nonbinary, but the use of the “they” pronoun brought me joy, what did that label me as? Did I need the label? Or am I just a big fraud?
I want to pause here and reflect on a different journey of mine for a moment.
I’ve always been a spiritual person. I even remember as a child having this intense feeling it was possible for me to communicate with the wind, and the trees, and find both comfort and power in the nature that surrounded me.
But it wasn’t until my Saturn Return that I began to consider my spirituality with more care. It’s funny, you know, in my life coaching, goal setting, and support work, I’d always stress that the “Health” area of your life consisted of your physical health, your mental health, AND your spiritual health, but it wasn’t until I neared 30 that I began to take that encouragement to heart. And when I began to nurture, care for, and bring attention to my spiritual health, my mental health begun to vastly improve.
It’s still so unfamiliar for my spiritual self to be more holistically integrated into my life. It’s still a practice. And it’s pushed me to explore some unfamiliar parts of myself for the first time.
In a similar fashion and remarkably similar timeline to my question of gender identity.
But it wasn’t until I began a new practice in my spiritual work that I realized just how connected and linked my gender identity was with my spirituality.
It’s a story that I’ve decided is to personal to share. That’s a decision I struggled with and debated with for a while. But if you caught last week’s episode, you know I’m mindfully practicing setting and following my boundaries. And this is one of those moments.
But through my spiritual journey, I’ve come to better understand why I find the gender binary doesn’t feel like it fits me. That while I often do and will continue to express my gender through a more femme construction, it does not change the knowledge I have of who I am, and why I feel like I ebb and flow along the gender spectrum through time.
And why the Gender Fluid label feels more comfortable on me.
So hi. I’m Megan. And I’m Gender Fluid.
Now why am I sharing this story with you all? For one, being vulnerable and sharing who I am with you is something I hope helps foster a safe space for this podcast, for my community, in my work. But I also think it contains some important reminders for all of us.
It’s a reminder that it’s still possible to learn new and sometimes surprising things about yourself, because we still grow and learn as humans.
It’s a reminder that we aren’t made up of segments. The parts of our lives and identities don’t sit in neat, structured boxes. Rather they intertwine and intersect with one another. One cannot function fully without the others.
And it’s a reminder that what matters most is that you know who you are at your core. And you do not have to justify your identity for it to be valid.
I mean, there are exceptions to that rule. For example, to identify as part of a racial or cultural heritage you do have to come from that heritage. I’m talking to you Rachel Dolezal and other cultural appropriators.
And now, on to this week’s reading.
Actually, I better pause here to give a run down of how these readings go because for the first time ever, this episode of Tarot Reflections is being recorded for YouTube. Hi YouTube!
So we might have some new folks with us today.
Each week, I pull a two-card tarot spread for the week ahead. The first card shares a message of what’s to come up for us in the next seven days of when you’re hearing this message. This is an important distinction here. These messages from the Universe that are shared through this tarot spread, they are intended to find you when you need to hear them. So if you’re listening to an episode in September that you see was published in March, that doesn’t mean this message is reflective of that week of you life you had in March. It means you needed to find this episode in September to hear that spread in a time where it’s relevant to your life’s story.
The second card in our weekly spread speaks to the mental health message we need to embody for the week ahead. What tips or advice or shadow work we might be needing.
This part of the podcast is meant to be a time that allows for introspection and self-reflection. The tarot is simply a tool for our journey of self-discovery.
So, this week, we have The Sun and The King of Cups.
Our astrological season recently shifted to Leo, so The Sun showing up at this time is no surprise. Ahead we have a week that brings joy, vitality, light, and enthusiasm into our lives. Soak in that joy, recharge yourself in that optimistic energy in the air. If you're somewhere where the sun is fully sharing His rays on you, take a sun bath. Mindfully — and safely, let's remember our sunscreen people — spend some time basking in the warmth and energy of the Sun. Allow Him to charge your aura, your soul, your energetic field.
The presence of our King of Cups with The Sun is sharing a really important message though. As I said, it's Leo season, it's a time where we tend to lead with our hearts and enthusiastically follow the call of passion. But our King is telling us we need to be careful to balance ourselves between that ambitious, bold heart and our cerebral, logical, evaluative mind. He's here to remind us it's possible and important to seek wisdom and counselling, even... and maybe especially... if that wisdom and counselling come from within.
That’s everything for this week. Don’t forget to check out the links in the show notes for sending in your questions for the Listener Readings episode next week and to register for Mental Health First Aid Certification. If you enjoyed the episode, I’d be honoured if you subscribed and left a rating or review. It really does help the show grow. You can find me on the Instagram, the TikTok, and the Threads at MegansAWitch. There are a LOT - like a lot a lot - of business changes coming in these next months. So be sure to follow the socials to not miss any of the exciting announcements I have planned.
Until next time friends!