Deck: Ever After Spell Tarot

The Vibe

Libra, this month’s arc is about change. Possibly big change. You’re going to be heading towards something better while your nervous system insists something’s wrong.

The cards are asking you to separate “this is different” from “this is dangerous,” and to trust that you can be deliberate about where this all goes instead of just muscling through it.

Change is coming, whether you necessarily want it or not.

It will be good long-term, and even better if you can realize you have a choice in how you handle it.

Card 1 — What to Embrace: Six of Swords

I love this deck because it has my favorite Disney prince and princesses (even if it doesn’t explicitly say that’s who they are, they clearly are).

The Six of Swords is traditionally an image of someone in a boat, heading towards a new shore. Six swords are there, hilt up, in the front of the boat (because would you really be cruising towards a new place WITHOUT your swords?!? Be serious).

In this deck, it’s Aladdin and Jasmine on their dreamy “Whole New World” carpet cruise. The swords are there, but they are pointed backward. There’s lots of movement here.

As a Millennial, I have fond memories of belting this song in the car, even though I COULD NOT sing.

All nostalgia aside, Six of Swords is you heading toward a new place, a new direction, a new opportunity — and possibly leaving some drama behind.

Like Jasmine, you may also be leaving behind responsibilities that you once considered impossible to escape from.

That’s all good.

But even good change can be destabilizing, especially for sensitive or neurodivergent brains.

I actually got re-diagnosed with ADHD because of something like this.

Five years ago, I was moving out of two places during the pandemic, and it completely destabilized me. I hit an ADHD tipping point and genuinely thought I had OCD before I went to get evaluated.

Turns out I actually had ADHD, anxiety, and depression (though honestly, who wasn’t anxious and depressed at that time).

The point is: heading toward change is scary. Always. Even when it’s good change.

But it’s also something you need, and it’s going to be positive in the long run — even if it doesn’t feel that way yet.

Card 2 — What to Release: The Tower

The Tower is what you’re being asked to release — specifically, the belief that change has to be scary, destabilizing, and upsetting.

The traditional image shows people tumbling out of a building on fire. It is not a nice card. But notice, in this deck, while the Tower is being struck by lightning, no people are obviously inside or falling out of the windows.

The change is structural, not necessarily personal.

It could mean something breaking, needing repair, or possibly moving house.

(I’m a Libra rising, and my oven literally just died two days ago.)

Yes, change tends to destabilize us. We might expect that change has ALWAYS been horrible and overwhelming, so it will be this time.

But that’s not necessarily true.

We all have stories in our heads about how things will go, but that doesn’t mean that’s how it’s always going to go.

Change doesn’t have to be dramatic (or traumatic).

It doesn’t even mean you’re going to lose something.

A lot of the time, it means you’re becoming a new person — and the old things might still be there, just in a different form. Or you’ve just evolved past them.

Or you’re getting something better. My oven just broke, but before that, only two of the burners worked. Now, we’re down to one.

I’m not thrilled by this development. It’s going to be annoying not to have it for a bit. But a new oven that actually works will come out of it.

The Tower usually signals upheaval, and it’s usually traumatic. But I don’t see that here.

In this case, release the belief that this is what change has to look like for you.

Card 3 — What’s Coming: Queen of Cups

This Queen of Cups is our girl Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She’s gone through the most difficult trials —losing her voice, becoming human—and is now in a much more steady place.

Queen of Cups — what’s coming — is a lot more peace and a lot more emotional regulation. Probably because you’re either settled into this new situation, or you’ve found a different frame of mind about it.

A lot of us went through big changes this summer.

We came through the node changes, the lunar eclipse, and a lot of us feel like genuinely new people on the other side. I certainly do. And a friend of mine confirmed the same thing.

So maybe this is you stepping into Queen of Cups energy: emotionally regulated, wise, caring, compassionate — but not so deep in her feelings that she can’t pull herself out when she needs to.

Card 4 — The ADHD Ask: King of Swords

This King of Swords is Aladdin. I assume he’s ruling Agrabah here.

He’s the more confident, capable version of himself. Aladdin doesn’t have to steal bread to eat anymore, nor live under the radar. He’s finally in control of his destiny.

In the ADHD ask position, the King of Swords is asking you to do the same.

At the end of all this change, you’re being asked to choose intentionally what you want your life to look like. You’re moving away from the old thing, toward this new direction, and now it’s on you to decide how that actually takes shape.

The ideal here is balancing your emotions with your logic — using both to build something that’s actually better for you long-term.

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Deck Used:

Wonderstruck Tarot

The Vibe

This month is about learning where your energy is actually going — and taking some of it back.

After an intense summer, the cards are clear about this: step out of the group projects that aren’t serving you, quiet the ideas pulling you in ten directions, stop doubting whether you deserve good things…

In other words, DO LESS, not more, this September.

For a studious, meticulous Virgo, this will be tough. But it’s essential.

Card 1 — What to Embrace: Three of Pentacles Reversed

Upright, the Three of Pentacles is a card of collaboration — teamwork, people working well together. The girls are around the table, reading cards together, all aligned with the same purpose.

Reversed, it’s the opposite: unequal division of labor, lack of real collaboration, ego clashing.

You might look at this card and understandably think it sounds bad.

Why would you embrace THAT?!?!

Because this card is actually giving you permission to keep your own counsel and work more independently — on fair, equitable terms.

A lot of us get pulled into groups that, if we’re honest, aren’t worth our time and energy. We stick with it anyway because it’s something we’ve always done, or because we feel valued, or because we think we’re helping.

In reality, we’re just draining ourselves — and that’s exactly where the unequal division of labor comes in.

Chances are, you’re the one carrying the weight, because a lot of us — ADHD or not, neurodivergent or not — find our worth in being useful. In being the one who’s on the ball.

Think Hermione Granger, basically carrying her friends through every group project.

I identified with that hard in college — a law school professor told my group, “You do realize if not for her, you wouldn’t have passed,” and she meant me. I did all the work. I took control because I didn’t want my grade to suffer.

But over time, that tendency to “just do it ourselves” becomes a genuinely harmful pattern. It costs a lot of energy and doesn’t do us any good.

So this month, embrace working on your own terms, with boundaries. Let the group stuff fade a little. Not total disengagement — just engagement on your terms. Give yourself more slack in how you allocate your time, and put boundaries around it so it can’t hijack your energy.

You need it for more important things.

Card 2 — What to Release: Page of Swords

The Page of Swords is a joyful, carefree card.

I mean, she’s literally DANCING. In her element. Just vibing.

Pages are always the youngest, most youthful energy in the deck — they’re still figuring things out, and that’s a normal part of life. We all get to be a Page sometimes.

So why release it?

Because your curiosity and your ideas might be starting to overwhelm you. You burn bright. You can do a lot.

And Virgo also likes to be methodical — so too many ideas pulling you in too many directions can actually work against you. Add in the groups and the projects you’re already involved with, and that’s a lot of energy going out.

This month is about letting go of some of the extras.

I get it — you’re curious, you like new things, ADHD novelty-seeking is real. But after a while, too much of it burns you out.

Card 3 — What’s Coming: Strength Reversed

Strength upright is about being peacefully strong—not dominating or trying to overpower anyone, but having courage, compassion, grace, and quiet resilience.

Reversed, it’s the opposite: self-doubt, impulsiveness, fear.

I have a feeling — not that bad things are coming, but that you’re going to start doubting yourself this month. Thinking maybe you’re not good enough, or that if something good happens, maybe you don’t deserve it.

But that’s just your brain lying to you.

You are meticulous. You are organized. You are brave, even when it doesn’t always feel that way.

This month is about learning to trust yourself more — and realizing your worth isn’t only about how much you give or contribute. It’s also about how well you take care of yourself.

Card 4 — The ADHD Ask: Queen of Pentacles Reversed

Queen of Pentacles upright is practical, methodical, a great leader — like all the Queens, she balances intuitive, compassionate feminine energy with having her stuff together.

Reversed, she’s a harried mom trying to do it all, overgiving, neglecting herself, focusing too much on the daily practicalities to do what she needs to do for herself.

So the ask here is pretty simple (if difficult): Cut back on some of your commitments.

No matter how organized you are, you can’t do everything — and this card is telling me you might already be burned out, overgiving, neglecting yourself.

There’s a serious imbalance, and you’re being asked to correct it before you land in burnout-land (a familiar destination for us neurodivergent folks who forget that we have less energy to spare than our mind might tell us on any given Tuesday).

That means pulling back your energy, intentionally.

Saying no to things you’d normally say yes to. Or saying “yes, but” — with a real boundary attached. “I’ll come to the meeting, but I can only stay for twenty minutes.” That’s something you can control and claim for yourself.

It feels hard, but it isn’t, really — and the more you practice it, the more respect you’ll actually get, because people will see you’re not just doing whatever’s asked of you.

You’ll get the full toolkit — journal prompt, AI prompt, and action steps to carry this month’s energy forward — plus every other sign’s reading, the full card deep-dive series, and other exclusives if you upgrade to paid below (also, you’re helping keep The ADHD Tarot going)!

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Hey everyone, how was your summer?

Mine was a lot more interesting than I remember summer being in a while.

I cut most of my hair off, got bit by a bat, and finally got serious about my diet and fitness.

(Subtle plug: you can read more about that over on my other Substack, if any of that sounds intriguing).

One theme I’ve noticed this summer, both astrologically and overall, is that we are moving beyond who we used to be and becoming someone new.

Our identity is shifting.

Old situations, old interests- all of it is probably forming into a new way of being right now. This isn’t necessarily going to be effortless.

Heck, my oven died yesterday, and I wasn’t ready for that. But we have to remember that whatever is being phased out will ultimately be for our own good.

Maybe you feel it too. This subtle movement behind the scenes.

After the August partial lunar eclipse, I truly felt like a new person. Like the changes I’d been implementing were finally starting to manifest.

Other friends mentioned feeling a “big change” too, so I know I’m not the only one.

Well, that big energy continues into September. I’m not an expert astrologer, obv (seek others for that), but I think it’s worth mentioning in conjunction with Tarot to understand what’s happening this month.

So here’s the September astro, in brief

We open the month with Mars in Cancer squaring Saturn retrograde in Aries — impulsive, urgent, let’s-go-right-now energy running straight into Saturn’s demand for patience and structure.

It’s a tug-of-war between hurry-up and slow-down, and most of us are going to feel it as impatience before we feel anything else.

(Also, if you’re AuDHD, autistic and ADHD, you’re probably familiar with this push and pull. Keep in mind it will probably feel even more intense during this period).

Chiron, already retrograde, backs into Aries mid-month, stirring up old wounds around identity and self-protection.

The Fall Equinox lands on the 22nd, asking for balance.

And we close the month with a Full Moon in Aries on the 26th, pushing us to release whatever we’ve been white-knuckling.

I feel like September is “part 2” of the self-actualizing work we’ve been doing this summer.

I pulled Modern Witch cards with that in mind.

Here’s the spread:

The Friction: Eight of Pentacles Reversed

We’re an impatient bunch. ADHD brains want results now, not eventually — and Eight of Pentacles reversed is the friction point for exactly that.

Mars is bringing that hurry-up, get-it-done energy, while Saturn — retrograde in Aries — is asking for the opposite: meticulous, unglamorous, continuous work.

This month is asking us to sit with the possibility that we might not see results as fast as we want.

That doesn’t mean what we’re building isn’t worth building. And that doesn’t mean you won’t get there eventually.

It just means getting comfortable with work that doesn’t pay off overnight, and tempering the impatience that tells us it should.

This card might also indicate you’re bored with your routine and might be cutting corners.

It’s an ADHD thing. I get it. We want to speed up to get through the boring bits, but that’s also when we make mistakes.

Your friction this month is reconciling that impatience and struggle with your routine with the need to do the work, even when it’s boring.

A way you can do this? Find ways to make the boring interesting. Listen to a podcast while you organize. Body double. Do what you need to do.

Because unfortunately, life is often boring.

Another reminder: not everything happens all at once. That’s how building works. And that’s part of life.

The Old Wound: Page of Cups

Page of Cups is about giving our hearts away without overthinking it — that childlike way of caring, giving, and receiving love.

The figure here is surrounded by water (appropriate considering the partial lunar eclipse we just had was in Pisces), and she’s looking at a fish (another Pisces vibe).

Pisces brings watery, deep feelings. It’s also not always clear. It’s easy for us to feel underwater.

A lot of us have lost access to both our feelings and our ability to express them.

We’ve been hurt. We’ve got trauma.

And with ADHD, rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) means we can feel rejected even when we haven’t actually been rejected — so we guard ourselves. We keep our hearts safe. We avoid being vulnerable, because vulnerability is where we got hurt before.

This wound might show up around relationships and emotions this month — old memories surfacing, childhood stuff, friendships that ended badly, relationships that didn’t work out, family who didn’t love us the way we needed. It’s probably a continuation of whatever showed up for you around and after the partial lunar eclipse.

You might also have creative ideas pop up this month. Don’t shoot them down, even if they seem immature or unrealistic. Explore the possibilities. You might be surprised at where it goes.

Overall, the healing work is reminding you to be curious and open. Remember that just because we got hurt before doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to happen again.

If we keep the walls up, we avoid getting hurt again — but we also avoid the love and vulnerability Page of Cups represents in the first place.

The Equinox Ask: The Hermit

Short and sweet: The Hermit is asking us to go within this month.

That doesn’t mean isolating ourselves—it means trusting our own guidance instead of everyone else’s, stepping back from the noise, and making more room for self-care.

Actually listening to what we want, and letting ourselves want it.

With ADHD, we tend to forget this is an option. I did this myself over the last month. FULL STEAM AHEAD…until we crash.

The Hermit wants you to step away from the phone, the emails, the endless “how-to” content, the YouTube videos, the extra stimulation, and let your brain sizzle. Let yourself be bored, understimulated (for a short period), and pay attention to what needs come up.

The Hermit says it’s ok to be quiet. It’s ok to be a tiny bit bored. It’s ok to withdraw and gain strength. Then, when you pop back out, you’ll have more energy and direction to spare.

The Release: Seven of Pentacles

Seven of Pentacles sits right before Eight of Pentacles in the deck — which feels exactly right here, since it’s asking us to release what card one was gripping onto.

This is the card of stepping back from a project and letting go of the timeline we set for it. Take the time away. Take the vacation. Put it down for a minute.

Because if we keep pushing and pressuring ourselves at this pace, we’re not going to finish faster — we’re going to burn out and run it into the ground.

ADHD burnout is a common experience. Even when we do things we like, there are no doubt aspects we don’t like. The admin. The emails. The following up on that text.

That, coupled with the drain from interacting with others and possibly masking, can create the perfect conditions for burnout.

You’re once again being asked to be patient, but also to notice how far you’ve come.

Chances are, it’s further than you realize.

The ADHD Ask: Ace of Pentacles

You have permission to start something new.

And that’s one of our biggest strengths!

We pivot. We juggle fifteen things. When something stops holding our interest, we move to the next thing that does.

Ace of Pentacles is asking us to actually let ourselves do that instead of white-knuckling our way through a project or venture that’s already run its course for us.

Often, the new thing turns out to be a better, more exciting opportunity anyway.

This is also a great time to establish new routines or take practical steps towards success.

Personally, I created a Google Calendar system for myself because I got tired of forgetting to write in my planner.

All of this —new interests, new opportunities, new routines—is exactly what our brains are built to do. Let’s embrace it instead of fighting it.

The Through-Line

Impatience meets the demand for slow work. The wound underneath is a heart we’ve learned to guard. The ask is to turn inward and trust ourselves. The release is letting go of the pressure we’ve put on our own timeline.

And the invitation, underneath it all, is to trust the ADHD instinct to pivot—instead of treating it like something broken.

The rest of this reading (including journal prompt, AI prompt, and action steps) is available to paid subscribers.

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We’ve got a partial lunar eclipse tonight — close enough to total that it’s basically a blood moon, and it’s landing in Pisces since we’re deep in Virgo season.

Eclipses aren’t subtle. They don’t nudge; they reveal.

In addition, we just had a Mercury Cazimi in Virgo today (August 27th). As noted in ’s EXCELLENT breakdown of the astrology at this time:

BUT. on august 27th, now MERCURY will be in the heart of the sun.

mercury rules the MIND. your thoughts. even your words. basically: the ability to SEE something extremely clearly. AND name it.

and know what else? this cazimi is in VIRGO. which mercury both RULES and is EXALTED in (exalted is exactly like it sounds. it means mercury is functioning at its absolute PEAK, with EASE). it doesn’t get more powerful than that. so in case you haven’t picked up on my excitement yet. this means this window of time (for about a week) is the clearest your mind will be all. year. long. no cap.

the cazimi lights up the very thing you’ve needed to look directly at for the last two years. it’s designed to make it impossible NOT to see. this could be a belief you hold about yourself and what kind of life you’re allowed to have. it could be a pattern you keep repeating that leads you to self-sabotage. it’ll help you see the WHY behind it. because remember, mercury is EXALTED in virgo. and virgo never does vague. virgo does precise (speaking from experience as a virgo moon and rising). virgo does: ohhhh. that’s what it was the whole time! get ready for ultimate clarity.

Something you’ve probably already known for a while is about to get too loud to keep ignoring. It’s a powerful time, and you probably noticed feeling tired, anxious, or a bit “OVER IT” this week.

That’s normal. Hopefully, the cards will tell you what needs to leave so something better can come in.

(So I have to apologize - I was super-busy today and forgot to take photos of the backs of the cards. Now it’s 10:29 pm and too dark to get good-quality photos, so we’re gonna do this differently this time).

Take a few deep breaths. Look at the images below and choose the one you’re drawn to. Or choose more than one.

Don’t overthink it — your intuition knows.

Card 1 (Candle)

Card 2 (Shell)

Card 3 (Stone)

Once you’ve chosen, scroll down to read your message(s) from the Sublime Threshold’s Tarot.

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🕯️Card 1: The Tower

Okay, if this is the card you were drawn to — WHOA.

This image is chaos: a monument being toppled, fire in the background, horses rearing up. Nothing subtle about it.

It’s actually kind of a scary card for good reason. This card signals serious upheaval and change, and not all of it is pleasant.

Here’s the thing though — upheaval like this is a prerequisite for creation.

It’s a push beyond what’s familiar, a breaking apart of certainty, getting plunged into the unknown.

The archetype here is literally catastrophe (from the Greek) — destruction and loss that clears space for renewal.

New possibilities become gateways when the old has to fall apart first.

So no, this doesn’t mean something horrible is about to happen to you. It means you’re going to feel like something big is happening — in your mindset, in how you’ve been doing things, in what you’ve been prioritizing. And it doesn’t have to be massive in reality to feel massive while you’re in it.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains 🧠

A lot of us don’t do well with losing control. We want to feel like we know what’s going on — like we’ve got a handle on things, even a shaky one. So when everything gets thrown into chaos like this, the ADHD tipping point is real.

You might feel destabilized. Anxious. Like nothing is going right. That’s not you failing at this — that’s just part of the process.

Vulnerability is baked into what this card is asking of you, and vulnerability is genuinely harder when your brain is already working overtime to feel in control.

🐚Card 2: King of Wands

If you’re drawn to this one, you’re getting the best version of a leader.

The King of Wands is charismatic, fair, just, balanced — and grounded, connected to the earth. He’s not focused on acquiring. He’s focused on giving back. He’s creative; he’s a good partner; he’s loyal; he’s honest; he’s mature.

All of that is something you might be starting to embody — or being called to embody. But it’s not going to happen on its own. You have to work on it.

That might sound like a tall order. A lot of us carry poor self-esteem, and the instinct is “I can’t possibly be that person.”

But this card is also calling you to get more comfortable being seen.

Not the typical version of a public figure — not “it’s all about me, gold statues to cement my legacy.” He’s someone who puts in the work. Someone who cares about people and cares about giving back.

The Sublime code here is Archaic — a full symbol of nature’s life force, pastoral country life, the death-and-birth cycle, the old ways. Wildness incarnate. The spirit that gets harvested and distilled into a hearty drink. Old-school wonder — King of the May, crowned with grains and flowers. A spring-like figure.

So this might be a renewal for you. A rebirth. Maybe you’ve always shied away from leadership — the King of Wands is telling you you’re ready. You’re there.

The archetype is charisma, which literally comes from the Greek — captivating magnetism, charm, presence, persuasion, mystery, soulfulness.

You have ALL of that.

You’re being asked to set aside your reservations and embody it—not as ego, but as something that helps people when it’s done the right way.

Think of someone like Dolly Parton (RIP, Dolly), using her charisma and her talent in service of other people. That’s the energy here. You’re being asked to rise to the occasion.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains 🧠

A lot of us carry real fear around being perceived — being misjudged, being seen and getting it wrong. So the idea of stepping into charisma, leadership, and being watched can feel like the last thing your nervous system wants.

But you have that ability in you whether or not you’ve let yourself use it. This card isn’t asking you to fake confidence. It’s asking you to stop treating your own presence as something to apologize for.

🗿Card 3: The Magician

If you pulled this one, the message is strong: you’re being asked to look at what you already have and use it.

The Magician exists in-between — physical and metaphysical. He works with life force energy. He’s dynamic, a miracle worker.

He can also be a trickster — think old-school performers, sleight of hand, everything an illusion.

That’s what you’re being steered away from. You don’t need to manipulate or “cold read” to succeed. You have real skills, and right now they're being illuminated.

I think this is also about being ethical. There are LOTS of people who become successful at cheating. The Magician is successful because he uses his skills to benefit both himself and others.

This is about the skills you already have — not ones you need to go out and acquire. You’re not being asked to start another degree program. Everything you need is already in you.

The Sublime code here is Mystique — mystery, intrigue, fascination, creating or being confronted with something beyond explanation.

You might have some ideas that feel esoteric, a little out there. You might have skills that you don’t think should go together. (I never thought writing about Tarot and ADHD would be a great match — but it is.)

You might even get guidance in dreams or meditation about what to do with what you already know.

The archetype is Magos — a magical practitioner, a manipulator of reality, with the ability to access and harness forces beyond the ordinary. That’s this card in a nutshell.

I didn’t use to believe in manifesting— but I’ve started to believe you can create situations by holding a certain expectation for yourself and actually doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Then opportunities start becoming apparent.

That’s the key: knowing what you have and actually using it.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains 🧠

A lot of ADHDers get boxed into “jack of all trades, master of none.” But the rest of that quote matters — we actually have an advantage here, because we’re more well-rounded. What looks scattered from the outside is often integration.

The Magician is asking you to stop apologizing for the range of things you know and start treating it as the toolkit it already is.

Everything above is free to read. Paid subscribers, keep scrolling for your card’s spread, journal prompt, and AI prompt.

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The Vibe

The week of August 23-30 isn’t gentle.

Virgo season just started, and it’s already colliding with a Pisces eclipse (August 28th) closing out a story the sky’s been telling since July.

If you're having powerful realizations, especially around your subconscious and stories you tell yourself, you’re not alone.

You might be realizing who you really are, where you’ve been hiding, and what that all means.

The polished version of you is about to get interrupted — whether you’re ready or not.

The Cards

Deck: Moonjube Tarot

• King of Wands

• Ten of Cups

• Strength

• Six of Pentacles

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What the Cards Are Saying

King of Wands — The Performance

The King of Wands is the magnetic leader. He’s the entrepreneur, the genius, the guy who’s got it all figured out.

Just to be clear, you don’t have to be a King or the head of a tech company to be performing King of Wands energy. It’s a vibe. And it’s one that we neurodivergent folks may have been wearing like an ill-fitting costume for years.

I spent much of the last several years not asking for help. I didn't tell the people I worked with that I was overwhelmed or burned out. I struggled in silence.

Us neurodivergent folks tend to pretend we’re doing better than we are, because we think if we show any weakness — if we admit we’re struggling — people will think less of us. So we put on that King of Wands attitude.

A lot of us get labeled know-it-alls, overly confident, pushy as a result. The irony is we can often present as confident, competent, the person who knows everything. But it’s all too often an act to keep us in others’ good graces so we don’t get rejected.

And so no one sees the chaos underneath: the late nights catching up, the last-minute dash to finish reports, the crushing burnout from repetitive tasks.

This is your performance, but that doesn’t mean the show must go on.

Ten of Cups — The Polish

Ten of Cups is fulfillment. Emotional harmony, family harmony — the happily ever after card. You’ve got everything you want. You’re successful, creative, fulfilled.

So many of us think we have to be there, in the big mansion with everything we want. The King of Wands, in other words. We think we need receipts of success to be taken seriously.

A lot of us wait until we have something to teach before we’re willing to be seen. We don’t want to show people we’re a work in progress. We think the only way we’re allowed to create or lead is by having it all figured out first.

My writing career really started taking off online when I stopped having to be perfectly polished — when I stopped trying to come from a position of authority and started coming from a position of “I’m figuring this out in real time. I’m not at the end goal.” Vulnerability is huge here. It sounds counterintuitive, but people don’t want polish. They want authenticity. They want someone who’s going through it with them.

You can actually be a more decisive leader — a King of Wands, in a real sense — by leading through your experience, through doing, through being a work in progress.

It’s called building in public.

You create yourself in public instead of waiting for the desired end goal to share from.

That’s the work.

Strength — The Unmasking

This eclipse is pulling your difficult times to the surface. It’s exposing the things you’ve been struggling with, probably for a while.

And probably exposing you, if the nude figure on the card is anything to go by.

But Strength is about accepting you have strength beyond what you know — and not in the traditional sense.

When we think of strength, we think of muscling through, forcing, pushing. This isn’t that.

This Strength is about learning to coexist with difficulty.

It’s learning not to dominate or control a difficult situation, and instead accepting that it’s something you have to go through.

So expect some of the harder stuff to get reexamined this week. Pisces is a dreamy, watery sign — you may find yourself going back over things you thought you’d already dealt with, and seeing them in a different light. Allow it.

Six of Pentacles — The Witness

There’s more stability here. This could be a family member, someone you respect.

Six of Pentacles is traditionally the helping hand — somebody who comes in and helps you after a difficult time, often a difficult financial one.

It could be anybody, but it’s probably someone older, someone in a position of authority. It could be your parents. It’s someone who has seen you at your worst and is still willing to help.

We have to identify the people in our lives who are there to help us — instead of assuming we have to go it alone.

I just came out of a difficult time with my body and identity over the last few years. Struggling with binge eating again taught me that I need support from my family. Addiction (I consider my love of food an addiction) thrives in isolation.

Accept the help from whence it comes this week. You need it.

The Through-Line

You spend the first half of this reading proving you don’t need anyone. You spend the second half learning that letting someone help you isn’t the failure — the performance was.

If this is landing, the tools to actually work with it — the spread, the journal prompt, the AI prompt, and this week’s action step — are for paid subscribers. This is where you stop managing how you’re seen and start figuring out who’s underneath it.

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Last night I almost texted my Tarot reader of over 20 years.

I’ve been sitting in a career pivot for months now. After years of working for myself, writing online, I went back into the job market this spring. And I wanted him to tell me my chances and if I was even RIGHT to be doing that.

I wanted odds. I wanted someone to just tell me it was going to work out. I wanted someone to tell me what to do.

I don’t usually go in for divination like that. After years of losing myself in spirals after predictions never surfaced, I gave up on using Tarot to tell my future. It was better that way.

That’s why I built this practice around the idea that cards don’t predict, they reflect. Tarot isn’t magic. It’s not a crystal ball. It’s closer to a mirror. It shows you what you want to see and sometimes, what you don’t.

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Yet, I was about to throw that whole philosophy out the window because I was spiraling and desperate for an answer no one could actually give me.

So instead of texting him, I pulled cards.

No real question in mind — just my brain screaming for clarity, the way it does sometimes. My Moonjube deck slid in my hands, and a few flew out.

First card: Four of Pentacles. Duh. Clinging to control. Scarcity. Making decisions from a place of lack instead of choice. Didn’t have much to do with whether I should call my reader, but okay, noted.

More cards flew out: The Hermit. The Four of Swords. The Three of Pentacles. The Chariot to close.

I looked at the spread and it made no sense. Should I consult him or not?

• The Hermit said no. Go within.

• The Four of Swords said whatever, rest first.

• The Three of Pentacles said sure, work with someone.

• The Chariot said HECK YEAH.

Not exactly clarity.

So I stopped asking “should I call him” and started reading the spread against what I was actually facing: the career decision itself.

Suddenly it clicked.

The Hermit wasn’t telling me whether to call my reader — it was telling me not to outsource this decision to anyone.

Go inward, find my own read on the situation.

Which is hilarious, considering my inner wisdom is about as reliable as a monkey in a trench coat most days. 🙈

The Four of Swords backed that up: rest before you respond to anything, don’t make this decision from a spin cycle. Which is how I usually live my life, TBH.

The Three of Pentacles was the one that gave me pause. And the Chariot closing it out felt like it was shouting at me in Portuguese and I, an English speaker, couldn’t understand what it was saying.

So I did something a lot of Tarot purists would clutch their pearls over — I put my whole spread into AI, along with my own interpretations, and asked specifically what to do with the Three of Pentacles and the Chariot.

What came back actually made sense:

I know, I know. A lot of people think using AI for Tarot, (or anything really) is cheating — that we should rely solely on intuition, a specific book, a specific method to get clarity from the cards.

And with all the AI checking hubbub on Substack lately, AI use, (or even the PERCEPTION of it) has become a Scarlet letter, marking you as a fraud to the other writers.

The subtext?

If you use AI for anything — even just as an editor, even just to catch a comma splice — you’re not a “real” writer.

I don’t buy that.

The purity problem

Here’s the thing: I use AI as an editor, a structurer, a thinking partner. I don’t use it to write for me.

My perspectives are mine. My experiences are mine. My frequent use of paratheses and em-dashes is mine.

What AI does is take the mess I hand it and help me organize it, or grind through the tedious editing work that would otherwise make me want to throw myself into a lake.

Is that so different from a journalist filing a piece to an editor at the New York Times? Nobody calls that writer less talented because someone else shaped the draft with them. We don’t think less of a memoirist who works with a developmental editor. Or even of someone using good old spell check in Microsoft Word, or Clippy, (remember him?) or tools like Grammarly (also powered by AI).

But the second “AI” enters the sentence, the accusation flips from collaboration to cheating.

For neurodivergent brains specifically, that framing is backwards.

AI isn’t a shortcut — it’s an accommodation.

It’s a way to organize thoughts that won’t organize themselves, to get through editing work that would otherwise stall out in the executive-function ditch, to talk an idea out until the real one surfaces underneath the noise.

It evens the playing field that would normally be sloped and filled with slushy potholes. It helps us gain access. And that’s a good thing.

Yet, I see the exact same purity test running through Tarot and divinatory practices.

The idea that there’s only one RIGHT way to read — solely intuition and using specific card meanings — and that reaching for anything else, AI included, means you’re doing it wrong.

Here’s the thing: there is no right way to do anything.

Not Tarot. Not writing. Not LIFE.

We need more discernment, not purity

Yes, AI hallucinates sometimes. It gets things wrong, states things with confidence, makes silly mistakes.

That’s not actually a reason to avoid it — it’s a reason to do with AI exactly what we should already be doing with a human reader: gut-check the response.

Does this land? Does it resonate, or does it fall flat against what I actually know about my own life?

Because here’s the part people conveniently leave out of the “trust a human, not a machine” argument: humans get it wrong too. Readers get it wrong. Astrologers get it wrong. Even therapists and psychologists get it wrong.

Not because they’re bad at what they do, necessarily, but because they’re human, which means they’re filtering your experiences, chart, or spread through their own life whether they realize it or not. And they only know what you tell them. They aren’t mind readers.

I had an astrology reading once where the reader was convinced my dream job was teaching — working with kids.

“Have you ever considered being an au pair?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I hate kids.” Sounds harsh, but the thought of being responsible for small humans for hours a day made me want to lie down. It was never my thing, and I knew it in my bones.

She persisted anyway. “I think teaching, working with young people, even at a college level, is ideal for you,” she insisted.

I found out later her daughter was an au pair.

If I’d just nodded along and trusted the reading blindly, I could genuinely be in a job I’d hate right now — because a stranger’s read on my chart was quietly colored by her own life, not mine.

The skill of telling what’s actually true for you — from a human reader, an astrologer, an AI, whatever — apart from what isn’t.

Discernment isn’t the opposite of using outside tools. It’s what makes using them safe and useful, because none of these tools, no matter how confident they sound, actually know anything about your life. Only you do.

Neither one KNOWS anything for sure

Tarot isn’t magic. It doesn’t tell the future, even when it feels like it makes predictions — those “predictions” are often just patterns we recognize in our own situation, reflected back through 78 images. And we very often see what we want to see.

AI is predictive too.

That’s literally the mechanism — it’s predicting the next most useful thing to say based on a mountain of pattern.

It doesn’t know anything, the same way the cards don’t know anything. Neither one has access to your future.

What they have access to is pattern, structure, and reflection.

That’s the whole hot take: Tarot and AI are both mirrors. Not oracles.

Why this hits different for ADHD brains

The entire point of this Substack has always been teaching neurodivergent brains — ADHDers specifically — how to use Tarot to see our own patterns. How to get unstuck. How to interpret the cards through the lens of the specific chaos we’re working with.

AI can do a version of that same job.

Not like a therapist.

More like a tool that hands your own thinking back to you in a shape you can actually understand.

That matters more for us than it might for a neurotypical brain.

Our working memory isn’t great at holding five contradictory thoughts in the air at once and organizing them into something coherent — which is exactly what I was trying to do with a five-card spread that felt like it was arguing with itself.

Externalizing it, whether onto a card table or into a chat window, is what makes the pattern visible in the first place.

It’s not a shortcut around intuition. It’s an accommodation for a brain that struggles to hold the pattern internally.

It exposes what I’m really thinking, not because it’s magic, but because I can suddenly see what I really think and feel about a situation.

AI didn’t replace my reading — it helped me untangle what I was already seeing in it.

It took my interpretation and reflected it back sharper, which let me actually trust what my gut had already landed on.

What they’re not for

I’m not saying AI should replace your favorite Tarot reader. I still think having a reader matters — a good one can see your situation from outside your own head, without your own hopes or fears coloring the cards the way ours can when we’re too close to the question.

And it should DEFINITELY not replace a therapist, doctor, psychologist, or another skilled professional.

But “outside perspective” doesn’t mean infallible, which is exactly what that astrology reading taught me. Discernment doesn’t stop mattering just because the voice is human.

But here’s the part I had to learn the hard way: neither a reader nor an AI should be making your decisions for you.

For years, I called my reader every time I was spiraling, looking for reassurance dressed up as guidance.

When he gave me a “good reading”, I would celebrate for days then sink into anxiety. What if that still wasn’t right? And when I’d get a “bad one”, I’d freak out for the same number of days, then doubt it anyway.

It wasn’t helping. It wasn’t a good practice. I was seeking reassurance for my anxiety and outsourcing decisions to someone else. That’s a lot to put on a person. I’m surprised my reader still takes my phone calls, TBH.

So what actually helps?

Learning to read your own cards, using AI to help you think through what you’re seeing, and treating both as reflective tools instead of predictive ones.

The mirror can show you your own face. It can’t tell you what to do. That’s ultimately up to you. ✨

If you’ve ever caught yourself wanting a card, a reader, or a chatbot to just tell you what to do, I’d love to hear about it. Where does your brain go looking for certainty when it can’t find its own — and how do you tell when that outside voice is actually right, versus just anxiety or misplaced confidence talking? Lmk in the comments.

So we literally just talked about readers but…if you need an outside perspective, I’m here to work with you. Written PDF reports (or audio if you prefer), no fluff, no spiritual bypassing — just your cards and what they actually mean for your life right now.

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We’re two days out from Sun entering Virgo, and Saturn’s opposite Venus right now too — which means the sky is basically forcing a question most of us avoid:

what are you still carrying that isn’t actually working anymore?

If there’s a curse associated with neurodivergence, it’s that we tend to take on a lot of STUFF. And we can’t always let go of it.

I have all my stuffed animals from childhood, but more than that, I have about 144 commitments, mental tabs, and opinions living rent-free in my brain at all times.

I have 1000s of Notes on my phone, reminders, ideas, headlines, stray musings.

I have a planner I rarely use, and a Google calendar I do.

I have at least 5 apps meant to help me optimize, time, and organize my life…but they rarely work, because I get pulled between them like a piece of overwhelmed taffy, never committing to one long enough for it to help.

I spent several years chasing the latest productivity hacks that promised to help me do it all…until I realized that maybe the problem wasn’t just my easily-distracted AuDHD brain. Maybe I was taking on too much.

So recently, I’ve been on a quest to get clear on what I really should be doing. And the answer was pretty obvious:

I didn’t need to add more stuff, more hacks, more workshops, more commitments, more meetings, more get-togethers, more phone calls. I needed to REMOVE the things that weren’t actively helping me anymore.

Hence, the inspiration for today’s pick-a-card.

Three cards, three different versions of “what needs to go.”

Pick the one that’s calling to you — or all three, if you’d like!

Decks used for this one: Moon Dust 🌙 and Work Your Light Oracle✨ (paid subs only)

Let’s get going!

Take a few deep breaths. Look at the three cards above and notice which one you’re drawn to. Or choose more than one. Don’t overthink it — your intuition knows.

Card 1 🗡️ │ Card 2 ⚖️ │ Card 3 🕯️

Once you’ve chosen, scroll down to read your message(s).

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Card 1 🗡️ — Page of Swords

The Page of Swords is DECISIVE with a capital D. Quick with ideas, quick to speak, mentally sharp and always ready to jump in.

When this card shows up for “what should you remove,” it’s pointing at mental clutter — and specifically, the version of mental clutter that shows up as defensiveness and terse communication styles.

If you’ve been feeling on edge lately, like everyone’s got an agenda or you have to stay guarded just to get through a conversation, this card is asking you to put the sword down.

Not because your instincts are wrong — sometimes they’re not — but because staying braced for attack all the time is exhausting, and it’s costing you more than it’s protecting you.

A lot of this comes down to rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD). We read tone into a text that wasn’t there. We assume the worst version of what someone meant. And we spend hours running the tape back instead of being here, now, doing the thing in front of us.

What you’re being asked to remove isn’t your intuition. It’s the habit of defending against threats that already passed, or maybe don’t even exist.

Mental clutter — old arguments, to-dos, regrets, imagined conflicts — takes up real estate your brain needs for your goals right now, in this moment.

The move: get it out of your head and onto paper. Brain dump, journal, voice memo, whatever gets it out of the loop. You don’t have to solve it. You just have to stop carrying it silently.

🧠 Why this matters for neurodivergent brains:

RSD doesn’t just make us feel bad — it hijacks working memory we don’t have a lot of to spare. Every ounce of energy spent staying guarded is energy not going toward the actual task in front of you.

Naming that pattern out loud (or on paper) is often the fastest way to interrupt it.

Card 2 ⚖️ — Two of Pentacles

The Two of Pentacles is the juggling card. It calls to mind someone keeping several things in motion at once, staying upright, making it look manageable.

ADHD brains are genuinely good at this. We can hold a lot in the air FOR YEARS.

The problem is that eventually, something drops. And it’s hard to get our momentum back again.

This card is more direct than the Page of Swords.

It’s not asking you to reflect on what’s cluttering your head — it’s asking you to look at your actual commitments and get honest about which ones are yours.

Are you saying yes because you want to, or because you think you’re supposed to? Because no one else stepped up? Because saying no felt like letting someone down?

ADHD brains tend to take on close to triple what other people carry — sometimes because something’s genuinely exciting, sometimes because we’re trying to prove we’re capable, dependable, enough. And then we’re the ones dropping balls that were never ours to hold in the first place.

The move: look at what you’re juggling and ask, honestly, what’s actually bringing you joy or moving you toward something you want. Trim the rest. You can’t remove every excess commitment — that’s not realistic. But you can start with one.

🧠 Why this matters for neurodivergent brains:

Overcommitment isn’t usually about poor planning — it’s often about proving worth. When resting or declining feels unsafe, we overload as a way to earn our place. Trimming commitments isn’t just a time-management fix; it’s practice trusting that you don’t have to earn rest or belonging.

Card 3 🕯️ — The Hermit

The Hermit is usually a card of withdrawal from the world. It shows up when you need to seek solitude, stepping back from the noise to hear your own thoughts again.

But this card has two readings for “what should you remove,” and both are worth sitting with.

Reading one: remove the external chatter. Stop comparing yourself to people who are further along. Stop absorbing opinions that were never yours to carry. Turn down the volume on other people’s timelines, other people’s certainty, other people’s version of what you “should” be doing by now.

Reading two: remove the hermit tendencies themselves. Sometimes withdrawing is real rest — a way to get yourself back before burnout takes the choice away from you. But sometimes it’s avoidance disguised as well-intentioned “self care”.

If you’ve been isolating longer than feels good, if the bubble has started to feel more like hiding than healing, this might be the thing to remove instead.

Both readings point at the same root question: is your relationship to solitude actually serving you right now, or is it running on autopilot?

The move: be honest about which version you’re in. If it’s noise-reduction, protect it fiercely. If it’s avoidance, the smallest possible re-entry — one message, one plan, one interest you used to chase — counts.

🧠 Why this matters for neurodivergent brains:

Isolation and rest can look identical from the outside, and even from the inside they can blur together. ADHD burnout often makes withdrawal feel like the only safe option, but distinguishing “this is restoring me” from “this is where I disappear” is one of the more useful check-ins you can build into a regular rhythm.

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(Readings above are free — the bonus Oracle cards, spread, journal prompt, AI prompt, and action steps below are for paid subscribers)

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The Vibe

This week has fog in it before it has clarity.

Although the astrological conditions are improving, we’re still a bit lost.

Many of us, (myself included) are overcommitted, overextended, and quietly exhausted from trying to prove we’re worth something.

This week, the cards are asking us to carefully evaluate what’s worth it and what isn’t so we can get moving as the fog clears.

The Cards

Pulled with Moonjube Tarot.

1. The Fog — Seven of Cups

2. The Drain — Five of Wands

3. The Decision — Page of Pentacles

4. What We’re Leaving in Leo Season — The World

5. What Virgo Asks For — Five of Swords

6. The First Practical Step — The Chariot

Let’s get into what they mean for you and your neurodivergent brain this week.

What the Cards Are Saying

The Fog: The Seven of Cups

If the fog feels thick right now, the Seven of Cups says it’s because there’s simply too much in front of us. Too many commitments, too many yeses, too many directions pulling at once.

This is such a common ADHD pattern it barely needs naming: we get excited about thirty different things at the same time. We say yes to the class. We say yes to the group. We say yes to the extra project on top of the project we already had.

And then, without ever meaning to, we’ve buried ourselves in commitments, side quests, and appointments and can’t get out.

I used to have a dream about being buried alive. Some of it was living in cluttered surroundings, (I was working a lot so couldn’t keep things from piling up). But it was also an indication of my mental state.

I was buried alive —in commitments, work, interests, things I wanted to be and wanted to do. And even though each thing brought a surge of accomplishment, it was also slowly throwing yet more dirt on my coffin with me trapped inside.

So no wonder we feel so foggy.

Too many open doors, not enough of us to walk through all of them at once.

The Drain: The Five of Wands

Where’s the energy actually going? Into competing — even when nobody asked us to.

Five of Wands is the card of fighting to prove something, and this week that fight might be internal as much as external.

We take on too much because some part of us believes that if we don’t, we’ll lose out — attention, worth, our place in the room. We’re not just juggling responsibilities, we’re trying to be the last one standing.

Trying to prove we’re worth it more than the person next to us.

And that’s an exhausting way to spend a limited battery.

All those decisions fogging up our judgment, plus this constant hum of appease-everyone, compete-with-everyone, prove-we’re-better-than-everyone — no wonder we’re drained before the day’s half over.

The Decision: Page of Pentacles

Underneath all that fog and drain, something is quietly forming: a decision about money.

The Page of Pentacles carries that young, hungry, slightly naive motivation — the energy of someone about to start something new with their hands, their time, their income.

This could be a new job, a side hustle, a fresh work setup, or just a decision to try making money differently than we have been.

Whatever shape it takes, it’s practical, it’s grounded, and it’s been quietly forming under all that noise, waiting for the fog to clear enough for us to notice it.

What We’re Leaving in Leo Season: The World (The Universe)

The World usually shows up as completion — the finish line, the full circle. But in this position, it’s less about arriving and more about the performance of arriving. Look at me. I can do everything.

I’ve been realizing I have more of this energy than I thought. I sought jobs not because they seemed interesting or because I was qualified but for what they looked like. I wanted to be a performer so people would pay attention to me. I threw myself into commitments so I would be needed, have approval, be the “go-to” person. And in a way, I was just trapping myself.

That’s Leo’s shadow: the need to be the center of attention, to be everything to everybody, to be good at all of it at once. It’s an ego sign, a performer’s sign — and its dark side is a kind of puffery, working hard to impress the wrong people with the wrong things.

What we’re leaving behind as this season closes is that need. The need to be everyone’s everything.

Some people might be disappointed. We might feel like we’re doing less, achieving less, being less — but what’s actually happening is we’re finally getting to focus on what matters to us instead of what impresses everyone else.

What Virgo Asks For: Five of Swords

Five of Swords is another fighting card, but this one’s uglier — it’s about winning in a way that costs more than it’s worth.

Someone’s being manipulative, duplicitous, willing to disappoint or defeat other people just to come out on top. Look at the figures in the background: they’re not rivals anymore, they’re just defeated. And they’ve turned away in disappointment from the figure in the front.

He won, but at what cost? That’s what you’re being asked. And Virgo season is asking us to put that particular sword down.

Stop trying to prove we’re better than everyone else. Stop needing to be the winner in every room.

Sometimes, we confuse letting go with giving up. But that’s inaccurate.

Doing our best doesn’t require beating anyone. Proving how great we are, especially at someone else’s expense, doesn’t actually get us anywhere — it just costs us more than we think.

Remember the Node Shifts? They are telling us exactly that. It’s time to move away from an egotistical way of being and more towards doing things for the good of all.

We can’t do that if we are constantly trying to compete and defeat.

The First Practical Step: The Chariot

And here’s where it lands: the Chariot, pulling in two directions at once until we decide which one we’re actually driving.

This card is pure will — two tigers who’d rather run opposite ways, held together by a driver who’s decided where they’re going.

That’s the practical step this week: not doing everything, not solving the whole fog at once, just choosing the one direction that feels most alive right now and pointing ourselves toward it.

We can’t get where we’re going if we don’t know where we’re going.

So instead of staying stuck in the pile of options from Card 1, we pick one. Just one. And we take a small step toward it.

That’s it.

The Through-Line

Strip away the individual cards and the arc is simple: we got here by saying yes to everything and trying to win at all of it, and the way out isn’t trying harder at all of it — it’s choosing less.

One decision. One direction. One tiny step.

Leo season asked us to be everything. Virgo season is asking us to be exactly one thing, done well. That may feel like giving up, but it will turn out to be the best thing you ever did.

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Happy (belated) eclipse day, friends.

This Leo eclipse has been asking a lot of us: who have you been performing for, and who are you when you drop the act?

So instead of a big spread today, I wanted to do something quicker and more personal — a pick-a-card to help you name the exact identity this eclipse is asking you to retire.

I pulled from Quiet Rebel Tarot by for this one — it’s my go-to deck for when we need to see past patterns and be brave, and letting go of a mask you’ve worn for a long time absolutely takes bravery.

How to Pick Your Card

Take a few deep breaths. Look at the three cards above and notice which one you’re drawn to. Or choose more than one. Don’t overthink it — your intuition knows.

Card 1 ✨ │ Card 2 🌊 │ Card 3 🔮

Once you’ve chosen, scroll down to read your message(s).

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Card 1: King of Wands (The Pioneer)🔥

If you picked Card 1, the identity you’re dropping this eclipse is the person who’s always got it handled.

The King of Wands is confidence. Command. The one who charges ahead, takes the lead, and makes it look effortless — never hesitating, never letting anyone see the scramble underneath. He’s a cool dude, and he knows it.

And if you’re neurodivergent, you probably know this mask intimately, because so many of us wear it.

We mask. We hide when we’re struggling because we don’t want people to think we’re not capable, not confident, not in control.

So we overcompensate in the other direction — we lead from the front, we take charge, we project total command, even when we’re falling apart behind the scenes.

I just did this the other day. I booked a meeting despite NOT being ready for it, knowing full well that I’m going to be playing catch up to prepare for it, (because this week I’m booked up moving things out of my parent’s house and…yeah, I don’t have time to create spreadsheets). But I did it anyway, because I had been putting it off for two months and didn’t want to look like a flake.

In pop culture, a prime King of Wands candidate, (despite being a girl) is Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. She was a perfectionist. Always had the answer, always seemed one step ahead.

And in a way, that was overcompensation — her parents were Muggles, she didn’t grow up in the wizarding world like everyone else, and she wanted to prove she belonged. (Some people think she was neurodivergent too, but that’s a conversation for another day.)

That’s the King of Wands mask: being the person who’s always confident, always in charge, always has it figured out — because the alternative feels like admitting you don’t belong.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains: 🧠

We put on a mask of confidence, success, and perfectionism to hide deep-seated poor self-esteem — and to convince others we’re worth having around. We outwork, outperform, and overcompensate for our overwhelm. Then we burn out and crash. That’s why burnout is much more likely in neurodivergent folks; not only because we take on too much, but because we have less bandwidth so burning out is almost a given.

This card is asking you to drop all of that. To be okay with being just a person — not a perfect idol, not that King of Wands energy who’s always got it handled.

Card 2: Seven of Swords (The Sneaky Bastard) 🗡️

If you picked Card 2, the identity you’re dropping this eclipse is the controller — the one who forces things to happen.

Traditionally, the Seven of Swords is someone sneaking away, getting away with something. It’s about betrayal, misdirection, being a con man. And the running, the scheming, none of it actually gives him what he wants in the long-term.

I’ll say this as someone who does this myself — not manipulation exactly, but the pushing, the forcing, the trying to control the outcome.

Somewhere along the line I learned the only way to get what I wanted was to create the conditions for it myself.

Every time I wanted a job, I’d chase it — asking around, pushing, saying YES when I really wanted to say NO, just because it was available. And I’d often end up somewhere worse, in a job that didn’t actually fit me.

It works the same way in relationships — sometimes we chase someone because we’ve decided they’re the one, only to find out later there was a reason it didn’t happen naturally. It wasn’t a fit for either of us.

To be clear: this isn’t about being a manipulative person just for the heck of it. This is often a coping mechanism.

A control tactic you learned early — because a lot of us neurodivergent folks know, deep down, that people don’t pick us first. So we try harder. We overcompensate. We push ourselves into being the go-to person, thinking that’s how we secure what we want. But in reality, you’re just killing your own natural momentum. You’re not letting what’s meant for you actually come to you.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains 🧠

Neurodivergent folks often deal with rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) — we worry people don’t like us, and we take even neutral comments or situations and read them as rejection. So we overcompensate in the other direction, trying to force and create the circumstances we think we need, because we’re convinced otherwise we won’t get what we want. A lot of us are also just used to being treated as less-than in many contexts, which fuels that same overcompensation.

This card is asking you to get curious about what’s actually RSD talking versus what’s true. has a good rule for this: always assume in your favor.

Don’t assume people hate you. Don’t assume things are going to go badly. Assume everything is good until you have actual proof of the opposite.

· · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Card 3: Ace of Pentacles (The Wild Idea) 🪙

If you picked Card 3, the identity you’re dropping this eclipse is the person who doesn’t trust their own ideas will take root and/or has a deep-seated scarcity mindset.

Look at the card — she’s planting seeds. She has all these ideas, and she’s putting them out there. She’s not obsessing over whether they’ll take, not overthinking the process. She’s just doing what’s hers to do: plant, and trust that something will grow.

That’s something a lot of us struggle with. Maybe you’ve been told your whole life you don’t have good ideas — that you’re not reliable, that you don’t follow through. So why start something new, just to drop it?

ADHD Impulsivity is real. We start twenty million things and rarely follow through consistently. So instead, we stop planting seeds at all. Or we plant one and rip it out of the ground three weeks later to check if it’s growing — like starting a Substack and giving up when no one’s reading yet.

Things take time to bloom. That’s just how growing things work.

There’s another layer here too: the identity of not being practical or stable.

Neurodivergent folks tend to land on one extreme or the other with money — budgeting until our hair falls out, or spending like drunken sailors and running out completely. Personally, I’ve lived on the second end of that scale more than the first.

But that’s also a story I’ve told myself about who I am, not necessarily the truth.

This card is asking you to look at your relationship to the practical, tangible stuff — money, stability, the things you can actually hold in your hands — and notice where you’ve decided I’m not that. I can’t do that. I can’t make this happen for myself.

You don’t have to become a millionaire.

You just have to start believing you’re capable of enough — stability, patience, follow-through — instead of operating from lack.

Why this matters for neurodivergent brains 🧠

Neurodivergent folks — especially those with ADHD — genuinely do struggle more with daily routines, budgeting, money management, checking the bank account. There’s research that backs this up. But that doesn’t mean it has to be your identity. It doesn’t mean you can’t get better at it.

So this card is asking two things of you. First: start letting yourself put your ideas out there again. Let go of the “why bother, I’ll just drop it tomorrow anyway” voice. Plant the seeds. Let them take root or don’t — that’s not really the point. The point is having the courage and belief in yourself to put things out there at all.

Second: start trusting that you can become the practical, stable person — and let go of the identity that says you’re inherently bad with money, bad with routines, bad with practicalities. None of that is something you’re born with or without. You can teach yourself how to get better at routines. You can teach yourself how to budget. You can teach yourself how to be better with money.

Letting go of both of those identities of lack is what makes room for something better to grow.

🔒 Want to go deeper with your card?

Below the paywall: a follow-up spread, journal prompt, AI prompt, and concrete action steps for each card — so you can actually work with the identity you’re ready to retire, not just read about it.

Read more

Just want to start out with something exciting: today’s my one-year anniversary with The ADHD Tarot! 💜

Last year today, I started this Substack not really knowing what I was doing.

Even though I’ve been reading Tarot (on and off) for 20 years, I didn’t know if I had enough to offer to the Tarot space. After all, how could I “compete” with masters who had been reading all their lives?

The answer? I wasn’t competing —I was offering my own version of Tarot.

I had just been diagnosed with ADHD in 2021 after a moving-and-pandemic-motivated freakout that made me think I actually had OCD. I had the intrusive thoughts, the mental compulsions, all of it. Still not 100 percent sure that it WASN’T an OCD episode, but it was that fear that propelled me to get diagnosed with something, (anything) after decades of feeling weird and broken. Instead, I got an ADHD diagnosis, with very little idea of what that meant for my life.

“You were diagnosed with that when you were 11,” my mom said, like it was no big deal.

But I had started a special diet that removed food sensitivities and my focus mostly improved, so I went through the next 20 years blissfully unaware of my neurodivergence. Ok, not really blissful, because I was also STRUGGLING. With work, with relationships, and obviously, with change.

I started researching my ADHD and in 2023, wrote about it online on Medium. It went viral. A LOT of other folks my age and older were coming to grips with their diagnosis, and I found a community I didn’t know existed. All after I spent YEARS overthinking if I should write about my own mental health on the internet, (yes, the answer was yes). 3 years later, I’m still writing about it.

But in the summer of 2025, I rediscovered Tarot after several years off. I first started reading Tarot in 2008 at 18. My mom had a Tarot reader who predicted my birth. And I had always been open to spiritual/New-Agey stuff. So when I found a Tarot reader in Colorado, I kept consulting him while learning my own Tarot practice.

I used Tarot mostly for prediction in those days. Mainly, to forecast what was going to happen in my personal life and work. I clung to astrology podcasts too, (Zoe Moon was my foray into that), hoping against hope that every time she said something was going to “SHIFT” in my relationships or work life, it would happen.

Yet it didn’t, at least from what I could see. Tarot left me disenchanted too. Reading on relationships, (which, btw, is NOT always a good idea, especially if you get too attached to outcomes like I do), I found myself waiting desperately for the relationship with my chosen person to manifest, pointedly ignoring The Moon (lack of clarity), 8 of Swords, and The Devil that kept showing up in the readings.

Around the same time as I got my ADHD diagnosis, the person made their true colors (and feelings) known by how they behaved. I felt betrayed and heartbroken, but weirdly, liberated. I was also REALLY ANGRY at the Tarot for giving me false hope. I mean, in addition to those “red flag” cards above, I was also getting The Lovers and the Knight of Cups! What gives?!?

So I took a break. I blamed the cards, my reader, everyone but myself. I saw what I wanted to see, then got angry when reality didn’t match. I went on a New Age hiatus, fiercely disavowing everything spiritual. My worn Tarot deck went in a box. My Law of Attraction books got donated. I was DONE.

In 2025, though, I picked up a deck again. Not because I wanted to see the future, but because I wanted to create a Tarot system that honored neurodivergent and ADHD brains.

I didn’t want to just use established meanings. I wanted to make my own.

Thus, The ADHD Tarot was born. Cards, spreads, and readings for neurodivergent brains, from a neurodivergent person.

And boy, have we grown.

So today, the whole post is open. No paywall, no gate — the full reading, the spread, the journal prompt, all of it. As a big THANK YOU to those of you who have helped make this Substack what it is.

Subscribe now

Why this reading feels different

In case you haven’t noticed, in the last few months, I’ve become more open to Astrology, numerology, Human Design, and other things I was aware of but holding at arms length.

I was wounded and burned by New Age practices. I had calcified into someone who was cynical, bitter, and ANGRY—to a degree I didn’t realize until I started looking at my deep-held beliefs and how I show up in the world over the last few months.

But when Mercury Retrograde caused an entire system to crash, and my realizations about my professional life and identity started to shift DRAMATICALLY in the last few days, (coincidentally, right in line with the Node shifts and Leo/Aquarius themes) I started to become more open again. When I did, I realized just how CURIOUS I had been about it all, and started learning more. I am STILL not a master astrologer, and learning in real-time what everything means, but I was shook when I realized what the last few weeks have meant for us astrologically.

On July 26th, the lunar nodes shifted for the first time in 18 years — North Node into Aquarius, South Node into Leo. They were last here in 2007-2009. They will remain until March 26, 2028.

The Lion's Gate Portal peaked on August 8th and closes on August 12th — the same day as this eclipse. So we're not just in eclipse season, we're at the exact moment two powerful Leo energies converge and close together.

On August 12th, we get the first eclipse of that new cycle: a solar eclipse at 20° Leo, conjunct the South Node, sitting right in the middle of Leo season.

So hello energy shifts in LEO. If you have Leo placements, check out what house they are in, and you should get an idea of how this will play out for you.

North Node in Aquarius doesn't ask us to dim our light — it asks what we're doing with it. Less "look at me," more "how does this help the people around me." Community over spotlight. Contribution over performance.

This isn’t just “eclipse energy.” This is the opening chapter of an 18-month story about who we’ve been performing versus who we’re actually becoming.

And Leo is exactly the right sign for this story to start in, because Leo isn’t just about boldness and confidence — it’s about identity. Who we think we are. Who we’ve built ourselves to be.

And sometimes, who we’ve been pretending to be.

Short story: for the last few decades, I’ve been building myself an impressive resume. 3 degrees. Started a professional writing career at 18, recruited to write a book at 21, decades of writing, communicating, and achieving.

All with the goal of a corporate job at a certain company I’d wanted to work at for YEARS. I told myself it was because I loved their mission and that that’s why I had earned the degrees, (and the nearly $100k of student loan debt).

But lately, I realized I was chasing the wrong things. I would be miserable in a corporate job, even if it was fully in my wheelhouse. Even as I applied for jobs that looked good on paper, I knew deep down it wouldn’t make me happy.

Then I applied for other jobs in my other wheelhouse, (writing) and realized that wouldn’t quite fit, either. I’m a storyteller, not a journalist. Even though I did the latter for 15 years, it didn’t feel natural.

Leo unearthed this hard truth for me: I was clinging to an identity not for what it felt like, but for what it LOOKED like.

Meanwhile, Aquarius is reminding us to look towards the public good. How we can use our gifts to help others, not just ourselves.

What’s a role versus what’s real? That’s what your being asked now.

And that’s what I’m hoping to help you answer with this reading.

I pulled six cards using Moonjube Tarot. Here’s what came through.

PS- feel free to use this spread for yourself. In the meantime, take what resonates, leave what doesn’t.

The Spread: The Role vs. The Real

1. The role we’ve been playing

2. What it was protecting

3. What this eclipse is asking us to release

4. What stays

5. Who we’re becoming

6. The first honest step

Card 1: The Hanged Man (Reversed) — The role we’ve been playing

Upright, The Hanged Man is a card of surrender. Letting go. New perspective. But reversed, it tells a different story — one a lot of us know intimately.

Reversed, this card is saying: you’re hanging on. You’re not letting go. You’re not allowing your journey to unfold the way it’s supposed to.

Personally, I’ve done that a lot — especially in relationships and career. Anything I thought would make me feel more “worthy”.

I’d send out resumes for jobs I knew I would hate but that “looked good” or because I was desperate for the money. I’d chase people I knew deep-down weren’t good for me because they were impressive or well-liked by others.

Every time I did this, my gut knew. There’s a weird tense feeling to it. It felt urgent and desperate. It was a scarcity vibe. And it was a vicious cycle.

Her’s the message I get when I pull this card: You’re trying to control events, dictate who you will be and what it will look like. You gotta let go.

This control often feels justified, especially if you’ve spent your life trying to play catch-up with a neurodivergent brain.

It feels safer than allowing things to happen — because in the past, whenever we weren’t trying as hard as humanly possible, things didn’t work out. Or at least that’s what we came to believe.

So we keep pushing. We keep muscling. We resist change, we resist the way things are actually going, and we keep trying to force ourselves into a slot we’ve decided we’re supposed to fit into.

That’s what this reversed Hanged Man is showing us — the role we’ve been playing is the role of someone in control, even when we’re not, because the alternative feels like free-falling.

This is such an ADHD pattern it almost hurts.

We white-knuckle our way through things that aren’t working because stopping feels riskier than continuing something miserable, (welcome to comfort in discomfort). We keep chasing what we think is “better” even while it’s making us unhappy, because at least it looks like progress from the outside.

But that’s a trap: feeling stuck between what you’re doing and what you actually want, and choosing the exhausting familiar over the terrifying unknown, ultimately doesn’t make us feel better. It makes us feel worse.

The best thing we can do right now is let go and let ourselves be who we’re actually feeling drawn to be. And yeah — that’s the scary part. But once you do, you will start to see the way forward.

Card 2: The Hierophant (Reversed) — What it was protecting

Upright, The Hierophant is the wise teacher. The symbol of authority, tradition — someone we look to for the “right” way to do things.

Reversed, in this position, it’s telling us something different: it’s time to get out of your own way.

What we’ve been protecting is an old perception of ourselves. Often, driven by pride and fear of changing what we’re known for. Because what if people don’t like the new us?

I’ll be honest about mine. I was an athlete for most of my life. When I got injured in 2023, part of me felt like it was gone. So I started binge eating again, (something I could previously offset with lots of training), I didn’t train even once I was physically able to again, and I felt sorry for myself. I gained weight.

Three years later, I’m working my way back to a level of fitness I feel good in and choosing what parts of that identity I want to keep and which I’ve outgrown.

Because I’ve realized I wasn’t just self-destructing out of immaturity, (although that was part of it): I was intentionally distancing myself from that identity in the only way I knew how.

Not because I wanted to at first, but because it felt less painful than admitting there were seasons where I simply wasn’t going to be able to do the thing I thought I was good at.

And what I’m actually good at is creating. Writing. But sports is what I built my whole identity around instead.

So it’s worth asking: What parts of yourself are you trying to hang onto, even when you know it’s time to become someone new?

This card, right after The Hanged Man, is showing the bigger shift: moving away from going with the crowd, away from doing what you think you’re supposed to do based on ego and expectation, and toward what you actually want based on how you feel.

That’s not just intuition — for a lot of us, that’s the first time we’ve let our own judgment outrank everyone else’s, including the version of “success” we were handed before we ever got to choose one for ourselves.

Card 3: The World — What we’re being asked to release

This one confused me at first, because The World usually means arrival. Completion. Success. Why would that be something we’re releasing?

Here’s what I think it’s actually saying: we’re being asked to release the expectation of being a finished creation. Being someone who is successful, who has it all together.

The World is giving us permission to be a work in progress — to not know exactly where we’re going — while still trusting that we can reach a real, meaningful level of completion, even if we can’t picture what that looks like yet.

We’re also being told: You don’t have to be everything to everyone.

As my mom said the other day, “you don’t have to be good at everything”.

And for ADHD brains, that’s tough, because we THRIVE on novelty. We want to be able to do all the things, because the FOMO of missing something fun or novel or challenging can feel crushing. Many of us are perfectionists precisely because we learned the only way to be liked was to be really good at, if not one thing, many things, to increase our chances of being valued.

Last, we’re being asked to release the need to know how we’re going to make a success of ourselves. Because “success” is subjective anyway.

And that Leo boldness — the good kind — can tip over into ego really fast, into this compulsive need to prove you’re going to be important, going to have all the things, going to arrive somewhere impressive and be done.

Right now, we’re being asked to release the grand plan.

The idea that we’re finally about to reach the end of the journey.

We’re not — not yet — and we might even be starting a brand new one. And that’s not only OK, it’s PART OF THE PLAN.

Card 4: Five of Swords — What stays

This one stumped me too, because Five of Swords is a conflict card — a hollow win, walking away from a fight having “won” but lost something in the process. Not exactly what you want to hear is meant to stay.

But sitting with it, here’s what I landed on: what stays isn’t the conflict. It’s the willingness to walk away. To be the bigger person. To put down your swords and go home.

I could keep pushing myself to be a professional, to have that impressive job and title. But it would cost me. Not just my own happiness, but that of the people around me. Notice the guys in the background. The five of swords guy WON, but everyone else hates him now. Because he’s not winning for the right reasons. He’s fighting often out of ego and to KEEP what he has. Even if he doesn’t really want it anymore.

We all know people like that, who keep roles, titles, or responsibilities even when they can’t do them, (hint, hint, our politicians come to mind) because they don’t want anyone else to have them.

But there’s a real skill in knowing when a fight isn’t yours to keep fighting — recognizing when continuing to push for a win costs more than it’s worth. That discernment, that ability to disengage instead of forcing victory at any cost, is worth keeping.

But this card is also a warning tucked inside the permission. Don’t let that same energy curdle into scorched-earth thinking. Don’t cut people off or declare victory just to protect your ego.

If you’re walking away from something, congrats, you’re actually winning. Even if it feels an awful lot like losing.

Card 5: Justice — Who we’re becoming

This one’s a little unexpected too. When we think of Justice, we usually think of someone dishing out karma.

But Justice is really about being just — toward yourself and toward everyone else. It’s about doing the right things for the right reasons. Operating from moral clarity instead of ego.

Also, notice the moon above her left hand and the sun above the right —pretty spot-on for Eclipse season!

Part of Justice that we don’t talk about enough: doing things because you’re actually good at them and can genuinely help people with them — not just doing things for the sake of you.

Hello Aquarian energy. Doing things for collective good, not for your bank account or because it “looks good”.

Not becoming small, but becoming useful.

For most of my life, I thought I wanted a high-powered job. Something impressive, something with a title, so I could prove to everyone I was worth it. But that’s not what I’m good at. I’m good at storytelling and writing.

I spent a long time banging my head against the wall telling myself I should be applying for “the kind of job you’re supposed to want,” and it would’ve made me miserable.

It wouldn’t have been fair — not to me, and not to the people I could actually help by doing what I’m good at instead.

Justice is knowing who you are and operating within those principles without compromising. Becoming who we are isn’t selfish. It’s actually the fair thing to do — for us, and for everyone we’re meant to reach.

Card 6: Knight of Cups — The first honest step

After five cards of releasing control, releasing old identity, releasing the fantasy of the finished self — Knight of Cups lands softly, like a down blanket on a cold winter’s day.

This card is here to tell us we’re meant to start bringing our tender, caring selves forward again. To follow our dreams. To do what we’re drawn to instead of what we think we SHOULD do.

Knights are idealistic — they give cups (love, emotion) freely, without overthinking it.

So the first step isn’t a five-year plan. It’s not announcing something, even.

It’s acknowledging what you actually want, and then taking tentative steps toward it.

Normally, this is where the paid section starts — the full spread breakdown, the journal prompt, the AI prompt, the action steps. Today it’s all open. My birthday/anniversary gift to you, my lovely readers. THANK YOU.

✅ Action Steps

• Name the role you’ve been playing out loud — to yourself, or to someone you trust

• Pick one thing you’ve been “protecting” (an old identity, an old plan, an old version of success) and ask what it would cost you to let it go

• Practice walking away from one small thing this week — cleanly, without needing the last word

• Take one tentative step toward something you actually want, even if it’s tiny

🦮 Journal Prompt

Pick the bits that make sense, and feel free to free-write. Set a timer if that helps, (five minutes goes by FAST)…

“What role have I been playing that was never actually mine to play — and what would it feel like to set it down? Where have I been putting ego above what I love? If I think ahead to a year from now and nothing has changed, how will I feel? Conversely, what can I build in a year if I start doing ONE thing I want to do, not because I should, but because it feels right? What are some tiny steps I can take towards that future I want?”

🤖 AI Prompt

Try this with ChatGPT, Claude, or the LLM of your choice:

“I’m working through where I’ve been forcing control instead of trusting my own timing. Ask me questions, one at a time, to help me figure out what identity or expectation I’ve been protecting, and what it might look like to let it go without a five-year plan already in place.”

TL;DR

The nodes just shifted onto a brand-new axis, and this eclipse is the opening chapter. The role we’ve been playing was about control, not confidence. What we’re protecting is an old identity we haven’t grieved yet. What we’re releasing is the need to already be finished. What stays is the discernment to walk away towards something we actually want. Who we’re becoming is someone operating from fairness to ourselves, not performance. And the first step isn’t big — it’s just being real with yourself and others.

One year in 💜

This whole newsletter has basically been its own version of this reading: figuring out which parts of “how Tarot content is supposed to look” were actually mine, and which parts I was just performing because it felt safer than doing it my way. I’m still figuring out my voice, trusting that I know enough, and getting brave enough to keep expanding what I offer. We’re just getting started!

If this year of readings has meant something to you, the best way to say thank you back is to gift it to someone else.

Give a gift subscription

Or, just share if you feel moved to 👇

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💜 Finally, some thank-yous

This year didn’t happen in a vacuum, and I want to name some of the people on this platform who’ve shaped how I think, write, and show up here — whether through direct collaboration, or just by writing things that made me a better version of this newsletter.

• at Wandering Willow —we met at the very beginning of my Substack journey and have become friends. A forest-therapy guide, Sam inspired me to start being more open to signs/spirituality after years of being closed off to it. She has a fresh voice, shares with her whole soul, and puts a lot of love and energy into her Substack —check her out! (and we just did a Live together, if that’s your jam, where we talk about a lot of these themes and pull cards for the Lion’s Gate)

• at Cosmic Chaos—the first Tarot reader I found here and really appreciated. She writes about politics and has a keen eye for patterns and astrology. Come for the predictions, stay for the astrology and Tarot teachings and Daily Divination posts, (which include spreads that helped me learn to love Tarot)

• —also writes about politics, but her intepretations helped me see beyond the “traditional” and start learning more about what the cards can represent

• —another who mostly writes about politics, but she has some amazing spread ebooks available too and has a unique voice and style that I really appreciate

• —she’s the one who got me really thinking about Astrology, and I highly recommend reading her weekly astrology reports

• — we had a great Live a few months ago where she got me thinking about how astrology can be used practically. I still think about how she times certain actions with the phases of the moon, and have started doing so myself. Thanks Karen for being such a valuable Live guest and helper on my journey!

• —I just found her and I’m so glad I did! Shelby breaks down astrology, NLP, and more in an accessible way. She’s the one who inspired me to start actually looking at spirituality/new-age practices in a way that doesn’t hurt my logic-driven soul, what planets are in my houses, and how to forecast a bit more accurately. Do check her out!

• — love her approach to Tarot and how she uses her professor’s mind to interpret the cards in a fresh way

• — after being burned by the LOA I started following Elise and realized quickly that there is more to it than just “positive thinking” - she showed me that I had a LOT of negative beliefs that I was clinging to that weren’t exactly helping me and to realize that it wouldn’t exactly kill me to start looking for positive things lol

I hope I didn’t miss any of you —this is NOT a complete list, and know that if you are reading this and you’ve influenced this newsletter in some way, big or small — thank you. I see you, and I’m glad we’re doing this together.

Loving this? Become a Founding Member (discounted as my gift to you) 💌

If you're a paid subscriber and you've been thinking about going deeper, Founding Members get monthly Zoom hangouts where we talk through readings together, plus access to a personal reading from me. If that sounds like what you need right now, especially with everything this month is stirring up, consider upgrading!

In honor of my one-year anniversary, I’m offering it at a discounted rate of $100 rather than $150 until September 1st, so if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s a good time, (and you lock that in FOREVER, even if rates go up)

Upgrade me!

I used one of my favorite decks, ‘s beautiful Quiet Rebel Tarot deck. If you like her work, she has a Kickstarter going on for her FABULOUS Oracle deck as well.

used the The Spirit Animal Oracle deck for backup messaging.

Lion’s Gate is happening today. The energy is thought to be powerful for creating new realities and spurring on powerful realizations.

Gotta say, I’ve been feeling the energy ALREADY. Seeing where I was performing and acting out of ego versus what I actually wanted to do, (especially professionally) has been illuminating.

When you think of Leo, you might think of boldness, vision, and being OUT THERE in your fullest expression. But for me, the message was the opposite. Where was I playacting a role when I could have been true to myself? Where was I acting out of ego instead of true desire? Those were the questions I asked, (and have been receiving answers for).

Watch the video above for YOUR Lion’s Gate messages and remember, you can listen to more than one sign, (check out your sun sign, moon sign, and rising for a full picture).

How has Lion’s Gate and the energies of this month been hitting so far? Would love to hear in the comments. ;)

Get more from Christie Sausa, MS in the Substack app

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So first of all, I want to apologize that it took me so long to get through all of these.

I legit thought I was done until I realized this AM that I had missed Cancer! So I finally finished.

In other news…I’ve been learning more about astrology so you might notice more of that in my posts. I’m still slightly skeptical, but after a crazy Mercury retrograde where an entire computer system crashed, and noticing new themes with the changing of the Nodes lately, I’m starting to become a believer.

Live coming up!

My friend and I are going live in less than 2 hours as of this post! We are doing LIVE Tarot and Oracle card pulls for each sign to see what this Lion’s Gate might mean for you. Don’t worry, will post the Live afterward if you can’t make it.

Also, I’d love to know if y’all want a collective reading for Lion’s Gate (today) or if my Live will suffice?

Here’s that link

Ok, now on to the readings…

This month’s readings are all built around the same energy: the August 12 solar eclipse in Leo and the August 27 lunar eclipse/full moon in Pisces. Big “release the old, step into something truer” energy for all of us — find your sign below. And note you can always read more than your sun sign. Check out your rising and moon too!

(We’re currently in Leo season, so Leo got a bonus 4th card this month, tied directly to the solar eclipse landing in their sign.)

Just a reminder: the readings are not paywalled, but the extra tools are. 95% of my work here is free, but the paywalling protects the tools, as well as allowing me the resources to keep doing this.

Any of these hit particularly hard? Lmk in the comments!

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Cards:

Ten of Cups → Eight of Cups → The Moon

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Ten of Cups

Ten of Cups is the “happily ever after” — and for Cancer, home and family are the whole orientation point, so this card can quietly calcify into a belief: I found my happy ending, so the emotional searching should be over now.

You’re being asked to release that assumption.

Just because something looks emotionally complete doesn’t mean every part of you has actually stopped growing or wanting more.

Think of the Hero’s Journey. The Hero starts out comfortable, happy even. Then something changes, and he has to move forward to something else. That’s part of life.

We’re humans. We grow. We change. That’s not only normal; it’s a key part of your journey.

🧠 For ADHD brains, “this should be enough, so why do I still feel restless” can trigger real guilt — but outgrowing something doesn’t mean it wasn’t real or good. Sometimes we latch onto things on impulse, but quickly grow bored or move beyond it. This isn’t always being a “flake”; often, it’s knowing something has run it’s course. Even if it looks amazing from the outside.

Where You’re Being Challenged — Eight of Cups

This is exactly the hard part: walking (or paddling) away from something that looks emotionally “complete” — even a Ten-of-Cups kind of complete — to go search for deeper meaning.

That cuts against the grain for Cancer specifically, since leaving perceived emotional security to chase the unknown is genuinely disorienting for a sign built around home and safety.

This ties in well with the astrological events we’ve been seeing as well. The North/South Nodes are encouraging you to look at past versions of yourself and see if they still ring true. If not, you are being called to move forward.

🧠 ADHD brains struggle with this more than once. We often want to stay in a situation because it’s comfortable, even if it’s quietly killing us. We can conflate “this feels emotionally secure” with “this is definitely still right for me” — this month challenges you to separate those two things.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — The Moon

Boldness here isn’t clarity — it’s moving forward through the fog anyway.

The Moon is intuition without guarantees, walking the unclear path at night instead of waiting for daylight to reveal the way first. The moon may illuminate slivers, but it doesn’t show the whole picture.

The solar eclipse coming up on August 12 highlights this. It’s a time to challenge our identities and move forward, even if we can’t see exactly where evrything’s going yet.

For Cancer, trusting your gut through emotional murkiness — instead of needing the next chapter to already look Ten-of-Cups-perfect before you’ll move — is the real bravery this month.

🧠 For ADHD brains, task paralysis is real. Staying stuck out of comfort and overwhelm about the unexpected is real. But needing full clarity before acting can stall things indefinitely — this is permission to take the next step even while things still feel foggy.

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Cards:

Death → Six of Pentacles → The Emperor

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Death

Funny/cringe story alert: When I first started reading Tarot, I pulled cards for my grandfather. The card that came out first? Death.

I looked at him apologetically, even as I explained that Death didn’t REALLY mean death. It meant new starts, transformation, transitions, endings. But he still looked pale. My grandfather had been sick for decades by then with various ailments.

He did end up having a transition. He was hospitalized with a heart issue, but came home and lived for several more years.

So no, Death doesn’t necessarily mean death. It means the end, or a new beginning.

For Geminis, (and I’m one of them) this can be terrifying and intoxicating all at once.

We tend to hold a lot of different visions for life at once — endless possible paths, endless things to try.

But Death here is pointing at something more specific: an old situation, relationship, or identity you’ve kept going with not because it’s vibrant or exciting, but because it feels stable and secure. Or because it looks good. Or because you “SHOULD” want it.

This month asks you to let it go, even though letting go of “stability” — even fake stability — can feel genuinely painful.

🧠 For ADHD brains, holding onto something purely because it’s familiar (even when it’s not fulfilling) is a common trap. We also hate transitions, context switching, new situations even if they are better. That discomfort of change can outweigh the dissatisfaction of staying, until it doesn’t anymore. Change can feel like poison but it’s actually the antidote.

Where You’re Being Challenged — Six of Pentacles

Usually a card of generosity, but in this context it reads more like a boundaries card.

You may be spreading your time, energy, and money too thin across too many things. Geminis LOVE to be in the mix, and ADHDers do too. We impulsively do things even if we don’t have enough time or energy, then wonder why we’re tired.

The challenge is tightening up — looking honestly at where your resources are going and whether it’s actually serving you, rather than giving indiscriminately just because you can.

🧠 Gemini ADHDers are pulled toward so many interests that it can make boundary-setting feel like deprivation — but it’s not. It’s redirecting the same energy toward fewer things that actually count. Less is more this month. Remove, don’t add.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — The Emperor

The Emperor can often feel like a tough cookie. Like Logan Roy from Succession or that boss you had at your first job.

But the Emperor is also structure, routine, and success through consistency. I know, I know, all the stuff we ADHDers LOVE, (sarcasm totally intentional).

But real boldness this month isn’t starting thirty new projects — it’s building structure and systems around what you already have.

Again, don’t add. Subtract.

That’s genuinely hard for ADHD brains, but finding things you can measure and control is exactly what helps you recover from the Death card’s upheaval at the start of this reading.

Concretely: if you’re working on something, track it. Measure it. Build a small system of accountability around what already exists, instead of reaching for something new.

🧠 Structure isn’t the enemy of ADHD brains - TOO MANY forms of structure are. But the right, lightweight system (a simple tracker, a repeatable routine) can be the very thing that makes follow-through possible.

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Cards:

Ten of Cups → The Star → Knight of Cups

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Ten of Cups

Ten of Cups usually means giving up on the “perfect fit” outcome — but for Taurus specifically, there’s a deeper layer.

This isn’t just about one specific dream. It’s about letting go of a static, finished picture of happiness altogether. That you have to get to the finish line and stay in that state of perfect happiness and prosperity forever.

Taurus loves stability enough to freeze onto one exact image of “arrived” — the cottage, the family portrait, the precise life that looks complete — and resist anything that doesn’t match it.

We all do this to a certain extent. But Taurus are stubborn. They love to dig their heels in. If something doesn’t EXACTLY match what they think they want, they avoid it. Or, they get it and get anxious about keeping it.

This month asks you to loosen your grip on that fixed snapshot. Happiness doesn’t have to look like that to count.

🧠 For ADHD brains, rigid pictures of “the good life” can quietly become another way to feel like you’re failing — release the exact image, and you might notice you’re closer to content than you thought.

Do you really need that job, that partner, that life to be happy? Or are you content right now and just don’t realize it because you’re chasing someone else’s idea of success?

Where You’re Being Challenged — The Star

At first, I struggled with this one. It seemed weird in this position.

The Star is usually the hopeful card, so it’s an interesting one to land as a challenge. but I realized the real challenge is the vulnerability underneath the hope.

The Star figure is exposed, pouring herself out with no guarantee of what comes back. She’s as vulnerable as you can be, (girl’s literally naked) and allowing herself to be receptive.

For a security-driven sign like Taurus, that kind of open, undefended hope — believing good things are coming without needing proof or a fixed picture first — is REALLY hard.

The ask isn’t simply “have faith.” It’s “be willing to be vulnerable enough to hope without collateral.”

🧠 ADHD brains often want certainty before they’ll invest emotionally — this month is practice in hoping anyway, even without the guarantee.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — Knight of Cups

This is where it turns active.

The Knight doesn’t sit around waiting for the perfect Ten of Cups scene to arrive on its own — she rides toward what actually moves her emotionally. She tells people how she feels. She allows herself to CARE instead of staying steady and removed.

Authentic boldness this month is pursuing the thing that stirs your heart: making the offer, taking the emotional risk, moving toward what you want instead of parking at “comfortable and known” and waiting for security to knock.

🧠 For ADHD brains, this pairs well with impulsive energy in a good way — channel that instinct to move toward what excites you emotionally, rather than waiting passively for the “safe” moment.

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Cards:

Two of Swords → Two of Wands → Judgement

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Two of Swords

Yikes. This card is a tough one.

It’s about avoidance — but for Aries specifically, that avoidance rarely looks like freezing. It looks like the opposite: making a fast, impulsive choice just to make the discomfort of not-knowing stop.

Same avoidance, different appearance.

You’re being asked to release the instinct to charge ahead just to escape uncertainty, and instead actually see the situation clearly before you act.

🧠 For ADHD brains, impulsivity often is the avoidance — deciding fast feels like relief, even when it skips the step of actually looking at what’s true. This month asks you to sit with “I don’t know yet” a beat longer than usual.

Where You’re Being Challenged — Two of Wands

This is the challenge to actually plan — strategic, deliberate moves instead of the fast, impulsive leap that feels more natural. Yeah, I know, sounds hard. For a reason.

Aries doesn’t usually struggle to decide; the struggle is deciding well, slowing down enough to plan the next steps rather than sprinting off the moment a choice presents itself. Deciding can still feel scary — like it can’t be undone if it’s wrong — but almost any decision can be revisited or adjusted later, even a deliberate one.

So don’t jump into that new job, new relationship, or move cross-country just yet. Start looking ahead with strategy. Think about how this decision will affect you 6 months and 6 years down the line. Again, it’s boring and tedious but it’s important.

Also, don’t say YES to everything just because it’s offered. Think carefully.

🧠 ADHD brains can treat “I decided fast” as the finish line, (because we are SUPER impulsive) — this card is the reminder that a plan built in the extra thirty seconds of thought usually holds up better than the first impulse.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — Judgement

Real boldness isn’t judging other people while holding yourself to a lower standard, or beating yourself up for not being perfect (none of us are).

It’s looking at yourself clearly and making intentional choices — the deliberate kind, not the fast reflexive kind — to become who you actually want to be.

Self-accountability without harshness, direction without judgment of others.

🧠 This ties the whole reading together: pausing before impulse (Two of Swords), planning deliberately (Two of Wands), and honest self-accountability (Judgement) — all pointing at the same thing: slow down enough to actually choose, not just react.

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Cards:

Temperance → The Sun → The Hermit

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Temperance

There’s an odd twist this month. Usually Temperance is what you’re being asked to have. Instead, it’s what you’re being asked to release: specifically, the expectation that things will unfold on a specific timetable.

A lot of us do this — expecting certain outcomes within a certain window. With the lunar eclipse/full moon landing right in your sign this month, this release is pointed directly at expectations around timing and how things are “supposed” to work out.

🧠 For ADHD brains, rigid timelines can be a real source of distress when our sense of time already doesn’t operate on a neat, linear track. Loosening the timetable isn’t giving up — it’s aligning with how things actually unfold for you.

Where You’re Being Challenged — The Sun

The Sun is radiant, full self-expression, stepping into your power — and the challenge is realizing you might be deferring that energy until something specific happens.

Maybe you’re waiting to hear news, waiting for an answer, waiting for the “right” timing before you’ll let yourself feel it or act like it.

That waiting is the very thing keeping the Sun energy on pause.

The invitation is to be who you want to be now, act as if you already have the thing you’re waiting on, instead of postponing your radiance until confirmation arrives.

Again, this is Law of Assumption stuff. But on a practical note, it’s more likely you’ll get what you want if you project DESERVING it now. Not waiting for someone else to tell you you’re worthy.

🧠 ADHD brains especially can get stuck in “I’ll feel like myself again once X happens” — but Sun energy doesn’t require permission from an outcome you don’t control yet.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — The Hermit

Authentic boldness this month is solitude — checking in with yourself about what you actually want, separate from what you think a specific outcome will give you.

This may seem weird. Boldness often carries connotations of being the life of the party. But for you, dreamy Pisces, it’s the opposite. You can only be bold when you know what you actually want and need.

Often we push hard for something because of what we believe it represents (safety, validation, proof), not because we actually want the thing itself.

This is a good month to go inward and get honest about that distinction.

With the full moon amplifying everything, expect a possibly dramatic shift in how you feel about yourself and whatever circumstances you’ve been sitting with.

🧠 For ADHD brains, this kind of quiet self-check-in can be hard to prioritize amid the noise. And we like to feel like we are in motion, DOING THINGS, creating our future. But sometimes, we need to slow down intentionally and listen to our intuition. That’s exactly the kind of clarity that cuts through chasing the wrong goal for the right reason.

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Cards:

The Tower → Two of Wands → Queen of Wands

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — The Tower

The Tower is disruption, things falling apart in ways outside your control. This doesn’t have to be cataclysmic — it could be something that comes out of left field, unsettling but not devastating.

The point is: it shows you hard truths. It rips away things that weren’t working that you may have not wanted to leave otherwise.

This month asks you to release the expectation that you should’ve seen it coming, or somehow been able to prevent it.

Some things just happen, and picking up the pieces afterward is a normal part of life.

Alternatively, you could still be dealing with past fallout from a Tower event. Healing can take time. But this month, you are being asked to find ways to let go so you can find something new.

🧠 For ADHD brains, unexpected disruption can hit especially hard when routines get knocked over — but the disruption itself isn’t evidence that you failed to plan well enough. Rejection sensitivity can make us cling tightly to past slights and trauma, because it DOES take us longer to emotionally process.

Any and all change can feel dramatically bad. It’s up to us to figure out how to cope with it until things resolve.

Where You’re Being Challenged — Two of Wands

Classic “standing on the wall, looking toward the horizon” energy — and the challenge is doing exactly that after The Tower’s chaos.

When something out of our control happens, it’s easy to believe we’re stuck there permanently. This card is asking you to consciously choose to look beyond the current moment, even though that’s genuinely hard to do while still standing in the rubble.

🧠 ADHD brains can get stuck in the emotional present tense during disruption — “this is happening, therefore this is forever.” Two of Wands is a reminder that the current moment is not a life sentence, just a moment.

As my mom says, “everything happens for a reason…and nothing is forever.”

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — Queen of Wands

The Queen of Wands balances practicality with emotion, using intellect to figure out the next move.

This is a good month for planning — once you feel steadier.

You’re not being asked to solve everything immediately, but once you’re looking forward, start strategizing.

Small, concrete action steps rather than a fully solved plan.

🧠 For ADHD brains, this is permission to plan in small, doable steps rather than needing the entire path mapped out before you’ll move at all.

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Cards:

Nine of Pentacles (reversed) → King of Wands → The World

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Nine of Pentacles (Reversed)

Upright, this card is pride in what you’ve built.

Reversed, it’s impatience — feeling like things aren’t growing or producing fruit fast enough, and losing sight of what you’ve already created in the process.

You might be so focused on what hasn’t happened yet that you’re not letting yourself appreciate what already has.

This is common. It’s easy to get lost in the chase for better, for achievement, for a grand finale. But we have to learn to appreciate the journey as well.

🧠 For ADHD brains, this pattern is familiar: the goalposts move the second you get close, so satisfaction never quite lands. And our constant quest for dopamine means we want more of the good, faster each time, and get impatient when we don’t get the same “hit”.

This month asks you to actually clock the win before reaching for the next one. Appreciate it. It will help you reach the next one.

Where You’re Being Challenged — King of Wands

The King of Wands is a dynamic visionary leader — and the challenge here is feeling like you haven’t earned the right to show up as that person yet. Because results aren’t moving fast enough, the story becomes “I haven’t done enough to be this, so who am I to act like it.”

But it works the other way around: when you start showing up as the person you want to be, you start making the choices that actually get you there. Waiting for proof before you’ll claim the identity keeps the proof from ever arriving.

I’m not sure I believe in Law of Attraction, but the Law of Assumption makes a bit more sense. Basically, it means living as you would if you already had the life you wanted. So if you want to lose weight, for example, acting as if you already were living that reality would lead you to make different choices than someone who “isn’t there yet”.

When I was competing in figure skating, my coach would ask me who I was as I got on the ice. “Me?!?” I’d answer, confused. “No, you are Michelle Kwan. Skate like Michelle Kwan.”

And wouldn’t you know it, pretending I was one of my favorite skaters helped me skate more like her.

You’re being asked to apply a similar strategy here.

🧠 This is a classic ADHD trap — waiting to “feel ready” or “feel qualified” before acting the part, when actually the acting-the-part often has to come first to build the evidence. We have imposter syndrome dialed up to 11, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay feeling that way.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — The World

Boldness this month is being open to how things actually turn out, rather than a narrow, pre-set definition of what success or achievement has to look like. You might be holding a very specific picture of “made it” — a certain title, a certain milestone, a certain look. This month asks you to widen that definition.’

For a long time, I thought success meant having a job in my dream company. Then it shifted to having a business. When I lost that, I thought I was no longer “successful”, even though the business was a constant struggle. Things got better when I started realizing that success, for me, is defined differently than it might be for someone else. And that’s ok.

🧠 Rigid success-criteria can quietly sabotage ADHD brains, since our path rarely looks linear or conventional. Loosening the definition isn’t lowering the bar — it’s finally seeing all the ways you’re already clearing it.

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Cards:

Justice → The Hierophant → Eight of Wands

What You’re Being Asked to Let Go Of — Justice

Life isn’t fair, and people you don’t particularly like will get more than you think they deserve.

Does that suck? Absolutely. Is it worth changing how you operate and what you believe in? Absolutely NOT.

Because justice here is a double-edged sword. The real work isn’t tracking what everyone else is or isn’t getting, it’s looking honestly at how you’re acting in your own daily life.

It’s easy to point fingers and say someone else is worse. It’s harder — and more useful — to turn that attention back on yourself.

And yeah, I get it. It’s hard to focus on you when the world is a flaming dumpster fire. But you’re still being asked how you can control your own life instead of trying to hold everyone else accountable.

🧠 For ADHD brains, Justice sensitivity is real. I know I’m more sensitive to lack of fairness. If I had a dollar for every time I got outraged and offended by someone doing something that’s REALLY wrong, (look around, take your pick) I would have a million dollars.

But justice awareness on it’s own doesn’t solve anything. Figuring out how to channel that need for fairness into action can.

It’s also worth noting that external comparison can be a sneaky distraction from the actual, harder work of self-reflection — it’s often easier to track everyone else’s fairness than to sit with our own. What are you avoiding in favor of snarkily judging everyone else? Worth asking.

Where You’re Being Challenged — The Hierophant

The Hierophant is law, order, structure, tradition — often a religious or institutional authority figure. Paired with Justice, this isn’t about outside institutions judging you. It’s the temptation to become the judge and jury yourself — deciding you’ve found the “correct” truth and holding everyone (including yourself) rigidly to it.

Sagittarius loves truth-seeking, loves being right, loves preaching the philosophy it’s landed on.

I once worked with a coach who refused to be part of a skating camp. Why? Because “he alone knew the truth” about skating technique and refused to be a part of a group teaching different methods than him.

That was his prerogative. But it also showed a rigidity trap many of us fall into.

Thinking we alone know the “right way”. That there is “one truth”. But there isn’t.

Everyone has their own unique way of doing things. Including you. Sometimes, that unique way changes. And that’s ok, also.

This month’s challenge is catching yourself before scorekeeping turns into self-appointed moral authority.

🧠 ADHD brains can lean hard into “I finally figured out the right way to do this” — and then get frustrated when others don’t follow the same system. This month asks you to hold your truths a little looser.

ADHDers (and AuDHDers) tend to be more rigid. We like our systems, our routines, our ways of being staying the same. But that’s not life. Sometimes, things need to shift. Realizing that—and that it will feel genuinely harder—can help you cope with it.

Remember, there is no “right way”. Just the right way, right now.

What Authentic Boldness Looks Like — Eight of Wands

Speed. Fast-forward motion. This month wants action, not deliberation — more information and opportunities are coming quickly, and the ask is to be okay with things moving fast and unpredictably rather than needing full certainty first.

Personally I LOVE speed but also get anxious if I don’t know exactly where something’s going. True boldness is being open to the speed and lack of certainty, and following it wherever it goes.

Instead of focusing outward on other people or what’s “fair,” turn that energy into your own forward motion. Seize what’s moving. Work on you.

🧠 This is genuinely good news for ADHD brains — we often thrive on speed and momentum more than slow, plodding certainty.

This month, that’s not something to apologize for. It’s the actual strategy.

The downside? It can be destabilizing and overstimulating. Balance that speed with grounding. Move your body. Eat well. Find a way to slow down daily. You’ll need it.

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