How can I say “yes” to myself more often? A full bodied, enthusiastic, consuming, YES!, to myself, my desires, my pleasure, and the ways that I want to move through and expand in this world. 

Jupiter and Saturn coming together makes me think of expansion with discernment. Expansion with boundaries so that I know what’s mine to hold and what is not. Expansion with a container so that I can find clear pathways even when I can’t exactly see what’s in front of me. One foot in front of the other, trusting the bounds I have on either side, having faith that there is something for me that is here right now and that lies ahead. 

I pulled the Four of Chalices and the King of Chalices Reversed as my two cards for this moment. I almost drew an additional card — but discernment is knowing when to stop, so I felt that I needed to just have these cards out and sit with them as I lean in to understand them. I guess I was hoping for some Major Arcana cards to mark what feels like a turning point to me, and to mark a day that is significant astrologically. But the magic isn’t always in the big, sweeping, earth shattering themes in our lives. The magic often happens in the day to day, in the ways that we move on the ground level, and with the court cards, the ways that we think of and perceive ourselves. 

The Four of Chalices seems like a reminder and a call to ask. A reminder that to say yes to myself more often does not mean that I take on the mindset of the lone individual, that I abandon all responsibility and commitment to others. A reminder that this work cannot really be done alone. As I lean into my visions of myself, I have to recognize the supporters that are all around me. The opportunities that are all around me. We’re working in Aquarius today, a sign that is focused on the collective. So to say yes to my pleasure and desires is also to say yes to the highest goods of those closest to me too. 

My cup runneth over. What is in my cup is for me, and what runneth over is for others. This is what I’m getting now from this King of Chalices Reversed. It feels “conceited” in a way to say that this card is telling me that I have “runneth over” now, so it is time to pour back — but conceit isn’t what is at work here. Saying yes to myself requires that I recognize the material and non-material forms of abundance that I have within and around me. I have to work to challenge any remnants of scarcity mindset that come up, and recognize that I do have something to offer to myself and others, and leaning in to what those offerings and creations might be. 

I had to let out a sigh just now as I wrote that last sentence. Saying yes to myself is recognizing that I do have something to offer to myself and others, and leaning in to what those offerings and creations might be. I’ve started working on that in many ways, working on getting out of my own way to post offerings to others in a variety of public ways. Working on the areas where I might close off channels that are the things that I want to share out of fear that no one wants to receive what I have to share. Out of fear that I’ll be judged. Out of fear that I’ll be shamed by others around me. 

And I have to recognize that that’s the work of projection. Projecting my own self fear and self judgement onto the world around me. Whenever I believe that what I have to offer is not enough, I show up with an energy that is not in service to anyone, most of all not in service to myself. I say no to myself in this case, withholding the filling of my own cup because of those lingering beliefs that tell me that “I’m not enough” in some way or another.

And I may always struggle with this in some way. I may always have traces of lack or scarcity on my mind, but I have to imagine what it will feel like and remember what it does feel like in those times when I truly know and feel that I am enough, what I have to offer myself is enough, what I have to offer others enough.

And it’s a balance, of course, in a space where I’m called to share, to recognize that I am enough even without reference to the things that I do. I am enough because I am. 

I am enough because I am.

That is my affirmation moving forward. I am enough because I am. Saying yes to myself feels like infusing that affirmation into everything that I do, mixing it into all of the things I create, sewing it into the ways I interact with and care for others. I am enough because I am, and you are enough because you are, too. We are enough because we are. The work for this cycle is to breathe life into that phrase and allow it to breathe life into everything that I am and everything that I do. 

I am enough because I am. 

My cup runneth over.

Let pleasure, curiosity, inspiration, and joy lead the way.

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Recommended Reading: 

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown 

Hunger: A Memoir of My Body by Roxane Gay 

The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halbertstam (New to me — on my deck to read next). 

Recommended Listening: 

Ethical Communication, Queer Sex Ed 

Affirming, Approaching, and Allowing Abundance, Black Girl in Om
Manifesting Your Dream Life, Uneducated