april 2026: queens, boundaries & structures of care

hello, friends. we're almost out of april, but before i share the final monthly post on our card of the month (get my four of cups essay here, and the accompanying tarot spread here) i wanted to offer a brief essay on a different kind of four energy — queens, at least in the way that i use tarot and numerology together. you may remember that i started a series last year exploring different court cards (catch up with the pages and knights essays right here), and it's high time i finished it.

as the only cards in the tarot that don't always have numbers assigned to them, court cards can be interpreted in a few different ways. some folks like to look at them as their own little mini arc (a.k.a. pages as card 1, knights as card 2, queens as card 3, and kings as card 4). but i prefer to see them as extensions of each suit, meaning that pages are associated with 11, knights with 12, queens with 13, and kings with 14. in pythagorean numerology we condense double-digit numbers into a single digit by adding the two digits together, which for queens means that we're adding 1+3 to get 4. and that puts queens into a numbered grouping with the emperor, death, and the minor arcana fours.

now, this is an entirely optional thing to do in your tarot practice. if you don't like numbers, or don't want to group cards together, or prefer to think about queens as 3 / empress energy, or whatever else — that is so absolutely completely fucking fine with me. as i have taken to saying, i'm not interested in teaching you to read tarot like me, i'm interested in helping you learn to read tarot like you.

but — it's an interesting thought experiment. and thinking about queens this month as four cards, i'm thinking a lot about containers and protected spaces, about the rules that keep us safe and cared for, about the kind of restriction that feels really good and really important. i'm also thinking about leaders and teachers who provide generosity in intentional ways, who prioritize stability, and who are often focused on legacy and longevity.

how do you understand the queens of the tarot? do you see them as raw and messy, imperfectly perfect, unfiltered and expansive, abundant and sensual, trying things out and sharing what they find (like the other cards in the three constellation)? or do you see them as devoted and intentional mentors, community makers and dreamers, people who are building functionality and sustainability into their efforts but also aren't afraid to set hard limits or own their authority (like the other cards in the four group)?

and does your view of the queens reflect your own relationship with boundaries?

what does it mean to create, hold, and maintain space for the self, or for others? what does it feel like to facilitate emotions, intentions, passions, resources? what does it look like to create structures and systems that allow others to flourish? what does it cost to prioritize steadiness and dedication, to build rules that protect and safeguard? what does it accomplish to take strategic, intentional risks?

as someone who has been doing more and more community containers and group facilitation over the last few years, i think about questions like this a lot. how do i show up consistently, purposefully, with humility and curiosity? how do i ensure that people feel safe enough in my spaces to be vulnerable, without creating the impossible expectation that no one will ever say or do anything that they might find uncomfortable? how do i support people in their brave moments, in their grief-stricken moments, in their creative burnout moments? how do i give people practical tarot resources that they can use to support their real life? and how do i do all of this without taking on all of the emotions and challenges of every single person who moves through my spaces?

this is one of the many lessons that queens can offer us: that it is in fact possible to show up generously and joyfully for other people, without giving everything that we have away. that it is in fact important to be in reciprocal community with people we love as well as people we barely know, without resenting them for needing things.

i would love to invite you to think about your personal boundaries. where did they come from? what were the conditions that you created them in? what were those boundaries a reaction to? how old are they? and do they feel possible for you to implement in your relationships and communities, or are they something you struggle to uphold? are they too strict to enforce, too loose to be useful, or do they actually support you prioritizing what matters to you?

(and when i say personal boundaries, what i mean is: your rules for yourself around your time, your space, your money, your generosity, your care, your joy, your ideas, your willingness to ask for help. what do you give, and what do you receive? when do you say no, and how do you say it?)

boundaries aren't something to use as ammunition in a fight, a way of blaming others for not centering us in their own choices or an opportunity to weaponize therapy-speak. true boundaries are the limits that we have for ourselves that help us protect the things that we value, the resources we need, and the dreams that we carry.

example: maybe you look at your schedule and your responsibilities and decide that you want to start volunteering with a local organization that shares your values. you love the volunteering, it feels good to be giving back, and you also realistically know that you can only give 2-3 hours per week before other things in your life start to suffer. you have a good rhythm going, and are proud of yourself for doing the thing, and want to make sure you can keep showing up.

but maybe one day, after you've already done your weekly hours, the org coordinator calls and begs you to do more, just this once. you hem and haw, knowing that you really can't spare the time — but your guilt is heavy and you decide to do it anyway. and the next week, you find yourself frustrated and resentful that you said yes, as well as falling behind on your other responsibilities. you made a choice, and now are living with the consequences. it doesn't feel the coordinator is grateful enough, you wish you'd made different choices, and now you're wondering if you should quit altogether.

sure, you could be mad that the coordinator asked you for more than you could give. you could blame them for not prioritizing your commitment to 2-3 hours and nothing more. you could quit entirely, saying that the coordinator was disrespectful for even giving you the option of doing extra. but ultimately, it's not the coordinator who violated your boundaries: you did that on your own, because the boundary is yours. you chose it, you made it, and it's yours to enforce.

i'm not saying this to be harsh, or to make you feel defensive. i'm not saying that no one ever asks for too much or makes us feel guilty for saying no. i'm not even saying that there aren't shitty people out there who take advantage of generosity or challenge our boundaries constantly. what i am saying is that your boundaries are your responsibility — and you get to decide what they are, why they're necessary, how you uphold them, and when you adjust them.

if you're not used to having boundaries, if you were raised to be endlessly generous and caring without ever asking for a single thing in return, this can feel really uncomfortable. it can feel selfish, greedy, even cruel to not offer support when we see a need, or to say no when we know that if we did a bunch of work and inconvenienced ourselves that we could maybe say yes.

but queens know that it is actually a deep and profound expression of love to maintain a boundary, especially one that protects something or someone. queens know that it takes real trust in a relationship to enforce a boundary, to have faith that saying no won't collapse a connection. and queens also know that the process of living and learning can sometimes introduce opportunities to revisit our existing boundaries, to challenge ourselves or take risks sometimes, to adjust or even remove our existing boundaries if they're no longer supporting our current dreams and desires and needs.

what are you protecting, and does it actually need your protection? what are you enforcing, still, and why? are your boundaries useful, or simply familiar? do your boundaries keep you safe, or are they a way of avoiding risk altogether?

and — who do you see as our own, your community, your neighbors? who are you willing to speak up for, to offer protection to, to shield or guard? what does it mean for all of us to purposefully, intentionally cultivate discipline and boundaries in our love and care, to devote ourselves to something that we know will grow and blossom into something true and lasting?

it might seem unfair to keep people out, to tell certain groups no, to be uninclusive. but the reality is that when we insist on tolerating intolerance, we harm those who are most vulnerable. if we allow anyone to say anything, we're only going to protect those who are the loudest and cruelest. sometimes, to protect some, we have to say no to others.

so what are you willing to stand up for? which lines are you unwilling to cross? what is always going to be a no from you? who do you refuse to associate with or take advice from?

i've watched my relationships shift in real time over recent years because i don't want to associate with people who voted for trump or hang out with trump voters (regardless of their justification), because i'm unwilling to make nice with people who are transphobic or homophobic or ableist, who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a face mask or take any precautions around disease transmission, and because i refuse to use AI.

these choices have made some of my friend groups smaller, have meant that i've had to have difficult or uncomfortable conversations with people i love. they've meant that sometimes people who might otherwise pay me money to speak or teach or whatever choose to work with someone else. but these choices have ultimately kept me and my friends safer, my wife safer, my fellow immunocompromised beloveds safer, my fellow creatives and artists safer. the people who are in my life know that i will advocate for them, fight for them, and do my absolute best to protect and uplift them.

it's not always easy — but fuck, does it feel good to know where i stand, what i'll fight for, what i will refuse to do, who i will refuse to engage with. it feels true to my values to know that i'm brave enough to speak up when it matters, to draw lines when i need to, and to walk away if i have no other choice. it feels like love to know that i can hold a boundary, that i'm not afraid to trust myself.

and to me, this is big queen energy. it's big emperor energy. it's big death energy.

we can't fix everything for everyone. we can't protect everyone from everything. i wish we could. but we can learn to show up with intention and consistency, staying devoted to our people and our values with care and tenderness. and by being in community spaces with people, by maintaining boundaries that keep us focused on what matters, we can make meaningful change in this world for all of us.

i'll leave you with this: there's a quote i love from one of my favorite critical role characters, a grave cleric named caduceus clay who is played by taliesin jaffe. in this scene, caduceus is teaching fjord about being a champion for a god, and helping people who need helping. he says "eventually, one day, somebody will pray for a miracle, pray for something to save them... and that prayer will be answered because you'll show up."

we can't help people if we aren't around them, if we don't listen, and if we don't know what we're willing to do to protect them. maybe we can't fully take down the government as individuals (although war tax resistance and general strikes and organizing against data centers or book bans are all really powerful things that you can start doing ASAP) — but we can show up for each other, be right-sized miracles for each other, take care of each other.

and i promise you, it's so much easier to give generously when we know what our lines and limits are. it's so much more pleasant to love wholeheartedly when we know what we won't tolerate. and it's so much more rewarding to show up consistently when we know that we can trust in our ability to say no when we need to, and to say an enthusiastic yes when we mean it.

let's keep showing up for each other, in the ways that we can, with courage and heart. let's keep being brave, and practicing being uncomfortable or uncertain, one day at a time. and let's keep paying attention to what we can reasonably do with consistent devotion, so that we can make real change that actually lasts.

sending you love, courage, and queenly boundaries, friends.