Emily McGill is a tarot reader and storytelling strategist. After nearly a decade and a half working in entertainment in New York City as a Broadway publicist and expert communications consultant, her path of self-exploration led to healing and evolution – and reading tarot cards professionally. Currently in development is her own deck, The Broadway Tarot.

Multi-Passionate Artists Podcast with Broadway Publicist & Tarot Reader Emily McGill

LINKS:

https://www.emilymcgillentertainment.com/

https://www.instagram.com/emilyannemcg/

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to episode 77 of Multi-Passionate Artists

I hope that your 2022 is off to a fantastic start. I have been revisiting my future vision, goals, motivation, and purpose to set intentions for this year.  I’m a big believer in the power of making your goals public (I’m a coach after all and we’re all about goals!).

So, here I am walking my talk: My goal is to gift 30 free coaching sessions to 30 multi-passionate artists, musicians, and actors who are ready to embrace their authenticity, creativity, and purpose so that they can slide into the spotlight with the impact and income to match.

If that sounds like you and you’d like to help me surpass my goal, head to dianefoy.com/booking and snag one of the sessions. I would love to hear about your goals and see if I can help you achieve them.

My guest today is Emily McGill, a tarot reader and storytelling strategist. After nearly a decade and a half working in entertainment in New York City as a Broadway publicist and expert communications consultant, her path of self-exploration led to healing and evolution – and reading tarot cards professionally.

Invited to read tarot for virtual Burning Man in 2021, Emily has also been featured by The Tamron Hall Show, the NY Post, and Thrive Global. Currently in development is her own deck, The Broadway Tarot.

With 20 Broadway credits, Emily has represented the Tony Award-winning productions of A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington, Memphis, Billy Elliot, and Disney’s The Lion King, plus Disney’s Aladdin, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock and CATS, George Takei’s Allegiance, This Is Our Youth, Rock of Ages, Ghost, Elf, and First Date.

If you love Broadway or Tarot, you are going to enjoy this episode as we talk all about her Broadway PR career and her transition to tarot reading. She also offers us all a reading on the show.

 

[00:03:07.630] – Emily McGill

Oh, my gosh, Diane, thank you so much for having me.

[00:03:11.120] – Diane Foy

Yeah, you have a very interesting career and it’s funny that we are both entertainment publicist turned something else. You have a long career on Broadway doing publicity, and I was publicity for musicians and actors, but I think a bit more musicians that record and tour and actors who are more TV film than Broadway. So it’s interesting. I’d love to hear more about your career on Broadway and then we’ll talk about your journey to get you to where you are now. What are some of the highlights of your Broadway career? I’m obsessed with musical theater.

[00:03:57.730] – Emily McGill

What’s your favorite show?

[00:04:00.850] – Diane Foy

I like the ones like Cabaret and Chicago. I guess favorite would be Rent.

[00:04:07.810] – Emily McGill

Rent. Have you watched Tik Tik Boom yet?

[00:04:09.960] – Diane Foy

I loved it on Netflix.

[00:04:12.580] – Emily McGill

Oh, my goodness. I was on my hands and knees sobbing last night. My brother told me. He warned me. He said you’re going to cry? And I said, Great. I’ll wait until I have the emotional capacity to watch it. What happened to you last night? I love Tick Tick boom. I love it so much, actually, of Jonathan Larson’s work, there is such a limited we lost him so early, so there’s such a limited option. But Tick Tick Boom is absolutely my favorite. But I will say good segue. One of my highlights with Rent, I got to work with Adam Pascal on Memphis The Musical.

[00:04:47.300] -Diane Foy

Oh, cool.

[00:04:48.730] – Emily McGill

When he came in to play Hughie Calhoun. And that was a lot of fun getting to work with someone who I danced around my bedroom to quite a bit listening to that album, that cast album. So that was fun. We had some cool times. Memphis was really special to me because that’s the show that my brother was in. He’s a former Broadway performer and now a choreographer, and he was in Memphis as I was assigned to the show as the press rep. So it was really fun getting to work on Broadway together on the same show with him.

[00:05:26.270] – Diane Foy

Cool. I saw him and I’m blanking on his name. The two main guys from Rent. Yes. They did a tour of Rent and came to Toronto. So I saw Rent again then. And I also saw Anthony Rapp solo show that he did. Wow. Cool.

[00:05:52.120] – Emily McGill

And Adam is on tour right now with Pretty Woman.

[00:05:54.210] – Diane Foy

I think that would be fun to see.

[00:05:57.080] – Emily McGill

Yeah. But during Memphis, I got to do a really fun thing. Actually, it was not with Adam. It was our understudies, our composer David Bryan, who is a member of Bon Jovi. He was donating a piano to the State Department. It was a very strange situation, but I guess there was a grand piano at the State Department. They discovered when they went to have it cleaned and tuned that it did not belong to the State Department. It belonged to the White House. I had to return it. So the State Department didn’t have a piano. So David was invited to donate one if he was interested. And he was. And he said, how about my Broadway show comes down and we do a little ceremony? So we did a dedication ceremony and performance for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the understudies of Memphis. We went down to DC for the day. It was so much fun. Such a cool thing to get to produce a concert inside the State Department.

[00:06:53.930] – Diane Foy

So were you part of a PR company or was it your own PR company that you worked with Broadway productions?

[00:07:03.170] – Emily McGill

Yes, is the answer. When I first started, I worked at a company called the Hartman Group, which no longer exists on shows like Memphis. I did Billy Elliott Ghost, the Musical, Elf, the Musical, a show called First Date, which is a really fun show. I did quite a bit of shows with them. And when the company closed, I went to another company called Philip Renaldi Publicity. That was really small. There are only three of us. And Philip does all the PR for Lincoln Center Theater and has been doing that for a very long time. He’s also Patty Lapone’s personal rep. But at that time, we were working on a Raising in the sun starring Denzel Washington with the now infamously known Scott Rudin as producer, which was also an incredible, incredible experience. I learned probably as much in the nine months I was at that job as I did in the three and a half years I was at the job prior to that.

[00:08:01.840] – Diane Foy

Right.

[00:08:03.210] – Emily McGill

So much happening constantly.

[00:08:0.110] – Diane Foy

Right. And then from there, you started your own well.

[00:08:11.150] – Emily McGill

Actually, after that, I went to a very big PR agency called DKC Public Relations, and I was their in house Broadway expert for about three and a half years. So if there was anything Broadway related, their clients were everything from Princess Cruises to Delta to the New York City Marathon to the Nobel Peace Prize concert. So I worked on a lot of Airbnb. I mean, they had so many different types of clients. So I got a really good education in how other industries can work and how the public relations industry works.

[00:08:44.220] – Diane Foy

Right.

[00:08:44.860] – Emily McGill

And after I was at DKC for a while, that’s when I had started my own company. And when I left DKC, I was ready to really branch out on my own and actually got a call from Disney Theatrical on Broadway. And they were looking for some help for The Lion King and Aladdin. And so I ended up working for them for about six months, just supposed to be the summer, but ended up being a little bit longer and had some fun doing The Lion King and Aladdin. So I went back a few months after that to them to help them again while I was still running my own business and kind of doing all of the things. And we joked that I was the vacation swing in the Disney Press office. And for those that aren’t familiar, the understudies cover for the star when they’re out sick or they are on vacation. And the swings do that for the ensemble members. And so a vacation swing comes in when they know they need an extra person in the building. So I would always say I was the vacation swing in the Disney Press office.

[00:09:50.310] – Diane Foy

And I’m curious, the reason you got into publicity for Broadway, was it your love of publicity or was that just the Avenue to get to be around Broadway?

[00:10:07.090] – Emily McGill

Yeah. So I grew up as a performer. I didn’t know there were other jobs. And when I was a kid, I was in dancing school, and then in junior high and high school, there was a lot of theater. I ended up going to College and got my undergrad in musical theater. I have a theater degree. So I spent a lot of time doing it, but I didn’t know you could do other things. Right. We don’t really learn about it so much. You do see that there are designers. You see that there is a director and a choreographer, but you don’t know that there is an advertising agency, a general management company, a production management company. You have accounting, you have lawyers, you have publicity, you have marketing, you have operations and the real estate side, the building logistics stuff. I mean, there are so many different roles that you can play in this industry. And I just didn’t know they existed. And when I moved to New York, I started interning in a producer’s office, and that started to open my eyes to the different opportunities that existed. And so to answer your very long answer to your question, the publicity happened to be the place that I felt I was most aligned in working in the Broadway community, in the theater industry.

[00:11:28.550] – Diane Foy

Right? Yeah. Because I always say everything that I had done, I’ve changed careers a lot, but everything really wasn’t the love of what I was doing. It was anything to get near performers. I was way too shy as a kid to be a performer, but I was just in awe of actors and musicians, singers and dancers and all that.

[00:11:59.830] – Emily McGill

Because you’re a kindred creative spirit.

[00:12:02.750] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And I just wanted to be a part of that. I got into photography because of that. I got into makeup artistry because of that, and then ended up publicity again. It was just to be even more with artists.

[00:12:17.540] – Emily McGill

Yes. And it’s a really fun and unique relationship that artists have with the people in the publicity Department because spend a lot of time together, and you have to be pretty vulnerable, especially if you’re doing interviews and you’re answering questions or as artists. We put our lives on the line every day to do our art. It can be a really intimate experience to have somebody witness that up close like that.

[00:12:51.330] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And be a support if there’s a bad review or whatever it is.

[00:12:56.910] – Emily McGill

And also play bad cop and navigate so that you don’t have to be like the artist doesn’t have to be the one to they’re the one to set their boundaries, but they don’t have to be the one necessarily to hold the boundary there is when they’re supporting to do that for them. And that’s how they oftentimes are able to offer up the most beautiful arts they can.

[00:13:19.250] – Diane Foy

Yeah, that’s great. So when you were young and being I assume you’re in acting classes, dancing classes, singing classes, was your dream to be a performer?

[00:13:32.690] – Emily McGill

Yeah, it was. I really wanted to be I had dream roles. My dream role for the longest time was Peggy Sawyer in 42nd street. I loved it. She was a tap dancer. She had great songs. She had a beautiful journey, and she was the star. So that was always one that I loved very much, that I wanted to play and similar, like Kathy Seldon and singing in the Rain, kind of like the older musicals or those that are based in sort of the 20s. I love that. I feel like that era suits my look and my style.

[00:14:11.770] – Diane Foy

Yeah, cool. And so were you performing while you’re also pursuing working in production offices and doing PR? Was there a time that you had to choose one or the other?

[00:14:29.010] – Emily McGill

Well, the first year I lived in New York, I auditioned as though it was my job. I had worked at either a restaurant or retail or wherever I was working, but I was auditioning almost every day. This was pre iPhones, pre Palm Pilots, even, like, I had a hard copy notebook that I was writing my auditions down in and making sure that I was getting up and signing up. And I was very fortunate that I lived close enough to most of the rehearsal Studios that I was able to go sign up and then go home and take a shower. Because if you’re a non Union actor, the chances of getting clean are pretty slim. It’s difficult. It’s really hard to break into if you’re just kind of starting from scratch. And I knew I needed to do it, and I would always get so close to the end. It would be like final callbacks. I would never get the job. And I realized it’s because I didn’t want the jobs right. I really didn’t want to be a performer. I’m not a very good actor because I have a hard time pretending things aren’t true. I’m great at suspending my disbelief if someone else is telling me a story.

[00:15:40.110] – Emily McGill

But when it comes to being the storyteller, I really struggle if things aren’t true.

[00:15:44.690] – Diane Foy

I think that would be me, because I’m like, yes, maybe my fantasy. I wanted to be a singer or dancer, but I’ve never wanted to be an actor. And I think that’s it is that I’m so about truth that I can’t fake it. I am not a good liar. I’m not a good actor. So that would be really weird to pretend to be something I’m not. Of course, then now we know we all probably have times where we pretend someone that we’re not, but we’re trying to be authentic now.

[00:16:22.910] – Emily McGill

Yes, absolutely. And I will say for myself, the pandemic has offered even more depth of the importance of authenticity for me personally. It’s become a non negotiable. I’ve stopped pretending that I’m anything other than I am, and I’m just showing up as myself 100% in every setting that I walk into, meaning that I will sit in an off Broadway advertising agency and talk about the fact that your text messed up because Mercury is in retrograde, and I don’t care if someone is confused or made uncomfortable feeling by the fact that I understand that the Cosmos is affecting what’s happening right now, and I have deep belief in that. So, yeah, I’m a terrible actor because I can’t not tell the truth.

[00:17:17.570] – Diane Foy

Yeah, that’s funny. I get that. And so you didn’t want to be an actor, but you just want to still be around it. So that’s why you ended up in PR.

[00:17:31.470] – Emily McGill

Yeah. I knew I wanted to work on Broadway. Producing is still a dream of mine. I still very much want to produce Broadway shows. The community part is also really important to me. I’m a co founder of a Broadway industry dance party called Snob Sunday Night on Broadway. And my partners are both DJs and Broadway Broadway performers and current Broadway performer. And it started out actually when I was working on Memphis musical. We would just hang out in the dressing room on Saturday night. Somebody would bring some drinks, somebody would turn on a playlist, and we just have a good time and blow off a little steam. And people started doing it in dressing rooms all over Broadway. So we decided to create a dance party once a month that was prepandemic. Like, now we pop up and we do them when we can. But we’ve had this party that is just a great opportunity for the community to come together and have a great dance party, have a few drinks, blow off some steam and celebrate. We do it on Sundays now. So most folks are off on Mondays. So it’s actually the end of the week.

[00:18:44.430] – Emily McGill

And you’re not going to have a matinee on Monday, I hope. But yeah, we have a great time. And that community part is really, I think the part that draws me in the most.

[00:18:58.030] – Diane Foy

Yeah. It sounds like Alan Cumming had that club coming, and that’s when he did that, he sings happy songs to her.

[00:19:09.310] – Emily McGill

Yeah, definitely some more idea.

[00:19:11.080] – Diane Foy

That’s cool. And how have you made the transition or what made you kind of start to step away from doing PR?

[00:19:22.930] – Emily McGill

Well, when I was at the agency, I didn’t really love it so much anymore. Once I learned what PR sort of means in the wider world, Broadway publicists have really unique jobs. Yes, there’s the media relations part, but there’s so much more that you don’t think about whose responsibility it is to, for example, put the Playbill together, to put together the performances on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and all the other things that fall under that platform. And I had gotten to the point after starting my own business where I didn’t love it anymore, I was not excited by it. And then the pandemic hit. And in March 2020, I was given the most incredible blessing in many ways, where I was given the space to figure out what it is I want to do next.

[00:20:20.670]

Yeah.

[00:20:21.440] – Emily McGill

A lot of people have changed their lives in the last year and a half because you see that nothing you can’t take anything for granted. And even structures and systems that you think will never collapse all of a sudden are working completely differently. And there are structures and systems that need to be completely uprooted and upended and rebuilt from scratch. Yeah. I think there’s been a global reckoning in some ways in the last year and a half, and people are either on board or they’re not. But the train is running.

[00:20:54.440]

Yeah.

[00:20:56.290] – Emily McGill

And so for me personally, I think that’s part of what I was saying about I’m a terrible actor because I’m not going to be able to pretend anything. I’m just going to show up as is. And when I didn’t have the place to show up to escape, which was the theater. To me, an empty theater is the way many people think of an empty house of worship, whether it’s a mosque or a synagogue or a Church or a temple. I see a theater with a ghost light on the stage and no one else in the theater. To me, that’s an empty Church.

[00:21:30.090]

Right.

[00:21:30.940] – Emily McGill

And to not be able to go to that house of worship during the pandemic, I was kind of forced to discover within myself, like, what are the other facets of my life that light me up? What are the other things that I’m passionate about that I care about that are important to me beyond this sort of singular ambition I had had for so long of working on Broadway. And it was amazing. I was making three meals a day in early pandemic, cooking so much. I love to Cook. I grew up cooking with my mom and my grandma, so that was like a fun return to something that I loved. My crazy plant lady tendencies got really out of control. I think I’m above 50 at this point, but makes me over the moon, and the air in my room is beautifully clean. I was able to deepen my Tarot practice and my own spirituality. I learned more about cycles. I learned more about how the universe sort of works in some ways, moon cycles and astrological cycles and how things are connected. I watch a whole lot of space documentaries and ancient history and ancient culture documentaries.

[00:22:53.880] – Emily McGill

I’m so fascinated by all of it. Perhaps the leading facet of this sort of what’s the word I’m looking for? Like this spike of the Crystal. It’s like the Tarot is leading it right now, but I’m really curious to continue to unfold it and unearth it and see what else is around this new expression of exploring spirituality.

[00:23:35.130] – Diane Foy

Yeah. Do you think of yourself as, like, a multipassionate artist?

[00:23:43.710] – Emily McGill

Yes. You sound like one now. I do. It took me a long time to consider myself an artist at all.

[00:23:50.020] – Diane Foy

Right.

[00:23:51.030] – Emily McGill

I grew up with a very artistic and creative brother, and I was always called the smart one, the logical one, the responsible one. I was given these titles and these roles that suited me because those are all true. I can be the responsible one. I can be the logical one. But the artistry wasn’t quite stoked within me in the same way. And I’ve been doing that for myself.

[00:24:19.330] – Diane Foy

And it’s made a world of difference. Yeah. I think I can relate to that because I didn’t consider myself an artist. I was just wanting to be around artists, and I just happened to choose artistic things, but I grew to love them. But now I feel like I’m kind of coming into my own. And the thing about being multi passionate is we kind of get obsessed with our new interests and we dive right in. But then when we’ve kind of satisfied the curiosity, we get kind of bored. Because I also relate to how I did PR for 16 years, and there was ups and downs of me kind of getting bored of it and in the end, really getting bored of it and just didn’t want to do it anymore. It’s like you need a new challenge. And then even when I discovered coaching, I was still kind of promoting myself as a PR marketing coach because I figured that’s what people want from me.

[00:25:28.970] – Emily McGill

And it’s like, that’s the strongest point from which I can lead based on my most recent experience.

[00:25:35.970] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:25:37.250] – Emily McGill

And it’s like, just because it’s the most recent doesn’t mean much. Right. It’s like how we can decide.

[00:25:44.390] – Diane Foy

Yeah. I know a lot about PR marketing in the entertainment industry, but it’s not something like, I love coaching on the personal branding, but it’s really that inner work of what do you really want and why do you want it and what are your core values? Who are you? What experiences have you had in your life that makes you unique, that makes you who you are? And how can you show up authentically when you do put yourself out there through your marketing, social media, I love that stuff. So I’m like, if you go through that with me, then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about PR marketing. But I’m not leading with that because I think you probably relate that when you finally just show up authentically and just be who you are, not hiding it’s freedom. It’s like freedom of expression that we can. Yeah. How you say you’re just going to show up and tell people whatever’s on your mind, love it.

[00:26:54.710] – Emily McGill

Yeah. And it’s interesting because when you were saying initially you were like, I wasn’t an artist, I wanted to be around artists. It’s like that means your art is relationships, your art is people.

[00:27:11.110] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:27:12.350] – Emily McGill

You know, like, we all have art in us. We are all artists at our core, every human.

[00:27:19.430] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And you can express it in many different ways. And now, like, I have hobbies that are art, and maybe they’ll stay hobbies, maybe they won’t. And then I do pick up photography, and I can appreciate it now because I’m doing it for the love of it not because I’m trying to again be our performers now. I’m like, yeah. And I think that’s why I love coaching so much, because it’s taking all the experience I’ve had and being able to help performers and artists succeed because I have some information that they’re needing. And so that’s what I love about that. And it is encouraging people to be authentically who they are and not put a brand on them or an image on them. That’s not them. That’s amazing. And so what drew you to.

[00:28:25.530] – Emily McGill

Carol? I say Taro. Potato, potato. My therapist introduced me to the tarot, actually, around the time I was working on a Raisin in the sun. My grandmother not around during that time. My grandmother passed away, and she and I were very close. She was a very complicated woman. She had a lot of trauma herself. And it was a really painful time for me. And so I decided to try therapy. I had never tried it before, and she every now and again would pull out a deck of cards and have me pull a card. There was a question I was asking. I didn’t know what direction to go or something. And so she started using these cars with me, and I thought it was so cool. And one day I was telling her I wanted a daily practice. I wanted to add something to my life just for me that didn’t have anything to do with anything else. And she said, Why didn’t you pull a card? And I said, I don’t have any decks. And she said, well, there’s an app you can download for your phone, too, if you want to try that. And my OCD can’t have any little red bubbles.

[00:29:39.780] – Emily McGill

So the daily reminder that would pop up was an easy thing to get rid of. And every day I would pull a card and tap the screen, and it would give me the description. And I started to get to know the deck. And shortly before the pandemic, I was given my first physical set of cards. And it was the Osho Zen tarot deck, which is the app I had been using. And I started to get really excited because now I can read for other people. And of course, I’m the pandemicist. So my reading for other people went from just a couple of friends in person to mostly FaceTime and Zoom readings. But it’s been really fun to get to help people tap into what’s inside of them because I see the tarot as a visual or a physical representation of information that you hold in your heart or your gut. But that information hasn’t quite made it up to your head yet. Right. And this is a way that you can almost text yourself and be like, this is what’s going on with me. But it’s like a meme also kind of too, right, because you’re getting a picture.

[00:31:01.150] – Emily McGill

You’re literally getting the picture of these cards and what they’re expressing to you. So I love it because to me, Diana, I mean, it’s not all that different from PR. It’s about communication, but it’s communication with yourself. It’s internal communication. Not about how you communicate with the world, about how you communicate with yourself.

[00:31:21.070] – Diane Foy

Right. Yeah. I’m always interested in Taro, and I have cards. I don’t really know what to do with them. I more flip through them and say they look pretty again, multi, passionate. We have so many interests, and there’s some interests that we’ll deep dive into, and then there’s other interests that we just kind of poke into. And I feel like the Tarot and I love crystals. I collect way too many gemstones and crystals, but I haven’t really gone into making a grid or anything like that. And the Tarot, I haven’t really learned how to do it. That’s a good idea of the app, though, because then you can learn, like a card a day, what it means kind of thing.

[00:32:05.130] – Emily McGill

Yeah. The cards never lie. They correspond to whatever energy you have in your phone. We spend so much damn time on our phones anyway that our energy and our wavelengths are very much in tune with our devices.

[00:32:24.990] – Diane Foy

Right.

[00:32:26.130] – Emily McGill

So I have done readings for people through the app. It’s much harder that way because it’s a small screen. But, yeah, it’s an excellent way to learn. And I don’t know if there I’m sure there are other apps out there. I have the Osho Zen Tarot deck app, and I love it, but I don’t use it all that often now because I have multiple physical decks and I like the tangible tactile.

[00:32:59.180] – Diane Foy

Yeah, me too. I like to hold it. Yeah. Cool. So we had planned that you’re going to do a reading on the show.

[00:33:10.130] – Emily McGill

How do we do that?

[00:33:11.030] – Diane Foy

What’s happening? How do I do that?

[00:33:14.170] – Emily McGill

I think we do a general reading for your listeners.

[00:33:18.190] – Diane Foy

Okay.

[00:33:20.170] – Emily McGill

And for you. I’m going to shuffle these charges a couple more times, and then I’m going to start flipping through them. And I’m pretty sure we can do this early. I haven’t tried it yet, but we’re going to experiment here. So thanks for being game to play. You’re going to tell me when to stop flipping through these cards and cut the deck. Okay. We’re going to pull three cards. We’re going to pull what will help you, what will hinder you, and what is your unrealized or your untapped potential.

[00:33:51.350] – Diane Foy

Okay, cool.

[00:33:52.950] – Emily McGill

So we’ll have three different cards, and we’ll talk about each of them. I’ll give you a little overview of the Tarot as well. There are two parts to the deck, the major Arcana and the minor Arcana. The major Arcana are our magic cards. When they show up, we pay special attention to them. There are 22 of them, and they correspond to human souls evolutionary journey. So they start with the fool, which is at the very beginning it’s very fresh energy, kind of, in a way, we go naive trusting. It’s the very beginning of the journey, and it goes all the way up to the world, which is the whole healed, Holy, very completed energy. And then the minor Arcana is set up more like a traditional playing deck. So there are four suits, ace through ten. Those are called piped cards. And then you’ve got your four court cards instead of three. So there’s a King and a Queen a night in a page. Sometimes it’s Prince and Princess, but those cards correspond to people or the qualities of those cars within yourself. And then the four suits, like I said, are the four elements. So fire is wands.

[00:35:10.010] – Emily McGill

That’s our passion, our drive, our creativity. Water is cups. That’s our feelings, our emotions, our intuition. Air is swords. So that’s communication, technology, language, storytelling, anything that has to do with sort of speaking and sharing. And then Earth is our Pentacles or our discs or coins, and that is the physical, the material manifest. And so that’s like a really quick, basic, very rather dense. I apologize. Overview of a Tarot deck.

[00:35:48.950] – Diane Foy

Cool. And maybe after you could send me some photos of what you’re pulling and then I’ll put it on the web page of this episode.

[00:35:58.130] – Emily McGill

Yeah. So I’m using the Riderweight Smith deck today, which is a very classic deck that’s illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith. And I will absolutely, Diane, send you a photo afterwards to include.

[00:36:14.010] – Diane Foy

Cool.

[00:36:14.410] – Emily McGill

So I am going to count. I’m not going to count. I’m going to hold these and hopefully you can hear it and you’re going to tell me when to stop as I flip through these cards. Are you ready?

[00:36:24.300] – Diane Foy

I am ready.

[00:36:25.670] – Emily McGill

All right.

[00:36:28.950] – Diane Foy

Can you hear that kind of stuff?

[00:36:38.930] – Emily McGill

All right. Okay. So this first card, this is our what will help you card, and this is for all of us. So think about if there’s something in particular that you want this reading to correlate to. Sometimes the cards will just tell us themselves.

[00:36:57.100] – Diane Foy

Okay.

[00:36:58.120] – Emily McGill

What will help us? I’ve pulled the Queen of Pentacles. And remember, Pentacles, that’s our Earth. That’s our physical, our material, our manifest. And the Queen is a very nurturing energy. It’s a very giving energy. There’s a lot of sharing that the Queen of Pentacles does. She has a bounty of gifts and of materials and support, and she is unafraid to share it widely with everyone and anyone that needs it. And this, to me, is saying, share your gifts with the world. That’s going to help you. Don’t be a miser about anything. Like share openly and freely. It’s going to be very helpful.

[00:37:49.150] – Diane Foy

Cool.

[00:37:50.770] – Emily McGill

Does that feel like it resonates for you at all?

[00:37:52.790] – Diane Foy

It does, because I’m thinking, like, I know one thing that’s holding me back is that I haven’t done a lot of videos yet. I say that because I’ve been saying for a year that I’m going to be doing videos. And I know that I’m like part of that sharing with the world. And I know it’s videos. It’s going to really build my audience and really have people connect to me on a way that you can’t really do it in writing or unless you see me. So kind of I know that. And so it resonates because it’s what I was already kind of thinking of like, just go for it.

[00:38:38.410] – Emily McGill

Just go for it. Right.

[00:38:41.560] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:38:42.030] – Emily McGill

Share your gifts. The world is ready for them.

[00:38:44.420] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:38:47.230] – Emily McGill

And it’s going to be helpful. All right, let’s see what this hinder card is. Chariot is a major Arcana card. So remember I said the major Arcana is the human souls evolutionary journey. And with these 22 cards, they start at zero. The full is zero. So it’s a numberless. Number. And the chariot is about a third of the way through it’s card number seven. So it’s the 8th card. And it’s all about balance. So the fool has started on this journey. They have learned some lessons. They’ve learned about their intuition. They’ve learned about some self parenting stuff. They’ve learned about how tradition works and doesn’t. They’ve learned about relationship. And now they’re getting to the point where it’s like, how do I balance all of this? And the chariot is all about balance and direction. Right. If you think about it, if you’ve ever seen a chariot, whether you’ve seen video or anything, you can see that usually there’s only two wheels and it’s driven by one or two or multiple horses. It doesn’t seem like it’s something that’s easy to drive. Right. And it takes balance and precision to make sure that it is staying upright and moving in the direction that you want to be going.

[00:40:17.270] – Emily McGill

What will hinder you is being too specific in the direction you think you’re headed.

[00:40:28.470]

Right.

[00:40:29.730] – Emily McGill

It’s like not leaving the space for the other possibilities.

[00:40:33.510] – Diane Foy

Right.

[00:40:35.550] – Emily McGill

We can’t be restrictive with how we sort of envision our future and like work towards the things that we want to do with our lives. Sure. We have to be specific in how we envision it and how we maybe visualize it or however it is that we’re trying to manifest it. But then you have to also take the action behind it. And this is saying that there are going to be opportunities that arise that might not look like they’re the right direction, but we can’t rule them out just because they might not look right. They might not look the way we’ve had it envisioned.

[00:41:20.730] – Diane Foy

Right. Things might are not necessarily going to unfold exactly the way we hoped or planned, but doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It could be something even better than you planned.

[00:41:34.230] – Emily McGill

Right. And you never know which windows lead to which doors.

[00:41:41.230] – Diane Foy

Right. So it’s just being open.

[00:41:44.590] – Emily McGill

Yeah. All right, let’s see what our unrealized, untapped potential is, shall we? It’s six of wands. And so our Wands. That’s our passion, our drive, our creativity. The stuff that lights us up, gets us out of bed in the morning. Right. All of the sort of multi, passionate artists things that we’ve been talking about this whole time, Diane. And this card came in upside down. And there are different ways people read that. It’s called an inversion or a reversal. And one of my favorite ways to read this is that it means it’s the internal expression of a card, so that rather than how you’re facing the world, that’s how you’re working with yourself. But the six of Wands is all about celebrating the work that you’ve already done and sort of taking a moment to have a ticker tape parade for yourself and to say Congratulations and work, job well done. And you’re not done yet. Right. Because this is the six out of that ten card cycle. You’re more than halfway through, but you’ve still got some journey ahead of you. But take the time to celebrate how far you’ve already got.

[00:43:14.850] – Diane Foy

I just started thinking about my age.

[00:43:16.660] – Emily McGill

I’m like, yeah, you’re right.

[00:43:18.810] – Diane Foy

I have about six way through or five way through.

[00:43:23.850] – Emily McGill

And it’s like, yeah. Take a look at everything that you have accomplished, that you have done, that you have learned that you have grown into and out of and take the time to celebrate it.

[00:43:39.810] – Diane Foy

Yeah. That makes sense.

[00:43:42.510] – Emily McGill

That’s an untapped potential.

[00:43:47.130] – Diane Foy

Yeah. I do tend to look forward, look forward and not necessarily look back too much. But then I also don’t honor. I’ve had a lot of experience and a lot of different things, and I maybe have not really owned that. And I need to really just step forward with confidence and be like, shit, I’ve got all this. I have so much to offer here. I am.

[00:44:19.830] – Emily McGill

Yeah, absolutely. When you bring all of those facets of yourself to the table, they’re all welcomed in different ways and in different tables. So you may be adding more laurels around the photography that you had done or some of the publicity stuff. Right. Like, whatever aspect of your life that you’re looking at with it, it could invite in something that feels incredibly resonant for you now. And I think that’s how the best part about these cards is that they all relate to each other, too. Right. So we’re talking about the Queen of Pentacles as our as what will help you and the sharing of your gifts and the sharing of what you have to offer the world being helpful, but not necessarily following it down. Like the hindrance part of it can’t it doesn’t necessarily have to be a certain direction, doesn’t necessarily have to look a certain way, but then to celebrate it, no matter what it is or how it looks.

[00:45:34.810] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And I think when you’re learning, whatever it is you’re learning and you have your own coaches or advisors or expert advice that you listen to, it’s easy to get kind of stuck in the following other people’s paths. And I feel like that’s what I’ve kind of done at different times. And now it’s like, well, I’ve learned it all. And now it’s like, okay, let’s figure out my own path with everything I’ve learned instead of trying to fit into that’s the thing. When you’re multipassionate, we never fit into those clubs.

[00:46:19.870] – Emily McGill

No. And other people will try and put you into boxes to make them feel comfortable. And you can reject that. You can reject other people’s boxes.

[00:46:31.180] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:46:32.120] – Emily McGill

Even if those people are your parents. Exactly. No matter who that person is, you can reject their box. You can say thank you. That doesn’t work for me. I’m going to do it this way because this is the best way for me to do it.

[00:46:50.070] – Diane Foy

Yeah. Finding your own path. And they mean well. And maybe some of the advice, like sometimes some of the advice works for almost everybody except me. I just have to go. That is me. I am always different. And that’s a cool thing. Like I’m going to figure out my own path.

[00:47:16.850] – Emily McGill

Yes. And also, is there anything in what they’re saying that I can mine for little gems and Nuggets that do work for me?

[00:47:25.460] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:47:26.630] – Emily McGill

The whole structure doesn’t work for me or their whole picture or their whole idea or the way somebody else thinks or sees this to be that doesn’t work. But actually, I really like that little starting point over there where, you know what? I want to make sure I hit that halfway point because that feels like it is good to find those Nuggets and things and then sort of alchemy them for your best experience.

[00:47:53.150] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:47:55.730] – Emily McGill

Not doing this isn’t going to hurt you. It’s this idea that I was joking my best friend and I laugh when we take our supplements, we don’t feel any different. When we don’t take our supplements, I can feel the difference.

[00:48:10.290]

Right.

[00:48:11.130] – Emily McGill

When I don’t take my vitamins, I feel it. My body feels I feel less aware, less active. I feel different. I feel little off. And it’s that kind of idea. Not doing this, you’re not going to notice it. But by doing this, doing this, you’re not going to notice the difference immediately. Right. Like, it’s not going to be necessarily an immediate response. But by doing it, every day, the momentum starts to pick up and then you feel the not doing it, not celebrating your own wins, not sharing your gifts with the world, getting really too specific about direction.

[00:48:52.340] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:48:53.930] – Emily McGill

I can’t wait to take a picture and send them to you. They look so cool.

[00:48:57.350] – Diane Foy

Yay. That’s so fun. And so this is what you do now. So if someone wanted to have a reading with you, how would they go about that?

[00:49:07.340] – Emily McGill

Yeah. So you can book with me on my website. It’s Emilymcgillentertainment.com. It’s very long. I apologize. You can book a 15 minutes, which is one card, 30 minutes, which is three or an hour long session, which is a seven card spread that I like to do called the Flying Bird. And there’s a link right there. You click through and can schedule for a time that works for you. I love connecting with people and helping them tap into the voice that’s within them. So if a reading feels like it’s something that you’re curious about, I love introducing people to the idea.

[00:49:50.430] – Diane Foy

Cool. And so what’s next for you?

[00:49:56.310] – Emily McGill

What’s next?

[00:49:57.080] – Diane Foy

I’m sure you have tons more hopes and dreams and things you want to do and accomplish.

[00:50:04.050] – Emily McGill

Well, I’m working on my own tarot deck, a Broadway tarot deck that I’ve had in development for the last year. So that’s a really fun project that I’m really enjoying. Okay. Yeah. And I’ve recently learned about a program at Columbia that definitely has piqued my interest. It’s a program in spirituality and clinical psychology through their teachers College. And so I’m applying to that. I have no idea if that’s my journey or not, but I’m being called in that direction, and I decided to heed the call.

[00:50:39.930] – Diane Foy

That’s cool. Then you never know where that’s going to lead. That’s exciting.

[00:50:45.110] – Emily McGill

No idea what the heck. Diane love it. Kind of thrilling.

[00:50:50.940] – Diane Foy

Yeah. That’s what we do. We just dive in and see what happens.

[00:50:56.370] – Emily McGill

Cool.

[00:50:57.930] – Diane Foy

And so what is your why do you do what you do?

[00:51:03.390] – Emily McGill

I do it for little Emily.

[00:51:05.670] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:51:06.810] – Emily McGill

I do it for my inner child who didn’t always get to play the way she wanted to. So now we play in everything, right?

[00:51:22.110] – Diane Foy

Yeah.

[00:51:22.660] – Emily McGill

At least that’s the answer today. It might change tomorrow. I don’t know. Yeah. You know.

[00:51:27.620] – Diane Foy

Yeah. I can totally relate to that. Yeah.

[00:51:33.250] – Emily McGill

The answer to that is little Emily.

[00:51:35.230] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And now we’re just not holding back. I think I also spent a lot of time holding back and now holding nothing back.

[00:51:51.430] – Emily McGill

Yeah. I have a feeling you probably relate to this. I, for most of my life have been told I was too much. And when you saying, like, I’m done holding back, like, to me, it’s that like I’m done strangling my bigness. Like I’m going to do it. I’m leaning into how expansive I am as a being because it’s infinite. It just keeps going.

[00:52:18.830] – Diane Foy

Right. I’m actually the opposite. I was never too much. I was never anything. I was quiet. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything. I was an observer. I didn’t express myself. I held back. So now I feel like I’m like I’m here.

[00:52:41.990] – Emily McGill

Yes. Amazing. So still embracing the bigness.

[00:52:45.980]

Yeah.

[00:52:46.640] – Diane Foy

I guess all that stuff I’ve been buried down.

[00:52:50.510] – Emily McGill

Yeah. The initial expression was different. But now I love that. I love that you’re sharing. Well, the Queen of pencils, sharing it with the world.

[00:53:01.940] – Diane Foy

Yeah. That’s with it be who we are taking or leave it.

[00:53:07.320] – Emily McGill

Yes. And you’re not going to be for everybody. And that’s okay too.

[00:53:10.990] – Diane Foy

Yeah, I think that’s the best part. And the people that really get you. They get you.

[00:53:16.770] – Emily McGill

Yeah. Amazing.

[00:53:19.380] – Diane Foy

Well, thank you so much for sharing everything today. It was a wonderful conversation.

[00:53:24.350] – Emily McGill

Yeah. So it was so good to connect with you.

[00:53:26.930] – Diane Foy

Cool. So I will leave all the links and everything in the show notes and thanks for joining me.

[00:53:35.390] – Emily McGill

Thank you so much, Diane.