Cardsy B. | Tarot Reader | Modern day witch-hunts
With October right around the corner, we have a very special episode of the podcast. Recently, host Eva Hartling has become fascinated by witches. You may be familiar with the common historical depictions of witches, riding on broomsticks, or being burned at the stake, but we're going to explore a more modern definition; that is, a woman who stepped into her own power. These days, witch-hunting looks a bit different, but it's just as harmful as it always has been because in our society there is still nothing scarier than a woman realizing how powerful she is or she can be.
With one month until Halloween, and the autumn solstice just behind us, this is the perfect time of year to amplify and celebrate the work done by some of our favorite witches. In today's episode, you'll meet Cardsy B also known as Rebecca “Bex” Szymczak. Bex is our very own Tarot expert at The Brand is Female— a New York City-based Tarot Reader and Fashion Designer, who picked up her first deck of tarot cards at age eleven.
Listen to this episode to hear what it means to be an actual witch and all sorts of witchy things. Don't forget to check out her podcast Hex and the City if you haven't already, new episodes every Sunday!
This season of The Brand is Female is brought to you by TD Bank - Women Entrepreneurs. TD is proud to support women entrepreneurs and help them achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing and mentorship opportunities! Find out how you can benefit from their support!
Full Episode Transcript
Eva Hartling: Welcome to a special episode of The Brand is Female, where I want to tackle the topic I've become fascinated by recently, witches. Whether your idea of a witch is a woman on a broom burning at the stakes or for a more modern definition, a woman who has stepped into her own power, it's become clear that witch-hunting is still a thing nowadays because what is scarier than women realizing how powerful are.
We're one month away, more or less from Halloween. And we just had autumn solstice making this the perfect time of year to amplify and celebrate the work done by some of my favorite witches. In his episode today, you'll meet Cardsy B also known as Rebecca or Bex. Our very own Tarot expert at The Brand is Female who explains what being an actual witch means to her and who discusses, witchy things with me.
I also invite you to listen to her own podcast hex and the city produced by us if you haven't already done. So in the meantime, here is our witchy conversation.
So it's a pleasure having you on The Brand is Female today. And I want to start by acknowledging how there are powers at play that didn't want us having this conversation today because it's been really hard finding a time. You and I both had to reschedule this conversation several times. And this morning, literally we couldn't connect.
Cardsy B: Yes, it's crazy. And I know we're like, it's such an important conversation and we're both so determined and I appreciate that about you as well, but I, yeah, I was about to say, it's also, we're going into mercury retrograde on the 26th, but we're in the shadow period which always mercury is the planet of communication and technology.
So it often impacts things exactly like this. And we both podcast all the time. So I was like, why is this so hard today? But yeah, it did seem hard. There were, yeah, there were forces that maybe didn't want us to share some of this information, but I think it's such a, such an important topic, such a powerful point in time also to have this conversation
Eva Hartling: and I'll even add we'll see if we're interrupted.
For some reason, my smoke alarm keeps going off and there's literally, there is nothing burning in my house. But it's very humid today, but this has never happened for as long as I've lived here. So literally. Something is trying to make this conversation not happened, which is very interesting. But I actually want to ask you, because you know this, and this is a special episode because we're talking about witches and you are one of the first people that came to mind.
Obviously, when I wanted to create conversations around. And but, and disconnects to the work that you do, which, one could consider is you're, you are a witch of some sorts, but we'll get into definitions and all of that. But how should we interpret mercury retrograde when something like that happens?
Because sometimes it feels it's easy to say, okay, maybe we're not meant to be talking today, or like I shouldn't be going ahead with this deal or with this conversation or with this client when something. It's like purposely trying to shut down whatever I'm trying to put in motion, but is it more that we just have to rewire the way we think?
Cardsy B: Yeah, I definitely agree. It's like rewiring and I think that mercury retrograde also has really good PR in the world right now where it's that's the one astrological transit that everybody knows. And there's also like a lot of fear around it. I think it's just yes, it can interrupt and interfere even with communication and technology, but having.
It's okay, how are we going to navigate this? Oh, it might be a little bit harder to connect today. And it goes back to everything for me as trusting our inner guidance system, I do think this is an important conversation and I think it's an important time to have it. Okay.
If that means we've got to be a little bit flexible and on the timing being pushed. So when people always come to me when it is mercury retrograde, shouldn't should I not sign on this apartment? Should I not? And it's how do you feel? Are you already in progress with it?
Especially if it's something that has already been planned its connections, you already have things that are already in motion. I think it's yeah you're safe to proceed. Just be patient with some little glitches that may occur is how I always look at it.
Eva Hartling: And I find or I think I've read that somewhere too.
That it's always a good reminder that, life is not linear, like point a to point B type of dynamic. And we have to learn to navigate. It's more like flowing waters and sometimes, it takes you in different directions and it's not always a straight line.
Totally. So some good lessons. So bex, are you a witch?
Cardsy B: Yes, I definitely, I really embrace that, that word. And I know there's a lot of stigma and taboo around it. I am, like historically and even today I definitely identify as a witch and I think it's a really empowering word. And I look at, being a witch as someone who.
Trust my inner authority and my connection to, whether you want to call it God source the universe and using that connection and my inner guidance system and intuition to help relay messages and to help heal the collective. And I think that's something that's been in my personal journey to navigate and.
It's when people are like, what is the word? Which mean? Because of all of the stigma in history with it, I always say it's, a woman who really claims and uses their power and we've often been taught that that's a bad or a scary thing because I remember.
Meeting someone who was, highly religious in an institutional religious way and was like who is this governed by? I'm like it's governed by the same place as everyone, everything in the universe it's governed by like the universal law source. God, if you want to call it that.
So I think there's always been this being considered a witch or being, an intuitive reader and healer like that has to come through a third party, like did a priest or a reverend did a rabbi. Okay. That, and it's no, I think we all have the ability to connect directly to the source, to the universe.
Eva Hartling: Yeah. Yeah. So we've got to take out that concept from that really, that rigid religious frame that unfortunately most of the definitions around witches and witchcraft originally anchored in. And it's, what's given it a bad rap. Let's talk about your work for a minute for our listeners who don't know you and don't listen to hex in the city.
So you are a tarot reader, and I think you're much more than that, but that is your main trait. I would say when did that, when did you find out or get called to do that kind of work and how did that manifest in your life, and at what point.
Cardsy B: Yeah. I was something I was drawn to from the time I was a little girl and. First learned Tarot when I was like 10, 11 years old. And it's funny, cause I spent a lot of time. During the pandemic at my parents, I moved closer to them and I was in my mom was going through like my old childhood bedroom and I would have these books on astrology and Tarot and Astro travels from literally.
Literally, elementary school and it's not something that was in my family lineage. It was just something I would go to a bookstore and that's what I would spend my allowance on was like tarot decks and like astrology books. And my mom was confused by, but I'm lucky that my parents were pretty open-minded and she would look, she would always read things like.
Scan them first. Then like, okay, it doesn't seem like this is like demonic or anything. So scary. I may not understand it, but she's drawn to it. And she's reading. I was always reading. So it's something that at a young age I felt really called to and there was almost like a definitely an intuitive
knowing around it. So I believe personally, that's probably a tool that I used in past lifetimes because I was like, yes, this is it. And I learned in a way that kids often do with, I always compare it to languages, you don't have the rules and restrictions. I think sometimes learning a craft or a tool as an adult.
You're like, okay, you're reading a guidebook. And you're like, I have to memorize x plus Y equals Z. And I was just like, oh, this is what it conjures in me. And this is what I feel when I look at this card. So I always try to encourage people that are learning to read, to do it with that childlike presence.
And that's really when it started for me was like probably around, yeah, like age 10, 11 in terms of Tarot. And, but always, as a kid, I was highly intuitive. I would see and experience things that I think my parents just didn't understand. And they would always be like, oh, you're so sensitive. That was a thing of oh, you're so sensitive.
Or you take things to, this level of. We would, I remember like driving on road trips with my parents and be like this, something bad happened here. I don't want to drive this way. I would be like, this is like the scary way, or this is depressing. And they're like, what does that even mean?
And I think it was, like seeing and connecting with tragedies and traumas that had occurred in certain places. And so it was always dismissed and so I played with Tarot a lot, probably in elementary school up until middle school, but it wasn't cool back then. It was like, it was the nine late, like the late eighties and the nineties where it didn't, I'm so grateful that it has been democratized in the mainstream today, but there was a lot of Tabby, there were even other moms that would question my mom and be like, I don't think this is appropriate, that she has Tarot cards at recess, so it was something that I learned to suppress and downplay and I didn't really come back to it until. Later in my adult life. And I hit a really intense dark night of the soul was struggling with suicidal depression. And it was one of those like messengers from the universe that a friend of mine, not even knowing that I used to read a lot gifted me a deck of tarot cards and was like, I don't know.
I know you like witchy stuff. It was just like a random from urban Outfitters. And I was like, oh my goodness. Is something that used to be so healing. And I just started pulling a card a day for myself. This is like four, four, or five years ago now. And then I remembered my connection to it.
And I started reading for friends and like former colleagues and people were just telling me you're really good at this. You need to do something with it and slowly on it and it was unplanned, it snowballed into this. Then I was doing readings then I was doing events and then my podcast and my Tarot, I created my tarot deck, but it was it really started as connecting to that inner child and that that like Tarot as healing.
Eva Hartling: And it was very intuitive for you, right? It was okay. It came from that calling and something that you were organically drawn to, but did you have an and I don't know how it works in Tarot specifically, but did you have teachers or masters that you learned from, like, how did the knowledge get past on.
Cardsy B: Yeah. I really honestly was self-taught and that's why I always explain. It's learning a language as a kid. It's just something I played with and I was self-taught then as I came back to it as an adult and revisited it I delved deeper cause I learned the like most people do the first thing we learn
it's a visual tool. Learning what the cards mean, the arc types, the imageries of the visual cues in the cards. And then dive deeper into, cause I have a big passion for astrology, the astrological rulings of each card, the numeral logic significance of the cards, and combinations of the numerology.
So that I just did, a lot of research in terms. Studying texts like old texts from like the 18 hundreds, like Tyrell of the Bohemians up to modern-day teachers like Mary Kay Greer is one of, I think like the grandsons of Tarot, I'm studying a lot of her work and that's how I dive deeper into like astrology numerology.
Cobblistic tie-ins because I think the more it's like anything any craft or like the passion that we have, the more angles you can look at it, the more data points you have just to work. So I always encourage people after learning the visual cues to dive into what other areas they may be interested in because with Tarot there's so much knowledge, but that's what the other thing is.
I'm a Sagittarius Aries rising. So I get bored very easily and it's a tool I've worked with forever and I never get bored because there's always deeper layers to dive into and then the more you are able to access that, the more knowledge that you can pull through in a reading as well.
Eva Hartling: So the kind of work you're doing, if we were, if this was the 17 hundreds, for example, you could literally be tried and tortured and burned at the stake for being a witch, and for many centuries women, especially to were men too, but most women were, persecuted and I think it's worth making the distinction, because a lot of these women and men, but a lot of these people were. Innocent in a sense that, they were not engaging in any probably not even a spiritual practice, but certainly not.
And demonic, worshiping, or any rights pertaining to Satan, for example. But there were women who were healers who were, philosophers, writers. Just women, in general, that kind of broke the mold of just being, a housewife, raising the kids, and taking care of the household.
It was really any woman that was, seemed different was at risk or not just women. Again any person would be at risk of being called out. How, how do you feel your work today connects to that history of witchcraft? And we know that was a European and history with witchcraft, but of course, nobody knows if to Salem, which is at, which happened later.
And this was, on our territory, in, in what is new England which is even more recent. So how do you feel connected to that history and that dark past
Cardsy B: for witches. No. And I think like you shared that so beautifully of it was any woman who was deemed different and independent and carving a different path often in, in, their own sovereignty and independence.
And I think that's something that is definitely, and we even have the ties back to when you think it's, that was like in Salem, it was like the late 16 hundreds. That's not that many generations back, so going into the like ancestral trauma of that of, I remember for me coming out as I'm like, okay, now this is what I've been doing
full time for the past four years, five years and coming out with my new Instagram account from the fashion industry. And so this is my work and it was scarier than coming out of the lesbian, truly. Like it was me. I was like, this is more terrifying. I'm coming out of the closet with like my spiritual practices, that this is my work that I channel information for a living.
And the fear of backlash that I would get. And I have experienced backlash from it, even in this lifetime. But I think a lot of that Innate fear of, we want to protect ourselves and we almost want to hide. From being ostracized at best and literally persecuted and put to death at worse as healers.
And even as you said, even women just like heart, like paving the way different and in the, in our own power. So there definitely is a lot of, what's been called the witch wound and I see it. I was someone who never, I'm such a rebel. I never held back even as a child and many things. As a lesbian at 18, and I was this is me world deal with it.
And when I started to really stand in my power in this work, I felt the witch wound. And I was like, Ooh. And I even in certain settings still have that. I always, Very proudly say what I do, but there, there are certain rooms, certain settings that I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to say that I am an intuitive reader for our living and may face backlash in this conversation, I didn't even have that fear of being like I'm a fashion designer.
So yeah, it's definitely, I think it's, I think it's very real. I think that we're in a time of awakening in so many ways. And a lot of that is so many of us are awakening our inner witch and that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's going to. Channel or read tarot, but I think like where we can stand in our direct connection to our inner knowing to our intuition is very powerful, but we've been suppressed in doing that for generations.
But like I said, it's not even that many generations back that it happened to our ancestors. So it's almost like that oh, I've got to, I've got to keep this close to the vest, right? Or that because there's going to be persecution or, ostracization as a result of that. Yeah.
Eva Hartling: And I think witch hunt and patriarchy go hand-in-hand right.
Even before there was such a thing as witch-hunting women were already persecuted in different ways. And there were virtually, very few rights that women had in society. And then that kind of escalated throughout those centuries where witch-hunting was active.
And I want to talk about the witch wound a little bit, and I did something I wanted to bring up. I read a book earlier this summer by a French author called the title translates as the witches complex and it's through sharing her own story. She brings up the idea that What we would call imposter syndrome today and we know a lot of women, and this is something in conversations I have on this podcast.
This comes up again and again, with women who are, at the top of their class and running large businesses or who have achieved. Great. Scientific innovations or tech, innovation and it keep coming up that they don't they, they have, self-doubt, they refer to imposter syndrome.
And in this book, the author makes a link between women who were witch-hunted, who would come to not only admit being guilty admit to some of what they were being put on trial for, but they would come to believe it. So they would come to believe what the person persecuting them was trying to make believe they were actually doing, whether it was, demonic rights or being a healer or things like that, which were all part of.
Definitions of witchcraft. And in the book, she goes on to explain that this has stayed with women, throughout centuries. And as you said, it wasn't that long ago that women were still afraid of, potentially, possibly being tried as witches it is, was very much part of life in society.
So it would come to explain part of, again that, which complex, which I think connects to which Mungi as well. So yeah, I'm wondering how you viewed that, but also how can we evolve? From those strong ties or get rid of, in the book, she even calls it intergenerational trauma because our women ancestors for any of us with a European background.
This happens in North America and colonies as well. And interesting to say that today there are still something like 36 nations, where, witchcraft and witch-hunting. It's still a thing. And then I want to talk about the modern concept of a witch hunt, which we can get back to.
But so how do we get rid of those ties and how do you think, we can help our women ancestors heal from this deep trauma.
Cardsy B: Yeah, it's so funny that's like how you phrase the end of that question. Cause that's the first thing I was going to say is I do feel like our ancestors are calling us to be on the front lines and it's this is how we can not only have a ripple effect forward but also backward
it's to heal them. And I think that in terms of the first thing that comes up to me is in terms of the Tarot. Cause that is my go-to tool. There's a card called three of swords that people don't like to get this card because it's a card and it's in the original Smith right away that gets this heart being stopped with three stores.
And it usually, yes, and it represents trauma loss all of the things we were discussing, those feelings that are. So painful and cataclysmic, but the message in three of swords really is the only way out is through. So I think in terms of it's a process. Absolutely. But the first part of it is to feel it and to feel like this is a real feeling.
I'm not crazy in feeling, these triggers, this trauma the sense of feeling unsafe of being, whether it's like persecuted in certain ways, ostracized from certain communities bullied, shamed. It's okay to feel this and sit with it. And then how do I navigate this?
And I think a lot of that when you bringing up imposter syndrome, I think it's like the fear to speak freely of who am I to do this? Who am I to say this? And the most empowering thing is to just be yourself and it's so cliche, but I think standing in our truth gives other people permission to do even if it's different, even if it seems like you're going against the grain, you're, you're saying the scary thing or the thing that's like not the mainstream, not the common, not the norm.
And I think that's our way of navigating through that. And whether that's in terms of a corporate executive setting or whether that's in our day-to-day life of just, you know what, like I'm feeling this intuitively like in my knowledge, and it may not be what's popular consensus right now, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna stand in my truth and that can be.
So terrifying to do, even on the smallest issues. But I think the more that we allow ourselves to do that, the more we are healing that wound. And it's very three of swords of it's scary to go in there, but then the only way out is through.
Eva Hartling: And this makes me think. Because when we look at the kind of, the word, the witch hunt is still used in a contemporary context, when we describe a situation where typically it's a woman, but it could be anyone where we're looking to, make someone look very guilty and.
Persecuting someone in the public arena. It could be a very public investigation or trial. And I think of women in politics, we've seen a lot of cases at that. And with my experience, I think of women in the corporate sector as well. I think of executives and I've seen many who, if they dare speak up too much or go against the popular opinion and don't if they don't agree.
with the upper echelons are saying they will be ostracized and they will literally be witch-hunted. And we've seen a lot of very public cases of women, having to step down from a position in politics and business or elsewhere for those reasons. And we literally still use the term witch hunt to describe that.
And the connection I was gonna make is I read recently, and this was in the context of describing imposter syndrome and how to overcome it. Now I forget the name of the author, but it's more of a general idea that she was conveying women don't need men to burn them at the stakes.
We literally light the match ourselves now. And it's also how because we've internalized right? This whole process and mindset. And this makes me think too, of going back to witch hunts, in the 14 hundreds, 15 hundred, and centuries afterward, there were also a lot of women. Accusing other women or, trying, trying to basically get their neighbors burned at the stake or tortured and accusing them of witchcraft, even if it wasn't true.
So there is that dynamic of, women going against each other and being afraid of each other's power, which I think in a scarcity mindset, You know again in a world ruled by patriarchy is when that behavior would come to show up. But curious to know how you feel about that.
And again, how we can get rid of that sense of competition, which would make me want to get another woman burned at the stakes and even possibly, lighting our own, stake ablaze ourselves. I put it, I put in a lot in that question, but
Cardsy B: yeah, no, I think that no, they're all like really thought-provoking points and things that I think many of if not all of us deal with at some point in time.
And I think that the most important thing is going back to like our own inner truth and standing in that because of a lot with the. And, centuries back and leading up to witch hunts in different degrees today are the fear of standing outside of the herd of the fear of speaking up differently, like disagreeing with the way things have been done, challenging societal norms.
And I think the more that we do it in ways that I know it can feel very unsafe, but in whatever ways we can, whether that's in a boardroom. Via social media, whether that's even in conversations we have with our friends and family it does have the ripple effect and then it gives other people something to think about different perspectives, but also permission to speak in their own voice.
And yes, I think people are still being as you share being villainized for that, there are negative repercussions, and the more we see that it can ignite that fear even more. And when I think that the analogy of. Ourselves on fire is very powerful. I'm just going to do it before someone else can do it for me because then that kind of keeps me safe.
But I do think the more that we just the first thing too, is in any, an intuitive practice. And I teach this in terms of accessing intuition and working with Tarot is I'm starting to get to know our inner voice and trust. On a daily basis. And that's really it's like working out.
It's harder when you first have to go to the gym and you're like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm going to suck at this. It's going to be brutal. And the more we're like, okay, I'm going to listen to that intuitive knowing, and then maybe start to speak it. Maybe, share it with one person on your team at work.
And how do you think about this? I know this isn't what, the direction everyone's going, but I'm really thinking this. And then maybe. You start to share it in small circles or with people that you do feel safe with, then maybe you can start to stand in it in a bigger way. Next time. It's like picking up a bigger weight.
The next time you go to the gym after you've mastered like the five, 10 pounds. So I think that's, it's definitely a process. And I think that the more that we empower ourselves to do it, we're also again healing our ancestors as well. In addition to being able to be an example and those of us that have, platforms, those of us that have more security and being able to do that, we help to also lead the way.
So I think the more all of us can do that, whether it's on, in our daily lives and in personal conversations or in bigger conversations and your platform is so beautiful for that. I think that we're really, we are helping to not just heal the witch wound, but really transform and transmute it into something powerful of this isn't something we're trying to heal and forget where we're like, this is something that we're gonna like really learn, like why it happened and alchemize the energy of it.
I love
Eva Hartling: that. And so if I take away some of what you've brought up and shared so you know, a modern-day, which is a woman who's not afraid of her powers, stepping into her power and owning it tuning in with her intuition and her inner voice. And speaking from that place, right from that voice, that's that ultimately is truth and is power with
what else would you think of which needs to be, or do?
Cardsy B: I think that witches are just unapologetic too I think there's so much of when you were going back to the lake women, lighting themselves on fire. It's there's so much I'm sorry for even thinking differently.
I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable. And there's an unapologetic of you don't have to agree with me, but this is what, I'm, what I'm thinking. This is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm putting out there. And I'm asking you to at least acknowledge my presence in that. Don't need to apologize.
There's definitely an unapologetic stance that I think we've very much been conditioned against,
Eva Hartling: and it's interesting when you say that, what comes up for me? I had a conversation with another, which is in my life. Casey crown, who's these amazing psychotherapists and specialists in trauma healing.
And in our conversation, she brought up she reminded me that we're never responsible for another person's reaction. I think that's a very witchy thing to do as well. Because it's the other person that decides that, being a witch or witchcraft is a bad thing. But as long as we stand in that power of, our truth and our intuition the world is just going to have to deal with it.
Cardsy B: Yeah. Yeah. And I think even like ways that we can come out are very powerful because it's funny when my time in rural Pennsylvania my dad has a friend, my dad's 70, his friends, a little bit older than him in his mid-seventies and very like. the small town of mostly straight white Christian people.
And I was making him like he came down with a cold, I was making him like these herbal tinctures and potions. And he was like what is this? Are you a witch? I'm like, actually I am and had very open conversations with him. And you can see there was pushback at first, but he, the interesting.
The thing and this is he's like an uncle to me. So he knows me. He loves me and he's opened his mind. And now he sent me a cute little tea that was like witch's brew. And he's like to my favorite witch and it really, I was like, that's going to open his mind to things that are of like the metaphor.
Feeling world because of he's like well I know her and I know she's got a good heart and she's a good person and she identifies as a witch. So I think little ways, and that's just someone, again, like in my family comfort zone, a little way that we can even come out and put that it has a ripple effect into the world of other people's acceptance and curiosity, and coming to the point of understanding,
Eva Hartling: absolutely. So of course, for all of your ongoing, advice, we'll listen to hex in the city and follow you on social media. The reason, October is a big month for witches and it is autumn solstice as well. All of those dates connect in closing, what would be a good ritual, something that you would suggest around that time of autumn solstice to honor the inner, witch.
Cardsy B: Yeah, I think, the solstice as well as solemn which is what's celebrated on Halloween is like the final harvest festival.
It's a fire festival. I think it's a great time to give gratitude to all we've harvested. So that goes back to. The knowledge from our ancestors when I was saying, it's obviously a tragedy what has occurred, but also a beauty in the knowledge we've acquired and the strength that they've paved the way forward.
So in, in harvest festivals and saw when I always look at it as it is it's unsolved when's the witch's new year. So it's like, how are we starting this new year? What have we harvested that we can give gratitude towards? And that can be like doing lists, doing meditations. I love walking meditations and contemplating on that.
And what are the intentions that we're setting as? This new year moving forward from October 31st on.
Eva Hartling: I love that. So we'll get to work. Thank you so much Bex it was a pleasure talking about all things, which is what you and I look forward to in our next conversation.
Cardsy B: Thank you so amazing. Thank you.
Eva Hartling: Thank you.
Eva Hartling: I really hope you enjoy today's conversation.
And if you did, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and give us a review wherever that is possible. Thank you to TD bank group women entrepreneurs, further support of The Brand is Female. You've got it in you to succeed. Let TD help guide you. Visit The Brand is Female dot com slash podcast and click on the TD logo.
Thank you for listening. I'll be back in a week with a new guest. Thank you so much for listening to a podcast by The Brand is Female I'm Eva Hartling. And this episode was produced by our team sound engineering by Isabel Morris, research and production support, Claire Miglionico marketing and digital growth, Kayla, Gillis and partnerships, Natalie hope.