Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Jessica:      Welcome to the podcast. What would you like to talk about today?

Guest:              So today I am wondering about parenting. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old human child, and I have kind of been struggling with⁠—I guess, ever since they were born, struggling with just this immense fear around just how much I love them and how intense that feels. And then especially as world events have unfolded and things feel really chaotic and scary, I've just found that it's been harder for me to kind of maintain my autonomy, which feels important as a parent, and just feeling the tension between this really intense love and this really hard grief around existing.

Jessica:            I guess I have a bunch of questions. So, within that, do you feel like the difficulty maintaining your autonomy is because of world events or just because you have a two-and-a-half-year-old?

Guest:              That's a good question. Actually, ever since they were born, I've had a hard time being away from them at all. So I think it's kind of exacerbated by feeling like the world is this super chaotic, dangerous situation, and then also, probably⁠—maybe I would feel this way anyways even if we lived in a different world.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, in my experience, I myself am not a parent, but I have consulted with countless parents over the years, and I think not having a sense of autonomy with a child that is not in full-time school is very normal, especially if you're a primary caregiver, which I'm assuming you are just from the way you've asked the question.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            And do you have a coparent or somebody who is a support to you and your child?

Guest:              Yeah. I do have a coparent.

Jessica:            Great. So the question that I have for you is, what is really your question? Is it about the world? Is it about parenting? Is it about finding yourself? Yeah. What is the [crosstalk]⁠—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠⁠—of your question?

Guest:              I think that the question is kind of like I'm in this place in my life where I'm like, "Oh, I'm still pretty young. What the fuck am I doing?" and trying to figure out how to have a life and be a parent and how to explore career things and purpose things outside of parenting. And it feels basically impossible to have both.

Jessica:            Okay. So this isn't really about parenting or the world. This is about career and autonomy as a parent.

Guest:              Yeah. I guess so.

Jessica:            Interesting. Very different question than I thought it was. Okay.

Guest:              Yeah. It is a really different question. I mean⁠—and I think there's still pieces of trying to balance what is healthy fear and then what is the other side of that where it's like a little bit more obsession, and trying to find a balance between that as far as how close to keep my child. And that feels like a hard thing for me.

Jessica:            So, when you're talking about your concerns for your child and the safety of the world, are you talking about plastics and foods? Are you talking about the ozone? Are you talking about gun violence? Are you talking about civil war? Are you talking about COVID? I mean, I'm scared of everything, so I have a really long list. Yeah. What is it that⁠—

Guest:              That was a good start.

Jessica:            Thank you.

Guest:              I mean, honestly, I feel like gun violence has come up as a thing that keeps coming to me.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's fair.

Guest:              But I'm also afraid of cars. I'm very afraid of cars. We were in a car accident a little over a year ago, so maybe that's partly why.

Jessica:            I see.

Guest:              Yeah. I can think of a lot of things that I'm afraid of.

Jessica:            That's fair. I mean, there's a lot of things to be afraid of. The world is objectively on fire, technically, scientifically, metaphorically.

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            Sure. So I want to preface everything I'm about to say with, if you're coming to me to have someone talk you down and away from your fears, I'm a bad choice. I'm a triple Capricorn, so I'm like, "Yeah. Be terrified. Everything's dangerous," to be fair. I think everything is a near-death experience. So⁠—

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            It is. I mean, it is.

Guest:              Thank you.

Jessica:            So I am not going to be the person to say, "Oh, you don't need to be scared," because yeah, everything's terrifying. People do this thing where they deep-fry a turkey in a barbecue thing, and sometimes it burns their whole house down. There's a million ways to go is what I'm trying to say, and I am willing to be scared of them all. That said, the question is, how do you navigate fear and how do you make sustainable decisions in response to your fear? Because telling yourself to not be scared of cars and school shootings and COVID and the ozone is not⁠—I don't think it's super smart, but it's also just not realistic.

                        So this is where I want to have you say your full name out loud for me.

Guest:              Okay. So my, right now, full name is [redacted].

Jessica:            What's your birth full name?

Guest:              So I was named one name, and then three months later, my mom changed it.

Jessica:            Interesting. Give me all of it. Give me all of it.

Guest:              The first one is [redacted], and then it was changed to [redacted].

Jessica:            Okay. That's great. Thank you. Give me your first name one more time.

Guest:              [redacted]

Jessica:            No, no. Your first name. Your first given name.

Guest:              Oh. Yeah. [redacted]

Jessica:            So that's the name where I can tap into your fear the most. So this, I imagine, then, is connected with your mom or your early developmental experiences⁠—this pattern. Right? You don't need a pattern to be scared of the world, especially when you have a child. But this feeling of, "How do I protect her? How do I take care of her? How do I keep her safe?"⁠—I'm sorry. I'm using "her," but that's what I'm really getting as kind of coming at you and attached to you. It was like a panic/anxiety vibe that is imprinted on you. And it does feel like your mom was like the loving, present parent. Is that correct?

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so they're intertwined for you on an unconscious level.

Guest:              Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So this panic/anxiety, it's like this⁠—I don't know how else to put it, but like a⁠—

Guest:              No, I feel it.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's really intense, and it's all on your first given name, right? There's one layer here of⁠—there is an unconscious foundational belief that you have, because of your early developmental experiences, that care and love and anxiety and panic are intertwined. So that is a really important thing to work on. Do you have a talk therapist or a woo therapist? Okay. Great. So this is a great thing to bring to therapy, and the reason why I say bring to therapy as opposed to "Let's unpack it here" is because as an astrologer, as a psychic, I can point to things and I can name things. I can give you strategies and insights. But objectively, we need to work with our psyche, our heart, our spirituality, over the course of time.

                        That work that we do on ourselves is what really can change things. And this is one of those things that I want to encourage you to practice being present with, not recoiling from, having empathy for, being interested in, because essentially what I'm telling you to do is to re-parent yourself around this early developmental wounding that came from a really good place but was maladjusted from your mother. And ironically, you may be doing it to your beautiful baby now. So family issues. They're real. Nobody made it up. It's all real.

                        I'm going to get astrological in just a moment, but I want to check in with your child. Will you say their full name, please?

Guest:              Yeah. [redacted]

Jessica:            Are you missing a name?

Guest:              Mm-mm. Not that I know of.

Jessica:            What's your maiden last name?

Guest:              [redacted]

Jessica:            There it is. Okay. Thank you. So, for whatever it's worth, I see energetics⁠—like I see into people psychically through names, and it just so happens to match my feminist value systems, but energetically, when we leave out the mother's maiden name, you're leaving off half of the person's energy, which is one of the many reasons I'm not super excited about a single last name for a human that came from two humans.

Guest:              Yeah. That's interesting. I feel like I changed my name because I didn't like my last name. I was like, "Oh, this is fun." You know? But I totally agree.

Jessica:            That makes sense. And also, from an energetics perspective, we are what we are whether we like it or not. And acceptance is foundational. I mean, we're talking about fear, right? So I'm going to have you say their name one more time. Give me all the last names.

Guest:              [redacted]

Jessica:            Thank you. Oh, they're fine. I'm not seeing that they're tortured by your fear. It's not like they're shrunken by your anxiety. Nothing like that. I was just checking, you know?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

 Jessica:           Just to make sure that I wasn't missing a problem. I'm not missing a problem. This is your problem, which is great. Let's keep it your problem.

Guest:              Yeah. That's good news.

Jessica:            Yes. So I want to just make sure I'm seeing this correctly before I dive. Your partner makes good money, is willing and able to do what they do. There's not a family-based need for you to go back to work and make money; is that correct?

Guest:              I would say he is willing to work. Money feels like a point of tension right now, and I am trying to go back to work to work more. But we are okay.

Jessica:            So let me dig into that because⁠⁠—and we're going to come back to fear, but it feels like I can see why you ask both of these questions, because I see how they're intertwined. And so, when you're experiencing anxiety and fear, you're not just experiencing it about any of the very valid things that you're experiencing it about. You're also experiencing it about all the feelings that you don't know what to do with and you don't know where to put. They're glomming onto each individual worry, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I would give you this advice separate from everything else. Do you use paper and pen, or are you all digital all the time?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              No. Paper and pen is my jam.

Jessica:            Great. Let's go analog. So, with paper and pen, what I want you to do is create blocks⁠—so you could use separate pieces of paper; I would do it all on one big-ass piece of paper if you can, or a dry erase board or something⁠—and to put one block of money issues as a family, my career and capacity to earn, the fucking world⁠—and then that might have separate things, like school versus environment/health. Put all of these very real concerns in separate columns, but this has to be big. It can't be too small. It looks like that's just how your brain works⁠—and then to start writing notes on, "These are the things that are stressing me out." Externalize them. Name them so you can own them.

                        This is not a suggestion to help you find the answers. This is a suggestion to clarify what is stressing you, what is concerning you, to name these things, because for your brain, that will organically lead you to the right questions which will bring you to the answers. When we go straight to trying to find the answer before we first appropriately identified and clarified the question, it doesn't matter if you get the "right" answer. You're getting the right answer to the wrong question, and then you have a mess. And you're like, "It's 60/40. Why am I so confusing?" That's why, because you were asking too much at once. And I think that might even be reflected in how you phrased your question to me. It's like asking everything at once because it's hard to parse them apart.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. So hold on. So I'm really being pulled to talk about the career stuff, even though I thought I wanted to talk about anxiety first. Are you cool with that?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. What were you doing before you had a child?

Guest:              I had just finished going to massage school, so I was getting ready to get licensed, and then that's what I did when I was pregnant and have done on and off since then.

Jessica:            Okay. And is that something that you want to do for a career?

Guest:              It feels like a piece of it, but it doesn't feel like that's the one thing.

Jessica:            That's a really interesting answer because it wasn't a yes or no. And I am such a Capricorn. This is Capricorn on Cancer violence, I understand. But⁠—oh, I didn't say your birth information, and I should have. Bear with me. You were born June 23rd, 1993, 7:51 p.m. in Red Bank, New Jersey. There's the question of "What do I want to do?" which can be broken down into "What do I want to do right now versus what do I want to be doing in 15 years?" And again, I fear that, for you, you've smooshed them together so tightly that it's hard for you to parse them apart.

                        So it brings me back to this question, which I'm going to refine for your brains and⁠—your beautiful, beautiful brains. This is the question. If you think about having more work hours over the course of the next year or two, how do you feel about making the choice to prioritize working, I'm guessing, 20, 30 hours a week? Is that what you're kind of angling towards?

Guest:              Yeah. Probably, like, 20 would be on the higher side.

Jessica:            Okay. So we'll call it 10 to 20.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            We'll call it 10 to 20. So, if we're thinking about 10 to 20 hours a week of work outside of the home, does massage or bodywork feel like a good next step to you, or do you have ambiguity about it?

Guest:              It feels like a good next step.

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Guest:              I appreciate the clarification.

Jessica:            You're welcome.

Guest:              Yeah. I feel like the variable, if I can call it a variable, is just that I've had ongoing health stuff. So I'm at this point where I'm in a treatment that feels like it's working, but it's still up and down. So that's kind of the factor that's like, when will I be ready to work more?

Jessica:            Okay. The health stuff is like⁠—it compromises your ability to do physical labor because massage is very physical, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Interesting. So, when I look at this energetically, it does look like some days you could do massage, a couple treatments in a day, and some days you couldn't and you might have to cancel on people.

Guest:              Yeah. Right.

Jessica:            Is it in your joints?

Guest:              It affects⁠—yeah. It kind of affects my whole body.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's like an inflammation-related issue; is that correct?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's what it looks like. Well, look at you. You chose to be a bodyworker. Okay.

Guest:              I know, right?

Jessica:            Yeah. It is interesting. Okay. Now I'm going to help you break down your options here because what is it that is most important? Is it most important to be financially contributing to the household as a way to take some of the weight off your partner, or is it most important⁠—and we're talking about the next one to two years, not your forever⁠—or is it most important to be doing something that feels really right to you? One of your first questions, you're talking about keeping your identity and your autonomy. What is your primary objective with work at this time?

Guest:              I think at this point, I kind of feel like if my work doesn't feel right, I'll just explode or dissolve.

Jessica:            Interesting. So⁠—

Guest:              I don't have a lot of capacity to do things that don't feel right.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              If that makes sense.

Jessica:            It does, but it's interesting because the way that you responded was with almost a negative instead of an affirmation of what you do want. And I want to just reflect that back to you because I imagine that would play out poorly in your relationship over the course of time, and also, on an energetics/woo level, when we affirm what we want by identifying with what we don't want, it does feel⁠—there's no juj there. There's no flow there, right? So I'm going to ask you again. And I know I'm setting you up here; forgive me. I'm going to ask you again: what is your primary objective with work at this time?

Guest:              I think it's to find work that feels really good to do.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. And is that consensual in your relationship?

Guest:              I think it is. I mean, I think there's the pressure of sharing finances and feeling like I want and need to contribute to that, but I do think that on a personal level, yes, there's a lot of support for that.

Jessica:            Okay. You mean he's supportive to you for this?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. I'm going to say, as a psychic, I encourage you to talk to him about that in no uncertain terms. Play this for him. Pause it. Talk to him about it, because I'm not as sure about that as you just made it sound so certain. I'm not as certain. And I'm not saying, "Oh, I think that's wrong." I'm not saying that. But I don't know it's as tidy as you just articulated it for him, which is maybe part of why you articulated your preference in the negative instead of in the "I choose this for me."

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica:            Yeah. And this is like classic crab stuff. You've got the Sun and Mercury in Cancer, and Cancer can kind of come at things sideways. All the water signs can, but mostly Cancer. That is kind of distancing yourself from what you know of yourself and what you need for yourself, which can come across as passive aggressive or manipulative even though that's not your intention. And also, it's energetically blocking your own flow because you're not a crab; you're a human person, for better or worse. I don't know what's worse. I don't know. But here we are.

                        So this is really good. We're getting at something, which is you're identifying that massage actually is a good path. It's not the get-rich-quick scheme. It's not necessarily the most sustainable thing because it's so physical, but it is what you're feeling a sense of yearning and calling towards. Am I hearing that correctly?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. I think I just feel like I need to say, "Yeah, but there's more." You know? And I'm like, "Yeah." But that's okay. Like you said, it's one year, two years, not the rest of my life.

Jessica:            It's not the rest of your life. But this is really important, this, "Yeah, but there's more. I can't say yes to this because that means I'm saying no to everything that's not this." Right? That, my friend, is a Sun/Jupiter square and a Moon sandwiched between Chiron and Mars in the eighth and Neptune and Uranus conjunct intercept in the first. This feeling of whatever it is⁠—oh, so I guess you're⁠—anyways, I could keep going but the point is what you're essentially doing is cutting yourself in pieces because you're scared of bringing all the pieces together because that means you're not any of the things that those extra other pieces could be pointing towards. Does that make sense?

Guest:              It makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Jessica:            An affirmation that I want to encourage you to find the right finesse wording for you around is something to the effect of, "I am making choices for today," or, "This choice I am moving forward with or executing on, and I am only committing to it for 18 months." Giving yourself that kind of framework, I think, will really support you in staying in alignment with your choices in the here and now. And it's hard. I mean, I think it's hard for most people, and clearly it's hard for you.

                        So, when we pull back, if the ambition is 10 to 20 hours⁠—20 being the max⁠—a week of bodywork, is that viable? Do you have access to enough clients where you could be doing that or building towards that?

Guest:              Yeah. I think so. I'm in a bit of a transition as far as work. I've been working at a spa, and I've kind of known that's not what I want to do, so thinking about leaning into starting my own thing. So there's some uncertainty there about where exactly that will be, but…

Jessica:            I think in terms of the where, that's not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is staying in alignment with the choice you're making for now because if you continue to do what you're, I think, pretty unconsciously doing, which is undermining yourself by being like, "Yeah, but I could do more, but it's not because"⁠—there's a lot of that happening.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's your biggest problem because you can get the perfect office space, but if you keep doing this, you're going to manifest people who cancel on you or⁠—you know what I mean? You're going to block the blessings, as it is said. So that's the homework there. And I do think whether you stay working at a spa and you check in, get more experience, get the money, get out⁠—that looks fine for right now, actually. And if you decide to find a sweet space with other practitioners that you really like, you have to do a lot more labor to get people in, which I think overall you would be really happy with. But if you continue to feel dogged by uncertainty or mixed emotions, that'll be harder for you to pull off.

                        So this is where I want to encourage you to make sure you're doing the right things in the right order. Take the time you need to get comfortable with the goal of making this choice even though you know it's not where you want to be in ten years, or you guess that it's not where you want to be in ten years. Make that call. Get clear before you start really looking for an office space so that it doesn't end up making you feel more anxious.

And this is why⁠⁠—I'm now pulling it together. This is why we had to talk about work before we could talk about parenting, because all of this uncertainty and all of this⁠—so there's this tarot card out of the Thoth deck, which I know some people have very complicated things with. There's a deck called the Thoth deck, and there's a card called the prince of swords. This card is an image of a dude with a sword, and he's holding on to⁠—I think it's by a harness, like with strings⁠—three different fragmented pieces of himself, and he doesn't let go. And that image keeps on coming up in our conversation. Sometimes we have fragmented pieces of ourselves, pieces we've outgrown, pieces we've identified with that aren't the thing anymore⁠—we just need to let go, and sometimes we need to pull them back in.

It's about embodying a change. That's really what it's about. And that is what keeps on coming up here. And when we kind of shift into talking about parenting, there's all of this noisiness inside of you around this other stuff. So then, again, you're scared of the ozone, which is very reasonable, but then there's all these emotions that don't have as much clarity and focus and certainty around it that⁠— so those emotions kind of get displaced onto the ozone, even though the ozone is a very big concern. You haven't actually said ozone, but I'm sticking with it because let's be scared of the ozone together.

Guest:                  Yeah, just that it's [indiscernible 00:25:07].

Jessica:            Yeah. Why not? Stir it in. Okay. So let me just slow down and check in. What's coming up?

Guest:              I'm feeling a lot of things. When you talked about letting go, I was like, "I don't know how to do that."

Jessica:            Yeah. Let's talk about that, then. How do you let go? And we're not talking about letting go of an ex or letting go of expectations that your mother will be your father or whatever it is. I think for you what it's about is letting go of needing to be everything, know everything, do everything, center everything equally all at once. It's a fear that you won't remember it, that you won't get back to it, that you'll lose track of all the important things if you focus on one important thing.

This is part of why I gave you homework to write on a big-ass piece of paper or construction paper all the concerns you have so that you won't have to carry them in your noggin; they're on a piece of paper that you can return to, and it's so big that you won't lose. That's why I was like, "No, don't do multiple pieces of paper," because you'll lose them, right?

Guest:              Yeah, I will.

Jessica:            So it's about having one big construction paper situation. This is a practice. The reason why you compulsively hold on to all the things all the time is this glorious T-square involving Pluto. You've got Pluto opposite Venus, and they will form a square to the Moon and Chiron in Leo. This means lots of things, but on topic, the way that your sense of security and safety goes and the way that your emotions go is compulsive and attached. And there's this kind of survival mechanism that you have that gets activated whenever safety, happiness, love, intimacy gets engaged.

                        What we're talking about is you don't know how to let go because that threatens your survival on some core level. And whether or not that's technically true, whether or not that's reasonable or logical is completely irrelevant. It's how you fucking feel. So, when I say let go, something in you is just like, "That is the meanest thing you can say. That hurts my feelings. What do I do with that?" because what I'm saying to your survival mechanisms is, "You're not needed here." And the best way to activate your survival mechanisms is to say, "Go away," because they're specifically there to protect you. That's their whole fucking function.

                        So this comes back to your goals. You don't have to do everything at once. You can make the decision to start naming things and organizing, like externally organizing, all of your stresses, which will sometimes spike your anxiety and sometimes soothe your anxiety. It'll be both. And it's important for me to name this for you because there is this part of you that just really wants there to be a single answer, single solution to life's many problems, and that is not a thing. It's super-duper not a thing, and anyone who says to anyone that is a thing is lying to themselves or you.

                        It's about coming to acceptance as a foundational step towards coming to peace, but it's not peace; it's acceptance, which can be restless⁠—coming to acceptance with "Life is imperfect." And you can theoretically have it all, but to have it all at once in your 20s⁠—super unrealistic. Yeah, super unrealistic. And people who seem like they have it all in their 20s, they don't. Nobody does. That's not what the 20s are for. Honestly, it's not what any age is for, but certainly not your 20s. You're still figuring yourself out.

                        And it is important to name you are pre-Saturn Return. Your Saturn Return hasn't happened yet. So, from an astrological standpoint, you're in the adult years of your childhood. You're still in this stage where if you figure⁠—I don't know; is an adult 20, 18, 21? I don't know what we would say. But we're going to agree it's somewhere around 20-ish, right?

Guest:              Uh-huh.

Jessica:            Okay. So that means you have less than ten years' adult lived experience. So cut yourself some slack. Give yourself some grace for not knowing all parts of yourself and being completely well adjusted to a world that is changing so rapidly and is scary. One thing about being post-Saturn Return is that after the Saturn Return, what we can do is we can reference back to our lived experience because we've had enough to be able to pull lots of data.

Pre-Saturn Return, even immediately pre-Saturn Return⁠—because your Saturn Return isn't that far away⁠—we don't yet have those experiences. We're having experiences for the first time, and that is just incredibly stressful. It's like constant pressure. It feels like a constant pressure. So this is not exclusive or specific to you. It's just a global⁠—from my perspective, it's a global reality that can be really soothing to accept.

Guest:                  That sounds like a relief. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Good. Okay. So my question for you is do we stay with this work fear stuff, or do we shift to parenting?

Guest:              I feel like I'd like to shift to parenting.

Jessica:            Great. And I just want to confirm that the question is how to navigate your very real—and also maybe not as much, but mainly very real⁠—fears about the world as a parent. Is that the question?

Guest:              Yeah. That was my question. Honestly, now that feels like not the question.

Jessica:            Hit me with it.

Guest:              But I don't know what the question is. I think I'm just like, "Is this really what parenting is? Is it really this hard?"

Jessica:            Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Guest:              I'm like, am I doing something wrong?

Jessica:            No. It's really this hard.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            It's actually just this hard. I just think that people don't talk about how hard it is as much for a variety of reasons. Some of it is because people get very private about the difficulty. They'll talk about it only in their relationship or within their families. And some people don't talk about it with their partners or in the family. Parenting is really hard, and it's really hard on relationships. It places a completely new, life-altering, earth-shattering, important pressure on a relationship.

And again, people don't talk about this. I don't know why, because I myself am not a parent, so it's easy for me to not know why. If I was queen of the world, I would force people before they decide on purpose to coparent to fill out a questionnaire and have a deep, intense conversation about how you will share time and labor and how you'll communicate about things. It's very difficult. So, that said, you are going through some really rough transits right now.

Guest:              Okay. Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome.

Guest:              I thought I must be.

Jessica:            Yes, you must be. You must be. And to be fair, most people have children when they have really intense transits happening, of course, because having children literally changes your body forever. If you procreate, you have a different body than you did before you procreated. If you have a child, you've literally created a human out of junk, literal junk. You've created a life that grew inside of you⁠—so weird and creepy. I know it's beautiful, but it's also creepy.

Guest:              Oh, totally.

Jessica:            Teeth and bones and such, and that just⁠—it doesn't make any sense to me. Then that child finds a way to rip its way out of your body and is a human person that you have to get to know and make sure that they eat. And you don't get to sleep, but they have to sleep. There's just countless⁠—

Guest:              Right. It's bonkers.

Jessica:            It's bonkers. And then the world treats you differently. You are different in the world. Your values change. All of these things are hard. They're really hard. It is easy as children⁠—because we're all children of someone. It's easy as children to look at our parents and guardians and be like, "Really? You couldn't fucking remember my birthday?" or whatever. But then, when you're a parent, it's like, "Oh my God. What day is it? I don't know."

                        Life is complicated. And so I want to just hold space for⁠—transit schmanzit, astrology whatever⁠—this is hard, and there is nothing wrong with asking for help, finding groups of support, whether it's in your peer group or some anonymous group or a shrink. This is hard. And if you're doing it right, it's really hard. So to give yourself grace for that, I think, is really important. And before I go on, I just want to check in and be like, do you want me to pause for a minute so you have a minute to be in it?

Guest:              I think I may just continue to cry forever.

Jessica:            That's fair. And is it okay cry, or is it⁠—

Guest:              Yeah. It's like⁠—being validated cry.

Jessica:            Yeah. It is my pleasure to validate you. I'm always stunned at how people think that parenting isn't going to be hard. It's very hard.

Guest:              Yeah. No, I didn't think about it.

Jessica:            Oh, didn't⁠—yeah. See, that stuns me. That stuns me every time. I think a lot of people have an idea about parenting that's like an Instagram feed, like a beautiful, well-curated, well-lit Instagram feed. It's literally people pooping and peeing in your face for years. It's no sleep for years. There's so many wonderful things about it, but we have to remember⁠— and we'll get to your transits in just a moment. But we have to remember that through most cultures over most of time until incredibly recently, like within my lifetime, people who gave birth⁠—women⁠—had no choices. So, complain or not, you survive childbirth; keep on moving. That was it.

                        So having conversations about the difficulties around identity and mental health and emotional health and all this stuff as a parent is very new. It's a very new thing, and we're not that far along with it yet. And that's not a personal shortcoming. That is a systemic issue across this culture and, I would say, most cultures. So, again, it's really valuable to validate your lived experience as an individual but to understand the social context because it is then less like, "Oh my God. Why am I the only one?" For sure, you're not the only one, like for sure.

                        So okay. Let's go back to your transits, which are blagh. Okay. Currently⁠—it started in February of 2022⁠—you're in a transit⁠—will last two years. It is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and it is called Neptune square your Ascendant. Neptune is in your second⁠—no, it's not. It is in your third house, the house of communications, and it's forming a square to your Rising sign. This is a great transit if you would like to feel a great deal of anxiety and panic about your identity, your sense of self, and where you fit in with others.

                        This transit is incredibly anxiety-producing for most people. And it is centered around identity, sense of self, and gets played out in your intimate close relationships, so your relationship with your child, with your partner, with your besties, yada, yada, any kind of one-on-one. With massage clients, that is implicated here. And Neptune is destabilizing. It puts you in this position where if you are trying to act in ways that are not authentic, you feel literally exhausted, like you can't function, and really anxious. So you're six months into a two-year transit.

                        I'm glad that your primary ambition wasn't money because that would be a hard one to achieve unless you are making money in a way that felt really authentic. That brings me to the next once-in-a-lifetime transit you're going through, which is Uranus conjoined to your Venus in the fifth house. So, if you're not trying to have another child, I encourage you to enjoy celibacy or [bag it 00:37:18] or do whatever else a person does these days because you are fertile. Are you being careful?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Be real careful because what Uranus conjunct Venus, especially in the fifth house, will do⁠—amongst many other things, it makes your ovulation cycle erratic. And so it's harder to time things.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So yeah. Expect the unexpected. And you don't want a second child, correct?

Guest:              Correct.

Jessica:            Correct. Yeah. And is your partner on board?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Would he snip-snip?

Guest:              I think so, yeah.

Jessica:            I think it's a great time for a conversation.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah, because I imagine that birth control is really rough on you. A hormonal birth control is probably really rough on you, eh?

Guest:              Yeah. I have a non-hormonal form of birth control that so far has been fine.

Jessica:            Great. Okay. So Uranus conjunction to Venus can be a transit that brings about a change in fortune, like where you make money from doing something you haven't done before, where you make money in new ways, where you make new friends⁠—it could mean lots of things. Definitely is a transit that changes your relationship. But in the context of the way you're feeling, Uranus conjunction to Venus makes it really hard to have a small life that doesn't have spontaneity in it. And there's something emotionally and spiritually really big and expansive about being a stay-at-home primary parent, not socially or romantically expansive. It's shrinking in those ways. And again, let's just be honest about it.

                        And so Uranus conjunction to Venus is making you feel pretty shitty about that. As an astrologer, all I think that that means is that it's time for you to step out of the home more or step out of just being Mom more. The problem is Neptune and Uranus are the two planets that govern anxiety. Neptune is "I'm having a panic attack. I don't know what's real or what's not real. Who am I?" Uranus is restless, lack of attention, distraction, anxiety. So, lucky you, you're getting the deuce.

And then Pluto is right now in your first house⁠—again, the place of identity⁠—and opposing your natal Mercury in Cancer. And so your sense of connection with friends radically changed. And that might be as a new parent. That might be in the context of COVID in all the unrest we're going through. It might just be your fucking life. But Pluto opposite Mercury tends to bring up drama and discord in your friendships.

Also, Mercury is your mind, and Pluto is compulsion, survival mechanisms, intensity, trauma, activation. So, if you're feeling all this anxiety about all these other things and then you're already⁠—Mercury in Cancer⁠—a little bit inclined to attach⁠—right? Snip the little pinchers. Okay. This is what happens. Pluto is just like, "Obsess on the thing that feels worst. Obsess on the thing that feels the absolute worst." And then now we're back to the ozone, I'm just saying because it's actually less scary than the things that we're really talking about like school shootings.

Guest:                  Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            So you are being heavily activated at this time, heavily activated. And a lot of it is around your mental health, but that's only the top layer of what's getting activated. What's really being activated is your relationship to agency, to survival, and to being here now. So it's spiritual and emotional foundationally, and then it is kind of the most obvious on the mental health level. This is not exclusively a mental health problem, by a long, long, long shot. This is really deep shit for you.

                        And so, by being willing to have difficult conversations with yourself and the people you trust, by being willing to sit with these fucked-up feelings you're having, that's where your answers will emerge, not by looking for answers, because if you look for answers, that's psychological. You're not going to find them. You're just going to keep circling around the same fucking thing. Instead, it's about being present, choosing to just be focused on the next ten minutes and nothing more than the next ten minutes. In doing that, then you'll feel sad or bad or mad or scared. Okay. For ten minutes, you can feel those feelings.

                        And making something to that effect⁠—and that's not it. I think you can collaborate with people you trust and that you're already working with to create an "it" thing. But by doing this, what you will be able to do is create inner resourcing so that when you're activated, you can check in with the feelings before rushing to the story or to create a story to match why you're activated.

Guest:              Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. So hold on. I see. Let me just make sure I'm seeing this right. Okay. So I want to say this to you, and it feels a little touchy to say, but I'm being shown to say it, so I'm going to say it, and I believe it's true. It is not a rejection of your child to grieve having had a child. Sorry. Yeah. I think that that's part of what's happening here. Yeah. I'm sorry. Do you want to pause, or…

Guest:              It just feels really true.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I know it's really messy and complicated. But I do feel that if more people would give themselves permission to have their feelings, then you could cycle through them. It is a loss. It's also a gain, but it's also a loss. I mean, we all talk about beginnings and beginnings, beginnings, beginnings. Every beginning has an ending. This beginning is beautiful and big and messy and forever⁠—and it's forever. And so you're allowed to have grief because you didn't know⁠—you didn't know, somehow. Either it didn't occur to you or you can't know until you're there.

                        And I think if you give yourself permission to have that grief and to understand that it doesn't actually touch the depth of your love and commitment of your child and it doesn't take away from your earnest choice to parent them and to embrace them throughout the course of their childhood and hopefully their adulthood⁠—and also, you're allowed to grieve. It's both. And the next time that grief comes up, I do want to encourage you to just say "and also." Just, "and also," like, "This is my grief, and also, I have love. But I'm going to be with my grief for now."

                        I gotta tell you, when I look at you energetically, it's like this massive weight was just lifted off of something inside of your body⁠ just to acknowledge that there's grief there. Is that something you talk about with people at all?

Guest:              Not really. I talked about it with my partner recently for the first time, and that felt like a big deal for us.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              But I did not know I was allowed to.

Jessica:            How did he respond? You are allowed to.

Guest:              I think, actually, he brought it up, and he was scared to bring it up.

Jessica:            That he was feeling that way, or that he thought you were feeling that way?

Guest:              Yeah, but he was feeling that way and that it wasn't like a conscious choice we made to bring a kid into the world. It just happened. You know, I mean it didn't just happen; we made it happen, but⁠—

Jessica:            Yes. No, but I know what you mean. You didn't try. You weren't trying.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I think that there is a lot there where I'm like, well, yeah, I didn't think about it. And I think that I'm grieving that a little bit, like I made a choice but I didn't know I was making that choice.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's real. So I think the work here is to give yourself permission to have your feelings and to recognize that when you're at the playground with your kid or when you're playing house or whatever happens⁠—what do kids do these days? Whenever you're on your iPad with your kid, yeah, that's not the best time to dig into the feelings. But there are a lot of hours in the day where it is the best time to get into those feelings.

And it's important to remove the guilt from the emotions because you're entitled to feeling grief. Any parent is. And when you give yourself space to experience the grief, you can recover from the grief. And that just is less shit in your bag when you're moving around the world because right now, not naming it, not exploring it, not allowing yourself to feel it, it gets heavier every day. It just becomes something heavier that you're lugging around with you. The only reason to hide the grief is shame.

And where this grief is interconnected with everything else we've talked about is you didn't make a choice. By not making a choice, you made a huge choice, and it has all these repercussions. And so, now, you're looking around at your life. Get a job. Put them in a school. Don't put them in a school. There's all these choices that you're now painfully aware have all these repercussions, and you don't completely understand what the repercussions are. And you're just so in the process of dealing with that that it's fucking with your ability to make choices.

Guest:                  Yeah. Yeah, I've been having a really hard time making choices⁠—

Jessica:      Making choices.

Guest:                  ⁠—and feeling really paralyzed.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that makes sense, because sure, you got it on with somebody you really love, and you decided to keep your child and move forward with the pregnancy. But it's very different than family planning, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So exploring that, unpacking that, staying with that is going to be really important. And let me tell you this transit of Pluto opposite Mercury only brings up things you're ashamed of. That's its only fucking job. It doesn't bring up things that you're like, "Oh, roller coasters are scary. I'm going to go to the county fair." It's like, "I fear I will die on a roller coaster, and now all of a sudden I have to go." Pluto only brings up terror and shame and grief and abandonment issues. That's it.

                        So you can beat yourself up all you want and that'll be the transit, or you can heal the pain that you already have and that'll be the transit. Either way, it's going to be painful. It's going to be ugly. It's going to be mortifying. It's Pluto. But this can be an opportunity to deeply heal something that is just very human in you. All of this stuff we're talking about is really, really human. And I think parenting is always very hard. I think it's exceptionally hard in such a digital time where it's very hard to keep up with the world and how it's changing, but also, pocket computers are feeding us information about it constantly. Also, it's a very violent time, also kind of a global pandemic.

                        So there's a lot going on, and there's a lot of distractions from you taking care of you. I can understand how much pressure it must be⁠—or I can imagine, rather, how much pressure it must be to be a parent in such deeply concerning times. But the way that you can care for your child and your partnership is by caring for yourself. It's about finding the right balance and proportion, which, again, means doing one thing at a time.

This is a stupid metaphor, but I feel like I'm supposed to say it, so bear with me. It's like if you have a plate, and on your plate there's vegetables and potatoes and tofu and also some sort of delicious condiment where you dip everything in. Okay. You have all those things. Let's say you decide, "I'm going to take a bite, but every bite I take has to have everything on my fork at once." Yeah. It's going to be a messy meal, and you're not going to actually enjoy anything. It's just not going to be great. That's a little bit what you've been doing, right?

Guest:              Yeah. Well, it's really funny because that's actually how I eat. I literally throw all my food together.

Jessica:            Okay. That's why I was like, "This is a weird metaphor, but I feel like I have to use this one on you." And you're like, "Yes, bitch, that's my life story."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. That's not the most effective way of getting all the best flavors, and it makes every meal messier, no?

Guest:              Yeah. Well, I mean, it all tastes the same. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's happening with your fears. All your fears are at a ten because some of your fears are at a ten, but you're scooping them all up into the same spoonful. So separating them will give you more deliciousness on the good stuff, and it'll clarify what's not delicious on the bad stuff. Let me just check back in with your child. Say their full name.

Guest:              [redacted]

Jessica:            Yeah. Luckily, none of this is about them at all. It's really cool.

Guest:              Honestly, I feel like they're fine.

Jessica:            They're great. Yeah. There's nothing wrong here.

Guest:              [crosstalk]

Jessica:            I mean, they're a child, so everything's wrong, but nothing's wrong at all. I mean, literally, bones are growing out of their gums to become teeth. So terrifying. But that's the problem. It's kid stuff. This is all happily your problem⁠—

Guest:              I'm glad.

Jessica:            ⁠—which is so cool. Yeah. To me, as a parent, that's a huge relief. This is just your problem. And it's a big intertwined smoosh of problems, but these are your problems whether you're a parent or not. So it's cool that you're dealing with it now. And your child is so young that you're in a great place to be able to work on this stuff. And even the fact that you're not working outside of the home a whole lot⁠—some of that is really helpful to what you're going through. Some of that, honestly, is just enabling you to be an anxious wreck, but some of it is really helpful. So it's, again, about parsing out what's working and what isn't so you can enjoy what is and tend to what isn't with greater clarity and therefore more effectiveness.

                        So it's been really great meeting you, and I really hope this was helpful. We didn't really get to the part of how do you parent in a dangerous world, but I think that really wasn't the question, right?

Guest:              I think you answered the question that I didn't ask, so I appreciate that.

Jessica:            It is my pleasure.

Guest:              Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate this.

Jessica:            It's so my pleasure.

Guest:              It has been so helpful.

School boards and lawmakers around the country are banning and challenging books at a pace not seen since the 1980s. The American Library Association tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. And librarians have even been threatened with criminal charges and jail time in some places in this country for lending out challenged books. You can contact your representatives about this issue by emailing, calling, or tweeting at them. And above all else, buy banned and challenged books. Support the important work of authors who are being banned or challenged, and in the process, support independent bookstores. My favorite bookstore, Marcus Books, is the oldest independent Black-owned bookstore in the country and has a banned and challenged book list on their website. You can go to marcusbooks.com to see this list and to shop, or visit whatever independent bookstore that you love. Support banned and challenged books and authors today.

The state uses media and technology to silence, surveil, and criminalize marginalized communities. Big tech companies partner with ICE and law enforcement to spy on Trans youth, folks seeking abortions, activists, immigrants, Muslim families, and more. Tech and media don't just shape how we tell our stories; they also determine who is and is not free. MediaJustice is a BIPOC- and Queer-led organization fighting for racial, economic, and gender justice in a digital age. Home of the MediaJustice network made up of more than 70 grassroots partners, MediaJustice fights discrimination, surveillance, algorithmic bias, and dehumanizing narratives alongside communities most impacted by these issues. Support MediaJustice's vision of a world where everyone is connected, represented, and free. Visit mediajustice.org/give today, and follow MJ on social media, @mediajustice, to join our movement.

Something that I absolutely love about having Ghost of a Podcast, this DIY project, is that I get to talk about astrology and spiritual concepts and the world in a really honest way with you all. That's very important to me, and podcasting has provided a platform for me to do that because I don't want to brag, but I hate writing. I do it. I do it, and I like having things written; don't get me wrong. But I'm not a big fan of the process of writing, but I can talk all day long, see? So this is a really special thing for me because I get to share my take on the world from an astrological and spiritual viewpoint in a way that's really honest and authentic to me and to my worldview.

And I'm aware that some people really don't like politics and spirituality and astrology to all kind of be put in the same bucket, but for me, when one's spirituality is divorced from an understanding of and participation within the world, it's honestly just disassociation. And in order to be brave and ethical in our actions, we must stay associated with the world itself. I don't mean 100 percent of the time, and I don't mean when your life is a major crisis, of course. But I mean just as a lifestyle baseline in general. And very importantly, astrology is in fact not just horoscopes or Sun signs. It's not just a resource for understanding when your ex will come back to you. It's not just apps created by AI.

Astrology is a tool for understanding the systems that we live in, the time that we live in, and then what came before us to create the systems and the time that we're living in, as well as to empower us in the present and to show us what's yet to come. To not use astrology, this remarkable resource, to understand the social and political conditions that we are living in is a missed opportunity, in my view. I of course do use it and love using it for personal issues. This is why half of the show is always me giving a reading to someone. I love that. But to imagine that what you're going through as an individual in any part of your life is divorced from the times you are living in, the conditions you were born into, your choices, your circumstances, all this kind of shit⁠—it's just simply not true. It's just not true.

None of us exist in a vacuum, and none of our issues exist in vacuums. Also, my friends, these are exceptional times. And you know I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we are all here for a reason. Each and every one of us is a part of these times. And caring for others⁠—caring for people in your immediate life, caring for your community, people on the planet, plants, the environment, whatever⁠—it's not just about how you feel. Caring is so much about what you do. And I want to do better. I want to learn and unlearn, and I want to evolve. And I know that's exhausting for all of us at least some of the time, and some of us all the time. But I also want the same for each of you. I want us to learn and unlearn and to evolve because that's what we're here for. And that can't happen when we put our heads in the sand. It can't happen when all we do is focus on our individual experience.

Now, bear with me. Bear with me because Pluto Return of the United States⁠—that's one major astrological theme that is impacting us here in the U.S., but also, it is having a major impact on the world and will continue to. But there are other major transits occurring at the same time, and I want to speak to all of this here because the only way that democracy works⁠—and I think it's hard to argue that this is a true democracy, but okay. That's our branding. We're a democracy. And that's, in some ways, I guess, our infrastructure. But I will say this. The only way that democracies work is if masses of people participate in them.

And the truth is less than half of the country votes in midterm elections, and that's where we actually have power. The people that we elect in local elections⁠—that's where we can actually impact change and impact our lives and the lives of the people around us. The midterm elections are really important. I mean, I cannot stress this enough: they are really important. And you want to remember Pluto is in Capricorn. It's in Capricorn. This means we must constructively build things, participate in existing systems. We gotta put our money where our mouths are⁠—Capricorn.

And by following through with our goals within the system, we can actually make a change to the system. That's not the only way of doing things, and TBH, Pluto is not going to stay in Capricorn for much longer. But this Pluto Return that we're in right now is a revolutionary time. It will be, it is, a time of profound transformation to the systems that govern us, that we are living in. And revolution is not good or bad, but it's not chill. And if masses of people do not come together to make sure that the transformations occurring in our societies are humane, then they won't be.

When people hear revolution, they'll often think about violence and breaking things down. But as Logan Grendel said when I was a guest on their podcast recently, most of the work of revolutions is about building. And we need systemic solutions to systemic problems. That's worth repeating. We need systemic solutions to systemic problems. Pluto in Capricorn. Very soon, Pluto will enter into Aquarius. And if we the people do not come together Aquarian style, I fear that technology will rip us apart. And when I say technology, I don't mean technology itself. I'm not talking about AI becoming sentient. I am talking about the way that the system can and has been weaponizing technology against us.

American capitalism is founded on violence. I mean, American society is founded on violence, and it's set up in such a way that it can sustain and absorb a huge amount of cruelty, oppression, and violence. And if you don't think that's true, you haven't been paying attention at all. What we need is to build a different way of being with each other, a different way of living together and engaging in politics and in care for each other through the ups and downs of life. I'm talking about different ways of engaging with the climate crisis and other major societal problems.

I personally am a huge fan of technology. I mean, maybe not the biggest fan of technology, but I'm speaking to you through the beep-boop-beeps, right? This is a very technological situation over here. I recorded this on a computer, and you are listening to this maybe through weird headphones that are not attached to anything, no plugs. I mean, come on, technology is remarkable. But we must use technology to support analog living and not to replace it. And what we're seeing is how technology can be used for spreading propaganda, for corporations and governments tracking our behavior, for essentially limiting our civil liberties and really creating harm.

Uranus is in Taurus. It's in the middle of the sign. It's been here for years, and we have years more of this transit of Uranus in Taurus. And this transit teaches us many things, and one of the things it teaches us is that we need a new kind of security, one that provides authentic safety for all people. And this is because all people have value. We must value each other, even the people you don't necessarily understand or like. It's essential during this particular transit of Uranus in Taurus that we protect the rights, safety, and dignity of women as well as the rights of people of all religions and races and immigration statuses. We need to be protecting Trans people and people with disabilities and people in all economic situations.

I mean we need to have systems that are based on providing and promoting the dignity of people. That's not really what we do here, but it's what we need. That's the revolution that we need. In the past week alone, just since I've recorded the last episode of Ghost, we have seen violence against Queer people from the state⁠—so legislation that's been passed that is violent and oppressive. We've also seen the attempted violent attack from white supremacist terrorists at the Coeur d'Alene gay pride event. Luckily, they were stymied, but I mean, they showed up for serious violence. And terrorists stormed into a drag queen story hour in the East Bay of California.

White supremacist terrorists, or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days⁠—right⁠?—they're activated, they're organized, and they are taking action. Let's not be idealistic, and I know this is very frightening. I'm not trying to scare you. This is just what's happening. This is a heavily armed hate group that is mobilized around taking action. They're organized, and it's important that we're aware of that. It's important that in response to that, we do not stick our head in the sand; we do not just talk to the universe in thoughts and prayers. Those things are important, but that can't be all we do.

We must organize. We must show up for each other and must take care of each other. Sometimes we've got to put ourselves in harm's way in order to do the right thing. Sometimes we need to make a good choice and take ourselves out of harm's way. But it's hard to participate in the world when you don't know what's happening in the world. We need to build coalitions. We need to protect each other. We need to build community that is supportive to each other and to those who are more vulnerable than us, not just to the people who look and pray and fuck and socialize in similar ways to you. We need more empathy. We need more connection. It's very important.

I know this is stressful. I know I'm talking about stressful and scary things that are happening in the world, and I know that these things are terrifying and that so many of you put a lot of effort into not consuming news. And sometimes that's the best possible choice, and sometimes it's just the easiest choice but it's not necessarily the best choice. I just want to say these things are happening whether or not you want to hear about it, whether or not you're aware of it. And with Uranus in Taurus, which is a transit that⁠—like I said, it's going to continue⁠. It's only halfway through. It's going to continue for several more years. We are tasked with innovating new ways of building community and innovating new ways of being there for each other and with each other.

Some of that will be through technology. It already is through technology. But again, we don't want our online connections to replace our IRL connections. What Uranus in Taurus wants in the positive or what it brings about in the positive is new ways of connecting to the things and people that we value and finding new ways of building value in ourselves, in our relationships, in our community, and in the systems that govern us. Here we are in the summertime of Jupiter in Aries, and with all this fiery, jujy energy, it may be very tempting to run through ideas, look for shortcuts, and not get bogged down by unpleasant realities, especially systemic ones that tend to be slower moving in terms of progress, and they can be easily demoralizing if you really get into the details of it. But it would be a serious error in this time.

We are in the Pluto Return of the United States, my friends. It is go time. It is go time. Things are happening very quickly, and they are very serious. And doing nothing is an action. It's empowering the oppressors. That's what doing nothing is. Your feelings are so important. You may know that the whole reason I started Ghost of a Podcast is because I saw this stuff coming, and I am of the belief that the cultivation of emotional maturity is foundational and necessary for doing the right thing in scary situations. I deeply believe that. So I'm very much a fan of your feelings, and I want to support you in having a healthy but also a mature relationship to your feelings.

But our feelings of upset or overwhelm or heartbreak about the mass shootings and the racism and the ableism and the transphobia and all the fucked-up shit that is happening right now⁠—our feelings of upset, when not paired with action, is still doing nothing. The intensity and the depth of your feelings do not equal action in the world. And so this is where most of us have a lot of work to do because if we're not using our emotions and our spirituality as motivation to do the right thing when shit gets real, then what are we doing? What are we doing? Again, the uniqueness, the magic of you being here in this moment at this time⁠—what are the chances? What are the damn chances? But here you are. What are you going to do?

I wish I had answers. I wish I had answers. I don't have answers. I do my best to give you empowering, useful predictions when I do make predictions. The truth is these are fucked-up, rough times, and they're getting more fucked up and rougher. And inevitably, that means we're going to need to have some heavy conversations. We're going to have to confront some scary realities. And that's just something I want to encourage you to think about, talk about with your friends, whatevs, because there are those of us who tend to be hyper-associated. There are those of us who tend to really disassociate. And then there's a lot of people in the middle. And wherever you are in general or at this moment is okay, but it's your starting place. It's your starting place.

So, once we can identify and then accept where we're starting from, from there we can take empowered and effective actions, whatever that looks like for you, whatever that looks like at this moment or at the next moment. Right? Okay. So my rant is almost over, but I want to say, my loves, if you are celebrating Juneteenth, happy fucking Juneteenth. If you are celebrating Pride, happy Pride. Be careful, and look out for the people around you. We need to look out for each other. We need to show up for each other. Right? Okay. Okay. Enough, Jessica. Moving along. Let's get into your horoscope.

We are looking at the astrology of June 19th through the 25th of 2022, and there's not too much going on this week, which is great. Could you use a break? Because I sure could. The first exact transit I want to tell you about is exact on the 20th, and it's Mercury sextile Jupiter. We are now done with the Mercury Retrograde shadow. So, anyways, on the 20th, Mercury, totally direct, is forming an exact sextile to Jupiter. This transit is really good for synthesizing details into a big-picture understanding, being able to kind of make sense of a lot of information, make plans for a long period of time or a big project. This can also just be a transit that's great for socializing, where you reach out to people or you hang out with people in a way⁠—hopefully that's COVID-safe⁠—that is fun and dynamic. Maybe you have some adventures; you take some risks. Mercury sextile to Jupiter is fun. It's just fun, and I feel like you deserve some fun, especially after listening to that whole rant of mine. So yeah. Mercury sextile Jupiter. Get into it.

If there is some sort of organizational thing that you've been needing to deal with and haven't known how to start, this transit won't help you except if what's in your way is you don't have a vision, like you haven't played it out yet. So, if you need to kind of create a vision so that you can next create a plan, then this is a great time for organizing your vision, working out the details of your big-picture goals. Mercury sextile Jupiter.

On the 21st, we have two events to talk about. The first is a Venus trine to Pluto. It is exact at 1:23 a.m., and this is a great transit. Again, no downside. It's a great time for flirting. It's a great time for having energy and vibes with someone, and a relationship that begins under the influence of a Venus trine to Pluto can be really dynamic, really fun, and also deep, which is cool. We can have really meaningful interpersonal connections through this transit. And again, if you're meeting up with someone new, that's especially fortuitous.

This transit basically intensifies your desire and capacity to exchange intimacy and closeness. This can be a time when you're really feeling yourself or you have a really fun crush on someone or you have a really fun flirtation. It's fun. It's just fun. This is not a great time for spending money without consideration because Venus trine Pluto can inspire us to buy luxury in attempts, honestly, to buy happiness, which⁠—not the wisest of all the things in the world. The lucky part⁠— and this might not sound lucky, but it is⁠—is that we're still feeling the Venus square to Saturn that was exact on June 18th. So it's not exact anymore, but we're still definitely feeling that transit.

And that Venus square to Saturn, as much as it is an utter boner killer and really hard on self-esteem and all that kind of stuff, when it overlaps with Venus trine to Pluto, it can help us to invest our money in smart ways instead of buying some ridiculous shit we don't need because it makes us feel good for a minute. It helps us to not just flirt with the sexiest person in the room, but it actually suggests that if you're making a new connection or deepening an existing connection romantically or socially with someone, that might have more roots to it because Saturn is all about roots. It has staying power. And Venus trine Pluto on its own doesn't necessarily. I mean, it's not against staying power, but it doesn't come with staying power. So that's kind of cool, right? I mean, I think it's kind of cool.

And then, finally, the last thing I'll say about this transit is this is a great time for aligning with your values⁠—Venus, right? Talking about all this Earth energy, and again, we still got the Venus/Saturn vibes going. But this is a great time for considering your actions and making sure that they are a reflection of what you care about and that you're following through on things that are important to you. So, again, great transit. Happy to have it. Happy to have it.

Now, the other thing that's happening here on the 21st of June is the Sun moves into Cancer, and you know me. I don't really get into talking about solar seasons because the internet is brimming with this kind of data. Also, I don't tend personally to notice it in a major way. Do you? I mean, a lot of people do. I am not one of those people. But here in the hemisphere that I live in, it is the Summer Solstice. If you're listening in Australia and New Zealand, of course, I think it's your Winter Solstice, right? But the Sun moves into Cancer at exactly 2:14 a.m. Pacific Time, again on June 21st. And this Solstice chart is kind of intense.

In this Solstice chart, in this Sun in Cancer chart where the Sun is at zero degrees Cancer and zero minutes, there's quite a few things going on. One of those things is a Moon/Jupiter conjunction. It's not exact. The Moon is at three degrees, and Jupiter is at six, so it's quite close. And this is a beautiful, beautiful thing because of course the ruling planet to the zodiac sign of Cancer is the Moon, and the Moon being so close to Jupiter, it indicates a lot of emotional joyfulness, resiliency, hopefulness⁠—I won't say luck, per se, but I will say that a positive attitude and an openness to good things happening tends to generate luck⁠. But this is a great, great indicator.

The downside of it is, as I was saying earlier about Jupiter in Aries, it can have us barreling through life not fully checking in with very real, unpleasant things. It can have us taking risks, which can be good or bad. It can also have us just basically being messy. So there's that. Mars and Chiron are still conjoined. Again, they're separated by four degrees. It's not exact, but it is very real. So there are continued articulations of needing to reconcile with our ego, needing to reconcile with our relationship to anger and passion and entitlement, needing to deal with toxic masculinity and violence in the world and potentially in our lives.

These themes are part of this solar season. And so these are important things for you to be aware of, to locate yourself around this Solstice time, keeping in mind that of course the Saturn/Venus square and the Pluto/Venus trine are of course activated in this Summer Solstice chart. But ultimately, when we're talking about Cancer season, when we're talking about the Summer Solstice, what we're talking about is your emotions. It's your emotional maturity or foundations within yourself or foundations within your life. It's how you show up, how you feel, how you connect to others, how you let them in or not.

This is big themes for Cancer season. And the Pluto/Venus/Saturn transits, they're reiterating the themes of security and of safety, which are big themes in kind of a different vibe, but big themes for Cancer and Cancer season in general. This is not a good time for doing that Cancerian thing of grasping on to something because it's familiar, even when it doesn't work for you. It's not a great time for coming at things too sideways, a little crab waddle there. But this is a really important time for tapping into our emotions, for tapping into your heart and your sense of security or safety in this world, maybe even in your body.

And so whatever rituals you do, whatever delicious woo you practice, or religion or whatever it is, make sure that it's a heart-based practice. Make sure to bring that very important part of you, your damn heart, along for the ride. What kind of emotional commitments can you make to others, to the world around you? A little integrated spirituality for you.

Now, there's only one last thing for me to tell you about in the stars this week, and that is on the 22nd, Venus moves into Gemini. And this transit is great, again, for getting out there and socializing. It's a great time for connecting or reconnecting with what you value, and this is because Gemini is adaptable. So you can actually change your mind. You can evolve. You can shift if you find that that's necessary, which is kind of cool. It's a nice little shift in energy from fixed Taurus to mutable, adaptable Gemini. So get out there. Do it safely. Do it with an open heart, but get out there. Make some social connections. Flirt your sweet little buns off. Do what needs to be done.

And that, my friends, is your horoscope for the week. And I will run through the very short list of transits. On the 20th, we have an exact Mercury sextile to Jupiter. On the 21st, we have an exact Venus trine to Pluto, and the Sun moves into Cancer for a Summer Solstice. And on the 22nd, Venus shimmies on into Gemini. And that's it.

As always, if you want to know the transits before they happen and you want to keep track of your own predictions and interpretations, go and subscribe to Astrology For Days. You can subscribe on my website. It's a great tool for actually learning and using astrology, which you know I'm all about that. Also, if you want to learn more, just join me over on Patreon at patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo, always linked in the show notes/caption of the podcast. And on the kittens level every month, I predict the month ahead so you get more of a heads-up on the transits. We also get real woo over there. So, if you're into being woo, join me.

And of course, if this podcast is supportive to you, if you get value from it, if you're learning something that helps you on your path, please consider writing a review or giving it five stars wherever you listen to it, and certainly hitting that Subscribe button. I very deeply appreciate it. And one last thing. Save the damn date. On July 17th, I am offering an AMA, an ask me anything, as a companion to my High Times and Addiction class that I gave back on June 4th. It's available for sale on my website. So, if you already took the class or if you've been thinking about taking it, you can go get the class on my website and then join me for an ask me anything on the topic of substance use and addiction in astrology. Very excited about this. The July 17th AMA will be for sale later this week on my website. So, if you go there and you don't see it yet, just check back in a couple days. It'll be there.

All right, my loves. Stay safe out there, and lead with your heart. I'll talk to you next week. Buh-bye.