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: May, welcome to the podcast. What would you like a reading about?

May: So the question is titled Me vs. Capitalism. "Am I poor because of my own laziness/unwillingness to comply to societal norms/my lack of impulse control, or are my financial issues mostly to blame on capitalism?" I think I'm going to keep it short with that.

Jessica: Sure. That's pretty good. And you were born December 31st, 1994, 11:41 a.m. in city of my heart, Montreal, Quebec. Okay. Your question⁠—of course, I love it because it is like the fucking question, right? But let me kind of dig a little bit before we get to answering.

So you said, "Am I poor because"⁠—da-da-da-da-da. What's poor mean?

May: So I mean that I have very little resources financially. I'm in a lot of debt, and I just⁠—the money I have to spend every month is more than what I make or just exactly the amount I make, basically.

Jessica: Okay. And what do you do for work?

May: So, right now, I'm giving workshops in a free education center. I give the sewing workshops. And it's a part-time job, so I do 15 hours a week. And yeah, it pays okay, but it's⁠—yeah, it's not enough hours for sure.

Jessica: Yeah. 15 hours a week with okay pay is a part⁠—yeah. It's not it. And then, if I had a magic wand⁠—which I do not, but if I did, what would you like to be doing for work?

May: Well, I always said if I had a magic wand, I would probably be paid to just do what I want to do.

Jessica: Which is?

May: Right now, I'm obsessed with ceramics and sculpting, so I spend many hours working with clay and just making stuff. I guess that, but I also⁠—I really like organizing things. And I was thinking, if someone gives me a bin full of beads that I need to sort and then I can just be paid to sort through little mounds of junk, I can just, yeah, make sense of it for someone.

Jessica: Okay. Do you want to be self-employed, or do you like clocking in/clocking out?

May: Well, this is one of the problems I'm having because, yeah, I'm in this big reflection about what I want to do and what kind of work I like to do because last year, I had this part-time job, and then I also had money from a grant. And I was doing this project. But then⁠—I was supposed to work on it, but sometimes I just lack the self-motivation or⁠—I don't know what it was, but I think that project⁠—I just didn't care enough for it. So I was not working on it, which then⁠—I just feel like I can't trust myself to be self-employed because I'm like⁠—I might just lose all focus and then drift away and become a lump, which happens.

Jessica: Okay. So there's a lot of things I want to say, but I have to start at the beginning, which is to say there's nothing in your chart that even remotely suggests laziness. You're not a lazy person at all. And some people will say that laziness is a myth perpetrated by capitalism. I actually don't completely believe that, because I'm an astrologer, and there are some aspects that make us more lazy or more self-indulgent. And I don't think laziness is evil. That's capitalism for you. But I mean, sometimes⁠—I mean, I've been lazy. You've been lazy. We know what laziness is.

Okay. But you don't have a lazy chart. Literally, you have a Capricorn stellium⁠. Midheaven, Sun, Mercury, Neptune, Uranus⁠—Capricorn. You've got a T-square including Saturn and Mars. Your Venus, the most self-indulgent and lazy planet of the zodiac, is conjunct Pluto. I mean, none of this is lazy. So I want to start by disavowing you of that.

Before I go forth, money. Do you care about money?

May: So, yeah, actually. There was a part of my question, original question, that I think is pretty funny because I say I hate money. I'm in anti-capitalist. I hate the work⁠—just the entity of work or whatever. But also, I love money because I love having things. I love buying food for my friends and going on trips and getting clothes from the thrift store. And it's like⁠—I don't know. I'm a punk. I recycle. I thrift. I whatever. I upcycle. But I still⁠—I love money because I love the access and the freedom that comes with it.

Jessica: The irony is living in a really anti-capitalist way takes a lot of money. If you really want to feed the farmer and the person who makes the clothes and you want to support all the artisan ways that people can and should live, you have to pay a shit ton of money to do it. Right?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: It's fucking ironic. And so listen. There's a lot of mixed-up stuff. We're going to dive in in a minute, but before we do, I will say Venus/Pluto conjunction loves high-quality things, loves high-quality things. You want to take your friends to a good restaurant. You want to not just get glaze for the pottery you're making; you want to get the right glaze. You want the quality thing.

I always think with a Venus/Pluto conjunction, you're going to be somebody who's going to have a harder time wearing polyester. You don't want to wear plastic clothes. You want to wear a natural fiber. Is that true?

May: It's so true. I've never thought about my Venus/Pluto conjunction. As much as I obsessed over my chart, it's so funny. It's been, like⁠—since I was 17, I'm obsessed over my chart and never thought about this.

Jessica: That's B-A-N-A-N-A-S⁠—that spells bananas⁠—slash, Venus is related to our personal finances, right? And pop astrology focuses on romance and relationships, and for sure, yeah. But Venus is about your relationship to money, to what you own. It's to your liquid resources. And having a Venus/Pluto conjunction means you want all the money and all the things, and you don't necessarily want to do the things that will make you feel trapped in order to get it.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: So that Venus/Pluto conjunction gives you a really intense appreciation of quality items. Let's just say that. And people with this placement can sometimes be super materialistic. Right? Now, it doesn't sound like you're materialistic, but you literally want to create material things. That's your happy place, is creating more stuff for the world.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Now, let's talk about anti-capitalism for a minute. When I'm looking for anti-capitalism, values around it⁠—I mean, I think we should all be anti-capitalists because of the basic humanity behind it. But I'm looking for Neptune. So, as an astrologer, I'm scanning for Neptune. You're part of that generation born in 1994 where Neptune and Uranus are sitting on top of each other, which gives you intense generational lived experience about how unpredictable the system is and how unreliable the system is.

But on top of it, you've got Mercury sitting right there. So that gives you the ideological structure of⁠—basically like an anti-capitalist, nonbinary worldview. Also, you've got a Sun/Midheaven conjunction in Capricorn. So that doesn't mean you're supposed to have a big career. A lot of people are like, "I don't know how to Capricorn right because I don't care about career." It's such a limited, kind of capitalistic view of what Capricorn is.

The way I see it, Capricorn energies are, at least ideally speaking, Mary Poppins. She's wearing a corset. She has an umbrella. She's magical. But she helps people heal their relationships to patriarchy, essentially. That's what the movie's about. The zodiac sign of Capricorn is not a goat. It's not symbolized by a goat. For some reason, people say it's a goat. It's a sea goat. It's a mythical creature. It is a creature that does not exist and is half very land-oriented, eats all the trash, climbs all the mountains, and half fucking mermaid tail.

May: Very relatable.

Jessica: Very relatable. Very relatable. For you, having the Sun/Midheaven conjunction in Capricorn is both the ability but also the challenge to organize the direction of your life in such a way that it reflects both your material but also your spiritual needs. So the spiritual is that fishtail. And I think, for you, some of that means figuring out how to create a work life that feeds you, not just materially, but it makes sense to you; it feels like you're building something for the world, which is a real bummer because of all the things you already know.

May: It's impossible. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. It's not impossible. That's the good news. It's not impossible. It's fucking hard. There's a difference.

May: True.

Jessica: And so I want to just ground you into bringing more awareness to the way you verbalize it to yourself. By saying it's impossible, you're validating the feeling and the collective conditions that are all true and real, but they're not the only truth and not the only reality.

May: Yeah. I'm really defeatist⁠, or just I have a very good shutdown tactic where I just get extremely discouraged, and I just give up.

Jessica: Yeah.

May: Yeah. I'm like, "Well, fuck it. It's doomed. The world is ending, and it's impossible, and I can't do it." And it's like⁠—yeah.

Jessica: I mean, I'm your guy. I agree. I mean, I'm not going to tell you that we're not all doomed. I mean, I⁠—you know. Obviously, I'm not the one who's going to say that. But if you're here for some fucking weird reason in this meat suit at this moment, you might as well make the best of it because if not, you're the one that suffers for it. Plus, also, you do have a lot to offer.

And so, by kind of overindulging in the defeatist parts of you⁠—because I think it's important to indulge in defeatism, actually, because it's real. I mean, I'm not going to tell you to look at the world and be like, "Nothing but open skies." That's obviously not the case. But when we overindulge in it without balance, then what happens is, unintentionally, you end up robbing the world of what you're capable of offering it.

I'm mixed. I'm mixed. Part of me wants to go straight to your chart, but say your full name out loud for me.

May: Yeah. It's [redacted].

Jessica: So the first thing we need to talk about is your grief, just your grief over the world and now hard this is. And you just have a lot of grief around this topic, and that's what's underneath your defeatism. And it is⁠—do you have an altar?

May: Yeah. Sorry.

Jessica: No, it's okay. It's all right.

May: So, yeah, I do have an altar. I have an altar with my grandmother's⁠—sorry.

Jessica: It's okay.

May: I guess I have a few places that I use as altars around the house.

Jessica: Good.

May: But that's the main one, although it's like I don't take care of it as much as I would like. I used to be more intentional and have flowers and arrange things every other day or every other week and change with the seasons, and I don't know. It just kind of⁠—my spiritual life has really just been⁠—how do you say that? Falling.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. It's tanking. Yeah. Yeah. Tanking.

May: Tanking.

Jessica: Okay. I'm going to give you homework, okay? You're going to create an⁠—you're a ceramicist, so you can create this, okay? You're going to create an item for a brand-new altar. This altar is either going to be at eye level or just above eye level, okay? And you're going to create some sort of vessel, like a bowl or something, kind of a tall bowl. And it's going to have holes in it. Do you take direction? I don't know. We're going to find out. You don't have to do this. This is what's coming up, so I'm just going to tell it to you. Okay?

May: I'm very interested.

Jessica: Okay.

May: I just⁠—I don't know if I should take notes or listen because I can't do both.

Jessica: You're going to have the recording.

May: Exactly. Okay.

Jessica: So you don't need to take notes unless you want to sketch while we talk or whatever. But be in the feels. So what this is going to be⁠—it's going to be like this size, right? It's going to be kind of this big thing, and it's going to have holes in it. It's going to have holes in it. Why are you having holes in it? To let the fucking light in. That's why, to have a container that allows light in. And these holes aren't letting your light out. They're bringing in the light. They're receiving the light around you⁠—intention. Okay?

What this is going to be is a container in which you acknowledge and hold space for your grief. So you're going to just take little pieces of paper and write⁠—every time you're like, "Fucking late-stage capitalism," or like, "Fuck my credit card bill," or whatever it is, write down the feeling. Write down the thought and throw it in the container. And then, maybe once every Full Moon, you empty that shit out on your bed and you look at it. And if there are pieces that you're like, "Oh yeah. I can let this go. I don't resonate with this," you get a black Sharpie. You black it out. And then, over your bathtub or something very fire-safe, burn it.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Don't start a fire, I beg of you. Burn it. Okay? And then this is an ongoing process. And the reason why this will work for you is a couple reasons. One is you're good at building material things. We'll get into that a little bit more soon. But you making a vessel for your own grief will be a balm in itself. It'll be healing in itself. That's one thing.

The next thing is that because there's no structure to your grief, it permeates. And what this does is it gives you a structured dynamic for interacting with your grief so that you can check in with, "You know what? Every fucking piece of paper in here, I'm 100 percent agreed with it. This Full Moon, next Full Moon, 100 Full Moons⁠—I'm still fucking upset." Okay. That's greater awareness.

And when and if you get sick of that, you may or may not choose to make changes. But it's a lot harder to make changes when you're swimming in emotion than when you have an objective way of interacting with your emotions, right? So you're swimming in them, plus you're creating a space where you can name them so you don't have to track them. Name and release, and then to pick them up and say, "Is this still real for me?" And if it's not real, you let it go. And if it's real, you keep it in.

This'll help. It'll make you feel a little more sense of control. Here's the thing. You have an intercepted T-square. You have Saturn in Pisces intercepted the twelfth house. You've got Mars in Virgo intercepted the sixth house. They're opposite each other, and they're all square to Jupiter. So Jupiter is the focal planet to your T-square. Are you aware of this T-square already?

May: Yeah, I am. I have been told about it. I think about it often, for some reason. But I don't think I've integrated much about it, yeah, other than there's something wrong, or [crosstalk 00:16:28], but⁠—yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So it's not exactly that there's something wrong. What it is is that the Saturn/Mars opposition is like, "I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. Fuck. I don't know. I don't know if I can do anything. Should I do anything? I don't know." Saturn creates a sense of obligation⁠—should, should, should, should. And Mars is really motivated to do shit but hates feeling just penned in and cornered. So there's this⁠—yeah. Your eye roll says it all.

And then Saturn square to Jupiter is like, "How much is enough? How much is not enough?" And Mars is like, "More, more, more, more, more, more." Never enough.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: And so the issue of proportion is a big one for you. Right? And this is not technically, necessarily, about money. But it is about work. It is about your relationship to work. And this is going to be super annoying, what I'm going to tell you here. But I don't know. I look at your chart, and I think you could have a really happy work life because⁠—

May: Well, that's good.

Jessica: Okay. Good. Good. I mean, it's just not where you are right now. But you actually really like working.

May: Yes.

Jessica: For somebody who's like, "Am I just lazy?" you actually really like working.

May: That's true.

Jessica: Yeah.

May: Yeah. And⁠—okay. So the few times in my life⁠—I have tried doing full-time work, but then every time⁠—so I had the severe carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my hands for years. And then the first job I tried doing, it was heavy construction stuff, like working with wood, lifting whole sheets of plywood on my own. I'm 5'4". I have small hands. I'm strong, but there's things that are ergonomically not good for my body.

Jessica: Yes. Yes.

May: And I forced it so much. And I just, yeah, tried a bunch of times, and it was always these very physical jobs. And I was like, "I gotta prove I'm strong and I'm like those dudes, and I can lift this thing," and whatever. And yeah, and my hands were absolutely not⁠—like, stopped working. I had to get surgery.

Jessica: I'm so sorry.

May: So it was just like⁠—yeah. It was a big problem for years, and then I found this job that I'm doing now. And it was good for the first year, but now this year, I am so⁠—when I can't do something anymore and I force it, I feel horrible I'm there. I don't care about sewing anymore. I'm just going to the workshops, no patience. But I'm still good at helping the people that come to the workshop, but I don't know⁠—the heart is not in it.

And it's kind of like an anarchist organization, so we have meetings every week where we talk about all the boring things that we have to decide. And it's like, how much are we going to pay for the parking people or for the snow plowing? And I'm like, "I don't care. Why am I in this room?"

Jessica: Okay.

May: Yeah. Anyways...

Jessica: I have a crazy question.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Have you ever considered becoming a professional organizer?

May: I thought about it this winter, but then I have no idea how that shit works. I googled and looked on Indeed, but then I couldn't find anything. But yeah, it could be fun, I think.

Jessica: Here's the way I like to think about things like this. You reverse engineer. So, instead of looking on Indeed or fucking LinkedIn or whatever ridiculous bullshit that we have to look through these days, go the opposite way. Pretend that you are a person who has the budget to hire someone to organize your home or business. And start looking for somebody to hire.

Then you find them, and then you can figure out⁠—maybe you reach out to them and say, "Hey, do you ever do informational interviews?" or you look at the credentials they're claiming, and then you can look into that, right? Because there's a couple things here. One is that Saturn/Mars opposition makes you really good at meticulous things. You're really good⁠—you mentioned organizing beads. Okay. Yes. But I actually think you would be really good at going through people's closets.

May: Oh yeah. I love [indiscernible 00:21:00].

Jessica: You're really good at⁠—you would be good at working with hoarders. You would be really good at helping people work through how to sort and prioritize what they need and what is and isn't working for them⁠—fucking Capricorn stellium. You're welcome. You would be really good at this. Now, generally speaking, the people who can afford this are wealthy, right?

May: Yes.

Jessica: So you have class issues, and that would kind of burn you a little bit.

May: Also, the way I look⁠—I get really weirded out because I'm like, "Oh, maybe they'll see me and see my face tattoos, and they'll be like, 'No.'"

Jessica: Maybe. Absolutely maybe.

May: I don't know.

Jessica: Yeah. Maybe. And also, maybe not. I mean, that's the thing is there's lots of evidence of people who look very alternative who can dress for the part and make money. I mean, that is a real thing. It might block you, and it might not. But because you have a Sun/Midheaven conjunction and because you have Jupiter as the focal planet to a T-square, I'm willing to guess you could make money and have a big career. You don't have to.

May: Like in general, or in⁠—

Jessica: Yep.

May: ⁠—organizing? Okay.

Jessica: Yep. In general, but specifically organizing, because you have a sixth/twelfth-house opposition between Saturn and Mars. So the things that are kind of favored by that are organizing, coaching, and any kind of⁠—I can see why you went towards manual labor, like carpentry. Saturn is a carpenter. You could also work with⁠—I mean, I wouldn't recommend that you work with electricity, because you have a Uranus/Mercury conjunction with Neptune in the middle⁠—but that kind of stuff.

It's all in your wheelhouse to do things that takes a meticulousness and is incredibly boring to a lot of people. All these things sound exciting, but the reality is it's a lot of fucking repetition. And you're actually good at things that require a lot of repetition, until you're not and you get really bored, which is why doing something like teaching the same class semester after semester doesn't work for you.

But having clients⁠—that means it's constantly a different challenge, right? And that actually does have the potential of working for you, especially if you were able to have some really high-paying clients⁠—so rich people⁠—and then work pro bono for some people, maybe, who are hoarders or who really just need to turn their life around or whatever the thing is.

If you had the ability to have different services at different tiers so that you have radically different experiences of the kind of people you're working with, it would work with your anti-capitalist structure, and it would work for your T-square so that you wouldn't get too bored of any one kind of person. So I'm just going to throw that at you, and you can play with it or not.

But I'm going to say this before we go any further. Nobody's going to tell you what to do for work in a way that's going to work unless you first acknowledge and make some space for your grief because your grief is very in the way. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have the grief, and I'm not saying you have to heal the grief, to be clear.

Say your full name out loud. Say your given name and your mother's maiden last name and then your last name for me.

May: [redacted].

Jessica: Does your mom work?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: What does she do?

May: She's in HR at the university.

Jessica: Uh-huh. Kind of an institutional vibe?

May: Yeah. She has an office job. She's had one since⁠—yeah, pretty much always. Well, she was a stay-at-home mom, and then she worked in a community center, and then, yeah, she started working in admin and stuff.

Jessica: When did she start working? How old were you?

May: I think I was may be 10 or 11. Yeah, so I would go see her at work.

Jessica: And did your parents stay together throughout your childhood?

May: I guess they split up when I was 14.

Jessica: Okay. So she started working right before then, right before they split up?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: This interception in your birth chart⁠—it does speak to your mom really⁠—I think she saw the writing on the wall, and so she was like, "I need to get a job because this might not last," is what it looks like in your birth chart. And it shows up in your birth chart as this kind of frustration and deflation around what labor is valued and what labor is not valued. And it's not just ideological for you. It's visceral, and it's epigenetic. I do see that that is an issue for your mom as well. I mean, she's a radically different kind of person than you, and she's made different choices. But this is a feeling she has as well.

May: Yeah. She's voiced the frustration with the division of labor with my dad and how he would devalue a lot, like her work with us and just in the house in general, and just⁠—and even at her job now, she was doing a lot of things, like a lot of her work that her colleagues were not appreciating, like cleaning the kitchen, restocking the fucking coffee, things like that. And she was so sick of it, she changed departments. And I think it's better now, but yeah.

Jessica: This is the thing. It's like your mother experienced it, and you experienced it. This is how it's written in your chart, right? And this thing of experiencing both real upset and maybe even trauma and having grief around the fact that there are so many things that you are good at, that you love to do, that are not valued in society. And she had that experience as well, and there is just fucking grief about that.

And what I'm saying is that by allowing yourself to feel sad and to have grief about it, what you're doing is you're supporting yourself. You're making space for yourself, and you're being kind to yourself. Now, I'm not encouraging you to overindulge, but I would actually say that by listening to yourself and allowing yourself to have these feelings based on very real struggles, it's almost like you are creating an internal structure that leaves space for something else to emerge.

And this brings me back to you. Your original question⁠—your question was⁠—say it again. It was, like, "Am I lazy, or is capitalism terrible?" What was the question again? Remind me. Remind me.

May: Well, basically, is it my fault if I don't have enough money or if I don't make a lot of money, or is it capitalism?

Jessica: Fault. Fault. I mean, it's such a saturnine question you asked, right?

May: Yes.

Jessica: "Is it my fault or their fault?" It's nobody's fault/also capitalism's fault, obviously. Also, do you want to make more money?

May: Yeah, I do.

Jessica: How much money do you want to make a year? What's the number?

May: Oh God.

Jessica: Yeah.

May: It's funny because I said yes, but I think the real answer is that I don't want to make more money. I wish that things⁠—that I didn't need to have money.

Jessica: Yeah. That's why I asked you to put a number on it, because I was like, "That's not a real answer you're giving me here."

May: Oh. And it's like I could make⁠—I don't know⁠—100K a year, and I would still be sad at having to pay for shit. I'm just bitter when I have to pay for groceries or pay for basic stuff, like electricity. I don't know.

Jessica: All right. Let's ground it. I'm going to come back to, if I could wave a magic wand and give you an annual income, how much money do you think you would need to live where you live in a way that would allow you to feel ease, maybe spend money in a way that better reflects your values⁠—that kind of shit?

May: I would probably need at least 50,000 a year.

Jessica: Was 50,000 the number? You don't know?

May: Yeah, I don't know.

Jessica: Okay. Great. That's another bit of homework for you because in the world of woo, it is not possible to manifest something that you cannot first visualize. So what you have is clarity about your pain and your problem without clarity about the fix or solution. So okay. Start doing numbers. I know you can do math. I am looking at your chart. But you can, right?

May: Yeah. I'm really good at math. I just⁠—when it's money, I⁠—I don't know. I get so stressed immediately. I barely look at my numbers. The one time I added all my expenses, I wanted to cry. So I was like, "Oh"⁠—you know.

Jessica: You have a lot of energy behind the problem. But you don't have very much at all energy around the solution. And so being frustrated, demoralized, or resentful about capitalism⁠—easy. Check. Yes. But you suffering under the system doesn't make you a more integrous person, and it doesn't make the system better.

What I'm going to challenge you to do is a couple things. First, find out the fucking numbers. You know what I mean? You might save 50,000 and then look at your debt and look at your cost of living and look at organic produce and be like, "Actually, that number is 80"⁠—or not. You might look at it and actually be like, "The number is 40." I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's about clarity. It's not about right and wrong.

May: I'm still thinking about the⁠—there's a lot of energy behind the problem and not the solution. I mean, I made a list of potential solutions to my money proble- ⁠— or just what I want to do to have more money. But I think it's like I write the list, and then I'm scared and I just go away, and then I go ruminate or I distract myself and work on something tangible that I can control and that I⁠—

Jessica: Yeah.

May: Yeah. And I just, like⁠—

Jessica: So what you're doing is you're going from the problem to a fix.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: And you're skipping a really important step. And that really important step is understanding what a solution is. You don't know. You're looking for a fix, but you're throwing darts with blindfold on. You know what I mean? You don't know. You have clarity about, like, "I don't have enough money. I'm struggling." But you don't have clarity about what enough money means to you.

May: Very true. Yeah.

Jessica: And that's an energy gap. That's a hole in the beautiful vase of your money issues where energy is escaping you instead of sunlight coming in. When we refer to sunlight coming in, what we're talking about is awareness. And so, unfortunately, what I'm recommending that you do is get clear about the reality that would be your best-case scenario, not your fantasy scenario, but your best-case scenario to live your life in a way that you want to live it. Easier said than done, obviously.

This is not a practice for developing an answer. It's a practice for clarifying what you would want an answer to achieve. So, in other words, you know the problem is your rent is x amount of dollars. Your bills are this amount of dollars. Your debt is that amount of dollars. You know these things really clearly, right? Okay. If I could give you three years of annual income, you would pull a number out of your ass. You have no idea what you would ask for.

May: That makes me think of⁠—I'm trying to write a grant proposal, and every time I go to the budget, I'm like, "Uh, 50,000." I don't fucking know.

Jessica: Yeah. You're just making it up.

May: Yes. And I'm like, do people really know? I'm always confused about how to calculate that shit.

Jessica: So you don't have to know. It's not like there's a right or wrong. But what you want to do is have it be somewhat educated. So educated would be based on your cost of living, your existing debts, and then what you would like to get paid. So, if you're getting a grant, ideally, you're not going to be paid minimum wage to do what you want to do. Right? Ideally, you're going to get paid better.

But if you're going into the Universe and saying, "Universe, please grant me a chunk of cash," and you're asking the Universe to grant you minimum wage, which is not humane or equitable, then that's a reflection that you have a little bit more material investigation to do.

May: Yeah. That work is so hard to do because every time I try to think about what I'm worth, it's a big trigger for me. I'm just like, "I'm worthless. No one should pay me anything." It's like when I try to sell⁠—I do market sometimes, and I try to sell things. And I'm like, "Oh, this is too much money. I know I spent ten hours on this thing, but really, I can't charge that much." And it's just like⁠—ahh.

Jessica: This is where your Saturn/Mars opposition comes in, right? Also your Mercury/Neptune conjunction. Don't think about what you're worth. Instead, think about what's market value. When you are annoyed paying your energy bill or buying groceries, somebody's creating a market value, and you have no choice but to pay it. That's the way to think of it.

Depersonalize it a little bit because what's happening is you have all this grief and all this sadness and all these mixed feelings, and then when it comes for somebody to be like, "How much is that mug that you beautifully made?" you're like, "Oh God. I can't. I can't," instead of looking around and being like, "Okay. I am seeing⁠—I know a dozen sellers who sell mugs, and they're creators who live in this area. And the average price is $15 a mug. Okay. I'm going to go with the median price."

And then it might shift. If you're getting $15 for a mug, then you might not spend six hours on the fucking mug because that's not going to be an equitable exchange. And you might make for your bestie or for yourself a six-hour mug that should cost like $300 or whatever the fuck it is. But if you're going to a market, you're going to maybe set the intention that that 15-dollar mug is two hours of your time or whatever. I mean, you're not getting paid minimum wage for that.

So it's about looking at market value. This is why I'm encouraging you, my very Capricorn friend, to get material facts, because then it's not personal, which is what fucks you up.

May: It really does. Yeah.

Jessica: It really does. And I think most of us struggle with, "What do I deserve?" And it's not the right way of asking the question. I mean, I guess there's a time where that's the right way of asking the question, but I wouldn't say that this is that time. Does that make sense?

May: Yeah, I guess so, because it's just like I have a product, and I have to sell it, and that's it.

Jessica: And there's a market value for the product. And you might look around and be like, "All these here motherfuckers have made the similar mug, but their mugs are significantly less cute than mine." You can make yours more expensive.

So I want us to stay as focused as possible in a way that helps. So I want to just stop talking for a minute and take a moment and see if I'm answering the question, if I'm giving you the advice you're looking for, if you have any other questions.

May: I think I'm feeling like I keep wanting someone to just tell me what to do, you know?

Jessica: Yeah. I'm feeling that from you. You're looking for the answer.

May: Yeah. I'm like, "Okay. Yeah. I have grief, but what do I need to do next? Just tell me what the right thing is."

Jessica: Yeah. What's the answer?

May: Yeah, what the answer is, and yeah. But also, when you say grief, I guess I know I have a lot of grief, but for me, I just call it depression, I guess, or I just say, "Oh, I'm a depressive person." But is this grief⁠? Yeah. And I think I've disempowered myself a little bit where I'm like, "This is just how I am," and I'm just like a gloomy, sad, shut-down person.

Jessica: Listen. You can be gloomy and depressive, sure, and have grief⁠—both. And that doesn't mean anything about your ability to make money or make good financial decisions. Okay. You said something earlier that I think is really important. You said, "I just don't want it to be real. I just don't want to deal with it." Right? You're like, "I just don't want capitalism to be a thing." If I could wave a magic wand, you wouldn't want me to give you money. You would want me to end capitalism.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: That's really what you want. And so, to that, I say it's actually not one of your options. That was a very Capricorn asshole thing to say. I apologize. But it isn't one of our options. It might be one day. Maybe you're an activist, and you're working to make that happen. But generally speaking, that's not one of your options, which is why I'm being a total boner killer and I'm saying figure out what your expenses are and what the number is.

I'm going to give you another piece of homework. Look for three people who you believe have enough money and aren't doing terrible things to get it, people who you believe are able to live within capitalism in a way that reflects integrity as you would like to embody it. Three models of behavior. One of them can be fictional, but two of them have to be real.

May: Like people that I know, or⁠—

Jessica: People.

May: Because I have this problem where I look online, and I assume things about people. But then I don't know if that's very helpful if I choose someone from the internet.

Jessica: So, if it's not a person who you know, this is what's tricky because when we're talking about capitalism and navigating class, where you come from matters. One's access to financial resources through inheritance or through parents or whatever⁠—that's really relevant. Let's not pretend it's not.

And so I would say, for this homework, it has to be people where you have a sense of knowledge, not assumption, about, "Okay"⁠—because you don't come from money, right?

May: No.

Jessica: No. No. Yeah. I got that. Okay.

May: I almost want to say yes, but I don't think so. I think my view of what money is is so skewed. I was middle class, but we're not rich.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. Do you have access⁠—if you can't pay your rent some months, do your parents help you pay it?

May: I mean, they've helped me out a few times, but yeah, it's not really⁠—

Jessica: Not consistently. Okay. So it's not like it's always there, but it's there a little bit.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Middle class. That sounds like middle class to me. So you would want to be looking into people who are from a middle-class background around your age group because I'm gen X, and I grew up in a different time. You know what I mean? When I was your age, it was like the economy was different. The world was different. You know?

So somebody, ideally, who's close to your age, maybe somebody who's my age. It doesn't fucking matter. The point is somebody who's from a similar class background, right? We're not talking about learning from how an heiress does it, because you can't relate. It's not relevant to you.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: I want to encourage you to not find people to emulate but to have evidence that it's possible, that it's just possible, because you have so much evidence⁠—you're so fixated on the evidence of how it's not possible. And I want to ground you into what is possible because this is the thing about astrology. We can see possibility and probability. And I want to get you⁠—because you already know what the probabilities are. You're like, "Oh, I'm depressed, bummed. I can't make money. Capitalism is evil."

Agreed. Again, I'm not disagreeing with any of this. There are possibilities here. Your chart is teeming with possibility. So you don't have to do anything about it. Also, you wrote me because you want to do something about it, even though you don't want to do something about it. It's allowed to be messy. You know what I mean? It's allowed to be messy.

So, again, more people who can model for you an anti-capitalist way of thriving. It's possible.

May: I guess so. I'm trying to think. I'm like, "Who do I know?" But I think I might know a few people, actually, like some other artists that are my age. But yeah.

Jessica: Let me tell you something. I have anti-capitalist values myself. And anti-capitalism is a very big umbrella, right? It's an umbrella term that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I've never been an anarchist myself. But I make good money now, and as a result, I give away free readings every single week. Before I made good money, I could not do that. It was not an option for me. I couldn't do it materially, and also, it would just lend to burnout in such an intense way.

So it's about the economy of your energy as well as actual income, like dollars and cents. There is a way that having more financial fluidity can allow you to do things that are more consistent with anticapitalism. Does that make sense, what I'm trying to say?

May: Yeah. Sorry. It's a lot to process.

Jessica: Yeah. It's your process. Yeah. Yeah. Take your time to process.

May: Well, I guess⁠—because the way I think about it is more like if I make more money, then I can align with my values better because now I'm thinking about the everyday stuff that I find difficult that I wish I could pay people to do for me so that it freed up all this time. Cleaning is annoying. Cooking is a chore. And then, yeah, I have my dog, who⁠—now, when I look at jobs, I'm always like, "Oh, what about him? I can't leave him alone at home." But then, if I made more money, then I could pay for someone to watch him.

Jessica: Yes, a little dog walker. So that isn't just about paying people to do things that are hard for you. It's also about paying people. It's about paying people who work outside of corporate Canada or whatever, who don't live in corporate world, people who are self-employed and independent. So it, to me, resonates with an anti-capitalist value system because it's like feeding individuals within the economy instead of feeding the big corporations. So it does take a certain amount of money to be able to do all that shit.

So, if your ambition, if you really think about it, is you want to be able to maybe eat organic foods and shop at the smaller market, not the big market⁠—you want to be able to pay somebody, like a delightful butch, to come and walk your dog, right? Right. I see you.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: I see you. You want to pay for food⁠—

May: Pay the Queers for everything.

Jessica: Yeah. Pay the Queers for everything. Exactly. Okay. So you want to be able to do all that shit. Your job is to figure out how much money you're making a year in order to afford all that. My guess is it's more than 50.

May: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. So you can see how if you limit your dreams, it gets harder to achieve these as goals. And you don't need to figure out how you're going to make money, actually, because somehow you make exactly enough money to live⁠—sometimes under, but on average, you seem to be averaging out. Is that correct?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah.

May: Yeah. It's a weird thing. Over the years, whatever I decide to do, I always end up okay, and it's not because my parents are saving me. It's just like, somehow, I'll get the exact amount.

Jessica: Correct. Correct. So what that tells you is super annoying. It tells you that your goal is to have just barely enough to survive, and you're really good at manifesting that.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: If you changed your goal, you might get more.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: And I think that it's very easy to look around and to associate money and people who have money with all kinds of terrible things. That's not the only way to look at the world. It's not the only truth that there is, and it's not the only way to be. And if you look at your own life so far and you see all the things that you've done differently than other people⁠—so, technically, you have a job. They have a job. You've done it differently. Right? Why couldn't you do this differently? It can be done. It has been done. You would not be the first. So why not you?

It's not about being special. It's just about making it your goal. And right now, your goals are "Keep my head above water." What I'm interested in is, can you start to work on having goals around⁠—I don't know⁠—a nice eco floatie that is made by somebody you know and think is really rad and isn't bad for the environment, and you get to just ride the waves on it? Could that be an option is what I'm saying.

May: [indiscernible 00:46:39] for me?

Jessica: No, no, no. No, no. That was a⁠—

May: I was like, I would die out there.

Jessica: What I mean⁠ is you're keeping your head above water, and what I'm saying is⁠—

May: Oh, right.

Jessica: ⁠—couldn't you get yourself a nice boat? I said floatie because I enjoy a floatie, but you know, a nice little boat instead of constantly struggling to keep your head above water, because that's what your goals are. If and when I asked you, "What's the magic number?" you gave me a magic number that was keeping your head above water and nothing else, right?

So what I'm saying is can you start getting clear about what it would mean to have a little houseboat? Maybe you don't want a big houseboat. Maybe it's a super DIY houseboat. But what does that look like for you?

May: Yeah. Like my dream?

Jessica: It's clarity about what it looks like.

May: Yeah. It's still hard for me. I guess, as soon as I start thinking about the future or what I want and where I see myself and whatever⁠—like all these things, and then I just get so anxious and just sad.

Jessica: So okay. Let me ground you into this very important thing. It's steps. I know you want answers, and unfortunately, you want simple⁠—you want a bullet. You want me to shoot the thing and then hit the bull's-eye, and then it's done. That's not going to happen. But step 1 is working with the grief. So that's an art project that needs to happen. That's going to take some time. I mean, you don't only have to create it; then you have to put it in the kiln, right? It's going to take a minute.

So you're going to make it, and you might make a few different versions until you feel like, "Oh, this is the thing." Right? So it's an art project. Treat it like an art project. You love art projects.

May: I do.

Jessica: That's number one. Then you're going to do the practice with it where you name all the places where the grief comes up, and then, when the Full Moons happen, you empty it out and you check in with it. So this is several months now, right? There's no quick fix. You wanted a quick fix. Ain't going to happen. Not going to happen. No.

Then you're going to do that. And throughout these months, you're going to just be keeping your viewfinder out for, are there any people who have similar values and politics to you who have a sweet little houseboat, metaphorically speaking? They're not keeping their heads above water; they’re chilling on the water, safe, sound, comfortable. Okay?

So you're doing all of these things together at the same time. If you feel called⁠—and I don't think you will, to be honest. I think you need to stay with the emotions first. But if you feel called, what you can then do is explore, what do organizers do? How do they get accredited? I actually think you should wait several months before you do that Google search. I don't think you should do that Google search right away, because the emotional stuff is kind of in the way of you actually being authentically open to answers. Does that make sense?

May: It does. But then I'm like, "What am I going to do? I need money now." And it's just like⁠—

Jessica: Sure.

May: ⁠—how am I supposed to work on this emotion stuff?

Jessica: Okay. Say you haven't flossed your teeth in a long time. If you start flossing your teeth, your gums will bleed, right? That's not a reason to not floss. If you wanted to⁠—I don't know⁠—make a four-piece dinner set out of ceramics, you would start with a lump of clay, and you would probably fuck at least one piece up. But you would stay with the process, right?

There's the immediacy of "A bitch needs work. A bitch needs money"⁠—real talks. There is that. Okay. There is that immediacy. And that⁠—you can apply the same brain that you've been applying to this issue your whole life so far. You need to make more money? You can get another job. I mean, it's a pain in the ass, and I don't have a quick fix for that, but you can.

But then there's setting the intention about what kind of four-piece dinner set you want to make out of ceramics. Then there's deciding to floss your teeth so much that your gums never bleed anymore. Those are longer-term goals. So what I'm pointing you towards is how to make changes inside of yourself that leave room for more of what you want in the big picture.

I'm not pointing you towards a quick fix to your immediate problem because I can't do that. And unfortunately, you know how to make money quick, just as much as anyone else does. I mean, you have jobs available to you, some of them, and you can try out for some of them, and then it will or won't work. Right?

What I'm advising you around is the kind of core issue underneath it and the ways in which you can⁠—you don't have to, but you can work on those issues inside of yourself so that you can make different choices. And those different choices can be more abundant and in alignment with how you want to live. But again, this "in alignment with how you want to live," quote unquote, that I just am referencing⁠—you don't fucking know what that is. I have ideas. You've got all-over-the-place ideas, but you don't know what that is yet.

So this is homework to get that to be as clear as what you don't want because when we're more clear about what we don't want than what we do want, we always get what we don't want, from a woo perspective. Capitalism is not your fucking fault. None of this is your fault, to be exceptionally clear. You're not lazy. Capitalism is not your fault. And also, you're talking to an astrologer, not a financial planner.

And also, there is a way that your Saturnian clarity about what you don't want and what isn't working is⁠—on a scale from one to ten, it's a fucking ten. It is solid. You are perfectly clear. On a scale from one to ten, your clarity about what you do want, on what would make you happy⁠—I mean, if it's a three, that's maybe pushing it. You do not have clarity about this.

May: I don't.

Jessica: You don't. So that's a good problem to have because it's a focus problem. You can work on this problem. You can listen to the TikToks. You can watch the YouTubes. You can talk to the people. You can explore. It's not like you're without resources, and it's not like you have to pay for the resources, even.

But again, from what I'm seeing psychically, until you work with your grief more consciously, it's going to be hard for you to let that in because, even as I'm giving you these ideas and you're nodding your little head at me, being like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," there's so much grief on this that you're like, "I don't even want to have to be here. I don't even want to have to deal with this." Sorry.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. And that's step one. And if you try to jump over that step or work around that step, it's just not going to work.

May: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm sorry. Now, I'm going to give you one last thing before we go. I'm going to share with you something that an old friend of mine named [Sheltie], who's a writer, said to me once⁠. She taught me this money manifestation mantra. And it's really simple, so I'm going to share it with you. I don't really think you're ready to use it, but you can have it in your back pocket, okay?

"Money likes me. Money wants to be friends with me. Money likes to hang out with me. I like money. Money likes me." That's it. Right now, it's so laden, it just feels bad coming in. So it's not coming in. So fuck with that mantra when you're ready, not this week, obviously.

I'm going to say it's a few Moon cycles away from you at best. And that's okay because if you can work with that Saturn/Mars opposition of, like, "Oh, I'm stuck, and I'll always be stuck. Oh, I'm depressed, and I'll always be depressed"⁠—if you can work with those energies, they're not going to go away. It's not going to make your Saturn in Pisces in the twelfth house all of a sudden be Jupiter in the first house. That's not what it's going to do.

You can work with your energies, though. Do you know Winnie the Pooh?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Saturn in Pisces in the twelfth house is kind of an Eeyore placement. It makes you feel like Eeyore, like, "Oh well. Everything's bad." Right? And having an inner Eeyore is fine. You know what I mean? It's not awesome. But if you learn to accept it and recognize when that part of you comes up, then your inner Eeyore doesn't have to become your inner angry man yelling at the kids from his porch, which is where it goes. Right? It goes to, "Oh shit. Everything's bad," to, "Fuck you all. Get away from me."

May: Yeah. And I hate being there.

Jessica: It's not a fun place to be. And also, you got a little bit of those parts in your personality and in your nature, and that's not the worst thing in the world. But it's about recognizing, "Oh shit. I'm stepping into Eeyoreville. How do I take care of myself? Because I know when I go into that space, it's because I have grief and I'm not processing that grief," instead of, "Oh fuck. I hate myself. I can't believe I'm here again." Do you see the difference?

May: Yeah.

Jessica: It's accepting your energies so that you can work with your energies.

May: Yeah. And it's annoying because I feel like I reached a point a few years ago where I started going to AA, and I was doing a lot of work and feeling really good and accepting all the good, the bad, whatever. And then I don't know why, but it's just like I'm back to all this bullshit that I thought I⁠—

Jessica: Did you get sober back then?

May: Yeah. I got sober a few years ago, I guess in 2019. And I'm still sober.

Jessica: Congratulations.

May: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. But I think it's just I've been growing further and further from my program and from my spirituality and just all the things, and yeah.

Jessica: Well, listen. The thing about what you're going through now is, just on April 4th, Neptune started to square your Moon. This is a two-year period. It'll be over February of 2026. Neptune square to the Moon⁠—it's a very spiritually confusing time. It makes you feel like, "Ugh, what's the point? What's the meaning?" That's what you're going through, right? And you should have been feeling it for about three months building up, so for the year so far.

This is not a time to devote yourself spiritually, but it is the time to explore your feelings. Neptune teaches us to not have attachment but to be open and to be empathetic and kind. And the only way to be open, empathetic, and kind without attachment is to have healthy boundaries. So, whether we're talking about your spirituality in general or to your relationship to this issue around existing in a system that you wish didn't exist, all of this takes releasing attachments and having healthy boundaries, being open to explore.

What it doesn't do is it doesn't give you answers. Neptune square to the Moon is not a time in your life when you're going to find answers. It's not it. So don't make it your goal. You might come upon truths. You may change, and that itself may bring you to an answer. But seeking an answer is a different thing. And that's what happens to you when you tell yourself, "I'm going to write a list, and I'm going to figure out what to do for a living."

May: Yes.

Jessica: You're looking for an answer instead of exploring the landscape and letting the answer show up. If you walk through the forest and you're looking for a specific bird, you will not see any of the other birds. You will not see any of the little ground creatures. If you're walking through the forest and you're just being open to nature, you're going to see everything, potentially maybe including that bird. Right?

So that's what I'm encouraging you to do for the next couple of years⁠—Neptune transits are two years, approximately⁠—is to be exploring the forest without attachments. And every time you find yourself in a state of attachment, have a fucking seat. Sit with those attachments. Explore what they're about.

I'm giving you incredibly difficult advice that is going to work if you do it, and nobody does that all the time, even when they do it. It's a direction. It's not a destination. You capisce me?

May: I do. Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica: It's my pleasure.