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.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week's episode is a little bit different. It's a slightly edited form of a Patreon post I did several months ago, back in May. And in it, I discuss what happens when you die and then answer a bunch of questions from my patrons. So I thought I'd share it here with you on the podcast. Enjoy.

Taurus Pisces said, "I would very much appreciate a whole-ass video about your understanding of what happens when we die and all the after things to help me navigate grief and also with accepting my own ultimate, hopefully far-off end. Please and thank you."

So this is a really great question because it's a really universal question. And before I answer this, I will say I don't know. It's impossible to know. I have convictions based on my experiences talking to dead people over the course of a couple decades, and those experiences are evidential. The experiences with talking to dead people are evidential. But there's no way for me to know until I know. And you know how I'll find out is when I'm dead, and then I won't be able to tell you. So these are just my theories based on my experiences, and anyone who tells you with absolute certainty, "This is the only reality that is the true reality of what happens after you die"—I question that.

So that's the first part. And kind of connected to that first part, I will say that part of being a live, living human—really probably any organism, but I'll just speak to the humans—is a condition in which we know that we are alive and we will die, and we don't know what will happen. Even though I do talk to dead people and there are other mediums in the world that are able to do different versions or similar versions or same versions as what I do, it's not the same thing as me hanging out with a person that's in their body.

And so I just want to say that death is very much a real thing and, when someone dies, they're no longer here, while also saying death is not a real thing. The body dies, but we do not die. And while the person is no longer in their meat suit and they're no longer able to communicate with you or be there for you or with you in the way that they would have been potentially when they were in their bodies, they're not gone. They're not gone. They're gone, but they're not gone. And related to that, part of the journey of the living is to let go, to let go of baby teeth, to let go of childhood—if you're lucky enough to get tucked into bed when you're little, to let go of that ritual eventually—to let go of all manner of things. That happens in different stages of life, and death is one of them.

We must mourn people dying, animals dying, and that's just part of life. And the more that you care about someone, the deeper your grief will be. And that is terrible, but it's also an affirmation of love. I think those are important things to name. In terms of what happens when we die, it's different for everyone, to an extent. It's kind of like I could tell you what happens when you enter high school, but is it the same for everyone? No, obviously. Is it the same for everyone who's in the same region of the world that you're in, of the same gender, has the same exact class background and ethnic background, the same exact intelligence level as you? Still no. Right? Things are different, even when they're shared.

But broadly speaking, you are no longer in your body. In my experience, many people enter into what I call a cocoon phase. It is not in any way a purgatory, which is a concept I learned about from the TV show Supernatural about two Gay men who pretend to be brothers. That part was not true, but the other parts I'm saying are true. Supernatural is not about Gay men.

Okay. The thing about the cocoon phase is that it's the only time that after someone dies, someone hangs out in that cocoon phase—is when they need a damn break. And from my experience, when you pass, when you die, if you need a break, you get the break. And some people suffer through terrible illness or really just devastating circumstances at the end of their lives, and they need a break from that. Other people spend their lifetime of service or in the state of self-abandonment, and they need a break after that. There's a lot of reasons why a person could need a break.

Some people experience either of those things, both of those things, and they're instantly free, and that freeness is something that they embrace. So it's kind of like—this is a weird metaphor, but imagine you finally get to vacation. You finally get to vacation, so what do you do? Do you unpack your bags, check out the minibar in the hotel, check the weather, take a shower? I don't know. What do you do? Or do you just throw your shit in the room, run outside, and explore? There's more options than that, but you get where I'm going.

The point is that different people will respond in different ways, and not everybody responds the way you would have thought. And related to that, people adapt. And sometimes people adapt in ways that are a rehashing, a coping with, what they did in their human incarnation. And sometimes it's a moving on. Sometimes people decide to really stick around and not evolve too much because they want to be there for lost loved ones, and some people don't exactly do that.

The human condition, the physical condition of being a human, is a really important one, but it is a state of separation. It's a state of separation from wholeness and alignment with the soul, cohesion of the soul. The human condition is a spiritual—you're a spiritual being having a material experience, which is not exclusive to a spiritual experience, but when you're no longer in a body, you stay the same except for all the things that are connected to body.

And so, as a person comes into greater cohesion with their soul, greater alignment with their soul, their human personality wanes. That state of the personality is so netted in the body and in the human incarnation, and it's something that eventually wanes. And for some people, it'll happen over decades and decades and decades and decades. And for some people, it'll happen over seconds. One is not better or worse. One is not good; one is not bad. There's no value judgment on it. It's just—you know, it's how it grows. It's how you grow. It's how you evolve. There's no timeline, because when there is no meat suit, there is no time. Time is ultimately a material concept. Space—space is immaterial. But time—that's material.

And so, when there is no "there," then there is no there there. Eh? In other words, you as a human may experience that your lost loved one passes away, and then you just can't feel them. You just don't feel them. It could be that you are not sensitive to them; you can't feel them. It could be that they just evolved; it just shifted. It may be that you can feel the presence of a lost loved one for the better part of your whole, entire life. To the person who's dead, there's no difference because they're not experiencing time the way you experience time. They're also not watching you pee and fuck, just in case you're curious, because a lot of people ask me that question. Why would they, you know? And if they did, it's kind of like if you watched your cat or your dog do it. It's none of your business. It's not that interesting—hopefully.

It is frightening to die, and it is frightening to think about being dead. And the reason why these things are frightening is because they are vast unknowns, and you are completely out of control with how it happens, what happens, where it happens, and also alone. And, that said, as somebody who communicates with dead people, I am not even the tiniest bit frightened of being dead. I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of the physical pain. I'm not scared of being dead. I have talked to people who have died in all kinds of ways—terrible diseases, gunshots, accidents, murder—all kinds of ways. And I have met—I'm going to say I met one or two people—although I don't remember that. I'm just holding space for I probably did. I have no recollection of ever meeting anyone who was attached to the pain of their physical bodies or of their passing.

I have met lots of people who were attached to the pain of the ways in which they lived outside of alignment; they were unkind to themselves or others. A lot of people are very connected to that pain but not to the pain of the body. Even people who really just express to me how devastating it was, it's very much done when you're no longer in your body. It's just done. It's like a faint memory, for whatever that's worth.

Now, in terms of being scared of dying, honestly, it's human. I don't know that there's a way around that. I think that that's just part of the human condition. Even though some individuals don't fear dying, it's part of the human condition to fear it. So that's okay. Fixating on it or obsessing on it—there's no value to it.

In regards to heaven and hell, I will reiterate that there is no there there. There's no physical location in the spirit realm that I have encountered. And while there are ways that I could describe certain things that I would have to describe with a physicality to it because that's my point of refence—it's kind of like—you know how butterflies can see so many more colors than we can? There's a teeny, tiny portion of the human population that have a certain kind of cone in their eye where they can see more colors than the bulk of the human population. Just because you can't perceive the color doesn't mean the color isn't there. So there's a way that I could describe to you the way something looks, and all I would be able to do is describe it with the colors that I have the capacity to see. But the truth is science tells us that there are so many more colors than the human eye can perceive.

And similar thing with the physicality of the spirit realm—there's so much that I just—I don't know. We're not supposed to know. Somebody else might know something I don't know. I might know something somebody else doesn't know. But nobody really knows what happens after we die. And you're not supposed to, because you're supposed to be alive, now, in this meat suit, in the physicality of this human experience.

I hope that this is helpful. I hope that this is insightful in whatever ways. I will share—and I know I've shared this before, but I have really pulled back from doing mediumship work. I still feel myself recovering from the mass death of 2020, and I am not excited about doing mediumship. My system is still, I would say, recovering. So, while I do it here and there, it's not something that I am offering at this time, and it's something I'm being very self-protective around. And if you yourself are a medium, practicing healthy boundaries and self-protection and physical and psychic maintenance is honestly straight-up fucking essential.

So the first question I have is from [redacted]. [redacted] says, "Did you receive any kind of mentorship to cultivate your mediumship ability, or was that ability just readily available, and was it more about cultivating healthy boundaries for you? Do you receive guidance on cultivating your boundaries or just figure it out yourself along the way?" Now, there's more to the question, but let me start at the beginning.

I did not, per se, receive training. I didn't go to a school for it. It just kind of came up through the course of my already very full-time work as an astrologer and a psychic. So, that said, I definitely got support and worked with a mentor-style person, I guess like a healer, who I had a very close one-on-one relationship with—professional relationship with—that helped me to work on boundaries primarily. It wasn't about getting support cultivating the mediumship skill. That came very naturally for me. But it was more about the boundaries part and the self-care part, and I am still working on that all the damn time. It is not something that is one-and-done for me.

[redacted] goes on to say, "One day a few years ago, I had my first and only experience that came out of the blue. I spent 40 minutes communicating with two dead relatives and, later that day, two other people who I'd never met but do know, and they popped in to say hi. I may be interested in exploring mediumship more someday but want to do it safely. Just wondering, what advice do you have around that? Do you recommend finding a mentor?"

I don't recommend finding a teacher or a mentor if that is something that you're going to do. I have never personally had the experience of dead people that are my relatives or people that I don't know but are connected to me coming in. I had the experience of doing mediumship work for clients, so it's a really different thing, right? And it was happening and primarily does happen in that context where I'm of service.

So the thing I would say is some bells cannot be unrung. Some doors cannot be closed. So, if this is something that you want to do, just know that it won't only be people that you like or people that you're friends with or people that you're related to. And definitely seek support and seek a mentor or classes from somebody who seems reputable and reliable to you that is a good match for you. Okay? Okay.

Okay. So [redacted] asks, "How does the experience differ for animals to compare to humans, if at all?" And this is in the context of them having lost their dad and a dog very close together. So there is, of course, a difference, and a lot of that has to do with the ease of the transition. Animals just have a much more graceful, much more easy relationship to transition. And humans are animals that are very much in our heads. We live out of a sense of false sense of control and in our heads. We are less connected to our bodies and the natural cycles of life—not all humans, but by and large—whereas animals, by and large, are much more connected to all of that. And so they have an easier time transitioning.

So that's the extent of where my knowledge but also my interest in it kind of lies because I don't have any relationship to concepts of heaven and hell, which I know are kind of underlying in a lot of people's questions and thoughts and fears and attitudes about death. So it's not like there's a place that humans go and animals don't go there for some reason. Humans are animals. We are different animals than dogs, but we're animals. And the life, death, and spiritual cycle is—it's all kind of the same.

Okay. So [redacted] asks, "Do you have any evidential experience regarding the subject of past lives or soul reincarnation?" There's more to it, but let me just quit while I'm ahead here. So, no, I would not say that— I don't know how exactly it would be evidential to talk about past lives or reincarnation. It's very hard to prove that, right? It's very hard to prove that. So no. "And if so, how might that relate to material time and immaterial space or our ability to stay in contact with a deceased loved one if the soul reincarnates into a meat suit?"

So this question is a very human question, which—of course, we're all just humans. And this is the thing about space. Space is different than time. In time, I am here. I am this age. I am in this location. I am in this body. I am on this Earth. In space I am a soul, and there is no material condition that is locked into time. And therefore, I can be in all places, in all states, all at once because time is a material condition. And when we're speaking about that which is immaterial, it is no longer relevant.

And this, my friends, is part of why, when I was in full-time consulting profession, I would often have quantum physicists come through to me because that is like a concept that is, I think, kind of netted in quantum physics, although it does not come to me through quantum physics. All of this to say, in space, one may be in many states of incarnation, states of materiality, states of development at once. In time, that is not true, but in space, it is. Kind of fancy, huh?

Okay. I got another question from [redacted]. [redacted] says, "I've always been curious about how the Nodes are related to this. Do some of us come back with a different body on purpose? Does everyone?" So astrology is a system for understanding. It's a system of analysis. It's a system of organization. The Nodes represent the soul's evolution. So it's a theory—as is all astrology—on the evolution of your soul in this embodiment.

So, as I was saying before, there is space and there is time. Astrology attempts to understand the condition and presentation and experience of the soul having a material experience in space and time. But the material condition of being a person is inherently one of time because we are locked into the time of the body, the time of the day, etc. And that is a lesson of being in a body, whether you're in a dog body or a human body or whatever else.

So all of this to say the Nodes describe what on a soul level—so broader than in a personality level—you are here journeying towards. And it's really great information. I do not fixate on the part of it that is related to reincarnation because that is not really something I focus on for a variety of reasons. I don't find the concept especially interesting, not because I don't think it's real or relevant—I do. I just personally am a triple Capricorn, so I'm really focused on what is happening in the here and now. What am I meant to do in the here and now?

So, while I have interest in how I got here and what I experienced before, it's not my primary interest, if that makes sense. And all of that to say these concepts kind of are separate, and also, they don't contradict each other. I'm not sure if that really answers it, but we'll stick with that for now, and then you'll ask questions more if you've got them later.

Okay. This is the last question I've got, and it's a very long one, so I'm going to just take it sentence by sentence. The first part is, "Do we die when we've fulfilled our purpose or task in this life?" So this is not an uncommon question. It's a very common question. And it has inside of it so many assumptions.

So one of those assumptions is that there is some sort of almighty person, tapestry—something—that is finite. So you have a task to fulfill. What is that task? To have a successful career? To fall in love and stay in love? I don't know. What's the task, right? This is a very linear way of thinking, and it's also netted in this idea of failure and reward. So, when you die, you die because you have succeeded in achieving your assignment, or conversely, you die because you have not succeeded in achieving your assignment. I do not believe that either of those things are the case. I do not believe that that is the case.

You die when you die. Think about it this way. If you've ever hung out with toddlers—little kids—they really just—every day, it's the first time that they were put down to a nap. It's the first time that they had to deal with putting on socks, right? That's how it works. And for them, it's a really big deal, and they will cry. It's like the most serious thing that's ever happened, putting on socks, getting their diaper changed—stuff like that.

We are all toddlers on a spiritual level. So you and I feel that death is this really fucking big deal. You and I feel that death is it. This is the first time you've ever died. This is the last time you'll ever die. Death—oh my God. The biggest thing. That's not the case. It's part of a larger life cycle, from my perspective. What do I know? But that's my take. It's part of a larger life cycle.

Is there a linear task that you're meant to succeed at or that you want to avoid failing at in this life? No. Are there a series of things that would be wonderful if you succeeded at? Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. But the idea that you die because you are fulfilled, I think, is one that can lead to a lot of sadness. And I do not believe that we are here to perform tasks—even though I am a triple Capricorn; I love performing tasks—or when we've fulfilled our purpose.

I genuinely think people sometimes die because they die. A lot of times, they die because they die. And that's kind of that. I'm not saying that we can't derive meaning from it or extrapolate meaning from it, because we can. But fulfilled our purpose or fulfill tasks in this life—no. I'm going to go with a no.

Next question, "Are people okay with the point in time when they die?" Sometimes. A lot of times, no. That's just part of living, which I—personally, when I refer to living, I am including being dead in that. Not everyone is okay with when they die. Not everyone is okay with their body. Not everyone is okay with their health or with their feelings of being loved or safe. We don't all get to be okay. I wish we did, but we don't.

"Are there souls that never find peace because of unfinished business?" I don't know. Never is a very long time. Never is infinite. Are there people who infinitely remain unresolved and out of alignment, without peace? Maybe. That would certainly explain a lot of things in the universe, but not necessarily. I don't know who could possibly know the answer to never. But have I encountered people who are dead who are struggling with—I mean, again, the term "unfinished business" is such a commonly used term. It's associated with a lot of assumptions and value judgments. But have I met dead people who genuinely are struggling with things they did or did not do in their lives? Absolutely, yes. And that's a wonderful thing.

You should be struggling with the things that you're out of alignment with. And so just because you're dead doesn't mean you no longer are evolving. And to that end, I wouldn't necessarily call that unfinished business because, again, the language that you're using in your question—and it's not to pick on you or the question, because you're using the most commonly used language here, but tasks and business—it's very straight from colonial white supremacy kind of thing, which, again, is not to say anything about who you are or your values or anything like that. But it's all very task-oriented. It's all very linear.

Spirituality and the soul is not a straight line, and it's not a box. It's this bananas tapestry that is very cyclical. The universe is animated. It's alive. Death is a part of life. And so is there a singular point of completion with a task? I don't know. That's one way of looking at it, or it could be the beginning point of a transition within a task.

Okay. "In 2022, which coincided with my Saturn Return, I experienced my first severe episode during which I met God or Gaia." [redacted] shares more details and says, "I'm very much rooted in this reality and want to be. I just can't shake these images off or of this other world, the hidden one, when I peeked behind the veil. I'm sometimes strong of my strong intuition or spiritual gifts, perhaps. Were you scared of your gifts? How did you learn to trust your abilities without losing touch to this reality?"

So what you're describing is complicated because you're describing having a mental health episode that overlapped with a spiritual experience. And when that occurs, it is really hard to separate one from the other because they happened at the same time. In that way, I always think it's important to navigate that stuff from a mental health perspective first and foremost. And if it is a spiritual experience that the Universe, your guidance—whatever—wants you to have outside of spiritual episode breakdown stuff, then you will, right? Then you will.

But I don't meet God. I don't go to ancient places. I don't have anything like that. What you're describing is very visual, very dramatic, and very much about you encountering the divine in a physical form. I don't have any of those kinds of experiences, so I want to just name that while what I'm describing and what I'm sharing might sound really far out there—and it probably is—it's so much more mundane than all that.

I slow down. I tap in. And I listen. And when I listen, I can hear. And I'm not hearing with my ears. I'm not—you know, I'm using very limited language. But I can hear. And so, for me, my experience is not scary because I have used probably 80 percent of my experience with using my mediumship abilities, maybe 80/90 percent. COVID changed everything, but my mediumship abilities, my psychic abilities, have been in service to other people. So they've not been experiences that I've had alone.

I've had a couple experiences alone that had nothing to do with other people, and sometimes they've been very traumatic, in which case I was scared for my welfare. And at other times—and this was 20-something years ago that I can think back to this, but there was a few other times where I was just really rattled. But again, I have a very different experience than you. And so I want to just really name that, that not all spiritual experiences are the same, and the context that we have them in is really different.

Most of my spiritual experiences communicating with dead people, outside of COVID and stuff like that, has been sitting in an office chair having a conversation with other people. How do I engage with this stuff without losing touch with reality? For me, that is not a conflict. I am very, very rooted in this reality. And some of that is my nature, and some of that is my choices and the things I focus on and the way that I process things. And everybody's different. Should anyone who's not a triple Capricorn be a triple Capricorn? No.

But again, this is where I want to say there are a lot of people who are psychic or medium who really lose track of reality. They lose connection to reality. And then those gifts become burdensome; they don't really serve you. And so I think it's really important to develop a really healthy and grounded relationship to your health and to linear 3D reality, which is the lesson of the human condition, before inviting in more of that spiritual stuff. I'm not talking about playing with Tarot cards. I'm talking about visions and that kind of stuff because protecting your health is really important.

Calling in experiences that you can metabolize is really healthy. Calling in experiences that you cannot metabolize can be, really, a form of self-harm. Even if it's an experience that you theoretically wish you could metabolize, if you know you can't, then don't call it in. And if it happens, it happens. But that is my take on that.

In the realm of spirituality, quite directly, a lot of people confuse fantasy, imagination, and spiritual experience. Having a mental health break and a spiritual experience overlapping is very common, and it is outside of my realm. And I, 100 percent of the time, point people towards coping with and getting support around the mental health stuff and discourage people from focusing on the spiritual part while those two things are overlapping and for as long as they are overlapping.

I know that lots of different people have lots of different takes on this, but I think that protecting your health is really, really important. And the truth of the matter is the spiritual stuff can wait. It does wait. So there's no rush. Better do it in a healthy way than rush to do it because it's interesting or you feel like you, quote unquote, should.

So that's all the answers to the questions that you all asked me in response to this video about what happens when you die. I know it's a triggering topic for a lot of people. But I do think it's really great to talk about death and our thoughts and our feelings about death and our feelings and our experiences with grief because it's a part of life. It's an inevitable part of life. And developing an honest and present relationship with those parts can be really helpful.

All right. I hope you take good care of yourself. Buh-bye.