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 a reading about?

Guest:              Hi. Gosh, it's so amazing to meet you. Thank you so much. My question is about my daughter's interceptions. So I would love to be able to know how to kind of best guide my almost-seven-year-old daughter on a healing path through the energies of the many interceptions that she has in her chart. I have one, and I guess if you have one, you have two, right?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              And so this poor child inherited my generational trauma and then the trauma of my life. So I'm just wondering how I can best guide her towards that healing path and working through those intercepted energies.

Jessica:            Okay. And we are not going to share your child's data, but we are going to share yours, correct?

Guest:              Correct.

Jessica:            So you were born September 20th, '82, in Englewood, Colorado. I can't see your time because it's blocked by my little face. Tell me what the time is.

Guest:              4:28 p.m.

Jessica:            You got it. Okay. Layers and layers and layers of things that I want to say, of course, because you know how I hear a question; I'm just like, "I have questions about your question," and I do. But first, I want to say I look upon your child's chart—who we have decided we are calling Eleanor. That is decidedly not her name. But I only see a single interception. Are you seeing something that I don't see?

Guest:              I thought that—maybe it was in a different house system that I saw that, because the interception is when a whole sign is swallowed up by a house, correct?

Jessica:            Correct. So an interception is when you have 30 degrees of a zodiac sign—so all of that zodiac sign—in a house, but that zodiac sign is not on either the entry or the exiting house cusp.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So, as far as I can tell, Eleanor has Virgo in the seventh—intercepted the seventh, which means Pisces intercepted the first. So we call that one interception.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            One interception includes two zodiac signs, two houses. And for you, it is Libra in the eighth house is intercepted, and Aries in the second house is intercepted. You also have Cancer intercepted your sixth house, which means you have Capricorn intercepted your twelfth.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So you do have two interceptions. Yes. Good point. Your child has one interception.

Guest:              Okay. Got you. So I'm the one with the many interceptions.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Yes, you are.

Guest:              Lucky me.

Jessica:            Well, luck is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. So let me just start with this. Intercepted energies—there's intercepted planets, but that's a different—I mean, it's the same, but it's different, okay?

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            But interceptions occur when your parent or guardian was actively repressing those energies anywhere from a year before your birth until you were about seven years old. And so that speaks to your interceptions. It also speaks to your child's interceptions. And yes. I look upon both of your charts, and I'm like, "Well, yeah, I could see how you"—you know, I mean, your child's interceptions are from you—

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            —but also, do you co-parent?

Guest:              I do. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Are you partnered with your co-parent?

Guest:              Not anymore. No.

Jessica:            Okay. So that's a lot of what your child's interceptions are about.

Guest:              Oh, really?

Jessica:            Yes.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So I don't want to put the cart before the horse. Hold on. Okay. So here's the thing. Part of why you hear me giving readings about children and to parents so infrequently—right? It's not a common thing I do on the podcast—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —is because the best way to show up as a parent is to be the healthiest version of yourself you know how to be and to just be a kind, supportive parent. Meet your child where they are developmentally as time goes on.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            When we use astrology, what we're doing is we're getting in our heads. We're getting in our heads, and we're being analytic. So now you're seeing everything that can go right and everything that can go wrong because—

Guest:  Oh no.

Jessica:            —there's Saturn in the chart. There's Pluto in the chart. There's no chart without those two planets, as a fun example. Forget the interceptions, right? So we know that part of the human condition is hardship, and then it's hard to not go into blaming yourself or fearing for your child when what all children, regardless of their birth charts, really need is for a parent to be in the present and to show up and to support them.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's your whole reading. Bye. No, I'm just joking.

Guest:              Yeah, seriously.

Jessica:            But it could be, on a level. And I just wanted to name that.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, the other thing is there's layers of conversation that we can have, and I'm curious about what you want to talk about because there's—what I can see—okay. This is the other thing that's complicated about looking at your child's chart because you can see a lot of what will happen with you and what you will do from the child's chart because in your chart, you have free will. Things will happen. You may or may not do x, y, z. In the child's chart, it's already written.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Right? It's a little mind-blowing.

Guest:              Totally.

Jessica:            And so it can be decidedly not constructive to look at a child's chart for that reason—

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            —because you never want to feel robbed of your free will.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            What I can see—for instance, your child has a beautiful Grand Trine in Earth. Saturn is at 2 degrees of Cap, the Sun is at almost 4 degrees of Virgo, and Uranus is at 2 degrees of Taurus—earthy goodness. So much can be said about this Grand Trine, but let's talk about the fact that Uranus is in the second house. And so this speaks to your child's experience of how they were raised in terms of their class, in terms of money—

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            —and their financial security and stability. So we can look at your birth chart and talk about your relationship to money, your relationship to career, and all the complexities. But I can look at your child's chart and see that your child is fine. Your child grew up—some times were easier; some times were harder. But there was always a sense of being protected. There was always a sense of flow—

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            —which is great news, right?

Guest:              That is great news. Yes. Thank goodness. Yeah.

Jessica:            That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. And also, the problem with the level of relief that you experienced when I said that—

Guest:              (laughs)

Jessica:            (laughs) Sorry.

Guest:              True.

Jessica:            I know. I saw it. I saw your whole system. I was like, "Okay. Fuck."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But the problem with that is that you could just as easily panic and fixate if I give you less exciting news.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            I started with something really positive.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You cannot trust me to keep on doing that.

Guest:              No, I can't.

Jessica:            You cannot. And so I want to kind of ground you into—this is a guide. This doesn't mean you won't fall on hard times financially during your child's childhood. It only means that when your child is in therapy in her 30s, money is not the thing that she's going to be stressing about from her childhood.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            And so that doesn't mean—like, maybe in a couple years, you'll find yourself in a financially hard time and be like, "But the astrologer said"—and I want to say how we feel about our circumstances and our actual circumstances are sometimes like—they don't match in a really straightforward way. And this is really important for you to remember and to hear about the good stuff because it's also true about the more challenging and hard stuff.

Guest:              Gotcha.

Jessica:            And when we are talking about interceptions, it's important to know that it's always a little bit hard stuff, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So maybe I want you to ground me into this question. Are we looking at your child's interceptions, what they mean? Are we talking about how you as a parent can engage with your child's interceptions? Or are we looking at the familial pattern? I mean, you don't have to choose one, but did you have clarity about what you're asking?

Guest:              I was asking more about the former, but I would love to hear about the latter as well.

Jessica:            Sure. Let's start with the first question, though, because that's—it's a great question.

Guest:              Great.

Jessica:            And if people are looking along, they can see child's chart. Here's the thing. Your beautiful little girl was born on a Full Moon, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jessica:            The Sun, Virgo. The Moon, Pisces. And the Moon is conjunct Neptune. And all three of these planets are intercepted. That's all of your child's interceptions.

Guest:              Wow.

Jessica:            Yeah. So that's a lot of intercepted energy. This is what gives me a sense straight out the gate that you and your partner that you were with when you conceived this child—and I don't know which one of you carried or if any of you carried. I don't know if that's relevant. But I will say that, regardless, when I say "conceived of," that could have been decided to do anything that you did to get a child, right? Okay.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            So, when you conceived of the child, things were confusing. The relationship was decidedly not stable or necessarily emotionally safe.

Guest:              Yeah. That's true.

Jessica:            And instead of honoring your feelings and your needs and having healthy boundaries with yourself and then, by extension, with your partner, you were in this state of kind of devotional love to your partner where you're like, "I'm going to just give up myself in order to make the relationship work or make them okay."

Guest:              Yeah, and I think it was devotion for the child to come, as well.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's how your child got a Moon/Neptune conjunction intercepted the first house opposite the Sun.

Guest:              Oh. Goodness. Goodness. Yeah. I remember I had just gotten pregnant, or I had just found out I was pregnant, and my ex and I were not in a good place at all. And I was in the kitchen, and I was like, "Okay. It's going to take some years, but we're going to get through this." And I had even—I actually felt miserable during—I carried this child. My former partner carried our other child, who's four years older and also is a Virgo with a Pisces Moon as well. So I know it's wild.

Jessica:            Wow. Yeah. Wild. What a household.

Guest:              And all Virgos, as well, because my former partner is a Virgo with a Scorpio Moon, too. So it was like, "What?"

Jessica:            That's a lot. That's a lot.

Guest:              It was a lot. It was a lot. And we just separated last year, and honestly, I'm happier than I've ever been. But I knew that we wouldn't stay together, but I felt like this child had to come through. But also, I felt so miserable and sick that I wanted to die. And I even considered an abortion. And we did IUI. So my partner is a woman, and we did IUI. And I brought it up to her that this is something I would like to at least talk about, have on the table, and she flipped out. And I understand, but also, that was part of why we broke up, too, is I need everything to be on the table and to be able to talk about everything. And it just didn't—that wasn't the case, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              And so I knew going into having this child that my ex and I would not be together.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that's clear. That's pretty damn clear in your child's chart. And what Eleanor's chart speaks to is not just those interceptions, but also, Pluto and Mars are both in the twelfth house. And so the way you're articulating it, my Virgo friend, is very clean, very self-aware, very demure. And also, that's not what was happening according to your child's chart. That is the wisdom of having done therapy after the breakup speaking, eh?

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            What was happening at the time is that you were scared to rock the boat because you were scared of what it would cost you. You were scared that you were a bad person for having the feelings and needs that you were having.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            And so you shoved them down. You shoved them down, and you said to yourself, "My loyalty exists to the theme. My loyalty exists to the relationship. My loyalty exists to everything and everyone but myself and my body."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

Guest:              You're right.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              Thank you. Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's how your child ended up with these interceptions and Mars and Pluto in the twelfth house, okay?

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            Now, that's not the only way. I'm confident that there are other things because these are in the family, right? So it's in the heredity, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Because you have your own interceptions.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            But when we look to the immediacy of Eleanor's parents, Eleanor's early developmental experiences, which she will not remember, that's the stuff. And generally speaking, when we have interceptions, I would say, half the time, the conditions are established before the child has memory, really, before the child is really going to remember. So seven years old—a child is going to remember what happened at seven. When you grow up, you remember what happened when you were seven.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            A lot of people remember what happened at five. A lot of people don't, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            Three? Again, most people don't. You have weird snapshots, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is—a lot of the stuff that you and I just kind of named that were happening with you and in your relationship—they were done by five years old, I'm assuming. They were in a completely different state by five years old.

Guest:              Yeah. We were together for 14 and a half years.

Jessica:            Wow.

Guest:              At 13 and a half years, we decided to open up our relationship, reluctantly for her. And then I just started on my own kind of free-will path after that, and my life started changing immensely in the last two years. So yeah.

Jessica:            So we can talk about opening up the relationship in a minute. I think it's worth maybe doing.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            But before we do that, I want to say it's really hard to teach a child the value and importance of boundaries if you don't have them.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If your boundaries are retroactive or theoretical, then you can teach your child the technical learnings, right? But the way that parenting works, and the reason why parenting is so fucking hard, is because you're modeling behavior. You're modeling reality. And if your model is, "My boundaries are retroactive. My boundaries are reactionary"—and I am looking at you, kid, when I say that, right?

Guest:              Indeed.

Jessica:            Uh-huh. I see your chart because you have a Libra interception in your eighth house with Pluto, Saturn, and Mercury sitting on top of each other.

Guest:              Yep.

Jessica:            So boundaries—yeah. You grew up, and there were consequences for boundaries.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And those consequences were punishing, and they were rigid, and they essentially were isolation, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so that's your shit. I mean, I don't want to compare, but your interceptions are harder than your child's.

Guest:              Oh, thank God.

Jessica:            (laughs)

Guest:              (laughs)

Jessica:            That was a really loud laugh. I'm sorry. But you're right to have that reaction. You're right to have that reaction because—

Guest:              Yeah. Seriously. I mean—

Jessica:            —that's all we can do, is we can only hope that if you grew up and it was—on a scale from 1 to 10, it was like an 8, that your kid gets a 7 or a 6.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You can't assume that things were really hard for you, "but not for my child." I know they say that on TV and in movies a lot, but that's not super realistic because each of us are part of a tree. We're not isolated from that tree. And the themes—you know, I say the tree, but you know how tree roots—they talk to each other? Trees talk to each other through their roots. That's really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about these root systems that are connected, whether or not that's how we think of it or whether or not we even talk to our families of origin.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            And so navigating your love life, navigating your friendships, parent, is unfortunately the best way to support your child through her interceptions.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            And I say unfortunately because how do you magically overcome your nature and your hardest shit for someone else?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            The answer is you don't.

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            That's not a realistic piece of advice, and I'm not giving you that advice. Instead, the advice I'm giving you is to stay with your commitment—which sometimes wavers—of naming it when you're off course.

Guest:              Naming what?

Jessica:            "I'm really excited about this person that I've been hanging out with. I have been catching myself laughing at things I don't think are super funny or saying yes when I actually mean 'meh'"—naming it when you start to lose track of yourself in that intercepted Libra way, when you start to merge.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. That is my problem. I merge.

Jessica:            It is.

Guest:              And it is a huge problem for me.

Jessica:            Yes. It is a huge problem. So are you going to be able to stop merging? That's an unrealistic goal for you to have for the next five minutes. But a good goal, a realistic goal, is naming it.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            And then you can, when you're in a state of activation around it—so you're hanging out with somebody, and you're like, "I'm merging with them"—to talk to your daughter, not about what you're doing, not about your complex adult relationships, but about, like, "Do you ever notice that when you're with somebody that you really like, like one of your friends at school, that if they like something, you want to like it to? I struggle with that. Sometimes I forget what I like when I'm around someone else who likes something a lot. And so it's something I think about. What do you think about?"—to just talk about it in terms that are age-appropriate, that are not about you but are about an acknowledgment that in very different ways, you have this in common.

Guest:              Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            Libra and Pisces. She has Pisces interception; you have Libra interception. And Libra and Pisces are the two most people-pleasey signs in the zodiac, right?

Guest:              Sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            They're the two signs that are like, "Me? Not for me. You." And so she has this Moon/Neptune conjunction intercepted in Pisces in the first. She's adorable. People like her.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            She is so likable. Different kinds of kids over the course of her childhood are going to like her. She will get along with different groups of people easily. And that is such an asset. And also, part of why she has this is because this allows her to be a bit of a chameleon. She can be like, "I don't care about school," with some people, and, "Grades are so important," with other people. Right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            This doesn't mean she's inauthentic or she's fake. It means that she has this thing in her nature where she can vibe with different truths in different contexts.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You, on the other hand, with your Libra interception, have a much more complex, trauma-driven set of behaviors.

Guest:              You're not wrong.

Jessica:            I mean, I'm pretty confident we are not wrong here. So, for you, it's, "I have to be on it. I have to know that you're about to crave a vanilla ice cream cone before you know you're craving a vanilla ice cream cone, and then I have to say, "Hey, want to have a vanilla ice cream cone?" And then the other person is like, "Oh my God. You get me, and you give me things I need." And then you know you're safe.

Guest:              Oh God. So true.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            So, in a lot of practical terms, you will end up having similar behaviors. For your child, it comes more out of anxiety and an uncertainty of her place and whether or not it's okay for her to have boundaries. It's driven by anxiety instead of—for you, it's driven by a fear of consequence and punishment.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            So better or worse—we'll leave it to the gods to decide. But for you, I want you to know that she is not scared in the way you're scared. She is able to see too many perspectives of too many things all at once, and that can provoke anxiety for her, and it can make her unsure of who she is in some ways. And you have Mars conjunct your Midheaven, right? And it's conjunct your Midheaven and Uranus. You lead with fucking Mars. You're just like, "This is my ego. This is my need. This is my preference." You're like, "We're going to open up the relationship," right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Your child has Mars in the twelfth. So, in your child's early developmental experience, there were painful consequences of that. It's not just in the twelfth. It's square Uranus.

Guest:              Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Taurus is conjunct.

Guest:              Tell me more.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. So anywhere from a year before your birth until your child was around seven years old—which hasn't happened yet—what Eleanor experienced was how one parent was like, "This is what I want. This is what I need," and the other parent felt oppressed by it, harmed by it. So your ex's story is probably, "Things happened. I didn't feel like I was in control. I didn't feel like I had a say. I went along with it, but then one day I fought back, and I was like, 'No.' And then she became a lot more assertive and aggressive." So you kind of flipped who was in control.

Guest:              I think it's the opposite, actually.

Jessica:            So the roles are opposite of who did what?

Guest:              Exactly. Yeah, and in time. So, when I met my former partner, I was really lost, and I was like, "Oh, I need to settle down and be a good Queer," or whatever, and got married, really, probably right at my Saturn Return. And I had always been interested in polyamory or nonmonogamy, and I tried to bring it up early in our relationship, and she shut it down, shut it down in such a sharp way that I didn't bring it up again for, like, six years. But this desire in me grew over that time, and then I waited—once I realized, "Oh, this is something I want to talk to my former partner about," it took me three years to actually even bring it up to her.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Guest:              You know? Because I had to be sure.

Jessica:            And then, when you did bring it up, you were uncompromising and clear: "I've done it your way; now we're doing it my way"?

Guest:              Yeah, or just like, yeah, "We're going to move in this direction because this is what I need." And all of this time [crosstalk]—

Jessica:            We're saying the same thing.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            You and I are saying the same thing.

Guest:              Got you.

Jessica:            But I want you to feel how uncomfortable it is for you to sit with and own when you were like, "This way or no way." It's easy for you to unpack the story of how she was like that. You did the exact same thing, for the fucking record. And what she did was before your child was conceived of. I'm talking about the conception of the child—

Guest:              Got you.

Jessica:            —not the biological process, even—like, even before.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I want you to notice that discomfort in your system.

Guest:              Yeah. It is very uncomfortable.

Jessica:            It's very uncomfortable. Okay. So, first of all, what you're doing—and this is really important because we're in your intercepted planets, for the fucking record—is you are holding your breath, and there's something really tight in you, and you're trying to hold on to that tightness. Take a breath into your solar plexus/abdominals for a moment. Can you kind of feel that tightness?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. That tightness is a survival mechanism from your childhood. It is, "I have to prove that I'm not wrong. I have to prove that I'm okay." And there's consequences if you don't.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            There's also—there was a domineering, kind of bad-guy parent, and you don't want to be that person. Now, you don't want to be the victim parent either. So you have a fucking bind that you're constantly struggling with.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            This is part of your pattern. What happens is you don't want to be the bad guy, and so you don't say what you want and what you need. You don't say what you want and what you need, and then you don't say what you want and what you need. And then, one day, you are choking because you've been drowning on not expressing what you want and what you need, and then you say what you want and what you need, and you feel perfectly entitled to be like, "It's this now because I haven't gotten what I wanted all this time," whereas it's important to acknowledge that part of that pattern is you don't get what you want because you don't ask for what you want, because you believe you know the answer and you're trying to avoid conflict or being the bad guy.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so this complex that you and I are talking about and the feelings that you have—like the shame and the anger and the defensiveness and the "I hate myself. I hate the person" push/pull there—that's expressed in your child's chart, that mixed feeling about, "How much space do I get to take up? How much assertion is cruelty and egoism, and how much is self-care egoism?"

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Right? Eleanor does not have that in her nature to have clarity around that.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            Does that mean you're a bad guy? No, it does not. Does it mean your ex is a bad guy? No, it does not. But it does mean that your child had it modeled for her that negotiating your sexual needs will break things. That's what happened in the marriage, amongst other things. And you had that modeled in really different ways.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Acknowledging sexual or needs, let alone sexual needs—consequential in a terrible fucking way.

Guest:              Oh, yes indeed. I didn't even know I could have needs until my 30s, and then I was like, "Wait. How do I even—what? I don't even know what to do with this."

Jessica:            This is so real, and we're going to come back on that in a second. But we want to just hold space for here's how we see these generational patterns. So is your child divorced from your inherited patterns? Fuck no. That's your child. Does your child have it as hard as you did? Fuck no. She does not. That is wonderful.

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            But this is what's really tricky, is if you have a child who is in a class in school, and you as a parent try to help them with their homework—and you have no fucking clue what this class is about. You have no fucking clue what the work is. This happens to, I think, most parents sooner or later, right? You're like, "What even is this?"

Guest:              Totally.

Jessica:            You can't help them. I mean, you might be able to kind of help them with thinking about how to think about it or something.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            But you can't really help them if you don't understand the coursework. The same thing is true around this whole boundaries issue because you're just like—you know how to cheerlead. You're great at that. You know how to be like, "Go, girl. You can do this. Say your needs." But do you model it? No, you don't fucking model it. And so what you want to do with this information—every time you feel any amount of guilt or shame or fear—because I see your chart. You kind of hang out with those emotions a fair amount—is to just breathe into it and be like, "I didn't create this family line. I am engaging with integrity to try to heal, and I trust that the more I heal, the more I am able to model this for Eleanor.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I see people who are grown-ass adults with the most chaotic birth charts, who do not tell me that they hate their parents. They do not tell me that they were traumatized. Do you know what I'm saying? They tell me, like, "Oh, yeah, this is hard for me. Oh, yeah, I'm struggling with this." I don't want you to think just because there's some chaos in your child's chart that you created the chaos, that your child is the only one with chaos, or that that is in any way bad because another thing I can tell you is 100 percent of people who make things, do things, create thought, move the needle in any way on any level, have chaos in their charts, 100 percent.

Guest:              Excellent.

Jessica:            That's what people are because if your chart is all ease, what is your fucking impetus?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That becomes its own problem, right?

Guest:  Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Of course. Right?

Guest:  I've seen it.

Jessica:            So I feel like the thing to trust about your child's interceptions is two things. One is it already happened. It already happened.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            You're not going to go back in time and fix it. That's not what's up. The only way to go back in time and fix it is not have the child—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —which you considered, and you made a decision.

Guest:              I did consider. And some days, I'm like, "Oh my God. What have I done?" because it's so hard. It's so hard to be a parent. It's fucked up.

Jessica:            It's really fucking hard. Yeah. It's really, really hard.

Guest:              It is. Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's forever.

Guest:              It's forever. It's forever. My life is fundamentally changed because of these children, which is a great thing. It's forced me to come up against parts of myself that I could have easily ignored, I think, if I didn't have children.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And also, look. You have your North Node in Cancer. Now, does that mean you need to be a parent? No, it does not fucking mean that, and I want to say that for everyone in the world who associates Cancer with mothering or parenting. I call bullshit on that.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            But it does mean that since you are a parent, this is how you're embodying that North Node in Cancer, is showing up to nurture and support your children. And because it's in the sixth house, it's in day-to-day, mundane shit.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So are you a 50/50 parent?

Guest:              You know,  I don't know what the breakdown is. So I moved into an apartment a couple blocks away. I had come back from being out of the country, doing some mutual aid, and we had been living together in separate rooms. Came back. Everyone picked me up from the airport. It was beautiful. As soon as we got into the house, we were like, "We cannot live together," and so decided that day that we would split. The kids live there at the house, and I'm just a few blocks away. But I pick them up from school. I make dinner four nights a week. They spend the night at my apartment one night a week. I spend the night at the house once a week while my former partner is with her boyfriend or whatever.

                        So, in terms of active hands-on, I would say we're 50/50. But because they are at the house where she sleeps, she kind of has the brunt of that.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. That's big. And is that your forever strategy, or is that just where you all are at in this moment?

Guest:              Where we're at in this moment.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              Yeah. I would love to be financially stable enough to have my own place where they could have their own room, and we'd do week to week, basically.

Jessica:            Yeah. When I look at your chart, having the North Node in the sixth house—fucking intercept. Fucking intercept. But regardless, when I say that that is your assignment, to create stability and consistency and follow-through in your life, I mean capital A "Assignment." Okay? That's the assignment.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So I want to really encourage you to do that because that Mars/Uranus/Midheaven conjunction at the top of the chart, that Moon/Jupiter conjunction in Scorpio, makes you feel like, "I don't want to be unfree. I don't want to be trapped. There are so many things I want to do, and if I do this other thing of creating all this stability and having extra rooms in the house and all this, then I can't do all of these things I want to do.

                        I want to say, as your astrologer, you will, when you're in your 70s, have more peace if you create the stability and the consistency now.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And compromise. I'm encouraging you to compromise.

Guest:              We're working on it. We have the best relationship we've ever had, my former partner and I—

Jessica:            That's amazing.

Guest:              —like even before we—it is. It is, and we're really committed to our kids having a really safe psychological/emotional upbringing. And so we really work together. We're a great team in that way. And so, yeah, I'm committed to that. And so however I can continue to do that would be good, and I do. I have this, like—I have to—I do work out of the country. I do a lot of mutual aid work and organizing. And I will be traveling again this summer, so I just want to make sure that I am consistent and reliable—and I believe I am, but while also honoring my work as well, which—only now am I feeling really purposeful about what I'm doing.

Jessica:            In your work. Yeah.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So there's layers to this. And I don't want to derail from your questions about interceptions, although I feel like I've kind of addressed it.

Guest:              Yeah. I think so. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So I want to speak to a couple things here. One is the complexity of how in your birth chart, two things that are completely contradictory are true. One is that you are incredibly willful. You take bold moves on your own because you want to. And at a certain point, no one can tell you nothing. Okay.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Now, the other thing is true, which is you do not speak your truth. You do not prioritize your needs. You do not advocate for what is actually true for you in dynamic with other people, let alone in your own thinking. They sound like they cancel each other out, but they don't. You are a complex human person. They exist at the same time. And this is where sometimes you say to yourself, "Well, I have a really hard time advocating for myself," and then, other times, you're like, "Oh my God. I'm just doing whatever I want, and I'm not taking care of x, y, or z" in a relationship. And that does exist for you.

                        I want to just name that, because what astrology does is it allows us to articulate in really specific parts the ways in which we are different. And I don't know what kind of work you do, but that Mars/Uranus conjunction to the Midheaven, that Moon/Jupiter conjunction in the ninth house—zero percent surprised you're traveling across borders, right?

Guest:              Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Zero percent. This drive for freedom and adventure and excitement and expanding your horizons and following through on something you believe in is written in your chart.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Working with groups and organizations, you get a lot of juice from working with different kinds of people and being in summer camp, basically, where you're having really intense emotional experiences with people, and then you go away, right?

Guest:              Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            It's like this is your fucking jam, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And also—I'm going to "and also" this.

Guest:              Great.

Jessica:            I'm not going "instead of." I want you to hear "and also," not "instead." And also. Okay. Okay. And also, you have a trigger with a selfish parent who does what they want their way, regardless of the needs of the people around you. Is that correct?

Guest:              Yeah, I guess so. I guess that would be my dad.

Jessica:            Definitely, it would be your dad.

Guest:              Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Zero percent [crosstalk].

Guest:              He's a weird dude.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            His way is his way, and it really works for him, right? His weirdness—Mars/Uranus conjunction in your birth chart, right? His weirdness absolutely works for him.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But it makes it hard for him to tolerate other people because he's driven by his—what is that expression? He marches to his own drummer, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so, if you are playing a different kind of music, it rattles him.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Is this correct? Am I seeing this accurately?

Guest:              Oh, it's really hard to say, because he is a refugee, and he worked his ass off. I mean, he was a cabinetmaker for a long time, and then he decided to open a convenience store, which is very stereotypically Arab. But he—and that's how we grew up, was in the convenience store, and that's what he wanted to do. My mom helped him with that. They—

Jessica:            It's like relentless hours, right?

Guest:              Relentless.

Jessica:            It's like relentless hours.

Guest:              Yeah, 18 hours a day at least. At least.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. It's a very intense job for the family.

Guest:              Yeah. Right. Exactly. It was a family job. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, I feel like it has to be. And again, it's articulated in your chart because your father was following what he wanted.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And it wasn't bad or wrong, and it wasn't good or right. It was neither. It was what he wanted. And in the way that your parents' relationship worked, there wasn't room—it wasn't like your mom could be like, "Yeah, I don't want this life. I want to do something else." That wasn't an option at all.

Guest:              Not at all. No.

Jessica:            Zero percent. Yeah.

Guest:              Zero. Yep.

Jessica:            Zero percent. And so I want to name that theme—on a scale from 1 to 100, let's call it an 80-something, okay?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            That exact same thing that's happening with you and your ex with co-parenting—now, maybe with you, it's happening at a 30, and with your parents it was at an 80. I'm not saying it's the exact same thing, but it's the same theme.

Guest:              Got you.

Jessica:            And there is the parent that you're more like, and there's the parent you're less like in this context. And I want to ground you into this because, first of all, I can really see your activation around this. I want to acknowledge I could be wrong. Listen. I could be right about everything else and wrong about this. I could be wrong about half the things. Let's hold space for Jessica could be wrong, okay?

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            That'll make it a little more spacious inside of you to hear what I have to say, and then—

Guest:              Okay. All right.

Jessica:            —feel free to disagree with me.

Guest:              It's hard to believe, but okay. I'll trust you.

Jessica:            No, no. Believe. Believe. Believe. Believe and trust. Okay. So the reason why this is important, from my perspective as an astrologer, for you to be able to kind of perceive and hold is because you struggle with power. You struggle with giving yourself permission and grace to be in your power, to make bold decisions, and to ask other people to back you up and, when they don't back you up, say, "Except you have to," which is what you're doing.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            With this life path you've taken with your career, your ex doesn't actually have a choice.

Guest:              That's right. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And for as long as you don't own that, for as long as you have shame around that and you feel defensive because you're ashamed because you feel entitled, but also, you don't, but also, you do—you don't want to be like your dad in this way—whatever it is.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            For as long as you're in that struggle, now we're reinforcing your Mars/Pluto/twelfth-house child. You're modeling for your child, "Yes, I'm taking up space. Yes, I'm doing whatever I want, but I'm not owning it. I'm not stating it. I'm not living in the energy of it. I'm just doing it."

Guest:              I think that's changed a little bit.

Jessica:            Great.

Guest:              I have to say, yeah, I started a PhD program last year, and I feel like ever since—

Jessica:            That's huge.

Guest:              It's huge. Yeah. So I just finished my first year. Ever since I got in, I would say I have started to do what you're saying, which is take up space in that way and be like—liberation is my north star. And for my people, everything I do is towards liberation. And of course, that starts within. You know, and so I do a lot of work within in that realm. But I do think I have started taking up space kind of unapologetically in that way, or maybe not unapologetically, but at least doing it [crosstalk]—

Jessica:            In it. In the space. Yeah.

Guest:              Exactly. And I'm saying, "This is what I need." I actually have to.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So that's the point right there. Let's hang out right there. "I have to." The "I have to" is a self-defense.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when we're in a state of defensiveness, that's how we know we're not in ownership. You choose it. You choose it because not choosing it would feel terrible, but it's still your choice, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And your dad made a choice—and a bazillion things informed his choice with how he was going to live and how he was going to make money. But it forced you and your mother to make a series of choices that actually weren't your choices. You didn't actually have choices because he made that choice. And that theme is reiterated with your children, as well, right? You're making a choice, whether it's PhD program, ninth house, or travel—ninth house. You are doing these things that are right for you. And I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I want to just hang out in the messiness of the feelings here because this is your interception. This is not only your interception, but this is your interception.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And the best way to support your children is to support yourself, is to work through that part, because if you are able to say, "I have a lot of choices, and I have agency, and I'm choosing this. And unintended consequences—some of them are really beautiful and expansive, and some of them mean I'm not around for my kids as much, mean I'm placing a great deal of burden upon my ex to be in a primary parental role."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            "My ex doesn't have the same freedoms to travel and to do personal expansion things because she's in the position as primary parent." Right?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            As, kind of, your mother was. She didn't have enough choices.

Guest:  Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, everybody has a choice, right? But you see what I'm saying.

Guest:  Sure. I do.

Jessica:            And so being able to own that some of this is messy, and I know you wish it wasn't true in x, y, and z ways—and also, you're making choices, and you're making the best choices you know how to make for a myriad of reasons. And this kind of guilt and shame and defensiveness and anger and all of these messy, sticky emotions—they're inherited through your ancestral line, through your dad, right?

Guest:              Okay. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. And they're also inherited through your mom, through your mom's line. It's different. It's like we have strands. We have strands. There are different strands. And I want to just name that your chart is your chart is your chart. Your origin story and your parents' origin story and their parents' origin story—it doesn't change with time, right? It's how we metabolize how we position ourselves. And so that you have made major progress—fuck yeah, I see that. And also, this time three years from now, will you have made major progress? Yeah. Even if you have a setback, yeah. This is how you will evolve over time if you keep on doing the work, right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And as you allow yourself to say, "I choose this because I want this, and I'm aware that I have other choices, and I'm aware that some of the consequences are not what I really wish for, and other of the consequences are my greatest life purpose"—anyone who is called to social justice work who has children deals with this. Anyone who is called to have a meaningful career, whether that career is how you make money or not, who has children, has to deal with this.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You're not the first. You're not the last.

Guest:              Sure. My former partner is like that, too. She's really into her work, and she does great, amazing work. And I feel like I supported her in her ascension through that over time, and—

Jessica:            So now she's kind of taking that role with you?

Guest:              Yeah. I mean, she's still—her work is very, very demanding, so it does take a lot of compromise and working things out and this kind of very tenuous care plan for the kids and stuff. But yeah.

Jessica:            I've been avoiding looking at your ex on purpose because I'm just like, "That is a fucking whole, entire"—it's a whole, entire conversation.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            And that is a little separate, even though it's very connected. But I want to say this. The central thing and the reason why I'm really focusing on your ego and your will—okay? Because I am really focusing on your ego and your will, and I'm doing that because, now, that's Mars. Right? And you have Mars at the top of your chart, highest planet in your chart. And your child's Mars is in the twelfth house. That's unusual. I mean, what is unusual? I mean, I don't think there's anything that's usual, exactly.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            But it speaks to this incredibly strong part of you. You squashed it—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —because twelfth-house planets, different but similar to intercepted planets, a parent or guardian didn't feel like it was a good thing, the smooshing it. Right?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So it makes sense that you're like—yeah, in this marriage, you felt that you had to smoosh your sexuality, smoosh your ambitions, smoosh what you wanted to do. It's in Eleanor's chart. And this is part of why I'm naming it, because the more that you can have healthy, embodied relationship to it, the more we pull Eleanor's Mars out of the twelfth and into the first. Right? So that's cool.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But also, the reason why I'm a little bit harping on it is because y'all both have issues with boundaries. And so boundaries are a thing that we can identify and navigate and express and all that kind of stuff—manage—from lots of different planets in the birth chart. But here's a foundational piece. If your ego is not your friend, if your ego is defensive, basically like—okay. So Mars is the car. Mars is the ego, but also, Mars is the car. So, if your ego is like a big, old fucking Hummer taking up too much space, if your ego is cutting off other cars and speeding, or if your ego is letting everyone else cut you off, never putting oil in it—you're not taking care of it—that becomes the same problem at the end of the day because if you're not taking care of yourself, then other people have to take care of you.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Or you're kind of screwed, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So, in both cases, navigating the ego—so, in both cases, I'm referring to both of your charts. Navigating the ego is an essential part of navigating boundaries. You have a right to say, "I'm doing this because I want to, because I feel called to, because it feels important," and not, "because I feel called to, because it feels important, and I took care of my ex for so many years," because that's a defense. That's a justification, right?

Guest:              Sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            And you deserve to not fucking justify it.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But you don't feel that completely yet.

Guest:              Not yet, but I'm working on it.

Jessica:            That's it. That's all you can do, and just trust and know that this is how you support your child's twelfth house and interceptions. I really focused on the twelfth house, too.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, you both have a North Node in the sixth house.

Guest:              Oh. Wow. I didn't know that.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yes. Yours is in Cancer. Hers is in Leo. And so, if I can hang out with this nodal placement, not the zodiac sign but the house—and for the record, the house of your North Node is equal to the zodiac sign. The zodiac sign is only 50 percent of the data.

Guest:              Got you.

Jessica:            So that sixth-house North Node is about developing the willingness and ability to cultivate a day-to-day life that is meaningful and healthy. So routine. Routine is a lot of what it's about. Now, you're telling me that your life's not about routine at all.

Guest:              No, that's not true.

Jessica:            Okay. Say more. Say more.

Guest:              Yeah. It's very, very routine. So we have set days that I pick the kids up. I make dinner at the house. When I wake up, I have my lemon turmeric pepper water. You know what I mean? I have all of that.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Good. So you're doing all of that.

Guest:              Oh yeah. I have my things that I do every day. Yeah. For sure.

Jessica:            But then you travel or you study, and then you—what happens in that context?

Guest:              So I just started traveling last year for my work, and I'll be doing it again this summer, like I said. It does kind of throw things off a little bit. I do try to do my stretches and stuff while I'm away, but it does throw things off a little bit. But then I come back, and I get right back to it. So—

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. So let me say this. The fact that you have a supportive routine—that is chef's kiss. I don't know if that was obvious that's what I was doing.

Guest:              Great.

Jessica:            That's what you want. That's exactly what you want.

Guest:              Cool.

Jessica:            And it's good for you to know—because you have this awareness and concern about your child's interceptions—that when you model your healthy sixth-house North Node, your child is the beneficiary and the recipient of that modeling. And that means that she is getting what she needs on a soul level.

                        So we're talking about boundaries. We're talking about all the hardest parts of your birth chart. We're talking about the harder parts of her birth chart. But I want to acknowledge there's this part, and it's so healthy and it's so on point. And also, she may struggle when you're gone.

Guest:              Yeah. I know she will.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              Yeah. She's already told me she's going to miss me. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's hard for her. Not having her routines—it's not ideal for her. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            It absolutely doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. But it does mean kind of validating, "Oh, she's expressing a boundary and a preference. She's expressing a need. And I get to validate that for her." Okay. And this is the magic. This is the magic, okay? When someone you love tells you, "I need something from you that you're not giving me or that you're taking from me," your birth chart suggests that you go into, "How do I fix it? How do I fix it? How do I fix it? How do I fix it?"

But the best way to parent a child with a Moon/Neptune conjunction is to say, "I am so glad you told me that's how you feel. I really appreciate you letting me know," because it's always really good to notice how you feel and to let the people you trust know how you feel and to, without guilt—because children are psychic sponges, so they will know if you are really guilty and just pretending to be cool—but to be like—just be as honest in a child-appropriate way as you can, to be able to say, "Eleanor, I wish I could do both things at once. I wish I could both do my job and do this important work elsewhere and be here with you for dinner every night. I can't do that. And so what do you think we could try to do while I'm gone? Should we both work on"—maybe something you can do with her is have her draw you something once a week or once every couple of days. Create a journal—because she draws, right?

Guest:              She does like to draw. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. She likes to draw. She's good at it—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —because that Moon/Neptune conjunction in Pisces gives her visual processing. So maybe pick a color of the day and, "Draw me something all in that color." And I don't know if your life supports this while you're traveling, but maybe you do some version of that, or maybe on the flight back, you do it there. You know what I mean? It gives you a project.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But being able to be like, "What kind of routine can we institute to this time when we're away?" is a good fix, which will support her, and also, it helps your brain because you go into fix-it mode. You've got a real "Daddy gonna fix it" kind of thing that happens in your brain. But the most important point is to be able to say to her, "Really, I'm hearing that you're telling me what you feel and what you need, and I'm proud of you. This is great." Yeah.

Guest:              That makes me feel really good, actually, because I'm doing that. I'm working on that.

Jessica:            Yes.

Guest:              And I think I may have some guilt and stuff in there, and so she might pick up on that. And that's fine. But I really do work on validating whatever it is she feels—and the other one, too. Yeah.

Jessica:            So one last thing I'll say about that, then, is it's okay to tell your kid, "Part of me feels guilty. It's hard to be an adult. It's also hard to be a kid. Do you ever have mixed feelings?" You can name it for your child. Being a good parent doesn't mean being clean all the time. That's not possible, right?

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            But you can name for your child—I mean, you don't want to dump on your child. You don't want your child to have to process more than is necessary. But if you're like, "I'm leaving in two weeks, and my guilt is building," then you can say, "Oh, I'm noticing that I'm feeling this way. It's just because I love you so much and I hate to leave you." You can name it. It'll make you feel better. It'll make her feel better because it's the truth.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And kids know when we're lying. They just don't know what it means or why, so they make up their own stories, right?

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jessica:            So the good news in all of this is you're pointed in the right direction. And then the bad news is none of this changes that we are what we are, and we come from where we come from, and life is hard.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            I mean, there's that, right?

Guest:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            Now, one other thing I want to say to you—right now, Saturn and Neptune are trining your Mars and your Uranus by transit. So whatever work you're doing is really important, is consistent with your ethos. It's an adventure, and it's also—it's humanitarian work, right?

Guest:              Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Neptune. Fucking Neptune. Yeah. It's a great humanitarian.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Also, Pluto is conjunct your Ascendant.

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So it's not totally safe, the work that you're doing, right?

Guest:              No, it's not.

Jessica:            It puts your person in danger.

Guest:              It does. Yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And associated with that is the timeliness of us having this reading where we're talking about how to be in your power because when you are in your power defending me, you're great. You have no fucking qualms. You are qualm-free.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            When it comes to defending you, qualms. We have qualms, right?

Guest:              Yep.

Jessica:            And so, when you're advocating for other people, the cleanliness, the ease, the lack of stickiness that you experience of—you're fine with just holding ground, holding space, staying in embodiment for other people. And I want to encourage you to let that teach your friend. You have the skill, and the more that you can practice giving yourself permission to have references, make mistakes, want things, the better. Right? That's where you expand. That's where your Mars gets healthier. That's where it makes it easier for you to embody your boundaries with the people you like and love, and that just has a cascade effect that is nothing but good on you, on your life, on your physical health, and on your fucking child. So check mark. Green light. See what I'm saying?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. So it's okay for me to be like, "I want this"?

Jessica:            Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah.

Guest:              And that's it; I don't have to justify it or—

Jessica:            No, you don't.

Guest:              —defend it. Okay.

Jessica:            No, you don't.

Guest:              It feels like I do. With my former partner, it feels like I am. I'm like, "You don't understand. This is like the social issue, humanitarian issue, of our time. And I am privileged enough to be part of the lineage of this." You know what I mean? I do feel called. And so—

Jessica:            Does she not understand?

Guest:              She does, but also, I think because it throws her routine and everything off, she doesn't like that. And so—

Jessica:            So my question for you is, is it that she doesn't understand, or is it that, "Yes, and it puts pressure on me," "Yes, and it's hard for me"?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Because part of your difficulty—and this is not exclusive to you. It's to anyone. Anyone who has a difficulty with asserting boundaries, when someone else asserts a boundary to you, it feels like, "Ahh, you're attacking me." Right?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So listen. She's your fucking ex. I'm not trying to suggest you have a perfect relationship and everything is perfect or whatever.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But this difficulty that you have of naming your needs, naming your preferences, making a call, not defending it—that existed before you met your ex.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That will exist way past when you speak with her the last time. This is your issue. Part of what I think is really important in this relationship with your ex is to be able to say to yourself, "I have a right to make these choices, and I know that this is the right choice for me. And also, I acknowledge the burdens it places on the people around me." And that's really hard for you because you're either, "I'm bad. You're good," or, "You're good. I'm bad"—or whatever. You know?

Guest:              I do.

Jessica:            You go into this all-or-nothing sort of thinking. Fucking Pluto, right?

Guest:              Yes.

Jessica:            Scorpio Moon.

Guest:              100 percent.

Jessica:            And so, instead, being able to say to your partner next time this shit comes up—because it will come up again—"You are right"—

Guest:              No doubt.

Jessica:            —yeah—"You are right. It puts burden on you. I want to acknowledge it, and I want to say I'm sorry. I wish there was a way I could do this that didn't place the burden on you"—because again, I'm not really looking at her energetically, but from—I can kind of see a tiny, little corner of her. She gets it.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She does get it.

Guest:              She does. I mean, she does this work, too. I mean, she's really into justice, and she's a very powerful person in her field. And so yeah. No, she does get it. I think why I think she doesn't get it is because over the past 611 days of the genocide, any issue we have, that seems to be divorced from what we're talking about, when for me, it's part and parcel of it.

Jessica:            Yes. Okay.

Guest:              It's been so difficult, you know?

Jessica:            This is really important. And part of me is like, "Oh, we could have been talking about this all hour." But we talked about important stuff. Okay. But let me say this as I look at it—sorry—is that you are having two different conversations. That's part of why you're divorced. You're having two different conversations. You're like, "Yes, of course, it's hard. But look at how important it is."

Guest:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And she's saying, "Yes, of course, it's important. But look at how hard this is for me." You are not listening to each other. She understands that the genocide is an atrocity.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She understands the importance of your work and your sacrifice and the risks you're taking, and she is not in disagreement with you. I am seeing zero percent. Zero percent disagreement. She's just saying, "And also, when you leave, all of the things you do for our children stop, and I have to figure them out on my own."

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And she is not wrong.

Guest:              No, she's not. You're right. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You're having two different conversations. And because you have a hard time "and also-ing" things to do with your own ego and your own boundaries, you're like, "You don't get it at all," when in fact, yes, she fucking gets it. You know she gets it. If she didn't get it, you couldn't co-parent with her at all.

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            You couldn't fuck with her at all.

Guest:              That's right.

Jessica:            She does get it.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She's just talking about something else.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, much like I recommended with your daughter, being able to say to your ex, "Listen. You have expressed to me how this is really hard on you, and I have been like, 'But what's happening in Palestine?' And I want to just take a moment to acknowledge, yes, what's happening in Palestine, and also, this is hard for you."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            "I appreciate you making it possible for me to be a good parent and to do this important work for my people."

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            That doesn't take anything from you.

Guest:              Oh, no, I've said it already.

Jessica:            You have?

Guest:              I mean, I do. I feel truly, truly grateful that she does what she does for me when I do these things. Yeah.

Jessica:            Great.

Guest:              Like last year when I went, yeah, no doubt. I'm extremely in gratitude for our relationship and our kids and stuff. Yeah. So I can definitely do that more. Yeah.

Jessica:            I think you don't have to do it more. Do it when you're triggered. That's—

Guest:              Oh, see, that's the thing. Totally. That's it, because she'll say that, and then I feel really bad. And I'm like, "Oh, you are making me feel bad for the work that I need to do."

Jessica:            Yes. "I already have this huge ancestral and literal current burden, and you are placing even the slightest thing on top of it, so you have to defend yourself."

Guest:              Exactly.

Jessica:            And that's the only time I'm telling you to do this. That's the only time, okay?

Guest:              Got it. Okay.

Jessica:            That's the only time.

Guest:              The only time I haven't done it. Okay.

Jessica:            Correct. Of course. Of course. Of course. And it's because when we bring it back full circle to your child's chart and your chart, as we as parents evolve, we create a kind of wider vein through which the lymph can flow of our children and our descendants, if you will. The more constricted we are, the tighter that vein is. And the more open we are, the easier it is for them because they have models on an energy level, on a psychological level, on a behavioral level, emotional level.

                        What happens in this situation—like this one little microcosm situation that we're talking about with you and your ex—is even if your child's not in the fucking room, is that your child has modeled for her one parent says, "I have a boundary and a need." The other parent says, "I get that. I'm sorry. I can't meet that." And then the other parent says, "Okay. I feel sad or bad." And the other parent says, "I get that. I feel sad and bad, too." And then everyone moves on with life. That is modeling healthy boundaries. And of course, it's not going to be that clean and that simple, and I'm using seven-year-old-appropriate languaging for it.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But that's—if we're really here to talk about how to support the kid through the interception, that's the way.

Guest:              Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            And doing it perfectly is not the goal. Doing it all the time is not the goal. Never fucking up is not the goal. It's about recognizing, "Oh shit. I just spent a week fighting with my partner about something that I actually just needed to acknowledge what she's saying and then give her space to have her feelings. I don't need to defend myself." And then you can turn back to your partner and be like, "Hey. I realize what was happening. Sorry. I got really triggered."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can just say it and move on. You don't have to beat yourself up.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            You don't have to beat yourself up. And that's hugely important because beating yourself up keeps you stuck in a pattern. You've heard me use the term "interjected perpetrator," right?

Guest:              Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this is where you become your own interjected perpetrator, where you're stopping yourself from embodying your capacity through guilt or self-punishment.

Guest:              Totally. Yeah. I feel that.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Guest:              I do feel that. So I think we are practicing that, which feels good.

Jessica:            Great.

Guest:              But yeah. I hear you. I hear that's what you need. I'm in a different place, but I completely hear you, and that feels bad. I got you. I respect that. Yeah. We are working on that, for sure. We have not shared with the children that we are separated.

Jessica:            Oh my.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              So we framed it as—because we slightly separated for like six weeks in the summer of 2023, and because my ex has an Aries Rising, she's like, "We gotta tell them. We gotta tell them now." And I was like, "I don't know. We probably could wait a little bit." But we told them, and the older one, who's—this is not the kid we're talking about. I saw tears well in their eyes, and they got scared. But I was like, "You don't actually need to be scared." So, this time—you know, and then I moved back into the house. We got separate rooms and stuff. This time, we were like, "Why don't we live it a little bit so that they see that there's nothing to be afraid of?"

Jessica:            Right. Right.

Guest:              You know? And so—

Jessica:            And so it's been two years?

Guest:              We just separated in September.

Jessica:            Oh. Okay. So it's very recent.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. Very recent. Yeah. Yeah.  I just moved out in September.

Jessica:            Okay.

Guest:              So we are planning on talking to them soon because my ex has a boyfriend that she's getting pretty serious about, who also has a kid. And so, you know, talking—

Jessica:            Oh. Wow.

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about how to kind of navigate that.

Jessica:            Okay. Sorry. I'm just looking at Eleanor's chart for a minute here.

Guest:              Of course.

Jessica:            So Neptune is squaring her Saturn, and Saturn is squaring her Saturn.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            So this is going to be hard on her.

Guest:              Oh gosh. Okay.

Jessica:            Well, I mean—

Guest:              That's interesting because she actually—I feel like it would be harder on the older one, which—like I said, that's another Virgo with a Pisces Moon.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              But she—the other day, they were, all three of them, hanging out. And Eleanor said to my former partner, "Are you and Momo getting a divorce?" just straight up. And then the older kid was like, "No. Of course not. Why would you say that? That's not"—

Jessica:            Oh.

Guest:              I know. I know. And this is—

Jessica:            It's so hard.

Guest:              It's so hard. It really is.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. That's really rough.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Well, I'm not looking at the other child's chart, so I don't know how it would affect them.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But Saturn squares Saturn, for a child—it's not an uncommon time for parents to divorce.

Guest:              Wow. Okay.

Jessica:            Think about it. How many friends do you have who have parents who are divorced that divorced when they were around seven?

Guest:              Honestly, I have no idea.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. That's a thing. It's a thing.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            A lot of people experience that.

Guest:              Wow.

Jessica:            Yeah. Co-parenting is really, really hard, and it takes its toll. You know?

Guest:              It sure does.

Jessica:            Yeah. It completely changes your relationship.

Guest:              It does. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It does. And so I think that hoping for your children to be unaffected, unimpacted, and unharmed by divorce is unrealistic, you know?

Guest:              Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            Expecting your children to be unimpacted and unharmed by staying with somebody that you're not happy with is also unrealistic.

Guest:              True.

Jessica:            So what you can't do is make it so that Eleanor never experiences bad weather. But what you can do is get her warm socks and cool clothes and all the other things she needs for various forms of weather, and she gets those tools and those skills from you, and she's a kid. She'll get them from you when she's an old fucking lady too, hopefully, if all things go well. So she will need support is my guess. And in particular, what might be tricky for Eleanor—and again, I'm not looking at the chart of the other child—is if, one minute, she has these two parents who are in a relationship as far as she's understanding, and then the next minute, her mommy has a boyfriend and there's another kid in the mix.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Did you expect that to go well? Because that's not going to go easy.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, it might go well, but it's not going to go easy. You know what I mean?

Guest:              Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            That is a lot of medicine all at once.

Guest:              It is. Yeah. And we'll go slow about it, you know? We won't do it all at once, but that's the—

Jessica:            Your Aries Rising ex is going to go slow?

Guest:              She's working on it.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Guest:              I mean, we both have been—

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Guest:              We both—yeah. Yeah. It's true.

Jessica:            Listen. I don't believe one way or another that—anything about your ex. Again, I haven't really looked at her because I wanted to stay focused on you and Eleanor.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But I will say that Neptune and Saturn are both in Aries, and they're squaring your little Eleanor's Saturn.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And every single child at the age of approximately seven goes through a Saturn square to Saturn.

Guest:              Right.

Jessica:            Not every child goes through a Neptune square to Saturn, but that's what's happening for your child. And that makes you test and question what's real, what's true. So she might, at some point, be like, "I knew you fucking weren't together. Why didn't you tell me you weren't fucking together?" You know what I mean?

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She's a smart kid.

Guest:              She is.

Jessica:            So she might be like, "Were you lying to me?"

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You might need to unpack for her, if she presses, "Yeah, we were figuring it out, and we didn't want to destabilize anything until we were sure." Be honest with this child.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If you're not honest with her—now, I'm saying, again, an age-appropriate amount. You don't want to be dumping or asking her to take care of your emotions. But be honest with her because she's just like, "If I'm looking at the sky and it's blue, why are all the adults saying it's pink?" You know what I mean?

Guest:              Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It just makes her crazy. She just really gets frustrated by that.

Guest:              Yeah. I can see that. Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is just a process. It's just a process.

Guest:              Yep. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're talking about it. And so, yeah, probably over the next couple of weeks, we'll let them know that we've separated but that we love them very much, and as you can see, we're still very committed to taking—yes, Jessica?

Jessica:            I have a question. Thank you for calling on me. When do you leave?

Guest:              July 23rd.

Jessica:            And you're going to tell them right before you go?

Guest:              Oh gosh. Now that you say it like that—thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome. I wouldn't do that.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            I wouldn't do that, because I think it'll be hard on Eleanor.

Guest:              So we'll wait until I come back.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. How long are you gone for?

Guest:              A little over two weeks.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. It's not a crazy amount of time to wait.

Guest:              No.

Jessica:            I think that'll make it a lot easier because if Eleanor's routine is interrupted shortly after she gets this news, I think that'll be harder on her.

Guest:              Okay. That makes sense.

Jessica:            So, again, I'm not looking at your elder child, but I think that's true for her.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And you're seeing somebody, as well, right?

Guest:              I'm not. Not anymore.

Jessica:            Did it just end?

Guest:              It ended a couple of months ago, but I'm still working through getting—

Jessica:            It's there. Okay, because this whole time, I've just felt this other person just kind of in the mix.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So here's the thing about Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant. It's a great time for having life-ruining, spectacular sex.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Jessica:            It's a great time for—(laughs). You're welcome.

Guest:              Indeed. Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. I am so sorry.

Guest:              Yes. Yes. That's right.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's a great time for having transformational love and lust with someone where you're just like, "This is meant to be. It's the most meant-to-be-thing I've ever experienced." It's not a great time for healthy relationships, though. So that love that you felt for that person, that powerful feeling that you felt for that person, was in part—according to the transit—really about you experiencing yourself in ways you hadn't got to experience yourself in the past.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Part of what you're mourning is who you were with that person.

Guest:              Fascinating. I haven't thought about it from that angle. I thought I was mourning an emotional pattern that I'm trying to let go of as I transform.

Jessica:            I don't want to deny that. That sounds really fucking—very real, very smart. I'm going to "and also" it. Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant—we usually experience something of ourselves where it's like you're free in the way that you love or there's something in the physical connection where you're just like—you're in it, and you're authentic. There's something that happened in that union where you got to experience love or fun or yourself in a way that you hadn't for a long time or maybe never have. And that's part of it. You know? That's part of it.

                        Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant is transformational. It's not fucking easy. And so the beautiful thing is that you can step into your power in this time, and that has a lot to do with everything we've been talking about, which is boundaries, ownership—putting yourself in a dangerous situation because you believe in what you're doing, even, is part of this transit. But at the end of the day, transit's not forever. This is an exceptionally good time for stepping into your power in your relationship with your ex, in how you allow yourself to feel grief.

                        In my experience, when people break up with a very long-term relationship and then they date someone else pretty quickly afterwards or there's an overlap, the second person that you were with for a much shorter period of time, you grieve more than you did the marriage or the long-term relationship.

Guest:              100 percent. Actually, I dated two people, so I don't know which one you're talking about, actually. But yes, I'm grieving the one that I—we just broke up a couple months ago. But it was kind of like this lingering thing, like maybe it could still da-da-da-da-da. But then, finally, I was like, "No. I just have to say no. It's not going to happen. There's no more of this." And so, finally, I'm turning the corner in that way, and also—boundaries. We were supposed to hang out yesterday, but I was like, "You know what? I can't. I'm not ready. I can't do it."

Jessica:            Good for you.

Guest:              Yeah. Thank you. It felt really good, even though I really wanted to see her—

Jessica:            Yep.

Guest:              —like, really badly. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah. I bet. I bet.

Guest:              Yeah. I miss her.

Jessica:            This is the beauty of the Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant. It's hard, but stepping into your power is powerful, right? Stepping into your power is so important. And at the end of the day, when we're going through Pluto transits, they're never easy. But your capacity to heal your patterns is pronounced during this period. And because Neptune is trining your Mars, it strengthens your ego's resiliency because it allows you to be more forgiving towards yourself, not just towards others. You know how to be forgiving towards others until you don't.

But this is something where you can be more forgiving, truly, to yourself and towards others, and to experience the power of empathy because empathy is not necessarily a power, but it is always a power. Both are true, right? So, if you allow yourself to tap into the ways in which empathy is power, then, again, you can use that not just in Palestine, but you can use that when navigating guilt with somebody you care about, when navigating feelings of stickiness inside of you.

Guest:  Yeah.

Jessica:            Liberation in a collective sense, liberation from trauma in a personal sense, and giving yourself permission to just fucking be a person who makes mistakes and gets it right sometimes and all the things—they're all—they don't have to be connected, but they are completely connected. And so the ending of that relationship, to me, feels like—and when you said, "I don't know which person you're talking about," I think we're talking about the person you just broke up with. They're kind of smooshed together.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's a little hard for me to pry them apart. It's almost like they melted, like the imprint of how they affected you now that it's over has melted a little. It's sticky.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            There is a way that you kind of hold your breath, you pull back, and you bear down inside of you, waiting. You're waiting to respond. You're waiting to respond. You're waiting to respond.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's a hypervigilance that is trauma-informed, and it's a spectacular skill because it enables you to be really accountable in all kinds of relationships and in all kinds of situations.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And also, it's born and informed by trauma for you.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And the hypervigilance is fueled by fear and guilt, like fear of failure, fear of being a failure, and guilt. Even when, literally, there's nothing to be guilty about—you don't actually think you're going to fail at all—it's just like a deep survival mechanism.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to say I cannot stress enough the importance of breathing into your body because it's almost like I feel like your diaphragm is up here or something. It's like there's a way that your system is on this high alert.

Guest:              Always.

Jessica:            Always. And—

Guest:              It's really hard. Yeah.

Jessica:            And especially when there is ease in your life and there is love in your life and all of these things, it is hard for you to allow yourself to just sink into it. It's hard when you're navigating sticky stuff. For instance, negotiating with your ex—it's sticky. Nobody's harming the other person, but it is really sticky, and it feels bad for both parties.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And in those situations, it's just you're in this phase of development where you've changed so much, and then also, there's much more growth in life to do.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you're aware of these patterns, and you're not participating in these patterns, and also, you are participating in them, and it kind of takes you by surprise. And what I'm seeing is that a fair amount of what will help you—it's not the whole story, but—is practicing just noticing that hypervigilance in your system and just trying to breathe into it, like noticing when your shoulders are up at your ears and just trying to breathe them down.

That will really help because you're going through a lot of change, and it is really hard because you don't actually know what's on the other side of it. And the way most humans function is that we work so hard to evolve, and then we get to this point where we don't really recognize ourselves on a core level, and then people revert back without realizing it. It's just like a fear of the unknown kind of thing deep in our psyche.

Guest:              Sure.

Jessica:            And your hypervigilance is all about charting paths, what to do. "How do I respond to this? What is this actually?"

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And I just want to name you're in it.

Guest:              I'm in it.

Jessica:            You're in it. And how you relate to yourself, giving yourself permission, noticing how you feel in your body—these things are slow. They don't really work with hypervigilance, but they're a huge part of the fucking answer to the question of, "How do I get to the next level with this where I have a little more peace with myself and I get new problems with the people I date instead of the old problems with the people I date?"

Guest:              Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I want.

Jessica:            You will. I mean, listen. I can't promise you shit. You could get stuck. You could get stuck. You could stop trying. I don't fucking know. But it does look like finding a partner is not actually a problem for you. Finding someone to date is not your problem. Your problem is more in how you relate to yourself and the permission you give yourself, and in the realm of problems, that's a better problem to have because that means when you hit that new spot, then you'll meet somebody who engages with you at that new spot. So that's really powerful.

                        And I don't know why, and I don't know if this is true, but I just heard really clearly, so I'm going to repeat this. When you're traveling is not the time to get into a romance with someone.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jessica:            Okay. It just came up, so I don't know. There's probably going to be somebody who's a little tempting on this next trip.

Guest:              So I should not get romantically involved with anyone while I'm traveling?

Jessica:            What I just saw—and this is another one of those things where I'm like, "Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?" But what I just saw was you know why you're going. You know what you're doing. Stay focused on that.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            And if someone is meant to be a thing with you, then that'll happen after the two weeks.

Guest:              Okay. Got you.

Jessica:            Now, I'm not saying don't waste some time with somebody for an evening if that's what you're talking about, but I vacillate in how much I believe that you actually can have a casual bone in your damn body. You have a casual bone in your body, if you know what I mean.

Guest:              I do know what you mean. Yes.

Jessica:            But the rest of you—no.

Guest:              No.

Jessica:            You're kind of like a dater—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —not just a hooker-upper.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, if you met somebody and you had chemistry, and you met them doing something that was like the most important thing in the world to you—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —that would be really hard for you to be casual about.

Guest:              Oh God. That's what happened with this one that I just broke up with.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, again—

Guest:              That's what happened. We traveled together. We did the work together. Yeah.

Jessica:            I wouldn't do that again.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            I would say don't do that again. Yeah.

Guest:              Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            For a lot of reasons, but one of them is actually this work is important to you.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's yours. And I'm not saying it's yours like Gollum or whatever, but it's yours.

Guest:              Right. Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so it's really healthy and good for you to have a partner who's not the person who's flying across the world and taking these risks, but somebody who is different than that. You get to be that, and your partner does not have to be that. Now, again, I'm talking about partners. I'm not talking about hook-ups. But I don't really trust that you're a hook-up person, even though you would like to be.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Guest:              I know. I did actually have a great hook-up experience recently, and it was great, so [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Congratulations.

Guest:              Thank you. [crosstalk].

Jessica:            And listen. It has to be the perfect situation—

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —and you have to kind of know why you don't like them in advance.

Guest:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            There has to be something where you're like, "Yeah, this isn't it."

Guest:              I'm not going to date these two people that I was with. Yes. It's true.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And that really helps you. But if you're meeting somebody who has the same values as you and you want to have sex with them, you're going to want to date them. Don't do that.

Guest:              Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            That's my advice.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            At least not this trip, okay?

Guest:              Okay. Yeah. Good.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah. Breaking patterns. Breaking patterns.

Guest:              That's very helpful. Yeah. I love it.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. You're welcome.

Guest:              No, that's fucking fantastic because this person was supposed to come with me—I mean, she is going to be on the second part of the trip because that's part of the work that we do, blah, blah, blah. But she was going to come to the first part with me, and I had to say no.

Jessica:            Oh, I'm so glad that you did that.

Guest:              Yes. Thank you.

Jessica:            I'm so glad that you did that.

Guest:              Yeah. Me, too.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's the right thing, and that must be why it came up, because I was like, "I have to tell you this."

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That person is not your future.

Guest:              Okay. Good.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

Guest:              That's so beautiful to know. No, no. Thank you.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah.

Guest:              I'm glad to know that. I'm glad because I was like, "Oh no. I love them, and this is—we're so aligned in the work, and I love them." You know what I mean?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Pluto doesn't give you casual.

Guest:              No.

Jessica:            Pluto doesn't give you casual. But if you were 20 years younger, I'd say go for it. Ruin your life for a little while. Have fun. You know what I mean?

Guest:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But that's not where you're at.

Guest:              No. No. She is younger, too.

Jessica:            Oh, she is? That makes sense. Yeah.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That makes sense with your chart. Yes.

Guest:              (laughs)

Jessica:            Sorry. (laughs)

Guest:              I could talk to you all damn day. I want to know. I want to know.

Jessica:            I could talk to you all damn day.

Guest:              This is amazing.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Well, I'm so glad we did this.

Guest:              Me, too.

Jessica:            Also, do you mind if I ask what your work is? Do you want to plug the organization or anything like that?

Guest:              I have an article that I wrote, if I could share that with you—

Jessica:            Absolutely.

Guest:              —about disability in Palestine.

Jessica:            Yes.

Guest:              And people can donate to the links there. But yeah. It's about getting mutual aid to displaced Palestinians in Cairo and in Palestine, as well. So yeah.

Jessica:            Great. And so will you send it to me, the article, links to donate, and all that kind of stuff? And then we'll just share it in the show notes of the episode.

Guest:              For sure. I would love that.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Great.

Guest:              Thank you so much. Yeah.

Jessica:            Oh, it is my pleasure. Absolutely.

Guest:              Yeah. Amazing.

Jessica:            Yeah. So thanks for doing the work.

Guest:              Thank you for helping me, seriously, Jessica. I've listened to you for years.

Jessica:            Yay.

Guest:              And you've been such a teacher for me. And I laugh with you. I just vibe.

Jessica:            Thank you.

Guest:              So I'm so happy we got to meet.

Jessica:            Me, too. I'm so happy.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And I wish you well. And also, I will say to the people I will not start reading a bunch of children's birth charts, just for the record. This was a fun Queer exception. That's what that is.

Guest:              Yeah. Exactly. [crosstalk].

Jessica:            And Eleanor is great. Eleanor is great.

Guest:              Okay.

Jessica:            Also, she has an Aquarius Ascendant. You noticed that, right? [crosstalk]—

Guest:              Yes, just like me. Yeah.

Jessica:            I know.

Guest:              I know.

Jessica:            This is like your little you.

Guest:              Exactly.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Guest:              That's why I'm, like, mind-blown, like, "How did this happen?" And she is so zany and spunky and out there. And I'm like, you know, she is who I could have been if my parents didn't fucking put the fear of God [crosstalk].

Jessica:            You don't think you're zany, out there, and outspoken? You don't think you're those things?

Guest:              I am—

Jessica:            Now.

Guest:              —but I was not allowed to be when I was a kid.

Jessica:            Correct. Correct, correct, correct, correct. Yeah. It's true.

Guest:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's really something special to see yourself in a kid. It's especially triggering and also like, "Oh my God. Why didn't I love this about myself? This is fucking amazing." Right? It's like all the things.

Guest:              It's all the things.

Jessica:            All the things.

Guest:              It's all the things. So thanks for continuing to affirm me as well.

Jessica:            I will affirm you till the day is done, I tell you what.

Guest:              Thank you.

Jessica:            Thank you so much.

Guest:              Have a good day. Yes.

Jessica:            Bye.