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

Louise:            Hi, Jessica. So they say every Tarot card holds its own nuances, dualities, and is not simply a good card or a bad card. However, Five of Swords? All the interpretations I've read in texts or online seem to lean more negative in tone and message, ranging from a bitter reflection to a scolding warning. I recently pulled the card for a Full Moon Tarot spread in the placement of the Ember, what we need to nourish and tend to. I am trying to understand and expand my understanding of the Five of Swords through this lens but keep fumbling.

The part of my life this spread feels relevant to is around my boundaries and relationships. I feel like I've made a lot of growth in understanding myself in ways that feel empowering and loving. So I'm like, "Maybe it's good to be the one holding the swords," or is there a warning I need to heed? How can I interpret the Five of Swords in a way that feels nourishing and not scowlingly?

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So, first of all, I read your question in the exact tones that you used to read it, and I just want to say it was fun. It was fun. Okay. So it's interesting. This is my first time using this little camera and getting to talk about the Tarot on the podcast, I think. I don't think I've done a Tarot-focused reading.

So I'm going to have a couple questions, but first, I'm going to say every deck is different, and the internet is a liar. And so the internet will tell you all the decks that use the same fucking setup are the same, and it's not true. If you pulled a Five of Swords in a fairy deck, it's going to track differently than—I use the Thoth deck. I use the Aleister Crowley Thoth deck, even though he was, from all accounts, really a terrible person. But I do use this deck because it's heavy on the astrology, and so—I am heavy on the astrology, so I fucks with that.

My question for you is, what is this Ember thing that you're talking about?

Louise:            Yes. So—

Jessica:            What does that mean?

Louise:            So it was a spread I found from a Tarot influencer online, and it was a three-card spread. And the first card is the Moon, what is being revealed. The second card is the Fire, what needs to burn away. And then the Ember was what needs to be tended to and nourished. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. That's very pretty.

Louise:            Yeah. And there was a fourth card that was like, where is this in your life? And so I pulled a fourth card, too.

Jessica:            Okay. So, because I'm a Capricorn, I'm just going to say it's what needs to be revealed, right? Like what needs to come out, right? That's card 1?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            What you need to release or let go of, and then what you need to take care of. So let's actually just fucking talk about the Five of Swords.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's just start there. So, in the Thoth deck, it's a Venus in Aquarius card. So, straight out the gate, what that tells us is that it's relational, and it's future-focused. "What's going to happen in my relationship? What should I do in my relationship?" The Defeat card is what is called the Five of Swords in this particular deck. And I'm assuming you're not using this deck.

Louise:            No.

Jessica:            What deck do you use?

Louise:            I am using a deck—I know it more by the artist than the title. It's the So Lazo deck, and so—Rainbow Tarot. The Rainbow Tarot deck.

Jessica:            Rainbow Tarot. And does it have progressive interpretations? Do you have a companion book?

Louise:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Louise:            It's, like, progressive, Queer interpretations.

Jessica:            Totally. Okay. Great. Love to hear it. Is it—and this depends on how much you know about the Tarot. Is it based on the Rider-Smith-Waite? Do you know that deck?

Louise:            I know it vaguely. It seems like the imagery mimics the imagery I've seen of an RWS deck.

Jessica:            Yeah. Right.

Louise:            And so I think so.

Jessica:            Great. Okay. Good. This is the thing that's tricky about Tarot. The creators of a deck have an intention for the cards, and it's not 100 percent translatable. Most decks—most Tarot decks, not Oracle decks—are based on the Rider-Smith-Waite. And this is why I ask, just to make sure that that's what we're working with. Now, when I look at the Five of Swords, I do not see death, doom, and destruction. And I would be curious what your card looks like. Do you have your cards?

Louise:            I do. I have them all set out.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. So I might have you hold up your Five of Swords for me to look at that image. So she's holding what—four swords in one hand and another sword in the other hand. She's doing this really what I would not call safe thing where she's just leaning the sharp parts of the swords on her shoulder and her neck. And then the other one is pointed towards her body, right? Let's start there. She is alone. It is the daytime, yes?

Louise:            There are two figures in the back.

Jessica:            Are they turned away?

Louise:            Yes.

Jessica:            They're turned away from the person, and they're in shadow.

Louise:            Yes.

Jessica:            So let's start there. Okay. Whenever there are figures in shadow, the metaphor stands, right? We don't see them clearly. They are obscured, whether it's intentionally or circumstantially, right? This woman—she's a woman, right? I'm seeing her gender correctly?

Louise:            Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. I mean, whatever. Doesn't matter. Just for ease of pronoun. This woman is doing something objectively not so smart, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            She's holding very sharp swords in a cavalier and dangerous way, in a way that could be characterized as pointing towards self-harm. Her back is turned to the people she's focused on, and she's holding the swords in a self-harming way. Okay. Swords in the Tarot are air element in astrology. It's your noodle. It's your thinker. It's what you're saying. It's communications. It's listening. And it's how you're processing, how you're thinking about things.

                        In my deck and in your deck, there is an agreement. So, in this deck, we have five different swords. They're all pointed inwards, but they're all kind of shaped differently. They're all a little fucked up. And it's in darkness. Do you know what I'm saying? It's in darkness. And whenever we have darkness in the Tarot, we have—and I'm talking about lighting, right? Specifically—

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            —I'm talking about lighting. What we have is conscious versus unconscious, clear to see versus not clear to see. So, plain language, the Five of Swords comes up when you are obsessing on a relationship, you are focused on the future, you're focused on, "What's going to happen? What should I do? What are they going to do?" and you are not making a whole lot of sense. You are feeling somehow demoralized, defeated, fucked up. You're just sure it's not going to go great. But part of that is how you're holding it.

                        So, if we go back to your deck—open body language. She's self-confident. She's self-possessed. But she's doing this really stupid thing.

Your cat is glorious, and that was the perfect time to bring a tail into the conversation.

But what she's doing is ridiculous, right? The way she's holding these swords is ridiculous. So, similarly, when this Five of Swords comes up, what it means is the way that you're thinking about your relationship situation is self-harming. There's something in your thinking and approach that is so twisted up in your reactiveness that you're not present.

                        So, again, in my deck, it's an Aquarius card, forward thinking in not a helpful way, okay? Fives in general in the Tarot are conflictual, right? They're frustration. And so, when the Five of Swords comes up—see, part of why I was so interested in your question is because that is not the worst card of the deck by a long shot. So the fact that it's fucking you up and you're like, "This card has no redeemable qualities"—but it does. It does. And the way that it does is that it speaks to how you are struggling with how you hold your relationships, how you're thinking about your relationships. And there are so many things that are out of your control, but how you think is not one of them. Is this tracking for your experience and your reading so far?

Louise:            Yes and no. I don't feel demoralized or defeated. I feel very like, "I think I'm doing a good job." So I'm very intrigued, but—

Jessica:            What was the question?

Louise:            So it was more so a reading in terms of—yeah, it was a Full Moon reading, so it was like the season, the cycle of what's coming up for me. What's something I can turn towards? And this came after I did a New Moon reading where I wrote affirmations of, like, "I can trust myself, and I trust my intuition. My intuition is strong." And so, when I pulled this spread, the Moonlight card of what's being revealed was the Three of Cups. And I felt really good about that. I was like, "Oh hell yeah."

Jessica:            Who wouldn't feel good about that?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, who on this Earth would feel like, "Oh no, the Three of Cups"?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Okay. So you got the Three of Cups. That's what's being revealed. Beautiful. What do you need to let go of? What was the middle card?

Louise:            The Magician reversed.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So what this reading is speaking to is either your relationship to yourself or your relationship to someone or something. What do you think it's about?

Louise:            I don't know. I feel like it's telling, in some ways, that I'm not sure.

Jessica:            I mean, and this is the downside of the general reading, is that if you don't get the cards that you want, then it's like, "I don't know. It could be anything." So I'm going to have you say your full name out loud.

Louise:            [redacted].

Jessica:            It was about a relationship.

Louise:            Yeah. So I'm currently navigating—I have a constellation of four people.

Jessica:            Okay. Astrology. Love it. Yes. Although I know it's not astrology, I still love it.

Louise:            Mm-hmm. Just to name them real quick, I have a lover. I have a partner who I'm separated from, who I've been together with for over seven years, the lover I met last year, and then I have a friend who we're in this kind of fluid, sort of—we were calling each other boyfriend-girlfriend like we each were boyfriend-girlfriend. But then, a couple weeks ago, I felt a big sense of no. And so I—we deescalated that, and we're still—it feels a little fluid.

                        And then, meanwhile, I'm kind of on this journey. Sex has become very important to me in the last year, and so I'm looking for relationships that nourish that. So there's a fourth person that I've kind of had a hook-up with, and I'm still not sure about them, but I—intimacy can be fun. So yeah. So I have these four people, and part of me is like, "I'm kind of looking for a fifth person."

Jessica:            Okay, just making it a—okay. So okay. Now, one of the people you kind of deescalated with. Was that after the Full Moon?

Louise:            It was right before the Full Moon.

Jessica:            Okay. So that tracks with this reading. What's being revealed is like, "Ooh, I'm having good feelings. I'm having good connections with people. I know that. It feels right. It feels like there's an emotional connection, and I'm also connected to the people." You're not just hooking up in bathrooms, right? You're having connections with people.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            That's your Three of Cups. What needs to let go? That was what again?

Louise:            Magician reversed.

Jessica:            Right. You weren't listening to your intuition because you didn't want to hear from your insides, "Oh shit. I have to deescalate this situation."

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Your Five of Swords is, "I don't want to have to make a decision. I don't want to have to face that this isn't quite working the way I want it to work or it isn't what I wanted it to be." That's your Five of Swords. And you deal with it. Good news.

Louise:            Yeah. Well, so I did this reading right the same week that happened. So the Five of Swords came up after that. And so I guess part of me was like, "Oh, do I need to do more? And then do I need to"—in terms of—

Jessica:            I see. I see. Okay. If the Five of Swords was coming up, it means—and it was specifically about this one relationship—although my sense is that it's about this relationship broadly, but it has an effect on your life in general. I think it's more like the process of sorting through how you're communicating with that person, what you're thinking about it, what you feel it means about you—all of that was pointed more forwards, more Mercurial—we're talking swords—and less inwards, focused on, "Oh, this is actually how I feel about this. Oh, I've got some sadness here." You were still in that state at the time of the card casting.

                        And I'm going to guess that being a little too in your head at times is a pattern. And the reason why I'm willing to guess that is because you pull this card all the time. If you're pulling the Five of Swords, it's speaking to you about the part of you that's like, "I want to figure it out so I can get ahead of it."

Louise:            Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            And if I want to figure it out so I can get ahead of it, none of that is about being present in it. And that's not—

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Sorry. Right? And that's not the same. Listen. You pulled the Three of Cups. Yay you. Yay. So it's not like, oh, you're never emotionally present. That's not at all what the cards are saying or what I'm saying. But if this is your pattern, then what happens is you identify a problem; you want to get ahead.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And in the process of, "I need to get ahead of this," the focus is on, quote unquote, "figuring it out" as opposed to being present for whatever comes up emotionally for you that has to do with the person, that doesn't have to do with the person, what it has to do with the ecosystem of your life—you know what I'm talking about, the emotions, the mushy shit. This is not a mushy card. It feels bad, but we're skipping over the mush to get to this. What was the fourth card you pulled?

Louise:            10 of Wands.

Jessica:            Yeah, you did. It's just too much. It's just overwhelming. And so you didn't unplug that relationship. You deescalated.

Louise:            Yes.

Jessica:            I really like your language. It's very, very, very specific. I wonder, based on these card readings, if the deescalation maybe was because it was too sad or complicated to actually end as opposed to slow down—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            —which is really like—when you have the Magician upside down and you have this damn card that follows you around town, the Five of Swords, and you have the Ten of Wands—which in the Thoth is called the Oppression card because it's like you're burdened; everything's too heavy at this stage. What that shows is that you're in this pattern where you're trying to do the right things so that you can get to the good feelings—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            —so that you can get to the fun parts, so you can get to the, like, "Yes."

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you're trying to navigate around these large elephants that you have placed in rooms.

Louise:            Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And that gets in your way, right? So do you have any questions about what I just said at all?

Louise:            I'm thinking about just sharing that, of these four people in my constellation, there's only one that I feel a complete, secure yes around, and three of which I feel like I am consistently navigating my values around being in relationship with people. Like, I don't cut people off, I think, so—and I continue to be in relationship with people and continuing to hold them and hold space with them, even when I'm not getting what I want. I feel this very big antsy of, "I want what I want. I want what I want," and so that's why I'm like, "I want all those swords," because I can figure out a way to get everything I want, each piece from these different places. And I also don't want to be monogamous again, and so—

Jessica:            So there's layers, and I'm going to come to this in a minute, okay? There's layers of what I want to say to that. You do not want the Five of Swords. You literally wrote me a question about why the fuck these terrible fucking cards, right? You do not want the Five of Swords. The Five of Swords is not a pleasure card, okay? It's not a joyful card. It's not a well-adjusted card. And also, you don't want monogamy. And also, you don't want boring. And also, you don't want to walk around with a hatchet cutting people off. You're not trying to be the Death card either, right?

                        The irony is the Death card and the Five of Swords have things in common. And you're like, "I don't want to be the Death card." And so, really, what I'm hearing, and unfortunately what the Five of Swords is already telling on you about, is that you're trying to get ahead of hanging out in the messiness and the complexity of, "This person is not perfect for me, but I'm really enjoying x, y, and z with them. That, I can see, is a freight train running down a very short track. And it's hot, and it's fun, and I'm choosing it."

                        And this—when it ends, I hope it ends well. You are allowed to make choices. Not everything has to be permanent. Not everything has to be deep. Not everything has to be perfect. But you're not allowing yourself to be emotionally present with it, so you're not fully in alignment with it. So you're pulling that fucking card.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            So you could stop dating multiple people, but that's not the advice I would give. I would instead give the advice to work on being in alignment with your choices, which simply means—and I say simple; I don't mean easy—which simply means hanging out with the emotions. Now, what these cards are showing me—so this is the Prince of Swords. This dude is sitting on a chariot of sorts. You know, it's fucking Tarot. And there are three parts of him, and he's got a sword poised. It's pulled back. And he is trying to cut off these old parts of himself. He's letting go. He's cutting off old parts. It's a change card. It's you being different, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And related to this, he's a prince. And so, in the stupid hierarchy of the court, he's not a king. He's not in a state of mastery. He's learning how to do it as he goes. So this kind of tracks as a starting point, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            This is you developing a new set of skills, which requires letting go of some old ways of being. Now, these old ways of being from your Full Moon reading were speaking to—you are not tapped into your intuition. And what I'm saying is you're not tapped into your emotions. And then what I'm saying on top of that is po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh. You can't really access your intuition if you're disconnected from your emotions, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Now, the next card is the fucking bada-bing, bada-boom. This is the Universe card, right? And the Universe card is you being in this place where you are learning powerful lessons about yourself and how you navigate through intimacies. And I use a massive umbrella for the term "intimacies" because there are so many layers and levels upon which we can share intimacy, right?

                        And then, finally, the Knight of Disks. It's like, to do this work, it's really just telling you to slow down. Get in the meat suit. Tap into the emotions. This card is not inherently emotional, but I'm adding that spice to it. It's really about slowing down. The thing about this card in this particular deck is we have a knight in full armor, but he's on a horse. So imagine being full armor on a horse. So inconvenient. So awkward. But the horse is grazing. The horse is grazing, and he is sitting upright. So the horse gets to rest while he is regaining his energy, but he's not losing composure.

                        So, in other words, in your situation, you are going through a really deep transformation. These relationships are not the part that's really deep. It's the you that's really deep. You are going through a really deep transformation. And how you show up to this moment is really important. And you need a minute.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You need a minute, right?

Louise:            Yeah. No, I think I'm—so my partner of seven years—we met in 2018, and we were together, and we were engaged. And she lost her job and ended up—I didn't realize it, but we were rich. She had tech money. And so then we were planning a big wedding, and then we lost that money. And then we were living on only my income for over a year and a half, and then I made the decision that I had to move out, which was really hard. That was a really hard decision. And that was like a really hard—it was like, are we breaking up? What are we doing?

And I just felt and feel really committed to having each other in each other's lives and feeling known by someone and someone who's helped me grow so much. And at the same time, deciding to move out felt like a really big end of my Saturn Return kind of moment of just like, I need to do things for me, and I need to, yeah, listen to my feelings and what I want. And so—

Jessica:            How long ago was that?

Louise:            I moved out—so March 1st.

Jessica:            Very recent.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Now we look to your birth chart. So you were born December 21, 1994, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 12:24 p.m. You have a Venus in Scorpio conjunction to the North Node in Scorpio intercepted in the seventh house. And that alone is the placement of a person who picks the Five of Swords a lot, okay? I'm sorry, because being in relationship with other people and really letting them know you and having deep emotional connections—it's your work. It's your work. And you're so driven towards it, and it's messy, and it's complicated.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And you are good at navigating it without truly sharing of yourself. And that's actually not what you're here to do. You're here to figure out how to authentically be yourself in partnership with other people. And I think that's part of what was so important to you about that seven-year relationship, is that you were meaningfully present with this person. Currently, you are going through bananas transits. Do you know this? Okay.

Louise:            Yes.

Jessica:            You don't look surprised.

Louise:            No.

Jessica:            Uranus squares your Mars. Excellent for fucking. Excellent for fucking around. Excellent. You know what I mean? And are you not a casual sex person?

Louise:            No. I mean, I didn't start having sex until I was 24 and then was in seven-year relationship. Last year, we opened up becoming poly. And I don't know. I feel like something just lit up inside me and the connections to my own body and relationships, like—

Jessica:            Fuck yeah.

Louise:            So my lover is my lover.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have a Saturn/Mars opposition in your birth chart, and they're both intercepted in their respective houses. And so that you came to sex later in life tracks. Also, that tends to be a monogamous placement. You get focused on who your sexual partner is. Your sexual partner is not somebody that you're like, "Whatevs," about. Now, that's annoying to you because you have Jupiter in the eighth house. Someone wants to play. And you can get in there, get some, go home with that placement. But then you have Cancer on your fifth-house cusp, so then you get emotionally attached.

                        So polyamory makes great sense for you as opposed to just non-monogamy where you have lots of restrictions on the emotional component. Now, Uranus is sitting on top of Jupiter. So fuck yeah. You're like, "Let me have all the experiences. Let them be deep. Let them be transformative. Even if they're hard, I'm ready to go." This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I'm really happy that you're leaning in. That's what time it is. Wait for the "but."

                        The "but" is, in your birth chart, that Saturn/Mars opposition makes you very conscientious of consequences. This is—now that I'm actually in your chart, I'm like, "Oh, okay. Well, that's why you like the Five of Swords as well," because you're thinking about the future, trying to get ahead of it, right? But you have a Jupiter/Pluto conjunction right at that eight-house cusp from the seventh house. What that means is that you love powerful, transportive, deep, messy experiences. You don't want to plan it. You just want to fucking fall in and find out what happens.

                        And so one of the ways that this can play out is never being willing to snip a cord, because, "What if that cord leads me to something lovely later?" At the same time that you have these transits happening, fucking Neptune, my friend, squaring your Midheaven, squaring your Mercury—so rude, because while all of this exciting, fun stuff is happening, Neptune is asking you to infuse meaning and purpose into your life. And it's demanding that you communicate boundaries. It's such a bummer because, otherwise, you'd just be going wild and dealing with the consequences later in this unique moment of your life.

                        But the Neptune/Mercury square articulates that you are really affected, like spiritually, mentally affected, by people. And that's intensifying now. And so you're needing to be more conscientious about your boundaries. So, when we come back to the person who the reading was really about, the one who you deescalated with, will you say their name?

Louise:            [redacted].

Jessica:            And what's the right pronoun to use?

Louise:            They/them.

Jessica:            Okay. So they've been a longtime friend who you've recently hooked up with?

Louise:            They've been a friend for less than a year.

Jessica:            Oh, not a longtime friend. So started off as a friend. Vibes turned into—

Louise:            They expressed interest in me pretty early on, and I was recognizing that I was entering this transition with my partner. And I was like, "I just need more time, but I'm interested in exploring this." And then, basically, right before—like in December, I was like, "All right, let's just go for it now." And so I kind of jumped very eagerly into that while going through a lot of hard transitions in my literal home. And so I feel like maybe we kind of escalated a little bit quickly because I was maybe not in the most centered or grounded time in my life.

Jessica:            That feels like a fair statement. Yes.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So you deescalated, but you didn't end?

Louise:            No, no, because I think they're a really great person, and I also think that I—I guess I also feel compassion and also empathy with their struggles. And so I feel, in some ways, our charts are very similar. They're a Pisces Rising, Aries Rising—it's just very—they're—

Jessica:            Okay. So let me ask you a question. I'm going to interrupt you.

Louise:            Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's say you have a big crush on someone, and they're genuinely not available, but they don't tell you. Do you feel supported with your similar chart?

Louise:            No. Well, no.

Jessica:            No. No, you don't. No. So here's the fucking Neptune rub that you're going through. You're going through these exciting transits that genuinely are encouraging you to—yeah—jump in. You can check if there's water in the pool later. You know what I mean? That's fine. This is not typically like you, but you're doing it, and it's good. Here's the "but." Once you jump in the pool and you recognize, "Oh shit. There's no water," now you have to deal with it.

And Neptune is saying the process is boundaries. And so one can—you can—have empathy and care for someone and have a boundary and say no. One can—and again, it could be you. It could be you—can say, "Obviously, there's vibes with us. I really need to take this off the table for now. I'm not saying we can never return to it, but I need it off the table, and I want to be clear with you so that you're not holding a space for me, because this got wrapped up in my breakup"—however you want to frame it to them, because when we go through a Neptune square to Mercury transit, what can often happen is your thinking gets a little scrambled. And so then you err on the side of, "Well, this would be nice to do."

                        And niceness is rarely kind, because it's like tending to the surface of things instead of what's actually happening. Because Neptune creates anxiety in the thinking, it makes it harder to be like, "Okay. I am taking a stand. I am making a choice." And also, that's the fucking assignment. It's to figure out how to be empathetic to yourself and the other person in equal measure because leaving the door open or leaving it ambiguous actually doesn't work for you, and it actually doesn't work for them. Leaving it as an open conversation that you can both return to as the vibes hit does work for you. So does that make sense, the difference I'm referring to, like the tonal difference?

Louise:            Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It's a difference of expectation. And the risk for you is that you create a constellation that's so complex that it's just as burdensome as monogamy—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            —instead of a constellation that's so fun and rewarding that it's nothing like what wasn't working for you in monogamy when it wasn't working for you, because it did work for you at a period, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            There's times for things, right? You originally wrote to me about the Five of Swords. Do you still have remaining questions about the Five of Swords?

Louise:            I feel like my remaining question is more so like—what I'm hearing is like, okay, boundaries, and that's something I went into thinking, yeah, boundaries makes sense. I guess I'm struggling with lining up boundaries, wants, values, and then good decision/bad decision, like, consequences.

Jessica:            Yep.

Louise:            And so, yeah, I just feel very excited to have and to—the idea of, well, setting a boundary feels like saying no to myself, and then saying no to what I want when it's like what—

Jessica:            Okay.

Louise:            But maybe I'm confused, so—

Jessica:            Well, when that Five of Sword comes up for you moving forward in this journey you're on, I just want there to be a little thing in your head that's like, "Oh, I'm in my head and I'm focused on the future. This card is telling me that's not working for me right now." So you might be like, "Okay, cards. Tell me more." Right? That's fair. But I just want that to be in your head because you get this card on repeat. And that happens to everybody. We go through a period, and we get a card on repeat. That's a thing.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So let's go back to your chart. Saturn opposite Mars. Saturn in the twelfth house, Saturn in Pisces—both of these things speak deeply to the Saturnian lesson of needing to cultivate backbone, needing to identify, "This is my responsibility to myself, and I deserve to be responsible to myself." But what most people do with this placement is either collapse around responsibility or get rigid with responsibility.

                        Now, because it's opposite fucking Mars and T-squares Jupiter, the indicator towards rigidity is really strong. And so what you're doing when you're talking about boundaries is you're using the word "boundaries," but you're actually talking about rules.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Rules and boundaries are not the same thing. My boundary is knowing what I can and can't do in a healthy way and being the steward of that. My rule is, "Don't look at me that way. Don't talk to me that way. Don't ask me for that."

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            A rule cuts off possibility. It cuts off energy. It cuts off connection. And it ends up being kind of controlling. And you have experience with that in your childhood, in yourself. You have experience with that. What I'm talking about is boundaries. So, as an example, with this person, if you were to establish a rule with this person, it would do a number of things. It would create a huge amount of drama. You would feel really mixed about it. And they wouldn't respect the rule. They're messy, yeah?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So your boundary with this person—you've come to realize this dynamic has kind of just turned, right? It was exciting, and now the consequences are a little bit louder than the excitement potential. Am I seeing that correctly?

Louise:            Yes. A through line with my therapist has been emotional enmeshment.

Jessica:            Thank you. I mean, you did what we all do. You break up with somebody—and I'm not saying that you did a hard breakup, but it's just an easy term, right?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You break up with somebody, and then the first person you hook up with—we call them a rebound, right? And that person gets all this fucking energy that is relationship energy, even though they don't deserve it. But they are sparking feelings in you that you haven't felt with your ex, and so you're like, "Ooh, this is everything." And you give too much, and then the only way to pull out is to pull all the way out because when you treat somebody that you don't know like somebody that you do know, it gets you in trouble. Not just you—everybody, but for sure you, because you crave depth of connection.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you don't just go fast; you go deep. And that gets messy, right?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Messy is not bad. I want to be clear. Let's remove any fucking judgment towards messy.

Louise:            Yeah. I've been thinking about messy, and I paint, and so I'm just like, messy is also part of painting.

Jessica:            Messy is creation. Messy is sex. Messy is love. Messy is like. But within mess, it's easy to miss things. And so, when we're talking about sex and romance and love, there can be harm, right? Self-harm, harm to others, conscious and unconscious. And in the mess, we don't track it until, all of a sudden, we're like, "Well, that's fucking big. That's a huge problem all of a sudden." And that's what happened with this person, right?

                        And so the boundary here would be for you to say to yourself, "I know that this doesn't feel right in my heart. I know that I feel like I owe this person in a similar way that I feel like I owe my ex," right? Okay?

Louise:            Just a little bit, but yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. "And I actually want to have a lot of fun, and this is not a lot of fun anymore."

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            It's also not that deep and not that—it's not it. It's not like this is your future partner.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Okay. I can sit here and tell you what I think your boundaries should be, but that's not going to help you. I mean, it might help you, actually. I'm very good at this. But what I want to point you towards is the process of unpacking—and if you want me to tell you what I think they should be, fine. But the process of unpacking—"Okay. These are my feelings. These are my needs. These are my fears. These are my wants." That's what the Five of Swords is trying to get you to do, feel your fucking feelings, hang out with feelings, better understand your feelings, instead of walking around with four swords hanging out by your neck and one pointed towards your fucking feet or whatever she was doing, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            That's what you're doing. It's self-harm. And you're trying to hurt yourself so you don't hurt this person.

Louise:            Right. I mean, I know we're talking about one relationship, but I just feel like that feeling of not wanting to hurt the other person has shown up in my partner, this person, this person I hooked up with—

Jessica:            All of your relationships.

Louise:            Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            We're talking about you. We're just talking about you, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And so the reason why we're focused on this person is because that's what the Tarot reading that you did on the Full Moon spoke to primarily. And it's, in a way, the easiest example because you're so in it right now.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            But this is just your pattern. And so, if you were to identify, "Okay. I actually need to not be enmeshed with this person. I would like to leave the door open to continue to enjoy them"—but if you're being honest with yourself, you need space because it's not fun right now; it's just work.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And you feel guilty about that, because they don't feel the exact same way that you do.

Louise:            Mm-hmm. Yeah. They look at me through, like, star glasses and like I'm just fantastic, which is nice, but—

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. They are so into you.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            They are so stupid. They're like—they're just—they're really into you. And what you're doing is stringing them along because you don't want to be the bad guy. And so this is where not having boundaries ends up not being kind, even though it's nice. The rule is, "We're not hooking up ever again. This is done." The boundary is, "We went too far in a direction too close to my major relationship. I need to take this off the table for now. You're lovely. Obviously, let's stay in touch, but this has to be meaningfully different. And I want that expectation clear so I'm not leading you on." And they will be sad and probably dramatic, if we're being honest.

Louise:            Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's a bummer because all that drama should be had in bedrooms across America. You know what I mean? Like, you're ready to go. And I want to just acknowledge there is all this fun to be had, and it's not just through sex. It's also through art and creativity and different ways of playing. You're in fucking Uranus. When Uranus is good, it's my favorite transit planet. It just expands things, and you're experiencing life, and it's delicious.

But if you allow yourself to get enmeshed in these kinds of—I was going to call it bullshit dynamics, but that's not fair. But you know why I was saying that, right? Like, these things where you know that your action or lack of action is more out of guilt and obligation than it is out of that "yes" that you're trying to prioritize.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Practicing boundaries leaves more room for all that kind of fun energy. And not practicing boundaries leaves more room for that Uranian—like somebody pops into your life. You have an intense experience. They leave. It gets more jerky and more abrupt, which you're not comfortable with. That's not your comfort place. There's nothing in your chart that says you're cool with that at all, whereas there are things in your chart that say you being accountable, you being responsible, you meaning what you say and saying what you mean is something you actually want for yourself.

                        And so I say paint everywhere. Bring on the mess with healthy boundaries. The problem is that you're really freaked out by being the bad guy. You don't want to be the bad guy.

Louise:            Yes. So—and I mean, another thing is I have OCD. I was diagnosed a couple years ago. And something I really struggled with generally was just like, yeah, what's right? What's wrong? And really, I could do a very good job of considering the other person's experiences and why they're doing the things that they're doing and believing true that people are doing the best that they can at all times and giving a lot of grace. When I prioritize my feelings, I mean, you know, it can feel selfish, but it can also feel, I guess, not fair, which feels very simple to say. But—

Jessica:            But it's how it feels.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can only start where you are, right? And I want to just say, when we love people, when we show up for people in ways like you're describing, which are considerate, empathetic, spacious, generous, kind, but we are not doing that for ourselves, then love becomes—and like, and all the ways we enmesh—becomes self-harm. It becomes a vehicle for self-abandonment.

                        So I am not suggesting that you stop having empathy and care and consideration for them. I'm saying note that you have it for everyone in the room but you. And when you have consideration and care for your perspective and your context, it's selfish. But when you have consideration for the dramatic shit that this lover has done, it's what? Making you a good person? Do you see what I'm saying?

It's like the path to healthy relationships/healthy relationship with yourself requires equality, right? And that equality doesn't have to mean—sometimes it means somebody likes you more than you like them, or you're really generous with x and they're really generous with y. It doesn't have to be symmetry, but equality.

And your struggle is treating yourself like an equally important person in a core way. And that might lead to spontaneous or selfish behaviors in small ways because you're shoving down your true needs in these really big ways, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this is, again, about your relationship to yourself and not about any one of these people.

Louise:            Yeah. And I feel very fighty with myself. Can I give you a brief anecdote—

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Louise:            —about what this is coming up for me? I have trauma around food and my parents restricting food and what I could eat. And after college, when I was living on my own for the first time, I was feasting constantly, and it felt so good. I look back on that time with so much love towards myself of just, "I will eat two meals at once. I will have these things, and because I have been denied these things and I want them, and they're for me." I've since learned my nutrition and—it's balanced out in terms of just—

Jessica:            Right. You were young.

Louise:            Yeah. And so I keep thinking about that in the sense of, like—you're talking about caring for myself, and there's a part of me that just feels like I keep trying to—maybe this inner child thing. I don't know, but of just, "I want. I want. I want," and not really listening to, well, how do you feel?

Jessica:            Yeah. So let me speak to the astrology of this, right? Because being restricted by your parents around eating and then having independence and being like, "I will eat the fucking—all the things," just joy, joy, joy, was a life-affirming thing to do and also may have been consequential in some ways. And the reason why I say this is because your Saturn/Mars opposition T-squares to Jupiter. So Saturn says, "You can't have anything until I say." Saturn in your birth chart says, "There will be consequences for what you take. Selfishness is the worst thing. Being happy—suspect. We will watch your happiness. We will watch your happiness." Right?

                        This T-square speaks to policing, like being policed as a child, policing yourself, policing situations. And the way that this functions is, "I restrict. I restrict. I restrict. I don't get what I need. I don't get what I want. I don't get to be myself. I don't get what I need. I don't get what I want. And then I take everything I want." Right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And the problem with this pattern is you could actually have some of what you want all the time. You don't have to starve in order to entitle yourself to feast, and you don't have to feast in a way that burns things to the ground. You don't have to date all the people right away in order to date all the people. You could pace out your constellation. You could have it change shapes, you know? But you're trying to create the constellation so that you have the constellation because it's a scarcity model, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            So, if you were tracking this with yourself and with your therapist and your besties, then what you might be able to do is be like, "Oh. I'm being driven by scarcity in this moment. I can't make it be anything else, but I can be aware of it because this was taught to me. This was given to me. And it is not of—I don't want this. I want to be able to moderate. I want to be able to be responsible"—you're good at those two things, not always, but when you're good at those things, you're good at those things.

Louise:            I think so. Yeah.

Jessica:            I think you're—yeah. But not doing it from a motivation of scarcity, not doing it from a motivation of punishment. Motivation is Mars, and your motivation is just—Saturn is like, "No. No. No. No." And so Mars is not just your Mars in Virgo in the sixth house, the house of Virgo, intercepted; it squares Jupiter. So Mars square Jupiter wants to speed in the car, wants to have sex all day. It wants to eat a long meal with rich foods. It wants everything. And Saturn says, "Consequence. Consequence. Consequence. What will people think? Is this bad? What will you have to pay?"

                        And this T-square is inside of you. This T-square is, in some ways, represented by that Five of Swords, even. And it's playing out in your life right now, partially because it's getting activated by transit and partially because it's always getting played out because it's you.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this doesn't mean, oh shit, you're screwed; this is it forever. It means this is the energy. So, in struggle, Mars has to have everything all at once because it knows that the consequence is coming and the scarcity is coming, right?

Louise:            Yep.

Jessica:            You were in a relationship, and there was a lot of money. And then, all of a sudden, there was no money, and everything fell on you.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            It was too triggering of a dynamic for you because you've been in this fucking dynamic before. For you, the embodiment of this movement of planets in your birth chart is figuring out that you deserve to identify what you need, what you need to give to others, and what you need for yourself. I call it R&R, rights and responsibilities. Very Capricorn of me. That's really important for you because you tend to give too much and then, all of a sudden, be like, "I gotta take it all back."

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And it feels terrible to you. You don't like the way it feels. Giving yourself the directive to enjoy—the metaphor I always use is, if you're going to eat the cake, fucking love the cake. Eat the cake. Don't sit around being like, "Oh, I shouldn't eat sugar." Fuck that. Eat the cake, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that's hard for your Saturn. It's not hard for your Mars or your Jupiter, but it's hard for your Saturn. And Saturn is the slowest-moving planet in this T-square, so it's really loud. Being in responsible relationship to yourself means you have a responsibility to enjoy the things you're choosing, to align with the things you're choosing. And you have the right to not choose everything. Figuring out how to create opportunity, experience, expansiveness, how to be generous, without emptying yourself until you have nothing is really—it's a practice for you. It's not organic and easy for you. But it is the assignment, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And so, as we kind of turn back to the partnership, as we turn back to the constellation, which—I love that you call it a constellation. Did you come up with that, or is that a term that I just didn't know?

Louise:            [indiscernible 00:50:58] came up with it, I think.

Jessica:            It's excellent, and I love it. I want to marry it. But I guess that's not very poly of me. Anyways, so the work for you in the context of these two things that are really connected and really separate—right?

Louise:            The two things being—

Jessica:            The partner and the intensity that the two of you are still navigating, and this new constellation you're mapping out for yourself, these new experiences and relationships you're cultivating, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            They're very different. And also, you're the same, so they're not that different. The work of it for you now is to give yourself permission to want what you want, to feel what you feel, to need what you need, to prefer what you prefer. Start with acceptance. Start with permission. And then, after you hang out there for a minute, start to assess, "Okay, what's appropriate for me to do based on my needs?" not, "What should I do?" There's a difference. Does—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. You heard the difference.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. It's like you just learned how to drive, and you got a car and it's awesome. And you're like, "I'm going to go on all these really fast highways with really complicated driving." You're just like, "I'm going to drive everywhere all at once." And it's putting you in a position where you're not enjoying the driving as much.

Louise:            Mm-hmm. Maybe I'm misunderstanding some astrology, but—because Uranus just moved into Gemini, which is seven years, but you're also talking about it transiting my chart.

Jessica:            So a transit to your birth chart has a three-degree orb. Some astrologers, who I strongly disagree with, say it's the whole time it's in the sign. No. Astrology is math. So Uranus is currently at almost 1 degree of Gemini. It's squaring your Mars at 1 degree and 46 minutes of Virgo. And it's, within a week, going to be sitting on top of your fucking Jupiter. You are in it. And Uranus has been here before. So these transits really started spring of 2025.

Louise:            Oh. Damn.

Jessica:            Tracks? Tracks? Ding, ding, ding, ding, right?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And you have them active through spring of 2027.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this exciting, dynamic, hot energy is Uranus. It doesn't mean that when the transit ends, you will no longer feel these things or have these opportunities, but I mean, go on the autobahn. You know what I mean? The transit is saying go on the autobahn. But this cultivation of intimacy and this navigation of complexity—these transits will be over spring of 2027, and you're going to be left with fucking Neptune.

Louise:            (laughs) No.

Jessica:            That was the correct response, by the way. That was the perfect response. I know you understood what I was saying when you laughed like that. That is exactly correct, my friend. You don't want that. You don't need shit like that in your life. So what I'm saying is, how can you think about the future and provide for yourself without micromanaging the present? How can you allow yourself to have experiences where you let people know, "I show up, and it's really deep and it's really intense, but I'm not looking to create obligation"?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And then how can you actually honor it, recognizing that, emotionally, that's not what you're going to do? You're going to fixate. You're going to fixate. But you're working on that. You work on that alone, not with them. Alone.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            I have a rule, when you're dating, to not text someone more frequently than you would text a bestie.

Louise:            That's such good advice, I think.

Jessica:            You're welcome. I think so, too. I think so, too.

Louise:            Yeah, because I do think that's—just the amount of contact has been—

Jessica:            That's the enmeshment part because the enmeshment happens with the little things. It's like talking all the fucking time, talking all the fucking time.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            That's the enmeshment.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Showing up and having amazing sex and then sleeping in the same bed and waking up—that's also enmeshing, but it's a different kind of enmeshing—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            —because if it ended there and you only texted to be like, "That was fun. Thanks so much. Do you want to make plans for a week from now?" and then there was spaciousness, then you'd be left with your projections, your emotions, and your freedom.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And it would be harder and easier, but it would be more honest.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So I want to just invite you to experiment with that. How can you do that in a way that's in alignment for you? How can you play it out? And how does it work and how does it not? Because you're not looking for hard answers; you're looking for lived experience, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            That's what Uranus wants you to do. It wants you to have fucking experiences—

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            —and experiences in your body, with your body, and deeply emotionally, spiritually—

Louise:            Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            —which is why, when you see the fucking Five of Swords, you're like, "Bitch, what are you doing? Get out of here. I don't want these consequences." But it's really not a consequence card as much as it is a process card. It's telling you, "Oh, look, your process is self-harm," and not, you know—there's a huge spectrum for self-harm. In the card that you showed me, she's not cutting her own neck off, but she's doing something, clearly risky business. Yeah.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Okay. Did I answer your question? Is there anything lingering?

Louise:            There's one thing lingering, and I feel like it feels like candy. I hooked up with someone who I don't think the sex was that great, but I keep feeling like, "Well, let me just"—it just feels like an easy example of, like, "Here's a boundary," or—like, I see it, but I have this just—there's a part of me that's just like, "No. I want to have." And so I just want—I was curious if there's—how to speak to that part that's, like—

Jessica:            Yeah. It's actually scarcity part. If you truly believed that there was somebody who's as charming and interesting as this person is who you actually have really great sex with, who's right around the corner, would you still be attached to this person?

Louise:            No. I—

Jessica:            Zero percent. I speak as your psychic. I'm going to say no. So this is your scarcity move. It's like, "I can make this work. I can fold myself into this space. I can get less than I want. I can go hungry. It's okay because maybe this will fill me up later. Maybe it's good enough."

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So, again, it's a focus outside and abandonment of self. It's a scarcity model for you. And also, you just don't like letting things go. Both of those things are true, right?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            They're all true. And then the other part is recognizing, "I'm in a moment where Uranus is conjoined my Jupiter. It's squaring my Mars. I am in the buffet of life. I have nibbled on something. Nosh-nosh. Not good? I won't eat it again, because why would I? I'm at the buffet of life." And if you fill your plate with a bunch of shit you don't like, you are not eating anything else.

Louise:            Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            Misuse of buffet. And so maybe that's a thing to return to. "Is this a misuse of buffet? Is it actually fun? If I'm looking for ease, is it actually easy? Because if not, it's a misuse of buffet." And honestly, truthfully, your Sun is at 29 degrees and 39 minutes Sagittarius. You are peak Sagittarius. And that means you love the buffet of life. You love having experiences, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so learning how to recognize, "I am choosing this. But why am I choosing this? Am I choosing this because it's a yes, or am I choosing this because I'm scared that this is the best choice I have?"

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Because if it's the latter, don't choose it. Look for the yes. And if it's not a yes, that doesn't mean you have to call it a no. You have to call it not a yes. And not a yes is not a yes. You can leave the door open. You don't have to say not a yes is a no. Not a yes is not even a maybe. Maybes are maybe. Not a yes is just not a yes.

Louise:            Mm-hmm. But it feels like—it feels open to—it feels gentle is what I—

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. Exactly.

Louise:            It feels—yeah.

Jessica:            Because we're not saying no. It's because we're not saying no. And you had "no" misused on you, so you don't like no-ing.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But my dearest hope for you is that, one day, you embrace no. "No" is such a beautiful sentence. It is a novel I have written. I am such a fan of no. And it's not something I want you to say to yourself, and it's not meant to be a punishment. No is simply clarity. And if you hate yes or you hate no, it's hard to hold clarity about either, right? So that's like you are on this journey, and you don't have to be any particular place on this journey. But it's okay if you are sad about the person who isn't good sex. The complexities of why you are sad about it are why we have therapy, unpacking and sitting with how attached you get to potential, right?

Louise:            Right. Attached to potential. Yeah.

Jessica:            That's your move. You're like, "This person could be really fun." And then, when they're not fun, you're like, "But they could be." Sure. They could also be terrible.

Louise:            Because I've been wrong before.

Jessica:            Sure. Yeah. I mean, who hasn't?

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Literally. I mean, I'm professional psychic, but that doesn't mean I haven't been wrong about people I've dated. I mean, that's life. That's how people are. So it's really not about seeking to be right. It's seeking to be like, "Oh. This was exciting. I was a little hunter. I hunted a little game. We had our game. It was not for me. Okay. Putting it down. Moving on to the buffet of life." This is not discarding people. This is not using people. It's recognizing what was best about this was getting to find out. "Now that I found out, it's not the best part anymore."

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            You're not promising people partnership, are you?

Louise:            No.

Jessica:            Okay. You're being clear, like, "Let's have fun. Let's see hat happens." Great. Had fun. Wasn't as fun as you wanted it to be, so that's what happens next. Nothing. Hopefully you don't keep on going back for more.

Louise:            Mm-hmm. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Jessica:            Okay. Wait, wait, wait.

Louise:            I'm getting there. I promise.

Jessica:            I believe you. I believe you. I believe you. The thing about these transits, these Uranus transits, is that they really teach you how to individuate, how to become yourself. That's why it's so exciting. That's why, when Uranus transits go right, it makes you feel so alive, because it does connect you to your life force energy. It gives you zing. But if you're enmeshing yourself to people and situations that are like, meh, then you don't get the zing. You deserve the zing.

Louise:            I do.

Jessica:            Feed yourself some zing. And then the more serious topic of your ex is really more about—I mean, there's some zing in there because you individuated out because you weren't getting your needs met. And now is the negotiation of boundaries and you needing to learn that empathy for others and care for others should not come at the expense of your own welfare or empathy and care for yourself. It's a balancing act, right?

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It's a balancing act. And you are actually playing that out with your partner person more than you're playing it out with these people—

Louise:            Absolutely.

Jessica:            —your constellation people. And it's because you really let her know you.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you're like, "Oh shit. This is real. I have to really show up." You know how to really show up. But when you get caught up in your compulsive feelings and impulses, you forget. When you get caught up in scarcity, you forget. You do not need to get any of this perfect. It doesn't make you a bad person if you make mistakes. It just doesn't. I don't like the idea of good people/bad people. There are exceptions, obviously, but broadly speaking, I just want to say good people do bad things. Good people do good things that feel bad to other people.

                        You have to give yourself grace to make mistakes and do things that are really right for you that hurt other people sometimes, and let them do things that are right for themselves that sometimes hurt you.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right? This is what you're actually growing into, and you're having a fun, bumpy ride—not always fun, sometimes very, very fun—bumpy ride on the path. And I just want to just validate that and bring it back to your Five of Swords. I hope that you don't see this card moving forward as a punishment card but instead as a reminder that how you're holding your thoughts and your relationships is more self-harm than healing. And so it's an invitation to put the damn swords down and assess them in a safer, less self-harmy way.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            So it's not a punishing card. And I just—again, when I saw your question, I was like, "That's not what that card means. I'm going to help you like this card more," because it's one of those cards that's like you're holding it wrong, not even you're doing it wrong. It's like the way you're holding it isn't working for you.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            And that is in your wheelhouse, like, "Oh. I can reorient my relationship to this thing?" That's in your wheelhouse, right?

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            So it's not such a bad thing.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I think we did it.

Louise:            Yeah. No, I think I feel—I'm feeling good about just—yes, all these things are coming together. And I think—I don't know. I'm excited that I'm on this—I'm in this zing era, and I felt that zing like a year ago. And it felt really great. And so I do feel excited to—that excites me in terms of knowing that saying no to something is saying yes to something else—

Jessica:            Yes.

Louise:            —potentially [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but that is exactly the way to hold it. It's like, when you close a door, you enter a new room. You enter a new space. It's like yes and no are two sides of the same thing, in a way.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            So it's really—I'm so glad that you said it that way. And I want to just say, when the transit is over, it's not like your life—you don't bring that energy with you, right? It's just Uranus is right now putting the spotlight, zing, zing, zing, zing, zing. So use it.

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            Embrace it. I'm so happy you're doing this.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah, because not enough people—it's like you feel the energy, and it so clearly wants you to play. It so clearly wants you to play.

Louise:            I want to play.

Jessica:            Yeah. Play. And so don't get so bogged down in re-creating intimate, deep connections when it's not what's absolutely being called for, when it's not a clear, vibrant yes. Right? Otherwise, it's play.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So you're learning how to play in a self-appropriate way—

Louise:            Right.

Jessica:            —which is great. Yeah.

Louise:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Which is great.

Louise:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Great. And there's your reading, my dear. I'm so glad we did this.

Louise:            Thank you.

Jessica:            I hope you take really good care of your heart and you have so much fun and such self-loving boundaries that it just expands your world instead of constricts it.

Louise:            Right. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's right. That's right.

Louise:            Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure.