June 13, 2020
116: Psychic Hygiene + Astrology
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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.
This week, I have a question from Really Tired. And she says, “Hi. I’m a queer, Black, cis fem journalist. I’ve been contributing to the national coverage of racial injustice and the history of systemic racism for almost a decade—from Ferguson to Charlottesville and all the atrocities beyond and in between. I am beyond language to explain how all of this feels as a lived experience during this historical moment.
I have a dedicated spiritual practice and have recently been feeling a clear connection with my ancestors and guides. How can I evolve my daily energy maintenance to give myself the sense of safety and fortitude required right now? I’d love any advice about tips for maintaining psychic hygiene at this time. Please keep my birthday a mystery,” Really Tired.
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So I will happily keep your birthday a mystery, Really Tired. And there’s a lot for me to say. I have a lot of tips for how to maintain and promote your energetic wellness and to manage some of the psychic burden of what you’re going through, but also to care for yourself and to receive the support that is available to you on an energetic level. So I’m going to give you a bunch of tools—that’s mainly what I’m going to do in answer to your question.
But, before I do, I do want to just touch in on your birth chart. You have Uranus at one degree of Capricorn. Saturn is at two and a half of Capricorn. And the reason why this is really worth naming is because there’s going to be a Solar Eclipse on the 20th/21st —depending on where you’re at—and it’s going to be exactly opposite your Uranus- Saturn conjunction.
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And there’s a generation of people who have Uranus and Saturn at around this degree that are going through this with you. And what this means is that the emotional impact of your feelings and your actual lived experience of your place in society, your place in the world—whether that’s in the workplace, in the home, on the streets, whatever it is—is being really deeply impacted by this Eclipse that’s coming. And, within that, you can expect your feelings to be really activated.
The more that you are able to tolerate your emotions, to be with your emotions, without abandoning yourself, without fixing or correcting them, the better poised you’ll be to actually work with the energies here because Solar Eclipses are always intended—they’re always happening to aid and facilitate and maybe even accelerate your evolution.
00:03:03:
In the context of everything that is happening in the world and how it is impacting you so personally, the Eclipse is really going to—it’s going to stimulate a thing, let me tell you. And so I want to encourage you to be really gracious with yourself around the feelings that come up at this time—so in the last couple few weeks and for the next several weeks because it’s likely to feel like a lot. And that a lot might be great accelerated development or that a lot might be feeling just so over-whelmed with emotions or so overcome by your situations that you aren’t quite sure what to do.
And when it comes to matters of the heart, there’s often nothing to do. Well, not nothing—I’m going to get to the psychic and energetic exercises in a moment, but I wanted to say a couple more things here.
The first is that you are going through a couple Pluto transits—really intense ones. Pluto is currently squaring your Mercury, and it’s opposing your Ascendant.
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And these transits tell me that you are in a place in your personal life of deep and profound transformation. Things are so much more intense for you in your relationship with others—in any of your one-on-one relationship with others, but also in your thinking—Mercury, right?
You are in a place where you are really deeply impacted by your ideas, your relationships, your place in the world—all the things. And that is in addition to what you’re referring to in your question of how you are living in this historical moment. And you’re living in a historical moment as a journalist, so you have this really analytic and kind of like, quote, objective lens, right? So you’ve done research, and you’re continuing to do research and finding language in public for what you’re seeing in the world. But it’s also deeply, deeply personal—incredibly personal.
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Saturn is going to come back to square your Mercury, your sun, and your Ascendant in 2020 when it goes back into Capricorn. So 2020 is just heavy work for you. And, so, I’m so grateful that you are orientating yourself towards energetic support and psychic hygiene because those things won’t make it so that you’re not going through difficult transits or that we’re not living through a complicated, messy, and, in some ways, very frightening time—in other ways, I think, very kind of inspiring time. It’s a time of revolution.
But what it does indicate is that if you can access and use your spiritual and emotional resources—internal, external, and ethereal—it will be so much easier to make the choices you need to make and to be in your body. To be in your body as a spiritual being, but to be in your body as a Black women and in this time. So that’s a lot.
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Now, the last a lot thing I’m going to say about your birth chart before I get to answering your question proper is that you are going through something called Uranus square to Mars. This is a once in a lifetime transit, and it indicates that you are changing—what you do is changing, how you do it is changing. And whenever we’re dealing with Uranus, we’re dealing with unexpected changes—just like twists of fate. And those twists of fate change you, right? So it’s not just what you’re doing is changing. It’s your motivation. It’s how you feel in your own skin. It’s a lot. And, so, I want to really encourage you to pace yourself because everything that’s happening in your birth chart slash, also, plus your nature anyways, it makes you feel like everything needs to happen fast. And, so, if you are in your feelings, and they slowly are unfolding inside of you, it might feel really hard to tolerate that. And I want to just say to you, learning how to tend to your nervous system is really wise and supportive. If you’re not already engaging in herbal support, I do encourage you to do a little bit of research into that.
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And there are so many amazing people that you can find who are putting online resources for free out there. And, of course, if you want to consult with an herbalist—yay, good on you.
Okay, so that’s my quick take on your birth chart. Okay. It is a lot. It’s moving quickly, and it’s really important that you give yourself grace within that and space to be in whatever you’re in.
Now, my dear, I have a big ass list of things that you can do to protect and tend to yourself on an energetics level. Let’s start really kind of on a basic level—art and dance and writing; these are tools of creation. And I want to just really hold space for the ways in which art has been used as a tool of resistance in every meaningful movement. Not just because of how it touches others, but also because the act of creation is generative and life affirming.
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The other thing I want to encourage you to do energy shielding and energy boundary exercises. So let’s go straight there, okay.
Personally, me, I don’t go anywhere, I don’t do anything without black tourmaline on my person—that’s just me. Black tourmaline is my favorite stone. It’s my go-to stone for psychic protection—for blocking energies that are not compatible with my own. So it’s not necessarily about bad or good energies; it’s energies that are not compatible with my best interest.
It is wise and possible to develop a relationship with gemstones where you work with what they have to offer and what they are, but you also program intention into the stone and into your relationship to it. And when I say program, I just mean being really clear and intentional in your relationship to that stone.
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But let me give you some actual exercises around energy shielding. When you think about shielding your physical person, right—your energy body in your physical body—there are a lot of ways of going about doing this. And energy work is work, and so it’s not necessarily easy. And I’m not saying it should be hard, but I am saying it’s okay if it feels hard. I find it to be difficult myself. It is work; that’s why they call it energy work.
So this is what we do. You get present—get present in your body, and what that requires is that you feel your feelings. So it is really hard to effectively do any psychic or energetic work when you are not associated and present. And, so, what you want to do is get really present and meditate on what the moment is calling for and use that material to shield yourself with.
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So, let me be clear, for myself, when I’m doing energy shielding work on myself, I have kind of like a bunch of materials that I like to work with—and I’ll break down what those are in a second—and I just tend to work with one of a couple few things.
One of my dear, dear friends is a mutable person, and they themselves will just check in with what is best based on the moment and has a much more flexible and fluid way of engaging with material—because you do want to use a material. It depends on your nature; there’s not a right or a wrong way of doing it.
So something that was actually taught to me very recently that I’ve been using a lot is I visualize. You know those blankets that when you go to the dentist, and they’re doing an Xray of your teeth? They put one of those lead, heavy blankets over you so that you don’t get hurt by the shitty energy that’s going into your face. Yeah, I use that. I visualize that. And I visualize throwing a huge lightweight version of that lead blanket.
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So I just throw that over my energetic person. So, here’s the key when doing psychic or energetic work, if you’re just sitting here listening to me talk about it, and you’re thinking about it, you might be like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You have to actually be present. You have to feel your unpleasant feelings. You have to feel anxious or bad or stressed or the terrible grief you’re feeling. And then what you do is you shield yourself. And you do it really intentionally to see if it works because, if it works, you will feel better. And that doesn’t mean you will necessarily feel cured and perfect, but you will feel better. If you’re not doing it effectively, you will not feel better. And that’s okay; you might be working with the wrong material.
That friend that I mentioned likes to work with tortoise shells. Yep—also nuts—coconuts, macadamia nuts—the shells—nuts. You can use anything. What I have done in public situations is I will put my energy body in a crook of the sun.
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Yeah, the sun. It’s a big ass star. It is bright and light. Best of luck finding me if I am hidden in the sun. So there’s a lot of ways of working with shielding. And what you want to do is pair your intention with where you’re at and practice shielding yourself in different forms of energy to see what makes you feel most safe and most protected. What most of us are doing—especially when we’re activated and raw, is we are resonating with other people who are activated and raw. And, right now, the morphic field is really activated. And, so, all of the grief you are feeling—it is being felt activated through your ancestral line. It is being felt in your own psychological human experience. It is also being felt activated through society.
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There’s a lot of levels that it’s happening on. So what you want to do is call in the energy of the whatever thing you want to work with and notice how you feel. And, if it works, you want to set it, and then set it again the next time you feel anxious or activated or emo in a way that doesn’t feel tolerable for you.
Another energy shield thing that you can do for your home—and this is if you are trying to create a sanctuary feeling in your physical home. You can do this if you’re living in a house. You can do this if you’re living in a crowded apartment building. What you want to do is activate from the earth. And what that looks like is energetically connecting your energy field—you—to the earth and visualizing a plant—any plant will do. You can work with the energetics of mushrooms.
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You can work with the energetics of lavender. You can work with the energetics of a plumb tree. You can do anything; it’s energetics. What you’re going to do is you’re going to pull from the depth of the earth, and you want to visualize roots of those plants deep, deep into the earth. And then you want to have those plants grow energetically up through the earth, through the building, up through your whole apartment or house or whatever, bedroom, and up way past the top of the building. That’s it. You want to, essentially, grow the energetics of a supportive plant life into the physical space that you’re in.
And it does a number of things. It shifts the energy of your space. It’s a good energy exercise so that you are practicing doing energy work. And another thing that it does is it throws off the energetics of your home space.
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And this is why it’s relevant; if you feel that you are being energetically tracked by other people, they are looking at you, and they are needing something from you—which, if you’re a journalist, they might be, if you’re a friend, they might be, if you’re a daughter or an ex or whatever—you know, shit happens. We are all energetic beings, and we are all doing shit on the energy plane all the damn time. So when you shift the energetics of your home space, you are harder to track for others, which can give you more energetic space to work with.
Those are just energy shielding exercises. I’ve got an exercise for clearing energy. And this is something that I think is just really beautiful and, hopefully, will be very helpful for you. I have been working with sound a lot. So to clear energy with sound is to use sound vibration to shift the vibration in a space, okay, because sound is just vibration; that’s what it is.
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Matter is vibration made material, but that’s a whole other conversation. What you can do is use any kind of thing to create sound—bells, bowls. There’s all kinds of things in the world to create sound. Those things are all great for shifting energy, as long as you are present, associated, and intentional with it.
But something that you can do as a form of energy clearing is work with creating sound frequencies through running your finger around a glass that is filled with water. So, conventionally, it’s done with a wine glass—most people have a wine glass or can get a wine glass. I think it can be done with crystal, any kind of crystal bowl or crystal—not hippy crystal—crystal like schmancy drinking glasses crystal. But what you do is you fill it with water. You can Google it. It’s super easy. It’s not terribly complicated.
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But this is what the UCSB Science Lab said about this particular exercise, “A chain of events occur when you move your finger across the rim of a glass and make sound. First thing you need to know is that material has frequency at which it vibrates. This is called resonant frequency. And if you run your wet finger around the rim of a glass too slowly, the glass will not make a sound. If you move it fast enough, it does.”
So, this is something I love—where science and woo intersect. This exercise of working with water, which is a spiritual conductor. It’s a place that can hold our grief and our feelings and also our connection to Spirit. You can work with water to create sound and shift the resonate frequency in your space and in your energy body as well as your physical body. And your physical body is made up primarily of water. I mean, got a whole lot of water in us. We are spiritual beings. We are emotional beings.
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And this is an energy clearing exercise that you can do in your home, in your bedroom, in your bathroom, wherever you need to do it, at any time that you need to do it. I mean, I’m not suggesting you walk around with a crystal glass in your pocket, but I think it can be done.
I want to encourage you to play with sound as a way to clear energy. And, finally, I consulted with Safiya Randera, who’s a queer, BIPOC spiritual worker to get a bathing ritual for releasing grief and trauma specifically for BIPOC folks. If you want to learn more about that work, I have their website and Instagram in the show notes. They’re at, heartofearth.ca, and you can also find them on Instagram at heartofearth. And it’s got a little underscore—just look in the show notes; you’ll find out all about them and their work there. So this ritual is specifically intended to be done on the waning moon. It must be done with the energies of a waning moon.
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Never do this ritual bath on an Eclipse, and, in general, we’d strongly encourage anyone to avoid doing energy work during an Eclipse. It’s not a time for spellcasting. It’s not a time for energy work. Nothing that’s going to shift energy in a major way because the Eclipse on its own does that. So, just a quick side. And the next waning moon where you can do this is between June 15th and the 19th, 2020. And you can figure out whenever the moon is waning pretty easily online, okay.
So what this bath is meant to do is to help release individual, collective, and ancestral grief and trauma. I’m going to give you the instructions of how to do this bath—what to do before, during, and after. But what you will need for this ritual bath is motherwort, plantain, hyssop, St. John’s wort, and basil.
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And you’re going to need approximately one handful of each dried herb per bath. So that’s what you’re going to need. That’s your shopping list, my friends.
So this is what you’re going to do: you’re going to shower ahead of time. You’re going to start this process by setting aside time alone to focus your intentions. Your phone—on airplane mode. Your computer is in another room. You’re going to be clean as a damn baby, and you are going to be clear with your intentions, present with your emotions. You’re going to heat up some water—about four cups or so and pour the hot water over the herbs to brew something like a loose-leaf tea. And you’re going to let this brew for about 15-20 minutes, okay? Then you’re going to pour in the water portion—the tea portion that you’ve just created into the tub that you’re running for yourself with the intent in your mind that any negative energy or emotions within or surrounding you be released.
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You want to stay really present with your intention as you pour the tea into the bathtub. Then you will get into the bath and call on your particular faith, your belief in the Universe, Great Spirit, your ancestors, whatever resonates for you and speak from the heart. When we speak from the heart, when we activate from our heart, our intention is strengthened. This is an energetic law. And so you want to be cognizant; you want to be mentally clear about what you’re doing, but you want to be emotionally present for what you’re doing as well. This is part of why you take all these steps of showering and being alone before you start to brew the tea and set the bath. So if you would like a powerful, fresh start of clearing your energy and kind of emerging a new, what they suggest is submersing yourself in the bath water three times.
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Each time asking to be re-born or to start a new, okay. So you’re going to just completely dunk yourself into the water three separate times.
It is wise to be really present with all of your feelings in this whole process. You want to stay as emotionally present as possible and energetically present as possible with the process. These baths—I have done some of their prescription baths—can be really emotional and very clearing. So what you’re going to do next is with downward strokes you will do nine passes down your body asking for this energy to be released along with any personal intentions and prayers that you choose. You’re going to start at the top of your head and work your way down to your feet, okay. You can do this with your hands, with a washcloth, whatever floats your boat, whatever works for you.
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On the last pass from your head to your feet, you will stand up, you will unplug the drain, and step out of the tub. Then you’ll run a shower for a moment to clear any residue because you want to clear all the energy and everything that was in the tub. You want to just clear it right out. And then you will clean yourself off with a fresh towel and dress in fresh clothes. The final step is to give thanks to the Spirits for the clearing and healing that you received.
Ritual bath work can be so powerful because it not only aligns you with plant medicines, it not only aligns you with your Spiritual Guides and resources, but it also is a re-affirmation of your own capacity for self-healing. It is a way to connect with yourself, your Spirits, and God or the Universe—whatever it is that you call it.
00:24:02:
Finding time for rest, for healing, for self care and for investing in your wellness. Now, my love, I hope you can reference and use these tools for time to come.
The Okra Project is a collective that aims to mitigate food insecurity in the Black Trans community. The project hires Black Trans chefs to come to the homes of Black Trans people or community centres, if they’re currently experiencing homelessness, to cook healthy, culturally relevant, and delicious meals. They feed bellies with great food and feed spirits with great fellowship.
The Okra Project intentionally has never sort 501 (c)(3) status, so they can ensure that their money goes where it’s needed. Therefore their work is maintained entirely through individual donations from people like you and everything helps. Learn more about their programing by visiting theokraproject.com or donate, and the link is in my show notes.
00:24:59:
My loves, there’s so much to talk about this week, but isn’t there always? I’m going to get into your horoscope as I love to do, but, as I also love to do, I’m going to talk. Your feelings about what is happening in the world at large and in your life quite personally are perfectly valid—whatever your feelings are. You’re entitled to feel defensive. You are entitled to feel inspired. You’re entitled to feel motivated or scared or all the fucking feelings at once. You are entitled to your damn feelings—let’s be clear. What you’re not entitled to do is act in any kind of way you want in reaction to your feelings. What you want to be able to do is prioritize and manage your selfcare in such a way that you can sustain the efforts that any uprising and revolution requires.
Now, I’ve been talking about the need for a revolution for quite some time, and Eclipse season is the perfect season for it to begin.
00:26:04:
When I say begin, it’s kind of—what is the beginning of a movement? What is the ending of a movement or a cause? It’s kind of—I don’t think any of this is new. I don’t think any of this is just starting. And, also, we can clearly see a start to this incarnation of the civil rights movement.
And, with that, my loves, find your place; you absolutely have a place in this revolution. And it doesn’t have to be like the person next to you’s place. You don’t have to do things in any one particular way. This is a big world, and there are so many ways to participate. But you must find yours. You must find yours and commit yourself to it.
As I quoted Yaani King Mondschein last week, I want to remind you to embrace micro-activism. Now, if you’re an activist and you’re getting out there, putting your body in the streets, writing letters, doing all the Goddamned things—yay, love it.
00:27:02:
But also micro-activism—find lots of little things you can do on the daily to re-affirm that Black lives matter. And while we are here in gay pride month, why don’t we just also re-affirm that queer lives matter. Trans lives matter. Black Trans lives matter.
I hope that I get to live to see a day where these things don’t need to be verbally affirmed because they are evident in society. We’re not there yet, so perhaps what happens in this period—this tumultuous, intense, transformational period—will actually be a meaningful steppingstone to these kinds of equities in the world. It’s possible—of course it’s possible, but it doesn’t come without some sacrifice. So do your best; get in there and do something.
00:27:57:
Okay, I got more for you: it’s a called a horoscope, okay. This week’s horoscope, it covers June 14th through the 20th of 2020. And let me talk to you about a Goddamned thing—Mercury fucking Retrograde. Was life hard? Were things complicated? Sure, yes. But then Mercury Retrograde happened, and then it got more complicated. So here’s the thing, Mercury Retrograde—it’s not in Retrograde, it just is Retrograde because Retrograde refers to the motion of the planet, the movement of the planet. So, I am not walking in backwards, I’m walking backwards; that’s a grammar thing—very mercurial of me, BTDubs.
Okay, so Mercury Retrograde happens a couple few of times a year, every year. It’s just a part of life—don’t freak out. But what it does is it makes it so that technology gets wonky as hell. Texts don’t go through. Your message goes through four times, and it was kind of an awkward one to begin with. Miscommunications abound.
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This is not a great transit for clear communication, okay. It’s just not.
I don’t know about you, but I noticed in the shadow week—the shadow lasts longer than a week, but in the week leading up to Mercury Retrograde, I started to really see technological issues for myself and a lot of people I was dealing with because everyone I have contact with these days is, of course, digital. It’s all online. And this is the first time in human history that we have a Mercury Retrograde where such a huge portion of humanity is connecting digitally.
And so the potential for this to wreak havoc on our communications, the fact that everything’s in email or a text or a phone call or a video chat—I don’t know what’s going to happen. It could be a real fucking pain in our asses. It could also just be another annoying Mercury Retrograde. Here is the key, take it in stride. You’re basically an astrologer now; you know what I’m talking about. Mercury’s Retrograde, and it’s only Retrograde for a couple few weeks. This particular Retrograde will be over on July 12th.
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What you need to know is that from the 17th of June to July 12th things are just going to be a little annoying. Don’t take it personally. Don’t get bent out of shape—just do your best.
This is not an ad. I’m not being endorsed or anything to talk about this, but there’s this app called Bridgefy, and it’s something that I learnt about when I was studying the Hong Kong protests back in 2019. And it’s an app that was used by the protestors there because you don’t need the internet in order to use it. You connect via Bluetooth. But it is a great tool for protesting because you can communicate outside of the internet, so you don’t need an internet connection to text with people or an SMS connection. And, so, while Mercury Retrograde is wreaking havoc, it’s nice to know that there are alternatives.
This is also just a great time to be conscientious about your digital footprints and your digital security; just pay attention to that kind of stuff.
00:31:00:
During this Mercury Retrograde, I feel that it’s going to be necessary, okay. So just throw it in your pipe and see if you want to smoke it.
So, as I break it down, what you know is Mercury Retrograde is annoying, and you are such an educated astrology person that you can be annoyed—you know how to roll with that. You’re going to be really nice to people around it. You’re not going to take shit personally. If you have to sign contracts, you’re not going to freak out. No, you’re not; you’ve learnt too much from me to freak out about signing contracts during a Mercury Retrograde. What you’re going to do instead is scrutinize the Goddamned contract; that’s all. If you can put off a contract, if you can put off a job until the end of the Mercury Retrograde, fabulous. But life must go on, so most of the time, we cannot. So what we must instead do is just be extra careful. The Retrograde wants us to review, reflect, refine, reassess, recalibrate our thinking, our communication, maybe a contract. So, go ahead—try it why don’t you?
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Okay, on the 18th there will be an exact Mars sextile to Pluto. This is actually really lovely transit. Mars sextile to Pluto is energizing. It is fortifying. It makes it so that you can activate and cope with, do something about, something that is kind of hard for you.
On a social level, this may be a date on which or around which where we make great strides in getting our message across. When we have a sextile to Pluto, it kind of empowers us to cope with things that are difficult. And that is a really wonderful thing.
Now, the difficult part about Pluto is that even when it’s a sextile, and it’s a kind of easy transit, it’s still kind of tricky, right? It’s still dealing with a painful or a complicated or a deep thing. And Mars is a planet of war and aggression and getting things done. It’s also the planet of fucking. It’s a planet of making something happen, getting out there and getting it, right?
00:33:01:
And so the combination can be really strong strides.
When we talk about defunding the police or the abolition of police—which is a really strong conversation, and meaningful strides are being made across the United States on this topic—Mars and Pluto are certainly related to police and policing. And, so, again, this may mark a week in which—and certainly a day around which—we see that conversation getting deeper and more pervasive.
It might be a time where we see actions being taken, decisions being made, things being signed. But laws signed during Mercury Retrograde—eh, you don’t always know what’s going to happen with them. This is the problem with a Mercury Retrograde; things are not always as they seem. So, there’s that.
On a personal level, I will say Mercury sextile to Pluto is really great for fortifying yourself if you’re nervous system has been shot. Now, neither of these planets actually govern the nervous system. Mars does govern the visceral, physical body.
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And so if you have been feeling really overwhelmed or really anxious or stressed, this is a really great time to get into your body—to try to engage your cardiovascular system, get those endorphins going in your system. This can be really healing and transformative.
This transit’s great for personal transformation. It’s great for actualizing on something. It’s also great for sex. So, if you have a friend, if you got a partner, grab them—get something going. And if you’re alone with yourself, get something going with yourself. You’re hot. You like you. Why do you need someone else? We don’t always need somebody else. Somebody else can be fun. However, this is just a good time to remember that you are a sexual being with a gorgeous body, and it’s worth getting to know you. Don’t you think?
Okay, that brings us to another fucking Eclipse. “Another Eclipse?” you say. “Yeah, another Eclipse,” I say.
00:35:00:
Here’s where we have something a little bit complicated in this week’s horoscope. On the 20th of June, we have, in California, a Solar Eclipse in Cancer. So the sun and moon will be at zero degrees of Cancer. It is the start of Cancer season. However, during the middle of North America or anywhere east, which is a lot of the world, then this transit actually occurs on the 21st. So you’re going to see all over the intranet—if you’ve spent any time there on the intranet, you are going to see that the Eclipse is happening on the 21st, and you’re also going to see that it’s happening on the 20th. And that’s just because it’s at 11:41 p.m. Pacific Time, which means it’s the next day Eastern or if you’re in Europe or whatever. So I’m going to give you a few words on it now, and I’ll give you a few words on it in next week’s horoscope.
But, before I do, I will say the 20th is also the start of Cancer season, and it is the date where Mars forms an exact sextile to the planet Jupiter.
00:35:59:
Mars sextile to Jupiter is an excellent transit for mobilizing, getting things done, engaging with big themes, and having big advances. In the context of social movements, this is a great transit. It’s very fortifying.
Now, if I’m looking for something negative to say about it—which, who are we kidding? I’m a Capricorn; I’m always looking for something negative to say about it—what I would point to as a concern is that Mars sextile to Jupiter is associated with spread, right. So it’s this catching of ideas, which is what we want—a catching on of concepts, which is what we want: a broadening of things. Yay, we want that. But because we’re living in these unique conditions of a global pandemic—which hasn’t gone away—unfortunately, this can be a time where we see a further spreading of illness, okay. Because it’s a sextile, I don’t imagine people will be symptomatic per say around this date, but I would say that it might be easy to feel cavalier about the risk of COVID-19.
00:37:04:
And, I strongly, emotionally implore you, don’t be cavalier about COVID-19. Take care of yourself and understand that taking care of yourself is taking care of others. If you’re not motivated to take care of yourself, take care of others. Be responsible. This shit is highly contagious. It can be very, very destructive to people’s lives. And, yeah, it only takes one person to expose a huge amount of people. So be careful.
I’m not going to say too much about the fact that it’s Cancer season outside of, we can expect in this shift of Cancer season for people to be clinging onto their ideas as they fear for their personal safety.
Cancer is a sign that is associated with patriotism—nationalism, actually. Cancer and Capricorn in different ways; they are both associated with that. And you want to really understand that in Cancer season there’s this emphasis on the family.
00:38:01:
And in a time where people are frightened for their safety, they are frightened around the economy, they’re frightened around their physical safety or just not knowing what’s going to come next—having major change. Having it be Cancer season can be a bit tricky because when people are scared is when they tend to act wrong.
So make sure you are tending to your fear, and that you are not drinking any fear-based Koo-Aids at this time. There are ways to invest in those who you love that are not on the backs of others—find those ways. Center those ways.
Now, there’s also an Eclipse. Like I said, I will give you more 411 on the Eclipse in next week’s episode. But the Solar Eclipse this week on the 20th/21st is going to bring up a lot of feelings because that’s what Eclipses do. We have to keep in mind that’s Father’s Day in the United States, right.
00:38:59:
We are dealing with themes of patriarchy. We are dealing with themes of capitalism, which is directly related to patriarchy, IMO, and we have an Eclipse happening on Father’s Day. Could this be a time where we see meaningful changes to our relationship—our personal relationship to patriarchy? So I’m not saying to individual men or males.
This Eclipse is directly connected to the Eclipse that we just went through on June 5th because Eclipses happen in pairs. And what happens during Eclipses is that we have whatever happen, happen, and then about six months later we see the full outcome from whatever it is that shifts within you.
The energy of an Eclipse is intense. It’s electric. Eclipses require our evolution on a personal level, which can mean revolution in your life or the world at large. And, certainly, right now, it is happening in the world at large and hopefully from you as well.
00:40:03:
When we deal with the themes of Cancer, we are not just looking at themes around family and safety—although certainly those themes. We’re also looking at the theme of how you ask for help, how you let others in, how you receive with your heart the aid, support, and resources that are available to you. Cancer is a little bit of a clutcher. I will clutch onto things with my little pinchers. When we get too attached to our ideas around safety, to the kind of trappings of safety, we get stuck, right? So this is a time where we want to step into the best traits of Cancer, which is loving with an open heart, embracing with a whole self, and engaging with others and treating them and feeling about them as though they are your family.
00:40:59:
You don’t have to like everybody; you don’t have to want to hang out with everybody—that’s not necessary. But we are all family, and we are all living on this weird fucking planet in our odd, weird bodies together for a reason. And that reason is not to destroy each other or harm each other or isolate ourselves always from each other. We’re in this together. We need to act like it, right?
This particular Eclipse is a spiritual call. How can you be true to yourself and also honor your family, your community when these things feel at odds with each other, which inevitably they do—at least sometimes—for many of us? How can we have enough self-acceptance that we are willing to feel our unpleasant feelings and still stay present with them? How can we make choices that reflect our heart instead of our fears?
00:42:01:
How can we come at things directly when that is appropriate and necessary. Scary—it’s uncomfortable, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Cancer is a little bit of a passive-aggressive sign. Now, I’m not saying that people who have sun in Cancer are passive-aggressive people. Yeah, maybe, but it’s not inherently necessary. But the sign itself can be quite passive-aggressive. And, so, if you find yourself caught up in passive-aggressive thinking or feeling or treating people passive-aggressively, pull back—just stop what you’re doing and pull back. That is how you know—that is like a symptom of you not being right with yourself around how you feel, what you need, and what you got to offer. Get right with yourself so that you can engage with others in a way that reflects your integrity.
My loves, that’s just a quick shot on the Eclipse, and I’m going to have more for you soon.
00:42:59:
I want to thank you for joining me for another week of Ghost of a Podcast. I always appreciate your presence here, your willingness to do the damn work. I am sending you as much love and care as I can through these digital waves—are they even waves? Nobody knows.
And, also, I just want to say these are trying times. They’re transformative times. They are gorgeous and messy and scary and deeply, deeply upsetting times. They’re all the fucking things. The mess that has always been there in the US, but all over the world is coming to the surface and demanding to be dealt with. And as messy and as overwhelming and as intense as it is on a personal level—even on a societal level—fuck, how cool is it that you’re alive for this? How cool is it that it’s finally fucking happening, and that you could have a role to play in the evolution of society and the betterment of society on creating a world that is more just?
00:44:07:
I don’t know. I don’t know—in the mix of it all, on your rough days, don’t forget that you are here, and that you are here at this really powerful time in history, and that is kind of unique. It’s kind of special—be here for it.