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.

Hello, my dears, and welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week I have a question—I
don’t know; maybe it’s going to be controversial. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to tell what controversial is. It goes like this—is parenthood morally right? And it comes from A. 

She says, “I’ve always seen myself being a mother. I got married last August, and my husband and I are talking about starting to try for a baby in the next few months. Now that it’s becoming more tangible, I’m starting to worry about creating a life. Is it selfish to bring a child into the world as it is right now? Will we be able to guide and protect them from the political upheavals, climate change crisis, social media pressures, etc.?” 

And, then, what she does is she goes ahead and shares her birth information and her partner’s  birth information. But I actually think it’s important for me to address this question in a larger way because I do get asked many versions of it pretty frequently. “Should I have a child right now? Is it right to have a child right now? Is it wrong to have a child right now?” And I think there’s several layers to the question, right.

The first one is the part where A is asking me if it’s selfish to have a child. And I think it’s important that I acknowledge that some people would say it is selfish to not have a child. Now, I’m not going to say those people are wrong or right; I certainly don’t agree with them, but it's not me trying to have a child. You know what I mean? 

The dictionary definition of selfish is important for me to name here because it is—it means lots of things. It means concerned excessively with yourself, caring only for yourself, but it also means being influenced chiefly by motives of personal or private pleasure or advantage. From that last definition, I would say it is selfish for most people to have children because most people are primarily doing it because it will bring them pleasure, or they believe it will bring them advantage in their life. Selfish doesn’t inherently mean wrong or bad. I think selfish motivations can be very negative motivations at times, but not always. The question of whether or not it’s selfish to have a child at this time of great uncertainty—hmm, maybe. Maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

We all know that there’s a lot of reasons that a lot of different people have children. Some people have children because they absolutely need to have children, spiritually speaking. Some people do it because they have a biological imperative. Some people do it because, oops, it happened, and here I am, and this is what I’m doing now. 

And I’m referring to people who pro-create specifically, right. Because the question is not is it selfish or morally wrong to adopt or foster a child, which I think would be a quick and easy, absolutely no; it is not selfish to do those things. But we are asking about pro-creation, right. So does any individual need their DNA or their genes to be passed on? People who want to have babies all say yes, I think. People who don’t want babies have an easy time saying no, generally speaking, right. 

So I think it’s really important that we acknowledge that it is selfish. We are not dealing with a lack of population on the planet. There’s no real need on a material, pragmatic level for us to bring in more babies to care for, right. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong though. It just doesn’t mean it’s wrong. 

So that’s when we get into the morality of your question. And, again, the reason why I’m not pulling your chart is because the morality of this question is for you to decide as an adult. And there’s not an answer in your chart of whether or not it is a moralistic choice. Now, there might be answers in your chart about whether or not it’s your Truth to have a child, whether or not this is good timing for you to have a child, but that’s not what you asked me. And, in fact, that is why I picked your question because it addresses more people’s issues, right.

So the moralistic quandary of having children when we know about climate change, when we know that this is a politically and socially very tumultuous time. So, what we know is that the world that children are coming into is not really a world that we would want to be born into, right? I mean, I don’t know how many of you are like, “Yeah. I wish I was going to high school with gun checks and school shooters all the damn time. Sure, that sounds like a great childhood.” Not many of us are really enthusiastic about that.

I don’t think that many of us are really enthusiastic about thinking about where the planet is going to be in the context of rising sea levels and the climate crisis in the next 20, 30 years, right. I think it’s a pretty frightening prospect. Young people today are really in a fucking awful position. They are really in an awful position because they are inheriting just an earth that cannot sustain us in the way that we’re living at the rate that we as humans are pillaging this earth. It just—it isn’t working.

So, in terms of the pragmatics of it, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to have kids right now, in that regard. It doesn’t make sense to have kids right now when so many countries, so many governments are in a state of instability, to an extent where we don’t know how safe it is, and, again, what kind of conditions a child will inherit. But, also, what kind of choices you as a parent will be forced to make. Those things are all very real. And I think anyone who tells you that they’re not real or they’re not things you should really worry about—I don’t know what kind of Kool-Aid they’re drinking. I don’t know what they’re looking at. 

I think what’s real is hard to look at, and so when we have impulses and desires and goals that are maybe impractical or don’t quite make sense in the context of climate change and violence and the instability of the world right now, we have a tendency as humans to decide what we’re going to focus on, right. We’re like pick a lane kind of thing, and there’s pros and cons of that.

Now, I personally have never experienced any impulse whatsoever to have a child, so it’s easy for me to say I chose to not have a child. And I’m really happy with that choice, and I have no regrets because I’ve never wanted a kid. I’ve never understood the feeling of wanting a kid. To be clear, I love children. I’ve worked with children, but, hmm, I just don’t want to be a parent—never have. So, for me, it’s not like I’ve made some sort of moralistic decision to not have a kid because of the environment, let’s say. I’ve made a decision based on my personal feelings, right. 

What I’ve experienced consulting with people for so many years and, of course, through some of my friends is that the impulse to bring a child into this earth—it’s not logical; it comes from something else. And it’s driving, and it’s emotional, and it’s tender, and it's real, and it’s valid. And so whilst some people have children because, uh oh—oops, and some people have children because of social pressures, a lot of people—like, a lot of people have children because it’s the only thing that they know that they want to do, or it’s like one of the main things that they know for themselves. 

And what you’re saying is, “I’ve always seen myself being a mother.” So this is where I, again, really like your question because there’s a great distance between how we see ourselves—our vision for the kind of adult we’re going to be and the kind of life we’re going to have—and what it means to be an adult and what it means to be maybe someone who likes kids or somebody who wants stability. There’s a great space between that and the reality of what stability looks and feels like to you in this moment from your adult vantage point in the world you’re living in, right. 

So I want to really challenge you to investigate your identity on this topic. I want to challenge you to make sure that this is something you’re choosing from the here and now based on who you are and where the world is and where you are within the world, right. To really align yourself with that because one thing we know about having kids is that you have no control. You don’t have control over so many things. Like who they are, where they go, and what happens to them when they go there, right. It is terrifying to have children. You can love them so much, you can do everything right, and things can still go sideways. I’m not saying that to scare anyone or to upset anyone, it’s just—there’s this illusion of control that when you’re an individual you can kind of maintain. And then when you love someone as much as you love a kid, who is inherently vulnerable, you can’t hold onto your illusions of control: they get challenged. And that’s just part of parenting. That’s part of loving, but it is the scary part, right. 

And it is important that you go in with your eyes open. It’s important that you go in with self-awareness and without lies to yourself about what it’s going to look like. And if you review and investigate and you decide yes, it’s not just an idea of who I am or how my life will look, it’s truly what I want to bring a child into this world. 

Choosing to pro-create, to have a child—it’s not just a moral choice. It’s also a choice that is being driven by deep wells of emotion. And whenever it comes to deep wells of emotion, it is wise to understand that you are not inherently objective. And, so, it takes more self-reflection and self-investigation, right. When something’s not super emo, it can be a little easier to find your Truth. And when things are really emo, it is much more difficult. So I want to invite you to spend more time in the feelings of I want a child and in the feelings of life as a parent and the feelings of life not as a parent. 

Now, I will say you were born in 1989, so you have plenty of time to make a choice and then change your mind. You’re actually not in a rush to do this. You’re not in your early forties and, like, tick, tock; I got to do this immediately. 

And this is where I’m going to get astrological on you. From my perspective as an astrologer, a huge part of parenting actually occurs a year before the child is born, which means months before the child is conceived. As an astrologer, the way that I practice astrology—I use the birth chart as a tool to investigate what was happening before conception of the child or birth of the child. So, as I’m saying this, yes, that counts for you too. You are also the child, right. And your grandma is also the child. So we can use anybody’s birth chart to look at the conditions happening before birth. And they essentially set the conditions that is kind of like the hard drive of that child, of that person. And, so, making the decision that you are going to care for your child, and at this moment—if you make the decision, I’m going to have a child—but this is not a moment that I feel safe in my own life and I feel confident that I can take care of a kid, so, therefore, my parenting decision is to wait until I feel more confident, and I am standing on steadier ground—that’s a parenting choice. And that choice will be reflected in the child’s chart. 

As soon as we start investigating in a real tangible way having a child, we start to engage on a spiritual level with kind of the creation of that child’s birth chart. And, so, when you say on a spiritual level, I’m going to let my child decide what’s best, that’s a kind of tricky thing. And I’ve heard a lot of people—especially women—say this over the course of years. “I’m going to let my child decide when it’s time to come through. I’m going to let my child decide.” The tricky part of that is on the one hand, you are seeing the dignity and the autonomy in your child’s spirit, and on the other hand, what you’re doing is you’re not parenting, right. Because parenting is recognizing that you as a fully formed adult know some shit, and it’s your job to protect and to direct the child to the best of your ability within the conditions that you’re living in.

So it’s a dance. It’s a dance between honoring the spirit of your child and the soul of your child—whether born or not yet born—and knowing that as a parent it is your job to look out for danger and make choices and recognize that you have an authority in that. And, so, if the timing is wrong, but you’re like, “Oh, shit. I’m 30 years old, and I need to damn do a thing.” That’s artificial. We know that people can give birth at 34 and at 38 and everything in between. People give birth in their 40s. So, if it’s just like tick tock, tick tock—that’s the only reason why you would have a child right now, I would say wait. Wait until you can be a little bit clearer in yourself about the choice that you’re making because you can’t control climate change. It’s not one of our options. You can’t control social or political upheaval. It’s not one of your options.

And you’re right to be concerned about social media pressures and—basically, there’s a lot of things. There’s a lot of things. There’s always a lot of things. Life is hard. To be a person on a planet—there’s rough stuff over here, people. That said, you need to find some sense of clarity about the morality and the appropriateness of you making this choice at this moment. And, if you can’t find that clarity, wait. It’s okay to wait. If you’re meant to have a child later, you’ll have a child later.

So, in a way, what I’ve done here is I have not answered your question at all. But, hopefully, I have given you some guidance around how to think about this and how to make your choice because truly, truly, at the end of the day, parenting is one of the only things that I have ever seen in a relationship that we cannot compromise around. Parenting is one of the only things that I’ve ever seen that there are no go backsies on. 

Parenting is a really big deal. It is a massive responsibility, and it is a massive gift. And it will change you. It will change your values. It will change your finances. It will change your priorities. It will change your heart. It will change your fucking body. It will change your DNA, right. So, if you’re going to procreate, it’s going to change your DNA. Parenting is a big deal, and it is a big enough deal that it is worth doing with intention and worth doing right.

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It’s just—it’s overwhelming out there, don’t you think? I mean, I feel like it’s overwhelming in here—this brain of mine. I wonder how you all are doing. I feel, personally, like the world is so loud, and my pocket computer—AKA my phone is so loud. And my lap computer is so loud. And I’ve been trying to orient myself around how to find some quiet and some calm so as to sustain the work of being present and being an active participant in my life and in the world at large. And it is no small feat, you know? And it’s a cyclical approach. In other words, it’s not an approach that center in quiet for everyday for me, but it is an approach worth investigating if you’ve been feeling blocked or anxious lately. 

There’s just a lot of suffering. There’s a lot of collective suffering, and a lot of it is actually at the hands of corrupt governments. Some of it is at the hands of natural disasters, including climate change, which—I mean, I don’t mean to be a ray of sunshine, but did you hear that the last intact ice shelf in Canada has collapsed just this past week? Yeah, artic ice shelves collapsing is really bad news and has a cascading impact on our environment. 

It is so hard to take in and take on the suffering of the world. It is so hard to keep your mental and spiritual and emotional wellness in a good place when you are overwhelmed by the evil that we do to each other, the evil that we do to the environment, and also just dumb shitty luck, right. It’s hard. It's hard. 

So when you’re feeling helpless, and when you’re feeling hopeless, when you’ve given all the money that you can afford to give in donations to the organizations and causes that you deeply care about, and there’s not a lot of actions that you can see in front of you, this is where I want to just speak to the power of prayer. 

Now, I actually don’t love the word prayer. It’s like a religious word, and I am myself not a religious person. I, personally, haven’t found a great synonym. There’s invocation. There’s incantation—those words, because I use my transatlantic accent, you can tell I don’t love. Nothing is wrong with any of these words. It’s about me personally not resonating with them. Language is important, and it’s—sometimes it’s really personal. 

So, that said, prayer is not meant to replace or exist instead of action. This can lead to spiritual bypassing. This can lead to kind of really lying to yourself and giving yourself a pass for not being an active agent in the material world. Because we are material beings at this time, and we are here to do material work in the material world. That’s just—that’s my conviction. 

When you’ve tapped out what you can physically do, and when you feel concern and care that is kind of helpless and hopeless feeling, that’s where you want to align or re-align with Spirit—with the interconnectedness of all living things. And I would even contend that inanimate things have their own life, and that there is essentially life and energy in everything. And when we are able and willing to see the life in everything, then we have more resources. 

So I want to encourage you, if you’ve been feeling like I’ve been feeling—which is really kind of overwhelmed—to really center in addition to whatever actions you’re taking in the world, finding some quiet, making some time to sit and pray—or synonym of prayer; that’s the best I can do is call it synonym of prayer. Yeah, send with great intention and presence out the energy, first and foremost, of bearing witness, of seeing others—seeing their dignity, seeing their struggle, seeing their love, seeing their loss—being a presence because that’s huge; it’s important. And from that place you can send positive, healing intentions. You can connect with God or Source Energy or however it is that you identify language to that something that is so much greater than any of us as individuals and even greater than us as a collective. 

Find ways of praying or doing energy work that feed and heal the collective. And that is an action that will feed and heal you. It’s not about doing it to make yourself feel better, but it will have that impact. It will make you feel better—that is one of the many reasons why so many people are so drawn to religion and to all forms of woo. We need to feel connected. It’s really hard living when there’s no point. So, finding a way to center—experientially checking in with Spirit or Source Energy or God is kind of a gift that keeps on giving. And it’s not a gift that goes into your bedroom and sits on a shelf; it’s a gift that permeates and can impact many people, even if it’s only on a subtle level. Now, again, this is not instead of action; it’s in addition to action. 

Saturn is back in Capricorn. We’ve got Pluto in Capricorn, and now we also have Mars in Aries. And I’m going to get into this a little bit more in this week’s horoscope. But it is really important that when we are looking at broken systems, forms of oppression, corruption, that we do not use the very tools and energy of the oppressor to simply re-create conditions—shifting of power. It was Aristotle who said, “It’s not enough to win a war. It’s more important to organize peace.” Now, you might think that’s idealistic. You might not agree; that’s cool. It’s not like I stand for Aristotle. I can’t say I do. But we can shift the jailer, or we can tear down the whole prison. 

And I think it’s really important to think about this in how you are engaging with people at this time because Mars in Aries is a bullying energy—that’s the negative of it. There are positive articulations of the transit of Mars through the sign of Aries, but the negative one is bullying. It’s strong arming. It’s forcing things. And, honestly, there’s positive applications for those energies, but there’s just as many negative ones. And this week we see a shift, and in that shift, there will be greater temptations to misuse and abuse power. 

Here’s a thing about humans, we have this way of saying, “I suffered. I ate shit. I was the victim of x, and, therefore, now I’m entitled to make you suffer and you eat shit.” We want to really track and really pay attention to the ways in which our own suffering may entitle us to acting in ways that is actually not reflective of our humanity or our values. When we abandon our moral fiber for what was ultimately what we believe to be bad behaviour because we think we have suffered enough so we get to do this, we’re in trouble. We’re in trouble. 

We are all on the hook for how we engage with and embody our egos. We are all on the hook for our relationship to violence and to assertion and to war and to battle. Turning away from a war that is happening is taking the side of the oppressor. Passivity can be an intentional stance. And, also, passivity can essentially be stepping outside of the doorway to let the oppressor in. We must all engage in the world that we find ourselves in, whether we want to or not, whether we consider ourselves to be political or not. This is where we are. This is how things are going. 

What are you going to do about it? Right. How are you going to be within it? And every week the tides shift just a little more. The tides keep on shifting, right. And so it’s really important that you continue to do the work and allow that work to morph and change and allow that work to change you and morph you. We all must change; that’s where things are at. And, if you resist the work of change, well, that’ll change you—but not for the better. 

So, my loves, on that very light note—ha ha—I’m going to give you your horoscope for the week of August 9th through the 15th of 2020. And there’s really just two transits to tell you about. That sounds easy—or does it? Okay, the first one is happening on the 10th of August, and it’s a Mercury square to Uranus. 

So Mercury and Uranus both are planets that govern your nervous system. There’re very nervy, analytic, cerebral planets. And, so, when they form a 90-degree angle to each other, there can be a mental anxiety, right. There can be a jumpiness in your thinking or restlessness in your thinking. It can also be a time where you blurt shit out that you weren’t planning on saying. It can also be a time where you just find yourself distracted. Mercury square to Uranus really can be agitating. It can make you feel irritable. It can make you feel excited, and it can catch you kind of like running with a new idea that came out of left field, and maybe not—it’s not a great time for closing, basically. 

So this is not the time to make a permanent decision. This is the time to explore your options. This is great time for learning if you can be open. The problem with this transit is that it can make us kind of obstinate. It can make us a little belligerent, actually. So it’s not exactly like a fighting transit, but it’s an irritating transit. And, so, because of that, if your ego is kind of in a position—if you have an assertive nature, you might find yourself asserting yourself where you don’t damn belong.

The key here with this transit is to be open. It’s to be interested in your own mind. Yeah, interested in your own mind. What that looks like is noticing your thoughts—noticing not just the language of your thoughts but the tone of your thoughts. Noticing how you speak—not just what you say but the tone of what you say. And really learning—being interested in learning because that’s the good part of this transit is that we can actually learn when this transit occurs; we can learn something we weren’t thinking we were going to see or expecting to see and be a really eye opening time of innovation and exploration. But it requires that you’re willing to participate instead of be caught up on the electric field that this transit can create. 

Now, on a more experiential level—a more materially experiential level—honestly, you might think you sent an email, and you actually didn’t. You might have tech issues—that kind of shit. If that happens or if you feel kind of just keyed up, my advice to you is to breathe, to get grounded or centered and within that to double check that you said it right, that you said what needed to be said, that you pressed send on the email—that kind of shit.

One last word about this transit, then we move onto the next. Now, I’ve been talking to you guys about propaganda, the need for us to source materials and all that kind of stuff since the start of 2020, but now we are in the thick of it. Mercury square to Uranus may coincide with some news story coming out that is only 50 percent true—that is not well sourced or well vetted. It is your responsibility—and I am directly talking to you—it is your responsibility to check the source and not just agree with something because it matches how you feel or your pre-existing world view. 

It is really important that you are particularly critical around this date, but—slash—also, literally, everyday moving forward for the rest of your life—certainly in 2020. Okay. It’s really important because there is such a thing as facts, and they are not feelings; they’re facts. And what are facts? What is truth? We could get spiritual about it. We could get into quantum physics about it, but, also, let’s just get material about it. There are stories that are true stories, and there are stories that are factional stories. If you are reading something that is claiming to be journalistic, make sure that it is backed up by fact—not opinion, not hearsay—fact. 

That brings me to the next transit, the final transit of this week, and it is happening on August the 13th. Mars is forming a square to Pluto. Now, I got a little bit want to say—da, da, da, dum. Here’s the thing, this transit—which I’m going to explain to you in but moments—will re-occur. It will re-occur on October the 9th when Mars is Retrograde, and then it will re-occur again on December 23rd. So Mars will be direct in December. It will be Retrograde on October 9th, and it is direct, right now, on the 13th.

So, here’s the thing—what I’m about to tell you about this particular transit—it’s going to really impact us throughout the course of the rest of the year. Ah, spoiler alert—this isn’t good news. But the reason why I say that it’s going to impact us over the course of the rest of the year is because of the fact that this transit will re-occur, right. So even though I’ve given you these dates because they are the dates that the transit is exact, and we’re not going to be under the influence of this transit the whole entire rest of the year until Christmas time, but these themes will be re-occurring throughout the year.

So what’s important to know is that Mars is squaring Pluto. So Mars will be at around 23-degrees of Aries, and Pluto will be at around 23-degrees of Capricorn. So, if you have any planets that are around 22, 23 or 24-degrees of a cardinal sign, you’re really, really, really going to feel this. But, also, of any kind of fire sign or air sign because those will be sextiles and trines. 

Okay, Mars square to Pluto—iee. So, as you know, Mars is bullying, aggression, assertion. It’s driving your car. It’s how you move through the world. It’s fornicating. It’s fighting. Mars is a planet that requires visceral expression; it wants to be expressed outwardly—that’s Mars for you. Mars, if you don’t already know this, is a little man symbol—it’s conventionally used as the man symbol because it does govern what we traditionally have associated with maleness. It’s like things that have to get done and fighting and fucking and all that kind of stuff. So that’s Mars for you.

Now, Pluto—Pluto is associated with really big themes, like going nuclear, like having deep shame and punishment. It’s associated with power and abuse and healing. Pluto is the slowest moving planet in the zodiac, and it is a planet that deeply impacts our society. So whenever there’s transits to or from Pluto, it’s a really big deal. And it’s a big deal not just because of how deeply it impacts us as a collective—like a real collective situation over here—but, also, how personal it feels. Because Pluto governs over a sense of shame and compulsions and obsessions and addictions—because it governs over trauma and healing and transformation, it feels very personal. 

And, unfortunately, where we have Pluto, we tend to feel quite alone. We feel like we alone feel a certain kind of way; we alone must cope with the damn thing. So having these two planets forming a square to each other throughout the course of the next several months, it does create a risk, first and foremost, that we will see further abuses of power—that we will see abuses of power from people on all sides of all the things. 

And, as I said earlier, sometimes the reason why we abuse power is because we’re fucking sick of being abused—because we feel deeply wronged. Maybe we have been deeply wronged. We often act our worst out of trauma and out of the pain of being treated terribly by others. 

We must make sure that we are staying associated enough with our anger and our rage. And where we find ourselves obsessing and being compulsive, we must make the effort as a collective—which means as individuals—to stay associated with what is motivating us and whether or not our actions are actually justified. Now, when we say justified, it’s by what metric, right? What metric do we use to justify aggression or cruelty or violence? 

I’m not saying there’s not a time for all the things. I mean, we have these planets because all of these things are part of human nature. I don’t think the planets created human nature; I think that humans are aware of these planets because they resonate with our human nature. That’s my theory, but just a damn theory—nobody knows. 

So, on a collective level, I think that we must be on guard for vengeance, punishment, violence, cruelty, and terrible abuses of power. And I’m not saying this to freak you out—not at all. I mean, seriously, just look around; none of this should shock you. None of this should be like, “Really? But how could that happen in a world so lovely?” I mean, this—this makes sense. This is not—this should not be shocking to anyone to hear. 

But we have the astrology clarifying these are important dates, and this is an important time. And these are the energetics, Mars and Pluto forming a 90-degree angle—square. These are the energetics that describe and outline what it is that’s actually happening here or one level and layer of what’s happening here. And, so, within that we can become more associated, more present, more intentional, and more effective in how we engage with and approach the things we’re dealing with.

Frida Kahlo said, “Don’t build a wall around your suffering or it may devour you from the inside.” This transit, on a personal level, is very likely to kick up feelings that you struggle with. They maybe feelings that compel you to compulsive and cruel behaviour. You might find yourself wanting to be a bully to someone or feeling really angry and justified and like you kind of want to shove your feelings of rage down someone else’s throat—not super cute. Not super effective. Maybe it’s necessary; I don’t know. 

There’s a way that this transit will trigger feelings of shame—Pluto—around Martian issues. So, your sexuality, your relationship to anger, your relationship to ambition. You may feel really competitive with other people. You may feel like you need to stake your claim, or you may be in a situation where other people are pulling some shit on you—trying to get over on you or harm you. So here’s the key—do not act in ways that contradict your own ethics because if you seek to remedy a situation by acting in ways that turn you away from yourself—from the self that you want to be—then all you’ve done is created a new problem. People can be assholes. You know—you know. I mean, so can you. So can I. Everyone’s an asshole sometimes. Everyone’s somebody’s bad guy, right. But when you allow an unhealthy or unjust dynamic turn you unhealthy and unjust, that’s where you’ve kind of lost yourself. 

So here’s the positive on a personal level of this transit. It’s that you can fortify your ego, release the parts of your ego structure that actually are destructive or not useful, and you can find new and more authentic and sustainable ways of being present, standing your ground, and standing the fuck up when you need to—mobilizing effectively for the kind of transformation and healing that you need. 

Ditto on the collective level. If we can remember who the enemy is and who the enemy isn’t, if we can use our energies in a way that is transformational instead of focused on retribution and punishment, we can affect real change—not shift out jailers but tear down the fucking prisons. 

If we, as a world, want rehabilitation, then we have to recognize that it’s a long haul. This transit, like I said, it’s got exact hits in the month of August, October, and December. We have a solid chunk of time. When I first saw this transit, I was like, “Oh, shit. Shit. I don’t want to see that—that looks rough.” But the truth is there’s so much evil in the world, there’s so much pain in the world, and so many hurt people go forward to hurt others out of their pain and not out of evil. And so it will take so much effort and time and strategy—because Pluto’s in Capricorn, right, so we’re talking about strategy in that Pluto and Capricorn way—to make effective change. 

And, also, my dear loves, it will take courage. It will take bravery. It takes courage to do something that you’re scared to do. It takes courage to confront feelings that you don’t want to feel or to confront situations where there isn’t a clear and easy answer. It’s messy, right. And most people have maladjusted egos—too aggressive, not aggressive enough, take up too much space, don’t take up enough space. This is hard, and the fact that it’s hard for you does not mean something is wrong with you. What is hard for you is not what’s wrong with you. 

And this brings me back to centering some quiet, centering some silence. This brings me back to the need to center, staying connecting to yourself, so that you can track what is motivating you because your motivations are not equal to your impact; however, corrupt motivations are really important to track and transform whenever and as much as possible.

So, my loves, I truly hope that this was helpful for you. Do not forget that you are not meant to have arrived already. You are meant to stay on the path—stay on the path of being an active participant in transforming the ills of the world. Stay on the path of transforming your own bullshit. Stay on the path. Stay on the path when you’re having a shit day. Stay on the path when you’ve realized you’ve made an error. Stay on the path when you get accolades because you’re amazing and the best person ever. Stay on the path. The path will wind. The path will bring you places you weren’t planning on going. The path will be exactly what you think, and you’ll get bored. All the things because it’s a long ass path. Stay with it—stay with it, my loves.