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.

My loves and my darlings, if you haven’t already heard of the great Amanda Seales, I’m almost jealous of you because you get to discover this amazing body of work that she has in the world. You get to listen to her podcast, Small Doses, for the first time, and that is a fucking treat. 

If you don’t live under a rock and you already know who Amanda Seales is, then she really needs no introduction. She is an activist, a comedian, a podcaster, a singer and actor, and the creator of Smart Funny & Black. If you haven’t already subscribed to her podcast, just do yourself a favor and do it right now. 

What you’re about to hear is part two out of a two part series of the ‘Side Effects of Woo,’ a fantastic conversation that I had with Amanda Seales, and I’m totally confident that you’re going to enjoy it.

Amanda Seales: I genuinely feel like for a lot of organized religion there’s this idea that you need us in order for you to connect to God.

Jessica: Yeah. Yes.

Amanda Seales: And so, to empower folks to have their own faculties and be able to utilize them and their own Guides and their own Spirits, it would almost be in the—against the best interest of religious factions that seek to control.

Jessica: It’s bad for business. Let’s just call it what it is. It’s just bad for business. 

It’s bad for busines for people who menstruate to be able to say, “Oh, my period’s being weird, and I know what that means.” It’s bad for business for people to be able to listen to our bodies and respond to our bodies as though they are intelligent. It’s bad for spiritual business and often for kinds of medical business—and I’m very pro science, very pro science, very pro vaccine, very—I feel like it’s important that I say this because of the work I do. But it’s bad for all of these businesses for people to have confidence in our own connection to this body and this life being part of a larger path. 

We are all, in my view, kind of like this divine thread in a tapestry. We are connected to each other. We are connected to the Earth. Of course, we are connected to all that this living, and there is something really humbling about that and really empowering about that. And it means something different for different people and at different stages of life, as it’s meant to. 

But what I personally tend to reject is people saying it’s impossible for a planet to affect a human, or it’s impossible for you to know the future because—oh, that’s where we started talking about sci-fi because you were like, how can a person know what’s coming next? And this is where, as a medium—so I talk to dead people, right. And what I’ve learnt from that—

Amanda Seales: —Wait. Can I ask you real quick?

Jessica: Yes.

Amanda Seales: Is it as basic as someone just telling you someone’s name, and then you just tap in and they pop up? And then sometimes is it like, oh, they’re not here today?

Jessica: Excellent questions. I’ve trained my Guides—so my Guides and I worked it out over the course of the last 15/16 years that I try to only see dead people when I get a name. And I do that because my life was really awful when I was just being constantly bombarded by dead people. It’s just not—nobody wants that, I can assure you. Nobody wants that. 

So right now, the structure that I have that usually works is I require a name, and I don’t talk to dead people unless I know them, unless I’m like—they’re connected to someone, somehow. 

Of course, with COVID that’s been different. I think mediums are having a little bit of a hard time because there’s a lot of dead people and a lot of people dying terrified and alone. Not to bring the vibe down, but that’s real.

Amanda Seales: No. I mean, this is your existence.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s real.

Amanda Seales: I mean, in that, do you—I mean this might be like extra woo-woo, like AP woo-woo, but when you’re speaking to a deceased person, are you speaking to—what do you believe you’re speaking to? Is it the energy that left somebody’s body? Is it a Soul? 

I had someone tell me the other day that she has a friend who spoke to a medium who speaks to the Souls of babies. And the person said that this medium told her that—she had had a miscarriage—she was pregnant with twins and had a miscarriage. And that that medium had told her that she was speaking to the Souls and the Souls were like, “Yeah, we didn’t come because we didn’t want to be twins, and so that’s why we left.” And the woman subsequently ended up having two kids.

Jessica: Separate kids? Two individuals?

Amanda Seales: But she had been pregnant—I mean, she had suffered—she couldn’t get pregnant forever, and then she finally got pregnant—so I say all to say what do you feel like you are speaking to?

Jessica: So, first and foremost, I should say the way you’re framing it is really important, and I agree with it. It’s what I believe I am experiencing because no living human can know what happens after we die. And I want to just hold space for that. And that different mediums, we’re interpretating what we’re experiencing, and we’re interpretating it through the lens of our beliefs. So that’s important to acknowledge. 

And in my experience, I am talking—I mean, there’s a lot of things that can happen. So I will talk to dead people. So that is me speaking to dead people who are in spirit form; they’re in Soul form, but they’re still connected to their personhood in this life, in this body. 

But this is where it kind of ties into prediction in a weird way because there is no there, there. When you lose the body, there’s no more time. There’s no more place. There’s no physical location in the spirit world. I know we like to envision clouds and fire, but those are just—they’re constructs so that we can wrap our minds around it.

Amanda Seales: It’s the ether.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s the ether. There is no there, there. So time is irrelevant because there is—time is a physical measure. To a ladybug, to a cat, and to you versus to me, time is a different thing. So as humans we experience time, generally speaking, the same. But I can tell you, I have some friends that are late for everything. I’m early for everything; our experience of time is different. And for my cat, who’s going to live maybe 16 years, 19 years, his experience of time is different. Correct. Yes. 

So that said, I have—because I’ve been doing this work for so long, I have talked to—I’m thinking of one client as an example. She came to me, I don’t know how many years ago, like 17 years ago, for—to connect with her dead mother. Her mother had died months earlier. And this woman was very material. She gave the most specific—one of the best stories I have was like very specific advice about what to do. And my client did it, and it was all accurate. 

I can tell the story if you want, but before I do, I’ll just say now when I talk to my client and I speak with her dead mother, her dead mother is no longer in her personality form. I’ve watched her, and I’ve had the privilege of being able to see how we can—how we evolve. And as we evolve and we become more whole, what happens is we are less like our personalities. 

And so, for the living we don’t feel our lost loved ones as much when they’re in a state of wholeness because being human is very much about being in a state of separation. It’s a state of duality. I begin and I end here. My body is me. And the reality is, from my perspective, our bodies are not where we begin and end. Our bodies are—they’re the ship, and we’re stuck in the ship for x amount of years, but we exist outside of that. 

So the thing about what am I talking to, it depends on who I’m talking to. Some people are very fucking attached to their personalities, and they’re the same. And some people really go into a state of wholeness, and then it’s like communicating with a being, like a spiritual being and less like talking to a person. And then I’ll also add, and feel free to hit me with as many questions because I know it’s weird. To me, it’s not, but in general, I know it is.

Amanda Seales: It’s not weird. It’s just new. 

Jessica: Right. Right. Right. Aka weird, right? All of it. But I will say when I see a dead person and when I hear a dead person and when I talk to a dead person, it’s never with my vocal chords, my ears, or my eyes. And this is, again, where language fools us. Because I can talk to a dead person and describe what they look like and start kind of taking on some of their affectations and talk about their nature and—

Amanda Seales: —Because you know I want to ask you, and I’m like no, you can’t. So now I have to set up another reading with you.

Jessica: Exactly. We’ll do that. We’ll do that. But it’s this thing that happens where it’s like they used to pop into my body, and that is very uncomfortable, and I don’t enjoy it. But it’s the quickest way to get the most data. Do you know what I mean?

Amanda Seales: So like Ghost? Like straight up like, “Molly, you in danger, girl.”?

Jessica: Okay, no. Luckily, no, slash, a little, yes. More like—fuck, let me think of a good metaphor. It’s not that literal as it was in Ghost. It’s a little bit more like—fuck—some episodes of Supernatural, maybe? I don’t know. It’s hard to say. And I think it’s also different for different mediums, but for me—okay, I did this event at a spiritualist church. Do you know what a spiritualist church is?

Amanda Seales: No, that seems like an oxymoron to me. 

Jessica: Okay. So get ready. So spiritualism started in the early 1900s. It’s a church of mediums. They believe that we can communicate with the dead, and there are spiritualist churches all across the US. And there’s an amazing history of—they’ve a really progressive set of values and a great history. 

But I did an event at—I never thought as a Jewish person I’d be standing at the pulpit of a fucking church, but I did it twice. So I did these events where there was all these people in the church, and I would just like read for whoever I felt. And the way that I would get the information is I would start—somebody would come into my body, and I would feel it, and then I would describe what I was seeing. Does that make sense? Does he want to come in?

Amanda Seales: Yes, okay. So the energy—well, yeah, that’s how I felt it when you were describing it. That it’s not a—it’s not a person using your eyes and your mouth.

Jessica: Not at all. Not at all. 

Amanda Seales: It’s like an essence.

Jessica: Yeah. And you know if you die an asshole, you’re a dead asshole. And I think that that’s an important thing for me to say.

Amanda Seales: This is the type of stuff that I know my listeners—I feel like particularly Black women have become way more open to just the—to expanding the boundaries of what spiritual really means than a lot of other folks. 

In recent memory, it feels like I remember a time when it was like Jesus or nah, and there’s absolutely—when I hear—it’s common knowledge now that people got crystals, people got—people are using salt and pepper, people are connecting, people are doing Tarot. This is—

Jessica: —It’s a really big. It’s a big cultural change, and I think it has a lot to do with accessibility. The internet made these things accessible and people were like, “Tools that I don’t need to lean on anyone, that I can do for myself?” 

Amanda Seales: Yes.

Jessica: And that’s where—that’s where I’m a huge fan of the internet and part of why I’m obsessed with net neutrality because we need accessibility for self-care. 

And I have to say, I actually think Trump had something to do with all of this because so many activists and so many people have become so burnt out. As soon as he was elected, they were like instantly burnt out. And so, there is a way that spirituality and activism and survival became—came more to the fore. And I’ve seen just in these past four or five years, and I say four or five because the whole fucking time he was running was torture as well. This is where so many people are just like—actually, whether more people are using these tools or they’re more out about it, I don’t know. It’s hard to know. 

Amanda Seales: Yeah. No, I definitely feel like people are—not only are they using them more, not only are they more out about it, people are more like curious about like, are there more tools? 

Jessica: Yes. And the answer’s yes. This is the thing I want to say that’s really kind of like it’s connected to the dead people, it’s connected to the astrology, it’s connected to all of this, which is doing energy work is—you don’t have to be divine. You don’t have to be perfectly healthy. Doing energy work is simply getting really present, practicing getting present and not being distracted, and feeling yourself and working with that, with how it feels. I want to say, it is not complicated. That doesn’t make it easy, but it’s not complicated. 

And because it’s accessible and because it’s useful, I just want to encourage lots of people to do it, but to do it in such a way where you are not giving up your power to any one person. Because we’re also living in a time with this term I just recently learned, which is conspirituality and with Q and all of this propaganda and all of this slippery slope spiritual stuff, that it’s like—I think it’s really important to not replace some repressive religious institution with some like guru like figure. I don’t know if the word guru is appropriate, but some figure who’s like, “You need to listen to me.” 

I like free stuff. You like free stuff. And that is why if you’re an IOS user, you can go over to the App Store and get my free app, Tiny Spark. It’s just like a little quicky tool to use to resource your intuition. I love it. It’s cute, and it’s super accurate. Download Tiny Spark to your IOS device. It’s free and in the App Store.

Jessica: I’ve actually been really surprised. I’m on that app Clubhouse where it’s like social media, but you just talk. Have you been on it yet?

Amanda Seales: I was on for approximately 45 minutes, and I took my leave.

Jessica: Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. That’s fair. I love talking, so for me, it’s really fun. But I am shocked at how many women organize themselves in a room with a man speaking, and they just listen.

Amanda Seales: And they just listen!

Jessica: I’m just like what it this? I mean, also as a podcaster, I’m like how are this many men in the top of podcasting? Who’s listening to men still? Is that—I’m just—I’m shocked. Like I literally say this out loud almost every week. I don’t understand; I thought we’d moved beyond that.

Amanda Seales: [overtalking 00:15:45] is wildly effective. And I think for a lot of women, particularly in the relationship area is where it shocks me the most because I feel like—I mean, I get the logic of if you want a man, listen to what men want. I can understand how that math would make sense for a lot of women who are looking to date a cisgendered, heterosexual man.

Jessica: Sure.

Amanda Seales: However, quite often, I’m like yeah, but you wouldn’t even date this person who’s talking right now. And I think a lot of women for what—for all intents and purposes—it’s like you know when you’re so sick, like, you’ve had—even if it’s just a cold—you’ve just had a cold for so long that you’re like I’m never going to breathe out of my nose again. I’m never going to breathe out my—and by so long, I mean like four days, and you’re just like I’m never going to breathe out my nose again, and then people can tell you anything. People can tell you, “Listen, this is what you should do: get the skin of a frog, boil it, put a paperclip in it, shake it up, put it in a jar, put it under your bed. Let it sit there for 24 hours, and then drink it. It will go away.” And you’re like, “I’ll try it.”

Jessica: Anything. Yes. 

Amanda Seales: That’s what I feel like is going on with a lot of the women that we see in these rooms. It’s like anything. And so, that’s why I wanted to do this episode and introduce folks to you and even just the concept of how we do have more tools. Because I feel like one of the biggest sacred purposes, for lack of a better explanation, that I have attached myself to is really trying to teach others and remind myself of the fact that we have it in us.

Jessica: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent, yes. We have it in us, and it’s great to ask for help, and it’s great to lean into the support that we have access to, slash, also, I think it’s really important to know that you are kind of the captain of your own ship. You do have it in you—of course you do. 

And this is where—also, just as a quick aside, don’t listen to straight men; listen to lesbians. We know everything about dating women you need to know, and we don’t have the same bullshit, so just—I just had to throw that in the mix.

Amanda Seales: Because the thing about—this is the thing, my issue is that if you’re going to listen to straight men, listen to them talk about themselves. 

Jessica: Sure. Yes.

Amanda Seales: Don’t listen to them tell you how you should be.

Jessica: Agreed. Yeah. That’s weird.

Amanda Seales: That’s the lesson. Because you’re like—because if you listen to these men talk about themselves, you can make really more informed decisions about your expectations, about who you don’t want to be around, and kind of like where the bar is for—I guess that’s expectations again. Because that’s the thing, I think when I see Steve Harvey write a book telling women what they should be like, I’m like, who the fuck? How?

Jessica: Thank you. Thank you. And he’s not the only one; he’s one of many, many, many, many, many. And that isn’t on its own what’s shocking to me. What’s shocking to me is that women buy those books and read those books and listen. And I just feel—I mean, I’m not mad. There’s all kinds of people that can live all kinds of lives, but I just feel like with all we know about men…

Amanda Seales: There’s just still a very—but I know particularly within the Black women community, there’s still a very strong influence from Christianity as a religious space, not as a spiritual space, but Christianity as a religious space that still places men and whatever they’re sharing as higher in value. 

And a lot of us don’t admit it to ourselves because we don’t want to co-sign that. But a lot of us been—like, I can tell you my mom had been conditioned to host men. So that if my uncle is there or if my father is there or if a friend is there, she has to be a host in a way that I had never seen her behave with other people. 

And it’s not to say that she wasn’t a host to my friends or to—but with them it was very different. It was more—I would even add—I would even add the adjective a silent host. You know, like with my friends and with her friends, it’s more sort of like, “Hey! What do you want? Da, da, da, da, da.” With them it’s like, “Please, sir, whatever you like, sir.” And I was like who the fuck is this? And I remember being 15 and seeing my mother do that with my father and saying no more. 

Jessica: And you said that to her?

Amanda Seales: Yes. 

Jessica: Mmm. That’s good.

Amanda Seales:And saying to her—like I came in my room and was like okay, so this is done. This is a rap. Because I had seen her sit behind my father as he conversed with me about some shit he ain’t had no place to converse. And I was like, oh, she doesn’t even realize it. 

Because this is a Caribbean—this is a left-over thing. So I think a lot of women, they just kind of are—we are kind of conditioned in that way. 

And then what I love about the work that you do and that has been becoming more available to us is it helps to not just challenge those paradigms, but then give like realistic solutions and ways to exist within it. 

Jessica: That’s my favorite thing, realistic solutions—my favorite thing. I just—is my favorite thing in the world is like what’s the cure? What do we do? What’s the correction? Because it’s really—it’s very hard when you live in a world to be like I’m not going to listen to this kind of person. I mean, it’s not realistic. It’s not necessarily even wise. But it is important to recognize that we need to make sure we’re consuming balanced perspectives. And if we’re consuming the perspective of a person who they themselves are not balanced, then that influences our minds and our hearts, and that’s no good. 

And I’ll also say to something that you said just kind of like at the start of that. The church in general, but organized religion across the board, has kind of created this industry of morality and industry of values. And an astrological fun fact is the planet Venus—which is like the woman’s symbol; it’s like that’s the glyph for it—is a planet that yes, governs prettiness and ladies and relationships, but it also governs cash and values. And that’s a really interesting thing because this thing that’s attributed to women is actually values—what you value on a material level, but also your value system. 

And I think that when seeking your own truth, your own voice, your own guidance, a really great first step and a meaningful step to return to ritualistically is what do I value? What is it that I value in humans? What is it that I value in my behavior? What is it that I value in my life? 

And when we talk about values, there’s a way that the Christian right has stolen the concept of values, but the reality is most people have very few things we value—truly value, and everything that we choose, ideally, is kind of a—it’s like a reflection of what we value. 

And when our actions and choices reflect what we actually value, whether or not it aligns with astrology or the church or whatever the fuck else, then the mistakes you make and the problems you have are the ones you need to have. They are healing, helpful mistakes—healing, helpful problems, as opposed to problems that break you down, and you’re like, “I already learnt this; why am I learning this again? I shouldn’t have to go through this.” Does that make sense what I’m saying?

Amanda Seales: No, it does because, okay, so I know there’s a lot of us on here who are like—who let’s just relate it to relationships, but I think it also relates to jobs, right. And you’ll like get into a relationship and even though the relationship may mirror other people that you’ve been with that weren’t cool, you went into it different, and so the outcome of it is different. 

I can tell you my previous relationship was the first time that I went into something, and I had like—I won’t say it’s the first time that I went into something and had like genuine love, but I let—I received this person differently than I have received others. And the outcome of it, I came out better. I still had lessons—I had to learn lessons and go through ups and downs and difficult times, but it didn’t break me in a way that with other situations I feel like I was not loving them the same way. I was kind of loving them through a different lens. 

And I mean this is the work that I do in therapy. But I just know—I understand what you were saying in that context because I’ve also gone into different jobs like that. You go into a job that you didn’t really want to do, but you’re just like, “I’m just trying to get this money,” you’re going to end up with shit that is going to fuck with you.

Jessica: Yes, inevitably. And this like when dealing with family trauma, like family of origin trauma, the thing that I’m always finding myself saying to clients is we can’t expect to change all of our family members. Sometimes we can, but a lot of us cannot expect that. So what we can do if we want to maintain a relationship with them—because, you know, with a lover or with a date, you can just break up with them and move on, but with your parents or your siblings, it’s very fucking hard to do. Right, you’re stuck with them. Even if you never talk to them again, you’re stuck with them. 

And so, because of that, when we change our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to our trauma, and when we from that place of self-acceptance and self-love, we change our expectations of others—not to let them off the hook, but to give ourselves permission to see them clearly, when we make those subtle but profound internal changes, everything changes in the dynamic because you’re no longer on a spiritual level or an emotional level playing your part in the dynamic, and it destabilizes the other person. 

And they may double down; they may get worse, but it’s not going to be the same if you’re not the same. Because if there’s some bullshit that happens in your family and you’re just like you are different, then what you’ll do is you’ll be like, “Oh, shit. Is that my phone? I’ve got to go.” And you just go. You know what I mean?

Amanda Seales: My favorite exit that I’ve learned is, “You’ll have to excuse me.” And it doesn’t—the—

Jessica: —Beautiful. Simple. Graceful. You’ll have to excuse me. Yes, I love that.

Amanda Seales: I saw a meme where someone was like, I’ll introduce you all to a South Carolinian way of exiting, which is, “Well, I’m going to let you all go. I’m going to let you go.” And it’s like—

Jessica: —I love that. Can I tell you how many times in my head I hear blocked and blessed. Be blocked and be blessed. Because I’m just like I need to use that. I haven’t used that in my life, but I feel like I’m at this place where it’s just like it’s time. Because it’s just like, just let it go. It’s really an important thing to do.

Amanda Seales: But do you know what I get from this conversation, I think, and it speaks to where we were talking about somewhat in the beginning about like how psychology and astrology end up interacting. But so much of what we’re taught in therapy and in practice about how we create boundaries etc., it is woo-woo. Because it’s about you protecting your energies and your spirit, and it can get delivered to you in like this very, I don’t know, like clinical way. But ultimately, it ends up being about how you’re creating methods for the energy that exists in this body that you’re in right now to be at its best fulfillment. That’s essentially what it seems like when we talk about all of these things.

Jessica: Yes.

Amanda Seales: Because we somehow got on a path that made perfect sense. We got on a path to like how we’re creating realistic solutions. And everything you’re saying is stuff that I’ve said on here, stuff that my therapist has said to me etc., but you’re coming from a perspective that is decidedly spiritual based and energy based, and it ain’t no different!

Jessica: It’s no different. It’s no different. I mean, this is the thing is there’s a million paths that will take you to the same destination, and you just need to find yours. 

And this is—people are always asking me, “What do you say to the haters?” and I—I mean, there’s nothing to say. You don’t have to like what I do. I don’t like what you do. We’re fine. There’s no need for us all to agree or all to see things the same way. 

What I think is important is—first of all, I have a therapist. I love therapy. I do not think that a therapist is the same as an astrologer. Even though I am very much a counsellor in the way that I work, it’s not the fucking same on a million levels, slash, also, we do need to have a conversation about how the medical industry, including, absolutely, psychology is deeply capitalistic, which is white supremacist in origin, right. We need to talk about how it takes so many years and so much money, and it’s a problematic industry. 

I mean, astrology as in industry is problematic. There’s nothing that is not problematic in a problematic world, but there’s a way that we say it’s okay to come to these idea—like, we as a society say it’s okay to come to these ideas through a psychologist. It’s okay to come to these ideas through a pastor or a rabi or whatever, but it’s not okay to come to them through my horoscope. 

And this is it’s like branding and the sillification of self-determined spirituality, in my view. And I think that there’s room for us all to question things more and to be willing to look at our own assumptions and our own judgements and prejudgments because there are so many ways to get there. There are just so many ways to get there. 

The question is are you abandoning your common sense? Are you abandoning your self-determination? In those cases, I would encourage somebody to pull back and really check in. But that can happen with a therapist. That can happen with somebody in institutionalized religion as much as it can happen with somebody in le woo, like myself. So it’s good to be critical but open.

Amanda Seales: And I just feel like it’s—I feel like I wanted this episode to just help present to people just yet another set of tools. Because it’s also not like you have to have just one. It’s not like, okay, I just do therapy, and that’s it, or I just work out, and that’s it, or I just do le woo, and that’s it. And it doesn’t have to all be at the same time, but it’s like… 

I know for me sometimes I just don’t feel like boxing, and so I’m trying to get my energy base and work with my energy in a in different way. And that’s when I’m able to like—now I have expanded to be able to use spiritual tools in a way that I just never was before. 

And then like sometimes I’m just not in the mood for therapy. I haven’t talked to my therapist in a couple of months. She doesn’t take it any kind of way because she’s like, “Yeah, there’s such a thing as too much therapy.” And she’s like, “Sometimes you—

Jessica: —That’s a good therapist. That’s a good therapist.

Amanda Seales: And you know why I went back to her? Because the therapist I started going to while I lived in L.A., she said to me, “My job is to determine whether to deal with something intellectually or emotionally, and your job is to go along with the ride.” And I was like that is actually incorrect. 

Jessica: I would agree with you. That’s really weird; I’ve never heard that before. This is the thing, when people ask for obedience, I instantly recoil. And I think that there’s a real value in being like, listen, I’m asking you to trust my expertise in this moment. But kind of what she said to you is you need to just follow my lead here, in a way that a little bit is like you abandoning your kind of post at the helm, which, I don’t know. I could see how that works, and I could see how that doesn’t. But it’s not for me, in general. 

Amanda Seales: She literally was like, “The balance between intellect and feelings is hard to maintain at times, but we are making progress. We won’t be able to sketch up the perfect recipe for how things should be. I’m adjusting our work based on the progress you’re making, the goals we set, and what I know about your past. My job is to direct the traffic between feelings and intellect so we can avoid crashes. Your job is to cruise and enjoy the ride.” 

Jessica: Mmm. So interesting. It’s like almost there, but then she really lost me at the end. Yeah.

Amanda Seales: Right, that’s the thing. It was like wait; I don’t want to enjoy the ride because you just went—it wasn’t a three-wheel motion; you took us off the road. But this therapist that I speak to now, that I’ve been speaking to, she’s in New York, and we just do phone calls. 

And I think the other part about what I like about her too is that she also understands that there’s these other tools. And at a very low point for me, she was like. “We need to expand your tool set beyond just talking to me.”

Jessica: Just talking. And I love that you box, by the way. I fucking love boxing. It’s the most cathartic and enjoyable thing in the world. But talking and boxing, they’re not enough. This is the thing is like over the course of a life, we need to do all the things to touch in on all of our places and spaces, and there’s no shame in flexibility and adaptability.

Amanda Seales: Well, I got to tell you, I really—this has lived up to all of my hopes and dreams of an episode.

Jessica: Me too, slash, also may—let it never end.

Amanda Seales: What did you say?

Jessica: Let it never end. Let’s talk for ever and ever.

Amanda Seales: Because I think what really drew me to you was how grounded you are in this thing that people try to act is so like just so, “I’m not here, like whatever, like oils, crystals, yeah.”

Jessica: I feel like you have a big career in front of you with that voice though. I mean, you know what I mean? You’ve nailed the voice. You’ve nailed the voice. 

Amanda Seales: It just like has become like you said there’s a commercial space around it that says—it’s like when I was doing spoken word, and it starts to become, like, if you didn’t deliver poetry like this, then it is not poetry, unless… But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do it like that. 

So thank you for giving us this point of view. And everybody who’s listening, like I said at the beginning of the pod, Jessica Lanyadoo can be listened to on her own podcast, Ghost of a Podcast. And you do a podcast twice a week, and I commend you.

Jessica: I don’t know how I do it; I’m tired. I love it, but I’m tired. 

Amanda Seales: Listen, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. And so, just also, like, can people book you for readings? 

Jessica: Not as much right now. Yeah, not as much right now. I did readings for my fulltime living for twenty something years.

Amanda Seales: Oh, wow.

Jessica: Yeah, for a very long time, and then at a certain point I was booking a year in advance, which sounds fancy, but it was awful because it meant I was always like scheduled in advance. Everyone was mad at me all the time, and it was—there was no flow in it, you know what I mean? 

And so, in 2019—of course, I saw what was coming for 2020, so I just decided to not take clients in 2020. So I’ve just been doing like individual—

Amanda Seales: —Really? You saw it? You saw that it was going to be a shit storm? 

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. 

Amanda Seales: I remember my astrologist was like, “I was at my Buddhist center, and they were all being very positive. And then they came to me and said, ‘Michelle, what do you see?’” And she was like, “Well, I hate to burst everyone’s bubble. It looks like celestial death weather.”

Jessica: Oh, yeah. I mean, every astrologer worth their salt was like, “Sweet fucking Jesus, 2020.” And it doesn’t—the arc isn’t in—I mean, it’s not—it’s not chill moving forward either. So it’s—we’re in a time. 

And within this is the opportunity for us stepping into our individual power in a way that makes us better people and a better society, or the risk that we become more toxically individualistic. And there’s an astrology to that. There’s an astrology to why people are tapping into the woo. Because we need—we need to believe there’s something bigger happening, and there is, IMO. 

So I think, yeah. Anyways, all to say, in 2020, I was like, okay, I can’t. Because in 2019 every question people would ask, I’d be like, but you know there’s like a war coming, right? Like you know that shit is fucked up and getting worse. And most of my clients were just like, “Yeah, but I still want to open brick and mortar, still want to get married.”

Amanda Seales: But I want to open my beignet shop.

Jessica: Exactly. That is literally what happened. And I felt like an asshole. It made me feel really badly because I don’t want to be putting shit in people’s heads. I don’t want to be a doomsday predictor. It’s not—there’s no value in it. And at the same time, I was just like I cannot in good conscious say, “Yeah, it’s a great idea” because I saw things going so sideways. 

Amanda Seales: I mean, I have a friend who had literally put everything together to open a beignet shop, and then the weekend before it opened, COVID was like, “Goodbye.” 

And, by the way, certain things that you predicted about me have already happened. I’m in the midst of them right now. 

Jessica: Is that a congratulations or my condolences? Nobody knows.

Amanda Seales: My condolences.

Amanda Seales: Okay. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

Amanda Seales: And I don’t know what—I don’t know—okay, so I’m going to just for the sake of this—this is what I feel like folks have to do for this year, and you let me know if you feel like it’s on par.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Okay.

Amanda Seales: I feel like we are at a time where particularly for—well, I think just for everybody—of course, it’s about going inside and all of that, but it’s going to be about innovation.

Jessica: Yeah, totally.

Amanda Seales: There’s no—when we say new normal, what that means is it’s not what it was.

Jessica: Yes. Yes.

Amanda Seales: So it’s a time of creation. And that doesn’t just mean as an artist. It literally means it being innovative about how you exist in this world. That to me—and as a business owner, that is—like I have an offsite with my team today, and our heading is, “How do we continue to be innovative in how we bring community together.”

Jessica: Yep. Yes, that’s exactly it. Saturn square to Uranus all 2021. And what it means is that we need to create new structures. That’s the thing, we talk about the new normal, like you said—what the fuck is that? It’s not normal, so we don’t know. We have to create it. And the more we come together and we are community minded and values based, the more humane the changes will be. 

And the thing that’s so important about astrology, which I think is—I know I’m taking up all your time, so tell me to shut up at any time—but the thing that’s so important is that astrology is a way of charting history. And we can see by looking back every time Saturn was in Aquarius certain things happen around civil rights, banking regulations, and people—kind of how the people organize themselves in reaction to the powers that be. 

And so, this is a time—because Saturn just moved into Aquarius—where we can create institutional changes, legislative changes. And that has everything to do, also, with businesses because we’re in a capitalistic society and money talks, right. And there’s a way that we can make changes to that. We can force our agendas, but the problem is if we do it in the old way, it won’t work.

Amanda Seales: It won’t work.

Jessica: It won’t work. We have to innovate a new way. Which is where the Trump administration—it’s like there’s this term the unconscious perpetrator. You can look at your biggest asshole of an ex who taught you all these lessons about boundaries and self-love in the most painful way, and you never say thank you to them. But on a Soul level, you can be like this person was an unconscious teacher. They were an unconscious perpetrator, or a conscious perpetrator and an unconscious teacher—maybe that’s the right way of saying it. 

And I would say that what the Trump administration and all the fucking terrible people and terrible followers, what they did was they helped to not just radicalize a generation but motivate people—motivate us to create change and to not wait for someone in power to do it.

Amanda Seales: Yes.

Jessica: And so, we’re going to see that this year. And we’re also going to see the powers that be—because Saturn’s involved—snapping back and trying to hold their power. 

So this year’s struggle—so you can expect advancements and then consequences or consequences and then innovation from within that. But it’s going to be like push/pull, backwards/forwards kind of advancements because Saturn is the planet of time, and Uranus is like, “I don’t have fucking time; I got to get out of here.” And so, when they form a square, the trouble is we feel like we’ve already done the work; we feel like we’ve already put in the time, and things aren’t moving quick enough. And so, what most humans do in frustration is we say, “Fuck it.” 

Amanda Seales: They abandon it.

Jessica: Yeah. And so being willing to be interested in the blocks in your personal life, in your professional life, in the world, and to be interested in those blocks as data, and to treat that data with adaptability and flexibility so that you can make it work for you. 

You know, the dog is jumping over you? The dog is humping your arm? Bring the dog into the podcast. It’s that kind of adaptability that actually it doesn’t—you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, necessarily, but is it—instead of demanding things look a particular way—so we’re back to attachment—instead of needing your guidance to come on the back of your neck, whatever it is, being open to it, showing up in a new way. Which means being more of not letting go of control but being more of a co-conspirator or a co-collaborator with your own will and your circumstances. And I think that is where spiritually, interpersonally, professionally, etc. we are going to see the most flow and innovation. 

And I’m not a financial astrologer, but we’re also going to see it in the economy with Crypto and the economy being what it is and people not being able to work. We’re going to see a lot of innovations hit the ground, try to run, and then be stopped by the old guard. 

And so, instead of being like, “Oh, no, we’re stopped,” or “Progress got halted,” be interested in the obstruction itself. Because that’s how you can dismantle the obstruction is by understanding it. And this takes us not going into like, you know, the kind of like reactive, defensiveness that most humans experience when our progress is stopped by external forces or internal forces, actually. But you know what I’m saying right? 

So I think you’re totally on point. And I think some people are going to have a lot easier time than others being innovative and adaptable. And it will be what it is. But the more we do this together, the more community minded we are, the better everything’s going to flow. Doesn’t mean without problems, just better flow.

Amanda Seales: And that is that.

Jessica: And that is that.

Amanda Seales: In the words of Kevin Campbell, “You know tomorrow will bring better you, better me. We’ll show this world we’ve got more we can be. And don’t you ever give up on your hopes and your dreams. You got to get up and get out and get into it, get it on to be strong.”