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.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast, my loves. This week I have a relationship question, and it goes like this, “My partner of six years is an alcoholic. I have struggled with my own addictions but have been lucky to overcome them. On February 24th, I turn 30, and I’m struggling to make a choice this year. Do I patiently hold space for my partner’s growth process, or do I cut chords to release the energy of alcoholism? I’m trying to tread lightly and show the utmost compassion for my partner’s journey while also learning to assert what’s best for my own path. Please help. Also, you’re the queen, and I love you so much. XOX0, Mushy Babe [sp].”

Mushy Babe was born February 24th, 1991, 4.28 a.m. in San Diego, California. This is such an important question, Mushy Babe, because it’s about many big things. Before I get into any details, let me say congratulations on overcoming whatever that means for you. And also, happy almost birthday, Mushy.

Okay, I’m going to get into your chart in just a moment. Before I do, I want to name a couple of things. I’m not going to tell you whether or not to break up with your partner, especially not a partner of six years. I’m not going to tell you that for a bunch of reasons, including you really didn’t share any information about how the relationship is or isn’t functioning, right—whether or not you’re happy.

I have a general rule, and it’s this: ultimatums, they’re pretty bad. You know, telling a person you need to quit drinking or I’ll leave you is really problematic. It’s problematic because getting sober and dealing with addiction is not something you can do for other people—you have to do it for yourself. And if you’ve overcome your own relationship to alcoholism then you probably know that there’s a lot of layers to it. You have to be willing to do work on yourself and with yourself and learn how to cope with feelings and emotions that alcohol is really successful in smushing into oblivion.

So it’s not fair to tell someone, “You have to do this for me or else.” However, in the course of any long-term relationship there will inevitably be many—over the course of a long enough relationship—sticking points, where you really need to acknowledge that in order to be healthy and right with yourself, you need certain things. And if you don’t get those certain things, then you’re abandoning yourself; you’re abandoning your own wellness.

The beautiful thing about our rights to choose around who we’re going to be with and how long we’re going to be with them is that if you grow in a direction that is really different than your partner, you can choose a new path, right? And that sucks, and it’s painful, but it’s also really wonderful, honestly. Thank all of the Gods and Goddesses or atheist symbols, as it were, that we can break up with people. Big fan. Big fan.

Okay. That said, before we get into anything else, I want to encourage you to really look at what your needs are. Are your needs being met? And in order to determine whether or not your needs are being met, it’s not exactly about your partner’s alcoholism or relationship to substance use; it’s about your relationship. It’s about whether or not your partner is able to show up for you in a way that makes you feel loved and happy and challenges you to be a better and more whole person. If that’s not what relationships are for, I’m a little confused why even to bother with them?

Something that I think we don’t often talk about, or maybe we don’t talk about enough, is when you’re in a partnership or when you’re in a friend group or any kind of relationship really where you spend time with someone, and one person gets sober or stops using a substance that the other person or people use frequently, it deeply changes the relationship.

The only reason why anyone gets buzzed with any substance, ever, is to change the way you feel. It’s the only reason to get buzzed, right? It’s to change the way you feel. So if you and I are hanging out, and I change the way I feel, and I no longer am feeling the way you’re feeling, and I’ve used some sort of, you know, stimulant or whatever to make me feel some kind of way, or stop feeling some kind of way, then I have in a way left you alone in this dynamic where you and I are hanging out. That’s just what that is.

And so, when one person gets sober or stops using a substance in a particular way, it does change your relationships. It’s inevitable. And it requires that the other person, the person who hasn’t changed, it requires that they are willing to change how they interact with that substance in your presence. And I think it is wise and healthy to be patient because if you decided to change, and your partner did not decide to change, it makes sense that there would be a period of time where your partner is entitled to make an adjustment and to recalibrate and figure out how they’re going to handle that. And it’s not their responsibility; it is your responsibility to yourself to determine how much time is doable in healthy way for you, and how much time is too much time.

When we don’t see evidence of our partners or our friends actively striving to make changes, that doesn’t always mean that they aren’t striving to make changes. But when we don’t see evidence of them trying to change something that is important for us to see change around, that is evidence itself. You see what I mean?

And this brings us to your birth chart, my dear, because you are about to turn 30, and your Saturn Return is at two degrees of Aquarius. So your Saturn is at two degrees of Aquarius, that means your Saturn Return is over. However, you have Saturn conjunct the Ascendant. In fact, your Ascendant is in a little sandwich between your North Node and Saturn, and they are all opposite to Jupiter in the seventh.

You are going through a lot right now. And the first thing I want to say is you are in a place in your life where you are needing to take responsibility for you. And that is hard. It is meant to be hard. Pluto is very close to your Ascendant, and Saturn is very close to your Saturn. These things are demanding that you take responsibility for you. And within that you are likely to have to let go of things, relationships, attitudes, behaviors that no longer serve you.

Because Saturn is opposite Jupiter by transit at this time, and also, it will stay this way for the better part of this year, you are likely to have to struggle with proportion. What’s enough? What’s not enough? And this theme in your relationship is probably not new. And this theme is probably not exclusive to this relationship because in your birth chart you have a natal Saturn opposition to Jupiter.

Which, BT DUBS, is a strong reinforcement of how happy I am for you that you quit drinking because Saturn opposite Jupiter can be really funky with your blood sugar, and alcohol is just pure sugar. So separate from all the other things that can be really unhealthy about drinking too much, your blood sugar is a biggy. It is a biggy. So congratulations. It is a really great thing for your body to have quit drinking, and it’s especially great for you to be doing it during your Saturn Return or around your Saturn Return.

But quitting drinking is one part of getting sober, and you actually don’t use the term sober in your question; you say you’ve overcome your addictions, so I’m not exactly sure what that looks like for you or what that means. But I will say that this question of what you need and how to embody your needs is going to persist over the next couple of years, which means it can persist in this relationship, or if you get out of this relationship, it’ll persist in a different way.

You are meant to learn these lessons—the lessons around how to have healthy boundaries. What are healthy boundaries? And that’s a tricky thing for you. You are a Pisces. You’ve got a Mercury Conjunction to the Sun, and you’ve got that North Node conjunction to the Ascendant. And all of this, in various ways, kind of adds up to indicate that it is hard for you to center and prioritize your own identity and self. Sometimes because you want to be nice, and you want to be easy going, and you don’t want to hurt the other persons feelings, and sometimes because you really, earnestly, don’t know. You don’t know where your self begins and ends. And so because you can see this side and that side and the other side, you can end up getting stuck in place, or struggling with inertia—of not having any forward momentum. And it’s tricky because, eventually, being stuck in place actually becomes its own momentum. It’s just not the momentum you want in your life.

So here’s where we get to the advice piece of how to handle your relationship at this time. And the advice starts with a little pro tip. In any relationship, personal, professional, whatevies, if we don’t agree on what the problem is, we will never agree on the solution. If we don’t agree on what the problem is, the steps that we take to achieve resolution or happiness or whatever it is, they won’t be pointed in the same direction, necessarily.

So the first and most important thing is for you and your partner to decide that you agree that this is a problem. Alcoholism is a problem. If you do not agree that that is a problem, if you do not agree that he’s an alcoholic, then straight out the gate we’re going to have a really hard time coming to any kind of resolution. And at that point you’re not being patient with their growth. What you’re doing instead is pretending that you don’t perceive this person to be an alcoholic. And that’s abandoning yourself at this point.

So, let’s say the two of you agree. You agree on what the problem is. You agree that this person has an alcohol issue, and this person agrees with you that it’s important that they quit, they change their behaviors, and that they’re taking steps to do so. Okay. So once you’ve determined that, the next steps are to make agreements on what it is that that looks like. Is there a time frame? Is there a way the two of you need to communicate about it? Do you need to see this person going to meetings or talking to a therapist?

Whatever it is that the two of you decide, it’s important for you to see progress, to see effort, right? And if you don’t see effort, that’s really important information. It’s important that you have some measure of consent and agreement about what the problems are and what the appropriate solution is. If you cannot achieve that, then staying in this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for you and your sobriety.

You know, the way you framed your question, you asked, do you cut the chords to release the energy of alcoholism? This is a tricky thing because with most addictions, but especially any kind of alcohol addiction or food addiction, it’s really hard to fully distance yourself from these things because they exist everywhere. It’s really hard to get away from any kind of substance that is very commonly and legally imbibed or ingested.

And so, this is not just about releasing the energy of alcoholism because that’s something that most alcoholics will tell you that is a lifelong journey and takes many twists and turns. So even if you stay sober for the rest of your life, you know, your relationship to alcohol and other people drinking is likely to morph. But it’s about investing in the quality of your life moving forward.

The whole point of having a partner is it’s somebody who’s by your side, to help you to be the best version of yourself that you can be. And when somebody is kind of, you know, refusing to leave a particular room in their consciousness, then it’s really hard if you’re like “Yeah, but I want to go into the world, I want to try new things.”

So I want really—I want to acknowledge that this is not just about releasing the energy of alcoholism; this is very much about having shared ambitions, shared goals for how you want to live with a partner. And that actually expands well beyond alcohol itself or the energy of alcohol, and it is about having a shared vision of what kind of life you want to have with someone and what that energy will feel like—what your daily mundane dynamics will feel like.

And, back to your birth chart, you have this beautiful Moon in Cancer in the sixth house, and it’s opposite to Uranus. You’re a person who really needs your habits to be supportive to your emotional and mental health. That’s really important for you. And you’re also a person who changes over the course of life. You can be one way for a chunk of time and then have a total turnaround and be a different kind of way. It’s kind of exciting and wonderful, but it does mean that you need a partner who is somewhat flexible and adaptable over the course of life, if you want to be with someone long term.

So, my love, I have given you some tools to implement in your decision making around this relationship. And I want to encourage you to center compassion, whether you cut chords with this person or you stay with them. To have compassion for yourself and how complicated and difficult this process is. To have compassion for them around wherever they’re at, and to have compassion for the two of you as a team.

Because what is missing from what you shared in this question is actually a kind of good sign. You did not say that things are terrible between the two of you. You did not say that you don’t like this person. And if that’s the case, that you still like them or love them, I want to validate that letting go of someone when there’s still good there is hard. It’s really hard. And I want to encourage you to have compassion and empathy and patience with yourself and with them around this process, if you do decide that there needs to be a major change in either how you relate to each other or the very nature and foundation of the relationship.

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Hello, my darlings. Let’s get metaphysical and astrological, why don’t we? Okay, so we’re going to look at the week of February 14th through the 20th of 2021. But before we do, let’s talk for just a moment about energy.

So all of the planets are energy. I mean, what is astrology? Why do we talk about planets having an influence on people? Why do we talk about the Moon having an impact on our moods? Why do we talk about—I don’t know, I mean, if you’ve studied any kind of quantum physics, why do we talk about energy particles influencing each other? It’s all energy, man.

And when we talk about energy through the lens of astrology, I want to be really clear that energy on its own is never, or rarely, good or bad. Energy is energy, right? How we feel energy, how we respond to energy, how we react to energy, these things can be bad, good, and everything in between. Energy is simply energy.

And the longer you study astrology—the longer you use astrology is probably more accurate and to the point—the longer you use astrology the better you get at tracking the energy of the zodiac signs or the planets or different transits or aspects while they are happening. All of the planets, all of the zodiac signs, all of the aspects and transits, and all of the fucking things are simply energy in motion.

And so, there is a way that we can start tracking the energetics of, let’s say, Saturn. If one has a functional understanding of the energy of Saturn, then not only can you recognize it in your life, but when somebody else is talking, you can be like, “Oh I can actually hear their Saturn in what they’re saying. I can see that they’re going through a Saturnian period because the energetics of it are uniquely Saturnian,” as an example.

I share this with you because I think it’s really important as you study astrology, as you become more familiar with astrology, to take the time—unless, of course, you are just trying to be a scholar, and this is not your fucking vibes—but, you know, if you are using astrology as a way to know yourself and care for yourself, then I want to encourage you to take the time to notice the energy of the planets. To notice the energy of the planets in your birth chart, the energy of the zodiac signs and how they influence the planets in your birth chart. And, you know, the way I like to describe it is the planet is like an actor, and the zodiac sign is like the costume or the styling.

So if you think of it that way, you can start tracking the different layers of information that your birth chart shares. Then you can also start tracking the energetics of a transit, and that’s what becomes really helpful. Because, you know, quote, predictive astrology, that’s what Transit Astrology is. That’s what week after week on the podcast I am giving you your Horoscope—I’m explaining what’s happening in the sky and how it’s likely to affect us, and that’s predictive astrology, technically speaking.

So what I want to encourage you to be able to do is to notice the energy, to be aware of the energy, so that you can consciously interact with that energy. Within that, you don’t get to like master astrology, per se, but what you do get to do is have more agency, flexibility, and effectiveness in your life, which is fucking gorgeous.

Okay. So all of this to say, there’s some big energy happening in the world. There is some big energy that has been, for a long time, mounting in the world, and this week there’s going to be some sort of like crux, some sort of like something. It’s going to be a thing. It’s going to be a thing. Have you been feeling that thing building? I bet you have.

So I’m going to unpack it with you in a moment. But as we go through this horoscope, as we go through all of the astrology stuff that we go through together, I want to encourage you, if you start to find your mind getting overwhelmed or your heart getting overwhelmed, to take a moment—pause the damn podcast. You have a gift: it’s called pausing the podcast. So notice when you start to go into panic or worry—not that this horoscope’s so bad or anything like that—but if you find yourself having any kind of anxiety or stress response, what I want to encourage you to do is pause, if you can, and take a breath. Notice where in your body you’re feeling upset. Ask yourself how do I know that I’m upset in that part of my body?

So it might be that you’re feeling some sort of like nervousy, tensiony feelings in your solar plexus, or it might be in your tummy or in your throat or—I don’t fucking know. These are very common places that humans experience anxiety and fear and tension. So try to notice where you’re feeling it and notice how and if you are pulled back from that point of tension. If you can, try to actually breathe into that part of your body—breathe into those feelings to gently but firmly move to meet those feelings and stay present with them.

How we cope with anxiety and tension and fear and all this kind of stuff is very up right now, astrologically. And I will, of course, unpack the how and why of it in a moment. But I want to just really give you this perspective, which is maybe low key meta. But as we talk about astrology together, as we unpack the horoscope, you have the opportunity to do something super fucking cool. You can listen to the data, notice how the data lands in your mind, in your heart, in your body, and you can interact with the energy that is being acknowledged, provoked, validated, triggered inside of you and make choices around how you’re going to respond to your reactions.

A little meta because what this allows you to do is start being more present with the information, so it actually helps you and it isn’t just yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah—as much as I love a good blah, blah, blah. So that’s the starting point.

I want to just acknowledge that as an astrologer, this is a huge part of how I learned, how I taught myself astrology over the course of many years is practicing feeling the transits as they occurred, feeling the energy of the planets, the signs, yadda, yadda. And that really, really helped. It helped me to not just have information but to be able to use that information. And this is a really important thing. It’s integrated and embodied information.

So I want to encourage you to know that if you’re interested in doing this, and you tried doing this, and you find it to be difficult, that’s because it’s difficult. It’s not complicated, but it’s hard. So be patient. You want to work with the energy, and you want to practice, not just in theory, but really practice as a way to integrate and ground data over the course of time so it becomes integrated knowledge, and that integrated knowledge can become wisdom—yeah, I said it, wisdom.

Okay. Now to your horoscope. It’s Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day on the 14th. Do you care? Do you love Valentine’s Day? Do you heart it? I don’t know, whatever. I don’t really care about Valentine’s Day myself, slash, also, sure I do. Who doesn’t want to be reminded to have a little love—a little love in your life?

On this particular Valentine’s Day, Mercury is, of course, still Retrograde. But good news alert: this is the last full week of Mercury Retrograde this round, okay. So Mercury will be going direct on next Sunday, the 21st. And that is a huzzah moment for us all. This is the last week you got to deal with this shit, but we got to deal with this shit.

Mercury Retrograde is forming a conjunction to Jupiter that is exact on the 14th. And Mercury conjunct to Jupiter, in general, can be a time where ideas really coalesce. Mercury gets really focused on details, and Jupiter’s big picture. So on the positive, this transit can be associated with learning, with having ideas kind of come together. It can be a time where we really kind of like connect with people that we like and we just like talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. You start really getting inspired by a project or an idea, and you’re mobilized or catalyzed.

Jupiter is so exciting. Jupiter is a vision for what things could be. And Mercury is the ideas, the little like—the building block pieces that can get you there. Very exciting. Because Mercury is Retrograde, we’re often dealing with ideas, plans, projects, friendships, connections, social connections from the past because of the Retrograde. This is worth naming because it might be that you had an idea or you had something going on, and it kind of like didn’t go where you wanted it to go, and now things start to coalesce on and around the 14th. Très exciting.

Now, on the negative, Mercury conjunction to Jupiter can be a time where you just blah, blah, blah, and you do not listen. In the context of a Mercury Retrograde, this transit can actually be quite problematic because it can have you running full speed ahead with a misunderstanding, or somebody else may do that.

Mercury conjunction to Jupiter can be like soap-boxy. It can be a real, “Hear ye, hear ye. Here are my terrible half-baked ideas” kind of transit. It can also be like, “Hear ye, hear ye. Here are my superior ideas.” It could go either way, really. But it can kind of incline you, me, or somebody else to do a lot of talking without a whole lot of listening, which ends up coming across not super great. What I want to encourage you to do around this transit is be open to listening, open to learning.

In terms of the kind of ongoing theme of propaganda and conspiracy theories and all that kind of stuff, this is not a great transit for that. Or, conversely, I could say it’s a great transit if you’re into propaganda and conspiracy theories. Jupiter can be associated with wildfire, and Mercury is ideas, and so this can be a time where gossip really spreads, or propaganda really spreads.

I know everybody loves to gossip. It’s like a little bit of a human thing. It’s a whole lot of an internety thing. Gossip, sure, fine, but nobody likes to be gossiped about. Am I right? I mean, do you like to be gossiped about a fraction as much as you like to gossip? Ask yourself. At a certain point we need to take responsibility for the kind of people we choose to be.

So this Mercury conjunction to Jupiter time, I want to really encourage you to become more aware of your relationship to gossip and to not be a jerk. Don’t talk shit about people behind their back—I mean, maybe not even to their faces, right. This is a time where some juicy gossip might cross your desk, and if it does, it may or not be true. And if you are a perpetuator of said gossip, then you are doing your own little propaganda campaign. Is that kind? Is that the kind of person you want to be? What if it was happening to you? What if it does happen to you? It could happen to you. These are things to consider. It’s a, I think, a pretty good—a pretty good standard of ethics to treat others in the most basic and general way as you would prefer to be treated. So try to apply that on and around this date.

And that brings us to the—do, do, do, do, do, doo—unpleasantness. On the 17th, we have an exact square between Saturn and Uranus. Now, anyone who listened to my Year Ahead Horoscope—that was episode 174, okay—so anyone who listened to that horoscope, which I encourage you to do if you have any interest in, I don’t know, 2021 or anything like that, knows that the big astrology news of 2021 is this transit.

So Saturn square to Uranus, it happens—I think it happens approximately every 14 or so years. And what’s really important to know about this particular Saturn square to Uranus is that it’s impacting us throughout 2021. So it’s active all year long. This transit is impacting us all 2021; it will follow us into 2022. It is an exact transit, so that means to the degree and to the minute three times this year. And this will be, on the 17th of February, the first of those three times. And it’s really important, my loves.

This transit, every time it is exact, it will be exact at a different set of degrees. Saturn is in the sign of Aquarius currently, and Uranus is in the sign of Taurus—two fixed signs. And when they form a ninety-degree angle, this time around, it will be at seven degrees. So Saturn will be seven degrees of Aquarius, and Uranus will be at seven degrees of Taurus. If you have anything at around seven degrees of a fixed sign, you’re going to feel this shit. You are. But we’re all going to feel this because this is a big deal transit.

Saturn and Uranus are both associated with society. Saturn is associated with reality. It is linear time. It is hierarchies and, arguably, it’s patriarchy. It’s obligation and responsibility, and it is the things you need to get done in order to take care of your basic needs. And it is even what we owe to each other.

Now, Uranus is also associated with what we owe to each other, but in a very different way. Saturn is we all owe each other to invest in our roads and hospitals and all that kind of shit because those are all resources that we need to share. And Uranus is more associated with what we owe to each other is dignity and liberty and freedom. And the truth is we need all of it. We need all of it.

Uranus is a very different set of energies than Saturn. And the energetic differences between Saturn and Uranus are very important because there’s a lot of actual overlap between these planets and what they govern, but it’s just different energetics of what they govern, okay, so bear with me.

Uranus is associated with freedom and liberty. It’s the internet. It’s electricity. Uranus is the drive to be an individual, the need to be an individual. It’s organizations and groups working for collective change and expansion, you know, greater freedoms for all. Uranus is also associated with queerness. And I don’t mean it in the super homo-ness, although, I suppose maybe also, yes, that. But I mean like oddness, like that which is outside of the mainstream, Saturnian culture.

When Saturn and Uranus form a 90-degree angle to each other there’s a tension between what I need to do and what I want to do—what I think really serves me as an individual and what I believe we need as a collective. Now, the individuality piece and the collective piece are both Saturn and Uranus; they’re just very different energies of Saturn and Uranus. You capiche?

So Uranus wants us to fall in line for each other. To be a part of a social movement that creates systemic and sustainable change, we need Uranus. We need to come together as a collective. Now, Saturn also wants us to come together as a people, but it does it in a much more conventional way. We all have to fall in line and to do our part to create a more sustainable and secure whole, right.

So when we have any kind of a movement or a moment that is just Saturn or just Uranus, it’s hard for it to be fully sustainable and good for all. What we want is both. And what the Saturn square to Uranus transit, what this Saturn square to Uranus time is here to show us is where it’s not working, where we have too much rigidity or not enough. This transit is demanding that we look at our conditions and see where we need to be more adaptable, where we need to be more innovative, and where we need to be more conservative.

Now, I don’t mean conservative like right wing, left wing; I mean conservative like where we need to conserve our energies and our resources, where we need to take greater responsibility and follow through, where we need to honor our intentions and our word, even.

The thing with this transit is it can be a time of breakthrough. It can be a time of revolution. It can be a time of things totally breaking down. And on a more psychological level—and this is something I know I’ve been talking about on the show a fair amount—it provokes great tension, right. And this tension is psychologically very hard to bear. And so, I don’t know, have you been feeling it? Have you been feeling a whole new kind of anxiety than you were feeling in 2020? Has it taken a new shape? Has it nestled in your mind and in your body in a new way? Is it showing up in your relationships in a new way?

These are great questions for you to sit with. You don’t need hard answers. Because Uranus is involved, the needle’s going to keep on moving, see. But we want to really look at the way we’re relating as individuals but also as citizens or community members or participants in a movement or a project or whatever it is. We want to be able to really look at how we are handling the psychological tension and the behavioral tension of this moment. Because this transit is frustrating. This transit can both spark rigidity inside of you and also the need to really make sudden changes.

So the rigidity is Saturn. But also, the rigidity is Uranus. And the need for sudden changes, that’s Uranus. The need for those sudden changes to be sustainable, that’s Saturn. And the fact that it’s all happening in fixed signs makes it tricky because what’s going to happen for each of us as individuals is we fall back on old coping mechanisms without even fucking realizing it. So we fall back on our old coping mechanisms that are the most tried and true. Now, who amongst us can say that our most tried and true coping mechanisms are our best ones or our most effective ones or our wisest and kindest ones? Very few, my friends, very few.

Even if your most tried and true coping mechanism really worked for you, I don’t know, in the early aughts, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you in 2021. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on where you’re at and how you feel about this theme, life requires adaptability. Just when you get comfortable with your hair being here at your shoulders, it grows, or somebody gives you a terrible bob. Things change, and we must adapt. And this transit is going to really reveal something to you of you or your life or your relationships or the world that you have to take responsibility for how you react to, so that you can respond in a way that lines up with the person you want to be and the contribution you want to make.

Here’s the thing, everyone’s riled up. Everyone’s riled up—that’s what’s happening right now, and so there may be real tension and stress. It’s wise to remember who your enemies are and who they are not. It is wise to pick your battles wisely. There may be civil unrest at this time. These are long developing tensions. The tensions that are coming up in you as an individual, in your community, or in the world at large, you know, domestically, internationally—these conditions are long developing; they’re not brand new. It is unlikely that something is brand new going to happen.

Now, it might feel like something is brand new happening, but I can assure you that there are roots in your patterns or in systems, and it’s wise to be willing—and you can’t do this when you’re in a survival mode, and shit is on fire—but it is wise, in general, to be willing under this influence to look at the deeper patterns. Because if you can deal with the patterns, you can achieve sustainable and effective and humane changes.

Now, let me just add one fun little point of something to notice here. Maybe I’ll say a couple, not just one, but okay. First thing, we still have a shit ton of Aquarius energy—Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, the Sun all in Aquarius. And the Sun is at that anaretic degree—29 degrees of Aquarius, just a really strong Sun. You know, this moment of February 17th, 2021, the transit is exact at 11:08 a.m., Pacific Time. And, at this time, there’s a lot of Aquarius. This is the last moment where we have all five of these planets in Aquarius. Okay, cool, cool, cool.

So what does this mean? It means a lot of things, including tension—mental tension, okay. So if you’re a person who struggles with mental anxiety, if that’s kind of a go to, if you have a hard time with focus, if you are a person who has a hard time giving yourself permission to self-regulate, all this Aquarius shit is going to be hard on you. Because if you are comfortable with your right to be an individual, to express your individualities in the way that you see fit, this energy may also be a little bit tricky for you, but it’s going to be a little bit more familiar to you. All this Aquarius energy wants us to embrace our oddness, our uniqueness, our eccentricities. And it’s also very heady. And so, again, this is this reiteration of mental energy, of mental anxiety and tension.

At the minute that Uranus and Saturn form an exact square, it just so happens that the Moon is within one degree of Uranus, so it’s a real tight conjunction, and that means it’s also a right square to Saturn. So here’s the deal, the feeling of I shouldn’t have to compromise this, I shouldn’t have to do this, this shouldn’t be my job, why do I have to give up so much and you don’t or they don’t? These themes are important ones for you to look out for because you always have a choice. You always have a choice.

Now, you may not always have a good choice. Your choices may be utter bullshit, but you always have a choice. And when you can align with your own agency in a situation, you have more power—you have more resiliency, more flexibility. When you catch yourself saying it’s either this or that—it’s either all yes or all no, you’re generally in some sort of old coping mechanism.

There are usually more than two choices. If you can find your agency, if you can find even your creativity within your backed into a corner moment or life or whatever it is, it will get easier to cope with it. It’s not going to magically fix anything, but it’s an important approach to consider.

The other thing about this energy is that it’s alienating. Do not underestimate the importance of the pandemic of loneliness at this time. I think that the pandemic of loneliness and isolation pre-existed COVID, but it sure as hell isn’t improved by COVID. And so, if you are feeling lonely, if you’re feeling alienated by your family of origin for ideological reasons, or you’re across the world or across the country from them, if you are feeling lonely because you just—you’re trying to be COVID safe, and you’re not around people as much or at all, if you’re feeling lonely for any number of fucking reasons, if you’re dealing with grief, this transit is going to really stir something in the collective around that loneliness.

And within that—because, again, energy is energy—within that is also a stirring of how we are connected, how we are deeply, intricately connected. And, as I said in the midweek episode, grief is the underbelly of love. It’s really hard to have grief for someone or something that you didn’t love. And there’s something actually really freeing and beautiful in that.

I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself this week and always, obvi, but this week. This energy is hard. It is psychologically trying. It may find you gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair. I know I made that sound fun and fanciful, but it’s really awful. It’s very stressful.

What we can do with stressful or difficult energies is simply our best. We can say, “Oh, shit. This plant has root rot. Got to throw the whole thing away. What am I going to do? I can’t believe all my plants get root rot. This is a terrible thing.” Or we can say, “Oh, shit. My plant has root rot. I just figured out what the problem is, and now I can figure out how to fix this problem, how to save the plant.” Same problem, but a slight shift in approach and attitude can have a meaningful difference, not necessarily in the life of the plant—although maybe—but certainly, in your day to day, in your capacity for dealing with whatever root rot you’re dealing with in the world or in your life.

So that was a lot. That was a lot, but it brings us to the next transit of the week. And it is on the 19th. And that is when Venus forms a square to Mars. When Venus forms a square to Mars, it is activating—socially activating. So it’s like a fun, chill transit. I don’t know, some astrologers think it’s a really big deal transit. I tend to find it to be a little bit on the chill side.

But Venus square to Mars is when the gatherer, Venus, and the hunter, Mars, have a little tension between them. Which is what you want. You want a little tension between them because that can spark fun flirting, that can spark creative joy, so like making shit—all of a sudden being like, “Fuck it. I’m just going to draw a damn thing. I’m just going to sing along with my favorite song.” It’s like creation.

We need a little bit of tension, a little bit of friction, and so this can be really fun for hooking up with people. This can be fun for hooking up with yourself—you deserve a little love. This can be really fun for, I don’t know, just like enjoying art or finding creators that you want to support. It can be a lot of different things. But it’s creative and social in its energies, right. And it’s motivating because Mars is involved, because it’s a 90-degree angle.

And Venus is diplomatic, and it is sensual. It’s all about our senses. It can just be a time where you laugh and have a good time with a friend or your lover or your partner or whatever. This is not a, per se, a triple x style of transit, but this is a great time for pre-heating the oven—just getting things a little warm in here. So play with that, play with that. It’s energy. How can you activate the energy? How can you seek the energy? How can you use the energy? ’Tis energy, my loves.

It turns out that I am really fucking awful at remembering week after week to name the transits that happen that week. Luckily, I do drop transcripts of the show, so if you’re more of a—if you want the notes of it, it’s always there; it’s free over on my website. But I’m going to do it this time because I happened to have remembered it. And I’m sorry that I usually forget to do this because I know a bunch of people ask me to do this shit.

Okay. So this week we have looked at the astrology of February 14th through the 20th. And the transits that are exact this week—on the 14th, there is a Mercury Retrograde conjunction to Jupiter. I will remind you that on the 21st, Mercury goes Direct, so this is our last full week of Mercury Retrograde—huzzah, ring the bells. On the 17th, we have an exact Saturn square to Uranus, and then on the 19th, Venus forms a square to Mars. That’s it, my loves, my nerds. That’s it.

I thank you, once again, for joining me here on the podcast. Make sure that you are signed up on my website to my mailing list or that you’ve joined me over on Patreon, so you can get all the updates as they emerge, post Mercury Retrograde, about my forth coming transit tracking app, called Astrology For Days.

I just want to say one last thing, okay. Okay, my loves. Okay. So I love astrology. I love all the woo that I do, but it doesn’t replace mental health help, right. It’s a really important thing for me to say. I personally—I get energy work done routinely. I use astrology for myself, and I talk to my astrologer friends about astrology, and I have a shrink. I have a therapist. And I want to just share that with you because these things are not meant to replace each other. They are all compliments to each other.

And our mental health can be helped by astrology; I absolutely have experienced that, both as a practitioner and as a user of astrology. But it is really valuable, especially in times of great tension like these, to have someone that is a dedicated person who listens to you talk and is there to support you as you talk about the psychological and emotional components of your own journey. And so, I want to just—I just want to do a little tip of the hat in this moment to the therapists out there and to those of us who are on our healing path, on our little journey and using mental health support. It’s really valuable, IMO. Because these are some stressful times, and they are uniquely stressful in a lot of ways, certainly in the context of COVID. So seek help if you need it. This is just a great moment to not get so trapped in your head that you take yourself in some weird ass Aquarian directions at your own expense.

Okay, my loves, I will talk to you in only a couple of days, and I am sending you all my love until then.