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 another week of Ghost of a Podcast. This week’s question goes like this, “I love your podcast and find so much insight and tools for navigation—thank you. Over the last few months, I’ve been having intense psychic experiences and encounters with other beings. While I’m excited and curious and wanting to lean into these things, there’s a large part of me that fears I’m actually maybe losing it, and that these experiences could be mental health red flags. How do we discern what is psychic versus what should maybe be monitored and discussed with a mental health expert? Signed, Confused. P.s. please keep my birth info private.”

Oh, I shall. This is a fucking fantastic question—such an important question. And the answer—the short answer is I don’t know. But don’t worry, there’s a long answer. There’s a long answer. 

First of all, I think it is really important to name that when we are dealing with energy stuff or psychic stuff, any kind of woo stuff, it is important to acknowledge that it often, to the description, sounds a lot like a mental breakdown or a mental illness. And, in fact, sometimes when we are experiencing mental illness, it shows up as a spiritual experience, or that’s how it feels to us. Sometimes when we are going through a spiritual experience it taxes and strains our mental health or sometimes our physical health in ways that are very real. 

And so, before I get into any specifics of your chart or this question, I wanted to just really hold space for having a mental health or a physical health experience, whether it’s really positive or really negative, will impact your psychic health—your spiritual wellness. Similarly, having a spiritual experience, especially in regards to something like what you’re talking about, Confused, where you feel that maybe you’re experiencing other beings or you’re having intense psychic knowing or experiences, that’s going to impact your mental health, inevitably. And it very well may impact your physical health. 

And so, it’s important to hold space for the fact that everything is interconnected, my loves. It’s all interconnected. Our spirituality does not exist in a truck, and then our body is in a van, and then our minds are in a kicky little sports car. It’s all in your meat suit. It’s all in your universe—your inner universe. 

And so, it is wise, if you are having experiences that are in any way unsettling or demoralizing or causing stress to you that are spiritual experiences, to seek mental support, you know, mental health help. I am a huge fan of that. And I will say I talk to animals. I talk to dead people. I’m psychic. I’m an astrologer. I mean, I am pretty woo, and I, personally, I get support around it. I have a therapist who I talk to, and I’ve always have a therapist. I’m a big fan of therapy. I also have an energy woo healer person that I work with who helps me, who guides me. We all need help. We all need guidance. 

And there’s different practitioners for different jobs. Of course, that can get expensive, that can be all kinds—there’s a lot of reasons why people may not do those things, but it's important for me to name that because as a full-time practitioner for more than 20 years in the esoteric arts, I could not do what I do in a healthy way without support. 

And it’s really important to acknowledge that not all traditional therapists are going to be super open to talking about energy experiences or beings and a lot are going to be open to it. And it’s on us as people who are paying for a service to ask questions of counsellors before we hire them, and say what is your opinion about astrology? What is your opinion about blah de blah? And they don’t have to tell you their personal opinion—that’s not really what therapists are supposed to do—but it will give you a sense of whether or not that conversation will be met with judgement or some sort of criticism that just is not going to be in resonance with you. We don’t need our therapist to agree with everything, but it is nice for them to have a basic respect for what we find interesting or what we believe on a spiritual level. 

So I do want to say, regardless of the answer for what’s happening to you or within you, I do encourage you to get a therapist—to have a person who you can talk to, ideally, once a week all about what you’re feeling and what you’re thinking to make sure that you are taking care of yourself in regards to your experiences, okay. 

I will also say that when we have psychic experiences or, indeed, experiences with other beings or any kind of clairvoyance or any of that kind of—any kind of that woo shit we do, it’s risky business. Honestly, everything is risky business, but the thing about doors is when you open them or when they somehow fling open, anything can kind of come through them, right. And so, it is wise not to be terrified of everything—there’s no need for being scared of everything. But I wouldn’t encourage you to, on the reverse, assume that everything is lovely and good for you because neither of those things are the case. 

When it comes to the energy world or the woo—and woo is just like a very blanket term for all manner of things—I think it is important to understand that there is not only good and there is not only evil in the world. And so, we need to have boundaries. We need to be healthy. We need to be self-aware about what we’re letting in, what we’re consenting to, and what we’re not wanting to consent to and what we don’t intend to let in. And I think that a lot of times people abandon common sense with spiritual experiences and just fling all the doors and windows open, and that’s just not a wise move, you know, I don’t think. 

Now, this all said, there are three major things I want to speak to right now for you, okay. The first one is you have a Sun, Uranus, Neptune conjunction all in Capricorn, so you were born in those years when Uranus and Neptune were very close together. Because you have this conjunction, you have a real sensitivity to le woo. Also, you have a very sensitive nervous system—like a very sensitive nervous system. I would expect that, for you, having a psychic experience is very possible. 

In your birth chart, you have Mercury in Sagittarius. You also have a stellium in Sagittarius: Venus, Mercury, Mars, and the Moon are all in Sagittarius. This concentration of Sagittarius can make you kind of want to jump into things headfirst. That’s not always healthy or wise—just across the board, but in particular, not with psychic stuff. 

But you are currently going through something called Neptune square to Mercury, and you have Mercury in the eighth house. So let me double down on that. All of 2020, and you’re going through it still, your sensitivities have really started to open up. You are perceiving more than you have before. And it might be that you had old sensitivities that you weren’t really having access to and here they are—just again, wide open, right. 

The problem with Neptune transits is that they open things up, but they tend to open them a little too wide. So you are likely to be going through a period of struggle around boundaries, around having boundaries in your thinking and having energetic boundaries. I want to say that information is reiterated by the fact that you’re—do, do, do, do, do, doo—in your Saturn Return. You have Saturn in Aquarius in the eleventh house, so we have a reiteration of the theme of boundaries because Saturn is all about our material health, our material wellness. And so, it’s not exclusive to physical health or physical wellness; it’s just material reality stuff. 

And so, I’m going to answer your question a little bit with a question. In the past when you have learnt new things, did you thrive, did you benefit from enlisting a mentor or a teacher? Or are you more of an independent learner? I look at your birth chart, and I imagine that you do best when you have a mentor or a teacher—that you really benefit from having someone you can lean on and ask questions to and learn from. 

I want to encourage you, if that is the case, to go forth and get yourself either a mentor or a teacher. Now, is it realistic to expect somebody to teach or mentor you for free? No, it’s not. Spiritual work is work; it’s a service. It makes sense that you would have to pay for that service, which you may or may not be able to do. 

If you cannot afford a service, then I would encourage you to study—to study the kinds of sensitivities you’re developing so that you can educate yourself. And I want to be really clear that studying is not reading blog posts and watching YouTube videos. Those things can be great resources of information, absolutely, but I would encourage you to be really critical of your sources. Because when we’re dealing with a Neptune square to Mercury, and when we’re dealing with the Saturn Return, we are being tasked with taking responsibility for what we ingest and the boundaries we have with it. And so, it’s important that you’re very selective about your teachers, about what you receive guidance from. 

And I want to remind you what I said on the podcast a million times, which is good SEO is not necessarily a good thing. So the things that come up on the first page of Google are not necessarily the best things. Having tons of followers might make it look like this person is legit—they have tons of followers; they have tons of views. That doesn’t necessarily work out that way, actually. So it’s important that you resource your guidance, your intuition when choosing a teacher. 

It’s also important that you go slow. With spiritual experiences, what I have seen over and over and over again is that people want to fast track with them, whether it’s through the use of drugs and other spiritual facilitators or getting a reading and finding out the answer. People really want to move past spiritual pain because spiritual pain is so hard to talk about. It’s so hard to define, and it’s so uncomfortable. 

However, there are no easy, quick answers—there just kind of aren’t. We are meant to be in the process—the process of how you are engaging with your experiences is really essential for you to determine, and it’s really important that we talk to people, that we get real life counsel, that we talk to our friends, that we don’t hide these kinds of spiritual experiences from people. And if other people say, “Hey, listen, I’m having some red flags about your wellness,” that you listen, even if it makes you feel super defensive, which, of course, it probably would. 

It is important to understand that psychic development is just like any other development. You need a trainer. You’re going to fuck up sometimes. It takes time and practice. Strengthening your mental health can only help with that, right. 

Part of the stigma that exists around spiritual content—I mean, there’s so much stigma. There’s so much stigma—but part of it is that we have a tendency to kind of like keep it isolated in our lives and not integrate it into our lives. So this question that you have about what is psychic versus what should be monitored and discussed with a mental health expert, I don’t know that it’s an either or, you know? I would say develop your psychic skills, gifts, and abilities with, ideally, somebody who’s a mentor or a teacher, somebody who can help you with that. That’s an ideal situation. But that’s not instead of talking to a mental health expert—that’s in addition to talking to a mental health expert. 

While we’re at it, why not let’s talk about how you treat your body. Let’s talk about needing to really listen to your body because, in my experience, when you start to cultivate different parts of your spirituality or different psychic gifts, your body responds, your body goes through it. Any kind of healing crisis tends to involve the whole system and not just one little part of your system—not that I’m calling your psychic or your psychological self little, but it’s not an isolated part. 

So my hope for you is that you will hold space for how you are psychologically processing your psychic perceptions and then how you are supporting yourself psychologically, psychically, and physically through this transition or this phase of development that you’re in. And I’ll remind you that how you take responsibility for your own wellness and care is everything to do with your Saturn Return, which you’re going through now. 

My love, I hope this has been helpful, and congratulations on taking responsibility for selfcare as you explore what might be a really exciting and interesting part of your capacity as a human. 

Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsie Day is on February 28th at the Convergence of Black and Women’s History Months. They were three of the eleven woman who were experimented on without consent or anesthesia by the father of gynecology, J. Marion Sims. Join I Am More Than in Montgomery, Alabama to shine a light on their stories and acknowledge that we must first reckon with our history to change the narrative. 

COVID has exacerbated countless healthcare disparities. We need reproductive justice for Black women and women of color. Support the Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsie monument and More Up Campus in Montgomery, Alabama by making a donation or buying a brick in honor of your own mother, mother figure, sister, or friend. Visit anarchalucybetsie.org. Link in show notes.

The Black Fairy Godmother Foundation founded by Simone Gordon is a Non-Profit Organization created to help Black and Brown marginalized families. This foundation uses the power of networking and social media to connect families in need with people who can help. Visit theblackfairygodmother.info to get more information. 

Through their initiatives you can adopt a family by sharing a fundraiser or wish list throughout your community and signal boosting on social media. You can also join the Birthday Fundraiser where you use your birthday celebration to make a difference by choosing a fundraiser to promote among your friends and family. Contact the Black Fairy Godmother to receive a fundraiser assignment, learn more information, and support their work.

Okay, let’s get into your horoscope. This week we are looking at the astrology of February 28th through March 6th, 2021. I don’t know why March feels like all of a sudden, we’re really deep into the year when we’re really not. It’s just been a long year so far. 

So there’s actually only a couple few transits happening this week, and it kind of frees me up to talk about something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, which is the Pluto Return of the United States. Because on the 28th of February 2021, Pluto enters into the 26th degree of Capricorn, okay. So it hasn’t been at 26 degrees of Capricorn for, I don’t know, something like 250 years—NBD. And even though it’s, technically, the first thing that happens this week, I’m going to talk about it last. 

So before I unpack the transits, I just want to kind of throw down a couple little things. If you haven’t already listened to the Astrology Hot Take episode that I dropped for you just over a week ago—it’s episode 188, “Saturn Square to Uranus,” I recommend it. I think it’s an important little check in and reminder about astrology in general, the cycles that we’re experiencing and, very specifically, the astrology of 2021 and the psychological toll and impact that it’s having on us all—us as individuals and the systems that prevail. So throwing that out there. 

Also, if you haven’t heard episode 190, which I dropped a couple days ago, I talk about QAnon. Abbie Richards joins me to help educate me and us about Q and how it has infiltrated the wellness community. And I think that’s really important, and I think it’s important on a wellness style, hippy, dippy fucking podcast that we talk about it, and we think critically, and we understand that the backdrop of the times we’re living in is one that includes conspirituality and a lot of things that are really tricky and sticky and can become problematic very quickly without even realizing it. 

So now we talk about the damn stars. So Mercury’s not Retrograde—woo! Yay! Aren’t you so excited? I am too. It will be in its Retroshade until the 13th of March, so if you’re still like why are things not working the way I want them to? Why are things so funky? That’s why. Don’t overthink it. That’s just why, okay. 

Now, on the 3rd, we’ve got two transits to name. One is Mars moving into the sign of Gemini, and this is a lovely little burst of energy. Mars has been in Taurus, and things move a little slowly. Mars has been close to Uranus, which has hastened some of that, but Mars in Gemini is a bit of a breath of fresh air. When Mars is in Gemini, things tend to move quickly. Things tend to kind of have a little bit more air to them, a little bit more levity to them. 

Mars in Gemini can be, I don’t know, a little, a little fickle, a little all over the damn place. On the positive, it’s an exploration of ideas time. So it’s not the time, necessarily, for choosing a path and just putting blinders on and focusing on it. Instead, it’s a time for exploring the many different ways that something can work or the many different ways you can approach a damn thing. And I think that we could all use that energy right now—an openness to what is possible. 

This is not a kind of a Neptunian possibility. This is a what’s in front of you? What are the tools at my disposal and how could I use them—how could I use them differently? Mars in Gemini times. 

On the 3rd, another thing that’s happening is Venus forms a Sextile to Uranus. So when Venus forms a sextile to Uranus it’s not the most spectacular of transits, and I will let you know—just a quick little spoiler, if you will—March is full of sextiles, lots of sextiles. And when we undergo the energies of a sextile, it’s creative. It’s dynamic. It’s exciting. It’s like a spark of energy. It’s connection. That’s a beautiful thing. If you’ve ever seen the glyph for a sextile, it looks like a little asterisk almost, not exactly but almost. And it’s kind of got that pow! That sweet, little starburst kind of vibe. Very nice. 

However, when we undergo sextiles—this is like the shadowy side of a sextile—when we undergo sextiles, there is a benefic burst or flow of energy—yay! But if you’re pointed in the wrong direction, if you’re perpetrating harm, if you are doing something that is not right for you, then there will be bursts of energy that propel that energy forward. 

So if you’re doing fuck shit, then you’re going to have to deal with more fuck shit just flowing, just making babies with itself. That’s not what you want. So I want to just kind of like put that in your little noggin so that as the month proceeds, you can keep on asking yourself, okay, if things aren’t working for me, how have I set them up? Are things working just fine? Are things working exactly as I set them up? And I don’t like how I set them up, or I don’t like the things themselves. Because information is just that—it’s information. And you can use it, you can use that information to mobilize change, improvements—whether that’s in your attitudes, your approach, or your actions. 

Venus sextile to Uranus is an opportunity to explore what’s possible in your relationships. So Venus is associated with many things: relationships, your values system, your relationship to beauty and the way you look, the curation of events. It is a planet associated with diplomacy, curation in general—so we’re talking about arts, we’re talking about social media shit, we’re talking about all that stuff—and also your personal finances: what you own, what you have. And it’s liquid funds, so it’s not like your 41(k) or your inheritance or whatever, should you have such things. It is about what you have liquid and in your paws. 

Venus forming a sextile to Uranus, the great innovator, the planet that helps us to individuate, we have the potential to create innovative improvements in regards to Venus—cool. So that might look like improvements in your relationships or insights in your relationships. You might just like—I don’t know, maybe you’re in a long-term relationship, and you haven’t just giggled with your partner in a minute. Venus sextile to Uranus will give you a solid 20 minutes of laughter. It doesn’t have to be spectacular. Often times, these sextiles and trines are not spectacular in their presentation. It’s just a little bit of sun on your sweet little cheeks. It’s just a little bit of support, and that is an energy that you can consciously work to expand. And when we do that, we ‘re making the most of our use of astrology, IMO. 

Venus sextile to Uranus, if you are dealing with financial issues, is a great time to actually sit down with your shit and evaluate it because you might see things differently. It might be easier in that regard. And in regards to how you look, I don’t know, fuck with your styles, flirt with people who you’re not sure you have a thing for, but why not? I say, why not? Play, you know, play with the energy because sextiles are inherently playful energies. 

Let me pull back for just another moment to talk about aspects or transits. When I or any astrologer’s talking to you about a natal aspect or a transit, as we’re talking about here in your horoscope, what we’re basically saying is that these two or more planets—so in this case it's Venus and Uranus—are talking to each other; they’re in active communication with each other. And the sextile, the square, or the opposition, whatever it is, the aspect itself is telling you about the nature and tenor of that conversation: how they are talking to each other, what the vibe is betwixt them. Okay, so lovely transit. Get flirty. Get interested. Get engaged. Be open to a little bit of pleasure, a little spark of joy, why don’t you? 

Okay. On the 4th, we have a Mercury conjunction to Jupiter. This transit might sound a little familiar to you. Less than a month ago, we went through this transit. Mercury was Retrograde, and it formed a conjunction to Jupiter. That was on February 14th. There’s a couple of things I’ll say about this. The first thing is whenever a planet Retrogrades, when it’s in its shadow period, it’s likely to kind of like meet back up with some of the planets that it met with during the Retrograde or just before the Retrograde. When this occurs, we can expect to feel a reoccurrence of a theme. 

So depending on how it hits your birth chart, that could look like a relationship issue occurred around Valentine’s Day, and now on the 4th of March that relationship issue kind of rears its head again. Could be that. Or it could be that a theme occurred on that day, the last time that Mercury and Jupiter met in the sky, and now that theme is going to re-occur again. So it may be really a personal dynamic that’s still active, or it might be how you cope, how you think, how you communicate, how you listen, right, because Mercury, Mercury, Mercury. Those themes may reoccur. 

I will remind about this transit that on a social level, Mercury conjunction to Jupiter, unfortunately, can be associated with spread or super spreader events of COVID because Mercury is your lungs—it’s breathing, and Jupiter is fast acting—it’s spread. I’m going to let you do the math there with COVID. 

But another thing that is very likely on a more social level, Mercury conjunction to Jupiter can be just wild gossip—gossip that spreads like wildfire and that may or may not be true. This transit can be associated with propaganda and with news being broken. The information may or may not be half-baked. I can’t tell you for sure. It’s a big world; it could be both, depending. 

On a more personal level, this is a great time for communicating something that’s really true for you. This is a great time for honoring the details of the big picture, instead of abandoning one for the other. This is a great time for finally listening to someone, finally listening to yourself and learning from what you hear. This is a really great time for learning in general. So if you’ve been like I haven’t watched a TED Talk—I don’t know why I said TED Talk, but whatever—I haven’t watched a TED Talk in a long time, or I haven’t read a damn book, this is the time. Get back into receptivity and learning, if you can, because that’s really what this transit wants us to do. 

It can find you standing on a soapbox telling people what to think. It can find you in a situation where somebody else is telling you what to think. That could be really great, or it could really not be. This transit is really going to test a lot of that stuff. And it’s all happening under the backdrop of the Saturn/Uranus square. And I know I’m going to—I repeat it all the time. I’m going to keep on referencing this transit because of the extreme amount of psychological stress and strain it is creating for the collective, for all the people in the whole. It’s a lot of people. It’s a lot of stress and strain. 

And the impact that that is likely to have on your personal life, your professional life, your finances, world events, it’s really accumulative and intense. And so, I want to encourage you to remember that that’s what’s happening and to have some grace around it. Give yourself the space you need to have feelings and thoughts and to process through them, understanding that you are probably carrying a bunch of rocks and anvils and other heavy, maybe useless things in your bag with you that are slowing you down. And the only way that you can figure out what is best for you, what is best for your life is to slow down enough to sit with each of those heavy ass stones and consider their value, consider their worth, make decisions. It’s hard. This is a difficult period. It’s just a difficult period. So, again, be kind to yourself. Be patient with your process. Put things in place that support you to the best of your ability. 

Now that brings me to—do, do, do, do, do, doo—Pluto. On the 28th, Pluto enters that 26th degree of Capricorn, and in the chart of the USA, and there’s some questions about the chart. There are different versions that different astrologers use, but because Pluto is not based on time, it’s based on date, it is widely accepted that the United States of America was born officially July 4th, 1776. And Pluto was at 27 degrees of Cap. 

Because of the speed of Pluto—it takes about 250, more specifically, 248 years to cycle through all the zodiacal signs—the last time that Pluto was at 26 degrees was about 247 years ago. So it was a minute ago, and we don’t have a whole lot of data about what it means when Pluto Returns in this country, the United States, because ’tis hasn’t happened before. 

When we talk about the Pluto Return of the United States of America, we are talking about a very fucking big deal. And as certain or educational as I may sound or any other astrologer may sound on the topic, we have—no one’s lived through it before, so it’s all theory right now. And because of the nature of how slowly Pluto moves, people don’t go through Pluto Returns—that’s not a fucking thing. Unless you plan on living to 248, you’re never going to go through a Pluto Return. 

So let’s talk. There are many different theories about when global events or major, you know, social events, what word we use, so how close a planet needs to be. In theory, when Pluto entered into Capricorn in 2008, at the very start of 2008, we can say that we started to see the impact of Pluto returning in the US. But I won’t get into all the different versions of how this could go. But I can say this, because Pluto is now only one degree away from itself in the US chart, we’re going to start to see increased presentation of the effects of this transit. It, like every other Pluto transit, will last two years in its exactitude. And so, we’re just in the buildup now. 

So let me just give you my hot take for just a minute here, okay. These here United States are a nation built for Christian, straight, cis, white men—I mean, not even for all of them, but it was, and it is very much a Christian, white nation. So much of what the Pluto Return is about is that demographic of people feeling deeply defensive and driven to protect their investment and to keep this nation Christian and to keep it white. 

And the truth of this country is, of course, that it was built on genocide. It was built on slavery, and there is such a deep shadow to the liberties that this nation has prided itself on having. The liberties for who and on who’s back. When we talk about things like the minimum wage, which is a massive topic right now, we can see that this is not a liberty for all kind of place. When we look at the school to prison pipeline in the United States, when we look at the broken treaties between the indigenous peoples to this land and the government of this nation, I mean, there’s so much evidence that the deepest traumas and the deepest shames of this nation, the greatest cruelties perpetuated by those with power in this nation are still active. 

We can look to history—we should look to history because history repeats itself. If you’re into astrology, you should know all transits exist in cycles. History repeats itself. The Pluto Return of the United States is bringing the shadow of our nation, the shadow of all that we have done so terribly wrong, and it is bringing it to light. And, on a personal level, this is intensely and profoundly traumatic. It is having your lived experience but also your inherited issues up in your damn face all the fucking time. It’s driving and relentless and compulsive in its energies. That’s Pluto. Pluto governs shame and resentment and violence and war. Pluto is associated with trauma and grief and taboos. All of these things are up. 

And both on a personal and on a kind of more collective level, when we are in the throes of Plutonian energy, we start to fall into all or nothing thinking: they’re bad. I’m good. It’s us against them. It’s the kind of thinking that is bold headlines and bold statements and simple answers. 

And let’s throw on top of that, we live with the internet being as it is, and it really does us a disservice in this way where it provides us with tweets, these like short, pithy things, like, “Burn it all to the ground,” and, “All men are trash,” and whatever it is. And listen, I’m not saying we don’t have to burn things to the ground or whatever, but these kinds of simple, cathartic statements as a form of entertainment are great, but when we look at this from the perspective of the Pluto Return of the United States, they’re fucking dangerous. 

They’re dangerous because, from a Plutonian standpoint, the truth, the truth of healing trauma, the truth of any kind of healing requires being willing to sit in the nuance, to sit with the fucked-up feelings, to sit with responsibility. Not shame. Not shame. Not punishment, not condemnation. But to be willing and able to sit with the responsibilities that you hold. 

What we can know because of the nature of this particular transit is that we will continue to have unrest because there is nothing restful about systemic injustice—there just isn’t, and there shouldn’t be. There’s nothing restful about the incredible crimes that this nation has perpetrated against the land itself, the people themselves, even the animals. I mean, factory farming is a horror show. 

Understanding our role to play does not mean that you as an individual know what your roles should be. And I want to hold space for this because the Pluto Return is kicking up so much blame and shame from all sides that, inevitably, it’s also kicking up defensiveness and another thing that Pluto governs, which is flight or fight. 

So let’s remember that some people fight and some people flight. And flight means shutting down, disassociating, reality TV. I can remember all the story lines of all the things that have ever been said on some Housewives show, but I don’t know who the Attorney General is. I don’t know where to vote. I can’t keep track of what’s going on in the news. 

There’s a reason why people get like this. It’s not that we can’t understand it. It’s not that we don’t have access to information. It’s that we get scared. We feel helpless. We feel hopeless. We feel like we don’t have power to change things. And when we don’t feel like we have power—and I’m talking about Pluto right now; I’m only talking about Pluto right now—when we feel like we don’t have power, we have a tendency as human animals to completely shut down or to get fucking motivated, right. And millions and millions and millions of people are going to completely shut down. And that’s just how humans work. 

We have entered into a time that calls for nuance. We have entered into a time that calls for presence with greater trauma. And I’m not saying 2020 didn’t bring up trauma—Obvi, it did. It’s just that it didn’t go away. And now we need to really cultivate new skills and tools around it. 

You know, the reason why Pluto transits last two fucking years—all of them, every single one of them lasts approximately two years. The reason why is because the depth and nature of the transformation that we are called upon to embody cannot happen quicker than two years. It’s unrealistic. Pluto transits, to an individual, to a business, to an institution, certainly to a nation, will change you. They are meant to change you, and not on the surface. Not change the way you look, not change the way you act, but change you at your fucking core. Because Pluto is your core. It’s your survival mechanisms. 

So how as a nation do we survive domestically? How do we impact others? How do we impact their survival? These things are going to be up; they are going to remain up. And within all of that, your trauma will be triggered. If you’re a white person, there’s going to be a certain kind of trauma you experience. If you’re a person of color, if you’re a Christian person, I mean, you know the list—if you’re a queer person, if you’re a cis person, there are different kinds of privileges and different kinds of traumas for each of us. 

But it is important to acknowledge that each of us has trauma because each of us has Pluto in the birth chart. Each of us has trauma because we are part of a fucked-up system. We’re all implicated in that fucked up system. We are all struggling with responsibility and defensiveness. We are all struggling with resentments and fears because Pluto. Sit with the nuance. Be wary of anyone who’s offering you a simple solution. 

If we’re going to achieve healing as a nation, we have to be able to achieve systemic justice. And if we’re going to achieve systemic justice, we need a culture of change makers that have empathy. And when we have empathy, we have room for difference. When we have room for difference, we know that there are many routes to the same destination. We have to agree on what the problems are—that’s where we got to start: agree on what the fucking problems are. And whenever we can determine that we do not agree on what the problems are that’s what you got to work on. 

And you know I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, and I’m going to keep on talking about it because the Pluto Return of the United States is outlining how we never agreed on what the problems were, and now that everyone has a microphone, now that people can self-publish and advocate for themselves on a global stage, we are asking those with power to listen and to change and to spearhead change within their own communities, within your own communities. 

Culture shifts like a wave. It doesn’t shift like a bow and arrow or a bullet. It’s a wave. It builds, and it gets stronger, and then it recedes, and then it comes back, and it builds even stronger. 

I know 2020 was a burn out time. I know the Trump administration and the Trump years were massive burn out time, and it’s only March, and Trump hasn’t even been gone for three months. I mean, I think he’s only been gone for one month, ten years, I can’t tell. But it’s important that if you found a call to activism, micro activism or something more—maybe you found a call to politics, whatever it is—that you don’t let that go just because there’s a fucking democrat, a very fucking mediocre democrat, if I may say—you don’t have to agree with me; please don’t write me emails about that—a very mediocre democrat is in office. We want, as much as possible, to the best of our abilities, to move the needle forward. But that requires that we bring our own shit along for the ride, and it’s hard. It’s really hard. 

Now, my loves, that’s just a conversation starter. It’s just an aperitif on that Pluto Return. I’ll return to this throughout the year. But I will say one more thing before I totally end it and say adieu. This is something that I mentioned in the context of the Saturn/Uranus square, I think, in the year ahead episode, The Year Ahead Horoscope episode. And I’m going to name it here in the context of the Pluto Return. 

After Pluto’s in Capricorn, and we know there is 29 degrees/30 degrees to each sign, and we’re at the 26th, so we’re not that many years from Pluto in Aquarius. Mark my damn fucking words, my loves, net neutrality, net neutrality, net neutrality. We have got to get better legislation, better laws protecting our privacy online, our liberty online. We desperately need that. We need it, and if we don’t start focusing on it while Pluto is still in Capricorn, then we’re going to have some fucking serious problems when Pluto hits Aquarius, like serious problems. 

I mean, the surveillance state is already here. You don’t know how your information is going to be used against you. We don’t have a whole lot of rights when it comes to our privacy and protection online. We know this, right. We know this. We need to advocate for this. And I think that’s going to become increasingly clear through Saturn’s transit through Aquarius, which is only two and a half years. And that transit will end and bring us right around the seed of Pluto in Aquarius. 

So if you’re thinking about getting somehow activated or educated about something that needs social change, net neutrality, privacy online, the rights of the individual over the rights of companies and corporations, that’s a great place to start. It might sound to some people like it's not associated with social justice, but you better believe that it is associated with social justice, and it is very much protecting the most vulnerable amongst us, and that’s what it’s all about. 

Okay, my nerds, my loves, I love you. Thank you for joining me for another week of Ghost of a Podcast. As always, I invite you to write me questions over at ghostofapodcast.com, so I that I can get use of them all on the podcast. Also, sign up for my damn mailing list on my website—links in show notes. And, of course, as always, join me over on Patreon to get your month ahead horoscope—little bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast and a bunch of other goodies, a bunch of woo for you. 

I don’t mean to brag, but I have received a gift of a very tiny microphone. It is the tiniest microphone. It has inspired me. So if you don’t already follow me on Instagram and peep at my stories, if you don’t already follow me on Patreon, you’re missing out on the tiny microphone. Big mouth, tiny microphone—what could go wrong? Bye.