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.

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This week, I got a question from someone named Ancestral Messages, and this is what she said: "My question for you is what do our ancestors have to say, the Black people that came before us? I've been crying out to my ancestors for guidance about raising a Black boy in this world, and while I can feel they're around me, I'm not getting any messages. I'm not sure if my pain is blocking anything, but I don't know how to support my Black fiancé, my Black son, my Black friends and family right now. I don't know how to support my Black self. I don't know how to navigate, and I'm wondering if there's anyone on the other side that you can contact or anything you can see in my chart or my son's chart to help. I just want to keep him safe. My heart is hurting. I am typically a strong and assured person, but I am at a loss every time this happens."

This question is so important and so nuanced. And so I called Ancestral Messages, and we did a reading. And this is how it went.

Jessica: So I would just have you start off by letting me know what you want me to look at and what would be helpful for me to speak to.

AM: Okay. Yeah. I guess there are kind of a couple of parts to it. I think the first part is none of this is new. None of what's going on and what's happening—it's not new. This is the stuff that my daddy saw, that my grandmother saw, that—you know. And so I guess part of it is just I feel like I need guidance. I know that I have ancestors that have been through this before and dealt with this before, and so much worse and in such blatant ways. And I feel like I need that help.

I have an altar, and I bring offerings and I keep the water fresh. And I do my best to sit there and to hang out and spend time, and I can feel them. I know that they're here. I can feel that support. I can feel them around me, even ones that I've never met or I've only seen pictures of the past when I'm young. But I haven't been able to get anything clear. I haven't been able to get anything that feels helpful or that feels hopeful. It's like if your eyes are closed and you're standing in a room, you can feel that there are other people in that room, but they're silent. But being able to get something would be helpful.

Jessica: Okay. I actually do have things that are kind of coming up. So I want to do two things here. The first is I want to just speak to your birth chart and your nature around being able to kind of tap in and connect. And then I want to look at it energetically and see if I can, with you, kind of walk through how you're doing it and see how I can help for you to resource your connection to—as you're speaking and I'm listening energetically and watching energetically, it looks like you're not just resourcing your ancestors; you're resourcing your guides.

And it looks like—well, I guess I'm starting here instead of your chart, but I'll do both. As I look at you energetically, it looks like it's almost like your grief and your passion and your fear is kind of pushing forward in such a way that they're actually right behind you. So they're there, as you're naming. You know that they're in the room with you, but it's like you're looking ahead and they're behind, if that makes sense. And I don't mean it in a timeline way. I'll unpack this further as we go. But do you mess with the tarot at all?

AM: Yeah. I was actually staring at my deck right before we came in here.

Jessica: Okay. Good. And what deck do you use?

AM: I have the Rider-Waite Collins, and I also have the Wild Unknown. I prefer the Wild Unknown.

Jessica: Sure. Sure. Sure. But the Rider-Waite's the one to learn on, and then ignore it and go to other ones like the Wild Unknown, is my view on it. So it's actually—as I'm saying this, it's a little bit like the image in the Rider-Waite of that Five of Cups where the dude has got his mourning cloak on—not morning, but like grief and mourning cloak on—and there are three overturned cups behind him and then two upright ones to the side. But he's so in his grief over the three overturned cups that he's not focused on the ones that are upright.

The image of that card just really came up as I was again talking to you about this because from what I am seeing, it is, on an energetics level—because we're talking right now deep woo, like accessing those in spirit—it's a very meaningful but kind of subtle adjustment that you need to make as opposed to a radical one. So, when you say you have your altar and you have fresh water on it and all of that, yeah, you're doing all the steps, but there's something internal that needs to shift.

So I want to just name that, and then I want to go to your birth chart if that's okay. So you were born October 5th, 1992, at 9:52 a.m. in Jacksonville, Florida. In your birth chart, you have this Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn that everyone born around that same year—and that conjunction is opposite the planet Mars, and they both form a square to the planet Sun. This is called a T-square to your Sun. And your Sun is in the eleventh house, but it's right on the cusp of the twelfth house, so it's kind of a twelfth-house Sun.

And so, for you, what your chart says is a lot of things around intuition and accessing kind of a connection to spirit in general. So that encompasses connection with ancestors. It is not limited to that. What happens is that when you are in a state where you are in your body, which is the Mars component, you actually have really strong organic access. Have you been very spiritual your whole life?

AM: Oh yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I would imagine. For you, not feeling spirit takes more effort and energy than feeling it, typically. But when you are in a state of anxiety—and the reason why I say anxiety is because Neptune governs anxiety and Uranus governs anxiety. They're very different forms of anxiety, but Uranus is your nervous system, and Neptune is just panic and overwhelm and dissociation. So when you hit that Uranus/Neptune part of the T-square, you leave your body. And when you leave your body, your ability to fully receive the guidance or the messaging of spirit—it becomes a lot harder. It is a lot harder because it's kind of like a lot of noise instead of a clear messaging. Does this make sense to you?

AM: Yeah. It actually does. It makes a lot of sense.

Jessica: The thing about your birth chart is this dynamic is one of your most, actually, complicated dynamics in your chart. In other words, it's something that has come up before—of course, not exactly in the way it is in this moment. But what this period of your life is doing is it's demanding that you integrate something you've been working on for the last two years, which is—and you planned to have a kid?

AM: Yes. I did.

Jessica: Yeah. This is absolutely connected, having brought in a child and connecting with your ancestors. I mean, it's hard for me to separate these two things in general, theoretically, but in your chart and based on your transits in particular. And so, when I look at this, what I see is the last two years, you've just done so much work on locating yourself both as an intuitive person but also in the material world on pragmatic levels. And then 2020 occurred. [indiscernible 00:09:14] in the universe. It is the shittiest of all the shit—

AM: Fucking 2020.

Jessica: I mean, right. Exactly. And then 2020 hit. And within this, what is happening is, for you personally—and I don't think you alone—is that you are being called to stay associated and present in your body with the anxiety and the fear because that's where you have access to messages from spirit. And I know you used the word "ancestor," and that's what you're asking about. But I'm actually seeing you have so much around you that's not just your ancestors. The best way that I can put it is it's like you have this collection, I guess is the wrong word. It's like you have a bunch of spiritual beings around you, and they're not people. They're not lost loved ones. They're guides or spiritual beings. And they're not exactly animal—I don't know how to name them. This is why I'm struggling for my words.

But you have this—they're massive and they're around you, not circling you perfectly, but they're forming a U around you. It's not just your—you have so much. I also want to say, because you did give me your son's chart—this is maybe an aside, but I just feel like I have to say you have a little feminist.

AM: God.

Jessica: Yeah. You're doing a good job. It's not by accident. You're doing a good job here. Your child has a stellium in Virgo—Sun, Mars, Venus, Midheaven all conjunct in Viggo. And Venus in Virgo is a very feminist placement. I wouldn't be surprised if he started talking early and if he showed language comprehension at a young age. I don't know if you're—I mean, he's nine months, so I don't know what you're seeing.

AM: He's already gotten to the point where he's trying to—he's definitely communicating, and his diction is getting to the point where it's not like he's saying words, but he's speaking gibberish, but in a way that sounds like—yeah. It's crazy.

Jessica: I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. He is a smart child, and in particular, his intelligence is very much around language and comprehension, like analytic comprehension. Very reasonable kid, really like a 50 percent introvert, 50 percent extrovert kind of person. I wonder if you're already seeing it. He needs a lot of downtime, but he needs a lot of wild time, too. I wanted to also share with you that he has a very resilient physicality, like a resilient health, which is really good to know in a little global pandemic. But I also want to acknowledge something else, which is a little bit more heavy.

What we are going through at this time with a global pandemic, with an uprising in response to white supremacy and how capitalism fails us and so many other things, things that are happening here but they're happening across the world—right? It's a big moment of change and unrest. And there is unrest in ways that we deeply need, and then there's unrest in ways that we don't, if you ask me. But all of that is reflected in your son's chart, and it is reflected in the charts of all the children that are born in this era because we are a reflection of our times.

And so, within that, what I can say is that he is being weaned on this moment in history when everybody is frightened—when everybody is frightened. And so his understanding and relationship to material security and safety is really hot and cold. It's not consistently sound and safe. Does this make sense, what I'm saying?

AM: Yeah, it does.

Jessica: And this is for all the children born at this time. But within this is a power, and this is why I'm kind of bringing it up, because the Saturn/Pluto conjunction he was born under and that's in his birth chart—it comes with it a staying power. It comes with it a capacity to really work hard towards what he believes in. So, as a mom who is looking at his future and his safety, I want to say teach him to identify what he's scared of and to name it because when he has the capacity to name things, he has the capacity to bring compassion and empathy to those things. And he could be incredibly instructive to changes in the world. I don't mean to be like, "He is the savior we're all waiting for." It's not about that. It's not about that. Like I said—

AM: A messiah baby.

Jessica: Yeah. He's your messiah baby, obviously. He's perfect, obviously. But he does have this South Node conjunction to Saturn and a North Node opposite it. What this means in English is that this is a person who, when he learns to tolerate and confront his fears instead of being run by his fears, he finds himself. And he has a North Node in the eighth house in Cancer. This thing that you have, this capacity towards healing and showing up for others in a way that is not just behavioral—it's also energetic and spiritual—your son has it. I mean, he's got so much Virgo, and he's a boy, so it's different. It is different.

But he has this in a different way from you, and in a way where he can actually make real change—like real change in the world. That might be by the way he chooses to live as an individual, and it might be by what he does for work, and there's space for it all. He's going to do something very interesting for work, though, trust, because of all that shit on his Midheaven. So yeah. I'm going to just pause myself, and I want to see, do you have any questions about anything I've said yet?

AM: I guess the most important thing is, to be able to be a good teacher and guide and protector of my kid, I want to know the best way that I—and you said I'm teaching him to name his fears, but just the best way that I can prepare him and support him. That 's really the most important thing is I just need to know how to do that or if there's something specific that he needs or a certain way that he needs what I have to teach him presented to him.

Jessica: Okay. I'm so glad that you asked that question, and I'm glad you asked it that way. Yes. So, first of all, I look at your chart, and I see that your relationship to fear is really intense and that you go into responsibility in reaction to fear: "What do I need to do? How do I need to do it? What do I need to do? How do I need to do it?" and that your son will not always respond to that the way that you intend. In other words, there's a way that you seek to make things safer that for him can feel like, "Oh, this makes it heavier, makes it harder. It's more things I'm supposed to do."

And so what I'm kind of referring to is branding. Okay. Let me explain. If I said to you, "There's a cat at my house. You're coming to my house. The cat will scratch you if you look at it sideways," then you'd be like, "Thank you for letting me know. I won't look at the cat at all." That would be your response to your knowing about that danger. If I said the exact same thing to your son—imagining he was an adult person—he would then obsess on the cat, and he would be like, "Where is the cat? Am I okay with the cat? What's going on with the cat? Am I okay with the cat? Where is the cat?"

And so a better way for me to say it to your son would be like, "My cat's really loving and really cool and really likes it when you look at the cat straightforward. The cat doesn't really like it when you look at it sideways." So I would lead with the positive act or the positive—yeah, the positive action—and then inform of the negative one. If I'm talking to you, I would focus first on, "This is the danger," because the differences in your birth chart. So it's the same data that I would be sharing, but he's got this Jupiter in the first house, and it squares his Midheaven and his Venus. He's got all these things that are as they are.

You, my dear, have a butt ton, if I may say, of Scorpio: Venus, Rising, Pluto. You have a Moon/Saturn conjunction. You are clocking danger because it keeps you safe. You know how to do that. Right? Does that make sense to you?

AM: Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right.

Jessica: Yeah. And it works for you because you have all that Scorpio in you. And this is where astrology is really helpful because it shows us the way that we as parents—we adult humans as parents of humans—what we tend to do is we look at what we didn't get in our childhood, what we wish we had, what worked for us, and then we try to give it to our children. The downside of that is it's just like this passing down of the baton that skips a generation every other generation of parenting, what we wish we had or what we need instead of what they need.

So, if you're getting in there and you're like, "How can I support him? How can I keep him as safe as possible within my capacity?" with what is in your control, that's a way. It's to always do—have you ever heard of the sandwich? Positive reinforcement, criticism, positive reinforcement? Have you heard of that one?

AM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So you want to think about really heavy on the bread for this kid, a lot of positive reinforcement, because with his Saturn/Pluto conjunction and all that Virgo, he is going to be very aware that any cat could attack him whether he looked at them sideways at any time. For you, you want to name it, you want to know it, and then you're going to feel safe. And for him, he's more of an internal processor. And so, if it's over-talked about, it becomes obsessive. And you probably see that if—I mean, again, he's so little now that it's going to be kind of tricky to clock this. But there's a way that you might see him now, if he decides he wants to, I don't know, play with a blueberry and you take the blueberry away—once he's decided he's playing with a blueberry, unless you've given him something else to obsess on, he's not going to forget about the blueberry even though he's nine months old. He's that person. Does that make sense to you?

AM: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah.

AM: I can see that.

Jessica: I'm sure you can. And that's at nine months, so get ready for a tweenager with that capacity. So, in terms of this—me, I don't have a ton of Scorpio in me, but I have a ton of Capricorn. And Capricorns and Scorpios have some similar strategies of "Find danger," label maker for danger. That's our move. And it's just not going to work as effectively for him.

And so this will require you to trust him a little bit more. And it's not about trusting the world. I'm not going to tell you to trust the world—that's ridiculous—but to trust him that he is listening to you, and he is your child. He is spiritual. He will be a spiritual person, and he's also very analytic. You have this as well, but you're just a very different kind of person. Very analytic, very pragmatic, also very spiritual, like very tapped in. Right? He's your child, so he'll have that, just in his own way. And the style is going to be—my sense is a little bit more like your mom.

AM: Ugh.

Jessica: Yeah. I know.

AM: Great.

Jessica: Well, kids are complicated. Exactly. Exactly. And that is pretty much the reaction I expected, which is why it'll be triggering, which is why it's hard to let it be. But he's not your mom. He just has a similar processing style. So I don't know what your spiritual practices are, so I want to just preface this by saying personally, me, I don't do or facilitate ancestral work as it is, but I am a medium, so I can connect with lost loved ones and look into the spirit world. And I want to just say, from a psychological and spiritual health perspective, when I look at your mum's side, there's some complicated stuff, which it sounds like you already know and I'm not blowing your mind.

And I would be conscientious about who you call in because not all of those people are completely safe for you. That doesn't mean they're destructive, but I don't know that they're the supportive people you would be wanting to call in. Does that make sense to you?

AM: Yes. Yes, it does.

Jessica: Yeah. It looks like there is a legacy of abuse within the family that had meaningful repercussions on some members of the family. And it is not your job to heal that. It is your job to hold boundaries around it and to do what it sounds to me like you started doing very young, which is centering your wellness around it. That's the healing. I don't think you need to do anything else that I am being shown around that. And, again, I don't know what your spiritual value systems are, and I don't want to contradict them. It's just my read on it. It is not your job to heal that ancestral line. It is your job to protect yourself because you are not just protecting yourself; you're protecting yourself and your capacity to hold space for others, living and in spirit. Does this make sense?

AM: Yeah. No, it does. I don't even feel particularly pulled to that side when I sit and when I focus and when I think.

Jessica: So, when you do that, do you at all set boundaries with that side, though?

AM: I don't know that it's so much boundaries as it is kind of non-acknowledgment. I think because I don't feel connected and I don't feel a pull, I then don't feel the need to put anything up. And I don't know if that's right, wrong, or indifferent, but it kind of feels like because I don't feel a connection, I don't feel a need to guard from—

Jessica: I see what you're saying.

AM: —the connections.

Jessica: I would encourage you, when you're calling in ancestors, to be a little bit more boundaried. I would recommend calling in your ancestors and your spiritual guides that resonate with your best interest as you define it or your greatest wellness as you see it. Okay? I think that's just a nice little container to identify when you're calling in spiritual guidance or spiritual connection because just because you don't feel connected to your family doesn't mean they don't feel connected to you. And now that you're a mom, you can see your son might be around a family member for a decade and grow up to not really remember them. Right?

AM: Yeah.

Jessica: And not really identify them as much. But if you're around a kid for even a year—we get really emo about our kids. I'm just looking at you energetically as you call in your guides. You're just looking too hard. That's the good news. The good news is you're looking too hard. You're calling and calling and calling instead of sitting and receiving. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

AM: Yeah, it does. It does make sense. I spend a lot of time just thinking that I have to look harder and pull harder and dig deeper and search more. And I'm like, "More candles. More incense. More Florida Water."

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

AM: So that makes sense.

Jessica: Yeah. That makes sense to me that that pretty much looks like it, and it's also kind of what we were talking about with your son, right? It's just like, "I'm going to name all the things, I'm going to clock all the things, and then I'll be safe." And what I'm seeing is any amount of any of those things is fine. What you are in your very fair fear and concerns—you are seeking so deeply that you are not receiving that all of your guides and, actually, a lot of your ancestors, some of which you're not actually trying to call in and some of which you're very much trying to call in, are right there. They're right there, but they want you to turn and see them.

And so what that looks like for you—okay. So this is where I'm going to get woo. I see you sitting, and I see you in your fear. Your energy's thrown outside of your body and in front of your body and above. That's how it looks like your energy goes. So you shoot it from your gut and you shoot it from your crown chakra and your third eye. Right? You know exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. Okay. You're like, "Oh shit. That is the feeling. That's the feeling." And a little bit comes from the back of your head as well. Okay? So you shoot all your energy out, and you're looking and you're seeking, and you're looking and you're seeking, and then more Florida Water on the candles, and okay, fine. Obviously, don't do that. It's alcohol based. Please, I beg of you.

Okay. So what I want to have you do the next time you do a sitting and receiving, set the intention that you're not going to hear from your guides. You're not going to hear from your ancestors. You don't need to receive their messages for seven days or for five days. But what you're going to do is practice being present and receptive and adjusting how you orient energetically around your fear and your desire, just for five days, because that'll do it. You're very quick. I mean, I don't know if five days sounds actually long to you, but it's very quick.

So what I want to encourage you to do is, again, take the outcome out of the mix, and just focus on the process. So now I'm going to come back into your energy body for a moment. Just for whatever it's worth—you're low key doing it now—you are in your gut-ish. It's like instead of your energy being all the way out, your energy's right in front of your gut. Your energy's out of your crown chakra, and your third-eye energy is in front, not far away. It's in front, though. So you're half doing it right now and you're half not, which is why you probably in this moment feel both a little centered and a little anxious—

AM: Yes.

Jessica: —a little like, "I'm getting it," and a little like, "I'm not." That's how it feels, eh?

AM: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It's because you're half in, half out. Half is the wrong math, but it's close enough. Okay. So what you want to practice doing is saying to all your ancestors and your guidance, God, whatever it is that resonates for you, "Hey, everybody. I am going to be doing the work on kind of working smarter instead of harder. I invite you to the party. No pressure to show yourself. No pressure to do anything. I'm inviting you to the party, and this is what I'm doing right now." Just set the stage. Set the intention.

Your guides, your ancestors, and the spiritual beings I see around you want nothing more than to help you. And they're not going to give you an answer, and they're not going to give you a treasure map of what to do. There's no map of what to do. But when you're more hooked in to their wisdom and guidance, you will have that feeling you know that you're capable of, which is purpose. That's the best way I can put it. You are a person who gets very guided by purpose. And right now, you are out of alignment with it. First of all, that's okay. That's human of you. And, second of all, let's get back into the energetics.

So what I want to have you do when you do your sitting and you call everyone in and you let them know, "I'm not looking for you. I'm inviting you"—the thing with spiritual work, when we receive, we have to be present. So think of it this way. If I'm going to come to your house and visit you, you have to receive me. If you're at the mall, how are you going to receive me? You can't do that. You have to actually be at your house. You have to open the door to receive me, and you can only open the door from inside the house.

So okay. What you're going to do is you're going to start with your gut because you're so good at your damn gut. It's like the thing you know how to know. So I want you to sit with—and if you can, practice this with me right now. Sit with your gut and feel it, and feel how it's upset and also how it isn't. Can you feel that?

AM: Yeah. I'm getting that.

Jessica: So I want to just name the second you started to try to feel your own gut, your anxiety ebbed. It went away a little bit, eh? Do you notice that?

AM: Yeah. It did.

Jessica: Okay. So the act of abandoning yourself creates anxiety. The act of receiving yourself soothes it. It doesn't mean that the world isn't a dangerous place and that shit isn't real. It means that you aren't the one perpetrating harm against yourself. You are not abandoning you. And so, even as I started to explain it, you left your gut a little bit to listen. Okay? Yeah. I know. It's a fucking practice. You're not supposed to be good at this in your 20s, just for whatever it's worth.

AM: It's worth a lot. It feels like I should know things.

Jessica: No.

AM: I've read books and I've done stuff.

Jessica: No. No. Very few people can really do this in their 20s. In your 20s, the fact that you can even have this conversation and access your instincts, that's advanced. The pressure is unnecessary. And I know I'm saying this to someone with a lot of Scorpio, and you're going to keep on pressuring yourself, and I respect you, as a Capricorn. Also, it's unnecessary and it's not really helping. So we come back to your gut, and already in this very brief amount of time, what we've been able to bring your attention to is when you are listening to someone else, you leave your gut. Fascinating. Good information to have.

When you are trying to understand something, you leave your crown chakra and you leave your third eye. Good data to have. That's the wrong thing to do. So practicing noticing what it feels like when you are present with your gut, when you are in your own chakra body, being able to know what it feels like to be in is how you train yourself to know what it feels like to be out. And when you're in, you will be able to know the difference between "My instincts are saying I need a nap"  and "My guides are saying I need a nap," because right now your guides are talking to you, you're hearing it, and you don't know it. You're like, "Oh, that's just my thought." Does that make sense?

AM: Yeah. That does.

Jessica: Yeah. And I want to just, again, slow it down and say you're completely in your third eye now. You're completely in. Oh God—I said that, and now you popped out a little. But you were completely in when you said that you knew what I was talking about.

AM: Sometimes it's like I can hear so clearly and I know, and then sometimes I just do not—I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's what.

Jessica: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, listen. I'm a professional psychic. It's all I've done for a living for 20-something years, and me too. Doubt is a part of the human experience. We are not spiritual bodies living in the ether. We are spiritual beings living in material bodies, and the very experience of being in a body is being in a state of duality. And you can't blame yourself for being a human. And being a human means you're not going to be able to access your intuition all the time. You're not going to be able to do it perfectly when you're terrified.

I work with this amazing healer named Nikki Sachi, and she always says to me, "Don't let fear turn you into a muggle." That's what fear does. It turns us all into muggles. And so, in your earnest, passionate, heartfelt drive to receive your ancestors, you're blocking them—you're blocking yourself from accessing them. You're not blocking them. Best of luck. You're not going to fucking block the spirit world. That's not an option. You're going to block your access. And so, when you go into a state of anxiety, what that means is you've left your body and, in particular, these three points that I've named. That's how you abandon yourself, and that's how you access yourself. Those are your points.

When the anxiety emerges—and it will because these are fucking terrifying times. So I'm not going to lie to you. We know where we are, right? What you can do is you can access and resource yourself by not abandoning yourself. When you do that, you can't be looking for the answers and listening for the answers and the proof. That's where you get messed up. First you get present; then you open the door. Don't open the door when you're not present, partially because it doesn't work, and also because who the fuck is coming in? In the spiritual world, you don't want to just let anything in, which is part of why I was saying straight out of the gate be a little bit clearer with your calling in to ancestors about who you're willing to let in, who you're calling in. Does that make sense?

AM: Yeah. It really does.

Jessica: Yeah.

AM: Now that I think about it, even, I've been sitting here like, "Somebody, anybody"—

Jessica: Yeah. You don't want anybody.

AM: —"help me. I need"—and that's not—that isn't—

Jessica: No. No, no, no.

AM: Yeah.

Jessica: I think it's really important to use common-sense discretion with the spiritual world because all of our ancestors cannot be fabulous, perfect people, and also, all of us have inherited trauma. Both of those things cannot coexist. Nobody comes from a perfect line. And I think it's okay to be critical as a way to be—discerning maybe is a better word—discerning of our wellness, discerning of who we invite in, and also really open.

Your dad's side is a lot easier for you than your mom's side. In your mom's side, I see a lot of pain and a lot of unaligned behavior as a result of that pain. But, interestingly, your mom's side is so deep inside of you—your matrilineage is strong. And you have, it looks like, down the line—so not your mom, not her parents, probably not their parents. Down the line, I'm seeing healers on your mom's side of the family. That part of you that's just magic and always been really magic, I think it comes from your matrilineage, not your patrilineage. Do you know anything about that?

AM: I don't. I really don't. I wish I did. I don't. But—

[crosstalk]

Jessica: It looks like something that was covered.

AM: I need to source my elders that are still here and ask questions—

Jessica: Yes.

AM: —while I still can.

Jessica: Yeah. I encourage you to. And just know that they might not be your friends, and they might not be people you want to break bread with all the time. But that doesn't mean that there aren't questions to be asked. And if they're at all narcissistic, then just be like, "I'm interested in you and I want to know about you," instead of, "I want to know about my ancestors," because that's not about them. So that's just a little trick of the trade.

But if you decide to pursue a path in which you are a healer for others, it will feel like a really obvious path to you. But you do not need to do all things at once. And may I invite you to be excited about the crone years? They are the years of being old and ratty. And those years are a lot of years. So you don't need to be there now. I just want to acknowledge that all the things you do, small and large, for yourself and for your community, for your family, for your ancestors, for your childhood self—all these things will add up in ways you can't predict. No one can. And they will come to make sense to you later.

The one thing you can know for certain is don't abandon yourself. That's the one thing you can know for certain. And in your seeking of ancestral guidance, you've unintentionally been abandoning yourself, and you've been doing it as a fear response and a panic response, and you've been doing it because it's something that you've been trained to do by your mom. And so okay. And so okay. Here it is. And this is a time of great healing for you because what you might not have chosen to do just for you, you're sure fucking going to do for your family and for your community. You're sure fucking going to do—

AM: Yes.

Jessica: That's the healer in you. You're like, "Me? I'll talk about it in therapy. I'll work on it." But it's like all of us, my community, the people I love, my family, the people that I love—yeah, you'll turn yourself inside out. You'll move mountains. You'll do whatever the fuck needs to get done.

And so okay. Cool. Whatever works works. Just don't abandon yourself to get that work done because there is a difference between conscientious, intentional self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice as a reflex/self-abandonment. This thing that we are talking about will be foundational to you being able to actually give your son a little bit more of the approach that he needs because if you have a more flexible foundation in yourself, then when I say it's branding—what I said about the cat metaphor, it was a stupid fucking metaphor I've never used before, but whatever. It was a metaphor.

[crosstalk]

AM: —metaphor. It made so much sense to me.

Jessica: Oh. It made sense to you. Oh. Good.

AM: Yeah. It did.

Jessica: Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Cool. Okay. Good. So, when I call that branding, it only feels like branding if you have a solid foundation in yourself, if you just know in your foundation that you're coming from this place and you can change the way you express it fluidly to make it work for whoever needs to hear it.

So here's the thing. Being in a state of receptivity to supportive energies and spirits does not require that you can hear them with your analytic mind. It requires that you not abandon yourself and that you choose yourself because you love yourself instead of abandon yourself because you're scared of being harmed. Does that make sense?

AM: It does. It does. And as you say it, I'm like, "Oh shit. This is exactly what I've been doing."

Jessica: Let yourself have the grace of learning a really difficult lesson in a really difficult time as you can, not in an instant.

AM: Okay. Thank you so much, Jessica.

Jessica: My pleasure.

I mean, I don't even know where to begin with this week. I don't know where to begin with the astrology. What I have seen in the world in the last week is gorgeous and terrifying at equal parts, an uprising of people of all backgrounds mobilizing for racial justice and to reaffirm that Black lives matter and that we need to dismantle systems of white supremacy, that we need to change the way our society is organized and that we need to change ourselves, all of us. And that is a beautiful thing, to see this radical transformation of people hitting the streets, and not just in the United States but all over the world, to say that Black lives matter, and to acknowledge that is beautiful and it is important.

I just feel really emo about it, as I hope you do, too. I imagine we all do. I hope that this can continue, and when I say this, I don't necessarily mean this one form of activism that is really important of people putting their bodies on the streets. But I hope the passion that has been sparked in the United States and across the globe demanding changes to white supremacist systems and shining a light on white supremacist beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and actions within individuals—I mean, that needs to be a marathon and not a sprint. I hope, my loves, I hope that you are not thinking, "Well, I posted a black square to my Instagram grid, so I'm cool. I'm an activist now."

In the words of Yaani King Mondschein, normalize microactivism, finding ways small and large to be a part of the solution, to have a progressive impact on yourself, on your personal relationships, on your family, on how you spend your money, where you spend your money, on how you participate in the system. And it's a lot. It is a lot. And so the idea of microactivism instead of only having, once every three years, a big action is you don't have to do it all at once. You just have to keep doing it.

Now, I'm going to get to your horoscope. I promise. Oh, yes, I promise. But I've had a lot of people reach out and share with me this thing that's going around. It says: "Food for thought. The last time Saturn was in Aquarius was during the Rodney King riots. The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was during the American Revolution. Neptune was in Pisces when Rome fell. We have all three right now." So, first of all, people, stop sending me this, I beg of you. Second of all, people keep on being like, "Is this true?" Yes.

The last time that Saturn was in Aquarius was '91 through '93, and it was at that time that the police brutality against Rodney King was filmed, and there was an uprising in response. And, yes, the last time Pluto was in Capricorn was during the American Revolution, and we will be having the Pluto Return of the United States in February of 2021. And we are absolutely in the energy of building up to it. The last time Uranus was in the sign of Taurus, we had World War II and the rise of authoritarian leaders and fascists around the globe.

Now, my loves, I have been telling you stuff like this on the podcast for a long time. I've talked on the podcast for a long time about how the reason that I started Ghost of a Podcast was to empower you with the emotional intelligence and emotional tools and the spiritual context needed to be in this period with the greatest integrity, to show up not just for yourself but for others, and to do what is right instead of what is easy. So, yes, all of those things are true.

To give you some context, the time before—and I'll talk about Saturn in Aquarius a little bit more at a different time. So Saturn was in the sign of Aquarius in 1991 through '93. In 1962 through '64 is the time before that that Saturn was in Aquarius, and that is when we got in the United States the Civil Rights Act. It's when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. It is when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. It is worth mentioning that almost 30 years later when Saturn was in Aquarius again in the 1990s is when Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Price.

The thing you need to know about astrology is that it is a tool for understanding history, and it is a tool for understanding the cycles of history. And so, in the reading that I just gave to Ancestral Messages, she mentioned at the very beginning that none of this is new, that her father went through it and her grandparents went through it, and that she's going through all this. Racial injustice is not new, and even uprising in the face of racial injustice is not new. In fact, every advancement for civil liberties and for freedom has come, quite unfortunately but objectively, through uprisings, through the people standing up and making noise and often looting. And often there's violence, and always there is pushback from the police. This is just how it goes. Power is not returned to the people from the oppressor. Power is returned to the people because the people demand it, because the people come together and demand it.

And the reality is the transition of Saturn in Aquarius, the transition of Uranus in Taurus, the transition of Pluto in Capricorn, and yes, the transition of Neptune in Pisces—all of these things indicate in their own unique ways that this is a time where we will either come together and create a new society based on humanitarian and egalitarian ideals or quite the opposite. The current president of the United States has shown us in this past week—I mean, he's been showing us throughout his whole presidency, but certainly in this past week with his militaristic and violent response to peaceful protest/righteous protest—he is showing us what he intends to do and how he intends to do it. What the Trump administration is doing—and we want to stay clear that it's not just one individual man. It's a system of white supremacy that upholds him, and it's many actors that we know of and many behind the scenes that we don't that are enabling his agenda. None of it is unique. None of it is innovative. None of it is new.

Now, one more thing here. Fear is sharable. Fear is kind of like—I don't know. People in general, but Americans in particular, love violence and fear porn. Americans are obsessed with fear porn. And so, when I see this thing being shared around, this Food For Thought post that I mentioned, it's not really food for thought. That's not what, really, food for thought is. What that is is it's reciting a couple facts, historical and astrological facts, in a very let-you-draw-your-own-conclusion sort of way. It's good to be educated, and it's good to be informed. Nay, not good. 'Tis great. But it's also really essential that it's constructive, that you can make use of it.

So, if you're going to be really interested and motivated by that when Saturn was last in Aquarius, when Uranus was last in Taurus—I don't know why that was left off that list, but whatever. There's a lot of things not on the list. We could do a very long list of all the things—the American Revolution, whatever. If you're going to be motivated by that, then really get into it. Find out the dates that these particular outer planets were in these particular signs last. Look at what was happening in history. And then use that data to understand what is happening now and how it is a part of a continuum, how it is interconnected. And then you can start to locate, well, what are your actions? What do you want to learn? How do you want to participate?

Most of us who care about what's going on right now have a frayed nervous system. We are overwhelmed. And so it is important that we are conscientious about not spreading fear porn. So there is a way to share data that is constructive and not just like more scary things, more scary things, more scary things. And this is what actually drops us into this week's horoscope. We are looking at the week of June 7th through the 13th of 2020. I've only got two transits to tell you about, but they're both hard transits to the planet Neptune. Neptune in astrology is associated with anxiety, overwhelm, or having a hard time being grounded. Neptune is—it's like mist. It's not even water. It is dispersed water.

So I'm going to break down these two transits that I want to tell you about, but I want to also say this Eclipse time that we're in—so we just had this Eclipse on the 5th of June. But, babies, honeys, darlings, June 21st, we have another one. July 5th, we have yet another one. It's a lot. The energy is just a lot. It's a lot. We are all activated. And because we're all activated, I encourage you to center yourself around how you may be projecting out on others. Center yourself around managing your own wellness as much as you can.

But it's Eclipse time, so everyone is heightened, which means there's more room for drama and there's more room for hurt and there's more room for defensiveness or saying the wrong thing or feeling like you're doing the wrong thing or whatever it is. We're all going through it. We're not all in the same position within it, but we are all going through it together. So do your best to see the humanity in others and to center your own humanity. Give yourself grace and space for your own learning curve and your own capacity to be present so that you are participating to the best of your ability.

Okay. Okay. Now to the horoscope. On the 11th of June, we have a Sun square to Neptune. On the 13th of June, we have a Mars conjunction to Neptune. Now, those are the dates that those transits are exact. But, quite unfortunately, we're going to be feeling the Mars conjunction to Neptune transit all the way through to the 16th of June. So that's not what you want to hear. Honestly, truth talks, not what you want to hear. So it'll be building up from the 10th. It'll be exact on the 13th. And then we'll be under its influence until around the 16th.

This particular transit is difficult, as is the Sun square to Neptune, which is a shorter one. It's the 10th, exact on the 11th, and we'll be feeling it as well on the 12th. So those overlap days of the 10th through the 13th are probably going to be the most intense. When the Sun forms a square to Neptune, our identity feels uncertain. Neptune, experientially—it feels like you're falling apart. It feels like, "I don't know where I begin or I end. I feel overwhelmed. I feel scared. I feel anxious. I feel dissociated." Neptune is the planet on a psychological level that is associated with dysmorphias, anxiety, dissociation, and it is one of the planets associated with projection. And that's as much being projected upon as it is projecting onto others. Martyrdom and victimhood are Neptunian.

And so this is a really tricky, complicated thing because there is a meaningful difference between allowing yourself to be in your suffering and martyring yourself. I'm not here to value judge one over the other, but I want to call your attention to it so that you can recognize when you kind of cross lines within yourself around these things. Now, the Sun square to Neptune is likely to make everyone feel anxious and overwhelmed. As I've been talking about on the podcast, this is where people act out and act wrong. People's capacity to experience fear has a lot to do with people's actual reactions and responses to fear.

Now, Mars conjunction to Neptune, these two planets are very, very different from each other. And this is something I talked about in the Solar Eclipse chart because those planets were quite close, and this is where they're exact. Mars conjunction to Neptune is two planets that I would suggest are the most different planets from each other in all the zodiac. And that's because Mars is the fighter. It's anger and rage and protest. It is your physical body. It's your ambition. It's your ego. And Neptune is let it all go. We're all one. Let everything happen in its own best time. Posi-vibes only can be Neptune. Neptune is high arts. It is spirituality as opposed to religion. Not that they are opposed, but I don't mean religiosity at all. That's more Jupiter and can be Saturn. This is truly having a connection to the divine, whether that is ancestors or that is God or that is spirit or that is even nature or the arts.

And I will reiterate something I've talked about before, which is that the arts are a form of resistance. Creativity is a form of resistance. Staying connected to your spiritual resources is a form of resistance. And I don't mean resistance in a psychological context. I mean resistance to tyranny, resistance to oppression, resistance to suppression. It is a form of healing. Unfortunately, if the powers that be want to leverage the populace's fear against them, the energy is supporting them this week in doing so. That's the bad side.

Neptune is associated with the immune system, and so this can also be a time where you just really gotta make sure that you are protecting yourself to the best of your ability: masks, handwashing, all that kind of stuff. So fear is likely to be up, but here's the good side of the transit. This is a hard one because of the context of where we're at. It's a hard one in many ways, I think. It can just make you feel exhausted, drained of energy, like you need to tap out and take a break. If that's the case, tap out and take a break. This is—like I said, it's a marathon and not a sprint.

The positive side of this is Neptune can give you the vision that you need to motivate your actions. This can be a transit where you find that you have more passion and vision to act in ways that reflect your spiritual values, that reflect humanitarianism, that reflect a true empathy and kindness for others. And that doesn't mean having things be nice. Niceness and kindness, as I've said seven million times on the podcast, are not the same thing. Seek true kindness at this time instead of niceties and niceness.

The positive part of Neptune is that people can put aside their individualistic needs in favor of a greater goal, a goal that speaks to their souls. This is a time where it is healthiest and wise to center the integrity of your soul. And that means not always your safety, not always your comfort, not always getting along. The downside is, because of the anxiety that Neptune can engender, it really can be easier for people to check out and dissociate in the face of their anxieties. So it's a tricky one. And the astrology of this week is one in which our anxieties, because they're going to be elevated—this is why I spoke about fear porn. Because we are all kind of resonating with this transit because this transit's happening globally, we may find ourselves spreading around scary things and, when other people spread around scary things, being like, "Oh my God. I need to share that," because it's speaking to something deep inside of you.

I want to just say that it isn't constructive. I don't know if you need to share it. It's a good time to really look at your relationship to what is constructive and what isn't. So it might be constructive to share something that's scary. It absolutely may be. It probably will be. But just make sure it's fucking constructive and not just like, "Oh my God." If the only thing you're posting it for is, "Oh my God. Can you believe this?"—if you're seeing things that are conjecture, that are,
"So-and-so says this may happen if that happens," don't share it. It's okay to not share it. If it's not evidential, you don't have to share it. You don't have to take it in. You get to have discretion on what you allow into your space. Just don't check out of the work. Just don't dissociate from the times. Just don't absolve yourself of being a part of it all.

That doesn't mean you walk around without boundaries. It doesn't mean you have to say yes to everything and participate in everything and stay 100 percent associated 100 percent of the time. It means that you find a way to be honest with yourself about what you can manage today and whether or not the way you are participating, whether it's in your thoughts, in your feelings, whether it's spiritually, or whether it's online or in public—is it constructive? Is it helpful?

That's it. That was a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot of words. It was a lot of astrology. Maybe it wasn't enough astrology. Nobody knows. I'm sure you'll tell me. As always, send me your questions for what you want me to talk about on the podcast or questions that you have about your own personal life at ghostofapodcast.com. You can also subscribe to the show and read my weekly horoscopes. Become a supporter on Patreon, where you get exclusive content, all that yadda, yadda. You know? All that yadda, yadda.

But more than anything, what I want you to do is your best based on who you are, where you are. Start from where you are. Talk to you in a couple days, my loves. Bye.