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.

Jessica: Adrienne Maree Brown, I want to thank you for joining me and welcome you to Ghost of a Podcast. We're going to keep your birth information private, but what would you like a reading about today?

Adrienne: Well, I just turned 44. I'm a Virgo. And I feel like I'm entering a new phase of my life, like I had this kind of "aha." I've been thinking of myself as a Moon person or Moon energy, like here to support others and direct the light. And over the birthday period this year, I was like, "Oh, actually, I think I'm a Sun energy." And there's been a lot of gold and light and heat, and I'm just like, "Oh, I think it's actually a time to shine."

It might be a phase. It might be something else. But I'd love to hear what the chart says about what that means for my life and my work, if there's anything about how to do that responsibly, because I don't want to burn anyone. I don't want to take up all the space. But I also don't want to contort away from what I am. So that's something I would love to hear about. And I'm heading into this musical music/arts/creative-fiction phase of life as well. So yeah.

Jessica: And when you say musical, do you mean singing or instruments or⁠—

Adrienne: So singing is part of it, and I'm also⁠—I'm writing a musical, Ritual, right now that's been commissioned and is going to be going up over the next three to five years. It'll be building and growing.  So yeah. But I'm going to put out an album. I have a new book coming out, Fables and Spells, this fall. And I'm going to put out an album alongside of it, and just throwing my hat in the ring in some ways. I like to sing, and I write songs all the time. So yeah.

Jessica: That's awesome. Okay. I'm really excited you asked this. You are a Virgo, we know.

Adrienne: Yes.

Jessica: And because you fuck with astrology, I will kind of reiterate I use Campanus house system, which is a different house system than a lot of astrologers use. And with Campanus houses⁠—I don't know if it's with whatever other house system you may have seen your chart in⁠—you have the zodiac sign of Virgo intercepted in the sixth house. And your Sun is in there with the North Node and Saturn. After the age of 40, I really love talking about the North Node with people because after the age of 40 is when our North Node comes into activation and embodiment or not.

In your chart, you have this⁠—like I said⁠—Saturn, then Sun, then North Node. Your Sun and North Node are being activated right now. But before we get into the right now of it, I want to just kind of acknowledge you're speaking to service and being the Moon, as you call it, which⁠—when you say being the Moon, I assume you mean reflective, holding space, nurturing, caring for, right?

Adrienne: Yes. That's right.

Jessica: Which is⁠—I mean, I completely understood what you meant when you said it, but interestingly, it's that⁠—almost a stellium, like that tiny stellium in Virgo that does it for you. And I feel like Virgo gets a bad rap in a lot of ways. Virgo is so nurturing, so sensitive, and its love language is service. Having Saturn in the sixth intercept the sixth, it really strengthens this lesson for you of showing up and doing the work because you believe that it is right for⁠—it's kind of like there's not a separation between right for us/right for me. It's interconnected.

Adrienne: Yeah. That's right.

Jessica: The Sun has a really similar story to tell. Now, the North Node is where things get a little more complex because the North Node in Virgo in the sixth tells us that, yeah, you have come here to figure out it's not just service; it's how to live on a material level. In your previous lifetimes, you did learning how to live on a spiritual level. And now it's about, "How do I show up and actually embody this life?" The reason why I'm just taking a moment to acknowledge this is because you currently have Neptune hanging out in your twelfth house sitting on top of your South Node. And in this chart, it's not drawn. The South Node is kind of just implied because they draw the North Node for whatever⁠—your Virgo mind needs to know. So it's not drawn there, but it's sitting here in the twelfth house, and transiting Neptune is sitting right on top of it.

When I saw this, I was like, "Okay. Let us talk about this," because the transit of Neptune conjunct the South Node lasts about two years. You've been going through it for less than a year. And it coincides⁠—and this has been a massive year for you.

Adrienne: Yes.

Jessica: So we will go there. It coincides with needing to let go, and not a Plutonian "Oh, it's reeling and changing" letting go, but it's more of a just releasing. Neptune is like fog or mist. It's really evaporating, that kind of a letting go of what's blocking your flow of the ways you've held trauma in your psyche. So this is not about the body. It's more about the spirit. It's kind of like⁠—we talk about cutting cords. In spiritual words, we talk about cutting cords. This transit is about shaking off the cords that were left in your auric field, in your psychology, the ones you've already cut, because we don't talk about removing the debris, which⁠—

Adrienne: ⁠Yes. That's right.

Jessica: ⁠—this transit wants you to do. It's really about just pulling it off of you. This transit is⁠—it's subtle in many ways, but what it's doing is it's preparing you for the upcoming transits of Jupiter opposite your Pluto and Mars, which are going to happen quite briefly at the start of the year⁠—we can talk about that more in a minute⁠—and also the upcoming Pluto square to Venus. So, when you said, "I just want to make sure I don't shine too bright or take more than is mine," that's the perfect concern, not because it's per se a risk, but because it's in alignment with your truth to have that consideration.

Adrienne: Oh. Got it.

Jessica: Yeah. And so the transition that you're going through spiritually is to let go of "I need to be in service in order to prove something to myself. I need to be in service in order to justify doing something for myself, being in service to myself," whether that's your body⁠—and we're talking about on the material level, so it's not just your body, but it is creating art for art's sake, giving yourself permission to just take days off and do whatever the fuck you want, right?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Adrienne: This is hilarious to me because I'm just like⁠, "I cannot create a piece of art if it does not serve justice," and my friends and family are all just like, "Your existence [indiscernible 00:07:28]. Just create."

Jessica: Just create. Also, it creates more space for the justice and equity work to show up within you in new ways and to present itself in new ways in public. It's like the interconnection between your spiritual welfare and how you show up in the world⁠—I mean, I'm not going to say it's two heads of the same coin. It's just the same thing for you. What happens when⁠—and I'm going to butcher this because I'm not a farmer. But basically, when it comes to farming, if all you do is plant and grow and eat what you've produced, if that's all you do, eventually, the soil suffers. The crop will eventually suffer. But if you let the soil rest, if you have a season where you're just like, "I'm not harvesting anything," then you sustain your capacity for growth. And that's what this transit's about. That's what this period is about. This transit will be affecting you through March 1st of 2025.

Adrienne: Oh. Wow.

Jessica: So you have a long time to flow and touch in and release within this. Sometimes it's going to bring up trauma because of your attachments to either your unconscious or your spiritual⁠—again, your habits around, "This is how things are. This is what it is." And what we'll often do is manifest people who are more than happy to be our unconscious teacher and basically be the voice of exactly what you're scared of. So all it takes is for some random person on the internet to say, "Art for art's sake is selfish," and that can throw you into a whole thing. Right?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: And so, within this, I just want to say remember that they're holding spaces, unconscious teacher, and that your North Node in Virgo wants you to step into a sense of discernment around what serves you and what doesn't, understanding that there is an interconnection between what serves you and how you serve others or the planet, however you hold it. Now, I'll add to this that both Pisces and Virgo are intercept your twelfth and sixth houses. And this interception tells us that this part of your nature in your early development, this Virgonian stuff, was modeled to you that it was not safe⁠—it was just not safe to embody⁠; it was not what you were meant to do⁠⁠—or that it would cost you a great deal.

Adrienne: Uh-huh.

Jessica: You are currently in this place where you've done a lot of material work on it, but again, the spiritual side of it is likely to come up. And honestly, the timing of what's happening in the world⁠—right? It's like an easy thing to link, right?

Adrienne: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: And so I just, again, want to hold space for some of this is so private and it's so deep⁠—just give yourself permission for that. And if you're like, "I don't get it. Why am I just dragging for a month because of one little hiccup?" it's because it's that deep right now. And a lot of this work is spiritual work, but again, it's not spirituality without discernment; it's spirituality paired with discernment, what is in service to your highest good, which may be staring at a wall. That might actually be what's in service to your highest good right now.

Adrienne: Yeah. I've been needing so much time that's just like quiet time, internal time. And I'm just like, "Is this okay?"

Jessica: Yes.

Adrienne: But you said something was intercept. Can you explain? What does that mean, in intercept?

Jessica: Yeah. Sure. So it's linked to the house system that I use, and it's actually why I use this house system. With Campanus houses more than other house systems, we get something called interception. And an interception⁠—I'll explain it technically because you're a Virgo, and then kind of functionally. So, technically speaking, when you have a full 30 degrees of a sign⁠—so I'm looking at the twelfth house. You have a full 30 degrees of Pisces in your twelfth house. But the house cusp on one end is 23 degrees of Aquarius and on the other end is 10 degrees of Aries. That's your rising sign. And so, when you have a full 30 degrees of a zodiac sign in a house but that zodiac sign is not on either the entry or exiting house cusp, that's an interception.

The reason why I am obsessed with interceptions and with this house system is because I do a lot of trauma work and early developmental work through astrology, and interceptions articulate the energies when we're talking about the sign and house, and then more complex energies when we're talking about planets. And you've got, again, Saturn, South Node, and North Node intercepted in Virgo in the sixth. They describe these energies that were actively being repressed by one or both of your parents or guardians anywhere from a year before your birth until you were seven years old. And what that does is it models for you that the embodiment of these energies or qualities is so dangerous that your parent or guardian completely rejected it in themselves.

So it's not like a Saturn lesson, per se, where your mom says, "Don't do this," and you're like, "Oh. I'm not supposed to do this." It's actually way more deep and on some level⁠—well, it's not more subtle; it's more nuanced, because you're shown how important it is to evade and avoid these qualities. And so, when we start to embody our intercepted energies, there's a way that we can get really frightened of ourselves and frightened of what it means. It also is where we are breaking generational trauma when we work out these energies because the only reason why an adult person who has a new baby is repressing parts of themselves is because they had it told to them that they had to. So it either comes out of modeling to the generations or trauma. That's the only way we get our interceptions.

Adrienne: Got it. That makes sense.

Jessica: And so there is this way that your stellium in Virgo is kind of⁠—I mean, I want to call it brand new, like you are the person in your lineage who's doing the embodiment of this work. Does that make sense to you?

Adrienne: Oh. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. And so, whenever something hits any of those three Virgo points, shit gets intense. And when something hits your South Node just like your North Node, shit gets intense because you're not just dealing with your conscious, embodied life; you're also dealing with this kind of ancestral juj, if you will. And so it's a lot. I would fully expect that you'd be experiencing levels of exhaustion⁠—sometimes spiritual, sometimes physical⁠—during this transit because the South Node in astrology represents where we've been in most recent lifetimes. And it's not, per se, reincarnation. I know people always jump to reincarnation, but it is like a very similar concept.

Connected to this is our need to learn the lessons instead of repeat the lessons. The lessons we're meant to learn is our North Node. Neptune is opposing your North Node, if we want to think of it that way. And that teaches boundaries. It teaches the need for energetic and spiritual boundaries. It's the foundation to behavioral boundaries, but it's not about behavioral boundaries.

Adrienne: I just yesterday was in a conversation with a dear friend of mine, the Reverend Kyodo Williams. And I was basically saying I feel like I've become a boundary queen, like I'm becoming a boundary queen. I keep coming across new terrain that's like, "Oh, boundaries are the way through this terrain," or, "Boundaries are the way to navigate this lesson," or just loving boundaries, boundaries that allow connection. But it feels like a major work of my life.

Jessica: It is. You don't get a Virgo stellium intercepted in the sixth house and not have boundaries and discernment be a mammoth lesson in this life. Also, those things are connected to service because how can one truly be of service when not serving the self? How can we know service, right?

Adrienne: Well, it's also⁠—I mean, I think the boundaries⁠—so much of it is like I keep saying I'm a recovering people fixer or people rescuer because being in service without the boundaries means you just enmesh yourself with anyone in pain and anyone in need. And so, yeah, part of it is that⁠—like I'm reclaiming myself and finding ways to be like, "How do I witness you?" versus doing the thing.

Jessica: Okay. That's perfect. So let me make that astrological for you. What you just described is Chiron opposite your Moon/Venus conjunction. It's out of sign. So you've got this really strong Venus in the seventh house, and I call it very strong because it's in the seventh, but also, it's the anaretic degree. It's 29 degrees and 54 minutes of Libra. So it's a real strong Venus⁠—sits on top of your Moon. It's six of Scorpio, and it's opposite to Chiron.

And what you just described⁠—not being a recovering people pleaser but being a recovering people rescuer⁠—it's that fucking Chiron opposition that does it because Chiron is like, "I'm the wounded healer. I can rescue you because I've been there. I will go through pain and suffering with you as a form of proving my love and proving my worthiness of my love," to your spiritual being, to yourself on a spiritual level, as much as to the person themselves.

And it's really interesting⁠—I just want to kind of pull back to say it's interesting because you originally articulated you always felt like you were a Lunar person, but that was actually your Virgo stuff. The Lunar part of you is the rescuer. The Virgo part of you is service.

Adrienne: Oh. Okay. Great. That's helpful.

Jessica: Yeah. It's a little bit like it doesn't really matter from a lifestyle perspective, but from an astrological perspective, it really, really matters because when your Moon or Venus gets triggered, it triggers this rescuer complex stuff. I'm calling it a complex, but the complicated rescuer stuff. And it's about to get triggered, so we're going to go there in a second. But when anything hits your Virgo stuff or your South Node in Pisces, that's where themes of service and discernment emerge. And so that's where it's really valuable to have the differentiation in language for these things so you kind of have a sense of what to expect.

Okay. Now, I want to stay grounded in your actual question because I could go lots of places. So let me just say a couple things that came up when you first said what you said. So you are going through two Uranus transits right now. One of them is the Uranus opposition to Uranus. Have you heard of this transit?

Adrienne: No. Tell me more.

Jessica: So Uranus opposite Uranus is kind of like the Saturn Return, except it's radically different, obvi, but also, the Saturn Return happens two, three times in a lifetime depending on how long you live. The Uranus opposition happens but once. And your Uranus opposition began on May 25th of 2021, and it will⁠ become⁠—

Adrienne: Are you kidding?

Jessica: No. What happened? What happened? Tell me everything.

Adrienne: No, it's just that's wild. I mean, so there was a big moment of the moving, deciding to move from Detroit, which I loved, but I was like, "I'm freezing. I'm contained. My body is breaking down, and this isn't the place where I can be healthy." It was that period, and being like, "I'm moving south." And I think that week was when I found this place that I now live in.

Jessica: This is what I'll tell you. The Uranus opposition to Uranus, for most people⁠—not all people, but for most people⁠—your life explodes. And it's not by accident. It's like Uranus governs freedom and autonomy and coming into contact with your truth. And when the Uranus opposition happens, it's your early 40s for most people. It's like, "Oh shit. I'm not old, but I'm sure as hell not young."

Adrienne: That's right.

Jessica: "And I've got to live my fucking life. What am I doing? Is this the life I actually want? Am I able to be true to myself within this life?" And the Uranus opposition⁠—it shakes everything up. And that's part of why you're like, "I'm singing on an album. I'm doing all these new things"⁠—because it's like "Girl's still got it" kind of vibes. Uranus opposition is where we start to realize, "I have this energy to use. It is time for me to use this energy." And unfortunately⁠—or fortunately. Unfortunately in the moment, oftentimes, but fortunately in the big picture, what that will often mean is that we lose people, places, things that were part of what we were instead of what we are. Yeah.

And so the Uranus opposition will be over February 3rd. You got just a few more months left of it of 2023, and in particular, you want to look out for January 12th  to February 3rd. That's the last hit. It's real short. But the transit's not over till the transit's over. The key for you is to remember that loving should never come at the expense of how you love yourself.

Adrienne: Okay.

Jessica: That's the key. And I think it's kind of like doing drugs⁠—recreational drugs⁠—or drinking. It's just kind of like there's a certain amount you can do and it's good for you, and then there's a certain amount you can do and it's in a gray zone, and then there's⁠—you cross just a toe past that gray zone and things go downhill quickly and it's hard to pull out. That kind of is what can happen for you with the Neptune/South Node square with any kind of "I'm losing myself in this person, in this cause, in this moment."

Adrienne: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love doing that.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, you're good at it. You're very good at it. And again, the work you're doing now with the Neptune conjunction to the South Node of pulling the cords off you, the ones that have just been⁠ like cobwebs been sitting on you⁠—just really clearing out the remnants of what was will support you in being in that part of yourself in a way that doesn't have to cost you something you don't want to pay. But again, that Uranus opposition is disruptive. It can be fucking messy. But it helps you to really be yourself in this part of your adulthood because when we think about Saturn, the first Saturn Return at around 29 is when, from my perspective, you become an adult. So everything before that is your childhood. Your 20s are the aging part of your childhood, but it's all your childhood.

And now you're in your adulthood phase, right? And so you're in the more mature side, all of a sudden, of your adulthood phase. And the Uranus opposition comes to make sure that we do not lose the opportunity of that. There's so much opportunity in it. And the beautiful part about being a fucking adult⁠—so 30 to 60⁠—

Adrienne: [crosstalk] adult.

Jessica: Isn't it fucking glorious? I mean, I am with you 100 percent⁠—is you can make your life and the world around you reflect who you actually are because you've figured out who you are in the first phase of Saturn. So I want to tell you about one other thing with Uranus, though. I'm not done.

Adrienne: Oh yeah. The transit.

Jessica: Yep. It's a Uranus trine the Sun. This one started June 13th of 2021 and it's over March 15th of 2023. So you've got a month and a bit. This is a lovely transit, and I had written it down to tell you about it, but I'm such a fucking Capricorn that sometimes I'm like, "Oh, it's a positive transit. I don't need to tell you." But I do because this transit is all about what you kind of named in the question, like, "Oh. I'm tapping into my fucking Solar energies." That's the Sun. So Uranus is electricity. Uranus is the internet and quartz crystals, and Uranus is like lightning. And the Sun is just that⁠—it's the brightest luminary in the sky. It is your center. It is yourself⁠—your will, your identity.

And so, when these two forces are having a lovely conversation and reinforcing each other, backing each other up, what you have is the ability to be like, "Oh. I'm going to be my fucking self, and I'm not going to worry about it. I'm just going to try being myself and see how it goes." And then, when you actually do that, you're like, "Oh. It goes. It's going."

Adrienne: It goes.

Jessica: It goes. And so this transit is really good for just kind of helping you not notice a lot of the impediments you might put in your own thinking or in your own way, and it helps you to really just be more present and more free. So everything you're doing, just keep it up. And this is why I often don't spend too much time on the positive transits, because you're often doing it because it feels good. It's like the energy flows where it feels nice, oftentimes. But it's a real validation of what's happening in your life now.

So two things to tell you. I'm going to start with Saturn because Saturn is a fucking bummer, and then we'll go to Jupiter. But Saturn is not actually harming you here. So what's happening is you're going through a Saturn opposition to Mercury. So transiting Saturn is right here in your twelfth house, and it's opposing your Mercury in the sixth. Now, this transit began May 19th. So, again, that May was big-deal time for you. And it will be over February 18th of 2023. Saturn opposition to Mercury happens once every 29 years. What it does is it tests our thinking, like what are your beliefs? What are your attitudes? Do you actually believe the things you think you believe? Do you know what I'm saying?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. This transit, for writers, can be really wonderful. It's like if you read the textbook definition of this transit, of Saturn opposite or square to Mercury, it'll often be like, "Writer's block. Everything's terrible." And it can be that way. But I have found, for people who are writers, who have a writing practice and that's what they do, this is the time where you're just like, "Oh. Okay. Now I've got the structure. Oh. Okay. Now I can edit this. Now I can take this and make this happen." And that's what's been happening for you since May?

Adrienne: Yeah. It's been incredible. I feel like I've landed a whole team of support around my writing. I feel like I've landed a writing schedule, like I'm like, "Oh. I understand when I need to write in the day and how important swimming is to my writing," and yeah. I'm like, "This is what it takes to well-oil the machine of my writing."

Jessica: Saturn. Thank you, Saturn. And this is the thing. Just when I was prepping your chart, I was like, "This is like a godsend, this fucking transit for you." And the last time you went through it was about 29 years ago. And so what is happening now is the kind of high-water mark. It's like the high point of a cycle that began 14 years ago.

Adrienne: Yeah. I mean, I feel like all of my writing has changed. So from like 15 years ago was when I started really understanding what it meant to get feedback as a writer and not just publish whatever came to my mind on my blog but be like, "Actually, I think there's books," and I want to start to move in a direction of being just much more intentional about how I wrote and how I publish things.

Jessica: Yeah. So this is good for you to be tracking because in 15 years⁠—14, 15 years⁠—Saturn will come back and conjoin your Mercury. And so that will be another really important point to look out for, and you can know it. So, if you in the next 14, 15 years⁠—you hit writer's block or, "What am I doing?" just know that transit is good for you. Any time Saturn fucks with your Mercury, your writing matures. Your thinking gets stabilized. And again, you want to keep in mind your Mercury is in the sixth house, and Saturn transiting is in the twelfth.

The transit of Saturn in the twelfth is kind of testing your inner structure, your relationship to reality and to time. And being able to find a team of people who can support you so that you can use your time better is a really healthy embodiment of this. Being able to be more judicious about which of your thoughts you publicize or not and how you organize that is Saturn opposite Mercury. Whenever we're dealing with Saturn transits, they're points of maturation.

And so I want to really just kind of highlight that for you, that there's something of a maturing within your thinking and your writing and probably your speaking as well. And that is⁠—I don't know; I think it's a beautiful thing. I think it's a really nice thing. It's worth making use of because, again, you don't have that much longer of the transit. So this transit will be especially active January 25th through February 18th of 2023. So, if you get any kind of opportunity or accolades in this period, know that it was won through effort because nothing comes easy during Saturn transits. So, when we achieve things, pat yourself on the back.

Adrienne: Awesome.

Jessica: Yeah.

Adrienne: Awesome. Great.

Jessica: So there is that. Now, the other thing I want to tell you about is Jupiter. And okay. I'm going to give you some dates here. June 9th through July 7th⁠—just a month there⁠—August 18th through September 16th⁠—again, another month⁠—in those two periods, Jupiter was squaring your Midheaven. It's going to come back January 27th through February 10th of 2023. Jupiter square the Midheaven is a fucking great transit for your career, and the reason why is because oftentimes what will happen is you'll get an opportunity to expand your vision of what you want.

Now, this transit is not inherently good news. It's good news if your career and your conscious life objectives are an authentic and healthy reflection of what you actually want and what's actually good for you because it's an expansion. So, for you, I'm not especially worried about that. But I will name that the theme of boundaries, I think, is permeating through all of this. So "no" being a full sentence, I am sure, is your friend because that's part of saying yes to yourself is being able to say no when it is appropriate.

And I know people talk about Virgos being judgy. I actually have not experienced that a great deal. I mean, maybe on a psychological level. But the lesson of Virgo, the true embodiment of Virgo, is discernment. And a lot of times, what is healthy, grounded discernment⁠—again, the embodiment of boundaries⁠—comes across to other people as judgy, like, "What you mean, you won't participate in this thing?" So being able to kind of allow that to ebb and flow is important.

Now, with the Jupiter square to the Midheaven, you don't have anything to worry about other than making sure that you assess opportunities as they emerge⁠—if they emerge⁠—if they're good opportunities on paper or if they're good for you, because oftentimes they're not the same.

Adrienne: Yeah. This is great.

Jessica: And this makes sense⁠—

Adrienne: And this is also why it's been helpful to build a team, because so often, stuff comes up and I'm like, "Yes." And then, now, I have this team; it's like, "Actually, if you want to do that, you're going to have to not do something."

Jessica: That's great.

Adrienne: And just whenever people say that to me, it's very helpful because then I'm like, "Oh. No. I want to do that something more," whatever it is. So, yeah, this is really⁠—it's really helping me so far.

Jessica: Again, it's that Virgo discernment. And then the other thing I'll tell you is that in February/March, like right in between those two months, Jupiter is going to sit directly on top of your Ascendant. And that is going to also bring you something lovely this spring. So this is when you have kind of a lot coming together, February/March⁠. That Uranus trine to the Sun is coming to a close, but it's still active. Again, the Uranus opposition⁠—it activates again in February. And so there's going to be a lot of energy and a lot of potential opportunity.

And the most important thing I can say is to continue to check in with does this serve your spirit right now? Because this may take the shape of serving your spirit is serving the world in some way, and it may take the shape of, "This gives me space to take a step back and take care of myself and not do anything in the public." It's not inherently like the only way to move forward is to keep on climbing. You've got this Midheaven in Capricorn, so it's like a "go." It keeps on climbing, keeps on climbing.

And that's great, except sometimes the quickest way forward is to set up camp, enjoy the stars, chill out, and then you wake up refreshed and you see a different path. It's not always linear. And I just⁠—I keep on getting the feeling when I look at your chart that part of what you're being called into is a willingness to explore that unknown, wavy stuff.

Adrienne: Yes. That's right.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of beautiful. I mean, it's not in any way bad, but it is challenging because of a lot of things, including it looks to me⁠—and please tell me if I'm wrong about this, but when you were young, you were super wavy. I'm just using the word "wavy" to describe Neptune right now. If it doesn't make sense, let me know. You were super wavy, and you kind of worked your way into yourself. And you worked your way out of that, and you found yourself and your place in the world. And now, the energy is kind of like, as you're a grown-ass adult, kind of pulling you into, "But you don't want to throw away that baby with the bathwater. How do you hold it all?" Yeah.

Adrienne: That's great. That's great. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I figured out how to do what was of most use, and I did that. Most of my adult life was like, "I want to be of maximum use, and anything I create has to be of most use." And my artistic self doesn't have space inside of that, necessarily. And then this period has been the reclamation of, "Well, maybe a song is the most direct expression of what I have to offer." Yeah.

Jessica: I encourage you to keep sitting with that, like letting yourself be there, because as you said that, it's the first time in our conversation where your energy wobbled, where your energy wasn't as strong. And so there's a way that you're not energetically in alignment completely, haven't given yourself permission completely yet.

Adrienne: No. It feels like, right now, I'm in this daily practice of giving myself permission to move towards the creative even though there's a lot of me that's like, "That's selfish. That's not as useful as when you were facilitating. You're not as relevant to the species if you're not doing something that's explicitly, overtly political in this particular way." I mean, I spent 25 years steeped in really intense, deep movement work, and I deeply respect it. It feels so tangible to me. And I'm like, "Yeah. That was clear, and I knew that I was having an impact, and I know that we're changing the world."

And so having this other thing knock on my door that's like, "But this novel wants your attention"⁠—and I'm like, "But will it change the world?" I don't know, but it's a novel, and you need to write it. You know? And I'm just like, "Fuck. Okay. all right."

Jessica: This is the perfect segue into Pluto squaring your Venus⁠—so a once-in-a-lifetime transit. Doesn't happen to everyone. It begins on February 11th, 2023. And it's off and on through December 5th of '25.

Adrienne: Okay. February 11th.

Jessica: This is like late winter/early spring is like a fucking time for you. It will be a time for you⁠—not bad, not good, just a lot of energy coming together all at once. And there's a lot to say about this transit of Pluto square to Venus, but specifically on topic of what we're talking about⁠—so Venus is one of the great creators of the zodiac. Venus is the planet of the arts, and not just of the arts, but of diplomacy. Something I learned early in my consulting practice, digging around in people's shit⁠—because when I first started, classic earth sign shit, I was just like, "I'm going to give you all the information. I'm going to give it to you direct. And I'm going to give you homework." And you know what? I still do that, but people would stumble out of my office.

And so what eventually I learned was a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Joking around, having a little bit of breakaway conversation, can be really helpful for integration. That's Venus. That was a Venus revelation. I share this because when Pluto comes and squares your Venus, what you can expect⁠—and a lot of times, I'll say we feel these transits about three months building up. And when the transit's over, it'll often take about three months for it to kind of pass out of your auric field. With Pluto square to Venus, what happens is our judgments, or needs, our deepest truth around the planet Venus in this case⁠—because Pluto is coming for your Venus⁠—they get triggered, and they come to the surface. And it's dynamic and creative.

So this may mean that, oh, well, you're writing a book. Oh, well, you're working on an album. And right now, it's like therapy/struggle, like deep personal struggle. But once it's public, what if it's successful? Then do you do it again? What does it mean? Why do you do it again? You know what I mean?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: It's going to get in there and engage you. Pluto does that. It challenges us.

Adrienne: That is so funny. I have not thought about doing it again.

Jessica: Of course not, because you're struggling to just be like, "Do I even have a right to do it once?"

Adrienne: I'm just like, "Can I do this?" Yeah. That's hilarious. I mean, with the musical stuff, I'm like⁠—now that I've started writing one, I'm like, "I've got 20 more musicals." I've got musical retreats and musical approaches. But an album, I'm like, "What?" Okay. This is good. It's really helpful.

Jessica: And it's really great to see, on the one hand, you're so in the moment that you're not thinking about the future. Yay. But here is the issue of power, because Pluto governs power. And where we have power, we have the risk of abusing power. Right?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: Where we have power we have shame. And Pluto square Venus can bring up all that shit. Pluto is coming to you from the eleventh house, the house of community and social groups, a place where you've shown up in really specific ways on purpose. And now it's shifting for you. Remembering that you belong to you and there is a way that in life, especially in this current life we live where there's influencers and everyone's famous or whatever, there's a way that people feel like someone that they respect, that they follow, that they're attached to in some way, belong to them. And that can become very painful and toxic very quickly.

And this Pluto square to Venus can trigger that from the community, Pluto in the eleventh, to your Venus. And so remembering that you belong to you and that your spiritual path inspires your behavior⁠—and your behavior is your choice. You don't need to defend or justify your choices. As I say that, I'll say energetically⁠, again, this is the first time I've seen you scurry, just kind of dart around.

Adrienne: I know. I'm just like, "Yes. I do. I need to defend it."

Jessica: Right. Right. Right. And you know what? Maybe you do. Maybe you decide that you need to defend it, and [crosstalk] certainly believes that.

Adrienne: Or I think the question is always⁠—I think the thing that I always struggle with is the balance of accountability with all of this, which is like⁠—it's always felt comfortable to me to have light shining on me. If I'm like, "Oh. The light is shining on me," and I shine it on all these things and I'm accountable to these movements and these people and⁠—not only does that feel comfortable, but it feels right to me. And so I think there's a way⁠—and I've been exploring and playing with this. Being accountable to myself is good for the world. Being in my joy is good for the world. And I've taken risks on that.

Pleasure Activism was that. It's me being like, "This feels wild, and it also feels like this is the right next move to make. And it's because it's the right move for me, and I'm going to let that guide me into creating something that⁠—it ends up being good for others." And that's happened enough times now that I can almost have a faith in it but not quite.

Jessica: I mean, that's very real. There's an element of, listen, you're a fucking Virgo. Are you going to stop questioning things? Probably not. That's not a bad thing. I don't think that's out of your nature. But I also think showing up for others and validating being in service to their dignity, their welfare, their wellness, in whatever ways, unfortunately requires that you honor yourself with the same respects. And it turns out that now we're back to your Chiron opposition to Venus, that there is this part of you that's like, "I can turn myself inside out to save others, but if I put that same energy on myself, I'm being selfish, and there's not the same value to it."

And that is a lesson that's going to be triggered. So that part of your birth chart's going to be triggered by Pluto. Pluto's not fucking with your Chiron, but because your Venus and Chiron are interwoven in your birth chart, it's fucking with that pattern.

Adrienne: Oh. That makes me cry.

Jessica: Yeah. I'm sorry.

Adrienne: No, I mean it's just true.

Jessica: Yeah. And it's private. It's private. The trouble with having a public life where people feel that you belong to them and, on some level, you feel that you belong to them is that it comes often at the cost of belonging to yourself in some ways. And the direction that you've pointed yourself in, I can say as your astrologer and looking at you energetically, is it's the right one for you right now. And I say right now because you can change your fucking mind whenever you want to. But it is the right one for you.

Adrienne: Yeah. All the steps that I have taken to get to where I am right now, where I feel this shining light inside of me⁠—I feel this clarity⁠—just at the level of routine, like I'm like, "Oh, I know the things that work for me to create, and I know that creating is working." That cycle⁠—every step towards it has felt so uncomfortable. It has felt like I'm doing absolutely the wrong thing, like I'm really risking my reputation or risking my relevance or something. And yeah, I think that's the part that people don't necessarily see.

I think generally, people are like, "Oh, yeah, your life is great." And I'm like, "Yes, and it's been very, very, very hard to make it great. It's taken a lot of⁠—I've just kind of set up camp on a threshold. I set up camp on the precipice." I'm here, and it is, yeah, private, but it's also⁠—I'm a very reluctant known person. And so it's this dance all the time of I believe that what I'm here to do is worth a lot of attention, and I don't necessarily thrive in the attention. So I'm always trying to walk that line, and it's just fascinating to have it reflected back at this level.

Jessica: Two things come up. So one is, in your birth chart, you've got this Pluto square to your Midheaven. And it's a little wide, but it is a square to your Midheaven. And it's an aspect in the birth chart that can seriously⁠—it can give you a lot of attention. And because Pluto is also opposite your Ascendant, that attention often feels bad because you're like, "Please do not look upon me. I am under a cloak and a veil. Do you see? I'm not here. Also, can I get you something to drink? Are you okay? Do you need anything?" Right?

Adrienne: Yes.

Jessica: This is complicated. And then, at other times, Pluto square the Midheaven opposite the Ascendant is like, yes, you do very well with attention. You do very well with validation. And when it doesn't show up, it can be like, "Oh, I failed." Pluto is so fucking messy.

Adrienne: Pluto's a mess. Yeah.

Jessica: Pluto's a mess. And so this is where, again, it's about coming back to service towards others, when we are bereft of serving ourselves, starts to create an incongruency in the work. We don't have the energy to hold for others when we're not holding for ourselves. So understanding that this is your moment⁠—this is another one of your moments. It's not the moment. It's another part of that ebb and flow of inner/outer. I think that with your Pluto placement, it is wise to kind of interrogate your relationship to power here and there and also your call to service. That's it, your call to service. So that's not going to go away.

Now, let me add something else. Chiron in your birth chart⁠—it's in Taurus. So Taurus is ruled by Venus. Taurus is the material artist. I am going to imagine that there are people who are artists or creatives in your ancestry, but not your parents. Is that correct?

Adrienne: Yeah. Yeah. My parents⁠—they were much more like the practical, logical⁠—but they're⁠—yeah, they're very supportive, but yeah.

Jessica: Were either of their parents an artist who kind of did things on the side and privately?

Adrienne: So there's some mystery over who my maternal grandfather is. But what I know of him is that he was a piano player and in a band. And I think that's maybe why he wasn't actually present as a father. But yeah, he was an artist. He wasn't talked about or acknowledged until later.

Jessica: That Chiron in the first house does⁠—especially opposite that Moon/Venus conjunction opposite⁠—not Venus. It's opposite Moon and Uranus⁠—that placement does suggest to me that there was a family member⁠—now I know it's your grandfather⁠—that one of your parents had a loss, so they prioritized their creativity at the expense of the family and of showing up for the family. And so, again, this is how you ended up with a birth chart saying, "The embodiment of me just going off and playing music in a band—that's bad. That is coming on the backs of other people," even though objectively, technically, that's not true. But that's like it's in your genes. It's like an epigenetic thing.

And so, when we move through this kind of epigenetic ancestral stuff, it's both harder but also more impactful because you're shifting something that is so deep within you that it doesn't have to be part of your personality. It's something much deeper. And so, within all of this, I expect you're going to continue to really fucking struggle around these parts. And I just want to say that wobble, that scurrying that I was describing before⁠—that's a great place to sit.

Adrienne: That's great.

Jessica: Yeah. It's just a great place to sit, and when you have those feelings⁠—do you live somewhere kind of rural?

Adrienne: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. If you could have a favorite tree that you're like, "The roots of this tree are going to be the place I bring this scurrying, and I'm just going to sit with it here without being Virgonian and trying to fix it or tidy it up⁠"⁠—Venusian, right? We're not going to do either of those things. Just sitting with the feelings, that on its own will be radical for you, just radical the impact it has on you, because the sitting with it is what turned Chiron from a wounded child to the wounded healer. It's the capacity to sit with it, which is why I'm all the time telling people to sit with it, because that's where we cultivate the emotional intelligence to be able to integrate it and act with it.

Adrienne: Okay. I love that. Yeah. Sometimes I love that astrology⁠—I'm like, "Whoa. That's totally⁠—that's really shifting the direction." For me, this is so affirming. This reading is so affirming because everything in me lately has been like, "First of all, just sit with what makes you uncomfortable. Sit with what you don't know." And I've had so much instruction lately to go put my feet in the dirt. Put my feet in the backyard. Go take myself to water. Make offerings to water. Make offerings to the trees. Literally, there's a tree right in my backyard that I'm beginning a conversation with because my friend [Princess 00:50:10] was like, "Befriend the trees in your yard. Get to know what they are."

Jessica: Is it an oak tree?

Adrienne: It's a maple, but it's like⁠—yeah, it's a certain kind of maple. And I'm learning that based on the leaves that are falling from it. But it's gorgeous. It's a wonderful tree, and it's not very old. Now that I've gotten to know about old-growth forests and stuff, it's like, no, this whole area has been logged and is now recovering from that. And you can tell the youth of the trees. But it's a good little baby. And it's solid, and it's on its⁠—I mean, in tree years, it's probably equivalent to me. We're in the middle. And I sit out on the patio. I look at the tree. I talk to the tree. I put little birdfeeders around so the birds will come and kick it there.

But everything has been like, "There's going to be a lot you don't know, and it's not going to get clear before you need to do the things you need to do. So you just have to kind of give those things to earth. It's okay. Still do it, and just see how that feels. And you'll learn as you go." So this is all very affirming of just what's unfolding right now.

Jessica: That's really lovely. And it's interesting because I was seeing you⁠—I'm not great at knowing trees by looking at them, but I was seeing you at the base of what I just assumed was an oak tree because the roots felt really magnificent. There's something about your tree⁠—

Adrienne: The roots are popping. Yeah.

Jessica: That's what it looks like. It looks like this tree is like your tree. So, for whatever it's worth⁠—another layer of validation⁠—I'm seeing this tree and your relationship with it, so you're already building a relationship with it. And something I fucking love about trees is that their root system connect with each other, and they actually talk to each other. And to me, I just think about the roots all the time. I'm obsessed with the roots.

Adrienne: Yeah. Me too.

Jessica: So this tree is like a part of what you're doing right now, and it's fascinating because a tree is such a good model of making art for art's sake. You know?

Adrienne: Yes, it is.

Jessica: I mean, you know that if you're living in a place with seasons. It's such a good model of that. And let me just ask you, is there anything else that you want to know about any of this stuff? Did we kind of cover the stuff that's important?

Adrienne: I feel really satisfied. I feel really satisfied with this reading, Jessica. Thank you.

Jessica: It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me and for showing up with all the vulnerability that you did. Appreciate it.

Adrienne: Thank you. Thank you. This was such a gift.

You may or may not know this about me, but I have been a consulting astrologer since 1994⁠—the end of '94, but still, '94. And I went full time in '99. And I share this with you because the way that I have organized my astrology practice⁠—and I'm also a psychic medium and animal communicator. The way I have organized my sessions and my work is as a counselor. Now, to be very clear, I am absolutely not a licensed therapist, and it is essential that I affirm this. I know I say it all the time on the podcast, but I'm not a therapist. But that doesn't mean I don't counsel.

And not all astrologers or psychics or whatever counsel. That's one way of doing this work. It's not the only way of doing this work, but it is my way. And because I've spent more than 25 years of my life dedicated to counseling individuals, couples, families, that kind of thing, that is my orientation. It is how I approach astrology in general and certainly how I think, and that's a really important thing for me to share because it really influences my relationship to astrology, how I approach this podcast, and how I engage with prediction.

We have to be realistic about the times we're living in where conspirituality and cults are definitely on the rise, and there is a very dangerous and very real pipeline between New Age and occult woo stuff and white supremacy/neo-Nazism. There is, and it's really scary. And so many of the New Age woo stuff can lead you without even realizing it down a very slippery slope that can be really harmful to you and the people around you. I mean, this is the world we live in. And because of the times we're living in and the fact that I'm a counselor at heart, I'm often thinking about these couple of things.

I'm thinking about the context that I exist in and that this podcast exists in where there are so many people out there in the woo fields, honestly, passing around dangerous ideologies either consciously or unconsciously, and some of that has to do with toxic positivity and toxic individualism. And this is where we get into woo manifestation stuff where you don't want to sully your vibration by thinking about other people's suffering or the problems in the world, so you block out the world and you only focus on things that make you feel good. I know lots of people like this, and so do you. And you may be like this yourself.

There is an element of spiritual truth to this. So, if you're working at a job and your coworker just sucks for whatever reason, but they're somebody you have to work with, it does bring your vibration down to obsess on what they are or aren't doing. There is that element of don't sully your vibration by obsessing on something that's out of your control and that just brings you harm; it doesn't help anything. Redirect your attention. Focus on yourself. That is a real spiritual truth applied in a way that I think is really helpful.

When we apply that same concept to the world, we have lost the thread. That doesn't work. I think this is really important to say because there are so many terrible things happening in the world right now. There are so many things happening to people not because of their fucking vibration or because of anything like that. We don't want to be moralistic about bad things happening to people or bad things happening to you. We are living through a tipping point, my friends, and terrible things are happening. And terrible things happen to perfectly lovely people.

And when you have the privilege to not be harmed by oppressive regimes or systems or a climate crisis gone sideways on you, it is my thinking that it is not spiritual to focus on yourself and not sully your vibration. Instead, it is spiritual to have empathy and to feel pain alongside the pain of others, to care, and to take that care and to transform it into motivation for action, for doing something. And depending on your resources of⁠—whether it's money or time or whatever else⁠—you may or may not be able to do much. But trying, attempting to do something⁠—that is powerful.

We are living through these exceptional times, and I want to point you towards coping. This brings me to the other part of what I'm trying to get at, which is prediction is hard. Prediction is hard because in a one-on-one reading, if somebody asks me for a prediction, often what they're doing is they're trying to make plans and use astrology in a smart way. Yay. I'm down for that. But the other thing that can often happen is that we have the tendency to want to control our present by knowing our future. So we fixate on the future in a way that takes us out of the present, and that's not good. That shit is not good. And as an astrologer, it's something I struggle with. It is my job to struggle with that.

But the other thing is the world⁠—we're getting closer and closer to the end of the year, and as that happens, people love to ask astrologers⁠—understandably love to ask astrologers⁠—what's going to come next year. And my predictions aren't great, my loves. Things don't look great. Many people gasped and clutched their pearls and were so shocked in 2020 when I was like, "Yeah, the pandemic's not going to be over in 2021." People were just like, "No. How is that possible?"

And when I think about talking about what comes next, or scary or triggering, upsetting things from an astrological perspective, I can't help but think about what I know from counseling individuals, which is so many times when we as individuals hear something that's scary⁠—and you may be right now listening to me and being like, "Oh shit. What is she going to say?"⁠—we go into a fight-or-flight response. And depending on your nature, you may have a strong anxiety response. You may get agitated. You may get tired.

There's a bazillion ways that we can react to feeling triggered, scared, overwhelmed. But very infrequently does that response equal, "I will be present and listen." That's not usually how humans respond to fear. I don't want to frighten you at all. I don't want to frighten anyone. And I don't see the value of us having a fear response that inspires us to shut down, project our shit out onto other people, or become avoidant⁠—three of the most common responses that we tend to have, us tricky little human animals.

And so I struggle with what to say about what is happening now and what to say about what is happening in the future. And yet I feel like it needs to be said. I feel like it needs to be explored. A lot of people feel that astrology and politics should not be connected⁠—they shouldn't happen at the same time⁠—to which I say astrology is the premier⁠—I mean, it really is the premier resource for understanding our present conditions socially and politically just like personally, and how they are directly related to cycles from the past, giving us the exact dates and the themes associated with cycles of the past, and they give us resources for understanding how those cycles and patterns will likely play out in the future.

And if you have a sense of, "Okay. In two days, it's going to rain," then you don't plan⁠—I don't know⁠—a picnic for two days from now. Or you do plan a picnic for two days from now, but you bring umbrellas and a tent or something. I don't know. I wouldn't have a picnic in the rain, but someone would. Maybe that would be you. The point I'm trying to make is if we have information that is actionable, it's important that we use it.

It is definitely a time for pairing our thoughts and prayers with fucking action. It is absolutely time for that. It is time to be realistic about what is happening in the world, to look around you. Look around you. We cannot constantly be in a state of pain and suffering, thinking about the world and its pain and suffering, because that's not the answer either. But turning away and only focusing on our individual welfare, our individual happiness, our individual circumstances⁠—that's not the answer either, especially in a time like this.

As you know, I've been talking for years about how the transit of Uranus in Taurus has been associated with world war. And if you look around you at what is happening in most regions, if not all regions, of the world, it is great destabilization. As an astrologer, but also as a person who simply consumes global news, it seems to me that we're on the brink of a world war. If that sent you into panic or shot you out of your body, I just want to acknowledge that and slow you down and say, hey, now, I could be wrong. That could be untrue.

And the thing is we can disagree. We can see things differently. We can see the same things and have a different assessment. That's fair. That doesn't have to turn us into enemies. Having different views and different takes is healthy. It is good. But this is my take, that we are all implicated in the global struggles that are happening. All of us are implicated. We are implicated in the crumbling of our democracies in the places where there are democracies. We are implicated in the struggle and suffering of the marginalized and oppressed and repressed. And many of us are those people. But we all have a role to play. We all have a role to play.

And in the context of astrology, Eclipse season is occurring, and I'm going to tell you about the Solar Eclipse in a few minutes here. And it's a Solar Eclipse in Scorpio. And then, in early November, there will be a Lunar Eclipse in Taurus. And this Eclipse season is triggering the shit that's going on on the Taurus/Scorpio polarity. And what is that? Right now, it's Uranus. Uranus is up there, which is part of why it's one of the astrological indicators of why things are really ramping up dramatically globally.

I imagine that between this Eclipse season and the Mars Retrograde and its square to Neptune kicking up religious extremism and cults and all kinds of frightening power plays associated with those things⁠, and Jupiter moving into Pisces⁠, which, again, happens this week⁠—I'll get into it in a moment⁠—that we will see a really rapid escalation of things we don't want. I want to encourage you to stay informed and stay educated, to find something that you can do to better the world. And you don't have to be the MVP. You don't have to be the most valuable player here. You don't have to be the center-stage person. You don't need to start an organization.

What I'm talking about is living with empathy⁠—not theoretical empathy. Actual empathy, like an action empathy. Showing up. Doing the groundwork for an organization that you believe is doing something really powerful. You don't need to invent the wheel. We have to watch out for toxic individualism. We have to watch out for centering our personal perspectives or the perspectives of our immediate community over the needs, rights, and welfare of others. So try is all I'm saying. Try and keep on trying. Be willing to be a part of the solution if you can.

And connected to that, I will say to my friends here in the U.S., yeah, the astrology for the midterm looks fucking terrible. And I think it's really important for me to acknowledge that the republicans in this country have been exceptionally clear about what they want. They want a national ban on abortion. They want to take away our right to contraceptives. They want to take away people's right to IVF. They want a national Don't Say Gay bill. Taking away human rights, but in particular the human rights of women and Queers, because of one's religious views⁠—that kind of extremism has a playbook. And in every nation in the world that has gone in that direction⁠—and there are many over the course of time and right now. Check out what's happening in Iran.

This shit does not go away. This shit does not get better on its own. I'm not suggesting that voting is a magic bullet, but voting does matter, and it is the least we can do. And think of all the stupid shit you've done, all the stupid things you've done today to waste your time, this week to waste your time. Yeah. Throw voting in the mix. It is literally the least you can do because, again, the astrology of this period does not look good. So we can always turn it around. We can always turn it around, but it does take intention. And we are all part of the solution or a part of the problem. At this point, it's either/or.

So I know it was a little heavy, but we need to be talking about this. We need to be struggling around this because of where we're at and where we're going. And, my friends, that all said, let's get to your goddam horoscope.

Okay. So, this week, we are looking at the astrology of October 23rd through the 29th of 2022, which means, miraculously, we are already at the end of the year. I don't know how it happened, but here we are. Okay. So, on the 23rd, two planets ingress into Scorpio. And if you're newer to astrology, the word "ingress" is an astrological word that simply means moves into. So the Sun and Venus both move into Scorpio, and that means it's Scorpio season. We are still under the influence on the 23rd of the Sun/Venus conjunction, which was exact on the 22nd in Libra, the very final moments of Libra. And that is actually a really lovely start for Scorpio season.

Scorpio season can be a time where really deep emotions come up; intense themes emerge. And having Venus sitting on top of the Sun really does a lovely job of softening that and creating more ease and the potential for more interpersonal connection. So that's great news for Scorpio season. But related to that, these larger themes that we're going through are challenging our need to be connected to our values, to act from a place that reflects our values⁠—governed by Venus. And so we have this important theme kind of reiterated in the astrology in lots of locations.

This is a great season⁠—Scorpio season⁠—to continue to do the work of investigating, maybe excavating, your values. From conversations I'm having on Patreon with folks, I see that a lot of people really do struggle with, "What the hell are values, and how do I figure out mine?" And I have come to learn that there's quizzes out there and stuff like that. So there are resources out there for understanding your values, understanding what values are. And you don't have to be in a rush. This is a process. This is an exploration. It's Venus. Be gentle with yourself, but move forward.

And that brings us, my friends, to October 25th. On October 25th, there is a lot to say because it is a fucking Solar Eclipse. Let's get into it. So, to begin, Eclipses always happen in pairs. This is a Solar Eclipse, and so Solar Eclipses always happen on New Moons, and Lunar Eclipses are Full Moons. So the Lunar Eclipse will happen on the same schedule that you would expect a Full Moon to happen. Now, the difference between a New Moon and a Solar Eclipse from an astrological, experiential perspective is that a Solar Eclipse is going to impact us for about six months, whereas a regular New Moon has about a month of influence, a full Lunar cycle of influence.

So Solar Eclipses are a really big deal. Now, New Moons are generally an excellent time for manifesting and doing ritual work. Eclipses, however, are not. So I strongly recommend that you do not do any major spiritual work on and immediately around this Eclipse. This Eclipse is happening October 25th at 3:49 a.m. Pacific Time. So you can adjust it based on wherever you're at. And as you know, I use my web-based app, Astrology For Days, to track all of the transits. So, if you want to know the exact moment that any transit, including the Eclipses, are happening in your time zone, you can just subscribe to Astrology For Days over at astrologyfordays.com.

Okay. So this is an Eclipse in Scorpio. The Sun and Moon are both at 2 degrees and 0 minutes⁠—so tidy⁠—of Scorpio. And a New Moon in Scorpio is intense and emotional and passionate. It brings with it the potential for deep and sustained healing. It also brings with it the potential for feeling things really intensely, which often means being triggered very intensely, acting out very intensely⁠—you get the picture. Scorpio is messy. Scorpio is a zodiac sign that has to do with that which is taboo, that which we have a hard time being present with or talking about. So it's intense, and it's emo.

But this Solar Eclipse has a Venus conjunction to it. So, while the Sun and Moon are at exactly 2 degrees and 0 minutes of Scorpio, Venus is at 2 degrees and 39 minutes. That is a very tight conjunction. And having a Venus conjunction to the Eclipse strengthens and intensifies the theme of values, which I have been talking about so very much. It brings a focus to that which we care about. Now, on the positive, this can intensify your feelings about the people and situations that you care about. And on the negative, Venus can kind of incline us to try to smooth things over, keep things surface, not go too deep. That's the risk.

This placement of Venus also will intensify the likelihood that this is going to be intense for your relationships. And certainly, if you have anything around 2 degrees of Scorpio or any of the fixed signs⁠—that's Scorpio, Taurus, Leo, or Aquarius⁠—this is definitely going to impact you in a meaningful way. And again, whatever it is that comes up on and around this date is likely to take about six months to play out. So be patient with the process. But this transit absolutely is meant to bring us into closer and more authentic contact with what we value and what we care about. So there's that.

But I'm only kind of on the surface still because the truth of the matter is that Pluto is fucking with us this Solar Eclipse. Pluto is at 26 degrees of Capricorn, and it's forming a square to Mercury at 22 degrees of Libra and the Sun, Moon, and Venus at 2 degrees of Scorpio. So it's an out-of-sign square for the Scorpio planets, and it's an in-sign square for Mercury in Libra. Pluto forming a square to all of these planets is intense. Now, Pluto is the ruling planet to the zodiac sign of Scorpio, which further intensifies what we can expect from this transit.

Whenever Pluto forms a square to any planet or point in the birth chart or in an event chart, we know that it wants us to excavate something. It wants us to get to the bottom of things and come to a deeper understanding and connection with those things. And here we're dealing with Pluto squaring an Eclipse, Venus, and Mercury. And so this can trigger really deep emotions inside of you. It can also trigger really deep emotions inside of the people around you, so either immediately around you or the world at-large. This transit, this Solar Eclipse, I expect to be quite spectacular in how it shows up. And so, because of this, we need to be aware of our emotions. I will say what I've said a bazillion times before, and I think I'll say it a bazillion times again. Your strongest emotions are not reliably your wisest ones. Your strongest fixations are not reliably your wisest ones. Your strongest impulses are not reliably your healthiest ones.

When Pluto forms these kinds of squares, it tends to bring up our flight-or-fight mechanisms. And so be aware of that. You may get really activated; you may shut down, and everything in between. That is as it is. But the potential here is that you move deeper into yourself and pass some of your shit; you let go of whatever thoughts and attitudes⁠—Mercury⁠—relationship dynamics, or maybe even ways of being fake or keeping shit on the surface⁠—Venus⁠—and most profoundly, with the Sun and Moon, ways in which you are identified with or feel that are really standing in opposition to your truth, that you've outgrown or that are in the way of you being whole and authentic, present here⁠.

Pluto square to all of these planets certainly suggests that this will be a dramatic Solar Eclipse. And sometimes drama is what we need. Sometimes we need to struggle with people or situations or ourselves in order to get someplace better. And sometimes struggle is the only way to create fairness, justice, peace, even. But the key is to really remember what you're fighting for if you're going to fight and who you wish to be in a situation. So, in other words, if you're fighting with your friend and your friend goes real low, you can meet them there, but then you're letting them drag you down into their shit. If you don't like the game, as the saying goes, do not play. And there's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm not going to do this right now," and walking away if you need to.

But understand whatever it is that you do or don't do, this Eclipse will have consequences. So bring intention. Bringing intention is not bringing obsessive hypervigilance, which unfortunately Pluto can do. It's about bringing intention, and some of that might come from striving to be in alignment with yourself. Being in alignment with yourself means many things, but amongst those things, it means not being in the future, not trying to control things that are outside of your control like what other people think, what other people feel, what other people are going to do. What you can do is be present with where you're at, who you are, and what you choose to do given the situation that you're in, given all the factors.

Pluto is transformational. Pluto is healing. Pluto is messy and scary and overwhelming and exactly what we need right now⁠—exactly what we need right now. And so be present with it. Be open to the messiness. Don't judge yourself for being messy. Don't judge yourself for not being perfectly healed or perfectly anything. We're not going for perfect. We're going for healing. Healing is not perfect. There's no such thing as perfect when it comes to our healing process. It's really just about evolution.

So these Pluto squares are going to feel like a lot. And as you know, these Pluto squares are likely to kick up our struggles and negative obsessions. So do your best to navigate that stuff if it emerges in your life. And if there's going to be a jerk in a situation⁠—I don't know⁠—try to not be the jerk in the situation. And if you are, if you realize, "Oh shit. This energy got me in the gut, and then I acted out," it's okay to be like, "Hey, person I just acted out to. I'm not in a state to talk about this any further, but I want to just acknowledge I just acted in a way, and I do want to process this with you. I do want to talk to you about this. I can't right now because I'm too activated, but hey, I can acknowledge that I wasn't acting right right here."

It's okay to do that and to return when you're feeling less activated, to maybe say the same thing but in a more kind and empathetic way. Maybe it's not like the message was wrong, but the delivery of the message kind of fucked up the message. Maybe you did something totally wrong. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to be wrong, but it really does call for humility. And this is important for me to be saying because, again, all this Scorpio/Pluto energy can get us in our messiest feels. And when we are in those messy places is when we are most likely to act out because when we are feeling threatened, when we are feeling triggered, is when we tend to feel the most entitled to act out. So this is just good stuff to be on the lookout for.

But that's not all that's happening this Solar Eclipse. We also have an active Mars square to Neptune. And this transit was exact on October 12th. It'll be exact again November 19th. But it really is on. It is just on for a long period of time, through the Mars Retroshade, into the Mars Retrograde, and then unfortunately in the exiting Retroshade that will come after that. So there will be a third direct hit in March⁠—March of 2023. So this is a long transit. It's a long theme of Mars square Neptune.

And in the context of this Solar Eclipse, it's important to acknowledge that Mars square Neptune makes us feel exhausted. It can make us feel defeated. So, if you've been feeling exhausted and easily defeated, my friend, you are not alone. This is part of what's happening right now. And this is where I come from when I say to you it is really important to find a sense of purpose to motivate your actions because now through the spring of 2023, that is the way to mobilize from these transits. And for that sense of purpose to not just be up in the clouds, we want it to be grounded into our shared collective reality and to be motivated from empathy.

That said, Mars square Neptune is likely to be making us feel pretty fucking exhausted, and in particular especially if you have planets that are likely to be hit by Neptune at 23 of Pisces or Mars, currently at 25 of Gemini. So, if you have planets or important points in your chart anywhere around those degrees, especially of a mutable sign⁠—and again, mutable signs are Gemini, Pisces, Sagittarius, or Virgo⁠—then you're really likely to be feeling this more. And because this transit makes us feel demoralized and exhausted, we just⁠—we can't. It can lead to passive aggression.

Passive aggression during a Scorpio Solar Eclipse with Pluto squaring a bunch of planets⁠—that can be messy. So take responsibility if you find yourself acting in passive aggressive ways. And if you're dealing with somebody else who is being passive aggressive, practice healthy boundaries⁠—healthy, strong boundaries. This might happen on an energetics level if you're that kind of woo, or it might have been psychologically, behaviorally, or hopefully on all the damn levels. But this is a really powerful thing to be considering⁠—what your boundaries are and how you are or are not practicing embodying them. And this will be a big theme, this boundaries issue, throughout this Mars Retrograde/Retroshade time.

But in particular, with this Eclipse, it can lead to really intense defensiveness or just being so soupy, emo, and intense that you do something self-destructive as a way to numb out. And so I just want to encourage you to be mindful of this stuff, especially if you have a history with addiction, any kind of addiction. If you're aware that this Eclipse can trigger addictiveness, self-harm, disassociation, any of that kind of stuff, then you can empower yourself with whatever tools you've got⁠—maybe friends that you can rely on, whatever⁠—to just be there for you so that you don't have to feel isolated, because unfortunately, the Scorpio energies can make us feel a bit isolated, in particular with the Pluto squares.

We may end up feeling either like we don't have resources in people, or we can isolate as a way to protect ourselves from other people's judgments or other people's energies or whatever it is. And that's not the answer either. It's about having healthy boundaries when you engage and being conscientious about who you choose to engage with to the best of your ability. Now, at the same time, Jupiter is forming an out-of-sign square to Mars, and this indicates the risk of misinformation and disinformation. Beware of propaganda. If you see some sort of news story, if you hear some sort of gossip, check the source. Consider the source. Don't go spreading around news without knowing what it really is about.

This square inclines us to jump to conclusions. And the fact that Mars and Neptune are squared makes us a little more gullible. So this is a real risk for misinformation and disinformation on more of a collective level. On a personal level, don't jump to conclusions⁠—easier said than done. Taming this energy is going to be really hard, so I don't recommend trying. Instead, what I recommend is striving to say connected to yourself in alignment with your own values, with your own energy, and if you get woo like this, with your own guidance, staying in alignment with what you believe to be right, with your intuition, so that you can engage with whatever it is that comes up inside of yourself, in your relationships, in the world in a way that reflects your integrity and reflects your strength instead of your fears and your most defensive parts. Easier said than done, but that's the move.

And of course, while all of this is happening, we still have Uranus and the North Node sitting very close to each other in the zodiac sign of Taurus squared to Saturn, creating major destabilization where we're coping with things that are challenging our sense of reality, challenging our sense of "Do I expand or do I cut back? Do I push things forward or do I stop altogether?" It's real messy and hard. And the combination of all of these things is especially difficult, honestly, because it's a lot all at once. It's a lot all at once.

And so, within that, I want to say again don't try to control the weather. Just try to control your own temperature, what's going on in your own home. And this is classic Scorpio Solar Eclipse stuff, bringing up control issues. That's how this goes. So don't fight how it goes. Instead, strive to be present with whatever is and do your best to engage in as healthy ways as you can. And when you fuck up, if you fuck up, if somebody else fucks up, do your best to learn and grow from whatever it is instead of punish and condemn, which of course is sometimes necessary but also very much some of the shadow energies of Scorpio and Pluto.

Okay. So there is that, and that's a lot. It's a lot. But the Solar Eclipse is a lot. I probably don't need to remind you of this, but Mars is in its Retroshade. It is very close to Retrograde. And this further complicates our relationship to our ego and our relationship to ambition, like, "How am I supposed to handle this? What am I supposed to do?" It can make it more uncomfortable to even be in your body. But all of this stuff is happening for a reason. So do your best to show up, to step into the challenge. Step into the challenge and engage with it.

This question of "When will this be over?" or "Why does it have to be so hard?"⁠—it's a perfectly normal human question to ask. However, it's kind of a waste of your energy. It's a waste of your energy because if you accept that you are where you are, then you can start coping with it. But for as long as you're focused on "When will it be over?" or "Why is it happening?" you're not in the now with it. So do your best to show up. That's it. That's all.

Okay. Okay. So that's the Eclipse on the 25th. On the 26th, we have an exact trine between Mercury and Mars, which we will be feeling during the Eclipse. It's part of the Eclipse as well. But it is exact on the 26th. This transit is very good for bravery and for social connection. Now, this transit I see more as a helper to these larger, much more loud transits of the Solar Eclipse and the Mercury square to Pluto, which will be exact on the 27th, because this Mercury trine Mars is happening overlapping with these two transits and is exact in between.

And really, in the context of these other larger transits, what we can expect is that the energy is there to help us to be brave, to help us to get out of our own way, to see things from multiple vantage points and not just our own and not just in our habitual ones. Mercury trine Mars can help us to communicate with others, to assert ourselves when need be. It can also make us a little impulsive with what we say, but that's not the biggest risk. And it is important to remember that that energy is available to you. So speaking up, standing out⁠—Mercury trine Mars will support us in doing that if that is necessary, if that's the right move.

Now, that brings us to the 27th. And on the 27th, we have two important transits. The first one is, as I said, Mercury square to Pluto. Now, this transit drags us from the Solar Eclipse⁠. It's exact on this date, and it's an intense one because what Pluto does is it intensifies Mercury's thinking. That means so many of us will be kind of caught up in some negative obsessive cyclical thinking and, in particular, that kind of thinking that's related to our survival mechanisms, our flight-or-fight mechanisms. This can mean that you end up in really engaging and deep conversations or interactions that facilitate some sort of healing or getting deeper, going further with something. It can also just be fucking power struggles. It could just be really messy. Things can get extreme or feel extreme under Pluto squares. And in particular, this one is likely to bring up ideas, thoughts, conversations that are scary.

The thing to remember is that we're working with Plutonian energies, and when we're working with Plutonian energies, there is the potential for healing⁠—always there. It's always there with Pluto. And so how do you want to engage? Are you willing to explore your ideas and attitudes? Are you willing to excavate friendships if need be? Because Mercury also governs friendships. This is not a great time to try to convince someone else of your opinion. And if somebody else is trying to convince you of their opinion or their perspective on things, you may feel like they're trying to bully you or force you. That's precisely why you shouldn't try to do it to someone else.

The energy is just so intense that it's hard to authentically listen to other people. Now, again, it may be that you are actually able to work with this energy and you have transformative conversations, transformative engagements, with others, with ideas, whatever it is, that help you to truly and deeply evolve. But most people end up feeling defensive, aggressive, shut down, intense, just intense. And again, Pluto governs compulsive energies, so the intensity can be pretty compulsive.

Whenever we're dealing with Pluto, there's the risk of controlling dynamics or power struggles. So, again, you may have to deal with that. And it is wise to not do something that is illegal if you can avoid it. And it's not like I'm patently against breaking laws. Many laws are supremely unjust and deserve to be broken, and that is real. But when we're dealing with Mercury/Pluto square, there will often be powerful consequences to breaking laws. So, if you're going to do it, make sure you have a good reason for it. If you're taking a risk, make sure that you're conscientious about what that risk is. Yeah. That's my advice on that one.

This is not a great time for consciousness-raising drugs. Mercury square Pluto can give you a real fucking mess with that. Eclipses⁠—ditto. Ditto. What Mercury square to Pluto truly wants is for us to get to the bottom of things, to contemplate the issues, and to let go of the shit that we've outgrown or is holding us back. And that can be very hard to do even though it is well worth it.

Mercury square to Pluto can kick up drama between you and another person or you and other people. And again, just like I was saying about legal stuff, that's not inherently bad. It's not inherently bad, but you want to make sure that if you're going to get into shit with others, that you're not just being defensive and jockeying for power or position. Instead, if you're going to get into it, really listen to other people and try to be as honest and forthright as you can. That said, if you are engaging with people and it becomes clear that they are not listening to you, that they are not authentically showing up for the conversation you're having, then don't bother. The energy is too messy. Come back to it another time.

Now, the other thing that's happening on this date is real important. It's Jupiter moving into Pisces again. Let me tell you about it. If you listened to my 2022 year-ahead horoscope, then you will remember my predictions for the transit of Jupiter in Pisces. And it was in Pisces May of 2021 through May of 2022. It's been in Aries since then. But now until December 20th of 2022, it is back in the final degrees of Pisces. This transit, again, as I said in the year-ahead horoscope, is associated with far-right religious extremists exercising their legislative power and actively seeking to oppress or repress people who do not agree with them. This transit can be associated with religious extremism, escapism, cults, misinformation, disinformation, opiates, loneliness, deep spiritualism, increased empathy, increased care⁠—lots of woo stuff⁠—and propaganda. Some good, some bad, right?

The risk with this transit is that we see an uptick in ideological radicalization, especially from cults and religious extremists, which⁠—I mean, potato/potäto? Potato/potäto? Okay. That's the risk, and it's a biggie. And this is directly connected to the crumbling line between church and state. This transit has a risk of what we would expect⁠—the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and other forms of religious-based hate. And this happens in different regions of the world in various ways, unfortunately. The positive potential here with Jupiter in Pisces is that our empathy, our humanity, our capacity to be generous and to be kind of global thinkers/global actors⁠—it increases. Jupiter in Pisces is beautiful, and on paper, it's a glorious transit. Certainly, for individuals, it can be a glorious transit.

But the problem is we're not theoretical. We're actual people. And this is one of those things where if you read textbooks about the transit of Jupiter in Pisces, it will promise you ponies and lollipops. But in reality, we look at astrology through history⁠—so we look⁠—Jupiter is in the zodiac sign of Pisces every 12 years. It's in every sign every 12 years. We can see what happens during these transits, so we have actual data to understand what happens under this influence. And my great concern is the stuff I've named. So we definitely need to be on the lookout for the rest of this year about that stuff and to make sure we're not allowing our spirituality to empower us to turn our backs on the very real-world issues that are happening and to turn our backs on facts.

This transit is an opportunity to expand spiritually. It's an opportunity to put into practice spiritual ideas and values through our actions and to impact change because we care about people, because we care about the planet, because we care⁠—just because we care. Now, the other thing that I think is important for me to name about this transit of Jupiter in Pisces is wash your hands. Remember at the start of the pandemic where everyone was singing Happy Birthday when they washed their hands? I would say go back to that.

Wash your paws. Wear a mask indoors. Wear a mask indoors, and now I'm not just saying it because not doing so is ablest⁠—and we're not ablest, right? We're not doing that. I'm saying it because Jupiter in Pisces can be associated with the spread of things that affect our immune system. I expect there to be, again, major spikes this season of Jupiter in Pisces, so stay safe out there. And if you're wondering, "Okay. Fine. Fuck. But when is this shit going to be over?" it's the wrong question. "When is this shit going to be over?" is the wrong question. The right question is, "What can I do now? Because right now it's happening." That's the right question.

Anyways, Jupiter in Pisces⁠ 'tis no joke. And that brings us to the very last thing happening in your horoscope, which is Mercury joins Venus and the Sun and ingresses into Scorpio. This transit can intensify communications, can make your thinking turn to things that are a lot more deep and intense, and for me, this is really right on time because what it means is that Mercury is supporting us⁠—it's aiding us⁠—in getting deeper with our thoughts, making sure that our relationships can hold deeper conversations, realness, a little bit of messiness. So that's Mercury in Scorpio for you.

Now, I'm going to run through the transits one more time. But if you have a hard time keeping up with what I'm saying, just wait 24 to 48 hours, and the full transcript is always available on my website for you to read if it's easier for you to process all the shit I'm saying that way. And while you're there, do not hesitate to read the little pro tips for how to get your question chosen as you're sending in a question to potentially get a reading with me here on the podcast. So, yeah, you can do all that over at ghostofapodcast.com.

So, on the 23rd, we have both the Sun and Venus ingressing into Scorpio. On the 25th, we have a Solar Eclipse at 3:49 a.m. Pacific Time, and it's happening at 2 degrees of Scorpio. On the 26th, Mercury is exactly trine to Mars. On the 27th, Mercury is exactly square Pluto, and Jupiter retrogrades back into Pisces from Aries for a few months. And on the 29th, Mercury joins Venus and the Sun ingressing into Scorpio. And that's it. That's it, my loves.

This Solar Eclipse time is a big topic. So, if you're feeling big feelings, if you're overwhelmed, if you're just easily triggered, if you're feeling a little fragile⁠—the situations of your life feel a little chaotic⁠—yeah, that's Eclipse season for you. Do your best to not pair narratives to your feelings. The astrology of this time tells us that it's stormy weather. It's not your fault that it's stormy weather. It's not some failure of yours in any way that it's stormy weather and that you're feeling stormy inside. Let yourself get a little messy. Let yourself feel hard-to-feel feelings and engage with difficult situations. That's what we're meant to be doing now. Healing isn't pretty, and being spiritual isn't meant to take us away from the messy, funky shit that happens in life. But it's meant to be a resource for staying connected to ourselves and to our best parts.

As you know, your individual wellness is interwoven with the wellness of others. And self-care is so important, and it's important not only because you're important but also because it empowers you to show up in the world in a way that helps you to be part of what the world needs. In this intense time, be kind to yourself and others. And if you want more support and help around this, I drop lots of content on my Patreon. You can go and learn with me. I have some classes for sale on my website. Or you can just kind of unplug from everything and sit with your emotions and just be for a minute. Just take care of you.

All right, my loves. Thank you for joining me, and I will talk to you next week. Buh-bye.