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: Are you ready to do a thing?

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: Ready to do a thing? Cogey, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited I get to give you a reading.

Cogey: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to connect with you and to get a reading. I feel like this is—I don't deserve this.

Jessica: No, you do, because your videos are, like⁠—first of all, I'm really uptight and weird about astrology content in general, like fun astrology content. But yours is flawless, like chef's kiss flawless.

Cogey: Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome.

Cogey: I try. I am by no means an astrologer. I would never, ever call myself one. I just fuck with astrology. I love astrology. It's so much fun. And I feel like I know enough about it to make fun and to poke fun because there are some telltale things about certain aspects and placements and things like that that are pretty undeniable.

Jessica: Agreed.

Cogey: But thank you. I appreciate it.

Jessica: I appreciate you.

Cogey: And I have such an appreciation for what you do. You go so in depth, and your⁠—oh my God. We need to connect and we need to collab. Okay. Everyone listening, there's going to be a collab in the future. Jessica does this little⁠—

Jessica: [The Moon dudes 00:01:25].

Cogey: The planet⁠—yeah. The Moon and Mercury and Mars, Saturn⁠—all of it. We have to do it. It'll be a collab of the century.

Jessica: The collab of the century. But before that happens, let's get completely into you. Before I ask you what your question is, I'm going to share your birth information, which is you were born May 13, 1988, the first year of my mullet, in Anaheim, California. I always think of '87/'88 as my mullet years. So, whenever I meet somebody born in those years, I think, "You should have seen the mullet I worked in those years." Anyways, what are we going to do a reading about?

Cogey: Well, I feel like I'm at this strange place where I have⁠—I was an actor for a really long time. I auditioned, and I pursued that, and the doors didn't kind of open up for me. And then, once I took matters into my own hands and started making my own content, things started happening. And so now things are happening, but I'm at this weird place because I have a lot of trauma that I went through about four years ago during my Saturn Return and stuff, and stuff that happened in my childhood, where I'm feeling like this place of⁠—a lack of passion, and I'm at a place of disempowerment where I don't feel empowered in my daily life and in my business situations and my creative life and things like that. And I would like to feel more empowered, and I kind of want to know what areas of my life will kind of make me feel more empowered.

Jessica: Interesting. Okay. I got questions of part of that.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: So one part of my question is did this feeling of just disempowerment and things being off start in the spring of this year, so around April of this year?

Cogey: I would say probably, yeah. I think, yeah, it was around March, actually.

Jessica: March. Okay.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: Yes.

Cogey: A lot of stuff started happening in March. I had a couple videos go really, really viral, and then the comments online kind of messed with my head about my appearance and my general being, my presence, and stuff like that. And I feel like I kind of lost a lot of that during that time, actually.

Jessica: I'm sorry. Yeah. So I want to say, first of all, I hear you. The internet is so mean.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: It's just so mean. But let me tell you what started at that time. First, I want to say when I was preparing your chart⁠—you're a Taurus. You've got a Cancer Rising. You have an Aries Moon. So, for you, there is this Taurean temptation that is kind of bolstered by your Moon and Rising to want to⁠—like, "This is my path. This is what I'm doing. I'm going to do it."

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: "I'm just going to stick with it." But when you do that in life⁠—not just now, not just with your career⁠—it looks like you have a tendency to hit a wall where you're like, "But am I free? But am I free?" And that's because you have a Saturn/Uranus conjunction that's opposite to all kinds of things in your chart. And this is part of a larger theme that you struggle with around security versus real freedom of movement.

Cogey: Truly.

Jessica: And it's so hard because on top of everything else, you're a fucking Taurus. So Taurus is like, "The answer is security. I've got the answer. It's security." So you get what you want, right? So you create these videos, and one or a couple goes viral. And then you're like, "Oh, and here's the whole picture of what it means, not just a piece." So I just wanted to kind of give you that broad picture of you. We're going to come back to that.

But what started in the spring⁠—the reason why I knew it happened in the spring is because Saturn started to both sit on top of your Mars⁠—which only happens once every 29 years⁠, so this is your first adult experience of it⁠—and it started to square your Sun. These two transits are so demoralizing. They make you feel like the weight of the world is sitting on top of you. And to be clear, Mars is your ego and Sun is your will. And so I imagine whatever effects those comments and that situation had on you made you feel like you lost track of yourself in a major way.

Cogey: I feel like⁠—yeah. I mean, I didn't think that I would ever be affected. But you see thousands of comments kind of making fun of the way that you look and comparing you to people that you don't want to be compared to, and it does do a number on your head. I do feel a little bit recovered from that. I feel like because that was kind of traumatic, because I had never experienced the volume of comments in that capacity before, I do feel like I am taking everything else with stride because my capacity for pain is quite larger now. And so everything else⁠—

Jessica: Complicated.

Cogey: Yeah. Everything else by comparison of that first time feels smaller and doesn't bother me as much. But yeah, I do feel like that was kind of like the start of feeling a little less passion for creating videos online. Yeah.

Jessica: So let me give you a couple more details. So that transit has ebbed and flowed. You haven't experienced it since August, which is why you're feeling better. But it's coming back.

Cogey: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: So it's coming back December 28th through February 2nd.

Cogey: Oh. Fun.

Jessica: So fun. So fun. But this is the thing. We are, in this exact moment, talking about the shit side, but the reason why the shit happened is because you achieved a certain level of fame and acclaim, and you had so many people aware of you and engaging with you. So it's also about success. But being successful at something doesn't mean it makes you happy. It just means you're successful. And so there's the larger theme here astrologically. It's the closure of a 29-year cycle of your ego development, of your identity around, "What do I want to do and how do I want to do it?"

And when we hit a closure, what often happens is you come to this state of either everything falls apart or it comes together. And for you, it came together. You achieved. And then you have to deal with the consequences, and from that, you make a decision about whether or not you still want what you wanted. And that's really hard. And the Saturn square to the Sun does something kind of similar. It challenges your identity and your sense of self by putting you in a situation where you are run by scarcity and fear or where there is an actual lack. And for you, it wasn't a lack. It was too much crap, right?

I knew by prepping your chart that we were going to talk about, in a meaningful way, on some level or another⁠—and I'm imagining this is playing out in different areas of your life⁠—that you are needing to make some choices, and they don't have to be written-in-stone choices, but some choices about what direction you want to take and how you want to take that direction. Because you've got that Aries Moon, because you have a Sun/Mars square in your birth chart and a few other things, you have a tendency to be like, "I'm going to do it, and that means I'm going to do it. And when I do it, I'm going to do it." Does that feel like a good paraphrase?

Cogey: You do not even know. My first word was "no." So yes.

Jessica: That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's like that Sun square to Mars is so willful. It's so willful. And it's great until you hit a place where you're in any way confused about what to do or you've outgrown doing everything on your own, right?

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: And so you're dealing with both of those things. I mean, I cannot be the first person to say don't read the comments.

Cogey: I have stopped reading the comments on TikTok because those tend to be a little bit more harmful for me.

Jessica: So mean.

Cogey: But the Instagram comments are generally okay.

Jessica: Yeah.

Cogey: I've learned to block and delete. That's the healthiest thing for me to do. If it's out of sight, out of mind. You know?

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda Seales says blocked and blessed. Be blocked and blessed.

Cogey: Blocked and blessed. I love that.

Jessica: Every time I block a person, I'm like, "Blocked and blessed. Have a nice day. Thank you very much." So, around the end of the year or the start of the year, I wouldn't be surprised if you had another experience. And so that's cool because it means something that you do will be very successful. Are you having something come out around that time that you're aware of?

Cogey: I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of things. I'm actually filming a bunch of stuff tonight, so maybe something will come from that. I've been having a lot of bursts of random inspiration lately, which makes me feel so happy because it's been a long time since I've felt that kind of passion for things. It's funny that you bring this up. In August specifically, I made a choice, and I thought, "You know what? I'm going to heal my trauma. I'm going to heal my trauma." So I hired an actual psychologist to help me kind of unpack a lot of my childhood trauma, a lot of the stuff that's happened to me. And at first, I was going about it like, "Okay. How are we going to do this? How are we going to heal this? I've got a hammer. I'm ready."

But when everything looks like a nail, or that whole saying with the hammer and whatnot⁠—but I've realized that healing is about a softness. It's about a bringing in softness, which is so, as you've seen, anti everything that I'm about. But I am making a conscious decision now. I feel like I need to bring more of that softness into my content, into the stuff that I create, to try to make people feel seen, keep it funny, keep it light, you know, all the stuff that I do best and that I think I do best, but bring more of a positive, more self-affirming kind of narrative, too, something like that. So I'm struggling with that at the moment, but I'm trying to consciously do that⁠—

Jessica: I love that.

Cogey: ⁠—because of that whole thing since August.

Jessica: Okay. So that is wonderful. And what this period has been trying to get you to do is mature. And it's very hard for any of us with trauma in our history to step into the kind of maturity that happens in your mid-30s onwards without engaging with our trauma⁠—not just the pain, but the beliefs we've taken in and on that limit us. Are you still in contact with your family?

Cogey: So there was some estrangement. My family is very compartmentalized. I'll say that. It's compartmentalized. I have a really good relationship with two of my brothers, but my older brother⁠—we don't have a good relationship. And things are pretty weird with my dad right now. And then my mom and I were pretty estranged, and then she passed away in 2021.

Jessica: I'm sorry.

Cogey: Yeah. Yeah. But we were really close before that, so it's been hard.

Jessica: Yeah. Was there some mental illness on her side?

Cogey: There is mental illness on both sides. Alcoholism runs in my mother's side, and the depression runs in my father's side.

Jessica: Okay. So that tells me where in the chart we are. So this configuration of planets, your little tiny Gemini stellium there, is Mom's side. And then we look at the Capricorn stuff for your dad's side. I want to let you know that the therapy that you're engaged in is exactly what you're supposed to be doing because from what I'm seeing in your birth chart, the bulk of trauma from your childhood⁠—do you mind if I ask questions about it or we talk about it?

Cogey: It's totally fine with me.

Jessica: It's fine. Okay. Great, because I'm tiptoeing around it. Was it gender-based?

Cogey: I think it was. Yeah, I think, because a lot of the things that I experienced⁠—I was a scapegoat child, if anyone is familiar with that. So a lot of the things that I endured my brothers didn't have to endure. So I did feel really isolated in that. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It looks like, in your chart, because you have Chiron conjunct Venus and back in the twelfth house but hugging the Ascendant—you also have Mercury intercepted the twelfth house in Gemini⁠—it looks like it was very gender focused. It was like what kind of a girl you were, what you got punished for, what you got praised for. And unfortunately, it looks like the fact that you're highly verbal, you're a big thinker, a big processor externally, and your huge personality is written all over your chart⁠—it was not safe in your family growing up. That was not a dynamic that was like, "Yeah you. Go, girl." That was not your childhood situation.

Cogey: It's quite literally what I'm unpacking right now, this how to connect back with that. Because of my Aries Moon, I feel like I am predisposed to be that way because of those placements and stuff. And I feel like that was never encouraged, but that's just so much of who I am.

Jessica: It is who you are. And having intercepted planets, what that tells me is that a lot of this has to do with your mom and her struggles with herself and the people that she chose to be around and how she reacted to you. So she repressed herself. She repressed her thoughts. She repressed her attitudes. She was victimized, it looks like, in her own childhood and didn't fully heal from that⁠—I mean, fully heal⁠—who fully heals? But she was in active struggle with that when you were young, and so you triggered the hell out of her.

Cogey: I think so. I do think so. I really do think so. She was a Leo Sun/Libra Moon. Her Venus was in Virgo, so it was just her nature to be kind of critical.

Jessica: Yeah. That's generous. And were your parents together when you were growing up?

Cogey: Until I was 13, yeah.

Jessica: Okay, so for a lot of your childhood, because your dad⁠—we can't let him off the hook. He's like a hot/cold icy pack, this guy. He can be quite punishing. When he shines his light on you, it's so rewarding. Am I seeing him correctly?

Cogey: Leo Sun/Pisces Moon, so⁠—

Jessica: Okay. Yeah.

Cogey: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. And are you the youngest?

Cogey: I'm the middle child.

Jessica: Middle child. Okay.

Cogey: So older brother, and then twin younger brothers.

Jessica: I see. Okay, because it looks like⁠—listen. You were loved.

Cogey: Yeah. Yes.

Jessica: That's actually not the issue. Yeah. And so many people actually don't get loved by their parents, and so many people, the way they're loved, it doesn't feel like love. In your childhood, it looks like at times, the way your parents expressed love felt like love to you, and at times, it did not. And that is a mindfuck that is really hard for you, especially as such a Venusian person⁠—Sun in Taurus, Venus on the rise, Cancer Rising. So you're really good at making people feel nice, at making people feel chill around you. And that's a skill you learned, and it actually is⁠—I mean, I don't want you to have less of that skill, but it's a skill you don't need to continue to learn.

Instead, what I'm saying is kind of central to your healing process now is giving yourself permission to not want to talk, giving yourself permission to be bitchy, giving yourself permission to be where you're at, because there is this way that it looks like⁠ your voice is so strong, but it's also very, very intuitive. And so, sometimes, when you're like, "I need to be loud. I need to be all over the place," it's because you're responding to the energy in a room. And so the people in the room might be like, "That's too much. You're actually embodying the thing that I'm trying to repress." And this is kind of like a thing for you.

And so giving yourself enough personal space to process through what you're feeling is an important thing because it looks like you have a tendency to act, say, do, and then check with people before you check with yourself.

Cogey: Absolutely. The people-pleasing thing is something I am trying to leave in the past at this particular point in my life because I do realize that it's in my chart. It's in my upbringing. It's just in my trauma.

Jessica: All of it. 

Cogey: It's so much. Yeah.

Jessica: It's all of it. And it is directly related to your career, actually, because you have this Mercury buried in the twelfth house and in an interception, but it squares your Midheaven really tight, and it squares your North Node as well. And what this means is that, yeah, acting⁠—yeah. That makes sense, acting, for sure. Writing your own script and acting? Fuck yeah, that's what you're doing, and that's what's working. That's the thing that's working.

Cogey: Right. Right.

Jessica: And so I imagine that⁠—and I know nothing about acting. It's not my world at all. But on shows like⁠—fuck, what was it⁠—you know, Larry David, where the actors kind of script as they go⁠—they speak their own lines⁠—isn't that show⁠—wasn't that [crosstalk]⁠—

Cogey: Improv. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Oh my God. The word "improv" did not occur to me. Yes. Improv is really like your magic place. Having a hand in the script and in character development is where you shine. I think, from what I'm looking at in your birth chart, you can act. It's not like you can't just do a script and do a character. You absolutely can and do it well. But where your magic, your true magic is, is having a hand in the script. And so I'm not surprised that self-publishing videos is where you're exploding into the world, because it's your words, eh? You're writing everything, eh?

Cogey: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the⁠—it's so funny. This is so funny. Okay. So back up. When I was acting, all throughout my 20s, I was going up for commercials and television. Most of the time, they have you come in the room. They look at you. They have you show the back of your hands, the front of your hands. You turn side to side, and then bye-bye you go.

Jessica: Is that real?

Cogey: It's real.

Jessica: Like if you're going in to get your mug shot taken?

Cogey: You're going for a Samsung commercial or something like that. They don't want to talk to you. They don't want you to open your mouth. They don't care. They just want to see what you look like and stuff. And I would always walk away thinking, "I have so much more I can bring to the table here." And so this is just very fateful that this is how it's all happening because I just always thought my power comes within my own voice.

Jessica: Agreed 700 percent. And this is where I want to talk about Chiron for a moment. Chiron is the wounded healer. And you fuck with astrology, so you know about Chiron a bit, eh?

Cogey: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Chiron is the wounded healer, and it sits very close to your Venus, and it's conjunct your Rising sign. It's not conjunct your Mercury, but it's close. And having Chiron in this really strong place, it is an indicator⁠—it's one of the few indicators in your birth chart⁠—that there has always been a cost to you for using your voice. It's also the thing that makes you you. It's also your greatest asset. And so I don't know that there's any other way that it could go for you than to find real success through using your voice and that using your voice would trigger your trauma to come back up in the stuff you thought, like, "Oh, I haven't really thought about that part," or, "I thought I already worked that shit out."

And the more you use your voice, I imagine the more this stuff is going to come up so it can come out of you. I will say that this is leading up to something that's not going to begin until April 4th of 2024. I don't usually predict a year-plus in the future, but for you in this situation, I will. And it's because what's going to happen then is Neptune is going to square your Venus. It's currently squaring your Chiron, actually. And what this period is doing, but especially the Neptune square Venus, is it's going to bring you opportunities to act. And they're not all going to be good for you, but they might all be good. And you're not going to be able to know the difference unless you do this work that you're doing now, now. Do you know what I mean?

Cogey: Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Right? Yeah.

Jessica: Thank you. Yes. Well played. And so the work for you in this period is finding your no. It's embracing your no. I love that video that you do. And it's also allowing yourself to feel bad about it sometimes because there's this way that it looks like you've been given this messaging: either you have no remorse and you say what needs to be said, or you say nothing and you suck it up. But it doesn't have to be either/or. You can feel messy and sticky and also say no emphatically and clearly. You can do them both at once.

And I think that's where you're likely to be in this incarnation of your Saturn transits, is being with the feelings even when they're shitty and doing what needs to be done for you. Now, I will say there's two conversations we're having here, right? One is really about healing trauma, finding your voice, finding yourself, and another one is about your career. And I want to say about your career⁠—I was trying to not say "acting" because it's not exclusive to acting. Acting before the internet was trying out for a part and either getting it or not. But now, at this stage of the internet, acting is much, much broader.

Your Midheaven in Pisces with the North Node conjunction tells me that being on screen and embodying⁠—"characters" is too small of a word, but it's the one I got, so I'm going to just use it. That's what you're here to do. That really makes sense to you, and you do it because it's like a way to access parts of you. The fact that you have taken it in definitely comedy and fun but also like a healing and an empowering⁠—like a message-based, I guess, is the way to say it⁠—a message-based direction is articulated by your Gemini stellium touching that Midheaven/North Node stuff. It's so much of your calling.

So that doesn't mean you're not going to get more into traditional acting. You might⁠—very likely. But this is your happy place, and so I want to encourage you to never abandon it⁠—not to abandon it forever; if you move away from it, to remember to come back to it because this is just like a real joy for you. I wouldn't be shocked if you directed at some point, too. Is that on your list?

Cogey: Yeah. No. Okay. So my partner and I have a video production company. That's like my day hustle.

Jessica: Oh shit. Okay.

Cogey: He's pretty reserved, and he relies on me to do the bossy directing and stuff like that. And it's⁠—oh my God⁠—so funny. When I was a kid, I would read books. I was an avid reader when I was a child. And then I'd be really inspired by the books, so then I'd have whatever friend was coming over that day reenact the book with me. I'd tell them their character and their motivations, and, "This is what we're going to act out today," and then we'd replay the whole scene from the book. And so I've been a director from the start, I guess.

Jessica: OMG. Okay. That is perfect, and that is your Sun/Mars square. It's not just your Aries Moon. It is the Sun/Mars square.

Cogey: Oh gosh.

Jessica: Aries Moon on its own won't do that to you. But the directing piece is⁠—it looks really big, so I'm glad you're already doing it. But I think it's likely to get bigger. I see that whether or not you have a drive towards fame, which I'm not shitting on, it's not the point for you. For you, it's about having a creative life where you are message-based. And so⁠—I don't know. I see you doing that, like not just you have done it, but I see that you're going to do that. It's just going to shift and flow. So the key is⁠—I think it's to be in charge, I gotta say.

Cogey: Oh my God. Well, then I'll work on my delegation skills because I'm not very good at that.

Jessica: Yeah. It looks like you have this instinctive, "I could just do it quicker if I just did it." Explaining it to people or having to correct people⁠—it's too complicated for you because⁠—are you needing day-to-day operations support or bigger support?

Cogey: Oh Lord. It's the day-to-day stuff. The bigger in-action stuff I'm really good with. I'm good on cue. I'm good when it comes to the time of. I'm really great in a crisis. Give me an earthquake; I will instruct everyone. But the day-to-day stuff escapes me completely.

Jessica: That's what it looks like. So that's your⁠—you have Sagittarius intercepted your sixth house, and also, you have Uranus in the sixth house. So, for you, it's details. You're sloppy. You're like, "Let's go to the next big thing," and it's really hard for you to stay with all the details. You also go into this mode where you're like, "It's going to be fine. I'll get it later," and then that's how things get lost.

Cogey: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Therefore, what I would recommend is having one of your most meticulous and annoying friends sit down with you and help you write out everything you hate doing and everything you consistently don't do well, and then create a job description out of that. And find somebody who authentically loves it, somebody who is an actual Virgo, like an actual Virgo, like 700 planets in Virgo or something, because I think you sometimes get twisted up on what you're not doing, as it's like a habit of yours. Even though it's not that big a deal, it's like a Mercurial habit that you have to fixate on what you're not getting done. So this would really help.

Cogey: My journal is filled with shoulds, shoulds all over the place.

Jessica: So let's talk about this for a second here. Classic of your generation, you've got Saturn and Uranus sitting on top of each other. They're close to Neptune, but you were born in '88, not '90, so it's a little further away. So we're just talking about Saturn and Uranus conjoined. And what this placement means is that you give yourself freedom and then you punish yourself for it later, or you create security and stability and consistency, and then you're fucking itchy all the time, right? It's very hard for you to figure out what is the sweet spot between these things.

And a lot of times, what it has to do with is having the right kind of support and not doing everything on your own. This is very difficult for people with this placement, in particular a Capricorn. But that's the move. That's the thing that I would say is really important for you, and it might be something that is a part of your life just period. But the more comfortable you get with having certain mistakes that are okay to make and then having support for things that are just not your strength because other things are your strength⁠—that is actually incredibly liberating for you and for your birth chart because this Chiron/Venus conjunction you have is opposite your Saturn/Uranus. It's out of sign but opposite.

And so there's this part of you, the Gemini/Cancer Rising part, that says, "I'm nice. I do everything. Don't worry. I've got this. Everything's fine." And then Saturn and Uranus in Capricorn are like, "I have to do it perfectly, or it's wrong. I have to prove it. I don't want to be a burden on anyone." These kinds of attitudes reinforce each other, but they're coming from really different places. And this is like one of those habits that you have that is really high-functioning in the world, and other people probably really like it about you, but it gets more and more destructive over time. And the bigger you get⁠—

Cogey: For me personally. Yes.

Jessica: For you. Not for anyone else. Well, maybe for your boyfriend. I don't know. But for you, it is definitely not⁠—it's not sustainable. And the bigger your life gets, the less sustainable this pattern gets, right? When I look at your chart and I look at⁠—okay, your 20s, just fucking like banging your head against a wall, not being able to get jobs⁠—I can't help but say thank God that happened because if that hadn't⁠—

Cogey: Same.

Jessica: Right?

Cogey: Yeah. Same.

Jessica: If it hadn't happened, you wouldn't have found this.

Cogey: I wouldn't have had this hunger and this drive to see that, well, those people don't want what I have to offer, so I need to make what I have to offer happen for me. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Absolutely.

Cogey: I have these dualities within me that⁠—like I want help, but I don't know how to ask for help. And I want to collaborate, but I'm unhappy with collaborations most of the time and stuff because I think I can do it myself⁠—you know, that sort of thing. And so there is this overly self-reliant attitude that I have, that I've always had, that I know is not sustainable and I know I need help with managing myself, really. And yeah. This is just very affirming.

Jessica: So let me just speak a little bit more to the collaboration problem. So you have Neptune in the seventh house, and it sits opposite the Ascendant. And what this says is a lot of things, but the most important thing for me to tell you is that you're uncomfortable with boundaries. You feel like boundaries are mean. And so, even though you're bossy⁠—you're bossy. I mean, I feel like I fucking hate the term "bossy" for women personally, but you are a boss, and you are comfortable being assertive.

That Neptune⁠—when it comes to partnership, when it comes to one-on-one dynamic, when it's really personal like that, Neptune's like, "Oh, don't say it. You can just handle it. Just suck it up." So you may consent to things at the onset and try to be really easygoing and chill about things that you're actually not easygoing and chill about or you simply need to be more businesslike and less personal around. And you pick people who feel exciting to you, who you see a vision with, or who feel familiar to you. And the familiar ones are your problems, usually.

But if you can figure out how to be really clear, like, "Hey, just so we're clear, I need x and I need y. I'm really great at a and I'm terrible at b. What's your thing? Can you share your version of that with me?" that is a great place to start. Having boundaries is really important, and if you don't already, I would say friendly contracts. Do you do those?

Cogey: No. I don't even know what that means. Please. No, tell me. I'm so into this. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So a friendly contract is like let's say you're collaborating with somebody on making a video or whatever. If you're doing it with a big brand, they would send you a contract, right?

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: And you would sign that contract.

Cogey: Of course.

Jessica: Maybe you would negotiate that. Would you negotiate the contract?

Cogey: I would always negotiate the contract.

Jessica: Thank you. Okay. Good. Now, when you're collaborating with friends or peers, a lot of times, people don't do a contract. I'm not a fan of that. I love a contract. Let me tell you why: because that is when you get really clear about⁠—I call it R&R. Not rest and relaxation. No. Rights and responsibilities, because I'm a fucking Capricorn. So, for me, that's R&R. So it's like getting really clear about your rights and your responsibilities.

And if you're talking to somebody who's like, "I fucking hate contracts," immediately you know⁠—I mean, lots of people hate contracts, but immediately you know, "Oh, this person's going to be hard to talk about things with. And I'm already uncomfortable talking about things." Come up with a document of, "And here's my thing that I always send to people that I work with, and you tell me what you do and don't like. This is not like a contract contract, but it's a contract"⁠—you know?

Having a document where you're just outlining, "I'm not available on weekends," or, "I definitely want to own 50 percent of this, and when you use it, you don't have to get my sign-off," or, "We're making an agreement that if we use this thing we're making, we both give sign-off before it's used in public"⁠—little things and big things, put them in the thing, and then just sign it. And it doesn't have to be like legalese. Don't make it legalese. It's a friendly contract.

This will help you because what it is is boundaries. It's just boundaries. And it also reminds you that even if you are friends with the person you're working with or you want to be friends with the person you're working with, this is not what work is. Work is work. And so it's cool to be like, "Hey, let's just be clear about what work we're doing so that we don't fuck with the friendship." And if somebody is offended by that, they're definitely going to be somebody you have a problem with because you're going to give too much and feel bad about it.

Cogey: This is such a good idea. I feel like I've been in this place in my head where I feel like, "Well, I need to practice saying no, so I'm just going to say no to everything," recently. But this is a much softer way to go about not saying no exactly, but just defining what I'm okay with and what I'm not okay with. And that's the no.

Jessica: That's the no.

Cogey: Those are the nos. Yeah. Those are the nos, and that's like, "Okay. These are the yeses." You know? And so I feel like that's actually a very good idea. It would have never occurred to me.

Jessica: Well, I'm happy to help. And the other fun thing about it is that it lets people self-select out because some people are going to be like, "Yeah, this isn't for me," or, "I don't want to be locked into these agreements," and then they say no. Then you don't have to get rid of them; they get rid of you. And that's wonderful. And what it does over time⁠—you have so many twelfth-house planets; you've got this Pisces Midheaven⁠—is if you have whatever version of this, it will get you to start attracting and resonating with people who have boundaries, who respect boundaries, who are interested in the interplay of boundaries in creative dynamic because so much of creative dynamic⁠—it's bloody. It gets all over everything, and it's exciting that way.

But also, you can't live in creative collaboration. You have to be able to wash yourself off. And so I think the more that you can have your own boundaries and your clarity about what that looks like and where you're flexible and where you're not, the more people are going to organically be attracted to you that are on that same page. And the people who are not are going to be like, "No. She's not the one for me." That's what you want, actually. That's definitely what you want in your personal collaborations, like your personal professional ones.

There's something else that's coming up for me. Will you say your full name out loud?

Cogey: Cogey Marx.

Jessica: No. That's not your full name, is it?

Cogey: No. Well, I have a legal name, [redacted]. That's my legal name, [indiscernible 00:35:00] name. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Okay. Hold on. Okay. Hold on. Does your mother look really, really different than you?

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Is she a different race than you?

Cogey: Yeah. Well, she's white. She's really white.

Jessica: She's very white. She's very white. Okay. Do you want to try to check in with your mom?

Cogey: Oh my God. Is she⁠—you know what? I felt like the other night, she was trying to get through to me, and it felt so crazy to me. But yes, if you want.

Jessica: I mean, she's here. As soon as you said your government name, I saw your mom. But I was⁠—

Cogey: [crosstalk] cry, girl.

Jessica: I'm sorry. Do you need to get tissues?

Cogey: No. I'm okay.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. And I can't tell. Is she physically frail, or is that just kind of her nature, how she comes across?

Cogey: When she passed, she was very thin. She lost a lot of weight, and she, yeah, kind of shrunk a lot, too. So yeah.

Jessica: I'm sorry. And was it with her brain?

Cogey: It was colon cancer metastasized to everywhere.

Jessica: Everywhere. Okay. That's why. Okay. That's why I'm seeing it. And were you not talking to her at the end of her life?

Cogey: So it was very estranged. It was just really hard because I was married, and me and my mom were good, and we had been good for a long time. Things weren't always great when I was living with her, but then in my 20s, we became really close. We were best friends. And then I got married, and then my husband became very abusive physically, financially, emotionally.

Jessica: I'm sorry.

Cogey: It really just did a whole number on me. And so it culminated to this physical assault that happened in a public place. Someone saw it, called the police. He was arrested. He went to jail. And she didn't believe me.

Jessica: Oh.

Cogey: And so I had a really hard time with that. Yeah. And that was at the kind of tail end of⁠—I was her caretaker while she did her first round of chemo for eight months. And so it was like 24/7 care. And that was kind of the worst year of my entire life.

Jessica: I'm so sorry. And that was your Saturn Return.

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah.

Cogey: So when I say⁠—yeah.

Jessica: So, before I check in with her fully, do you know about her childhood? Do you know if she suffered through abuse in her childhood as well?

Cogey: She didn't like to talk about it too much. Her and her mom didn't get along very well from what I know. There was a lot of things that were unsaid. There were a lot of things that didn't ever get resolved between her mother, her father, and her. And her father passed away from alcoholism when she was 17, so she lost her dad pretty young. And then she moved away when she was 18, like the year after, and then just started a whole hippie-dippie life and stuff. And it was really fun, and that was her 20s. And then, in her 30s, she had us and⁠—you know. Yeah.

Jessica: Right. Right. When I look at your birth chart, it looks like she dealt with her own gender-based abuse as a young person. And that just is the first thing that comes up when you said she didn't believe you, is that it was her own trauma getting in the way. But bear with me. Your mom looks up to you. She's always looked up to you. She has this really intense love and respect for you, but she is a really⁠—feathery is the best way I can put it. She feels very anxious. She feels like kind of an anxious person. What she like that on the outside?

Cogey: She worried so much. She worried about everything.

Jessica: Everything.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: Everything, everything, everything. She reminds me of⁠—and I don't mean this in any kind of a derogatory way, but like a Chihuahua. You know how their heart rates are insane; they're just kind of going, going, going? Your mom has that vibe about her. And she just felt like you were just like an anvil from the get. You were just firm. You were just so yourself, and it's what she loved about you, and it was also really challenging for her because she tried to be like that, but she wasn't like that. I mean, I feel like if she was a millennial or younger, we might say she has an anxiety disorder. She had just really chronic nervousness.

But she⁠—hold on. Okay. I see what your mom is doing here. Bear with me. So your mom was really scared of confrontation.

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: And so she's settling into my body so that I can just feel what she feels and understand. Unfortunately, she's doing it from her cancer body, so it's a little physically painful. This is a very confusing situation. And you tell me if you want me to shut up or slow down or redirect, okay? She's obsessed with you, your biggest fan, in love with you. She feels kind of like girlfriends, like besties with you. She's also a little scared of you, and she feels incredibly guilty because she's showing me it was that situation, but it wasn't only that situation, that she did a few things that were undermining of you and she didn't think that that's what she was doing at the time. She really didn't understand, but she understands it now. Does this make sense?

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: And she's saying⁠—and I don't know if this is true, but she's saying she already knows that you've forgiven her. Have you?

Cogey: I think so. It's complicated in my heart.

Jessica: Of course. And I don't think forgiving someone⁠—if you have done that, I don't know that forgiving means not having pain and anger at times. I think it feels like this is part of her nature. She's so quick to weave a narrative where everything's okay. That's why I was like, "I don't know if this is actually true," because you're not angry with her like you don't want to talk to her; you don't want to see her anymore. And therefore, she says you've forgiven her, which I think is just, again, a bit of an oversimplification because she has a really hard time being in emotional, sticky nuance.

And I will say she is so relieved that I'm doing the talking so she doesn't have to do the talking. But I want to acknowledge the reason why I'm sharing that with you is because she does look for the easy way out of hard situations out of her own weakness and vulnerability, not out of being a dick.

Cogey: Yeah. Yeah. I guess I found some forgiveness there where I think that she came from a generation where you just don't say anything, and you just accept it, and you just move on, and you just keep on. And marriage is a vow, and you keep that and you stay married despite what happens and stuff. And I wouldn't accept it, and so I don't think she understood that. And that's not her fault, I don't think.

Jessica: It is and it isn't. She's responsible for what she did and didn't do, and also, there is context. I also think she didn't believe it because she didn't want to believe it, because it was too hard to believe it and feel. She did this not only in that one very serious situation; it looks like she did this in lots of smaller situations in your life where it was just the emotional cost of believing that the sky was blue was too high, so she was like, "The sky is pink." And this is kind of like a bit of her personality. Does that make sense? This is what I'm seeing of her. Does that make sense?

Cogey: Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Jessica: And it's really important for you to hear this⁠—according to me, not according to her⁠—because it wasn't exclusive to you. It wasn't personal and exclusive to you. This is what was wrong with her, not what was wrong with you. Your mother has been trying to get your attention because she knew we were going to talk, and she was trying to get your permission. It's weird. Does she always try to act like your friend more than your mom?

Cogey: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Okay, because she's like, "Girl, tell me if it's okay," kind of vibes instead of, "I'm your mom, and it's time, and I want to come in because I know you're connecting with a medium." And this is part of the problem, is that you are left having to be more of the parental figure. You're being understanding of her and her context more than the other way around. And I want to say it's okay to be angry about that. It's okay to be hurt about that. It's okay to call it bullshit. Your mom does not disagree, by the way.

It's just she's so habituated with how to be, and also, she does want to be better. But she doesn't have that thing that you have where you're like, "I'm going to force. I'm going to push myself. I'm going to make it happen." She doesn't have that thing in her. She tends to motivate herself through guilt a fair amount, which⁠—I'm not saying you don't do that, by the way. But I am saying it's taken her having perspective seeing your life. She's very, very proud of you. She's very impressed by you. She's very impressed by you. She's a fan of who you've chosen to be, really, truly.

And she's not saying, "Tell her I'm sorry." But what she is showing me is how⁠—okay. This is messy and complicated. Let me just make sure I'm hearing this right. She just got me real confused. Okay. So she told me something really vulnerable and then made me get turned around. So she's not ready. Hold on. Yeah. She did her best, and her best was not good enough. And she's saying that to you very clearly. She would tell herself that you were strong, so it was okay; you'd be fine. She really thought that was true. She did.

She understands now that that wasn't fair. She doesn't completely disagree with it, though, which is⁠—I mean, it would be cool if she was like, "You're my daughter, and I believe you're strong enough to take anything." But it's a little bit of a cop-out, too. It's like taking responsibility off her own shoulders for things that were her responsibility. So it's messy. And I want to just acknowledge what she's saying is loving and respectful, and it is reflecting growth. And also, you can still be upset about it because I imagine you've heard her say this before⁠—"You're strong enough. You can handle it," kind of thing.

Cogey: She's literally said those words to me, like, "Oh, your brothers, I don't know. But you, you're fine. You've got this. I didn't feel like I needed to guide you. I didn't feel like I needed to do that." I think one of the last conversations that we had was she did say that she tried her best and she was sorry that it wasn't good enough, but it was in a sarcastic kind of tone.

Jessica: Right. Right. This time, it wasn't sarcastic.

Cogey: Okay.

Jessica: It wasn't sarcastic, but it was not the full evolution we would love for her to have and not the full evolution that you deserve. And this is all a her-problem. And this her-problem creates problems for you, but it's not a you-problem. She's slipping a little into, "It's not fair. It's not fair that I treated you this way, but it's also not fair that I felt this way, and it's not fair"⁠—you know? It's hard for her to say, "I did wrong. I'm sorry. That was my bad," and end the sentence there. She has to add on. And this is why you would have cut her off. And this relationship with somebody who you loved so much and who loved you so much back⁠—the boundaries are fucked up. I mean, talk about boundary issues.

Cogey: There was no boundaries.

Jessica: No boundaries.

Cogey: There were no boundaries in our relationship. Yeah.

Jessica: And you're the big girl, and she's the little kid in this situation. And it makes sense to me how you would have a hard time selecting people who love you in a way that is safe. This is not a safe attitude. It's not like she went out of her way to harm you, but she did not go out of her way to protect you either. And that's definitely what we want from our parents. And I think when parents say, "I never have to worry about you," they think they're saying something really nice. But if you're saying it to a child, it's not. It's not really nice. Yeah. All kids need parenting.

So your mom does not disagree with any of this, and also, she floats off when things get too heavy or too real. So I want to just⁠—sorry. Let me just talk to her for a minute. Okay. Okay. So I don't usually do it this way, but I'm going to just tell you I just told her, "Come back. This is your chance. You don't get tons of chances like this. This is your chance. What you have to say?" So she instantly showed me this book. I don't know if it's something that you have of hers or if it's something that is yours. It looks like a journal, like that kind of a book.

Cogey: Okay.

Jessica: It's blue, and there's a flower on it. Do you know what I'm talking about? Is that anything that you own?

Cogey: A blue book with a flower on it? I have a couple journals that are blue. I have some that have flowers on them, I think. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. And I might be seeing blue and flowers⁠—if you happen to have four journals and two are blue and two have flowers, I might just be seeing your journals. I don't know.

Cogey: Okay. Yeah.

Jessica: This psychic stuff is not always literal, unfortunately. What she's showing me is that if you want her to show up and you want to talk to her, yell at her. It's okay. I'm saying that part; she's not, but she doesn't disagree. Anything⁠—good, bad, ugly. If you want to connect with her, just open up one of your journals. Just write in your journal, and say that you want to connect with her, and she will show up. I mean, your mother was right there. You said your government name; boom. Your mother was there.

I was not making a plan to pull her in, but she's like she was when she was alive, before things got bad. She's always around you. She's like, "Do you need me? Do you want me? Do you want me? Do you need me? What do we want to talk about?" She's just got that vibe. She just is around you. And she also understands that she's not invited in all the time, and she's respectful of that, I'm actually really happy to say.

Cogey: Okay. Good.

Jessica: And it doesn't hurt her feelings. It's not like she wants to be in more, but she wants you to know it's as simple as open your journal. Write her name. Say, "Hey, Mom, I want to talk to you right now, or I want to feel you right now," and she'll be there instantly⁠—like instantly, for better or worse.

Cogey: Yeah. It's so crazy because when she passed away, it was really the first time that I've lost someone really close to me because I'm not close to my father's grandparents, and they're still alive. But I never knew her parents. And so I have been so lucky and fortunate that I've never had anyone around me to pass away before my mom. But then there's two sides of that coin because that was so devastating. And I first went about it thinking, "Well, maybe you should show up and write something in the steam in my mirror, Mom. Show up as a ghost or something like that," you know?

I had this childlike kind of reaction to this where it's like, "Where are you?" I feel like that's the question that haunts everyone when they lose someone. It's like, where do they go? Where did you go? So this is very affirming because I constantly⁠—I have this emotional reaction, and I have a hard time, and I say, "Mom, where are you? I don't see you. I don't feel you. I don't know where you are." But I have written her a lot of letters, and I've written a lot of stuff in my journals about letters to her⁠—

Jessica: You do write your letters⁠—okay. So that must be why she's showing me that, because she's there. She knows. She's validating that. If you're already doing that, that's why she brought it up. The thing I want to say to you⁠—and this is not your mom; this is me⁠—is that calling your mom in is not always soothing, right? She's got Chihuahua vibes.

So, sometimes, if you call her in and you're feeling really sad, if you start to feel anxious, she's there, because you're not feeling your relationship. You're feeling her. That's not bad or good, but you might be feeling bereft and mourning and then call her in and then feel anxious, bereft, and mourning and be like, "Oh God. What's wrong?" But that actually might just be her presence.

Cogey: I feel that. I mean, yeah. I'm not typically an anxious person, but after my mom died, I started getting a lot of anxiety. So that could be⁠—I'm fine drawing that line in my head where it's like, "This isn't me. This is her."

Jessica: Yeah. Your mom's energy is very, very panicky vibes. She tiptoes around you because she doesn't want to screw anything up. So you know your mom when she's tiptoeing. You remember this about her, right? But she smiled through it and she joked through it, and everything was light and easy. But when you're just feeling her naked energy, the joking part doesn't come up. That's where you need a medium. You just get the energy, and the energy is that she's quite anxious.

And so, if you're grieving and you start to feel anxious, you can say to her, "Hey, Mom. I'm glad you're here. Hey, can you pull your energy back from me? Stay with me, but pull your energy back from my body," because what she did with me, I can tell you, as soon as I started to feel her, it felt like cancer. It felt like it was really in her brain, and that may have just been towards the end. But my immediate reaction was anxiety because I was like, "Oh my God. What's wrong with me?" And this all happened in an instant in your and my conversation.

But I'm a medium, so I know what that is. With you, you might feel weird pains in your body. You might have panicky emotions. And that's when you just say to her, "Mom, please pull back. Stay with me, but pull out of my body," because that's the easiest way for her. That's how she knows how to do it. And it's awful, honestly. It's terrible, and you definitely don't want it. You definitely don't want it. But this is your mom doing what she did in life. She's just like, "Let me consume you, and then we'll both feel good." That's just how she knows how to connect.

So, again, having these kinds of boundaries, I think, will help you in ways related to all the other parts of our conversation. You do talk to your father?

Cogey: Occasionally, yeah. Sometimes. It's been weird since my mom passed away. We were close before that, and then things got kind of weird.

Jessica: He can't take the responsibility.

Cogey: Yeah. That's⁠—

Jessica: He knew how to be a counterpart, even in divorce. It was like, "This is your mom problem, and I'm this role." But then when she created this void in your dynamic and he had the opposite response that we would have liked from him, where he was just like, "I can't fill this void. I'm going to go away," your mother's like, "That's what he did in our marriage."

Cogey: She can't let it go. She can't even let it go.

Jessica: No, she [crosstalk]. No. Absolutely, no. Never. Never. Uh-uh. No. Yeah.

Cogey: Wow.

Jessica: Well, I mean, things are never her fault. And also, she's not wrong about that. She's not wrong [crosstalk].

Cogey: I know she's not wrong.

Jessica: Okay.

Cogey: I know it.

Jessica: She's saying give him time and find new things to talk about, and it'll get better with him. You just have to find a thing with your dad that's like your thing to talk about. It has to be different than what it's ever been before. He's scared. Unfortunately, both your parents, they have this way that they give in to their fear and then kind of leave you holding the bag.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It sucks. I'm sorry.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: So she's really been paying attention to you since she passed. And she has been around.

Cogey: I know that.

Jessica: Yeah.

Cogey: Yeah. It's so crazy. I feel like this is so surreal. This feels like it's not even happening. I feel like sometimes I feel her, and it's this weird feeling that⁠—it's very cerebral. It feels like it's like a halt in my mind, like I can't even think or something.

Jessica: Yes.

Cogey: Yeah, like I don't have thoughts or something like that. And I feel the pain and I feel the grief and stuff, but then there's this halt in my thoughts, which is very abnormal for me because I'm a thinker. I think about everything. I sometimes wonder if that is my mom somewhere there.

Jessica: It is your mom.

Cogey: Yeah.

Jessica: You even saw that happen to me in this reading where I was just like, "Wait. I'm confused. I don't know what's happening." That's a good way of describing it. It's a halt in my thinking. I also don't have halts in the brains. So, yeah, it's definitely your mom. And this is the thing that's really hard⁠—there's a million things hard about bereavement, but one is when we feel our loved ones, we feel them as they are, not as they choose to show up, exactly. And your mom is like chaos. She's a lot of anxiety, a little bit of chaos. And so she comes in as anxiety or as a confusion. You can ask her to try to practice finding different ways of showing up. And she will be able to; it just will take her a minute. Ask her to warm you. Do you like being warm?

Cogey: Yeah. I'm always cold. That's the thing.

Jessica: Okay. Ask her to warm you.

Cogey: Okay.

Jessica: Yeah, because that is something that you can have you can both practice. I don't know if she can, but she just showed it to me. She showed me this warmth from around your head to just below your shoulders. She can kind of warm you a little bit instead of make you feel anxious. It's going to be a practice.

Cogey: Okay. Yeah.

Jessica: So you're going to have to have conversations with her. So don't get mad at me. Let me ask you something. I'm switching gears.

Cogey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica: What's your boyfriend's name? Because I want to make sure your boyfriend is okay. Can I be critical of your boyfriend? What is his name?

Cogey: His name is [redacted].

Jessica: I'm seeing it right he's white or white-ish, brown hair?

Cogey: He's very white. He's white with brown hair.

Jessica: Okay. He's white. He's white with brown hair. Okay. Great. I've got him. Does he play video games all the time?

Cogey: He's very computer-oriented.

Jessica: Okay. So he's just tinkering on the fucking computer all the time, yeah?

Cogey: All the time. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Is he in therapy?

Cogey: He's currently in therapy as well. Yeah.

Jessica: Great. Okay. Okay. Then I'm not mad at him, and I don't have to say too many things. As I'm seeing so deeply into your family and knowing the little bit you shared about being with an abusive guy, I wanted to make sure this guy wasn't like a silent danger. He doesn't look like it. Sometimes he's a boner. You know what I mean? He just gets lost in his own head, and he is a little bit hard to pull out.

Cogey: Yeah. [redacted] Mercury is in Taurus.

Jessica: Stubborn.

Cogey: So he's very slow with his words, and he's very stubborn. And he's also a Taurus Sun, and his Venus is in Taurus. So we've got that bull action.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, but you naming that he is slow with his words⁠—I mean, that's the biggest thing there, is that it takes him time to process what he's thinking. So it's easier to just focus on finite things, right, like computer programs or whatever, games or whatever.

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: And sometimes that's fine with you, and sometimes it makes you stabby and murdery, or a.k.a. sad and annoyed.

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: Luckily, that's showing up as the biggest problem is that sometimes taking his head out of his ass is labor. But I feel like you can midwife him. There's a certain kind of maleness that is a red flag to me. He has threads of this, but he⁠—when I look at him, I'm not worried. I'm critical because that's my job, but he's a good egg. He's a good egg.

Cogey: He has his own issues about making himself smaller and wanting me to be not as big as I am. And not in like a success way, because he is nothing but supportive of my success and he aids in that so much but doesn't want me to be angry and doesn't want me to go full Karen. Not that I should, but…

Jessica: Right. Right. No, but I⁠—you have a Sun/Mars square and an Aries Moon. You for sure will and do and will. And that's not wrong for you. It's not wrong for you. He feels like he can disappear, and when he is actively trying to disappear, you are triggered in 17 ways at once.

Cogey: Yes.

Jessica: It's like it always does the opposite that he wants it to do because you're like, "Oh, so I have to pull you out. Okay. Fine. I'll pull you out." And then he goes smaller, and you go bigger, and it's just like a whole thing. But I'm not scared of that problem. That's his problem with himself. That's your problem with yourself. Therefore, it's a good problem in a relationship.

Cogey: Yeah. I'm learning that I just need to go away. I need to go away and do something else when that happens.

Jessica: Let me throw something else at you as well. Yes. Yes, when you're activated. But I think being able to say to him, "Hey. I know you're doing something. I need attention. Do you have an idea of when you can give me that attention?" and he says, "In ten minutes," and then he inevitably does not fucking give you attention in ten minutes⁠—I see him, okay? I see him. So, when that happens, you can say, "You gave me your word. I really trust you. What's going on?" He doesn't want to be dishonest, and he doesn't want to be unreliable. He's just avoidant.

Cogey: He's a straight shooter. He's a straight shooter. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah, but he's an avoidant straight shooter, which means it turns him into being a liar sometimes. And you need to be with somebody who's not a fucking liar, even an unintentional liar.

Cogey: I understand [redacted] ten minutes is actually two hours.

Jessica: Yes. Because of how your mom was, you're very good at decoding other people, what they really mean. But you shouldn't have to in your close relationships.

Cogey: It's exhausting.

Jessica: You're not supposed to mommy everyone. That's not your job, actually. So you deserve to say to him, "Listen. I know when you say ten minutes, you mean two hours. But I want to trust you. And therefore, I need you to really think about, when you say ten minutes, do you mean two hours? Because then you need to fucking say two hours so that I'm not doing gymnastics trying to figure you out because that makes me more aggressive, and you don't want that. And I don't feel good when I'm doing it in that situation because I'm trying to take care of myself by figuring you out when you could just take care of yourself and tell me what you mean."

I'm really glad he's in therapy because with therapy, this guy could be chef's kiss. If he has a good therapist and he's actually doing the work, he could show all the way up because he's got things in common with your brothers and your dad, yes, but he's got things in common with your mom, and that's the concern.

Cogey: My mom would call it the sweep, sweep, sweep under the rug. I think that's it. I think that's what the commonality there is. Yeah.

Jessica: That is it. Yeah, and also the anxiety. He's anxious in a really different way than your mom, but he's really anxious. When we're in a state of anxiety, it's so hard to cope with that we often do shitty things to people that we love because we need them to just pretend we don't exist and just suck it up. And your mom did that to you. She did that to everyone in her life, not just you. And he does it, and it's triggering for you. It hurts your feelings, and it puts you in overdrive of being a people pleaser.

He has every right to feel anxious, but he doesn't have every right to leave you caretaking the relationship⁠—you, him, and the relationship⁠—when he feels anxious. He needs to get a little better at identifying, "Oh, I'm activated right now. I can't really engage, but you can shake me in 20 minutes because I won't know it's been 20 minutes." That's a great way to deal with it. He doesn't have to have the answer, but you shouldn't have to have it either.

Cogey: Absolutely. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. And your mother just⁠—sorry. She just came through. She just wants you to know how much he loves you. She loves you so much. Your mother loves you like⁠—

Cogey: Well, I love her, and I know that. And she's always been real big love. That's the thing, is my mom⁠—

Jessica: She is.

Cogey: ⁠—big, open arms, big love. And you talk about warmth? That's her. She was very warm.

Jessica: Very warm, very in love with you, and you were her best friend.

Cogey: She was mine.

Jessica: Yeah. She loves you so much, and yeah. And she's just really glad she got to talk to you. Yeah. So she started saying she really didn't want to go and that she really liked staying with me. And so I'm really showing her that she needs to go and she needs to get out of my space. And I'm not mad at her, and it's not punitive or anything like that. But I just want you to know that I'm having this conversation with her because you can have this conversation with her. It's okay to love someone and be like, "Okay. I'm going to get off the phone now." Do the same thing with a dead person because her energy is⁠—she just has a hard time with letting go. She doesn't like endings.

Cogey: Yeah. No, she has a hard time letting go. That's an understatement.

Jessica: She does, and she's like, "Oh. Okay. So I found somebody who can really help me to communicate with her, and so I don't want to let her go." And again, this is not something I usually talk through with people when I'm communicating with loved ones. But for you, I think it's really important because you're actively trying to figure out how to have boundaries right now. And now that you have a way to connect with your mom, you're going to have to immediately start dealing with a way to disconnect with your mom.

Cogey: This is incredibly helpful. I've spent the last year and a half trying to figure out how to connect with her because I don't know what that looks like. I'm such a visual person that visual things make sense to me. If I can see it, if I can read it, it's in my brain. But feelings are⁠—those things are very foreign to me. So, if she's showing up in a way that is a feeling, I'm obviously not going to understand what that is. But if I can put a name to that, that's extremely helpful.

Jessica: Great. I'm so glad. And I will say you have very little water in you, my friend. So little water. So little water in you. That is not shocking information that you shared. Now, do you have any final question, or did we kind of hit what we came to hit?

Cogey: Oh my gosh. This has been more than generous. You're incredible.

Jessica: You are wonderful. I thank you so much.

Cogey: No, thank you so much. You're wonderful. Right back at you.

My friends in astrology, there is so much to talk about this week. There's a lot going on. We're going to cover the dates of December 18th through the 24th of 2022. I want to name a couple things. The first is a lot of people around the world are celebrating holidays this week and next week. And if you are somebody who celebrates one of the many holidays that are happening over the next few weeks, which⁠—I feel like the whole world talks about them 24/7. I don't need to. You know what I'm talking about, right? But if you're somebody who celebrates these holidays or comes from a background where you celebrated these holidays, this can be a time of great joy, and this can be a time of loneliness, and everything in between.

And I just want to kind of acknowledge that⁠, that it's hard to have fun on command, and sometimes when we have a difficult time from our families⁠—we've lost our families through any number of means⁠—it can be a particularly emotional and isolating time. And so I just want to acknowledge that, and I want to acknowledge that one of the things that we're doing here week after week on Ghost of a Podcast is talking about astrology, giving you a horoscope, sure, but we're also talking about spirituality. And we're talking about ways of being connected to something as far away as other planets.

And when dealing with loneliness or existential crises, it can be really helpful to tap into your spirituality and to derive some comfort from it. And that might not work for you. It might not work for all people at all times. But it's something to consider, whether you're feeling loneliness in a room full of people or all on your own. I also want to acknowledge you if you're not somebody who celebrates any of the holidays or some of the loudest holidays of this season. It can be really overwhelming, all the pressure for everyone to have the same values, have the same background, do the same thing. So yeah. I'm just saying hey. I see you. I feel you. There we are.

And connected to all of this, in the background of all of this, is COVID. I mean, I don't want to be a boner killer, even though⁠—I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty good at it. But COVID is spiking here in the U.S., many parts of the U.S. And in regards to what's happening in China, if you can think back to the worst early days of COVID, many parts of China are dealing with similar conditions right now in the context of COVID. They went from zero COVID to a freefall into COVID infections, just really, really intense.

I have so much empathy for people there who are sick and struggling and have loved ones who are sick and struggling, and I want to gently yet firmly remind you that this is a global pandemic. What happens in regions far away from us directly impacts us, as this disease, this highly contagious airborne disease, will mutate. They're expecting millions of people to be infected in the next couple of weeks. As that happens, the disease will inevitably mutate. There will be new variants, and we can and should not expect that these variants will stay away from other regions and that they will be better than the variants we've had before. We have no way of knowing what will happen.

Maybe it will be super chill. Right? Maybe there's nothing to worry about here. But if you weren't already masking, this would be a little extra incentive for you to mask, not just to protect yourself and protect your friends and family, but also in consideration of the fact that this is a global situation, so this is a good moment to act like a global citizen. Regardless of the strains, masking helps. It's our best line of defense. And I know so many of⁠—all of us. All of us are burned out. None of us want to be wearing masks. Some of us are doing it anyways. Some of us are not.

But I do want to gently, passionately⁠—firmly but gently⁠—call you in and say mask up, because this is a time where people travel and spend a lot of time indoors with other human faces, faces with noses and circulated air. So take care of yourself. Take care of others, even if it's annoying to the people you're around. You know what I mean? Do what's got to be done, because this is a unique set of circumstances, my friend, a unique set of circumstances.

And while this is happening, we have this larger astrological backdrop of Retrogrades. I don't know about you, but I am really feeling the Mercury Retrograde Shadow, the Retroshade. It won't go Retrograde until the 29th, so next week. But I've been feeling it the last week for sure, and I wonder if you have as well. When we're in the Retroshade, communication gets wonky. Technology gets wonky. The exchange of ideas, our ability to communicate and to really properly listen or understand what's being said⁠—all these things get wonkified during the Retroshade. So it's not full Retrograde vibes, but it's not not-Retrograde vibes.

And this is happening at the same time as Mars is Retrograde. Now, Mars is going to be Retrograde through the next month. And it likely is kicking up emotions and emotions that are difficult to deal with⁠—anger, passions, defensiveness, ambition⁠—things that are not inherently bad, but they're difficult for a lot of us to handle in a healthy way and a balanced way. So misunderstandings, things not quite going according to plan, with the Mercury Retroshade paired with that Mars Retrograde, where our external ambitions are unlikely to be going the way we want and that's making us feel some damn feelings⁠—it's a messy situation.

Choose your battles with great intention and care. I'm a big fan of battles, but we don't want to just fight because of a feeling. We don't want to just fight out of defensiveness or fight in any kind of way, whether that's passive aggressively or with cruelty. You want to fight for something, and you want to fight in a way that advances⁠—whether it's your needs, your safety, the needs and welfare of others, whatever it is. But it's a lot of energy, and it's a lot of kind of all-over-the-place energy that is requiring us to look within and to keep on looking within.

So just because you're in a room full of dicks doesn't mean you should be a dick. For a lot of us, a lot of the time, that's what we do. We just kind of go with that kind of flow. But this is an important time to make sure that the way you're acting, what you're choosing to do, what you're engaging with, is a reflection of what's authentic for you. And luckily, a lot of people get really oriented in this direction, thinking about, "New year, new me." And a lot of people reflect at the end of the year about the year previous. And so this is a good time to tap into this Retrograde/Retroshady vibe and make use of it.

Okay. So let's get into your horoscope. Like I said, we're looking at the 18th through the 24th of 2022. And we start off on the 19th of December. Okay. So the 19th has two transits happening. Venus is forming a square the Chiron while Mars is forming a sextile the Chiron. So they're kind of upending each other a little bit here. But here's the thing. When we're dealing with Chiron, we are dealing with parts of ourselves that we really don't know how to heal, parts of ourselves that feel impossible to make progress with, unfortunately.

And having a Venus square to Chiron can kick up those dynamics in our relationships, making you have to deal with some dynamic with a person, whether it's in your life or in your memories in your head⁠—it could be happening on any level. It could be your frenemy. It could be somebody that you have a fixation on online⁠—and fixating on them in a way that reinforces a belief that you hold about yourself that is really painful. Whether it's true or not, it's painful. So be on the lookout for being triggered in your relationships or being in relationship with someone else who gets triggered, because remember this could happen to you or it can happen at you or around you.

So, if you're feeling unlovable, if you're not feeling loved, it's the transit. And what I want to encourage you to do is to check in with old beliefs based on core experiences or core memories, and understand that whatever is happening now, whatever is being triggered within you now, is happening so that you can heal. And healing is not fixing. Healing isn't scrubbing the slate clean. It's healing. Have you ever broken a bone? Healing a bone is a long and arduous, sometimes painful or itchy process. So that's healing for you. It's uncomfortable, and it's a little slow a lot of the time.

So having a small insight, a subtle shift, a little bit of progress or something more dramatic, is all meaningful signs of healing. And it is wise to do your best to bring about healing in the ways that you can and also to validate and to notice and appreciate the progress you are making, the progress you have made, again, no matter how small.

Now, at the same time as this Venus square to Chiron, we have Mars forming a sextile to Chiron. And this is very helpful to the Venus square to Chiron. So what it means in the context of the fact that Venus is square to Chiron is that Mars is bringing energy through the body, through the ego, to cope with whatever it is that comes up. And some people hear "ego," and they think bad. I do not have a negative association with the ego. The ego is a part of the human experience, and we're really wrestling with our ego with this Mars Retrograde, right?

But we often need to have a better-balanced ego. So, when we're dealing with something Venusian, which can be really like, "No, not me. You. What do you need?" kind of vibes, Mars is like, "Actually, I need to be centered here. I need to figure out what I need and what I can offer." Luckily, the Mars/Chiron sextile is very supportive in that. So, basically, stay in your body. Honor your body. And if you can and if it feels appropriate, move your body because this will help you to cope with whatever relationship issues are coming up.

Now, I should say whenever we're dealing with Venus, it's not just interpersonal relationships. It's our relationship to ourself, to our finances, and to our body image⁠—sometimes to gender, depending. Mars and Venus are both gendery planets, and we all have Venus and we all have Mars in our chart. So it's not boys and girls. It's just the experience and expression of how we feel within our gender, which is a multileveled experience.

Okay. So, on the 20th, Jupiter moves back into Aries. So it's been in Pisces for a little while, and it moves back into Aries. It's not going to spend too much time here, but let me give you a refresher on what it's about. Jupiter is all about expansion and growth, while Aries is all about making things happen. It's a pioneering sign, and it's a fire sign that wants to blaze a path ahead. So there's really great things that Jupiter in Aries can bring, and then there are some challenging things that it can bring.

But I want to just remind you Jupiter was already in the sign of Aries this year from May 10th until October 28th, and now it's back. So you already have a sense of what it's going to feel like. But this transit can bring us spread. It can bring us an idea, COVID. It can bring us something just catching fire, which can be a really wonderful thing if that thing is related to progress or advancement, and it can be a not-so-wonderful thing if it's something that we don't want to spread.

This is a great transit for bold action. But we know it's a Retrograde/Retroshady season right now, and so we're not going to go bonkers with external action. We're going to be more focused on looking at our motivations, reconciling the past, turning inward and doing that kind of work. And honestly, it takes a lot of bravery to do that, which Aries is all about. This transit is a really important shift in energy. It can give us a sense of urgency or excitement to get things going. It's definitely going to feel like a shift in energy, which I feel like we could use, right?

Now, that brings us to the 21st, the following day, where the Sun moves into Capricorn. Hey, welcome. It's Capricorn season. And the Sun in Capricorn at zero degrees forms a square to Jupiter in Aries at zero degrees, making this a really interesting start to Capricorn season, which just happens to be the Winter Solstice, one of the many holidays you may or may not note or celebrate. So I pulled up the chart for the Solstice, which I don't always do, but here we are. I'm doing it, because that Sun/Jupiter square is really interesting to me.

The Sun/Jupiter square is an excellent transit. It is another great reminder that not all squares are Bummer Town. When the Sun squares Jupiter, we feel a sense of excitement, a sense of agency. Opportunities will sometimes just kind of come out of left field. And it can basically be a time where you feel revitalized; you feel engaged by your life or just even psychologically. It's a lovely transit. It can increase your confidence. It can make you feel lucky, resilient, optimistic⁠—all those Jupiterian buzzwords.

There is a risk that you will be a little pedantic, a little pushy. You know what I mean? A little entitled. The thing to remember here is that this is the Solstice. It's Capricorn season. And so we have the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Pluto all in Capricorn giving us the energy we need to get grounded. But because Mercury and Pluto are so close to each other, because the Sun and Jupiter are squaring each other and we have a Moon/Mars opposition in this chart, there is a risk of popping off. There is a lot going on astrologically that can find you speaking out of your worst impulses, being defensive, jumping to conclusions, or ruminating over things that give you pain.

On the flip side, there's so much energy in this chart for doing the work to heal, for being brave enough to look within and deal with your shit. So there's a lot going on in this chart that makes me want to encourage you to spend some time alone. And I don't mean you have to isolate yourself from people if you've got social plans, but I am saying there's such a powerful amount of value in carving out at least a little bit of space to have some quality time with yourself, reflecting, introspecting, sitting with your emotions, your impulses, whatever it is, checking in with yourself, listening to yourself, because if you just go, go, go, you may find yourself going in ways you were not planning and stirring up some shit that you were not meaning to stir, getting involved in someone else's dramas.

This isn't the time for that. There's so much energy and support here for making progress within, in your attitudes, beliefs, how you're holding things. There's energy here for letting go if you deem that it's valuable for you to let go of something or someone. So make use of this transit, again, by hanging out with hopefully your bestie, or at least someone on your bestie list. I'm talking about you. Are you your own bestie?

Okay. So final words about the Sun square to Jupiter. This is a great time for aligning with your philosophies, with your morals, with your kind of high-level beliefs, and honoring them. This is also a really good time for investing in growth experiences. So, if you're going to blow a bunch of money, if you're going to spend a bunch of time or energy on something, make sure that it helps you to grow. And if it doesn't, then make sure that it helps you to grow. Does that make sense?

What I'm saying is it doesn't have to be like, "I am doing an activity that helps me grow." It might be, "I am doing nothing because I need time to be alone or to be in my head or to tend to my body. I just need to relax because I believe that that will support me on my path down the line." So, again, to look for the growth opportunity, the growth experience inherent in whatever it is that you're choosing to do during this transit will be really helpful and just a good use of the astrology of the moment.

That brings us to the 22nd, where we have a lovely Venus trine to Uranus. This transit is excellent for socializing. It's excellent for connecting with people, meeting new people in particular, or going and doing different things socially than you typically would do. It's a lovely time for trying on new clothes, new makeup if you fuck with that. It's a wonderful time for just playing with the way you look and being a little bit experimental in your relationships, if you know what I mean. And maybe that's not for you. Maybe you're not in a relationship where you can play like that.

But yeah, it's a great time for flirting, for romancing, and not doing it in the same old way⁠—pulling out a new trick, playing a new game, and just basically having fun. So it's a lovely transit, and it spills right on into the New Moon that we're having in Capricorn. So, on the 23rd of December, we've got a New Moon in Capricorn at 2:17 a.m. Pacific Time.

And as always, I will remind you that if you want to track the transits and keep a log of your own perceptions, predictions, or those of the astrologers that you love and follow, then I invite you to check out and subscribe to my pro tool for astrology students and astrologers called Astrology For Days. It tracks the transits and has a journaling feature so that you can basically track your ideas, what you think is going to happen, your plans, your notes, your thoughts, your fears, your feelings.

Okay. So this is a New Moon that's happening, like I said, 2:17 a.m., and it's happening at exactly one degree of Capricorn. So now we've got Sun and Moon sitting at one degree of Capricorn. We've got Venus, Mercury, and Pluto all sitting on top of each other. That Retroshady Mercury is sandwiched between Venus and Pluto. In this chart, we've also got Jupiter very tightly square to the Sun and Moon. So there's a lot to talk about.

Now, I want to talk about this New Moon on a personal level and then more of a social/political level. So, first, personal. The Moon is not the most comfortable in the zodiac sign of Capricorn. And the reason why it's worth mentioning is because oftentimes, when we are dealing with Capricorn Moon energy⁠—so I'm not talking about birth charts, but I'm talking about dealing with the Moon in Capricorn⁠—it can be hard to make sense of emotions because we don't want to just feel our feelings; we want to do something about them.

And because we have this stellium in Capricorn, the urge to do something about it is going to be strong. And that's not good or bad, but it's not always appropriate. Emotions need to be felt. They need to be kind of sat with. Emotions ebb and flow, as they are meant to. So, when we have a New Moon in Capricorn, it can be hard to get into that. And we may be tempted to be like, "Okay. This is what I'm feeling. What do I do? What do I do?" So New Moons in general are great for manifestation, for calling things in. If you want to be charging up your crystals, yeah. Jupiter square the Sun and Moon? Do that. If you want to be setting intentions for the New Year or for your month, whatever it is, if you want to be manifesting or calling shit in, this is a great New Moon for that.

The thing that gets a little tricky and complicated is Pluto's involvement because Pluto being conjunct to Mercury⁠—and it's too wide to be conjunct to Venus, but because Venus is conjunct Mercury on the other side, it kind of drags Venus in⁠—it gives us really intense emotions, which can often relate to our resentments, our jealousy or possessiveness, a sense of competitiveness⁠—not like fun, healthy competitiveness, but like, "Why does that person have something that I don't have? I should have what they have." You know? That kind of shit.

So this can be a time where instead of sorting through our emotions, sitting with our feelings, we jump to act so that we don't have to feel our feelings. And that can get us into some serious trouble. Because of Jupiter's involvement, there's so much energy and room for growth⁠—so much. But it's just as likely, just as possible, that between all that fiery Aries energy and all this Capricorn hard-to-sit-with-emotions energy, that we don't do the work that we're meant to do. We do work, but not the work we're meant to do. It's a New Moon. We're meant to sit with the feelings, sit with the motions. And that's hard.

And because we're dealing with all this Capricorn energy, you are likely to be dealing with the consequences of your feelings, identities, behavior, beliefs, etc. Let's throw into the mix that Chiron is forming a square to Venus. That transit is still active at this point of the week. So, potentially, what we've got here is some serious wounding around our relationships, past, present, imagined, or real. We also have a challenge to embody our values even when we feel fucked up, which⁠—if we're being honest, when you feel fucked up is the easiest time to tell yourself that you don't really have to take care of others or you don't have to act in integrity because you're just trying to take care of you.

So this is going to be potentially quite a testing New Moon, but there's a lot of positive potential within those tests, which is really cool and, for sure, something that you should strive to make use of. Now, on more of a political and social stage, I'm certainly concerned because all of this Pluto stuff can provoke drama, and it can be drama from oppressive ruling classes or oppressive governing bodies to the populace. It can be revolution where the tables are turned, but it can kind of go either way. Because we have that Venus/Chiron square, we are continuing to see struggles for the rights of women, Trans people in general and gender queer people in general⁠—so essentially everyone but cis men.

So we're seeing struggles around that. And of course we are seeing that with the continuing crisis in Iran, but we are also seeing that here in the U.S. and in other regions of the world. So there is a real risk that things will get kind of heated up this New Moon and we see abuses of power, whether they are new or continued. There is so much energy and power to this New Moon that it's likely to be intense. So we definitely want to pay attention to what's happening in the world and on the global stage and, to the best of our ability and in whatever ways is right for you, take a stand where you can. Give what you have to give, whether that's your time, your voice, your money.

This is a time to not just be thinking of ourselves and our individualistic needs. Now, of course, that's not true for everybody, but I'm speaking broad strokes here. It's a horoscope, so I'm speaking broad strokes. We are still going through the Pluto Return of the United States. Pluto is at exactly 27 degrees right now, where it rests in the Sibley chart, which is to say here in the U.S., we are in transformational times. We are in a period in which we are meant to be confronting our shadow and hopefully making reparations for the harm we have done domestically to the people that live here as well as abroad.

So, in particular, we may see some sort of either consequence for the U.S.'s engagement abroad or some sort of international shift. And on whatever level it is happening, it's important that we choose our allies and our leaders wisely. To quote one of my favorite writers of all time, Octavia Butler, "Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all of the coward's fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery."

Now, that might be a little dramatic for your family situation, and hopefully it's a little dramatic for what's happening in the world, but kind of fits the astrology, so let's see what happens. When we're dealing with this much Capricorn energy, we definitely want to be mindful about where we're giving our power and who we're giving it to, especially with that Jupiter square.

Now, my loves, my friends, now I'm going to run through the transits one more time. On the 19th, Mars forms a sextile to Chiron, and Venus forms an exact square to Chiron. We're going to be feeling this throughout the week. On the 20th, Jupiter moves back into Aries. And on the 21st, the Sun moves into Capricorn, making it the Solstice, and forms a square to Jupiter. On the 22nd, Venus trines Uranus. And on the 23rd, we have a New Moon in Capricorn at 2:17 a.m. Pacific Time.

I want to thank you so much for joining me for Ghost of a Podcast. If you haven't already hit that Subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts, I beseech you—yes, I can beseech. I beseech you to hit it. And if you want to learn more with me, I invite you to join me over on Patreon, where I drop tons of content. I'm very engaged with my Patreon, and I love my patrons. So, if you are a patron, thank you. And I also have classes for sale, including my fantastic manifestation class for sale on my website on the Shop page. Go over to ghostofapodcast.com. Look for the little Shop page. Can't miss it. It's cute.

Stay safe out there. Be kind to yourself and others. And I will look forward to talking to you next week. Buh-bye.