Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

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Welcome back to Ghost. This week, I'm doing something I have never done on the podcast before, which is a relationship reading. This week, I am joined by Elaine and Raj, and I use a Composite chart to interpret issues related to their relationship. While Synastry is a little bit more commonly used, I personally don't use Synastry charts. I use Composites. And so, essentially, what happens is we can see the life of a relationship itself. It's pretty exciting.

Now, Elaine was born September 27th, 1993, at 7:40 p.m. in Casper, Wyoming, while Raj was born July 1st, 1993, at 6:11 p.m. in Calcutta, India. And their relationship chart is cast for Austin, Texas, because when casting Composite charts, you do need to cast for the location that the relationship is taking place in. Okay. Enjoy the reading.

Jessica: Tell me what it is that you want to talk about or ask me about today.

Elaine: Okay. So I'm Elaine.

Raj: I'm Raj.

Elaine: And a big question that's—or kind of two questions that's come up is we have a pattern in our relationship where our communication is obscured. When we're talking, Raj often hears something different than what I am saying, for example, "Could you pass me an apple?" Then he gives me a banana because he heard "banana." Another thing that happens is when Raj is voicing something vulnerable or uncomfortable, he expresses himself in a monotone, almost sounding like a robot.

Both of these situations leaves myself losing my patience and getting a little irritable and having a hard time staying engaged. I have to catch myself and slow down and come back. And we often acknowledge when the miscommunication happens. We're curious what in our charts could explain this pattern and tools to best support us moving forward.

Jessica: I really like that. Now, you clearly worked on the question together.

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: But I'm going to ask you each to answer this question. You can decide who goes first. But I want to know what you think the other person thinks is the biggest communication problem between you.

Elaine: I think Raj dissociates a lot and has a hard time staying present and to really hear what I have to say.

Jessica: And you think that's what he thinks is the biggest problem, or what you think is the biggest problem?

Elaine: It's what I think is the biggest problem. Sorry.

Jessica: What do you think he thinks—no, but that's very important. This is why I ask it this way. What do you think Raj thinks is the biggest problem in the communication?

Elaine: I tend to—my tone of voice can start off level or high, and then at the end I mumble. And I can talk really fast and change subjects very quickly, talk about many things at once, and maybe not always use the right—like I'll say "that." Instead of "the apple," I'll say "that."

Jessica: Okay. All right. Now, Raj, before you say whether or not you think that is accurate, I want you to tell me what you think Elaine thinks is—I know she kind of spoiled it for us and told us, but what do you think she thinks is the biggest problem? What is your actual thought about that?

Raj: She thinks I float off. Yet you'll—I'm sure you'll hear it soon enough, the way I will talk in a certain monotone that just sounds uninteresting, and then I will kind of lower my voice and try to come back and eventually kind of lose track of what I'm speaking. And so it becomes a difficult speech pattern or just way to engage in a conversation. That's the way I think she views my pattern.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. So do the two of you fight? Do you yell at each other? Do you get mad at each other? Do you have active conflict?

Elaine: We don't yell at each other.

Raj: Yeah. I wouldn't say we fight. I wouldn't say we scream at any means, but more about acknowledging frequently when we need to express ourself.

Jessica: So you process.

Raj: And sometimes it's more difficult than others to hold space for the other person. And so I, at least—I'll take responsibility for my own emotions. I feel a bit triggered, hurt, while trying to hold space and be present.

Elaine: And if anyone has any—kind of the anger, I can definitely get really fiery and angry. And I can catch myself. We were living on my parents' farm for a good—I mean the last two years. We just landed in Austin. And I was more triggered and fiery there. But it would be more angry about a situation, almost like that anger of passion is a big thing that would come up.

Jessica: Okay. So you can see I'm going between three separate charts. I have each of your individual birth charts, and I've got notes on both of those. And then I use the Composite chart, which is not the same as Synastry, which most people kind of seem to use, which I find really surprising because Composite charts are delicious. Basically, what it is is we look at your Sun and your Sun, and then the Composite Sun is the midpoint between each of your individual Suns. So it becomes the chart of your relationship, which has its own life. All of your friends may think you're really funny, and then you get into a relationship and your partner doesn't think you're funny, and you kind of aren't funny with each other or whatever. That's how that works. That's why that works.

So the Composite chart, to me, is really interesting because it has its own life, and that individual life—it's its own thing that can be stewarded by each of you as individuals without compromising your individuality, which of course I'm a fan of. So, all of that said, when I first looked at both of your individual charts, I was like, "Okay, Elaine." Yeah, you can get irritable. Yes, you are passionate. Yes, when shit comes out of your mouth, sometimes it is not preplanned at all. And you have so much in common with each other, but it's like the ways that you're really contemplative, he's not, and the ways that he's really contemplative, you're not. But you're equally contemplative, right?

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: You do have this Moon in Pisces in the twelfth house. It's intercepted in the twelfth house opposite Venus. You really are sensitive. You want somebody who's really sensitive, and you've got that with Raj. I mean, Raj, you've got Moon also in the twelfth house conjunct your North Node. You've got Neptune in the first, amongst a bunch of other things that I won't name in this exact moment. You are very emotionally sensitive and energetically sensitive. So I don't know how woo—do you go very woo?

Raj: I go decently woo, although I don't understand a lot of it.

Jessica: I respect that. Yes.

Raj: So, while I hear a lot of the lingo, I hear numbers and titles and I don't know what they mean.

Jessica: And that's real. Something that's really interesting, Raj, you have Mercury, the planet of cognition, communication, and listening, and it's in the seventh house and it's in Cancer. The way that that functions is kind of like you have a very contemplative, methodical cognitive style. You listen, and then you digest. And, Elaine, no, not so much. Your Mercury is sandwiched between Jupiter and Mars, so you're just like, "Thought, action. Thought, movement. Thought, movement. Thought, action. Thought, movement." And you are very impatient; it's true.

So we have a fun little problem here. Tell me when I'm wrong, I beg of you. But we have a fun problem here because your independent natures are very different, like very different. And there's no way it's not going to feel personal sometimes, like, "He's dissociating. He's not listening to me," or, "She is rushing me to make sense of something while I'm still trying to digest what I've heard." Right? But you hold these things in common where you are both tender love people. You're romantics. And maybe some people—I won't name names—like to hide their romanticism and pretend that they're not that romantic, but you're both really romantic.

The thing that I wanted to say before I get into the relationship chart and we get into too many details is this. When you are in conflict with each other—and it can be literally about, "I said pass me a banana, and you handed me an apple. Bitch, what the fuck?" It could just be something that simple. The thing that will always work is if you check in with how you feel before you open your mouth—Elaine—and then, Raj, if you check in with how you feel, period, when you're listening or speaking—because I don't think that Elaine's take is totally off the mark about you having a bit of a tendency to zoop out into the ethers or into your thoughts. Do you agree with that?

Raj: Yeah, and I can see what you mean about there being a difference of her, yeah, checking in where she's expressing herself and me checking in if I'm even present first.

Jessica: You're there. Yeah. And that's really your struggle because you are smart, you've got great social skills, you've got good intuition around people stuff—I don't know if you always feel that way, but it looks like other people feel that way about you.

Elaine: He totally does.

Raj: I'm aware.

Jessica: You are aware.

Elaine: He's so good with people.

Jessica: People like you. All people like you. Kids like you. Adults like you. You have an easy way with people, so you don't get in trouble with this stuff outside of your really close relationships. But my guess is that anyone you've dated will report something similar. It is hard for you to stay associated, and some of that doesn't need to change. Some of that's just your fucking nature, and you enjoy your thoughts and you are not always comfortable in your body. Your nervous system is zingy. And this, of course—not to torture you, but you're now in a room with two fast cognitive processors. So I'm talking fast, and Elaine is like, "Yes. Yes," nodding her head, and you're like, "I'm going to sit with this."

And this is really healthy for you, I want to just say. Elaine, it's a really healthy and very honest response for him to have, like, "I need to sit with this," and everything inside of you to "I need to sit with this" is like, "Okay. Let me explain it better. If I explain it better, then you won't have to sit with it because then you'll get it."

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So this is the trouble with Jupiter. This placement of Jupiter that you have in your chart articulates that when someone disagrees with you or doesn't get it, your first and strongest instinct is, "If I explain it better, you will agree no matter what." And so, when you keep on trying to explain and explain and explain things, it ends up making other people feel bullied or pressed. I'm guessing, Raj, this makes sense to you.

Raj: I can certainly see a few instances that, yes, come to mind.

Elaine: I recognize that in my life, where I have to slow down and really discern what I'm going to say and if it's even worth saying anything.

Jessica: It's very hard for you. Literally, there's only one point in your birth chart, and that is the Moon in Pisces opposite Venus in Virgo—that's the only point of your chart that doesn't say, "Go faster. Go harder. Make people understand." Every other part of your chart is really kind of—you want to foster connection, and you believe that you can do it. And so you try. And that's not bad. It doesn't necessarily need to change. However, that brings us to le relationship.

The first thing is—and this really stood out to me because I knew you wanted to talk to me about communication—you have Mercury in the seventh house. So that's great because it technically suggests that you would have lots to talk about and you would have great communication, lots of communication. But it's intercepted in that house. And so, when you communicate well, it's amazing. My guess is that communication is both the hardest thing in your relationship and the best thing. Is that correct? When it's good, it's very good?

Elaine: I would say that blends in with our sex life, too.

Jessica: Interesting. So both of those things are true for both of those topics.

Raj: Yeah. That's what I was going to say: well, there's that sex part.

Elaine: Yeah.

Raj: Yeah. So that was a good way to put it.

Jessica: Let's talk about sex for a minute, then, because you have got—so there's two places that I look for sex in the birth chart—in the Composite chart, rather. And that's the eighth house and the fifth house. And here you have Jupiter in the eighth house. So, in a relationship chart, this generally means the sex is delicious. It is good. And when it happens, it lasts, so it's not quick and done. It's a fun event that lasts. Is this true?

Elaine: Yes and no. It's definitely shifted since the—really, when the pandemic hit, my drive has just went—

Jessica: Interesting. And how long were you together before the pandemic hit?

Elaine: Something like six months.

Raj: I was going to say a total of—how many months?

Elaine: I think it was six months.

Jessica: Okay. So sex—was it like that at the beginning where it was long, fun sessions?

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So then you moved in together, I'm guessing.

Elaine: Mm-hmm.

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And so it was right around the pandemic, as like a response to the pandemic, as so many people did.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: So let's talk because, Raj, in your chart, your Mars placement—you've got this Mars in the eighth house, and it is absolutely like sex is how you connect. You are not in your head when you're having sex. For you, you don't have a dissociative issue when you're having sex with someone. Is that correct?

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. And can you tell that, Elaine?

Elaine: I would say most of the time, yeah.

Jessica: Most of the time, you think it's true, or most of the time, you can tell?

Elaine: Most of the time, I can tell.

Jessica: Okay. That's great. The thing for you about sex, though, Elaine—and this is, again, about who you are separate from each other. It looks like sex is easier for you at the beginning in general, and not just in this unique situation, because there's not a bunch of shit attached to it. And your emotional sensitivities are such that as much as you're expressing things all the time—you're verbalizing things all the time—there is a part of your nature that has a hard time processing your own feelings, needs, and boundaries. And so in more intimate and committed situations is when sex becomes harder because relaxing into your body, not rushing around your body, which you're good at, but really relaxing into your body becomes, honestly, quite a lot harder for you because all of these weird, stupid things that maybe you don't even really care about, but they're just waiting in your system for you to deal with—so it becomes harder for you to relax. Does that make sense?

Elaine: It does.

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Okay. And do you both—and be honest, even though I know it's sticky. Do you both want to have more sex? Elaine, I ask you to go first.

Elaine: I want to have more sex. I think about it. My imagination is still there, but it's like putting it into action—and that's in all aspects of my life right now. Putting any passions, desires, thoughts into action is just—

Jessica: Yeah. It's hard. Okay. Okay.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: And then, Raj, I feel like I already know your answer, but how about you?

Raj: Yes, please.

Jessica: Okay. Yes, please. Okay. Cool. Okay. So there's a couple things. One is, in your relationship chart, living together looks difficult. Okay? Not because of a lack of compatibility around living together, but because you both really need space when you're at home. You both need a lot of mental and emotional space. But the way that your relationship functions, my guess is you are kind of hanging out all the time and not giving each other space and not taking space.

Raj: Much—I mean, absolutely true for the pandemic when we were living before Austin.

Elaine: Yeah. It's getting a little bit better here in Austin, but just with the pandemic in general and not—a lot of our activities are very social and making new friends. We were in Wyoming when—we decided to help my dad farm when the pandemic hit.

Jessica: Jesus.

Elaine: And it's a perfect place to be where there's no one on the farm. I mean, Wyoming's a whole different thing. But I had friends there, but Raj didn't. And so we definitely just unintentionally had a lot more time together.

Jessica: Yeah. It doesn't work great for the two of you, certainly not for sex, because you're both people who do need space. You both are people who need to be alone in a room with the door locked. And it's nothing personal. That's just how both of you are. And the pandemic is exceptional circumstances. It is exceptional. Hopefully this will never happen again.

But I do think that it is wise, and actually not just wise but in service to your sex life, for the two of you to be intentional about—if you have enough physical space—not always sleeping together, like sometimes just sleeping separated, hanging out separate, sometimes when one of you is out, sometimes just in the house—I'm in the kitchen; you're in the living room. We're doing our own things. I have headphones on. You're not here.

I really think that for the two of you, missing each other or having your own lives will build up the tension that is exciting to you, Elaine. For you, Raj, I mean, whatever. You're going to be the one to compromise here because it looks like you're pretty good to go, whatever, around the sex. Is that correct?

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So you're going to have to do a little more compromising to get your needs met in the big picture. I do think it'll be worth it, honestly. Now, the other thing I would say, I kind of can't help but wonder if the two of you—it looks like you have great sex when you have great sex, right? Like you do have the capacity to have really fun sex. But I can't help but wonder if you, Elaine, need a lot more bells and whistles, changing it up. Is that true?

Elaine: Yes. And this ties in with communication where I ask for certain things in the bedroom, and in ways, I have to repeat myself. And it takes a while for that to continue because he's very—he's more a sensual person, and—

Raj: With touch and other ways that's very touch, touch, touch-based versus you are—

Elaine: I like it kinky.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. You're kinky. Okay. Great. I'm glad you said it because I was trying to talk around it.

Raj: [crosstalk]

Elaine: Oh, energetic, too. I'm really energetic.

Jessica: Oh. I mean, I think you're both energetic, just in very different ways.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: But yeah. It definitely looks like—see, this Mars in Virgo in the eighth, you know what you like, Raj. You know what you like. It works. You really believe it works, and so you like to do it. And that's how it goes for you. You're very literal with sex. And you're lucky that that works for Elaine frequently. The problem is, girlfriend, Elaine is definitely—she—something that is playful and spontaneous or just experimenting and exploring with doing things in different ways or doing different things. And, Raj, I hope you heard that I said two different things, because I can see how maybe you wouldn't hear that I said two different things just then.

Raj: Yeah. I guess I'm hearing games, other ways of doing spontaneous stuff, and the other way was just trying a whole bunch of different things.

Jessica: Yes.

Raj: But what were the two that you—

Jessica: Okay. There's one more. There's one more, and I knew that was the one you were missing. Doing the same move—to use your example of eating a banana, there are so many ways to eat a banana. It doesn't always have to be done in the same way. You can break it in half. You don't have to. This is a metaphor, but it's supposed to be slightly funny but also slightly literal. I'm hoping you're following.

Elaine: Yeah.

Raj: Please don't break the banana.

Jessica: Okay. I'm guessing that's your preference. But you know what? It's an option. Some people like that. What I'm saying is there are many ways to eat a banana, and I want to encourage you to be thoughtful. And the thoughtfulness would be when you're not actively hooking up, Raj, about what are multiple ways that you could eat a banana or that—again, insert any number of eating of fruits. And then you can bring that, once you've had time to digest the idea or process it, however you do that, to bring it into the bedroom because the thing about Elaine's chart is that you have this Mars/Mercury/Jupiter conjunction, and you've got Jupiter as the ruler of your eighth house because you've got Sagittarius on that eighth-house cusp.

And so you like to be surprised, and you get bored by repetition. You do like variety, and you do need to shake things up. As soon as something becomes routine, it's less enjoyable for you, Elaine. And, Raj, I don't think you think of it that way. You don't think of it as routine. You're like, "This works. I enjoy eating bananas, so I'll just have another banana." It just makes perfect sense to you. And neither of you are wrong. But if we're talking about compatibility, there is a need for compromise. And I don't think that for you, Elaine, being more sensual is the answer.

Elaine: It bores me.

Jessica: It does, and it agitates you worse than bores you. It makes you annoyed—

Elaine: Yes.

Jessica: —which is really hard for you, Raj, because literally, that is your solution. Your solution is to show up in a more loving and tender way as a way to express that you care and that you're paying attention. Is that correct?

Raj: I agree. And yeah, something that has been, I suppose, a block for me is tunnel vision.

Jessica: Say more.

Raj: I've experienced that in a few different ways. And I can certainly see in this context of the way I can do it and it works, yeah, what other ways—and I'm not sure how to be more creative.

Jessica: Okay. Great. So I do think that you're open, Raj, to trying new things. It's just—you say tunnel vision. I say you're a literalist. I think we're kind of saying the same thing. You're just like, "How does that functionally play out? What do I actually feel about that?" And the amount of space and time you need to process, Elaine's already left the room. She's gone. She's gone. And so the moment's passed. 

And so this is where, kind of, not—I don't want you to work on your sex life, because that doesn't sound fun, and I don't think the two of you are there in your dynamic. But I instead want to encourage you to play with sex, your relationship to sex, your ideas about sex, outside of the bedroom, which, BTWs, I bet that you would have more luck if you weren't trying to do it in the bedroom all the time, Raj.

Elaine: Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome. You're welcome, honey. I'm here for you. I'm here for you. The bedroom makes sense to you because, again, you're like, "Everything is here that one would need," right? It is, again, the literalist perspective. It makes sense. But for you, Elaine, it's just—you're good for cars. You're good for closets. You're good for kitchen tables. You need a change-it-up situation. And you're not opposed, Raj. It's just it's going to take you a minute to figure out your own voice in that, your own self in that, because this is a place in your life—sex is a place in your life where you don't dissociate. Do you play sports?

Raj: Sword fencing.

Jessica: Sword fencing? Is that what you said?

Raj: Yes. Fencing. Yes.

Jessica: That's very Mars in the eighth of you. I'm impressed.

Raj: Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome. You're welcome. So my guess is that when you're doing weird sword fencing—no gay undertones whatsoever; don't worry—or—this is a compliment, by the way—or you're having sex, these are two places where you are not dissociating. You're present. And in other parts of your life, you are kind of processing many things at once, and it can be dissociative. So it's very hard that your partner is kind of asking you to be less present, in a way.

That's not, Elaine, what you are asking of him, but in a way, that's how it translates for him because he's there, he knows what he wants to give you, he knows what he wants to get, he knows how he wants to get there, and you're like, "Can you think about it? Can you approach it differently?" And this is the one place where he's like, "Wait. What? What? Wait. What?"

Raj: Yeah. Yeah.

Elaine: Yeah. It totally happens.

Jessica: Yeah. This is what happens. So the good news is you've got Jupiter in the eighth house. You've got Venus square to Jupiter in the eighth house. These things are excElainet for having a loving, successful, satisfying, even somewhat dirty sex life long term. Yay. So I said somewhat dirty because Venus in Cancer in the sixth house is not terribly dirty; it's loving. And this would be great news for so many people, maybe not so much you, Elaine. So this is where the expression of love that you can give her, Raj, is by doing homework. I know that sounds weird. But you're really into homework, Elaine, like a lot.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: For you, researching is like part of your love language. I don't actually believe in love languages, so I didn't mean to use that term in the way that it's conventionally used. But it feels like love to you, right? So here's the boner killer in the room. Bear with me. So you have this beautiful Venus/Jupiter square, but your Uranus/Neptune/Moon conjunction in the twelfth house—of that conjunction, Neptune and Uranus are square to Jupiter and opposite Venus. And so what this can do—

Elaine: Is that a T-square?

Jessica: Yeah. Sure is, with Jupiter as the focal planet.

Elaine: Okay.

Jessica: So Jupiter as the focal planet of a T-square—it's the best planet to have as the focal planet of a T-square in a relationship chart. Having it in the eighth house, it can give you a really weird, cool sex life. So, again, you know what I'm talking about because you've been there. You're not there right now, but you've been there, right?

Elaine: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: It can be a real swinging from the rafters kind of thing. The problem is Neptune. It's the least physical of all the planets, so it can strip the physicality out of sex. My guess is that even when you're not being very sexual, you're very snuggly with each other, eh?

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Like you're sensual together. Do you guys dance? Do you dance in the kitchen? Do you play like that?

Elaine: We're both dancers.

Jessica: Oh. Okay.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: That's cool because dancing actually—do you dance with each other?

Raj: At times.

Elaine: At times. He's more of the partner dancer. I'm more of the tap, hip-hop, ballet, modern, everything else.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Of course, you have different forms of dance. Of course you do. Okay. So this is what I want to say. Playfully dance in the kitchen together or the living room, whatever. Okay? So I want to encourage you to do goofy shit together a little bit more. It's good for your sex life. It's good across the board for both of you. But—

Raj: More goofy stuff. Gotcha.

Jessica: More goofy stuff. More.

Elaine: We can be pretty goofy.

Jessica: Yeah. Well, I see that. When you're being goofy, you don't fight. When you're being goofy, no one feels like the other one's not listening to them or pressuring them. Goofy is your good place. So I think that being goofy in a way that involves more physical touch is good for the two of you—for both of you as individuals in different ways, so it's good for the relationship in all ways. The problem is the Neptune dynamic—it does indicate that your sexual dynamic will have dips, serious highs and lows, for better or worse. Okay? And sometimes that's because of life being busy. Sometimes that's because of the stuff we're talking about. The way around it is always, first, remembering that you're a team. Remembering that you're a team. I think you sometimes forget that.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: As a team, you forget that. And then the other thing is remembering that you actually really like connecting with each other and exploring each other. You do. And I don't just mean that sexually, although I do mean that sexually. But you actually are really interested in each other. Not all couples are, obviously. Right? You've both been in relationships before. But it does look like you're really interested in each other. It's about creating kind of sacred space where you can just be lazy with each other, which is honestly a little hard for both of you in different ways.

Elaine, you have a hard time chilling out and just being like, "Yeah, we're just in space, and let's see how it goes. No agenda. I'm not processing." And then, Raj, you're like, "If we're here to do something, I know how to get it done. So let's go." And so you're very different, but the thing you have in common is—I don't know that you've ever just decided outside of the first three months that you were just going to take a bath, eat delicious food, and do nothing as a couple. Do you do that? Anything like that?

Elaine: I consider when we were first dating, we took this bath together, but there was also—I could see where there was almost a little bit of an agenda while taking a bath together, like we tried to take a separate direction.

Jessica: Right. Right. So I'm going to advise you to, if you can, once every two weeks, schedule a day—and there's so much shit online that'll give you advice and ideas if you don't have them on your own, but I'm just going to throw one out there—where you're like, "Okay. We're just going to put our phones in the closet. We're not fucking with our phones. We're going to take a bath together. We are going to order in food or cook something delicious together. We're just going to be playful. We're not going to fornicate. We are free to hook up, but we're not going to fornicate. It's nothing that has a goal associated with it." Just an easy, relaxing day.

And what I think will happen, other than you could really enjoy each other, is I think things will come up that are stressful, and you'll have fights—stupid ones. And I am encouraging you to do this because it's like there are things that are living just immediately under the surface for the two of you, and I don't think you really air them out. You bypass them, or there's explosions. When you get into your body, when you're both getting into your bodies and you're really present and there's no distractions, is when those things are going to come up a little bit more. And that's cool because if they actually come all the way up, they can be released. They can be dealt with and released.

I really think the two of you can do this. It just—if either of you is like, "We're going to do this right now," the other one will say no. That's how your relationship works, according to this chart, anyways. So this is where I think just having a day together where the intention is to be relaxing and completely without agendas—that could actually be the safe space where if you fight a little bit, cool; you work something out. And if you hook up a little bit, cool; that works. Now, I should ask one more thing about sex. Do the two of you hook up without intercourse ever?

Elaine: Yeah. I would say maybe half the time.

Jessica: Okay. Does that work for you, Raj?

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: It does? Okay.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: Great, because I do see that that works in this relationship chart. I can see how both of you would find that annoying sometimes, and both of you would like that sometimes. So, again, the two of you are very similar and very different in equal parts. It's both your strength and your kryptonite. It's a little bit of both. Before I shift to communication more specifically, I just want to ask you if either of you have any questions or things you want me to speak to around the sex stuff that we're talking about.

Elaine: For me, I noticed—it's definitely related to sex. As you were talking about getting playful and relaxing, I could feel, especially around my uterus, just my whole pelvis tense up and just this fear of relaxing, like I don't know if I can relax and play because I don't know how to. That inner farmer, the "Work, work, work, work, move, move, move, move" is just in me, and that's something I've been—part of my issue around my sex drive is just relaxing.

Jessica: Yeah.

Elaine: It's like I've been in a survival mode, it seems, all my life.

Jessica: You have a Saturn/Pluto square in your birth chart. You both do because you were born the same year. You are both moving towards your Saturn Return. Elaine, I believe yours comes first. This compulsion to be productive, this compulsion to justify your value by doing something, you actually share this problem, but you experience it in radically different ways. Now, in regards to the tension that you feel at the idea of relaxing, that is exactly why you need to relax. I think it will be very awful and uncomfortable for you, and I still encourage you to do it.

Luckily, you're with somebody who I think that—and please, both of you, tell me if I'm wrong about this. But I think when Raj understands the assignment, he's very patient. When he doesn't understand the assignment, maybe not so much. Maybe he dissociates—

Elaine: Yeah.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: —and pretends to be patient. But if you understand, "Oh, she actually takes a long time to relax into her body, not with me, but as a person. She's so in the future, like what needs to get done for later, because that's her safe space, she has a hard time relaxing into now"—if you know that about her, then what you can do is just get real literal about, "Okay. So it takes her like two hours to kind of chill a little." Chill a little. And it might take you four hours sometimes to chill a little, which is why I'm saying set aside a day. I don't think that this is something that you're going to magically fix, Elaine. This is a struggle that you have. You're not likely to have this completely sorted in the next six months.

So it's really about asking yourself, are you willing to be in process with it? Are you willing to start to get relaxed and then realize that you're way too tense to be relaxed and you don't want to be relaxed, and then not pick a fight with Raj, but instead just be like, "Oh, I'm really tense. I don't know how to not be tense right now," and ask him if he has any ideas about what you can do that is a little less relaxing? And I don't know if this would work for either of you, but would—do you play competitive games with each other?

Elaine: Oh yeah. We love board games.

Jessica: Okay.

Elaine: Definitely board games.

Jessica: You both like board games. Okay. So I would say, in moments where you're actually trying to relax and you cannot relax, play a board game and get real competitive. Get real competitive. And then go back to trying to relax, because it's a safety valve for you, Elaine. It's like a coping mechanism. And being conscious about using it instead of getting defensive and then using it that way will make your relationship better, but it will make your relationship to yourself better.

Elaine: Okay.

Jessica: Does this make sense?

Raj: Shout-out to Uno. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Shout-out to Uno. That's really funny. Now, I have to ask, Elaine, do you leave—when you're frustrated, do you walk away?

Elaine: Pace.

Jessica: You pace? But you don't leave?

Raj: Like leave the room?

Jessica: Yeah.

Raj: I would say when she's frustrated and it's not at me, she will acknowledge where she's at vocally so I know that it's not my fault or something I can necessarily do to help, and yes, you'll pace, but you'll leave the room, which I feel like is understandable.

Elaine: Yeah. I guess I do like to cool off.

Jessica: But not when you're having fights between the two of you?

Raj: Yeah.

Elaine: Yeah. Have you witnessed me leave the room when we're fighting?

Raj: When we're fighting, you and I?

Elaine: Yeah.

Raj: Like you're mad at me? No.

Jessica: Great. That's so important because, Raj, when I look at your chart, it looks like people leaving is your least favorite thing. People getting aggressive and walking out just really doesn't work for you. So, Raj, you trust Elaine?

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. It looks like it. And, Elaine, do you trust Raj?

Elaine: Most of the time.

Jessica: Yeah. So let's talk about the most of the time. In your relationship chart, you have another T-square to talk about here. We've got a Sun/Saturn opposition forming a T-square to Pluto. And it's not just a Sun/Saturn opposition. You've got Chiron conjunct the Sun.

Elaine: Chiron.

Jessica: Yeah.

Elaine: Damn.

Jessica: And opposite Saturn. Yeah. So this is where internet astrology terrifies people. You see that, and you're like, "Oh my God. We're going to fall apart." I like a Saturn, a hard Saturn aspect, in a long-term relationship. You guys are monogamous, eh?

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Elaine: Yeah. I think—I mean, I wouldn't mind having a threesome eventually—

Raj: Oh. Yes.

Elaine: —but I also want to have more of a drive again.

Raj: We've talked about being—I like the term monogamish.

Jessica: Ish. Monogamish. I respect that. Okay. And you're down for that, as well, Raj?

Raj: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So this relationship—I will say this—is very monogamous. The reason why is because of that Saturn opposition to the Sun in the first seventh-house axis right by the Descendant. Okay? So swinging open the door and inviting someone in, Jupiter in the eighth house can say, "Yes. Yes, I can do that." So group sex would work for the two of you as long as you had clear boundaries around it. If one of you went off and texted that person a week later, all bets are off. Murder. Someone will murder someone. It would be terrible.

Raj: [indiscernible 00:38:59].

Jessica: Exactly. Thank you for—exactly. That's exactly the effect I was going for. It would be bad. But the Saturn opposition to the Sun is actually something you look for or can look for for longevity. When I saw this T-square, I was like, "Oh fuck. They're going to be scared when they see this." But here's the thing. There's pros and cons to this. The pros are the two of you are willing to do the work that this relationship requires. You made it through a fucking pandemic after only being together six months. What the hell? You lived on a farm in Wyoming. Also, what the hell? That's a lot of very intense stuff really quickly. Saturn opposite the Sun. That makes sense.

Your relationship started six months before a global pandemic. Pluto is the focal planet to a T-square. You came together when the world was falling apart, and you decided how you were going to merge your lives. If you had different planets involved in this T-square, it would have been harder to emerge as a cohesive couple. So this placement in your relationship chart does suggest that there's great potential for the two of you to heal from trauma, whether it's inherited trauma, trauma from childhood, or it's dealing with a really frightening world and a not always safe world.

So the tools are there in this T-square. That's the fun part. The less fun part: there are parts of your relationship that emerge where you're like, "This is how it should be done. Trust me. This is how it should be done," and the other person is like, "No. That's not how I do it." And the first person is offended mortally, like, "No. You're rejecting something of me." This can be really dramatic. So I'm seeing—is it always one of you who plays this role, or do you both play this role?

Elaine: I can see myself in that role more.

Jessica: I saw that in both your little faces.

Raj: Yeah. I was going to say, but at the other—I'm trying to think of when exactly, though, because when there is something that I don't really like, it's just kind of a solid—I feel it. No.

Elaine: It seems like to me more like simple, mundane things. It's not big things.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: Like dishes?

Elaine: Like dishes.

Jessica: How the bathroom is cleaned.

Elaine: Yeah, how the house is cleaned. Yeah. Things like that, like the nitty-gritty details.

Jessica: Yep. This is where, in your relationship, certain things do better when you assign roles. If you're really uptight about how the bathroom is cleaned but you don't really care about the rest of the house, then making the decision that you take care of the bathroom and not being resentful about it is the right thing to do.

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: It sounds like the way that your relationship works is you, Elaine, are a lot more directive, and you're the one who has much more passionate feelings. But I'm looking at your chart, Raj. I'm looking at your chart. So I know that you have really intense feelings. It's that focus, right? It's like there is this part of you that is so incredibly focused. You are very passionate. You are very intense. But the expression of those things—it's a little bit not your nature, and it's also that you're not comfortable with it. And that comes from your own childhood shit.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It does not look like you were allowed to be intense when you were growing up. Any kind of extreme emotion, which every teenager has, it was tamped down for you. It looks like you were just not supposed to be too intense. And so being in a dynamic with a partner who is very intense and takes up a lot of space, it's kind of a sneak attack. It's an unconscious sneak attack because if she's being intense, then you don't have to be intense. Or if you're having strong emotions, it's in reaction, and you don't have to fully own it.

So I want to say to you that processing your emotions with your own therapist, with your own Jesus, however you like to do things, is the best advice I can give you. Not with your partner, but with and for yourself, because, I mean, the way that you are presenting in our conversation is so chill. I mean, you are the picture of chill. And it sounds like in your dynamic, you're the chill one, right? But again, I am looking at your chart, and there is lots of ways that you're chill, and there's lots of ways that you have very intense and powerful emotions.

This brings me to the communication issue. The real issue is so nuanced and complicated, and I will unpack the big picture in a moment. But I will say what you're describing in the question of getting monotone, dissociating—all of these things, they make sense. When I look at your chart, they do not make me think, "Oh, I've got the wrong chart here." It makes sense. And the reason why this happens is because you are—

Raj: Always right.

Jessica: So you almost made her choke on her water. You almost made her just choke on her water.

Raj: It's not about that. I know.

Jessica: That was really funny. Not always right, but very close to that. What you are doing—

Raj: (Gasps)

Jessica: I know. Shocking. What you are doing is you are tempering your emotions so that they don't get too intense.

Raj: Yeah.

Jessica: And you do a really great job of that. When you energetically leave the room, a.k.a. your body, when your thoughts just drift away from you, then you don't get too mad. Then you don't get too annoyed. Nothing too much happens. Again, this is a high-functioning coping mechanism that is really unhealthy, but it works, so it's hard to change it. Right? And it works in most aspects of your life, but I daresay that there are very few women in the world that you're going to actually want to be with that are going to be super chill about that dynamic.

And I do see real potential for this to be long term and happy between the two of you. Y'all got issues. I respect issues. But I don't believe there's a single healthy long-term relationship that doesn't have a lot of issues in it. I've never heard of it; I've never seen it. The reason why relationships have problems is because individuals have problems and life has problems. I'm not scared of seeing problems in your relationship chart, but what I do see is that there is something that happens with Elaine's compulsion and drive to work on herself and the speed of that that I think is actually a little bit triggering for you, Raj, because you don't get to go at your own pace.

Now, to be fair to Elaine, your own pace is very slow sometimes. And it's not that you're not very smart. You're incredibly smart. It's not that you're not capable of moving a little bit faster than you do. There are just some times when you distract, and then you lose track of the problem, and so the problem doesn't get sorted. And this is around emotional content. It's not around material things, because you understand the parameters of the material thing. Your processing is maybe slower than Elaine's—it's not technically slow; it's just slower than Elaine's.

When it comes to emotional stuff, that's where things are really different because you are less motivated to stay with the work of being present with difficult emotions. And as a direct result of that, what ends up happening is Elaine drags you around with certain things, and now we have Elaine saying, "Hey, pass me an apple," and you pass a banana, and now we got some conflict. Now we got some real conflict because it's not just the banana and the apple. It's why weren't you listening, right?

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And the reason why you weren't listening is actually because you're avoiding uncomfortable emotions. And they may be about the weather. They don't always have to be terribly deep. It's just a habit that you have.

Elaine: Even as someone from the outside, I see that, and it concerns me.

Jessica: Yeah. That makes sense. It makes sense why it would concern you specifically, because it is the opposite of how you cope with difficult emotions. You're like, "Difficult emotion? Let me get my scuba gear. I'm going in." And Raj is like, "Difficult emotions? I should give it a wide berth. I should give it a wide berth and contemplate it and see how dangerous it is, see what it is," and then if it doesn't get worse, he'll forget about it because—nothing happening here. And then, if it's serious, he'll dive in.

So, Raj, you have something called the Moon conjunct the North Node. The Moon conjunct the North Node indicates that you have come here on a soul level to figure out how to be emotionally present, to receive love, to give love, to be in your feelings. And you're very good at being in feelings in a sense-based way as opposed to an emotional way. Those are different things. They might be a bit nuanced, but they're quite different things.

Raj: Touching it versus feeling it?

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Your—all manner of things—have trained you, or rather taught you, to as soon as you touch on emotions that are overwhelming or upsetting, to pull back and to find something positive, to find something easier, to find something good—quote unquote, good. It's that Moon in Sagittarius problem. You want things to be good. And, I mean, we all know life is not all good. Right? Things are not all good.

And so there is this way that I want to encourage you for yourself, regardless of what happens within the relationship, but also for the relationship, to find someone that you can talk to about emotions, where you experience emotions in your body, how you know you're experiencing emotions, what you do with your emotions, how you respond to your emotions, what you feel, what you need. I'm a big fan of talk therapy, and I think that would be really valuable for you to just have someone who's there to keep your secrets and listen to you.

Raj: So I guess on that note, does my chart say anything about a suggested modality of therapy?

Jessica: I would recommend somatic therapy for you because I think that you are good with your body. I think that you kind of know how to locate your body. A somatic therapist, or many somatic therapists, what they'll do is they'll say, "Okay. You're saying that you're feeling fine today. How do you know you're feeling fine? Where are you feeling fine in your body?" And I think that if you had somebody asking you to locate your emotions in your body, you are likely to find that you're actually not feeling what you said you felt because you've got such a well-developed coping mechanism.

That coping mechanism is, if you have low-grade sadness—I'm just pulling that out of a hat, not based in anything. If you have low-grade sadness in you and somebody said, "How are you doing?" you'll say, "Oh, I'm fine," because nothing's burning. Nothing is falling apart, so you're fine. And if you had someone holding space for you—okay. So that made sense to you, then.

Rj; Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. So, if somebody was holding space for you and you had a responsibility because you were spending money and you were doing a thing, and you were showing up, and they were like, "Okay. So, tell me, where is this fine feeling? How do you know it's fine? Where are you experiencing it in your body?" you would actually search your body. And in doing so, I think you'll locate that you have a fair amount of sadness in you. And you don't even have to fix it. But to be able to live a whole and healthy life, I am of the mind that it is ideal to be able to be present with ourselves and our experience and to accept those things—not even with an agenda, but to be able to accept it.

And then that brings us back to the relationship, right? Because I am of the mind there's two kinds of problems that we have in our relationships. One kind of problems are the problems that hurt us. They harm us, and they hold us back from healing. And the other kind of problems, they hurt us, but they don't harm us, and they facilitate healing. For the most part, your problems as a couple facilitate healing. They don't hammer home some trauma. So that's why I'm not scared of the problems in your relationship chart, even though there are some biggies, right?

When it comes to this communication issue, both of you are so good at evading certain of your own emotional experiences, right? You're both so good at it that this relationship is asking you, or unfortunately requiring you both, to actually show up in a different way than you habitually know how to do. Elaine, we've already established what you do, right? Rush, rush, rush. Go, go, go. Let's figure it out now/yesterday. And then, Raj, you're like, "Wait. Is there a problem? What? No. It's fine. Wait. What?" You're not all there.

The key within all of this is to work on yourselves as individuals and to find different ways of being present, and to allow space for the two of you to have totally different paths with this and totally different processes with this. But it does require doing work on your own as individuals in order to get to it as a team. And part of how that's articulated in the chart—I mean, it's articulated in a lot of places, but a big one is that Saturn/Sun opposition because as soon as one of you tries to parent the other one or fix the other one, you're going to have resentments.

Elaine: Yeah.

Raj: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: So you can't fix each other. It's just not an option. But what you can do is recognize that some of the problems in your relationship are pointing out problems you have with yourself, and that's really motivating because neither of you want to grow old with problems. Both of you are actually really interested in healing. The issue is, of course, that healing is boring and slow and annoying and painful. And so neither of you are terribly comfortable with that discomfort in the relationship.

This is, again, where I come back to goofy. You can be having a heavy time and processing meaningful stuff and still be goofy with each other, and it will help. When it comes to communication—Elaine, Elaine, Elaine. Okay. You're much faster than him. That's just a damn thing. So you're going to ask him questions. You're going to ask him questions. The questions are going to go like this: "Did you actually hear what I said?" And is that going to sound like an annoyance to you, Raj, if she asks you that?

Raj: No. We've actually been practicing a "What did you hear me say?"

Jessica: Okay. Cool.

Elaine: Yeah. I ask that a lot.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Then—

Raj: Or, "How did you understand that?"

Jessica: Great. Okay. Good. I like that. Let's add to it. "Can you respond now, or do you need time to process?" The next question you can ask him if he says, "Yeah, I need time to process"—if you're being honest, Raj, you're going to say that, like, at least half the time. Elaine, you get to ask, "Okay. How long?" because you do have a right to finish a conversation, and he has a right to say, "I can finish it, but not in a healthy way now."

So then, Raj, you're going to have to do something that you really don't want to do, which is say when you'll talk about it later. So you might say, "I don't know," and that won't work for her, and then you'll have a fight. So, instead, what I would encourage you to say if you don't know is come up with a time that she will know is code for, "I don't know, but this is what I'm going with." "Give me an hour." You can come up with whatever. So if you're really not sure—

Raj: Can we call it code name Jessica for an hour?

Jessica: Yes. Yes. You call it code Jessica. I like that.

Elaine: Yes. It's great.

Jessica: But take an hour, and in that hour, Raj—do you write? Do you journal ever?

Raj: I definitely take notes.

Jessica: Okay. That's what I want you to do, then, is to go and take notes. Bullet-point what she just said, what she just did, and what she's asking of you. And then bullet-point what you think, and then what you feel, and then what you need, and then what you think you can actually offer the situation. Bullet point. No poetry. And then, if you are actually taking notes and you're not ready in a Jessica, a.k.a. an hour, then you can show her your notes. She can't read the notes; they're personal, right? So you're going to respect that, Elaine.

Elaine: Totally.

Jessica: But you can show her, "I'm researching," and that will be like an aphrodisiac for her. I mean, probably not literally, but it will make her feel loved because you're trying, because part of what happens—and, Elaine, correct me if I'm wrong—is that, Raj, when you kind of dissociate or you're not really clicked in and there, she feels abandoned, which does not make her feel loved, which makes her more pushy because she's like, "Well, let me explain it better so you don't go away." Is that correct?

Raj: Yeah.

Elaine: Well, and I really like the question, "How much time do you need to process?" because it confirms to me that you are processing. It helps give me that permission that, okay, I can slow down and pause this. We don't have to do it all right now and move so fast.

Jessica: Right. It's really important, Raj, for you to hear—I'm just going to expand on this, Elaine, and tell me if I'm getting it wrong—but for you to hear that she's willing to give you the space you need as long as you're assuring her that you'll bring it back around and that she won't have to nag it out of you, because that dynamic, I'm guessing, has happened. And nobody likes that. But, Raj, it's not your nature to be like, "Let me tell you when I'll come back to you," and so she's like, "Well, he's going to forget. He's not going to do it."

And so you're faster, Elaine, so you keep on asking. And so Raj actually never has had a chance, I'm guessing, to show you whether or not he would bring it back up. I don't know if he would, honestly. Raj, if somebody drops a thing, you usually let it lie. That's not a great way to build trust with Elaine long term. And so, as—hopefully; fingers crossed—life opens up and you're both a little more social and you've just moved to a new town and it's a busy, fun town—

Raj: More settled?

Jessica: Yeah. You're more settled, all those things—there will be more room for everything, including issues to get lost. We don't want that to happen. And so making this a practice will—it will work for the two of you. Now, Raj, honestly, do you tune people out sometimes?

Raj: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Have you ever admitted that to Elaine?

Raj: I believe I have.

Elaine: Maybe. I might have called—I've called him out on it.

[crosstalk]

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, I know you've called him out on it because that's your jam. But I was curious if he's actually just said it. You used the term "dissociate," which is a psychological term. It's a bit of a pathologizing term, and it's not wrong. And I know that there's a cultural thing where people of a certain age use psychological terms very conversationally. And I do think, Raj, that perhaps you do dissociate, but I also wonder if there's a less psychological word that you could use, Elaine, that would be easier for him to own and express because I do think, Raj, that you tune Elaine out, and I don't think it's necessarily completely personal to her. I think you just kind of do that. Your brain is real busy. Sometimes it's just busy with landscape. It's not always busy with words, but it's busy in there. Does that make sense?

Raj: It does. It does. I hear you filling in the landscape with "La la la la."

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And that is Elaine's nightmare. Every word she says is so important to her.

Elaine: Maybe, in a way, I almost turn it back around on myself because that's a pattern in my life where it's like, "Oh, let's turn it around and make Elaine the problem," or whatever I'm saying is not real; let's just dismiss what Elaine is saying. So when he's tuning me out, it hurts because it's just this—I'm not wanted to be around. I'm not wanted to be heard.

Jessica: I see that, and I'm really sorry that it's how it feels. And this is part of why I wanted to really name that he tunes out everybody. And this is just going to be, I think, even if you both go to the best therapist and the best healers and you really work on it and you're together in 50 years, he's still going to dissociate—we're using a psychological word again, but he's going to still tune out. It's just kind of how he's wired. And I think that if the two of you find ways of communicating, if you just say, "I feel like I'm in your landscape right now, and honey, I'm the sun. Focus in. Focus on me," he can say, "I can't." He can say, "Okay." You can have a conversation about it.

And what I think is really important for the two of you as a team to commit to is that you will return to the real thing you were talking about because nobody likes to feel alone in a conversation, not even you, Raj. That wouldn't be fun for you either, which is why you like Elaine as much as you do, because she's always right there when you need her to be right there. And I think that you are in many ways as well, but not when it comes to communication.

The thing in your communication that I think will be tricky as you get better is I think you'll have more conflict, which is why you don't have great communication, because you're avoiding uncomfortable emotions. And so it's avoiding conflict. So you only have conflict about not listening. Okay. Cool. You can handle that. And I think that this is where, again, it comes back to your individual tolerance for difficult emotions and your willingness to have stupid fights about real, stupid stuff because life is stupid, understanding that neither of you is going to jump ship because you had an annoying week.

I do get the sense from both of your individual charts and from the relationship chart that that is actually an underlying fear for both of you: not wanting to be too much, that kind of a thing. And so the verbal communication piece will be improved by these couple of little things around how you talk to each other and also doing emotional work because that's the actual thing. That's the actual problem. It's the roots of the problem. Do either of you have any questions?

Elaine: I have one question. Is there anything in my chart, or even transit-wise, that's standing out to why I'm struggling with having a drive to really do anything? And if there's any tools or some timeline in the horizon that might shift.

Jessica: You are in the buildup phase to your Saturn Return. Right? Your Saturn Return begins—when does it begin? The start of the year, of 2023. Your Saturn issue—you already described it, right? We already talked about it. It's like farmgirl work ethic. It's like, "I have to go, and I have to do. And if I'm not going and doing, then I'm wasting my time." It's like you're driven by survival and a combination of—again, we're living through exceptional times, and so everyone's burnt out. Everyone is in a really stressful state. And also, I'm guessing your nervous system is fried because of the way you've been living, not just during the pandemic. Just the way you've been living.

The thing that happens during the Saturn Return is we have to deal with how we've lived, and we have to choose to be different than our parents and the people we were raised around or not. You have choices to make. If you continue in the way you've been going, you'll see. You're already seeing it. You're not happy. Doesn't matter how happy you are in your relationship and your work, whatever. There's this fundamental lack of [foreign language 01:02:01] that you're experiencing. It's classic nervous system stuff, right?

I'm not a doctor. You should never take any kind of medical advice from any kind of woo person. But I would be concerned about your adrenals. If you have any kind of adrenal fatigue, I would be—

Elaine: I do have adrenal fatigue.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not surprised. And so, if you know you have adrenal fatigue, then that's the answer straight out the gate. But the astrology backs it up. Your nervous system needs support. And when you're trying to be like, "Okay. I'll support my nervous system, but where are my goals? Where is my passion? What am I doing?" well, then, you're not really being that supportive to your nervous system. You're just kind of showing up, doing some spit cleaning, and leaving the room.

Your nervous system needs you to not be so goal oriented. And I'm not saying don't be a functional person in the world, but you have energy for certain things. No? Healing? Sounds like you're real fucking busy with all the things, all the woo. You have energy. You just moved. You're in a committed relationship. You're willing to work on it. There are so many things that you do have energy and passion for, and they may not be "productive." Oh well. This is kind of where you navigated yourself to. It's difficult. And because you're so young, this is a great time to be dealing with this because if you were dealing with this, let's say, in your 40s, you'd have a lot more to lose taking a few years off. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. If you were in your 40s, I would give you the same advice, to kind of back off of being so goal oriented.

Let's be perfectly clear. This is part of the sex issue. Right? And you named that earlier. You're like, "They're connected." They are connected. Your system is fried. You're burnt out. You're just like, "I can't keep on doing things."

Elaine: Yeah.

Jessica: That's real. So what do you want to do about that? You want to do something about that. "I can't keep on doing things" makes you want to do something. I respect you so much for having that problem, but it is a problem. It's more about, "How can I be receptive to where I'm at right now? How can I support myself through this?" I would encourage you very strongly to center your body through this. So, if you know you have adrenal fatigue, what kind of treatment are you doing for it?

But I would encourage you to get medical support in addition to everything else because the Saturn Return is no joke, as you know if you fuck with astrology. The Saturn Return is meant to confront us as adults for the first time with the choices we've made up till now. It's a big deal. And so the way you manage your self-care, your physical health, your mental health, how hard you are on yourself and then sometimes, by extension, others—that's your Saturn Return.

Luckily, in the relationship you're in, the work your relationship requires of you and the work your body requires of you and the work that your psyche requires of you is all the same fucking thing. That's how you know you're in a good place. Right? The bad news is best of luck dissociating from this. It's not going to be easy, because everything in your life is pointing you in this direction. And that's hard, but it's good hard. It's not bad hard.

My loves, let's get astrological. This week, we're going to look at the astrology of February 13th through the 19th of 2022. The astrological news starts off on the 14th, and that happens to be Valentine's Day. Do I personally care about Valentine's Day? No, not very much. But you may care, and you may care by deeply disliking this holiday or by loving it. And there are so many ways to be. But I just want to take a moment to talk about love and loneliness because we are going through a transit of Jupiter in Pisces, and this happens once every 12 years because it takes Jupiter 12 years to return to any individual sign.

This transit is one that is likely to kind of inspire grandiose gestures, big declarations, big emotions, and idealism when it comes to all things, including love. If you're a romantic and you're getting serious with somebody or you're in a relationship, that might be great news. But there's something else that Jupiter in Pisces is really good for, and that's cultivating a deep and meaningful relationship with yourself. And it doesn't automatically do this. There are some ways that Jupiter can be really inspiring and just make things easy and happen in this meteoric moment. Jupiter in Pisces is not exactly like that.

As much as internet astrology may promise you love and ease during this transit, you may have noticed so far that that's not exactly what's happening. This transit is an excElainet one for cultivating forgiveness, for being generous, for experiencing love not because of some specific action or as a reward for good deeds, but instead because we are all deserving of love because our innate humanity is enough. It's just enough. Being able to love yourself, to accept yourself, to embrace this moment—the good, the bad, the awkward, the ugly, all of it—that is a gift of Jupiter in Pisces. But like most gifts, you kinda gotta do a little bit of labor. You gotta open the prezzy, and then you gotta put it to use.

So, wherever you're at this Valentine's Day season, I do want to encourage you to put in the effort to cultivate a relationship with yourself that is loving and forgiving and kind, and to trust that this will leak out into your relationships with others. And if it doesn't, then you're not doing it right. If your loving and forgiving of yourself empowers you to do shitty things or to be careless with others, then that's not self-love. That is some form of spiritual bypassing or self-indulgence, which is the downside of Jupiter in Pisces, or at least it can be.

So what I want to kind of point you in the direction of, regardless of your romantic status this Valentine's time, is to consider your relationship to yourself and to actively work towards self-acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude. And to kind of point you in that direction, may I recommend this Valentine's Day starting a gratitude list? In fact, on the 14th, Mercury moves out of Capricorn. Thank you very much and buh-bye, Mercury in Capricorn, and into Aquarius again, where it started its Retrograde. Now we're in our Retroshade, but we're out of the Retrograde. And Mercury moves into Aquarius.

This is a great time for creating greater mental clarity, especially in regards to our ability to make connections, see things from a new perspective, and make plans that support our future. And I would suggest that a gratitude list is a great move in that direction. And in particular, what might be quite helpful is to cultivate gratitude for the love you do have in your life, the ways in which you love yourself, the forgiveness that you can offer yourself if you feel you need forgiveness. And who are we kidding? Most of us need some forgiveness some of the time, at least. At the very least. So, this Valentine's Day, don't be so fixated on the commercial and social pressures of romance and partnership, and instead cultivate an intimate relationship with yourself that is one you want to grow into and grow old with.

If you want a little bit more on my reflections on this Valentine's Day, join me over on Patreon, where I like to share the Sabian symbols for important astrological movements. And so I discuss the Sabian symbol of Venus on V-day, just to give you a little more spiritual direction if you're in the market for such things. And, of course, I'm dropping the AMA where I'm answering your questions about love on the kittens level of my Patreon.

Okay. So, on the 16th, we have the next exact transit of the week, the first being on the 14th, Mercury ingressing into Aquarius. And on the 16th, we have a Full Moon, babies. The Full Moon is in Leo exact at 8:56 a.m. Pacific Time. And, of course, a Full Moon always occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly opposite to each other by sign and degree. It's a time for closure. It's a time for emotions getting really big as feelings come to the surface and start to get really insistent to be experienced and expressed.

Now, the fact that the Moon is in Leo, of course, makes the emotions extra big and extra fiery. And that can be really exciting and passionate, or it can be really frustrating and chaotic-feeling, depending on how this hits your birth chart and depending, of course, on how you're feeling and what's going on in your personal life.

So the first thing I want to point out about this Full Moon chart is that the full Moon forms a T-square to the North Node or a Grand Cross to the Nodal Axis. And while I don't typically focus on the nodes in charts like these, I do want to acknowledge that this is happening and what it means is that the way that we show up for, experience, and relate to our emotions, our feelings, our needs, and our actual dynamics—how we are engaging with other people—there's a great amount of energy around making sure that you are being authentic.

And so, instead of asking yourself, "Should I do this?" or, "What will happen?" or, "What should I do?" kind of questions, ask yourself, "What is authentic for me in this situation? What is authentic for me emotionally?" or, "What can I do in a way that reflects my actual truth instead of my best strategy?" And maybe in the end you'll decide to act more strategically than authentically. Life is full of compromise. But I do recommend that you take the time to consider what is authentic for you before you start compromising. And this is a common mistake that most of us make in life, is we start compromising before we first identify what is authentic for us, what our truth is, what our actual desires are, and what our capacity is. So don't skip that essential step. That's a starting point.

In this Full Moon chart, we have a Mars/Venus conjunction in Capricorn. And this transit can be really good for relationships. It's good for relationships because it brings together our drive to make things happen and our needs or preferences around diplomacy. So it gives us kind of the desire to make a thing happen and then the finesse to smooth out the actions a little bit there.

Now, on a romantic and sexual front, this transit can be really great because what you want, what you need, how you want to go about getting it—all of those energies are kind of on the same page, which is wonderful. Now, again, the internet may promise you magic, love, life, perfect romance. And I just have never seen that happen from this transit. It's technically possible, and I certainly hope that for you, but let's adjust our expectations to be realistic. What's much more likely to happen, especially because this conjunction is in the pragmatic sign of Capricorn, is that the energy is there to initiate a course—because it is a conjunction—in the right direction.

So, if you are single and wanting to be dating, this is a great time to adjust your energy, set intentions, put yourself out there. And putting yourself out there could be literally going out on a date or flirting with someone new, getting on an app, but it also could be setting the intention and doing spiritual work. And because this conjunction is occurring at the same time as a Full Moon, it's not a great time to try to manifest or start something new because Full Moons are associated with ending and releasing. So what this is a healthy moment to do is to start releasing what doesn't serve you in your attitudes, in your habits, etc.

And it is important to remember that beginnings and endings are just two heads of the same coin. Every beginning is associated with an ending, and every ending is associated with a beginning. That's just how it goes. And so, this Full Moon, that would be a very helpful thing for you to remember in your approach and process about romance. Now, if you are entangled with someone or someones, this is a great time to be really clear. Venus and Capricorn, especially conjunct Mars—mean what you say and say what you mean. Make sure that your actions are aligned with your intentions. And if you are going to express yourself or put yourself out there, this is some literal energy, so try to just be really straightforward. That'll get you the best results.

Now, that said, my loves, Mercury is, yes, in Aquarius now, but it is still conjoined Pluto. So we have an out-of-sign conjunction. And that means that many of us are still likely to be in a pretty heavy, self-serious frame of mind. Pluto/Mercury conjunction kicks up survival mechanisms. So, yes, it's a Full Moon in Leo. Yes, Venus and Mars are conjoined. However, there's still a serious risk of drama. And I want to remind you that not all drama is bad. Not all confrontation is bad. We need confrontation in order to acknowledge and heal many of our issues. And so you may have to have a heavy conversation with someone, or someone might kind of come at you with issues they've been holding on to or some deep shit that they've been thinking about or feeling.

You may find yourself in an obsessive frame of mind. And I talked about this transit in last week's horoscope because it was exact last week, but it's still active during the Full Moon. And we know that Full Moons kick up or intensify emotions. So this can be quite an explosive and intense experience, honestly. So, if you have to have an intense conversation with someone—and you might—if you find yourself compulsively fixating on your exes or something you said or did in the past or some desire that you have that you're not seeing evidence of it showing up in your life right now—and all of this is very possible—the best thing you can do here is get to the root of the issue and be straightforward and forthright with yourself or others about what's really happening, about what you really want, what you need, and what you can offer. If you don't know the answer to any or all of those questions, that's life. Okay. Just be straightforward and honest about that.

This transit is intense, and its intensity is part of the problem itself because when a person or a bunch of people are caught up in their survival mechanisms, their fight-or-flight mechanisms, then that's when we tend to ignore the lovely stuff, the easy stuff, the supportive stuff, and the help available to us, and we get fixated on the negative and challenging things inside of ourselves or in our lives as a way to justify our feelings.

Here's a fun fact: sometimes you feel like shit just because you feel like shit. There doesn't have to be a super deep reason around it. Oftentimes there is a super deep reason, but with this Full Moon chart, I imagine that there's going to be a little bit of everything, that if you're experiencing intensity, some of it really might just be because emotions are coming to the surface and you're in a fixated state of mind, and it's just that, that it's not a new injury or a new set of emotions. It's just that you're feeling them intensely as they rise to the surface and want to be experienced so they can be released.

And some of this stuff is actually deep and needs your investigation and analysis. How to know the difference between these two things requires some measure of wisdom. How does a person cultivate wisdom? Through experience. So, if you are not feeling very wise and not knowing what to do, that's okay. Stay with the process and have faith that it will eventually, through the course of time, add up to be something you can really work with, something that supports and aids in your own evolution.

If you can make sense of things by reflecting on your past, on mistakes you've made, on progress you've made in the past, patterns in your relationships or in your own thinking, that is really a good approach for this Full Moon. It will be very helpful and very life-affirming. And what more does a Full Moon in Leo want than life-affirming healing? Not much more, honestly. Not much more.

Now, the last thing I want to name about this Full Moon chart is that we still have the Saturn/Uranus square. And that means that we're still all going through this psychological and lifestyle-oriented tension, as it's hard to trust what's real, and this makes it hard to make plans for the future because things feel so unstable in the present. As I've said many times before, this is a global transit, so we're all going through it. It is impacting societies, economies, infrastructure in kind of all contexts in the collective, and it's also impacting us as individuals.

And so, if you have been struggling—struggling with your mental health, struggling to make sense of how to approach the things you want in your present and future, you're not alone. That's a big part of this transit. We were going through it all of 2021, and we can expect to be feeling it throughout the year of 2022. So be gentle. Don't forget that there is a larger context to what you're experiencing, and in particular around love and dating, whether you're single and trying to find someone or you're in a serious committed relationship and everything in between.

For anyone who wants to be in a relationship, any kind of relationship, this is a hard time because each of us as individuals are going through so much through the pandemic and so much of the social tensions that are occurring in the world. That changes us, and it impacts us. It impacts how we can show up for intimacy or not, our neediness or desire to be close to others or not. And so, again, have some grace. Be patient with your progress. And if you can, be patient with others—not at your own expense, not at the expense of your wellness, of course, but be patient with others when it is healthy to do so.

Okay. So the next exact transit we have this week is on the 17th, and it is a Jupiter sextile to Uranus. This transit is really lovely for breakthroughs and creativity, and it certainly is a boon to have almost exact during the Full Moon. It can certainly facilitate us making connections and prioritizing our healing and growth over our pettiness and insecurities. So yay for that. But on a larger level, this transit is excElainet for making positive and life-affirming changes in your life and in the world around you. This is because both Jupiter and Uranus are willing to take risks. They are future-leaning, forward-thinking planets.

If you need to approach things from a new perspective, and in particular from a more hopeful perspective, this transit is going to be really helpful. But like with all sextiles, it really requires us to intentionally use this energy to the best of our ability. This will be easier for you to do if you look for where Pisces and Taurus fall in your birth chart because Jupiter is at 11 degrees of Pisces, and Uranus is at 11 degrees of Taurus. So those are the houses, and if you have any planets around there that are getting triggered by this energy, this really lovely energy—so peek at your birth chart to get a sense of that.

The only downside that I can see with this transit is that it definitely creates a real itchiness for freedom. And technically speaking, this is a great transit for travel, although we are still living in a global pandemic, and many places throughout the U.S. and the world are getting rid of mask mandates and just kind of acting like we're at an endemic point of the pandemic. But that doesn't seem right to me. Me personally, I'm keeping on my goddamn mask, and I encourage you to do the same. So, again, you want to use your common sense. You want to remember that we are living in complex conditions now, as always. And so, just because the Jupiter sextile to Uranus is occurring, that doesn't mean the Saturn square to Uranus is not.

So we've got mixed information coming at us, and we may have dueling impulses around what to do. The key here is to be protective of yourself, protective of the community, whatever that means in the context we're thinking about it, without compromising hope, without losing your willingness to experience positive potential. That's the move here. Technically speaking, this transit is pretty great for taking risks and taking chances. And so I want to encourage you to do that, but again, not at the expense of your good old-fashioned common sense, my friends, or your consideration of others.

Now, the last transit of this week happens on the 18th of February, and that is when the Sun moves into Pisces. You know me. I don't talk too much about solar ingressions. It's not really my vibe. But now we will have a bunch of planets in Pisces, and that is going to kick up sensitivities. Depending on your nature, that might be a really inspiring and lovely thing, or it might tap you or exhaust you. So this might be a good moment for me to remind you to practice good boundary work, to have good energetic boundaries for yourself and also to have healthy boundaries in your relationship to how you spend your time, what you take in, and what you do. A meaningful part of that is respecting other people's boundaries. So, this Pisces season, may I invite you to be conscientious about your energy and how you protect it?

Now, my loves, I'm going to run through the transits of this week one more time for you. On the 14th, Mercury ingresses into Aquarius. On the 16th at 8:56 a.m. Pacific Time, we have a Full Moon in Leo and a Venus conjunction to Mars. The Venus conjunction to Mars is exact at 6:28 a.m. Pacific Time. On the 17th, Jupiter forms an exact sextile to Uranus. And on the 18th, the Sun moves into empathetic Pisces.

My loves, I thank you so much for joining me here on Ghost of a Podcast this week and every week. If you haven't already subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts, please do. It makes a huge difference. You can always visit my website at lovelanyadoo.com or ghostofapodcast.com and send in your question to be answered on the podcast. If you want to learn more with me, while you're over on my website, go to the Shop page, and you can get a bunch of classes and learn about all manner of astrology.

That's it. That's all. Saying goodbye is such sweet sorrow, but I will talk to you again next week. Buh-bye.