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.

COVID-19 is raging again, and healthcare workers need our support. Consider donating to Emotional PPE at emotionalppe.org. They're an organization that provides any worker in healthcare impacted by COVID-19 free mental health services with licensed therapists. Another way you can help is by donating to your local general hospital's spiritual care department and to earmark that donation for staff support. Give what you can. 

I had the total pleasure sitting down with Bunny Michael, and if you don't know their work, they're artist, spiritual coach, and the host of Higher Self podcast. Check them out on the internet—on the World Wide Web, that is—and enjoy this reading here.

Jessica: Okay. So welcome to your reading, Bunny.

Bunny: Thank you very much. So happy to be here.

Jessica: I'm so happy you're here. Are you comfortable with me sharing your birth information with the people?

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Cool. And you were born October 3rd, 1982, 6:39 a.m., in the big city of Overland Park, Kansas?

Bunny: Yes, the huge metroplex.

Jessica: So, my dear, is there anything specific or general that you want to ask me about that you have going on in your life that you want insight into?

Bunny: Oh gosh. Of course, I'm obsessed with my career and the trajectory of that, but I also kind of am a person that really trusts where everything is going to, as well. But always having a little guidance in that direction is helpful.

Jessica: And are you in a partnership?

Bunny: I'm married. Yes.

Jessica: You're married. Okay. Do you have kids, human babies?

Bunny: No.

Jessica: And is that a plan for you or a goal for you?

Bunny: It was, but I don't know if it's going to work out. In the past couple years, it's kind of been something that's sort of—we were planning on having a kid and then kind of ran into some blockages fertility-wise. And at this point, I'm kind of not sure if I want to put myself through a difficult, challenging situation that might not end up being something. So all of that kind of stuff just got put on the backburner, and I've got so many other things going on right now that it just kind of feels like, "Well, maybe it's not meant to be." But I did just get a dog, so—

Jessica: Oh. That's nice.

Bunny: —I do feel fulfilled in a way.

Jessica: That's good.

Bunny:  That stuff is all kind of related to my health and my hormones, and I do have continual unknowns about my health in terms of hormonal stuff and everything because I had a parathyroid disease; I got a thyroidectomy in '19—I mean in 2019. And ever since then, I've just been kind of on this roller coaster when it comes to knowing what the hell is going on with my reproductive system and my hormones and all that stuff. And that's all tied into everything, you know?

Jessica: Every literal thing. And your partner is not somebody who can or would procreate?

Bunny: Would not. Doesn't want to. Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So it's all on you in that way. So maybe we'll start—it's a weird place to start. It's kind of like starting in the middle, but I'll pull back and then I'll dive in because there's lots for us to talk about. So the first thing I'll say is when I pulled up your birth chart, I was like, "That is almost the most Libra I have ever seen in anyone's birth chart ever." You have so much Libra in your birth chart, I just—yeah. You are so sensitive. You are the most sensitive of all the people. You have—what is it? Your Rising sign is in Libra. You've got Venus, Mercury, Sun, Saturn, and Pluto. That's a lot. Six planets—I mean, including the Ascendant—in one sign is a lot. And in the sign of Libra, it makes you so sensitive and so creative. And those sensitivities and your creativity are clearly something that you've merged in your life. But the need for you to have a personal life, the need for you to self-protect, is immense. It is immense. And when you name that—in 2019, you said that you got the diagnosis for your thyroid and started to deal with it then?

Bunny: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: At the start of 2019, Pluto started to square your Saturn in the first house. And so, with that transit—it was a two-year transit. It is now over, but the planet sitting right on top of it, Pluto, is also being squared by Pluto at this time. And so the issue of your health is a part of that, but on a kind of deeper, more spiritual level, it was really about things coming to a head in such a way that you were able and/or willing to take real responsibility for it, to activate based on what was happening for you, which in a way was you validating your own desire to be whole and healthy and to prioritize your own wellness.

Bunny: Yes, because actually, what happened when I found that out—I found that out because I went to the doctor for the first time in probably like ten years or more.

Jessica: Wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. You were—

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: The downside of having so much Libra in your birth chart is it can be really hard to locate yourself and prioritize yourself unless it's in response to the environment or other people. And that's true in general for having all that Libra. Now, all of your Libra stuff is in the house of Aries. It's in the first house. So that kind of gives you more access and resources to identify yourself and be with yourself. But I'm not shocked to hear that you didn't go to a doctor for a decade, because that's really a form of self-care that is really exclusively about you. Also, doctors are difficult. But that is a form of self-care that's really exclusively about you. And I have to ask: did you have endometriosis as well?

Bunny: I don't know, because the issue with the fertility stuff was probably a year or so later after the thyroidectomy and everything. We were going to try to get pregnant, and then I went to my endocrinologist for another blood test. And she was like, "Oh, I'll just test your hormone levels." And then turns out I have extremely low egg count, and all of the numbers indicated that I was premenopausal. And then I started experiencing all of this bleeding and all of this stuff, and hot flashes and all these things. So then I ended up going to another gynecologist, who put me on progesterone cream. And then I went to an acupuncturist, who was like, "Well, you shouldn't do that because then your body's not going to create it," blah, blah, blah.

So I don't really know what's going on right now, but it became such a—it was already a difficult choice for me to finally find the confidence to be like, "I could get pregnant. I could have a child." I did not expect for it ever to be a difficult process in that way. So when it became the possibility was low, I was like, "I don't know if I could handle the likelihood of miscarriage, the likelihood of going through that." I just think I'm too sensitive. I don't know if I could get through that. So the endometriosis—when I kept going to the gynecologist, I was really confused about all of the cysts and all of the things that were going on and all of the bleeding. And since then, it's kind of balanced out, but I never really quite—I still don't quite understand—

Jessica: Why.

Bunny: —because, of course, we have no education about that stuff.

Jessica: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bunny: So yeah.

Jessica: I'll say this is—again, it's a weird place to start, but it feels really connected to everything because it's your body. From what I'm seeing, there's a couple things worth naming. One is that through/until November of 2023—so you got a lot more time on this one—Pluto will continue to be squaring itself, which is a once-in-a-lifetime transit. First of all, the issues with your body are likely to stay active. In other words, you may continue to be questioning it. Your body may still be throwing out some smoke in mirrors. You may not in this period decide on the approach you want to take—Eastern, Western, what kind of Eastern, what kind of Western, that kind of stuff. But I do want to name that this is a really important thing to stay invested in, even though it's stressful. And it's not about having kids. That's kind of the branch of the tree, not the trunk of the tree. Right?

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: It's about understanding your body and taking really good care of it, and doing it through your fear, because what's getting hit in your birth chart is the most fearful point in your birth chart. And so this is probably something that is really bringing up a lot. And I want to also just validate I think you're right that it's not a good risk for you. If doctors are saying the chances of miscarriage are really high, it doesn't look like that's something that you would be super resilient around. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but if your instinct is, in knowing that much about yourself, that it's not worth it, I want to validate that. I agree.

That kind of brings me to your career, oddly. And we can come back to hormones and medical stuff if you want me to dig in there, because I'm happy to. But you've got this Midheaven/North Node conjunction in your birth chart, and what this means is that your career, your sense of direction and purpose in this world and in this lifetime, are massive. It's such a big deal. And certainly, there are some astrologers that would see all this stuff in Cancer and be like, "You should be a mom. That's what you should do." I am not the one. I am not the one, though, because I think that we can birth and create and nurture and parent on a myriad of levels, and I don't really think Cancer energy is exclusive to mothering energy at all.

And through your work—and I should pull back to say, in the last three/four years, your career, it looks like, has really—I don't know if it's expanded or not, but it's absolutely become more of a reflection of you. Does that make sense?

Bunny: Yes. Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica: It's like you stopped fighting yourself, and you really stepped into yourself in public. And when you did that, everything opened up for you. And this is the way that the North Node works: when we step into our North Node, our lives kind of just start to flow more easily. And so I don't think, in any way, there's a career or parenting issue in your birth chart or in general for people.

But I do see—if you set the intention that you're going to bring all of that parenting/nurturing energy to what you create and what you put into the world, I think that that absolutely will be enough to make you truly happy over the course of your life, not just over the course of these five years when the internet is what it is or when your circumstances are what they are. So, to me, that's a really great thing because some people really do need to have kids to be whole and happy. To me, your chart does not articulate that. There's pros and cons, it looks like, for both ways of living.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: So I don't see that it has to be any one way. Connected to that is this really important theme that runs through your birth chart of needing to prioritize how you feel when you're alone with yourself. I think when we're talking about hormones or we're talking about career—on very different levels, but when we talk about either of these things, it takes a lot of practice and care to check in with yourself and to kind of parse through what part of this is right for me, what part of this is wrong for me, what feels like it's hormones, what feels like it's something else.

Part of what I see you going through—and you have been going through for the past couple years, which happens to have immediately coincided with the pandemic, right? But what you're going through and will continue to go through for about two more years is this spiritual and very personal shift where you are questioning things. You're questioning what gives you value and what gives you meaning. And when you do things that are inauthentic to you and just don't feel right to you, your body, it looks like, is hitting this wall. Okay. So I don't remember if I came up with this or one of my friends did, but you know the mall wall when you're shopping in a mall and everything's good, and then all of a sudden, you just hit this wall of exhaustion?

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: It's a mall wall. And it looks like your body—it's like you're hitting a mall wall when you are doing things that are not authentic to you right now. It's just like you don't have the extra energy.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. And so, while it's a boner and not fun, it's actually really great because your body is giving you very clear feedback—very clear feedback—about what resonates in a healthy way and what doesn't.

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. What's coming up?

Bunny: I guess I just feel like sometimes I feel guilty for not listening.

Jessica: To your body?

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Interesting.

Bunny: You know, to make those choices. Sometimes—and maybe this—I don't know; you tell me—is like a Libra thing. Sometimes it's easier to just do what makes somebody else happy, or even if I don't even know if it will. But if my partner is cooking us dinner, I don't want to be picky about what it is.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah.

Bunny: They're cooking it—or asking, "Hey, can we not have that in the house?"

Jessica: Interesting.

Bunny: That type of stuff is difficult for me because I don't want to take away anybody's joy or anything like that. But I really started to notice that my environment is extremely important as far as what I put in my body, and if it's there, I'll put it in my body. And I really need—I need help and support in making choices that make me happy.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. So, first of all, yeah, it's a Libra thing for sure. But it's not exclusively a Libra thing. You also have Neptune at the bottom of your chart, and that Neptune—it's conjunct to your IC, opposite your Midheaven. And that placement, what it does is it makes it so that you need your home space to be sanctuary. You just need your home space to be sanctuary.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: You need it to be magical. You need it to be quiet. When smells are off, when sounds are off, it disrupts you on a really intense level. And that's also true for people with tons of Libra in their chart, as you do. So you've got the quadruple whammy. You are not someone who could live near a construction site and thrive. That's just not you. If there are smells in the house, if there are foods in the house that aren't supportive to your system, it's very hard for you to have boundaries with it because when you're home is the space where you don't want to have to have boundaries, because they're so difficult for you.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And on top of that, you've got all this damn Libra, and it's the Ascendant, Venus, Mercury, and Sun all sitting on top of each other. And all of those planets in Libra say, "Don't worry about me. What about you?" And it is easier for you to react than to respond. I think that's a human thing. It's something I talk about all the damn time. But with this Libra stuff, any kind of Venusian stuff, it's easier to position yourself in response to your partner, your collaborator, whatever it is, than to identify what you need and to validate what you need and then ask someone else to honor that, because if they don't honor it, you collapse a little bit. It really, really hurts your feelings is what it looks like. Does that make sense?

Bunny: Yes, but at the same time, I also just feel like I'm so self-involved. You know what I mean? I guess part of it is also, too, because I feel like I'm so obsessed with my work and discovering myself and, really, just the things I'm passionate about. It's hard for me to understand how I'm not also an extreme—I've had multiple people tell me, "Hey, it's not all about you."

Jessica: Okay. Let's talk about that.

Bunny: Multiple partners. Not people. Not friends or family. Partners.

Jessica: It's the people you're dating. It's the people you're really close with.

Bunny: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So there's the thing. In astrology, we know there's zodiac signs and then there's houses. So while, yes, you've got a stellium in Libra, it's also in the house of Aries. So it is the "me first" placement. So yes. Your obsession with relationships and with creativity and even your desire to be reactive and to respond to other people, it is a "me first" vibe. And you enjoy it. You enjoy it. It's not like you're obsessing on people and wanting them to pay attention to you. You just are constantly reflecting on things, and you are able to see yourself reflected in many things. And so I'm not shocked to hear that your partners have said that.

But here's where it comes back to boundaries because not only do you have that Venus/Mercury/Sun conjunction, you've also got Saturn and Pluto. So Saturn and Pluto conjoined is—it's very flight-or-fight mechanism oriented. It has you holding on really tight. And so if, let's say, there's something you really want to manifest in your career, you're not just going to do the things you know to do to manifest. That Saturn/Pluto conjunction is very fixated, very compulsive. And so maybe you can manage it in general in your life in a particular way, but at home with your closest person, they're going to be the one that you feel safe to really explore that obsessive part or the fear-based part. Does that make sense?

Bunny: Yeah. Yes.

Jessica: And so, with your partners, there is a need for you to kind of acknowledge this part of your nature that doesn't come up with other people and to have honest conversations with your partner about, "Okay. I am going to continue to obsessively talk about these compulsive things that I don't talk to other people about because you're my primary support for that. And that's unlikely to change. I don't want to be narcissistic. I don't want to be self-obsessed. So are there other things I can be aware of or that I can compromise or do in the relationship, in our dynamic? Is there something I talk about that you're like, 'Okay. I get to hear about it three times but not four'?" Have that kind of conversation with your partner. And do they have—is "they" the right pronoun for me to use?

Bunny: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Okay. And do they have the willingness and ability to have an honest, direct conversation?

Bunny: We're working on it. I mean, I know I'm not the easiest person in certain—I don't really like to be criticized in certain ways, especially if it's about how well I'm doing caring for somebody. That really is hard for me to hear because I feel like I'm being extremely caring and thoughtful of their needs, and so to hear that I've kind of misstepped or haven't done enough, it plays into that same narrative of "I'm not doing enough." So my biggest issue is never feeling like I'm doing enough. And so, if my partner tells me I'm not doing enough, I kind of lose it a little bit.

Jessica: Okay. Let's talk about that. Okay. From your perspective, what's actually happening is that you're doing too much. So, if you're trying to do all the damn things, then some things will fall in the cracks. Some things will not get prioritized in a way that—maybe your partner wants this to be a ten, and you're like, "It's a five. Everything's a five."

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: And can you say their name so that I can look at them energetically? Do you mind doing that? Are they okay with it?

Bunny: Oh, they're fine with it.

Jessica: Okay.

Bunny: Khara Gilvey.

Jessica: What do you call them?

Bunny: Khara.

Jessica: They have another name, eh?

Bunny: They sometimes will go by KH.

Jessica: Okay. That's actually it. Are they transitioning?

Bunny: Not officially. I mean, they're kind of always—they're kind of undefined. It's something that is like an ongoing "It's hard to be in this world" type of thing.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. They feel very transmasculine to me.

Bunny: Yes. They are.

Jessica: Yeah. So okay. And please tell me if this is right or wrong. What they do is they tell you, quote unquote, what you've been doing wrong—which is not how they perceive it, but that's how you perceive it—when they're already activated, when they're actively upset about something. Correct?

Bunny: Yes. That's when it comes out. Yeah.

Jessica: And that's why you respond so poorly, because you're responding to the energy instead of the words. The energy is, "I'm frustrated. I shouldn't have to tell you this. This has been going on too long," even if the words are like, "Hey, could you do the dishes?" The energy is, in truth, they should've told you like five times you fucked up the dishes ago instead of in that moment. And this is not to point blame on either of you. It's more to unpack what's going sideways because what's going sideways is they finally kind of get the bravery, get the energy to tell you—is how they feel. That's not really what's happening.

Bunny: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: What's happening is they get pissed off enough about it, and then they tell you—

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: —which will never, ever, ever work with you, ever. No person dating a Libra should ever wait till they're pissed off to say something, because all that Libra in your chart is just like, "Oh my God. You're upset with me," and that's all you can hear.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. So, for them—if I can give them some unsolicited advice to help both of you, it would be to try to notice what's bugging them and say it when it's not a big deal, when they still have a sense of humor about it, because they do have a good sense of humor. Right?

Bunny: Yeah, they do.

Jessica: And when they say things like, "Hey, could you do this?" or, "Hey, could you do that?" and it's kind of light, do you get defensive with that?

Bunny: I don't think they ever do. No, not because they're always telling me what to do in a bad way—because they're never telling me what to do.

Jessica: Because they're never telling you. Okay. Okay. So that needs to shift because what I see in your chart is that you like knowing the rules. You like knowing the rules because you like working within them. I mean, you're very rebellious, so I know what I'm saying is also opposite-true. But in this context, in a partnership, if your partner—if you're, I don't know, putting a pink hat on your partner's head every day, and they're like, "Hey, listen. I like coral. I like red. I like orange. But I don't like pink," you just want to know. Then you'll fix it, no problem. But if they're like, "Why are you doing this? What is wrong?" then you're not hearing it anymore. All you're hearing is that you're being punished. That's where it goes for you—

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: —is punishment, whether they're being punishing or not. It looks like sometimes they are, and sometimes they're not. But that's the trigger. All your alarms go off. Then you're no longer having a conversation about their needs. Now you're having a conversation about your feelings in reaction to their needs, and then they get more ramped up.

Bunny: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: We have a perfect storm.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: This is really important because it's the biggest problem in the relationship is what it looks like. Is that correct?

Bunny: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It doesn't look like there's any bigger ones.

Bunny: No.

Jessica: Honestly, it looks like a great relationship. But this sometimes is a bummer and sometimes is a scary bummer, like "I don't want this to get worse" kind of thing.

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: And the reason why that is is because this problem reflects their biggest problem with themselves and your biggest problem with yourself.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And so, inevitably, it looks like a relationship problem, but it's really the problem you have with yourselves. And because your shit matches their shit so perfectly, neither of you really have to heal because you're constantly reacting to the other one, and the other one's constantly doing something wrong. It's very convenient for the survival of these flight-or-fight mechanisms that get them to only tell you something's wrong when they're super activated and that have you kind of shut down in the face of that energy.

Okay. Here's a bit of advice, and you tell me if this is realistic. What if they were to write down—like if you got a cute notepad, and they could write a note when they're like, "I think I'm getting bothered by this," or, "I think this is triggering me"? Would a note be easier for you to talk?

Bunny: Oh, definitely.

Jessica: Especially if it was on something cutified. All that Libra—we just need to cutify everything.

Bunny: Yeah. Make the aesthetic right. I'm down for it.

Jessica: You're down. They could say intense things to you, but if it was cutified properly, it would work.

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: So try out for maybe two months, three months, a situation where they write their frustrations, their questions, yada yada, on that cute piece of paper, and then hand it to you. And you're not allowed to react with anything other than questions or comments. So I'm not saying ever. I'm saying in the moment. So they're not expecting you to respond right away is the first step, and the second step is you have permission to sit with your feelings, to sort through them, because [crosstalk]—

Bunny: Right. That always helps.

Jessica: It does.

Bunny: That's definitely helped me. I always try to—I just—honestly, even five minutes is so much better.

Jessica: The feeling of responsibility that you have with that Saturn/Pluto conjunction in the first house, it's like, "I have to respond right away." And that pressure makes you rebellious. And so, sometimes, the shit that comes out of your mouth, I'm guessing, is not what you planned on. But it's just like, in your efforts to be responsible, you kind of abandon yourself, and then your behavior's not always what you want it to be.

Bunny: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: So, on the flip/connected to this homework, I'm going to say get another piece of cute stationery. Practice writing on a note, "Oh, they're going to cook dinner tonight, and they're going to make something that I know is going to give me a stomachache or I'm just not feeling," and writing a cute note being like, "I am super down to eat the thing you're cooking for me because I am not willing to do the cooking and you are—yay you. You're the best person in the world. I don't really want to eat this. You can ignore this note or use this information as you will."

Boom, just like passing notes in school here. I don't know that that would work as well for them as it would for you, but if they're open to it, if that doesn't sound annoying to them—which, honestly, I'm 50/50 if that would be annoying to them. But if it doesn't sound annoying to them, it would be a good way for you to practice asking for what you want, because I didn't forget you told me it felt selfish to say what you want, and I'm coming back to that right here and now.

Having desires and preferences and needs is not selfish. That said, we can assert them—our desires, preferences, and needs—in selfish ways. And I think that you have developed yourself and worked on yourself so much that the skill set that you have around asking for what you need or want is significantly less developed than most of you. And so it feels bad because it feels kind of regressive. It's like you really just haven't prioritized this in your life yet. And I only say "yet" because since 2019, I think you have been prioritizing it more, and it's probably felt quite difficult.

Bunny: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. The work of being able to identify your preference, your need, whatever it is, and then be like, "Okay. Is this related to my welfare? Is this related to my comfort? Is this, on a scale from one to ten"—or if it's easier for you, one to five—what number is it? Because not every need and every preference needs to be communicated. And also, just because you communicate it doesn't mean they need to bend to it.

But being able to communicate your preferences to your partner, I think, is really important, and being able to do it in your life is really important. The key here—and this is a difficult one for you—is to do it without attachment. So, if you say, "I'd rather you made pasta instead of rice," and they're like, "Yeah, no. I'm not going to do that," it's about not having attachment to how that goes and just trusting, "I asserted myself. I am not trapped in this situation. I could kick them out of the kitchen. I can make my own pasta. I've got lots of options here. I don't want to do any of those things, so I'm just going to eat the damn rice." Does this make sense?

Bunny: Yes. What I think that—not to go into this issue so much, but—

Jessica: Please.

Bunny: —the thing is that if I do ask for it, they do it. They're always trying to make me happy and in so many ways. But there are things that I do want to ask of them that aren't easy for them.

Jessica: I see.

Bunny: So I guess I'm just kind of trying to not be a nagging, nitpicky person because when you live with somebody, you just have different needs in terms of—I'm like, "The door needs to be locked. The alarm needs to be on. The house needs to be clean." And I have these different things, boundaries or whatever, in my home that they just don't have. So I've been kind of—I want to leave space for them because they do try to make me happy so much that it's like I don't want them to feel like they're not doing a good job and making me happy, because they are.

Jessica: Okay.

Bunny: So it's kind of—you know. I don't know.

Jessica: I see what you're saying. So let me just check in with this, because are the things you're talking about that you feel awkward or uncomfortable asking them for around security specifically, like security and cleaning the house? Were those random examples, or are those the examples?

Bunny: Yeah, like these—around security, around my own—the things that give me anxiety, the mess that gives me anxiety, the locking of the door. I mean, it keeps happening.

Jessica: Yeah.

Bunny: And for me, it's extremely painful to wake up in the morning and the door was unlocked.

Jessica: That would drive me bonkers.

Bunny: Yeah. It doesn't happen that much, but it's wild that it still happens because for me, it's such a priority. One issue that has been ongoing in our relationship is there have been certain things, certain behaviors that aren't difficult for them but are difficult for me and, I feel like, my mental health. And it hurts me that they don't understand how difficult that is for me. And I don't want to be looked at like I'm just trying to make them feel not good enough. That's what happens. They interpret it as I'm saying, "You're not good enough. You're disappointing me," when really, I'm like, "I'm just trying to be mentally okay."

Jessica: Yeah. I think like eight years ago, my partner once forgot to lock the door. I bring it up all the damn time. I bring it up all the time. Never happened again. So, I mean, I think when it comes to locking the doors and windows of your home, it's so reasonable and basic. But also, we happen to agree. You might talk to someone else who agrees with your partner, and that is what it is.

Bunny: So, in the morning, I wake up really early to write, 4:50 a.m. I come down the other day. The back door was unlocked. It was unlocked because my partner took the dog out in the middle of the night to pee and didn't lock the door. At first, I get upset, and then I get fearful because I know that if I bring it up, it's not going to go well because they're not just going to be able to just be like, "Oh. I'm sorry." They're going to be like—and exactly what happened—"Well, maybe you should take the dog out, then."

Jessica: Oh.

Bunny: You know?

Jessica: Yes. I know that dynamic in a relationship. Who doesn't?

Bunny: And I'm like—so it's just like it becomes this thing where I can't say it.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay.

Bunny: I can't say it because if I say it, it becomes a problem.

Jessica: I see what you're saying. Okay. So, if you know that your partner is just not going to be someone who prioritizes locking doors—like that's just not the person they are—

Bunny: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: —then what I would encourage you to investigate—and do you have a rental? Do you own your place?

Bunny: We own our house. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Great. What I would encourage you to investigate, get on ye olde internet and, "Are there self-locking doors?" Can you two, as a team—and you do all the legwork. If you've got a need, you're the one doing the legwork, right?

Bunny: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: So can you investigate what it would cost to have self-locking doors installed everywhere? It's a good approach, but it's not just about this one situation. It's about identifying, "My person does not see the world the way I do."

By: Yes.

Jessica: "They are not going to handle things the way I do. I'm going to accept that about them, and that doesn't mean therefore I abandon my own needs." That's kind of where you start to go, is like, "Well, there's nothing I can do." Instead, what you want to do is be like, "Okay. So what could we automate here? What could I do?" And it's like, if your partner leaves messes around—are they a pile person?

Bunny: No, they're not, but they're not somebody who is like, "Oh, we should do the dishes right away."

Jessica: Okay. I see. And you are.

Bunny: Yeah. I mean, I kind of figured that—I kind of figured—for the past couple weeks, I've been reading that book Atomic Habits, so I've been kind of figuring out a schedule that's going to keep an environment that's going to make me feel okay.

Jessica: Great.

Bunny: So I kind of took responsibility for that, and it's actually so much easier. Obviously, they do a lot of other responsibilities, but the washing of the dishes isn't as big in their mind, whereas they're handling other things. So I was like, "Okay." But that's my—my habit is cleaning the dishes at these certain times every day and before we go to bed, and that's good.

Jessica: That's great.

Bunny: So I have found those—I've over time now realized that these are the things that—take control of my space. I can take control of it.

Jessica: Yes. That's perfect. I'm so happy to hear that. And I think my idea about the door, it's just a different version of being like, "Okay. They are not going to do the dishes the way that my brain wants it, so I'm just going to be the dishes person in the house."

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And it sounds like they do lots of other things.

Bunny: Yes. They do.

Jessica: So it's not an unfair dynamic.

Bunny: No.

Jessica: It's just about identifying your needs and then not collapsing into that, but instead being like, "Okay. Where is my agency here?" And that doesn't mean don't communicate to your person. It's a fair thing, if in six months you're still the dishes point person, to be like, "Yeah. When I leave the dishes for five minutes, my brain starts itching," just conversationally letting them know.

That doesn't mean that they're the ones who have to take care of it—and this is so important for me to say to all your Libra stuff. It's that when you identify a problem in a dynamic and then you find a way to take care of it, that's not meant to come instead of communication. It's alongside communication. It's like, "This makes my brain itch. I cannot handle it, and so I'm going to fix it in this way. I just want you to know that that's what I'm doing and that's why I'm doing it, not to make you feel bad, but just so we're having clear communication." They may do all the cooking because they're like, "I don't like the way you cook" or "because I'm controlling in the kitchen." Cool. Whatever.

It doesn't have to be an ongoing thing, but it does have to be clarity because when we compromise for our partners or we do things for our partners but they don't know it's a compromise and they don't know it's a gift, it's not as well received. And that's where, over the course of time, I think resentments can build up. So it's really important that you say it to them, and again, you may want to ask them if notes would be okay, or some other creative way, because that way you won't feel as heavy-handed when you're communicating.

Bunny: Well, I already thought of putting a note on the door.

Jessica: Honestly, I almost suggested it, but I don't think it would work on them. It would work on you. But try it.

Bunny: But at this point, I'm saying it every night because I go to bed before them. So I'm saying, "Don't forget to lock the door," and I hate having to say that. But I don't feel like I can't not say it at this point.

Jessica: I concur with every part of that. Yes. I personally would put Post-it notes on every damn door. I don't think it'll work, honestly, because if they're walking the dog in the middle of the night, they're not doing a visual sweep of the door is my guess.

Bunny: Right. And it's not because they don't care.

Jessica: No. It's just they don't notice it the way you do.

Bunny: They're not thinking about it. They're not thinking about being murdered in their bed like I am.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And the reality is—and I didn't want to start with this point, because it doesn't matter the reason why you feel this way. But this is related to inherited trauma that is epigenetic for you. You come by this real honestly. It doesn't matter what anyone says to you. You could be living in a place with a zero percent crime rate and everyone leaves their doors unlocked, and it's just not who you are. It's not what resonates for you. But you don't need an excuse, and you don't need a reason. And that's why I didn't want to start with that, because I don't think you need to defend this preference. In general, we don't need to defend our preferences at all. Instead, what I think it's about is figuring out a way to accept that this person is not going to see things the way you see them. So how can you get a workaround?

Bunny: And you know what? Honestly, I did take the lead and get the security system. I ordered it, I put it together, and that also helped me too.

Jessica: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And again, just to validate, you are a person, regardless of where you're living, that's always going to want a security system. I don't think you need to overanalyze it. I don't think you need to feel bad about it. You just need to honor it because if you start poking at it, it gets stronger. So, unfortunately, this is not something that I think that they really get about you. They feel like they just have a very different background and they have different triggers, and this is just not something they're going to get. And they don't need to get it in order to respect it. Right? I don't think that what they're doing is an active disrespect at all. I just think it's super not on their mind, and then they're like, "Wait. What? I don't know." It surprises them that it happened, and it surprises them that you care every time like it was the first time.

I will say that you have a Moon in Aries, and you were born not on the exactitude of a Full Moon, but you're a Full Moon baby. And so, when your emotions come on, they come on hot. They come on strong. They come on big.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And so, because this issue is so emotional for you, something that you know is going to spark anxiety in you—it's so emotional for you even before the anxiety comes—you probably do something that I just described that your partner does, which is you wait till you're activated, and then it just comes rushing out of you. What you, I think, have feared is overcommunication. What I am suggesting is more tepid communication, not so passionate and fiery communication, because you're both considerate and you both actually care about each other. It's just that you often don't know that something is up until the other person's like, "Blah."

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: That's the work, is communicating when it's not a big deal, which is, in your brain—I think both of you are like, "Well, if it's not a big deal, I don't need to say anything." But if you don't say anything until it is a big deal, then you're only communicating when it's a big deal, and that makes it a bigger deal.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. While I'm here in your relationship, I'll just tell you as I look at this psychically—does your partner want kids?

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: Yes-ish or yes?

Bunny: I mean, they—yeah. Yes, they did. They were more wanting it than I was for a while. I assume they still do.

Jessica: But…

Bunny: I think that they're content with what's happening. I don't think that they're trusting.

Jessica: When I look at your relationship, I just see how the two of you are really good together in a controlled environment. And kids are uncontrolled in the environment. And so I do want to just kind of acknowledge the thriving of your relationship without kids—

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: —which doesn't mean it would not thrive with kids, but I do see how it's better in some ways just for the two of you because you both need a lot of downtime, and—

Bunny: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. All the problems the two of you had would be exacerbated by coparenting, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it or you couldn't do it well. But it's always nice to be like, "Okay. Well, there's actually pros to this."

Bunny: Yes. I think we're both seeing that now too.

Jessica: Now hold on for just a moment here. You mentioned that you want to touch on career, which is fun. I'm happy to—I'm Capricorn—always talk about career. But I'm going to be honest with you. Unless you have something specific going on that you have questions about your career—I mean, you're very clear about it. You're solidly on a path.

Bunny: Yes. I am. Well, okay. Well, there is something in the trajectory, a potential big partnership that is sort of in the beginning stages of possibly happening. And I guess that would be something that I'm kind of—

Jessica: Sure.

Bunny: —because there was a little weirdness in the beginning, and now it seems to be good, but I'm kind of like, "Hmm." You know? And I don't really know these people very well.

Jessica: I see. So I'm going to have you say the name of the people or the organization you're going to partner with.

Bunny: Okay. The company is called [redacted].

Jessica: And what's your professional name?

Bunny: Bunny Michael.

Jessica: Bear with me. Let me look at this energetically. And you signed on with them already?

Bunny: I haven't signed a contract. We've been in discussions and stuff like that, but we're taking next steps.

Jessica: It's a sticky industry, obviously. Right?

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: You know this.

Bunny: Yeah. I'm learning that now.

Jessica: It's really fucking sticky. And I feel mixed on this, to be honest. I mean, you've got a bazillion planets in Libra. You're "go with the flow," except for when and in the ways that you're really not. You're—I wouldn't say controlling is the right word. You are very meticulous about what you want to put into the world and how, and you don't take kindly to fools telling you what to do with something that you're clear about. Does that make sense?

Bunny: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. Their primary ambition is, of course, to make something that makes money.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And so there's a stickiness. I think you will potentially have some conflicts. Whether or not this is a good idea for you has everything to do with the contract you do or don't sign.

Bunny: Actually, they presented me with the contract already that we—we totally were like, "No. This isn't it," and da-da-da. And so we had to kind of restart our relationship in ways. But it seems to be now things are very clear, as terms of what I'm willing or not willing to do. So it seems like it's going in the right direction, and I am feeling really excited, I guess just because—maybe it was just hard to kind of realize that that's how the industry is and me being new to it. But I do have such high ambitions that it also feels like, "Okay. Well, I can deal with that reality and still stand my ground and know who I am and that kind of thing."

Jessica: Part of what's hard for me to tell you about is because as I look at it psychically, it's not like you have a specific team that you will work with on this yet, because it's so early stages.

Bunny: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: That said, you're going to have to sign a contract before you get the team. So this could go—and this is not a reflection on the partnership. It's just a reflection on the risk of signing on. This is what I'll say. Is this the only way to do it? No. Is this the best way to do it? TBD. I really want to encourage you to not step into a scarcity mentality if they don't give you a contract that is exactly what you want. This is not the only way to do what you want to do. And if you can maintain a largesse of spirit to hold on an energetic level a really wide container for how this can come into being instead of attaching to this one way of it coming into being, it will be easier for you to discern whether or not things are right for you and to make that final call because I can't tell if in the end they're going to put some bullshit in your contract or not. I look at them energetically [crosstalk]—

Bunny: Yeah. Right. That's what I was wondering about because I can't really tell. I'm like, "Oh my God. Are they going to come at me with some bullshit again?"

Jessica: I think you should count on it and then be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And walk away if you need to walk away. This is not the only way for you. It's a way. That's all. It's a way. I think that this is all—okay. This is all making sense, why we started off with your relationship, because part of what I'm seeing is this question of do you need to bolster your team? Do you need a bigger team who can advise you? Because it is a bramble patch out there. You know what I mean? It's not just roses. It's thorns. It's thorns. But I feel like having people that it's their role in your life to answer all your questions and to advocate for you, and you don't have to pay them every time you talk to them, might be worth it for you.

Bunny: Yes. Oh, I mean, that would be—I would love to manifest that.

Jessica: Well, it's identifying when you need to ask for help—

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: —and empowering yourself to find the right people to ask for help.

Bunny: I know. I need help. I need help.

Jessica: You do.

Bunny: I do.

Jessica: We all do. And it's not a sign of weakness or vulnerability or ineptitude. It's just we need teams. We want to be on other people's team, and we want other people to be on our team. And again, you do really well when the rules are set. So when you know exactly what you can expect of something and what their service to you is, you do really well with that. When you're out there in the wild being like, "I think I understand this industry. Wait. Shit. No I don't," that provokes more anxiety for you.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And then your intuition isn't as reliable because fear has a way of turning us away from our intuition, not trusting our intuition. So, kind of coming back to your central question about career, it's not a yes or a no, a do or a don't. It's explore and get the right people on your team so that you can evaluate your options wisely. What I'm suggesting is to not be monogamous and loyal while you're still in negotiations.

Bunny: Yes. Exactly.

Jessica: Yeah. This isn't a personal relationship. This is a professional negotiation, and what you're doing is you're dipping your toe and exploring with them. And so far, you were like, "Hey. Let's eat cobbler," and they were like, "Or how about a single Twinkie?" And you were like, "Hmm. That's not what I thought we were doing here." You both want dessert, so you're going to give them a chance to come back with an apple pie. Let's see what happens.

Bunny: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: But again, all of this Libra in your chart can incline you to being loyal/monogamous to people before trust has been established truly. And so I think that this is a really exciting opportunity, but I really cannot tell you with any kind of confidence that it's the only or the best opportunity for you. I know that's kind of more complexity for you, but I would just encourage you to see it as a real opening.

Bunny: Yeah. That's helpful. It really is helpful, and—it is helpful for sure.

Jessica: Good. Okay. Good.

Bunny: It makes me feel more positive about it because it makes me feel, regardless, it's all unfolding no matter what.

Jessica: Yes. It is.

Bunny: I mean, I really have no choice, actually, because I can't stop.

Jessica: No, and you don't need to. There's flow. There's like—it's organically shifting, which is really important. So I want to ask you, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like me to touch on?

Bunny: Is there some Eclipses happening in my eighth house coming up?

Jessica: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Bunny: And is that like a drastic change type stuff?

Jessica: Let me just look at the degree. On the last day of April, we have a Solar Eclipse in Taurus, and let's see the degree. Yes, it's happening right in your eighth house. It's at ten degrees. Interesting that you're asking me about the Solar Eclipse because as we record this, tonight is a New Moon in Aries, and that's very, very impactful to your birth chart—in some ways, I would say more than the Eclipse, and in other ways, Eclipses are always the strongest thing in town. So, in general, Eclipses are very hard to predict because it's like being on a fault line. When you live on a fault line—I live in California, so I live on a fault line. And sometimes there's a really big earthquake, and I barely feel it. And sometimes there's a really small earthquake, and everything moves. That's kind of what Eclipses are like. They are unpredictable in nature, and it's not even necessarily differently than the New Moon and the Full Moon. We don't always, on the Eclipse itself, have something major happen. It could be in the buildup. It could be in the months afterwards. So you want to pay attention to what's going on.

Now, in regards to what that Solar Eclipse in Taurus in your eighth house is going to look like for you, it could have to do with money. You might have money come in in an unexpected way or in a meaningful way. It might be through your partner. Your partner might somehow get a raise or take a chance and it works. It could be around psychic stuff. The eighth house is also where we find psychic stuff. So this may be a time where you develop a more grounded and embodied practice around how you relate to your intuition, which for you is related to boundaries. It could play out in any number of ways. It could be that you have amazing sex with your partner, and you're just like, "Oh shit. We're awesome. I forgot we're the best. You can unlock the door any day." I mean, don't say that part, because we don't want to confuse them about what's okay. But it could be any kind of thing like that.

I think that the internet, astrology on the internet, really gives people a lot of fear about transits. In regards to that, the only thing that you can do to prepare for a lunation, any kind of Moon transit, is to have a loving relationship to your own emotional body. That's all you can do because your feelings are your feelings are your feelings. It's how we hold them, how we care for them, how we respond to them. That's what we can do. And isn't that kind of your whole entire life, focusing on responding to and relating to your emotions? So, in that way, I'm not like, "Eh, you won't feel it." Yeah, of course you'll fucking feel it. You will feel it. And also, you have tools. You don't have to be scared of this. Even if it's hard or it seems bad in some way, it's a healing journey.

And so it's up your damn alley. You got nothing to worry about. And I do think, also, people get internet astrology, and maybe some astrologers are like, "The eighth house is bad and scary." I adore the eighth house, and I don't think it's bad or scary at all. It's where we find psychic shit and fucking and our savings accounts and all kinds of other things that are really delicious and valuable parts of life. So you don't need to worry about this at all. Now, that said, the New Moon this very night—it's on the 1st on the East Coast, but it's late at night here on the West Coast. This New Moon is hitting your chart pretty intensely. It's activating in your seventh house, and that is why this reading went in a direction neither of us planned on and we talked about your partnership.

Bunny: I know.

Jessica: Yeah. I wasn't expecting this at all, and neither were you, right?

Bunny: Me neither. Me neither. I'm like, oh gosh, [indiscernible 00:53:06] Khara we talked about our relationship the whole time. But it's good. It's good. And also, we had a little tiff this morning that we had kind of a breakthrough with it, and it was actually really awesome because we got to the clear issue, and they just said, "Sometimes I want to be babied." And I was like, "Perfect. I get that." I get that, and I'm excited about that. So I already have a little plan of a little gift to give them later today. I already planned it, just to show them that I heard them and that kind of thing. So I feel like that's very like the New Moon energy.

Jessica: It is. And it's specifically the New Moon happening in your relationship house. So you had a breakthrough with your partner. They said they wanted to be babied, which is perfect. You have the Moon in the seventh house. You love babying people when they let you.

Bunny: Yes.

Jessica: And we ended up talking about it. That's, again—and this is a really good articulation. Even though at the beginning of the conversation with your partner this morning, it might have felt like a fight or like a conflict, it had a healing impact. And then we followed it up with this conversation, and then you can bring that to your partner. And so, again, these lunations, when we have active emotional lives, when we're willing to be in our feelings and work through them, they're really important and never to be feared—never to be feared. I mean, there are so many things to fear: World War III, pandemics. This is nothing for you to fear because it's in your wheelhouse. It's what you like. You like emotional progress. You like things getting sticky—

Bunny: I do.

Jessica: —so that you can come to more wholeness with them. This is your happy place. Okay.

Bunny: Thank you so much.

Jessica: My pleasure. I'm so glad we got to do this reading. This has been really fun.

Bunny: What a gift. What a gift. I'm so grateful, really. It was awesome.

Jessica: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Bunny: Really beautiful. Thank you so much.

Jessica: My pleasure.

The Black Fairy Godmother Foundation founded by Simone Gordon is a nonprofit organization created to help Black and Brown marginalized families. This foundation uses the power of networking and social media to connect families in need with people who can help. Visit theblackfairygodmother.info to get more information. Through their initiatives, you can adopt a family by sharing a fundraiser or wish list throughout your community and signal boosting on social media. You can also join the Birthday Fundraiser, where you use your birthday celebration to make a difference by choosing a fundraiser to promote among your friends and family. Contact the Black Fairy Godmother to receive a fundraiser assignment, learn more information, and support their work.

My loves, let's get astrological. We are going to look at the week of April 3rd through the 9th of 2022, and guess what: there is a lot to talk about. But this should not surprise us. There is still so much happening in the world: of course, the pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, and so many more upsets, and honestly some really scary things happening around the world. Before we get into any details, I want to invite you, I want to remind you, I want to call you into caring about the collective, caring about people you don't know, caring about people in a different state or province, people in a different country, that speak a different language, look different. Care about the damn people. And that's hard when you feel overwhelmed. That's hard when you are in survival mode yourself.

So I'm going to talk about this a little bit more as we get into some of the very specific transits of this week, but I do want to just kind of bookmark for you the month of April is quite intense. And if you've already joined me on Patreon and you already heard the Ghost of a Podcast bonus episode, the month-ahead horoscope, then you know this is just going to be quite an intense month, and emotions are going to be running high. This is just my little reminder to make space for a larger empathy, like a global empathy, in your spiritual practice, to make sure that your spiritual practice isn't exclusively about you as an individual. This is the time for that. I think personally it's always the time for that, but astrologically, it is absolutely the time for that.

So that might mean an expansion of your spiritual practice. That might mean some changing in your material behavior. It might mean any number of things, but it's something worth considering because here Ghost of a Podcast Industries—or maybe we'll call it Ghost Friends. Here at Ghost Friends, we know that spiritual bypassing—there's no upside to that. Caring about others and making your care and empathy about others a part of your spiritual practice, that's where it's at, man. That's where it's at.

Okay. We're going to talk astrology. And this week, the transits start off strong. On the 4th, we have an exact conjunction between Mars and Saturn. When we talk about Mars in astrology, we're talking about ambition and passion and fornication and fighting. It's really an embodied planet. It's about your body, your strength, your vitality, your virility. And Saturn is limitations and often scarcity. It's also related to ambition but in a much slower way than Mars. Mars is like, "I ran, and now I'm there." And Saturn is, "I climbed the mountain, and eventually I'll get there." So it's very different ways of achieving goals, and often, Mars and Saturn set very different kinds of goals.

Saturn is a social planet. It's one of the outer planets, and so it pulls with it more collective energies. And therefore, Saturn is related to how we fit into society, how we fit into a community, depending on your personality and how you connect to the world. When Mars meets Saturn in the sky, we experience delays, blockages, frustrations, unfortunately. The upside of this transit is that it can help us to focus our energies. So, when Mars and Saturn meet, the potential is that we can hunker down our energy and apply it to something over the course of time. So, in other words, it can create stamina. It can create lasting power. This is good for sex. This is good for projects. This is good for literally going for a run. But if you're literally going for a run and we're being really literal about this transit, Mars loves running; Saturn can have weak knees. So you want to do a lot of stretching before doing any vigorous exercise—I mean really in general, but certainly on and around this date.

This transit can be very productive. If you're willing and able to constructively apply your passions and your motivation and your energy into labor, this transit can be very, very useful to you, and it can be a time where you make meaningful progress. If there's something you've been putting off and you're like, "You know what? I really—I just need to get this done," this transit's a great one for hunkering down and doing it. It's not as good for trying to review your work, because it puts us in this frustrated, potentially defensive frame of mind. If you have to give somebody kind of critical feedback, again, not great, because people are likely to be defensive. And of course, you're people, so you may be defensive, or you may say things in a way that comes across much more aggressive than you mean it to.

So this week and especially on and around the 4th, but really all week, it's not just what you do. It's how you damn do it. So this is about being able to be aware of your own energy—Mars—and how it fits in with and is a part of other people's energy—Saturn. Unfortunately, this transit, being a boner killer, can coincide with not getting things that you want. It can coincide with you feeling a sense of being limited by external circumstances or by people with power—Saturn. And unfortunately, when Mars and Saturn are in kind of intense conversation with each other, as they are in a conjunction, it can bring up kind of patriarchal patterns. We can get caught up in power struggles that may or may not be valid, but the way we go about them is one-upmanship or trying to block or stall someone else as a way to make our own selves feel bigger or better. And that's not good. It's not good. It's not good for you. It's not good for me. It's not good for anyone.

So, before you come at someone online, in person, whatever, try to check in with your own energy and ask yourself, is this a good use of your energy? Because during a Mars conjunction to Saturn, we don't have extra energy. That's just not a thing. We don't have extra energy, so what we need to be doing is being intentional and somewhat conservative with our energy. And in this context, when I say conservative, I mean a conservationist. Conserve your energy in that way, and think of it as a way of investing in generating more energy for yourself by not throwing it around willy-nilly at situations that really just don't deserve it.

In the context of the larger world, unfortunately, this is a bad time for war and for violence. And this is because of a lot of things. One is because of the aggression that it can inspire and the entitlement, plus defensiveness. Aggression/entitlement/defensiveness is not good for conflicts, especially conflicts from aggressive men or men who do not know how to handle their anger. And it's not exclusive to men by any stretch just because Mars is involved, but so much of the violence of this world is perpetrated by men. So here we go. This is how the energy works.

Unfortunately, we are likely to see some sort of important advancements in global conflicts. That said, in general, it's not a great time to start an offensive, because things don't go the way we want during this transit. So that could be really bad news or really good news, depending on what we're looking at, what we're talking about, and what side you're on of a conflict. This transit is kind of like a teeth grinder. It's a transit that can compel us to literally grind our teeth in frustration. So, if you're somebody who does that anyways, try to do your best to stay in your body and to notice where you're clenching up, and breathe into it or do whatever you know how to do to create a little more ease or movement in your body. Really, it's in your psyche and in your body.

Unfortunately, we're going to be feeling this transit throughout the week, and so it's not going to just go away when the exactitude has passed. And it's a difficult one, so be gentle. Be gentle. Be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with others, and watch your relationship to defensiveness, entitlement, and anger. Oh. I guess I should add one more thing to this: don't compare yourself to others. You know comparison is the thief of joy. So do not compare yourself to others. That's another really common thing that can happen under this transit where we see our own accomplishments in contrast to people who we think have done better or worse than us, and we get all judgy. Again, this is about ego stuff. So resist the urge to do that, and if somebody else is putting that shit on you, that's a reflection on them, not on you.

Now, on the 7th and 8th, we have two more exact transits. They're both from Mercury. On the 7th, Mercury forms an exact sextile to Saturn, and on the 8th, Mercury forms an exact sextile to Mars. Students of astrology will note that of course, Mercury is forming a sextile to both of these planets and not just one because Mars and Saturn are conjunct on the 4th, so that means they're very close to each other, and anything that happens to one of those planets at this time is likely to happen to both. Mercury sextile Saturn and Mars is great. It is a great set of transits for connecting with friends, for making plans, for organizing your life, for making sense of things, for getting out of your own way and mobilizing on goals. It's a great time for reaching out to friends and socializing or networking. It's equally good for both.

There's really no downside to these two transits. They are not spectacular in their effects unless it's hitting your birth chart specifically and directly. Mercury is in Aquarius at 25 degrees, sextiling Mars at 25 degrees. And Mercury is at 23 degrees—22 degrees and 37 minutes; we're going to round it up to 23 degrees—of Aries, sextiling Saturn at 22 degrees and 37 minutes of Aquarius. So, if you have planets or important points in your birth chart at any of those degrees and relevant signs, then you're really going to be able to use this energy. It may have a really wonderful impact on your life. And if you don't have planets at those degrees making an aspect, you're not going to notice it as much. But this transit in general is really lovely. So, even if your chart isn't getting hit by these transits, other people will be influenced by it. So people might reach out to you or lend you a helping hand. They might say something that just clicks for you.

So, again, it's important to remember with astrology the rule of interconnection. When you look at a birth chart, you can see first of all that everything happens in a cycle, a circle. And also, all of the planets have a bunch of lines in between them. Those are aspects drawn in, and those lines are the articulation of the mathematical relationship between the planets in your birth chart. Everything is connected. Even those things that don't seem like they're talking to each other, they are. Everything is connected. Everything is connected. And so what we see when we're going through transits or when we're talking about transit astrology, as we do here at Ghost, even if you aren't experiencing a thing directly, if the people around you are experiencing that, it's going to influence you, just in a different way.

And so be a helper if you can. These transits are great for being a helper. And if you can't be a helper, be open to being helped. And when I say be open to being helped, it's being receptive—being receptive to support, inspiration, facilitation, whatever it is. It's a great time to get out of your way, which is especially helpful because that Mars conjunction to Jupiter has us placing our own egos directly in the way of our own progress or placing somebody else's ego shit in the way of our own progress.

And that brings us to the 9th. Okay. So, on the 9th, it's not that there's an exact transit, but there's a very important shift energetically, and it comes from Jupiter conjunction to Neptune. That transit will be exact on the 12th, but we're now, as of the 9th, within one degree of exactitude. So let's talk about it for a few minutes. If you've listened to the year-ahead horoscope, then you've already heard me talk about it. And if you haven't listened to that horoscope, I invite you to. It's real informative and, I think, especially helpful to not only listen to it at the start of the year but as the year progresses, to kind of see how it holds up for you or how it sheds light on things for you.

So Jupiter conjunct Neptune—it is an important transit. It is not that rare. What is rare is that Jupiter and Neptune have not met in the zodiac sign of Pisces since 1856. That's a long fucking time ago, 1856. And as you probably know, there are different forms of astrology, and there's different ways that astrologers practice astrology. Some astrologers, like me, will say that the zodiac sign Pisces is governed by the planet Neptune. There are other astrologers that don't work with the slower-moving planets as much—Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—and they will tell you that Jupiter is the ruling planet of Pisces. Whichever rulership you use, what we all know is that Jupiter and Neptune are connected to the zodiac sign of Pisces.

And so this conjunction is a very big deal. It's got a lot of light and a lot of energy associated with it. And this transit, it's going to be affecting us throughout the year. It's in its exactitude. It's in this moment to really pay attention to, April 9th through the 12th. But in May, Jupiter moves into Aries, and it stays there for a few months. But then it comes back in the autumn, back into Pisces, and when it does, it will not be an exact conjunction to Neptune, but it will be within range of a conjunction. So it will be actively in conjunction at the end of the year as well. So this is kind of a big-deal transit, and also, it's going to be affecting us throughout the year—off and on, but throughout the year.

So Jupiter and Neptune are both very spiritual planets, as is the zodiac sign of Pisces. And when it comes to Jupiter, Jupiter loves to jump in the pool before it's checked to see if there's any water. Jupiter goes big and goes far but can go too far and make it too big. Neptune is about interconnectedness. It's about wholeness. It can be related to purity and idealism, but it's also related to being potentially delusional, giving away your power looking for spiritual shortcuts or absolutes in terms of good and evil. So, when these two planets come together in the zodiac sign of Pisces, the spiritual potential and the collective potential for greater humanitarianism is huge. It's really big.

On a personal level, this is a time of spiritual evolution. And depending on where you are and where you're at, that may mean any number of things. A question to check in with this year over and over again, but certainly in this period, is whether you're underestimating yourself spiritually or you're overestimating yourself spiritually. Whether you're attributing too much value or meaning to things that you can't quite explain or you're doing the reverse—you've isolated your spiritual experiences or your spiritual body from the rest of your "real life"—they're kind of heads and tails of the same coin. And that's how energy works, especially when we're talking generally about astrology, is we're looking at energy and then how we individually play it out and experience it. It can go either way, but either way within this container.

So this Jupiter/Neptune conjunction on a spiritual level, on a personal level, can be related with empathy fatigue, just being so dissociated all you can do is scroll mindlessly; you're just done. Too much has been happening. You're feeling exhausted—that kind of thing. For those of us who are highly sensitive or empaths or psychics or mediums—for all of us with those kinds of sensitivities, we're all feeling significantly more porous. This is a time of intense porousness because Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces will feel like a thinning of your auric field or your morphic field. So, if you've been feeling just really overwhelmed by your intuition, by the events of the world, if you've just been feeling flattened energetically, this is why. This is absolutely why. This is, again, where we come back to, are you under- or overestimating yourself spiritually, or the needs of your spirituality, or your resources around your spirituality? If you are a highly sensitive person in whatever way, remember to do your spiritual work.

This is why I decided to teach my class on boundary allies on April 10th during this really intense period: because boundaries are hard in all contexts for all people. Even people who are really good at boundaries aren't that great at boundaries, because boundaries are hard. This is a period where we are energetically really being challenged, and it's hard to face a challenge that you can't quite see; it's not material. It's not like you can pick it up and touch it. It's an energetic challenge.

And so, as an aside, my Plants and Planets class called Boundary Allies on April 10th, which you can register for on my website and there's a link in the show notes, is where I'm going to not only kind of touch on the astrology but also talk about the energetics and get into a little more woo in that way, talking about energy boundaries. And of course, the herbalist Rachel Budde, who I'm cofacilitating with, will be giving us plant allies that we can work with. And this is all going to be user friendly and practical, so you can come in at whatever level. Our hope is to create a resource that supports people in being present for your experience, not only because that's healthier and it's a good use of the energy, but also so that we don't tap ourselves out and have nothing left to give to others, because here's the thing: if you energetically give of yourself at 100 percent on Monday, Monday night you got nothing for yourself, and Tuesday you got nothing for anyone.

So, to me, this is about figuring out how to pace ourselves through the energy of life. And in particular, both Neptune and Jupiter share this as a problem. These two planets have this in common. They tend to give it all, all at once, and this is again where I come back to boundaries. We do need healthy boundaries in this period and whenever dealing with either of these planets, because they both have the sense or they give us this feeling that we don't need boundaries, whether it's because we're not important, the other person's important or the situation is important, or because we feel like, "Everything will be fine. There will be something later. I'll be able to handle it. Don't you worry." So, whether it's Neptunian or Jupiterian, that feeling that there will be more later and that we don't need consideration and discernment when we're using our energy or making choices, that is something to investigate. It's something to investigate in yourself.

Now, in the world more broadly, this transit can go in really dramatically different directions. This can be a time where we see a greater amount of empathy for others and that things move on a social level in a more humane direction, where we come together instead of pick each other and ourselves apart. And this can look a lot of different ways in a lot of different situations. Unfortunately, all of this Neptunian/Piscean energy can lead to martyrdom. And that could look a lot of ways, which I don't feel like is very constructive to delineate in terms of war and social upsets. This transit is associated with religious extremism. So what I want to encourage you to do is, first of all, be on the lookout for that, but also, if you're somebody who is easily influenced, I want to encourage you to pay close attention. This is a bad time to give away all of your power or agency to a spiritual leader or a spiritual conviction. This is a terrible time for consciousness-raising drugs.

What these planets in Pisces want us to do is to find our own connection to something greater, to find our own humanitarian motivations, to live in ways that are generous, empathetic, and kind. It sounds so simple. It sounds so simple, but it actually can be quite difficult and quite challenging for people, especially when you're in a situation or in many situations with people who aren't empathetic or kind, when things aren't fair. And in those kinds of situations, I'm not advising for you to turn the other cheek. I am not a fan of turning the other cheek. But I am encouraging you to consider, "Okay. What is the greatest kindness in this situation that I can offer to myself, to the situation?" And that doesn't mean being generous to people who are being abusive, but it might mean being generous to yourself by not giving those people your energy, by taking yourself out of the situation, or any number of other things.

Unfortunately, because of the Mars/Saturn conjunction, there may be those who have delusions of grandeur, people who feel incredibly entitled to getting what they want by any means necessary. And they may have a spiritual or idealistic belief system or story running for themselves that empowers them to perpetrate acts of cruelty and destruction. That is absolutely possible. And it's not certain, but it's possible, in particular because in the chart of the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction which I have cast for April 12th, 2022, at 7:42 a.m., it's got a Sun/Pluto square in it. So we can expect to see some bullshit in the world.

Again, ask yourself, how can you take care of yourself around that? And also ask yourself, "How can I be a helper?" Not a savior. You're not a savior. I'm not a savior. None of us are saviors. It's about being a helper, finding a need that you can fulfill, finding a way that you can be of service. That's a good fulfillment of this energy. This transit, the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction, coincides—not in it's the 9th or the 12th, but broadly coincides with Ramadan, Passover, Easter, some big holidays from some big religions. And there may be other major holidays that I'm not aware of. So, again, this is a very spiritual moment. And unfortunately, wars are waged on religious and spiritual issues. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that things will be peaceful. But it does mean that we have the ability as individuals and a collective to motivate from a sense of empathy and care for others.

One last word I'll say about this, and I'm going to talk about it again next week, is it's a great time for spiritual work. So the best kind of work to do under this influence is the work of exploration, of having experiences without strict goals, and doing things that are expansive or pursuing things that are expansive and experiential without seeking perfection or purity—those are some of the downfalls of this energy—and without completely losing yourself. There's, again, the need four boundaries here.

So this is a powerful transit, and this is a great time for keeping track of things. So, if you're an astrology student or just an astrology nerd or an astrologer, this is a great time for tracking your perceptions and predictions. And if you're using astrology and all manner of woo as a form of self-reflection and self-healing, this is just a great time for journaling, for tracking your lived experience and checking in with it—in other words, having a conversation with yourself about what you're experiencing and how you're relating to your experiences internally and in the world around you.

One other thing I want to tell you about this week is actually not happening in exactitude this week. It's a Mercury square to Pluto. That transit will be exact on the 10th, but I can assure you you will be feeling it this week. It's an intense one. It's a transit that can kick up really deep thoughts. So it has us concerned with deep issues. The downside is it can have us obsessing on things that are destructive, not constructive. It can have us obsessing on things that we feel resentful about or we feel ashamed about. The positive is it can bring about healing within our thinking, within our attitudes. It can bring about healing within our friendships. It can support us in doing deep work, in doing research or healing work. And this is because—I know research and healing work sound like very different things, but Pluto wants us to dig deep, to get dirty with things. and Mercury is your attitudes, your beliefs, your mind, amongst other things. And so our potential for digging deep into matters is strengthened by this transit.

Again, back to my Boundaries Allies class, we decided to teach it on this date for a number of reasons, but one of them is because it's a good use of the energy to learn something and get kind of messy with how to apply it, like get into your shit. Pluto governs shit. What are you going to do? So whatever you do this week, and certainly on the 10th and moving forward, it's going to be tinged by intensity. And if you're feeling super chill, yay on you, but the people around you are going to be experiencing intensity. And so, much like I was saying about the Mars/Saturn conjunction, how we respond to powerful emotions is a reflection on us. It's very tempting to want to fixate on what sparked us to feel this way, and that's certainly important and valuable to do.

But when it comes down to it, how we hold our emotions, where we permit ourselves to return in our thoughts, how we behave in response to our thoughts and feelings, these things are a reflection on us. There's so much we don't have control over, but we do have control—even if it's really difficult and, yeah, doesn't always work—but we do have some control over how we choose to respond. And that's where I want to again focus your energy. It's where I want to point you because that's where you're empowered. And it's nice to have a sense of agency, even if you're in a situation where you feel completely out of control. When we can align with our agency, it does make it easier to bear whatever we're bearing.

My loves, that's your damn horoscope. Let me run through the transits again. But if you're an astrology student or an astrologer, I want to encourage you to check out my pro tool, Astrology For Days, at astrologyfordays.com, where it allows you to track the transits to the minute in any time zone you're in, and it gives you a resource for writing notes, keeping track of your predictions, your reflections, your experiences. So check that out at astrologyfordays.com.

Okay. On the 4th, we have an exact Mars conjunction to Saturn. On the 7th, Mercury will form an exact sextile to Saturn. On the 8th, Mercury will form an exact sextile to Mars. On the 9th, Jupiter is within one degree of its conjunction to Neptune in the zodiac sign of Pisces. And throughout it all, we will be feeling the Mercury square to Pluto, which will not be exact until the 10th.

My loves, I want to thank you for joining me here once again for another week of Ghost. And if and when things get chaotic, I want to encourage you to remember who you are and to act in ways that reflect who you are and who you want to be in the world, and not just the lowest common denominator of your situation.

As always, if you get value from this podcast, I encourage you to give it five stars on whatever platform you're listening to it, and write a positive review. And if you want to learn more with me, you can join me over on Patreon, where I'm dropping lots of content. Okay, my loves. I'll talk to you next week. Buh-bye.