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.

This week, I'm very excited to be joined by Born Ragey to answer a pretty juicy question.

Jessica: So, hey, Ragey. Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast.

Born Ragey: Thank you.

Jessica: Do you want to tell me what your question is?

Born Ragey: So, as I wrote, I listen to Ghost all the time, and I've heard you talking with people who you were encouraging to kind of engage their anger. And I've always listened with interest to that, but I am maybe a little too engaged with my anger.  And so I wanted to ask about that. I think there's lots of information about how to not be angry or what not to do when you experience anger, but very little about how to healthily engage with one's anger. And with the help of a therapist, I've been kind of working on that, but it's tough. It's tough. And so I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with you, someone who is really interested in engaging all the feelings—which I really love; thank you so much—

Jessica: Thank you very much.

Born Ragey: —and to get some insight from the astrological side but also just to hear your thoughts.

Jessica: Absolutely. I have so many thoughts and so much to say. And you're right straight out the gate: I'm a fan of all the emotions—not all the actions, but all the emotions. And so, before we dig into the astrology and the advice I'd love to give, my question for you is, okay, you were born ragey. That's a vibe. I will explain it astrologically, but how does that show up? Are you physically violent? Do you just seethe? Are you irritable? How does that play out for you in your experience?

Born Ragey: So I have been physically violent at points in my life, especially when I was a kid and stuff like that. Not like I would—I didn't get in trouble at school a lot for hurting other kids and those kinds of things, but there were outbursts where that would happen and I'd throw something or something like that. But it's been something I've always dealt with because it's also a kind of long-standing family thing. So I've always been focused on the violent aspect in particular and not doing that. But I'll shout and say really nasty things. And I'm also a writer and a researcher, so I've got a whole vocabulary for being nasty. And I'm also kind of an easily irritated person. I'll forget something and be like, "Oh fuck," and I'm just kind of fiery in that way kind of all the time. So it's more like that.

Jessica: Okay. Great. So let's dig. So, in your birth chart, you've got your Sun in Leo sandwiched between Mercury and Mars and also the Descendant. And so, without anything else—and you have plenty of other things—but without anything else in your chart, that makes you irritable. And it's in the sixth house, so it is in your body. Everything that annoys you, it's experienced viscerally, and it's like, "Tra la la, I'm picking flowers. I'm going to murder you." It goes kind of from 0 to 700, and that's where it goes.

Luckily, this is not about resentment. So it's not like—and please tell me if I'm wrong, but I look at this and it looks like you're like, "I'm going to murder you," and then you don't murder them, and the feeling passes. And then you're done; it's over for you.

Born Ragey: Definitely.

Jessica: It might not be over for the person who you threatened their life, but it's over for you.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: So that's, first of all, a really important thing because so much of the conversations that I've had with folks on the podcast actually has to do with holding on to emotions and not experiencing or expressing them, and so they kind of build and build and build, whereas actually, what you're describing is emotions don't build inside of you, because they come straight out right away.

Born Ragey: Absolutely.

Jessica: Yeah. So I'm not going to say that that's a bad thing. Listen. There's a lot of problems with it. A lot of them are in your lived experience, and a lot of them are in how you interact with other people and the consequences of that. But there's something about the passionate—we're talking about Leo energy—it's the passionate, intense reactions that you have being really authentic and that actually being a really healthy thing. And when we throw out the bathwater, we do want to keep the baby, as the saying goes.

So I want to say that I really think that this is authentic to you. You are irritable. You do experience your emotions very viscerally. And because Mercury is involved, you've got a lot of language. Like you said, you've got a lot of thoughts about it. Because it's on your Descendant, it's people who annoy you just as often as it's you who annoy you. Because the Sun's involved, you annoy you. But the Descendant and Mercury? Yeah, other people annoy you, not the least of which is men because Mars is involved. Do you date dudes?

Born Ragey: Yeah. I'm [indiscernible 00:05:19], so—

Jessica: Okay.

Born Ragey: —[indiscernible].

Jessica: I'm sure you are. This actually is a really important component to it because—and this is where things kind of get a little bit deeper. You do not take kindly to people or circumstances saying that you don't have power or agency. So a lot of what annoys you or pisses you off is somebody trying to control or curtail you or make you take up less space.

Born Ragey: Yeah. Totally.

Jessica: Unfortunately—we can blame all manner of things. I'm going to blame socialization, and we'll just leave it at that. But unfortunately, men love to curtail women consciously and unconsciously, and then there's this—they don't have to be doing anything. There's just all this societal stuff that's stacked up so that they have more power, more agency, they take up more space. And yeah. That, to your core, in your body, instinctively pisses you off. And I'm not going to tell you that's bad. I'm not going to tell you that's bad, and I think it's a really important place to start because when we demonize our emotions, then we already kind of abandon ourselves and abandoned that there is actually a wisdom to these feelings for you.

It's authentic, but it's also a way of you being in contact with your power and your agency and reminding yourself and others that you will not be fucked with. I'm not saying that you've never been fucked with, because hello, life. But it looks like you do your everything to handle situations, and you generally do handle situations. Is that correct as well?

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So, again, we don't want to throw out this baby. It is a delightful baby. It's just there's some bathwater issues. Now, I'm going to add in some more complexity. In your birth chart, you've got Jupiter opposite Mercury, Sun, and Mars. And so what that means is you do not have a lot of space between your feelings and your reaction, like your response time. Everything is at 100 percent. Everything is hot. And if people say to you or if you say to you, "Oh, just sit with your emotions. Don't say anything," it's great advice that doesn't really work for you. Is that your experience as well?

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. This is where this idea that Jupiter in astrology is the benefic and it's easy and it's lovely and this is where you're always happy is not always true, because what Jupiter does in your birth chart is it eggs you on. It eggs on this part of you that's already on fire, and it's like, "More fire. More fire." And so there is a way that it feels, in the moment, 100 percent justified pretty much 98 percent of the time is what it looks like.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. So pros and cons, right? So, again, this is a great thing because you advocate for yourself and you don't spend a lot of time going in the wrong direction unless you really believe it's the right direction, and then eventually you learn it's the wrong direction. You really are a person who asserts yourself, and that is connected to a lot of things, but let me connect it to your family of origin. Do you talk to all your family—your parents, all of them?

Born Ragey: It's kind of complicated. My biological dad—and I say it that way because I have a stepdad who was very active in my life from very young—died when I was about 17 or 18. And his family is pretty—I mean, maybe not so generous to say, but pretty fucked up.

Jessica: Yeah.

Born Ragey: His dad was very abusive. My dad had problems with outbursts of anger as well. And so I didn't—his mom and his dad have now passed. They died after he did. But I didn't talk to my grandpa. When my dad died, I wasn't on great terms with him either because of some of that history.

Jessica: When you were little and your parents were still together, was your father violent or abusive towards your mother? And you don't have to answer this if you don't want to.

Born Ragey: He was. I mean, I don't know the extent of that, I think because I was not super close with my dad because my parents split up when I was quite young. It's kind of based on what my mom has told me. And she's gone through different seasons in terms of her relationship to that relationship, so what she says or focuses on about the relationship is different at different times. And at this time, she remembers him as a really great guy, which I think was true, but that's kind of overshadowing the less great parts that were more a focus when I was a child. Does that make sense?

Jessica: Right. Yeah, it really does. It really does. Thank you for sharing that, and I'm sorry about your father, the loss of him, and the complexity with him. And your stepfather was not a violent guy emotionally or anything like that, eh?

Born Ragey: I mean, he was not a super emotionally engaged guy, which is its own kind of violence. But I think with my stepdad, with my time in that family—the family reconfigured in that way—it was more about managing emotions carefully. So I was kind of the "too much" person in the family, and my mom was that too, relative to him. So, you know, it's—

Jessica: Yes. Yeah. I see that. So thank you for sharing that, and let me kind of unpack why I asked. In your birth chart, you've got this Mars/Pluto square. It's wide. And this is where intuition is relevant in astrology. I wouldn't always really think that it's activated. In your birth chart, it's definitely activated. And this is an indicator of many things, but a common one when we have this placement is that there is violence on the father's side of the family or from the father. And violence is a—it's a broader term. It sounds like you're very aware of that. There's emotional, psychological, physical violence. But when Pluto and Mars are squared, there is often gender-based violence. And so, when there is violence, it is different towards girls versus boys.

The fact that you've got this beautiful Jupiter—not perfect, but beautiful Jupiter opposition to your stellium in Leo, it does indicate that your mom found a way to create a better life for herself and for you. And I don't know if she left him or if he left her, but it was a good thing for her. It actually looks like he may have done the leaving, but it was good for her. The unconscious messaging—maybe it was conscious; I don't know, but it looks like it was unconscious messaging in your early developmental experience as described by this Pisces interception in your first house—is that being passive, letting things happen, was truly dangerous. It was the wrong thing to do. And it was modeled for you, either, again, really expressly or more unconsciously, that passivity is the true risk, not aggression.

This is worth acknowledging because there is these parts of you that are just naturally really passionate and run hot, and then you have this family lineage, including your parents' dynamic, where things were really scary and unpredictable. And the way to be the victim was to be passive. And so this is where our inherited conditions are linked into our nature, and from an astrological viewpoint, it's kind of hard to pull them apart, really. They're kind of all one and the same.

And so, if you're working with a therapist or talking with your partner or whatever it is and people just want you to cool down, take a step back, outside of the fact that that's not really your nature—I mean, you've got a lot of Leo in you—there's this part of you that feels like, "You're asking me to not care about myself. You're asking me to give up." This really—it's, again, more of an unconscious or spiritual or existential—you can think of it in any of these ways—foundational feeling. But it's very visceral for you. Letting things happen is really scary. It's much less scary to make a mistake and come on too hard than to just let something happen to you and be victimized in some way. Does that make sense?

Born Ragey: Yeah. I mean, I think that the complexity of my question that I wasn't sure about how to include—I can't just say, "Don't get angry," because there have been times when I didn't respond to the thing that I was feeling, and that was really damaging for me. And I have to keep dealing with that. So this issue that you're bringing up around passivity being a scary thing and around gender-based violence in particular, those are really big themes in my life. And so dealing with the anger is always going into all of this stuff as well.

Jessica: Yeah. I'm really sorry. That paired with all this other stuff we're talking about, in particular the Pluto/Mars square, it reinforces this clear life lesson you've had is that "If I'm not exercising my agency at all times in all situations at a ten, anything could fucking happen." And there's a combo platter of that's your lived experience and that's your nature—and I don't want to take that from you. But instead, I want to talk about effectiveness because the one thing I haven't mentioned yet is you also have Saturn high up in your chart in Scorpio, and it squares your Ascendant and squares your Mercury and your Sun.

And so finding ways of expressing your anger or your will—because it's not always about anger. I know it comes across as anger. It's really about your will. But it's not about not feeling your feelings. It's about finding more effective ways because the thing about the Saturn squared to your Ascendant, Mercury, and Sun is that—well, there's a bunch of things about it. One is that it gives you a bit more rigidity. When you're activated, you're very difficult to talk to, probably, because you completely agree with you. You 100 percent agree with you. You have a lot of fixed energy in your chart, and with Saturn forming those squares, you become kind of belligerent. This makes you unhappy, and it isn't effective in your relationships.

So this isn't actually about anger, although it pisses you off when it's happening, so it intensifies your anger. But it's actually about two things, I would say. One is, when you are activated in a certain way, you are not in a good state to process, because you become clenched as opposed to open. And so this, on the outside, comes across as an anger issue, and you might tell yourself it's an anger issue. But I would suggest that it's more about this kind of blocked and frustrated energy that comes in reaction to the intensity of your feelings and not knowing how to take care of a situation because the Saturn placement is like, "I'm responsible. I have to handle this. I'm going to figure it out. I am the authority in my own life," or maybe you're in a situation like, "I'm an authority over you. Why are you doing this?"

And again, this can be about he did dishes in a weird way. It doesn't have to be about anything big. You're pretty quick to get over it, but in the moment, it seems like it's forever.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: Whenever we're dealing with feelings that are Saturnian, they feel written in stone. So it's a pain in the ass. So, all of this said, the first piece of advice I'm going to give you for interpersonal dynamic—and then we're going to come to your emotions in general. But for dealing with your husband, a friend—does this come up at work?

Born Ragey: It can. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: But less so, right?

Born Ragey: Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica: For you, you know how to behave appropriately in the world. That's not a problem for you. So while, yes, sometimes shit flies out of your mouth that you weren't planning on or whatever, in general the place that this comes up is in your personal life. And it has to do with your agency. It has to do with your sense of, "This is what I'm doing." So the first bit of advice that I would give you when shit comes up with your husband or someone that you're close enough to to yell at is to ask yourself—and tell me if you've already tried this—but to ask yourself if you can buy yourself 72 seconds, a couple minutes. Do you ever try to say, "I can't talk right now. I just need to breathe"? Do you ever do that with people?

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Does it work?

Born Ragey: Some. I think if they allow me to do that, then it works, which doesn't always happen. Or people take it the wrong way, because if I'm in it, I'm like, "I just need time. I just need ten minutes."

Jessica: Yep.

Born Ragey: And so they're already like, "Well, why couldn't you say, 'Give me ten minutes to work it through?'" You know what I mean? Like my whole—

Jessica: Right. Right, because—

Born Ragey: —[crosstalk] is already like…

Jessica: When you say, "I need ten minutes," it's like, "I need ten minutes or I'll fucking kill you. Back off." And then they're like, "What do you mean, you're mad at me?"

Born Ragey: Exactly. And I'm just like, "I just need some time. I just need some time." But to them—and I think of myself—these experiences, I feel like I have an energetic field that's super—so it's like I'll be like, "Oh, I'm managing this. These feelings are all inside me." And the person is like, "Oh my God. I am being blown away by your…"

(laughter)

Jessica: Sorry. It's true, though. Your energy does—it's not that it leaks. It's like if you have a fire in one room of your house and you close the door, the whole house still gets hot. It's not like the smoke stays in the room. It is like that. So here's my approach, and let's just focus on this within your marriage, because really what I'm wanting to get at is how can you develop habits that start to show your survival mechanism that there is another way? Because you're not going to reason your way out of this. I mean, you know I'm a fan of therapy, but I feel like you would do well with boxing, like classic American boxing or kickboxing. Have you ever done any kind of physical stuff like that?

Born Ragey: I mean, I have been very athletic at times in my life. I did capoeira for a time. I just had a baby, so now I'm kind of getting [crosstalk]—

Jessica: Right.

Born Ragey: —on that. But I haven't tried kickboxing, and that sounds interesting.

Jessica: Honestly—okay. So Mars governs the legs, amongst other things, and combat. So capoeira, boxing, kickboxing, all these things—any kind of combat that's fun is going to be good for you. I think having a kid is very athletic, so take your fucking time, obviously. So yes. Finding a physical outlet for your abundance of energy, absolutely a good idea.

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Jessica: Physical stuff is really helpful for you because of the way your chart is written. However, you can't always box your feelings away, realistically. So finding effective ways of communicating that don't require you to pretend that you feel something other than you feel—because when you're activated, all you can do is be like, "This is what's real right now. This is what's real, and you want me to tell you it's not real? I'm not going to do that for you."

So step 1 is having a conversation with your partner—and of course share this with him if he's open—having a conversation with your partner where you say to him, "Okay. New rule for three months. Every time I say I need ten minutes, that is like a magic statement." Or you can decide—you can be like, "Popcorn." You can have a code word. It doesn't matter how it works. But in that moment, what the ask from him is is that he shuts the fuck up, 100 percent shuts up. I mean, listen. If the baby is running into traffic, that won't work. But in regular life, he immediately stops talking with the expectation that in ten minutes, you will come back to him and you will, in a digestible, appropriate way, communicate what's happening for you because you're actually very capable of doing that, eh?

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: Now, that said, that Mercury in Leo square to Saturn in Scorpio—sometimes your tone is razor sharp, like so sharp. I'm sure you've been told your tone is a thing.

Born Ragey: Yeah. Oh my God.

Jessica: Yeah. So, within that, some of that is—I mean, gonna work on it. But it's a little bit of you're just not great at pretending. And in exchange for the sharp, sharp tone, your partner and your friends and your loved ones have someone that will not lie to them. They have someone who they can rely on to show up and to be real.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. You're exceptionally honest—sometimes to people's great dismay, but you're exceptionally honest. So the tone thing, I think, is something that you absolutely—is in your best interest to work on, but it's not the first thing to work on because if you try to work on your tone when you feel like you're being oppressed or repressed in a situation, even if it's something as stupid as "He put the glasses away upside down when they're supposed to go right side up" or whatever—in those moments, again, there's this entitlement that comes up, this feeling of, "I have to advocate for myself. This is important," even if there is a part of your brain that's like, "This is not important." It feels important.

So the first step is—let me just see this. Yeah. Honestly, six months, it looks like, is what would make a real difference for you. Three months doesn't look like enough. I don't know what your partner's—do you mind if I look at him psychically?

Born Ragey: Yeah. No, that's totally fine.

Jessica: So am I seeing him correctly when I say he's not an especially aggressive or intense guy until all of a sudden he is?

Born Ragey: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. He's somebody who could probably resonate more with some of the other episodes I've done where I talk about not owning your anger, and then all of a sudden it explodes.

Born Ragey: Absolutely.

Jessica: So part of what happens in the worst parts of this dynamic with you and him is you take up this space where you're like, "I know what I need. I'm telling you what I need," and then he never does, until when he does, it's all of a sudden, and it comes out stupid because it's like he's been holding on to too much for too long. So part of what's so triggering for him in this is that, "Why do you get to say what you feel? Why do you get to say what you need and I don't?" And that's his story from his own childhood shit.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: And the truth is when he does say his shit and he doesn't do it in a stupid way, when he does it in a healthy, normal way, you're still yourself. So you're like, "No," or, "I don't like that." And he takes that as a punishment or a consequence for being direct, whereas you take that as a conversation. Some of this, it's very important for me to say, is not about your anger issues. It's about how both of you engage with your will and how both of you kind of engage with your agency in life, right?

And so, when I come back to this bit of advice I'm giving to you of saying to him, "Okay, popcorn," or, "I need ten minutes," and he has to immediately stop, then what you need to promise him and actually follow through on is coming to him and acknowledging how you're feeling, but within that—and this will be a hard thing for you; not impossible, but hard—is being able to acknowledge his perspective. That's got to be your tradesies, to be able to say, "I know my energy's really intense right now, and it's upsetting you. You've talked to me about this. I know my tone is fucked up right now. You have a hard time hearing me when I'm talking with this tone. I am aware. I can't stop right now, but I want you to know that I'm sorry. I wish I could do it differently"—something where you're taking responsibility for your own part. Does that seem doable to you?

Born Ragey: Yeah. Yeah. That does seem—I mean, I guess it's something that I've been kind of feeling my way towards. When I can do it, or when I do do it, it works. So it's affirming to hear you say it, and certainly something I can put more—

Jessica: Yeah. It'll take participation from him, though, because if he pushes you and doesn't give you those ten minutes, it's not the most realistic goal in the whole entire world. It's a good goal. It's just you do need to flex that agency, and you do need to sort through your hottest emotions and thoughts before you can get to your more grounded ones.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: And so he does need that from you. And again, what you want to remind him of is—you need to sit him down and have this conversation with him about, "I need those ten minutes to be able to get there, and I promise you more humility." Now, let me tell you it is the Saturn dynamic in your birth chart that tells me as an astrologer that for you, if your goal is to be more effective in communication—both how you listen and how you verbally communicate—and you take the approach of humility, then you're pleasing your birth chart. You're embodying your birth chart.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this is within your nature to do. It's not within your nature to do if somebody is trampling on you in any way. And again, I don't want to encourage you to let yourself be trampled on. It's more about kind of creating a little bit more breathing room within yourself so that you can access all of your wisdom and perspective instead of your strongest impulses, which I know is something you've heard me say on the podcast a million times: your strongest emotions are not reliably your wisest ones. For you, that is true every day of the week.

Let me just add something to this, which is in your birth chart, you've got Moon in Gemini, and it's opposite your Midheaven. And so, when you're home, it's your safe space. This is why I'm kind of focusing on the marriage, even though you're not telling me there's anything wrong there. Your home is your safe space, and that's where you're more emotionally reactive because you can be. And in the world, you're squaring your shoulders and moving through the world like the rest of us. But in your chart, it is really clear that you're just—you know how you're supposed to behave, and you're doing that. Then you come home, and you want to let go.

This is where the quickness of your responses goes unchecked. And on the one hand, that's actually a really healthy, wonderful thing. But then, on this other hand, you don't want it to be corrosive if you're—you don't want to become the bully that you're trying to avoid, basically.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: And Sun conjunction to Mars can be a bully. I mean, for reals. Jupiter opposite Mars can be a bully. You've got them both. So you can push. And luckily, because of this Saturn square, which—if you look in basic astrology textbooks, they're going to give you lots of negative interpretations of it, and there are negative sides. But this is a strength in your birth chart because it is authentic to your nature that you want to be responsible. You actually want to be a good person. You want to do things effectively.

And when somebody says, "Whenever you talk to me in this tone of voice, it hurts my feelings," you are not happy to hurt other people's feelings. I know some people kind of get into being petty or having that kind of power. Not you. You do not like it. But in the moment, you're not thinking about your tone of voice. You're thinking about self-protection. It's like this animalistic self-protection moment. And this is where I am, in this advice, appealing to your Saturn because your Saturn is like, "Okay. If this is not actually keeping me safe, it's only creating new problems. What are the ways I can keep myself safer?" And these are some ways.

So do you have any questions about any of that stuff? Is there anything else you want to make sure I talk about in regards to this?

Born Ragey: No. It's super helpful. I feel completely satisfied in this conversation. I really feel like I know what I want to do next.

Jessica: That makes me so happy. Okay. Let's talk a little bit more, then, because I've just got a few more things to say here. So okay. Do you mind if I ask what your day job is?

Born Ragey: Well, at present, I'm a PhD student. I'm a curator, though, and a writer. So I work with art.

Jessica: Great. Okay. Great. And you like it?

Born Ragey: Well, I don't know. I mean, I have for a long time liked it, and there are aspects that I still really like. But I'm definitely in a moment where I'm like, "Am I going in the wrong direction? Do I need to"—I'm kind of hardheaded, so once I set my mind, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm doing this." And I'm like, "Are we just being hardheaded here? Is this still what we want to do?" So yes. So I'm doing some reflection.

Jessica: Okay. And that makes sense. You are going through a lot right now. You are going through a bunch of Uranus transits. Uranus is squaring your Sun and your Mercury in the sixth house, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime transit. You are questioning what you're doing with your life and questioning whether or not this is a good idea for 20-something you, and maybe 30-something you is like, "Hmm. Ah. Shit." You are wise to ask these questions.

You have Uranus in the tenth house. And so there's this way that when you go to school or when you're in a conventional role or establishment with that Saturn in the ninth house, you start thinking, "Well, this is what people do. This is how people do it. These are the rules. These are the steps."  But in truth, especially when you're outside of academia, you're like, "Fuck the rules. Fuck the steps. What do I want to do?" That's truer to your nature.

And so I don't have the instinct, but I do again want to say continue to question it that it's an error to be getting this PhD. Instead, what I think is that it is an error to think that just because you've put your caboose on this train track that it has to stay on the fucking track. You can drive it off the track. And that's likely what you're going to need to do, is something off the established path within your field. And even the word "field" is the wrong one because it's around your passions; it's not just about your field, right?

So part of what I want to introduce into your questioning of "What the fuck am I doing with my life and why am I getting this PhD and all this kind of stuff?" is what sounds like—if convention and money and all the other things in life weren't there, what sounds interesting as a lifestyle, like a work lifestyle? What actually feels exciting to me? Because you might start off with something that's super unattainable or left field, but with your nature, you'll whittle it into something doable. For you, it's kind of like start with a big dream, and then edit it or prune it into something really workable. I imagine that's a bit of your writing process, to get everything on the page and then edit it down and then return to the story.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's how you flow. And it's actually connected to the issue of anger or rage. I mean, it's not really rage. I mean, I think we're calling it rage because it's anger that is felt intensely in your body.

Born Ragey Yes. It's hot.

Jessica: Yeah. So the good news is everything in your chart—everything in your chart, like literally everything in your chart—articulates that you can create your own path and to do things your own way and be an innovator in your field or somebody who makes things happen or supports people who are making things happen. So I'm not worried about that for you. It is important that you ask questions, and between now and April 2024, questions you shall ask—actually, there's going to be another transit that happens after that as well. So it's just like you've got a few years of Uranus transits, which—a lot of people don't like Uranus transits, because they are destabilizing, as you're experiencing in the last month especially where you're just like, "What the fuck am I doing?" It makes you question everything.

But the thing that I love about Uranus transits is it makes you remember that you're alive and that you actually have choices. And when I saw this when I was preparing for our reading, I was like, "Oh, okay. So this is a perfect time to deal with anger because it's not really"— I mean, it's definitely about anger, but it's also not about anger. It's about agency. And part of why you're so hot in your reactions is because that's how you're wired, and there's nothing wrong with it. And another part of why you're so hot in your reactions is because you want to really move your life or situations forward in a way that you feel is safest, healthiest, happiest, best.

  And that second part is getting triggered in this period. And so the more that you are willing to see the broader landscape of what's possible, the less defensive, agitated, whatever, you need to get. And when things really bug you around work stuff or the world, a good practice for you is whipping out a pen and paper or the notes in your phone and jotting down what are the things that are the most annoying, and externalizing those things for two reasons. One is because when we have really strong emotions, whether it's anger or anxiety, whatever, when we externalize the triggers to those things, then it separates them from us because when we experience visceral rage the way you experience this visceral anger, it feels completely linked—like it's in you, it is you, it's of you, it's all you. That's kind of the overwhelming feeling.

But what it is is actually an emotion, and emotions come and they go. And when we take the time to write a few things down, the emotions don't magically disappear; if they did, everyone would do it all the time. But it does create a little more space, right? A little more space. And the second reason why this is a good idea for you—well, I guess I'll give you three. The second reason is because you're a verbal processor. That's just how you're wired. You do well with words. And then the third reason is because the things that you don't like point to what needs attention, always. And so sometimes it points to what needs attention in yourself, and sometimes it points to what needs attention in your life. And there's only one way to find out. It's to jot it down so you can return to it when you're less activated.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: Do me a favor and say your full name out loud. Did you take her husband's name?

Born Ragey: No, no. And I was also born with a different name than the name I have now. Do you want the name I was—

Jessica: Give me all the names. Yeah.

Born Ragey: Yeah. So I was born [redacted], and then it was changed to [redacted].

Jessica: Hold on. You're missing a name. There's another name. You go by another name?

Born Ragey: Is it [redacted]?

Jessica: Oh. What is that name?

Born Ragey: So that's the other family that I'm in, but I don't have their name. But I grew up with—

Jessica: Interesting.

Born Ragey: —a lot of siblings and my stepdad, and he has a massive family. And so it could be that.

Jessica: Say that name one more time.

Born Ragey: [redacted]

Jessica: That's it. Okay. Thank you. Your capacity for fun and your capacity for joy—you are fun, right? Like you laugh big, all that kind of stuff, right?

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: It lives in the same place as your anger.

Born Ragey: I know. That's what drives me nuts because I'm like, "I can't get rid of this thing, because there's this other good stuff."

Jessica: Oh yeah.

Born Ragey: "You hate this about me, but you also love me for this." So…

Jessica: Yes. Nobody loves you who doesn't love this about you, even if they don't like it. There's just no way, because this is your—you're so resilient and fun, and you're fucking down—like once a thing needs to be done or it sounds fun to do, you'll do it. Very brave. Your funness and your kind of ride-or-dieness, if I can say it that way, it comes from the same place as your anger. And your partner—was he nervous about you getting a reading?

Born Ragey: He may be. I told him about it. And he has me listening to your podcast every Sunday, so he was like, "Oh, wow."

Jessica: He's like—and I really like this. I mean, you guys have, really, a very complementary dynamic. Sorry. I'm just thrown off because I can really feel his energy all of a sudden. He's a really—I mean, I don't want this to sound negative to him, and I can't tell if it would to either of you. But he feels like a really good wife. He's a very nurturing, caring, supportive provider in that way.

Born Ragey: [indiscernible 00:40:22] the thing.

Jessica: Yeah.

Born Ragey: Absolutely.

Jessica: Yeah. He's got—again, when he's a dude, he's such a dude. But for the rest of the time, he's a tenderhearted, sweet, supportive person who actually likes managing a family and a home. He's a very good wife. And I wish more men were better wives because it's like an [intention 00:40:49] that's not well suited to all women who happen to be with men. So yay him. But hold on. Let me just pull back. The power that I'm seeing inside of you—it's weird. It's like you completely trust in it, you have confidence in it, and then you also don't.

Born Ragey: Yeah. I know that it's powerful, right? And I depend on it for a lot of things. But it's also the kind of thing—it's almost like it can be threatening to people. Like even the fact that it's working—I've had—you've asked me about my professional life. I think a real fear that I have is shining a little too bright for my boss or for my coworker. I'm not an ambitious person exactly. I have things that I want, but I'm not an ambitious person like I really want a person's job. I'm not that kind of ambitious, but it has gotten me into situations where I have to be like, "Look, I support you. What you need? I'm not trying to disrupt your shit. How can I support if I'm doing too much?"

And so I think that that element of it is something that I'm working on a lot right now because I'm trying to figure out how to take space—and, I mean, the anger thing is a part of this—how to comfortably take space but feel like I'm honoring the other people in the room. How to do that—yeah.

Jessica: So here's the quick fix that I have, is—and again, I'm catering to your Saturn. The quick fix is to—have you ever heard of the sandwich method?

Born Ragey: No.

Jessica: The sandwich method is when you're trying to tell someone what they're doing wrong, the first slice of bread is positive reinforcement. The meat is, "This is what you're doing wrong." And then the second slice of bread is another affirmation. So it's like an adjustment from the sandwich method of giving criticisms of making sure that when you are taking up space and it is appropriate—and this will just take a little bit more thoughtfulness because it's not exactly in your nature. You're like, "I'm going to deal with what's in front of me," instead of like—this is where you're not Venusian. It's like you're not trying to be diplomatic when you're trying to get shit done.

But in the big picture of your happiness, your career, your love life, whatever it is, being slightly more diplomatic makes it easier to get shit done. And this is the lesson of Saturn for you, is figuring out, okay, so when you're shining bright and taking up space—and by the way, I see, yes, you want to get things done; you like advancing. But you don't want to be a manager. You don't want to tell other people what to do, which is ironic because you love telling people what to do in your personal life. But professionally, that's actually not interesting to you, and advancing professionally is often, in these kinds of environments, about being more managerial. And that does not look appealing to you. It doesn't look like your happy place at all.

Born Ragey: No.

Jessica: So, validation there. But it's finding a way to acknowledge someone on the team—it doesn't always have to be your boss or whatever, but being able to be like, "I really like what you said last week, and it's been on my mind, and now I want to say this," or finding a thing where you can identify the good that someone in the room has done or is currently doing or the invaluable role that they will play in your idea or in whatever is coming next.

So, essentially, what this is about is not dimming your light. It's about enveloping others in it a little bit more, which I think for you will sometimes be very difficult, honestly, because it's just not where your mind is. And also, sometimes, it means some sort of gymnastics because sometimes people are annoying and don't really get things done, and it's hard to say something positive. But this is where you can think about that annoying thing that your coworker did or that completely ineffectual comment that that person made last week, and then recognize that that spurred an idea of what you could do better. And instead of being like, "You said this stupid shit, and now I want to tell you the better way," what you can say is, "You said something last week, and it really inspired my thinking."

So it's like you don't always want to get too specific because that'll feel dishonest, whereas you can be really broad and be like, "This was insane. This was ridiculous/it really inspired me." And that's honest, and it's still honest, right? And you don't have to dim your light in order to include others. And this, ironically, is like what we were talking about within your partnership, is when you come back after those ten minutes, acknowledging, "I know I acted like I was on the verge of murder, and I apologize. I felt like I could murder you, but I know that I don't want you murdered. I want to work on this with you. We are a team. And now let me tell you what pissed me off."

Starting with a positive affirmation or an acknowledgment is a really useful thing because when other people can reiterate what they've heard from you—like, "You're telling me it bugs the shit out of you when I do X"—instantly, we're less defensive because we feel heard. And so you get very paternal—again, Saturn and Mars. And you get very paternal, and you get into this mode where you're just like, "I don't need to make you feel better. I need to tell you what the right thing to do is."

Born Ragey: That's kind of shitty.

Jessica: I mean, sure. Yeah, sure. It's shitty. It's also—I mean, you're not alone. I mean, people who are very Saturnian, the reason why we are a pain in the ass—and you've got this strong Saturn dynamic with a lot of Leo placement, so it's like the CEO and the king come together and have told the peasants what to do. It happens. I'm sure that the people in your life, if they heard this, would it be like, "Yeah. That's it."

Born Ragey: Yeah. Well, it's fair. It's fair.

Jessica: It's fair. Yeah. So being able to recognize that the best rulers are people who include others—like bring along the people. This is very important. So this is going to be a practice for you. I am seeing six months. If you and your partner really work on this for six months and every time you say, "I need ten minutes," and he pushes you, you can say, "So you want me to be mean? Are you feeling masochistic today? Because I can do that. But I'm telling you I need ten minutes." Just find the same thing to say every time because, honestly, I think he'll fail at this a fair amount because he is very needy when you get kind of paternal, which is the opposite of what works on you.

That neediness—it's just like, "Okay. So I am your ruler, and I will tell you." And it's a bad dynamic on both ends. So he needs to have a bit more of a backbone and not need to prove his backbone to you, but just to remove himself from the dynamic when it's impossible to talk to you, because it does happen. And that's fine. You're reasonable when you're alone, most of the time. You just need to have a little alone space to get to that place. Does that make sense to you? Does that feel right?

Born Ragey: Definitely. Definitely.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay. So let me just check—say your full name, all the names, one more time for me.

Born Ragey: [redacted], and then there's [redacted].

Jessica: Thank you. There's such a strong—was there lots of laughing in that family?

Born Ragey: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: As soon as I see that last name, I'm just like, "Oh my God." Just there's a lot of laughter. There's a lot of love. It's just like it showed you a part of yourself being in that family that is just so happy to return to. And also, I wonder if people in that family get annoyed easily and move on, like don't take it serious when shit comes up.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's really good for you. It's really good for you because if people didn't get so upset by you being angry or defensive or annoyed or whatever, it would be over almost as soon as it started.

Born Ragey: Yes.

Jessica: But we do live in a world where people will always get upset. So this is a thing. The last thing I want for you is to demonize your passion. Listen. Everything has a high and a low. Everything has an upside and a downside. But it's really important for me to just—I feel like I've said this, but it feels important to say one more time. If you were to demonize your anger, I don't know that you would ever be able to really shift the unhealthy parts, because your anger is your passion and your happiness, and it's like it's your strength and all of these things.

It's just parts of the anger go into a place that's not super healthy or helpful or appropriate for the moment. The way to frame it in your thinking and, if you're in therapy, with your shrink is how to give yourself more options and more space so that you have access to more parts of yourself, because you're very well resourced. You have a lot of resources inside of yourself. It's just that when you get too hot, it's like all you feel is the heat, and that's all you respond to. And that is something that, with practice, can be shifted.

Born Ragey: Yes. Thank you.

Jessica: It is my pleasure. Now, do you have any last question, or did we do what we've come here to do?

Born Ragey: I feel really good. I think we've done it. I have a slightly greedy question.

Jessica: Great.

Born Ragey: North Node/South Node, right?

Jessica: Mm-hmm.

Born Ragey: I was wondering if you would talk to me a little bit about that. I mean, you use a different system. I know you're a big Campanus person. I have listened to the episodes. But it's hard to find sometimes. Not all the things have that option. And so I'm interested in your insight because as I'm thinking about my life and what decisions I'm making, I would love to have in mind moving in a North Node direction, even though I know that's a lifetime thing. But if you're comfortable giving me a little bit more—

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I totally will. And you're at the right age to be asking this question because you're in your later 30s, and I think nodal stuff is really interesting. But—I think I've talked about this before, but when people in their 20s or their early 30s are fixated on the nodes, I'm like, "That is a waste of astrology." The thing to focus on instead is embodying your whole chart, and then you're inevitably doing your nodes. So, from that perspective, you have the North Node in Taurus in the third house. Is that what you've seen in other chart systems, or is it in the second?

Born Ragey: I thought it was in the fourth.

Jessica: Oh, in the fourth. So it popped it all the way to the fourth. So I have it in the third. And for me, having it in the third is related to communication. It's related to being able to understand and communicate your values, North Node in Taurus. When you come into this life with North Node in Taurus, it's like a bit of a tricky one because what it indicates is that you've come into this life without knowing what your values are. I have seen in charts of people who struggle with all manner of things, from addiction to being really kind of always in reaction to other people—there's a way that this placement can make you feel like when you're really making decisions—now, this is tricky, what I'm going to say, because you've got so much fixed stuff. We've talked about all the things in your chart here.

You have an idea about what the rules are and what's right to do. But if you slow down and you really check in with, "What do I actually believe in?"—what is actually important to you—it's harder for that to be clarified because Saturn is like, "These are the rules." Jupiter is like, "This is spiritually true, but what are your values?" Most people with North Node in Taurus do not figure that out until their 40s. And when you do, it can often be the most soothing thing that you've ever encountered because it kind of scratches an itch that's always been there. It's like, "What is actually important to me?" And this is a—it's an art sign, so it's materially important to me.

So this is where, when you were talking to me about being a writer and getting your PhD, working in the arts, in my brain, I was like, "Okay. So you're embodying your chart in such a clear way that it's pleasing your node, your North Node in Taurus in the third house." And it makes sense that you're 36, 37, so you're at this place where so much of what the Uranus transit I mentioned where you're questioning everything—so much of what it is preparing you for is to ask questions of yourself and of your life so that you are better aligned with your values because, as we age, if our life doesn't reflect our values, we become really unhappy, spiritually disconnected.

And so there are parts of what you're doing that you're not sure if they reflect your values. You're not sure if you care about them.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: And that's that nodal placement. The South Node in your birth chart, from my perspective with Campanus houses, is in the ninth house. It's the place of education. So is higher education the place where your dreams and passions go to die? Maybe yes. It's possible that for you, getting this PhD is stripping some of your joy from your passions. Again, a great way to learn that sometimes is to just experience it. And luckily, you're not going to do this forever. Now, do I want to encourage you to be a professor? No. No, I don't.

And I don't because you have a South Node in the ninth house. I think that you would be a great teacher, or professor, more specifically. You'd be a really great professor. There's a lot of value to it, but I don't know that it's of value to you. I don't know that it would bring about in you or in your life something that you don't already have.

Born Ragey: Yeah.

Jessica: So that's something for you to play with. And if you, in the end—you're like, "Fuck it. I've got an opportunity. I'm going to teach at this university or whatever," ignore everything I said. You've got to trust yourself on this.

Born Ragey: No, this is very affirming because—yeah. There's a route you can take—I'm not American, and I'm not a permanent resident or anything like that. So there's a way that you can go where it's like you get the PhD, and then you move right into a kind of university/college job, and then they sort out your immigration stuff, and you really hunker down and publish or perish and do the thing. There are times when I'm like, "Okay." Some professors are like, "Oh, you're really this." Well, hold on. I'm like, "Okay. Maybe I should do this." But most of the time, I'm like, "God, that feels fucking awful."

And so that's very affirming. It's good to also think about the third house because the thing about doing a PhD, of course, is that you read and write so much that you never read or write when you don't have to because—

Jessica: Right.

Born Ragey: —[crosstalk] space. And so some of that reading/writing as a practice, as opposed to like a vocation or something, has fallen to the wayside. And so this is really useful to think about in terms of what would fill my cup and point me in the right direction or something, like give me a pivot that might feel satisfying. So that is very helpful. Thank you.

Jessica: It's my pleasure. Yeah. And I think—listen. If you decide to have a career in academia, you will be technically successful. I think you'll be able to get a job. I bet you'll be able to get tenure, maybe not right away, but it's hard to get tenure, and I actually think that you're somebody who could. And I don't know that you want it. You could put out a real wide web to see what kind of roles you could play in different places, different ways you could really explore what you find exciting within the arts. And getting the PhD is likely to tamp down that thing that you love so much, but that's just a PhD for you.

I think, again, returning to "What is it that I actually value?"—and I will say that most people do not value more than three things, maximum five. So it's not like ideals. It's not like philosophies. It's basic values, very, very basic. And having a sense of those, for a North Node in Taurus person, is so valuable because whenever you have a major life decision to make, you can refer back to your values. "Does this put me in alignment with my values? Does this take me away from what I value?" And sometimes you make decisions that take you away from what you value. When those decisions are conscious, that's fine. When those decisions are unconscious, that's when you end up getting mad at yourself because you fucking went in a direction without really thinking it through.

Uranus will often have us move kind of impulsively. It's kind of like a quick move. So, for you, it would probably be like an opportunity comes out of left field, and you're like, "Fuck it. Let's go." That's possible. But it's one of these things where you want to, in the words of Sonya Renee Taylor, to collude with possibility. That way, it just kind of makes it easier for Uranus to bring you delightful opportunities that are life-affirming.

I want to just kind of pull back because I know you asked me about the nodes. I would say there's nothing else you need to focus on. From my perspective, when we're embodying our chart in an authentic way, you're doing your node, period. I think for you, the conversation about anger and agency and self-preservation, self-control, passion, fun—this whole big, messy, delightful thing that we've been talking about—is talking about your North Node because you do not value being unkind to people. You do not value being agitated all the fucking time. But you do value being passionate and being self-directed.

So it's about understanding that you don't want to get rid of it all, that you want to have a more editorial relationship to this landscape, basically. This is a reflection of your values. You might not be thinking about it that way in this moment or haven't been so far, but that's really what it is. And this actually brings me to the fact that you have Jupiter and Mars opposite each other, and they both pretty tightly square your North Node.

So this was in my mind the whole time. My worry with astrology in the world, like me sharing astrology on a public platform, is always that people get a boner for a certain thing, like, "My soul's purpose—I have a boner for that." People get really excited, and then they start googling all the things not knowing what their source is, whether or not it's a reliable one, and then we start to think about this in isolation. And it's just as destructive as being like, "My thighs are big." Nobody is just sitting around looking at your thighs. They're looking at you as a person. It gets weird, and it can become self-destructive and problematic. And people get like that with the nodes, which is understandable but not a great use of astrology, and it's not very helpful for a person.

So this is why I'm always so weird about talking about the nodes. But for whatever it's worth, I am always considering the nodes when I'm interpreting the big picture of the chart, and it's been in my mind throughout this conversation. So yeah. So, hopefully, I've given you enough of an amuse-bouche to snack on.

Born Ragey: I will say it's very helpful to think about it in this way, in a way that fourth house/tenth house didn't quite make sense for me. So, yes, absolutely.

Jessica: Good. Yeah. I mean, listen. From my perspective—and again, I try not to be—I don't want to be my own form of a bully about this, but you do not have a North Node in the fourth house. North Node in the fourth house people have to really learn how to cultivate family. That's not your problem. You're like a mama bear. You make family with people when you have strong feelings for them. That's not actually hard for you. I mean, people are hard; it's hard for you. But it's not like your soul's lesson, whereas finding your voice and using it in a way that is like a reflection of your values, that's your soul shit. That's actually a lot more sticky and complex.

And also, that South Node in the ninth house—your relationship to higher education, it's complicated. It's really complicated for you. And that's reiterated also by having Saturn up there. So pros and cons, but it's like a cool thing about astrology is when you can start to study, "Okay, so if it's in this house, this is what it means. When it's in that house, that's what it means," it gives you a lot more agency within your use of astrology because I think a lot of people get very passive in their use of astrology and are like, "Oh, this means this about me, and therefore, I'm that." It's nice to know in different systems, there's different ways of understanding oneself, and you just have to find the system that is most resonant for you.

So we do have to wrap up, but you are an absolute delight. I'm so glad we got to do this.

Born Ragey: Thank you so much. You've been so generous. This has been really great. Very great.

Jessica: Yay. Yay.

There's just so much to talk about this week. There's so much happening in the world. I am in the U.S., and that is what I'm going to focus on talking to you about, is what's going on here. But I do want to encourage a global lens and to stay aware of what is happening in the world because there is a lot going on right now. We are very much in Eclipse season. In fact, the next Eclipse is on next Sunday on the 15th of May. And so we are very much feeling the effects of these Eclipses, and in particular the much more heavy-hitting Lunar Eclipse that is coming for us on the 15th of May.

But before we get into the details of your horoscope, which spans between May 8th and the 14th of 2022, let's take a moment to acknowledge what happened last week. So, last week on the podcast, I talked about the Jupiter sextile to Pluto. And we saw the Supreme Court leak for their decision or their desire to overturn Roe v. Wade. So that is a perfect articulation of that transit. I mean, there's a larger context here, right? There's a much larger context. It's not exclusively a reflection or embodiment of that transit, but the papers got leaked when the transit was exact. It's absolutely a part of that.

There's a larger picture at play with the ongoing transit of Uranus in Taurus, the Pluto Return of the United States and Eclipse season. There's also transits to the chart of Roe v. Wade itself. Now, if there's interest, I'm happy to talk about that chart again. I did talk about it a really long time ago on the podcast. I think it was Episode 47. The title was "Pussy Problems." So you can go check that episode out, and again, I'm happy to talk about the chart more if there's interest. Just send me a message over at ghostofapodcast.com, and let me know if you want to hear about that.

But okay. Let's just acknowledge Jupiter sextile to Pluto, as I mentioned, is a transit where we can see systems working really effectively, even when those systems are fucked up or poisonous at their core. So we have that articulation of the Jupiter sextile to Pluto and the Supreme Court seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade. But the other thing we have as a reflection of that transit is the person who leaked it, the person who leaked it to the free press, got the truth out to make aware and mobilize the people. And they were only able to do that because we do have a free press.

But what I wanted to bring your attention to, to stay on brand here, is that astrology is all about cycles. So, when we look at a sextile, certainly with this transit but in general with any transit, we know that the next transit between those two planets will be a square. And then after that, we'll have a trine, and then after that, we'll have an opposition, and on it goes. So, again, astrology's all about cycles. The next time that these two planets, Jupiter and Pluto, will form an aspect to each other will be in May 2023, so just a year from now. When that occurs, we will definitely see a continuation of this issue. And whether or not this will go the way that we wanted to or not, it's just TBD. We do not know yet.

But what we do know based on this information is that this year, these 12 months, are a really important one in which to lift our voices, use the free press—advocate, educate, advocate. Right? We know that that's what Jupiter and Pluto wants. We can make meaningful changes to the system through those actions, those Jupiterian actions. And there are so many ways of going about that, and different people will have different approaches. Find your way. Find your approach.

We know that right-wing religious extremists have been passing terrible laws around the body autonomy and identities of Trans and non-binary people. We know this has been going on for a while. And if you've been paying attention to that, you should have known or you could have known that women were next, because when you start fucking with people's body autonomy, the sky is the limit, really. And when we consider the opinion that was written by Justice Alito, the thing to keep in mind is that it's not just a rejection of the right for people to have an abortion; it's very meaningfully a rejection of the right to privacy. And in the United States legal system, this right to privacy is at the foundation of many other rights in the United States, including the right to contraceptives, the right to interracial marriage, the right to Gay marriage.

This is a really big deal. And I know that a lot of people are referencing The Handmaid's Tale, and The Handmaid's Tale was an amazing book. I haven't seen the show myself. It's a really powerful piece of fiction. But if you want to be even more scared, try studying American history. That shit will give you the chills. The Pluto Return of the United States is taking us, not even six months into it, in the exact direction we could have expected. We are seeing abuses of power, a confrontation with our shadow, and in particular the shadow side of the patriarchal Christian white supremacy that this nation was founded on. And this inevitably is linked to ableism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia.

It is really hard to separate these things out. So this brings us in a really dangerous—really dangerous—direction. We who study astrology have seen this coming, right? We've seen this coming. As I've said many times before, the Pluto Return of the United States is very much challenging our democratic experiment, and it's very possible that we won't have even the fallacy of a democracy that we have now. Things are going in a pretty scary direction. And very much connected to this, it's important to note that republicans are trying to turn this into a states' rights issue. From that perspective, I want to remind you to vote in local elections, not just presidential elections. And I don't mean to suggest that democrats can be relied on, because clearly they cannot. But the Republican Party can be relied upon to set back the clock on civil liberties. You can trust they have a plan; they are enacting it so efficiently.

And on an astrological tip, voter turnout looks really awful for the midterm elections. It looks like conservatives and right-wing extremists will win. This is why I will encourage you to vote. I will always vote, and I will encourage you to vote, not because I think it's a magic bullet—it's obviously not—not because I think the democrats are amazing and do much for us, because they don't—they're not amazing—but because the republicans have a terrifying agenda for us. They are much, much worse, and this is just splitting hazards. The car's got to crash into something. Probably better that it's a tree than another moving vehicle. That's my take on politics, I guess.

I will continue to vote and continue to encourage people to vote on the off chance that it can make a slight difference. And honestly, I do think it will make a difference. I don't know how much, but the republicans would not put as much time, energy, and money into suppressing the vote if it didn't mean anything. And listen. If you don't like voting, that's cool. I understand the arguments for it, and I respect the logic behind it. But if I'm going to complain about a thing, I want to participate in the damn thing. That's my attitude. You do you. You do you.

When we come back to one of the major crises of this moment, I wanted to say that if you're feeling demoralized, if you're feeling like you don't know what to do, supporting local abortion funds that help to arrange and pay for abortion care for patients who need it is one of the most impactful actions you can take and ways you can spend your money. Planned Parenthood is of course a great resource, but consider looking into and supporting the Yellowhammer Fund—they're amazing—the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, and then also Margins: Women Helping Black Women. I've put links to each of these organizations in the show notes of this episode.

Additionally, if you or someone you know is a pilot or if you've got the kind of duckets—that means you have access to a plane, like a private plane or whatever—consider becoming a volunteer with Elevated Access over at elevatedaccess.org. They help transport passengers at no cost to access gender-affirming and abortion healthcare. This is the kind of shit I love to see. When I learned about them, I got really excited. I mean, I'm kind of useless to the cause. I have no piloting skills—surprise, surprise. But maybe you do or someone you know does.

I want to give you a couple other spiritual resources. Both of these are polyamorous. And when I say that, what I mean is if you are affiliated with a religion, you do not have to in any way abandon or minimize that religion in order to become a part of these churches. The first one I want to tell you about is called The Church of Prismatic Light. They are a religion for LGBTQIA+ people and their allies who want religious freedom to marry who they love, to transition, have gender-affirming care, and the right to body autonomy. You can join them over at prismaticlightchurch.org. Again, I'm putting all these links in the show notes.

Another consideration, especially if you are living in a state that is doing a great job of repressing access to the vote, is to become a member of The Church of Universal Suffrage. They believe that voter suppression is a sin. They're an international, officially registered, nonprofit religious institution that holds regular weekly Sunday services and meditation on the nature of voter suppression. And they might be something you're interested in looking into. You can go to universalsuffragechurch.org.

But all to say, my loves, this is the Pluto Return of the United States. It was always going to be about power and abuse of power, and it was never going to be easy or safe. Let's not forget we are the majority. We are the majority, and we have a collective power that we can use. Okay. All that said, my loves, let's get into your horoscope for this week. There's certainly enough to talk about.

The first exact transit of the week happens on the 10th of May, and it is Mercury Retrograde. Have you been feeling it? I certainly have. So, if you're new to astrology, new to the podcast, let me just give you the very basics on Mercury Retrograde. Mercury is the planet of communications. It governs over DMs, texts, speech, listening, learning, attitudes, all that kind of stuff. It's information, how we express it, how we digest it—Mercury. And Retrogrades are basically when a planet appears to be moving backwards, and it does move backwards through the zodiacal degrees.

And when that occurs, it's always a time to follow the rule of re's: reflect, reassess, review, that kind of stuff. And because of that, when we make plans, when we communicate, things can often go sideways because we're not often listening and reflecting when we are figuring things out and putting ourselves out there. And so it can lead to a lot of problems. Because we live in such a digital age, and on top of it with COVID, still, so much of what we're doing is online, Mercury Retrogrades have a bigger impact, and that's because they impact technology. They impact our communication devices and all that kind of stuff.

This makes Mercury Retrogrades noticeable by most people and annoying to just about everyone. Some people who have Mercury Retrograde in their birth chart report feeling a lot better, like people finally get them, during Mercury Retrogrades. But for everyone else, yeah, it can be quite annoying. This Mercury Retrograde will last until June 3rd. We'll be in a shadow for a minute after that, but it's only until June 3rd. And there's a lot to say about this one. The first thing is Mercury Retrograde begins right before the Eclipse, and this means that there's a very emotional vibe happening here. There's a very emotional vibe. This is further iterated by the fact that Mercury forms a really tight square to the Moon at the moment that Mercury goes Retrograde, which is at 4:47 a.m. Pacific Time, again, on May 10th.

This aspect gives us more of an emotional way of processing information. So, from a therapeutic perspective, this is great news because you can sort through your attitudes, beliefs, your psychology in general, in a way that is really connected to your emotions. The downside is that you could rationalize or reason your emotions away, which can make you feel better in the short term but doesn't actually lead to healing or integration. This aspect does suggest that we can expect things to be pretty emo this Mercury Retrograde. I mean, literally, from everything I just said in the intro, yeah, you could have guessed that anyways. But here we are. Here we are.

In this Mercury Retrograde chart, we have a Sun/Uranus conjunction. And Uranus can stimulate the nervous system so that we feel pretty anxious. You add to that Mercury Retrograde square the Moon, and yeah, it can be a pretty nervy, intense Mercury Retrograde. Many people will be feeling impulsive and irritable during this transit. And so I want to just gently remind you that everybody's annoying. You're annoying, I'm annoying, we're all annoying, and so is technology. It's so annoying. And that's okay. We can work with it. This is an opportunity to reflect on how you deal with irritability and agitation.

Now, in astrology, Uranus and Mars are the two places I look to to understand more about irritability and agitation. Uranus is, again, more heady than Mars, which is more body-based. And luckily/happily, Mars is forming a sextile to the Sun quite tightly and also to Uranus, a little more wide, which indicates that if you're feeling irritable, if people are annoying you, if your computer's annoying you, whatever it is, use your body as a tool and a resource for releasing energy. This is a really important thing. That might mean stretching. It might mean going for a run. It might mean dancing. It might mean having sex, whatever. Use your body. It'll help you to process and release some of that irritability that you might be feeling. And honestly, if you're not feeling it, you might be dealing with other people who are feeling it, and then they bring all that mess to you. Isn't it fun? Astrology is so fun.

Okay. That's not all that's happening in this chart. We also have Saturn forming a square to the Sun. That brings a heaviness to this Mercury Retrograde, this feeling of, "Whatever I say, whatever I do, whatever that person said, it's written in stone." So this self-seriousness and perfectionism that Saturn can bring, it's not great on any day, but having the Mercury Retrograde, it will really be a force of will for us to remember that whatever comes up, whatever gets triggered within us, is an opportunity to become more aware of our triggers and to find more effective and efficient ways of coping with them.

And so this is where, again, I want to remind you about that Mercury square to the Moon in this chart. It's tempting to rationalize or reason or explain away our emotions, but it's not actually that helpful. So you might notice yourself really doing it or that you're dealing with other people who are doing it, and it's important to not be too judgmental or hard on yourself or others, even though Saturn really wants you to be. It doesn't, but it does. The other things that are going on in this chart are a Venus conjunction to Chiron and Neptune conjunction to Jupiter. That transit is not exact, but it is still very much active.

Okay. So this chart, honestly, says so much about everything I was talking about at the top of this segment. But I will say this, that Neptune/Jupiter conjunction in Pisces, and in general the whole transit of Jupiter in Pisces, can be associated with religious extremism, cults and cultishness, disassociation, and this kind of quest, often a spiritual quest, for idealistic perfection, which honestly has heavy roots in white supremacy. This is a transit or an aspect which can lead to spiritual evolution, greater authenticity and honesty in your relationship to spirit, empathy, compassion, community.

But it takes not only seeking; it also takes receiving, listening to the needs of others, because it's very hard to truly be of service and to have compassion when people say, "You're hurting me." And listen. Sometimes doing what's healthy and right for you will hurt other people. That's inevitable. That's literally inevitable. But it's all about scale, right? It's all about scale, and it's something for us to be looking at. Luckily, Saturn's placement in squaring the Sun in this chart really does support humility, but not a fun time, I will say. Not a fun time. That Venus conjunction to Chiron is rough, but it can absolutely be leveraged in a way that supports us in healing wounds and aligning with our values, which is lovely.

All in all, this Mercury Retrograde—it's not great for launching a business or, I don't know, planning a trip all over the world or whatever. But it is a great chart for doing deep psychological or spiritual work, and doing that work to heal something within yourself. This is a bad time for trying to control other people, tell them how to be, all that kind of stuff. But it is a really great time for going within and doing that classic Mercury Retrograde stuff where you reflect and you review and you reassess so that you can reconfigure things within you, whether it's your attitudes, how you listen, how you communicate, your plans, whatever it is—reconfigure them to something that is more authentic, more healthy, more whole. That's the damn move, my friends.

Now, the other thing that's happening on the 10th—yeah, we've got two big shifts on the 10th of May—is that Jupiter moves into Aries. So it moves in on the 10th through October 28th, and then on the 29th, Jupiter will move back into Pisces. And then it'll come back to Aries December 20th of 2022 through May 16th of 2023, which is when it goes back into Taurus. So, whenever Jupiter shifts signs, it's important to keep in mind that this only happens once every 12 years. So the last time Jupiter was in Aries was back in 2010/2011. So you can look back at what was going on in your life and in the world around that time, and the themes that were big for you may be reinvigorated. And I say may be because you may have had a million transits going on, and you may identify some of the things that were happening for you with the transit of Jupiter in Aries if you're just kind of playing with astrology. So it is important to have that context in mind.

But in general, when planets transit through different signs, they light up the issues in the house in your birth chart that the sign is in. So, if you know what your birth chart looks like and you can find the early degrees of Aries, what house that falls in, and if you have planets there, go take a peek. Go take a gander at that, and you'll know what part of your chart is getting lit up by Jupiter. And when things get lit up by Jupiter, they expand. And I am not going to tell you that that is inherently good. A lot of astrologers, maybe even most astrologers, will. But I'm a fucking triple Capricorn, so I will say expansion is not on its own a good thing. Only the expansion of healthy, life-affirming things are a good thing. Right? And again, we see that with what's happening with Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court in the U.S. We had a benefic aspect between Jupiter and another planet, and some shit happened, right?

Okay. Back to Jupiter in Aries. When Jupiter is in the zodiac sign of Aries, emotions, reactions, ideas come in quick and hot because it's fucking Aries. This can intensify Jupiter's natural instinct to jump to conclusions, to be reactive or defensive, and to have a sense of urgency. With Jupiter in Aries, it can feel like the lights are all on and they're flooding on, and now I gotta go, I gotta do something—classic Jupiter in Aries shit. This can be a time, unfortunately, of increased violence and extremism, as Jupiter is associated with beliefs and religion, and Aries is very aggressive and very physical. And so this can really become, unfortunately, a more physically explosive time.

And keep in mind Jupiter is global in nature. So, in the context of world war and world events, it is not a chill transit, unfortunately. When we think about things related to the zodiac sign of Aries, we're thinking about things like the prison industrial complex, violence from the state, policing firearms, or violence in general, and the laws around these things. These are all issues that are likely to heat up. But, that all said, we can apply the same passion and protectiveness towards the protection of people, towards fighting for what's right, and ferreting out the truth, coming to healing, having fun, making art that is life-affirming. All of these things are the really beautiful sides of Jupiter in Aries.

This is fortifying. It can kind of connect you with your sense of vitality and virility, which is great, especially as we've come through this Jupiter in Pisces. And of course, it's not over, but this transit of Jupiter in Pisces is a little bit more spiritual, which may sound great, but we're all material girls living in a material world, are we not? And so it's hard to maintain that kind of Jupiter in Pisces vibe when you're living your damn life and trying to get your bills paid. Right? Jupiter in Aries is down for all that.

At the end of the day, Jupiter in Aries can be associated with freedom fighters, but there's no inherent evidence with this transit that we will find people fighting for freedom of all or just fighting for their own advancement. Aries is a sign associated with the ego, so TBD. TBD. The other thing I want to name is around COVID. Will we see breakthroughs in science and medicine and some sort of advancements that help us to gain greater healing? Very possibly. Equally possibly, we will see major spread as people are just like, "Fuck this. I'm doing what I want." It's that "me first" vibe of Aries. And in the U.S., we are already this week, just a couple days before this transit occurs, seeing an increase in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They're all back up.

And the government here is warning of a fall surge. Yes, just after they said, "Fly without a mask. Do whatever you like. It's up to the individual." So time will tell, but I strongly encourage you with my whole heart to wear a damn mask around people and to take an actively anti-ableist approach to the ways in which you live during a global airborne pandemic, even if you would like it to be over very, very much, as every-fucking-body does. Right? Okay.

So the moral of this transit—and of course, Jupiter governs morals. And a good moral to the transit of Jupiter in Aries is don't be a dick, even if it feels good or someone charismatic says it's a great idea to do. Advance yourself, advance the world, but not without being receptive to what's happening for others and how they feel about your impact. Right? Right. Right. Okay. And that, my friends, is it for the exact transits of this week. You thought I was going to keep on going, but no, I can't. Those are the exact transits.

But I got more to say, see? I have more to say because on the 15th, which is of course Sunday, the 15th of May, at exactly 9:14 p.m. Pacific Time, we have a Lunar Eclipse. And I want to touch on it now. I will talk about it again in next week's horoscope because it is technically under the jurisdiction of next week. However, we're going to be feeling this. And as I said about the Solar Eclipse that happened on April 30th that was kind of a really lovely one—I mean, there are certainly risks and pros and cons, but this Full Moon chart, this Eclipse chart, is a lot more difficult. And that shouldn't surprise you, because some of the astrology that I talked about in the Mercury Retrograde chart we're seeing reiterated in the Eclipse chart. But Eclipses are a much bigger deal. They are much more emotional. They are linked with our evolution as individuals and as a people. And the effects of them take about six months to unfold.

So, if you did some homework in the Solar Eclipse on April 30th to align with your values, this might be a little bit easier. If you didn't or if you feel like you got really thrown off course, then that's going to be part of what comes up for you on the Lunar Eclipse. Lunar Eclipses occur during Full Moons, and this particular Full Moon is a Full Moon in Scorpio—not intense at all. Oh, wait, that's a lie. Very fucking intense. So we can expect taboo, scary, deep issues to emerge for us emotionally. That's what we can expect from a Full Moon in Scorpio, a Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio.

And leading up to this Eclipse, many people will experience sleeplessness. Sleeplessness is a big thing that can occur during Eclipses, feeling just emo, like, "Why am I crying at everything? Why am I having such strong reactions to everything?" This is very classic of Eclipses. And I'm not saying because it's an Eclipse and you're feeling this way, oh well, just analyze it, decide it's normal, and move on. I'm saying this is normal of Eclipses, but this is also happening. So, by being willing to sit with your feelings, to leverage that Mercury Retrograde, to reflect on what's happening for you, that's a good use of this energy.

As I said, I'm going to properly unpack the astrology of this Eclipse in next week's episode. And also, of course, if you're a patron of mine over on Patreon at the kittens level, then you've already heard my month-ahead horoscope where I talk about this Eclipse. But I will give you this important bit of information right now: the Moon and Sun are at 25 degrees of Scorpio and Taurus respectively, and they are forming a very tight T-square to Saturn, also at 25 degrees. They're several minutes off of exactitude, but my friends, it's very tight. Saturn governs reality, authority, responsibility, depression and depressiveness. It's our teeth and bones and the organ of our skin. It's the things that hold us up and keep us separate and together.

This T-square is not a very exciting bit of news I have to tell you about. But because I see it, I want to kind of give you the heads-up that you may be feeling depressive, scarcity-minded, or like you can't do it, whatever that means. This is a time where we can really release, where we can let go. It's a Lunar Eclipse. It's a Full Moon. Also, the nodes are involved, which I'll talk about more next week. But because Saturn's involved, it's not let go of anything. It's let go of things that stand in the way of you taking responsibility for yourself, that stand in the way of cultivating emotional or material maturity. That's what Saturn wants from us. And this Moon being in Scorpio, again, it touches on taboo things. It touches on intense things. It has us reflecting on or revisiting trauma. And this isn't so that we're tortured. It's so that we identify what we can release and we try to do it.

Now, that said, I will remind you, do not do spiritual work during an Eclipse. This isn't the time—oh, sweet Lord, this isn't the time—for drug use. Not during an Eclipse in Scorpio. Don't do it. You can leave your spiritual facilitators for a different day. And it's also just not a great time for trying to contain or control spiritual energies. I saw somebody commented on an Instagram post that I put out there that the reason why you're not supposed to do spiritual work during an Eclipse is—the way they said it was it's like trying to plant carrots during a tornado. I thought that was a really smart and weird way of describing it, so I'm going to put it that way. Yeah. Don't plant a vegetable garden during a tornado. And it doesn't mean don't practice spiritual hygiene; it's just don't call things in. Don't try to manipulate or change things. This is not the time for going out and doing. It's a time for working with what is, to being in a state of receptivity.

Now, my loves, I'm not going to go through the transits of the week, because that wasn't a lot of transits. Mercury goes Retrograde, Jupiter moves into Aries, all on May 10th. There's going to be an Eclipse on the 15th. You're going to be feeling it leading up. That's your damn horoscope.

With everything that's happening in the world and everything that's happening in your life, this is an important time to align with empathy, patience, and kindness. I mean, it always is, obviously. It always is. But it's so easy when things feel hard or they feel kind of intensified to fall back on core wounding stuff, so we act in ways that are in alignment with our early developmental experiences instead of our adult, resourced selves. So remember to use your tools. Remember that you do have resources—maybe not great ones, maybe not enough, maybe not wonderful ones, or maybe amazing ones that are spectacular. I don't know. But we all do have some resources, and this is an important time to remember to tap into them, to use what we've got.

My loves, I hope that you are getting a lot of value out of Ghost of a Podcast. I love making it. It's a great way for me to get to share my work, and I'm also really loving giving people readings on the show. It's a little bit of a shift; have you noticed? So, as a reminder, if you would like a reading or just want a question answered on the podcast, you can always email me over on my website. You can go to ghostofapodcast.com. My website's always linked in the show notes.

And while you're there, there's lots of goodies. There are classes. I want you to save the date, in fact, because on June 4th, I'm teaching a class at Astrology University called High Times and Addiction in the Birth Chart. And it's going to be fun and educational. So you can giddy-up on that or save the date as you wish. And there's lots of other webinars that I've got on my website for you to check out, a free chart-drawing tool, and of course the transcripts for most all episodes of Ghost of a Podcast. If you're into getting super nerdy or you just want to be able to read along, it's all there for you, my friends.

And hey, listen. If you get value from the show or want to support my work in any way, I invite you to subscribe to the podcast. Give me a little five-star review or write a review. And join me over on Patreon. That's it, and I will talk to you next week, my loves. Buh-bye.