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

Jessica: Welcome to Ghost. Tell me what you want to ask me about for your reading today.

Hayden: Okay. For my reading today, I'd like to know about how to return to my body. For as long as I've been aware of having a body, I have not been comfortable in it. And I've been particularly recently struggling to ground myself or to return to my own skin after being stressed out by events in the outside world or just after a busy day. When I try to come back to myself, it feels unsafe or just impossible, and I just would prefer to hang out in the clouds or not really, I guess, come back to my body. So I'm wondering, is it because of something in my chart or is it because of some gender dysphoria-related stuff since I am Trans? But I would like to know what ways I can work on it that feel more possible than the ways I used to work on it, which was with mindfulness and breathing, but I just feel like they took a very general approach and didn't consider things for me.

Jessica: That's a good question. So I have context questions to throw at you, which⁠—the first one is, is this something you've experienced chronically? Has it started recently, or has it gotten worse or different recently?

Hayden: I think it's a long-term thing. As a child, I had to really center myself all the time. I have a parent who has autism but was only diagnosed in their 50s and was just extremely low tolerance of whatever children need to do to be alive and run around and have fun. And so I think I've always seen myself from this weird outer perspective instead of really knowing the freedom of a child, like, "Hey, I'm me. That's cool." I think the recent changes now that I've been on hormones for a few years and people are sort of accepting me as the gender that I'm comfortable with, that's shifted into a feeling of I have everything I wanted, mostly, but why doesn't it feel good yet? That makes me so impatient. My impatience and frustration has gotten worse because I used to just be able to say, "Oh well. It is what it is." And now it's like, "Well, it sucks. I want to change it." Yeah.

Jessica: Let me just very briefly here check the exact dates of this Neptune transit.

Hayden: Oh, that would explain a lot.

Jessica: It will. It will in moments. Indeed, this Neptune transit began for you in April of this year. So I imagine that things got worse this spring.

Hayden: I had a panic attack. Yeah.

Jessica: I'm so sorry. And was it your first panic attack?

Hayden: Well, it was a really big one after about five or six years of not having them. And I could very clearly understand five or six years ago why I had them, but this year, I was like, "Really? Now? Why?"

Jessica: Yeah. So okay. We're going to go into this. I guess my last question is⁠—I'm assuming you're taking T; is that correct?

Hayden: Yes.

Jessica: And is this comfortable for you to talk about?

Hayden: Yeah, I'm pretty happy talking about it.

Jessica: Okay. My question for you is have you noticed any kind of connection between whatever dose you're on of T and your anxiety level?

Hayden: Yeah. I would say my body's anxiety that I can't relate to a thought anxiety has changed since starting T. I think it was most noticeable a few years ago, like 2018-ish, right at the start of taking it. And that sort of meant for me that I needed to be more active or else I wouldn't sleep well, or I'd just get this weird body tension, and then I'd immediately think, "Oh, I must be anxious about something," and then realize, "Actually, no, I'm not." It's just my muscles all ready to go. I haven't changed my doses much. I don't see an endocrinologist regularly, so it could be something to look at. But I haven't noticed any instability around it. My hormones seem to be pretty happy, like typical⁠—

Jessica: So I'll tell you why I asked. One of the things in your chart is this Venus square to Pluto, and you've got Pluto in the first house. And so it gives you this hypersensitivity to hormonal shifts. And because, as we named, you are going through a Neptune transit to Mars, one of the two planets I would look to for your hormones⁠—Venus being the other⁠—I want to just kind of bookmark⁠—and we don't need to have a big conversation, but it's something for you to think about and bring to your doctors⁠—if your sensitivity to whatever hormones you are taking has shifted, because Neptune makes us hypersensitive.

So you might be able to tolerate something at a certain amount regularly, and then Neptune comes and it makes you so much more sensitive, so you might not need it. So all people of all genders, whether they're on any kind of HRT or not, have hormonal fluctuations. And I'm always of the mind that tracking our anxiety in deference to our hormones is a good self-awareness/self-care thing. So I just want to kind of bookmark that.

Hayden: It's so funny. When you said oversensitivity⁠—I was eating a chicken nugget recently, and I complained to my flatmate, "They cooked this wrong. The texture's all different. They messed it up." And she ate one and she was like, "These are fine, Hayden. What do you mean? You must just be really sensitive right now."

Jessica: You are really sensitive. And it's two years. You're at the beginning of this two-year period. So, if your life was just McNuggets, you'd be fine. But it's so much more than that. And unfortunately, when you go through a Neptune square to Mars, it is a transit that triggers visceral anxiety, so body-based anxiety. So we're going to come back to that. I want to stay with your birth chart for a moment, which, by the way⁠—we didn't share your birth information. You were born October 11th, 1999, 7:23 a.m., in Pretoria, South Africa.

So the first thing I want to say is you have got your Sun in the twelfth house in Libra, as well as your Moon/Mercury conjunction in Scorpio. And all of these things give you heightened sensitivities in general. Folks who have Sun or Mars in the twelfth house often experience disconnect from the body, and it comes from this feeling of not being safe in the body. This feeling of not being safe in the body generally comes from inherited issues, so that means from a parent or from some sort of prenatal conditions as opposed to exclusively from your own lived experience. So, in other words, it starts really young.

Hayden: I believe that.

Jessica: Yeah. There's so much we could say about your parents. Again, we're going to hold them off for just a moment and stay with you. Let me have you say your full name out loud.

Hayden: Okay. Hayden [redacted].

Jessica: That's not your full name.

Hayden: Oh. My name used to be [redacted].

Jessica: Hold on. Let me just look at that.

Hayden: But I have another last name, [redacted].

Jessica: That's what I was looking for.

Hayden: There's a lot on that side of the family.

Jessica: Is it your mom's side?

Hayden: It's my mom's side of the family.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot going on here.

Hayden: We can talk about that stuff. I'm comfortable with it.

Jessica: Okay. And does your mom have an anxiety disorder?

Hayden: My mom is deceased.

Jessica: Oh. I'm sorry.

Hayden: She ended her life when I was two weeks old.

Jessica: Oh. I'm so sorry.

Hayden: But when she was alive, she was diagnosed with bipolar, but she was about 19. So it's so hard to know in today's mental health system what she would have.

Jessica: Absolutely.

Hayden: But I'm sure she wasn't very comfortable with her mental health.

Jessica: I mean, there's a lot of chaos that I pick up on immediately.

Hayden: She was a chaotic person.

Jessica: Hold on.

Hayden: But also a fun person. I will say that to her credit. My dad says she was just the most fun-loving, spontaneous, happy-go-lucky⁠—

Jessica: She was a bright light. She was a really, really bright light.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: I see that. And this feeling of not being able to access, or not⁠—it's not about not being able to access your body, because you are. It's that you have a lot inside of you that says, "Don't do it. It isn't safe." And so it can feel like moving through molasses to take the steps to access the body.

Hayden: Yeah. I guess a lot of it's just this stereotypical thing of I don't want to repeat these patterns in my family because it's not just my mom. Her dad ended his life as well. And both of them were these people who had these huge emotions and would just run with it. They would just not self-center. So I think that side of me, the analytical side, which I kind of associate more with my dad, is very strong because I'm like, "I've see the damage this stuff can do. If you just do whatever you want all the time, someone's going to get hurt."

Jessica: Yeah. Well, yes, that. Also, Saturn opposite the Ascendent. Saturn in the sixth house opposite the Ascendant⁠—it gives you this sense of, "I am responsible to other people. I am responsible to myself. What do I need to do day to day to manage my responsibilities to others?" It gives you this very Saturnian, methodical set of values. But in your birth chart, you are of the generation that has a Saturn/Uranus square, which you've heard me talk about on the podcast by transit. You've got it in your birth chart.

And so you can go about being like, "I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to be responsible. I'm not going to chase waterfalls." And then that Uranus is like, "But is that stupid? Is that a waste of my time? I don't know. Maybe I should chase a couple waterfalls⁠—not jump in, but just chase them." So you chase the waterfalls, and then you get to the waterfalls, and then you're like, "Wait a minute. This is risky business. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing." And so there's this internal struggle⁠—

Hayden: Literally⁠—not even metaphorically. Literally, I was kayaking/whitewater rafting. We got to a waterfall. Someone compacted their spine, and I was like, "I don't want my spine compacted. I'm getting out of here. Goodbye."

Jessica: Oh my God. This is literal. It's not just a metaphor.

Hayden: This is literal. Yeah.

Jessica: This is a difficult thing, and it is in many ways very psychological. But it adds to this feeling that you have of, "I cannot consistently trust myself, and so I don't want to tap in all the way because I don't know what I'm going to find. I don't want to find something I don't want to find." It's like a survival mechanism that's very effective but actually doesn't do more than help you survive. And what I'm really hearing in this is you want to do more than survive; you want to thrive.

Hayden: I'm privileged. I'm in a position where I can do that now.

Jessica: Yes. Yeah. And it's not just about privilege. I think it's a birthright for us. I mean, we live in an unjust world⁠—deeply, deeply, deeply, obviously. But I think it's our birthright to thrive. And I just want to name that. I mean, the world doesn't let that happen. So the human condition is fucked up and very problematic, obviously. But I don't think any of us has to do anything special or be anything special to thrive, to deserve that. And I do want to say that to your Saturn, to your Chiron stuff, to your twelfth house, because you have a South Node conjunction to Neptune, and it's also conjoined to Uranus.

And this placement can give you kind of a puritanical sense of who deserves what, whether or not you deserve to thrive, because you've got that North Node in Leo⁠—whether or not you deserve to be seen, whether or not you deserve to be successful. Your North Node in Leo is conjoined to your Midheaven. And so my experience with this placement is that people, especially in youth, which⁠—I think one's 20s are one's youth⁠—really struggle with, "How do I take my place in the world, and do I deserve to take my place in the world?"

Hayden: Yeah. It's super real, and I've been battling it even since the pandemic started, when I kind of quit my⁠—I'll call it a customer service job, even though it was like a really scary police call center job. But I quit that job because I was like, "I don't want to be on this side of history. I'm tired. I need to do something else."

Jessica: Good for you. And also, the job part isn't the question for me as much in this conversation in this moment. But what it is is, "Do I deserve to live the life I want? Can I live life in a way that reflects who I actually am?"

Hayden: Oh.

Jessica: Right.

Hayden: That's scary.

Jessica: Deep questions. And the answers to this are not a static point. It's not like you take a walk down a healing journey path, and then you arrive at a bench, and you're like, "Oh, this is comfy. I'm just going to camp out here." It's like this is something that you're going to be journeying to and from and around throughout the course of life, because all of us do, and also because of the way that your chart is written. The struggle you're having in general, but in particular right now, is on time. It's actually as it's meant to be, and there's a great gift in it because this unease that you're having about even approaching embodiment⁠—it was always there, and it's come to the surface so that you can cope⁠⁠—right⁠?—or not.

Hayden: Yeah. I think it's such a blessing. I can tell you over the last four or five years, there's been, it feels like, stacks of bricks one at a time lifted off my shoulders. And I'm ready for that again, and I am an optimist. And I'm so happy that I can say I have a lot of hope about this. But I also know that it's terrifying.

Jessica: Yep. It's interesting. As I'm talking to you, you do seem really optimistic and positive. But what I see when I'm looking at your anxiety, which makes you not want to be in your body or not know how to be in your body⁠—it's almost like this curling up and away from yourself. It's almost like going into a fetal position, but it almost reminds me more of a leaf exposed to fire, like a leaf curling up. Does that make sense?

Hayden: Yeah. And that's been it. I've really got this strong messaging of, "You are very intense, and you will not be reliably doing that without some kind of disaster." It just seems like people were scared of me or what I represented because no one else in the family was talking about intense things or just being emotional after we immigrated. And yeah, I operate on this really perfectionistic⁠—as you said, almost puritanical⁠—thing of I just want to do everything right, but I know that doing everything right is such a cold and dead Excel spreadsheet way to live. And I'm not that kind of person. So I have to sort of turn away from myself, as you say, but I'm not someone you can turn away from. If you're in the room with me, you're going to notice me. I'm there. I'm the fire. You'll feel it.

Jessica: It's Pluto in the first house. What you're describing⁠—and it's a Chiron conjunction to your Pluto, but this placement is⁠—people notice you when you're in a room. You can be very provocative, for better or for worse, depending on the room, depending on the moment. And oftentimes, people who have this placement⁠— when you do have a parent with a history of mental illness, there becomes this kind of scapegoating that can happen at you where⁠—

Hayden: Oh. Super.

Jessica: Yeah. People project that kind of stuff onto you, and it gives you a lot of fear. But this turning away⁠—I think part of why I'm saying this metaphor of it being like a leaf exposed to fire is because you go brittle. You don't just go rigid; you go brittle. There's no flexibility. There's no adaptability in that state, which is part of why so many of the things that might technically work for a lot of people and even for you at times don't work when you get to that activated state of turning away from yourself, because you're going to a state motivated by survival and self-protection, but you're going to a state of such rigidity inside that any amount of movement feels like it'll break you apart.

Hayden: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: My advice⁠—and of course, I'm not a psychologist. We love doctors. All of this stuff should be cross-referenced and brought to a shrink if you have one. Do you have a shrink?

Hayden: Not right now. Sometimes I have had one. It's like when I can afford it, and then the free ones are okay. I've definitely done a lot of therapy. But at the moment, I was thinking, "Darn. Should I go back?"

Jessica: Yeah. I would say yes. Having somebody once a week that is just holding a container and who can every once in a while be like, "You said the opposite thing last week," or, "Huh. Two months ago, you were in this place. This is an improvement"⁠—somebody who can just do that for you, that's the kind of therapy I think would be really helpful right now because you're sorting through so much. It would be great to have an hour a week where you're just not worried about taking up too much space, where you're not worried about overwhelming someone.

Hayden: I have a counselor, like a chaplain at the university. I see her Wednesdays, and I feel like she's kind of a person who does that for me⁠—

Jessica: Great.

Hayden: ⁠—without going into the nitty-gritty psychological stuff. But I think sometimes it is just the little things for me, like, "Oh, I feel so tired today. Help."

Jessica: Yeah. And this is a person who actually does hold space and help for that. Okay. Great. Coming back to⁠—okay. I had a really good bit of advice, and now of course I've blanked on it. Hold on for second. Let me come back to what I was seeing. Oh. Okay. So, first of all, I want to acknowledge this is something that happens to you. What's happening to me right now is what happens to you. You start to figure something out, and then your anxiety boops you in a different direction, and then you lose track. And it's a fancy way of your system⁠—it's very effective.

Hayden: I'm in a reverse [cut 00:18:33].

Jessica: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It just throws you off the damn track. And it makes you feel better in a very shallow way. It makes you feel better, but there's no progress being achieved. And so it would take just the slightest thing to set off your anxiety again in five seconds or five hours or whatever it is.

Hayden: You know what it was? I can track it. When you said I need therapy⁠—maybe you didn't say that, but⁠—

Jessica: No. But yeah, no. I said therapy would be great for you⁠—it was right before then.

Hayden: I think that made me really anxious.

Jessica: Did it make you anxious?

Hayden: It made me anxious.

Jessica: I'm so sorry.

Hayden: The last therapist I had, which I will⁠—I'll try not to shade her, but she basically said something to me in the middle of last year like, "Oh, there's no way you're going to get through this degree. Your mental health is such a mess, and you're probably going to need inpatient care and all this other stuff." And it was at a time where I was feeling pretty good about myself, too, and it was just such a shock hearing all this stuff from her. And she even had some horrible gender essentialist takes about my dysphoria. It was all sorts of mess going on.

Jessica: I see.

Hayden: My last experience with therapy was like, "This person thinks I'm off the charts and I'm just a ticking time bomb." And I don't want to have that experience again. But obviously, I know that's not what you mean, but it's just what it made me think of.

Jessica: And I think that's very real. And it's very easy for me to forget that I live in the very queer Bay Area, very progressive Bay Area. And so it is easy for me to forget how my experience of therapy and my access to therapists is not anywhere close to universal in any country. So that's very real. And part of all of this, this whole topic that you and I are talking about, is about you granting yourself the authority of discretion over your own fucking life.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: And so part of what I hope for you is that if I say ten things over the course of this reading and five of them seem like, yeah, technically good ideas but not for you, that you say no to those five things. And I don't just mean this about me. I mean this in general. Giving yourself the permission to have discretion, to have disagreement with people you respect, ideas that you think are technically good, is an important part of essentially staying connected to yourself because part of that anxiety response is just that. I suggested something that you're like, "No," and that's real. But then part of it is, "No. Shit. Do I have to go back?"

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: And that "Do I have to?"⁠—that's the thing I'm speaking to right now. The answer is no, you don't fucking have to do anything, until and unless it feels from within like you need it or people you really trust are like, "I'm concerned. Please do this thing to take care of itself." You want to listen to that. And I'm really sorry you had that experience with that shrink. It sucks.

Hayden: Thanks.

Jessica: I will come back to this Moon/Mercury conjunction in the twelfth house in Scorpio, and Jupiter is opposite your Moon. The thing about this placement is that your mode of processing your emotions and your thoughts is like a waterfall. It just pours right out of you fast. And you have a tendency to want to talk about everything all at once and to connect everything⁠—thanks, Jupiter.

Hayden: Everything.

Jessica: Everything. That is partially just your nature and partially a fancy way of evading and avoiding tapping into the emotions and tapping into the body. Finding a therapeutic practice that brings you back to your body, I think, would be very effective because in terms of processing things analytically, you're good. You're fine. You actually know how to do that on your own. It would be helpful to have someone to help you because life. But the thing that happens is you process yourself out of your body. You process yourself out of your feelings. And that works at cross-purposes to the whole reason why you're fucking processing to begin with, right?

So, that said⁠—okay. You say you feel unsafe. I'm pulling back, and this is⁠ kind of where I was going with my reference to therapy. You say you feel unsafe tapping into your body. I want to ask you, how do you know you feel unsafe?

Hayden: When I can't predict what I'm going to do next or⁠—yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So that's a thought.

Hayden: Or how it's going to be.

Jessica: You described a thought. How do you know⁠—

Hayden: How does it feel?

Jessica: How does it feel?

Hayden: It feels like my body is a portal to the past and to pain, and I'm getting sucked into a portal that's going to take me somewhere I don't want to go instead of actually my home address. Like I'm trying to walk home; I'm just sucked into this trauma portal.

Jessica: Okay.

Hayden: That's how it feels.

Jessica: You feel like you're going to be sucked into a trauma portal. Is there any particular part of your body that it tends to be located, that feeling, that awareness?

Hayden: It's almost like⁠—I recently went skydiving, like 18,500 feet in the sky.

Jessica: That's bonkers.

Hayden: And the top half of my body went totally numb, and I get that totally numb feeling just thinking about it now, that portal feeling. It's just like, "I'm facing something. I cannot handle this. If anything goes wrong, there's nothing I can do." That's the feeling.

Jessica: Okay. So, when you were skydiving, it was like the portal feeling but times 700 because you were actually in real danger?

Hayden: That was just in the plane. Once I was out of the plane, I was fine.

Jessica: Okay.

Hayden: It was just a tiny, crappy little plane that we were in that I was like, "This plane is going to crash. I just want to get out of it as soon as possible." And that's how I feel about my body, too.

Jessica: Okay.

Hayden: I'm like, "This body is not [indiscernible 00:24:00] good. I just want to be a cloud."

Jessica: Okay, twelfth house. Bear with me now. Bear with me. So you feel it primarily in the top half of your body.

Hayden: Yeah. There's kind of like a numbness under my knees as well, just week. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Numbness under your knees, and you feel a numbness in your trunk. It sounds like neck to hips.

Hayden: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Is that right?

Hayden: The collarbone's its start. It's like a weird⁠—like it's pressure, but it's not. I don't know. It's hard.

Jessica: Okay. And does it tend to focus itself around your bones?

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So let's do this. First things first, Saturn governs bones. So now we know that there's a very strong Saturnian principle to the way you're experiencing this "Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this" feeling. And that tells me that your Saturn is what you have been relying on to keep you safe and in this world. And Saturn also governs the knees. When we have knee issues related to Saturn, very generally speaking, it has to do with feeling like you're not supported or you can't support yourself, either or both. So there's this fear of losing yourself within the experience you're having and not feeling confident in your own ability to take care of yourself or hold yourself up.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: So I'm going to give you⁠—you go woo, right? I can give you some woo shit?

Hayden: Oh yeah. All the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Let's do this. So one thing I'm going to have you do as a practice⁠—I would say do it once a week for a couple weeks, and if it feels good or if you're like, "I did it once this week, but I want to do it again right now," just fucking do it. But set a really modest goal, one that you can easily achieve and that you build up good feelings about yourself because Saturn really needs to feel like, "I'm a good boy." That's just Saturn. So we want to support your Saturn.

And this is what you're going to do. You're just going to put your feet on the floor. If you can get your butt outside, fabulous. I like to say my full name three times out loud. I am a fan of saying all the names, but you should say all the names that feel right to you as a way to call your energy into your body. That's why we say the name three times out loud, to call your energy back into the body or into your auric field, so maybe not your physical body, but your energy body. Okay?

Hayden: Right. At least within the realm.

Jessica: In the realm. Just in the realm, right? If you don't want to pull it all the way in, if you can't pull all the way in, fine. And then what you're going to do is acknowledge your bones. Talk to your bones. Be like, "Hey, bitches." Maybe you won't call your bones bitches, but⁠—you're a Libra. You're not a Capricorn. Okay.

Hayden: My skeleton that's waiting to escape.

Jessica: Exactly. Yes. Just acknowledge it. Try to notice your bones and say hello to them. And if you notice anxiety comes up⁠—because I'm noticing some anxiety is coming up right now. Am I picking up on that correctly?

Hayden: Yeah. I mean, I guess even when you said that, "Oh, your name's going to call the energy back to your body," by whole body's like, "No. Don't do that."

Jessica: Okay. Cool. Okay. Cool. Okay. So let's tweak that, then. Let's tweak that, then. Let's call that⁠—if that works out for you to do later, great.

Hayden: It could have been some time. Yeah.

Jessica: It's on the list of things you could do, theoretically, when you want to. So okay. This is what I'm hearing. Tell me if it resonates. We're going to refer to your meat suit as a ship, and you are the captain of the ship. It is under your stewardship. You are the steward of the meat suit. So it's a little bit of separation still. Do you like being on the water? Do you like boats?

Hayden: I love it. I love water. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. That's why I'm seeing boats. Okay. So I would say you're going to do all the same things. You're going to sit down. You're going to put your feet on the ground, get your butt outside if you can, and then just, "Okay. I am going into stewardship mode." You're not calling in your names. You're not coming into your body. You're just like, "I am the captain." You can be the pirate captain. Whatever feels easy.

Hayden: Spaceship.

Jessica: Exactly. Spaceship. Whatever's easy. And you're in stewardship mode. So now you're speaking to Saturn more specifically, this one part of your chart, because Saturn in your chart is very comfortable stewarding things, taking care of things, kind of "doing the right thing." So you're going into stewardship mode, and then you're acknowledging the bones that are connected to your energy. So your physical body lives within your energy body or your soul. The only reason why we have to tend to our physical body, outside of the fact that here we are in physical bodies, is because it is a piece of the soul.

I'm giving you this framework because it might make it a little easier to be like, "I'm going to tap into my bones. I'm going to acknowledge them and say, 'Hey, buddy.'" That's the whole exercise. It's a "Hey, buddy."

Hayden: Greeting.

Jessica: Greetings. Welcome.

Hayden: Take me to your leader.

Jessica: Yes. Exactly⁠—well, you're the leader, so maybe don't, because maybe it's challenging for you. But it's about really tapping in, feeling the bones, and acknowledging their life force and what they do to hold you up. Does that feel triggering at all?

Hayden: That feels really good, and it feels right because I think I've been thinking a lot about values lately. A big value for me is respect and dignity and being able to see the respect and power in someone or their energy, and it's like, "Wow, you're doing that. Good job."

Jessica: Yes. Do that for your body. Do that for your bones. I think it's too big of an ask to start with your whole body. We're starting with the bones because that's the place that gets activated when you feel like you're being sucked through a shit portal. Right?

Hayden: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: If I may call it that. And so the work is acknowledging that your bones are constantly working to hold you up, very successfully, and that you actually like your bones.

Hayden: I do.

Jessica: Your bones actually like you. And so, again, it's a "Hey, buddy." Once a week, a "Hey, buddy." And this is a form of starting to build a relationship to your system. We're just adding to that relationship. We're just adding.

Hayden: A question about that.

Jessica: Yes.

Hayden: Once I've done that, which could take I don't know how long, but to end it off so that I'm not just chopping myself short and say, "Okay. Fine. I did it. I'm running away," is there a way to ease out of that space?

Jessica: Yeah. That's a great question. And in terms of length, it could take you 90 seconds, and you can do it for an hour. It doesn't matter. I mean, it matters because you want to tap in. But if it feels like a daunting task, set aside five minutes max. It doesn't have to be very long. And for you, you've got a lot of water in your chart. You got some Taurus stuff. You might really need to sink into it and really allow yourself to sink, and that might take more time. There's no value judgment is what I'm trying to say. You just gotta kind of flow with it. Monday of this week, it might happen quick. Monday of next week, it might happen slow. It doesn't matter.

Hold on. Let me just see where your system is telling me. Okay. Tell me how this feels. When you realize you're about done, would you feel comfortable saying to your bones⁠—so, if it's hard for you to conceptualize your bones in general, focus on just your collarbone or just your kneecaps or something, something that gets easily activated so you know they're there⁠—whichever is easier. So, again, I want you to notice I'm telling you to go with ease. To challenge your survival mechanisms, we have to find an ease placement. Otherwise, it's too hard because our survival mechanisms are literally there to help us survive. So, when we try to push on our survival mechanisms, we activate them. That's not what we're doing here.

Ask your bones, "Hey. Do you need anything?" just like if you're getting off the phone with a friend. "Do you need anything from me right now?" And probably, if you're easily triggered into feeling disassociated, you'll hear nothing, or you'll just be like, "I don't know." And that's okay.

Hayden: I need everything⁠—

Jessica: Yes. Everything [crosstalk].

Hayden: ⁠—is usually the answer.

Jessica: Yes. Okay. Okay. So let's stay with that because if you and I were just bro-ing down on the phone and it was time to get off the phone, and you were asking me, "Hey, do you need anything?" and I said, "I only need everything," what would you say to me?

Hayden: I'd be like, "Oh, that's rough. You sound overwhelmed. What do you mostly need?"

Jessica: That's what you're going to do with yourself.

Hayden: Okay.

Jessica: You're really good at being an accountable friend. So be an accountable friend to yourself, or be an accountable friend to the meat suit that you are the steward of. That's the move. And if your system says, "I don't know what I need. I just know that I have a million needs," just validate your system. Be like, "Okay. That's real." And I would personally recommend ending with a "Bye, buddy." Call your bones "friend" in whatever way is comfortable for you. And not every time you do it does it need to be cathartic or dramatic or like, "Oh, I'm healing."

Hayden: You know I'll try to make it dramatic.

Jessica: Oh, I do. Oh, I do, which is why I'm noting sometimes it can be, but what the ideal is is for this to become more mundane. Because as it becomes more mundane, you can start to add to it. You can⁠—if you're feeling really like, "This was so easy for me to do today," you can consider, "Do I want to say my name out loud in my head or literally out loud?" And if the answer your system says is no, then don't do it. And if your system is like, "I don't know," try it. And if it feels bad, what you want to do is then notice where it feels bad in your body. And when you notice where it feels bad in your body, notice if you've recoiled away from that part, and if you can, breathe into that part with a "Hey, buddy."

Hayden: Right.

Jessica: With a "Hey, buddy."

Hayden: Like an upset friend who's crying, screaming in the corner, just like, "Oi, what's up?"

Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. If you have a friend who's freaking out in the corner of a room, you don't be like, "Hey, let's really unpack what's going on right now." Instead, you just comfort them.

Hayden: Yeah. Tell me everything.

Jessica: Exactly. You just comfort them. So I want you to do that for the parts of you that get activated. This is where it's hard for your Mercury and Moon conjunction because your Mercury and Moon conjunction is like, "What's wrong? How do I figure it out? What do I need to do?"

Hayden: Problem solve.

Jessica: Exactly. And also, it's analyze as a way to distance. So it's not just problem solving. It's analyze to distance. So what the work is within this is to be like, "Okay. Okay. I'm feeling overwhelmed. This is scary. I'm in my fucked-up place. Cool. That's okay. Hey. Whatever. I'm just going to be kind to myself around it and not go too in the noodle about it," because when you do, you're back in a pattern of coping that clearly isn't working; otherwise, you wouldn't have written me the question. Right?

Hayden: Yeah. I find big stories to try and loop everything into, but those stories⁠—they can never be the full truth because I don't know everything.

Jessica: Yeah. They're stories. And that's the tricky part about stories, is they're a retelling. And retelling is different than living within. And that's what you're struggling around, is how to live within instead of how to separate and understand or retell. And the good news is the ability to tell stories, understand stories, explore stories, is an invaluable one, and you have that on lock. So, again, we're not getting rid of these parts of you. What we're doing instead is adding in more parts so that you have a greater flexibility in your life because part of what I'm seeing⁠—hold on. Do you keep an altar?

Hayden: Yeah, I do.

Jessica: Let me just make sure this looks right. Okay. I have a suggestion for your altar, and it's to get a little waste bin you're going to keep on your altar. And it's not for throwing things away, but it's for throwing things away. What I'm trying to get at is the use of this is to acknowledge things that you're aware of that are true that are within you or that you're coping with but that you want to let go of, you want to release. And it's not about actually releasing it, but it's about having a place of honor on your altar of, "This is something I am working towards releasing, and I am externalizing it." So, when you hit these places that I do see you hit, sometimes many times a day, where you're just like, "Oh God, I cannot. I just cannot"⁠—right?

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: Get a piece of paper, fortune cookie style, little pieces of paper, and write down just, "Sheer panic," or, "I said something weird in high school to that person, and now I'm freaking out about it." I see your Saturn. I see your Saturn.

Hayden: Every choice I've ever made.

Jessica: Yeah, in any way, right? And so okay. So you're just like "Attachment to this," or, "Feelings about X." Throw it in the waste bin. Throw it in the waste bin, and then maybe once a week⁠—and if that feels like too frequently, do it once a month. Again, you want to find some sort of ease and flow into it. Sit down, maybe even on Full Moons if you want to get real witchy. Sit down, empty out the waste bin, and look at everything you've got and see if there's any of these things that you can release. Some of these things, you might be like, "I don't know if I can release it forever, but in this moment, I don't feel activated around it." Excellent. Black Sharpie. Black it out. Rip it up or burn it. If you're going to burn it, be fire safe, obviously.

Hayden: Yeah. If it doesn't feel so charged up anymore?

Jessica: Yeah. For instance, we might get off this call and you might be like, "Oh my God. I said something really weird to somebody when I was 12 years old, and I feel terrible about it. It was a terrible thing to say." Okay. So you're really activated about it now because your system is going chutes and ladders into stories because you're having a vulnerability hangover. That's the thing that you do, it looks like. Okay. So you're going to write it down on a piece of paper. You're going to put in the waste bin. In a week or in a month, when you empty it out, it's probably not going to have much of a charge because it wasn't really about that thing. It was about this thing. It's not like you couldn't easily manufacture panic about the thing you did when you were 12. It's just that that's not really the thing.

So that's the kind of thing you would black out and then burn or rip up. That's one exercise that you can do for tracking and externalizing some of the narratives that you're running. What I think you'll find is that so many of the things that really pop you out of your body are not true stories. They're not things you actually really care about. What is⁠—

Hayden: They're clickbait.

Jessica: Yeah. Exactly. Clickbait. Exactly. They're clickbait. Exactly. And what's really happening is your system feels unsafe, and your mind is creating a distraction so that you don't come near that unsafety. And a lot of what this is about is developing trust with yourself. And the only way to develop trust with yourself is very slowly by proving yourself because what you've been doing recently is trying to bully yourself and force progress.

Hayden: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. And so the thing about that is all that's doing is proving to your survival mechanisms that nothing is safe. You shouldn't feel bad for bullying yourself. I mean, obviously, it's not awesome, but it's not⁠—

Hayden: It's not because I want bad things for myself.

Jessica: No, it's not.

Hayden: I think it's just very drill sergeant, like, "We have priorities. We can't afford to get wrapped up in the same nonsense." But I think it is disproportionately putting some expectations on me that may be not realistic.

Jessica: Absolutely. So the astrological way of saying it is you're using Saturn to try to fix all your problems, and Saturn does not fix all your problems. Saturn fixes Saturn problems. So going in there as a drill sergeant to your Moon in the twelfth house or your Sun in the twelfth house is never going to work. It's just never going to work. You know what? It'll work in times of, "I have come to a greater place of presence with myself, and now I'm ready to invite Saturn in for support." Yes. But this is why we're starting with your bones, because it's acknowledging this is a part of you⁠—your bones hold you up. Yay. Thank you, bones. Saturn also governs the epidermis, the organ of the skin. It's all the things that⁠—

Hayden: I've been having crazy skin issues.

Jessica: I imagine.

Hayden: Like huge eczema, flare-ups of unseen proportions.

Jessica: I'm so sorry. You are going through a transit to your natal Saturn. You have Uranus sitting on top of Saturn. So, when Uranus sits on top of Saturn⁠—and it's, again, in your sixth house, so that means it's in your body⁠—what happens is you can activate, again, hormones because you've got that Saturn in Taurus, but it also activates dryness in the system. And so you should be drinking buckets of water. Anything that is drying to your system is not going to be your buddy, basically, in this period of your life. And because Uranus is sitting on top of your natal Saturn, it's also triggering your Saturn/Uranus square.

Hayden: Oh, I feel it.

Jessica: And so this thing of "Everything or nothing⁠—do the compromise completely or be completely free," it's really activated. And so, when we come back⁠—hold on. Let me come right back into your system. I see. Okay. When we come back to this idea of not using Saturn to fix all of your problems, what we are talking about is giving yourself permission to be a twelfth-house person. You've got the Sun and Moon in the twelfth house. You're not meant to be a hyper reality person 100 percent of the time. There are parts of your nature that are like that, and there are times when that's important. And then there are times when it is good to live on a cloud for you. It is healthy and is self-appropriate to la-di-da a little bit. You know what I mean?

And I know that Saturn is like, "That's wrong," and your Venus in Virgo is like, "Is that right?" But the answer is actually yeah, that works for you as long as it's not interrupting something that is necessary for your wellness or for your obligations that are the things you need to get along in the world with people. And I see that sometimes it does; it bleeds out of what's healthy and good for you. But a lot of the times, you are maybe demonizing or pathologizing something that's just your nature.

Hayden: Yeah. That sounds like me.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah.

Hayden: Even recently, someone told me⁠—they were like, "But that's a developmental thing, Hayden. You're not going to do that or be that forever."

Jessica: This is very real. And again, this thing about Saturn transits⁠—because again, Saturn has been squaring your natal Saturn⁠—is whenever we go through Saturn transits at any age, we feel like we're running out of time.

Hayden: Oh yeah.

Jessica: We feel like we have to fix this. If we don't fix this, then that means something's wrong. And the cool thing about Saturn transits, which is also the annoying thing about Saturn transits, is every seven years you get this massive Saturnian crisis reset. And within that seven-year cycle, you have a lot of opportunity not motivated by crisis to make adjustments and changes. And the Saturn square to Saturn is technically over. You're going to have a little taste test of it still this year, but it's mainly over.

And so now you're in this place where nothing's going to force you to work on your bones, on your inner drill sergeant. But if you do it, the next major Saturn transit is going to be so much easier for you, like so much easier for you. So it's really worth it. The thing about having Moon, Sun, and Mercury in the twelfth house is that it is important to sometimes⁠—and by sometimes, I mean at least once a day⁠—stare at a tree. Hug a wall. Literally do nothing from a capitalistic perspective.

Hayden: That is one thing I'm good at, doing nothing. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Good. That's actually really good.

Hayden: But the problem is I'm not so great at thinking nothing, but I can definitely do nothing.

Jessica: Okay. But this is actually about thinking nothing. If you're going to give your anxiety a break, then the mind needs to maybe not go offline, but not be loud. The volume needs to be down. The brightness needs to be turned down. What that might look like for you is taking a walk or doing something⁠—I don't know why I'm saying this, but Hula-Hooping⁠—doing something that is methodical and you can do it alone, and it doesn't make a lot of noise, but it distracts your mind.

Hayden: Right.

Jessica: So a walk is in the world. Hula-Hooping⁠—I don't know. Maybe you're good at that. Are you good at Hula-Hooping?

Hayden: Not particularly, but⁠—

Jessica: Yeah. That's why I would recommend it specifically, because when you're not good at something, it gives your brain something to chew on a little.

Hayden: Right, like counting backwards instead of counting forwards because it's not the usual way to do it.

Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. And honestly, that works, too. Count backwards staring at a wall and see if that distracts your mind. Okay. Do you ever have a dog or hang out with dogs?

Hayden: Yeah, sometimes.

Jessica: Okay. Some dogs are anxious, and what people will often do for their anxious dogs is give them something to chew on, literally, so they stop biting their tail or something. What I'm talking about⁠—

Hayden: You nailed it.

Jessica: Yeah. I just want you to have something to chew on.

Hayden: I need to chew on things.

Jessica: Yes. Giving your mind something to chew on that's not a narrative, because those narratives are not bad, but when we're talking about taking a break or coping with this anxiety around checking in with the body, what happens is your mind is doing this very high-functioning interrupting, and it's very effective. It's effective at making you feel better, but it's also effective at keeping you stuck in this place with your anxiety and with your body. And so, if we give your mind a bone to chew on⁠—so that might be listen to music. That might distract your narrative maker and give you a little bit of pause so that you can be in your body more.

Hayden: I will say that I think I'll have a playlist for that because there's definitely some music that totally feeds into my depression spiral.

Jessica: Yep, and then some that doesn't?

Hayden: Some that doesn't. Yeah. A lot of instrumental stuff. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. I would say make a few playlists so that you don't get bored of any one and it's not too predictable. I would also say sometimes listen to those playlists straight/sometimes put them on shuffle, because when things are too predictable, you're too smart, so you outsmart yourself. Consistency is good until it isn't for you.

Hayden: Oh yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So fuck with it. I also think that for you, because of that Saturn placement, if this works for you, you might make playlists for friends and get inspired to do shit like that, which will only empower you to go further with it because service is part of your love language.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: It's just about making sure that if service is part of your love language, you are being of service to yourself because if you're not, then you're not loving on yourself, which will of course lead to greater difficulty in tapping into the body. Now, hold, please, because I want to get in there a little bit more. Bear with me.

When you're tapping into your bones or if there's a moment in your life where you're trying to tap into your body, what I want to be really firm with you about is you do not need to stay for very long because part of what's happening is you're pressuring yourself to access your system and to stay and fix the problem, and that's not helping. What helps is building up a trust within your system so that you practice tapping into your body and actually feeling it for 30 seconds, and then it shifts into anxiety. So you say, "Okay"⁠—say it intentionally in your head. "I'm starting to feel anxious, and I'm giving myself permission to pull out." Great.

Hayden: Yeah. I'm not giving up.

Jessica: It's not giving up. You're not running away. You're like, "Okay. This is starting to feel unsafe, so I'm pulling out." And if you can make it 30 seconds, that's great information because if you keep on doing that over the course of months, eventually your 30 seconds will sometimes become 90 seconds, and your 90 seconds can become five minutes⁠—or not. And I want to say this is a many-years-long process. You don't need to get it right right now, and it doesn't need to be long periods of time. You want to evade that puritanical thing because, yes, Saturn's a drill sergeant and looking for perfection, but your South Node conjunction to Neptune can get you into really puritanical modes of thinking that are antithetical to your spiritual development. It's just never going to flow for you.

So, when you find yourself being too purist, you know you've lost the thread. When you've lost the thread, okay, that means you want to shift gears. And that can look a bazillion different ways depending on what's going on, but what it isn't is forcing yourself even when it doesn't feel safe.

Hayden: Yeah. That's it.

Jessica: That's what you don't want to do.

Hayden: It's come up for me so much in different parts of life where trusting myself has always worked out. If I look at the evidence, I'm like, "Wow. That always works." But for some reason, I still have this core belief of, "Oh no. I'm not trusting myself."

Jessica: It's really hard. I think some of it, honestly, is time. I don't think there are many people your age that trust themselves because how could you? You haven't had enough experience yet, enough experience completely independently. I think sociologically we could say that, but also as an astrologer, before the Saturn Return, which you are many years away from⁠—in your 20s, you're in the adult years of your youth, but you're in your youth.

Hayden: Is it?

Jessica: Yes.

Hayden: Is it weird that I'm excited for my Saturn Return?

Jessica: No. No, it's not weird.

Hayden: Okay.

Jessica: I think everyone should be excited for their Saturn Return. Some people fear it, but the Saturn Return⁠—the transit itself can be quite stressful, but it's such a relief to step into adulthood. I'm such a fan of it because you finally have enough lived experience that you know yourself, not theoretically, but you know yourself. And that is such a gift, and it's not a gift that everyone lives long enough to experience. So I think it's great to be excited. And to think that for you⁠—bear with me. I see. Breath work does work for you sometimes. Right? Am I seeing this correctly?

Hayden: It does. It does, and there's this rebellious layer of me that's like, "No. No. I don't want to do it." But then, if I trick myself into doing it without the mental protest, then it does work. Yeah.

Jessica: I do see that it does work. It's like you've learned a system, and I think that you've burned out on that system. And there are a bazillion systems with breath work. You can even innovate your own. You can find that you create a playlist, and one of those songs⁠—when you breathe with the bass, you're like, "Oh, that feels good." Boom. Breath work.

Hayden: I have a playlist and that's songs that start with an in-breath.

Jessica: Really?

Hayden: And it's just the artist starts the song by taking a deep breath, and it's like⁠—yeah. It's strange that so many artists do that. There's a lot of songs on that playlist.

Jessica: Well, first of all, that's ingenious and is a really good thing for you. Do you sing ever?

Hayden: I used to, but now with my voice changing, I haven't relearned how to sing yet. I was in a choir, and I was confident in my voice. And now it's like, "Oh, what do I do?"

Jessica: I wonder if it would be a good thing for you to practice singing. The process of singing is the process, in part, of working with breath. It's a way of developing a more playful and less Saturnian, fatalistic approach to fucking with your breath and your voice.

Hayden: Yeah. Absolutely, because for me, ever since lockdown, sort of the first lockdown, I was like, "Okay. Should I just go to a monastery? Should I just get my shit together and be extremely disciplined and just knock everything out and breathe a lot?"

Jessica: The answer's no, right? You figured that out, that the answer's no?

Hayden: I like to tempt myself with that sometimes, but I think if it was going to work, I would have done it already. Yes.

Jessica: So let me speak to that real briefly here. The Neptune square to Mars⁠—a very common thing under this transit is, "I want to escape all things related to my body and reality." And a monastery is a great place for that. It would actually be really great if you could do something like that a weekend a month or for two weeks at some point⁠. You know what I mean⁠? To actually relocate? No. No. I would say no for you. It would just be taking an extreme move away from your stresses, and all you do is find new ways of organizing those exact same stresses.

Hayden: Yeah. And for me, it feels almost like I'm trying to conversion-therapy myself in a way.

Jessica: Yes. That said, the impulse to go someplace quiet for the daily grind is taken from you⁠—because meals are provided; a structure is provided⁠—that's not a bad impulse. It doesn't need to be seven days a week. It doesn't need to be a forever commitment. But I do think that that part is like your system is yearning for a damn break. It's certainly worth exploring because there's a part of this impulse that is escapist. There's a part of this impulse that is a bit extreme. But there's a part of this impulse that is perfectly wise. And so we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, which is a bit of your habits at this point.

There is a value in being like, "Okay. The fact that I want to go off to a monastery is really clear information that I need a break, that I would like more structure that I don't need to maintain." Okay. That's good information. It doesn't mean, therefore, go to a monastery. But that's information that, as a good buddy to yourself, you could practice using. And that might mean certain things in your life that you know are very stressful but have to be done⁠—kind of saying, "How can I plan in advance to make those things a little more automated?" Like if you have a hard time maintaining your schedule, can you just put alarms in your phone to be like, "Okay. I have to get ready to do this thing in an hour"?

Hayden: And I think that's been part of my tussle. I don't know if it's a sixth-house kind of tussle, but my daily schedule⁠—I either do everything or I have a day where I'm like, "Oh, wow. It's 10:00 a.m., and the day's ruined. Guess I'm doing nothing."

Jessica: Yeah.

Hayden: And then I manage to catch up, so I've never been reprimanded for this habit because I am someone who, if I push myself, I can do anything. And I get the things handed in on time. I'm at university. I've got these great grades, but then I have no idea what's going on because I don't show up to half the classes.

Jessica: But it's fine. Some things that are technically a problem on paper⁠—good to note, but is it actually a problem, or are you just following your natural cycles?

Hayden: Some parts of it get a bit sharp. I think when you mentioned a place where meals are provided, I can honestly say my ability to feed myself is at a point where I'm probably not feeding myself enough. And then there's other parts of it that are like, "Oh, who cares if I'm five minutes late for a meeting?"

Jessica: Yep. The five minutes late for a meeting⁠—some people care; some people don't. Sometimes it's a big deal; sometimes it's not. It's situation-specific. In terms of feeding yourself, that is often an issue with Moon-in-the-twelfth-house people. Remembering to do it, prioritizing it, wanting to do it, finding ways that are self-appropriate to do it, can feel really out of reach, which is part of why a monastery is so delightful, because it's like you don't get to pick. You don't get to worry about it. It just kind of happens.

And so what I think would be easiest for you is once a week, if you're really comfortable with your flatmate, you might want to do it with them, or you might want to do it with another friend. Just bulk-cook big, healthy things that aren't completely boring and annoying to you. Throw them in jars, and then carry them with you. Making your life easy is the key here. For you, if you did it with a buddy, you would do it⁠—

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: ⁠—because you would be helping them take care of themselves. That's your fucking thing, right? So let me just slow down and check in. You've asked this kind of core question. Do you feel like I've answered it? Do you have any other questions around it? Do you want me to get more into any particular piece?

Hayden: No. You've given me really practical advice. Thank you so much. And because I'm opportunistic, I will say that the other big thing around this Saturn/Uranus square⁠—around the time that the pandemic started/lockdown started, I had a breakup with someone who meant a lot to me. And it was a very complex, intertwined Queer friendship from high school that became this weird romance.

And I think the part of me that I'm scared of returning to is so wrapped up in that stuff and is so fused to that situation and doesn't want to let go of it, and I've been sort of bullying myself to get over that. I think I've made progress. I'm not a wreck about it anymore. But I was wondering if, with your skills, you can shed light on that situation, on how to healthily process it instead of forcing myself to get over that.

Jessica: Yeah. What's their⁠—her or their?

Hayden: Yeah. Her name.

Jessica: Her name.

Hayden: [redacted]

Jessica: What you actually call her?

Hayden: [redacted]

Jessica: Okay. You're not friends anymore?

Hayden: I did this really Scorpio thing and totally cut her out of my life, even though I desperately wanted to talk to her every day. I realized how much she meant to me. It terrified me, and it was the wrong timing because she was going through grief. She was going through some huge⁠—she just didn't have any time for whatever this was. And I thought to myself, "Do I really want to be the person who is constantly needing more than someone can offer, or do I just want to run away?" Those were my two options that I offered myself. It was a bit of a fairytale chasing waterfalls situation.

Jessica: She was your bestie. Right? Maybe not your only bestie, but she was a bestie.

Hayden: My confidant, yeah, for years and years. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I think you're both very heartbroken over the loss of the friendship. So, separate from any romance or juj the two of you had, it's⁠—

Hayden: We could just see each other. It was so refreshing to be seen, I felt.

Jessica: Yeah. Having known each other so long, I mean, just⁠—there's something really very, very beautiful about your friendship. And I don't know that if you went to her and said, "Hey, listen. I was trying to protect myself. I miss you. I think I maybe overcorrected, but also, it was the best I could do. I don't know if we can be friends, but I would like to try"⁠—if you said all those things and she was like, "Yay. Let's try to be friends," you might be like, "No, I did the right thing." You know what I mean? I can see that.

Hayden: It's a can of worms.

Jessica: You do have a romantic connection, and she's still not available.

Hayden: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Jessica: And that doesn't look like that'll be different. And I think that if the two of you have your magical friendship vibes again, then the chemistry between you gets activated. And it's not one-sided. It's not like she doesn't feel chemistry towards you. She does, and that's what fucks you up, because you're picking up⁠—

Hayden: That's the problem, is that it's realistic enough, but it's still not.

Jessica: Yep. Yep. She definitely has vibes with you, and then you pick up on them, and you run with them like a normal person would. Of course you would.

Hayden: Our breakup was the weirdest thing because it was like she went from 100 back to 0. And then I was like, "Did I imagine we were at 100?"

Jessica: No, you didn't. No, you didn't. And this is how she is. You've been friends with her for enough years. This is her coping mechanism, right?

Hayden: She's done this with other people. Yeah.

Jessica: Yes. Friends, lovers, it doesn't matter, because she's doing it with herself. That's what this is about. This is a problem she has with herself, and that's why I'm not sure that changing an approach would actually give you a different outcome. That level of comfort that you had with her you don't actually have with yourself. If there's a hope of the two of you having something different one day, yeah, it has something to do with you being in different relationship to yourself and her being in different relationship to herself. And you have no control over the her part, but you have a lot of control over the you part. That said, I do think on some level you've pathologized mourning the loss of this. You've somehow convinced yourself⁠—

Hayden: It's become foundational for me. It's become like my staple.

Jessica: It's really interesting. I think that you are mourning the friendship more than the romance at this stage. I think it was different before, but I'm really seeing this⁠—the thing that you're mourning the most is this comfort and this somebody who knows you that well and somebody who you know that well. She completely knows you. And when you guys started to hook up, everything got changed. That's the risk.

Hayden: It didn't feel good anymore, and that's why it was so weird mourning this relationship, because it was like it wasn't healthy. We realized that pretty quickly. But then, yeah, it just sort of free-fell from there, like, "Well, what then? Then what?"

Jessica: And that's always the risk with hooking up with a friend, eh? It's like you had a really good friendship. You had really good chemistry. And neither of you were ready to get married, and that was kind of the only thing this relationship could be. And so you both⁠—

Hayden: Always. Yeah. And we know that. We knew that before even thinking about it.

Jessica: There's certainly every reason to expect there to be that possibility down the road if you both do your work on yourself and as time passes and you both date other people. I do think you could get back together, but you both need to date other people. And I don't think you need to be dating anyone right now. If it happens, great, but it's not like I'm saying, "Oh, go out and date people." But I am seeing that anchoring yourself through others robs you of your own wellness. And it's the quickest, easiest way of doing it, but it's a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. So it doesn't actually work. It works in the short term.

But through our conversation, we've discussed various ways that you've got effective coping mechanisms for the very short term, and they don't help you in the big picture. And that's kind of the thing, right? It's like one of the things that's emerged here, which I want to say is, I would say, the most normal thing in the world for your age. So don't beat yourself up about it. But neither of you could anchor yourselves through the other when it was a romantic-sexual relationship anymore. When it was romantic-platonic, you could. But when it was romantic-sexual, you lost that being safe anymore.

Hayden: It's not a safe territory in either of us. We still have a lot of work in that area to do.

Jessica: Exactly. And also, you knew each other too well, so you couldn't fake it or disassociate because the other person's like, "I fucking know you. What are you doing right now?" It just didn't work. That said, I do think you're going to have love. I do think that if you choose to have partnership, you will have partnership. I don't know if you want kids. If you decide you want them, you can have them. I see that you have a lot of options, and if you motivate yourself through a scarcity of options, you are not going to win the trust of your inner self because that's not true. You can have what you want⁠—maybe not now, but you can have what you want. You're not ready for any of those things now, so you don't really want those things now.

Hayden: Unless one of the things⁠—she has this thing where she wants kids by the time she's 35, like hardline, it has to happen, no compromise. And I don't think I want that. I know I'd be a really good parent, but I think I would be an exhausted parent.

Jessica: Nothing in your chart says to me that you feel the need to have kids.

Hayden: I would love to see it, but it wouldn't be for me. I wouldn't be having kids for me, for sure.

Jessica: Then don't have kids. I think it's really valuable to know yourself. And when somebody is exceptionally clear that they want children and you're clear that you don't⁠—and you're not exceptionally clear, but you're clear, right? There's kind of a short list for me of things that cannot be compromised in a relationship. That's on the list, and it's high on the list for me.

Hayden: Absolutely.

Jessica: And so that's not a reason to not date her in your early 20s, but it is a reason to understand that while you have this soulmate-style union, that doesn't mean that it needs to become a material partnership, because this is the thing about soulmates, is the reason why we call them soulmates is because it's on the soul level, not the material level. That's just a mate. And I don't know that she's well suited to being a mate for you.

Hayden: No.

Jessica: And she doesn't need to be. But the two of you are too the same in this way. You're like, "We're in love. That means it's forever, and it's for now, and we must be all the things."

Hayden: Yeah. You see us just wrapping chains around ourselves and jumping into the ocean.

Jessica: Exactly. Exactly.

Hayden: Very much. That's the mood.

Jessica: And to what end? Right? It doesn't make either of you happy. Neither of you even want it, but it's your coping mechanism.

Hayden: It's very good for writing pop music. That's the staple of this connection.

Jessica: Yes. That's good⁠ [crosstalk].

Hayden: It's a muse.

Jessica: Beautiful. I know that your love life is complex in your head a lot of times, and in life I'm sure a lot of times. But your most important issue that I can really affirm to you⁠—it's developing a relationship with yourself. It's not vilifying your bones because your bones want more love and care. That can't be done through relationship with romance. I mean, it can be done while you're in a romantic relationship, but it cannot be done through another person. That's about building a relationship with yourself, becoming a friend to yourself. And you're right on time. You are not behind schedule. I know I've said this before, but I feel like I need to keep reiterating it for you because it's like part of the narrative when you're in that activated state is, "I shouldn't be here," and, "Why is this happening again?" and a lot of, again, bullying of yourself.

Hayden: Yeah. "Stupid, stupid," etc., etc.

Jessica: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well, it's Saturn. Again, you're like⁠—Saturn stuff. And you might want to do some research into Saturn. You know what? There is this living myth. So it's part of Vedic astrology, so it's not Western astrology like I practice. It's called The Greatness of Saturn. And this is a book that⁠—it's a living myth in that when you read it, there's a whole ritual around how you read it and when you read it, and it activates a spiritual unfolding.

Hayden: Wow.

Jessica: It's really magical. I would encourage you to look into that book. Play with it. And if your system says, "No, I don't want to fucking read this thing," don't read it. And if your system says, "Huh. I want to experiment with this. I'm really interested in this," follow the energy. That might support you in your journey. In the meantime, tiny, tiny, tiny bite-size pieces. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bite-size pieces. That's the move. And it's about taking a slightly more playful and sustainable approach to tolerating embodiment and building from there. In doing that, you will achieve what you want to achieve.

Let's not forget, my friend, you have Jupiter in the sixth house. So, for all the shit that we've been talking about dealing with, we haven't talked about the fact that you have Jupiter in the sixth house. That is the planet that tells me that if you find ways of being associated and you invest in them, you will. And you will enjoy it⁠—Jupiter in the sixth house. And that won't make all the other difficult things that we've talked about magically go away, but you have this resource. Jupiter in the sixth house gives you a strong, reliable body.

And when you work through the other parts of your chart that articulate the difficulties of being present with your body, once you find a way to be present, you'll find that you quite enjoy your body, that you like your body, and even when⁠—you're a human in the world, so you have body issues and all the complexities and particulars of your identities and your lived experience⁠. All that aside, Jupiter in the sixth house is a lovely placement because it's like, "Huh. This is my home." That is a beautiful thing, and if you can access that for 20 seconds once every three months, that is a fucking win. And that, over the course of time, will only bloom. It'll just keep on blooming for you.

So that Jupiter in the sixth house will never go away. It'll never go away. So, if it takes you 12 years to really feel it and be like, "Oh shit. I have Jupiter in my sixth house," great. Whatever. It takes as long as it takes. You don't want to rush yourself, but just remember that it's there. And it is square to Neptune, which basically means that you can disassociate off because if it's not perfect, it's not enough. But this is why I'm like, "Bite-size pieces. Build trust with yourself," because from there, you won't have to be so puritanical. And when you're not being puritanical, you can enjoy where you're at and what you got.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: It's a beautiful thing, and it's a process. Again, you'll get there when you're there for as long as you can tolerate it. And that's good.

Hayden: Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, it's good. So it has been such a joy to talk to you. Did we hit all the major stuff?

Hayden: Absolutely. 100 percent, 120. I'm so lucky and glad and happy that I got to meet you. I have your book. I've been listening to your podcast since the beginning.

Jessica: Woo!

Hayden: And I'm just⁠—oh, thank you. Yeah.

Jessica: Oh, it is so my pleasure. And thank you for all of that. It's really, truly a joy meeting you. All right. I'll talk to you next time, then.

Hey. Save the date. On September 3rd at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, I am teaching a class on sex and sexuality in astrology. Tickets go on sale August 15th, so check out my website after the 15th. And for now, just save the date.

School boards and lawmakers around the country are banning and challenging books at a pace not seen since the 1980s. The American Library Association tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. And librarians have even been threatened with criminal charges and jail time in some places in this country for lending out challenged books. You can contact your representatives about this issue by emailing, calling, or tweeting at them. And above all else, buy banned and challenged books. Support the important work of authors who are being banned or challenged, and in the process, support independent bookstores. My favorite bookstore, Marcus Books, is the oldest independent Black-owned bookstore in the country and has a banned and challenged book list on their website. You can go to marcusbooks.com to see this list and to shop, or visit whatever independent bookstore that you love. Support banned and challenged books and authors today.

Well, I mean, it surely seems like the astrological prediction that we would have intense weather has borne itself to be correct. This is a really intense period, my dears, and of course, we have really intense astrology to back it up. So let's get into your horoscope in a minute, but first, I want to acknowledge how intense things are and how that is going to land so differently for different people. You may be a person who disassociates. You may be a person who is hyper-associated, and there's a bazillion things in between.

But I think it's important to acknowledge that there is an unprecedented amount of very intense things happening. I mean, sure, there's precedent. I shouldn't say unprecedented, but unprecedented for quite some time. If you are feeling particularly anxious or restless or depressive or just in la-la land, really disassociated⁠—there's so many ways this can play out⁠—I want to just remind you that there is a larger context to what you're going through as an individual. And I find that it can be really reassuring to remember that you're not in it alone and that your individual experience is part of a collective experience. And⁠—I don't know⁠—to me, that's very empowering, and it's also just real.

Now, we've been talking about this Uranus transit through Taurus and in particular how it has been squaring Saturn, and more recently how we've had the Uranus/Mars/North Node conjunction, which as you're hearing this right now is just out of orb. But as I mentioned in a recent podcast episode, that Uranus/North Node conjunction really was the start of an approximately 15-year-long cycle. And it's an important cycle for us to note because it started off pretty intense.

I want to kind of bring your attention to how much of this transit of Uranus in Taurus is about values and individuality. Who we value and how we express and experience that value is really important. And that is related to the zodiac sign of Taurus. But when we look at the planet Uranus, it is related to many things, including very much individuality and individualism. It's important for us to acknowledge that there's so much going on that is bringing up those themes and that is reiterating our collective values as a society or as societies around those themes. And a big way that that's playing out is through the not one, not two, but it seems like maybe three pandemics that are playing themselves out here in the U.S. and, I'm sure, many more in different regions of the world at different times.

But okay. When we consider what a pandemic is, it is something that is spread through community contact. And that means that we as individual and collective community members have the opportunity to protect each other through our choices or not. And so it is really important to understand the astrological context, which⁠—we can actually apply several astrological contexts. One of the major collective lessons we are learning right now is how we care for each other, how we place people over profit or profit over people, how we place our own individual comforts and pleasures over the care for others⁠—or flip that⁠—it's ultimately how we care for each other, how we value each other, and how quickly we are willing to abandon our values when things go sideways for us, when things become inconvenient or unpleasant for us.

And those are things that I want to really encourage you to be considering as you move through the world, as you make your own personal decisions, and also as you understand what's happening socially, politically around us. These are themes that are impacting us all globally right now. And we are going in a pretty scary direction here in the U.S. where individualism is absolutely pointed in a pretty toxic direction, where we're placing individual comforts above community wellness. That's a problem, and it's not new here. But it is a problem, and it's a present problem.

Now, another really important thing to keep in mind through this Uranus in Taurus conjunct the North Node, etc., moment⁠—and when I say moment, it's a 15-year cycle that just began. And also, Uranus is only in the middle of its move through the zodiac sign of Taurus, so we've got some time left in this thing. But the thing to keep in mind is that it is incumbent upon us as people of conscience to not dehumanize others. Be wary of any kind of instinct you may have or anything you're hearing from other people or seeing from other people that empowers us to dehumanize any group of people.

We are seeing it with the intense spike in homophobia and transphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, ableism, classism⁠—I mean, the list unfortunately goes on. And the dehumanization of any group for any reason is a really bad sign for your soul. It's a really bad sign for any society. As we are living through a rise in violent patriarchal white Christian nationalist individualism, it will bleed into many other things and many people's ideologies that are much less radical than all that. And again, it becomes incumbent upon us as individuals and communities to act in ways that reflect care for others, empathy. We must be building community IRL and online.

And within that, keep in mind what we know but also have been learning in the past week very intensely with Facebook turning over messages to police: that if your community contacts exist exclusively or majoritively on social media, that these platforms are not safe and private. So greater consideration is needed there. And on that tip, if you don't use Signal to message with people, now is a great time to start. The good news of this is that this particular transit is an opportunity for communities to come together in ways that reflect values, to create progressive change. And we can see the advancements of many causes that are very important for the planet and for the humans and animals and life living on it. But it does take the willingness to change, to do things differently.

Whenever we're dealing with Uranus, we are being called upon to perceive things from a different perspective, to shift our perspective, because when you shift your perspective, there is a whole new set of options that can become clear to you or become things that you're aware of. And so, as much as this is a very trying time⁠—and it is a trying time⁠—there's so much opportunity for personal evolution and for creating progress, but it does require this very Uranian/Aquarian coming together and for us to do that in ways that reflect not just our individual values but the value that is inherent in people, in the planet, and all that live here⁠—all us animals with and without fur, feathers, whatevs⁠—scales. All of us. We have some dignity here.

The last thing I want to say before we go deep into your horoscope is the big picture of the astrology of this month, of this moment, is meant to be activating. So I didn't write the rules; I'm just reporting on them, BTWs. But it's activating. And within that, some people will experience irritation, agitation, frustration, anger. And some people will go to the flip side of that, which is kind of like it's on the same coin, but it's the other side, which is demoralization, helplessness, exhaustion⁠, martyry feelings. We are likely to be triggered, and when we're triggered, we have our own ways of processing emotion as individuals.

And what I want to encourage you to do is to consider what you're feeling, how you're responding to your reactions, and if you can, to investigate those reactions instead of quickly respond to them, because by understanding your own emotions, what triggers them, and whether or not they're distractions from what's actually happening within you or old patterns and habits around how you react to things instead of a reflection of all the work you've done on yourself or whatever it is⁠—this stuff can be really helpful.

It can be really helpful for your personal evolution as an individual, but also, it can be helpful for you locating yourself within this current time and finding a way to participate in the world that works, whether it's your work, your family, political activism, all of the above, none of the above⁠—whatever. It's finding yourself and being aware that you can't control how you feel. You can't control what other people do or the circumstances that you're living in, generally⁠⁠—sometimes we can, but generally. But what we do have some control over is how we respond to our circumstances, how we respond to our emotions, and that kind of emotional maturity will make your life a lot easier to bear and also make your actions more effective.

Now, all that said, my loves, let's get into your horoscope. This week, we are looking at August 14th through the 20th of 2022. And this week starts and ends with the two more challenging transits, but in the middle, we got some sweet stuff. So let's go. On the 14th, we've got two exact transits.

The first one is a Sun opposition to Saturn, and the other is a Mars trine to Pluto. The Sun opposition to Saturn is an unpleasant transit because what it does is it takes our essential energies and our vitality⁠—the Sun⁠—and puts it at odds with our sense of scarcity, our sense of reality, obligation, whether we failed or not, what other people think of us or not. And so it can land many people feeling a sense of a lack, feeling depressive, feeling lonely, just like you're kind of dragging yourself around. You may encounter some sort of restrictions or limitations that are very material and very real, and you also may just feel blocked. You may just feel really bad about the preexisting limitations in your life. Anything that takes extra steps or in any way blocks your progress may feel like a real hardship.

And so the issue here is how do you cope? And because it's an opposition, there is a risk that we will project our shit out onto other people⁠—so, "It's not my fault; it's the system⁠," which, I mean, hey, maybe it is. "It's not my fault; it's my boss," and again, hey, maybe it is. But what that can do is it can distract from taking responsibility for what you need to do or what you have done, so you want to watch out for that. You may also be, unfortunately, the victim of someone else projecting their shit out onto you, and in particular somebody projecting their feeling that you are the reason why they are struggling in some way.

Self-expression can feel stilted or limited and hard under this transit because, again, the Sun is related to self-expression and identity, and Saturn is about constriction. And Saturn's a real wintertime planet, and the Sun is really a summertime vibe. So the risk is that we have low self-esteem, that we feel shitty about ourselves or we feel shitty about our circumstances. And luckily, this transit is a three-day-long transit. It's exact on the 14th. You feel it the day before/the day after. But it still can kind of be a bit of a doozy.

The key here is to do your best. I know that sounds too simple, but seriously, Saturn wants us to work hard. And so it is really essential that we work hard on ourselves and, to the best of your ability, rise to the occasion. Do what needs to be done. And that might look like actually laboring in some way⁠—Saturn⁠—and it may look like working on your relationship to self-talk. It may look like managing your own thoughts and feelings differently. Generally, when the Sun is opposite Saturn, we do have to deal with something that requires methodical something⁠—approach. You might need to go back over your work. You might just be moving really slow, and it is what it is.

So be willing to learn. Be willing to work hard. And if you find yourself getting kind of lost in negativity or scarcity, okay. Well, that's probably Saturn activated in your chart, and there's something to be gained from it. And that thing is greater self-awareness about where you're vulnerable and, therefore, what needs greater care and support in your life or in you. So these difficult transits don't occur to torture us, and they're not meant as a value judgment on us, where we're at in our lives, or what we've done so far. Instead, they're kind of like progress reports. They're like maybe your computer isn't functioning optimally because you haven't done the last few downloads. Okay. Cool. Do the downloads. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Just do the damn downloads. That's what these transits are here to do. They're here to remind us to maintain our hardware, our software⁠—I don't know. My technology metaphors are weak, but I'm trying to work with them. You know what I mean?

Now, on the same date, we have a Mars trine to Pluto. Now, this Mars trine to Pluto is a real gift alongside the Sun opposition to Saturn because Mars trine to Pluto is fortifying. It can strengthen your physical body, your experience of your physical energy. It can intensify your ability and willingness to regenerate, to recuperate, to bounce back, which is really needed in the context of the Sun opposition to Saturn, but also the whole fucking world and all the transits of the world right now.

The Mars trine to Pluto is emboldening. It can support us in being forthright, in following through, and being brave. It's also a really sexy transit. Now, unfortunately, Sun opposite Saturn is super not sexy. It has you feeling bloated. Literally, it can make you feel bloated. But Mars trine to Pluto is super sexy. It's passionate and excited. And so the combo platter may bring us to a little bit more of a neutral ground in some ways, or it can get you in situations where you feel really enthusiastic about something or someone but maybe don't have the energy to follow through in this moment, and so you need to pace yourself⁠—again, hello, Saturn⁠—or you need to kind of work on yourself. You need to apply lessons that you've been learning in order to show up in a situation that would be tempting or easy for you to shrink or go small in, but instead, you kind of activate from that Mars/Pluto vibe, and you're like, "I'm going to actually just fake it till I make it," or, "I'm just going to show up in X way and see how that goes."

Now, luckily, we have another trine to talk about. We have a few others, but we have another trine to talk about that will overlap with the Mars trine to Pluto and the Sun opposite Saturn. And that, my friends, is a Mercury trine to Uranus. That will be exact on the 16th, and let me tell you what it means. This transit opens your mind to new perspectives and new possibilities. It also can open the door for you meeting new people or having conversations with folks that are different than the kinds of conversations you typically have, or different kinds of people.

When Uranus and Mercury meet up, we often have unexpected social interactions. We often have different kinds of connections and communications than we're used to. And that can be really exciting, and it can have a broadening effect on our thinking and therefore our overall perspective. Again, this is wonderful in the context of the Sun/Saturn opposition. However, the Sun/Saturn opposition is no longer active on the 16th, but we will be feeling this Mercury transit on the 14th and 15th when it is active.

If you're more on the woo tip, this transit can coincide with flashes of insight. So you may have stronger intuition. You may notice more synchronicity, that kind of stuff. So it's definitely something worth paying attention to, especially if this particular transit hits your chart directly. And this transit is happening at 19 degrees⁠— Mercury is at 19 degrees of Virgo, and Uranus is at 19 degrees of Taurus. But overall, it is a really lovely transit.

Now, on the 18th, we have another beautiful trine, and this one is between Venus and Jupiter, both in fire signs. And Venus is at 18 degrees of Leo, and is Jupiter is at 18 degrees of Aries. As always, if you want to be following along and knowing exactly where all of the planets are, I encourage you to check out Astrology For Days over at astrologyfordays.com. It is my web-based transit-tracking tool for astrology students and pros alike. Check it out. It's cute. It's accurate. It's simple. I'm a huge fan.

Anyways, Venus trine to Jupiter is a beautiful transit, and happily, it doesn't overlap with anything too heavy. Venus trine to Jupiter is a wonderful transit for spreading the love around. This is a great time for getting your flirt on, for first dates, honestly for 20th dates. This is just a great transit for like and love and sensual connection and flirting and all that kind of fun, yummy stuff. It's also a really great transit for letting someone know that you love them. So, if you've been having discord in a relationship, this is a good date, and right around this date is a good time, to connect and try to achieve some level of healing because both Venus and Jupiter are really good for that.

This transit is really supportive for socializing and flirting and hooking up. Venus is not related to fornication, but it is related to all manner of sensual connection, which is a big part of sex, not exclusive to sex. So this is a really great transit for all that. Venus trine to Jupiter is also good for clarifying and acting from a place that reflects your values because, again, Venus governs values, and Jupiter is the big-picture thinker of the zodiac. And so, if you are trying to make decisions, if you've been struggling to figure things out, considering and aligning yourself with your values is a really effective thing to do.

This is not, per se, a great transit for big-picture planning. It's just kind of too fun to waste on big-picture planning for a lot of people. But if you need to make choices, a good way of going about it is aligning with your values. And this transit is excellent for that. It's also good for blowing large amounts of money. I don't necessarily recommend it, though there's no negative indicators associated with this transit. It's just I know that a lot of people will try to buy happy, and that can be pretty expensive and not very effective. So it's something to look out for, especially if that's a preexisting thing you struggle with. This is definitely a transit that reminds us that we catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar, as the saying goes. So spread the love around, however that looks for you.

And that brings us to the 20th, the end of the week. And the thing that is happening here on the 20th is a step into a Mercury Retroshade. That's right, Mercury Retroshade, not Mercury Retrograde. On September 10th, Mercury will go Retrograde. But on August 20th, it will be in its Retroshade phase. And in this phase, things start to wonkify. Yeah, I said wonkify. It's not the same as a Mercury Retrograde. You can still sign your contracts. You can still make your plans. It's not the ideal time to do those things, but it's not ill advised in the same way that it is during a Mercury Retrograde. Retrogrades, as you remember, are when we follow the rule of re's. We reflect. We reassess. We reconvene at a later date. But in the Retroshade, we're not yet following the rule of re's. You don't yet need to worry about the rule of re's.

But you may start to notice miscommunications happen. You may start to notice technology gets wonky, that kind of stuff. And I tend to find⁠—not always, but generally⁠—the more choppy the waters of the Retroshade, the more choppy the waters of the Retrograde. So it kind of gives you a sense of what you can expect personally from the upcoming Retrograde. So it's something to watch out for. And also, if you know you need to get yourself a new phone, a new computer, any kind of communication device⁠—any kind of big contract or purchase is imminent in your future⁠—try to get that shit done before September 10th or after October 2nd. Okay?

On this same date, we're going to start to really feel the Mercury opposition to Neptune that will be exact on the 21st. So that will be covered in next week's horoscope, but I want to give you a sense of it now because you're going to be feeling it now on the 20th⁠—maybe the 19th, but certainly the 20th. And this transit, Mercury opposition to Neptune, kicks off a lot of anxiety. That's what it does. So it can confuse your thinking or make you feel really overwhelmed, anxious, that kind of stuff. So, if you're starting to feel that way, if you're starting to experience a great deal of anxiety, it's not reliably the Retroshade. But also, I want to give you advice for it, which is to simplify.

When we're dealing with a lot of Neptunian energies, the work is always to simplify things. And so, if you've got a million things on your to-do list anywhere around the 21st, a few days before and after, yeah, I would try to shrink that into smaller bite-size pieces. It'll probably help you. If you're finding yourself obsessing on a million things that are out of your control that are happening in the world, and it's sending you into a tailspin or a state of overwhelm, then okay, it's time to pull yourself back and return to those thoughts when you're better equipped. And under a Mercury opposition to Neptune, yeah, it's not the time we're best equipped, unfortunately. So I just wanted to give you a heads-up on that. I will talk about it in greater detail in next week's horoscope.

And of course, if you're like, "I don't want to wait that long," you can always join me over on Patreon. Join me on the kittens level, and listen to the bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast, where you can hear the month-ahead horoscope every damn month dropped on the 1st. But you can hear more about this particular transit and the astrology of the rest of the month.

Now, my loves, I want to thank you for joining me for another week of Ghost. And if you get value from this podcast, please hit that Subscribe button wherever you listen to it. And if you love the podcast, consider writing a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It is greatly appreciated. If you would like to get a reading on the show with me, go ahead and send me a question through my website. It's always linked in show notes. It's at ghostofapodcast.com.

Okay. Wear a mask in public spaces as we live through these here pandemics. Take care of yourself and others. And I will talk to you next week. Buh-bye.