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.

My friends, will you join me live on September 3rd at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time for my class on the astrology of sex and sexuality? We are going to explore how to read for sex and sexuality in the birth chart. It's going to be fun. And if you can't make it live, that is not a problem because once you sign up for the class, you will have access to the replay forever and ever so you can watch it whenever and however many times you want. All you gotta do to sign up is follow the link in show notes of this episode or go to my website. The class is for sale over at Astrology University. And I hope I'll see you there.

Jessica: Omi, welcome to Ghost. I'm so excited to give you a reading, but also, you and I are in the middle of a conversation because when you gave me your birth information of April 18th, 1967, at 3:30 p.m., in New Bern, North Carolina, I told you that you have a Virgo Rising, which completely is not what you thought you had.

Omisade: I was convinced that I had a Leo Rising, that I was an Aries Sun, Leo Moon, Leo Rising. People talk about the big three. So I was like, "Oh yes. This makes so much sense, the way I show up." And now I'm thinking, "Oh, I need to rethink all of this now."

Jessica: Yep. It's kind of a rite of passage. So many people find that their birth time is wrong, somehow their calculation was wrong, and that their Rising sign therefore becomes wrong. And so we're going to kind of start there before we get into your question. And there's something in astrology called rectification, which is essentially the practice of identifying your birth time when you don't have an accurate one. And we're questioning whether or not your birth time is accurate, correct?

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: Your mom didn't have it written down or something.

Omisade: She didn't. She did give me a window. She was like, "I don't know, like 3:00, 3:30-ish." So that's what I've been moving in the world with for the last 55 years.

Jessica: Oh my God. Okay.

Omisade: And one of the things she said⁠—she said, "I remember not eating lunch, but I remember eating dinner."

Jessica: Okay, because if you were born at 2:00 p.m. you would have a zero-degree Virgo Rising. So⁠—

Omisade: Still. Still, it's just unequivocally Virgo Rising.

Jessica: Yeah. You have a Virgo Rising. You have a Virgo Rising. That is a true story. I do not imagine that you have a Libra Rising. I think you are a Virgo Rising person. There is a variation on the timing, but luckily, you're talking to me, your astrologer, and I'm going to determine the accuracy in this moment with this 3:30 p.m. birth time. It gives you a 19-degree Virgo Rising. That's 18 degrees and 55 minutes, easy to round up to 19 degrees. With 19-degree Virgo Rising, that would mean in the spring of 2019, you entered into a period that lasted you two years, so it was 2019/2020, where you were just like, "I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm doing with myself," and your relationships started to crumble, especially the ones where you having healthy boundaries wasn't safe, wasn't working. Does that feel correct?

Omisade: It does feel correct.

Jessica: Then I'm afraid you have a Virgo Rising at 19 degrees of Virgo.

Omisade: Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica: You're welcome. That was way easier than I expected it to be that I just fixed that immediately for you. You're welcome. Yeah. I mean, there's, of course, room for that to be a little different, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime transit. And yeah, it's a little bit of a fuck-up-your-life situation. For two years, for⁠—no, I would say a year and a half leading up to that, so we're talking about 2017⁠—half of 2017, 2018, 2019, it was⁠—based on this birth time, Neptune was squaring your Midheaven. What I just described was Neptune opposing your Ascendant.

But based on this birth time, Neptune would have been squaring your Midheaven, and that would be a time where you became disillusioned with what you were doing, with your life and your career. And you may have gotten very idealistic but also felt a little bit like, "If I don't do my calling, my heart's work, my spiritual work, then everything is useless." So it's kind of like an anxiety time. Does this make sense to you?

Omisade: This makes so much sense to me. I literally, in 2018, felt like I got an ass-kicking from the Universe. We lost our first sibling⁠—our parents have been ancestors for quite some time, but we lost our first sibling. My brother passed away in his sleep, and that just really rocked my world. I was working for a national reproductive justice organization doing incredible work but also really hard work. And there was a hurricane that came through my hometown of New Bern, Hurricane Florence. It got a lot of national news because the eye of the hurricane sat on my hometown, and it had a 500-year flood, which unhoused all my family members and all kinds of stuff.

And then when I got activated as an organizer to go home and to be supportive, when I came back to work, I got fired from my job. And so 2018 felt like a dumpster fire. I was just like, "I'm over it." I had fallen out with an ex-lover. I was just like, "I don't ever want to talk to you again." I was just feeling so crispy and so hurt and confused, and my grief was so intense around so many things. And so, 2019, I took a sabbatical. I couldn't get my bearings. I felt like I was just walking in a crooked room, and I was like, "I've got to figure out what I want to do these next years."

And so I took that time⁠—I took a year off from work, literally. And that's how the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause was born. And I didn't expect it. It wasn't something I planned on. It was not a goal. I had no intention whatsoever of creating this platform, and it was birthed out of that seriously chaotic, shadowy, liminal experience.

Jessica: So what you’re describing is perfect Neptune transit fuckery/perfect Neptune transit healing. The way you described it⁠—as an astrologer, I'm like, "You just made it very tidy for me." And I appreciate that. I know it's messy. Neptune transits like this that you've gone through are once in a lifetime for a reason. They don't happen to everyone for a reason. And what it does is it makes it so that everything that we're doing that's not authentic falls. It gets taken from us. It disappears. It stops working. And then we need to find ourselves.

The ideal thing we are meant to do is basically the equivalent of a sabbatical or moving to a nostrum for a period of time where you just take yourself out of the material demands of life and focus on the internal, and from that organically emerges the calling. And clearly, you found yours. So there's two really important things I want to say about this. One is, yay, you did it. It's over. It will never happen again. And the other one is, yeah, you've got a Virgo Rising and a Gemini Midheaven, so you're going to have to sit with that.

Omisade: Wow, wow, wow.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So this is not what we planned on talking about, I'm sure. But when I first started studying astrology, I thought I had a Sagittarius Rising. I do not have a freaking Sagittarius Rising. I am a textbook Capricorn Rising. But it's a common thing that happens. And what's particularly confusing, I think, for you is you are double fire, and on your Rise, you've got both Pluto and Uranus conjunct your Virgo Rising. So, if you're just going through two-line descriptions of a Rising sign, I could see why you'd be like, "Oh, I have too much fire."

And you actually⁠—Pluto is water. Uranus is electricity; it's air. None of it's fire. But the intensity of these two outer planets on your Rising sign⁠—I could see why you would be like, "Yeah, that's a fucking Leo Rising. Watch me. Listen to me." But it's actually the force of these outer planets conjoining, kind of sandwiching, your Ascendant. And within that, there's tons of things we can talk about, but we kind of started in a weird middle place that I really enjoy. Let's pull back, and I'll have you let me know what you would like to talk about if there's anything specific or general that you want to touch on.

Omisade: Yeah. This is great. Thank you so much. Initially⁠—and I guess this makes sense now that I know that I'm Virgo Rising. Initially, I really wanted to talk about what I felt like was the responsible thing to discuss. It was like, "Omi, you're being gifted with this opportunity from Jessica. You really respect her work. You should not waste her time with something frivolous as intimacy, romance, or passion. You should really⁠—because you're a grown-up; you're a big girl⁠—you should focus your energy on talking about your career and the Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause and abundance and resource and focus and vision. That's the conversation you should have."

And that's not to say that I am not concerned about that, curious about that, want to know about that. But I also know that my heart's desire⁠—which is so challenging for me to actually offer and have been working really, really hard since my late 40s to allow that to come to the surface and be visible to people⁠—is around my emotional shape, around my intimate connections, my intimate relationships, both romantic and friendship. And what I have been encouraging myself to do with supportive friends and therapy and good weed is to⁠—it's like, what happens when the wall can come down and people get to see you, not the mask you've constructed, not the persona, not your avatar, but that soft heart, that sweet heart, that not-always-confident heart? And how do you move with that? 

And so I think that I had a second thought. I was like, "I actually want to lean into this deeper understanding, again, around what's possible for me as I move more fully into my mid- to late-50s. I'm divorced. I got divorced in 2013, and I've had a couple of relationships since then, one of them tremendously impactful. But we are not in community with each other currently, and they are a Virgo.

Jessica: Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Big surprise. Yeah.

Omisade: So I just⁠—yeah. I would love to know what the story is, what the narrative is, what the message is from the oracle around, "Listen. Here's some things you might want to keep in mind as you're moving in this direction," because I am really committed to this authentic self, but it's scary.

Jessica: Yeah. It is.

Omisade: It's hard.

Jessica: Yeah. Let me ask you, just because you do work with menopause, are you post or are you currently in?

Omisade: I'm post. Now I'm post.

Jessica: Congratulations.

Omisade: Thank you. And this is a really interesting kind of⁠—this moment of me going through a divorce and my divorce being finalized in 2013, that is also the year that I was initiated in the spiritual tradition that I practice. And literally, when I came back from Nigeria, my divorce was final, and then I never had a cycle again.

Jessica: Powerful. That's so powerful.

Omisade: It was wild, and I was like, "Wait a minute." So this huge, huge transformation in my identity and also moving into this really different spiritual shape⁠—my menses stopped. And so it'll be ten years post-menopause next year.

Jessica: There's so much we can talk about there, and there's so much we will talk about within all of this. But I have this instinct to say congratulations on your divorce. As you said it, it just kind of lit up as, "Oh yeah. That is so good, so good." So things happen for a reason, and often, they stop happening for a reason. So that's great.

Omisade: They do. And my ex-husband is a Virgo, too.

Jessica: Sure. I mean, yes. So okay. Let's talk about your birth chart for a minute, okay?

Omisade: Let's do that. Let's do it.

Jessica: So you're an Aries, right? You got an Aries Sun in the eighth house, the house of Scorpio, if you will. So it's in the zodiac sign of Aries in your chart, but it is an intense place. And you've got this beautiful Leo Moon in the eleventh house. It's kind of approaching the twelfth, but it's definitely an eleventh-house Moon. And then you've got this Virgo Rising with Pluto in the twelfth conjoining it and Uranus in the first conjoining it.

The thing that's really interesting as I study your chart is that, yes, you are very fiery. You're also very watery. You're a deeply feeling, deeply spiritual person. You have a Grand Trine between Jupiter, Neptune, and Chiron, which is to say that for you, when you allow yourself to not be so linear in your thinking and you get into a state of receptivity, your relationship to yourself, like in particular your narratives, as well as your relationship to others⁠—because Chiron's in the seventh in your chart and Jupiter is in the eleventh⁠—those relationships flow. And when you're too in your head and get too meticulous, very Virgo Rising-y⁠—when you get too in your head is when there's a lot of starts and stops, starts and stops, starts and stops.

Let's add to that having a Virgo Rising⁠—I have a test question for Virgo Rising. Do you have a particular way of putting away drinking glasses? Are all the drinking glasses face up or face down? Yeah. That's how you know it's a Virgo Rising. So okay. So how do you put away your drinking glasses?

Omisade: Face up.

Jessica: And you have a great reason, and it's all about hygiene.

Omisade: Yes, it is. It really is. I don't want it face down on the⁠—I don't want the mouth of it touching the⁠ things. I want it face up.

Jessica: Yep. Every Virgo Rising I've ever met has had⁠—they either do it face up/face down, and you always have a reason, and it's perfectly reasonable. You know what I mean? So, yes, Virgo Rising, check. But okay. So not only do you have a particular way that makes sense to you that can change⁠—you might do anything a certain way for six months, and then one morning, you wake up and you're like, "That's not the way we do it anymore." And then you change it, and there it is; that's the way. So not only is that true about your identity, but⁠—and this is where shit gets a little deeper. Because you have this Pluto/Uranus conjunction here and they are square to the Midheaven, what it indicates, amongst many other things, is that in your early developmental experiences, you felt that you were pretty much on your own to figure out your survival and how to navigate the world around you. Does that make sense?

Omisade: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah.

Omisade: I have older parents. Both my parents were from North Carolina as well. I'm like a seventh-generation North Carolinian. My mom was born 1930. My dad was born 11 years before her.

Jessica: Wow.

Omisade: And he passed away when I was 1, and then my mom remarried. And my stepfather adopted my younger sister and I. He was born 1927. So they were old-school Black Southern folk who loved us tremendously, but also, the way they expressed love was like, "You're protected. You have a roof over your head. You've got food in your belly. You've got clothes on your back. You can go to ballet class, tap class, all the things." But one of the things that both of them struggled with was around displays of emotion.

And so, as a kid, I felt very emotional. I felt very sensitive. And I would often be told, "You wear your heart on your sleeve. You're way too sensitive. You've got to get your emotions in check." And so I felt like I was always failing in some way of not managing my emotions well when I had strong emotions, whether that was fear or confusion or sadness or anger. I just didn't feel like I had control over my emotions and that I was always going to be judged for it. And so I started to mute my emotions, and then what would happen is that they would just kind of burst out. It was like I had muted, muted, muted, muted, and then I'm going to light your ass up because I have already been holding this in for quite some time.

And so what I have, again, been trying to give myself permission to do is not have my anger be the only emotion that allows me to be honest. And that's been challenging for me to do.

Jessica: Yeah. Let me give you some astro context. I've got lots to say about that. So the first thing is it doesn't look like it was just anger and sadness. It was also when you were classic Aries Sun/Leo Moon, like, "I am happy about something. I'm excited this TV show is going to come on"⁠—whatever⁠—it was too much for your parents, and it was partially because of their own survival mechanisms, which are different for their generation than for yours, but it's also because they had a kind of belief system that you simply didn't share around how to be. And this is not just articulated by this conjunction in Virgo. You've got a Mercury/Saturn conjunction in Aries in the seventh house, and that's a lot of the tamping down.

That's why you chose to tamp down instead of to rebel. It's not that you weren't rebellious. My guess is you were rebellious whether you wanted to be or not. However, you could have been so much more. But because of that Mercury/Saturn conjunction, you really learned to shut yourself down as a way to get your needs met. So it was kind of like a barter strategy: "If I just don't express it, if I just find a way to make it smaller and compact and stick it in a pocket, then I'm going to get my needs met." And it worked. And this is, I imagine, a big part of what shifted through your divorce, is you were like, "Oh. This is actually not useful for me. This is useful for me like putting a new Band-Aid on this bullet wound over and over again, but it's not healing the wound."

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: And so we're going to talk about that in just one moment. But first, let me say you have a great deal of energy, and sometimes that energy is unavoidably⁠—some of it's going to just explode out of your face sometimes. That's just how your chart is written, and that is not a bad thing. It's not a good thing; it's not a bad thing. It's a thing. But because you have that Mercury/Saturn conjunction in the seventh, it's likely to make you have vulnerability hangovers. Your mind is like, "There is a truth, and there is an untruth. There is a way that things are supposed to be done, and then there's a way that things are not meant to be done."

And then the rest of your chart, like literally every other part of your chart, does not agree with that. But your Mercury/Saturn conjunction does. And the thing about Saturn being such a dick is that⁠—

Omisade: Right?

Jessica: It really is. So, when we have these kind of strong Saturn aspects, there's various astrologers who will give you different kinds of formulas about what this means, but let me tell you what I think it means. It means we as a human animal living in societies are very sensitive to feeling judged, and we're very sensitive to being failures. And Saturn says, "If you do this wrong, you're a failure. If you said that in a weird way, if you came out too strong, then people are judging you, and that means that their assessment of you is you, and now you've failed." And so we have this way that we as humans are so sensitive to Saturn, even though the rest of your chart is like, "Yeah, hop on a table. Get a bullhorn. Make some noise. Then sit down and meditate, and then come around"⁠—you're comfortable moving through things. Your mind isn't, because your mind is attached to Saturn.

And so this is where you do need ritualistic⁠—and it doesn't have to be consistent⁠—inconsistently consistent ritualistic ways of taking a step back from things you are passionate about, be it people, be it a TV series, be it work, and step inside of yourself. And that can look any number of ways. It doesn't have to be just one way, my Virgo Rising friend. It can be that you have a big chest in your spiritual room with a bunch of different strategies for how do you get in contact with yourself. And sometimes it's going to be through the body; it's going to be through movement. And other times, for you, it's just going to be sitting still, quieting the mind. And other times, it's going to be more advanced spiritual ritual. And other times, it's going to be dance.

For you, it's not just one way. And that Mercury/Saturn conjunction is like, "Yeah, but it worked this one time when I did it with a hat on, so I should always wear a hat." And the rest of your chart is like, "Yeah, but I don't feel like wearing a hat, so I guess I won't do anything, because of it's not perfect, why bother?

Omisade: Why bother? Jessica, you are stepping all over my toes right now.

Jessica: Sorry. You're welcome/I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So this thing of "Why bother?"⁠—this brings us to your T-square and a little bit more into the intimacy that you're referring to, which is not just about dating, which⁠—by the way, when you date or have sex, do you do it with all the genders? One gender? Which gender? Tell me everything.

Omisade: It primarily has been with cis hetero men, but quite honestly, in the last ten years or so, I've not been convinced that that's what I'm always attracted to and also what will also offer me an opportunity to be more vulnerable and to enjoy myself more. So I'm definitely more open, and I've had attractions that I was surprised by and also attractions that was like, "Of course I'm attracted to this person," whether that person is femme-presenting or nonbinary or gender-expansive. I don't have an assumption anymore. I used to.

I had a very clear blueprint that was, again, offered to me by my parents, like, "What you're going to do is you're going to graduate from high school. Then you're going to go to college, and then you're going to marry a really attractive Black man so you can have attractive Black children. Then you're going to go to grad school, and you're going to have this big-box house and that is the marker of success. That means that you've done what we asked you to do. That means you listened to us. That means that you were a good and obedient daughter. And there will be all of this evidence."

And I've always struggled with that. You're saying this now. It's like yes, in one way, I totally wanted to fall in line because I didn't want to be judged. I didn't want to be cast out. I didn't want to disappoint. And then also, I was like, "I don't know if I buy this shit." And I got pregnant with my first son before I was in a relationship, and that blew my parents' minds. They were just like, "I cannot believe you're not married and you're going to have this baby." It shook the whole family. My beautiful Pisces baby came through. I was like, "I don't give a fuck about none of that." And so we walked away from the blueprint in so many ways.

Jessica: The Chiron that you have in your birth chart⁠—it's in the seventh house, and it's in Pisces.⁠ The thing that's so important about that is that there is a way that this child, in some ways, cost you everything and in other ways gave you everything. That's the wounded healer shit, right? And the kind of experience that you described where your parents were stunned that you got pregnant⁠—I'm guessing that over the course of your adult life, there have been several times in various relationships where people have been stunned that you did anything or didn't do anything because, first of all, Uranus conjunct your Ascendant means that you all of a sudden come out of left field sometimes, and that's just your nature. But also, that Mercury/Saturn conjunction in the seventh inclines you to be like, "I've got this. Hey. I'm responsible. I'm listening. I can reflect things back to you. I'm all about respect and consistency."

All those things are true, but they're not always true for you. They're true in your conduct. And people don't get that about you, because you are double fire, so you come across as you don't have a problem taking up space. You don't have a problem saying no. And on the surface, that's true, but that's aesthetic. And that's why you don't hear me as an astrologer focusing on signs, because on a level, that's personality shit as opposed to core shit. And the core for you is about your conviction that there is a right way and there is a wrong way and that being respectful is important not just in your words⁠—in your actions.

Omisade: It is.

Jessica: Core to who you are is an investment in living well through your conduct and not just through your theories. And also, you're a damn weirdo, and you get really⁠—

Omisade: I really am.

Jessica: You really are. You really are. I mean, I didn't even start it to make a full case for it, but I'm about to. Watch. You are a damn weirdo. You have a T-square in your birth chart, which is a Sun/Mars opposition, and they are both squaring Jupiter. So you go through your life. You're just walking through your day, and then all of a sudden, your Jupiter gets activated. And when your Jupiter is activated, either you feel, "Is this all there is?" Like remember that song? Is that all there is?

Omisade: Is that all there is? Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It's a beautiful song. You go into, "Is that all there is? I know that there's so much more⁠—more I could be, more our relationship could be, more that the world can be." And it can be really demoralizing. It can be really depressing. People don't associate Jupiter with depression, but in my experience, it is associated with depression because Jupiter connects you, especially as it's a focal planet to a T-square in your chart⁠—it connects you to the vastness of possibility. And in the presence of the vastness of possibility, and all you have is achieved x, y, and z, the mind, the psyche, goes to, "I'll never do it all. I'll never be it all." There's always something more.

And because the Sun and Mars⁠—so the Sun is the identity and the will, and Mars is the ego and the drive⁠—are involved in this T-square, you push yourself. You push yourself. You push yourself. You push yourself. You keep on pushing yourself, and then one day, you wake up and you're like, "Is that all there is?" And that is enough to plummet a person. Now, the other side is no one can tell you it's not possible. No one can convince you that you can't, because you are directly connected to hope. Jupiter is associated with optimism. And so the real magic in your life occurs when you have a bridge between your hopes and ideals, your material need for evaluating things, having methodology, right and wrong⁠—we can't abandon Saturn. And there's a lot of wiggle room in between.

So you're the kind of person who needs a bridge with a step and then a gap and then a step and then a gap, because if you're not kind of hopping and skipping to each step, if there's not a little bit of a challenge in each step, you get bored or demoralized. This can get in the way of relationships in a pretty big way. But you are of many minds when it comes to intimacy. I believe, looking at your birth chart, if you were not raised in a society with expectations⁠—which, obviously, you very much were⁠—but if you were not, yeah, you would date any gender that appealed to you given where you were at and who you were dealing with.

You do not have a system that is exclusively responsive to any one thing, basically, any one thing, like in any context, but certainly around [crosstalk]⁠—

Omisade: I'm sounding exceptionally pan in this moment.

Jessica: You are. You are. You are. Well, and you may be, but then you do have this Saturn/Mercury conjunction. So my guess is when it comes to partnership, there are certain things that you absolutely need and that are consistent within your type, but I don't think those things have to do with genitals or gender identity.

Omisade: Sure.

Jessica: I think they have to do with how you are supported and held and how your partner is able to receive all that you are. And there are certain patterns around that. We can talk about that more. But I want to just acknowledge that, yeah, if you've been thinking, "Fuck. What am I doing just dating cis straight dudes?" I agree. Why would you limit yourself? And maybe where you live, there's great reasons why you're limiting yourself, because it's not really limiting yourself. I don't know. But⁠—

Omisade: No. We like to call Durham⁠—

Jessica: You're in Durham?

Omisade: Yeah.

Jessica: You're in Durham. Enough said. I know. Yeah.

Omisade: It's like Queer Mecca. So it's just like Queer Mecca East.

Jessica: I just honestly⁠—there's no reason for you to limit yourself, none. There are certain things that are around convention that you've adopted that aren't really authentic to you but your brain is going to return to, like maybe you want somebody taller than you or something really aesthetic and material like that. And it is what it is. You'll work on it or you won't. But when it comes down to it, what you actually want in a partnership is freedom, somebody who can really respect and work with your independence, adventure, and mutual respect and honesty. To me, those are the things. If you have a fight, you need that person to not walk away. That's really important to you. You would rather have a screaming match and slamming doors and a bunch of bullshit than somebody leaving the house in the middle of a fight.

Omisade: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: As we've already touched on, in your early developmental experiences, there is not space for you to have passion, intensity, anger, dissent. And so you need, if you're going to be in partnership, to have a healthy and actually kind of intense, emboldened, passionate dynamic with someone around that stuff. Someone you can fight well with is someone you could stay with. So many people are like, "Oh, we're in a great relationship. We don't fight." And I'm always like, "Well, how is that a good relationship? How can you be honest and not fight?"

So you definitely need that. However, I'm not sure you're ready for a partnership. I don't know that that's exactly it right now. I'm really glad when you're asking me this question, you're asking about intimacy not exclusive to sexual and romantic intimacy because if I was queen of the world, seeing what's going on in your chart, I would have you getting out there and getting some for sure. I mean, I know there's a lot going on in the world right now.

Omisade: I'm here for the if you were the queen of the world.

Jessica: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Omisade: I would receive that gift enthusiastically.

Jessica: You're welcome. I only wish I was queen. Actually, I don't. I don't want that. But in this context, I do, because you are currently going through Pluto square to your Sun in the eighth house, so this is a good time to have life-altering sex. However, it is really important that you practice safer sex during this transit⁠—I mean, I think in general always, but certainly during this transit and for as long as Pluto remains in your fifth house, which will be many more years. Do you have casual sex? Is that a thing you do?

Omisade: Not really. I think that when I was younger, I would be more apt to do that. And I also felt like my sex when I was younger was also very performative. As I've gotten older, that has not been the case where I'm excited about casual, but I do like intensity. I do like things that take me by surprise or take my breath away, which is why it's not surprising to me that the person who I had a really intense love affair with⁠—it took me by surprise.

Jessica: Was he young?

Omisade: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That was just me being psychic. He looked very young.

Omisade: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah.

Omisade: Yes. 18 years younger than me. I didn't expect it, didn't anticipate it, literally was trying to connect with him around social justice work. And in a very Virgoan way, he started to show his attraction to me by being available to be supportive, to be of service, to do the things. And I liked that. Acts of service is my jam. And then we ended up having really intense, like crazy intense, sex. And I was like, "This is probably top-three sexual experiences I've had in my lifetime where I felt totally open." I'm a bit of a brat. I'm a bit of a switch. And I didn't think of myself as a sub, and then I was like, "Oh, I am feeling very comfortable with this person and being a sub, being in a sub place."

And it wasn't like we had this conversation. It just kind of naturally and organically occurred in that way. And then what I thought was just a physical attraction also became a very intense emotional connection. But ultimately, the age difference just became way too challenging, in particular first for him, and then also for me. I wanted to act as if it wasn't a problem for me, but it did because there were ways where I felt like I wasn't being respected in my experiences or being honored in my experiences. I felt like I was being cast aside.

Jessica: And it lasted a couple of years, right?

Omisade: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's what I'm seeing. So I've never met anyone with Jupiter as a focal planet to a T-square that didn't have a May/December romance at least once in their life. The other thing is⁠—and you may have heard me say this on the podcast before, but⁠—because of your Mars placement, you're a hunter, not a gatherer. Being a hunter? Being a gatherer? There is, to me, no value judgment on either. But most of us have a way that we like to hook up with that we get really passionate. And you're a hunter. You'd like to be like, "That one I will make my own, I will do with as I please."

This is actually a really fun part of your nature and a part of your sexuality. And I'm not surprised that in this experience, you were able to play with power in a new way because you were more embodied around the power in your life that you held. And so it wasn't a threat in the same way. You could just experiment with it, and with the right person, it just happened to have worked. But it's a right-person situation for you, I think.

Omisade: It is.

Jessica: It really is. And because of the way your chart is written, sex is really important to you. There are parts of your nature that are really good for casual sex⁠—like get in there, get it done, keep on moving⁠—and then there's the rest of your nature, which is just like, "Yeah, but I'm going to think about what it means. And every experience is a healing experience. So how will I heal from this?" And if you have good sex, it's hard for you to not equate that to a narrative. And when you create a narrative, you have a hard time not following up because you're more of a novel then a short story reader. So you're really looking to make it happen.

So I want to acknowledge all these things and then say to you some stories are meant to be a paragraph long. Some stories are meant to be short stories, and that's not a failure issue. And when I look at what you're going through currently, I do want to encourage you to be open. And being open means being willing and able to receive whatever it is, and sometimes what it will be is, "I am a hunter, and that is a gazelle." Not to be a murderer of animals, but we will just metaphorically⁠—you're like, "That is something that I want." And then you get it, and you're like, "Yes. That was what I wanted, and was something I got. And it was fun"⁠—or not, or whatever. And that doesn't mean it needs to be a novel. It doesn't mean it needs to be a trilogy. I think that's really tricky for you because your brain is just like, "No, no, no, no. There's a way that things should be done."

Omisade: That's right.

Jessica: And I want to just hold space for, yeah, maybe with the right person in the right moment, but also maybe not. And I would say that because you're going through this Pluto square to the Sun, which, by the way, will be over in mid-November of 2024⁠—so you have a lot of time on this one. Because you're going through this transit, exploring not just your sexuality but also the value judgments that you have, the taboos that you hold around how you're supposed to or allowed to express sexual desire, sexual experiences, whatever⁠—it's being challenged.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime transit. And so, yeah, have experiences, but don't attach preexisting script onto them, because when I look at the Virgo energetically⁠—not the one you married, but the one that you really enjoyed⁠—that was really good. And it looks like about a year and a half into it could have been a great time to end it, and it's not when it got ended. That is because you weren't referring back to yourself anymore sufficiently. So you were doing it a little bit, but not enough to really listen to yourself.

Omisade: Yeah.

Jessica: And this is another tricky thing about Jupiter. Have you heard of this term, high-chasing? If you've ever done any kind of drugs, certain drugs you do, like let's say Ecstasy⁠—you do it the first time, and it's amazing. It blows your mind. The second time, you're grinding your teeth and you're cold. Yeah. So you keep on coming back; you're chasing the high. You do that with relationships, not just sexual relationships. Friendship is really amazing for six months, and then you realize, "Oh shit. This person is maybe a narcissist. This person is maybe not really able to hold space for me." But you stay because it worked once, and so you want to keep on finding that good feeling with that person.

Omisade: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And this Pluto square to the Sun you're going through now is challenging you around that. And that's really cool. It's not super awesome-feeling all the time, but it's really cool because it is a time where you can shed so much of your "I have to keep myself small. I have to keep myself in a box. I have to keep the narrative consistent." You can shed this stuff and achieve greater freedom. That's a huge yea. The nay is you have to deal with your shit and your expectations, and that means, for you, both because of the Mercury/Saturn but also because of the perfectionistic Virgo stuff in your chart, that you're probably going to have to create some sort of a mantra and remind yourself you don't need to be perfect at anything. Perfect isn't actually perfect.

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: Perfect is often disinformation. You know what I mean?

Omisade: Yes. Yeah, I do.

Jessica: Perfect isn't real. And so it's about remembering what your process is and not abandoning yourself⁠—Pluto on the rise⁠—in your process, not losing track of yourself within the process so that you're high-chasing a feeling or centering the other person or your narrative about the dynamic and how you assess what is happening in the moment.

Omisade: That happened with both⁠—kind of with my ex-husband and with this ex-lover. With my ex-husband, I had been a single parent for a while when we got together. And so I decided that I needed to get married because that was going to then elevate my status. For me, that marker of success would be able to say that I was married. And when I met my ex-husband, we also had really great sexual chemistry. So, for my relationship with my ex-husband, it was the hyper fixation of the narrative of, "This is the novel. This is not a paragraph. This is not a short story."

And then, with my ex-lover, I was definitely high-chasing. I was just like, "I've just never experienced this kind of passionate connection with someone. I think they're super intelligent, and they're creative, and I really love the way they think. So perhaps the age difference won't be the issue. Perhaps this will be my fairytale or my happily ever after." And then it went from a really beautiful connection to a bit of an obsessive connection for both of us that was dark. As much as I think I was attracted to his light, I was also attracted to his shadow, and vice versa.

So we've been toggling in and out of trying to be in a friendship, and it's just not⁠—we've just not been able to do it. So I just recently was like, "I think we should just let that go. I don't think that we can be friends, and I know now what I desire and deserve in friendships and intimate connections. And so I think we should just be in a place of light social interactions. When I see you, I speak, but we don't try to make something more than it is."

Jessica: That was the right thing to do, 100 percent. When I look energetically at that union, which⁠—I don't even need to ask your names. I can just see it. It's bright. It's sexual. It's not platonic. You were never friends. This is not a friendship. This is not a friendship. You're not well suited as friends. It really is a passionate relationship, and it was incredibly healing and powerful for both of you. And then it became emblematic of both of your issues because neither of you called it at the moment.

This is whatever about him. This is a really powerful thing for you because you mentioned in what you just said, "Oh, this is it. This is my fairytale." So I want to ask you, do you actually believe in fairytales?

Omisade: No, I don't. I think that they're bullshit⁠—

Jessica: Yeah, you do.

Omisade: ⁠—which is interesting that I know in my heart of hearts that the construction of a fairytale is to keep people in line. So much of fairytales and folklore is to say, "If you do this thing, if you stay in line, if you follow this path and you don't deviate from the path, then joy is available to you. Love is available to you. Healing and safety is available to you." But I know that's not true, which to me is almost a very binary way of looking at life.

Jessica: It is. In every fairytale, the girl martyrs herself. She gives up. She sleeps for a million years. It's like a whole thing. Women are never the center of a fairytale. Women never get their needs met in fairytales, except for a kiss, except for maybe being a princess.

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: So, when I look at your chart, I was really surprised to hear you say, "This is my fairytale. Maybe this is it." And that, to me, is a reflection of your Saturn/Mercury conjunction. It's somebody else's, and we can say your parents', but it's society's narrative for you. I don't actually think it's heartfelt. You are much more of a dude, which is nothing to do with your gender. I just mean you want to live your life, and you want to be free, and you would love to have someone to fuck and play with and be intimate with on that journey.

But I don't actually think you're looking for a happy ever after. I don't think you're looking for a fairytale. And I think if you found those things, you would find them boring.

Omisade: Boring.

Jessica: Boring. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I'm always a little stunned⁠—and listen to me; I'm a triple Capricorn. I'm always a little stunned when people say that they want a happily ever after or a fairytale because I think, "Oh, you want a fiction. Why would you want a fiction?" There's no such thing as a perfect person out there for us because there's no perfect person.

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: There's only people who are suited to where we're at and who we are. The central theme for you is identifying what you actually want based on who you are and what you've gone through to this point, instead of what you think it should look like, because it doesn't matter what it looks like, honestly. I think you could be very happy with somebody who lives in a different state, and you meet a couple times a month, and you get to text, and also, you have your own fucking lives. And then it's a state of excitement and surprise a fair amount. Hello, Uranus.

You do want monogamy. You do want honesty and dependability. But that, to me, kind of looks like a lot of the beginning of the ending of your convention. Whether he's local to this country, local to this state, doesn't matter. Whether it's a he doesn't matter.

Omisade: It doesn't matter.

Jessica: None of it actually matters. What matters is that you show up authentically, which requires, for you, taking a step back and into yourself to check in. "Is this still serving me? Am I being authentic? Am I chasing something? And if I'm chasing something, is it because it's fun and hot? Is it because it's healthy? Is it because I'm chasing a high, I'm chasing a feeling or an expectation?" And it can be all of those things. It can be different things. But it is really important to be able to check in with yourself and to remember that you love adventure, and so a partnership where that goes away is not your happy place.

And this actually brings me to cohabitation. I don't think that's your happy place. I don't know that you need to cohabitate. You don't need to share a bathroom and a kitchen and a bedroom with a partner in order to be fully committed and in it. So I just, again, want to expand what's possible in your thinking because the truth is you are a glorious weirdo. You are big, and you need space and room to change and adapt in your life because you're doing that all the damn time. And if your intimate relationships, friendships, and lovers and whoever you're dating or partnered with only function when you don't pivot, when you don't change, then you're repeating old patterns that you've actually outgrown.

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: And this is the thing that's so hard about life and that I think most grown-ups are aware of. When we come to self-awareness, it's really cute. It's very nice. Therapists are happy for us. But that doesn't mean we're embodying that knowledge in action all the damn time.

Omisade: Right. Right. And that feels like a big thing for me around the embodiment piece because I do feel like intellectually, I often understand exactly what you're saying. I'll have this conversation with myself. I'm like, "Omi, you know this. You get this." But it is the consistent embodiment without wanting the embodiment to be perfect.

Jessica: Yep.

Omisade: That's the thing because, again, my standard for myself is if I'm going to embody this practice, then I want it to look like perfection. And the irony of that is if I'm coaching someone or mentoring someone or working with someone, I would absolutely say to them, "There is no expectation for your practice or your commitment to be perfect. It's just for you to be clear that you've got this commitment that you can keep returning to because you know it's important. You know it's valuable."

And there was something I wanted to say to you about Jupiter and depression. I have really struggled with depression in a really intense way since my late 40s. I was diagnosed with clinical depression around the same time I was in this love affair as it was going sour. So, in 2016, I was diagnosed. I had a really rough go of it. Anxiety, ideations⁠—it was a really dark, shadowy time. I also feel very strongly that that depression was giving me an opportunity to listen to my body. It was like, "Your shape is different now. There are some things that you used to do that you can't hold anymore. It's either too hot, it's too cold, it's unhealthy. You can't do it."

And I just had a recent mini-return to a depressive moment where⁠—we used to⁠—I need these breaks were I go internal, and I literally am coming out of a monthlong break because I felt myself sliding into a dark, sticky, scary place. And I was like, "You don't want that. And you know what to do." So I was like⁠—talked to my therapist. I talked to my doctor. I talked [indiscernible 00:50:53]. I was like, "I'm not in a good place. I can feel myself sliding. I'm stopping right here. I'm getting off this ride."

Jessica: Great. And it worked.

Omisade: It did.

Jessica: Yep. So there's a number of things I want to say. Sorry is the first. And I will also say that is ironically⁠—what you started off sharing is, "I don't know how to apply it." And then you said, "Oh, and by the way, I'm applying it." And so this is where just because you're applying it and doing the right thing doesn't mean you're not suffering. And I think that most of us have this idea, me included, that "If I'm doing the right thing, I'm not suffering." But that's, again, a fairytale. That's a fantasy.

The truth of the matter is you walk into a room. You're like, "Oh my God. It smells like smoke. I don't enjoy this. Maybe the building's burning." And then you look around for the source of the fire, and then eventually, you're like, "Oh. The smoke is getting worse. I'm going to leave the room." That's not a failure. That's not imperfection. That's your process at this time. And maybe next time, you walk into the room. You smell the smoke. You're like, "I'm out. Calling the fire department." But it's a process. First, it seems responsible to do that investigation and look for the source of the fire, right?

Omisade: Right. It does. It's like, "Where is this coming from? Somebody else might get harmed. We should alert the⁠—anybody. Get everybody out."

Jessica: Yes. Exactly. Yeah, or, "Am I overreacting? Am I thinking this is smoke, but really, someone's burning incense that smells shitty to me?" We do all this stuff to ourselves. In the process of building up trust with ourselves, of investigating what's real and what's not real, that's not failure. That's not a lack of integration. That's your fucking process. And hopefully, over a time, you recognize the smell of smoke a little quicker. You do a little less investigation because you know the room. You know the landscape.

So I want to just acknowledge that, that yes, you struggle with the embodiment for sure. So does everyone. And also, the struggle's the work. It's fucking annoying. I'm not a fan. I'm just not a fan. I mean, I know I sound like a fan, but I'm not a fan because it's hard. And I think that we get to an age where we're like, "Okay. Now, seriously, I'm old enough. I should know better," and, "I'm old enough. I already got this." And that's not how life works. It's just not how life works. We don't get to an age where we stop growing. That's not a failure.

And I want to say to your little Virgo stellium, I want to say to your Saturn/Mercury conjunction, the only way to fail is to not learn and to not try. Part of what I tend to find is for you, who coaches people and supports people through their transformational journey, of course you would because that's you. That's who you are. So it doesn't mean you have to be perfect at it in order to support people and see people. In fact, the more you struggle with yourself around it, the more you can hold space for other people's shit.

And Mercury/Saturn conjunction, just by the way, is like one of the premier aspects I look for in a coach and a writer, but in a coach in particular because you're really good at telling people what to do and creating structures and systems for people and listening while essentially taking notes of all the details, right?

Omisade: Yes.

Jessica: And so you're really on the right path with that. I think that where you're at developmentally is a lot. You are likely to need to notice the smell of smoke and tend to it throughout this Pluto square to your Sun multiple times. And on the one hand, that is bullshit and it sucks, and I'm sorry. And on the other hand, you're going to get good at this. And being good at it doesn't mean no suffering, and getting good at it doesn't mean being perfect. It just means getting good at it. That's all it means.

Within that, your work is going to go deep. It's going to go in directions you didn't expect. There's going to be powerful opportunities that you'll have choices around what you're willing to do for them, what you're willing to give up, what you want to build. You're likely to need to take some risks, but whenever we're going through Pluto transits, we need to let go of things. We need to clear out what is no longer serving us. So, if you're going to call new things in, you must first release.

So that was just my quick⁠—on the career stuff that you're like, "I'm not going to really ask her about." Well, there. That was your answer. It's all you needed because that's not the thing you're confused about. It's lots of details you're confused about, but it's not like⁠—you're not confused. When it comes to the intimacy stuff, you haven't let go of the young Virgo. And I don't think it is actually to do with the young Virgo. I think that's how it feels, but I think what it really is is that you haven't let go of the first six months, who you were, and how it felt. You're in love with who you were at the beginning best parts⁠—it wasn't even the easiest parts⁠—of your time with him.

Omisade: Yeah. I was⁠—yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Yep. You're in love with that.

Omisade: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense.

Jessica: The good news is this actually is not about who he is, because who he is⁠—he's a little stuck. He's not a one-trick pony, but he's a three-trick pony. You know what I mean? He's fine. He's good. I don't need to shit-talk him. But the reality of who he is is not right for you at all. But who he was to you in this one moment of your life is what you want. You want to feel like who you were. You want to experience what you experienced. You want to have a counterpart that was as exciting and engaging and different as what he was.

And so I want to share with you this perspective of depersonalizing giving him any kind of power or ownership over who you were and what you were. We want to, on a soul level, say to him, "Hello, beautiful, young Virgo. Blessings to you. Buh-bye." But you have done your little over-attachment to the feelings you had/the person you were was because of him. Even as I say this, I see energetically a little bit of a release of him, just a little bit, but a meaningful release of him because all that fucking Virgo⁠—ironic. I know it's ironic, but all this Virgo⁠⁠, yeah, you get real fucking attached. You get real attached, and it's hard for you to change your mind once you set your mind on "This is the story."

And so shifting the narrative opens up pathways that you didn't realize were there. And it's not as much labor as you think it has to be. It's just shifting the narrative. So, as I look at this, I would recommend doing some sort of releasing ritual through the Full Moons because Full Moons are great times for releasing. And I say Full Moons because I don't think you'll do it in one Full Moon. I think you might need a couple to work on this and to release your attachments to him and your attachments to who you were when you were with him. And as you release, you're just going to have a little more energy.

Is it three pandemics? Is it three pandemics? I'm not positive. I mean, it seems like we're right on the verge of three pandemics.

Omisade: It feels like it.

Jessica: Yeah. It does. And so, because of that, am I like, "Go out and have your slut face"? No. I mean, it's a real bummer. These pandemics are ruining everything⁠—not to be to flip about the pandemics, because I'm actually not at all. But⁠—

Omisade: I understand what you mean.

Jessica: Yeah. It's not a great time to go out and just rub up on people.

Omisade: It's not.

Jessica: It's not. But if it weren't for the pandemics, I would be advising that. I would be advising that because I do think you're ready to have intense, passionate experiences, and I don't know that you're ready to really let someone in your life. And having the ability to have boundaries with yourself⁠—

Omisade: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: I'm not worried about⁠—you're good at rules with people, but I'm interested in you having boundaries with yourself. That would be really remarkable for you. That would be life-altering. And through that process, the person that you end up partnering with will be a very different person than the person you would have picked at any other time. Yeah. That's where we want to get you.

Omisade: That sounds like a good thing.

Jessica: It is a good thing. What I see here is that you want a safe place, a soft place to rest. I think you kind of actually said that earlier. And I do think you can have that with someone. Absolutely, I do. I don't think you're going to find it with someone before you create it within yourself, and I think you have it more now than you've ever had it.

Omisade: I think so, too.

Jessica: And also, you're going through a Pluto square to the Sun, so this is the process. This is the time. And it's the time for excavating, like digging out all the shit, and then finding that it's already there. You don't have to add a whole lot. It's about removing what doesn't serve you so there's more space for you to access yourself, and keeping in mind you're double fire. You have Uranus and Pluto on the rise. You're always going to be intense. Some people are going to think you're too much. Fuck it. Be big. Be fiery. Be angry. Be passionate. Be reactive.

These are things that are your nature, and they're not bad things as long as you can return to yourself. And in those moments where you're like, "Oh, wow. I just talked over someone I really care about, and that was not at all what I meant. I was just really enthusiastic," yeah, you text them an emoji and say, "Oops, I did that thing. I'm a damn Aries," and move on, because you can, because you're capable. When you have a romantic partnership with someone, I think you're actually very good at it. But I want to just say one thing about dating. Dating and partnership are not the same thing.

Omisade: Same thing.

Jessica: No.

Omisade: They're not the same thing.

Jessica: Dating is not your forte. Partnership is your forte.

Omisade: No, it's not. Dating is not my thing.

Jessica: No. I think you would have an easier time hitting and quitting a thing than dating a thing. So that reveals something⁠—boundaries. When it comes to dating⁠⁠—do you have a best friend?

Omisade: I do.

Jessica: Okay. How frequently do you talk to your best friend?

Omisade: Several times a week.

Jessica: Okay. Several times a week, you talk on the phone.

Omisade: We talk. We text. We'll FaceTime.

Jessica: Great. Good. Okay. My general rule is never talk or text with somebody you're dating more than you do your best friend. That's a rule.

Omisade: That's reasonable.

Jessica: Yeah. It's a reasonable rule. Makes sense why, right?

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: That's a starting point. But what most of us want to do is seven days a week straight out of the gate, and that's absolute best-friend shit. That's life partner shit. That's not "I'm getting to know you and maintaining myself" shit.

Omisade: Right.

Jessica: So another might be you needing to figure out what is your relationship to when sex can occur in a dating situation, because I look at your chart and I think you can have sex quick and easy. I actually think that's fine for you. But⁠—and this is a big but⁠—you will fall in love with excellent sex, and because of that Grand Trine that you have, the Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron trine, if you snuggle and sleep in the same bed and then have "Oh, you like this kind of coffee? I like this kind of coffee" stuff, yeah, you're going to have a really hard time with boundaries from there.

Omisade: Okay.

Jessica: So, for you, it's about playing with, "What is it that I can do around physical and romantic intimacy and still remain casual and keep my head? What is it that I can do around sexual intimacy? Maybe I can do all manner of sexual activities except for one or two." Maybe those two things are always associated with the deeper feelings and losing perspective.

Omisade: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Then those are boundaries.

Omisade: That makes sense.

Jessica: Good.

Omisade: Okay.

Jessica: That's dating. And I'm a big believer in threes. Three months, you're just trying to get to know whether or not that's actually their name, whether or not they can actually fuck, whatever. And then the first six months, you're actually getting to know someone because you're more likely to have fights and meet their friends or be offended by something they did or didn't do, and vice versa. So, in that way of thinking, it takes six months to start to get to know somebody. And this is a really important boundary for you because you tend to give everything right away because you're really good at being partnered.

When we're dating, it's important to not automatically give someone something that they haven't earned. And I don't mean that in a capitalistic "You have to work for it" way, but⁠—

Omisade: No, but that makes sense.

Jessica: Yeah. It's a boundary. It's a boundary.

Omisade: It is a boundary.

Jessica: Yeah. And it's as much about you knowing yourself and what you can do and keep your head on your shoulders as it is about boundaries and appropriate expectations with someone you're hooking up with or dating. And I think, especially if you date people who are not cis, straight men⁠—in particular cis men⁠—this is going to be more important because most people who are Queer, when you start to hook up with or date somebody of a different gender than what you've dated before, when it's good, we tend to fall in love right away and be like, "Oh my God. This person invented my sexuality." And so it's especially important to have those boundaries in play because it could be very easy to lose yourself if you're like, "Holy shit. What was I doing? I could have been doing this the whole time."

Omisade: The whole time. Right.

Jessica: Yeah. And I think it's very possible you'll have that kind of experience, and I actually hope you have that kind of experience. This doesn't invalidate your desire and interest in cis men. It's just you're capable of more. You're wired for lots on all topics, lots. And that's great. Through experimenting, you might find, "Yeah, pan." You might find, "No, not pan. Buh-bye," or whatever, like, "I like guys, but not only cis guys." It could be a million things. But experimentation and play is the way you're going to figure that out.

And that's only going to be healthy if, again, you have that thing that we're kind of now calling⁠—you smell the smoke. You're like, "Oh, okay. I don't have to find where the fire is. I can just go take care of myself. I can leave the room." And also, boundaries with yourself. Boundaries with yourself. A relationship with yourself that doesn't go away when passions rise.

So we talked about a lot of things. Do you have any remaining question or anything that you're like, "Wait. What did you mean by x?"

Omisade: No. This is so comprehensive. I mean, you have to know that I can't wait to go back over my notes to just kind of circle things and do a little more research and all the things. I do want to know if there was anything else in my chart that you wanted to make sure I knew that felt important to you, like outside of this very specific piece that we're talking about or intimacy that gives⁠—

Jessica: There's one.

Omisade: Sure.

Jessica: There's one. But I will say before I answer that question I can't believe you thought you were a Leo Rising with what just came out of your mouth. Okay. That is just the most Virgo Rising thing you could [indiscernible 01:06:02], for whatever that's worth.

Omisade: Sure.

Jessica: Okay. So there's only one thing else that really stands out to me in this moment that we haven't touched on, which is money. You've got Mars as part of this T-square. Mars is in your second house. You have the capacity to earn money, but you also⁠—you have the same capacity to burn through it. And so, when I look at your chart, I look at that North Node in Taurus in the eighth house, and I want to say investing your money is wise. If you haven't already been doing it, investing your money⁠—and there are so many different ways that people can invest⁠—is very wise for you because what's liquid tends to go with you.

And alongside that, if you are investing your money in a way that doesn't align with your values and ethics, it's not going to work. It looks like because of this T-square, there's kind of a drive for an easy, quick fix when it comes to money stuff, but that North Node in Taurus in the eighth⁠—it requires a bit of thoughtfulness. It requires really aligning how you invest. And some of that might mean investing in your career. It might mean investing in building your business. And that's very real, but I don't think it's exclusive to that. I think, for you, thinking about how you're investing your material resources so that they can grow over time is actually really important and healthy for you.

Hold on. Let me see if there's anything else. You grind your teeth?

Omisade: I do.

Jessica: Yeah. Do you wear a NightGuard?

Omisade: Not yet⁠—

Jessica: You should.

Omisade: ⁠—because I've been grinding them so hard that I thought I had cavities, but I had cracks. And so they've been repairing my teeth. But literally, the crown I got last year⁠—I've already cracked it.

Jessica: With that Sun/Mars conjunction, you grind and clench.

Omisade: Yes.

Jessica: And so get a NightGuard. And if you think you can't afford it now but maybe you could save up for six months, find one online⁠—

Omisade: And then get it.

Jessica: ⁠—and use it, and then get a better one, because I don't think it's realistic for you to stop at this moment. If you were getting massage, I would recommend craniosacral. The other thing I want to say is about your blood sugar. How is it? Your cholesterol, your blood sugar, how is that stuff?

Omisade: It's pretty decent. I mean, I think that over the last couple of years, I've gotten closer to a borderline of where I needed to be more mindful and paying attention to it.

Jessica: Yep. That's what I see. That's exactly what I'm seeing. It doesn't look terrible, but it does look like some of this stuff you need to be paying attention to. And you're at an age still and a state of health still where you can make adjustments, and they'll make a meaningful difference. And then you'll cross a line, and there will be less wiggle room. So I say do it now. And that means, for you, having days where you indulge in things that aren't actually good for your body but are delightful and fun and social, and then deciding, "Okay. So, if I have a day like that"⁠—I'm not calling it a cheat day. It's not about that. It's just about having a day where you're just hedonistic, and you're like, "Yeah. It's what I'm fucking doing." And then give yourself four days where you do not indulge your hedonism in stuff that affects your blood sugar⁠—

Omisade: Got it. Okay.

Jessica: ⁠—or your cholesterol so that it's like a more fluid⁠—it doesn't have to be like, "On Mondays, I can eat whatever I want." I don't think that'll work for you consistently because of the way your chart is written. So I want to say that. Let me just see if there's anything else. I guess the one last thing I'll say is this. Yes, you are going through a Pluto square to your Sun. But you have several other things happening astrologically now and next year that articulate your growth and your development and your capacity to come to greater self-awareness and embodiment. The timing of this reading was really good because you're not in crisis. You're actually just in process. And crisis is a part of that. Feelings of crisis is a part of that process. But you're in process.

And so a lot of what we've been talking about is just going to support you on your path that you're already on and you already have loads of resources around and a vision for yourself around. But it's going to continue to be a damn process. And there's a lot of support there for you. Your spirituality is a part of that support. Yeah. I think that's what I needed to tell you. Yeah.

Omisade: This is so good. I just feel like now, in my body, so much gratitude. I feel warm. I feel excited. I feel curious, happy⁠—yeah.

Jessica: Yay. I'm really, really earnestly glad we did this.

Omisade: I am, too. Thank you so much, Jessica.

Jessica: It is my pleasure.

Omisade: This is such a gift, such a gift.

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.

Okay. So I know some of you do not like it when I'm "negative." You say pessimist; I say realist. You say tomato; I say tomäto. Let's call the whole thing off. You know what I'm saying. What I'm saying is if you are somebody who doesn't like it when I talk about the world, in particular in stressful or negative ways, or if you just don't have the bandwidth for it, well, my friend, you're not going to like what I'm about to say before we get into the horoscope. So just use technology to fast-forward straight into the horoscope, I don't know, about ten minutes. I haven't done it yet. So you may have to work a little. This is your heads-up. This is your little warning.

Okay. So now it's time for me to be a little real with you here. We are living under some unprecedented existential threats. The climate crisis is undeniable. Around the world, we are seeing shocking heat waves and floods. And from these, there will be a cascade of long-term consequences, many long-term consequences for what's been happening now, what's been happening in the past few weeks, months. And none of this is going to magically end. Even if it does get better, it is likely to first get worse. And it is really hard to live under the threat of so much unknown, and in particular scary unknown.

It's hard to reconcile how little control and power we have over our collective fate in this regard and in many others. Also, in the United States, we are going in the direction of fascism. The worst parts of Pluto in Capricorn, that whole transit we've been in for many years, as well as the very specific Pluto Return of the United States, are showing us the rise of strong men globally and also domestically here, specifically a rise in oppressive, racist, Trans- and homophobic Christian nationalist, anti-woman bullshit. And it's terrifying. It is terrifying.

In many ways, it is easy to feel helpless and hopeless. And when we as individuals or as a group feel helpless and hopeless or terrified, we tend to act in a variety of ways. But it ultimately tests our willingness and ability to tolerate fear, our willingness and ability to find a sense of purpose within struggle, our willingness and ability to seek solutions from the inside out, within us and in our lives and our communities.

The truth is, in all of this stuff, as scary as these things are, we do have some agency. And our agency, our capacity to mobilize and to do something, to educate ourselves and to shift our perspectives⁠—whatever it is⁠—is something that we should strive to leverage and prioritize. And obviously, everyone's burned out. I mean, who amongst us is not burned out? But this is what we're living through. And you don't need to be an astrologer to see that things are not going in a great direction. They're not going in a humane direction.

And then, of course, we have these damn pandemics. I'm saying pandemics. I'm saying pandemics because we are still very much living through COVID. COVID is not over. COVID is very much still around and still serious. And we've got this rise of monkeypox and, somehow, polio again. I mean, my mind is constantly blown. We have all seen and experienced through years of living with COVID how few of us, how few people, are willing to do the bare minimum to take care of others and ourselves. And I personally would identify the bare minimum as washing your paws a lot, wearing a mask indoors or in close outdoor proximity to a lot of people.

The proliferation of disinformation and misinformation has been appalling in this period. And for longtime listeners of Ghost, we knew this was coming. I've been talking about the need to preserve and protect journalists and the need to understand truth as truth. But in the current world we live in, it's really complicated. It's really hard. And so I do want to say if you are still wearing a mask indoors and have been interrogating and challenging your ableist impulses to center your own comfort over the well-being of others, my friend, I salute you. And if you haven't been doing that, I invite you to consider to reconsider. There's still time, and there's still need because COVID isn't over, and monkeypox is⁠—I don't know what's going to happen, but it's somehow happening.

We do continue to have the need for moving through public spaces with consideration and care, to remember that you're not the only person there, and your individual needs⁠—they're not the only ones to consider. So, connected to all of these incredibly stressful things, many people are experiencing a massive spike in anxiety and malaise. I know this because I talk to people, but also, I get so many of your questions, and there has been a shift in the tone and intensity of so many of the questions I'm receiving. People are feeling lonelier and a greater sense of desperation, and it's hard. And most of us feel quite alone about it, whether or not we are alone in it.

And so many of us are kind of connecting these feelings to specific personal details in our lives when, yes, very possibly, very likely it's about the specific details of your life, but also, we are going through a collective series of crises, and they are sparking existential threat. And that tends to put us in our Saturnian feels. It tends to put us in a sense of isolation and, "What is wrong with me? How can I handle this?" So I want to tie in some astrology for a quick minute, and then we're going to get to your horoscope; don't worry. Let's just do a quick refresher.

Saturn Square to Uranus⁠— this has been happening all of 2021, off and on throughout 2022, and is active currently. This transit has been, on both a collective and a personal level, forcing us to deal with our need for change, the need to create systems that are updated, that more accurately reflect our need for progress, our need for independence and autonomy, our need to pace ourselves out through these changes, through these upsets we're dealing with both, again, personally and socially/politically⁠—is uncomfortable. It's not likely to go well for anything or anyone because that's how Saturn square Uranus works.

Saturn wants to do things the same, and Uranus wants a new way. Saturn is the old guard, and Uranus is the new. And so we have this internal stress and struggle. We have this systemic stress and struggle. We need to improve the infrastructure of our lives, of our psyches, of our societies, of our roads and bridges, of our laws, etc. It's really rough on the nervous system. This transit's rough on the nervous system because our sense of reality is being kind of fucked with. You know how squares feel, right? Squares are like a sharp turn in energy.

We also have the transit of Pluto through Capricorn. It started in 2008, and it enters into Aquarius in 2023⁠—soon. Soon, right? So it'll do a little Retrograde around that last degree of Cap and into the first degree of Aquarius for a minute there, but yeah, it's shifting soon. And what Pluto in Capricorn has done or is doing is, first of all, lighting up whatever part of your chart that Capricorn falls into, so whatever house system you use, wherever Capricorn lives, Pluto has been transforming and challenging it. But on more of a collective level, this transit is related to people with power, and in particular with money and power, trying to consolidate the power to be able to sustain it over the course of time, which is really not great for societies.

This transit has so much to do with kind of the old guard of power seeking to establish greater power and the potential for the systems that are underneath those people in power to either get more sustainable and inclusive or less. You tell me. Where do you think we are so far? Again, the transit's almost over. The transit of Pluto in Capricorn has been very dramatic, and certainly in the U.S., because we're also going through the Pluto Return of the United States, it is bringing up our shadow, demanding that we deal with it. The chances that the United States is going to look the same once this is all done a very slim, very, very slim.

Just kind of running through these outer planets, again, to tie in the astrology for what we're going through and kind of what we're meant to be struggling with and working with, Pluto in Capricorn on a personal level is a transit that requires that we systematically find ways of engaging with whatever it is that's getting lit up in our birth charts around Capricorn stuff to be more sustainable. And that's hard. And this is something I've talked about many times on the podcast. Capricorn⁠—it's conservatism as in conserving your energies. And so this is a really important thing to be considering as we are in the final months of this transit of Pluto in Capricorn. How do you need to conserve your energies? What within your life needs conservation? What in the world needs conservation? I don't know. Right? Nothing much, other than everything.

Okay. So we have Uranus in Taurus, and currently, we have the North Node in Taurus as well. These transits require that we interrogate what we value, who we value, and how we express and experience that value. And it does require our willingness to look at our relationship to individualism. Toxic individualism is real, and so is martyrdom. And wait a second. We're going to get to Neptune. But within the Uranus and North Node transits of the zodiac sign of Taurus, we have the opportunity to become more present and to identify what needs changing and to actually make changes.

This needs to happen both on a spiritual level⁠—North Node⁠—and on a collective level⁠—Uranus. And in some ways, this will take time, and in other ways, yeah⁠—no. It can happen in an instant. There can be changes that happen on a dime. So it's something for us to be aware of. But again, you can understand how and why, through all this stuff that I'm just kind of bullet-pointing for you, our nervous systems would be taxed. This would be a stressful time.

Now, that brings us to Neptune in Pisces. This transit has been happening since 2012. This has been a long transit. And it will move into Aries/out of Pisces in 2025. I am not going to get into what that looks like other than to say it is not better. It is not better. But I will say that Neptune in Pisces is a transit that can be very spiritualizing, but it is also one of the transits that I attribute to the rise in disinformation and misinformation and the rise of cults, the rise of spiritual systems that help us to disassociate from reality, be puritanical, which I associate with white supremacy and other forms of "These people are good; those people are not. These people are pure; those people are not." It's very dangerous, toxic shit.

The thing about Neptune in Pisces is that it can increase our drive to disassociate, and through this transit, the rise of how smartphones and social media play a role in society and how we can spend endless hours just scrolling mindlessly⁠—very Neptune in Pisces. We can spend days on end playing games on our devices⁠—classic Neptune in Pisces. And of course, drugs. Drugs are related to this transit as well, disassociating, checking out through drugs. Now, I'm not saying that social media, games, or drugs are all inherently bad, not a long shot. Definitely not saying that. But again, this is a transit that kind of can put us so awash in these things that we lose track of ourselves as individuals or we become too comfortable in our discomfort because we're disassociating instead of getting present.

But Neptune in Pisces⁠—this transit can have us idealizing things, wanting things to be so different than they are. And this is part of why the shift that I've seen on social media in the past few years about people accusing other people of fear mongering is so aggressive, because Neptune in Pisces⁠—it makes us not want to have to feel bad unless we feel bad. And I'm not saying some people and sources don't fear monger, but I think part of what this transit has done and is doing⁠—because it's not over⁠—is it's making our tolerance for feeling bad smaller because there's so much to feel out of control about and bad about objectively in the world.

And so there can be this disassociation and a really strong drive to protect that disassociation that occurs during this transit. The key here is to tap into our spirituality in a way that is truly Neptunian or Piscean, which is to say empathetic, inclusive, and caring, to cultivate a greater amount of nonattachment and a lack of judgment. These things are so important. Now, I'm almost done with my quick little run-through, but I want to talk about Saturn. We're going to leave Jupiter for another moment, but Saturn.

Saturn is in each sign for two and a half years. It enters into Pisces next year in 2023. Saturn in Aquarius is a really important transit. I have talked about it a great deal on the podcast. There's past episodes. You can always search them on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com. But Saturn in Aquarius is a time where collective groups of people are coming together for the rights and needs of the people. And powers that be may fight it or bend to the will of the people. And we're seeing all of it. There's so much to say about Saturn in Aquarius and its relationship to technology, human rights, and systemic progress.

But what I want to kind of name about this is when we allow ourselves to get caught up in pettiness, when we allow ourselves to be too disassociated or too puritanical, then we're not really doing the work. We're not doing the work for the collective. We're not doing the work in community, and that's where we get in trouble. In March 2020, when we all had to do the social distancing and masking and quarantining, that's when Saturn moved into Aquarius. And there is a way that that is perfect for Saturn in Aquarius. That transit has so much to do with social distance, metaphorically and metaphysically and physically.

And so we are continuing to have this sense of distance. Now, when Saturn moves into Pisces, will that distance get greater, or will the gaps get bridged? TBD. But all of these things are actively happening in our society. And when I say our society, I mean our global society. This is what's happening, and it's a lot. And so, if you're feeling lost, you can look at your birth chart⁠—and if you don't know how to find a birth chart, you can go to my website, and there's a free chart-drawing tool, and it's written in English as well as glyphs⁠—that you can look at and you can see what parts of your birth chart are getting hit by each of these outer planets. And that can point you towards what you can do, where your personal calling is. And you want to pair that with common sense. But it's worth investigating.

I wanted to share all of this because we are in this together. We are not all in the same position. We do not have all the same resources, privileges, struggles, perspectives⁠—any of it. But we are all in this together. And having a kind of bigger-picture understanding of what is happening can be really helpful to locate you and to center you in, yeah, not everything you're experiencing is about you. It doesn't mean that you're having a personal failure if you're feeling overwhelmed. It's overwhelming. And this is a period that calls for some radical self-investigation and behavior at times. Radical might mean having boundaries. Radical might mean moving away from old ways of being. But when you get overwhelmed, it is wise to locate yourself. And you can do that in so many ways, and astrology is one of those ways. So, if it's a tool that works for you, I hope this little breakdown was helpful.

And now, my friends, to your mother-loving horoscope. This week, we are looking at the astrology of August 28th through September the 3rd of 2022, which basically means the year is almost over. It's very confusing. I don't understand time, but here we are. And we are not just here. We are here, and there's a Mercury Retrograde shadow at play. Mercury doesn't go Retrograde until the 10th or the 9th, but we're in the shadow period, and I don't know about you, but I am noticing it. The shadow is shady. And if you are also having that experience, that means that this Mercury Retrograde is likely to be activating your chart.

So, instead of taking it personally or collapsing in stress because things aren't working out the way they're meant to, just be like, "Okay. These are the lessons. What do I need to use the rule of re's on? What do I need to reflect on? What do I need to reassess?" Start doing a little prep on that work if you feel the need to, if your circumstances are kind of bullying you, as it often feels like is happening during a Mercury Retrograde. But again, we're just in the shady period, not the full Retrograde.

So we begin the week with something that I touched on in last week's episode, Episode 273, and that is, on the 28th, we have an exact Venus opposition to Saturn. This fucking transit, such a boner killer. Venus opposite Saturn can make a person feel bad about the way they look. It can make you feel lonely. It can bring up relationship issues. It can confront you with what's not working in your finances. It can give you weird skin stuff if it hits your chart directly, and in this situation, I'll just say Venus is at 21 degrees of Leo and Saturn's at 21 degrees of Aquarius. So, if you have anything that's going to be directly and particularly challengingly hit by these planets, yeah, you might have some weird skin stuff or you're just going to feel this in general a lot more.

This transit, Venus opposite Saturn, comes around to bring things up so that we cope with them. Venus and Saturn are the two planets in astrology that are the most motivated around security. Maybe the Moon belongs in there, but top three, we'll say. They're very motivated to have security and stability. Venus opposite Saturn, therefore, can bring up situations or dynamics in which we feel that our security or safety is being threatened. And because it's an opposition, there can be projection involved. So someone may be projecting onto you, or you may be projecting onto them.

Now, projection doesn't inherently mean there isn't something happening, but it does mean that, okay, I might walk by you and step on your toe, and you may be like, "You know what? When I was growing up, my sibling used to step on my toe all the time, and then we'd have massive fights. And every time somebody steps on my toe now, I feel like I can't say anything because it's going to be a big fight." And so, instead of being like, "Hey, Jessica, you damn jerk, you stepped on my toe. Please don't do that," you may project all your past hurt onto me⁠—I don't know why I've inserted myself into this metaphor, but I'm going with it. You may project all of your hurt onto me so it's not just, "Oh, I stepped on your toe." It's all the shit that you have attached to that action from your own past experiences, not with me.

So, when we we're dealing with oppositions, when one or another person is projecting, it doesn't inherently mean you're projecting a falsehood. It just means you're not fully in the present. There's a lot of past assumptions that you are carrying that get projected onto the situation or the person you're dealing with. So it's important to be on the lookout for that, to be mindful of that in your own conduct, but also to be aware that you may be perfect⁠—you may be beyond reproach and very self-aware⁠—but you're dealing with other people, and some of them may be projecting shit upon you.

And it's important in that kind of situation to determine how to have healthy boundaries, how to not take on other people's shit. And it's an important and delicate balance to truly listen to others, to really listen to them, to take in their feedback and evaluate what they're saying, and also to not let someone else's truth override your own, to not just accept whatever people throw at you, because we do need to have discernment, and the Venus opposition Saturn is likely to kick that up. Again, you may become more in contact with what isn't working in your relationships. You may be feeling lonely or like your past experiences or patterns in relationships are like⁠—you're destined to be stuck in them forever.

This transit can be a little demoralizing in that way. And so, if you can, if you're feeling particularly down, get Saturnian. Make a list, big-picture list. What do you want? Big-picture list. What have you been doing to get what you want? And then a smaller-picture list. What are the three things you can do this week or this month to actively move towards what you want? And those three things may be, "Be a little easier on myself. Share with my friends more of what's going on with me." It doesn't always have to be a material action. It can be more around self-care and supporting yourself through what you're feeling.

Now, another articulation of what can happen during the Venus opposition to Saturn is we deal with money problems. So you may have an unexpected expense, or you may just have money you spent all of a sudden come up. It's the end of the month; you may get a bill and be like, "Oh shit. I did that. I spent all that money." So you may have to deal with that. When we're dealing with Saturn and oppositions, oftentimes what's happening is people with power⁠—landlords, bosses, parents, that kind of shit⁠—they loom large, and they loom restrictively. ⁠And so, again, you may need to find a diplomatic way of coping with that. And when I say diplomatic, it's⁠—in those kinds of relationships, we can't always be totally ourselves. We need to find a way to kind of finesse a thing. And so that may come up this Venus opposition to Saturn.

What I want to kind of affirm here is that it is not a forever transit. It is not even a long-term transit, but it can feel really long term because that's Saturn for you. And so, if you're feeling depressive, if you're feeling down or just heavy in the heart or the mind, it's the transit. And again, you can ask yourself this very important question that a therapist once asked me, and it was really life-changing, which is, "What do you want to learn from this? Who do you want to be in this?" And when you ask yourself that question, it aligns you with your agency, and it can give you a sense of direction and a sense of purpose. That's really helpful. And if all else fails, Venus and Saturn really like watching series. So, if all else fails, you've got that, my friends. You've got that.

Now, on the 1st of September, we have a kind of nice start to the month. We have a Mars sextile to Jupiter. Mars is at around seven degrees of Gemini, and Jupiter is around seven degrees of Aries. Mars sextile Jupiter is an excellent, lovely transit. Huzzah. This transit is very supportive to cultivating courage, cultivating a sense of possibility and a willingness to play. Mars sextile Jupiter⁠—when I see this transit, I often think of resiliency. It intensifies our resiliency in general, and it makes us feel strong. It makes us feel capable. So, if this transit is hitting your chart, you may have an exciting opportunity emerge. You may just be feeling good, which, I mean, we could use. Who couldn't use that, especially after the Venus opposition to Saturn?

So this is a time where if you had a really intense week, month, year, if you need to do something to reconnect with yourself, in particular to your body or to anything in your life that needs resiliency and strength, this transit is so supportive. It is amazing and supportive. Because this transit is happening between these planets in both air and fire signs, it's not the most grounding transit in the world. So, if you are dealing with something or if you're in a place where you need to be really grounded, really meticulous, I would encourage you to put a little extra attention into that because this transit can be a bit spontaneous and a little bit all over the place. Gemini and Aries together? That's not like chocolate and peanut butter. That's like⁠—I don't know⁠—marshmallows and taffy. I don't know. It's a weird metaphor, but it just is a little wacky is what I'm trying to say.

So it can be super fun, but if you're dealing with shit where you're like, "Yeah, I don't have energy or time for fun," then you can use this energy; you just want to be really intentional about it. And I would just add to this⁠—and this is important because this is happening kind of overlapping with the Venus opposition to Saturn⁠—don't use this energy to be petty or mean to yourself or to other people. It would be easy to, to embolden us, to kind of be more picky at ourselves where we're just like, "Why haven't I achieved this, and why am I doing that?" It could also embolden us to be really critical of other people, really just tearing down the people we're in relationship to or the people we see on social media or whatever.

Don't tear shit down. Build it up. And if you can't do that, take a nap. Take a step back. And I know this is easier said than done, but we want to be realistic as astrologers about how these transits work together. And the truth is Mars sextile Jupiter is a fantabulous transit. But because it is overlapping with the Venus opposition to Saturn, it can embolden us to go down the wrong direction. That's not likely, but it's certainly possible. So we want to really pay attention to that, and again, the more awareness, the more mindfulness and presence we have in our own lives, the more agency we are working with because you can choose where to put your energy. It's not easy to do, but it is a doable thing.

Okay. And that brings us to the final transit of this week. On the 2nd, we have a Mercury opposition to Jupiter. Now, because this is happening in the Mercury Retroshade period, we are going to go through this transit again when Mercury is Retrograde. And it will reoccur on September 18th during the Mercury Retrograde, and then post-Mercury Retrograde, it'll happen on October 12th. So these are dates where we're going to have this transit kind of reoccurring, which means the transit, in a way, is kind of spreading out over all of these dates.

Now, luckily, this particular opposition is not anything like the Venus opposition to Saturn. It's not heavy. Mercury opposite Jupiter has really positive consequences or effects and then some challenging ones. So we're going to talk about both. Either way, it's important to notice whatever things come up on and around the 2nd of September because of the length of this transit, how it's going to be spread out throughout the Retrograde process. So Mercury opposite Jupiter is exciting. It's a transit that can spark optimism, enthusiasm. It can also make you really concerned with big ideas. So this can be being interested in social issues, whatever that means, or just having a big-picture view⁠—Jupiter⁠—on the things you're interested in⁠—Mercury. So there's a way that this particular opposition is really exciting.

If you have been having a hard time visioning what comes next, a hard time getting excited about your plans, this is actually an excellent transit. I mean, it's not great for focusing on details⁠—no, no. Mercury and Jupiter are too distractible for that. And it is a transit that can lead us to some sort of grandiosity in our thinking where we overestimate our time, our resources, other people, whatever. But outside of that, this is an excellent transit for questioning things, for investigating, not in that heavy Saturnian way, but in that expansive way that Jupiter does where we kind of question our beliefs. We question our plans because we're excited about learning more, and we're willing to expand our perspective and expand our plans, thoughts, attitudes, assumptions.

So it's a really great transit in many regards. A negative aspect of this opposition is that we may see a rise in dis- and misinformation. So, when you are consuming news, certainly when you're consuming social media, make sure that you're checking your resources. Make sure you're being a critical thinker. If you're sharing a piece of news, check the date it was published, why don't you? Make sure that it's coming from a reputable source, that kind of good stuff. We may see false reporting, whether it's intentional or not. So, before you jump to conclusions, take a beat. Take a beat. Just sit with it for a minute if you can.

The impact of Mercury opposite Jupiter is honestly really exciting in a lot of ways. These things that we have to be concerned about aren't terrible things, but they're really important things. So not jumping to conclusion, not overestimating things or being too grandiose in your thinking⁠—very important. Those are the things that you can do to offset the negative of this transit. It's an excellent time for being social, which⁠, because this transit's going to kind of span throughout the Mercury Retrograde⁠—Mercury Retrogrades are not inherently great times for being social, but this transit is. And so it's really about seeking your people, finding activities that you find really engaging, and being playful.

So I'm really happy to be able to end your horoscope on a really positive note because this transit is lovely, and it's a good articulation of how not all "hard" transits are bad. Mercury opposite Jupiter is a really lovely, energizing transit that has so much that we can not just get from this transit, but so much that can feel good about the transit.

So, my loves, that's your damn horoscope. I'm going to quickly run through the transits for the notetakers amongst you. Mercury Retrograde, not happening. Mercury Retroshade, yeah, it's happening this week. On the 28th, we have an exact opposition between Venus and Saturn. On September 1st, we have an exact sextile between Mars and Jupiter, and then we see Jupiter again on the 2nd of September with a Mercury opposition to Jupiter. Yay. That's it. That's it.

Now, one more plug for my class. On Saturday, September 3rd, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific, we're going to talk about the astrology of sex and sexuality. I'm really excited about it. If you can't make it live, no problem. You'll get the download. You'll get the transcript. You're going to get everything you need. And as another reminder, on the 1st of every month, I drop on the kittens level of my Patreon a bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast, where I delineate all the major transits of the month in advance. So, if you want to get a little giddy-up on the month of September and the months after that, join me over on Patreon at patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo.

All right, my loves. Stay safe out there, and I will talk to you next week. Buh-bye.