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

Jessica: So I'm very excited to do this reading. Welcome to the podcast. What would you like me to look at today?

Guest: Okay. So, in 2021, I gave birth to the sweetest little angel. And I'm such a huge astrology fan, so I couldn't wait to pull up her chart. When I did, I was just so shocked at what I saw⁠—interceptions, like Sun intercept the twelfth house opposite Pluto intercept the sixth house, Chiron intercept, and the real stinger for me was the Moon opposite Saturn in almost an exact degree. And I just have felt so haunted by this.

I just want my baby to be happy and to be safe and okay, and I'm scared about what these placements mean for her. And yeah, I'm just worried, like is she going to hate me? Because every book on astrology about the Moon/Saturn opposition just says a cold⁠—not a nice connection with the mother. And yeah, I would love to hear what your perspective on these placements for her is, and also, knowing these placements, how I can best mother her.

Jessica: Okay. So I'm going to pull up her chart in just a moment, but⁠—very important⁠—I never recommend that anyone, even astrologers with 30 years' experience, pull up your baby's chart. It is a terrible idea for lots of reasons, but especially if you're not⁠—I was going to say especially if you're not an astrologer, but I've talked to other astrologers who have looked at their child's chart, and the way they see it⁠—it's skewed because when you look at your baby's chart, you're looking at your chart, in a way, because a child under the age of seven hasn't separated from its parents. So there is an interaction between these charts that it's just very hard to be objective about.

So I want to just say this. I strongly, passionately, fervently recommend that no one look at their children's birth charts, and I want to just get ahead of this on the podcast. If I get flooded with a million questions from parents who want me to look at their children's charts, I'm not going to do it. I just wanted to do this because, in part, when you had sent in the question, you were like, "I know I wasn't supposed to, but I did it."

Guest: I know. Regret.

Jessica: I was just like, "Okay. So you get it." Total regret, right? Okay. And are you comfortable sharing baby's birth information?

Guest: Nope.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Very clear. I love it. Okay. So there's a lot of things to say here, but the first thing is, when I got your email and I pulled up your child's chart, I was like, "This is not a super crazy, chaotic chart." I mean, sure, there's some shit. There's shit, but there's shit in everybody's chart. And there's shit in everybody interesting's chart and everybody who's ever created something, done something of note⁠—every single body who's done something valuable in the world has what you, in this state of mind that you're in, would look at and be like, "Oh, this is a fucked-up chart."

So I just want to be really clear about that, okay? Because if her chart was all trines and sextiles and there was nothing intercept and Saturn was making out with Jupiter and everything was fine, that doesn't mean that life would be easy for her or that your relationship would be easy for her. That's not what that means. And I think it's important to kind of acknowledge before we get into anything else⁠—is that we are living through really radical times. So there's the social and political climate stuff, but there's also the literal climate crisis that⁠—I don't think there's a single region on the globe that is unaffected by the climate crisis. And so I think we're going to see stickier things in people's charts as there are environmental issues that are invariably going to impact a person's childhood and a person's parents.

So I'm going to get into details, but I want to ask a couple questions first. Are you partnered and coparenting?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And is your partner actually coparenting with you?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Good. Congratulations. When you look at your child's chart, do you assume that what you're seeing of this Moon/Saturn opposition is about you because conventional astrology books say the Moon is the mom?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay, because I don't believe that. I want to just be really clear. Sometimes Moon is Mom. Sometimes Saturn is Dad. But again, this is a Moon/Saturn opposition. So this is a great example of why you should never look at your kid's chart⁠—because you're like, "It's about me. I fucked up." Well, what if it's your partner who fucked up? Is it a dude? Your partner's a dude?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. What if it's him? What if it's neither of you?

Guest: Well, I mean, the Sun's opposite Pluto, so…

Jessica: Could be both of you. You could both totally destroy your child.

Guest: It's both. It's both of us.

Jessica: Or it could not be about that at all. Let's do a couple things here. So the first thing is you look at your child's chart; you named what you see first and foremost. What I see first and foremost is this child has a stellium in Leo. They have a Leo rising, and they have a Moon/Venus/Mars conjunction in Leo. She is vibrant. She's a person who will enter a room, and people will be like, "Whoa. There's a person in the room, and we gotta talk about it." This is a person who gets attention, is dynamic, who's exciting, who's interested in the world, who gets along well with people. This is a really dynamic, dynamic human, right?

Guest: Yeah. That's her. [crosstalk]

Jessica: 100 percent, and it will be that. She will be that. That is who she is. She's also cute. She'll always be cute because of that Venus/Mars/Moon in Leo in the first⁠—she's cute. That said, it's hard on girls to be cute, actually. There's a lot of shit with that. There's a lot of shit with that on a lot of levels, and it could be that this Saturn opposition to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, by the way⁠, not just the Moon⁠—not to make your life worse, but it's all three of those planets are being opposed by Saturn⁠—it could have to do with her relationship with her parents, with either of her parents. And I'm going to give you advice about that in a minute.

But it could also be that she feels like she always has to be fun and easy and entertain people, and when she doesn't, she feels like people don't like her. And that could come from the world, the terrible, cruel, misogynistic world. Again, not to make your life any better or worse, but it's just like it's easy to look at this child's chart and be like, "Oh, that's me. I fucked something up in the future." But it could be the world. That doesn't make it better for her, but just to be clear. And so what do you do when you have a child who has Saturn opposition to all these personal planets?

Well, the answer is a bunch of things. The first one is how you discipline your child with these kinds of placements is really important. Communicating action and consequence instead of punishment and morality is very fucking important because she has an ingrained understanding of morality. What she'll need is an understanding of action and consequence. That'll make sense to her. And so making sure that discipline and consequences is consistent and rational, like reasonable, is going to be very, very important to her welfare and to managing this opposition.

When I look at your birth chart, you have Saturn in the first house, and of course you're going through your Saturn Return right now, which is very common for when people have their first child. When we have a child during Saturn Return period⁠—so you had it in the lead-up period⁠—yeah, your Saturn Return has a lot to do with being a parent and with your child. So it's a Saturnian experience. So, of course, your child has a strong Saturn. So your experience of discipline and consequences as a kid was punishing. It was like, "You're a good person; you're a bad person," I'm assuming, looking at your birth chart, because you've got this Pluto/Saturn square in your birth chart, Saturn in the first house. So consequences were heavy in your childhood. Is that correct?

Guest: Yeah. Yeah, in a way where it was kind of like silent treatment a lot of the time. It wasn't like visible heavy, but it was like under-the-waters kind of heavy, I guess.

Jessica: Yeah. Saturn/Pluto square⁠—this is you now⁠—that experience, especially because of where it's placed, it's, "I love you when you do good, and I don't when you do bad." It's icing somebody or⁠—again, it's punishment. And I would say for a child who deserves and wants love and care and attention, icing someone is very punishing. And sometimes it's the best a parent can do, but it looks like you didn't always feel that what you did and the parental response was proportionate or made sense to you. And so, of course, you have a child where it is your duty to figure out how to have proportionate responses and in a way that your child can understand, which is not what you got. So, of course, it's what your kid needs, and that makes it hard for you⁠—not impossible, but hard.

The thing about her chart is she doesn't just have the Saturn opposition to the Moon, Venus, and Mars⁠—is it forms a T-square to Uranus. And so, yeah, she's a wiggle monster. She's got a really tightly wound nature. And sometimes she's really consistent. Maybe she wants a lot of alone time or alone play. Sometimes she's like, "I have 700 planets in Leo, and I'm going to run around the house screaming." She's likely to go through both phases. Does that make sense?

Guest: Yeah, 100.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And so, within this, there is an indication that she was raised or that she will be raised in a household⁠—and I said she was because I'm so used the reading for adults. But when we look at a birth chart, it's the same document when you're one year old and when you're 70 years old. So you can see past, present, future all at once, which is just kind of mind-bending, but here we are. So there's an indication here that she will be raised with alternative values. She will be raised by weirdos who allow her to be a weirdo.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So I imagine you and your partner are both not super conventional people.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And that's written in her chart. And are either of you religious?

Guest: No.

Jessica: Are you thinking about sending her to a religious school?

Guest: No way.

Jessica: Good. Strong "don't recommend" in your situation for this child. This is where it gets tricky. This Moon/Saturn opposition⁠—because it's the thing you're focused on⁠—this Moon opposition, which is a part of a larger configuration of planets called a T-square⁠—it indicates that her emotions can get really hot and really cold. And so, sometimes, she's like, "I have a Moon in Leo," and sometimes she's like, "I have Saturn in the fucking seventh house." And this is where you get involved because you have a knee-jerk reaction to people being emotionally hot and cold because of your own childhood experience.

Guest: Yep.

Jessica: Yeah. And so it would be very easy⁠—not when she's an infant or a toddler, but when she's anywhere from probably around seven years old to an adult, anywhere where you could feel like she's rejecting you⁠—you have really deep ingrained knee-jerk reactions to that. And that is where you're involved. So figuring out ways of coping with your own emotions will make her chart flow easier, and that really sounds great. But you can spend a bazillion dollars on therapy; it doesn't mean it's going to work. It's a life process.

So it's not about requiring yourself to be perfect or modeling perfection for your child. It's about being in process and understanding⁠—let's say she's a little six-year-old, and she's being like, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," and then all of a sudden, she's like, "I don't care about Mommy. What's a mommy? I'm all about Daddy." And for a year, you don't get shit from your child. This happens all the time. It's super normal. But it, for you, will be incredibly triggering.

And so, if something like that were to happen and you would find yourself having moments where you're like, "She's rejected me. I must reject her. She's rejecting me. I'm going to act weird because I feel weird"⁠—when you catch yourself doing that, finding ways that are age-appropriate for your child to be like, "Oh, sorry I behaved that way. That's not how I want to behave. I love you. Even when I'm bothered, I love you." So simple, but it's the simplest things that we don't remember when we're in a state of activation, when we're triggered. And your daughter is going to trigger you. That's literally what happened when you looked at her chart. You were triggered. You were like, "Oh my God. Everything is negative here." Do you have any questions so far?

Guest: No. That was really good. I love that advice. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Good. My pleasure. So I will ask you this. Do you have a job outside of the home?

Guest: No.

Jessica: And your partner does?

Guest: Yeah, he does. He dips in and out of it so that he can be here and help raising her.

Jessica: Okay. So how is money for you guys?

Guest: It's okay.

Jessica: It's okay.

Guest: It's like we don't have it flowing in, but we have enough to get by.

Jessica: Okay. So the Saturn opposition to Venus⁠—there's a couple things that it can show. And does one of you have family money that you can pull out of, like that you're able to live off of a little bit?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Is it him or you?

Guest: Me.

Jessica: Okay. And are you comfortable with that?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: I know that's not true because I'm looking at your daughter's chart. Let me tell you⁠—

Guest: Okay. Well, I mean, I guess it ties me to my mother in a kind of dependent way, and I feel like that's where the stickiness to that is. And I'd love to be more separated from my mother, but it's like it feels like it's a little hook she has in me.

Jessica: Yeah. Your daughter has Libra, the zodiac sign of Libra, intercept the second house and the zodiac sign of Aries intercept the eighth with Chiron there. And so your mixed feelings about how you have your money and what it cost you⁠—that's what you're seeing with the Chiron interception in the eighth, and that's what you're seeing with the Libra interception in the second. It's not the fact that you have your mom's money. It's how you feel about it. It's how you feel about it.

When we have interceptions in our charts, it's because our parent or guardian is in an active state of repression around the thing. And it's very easy when we're talking about our adult charts, looking at our parents' charts, to be like, "I have an interception because my mom was fucked up," or whatever. But it's not that. It's you had a kid, and so you prioritize with the limited resources you have in your brain, in your life, what you can handle, what you can focus on at a time. And the money thing is just kind of like, "Okay. I'm going to put it on a shelf." But it wasn't like⁠—you haven't been able to authentically put it on a shelf. Instead, you've been roiling about it. Sorry.

Guest: Stirring the pot.

Jessica: Yeah. Stirring the damn pot, not talking about it, not fixing it. It's really just⁠—it eats at you. And that's how your child got this interception. So do you have to feel guilty about that? No. Should you feel bad about that? No. Not even remotely. It's just if you want to have a kid, this is what's going to happen. Your shit gets passed down. This is how it works. So you can conscientiously choose to work on this issue with yourself, with a therapist, with somebody who's outside of the situation⁠—so not just your partner or your mom. Hold on. Let me look at your chart for a second here. It's complex. It's complex. There's many issues. It's complex.

Your mom likes giving you money. You got Jupiter in the eighth house. Your mom enjoys giving you money. It's opposite Venus. She really likes it. She has it, and she enjoys giving⁠—

Guest: She's the biggest gift giver. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I see that. She loves it. Your mom is very difficult for you in many ways. However, the money thing is not the way, which is interesting because I look at your child's chart, and I see that you feel that there are strings attached that are very painful. But I look at your chart, and I see that your mom withholds love and your mom is punishing in various ways, and she's judgmental in all these ways, and there are so many complex things about her, but money isn't one of them. She's just like, "I want to give you things. It feels good to me. I like doing this." And she likes you wanting things from her.

So she doesn't always like you wanting attention. She doesn't always want you to want serious conversation. But she wants you to want things from her. That's fun for her. And so this is a complicated issue. But for whatever it's worth, a lot of the complexity, I think, is a little displaced for you onto the money stuff. And it's not⁠—as those words came out of my mouth, I feel like I'm saying the wrong thing. I feel like that's not accurate. It is and isn't. The way that it is accurate is that you are dependent on her, and that reinforces the unhealthy dynamic between the two of you. That's really different from you receiving gifts. And it's not like she put away a trust and that you're just getting to live off that trust. It's more like she's handing you money. Is that correct?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So it's complicated in that way. Outside of that component, eventually, if you get to a place that's healthier with your mom, receiving gifts from her is not going to be a bad thing. It doesn't look like an unhealthy or unethical thing, given your relationship. It's a way that she can genuinely be generous with you. And she's not generous in a lot of ways, but in this way, she's comfortable being generous; she's good at being generous. And I don't think that it's necessary for you to turn away from her gifts. I do think it's necessary for you to feel independent and autonomous. And interestingly⁠—

Guest: Yeah. That's the main thing for me, I think. Yeah.

Jessica: It's a big thing. And interestingly, you have a child that will be so independent and autonomous she will be a goddamn glorious weirdo. Uranus is the focal planet to her T-square. So, again, your child will trigger you because there are so many concessions you make, and there's ways that you kind of tamp yourself down to be small for a variety of reasons. And your child will not do that. And sometimes, you will be beaming with pride and thrilled, and other times, it's going to feel threatening because in a way, it's similar to what your mom does. She is who she is, she does what she does, and she just is that. And your daughter has that. Right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm not worried that your child is not going to be okay. And I'm not worried per se about your relationship, because your relationship⁠—it doesn't look fucked.

Guest: Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome. It doesn't look fucked. I mean, listen. There are problems, and I pulled up your relationship chart with your child, so give me a moment. I will get there in a second. But before we do, I want to speak to this Pluto/Sun opposition. And this is your first child. Do you have any siblings?

Guest: I've got two older brothers.

Jessica: Do they have kids?

Guest: No.

Jessica: Okay, because her chart⁠—it does kind of reek of firstborn. It looks like this was a big deal in your family.

Guest: Yeah. She's like Simba being held over the thing.

Jessica: That's what it looks like. And you have such mixed feelings about that kind of attention. For you, that kind of attention, 50 percent of the time, feels amazing and like love, and the other 50 percent of the time feels like pressure.

Guest: Yeah. I guess it does.

Jessica: And so, when you were pregnant, you were mixed. You wanted to keep your baby your baby, and you also wanted your family to embrace you and love you and be into this.

Guest: Yeah. That was a really, really tough time, especially with my mom.

Jessica: Was she controlling?

Guest: So controlling. It was like her baby.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. Sun/Pluto opposition. That's the Sun/Pluto opposition, is that you are just like, "I'm going to shut myself down. I'm going to shut my light down so that my mom can't see me in the dark. I'm going to not compete with her because she's more controlling than me, and I'm not going to be controlling. I'm just going to hide myself." Sun intercept the twelfth house in your child's chart. So this is how we pass down our survival mechanisms to our children without any intention of doing it. You're doing your damn best.

And seeing the Sun/Pluto opposition, I can understand if you're flipping through books why you would be like, "Oh my God. Oh shit. This has all these aspects." It's so complicated, and again, this is why I will say this 100 times: don't look at a child's chart. But this is part of why it's so complicated, because when we're looking at astrology books, a lot of times we're just looking at pieces. It's like if I took a picture of just my nose, I would have a feeling. But if I look at my nose in the concert of my face, I have a different feeling. Maybe it's better; maybe it's worse. That's not the point. The point is my nose exists on my face. And so we must be able to read this in synthesis.

The other thing is a lot of astrology⁠—and you know I love astrology, and I'm not shitting on other kinds of astrology. But a lot of astrology is not human-centered. It's like, "Let me delineate." And when we delineate, it's very easy to be like, "Moon/mom," which is just like heterotypical, patriarchal, old-school shit. The Moon is the nurturing parent, which could be both parents over the course of time. It could be Dad. It could be Mom. It could be whatever gender or identity we have. But it is that parent.

In your relationship dynamic with your partner, is that you? Are you the more nurturing one, or is it him?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: It is you. Okay. So here's a fun fact. Saturn in the seventh house opposite the Moon in the first indicates one of the parents isn't around because they're working.

Guest: That would be him. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So you're concerned about what you're doing and not what he's doing, and that is holdover shit from your relationship with your mom. "It's all my responsibility. It's all my fault. It's all my responsibility. It's all my fault. What do I do? How can I do it? What did I do wrong? How can I fix it?"

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And that is also iterated here in the Sun/Pluto opposition. Your child's chart indicates that eventually you're going to be pretty sick of that. You're going to need more support so that you can go to work or so⁠—just at home. Eventually, that's going to be a problem. You're going to need a little bit more reciprocity in the dynamic. Your child's chart indicates that. So what do you do with that information? You could torture yourself. I feel you would be good at it.

But what would be better is you could share this conversation with your partner and be like, "Hey. If this seems possible, how do we get around it? How do we communicate about that?" because the Sun/Pluto opposition in her chart indicates that power struggles are really uncomfortable for her parents. And so it's not that her parents have terrible power struggles. It's that her parents are uncomfortable with power struggles. So do you guys never fight?

Guest: Every now and then, yeah. We have a hard time speaking about the sticky stuff. And we just had a conversation the day I found out I was having this reading with you about how we need to start shooting from the hip and just saying when we're not feeling good or when the other person's upset us because it's like, "I don't want to upset him by bringing up something." That's the crux of it.

Jessica: That's your child's Sun/Pluto interceptions. Yeah. So, if you work on it before the age of seven, it's going to play out really differently in her older life than if you don't. And if it doesn't work out, if you end up being terrible at fighting with each other or you're both never really honest with each other, her life isn't ruined, but that's what you're seeing in the child's chart. That's what you're seeing in the child's chart. It's not she doesn't love you, you don't love her, you guys are going to have conflicts.

Interceptions represent the energies being actively repressed around a person. And I hope this isn't frightening you. I've never seen a chart that didn't have conflict and strife in it because Saturn and Pluto and Uranus are in every chart⁠—and Neptune. And there's almost always squares and oppositions. And the very rare times where I've seen no hard aspects, I've seen a lot of addiction.

Guest: That's good, because I just knew that I was seeing these, and I was just seeing them at face value. And it was scaring me. And that's why I'm so happy to be talking to you, because I needed to understand them better.

Jessica: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. I'm really grateful that I am.

Jessica: I'm really glad. I mean, I will say before⁠—because I'm going to go to your relationship chart with her. I'm going to look at your chart a little bit more, but before I do, what I've just done with you I almost have never done for someone because I'm not so sure that it's helpful. And I wouldn't have done it for you except you, and actually several other people in the past few weeks, have emailed me being like, "I looked at my child's chart. I know I wasn't supposed to. You told me not to. I did it, and oh my God, I'm going to die." I've gotten a bunch of emails like this recently, and I'm just like, "Yeah, stop doing this. I'm telling you." 

This is really tricky because when an astrologer looks at a baby's chart, we can see a lot about what's going to happen in the marriage because I'm looking at her whole childhood. But it hasn't happened yet. And so there's pros and cons about that. But what I want to just really ground you into is the things I would say if I was giving you a real reading about your child instead of a "I'm trying to put a Band-Aid on a wound you've created for yourself."

Okay. So Saturn/Pluto opposition⁠—potty training is going to be a whole entire thing. Be very spacious. Give her tons of time for potty training. I would start now with saying bye-bye to things. Creating closure is so important. Saying goodbye to the toys as you put them away, saying goodbye to the park as you leave it, all that kind of stuff is essential for any child with hard aspects from or to Pluto. She's probably quite loud, eh? When she's having emotions, she's very vocal, yeah?

Guest: Yep.

Jessica: Okay. So that's upsetting for both parents, I'm assuming. It's not super comfortable for both of you. Let her do it. Let her fucking do it. Let her be loud. The world is going to make her quieter. I would say don't do it at home if you can avoid it. But you might be able to figure out a way to be like, "Okay. We're going to intentionally have play that is about being loud." So maybe screaming contests sometimes in the backyard⁠—poor neighbors.

Guest: I've done that with her already.

Jessica: Yes. Okay. Good. Excellent. That's what I'm talking about. Keep doing that, doing crazy play, play where she gets to use her body and her voice as a vehicle. Run her like a greyhound. I would say she's a great, great candidate for team sports/athletics when she's old enough, and in particular sports that allow her to be competitive. She has Mars in the first house. But she has Venus in the first house and the Moon, so she's not going to want to be competitive when it's not okay. It has to be like, "We're on a team, and we're competing." So there's that. I wouldn't say martial arts, per se, as much as soccer.

The other thing is, because she has that Mars in the first and it's opposite to Saturn and square to Uranus, she's likely to grind her teeth or clench. Have you noticed that? She probably doesn't have teeth yet.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. You always see her jaw going.

Jessica: Yeah. She's a clencher. That's just the thing. So when she is having a hard time in life, make it a habit for you or Dad to really just gently massage her jaws. And you can massage her third eye and her sinuses. These are going to be points of tension for her. She is a child⁠—because, again, of all that Leo stuff and Mars⁠—who might run headaches or fevers, like different kids get different kinds of upsets. That might be more of her normal way of getting sick.

The Moon/Saturn opposition will give her a bit of a weak tummy. And so too much carbs, too much sugar, is always going to be a little rough on her system, which is hard. It's going to be something that you're going to want to be really mindful about, her having not too much sugar, because it's just going to be rough on her system. She is likely to flush a lot. Does she get really red in the face or blotches on her skin?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's just normal. I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, obviously, you want to pay attention to it. It's just her body type is what it looks like. Okay. A couple more things here. She's really smart. So, when it comes to academics and learning, I'm assuming she started talking early, yeah?

Guest: A few little words, yeah. But you can tell she understands things. She watches me do something, and she tries to do it. And yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I imagine when she starts really talking all of a sudden, you're like, "What the fuck? You've been practicing." She's got this beautiful Mercury/Jupiter trine. She's smart. She's smart, and she's really good at processing things. If it's something you and your partner are interested in, I would recommend a language immersion school because she has a mind for it, and it will help her to be a traveler, which is something that I imagine she's going to want to do⁠. So giving her the opportunity to learn languages, I think, will really be good for her.

The other thing I'll say is she has Mercury in the anaretic degree of Gemini, in the final degree of Gemini, and it's in the twelfth house. Yes, she is big and she is bold, and she is Leo, Leo, Leo. But she's got Mercury in the twelfth. And so she is going to have a shy streak, and it doesn't make any sense to most people because she's such an extrovert, but she's like an introverted extrovert. You know what I mean? She may not always speak her mind, and she may have a hard time sorting through her thoughts. Does that remind you of anyone in the family? You? Your partner? You and your partner?

Guest: Yeah. Yeah, probably a bit of both of us.

Jessica: Yeah. That's what it looks like. And so this is going to be helping her, when she's a little older, sort through her thoughts of being like, "Okay. What's the pro? What's the con?" or, "What's the part of this idea that's exciting? What's the part of this idea that's upsetting? What are the steps we'd have to take to do x?" This will help her to develop a kind of analytic processing. She doesn't really need that, because she's just kind of naturally smart, but what she will need is a feeling of permission to have her own way of doing that. And that will just boost her confidence.

Let me see if there's anything else that I feel like I should tell you around her developmental stuff. She's going to have a calling. She's going to be driven. I'm not worried about this kid. Hold on. Let me just make sure I'm seeing this⁠—when she's old enough for play dates, she may have a hard time in group settings. She's better suited to one-on-one play dates. If there's an option to send her to schooling that is more smaller groups/smaller classes, smaller groups are going to be much better for her, not just academically but in terms of social development. I think she can get kind of overwhelmed in groups.

But again, your panic is totally fair but not super astrologically founded. She does have shit, but I'm not too worried. Do you have any questions about her chart?

Guest: Mainly, I think the last thing would just be the intercept Sun in the twelfth and what that means for her.

Jessica: It means that she had it modeled for her⁠—she's going to have it modeled for her⁠—that expressing strong feelings and dissent and passion and intensity is something to be repressed. So you're working on it, right? You're working on it. When she emotes, which she does frequently and intensely⁠—right? We established that. When she emotes, it might be hard for you, and it might shut you down because that's your knee-jerk reaction from your dynamic with your mom. Your mom gets to express all the emotions, and you kind of have to shrink yourself. So that's a pattern that you're working on, I hope, right? You're working on that.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And so that's the indication there. That's the indication there.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: All you can do is your best. That's literally all you can do, and it's enough. I'm not going to promise you you'll never have conflict with your child or that she'll have a perfect, easy life, because that's ridiculous.

Now, I'm going to pull up your relationship chart. So I'm using composite charts, your relationship chart with your baby, so it's mom and baby chart. I didn't lead with this because I wanted to focus on her chart because that's what gave you the panic attack, right? Your relationship with your child has a Sun/Venus conjunction in the seventh house. That's love. Chiron's involved, so it's love that's triggering sometimes. That little trio of planets is opposite Jupiter and Pluto in the first house. So there's going to be a part of you that's going to want to be controlling sometimes, and it's inevitable because you're her parent. And that's part of the job description.

Also, she's bonkers. And so sometimes you're going to have to rein her in. And so, sometimes, that's going to be a conflict, and sometimes your relationship is just going to be like this love explosion that is so intense. The indicators both in her chart and in your relationship chart are that she will feel loved. Now, Jupiter, the Sun, Chiron, all form a T-square to Uranus in your relationship chart. So, again, we've got this real Uranian thing.

I don't feel like I've nailed seeing this yet, but I want to express to you keep it weird with your child. You do not need to go normal with your child. You have such a strong Uranian connection. Play weirdly with her. Allow yourselves to explore all manner of creativity. Create an art practice as a team for as long as she's into it, and when she stops being into it⁠—I don't know⁠—build things, whatever it is. Get weird with her and allow her⁠—when she's able and when she's given to doing this, allow her to lead what that looks like.

And within this, I guess it's going to be necessary for you to know the difference between someone's leading because they're excited and someone's leading because they're trying to control you. And if you have a therapist, that's the thing to work on with your therapist, is understanding the difference between someone having a strong personality and someone being controlling, somebody expressing a boundary or a need and someone being manipulative or punishing, because it's hard for you to gauge that.

The one other thing I'll say about this relationship chart is it does have a Mercury square to your Saturn/Neptune conjunction. This is in your relationship chart. What this means is you don't always communicate easy. That's a possibility here in this chart. You might sometimes⁠ is basically what I keep on saying in different ways. None of us who have children escape our family-of-origin dynamics. And that doesn't mean we re-create cycles of abuse. That doesn't mean that. It simply means we get triggered because when you're in a family, it's going to remind you of being in a family, and your only experience of being in a family is when you were a kid in a family.

Guest: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica: Does that spark any questions or concerns for you?

Guest: I guess with the Mercury thing, both me and my partner grew up in households where things were swept under the carpet. [indiscernible 00:37:36], so everything looks okay, but then there's this huge part under the carpet. And it's something we're actively working on. But we both get really triggered by our mothers, who continue to do it. And yeah, it's this huge⁠—especially with me and my mother right now, it's like this huge point of tension where I'm bringing it up to her. I'm saying, "I can't keep living like this." And then she just doesn't hear me, keeps going, keeps going, just wants to be the best friends, ignoring this mountain behind us. What's the best thing to do for that?

Jessica: Okay. So a couple of things. I'm going to pull up your chart in just one second, but first I'll say this Mercury square to Saturn and Neptune does indicate that this is going to be a lifelong struggle for you, the impulse to sweep things under the rug that are hard. That's why you and your partner just this week were talking about, "We have to actually say it out loud when we're having a rough time with something. What are we doing here?" It's like you're not even realizing it because we all overcompensate for our childhood stuff. That's just being a person.

So okay. Now we're looking at your chart, and yeah, your mom is complicated for you. Your mom does not think that your boundaries are good boundaries. She does not think they're good boundaries. She thinks what you think you want is not what you should want, and so she's going to help you want something better. And you assert a boundary, but then you become very quickly, very easily⁠—because of how this is such a big dynamic in your life, you become very quickly and very easily deflated or disempowered or enraged, which kind of for you ends up quickly translating into disempowered. And then you stop holding the boundary. You just feel like, "Fuck. It's easier to let her trample all over me. There's a path, at least, a well-worn path."

And so you're not asserting and maintaining the boundary, and nothing is changing. And what I'm going to say to you⁠—I don't mean any negative connotation. I know people have a negative connotation with this. But if you're training a dog⁠—and again, no negative connotation about dogs and referring to people as dogs. But if you're training a dog, you don't say, "Hey, don't eat off the table," and then expect the dog to be like, "Cool. I'm never going to eat off the table. No problem. I'll never beg. No problem," and just never ask for food again. You have to say over and over consistently without ever caving for months before the dog is trained. Right?

Guest: I feel like I'm constantly repeating myself with her, but yes. I tell her not to do something. She'll do it. I'll get angry. She plays the victim like she's upset me, and then I feel guilty. That's the cycle. So⁠—

Jessica: Okay. So let me interrupt you there because if you're repeating yourself over and over, you're not holding a boundary. You're talking about a boundary.

Guest: Oh. Okay.

Jessica: Annoying, isn't it? You're going through your Saturn Return in the first house. Learning how to have boundaries is your Saturn Return. So don't beat yourself up. If you say to her, "I need you to"⁠—what's a classic for you, a classic boundary that she's stepping all over?

Guest: What's an example? I'll give you the latest one, okay?

Jessica: Yes.

Guest: So, just before bedtime, when me and baby were staying out there and she wanted to give baby chocolate, I was like, "No. We're going to bed. Don't give baby chocolate." I turned around, looked back. Baby's got chocolate all over her mouth.

Jessica: Oh, that would make me mad. Okay. That's a great example. And also, who gives a baby chocolate before fucking bed?

Guest: I know.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. So you say after all that, "Hey, Mom. I told you not to do that, and you're not respecting me." And then she goes victimy, cry-y, whatever. Is that correct?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Cool. So, moving forward, you do what you do with the dog. Again, no disrespect in that⁠—just to be able to say, what would you do? There would be a consequence. So what's the consequence? Is she helping you? Are you living with her? Or you were visiting?

Guest: No.

Jessica: Okay. So, in that situation, you would have to say, "I'm not going to be able to let you put her to bed anymore. I would love your help. I want you to have that close, intimate time. But if I can't trust you, then this is going to have to be the consequence." And then you have to follow through with the consequence. Unfortunately, that's the boundary. And to you, that seems mean and punitive, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: It will seem mean and punitive to her, too. But that's a boundary. If she is proving over and over again that she hears what you say and she's like, "That's stupid. I'm going to do what I want," then you need to have consequences like you would with your child, with your friend, with your partner, hopefully. Hopefully, you would do that. So it has to be, "I assert the thing. She disrespects it"⁠—I'm a big believer in threes. Let her disrespect it up to three times. After the third time, there is a consequence. There will not be a fourth time. You have lost your privileges, Mom. That's the move.

And you can say to her directly⁠—and I don't think this will go well, but just for your own edification, to say to her, "We've been having these power struggles. I feel like you're not respecting me, and you feel like I'm coming down on you or whatever it is. And I've decided that I need you to respect me when it comes to my child, and if you don't, things are going to change in our relationship. And it's not because I don't love you; it's because I love you, but I'm starting to resent you."

Guest: Oh yes. That's perfect.

Jessica: And then she will weep and moan and claim foul, and that's okay. She gets to have her feelings. Your mom's not going to become a different person. There's no magic boundary you're ever going to have that's going to turn her into a different person. She's always going to be like this. So you just have to figure out a way to work with it because you do want her in your life. Listen. Your mom, I can see by looking at your birth chart, loves you.

Guest: Yes, she does.

Jessica: She loves you so much. She's just narcissistic as hell.

Guest: Oh my gosh.

Jessica: The thing that is important here is understanding that you're allowed to feel hurt when somebody disrespects you or hurts your feelings, and you're allowed to feel hurt when you don't get what you want. And so is she. So is she. The thing is she's loud about it. She's real loud about it, and you're quiet about it. You're the silent sufferer. She's the loud sufferer. And your child, in turn, will be a loud sufferer, right? This is just how it goes with families.

And so the more you are able to identify how to have healthy boundaries with your mom⁠—and you will 100 percent fuck up sometimes on this path; that's the path. No one does this well straight out of the gate. As you cultivate healthy boundaries with your mom, you change yourself and you change your relationship with your daughter. But your mom is never going to respect what you say if there's no consequences. You have a sibling that she respects what he says, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: He's the one with consequences.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Does he just stop talking to her when she gets to be too much?

Guest: He's really savage with her.

Jessica: Yep. That works. It works on her. She doesn't love him less. She doesn't like him less. She doesn't. She understands the boundaries.

Guest: [crosstalk]

Jessica: Yep. There you go. This is the thing⁠—and again, this is why I used the dogs as a metaphor, because they say about dogs that they really need to know the parameters of their space. That's why a lot of people⁠—when you're training, you keep your dog in a crate. There's something about knowing the boundaries of what they're meant to protect and the space they're in that is supposed to be very soothing for them. Humans are the same.

If you feel like you're constantly having to be the good child and to be accommodating and to not rock the boat so that things don't go sideways, you're never going to be able to relax around your mom. And if your mom knows it, if she pushes a little harder and she explains it to you a little better, that you always cave, why would she stop doing it? So you're both participating based on evidence⁠—

Guest: Oh my God. This is so like dogs.

Jessica: It's so like dogs. We're like dogs. Yeah. Well, we're not like cats or whales or whatever. We're animals, and we have our animal brain. And with your mom, the way she is with you she is with her friends, she is with the person at the market, she is with your siblings. It's just who she is. It's not personal to you, but you take it very personally. And you think if you twist yourself or if you say it right that you can change her, which is ironically a lot like her. It's just a passive approach to the exact same thing. So it's like trying to put out a fire with a match. It's not working. It's never going to work.

And the worst part is what you do makes her feel punished. When you're like, "Oh my God, woman. I am actually being so gentle," she feels punished because any no⁠—

Guest: Yeah, she does.

Jessica: ⁠—it's like, "You don't love me. Why don't you love me? You're saying no to me." So, if that's how she feels, you might as well be really honest. You're going to hurt her no matter what. Might as well be real. And if you actually can do this, what you'll end up doing is modeling it for your child, modeling it in your marriage or your relationship. And from there, everything kind of gets worse for a minute, and then it gets better.

This is the problem. This is the problem with healing, with developing boundaries, with Saturn Returns⁠—all of it⁠—is that the path or the road to healing, it's like there's monsters and poop and brambles on the path. It's a rocky road. It's not easy. And that doesn't mean it's the wrong road. And so, if you actually have consequences with your mom, you will feel like a bad person. She will say that you're being the meanest in the world, and that will be part of the process.

But I am⁠—I can't promise you anything, but I am really confident if you are consistent, it'll just work. And then, eventually, there will be less tears, less drama. She will know what she can push and what she can't.

Guest: Yeah. No, that feels like I have full confidence in this little pathway.

Jessica: So, within this learning process⁠—bringing it back to baby⁠—recognizing how you get punishing with yourself, how you get heavy-handed with yourself, and making efforts to not do that because you are unconsciously modeling this for your child⁠—so that'll be easier for you to do it not just for you but to do it for baby. That'll be easier for you than just doing it for you, because if you just do it for you, you're going to be a perpetual ten-year-old dealing with your mom, like the rest of us. We are all that way.

So the thing that I hope for you with your mom is that you have boundaries, but then once you have these boundaries, that you find ways of reclining with her. Being a hedonist with your mom is the best way to enjoy her and have a good relationship. So I don't know what your style is, if it's going out for nice meals, or if she likes doing facemasks at home or doing nails or something⁠—she seems very aesthetic to me and very hedonistic. Is that right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And I'm seeing this, by the way, through your birth chart. She has this idea that her daughter is going to be her best girlfriend.

Guest: Yes, since day one.

Jessica: Yeah. Since day one, that's what she wanted from you. And you were just like, "Well, that would work, but all these other things make me shut down and makes me feel like I'm being manipulated." So it's like you don't want to give her that.

Guest: Yeah. I'm like, "You gotta earn it."

Jessica: Yes. There you go. You've got to earn it. You learned that idea from her. Love and attention is conditional.

Guest: Oh my gosh.

Jessica: I know. I'm so sorry.

Guest: Why is life so complicated, Jessica?

Jessica: It is. It's also so simple. We are the most predictable animals.

Guest: I know. What the hell?

Jessica: I know. I know. It's rough. But here's the thing. You are having boundaries in the wrong place. So you're not letting her enjoy you, and you don't get to enjoy her, even though you kind of really like it, because you don't have boundaries with her in other parts of your relationship where she's making you fucking miserable. So, once you have boundaries with her around her respecting your autonomy, your adulthood, your preferences, your values⁠—once you have that, I hope you get mani-pedis together every week. I hope you let her pay. I hope you allow yourself to enjoy the superficial things because that's the kind of relationship that you could have that would be really happy-making for both of you, to have the superficial things.

Guest: Yeah, and I can feel that⁠—like I know that if this other shit wasn't there, we would get along so well. And it's like, what's being so painful? Because I'm like, "We could get along so well. But it's like you just keep bloody racking up our pot."

Jessica: That's exactly right. And we haven't mentioned your dad. Were you raised with him?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Is he still with your mom?

Guest: Yeah. He's still there. He's an interesting one. He's like water off a duck's back. It's like nothing affects him. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't get anxiety. Like, have you ever felt depressed? It's like he's a plank of wood sometimes. He's interesting.

Jessica: Well, let me interrupt that a little bit to say, in your chart, you have twelfth-house planets. You've got Neptune and Uranus in the twelfth house, and classic of your generation⁠—you were born in the '90s⁠—they're conjunct, and they are opposite to Mars. Okay? And it's not intercept like your child has, but it's the same zodiac signs and the same houses.

Your father in his early developmental experiences was not allowed to have weak mental health. Everything gets sublimated through his body. Does he work something manual? Does he do some sort of physical labor?

Guest: Oh my God. He's a builder, and he's just like⁠—every day, get up. Go to work. No time to chill.

Jessica: Yep. And that's how he manages repressing his mental health. That is in your chart.

Guest: Oh. Damn.

Jessica: Yeah. So he's not water off a duck's back. That's how it seems. What it really is is that he takes all of his anxieties, and he smooshes them down and he shoves them in his body, and then he pushes his body to the limit so that he has an outlet. So, again, I didn't want to answer your question by just focusing on your baby and her chart because it would be us missing the opportunity to understand you've got just as complicated of a chart as your child does. And do you have a terrible life?

Guest: Yeah, that's what I keep reminding myself. I'm like, I do some shit, but the day-to-day, I enjoy life. I'm happy.

Jessica: Yeah. Sure. Yes. And also, you have a fucked-up relationship with your mom in a ton of ways, and also, she really loves you. You love her.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: It's not you're a parable. It's life. And she honestly does what she does because of the ways in which she is a person, and also because she loves you, and she feels like love is bossing. "If I love you, I'm going to boss you." If she didn't care about you, she wouldn't boss you. The only people she doesn't boss are people she doesn't care about. She doesn't let things go if she likes you, which is not really compatible with you, but it's an important context for you to have.

You not confronting me about something in our friendship is not because you're cool with everything I do. It's because you're not great at confronting people. It goes in all directions is what I'm trying to say. It's like sometimes it's just us being us and doing our best, and sometimes it's personal. And with your mom, it's not really⁠—I mean, everything is personal because she's your mom, but ultimately, she loves you. And she thinks that she's right and you're wrong, and if you just let her be right, then everything will be fine. That would drive me nuts, but it would drive me nuts because I feel that way half the time, too. Don't you if you feel like you're right? I mean, we agree don't give a baby chocolate before she goes to bed. I feel like that's a universal truth.

Guest: Come on.

Jessica: My God.

Guest: I know.

Jessica: It's a universal truth. But Grandma is just like, "I'm going to be the one who you always associate with good things, and Mom shouldn't worry about it." And there it is. That's what she wants. She wants to be the hero. She wants this little baby to be her best girlfriend, just like she did with you.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's it.

Jessica: Yeah. Triggering, but not the worst. So okay. Do you have any final question for me? Did we kind of hit the things? Is there anything where it's kind of lingering in your brain and you're like, "Well, wait a minute. Can you tell me x?" or, "What did you mean by y?"

Guest: I just have one question about baby's daddy, just because the Saturn Moon was like how I saw me, and then the Sun Pluto⁠—he's got a huge thing right now of all his repressed childhood anger is just bubbling out of him. And it just feels like an endless well for him. I'd just love if you could look at that and get it clear or⁠—

Jessica: How is he expressing it?

Guest: He's got an intercept Mars in the first house, so it's like⁠—

Jessica: Oh, poor guy.

Guest: ⁠—he just feels it, and he feels it in his body. And we've kind of got this system how when he feels it, he goes away and just can sit with it and let it come out.

Jessica: Okay. So that won't work for baby, but it will work for you. And the reason why it works for you is because if he was to get really expressive about it, that would be triggering. But if he's verbalizing it for you and he's like, "Oh, I'm feeling really activated. I need to go away," you're like, "Okay. Great. You're not subjecting me to it."

Guest: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: But to baby, that shows up as Saturn in the seventh house opposite Venus and Mars. That shows up as Sun opposite Pluto. If you feel intense feelings, you need to leave. That's what that's modeling.

Guest: Whoa. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. And so, again, no value judgment against you or your partner. But if you're asking me in the context of your child's chart, that's the answer. What she's having modeled by both of her parents in different ways is if you feel intense feelings⁠—Pluto is all the taboo emotions, right? Resentment, rage, pettiness⁠—you need to remove yourself. You're not allowed to be here anymore because it's not safe to feel those feelings.

Guest: Oh my gosh. You're hitting me in the jugular.

Jessica: Okay. So sorry. So sorry.

Guest: No, it's good. [crosstalk]

Jessica: But this is where, first of all, Dad needs a therapist. Dad needs a therapist. Dad, get a therapist. The second⁠—

Guest: Get a therapist.

Jessica: Yeah. Get a therapist. And listen. I would recommend, if I was queen of the world⁠, which, of course, I'm not⁠—

Guest: You should be.

Jessica: Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I would recommend if he's open to therapy⁠—would he be open to it?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay⁠—finding a man who specializes in anger issues, not repressing anger, not fixing anger, but understanding it and being comfortable being present with it, because it looks like sometimes it's just like he gets in a mood. It's just a mood, and neither of you know what to do with that mood. So it becomes this big thing.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And with your daughter, she's like 60 percent of the time in a mood⁠—not always bad, not always good, but she's like a very big, fiery person. And so this model is a risky one. That's why you're seeing these oppositions in her chart.

Guest: Okay. When he feels this intense anger or these moods, how is it best for him to express that or model that around her?

Jessica: Let me see. Okay. So I'm going to have to look at him energetically for this. Everything I've said so far in this reading has been through her chart, your chart, and your relationship chart. But this specific thing I would have to look at his chart, but we don't have time. So I'll look at him psychically. Bear with me.

Guest: Oh. Interesting that you did that because it's all up here for him.

Jessica: Yeah. I see that. It's jaw. It's jaw, neck, jaw, neck, yeah?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: So he doesn't want to fix this. Let's start with that, okay? He doesn't want to fix this. He doesn't want to work on this, not because he doesn't want to be somewhere else. He wants to be somewhere else; he doesn't want to work on it. Do you know what I mean?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: It's like I want to be able to speak French. That doesn't mean I want to take French lessons. I just want to be able to speak French, right? It's the same kind of thing for him. He's scared of being violent. He's scared of being that guy.

Guest: Yeah. That was his dad.

Jessica: I was just about to ask. Yeah. And this is the kind of male therapist he needs, somebody who has a specialty in survivors of this kind of childhood. When I look at him energetically, I can see how much he doesn't want me to look at him energetically. He is very resistant to people helping him until he's in the mood for help. Does this make sense to you from what you know of him?

Guest: Yes, 100 percent.

Jessica: Yeah. And so I don't want to push because that's not how I do business, as you know. But I want to say, when I look at him energetically, the way that he on an energy level has himself organized is it's almost like brambles with so many cobwebs that you can't see through. So it's this very organic-seeming landscape, but it's an intricate self-defense. He is in a state of self-defense because he feels threatened.

And that is why his emotions are so intense and so scary to him and why you saying to him, "Go off and be alone," is so good for him. It's a little bit enabling him. It's a good step, but if you stay here for too long, it's going to be very bad because then he will just have this knee-jerk reaction of, "Every time I need space, I get angry. And every time I get angry, I have to go away." It's going to be a bad dynamic.

Guest: Yeah. It's like we're sweeping it under the carpet again in some kind of way.

Jessica: Exactly. That's exactly precisely what it is, and that leaves you alone with a child taking care of everything. And that is a dynamic nobody wants⁠—I mean, not you or your baby, exactly. Thank you. Thank you. So, very briefly, if he isn't already doing it, I would recommend⁠—and please do, if this feels right, play this for him. On a scale of from 1 to 10 or a scale from 1 to 5⁠—whatever feels easier for his brain⁠—when he gets activated, to name the emotion and then to rate it on a scale. So 10 would be the very worst, the most intense, and 1—it'll never be a 1 because he wouldn't do it when it's a 1. 1 would be very barely.

And I would say in terms of the emotions, I would recommend that he creates a list of emotions and picks⁠—because he gets so overwhelmed that he can't think straight when he's agitated. So it would be angry, resentful, agitated, overwhelmed, scared. Those look like his big emotions. And so he can pick one out of a list, and then on a scale from 1 to 10, what is it? But part of what he needs is to figure out how to not leave his life in order to have emotions.

Guest: Oh. You just⁠—that was the nail on the head.

Jessica: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Guest: Damn.

Jessica: So what he would ideally need is to do some sort of⁠—and this doesn't work for all bodies, but do some sort of breath work to just be like, "Okay. I'm going to breathe into the emotion. I'm going to just breathe into the emotion, not to repress it, but to see if I can just be with it⁠"—see how that goes. But that alone is not going to fucking work, honestly. He needs therapy. He needs help. And there's nothing wrong with seeking help. In fact, there's so much right with seeking help.

The indications in your child's chart tell me that if he does seek help, it will work. I can see that in your child's chart. And if he doesn't seek help, this is not going to get better. I'm not trying to be an asshole about it or anything. It's just that this is scary for him. This is deep for him. This is like recovery from trauma. And we need help with that kind of stuff. I don't know anyone who just magically self-heals. That's not a thing. We need help. And your partner is being very triggered by having a loud child, very triggered. And she's not going to get quieter as she ages. She's going to get louder.

And so we don't want him being the Saturn to her Moon/Mars opposition either. We don't want him giving her some sort of consequence where he's cold⁠—it's basically like what you had⁠—where he's cold and withdraws his love and affection because he's overwhelmed by her. We don't want that. So he needs to figure out how to tolerate overwhelm and how to be able to say to you, to himself, to his child, "Oh. I'm overstimulated. That makes me grumpy," and just let that be that. Poor your partner is really going through it right now. I don't know if he's going through a Pluto transit, but he looks like he's really⁠—

Guest: Pluto conjunct the Sun. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not surprised. I'm so sorry. Yeah. He's got all the markings energetically of someone going through a Pluto transit. And the good news of that is he can really heal, and the bad news of that is he has to really heal. He doesn't have to; I mean the Universe wants him to. And he might not do it, and that's real. Girl, it's very intense.

I'm so glad we did this because I really hope it helps.

Guest: Thank you.

Jessica: And I just feel like we kind of got at a lot of things.

Guest: Oh, that was amazing. I can't thank you enough. That was perfect.

Jessica: Well, I hope things go well with Mom. I'm not as worried about baby, but⁠—and with baby and with partner. I hope all goes well with all, and yeah. I'm just really glad we did this.

Guest: Yeah. Thank you so much. Such a privilege to be able to talk to you.

Jessica: I appreciate it so much. And don't look at your baby's chart.

Guest: Oh my gosh. Everyone listening, just don't do it. It ain't worth it.

Jessica: Don't do it. Exactly.

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Hello, my darlings. Before we get into the horoscope, I'm going to talk about COVID and death for a few minutes. And if this isn't something that you want to hear about for any reason, skip ahead to the horoscope. Just take care of yourself.

So I want to talk about something that I just very much on purpose haven't shared on the podcast, partially because I don't really talk about myself⁠—that's not what this podcast is about⁠—or my personal lived experiences, and also, if I'm being honest, every time I talk in any kind of depth about COVID or masking, I get, actually, a lot of private DMs from people saying, "Thank you for talking about it," but I get a lot of public bad reviews and angry messages as well. So it's kind of like a whole entire thing.

But okay. Let me just say you know I'm a medium, right? I have the ability to talk to dead people. And sometimes, that's something that I am so grateful for and I treasure, and sometimes it's really hard. And different people who are mediums have different lived experience. There are different ways of being a medium. There are different kinds of mediums, just like there are different kinds of singers or athletes or mathematicians. In my experience, the pandemic has been really difficult because there has been this incredible influx of people dying.

According to the World Health Organization, the global deaths from COVID in less than three years⁠—less than three years⁠—is 6.52 million human lives are gone from COVID. And in the United States, where I live, so far, there's been 1.05 million people who have died. According to the World Health Organization, in the last seven days, 2,755 people have died of COVID. According to the University of Oxford, that's about 427 people dying per day in the United States of COVID. And I don't think it's healthy or wise to become numb to those numbers.

Before I say anything more about my experience as a medium, I do just want to take a moment to acknowledge all the lives lost. It's terrifying and sad. It's so sad. And if you're listening and you yourself have lost someone to COVID, I want to acknowledge you. And if you yourself have had COVID and had a scary experience of it, whether you were hospitalized or scared by how sick you were, or if you were close to someone and caring for someone who has had that experience, I want to acknowledge you. I want to acknowledge you. And if you're suffering through long COVID or are close to someone who is suffering through long COVID and COVID is daily impacting your life and your psyche, again, I want to acknowledge you.

It's a lot, and it's sad. And it's really hard when a lot of the world and certainly a lot of this country is like, "Yeah, it's over." A lot of people are like, "It never happened. It's a hoax." It's very heartbreaking. It's a confusing thing to live through. It's a deeply hurtful thing to live through. As a medium, I gotta say my experience of this part of the conversation, death with COVID, is somewhat unique because I have this experience as a medium that I will often be kind of flooded by dead people, which is to say they can kind of come into my body or they'll come into the physical space that I'm in, and they can be quite overwhelming and distressing.

And me being overwhelmed by dead people is not equal to the struggling of those who are dying or those who are bereaved; I want to be really clear. But again, I'm trying to figure out a way to share my experience, and this is my experience of being in contact with people who've died, which is honestly pretty heartbreaking because so many of the people who have died of COVID, especially after the vaccines came out, are people who didn't think COVID existed or didn't think it was that serious. And that is a really difficult transition. I mean, the way that people die of COVID is rough. Again, I don't want to make anything worse, and I don't want to be upsetting to anyone, but it's not like a peaceful way to go.

But a lot of the people who die of COVID are also dealing with the fact that they didn't think it was possible. And so there's a lot of resistance and restlessness associated with their death for them. There are so many people still dying of this disease in this country. And for spiritual people and people of conscience, I think it's really important that we honor those people and we honor the bereaved. It's so easy for this conversation about COVID to be very political. It's very easy for people to get into tit-for-tat and to get very angry in all directions. But masses⁠—masses⁠—of people have died from this and are dying from this.

I think it's very important for people of conscience, and especially for spiritual people, to have some sort of practice around honoring those that we've lost. COVID is a disease. It's not like a war, but the level of politicization, disinformation, and misinformation that has surrounded this disease⁠—it is really something that we have to be honest with ourselves about, that it's cost lives for sure. It's cost lives in 2020, in 2021, and still in 2022. And I know that every time somebody expresses concern about death related to COVID or severe illness related to COVID, some people will say it's fearmongering.

It's not fearmongering, in my view, at all. I don't want you to be frightened. I want you to care. And I want to say that we need to have empathy. We need to have empathy for those who are lost. We need to have empathy for those who are bereaved. We need to have empathy for those who are victims of disinformation or misinformation. The transition from living in a body to whatever happens in death⁠—which from my perspective is not an end. It is not emptiness. It is not a lack of being. It is just the death of this life and of this body. But what happens in that transition is kind of as varied, from my perspective and my experience, as it is what happens in life. Different people have different experiences of life in the body, and it's similar when we pass.

But dying of COVID can mark a very difficult transition. And from my perspective as a medium, the more people that can not call in the dead but honor the dead and support them in their transition, the better⁠—not just the better for the dead, but the better for the bereaved, the better for the souls living on this planet. I'm not talking about this stuff to try to convince anyone of anything other than to be kind and to be empathetic, and if you are a person who is a deeply spiritual person and you have a spiritual practice, to consider including in that practice an acknowledgment of those who have died and are dying, to acknowledge the reality that we are all still living through.

Even though I know I'm not an idealist⁠—I know most people are like⁠—they've thrown away their masks. They're not really honoring it unless they're in an environment where it's like they absolutely have to. I understand that most people are doing that. I myself am not doing that. I don't think we're there yet, personally. Everyone's going to do what they deem to be right. At the end of the day, my friends, being a spiritual person and being a person of conscience is not theoretical. It's not theoretical. What we do⁠—not just what we think, not just what we feel, not just what we double-tap on when we're scrolling, but what we do⁠—is what's really important here.

And so I want to encourage you to make sure that in your spiritual practice and in your daily life, which⁠—for me personally, as a spiritual person, there's not a real distinction between my spiritual practice and how I live. They're interconnected. They're one and the same. And so, in your daily practice, I want to encourage you to stay rooted in this reality even though it's a rough reality and to honor the messiness of what we're all living through and the loss, the unspeakable loss, that COVID has brought upon us, yes, through those who have died and those who are ill, but also through the divisions that it has sown.

I have hesitated in talking about this on the podcast because I don't want to make anyone who has lost a loved one through COVID⁠—I don't want to make you feel worse. I know that it is controversial and that I'm likely to get a lot of hate for it. I just felt like I needed to share because the dead are still coming to me, and most of them are people who died of COVID. And they're coming because they're scared and they want help. And that is not nothing.

Okay. So now to your horoscope. If you skipped my little intro about COVID stuff, welcome back. And if not, thank you for sticking with me. Thanks for sticking with me. Okay. We are going to talk about the astrology happening from September 18th through the 24th of 2022. And this week begins with a transit that you will remember from very recently. It is Mercury Retrograde forming an opposition to Jupiter. Mercury is at almost⁠—it's 4 degrees and 45 minutes, so we're going to call it 5 degrees of Libra opposite Jupiter 5 degrees of Aries.

Now, I talked about this transit in Episode 274, so very recently; this is 277. And so you may remember that Mercury opposite Jupiter can be really fun. It can be really social. It can be a time when you open your mind and learn something new, where you perceive beyond limitations. Yay. But of course, Mercury is Retrograde, so it turns a lot of that Mercurial social dynamic/curiosity inwards, or at least it's meant to.

This transit can coincide with a spike or rise of disinformation or misinformation. And so, if we see major news, if you learn some sort of gossip or information, don't jump to conclusions, because the chances that there's been a misunderstanding or mischaracterization, whether it be on purpose or by accident, is very high. This transit just does that, but on top of it, Mercury is Retrograde. This transit is a time for looking within. This is the second out of three times we're going through this, through the Mercury Retrograde cycle, and this is the only time it's happening during the Retrograde.

So it's especially wise to make use of this transit by introspecting. We know the rule of re's apply to Mercury Retrograde. We're reflecting. We're reassessing. We're recalibrating. And this transit wants us to do this around spiritual matters⁠—Jupiter⁠—around religious matters⁠—again, Jupiter⁠—around our big-picture vision or plans⁠—again, Jupiter. So this is a really important time to be doing any and all of that. If things are moving fast in your life and you're like, "Wait. What? Wait. What?" this is a great transit to reconnect to what your big-picture vision or goals are and how in the minutia, in the day-to-day piece-by-piece bits, it's working out, and in particular around your relationships because you want to remember this is happening in the Libra/Aries polarity, and that is a very relational polarity.

So this may be playing out around relationships, around how you feel in your relationships, whether or not you can say what needs to be said, whether or not you feel heard, whether or not your relationships are working, really functionally working. Mercury specifically is a platonic energy. It is like a friendship vibe. But that doesn't mean that this is exclusive to friendships. This can impact your love life. But the level that it would impact your love life on is the platonic side, the friendship part of your love relationship⁠—whether or not somebody texts you back in a way that feels⁠—I don't know⁠—like they're paying attention or that they care about you. That's a big deal in a love relationship, but that's the Mercurial function of a love relationship, a.k.a. it's the friendship side.

So this is a really important time to think about friendships, how you're showing up as a friend, how all people in your life are showing up as friends to you or as colleagues or teammates to you, because Mercury governs all that shit. You may find yourself kind of, again, jumping to conclusions or making assumptions. And that, to a certain extent, can't be helped because⁠—Jupiter. But luckily, there's something really positive here, which is that Jupiter is resilient. Jupiter is optimistic. Jupiter is open. And so it is easier under this influence to assume the best in people and still do your investigations than it would be under a different kind of transit.

This transit is really helpful for seeing, "Oh shit. I have not been a good friend. I am not showing up for so-and-so in a way that is really reflecting how I feel about them. I'm going to have to just let them know I love them." Jupiter can help us get out of our own way with our ego and make things better, create repair. Jupiter is good at that, and doing it without a heaviness that Saturn or Pluto could bring. Jupiter does it in a lighter way. It just doesn't feel so heavy. So make use of that. If you owe someone an apology, if you want to just smooth things over, this is a great transit for you, my friend, a great transit for you.

And this is strengthened by the fact that on the same date, on the 18th, we have a Sun trine to Pluto. And there is no downside of this transit, in particular in concert with the Mercury opposition to Jupiter. The Sun is in Virgo at 26 degrees and is trine to Pluto in Capricorn at 26 degrees, and this is a very grounding trine. Sun trine Pluto is strengthening. It empowers us. It makes us feel more resilient. And having it happen in an earth sign is just further grounding, which is really helpful during a Mercury Retrograde opposition to Jupiter because we can get kind of lost in the sauce, as it were. We can get kind of caught up in our thoughts and our theories and try to separate ourselves from shared reality by focusing on our narratives, our stories. Jupiter and Mercury can both do that.

But the Sun trine to Pluto grounds us into shared reality, and it does so in a way that doesn't diminish our independence or autonomy or the authenticity of who we are. This transit, the Sun trine to Pluto, is fortifying, and it is a lovely transit for relationships as well as our relationship to projects or goals and ourselves. Because of Pluto's involvement, this transit can kick off really deep or profound experiences. And those deep or profound experiences could be just having a slight shift in perspective, and you're fully embodied and there for it. It doesn't have to be fireworks or anything like that. It can be something really subtle and deep, or it can be fireworky and like some sort of big transformation.

Sun trine to Pluto absolutely can mark progress and, in particular because of Pluto's involvement, with transformations, with healing, and the cultivation of repair, which is fucking fabulous, especially if there's something you're trying to repair, something that needs healing, whether it's your body, your psyche, your relationships. Pluto has so much to do with letting go. It's releasing. And the Sun trine to Pluto can help us to let go of what is no longer serving us, of what is in our way, our attachments, and it can support us in letting go in a way that, again, doesn't diminish or undermine our sense of self but instead kind of alters it or strengthens it. This is, again, a fucking great transit.

So don't be scared to get deep this Sun trine to Pluto. And we'll be feeling this transit on the 17th, 18th, and 19th, but it's exact on the 18th. And of course, I should just take a quick moment to say all of these things I'm naming for you I'm naming in Pacific Time because I am in Pacific Time. And if you're somebody who's like, "Wait. But I live in x location. Where is it at?" make sure you're subscribed to my web-based app, Astrology For Days, over at astrologyfordays.com. All the transits are tracked there, and you can adjust it for your location in the world.

Okay. So back to this transit. The last thing I want to say about it is this. Because Mercury is Retrograde and opposite to Jupiter, if you're stepping into any kind of leadership role, if you're trying to launch a business or you're embarking upon some sort of big international trip or anything like that, we need to be a little bit mindful because Mercury opposite Jupiter can inspire us to take leaps without checking to make sure it's safe yet or that we're ready. Again, it's related to misinformation and disinformation and gossip.

So there's a way that it's a little sticky and tricky in regards to launching a business or a project or stepping into a leadership role. But the Sun trine to Pluto is very good for all of those things. It is fortifying. It is grounding. And the way to make use of the Sun trine to Pluto is to heed that Mercury is Retrograde. And what that means in functional terms is that whatever you're doing, especially if you're trying to go big, is to make sure you're taking the time to follow the rule of re's, to reflect⁠—reflect. Sit with your thoughts. Maybe "dear diary" a damn thing. Maybe schedule an appointment with a shrink, somebody you can just talk to and not have to worry about anything. Just flush out your thoughts.

You want to follow the rule of re's, so you're reflecting. You are willing to reassess to see, "Oh, that was a miscalculation," or, "Maybe that's not how I really want to process this," etc., etc. So you want to follow that rule of re's. You're reflecting.  You're reassessing. You may need to recalibrate. Be open to it. Don't be so identified with whatever role you want to take in the world or whatever thing you're trying to do that you get in your own way. You just want to follow the rule of re's, and this is a wonderful dance of transits, I will say.

And that, my friends, brings us to the 19th. And on the 19th, we have another lovely fucking transit, which is a Venus trine to Uranus. Venus is in Virgo, and Uranus is in Taurus. So, again, it's nice and earthy, which is really great and grounding for this Mercury Retrograde time that we're in, which is very influenced by the Mercury/Jupiter opposition, which is fun and exciting but also kind of the opposite of grounding. This Venus trine to Uranus is excellent for opening up socially, romantically, creatively. This is a great transit to try something new, and this might be like⁠—I don't know⁠—latch-hooking a rug, being a nerd who sprouts things. It might mean getting out of your shell and flirting with somebody. It might mean getting grounded about your finances and trying a new system for organizing what you've got or what you're doing with what you've got, or how you can earn more money or whatever.

Venus likes security and stability and creativity and connection, and Uranus likes something new, likes something exciting. And so this is a great time for experimentation, for innovation, for playfulness. And in regards to your material life, your finances, your home, your relationship to clothes or the way you look⁠—all of these things will benefit from a refresh. Yeah, I used another "re" word because, again, Mercury Retrograde. But they'll all benefit from a little bit of a refresh. So, again, it's about being open and experimenting and just trying shit out.

In regards to your love life, this is a really great time for just trying something new, exploring. And because of the Sun trine to Pluto that is overlapping with this transit, it may require you to be brief. It may require you to step outside of your comfort zone, and if it does, do it. I'm not encouraging you to do anything too bonkers, although sometimes bonkers is best. But I am saying that this transit wants us to challenge ourselves. It wants us to try something new, to explore beauty and love and creativity and even our relationship to our values, which is tied into money⁠—to do so because the trine between Venus and Uranus means that we can make progress that at other times, like when we're going through a square or an opposition to these two planets, would be painful and would be stressful. There's no pain and no stress with this transit. It's just fucking lovely.

And at the very damn at least, look in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself. Or if that doesn't feel honest, tell yourself you like yourself. Or if that doesn't feel honest, tell yourself, "Hey, little meat suit. I'm going to get to know you. I want to get to know the things I like about you." Just really make eye contact with yourself and find a way to love on yourself. That is an excellent use of these transits, of the Venus trine to Uranus in particular, but bolstered by Sun trine Pluto and Mercury opposite Jupiter. Fall in love with yourself a little bit. And if you can't do that, fall in like. And if you can't do that, flirt.

And that brings us to the 22nd. And on the 22nd, we've got two transits to name. First of all, the Sun moves into Libra. It's Libra season, and the Libras rejoice. Libra season is a very relational time, but the thing that I think more than anything is you want to find where in your birth chart the zodiac sign of Libra falls, so what house or houses it falls in, and to know that the Sun is lighting those parts of your chart up. And this is where you want to be more relational. You want to bring more balance. You want to consider the value of beauty, and you can fortify this part of your chart. Wherever the Sun is transiting through your chart, you can fortify your chart. And that is a really great way of messing with the solar seasons, in my view.

But that's not the only thing that's happening on this date. The other thing that's happening is that we have a Sun conjunction to Mercury Retrograde. So the Sun is at 0 degrees and 14 minutes of Libra, and Mercury Retrograde is at the exact same degree at 11:50 p.m. on the 22nd. So, depending on where you are in the world, it might show up on the 23rd; it might be on the 22nd. But the Sun conjunction to Mercury is a really interesting transit. It's a time when things can be kind of exciting. So it's a very different energy than the Mercury opposition to Jupiter, but what I'm going to say, in some ways, kind of is an overlap. It kind of sounds similar because the Sun is our identity and our will, and Mercury is our thoughts and our ideas, our attitudes. It's also our friendships and our connections day to day.

When the Sun and Mercury meet, there's kind of a connection between all of these things. So, on the one hand, it can be really exciting because it can bring you lots of fun social experiences where you meet up with people virtually or in the 3D, and it's exciting. It sparks something. It connects you to your neighborhood or your daily life in a way that is really life-affirming and fun. This is a great transit for short-term travel if you ignore that Mercury is Retrograde, which we shouldn't. But typically, it's great for nearby travel, so not necessarily leaving the state or certainly not going overseas.

But Mercury is Retrograde, so it messes things up a little bit. It makes things a little more likely to go sideways on you, but whatever. Sometimes it's really exciting. Sometimes adventures happen when things don't go as planned. So it's not inherently bad. It's just inherently a little messy. If you are traveling or engaging in some sort of adventure, be flexible. Be adaptable. Know that things may go sideways, and that's just fucking life, and roll with it because you may find something really fun and even better than you were planning. I mean, you may not. It may just be that your luggage is lost and it's annoying, but maybe that's an excuse to buy new clothes. I don't know. I'm just saying be open.

The Sun conjunction to Mercury Retrograde⁠—it can kind of coincide with you feeling over-identified with your own beliefs and attitudes so that when somebody disagrees with you or sees things differently, you take it as a personal attack. So that's something to be on the lookout for, to make sure that that's not happening with you. And if you see it happening to someone else, you can be like, "Aha. Mercury and the Sun have met, and I am seeing it in this situation." It's a great way to track astrology in motion. But overall, it's just a nice time for connecting. It's just a really nice transit in general for doing Mercurial stuff in a way that is life-affirming⁠—the Sun. And Mercurial stuff, again, is connecting, thinking, processing, socializing, shopping, making plans, that kind of stuff.

Because, of course, Mercury is Retrograde, this transit may coincide with you having a reflection on where you need to be more adaptable, more flexible, maybe where you need to be willing to change your mind. Because this is all happening in Libra, it's likely to play out in your relationships or, again, wherever Libra is in your birth chart. This particular transit favors the Mercury Retrograde introspection but doesn't necessarily promote it. Because it is such a social and dynamic transit⁠—the Sun is lighting up Mercury⁠—it can be easy to lose track of that introspection that I've been talking about throughout this horoscope. So you might want to just follow the energy. But when you get home and the fun has been had, take a moment to follow the rule of re's because this Retrograde is happening for a reason, and the more that you actively engage with that reason the better⁠—the better for you, the better for all.

And then, my friends, the next day, on the 23rd at 5:04 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury ingresses into Virgo. So now Mercury has retrograded back into Virgo. And this is an important thing to pay attention to because it will shift the tenor and themes of this Mercury Retrograde from the air sign Libra into the earth sign Virgo. So we're going to kind of get into that a little bit more in next week's horoscope, but it's something to pay attention to in your birth chart and in your experience. Things may get a little more detaily, a little more granular, and that's just how that goes.

And that brings us, my friends, to the final transit of the week. And of course, this one's the fucking doozy, right? Of course, this is the heavy one. And this is a Venus opposition to Neptune, and it's happening at 23 degrees and 49 minutes. Okay. So Venus opposite Neptune⁠—we're going to feel this several days leading up and several days after it happens. It is exact on the 24th. And this transit is difficult. It's difficult; I'm not going to lie. This is the transit where if you have not played the transits that have occurred earlier in the week in a grounded and considerate way⁠—and when I say considerate, I mean considerate of your circumstances, considerate of your energy, considerate of your needs, and those same things of the people around you, the energy, needs, and circumstances of the people around you and how your approach and actions impact others. It's a lot to pay attention to, but if you haven't been playing your cards right, this Venus opposition to Neptune may hand you your sweet little hiney. And that's not always fun.

This transit can kick up problems with reality in relationship to your relationships, body image stuff, and finances. In general, it's your values⁠—Venus⁠—and Neptune⁠—your ideals⁠—squaring off with each other. It's very uncomfortable because we want our values and our ideals to kind of be on the same page so that we're living in a way that feels good to us, that reflects who we are. However, when our values and our ideals are in opposition to each other, it can inspire us to disassociate, to be avoidant, or to act out in ways that makes things more messy and complicated and makes everyone feel bad⁠—makes you feel bad, makes the people you're dealing with feel bad.

This is a terrible time for major purchases⁠—terrible. Terrible. Mercury is Retrograde, so we're already not making major purchases, but fuck. I mean, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta sign a lease. You gotta buy a house. You gotta get a car. You need a new computer. Shit happens. Just pay extra for the insurance or do whatever you can to protect yourself if you have to buy something around this date. This is not a great time for spending a lot of money because, often, what happens when we endeavor to spend a lot of money or invest our money during a Venus/Neptune transit⁠—in particular the opposition, square, or conjunction⁠—is that there are protracted consequences that we do not like. Things are not as they seem. We are not happy with what we get, and it feels counter to our goals in the end. So, if you can put it off, I recommend putting it off. This is also just not a great time for planning around your finances. So, if you need to do that kind of thing, do it at the start of the week, not the end of the week.

Now to relationships. Venus opposite Neptune can kind of strain your relationship to the way you look, your relationship to yourself. And so, if you're somebody who struggles with that in general, this is not a great time to spend a lot of time in the mirror. This is not a great time to overthink things. It's a good time to nurture and fortify yourself. Here's the thing. Neptune can get us really idealistic in a way that is puritanical, which is a very dangerous place to go for a variety of reasons.

The worst thing you can do is literally starve yourself, decide to do a fast, on a Neptune transit. Instead, what we're meant to do is fortify and nurture the system, fortify and nurture the body, fortify and nurture your values. That's what we're meant to do under these transits, but what we tend to do is disassociate, starve ourselves, try to basically not be here. And that creates anxiety and disorientation and demoralization. So not a good approach. And if you're feeling those feelings, fucking Neptune, man. What am I going to tell you? It's what happens often during these transits. So let me say⁠—heed this advice⁠—fortify your relationship to yourself, understanding that your body is an extension of you. It's a part of you. It's not all of you, but it's an important part of you, and it needs your care and your friendship.

Now, in regard to interpersonal relationships, not just the relationship you have with yourself, this transit can kick off major boundary issues, which is no fun, but here we are. This is not a good time to abandon yourself and your needs around boundaries in order to keep the peace. It's a very tempting time to do it, but it's not a great time, because that may set forces in motion where the person or people that you're dealing with perceive this niceness as caving or weakness, and then you have an ongoing boundary problem with someone. And this is in particular going to be important for you if you have planets at around 24 degrees in your chart that get hit by Pisces or Virgo. So this is in particular in a mutable sign, so that's Gemini, Sagittarius, Pisces, or Virgo. Then you really want to pay attention to this transit.

The key here is to have healthy boundaries and limits, and that doesn't mean you don't make compromises and you don't have to concede some things. It's about having agency within that to recognize, "I'm not conceding my needs; I'm making a compromise consciously." And by making that shift in your internal dialogue, what happens is you're more empowered and you have more of your own energy. This transit can lead to anxiety, gullibility⁠—again, which is not great news with this Mercury/Jupiter opposition theme we're dealing with. It can lead to putting people or situations on a pedestal or way beneath you, so thinking you're much better than others or you're much worse than others, that there's one perfect way of doing things and everything else is garbage. So you want to really watch out for that.

If someone is offering you something that seems too good to be true, it is. Trust yourself. It is too good to be true. This is a time where it is valuable to be empathetic and generous and kind, and that is not the same thing as being a martyr or a victim or without critical discernment. Venus is in Virgo. We want to bring the best parts of Venus in Virgo⁠—discernment, consideration, the ability to be grounded and metered in your approach to this transit. And that might mean slowing things down so you have time to check back in with your body, check back in with yourself. This transit can bring up anxiety in your relationships, so you are struggling with, "What does this person think about me? What do they feel about me?"

Because of the way this transit works, it's a terrible time to try to have a conversation and process with people. You're not in the right frame of mind; they're not in the right frame of mind. It's not likely to go well. Instead, again, you want to fortify yourself. Strengthen yourself. And this can happen through your spiritual practice. This can happen through consuming inspiring, grounding content. But we do need to ground and have boundaries. Those are the two big themes here in order to make the most of this transit. And that's hard, but it's a really valuable way to do things.

Now, Venus and Neptune are both related to the arts. So Venus is creativity in general, and Neptune is the high arts. And so this might be a great time to tap into music or dance or whatever else really resonates for you as a way to get in touch with yourself, to gain greater perspective, to release anxiety and attachment energies⁠—whatever it is. Having a transformational spiritual experience through art is really powerful and a good way of using this transit. If you have a spiritual practice that is facilitated by drugs, this is a great time to call in the energy of whatever substance you typically imbibe and see if you can activate it in your system without actually imbibing the substance. Neptune is really good for helping us do that and reminding us that that's kind of the whole point. Try to work with energy under this transit, but again, do so with discernment and with boundaries.

Finally, I'll say this transit may intensify your intuition but not necessarily intensify your ability to discern what your intuition is telling you. So you may enter a room and become flooded by certain feelings and not necessarily know what to make of them or where they're coming from or what to do with them⁠—super annoying. But this is part of what tends to happen under these sorts of transits. And so you may want to make note of what you're perceiving or intuiting and then come back to it when you feel more grounded.

You may want to simply practice having stronger energetic boundaries, and I've dropped podcast episodes about energy boundaries and tons of content about it on my Patreon. So, whether you're already a patron or you want to join me there or you just want to go to my website and use that little search bar and put "psychic hygiene" or "boundaries," you can find tons of content that I've put out there about that stuff. This is a good, smart approach to this transit. This is a good practice to get engaged in this week in preparation for the New Moon on the 25th, which of course I will talk about on the 25th.

And that, my friends, is your horoscope, and it is just about the end of Episode 277 of Ghost of a Podcast. We're living through exceptional times. And wherever you're at, whether you're really struggling or you're thriving or everything in between, I just want to say be gentle with yourself. This is a fucking bonkers, bananas time. Or if you're achieving things, if you're making it, if you're making any amount of progress, be really proud of yourself. There's a lot happening in this world right now, and it is quite overwhelming. The morphic field that we are all living with is a lot. Whether you're very sensitive to these things or not, it's still a lot.

Now, I'm going to run through the transits, as I like to do. So get your little pen and paper ready if you're trying to take notes. On the 18th of September, we have a Mercury Retrograde opposition to Jupiter and a Sun trine to Pluto. On the 19th, we have a Venus trine to Uranus. On the 22nd, it's Libra season, bitches. Let's get into Libra season. Plus the Sun is conjunct to Mercury Retrograde. On the 23rd, Mercury retrogrades right back into Virgo. And on the 24th, Venus opposes Neptune⁠—those little scoundrels. That's your damn horoscope, my loves. And there will be another one next week.

Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts so you never miss an episode. And be kind to yourself and others. I'll talk to you later. Buh-bye.