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

Jessica:            Welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to give you a reading. You just tell me what you want a reading about.

Shawn:            Well, I'm just going to go ahead and read the question.

Jessica:            Great.

Shawn:            "I have a love/hate relationship with the word 'enlightenment.' I got clean and sober fairly young but still felt dissatisfied with my inner life. I've done lots of counseling and group work but have yet to find fulfillment in my relationships, jobs, and hobbies, although I've been given ample opportunities. I've pursued spiritual teachers who advocate for any person's ability to reach enlightenment or be able to see the truth without following any circumscribed methods or beliefs, like Adyashanti and Gangaji.

"I have even had a couple of experiences where my ego seems to drop way back and have felt a huge relief and acceptance with life. I also had a traumatic response at a retreat once. What are your opinions about meditation for the purpose of seeing the truth? How does one find satisfaction with life? It seems meaningless, and yet I keep operating like a Stepford wife on my conditioning and wondering if there is anything I could be doing to realize a truer version of reality and self."

Jessica:            I love your question. Okay. Before we even get into it, you were born March 12th, 1964, 3:35 a.m. in Missoula, Montana.

Shawn:            Yes.

Jessica:            I always wanted to go there. And you just read the question, so I just want to check in and be like, okay, does that still feel like the question?

Shawn:            Definitely, I would like to know if there's anything in my chart that is helping me towards a goal of enlightenment. And is that why things haven't really panned out in other areas of my life?

Jessica:            So, to your question, I have a question, per usual. What is enlightenment, and why do you want it? So I guess that's two questions.

Shawn:            Well, because I pursued it maybe really heavily for four years and did have some experiences. They were pretty much my only experiences with altered states, and I was totally sober. And when I had the most powerful experience, it was just like this huge weight came off my shoulders, and it's as though my ego moved back to the back of the room. And I was alive, and I felt like I was a kid again, and life was just moving through me and I had so much compassion for myself. And I just want that.

Jessica:            And is that what you are identifying as enlightenment?

Shawn:            Yeah. It seems as though you can get used to that feeling⁠—mine was new to me⁠—but that you can live with a truer sense of yourself that doesn't involve all the conditioning or the heavy reliance on the mind or the ego.

Jessica:            My understanding of what you've described is that most people who are not monks or people who are living completely spiritual lives don't experience that outside of retreats and specific things that you do where you literally shut out the world and you only focus on the spirit. I am personally unaware of anyone who lives like that 24/7 and also pays bills and has a job and has friends and family and a cat or whatever. I don't know. Do you know people who live in that particular state that you've described that are not full-time, 100 percent of the time, living on an ashram or something like that?

Shawn:            Well, the teacher that I respect the most is actually from the Bay Area, and his name is Adyashanti. And I actually think he does live in that state. And he's rare.

Jessica:            So he lives in that state, and he also runs a business, pays his rent or his mortgage⁠—he does all those things, and he's in that state?

Shawn:            Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. That's awesome. That's awesome. So do you know many people other than that man?

Shawn:            No. It's rare, and I know I'm setting my sights high.

Jessica:            You are.

Shawn:            But I do listen to a podcast that talks about ordinary people reaching something along that line, not maybe perfection or anything like that, but more living in that. And he's done 600 interviews. So I think there are. I think it's possible. I want to believe it's possible.

Jessica:            So this is where⁠—and I hate to have Capricorn-on-Pisces violence here, because you've got a stellium in Pisces. You have so much⁠—I don't know if I've very often seen so much Pisces in a birth chart, Sun, Mercury, Mars, Chiron, Moon all in Pisces. So you called a real realist here, right? I'm Sun/Moon Rising Capricorn. So I'll give you that preface.

                        I am not trying to suggest that it is not possible, but there's a couple things that come up for me within your question, one around enlightenment in general. The idea of enlightenment is held differently in different spiritual and religious and cultural groups. It sounds like you vibe with Eastern spirituality. I am not educated in whatever it is that⁠—you referenced a few things that I'm not educated about at all. But I will say that the concept of enlightenment is very purist. It is very puritanical. It is achieving a thing, and once you've achieved that thing, you feel bliss. You feel wonderful. And then, within that, there is freedom.

                        And that is a very Piscean concept, this idea of evading all of the weight of the material condition of being a human and getting to be in alignment with all that is ideal, all that your spirit is but is hard to achieve in the material form of being a human. Does that sound right or wrong or somewhere in between?

Shawn:            Yeah. I definitely have a tendency to want to escape, for sure.

Jessica:            Yeah, and that kind of brings me to the other thing that comes up, which is you mentioned that you got sober. Part of what I wonder may be happening is that whatever substances you use, you're like, "Okay, well, that's fucking up my life. I'm going to pass on that, thank you very much." But now you've looked for this other thing which you described, this moment of enlightenment, like a lot of people would describe a drug trip. It was like it took you out of this world. It felt really good. You weren't concerned with all the things that weigh you down in day-to-day life. Does that make sense?

Shawn:            Yeah. It did feel like that, and the teacher even commented on it.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Your capacity, because of how much Pisces you have in your birth chart⁠—you don't just have⁠—so much Pisces. Oh my God, so much Pisces. You don't just have so much Pisces; you also have Neptune in your birth chart forming a beautiful trine to Chiron, Mars, Mercury, and the Sun. So the ruling planet of Pisces is just blowing kisses and blowing bubbles to all of your Pisces planets. So the desire that you have to experience transcendence is profound. It is profound. And I don't want to take that from you, and I don't want to burst any bubbles and be like, "It's not possible."

                        But I do want to say goddamn this meat suit. You know? Sorry, but goddamn this meat suit. It's not just about the body. It's about the time we find ourselves in. We're both in the U.S. We're living in this very capitalistic, industrialized society. There are so many things that are so burdensome around being in a body in this world and managing it. And if the standard that you're setting for yourself is enlightenment in the way you described it, not having access to neutrality and peace⁠—that's not what you're describing as enlightenment.

                        What you're describing as enlightenment is basically like being on a gorgeous high and being kind of like a starburst. You've set such a high⁠—I wouldn't even say goal, but such a high bar for what counts as an enlightened, spiritually aligned, happy life that it sets you up for quite a crash, which is, again, a Piscean specialty of just being splattered by the fucking realities of life. Yeah.

                        Within your question, you named you've had opportunities to find happiness with work, and you named a couple other things. That's not where it's come from. And I'm not shocked, because for you, your ideals are really important to you. And having a job that matches your ideals would be really, really, really hard because the mundane stuff really takes you out of these feelings that you're calling enlightenment and that I may be calling a bit of a high. But I don't think you're wrong that it's enlightenment, but I think there's different embodiments of enlightenment.

                        So I want to ask you a question, and it's going to seem like I'm taking a turn, but I'm not. Have you ever been in love?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And are you currently partnered?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Congratulations⁠—maybe. Hopefully. Ish. Ish.

Shawn:            Sort of. Sort of.

Jessica:            Okay. Take it back. So many people think being in love is like that Disney princess moment where you kiss and you kick up your foot and it's, again, sparkle, sparkle, starburst, starburst. Right?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But the reality of being in love over the course of time is not about kicking up your foot after the perfect kiss. It's about loving someone when they don't do the dishes and when they got a terrible haircut and it's bugging you or whatever. Love is actually⁠—there's the magical parts of love, but then, in order to sustain love, it's actually this really mundane, day-to-day thing. And is that part hard for you, too, with love?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. These are very Piscean problems that you're having. What I want to kind of ground into about this is that from my perspective, love or enlightenment⁠—we can talk about both these topics⁠—yes, it is those magic moments, but being able to sustain those feelings means spending a good amount of time in peace, ease, flexibility, neutrality, which is also all very Piscean stuff. And that's where you get fucked up.

                        You got a Pisces/Uranus conjunction in Virgo, like many people born in the '60s. This conjunction, it gives you this profound, intense drive for spiritual expansion, evolution, transformation. Your generation is such a unique one in that way because it's in Virgo, which is very analytic, and it's looking for perfection, and it's trying to figure it out, trying to try on the right thing that will make you feel the right way. But it's explosive, and it's unpredictable because it's fucking Pluto and Uranus.

                        And Pluto sits opposite your Chiron and your Mars, and that gives you a very complicated relationship to ambition, anger, sexuality⁠—classic Mars stuff. So, when you're dealing with people who annoy you, it's so uncomfortable for you. You know me. I get annoyed; bada-bing, bada-boom. Eh. I'm annoyed. I keep on moving. But for you, it's like a pierce to your heart. Am I seeing that correctly?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm sorry.

Shawn:            Yeah. I think that's why I have a hard time sustaining friendships and relationships.

Jessica:            You're very comfortable with things being at this high level, that very Neptunian/Piscean level, where it's not messy. But the second it gets messy, the second you get angry or annoyed or they get angry or annoyed, it feels to you like a colossal failure. It goes straight into your flight-or-fight mechanism⁠—Pluto⁠—and then Uranus is like, "Okay. Cool. I'll burn it to the ground. I'll burn it to the ground because if it's not going to work, I'm trapped. And if I'm going to be trapped, I'm out."

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's tough. It's a very difficult conjunction. Here's the other thing that really fucks your shit up over here. You have a Moon/Saturn conjunction. Saturn is in Aquarius, and you're having your second Saturn Return right now. You have Saturn in Aquarius conjunct your Moon in Pisces at almost one degree, and it is an out-of-sign conjunction, which simply means we consider the influences of both sides. It's not a weaker conjunction.

                        Now, this Moon/Saturn conjunction⁠—its description is kind of the opposite of everything we've been talking about. It's, "I want people to prove their love through acts of service in the material world. I will have to prove myself by showing up, by asking questions, by doing things." It's in total contrast to everything else we've been talking about because everything else is, if it happens on the spiritual, we can have a soul connection, and that just works. But that Saturn is like, "Fuck soul connections. I want proof. Give me proof. If I don't have proof, then how am I supposed to do anything?"

                        And so that Pisces Moon can wilt under the boot of Saturn. All of this to say it makes sense that you would seek a perfect answer, a perfect system, to find you in the perfect seat where you do not have to be pressed upon by all of the bullshit of life. Part of the reason why I chose your question is because you're very much a grown-up. You're having your second Saturn Return. And I think that you have lived enough life to know what doesn't work, what has and hasn't worked for you. To that end, what I really see in your birth chart is that there is a foundational struggle with being here, period.

Shawn:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And being here in a body. So it's being here, period. It's being here in a meat suit. That lack of foundational acceptance of the assignment⁠—for whatever reason, our ridiculous souls⁠—we're like, "I know. I'll come into this human form, and I'll live this tortured x amount of years' existence, and I'll do what needs to be done, I guess." So here we are. This is the assignment. And there is a meaningful part of you that knows this. You get this. But it's too hard to accept because of a lot of reasons, but the core amongst it is the purist in you wants to feel⁠—it's not exactly about feeling good all the time. It's about feeling interconnected.

Shawn:            Yeah. Belonging.

Jessica:            Belonging. Yeah. The zodiac sign of Pisces is all about this core spiritual concept that there is no separation between any of us, that we all belong to each other, that we are all cousins and that our wellness is intertwined, which is a concept I deeply, deeply believe in. And also, the material condition of being a human means that my hand⁠—wiggling my five fingers at you⁠—is completely separate from yours, and it's separate from the wall of the room that I'm in. And that is a reality that exists at the same time as the spiritual reality that all of this is an illusion, our separation is illusion, and that we are interconnected.

                        What I want to suggest is that in your drive to find happiness and peace through enlightenment, it's like you're looking up when you walk down the street and you're not seeing what's around you. So you're missing out on being present with what is, because you're looking for what could be. And from my very admittedly Capricorn perspective, the way to achieve enlightenment with what could be is by being present with what is. It's not by seeking what's above. It's about accessing what's within.

                        So, all of this said, what comes up for you?

Shawn:            Well, I guess what's up for me is that I have been so uncomfortable in my own skin and the here and now until, actually, I would say, recently. I'm so glad this is my second Saturn Return because my first one was just⁠—I was hospitalized. I really struggled. So I guess⁠—I don't know exactly how to articulate it, but that I feel really brave and strong, and I'm going to sit with my feelings, and I do tons of the things that you suggest, and I fought the book with Pluto problems and [indiscernible 00:17:53] remedies. And I really try, and I'm just going, "Where's the progress? What am I doing this for?"

                        I mean, I'm an emergency room social worker, so I'm in the thick with really suffering people, and it doesn't feel good. And I guess I wonder, isn't my path supposed to feel better than this? Is it supposed to suck this much?

Jessica:            Okay. So there's a lot of great questions in that. And of course, you've asked the worst possible person, "Is life supposed to feel good?" to a triple Capricorn. To me, life is misery. It's a job that must be done. But also, I can do better than that. But also, there is an element of the human condition that is suffering. I do believe that. Some people might say that that's not right, but riddle me this: how do you explain to me that Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn are in everyone's birth chart? Let's throw in Mars, even. How can we expect that life isn't suffering if we have the planets that articulate the unique ways in which we suffer in our birth chart?

                        So part of life is suffering. Somebody will say, "It's suffering, so fuck it. It's suffering, so what's the fucking point? Why bother?" What I say is, if it's suffering, how can we ease it? Some of that is through our choice, and some of that is through our attitudes. And it's very difficult. The most important thing that I want to say first and foremost, though, is that you can do everything perfectly, all the essences, all the books, all the classes. You can meditate. You can see the blue light⁠—whatever⁠—and still suffer.

The real question is, how do you hold the suffering? Do you attach to the suffering, so cling to the suffering? Do you attach a narrative to the suffering that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that is like, "I am suffering because something is inherently wrong with me or wrong with life," instead of, "I am suffering. How will I care for myself through this suffering?" And I just made that sound kind of nice, but it's a pain in the ass. Life is a pain in the ass. And you and I have very different jobs, but we both have jobs that prove to us every single day how much suffering there is and how very few, if any, of us get out of this life without suffering. Right?

And so one thing I want to just check in with is, do you want to stay in your job? Because it sounds like it is⁠—I mean, listen. First of all, I'm not surprised that's what you do because, again, so much Pisces. Of course, you're going to want to put yourself in a⁠ position where you can be of service and you can do work that so many people wouldn't want to do. But have you considered shifting within your industry?

Shawn:            Yes, and I am finally doing that. It took a really long time to feel like I was functional enough in my own life to be able to be a therapist to other people, and so now I'm trying to make a transition to that.

Jessica:            Great. Okay. Good. Do you have a sense of how long that'll take, how many years?

Shawn:            I have one more class that I have to take⁠ in order to qualify for licensure. And then I gotta do three years of therapy, giving people therapy, with a supervisor before I can go into private practice.

Jessica:            Great. Great. And you probably already have connections since you work in a hospital. You can probably transition within a hospital if you want to, eh?

Shawn:            That's the plan right now. Yeah.

Jessica:            I love that. Okay. Good. So let me tell you a couple things about that. The first one is the joys of the second Saturn Return. I mean, there are so many perils, obviously. We're not going to be Pollyannas here. But the joy of the second Saturn Return is you get to figure out, "Oh. Wait, wait, wait. This is who I am," and then do something about it.

So I want to just say congratulations. You are in your second Saturn Return. You're in it as we speak, and making this kind of massive life pivot is what you're meant to do. Is it meant to feel easy? No. Nobody feels good during their Saturn Return. Even the most enlightened people do not feel good during their Saturn Return. Maybe they go through it gracefully, spiritually speaking, but don't beat yourself up for that.

Now, the other thing I want to say is that next month, February of 2023, Neptune is going to be completely done with your stellium in Pisces. I personally am not a fan of Neptune conjunctions. Neptune transits can be very difficult. And you have had Neptune sitting on top of your Pisces planets for years. And so, especially the last few years during the pandemic, it has been awful.

And I would imagine that it's been stressful to your mental health, if not also your physical health, because of so many things, but including having this much Pisces in your chart means that you're like a loofah sponge. Other people walk through the world, and they're like, "Tra-la-la-la," and they're like, "Oh. Suffering of others. Yeah. Life is hard." And you are soaking it up, and you're just such a good sponge that you can suck up more than most people⁠—so much. I'm so sorry.

What Neptune conjunction to Mercury and the Sun, which is what you're just coming out of, has done is it's making more of a sponge during a time when human suffering globally is just⁠—I mean, you know what's been going on with the pandemic. And so the fact that you've been able to pull your shit together and find a new path during this period is very impressive.

You frame things like, "I haven't been able to figure this out. I've tried, and I haven't been able to figure this out." That's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that you have figured it out, and it sucks to do it. But you're actually doing it. Am I right about that, or am I misunderstanding?

Shawn:            No. I'm a pro at suffering, so the pandemic wasn't that big of a deal to me.

Jessica:            Damn.

Shawn:            I live alone anyway. I don't have a huge bunch of people that I⁠—I was super happy to have the close-knit people I had around me. But it didn't affect me that much. I mean, I saw what it was doing to other people, and that really bothered me. But I've been doing that in an emergency room for years before that, so…

Jessica:            A long time. How was your mental/emotional/spiritual health in this period?

Shawn:            Well, it was bad. It was bad probably nine months ago. I think it started being quite bad. And I actually did do some psychedelic therapy, just micro-dosing, for my mental health.

Jessica:            Did it work for you?

Shawn:            Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Great. Great.

Shawn:            I think that's what it is. I mean, I'm not 100 percent sure. But I went through a relationship breakup about a year ago. We decided to take a year off, and that really brought stuff up to the forefront of being alone and, "Why am I failing so much? And will it even be a good transition to be a therapist? Will it just be more suffering? And why can't I have a little bit more fun in my life and my job and my relationship?"

Jessica:            Okay. So there's lots of layers, lots of layers, lots of layers. Okay. Let me ground into this. So first thing I will say is⁠—and I could be wrong, so I don't want to try to convince you of anything. But the struggle with your mental, emotional, and spiritual health that you've been going through, I do think, is connected to the pandemic because you're such a sponge.

I do think if I was to give you any spiritual homework, it would not be meditation⁠—not that I'm against you meditating in any way⁠. But it would be boundary work because it is so hard for somebody with this much Pisces in their chart⁠—and again, I can't remember ever seeing somebody with this much Pisces in their chart. So you have a remarkable amount of Pisces in your chart. I know I've said this before, but it cannot be said enough.

It is hard to know what's yours and what's not yours because you're just feeling all the time. And it's different than being a Cancer where you're having all these emotions. It's more that it's just being washed over all the time by gentle waves. It's not crashes all the time; that's more Cancerian. This is⁠—you're just awash in all kinds of emotions and perceptions all the time. It's a lot. It's a lot.

So I want to just kind of acknowledge that, and then I want to say there's the topic of love and your relationships, so we're just going to leave it right here and come back to if it feels right. But then I want to say, with your work⁠—I mean, nobody has fun doing the job you do. I mean, maybe it has meaning. Maybe it has value. But it doesn't sound like a fun job.

Shawn:            A lot of people can make jokes and stuff like that a lot better than I can.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Are you a person who's jokey and spontaneous in that particular way in general?

Shawn:            No.

Jessica:            No. Not at all. No.

Shawn:            Unless I know people, and then I'm kind of just more goofy.

Jessica:            You're a goof. Yeah. That's exactly what it looks like. You're like a goofball. So let me tell you how I can see that. First of all, Capricorn Rising. Capricorn Rising, Scorpio Midheaven. So, when you're around people at work, you're private because work is work. And even if you want a work wife or a bestie at work, you're very private. And you know that a work-interpersonal drama can screw up your work life, so you're strategic because, yes, a million planets in Pisces, but also, Saturn conjunct the Moon, Capricorn Rising. Right?

Now, the other thing is that Saturn/Moon conjunction doesn't make you fun in a way that is conventional, I would say. You've got a good sarcastic sense of humor. You are really good at observations. For you, there is a heaviness to your heart. And that just happens when we have Saturn/Moon square, conjunction, opposition. It's just what happens. That takes from spontaneity and fun and levity unless you feel really safe. And how would you feel really safe at work?

Some people, they have their nature where they're like the higher stakes it is, the more jokey they get. That's how they cope. That's not how you cope, and that's not bad or good. But it is an indication that this is not a good job for long term for you, the one you're in. So how many years have you been in it?

Shawn:            Eight.

Jessica:            Okay. That's a very long time past a Saturn cycle, so you're wise to be getting out. You've got this Mars/Mercury/Sun conjunction, and that's Goofball City. It's just Goofball City. It's just like it's a silly, fun kind of playfulness. And for you, you are much more of a one-on-one person than a group person is what your chart says, right? Therefore, yeah, you get real goofy with the people you feel safe with and that you feel levity and love with. And with everyone else, you're like, "How are you going to be a liability to me? What do I have to do to manage this situation?" You're hypervigilant.

                        And so becoming a therapist⁠—is that lighter than what you're doing? It might be. It might be similarly hard, but it's not an emergency all the time, and that's good for you. Part of what's going to be important is that you figure out ways to take care of yourself around that. Doing light, kind of stupid things that don't have any negative consequences to them as a way to kind of give yourself a reminder that's not so deep, but a reminder that you do want to have a little more fun⁠—because it's very easy to forget that when you're sitting in people's trauma all day long.

                        Hold on. Let me just slow down and ground in. Hold on for a moment. Can I have you say your full name out loud?

Shawn:            Shawn [redacted].

Jessica:            You're missing a last name. Is that a married last name?

Shawn:            No. That's my original name.

Jessica:            What's your mom's maiden?

Shawn:            My mom's maiden name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Much better. Thank you. Is she still with us?

Shawn:            No.

Jessica:            She passed? I'm sorry. Did she have depression?

Shawn:            No, not that she would acknowledge. We both tackled the alcoholism in our families. We were both the first ones to be sober.

Jessica:            Congratulations. Did she get sober with you?

Shawn:            She did it first.

Jessica:            She did it first?

Shawn:            She did it first. It took me four treatment centers. But my dad got sober, too.

Jessica:            Wow. Congratulations. That's huge. And are you in program?

Shawn:            No. I would say no.

Jessica:            Yeah. But you have your spiritual tools, yeah?

Shawn:            And I was for years, like, really into it.

Jessica:            I've said it once; I'll say it a million times: there's lots of problems with AA, but it's like a chef's kiss perfection articulation of Pluto. Pluto governs trauma. But also, the thing that can happen with AA is it's like free sharing and healing of trauma together, and in this way that is so perfectly Plutonian. That's why I think it works for so many people for so long. I'm not suggesting you go back to AA. I was just asking.

                        But I will say there's the part of sobriety that is about dealing with addiction, and then there's the part about spirituality, which is about finding peace or enlightenment. But in between those two things is accepting that you're here, and that's just the part you haven't yet done.

Shawn:            Still?

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

Shawn:            I thought when I got sober last time, it was like, "Okay. You're staying on the planet. We decided that. Okay. So let's eliminate all the things that make you want to get off of the planet. Okay." So I thought I made a decision.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. That is actually not exactly what I'm talking about. So what you're describing is accepting the assignment. What I'm talking about is being like, "Huh. My soul chose this body and this life at this time. How can I achieve some of that sparkle that you seek?" It's not about detaching from your ego. It's embracing your ego, not so that you become an ego monster, but so that you embrace your human condition, which is, I feel like, almost a mean thing to say to a Pisces, somebody who has so much Pisces in their chart, because it's not what you want to hear.

                        But let's talk about Chiron for a second here. The placement that you have of Chiron in Pisces sitting right on top of your Mars, it articulates how scary and hard it is for you to stay in your body. So, again, it's about staying in your ego, staying in your physicality, and within that, finding a way to love yourself in the ways in which you are wounded, in the ways in which you don't want to be here, in the ways in which you're failing and succeeding and everything in between.

                        It's like this massive pain point for you, which is part of why⁠—whether it's alcohol or it's seeking the blue light or⁠—I call it the blue light, that enlightenment/magic vibe you described. It's why those things are so appealing to you: because they're not here, not now. They're everywhere, and they're always. They're not here now. Here/now is heavy in this way that you're way too intimate with but not in a way that is⁠—you haven't found a way to really choose you within it. I don't mean this as a criticism of, like, you haven't figured it out. I mean it as you know what it feels like to really love, accept, and choose someone or something, yeah? Do you?

Shawn:            Not really.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So there it is. So that's the place to⁠—I won't say start, because you're not starting. You're very waist deep in a thing. But that's a good place to go. Do you have animals?

Shawn:            Not anymore.

Jessica:            And do you have a good reason? Is there a reason why you don't?

Shawn:            No. My last cat just died, and I didn't know where I was going to live and that sort of thing. But I had her for 19 years, and I did love her.

Jessica:            Okay. So you do know what it is to love and choose. Okay. I knew you had to have it in you. Okay. So, with her, you know what it felt like to love her unconditionally, whether she was annoying, high maintenance, inconvenient, furry everywhere, or not. Correct?

Shawn:            True.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. That's the feeling. That's the feeling I'm talking about. It is very hard to love yourself like we love our animal friends because our animal friends are not responsible for anything that's terrible in the world or in ourselves. And yet I would say having the capacity to experience that kind of unconditional, yet boundarie⁠d— because, probably, your cat tried to eat the food out of your mouth or jump on your counter⁠. Did you have boundaries with your cat? Actually, now I'm realizing so much Pisces. Did you have boundaries with your cat?

Shawn:            I'm kind of boundaried about stuff like that.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Okay. Good. So having this kind of unconditional love is not about not having boundaries. It's not about everything being perfect all the time. It's about having acceptance about the problems, which you did with your cat. I personally⁠—and this is annoying of me, so I apologize in advance. But I personally would say being able to achieve that kind of love for yourself, not 100 percent of the time 100 percent of the days, but having that be the goal is what I would consider more enlightenment than what you described at the start of our conversation.

                        I think part of that is accepting the ways in which you don't want that. You don't want to work on it. It might be too difficult. It might be you want something more spectacular than what I'm describing. What I'm describing is kind of mundane.

Shawn:            Well, and I've been trying. That's what I'm like, "Oh my gosh. If this really worked, wouldn't it have worked by now? Because I went to my first meeting when I was 15 years old. I've heard this stuff. I've read these books. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. I don't think you're doing things wrong. I think it's a journey. I don't think anyone—I mean, I hear what you're saying, that you're like, "I've heard a podcast where I've heard 600 people have achieved it." And I'm sure that they have. And also, there's billions of people on the planet. And for most of us, certainly me included, it's the work we do throughout all of our days. It's not the work we do till we get it.

                        And I think the idea that you work on self-love till you love yourself and it's over is a lie for the vast majority of humans because even if one achieves that⁠—like, "I worked really hard on myself. I went to the meetings, read the books. I took the webinar. And then I achieved it"⁠—well, then something would happen. Your body would get older. Your car would explode. Something would happen, and then you have to adjust. I mean, that is life.

                        And so, from my astrologer's perspective, we have transits until the literal moment of our death. We never stop having transits. And what this says to me is that we are not meant to arrive in and sit in this beautiful seat of having arrived. We are meant to constantly be on this journey while we're in this body, while we're in this life. And the point for different people is going to be different. Is it finding meaning? Is it finding love? Is it finding acceptance? It could be different things.

                        But I do think that at core, accepting the work is a part of it, accepting that this is a part of it. And again, you've got a Saturn/Moon conjunction. You've got a Capricorn Rising. So, even if someone told you to stop working on yourself, you wouldn't. You just wouldn't. The thing that's so hard about having a clustered chart like you do, which is just to say just so much Pisces⁠—it's all sitting there⁠—is that the majority of you is of one mind. It's very hard to change that one mind because so many different parts of you are in agreement. "I should just feel light and interconnected and⁠"— what was the⁠—you didn't use the word "interconnected." What was the word you used?

Shawn:            The belonging?

Jessica:            Yes. "I want to feel a sense of belonging." So now let's talk about your North Node. In your birth chart, your North Node is in Cancer, and it sits on top of your Descendant, which means you have come here in this life on a spiritual level to learn how to love on yourself, to receive love and nurturance, and to give love and nurturance, and to do that in intimate, one-on-one relationships because what your soul is more comfortable with doing, what it's done in the past very successfully, is take care of everything and everyone. Take care of everything and everyone, and focus on figuring out who the fuck you are so that you can continue to do the work that you feel called to do, whereas in this lifetime, you're meant to have more faith in your connection to self and to use that as a foundation to open up to letting people actually know you.

                        And so this is less about belonging in a community sense. This is not like a "Get close to 3 people or 7 people or 20 people." This is a "Let one person know you, and make sure that that person is trustworthy with your heart." I mean, that is only the hardest thing in the world to do. But that is the assignment in this lifetime for you, from my perspective astrologically. It is very much about allowing in love and nurturance and a sense of home with someone.

                        So, yeah, that means we gotta talk about this person. Is it a he?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. How long have you been with him or were you with him?

Shawn:            Yeah. Like six years, with this last year off.

Jessica:            Okay. Are you back on yet?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And how is it going?

Shawn:            Well, I'm considering having openness in my relationship because I'm afraid to put all my eggs in one basket.

Jessica:            So you mean going non-monogamous? Is that what you're talking about by openness?

Shawn:            Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And is it because you want to hook up with other people?

Shawn:            Well, because I have that idealistic side to me and I'm hearing what you're saying⁠—which I did not know about my chart at all because I always thought my seventh house was empty⁠—I have a longing for something deeper than this person and I have now. But I am still really attracted to him, and I like him. So it's hard for me to let go of him.

Jessica:            And does he want to be with you?

Shawn:            He says he does. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. Will you say his name out loud for me?

Shawn:            Yeah. So he goes by a different name than his real name is. His real name⁠—

Jessica:            Give me both of them.

Shawn:            Okay. [redacted]

Jessica:            Quite a name. Okay. And then what's the other name?

Shawn:            [redacted]

Jessica:            Yeah. He does want to be with you. Do neither of you want to live together? Are you kind of in agreement about not living together?

Shawn:            We're in a power struggle. We both need to live together because of finances, but neither one of us want to give up our own house and join the other person's house.

Jessica:            Yep. Yep. This is the problem with adult relationships. It's really hard to let go of what you built for yourself. So there's a lot of reasons for neither of you to want to leave your apartments and join the other one. They're really good reasons, too. So I'm not touching that part with a ten-foot pole. Okay? Well, maybe that's a lie. Maybe I'll touch it in a minute, but let's not start there. Is he spiritual?

Shawn:            Kinda.

Jessica:            Not like you at all, right?

Shawn:            Nope.

Jessica:            No. Not like you at all.

Shawn:            He doesn't believe in astrology. I'm like, "What?"

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes. That's the least of it is what it looks like. It's just your capacity to explore spiritually and your need to have spiritual community is completely separate from him. I see he doesn't vibe with it at all, and that works for you because then you can go into your spiritual communities and be that part of yourself, and when you come home, you can be like, "Work was tragedy. I am pissed off. I feel annoyed." And you don't have to hold it up to this perfect ideal self.

Shawn:            You're right.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that is good for you, okay? That is good for you. When I look at him, he feels solid. This is what I⁠—and I might be missing something, but when I look at this, I feel like it is not sparkly. The sparkly time has come and gone. But welcome to more than three years long of a relationship. Very few relationships maintain sparkle. Is there joy between the two of you? Yeah, there is. But it's a quiet joy. He's a self-sufficient adult, right? You don't need to financially take care of him?

Shawn:            Yeah. I think that's true. We both are behind our peers in who we hang out with and stuff in terms of retirement. We have not done that good of planning.

Jessica:            I mean, late-stage capitalism is a bitch. Let me just say that. It's so hard. But he doesn't expect you to take care of him financially; is that correct?

Shawn:            No. Not at all.

Jessica:            Okay. Good, because I do see that he has a self-reliance about him, and I just wanted to make sure that I was seeing that correctly. But it looks like he has a self-reliance about him, as you do. You're restless with him, and some of this is just because you're yourself with him, and you're restless with yourself. When you're with him, you feel all your regular feelings. When you're alone, you can ignore your feelings. You can disassociate from your feelings.

                        You can come home from work and be super annoyed and then be alone in the house and just kind of like, "Yeah, I'm annoyed, but I'm moving around things in a cabinet, or I'm making the bed." You're not focused on being annoyed. But when he's there, it's impossible to ignore what your mood is because you have to engage with a human person who knows you. So you could say to someone else, "I'm having a little bit of a rough day." But he knows you're having a terrible day. This guy gets you. Am I seeing this correctly?

Shawn:            I think so. I mean, we really just started back up, which⁠—thank you, by the way, for teaching me how to set a boundary and stick to it and trust myself, because I put a year on it, and I stuck with it.

Jessica:            Congratulations.

Shawn:            I said, "If you still want me after a year, you can come and ask."

Jessica:            Good. And he did.

Shawn:            But it was really hard. Yep.

Jessica:            Good for you.

Shawn:            He tried to whittle me down, but nope.

Jessica:            Good for you.

Shawn:            I stuck with it because I know I have trouble with boundaries because I'm a Pisces.

Jessica:            Yes. It's true.

Shawn:            And I listen to your podcast.

Jessica:            Thank you/good for you.

Shawn:            And I was like, "I gotta love and learn to love and trust myself before I can feel like I deserve all these things in life that I want."

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why you would open up this relationship because it looks really nice. I see the power struggles. I see the two of you have a lot of stupid power struggles.

Shawn:            Well, I feel like we both have childhood trauma⁠—

Jessica:            Yes.

Shawn:            ⁠—that gets triggered. And I feel like, of course, I'm dealing with mine, or I'm aware of mine, or I can at least acknowledge it or talk about it. And he doesn't want to.

Jessica:            No. He doesn't want to.

Shawn:            He compartmentalizes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And he's⁠—okay. Let me just⁠—I'll be totally frank. This is what I like about him for you. He's there. Emotionally, he's there. He's there. He really is there. If you need to be a baby one day, he will nurture you. If you need to be the boss who's in charge of everything and you're telling him what to do, he will listen to you. He might not do what you say, but he'll listen to you. He sees you. He gets you. He loves you. I like that about him, like a lot. And I think you really like him in a lot of ways.

                        There are things about him that you're not as crazy about, but isn't that just inevitable? Again, I don't have an idealistic view of the "perfect" partnership because the perfect partnership isn't where you're perfect and they're perfect. The perfect partnership is where your childhood trauma and their childhood trauma doesn't make it worse on each other. It's not that it doesn't come up. It's that you're not reenacting his trauma, and he's not reenacting your trauma. That's a perfect relationship in my book.

                        So, when I look at the two of you, there are some ways that you are rigid with each other⁠—it's not you rigid; it's not he rigid. It's you're both rigid⁠—that reenacts childhood trauma because that's where you have overlapping issues. But other than that, it looks like there's⁠—of course, I'm sure there's exceptional moments, but⁠—overall, respect, care, and safety here. And passion. Am I right about those markers?

Shawn:            The safety one is the one that I feel nervous about because I'm super tenderhearted, and I am very afraid of anger.

Jessica:            Okay.

Shawn:            So someone whose go-to is anger is extremely scary to me and hard.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. And Pluto⁠—

Shawn:            And mine's depression and sadness, you know? So…

Jessica:            Yes. And is he triggered by depression and sadness?

Shawn:            Maybe a little. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And when he goes to anger, how does he express his anger?

Shawn:            He drives crazy. He has pushed me. And when we got back together or decided to date again, I put that as a deal-breaker, that he is never allowed to push me or touch me in anger.

Jessica:            Excellent.

Shawn:            And he's agreed.

Jessica:            Great. Good.

Shawn:            And I actually think⁠—yeah, he might do it. It's just that⁠—he's just critical. He's critical of other people. He's not politically correct.

Jessica:            I see. I see. I see. I have a couple questions. Question one, did he push you once or did he push you as a pattern?

Shawn:            Twice.

Jessica:            Twice. Okay.

Shawn:            That was it.

Jessica:            And then you were like, "Okay. I'm out."

Shawn:            No. I didn't leave at that time.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. I'm a big fan of the three strikes and you're out, so I'm really glad that he has one more infraction and he's done. Okay. Good.

Shawn:            Yep. Yep.

Jessica:            Good. That makes me very happy. And he says fucked-up things. He's aggressive. See, I don't like that for you, it's true. And I wasn't seeing that. I mean, listen. Pluto opposite Mars, which you have in your birth chart, it definitely articulates a fear of anger, a really intense fear of your own anger as well as other people's anger. I think that driving crazy out of anger is abusive. I think it is an incredibly dangerous and manipulative thing. That doesn't mean that he's trying to be manipulative. It still is manipulative.

                        So I might encourage you to come up with a strategy, like if he's going to be in a bad mood, he has to pull over and either let you out of the car or let you drive. Those have got to be like going-forward rules because I think if there's an option to work on this with him, then you need to make sure your safety is check, your physical safety is check, right? Because then you can work on your emotional safety and figure out how much of this is, "He's brusque and it hurts my feelings or it feels aggressive," versus, "He's actually aggressing on me," because it's hard to sort through that. I think sometimes in a long-term relationship it's hard to sort through that for any zodiac sign, but certainly for you, it can be hard to sort through that. Does that feel right?

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Shawn:            I forgot about the driving thing when I was writing out my⁠—

Jessica:            Your list? Add it to the list because, again, it's a form of violence. I mean, somebody driving on purpose to freak you out is just⁠—it's unacceptable. It is unacceptable. You know, I mean, when you say he's not politically correct and you say all these things, I'm like, "Fuck this guy." But then, when I look at him, there's a part of him that feels like home for you, which is like your whole thing. It's what you want. Does he want to be sleeping with other people, or is this your idea?

Shawn:            No. Me.

Jessica:            It's just your idea. It's a very Piscean strategy, I will tell you, just for whatever it's worth, very on-brand for Pisces. It's, "Okay. I won't be trapped, so I'll love all the people, and we'll just open the door." But all you're doing is you're not fixing the problems that exist between the two of you, and you're opening the door to new problems. So I don't think that's your move. I think the move is instead⁠—hold on. I see. Okay. Okay. It's that list.

                        I'm just seeing you wrote a list. You mentioned a list, and I'm seeing it now. So this list that you wrote⁠—can you schedule an alarm on your phone for once every two weeks or every four weeks, whichever feels better, to check in with the most important things to you around safety and belonging and love and care, and to just once every two to four weeks write it down in a journal or whatever? You could write your thoughts and your feelings and your experiences, or you could just go on a scale from one to ten⁠—ten being fucking amazing, one being pretty terrible⁠—where is it landing? Just so you can start doing a better job of tracking the material part of your lived experience.

                        What happens for you is you get so overwhelmed by the different metrics that are important to you that it becomes hard to evaluate, "Is this good for me? Is this terrible for me? I can't tell." And I think that also happens in a long-term relationship. And I want to come back to that North Node of yours because the North Node conjunct the seventh-house cusp is about letting people know you. And it is very difficult with this placement to actually let people know you. You haven't done a bad job of letting him know you, and I really like that for you.

Shawn:            I've tried. Yeah.

Jessica:            I see that. You really have. And when you've done that, it's always going well with him⁠—

Shawn:            That's true.

Jessica:            ⁠—which is such a huge green light for me. I mean, you say politically not correct, and I get very worried what that means, and I am inclined to be like, "Let's expel him from the garden." But I can't say that to you because when push comes to shove, when you really show up as yourself, he's like a snuggly bear about it.

Shawn:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that's actually what⁠—

Shawn:            I mean, he's a pushy, snuggly bear.

Jessica:            I mean, he's a bear. He's not a teddy bear, but he is an actual bear, right? He's a grumbly, big, slightly maybe dangerous bear. But I don't know. He just⁠—

Shawn:            He's nurturing, kind of.

Jessica:            He is.

Shawn:            He's [crosstalk], and he⁠— I'm really best friends with his ex-wife. And so we both have⁠—yeah. Without her, I probably would have never made it this far.

Jessica:            Wow.

Shawn:            But because we can⁠—she can help me see some of his qualities, and she's super intuitive. And so I've been able to understand what she's talking about better.

Jessica:            If the way the two of you work through conflict and agitation together can be improved⁠—and you'll work on it over the course of the next year⁠—I think that there's something really worth exploring here because he is nurturing. You are yourself. And those two things are a really big deal for you. Okay. Okay. So I want to just slow down. We've touched on a lot of things. And let me see. Do you have any questions?

Shawn:            Well, I wondered if I⁠—you know, I told you about⁠—it's called Buddha at the Gas Pump is that podcast that I listen to that a lot of the people are awakening. And if I looked at all of their charts, would there be something similar in it that either alludes to success at enlightenment or just an interest in enlightenment?

Jessica:            Or let me throw in more options. It could also be people who are really good at talking about their experiences. I once had somebody ask the question, "Why is it that all the witchy girls have really cute apartments?" and I said in response, "Not all witchy girls have cute apartments. It's all witchy girls who post photos of their apartments online that have really cute apartments."

                        It's the same thing. It's like some people are for sure having that experience, and some people are really good at talking about their experience. And some people are really authentic, and some people are delusional. There's all kinds of people. In truth, we are all those people, just at different times.

And I don't think there's anything in your chart that says you are not capable of enlightenment, but I do think there are things in your chart that say that you want enlightenment to be like a drug trip, where it's like, "Take me away, Calgon." There's no reality happening. Did you ever see that TED Talk called "Stroke of Insight"? I think that's what it was called.

Shawn:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            One of the most amazing things. And I've been thinking about that in our talk because some of what you're describing reminds me of how she described her stroke. Half of her brain was completely offline. She was only functioning out of one part of herself. But that was a stroke. That was a stroke, so it's not what we want for you. It's not what we want for you.

                        I think, for you, if you can achieve that in moments, glorious. But then, on the day-to-day, what do you need is really the question. Bear with me. I want to tell you when your Saturn Return is totally over.

Shawn:            Oh. Thank you.

Jessica:            March 7th of 2023. So are you going to be feeling light and easy and sparkly before March 7th of 2023? No. Terrible goal to feel that Piscean gorgeousness during Saturn's Return. And then Saturn is going to sit on top of your Moon really quickly after your Saturn Return. And so it's all about dealing with consequences and reality, which is why you manifested getting a reading with me, a Capricorn. Capricorn is Capricorn.

                        So what's really important is having faith in connection with the stuff⁠—enlightenment that I keep on pointing up, because that's what it is; it's out of the body, out of reality⁠—but working on the mundane and not having one cancel out the other. Just because you're stuck in mundane life for a chunk of time doesn't mean you don't have access to this enlightenment you're referring to. But being able to be in that all the time, it's not super realistic for most people, especially during their Saturn Return.

                        I'm willing to bet that all 600 of those people⁠—maybe one, tops, was going through a hard Saturn transit when they were experiencing what they're describing. And I think that, again, is just like there is a time for everything. There is a season for everything, even for banging your head against a wall, which is the Saturn Return a little bit. But you're on the right path, even though it sometimes feels very differently than you want it to feel. You're still on the right path.

Shawn:            Well, I do love your Capricorn energy because I totally have it, too. And I don't like the lovey-dovey bullshit stuff. I want to hear the facts, you know? So it's been great.

Jessica:            Yeah. We'll go to the reality. That's right. That's right.

Shawn:            Yeah. I like reality.

Jessica:            We're fans of it even when we don't love it. It's both. It's both. It's the year of the paradox, right? So it's like it's and-also. It's and-also. And within that, I really do wish you well with all the parts. And be gentle with yourself in these last months of your Saturn Return because you know it's a big deal.

Shawn:            I have to be grateful it's not the first one because that was hard.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Yeah. And the second Saturn Return is the closure of that cycle that you begin during your first. And so whatever you're going through now is related to the themes of your first. So, if in the first Saturn Return you were hospitalized, and in the second Saturn Return you're just, a little bit, having a hard time, you need to take time to see that as a massive win. And it's not a win like in a lottery. It's a reflection of a lifetime of work. And if you don't take stock of that, then you're doing Saturn dirty. You gotta own your work, even when it's hard. It's your work. You've done it, and it's important to own it so that you can feel the benefits, not just the pains in your ass.

Shawn:            Thank you so much, and thank you for every single podcast. I have gotten so much out of that that I have really changed the way I look at life in numerous ways.

Jessica:            Thank you. Oh, that's very sweet.

Shawn:            [crosstalk] just a great dream come true.

Free Black Therapy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing remote mental health services with Black mental health professionals for Black and African American individuals, and it's absolutely free. Visit freeblacktherapy.org to find a therapist or donate today.

Public schools are really struggling right now. That's why I want you to know about DonorsChoose. They connect the public to public schools. Their mission is to make it easy for everyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education. You can donate money to classrooms around the U.S., and it's very easy to do. Go to donorschoose.org to support a classroom today.

Let's get astrological. This week, we are looking at the astrology from January 22nd through the 28th of 2023. I'm already used to saying 2023. It's already⁠—it's in the noodle. So, hopefully, you're also⁠—I don't know⁠—feeling like you're really in 2023 so far. I want to talk to you a little bit about the new year for a hot minute before we get into the details of this week's astrology.

Now, you've probably already heard my 2023 year-ahead podcast episode. If you haven't, I definitely recommend that you listen to it. But here's the thing. The Retrogrades are over. The Retrogrades are over. Mercury Retrograde was was over on the 18th, Mars Retrograde over on the 12th of January. But the Retroshades persist, and the Retroshades⁠—they last February 7th for the Mercury Retroshade and March 15th for the Mars Retroshade.

So what is the Retroshade? The Retroshade is when whatever planet it is moves back through the zodiacal degrees that it was in during the Retrograde. So we're retracing our steps, in a way, and that means we're still engaged in the process of the Retrograde. Often, what this looks like is having to deal with the things that you did or didn't do, that you said or didn't say, during the Retrograde. So we're still dealing with that.

However, the rules of the Retrograde do not apply here. So, for the Mercury Retrograde, go ahead and sign contracts. Buy shit, sell shit, whatever. And in regards to Mars, go ahead and forge plans. Do things. It all works out of the Retrograde. But in the Retroshade, you're still dealing with the consequences of how you did or didn't deal with the Retrograde. So you can see that we are starting off through early February with Mercury and through mid-March with Mars having to still be in a state of reflection as we're engaging with the Retroshade.

And then what happens is that Saturn moves into Pisces in March of 2023. So, just as the Retroshade from Mars comes to a close, Saturn moves into Pisces. And whenever we go through transitions like that, it's a big deal. It's a big deal for you as an individual, it's a big deal interpersonally, and it's a big deal in the world. It's something we want to pay attention to. Now, I'm not going to go in depth into what it means or what to expect here. Again, you can listen to my year-ahead forecast for that breakdown, and you know I'm going to talk about it more a little closer to the date.

But what I want to focus on in this moment is that we are at the precipice of change, and Saturn is the one outer planet that we can prepare for. People are always like, "Oh, I'm about to go through a Pluto transit. I'm about to go through a Neptune transit. What can I do to prepare?" The truth is most of the planets don't really want us to do much to prepare other than live as authentically as we can; be as healthy as we can be.

Saturn, on the other hand, loves preparation. Saturn wants us to do all that we can to be grounded in the here and now in respect to the past, so having learned from the past, and enveloping our plans for the future. But it really wants us to be present as we respect the past and prepare for the future. And so we can prepare for Saturn transitions, and a way to do that is to look at your birth chart and to see where early degrees⁠—so the first few degrees⁠—of Pisces falls in your birth chart.

What you gotta do is figure out where Saturn is going to hit your birth chart because whatever house it stimulates/it activates is the part of your life that's going to be activated by Saturn in Pisces. If it conjuncts a point or a planet, you want to know about that because you can prepare because it's Saturn. But I don't want to take you out of the present moment too much, like trying to figure out a future that is just unknowable.

I want to instead ground you into we are in the late days of Saturn in Aquarius, and there is a great deal that you can do to learn about yourself and about what's been happening for you over the last two and a half years during Saturn in Aquarius. Now, of course, if you've been going through a Saturn Return or some sort of major Saturn transits, this is especially important for you. But it's important for all of us. It's always a big deal when Saturn moves through a zodiac sign because, again, it only happens once every 29 years, and there's only so many 29-year cycles that humans live through.

So here's my advice. As we are at the start of the new year and dealing with these Retroshades, what you have the opportunity to do is to consciously reflect on what's been going on the last two and a half years. And in particular, you might want to pay attention to where Saturn has fallen in your birth chart. Do you have Aquarius in your fifth and sixth house or your tenth and eleventh house or whatever? And I say two houses because when you're not using whole sign houses, a lot of times, we're going to have a zodiac sign span through multiple houses⁠—sometimes one house, sometimes three houses. It depends.

So pay attention to that, and know that Saturn is not yet at the anaretic degree, so it's not yet at the 28th or 29th degrees of Aquarius. But it'll get there soon. And those degrees⁠—they're the most powerful degrees to get stimulated in a sign, in any sign, those late degrees. And so a lot of people, especially when you're first learning astrology, you get this idea of, like, "Oh, it's almost at the end. It's practically Pisces." But it's not. It's very strongly Aquarius.

And so, again, it's important to reflect on what's been going on for you, the lessons you've learned. And of course, the last two and a half years has coincided with the pandemic, so this very intense, once-in-a-lifetime thing⁠—hopefully; hopefully it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing⁠—that introduced social distancing⁠—how Saturn in Aquarius is that⁠— into our consciousness and into our daily lives.

It is time to really reflect and to understand that the themes that you've had activated in your life, especially the themes activated by Saturn, are activated for a reason. And they're part of this bigger picture of your own development. And in true Aquarius fashion, what you want to do is be curious. Be curious about your own path. Try to reflect on what you've been going through and whether or not you feel like you have done your best.

It's not about whether or not circumstances have met you or you've achieved things in the material world. It's whether or not you have lived by your own code of ethics. It's whether or not you have done right by you, which includes doing right by others and the world. They're not really separate, hopefully. Hopefully.

So okay. So these are just some hot tips for you to consider as we are shifting truly into this 2023 madness. There's going to be a lot of energy shifts throughout the year, and therefore, we want to really do our best to be conscientious of our own energies. We want to be conscientious of where we begin and end, if that makes sense. In other words, we want to be conscientious of what we're experiencing and how we're participating so that we can do our utmost to learn the lessons of Saturn and not have to keep on learning them in new situations.

Let's get into the details of this week's horoscope. So we're looking at January 22nd through the 28th of 2023. And we begin the week with a transit that I warned you about last week, which is the Venus conjunction to Saturn. And so, during the New Moon, which⁠—by the way, I hope you had a great New Moon, that it was all the things you needed, transformative, got you in your sweet spot, helped you to heal, helped you to move the needle on something that needed moving.

So we know that Venus conjunction to Saturn occurred. Here's the thing about this transit, which is now exact on the 22nd at 24 degrees of Aquarius⁠—so, again, we're not at an anaretic degree yet. We're not at the end of Aquarius yet. This transit is kind of a boner killer, and it's a boner killer because Saturn is a wet blanket on Venus's drive for intimacy, closeness, romance, feeling beautiful, all that kind of stuff.

Saturn and Venus are⁠—they have a hard time with each other, honestly, because they both want security. They're the two planets, more than any other planets in the zodiac, that are concerned with security. Maybe the Moon could be in there. But these two planets are associated with our values⁠—Venus⁠—and our integrity, which would be Saturn. When they are sitting on top of each other, you can often feel a sense of overwhelm, a daunting sense of responsibility, a sense of, like, "Where am I going? Have I gotten as far as I wanted to?" So there's a way that we can take the lens of Saturn to Venus's concerns and basically be jerks to ourselves or to other people.

This transit can really confront you with scarcity-based feelings and thoughts. It may even bring you a scarcity that you have to deal with, like an unexpected expense or some sort of a relationship situation that really just exhausts you; it doesn't feed you. All of this, in some ways, tests how well you have put things together for yourself, how well you have prepared for hardship or some sort of a lack. And again, this can be around your finances. This can be around your plans for life in general, your sense of belonging in relationship, your ability to show up and be your true self even when you're feeling kind of edgy in your relationships.

It also has to do with the value and importance that you place on kind of keeping up with the Joneses or the value and importance you place on how you look, because the truth of the matter is how we look is, of course, important⁠—come on; of course it's important⁠—but it's all fleeting. It's all fleeting. If you get to live long enough, your whole meat suit is going to sag. Maybe it'll wrinkle. Maybe it'll sag. You're going to look like someone you don't recognize, should you have the honor to live a long life. That's an inevitability.

And so, within that, what does it matter how you look? What does it matter? And if your life requires that you look good or your self-esteem requires that you look good in a particular way that keeps up with the fashions of the day, then when transits like this occur, it really tests your sense of self. It really can, and make you struggle, because we tend to feel a little down. We tend to feel aware of how other people are that we are not under this influence.

And so this is an opportunity to recalibrate, to seriously consider, "If I'm obsessing on some body part, what does it actually matter? And the importance and value that I'm placing on it, is it true? Do I stand behind it?" That might not change your feelings, but it can change the direction you're pointing yourself in because the things we give our energy to end up shaping our lives. And it's important that we hold things in proportion. So caring about the way you look? Great. Yes. But keep it in proportion to its actual value to the life you lead and the person you are.

Now, connected to this, Venus conjunction to Saturn can make a person feel lonely. It can make you feel lonely. It can make you feel like you don't belong. It can make you feel like people aren't there for you. But all of these feelings are likely to not have you being there for others. So, if you have one-way relationships, this is a pain-in-the-ass kind of transit because it can put you in a constantly getting or constantly giving dynamic with someone.

And again, it's not like this happens just to torture you. It happens so that you become more aware. Conjunctions are the start of a cycle. And so this means we have the opportunity to bring innovation, to bring newness, to bring intention to the start of a cycle. So, whether it's how you spend your money or how you manage your money, how you look, your relationships, whatever it is, it is really valuable to be intentional about what you're bringing to the table and the importance you're placing on whatever it is that you're fixated on or what have you.

Now, because it's a Saturn transit, the things that are giving you problems, the things that are head scratchers, pains in your sweet little butt⁠—whatever it is, those are the things that need attention. So we don't necessarily want to be too literal about what that means, about the attention that it needs. Again, this is where you want to fall back on your values and your integrity. This is important. Conserve your energy for what matters. You don't have limitless energy. None of us does. So conserve your energy for what matters.

One last thing. I did an Instagram Live yesterday. Somebody asked a question that really surprised me. They asked, "Is it true that the Venus conjunction to Saturn is a transit that will show us who's really there for us?" The answer to that is absolutely no. For sure, no. But I'd never heard that before, and I'm sure⁠—it sounded like they read it somewhere. And we want to be critical thinkers. We want to be mindful about any kind of prescriptive astrology that promises you to find your soulmate or find the perfect answer.

First of all, life doesn't really work like that. But second of all, if one was going to have a transit like that, it would have to be happening to your birth chart specifically if you're going to get that kind of concrete information, and not a global transit like I'm talking about here. The other thing is astrology is all about cycles, as are relationships, as is pretty much everything. It's all about cycles. And we tend to be very linear thinkers, and we tend to want to be like, "Okay. This person's good for me." "They're bad for me." "I'm staying." "I'm going." Sure. There's a level on which that's very real.

But on the other hand, what's also really important for us to keep in mind is that if someone shows up for you on a particular day, that doesn't mean they're going to inherently show up for you forever. And if they don't show up for you on a particular day, it may have nothing to do with you. It may not be an indicator of the future. So what you want to be able to do is focus on the you part of the transit. Don't obsess on what everybody else is doing or not doing, because you can't control that. And knowing about it through astrology in advance isn't actually going to help you.

All you can focus on is, what are you consenting to engage in? What are you allowing in your life? Are you actually paying attention to the signs that people are showing you about themselves? Are you asking for what you need? Are you giving too much even though you know better? Whatever. You get it, right? Whatever. All we can do is focus on ourselves. Let other people, let situations, reveal themselves to you. And when they do, listen. That's what we can do.

So the next transit I have to tell you about is a lovely transit. It is exact on the 24th, and it's a Sun sextile to Jupiter. Sun sextile Jupiter is a great transit. It is a time where we may expand, where we may have opportunities, whether it's just like you run into somebody and have a sweet little interaction for 15 seconds and it just kind of puts a little joy in your step⁠—it lightens your load that day⁠—or it could be something like a windfall that actually comes your way. But we have opportunities to feel more connection, to feel more openness, and to run with the chances that we've got.

So it's not enough to have something come your way; you've got to kind of do something with whatever comes your way. This transit, Sun sextile to Jupiter, is very helpful in that regard. The cool thing about this transit is, unlike the Venus conjunction to Saturn, the path kind of opens up for us. There's less resistance. It's uniquely light, as opposed to Saturn/Venus, which is uniquely heavy. So this transit can be really great for feeling good, feeling a sense of happiness, optimism, gregariousness.

The thing I just want to kind of contextualize here is, while this is a fantastic transit, we don't want to undervalue the important role that it can play in not just our material well-being but also our spiritual, emotional, and psychological well-being. Because it's a transit to the Sun, it activates our sense of self, our identity. And so, again, you've heard me say many times small progress is progress. We want to embrace and we want to celebrate all forms of progress.

Kind of connected to that, I think that in the busyness of life and how materialistic our lives are, it is easy to miss or to undervalue our small but meaningful wins spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally. And those are the things that make up our overall long-term wellness. So this transit can be a time where you really have some sort of moving of the needle. That may be nuanced; it may be subtle. But it's powerful, and it's powerful because it's positive, because it's an expansion. And we don't want to undervalue those things.

That brings us, my friends, to a couple more things. The first, Venus moved into Pisces on the 26th⁠—lovely transit, very romantic. If you're an artist, this is great, or if you're doing spiritual work, this is a great transit. But ultimately, what's important to pay attention to is that when Venus is in Pisces, we have a tendency to idealize people and situations, put them on pedestals. And you want to keep all things interpersonal, romantic, relationshipy, in reality if you can because that's ultimately where we have our 3D experiences, right?

And so, oftentimes, when Venus is in Pisces, on a relationship level, we're needing to deal with boundaries. And remember boundaries are not just a thing we say or do; it's a thing we internally experience. So having healthy boundaries with yourself around where you allow your energy to flow and go is very valuable. And if you are having partnered sex, always remember to have safer sex, especially during a Venus in Pisces season. That's just a hot tip that I hope you take to the bedroom or wherever it is you do your business.

That brings us to our final transit of this week, and this one is a Retroshade moment because on the 27th, Mercury forms an exact square to Chiron. And this probably sounds familiar to you because it happened very recently on January 11th. So, January 11th, Mercury was exactly square to Chiron, and it is again exactly square to Chiron. This tells us a couple things. The first thing is whatever was going on for you on and around the 11th you want to pay attention to because it's likely to be emerging again on this date. So it might not be the exact situation, but certainly the theme you want to pay attention to.

The other thing is⁠—let's put some context. Because these two transits were exact so close to each other, that means that the transit has been active this whole time. So we have been under the influence of the Mercury/Chiron square. For some of you, that will have been felt as an intense struggle around your mental health, your sense of how you talk to yourself, the tone you talk to yourself in, your narratives from early developmental experiences.

And for some of you, this may have been a really harrowing time, and for others, it may be a time where you've made a lot of progress, where you've kind of made breakthroughs around your old stories that you tell yourself, your beliefs, your attitudes. And again, because it includes Chiron, I am referring to early developmental experiences and how they shape our psyche, our sense of belonging, our sense of whether or not we deserve to be here⁠—so really deep themes.

This Mercury square to Chiron, I want to encourage you to be really mindful about how you talk to yourself, to be really mindful about not just what you're thinking and where your thinking goes but what is underneath the assumptions in your thinking. Some things seem inevitable. Some things seem perfectly true because they've always been true. And it doesn't mean they're inevitable, and it doesn't mean they're true.

A lot of times, what happens when we're dealing with Chironic wounds is we have early developmental experiences that shape our sense of self and our sense of reality, our sense of what's possible. Then life progresses, and it keeps on proving us right. But we have the capacity to change. We have the capacity to grow and to evolve, to make new choices around how we take care of ourselves, how we engage with ourselves and others, and how we engage with the world. Thank all the gods for therapy and all the things, right?

So, when Mercury forms a square to Chiron, we have the opportunity to make developmental shifts, which is really powerful and really cool. And again, this is part of why I've been very excited about the New Moon that just passed and very excited about the potential for getting in better alignment with ourselves. Between Venus conjunct Saturn and this Mercury square to Chiron, there's a lot of potential here. There's a lot of potential for growth and for evolution, and I gotta say we all have time for that. Don't we all have time for that? I hope we do. I hope we do.

If you find yourself embroiled in conflicts with people, stand up for yourself if you need to stand up for yourself. Say what you need to say. But also pay attention to the theme. And that theme is not you always attract terrible people because you've got terrible luck. That's not the theme. The theme is, what do you engage in? How do you engage? Can you make different choices in old patterns, in old situations? And the answer may not be yes, but if it is, make an effort because the Mercury square to Chiron is a powerful transit, and it can bring about healing because Chiron, my friends, is the wounded healer. So we got the wounded and the healer in the mix, and the potential for healing is really strong here.

But again, because it's a Mercury transit, it involves your psychology. It involves your mind, your thinking, your attitudes, your beliefs, what you say, how you listen. Longtime listeners of the podcast will have heard me say this before, but I cannot say enough about the importance of how we listen to other people. Unfortunately, so much of our public discourse about communication is about what we say and how we say it instead of how we listen to ourselves, how we listen to others. And I think it's a skill to really be conscientious about, and I personally find it to be a life-changing skill. To be able to truly listen to other people empowers you with more information. It empowers you to be kinder to yourself and kinder to others. So it is really, again, powerful.

Now, in regards to the world/social conditions, this Mercury square to Chiron is very impactful. We want to pay attention. So, if you're taking little breaks from the news here and there, I respect you. That seems healthy. But I would recommend that you pay attention by the end of the week to what's going on in the world because the only way we can participate in the world around us is if we know what the hell is happening, if we know where to put our energies.

But ultimately know that this is likely to be an emotional transit, even though it is a Mercury transit, which is about our psyche. Because it engages Chiron, it's emo. So set yourself up for success, if you can, by putting support in place, by being mindful, by knowing it's going to be kind of an intense moment. So take care of yourself the best ways you can. And again, keep in mind this has been active since before the 11th. So it's not going to be brand-new energies even though it might be very heightened energies.

Now, I'm going to run through these transits again. But I'm also going to remind you that if you like keeping track of the transits, check out Astrology for Days. It is my transit-tracking tool that⁠—it's just useful. You can track the transits, keep your notes, and be engaged in a self-guided tour through learning astrology.

Okay. So, on the 22nd, we have a Venus conjunction to Saturn. On the 24th, the Sun forms an exact sextile to Jupiter. On the 26th, Venus ingresses into Pisces. And on the 27th, Mercury forms a square to Chiron again, as it did on the 11th. And that's your horoscope.

Thank you so much for listening. You know I love you. I love this fucking podcast. So I appreciate your support. And if you haven't already, I encourage you to hit the Subscribe or Follow button on whatever platform you listen so you never miss an episode. And if you'd like to learn more with me, get my book, Astrology for Real Relationships; join me over on Patreon, where I am very active and engaged with my beloved patrons; or get classes with me on my website. I like to give. I'm a giver. What can I say?

Okay. Take good care of yourself and others, and I will talk to you next week. Buh-bye.