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.

Hey there, Ghosties. In this episode, I'll be doing a live reading with one of my beloved listeners. Every Wednesday, listen in on an intimate conversation and get inspired as we explore perspectives on life, love, and the human condition. Along the way, we'll uncover valuable insights and practical lessons that you can apply to your own life. And don't forget to hit Subscribe or, at the very least, mark your calendars because every Sunday I'll be back with your weekly horoscope. And that you don't want to miss. Let's get started.

Jessica:            Manifested, who I will be calling Ted for Manifes-ted, welcome to the podcast.

Ted:     Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on.

Jessica:            Yay. So you tell me, what are we reading about? What do you want to ask me about today?

Ted:                 Okay. So I think I'll just start with the question that I sent in: "I may have manifested a partner into my life. He is my first serious relationship, and I have stayed with him for a few years now. He's a great guy, but I'm not sure if he's meant for me long term. We are also in a long-term polyamorous relationship with another guy. It's just the three of us. The whole situation has me feeling a bit unsure about what my seventh-house placements of Mars, Neptune, and Uranus truly mean. I'm frozen between what it would mean to continue this part or let go, especially since both my boyfriends are amazing people. I would highly appreciate your guidance."

Jessica:            Okay. So I've got questions for your question. You are partnered with both of them, or is it like you have a partner and then a boyfriend?

Ted:                 They're both boyfriends.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Okay. So they're both boyfriends. And do you live with either of them or both of them?

Ted:                 No. None of us live together, actually. Yeah.

Jessica:            And you ask this question, but you don't mention your emotions. How do you feel about either and both of them? You say they're great people, but you don't say how you feel. So let me ask you, how do you feel about these guys?

Ted:                 I really do care about them. I love both of them, and they really do hold a close space in my heart. I think, as of recently, things are just getting muddied. And I do have things that have sort of made me question, and I'm just confused whether this is it. Am I overthinking? Am I sort of gaslighting myself? Because throwing me off if I'm wrong⁠—but that Jupiter on the rise that I got there, I feel like I genuinely, on my own, already have the tendency to always have this thirst for more, this thirst for something bigger, deeper, more expansive. And I think that's where I get clocked a bit, is where the disillusionment can come in and add up.

Jessica:            Yeah. Let's start at the beginning. I asked you how you feel, and you used the term "I think," like, I think four times. So that's interesting straight out the gate. And you didn't actually say anything about your emotions towards either of them. You were talking about, "I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the action is. I'm confused. Here's my theory based on my chart." So I want to just acknowledge all of that because I may be a triple Capricorn, but you know I'm all about emotions.

                        Let me just actually start with something that's really important in your birth chart, which is that you have this fixed T-square. You've got this delightful Moon in Leo, but it sits really closely opposite to Uranus. And your Uranus is in Aquarius because⁠—we didn't say your birthday. We're not sharing all your birthday details, but you were born November 8th, 2001. So gen Z is in the [French language 00:04:24], right?

                        Your Moon opposition to Uranus in Aquarius⁠—it gives you the tendency to intellectualize your emotions. When the emotions get strong and big⁠—Moon in Leo⁠—Uranus, which governs the nervous system, grabs hold of the Moon and says, "I'm going to turn this into thoughts. I'm going to figure this out." And that can mean that when emotions get big, you can get a little mentally scattered or your nervous system tries to take control of the feelings.

Ted:                 One-hundies.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ted:                 100 percent. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. And of course, Uranus is, as you named, in the seventh house. It's hugging your eighth-house cusp, but it's in your damn seventh house. And then the Moon is in the first hugging the second-house cusp. These two planets, the Moon and Uranus, form a T-square to your Sun in Scorpio in the fourth house. This is also part of why I asked if you live together, because for you, so much of your identity has to do with how you feel. And when we tap into how you feel, your nervous system, Uranus, is just like, "Well, what do I think about how I feel? What do I think about how I feel?"

And because this is all fixed energy, you go straight for the answer. You want the answer. You want the answer. "What should I do? What is the truth? What is the retractable truth?" Right?

Ted:                 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this part of your nature is activated right now because of Uranus being in Taurus, not far from your natal Uranus.

Ted:                 Making like that cross situation?

Jessica:            Yeah. It's creating a cross. And it's also⁠—the Uranus square to Uranus that happens in the early 20s to each and every one of us is this moment of individuation where we're not only reacting to the people in our childhood, reacting to the limitations of our childhood, but we're embodying what's authentic for ourselves as individuals. And it's generally a messy transit. And you're going through it at the same time that Uranus is squaring your Moon at 21 degrees of Leo.

                        So you not being sure how you feel is right on time. And your nervous system trying to override your emotions⁠—in other words, Uranus trying to override the Moon⁠—is perfectly, again, right on time. But because you do have this squishy, lovely Jupiter/Ascendant conjunction in Cancer, and even though it's in air signs⁠—you have a Mars/Neptune conjunction in the seventh. Because of these things, you are really tenderhearted. You are somebody who's always going to kind of return to feelings.

However, if what you do consciously or unconsciously is try to understand and to make plans about your feelings before you fully sit with and accept your feelings⁠—yes, you're welcome⁠—then you're never going to find the answer. All you're going to find is more narratives.

Ted:     Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is where we begin. So, that said, I'm going to tap in. I'm going to have you state your full name out loud so I can peek at you energetically.

Ted:                 [redacted]

Jessica:            Thank you. Okay. So you're actually distraught. You're actually really sad and torn up about the situation.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. Say both of your boyfriends' names. Start with the one that you have been with for the longest.

Ted:                 Cool. [redacted]

Jessica:            Oh. Okay. And what's the other one?

Ted:                 [redacted]

Jessica:            Fascinating.

Ted:                 Very different. They're both very different.

Jessica:            Very different. They're different from you. They're different from each other. They're very different.

Ted:                 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Is one of them older?

Ted:                 Yeah. So I'm the middle. [redacted] is the younger one, and then [redacted] is the older one by a few years.

Jessica:            Let's come up with names for them so we don't have the whole episode sound like beeps. So can we call them older and younger?

Ted:                 He's older and a bit taller. Yeah. Yeah, we can go old and young. Sure.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Let's call them old and young. Okay. So the younger one you were with first. Okay.

Ted:                 First. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So let me start with⁠—we need to look at these two relationships separately because they are unique relationships. And am I correct in understanding that you are trying to sort through your individual relationships, or is it more that you're trying to sort through whether or not you can be polyamorous with these two people?

Ted:                 I think both.

Jessica:            Okay.

Ted:                 Really both, because they're also together. So it's like a little triad. I'm the one who initiated it all before I was ever even in a relationship with one of them. I was single most of my teen years, my childhood, and I think I was in 10th grade when I discovered what polyamory is. Still single as a bee. And I just did what I do, did that internal exploration, asking myself questions. And it just opened up so much in me.

                        But again, I was single as a bee, so I didn't think about that. And then I met the younger one, and then I was like, "Whoa. First serious relationship," and then stuck that through. And then I was going through a Mars Return one year, probably last year. And these topics around polyamory came up, which⁠—they did come up⁠—the first time I even thought of polyamory back in 10th grade, I also had the Mars Return then.

                        But anyway, so the topic came up again, right? Then we got into a relationship with the older one. I don't know why, but in my ideal, it was having a triad, the three of us, where I'm with both of them but they're also with each other. And obviously, my relationship with either one of them was also complex and its own little baby to deal with.

                        And where I am currently is, at first, I was concerned about the whole tricycle, if we could call it that. But now, I'm starting to wonder if I'm running a flat tire. To answer your question, long way around again, it's both.

Jessica:            It's both. Okay.

Ted:                 It's about the individual relationships and being polyamorous together with them specifically.

Jessica:            Yep. Okay. So let me get this as grounded as I can, because there's a lot. Part of what I'm kind of sorting through as I look at this energetically is that you have⁠—again, your nervous system is so lit up, and it's like looking at multiple bolts of lightning at once and trying to pick one, one to focus on and one to chase. And I can see how on one level, at one time, that would mean, "Okay. Have a triad. Have a triad, and then I never have to pick."

                        But in this moment at this time, the relationships look grounded. And I don't know if that makes you feel stuck, because it's not that there's a ton of drama. Am I right about that?

Ted:                 Nope. No drama. At most, what I could say is that in the beginning, the younger one, I felt, was⁠—it took him some time to adjust to the whole situation. He's a lot more fixed water sign than me. Before I even brought up the topic of polyamory, I was concerned about him because I was like⁠—I know you're not supposed to look at your partners' charts, but I am guilty. I could see, yeah, the patterns are not as easy for him as it would be for me. But we went there, and to where we are now, he's really assimilated. We've all assimilated. It's grounded. It's stable. On paper, it's good. It's really stable.

Jessica:            On paper, it's idyllic. On paper, it's kind of perfect.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's part of what's bugging you, I think, is that it's really, really stable. And so that Jupiter conjunction to the Ascendant is like, "Well, what am I supposed to do next? What's next? Isn't there something more?" Even if it's a little more dramatic, even if it's a little more everything, there's a part of you that is aching for something more. And also, I don't know that you're in love the way you were in love.

Ted:                 Damn, girl.

Jessica:            Oh, I just do a thing, see?

Ted:                 You brought up that Jupiter thing, and I want to add into the mix, which⁠—this is such an interesting situation where I'm also caught between, am I the problem or are they the problem? And by "they," I just mean external things that are anyone but me. And on top of the Jupiter, I might also want to maybe bring up that Moon/Uranus. I've had a concern that it shuts me off from being able to be vulnerable and really sink into intimacy. The minute things get all safe and lovey-dovey and mushy, I'm just like, "Ragh."

Jessica:            Yeah. Well, that's a good concern. That's a good concern because it does do that. Yes. It makes it so that you are itchy. So here's the thing about all that fixed energy and the Uranus opposition to the Moon, is that it makes it so that when things are tender and safe, again, your nervous system goes "zzz." And now, you're thinking about the safety, and now you are trying to guard yourself against⁠—"What is this safety actually? Is it stuck? Are they trying to take something from me? Are they dragging me down?"

                        There is this irritability that Uranus brings. Uranus squares your Sun and opposes your Moon. And you, my dear, are irritable. And that's no big deal, except you have a Mars/Neptune conjunction and you don't like being irritable. You don't like being agitated, because Neptune is like, "I don't have hard edges. I'm a tender lover," when in fact you have a fixed T-square which involves Uranus. So you have a lot of hard edges. And when you're in a situation with these two stable, loving guys and everything's fine, you have to feel your own edges.

So, that said, do not think for a moment I am going to let you get away with⁠—I said two things, one about Jupiter, one about you not being in love, and you focused on Jupiter and astrology. We're going to pull you back.

Ted:     Fair.

Jessica:            So there's the young one, and then there's the old one. The young one⁠—when I look at it energetically, you absolutely love him. And I don't know that you're in love with him. And I don't know that you exactly want the same things at this time.

Ted:                 Yeah, I know. I don't know if this is a terrible question, but what is "in love"? I know it's probably different for everyone, but I'm genuinely like⁠—yeah, you know?

Jessica:            What even is "in love"? That's a great question. And I don't think it's just different for everybody. I think it's different at different phases of life. What does "in love" feel like when you're 19 and falling in love versus when you're 49 and falling in love? What does "in love" feel like at the beginning of a relationship versus in the middle of a relationship of any length of time?

                        "In love" is not what the media would have us believe. It's not like this party feeling. It's not this moment where your foot kicks out and you're having the perfect kiss. "In love" is many things. It's not a singular thing. When you first got together with this person, for the first two months, it looks to me like you felt unequivocally in love. And you know what that is.

Ted:                 Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So some of that is you love the beginning, girl. You love a beginning. You love a beginning.

Ted:                 That is so true. That is so true.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so some of that is you being in love with who you are at the start of a thing. That's what some of this is.

Ted:                 Oof.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, but yes. And some of it is you actually falling in love with this man, this young man.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to just acknowledge that two things can be true at once. And being able to hold nuance and complexity is super important if we want actual clarity. So, when the older guy came along⁠—which was like a year or two later, right?

Ted:                 Yeah. Literally, I think, two years⁠—yeah, a year or two.

Jessica:            The in-love feelings were really radically different than with the younger guy, with the first guy. They were really, really different. And some of that's because you were really different, and the risk was a really different kind of emotional risk because there wasn't the risk of, "Will this work? Will this won't? Will I be alone or not?" It's, "Will this work? Will this not for me and my partner who are in love and committed to each other?" Right?

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            If falling in love is standing on the edge of a cliff, it was a shorter cliff than with the first guy.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            There's something that happened through the beginning process of the three of you being a tricycle⁠—which I think is funny, so I'm going to use that term⁠—where it was dynamic and exciting, and you were in love with that, with the risk associated with it and how it made everything new. And when I look at it now⁠—I mean, people hear "polyamory" and they hear "triad" and they think, "Wild." This is not wild. This is a loving family. This is like the three of you are a loving, partnered family who take care of each other and look out for each other, and it's intimate, and it looks pretty safe.

Ted:                 It does. And you know, Jessica⁠—oh, vulnerability.

Jessica:            I know. I'm sorry.

Ted:                 But what I also am concerned about is, is all of that nervy Uranus/Jupiter and sort of my lust for the new and all of that high-strung energy⁠—if my association with the highest quality or my favorite flavor of love comes in that bottle, I'm afraid that there's just an unhealthy or weird superficiality to what drives me in that way, whereas with what you've described of what's currently here, the stable, safe package of what love is⁠—if love was like a soda and it came in different brands, I think I'm like the super caffeinated one, whereas what I have now is like the granola smoothie.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Ted:                 It's just like, mmm, it's so good for you.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So let's acknowledge everything you've just said is very real and true. If we can look at your birth chart and see⁠—we can see, kind of, evidence of that. Here's the big, fat "but," okay? 22 years old you are?

Ted:                 Well, in November, on my birthday, yeah, I'm 22.

Jessica:            Right. So you're a couple weeks from 22 years old. Okay.

Ted:                 Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            To have the level of stability and love and companionship that you have at 22 is really different than you had it at 32 or 52. What you have most people don't really have in their early 20s. And I want to just pull away from pathologizing you, or pull away from being like, "Oh, this is a problem in your birth chart." And I want to acknowledge there is nothing fucking wrong with wanting to taste every flavor of the ice cream before you decide on what you want on your cone. That's actually fine, and if there's ever a time in your life where it's about that, it's your early 20s, or your 20s in general, but especially your early 20s.

                        And so I want to just acknowledge that this is not just a conversation about what's the healthiest thing for you, but also, what's the healthiest thing for you now in this moment of your evolution? So I want to just put that on the table. The other thing I want to say is you're having a really hard time not trying to find the answer. And every time you try to find the answer, what I think is happening for you is you're pulling back and into your head about the feeling.

                        Now, I can give you strategies. I can give you homework. I can tell you things to do in this relationship to see whether or not it's the right one. You could talk to your partners about opening it up, not to bring in a fourth, but instead just to go and have experiences with other guys. Maybe you're going to have hit-it-and-quit-it moments with other men. Maybe you're going to just explore having more romantic friendships with other people.

                        It's about acknowledging that something in you is restless and needs new experiences and that you don't know if that comes from an unhealthy place or if that's just an authentic drive. And the only way you'll figure it out is not through astrology. It's not through therapy. I mean, these things can help, but it's through living. And I wouldn't say this to you if you were 37 years old and coming to me with the exact same situation. You are almost 22. These are the seminal experiences that help you to understand what you truly are, not through theory, but through practice.

                        And there is a lot to be said through living to learn. When we talk about the accrual of wisdom, I am not of the mind that wisdom comes through cognitive understanding, through the best astrologers, the best therapists, the best sociologists. Wisdom comes through experience plus those things. right?

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            While it would be easy to look at lots of different things in your chart and be like, yes, you're restless⁠—you are taking your safety and being like, "I will step on my safety with a thunderbolt, and then I will step on my safety with a pincushion," or whatever⁠—there's a part of you that may do that. But how can you know? And you are entitled to explore.

                        Now, let me add something else to the mix, okay? And we're going to get more to your questions because I can feel them bubbling. But you also were born, gen Z, with a Saturn at 13 degrees of Gemini and Pluto at 14 degrees of Sagittarius. So you were born with Saturn/Pluto opposition, which is a very challenging aspect that your generation has, this moment of your generation has.

                        And what it does is it gives you this feeling of, "I'm supposed to understand everything. I'm supposed to understand everything because I have access to the world." Pluto in Sagittarius, gen Z, you have access to the world. There's never been a time when you didn't have access to the internet, to everything. And so there's this feeling of pressure that because I have access to information and philosophies and people, I should then be able to put it into practice in that Saturnian way.

                        Saturn comes through time and through experience. There's nothing that can be done with Saturn⁠—I know. I'm sorry. I know. I know. Your face. There's nothing that we can do with Saturn that doesn't require time and experience and practice, time, experience, practice. So, with this Saturn/Pluto opposition, what you have is a nature wherein you are exceptionally hard on yourself. You're looking for the perfect answer. You do not want to make a mistake.

So your Jupiter on the rise says, "Dip your toe. See what happens." Your Mars/Neptune conjunction says, "I can experience lots of different loves on lots of different levels at the same time." Your Moon/Uranus says, "Go. Try. Eat from the buffet of life." And then your Saturn/Pluto says, "No. Absolutely not. You make a decision; you stick with your fucking decision." Right?

Ted:     Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And what we want to remember about Pluto is it's our survival mechanisms. It is our flight, fight, or fawn. It is our internal resource that says, "If I don't do this, I'm going to suffer. I'm going to be punished. I'm going to die." It's really extreme flight-or-fight mechanisms. And so this aspect of your chart, Saturn/Pluto opposition, in some ways is super at cross-purposes with every other fucking part of your chart.

                        But because it's your survival mechanism, because Saturn says, "This is your understanding of reality," there is this part of you that returns to, "If I had the good fortune to create stability and security and love, who am I to challenge that, to risk that? I will never get it again if I risk it today."

Ted:                 Yes.

Jessica:            The truth is that you don't know that. The only evidence you have at 22 years old, or almost 22 years old⁠—the only evidence that you have is that as soon as it was age appropriate, you got a partner. And you got a good partner and a healthy partnership. And then you were able to bring in a third because you wanted a third. And so the only evidence you have of your young adult life is that girl's got it. You don't have a hard time getting what you want. But that Saturn/Pluto opposition says, "Only now. Never trust it. It could go away at any moment."

Ted:                 Ba-zing, ba-zing, ba-zing. 100 percent. Wow. You perfectly⁠, and I mean perfectly⁠, worded that so well.

Jessica:            Thank you.

Ted:                 And I think you probably already said this with the Pluto/Saturn thing and sort of thinking, "Oh, I've run my luck. I can't get any luckier than this." Right? And you mentioned, like, oh, well, if there's any time to explore or try all the flavors, it's in your 20s. I think⁠—I'll just say it, but I also feel weird about that because of the way the world is at the moment. The era of being in your 20s isn't really the same as it probably was for you or my parents or my grandparents.

                        And yes, the world's always been a shit show, and there's been different issues posed. Right now, it's also the thing of, "Oh, if I do dip my toe in the water, what if I get burned? What if it's all just lava at this point?"

Jessica:            Wait. Wait. Let me slow you down because I want to understand, and I can't, because I'm not gen Z. When you say that, that it's different, do you mean that we're all going to die in the next ten years? Do you mean⁠—that's what I heard, but I don't know that that's what you actually meant. What did you actually mean when you said that?

Ted:                 So maybe if I put it in an experiential way.

Jessica:            Sure.

Ted:                 When I met my partner, it was end of 2020. And like I said, I'd never dated a single soul until that point. And growing up, all my friends had partners and girlfriends and boyfriends and all of that stuff. And with me, I feel like it's that thing that you mentioned, that, "Oh, I just made it, and now there's climate change and COVID, and, and, and, and, and, and." It's like even if I did want to step outside, what if it's just raining acid?

Jessica:            I see what you're saying. Okay. Okay. So let me just speak to that very briefly. One thing is I'm not going to fucking try to convince you otherwise, obviously. I mean, yes, you came of age in apocalyptic times, or apocalyptic-feeling and seeming times. And that is very real. And also, I think a lot of Queer people, I would say most Queer people over time, don't date before their 20s because it's very hard to date as a Queer person. I mean, I think that that is⁠ [crosstalk].

Ted:                 Yeah. Fair. That is fair.

Jessica:            For gen Z, there are movies of cute, little Queer communities at high school. And I'm like, "Oh my God. Does that actually exist?" If it does exist, that's very new. And it's not everywhere. I've seen some movies, and I'm like, "God. Did we get, like, normal?" But not yet, right? Not yet. So there's that piece, and then here's the other piece. And I want to preface this with I'm not trying to convince you that what you said is wrong in any way, because that would be bananas, and I don't try to be bananas.

                        Also, plenty of Queer people came of age during the AIDS crisis. Plenty of Queer people became of age during other apocalypses. Now, nothing's more comprehensive of an apocalypse as this moment, and I'm not going to in any way try to convince you otherwise. But I am going to say what you're talking about is being born with Saturn opposite Pluto. It's not just that you're born with Saturn opposite Pluto to give you psychological component or whatever. It reflects the fucking times. It reflects a time⁠—you were born to a time that our existential safety and our material safety is at odds⁠—Saturn/Pluto opposition. That's what that means.

                        And whether or not the world becomes safer, that is embedded in your nature. And this is why I focus on the outer planets so much, because we can talk about your Cancer Rising till the cows come home; it doesn't touch your survival mechanisms⁠—Pluto⁠—and your sense of reality⁠—Saturn. And when those two planets have hard aspects to each other, it will often run the chart because we are run by our survival mechanisms, as it should be. I mean, that's how humans were created, so that if I just came back from being chased by a bear, now everybody becomes scared of bears in my community so that we don't get eaten by bears. That's part of how humans are created.

                        And so I want to acknowledge that, and I want to say you could leave this beautiful, safe space and these tumultuous, terrifying times and find yourself maybe having some sex here and there and not being really happy and not being filled and not having love, and then seeing these two men that you do deeply care about happy and safe together while you're out in the wild, acid rain, no safety, no love. That's absolutely possible.

                        But if you simply stay with these two men who you do deeply care about, when you know you're not in it anymore and you know you feel stuck, what will happen is you will find yourself being harder to reach, more irritated, and unintentionally stirring the pot because staying with someone you don't love, staying with people you don't love⁠—it's not sustainable without shutting down or unintentionally creating drama.

So you are in a fucking bind because you do have choices to make. And I don't think it's the choice of stay or go, for whatever it's worth. That's your Saturn/Pluto: "I'm in or I'm out. Everything stays the same, or everything changes." That's also your Jupiter conjunction to the Ascendant. Everything changes or nothing changes.

So let me just throw this in the mix. I do think it's possible for you to sit them down and say, "I am restless, and I don't know why. I love you both, and I want to be with you both. And also, there's a part of me that just wants to cut all ties, throw away my clothes, and run through the streets. I want to go fucking wild, and I don't know what it means, and I don't know what it is. And I want to acknowledge that there's a part of me that's not fully here, even though I don't want to lose either of you." If you were to say that, would that be honest?

Ted:                 I think a part of it would be. But I don't know how they would take it. I am super deep and all these hard edges and intense, and I go straight to the core of a thing. I could do that, but I don't know how it would land. Maybe it's within my controlling nature to always want to control how an outcome goes. Literally, before I even brought up the idea of polyamory to my first partner, the younger one, I sat for a week and noted down every single possibility that he could bring up or ask in that situation.

Jessica:            OMG.

Ted:                 Literally, I was like, "Okay. If I say this, what's going to go through his mind?" And I wrote down everything. And believe it or not, he brought up those very things that I thought up, and I was prepared for it. And maybe that's why that worked out so well for me.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ted:                 In terms of what you're saying, it sort of circles me back to that situation. It's like I could do that, but I don't want to blow them up. I don't know if they can handle that.

Jessica:            So there's a couple things I'll say to that. The first is, if you want to have intimate relationships, you have to trust your people. You have to trust the people you're partnered with. And I'm not asking you to trust them to react the way you want them to. I'm asking you to trust them to not punish you for not knowing what you're feeling and not knowing what you're needing because that Saturn/Pluto conjunction⁠—also, we haven't talked about the fact that your Venus and Mercury are conjunct in fucking Scorpio, and it squares your Mars, and it squares your Neptune. It's one of the things that leans towards being controlling.

You got a lot of fixed energy in you, a lot of fixed energy in you. And so you're like, "I'm going to direct everything." The irony is the reason why the relationship is kind of not working for you is because you feel stuck. And so, now, you don't want to take a risk because you don't know what will happen, when, honestly, that's exactly what you need. You need to feel a little more surprised, a little more engaged. And I don't know. Again, maybe it is that your feelings have changed for one or both of them, or perhaps your feelings have changed for the tricycle.

I don't exactly get the feeling that the tricycle is the problem. I'm not sure, but I would contend that being able to say to them, "I don't know what I'm feeling, and I don't know what I'm needing. But I want to acknowledge that I might be acting distant sometimes and weird sometimes. And I have been waiting until I know exactly what I need and exactly what I want and have the perfect words, and I've been doing that because I'm a little controlling and I want to make sure that you don't feel bad or that things don't go sideways. But this is actually what's going on for me." And just talk to them about it.

And please tell me if this is wrong, but when I look at them energetically, they're actually good at listening. And I don't think that they would be punishing or mean or demanding or anything like that if you said that. They might be confused. They might be a little hurt. They might be uncertain. But they wouldn't be dicks. Am I wrong about that?

Ted:     No, you're not. No.

Jessica:            Because if you were to take this path, you'd be doing a couple things. One is you'd just be being honest with your damn partners, which is unfortunately the assignment of having a partner, is being honest with the partner. Sorry. I know it's terrible, but real talk. The other thing is it might open the door to them coming in and being like, "Why don't we try x? Why don't we try y? Why don't you go out alone and just be an individual? And we're okay with that. Tell us about it when you get home."

And it might work, and it might not. But what you're trying to do, which is control the situation so that you can be safe and everyone else can be safe⁠, that's⁠—

Ted:     Yeah. Danage control.

Jessica:            Yeah. It doesn't work. This is why the Saturn/Pluto opposition is such a hard transit, because what happens is we have these survival mechanisms⁠—you have these survival mechanisms⁠—that work. Thank goodness for these survival mechanisms. You were able to write out all the things with your partner, and it fucking worked. I'm sure that in your childhood, ditto, that your survival mechanisms of being able to have this big-picture view and then fucking get into every possible detail and protect yourself⁠—that works for you.

                        But the problem comes up when your survival actually is not at risk, like in this situation where you have two men who love you, who actually want to know what the fuck is happening with you, who aren't going to punish you for being uncertain. And then, when we use our survival mechanisms in situations where our survival is not actually being challenged, what happens is we end up being controlling or self-sabotaging without realizing it.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Ted:                 That self-sabotaging thing. Yeah. Okay. You said something a little bit earlier, that when you looked at the tricycle energetically, it looks like this family. I want to know, is there a link or maybe something that just is also blocking me from moving or keeping me stuck around my perception of that, what a family is and that structure? I mean, trust I'm really trying not to dive into the chart too much, but it's just really helpful, like a shorthand.

Jessica:            Sure, sure, sure. Please.

Ted:                 But you see the Moon in the first and Uranus in the seventh squaring the fourth. So that fourth-house element of things⁠—I don't know. There's just complexity around that, around⁠—I have a deep, I want to say, fear around being alone, in a way, and not being seen. And at the same time, it's just it's rough around that. And I really so deeply want for a family, but I think there's something about that that also deters me, which is like, how can the one thing I want also be the one thing that's repelling me?

Jessica:            Because fucking Uranus. You have a little stellium in Aquarius. You've got three planets in Aquarius, and you've got Jupiter on the rise, and you've got Uranus involved in a T-square. And all of these things mean you get itchy and restless when there's too much obligation and expectation placed on you. Fucking Uranus, okay? So, yes, you have Sun in Scorpio in the fourth house, but you also have Mercury conjunct the IC, Venus and Mercury conjunct the IC, which⁠—again, Mercury conjunct the IC makes you restless around home and family.

                        And we want to be really clear. You are not living with these people, so they're not in your home. They are family, but they're not in your home, which is really an important thing for me to name because you're pointing to the chart, and you're pointing towards the fourth house. The fourth house is family, but honestly, the feeling of family⁠—I go to the Moon more than the fourth house. The people in your home⁠—roommates, the partner you're living with, which is⁠—you don't have that right now. That's in your fourth house.

                        But the feeling of "I want to be seen" is very strong because the Sun, right? But it's the Sun in Scorpio. "I want to be seen the way I want to be seen when I want to be seen that way." Sun in Scorpio, right? And then the Moon squares it. And so the Sun/Moon square⁠—it gives you this really strong desire to be seen, sometimes in the light of the Sun and sometimes in the light of the Moon. And when you look at something in the light of the Moon, you're not seeing every fucking detail. It's a reflection.

                        It's like think about the Moon itself in the reflection of a pool. It's not like looking at something in the light of the Sun. In the light of the Sun, you see all the details. You see it all clearly. The Moon square to the Sun in our birth chart means that sometimes what feels safest and best is that we're seen in the light of the Moon, and sometimes it's the light of the Sun. And so, when you add to that that Uranus is fucking opposite your Moon and square to your Sun, you do have a strong desire for family. That makes you uncomfortable unless it's an alternative form of family, which, BTWs, you have a very alternative family situation on paper. There's three of you. However, when I look at it energetically, it feels⁠—it doesn't feel nuclear, but it feels very⁠—I don't know⁠—

Ted:                 Nuclear.

Jessica:            It feels really nuclear. Yeah. I don't know how else to say it. It feels super like it just so happens that there's three of you, but you're in a really traditional kind of relationship. That's the vibe. And that's not exactly a match for you. And I'm not surprised that that's what you have because your survival mechanisms, your Pluto/Saturn opposition, say, "Find stable people who will love you and never leave." And every other part of your chart says, "Find exciting, deep, hot, open experiences."

                        So you've done both. Kudos. You've done both. Because you're going through Uranus transits, because you are not 52⁠—you are almost 22⁠—the level of security and stability that you've achieved is in some ways a very clear yes and in some ways a no for you. And when you speak to, "Okay. If I leave my safe and loving home just to be poisoned by acid rain," that's a very real metaphor. I'm not going to fuck with that metaphor. That's a perfect metaphor. You know what I mean?

Ted:                 I was cooking. I was cooking.

Jessica:            You were cooking. You did it. Manifested or man-infested, I'm with you. But at the end of the day, what if there isn't acid rain? What if you get an umbrella? If you make your choices out of fear, you are left with your fears right at the table with you. And I'm not encouraging you to ignore your fears, because I don't think your fears are wild. I don't think your fears are without basis.

And also, the only evidence you have as an adult is that you get love and you get companionship and you get sex and you get care and you get safety. So for you to then tell yourself, "I have no evidence of that, and in fact, I trust that I will be burned by acid rain in solitude for the rest of my days"⁠—well, that's clearly fear because you have no evidence to back that up.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            And here's the thing. I have not said at any point I encourage you to walk away from these men or this relationship. I want to be clear, and I want to acknowledge that I think you've kind of skipped over the fact that I have not told you to break up with them. And I tell people to break up with people all the time. I am very comfortable with that statement. I actually don't think that's what's needed here.

                        I also think continuing as you've been isn't going to work. I'm encouraging you to do the thing that Saturn and Pluto never do, which is the middle, communicative, vulnerable ground where you simply⁠—

Ted:                 Oof.

Jessica:            I know it's awful. I would say you can start with the younger one. You don't have to talk to them both at once.

Ted:                 Okay.

Jessica:            You can start with the older one if you want, but I kind of feel like it's starting with the younger one.

Ted:                 Younger one. Yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm, the one you've been with longer, and being able to say, "Have you noticed that I've been a little different? Have I been a little edgy?" And my guess is he's going to be like, "Yes, I have. Yes, you have." Acknowledge, "I'm sorry. I don't want to treat you poorly. This is what's happening. I haven't wanted to talk about it until I was clear about it. And it's taking too long for me to get clear, so I'm going to bring you my chaos. And I was scared to bring you my chaos. I don't want to scare you. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to push you away, but I'm pushing you away anyways. So I want to fucking be honest with you. Okay?" Obviously, don't say it as aggressively as I did, but that's the message, right?

Ted:                 It is.

Jessica:            And what I'm encouraging you to do is trust him as your equal, as your partner. And whether you stay together or you break up down the line, you will never look back at this, being like, "Why didn't I try?" And right now, you're trying to figure it out instead of trying to work it out. And I'm encouraging you to work it out.

Ted:                 Yeah.

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Ted:                 The wisdom through experience stuff instead of, like⁠—you know, you can't map it out on paper.

Jessica:            No. Well, you can, apparently. Sometimes you can. This is the thing. Listen.

Ted:                 Sometimes.

Jessica:            Listen. I'm an astrologer. I'm pretty good at it. I'm psychic. I'm pretty good at it. And what I do not do in my personal relationships⁠—and I won't say ever, because when I was younger, I did, and it always fucking backfired on me. But what I do not do is I do not map out when or how I should engage with people or how they're going to respond, because whenever you do that⁠—whenever I do that, you do that, anyone does that⁠—what we're doing is we're using Mercury, maybe Uranus as well, to drive the Moon, to drive the Sun, to drive Venus.

                        So the Moon is your feelings. The Sun is your identity, really showing up as your whole self, being in alignment. And then Venus is loving. Mercury and Uranus cannot do those jobs. Mercury is a fucking trickster. Uranus is electricity. We cannot run the internet as a way to find intimacy and connection and home and family. So we might meet people on the internet and then connect with those people and cultivate those things, but it can't do all of it through the internet. Internet is a metaphor for Uranus, by the way.

                        All to say⁠—let me speak in strictly astrological terms. If we're going to embody the chart—not just an aspect of the chart but the whole fucking chart, right? If we're going to embody the chart, we have to embody all the chart. We can't say to ourselves, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I really like my Jupiter, and I'm going to focus on that," because every single part of our chart is a part of us. Every single part of our chart is a part of us.

                        And what we all do with our birth charts is we decide that some parts are good and some parts are bad, and we focus on the parts that we like or, depending on your nature, the parts we don't like. And the reality, the truth, the truth, the truth, is that we are not our parts; we are the synthesis of our parts, which is why at the end of the day⁠—you know what? You're going through a Pluto transit to your natal Venus right now. We haven't even gotten there. That's not the point. The point is, at the end of the day, your survival mechanisms are running the fucking show even though most of your chart says something different than your Saturn/Pluto opposition.

                        Nothing is hitting your Saturn/Pluto opposition right now. But it is your survival mechanisms that run the show because you're a human and you're living through apocalyptic times. And so the synthesis of your chart, the understanding that when you are activated, because you're a person, your survival mechanisms take hold⁠—that's normal for human people, especially human people who come from trauma, which⁠—we're not talking about your childhood trauma or the trauma of being raised in the time you are, but we could spend a couple hours there.

                        It is important to acknowledge that there is the synthesis of your parts. So, because of the way your Saturn/Pluto runs, takes that fixed T-square between the Moon, Uranus, and the Sun, and it gives you a tendency to be more controlling than you might otherwise be, more rigid when you feel emotionally challenged than you might otherwise be, because Saturn/Pluto wants self-control. And the T-square that you have is actually not always about control, but because you have that Saturn/Pluto opposition, it intensifies the drive for control.

Ted:                 [crosstalk]. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yes. Yep. It's about understanding⁠—

Ted:                 The smoothie and not the fruit salad.

Jessica:            Yes. Thank you. Exactly. Exactly. You could have a dish and add a spice, and it changes the dish completely. And the spice that is really deep in your chart is the survival mechanism, the Saturn/Pluto survival mechanism. And it changes the flavor of all these other aspects. And that's not bad, and it's not good. It is. We gotta get away from bad or good. It's not bad or good. It just is.

                        And so, if you can acknowledge, "Shit. I want to control things to keep myself and the people I care about safe," then you can acknowledge, "Oh, that's fear." And sometimes it's the right thing to do. If you and your boyfriends are out somewhere and you realize that the person you're with is a fucking predator and the three of you need to get the fuck out, you're the first one who's going to notice that in a situation. And you're going to be the one who comes up with six plans, right? This is a great skill you have.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            When you're like, "I love these people. I'm safe with these people. And I don't know if I can stay, and I don't know why," that's when you talk to your partners. That's the fucking point of having partners who love you, is talking to them about this. So you're not in jeopardy, even though the same feelings exist of jeopardy.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            That all said, you have Venus at zero degrees Scorpio. Pluto has already started to square your natal Venus. So the fact that your deepest romantic shit is being triggered⁠—100 percent on time. I mean, that's on time. Pluto is going to square your Venus, and then it's going to square your Mercury. And then it's going to square your Midheaven at two degrees. So you have Venus at zero degrees of Scorpio. You've got Mercury at one degree of Scorpio, and you have your Midheaven at two degrees of Taurus. So it's going to square those. You've got several years back-to-back-to-back Pluto, and then you'll have a little break.

                        And then Pluto is going to conjoin your Neptune at six degrees of Aquarius, and then it's going to, without pause, sit on top of your Mars. So you are going to have your 20s very much marked by Pluto. So it's easy to get scared by that, but you actually don't need to. Just as a hot aside, I loved my Pluto/Mars conjunction. I spent a decade terrified of it because I knew it was going to come, and then when it happened, it was one of the best transits I ever went through. It was so great.

So Pluto is not always bad. But what it does is it triggers our survival mechanisms. And when Pluto sits on top of your Neptune⁠—which won't be for several years, so don't worry about it yet⁠—it'll be a generational thing. All your generation will be going through it, and you'll be going through it with boomers, who will have a Pluto opposition to their Pluto. So it's going to be a whole cultural shift.

Ted:     A whole thing.

Jessica:            It's going to be a whole thing. Learning how to work with your control issues, learning how to identify your all-or-nothing impulses, like, "I have to fix it, or I have to suffer with it. I have to stay, or I have to go"⁠—whenever you find yourself thinking, "I only have two choices," you know you're in Plutonian land. That's how you know you're in Plutonian land because there are always more than two choices. There are often zero percent good choices, but there are almost always more than two. And when we lose that nuance, when we lose our access to subtlety and nuance, then we know we're in Plutonian land⁠—or Saturnian land, but usually Plutonian land.

This is where you've been in this crisis that you're in because nothing's wrong, but everything feels wrong. And you're not going to figure this out or fix this on your own. What you're doing right now, TBH, is you're pushing them away. You're pushing them away and waiting for them to react in a way that stirs the pot so that it's not your fault; it's their fault. And then you can get out. And that's actually not what you want to be doing. It's not your evil plan, but it is what you're doing.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            And the reality is that if the truth breaks you, then you're already broken. If the truth is something that your partner or your partners cannot live with, then they shouldn't have to, right?

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            It's only fair to allow them to know what's happening with you. I don't see either of them breaking up with you or being punishing with you over this. I feel like the younger one will be like, "Thank God you told me. I haven't known what was up." I think the younger one has already asked you what's up, and you've been like, "Nothing, nothing, nothing. Everything's fine." Am I right?

Ted:                 Maybe I haven't paid enough attention. But you're definitely spot-on with a lot of it. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. The work here is to be vulnerable, to risk having your feelings hurt and risk hurting their feelings in efforts to just be honest. And let them help you come up with the answer. Honestly, I'm not sure that you leaving everything as is and just going out alone and hooking up with people isn't going to fix it. I think that might just fix it. And it might not, but it really might.

Ted:                 I see you. Yeah.

Jessica:            You see what I'm saying? You do have Uranus in the seventh house, but it's hugging the eighth-house cusp. And, honey, when Uranus is in the eighth, Uranus likes to fuck lots of people. And it's like hit it and quit it, like, "Let's make something happen. I'm going home now." It's not snuggling. It's not loving. It's not building. It's just having experiences. And I don't know if you have any kind of value judgments around that. I don't think there's anything wrong with having physical experiences with people.

Ted:                 Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Your Mars/Neptune conjunction and your Jupiter/Ascendant conjunction in Cancer is really snuggly and like, "Sex equals love," and tender. But Uranus is not. Your Uranus placement⁠—also, you're a Scorpio with three planets in Scorpio. I mean, you can get in there, get it done, and go the fuck home. And if your partners are okay with that, if that's a consensual dynamic, it might be the experiment that you need.

Ted:                 Yeah. When you say that, it's like you're really bringing to light something that I've probably glazed over in the dark. And it's just about really processing that and actually thinking about that, because I think for the most part, I've just been stuck, like you said, in a Plutonian world of two options. And I think it takes a lot more bravery to get into this gray area, to look at the vulnerability, because I think, also, the either/or solution, the two-option scenario of stay or leave, it just leaves me sort of stuck. In either situation, I've sort of tapped out, and I am not there anymore.

Jessica:            Right. That's right.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            The truth is you're not ready to leave these men. You're not done. And also, it's not working. And there is a lot of room. There's so much room within that. There's so much possibility. And I think you just told yourself, "Well, I had a boyfriend, and now I have two. And that's as wild as it gets. That's it. I did it. I'm done." But that's not it. That's not it, even a little bit. That's not it.

                        It might mean⁠—I don't want to blow your mind or anything. It might mean you need to go on different kinds of dates. You need to reconfigure things. You need to try new things in bed. It could mean that you need to communicate in different ways. It doesn't have to mean something sexual with other people. It could simply mean you need to work on your relationship, which⁠—I know that sounds so basic, but I don't think you have even thought about that⁠—like any regular couple, gay, straight, or other, just working on your relationship by reinvigorating communication, trying new things, going on different kinds of dates. You all haven't done that. And it turns out you might need it.

                        At the end of the day, if we pull out the very important and very real details of these two men that you're intimate with and we just focus on you, this is about giving yourself permission to explore and to not have all the answers and to be vulnerable and not in control, to not manipulate yourself or others but instead allow yourself to be pulled into the river that flows in your life. That is very fucking hard. And it's hard for somebody at any age, and it's especially hard for you because you've been so successful at doing things your way so far, you keep on trying to use the tools that got you here. But you need new tools.

                        And this is life. It's not because your tools are broken. Your tools are great. You'll use them again. But you can't use the same tools for every problem at all times. And it's like we're talking about this, and I'm like, "Oh, this is like a fucking metaphor for what's happening in the world as well." It doesn't matter what we're talking about, personal or collective. We need a big tool chest, and we need to remember to resource that tool chest.

Ted:                 Yeah.

Jessica:            That brings me to something that I don't usually do with people your age, but I'm going to do it. I want to acknowledge your North Node is in the twelfth house. You have not come here to analyze and sort and process and decide on a soul level. You've come here to be able to tap into your innermost life, to be able to tap into what's authentic for you on a soul level, and to be able to really honor that, which if you're being super in your nervous system is exceptionally hard to do. If you are guarding yourself in that Saturn/Pluto way, it's exceptionally hard to do.

                        Now, you're not supposed to be⁠—no one is supposed to be⁠ in embodiment of their North Node in their early 20s. That's not the goal. But because you fuck so hard with astrology, and because you are so good at listing things and analyzing things and all that, I want to remind you that that is a really valuable life skill, but it's not the skill that you need to learn. You came into this life with that skill. We come into this life with the skills of the South Node. They're already developed. Lean on them. Use them. But don't cultivate them. You've already cultivated them in your most recent lifetime.

                        In this lifetime, it's allowing yourself to sit with the gray. And nobody's North Node is easy for them. So I might be chill with the gray, but you, because your North Node is in the twelfth house⁠—it's never going to be fucking chill for you. It's always going to be the thing that your soul is learning and striving towards. And so, for you⁠—and we're referring to the gray, and what we mean is the esoteric, that which cannot be pinned down, the innermost psychic and psychological and emotional. We're talking about the twelfth house. It's a really hard place.

I mean, you've got a T-square pointing towards your Sun. You want to be seen. You want to shine. Of course you do. Jupiter at the rise? People like you. You shine. That's not a hard thing for you, actually. And none of that is bad. None of that is good; none of that is bad. That is what you are, and that is beautiful. There is a part of you that is a very authentic and real part of you that wants to sit in the basement looking at security cameras, making sure that everyone's in the room they're supposed to be in, that no one knows where you are, that you're safe and they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.

                        There is a part of you that is micromanaging your safety and the welfare and behavior of others, and that is an exceptional skill that you never want to lose and you also don't want to misuse, because that will keep you further from people, further from happiness, further from wholeness. And so the journey for you in this time of intense Pluto transits, and also throughout your life, is to be able to identify, "Oh. I'm in the basement with my security cameras right now. Shit. Okay. Do I need this? Do I need this? If I don't need it for my survival, can I say to myself, 'Okay. I'm going to stop tracking. I'm going to stop manipulating. I'm going to stop tracking. I'm going to start protecting. I'm just going to be with my feelings.'"

And then you'll probably feel irritated and agitated and annoyed and bad. And you have to sit with those feelings because Uranus, again, is the nervous system. It makes us feel nervy. And then, as you sit with those feelings, if you can tolerate your nervy feelings, you sit with that long enough; you will feel your feelings' feelings, which⁠—we've been talking for over an hour now, and you still haven't said a single thing about your feelings, just so you know, okay? Because you've used a lot of words, but none of them are Lunar vocabulary.

And as a student of astrology, you should know that when we as astrologers listen to what other people say, we're constantly hearing which planet is talking because each of the planets have their own language. And you haven't used any Lunar words. And so it might be a good assignment for you to look up not just the first 12 key words that come up for the Moon, but really make it an astrology project for you to really explore, "What is the Moon? What is the Moon? What is the language of the Moon?" so that you can track, because again, going back to the beginning of our conversation, I asked you what you feel about these men. And you said, "Well, I think," and you said a bunch of words, and then you said, "I think," and then you said a bunch of words, and then you said, "I think," and you never said, "I feel."

And that is⁠—it's just interesting, and it's a good thing to be able to clock because having access to our emotions is terrifying, and it requires nuance, and it requires a lot of "and also." "I feel stuck and bored and kind of annoyed and scared and lonely. And also, I love them and I feel safe, and I feel held, and I want to be there, and I'm invested." It's "and also." You're allowed to have mixed emotions. But that part of you that's sitting in the basement with the security cameras is like, "There's no such thing as mixed emotions. There's right behavior, wrong behavior. There's a good place; there's a bad place. That's it."

Ted:                 Yeah. And with that North Node, as well, and I'm guessing with these Pluto transits, it's sort of like pressing my control, micro-managy self to be able to let go and sit in things without having to solve.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. I mean, I know. I know. I'm so sorry. The thing about Pluto transits⁠—I mean, they're always a pain in the ass. They're always challenging. I mean, I'm not going to lie about it. But I will say that it is far easier to go through them, I think, in your 20s. And the only reason why I say that is because every year of your life, you rack up more shit, more survival mechanisms, more wonderful things but also more traumas, every year of your life.

                        And at this stage, it's kind of like if Pluto wants you to go through all the security tapes of your life, you got 22 years of security tapes, not 70 years, not 31 years. You got 22 years of security tapes. And that is its own blessing. I mean, it's never easy. I don't want to suggest it's easier at one age than another, because that's not really what I'm saying. But as a way to kind of⁠—because you do fuck so heavily with astrology, as a way to remember that you are going to work out in these several years of Pluto transits so much of your developmental trauma. You are going to work out so much of the shit that we're talking about. You're not going to have a fucking choice. That's the assignment. Pluto says that's the assignment, so that's the assignment.

                        And because of that, it just lets you know how much of the house you're going to get to enjoy because you're really going to excavate the basement through this period. And that's kind of beautiful. I look back to my early-in-life Pluto transits, and I mean, if I went through them when I was older, maybe they'd be less traumatic because⁠—you know, whatever. But thank God I went through them when I did because they excavated things from my childhood that needed to be excavated. And I think that that's a really important frame for when you go through challenging transits in youth.

Ted:                 Young.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, pre-Saturn Return in particular, because everything that we go through pre-Saturn Return prepares us for the Saturn Return. And you do want to work on your Pluto shit so that your Saturn Return comes, and it's not all about your survival mechanisms. Right?

Ted:                 Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Now, I just want to pause and check and see if you have any kind of final question. Did we nail the main stuff on this topic?

Ted:                 Yeah. We really did. And also, with my counselor, it's come up so much over the past three years with different counselors of my little superpower of avoiding the emotions and analyzing them. And I like the assignment of actually looking at Lunar⁠—I think it might be that because I feel so intense, like that nervous system is so on the surface, and internally, it's like Leo. It's bright, and I feel it. When it comes to my communicating and sharing and bringing it outside, and given we're dealing with relationships, that's where things are a little bit tricky and messy and I actually need to just sit and slow down all that lightning. Slow it down and be able to open up because, at that point, then, how am I supposed to connect with anyone if I can't even let it out?

Jessica:            Yeah, or let them in. And I think⁠—

Ted:                 Or let them in.

Jessica:            ⁠—Mercury in Scorpio⁠—it's a fixed placement, right? And Mercury in Scorpio is not known internationally for being like, "This is all the things I'm really feeling." You know what I mean? That's okay. And it's square to Neptune in your chart. So, when you go to verbalize, there's a scrambling that happens for you.

Ted:                 Oh yes.

Jessica:            And that scrambling⁠—it just makes you want to find the right words because you hate feeling scrambled because of all these other parts of your nature. And so, hence, you write notes so that you know you're preparing for being scrambled. And that's a really good skill. Also, it means you're turning to Mercury, and by turning to Mercury, you're turning away from the Moon. You're turning to your mind to sort things out instead of tapping into your emotions in the present moment to access what's authentic for you.

                        So, when you do talk to your younger partner, if that's what you do choose to do, I would encourage you to try to not take notes and see what that is, and even acknowledge to him, "Usually, I take notes to ground my thinking, but I want to just keep on tapping into my feelings." And maybe you're going to talk to your counselor about this for a month or two before you do it. Whatever. You know what I mean? Do it if it works, and do it in your own time.

                        But the key is to be able to acknowledge, "Okay. I don't know how to tell you how I'm feeling because it feels like word vomit. And I don't want to do word vomit because I don't know how you'll react. But that's the most honest thing I can do." And you can always say that to him and then say, "Are you open to hearing it right now?" And if he says, "No, I can't take it right now," then don't tell him. And if he says, "Yes, I'm dying to know what the fuck is happening with you. You're being weird," then tell him.

                        You can always ask consent. You can always ask, "Are you open right now?" And that might help you to not feel like you have to control whether or not he's open and come in with a jack to open him up just in case he's not open. This is about a relationship. It's about a back-and-forth. And, all this said, you could have the perfect conversation⁠—he could say everything right; you could say everything right⁠—and you could eventually land on, "This is not it." And that's okay. But you're not going to know unless you explore all the options. And it's worth it because there is enough love and care and safety here to explore it before you make a decision.

                        I guess one more thing I'll say is you've been struggling with this issue, and you've really been looking at stay/go, stay/go. And every time you think about staying, it's not a yes. And every time you think about going, it's not a yes. This will happen again in your life in a million ways, on a million levels. That is, 100 percent of the time, because you're giving yourself the right options. So those⁠—if all or nothing, yes or no, stay or go, are not yeses, that's because there are other things in between that are going to be your yeses. And you do not need to figure it out on your own unless you are truly in danger, which you are not in this situation. I mean, your feelings may get hurt, but you're not in danger here, right?

Ted:                 No. No. No.

Jessica:            Right. And so this is just something to keep in mind. Now, we're going to wrap up, but I'm going to say one last thing. People like you. Getting people to like you, finding the people that like you that you like back, is not your problem. I get it. You didn't date in your teens, but again, Queer. I don't know that that's super unusual. But for you, finding people who you feel connected to is actually not the hardest thing.

                        So, if people really like you and finding connection is not the hardest thing⁠—and again, you've got two years' experience as an adult, if we're being generous. So you don't have enough empirical evidence to really trust what I'm saying, but I'm going to say it anyways. I don't really think that dating is going to be the hardest thing in your life. I don't think that if these men don't work out, that means you'll never be with a man who loves you or that you love again. I don't see that being your problem.

                        And I think it's really important for me to say that, because when we look at our birth charts as a way to understand ourselves, which I think everyone who studies astrology does, it's easy to find one writer who says, "Oh, well, you've got Mars and Neptune in the seventh house. That means never," and somebody else will be, "That means always." It's important to compare what you're reading and what resonates with you in a moment with your own lived experience. And I know you said when we first got on this call, "Oh yeah, I spent most of my life not dating." I mean, you're in a stable, loving partnership for years, and you're not even 22. I don't think that statement quite is what you think it is. You know what I mean?

                        So, I mean, a lot of people, by the time they hit their Saturn Return, have never been in a two-year-long relationship. You've already achieved so much in the realm of love and intimacy and partnership. And I think it's really important that you take the time to sit with it—that's what the Moon does⁠—to reflect on it⁠—that's what the Moon does⁠—to let it fill you up⁠—that's with the Moon does⁠—and to acknowledge what it doesn't fill up in you with the Moon. So not to think about it, but to feel it, to acknowledge, "Oh, I have had so much of what I'm scared of never having. I do have so much of what I'm scared of never having." And they can both exist at once. You can be scared of never having it again or be scared of not having it now, even when you're aware that you do have it.

Ted:                 Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Life is so hard and complicated.

Ted:                 It is, very much.

Jessica:            It is. But hopefully this helps you to kind of navigate through what you're going through.

Ted:                 It does.

Jessica:            Now, I feel like you might feel sad after this call, like some sadness. And I want to acknowledge that. My advice is, if you start to feel sad, to make an effort to set a timer on your phone for⁠—I don't know⁠—50 seconds, 5-0 seconds. Not even a minute. 50 seconds where you're going to notice where you feel sad in your body, and you're going to breathe into that part of your body. You're just going to feel the feeling. 50 seconds, not even a minute. That's my advice, to start really small, really, really small, in tolerating your feelings and not doing anything about them and not moving away from them.

                        And if you can, over time, over the course of your Pluto transits, over the course of the next years, move that number of 50 seconds up to⁠—I don't know⁠—five minutes eventually, cool. If you can't, fine. It's absolutely fine. But it's about acknowledging that that feeling is so hard for you to feel, and none of our feelings are bad. None of our feelings are unworthy of our presence. Some of our thoughts are unworthy of our presence, but our feelings are our feelings are our feelings. And so being able to acknowledge them and to be present for them empowers us to navigate them and then nurture them in whatever way they need to be nurtured⁠—out of the basement into the basement, whatever it is. You get to be you, but it's about tolerating the emotions.

Ted:                 I love that.

Jessica:            Oh, I'm so glad. You are an absolute delight, and thank you for sending in such a great question, also with such a great title, "Manifested or Man-Infested." Genius. Genius.

Ted:                 Thank you so much.

Jessica:            And luckily, I don't think you're man-infested.

Ted:                 I think I am love-invested.

Jessica:            You are love-infested.

Ted:                 And I was not prepared for that infestation. I was not prepared for that. I was not prepared for that.

Jessica:            Well, may you have such problems forever.

Ted:                 Thank you so much.