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: Aster, welcome to Ghost of a Podcast.

Aster: Thanks.

Jessica: What would you like a reading about?

Aster: So I have a question that I wrote initially, and then I kind of reworded it for clarity. So I'll just go ahead and ask the reworded question if that's okay with you.

Jessica: Mm-hmm.

Aster: So I am an artist who suddenly gained a number of followers on Instagram. Rather than running with the gift and momentum of this audience, I find myself turning away and inwards. I would ideally love to use this platform with ease and neutrality, treating it as a digital container where my work might be refined and deepened through the act of authentic sharing. Instead, I find myself overthinking, wondering about my values and motivations, which eventually leads to overwhelm and closing me off before I post anything at all. Is there anything in my chart that points to this desire to stay hidden, and are there any tools that might help me break down the perfectionist tendencies that are currently stopping me before I begin?

Jessica: That's a great question. Very relatable, very relatable. I'm going to share your birth information. You were born December 17th, 1993, 2:26 p.m. in Washington, D.C. So I have so many thoughts about answering your question, but I'm going to start off by actually asking you a couple questions. The first is, what kind of art? Are you a visual artist?

Aster: Yes, I'm a visual artist. I'm a ceramicist and an illustrator and a budding painter.

Jessica: Okay. Great. So you play with different mediums. You referenced sharing yourself authentically. Now, I want to ask you, pulling back from your question and your feelings, do you think that Instagram is⁠—

Aster: No.

Jessica: Right. It's not exactly an authentic sharing platform.

Aster: No.

Jessica: Right. There's been studies done about this. It gives people eating disorders, right? It's not⁠—

Aster: [crosstalk]

Jessica: Right. Okay. Okay.

Aster: I am aware. Yeah. They're deeply flawed platforms. Yeah.

Jessica: Totally. Totally. But just curious what your thought was. And then, related to that, do you follow other artists that you follow because you feel that they are sharing themselves authentically?

Aster: I do, actually. I do feel that there are people who have kind of found an ideal balance or at least a way to engage with that that feels kind of like it's a tool for human connection. I think it can be a really good tool for creating community and activism, and ideally I could use it that way. I also think that I get kind of bogged down in so many things when I'm⁠—

Jessica: So I'm taking notes as you speak, okay? And I'm going to tell you you have just told me that you feel that with your Instagram following, you should be building community, using it as a tool for activism, sharing yourself authentically, and sharing your work.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: It's understandable that you'd be overwhelmed. I understand why you would relate to a social media following in that way because I'm on the internet; I'm on social media. And that's what a lot of people do. I just wanted to start the conversation, before we even got into astrology or the specifics of you, just to kind of unpack the details here so that you could hear how anyone would be overwhelmed by that agenda. It's too big of an agenda, especially if the whole thing is like, "Making art is vulnerable. I want to make art. I want to communicate my art online." It's already so challenging, right? So we're just starting with that.

Now, I want to say you, my friend, have a stellium in Sagittarius. You have your North Node, Mercury, Venus, Sun, and Mars all in Sagittarius. And so it makes sense that you're like, "I should tell my story. I should tell my story from"⁠—Sagittarius is related to the soapbox, which⁠—I think the modern version of a soapbox is social media. So, "I want to tell it up on a mountain, a.k.a. Instagram. And I should tell my truth, and I should have a narrative that is compelling, that sweeps people up, that is authentic," because Sagittarius. So that's very big for you.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: Also, you have a Midheaven in Capricorn. So the Midheaven in your birth chart is related to what you want to be known for. It's your conscious objectives. And Capricorn is, "I want to be respected. I want to be seen as somebody with expertise, somebody who is 'real' in my field." Sagittarius gives zero fucks about these things. Sagittarius⁠—and I'm not talking about people who are Sagittariuses, which, of course, you are one. The zodiac sign of Sadge is about experience. It's about energy. And Capricorn is about sitting down and working it out.

And on top of that, you've got Uranus very, very, very close to a conjunction⁠—it's not exactly conjunct your Midheaven. But you change your mind frequently about how you want to be perceived.

Aster: Yeah. 100 percent.

Jessica: Capricorn fucking hates that, but here it is happening in your chart.

Aster: Yeah. [indiscernible 00:05:57] inner battles.

Jessica: Inner battles. So you might one day think, "Okay," for instance, "talking about this social justice issue is really important on my platform," and then later in that day think, "When people do that, it is virtue signaling." You will come from different angles and have a really different take, and that's not bad, and it's not good. But because this is happening at your Midheaven, it makes it really hard for you to pick a singular point and to stick with it in how you communicate yourself. Right?

Aster: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica: Yes. Okay. Let's add more complexity because I am not done with you. You got a Moon/Saturn conjunction in fucking Aquarius in the eleventh house. OMG. Let me tell you what that means. It means, if there's a place that you're shy and there's a place that you're hard on yourself, it's in community and groups of people. And what do you want to do with your Instagram? Build community.

Aster: Awesome.

Jessica: Yeah. This question that you've asked⁠—again, I think it's so relatable. I think everybody who has a public social media account that's in any way related to their passions and interests or career, struggles with how to show up. That's human because it's not normal. What we're doing in society is not normal. It's not like there's a way that your birth chart wants you to do this, you or anyone, because this is not normal to be compulsively, publicly self-disclosing to a public that we can't even know all the time. And also, we can never erase it? You can delete a post, but you can never delete it off the internet.

None of this is normal. None of this is inherently healthy. So, all of that said, one other thing. You have a North Node/Pluto conjunction in your seventh house. Now, listen to me when I say I'm not going to fixate on your North Node; you're too young for that. But I will say that for you, because Pluto is there whether we look at the Node or not, your Pluto in the seventh is like, "I only want intimate, private, deep, meaningful connections with individual people."

Aster: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Mm-hmm, because your Moon and your Saturn in Aquarius in the eleventh house square your fucking Pluto, see? And that North Node being there means that you should work with Pluto. Pluto is actually what you're here to do. From my perspective as an astrologer, I would say setting the intention to be personally authentic in a public platform or with the building of your art career is a pretty self-destructive goal.

Aster: Oh.

Jessica: And I would say that because it makes you feel like dog doo-doo pretty much 98 percent of the time, I'm guessing.

Aster: Yeah. 100 percent.

Jessica: Okay. 100 percent of the time. Or 100 percent of the time, it's 98 percent of the time. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I got it. That does not mean you cannot share of yourself. But there is a really meaningful difference between sharing your personal self and showing up for what you share.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Does that make sense?

Aster: [crosstalk]

Jessica: I want it to sit in your layers. Let's let it settle a little. Personally, me, I'm not a fan of doing a lot of personal sharing on social media. It's not what I do. And yet, when I do share something, I try to show up with my whole personality and with myself. So, while I'm not talking about my thoughts and feelings on things, necessarily, I am being real about what I am sharing.

I am getting a feeling that the people that you really admire who do personal sharing and are visual artists and are politically vocal⁠—that those people have a certain kind of personality where they're not doing that Saturnian editing of themselves that is consistent with your nature.

Aster: Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica: There are certain people who are wired in certain ways where they can just be like, "Okay. I'm going to slap a bunch of things together, and I'm going to share it with the world," and then they just stop thinking about it. You're not that person.

Aster: No.

Jessica: You're not that person. You're not that person. And on top of it, you don't know what you want your professional life to reflect. You haven't figured that out. You haven't actually even given yourself the space to ruminate on it. You're just trying to figure out what to do instead of what's authentic to you.

Aster: Yeah. I will say I'm in a time of big transition, and I feel kind of like my Saturn Return really shook me up and showed me the areas that I needed to kind of go into so that I could get clear on what my values are. But I'm still, I think, in that space of wading through all of the silt, as you said earlier.

Jessica: Yeah. And also, you've got other major transits happening right now that are shaking your whole world up. Let me just pull back and say I want to give you this homework.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: I wrote a little list based on what you shared with me. You want to cultivate community, be an activist with your platform, share personal things of yourself, and then share, of course, your work. Right? So far, that's the list we've created. I know it's kind of [crosstalk] list.

Aster: It's enormous.

Jessica: Yeah. It's an enormous list. But I bet, if you and I weren't talking and you were off in your world and you were comparing yourself to someone else, you could come up with a longer list.

Aster: Yeah. Probably.

Jessica: So I want to encourage you, as first part of homework, is to spend a couple weeks just letting it kind of come to you in moments. Add it to the notes in your phone. Add it to your list. One of the things that you're putting pressure on yourself around or you have the expectation that you should do around your social media platform⁠—just get clear about that. And then the other thing I want you to do is try to identify from a professional standpoint what the use of having social media is. You're a Capricorn Midheaven, so we have to talk about the use. Saturn/Moon conjunction. What's the use? Right?

Aster: Yeah. Utility. Function.

Jessica: Utility and function. Exactly. Now, you have so much Sagittarius in you. So it's not like that's your whole life, but it has to be how you orient around your safety⁠—the Moon⁠—and the planning and scaffolding of your career.

Aster: That's helpful.

Jessica: What I'm giving you is basically like list-writing homework, which is your jam, right? It's your jam. Okay.

Aster: Love a good list.

Jessica: A good list is⁠—we agree. It's amazing. So I want to just kind of ground you into that. And I want to just reflect back to you that all of us are pressured to commodify our lives. We are all pressured to commodify our thoughts and our feelings. And I'm not saying everyone's making money off of their social media. It's not about that. Once you put something on social media, you are commodifying it. That is a form of commodifying, right?

Aster: Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica: And that is not inherently healthy. It can be great for some people, and some people are naturally good at it. And some people work hard to be good at it. And none of us have to. I mean, for your career, it can be very fucking helpful, but also, I am really concerned about what it's doing to us as a people. If you make the decision that in the end, what you want to focus on with your social media platform for your art is art and that you want to use the power and the influence that you have for activism or community-building, go forth. Do your damn thing.

If you decide that you want to share certain parts of your personal self⁠—which, again, I don't think you will, but if you do, go forth. Do your damn thing. But I will say Pluto in the seventh house square to Saturn and the Moon⁠—don't think of it as privacy. Think of it as sacred.

Aster: I love that.

Jessica: Like, what stays sacred? There are certain things that if we share them with others, they're no longer just ours. They belong to the collective, and that's gorgeous. And other things, that's not fucking gorgeous; that's just chaos. It's not healthy anymore. So I want to just kind of give you that subtle reframe because I think it'll make night and day difference for you.

Aster: Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome.

Aster: Yeah. That's helpful discernment.

Jessica: Where things get complicated is when we come back to the biggest chunk of your chart, which is all the Sadge, which is that part of you that's like, "But I want to be in the world making personal connections with people on social media. That's actually fun because I have access to a wide variety of people, not just the people in a 20-mile radius of me."

And so what I'm going to just pause right now to say is, okay, so you tell me, where do we go from here? What questions are remaining? Because in a way, I'm like, well, we just answered your question. So what's still up for you around all this?

Aster: I think sometimes the discernment of almost what should stay sacred for me and what is worth sharing. What can kind of be transformed through the act of sharing? And then, also, I mean, as an artist, I think that sometimes the work can feel so deeply intertwined with who I am, it's a vulnerable thing to share at all. And I'm also grateful for the people that find value in it or⁠—I mean, I think that one of the functions of art is offering permission to everybody, not just people who identify as creatives, but everybody who can unlock some kind of creativity or find inspiration or find a little pull to make something of their own. And I like that function of social media, of sharing this work and changing the work through connecting over it. Does that make sense?

Jessica: Yeah. It does. Okay. So there's some layers here. One is the question that you posed of, what can be transformed through the act of sharing? And I would say that it is dangerous to put your vulnerability and needs for transformation on stranger dangers on the internet.

Aster: Yeah. It's not safe.

Jessica: It's not safe for anyone because you might post something in June of 2023, and then it might get in nefarious hands in July of '24. It's the fucking internet. Now, I'm not trying to make you scared. But I want to say I think it is possible to say, "Okay. I painted a pink hat," and you know that this pink hat represents something from your childhood and that is deeply activated in your relationship with your partner and that it means something to you. And your immediate community who knows you IRL or knows you in online communities that are more curated and more intentional than social media can be⁠—they know that it's really personal to you. But when you post it on social media to the vast unknown of the internet, at that time, you're like, "This is a pink hat. It has really great meaning for me. What does it evoke for you?"

Again, there's this way that we can take parts of what is intimate and meaningful and personal and decide who to keep it most sacred with and how to share it in ways that don't minimize it by stealing from the sacredness of it and stealing from the intimacy of it, but also don't require personal self-disclosure in a way that's unnecessarily vulnerable. And I think, again, for a different personality, there's no such thing as unnecessarily vulnerable because they're willing to take that risk.

And I think what happens for you is you tell you yourself a story because Sagittarius is all about stories and narrative. You tell yourself a story, and you juice yourself up, so you're going to do this thing. And then you do it, and your Moon/Saturn is like, "Ouch. Why did I do that?" And you have shame spirals as a result of having overshared. Right?

Aster: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: For sure. It's torture. And so this is why you might want to even create a visual, like a circle. In the center of the circle is the fucking thing. "The hat triggers my childhood. The cat is activated in my partnership. That's the most intimate jewel. My besties know about it. The people who are closest to me, maybe my art collaborators, know about it." And then there's a circle out, which is people who are in more curated community but are not on par with intimacy exactly. And you would tell them generally what it is but maybe not all the specifics and the details. But they would have a sense of a bigger part of your practice.

And then you can go out further, which is stranger danger, within whom may be allies and friends as well as danger. Right?

Aster: Yeah. For sure.

Jessica: So you may want to make a practice⁠—and there might be more circles to it, but make a practice of writing out different versions of how you could have done that with past projects as a way to start to sort through creating a process for yourself. So I would start with things you've already done in the past because it'll be way easier than starting with something that's really vulnerable to you in the present.

Aster: Okay. I'm just a slow processor.

Jessica: Well, you have a Moon/Saturn conjunction. So I respect you. But also⁠—oh, wait. I see. Part of what you're calling slow processing is actually that you like to take the long and winding path all the way through the idea because you've got that Mercury and you've got so much Sadge in you. And I'm coming at you full Capricorn, like, "Let's go straight to the point." And it's very jarring for you. I can see that now.

Aster: I think I need a little of it, though.

Jessica: Okay. I mean⁠—

Aster: [crosstalk] groundedness, too.

Jessica: You know that's what I have to offer. But I want to just acknowledge that part of what I'm seeing now that it's coming up is that you're trying to be good to go. You're trying to be easy, chill, and keep up, even though you're not really doing that in an emotionally authentic way. And that's not bad or good. I mean, you're having a reading. It's a moment. Life has us do this.

But the reason why I want to point this out is because this happens in your process with this question around how to show up in public/social media where other people's way, what's happening around you, what you see other people doing, makes you feel like, "Okay. I gotta keep up." And then you do things that are just not authentic to you.

Aster: Yeah. For sure.

Jessica: You are not going to be the person to respond online to the thing immediately.

Aster: No.

Jessica: You need time to process.

Aster: Yes. And I think sometimes that feeling of not having that immediate response makes me just kind of shut down or turn away. But I also feel like when I do give in to that impulsive⁠, you know⁠—maybe it's like an internal impulse to just share, be part of the conversation. I feel like I'm fiery and I burn up. I kind of burn to a crisp.

Jessica: Yeah. That sounds right. I mean, it's a lot of Sagittarius. So that sounds right to me. So I think⁠—hold on. Let me just find it. You get really jarred. I mean, I keep on just seeing the word "jarred," so I'm going to use it. You get really jarred by consequences because you're scared of failing. Okay. That's what it is. And so part of taking that winding path is your way of trying to avoid getting to it.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So that is not bad, and that is not good. It's neither. It's where you are. Maybe it's completely your nature. Maybe it's your nature right now because you're still very young, and that is fair. The thing that I think is important is that you are giving yourself space to notice who you are and how you are so that you can use that information to make self-appropriate choices.

Aster: Yeah. And I think I'm in kind of a moment where I have a lot of time and ease, and it feels like a gift to have that. Like I was saying, I was on anxiety medication from a young age, and I tapered off of that earlier this year. So it's kind of also been a process of coming back into contact with all of these emotions and deeper feelings.

Jessica: Yeah. And were you given a diagnosis?

Aster: Generalized anxiety disorder.

Jessica: And do you identify with it?

Aster: I did, and I think I still do. I mean, I am feeling pretty⁠—I'm feeling anxious today. I won't lie. But I think, generally, I feel myself moving toward a lot more softness within and capacity to kind of notice what's coming up for me moment to moment and sit with it instead of just being reactive or succumbing to the feeling of overwhelm, which is definitely something that I notice happening for myself.

Jessica: I have a question. You mentioned before we started recording that you do manual labor. Do you experience anxiety when you're doing manual labor?

Aster: No. I actually think the embodied work is good for me.

Jessica: I agree. When I look at you energetically, it looks like when you start to have anxiety⁠—which does not mean that you don't have a generalized anxiety disorder. I'm not a doctor, obviously. I'm just an astrologer, and you should never take any kind of mental health advice from me. Also, I will say the anxiety that you have comes from first having a self-critical, self-limiting, comparing-of-self thought and then not breathing.

Aster: Oh.

Jessica: And when you're doing manual labor, you have to breathe because you're huffing and puffing.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So that can't happen. Even if you have those self-critical⁠—self-harming, even⁠—thoughts, it doesn't lead to anxiety, because you're breathing.

Aster: Yes. Yeah. I can see that. That makes so much sense. I also⁠—yoga is one of the things that's really helped me stay grounded. Yeah.

Jessica: Because it's a breathing practice.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, people focus on a lot of parts of yoga, but it's a breathing practice, right?

Aster: It's a breathing practice. Yeah. And actually, what's funny is when I started doing it, I wasn't in touch with my breathing at all. So it took me a couple of months of learning how to⁠—

Jessica: To get it. I mean, I think that's one of the harder parts of yoga.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: So I'm going to say, every time you find yourself having negative thoughts or self-critical thoughts⁠—or you'll probably miss it most of the time, so every time you start to have anxiety, just say, "Oh shit. I'm not breathing." Reword it in your own way. But I would say, "Oh shit. I'm not breathing." And set the intention. Pick a number. Whatever feels right to you. Pick a number and breathe in repetitions of that number until you bring your anxiety down.

And it doesn't have to be bringing your anxiety from a seven to a four. It can be bringing it from a seven to a six because what you're doing is you're training your mind to understand that there's a body connection, and breathing is so hard to remember to do, but also, it's free. You can do it while people are lecturing you. You can do it in all situations. You don't have to be super woo about it. You can just breathe. You can just breathe. And so that Moon Capricorn needs to know that you don't have to leave your life to make your life okay.

Aster: Yes. Those words are helpful.

Jessica: Good. It's interesting. I look at your birth chart, and I can see how you have panic. But I would have clocked you for more depression than anxiety.

Aster: Both exist.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, they dance together pretty⁠—

[crosstalk]

Jessica: I think that you have intense emotions.

Aster: Yes, I do.

Jessica: And that is healthy and normal for you. It's just about figuring out how to be present with those emotions instead of, when you start to feel them, being like, "Oh no," hold your breath, pull back, and now you're having an anxiety response physiologically.

Aster: Yes. And it's very body oriented. I used to have pretty intense panic attacks, actually, which was when I started the medication.

Jessica: I mean, all of this completely checks out. And also, I cannot overstate the value and importance of breathing for you. And you don't need to take a class. You don't need to learn how to do it. You cannot do it wrong. It's just remembering to do it. And this kind of⁠—okay, it brings me back to this larger thing that we're talking about, which is how to show up in the world, how to hold your power in a way that feels like it's in integrity, and how to build community with people, how to also build a career that's for you.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: Right? And I want to say that no individual person figures all these things out at once. That's B-A-N-A-N-A-S, right? You know, bananas.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. But I want to just identify that they're all different topics.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: And what happens for you is you smoosh them together, and you have an anxiety response. I mean, I have anxiety when I smoosh them together in this conversation. It makes me feel overwhelmed. So anyone would. I think that's reasonable. So I want to ask you, what would be helpful for us to talk about within that?

Aster: Yeah. I guess⁠—okay. This is making me think I'm about to go on this meandering path that you mentioned.

Jessica: Go for it. I'm into it.

Aster: [crosstalk] response to this is actually to say I've been feeling like everything is kind of coming up at once, and also, I'm throwing myself at everything at once. So it's actually really hard to pull out what's most important to focus on, even in a routine sense or in a day-to-day sense. And can I just also tell you that I'm about to move to a new city?

Jessica: Oh shit.

Aster: It's quite a lot going on. So it's both internal and it's external. So I actually⁠—I don't even know if I know in this moment what is most important.

Jessica: Do you have housing and employment set up?

Aster: We just got housing, and I have a studio situation there. But I think that most likely, I'll be working service to kind of pay for my practice and all of our other living expenses.

Jessica: So this is common sense, not astrology speaking, but I'm going to say moving and getting a new job actually should be your top priority because it's your material security and reality, right?

Aster: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Okay. So what I would give you the homework to do is to just make a practice of being like, "Okay, what are my immediate material needs? That has to be my top priority, even though all my followers don't know that, and they don't deserve to know that." Right? Or it's just, "I'm not willing to share it until it's kind of tidied up." And within that, give yourself a time frame. And here's the move. Give yourself a time frame of, like, "For the next two months, I'm going to prioritize at the top of the pyramid of my priorities this issue of housing, the mental health stuff of moving, getting employment, settling into my new space." That's the most important thing.

And at the end of two months, put in your little calendar, wherever you have a calendar⁠—put an alarm in your phone⁠—to say, "I'm going to check in with myself to see if I need to add another two months or if it's time to make a shift with intention."

Aster: Okay. Okay.

Jessica: That's the piece that a lot of people don't do, is you have to check in with yourself. Otherwise, it's just time. And time is⁠—what is time, right? So it's too confusing. So you gotta set a date with yourself. You have to schedule time.

Aster: Okay.

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Jessica: So you're going through two once-in-a-lifetime⁠—oh, you're going through more than two once-in-a-lifetime transits right now.

Aster: Oh my God.

Jessica: Yeah. You're going through⁠—boop, boop, boop, boop, boop⁠—five once-in-a-lifetime transits right now. It's a big time. You want to talk about your Saturn Return? It's old news. We're going to talk about this shit. Okay. So Neptune started to square your Sun in May of 2022. It's a two-year-long transit. And then, starting May 12th of 2023⁠, so like one month ago, Neptune started to square your Mars. Now, these two transits happen to everyone. When they do happen, they're once in a lifetime, and they create a huge amount of overwhelm and confusion and chaos, and they make you more porous and more private/incline you to more shamelessly self-disclose.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: It's confusing. These transits⁠—they test your ability to have healthy boundaries and your need to have healthy boundaries.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: And how would you have boundaries without first identifying who and what you are and what your intentions are?

Aster: Exactly.

Jessica: That's it. So that's the work.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: And within that, in terms of really deep personal shares online, I would say wait 72 hours. You have the idea, "I'm going to share I had a nightmare, and it made me think of a pink hat." And then you think, "I'm going to create a post about it." You can create the post. You're going to wait 72 hours before you hit Publish.

Aster: I love that.

Jessica: Okay. Great. It's Saturn/Moon conjunction. I know about rules. I'm a big fan, and they work on you. So I'm going to clean it. The other thing that's happening is Pluto is conjoining your Midheaven at almost 29 degrees of Cap. And so, yeah, your career has blown up. Eyes are on you, right? You're getting attention.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: What I recommend that you do is clarify what you want.

Aster: Yes. In the dream, I'm like an artist who can sustain herself and her loved ones off of her practice.

Jessica: So what does that mean? Let's get granular. That means you're making money?

Aster: Yeah. I mean, I think money is definitely part of it. It's like I know that these social media platforms are inherently capitalist. And I'm actually getting confused while I talk.

Jessica: Can I tell you why you're getting confused? I know, because I asked you to explain what you said when you said you wanted to sustain yourself and others, because that would mean making a ton of money.

Aster: Yes. Yeah, 100 percent.

Jessica: And you're really uncomfortable with that, even though that's totally your goal.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Let's talk about it. Let's do it.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: So you said that the goal would be to sustain yourself and others through your art practice, correct?

Aster: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I want it to be more nuanced. It's like I want to be able to provide and be⁠—you know, I want to say yes to opportunities that feel right to me and not just things that are going to make me money. And I think that there's a distorting nature of moneymaking and self-promotion. But yeah, I would like to be able to have enough money to afford my life because right now I feel pretty dependent on my partner.

And also, I've been working in these service positions and positions that are actually really energetically draining to me, like teaching. I like teaching, and I like that point of connection. But I think that I really want more freedom over my schedule, and I want to be able to create a lifestyle that feels like I actually have enough space to take that meandering path that I sometimes need.

Jessica: So everything you're saying is perfectly reasonable, and you're also defending what you want. Against who? Not against me. I make a living. I live well off of what I love. Yeah, and I'm giving you a free reading right now. I'm not charging you anything for this. There's ways to be financially abundant based on your craft, the thing that you love to do, the thing that you feel called to do. But first, you said, "I want to be able to sustain myself and the people I care about through my work," and then your brain just kind of went on the fritz.

And then I brought you back, and you started defending it. "Yeah, but I don't want it to be this way, and I don't want it to be that way. And I kind of deserve it because I have already been in service and I've done these other things, and they're exhausting." Okay. So don't feel bad about this. This is normal. This is very normal. I mean it's normal for people who aren't capitalists, because how do you⁠—within a capitalistic system, if you do not have capitalistic values, how do you figure out a way to earn money and abundance of money⁠—because that's what it needs to take care of yourself; that's what it needs to take care of yourself and another or multiple others⁠—without doing it in a capitalistic way?

I mean, that is a larger question, maybe for a different moment. But I just want to acknowledge I can feel your energy is like it went splat on the ground because you have guilt. And I don't know why you have guilt, but I don't think, again, it's an unusual response to this topic.

Let's keep it woo for just a moment to say I think it's incredibly important, yes, to have a political lens and a critical lens. And also, from a woo perspective, if you can't hold your intention in a simple and clear way, you are not holding your intention, and that means it's not going to come. Right?

Aster: Yeah. Yeah. I feel that.

Jessica: And so, when you envision being able to, let's say, sell paintings of pink hats for a living⁠—and that's just what you do; you love painting pink hats. And in order to paint a pink hat, you have to charge a fair amount of money for it. Okay. So now you're charging a fair amount of money. The only people who can buy your pink hats have a fair amount of money. Is there a way to give back to community? Is there a way to also sell reproductions of the pink hats to people who can't afford the pink hats? Is there a way to use your resources in a way that is better in alignment with what you do?

I mean, talking about the commodification of the individual, there are brand partnerships that lots of people get. And some of them are really fucking out of alignment, and some of them are not great, but they're not exactly out of alignment. And some of them are in alignment. You can be intentional about what you take on if you take on anything. But the political and critical analysis I would recommend⁠—okay. I'm going to give you another fucking⁠—full of homework today.

Okay. You're going to get a room, and in that room, you're going to put a bunch of chairs next to each other in a line. And you're going to sit in one chair, and you're going to take your notebook out, or you're going to use your talk-to-type or whatever works for your brain. You're going to bring a friend along for this, and you can do it, each of you. You can talk it out with each other. And you're going to sit, and you're going to talk about the political and critical analysis of what it means to make money off of art and what it means to make a lot of money off of art, because in order to live well and have medical insurance and eat well and give money and give it back into the community, you gotta make a lot of fucking money for that, right?

Okay. Okay. So you're just going to do political analysis, critical analysis, sitting in one chair. Then you're going to get up. You're going to stretch. You're going to breathe. You're going to move your body a teeny bit. You're going to sit down in the next chair, and you're going to talk about more of a personal feeling type thing, like, "How do I feel about making money? How do I feel about charging money? How do I feel about not being in struggle, telling people, 'Yeah, I do really well, and I make money off of painting pink hats'?" How does that feel? Explore all the feelings, and then do the same. Get up and do another chair. And you can figure out what that next chair will be based on whatever is really in your way or whatever part of this feels really important.

But the point I'm trying to show you, in a different way in this conversation than we've already done, is you're smooshing together too many things all at once. You're getting smoosh soup.

Aster: Smooshed.

Jessica: Yeah. Smooshing and soup.

Aster: [crosstalk]

Jessica: Yeah. It's a smoosh soup. That's what it is.

Aster: It's a swirly kind of feeling. it's almost like I can't find the clarity.

Jessica: Correct.

Aster: There's so many parts, and I feel like I can really pull out every argument, and then I just kind of get lost in it.

Jessica: Yep. That's the problem with all that Sagittarius, is that it's like narratives, just endless narratives.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: And all these stories are true stories. How can they all be true at once?

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: But they are. And so getting comfortable with paradox is so important. And it is possible to identify this narrative from this lens, that narrative from that lens, that narrative from that lens⁠—identify a bunch of them, and then be able to say, "Okay. Given all of this complexity, what are my goals?" But you can't figure out your goals until you've first identified the different veins of truth. And if you have enough financial abundance, then you can give things for free. You can give your services for free. You can invest money in communities that need it.

There are so many things that can be done. But to do them all at once⁠—you have a self-defensive, reactive, soupy, smooshy, splatty vibe. It doesn't feel right. So, even if it's technically right, it doesn't feel right.

Aster: Yeah. I really feel that. I feel like there's kind of this seeking or proving or kind of attached feeling that I have around it. And I think that's a huge part of why I wanted to speak with you about it, because I'm like, I know that all of these things feel really antithetical to the way that I want to show up in the world. And this feels like a facet of⁠— if I'm an artist, there's visibility innate in that stance. And social media can be a tool for getting really connected with people who⁠—I don't know⁠—care about life.

Jessica: Or people who can promote your work or give you opportunities.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: I mean, it's all of the things. And it is okay to be ambitious. You have a Capricorn Midheaven, my nerd. You're allowed to have ambition. We're all allowed to have ambition. It's about being ethical in our pursuit of ambition.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: It is possible to be ethical in the pursuit of so many things. I mean, so many things it is not ethical to be in pursuit of, but all the things we're talking about it is ethical to be in pursuit of. The problem is, when you don't take the time to slow down and use your discernment, then you can't figure out where you're starting from, what's important to you, because it's all the smoosh soup, right?

Aster: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: And so this is a big part of your work, to understand that we have to slow it down and get into the pieces. And I will just remind you that when you do that, you have anxiety, physiological anxiety, because you have overwhelming emotions that you haven't yet developed skills for tolerating, coping with, staying present around. So, when you do this work, you have to be a breather, like a serious breather. You gotta breathe a lot.

Aster: Noted.

Jessica: You got to. And also, you're going to feel bad sometimes. In this conversation, because I'm psychic, I can feel how you have felt various kinds of bad multiple times. And you've been a trooper because you're having a reading and you're having an experience, but I can see how in some moments you kind of stayed present and rode it, and other moments you just kind of, like, "Oh, I'm going to sit on this and hope it doesn't overwhelm me." And that's fine. That's life.

But again, as you experience these things, I would recommend that you try to notice that, as well, because if I can notice it, you can notice it.

Aster: I don't know if I've gotten all of it, but I've been feeling it kind of up and down and really wanting to stay present with you because I'm very, very grateful to be in this space with you and also kind of aware of how overwhelming and chaotic my energy feels in this moment.

Jessica: For whatever it's worth, I don't find your energy even remotely overwhelming or chaotic. I am able to be present and witness what you experience as chaos. I don't experience it as chaos at all. Think of it this way. Have you ever had a big stew or jambalaya, something like that that is a soup that has a bazillion different ingredients in it? The first time you look at a soup like that, it's like, "That looks chaotic. That looks overwhelming." But once you've come to eat that soup routinely, it's not at all chaotic because you understand what all the pieces are and how they work together and how, in some bites, maybe they don't, depending on the cook, depending on the mood.

It's the same thing, I want to just share, with you is that you are overwhelmed, and it's soupy to you because you're trying to smoosh it into one paste⁠—

Aster: Okay. Gross.

Jessica: ⁠—instead of letting it be a soup. Exactly. You want it to be a stewy soup, not a smoosh paste. And I'm using these weird metaphors, but that's how I'm seeing it. It's like you splat. It's like your energy gets splatted, and you smoosh things into a paste. And now you can't pull out the nuance because it's just a smoosh paste.

Aster: Yeah. Yeah. That feels right.

Jessica: Okay. Good. Okay. Good. So, within this, I will say I would give you two years of homework, two years of homework to explore identifying this as it comes up. Two years minimum. This is not something you're going to figure out in the next three months. It's not like a conversation is just going to change your life in one minute. I mean, I don't know; maybe it will. But really, that's a bad goal.

Aster: It's been very helpful. But I also appreciate the call to slowness and just kind of a steady taking it as it comes⁠⁠—

Jessica: It's about integration. Yeah. It's like, every once in a while, we hear something and it just clicks, and then it's like this meteoric shift. But most things require integration.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: And that takes time. And the difference between smart and wise is the ability to apply it. You have so much wisdom already, and you have so many things that you're just starting to develop enough smarts around to cultivate the wisdom. Right?

Aster: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: This is why you're not old enough to be a crone, and that's okay.

Aster: I will be a crone someday.

Jessica: You will. I mean, as long as nothing gets in your way, you will. But it is related to age and not just temperament. And there's a reason: because there's only so much that can be done in the amount of time you've been alive or that I've been alive. And that, quote unquote, so much is different for different people. But for you, it's going to be really important that you stop comparing yourself to other people and you start using discernment.

And I would say, also, kind of within that, it is wise to get off of social media and to look at various creative businesses and how they are structured if you find them to be ethical. So abundant businesses that are kind of in alignment with yours, so maybe they're artists or⁠—I don't know⁠—makers of sorts. And look for business models that actually inspire you because a lot of what is happening on social media is people posing for photos. And this is not just⁠—I mean, I know there's selfies on social. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about people curating the presentation of a thing. So that's not where we're always going to find the best data. I mean, sometimes it really, really is. I learn so much on social every day. And also, we want to keep in mind that as we are all individually commodifying ourselves, we are trying to make sure that we're a really good product. We want to be an enviable product. We want to be a desirable product.

This is where too much Venus becomes a problem. I'm using all these words of Venus, of commodifying and be enviable and pretty and all these things. And so it is important to just really make sure that you are not just looking for models of conduct as a creative who's showing up ethically on social media, but look for it in different virtual spaces as well as different IRL spaces.  There's just something about that that I just see as being very soothing for you. Does that make sense?

Aster: Yeah. Having different sources, as well, kind of going away from this internet space to find the people that feel aligned to me or finding guides and elders [crosstalk].

Jessica: Yeah. I think it's really important. And I think if we don't have an analog life, we get into real trouble because it is in the IRL analog stuff that our actual emotions come up and we have to actually deal with them, whereas online, it's very different. It's all very theoretical. And that's really important for you. It's really important for you. And also, you got Uranus at the top of your chart. Having a really online life is great for you, but if you don't do it based on knowing yourself IRL, then it's going to feel really chaotic, and were back to the soupy, pasty stuff.

Aster: Yeah. For sure.

Jessica: Now, is there anything that we missed? Is there any question kind of lingering for you?

Aster: You gave me so many good, practical things to do for myself that can kind of help me weather the storm through the transition and change as I'm moving. I think I'm curious about what kind of spiritual support I have around me.

Jessica: Well, it's interesting, your question. Do you have the experience of your guides? Do you ever open up to your guides and receive your guides?

Aster: I do. I have a pretty intense practice.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Good. So, when you receive your guides, you experience no anxiety. You experience clarity, neutrality.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: You're not seeking so hard, right? And when you've veered away from your guides, mayhem. Smoosh soups.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So the only thing that I need to do is to tell you what you already know, which is that you have access to your guides, and just like your breath, you often forget to tap into it or you relegate it to "when I'm doing yoga." Having access to your guides is not⁠—yeah, it's a spiritual practice, but breathing is a spiritual practice. Let's not isolate spirituality from other parts.

Aster: It feels hard to weave together with the day-to-day practical elements.

Jessica: I would just make it related to breath. So, when you receive your guides, do you have a whole practice to get ready and receive, or do you just⁠—

Aster: Yes, kind of a ritual.

Jessica: I see. I see. So you've made it that long, circuitous path to get to the spot.

Aster: Yes. It's so winding.

Jessica: Okay. Okay.

Aster: No, it's more of like⁠—I get kind of, like, images that come.

Jessica: Okay. Okay.

Aster: [crosstalk]

Jessica: And I wouldn't want you to tell me, because it's sacred. So you keep⁠—you know, it's not for a podcast is what I'm trying to say. But what I would say is the next time you take a long and winding road to your guides, ask them, "Hey, is there a drive-thru? Because I'd like to know what the password for the drive-thru is," because when I'm connecting to my guides, I'm taking a moment. I'm stopping. I'm breathing. And I'm receiving. I'm not seeking; I'm receiving. Bada-bing, bada-boom, bada-bing. And then it's there.

And not everybody is the same as me. Everyone's different. So it might be a little slower for you, but I don't think so. I'm looking at your birth chart. You're fast. So you've made this slow because you're easing yourself into it, and also probably because somebody told you it had to be slow. But I don't think it has to be slow. To access your guides, I think you can do that while driving your car. I think you can do that on a bathroom break, on a friend date where you want to just wring that person's neck. I think you can do that in all manner of circumstances, mild, mellow, dramatic, all the things, taking a moment to breathe, to connect to your body, and to receive your guides. That's it.

I would encourage you to practice. So the easiest way for you to practice is during manual labor. Lift heavy things or do physical things, and as you do those physical things, be like, "Oh, wait. Let me connect to my guides." And practice just receiving them, and notice how it feels. It feels like subtly but meaningfully different, correct?

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: I think that there's something really powerful about creating ritual or going on retreats, or some people take drugs. There are so many ways of accessing the divine. And I think that that's really important and necessary for a lot of people a lot of the time. And I also think do that, hopefully, so that you don't have to do that shit anymore and you can just have access. Now, ritual is always going to be necessary, especially different practices, yada, yada. But in terms of something as simple as accessing your guidance, that should be like breathing. It's like if you remember to do it, it's not that complicated, but it works. Right?

Aster: Yeah. [indiscernible 00:50:33]

Jessica: Exactly. So that's what I'm seeing you need, is to access your own damn guidance. That's really it. It's not even learning a new skill. It's just doing less.

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Some people, when they put up Instagram posts, they will just put an emoji or a word, and other people will write a tiny novella. Are you more of a tiny novella?

Aster: Yeah⁠—no, I think I'm actually more of an emoji and avoidance of the tiny novella.

Jessica: Emoji. Okay. Well, I don't know if it's avoidance. Let's reframe it to preference.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: Why not just preference? Yeah. Nobody ever said we have to write a tiny novella. It's not about right or wrong. It's about, "Do I want to do more, or do I want to do less?" That's all. That's all it has to be. And if that gets in your way or there's some sort of negative consequence, cross that bridge. Learn from it. I don't think that there will be. I think that that's literally all you need.

And in regards to getting off your antianxiety medications and figuring out how to tolerate this huge amount of emotions that were kind of just on the periphery of what you've experienced historically, this will help you so much, like so much, because sometimes when you connect with your guidance, you'll be like, "Oh shit. I'm not anxious at all." And then you can look around and be like, "Oh, my partner is really anxious. It's not me. I'm just tapping in." And your guides can help you to feel more of your own energies. And that shit's real helpful.

Aster: Yeah. That's super helpful. Also, you saying porous earlier was helpful for reminding me that that's something that happens.

Jessica: Something that happens dramatically with you, like all the damn time. There's so much nuance to every truth. And also, some things are just like it's a hat, and that's it. It's just a fucking hat. And they can both be true at once. You torture yourself by saying it has to be all things at all the time in all the ways. What I want to say is it can be sometimes if it works out like that. At other times, it can just be a hat, or can be a picture of my childhood trauma, whatever. You get to have different ways of being and different ways of holding the same thing within a singular way of being.

I think that the last thing that is kind of coming up for me is this. It's diet.

Aster: Oh.

Jessica: I know. It was not at all what I thought I was going to talk about either.

Aster: Interesting.

Jessica: How you eat has a lot to do with your mental health, you've noticed, yeah?

Aster: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Fucking Virgo is on the cusp of your sixth house. So we know that there are ways that you eat or times of the day that you eat that really support you staying in your body or really negate you staying in your body.

Aster: This is like the practical element that I'm like⁠—this is the day-to-day stuff that actually feels really hard to manage.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. You have a stellium in Sagittarius. You're like, "Flying in the sky? I'm in." You know? So I would say that breaking fasts is a really good thing to do. They call it breakfast conventionally. You should be doing that. I'm not giving you nutritional advice, but I would advise you to have easy, grabbable proteins and not too much of the carbs or the salties for you.

Aster: Yes.

Jessica: Are you a carb and a salty lover?

Aster: I love carb and salt.

Jessica: Yeah. It looks like that's kind of⁠—it's like your emotional eating thing. But your system actually is like⁠—do you like nuts?

Aster: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I just think you should have bags of nuts. You should just have⁠—or, like, protein bars, whatever you can do so that you make it so that you're not going into a deprivation mode in your body because the second you do that, okay, all bets are off for your mental health, right?

Aster: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica: So eating healthy, eating a balanced meal, whatever that means for you, of course, is the ideal. But life isn't ideal, so just have bags of nuts everywhere.

Aster: Okay.

Jessica: You know what I mean? If you could do nuts and fruits, I would be thrilled for you. And it could be dried fruits. It's fine. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not giving you nutritional advice. But I am saying I can see that all of the stuff we've been talking about is in some ways related to your ability to be here, and here happens to be the meat suit. It happens to be at a particular time. And so fortifying the body is really helpful. It's shockingly helpful for that. It's remarkably helpful. It's, I think, why there's so many restrictions on women's bodies and eating, because of how debilitating it is and how it really preoccupies us with all the wrong things.

And I don't know that that's your motivation. It looks like you have, again, a lot of motivations for being weird with food all at once. And so we don't need to smoosh-soup that. But the quick and easy way to keep it so that you don't feel like you're drowning, ever, is just to be nuts. Have nuts everywhere. Nuts, nuts, nuts.

Aster: Okay. I love it. It's like giving myself little gifts in the day. I have a pocket of nuts.

Jessica: Yes. Yeah. You could be like a weird⁠—I don't know if you ever watched The Golden Girls. You know how they always had candy in their purse? You could just create your own hippie version of that and just do nuts.

Aster: I love it.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. I think that's the way because at the end of the day, living perfectly is a great idea, but again, it's bananas. It's nuts.

Aster: I'm just trying to find the practical⁠—I think those little things that just kind of help me keep going.

Jessica: Yeah. And also, if you're like, "Oh, I'm feeling a little anxious," and then you're like, "Well, shit, I have a fistful of nuts in my pocket"⁠—hopefully you're not raw-dogging nuts in your pocket, but like, "Okay, I have a fistful of nuts in my pocket. I ate the nuts," and then you felt better⁠—that's important information for you to have about your physiology and your mental health. That it's not as complicated as you're allowing yourself to believe it is will be very soothing.

Aster: Yeah. Yes. Simplify.

Jessica: Simplify. Simplify. Exactly. So that's, again, a little bit of homework for you. Make a goal to do it for three weeks, and at the end of three weeks, you'll be like, "This has made a meaningful difference in my life," or, "Eh, yeah, sometimes it was cool." You'll have data, and that data will empower you to be like, "Okay, so I'm not doing this anymore because it didn't really do much for me and I have nuts everywhere," or you'll be able to be like, "Okay, I'm actually going to invest in this. I'm going to figure it out, and I'm going to put things everywhere, food everywhere."

Aster: Little squirrel.

Jessica: You're like a little squirrel. Exactly, sticking with our nuts metaphor. Now, I think we did what we came to do. Do you feel that way?

Aster: Yeah. I do. I feel lighter, and I feel calmer.

Jessica: That makes me so happy. That makes me so happy to hear.

Aster: Thank you.