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.

Here's another episode where I answer as many of your questions as I can because I get so many questions from you that are wonderful, and there's just not enough time. So strap yourself in. Let's go.

The first question I'm going to answer is about the Nodes, and it goes like this. "I have been learning more about my North Node in Leo in the fourth house, and I don't like it. And I'm 43, by the way. I've not been working for the past three years to stay at home with my daughter. It's been awesome and killing me not to work. I've been trying to figure out a return to work and looking at my chart and feeling very confused about a way forward. Would love any thoughts." And this person was born May 1st, 1980, at 6:32 a.m. in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

So there's a bunch of things worth saying here. The first is, when I pull up your chart, my dear, I see that your North Node is in the fifth house and not the fourth house. But the question that you're asking is about why, essentially, is it that if your North Node is in the fourth house⁠—which is, quote unquote, supposed to mean your soul is meant to focus on family and kids and staying home and all that stuff⁠—isn't working for you.

So part of the answer is because I don't know what house system you're using, but I see your North Node smack-dab in the middle of the fifth house, which is actually about creativity. And it can be about children, but it is really about creativity and passion and generating stuff that is exciting to you. But that's not the only thing that I want to say about this.

When we look at the Nodes in astrology, it is very tempting to treat them like we treat planets, like, "Oh, Saturn means this. Mercury means that." The Nodes are evolutionary points. They're not planets. So we don't look to them when we're trying to figure out what to do for work, as an example. What we do is we look to them to have a greater understanding of our own evolutionary path.

And to have one's North Node in the fourth house does not inherently mean you shouldn't have a career or that career isn't important to you. What it means is having a home base, a family, is important to you. And when I say a home base and a family, that's going to look really different for different people, and it's going to look really different for everyone at different phases of life.

What we want to remember is that the fourth house⁠—it's the lowest house in the chart. It's like the IC⁠—that's the fourth-house cusp⁠—is the lowest point in the chart. And that's where we find our innermost personal life, which encompasses our home life and our family life in many ways but is also really about our own innermost psychological and emotional life and prioritizing those things.

So, if your gut instincts tell you, "Okay, I need to have a life outside of the home in order to really make the most of my life within the home," you gotta honor that. But, that said, your North Node is in the fifth house, not the fourth house. So there's that as well.

My next question is from Gossip Girl, and this question has been edited down for length, okay? But she says, "In your horoscopes, you often let us know when there's a forecast coming up that's particularly a bad time for gossip. This may seem like an obvious question, but when you say gossip, what exactly are you referring to? I grew up in a highly conservative/religious, evangelical Christian home, and we were always taught not to gossip, which was basically defined as speaking poorly about someone or sharing their secrets. I'm about to turn 33, and I'm going to school to get a degree in psychology and counseling with the goal of opening my own private practice. I feel like all I do is gossip. Talking about, analyzing, assessing relationships and power dynamics is the main feature and the most interesting thing I do with my friends, peers, and closest relationships. That said, sometimes I feel like I'm too quick to have an opinion or to try to work through a problem I'm having with someone, with another person, even if it's with a trusted friend. How can I do a better job of not gossiping or of just knowing when I am?"

And Gossip Girl shared her birth information, but I actually don't even need to access it. I do talk about gossip a fair amount and how it should not be done. And I want to say that processing our relationships, talking about the people that we are in connection to⁠—that's not gossiping. Gossiping is when you say things behind people's back that you wouldn't say to their face. Gossip has a bit of a twisted agenda to it.

When you're gossiping, you're sharing intimate or personal details about someone with a third party behind their back. And that is really different than saying, "I am friends with x, and x did this thing, and it's bringing up these feelings within me." If you say, "I'm friends with x, and can you believe what they did? They did x, y, and z. This is what I think about what they did," now, that's gossip. But if you're talking about it in a personal sense, it's not.

But what you're talking about, Gossip Girl, is a little bit of a judgment call. A lot of people are quick to judge others. And when you are quick to judge others and verbalize those judgments, you do end up veering into gossip. So this is where I am very happy to say we are in Venus Retrograde time. And while Venus is actually not a planet that is specifically about gossiping⁠—although it can kind of get in there⁠—what you can do this Venus Retrograde is to really assess, what are your values? What are your values about talking about people when they are not present to participate in the conversation or to defend themselves? Do you share other people's secrets? Because if you do, again, that's gossiping.

And this is where we want to be really mindful of not only treating others as we wish to be treated, although there's a lot of wisdom in that, but also treating others as they request to be treated. So you may be comfortable with people speaking about you in certain ways, but your bestie may be a lot more private than you. And it's important that you honor people's expressed and implied requests around privacy. So finding ways of processing your feelings without sharing the personal details of the people you're processing them with may be a skill worth developing for you.

My next question is from Wandering Alone. And it says, "I once used a woo-woo astrology app that told me I was on a loner's path in life, that I wasn't necessarily destined to partner up. As time goes on, I'm starting to believe it. But how true is this? Am I self-manifesting this because of this app? From Wandering Alone." And Wandering Alone was born January 10th, 1993, 5:26 a.m. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Okay. There's a couple things about this. The first one is it is a poor strategy to allow an app that, at best, has astrology content written by highly trained professionals who are widely generalizing and having that kind of spit out to you⁠—that's at best. At worst, it is written by AI; it is written by people who are not highly trained in astrology. Using any kind of generalized resource to bolster your identity, to make life decisions, is a risky business. It's really dangerous. And of course, millions and millions of people do it. We know this because astrology apps make a ton of money, and we know that they have a ton of users. So you're not alone in allowing things that you read about yourself astrologically to contribute to your identity and your understanding of yourself.

But this is where it gets real dangerous. It gets real dangerous. Now, I'm assuming the reason why you read this in an app is because you have a first-house stellium, and in particular, you have the North Node conjunct to your Ascendant. And a very overly simplistic read on that could be you will have a loner's path in life. I would never in a million years say that, but that is what I expected to see, and yes, I do see it.

Having the North Node conjunct your Ascendant or in the first house means you have come here, on a spiritual level, to figure out who the hell you are and to learn how to embody and embrace who you are, whether or not you're partnered. It can also mean that you have a hard time really staying true to yourself and being yourself when you get around other people, that you're maybe too good at reading what other people want from you. And so it can have you kind of giving them what they want. Or it can make you really uncomfortable in other people's presence in an intimate way because you haven't yet figured out how to be there for others while, at the same time, being there for yourself.

Another added layer here is you've got all this Capricorn stuff in your first house, but in the middle of it, you've got Neptune and Uranus because you were born in the early 1990s. This can make you feel a sense of anxiety when you're around other people, around trying to navigate how to show up as yourself. Does this mean that you will be on a loner's path or that you are not destined to partner up? Abso-fucking-lutely not. No. It does not.

It simply means you need to figure out how to not abandon yourself in efforts to develop intimate relationships with others. And this is a practice. And it's a practice that, if you're motivated, you can absolutely come to embodiment around. The key is to get that shit out of your head and instead to figure out, "Do I actually want to be partnered?" And if the answer to that is yes, it's to have experiences with people.

When we talk about being partnered or married or whatever, it's this singular relationship, a singular, heterotypical, structured relationship. But we have so many different kinds of partnerships in our lives. And it's important that you don't minimize all the various kinds of partnerships you have⁠—platonic, romantic, or whatever it is⁠—because they are lived experiences that help you to learn about who you are and about relationships.

So the key is to cultivate relationships, partnerships, and experiences with yourself and others that help you to have, essentially, the chops to get into a healthy partnership, whatever that looks like for you.

Let's stick with too much Capricorn in the chart for a hot minute here. I've got a question from Cave-Hiding Capricorn, who was born December 23rd, 1989, at 5:15 p.m. in Cape⁠—Girardeau, Girardoo, nobody knows⁠—Missouri. Okay. So it says this: "What is going on in my chart that makes me feel like I am a terrible Capricorn? I don't feel like I have that Capricorn drive or discipline that Caps are known for. I thought having a stellium in Cap would have me on top of the mountain instead of yearning for a dark cave to cry and hide from the world in. Is there something in my birth chart that is canceling out my stellium Cap awesomeness?"

This is a really important question because, again, this is a person born at the end of the 1980s. And so she has Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn in Capricorn⁠—in addition, Mercury and the Sun. But for that large group of people who have all these outer planets⁠—like Uranus and Neptune and Saturn⁠—in Capricorn, you do not have the stereotypical Capricorn vibes. No, you don't.

So this is an important thing to start with. Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn are not going to make you super ambitious around external things. What they're going to do is they're going to make the need for ambition to exist in your internal life. This is a really challenging aspect for your generation to have, for a lot of millennials have this in their birth charts.

It's about developing a kind of conservationist approach to your mental health and your spiritual health. It's figuring out how to sustain engaging with yourself and others, and I say "and others" in part because, yes, that's true, but also because your Capricorn stellium is mainly in the seventh house, the house of relationships. And in your case, you've got Jupiter opposite your Sun, Uranus, and Neptune, which really makes you itchy and restless for things to happen quickly.

And that brings me to the other thing about Capricorn. People make this assumption that Capricorns are all about drive and duty, responsibility, that Capricorns are all about ambition. There's also a really annoying set of stereotypes about Capricorn only being focused on money. There's grains of truth in all of it, that doesn't mean that just because you have a ton of Capricorn in your chart that you're not super emotional. In fact, Capricorn and its ruling planet, Saturn, tends to be hypervigilant about their emotions.

And so, when a person has a lot of Capricorn in their birth chart, even if it's just that Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn or, like you have, Uranus/Neptune/Saturn conjunction, what tends to happen is there is this self-reflective, self-conscious, hypervigilant self-awareness that makes you feel super emo. And so the yearning to hide in a dark cave is not unique to you. I'm sorry you feel that way, but it is really a very Capricorny vibe.

The key with Capricorn is to be willing to work on yourself and to cultivate the maturity and responsibility that you are capable of so that you can live a life that works for you. And that doesn't mean that just because you're capable of working hard and achieving your goals⁠—theoretically; it's not like all Capricorn people achieve their goals, but theoretically⁠—that doesn't mean that you're not going to feel your damn feelings and need a lot of privacy around that.

So we don't want to mythologize or pathologize any of the zodiac signs. And don't tell yourself that you have the worst Capricorn stellium ever. You don't. You have your Capricorn stellium. Finding ways of first accepting⁠—and you want to remember acceptance is just self-awareness⁠—accepting your nature, how your chart functions, how you feel inside your own meat suit, inside your own life⁠—accepting that stuff is foundational for being able to work with your nature instead of against it.

As you know, devastating fires have shaken Hawaii, and the people there need your help. If you've ever been a tourist in the region and enjoyed any of the magic and beauty of the land, this is the time to give what you can. You can lend support by donating at any of the links that we've dropped in short notes. Even a small gift can make a huge difference in this time of crisis.

I need to tell you about The Partnership. It's the nation's disability and disaster hub led by and for disabled people throughout disasters in the U.S. and across the world. They fill the gaps in the traditional humanitarian response for people with disabilities and is the only U.S. disability-led 501(c)(3) organization that prioritizes equity, access, disability rights, justice, and full inclusion of people with disabilities, older adults, and people with access and functional needs before, during, and after disasters and emergencies. Disability-led, inclusive emergency management is paramount for the equitable future we're aiming towards together. Learn more and give what you can at disasterstrategies.org/donate.

States across the U.S. have advanced a record number of bills attacking Transgender rights and threatening the health and safety of Trans people and their families. Whether you're Trans and looking for support or an ally wanting to help, here are three organizations to know about. There's MTUG, or Metro Trans Umbrella Group, serving Trans people directly in the St. Louis area; Transgender Education Network of Texas, which is an advocacy and resource group; and lastly, A Place for Marsha, which facilitates safe housing for Trans individuals escaping transphobic states. Check out these resources, signal boost, and support them however you can.

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Now we have a question from Signs in Detriment. Lizzy wrote in to say, "I've got my Sun and Moon and planets that are considered in detriment. And when I think about my Sun in Leo friends, I feel jelly. Could you go into what it actually means for a sign to be exalted or in detriment? What are your Capricorn in-detriment Moon thoughts on these types of placements? Is there a silver lining to all of this? Feel free to discuss my placements, but please don't share my birth information."

Okay. So we don't even need to go into your placements, Signs in Detriment, but I will say this. When you are learning about astrology and you're properly studying⁠—and I hope a lot of you are, because astrology is fascinating and is so helpful when you know how to use it properly. But when you're learning about astrology, you will find that certain planets are going to be exalted in certain signs or in detriment in certain other signs, which basically means, in Lizzy's example, the Sun is in its natural placement in Leo. It is exalted. It's so comfy being in Leo.

So, when we're learning about the basics of astrology, we're basically learning about how the planets function within different zodiac signs, and then within that, within different houses. So we're just layering all these data points on top of each other, and we're hopefully then synthesizing that information. When you're first learning astrology, it's so helpful to notice stuff. How does the Sun function in various signs? But this is one of those things that you want to set and then forget.

And what I see happening on the internet is that people really fixate on whether or not they have planets that are in detriment or fall or exalted. They really get freaked out by this. And what you want to know is that this is like tactical data to understand how the energy functions with the planet. So we're just talking about energetics.

Now, I know that there are different kinds of astrology out there, and it's very important for me to remind you or to tell you if you're new here that I'm a humanistic astrologer. There are different kinds of astrology that are really predictive, and they can really be like, "This placement's bad. That placement's good," to which I say fuck that, because really, what we have is our own various natures and our own lived experiences. And all parts of our nature can be used to overcome our nature if that needs to happen, or to support ourselves.

The truth of the matter is the people who have created the most change, the most beauty, the most inspiring things in the world, did not have "easy" charts. That's just not how shit goes. So all to say, when you're looking at things that are considered to be in detriment or in fall, I would ignore it unless you're studying astrology and you're trying to study the function of planets in signs. Okay?

But when you're actually looking at your own birth chart to understand yourself, don't worry about that shit at all. Instead, simply learn, what does the individual planet mean? Maybe we're talking about the Sun. Maybe we're talking about Uranus. What does that planet mean? And then, when we layer on the next layer of data of, "What does that planet in that zodiac sign mean? How does that planet function within that zodiac sign?" and then we add on another layer, which is, "How does that planet in that sign function in that house?"⁠—right? You add on that third layer, and then you look at, how does that planet in that zodiac sign in that house function in the context of the aspect you have in your birth chart?

That's another really big layer of data that can have a lot of data points associated with it. That's what we want to focus on. Whether it's exalted or not is materially inconsequential, in my view. So I absolutely never pay attention to it, and I encourage you to never pay attention to it either.

I've got another question for you, and it's called I Looked at His Chart. It says, "Jessica, I've had zero love interests during the pandemic, though it's not over, and now I have found somebody I'm into. I'm going a little bonkers. I got his chart and I looked at it, and we are very much opposites. And also, I worry that he won't ever want to settle down based on a few astro placements, plus the fact that he's admitted to being slutty and has said he doesn't know if monogamy is right for him. How do you know when to let something play out versus run at the first signs of red flags?"

Thank you for asking. Here we go. First of all, don't look at your crush's chart. I've said it before, but it's been a minute, so let me say it again. Don't look at your fucking crush's chart, ever. Under any circumstances, it is a terrible idea. Now, listen. I know you're not going to take this advice. Nobody takes this advice. Even if you're a professional astrologer, it is a terrible idea to look at the chart of a person that you are crushing out on, just starting to date, three months into a relationship, even.

And that is because relationships require your embodiment and presence⁠—presence. And if you're looking at their chart, what you're doing is you're using your little noodle, your little noggin, your analyzer, to jump into the future, to protect future you, instead of by being present because in your question, my dear, you already have the answer. You want monogamy. You're dating a guy who says, "Hey, I'm slutty, and I don't know if I like monogamy." You don't need to look at his chart to know that you shouldn't date him, because when people tell you who they are, it's your job to listen to them.

And it never works to try to look at someone's chart and make assumptions based on your interpretations of who they are or who they choose to be or who they could be, because when somebody says to you, "I don't want to be monogamous," you should believe that they don't want to be monogamous. And there's no amount of astrology that should change your mind, okay?

So, to recap, if you start dating someone and you want to know about how the relationship is going and you cannot tolerate the suspense and you're not asking them questions directly and just playing it out, as adults do, look at your own damn chart. And your own damn chart will tell you everything you need to know. And I will tell you this is not just advice that I give; this is advice I take. I never look at the chart of people that I start to become intimate with, and I just think it is a very bad practice. And I know it's the biggest practice that people use astrology for, but it's a distraction because at the end of the day, relationships happen in the present.

And if you're not listening to what people tell you about themselves, if you are not listening to your own gut instincts and your own common sense, then what the hell is astrology going to do you for? Nothing good is the answer. Nothing good.

And the last question I've got here is from Two Roads Diverged. And it goes, "Do you think it's possible to deviate from your chart? The more I study astrology, the more I begin to wonder if it's possible to make certain decisions that end up separating you from your chart's intended journey. I've seen people write in to your show who ask about failed Saturn Returns and the like, and I do wonder, if someone makes the 'wrong' or, I guess, misaligned decisions time after time, they won't be anywhere near their North Node's goals or their Midheaven's potential. When I look at my chart, I don't think I relate at all."

So this is a really important question because there is not one intended goal or potential that exists within anybody's birth chart. Not everybody will come to embodiment of their North Node or their Midheaven in this lifetime. And that doesn't mean that they're not living their birth chart. There's so many different ways of embodying something as complex as your birth chart, just like you are born with a certain kind of physiology, and with that, you have a bazillion choices. Some of them are yours, whether or not you stretch⁠—I don't know⁠—how you choose to eat, whether or not you go to the dentist, stuff like that. And some of those things are outside of your control, like environmental factors or where you were born and the resources that your family had when you were young.

What I'm trying to say is we have a certain kind of physiology, but within that, there are a myriad of ways that we can embody our bodies. And there are a million things that can go right and wrong with our bodies. Similarly, the birth chart is a resource for objectifying and understanding many different parts of our nature. And within that, it articulates the many different ways we may choose to be and the many different ways we may kind of slip into being and the many different circumstances we are likely to encounter, and then how we are likely to respond to those.

But within all of that, we have free will. And with free will, we can make the most spectacular choices, and spectacular as in incredible failures or incredible successes. And of course, within that, there's a huge amount of space between spectacular failures spectacular successes. You can't separate from your birth chart. Your birth chart is simply a way of understanding your nature. But within your nature, you have a lot of choices. And none of us have our choices made for us. No matter what your circumstances are, you have choice within your circumstances.

A lot of people have a lot better choices than a lot of others, but having good options available to you doesn't necessarily make it easier to make good choices. As we know, a lot of times, when people have every privilege in the world, they do atrocious things to themselves and others. While, no, I would not say that we can separate from our chart, I would say that this idea of an "intended journey" is maybe a misunderstanding of astrology.

If you wish to move towards your North Node or your Midheaven, then you have this document to give you a sense of what's possible. And if you're in the early years of your study and practice of astrology, or if you're not taking astrology that serious and you're not seriously studying and practicing it, then it's important to remember that when you, quote unquote, look at your astrology, you want to remember that all astrology content is written by humans, flawed humans. Many of those humans have editors.

And it is important that you do your own due diligence to do authentic and serious research into the astrology that you're taking to heart to make sure that it's substantive because you may read a take on, say, a Midheaven in Aries, as you have, and think, "Oh, that means I'm supposed to be really aggressive and assertive and a boss of everything." But that's not the only take one can have on an Aries Midheaven. And you also have to take into account not just a placement but aspects to a placement. Having, let's say, an Aries Midheaven means that you may have Neptune or Uranus square it, which would completely, dramatically change the meaning of that Midheaven.

So, again, as I was speaking to in the last question, astrology is about layers upon layers of data. And the truth that can guide us and inspire us and truly help us is in the synthesis of those layers of data. So that's why astrology is a pain in the ass to properly study, because you have to put a lot of effort and energy into a bunch of details, learning the details, and only after you've really learned the details can you synthesize. And most people don't take on the very arduous, long-term task of studying the details enough to be able to accurately synthesize. And I mean, who could blame you? But what you want to keep in mind with that is that means you may have part of the story that you're telling yourself is the whole story.

So I really hope that helps, Two Roads Diverge. And I hope that everyone listening, everyone who works with astrology and checks in with astrology, makes life decisions with astrology, remembers to use your common sense when you're working with astrology and to know that a couple sentences or a couple paragraphs, even a couple pages, describing a particular natal placement or a particular natal aspect or even a transit⁠—it's only a tiny, little fraction of the story.

You could talk to a highly skilled professional astrologer for hours every day for weeks about any given placement and still continue to learn and grow. And I'm not saying that to discourage you, but instead to encourage you so that you can explore many layers of astrology and how to use it to actually help your life instead of make you feel small or stuck.

I want to thank each and every one of you for sending in questions. And if you would like me to consider a question of yours for the podcast, go ahead and use the contact form over at ghostofapodcast.com.

All right. I'll talk you in a couple of days. Buh-bye.