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:      Mauli, welcome to the podcast. What would you like your reading about?

Mauli:             Hi. Thank you so much for having me and taking the time and space to be here with me. I'm going to read my letter if that's okay.

Jessica:            Of course.

Mauli:             "Hello, Jessica. My ex-astrology mentor told me that I had a piss-poor Venus placement. And other than yelling at me to get over it, she never provided any more details. As someone who is a recovering people pleaser and has struggled her entire life with love and self-image, I would like to understand how to work with my twelfth-house Pisces Venus instead of against. I found you and your podcast shortly after I left said mentor's group. I was dealing with the death of my one-year-old kitten, Wicket, and a shock of being laid off. So I can't express to you the comfort your humanistic take on astrology has brought me this past year. Thank you for being a real no-bullshit, triple-Cap goddess guide for my woo and astrology studies."

Jessica:            Aww. Thank you. And also, I'm really sorry for your loss.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So you were born January 29th, 1988, 9:56 a.m. in Mitchell, South Dakota.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Mauli:             That's me.

Jessica:            I have to ask, when you say that she⁠—I'm assuming she. Why am I assuming⁠—

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Well, that she yelled at you to get over it; move on already.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Now, I have to say you've got the Sun, Mercury, and Venus all in the twelfth house. You've got Venus and the Ascendant in Pisces. So I have to ask, did she actually yell at you, or did she just say it?

Mauli:             It was said in a reading that I had with her, and she was not happy in the moment. Her daughter shares the placement, and so I think there was some displaced anger about it because I believe she was in something with her daughter. So I didn't take it personally, but I really would like to understand it better.

Jessica:            Okay. So she did kind of snap at you about it is what you're saying.

Mauli:             Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So we may have to come back to that. But I get so many emails from people who are asking me about their Venus placement. And we're going to dive deeply into yours in a moment, but I will say that for some⁠—I mean⁠—"for some reason." The reason is because Venus is associated with love, and people are like, "If I have a bad Venus placement, does that mean I will never fall in love? No one will ever love me? I'm not lovable? I can't have a healthy relationship?"

                        This is where we want to keep in mind two important things. The first important thing is we want to move past key words. And Venus key words are "relationships," "intimacy," "love"⁠—you know, all that kind of shit. And they're not wrong, but they're simply key words.

And the other thing is we want to remember that astrology is ancient. When we look at the bulk of human development, when we look at the bulk of human development across cultures, across time, men chose women or they didn't choose women, and that is it, first of all. There's no queerness, no genderqueerness. And also, women had no agency. And so it was this "You get picked; you don't get picked. You get lucky; you don't get lucky."

And I think this is a really important thing to have contextually when we think about the ways in which we talk astrology⁠—let me say the ways in which astrology and astrologers talk about love and Venus, because there's something about that passivity that it's like it happens to you that I think, to a certain extent, is inherent in Venus itself but also is inherent in understanding who came up with these concepts and when.

So I want to really name that, because I think whenever we're talking about intimacy and relationship issues in astrology, we have to keep in context that there are some huge holes in astrology because the Civil Rights Movement happened very, very, very, very, very recently. And so astrology does not adequately reflect that, I find.

So, that said, let me just ask you a couple⁠—let me navigate. What's your gender identity? What's your sexuality? Just so I use the right pronouns and all that kind of shit.

Mauli:        Queer, she/they.

Jessica:      Okay. Great.

Mauli:             That's what I go by. And I will interject my understanding⁠—the way I learned Venus was how we attract and how we magnetize. So my wanting to work with it is less relating to love relationships and more about drawing in community and that kind of support, if that makes sense.

Jessica:            Interesting. It does. It does. And when you say Queer, what are the pronouns I should use for the people you date? Because a lot of people are a lot of different kinds of Queer.

Mauli:             All of them. Demisexual, panromantic.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. So hes, shes, theys.

Mauli:             All of them.

Jessica:            Great. Fabulous. There's more than "they," but it's a nice umbrella pronoun.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. You have Venus in the twelfth house, which is the natural placement for Pisces. And you also have Venus in Pisces. Do I think that is a poor placement for Pisces? I do not, not at all. Again, I get so many questions about Venus. People are really torn up about Venus in Pisces and Venus in Virgo. I don't fucking get it. There's nothing wrong with either of these placements. There is nothing⁠—

Mauli:             And they're sister signs, so that's strange.

Jessica:            This is exactly what I'm saying. It's very odd. I don't know what astrologer popularized this misunderstanding or this misnotion. But clearly, some modern, internet-savvy astrologer did because it's not something I ever fucking heard before⁠ the last few years.

Mauli:             Same.

Jessica:            ⁠Now, we're going to come back to that in a second. I want to clarify a couple things. Magnetizing is Mars. Mars magnetizes. Mars literally governs metals, and metals magnetize. So, when we're talking about what we attract or what⁠—our pull⁠—that's actually Mars. We're talking about chemistry.

Mauli:             Got it.

Jessica:            Okay. And again, we'll come back to that. When we talk about community, we're talking eleventh house, not Venus. Venus is not community at all. It's one-on-one. Community is the eleventh house, and in your chart, you've got no planets sitting in your eleventh house. But you've got Capricorn on the house cusp. So, when we come back to Venus, I want to just ground in because you named community. You named magnetism and kind of attracting stuff. And we'll speak to these two things. But in regards to this Venus question, give me a little more context of what it is that you want to⁠—it's not about love? It's not about dating, looks, self-worth⁠? Big question mark.

Mauli:             Definitely, self-worth is a huge thing for me as well. And it's something I've been working on because, obviously, losing a community where I was learning astrology was pretty shocking. And⁠—

Jessica:            So you lost a community. I didn't understand that part.

Mauli:             Yeah. Sorry.

Jessica:            Yeah. What happened?

Mauli:             Well, we were a bunch of mentees under this astrologer, and I was with them for like a year and a half, maybe two. I can't quite recall when I joined. And we were interacting constantly, and it was certainly not there.

Jessica:            And is that because you were booted, or did something happen with the astrologer?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            You were booted?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And is that something that you want to talk about, or is that kind of just adjacent to this issue?

Mauli:             That's adjacent to this issue. I don't really have lack in my life without them, but I'd like to not get in that situation again, if that makes sense.

Jessica:            Okay. Fuck yeah, it does. So let's talk about that part.

Mauli:             Because we got really deep and really personal, and it was really jarring to have gotten that deep with people and then just suddenly⁠—no explanation, nothing.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. You've got, as I mentioned earlier, the Sun and Mercury and Venus and the North Node⁠—now, you have a North Node/Ascendant conjunction, but you have all those things in the twelfth house. Venus and the North Node and the Rising are all in Pisces. That predisposes you to getting into dynamics that end up being a little cult-like.

Mauli:             (laughs)

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Mauli:             I wasn't going to say it, but you [crosstalk].

Jessica:            No. You didn't have to. You didn't have to. I'm right here with you, see. You didn't have to say it because I'm looking at your chart, but also, the way you described a group where everybody is incredibly intimate and very close, and you're either all in or you're all out⁠—that kind of⁠—it stinks a little of culty/cults, right? Whenever we have to give up our power or our agency to a central figure, it gets a little culty.

And this is the thing that's complicated about studying astrology and other woo things, is that when somebody positions themselves as an expert⁠, whether they are or are not⁠—but they position themselves as an expert in something you deeply care about and you want to learn, then what do you do? You kind of put aside your ego, and you step all in. And you're like, "Let me learn." And then they tell you, "Okay. Well, learn with a hat on. Learn with your ego at the door." They tell you all the things to do, and then the more you want to learn and the more you're getting from the situation, you let go of more and more outside things in order to be part of the inside group, right?

Mauli:        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:      And I'm assuming this describes what happened there.

Mauli:        Very much so. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. This is your twelfth-house problem. And the twelfth-house problem includes, but is not exclusive to, Venus. Part of this is you have a strong desire to belong, and that's not because of your twelfth house. It's because of a bunch of shit in your chart; I would say almost everything in your chart.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            You have a deep desire to belong. But you're a twelfth-house person, which means you're hyper-sensey. You really do want things to either be really light or really deep, right?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Twelfth house tends to go either way. And so what you got was both in that group, because it went really deep in terms of content, but what was light was that you actually didn't build relationships based on getting to know each other. You built relationships based on this astrologer figure who told you you were all chosen and you are all meant to be together in some way.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry. Did she say it in those words?

Mauli:             Yep. Sure did.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. So that's red flags. Red flags. And I think that for all of us, but certainly especially for people who are Pisces-dominant, twelfth-house-dominant⁠, or Libra- or Venus-dominant⁠, the red flag should always come up when somebody doesn't encourage you to identify your agency, first and foremost and always, and coming back to it, because there is going to be that part of you that's like, "Well, my agency is to learn the thing, and I have to give up all my parts in order to learn the thing. That's fine. I'm down for sacrifice. I'm down to be a team player." So sacrifice is more Piscean; being a team player is more Venusian/Libran. And you've got all of it, obvi. So fun, fun, fun for you.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            And so I want to say that it is true that sometimes the people who have great data and information misuse power. And so I don't want to invalidate the astrology you learned from that mentor, because there might have been things that were fucking golden. And that doesn't mean she's a good person, and it doesn't mean she's a right match for you. And I want to just name that, because⁠—

Mauli:             Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure. Yes⁠—because this thing that happens for you is you get into these situations where you kind of find the answer⁠—and this can happen with a date. This can happen with a group of people. This can happen with a job. You find something that feels like it's, "No. Okay. Wait. This is it. Oh. Wait. Okay. All right. Okay. I can do this." And then you really get into it, and you start to give of yourself. And when you give of yourself, because of your twelfth-house placements⁠—also because you have a Sun/Pluto square, also because⁠—I can keep on naming things. Because of a lot of things in your chart, when you give of yourself, you get a sense of meaning and purpose.

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that meaning and purpose is so soothing to you. And then what happens is you lose track of the need, your responsibility to you, to keep on checking in with, "Is this appropriate? Has this person done anything to earn my trust? Have I given up parts of myself or things within my life that I actually need, that I actually deserve?" And when you get into relationships, do you tend to be monogamous or no?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Thank you. That's very good because you are monogamous, whether or not you want to be. What happened with that astrologer is you probably met her, had one or two good experiences, and it became monogamous instantly because that's how you're wired. You're like, "I'm fucking in. When I'm in, I'm in."

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so you may have listened to my podcast and been like, "Okay. I'm going to be monogamous to this astrologer." And I love monogamy. Don't get me wrong. But I would also say, no matter how much you trust somebody, it is important to have a critical analyzer around them.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And you say "yeah." But I also see that having a Venus in Pisces in the twelfth, having a Pisces Rising⁠—it gives you this feeling of, "Love is loyalty. Devotion is the only way to show that I actually care, to embody care." And so, if you get value from someone, you have a tendency to be devotional⁠—

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            ⁠—in how you think about them and relate to them. That's your fucking Venus in the twelfth house in Pisces⁠—devotional. And so you can smoosh up your face about it all you want. Nobody can see that, but you smooshed up your face like you smelled something disgusting.

Mauli:             I did.

Jessica:            But let me just, before I go further, say there's an antidote to the negative part of it, and it's really fucking simple, which is boundaries.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Boundaries based on clarity about your value as well as the value of others, right?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So that means not putting yourself on a pedestal and not putting anyone else on a pedestal, not putting yourself under someone's boot or putting your boot on anyone, because as we know, whenever we put ourselves at the bottom of the pile, sometimes we'll find ourselves thinking we should run the pile. Right?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But here's something else. You got your Pluto in Scorpio. You're a millennial, but you are that generation of millennial where you don't have your Saturn in Cap; you've got it in Sadge⁠—Saturn and Uranus both in Sagittarius. Neptune's in Capricorn. Okay. So you have a Saturn/Midheaven/Uranus conjunction. You're very fucking hard on yourself. You believe that there is a purpose to this life, and you need to work hard to embody that purpose.

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And it makes you feel small because the Moon is opposite those three points. And then the Moon, Midheaven, Saturn, and Uranus all form a T-square to your Ascendant. Now, I personally do not tend to count the Ascendant or the Midheaven in T-squares and those kind of planetary configurations, so I wouldn't consider this a proper T-square. But let's not ignore the fucking energy. You know what I mean? It points towards your identity. Again, we're talking about Piscean energy.

                        There is a way that you're a person who⁠—you feel this great sense of responsibility and duty. You feel like you have to figure out life and to do it right. And that can make you somebody who does not have healthy boundaries because you're so fixated on what you should and shouldn't do and what you did that was wrong or right or how you should be working harder. You're so focused on performance, basically. It's very Saturnian. You're so focused on performance that you can lose track of the dynamics that you're in, so the sense of understanding around the context of the time you live in, of the bitches you roll with, of⁠—you know what I mean⁠?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Of all the things, the systems⁠, both social and political⁠, but also the systems of, let's say, the group you were in.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            So there are a lot of things in your chart that we could easily conflate with your Venus in Pisces in the twelfth, but we're not going to. And I'm going to tell you why: because you have this sensitive, romantic, loving, creative, inspired Venus. And the only fucking aspects to your Venus are square to Mars, which is a great aspect because having Venus square to Mars means that you do have magnetism about you. You do have the capacity to flirt, to be playful, to fuck around⁠—and I don't mean "fuck around and find out" kind of fuck around. I mean just to fuck around, to have experiences.

                        Venus square to Mars can sometimes have you struggle around, "Am I giving too much? Am I taking too much?" But in general, I think that's a dynamic square, and often⁠—and do you tend to have dates or flirts happening kind of frequently?

Mauli:             Yeah, but sometimes I don't realize I'm doing it. I'm kind of blind to the fact because it's just natural.

Jessica:            Sure. Well, that's exactly what it is, right, is that I tend to find that people with a Venus/Mars square tend to get play. And play depends⁠—it's contextual to a lot of things, but you tend to get play. It's like you don't have to think that hard about getting your flirt on because you're just naturally good at it. So put that in your Venus cavern, okay?

Mauli:             I'm going to keep that.

Jessica:            Yeah. Keep it. And then the other thing that you have, the only other thing that you have going on with your Venus, is fucking glorious. You have a Venus/Pluto trine. Did you ever notice that?

Mauli:             No.

Jessica:            But you do work with natal aspects, right? Are you at that level of study?

Mauli:             Yes. Yes. I was trained in Placidus, so this is⁠—it's a little different for me.

Jessica:            This house system is different.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            But the math⁠—you've got Venus at 17 degrees of Pisces and Pluto at 12 degrees and 30 minutes of Scorpio.

Mauli:             Oh, I see what you're⁠—yeah. Math.

Jessica:            I'm talking about math here, girl. That shit doesn't change with house systems.

Mauli:             No, it doesn't.

Jessica:            And the reason why this is really important is because what you've done is what most of us do. We miss the good stuff in our chart. So you've spent how many hours obsessing on your Venus, and you've never noticed a Venus trine to Pluto?

Mauli:             No.

Jessica:            The fuck? Okay. So this is good for you to see.

Mauli:             I will say I did say I have dyscalculia, so numbers and I are not friends.

Jessica:            That's fair. That's fair. But I'm guessing that you looked at computer-generated programs that actually write in English all your aspects.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            This is not 1985. I don't buy that story because the truth is you missed it because, in part, you had somebody shit on your Venus, and you were like, "I knew it. Something's wrong with me." And you just doubled down on that, which I think is human. It's also very twelfth-housey, but it's also very human. It's both.

                        Another thing is let me just tell you Venus trine to Pluto⁠—people find you adorable. People find you sexy. And when you have a Venus trine to Pluto⁠—when I first learned about this when I was⁠—this was back in like 1990 or 1989 I learned about this. I started experimenting with it. I have this aspect as well. And I was like, "Oh. What if I give myself the ugliest haircut I possibly can?" And I really did that. I was like, "I'm going to give myself"⁠—I had an experiment, and I was like, "Will it make a difference with my flirtability?" And it made zero percent difference.

Mauli:             Oh my God. I love that.

Jessica:            Zero percent difference because it is ultimately about energy. Think about all the people you've ever been attracted to. How frequently was it about the way they looked, ignoring their energy?

Mauli:             It's always energy.

Jessica:            Always fucking energy. And so Venus trine to Pluto is a really powerful natal aspect because, first of all, yes, it gives you the exact thing you said you wish you had, which was the ability to track people. You already have it, so we're going to obviously go deeper. But the other thing is that it gives you the capacity to make people feel safe, to make people feel understood. And that power can be ignored, so you might not really think much of it. "Yeah, yeah. People feel good around me. Okay. Whatever." You know what I mean? Which is, I'm guessing, kind of how you hold it since you're ignoring the aspect. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So you can do that. You can misuse it by doing kind of what your astrology mentor did, which is get people to do shit for you because you can. One of these astrology textbooks I once read said that this aspect allows you to tell a room full of people that a skunk smells like roses, even though the skunk does in fact smell like a skunk. And that is a power that can be used to do harm, or you can use it to bring value⁠—Venus⁠—in a deeper way⁠—Pluto⁠—to yourself, your relationships, and other people. Bada-boom.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And so that would be the direction I would, of course, point you in. Your problem is not magnetism, my dear, at all. Your problem is not at all magnetism. Your problem is not at all your ability to build relationships or even coalitions with people. It is giving up too much too quick to others, and boundaries.

Mauli:             Yeah. That's been the lesson this last year that I've been working with.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's not going to go away, this fucking lesson, I'm sorry to say. I'm really sorry to say it.

Mauli:             [crosstalk]

Jessica:            Yeah, because Neptune⁠—as of May of 2023, Neptune started to sit on your Ascendant and square your Saturn. And shit's going to get what they call "real." In April of this year, so very soon, it's going to hit your Midheaven and your Uranus. So Neptune will be conjoined your Ascendant, squaring Saturn, squaring the Midheaven, squaring Uranus all the fuck at once.

                        So you are supposed to be learning these lessons of boundaries. And how do we learn boundaries? By needing them, by not having them. So it will be easy to want to give away your power or not even realize that you're giving away your power. And instead of being like, "Oh fuck. What's wrong with me? Oh God. This is awful," I want to encourage you to say⁠—I'm going to astrology you to understand as an astrology student the fucking rarity⁠—and I know math is not necessarily your forte, but Neptune takes⁠—what is it?⁠—165 years to move through the zodiac.

Mauli:             Something like that.

Jessica:            So what are the fucking chances? What are the chances that you would be a student of astrology, have actual resources with astrology, and you would be going through these transits? The math is⁠—it's a rarity. It's a special thing. And so that means, if we're buying into the whole astrology thing, that your soul is ready for this lesson. And your soul being ready for this lesson doesn't mean you'll do it well. It doesn't mean it'll feel good. It simply means that from a broader perspective, this is happening, and it's happening to you really personally.

                        And there's an opportunity for you to come to greater self-possession, self-awareness, and a healthier embodiment of boundaries from a spiritually inspired⁠—because we're dealing with Neptune⁠—a spiritually inspired perspective. So you reached out to talk to me about Venus, and I thought we were going to talk about Venus. But the irony is this is actually not about Venus at all⁠—like, at all. And I think that's often the case when people write to me about Venus because Venus gets such a bad rap.

                        And again, this is true of women in general in society. We get scapegoated in all these ways. We see this happening, I think, with astrology, the practice of astrology itself. It's like Venus gets scapegoated. Your Venus⁠—she's so pretty. She's so successful. She has no squares, no oppositions, no conjunctions. Now, I will say you do have a Venus/Moon square. I didn't clock it at first. You do have a Venus/Moon square. That aspect can make you feel like you really need attention as proof.

                        I'm guessing that this astrologer and the group associated with it gave you lots of compliments, told you you were great when things were good. That's a vulnerability of yours because you're like, "Oh, I'm getting validated." You're really good at giving people compliments, eh?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah, because you understand how important it is to feeling okay around others. And so, when people give it back to you, it's not vanity. I mean, it might be in moments, but it's not about vanity. It is about, "Okay. People see my value. People see my worth. Then I can be myself. I need this external validation in order to give myself space to show up."

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But again, it's not exactly your biggest problem because you have this Saturn shit and this Uranus shit that makes you so hard on yourself and so critical⁠—I mean, it kind of contextualizes it a little bit, right?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You might be a little floopy-doopy with all this twelfth-house stuff, but Saturn and Uranus at the top of your chart are not letting you floopy-doop at all. So my guess is that when you say you're going to be there at 4:00, you're there at 4:00. Is that right?

Mauli:             Usually, I get there early [indiscernible 00:26:45].

Jessica:            Right. Okay. Okay.

Mauli:             And then I will be there at 4:00, but I'm there early scouting it out.

Jessica:            Okay. That's what I'm talking about. And when people ask you to show up for them in whatever way, you show up for them in that way to the best of your ability, yeah?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. You're not that stereotypical, which⁠—I don't even fucking buy into the stereotypes. But you're not that stereotypical twelfth-house person where you're, like⁠, floopy-doop, can't tell time, can't show up, just constantly "undoing" yourself. I don't believe in this twelfth-house undoing bullshit, personally. And this is in part because of that Saturn/Uranus conjunction at the top of your chart.

                        And this is where we want to remember, for people who have Saturn/Uranus conjunction, that Uranus⁠—it has such a similarity to Saturn. There's ways in which it's quite opposite, but there's ways in which it's quite similar. It's very much like "me, me, me" on some core level. And it's a "me, me, me" in the context of, "I am the one who has to do it. I'm the one who has to figure it out." Right?

Mauli:             Yeah.

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Jessica:            So, all of this said, I'm just going to slow down and check in. Does this bring up any questions so far?

Mauli:             I think questions would be⁠—you were talking the Neptune on my Ascendant thing. I have felt incredibly disconnected from woo since everything happened last year, and I wondered if that might be part of it.

Jessica:            I think that's your pattern. So I'm going to give you two layers of answers. The first one⁠—and please tell me if this is right or wrong. If you are in a group⁠—let's say you're in this super Queer social group, and everybody just is Gay as can be. And then you have some sort of interpersonal breakdown, you tend to move away from all things Queer all the time. This is just your pattern, right?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You have a Sun/Pluto square. And so what that means is you're fucking all in or you're fucking all out.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            And that's just your normal, right?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            So that's, I actually think, a big part of why you've moved away from the woo. But as an astrologer, I would advise you to stay away from the woo because when we're going through challenging Neptune transits, we are incredibly gullible. We are incredibly likely⁠—whether or not you have a natural predisposition, we are incredibly likely to be misled, to fall into cults or cults of personality⁠—any kind of cult. And it's really rough.

                        And because Neptune happens outside of the body⁠—it happens outside of linear time⁠—it is really hard to have boundaries. It's really hard to know when you've released your boundaries and given them to someone else until you're drowning. Right?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so it is inadvisable, going through any of these⁠—let alone all of these⁠—fucking transits, to be deeply woo. Now, astrology can be practiced in a way that is deeply woo, and it can also be practiced in a way that is deeply analytic and not particularly woo. So I wouldn't say you have to stay away from astrology, but I would encourage you, if you're going to fuck with astrology in your own private practice, to learn things, to not just go by feel. You're good at going by feel. Don't do that, okay? Actually learn things is my advice. Actually read whole books. Do your own research in the world⁠—whatever it is that resonates for you and where you're at in your life.

 Mauli:            Okay.

Jessica:            The Neptune stuff you're going through⁠—yeah, don't starve yourself. Literally, don't do fasts and shit like this. Neptune is a terrible time for that. I mean, I'm not giving you medical advice, obviously, but for woo reasons or whatever. Don't join spiritual groups if you can avoid it.

Mauli:             I think I'm good on that for a minute.

Jessica:            I think you are, too. Also, famous fucking last words during a Neptune transit. So, I mean, it's good to keep yourself mindful around it. And know that whenever we go through Neptune transits, we learn boundaries. Boundaries are not just what you say and what you do. They're how you feel. They're how you hold yourself. They're how you hold yourself together or fall apart. And when we go through Neptune transits, we feel like we're disintegrating. It's terrible. Fucking Neptune transits⁠—not a favorite of mine as a Capricorn.

                        But the reality is you're learning so much about the parts of yourself that you are scared of. And the way I know you're scared of it is because it's your fucking North Node. And all of us come into this life with a really clear memory of the success of our South Node. And so what is the success of your South Node? It's a Virgo South Node, and it's in the sixth house⁠—so doing things meticulously, doing things ritualistically, showing up on the material level for material support, and identifying what the habits and behaviors are of success or of happiness or of health or whatever. And your North Node in Pisces in the twelfth house is about not needing proof on the material in order to have faith in yourself.

Mauli:             I'm a big proof person, so yeah.

Jessica:            Of course, you are. Of course, you are. I mean, both Saturn and Uranus on top of your chart the way it is? I mean, my God. But the Neptune transits you're going through⁠—and you know I'm not⁠—and how old are you right now? You're in your 30s.

Mauli:             I'm 35.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. I don't tend to fixate on the Nodes before 40, but I will say this. These transits are preparing you for your 40s. They're preparing you for being in embodiment of your North Node because you are going through transits that are triggering Neptunian/Piscean stuff at late degrees of Pisces, which is where your North Node is, at 25 degrees Pisces and 39 minutes. Neptune's already crossed your North Node, and it made you really question yourself. And now it's going to be embodied⁠—that transit's going to be embodied through all these other Neptune transits.

                        And this is going to help you to know who the fuck you are on a spiritual level. So you don't have to do good at this. I have to be exceptionally clear. And people often misunderstand what transits are. You're not supposed to be good at the transit during the transit. That's not a thing. If you think back to when you learned how to tie your shoe, you were terrible at learning how to tie your shoe until, one day, you could tie your shoe. And then you probably forgot again and then learned again. And then, eventually, you were like, "I don't even think about it. It's just tying shoes." Right?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            When it comes to our transits, most of us are terrible at them most of the time. And that's not just people who struggle. It's fucking all of us. It's your ex-mentor. It's everybody. Everybody's bad at our transits when we're going through them because that's why we're going through them: to teach us something we don't already know. So it is okay that you're struggling with this stuff, and is not an indication that you won't get it.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            An active struggle with content is how you learn. When you feel that Neptunian "Ugh, what's wrong with me? I'm disintegrating. I don't know how to even be here," that's when you need to fortify, nurture, and from that post-fortifying, post-nurturance place, identify, "What boundaries do I need to call right now? Are they energetic?" And I'm assuming you know how to do energy boundary work. You do some of that?

Mauli:             I'm not as versed in it as I should be.

Jessica:            Agreed. Okay. Good. Okay. Good. Yeah. It's a big part of your life's work, right? So that's something to work on.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            Doing some energy work around just boundaries, fortifying yourself. Or it may be, "Oh shit. I need to really address the amount of water I'm drinking or the ways in which I'm nurturing my body," like through movement or food or whatever it is that is your yes. Right?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            You might need a little more time alone in this period. Again, you've got Capricorn on the eleventh-house cusp. I don't know why you're in such a big rush to be in groups of people. That's weird.

Mauli:             Yeah. Well, I do prefer alone time. But I think it's the whole belonging thing that you saw in my chart.

Jessica:            Yep.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            When I look at your birth chart, I think you do best in meaningful one-on-one relationships⁠—

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            ⁠—with a healthy smattering of casual, "Hey, girl, what's up?" kind of relationships, just light and easy and kind of surface⁠—deep feelings, but kind of surface content relationships, because you don't need things to be heavy all the fucking time, believe it or not. So I do think that you do need those kinds of relationships.

                        But I'm willing to wager, looking at your birth chart, that when you get into group situations that aren't are those culty dynamics, but group situations like at a party or whatever, you do not feel the most yourself. And I'm willing to wager that sometimes it's fucking great for you, and all the rest of the times, it's only great if you end up in a deep, one-on-one dynamic or a one-on-two dynamic or something like that.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            That's correct, eh?

Mauli:             Mm-hmm. I'm really good at working a room, but it's exhausting if I don't find a connection in it, if that makes sense.

Jessica:            Correct. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. Working a room's work. It's work. And this is what we want to remember, is that when it comes to astrology, the words that we choose to describe ourselves are our chart in motion. So you're literally referring to "working a room" when we're talking about Capricorn on the eleventh-house cusp. OMG. Right? Does it make sense?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            You like to work. Work is fun for you. So that's not inherently a bad thing. But a huge part of the 20s are you figuring out who you are in reaction to your childhood. And a huge part of your 30s is figuring out who you are in embodiment of your adulthood. And so, upon that journey, let me be a voice to suggest group work is work for you. It's not where you find your greatest ease and love and flow, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

                        But to set the goal for yourself to be in structured community is to set the goal to have to do really intense boundary work all the time, which is not a bad thing, but it's a choice. And it might not be your best choice. I certainly want to suggest it's not your only choice. You do not have a hard time finding people who want to hang out with you one-on-one.

Mauli:             That is accurate.

Jessica:            Yeah. So why not do the thing that brings you more joy and takes less labor from you?

Mauli:             Fair point.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm going to pause again, and I'm going to check in. So we touched on the Neptune stuff. Did I answer that for you?

Mauli:             Yes, you did.

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Mauli:             I'll probably have a follow-up Q about any resources.

Jessica:            There is an energy exercise that you can do where you play with⁠—so you just kind of first get grounded, and you can do that in any number of ways. And again, I've got lots of content on this on my Patreon about this. But you get grounded, and then you visualize your energy shields, which I often describe as the Glenda the Good Witch bubble. Do you know what I'm talking about, your Glenda the Good Witch bubble?

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. You pick a color. Fill it up with⁠—I'm seeing a nice forest green. And I want to say do your best to not get too murky or perfectionistic, but instead to just infuse⁠—like you have Uranus at the top of your chart in Sagittarius⁠—infuse your whole Glenda the Good Witch bubble, a.k.a. energy shield. Does forest green feel right, or is there a different color that feels right to you to play with?

Mauli:             I vibe towards green and purple, so [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So that's why I was picking up the right thing, then.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So you're just going to infuse the inside of your shield with forest green, just like smoke or like a light turning on. So that's how I want you to practice it. But take your time. Get your ground on, and then see if it works.

Mauli:             Okay. Let's see.

Jessica:            What happened?

Mauli:             I just think I lost it.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So there's a couple things.

Mauli:             I was trying too hard. Trying too hard.

Jessica:            You're trying too hard. Exactly. And also, I'm watching you and all that shit. You know what I mean? It's awkward.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            But this is what I'm going to say, is that just last week I was in an environment that had a lot of steps. And what I kept on doing was forgetting there was a step or missing a step and then kind of falling, and then overcompensating when I was walking by being like, "Oh, I'm about to fall." That's what it looks like you were doing energetically. You would like, "I don't want to lose myself." And so I'm going to give you a couple pieces of advice, and you fuck with it at home on your own time. Okay?

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            The first thing is know that there's nothing you can do to harm yourself or others by fucking with color. I wouldn't give you an exercise to do that would. It's simply an action that you can practice to shift your internal energy. That's all. And it's not permanent. You can't open a vortex this way. You can't do anything like that. And it's important to know that there's no energetic harm you can perpetrate against yourself or others by fucking with color.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            Now, you may choose a color that makes you feel bad, but then you just change the color. For you, the key is identifying⁠—and this is like a classic twelfth-house issue⁠—identifying where you begin and end, and playing with your own energy field, not for other people, not in defense of harm, but as a way to experiment with, "When I run a forest green, do I feel grounded? Do I feel a little off?" For me, I will sometimes run browns with⁠—I really like gold, so I'll run browns with strings of gold through it. And it's like I let go a little bit. And other times, I will like to play with colors like⁠—I don't love the color coral. That's not my aesthetic, per se, but I will play with a coral, and it's kind of like a sex on the beach after you've stirred the drink. You know what I mean?

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            And that energetic color really opens me up and makes me feel a certain kind of way that no other color does. So what I'm encouraging you to play with is shifting your energetic field internally and playing with how it feels. This is an exercise that empowers you because if you can notice how you feel energetically with these subtle shifts, it starts to sensitize you to when you're like, "Okay." So somebody recommends you go get an energy healing from somebody. You might be able to be more sensitive to being like, "Oh. That was like a feeling I get when I got the wrong color. That's not quite it," because the work of boundaries is an inside job. It starts internal. It is, of course, behavioral, but the behavioral part of identifying your boundary and enforcing your boundary are the last two steps.

                        The first steps are being able to notice when your energy is a yes or a no, which is hard for all people and certainly one of the major lessons of being a twelfth-house person.

Mauli:             Yeah. I'm good with others' energy, but I need to get more familiar with my own.

Jessica:            Well, the reason why you're good with others' energies is that sensitivity that your ex-mentor was telling you about. You are really sensitive, and that's twelfth-house shit right there. And that's not bad. It's not bad.

Mauli:             Thank you.

Jessica:            Being able to be sensitive is how you navigate the world. It's your ability to hang out with somebody, and you guys had plans to go get pizza. And then you can just⁠—you feel it. You're sensitive. You're like, "This person doesn't want pizza. This person wants to take a long walk." And you're like, "You know what? I don't really want pizza. Let's go have a walk." And they're so happy to be in your presence because you just gave them what they wanted, and they didn't have to ask for it.guys

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            Sensitive. Sensitive. So this is a skill that you already have; you just haven't learned how to use it for yourself. And going through Neptune transits is a great time for the Universe to show you exactly how little had you figured this out for yourself. But again, this is not a bad thing. None of this is bad. It's just your nature.

                        So I want to come back to Venus because you did ask me a question about Venus, and I want to help you with your Venus a little bit. So let me just pause and see, do you have any questions about your Venus that you want me to answer or about love or self-worth or any of that kind of Venusian stuff?

Mauli:             I mean, I think we needed to talk about Neptune, obviously.

Jessica:            Yeah, we did.

Mauli:             I think that's what this reading turned into, so I'm grateful for that. But no. I mean, I really need to dig into that trine with Pluto a little bit more⁠—

Jessica:            Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do.

Mauli:             ⁠—and see that aspect.

Jessica:            It's a fucking fantastic trine. I mean, my God.

Mauli:             I will take your word for it.

Jessica:            It is fucking fantastic. So I'm going to ask you a couple quick questions here.

Mauli:             Sure.

Jessica:            Do you want to be married one day?

Mauli:             I don't know.

Jessica:            I agree.

Mauli:             Yeah, I don't know.

Jessica:            You don't know. You have a Moon/Uranus opposition. I just want to say this to you. You got Venus in fucking Pisces, right? You got Venus in Pisces square the Moon. Okay. That can make you somebody who's like, "Yeah, I want to be partnered. I want to be married." Moon opposite Uranus? Uh-uh. Nope, nope, nope. It makes you want freedom.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            So what I want to give you is this. You can be devotionally in love with somebody who's devotionally in love with you back and build a partnership and life that has freedom woven into its fabric. And that freedom is the freedom to choose. So you don't have to sign a contract, which⁠—of course, marriage is a contract. You don't have to sign a contract in order to have love and partnership.

                        And if you give yourself that freedom to be like, "That's what I'm willing to do for myself," then it might be a lot easier for you to find somebody that you want to stick with because you are somebody who⁠—I mean, I would be surprised if you didn't end up partnered.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            Most people hear me say that, and they think that's good news. Maybe. But partnered doesn't mean healthy. Partnered doesn't mean happy. Partnered doesn't mean equal. Partnered doesn't mean anything other than partnered, just like single doesn't mean lonely and all the things.

                        What I hope for you is that you give yourself the space to love and be loved romantically, devotionally, tenderly in the ways that your Venus in Pisces wants without abandoning the rest of your nature, a.k.a. the rest of your chart. And doing that means moving a little slower than you naturally are inclined to do, having a little more space kind of written into your relationship dynamics than you are naturally inclined to have at the beginning so that you can build intimacies with people based on actually knowing each other, which⁠—

Mauli:             Yeah. Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. My pleasure. And do you want human babies?

Mauli:             I'm not⁠—neutral on that. I'll say neutral.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Mauli:             I'm good with being an auntie. I don't know if I ever want to push any out myself.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, Uranus/Moon opposition. Uranus/Moon opposition, Sun/Pluto square⁠—yeah. I would just add to that, if you hook up with people who can get you pregnant/have that physiological capacity, be fucking careful because you are fertile. Okay?

Mauli:             Oh. Good times. Good times.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, it's just important to know. You've got a couple indicators here of fertility, of strong fertility. So you would want to be mindful about that, okay?

Mauli:             Thank you for that.

Jessica:            You're welcome. You're welcome. And are you an artist as well?

Mauli:             My love language is art and theater. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. That makes sense. Venus in Pisces in the twelfth house⁠—I mean, that's what that is. That's literally what that is. And then what's your day job? Do you mind me asking?

Mauli:             Executive assistant right now. I do dabble in writing personally. I haven't really had anything⁠—a project take off.

Jessica:            Do you have any inclination towards marketing or any of that kind of stuff?

Mauli:             My previous job, the one I got laid off, was in marketing. And I did not like it.

Jessica:            Sure. I mean, listen. Marketing, personal assistant⁠—your chart says you could do those things easy-peasy. The problem is you actually want to feel like you're building something.

Mauli:             Yes. Yeah. Yep.

Jessica:            And so, when you're marketing, you're literally marketing somebody else's message. And you may or may not believe in what they're selling. Being a personal assistant can be incredibly satisfying, or it can be a total boner. It depends. It depends. And so, when we come back to Venus, the thing that's the most important is figuring out what you value. For you, because it's in Pisces in the twelfth house, a huge part of what you value is not material; it's experiential. It's spiritual. And organizing your life in such a way that supports you in having a rich, artistic, creative, romantic experience⁠—yeah, that makes a lot of fucking sense.

                        Again, when we come into key-word astrology, having Saturn on the Midheaven does not mean you need to have a big career or you need to be super career motivated. Maybe, but you don't have to be, because your values don't completely line up with that. Right?

Mauli:             Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you are somebody who could decide to build a business or a service that supports people, that helps people so that they can do what they want to do. So that's like an organizing service or a personal assistant service or any kind of thing like that. You'd be naturally good at that kind of shit. Again, whether or not it's worth it to you to do that, time will tell. And I don't recommend you do anything super career-minded during these Neptune transits.

Mauli:             So not for⁠—well, at least until after April?

Jessica:            Oh, no, no, no, no.

Mauli:             Longer?

Jessica:            Yeah, much longer. Each Neptune transit lasts two years, and the last one starts in April. So it's two years from April 2024.

Mauli:             Got it.

Jessica:            And so you may change jobs, right? And that's fine.

Mauli:             Yeah. Well⁠—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You may change jobs in this two-year period. That's fine. Just don't place pressure on yourself to figure out what to do for a career.

Mauli:             Yeah.

Jessica:            If it emerges organically, great. Explore. But Neptune is not when we make material changes. It's when we make ethereal changes. And because Neptune transits last so long, inevitably, we will have to make material changes within those. But we want to be really spacious around them because Neptune⁠—do you fuck with tarot?

Mauli:             Yes. I'm more intuitively led. I don't have the understanding of the cards, if that makes sense.

Jessica:            Okay. It does. But again, I say to you, in this Neptune period, don't just follow your gut, because when we're going through Neptune transits, we are not able to consistently rely on it. We're just not. It gets stronger, which basically⁠—let me put it this way. Neptune transits make our aura, that beautiful Glenda the Good Witch bubble, into a loofah sponge⁠—

Mauli:             Oh.

Jessica:            ⁠—so that some of what you're getting is really just like dialed data, and some of what you're getting is noise. And it's very hard during a Neptune transit to tell the difference between the two, which is why with woo, you want to actually learn.

Mauli:             Got it.

Jessica:            The thing that you want to be careful of during Neptune transits with any woo is you don't want to give away your power, and you don't want to just go by sense of feel without any context, structure, or data, because again, Neptune transits teach us boundaries.

Mauli:             Leaning a little bit more into my South Node in Virgo.

Jessica:            No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. No, no, no, no, no.

Mauli:             No, no, no? Okay. Sorry.

Jessica:            No, no, no. It's okay. No, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that. No.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            I've never encouraged anyone to lean into their South Node, and I don't see myself doing that here and now.

Mauli:             Perfect.

Jessica:            What it is is it's about recognizing that your intuition, again, is expanding. This always happens during Neptune transits. It gets so much more porous. And so what you want to do is back it up with data. So, if you really believe in, let's say, astrology and you're only doing it intuitively, then you're ultimately not embodying the respect for the craft.

Mauli:             Got it.

Jessica:            Ditto with tarot. So it's about having the boundary of, "Oh, okay. So all 1s mean this in the tarot. All 7s mean that in the tarot," so that you can then give your big, beautiful intuition more structure and boundaries to work with and so that you can better assess the difference between what is guidance and what is energetic noise in the background.

Mauli:             It's interesting because I've already been leaning that way.

Jessica:            Good. Good. So you're following your guidance by leaning that way. And because it's a long-ass transit, you'll have months where you do a better job of that than others. And that's fucking life, and don't overthink it.

Mauli:             Okay.

Jessica:            But again, this is where I come back to that energy exercise that I pointed you towards of playing with color because it's a different version of studying tarot instead of just vibing tarot because what it does is it empowers you to know the difference between, "Okay. My intuition is saying that this card means go left, but I actually technically know that that's not what the card means. So I need to assess whether I'm ignoring the cards and trusting my gut or maybe"⁠—whatever else, right?

                        So this is where I want to point you towards because being a very intuitive person doesn't mean you're right about everything that you intuit. It absolutely does not. We don't want to be perfectionistic. What I'm encouraging you to do is lean into your Neptunian self, but to do it in a way that is sustainable and healthy, because what Neptune transits really want us to do is go to an ashram. Go to a monastery. Live off the land. Somebody else prepares your meals. Everything is simplified. You don't have to do; you just get to be in contemplation. That's what Neptune transits want us to do, but that's not fucking happening. That's not real.

                        So this is where, again, we need to create a little bit more structure to support the transit itself.

Mauli:             Yeah. I also have zero desire to do any of the ashram stuff, so I will keep that in mind.

Jessica:            Oh, good. Okay. Good. Yeah. The thing that I think is really interesting in our conversation is how much I believe you lean on your Saturn/Midheaven/Uranus conjunction. And that is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is a thing, as an astrologer, to notice because whenever we spend a lot of time in certain parts of our charts, then we know that, eventually, transits, circumstances⁠—whatever⁠—are going to bring our attention to other parts.

                        And so you lean on your Saturnian/Uranian/Midheaven self because it helps you to function in the world. Again, nothing negative here. But you did originally reach out about the Venus. And your Venus is receptive and generative. It's a really beautiful Venus.

Mauli:             Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome. And some of being receptive and generative doesn't function well in the world, in the capitalistic, material, time-driven world. And again, that's not bad or good. It's just observable. And so this is where you do need relationships, whether it's to art or people or places or whatever. You do need relationships that are not pragmatic but are "I lose myself in the moment"⁠—ashramy, in other words. You deserve those things because you probably yearn for those things, having that Venus placement.

                        And so this is, in part, why, when it was time to get grounded and maybe just throw in some color, you were like, "Ah, I can't do it," because that's your receptive, flowing place. And again, some of that's just because I was watching you and nothing about your natural skills. But some of it is also that you may over-rely on your highly functional Saturnian placement as a way to compensate for how tender and sensey you are. And cultivating the ability and the willingness to be in your sensitivities and to play with those sensitivities makes your Saturn stronger. It doesn't make it weaker. It makes it stronger because we don't want to be a one-trick pony. We want to be a many-trick pony. Okay. Good. Good.

Mauli:             Yes.

Jessica:            So did we hit your major stuff?

Mauli:             Absolutely, and so much more. This was incredibly insightful⁠—

Jessica:            Yay.

Mauli:             ⁠—and supportive, and I'm very grateful that you found my letter and gave me some time to talk it through.

Jessica:            Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that, and I'm really glad we did this.