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.

On January 12th, 2025, I had the pleasure and the honor of getting to do a live event at Charis Books in Atlanta, Georgia. Charis Books has Charis Circle. It's the nonprofit programming arm of Charis Books and More, the South's oldest independent feminist bookstore. Queer and Trans-led and -centered since 1974, Charis exists to foster sustainable feminist communities, to work for social justice, and to encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. Part bookstore, part community center, Charis welcomes folks from all over the world to attend their online events. Check out their website at charisbooksandmore.com. That's C-H-A-R-I-S, booksandmore.com. It'll be in the episode description.

I had a really fantastic time. And while at the start of my talk I talk a bunch about the astrology of the year ahead, what ended up happening in the Q &A is very intimate and tender, and I am happy to share it with you here. So enjoy my live event from January 12th at Charis Books in a city that is now very close to my heart, Atlanta, Georgia.

E.R. Anderson:                       We do have a lot to complain about, but we have so much to be thankful for because Jessica Lanyadoo, our number-one favorite astrologer, psychic medium, and just incredible podcaster, is here with us in the house tonight. This is a dream come true for those of us who have relied on her wisdom to get us through COVID, through so many things. Thank you to everyone here masking because COVID is not over, and that is one of the things that we really appreciate about Jessica, is also all of the wisdom around that and the care and community care that she has provided. So, without further ado, please put your hands together one more time for Jessica Lanyadoo.

Jessica:            That's nice. Thanks for that. I'm so happy to be here and here, you know? I do want to talk for a minute about the astrology of 2025. The astrology of this year and, to be frank, of the coming years⁠—it is concerning. And I want to just name it's not all bad. Right? It's not all bad. But it is a lot, and that feeling that I know so many of us are having that something big is shifting, that something is coming, and it's like⁠—I mean, we can look to LA. We can look to Richmond. We can look to lots of different places outside of this country, right?

                        But the astrology of 2025 is all about things shifting. It's all about the outer planets moving into new signs. Now, Pluto just moved into Aquarius officially, and this is going to be our first year in 250 years with Pluto in Aquarius. And it'll stay there until 2044. But Jupiter moves into Cancer in June, which⁠—there's a lot of things to be said about it, and one of them is a kind of increase in nationalism globally, and on a more personal level, a kind of expansion of our feelings of home and safety. Expansion of feelings is not good, and it's not bad. It's an expansion of feelings, all right?

                        Saturn will move into Aries in May, and Neptune will move into Aries in March. And these two planets being in the same sign of Aries at the same time is monumental. It's really, really big, and I'm going to say more about that in a moment. Uranus moves into Gemini in July through September of this year, of 2025. And then, from April of 2026 onwards, it'll be in Gemini. And when Uranus moves into Gemini, we've had really big things happen. The Civil War, the American Revolution, and⁠—I think there was another one. Oh, there is definitely another one, but, well, just trust me. It's not great.

                        When Uranus moves into Gemini, it stimulates the nervous system. It promotes change and⁠—like pew, pew, pew, pew, pew⁠—like change all over the place, like in all the directions. And there's, again, a lot of really good and a lot of really challenging things with it, but it's revolutionary inherently. It's a time of revolt and revolution inside of you, inside of us as a collective, inside of our friends and our not-friends, right? And so this energy is air energy. We're talking about, other than Jupiter in Cancer, everything's in fire and air. And I don't know if you've ever seen⁠—I think we all have now with LA⁠—what happens with air and fire. It fucking spreads indiscriminately. It jumps.

                        And because of this, I don't know about you, but the energy that I'm feeling is just like⁠—it feels jumpy. It feels kind of like nervous systemy. It feels quick to jump around. And something that I have been thinking about for a long time looking at Neptune and Saturn in Aries is the topic of agency. How can you identify your choices, the fact that you have choices? How can you practice making choices? Because when we're feeling activated, especially around fear, we tend to feel helpless or hopeless, or we go the other direction and we just act, just impulsively act without consideration.

                        I did a webinar with Dean Spade on the astrology of 2025, and what really emerged from that conversation was this theme of living on purpose, living with purpose. It's kind of like a little mantra in my head. When I'm not thinking about being a frog being slowly boiled kind of thing⁠—yeah, it's terrible. When I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking about living on purpose and with purpose. And Aries, where Saturn and Neptune both will be this year, is all about purpose. It's about agency. It's about intention and motivation.

                        And so much of this time, which is so revolutionary and so chaotic, is requiring that each of us as individuals and all of us as communities practice being intentional about our motivations, practice touching in with, "What is it that I'm feeling?" and instead of, "What should I do?"⁠—which is what most of us do, right? Like, "I feel bad. What should I do?"⁠—that's not going to help. And I'm sure you've already noticed it's like an anxiety response. It doesn't help. Instead, what we're meant to do is be like, "Okay. This is what I'm feeling. Can I actually stay touched in with what I'm feeling?" And as a practice from there, can you make choices? The next best choices, not the best choices. The choices that work in this moment.

                        And what keeps on coming up for me, which is not something I'm personally good at⁠—I'm guessing very few of us are good at this. But how can you adapt your insides when you can't control your outsides? How can you practice being like, "Okay. I feel anxious, and I have all of these actual problems materially around me. And I'm not going to feel better until I am better, until things are better." And the problem with that when we are living through these really dramatic, tumultuous times is that things might not be better. And that is real. And we still have to show up for ourselves and for the people in our lives and our communities. We have to show up for our ancestors and those who come after us. We have to show up. That includes not showing up. I want to make space for⁠—you don't show up every day. That's not realistic. Don't be perfect. Nobody's looking for that.

                        What I struggle with⁠—and I know most people do⁠—is how to stay present when the last thing I want to do is stay present. So many of the questions that I get for the podcast are questions from people who are just like, "Okay. This is the situation that I'm in, but I am convinced that it means that I'm always going to be in this situation for the rest of my life. But I am convinced that it means much worse things about me and who I've been or who I'm going to be if I'm in this." And I want to say life is not fair, and it's not symmetrical. It's just not. It is wild and unpredictable, and also, we have astrology.

                        And astrology gives us a sense of the weather forecast, which⁠—this morning, my weather forecast told me there was a 35 percent chance that it would be snowing in Atlanta tomorrow. And now it says that it won't snow. Weather forecasts are⁠—they're not perfect is what I'm saying, okay? You don't want to get too attached to them. The thing about astrology is that if we can hold it lightly, lightly enough so that it doesn't activate your nervous system in such a way that now you're living in the future where things are out of your control⁠—they're so out of your control. Your what-ifs may be worse, and they may actually not be as bad as the future. I don't know. Sometimes I know, but it's not helpful to know is the point.

                        So I want to just throw these questions for your consideration, okay? When you are gripped with fear, how do you hold on to that? Me, personally, I have a tendency to grope both hands tight as I can. Do you have tools to redirect⁠—redirect from rumination, from gripping your fears too tightly? What resources do you have? Because when we are in a state of anxiety or fear or depression or whatever it is, we tend to forget our resources

                        So to ask yourself that as a practice⁠, and when loved ones are going through things⁠—I don't know about you; I've got friends in LA. The world is⁠—when you have friends going through things, holding space for how they're feeling without being in a rush to fix it for them or to show them something positive⁠—let people be in their negative. Make it normal to bear witness to other people's grief because by doing that, we make space. And that space allows each of us as individuals and all of us as communities to identify our agency. And again, when we can perceive our choices, it's easier to make use of them.

                        Another thing I want to invite you to consider is, when you are in times of need, do you have people you can reach out to? Have you talked to them about, "Hey, if I'm having a mental health day, can I text you this emoji, and you just know to ask me a question or call me on the phone?"⁠—or whatever it is that people do; I don't know, right? To have that. And then, similarly, how can you make yourself available to other people, whether it's people in your life, people in your community, online, in meatspace⁠—all of it? It's all relevant⁠, not just because it is humane and wonderful to help people, but it actually helps you, too, to be of support to others. It is expansive for you. And that's just⁠—it is part of where we need to go, right?

                        This is a period that will call for radical acts of kindness⁠—offline, online, whether or not people are looking. And within that, we need critical thinking. And for me, this includes active listening. And I don't feel like we've gone in a great direction with listening in the world. We're not great at it anymore. We have really weird ways of listening to each other and to ourselves. And again, a lot of it is going too quick to, "What am I supposed to do? Is this a bad thing or a good thing? Do I like it? Do I not like it?"

                        Being able to rest and digest is power. It is resourcing. And because we are in the throes of air and fire, air and fire, I want to again kind of invite you to think about balance, and balance⁠—not like this kind of a balance, like this hand/that hand kind of balance, but spiritual, emotional, mental, physical. So, on the spiritual level, can you connect with your ancestors, with nature, with your guides, with God⁠, with whatever resonates for you? It doesn't have to be all the things.

                        When you are feeling off⁠—you're just off⁠—instead of going, "What do I do?" first, check in. "Okay. Have I connected?" For me, for years, there was this one beach that I had gone to that I was like, "Oh, this place." When I remembered it connect, I'm like, "Okay. I'm back. I'm back." If you have a tree⁠—you know, it doesn't have to be too fancy.

                        On the emotional level, which I am of the mind is the most challenging level and the one we pay the least amount of attention to⁠—on the emotional level, there's digest and rest, but I want to add in the middle nurture. Digest, nurture, and rest. How can you nurture yourself? How can you create space to nurture others? This is, again, why I'm encouraging you to invite people to be okay with having their bad day or their grief. And there's a difference between that and ruminating and lamenting and getting stuck. Digesting means there's movement. We've all digested, right? We know that there's movement in that.

                        On the mental level, to ask yourself, "Am I thinking critically about this?"⁠—so my first class on feminism taught me that thinking critically is thinking about thinking while thinking. And depending where your Uranus is in relationship to your Mercury, that may or may not be your jam. But there are ways of thinking critically based on your nature, and those are really important to nurture, especially because of the rise of AI. And we all know what's happening on our social media platforms. It's bananas.

                        Now, the other thing is actively listening. Actively listening is not just listening to the words that are said so that you can figure out what to say or what to do, how to react, how to respond. That's cool, but it's not actively listening. It's listening to what's being said, how it's being said. It's listening with your body and not just with however you're taking in the data.

                        On the physical level, it's about staying present. "What can I do now?" So you can get worried about what's going to happen after⁠—I don't know⁠—January 20th. That's just a random date in my mind. You can focus on that, right? I mean, I think all of us have probably been like, "What am I going to do? What could happen?" And there's a value in that. What can you do now to improve your conditions now? What are your conditions now? Because the future will come very soon, and then it will be your present. So, when we honor the present, we're making better use of all of our skills. And the truth of the matter is I'm a psychic; I'm an astrologer. I don't fucking know what's going to happen. Even when we look back and we realize we are right, we don't know, because we're meant to be in the present. When we use all this woo stuff that I love so much to stay in our heads and project into the future, we're not actually evolving spiritually. We're not helping.

                        And so, on the physical level, to check in and make sure, are your actions reflecting your priorities? Because when they're not, okay, there's clear instruction on what to do from there, always. Are you connecting to this earth? Are you connecting to this planet that you live on? Being able to reflect on these questions and adapt⁠—adapt to make it work for you⁠—it can help you to go⁠—on an anxiety scale, when you're at a seven, it can help you go down to a six. And to me, that is a miraculous experience, right? To bring you down enough so that you can resource yourself, so that you can show up for yourself and then hopefully for others as is appropriate.

                        Now, I could genuinely talk to you guys for an hour more about all of this, but I love answering questions. And I would love to invite questions so that I can talk to you about what you want to hear about, basically.

Participant 1:  Huge, huge fan. Thank you so much for coming. This is time-sensitive to the Cancer New Moon tomorrow. I'm a Virgo North Node, so this is a little bit my neurotic, probably, part of me talking about charging crystals around the Full Moon.

Jessica:            Great question. Great question.

Participant 1:  I think you said that the Full Moon is at 5:30 p.m. Eastern, give or take, tomorrow.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

Participant 1:  And I also understand that the Full Moon energy is a couple of days, plus or minus. When should I charge my crystals tomorrow?

Jessica:            Okay. I'm going to answer two questions for you.

Participant 1:  Okay.

Jessica:            The first one is it's not your North Node in Virgo that makes you neurotic about it. It's your South Node in Pisces that makes you be like, "All the boundaries are going to bleed into each other if I don't"⁠—you know. So, once you have the ritual, your North Node in Virgo will be able to better apply consistently the rules⁠—Virgo.

                        Okay. First of all, Full Moons⁠—you clear your crystals on a Full Moon. You release. It's about letting go. So Full Moons are always for releasing. So what you're doing is you're clearing your crystals, okay? There's a couple crystals that don't need to be cleared, but most of them do. When I'm doing that, I always make sure the crystals are out at the moment of exactitude because we're talking vibes as well as light. So, if it's overcast day, and let's say it's at high noon that the Moon is full, does it still work? Yeah, it still works because it's vibes.

                        So I would put your gemstones out for the moment of exactitude, which is why we share that moment. And then, if you're trying to charge your crystals, you do it under the New Moon, when the Sun and the Moon are sitting right on top of each other. That's the energy of light. So it's not like⁠—we're not seeing it as much visually, but it is the energy of light that you want to bring to your crystals.

E.R. Anderson:                       So we have an online question that's very specific but also perhaps general. "Will we have an election in 2026?"

Jessica:            That's interesting. Again, for me, my motivation is to deal with what's present, what's present here and now. Am I concerned about what's going to happen in 2026? Fuck yeah, but hey, listen. All the things that would need to happen to put us in a position where there's going to be an election⁠—I got a lot of other fish to fry before that happens.

                        So, again, this is where I come back to⁠—we can speculate, and astrologers are great at speculating what will happen next. And what I've come to at this point of my practice is it can be a distraction because what's happening now⁠—there's so much that needs our attention and care. So not to make you feel bad about asking a question. You are not alone in asking that question. It's just I say let's tend to the now, and as soon as that becomes a hot-button issue, I will talk about it obsessively, okay? But not today. Yeah.

E.R. Anderson:                       We have kind of a follow-up, more or less. A fellow Canadian says, "I'm very worried about conservatives getting majority and also rightward swings globally. Anything we should be watching out for, expecting, asking as a Queer, Nonbinary human?"

Jessica:            So, I mean, we can be really concerned in the present, and also, this is something I very lightly touched on in my year-ahead talk. When looking at the chart of Canada as a specific example, a bunch of nations have Pluto transits coming up in March. That's not good news, my friends, not what you want to hear. So Pluto is going to start opposing Canada's Mercury, which indicates struggles with a neighbor, power struggles with a neighbor. Now, listen. That's not the only thing it indicates. But having a power struggle with this neighbor is not the worst thing in terms of the implications of having a conservative versus liberal government in Canada.

                        Does that make sense the way I've said it? It indicates that it's not like a friend of Trump. But I am not making any kind of meaningful predictions about this because I can't do it without being in anxiety. Can any of you think about what comes next without being in anxiety? No, because it's terrifying. So, again, I'm best resourced in the present. And I want to, as much as possible, encourage you to protect yourself in the present based on all the things you know in the present, cycling like there will be a new premier, and that will happen. And today it's not the thing that we're dealing with. Sorry if that's an annoying answer. I'm good at those.

Participant 2:  Hi. You brought up purpose⁠—

Jessica:            Yes.

Participant 2:  ⁠—as a theme for this year. What tools or steps do you recommend we go through to further explore what our purpose is in this new context?

Jessica:            I love that question. So Neptune in Aries⁠—Neptune is about our highest values and ideals. They're about our aspirations and our spiritual convictions. Saturn is so material. Saturn is what you do. It's your obligations, your responsibilities, and it's your internal structure as a human being⁠—no big deal. And so, when we think about purpose in the context of Neptune and Saturn being in Aries, it's about, how can your highest ideals, your spiritual convictions, be translated into your internal structure, translated into the way you structure your life?

                        Finding purpose might look like being like, "Okay. My job⁠—I don't like it. It does not reflect my purpose, and practicing kindness or acts of rebellion do line up with my sense of purpose. How can I seize opportunities day to day, month to month⁠—whatever it is⁠—to practice those things, to recognize that that fills me up, and therefore, I'm going to practice it?"

                        I think that people have this idea that purpose or living in purpose⁠—I think we get perfectionistic about it, and we get in our heads about it. We all struggle with futility. And I'm in my dream job. I thank you, everybody, for supporting me being in my dream job. I am in my dream job, and I question it. There's nobody who has a perfect handle on this.

                        So part of also being in purpose is holding space within that for the kind of ebbs and flows and twists and turns of that process instead of needing to find it, be there, stay there, because that's not realistic, especially with Neptune in Aries. With Neptune in Aries, it's shifting sands on fire⁠—no big deal, right? So being able to practice being like, "Okay. So how do I access that feeling of purpose, that intention of purpose?" can be easier to achieve than being like, "What is my purpose?" which is a question I've gotten countless times over the course of my career. "What is my purpose?"

                        Your purpose is to be alive. Honestly, I don't know we have purposes beyond that. We don't have a singular purpose. We have values. We have a sense of motivation. And that will evolve with time and circumstance. Try to notice how firmly or how lightly you hold things because the more tightly you hold that question, the further it will feel from you. I'm sure we've all experienced that. Too much pressure creates this friction that becomes the central focus. So holding it lightly empowers you to, again, access agency. "Today I don't know what my purpose is, but I do know that I actually value"⁠—whatever⁠—"laughing. So I'm going to make everyone laugh that I can make laugh," or whatever. You know what I mean?

Participant 2:  Oh. Okay. [crosstalk].

Jessica:            That's nice. Okay. Good. Okay. So I answered that question.

E.R. Anderson:                       These are sort of similar, so you may have just a slight different take on it. And I'm going to tie two together. One is, "I've had a slow start to the year, low motivation, etc. Any advice to get going?" And then a slightly more specific one is, "As I enter my first Saturn Return in Aries, second house, this year, I just lost my job. Any advice? I've got a fresh start this Full Moon."

Jessica:            Well, shit. So fresh starts and Full Moons are not BFFs, because Full Moons are really about releasing. So releasing attachment or identity with something could be a better move. But in terms of having a Saturn⁠—if you've got Saturn in the second house, my friends, yeah, money is going to be an issue. Saturn in the second house gives you lessons with making money and spending it, holding on to it. It's resourcing it. If it's in the eighth house, it's more other people's money. It's like you may have money, but it's never liquid or something. The thing about having Saturn in the second is it does teach you to fully take responsibility and accountability for what you value.

                        For the person who's having a slow start, I mean⁠—okay. Raise your hand if you're not having a slow start this year. Okay. Okay. There's one person, a couple. There's a couple people. Most people did not raise their hand. The energy is a lot. And this idea that it's a new year and we should start anew⁠—whose fucking idea is that? I don't know. Maybe that's useful, and also, maybe it's not. If the energy isn't there, then you don't need to force it, unless of course you need to force it, in which case you make the best next choices⁠—not the best choices, the best next choices.

Participant 3:  Do you have any advice about how we can connect better to our emotions, like some practices or rituals to help?

Jessica:            Connecting to the emotions is not as hard as receiving the emotions. So, if I'm connecting⁠—okay. This might be noisy. Sorry. I'm connecting to the microphone, okay? I grasped it. I reached out, and I touched it. If I'm receiving my emotions, I'm getting still. I'm getting present. And I'm opening up. It's a different practice. And so practicing receiving emotions means getting out of your head. And that's really likely what your question is about, is how to get out of your head. And again, it's air and fire right now, so a lot of us are really in our head. Fear does that, like nervous system activation.

                        There's not a universal one-size-fits-all. Hopefully some of the questions and prompts that I gave can help to slow down so that you can start to kind of do that rest, nourish, digest or whatever works for you. So that's the best quick answer I can give.

Participant 4:  What advice would you give, I guess, a listener that's calling in or writing in that's having a lot of transits going on with Neptune, Pluto⁠—I think those are the main two.

Jessica:            Neptune and Pluto?

Participant 4:  Yeah, [crosstalk]⁠—

Jessica:            At the same time?

Participant 4:  Yeah.

Jessica:            It's so chill. Everything's fine. So here's the thing about astrology, is that a lot of times, we're going through contradicting transits. One will be like, "Let go," and the other one's like, "You gotta fix it. Go." Right? And that's life. That's why sometimes you're flirting your butt off and all your friends love you, but you're kind of lonely and depressed. Different transits happening at the same time that can contradict each other.

                        So, if you're going⁠—and it depends on the transits. You might be seeing that you're going through these transits, but they might all be sextiles, in which case⁠ don't worry about it. Go to therapy or something. You know what I mean? And then they may all be conjunctions or oppositions or squares. And in that case, you're going to be a different person by the time they're done. And so the more willing you are to actively participate in letting go⁠—because Pluto always wants us to let go. I've shared this on my Patreon, but what I always do when I see a Pluto transit coming is I get rid of clothes because I have a hard time getting rid of things that I love, and Pluto wants you to get rid of stuff. So I'm like, "Okay. Let me start the energy moving," so that I don't have to⁠—I don't know⁠—lose my best friend or my apartment or whatever it is.

                        So it's about engaging with the energy. If you're going through Neptune transits, all Neptune transits require boundaries. And if you use www.net something to find out what to do with Neptune transits, you'll get a lot of confusing answers. A lot of times, I've noticed astrology online is like, "Neptune means spiritual." No. It does not. It means get boundaried because the auric field becomes so porous during Neptune transits. And so you don't need to go out of your way to get spiritual. If you're the kind of person who knows you're going through a Neptune transit, you're already there, right?

                        It's about getting boundaries on all the layers. And it's very hard to have boundaries if you are not emotionally present. Neptune gets us scattered.

E.R. Anderson:                       "Any thoughts on astro connections to increasing housing affordability and scarcity? I'm in LA, but this is happening everywhere."

Jessica:            So read me the first part. Astral connections with what?

E.R. Anderson:                       Astrological, I think this person means⁠—

Jessica:            Oh.

E.R. Anderson:                       ⁠—connections to increasing housing unaffordability and scarcity.

Jessica:            Well, it's unclear to me if this question is related to more energy work. I am not good at teaching energy work. I do energy work, but I'm not great at teaching it. So I don't have any advice about that. Listen. With Neptune and Saturn and Uranus, what they're doing⁠, housing is absolutely⁠—and you can feel it already, and the transits haven't hit yet. Resources are feeling scarcer and scarcer. And we know that they're not scarce. We know that they're not scarce.

                        So here's the question. The question is, will we build communities together? Will we follow through to build communities where we affirm that we are the majority? Will we have a revolution that brings us more housing, more resources, or not? And we all know what "not" looks like. We have versions of what "not" looks like, right?

                        I don't have a great answer other than mobilize together is the answer.

Participant 5:  I wanted to say happy birthday.

Jessica:            Thank you.

Participant 5:  My birthday is January 20th.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

Participant 5:  It's okay. It's okay. I make the best of it. And my Sun and Mars is conjunct at 29 degrees of Capricorn, so I've been having Pluto⁠—I think I'm on the third pass. Do you have any advice for a conjunction of Sun, Mars, and Pluto?

Jessica:            So Sun and Mars is in your birth chart, and then Pluto is by transit.

Participant 5:  Yes. Yeah. My Pluto is in the twelfth house.

Jessica:            Your birth Pluto is in the twelfth house, or transiting Pluto is in the twelfth house?

Participant 5:  My Pluto is in the twelfth house. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay, but your Sun and Mars is not?

Participant 5:  No. It's the third in Capricorn. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. So okay. So, first of all, you're at the end of the transit. It's almost done, done, done, right? Which is great. So you've lived through the vast majority of it already. When Pluto sits on top of Mars and the Sun, it's demanding because Pluto is a bitch. It's demanding that you step into your power. It's demanding that you find a way to take⁠—because it's at an anaretic degree of Capricorn⁠—accountability for who you choose to be.

                        So this theme of purpose probably really resonated with you because Pluto has been just pushing on your sense of purpose. And the thing that's tough about a Sun/Mars conjunction natally is that the will and the ego are intermingled. And so, at times, it can be hard to know what of your motivations to center and how to proceed. And so, a lot of times, people who have this aspect can feel stuck a lot. Do you get that feeling of stuck?

Participant 5:  Yeah. Spinning wheels.

Jessica:            Spinning wheels. There you go. Yeah. And that's because you're looking for the right thing to do, Capricorn. Yeah. "Is it wrong? Is it right? Because if it's wrong, I'm a terrible person and I'm failing. And if it's right, that means I'm succeeding and I'm a good person." No, it doesn't. It's about, is it in alignment? Practice asking, "Is it in alignment?" And if you can find that alignment, which is more Solar than Mars, it'll be easier for you to take risks and be willing to fail. Failing is glorious. I fucking hate it, but it is so good for you. And having that aspect in your birth chart, having this transit going on, can teach you about your willingness or lack of willingness to fail and how much of life we don't get to experience when we're not willing to fail.

Participant 5:  I've definitely been feeling that flavor of feeling the flow since May, that I don't question it as much.

Jessica:            That's great. Pluto transits change you, as they're meant to.

Participant 5:  Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Participant 5:  Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure.

Participant 6:  Hi. Does anything in the energy of 2025 help to⁠—or maybe can be used to support relationships transformation, especially if the relationship is not going well right now?

Jessica:            And you're talking about love life?

Participant 6:  Love life.

Jessica:            Yeah, you are.

Participant 6:  Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah, you are. Okay. I want to just take a moment before I answer your question to say I am a fan of divorce. I am such a fan of divorce. I am a fan of endings. And it's not that I enjoy them when they happen or I'm like, "Yay. You're breaking up," but it is so good to recognize when you have outgrown someone or something and to let them go. And you used words, but what I kind of heard⁠—and please tell me if I heard it wrong⁠—is, "Can I make this work even though it's absolutely not working?" Yeah.

                        And what are you willing to pay? Why are you willing to pay that? The pain of grief and of losing someone is fucking awful, but it's also baptismal. It is so important to be willing to let someone go when they are not a match anymore. And when somebody's not a match anymore, it's evidence of at least one of you having changed. I don't mean to psychic you, but I feel like you know which one of you has changed and which one of you has not. Yes.

                        And it is sad. But letting someone go doesn't always mean breaking up. Letting someone go means releasing your attachment to who they were and what you expect of them and leaving some space for them to emerge different. When we play our role differently, we leave space for the other person to play a different role as well. And they don't always do it, and then you need to go. So we're back to boundaries because we're talking about Neptune, and we're talking about Neptune because Neptune is, in this moment, still in Pisces. We're also talking about⁠—depending on your placements, it could be Uranus messing with you.

                        But people ask me similar questions to what you asked me, obviously, a lot. "How can I make this relationship work?" And my first response is always the same. It's like, "Why should you make a relationship work that you are having to break yourself open to make work?"

                        And so I'm going to add one more thing to it, which is I believe in problems. Triple Capricorn, obviously. I'm a fan of problems. But I believe there are two different kinds of problems. There are the problems that are the same fucking shit you've done a million times before. They're your pattern, right? They're the thing that you keep on doing. And then there are the problems that you have with other people that are really just a reflection of your own problems with yourself. And when you work on those problems, they help you to become a better person. Those problems are the ones you want in your love life. The problems of, like, "I have been here before. Everything person I've dated, I've gone through the same bullshit. Why do I keep on choosing this person who keeps on doing this thing?"⁠—that's your problem as much as it is theirs.

                        And a lot of people have this idea, and the internet has taught me⁠—twin flames is the term the internet has taught me that justifies why you would stay in a shitty relationship. Not a fan. I have one episode on twin flames where I'm like, "I don't like it. Don't do it." If somebody's burning you up, walk away. You can have better sex with someone else, better love with someone else, better quality of life with someone else.

                        And so, if somebody challenges you to stay stuck in your old bullshit, it's not the right challenge. And if somebody's asking you to grow into the best parts of yourself, that's a relationship worth fighting for. Now, that said, every relationship has bullshit, and everybody is ridiculous and high maintenance. You know what I mean? Everybody's annoying and all that stuff. So we want to hold space for all of it. But my instinct is that that speaks to your question and your relationship now. Yeah.

E.R. Anderson:                       This person says, "I'm curious about how much time per day you spend taking in news or media. You're so well informed, which I aim to be, but there is so much happening it's difficult to stay informed and grounded in the present moment at the same time. Any tips?"

Jessica:            Yeah. That is a great question. I consume a lot of news; it's true. And I don't necessarily recommend it. Listen. I'm 50. Now, I know last year, I said I was 50. I lie about my age. I round up. So, next year, you'll be like, "She's 55? How did that happen?" That's how it happens. I'm just telling you truthfully now. I lie about very little, but my age I do round up. So I'm 50. Would I watch a lot of news at 25? I did not. I did not. I did not read a⁠—you know, it's okay to be at different stages of life. I happen to⁠—at this stage of my life, between my priorities, my work, and honestly, fucking age, I do consume a great deal of news. And I don't recommend it for everyone.

                        Does it sometimes mess up my nervous system? Absolutely. Do I do stupid things frequently? Yes, and some of those stupid things are consuming too much news. And yet I choose it because it is consistent with my values, and it's important to me and to my work and to how I show up in the world. And so I want to say having really reliable news sources that you have a kind of healthy relationship to is more important than staying on top of everything all at once, because you don't have to know all the latest breaking news all the time. And again, with AI and how the internet is changing so rapidly right now⁠—I don't know. It's a fucking mess, basically, is what I want to say. So we need to rethink how we engage with the internet.

Participant 7:  Hi, Jessica. Nice to meet you. My question is, what advice would you give to someone who struggles with disassociation? I hate this world a little bit too much, and I want to leave with things kind of coming up. I would like to stay present, so yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So I have a question about your question. Do you want to be associated? I mean⁠—

                        [crosstalk]

Jessica:            So me and anyone else can give you such great advice, but I think the first thing is⁠—again, it's connecting to that purpose. There's really good reasons to be checked out, and there's really good reasons to stay here. The thing that I like about being associated⁠—other than the fact that I'm a fucking Capricorn, so it's my thing⁠—is because it's like if you're here, you can defend here. And I'm a big fan of defending. And that's maybe not a great spiritual motivation, but that is mine.

                        So the first thing I would actually say to you is to work on cultivating an earnest desire, not a theoretical desire. You gotta really want it because if you get here, I bet anyone here can attest to it sucks. It's the reason why you're disassociating, right?

Participant 7:  Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's about a willingness to be present even when it's hard, because it's so often hard, and it's sad, and it's frightening. And I mean, I was just like, "Break up. It's good for you." It's hard. And I think practicing staying emotionally present on purpose when things are hard will give you the cultivation of chops for wanting⁠—truly, authentically wanting, not theoretically wanting⁠—to be associated or be present.

                        There are a lot of trauma-based reasons why a person would disassociate. And to just be like, "I'm going to be present, and I'm just going to force myself to sit in my meat suit and just be here for everything"⁠—that might be a bad goal in this moment. There might be ways of practicing titrating, like practicing⁠—if you're used to being 100 percent out, practicing, "What does it feel like to bring 5 percent of my spirit into my meat suit?" and letting it just dip your toe. I don't like to jump into cold water. I know people like to jump into cold water. I think that's ridiculous. I don't want to be cold. It's terrible. So I literally will stick a finger in it, and that's all I can tolerate.

                        So maybe that's what you want to practice doing, is just tolerating a fingertip into the icy cold water of reality, and practice sitting with it, and then maybe eventually your hand, instead of going from disassociated to present, because you have to have really good reasons why. And it's important with all wellness stuff to not be too one-size-fits-all, right?

Participant 7:  Yeah.

Jessica:            So I hope that helps.

Participant 7:  What advice would you give to wanting to create community but not having a good success rate at personal relationships of staying and being⁠—

Jessica:            Of you staying or them staying?

Participant 7:  Them staying.

Jessica:            So you're kind of asking a different version of the same question, in a way, because this is the thing that's really challenging, is that the ways in which you abandon yourself inevitably will show up for other people and with other people because if somebody really cares about you and is paying attention to you, they're going to know you're not there. And if they don't care and they don't pay attention, then fuck them; they're eventually going to leave and fuck you over one way or another, right?

                        So here's the thing. When we abandon ourselves, which is part of disassociating, we leave all this space where any ol' thing can happen. And some of that puts you in danger, and some of that puts undue pressure on the other person to take care of you or to manage the relationship. And if that person is really healthy and well adjusted, eventually, they're going to need more. And if they're not really healthy and well adjusted, that might work. That might be fine for you. And also, you might eventually be like, "What the fuck am I doing with this person? They're not good for me. They're not healthy. They're not well adjusted."

                        And so what you and I and all of us cannot do is control other people. You cannot make someone healthier, or you can't make them stay. You can't make them willing to love or be monogamous or whatever the fuck it is. But what you can do is take responsibility for your choices. So we're back to boundaries, right? We're back to boundaries. And again, it's really hard to have boundaries, to maintain your boundaries⁠—which is really about accountability⁠—when you're emotionally abandoning yourself because how do you know where you begin or end when you're not there?

                        And so this is where starting small and making those changes⁠—and this is really hard because it's slow, right? But what happens is you start attracting different versions of your own pattern in people. There are different versions. They're the same shit, but they're different versions. Whenever that happens in your life, trust you're making progress. What happens is you start to attract new patterns in your relationships. And you're like, "Oh, but it's the same shit." And then you're like, "Oh, I'm stuck." No. You are in the middle. It's like you're on the freeway. You haven't gotten there yet, but you're going.

                        So, when you start to attract a whole new fucking pattern where you're like, "What is this whole new bullshit?" you are doing great because new problems means you're activating out of a different part of yourself. No problems is⁠—it's unrealistic. New problems, better problems⁠—that's the goal.

E.R. Anderson:                       I think to close us out, a lot of folks have asked a variation on, what are you hopeful for about 2025, even if that's in your personal life and not the world?

Jessica:            That's a very nice question. It's also a dangerous question to ask a Sun, Moon, and Rising in Capricorn. When people ask me that question, I'm like, "Goddamn it. I gotta think of something." My relationship to trees is something that I am hopeful for. I am expanding my relationship to trees. I am thinking a lot about down to trees and how trees talk to each other through the roots, and they reach out, like, out. And I've always thought about trees, and I have a tendency to think about trees as these things that stand up. But actually, so much of their life is not about what's happening above ground. It's about what's happening underground.

                        And that gives me a great deal of hope because I think a lot of us feel the need to go underground right now on a lot of levels. And so I've been thinking about trees as something that gives me hope. That's going to be my heartfelt answer.

E.R. Anderson:                       Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. Thank you.

E.R. Anderson:                       I want to let folks know that they can buy Jessica's book if they don't already have it. It is a beautiful book that helps us think through all of our relationships, not just our romantic ones, but our community relationships, our friendships. That is available here. It's also available online in our chat. You can click that. You can also support the space of Charis Books and Charis Circle. Charis Circle is a nonprofit. We do over 275 events a year. We are a secular community space. So, if you're here for the first time and you want to make friends or you don't know how to be with other people and you need a little help getting back in the swing of things, that's what we're here for.

Jessica:            Yay.

E.R. Anderson:                       So, if you want to support this space, you can do that. We are primarily individually donor-funded, and that means that we are accountable to you all, and it also means that we're able to keep your information private. And we don't take money from people that tell us what to do. And to everybody watching online, can we give it up one more time for our online friends watching around the world?

                        Thank you, and thank you⁠—let's give it up one more time for Jessica Lanyadoo.