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.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. There is a couple of cute things, I think, to share with you before we get going for this week's episode. The first is that in San Francisco, on Thursday, March 17th, I will be having a conversation at CIIS, which is the California Institute for Integral Studies. I'm going to be talking about navigating these intense times, of course, through astrology. You can join in person or via livestream. The link to register is going to be in the episode description, so go ahead and check that out if that's something you're interested in. I'd love to see you there.

Also, I'm happy to share that my beloved forever-fiancé has built a chart-drawing tool that defaults to Campanus, and it's available on my website over at lovelanyadoo.com. It's a free chart-drawing tool that I think is very cute and saves absolutely none of your info. So, if you want to save a chart, you simply screenshot it. A couple of things that I think are extra exciting about this chart-drawing tool, other than the fact that it defaults to Campanus, which you may or may not know is the house system closest to my heart⁠—but you can choose between all of the different house systems very easily. It's really easy to use, and right beneath the wheel⁠—you know, the birth chart⁠—we've organized all of the aspects, and you can organize it with the click of a button either by orb or by planet. You can see all the aspects organized one way or another. It also breaks down all of the house cusps, and it's just really easy to use and beautiful and, of course, always and forever free to you.

And it is still Black Love Month here at Ghost of a Podcast. For all my beloved Black listeners, if you would like a reading with me, go ahead and send a question through the contact form on my website, and just make sure to use the hashtag Black Love somewhere in your question.

Okay. Now, the last thing I'm going to share before we dive into your very brief horoscope this week is that, this week's episode, I'm doing something really different but something that I feel is really important and practically appliable to us all, which is I'm sharing a conversation that I had with author and activist Dean Spade about mutual aid. What is mutual aid? How do you get involved in it? How do you actually use it and navigate all the bananas stuff that comes up when you're in community with other people? I invited a bunch of people on my Patreon to ask questions, and we did our best to address them in our conversation. Dean shares lots of links to books and organizations that I've shared, again, in the show notes. So you can go ahead and check all of that out, and I hope you will.

But let's now dig into your horoscope. This week, we are looking at the astrology of February 16th through the 22nd. This is the last week of Mars Retrograde⁠—huzzah. Very, very good news, right? Mercury Retrograde is almost over. That said, Mercury will remain in a Retroshade for quite some time here, so we're not totally out of the woods. And the larger transit that we have been going through since, really, October of 2024 of Mars opposite Pluto⁠—that transit will still be active for many months more. It will be exact for the final time on April 27th of 2025.

And so, in many ways, you are likely to appreciably feel a shift when Mars stations direct on the 23rd, a.k.a. next week. However, it's hard to separate the impact of this Mars Retrograde from the larger transit that we're all going through of the Mars/Pluto opposition. And so, because that Mars/Pluto opposition is still kind of playing itself out in the world, and you are a part of the world and the world impacts you very personally and very directly, you may not feel a strong shift in energies. It really just depends on how that transit is impacting your birth chart, a.k.a. how it's impacting you.

But if there was a final week to reflect on your motivations, your actions, your relationship to anger, your relationship to competition and ambition and assertion and sex and sexuality, this is it. Mars Retrograde wants us to reflect. So, while there are not many exact transits, I want to invite you to reflect.

And related to that, a lot of us are feeling incredible overwhelm, as activation and anger are not just happening inside of you and inside of me but inside of a huge amount of people in the collective. And that activation can build up to a sense of overwhelm or burnout, which are just kind of like different expressions of very similar energy. And as that occurs, the Mars Retrograde is a meaningful invitation for you to check in with your own system's energy. Mars is related to your vitality and your virility. And so how can you tap into your life force energy as a way to feed you, and how can you use your own energies and your feelings of resiliency to show up with and for others? These are good questions to reflect on for the last week of this Mars Retrograde.

Now, that all said, our first exact transit of the week doesn't happen until Thursday, February the 20th. On that day, Mercury forms an exact square to Jupiter. At 12:13 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be at 11 degrees of Pisces and 44 minutes, and Jupiter will be at the same degrees of Gemini. This transit is a mixed bag. Not all squares are totally bad. This one is not totally challenging, but we definitely want to look out for a couple of things.

When Mercury forms a square to Jupiter, you, me, and everybody else are likely to jump to conclusions. This is a terrible time for being a gossip or for listening to gossip. On a more societal level, we may experience propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation. So, in the case of misinformation, some outlet may report on something, or some influencer may report on something, before they have all or enough information. As we get reporting on developing news, often that means we get reporting that is straight-up wrong.

The same goes for your personal life. You may learn something about someone in your life or someone in your community that is partially true but not totally true. And so resist the urge to jump to conclusions. Reist the urge to fixate on the detail of a story while ignoring the big picture or the context of the story. That big picture and context is Jupiter, and the details are Mercury.

This transit can coincide with being a bad listener. And it's so important that we become active listeners or we try really hard to be active listeners. And active listening is not just about actually listening to something someone says or reading an article or whatever it is. It's being present while you listen. It's listening not just with your mind but with your heart, paying attention to the energy with which a message is coming across. I want to be clear, when I say listening, I'm not talking about the auditory experience of listening. I'm talking about more of the holistic concept of listening.

This transit can coincide with you being exposed to big ideas and for kind of taking a turn because squares can often coincide with a meaningful shift or change. And so there can be a turn taken in your attitudes or beliefs about something because you've learned something new. You could also do what most people do under this transit, which is not really listen and maybe even soapbox. So explaining things to people who are not interested in hearing your explanations⁠—it's not a good look. Making sure that if you're going to bother communicating something, that you are taking pains to do it in a way that other people can actually hear it⁠—because part of communication is listening. If all you're doing is talking at people, then they're not taking it in, and you're going to end up frustrated.

So this can be a transit, unfortunately, where somebody just talks at you, tries to soapbox and explain things at you. You also may be the person on the soapbox just trying to explain things at people. To that, I say try to do better than that. If you are talking to someone and you realize you're talking for a long time, maybe pause. Take a beat. Ask a question. Pay attention to how the other person is receiving that information or if they're receiving it at all. This is one of those "I'm going to drag the horse to water and force it to drink" kind of transits. And so be on the lookout for that.

This transit⁠, inasmuch as it's related to gossip, is also related to tall tales. So you may find yourself telling a story and just filling the details with things that aren't exactly true just to make the story more exciting. Yeah, and again, rein that shit in if you can. And if you hear news or information or a story that seems too wild or good to be true, do a little due diligence. That's all. Jupiter is the big picture, and Mercury is the details. And so, when these two forces clash, then we often only want to focus on the details or only want to focus on the big picture. And the truth is the forest is comprised not only of trees but so much life. And when we just paint the forest with one big brush, paying no attention to what therein lives, we got a problem. So just pay attention to the details without losing track of the big picture. That's what the transit wants you to do.

The good news about this transit is that while it's not the most likely thing that you will do that, and most people probably won't, if you try, you can succeed. That's the beautiful thing about a square. Square pushes you to engage. And on a social level, this transit can be super fun because it can put you in contact with ideas and people and lived experiences that are expansive, that are engaging and that broaden your perspective, maybe even⁠—you could make new friends. Of course, between COVID and the flu and norovirus and the bird flu, wear a mask. Wear a mask, especially in public spaces, as a way to take care of your sweet little self and other people and their bodies and the bodies of the people that other people engage with. You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying.

Okay. So that's the Mercury square to Jupiter. And the only other exact transit happening this week is on Saturday, February 22nd, at 7:48 p.m. We have the North Node at 28 degrees of Pisces and 41 minutes, sitting directly on top of Neptune⁠—same exact degrees of the same sign. Now, I don't actually typically look at transits to and from the Nodes, for a variety of reasons. But I will take a moment to acknowledge this transit because it feels important, and it feels really timely.

Now, the Nodes⁠—and I'm going to just focus on the North Node here because that's what we're talking about. The North Node is not a planet, so it doesn't affect your personality. It doesn't kick up lived experiences. Mercury square to Jupiter, as I just spoke about it, is a transit that will speed up the tempo of your day, increase the potential for gossip. It'll, like⁠—you know. Personality things, lived experience things.

That doesn't happen with the Nodes, and I think that's a meaningful misunderstanding of the Nodes that a lot of astrology people have. The Nodes are evolutionary spiritual points. And when we have an evolutionary point sit on top of a planet⁠—in particular, in this case, an outer planet, so it's a generational planet⁠—we have a spiritual evolution occurring. And with that, depending on your nature and your circumstances, you're going to engage with that in meaningfully different ways than the person next to you.

But the North Node conjunct Neptune in Pisces is so spiritual. It's so spiritual. And within that, I want to acknowledge the opportunity for us all to become more humanistic, more empathetic, more generous, and more kind, for us to do these things both as a spiritual practice but also a way of life. This transit also speaks to how we are living through a period where many people believe that their apocalypse that will bring about the second coming of a messiah is at hand. So many of those people have a lot of power over where society goes, not just in the United States but throughout the world.

And if your deeply held belief is that you want the world to end so that your messiah can come and take you off to eternal paradise, then, you know, you're willing to do a bunch of crazy shit. And we are certainly living through a period where that is happening with our government having such a strongly evangelical value system or belief system. It's also very Neptune/North Node conjunction in Pisces. It's spiritual beliefs that empower a person or a society to focus only on the light, to focus only on a spiritual end goal, and to allow that to become so escapist that a lack of kindness, empathy, and humanity is embodied and practiced. Right? It's scary. It's scary, but it's an interesting thing to note.

And related to that, I want to keep it practical and useful information. The invitation, regardless of your circumstances, is to make sure that you are evolving in ways that encompass and embrace your humanity and the humanity of others. That's actually the ideal of what this transit wants. And when times are scary and when things are not stable and you, me, and most everybody else is really scared about what could possibly happen next and, "How can I take care of myself and take care of other people? How can we be safe? How can we navigate a planet that is so unpredictable with the climate crisis?"⁠—there's so much we can't control. How very Neptunian.

But what we can do is align our intentions and our energies and our motivations, again, towards kindness, empathy, care, humanity. That's a practice. It's not an easy practice. If it was easy, most people would do it. But it's a deeply worthwhile one.

And that, my friends, is your whole, entire horoscope for this week. If you want to learn more with me, please join me over on Patreon, where I post every couple of days. And we are going deep in energetic supports. You can become a member on the free level or on the paid level, whatever works for you.

And if you haven't checked out my meditations available exclusively on Audible⁠—that's complicated, for real, but it's also true⁠—you can go ahead and check them out. Links are on my website and in the show notes and all the things. My hope is that these meditations don't just help you to relax and find some peace⁠—although absolutely, peace, yes⁠—but also help you to have a deeper and more embodied understanding and access to zodiacal energies as they exist and flow inside of you.

Now, all that said, please enjoy my riveting conversation with Dean Spade.

Jessica:            Dean Spade, author of Love in a Fucked-Up World and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in this Crisis and the Next, welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. Let's talk about mutual aid.

Dean:              I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Jessica:            You're invited to everything, all the time⁠—open invitation. I want to start with a very simple question, which is, what is mutual aid? What is the difference between mutual aid and charity? Just 101 us.

Dean:              Great question. These words get used lots of ways. The way I think about this is that mutual aid is the work we do in our communities amidst the broader ecosystem of all the kinds of work we do. Mutual aid is the part where we take care of people's immediate needs based in a shared understanding that it's the systems that are dominating us that are to blame for people being in crisis and not having what we need, not the people, whereas charity is the kind of work where people are getting something they need immediately, but there's a context of judgment, like, "Well, are you sober? You can't stay here; you can't get on the housing list unless you take these meds, unless you don't have these convictions, unless you have this kind of immigration documentation."

Charity divides the deserving and undeserving poor with eligibility criteria and is based on an idea that we'll give a few things out to those who are truly deserving. It kind of upholds the status quo and blames people for being in crisis instead of blaming the systems for putting people in crisis. So mutual aid is part of a broader resistance movement framework that says, "We've gotta change these conditions," whereas charity is like, "The system is fair, but we're going to give a few handouts to a few people if they're good enough."

Jessica:            Interesting. So powerful. So part of what I'm hearing is mutual aid is essentially community, but it's an organized function of community-building and community sharing. Is that right?

Dean:              Yeah. I mean, mutual aid builds community, for sure. It helps people meet each other and feel empowered to actually directly address stuff that they're upset about and think is unfair that's happening to them or others. It makes us have a set of people in our lives who have our backs, who would visit us in the hospital, who would maybe know what our special needs are or who we've built relationships with across lots of difference, like across age or race or other things. It is a major community-building function of resistance movements generally. It's part of all resistance movements.

                        So movements do other stuff, too, like we drop banners and we block pipelines and go with people to court. We do all kinds of things, and mutual aid is the part of it where we're addressing the crisis directly. A really good example I use a lot is if you think about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a really famous instance of resistance in U.S. history that people are taught, like even elementary school sometimes⁠—that boycott is often framed as important speeches by Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks refusing to get off the bus.

                        But what's left out of that story⁠—because mutual aid is often left out of the story⁠—is an enormous group of working class Black women coordinating transportation for thousands of people for a year and a half so that people could not ride the bus. So they did all these food projects where they sold food to raise money to buy cars, drive people around. They accompanied each other walking because it wasn't safe because white supremacists would attack them because they were against the boycott.

                        It was like this massive mutual aid project that made that whole resistance possible. And usually, mutual aid is written out, and we're kind of told stories about social change that are about important men giving speeches or things courts did or things legislatures did, and really write out that movements are made of ordinary people coordinating basic needs. That is essential.

                        And so, for me, this is like a really important feminist point, and it's a point about empowering us to not wait around for somebody to come rescue us, but instead, be like, "Oh. It's on us, and the resistance is made of us and people you've never heard of." And we all have to be involved if it's going to work.

Jessica:            I love it. Okay. So this is all fine and good. But if I want to donate to a charity, I Google, and it pops up. And I just am like, "Oh, there was five charities or whatever." But how do I get involved in mutual aid? How can people participate? How do you find groups? Do you need money in order to participate in mutual aid? Say more about that part, the actual "how to."

Dean:              Yeah. Most mutual aid work is unpaid, unlike charity work, which comes from nonprofits. So, already, if you're giving money and time into mutual aid groups, it's going a lot further towards people who are actually in crisis. It's not paying rent and insurance and payroll taxes or whatever. And mutual aid is something you can do without any money. Most mutual aid has been holding up communities of people escaping slavery, people arriving on the shore⁠—in migrant experience, with not knowing a single word of English and others who are already here helping them survive. It has been communities that have nothing or have almost nothing that have survived through mutual aid.

                        So mutual aid is not something you have to have money to do, although mutual aid can include us giving each other money. But that's not mainly what it is, because we don't have enough money to solve all this just by giving each other money, right? So, absolutely, we collect money for people's bail or we collect money to help somebody with rent or whatever. Since 2020, there's been a lot of visible online mutual aid fundraising, but that kind of is just a small part of the story. Mutual aid is watching people's kids, accompanying people to the hospital, visiting elders, letting people stay in your house. It's a much broader thing that's not necessarily about cash, and you definitely don't have to have cash to do it. And most of it's unpaid.

                        And to find mutual aid groups, I agree with you. It's like a lot of charities⁠—they're big nonprofits, and they have big websites, or they even have ads, whereas mutual aid groups are like scrappy groups with unpaid people. So some of them might have a social media account, but a lot of them might not. The best way to figure it out is to find anybody doing something like that in your town, and then those people will know of more stuff that you can't find. So you are like, "Oh, there are people who are doing something at the detention center nearby. If I go talk to them, are there people giving out food in the park to unhoused people? Okay, if I go talk to them"⁠—they will know. They will be in networks with people doing lots of other stuff. "Hey, what's going on about childcare stuff these days? Is there anything happening specific to Trans people? Is there a prison letter-writing group in the town or in the region?"

                        It's very easy, once you connect with some folks, to figure out what else is happening. If there's a radical bookstore in your town or an anarchist social center, or if people do gathering at a certain time of year, like Earth Day, if there's a protest happening, just going to places and talking to people⁠—"I want to get involved. What's going on?" And that's so good or us, too, to beef up those skills around talking to strangers. And also, it's good if you're doing stuff to remember we gotta really be welcoming people out here. We gotta be in whatever we're organizing as, "Hey, newbies. Come on in. This is how you get involved. You're welcome here. Yeah, it's okay if you don't already know all the details of how we talk about this," or whatever.

                        So it does require a little bit of that kind of social energy, but I do think that's possible for us. And there are also things you can get involved in right away online. Anybody can write letters to people in prisons. There are groups like Black and Pink that have chapters all over the country, or you can just look on their national website. There is mutual aid work to be done today before you even get up from wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Jessica:            And meet a person. So okay. And I have questions based on what you just said, but basically what I'm hearing is the way to get involved in community is to find someone in community and talk to them, is basically what you're saying. It's like engage with people who are already engaged.

Dean:              Yes. And there's something. No matter where you live, there's something in your town or county that someone is doing. It could be tenant organizing. It could be⁠—there are so many people organizing, right now, rapid response to try to prevent ICE from being able to raid places or help people be prepared for that or help hide people. So you could look at national orgs, like Detention Watch Network and Mijente and see if they have any groups that are links that are close to your region. Call those groups up. Be like, "Who do you know who's over here in my town or my part of the state?"

Jessica:            Great. I love this. So, all that said, let's say you're a total introvert. You don't have an easy time with people. That's just not realistic for you, or you live in a place⁠—maybe you're not a person who's super conservative, but you live in a really small rural community where everyone else is conservative or that kind of a thing. Do you have any kind of⁠—I don't know⁠—insight or feedback about how to get engaged if you fall into⁠—you see where I'm going with this⁠—

Dean:              Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            ⁠—these two camps, right?

Dean:              Yeah.

Jessica:            They're very different situations, but in both cases, it's not as simple or as effective to just get out there and meet someone.

Dean:              Yeah. Well, I think that it's actually really important to notice that we can do mutual aid across a lot of political differences. I have an example to share, which is that a friend of mine wanted to start some kind of disaster prep-style mutual aid work in their community, in their neighborhood. So they made a flyer for all their neighbors, and they're like, "Let's all gather, and we're going to show each other how to turn off our gas and electric if needed in a disaster," so something that's really great for people to know how to do. And so they had that meeting and just saw who showed up. So there's nothing in there that's about⁠ you have to be a certain kind of politics.

Jessica:            Totally.

Dean:              Whoever showed up⁠—and they did it in Spanish and English because that made sense for their neighborhood. People came. They met each other. And then that kind of led to the next thing, and then it started to be a little bit on their little email list or group chat that they made, some people talking about how some folks are living in their neighborhood in RVs and cars, and some people really don't like that.

                        And my friend really wants to support unhoused neighbors so was really pushing inside that same conversation, "Hey, I wonder if we could support folks instead," and was able to, through conversations with the neighbors, move people towards welcoming and supporting unhoused neighbors, like, "Hey, can we help you throw out your trash?" or bringing people water. So, to me, you can start with something where people are already willing to be interested a bit and see if you can pull people towards what you kind of want to have happening. So that's one approach.

                        In terms of the introversion thing, the thing I worry about is when we tell ourselves that we can't do it, the most dangerous thing in our society for us is to be too isolated. We all actually do need to know some people in person who could help us if we need to be hospitalized, if we need someone to visit us when we're sick. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Dean:              It's not good for any of us to not know some people locally, even though we can also have rich relationships on the internet. I'm a bit worried about us moving too much in that direction. So I think just even talking to someone who you⁠—if there's someone in your life and if they don't live near you, who you can talk through, "What would be a level of social connection that's kind of a form of safety planning for me?"

                        And in my experience, there's no better place to meet people to connect to than in doing something I care about with other people who care about it, because that's a really meaningful bond, even if we have nothing else in common. All of the most important relationships of my life I met through doing resistance work and mutual aid work in our movements. And some of those people are not people I share any subcultural norms with. We're not the same age. We don't come from the same⁠—whatever. You know?

                        And so I would really encourage people who are isolated and for whom social stuff is hard to try meeting people in this realm because I think it's got a higher level of payoff for breaking your own isolation and keeping you a bit safer than some other forms of social connecting that can be⁠—you know, only around a music scene or only around other subcultural stuff that can be⁠—you end up with less shared values sometimes, and it's not as thick a relationship for when times are tough. And times are getting really tough⁠—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Dean:              ⁠—and they're going to be staying tough, as you know. And I think, especially with some of the ecological crisis changes that are going to happen in our communities, power outages, storms, fires, floods, we do need to know some people locally. So I know that's hard. For some people, it's a full stop. But I just want to say that I think to the extent we can stretch ourselves to have some in-person local connections, it can really help us with our safety.

Jessica:            What you're talking about is so important. And something you and I talked about when we were first meeting to talk about our year-ahead class was how, in different ways, our very different work has brought us to this sense that emotional intelligence and emotional development is so important for our movements. And I noticed⁠—because I asked folks on my Patreon, "What should I ask Dean about mutual aid?" and so many of the questions were about, like, "How do I handle conflict resolution? How can I be a part of a community with my ex or with people that I really disagree with?" or, "Masking is really important to me, but it's not important to the people in this group I'm a part of. How do I navigate that?"

                        And so much of what that's about is the difficulty of having boundaries with people and having boundaries with oneself in relationship with not just individuals but groups of people. And I just think there's just no simple answer or fast track for being in relationship with others. I wonder what you think of that.

Dean:              Yeah. I love that these questions came in because I think they're very sophisticated. This is exactly it. When we do work with others that we care about, we will encounter conflict. And that's okay and good, right? Of course, we're going to think we should⁠—I think it should be done this way, and you think it should be done that way. And that's beautiful and right, and we live in a society that tells us we have to get our own way and that if anyone disagrees with us, it's hurtful. And that's stuff we have to unlearn so that we can have true connection and collaboration.

And I have a bunch of tools that are about this that I want to point out and that we can also include links to. One is the second half of the mutual aid book, which you can find free online, is a lot about these things: how to create groups that can make good decisions together, how to, in a group, talk about group culture so that instead of blaming each other for things that are hard, we're like, "Hey, how do we want it to be? What's it like?" and I have a little list of qualities of group culture that are more mutual or more hierarchical in how they pop up. And people can kind of be like, "Yeah, this one is one I think we're doing really well," or, "This one I don't think we're doing that well, but I was in a group once that did it like this." And so people can have a really free-flowing conversation about that.

There's some stuff about leadership and how we think about it and redefining it within kind of more anti-capitalist, antiracist, feminist values. And there's also a workshop series that I did that's, like, five videos that are all kind of diving into some of these things like what do you do when your group is disagreeing about capacity? And some people are overpromising for the group, and others are like, "Oh my God. I'm so stressed out and burned out," or, "How do we think about burnout?" So I have a bunch of resources that I think are helpful for groups and for people individually who are just struggling with these things in groups.

My new book, Love in a Fucked-Up World, is all about relationship dynamics and what it's like when you're doing work with others and you have strong feelings, which we all do because when you⁠—you know, we were all injured and hurt in groups. Our deepest wounds come from the family group and things that happened at school and work and in religious spaces.

So there's a lot of opportunities for healing in groups. And when we join groups, we often feel historical reactions in ourselves, like, "I feel left out," or, "I feel like I have to take care of everyone," or, "No one listens to me." And some of it's about building good group dynamics, and it's also about learning about our own reactivities and learning how to manage those strong feelings, get support, support ourselves, and begin to have new experiences that can respond to the current situation instead of, like⁠, "I'm imagining the people in this group are my siblings or my parents," or whatever.

So the new book has a lot about that stuff, and there's a lot of online talks and workshops and stuff that go into that more deeply. That might be useful. And this question about COVID practices is one that is coming up at like every book event I do, which is really great. People are asking, "Dean, your books about relationality⁠—this is a huge kind of relational dilemma in my community. I can't go to anything because nothing is masked anymore, and people don't care."

                        And so the thing I would say to that⁠—what I'm doing⁠—and, Jessica, you've advised me a lot about this and have been really useful to me⁠—is have other people who care about masking and about our well-being as a community⁠—is how can we practice together in ways that shift the culture?

                        So a lot of mutual aid groups I'm in and study groups I'm in and stuff⁠—we just have norms around masking and air filters and other tools that somebody in the group proposed and talked about why, and then the group discussed it, and people kind of pushed for it. And so even those who were not really on that train came to learn more about it, and we did that education together. And then we're modeling that when we go places and we set up tables with other groups or when we collaborate at events.

                        And I've been collaborating with tons of mask blocs and Clean Air Clubs in different cities for my book events. And I think starting those clubs and providing that to other people in the event, being like, "Oh, hey, you guys are having a mutual aid flip fair. Can our mask bloc come and provide masks and information about masking?"⁠—and some groups also are providing information about Narcan and tying in other harm-reduction frameworks, and they're also providing safe sex supplies.

                        It can be really amazing to help people see that all these politics are connected and to say we're going to share in resisting this COVID denial culture that is happening as a norm and can even creep into resistance spaces, unfortunately. So, to me, it is this kind of grassroots work. And mask blocs and Clean Air Clubs are an example of mutual aid projects that are then transforming the culture even of our resistance movement. So that's something, too, that anyone can start that I think is really, really, really powerful and useful.

Jessica:            I love that. Okay. We're talking about a lot of work, and some of it's really energizing, and some of it's work. And I think that a lot of people are burned out. And I am of the mind that when you do things that are impactful and important and that reflect your values, that it is energizing, but it's also high-burnout stuff. Do you have, kind of, thoughts about that or advice that you give to folks around the burnout element of engaging with or trying to start to engage with community and mutual aid?

Dean:              Yeah. I agree with you. I think that doing work that matters to us, even if it involves kind of boring tasks, like, "Oh, I'm making a spreadsheet about where these certain people are going to sleep or who wrote letters to these different people inside the detention center," or, "I'm changing diapers or I'm helping somebody clean their house who's struggling with illness or disability." Mutual aid work can have a lot of, quote unquote, "boring, mundane" tasks. That's what most things are, you know, making some more food, whatever.

                        But it's also like it's so energizing when you're doing something because you know you're on purpose. We talked about this in our shared webinar about the new year. What does it feel like to be like, "I'm not going to attach the feelings I have from having to go to work and school to this. I'm going to instead tune into my purpose for this."

Jessica:            Yes.

Dean:              So I think that's one piece of it, just noticing our own internal mentalities. "Am I turning this into something that feels like work or school, or am I actually feeling my passion for my community and for our shared survival when I do this?" That's one question. The other thing is what I've noticed is that people who get really burned out aren't usually burned out from the work itself. They're burned out from unresolved conflicts in groups. That's why they really leave the movement and say they're burned out.

                        And so a lot of this is about learning conflict resolution skills. Both those books are about that, and those videos that we'll be linking about⁠ building capacity for mutual aid groups have really good stuff about conflict and how to build groups that can weather conflict and actually repair conflict instead of having people leave in tatters.

                        And the other thing⁠—I think this one is really important⁠—some of us have internal trips that cause us to overwork and martyr ourselves, never get around to caring for ourselves and instead care only for others. I have this in my history. I mean years and years when I'd be like, "I know I need to stretch, but instead, I'm going to work until 1:00 a.m. on this thing." That was something that mattered to me, but I was actually using it in a way that was harmful to me to play out my own internal stuff from traumatized childhood.

                        And so part of this is sorting out, what are my habits around work and around caring for others, and am I using them in ways that are harmful to myself? It doesn't usually turn out good for other people, either, because you become resentful or you eventually flake or ghost. That kind of work pattern isn't actually beneficial for the projects. It doesn't make them sustainable. And most of us have some baggage around that because of living in capitalism. So there's stuff about that, about overwork and trying to learn to work joyfully instead of from a place of obligation/self-punishment or, "I don't deserve anything until everyone has everything they need right now, tonight." There is some stuff about that in the mutual aid book and in the webinars that I'm going to link.

                        But really getting emotionally honest about what's driving me right now, or am I trying to look better than other people, or am I resenting everyone else because they didn't do as much as me⁠—what's going on there, you know? And that stuff is normal. We can be compassionate for it. We can love ourselves through it. But it's also our responsibility to kind of work with those energies and see what we can transform because it poisons what is actually the most beautiful, meaningful thing in our lives, which is working for our own and others' survival and being in connection based in love in impossible conditions.

This is the stuff. This is the greatest pleasure of being alive, which doesn't mean every minute of it is pleasure like orgasm; it's more like pleasure like, "Wow. We worked out that hard problem together," or, "It's so satisfying that we delivered meals that people really needed and wanted and met their needs," or, "I love seeing that we're still friends after this hard conflict in the group. We figured out how to move forward together," or, "We figured out how to have the group separate into two groups that are going to try it two different ways, and we all know that's going to be beneficial to the community"⁠—that kind of pleasure and satisfaction that includes, I think, making some of the best friends in your life, as mentioned before.

Jessica:            I love that, and it kind of brings me to what may be my last question, but we'll see what happens. But there's so much⁠—as we all know, so much happening all at once. And I think so many of us are feeling so demoralized, and I keep on getting the question of, "What can I do? What can be done?" People are really panicking. And you and I are having this conversation not even a month into the 47's presidency.

                        The kind of question that comes up here is like, what kinds of mutual aid projects are especially important today? If somebody is to start getting involved today or to start pointing themselves in a particular direction today, what do you recommend?

Dean:              Yeah. When we did our webinar about the new year, I mentioned this book that I'm obsessed with called In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil. And yesterday, in my class, I was teaching the chapter on labor. It's called something like "Stolen Bread, Stolen Labor" or something. And the chapter has these incredible stories of people in the late 1800s and early 1900s doing these major strikes, like stopping all the railroads and heavily stealing everything they needed in big groups and stopping evictions and stopping police work⁠—these stories of ordinary people stopping business as usual, which literally to me right now feels like the only thing that could stop the coup that's happening at the federal level in the United States. People can feel really powerless right now because the courts aren't going to stop it. You can't vote about it. It's just on, right?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Dean:              And the only thing that's going to make a difference is massive, massive mobilization and disorderly, disruptive conduct by tons of people. And mutual aid is most people's onramp into movements. So the more we can create and sustain mutual aid projects that meet people's immediate needs, the more people are going to join our movements. That's how most people join up, either because they need something and this is the group that's actually providing it or because they are so angry that something's happening to some group, and they want to be part of it. Maybe it happened to them before or whatever.

                        So any mutual aid project is kind of the most important thing. And some of the ones that I think are particularly urgent right now⁠—everywhere, people are creating these kind of rapid response networks to support people facing immigration enforcement. Getting involved in that is huge. That could be helping put pressure on schools to not collaborate with ICE. It can be literally figuring out who can take people in in their communities. It can be "Do you know your rights?" training so that people know how to slow down and resist ICE raids when they happen. There are so many pieces of that work, and we'll put links to some of the groups that have been doing the trainings to help folks start that locally. That work is incredible.

                        Supporting Trans people in our communities is obviously huge right now because the attack on Trans people is a central part of the dazzle camouflage of this horrible, genocidal, ecocidal picture. And so one way to do that is to start projects that are supporting Trans youth. A lot of people don't have support in their homes. They're not getting support at school. People can do fundraising support for Trans people for rent. People can have gatherings for Trans people to come and eat and hang out with each other. And people are doing Trans clothing exchanges to make sure people have clothes they need. People can do opening their homes to Trans people coming out of foster care or prison to figure out where people are going to stay, do Trans prison letter-writing projects⁠—all of this stuff about sort of the most vulnerable Trans people in the community. All of that⁠—so, so, so, so helpful right now because all those conditions are getting worse, and there's a culture shift that's making more street attacks on Trans people, more discrimination in housing, employment, all the basics. So all of that.

                        Any work around eviction, defense, and relief for tenants is so important because housing prices are higher than ever. There's more unhoused people. All the support work for people living outside⁠—all the work around supporting unhoused people in encampments, bringing food and bringing sleepings bags, helping people deal with government agencies that are trying to deal with disability benefits⁠—anything that supports unhoused people right now⁠—vital, vital, vital.

                        I could go on and on. I shouldn't keep going on and on, but you get the idea.

Jessica:            No, this is great. It is great.

Dean:              Take from whatever you see in the headlines, and think about who is vulnerable in your community, and go to that⁠—or just what you see when you're driving down or walking down the street. That might tell you something about where the vulnerabilities are. I think that, in some ways, it's so obvious what's needed, and also, we've been so disempowered to actually just dig in together.

                        I think disaster prep work, on your block or in your neighborhood or your part of the county or whatever, is a great thing for us to do because it helps us meet more people who aren't like us and build those immediate local connections that can save lives. So who has a solar battery on this block, or who knows⁠—what are the elders on this block who aren't getting visited enough, or do we want to do a tool library on this block? Anything that helps people build more capacity to respond to disasters locally is great right now.

Jessica:            I love all that. And I will say I think part of why people get so overwhelmed is because people who care oftentimes are like, "Well, all of these things you've named, plus 50 more, are all equally pressing immediately, now. And it's really hard to make a decision. I'm going to choose to focus on this community or this need," because I think a lot of people kind of get just twisted up on all the things they're not doing and all the things they're not choosing. And this comes back, I think, to boundaries and giving yourself permission to do one thing at a time.

Dean:              And do it well.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Dean:              Yeah. I mean, a lot of mutual aid projects⁠—you know, I'm thinking right now about how after Freddie Gray was killed in Baltimore and there was all those uprisings, people started a jail support project where anybody getting out of jail⁠—they were waiting there, and they were like, "Do you need help making calls? Do you need warm clothes? Do you need a ride somewhere?" This is huge because people often get rearrested right when they walk out of jail because they've got empty pockets. They've got no way to get home, no one to call, etc.

Jessica:            Right.

Dean:              That kind of project⁠—you want to stick to that. You don't want to be doing 70 things. You're⁠—"Oh, we need to have somebody who speaks Spanish with us. Oh, we need to be here on Wednesdays later because of this. Oh, we need more people with cars." You get better at it the longer you spend supporting people in a particular set of conditions. So you want to be in it for the long haul.

                        The other thing I'll say is sometimes people are like, "All these mutual aid efforts, they're so small. We need one big thing."

Jessica:            Right.

Dean:              Hopefully, from what I'm saying, people know⁠, okay, there's no silver bullet coming. And actually, having a big, top-down solution is⁠—I mean, it's just not happening, but also, it's not as good. It's actually much better⁠—and this is proven in all kinds of research⁠—to respond to the disasters in the most local ways possible because that's where the conditions are specific, and people can have the specific local knowledges.

So we are much safer if we have tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of small and medium-size mutual aid projects all over our cities and counties responding than if we tried to coordinate one centralized thing that would inevitably try to have a standardized answer. That wouldn't make sense, like, "Oh, in this part of the county where people are more Muslim and have these dietary restrictions, the food service and projects should look different. In this part of the neighborhood, we need more stuff in Spanish. In this part, there's more people with disabilities and there's more veterans who are living in this kind of housing, and they need these kinds of support."

                        It makes more sense to have lots of little experiments. So doing something immediate and direct is satisfying in a different way. It's not like, "Oh, we've solved all the problems." That's not on the menu. Instead, it's, "Oh. I'm contributing to a massive wave of transformation and change and care." And of course, none of us knows what's exactly going to happen, and none of it ever feels like enough. But it's better than just the paralysis of, "I'm frozen, and I'm not doing anything that connects with others." Even being able to process our grief while we're sitting at the table handing out the sleeping bags and charging people's phones and be like⁠—talk to each other about what we're trying, what inspired us, what we saw on the news, what's scaring us. All of that while we do something that's meaningful to us is so much more effective than just doomscrolling by ourselves and being so overwhelmed that we can't think of one thing that would fix it all.

Jessica:            I mean, and this is really what it comes down to. And it's so powerful. I just want to say, first of all, have I found someone who talks faster than me? I'm stunned, and I love it. But just to kind of take a moment to really sit with something that I think a lot of people didn't know, might not know, and I think is so important is that the top-down isn't as effective as just choosing one action and sticking with it⁠—not the action that's going to change the whole, entire world or radically fix things.

And I see so many times that people⁠—they try. They try and they do something, and they get involved in something, and it doesn't work. It doesn't move the needle as much as they hoped or they expected, and then they get demoralized and they bow out. And I think that what you're talking about is so important. It's not just about doing it so you get an immediate fix. It's so that we build communities and you build skills and resources and offer skills and resources and all the things. Does that sound right?

Dean:              Yeah. I agree. And I think that a lot of us might want to be involved in more than one thing. For me, it's been always useful to be like, "I'm in a mutual aid project where I'm really seriously focusing on that, and I'm also in some kind of study group." I think a lot of people⁠—like a reading group, like having the combination of the on-the-ground, immediate detailed work and also a space of reflection with other people who share our values⁠—and there's lots of online study groups that are reading radical texts, or you can start your own with people you know. Or in your mutual aid group, you guys can also have a study group, like, "Let's read about other radical histories in mutual aid or other radical histories of people doing housing stuff or people doing immigration stuff," or whatever.

                        And then I think also having an affinity group, if you want that, where you have a set of people you go to actions with, like if you're somebody who wants to go to protest-type actions and you want to group people here, like, "We roll together. We know each other's vulnerabilities. We've got some plans in case things go sideways. We know how much risk we want to take"⁠—that could be a nice little architecture of a way to build a really satisfying political life. Or some people also may include, "I really want a creative project. I want to be with people who are making music or visual art"⁠—just really being like, "What would it be like to have a robust set of ways to get my needs met in alignment with my values?" because it's okay that our social and emotional needs should come from the things we are doing.

                        And these things really can meet them. You can meet wonderful people. They're not going to be perfect. We're all going to be imperfect humans, and we're going to disagree, and sometimes we're going to be jealous or spiteful or forget each other or flake or whatever. But we can actually see movement space as the spaces where we make our life. It's not like a side hobby. It can be the center of our lives, especially in this time when there is so much to mobilize around and conditions are so dire.

Jessica:            Yeah. And they truly⁠—they are dire. As an astrologer, people are of course forever asking me, "When is it going to be better?" or, "When is it going to be over?" And that's just the wrong thinking at this point. We are in a new era. Things are different, and they will get worse. And to me, what that calls for is that we find ways of taking care of each other. And sometimes that means taking, and sometimes that means giving. And if we're in community, there's space for you to take and for you to give as your circumstances shift.

                        And it's such a big paradigm shift for all of us. And I think for a lot of us, being in community and navigating conflict⁠—and some people are judgy and super verbal, and some people are judgy and not super verbal. Not everybody is judgy, but shit happens, and people are different from each other. And sometimes proximity is what pushes us together. And if we don't have the willingness to develop the skills to navigate the feelings that come up, it is a lot harder. But I think it's the assignment.

                        I feel like this conversation about, like, "Well, what is mutual aid, and how do you get involved in it?" is an important doorway for us all to be walking through or hanging out in. It's important that we move through it so that we can build and take care of each other.

Dean:              Yeah. And you know, if things are going to keep worsening, which you and I both believe, I think⁠—

Jessica:            Yes.

Dean:              ⁠—astrologically and in terms of just ecological crisis continuing to raise the stakes for the rest of our lives, disaster after disaster⁠—the best disaster prep is already doing mutual aid work with people so that when the next thing comes, you already know each other; you already know how to move together, how to share stuff, how to decide things together, how to respond, who's vulnerable on the block. You know who else in the community is doing stuff. The sooner we start, the more prepared we are for the next really scary thing. And that is what's coming. And it's like how to become unfrozen and move towards one another right now is really our task.

Jessica:            Yes. I love that. And I will invite people on my Patreon to continue to ask questions about this. And then maybe I'll have you back to talk about more ways than we can engage and just kind of help people navigate through more of this stuff, or maybe we'll just put together another webinar or something fun like that.

Dean:              Yeah. I mean, we can have, like, story hour where I tell you some of my favorite things people are trying. So yeah. There are so many [crosstalk]⁠—

Jessica:            I would love that.

Dean:              ⁠—information story hour. And also some of my favorite historical inspiration.

Jessica:            I would love that. And the thing that's also cool about astrology is that we can, as astrologers and astrology students, look up movements and important events that happened and look at the astrological markers of it, not as a way to separate ourselves and intellectualize, but as a way to kind of look for patterns because patterns are constantly repeating, and within that to recognize that whether we're talking about impactful community members or notable activists or changemakers, every sign of the zodiac is represented.

Dean:              Yeah.

Jessica:            We can be really different, and we can be true to who we are and still participate with our communities. And a super extroverted person is going to do that in a really different way than a super introverted person.

Dean:              Yes.

Jessica:            We don't have to be the same. I fear that a lot of times, when people hear something that's inspiring from someone that they respect, they're like, "Well, I have to do it that way. I have to be like that person." And that's just not it, right? You get to be yourself and find a way to navigate the realities we find ourselves in as yourself. I think that's an important component to it all.

Dean:              Yeah. And especially, I think there can be actually a bias to thinking that extroverted and highly verbal people are what we need because those people often make speeches or write books or have podcasts or whatever. But actually, we need tons and tons and tons of people doing clandestine work, doing work where they're not going to be noticed. I mean, that's⁠—especially now, when so much of what people need to survive is being made illegal, a lot of it is about figuring out how to keep a secret, how to get something done behind the scenes, how to not be somebody who's heavily overly present on the internet and easy to find.

Jessica:            Yes.

Dean:              It's a set of skills⁠—our movements haven't had as much of an underground in recent decades because of the severe backlash to the movements in the '60s and '70s, and it's been more of this kind of nonprofit and aboveground kind of advocacy work. And that's had a lot of costs because we need a really robust underground to take care of all of the things that can't be done above ground. And there's even more of that now. So yeah. I think about this a lot, too. People have tendencies, and it's good to know our own tendencies.

                        An example I often use is I'm an over-inviter. If I'm in a group, I'm like, "Let's make more people be here. How can we get them all in?" And I kind of can get bad or can be like, "Whoever walks in next, I'm going to give them the cashbox and have them hold it," you know? And there's always people in the group who are the other way. They're like, "We need to worry about security. We shouldn't let so many people in, and we should vet them all. And we shouldn't make this event public."

                        And it's good to have people with these extreme tendencies in the group because then we can be like, "What's the middle path? What's the wisdom of both of these approaches?" And everything's like that. Somebody's a big spender; somebody's really penny-pincher⁠—all the things. And that's beautiful. If we know we have those tendencies and it's not a matter to be blamey or judgy about, but instead to be like, "Oh, what's all the wisdom of the group? Let's find the place where that wisdom comes together in a good, immediate, next experimental step."

                        And so, yeah, can we value all the parts of ourselves but also have some consciousness about them instead of wanting everyone to go our way?

Jessica:            Right, which is hard because most of us are like, "Yeah, my way is definitely the right way." And so it's giving yourself permission to have those feelings and those thoughts and to adapt anyways. We don't want to go for perfection. We want to stay with the process. That's community-building, really.

Dean:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You are the absolute best. Everyone should read all your books, and people should find you on the social media and everywhere else that you offer up your wisdom, which we can share, again, in the show notes⁠—little links, little links. I just thank you so much for talking this out with me and hopefully helping people navigate the world we find ourselves in.

Dean:              Thank you for inviting me. I loved reading the questions people submitted to you through Patreon. The community that is engaging with your work is just like such ethical, thoughtful, brilliant, beautiful people, and I'm really delighted to get to talk with those people.

Jessica:            Yay. I feel that way, too. They are the literal best. I mean, I'm really happy to have spirituality and activism meet. This feels really, really important to me because so much of what I think spirituality can do is kind of empower us to be healthy and right with ourselves so that we can sustain the labor of our movements, whatever that means, on whatever levels it means. And there's a lot of work to do, so we gotta giddyap.

                        Thank you, thank you, thank you. And more soon.

Dean:              Thank you.