Jessica: J, welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I’m really excited to do a reading for you. We’re going to keep your birth info private, but I wanted to see what is your question? What do you want me to look at today? 

J: Thank you for having me. My question was—I’m a Libra Sun, and I’m not great at making decisions and then standing by them, or just making a decision period. And now that I’m getting older, I’m starting to realize that a lot of adulthood is having to make decisions and choices with things that are not the most ideal or having to choose between or many options that you’re not really excited about. And I’m wondering how can I better open myself up to make decisions when they don’t feel good or there’s so many cons or just a lot of—they’re not resonating with my inner self—like the ones that are available? I’m almost getting to a point, at least in my life, where I have to make some decisions because I’ve been sitting in inaction for a long time.

Jessica: Well, I am actually really thrilled you’re asking me this because almost everything in your chart articulates how stressful this is for you. This is like awful for you. I’m not laughing at it, but just like you’re asking the right question. And I often talk about on the podcast, and to basically anyone who’ll listen to me, how most of the time we ask the wrong questions, and then whatever answer we get doesn’t work. And that very truth plagues you. So there’s a bunch of things that I’m going to point to in the birth chart that speak to this. 

So, first of all, yes, you’re a Libra—very much so. Sun in the first house conjunct to Mercury. You also have Venus conjunct the Ascendant in Virgo, so over analytic, super people pleasey [sp]; you really just want people to like you. You don’t want to make the wrong decision. You don’t want to do anything that’s going to push people’s buttons too much. And you can kind of see all sides of a damn thing. That’s a Libra thing, but it’s also a Mercury conjunction to the Sun thing. 

So all of these things combined make it hard for you to go against the grain. It also means—and this is kind of the maybe less obvious interpretation—it also means that in order to kind of be everything for everyone, you have to center and prioritize pleasing other people instead of checking in with what’s authentic to you. Which is, honestly, it’s a lot easier for you to try to please people than to really know what’s authentic to you. 

Now, let’s add to the mix a lot of data points. One: you have a Moon in Capricorn. This Moon in Capricorn is square to your Sun and Mercury. So super emo. You are very kind of like demanding of yourself. It's really hard for you to just be like, okay, I don’t know right now. You’re like, I don’t know right now. Why don’t I know right now? I should know right now. You go into all this pressure because the Moon in Capricorn wants to figure things out so you can feel a different way. 

But the way that the Moon square to Mercury works, in any sign combo, is it tends to incline a person to overprocess all the feelings with analysis or figure something out mentally and then be like, yeah, but how does it feel? If it doesn’t feel right, I don’t know. So it can be a little bit of a like self-imposed torture chamber. 

And there’s much more to talk about, but before I move to all the other things, I want to say here’s a remediation or a fix for that. If you can identify what it is that you emotionally need, like literally bullet point three to five things. And the reason why I give you bullet points is because any kind of Capricorn shit or Saturn shit loves a list. So your Sun/Mercury conjunction may lose all your lists, but your Moon in Capricorn likes to write the list. Is that right for you?

J: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So I would recommend doing it in your phone, so it’s like labelled and maybe even download a free app for list making, so it’s all in one space and you only use it for this. 

So identify what it is that you want and need for your heart, and then look at what your options are and assess your options in contrast to your feelings and needs. This is kind of like a light structure that you can fall back on when you’re confused and you’re not sure how to assess your choices. Because I think that’s a big part of your problem is like, I don’t even know how to think about these options. I don’t know what kind of compromises are selling myself short versus what kind of compromises are just like adulting, right. So that’s one piece. There are more pieces. 

You also have in your birth chart a Saturn square to Uranus, which is like the thing I obsessively talk about on the podcast, right. Because of the year that you were born, it was the last time that Saturn was square to Uranus. So having this in your birth chart has you struggling. This is just like kind of a chronic thing for you of when you make compromises, it can make you feel like your Uranus is like crying out—like how can I ever be me if I’m making all these compromises? And then when you do something that is truly authentic and freeing, there’s this Saturn part of you that’s like, yeah, but what’s it going to fucking cost me? Am I willing to pay that price? Yeah, does that make sense for you?

J: Yeah. A lot of sense.

Jessica: Okay. Okay, so one part of this dynamic in your birth chart, what I want to say to it is really annoying. It’s you’re young. And in your twenties, you’re supposed to ram your head against this wall until you kind of find your truth which will emerge forcefully in your Saturn Return. So that is one annoying thing I want to say. And it’s annoying because it’s useless to you—it’s like means nothing. It’s like, wait, you’ll be fine. So I apologize. 

More practically what I can say is there are compromises that make your life smaller, right. There’s pain and problems that make your life shitty or bad—shitty and bad in a way where there’s no growth opportunity. And then there are compromises that actually expand your life, that give you opportunities down the line. 

So an example of this might be you take a job that pays you less but prepares you for a path that you want to be on versus a job that pays you a little more but kind of dead ends for you—it doesn’t take you anywhere you want to go. So both of these are compromises, but one of them is an investment in the future and the other one isn’t. 

Now, conversely, you may look at your options and be like, I’m dating somebody, and I know it’s not really going anywhere, and I’m having a lot of fun. And there’s a part of me that’s obsessed with the future, but I actually am going to give myself the gift of the present and just continue to check in with myself—not everyday, not every hour but like once a week, once a month—is this still healthy for me? Is this still consensual between me and this person? Is this still healthy for me? 

So whether you’re erring on the side of pleasing your Uranus or pleasing your Saturn, in other words doing what needs to be done or kind of like giving yourself the gift of right now, it’s about having a sense of value or meaning behind what you’re choosing to prioritize and making sure that if you’re going to have to suck it, that at least there’s something good on the other end. That’s a bit of practical advice I can give you there. 

J: It all makes a lot of sense, especially what you were saying with the Saturn/Uranus. I was just really trying to get to a place where I want to live life on my own terms, but I live in a—we all live in a system which doesn’t really enable that to happen. And there’s a lot that complicate—everything costs money, and so how do I do that without compromising, which basically what you were just saying in that being—yeah.

Jessica: And this is a really difficult thing, and I see a lot of young people—if I may call you such—a lot of young people really struggling with this. And as a triple Capricorn and an old ass lady, I will say we have so many models online of people living unfettered, just being like, “I just opened a YouTube page, and now I’m just travelling for cash,” or whatever. We do have models of people who have figured out or lucked into things just working. And the vast majority of the population of this country but also the whole entire world for all of time is not like that. 

From my social perspective I’ve got a lot of things to say, but from my astrological perspective, which is what we’re focusing on, that’s because of Saturn, right? Saturn teaches us responsibility, not just responsibility to the collective or to society, but responsibility to our own future self because Saturn governs aging. It’s like maturing, so it’s aging and also maturing. Hopefully they happen together, but we have all met adults where we’re like, yeah, you’re not fucking mature; you’re just old, right. 

So what we ideally want to do is prioritize cultivating maturity as we age—that’s really important. So there’s two things, okay. Thing one: the way that you edit yourself, like there’s a lot of self-censure that happens, and the advice I want to give you around that is not disconnected from the Saturn/Uranus square because Saturn’s in your eighth house and Uranus is in your fifth and also because, which is the next thing I want to talk to you about, you have Mars in the twelfth. 

All of these things in different ways articulate as a response to the enormity of your sense of responsibility and the way that the world impacts you, like you feel the world—I’m so sorry. Because of all of those things, there’s a way that when you actually drop into your body and you really kind of are present for yourself that you feel this intense, like a lot of uncertainty, and it’s probably like anxiety. But what’s interesting is it exists because you feel it and you don’t know how to respond to it, so you bounce out of yourself—you kind of like abandon yourself. And that makes it worse. 

I’m going to give you super woo homework, and it’s really fucking simple, okay. And I promise you it will work if you do it over the course of time—I can't promise you shit—I believe it will work, if you do it over the course of time. So the homework is do it as frequently as you can, and spend—let me just make sure—90 seconds, put 90 seconds on your phone and just have a nice alarm go off after 90 seconds, where you just drop into all of that anxiety that you feel pretty easily and pretty frequently and notice wherever it is in your body, breathe and just stay present with the feeling. Don’t figure it out. Don’t leave it. That’s it. 

Because your fear is that you’re going to lose yourself in those feelings. Your fear is that those feelings mean something fucked about you or about what’s happening, and so your habit of abandoning those feelings makes sense in a short-term way. Because if you don’t feel shitty, then great, you don’t feel shitty. But the problem is those shitty feelings are just waiting for you, and you’re reinforcing the belief that there’s something flawed in your thinking or your feelings by abandoning them. And so, then when you’re put on the spot, you’re just like I want to walk forward, but I find myself walking backwards. Does that make sense to you?

J: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So that habit, if you do it—I know this might sound annoying but for a couple of years, what will happen is you will embody the greatest potential of your birth chart, and the greatest potential of your birth chart is that you are somebody who has the capacity to see many sides to a thing, and you’re a person who’s incredibly creative. 

If you are able to determine what’s worth compromising and what isn’t—because life is fucking compromise, right. You’re a Capricorn Moon, you know that. So if you can kind of make that determination, then you can feel a sense of peace with the choices that you’ve made and how it makes you feel, and that allows you to be kind of cleaner in how you interact with other people. Which is a big part of this, right, because all of these choices that you’re struggling to make, on some level, involve other people. 

When you hold yourself back from yourself, you inevitably for sure are holding yourself back from others, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of you not quite getting what you want or things being kind of confusing to you when you thought they were going to be certain because you’re intending to move forward but you’re stepping back. Does that make sense?

J: Yes.

Jessica: Great. And I want to say it’s not any one natal aspect that I’m naming that kind of brings us to that. It’s the whole schmegegge, you know what I’m saying? 

So that brings us to your Mars in the twelfth house in Leo conjunct the North Node. That is a big fucking deal aspect because what it says is that you’ve come here in this life to learn to embody your ego—Mars—your sexuality, your ambition, and your willfulness in an enthusiastic, ecstatic, yet humble and spiritually aligned way. No big deal—super easy. No problem. Everyone does it. It’s easy. No problem. Sorry, that’s not true—it’s hard. It is hard. And luckily, the rest of your chart really wants that from you. 

So it’s not like the rest of your chart is like super capitalistic and is just like I want to win everything and own everything and punch everything. You don’t actually have that in your chart. So on the negative, that does incline you to further anxiety. But on the positive, it’s a question of when and how will you accept and embrace yourself? Because when you can accept yourself for all the ways that you’re weird and all the ways that you’re not, then you can kind of make greater peace with your goals, your ambitions. 

And having Mars in the twelfth house inclines a person to be really uncomfortable with external ambitions and really comfortable with internal ambitions. So spiritual work, psychological work, emotional work, that shit is comfortable for you. Healing work is a yes for you, but going out in the world and proving yourself and climbing ladders? It’s not exactly where you’re comfortable. 

I want to just pause and say have I answered your question? Do you have any comments, concerns, or questions for me?

J: No. I think you answered it like super good. 

Jessica: Thank you.

J: A big part of what I was—what you were hitting on and something I was really thinking about was like what fantasies am I like entitled to have? Just because understanding the way that the world is now and the way it’s likely to continue to be, there’s going to be a lot of sacrifices that are going to have to be made. Some that we may not even realize at the moment that are pretty big. And so, then the desire to live life on my own terms or to have a passionate life or a life lived by passion seems really nice, but then I can't always foresee what comes next because we’re living in late-stage capitalism. Who knows what comes after the late stage? 

Jessica: It’s a scary question to ask, it’s true. But I will say not knowing what comes next is not evidence of it being bad. I mean, I expect the worst from all things, always, so I’m not trying to make you feel optimistic I’m sorry to say because I have theories about what comes next, and I’m not excited. 

But—and this is no pressure—I could see you being in your truth and centering your life around creativity and healing. But what comes next for you personally, it’s kind of limitless. So I want to encourage you to allow for your fantasy life to thrive and also continue to develop tools for identifying what is the reality I live in? What are my options now, and what compromises will support me—based on my options now, what compromises will support me in having more options down the line, and what compromises will shrink my options? Because that line of thinking, it will enable you or it will kind of empower you to have a fantasy life your whole fucking life through, which is what you want. You want to be able to dip into the non-verbal and to dip into potential in like a universal way that’s written in your chart. 

And so, that is possible for you, but it will take making friends with your Saturn, making friends with that Capricorn Moon, you know what I mean? And that takes time because anything saturnian or Capricorn orientated, it’s literally about time. So you’re on the right path. 

Now, one last little thing I’ll say—are you single or dating right now? 

J: I am single.

Jessica: Okay. Do you not date at all?

J: I feel like it’s the Venus/Virgo where I just have to be perfect, and everyone has to be perfect.

Jessica: Interesting. Interesting. Oh, shit. Well, this is a whole other reading, but wait for it now. Okay, so can I just ask for you to say your gender identity and your sexuality?

J: I identify as male ish and then use—and I’m Queer.

Jessica: So and do you usually date hes or theys or shes or all hes?

J: Usually he/theys in theory because I’ve never dated.

Jessica: Okay. Let me go. I can't believe I almost missed this opportunity. I reject the idea—like patently reject the idea that Venus in Virgo means no dating. I reject it. I don’t know what book says it or what astrologer says it because you are not the only person who has said to me, “Oh, I have Venus in Virgo, will I be lonely forever?” Ah, no, that is not what that means at all. 

Venus in Virgo is beautiful. I love Venus in Virgo, and I’m so confused why anyone would think otherwise. Plus, honey, you have Venus conjunction to the Ascendant, which means people are always going to think you’re cute, period. And you have Mercury in the first house, which means your money maker is going to stay youthful and fresh for a very long time.

J: Really?

Jessica: Just—it’s astrology; you can’t fight it. You’ve got Jupiter opposite Venus, which means people have crushes on you and like you and want to be around you. 

Now, I know you’ve got Moon in Capricorn, you’ve got Mars in the twelfth, you got all this other shit going on in your chart where you’re like, yeah, that’s not true. Because you are uncomfortable with other people liking you because you’re like, well, what do you want from me? What are you trying to take from me? So you distance yourself, so you are like, oh, I want to move into these things, but actually I pull away from them. Does this make sense to you?

J: Yes. Yes.

Jessica: Okay. I’m sorry, slash, also, huh, I knew it. Okay. So, I’m sorry. So here’s the good news. I think you’re the marrying kind. I mean, you’re kind of a lesbian, no? Do you know what I mean when I say that? 

J: Yeah, I do. 

Jessica: Yeah. You’re kind of like a monogamous, like you’re the marrying kind. I feel like I don’t know why gay, male culture doesn’t have like an equivalent of the U-Haul, but I would like to get you one because I feel like you would do really well—like, you don’t feel comfortable with getting to know people. You don’t feel comfortable with dating because you like certainties or you want to hide. Now, obviously, work on that—we’ve talked about that in other contexts. So the homework I’ve given you will support you around that. 

But, true talks, when I look at your chart, I see that falling in love and having a healthy sexual relationship with that person that you’re in love with and having commitment with that person is a big fucking yes, like it’s a very big yes. 

Venus in Virgo is associated with prudishness. It’s like—you said, “Oh, I have to be perfect, and they have to be perfect.” Sure. Sure. The perfectionism is really just a way for you to hide, okay. You are scared of being hurt. You’re ridiculously romantic, like a Disney princess. Am I wrong? 

J: No.

Jessica: I didn’t think so. Sorry I called you out like that. But because you are so romantic, and you know that you might not always be realistic, and you don’t want to get hurt, and you don’t want to seem silly, you don’t let people in. 

Now, here’s the thing. You have options. You can continue to not let people in and to feel in control. You can continue to do that. It is a terrible fucking idea, but you can do it. 

If you decide you want to date, you can date, and you will for sure get your feelings hurt and for sure have problems because you’re a person, and everyone gets their feelings hurt, and everyone has problems. But it’s not any kind of indication of your value. 

So this problem with dating is essentially wrapped into all the other stuff we’ve been talking about because there’s a way that when you feel anxious you don’t sit with it—you don’t strive to understand why you’re feeling anxious, so then you map a narrative on top of those feelings to justify the feelings instead of to support yourself around the feelings. Does this make sense?

J: Hmm.

Jessica: Okay. Also, I’m sorry, this is hard, and it’s a learned behavior. Is your mom like this? 

J: Yes.

Jessica: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, you don’t want to be like your mom this way, do you?

J: No.

Jessica: Okay. I’m going to give you another piece of homework. 

J: Okay.

Jessica: It’s very easy homework. You’re going to watch videos—TikTok, YouTube, I don’t give a fuck—about old people, old people talking about their relationships and what works in their relationships. Ideally, if you can find gay people, awesome, but whatever, old people, period. Listen to what people say about what works in a relationship, like what makes a relationship, what allows a relationship to last over the course of time because I think that will help you to formulate what it is that you want. 

Then, the next piece of homework I’m going to give you, and maybe it’s slightly less clear, but I think you deserve, and you have the right to write a list of what you will and won't do on the first five dates. Like decide before you meet anyone that you have the right to be like, yeah, I don’t hook up; I make people work for it. Or I am super not cool with hooking up, unless I’m completely cool with hooking up, and it is at my discretion. You are allowed to be exactly who you are about this stuff, and I think for some reason you really cave to social like stereotypes and pressures around this shit. Does that—is that correct? Am I seeing this correctly?

J: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. And it feels bad. Saturn in the eighth house, it does one of two things when it comes to sex. It makes you super kinky and weird, or maybe also and—and weird is a positive in my book, so don’t have a value judgement there—and, slash, or, it can make you be like I only want to have sex with people that I’m committed to, like it makes you very protective of your body, and it makes sex something that is—it’s just something that you do with someone you deeply trust. You first develop the trust, then you develop the sex. 

Now, you have Uranus in the fifth house, which is like, I get in there; I get it done, and I keep on moving. You know what I mean? And, of course, these two things are square, so your body may be like I’ve got an idea, and the rest of you is like, no! Does that make sense?

J: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So there are some people you hook up with, and that’s all the union is good for, and as long as it’s consensual, it’s all good. And then there is dating and relationships. And dating is essentially finding a friend that you have chemistry with, that you want to bone over the course of time. But I want to just put this idea in your head. It’s about finding a best friend. It’s not about anything else. Because it looks like you really get friendship. You’re a good friend, and you have friends, and they really like you. Is that correct?

J: Partially.

Jessica: Tell me more.

J: I think what you were saying about me not being good at opening up—I’m very good at small talk. The Libraness [sp] is a struggle because it’s like a big urge or desire to be sociable but not very gifted at it currently. So I usually only have like a small group because I can only maintain friendships with people who pursue them with me because I’m not good at pursuing friendships.

Jessica: Okay, so you fall into the passivity stuff. I see. I see. I see. It’s fucking Venus on the rise, man. So the good news is for you, people are always going to be interested in you. People are still going to think you’re cute even if you’re like, yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything. You’ll have options. You have options. 

So the work right now is not to get out there—that’s not the work. The work right now is to explore your self-esteem and what’s underneath pulling away from people. Because your chart articulates that you absolutely could have great social skills. You would just have to feel comfortable enough to risk making a mistake, and you’re not right now. 

Here’s the certainty. You’ll for sure fuck up. You’ll for sure offend someone. You’ll for sure not get along with some people. I’m not going to tell you like just be yourself and everything will be fine. Sure, sometimes, and sometimes it won't be fine. 

What you need to do is to cultivate greater willingness to fail or greater willingness to struggle. I cannot stress this enough, and I wish I had learned this earlier. Failure is not a sentence. If you can be willing to fail and learn from it and keep on moving, your life gets 700 times easier. Because inevitably we all fail. 

And, you know, I can just use something really personal. I will sometimes drop a podcast episode, and I’ll get an email being like, “You said this. This was wrong,” and then not one second later I’ll get an email about the exact same thing I said saying, “This changed my life. Thank you so much. It was amazing,” you know, appreciation. Which person was right? Well, they were both right, but neither of them were really talking about my value as a person or even of the thing I said necessarily. 

It’s that different people are going to orient in different ways, and so what you need to check in with is, was I in integrity here? And sometimes the answer’s going to be no, I was not. I was trying to phone it in or like—It was just awkward, and I just said something stupid. And in that case, you can do one of two things. You can, if it’s appropriate, go to the person and be like, “Hey, I said something stupid because I’m awkward. Sorry about that. It kind of was eating at me, so sorry.” Just one sentence. No one wants to hear anything too big, but it does make everyone feel better—mainly you—but still, it’s a good practice. 

The other thing is what addicts, like sober addicts call a living amends. It’s just being like, okay, I get it. When I get too socially anxious, I say weird things, and then I obsess about it. So when I start to get too socially anxious I’m going to go to the bathroom, I’m going to breathe, I’m going to do that stupid 90 second exercise but maybe only do it for 30 seconds, and I’ll try to manage my anxiety and my awkwardness. And then from there you just start building that skill set. 

I’m not trying to tell you who you are because you’re a person, and you’ve lived your life, but you’re very good at socializing; you just psyche yourself out. I mean, you’ve seen your birth chart, you study astrology, you know that this is not the birth chart of a person who doesn’t have social skills, right.

J: Right.

Jessica: Okay. So it’s good to remember that. It is written in the mother fucking stars that you have social skills. So the symptom of the problem is what you want to focus on, but it’s the root of the problem. It’s around self-esteem and emotional presence and a willingness to give yourself permission to be the authority of your own fucking life. Which in part means the authority over your willingness to make mistakes. 

Do you feel like you’re kind of prudish, like you’re kind of shy with sex?

J: Um, it’s conflicting where there’s like a very intense drive, but then also mostly the perfectionist stuff comes with like myself—less with others and just more like—more like the failure stuff. I feel like I’ll be weird, just really odd. 

Jessica: I can tell you as an astrologer that there is a very wide and vast market that you will encounter for the whole of your life that likes how you’re weird and odd. It’s just clear as day in your birth chart, right. 

So I think you’ve studied enough astrology to know what I’m seeing and what I’m saying. You can be awkward. You could be all manner of things. People liking you is not your problem.

J: No?

Jessica: It’s not your problem. You have Venus conjunct the Ascendant with Jupiter opposite. You have a Sun/Mercury conjunction in the first house in Libra. People like you. People will always like you, even if you’re weird and very weird as well. The problem is you don’t like you. The problem is you’re judging you. 

So the problem with the Virgo stuff, because you’ve got this Rising in Venus in Virgo, is that it can get judgy. That’s the negative. The positive is it can be discerning. So when you start to get really judgmental towards yourself, that is a symptom that you’ve abandoned yourself on some level because you’re not being discerning; you’re being judgy. And there’s a difference. 

Being discerning is like, huh, that was awkward. He doesn’t seem to mind, moving along. Being judgy is, huh, that was awkward. I can't believe I did that. That’s fucked up. I have to stop. The rigidity that comes up around being judgy just makes you fucking miserable. It stops all the flow of your life. 

When you’re discerning and not super attached, you’re a manifester. Just remember that. I mean, it’s written in your chart, so you could also just remember where Jupiter’s placed in your chart, and you could remember that. But you have the capacity to manifest. It’s about interrupting these narratives that you have. Because, yes, you’re perfectionistic, but you’re using your perfectionism in a destructive and harming way instead of in a helpful and directive way. So that’s a meaningful adjustment. The problem isn’t the perfectionism. The problem is how you’re using it. 

J: Thank you so much. Thank you. I don’t really have words.

Jessica: It’s so my pleasure.

J: Bye.

Jessica: Bye.

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It's astrology time again. Let’s get into your horoscope. This week we are looking at the astrology of July 11th through the 17th of 2021. But before we get into the details, and you know I love some details, I just want to check in. 

It’s the middle of the month, and the astrology of this month has been pretty intense. Whether or not any of the individual transits on the specific days of their exactitude as I talk about them on the podcast, whether or not they’ve really provoked things in your personal life, what is happening developmentally within you is really worth noticing this month already. 

If your thinking hasn’t changed on anything in this period, I would encourage you to sit down or stand—do whatever feels good, but to really check in with yourself. Look at whether or not you’re holding onto something that would be better let go of—an attitude, a feeling, a habit, a person, a job, whatever it is. I want to encourage you to check in with yourself around how you have been changed, how you are changing, or how you are fighting to stay the same. And it’s not because we need to always be changing; we don’t need to be always changing. I mean, ideally always growing, but growing doesn’t mean actively changing per se. It doesn’t have to mean that anyways. 

But this month has already kicked up a great deal of ego issues, like a great deal of ego issues. And we can attribute that to Mars—thank you, Mars for fucking some shit up. Also on the 6th, we had that exact square between Mercury and Neptune, which is the second time we’ve experienced this in about a month, and it’s confusing. It’s anxiety producing. So when we pair—just thinking about it psychologically, developmentally for human peoples—when we pair heightened ego energy, defensiveness, ambition, competitiveness, that kind of shit, with the anxiety that has been very much on the menu of late, it can lead to some real messy shit. 

I want to encourage you to take the time and space that you deserve to check in with have you been messy? Have you been messy with your ego? Have you been messy with your boundaries? Have you been kind and empathetic to yourself, to others? Are you managing your life in a way that feels sustainable? These are really good questions to be asking now, not because everything is done, tra, la, la, but because when we are going through such intense energies, it is easy to not check in, to lose track of our own behavior, our own attitudes, our own progress or lack thereof. 

And sometimes that’s necessary. Some shit gets so real, there’s no time to check in. And that’s healthy and normal and good. And then sometimes it’s just a habit—we don’t check in because we really just want to get through the day or the hour or the whatever, right. And so, all to say, this is just a really good time to check in, just to check in, and to just tend to your garden, just go out there, check things out, water what needs watering, move something if it needs to be moved, do a little pruning if you’ve got to. It’s just a good time to check in. 

The thing about transits that maybe is really obvious, maybe isn’t, I don’t know, is that they occur, but when they’re over, they’re not over. I mean, they’re over, but whatever it is that gets stimulated inside of you or in your life in any way or in the world around you, it doesn’t automatically revert back to before the transit occurred or before the thing occurred. 

All of the transits we go through, collectively and individually, they are meant to be a meaningful part of our development. And so, if we take the time to check in with, okay, well, what does that mean for me? How have I been relating to my ego and my sense of anxiety, and have I adopted better selfcare in the face of these things or worse? Did I take a break and now I no longer need it? Do I need to tap back into some of my responsibilities? These are just things I want to encourage you to think about because this month is—has a lot going on, and it had a really strong start. 

It can make you feel really overwhelmed and that’s just it’s part of being a person. And I hope that this other part of being a person, this part of like being kind and empathetic and patient and determined, I hope those parts are parts that you’re centering to. 

Okay, so all said, one more thing before we get into the horoscope. It’s still a fucking pandemic, you see, and there’s new variants, and they are worth educating yourself about. Whether you’re vaccinated or you’re not vaccinated or you’re partially vaccinated, be careful. Be careful not just for yourself and your loved ones but be careful for your larger community locally and globally. Because the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic is really important. We are in a fucking pandemic; you got to think like a global citizen. 

Okay, we are now looking at the week of the 11th through the 17th. And we start off on the 11th where Mercury moves into the sign of Cancer. And I won't say too, too much about that other than Cancer, you know, the crab, the crab—the crab comes at things sideways. Literally crabs move sideways, right, and so the only downside that I can warn you of with Mercury in Cancer is that is can lead to passive aggressive communication, where you come at things sideways. 

On the positive, Mercury in Cancer is a really great transit for checking in with the heartfelt parts of how you communicate, how you listen, what you think. And it can be a great time to remember what you love, who you love. And it’s important to communicate to the people that you love, to the causes that you love in a way that makes them feel like they’re loved, right. So it’s not just important to communicate; it’s important to communicate in a way that is received with love and care. And you can't control how other people feel, but you can listen to them when they tell you what they need and what they want and what they prefer. So giddy up on that, my friends. 

On the 12th, we have an exact transit between Mercury in Cancer and Jupiter still in Pisces. This is a lovely transit. Not necessarily spectacular, but absolutely lovely. It creates a delightful flow of communication. So this is a great time for picking up a project, picking up a field of study, communicating something meaningful to someone else, striving to understand the big picture of things, making plans for your future, cultivating vision. This transit is good for all of that shit. 

It can be kind of sticky for listening to people. Because it’s such an exciting transit that it can incline you to really want to like figure things out and go, go, go instead of be receptive and present, but it’s a great time for listening if you can kind of slow down the tempo of your thinking. And luckily, because Mercury and Jupiter are both in water signs, that’s not going to be as hard as it might be if we were dealing with let’s say air or fire signs. 

So as of the 7th, the Mercury Retroshade is over, and here we have this fucking wonderful transit on the 12th. That’s really lovely. So another thing you may want to do if you had a kind of sticky, problematic Mercury Retrograde time, which many people did, you might want to go back and look over important plans, important visions, important communications and make sure that you followed up or that you clarified or whatever. Mercury trine Jupiter doesn’t really like looking to the past; it prefers to look to the future. However, if your life was a little unmanageable under the Mercury Retrograde, this transit is a wise one to leverage for smoothing out any wrinkles that may still remain. Pro tips by me for you. 

Okay, on the 13th, we have a Venus conjunction to Mars in Leo. Again, not the most spectacular of all the transits in the whole entire world; however, Venus conjunction to Mars is a lovely transit. Venus is a planet of relationships. It’s a planet of diplomacy and values, so in that way it can include your finances. 

Mars is assertive and ambitious and competitive. It can be quite demanding. The other side to look at here, of course, is Mars is fornicating. It’s chemistry. And so, when Venus and Mars meet in the sky, it can be a pretty fun time to be pretty randy. It can make you feel kind of flirty and horny and adventurous, and all of these things can be wonderful and fun, depending on your circumstances, of course. 

It can also be a time where if you are partnered or you’re dating somebody, you just have like a really great time together. Again, it’s not spectacular, but it is a bit driving because Mars literally drives, and Venus connects. So this is a great time for relationships. 

The one thing you want to pay attention to is this is all happening in the sign of Leo—a fixed fire sign. And so, when we’re dealing with Leo energies—and I’m not talking about Leo Sun sign people, don’t freak out—but when we’re talking about Leo energies in this transit, you may find that there’s ways that you feel like things are supposed to be and the way they’re supposed to feel and the way you’re supposed to connect, and if they’re not going in that specific way, you may shut down to an opportunity that is actually quite fucking delightful and life affirming. So don’t get too attached to how things are supposed to look, instead check in with how do they feel? If a thing feels life affirming and healthy and creative, that’s a yes. If a thing looks amazing but feels kind of like it’s making you small or it’s making you mad or whatever else that these two planets can do, yeah, that sounds like a no or a maybe. 

And you know what? I don’t want to blow your mind or anything, but you are entitled to maybe. You are entitled to I don’t know. I don’t know and maybe are not bad things. It’s just about being able to give yourself the gift of saying I don’t have the answer to this yet, and I am entitled to communicate that to someone else. You just want to make sure that you don’t abandon communications with other people creating some sort of negative feedback loops and negative consequences to your maybes. Because I think that’s a mistake a lot of us make. 

So all that said, if love and dating and sex is not the big thing for you right now, but you’re into the arts, it’s a great time. It’s just a great time for making shit or being inspired by shit. Also, if you’ve been working on your finances, this can be a great time to actually move forward and take the next steps with something. So if you got to take next steps, around the 12th, with the Mercury trine to Jupiter and the 13th, with the Venus conjunction to Mars, these are great times to tighten up your finances, if that’s what you’re already planning, if that’s what you’re already doing. 

Okay. Now, the next transit I want to tell you about, and we’ve only got a couple more, is on the 15th we have an exact Sun trine to Neptune. I, personally, am a huge fan of this transit—truly a fan. The Sun in astrology is always about your sense of self and your will. It’s very much about your virility. It’s your life affirming energy. And Neptune is formless. It is gaseous. It is absolutely about the spiritual realm and ideals and fantasy and glamor and essentially all manner of woo and romance. 

When these two planets are brought together at a 120-degree angle, aka a trine, what we tend to have is a greater sense of empathy and patience and a greater sense of inspiration to what is more wholly true. This can be a great time for putting your needs aside, putting your ego aside, and listening, learning. This can be a great time for just taking a GD break. Do you need a nap? Do you need a couple days off? Sun trine Neptune, it’s a great time to revitalize your system and to be recharged by not doing shit. 

Neptune’s form of passivity is on the material plain, not the spiritual plain, so a lot of times just sitting by a pool or hanging out in bed all day is actually really recharging. And it’s because we stop trying to manage and control things, and we are in a greater state of receptivity. And that greater state of receptivity is actually really expansive, or it can be really expansive. 

So if you’ve been needing a break, it’s a great time to tap into one and to receive whatever gifts you have access to. It’s not just enough to have things or abundance or gifts of whatever kinds, we must receive them. So if you’ve not been receiving whatever good stuff exists in your life, this is a great time to check in with that and do the work to be open to receiving. 

And that brings us to the, do, do, do, dooo, difficult transit of the week. So it’s going to cross paths with the Sun trine to Neptune on the 16th, and we’re going to feel this one on the 16th, 17th, and 18th. It’s exact on the 17th, and it’s called Sun opposite Pluto. 

So Pluto is, of course, still in Capricorn, and the Sun is in Cancer, and this opposition is difficult. So I will remind you that oppositions by transit are generally experienced in a relational way. If you’ve seen the glyph, then you know it’s a line with two little circles on either end of it, and generally one individual or group of people is on one side, and another individual or group of people is on the other. It’s just how we tend to experience and express oppositions. Not always, for sure, not always, but generally speaking. 

So Sun opposite Pluto can kick up shame and resentment. And for many people their response to shame and resentment is rage and blame. To many others, it’s self-harm; it can go into all manner of psychological and emotional responses. But the energy here is obsessive and compulsive and driving, and that’s not fun. 

This transit may require that you change. You know, Pluto is related not to behavioral changes per se; it’s deep transformation. That’s Pluto’s thing—it goes from the roots up. And so, when we have a Sun opposition to Pluto, often what happens is we are called upon to transform something, to let go of something. And it’s not something you need, but it’s something you’re attached to. Pluto has no chill, and so it’s likely to kick up control issues or rigidity. 

And as we’ve talked about with Cancer, with the sign of Cancer, which the Sun is in, with its little sweet pincers which can murder a person, it can get real attached. And so, there can be a way that there’s something that you’re really attached to, emotionally or otherwise, that you feel is being ripped away from you or that you’re scared you’ll lose. And that is likely to trigger any number of feelings from stubbornness to, like I said, resentment, and unfortunately, Pluto is associated with manipulation. So whether you’re manipulating yourself, you’re manipulating someone else, or you’re being manipulated, that’s no fun—not a whole lot of good comes from it. 

Resist the urge to obsess on things that bring harm. And this is where we come back to this concept of boundaries because it is not enough to have a behavioral boundary with someone or something, we must also have the internal boundary with our own thinking. Because if you say to someone, “I’m not going to talk to you; you’re mean. I’m not going to talk to you until you can figure out how to be nice to me,” and then you walk away from them, and good boundary, healthy boundary, good job, but then you spend the next three days literally obsessing on what they said and what they meant and what will happen, then you didn’t get the peace that your boundary could have afforded you. 

So you have a meaningful part of the boundary in place, but in order to get peace from the boundaries that we hold, we must have them within, we must have them inside of ourselves. This is really difficult. It’s really, really, really difficult. It’s also absolutely worth doing. And a great barometer for how you’re doing with this topic is likely to come up on or around the 17th. 

The intensity that you are likely to be feeling around this time will be mirrored by circumstances and people around you. When we’re dealing with a planet like Pluto, we’re often looking at social and collective issues, and so there may be something big in the news around this date, and it might be scary because Pluto, again, has no chill. 

Here’s the thing. Whatever it is that comes to pass in your personal life, in the world, whatever, there are many things you can do. And also, what are you going to fucking do about it, right? I mean, I don’t know, it depends on the situation. But what you always do have authority over, you have responsibility to, and you have some measure of control over is your own responses. So not your reactions. Your reactions often just come out of like the—a big bucket full of ancestral issues and personal issues and early developmental experiences and all that kind of stuff. Your reactions will emerge forth from you really intensely and in ways that you may or may not think they should. 

But how you respond to your reactions, how you respond to your circumstances, how you respond to your own feelings and thoughts, that is actually a place where you have agency. And so, I want to, again, encourage you to check in with that agency and how you’re using it. It’s very tempting to blame others. It’s very tempting to blame yourself or to kind of invest in a story that you have no control, and you have no options. And, you know, what do I know? Maybe in your situation at this moment or in your life in general that’s true. But a lot of times, for a lot of people it’s not. It’s a way that we kind of justify how stuck we feel or how upset we feel or doing things that we know we shouldn’t really be doing, right. 

So the Sun opposition to Pluto is likely to shine a light on some of that shit for us. You may have a pretty shitty mood. Pluto’s toxic. Pluto’s foul. You might feel foul and toxic. You might have to deal with someone else who feels that way. We all have moods. Life is hard. It’s okay. 

And also, I want to encourage you to the best of your ability to investigate—investigate what is going on for you and why. Maybe you can't do it in the moment but come back to it if you can because the opportunity for healing always exists where Pluto is concerned. Pluto brings regeneration. It’s the phoenix rising from the ashes. It is the fire that created the ashes. It’s whatever it is that got burned, and it’s the fucking phoenix—that’s Pluto for you. It’s transformational. It’s deep. 

So my advice to you, my sweet loves, wherever you’re at in the phoenix story, wherever you’re at in your life, or mentally or emotionally, be open to letting go of control and attachment to it so that you can see what other options exist. When you’re grasping onto things with both hands, metaphorically or literally speaking, it’s really hard to have your hands open to something new. So, you know, just play with that and see where it takes you this week. 

Now, if you’re interested in the conversation about boundaries, I am going deep and hard into boundaries over on Patreon, so you can join me there and get to watch videos of me sometimes just being me, but often times being, I don’t know, planets, food stuffs, avant-garde art in video form answering your questions about boundaries. So join me over on Patreon—link in show notes. And, as always, if you’ve got questions for the podcast, please send them to me over at ghostofapodcast.com. 

Before we’re done, I’m going to do something that I usually forget to do, but I’m doing it now; I’m going to run through the transits again. On the 11th, Mercury moves into the sign of Cancer. On the 12th, we have an exact trine from Mercury in Cancer to Jupiter in Pisces. On the 13th, Venus and Mars meet in the sky for an exact conjunction in the sign of Leo. On the 15th, we have a Sun in Cancer trine to Neptune in Pisces, and on the 17th, we have a Sun in Cancer opposition to Pluto in Capricorn. And that’s your damn horoscope for the week ahead. 

If you haven’t already subscribed to Astrology for Days to track your transits, I invite you to do so—do it now. All the cool kids are, you know. Okay, that’s it. Bye bye.