CIIS Public Programs Podcast

transcript

[Theme Music]

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

This week, we are revisiting an episode from our archives featuring a conversation with astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo about self-compassion, astrology, and why you should never look at your crush’s chart. This episode was originally recorded live with an in-person audience on March 20th, 2019. 

To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis dot edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

[Applause]

[Theme Music Concludes]

Madeline: I would like to begin by saying hello to Jessica.

Jessica: Hi! [both chuckling]

Madeline: And hello to our audience here at Namaste Hall, and hello to our audience in the future on the podcast. Tonight we are in San Francisco under a full moon on our spring equinox, and I'm honored to be here in part because I believe in the collective wisdom of this room, and I believe in Jessica's mystic abilities, and I am psyched that CIIS has gathered us all here tonight.

Jessica: Yea.

[applause]

Madeline: If I could have a quick show of hands, there's anybody here who has had first-hand mystic intuitive experience that they would say help their life? Yeah? Quite a few beautiful hands. Yes, and keep your hand up if you would say that you're also currently living your very best life. Oh, some hands went up was very fascinating. This is gonna be good. Well many of us have a sense of power in ourselves or in the tools that we use and yet we still have problems and disconnections and obstacles to get through. So I'm just hoping that by the time our conversation finishes this evening, we all may have a few more insights about how to weave our mystical realities and be more activating towards our best life. Yeah. [both laughing] [Jessica: Yeah] So I'd like to start with Jessica if you could tell us a bit about your work as a psychic, and astrologer, and medium, and how did this work begin for you?

Jessica: Can I also just quickly say thanks for coming everybody. It's so nice that you're here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I, how I came to the work is kind of like I, it was always just right there for me. When I was 12, my mother was so sick of hearing me talk about astrology that she bought me a book, and so I had my first book about Capricorn. I would read it all the time and it was cheesy and awful [Madeline laughs] but I loved it. And then I went to an alternative CEGEP, which is like college in Quebec where I'm from and there was an alternative so in the alternative school, there was a psychologist, Jungian psychologist, and he taught astrology to the little weirdo school that I went to. And ooo people liked that, and he in fact told me to you know, when I was like, I'm gonna become an astrologer. He was like just go to San Francisco and study at CIIS.

So I came to San Francisco and I decided not to go to school because of how much I dislike school, but no [Jessica laughs] but I'm very pleased for it to exist. [laughter] So thank you all for coming. Thank you for hosting me. [more laughter] So so yeah, so I took two semesters of astrology there, beginning and intermediate, and there was just no, an interim of that I came out of the closet as queer and there was just no ambiguity. There's no like what do I do? It was just like, oh, I just pack my backpack and go, which is what I did in ‘94 and I started my private practice in ‘95 and through that I figured out that I was psychic and had mediumship abilities, but I really didn't believe in those things. So it took clients being like, ‘No, really like this is happening,’ for years before I would actually believe it because I'm like a crusty Capricorn. I'm like, ‘It’s not possible. You have to study.’ So yeah. So so all my kind of toolkit has evolved through the course of many years of work. And yeah, and I'm really I feel really lucky because I was never like, ‘What should I do with my life?’ Until I hit my 40’s. But yeah, [Jessica laughs] but before then not so much.

Madeline: Wow, I'm so inspired that that Jungian psychologist was there and just said, yes go do your astrology in San Francisco and thus-

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. [Madeline: Wow] He sent me on my way. He was yeah, he was another crusty Capricorn. He's like, ‘Just go study.’ So I did. Yeah. [Jessica laughs]

Madeline: Cool. Amazing. One of the things that amazes me about your work is all the different things you do. So, the things that I know of is that you have an app, Tiny Spark, you've got your podcast, Ghost of a Podcast, a TV show called Stargazing. Yeah do the coat. A weekly astrology column, mediumship evenings, plus meeting with clients individually, and I'm curious about how working with those different platforms and different technologies, different mediums, how they shape you as the creator and how you think they may shape, shape the message.

Jessica: That's a really, that's an interesting question. Thank you for asking it. That's I that's a great question. You know, I think the that I you know, like I said, like I didn't really question what I wanted to do until I hit my 40’s and it was at that point where I was like, I love counseling. I've been writing my column for many years and doing the mediumship and all of that, but I was feeling not bored but a sense of restlessness like I wasn't challenging myself outside of this kind of like container of how I challenged myself and so I kind of was like, what do I do? Wringing my hands? What do I do? For a couple of years and there was no answers and I was just like, what do I do? And then opportunity started emerging and I was just like I'm going to just say yes to all these opportunities and you know, see what kind of sticks and so I said yes to all these things and they all stuck which is like, [both laughing] kind of like okay, I guess I need better discretion or whatever but I am enjoying all of these things and I do a lot of writing.

I'm working on a book and I have a weekly column, and a monthly column, I have a couple monthly columns actually and I don't like writing that much. I don't want to put a bad vibe on what you're reading. I want you to love it, but you know, I like talking and like I'm like a big mouth. So I love the podcast for that reason and it's really I don't, it's not published by anyone but me, you know? It's like, I get to kind of really speak to people in the way that I speak to people without any kind of consideration of you know, the publication I'm writing for, or whatever. I can just really be myself. So for me, it's been a really expansive thing the the podcast and it's really changed kind of my sense of, my sense of how people feel about the work because when I'm working with people one on one, which is what I've done since the mid-90s, it's really just individual but having this ability to actually like connect with people more which is also about social media I think, has just been it's been really tender and heartwarming for me and surprising because all of a sudden people care about astrology, it's awesome and people care about mediumship. It's like, I had to be very careful about what I said to who, up until recent years and now all of a sudden everyone's like, ‘I study astrology, I love dead people.’ [laughter] So it's cool and new and yeah, [Madeline: Yeah] yeah.

Madeline: And a different world than [Jessica: Radically] in the nineties [Jessica: Radically different] when that was. [Jessica: Yeah] Yeah. and speaking of the woo closet, I was curious if yeah like, some folks are out of the woo closet. Some folks are hanging out by the door frame. Some folks are deeply in and we all do as we need to do, and I just wondered yeah with social media there seems maybe more opportunities for that to happen or more communities to happen if they're not next door to you, but I wondered going off that if you have any advice or thoughts for folks who are thinking of exiting the woo closet or even speaking about astrology may be at their work, or their school, or with their families and how you might best advise them to do that [Jessica: yeah] or any thoughts around that?

Jessica: Oh my God, yeah, totally. I've never been in the woo closet. I'm not a big closet. I I love big closets, [laughter] but I don't like to be in them. I've loved big closets, but I am not for the woo closet. I'm for whatever you need to do for your life. Like I moved to San Francisco so I could be very out about what I do and I could like make my life reflect what I want it to. I think the it's that's not the way it works for everyone and everywhere and I really think that if you're going to come out and be like, ‘I talk to purple aliens and they're all Aquarius’s,’ you have to be prepared. People aren't gonna always agree with you and people are going to roll their eyes or they're going to make their jokes. And and that's cool. I haven't met a lot of people have fantasy football teams, but if they told me they did I'd be like, ‘All right, or whatever.’ [both laugh] You know? Like, not everything is for everyone and I think if you can hold space for people get to be different, and people don't have to agree with you and trying to like, you know, bring people along to your way of seeing things I tend to find is what gets people into trouble.

So, if you're going to come out of the closet, know that not everybody wants to hear about it, and some people think it's dumb and you know, and some people can find it offensive and you know, make your choices on a kind of person by person basis. But I think people get the most like sad about it when they want others to agree with them because it's a way of getting self-validation and I just think you know, if you want to be woo, you got to accept that, you know. Right now it's on trend. That won't last, it never has lasted. I mean maybe it’ll last. I don't know, but it usually doesn't last you know, and you know, if this is something that is true for you and you want to make it a part of your life beyond trend then you know, not everyone's going to like what you have to say and you kind of got to be like, all right. That's cool. We don't agree.

Madeline: I know that's something I definitely needed to hear so. [laughs] [Jessica: Oh good. Yay!] Yeah. [Jessica: My pleasure] Because it can feel so personal and it can feel so yummy and we can all be so excited about those insights. I suppose it's a bit like religion and then you wish to proselytize but it's true. [Jessica: Mm-hmm] Not everybody has a fantasy football team and not everybody cares about the purple alien. It's true.

Jessica: Exactly. [Madeline: Yeah} And in fact one one of the things about my practice is I work really well with and I've many clients who are jaded pragmatists who don't like believe in anything and I do really well with those people because I don't believe in astrology, like I don't that's not it's not a belief system. And also my my kind of take on all this woo for me is I'm interested in it as kind of a toolset and a resource for helping people. And so if if the way to help someone is to be like, ‘Okay fine, it doesn't exist. But let's talk about it from the side,’ then that's fine with me. Like I don't I don't need that kind of agreement and I think I think sometimes we just really feel this this passion about things and we want people to see in the same way we do, from the same vantage point and you know, in astrological terms your chart is your lens and you you have your chart and I have mine and we're not going to see things from the same vantage point. We don't have to. And and so I think kind of accepting that is a road to peace and to out woo. [both laughing]

Madeline: And and that starts to remind me of boundaries. [Jessica: Yeah.] Which I imagine you see clients with all manner of boundary issues. I know it's something that people talk a lot about in my life and I'm just curious to your thoughts about boundaries.

Jessica: I’m obsessed with boundaries. [Madeline: Rockin!] [laughter] I am obsessed with boundaries. I love talking about them, and teaching them, and I'm awful at them when I'm not really good at them. So as because I'm a person or whatever. [laughter] I am really big on privacy. I am a private person and I am really big on respecting other people's privacy. So I don't read charts of people who I don't have their consent and that includes famous people, politicians are off the table. [laughter] But famous people, I don't look at their charts unless they're like, you know asking me to. I don't I don't like psychic people without their permission. I'm really about kind of embodying the boundaries instead of explaining the boundaries. [Madeline: Mm-hmm. Sort of modeling] Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And even when other people can't tell. Even when it's inconvenient. And you know, I think that, I think that like as an energetically sensitive person which I am and I imagine that half the people here are which is part of what brought you here. It it's a practice that as soon as you come to a level of mastery of, the universe is like, ‘Cool. And now we'll take you out at the knees,’ or whatever. Like, you just have to keep on learning it and learning it and it's just a part of being a person is being able to be present with the duplicity of, we are interconnected. We are all one and also, my space is my space and you're only allowed in by invite and it's in such it's very paradoxical but it's also just it's all kind of like this flowing thing if that makes sense? I don't that's to woo. Well, I mean, here we are but yeah, but yeah.

Madeline: Yeah. And part of living in 3D reality. Like you say, it's all one and we have skin. [Jessica: Yeah] We have boundaries. [Jessica: Yeah] We have to honor them and so is that why you would say say we should never read a crush’s chart, is a boundary issue?

Jessica: Yes! [Madeline: Yes?] Yeah. Well, there's there's it's like [Madeline: a few] layers of boundaries. [Madeline: ok] Yes. Never read a crush’s chart because if you have ish with someone, if you have a crush on somebody, if you're in a relationship with somebody and you're wanting to understand why they're doing what they're doing, you've already lost the thread. You've already lost the thread. Because, if if I'm dating somebody and they're like, not treating me the way I want to be treated or they're giving me mixed messages and I'm sticking around and I'm consenting to it, and I'm trying to divine the answer. That's my chart. That's my problem. And the the work is, I know. [laughter] And the same goes with clients, or family members, or friends. When we start looking at what's motivating somebody else's behavior, we're not taking authority over our own choices. And if somebody doesn't treat you the way you want to be treated, then you need to figure out what your move is, not what is their childhood trauma that brought them to be this way.

Madeline: Right.

Jessica: Which is what, you know, nine out of ten people come in for a reading about, or write me for the podcast questions about. And it's just it's you're never going to find the answer, because it's not your business. And so, you know when we are actually astrologers. Like, so for those of us who actually like can read a birth chart, if you're working with tarot or whatever else. If you're using your like special tools to divine your partner, then you're not having a relationship with your partner. You're having a relationship at your partner, right? Because union is about collaboration, and if I'm going behind your back to figure out what's motivating you and what, ‘Oh because your Mercury is in Aquarius I get it.’ Like, all that kind of thing then I'm not with you. I'm telling you who you are and I'm making I'm making choices and the only reason why we do that is so that we can be safe. But if you're trying to be safe at the expense of being intimate, at the expense of being whole and real, then what kind of safety is that? Do you really want that safety? I don’t want that safety personally.

Madeline: Yeah. It's not necessarily union. [Jessica: No. It’s something else] It's based off of that projection or something.

Jessica: It ultimately it inevitably. Okay. Sorry. I'll say the word properly it inevitably brings you back to your own chart’s bullshit and your own childhood trauma. That's what looking at somebody else to find the answer about you does. And I will say that as like point thing out, hard statement. Classic Capricorn attitude. So yeah, that's that's what I've come to find. And so when when you are seeking answers about someone else as a way to be safe. Yeah, best of luck.

Madeline: And did you learn that in your own life first or did you see it and clients and then realized, oh?

Jessica: I think it's majoratively I think it's always been my attitude but it's majoratively been through practice. It's been through counseling people that I've learned this because It's a very smart deflection. It's it can lead to spiritual bypassing, disassociating. Something that I've noticed through my work is that a lot of times when people are on a spiritual path or healing path, what we do is we start to figure things out and it's all very heady, and we study astrology, or psychology, or or as or I'm INF whatever. Not to disrespect that. That's cool. That's cool. But I'm just like, I don't know anything about it so I'm just making up letters. But like, people get into that and what they what they do is they start to explain and that's the realm of Mercury in astrology. And explanation is important, and understanding is important, but when we don't move beyond the mental chakra, or Mercury, when we don't do heart chakra, or the Moon, when we don't do emotional integration, we circle around the same stupid problems over and over again because Mercury is a damn trickster, that's its move. And so emotional integration doesn't happen through the mind. It happens through the messiness of emotional connection. And there is no way out. There's no shortcut. It's it's just how it goes. And so when we use the chart as a tool for bypassing the vulnerability of saying why aren't you asking me about my day? And how come you like, as soon as I tell you I'm at mad about something you shut down and leave the room? Like, until we can actually be in the muck of that with someone instead like, theorizing it. We're not going to move passed whatever bullshit we're stuck at. I can say bullshit. I said it. Sorry. Okay. [Madeline: Yes] Okay. [both laugh] Thank you.

Madeline: So this is adjacent to what we were just talking about and it's it's not of the realm of folks necessarily having their own agency. It's more of a theoretical maybe heady idea. But I was curious, since I reckon you're probably pretty good at boundaries and you know working on the modeling and embodying of it, if you could give us all a consensual magical injection [Jessica: ooo] of boundaries.

Jessica: Ooo. You mean like energetically?

Madeline: Yeah! What would you wish to see more of in the world or just wish that folks could like step into in that kind of way. Does that make sense?

Jessica: Yeah, it does. [Madeline: Yea?] It does. I might my like brain is going like 50 directions about it, but [Madeline: Yea. Yea] I think the most universal approach to boundaries because everybody has their own path and their own situations and yada yada, right? But the most universal thing is, do not seek a specific outcome, seek authenticity. If your motivation is to achieve something specific then you've already destabilized and left your center. Because you've got this idea about, you know, if so-and-so likes me, then they won't then maybe they'll share a professional opportunity with me one day. Or maybe I'll get more followers. Or maybe you know, they'll date me or whatever. When we have these ideas we're projecting and as soon as you project your in your mind and you're out of your body and you cannot have boundaries from outside your body. Your body is your it's your car in this life. This is it. Like it, love it, hate it, doesn't matter. It's yours.

Madeline: I heard breath from there. That's why. [Jessica: Yeah] [both laugh] Yeah like, [sighs].

Jessica: Yeah, it's sorry I zip but that is that is the work. It is the work for all of us and I think you know, some people can best resource their boundaries through grounding, some people through centering, you know? There is a way to connect with different elemental forces that is more self-appropriate for different people or at different times, but-

Madeline: Could you speak just a little bit for you the difference between centering and grounding?

Jessica: Absolutely. Yeah. So, grounding is literally about running one and this is woo not astrology obviously, right? But it's running one's energy intentionally through the body and into the earth and then coursing that earth energy into the body and now we have flow. We have an in kind of an interception between these things. That's grounding. Centering is taking all your energy and bringing it into the center of your body and if you're in a human body, it's your abdominals. Your abdominal core regardless of your proportions. That's your, that’s your center and that's that's where you want to bring your energy. And to center the energy is a lot more tolerable for a lot of people. If you’ve got a lot of fire, a lot of air in your chart you're going to probably have an easier time to center than to ground. You know, if I'm getting on a stage and talking to people about myself, I'm going to get centered instead of grounded because I want to be flexible. That's how I'm going to be. And so there's different ways for different moments and different nature's but the easiest way I find and there are many ways is to say your full name out loud in your head or out loud out loud three times bring your energy in. Call it in. If you've got a million names, if you got nicknames, call it in. When I'm doing kind of energy work or psychic work I have people say their full names and I will generally have them say their mother's maiden name because to think that your patrilineal name is like your energy name is weird. [Laughter] That's that's patriarchy. That’s not energy. So, you know all the names. Bring in all the names, and it helps because your ancestral trauma, your childhood shit is locked into your name. And then if you also have chosen names use those obviously right? You know, use all the names because they're all part of kind of like the mental part of your body, right? So call them in and from there do what needs to be done, ground, center.

And if you can't do that, you can always connect to water, which is more about connecting with flow. It's connecting with the water that is like our oceans, the water that's in the air. The kind of the fluidity and interconnectedness that is deeply psychic and emotional, and for certain people that's going to be a lot easier than grounding and it's okay to do one until you feel really kind of more neutral or peaceful inside and then practicing grounding. You know, we have this idea if I can run a tangent that we're like supposed to do it. We're supposed to do it one way and there's like I go from feeling like I'm having a panic attack and I feel like my life is falling apart to having peace and like finding a blue light and that is just inhumane, you know? It's cruel. What we what we want to be able to do is give ourselves permission to be where we're at. And then to take the next step just the next step. Doesn't have to be all the steps at once and when we can do that, we are exhibiting healthy boundaries with our self and we're not abandoning ourselves from the place of trauma, or pain, or turmoil that we’re in and sometimes that turmoil or pain is like, ‘Oh my God, things are working. Oh my God, I'm getting what I asked for.’ It really, it sends people off in a spiral, you know, because then you have something to lose. Then you have something to live up to. Nobody wants that. So, I mean maybe you do but maybe don't right. It's complicated. So so, you know grounding, centering, getting connected with flow are invaluable for any kind of manifestation work.

Madeline: I loved hearing all of that, particularly tangent land because I do think that a lot of times we're told we should all be able to ground a certain way, we should all be able to center a certain way, and this is how you do it and if you don't do it that way, or if that doesn't work for you, something's wrong.

Jessica: That's not true.

Madeline: And it's clearly not.

Jessica: Yeah. It's definitely not true.

Madeline: Thank you for [Jessica: Thank you] reminding [Jessica: Thank you so much] [Both laughing]This is related I think to the elemental work but slightly to the side of it. In your mediumship work I've heard you name the spirits of the land and call on them and honor them, acknowledge them that they are present and I was curious if you have thoughts about for us tonight how we may develop better relationship with spirits of the land where we live, or where we work, or where we're just traveling through?

Jessica: That's that's a great question and has a really layered answer because a lot of times the land is in incredible turmoil. You know, this is a lovely building and I'm grateful to be here and I don't know how the land feels about it and I don't know how many deaths may have happened on this land, you know hundreds of years ago, I don't know. Over time right there’s a lot of trauma in human history and and energies get stuck and the land isn't always thrilled for like the newest tech company to like shoot up a building or whatevs and it's not just tech, I didn't mean to single out tech, okay, but whatever. I just said it's because we're in San Francisco. Okay, but I so one reason why one might not do it is because when you start to open up to the land you feel the pain, you feel the sadness and you don't know why. And then you're like, ‘Well, this is a terrible practice. I’m  not going to do this.’ And I think it is wise to only take on what you can take on in a healthy way. And that doesn't mean don't strive to to become more healthy so that you can take on more with time, but we're not all meant to do all the same things. So that's my first layer of answer is there are reasons not to do it and if you're going to panic or be traumatized in to the pain of the lands that you're not helping the land and so it's okay to say, ‘Oh this isn't something I'm actually really great at and it's not the thing I'm going to work on.’

Now that said, to be able to differentiate between feeling your own energy your own feelings of feeling the land requires that you are centered, grounded, whatever requires that you're in your body, and you know where you begin and end. And that's where people get really messed up because it's really hard to do and if you're like, you just got off of work, and then you went to your apartment, and then you're going to go to a friend's house, and you're gonna go out to dinner, you're not super like keyed in and there's too much energy everywhere to really be able to differentiate. So, it does require getting grounded, and getting present, and receiving. And I'll say that that's I think some of the hardest work to do for us urban people is just receiving. And not being like, ‘Okay I received it, what does it mean? I received it, let me Google it. I received it, what do I do?’ Right? Okay, so, you know. And so the the work is to just practice receiving without anything else and you know after you know setting some time and just really receiving, taking some notes and then returning to it making it a little bit of a practice is a great place to start. When I think that there are many, many religious and spiritual practices that are really centered around working with the lands and I can't and won't speak to that but I think that if people are wanting to attune themselves to the spirits of the building they're in or the spirits of the land's those are some may be good places to start. If you are struggling with anxiety, and depression, or if you're having a terrible time of boundaries, I don't recommend that work though. [Madeline: Thank you] Just to stay on topic. [Madeline: Yeah] Totally totally.

Madeline: Yeah. No, I think it's a really useful thing to hear because it's another thing that at least I hear discussed in a way that's like, everybody should be able to do it, and this is how you do it, and if you don't do it, you're not getting well passage or safe passage in these kinds of ways, but it's also just really important to me at least to be reminded that you have a baseline and to know and honor your own baseline, so that you can even receive nevermind interpreter have relationship from that play.

Jessica: Yeah, and and if I can add I think another place that that happens a lot or at least I hear a lot of this on social media is this kind of like you should be able to connect with your ancestors, you should be able to resource your ancestors, that that's the right thing for everyone. And lots of people's ancestors are jerks, to put it lightly. I don't know, you know, it's like how do we all have trauma, but then we also all call in our ancestors is like, there's a little bit of a disconnect there, [Laughter][Madeline: yeah] right? [Madeline: yeah] And so I think that this kind of like this kind of this kind of like pressure to like your ancestors, call them in, not have boundaries with them is another thing where people lose their discretion because they want something to help. And it's okay to say to your ancestors, ‘We do not share values. You are a jerk. Stay back.’ Or, ‘I love you, but don't talk to me about my love life because we do not agree,’ or whatever. It's okay to have boundaries with our dead. And when we idealize the dead we may think we're putting them on a pedestal in a nice way, but we do a disservice to who they are and what they have to offer us. So and we do a disservice to ourselves really. So so that's another one that I would say like, you know, [Madeline: yeah] there shouldn't be a baseline of like calling all your ancestors. Use use your discretion and if you have some ancestors that are assholes, don't call them in.

Madeline: Yes. [Jessica laughs] Yes. I remember being so relieved when I finally had a teacher teach me about ancestor work and go, ‘You're, only calling in the well and beneficent ancestors.’ [Jessica: Yes. That’s the work.] No others need to be near you right now [Jessica: yes] so figure out how to do that.

Jessica: That's that's the work. And sometimes that means going back like generations and generations. So yeah, it's important.

Madeline: How do you keep yourself well? Dealing with all manner of creatures, and humans, and spirits, and pets, and yes, have you ever had like a scary experience or something where you go, [Jessica: fuck yea] ahh!?

Jessica: Yeah. Lots. Lots. Lots. [Madeline: yeah, please tell us] Sure, and I should say, I mean I'm a neurotic stress case and I don't socialize much so I mean keep myself well is uhh, I don't know, I don't leave the house, you know? [Madeline: mm-hmm] [audience laughter] I don't know. Yea. So, I have had to give up things in efforts to do what I do. At a certain point with my psychic work my guides were really clear. They were like, you want to smoke your weed? You want to talk to people and do healing work? You got a choice. And I was really annoyed, because I really liked my weed and I had to let go my weed so that that was that was a choice I had to make and it had repercussions in my life. You know, there's a lot of things attached to it and you know, there's there are ways that I have to adjust to support the work because my work in the world is also my work on myself. For me they're intertwined. I don't think that's true for everybody, but for me they are. And I'm really disinterested in almost everything else. So so I should say it's not like, you know, I'm choosing to not have baby for babies for environmental reasons. I just don't want babies. Like I don't want to act like, you know, I'm making some sort of big martyred sacrifice for my work. I want to make this, the choices I make. So that's one answer. The other answer is, every time I have something scary and unpleasant happen, it is an opportunity for me to learn boundaries more and it's always freaking boundaries, unfortunately. Because my experience is when we get psychic attack, when we encounter a person who is shitty to us or whatever it is. On some energy level we must resonate with the trauma in order for it to actually hit us. Now, this is not like a blaming the victim thing. It's not. It's about, from my perspective about understanding the interconnectedness of things and understanding that there is value and merit in the most painful experiences. And if I'm willing to look at that, then it helps.

I remember I once got an email from somebody it's it was a series of emails if I'm being honest [Madeline: Oh, okay] telling me how discriminatory I was towards men and he was very angry and he sent really bad energy at me and it actually like had physical repercussions for me, and I don't think he was like an evil genius or anything. It's just that when the more sensitive one becomes, the more permeable one becomes the more, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly comes through. And so it was an opportunity for me to understand more about my need for boundaries with what I can't see, which is really just about being more in my body, for me. And because really it's just the way I think of boundaries and being embodied is it's kind of like if you have an apartment on Valencia Street in San Francisco and you leave the door unlocked anyone can enter and if you leave the door unlocked and you're not at home, then they can do whatever the hell they want. [Madeline: Wow, yea] And so the more grounded, present, centered in the body we are the more that we can kind of organically kind of like slough off other people's energies. Because sometimes like, that guy wanted to yell at me, he didn't want to harm me probably maybe I don't know but in general I think people don't harm each other because they're like, ‘I want to harm you.’ It's more because, ‘I don't want to feel bad anymore.’ And so when we can kind of understand that then then it becomes a little easier to be like, okay so all I have to do is protect myself and manage myself. I don't need to explain to this person anything. I don't need to defend anything. I don't need to engage the energy. That makes sense, what I'm saying? So I don't know if I fully answered your question, but but that's my answer to that. [Madeline: Yes, no, yeah] Ok great.

Madeline: And it's reminding me that I'm wondering is this the same way for you as a spirit or energy as it is for humans? Like, the more I am in my own embodiment and my own authentic boundaried self, then that ghosts can't bother me. I don't have the permeability for it to enter. Is it similar or is it different.

Jessica: It is except the the difference for me is I've worked really hard really only in recent years to not let dead people in my body because the way that I organically function as a medium is they just pop into my body and then I'll be like, oh my heart hurts. Okay. So this person died of a heart attack and I'll start talking fast and I'm like, oh they were just like really fast talking or whatever. Like I these pop in it's the easiest, quickest way for me to get the information and then I turned 40 and my body was like, ‘you dumbass don't do that your.’ [Jessica laughs] It's because it's really taxing physically and so now I tried to not let them in my body, but there is an element of that. So it's not the same as like, you know, ‘I'm not going to let you energetically enter my space.’ That's like a clearer boundary for me than if I was talking to like a lost loved one of yours, so it's a little bit of a different thing. And sometimes people do get trapped.

Generally, it's because they're scared or they're in need and not because they have any malicious intent. [Madeline: you mean the spirit’s trapped in] Yeah [Madeline: another body or] yeah, [Madeline: or space or] in me [Madeline: in you] or in my space. [Madeline: Yeah] Yeah, and it's you know, I I don't ever want to suggest that you know, doing mediumship work, or doing psychic work, or counseling people is easy or chill or without risk. It is none of those things and so, you know, yes, I've definitely had the experience of people getting stuck. And in fact, the reason why I had to quit smoking weed, the thing that really got me was I had least like these three drunk dead guys stuck in my house for weeks and it was awful. Like my cats were freaked out like it was just a really bad situation it kept me up at night. Sounds funny. It was not. [laughs] Yeah. It was not. And it wasn't like they were trying to harm me. They were just a bunch of dead drunk guys that got stuck in my house.

Madeline: And it's the permeability of just the cannabis in your system that allow that.

Jessica: I couldn't have for my perspective, the only reason why we imbibe, the only reason why we take in any substance that makes us feel different is because we want to feel different. Is a literal only reason. So whether it's meth or weed or like whatever it's we want to change how we feel. And when the the motive is to change your feelings then again, you've just stepped outside of center. That's the move. And I'm not mad at drug use. I'm at mad, you know, it's not it's not like I'm saying it's not possible to do good energy work, or to be healthy and embodied and also get lit frequently. I'm saying for me, I can't and for the you know, the I was seeing so many clients at the time also. You know, it's just like the level of work that I wanted to do. I couldn't do both so that was that was for me, yeah.

Madeline: Glad the three drunk ghost guys. [Jessica: Oh, yeah, me too] are gone. [Both laughing]

Jessica: It sucked, it was awful. It was really awful. [Madeline: Yeah. Wow. Wow] It was very motivating. [Both laughing]

Madeline: Slightly going back to the astrology the natal astrology work. I know that you do some medical astrology work and I'm curious about how if folks discover, you know, intergenerational traumas, or medical issues through their own charts or their friends or their crushes or whatever they're looking at, how would you advise folks to use that information well, and not necessarily get stuck in that threshold of condemnation or fear [Jessica: Yeah, yeah] or pressure.

Jessica: So, great question, especially because I'm a hypochondriac which is why I'm a medical astrologer. [Madeline: Oh, wow] I'm like, ‘How can I gonna get ahead of it?’ [Madeline: Wow, cool] [Laughter] So, the first thing I would say is don't unless your medical astrologer never look at somebody's medical issues in their birth chart, ever is my advice. Because there are not a lot of medical astrologers out there. There's not a lot of medical strategy books and you know, it's when you're dealing with somebody's health you want to be really mindful. I would say something similar about reading trauma. If you're going to read trauma, if you're going to read family trauma or inherited trauma, you better know what the hell you're talking about if you're going to talk to your friends. So that's like my first again hard-ass Capricorn view on that. But in terms of like actually how I work, I am really fixated on keeping it constructive and only focusing on where we have agency. And so sometimes the greatest agency we have is go to the goddamn doctor, you know? Sometimes that's your agency. Sometimes your agency is insist that your doctor listen to you. Find one that will you know? Maybe, you know, we don't all get great health in this life. It's not we don't get love, and wealth, and safety always. So, you know being your own best advocate is a really important part of that but there's no way around fear. There just isn't. And what we need to do is take some level of responsibility for how much we can hear in a healthy way and what we can't hear in a healthy way. And so, you know as a practitioner, I you know have trained myself to be able to gauge that and hopefully I'm good at that and if you're a beginning astrologer, it's something to be really humble about really humble about because you can do more harm than good. I have countless clients who come in traumatized from readings they got or flipping one line things that people said to them. And you know, and I could say the same thing about psychological diagnosis, you know, and and I have said the same thing about psychological diagnosis.

So I think I think that I don't know. I'm not sure if I fully answered that but but the other part I would kind of maybe throw in is inherited trauma from ancestral stuff and medical astrology, to me are the same thing. And that is because we come here in bodies and we know we know that bodies what is handed down through the heredity is you know, you know, if your father was diabetic you more likely to be diabetic kind of thing. And so as a medical astrologer I'm interested in, okay, so what is the spiritual lesson of the diabetes? What is it trying to teach you? What is the what is the move here? And what can you glean from it on a spiritual level in addition to doing the work to maintain and nourish your body? And when we do that, we inevitably heal ancestral trauma. Inevitably, from my perspective and you know, the more that we can accept these bodies and care for them the it's not just that we're caring for our souls by doing that. It's that we are doing work that opens pathways for people who haven't been conceived yet, for people who aren't born yet in our family line. And you know, we talked about ancestors and ancestors, we’re talking about other people. You are somebody's ancestor and if you want to provide for them if that's easier for you. I'm sorry, I want to look at everyone but there's a mic. If that's easier for you to think about caring for others and providing for others than caring for yourself and providing for yourself, that's true story. You are someone's ancestors, and you have a job. Uou have a job to do. Be good to you, because it opens up the energy, makes it easier for them to be good to themselves.

Madeline: One of the pieces you said earlier when I asked the question that's really standing out to me because I've been thinking about agency and boundary in this thing of post getting information or post getting some kind of news. But also what I just heard you say is maybe be aware before you go into that book that's going to give you the answer what that means in that house in that thing. Or before you look up the internet furiously for the diagnosis or for the astrological thing to have that embodiment, or centering, or grounding [Jessica: Yes] so that you're even having agency before you step into that-

Jessica: I love that. [Madeline: Questioning] Yes, 100% a hundred percent. Yeah, if you are like panicked and looking for answers, you are engaging the trickster side of Mercury. You are not serving yourself. You are not going to find the right answer, and I will say that kind of connected to that, the biggest thing that I've learned from my practice is that people ask the wrong question and that my work more than anything else is helping people identify the question because when you've appropriately identified the question you can find the answer. If you say to yourself, ‘All I want is to be married,’ and that's all you want is to be married. But actually what you want is to feel safe and loved, then you're going for the wrong thing. Marriage doesn't mean safe and loved. Hello, divorce. [Laughter] Sorry. What marriages means is marriage. It's a contractual agreement. It's paying taxes together. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not a romantic. [Laughter] But that is you know, it is a big part of what it means but feeling safe and loved may or may not mean married, right?

So when we appropriately identify our yearning, our problem, then we can come to the solution. Then we can reach the object of our desire more gracefully. And it's just like what you're talking about. It's like not acting out of panic and out of like seeking an answer instead of being present and receiving the answer. Receiving the resources that are available to us. Google makes lots of things available to us or if your me, DuckDuckGo. And yeah, you use that to I love that. But it's it's about being willing to connect and to receive and you don't have to be terribly self-serious to do it and you don't have to be like, you know, kumbaya my lord, or whatever unless that's your thing. Like there's a million ways to do it. It's just about finding your way. That's the move is finding your way and start wherever you are wherever you are that’s the move.

Madeline: Just want to name as a tarot reader I so appreciate you coming back to and go, ‘Let's get a really good question,’ because I think that can make or break a reading and a lot of folks want to come in and they it's fair enough. I would have the same desire. I just want to know what it has to tell me. I just want to know whatever you have to tell me Jessica. But actually it's the sifting through to get to that precise question that can actually create that alignment, I think so that that integration is possible [Jessica: mm-hmm] with the information that you receive.

Jessica: Yeah. At this point in my practice I mince no words surprisingly on probably but I'm just like that's the wrong question. Let me tell you what we should be asking. [Madeline: Cool] [laughter] I used to be more diplomatic. But now I'm just like no no no no, [Madeline laughs] let me tell you why you're asking the wrong question. And I think that that it's not something people think about because again, we get fixated on seeking the answer and there are many people not from like cruelty or anything wrong, but they're like well, let me let me teach you the answer. And I want to be taught the answer tell me how to do yada yada in three, five simple steps. Like I want to know but the reality is it's usually not that simple and also it's always that simple. It's not complicated, and I think that you know again, I'm back to that paradox is we want to make things really complicated in order for them to be deep and real. And generally the more simple truths, the more die kind of like distilled essential oil if you will is what we want to get at and at the same time you find your perfect simple truth and it's not so simple as then you're fine. What soon as your fine here the universe is like, ‘Cool. And now I shall traumatize you there.’ So it's like that is just you know, that's the work. It's like very simple and very layered. Yeah.

Madeline: With all of the good information that's available to us and or just all the information that's available to us. It seems like if we don't necessarily have that embodiment or work with our own selves, and have a sense of discernment than all the glorious mystic seeds we wish may come into us and yet nothing necessarily will grow. And I'm wondering if you have tips for folks that may help develop and strengthen their own intuition to just help them better parse out fear from intuition so that they know. ‘Oh no, this is my intuition practice. This is what it feels like when my intuition kicks in and this is what I know I can rely on.’

Jessica: Yeah, I have reams of things to say about that. The the first thing, and it took me so many years to learn this, but the first thing in this is so important is your intuition is never fear. So if you are if you hear a voice. I'm sorry. I'm like wanting to stare at everybody, sorry. If you hear a voice and it's makes you scared instantly, that's not your intuition. That's your fear. The voice of one's intuition, everyone's intuition is neutral. It is a neutral voice because your guides don't care if you learned it on the floor or you learned it in a private jet. They don't care. Your guides want you to learn it. They don't care if you learn it the hard way, it's always neutral. Now, you may hear that neutral voice of knowing and get scared. That's that's possible, but the voice itself is neutral. So if it's fear, then it's for sure not intuition. So that's like my again my hardline there.

And in terms of connecting with intuition again in a way, it's in a way, it's the wrong question for most people most of the time because what they want is intuition so they know what to do. And if you're seeking your intuition so you know what to do then again your back to the problem I described before. The key is to be receiving guidance not to seek your guides. Your guides are right there. They're like, right here. You're not getting rid of them. You're just disconnecting from them. You unplugged. But the plugs right next to you and so is the so is the the whatsit the outlet, it’s right next to you. So the work is to get present grounded centered whatever and to receive and to make it a practice and if you're trying to receive conditionally, then you've lost your center. So receiving doesn't look like, ‘I receive in therefore I know.’ It looks like, ‘I receive and I can think about it later. Not now.’ Okay, there's some things we can multitask. I love to multitask. This is not one of them, you know? And so it's about deepening your practice of understanding, what's your voice? And what's the voice of your guidance or your intuition when you're like seeking an answer or like in a bind is not super easy to do it's easier to do if you're like, ‘My life is in turmoil. Everything sucks. I am going to wake up 15 minutes early and I'm going to spend three minutes every morning just being. Not near my device. Not trying to figure it out.’ That will kind of deepen one’s access in those stressful moments. You can't develop them in the stressful moments. Although sometimes those moments yield like meteoric insight or transition. You don't want to have to have your house burned down for you to figure out, ‘Oh fires dangerous,’ you know what I mean? Like you want to be able to do it in other moments.

Madeline: It makes me think about creating and curating space so that you can have pause and learning to deepen into that pause and I wonder if you would be willing to share any daily rituals or practices that you have because I'm sure there's I'm curious [Jessica: Yeah] about what you may do in this way.

Jessica: I am probably going to be a disappointment for people listening to this because I don't meditate I don't do the lot of the things I'm like supposed to do [Madeline: People may be very happy to hear that yea] Okay. Okay. I don’t meditate. [Madeline laughs] I think I'm really bad at it. My brain is like zing zing zing like it never shuts up. And so for me my pause is literally like if I do three minutes of pause, I'm very impressive myself. I don't do great at that. I'm like I'm a go-go-go multitasker and so in terms of the things that I do on a daily practice, honestly coffee. I'm not gonna lie to you. It might not sound like the most spiritual thing in the world, but for me, it really is like I love coffee so much and it's like my indulgence and and it and it really is like one of the things that I do for myself, I mean and then there is oh gosh. Let me think. I mean I do. I do a lot of things. I think probably the most like easy to communicate is I am very lucky, my studio where I meet with clients and do a lot of my writing is it's in my backyard and it's like there's literally a tree growing into it and breaking through the the ground. It's really cute and nice and I'm very grateful for it and I work to receive the tree and receive the ground and receive the adorable hummingbirds, and weeds, and all the all the things all the things.

And my last office was on Valencia and 18th. I did the same thing there and there was nothing cute but I still did the same thing there because there's still there's still nature it's just stuck under cement right? So the first thing I do is I try to receive it I of course like burn my my sage and or my palo santo or my whatever and I do a number of things to access my guidance. For me, because I’m like a zingy person, I like to use dice and tarot cards when I'm accessing my guidance because it gives my mind something to chew on and I’d like having something to chew on. So I generally will throw cards on on just like getting a meditation for the day and it's not to predict my day. I want to be really clear, don't predict your day. It is a fool's errand, I may say. Instead, what is it that I’m meant to reflect on? Return to? What is it that my guides want me to like be in? That is where you really get your value as a practice for connecting with intuition and guidance. Yeah, so that's that's that's the beginning parts but you know, it's like hella things.

Madeline: Thank you. [Madeline laughs] We're sort of nearing the end of our time and I'm going to open up a little can of worms, or maybe it's a big can of wear and so we can choose, yeah, how big we want it to get. So I know that you work with all manner of of spirit including time, and we are living in a very particular time. I got to hear you speak to it pretty directly in this week's podcast and there's a lot of things going on and I think it's easy for many of us to feel caught up in chaos, and I'm wondering if you have anything to share with us tonight as life-affirming magical warriors how we can continue to build our strength and resiliency for the present fight, but also for the future.

Jessica: Yeah, it's a good question and one that I ask myself every day. And I am not an optimist or a positive person and I have no faith in our government whatsoever, [Laughter] or the faith I have is not good and and it is really easy for me to get overwhelmed by it. I for the last few months have felt really burnt out and also struggled with the burnout in kind of conjunction with the sense of responsibility because because I do have you know a voice and I have a platform and so I always return to the same thing. Is that we are having a real crisis in humanity of our humanity and you know different people are going to have different ways of being able to participate but at core, if we are motivated by preserving the dignity and humanity in others and if we make sure that our actions and our attitudes are governed by that then we are part of the solution. And this is a long road, unfortunately. The astrology is not worth investigating if you are easily scared, it is not awesome. So and you know, and I know a some astrologers who don't think it's as bad as I do and you know, and I wish I was them so [Jessica laughs] the but I think the key is to it is very tempting to point fingers. And to point fingers at terrible people. And to point fingers at people who maybe aren't terrible but they're stupid, or they don't know, or they said it wrong, or they only know about their one thing and they don't know about my thing. And I do that. We all do that. And on social media, we do it a lot and it's it keeps us trapped in the most rigid parts of Mercury, and it keeps us out of our heart. And the reason why we feel so offended is because we're scared and we’re sad. And if you can allow yourself to be scared and sad then you can have compassion, then you can have empathy. And from that place you may say, ‘You're an idiot. I don’t want to fucking deal with you. I'm not talking to you about this, you're not listening.’ And that's fair. Or you might say, ‘I can see a way forward for me, or for or you know this demographic of people, or for conversation with somebody who I don't see the world the same way with.’ So I think for me it's always comes back to emotional embodiment, emotional integrity because because when Pluto and Saturn meet in Capricorn, us and them thinking becomes rampant and this idea of hierarchical thinking.

Like, my spirituality is totally fine but a flat earther doesn't count. I don't go with them, you know? Those people aren't right or whatever, right? When we start to do this kind of hierarchical thinking then we set up standards that are okay for us versus someone else. And on the one hands, that's okay if we're talking about Nazis in my book, and then on the other hand, really? Is that the line? Who's calling the line? Am I calling the line? Are you calling the line? Is a Nazi calling the line? I don't know. And this is where we get into trouble. And with your Uranus in Taurus, you know, I always return to the the lesson of values. Who do we value? How do we value them? And what are we willing to do for those that we value? And this is really a daunting time. And it is intentionally chaotic time and that chaos is draining and exhausting and it's demoralizing and it throws us off our center and so an act of resistance is to reconnect with your center, and find your pace, and adjust your pace and seek the dignity and humanity in others, in yourself. Even when you said something wrong. Even when you screwed up. Even when you realize that you thought you were cool about something that you're not cool about. Because we're all learning really quick, and we're learning a lot. And I think that's really beautiful, but when we get blamey and mean and punishing towards yourself and towards others, then we don't actually get to integrate the growth and we get stuck and then it becomes just blah blah blah which quickly becomes blame and and punishment which is it's not great for progressives any more than it's great for the other side, whatever the hell that means.

Madeline: And stuck in these polarities, which I hadn't ever heard being Mercury related. This is a Mercury thinking kind of polarized thinking-

Jessica: Thinking it up. Thinking is Mercury. So our and this is this is something that like so anyone who studied astrology knows that Mars is the ego. Mars is like the little man symbol and it's the ego, and it's fighting, and it's fornicating, and all that kind of good stuff. But my conviction doing the work I do in the world, and the time that I live in is that Mercury is increasingly becoming becoming our ego. Because I can say who I am, and insist that I am who I am, and I could be somebody totally different because of the intranet. And so we have these Mercurial tools. We have were constantly in communication. We're constantly in communication and this becomes more and more of an ego issue and identity can become a smokescreen, right? And that is only when it's kept in the stage of Mercury when it's a theoretical thing instead of an integrated thing. And so I'm on the lookout for Mercury all the time because of this and you know, I like the internet, I like social media. I enjoy these things. I use these things and I'm also very concerned about what they're doing to us spiritually and whether or not we will and when I say we I do meet people who are progressive and motivated by resistance to like tyranny and all the things. I won't make the list. I hope that we don't use these tools against ourselves unwittingly and I think it would be it is very easy to do. You know, what's that expression comparison is the thief of joy or something like that and you know constantly looking at other people and thinking about other people is, you know, it invites you to compare. And this is keyed into the whole question around, how do we maintain social justice? How do we how do we stay on the path for preserving people's wellness? So I don't know again if I took it on a tangent, but-

Madeline: No, thank you. [Jessica: Yeah] I knew that was a big old tin near the end but I kind of wanted to [Jessica: It’s kind of a small question, you know, no big deal, totally] [Both laughing] Yeah. yeah. Yeah, we're we're just in our very final moments of wrapping up our podcast interview time and I would just like to close. I'm curious if there's anything that's mysterious or inspiring you these days that you could share with us?

 Jessica: Oh! Damn. What a weird, good question [Madeline laughs] mysterious or inspiring me. I am really inspired by the work of Deeyah Khan. I'm not sure if I'm saying her name right. They might, does anyone know if I'm saying her name right? She's no, so maybe I'm saying it wrong or maybe you don't know who she is. She's she does has made a bunch of documentaries. She went and met with Isis and she met with white supremacists and like talked to them, and interviewed them from a heart based place and I just learned about her work recently and I'm really so inspired and impressed and and her bravery is mysterious to me. So I hope I've said her name right and I'll make sure I get that proper name to you. But yeah, so she's she's I've been thinking about her a lot just in the past week, so.

Madeline: And you find her bravery mysterious and inspiring?

Jessica: Wildly inspiring. Wildly inspiring. It is is not a place that I would be strong enough to go and she went there with an authentic curiosity about what was going on for these men. What motivated these men. What their what their thoughts and their hearts are and she she's a woman of color and she I mean that is just first of all just so freaking brave. And what's just it just like expands my heart. And again, is I can't even tell you how inspiring is just that she did it from this heart-centered place. She wasn't blaming or condemning and she, while she of course doesn't agree with them, she was able to see their own trauma patterns that brought them there and you know, I listen to a podcast and when she talked about their loneliness. And that is really being able to see the humanity in the quote “enemy” is how you change someone from, you know, you're adversary your enemy to your adversary, you know? Somebody we all are humans, and we're all really struggling, and different people handle struggle different ways and I am just infinitely inspired and I haven't like watched all her documentaries yet. I have watched one and it was so intense that I had to slow it down. So I'm really inspired by her work and yeah and That's my that's my quick answer on that.

Madeline: Yeah, beautiful. [Jessica: Yeah] Thank you. [Jessica: Thank you] It’s so perfect. She like embodies everything we've kind of been talking about it sounds like-

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, she embodies everything that I am deeply motivated by and she does it with such bravery and grace. It just is if. Research her work. She's amazing. Yeah. [Madeline: Yeah] Thank you.

Madeline: Thank you. Thanks Jessica. Thank you so much.

[Audience applause]

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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