We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Astrology for Skeptics: Sonya Renee Taylor Reads Our Charts
Episode Date: December 16, 2025The radiant and revolutionary Sonya Renee Taylor joins us to dive deep into astrology, in a conversation that will leave you feeling empowered, braver, and wiser. Sonya illuminates: - How astrology... can return us to the wisdom that was ours all along; - How understanding our charts can help us eliminate suffering (the space between the knowing and the doing); and - What Glennon and Abby’s charts say about the way they see the world and themselves. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why am I the way I am?”—this conversation is for you. Come back for part two on Thursday to hear Sonya read Amanda’s chart—and to hear Glennon, Abby, and Amanda reflect on how this conversation has changed their lives. About Sonya: Sonya Renee Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author of seven books, transformational thought leader, world-renowned activist, artist, and founder of the international movement The Body Is Not An Apology. She is podcast host, sought-after speaker and new world midwife. She is also an intuitive astrologer helping to decipher our unique soul work through the planets. Her work has reached millions of people by exploring the intersections of identity, healing, and social justice using a radical self-love framework. She continues to write, create, speak, teach, and transform lives globally.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things Pod Squad.
Today, you're about to hear something we did not see coming.
We asked our beloved friend, Sonia Renee Taylor, if she might read our astrological charts,
mostly because we just thought it would be fun.
And maybe you could find little pieces of yourselves and what she saw in us.
But what happened was wild.
So Sonia shows up and she starts showing us our charts as a map of our soul's purpose.
She explains that the gap between who we really are and our learned personalities is suffering.
The gap between the two is where all suffering comes from.
She said the way that we lessen suffering in our lives is by becoming more aligned with what our souls came here to do.
The rest blew our minds and kind of changed a lot about how we're going to approach 2026.
So today, you'll hear Sonia tell Abby and me about the journey.
were on and why it feels the way it feels right now in our actual lives. It rings so deeply
true that we needed two episodes to digest everything Sonia said. So on Thursday, you'll hear Amanda's
reading, which absolutely blew us away, after which the three of us had to stay on to stare at each other
and debrief about what the hell had just happened. So you'll hear that debrief too. See if any of this
lands for you as we go. We weren't sure about astrology before this conversation, and now we might be
believers. Sonia Renee Taylor is a New York Times bestselling author, transformational thought leader,
world-renowned activist, artists, and founder of the international movement, the body is not
an apology. She is a podcast host, sought after speaker, and New World Midwife. She is also an
intuitive astrologer helping to decipher our unique soul work through the planets. Here is
Sonia Renee Taylor reading our charts. Let's go.
So, Sonia, we just finished some technical difficulties.
We are about to launch into this beautiful conversation.
Abby suggested that the technical difficulties might be due to retrograde.
Mercury being in retrograde.
And then you said what?
I said that I recent, I'm not going to take credit for this.
There is a choir, I think, that was singing.
And the song was, Mercury's not in retrograde.
you're just an asshole.
That checks out.
I have been a real big asshole lately.
And it feels so fitting in the sense that like oftentimes,
I feel like it's a very asshole thing to blame all the stuff happening on you
on something else other than looking inward first.
So it feels like an appropriate song for self-reflection.
And it's so depressing when that happens.
Like my sister keeps going to the doctor asking if she's in paramedopause
because she's being such a bitch.
And they keep saying, no, you're not.
and then she keeps having to leave and deal with her situation?
It's me. It's me. It's just me.
Hi. Hi. I'm the problem.
It's like the new Cardi B album. Am I the drama? Yes.
Sonia, before we jump into all this juicy stuff, why is astrology important?
Why have you chosen to dive in so deeply and understand the world through it?
I really believe that we are not an accidental experiment on the planet,
and we're not an accidental experiment in the cosmos.
I believe that life is happening intentionally
on purpose and service of our highest good with radical love.
I believe that with the deepest parts of me.
And I believe that we are inherently connected.
And I think it's really interesting because I say I believe
like I'm saying something, you know, like subjective
as opposed to the objective reality
that we are made of the exact same materials
that the stars are made of and that the planets are made of
and that the oceans are made of.
We are all the same chemical compounds.
And so there is, for me, an understanding that there is an intrinsic relationship between us and all of life.
I believe that all of life is trying to be in relationship with us as we journey through this experiment called life.
And every opportunity that there is to see life more clearly through the more.
multitude of mediums that exist in the world why not look at life through that why not be like
oh what do you have to teach me tree what do you have to teach me ocean what do you have to teach me
mars what do you have to teach me sun i believe that all of them are teachers and they're all
here to guide us and also i just found that like it works the first time i saw my birth
chart the snapshot of the sky at the moment I was born I was like oh that's why my life looks the
way it was so clearly evident it was so clearly this is you this is who you are through these
symbols through these energies this is your existence sonya and I don't know what else to say
except it works.
So I'm a firm believer that I don't need to know how or why it works.
Once I know it works, I know it works.
It's so interesting because I'm just starting to form language around these thoughts,
so I don't know how to say them yet.
But as we close up witness the illusion of all of these people in power,
taking what is God-given wisdom in the form of the stars and plants,
and all the things that they've kind of taken it, made it their own, and then sold it back to us
in the form of dogma and religion and all of that.
It is a very ancient and something inside of me that's saying,
maybe we should have been listening all along to the people from whom they took it.
And maybe they figured out that there was power in what these largely women were doing with the herbs and the stars.
They took the midwives from us.
They took the astrologist from them.
They packaged it all up, put it in buildings and rules and sold it back to us.
And so there's something to me that feels very right about thinking maybe we go back to what was always ours.
Yeah.
It makes me think of two things.
One is one of the sort of key principles of the way in which I live my life and some of the experiments that I'm in right now around world building.
the focus of them is to become new by becoming ancient.
How is it that that which wants to emerge comes through by reclaiming that which has always been, right?
And so there's this practice for me that's like there is something in the ancient wisdoms
that has information for us in this moment about how we might move into the future.
But the other thing that I think about this specific about astrology is so, and we'll talk more about sort of some of the
specifics, but each in the zodiacal wheel, it has 12 houses, and each house corresponds to a different
aspect of life. And the 12th house historically used to be called the house of death institutions
and prisons, which is awful, right? It's like, that's horrible. And what I realized is that
we called it the house of death institutions and prisons because it's actually the house of the
spiritual realm and the ancestral realm. And if you were engaged in trying to access that realm
by yourself, you would be a heretic, you would be in prisons, you would be called crazy,
or you would be burned alive. And so, yes, it is the House of Death and Institutions in Prisons
because the systems at the time held the power to access that part of life. And if you try to
access that part of life without them you were going to have some consequences but actually what it is
is the location where we have profound connection with all of existence with what is and what was
and what will be why were you and Amanda so taken back like what was your feelings well first of all
number one I feel about Sonia what she just said about the ancient and the new like when we were
in Colorado at Andrea's Memorial all together and Sonia took the stage. It's just a very in your
body experience of you can see something very ancient, the sageness, the wisdom that comes out and
then Sonia's like colors that she's wearing and all the brightness and the vividness. It's like
very now and brand new and very old and whoa, we better pay attention. Vibes. Okay. That's how I feel
about Sonia so that was cool and then I just always resonate it feels true to me that whenever
people or women in particular get close to truth and power that the people in power label that
as death and dangerous and crossbones and stay away and burn them like that makes perfect sense
in the history of the world totally so how should we do this sonya we were thinking maybe
you could read our charts for us and maybe the pod squad could find
themselves in this as we go.
I am happy to do that.
My little disclaimer that I like to say is like I'm a baby astrologer.
This technology is still very new to me.
But I also don't want to be dishonest about how I'm being guided, which is that I have an
intuitive relationship with charts and I don't know why, but when I look at them, they talk
to me, they tell me things about you, and then my job is to tell you what they tell me about
you.
And so that is just what is true.
But it is a very intuitive relationship.
And so I just like to like make that disclaimer because there are people who have been studying for decades and who have been, you know, building on their knowledge base for, you know, for a very, very, very long time.
And I always want to honor those people who have done that work and who have fed into the, what I believe is sort of the like collective consciousness of the wisdom of astrology.
And I think that what I'm allowed to do for whatever reason is like put my little energetic finger in there.
and receive some of their wisdom.
That's actually what I think is happening.
So, yes, I'm happy.
Who wants to go first?
What does your intuition tell you, Sonia?
Who should go first?
Does it just mean you know everything now?
No.
Just tell us.
Damn it.
Let's start with Glennon.
Let's start with Glennon.
Okay.
I see a chart.
You see a chart.
So I'm going to shout out one of my favorite astrologers,
Chani Nicholas.
She's the only other astrologer we've ever had on We Can Do Hard Things.
We love Chani, and we love Chani's birth chart app inside of her website.
What Chani does that I think is amazing is that oftentimes when you pull up someone else's chart elsewhere,
you'll see these symbols on a circle, on a wheel.
And then you'll see a bunch of lines going through that symbol.
There'll be red lines and blue lines, and it can look very intimidating.
And what that's demonstrating is the relationship that each planet or placement has to another planet or placement on the chart.
All of those things are energies happening all at the same time in the chart.
My first experience when I saw that was like, oh my God, there are 35 red lines going across my chart,
which almost feels like when someone marks up a paper you wrote with a bunch of red lines.
I was like, okay, obviously I'm failing at my entire life, right?
And what actually is happening is all of the planets in the sky the moment that we were born are in conversation with other planets in the sky the moment that we were born and those energies all exist, but you're not plucking every string of energy all at once.
The way I describe it is you're born and your life is like a harp and the universe, God, source, whatever you want to call it, will pluck some strings.
There are things that are going to happen in your life that are out of your control.
People will die.
People will be born.
Incidents will happen.
Those things don't have any control over.
Those are just things that happen.
But you are also co-creating the music with life, which means you will pluck some strings as well.
And what astrology gives us the opportunity to do when we understand our charts is choose the energetic
strings we are going to pluck, which means I can choose to pluck strings that harmonize with
life, or I can choose to pluck strings that are really discordant with the tune that life is
already playing. Oh, well, okay. And it means that our chart is dynamic. It's alive. It's happening
in real time. We are actively engaged with life, and our choices matter. So, Glyn,
I want to start by talking about the sun. We're going to talk about your big three.
astrology, if folks who are familiar with your horoscope, often what they're doing is talking
about your sun sign. And the reason we talk about your sun sign, there's all sorts of like
pop culture reasons why sun sign astrology got so popular. But the sun is not the only aspect of
your existence. The same way the sun is not the only aspect of existence in life, right? There is also
a moon that happens when it's nighttime. There is also the way that the planets are moving.
throughout the day. There's a sunrise and sunset. So the same way that life is dynamic, our charts are
dynamic. But our sun represents in our chart our life force, our vitality. It is how we
give our unique light in the world. The thing that is important to remember about the sun
inside of the birth chart is that it really is a representation of, I believe, the sun in the sky,
And actually, in order to say all of this, I need to say what my focus of reading charts is.
When I look at a chart, I am here asking, what did my soul come to do?
And how do I, Sonia, align with my soul?
And the way I describe it is, here's my soul on one end, and here's my personality, Sonia, on the other.
And the space in between is called suffering.
And the way that we lessen suffering in our life is by becoming more and more aligned with what our souls came here to do.
That is how we limit suffering in our lives.
And so I believe that each placement and planet in our chart has an evolutionary quality, a quality that says, here's your basic version and here's your soul upgrade version.
here is how this energy can evolve inside of you to become its most authentic manifestation and so with that the sun is here to take us from our attempt to shine our performance of shining what we think we need to do to shine right that's our personality and our ego which is also inside of our sun sign to our most authentic being the sun
It never has to try to shine.
It's never doing any effort to shine.
It doesn't matter if it is cloudy where you are,
if it's nighttime where you are,
if there's a tornado where you are,
guess what the sun is still doing.
Shining.
Shining its ass off.
Shining its ass off.
And so part of what our chart is asking us to do
is stop trying to shine
because when we stop trying to shine,
we just will.
our authentic self just will and so you my dear have a sun in aries aries is the first zodiac
sign it represents the first sign in the zodiacal wheel it represents beginnings it represents
energy it represents life force it represents action it is ruled by the planet mars and mars is
assertion action go aries understands the value of going first
the willingness to go first the willingness to pursue a thing and it's all about beginnings
beginning energy starting something new and this is at zero degrees for you in your chart which
means it's a very baby son it's a brand new son learning how to do something brand new one of the
things that you'll notice is like i said there are 12 slices of the pie in your zodiacal wheel and then
inside of that there are all these little symbols and signs they all represent planets or asteroids
or placements in the sky and then on a zodiacal will you may notice that there are little numbers
beside those symbols those numbers are called degree points and they represent how far along
that particular planet was in its journey until it moved to the next sign and so it goes from
zero degrees to 30 degrees in each slice of the pie this is the way I think about it
it. And each 10 degrees is called a deacon. So zero to 10, first deck in, 10 to 20, second decon, 20 to 30,
last deacon, then you move to the next sign. I correspond these degree points to like grade school
levels. So zero to 10 degrees is first day of preschool, first day of preschool to end to eighth
grade, right, into middle school. And then the next 10 degrees, 10 to 20 is like high school to
into college and then the next 20 degrees 20 to 30 degrees is grad school doctoral program
dissertation turn it in get out of here right so a zero degree son my love is the first day of preschool
it's the first day of preschool and here's why this is awesome because part of what I believe is when
we see a zero degree, one degree, two degree placement in our charts, it means we are brand new.
Life sent us here to initiate a brand new energy inside of us and inside the world that has not
been here before. Something is starting that has not been before. And it also means the sign
before it is the energy it's leaving behind. And the sign before it that is the energy that
it's leaving behind for you is Pisces, and that is the energy of being absorbed.
Pisces is happening for you in the seventh house, the energy of being absorbed, of losing
yourself to the other. And what more clear demonstration have you, Glenn and Doyle, given us
other than to completely begin again, to leave the story of the dutiful Christian wife who's given her
life over to her husband and his development, and instead to begin again focused on what your
desires have led you to understand about yourself. That is a zero-degree sun in Ares. That is a magical
new assignment you have, a beautiful offering for the collective to say, you too can start
again. You too can begin again, be new from what you know to be true about your own desires
because Aries also governs our desires, what we want. And you let yourself want something new
and then start a new path. That's your son. No, no. I like where this is going.
No, no. Now I want to talk about your moon sign. Our moon represents our internal
emotional landscape. It represents how we navigate the emotional terrain of our existence.
It also changes rapidly. The moon changes every two and a half days to another sign. And so
just as our emotions change rapidly. But I think that one of the things that feels important
about understanding the moon is it really represents the same way we would be if we were walking
in a dark night with only the moon to illuminate something. We would be seeking what
security and safety and stability might feel like inside of us because we might be a little nervous.
We can't see all the landscape. We're not sure what's over in the corner. There's some shadows over
there that we're afraid of, right? Now, the desire for that security and safety and stability
that our moon often calls us towards is sort of a gift and a curse. Because yes, it says,
oh, this is what soothes me. This is what makes me feel good. This is what makes me feel stable.
Often, what soothes us and makes us feel good and stable can often be the thing that helps us avoid the shadow we need to look at, right?
The thing that is actually asking to be tended to and addressed, but we fear it.
And so we're like, nope, I won't look at that.
I'm going to keep going towards the thing that feels good.
And so your moon is in Sagittarius in the fourth house.
Now, Sagittarius is our philosopher, our professor in the astrological wheel.
It is represented by the centaur, half man, half horse.
So it has both the instinct of the animal and the rational mind of the human, right?
It's a fire sign.
And so it takes action.
And it is ruled by the planet Jupiter.
And Jupiter is the planet of expansion and good luck and humor and wisdom.
And so a Sagittarius moon can be the energy of humor.
of quick-wittedness.
It can be the energy of
playfulness. It's also the energy of wanting
to learn. I need to know more
and I need to know more and I need to know
more. It has an insatiable quest
for knowledge and it
wants to know where the information comes
from. It wants to have a source
and it wants to have the source because
it feels safe
when it has a source. It feels like
I know why
I know this. Right?
Now here is the
challenge. And this is happening for you in the fourth house, which is the house of our parents,
our mother and our father, our roots where we grew up, our ancestors, and our home, our home
foundation. I want to understand what's happening in the landscape. I want to have the
information. I want to know all the things. I was listening recently to you talking about being an
empty nester and how activating that would be because it means that something in home has changed.
And I don't know what the landscape will look like anymore.
I'm not as able to see it.
One of the other things that Sagittarius does is it uses that information that it gathers to teach others.
That's part of its deal.
It's like, I'm going to learn something, and then I'm going to relay what it is, I know.
But it can avoid going deep.
It can choose to know through the mind and not feel through the body.
I'm sorry?
No.
Sorry.
My then.
You were so on point until that one.
Until that one.
And so what a Sagittarius moon is asking us to do, it is saying if keeping it sort of light
and mental and action-oriented is keeping me feeling safe and secure and stable,
then what actually surfaces?
when I don't know from the mind,
when I don't have all the information,
what happens inside of me when I feel uncertain?
How do I deal with that?
And that's part of what you're being asked to learn
is to find out inside of you.
What's the other source of knowledge?
How else do I know?
What are the other ways of knowing
that are trying to come through me
that are not about having all of the mental,
information so that I can take action so that I can go do the thing right yes that is tracking so
that is your moon and then I want to talk about your rising sign and I find our rising sign to be
such an important piece of how it is that we journey through life because the rising sign or
the ascendant represents where the sun was on the horizon at the moment that you were born
and so oftentimes people have talked about the rising sign as the math
where I think that we talk about it that way because you're right when you're first
born when you're young it's literally just representing the sliver of that sign
the just the little beginning of it right but the sun does not stay on the horizon
it rises and sets every single day and if we look at our zodiacal wheel our
astrological chart as a full 24-hour rotation right that circle then it means
that energy will rise in our life become more prominent and then it will
set in our life, right? And so I see the ascendant as literally the energy that is here
to help your soul ascend on its journey. That is why it's the ascendant. That energy
becomes more prominent and then it gives you more of its characteristics to help you
develop in your soul's journey. Now, your ascendant is in Virgo. Virgo is a mutable Earth sign. It
is what I call the second earth sign.
The first earth sign is Taurus,
and Taurus represents the organic earth.
It's like the flowers and the trees and the soil
and the food we grow,
and all the beauty and comfort and nourishment
that the earth gives us just naturally.
The second Earth sign is Virgo.
And Virgo represents the maiden in our astrology
or the Virgin, is where we talk about it.
It's the physical body.
It is the mind-body connection.
It's ruled by the body.
the planet Mercury, who controls our mind and our thought, but it governs the body and its systems.
This is why Virgo is often considered to be very detail-oriented. We can talk about it as sort of
always making sure that the things are in place. Sometimes people talk about it as critical,
but I think Virgo is one of the most misunderstood signs in the zodiac, and I'm going to tell you why.
Because we talk about Virgo as the Virgin, and we translate Virgin to mean pure, and I don't
think that that's a mistranslation. I think we do mean pure, but we don't mean pure as perfect.
Right? People take pure and then mean that means perfect. And then Virgo is like perfectionistic
and always trying to get it right and needing to figure out all the things. And that is part of the
dynamic. That can be the sort of more human version of how that energy gets expressed. But it's
higher energy. Is Virgo not the virgin and pure as imperfect?
but pure as in the essence of a thing.
I think about how perfume is pure, right?
How all the notes and aspects of it or pure vanilla, right?
It means we haven't diluted it.
That's what it means, right?
It means we haven't added a bunch of other stuff to it.
It's pure essence.
The other thing that Virgo as the Virgin represents is not perfect but sovereign.
What ultimately Virgo desires is for every aspect of ourselves to be fully present in ourselves.
It means not I didn't give myself away to you.
It means I fully belong to myself, all the parts of me, the imperfections, the misalignments, the confusion, the whatever aspects of me without judgment are welcome here.
and when they are all welcome here I am a whole being fully embodied in the pure essence of my beingness
and from that place I give my service that is what Virgo is in its fullest most authentic
expression and so this is happening for you in the first house and so part of what you are here
to do is to reclaim all the parts of you to
To see every aspect as necessary to fulfill what it is you came to fulfill here on this planet.
To give your service, you need to be a whole person.
You need to be fully embracing of every aspect of your beingness.
The part of you that is deeply spiritual, the part of you that is deeply carnal, the part of you that desires this, the part of you that doesn't want that,
the part of you that overthinks, the part of you that is totally afraid, the parts that you
have perhaps been afraid to fully look at, can they live here? Are they welcome home? Because when
they are, then you're a whole person. And from that whole being, you have infinite gifts to give
the collective. That Sagittarius Moon wants to teach you something. And it wants to teach you
once it understands it and Virgo is saying can you understand you the first house represents us can
you fully welcome and understand all of you because that is where your most authentic light is given
in the world and that's your sun your moon and your rising glennon wow sonya thank you and so again
this is the invitation to welcome yourself home this is the invitation to say every piece of
me is necessary makes up the essence of what it is that I am here to offer to the collective
it's you like this is what aries sun means it means the gift is you right and every time you
disavow some part of yourself you deprive us of the full gift that is you that's right and here's
the key piece this is so important about for people who have placements in verga that zero degree son
first day of preschool
first day of preschool
because Virgo
can be critical
it can be like I don't understand
why I haven't mastered that
it can be judging the thing right
no
your job is to treat
this journey the way
that you would want someone
to treat your preschooler
on the first day of preschool
that
that is how you
are being asked
to be with you.
Brand new journey.
There better be some naps.
There better be sweet snacks.
There better be nice colors.
There better be name tags and sweetness.
There'd be hugs for the other kids.
Sweetness.
I mean, Sonia, I became a preschool teacher
so that I could create that world
that I wanted to live in.
My dear, it is time for you to turn it on you.
You became a preschool teacher
so that you could learn
how to be a really good preschool teacher to the preschooler in you.
Shit.
That's why every day I'm like, why do I always feel like I just got here?
The amount of times when I say this to my sister, like, I just got here.
I am brand new.
You are brand new.
You are brand new.
It's awesome.
Making so much sense of her insistence that we always have beginners mind.
That's what I say, because I try to make it sound like something someone's done before.
I'm just entering an ancient spiritual tradition of having just arrived.
Yes.
This part of you is brand new.
Sonia, thank you for that gift.
Oh, you're so welcome.
And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to We Can Do Hard Things for free.
Somewhere along the way, we traded real nourishment for convenience.
Fast food, fast stress, fast everything.
And our bodies feel the difference.
Sometimes the old wisdom is the best wisdom when it comes to nourishing our bodies.
And that's why I started using Armara Colostrum.
Armora Colostrum has become a foundational support for me.
It's a pure, bioactive whole food with more than 400 naturally occurring nutrients that help restore the body's core systems.
It boosters immune resilience, supports gut health, and enhances energy, and AIDS recovery, areas that often weaken under daily pressure.
We've worked out a special offer.
for our listeners. Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armora.com slash hard things or
enter hard things to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's A.R.MRA.com slash hard things.
Let's talk OCD, the actual realities of living with it. OCD is not about being super neat or hyper-organized.
It is actually about relentless, intrusive thoughts you don't want.
Doubts about your relationships, fears about your health.
OCD targets what you love the most.
It affects one in 50 people in the United States, yet it is still so misunderstood that
most people wait 10 to 15 years before getting an accurate diagnosis.
That's heartbreaking because OCD is actually highly treatable, but only with the right
kind of help. Standard talk therapy isn't recommended and can actually make OCD symptoms worse.
The gold standard is a specialized approach called exposure and response prevention or ERP.
That's where no CD comes in. They're the world's leading provider of OCD treatment,
connecting you with a licensed therapist trained in ERP through 100% virtual sessions that are
covered by insurance for more than 155 million Americans. And because healing doesn't happen only during a
they also offer support between sessions. If any of this sounds like you or someone you care
about, visit nocd.com and book a free 15-minute call with their team to learn more about how
no-cd can help. That's nocd.com. Ever had that my last pair of contacts panic? I know I have been on
many a trip with friends who have been in pain rewearing old contacts.
or stuck not being able to enjoy the rest of the time that we have together because they ran
out of their contacts. The good news is that that worry and hassle is now a thing of the past
because your next set is always on the way from 1-800 contacts. They're the only major
contacts lens retailer that lets you renew your prescription online so you get your contacts fast.
1-800 contacts has fast, free shipping and delivers the same contacts your doctor prescribes right to your door, all without ever leaving home.
For over 30 years, 1-800 contacts has been the leader in online contact lens delivery, with millions of contacts in stock and award-winning customer service.
1-800 contacts is a game-changer for ordering prescribed contacts.
Our beloved producer swears by them.
She orders online, they deliver for free, and she can even renew from home.
It's simple, reliable, and it saves a ton of time and frustration.
Getting contacts doesn't have to be a hassle.
Let 1-800 contacts get you the contact lenses you need right now.
Order online at 1-8-100-contacts dash.com or download the free 1-800 contacts app today.
Abby, this is a snapshot of the sky at the moment that you were born, my dear.
Oh, my gosh.
All right.
Yay.
So you, your son, remember this is your life force, your vitality, your energy, your personality, your energy, your personality, your ego, and where life is asking you to drop the performance and just be.
That is what's happening with our son.
And you are having that experience in the sign of Gemini in the 12th house.
Now, Gemini is one of three placements in the chart that I call duality placements.
They are here to teach us about and ask us to reconcile the story of separation.
Gemini is represented by the twins in astrology.
It is ruled by the planet Mercury, if you remember from our last reading.
Virgo is also ruled by the planet Mercury.
You all have similar Mercury action happening in your charts.
And Gemini is an air sign.
And one of the ways that I describe Gemini oftentimes is two sayings,
I feel like, apply to Gemini energy.
I think, therefore, I am.
And I say it what I say it.
And those two energies are because the Gemini energy is
mind energy. It is ideas. It is curiosity. Unlike that Sagittarius energy that is very much
concerned with knowledge, Sagittarius is its opposite sign, it wants knowledge acquisition that it
can prove. Gemini doesn't really care about proven. It's like I thought it and so therefore it is.
It was my idea and that's what it is. Now what that Gemini energy can do is the beginning of a new thought.
It's the beginning of an idea.
It is endlessly curious.
It wants to know all the things.
The duality thing it's working out is the Gemini is represented by the twins and astrology.
And what almost is always true about that Gemini energy is that it means, oftentimes it means there is a real twin, that there's a twin someplace.
But oftentimes it is representing an aspect of ourselves that we have disavowed, that we have disavowed, that we,
have decided is not so welcome here. And so one part of us, we're like, yay, that part. And then the
other part of us, no, not that part. And so part of the reconciliation of duality for Gemini
is integration. The job is to find the twin you have outcasted and bring that twin home.
To say, yes, you are welcome here.
Yes, you can come here.
Yes, you are allowed to exist here in me.
Now, this is happening for you in the 12th house,
which remember early on, I said,
death institutions and death institutions in jails.
Now, what we're really saying, though,
is this is the house of the unseen.
It is the house of the hidden.
It is the house of the spiritual.
It is the house of our ancestral dynamics.
It is the house of surrender where we return back to source.
So oftentimes what can happen with a Gemini energy in the 12th house,
we can experience feeling difficult to be seen.
Some part of us feels not seen.
Some part of us feels behind the veil.
Some part of us feels we're not fully able to be recognized.
And part of the work, again, of the sun, this is one of the, I think, most challenging aspects of the sun is because the sun is meant to shine and it's literally shining in a place where it is difficult to be seen.
The work of how do I allow myself to be fully expressed? How do I allow myself to be fully expressed?
How do I allow myself the full vitality of me to come through in the world?
And not from trying to prove it.
Not from trying to prove that I am worthy, good enough, deserving, whatever it is that that sun is trying to do to convince you through being charismatic and curious and interesting and all the things it's trying to do to be like, hey, see me.
the other side is saying what if you didn't do any of that what if you just trusted because the thing about
the sun in the 12th house is who is supposed to see you will and now it's time for our ads
there are so many hair care products out there it's overwhelming and it's hard to know where to start
It's hard to know what you actually need or what will even begin to work.
And if you are someone who loves coloring your hair, then you are definitely one of the folks trying to find solutions that don't also wreck your hair.
One of our sponsors, K-18, has a molecular repair hair mask that changes everything.
Its patented K-18 peptide goes deep, repairing hair at the molecular level.
Deep enough to really make a difference.
soft, strong, bouncy hair that actually feels healthy. I have tried this and I can tell you that
it makes my hair so much more moisturized and hydrated. So whether you're just touching up a few
highlights or changing your color every month, your hair can stay healthy. Shop K-18's mask at
Sephora or get 10% off your first purchase with code hard things at k-18 hair.com. That's code
hard things at k-18 hair.com.
Did you know that 88% of Americans are classified as metabolically unhealthy?
And when it comes to nutritional advice, each one of us is so different that it's hard to find
one-size-fits-all guidance.
That's why I started trying to understand my own health with Cygnos.
Cygnos pairs a real glucose monitor with AI that actually reads what's going on inside your body.
You get in the moment alerts when your glucose is rising, personalized suggestions like,
hey, maybe take a quick walk and clear insight into which foods love you back.
Cygnos took the guesswork out of managing my weight and gave me personalized insights into how
my body works.
With an AI powered app and biosensor, Signos helped me build healthier habits and stick with them.
Right now, Signos has an exclusive offer for our listeners.
Go to Cygnos.com. That's S-I-G-N-O-S dot com and get 25% off select plans with code hard things. That's
Cygnos.com code hard things for 25% off select plans today.
Ever had that my last pair of contacts panic? I know I have been on many a trip with friends
who have been in pain rewearing old contacts or stuck not being able to enjoy the rest of the time
that we have together because they ran out of their contacts.
The good news is that that worry and hassle is now a thing of the past
because your next set is always on the way from 1-800 contacts.
They're the only major contacts lens retailer that lets you renew your prescription online
so you get your contacts fast.
1-800 contacts has fast, free shipping and delivers the same contacts your doctor prescribes
right to your door, all without ever leaving home.
For over 30 years, 1-800 contacts has been the leader in online contact lens delivery
with millions of contacts in stock and award-winning customer service.
1-800 contacts is a game changer for ordering prescribed contacts.
Our beloved producer swears by them.
She orders online, they deliver for free, and she can even renew from home.
It's simple, reliable, and it saves a ton of time and frustration.
Getting contacts doesn't have to be a hassle.
Let 1-800 contacts get you the contact.
lenses you need right now. Order online at 1-8-100-contacts dash.com or download the free
1-800 contacts app today.
Is this blowing your mind? Like, I'm just going to say off the record, Sonnet, if you understood
all day yesterday, we had this conversation in what you're saying right now.
Okay, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I mean, this is why I tell you that, like, I was like, I'm not special.
I don't know the interiorities of your lives.
I'm just looking at them on a chart.
And that's why I mess with astrology, in case we ever have any questions.
That's why.
Because all of a sudden, I know something about you, not because I've been hanging around in the interiority of your life,
but because there is a map to your life that already exists.
So, this 12th, how?
son says, I often see it as, you know, protection in many ways. It's like you will be seen
by those who have eyes to see you. And that is actually more than enough. That is part of what
you are here to let yourself do is to be seen by those who have eyes to see you. Now remember,
Gemini is an air sign. So it is another one of those placements where it's in its, it's, and
head it's in its ideas it's full of its ideas about what it needs to do to be seen
it's full of its ideas about how to achieve this thing and the invitation is
actually to say what if there's not an idea to it this is not a function of the mind
right actually for you the full self-expression of you is asking to come through your
emotional realm. And we'll talk about that in a second. So we're going to leave your son and we're
going to go on to your moon. Well, you're spot on so far. Spot on so far. And so our moon is our
emotional landscape, our inner terrain. It's how we experience safety, instability, and security.
But it also means it's the place where we could be avoiding the things that make us feel insecure
and unstable and uncertain, right? This is happening for you in the sign of California.
Now, I talked in Glennon's reading about the first two earth signs.
Taurus, the organic world, the plants and the flowers and the trees and the bees and the
beautiful things and good food.
And then Virgo, the physical body, the mind-body connection, the organic material turned into
flesh.
Capricorn is the last earth sign, and it is what the human
mind, body, flesh connection figured out what to do with the organic Earth. So it is how we made
systems and structures and money and organizations and buildings and all of these things.
It is ruled by the planet Saturn. And Saturn is constriction, restriction,
boundaries, barriers, rigidity.
That's one version of Saturn, which always sounds like trash.
The other version of Saturn, the other part of Saturn is discipline, integrity, hard work, effort
over time to build something that withstands the test of time.
That is Saturn in its highest energy.
And Saturn is the first thing until you figure out the work it wants you to do, and then it
becomes the second thing right oh I figure it out the work right it's like oh I feel like I'm
running against a brick wall you are because you haven't figured out the work Saturn is
asking you to do in your chart and once you figure out the work Saturn is asking you to do in
your chart then you start doing that work and Saturn will reward you out of your hard work
over time so tracks this moon this Capricorn moon says oh feelings we're not so
much into them we're not super fan of them feelings things I have lots of ideas who
we got time for them feeling Capricorn likes it likes a container it wants a structure so it's like
I need to make sense I need to package it it needs to happen in a way that like that goes
there it's really good at compartmentalization that belongs there that goes there that's there right
it's like and then when things start to bleed into each other it doesn't understand it
like I don't understand that, right? Now, this is happening for you in the seventh house,
which is the house of our committed partnerships and our long-term relationships and marriage.
And so both of you are in this interesting little dance of helping each other delve into the parts that feel difficult to delve into.
It's like, oh, I'm supposed to go there.
I am.
You're supposed to go there, too.
You are?
Oh, we're supposed to go together?
Okay.
Ah!
That's right.
And through the willingness to go there, right?
What happens?
Like, is there's this container and you really want this container and organize it?
Except that life doesn't work that way.
Life is not neat containers.
The emotions are not.
neatly folded inside and what can happen in a Capricorn moon is it can become very harsh on
itself so you both have these harsh on themselves placements right I need to toughen up I need to
work harder I just need to get it together that mind then comes in and tells the moon like right
you just need to get it together you need to work harder you need to sort of tuck that away like
you just need to toughen up except that what it's hiding is the deep deep vulnerability
that the seventh house is.
The seventh house is the vulnerability of relationship, right?
And it can also be the, like,
I need to be the strong one for my partner.
But being the strong one for your partner
then denies the twin who is the soft one.
Hmm.
Right?
Then you are constantly this rock
and then the other part of you
that doesn't get to get,
all of its space, which is the tender you, which is the part of you that is deeply sensitive.
Doesn't get to have as much. And so let's talk about that's your rising sign. Cancer is ruled by
the moon. It is the feeling of our deep sensitivities. It is the feeling of our maternal instinct
cancer is often the energy of the mother. It is the energy of family and tribe and
closeness. So here's what happens. Your Capricor moon is like, yes, be the strong one.
Your cancer rising, it wants to do the caretaking, but if the story that the Gemini mind says
is the only way to caretake is to be the strong one, then the other part of you gets left
behind. And so this cancer rising says, can you be your vulnerable, sensitive self,
first for you? It's you. Every time there's a can.
cancer in the first house.
It is, can I mother myself?
Can I be the most nurturing, loving, sweet, tender,
kind self to myself?
A Capricorn Moon is another one of those placements.
It's really internally harsh.
It tells itself a lot of really rough stories
about not getting it together and not having it right.
So the cancer rising says, hey, there is a lot
a loving, gentle, maternal energy that you are being called to learn, remember, Saturn wants
your work. You are here to work on how, to let this loving, gentle, softer, receptive,
caretaking energy into yourself. You are here to be that for you. You have figured out how
to do it from the workplace for everybody else but not for you and your cancer rising says it's your
turn to lovingly mother you and when you do that then jem and i gets both sides and then everybody who
needs to see all the parts of you can see you as an integrated being and that's your sun your moon and
you're rising yeah i mean i think what's coming up for me right now is that when i first met
you I thought you were going to be able to do that for me and I think as our relationship has gone on
we've been kind of like the mirrors for each other I've been doing quite a bit of shadow work
and parts work in therapy and this feels like such an elusive like I feel like I sometimes can
grasp it and I feel it this idea of like mothering myself and loving and this
self-worth and all of that. And then sometimes it goes away and I can't grab it anymore.
It's interesting because I think I've been fighting against resending you for not being able to do it
for me. So I want to point out another thing. So you, Abby, have a one degree Venus. Venus is our
planet of love. It is our planet of nurturing. It's our planet of resource. It's also our
planet of relationships between women and it's the feminine energy and so you my dear are six months
preschool right you're six months preschool and venus is in the first house it is in the first house
so this is why you're like oh it feels elusive this part of like loving myself of like really
learning how to hold that it's because you're new at it it's a brand new assignment for
you too. And so here's what you two get to do together. You get to be great, sweet preschool
classmates. Yes. For babies. You know, who get to practice together, right? Because Lenin's role
is to be sovereign. That's that Aries son is here to be like, oh, I'm here to learn about me, right? And then
you are here to be like, oh, this other part is there's something that she can show me about that.
Okay. And so rather than me, now she won't do it for me,
let me just keep taking a clue from what she got going on over there.
Because once I get it, I'm going to get it. I can't get it, right?
And this is what I tell everyone.
The hardest lesson for a preschooler is to just sit in the seat, to just stay in the seat.
That's not just stay in the seat.
The only words tattoo I have, be still.
Be still. Be still. That's it.
And so in these new lessons, what happens is we start to feel really uncomfortable, and then our
instinct is to go to our default, right? It's really hard. I'm back in my head. It's really hard. I'm leaving
my body, right? This is, these are the two locations. Nope. The invitation is, okay, I'm going to sit on my
hands. I'm just going to feel it. Okay. I have been experiencing, like the last year, I've been experiencing
an extraordinary amount of um fascism no i mean yes but yes difficulty i'm struggling like it feels like
everything's heavier and harder and more difficult and i'm hoping that you're going to tell me that
it's going to end that part of that's going to stop soon is what i'm asking oh so here's what's
happening so the nodes which are two points on the moon and this is where the eclipse has happened
every year. Those nodes rotate about every year and a half. And the nodes represent in our charts.
The south node represents where our souls have already been, our energy has already been.
We know it. It's easy and it is comfortable. It's often our default, but it doesn't grow us.
And so part of our work in this lifetime is to shed that energy, to have less and less of it.
And then the north node is where our soul is going in this lifetime. Where is it?
trying to get to? What's the new soul lesson that is trying to meet us? The nodes in the sky
are currently, the north node is in Pisces, the south node is in Virgo, which means any places
where you have places or planets or placements in Virgo or Pisces, you will be feeling
these nodal tensions, which moved into those placements in January.
and will remain there until March, April,ish, Mayish, somewhere in there next year.
So you have Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in Virgo.
Saturn, remember, restrictions, constrictions, boundaries, barriers, tension,
until you figure out the work it wants to do.
Then you have Jupiter that makes everything bigger.
Everything feels magnified.
Everything feels intensified.
And then you have Mars, the planet of action.
of movement, acceleration, right?
They are all in the third house,
which is the house of your daily life.
It's also the house of your communication.
It is the house that Gemini governs, your son.
So you are feeling the pressure of Saturn saying,
what's the work we're asking you to do around communication?
Mars is saying, do it now.
Jupiter is saying, and it's really big
and we're intensifying it.
And then the South note is saying
whatever aspects of that
are not in alignment, we're shedding.
So where you have over-relied on perfectionism,
where you've relied on hypercritical communication,
where you have over-relied on needing to understand
all the details to feel like your mind can wrap around
it because that's how you can trust
because you can't trust the unknown.
All those places, life is like, yep,
great liquidation sale.
Got to go.
now I don't agree with a lot of the language that astrology uses
Saturn and Mars are called malefices in astrology it's awful
malevolent right but again with from an old school perspective
they're like oh these are hard which means they're bad right
as opposed to these are difficult because they're here to grow you
that's right right we can do maleficent things we can do maleficent things we can do
malefic things. But Jupiter is a benefic, meaning it gives you good things, supposedly. Really what it means
is, hey, there will be tension in this location of your chart as you are here to master something.
You are here to develop in this area and there is tension because we are upgrading you. System
upgrade, which means a whole bunch of the old ways that used to be are shedding. And so it's going to feel
that but that Jupiter Jupiter says what's the wisdom that I am being asked to bring to this part of
my chart Jupiter rules Sagittarius Sagittarius is in your sixth house which is the house of
your daily schedule your work and your health and well-being and Neptune is there in your
sixth house. And Neptune is the planet of our divine wisdom, our spiritual knowledge. Your way to
lessen this intensity is to listen at the level of spirit. That's her least favorite thing.
Of course it is. Because the mind, which is Gemini, where your son is, which is your ego, says,
I know better. And everything in your chart is saying, sorry. No, you don't. Okay. Thank you very.
much. That's helpful, very helpful, very spot on. I love you. Amanda, it's your turn. Oh, I can't wait
for Amanda's. I'm so excited. Okay, so here's what we're going to do, Pod Squad. We're going to
stop there. I feel desperate to hear Amanda's chart. Me too. And so we're going to stop here,
sit with this for a couple days. Then we're going to come back to you, and Sonia is going to begin
again with us. Read to us Amanda's chart. And then Sonia, Amanda's chart. And then Sonia, Amanda,
Amanda, Abby, and I are going to process all of this together. And then just the three of us
are going to try to process all of this together. We needed a lot of processing time.
Yes. So we're going to do that in the next episode. We are Shooketh. Let us come back together
on Thursday and dig deeper. We love you, Pod Squad. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent
production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to
stay human. And you can follow us at we can do hard things on Instagram and at we can do hard
things show on TikTok.
