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I write regularly at jessicashepherd.substack.com — soft, human words on healing, astrology & intuition:
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The Eighth House, Part 3: Finding Your Ancestral Legacy
Could our family ‘secrets’, our ancestral unfinished business, be somehow invisibly related to the issues that haunt and trouble us? Continued from Part 2: The Eighth House, Talking With the Dead Ancestral energies can get trapped in psychological 'complexes' we don't understand, and control our lives from the deeps. As said, the Eighth House is not rational, it is a water house, and the house of 'other people's stuff'. Our inheritance may be material or immaterial, from people living or dead...
Shanghai Surprise!
It’s my first visit to China, and nothing is what it seems. I am truly a fish out of water! Using astro*cart*ography*, my contemplative natal Fourth House Jupiter magically becomes a Midheaven line, and I am on several Uranus crossing (paran) lines including, Mercury/Uranus and Sun/Uranus. If having expansive Jupiter turned inside out weren't enough, Jupiter and Uranus together make for nonstop mind-blowing Shanghai surprises. I won't look hard: Shanghai is full of them. The beginning of any...
The Eighth House, Part 2: Talking With the Dead
Could our family ‘secrets’, our ancestral unfinished business, be somehow invisibly related to the issues that haunt and trouble us? Continued from Part 1: The Eighth House and The Ancestral Legacy. If the Eighth House holds our inheritances legacies & fortunes, material and immaterial, from other people, living or dead...how do we contact an ancient ancestral inheritance? Astrologically, through our Eighth House planet and ruling planet. Erin Sullivan, author of The Astrology of Family...
Diary of a Twelfth House Progressed Moon… dot dot dot
You may be wondering where I’ve been. My progressed Virgo Moon just entered my Twelfth House. Need I say more? I mean, meticulous, organization loving Virgo in the house of nebulous confusion? You can just imagine how hard it has been for me to put together a proper sentence, let alone rub two sticks together! Okay, I’m poking fun at the Twelfth House, and I’d be far more anxious if I didn’t have astrology to tell me that my sense of losing steam, eventually, will lead somewhere...even if I...
Venus in Pisces: A Subtle Enchantress
"Love is the hardest habit to break, and the most difficult to satisfy." -Drew Barrymore, Venus in Pisces "I've learned that people will forget what you've said, but they will never forget how you made them feel." "Love is like a virus, it can happen to anyone at any time." - Maya Angelou, Venus in Pisces "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anais Nin, Venus in Pisces If you were born when Venus was in the constellation of Pisces, the Fishes.. On planet Earth, we place...
Neptune in Pisces: Rediscovering A Lost World, & Neptune Transits
Most ‘Neptunians’ I've known lead unconventional lifestyles; after all, modern life generally argues with the whole "I'm living in the moment" paradigm Neptune requires. One close friend is clairvoyant, an artist (Neptune conjunct Libra rising) and a gypsy (she is also a Sagittarius Sun sign). Riding her magic carpet from house sit to house sit, she lives under the auspices of Neptune; utterly without an external security blanket, she takes her cue from the shimmering, ever-changing present...
Aries New Moon : The Alchemy in Adversity
The New Moon in Aries heralds the beginning of a brand new cycle. It’s the time of year when the Universe goads us to be more forthright, bold and honest about what we need as individuals. It's the time when, we face another fear, we take a new step forward, the Universe appreciates those efforts by rewarding us with new levels of personal empowerment, growth and strength. Sounds glamorous and exciting, right? But what most astrology books don’t tell you is that Aries bold warrior-ship, the...
RIP Elizabeth Taylor, Venus in Aries Icon
Elizabeth Taylor will be remembered. Not just because I play-act, to my husband’s chagrin, my favorite all time movie scene. It's the scene in the eery movie Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where a liquored up Martha, mimicking a Bette Davis movie, walks into her messy house, hands on hips, ciggie dangling from her downturned mouth sourly says, What a duhhmp. They just don’t make movies like this anymore, heck, they don’t make actresses like this anymore. When she made this movie a weathered...
A New Look At Chiron: A Change in Attitude
During astrology lectures, specifically the cookbook 'by planet' portion of the program, one question chiron-ically asked of the Expert is: Buuutttt, what about... Chiiironnn? Is it only me who fights the urge to ask, Would you like some cheese with that whine? Even when well-intended astrology-minded friends talk about our Chiron, we whine. Recently, a big name Astrologer complained (on a message board) that when she freely gave her money to a colleagues Paypal donation box, she expected a...
Uranus Transit Override: Chiron In Pisces Takes the Wheel
I have to get this off my chest, so get ready for a bunch of astrological jibberish followed by plain english. Uranus has entered Aries, it is now exactly opposing Pluto, within two degrees of my Mars and Sun. And I’m just not feeling it-- though I'm sure some folks out there, for example those in Libya, are. I have Uranus on my Ascendant, and I know the enlivened, exciting, restless live wire energy of this vivifying planet. When Uranus entered Aries last June (with Jupiter), I could barely...
