MYTHOLOGY IS MEDICINE: MARIA SOUZA, COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGIST

This week on the pod, I interview comparative mythologist Maria Souza. I am in one of Maria's courses for all of 2025 and have been blown away not only by the depth of her embodied knowledge but by how resonant every single story is for the month that she is telling it. 

You can find her offerings and links to both her beautiful book of poems, Wild Daughters, and to her incredible podcast, Women and Mythology through this link. I hope you enjoy this talk. 

To book in for a chart reading and a deep experience into self-understanding through the lens of astrology, head here.

Transcript

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Hi, I am recording this intro on the morning of the Full Moon in Scorpio. It was exact just a few hours ago. So we begin this week in the full moon period, and. I really wanted to offer this interview with my mythology teacher, Maria Souza today, because I think that for me personally, mythology is incredibly medicinal, obviously, astrology as stories of the planets and the constellations. Are wrapped in mythology. So it's such a big part of being an astrologer, which is understanding or knowing about the myths, and how they bring to life, the energies, the archetypal energies of whatever it is that they're representing. It's like the evolutionary journey and the processes. Wrapped in the myths and for me personally, and I'm seeing it a lot in my extended community, mythology is something, story is something that's really coming to the foreground right now, which makes sense. You know, in a time where it feels as though everything is getting more surface level and digitized. Now is the time to. Grab a hold of these juicy oral traditions and learnings and wisdoms that have been passed down for a long, long time. Maria Susa is Brazilian. She's a comparative mythologist, she has an incredible, incredible podcast called Women and Mythology. That's also the name of her website. I'll link everything below. And she really has a specific interest on the feminine in myths. I'm in a year long container with her where each month she speaks to a different myth and then goes through this incredible process of decoding their a amazing. Symbols. I've never heard somebody, speak to symbols in such a rich way. I, I highly recommend her work. I think because mythology, the goddesses, in astrology, a lot of these asteroids, because they're really coming to the foreground, at least in the. Bubble that I live in, I think it's really worth learning from people who know deeply what they're talking about because the richness that you get, like the richness that I receive from learning from Maria far outweighs anything that I could read on the internet. So yeah, I'm gonna pass over this conversation to. With myself and Maria, I hope you enjoy and I hope you have a really beautiful week. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. It's so nice to see you again. I saw Maria just two days ago. She was hosting, her class on the Lindworm, which was amazing. I, I had never heard that story. And as I was saying to you on email, it's so wild to me how resonant all of these stories are. Each month at the time that you're telling them, it's like they just unfold or they're already unfolding in my life. I have Maria's chart here and me being me, I'm gonna jump all around the place, but, As I was looking at this stunning chart, Maria has this beautiful tourist sun in the 12th house, which is Maria, the realm of Pisces, the imagination, the collective unconscious, everything beyond time and space. And then. Your Moon is up here in the ninth house in Pisces. So it's this, the ninth house being this territory, this natural territory of Sagittarius. It's the seeker. It seeks this higher understanding of existence, essentially. It's like, why am I here? What is this place? So this dabble up of Ian Energy or 12th House energy is just incredible to see. As I was preparing for this interview, I was so interested in this idea of initiation. But when I saw your chart, I really was like, oh, I want to speak about, the initiation that I think we have to go through. Numerous times to reclaim our intuitive abilities. And the reason that I'm saying that is because you, you are so strong in these, gifts. Have you always felt intuitive? I do. Well, thank you for asking that. Thank you for inviting me here. Very excited. Um, if I've always felt intuitive, no. And yes. You know, I think since early on I always felt a voice, a pool. I was always a very independent girl, and my mother was very busy. Um, of course there are things that come from that that are not perhaps the best, but there were gifts as well from this. There were gifts as. Learning to stand in my own two feet within her boundaries of protection, but learning to stand in my own two feet very young. And that meaning making decisions for myself very young. And I think intuition is very much connected with that because when we are at thresholds in our lives, and these could be simple decisions or bigger threshold decisions, but when we are making decisions. Intuition is a powerful tool, right? If we make them from this intuitive place, and I think I've made. When I was younger, I wouldn't name it as intuition. It's actually seemed very much as, um, adolescent rebellion, kind of, you know, contradicting everyone around, um, or making decisions that I wasn't even able to fully explain them at the time. But then slowly, even as I found my work with Myth, I was then able to name this name. This, these decisions, this calling, this following from a deeper place and say, no, this was me trying to find myself, trying to find meaning in my life. Trying to pursue something deeper, something that pulsed within me. Hmm. And how did you, uh, find myth? Myth? Was that something that was in your household? No, not really, not myth. Um, I, I definitely grew up with fairytales, so that's, that was in my house, especially the princess fairytales. Mm-hmm. That whole universe and imagination and dress up and just really living that, that was definitely in my house. Welcomed, encouraged even, you know, birthday parties had princess themes and all of it, but then. I studied history and in my study of history. Then I got familiar with Greek mythology and other mythologies very much from a, a historian perspective. So really the study of ancient societies and all I. And then later as I did my master's, I studied with Mythologist Martin Shaw in the uk, and it was there that I understood how myth could be applied for contemporary life. Mm-hmm. Between my undergraduate studies and my master's. I worked with indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon, and there as well, I saw myth, but I saw it again from this very historian perspective. You know, how it's applied to indigenous societies, how it regulates their life, but still there was a huge gap between myth. Our contemporary, real modern, urban jungle kind of life. And it was Martin Shaw that made that jump, that made that bridge for me. And that was, I think, the first, not the fir, not the first seed, but like a, an important moment of grounding for me. Yeah. After you mentioned him again this weekend, I, I looked him up. I love what you said as well in class, but in the, the lineage of myth. We always acknowledge our teachers, and I was looking at the. These four day wilderness, experiences that he hosts for all these different ranges. And I mean, I'd love to go to one, but I was also thinking'cause he has them for younger, adults as well. It's like the sort of experience that I'd love to send my son to when he's of age as well. Because I think this sort of, this, the storytelling. Uh, in sort of as you're saying, the storytelling in modern society comes through movies or it comes through books, but this lived, uh, magical experience seems to be, I don't know when I, yeah. It was just so beautiful to see that that's still alive, that kind of experience of sitting in story have you been to any of his, real experience, experiential, things? Yes. Actually in, mm-hmm. Where I, I did my masters, I did before a one year course and on Indigenous Knowledge, and he was actually, um, one of the key teachers there. Mm-hmm. He would come and tell us stories and mets and propose reflections and then ask us to go out into the woods like we were in the UK and the South mm-hmm. Of Devon, and ask us to go out. And exp do different practices at some point later in the year after com, like almost completing the whole journey, he, um, held a vigil for us in which we spent the whole night out in the forest, no shelter, just us in the forest awake. Participating in nature and vigilant, and then we had to return and tell a story. You know, the whole thing was very wild, very beautiful. Um, I absolutely loved it. Mm. There's something that you mentioned, and I, uh, and I think I have an understanding of it, but I, I'd love to hear it from your perspective where you talk about the, decolonization or the decolonizing of. The mind, could you explain what that is and how myth can assist us in that process? Yes, of course. I love that you brought that up. So our minds as women is highly colonized, and what I mean by that is we have these ideas for ourselves that were imposed to us. So this might be. You need to have a baby by this age. You need to marry, um, you need to work with a certain field. You need to look a certain way. You need to dress a certain way. Your house needs to be, you know, in this form, your body needs to perform in this way. And it look a certain way, a standard. There are all these very calcified ideas, colonized ideas in our mind. Myth and the kind of myths that I work with at Women in Mythology, they are very wild. They're the soul of the myth is wild. Women are shape shifting into leopards. Men are moving from huge serpents, you know, into ordinary men, and there's just these wild things taking place. Once we start taking in these myths, they start opening space. And that's why I always ask my participants to just enjoy the story, be playful with the story, take it in, don't analyze it, you know, at first just take in these images. Because when we start in our real physical world, there is no woman turning into leopard, but. Emotionally and psychically, you know, like in a, in this, in the emotional realm, in the imaginal realm. As we enter a conversation with our boss or maybe confront our partner or claim the space for our work, we are turning into leopards. So it's when we start taking these mythic images in our psyche starts opening space and just like a woman turning into leopards, something that seemed impossible now is possible, let's say leaving your career to pursue that wild dream. It's suddenly possible too. It is open spaces in our minds for the impossible so we can start hosting more un colonized ideas of us. Mm-hmm. We start dismantling that one way we were given. Does that make sense for you? Totally. And I, I think two things that stand out, uh, one, the story of the frog prints, uh, which I. Mentioned here on the podcast that I'd learned from you at the beginning of airy season. Um, and in Maria's, I think, as I said on the podcast, like Maria's, uh, told us that the. The modern version of this story is where the princess has to kiss the prince, but it's in this, in its original form, in its ancient form, where she hurls the, the gross frog against the wall, and, and it's, and what breaks. His curse is this real expression of emotion and it's just so wild, even to look at the colon colonization of the mind through story. In a, in the modern context of that versus the, the raw form of like being true and being, uh, honest. It's, it's so wild. It is, right? Because the first, the ancestral version in which she throws, she's filled with the disgust for the frog throughout the story. She comes to this climax point that she can just not handle that discuss anymore, and she has an authentic reaction to it. An authentic action towards the frog, right? Which in this case is throwing it against the wall and then in the modification she needs to kiss it even though she, she doesn't feel like it. She does not have any inclination of engagement with that frog would be a very un inauthentic. Reaction to, to herself. So what have we've been learning, right? And what are we teaching as well, our daughters and, and women around us? Hmm. Yeah, it's, it's wild. And then the other piece I think is, which we touched on this weekend, is. The idea of the old crone or the wise woman. Uh, and it's just so interesting as you were talking to contemplate how much the wise woman or the older. Yeah, the, the, the woman of wisdom has become disneyfied into this huge nosed with warts, um, terrifying ugly spinster who like wants to eat children versus being, uh, the, this stronghold of wisdom and, and is in deep relationship to. The wild and the wise. It's, it's so, it's so wild how insidious that corruption is.'cause I, I think that's something that so many of us experience, either this fear of aging or the embarrassment of aging. Uh, and this just real disconnection. I know for myself, it's like even just that feeling of like, ugh, like the. Which was implemented so early. It's, it's just in it's wild how that happens. Transforming right age into uselessness. Mm-hmm. The indigenous societies and myth. Ancient ancestral wild myths would teach us that no, these ancient women, these elders, you know, these wise women, they have so much to teach, to guide. They are allies. They are a true ally in your path, and as you said, it was transformed. Right now we feel it's persecutor. Is the one that comes to maybe, um, jeopardize your journey. It's something you don't want to, to come close to. And, uh, we even had a participant right in the session, in the class that was like, oh, I, I, I did not like that old woman. Why? Why would the, the queen trust her? And it's been, it's been modified so deeply, especially in mainstream, I would say, people who studied or received more. Wild myths from the land, oral tales, you know, maybe even from their grandmothers from the wild woman. From the ancient women, they would have more stories in their repertoire, in their psyche, um, of this wise woman, of this witch. And of course it's being reclaimed in our society, but still mainstream. It's something very, very negative. Hmm. And I see it, for example, with my daughter. There are still stories in which a witch appears because it's also important to teach young girls and ourselves as well as women that there are, you know, these persecutor right in, in our, in our world, however, and in our psyche too, but however, there are the allies. So now when a, a witch appears in a movie, I always tell her, oh, this is a good witch or a bad witch. She's still two and a half years old, so I can go much deeper than that. But we start, and it's funny how my husband on the other hand, he's like, oh, witch ha. And I'm like, no, no, no. Wait. Is this a good witch or a bad witch? And we start to go a little bit deeper, you know, to understand that there are layers within the archetype. That there are other facets to this wise woman. Yeah. And that's, I, I loved how you spoke to it. It's about our own intuition and our capacity to discern who is this in front of me? Um, what is the read that I'm receiving on that? Is that something, because your chart's so beautiful, it's like your, uh, with this beautiful Gemini ascendant, it means that the ruler of your chart is mercury, which is so interesting because. Part of your work is as storyteller and then the analysis and, and, uh, the exploration of story and. Your Mercury is here at seven degrees of Taurus, which is really funny because, just half an hour before we started our call, it was the new moon. And the both the sun and the moon were exactly on your mercury, which is just funny timing. Was the role of storyteller something that you felt comfortable in inhabiting. It was actually as a part of my work, perhaps the most difficult for me to claim to step into, to be comfortable with, um, to also in some ways explain it to people. Um, but because I witnessed the work of Martin Shaw and it's done so much magic, so much healing, so much allure to me. I knew it was a piece of my work that I was not the kind of teacher that wanted to send the text of the story and then just discuss it with the group. I knew that storytelling needed to be a part because I believe in the magic of storytelling, in the medicine of storytelling, in the power of an oral tale, and. This an an oral tale. I really mean telling it in the moment as the kind of live story dances around you, you tell it from this ancient wild place as storytellers. So for me it was really a bit, a big, uh, a, a big challenge to polish my storytelling skills is something I do every day. Every time I tell a story, you know, every work it's. It's a work in progress. Um, but it, it was something I, I had to claim it. Hmm. Well, you're, I mean, you're very good at it. Uh, it's interesting too because it is here in the, in the 11th house, so it's like the voice in the community or the, the speaker for the group, which is interesting. But then because it's in Taurus, it's like, yeah. Just exactly as you're explaining there, it's, it's, IM. Being embodied in, in what you are saying versus, you know, like sending out the text. It's wanting to be there. Yeah. Transmitting the experience almost like from the inside out. Did you ever have any imaginary friends or, visit visitors when you were little? Just because you've got so much of this 12th house and pisc and energy. I don't remember a specific imaginary friends, like we see it in the movies, you know, with children having naming them. But I remember loving to play with my imagination. Hmm. So like entire gardens and then fairies, and then Imagine Castles. I loved that. That was always something me and my sister, we would do. Yeah, it's interesting'cause even on your midheaven, which begins one of these like work areas, it is, Pisces. So it's, it's being able to translate the ephemeral or, or translate things that are more liminal. And I guess in, in a way that's partly what mythology is.'cause it's. Yeah, I think I, I'd love to hear your take, but to me it feels like it's not just a story, it's an experience. Like it's experiential almost. Even though you're not, even though you're not doing the, I don't know, it, it's strange. It's not just myth isn't narrative. It feels so much more, more than that. Um, more, yeah, there's, there's something intangible about it, at least my POV. Yes, absolutely. I feel it's very experiential. I think it's a very embodied experience as well. It, it has many layers to it. Mm-hmm. Because you bring the imaginal world and you are as, let's say I'm telling the story at Woman In Mythology, you are imagining the tale, right? You're seeing things in your own, which is very powerful and very special. And then there is the emotional realm that comes from it. So the story, as it's stalled, it's stalled with different climax, with different details. So hopefully women are embodying the tale and then having different emotions from it as well. And we have that moment in the session, which is to reflect on our emotions, reflect on the images that came forward before we go into the interpretation, the commentary on the tail that has so much of the symbolism, the archetypes, the motives, and the reflection questions. So I think there are different. Layers and different threads we weave in with the work of meth, and hopefully women also are carrying the tail as we finish the session. I think for me, that's one of my biggest hopes. It's not really for a woman to understand the whole story from beginning to end. Every motive, every pattern and archetype or symbol is just, which is the moment that stayed with you, which is the insight that comes from that, or which is the image. Um, that, you know, comes close to your heart or the moment in the story you see yourself at. And can that stay with you? Mm-hmm. Because it'll slowly unfold and slowly open itself within you. Mm-hmm. Definitely, uh, yeah, you have this beautiful opposition as well between Taurus, where your son and your Mercury are, and then Scorpio, where you have Pluto and Lilith, uh, which is so interesting to me. It's here, the Scorpio's in the fifth house. So this is such an interesting opposition. And there's so, there's always so much medicine in the opposing sign. Uh. In, in our charts. Uh, it's interesting'cause even your nodal axis is this opposition between the second house, the natural territory of, uh, Taurus into the eighth house, the natural territory of Scorpio. So it's this, it's this, yeah. They're, they're these two strong archetypes and. How do you experience that? And I'll explain it'cause I'm just being very astrological with the to energy. Yeah, there's this desire, because it's the earth version of Venus. It, it kind of wants to know what the lay of the land is. There's, there's a sense of security that comes from understanding, okay, I have shelter, we have acorn stored away. Like I know what the terrain is. And then the scorpion element is more like. Burn down everything. And you just need yourself, like we can walk through the fire. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but that's just an interesting, almost like, yeah. Not push pull, but this, these opposing forces. And for you, it actually happens on this very creative axis. This is called the axis of individuation, the 11th to the fifth house. So it's like bringing that magic into, your self-expression, the story world, I guess. And, uh, but do, do you feel that? That opposition or does it feel like you are friends with both of those aspects? Jules, this is actually brought a little tear to my eye. Oh. Um, well first let me just say, I never looked into Scorpio. Okay. I don't have anyone around me that's a Scorpio. It's just, it never came up. I was, one of my questions was going to be, can you tell me more about Scorpio? And then you just said about this fire, this burning down, this letting go, and, uh. How do I feel about this tension? It's definitely, there's this Taurus energy to me that I love routine. I love stability. I love making a home. Um, I love the, the security of it all. My husband is a very solid man and. He provides for our family. He's just someone I know I can rely on and I love that about him. Like I think it's one of the reasons I fell in love with him and we are really building our family life like this. But we've moved, well, I've moved five different countries bef like I'm, I think I met him on the third one I was at, and we've moved together two, three times more. And at every place, even here in Australia, we've moved about a year and a half ago, we already moved to houses. Once I have someone who I'm good with moving, I am good with letting things go. And even friends from different places they might speak of that, you know, and. So, for example, when I was moving from China, after living five years there in Shanghai, we had strong roots in China. You know, I developed so much of women and mythology there. I've, China works in a different bubble than the world. It's like we have different up social media platforms. For example, WeChat instead of WhatsApp, you know, the Little Red book instead of Instagram and TikTok and stuff. So everything is different. When we decided that we wanted to move China, I said, okay, pack up the house. Actually, he did it because I was in Brazil, pack up the house, and I just send a message to my participants there and I said, this is, I'm transitioning to other platforms outside of China. This account is being turned off. And that was it. There was this fire of transformation, this walking through it. And I remember some friends telling me like, I cannot believe you just did that. You did it with so much ease. And I was like, it's impossible for me to manage both platforms, manage both communities. I want my Chinese community to come to this new one, but I just can't do both. So there was this, there is this fire and, and feeling comfortable letting go of things, you know. Closing down a house and building a new one, um, going somewhere new. So I feel maybe it appears like that for me. Totally. Definitely. That's so interesting. I think as well, it's like, because there's this, there's so much power here in the Scorpio, uh, Pluto to me is, is our personal power. It's like the, the force of our. Being is, is the best way I can explain it. And here it's sitting right next to Lilith. And I'm sure you know the story of Lilith. So it's like there's astrologically. What it symbolizes is, uh, an an aspect of our either personality or psyche that we've learned early on to sort of, uh, keep hidden almost. Uh, and, and so much of. Our astrology, at least from an evolutionary astrologist, um, point of view is a reclamation of the aspects of the self. And, but it's interesting because this is exactly opposite your son. So you're, you've been in a very dynamic relationship with this, the force of your personality, the, the capacity to. Essentially like walk into your own underworlds and the, the, the heights of the self as well, and know these parts of you, like navigate these parts of you, which is a very powerful thing for a, I think, a tourist to have, because I. Essentially, it just feels like, yeah, you've as, and as you've explained, like you've, you've walked through the fire numerous times, so it's like you have, you know, that you have your own back, like you practically have shown yourself that. Um, but it just, you know, it, it also just, there's this so much force in your son, your personality. Um, we could almost say like how your. Seen in the world, like the energy that you carry in your person is in this strong relationship to your, your force. Like, um, yeah, that's funny. Even just with the Lilith and, and your work being women in mythology, your brilliant podcast and all the work that you do, it's like allowing women to reclaim their relationship with, uh. Their, their hidden parts and therefore that's so, that's so funny. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that because it is, uh, and the image of the podcast is the woman with a snake. Mm-hmm. Very lily. You know, it's very, um, yeah, definitely. Transformation is a big word. Burning is a big word. Um, and to be truth, like I started looking into my chart or doing things like that. Recently in the last few years, I would say my first, I remember my first great big rating was actually when I was in China, so couldn't be more than five years ago. And. It was so funny how suddenly I could explain different things that I would never be able to explain, or it just, it mirrored so much of, of who I am and who I'm becoming, and it feels like once we are in the right path for us. Things open up, you know, the universe conspires. And I feel a little bit of that with women in mythology. The more I claim this work because it's so aligned with what I believe and what I love in life, um, and maybe what I'm meant to do as well. Just things flow in a different, in the different way. Yeah, I, I, it certainly feels like that just seeing your child and, and I think it's an incredible time that we're in because more and more people, at least from what I'm seeing, so many more people in my community and extended community are really beginning to become interested in. Goddesses, uh, yeah. Stories. So many of these different stories, like with this, uh, recent Venus retrograde, a lot of people started talking about the descent of Anana. I think mythology is something that is really, uh. Yeah. Being reanimated, uh, at least, you know, again, in the wider community that I'm seeing. So it's, it's just, I, it just feels like you're right on time. Um, for, I, I teach a course, uh, with on intuition and in that course I. Spoke about one time where I was, uh, really needing some guidance and I was reading Women Who Run With the Wolves at the time, and I read the chapter of Blue Beard, uh, and then I went to meet this guy. It's always a guy and I. And I just said like, I need very clear guidance. Is this a terrible idea or should I go here? And there was already a lot of history between us. I showed up. And the first thing that this guy said was, I just tried to dye my beard blue. Uh, and run. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. Did I run? No, it was the biggest slap in like it was the biggest like. Shaked and like shaked down. And for whatever reason, I, I over overwrote it and it, and it was the catalyst for a lot of intense things that happened in my life. But, uh, it, it was just, it was so literal, uh, and I think, yeah, again, seeing the, the beauty of your chart, which is so high in, uh, I would say clear sentience. You know, this ability to really, uh, empathize and feel what other people are feeling at, at a very deep level. Um, but with, with your intuitive self or in terms of guiding other people, how can myth aid us with that in that, that reclamation or self-development of our own very natural, intuitive gifts? So you mentioned women who run with the Wolves, and in chapter three, I believe in the story of va Clarissa Les, as she says. Intuition is the deep soul voice. It what leads to the less fragmenting of the psyche, and we could see psyche a soul. So the least fragmenting thing of the soul. I love that. I feel that that's such a, a great definition for intuition. The least fragmenting, um, move for the soul. Sometimes this could look like fragmenting everything in our outer life. Fragmenting a relationship, fragmenting a moral, you know, way of looking at life, a way of behavior. So the soul remains integrated or as much as possible, or sometimes that actually can be. And I think that's when you see that you're building that life that is aligned with your true self is when your intuition is not fragmenting the soul, but also not even fragmenting your life. It feels like things are already more. Harmonious. You know, they're more aligned and integrated in many ways. And the story of Vais is a great story for a woman who wants to practice reconnect with the intuition, because intuition for a woman is never lost, never, never, and never lost. It's just we need to, we could even think of it as a muscle. It just. Maybe if it's not developed, if there is not a connection, if it's not being heard and followed through, it will atrophy a little bit. So it's about developing it again, and how we developed connection with the intuition is by honoring it. We honor by taking action so you hear whatever the intuition says, you need to take action, you need to follow through. ES also says, for what good is a voice, if there's no ear to listen. We need to listen and then honor by acting. So if it says. Run The beard is blue, we run, and it is by acting, by running that, that muscle will get stronger. That voice will get stronger and better. You'll get more experience listening to the voice in the beginning. For women who are not very connected to their intuition or don't haven't been following, you know, they, they eat according to a diet, A nutritionist cave. Which is fine to a certain degree. Um, they, they take the roads that ways recommend, you know, they dress what they see on Pinterest. They live their lives. They make the choices of their careers according to the, the, I don't know, the trends of the market and what their parents told them to do. They've been le leaving, leaving life like this. They might not have experience with intuition. And the way to do it is ask simple questions, open the fridge. What does my intuition, what does my body wants me to eat now? You know, not because it's this time and I need to eat that, or I'm move, moved out of anxiety and I'm gonna devour the ice cream pot. What does my intuition wants from me? Listen to that. Follow and in following, you will recognize if that was the intuition or no, that was an anxiety voice. You know, and you're calling it the intuition. Ask yourself, does my, my body wants rest or wants movement right now? Does it want to read a book or does it want to meditate? These are all medicine for us, but what kind of medicine we need? Ask your intuition and depending on what it comes. Um, and acting upon it, you'll start building that relationship and seeing, okay, this was intuition or, no, there's a felt experience after following intuition. But it's hard to explain. It's different for every woman, but it's kind of, it's always there. The story is a great one, so it's available on the podcast and a little bit deeper in my program, the Wolf Strip, for those who are interested. Hmm. Yeah, I saw that. Um, that's available. That looks so incredible. That course. Uh, yeah, that's, that's so interesting. And, and I think as well, I, um, yeah, I agree. It's so much to do with the action and then again, it's like showing ourselves that we. Our listening and we have our own back really begins to, I don't know, grow that relationship with that aspect of our psyche. I, I think something that's coming up for a lot of my clients at the moment and, and myself as well, is we, we've had so much happening this year so far around really acknowledging more and more of our desires and our wants and our needs, and. For me personally, now it's, I've had this realization and it is a, it is a, the thing that I'm wanting to do will be disruptive to some people in my life, but to not do that thing would be just deadening myself. And I think that's something that we don't often hear much about is like the. The, I guess it's the, the boldness or the, the courage to, to move our life towards, uh, those choices, um, is a strong one. It's interesting that myth makes that very clear, right? Because myth amplify our lives. You know, maybe a small thing in our outer real life feels small. If you mention or if you think like, oh, I can just skip this. But in myth, this would be seen as a huge moment, you know, a huge threshold or should I go this way or that way? And that will change the trajectory of your life and the story depending on the way you go or the action you take or don't take. So that's also the power of myth. It's, it doesn't. Diminishes the little things of your life. It actually amplifies suddenly, let's say, a conversation with a boss or a conversation with your partner to adjust the relationship. It's like slaying a dragon. Mm-hmm. And it needs to happen and it needs to be there. It's this huge mm, something that comes up on, on front of your path and you need to, in a myth to go through it, you need to face it. In life. Sometimes we feel like, oh, I can just, you know, go to sleep and don't mention it. Don't look at it, don't do it in methanol. It makes it visible. It makes it seen, it brings it to consciousness, and once something is conscious for us, then we can take action. It's so much easier to go to sleep and forget when, you know, we don't, we don't name it, we don't acknowledge. Mm-hmm. Myth helps us acknowledge. Yeah, I, I definitely can see how for myself, journeying with you this year and being forced stories in, I think that's what's certainly helped me to identify, to use your word, this is a threshold moment. Um, it, it does, yeah. It just, as you said, it just makes it more obvious, whereas I think we live in a time where distraction is so, uh, easy and seductive and. I dunno. It can just, it can water down our lives. Or like you said, it's like the, the interior or clothes choices come from Pinterest or this comes from that. It's like how do we, what are the things that we can each do individually to honor the self and the, the individuation process of the self. Um, are there any parts of your chart that you'd like me to speak to or any questions that, other questions that you have about your chart? Um, how about the moon and Gemini? You know, it's funny'cause I, I mentioned to you, no one ever mentioned to me Scorpio, or if they did in an astrological charts. I think sometimes a lot is given and I probably was overwhelmed and, and couldn't register that. Mm-hmm. But every time that I had this feeling of move, because I know the solidity of Taurus and I feel it in my everyday life, I feel it in my body, in my choices, in the way I experience pleasure as well. The things that make me, you know, joyful. Um, and then I always, I blamed, but I always placed in Gemini, no. Is it in Gemini? Yeah. I think my moon is in Gemini, right? It it's up here in Pisces. Ah, okay. And then my, and then your ascendant is Gemini, which is huge. Yeah. My ascendant in Gemini. I always kind of put it in Gemini. This idea of like, oh, I can move countries easily. I do have this stance. Mm-hmm. I built a business that it's online, you know, women in mythology, and I always turn to my partner. His career is very important to him. I. And he works kind of globally, Asia Pacific especially. And I always tell him like, if you wanna move now, the kids are a thing, but we need to figure it out for them. But it's like, I'm good to go, you know? We can do it. We moved to China, we've moved to Thailand, we moved to Australia. We can do another country. We can go somewhere new. I'm easy to adapt. I always put it in Gemini. Would you have any thoughts on, on Gemini? It's especially, yes. Yeah, so the, it's interesting because your son and your Mercury being in Taurus, that's a fixed sign. So it's, it's more like this is, the fixed signs are the middle months of each season, so we're. Fully in the embrace of that season, and it's all we can experience. Whereas the mutable signs, which is Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces are when we're at the end of a season and the the next one is beginning. So there's more of this mutability and adaptability. We're kind of in between worlds and yeah, you've got the Gemini ascendant and then your, I see this deep point down here at the bottom of your chart. Which is like your inner world is in Virgo, and then the moon is up here in, in, uh, Pisces. So there's so much adaptability specifically around home, which is also the ic, the the fourth house, which is like the domestic landscape. Um, so yeah, it's a really interesting combination. Even your son being in the 12th house, there is a mu mutable element to that. Well, almost like a chameleon element to that. Um, and I'd say that Pisces, where your moon is and the Gemini ascendant, they're the two chameleons of the chart. Uh, so it is that to, I always just think of about it as like, it's like you could be dropped behind enemy lines and you would pick up the parlance of the group. You'd probably pick up the language. Um, the. Mirroring the body language, all of that so easily. Like there's a, there's just this ability to basically devour the environment or, or to consume the environment and become what's needed, like take what's needed, um, for the self. But yeah, it's highly adaptive and, and having that Gemini ascendant, it also then has, it's like adaptive intellectually as well. Um, I am, I imagine that, uh. For you. I mean, you've just, you've just got a really high intellect in this chart and there's that ability to really take in and discern, um, uh, ideas, uh, everything as well. I. Thank you for sharing all of this. I really resonate with this adaptability. Um, before moving to China, Thailand, and the uk I, as I mentioned, I worked with indigenous people in the Amazon and I was there living in a tribe sleeping in a hammock using the bathroom. That was the forest. Literally the forest, no nothing. And you know, just bathing in the lake. And then at the same, then before I went to Botswana, in which I did an internship for a year as well with the rural community. So it was another living with the land experience. And it's so funny because. I love my life, you know, with like a nice little study room and a nice things. But once I was there I was fine too. I loved it. I, I gained so much from it. I experienced so much. I had really blissful moment. It was just so magical. And I was fine living in that environment. I didn't feel much lack, you know, it's not, people always said, what did you miss the most? And I was like. I don't know, like I don't, I don't have that, what I miss the most. Once you're there. I completely adapted to it and yeah. That's very interesting that it shows up in the chart. Thank you for sharing. My pleasure. Yeah. I think as well, like the ninth house where your moon and your Mars are, is, uh, part of how it seeks meaning is through, it's so experiential, but it's also, it is travel. Um, so that's, that's interesting that the ability to adapt, uh, based on location as well. Uh, thank you. Yeah. All of your work is, will be linked in the show notes before, but, uh, what do you have, uh, coming up or that you would point people towards? Uh, now? Well, I'm developing a new program that's called The Sovereignty of Women's Soul. It's probably only gonna come out next year in 2026, but I think that will be almost like a flagship course. It's what I want to do and maybe turn it into a book later. I wanna bring myths that are not very. Popular out there because there's so many gifts in VASIs Blue Beard, you know, the Snow White and all of these other stories. But they are known. There are so many incredible storytellers, um, psychologists, also young in psychologists working with these tales because of these experiences in different places around the world and with different lands, I would love to bring more uncommon myths and. So I'm developing around that right now. So I think for the future, that's something to look for. Come follow me on Instagram, sign up for the newsletter. So when things start coming out, you'll see the second season of the podcast will also come out soon, um, which I will interview different mythologist and people who work with myths. Cool. And then also, of course, if you wanna join something, now you can come for a year of myths in which you have a monthly. Uh, story and you can access the recordings of the past months and then join live for the future ones or the recorded courses that I have available. So there are many. There is Wolf's Tribe on Woman Who Run with the Wolf. The heroine's journey, um, on integrating masculine and feminine there are is reclaiming Eve in the creation myth. The Christian creation myth and c Eve from a different perspective and a few others. So plenty of offerings to engage with women in mythology, and I hope some of your astrology students come and join us. I'm sure they, they definitely think they will. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's, yeah, your work is just brilliant and I can just highly recommend, uh, you and your work. It's just so. Legit. That sounds incr. I'm definitely signing up for, uh, the Sovereign Woman. That sounds unbelievable. Thank you so much, Maria. I really appreciate your time and everything that you've shared with us today. I hope you have a beautiful week. Thank you so much, Jules. This was incredible. I loved seeing the chart. I love your insights and the conversation. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you. Thanks so much. That was gorgeous.