Random dot above where the shortcode is

It is most likely your theme or the recent posts widget you are using, doing something because they do not expect the widget to be used NOT be in a sidebar. See https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/black-dots-being-added-between-widgets/.
Any widget that generates JS is sometimes not a good candidate for being used in a shortcode.

It seems to have generated a pseudo class ‘Marker’ on the

• . There’s a bunch of js after the ‘bullet’ which has comments about adding bullets – maybe that’s doing it. Try the recent posts widget plugin – ask how tp not have those bullets?

  I also see that invalid html has been generated – li’s in a div with no UL? Maybe the PS_recent_posts widget expecting the UL to be provided by the sidebar?

  This might help but I suspect there are other problems: See https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/amr-shortcode-any-widget/#if%20you%20have%20an%20undesired%20styling%20effect%20with%20the%20default%20settings%3A, maybe try [do_widget wrap=ul]?

  There are several html validity errors which will impact SEO
  https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Ffierceandradiant.com%2Fmothers-day-2021%2F

It would be better if you could figure what & why (or get the other developers to help) this marker is being added.

Worst case & total hack, you could replace the content of the marker
https://css-tricks.com/almanac/selectors/m/marker/

Something like this seems to work when tested in “inspect element”. of course you need to tighten it just to affect that and not also any ‘bullets’ that you do want.

li::marker {
content: ” “;
}

Thank you! I’ll have to do a lot of googling to figure out what you said haha, but I appreciate having a direction to look into