Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I’m your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I’m an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I’m going to give you your weekly horoscope and no bullshit, mystical advice for living your very best life.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast, the podcast where I tell you I love you over and over again, and I fucking mean it. So this week let me tell you a little something about your birth chart. I get a lot of questions from a lot of you asking me why your birth chart looks a particular way, so I actually want to start with individuality and the birth chart. 

So as an astrologer, because I’ve been looking at charts for so many years, I have actually never seen a chart that shocked me. I have never seen a chart that I was like, “OMG, that’s fucked up. You can’t recover from that,” or like, “Oh, wow. I can’t believe that’s real.” Because, really, we are working with 12 zodiac signs. I work with 10 planets. I work with a fixed amount of aspects and aspect configurations. So there’s only so many variations of the human birth chart. That’s it. That’s it. 

And I don’t say this to minimize your specialness because I know I am damn special and so are you. But it is to say that we are not as different as we often think we are—we’re really not. To me, that’s actually really cool because we have our individuality, but also the feeling of loneliness that you have is shared by millions and billions of people. And the feeling of—basically, every fucking feeling you have is shared by millions and billions of people. Even though for everyone who has Pluto in their chart, which is everyone, but those of us who have Pluto that is harshly aspected, we feel like we’re the only ones who feel a particular way, and we feel like we’re the only ones who’ve had a particular life experience. That’s very common of Pluto issues and sometimes Neptune issues. 

So I want to just acknowledge that there’s something really gorgeous about astrology in that it both highlights how we are unique and how we are the same. And when you send me questions asking me like, “Well, why do I have this aspect in my chart?” or “Why is everything on one side of my chart?” on kind of a human level, the answer is because that’s who are you. That just describes this life you’ve come into and the set of circumstances that are your set of circumstances. And the question—the better question for you to be asking me is what can I do with this? What is it that I could do to leverage the best of myself and the best of my ability? Because that’s really what it’s about. So all of this to say, our charts are unique to us and also our charts unify us—they kind of reflect how we are all so much the same. 

Now, there is something in astrology called aspect configurations. Now, aspect configurations are the particular way that simple aspects, like the conjunction or the square or the trine, you have multiple planets kind of like being aspects on aspects. And they form these really interesting shapes on the inside of our chart. If you’ve ever seen an astrological wheel from a Western astrology chart, you can see that there’s a bunch of lines forming shapes on the inside of that chart. That is your aspects.

Okay. So I want to talk to you first and foremost about this particular aspect configuration that you guys send me tons of questions about, but I don’t work with, and that is called a yod. That’s right, a yod. Yods are also referred to as the finger of God or finger or fate. And I think that when people see that they have the yod in their birth chart or the finger of God in their birth chart, they kind of freak out, and they’re like, “OMG, what does it mean? What does it mean?” Because doesn’t everyone kind of want to get fingered by God? Or if you don’t really want to get fingered by God, it’s like, well, is that just something I’m stuck with? Nobody knows. 

So let me tell you why I don’t work with the yod. I don’t work with yods because I don’t work with quincunxes. So, basically, in order to have a yod in your birth chart, you need to have two or more planets involved in a sextile. And then those planets who are sextile to each other need to both independently form a quincunx, which is a 150-degree angle to yet a third planet, okay. So you can have, let’s say, Uranus sextile to Mercury, and both Uranus and Mercury independently form a quincunx to the Sun, that would be a finger of God or a yod. And I don’t work with it. And you guys send me—literally, all the live long day I get questions about yods. I don’t work with it. But there this an astrologer who’s my absolute favorite astrologer, her name is Karen Hamaker Zondag, and she has a book, I believe it is aptly called The Yod, so you can go ahead and buy that and study yods. It’s really—she’s great. I trust her, even though I don’t work with that particular aspect, so I haven’t read that particular book. 

And if you’re going to buy an astrology book, which I strongly encourage you to do, shop small, shop local. There’s lots of places where you can go ahead and order from your independent local bookstore. I encourage you to do so. Will it take a couple extra days for your book to come to you? Maybe. Is it worth it? Totally.

Okay. So that’s the damn yod. Next, let me tell you a little something about the grand trine. The grand trine is really a desirable fucking aspect configuration. It is. It’s lovely. So when you have a grand trine in your birth chart, that means you have three planets that are all in the same element. So three earth planets, three air planets, three water planets, or three fire planets that form 120-degree angle to each other. Okay. And that’s the key here—it’s not just that they’re in the same sign; they have to be within 120 degrees of each other, all three of them. So they are all trining each other. 

So when we’re looking at birth chart configurations, we are working within a seven-degree orb. A seven-degree orb. Now different astrologers might do it differently. This is one of the many things within astrology where you need to figure out what is right for you. And that might mean by listening to a teacher or a mentor that you are confident in and just kind of doing what they say. Or if you have a different kind of brain, then going ahead and doing your own research to see what feels right to you. But if you just want to be told what to do, I’m telling you it’s a seven-degree orb within the natal chart, within the birth chart. 

So basically, what you want to do is look at planets within all of the same elements, and if they form within a seven-degree orb a trine to each other, then you have a grand trine. And what this means is that you have this very organic, benefic flow of energy in your life where you have the grand trine. 

Now the positive, wonderful thing about a grand trine is that things just flow for you in this area. It just kind of happens. You don’t have to necessarily bust your butt to make something happen. But when you do work really hard to make something happen, it actually kind of flows. It’s pretty organic, and things work well. So where we have a grand trine, we tend to have success when we put in the effort. And when we don’t put in the effort, we still have kind of a pleasant time or a pleasant experience. 

Now, I want to be really clear—that doesn’t mean you have no hardship or pain. The downside of the grand trine is we take for granted that these things are easy for us and that they should be easy for us. So when we have a difficult or trying transit to any of the planets that are involved in that grand trine, it can be like, “Holy shit. I have no resources. I have no idea how to cope with this difficult thing because this is never difficult for me. Why is this difficult for me? Yikes!” That’s how it feels, see. 

The other thing about the grand trine that can be negative, and this does depend on the planets involved and the sign that they’re in and yada, yada, is that we can just kind of be a little bit lazy where we have a grand trine. When everything just kind of happens and flows, it’s less motivating to do something with it. Now that’ll be less true if, let’s say, you have Saturn or Mars involved in your grand trine. But it can true with other planets. 

So it’s definitely—if you find that you have a grand trine in your birth chart, you would do well to actively activate it, to actively bring forth as much positive potential with the planets involved. Because in doing so, you will find success. Maybe it won’t look exactly like you’re planning on it to look, maybe it won’t happen as quickly as you like, but you know what, a grand trine is totally freaking lovely.

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But not all planetary configurations are easy and promote flow, I’m sad to say. Let me talk to you a little bit about the T-square. There’s this really great book by a woman named Tracy Marks called Planetary Aspects. It’s absolutely worth checking out if you have a T-square or more than one T-square in your birth chart. Now a T-square is when you have two or more planets involved in an opposition, and both of those planets that are involved in an opposition form a square to a third planet. 

So basically what it is is we have all that tension of an opposition and the tension of the opposition is kind of forced and focused onto that what is referred to as a focal planet—the planet that is the square. So in other words, let’s say we had a Mars/Jupiter opposition, that in your birth chart is going to give you a difficult time with impulse control and a tendency to go big or go home, right. And let’s say those two planets involved in the opposition are both forming a square to the planet Neptune—I don’t know; I’m just making this up as I go. So let’s say both of them are forming a square to the planet Neptune, then that planet Neptune will be considered the focal planet of the T-square. And that planet, that focal planet is where we’re going to get a lot of information about where all that energy of the opposition pools and focuses itself. 

And, so, a person with this kind of a T-square might have a lot of anxiety. You might do things and then feel totally overwhelmed by like what does it mean, and why did I do that, and what will happen? Neptune can give us a real deep case of the what ifs and the what should I haves and all that kind of stuff. And, so, this can also—I mean, there’s a million ways that this could end up playing out, but what is really important is that when we have a T-square in the birth chart, we have the potential for great and intense healing. But it requires great and intense concentration and effort. 

It is essentially trauma in the birth chart that comes from an early developmental experience, but within this configuration, within this experience of trauma, we have the exact tools we need to unpack and reorganize our impulses and our energies. And within that we have the capacity for healing. 

When we have T-squares or other hard or difficult aspects in the birth chart, that’s where we’re most likely to be a damn genius, that’s where we’re most likely to be fascinating or weird in a wonderful way or not. This is where we’re most likely to be driven, right. So don’t fear your T-squares or your oppositions or your squares in general. What we want is to stop judging ourselves for being fucked up and instead to start embracing ourselves for being who we are. And then, within our capacity, within our nature to do the best, to overcome the parts of our nature that are in pain or causing pain and to re-direct within our nature, so that we can, again, be the best version of ourselves. 

You’re never going to get to be someone else. You’re never going to get to have someone else’s chart, so it’s really about being interested in, in a non-judgmental way, your chart so that you can embrace it. And this is where learning about your aspect configurations is really, really helpful. 

Now, again, I’m not encouraging you if you’re not like a proper student of astrology to get too deep into this because it’s advanced astrology. But you know I’m trying to teach you some damn advanced astrology, so here we go. Here we go. There is also an aspect configuration called the grand cross, but I’m not going to fully unpack it in this episode because I want to keep it a little balanced. So I just want to acknowledge I’m not getting into all of the aspect configurations that exist, and you can feel free to overwhelm me with as many questions about aspect configurations as you like, as long as they’re not about the yod.

Okay. So the final aspect configuration that I want to tell you about is called the stellium. I think I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but, again, it’s one of those things I get questions about a lot, so I want to come back to it. 

A stellium in astrology is related to a concentration of planets in a sign or house. So if you have, depending on the planets, it could be three or more or four or more planets in a particular house, but they’re in multiple signs, and they’re not all conjunct each other, we would still say, “Oh, look”—let’s say you have five planets in the sixth house, we would say, “Okay. You have a stellium in the sixth house.” So that immediately lets us know that you have a concentration of energy and attention to sixth house matters. And that is related to your physical health and how it shows up in your mental health, your kind of self-care on a day to day, that kind of good stuff. 

And if you’re really interested in houses, there are tons of books about houses, including, of course, my book, Astrology For Real Relationships—it really focusses on the planets in the houses as well as in the zodiac signs. So you can pick up that book and, of course, go out there and find other books about, specifically, the houses. 

Now, when we have a stellium of planets, again, a concentration of planets in a particular sign, and it can be kind of spread out over a couple of houses—up to three houses, depending on how small your houses are and what house system you’re using. Basically, what we’re seeing is that the energies of that sign are a force of concentration in your nature, okay. And that’s not bad, and that’s not good; it’s actually kind of neutral. It depends on the planets involved. It depends on the house placement, and it depends on what you do with it. 

Some people might say that being a triple Capricorn as I am—Sun, Moon, and Rising; that’s a stellium in Capricorn—is a bad thing. Other people might say it’s a good thing. And that is kind of like saying red is a cute color. Red is an ugly color. It's your fucking opinion; you know what I mean? The reality is it is hard to be a human. 

And, so, all aspect configurations we can see the positive and the negative of, and what we want to strive to do is validate the negative, work with the negative, but really fixate our energy on doing what we can to make the most of our damn personality, situation, aka birth chart. 

Okay. So when we have a stellium our perspective tends to be so holistically reflective of the sign that we have the stellium in. So if we are looking at something like, let’s say, a Capricorn stellium, what we are looking at is a literal nature, like a very damn literal nature. We’re talking about like if somebody’s late, I’m like, “Why do they hate me?” Whereas if that person has hella Pieces in their chart or strong Neptune, they’re just living their damn lives; it’s nothing to do with me. But my Saturnian, Capricorn nature would be like, “That just doesn’t make sense. I can only see linear time, and linear time is my buddy.” 

Basically, our perspective is so much of what it is that we don’t necessarily have an easy capacity to see things from other people’s perspectives. So when you have a stellium, what you need to make sure you’re doing is cultivating a largess of perspective, so that you don’t think that everyone feels the way you feel and thinks the way you think because that is the downside or the danger of a stellium. 

Another tricky thing about a stellium, when you have a concentration of planets, and you’re going through a transit, basically, the transiting planet is going to hit your whole damn stellium—boom, badoom, boom, boom, boom, boom—all in a row, so it’s going to hit a bunch of planets all in a row. If you have a stellium or even just a kind of like lopsided chart, you’re going to go through things kind of in a clustered way—back to back. So you’ll have like a really intense month or a really intense couple of years in a particular way, and then things seems to be better, and they’re much easier. 

Now people who have more spread out charts or who do not have stelliums will go through things like I’ll have an intense week and then an easy week and then an intense week and then an easy week. Is one better than the other? No. It’s just different. It’s just different. Let’s stop looking for good, better, best. Let’s discern without judging. Can we? Can we try? Let’s try.

This is my Astrology Hot Take for you on aspect configurations. I hope it has wetted your whistle to learn more about astrology and that you go forth and buy books and study and get really excited about getting to know who you are through the lens of astrology, which is a non-judgmental and deeply investigative tool.

My loves, I want to thank you for joining me for another week of Ghost of a Podcast. If you haven’t already joined me on Patreon, I invite you to become a member because you get exclusives benefits, including, but not limited to, if you join me at the Kitten’s Level, you will get your month ahead horoscope where I break down all the major transits of August. And that episode drops on August 1st, so you can head on over there and do that. 

As always, if you enjoy what you are hearing here, go ahead and give me stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast and write me a damn review. I would love it. I really appreciate it. It’s nice. 

In the meantime, be gentle with yourself and others. This week has lots of intense astrology in it, and we are leading up to yet another Full Moon full of big feelings. Take it easy. Take it sleazy. Bye.