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.

I’m finally offering transcriptions of Ghost of a Podcast, not once but twice weekly—yeah that’s right, transcriptions twice weekly over at Ghostofapodcast.com. Very slowly but surely, I will also transcribe past episodes, so be patient, be excited, and keep on keeping on, darlings.

It's time for another “How The Sausage Is Made.” Now, if you are new to the podcast, and you hear me say, it’s time for “How The Sausage Is Made,” you may be thinking the same thing that people who have heard the podcast for a very long time think, which is why do you call a thing “Why The Sausage Is Made?” And the answer, my friends, is I just don’t know. Sometimes I get things in my head, and I just go with it, and this is one of those damn things.

So welcome to an episode where I’m going to answer a bunch of your questions instead of only one question. I love doing it this way sometimes because there are so many questions that I get from you guys, and I want to be able to answer all of them—which is the definition of impossible; I just cannot do that. But here I am. I’m going to answer a little handful, hopefully, well.

And, also, before I do, let me just say, if you sent me a question four months ago, nine months ago, whatever, and I haven’t answered it, feel free to send it again. Because if a question is old, I’m going to assume that maybe it’s not relevant for you anymore. So don’t be shy; I’m not—I’m not upset if you’re emailing me all the damn time. I love love.

We’re going to start off with a couple of really spiritual questions. The first one is this, “Can a birth chart show great loss, such as the death of a loved one? In my late teens, I had my birth chart read, and the reading claimed that at the time of my Saturn return I would experience great loss, most likely the death of a loved one. It bothered me, but I was able to brush it off until this year. With the current state of the world and my approaching Saturn return, the reality of losing loved ones has never been so apparent. Can my birth chart truly predict the death of someone near to me?”

This is a really important question. I’m going to break it into a couple of pieces. So, the first thing is—and this might just be the way you framed the question—the reading itself did not tell you that at the time of your Saturn return you would experience a death or a loss, an astrologer told you that—a person interpreted your chart that way.

Now, maybe you did something that I strongly do not recommend, which is you paid for a program, an astrology program to do a printout for you. Maybe a printout told you that, but somebody had to write that print out, right? Maybe you consulted with an astrologer, and they told you that. Here’s the thing, astrologers are people too, and they make mistakes, or they misinterpret things just like doctors and teachers and orthodontists. So I just want to be really clear because when we’re getting readings, we can feel so venerable, and it can feel like an astrologer that you’re consulting with really knows everything—especially if they get a bunch of shit right. But this is all interpretive. Astrology is completely interpretive, and, so, you were wise to do what you did, which is take it with a grain of salt, kind of brush it off—don’t over think it.

Now, if the astrologer saw with your Saturn return that you would likely be dealing with loss, I want to say, yeah, check—probably that’s happening. And it doesn’t have to be the loss of a loved one. It could be the loss of so much of your life because of what’s happening with the global pandemic, right. So many of us are having a loss of job, a loss of lifestyle, a loss of social connection. You don’t have to experience a death in order to experience a loss. And, chances are high, that that astrologer, 10 years ago or whatever it was, is not—was not thinking, “Oh, there’s going to be a global pandemic, and the world’s going to be all digital.” Right. So you are experiencing a version of what that astrologer named, which is loss.

Can your birth chart, can anyone’s birth chart predict the death of someone else? The answer is no, absolutely not. For me, personally, I do not predict death for anyone, ever. I think it is useless. I think it is not constructive. But to be able to predict my death through a loved one of mine’s chart—that would not be possible. It is absolutely possible for an astrologer to see that you’ll be going through a period or a transit, rather, that would really bring up a great deal of grief and loss, but it would be an interpretive reach to say because it was a loved one or a close family member, a close friend that died, right. That’s an interpretive reach.

So that doesn’t mean that that person was being unethical. It doesn’t mean that they were bad, but it is certainly not what I would ever do. And I would say that loss and grief—I mean, that—that is really what most of us are going through. And some of us are losing loved ones where people are dying within COVID. But your chart is not going to predict that. And, if what you’re doing through your Saturn return period is being terrified of death, then that might be what the astrologer saw, and they just unwittingly became a part of it. So I hope that helps.

Now, I have another spiritual question, and this one speaks to me as a medium. As you know, I can communicate with the dead, and this questioner asks, “Does it matter what language I use in my head when I pray to or speak with my ancestors? I am on a journey to connect more meaningfully with my ancestors. I know they are with me; I want to be in greater relationship with them. I am Lat Mex—Mexican American. Someone is there, just not sure who yet. I recently had a great session in which I spoke to them in Spanish, but sometimes I think in English, and I just want to triple check that everything is getting through to them. I try to focus more on communicating in feeling and visioning rather than words. Thank you.”

So I love this question. This is—this is a deep spiritual nerd question kind of, and that’s some of my favorite kinds. So my experience doing mediumship work and psychic work is that language is a construct, like so many things, and every time I’m communicating with somebody who does not speak English, my guides come in with an interpreter. So there’s never a language barrier.

Now, I can tell you that in my own experience, I can tell when I’m talking to somebody who doesn’t speak English or somebody whose first language isn’t English, and it’s not their preferred language. I don’t know exactly how to tell you how I can tell, I just—I can tell. I can feel it, and it sounds like you can as well. In my experience, it is completely one hundred percent a non-issue. So, if you’re thinking or speaking to your ancestors in English, and they spoke Spanish when they were alive, and they speak Spanish now, they’re going to understand you totally. You as a spiritual person having an experience, you’re probably—if you’re wired like I am anyways—going to feel the textural difference of not speaking the same language.

I, personally, think it’s cool. I don’t think it’s a problem. I think it’s really interesting and something to kind of lean into and be with. And it’s lovely that you’re bi-lingual, so you can kind of practice experimenting experiencing the differences and the lack of differences. So that is my hot take on that.

Now, let’s get astrological with the next couple of questions I have for you. The first one says, “I know that you’ve said that we shouldn’t recoil from oppositions and squares, but when I look at my chart compared to the other charts that I’ve seen—mainly those of my two kids and a few friends—mine is a messy spider web compared to theirs. So, be honest, is there a more than average amount of squares and oppositions in my chart, and could this be why I feel like I can’t ever let my guard down and seem to be constantly conflicted or working on healing or growing or something?”

And this person was born February 4th, 1976 at 6:04 p.m. in Yakima, Washington, USA. So, great question. A couple of things. First thing, I’m not sure what an average amount of squares or oppositions or aspect configurations in a birth chart is; I really don’t. And I’ve looked at so many birth charts over the course of the last couple of decades. I still—I couldn’t tell you what average is. And I’m sure that there’s an astrologer out there who’s like done the math and the research and run the numbers on what an average amount of squares and an average amount of oppositions is, but, I say to you, to what end? To what end?

You are you. And your squares and your oppositions are the articulation, the description, the reflection, however you want to think of it, of your complicated messiness. That you have hard aspects in your chart, and your children don’t, that’s a fucking triumph right there. That is—not that you should feel bad if you—your children have difficult aspects; you shouldn’t. You deeply, deeply shouldn’t. But it just means that you haven’t passed on those specific things to your children, which means that they’re not things that you needed to pass onto your children; that’s really cool. I don’t know; that’s cool.

I mean, honestly, a birth chart with all trines and sextiles can be very difficult. We look at tension and conflict and challenge as bad things, but show me one person who’s contributed anything to the world who doesn’t have conflict and challenge and struggle in their lives, in their natures. You can’t because that’s not how humans are. We create because we are compelled to create. We struggle, and we heal, and we grow, and we break, and we fail, and then we try again. And that is the exciting, delightful part of ourselves.

So that is the truth. And I’m not trying to be a Pollyanna about it. I’m really actually quite a negative person, but I will say to you that this is true. All of those red lines, all of that spider web stuff that you see in your birth chart—and, yes, I pulled up your birth chart, and, yes, you have a lot of shit going on inside of you—all of those things are you. They are not bad, and they’re not even good; there’re just you. So instead of judging or looking for a kind of an explanation of whether or not your worse than other people or you have it harder than other people, you’ll get a lot more traction and mileage out of being interested in the quality and nature of those aspects in your birth chart and how they do and don’t reflect your experience now as a person in your forties, versus how it was for you maybe in your twenties, right. You’ve grown, you’ve changed. How have you grown into the embodiment of your birth chart, and how have you not? Because there’s still a lot of years in front of you, right. So that’s my answer. You don’t need an excuse or a reason for growing and changing and struggling; it’s just you. Acceptance is the foundation. And from that place of acceptance, that’s where growth, expansion, and thriving occurs. That’s the damn answer.

The next question I’ve got is another really cool one. It says, “Does one’s zodiac sign change after medically transitioning from female to male, or does it remain the same and something in my birth chart already indicates that I was always Trans? Thanks, Jessica—love your podcast.”

So I love this question. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten it. It’s a great question—makes lots of sense. So here’s my take on that. If you are Trans, then you are Trans. Your journey was meant to be the exact journey that is you. You know what I mean? So, your birth chart, your sun sign, it does not change because you have taken authority of your life, right.

Transitioning is not just about a medical event, right. It’s not just about changing your name or your pro-nouns. It is a spiritual transition into wholeness. I mean, I’m not trying to tell you what being Trans is—whatever your experience of being Trans is is what Trans is—but I really am of the mind that gender transition, whether it’s from one assigned binary gender to another binary gender or if it’s a transition into a place that is not binary and not defined, whether your journey is from one location to another or it’s just about being on the Goddamned gender path, whatever it is, that’s you, which means that’s your chart. Your chart doesn’t change when you become more you—when you seize your life.

So there are things in birth charts that can be read as hella queer. It doesn’t mean it’s gay. There are some things that are a little gay. There are some things that certainly indicate transition. And, from my perspective, as an astrologer, if you’re AFAB, which is assigned female at birth, and you transition to male, it’s a transition in social power and often economic power. When you’re assigned male at birth, and you transition to female, it is a very different transition in power—societally and economically, right. And, if you are non-binary, again, that is another transition in power, right. And that—that crosses all lines of class and race and ethnicity and even geography, right. So all of these things are likely to be in some way articulated in the birth chart. But I want to be really clear in saying I don’t want people looking at birth charts and scanning for Gayness or scanning for Transness, unless you’re also scanning for being Cis, and you’re also scanning for being Heterosexual.

So, anyways, my dear, you are Trans because you are Trans. And, wherever you are at in your gender identity and your gender expression and experience, your chart is still you, and you are the living embodiment of your chart.

And now to my last question, my dears. It goes like this, “Jessica, I want to say thank you for this weekly connection with the stars, the planets, each other, and ourselves. Having this connection helps me navigate life, and, I guess, that’s where I need some advice.

I find astrology very helpful for navigating life, but my boyfriend doesn’t see where I’m coming from. In his eyes, he doesn’t see the connection between the planets and how they could possibly affect us in any way and often starts comparing it as if there were certain types of dogs standing near you and where you were born affecting your personality. This is one of the only subjects we argue about, and I’ve told him I don’t need his validation on the subject but want him to understand where I’m coming from and respect my spiritual beliefs on a whole. I’m not trying to make him believe what I do but not scoff when I say something to do with astrology.

What can I include in a future conversation that’s conductive to understanding my beliefs and not furthering an argument? Any advice would help. Thank you, again, and I hope you are healthy and enjoying life.”

So, okay. I have so much to say about this—so damn much to say. The first thing is the least important thing that I’m going to say in response to this. Anybody who says it’s impossible that planets could affect me; there’s just no way that the natural world affects me, I challenge them to visit my hometown, Montreal, Quebec, and to go there in the winter and to not bring socks or a jacket—ha. Or maybe go in the summer and only bring wool socks and warm Parkas—that’s right; the planet affects you.

Come on. Of course we are affected by the planet, and this planet is affected by other planets. This planet is one planet in the context of many planets. But I’m not—I’m not really an evangelical style of person. I’m not trying to convert anyone to think the way I think or feel the way I feel. And anyone who’s easily scoffs at astrology, who hasn’t actually studied astrology, is just being an opinionated jerk.

My experience is when people shit all over astrology in the way you’re describing your partner does, it’s usually because they don’t know a Goddamned thing about it except for what they glance in memes and in horoscopes and stuff like that. So, if he wants you to take his opinion seriously, he should probably do some research—he should study and have a more educated and informed perspective. So I would say that, first of all. That’s the least important part.

This is the most important part. It is self-harm to believe that if you explain yourself right with the perfect self-defense or justification or explanation that you will be treated respectfully by someone who is willing to shit on your beliefs in an unkind way. So listen. I’m really glad that this is the only thing you guys fight about. I’m really glad that it sounds like you have a good relationship; this is not a question about your relationship. But we must—we must all get away from the idea that if you explain things just right, you’ll be treated with dignity by someone who is treating you disrespectfully because they don’t see things your way; they don’t agree with you.

The fact of the matter is, he doesn’t need to understand astrology. He doesn’t need to like astrology. He doesn’t have to be interested in astrology, but he does need to stop making you feel bad. I’m not saying this to you because I’m an astrologer, and I don’t think anyone should be critical of astrology; I encourage critical discourse about astrology. I encourage you all to study astrology. I think I’m right about everything, but don’t take my word for it. Go on, do your own research, and come up with your own opinions.

That said, our spiritual beliefs, the things we do for self-care, the things we do for our mental health, these things, if they are not causing harm or oppressing and repressing others, if they are not dangerous, should be respected and treated kindly. He doesn’t have to be interested. I mean, I don’t know, maybe you’re bringing up horoscopes all day long, and he’s—now, he’s rolling his eyes at you. Maybe that’s happening, and that’s a whole other thing. It’s not fair to talk to your partner about something incessantly that you know they are not interested in, right. You’re setting yourself up if that’s what’s happening.

But, if what’s actually happening is you’re just bringing up it now and again as it emerges, and he’s cruel to you, if he’s disrespectful and dismissive of your very values and thoughts and priorities, then the conversation I encourage you to have is not about astrology at all; it’s about respectful conduct. It’s about him being respectful about the ways in which you are different, your values, your interests, and your beliefs. And, if he can’t treat you respectfully, then that’s a whole other problem. It has nothing to do with astrology, honey—nothing to do with astrology.

We don’t need our partners to agree with us about everything; that would be boring. We don’t need our partners to have the same values about everything; that would be boring. It’s okay to have spiritual values and beliefs and interests that are different. It is okay. That can be sometimes really challenging or hard, but it’s totally okay. What’s not okay is disrespect, and you’re describing disrespect.

So I would encourage you to change the conversation with him about this. This is not about astrology; it’s about how he treats you. And it’s not about you trying to convert him into being an astrology believer—I would encourage you to get away from that—but instead, to be able to say to him, “This is important to me, and you don’t have to like it—you don’t have to understand it, even, but you’re not entitled to be unkind to me or disrespectful to me around it.”

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My loves, you know I want to talk about astrology—that’s pretty much all I want to talk about, so let’s just damn do it. I want to just remind you, before I jump into your horoscope, in this increasingly frightening time, it is engaging all of us where we have Pluto, which is to say shame, power, resentments, healing, transformation; it’s all those things—very Plutonian. And whenever we’re confronted with Plutonian feelings and themes, we are confronted with the intensity of our own emotion, and, in some meaningful way, loneliness—a sense of being along in your experience, having to defend your experience; that kind of a thing. It’s psychologically and spiritually challenging, regardless of who you are and where you are within it. And it’s meant to be—challenging isn’t bad. It’s not always fun. It’s not always exciting or easy, but it’s not bad. It’s just a lot.

Now, additionally, the damn global pandemic, right—very big deal, very frightening situation that has a cascade of impact on us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, economically, physically, tangibly, right. There’s so many layers to what COVID-19 is doing to us, and where is the end in sight? I know so many people are dealing with having to go back to school. There’s a lot of fucking things going on in the damn world. And, you know what? Before all this, it was still rough. Life is just full on; it’s a lot.

So, all of this to say, this is where I turn to astrology. When we are frightened, when we are overwhelmed, what we will often do is turn to spirituality, whether we’re talking about astrology or other forms of woo and divination, or we’re talking about more conventional religion. And we turn to these things for a sense of peace, for a sense of calm, a sense of connection to something greater, whether that’s meaning or comfort.

But we also turn, in some ways uniquely, to astrology and other divination tools that exist outside of conventional religion for answers. When will this be over? When will I be okay? When will I meet my love? How will it happen? We start asking these questions that kind of suggest that we believe that each life issue that we’re going through has a tidy narrative: a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that things are pre-written, right. And that’s just not true, first of all. It’s just not how life is. Life is not a movie that has a really great writing team and a director and a lighting crew and a sound crew. Do you know what I’m saying? I mean, I don’t know, maybe when we die, we’ll all find out that we were just part of some cosmic media project for jerky God’s. I don’t know. We’ll find out one day, right. But, in the meantime, I just don’t think that’s how life is.

When you use astrology at any level—whether you’re a total novice, so you don’t know shit about astrology; you just really enjoy it or you’re a student or you are, like me, a practicing, consulting astrologer—when you use astrology as a way to pervade, avoid, or get ahead of life, you have a problem because astrology can’t do that for you. It’s not supposed to do that for you. Knowing, quote, the answers does not mean you don’t have to go through the damn process. It’s not possible to evolve, to heal, and to handle your life in a way that’s going to make you age and grow gracefully without being emotionally accountable and having emotional intelligence that you are applying step by step.

You might hear me talk about something astrologically—like last week’s horoscope, I talked about the Mars, Pluto transit. It can be a very scary transit. It can be a very upsetting transit. It can also be just a transformational experience. It can be a stimulating experience, right. I am mentioning that particular transit because it happened very recently. You can go back in your little day planner, look in your calendar and be like, “Oh, shit. This is what did or didn’t happen on this day.” Right. And you can see how the energy runs through your life.

What astrology does it is describes energy and how it flows. But, if I’m talking to thousands of people with different varied circumstances and natures and goals, then you’re all going to experience the same energy in your own unique way. If we used divination tools as a way to try to avoid being accountable to making real decisions for ourselves, using common sense, then we’ve made a mistake. So what I’m basically saying is astrology is a tool. I obviously fucking love this tool. I’ve dedicated my life to this tool, but it’s not the only tool. And, if you’re using it in a way that at all comes with the expense of your own emotional presence and intelligence or your common ass sense, then, yeah, then you’re misusing the damn tool. Do you know what I’m saying? I think you do.

One more thing that I want to say before I really dive into this horoscope, and it’s about judgement. There is a fine line between discerning what you think, what you feel, what you know and shitting upon things. If the way that you’re engaging with content, whether it’s news or entertainment or influencers or the people in your life—whatever the fuck it is—if the way that you’re engaging is scanning for things to criticize, scanning for ways to essentially tear things down, that will, over the course of time, eat at you on a spiritual level. It will make you feel like shit, and you will eventually experience emotionally and cognitively believe that everyone is doing the same thing too. And so you will feel judged. You will feel defensive. It’s awful. You don’t want to do that to yourself. And, if you don’t want to do that to yourself, you need to not do it to others.

So I want to invite you this week, in honor of the Sun moving into Virgo on the 22nd of August, to seriously consider if you’re being a judgy jerk towards yourself or others, strangers or people in your actual life.

I read something from the amazing Malkia Devich Cyril, who, if you don’t know about their work, you should look them up. They are an activist and a writer and an all-around inspiring human person. They wrote this really great post on social about voting and politics. And I actually really wish I could share it with you, but it’s a bit long, so I’m not going to right here. But what I will share is that they wrote this, “Be critical. But whether you’re an organizer or just a person who cares about the survival of the human species in general and of oppressed communities in specific, you better have a viable plan beyond critique.” That is just a tiny piece; I’ll link to it in show notes, actually. But have a plan beyond critique. Have an approach beyond critique, whether we’re talking about politics or we’re talking about how you engage with social media or your friends. If all you’re doing is shitting on people or yourself, you’re just going to feel like shit.

Okay. And now to your horoscope. We are looking at the week of August 16th through the 22nd of 2020. And it starts off on the 16th with a Sun trine to Mars and a Mercury trine to Mars. The Sun and Mercury will be conjunct to each other exactly on the 17th, but they are both forming exact trines to Mars on the 16th—that is just what is happening. And, so, we’re really going to look at these three transits in a tight little bucket. You’re going to be feeling these exactly on the 16th and 17th, respectfully, but you’re going to be feeling them throughout the week, okay.

And these transits are actually really great for centering yourself and mobilizing yourself around what you believe. And the good part of this—and there’s so much good in these transits—is that you can get much clearer about your plans and ideas. This is a time where you’ll be motivated and that motivation may come from other people, like being exposed to ideas or dynamics, or it might just come from you finally being like, “Okay. My head is clear. I’m just going to fucking figure this out. I’m going to answer all my emails. I’m going to read this post that inspires something new in me. I’m going to do something to forward my thoughts and my position.” So, doing something is Mars; your thoughts and attitudes is Mercury, and then your position, your identity with anything is the Sun.

The things about these transits is they can be incredibly mobilizing; they can be fortifying. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. The downside of these transits is it can have you running at the mouth, or someone else could be running at the damn mouth. And what that means is speaking before you think about the consequences—maybe trying to educate someone on something before you actually understand it.

This is a time where it’s not going to be especially easy to be humble. But the energy does point us towards being brave and courageous. And I would contend that humility often is a fact of bravery because you have to kind of like step over your shitty judgments and your pridefulness to get to a place of humility. Really look at where you may need to be humble, where you may need to be brave and not just where you can mobilize. Because Mars is a planet that governs mobilization; it governs the ego.

On Instagram, the other day, somebody posted something, and they didn’t know who it was from, and I don’t know who said it originally, but it was, “The ego is a wonderful tool but a terrible master.” And I love that. It is true stories—to be able to use your ego in a way that is healthy and fortifying and kind of empowers you to get shit done, to stand up, to fight when you need to, to create, to be engaged with passion, with passion and strength; that is a beautiful fucking thing. And Sun and Mercury forming a trine to Mars will support you in doing that.

One more thing I’ll say about that is sometimes the strongest thing you can do is know when to shut up. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is know when to end a Goddamned conversation. And that’s where the Sun conjunction to Mercury can kind of fuck a person up because Sun conjunction to Mercury is more talky than listeny. It can really be a very stimulating transit where there’s just a lot going on, and there’s a lot of connection, which is wonderful. But, because of Mars’ involvement, it can kind of get you to jump to conclusions.

So you just want to remember that this energy is flowing and, therefore, to not jump to conclusions—to think before you speak. And, because we are so close to a New Moon on the 18th and a shift in energy in the 19th and the 22nd into Virgo, all this stuff I’m talking to you about around having emotional intelligence, around being really conscientious about what you take in and how you take it in, and then on the lines between discernment and judgement—as much as possible, I want to encourage you to reflect on that stuff, see what you think, where you fall within these ideas—discern what’s right for you. And, in particular, at the early part of the week, around themes of your ego, right—themes of where you stand and how you take that stand.

It’s okay to do it in a way that is self-appropriate to you. As an astrologer, I’m always going to encourage you to embody your chart. You don’t have to embody my chart—that would be bananas. That’s not what we’re here to do; we’re here to be ourselves. But to be yourself does not mean to not try, to not challenge yourself to be in integrity with whoever and whatever you are.

Okay. So those are those transits. Now, on the 18th, as mentioned, there is a New Moon. And that New Moon is going to be exact at 7:42 p.m., Pacific Time. Of course, New Moons are when the Sun and Moon are at the exact same degree of the exact same sign.

Here we go, New Moon in Leo. And it’s in the final degrees of Leo at 26, 36 of Leo. And this particular New Moon could be really wonderful and fortifying, right. There are some really strong, lovely things about this New Moon. A New Moon in Leo can be joyous. It can be a time where we are activated, and we are excited, and we are open. Leo is a sign that is really connected to the heart.

If there is a way that you could intentionally call in love as a healing force to motivate and support you, to help you cultivate courage—which is a word that comes from French: coeur is the heart—so to activate your heart and the strength of your heart and your willingness to act from the strength of your heart, that shit is well starred during a New Moon in Leo.

Now, another thing about this New Moon that is very important is something that you might infer from the transits of the week. It’s that Mercury is very close to the Sun, Moon conjunction. So Mercury is sitting on top of the Sun in conjunction and, basically, Mercury and the Sun are creating a sandwich with Moon in the middle. What this translates to is that this is going to be a New Moon where the danger is that we over analyze at the expense of bringing our hearts and our emotions and what is emotionally authentic for us to our considerations.

The Sun and Mercury—those two planets really are all about like, “I identify with this. This is what is true for me.” And the Moon is like, “Well, that might be technically true, but I still feel this way.” Right. And, so, what we want to make sure of during this New Moon is that you are being really open with how you feel to yourself and maybe to others. To honor that, you might have an attitude or a belief that is one thing, and your heart might not be there yet.

I’ve said before on the podcast, and I will say it again; I am of the mind that the heart is a lot like a Corgi with a cone on its head. Low to the ground, clunky, such a cute dog—who doesn’t love a Corgi? Especially a baby Corgi; they’re soft. But you throw a cone on a low to the ground dog—they’re not super graceful. They’re not fast moving. And that’s the heart. The mind, Mercury. The identity, the Sun. Those things can move really fast; they can change on a dime. The heart is always referring back to past experiences. Its impulse is to be self-protective, and so this is a time where we can make great progress integrating and bringing along our heart, so that it grows with our minds. It grows with our identity. And that takes intention. So bring your intention in that direction so that you don’t kind of try to convince yourself that you feel a certain way. Instead, actually support yourself in emotionally growing. And emotionally growing in a way that honors your heart and your head.

This chart does hold—not an exact—but it does hold a Mars square to Saturn. And Mars square to Saturn can really feel blocked. This transit I associate with being stuck in traffic, just being limited by your circumstances. So feeling like, “Oh, I really want to take a long walk today.” And then you wake up and you have—your old knee injury is activated, and you’re like, “Fuck. I can’t take a walk.” Or it’s shitting rain, and you can’t do what you want to do. It’s like this thing where you have a plan because you think it will work, because you think it will be good for you or good for the world, and then, when you try to do it, circumstances get in your way.

You can’t necessarily get mad at your circumstances. I mean, you can—you will ‘cause Mars. But it’s kind of like you can’t even blame any one person. You can’t be like, “Hey, you blocked my car. You’re sitting in the driver’s seat; could you just please just move your car?” That would be easy; that would not be Mars square to Saturn. Mars square to Saturn is someone blocked in your car. You want to get out of your driveway, but there’s no driver in the driver’s seat; you’ve no idea where they are. In short of driving through their car, there’s nothing you can do. That shit is the vibes of Mars square to Saturn.

So in the New Moon chart, what this does mean is that this wonderful flow of energy will feel curtailed or blocked. So the good news: this makes it an excellent time to turn that energy inward—to really make sure that you are treating yourself with care and love and kindness so that you be can resilient in the face of trouble, right—in the face of problems.

This is a really good time to be checking in with your relationship to yourself as foundation for managing your ego, so that your ego is a tool that you can use with intention and not who makes you do stupid shit that you later regret or that pulls you out of integrity with yourself. And here’s the thing—here’s the damn thing, Mars ruled by the sign Aries, Leo—we’re dealing with the New Moon in Leo—these are all—we’re talking about fire energy, right.

So fire burns because it burns; that’s what it does. It just burns because it burns. It is hot because it’s hot, and there’s no way for fire to be fire without being hot, right. So, in human terms, not in elemental terms, what I’m saying is our impulses when we’re dealing with fire energy or when we ourselves are fiery are going to burn, right. They’re just going to be compelling and make us feel like we need to mobilize and rush; that’s the energy of it.

So it’s not about turning fire into water, right. It’s about being really intentional about where we allow our energies to burn so we don’t burn out, we don’t have a forest fire, and we have the amount of heat that we want in the direction that we want it in. So, this particular chart; it’s got blessings, but they’re not unqualified.

Now, the other thing that’s happening on this particular day is we have an exact Venus sextile to Uranus. I really love this transit. I think it is dynamic, and it can be really supportive to the New Moon in Leo—supporting us in being open and trying to connect with ourselves, our values, and other people in new ways.

Actually, a really great use of this New Moon energy is to deal with your damn finances, deal with your spending. Not the sexiest version of the transit, but it is actually really useful version. Because if you’ve been putting something off, this can be a great time for you to just lean into it, fucking deal with it, get it done with all that New Moon, good vibes energy—so good for manifesting and calling things in on a New Moon. But it’s putting that Mars, Saturn to work.

And here is a little—I was going to say it’s a secret, but I’m about to tell you, so it’s a terribly kept secret. It’s—but here it is. Here’s the secret to astrology. Here’s the key to astrology: you can’t work around the energy; you’re supposed to work with the energy, right. Don’t work around your nature, work with your nature. So, in other words, if we know there’s a difficult Mars, Saturn square in the chart of the New Moon, and it’s frustrating, avoid the impulse to be like, “Oh, no, that’s terrible. What’s it mean for me?” And, instead, be like, “Okay, cool. How can I consciously work with it?”

With my example of dealing with your finances, if your finances are stressful to you, that’s a great way of working with it. It’s something that is stressful. It’s something you don’t want to deal with, but you’re going to take all the positive energy of the New Moon in Leo, of the Venus/Uranus, and you’re going to apply it to something that you already know you feel frustrated and blocked around. That’s a great use of astrology is knowing how to work with the damn energy.

And that brings us to the shift into Virgo vibes. On the 19th, Mercury moves into Virgo, and then, on 22nd, the Sun meets Mercury in the sign of Virgo. Me, I love a little Virgo energy. I love a lot of Virgo energy. Mercury in Virgo is a great time for being a judgy jerk. It’s a great time for getting caught up in details in a way that actually has you losing perspective. It’s also a great time for discerning, for dealing with the details with intention and pretty systematically.

So the key here is to know that Virgo energies are essentially introverted; they’re pointed inwards, and they are so in a way that you can harness at this time. Whether that means doing work to confront internalized racism or fucked up attitudes and ideas that you’re trying to heal from—this is a great time to do therapeutic journaling work around that shit.

And this is a time where you can really look at your relationship to judgement and critique and to see if you’re coming at things only from the downside of Virgo energies—scanning for good, better, best, good, better, best, good, better, best. Bad, shitty, tragic, bad, shitty, tragic. And, instead—of course, discerning, do discern, but then come at what you’re seeing, what you’re discerning with strategy, with a plan. So, if you don’t know what that looks like, research. Mercury in Virgo loves research.

Now, the Sun moving into Virgo. Again, this changing of solar seasons in an opportunity for us to really look at how we’re engaging with the world, how our lives are—not how we’ve curated them for social media, not how we tell people that we don’t super trust that our lives are doing, but how is your life? This is a time to analyze. This is a time to get really grounded—it’s an earth sign—about who you’ve chosen to be in this pandemic, who you have chosen to be in this social uprising. This Virgo energy is about discerning and locating. It’s about kind of organizing these things. It’s not necessarily about putting it out there. It might be for you, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s okay to measure twice and cut once. It’s Virgo times.

So, my loves, I’m going to give you a quick run down of the transits of this week. On the 16th, we have two exact transits: the Sun and Mercury in Leo are both forming a trine to the planet Mars. On the 17th, we have a Sun conjunction to Mercury in the sign of Leo. On the 18th, we have an exact Venus sextile to Uranus, and at 7:42 p.m., the Sun and Moon will be exactly conjunct each other. And that, my friends, is a Goddamned New Moon. And then, finally, on the 19th, Mercury moves into Virgo, and on the 22nd, the Sun moves into Virgo.

My loves, I thank you, once again, for joining me for another week of Ghost of a Podcast. If you like what you’re getting from the show, please do write a review on whatever platform you listen to the podcast on; give me a little 5 stars—you know the things, you know the damn things that are very helpful for a little independent podcast like this one.

And, of course, join me over at Patreon if you want to get more astrology and learn to row with me, plus a bunch of other shit I do over there. And, if you haven’t already heard the last Astrology Hot Take that I dropped that was episode 133, I really invite you to listen to that episode. I loved it. How often do you hear me say that, eh? Vilissa Thompson joined me to talk about the ADA, the astrology of the American’s with Disabilities Act. Oh, it was such a great conversation. It was so energizing, and I really hope that you—that you are interested and excited about civil rights and astrology—who wouldn’t be, really?