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.

So here’s the thing. Mercury Retrograde governs everything related to voting. That’s planning, educating yourself, filling out paperwork, mailing things, making a plan, understanding things. It’s super annoying that the whole period leading up to election date is Mercury Retrograde. But you know what? You know I got you covered, right. Because at Zodiac The Vote, we have created “A Mercury Retrograde Voter’s Survival Guide.” That’s right. It has everything you need TLDR style to vote with confidence and even host your own COVID safe ballot parties. What is that? You may ask. I think you’re going to have to look at the voter guide to get the full 411. And, hey, while you’re there, check out the cocktail/mocktail recipe for your voting pleasure made by Rachel Budde, the lead herbalist and founder of Fat and the Moon. Basically, there’s so much stuff there, you’re just going to want to be a part of it. Zodiacthevote.com.

My darlings, welcome to another week of Ghost of a Podcast. This week I have a question from Mental Health Please, and she says, “I appreciate all you do, and I’m grateful for you being a safe place for my question. So here it is. I feel like I’ve been treading water for the past five years. This year has been incredibly overwhelming and exhausting for many different reasons, and I’m now considering trying anti-depressants for the first time. I’ve always been so deep in my emotions and insist on feeling all the feels, regardless of their intensity. Although I’ve seen many people have great results with taking medications, and I certainly am not anti-medication, I do worry that I may need to feel the depth of my situations, especially if I’m in a trying transit. And I worry that getting on medication would be running away from something that I’m supposed to feel and learn from. On the flip side, I wonder if this could help me enjoy my life again. But then I think maybe life isn’t meant to be enjoyed right now. Can you please give me guidance on how to know when to sit with your feels and when to reach for help? I appreciate all your guidance, wisdom, and input. Thanks for showing up as you do.”

Okay. So this is such an important question, and I have so many things to say about it. I will share that Mental Health Please was born January 19th, 1990, 10:50 p.m. in Provo, Utah. And you, my dear, have so much Capricorn in your chart that you make me feel inadequate. I have Sun, Moon, and Rising all in Capricorn, but, man, you got a lot of Capricorn in you. So we’re going to get into your birth chart in a minute. 

But let’s start off by talking for a moment about mental health and about medication. So I must prefix this exploration into your question and me sharing my answer, as I am not a mental health practitioner; I am not a mental health professional, even though a lot of what I do is very similar to mental health work. Okay. And it’s very important that as much as you love your bike mechanic, don’t bring your car to be fixed by a bike mechanic. Do you know what I’m saying? 

It’s not devaluing astrology or my work or my expertise, of which I have a fair amount, to understand that I am not a mental health practitioner. That’s not my training. That’s not my perspective, and so it’s really important that you hold that in context. It doesn’t have to be an either/or. It can be an and/also. The opinions I am going to share with you are my opinions as somebody who counsels people, but not from a mental health standpoint. I should not be held as a mental health expert. Let’s be perfectly clear about that.

So all that said, we have medication for when the body ails. If you have asthma, you take an inhaler, right. If you have—I don’t know. There are a bazillion things that go wrong with our meat suits, and we have science and medicine. And science and medicine is so wonderful because it allows us to treat problems. Wonderful. You know what else science and medicine does—medication, what it does? Is it allows us to mask symptoms without actually treating the root causes of our problems. It’s both. It’s both. And thank God for masking the symptoms of my cramps once a month. Yeah, really fucking pleased about that. I’m so grateful that we have the ability to medicate things that are unwell—parts of our bodies that are experiencing pain.

Now, I think it’s very reasonable to be critical of the pharmaceutical industry and to be critical kind of the ways in which we medicate things before treating them. I think it’s good to question these things—how we medicate, what we’re medicating, the impact it has on our health. The same thing is true for our mental health. Science and medicine is so valuable for treating our mental health issues. Do I see mental health and body health as separate? No. Different? Yes. Separate? No. 

If we have a mental health problem that is chronic, it is really wonderful to know that we can turn to medicine and science for treatment. I think that it is wise to be considerate of whether or not you’re just masking your symptoms, right. And I think it’s really wise to be considerate of whether or not a medicine will improve the quality of your life. There is nothing weak, nothing bad, and nothing wrong with getting medication for your mental health concerns. Nothing. So important for me to say this as a person, and also as a spiritual person. 

It’s not like if you have a pre-disposition towards let’s say depression, there’s something inherently spiritual about feeling all the nooks and crannies of your depression. That’s not a thing. We have science. We have medicine as a means of support, and it’s important and valuable to look at that means of support. 

All of that said, in my practice, I tend to have people come to me after they’ve had difficult experiences with doctors, that they’ve been prescribed medication for something that they didn’t need or too much medication or the wrong medication. And that makes sense that those people would find someone like me. I think it is really important when making the decision—and this is just me speaking very broadly and, again, not as a mental health expert—but I do think it's really important before taking medication for a mental health issue to consider, if you can, if it makes sense for who you are, where you are, your resources, etc., do I drink enough water? Do I do my upmost to do simple free things like breathe and remember myself, just my name? Do I come back to myself? Do I eat enough, and when I’m eating, am I eating foods that actually nurture my body, or am I eating foods that stress my body? 

I think those things are the most basic things that a lot of times we forget to center and prioritize with our mental health because we see the mind as separate from the body, when in fact they are not separate. They are different, but they are not separate at all, even a little at all, okay. And, so, are you doing the baseline of self-care, and if you’re not, is that why you need to get on meds? Or do you need to try those things before you get on meds? I don’t think there’s a one size fits all for this. I think it’s really just about asking yourself these questions. 

And that actually brings me to your birth chart, my dear. Like I said, you have a stellium—such a big stellium in Capricorn. You have Uranus conjunct, Mercury conjunct, Neptune conjunct, Saturn conjunct, Venus conjunct, the Sun, all in fucking Capricorn. Yikes. That is a lot of Capricorn, let me just tell you here and now—a lot of Capricorn. And you also have a Moon/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio. So do I think it’s possible that you kind of do all the complicated, intense, and heavy things but forget to like drink enough water over the course of a day? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Do I think that it’s important that you center and prioritize a little bit more consistent self-care that’s uncomplicated, just really foundational? Yes, I do.

However, having all of this Capricorn stuff in your chart pre-disposes you towards depression, and because of Neptune’s involvement and Uranus’ involvement, it’s probably an anxious form of depression. So I’m obviously not a doctor, and I’m not diagnosing you—I couldn’t even if I wanted you—but I would certainly say that as an astrologer, I see people kind of get medicated for one over the over, and sometimes it doesn’t work. You know, if a doctor decided to give you an anti-depressant that really didn’t address any amount of anxiety, you might not get the relief you’re seeking. Or vice versa, right. 

So the reason why I share this is partially because of the complexity of human nature and the kind of advantage that astrology can offer for looking at the layers of what exists underneath the presentation of mental health struggles. The other thing is that, yeah, go for it. Get yourself some medication to help yourself out. Astrologically, you have been going through a fuck lot. You’re Saturn Return is done, but your describing the last five years encompassed the period of your Saturn Return, but not just your Saturn Return, Pluto has been conjoining all of your Capricorn stuff. And overlapping in that five-year period that you’re naming, Saturn has been conjoining all of your Capricorn stuff. So you have been going through an unparalleled difficult period in your life. This has been very fucking hard, and it’s not over. You’ve got Pluto coming for your Venus and then your Sun over the next couple few years. 

And, so, I think it’s wise if you recognize that you’ve been struggling, and you’re not able to manage your self-care in a sustainable way, and you want some help and support, try out a medication. But I think the key for you is to not just go and see somebody who can prescribe you pills and then, you know, come back in six months, but instead to develop a relationship with somebody that you trust, a mental health practitioner that you trust, so that you can be in dialogue with them about what is and isn’t working, what is and isn’t changing as a result of the medication. 

When we take medication, if we stop focusing on healing and on self-care, then it can be a little bit of a band-aid for a bullet wound. That said, if I have a bullet wound, you know what? I want a band-aid on it if that’s all I’ve got. There’s nothing wrong with that, and also, it's not ideal; it’s not the most you can do. And sometimes ideal is not the thing, and that’s okay. And sometimes ideal is the thing. 

And that brings me to you. Because you have Moon in Scorpio conjunct to Pluto, you love to feel everything. You’re like, “Take me deeper. Make it hard.” Your chart does not articulate, “I want things to be easy and chill.” That’s just not your nature. You do have a compulsion to feel everything for many reasons, some of which is it’s a control issue for you. You feel more in control if you know everything. However, what happens is you get so overwhelmed and overstimulated, you can’t actually integrate everything you’re experiencing and then use it, right. 

Now, I will tell you in 2021, Saturn is going to oppose your Moon, and in 2022, you’ll have a Uranus opposition to your Moon. So this is actually a really great time to seek support and help for coping with your emotions in a new post Saturn Return way. And when I say a post Saturn Return way, I mean a more mature way, a way that is tempered not just by your theories about the world and yourself and others, but instead tempered by actual experience—lived, felt experience. 

You’ve been trying really hard. And I look at your chart, and I know you’ve been trying really hard to cope with your mental health. I really want to encourage you to seek help. I think it’s really wise to seek help. And if medication is a part of that help, I think that’s great. I can’t tell you to take medication or that you should or you shouldn’t, but I certainly don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t if you have determined over the course of the last several years that it would be helpful for you. I trust you, and I encourage you to trust you. 

But, again, having a relationship with a mental health practitioner that you trust to help you stay in dialogue, to feel that you’re in control of, “Is this too high of a dose? Is it not working; is it not high enough? Am I using the spaciousness that this medication is providing me in my mental health to continue to self-care and investigate? Am I using it just to gain some space and stabilize?” Great. You want to make sure that you have somebody that you can bring that process to, somebody who can be informed about, “ Well, the drug is nothing to do with that; that’s just a results of your efforts.” Wouldn’t that be cool to just know that? 

So if you can get a shrink, get a damn shrink. At least in my state of California, where I live, if you can’t afford a kind of regular shrink, when people are studying to become therapists, they have to get their hours, and so a lot of times schools will provide low fee services from mental health students—they’ve already done their education; now they’re just getting their hours—so you can get a lower fee therapy situation. It’s worth doing research if money is standing in your way to see if there are any way to get low fee services. 

The key is to develop a relationship. So it’s just like with dating. You might have to meet with a couple different therapists or a handful of therapists until you find someone where you’re like, “Oh, this person’s clicking with me; I’m clicking with them.” There’s no shame in seeking the right practitioner. There’s no shame in taking medication. And there is no shame in saying, “Here is my limit. I’ve been hanging out at my limit for a long time, and I’m not thriving, and I’m not getting past it. Okay. I need a new approach. I need help.” So I really want to encourage you to honor all of that, my dear, to honor it all. 

And, again, I’m not an expert here, but if you’re on an anti-depressant, it is not meant to make you not feel your feelings. It's meant to give you greater spaciousness so that you can feel a greater spectrum of your feelings and not just depression and not just overwhelm. So I want to encourage you to, again, investigate without stigma or judgement and to know that doing the work, spiritually, mentally, behaviorally, doesn’t mean doing it on your own. It doesn’t mean being perfect, and it doesn’t mean never asking for help. It only means doing the work and allowing yourself to pivot and change as circumstances reveal the need for it. 

This is a really difficult time. When I look at your birth chart, I see it’s a difficult time for you, but it’s also a very difficult time in the world. And, so, the morphic field, the collective field of overwhelm and of fear and of sadness and grief, all of these things, just there’s a lot of pain up. And when that happens it intensifies our individual suffering, or at least it can for somebody who’s sensitive. And you, my dear, are somebody who’s sensitive with that Moon in Scorpio conjunction to Pluto. So get yourself some support. Get yourself some help and stay in dialogue with yourself and a professional about whether or not it’s working and how to continue to adjust and pivot as need be. 

In the meantime, you will not know. You will get on an anti-depressant, and you won’t know if it’s working. You won’t know if it’s better or worse. Maybe you’ll get on the wrong one at first and you want to try another—a different one. Learning to stay in the uncertainty and to not control things, but instead to be in process of self-discovery and self-care, that’s the work.

This month ICE announced that they would be carrying out nationwide mass raids. Last week they arrested 128 people in San Francisco alone. Advocates are worried that this is just the beginning, and thousands of families might be separated from each other over the coming days and weeks. Last year ICE executed the largest raid in US history on the first day of school, leaving hundreds of kids stranded. We have to be ready for more raids. Donate to Families Belong Together to help re-unite families and protect kids from ICE’s cruelty. Go to familiesbelongtogether.org to donate now.

We are going through transformational times, and whenever you are engaged in your own evolution, inevitably, you need a little help. And that is why I’m really happy to share with you Better Help. They’re committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, and it’s easy and free to change counselors if you don’t like the person you’re matched with. This service is available for people worldwide. 

It’s just really valuable to be able to talk to someone about whatever it is you’re going through, whether it’s queer issues or depression or just anxiety from all the shit going on in the world—Better Help is there for you. In fact, so many people have been using Better Help that they are recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states of the US. 

I want you to start living a happier life today. As a listener of Ghost of a Podcast, you will get 10 percent off of your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/ghost. Join over one million people taking charge of their mental health. Again, that’s betterhelp, H-E-L-P .com/ghost.

In a recent court reversal, ex-felons in the state of Florida must now pay fines before voting in November. This could seriously impede the ability of hundreds of thousands of voters to cast a ballot. It comes as no surprise that five of the six judges who supported the decision were appointed by President Trump. Help pay the fines on behalf of the ex-felons through the Florida Rights Restoration Council. They’re a grass roots, membership organization run by returning citizens who are dedicated to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with convictions. Visit floridarrc.com to learn more or floridarrc.com/donate to give what you can.

As I like to say on Zodiac The Vote, we are not here to predict the future. We are here to create it. Using astrology as a tool for becoming more empowered, more educated, more inspired for cultivating strategies and gaining insights, that is so wonderful. Using it as a tool for predicting what will come next is a tricky venture, my loves. I can speak to you as a person who’s been practicing for a very long time. Knowing the future does not absolve you of having to live it. Knowing the future does not actually help you to cope with it consistently. It just doesn’t, unfortunately. It can, but it doesn’t, especially when we’re talking about world events. 

Knowing the themes of what we’re dealing with can be really helpful. And sometimes you can learn things from astrology that you can’t learn by studying history and the news. But a lot of times they all reinforce each other. So I just want to acknowledge all of that. There is a long road ahead of us. I know so many of us are just like, “Fuck. I’m done. I’m burnt out. I cannot with this.” And I respect that. I kind of want to speak on that for a moment, before we get into your horoscope. 

Honestly, being a good person takes a lot of work. Even if your nature lends itself towards being a really, lovely, great, empathetic, kind, and generous person, it takes work. Because if you treat others really well, and you treat yourself like shit, then eventually you will age out of treating others well. And also, honestly, being a shitty person takes a lot of work. I mean, not in the short term; it’s kind of easy to be a shitty person. But over the course of time, it really takes a toll on you to act in ways that are unkind or ungenerous, to be constantly centering yourself to the expense of all else and all others. 

Basically, being a person is hard. I mean, I don’t want to blow your mind, but I think being a human is hard. So if it’s going to be hard one way or another, if this is a struggle no matter what you do, you might as well do your best to be your best. And if you are an empathetic person, if you have compassion, if you are making the difficult choices of unlearning things that you once believed that are just not right, not helpful, and then learning new things about the world, whether they’re brand new things you’re now exposed to or having mistakes you’ve made corrected, it all takes a lot of effort and energy. 

If you are a compassionate person and you are seeing injustice all around the world, all around your community, all around your country. You are seeing people suffer and many people die from an airborne pandemic that we still don’t really know that much about, if you care, if you feel concern and care for others, for yourself, it’s exhausting over the course of time. 

There’s something I see on social media more and more people posting about, which is empathy fatigue. And I want to acknowledge for a moment because, honestly, empathy fatigue is a thing that usually—it’s a term and a condition that is usually used in reference to emergency care or healthcare providers. It’s not, “I have so much empathy for the world, and the world is a dumpster fire, and my empathy is destroying me.” That’s not really what it means. People are misusing it, but I understand why people are misusing it. Because it’s a term that on its face really kind of speaks to something that I think is happening right now. 

Empathy fatigue—it’s a state of exhaustion. It’s a state of burnout that comes from being in a situation where you’re consistently, constantly giving of your whole self. If you are reading the news and scrolling through Instagram, and you feel exhausted, that’s not actually technically empathy fatigue, but if we don’t use it in a clinical way, and if we don’t use it in the way that it’s actually kind of intended for us to use it, if we just use it as a lose and vague term, which I wouldn’t be surprised if mental health practitioners email me and were like, “Uh, don’t do that, dumb ass.” So I apologize in advance—caveat, caveat, caveat. 

But I do want to say that empathy fatigue or burnout is real. It is real. It’s hard to care. It’s hard to be frightened and not know if things are going to be okay. It’s hard to figure out how to care, how to show up, how to be empathetic and not sacrifice yourself in the process and not fall apart in the process. 

And, so, I want to say this. Giving without boundaries eventually becomes too much about you. Let me explain. Empathy, much like compassion, much like boundaries, much like love, much like so many other things, it takes work. It takes practice. In order to be authentically kind, you must have boundaries. You got to. If you don’t have boundaries, then you’re acting out of a sense of something that has more to do with you than what you’re showing up for. 

Now, not all situations and all moments can support you in having boundaries, but doing the work within yourself when you’re not in a 911 emergency moment to identify what your boundaries are and to identify how you are working to embody them and clearly, not defensively, not complicatedly, ideally not after the fact, but ideally express them, that’s really great work for you to do. And it's directly related to this kind of empathy fatigue that a lot of people are feeling or compassion fatigue. 

Now, I will remind you that when we are building spiritual muscles, and when we are building emotional muscles, it’s just like when we’re building physical muscles. You have to tear the muscle in order to build it up stronger. Isn’t that gross? When a fitness trainer explained how muscle was built to me years ago, I was just so grossed out. I was just grotied [sp] out. I don’t like that. The idea that you tear up your own muscles to make them strong, slash, also, I’m super into it on a spiritual level. So, go figure. There she is. Go figure.

So, listen. Here’s the thing. You feel like you’re falling apart a little? That’s okay. Set the intention, set the goal, set the hope that you will rebuild yourself one little tiny tear at a time. Rebuild yourself in such a way that you have better capacity to show up, that you have better capacity to be humble when you need to, to take a step back when you need to, to keep on doing the damn work. 

It’s been a long year. It’s been a long four years. Am I right? But it’s been a long year. And it would be very easy to let exhaustion and fear make you complacent, make you compromise on your compassion for others, compromise on basic self-care, compromise on the things that need to be done because you’re fucking sick of doing them. And I am with you. I have a lot of compassion for it, and also, we got to keep on doing our upmost to do what’s right, even when it’s hard. Maybe especially when it’s hard.

Okay. Now to your horoscope. We are looking this week at October 18th through the 24th of 2020. So on the 18th, we have not one but three transits to talk about. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. So I’m going to tell you a bit about each of them, and then I’m going to give you my little synthesis, little upshot because that’s really what it’s about.

Venus opposite Neptune. This is a tricky transit. Venus is your values. Neptune is ideals. This transit can make you really idealistic, putting others on a pedestal or being yourself placed on a pedestal. Now that might sound like a kindness, but it’s not. It’s absolutely not. Because when you place someone else on a pedestal, you’re choosing to not see them for the wholeness of what they are—the messiness of what they are. It’s not a kindness to idealize someone, because underneath all that, essentially, what you’re saying is the realness, the wholeness of what you are is not what I’m interested in. I’m interested in the rose-tinted version of that. 

And, so, in our kind of like fame obsessed culture, in our youth obsessed culture, we do this a lot. We say, “This person is amazing, and they do all these amazing things, and they’ve had this life,” and we have stories; we have these narratives. And I think they can be very problematic, and they can make the person who’s stuck on a pedestal feel isolated and alone, and it’s no good—for reals. 

Now, that said, in your personal life, if you are engaging with someone you meet, someone new or you’re dating someone or you’re just in the world or on social and you see somebody who seems perfect or that their life is perfect or they have something that you wish you had, my advice to you on and around this date, but also in general, is to look out for an anxiety response within you that either idealizes them and ignores the complexity of whatever is inevitably their human experience or tries to cut them or yourself down, right. So the very positive or the very negative kind of application of idealization in this context. 

Neptune governs anxiety, and Venus is your relationships. So this can be a moment where you feel pretty anxious about a relationship or yourself. Venus is also related to vanity and how you look. It’s, technically speaking, it’s your complexion. It’s not your epidermis. It’s not the organ of your skin, but it’s your complexion. So this could be a time where if you have some sort of body dysmorphia stuff, it may get activated, especially if these transits kind of hit your chart exactly. 

The upshot, my loves. The upshot is this particular transit can trigger anxiety or idealizing others, and I am suggesting, in the context of this transit, that idealizing other people and placing them on a pedestal is an anxiety response to engaging with them in a real way, and that’s more about you than it is about them. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. 

Now, at the same time, we have an exact Sun square to Saturn. Hello, total contrasting transit. This transit brings up depression. It makes you feel like there’s not enough, that you’re trapped in this kind of rolling that Sisyphus ball up the damn hill, and it never gets you anywhere. Saturn is related to depression, and also kind of responsibility. I just dropped a Hot Take on it a couple of days ago, so you can go listen to that. It’s one of four or five Saturn oriented episodes that I’ve dropped in the past year or two. 

Sun square to Saturn can just make you feel bad. It can make you feel isolated, alienated, not good enough, inadequate, overwhelmed by responsibility. It sucks. I’m not going to lie. Listen, Saturn, there’s a lot of really great things about Saturn, but when we have a Sun square to Saturn, we don’t tend to feel those things because that Sun square is kind of triggering a tension between the identity and the themes of Saturn. So it is possible that some people will experience this transit, especially people who are very Saturnian, who have a lot of Capricorn in their chart, may feel in this transit like they can finally see what needs to be done, focus, and get it done. This transit can trigger a sense of efficiency and an ability to really focus on whatever it is that needs to get done in a really kind of like streamlined Saturnian way. 

This can be a good time for concentration and focus, but really differently than that Venus/Neptune transit. It doesn’t really lend itself to interacting with others. It creates this kind of like a little bit of a loneliness vibe. So my concern when I look at these two transits happening at the same date is that if you have a tendency to feel lonely or to put yourself in situations where you are engaging with people who just can’t show up for you in a real way, that there is not enough substance between the two of you, or they themselves are not substantive enough or you don’t know how to show up in a substantive way, then this transit can trigger really activating those dynamics for you. And not in a way where you’re super self-aware of it, but in a way where you just kind of feel that it gets on top of you. So be on the lookout for those things. 

If you know that they are themes that have a history of playing out in your relationships or in your relationship to yourself and your self-esteem. Both Venus opposite Neptune and Sun square to Saturn can be a little bit rough for the self-esteem, so I want to just acknowledge that that’s happening on and around this date. And you have tools. You have tools for strengthening your self-esteem. You have tools for getting neutral if you need to. You have tools for minimizing the potential for comparative thinking or harm to yourself. I advise you to plan on using them. If the worst case scenario is some nerdy astrologer—me—tells you to do a bunch a stuff of self-esteem, self-care, preventative work before the 18th, on the 18th, and for a couple days after, and then you do it, and you have a great day, and nothing bad happens, well, let that be your biggest problem. Just take care of you. Make it a practice.

But that’s not the only transit that is exact on the 18th. We also have Mars Retrograde forming a square to Jupiter. Now this is not the first time Mars has formed a square to Jupiter. Back on August 4th was the last time that it was square to Jupiter. Now, Mars was not Retrograde back then. So whatever was going on for you around the first week of August, 2020, slash, also, on and around the 4th, you may see some sort of repeat, some sort of theme repeat in your life. We also may see some important theme repeats in the world. 

Now, a Retrograde is going to pull up things from your past. It’s going to pull up things that didn’t get fully coped with, that maybe were misunderstood. This is going to be an interesting moment. So what I want to encourage you to do in the context of this transit is to watch your damn ego, to watch your impulsiveness. Because Mars square to Jupiter—Mars is the ego, and Jupiter is just like, “I’m not—I can’t be contained.” It’s the gambler. When these two planets form a 90-degree angle to each other, it can be quite stressful, honestly. 

It can also be really exciting. I mean, it can also be—this transit on its own can be one of the better squares out there in that they spur confidence, and they spur adventurousness. They can kind of give you an injection of energy so that you can actually pull something off, that you can make it happen, or you can at least try. There’s a lot of really positive things about this transit. 

I probably said back in August—I don’t remember—this can be a time associated with the spread of COVID or some sort of shift or change to how COVID is presenting or spreading. Now, of course, not an infectious diseases expert, and I have never lived through a pandemic. Not an expert in pandemic astrology. Believe it or not, I’m not aware of anyone who is an expert in pandemic astrology. That said, I would certainly be very conservative around this date. Between Saturn/Neptune and Mars/Jupiter all around one date, I would be really worried about super-spreader events. I am concerned about changes to the disease itself. And, so, we really just want to be incredibly conservative around this date in the context of COVID—just really conservative. And I repeat conservative, conservative twice because, because of Neptune, Mars and Jupiter, we’re not going to want to be, or we’ll just be like, “Oops, shit. I didn’t realize I was going to end up in this environment where there are all these people, but fuck it, whatever; I’m already here. No one else seems to care.” If your friends are about to jump off a bridge, are you going to jump off the bridge with them or are you going to be like, “Hey, dumb asses. It’s a bridge. Don’t jump”? I don’t know. It depends on your nature, doesn’t it. Don’t jump off the bridge, not around this date. 

Okay, now the synthesis of these three transits is to not act out of anxious or scarcity based feelings, and if that means you need to center and tend to your mental, spiritual, and emotional health around this date instead of focusing on action, then that’s okay. That’s great. Do what you got to do to be right with you. 

On the 19th, we have that Mercury opposition to Uranus that I promised you. You know Mercury is Retrograde. You know all about it, and you know that Mercury was opposite Uranus recently, on the 7th of October, right. It was just less than two weeks ago. So, again, we want to look at what was going on on and around the 7th and expect that some version of those themes are going to reemerge. 

Now, when I say version of that theme, it doesn’t mean that if you had a fight with Sally, and Sally was like, “You’re a jerk,” that you’re going to have another fight with Sally, and she’s going to call you a jerk again. That’s not what I’m trying to say. Look at the pattern underneath the issue itself. Mercury opposition to Uranus is a really powerful time for looking at how you communicate, what you actually say, how you listen. Are you hearing what’s being said, or are you filling in the blanks with all of your assumptions and all of your feelings? 

Your assumptions are likely to be really colorful and intense around this date, so watch them. Your assumptions have a lot more to do with you than they do with someone else. Work with data if you can, and if you can’t, it’s okay to slow the work down. 

Now on the same date, we have a Venus trine to Jupiter, exact. This is a lovely transit, and it actually creates a lot of supportive energy for interpersonal conduct. This is a wonderful thing. It does suggest that if this articulation of the transit that I’m naming where you’re having interpersonal shit come up and the need for boundaries come up, this transit’s actually quite supportive. The Venus/Jupiter transit can be quite supportive to you kind of figuring out what you value and acting in a way that reflects that. Super cool. 

Now Mercury Retrograde opposite Uranus is just a shit storm transit for tech problems. If somebody tries to give you an update to run, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t download weird shit to your computer. If you have technology problems around this date, just know it’s the damn transit. Try not to get too riled up about it; it’s just bound to happen. And because of Venus trine to Jupiter, you can actually use it as a springboard to commiserate with people, to talk to people, to actually connect with people. If technology puts you in a position where your hands are tied, your hands are tied. What can you do now? 

On the more interpersonal tip, on the 21st, we have an exact Venus trine to Pluto. Venus trine to Pluto is a really lovely transit, and to have it overlap as it is doing with the Venus trine to Jupiter, if all of these kind of harder transits weren’t activated, would be just so wonderful. Venus trine to Pluto is just wonderful for having strong feelings for someone or something. 

Venus is love and care and sensual connection. It’s not boning, but it’s getting you there. You know what I mean? You know what I mean. Venus is all about hooking up, making out. It's about feeling pretty. It’s about the things you value and the things you enjoy. It’s a sensual planet. And when it forms a trine to Pluto, it just gives you real intensity of your sensual experiences. Isn’t that kind of delightful? Don’t you want that? Venus trine to Pluto can coincide with meeting someone really exciting that you have great feelings about. It can be a time where you just get to work with your self-esteem. It’s kind of like the antidote that we all need for Venus opposite Neptune, which is just like, “I’m falling apart. I’m a meat suit with no direction.” Venus trine to Pluto is, “Oh, I’m feeling myself. This is okay. I can work with this.” 

Venus trine to Pluto is a great time for relationships. It’s a great time for strengthening the clarity that you have about your value and about what you value, maybe even who you value. This is a really strengthening transit. 

Now like with any other trine, if you don’t activate it, if you don’t work to engage with it, you’re not going to notice it too much. Isn’t life a bitch that way? So I really want to encourage you to put yourself out there socially and romantically if that’s something that’s important to you on and around this date. And even if you don’t meet someone or nothing, quote, happens, know that the way in which you engage, the ways in which you show up, the ways in which you choose to center and prioritize love and laughter and connection, you can make progress on those levels even if nothing is, quote, happening externally. And that progress is really fucking important. It’s really valuable. And I—again, I want to encourage you to seek value in yourself and in your relationship to yourself and to not say that that is less important than your external life. It’s—we’ll call it equal but different.

Okay. On the 22nd, the Sun moves into Scorpio. Is it a spooky season? I don’t care, honestly. My whole life is a spooky season; I’m a medium. But in terms of Scorpio season, it’s a time to get deep. It’s a time to step into the difficult emotions that we all experience, just in time for the election. This is a time, the Sun in Scorpio time, for actualizing your capacity to feel things deeply and to transform what isn’t serving you and to be brave enough to not abandon yourself in those messy bits, in those painful parts. 

You know, Scorpio can get a bad rap, like Sun in Scorpio people can get a bad rap. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that that is a Sun sign that has the capacity to be present for things that other Sun signs run from. And in a world where people are running from things that are actually quite interesting and resonant for you, it can create a tension. You know me; I’m very against Sun sign shaming, Sun sign stereotyping. But when we talk about a solar season, Sun in Scorpio time, what we’re talking about is a time when we can get deep and get real and transform what needs to move, what needs to shift, what needs to grow. That’s kind of delightful, don’t you think? 

Okay. Last transit of the week. Venus trine to Saturn. Now, I want you to notice this week, Venus forms a trine to Jupiter, it forms a trine to Pluto, and a trine to Saturn, all in a seven-day period. And you may have noticed this over the past several weeks that I will name transits to those three planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, all at once, and that is because, my friends, these planets are all sitting very close to each other in the sign of Capricorn. It’s not forever; it’s for now. It is a big deal. It is worth noting. 

So Venus trine Saturn is stabilizing. It is a stabilizing transit that supports us in identifying what we value, what we care about, who we care about, and what we’re doing about it in practical terms. Saturn’s such a materialist. Not Madonna in “Material Girl” materialist, but like Gretta Thunberg. Trying to work with material conditions in a way that is conservationist so that you can work with those material conditions for as long as possible. That kind of material girl. That’s Saturn. At least Saturn at its best. 

So with Venus trine to Saturn, we have the capacity to look at what we have and to feel a sense of abundance and gratitude for it. It is a time where we have the capacity to edit and prune out our physical possessions, to take responsibility for our finances. If you have to organize your finances, if you’ve been putting off taxes, all that kind of shit, great date to do it. Okay, Venus trine to Saturn is really good for that. If you have been having ish in your relationships, and you want to show up, and you just want to be present and maybe express what it is you intend to do moving forward, this transit is your friend. 

I don’t see a downside of Venus trine to Saturn. Unless you’re trying to be like wildly spontaneous and self-destructive, I guess, because Venus trine to Saturn is just two planets very concerned with security being in a happy conversation with each other. So that’s great. 

There is some very stressful stuff this week. There is likely to be unpredictable stuff this week, and having these trines from Venus to the outer planets, in particular Saturn at the end of the week, I think it actually just shows us that we have tools. And if you yourself don’t have tools, you probably have access to resources that you can use that will help you to cultivate tools. If you’re going to make a mistake, learn from it. If you’re going to fail, be interested in it. I know it’s easy for me to say. It’s not easy for me to do, just FYI. 

But the truth of the matter is, we are all learning and growing, and we are all fucking up. We are all struggling. Some of us a lot more than others, obviously. And some of us in kind of maybe technically better ways than others, but the human experience, the human condition is not perfect. These stupid little meat suits we have; they’re built to break. They’re built to fail. It’s the human condition. And, for me, a Capricorn, it gives me a sense of calm to know we’re not meant to be perfect. We’re not meant to only interact with people who we agree with. We’re not meant to have things go easily all the time. That’s not the human condition. And, so, when things are hard, that doesn’t make them easier, but it does take away that nagging fear that there is something wrong with you when you’re dealing with things that are wrong. Because that’s not the case. Life is complicated. Life is a journey, and this is a period that is objectively unique, and how chaotic and frightening it is. It is really—it is a lot. Certainly in the US, but globally—there’s just a lot happening. 

And, so, remembering to center boundaries in your self-care, remembering to not forget to care for yourself and to care for others, to be actively a part of your own healing, your own rescue, and that includes—it’s not limited to, but it includes asking for help when you need it, learning from others who know more than you, sharing what you know when you know something that you believe can really help someone else. This is it. This is life. I mean, that’s not all of life, but that’s life relevant to this week’s horoscope.

Now, I’m going to do my little repeat of the transits in case that’s helpful. On the 18th, we have three exact transits. Venus is forming an opposition to Neptune, the Sun is forming a square to Saturn, Mars is forming a square to Jupiter. Those are all happening on the 18th. On the 19th, we have a repeat of the Mercury Retrograde opposition to Uranus. We also have an exact Venus trine to Jupiter. On the 21st, Venus forms an exact trine to Pluto. On the 22nd, the Sun moves into Scorpio. It’s Scorpio season. On the 24th, Venus forms a trine to Saturn.

You probably know this by now, but on my website—go to ghostofapodcast.com—you can read the transcripts that come out within 48 hours of the episode itself. So you can read along if that’s helpful to you. And on my Patreon on the first of every month, I drop a month ahead horoscope where I actually break down every transit of the month ahead. 

I want to thank all of you for showing up. I want to thank all of you for doing your best. Make sure you’re registered to vote. Vote in advance if you can. Wash your hands. Snuggle cats or dogs, reptiles—I don’t care. Pursue the act of interspatial snuggles if you can. And wherever you are, however you’re feeling, maybe try to spend a couple of minutes with your eyes closed and your face pointed towards the Sun—today, tomorrow, just take a minute, you know. Take a minute. Let the Sun fill you up. How’s that going to hurt you? I mean, honestly, maybe you need to wear sunscreen, could hurt you. Okay, I’m going to shut up now. Talk to you soon. Bye.