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.

On January 5th of 2021, Georgia has the opportunity to flip the US senate blue. And whether or not you’re in Georgia, you can get involved. Here are some organizations that you can donate to and volunteer with, and the links to them all will be show notes. 

One super star on the political scene is Stacey Abrams. I know you’ve heard of her, but let me just tell you about her organization Fair Fight, whose mission it is to advocate for free and fair elections by fighting voter suppression and promoting fair elections in Georgia, as well as around the country. You can donate and find out more about how to get involved over at fairfight.com. 

Now, there’s another organization I want to share with you, which is called The New Georgia Project. They seek to empower the new American majority to vote through advocacy and engagement. You can go to their website at thenewgeorgiaproject.org to donate and get involved. 

And, finally, you need to know about Black Voters Matter. Their goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominately Black communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. Get involved and donate at blackvotersmatterfund.org. Link to all three of these orgs will remain in show notes.

Hello, my loves. I have a great question this week, and it goes like this: “Thanks for all you do keeping us sane and providing the right info at the right time—I just love the way you message things. So my two year old has Mars in Aquarius in the third house at zero degrees, right where The Great Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction is happening, and I can’t help but worry about something bad happening to her—car wrecks, bad omens, etc. I am curious if we should limit travel and COVID safe outings during this time, or is there a way to look at this as a super positive thing for my little one? I have the hardest time thinking about transits in a positive light. I always tend to swing toward the worst-case scenario. Needing help reframing my outlook on transits. Your devoted listener, Elle [SP].”

So here’s the thing, and this is really important, when you have a three-year-old, when you have a child under the age of seven, and you are looking at outer planet transits hitting your child’s birth chart, you’re basically looking at one of two things. You are looking at what is happening to and with the adults around the child and the kind of messaging that the child receives as a result of what’s happening to and around the adults—the guardians and adults around the child. Or you are looking at a developmental issue, right. 

So for you to look at something like The Great Conjunction and see it conjoin—Saturn and Jupiter conjoining Mars in your child’s chart and to expect the very worst, it tells me two things. One is maybe astrology is not the greatest thing for you. Maybe you shouldn’t be fucking with astrology—certainly, put your child’s chart away. If you do not have the capacity—you or anyone else does not have the capacity to look at things in a balanced and even way, if you’re bringing fear and panic to the chart of loved ones, stop looking at their charts. It’s not helpful. You’re not helping them. You’re not helping yourself, and you’re not actually practicing good astrology. No disrespect intended, but let’s just be real. 

Astrology does require knowledge to accurately and effectively interpret, so some measure of objectivity is required. And if what you’re doing is just bringing your own panic and your own worry to your child’s chart, then that’s the astrology—that’s what the astrology’s saying. The astrology is saying that Saturn/Jupiter conjunction on your child’s Mars is their parent freaking out and not knowing if she should restrict action and mobility or just say fuck it, right. 

So listen, in December of 2020 with the cases as they are, should you and everyone else limit your COVID safe outings? Yes, obviously. Limit travel? Please. Please. Please do. We are in a very dangerous time. We have not seen the worst yet. We keep on thinking we’ve seen the worst with COVID, and we haven’t. So this is a common sense thing. This is not an astrology thing. This is a common sense thing. Sometimes astrology’s really helpful for validating or directing the common sense, but the common sense is available to us all—that’s why they call it common. 

So here’s the thing, Saturn conjunct Mars—no, there’s not a great positive read on it. That’s not realistic. Saturn conjunct any planet, for a child especially, it’s just not a really like, oh, there’s a great, wonderful thing that’s going to come of this. You know, it can be like that for an adult, but generally not for a kid. Jupiter on Mars—yes, absolutely. It can be very positive. Saturn and Jupiter conjoining Mars, yeah, not as much, but it’s much more likely to be about you than it is about your child. 

And here’s the thing, however you handle stress and reality and constriction and restriction and growth and potential, however you engage with those themes as the parent is modelling for your child what is real, what is reasonable, and what to expect from life. So that’s the transit. It’s much more likely that than a, quote, bad omen, which I don’t even know what that is exactly, if I’m being honest, or a car wreck. I don’t know why you went to car wreck. Maybe because Mars governs the car? Saturn and Jupiter don’t tend to give you big wrecks. I don’t know. I don’t know where you came up with that. But the point is is that I don’t think you came up with that through study and evidence. I think you just are projecting trauma and drama onto a child. 

So this is where I want to say to all of you, my loves, The Great Conjunction is a big deal. It’s a big deal for society in major ways. However, this thing that I think is being proliferated on social media, this is not on a personal level as big of a deal as it is on a social and political level. When we look at the world at large, The Great Conjunction gets its name for being a great conjunction because it’s a big old great conjunction. It’s a meaningful thing in terms of mundane astrology, the astrology of events. 

On a personal level, having Saturn and Jupiter conjunct is a big deal, and if it’s going to hit a point or a planet in your chart, that is also a big deal. But it is not going to catapult you into healing, and it’s not going to ruin your life either. It’s a transit, and all transits come to give us life experiences that we can grow from, that we can change from. 

And if every time you see a transit coming, the first thing you do is panic and assume the worst, then you’re not well suited to looking at transits. Do you understand what I’m saying? I feel like you do. And I feel good about that. Now, this is why I went ahead, and I pulled up your chart and not your child’s chart. You were born October 31st, 1983, at 1:38 p.m. in Little Rock, Arkansas. I don’t need to look at your daughter’s chart—and let me tell you why—because, as I knew I would, I see in your chart why you’re freaking out, and that is because you are going through a Saturn square to Pluto. 

You have Pluto at 29 degrees and 47 minutes of the sign Libra. The Great Conjunction is happening right at the start of Aquarius. You have had Saturn squaring your Pluto, and it’s still an out of sign square, and what’s important about this is the Saturn square to Pluto confronts us with our big fight or flight mechanisms. It confronts us with our compulsions around safety and our terrors. And so, it’s not surprising that at this time you’re seeing some astrology online, and you’re like the worst shall happen to the most important and vulnerable thing in my heart—my child. 

So, again, I just want to say the way you handle this is important. But what this is is a psychological and emotional issue and not a material crisis. It takes different remediation. And I want to reiterate that that is extra important because Saturn is going to form a square to itself and your Sun and your Mercury throughout 2021. So how you handle reality, how you handle fear, how you handle what needs to be done versus catastrophizing what might happen is up for you, and it’s going to stay up for you all year. 

There are no quick fixes. There are no easy answers. There’s just striving to do your best and recognizing when you’re slipping into fear-based thinking or catastrophizing. There is no shame in knowing what your boundaries and your limits are and choosing to use tools only when you can use them effectively and recognizing when maybe you can’t use a tool effectively. So put away birth charts. Put them away, just put them away. Put them away until you can feel a little bit more neutral or optimistic. And in the meantime, give your little baby a hug for me, why don’t ya. 

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.

I mean, you know it and I know it—what goes around, comes around. It’s an expression that people use, slash, also a reality, slash, also a really important thing to remember when thinking about astrology. This week we are going to get into all kinds of things with the horoscope, including, but not limited to the circular nature of lived experience. 

But first, let me say something about hope. I’ve been getting a lot of questions from you all basically saying many versions of, “I see x is coming astrologically, and I need hope.” “2020 was so hard for me in y ways, and I need you to tell me something to make me feel a sense of hope.” And I get it—I really, really get it. I get how this year has been so hard on so many levels and so much is coming up to surface, and the hits keep coming. It’s a lot. 

I also get how when you have been going through a series of challenging transits or when life just hands you your ass, it’s perfectly reasonable and fair to turn to astrology for a sense of when is it going to get better? When is it going to get easier? But hope is a tricky thing. Honestly, it’s a bit of a tricky thing. We all need it. We all need to have some measure of belief in the potential of growth or healing or happiness and wellness and pleasure. We all need to cultivate hope in a way that is authentic to our situation and our nature, right. So the way that a Pieces is going to have hope is going to look really different than a Virgo and on and on. 

But we are on a verge of Capricorn season. Saturn has shifted signs from Capricorn to Aquarius. If you are waiting for the winds of change to blow upon you, you may be waiting a really long time. This is not a time for passivity. This is not a time for passivity. And I want to be really clear that I’m not saying don’t rest, don’t be receptive, don’t receive. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying waiting for things to happen upon you is not the same as rest and repose. 

This is the time to strive to cultivate your own hopefulness from where you’re at, based on who you are. As it’s Capricorn season as of the 21st of December, be the captain of your own hope ship. Yeah, I said it. Be the Captain of your own hope ship. And if you’re going to be a captain, may I humbly recommend being Captain Janeway because hubba hubba. Am I right, ladies? 

If you want to be your own hope ship captain, that would really just be about turning your face towards the light, not denying what is, not platitudes for what could be, but instead, being receptive to and aligning with your greatest desires, your most hopeful wishes. And letting that help to support and buoy you through the complexities of life. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot of complexities of life. 

We can’t control so much. And 2021 is going to be an exercise in learning how to work with frustrations in many ways, which is something that I will talk about, of course, in the coming weeks much more. But this is the time to really look at what you can control, which is your attitudes. It is your engagement. It is your responses—maybe not your reactions, but your responses. 

I want to remind you to maintain your inquisitiveness. Because when we stay interested and open, when we are inquisitive instead of just assuming we know other people’s motives, other people’s feelings, other people’s lots, when we stay inquisitive, it is easier to be hopeful because the potential that we are aligned with is simply greater—just more. And in some situations, more is better. An openness of perspective is quite helpful in heavy times, and these are some heavy times. 

So we are going to get into your horoscope. We are looking at the week of December 20th through the 26th of 2020. God fucking damn it. And I can’t believe I’m going to say this. This is stunning to me, but this is the last full week of 2020. What do you think of that? How do you feel about that? This has been a monumental year. This has been a transformative, powerful year, and if the most you have done in 2020 is made it through, I want to say congratulations; you’ve done a good job. 

If you have walked into a million walls this year and really struggled as you unlearned things, as you are confronted by mistakes you’ve made or limitations in the outer world or trauma that you didn’t realize you held, if you are dealing with those things and haven’t made a lot of progress, I want to say that is absolutely okay. Start where you are, support and accept yourself for where you are, so that you can take steps towards progress—whatever that looks like for you based on where you’re at. 

This world we live in, this increasingly digital world that we live in is just a machine made for comparison, right. We’re all seeing this curation and presentation of ideas and identities and lived experience, and it is hard to not compare yourself to others. It really is hard to not compare yourself to others—to compare yourself to what you think you should be or what other people think you are or whatever the fuck it is. If that is weighing on you, if that is difficult for you, have some damn empathy for yourself. It’s hard. 

I’ve said it before; I will say it a million times again, what is hard for you is not what is wrong with you. What is hard for you is what is hard for you, and it’s okay that things are hard. It’s okay that you’re not tra la la ing through a global pandemic and a host of other major issues that are happening socially and politically. It’s okay if you’re feeling overwhelmed or scared. What you want to remember to do is to support yourself through your feelings. 

So okay, let’s go to your horoscope. On the 20th of December, 2020, Mercury moves in Capricorn. I love Mercury in Capricorn season. Why? Because I love all the Capricorn seasons because I’m a God damned Capricorn. So yeah, Mercury in Capricorn—very literal. Everything is very literal. 

This is not the time for opening up a dialogue if you don’t have any sense of a goal or an end point of it because it will just feel a little off. Mercury in Capricorn is a great time for investigating kind of the function and form of things. It’s a time for practical investigations as opposed to fanciful ones. It’s a great time for becoming the captain of your own hope ship—that’s for damn sure. 

Okay, and that brings us to the 21st—the winter solstice, Sun moves into Capricorn, and The Great Conjunction. I dropped the most recent episode of Ghost of a Podcast, episode 169, on The Great Conjunction. So if you haven’t already heard that, please do check it out, or you can read the transcript of it on my website. 

But let me just talk about it on more of a personal level because I didn’t do too much of a personal unpacking of it on the other episode. A lot of people have had this idea that you’re going to walk through this magic doorway, or you’re going to walk through this tragic doorway, depending on what astrology you’re reading or how you’re feeling lately. And that’s really just not usually how things work with astrology. If you have something that is directly hit by the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction at zero degrees of Aquarius, so if it’s like hit by degree, then you might feel this really personally. You certainly want to investigate where zero degrees of Aquarius falls in your birth chart. But these kinds of major outer planet transits tend to really impact the world, and they will really impact you if it hits your chart really personally, but they’re not necessarily like a spiritual awakening per se, okay. 

When Saturn and Jupiter meet, we are dealing with the planet of responsibility, maturity, restriction, and rigidity sitting on top of or being sat on top of—I mean, I’m not trying to say who’s a pitcher and who’s a catcher in this situation. Okay, so Jupiter is the planet of growth and expansion and broad mindedness and philosophy and religiosity and travel, long distance travel, higher education—Jupiter governs all that stuff. And so, when these two planets get close, if you will, in a conjunction setting, aka they sit on top of each other, it’s tricky because Saturn wants to restrict, and Jupiter wants to expand. And it’s generally very difficult to do the two things at once. 

Now, we can look at some things in our lives and be like, oh, there are ways that I have figured out how to both constrict and expand at the same time. Like limiting your spending allows you to expand your savings, right. It’s not just about the action on a personal level when it comes to Saturn and Jupiter meeting. It’s about the energy. It’s about your ability, your capacity, your willingness to understand the interplay of these two very different planets, these two very different principles in yourself and in your life. And it’s hard. And this is part of why people really talk about this transit on a personal level. It’s hard to find a sweet spot between honoring the structure of your life, honoring your goals and also honoring your impulses and your desire and your need to grow and expand. It’s tricky. It’s really tricky. 

And so, this transit, this Great Conjunction happening on the same day as the Sun moves into Capricorn, on a winter solstice, this is really a time to look at the way you’ve organized your life and if there’s room for growth and flexibility and expansion within it. And in the context of the pandemic, this is very, very serious because so many of us have had to restrict our lives in meaningful ways, or our resources have become meaningfully restricted, or maybe it’s health stuff is up for you. There’s a million different things that have happened, including the pressure on pre-existing relationships that shelter-in-place or quarantine times and living in fear has created. 

Within all of this, The Great Conjunction will reveal something to you of yourself, the world around you, your life, or a relationship. You may or may not be able to make sense of it in the moment. Because when you’re in the moment, you’re in it. It’s hard to be objective about something that you are subject to. And that’s not bad. It’s not good. It’s just real. 

So pay attention to these themes. Set the intention that you will look back and review this period, this like couple few weeks period, to see the major things that were happening in your personal life. And when I say your personal life, I want to be clear, first and foremost, I'm talking about your inner most psychology—your feels, your thoughts, your psyche, your spiritual, energetic body. And the greatest way to do that is to simply keep a log. 

If you find that in your journaling what you end up doing is just reporting on what other people said, on what other people did, and what other people aren’t doing, and what other people are thinking, then you know that you’re not going deep enough. What other people think, feel, say, and do is important data, but it’s not the data we’re after here. How you feel, what you’re projecting, how you talk to yourself, how you’re taking care of yourself, these things are relevant. 

And as I’ve been talking about a lot lately, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having negative thoughts or feelings. When we deny our negative thoughts and feelings, what happens is they get twisted up, and they get worse. So I am not a fan of repressing or being a Pollyanna and pretending everything’s chill when it’s not. 

And also, you don’t want to get lost in negatively, you don’t want to lose perspective and call it realism. It’s a delicate dance and a delicate balance, and it takes practice. And I am here to tell you—as an astrologer, I am here to tell you that age matters. Of course, age matters. Lived experience, felt experience matters. And so, as we have more lived experiences, we—if we put in the work—get better and better at being able to be aware of what we’re feeling in the moment and to recognize our options and our tendencies and to make better choices. 

And if you don’t do the work, if you focus on what other people are doing instead of what you are doing, what other people are thinking or feeling instead of what you’re thinking and feeling, then it gets worse over the course of time. I am a big fan of the idea that if you’re going to suffer, you might as well suffer towards healing, you know. I mean, not to brag, but those are some Capricorn wisdoms right there. Hey, we’re in Capricorn season, who’s going to get mad about it? Okay. So that is stuff for you to think about with the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction on a personal level. 

On the 23rd, we have another transit that is absolutely worth paying attention to. We have Mars forming a square to Pluto. Now this is a very fucking intense transit. This is the third hit of this transit. Because usually Mars is in its sign for a couple of months, maybe a couple few months, but because of its retrograde this year, it’s been six months, I think, in fucking Aries. So aggressive. So defensive. So intense. 

On August 13th and October 9th, Mars formed a square to Pluto. So it’s August 13th and October 9th, and it’s happening again on December 23rd. Feel free to pause the podcast and look at your dear diary or your calendar or whatever to see what was happening on and around those dates—August 13th, October 9th—in your personal life. If you’re interested in what was happening in the world, just get out your search engine and go. 

So the thing about this transit is—you know, I’m giving you these dates where the transits absolutely exact, but its scope of influence is much larger. It’s just, essentially, we’ve been in the phase of this transit since August. So Mars and Pluto are the two most violent, defensive, and aggressive planets in the zodiac. 

Mars is the little man symbol. It is the planet that governs the body, aggression, fighting, fornicating, ambition, competition, punch, punch, kick, kick, bang, bang. Those are all Mars. Now, Pluto is more of systemic oppression. Pluto is more of like nuclear war. I’m not saying that people are going to punch, punch, bang, bang or nuclear, nuclear, that’s not what I’m saying. But that’s what these planets govern to give you a sense of their energies. 

Pluto is associated with vengeance and pettiness and punishment and creation and transformation and transmutation and alchemy. So when these two planets form a 90 degree angle to each other, aka a square, what we have is the risk of your anger and resentments coming out in explosive, defensive ways, or somebody else’s anger and defensiveness and resentments coming out in explosive ways. Now luckily, we haven’t seen anything like that at all in any part of 2020—do you like a little sarcasm? Okay, cool. 

This is a transit to certainly pay attention to this week because the sitting POTUS has still not conceded the election that he very clearly, objectively, legally lost. I actually don’t like to give that person any kind of energy. I don’t like to look at his Twitter feed. I don’t see the value in it, typically. But since the Eclipse, I have been checking out his Twitter feed because I want to know what he’s saying and what he’s saying to his followers and his supporters. It’s not chill. There is no chill in it. He does not accept his loss, and he is not encouraging people to accept his loss. 

Now, from what I understand, the sitting president does not actually need to technically, officially concede his loss or the presidency in order for it to be official and legal, but the cultural implications here, I mean, it’s unprecedented in the United States, and it is very dangerous and potentially explosive. And this particular transit of Mars square to Pluto is a very risky transit. It tends to bring anger and frustrations to the surface in unpleasant and dramatic ways. 

This is absofuckinglutely not the time to act outside of your integrity. Whenever we’re dealing with difficult Pluto transits, it tends to work like a boomerang, so whatever you put out comes back at you and usually stronger. This is not the time to start shit with people. It’s just not. It’s not the time to pick fights because you feel shitty. You really want to watch your energy to make sure that you’re not trying to control or punish other people or yourself. It’s hard. Honestly, it’s very difficult. 

But these transits—and I mean this one transit, but all the hits—tends to bring up feelings of jealousy, of compulsion, a compulsive set of emotions that are very difficult to feel, like anger and jealousy and kind of ruthlessness. The truth of the matter is humans act the worst in the face of emotions that we don’t know how to sit with. Anger and fear are really hard to sit with, and so they compel us to act out without forethought or consideration. We feel entitled under the influence of anger and fear. So watch your entitlement. Watch the entitlement of others. If somebody is in some sort of anger, blizted out, ranting situation, it’s not a good time to fucking talk to them. 

You don’t need to turn yourself into a victim. You don’t—and I know that Brené Brown is so smart. She’s the smartest of the smarties. She’s said so many smart things, and the same quote that I always quote of hers is not necessarily her greatest quote, but in the words of Brené Brown, “You do not need to be a jackass whisperer.” You just don’t. So don’t do it. Pick your battles with intention. 

And that all said, you may find that you have to stand up for yourself. You may need to assert a boundary. You may need to concede that you have overstepped in the past or in this moment. Because it’s Mars, it’s your ego. Ego is not inherently bad. Because it’s Pluto, there is the theme of needing to let go of attachments. So you may need to stand your ground. You may need to step up. Just make sure that you’re checking your damn motives. If your motives are messy, if your motives are sticky, it’s going to bite you in your sweet little heinie. Nobody needs that. Nobody needs that. 

Now, that brings us to the last transit of the week, and that’s on the 24th. I’ve heard there’s a holiday that day, but I’m not sure. On the 24th of December, Mercury forms a trine to Uranus. Mercury trine to Uranus is a lovely transit for connecting to people, so don’t be shy—text people, hang out with them on video chats or whatever, connect with people. This is going to be a nice transit for being connected and finding innovative ways of connecting. 

Given in the US, anyways, how terrible COVID is—things are really bad right now. Given that, this is not a time to be flouting safely regulations. Don’t go to group events. Don’t put your family members or your community in jeopardy. Don’t put your friends in jeopardy. Don’t put yourself in jeopardy. This is a time to be incredibly conservative—just really fucking conservative with COVID. 

I know that the energy of the world receiving its first vaccines—people are getting the vaccine—is very inspiring, and it’s very exciting to many people. And I also know that we are having record infections here in the US and record deaths. The high low of this is very hard to bear. It’s very intense. And also, it makes it increasingly hard, as we knew it would based on the last Eclipse, makes it increasingly hard to know what to trust, who to trust, what to listen to, which truth is the real truth, right. So based on all this data, be fucking conservative. 

And that doesn’t mean you have to be alone. Mercury trine to Uranus tells us that connecting through technology is actually going to feel good. It’s actually going to be lovely. So don’t be shy; put yourself out there. Text a bitch. Go on a Live, I don’t know. Do what needs to be done. 

Now, my loves, thank you so much for joining me for this week’s horoscope and episode of Ghost of a Podcast. I do invite you to send me questions if you have any questions, either about astrology in general or about your life—your sweet, precious, valuable, beautiful life. And while you’re at it, subscribe to the podcast. Give it five stars wherever you listen to it. Feel free to write me a very nice review. 

I’m going to just leave you finally with this last little pro tip. Start with acceptance of whoever or wherever you are. Acceptance is not consent. Acceptance is awareness. Start with acceptance. From that place, strive to cultivate hope based on the reality of who you are and where you are, and that hope will probably come along with some action items for you. And action items are not always external, motivating items. Sometimes the action item is resting more, receiving more joy when you do things that you do. Strive, if you can, to orient yourself realistically, in a grounded way to what is real and the positive potential of what can be. Bye.