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.

Compassion In Oakland was formed in response to the surge of anti-Asian attacks in California’s Bay Area. It started with a simple social media post offering to chaperone anyone within Oakland’s China Town neighborhood to help them feel safer. Since then, over 400 volunteers of all different backgrounds have come forward from across the Bay Area to stand against AAPI hate, thus was born the movement for the community to come together to support and protect our Asian elders. Compassion In Oakland is now looking for volunteers to serve in several different roles. Check out their website to donate, learn more about volunteering, or start a compassion project in your own area. Go to compassioninoakland.org. Link in show notes.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? That’s the question that plagues my mind. So this past week has been a real shit show of epic proportions, and it is important that I say firmly and emphatically that I stand with the AAPI community in solidarity. I am just heartbroken, as I think most people are, about the massacre that occurred in Georgia, and I stand in solidarity with sex workers and with women. 

And I’m so sick and tired of white supremacy. I’m so sick and tired of living in a violent society where mass murders are so common, and that we have to hear bullshit from white men about how mass murderers are just kind of having bad days; they’re just kind of struggling. It is exhausting. I am sick and tired of this shit. I mean, I know we all are. I know we all are. 

If you’re a white person, and you’re hearing me say this, and you just feel sick of hearing about it and sick of talking about it, you have some serious inner work to do, my dear, because people of color are in many ways terrorized in this country. For different racial identities it is different, and in different places, and, you know, etc., but in the United States shit has got to change. And it is changing, but in some ways absolutely for the better and in many ways absolutely for the worst. 

What was happening in the past few years with Pluto, which is still very much in Capricorn, but when Saturn and Pluto were meeting in the sky in 2020, the astrology of the past couple of years has been so heavy and brought up so much of our resentments and shame and rage. And so much of that has to do with systemic oppression. And for some people it is about breaking free. For some people it is about waking up, and for some people it is doubling the fuck down. And we are seeing that with violent acts. 

You know, here in the Bay Area there are just atrocious, horrifying acts of violence against Asian Americans, and, in particular, elder Asian Americans, which is just horrifying. We need to protect our elderly. We need to protect each other. We need to give a fuck. And, you know, last week on the podcast I spoke about outrage fatigue, and I mean it. Je suis tired—very, très tired of being outraged. But as much as that’s my personal lived experience, and it may be yours as well, it’s not on us; it’s on these outrageous fucking white supremacists perpetrating acts of violence and enabling acts of violence of all scales, to all degrees. 

The astrology of the last couple of years, while there has been a meaningful shift just at the start of 2021, it’s not like an individual or a collective’s resentments and hatred and gas lighting can be stimulated, and then when the transit passes that stimulated it, you just reset back to like a healthy, well-adjusted place. It’s not like that. We are in a time where some of our deepest shit, individually and collectively, has been really triggered over the last couple of years, and now this year, the psychological stress that 2021 holds, is serving to kind of stimulate, activate, and repress our shit. And within that, we have choices—we have agency. And, also, we have needs—needs to take care of ourselves, needs to take care of each other. 

I don’t have a tidy answer to anything. There is no end date to when these problems will magically go away. If you have the energy and the resources to make a difference and to help, I encourage you to do so. If you feel confused, I encourage you to educate yourself and remember there are so many activists and scholars and educators who are out there who have been doing the work for a lot longer than your awareness has spanned. There are people out there who have been doing the work for generations, and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel here—you just need to fall in line. You need to find reliable resources and get educated, and from that place you will inevitably find actions and inspiration for ways to get involved and to amplify the voices and needs of whatever communities you want to support. 

Let me affirm just one more fucking time, racism and white supremacy directed at any demographic of people is straight up wrong. Having some sort of moralistic judgement or hatred towards sex workers is straight up wrong. Misogyny in all of its forms is straight up wrong. But it’s not enough to be against misogyny, to be against racism; it’s about embracing people. It’s about embracing the humanity and the dignity in people. 

In a racist world, we all deal with racism in ourselves. In a misogynistic world, we all deal with misogyny in ourselves—that’s just part of the fucking program. And so, holding space for the complexity of what’s being triggered and what is being triggered in you and of you and your sense of responsibility in the world and how you do or don’t feel equipped to engage with it, I just want to encourage you, through the process of naming things that are complicated and hard, to create space inside of yourself and in your life to sit with your thoughts and feelings so you can determine your greatest truth and align yourself to the best of your ability with righteous actions, with healing whatever is internalized, whatever it is that is handed down to you through broken, fucked up systems and reject it. Actively reject it. It’s a fucking process. 

And as I’ve said a million times, and I’ll say it again, Saturn square to Uranus is a test. It is a test of our ability to accept reality, but not so that we can consent to it, but instead so that we can understand where we are beginning, and effectively mobilize for change that is more humanistic and ultraistic. But it’s hard to achieve change from up in the clouds. We got to locate where we’re starting from and mobilize from that place. Okay, my loves, that’s the preamble; let’s get into the astro. 

We are looking at the week of March 21st through the 27th of 2021. It’s officially Aries season—giddy up Aries season. You know I don’t like to talk about the solar seasons too much. I feel like there is an excessive amount of astrology content out there about solar seasons. Personally, me, I don’t seriously notice a big difference between solar seasons. Maybe it’s because I’m a triple Capricorn—I keep my head down; I keep on working, season be damned. 

But anyways, it is Aries season, and Aries season is springtime. Aries season is the time for things really opening up, heating up. It’s beginnings. It’s a beautiful, beautiful season. I mean, I love some spring, and I love some Aries, so try to get some movement and momentum going in your life this Aries season—that is my invocation for you, my loves. 

On the 21st, we have the first two exact transits of the week. The first one is a Mercury sextile to Uranus, and the second is a Mars trine to Saturn. So the Mercury sextile to Uranus is excellent for making connections, okay. It’s an excellent transit for innovating or seeing solutions or possibilities that you might not have otherwise seen. On a really practical, pragmatic level, it can be a great time for reading—just like educating yourself about little things or big things or reading a great novel. It can be a great time for making new friends or reaching out to people you’ve just been out of touch with. 

Because of the energy that’s been playing itself out for a while, you may feel really disconnected from people. You may feel that people are disconnected from you. This transit is a lovely one for just texting a bitch, you know what I mean? Just hey, bitch, how are you? That kind of fun stuff. 

There’s likely to be an energy of reciprocity around this date, which is really lovely. If you’ve been trying to find the words to say a thing that needs to be said, if you’ve been working on a project or a job, and you’ve just been kind of stuck, the 21st really is a great date for seeking new solutions and executing on those solutions. So the execution of solutions is more related to the second transit, that’s the Mars trine to Saturn. 

Mars trine to Saturn is excellent for follow through. This is a transit that we like because it indicates that there is energy to play with that is sustainable. So this is a great time for any kind of follow through. If there is a complicated conversation you need to have with a person, the follow through energy that Mars trine to Saturn provides in kind of collaboration with that Mercury sextile to Uranus is really lovely, honestly. It’s really lovely because there is the potential for creation—signified by that Mercury/Uranus—and then for it to kind of develop its own roots and those roots to grow pretty quickly—Mars trine to Saturn. 

Another thing that can be really great around this time, if you’ve been dealing with health issues—and when I refer to health issues, I am talking about your body, but also mental health; they are all equally health issues. This is a great time for mobilizing on a plan, so if you’ve been like, “Oh, shit, gluten is not my friend, and I know I need to stop eating gluten,” I don’t know. Gluten? Sure. Okay, gluten. Then this is a great time to just kick that off. It’s not exactly because this transit is for beginning things; it’s because these transits, especially in combination with each other, are really good for following through on them and really having a new vision of how you can make things happen. 

Now, like I named last week when I talked about the sextile city that we were in, when we have sextiles and trines, I want to remind you that means that there is a flow for what is in motion. Now, sounds great, right? Sounds fucking great. The downside is if you have self-destructive attitudes and ideas—Mercury—or actions and plans—Mars—then it will have you flowing on a long walk on a short pier. You know what I mean? 

The key here is to really check in with what your plans are, what your ideas are, what your actions are and to make sure that they reflect your intention, your motivation. And if they don’t, or if your intention or motivation needs to change—great, these transits will help you with that. 

Now, on the 23rd—and I will say there will be overlap between all of these transits—Mercury forms a square to Mars. Now, this transit is a little complicated. The last time we went through this transit was actually on January 8th of 2021, which was the week of—it was like two days after the insurgence on The Capitol here in the United States. 

So Mercury square to Mars is a difficult transit because, in part, it makes you annoying. It makes you annoying. It makes you easily annoyed. It makes other people annoying. This transit can be associated with combat or fighting. Now, usually because Mercury’s involved, it is based on ideas, or it’s fighting with words. It’s not necessarily a warring transit. 

But Mercury is your attitudes, beliefs, and ideas, and Mars is punch, punch, bang, bang. It’s my ego. It’s what I deserve. It’s what I need. A square is tension; it’s struggle. And so, this particular transit—which, I actually should say, also occurred on February 10th of 2021—this particular transit is likely to bring up themes that have been active for you all year. And those themes are likely to be around your friendships, your ability to communicate—which, whenever I say that, encompasses your ability to listen—how you fight, how you stand up for yourself, how you advocate for yourself. This is wrapped up in your relationship to anger and entitlement, which encompasses, if I may say, imposter syndrome themes. 

So this particular transit, this Mercury square to Mars, first of all, pay attention—look at what was going on January 8th, February 10th, around those dates for you in your life. That will give you a sense of the energies of this transit and how it makes you feel, how it tends to hit you. We want to really pay attention to those themes and expect them to reemerge around this week. 

And I want to clarify for you, when I say the themes will reemerge, I don’t necessarily mean if your sister annoyed you to no end in February because she said something about your hair, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a fight with your sister about your hair again. It might be that you have a theme going on about people that you trust making you feel less than, and you need to find your voice. So it might show up at work or on social media. 

It’s not the presentation of the thing. It’s not the symptom of the energy that you want to pay attention to; it’s what’s going on underneath the surface. That’s what you really want to pay attention to in order to get the lesson of the Mercury square to Mars. And this particular transit is, like I said, annoying, and so expect your fuse to be short, expect other people’s fuses to be short. If that means you need to kind of rethink your day that day, or you need to create a little bit more space in your day, great—go ahead and do that. 

I want to remind you here that the way that we here at Ghost of a Podcast Industries prefer to use astrology is to say, okay, so this is the weather report; how can I prepare for this weather? Not oh, fuck, I’m doomed; it’s going to rain. If it’s going to rain, just fucking wear socks, get an umbrella, maybe some galoshes. I don’t generally wear socks. Maybe that was a very California statement? To which I apologize to all people who live somewhere that has winter, and, of course, you’re already wearing socks. 

Okay, so Mercury square to Mars—super annoying. Engage with how you feel annoyed. Engage with how you are annoying and get more information about how you experience anger. 

Speaking of anger, if you’re like, “Wait, anger? That’s awful. I don’t want to think about anger,” I want to remind you about episode 177 about anger and forgiveness. If you haven’t already heard that episode, or if you need a primer or a repeat, go ahead and listen to that bad boy because I touch on some anger issues, and who couldn’t use a little bit of help with anger issues? 

That brings us to the final transit of this week, and it is on the 25th. The Sun will conjoin Venus in the sign of Aries. So they will be exactly sitting on top of each other. Sun conjunction to Venus is a lovely transit. It’s super lovely. It can make you feel lazy or hedonistic. It can find you wanting to eat your most favorite of foods, to play dress up, to flirt your sweet little buns off. Most frequently, I find it makes people feel a little lazy and self-indulgent as opposed to super amorous, unless it’s conjoined something in your birth chart, basically. So if you don’t have anything around four degrees of any of the cardinal signs—Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn—you’re not necessarily going to be majorly impacted by this one. 

But this is a lovely transit if you just need a break. This is a lovely transit for enjoying the arts, being creative, snuggling up to your sweetheart—really just having a little bit of sense-based enjoyment in your life. And that might look like something romantic or amorous, and that might look like something artistic, or simply the enjoyment of food or clothes or physical things. Whatever it is, you deserve a break. We’re living through a Goddamned plague—you deserve a little bit of happy, and it doesn’t always have to be that deep or that serious. So to you I say, my loves, dig in and enjoy. 

Now, quickly, briefly, I will just repeat—I am so bad at doing this; forgive me—but I will repeat the transits of the week. On the 21st, we have two transits: Mercury sextile to Uranus and Mars trine to Saturn. On the 23rd, Mercury forms a tense square to Mars. And then, finally, on the 25th, Sun is conjunct Venus in Aries. 

Now, before we go, I have one more thing to say about all this shit, which is we are living through a fucking plague. We’re living through a pandemic, and we are all doing our best. This is not normal, though. It’s just not normal. And having had this one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring this a global pandemic, it’s just—there’s no chill in that, you know. It’s not nothing. It’s something, and it’s something big. 

And if you have been feeling the weight of life feeling in some ways suspended and in other ways so much more pressure in life, you’re not alone. Humans, we’re very adaptable. We’ve all rushed to adapt, as we should—I mean, what choice do we have? But the truth of the matter is this is really fucking traumatic. There’s so much traumatic stuff happening in the world and in our lives, you know, life doesn’t just stop. But I do want to acknowledge that this is really rough, and it’s really not normal, and it’s okay if you feel fucked up about it. You don’t have to feel normal about this—this isn’t normal. 

I don’t know, I just—I just want to encourage you to give yourself permission to be where you’re at, and I want to validate the complexity and absurdity of life. It is all those things. And it’s also beautiful, right. But fuck, it’s complicated and absurd. Fucking absurd. 

Okay. Well, as always, I want to invite you to send me questions at ghostofapodcast.com. Let me know what you want to learn, what you want to hear about, or ask me questions about your life. If you haven’t already joined me over on Patreon, we’re doing lots of shit. We’re getting deep into Tarot. We’re getting deep into the twelfth house, like real deep into the twelfth house, which is really fun for me because I’m obsessed with it. 

And if you haven’t already grabbed my free app for IOS—this is not my forth coming astrology app. I dropped something called Tiny Spark a couple of years ago. It is a free app for IOS users, and it’s basically just a tool for resourcing your intuition—like a little Magic 8-Ball in pink because I love fucking pink. Yeah, grab it over at the IOS store and keep on tuning in—tunning into yourself, I mean. I mean, tune into me, sure, but keep on tunning into yourself, and always remember that self-care is not at the expense of other people. It is not at the expense of engagement with the world and being of service to the collective. It’s a part of it, you know, and there are ebbs and flows with all of it. But our wellness is interconnected. Our liberation is interconnected. Do your best to show up, to cultivate empathy for yourself and for others. Keep on doing the work. Bye.

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My loves, it’s time for another How The Sausage Is Made, aka a sweet little collection of questions answered for you here today. The first question comes from Basic Baby, and it says, “All of my houses are in their ruling sign. When I listened to your recent mid-week episodes on specific houses, I felt like I was missing out on some complexity or layers in my birth chart. What are your thoughts? Thank you, Basic Baby.” And they were born on January 27th, 1989, at 10:12 a.m. in Santa Barbara. 

So a couple of things straight out the gate. If all of your houses are in their ruling sign, that means you’re an Aries Rising. Every Aries Rising has that, generally speaking. Are Aries Rising people basic? Ah, I don’t think so, and I feel like those would be fighting words. Like if you were to run around the world telling Aries Rising people that they were basic, you’d have a fight on your hands. So I don’t recommend it. That was astrological stereotyping. I apologize, slash, think it’s funny. 

Okay, so there’s a couple of things for me to say to you, Basic, and the first thing is about house systems. And I will remind you episode 111 is the episode where I have Tony Howard on the podcast to talk about house systems and is worth a listen. But it depends on what house system you use whether or not your birth chart has all of their houses in their ruling signs. 

Because when I pull up your birth chart in Campanus houses, you have, yes, Gemini on the third house cusp and Cancer on the fourth house cusp, but you’ve also got Cancer on the fifth house cusp, which puts Leo on your sixth house cusp. And, of course, you would just flip those signs to understand what’s happening in the top half of your birth chart. So I actually don’t see that your birth chart has all of their houses in their ruling signs. 

But even if you did have that, there is nothing basic about it, and you’re not missing out on any kind of important complexity or layer to your birth chart. There is nothing negative or inherently positive about having any particular zodiac sign on a house cusp. 

Now, if we look at astrology, and we look at the birth chart from a strictly mathematical or intellectual standpoint, then things are better or worse, but if we look at it from a humanistic standpoint, it’s just different lived experiences. It’s different data helping you to understand different ways of being and different resources and complexities and layers to your nature. So don’t worry about good or bad or basic. I mean, the only way to be basic is to be basic, and really, truly, any zodiac sign in any configuration can be basic. So I hope that answers that question for you. 

And that brings me to my next question, which is about squares. And it goes like this, “I’ve usually seen a square aspect defined as a place in the chart where two planets do not see eye to eye: the energies do not flow easily and beneficially between them. Occasionally, though, there is a transit, such as the recent Venus square to Mars, which actually felt like an exciting and interesting change of pace. Is there a way you can help me to deeper understand the nuanced energy of a square aspect?” 

This is such a great question, and it really comes back to this important thing that I probably say all the Goddamned time because it bears repeating, which is what is difficult does not equal what is bad, and what is easy does not equal what is good. That is wrong thinking, IMO. 

So let me pull back and get astrological and then really break it down. When there’s a 90-degree angle between two or more planets in your birth chart—and that is different from a transit, so I’m going to talk about it in both ways—but when you have that in your birth chart, you have an active relationship, an active conversation between the planets involved in a square. And it can be two planets, it can be five planets, right, but you have an active and conflictual relationship between those planets. 

And here’s the thing, you need conflict. Who are you ever going to have sex with where there’s no tension? We call it sexual tension for a reason. How are you going to write a book if you don’t have tension around your ideas and your drive? We need tension in order to create. And I’m not saying that tension equals bad, or tension equals a negative form of stress. Stress is what we need in order to motivate us to get off of our sweet asses and make shit happen. 

This is why a lot of times we ignore the easy transits in our lives, we ignore the easy occurrences in our lives, and we wait until our ass is handed to us to actually mobilize and make changes and get shit done. 

When we have squares in the birth chart, yes, this can signify a place in the birth chart where we have tension and where things are difficult for us, but it just as frequently can signify where we are motivated, where we are creative, where we seek solutions, where we’re actively engaged. I want to just really point to the fact that it’s not an either/or—they are interconnected to each other these two concepts of difficulty and tension and inspiration and motivation, right? So that’s in the birth chart. 

Now, in the context of transits, there’s two things I’ll say. The first is you happen to have mentioned a Venus square to Mars. Venus square to Mars is not a hard transit. Whenever we’re dealing with squares between Venus and Mercury or the Sun or Mars, yeah, or if we’re talking about a transit to your birth chart where it’s Venus square to Venus, all of those are actually kind of fun, easy, dynamic, creative transits. That’s just Venus doing Venus for you. 

So the key with Venus is to understand that it is a pleasure seeking planet, and so when we have a square, when we have tension and motivation and even disruption with that, it can simply mean you find new ways of having fun or you explore—you watch a movie that’s a different kind of movie than you would typically watch, and you like it. It’s not always that deep. Now, when Venus forms a square to an outer planet, all bets are off, but that’s because of those outer planets and their implications. 

Now, to the larger part of your question, which is can squares feel exciting and interesting and a change of pace? That is the textbook definition of what a square can be: exciting, interesting, a change of pace, motivating. Squares are a 90-degree angle. Think of it this way, it’s like when a square occurs, you have the capacity to turn a corner. In fact, you’re on call to turn a corner. Is that a negative thing, inherently? Hell, the fuck, no, it’s not. Is it a positive thing inherently? I am afraid it is also not. It is a challenging thing because it requires your engagement, your activity, your participation. 

Squares are activating, and sometimes being activated sucks balls—which I think is a negative thing, but then, again, I’m very gay—and sometimes it’s a wonderful thing. Sometimes that call to action, that drive to make change is exactly what you need. And Venus does not have to be involved in order for that to be the case. 

So squares are not good or bad. And this is where I’ll say a couple of things that are really important. First is a lot of the language that astrology employs, especially like old school astrology, is it’s very judgmental. It’s like this is in detriment; it’s in fall. Squares are malefic transits, or squares are malefic aspects. They’re very kind of judgy sounding from a very modern psychodynamic perspective. And people can get really freaked out when they read stuff like that. 

So I want to just hold space for a couple of things. The first thing is there are different ways of using astrology. From the way that I use it, very kind of like humanistic, psychological style, my attitude is it is not about good or bad; it is more about hard or easy. And hard and easy are not inherently good or bad or vice versa. 

So the key is, if you’re really trying to learn astrology, is to be interested in the energy of a square. Let me be clear, what I’m talking about is pay attention to square transits in your birth chart. Pay attention to square transits as I talk about them week after week in the horoscope. See if you can notice what it feels like to be engaged in a square. And, in fact, the tension that a square aspect in the birth chart suggests is, again, neither good nor bad—it is what it is, what it is. 

But if you’re struggling to figure out how to most smoothly and effectively work with the planets involved in a square, I learnt from an astrologer years and years and years ago find somebody who’s got those same planets in an easier aspect, aka a sextile or a trine. Because then you can see how that same exact energy functions when it’s flowing differently, right. And this can be a really interesting way to understand the energy of each individual planet and of the aspect of a square. You can do this with an opposition as well, of course. 

What’s really cool about this is you will quickly learn that sometimes easy aspects in the birth chart make us a little lazy or self-indulgent; they do not create motivation. And when there’s a lack of motivation, we don’t always take agency in our lives. Whereas when there is a square or an opposition, aka a malefic or a hard or difficult aspect, we are motivated—our life circumstances keep on compelling us to strive, to be better or more, to heal. And that’s really wonderful. 

Again, squares are, very differently than the sextile, a creative aspect or a creative transit to go through. But it’s tumultuous. It’s got some sharp edges to it, just like a 90-degree angle would, right. 

So one last thing I’ll say about this is when I look at chart with a shit ton of squares and/or oppositions, I do not think to myself oh, no, this person’s fucked up. I think to myself, oooh, interesting. We need tension to be interesting. When I see a chart with easy aspects all over the damn place, I do not think oh, this person is healthy and well adjusted and happy. I think woah, that’s interesting. What I’m trying to say is people are interesting. We need to stop using astrology as a tool for condemning, pathologizing, excusing, or damning ourselves or others. 

Okay, now I got another question, and I don’t know what’s going on in town. Let me tell you this, this past week I have gotten a flurry of questions about zero degrees in astrology. So I’m guessing some influencer out there wrote something or published something about zero degrees. But this question, it says, “I would love to hear more about the meaning and interpretation of degrees. Do things get harder as the planet progresses through a sign?” 

So there is a vain of thought that Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, is the child of the zodiac and that Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac, is the most spiritually evolved of the zodiac. I don’t buy into that at all. That is hierarchical thinking, and it’s unnecessary. I believe that maturity can be achieved with any configuration of planets, at any degree, and in any sign. And I say that emphatically. I fucking mean it. 

Okay. Now, in regards to degrees, you know, the final degree of a sign is meant to be a very powerful degree. It’s called an anaretic degree. This particular degree, the final degree of any sign, it can be kind of a crisisy [sp] degree, which, you know, you hear the word crisis, and you feel like it’s bad. Again, astrology uses language a little bit differently than is conventionally done. But crisis isn’t meant as like a bad thing. It’s more of a—think of it this way, if there’s 30 degrees of each sign, of each zodiac sign, and you’re at the final fucking degree of a planet, at the final degree, the crisis is an embodiment of the last gasp of that zodiac sign’s journey, so it is a meaningful degree. And we can often see struggle or really strong activation for any kind of planet in that degree. 

But, honestly—honestly, I don’t know how helpful that is to think about in your birth chart. You might find it helpful, but I don’t want you to think that because you have like a planet at 29 degrees, you’re therefore doomed. You’re not. That’s not what that means, okay. 

The other thing I can tell you is in astrology there is something called, and I always mispronounce it because I don’t say it out loud very often—I more think it, so forgive me because I’m probably going to say this wrong—it’s decanates. And decanates in astrology relate to—they relate to the degrees. We’re going to talk about the decanates, and we’re going to talk about Sabian Symbols, okay. 

So each zodiac sign has 30 degrees, and when we talk about decanates in astrology, we’re talking about the first zero to nine degrees is the first decanate, the tenth to nineteenth degree is the second decanate, and then the final, the third decanates is twenty to twenty nine degrees. And the reason why we say 29 degrees is because we mean 29 degrees and 59 minutes. We don’t actually hit that 30th degree. 

So these kind of divisions are—they’re are like nuanced data about the zodiac sign that your particular planet is in. So let’s say we’re talking about having a planet in a fire sign. Let’s say you have the Sun in a fire sign, okay. The first decanate, so zero through nine degrees, would mean that there’s basically a relationship between Aries, the first fire sign, and that particular planet in whatever sign it is. 

So let’s say you have a planet at four degrees of Sagittarius, then that planet would be that Aries side of Sagittarius. The second decanate, let’s say you had a planet at 14 degrees of Sagittarius, then it would be influenced by Leo, the second of the fire signs. And let’s say that planet was at 24 degrees of Sagittarius, then it would be like hella, hella Sagittarius. It would be a Sagittarius Sagittarius vibe, okay. 

Basically, there are three earth signs, three fire signs, three air signs, and three water signs. There are also three decanates. So what you can see is that the first decanate is related to the first sign of that element, and the second decanate is related to second sign that shows up in the zodiacal wheel of that element, and the third—well, you just guessed it—the third sign of that element. 

So different astrologers have different kind of theories about how deep this is, how much—how frequently to apply it, and the intensity of these things, the like deeply felt layer of this. So I’m going to say a couple of things. For me, I think it’s like fun and interesting. The birth chart is so complicated, and I am of the mind, personally, that too many details will just get us lost in the weeds, and then we don’t synthesize and integrate the whole picture of data. 

Now, that’s me, based on my personality, my nature, and the way that I use astrology. I know many people who I deeply respect their work, and they’re obsessed with the details, and they love to get into these kinds of nuances. And so, you may be one of those people, and you may get really interested in these kinds of theories, and you might get a lot of value out of them, so go forth and be merry, as it were. But I wouldn’t particularly say that it’s deeply important. 

And then, finally, I certainly wouldn’t say that the zero degree is anything to worry about or get too excited about, on either end. It’s not amazing. It’s not awful. It’s neither. There’s nothing really for me to tell you about the zero degrees. It’s the beginning of a sign; you’re in the first decanate. I don’t know if that’s especially helpful for me to say, but I just got a flurry of questions about it, and I’ve never read anything about or used anything about that zero degree being especially yay or nay or anything in between. 

That said, and I don’t want to blow your mind here, but I don’t know everything, and astrology is so vast—oh, my God, it’s so vast. There is so much to learn. There are so many different ways of using astrology. There are so many techniques, and it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that I don’t know something that exists that other people use all the damn time. 

Okay, so I have one last thing to say on this topic, which is there is something in astrology called Sabian Symbols. I’ve talked about it before on the podcast, and it’s not exactly astrology. Sabian Symbols are these channeled symbols based on each of the zodiacal degrees. Dane Rudhyar has a really famous book about it, but there’s other books that exist out there that are interpretations of the Sabian Symbols of each individual degree. 

They’re very spiritual. They’re not, per say, astrological, but then, of course, they are astrological because they’re based on the zodiac degrees, and it’s really interesting to look into. So if you’re either really interested in mystical parts of astrology, or you’re not trying to get too deep and become like an expert in astrology, but you want to read more things that are really kind of personalized to you and accessible to you, Sabian Symbols is a fun way to go. 

It’s not something I’m an expert in. It’s something I use from time to time, but it’s not something I use in astrological consultations. It’s just something I’ll look up now and again. So as much as I find them to be interesting, I cannot answer any further questions about it. But it is related to the degree of any of your individual planets. So it’s something worth investigating, if you find that interesting. 

And now, I have a final question for you, my loves. And it goes like this, “Everything I read about Mars in Pisces makes it seem like I’m a flake and not capable of leadership. The thing is I’m a manger of a team of 14. What’s your take? Can the stars define leadership? Please keep my birth info private.” 

So I love this question because it is further kind of evidence of something I talk about all the time. We cannot define something as complex as our capacity to lead through just one data point, in this case it’s Mars in Pisces. And, yes, what you will read a lot of is Mars in Pisces is flakey, lacking in follow through, all this kind of stuff. But that’s only one way of looking at it, isn’t it? Mars in Pisces is motivated by feeling. So if you are somebody who leads a team of 14, you probably do it by making personal connections and motivating people based on the way you give them reinforcement. 

But that said, that’s not the only thing in your chart that we would look to for something like leadership. The first thing is aspects to your Mars. And in this case, you have a Sun/Mars square, which strengthens your motivation, and that motivation is to get things done, to advocate, to educate. And I say educate because you have Mars in the ninth house, so part of your leadership skills are probably about inspiring and educating your team and motivating them to kind of do more for themselves and more for the team itself. 

People who have Mars in Pisces, and you also have a Midheaven in Pisces, tend to really need a sense of connection or family or community within their work environment, so my guess is that’s a big part of how you lead and how you connect to people at work in general. 

That brings me, also, to your North Node conjunction to your Midheaven, which absolutely suggests that you’re meant to step into leadership role. But not in the most stereotypical, patriarchal way, but instead in a way that reflects the person that you are and how you care about others—your investment in others. 

All to say, when we are looking at just the placement of a single planet, what we get is a foundational layer. If you will, think of it this way: today I shall wear black pants. These black pants are a foundational piece of my outfit. Is that my whole outfit? No. Could I pair it with any number of things to dress up or dress down my outfit? Yes, I could. So, similarly, when we are talking about a single planet in a sign, we’re talking about one meaningful layer of information. But once you start layering on other pieces, you can understand the whole picture. But one layer is not enough to understand that. 

And it’s very enticing when you’re studying astrology or when you’re just web-mding astrology—you’re just like randomly looking things up in books or on blogs—to jump to conclusions. And the way that astrology is written—by the very nature of astrology we write definitive statements about what this means. But you have to know, we are not our parts; we are the synthesis of our parts. The choices that you make with, for instance, Mars in Pisces can incline you to be a leader or to be a total recluse, or both. But that is true for Mars in Aries as well. 

This does not mean astrology doesn’t work. This does not mean astrology isn’t useful and doesn’t give us highly personalized and detailed information, but what it means is is when we are looking for conclusive what I can be in the world, what I am capable of? that’s where we start to misuse astrology frequently. Your Mars tells you the style of leadership that you’re inclined towards. And to read, for instance, Pisces as flakey or incapable of pushing forward, that’s a misunderstanding of Pisces energy. It’s an oversimplification of Pisces energy. 

So, my love, I’m excited that you’re in a leadership role, and I hope you lead with your whole heart. 

And, my dears, I thank you for listening to this edition of How The Sausage Is Made. I really—I don’t eat sausage, just for the record. This is not related to actual sausage in any way, shape, or form. But it’s nice to peep behind the curtain now and again, to get a bunch of extra questions answered, and, hopefully, to give you more tools for working with astrology and your birth chart.