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.

My loves, this week I want to do something really different. I want to talk about Juneteenth, and specifically the astrological chart of Juneteenth. So the first thing is when you have a location and a date, you have the potential for a chart. Now, in order to cast a person's birth chart, you do need an exact time of birth. When we're looking to cast a chart for an event, you also ideally need a time of the event. However, when we're looking at historical events, it is a convention for astrologers to use the noon time. What that means is that there is not the precise knowledge of the houses and that there is not a precise knowledge of the Moon or Rising or Midheaven.

If you decide in inspiration from this episode to look at the chart of Juneteenth or any other major event, what you want to know is when you're working with an imprecise time, then you cannot look at the houses, the Ascendant, the Midheaven, or the Moon. Now, another thing I'll say is I am not a historian. I am not a historian, and I am not an expert on the Civil Rights Movement throughout the course of United States history. I'm not an expert on lots of things associated with history. Also, the primary use of astrology that I have done over the course of my career has not been looking at historical events.

So, while I'm really passionate about using astrology as a tool for social justice and understanding what we're going through in the moment in context of the astrology of the past, it's not something that I've done extensive research on. And so I want to invite you to do research into it. If you have an interest in astrology and history, there is just—you could spend your whole life studying this stuff and remain interested and passionate. And it's—yeah. It's very exciting.

Now, I'm going to say one other thing about this, which is a little bit of a spoiler. Wait for it. I'm not an expert on the astrology of pandemics. That's not something I've actually studied before, although I'll tell you what. Looking at this Juneteenth chart has inspired me to create space to do exactly that. And, again, I want to invite you if you are an astrology student to go forth and research this stuff.

Okay. Let's start it off at the beginning. What is Juneteenth, in case you don't know? Juneteenth is an American holiday that is celebrated throughout the United States, and what it does is it marks the day that the last enslaved humans were informed of their freedom. And it happened in Galveston, Texas, on June 19th, 1865. The thing that's really important about this is that the Emancipation Proclamation that Abraham Lincoln enacted that decreed that no human was meant to be enslaved—that actually happened on January 1st of 1863, not June 19th of '65.

The Civil War raged on, and the Emancipation Proclamation was not fully enforced until June of 1865. This is really an important thing to keep in mind. You also, of course, want to keep in mind that when this occurred, it's not like the enslaved people were told, "Okay. Here you go. Here's support from the government. We're going to help you out." No, no, no, no. What happened at this time was that the African Americans that were enslaved were told that they were now employees and that they had to stay where they were.

Now, all of this to say, as I've been thinking about this stuff, I've been thinking, "I want to look at the astrology." I want to look at the astrology of this specific moment of Juneteenth because it is such a pivotal and important moment, and in some ways, it is emblematic of what we're still dealing with. Yes, the law said, "You are free," but no, the law did not provide any protections for the freed people. They didn't provide any real tools for equality. It was just the absence of enslavement, and that is a fucking problem. That was a problem, and that is a problem.

And so I wanted to look at this chart, and let me just talk to you about some things that I saw. The first one is, on that date of June 19th, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, the Sun was conjunct to Uranus. And it was conjunct to Uranus at an anaretic degree. It's also called a critical degree, a.k.a. the last degree of Gemini. So, whenever you have planets at the 29th degree of a sign, it's critical. It's a really intense degree. And so what we saw here with the Sun/Uranus conjunction was this really strong move, this kind of boiling point, this electric move towards autonomy and equality and freedom.

Now, when Uranus, the planet of revolution, the planet of humanitarianism, and the planet of that which cannot be predicted—when Uranus forms a conjunction to the Sun—and there was a somewhat loose, but an opposition from Jupiter, another planet that governs freedom and expansion. When we have all of these things, we have this essential—like a cork popping.

And so, again, it's important to acknowledge that the Emancipation Proclamation two years before—two years before—but this really important date of June 19th was actually like a spreading of the freedom, the spreading of the news specifically, right? And here we are looking at that Gemini/Sagittarius polarity of news. And that's something that I've talked about on the podcast before, how this polarity of signs—Gemini and Sagittarius—are associated with news and propaganda and communications in general.

Another thing really worth naming in this chart is that Saturn was at 24 degrees—technically, it was at 23 degrees and 38 minutes of the sign of Libra. When Saturn conjoins the North Node, we have here the embodiment of morality, and not morality just in the context of church and state, because Saturn does kind of govern church and state. It's rules and hierarchies, and it's government and the church. It's not a spiritual planet per se. It's more the structure that we create around things.

So having Saturn conjunction to the North Node, the North Node being an incredibly spiritual point where we see the potential of soul embodiment—here we see within this chart a really meaningful articulation of the embodiment of a rule or an embodiment of a law in a way that impacted the control of the state. And you want to keep in mind Saturn is related to governments, hierarchies, but capitalism as well. It is really hard to talk about the slave trade, it is very hard to talk about the enslavement of humans for free labor, without talking about capitalism. It's very fucking hard, and it's very hard to talk about racism and civil rights now without talking about systemic economic inequities.

What's particularly interesting is that at this moment, the planet Pluto is at the same degree, 24 degrees of Capricorn, which is another cardinal sign. So students of astrology will know that we have fixed signs, mutable signs, and cardinal signs. Libra and Capricorn are both cardinal signs. And not only is Pluto currently at 24 degrees of a cardinal sign, but Saturn was there earlier in 2020. But what's going to happen in July of 2020 is Saturn will Retrograde back into Capricorn, and when it does, it will spend September and October at the 25th degree of Capricorn, so right around that same degree.

What you want to know is that we are likely to expect major developments in the embodiment of law. And this is related to not just what the government says but what the government does, which actually, in my view, bodes very well for police reform or police abolition. So there's kind of really positive potential associated here.

What the study of this chart has made me think is that it is important for us to pay attention when planets stimulate that approximately 24 degree of a cardinal sign, of Libra in this case. We want to really pay attention to things occurring because it will stimulate this chart, and it will stimulate the rules and embodiment of rules that we see around systemic racism, systemic oppression, or hopefully reparations. So there's great potential here, and I really want to encourage you to look in this direction.

Now, that's not all. There's actually quite a bit more.

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The next thing that I noticed in this chart is that there is a Pluto/Venus conjunction in the sign of Taurus, and it forms a square to Mars. Now, the Moon is there, too, but like I said, the Moon is only there because I'm using a noon chart, which you will too if you're pulling up this chart. But it is not a reliable time, so we can't actually trust that.

The Pluto/Venus conjunction is a really important transit for us to point out for a couple reasons. The first is because we currently do have Uranus in the sign of Taurus. So now we have another revolutionary, slow-moving planet—Uranus is current, and Pluto was in 1865—in the sign of Taurus, which is about values, which is an interesting—it really surprised me, honestly. It surprised me to see this strong Taurus signature. It surprised me to see the strong Venusian signature. And the reason why I say it's got a strong Venusian signature is because both Taurus and Libra are signs that are co-ruled by the planet Venus. So more on that in just one moment.

But when I look at the Venus/Pluto conjunction, it is this reiteration of a theme I've been talking about a lot on the podcast for over a year now, which is about values. It is about how we value human life—practically speaking, who we value, how we value them. And the fact that Mars was forming a square to the Venus/Pluto conjunction really indicates a forceful push towards the embodiment of values. And wherever Pluto is involved, we have to let go of something. And so we have here a really clear articulation of a push to give up something in favor of a life with greater value.

Okay. Now back to this Venus thing. What really surprised me as I was studying this chart was this Venusian theme here. It made me really think about the power of social allyship. It made me really see how this was such a personal thing. Now, of course, Juneteenth would be deeply personal to all the people that were living at the time. But in the context of finances, social impact, what we see is this evolution of social values being embodied.

What changed? What shifted? I mean, there was a war happening, and it was being won and won and won. Okay. Fine. Right. But what really shifted? And then it got me to think about what's happening now and how the social uprising that we are seeing now is happening alongside a pandemic, a pandemic that has confronted everyone with the tenuous nature of control over our lives, and the value of life, because everyone has to consider life or death issues to some extent during a global pandemic that is taking so many lives.

And then I thought, "Well, Jesus. Is it possible that during Juneteenth, there was a pandemic happening as well? Did that have anything to do with the social shift that was occurring?" Smallpox. Now, in 1865 when smallpox was a pandemic—and they only recorded the deaths from 1865 until 1867, and there's a really great article about it in The Atlantic by a guy named Jim Downs. I'll link it in the show notes. But the pandemic actually began in 1863. And so we had, at that same time of Juneteenth, a pandemic. They already had a vaccine for smallpox. It already existed. However, it was not administered because they did not care about the people who were freed from enslavement.

And we see that reiteration now of how the healthcare system fails Black and Brown bodies and how COVID-19 disproportionately impacts Black and Brown people. We must understand that this is a continuation of the injustices of slavery, and we have to understand that it is part of our current fight. Healthcare and equity around economics, these are very Venusian themes, and understanding the interconnectedness of these topics.

When we look at the historical document of an event chart astrologically, we can see themes that are still working themselves out, and we can understand some really powerful bits of context around what is occurring currently. The reiteration of a pandemic during Juneteenth and now makes me really passionate about and interested in how can we expand our activism and engagement to protect Black and Brown people? How can we understand the role of government as meant to be protector and to start fucking taking care of us? And when I say us, I mean all of us, but in particular and especially Black people.

I don't have the answers. That's not really what astrology offers. Astrology kind of details what's going on. It details the energetics of it. And when we're looking at some forms of astrology, we can see tools for coping with it. When we're looking at something as frightening as a pandemic, when we're looking at something as evil as slavery, we have to keep in mind that the systems at play—right? We're back to that Saturn and Libra conjunct the North Node. The systems at play are all working just fine. They're working fine to protect white straight men of financial means.

We have to understand that America has to deal with the shame and the pain and the unthinkable cruelty of slavery and how it is deeply embedded in our story. What we need at this time is a radical revisioning and restructuring of policing in this nation. What we need at this time is for more white people to center and prioritize their values instead of their guilt or discomfort. What we need at this time is absolutely to look forward at how we can orient our government and systems. But in order to do those things, my loves, we have to look back. We have to look at the history of racism in this country, and not just as feelings or thoughts but as institutionalized systems put in place and still there. We've got to look back in order to know what we're fully working with so that we can move forward and not repeat the past.

To make real and lasting changes, we need to have patience. We need to have staying power. You have to be willing to learn history. And using astrology as a guide for that is fascinating. It gives us a different lens on how themes are constantly and consistently playing themselves out.

My loves, I thank you once again for joining me for another week of Ghost of the Shmodcast. That's not really what it's called. It's called Ghost of a Podcast. Keep on washing your hands. Keep on wearing a mask. Keep on showing up to be a part of the change that we need in this world and that you need in your life. Bye.