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.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. Just in case you didn't hear last week's episode or you're new here, this week and this week only, Ghost will be only a horoscope. There will be no reading. But next week, we're going to be back to regularly scheduled programming, so enjoy. And before I begin, I want to thank everyone for the just incredibly kind birthday messages, so kind. So kind. Thank you so much. You are appreciated. I was very, very touched.

And I also want to thank you for the incredible influx of questions that you sent to the podcast to be considered so that you could get a reading. I got so many questions, and there was something that I saw as a theme within them that I just want to acknowledge before we dive into the horoscope, which is that so many of you⁠—so many of us⁠—are going through a really hard time right now. And I want to just kind of remind you that our problems, especially our emotional and psychological problems, exist in the context of what's happening in the world at this time because this is a really unprecedented time.

And we have a collective dissonance that the climate crisis is something that's happening in the future when it is so clearly happening right here, right now. We are living in a time that is really scary, and scary in an existential way, like how will we survive? What will come next? It is a human-created climate crisis, but the climate is a thing that happens independent of us at the same time. It's scary. And with something so big and so existential and so out of our individual control, it's hard to know how to cope. And so most of us disassociate. We don't think about it, or maybe we go the opposite direction; we obsess on it.

What ends up happening is that our feelings and our thoughts about something as big as, as an example, the climate crisis⁠—it leaks into other stuff. And so the feelings that you have about, "Holy shit. What's going to happen in 20 years, 40 years, whatever?"⁠—too big to deal with, so they kind of get shoved into other spots. And then you feel like, "Oh, I'm out of control. I don't know what to do with my relationship. I have to figure out what comes next in my relationship," when what's actually happening is you're feeling out of control and focusing those feelings on something more containable, more actionable in your individual life.

That doesn't mean that you're not having real issues in your individual life, but I am a big believer in context. And in order to have authentic context for what's happening within us, we must acknowledge the world around us. It doesn't make anything magically improve, but it helps us to identify what we're feeling and what to focus on so that we can address the problem and find the best possible remediation. It's really hard to do that without acceptance. It's hard to do that without empathy for ourselves.

For anyone who's been feeling like the last three years have been exceptionally hard⁠—which I know a lot of you feel because, again, I get lots of questions from you⁠—what are the chances that that is happening, whatever is going on inside of you or in your life, outside of the context of this once-in-a-century global pandemic? It's happening in the context of this. And understanding that is important for understanding yourself and having empathy and acceptance for both your individual circumstances but also the collective circumstances. Like if you're having a hard time⁠—I don't know⁠—buying a home, yeah, there's a collective context to that. It's not just about you and your finances. It's about the world we live in.

Being honest with yourself about what's happening in the world, about how you are or aren't able or willing to think about it, cope with it, whatever, is really important. It's okay to say to yourself, "Yeah, the climate crisis"⁠—as an example, right? Just as an example. I'm in California, where we're having just wild floods and all this crazy rain after years of drought, so it's top of my mind. But to say, "Yeah, I can't think about it because I feel so terrible when I think about it, and I feel helpless and hopeless when I think about it. So I can't think about it, but I can accept and acknowledge that it's happening and that I am avoiding those thoughts and feelings because of how intense they are for me"⁠—when we do that, what we are doing on a more spiritual, psychological, and emotional level is validating the parts of ourselves we can't cope with.

In other words, we're not completely abandoning those parts of ourselves. And that's really important because when we feel abandoned by other people, by situations, or by our own selves, things get a lot worse. It feels a lot less possible to cope. And so, if you decide, "Okay, I'm ignoring COVID, climate crisis, social unrest"⁠—you name it. I mean, throw a stick, and you'll hit something that's too hard to focus on⁠—the world. If you acknowledge that, then you're saying to yourself, "Okay, self. I don't know what to do with this. I am not going to focus on it. This is not the thing that I'm going to focus on. And also, I acknowledge, self, that this is upsetting for me and that I have emotions about this, and they're going somewhere, and I don't know where they're going." That's a great starting place.

We can't always do the best thing, but we can do the next best thing. We can try, anyways. And to that end, I want to say emphatically and with a very heavy heart that COVID-19, the pandemic, is not over. I took a little mini-break this past week. I mean, it was super mini. I worked all week, but whatever. I didn't work as much. I was out in the world a lot more, and I was really stunned by how few people are masking anymore and how people are just going about their business as though we were not in a pandemic.

And besides the fact that not masking/not social distancing is a risk to your health and the health of others, I want to talk about this psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, because behaving as though we are not collectively living through the fourth year of a once-in-a-100-year pandemic⁠—it's not good for your soul. It's not good for your psyche. And it's not good for your heart. When we lie to ourselves or we pretend something isn't true that is objectively true, when there's evidence that it's true, it has a trickle-down effect on us. It creates problems for us. And for each of us individually, depending on a myriad of factors, that's going to show up in different ways.

But even when we find ourselves in challenging realities, which⁠—who amongst us has not found themselves in a challenging reality? But even when you find yourself in a challenging reality, it is important to at least acknowledge that that's the reality you're in. Maybe you say to yourself, "I'm not going to rise to this challenge. I'm not going to focus on this challenge. I'm fucking burned out. I'm over it," whatever it is that's going on depending on the situation. But to act as though it's not snowing when you're standing in a blizzard⁠—that has consequences, not just to your body, not just to your mind, and not just emotionally, but spiritually as well.

And given the fact that we are going through this airborne pandemic just post the Great Mutation, in this time where there's been a shift astrologically to the air elements, that is really fascinating because we all share the air, right? We all share the air. It's not something most of us think about very much, the air that we breathe, the air around us in public spaces. It's incredibly personal. It's the most personal thing, the air you breathe, and yet it is something we share globally. And how we participate as a collective has its foundation in how we participate as individuals.

This is all to say that when you reflect upon your social life, your love life, your career, your mental health, your spiritual evolution⁠—when you reflect upon these things, wherever you're at, if you don't factor in the extraordinary circumstances we are all living through as a collective, if you don't factor in the ways you are or are not coping with that stuff, acknowledging that stuff, considering that stuff, then you're missing a meaningful part of the equation. And that can have the effect of destabilizing your own relationship to reality, your own insights, your ability to effectively care for yourself, parent yourself, nurture yourself, that kind of good stuff.

What I'm really trying to get at here is it is important that you love yourself, not just like, "Oh, you know, I love myself," but in your actions to treat yourself, all your parts and your participation in the world⁠—to treat yourself with love is an effort. And sometimes it's an effort that requires stepping into discomfort, stepping into conflict or crisis. Those things can be an act of love. And I invite you to be brave enough to do that when you can and, when you can't, to have empathy for yourself instead of being a dick, to try, and when you can't try, acknowledge it. Work with it. And love⁠—I don't know⁠—love. Does it make the world 'round? I wish. No, it doesn't. But it certainly would be great to have more of it. And from my perspective, acceptance, presence, is a meaningful part of love. Hate, on the other hand⁠—it's not the opposite of love. Indifference⁠—that's the opposite of love. So don't be indifferent to yourself or the world around you. Love, love, love.

Okay. All that said, let's get astrological. This week, we are looking at the horoscope for January 15th through the 21st of 2023, and we start off strong, my nerds. We start off strong on the 18th with Mercury going direct. This is not just fantastic news because Mercury is no longer Retrograde but also because Mars went direct last week. And so what we have is a massive shift in energy.

You can expect a couple of things now that Mercury is direct. The first one is that miscommunications, technical difficulties, all that kind of shit, is significantly less likely to happen. But the other thing is that we will now have that shift in energy that so many people associate with the new year where you can kind of mobilize, make plans, act on things⁠—yeah. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've been kind of putting off some things that I really wanted to start playing with because I was so aware of all of this Retrograde energy. And it's not ideal to start things during Retrogrades.

Now, if you have started a bunch of stuff or anything during the Mars Retrograde or, in particular, since the 29th of December when Mercury went Retrograde⁠—so if you've started anything new, if you've made any plans in this period, you may, during the Mercury Retrograde shadow⁠—a.k.a. the Retroshade⁠—find yourself having to deal with problems. You may be dealing with a little clean-up of, "Oh shit. I thought you meant x, but you really meant y. My bad," or you may be having to hear that from someone else.

Try not to take it too personally if you fuck up, if someone else fucked up, if things go sideways, because what happens after a big Retrograde moment like we have been in is that things start to clarify, and as they clarify, you realize what went wrong or what was not above board. When Mercury is direct, it's much, much easier to cope with it. So, instead of fixating on, "Oh shit. This went wrong," or whatever, my advice to you is to focus on, "Okay. What do I want to do with it? How can I learn from it?" because we want to remember that Retrogrades follow the rule of re's.

We are reflecting, and when it comes to Mars, that's on our actions, our ego, our motivations, passion, our anger, sexuality. And when it comes to Mercury, it's our friendships. It's what we say. It's how we listen. It's communication in general⁠—that's DMs, emails, texts, conversations. And it's also our plans. It's a lot of stuff, you see, that we've been meant to reflect on. And as these planets⁠—Mars went direct last week again, Mercury this week. But as these planets start moving the way they're meant to be moving⁠—a.k.a. giddyap, straight head⁠—it's kind of like dawn breaking. You can see clearly. Things get eliminated. They start to feel like they're moving in the right direction or that there's some sort of momentum there.

So we have the opportunity to learn from what went wrong, what we misunderstood, how we handled it when technical difficulties emerged or plans went sideways on us, miscommunications occurred. How we respond is really important, and we have so much to learn from our reactions. So don't miss out on this this end of Mercury Retrograde cycle, okay?

But that's not the only thing happening on the 18th of January. On the same date, we have a Sun conjunction to Pluto at 28 degrees of Capricorn. So we're at the end of Capricorn season, very close to the end of Capricorn season. And Pluto is at the final degrees of Capricorn. And I should mention that I said in the 2023 year-ahead horoscope that when Pluto moves into Aquarius in January of 2024, that it just stays there, but it actually does retrograde back in the autumn of 2024 into Capricorn for a nice hot minute and then goes back into Aquarius. And again, this error, like so many other errors, was brought to you in part by Mercury and Mars Retrograde because I did, in fact, record that episode during those two transits.

But I digress. We are talking about the Sun conjunction to Pluto, and this transit is intense. It brings about really powerful feelings that are often very Plutonian, which is to say resentment, possessiveness, jealousy, rage, bitterness, and, again, passion. And passion is not a good or a bad thing. It is a powerful thing to feel. And a lot of times, we will behave very poorly out of passion, and other times we will behave in the most spectacular and creative of ways out of passion. So passion on its own is not the thing. It's passion-plus that is the thing, if you know what I mean.

And so you are likely to be either feeling some of these very powerful feelings or dealing with people or circumstances that are under the influence of the Sun/Pluto conjunction. So it's really important that you consider your emotions, your feelings, and the energy with which you approach a thing⁠—so that might mean the energy with which you talk to yourself, like are you being a jerk, are you coming on too strong to yourself, are you jumping to conclusions⁠—and also to really be mindful about how you engage with other people because the intensity of your emotions may inspire you to start shit without meaning to start shit.

We want to keep in mind that Pluto governs power struggles. So the Sun is your identity and your will, and Pluto is power struggles. And so it may be that you're experiencing something that you feel is attacking your identity or attacking your sense of self. And so, of course, what do you do? You fight back, or maybe, depending on your nature, you shut down and you attack yourself. We want to really be mindful that the transit is happening⁠—and as I said, it's exact on the 18th; we're feeling it the 17th, 18th, 19th⁠. There's really powerful positive value in this transit, but we've kind of got to be able to sort through our unconscious feelings and motivations in order to get there.

And again, just to give you a little context, that is part of why I shared with you the preamble that I did, because being aware of our unconscious emotions empowers us to cope with Plutonian energies more humanely. So here's the positive. We have the capacity under this transit to transform something, to heal something, to really let go of something, to bring some measure of repair to something. That doesn't mean you have to move mountains, but it can mean you don't center that toxic emotion that you know you always have in a particular kind of situation, even though it's really hard, and you go neutral. So it's, again, not fireworks but a profound shift in your psyche or your emotions.

It may be that you center an act of kindness when it would be easiest to go about your day and focus on your own damn self, and that act of kindness has a ripple effect you cannot foresee. This transit can really be a springboard for powerful transformation and healing. But you can't be attached. That's the fucking key. You can't be attached to your good deed producing positive outcomes and you get proof and you get evidence. It's about being strong enough to move through your toxic, negative, self-harming, punishing⁠—whatever it is, to move through your Plutonian emotions and to arrive at some place not motivated by fear.

That's a powerful thing. It's an incredibly simple but incredibly difficult thing, but that's really what this transit can empower us to achieve. And again, it can be really small. It can be really subtle. That's good. Progress is progress. It doesn't matter if it's big or small. If you need to do something that requires a great deal of concentration, if you've got some sort of research project to work on or anything like that, this is a really helpful transit.

This is not a good time for disassociating. This is not a good time for pretending something is fine when it's not fine, because the Sun conjunction to Pluto brings up all of our heavy, intense feelings and our fears. And so it's time for showing up, even when showing up is the harder choice, even when it's messy. And often, showing up is messy and the harder choice. Oh well. Here we the fuck are.

Now, I guess I'll say one more thing about this transit, and it's that⁠—yeah, not a great time to process if you can avoid it, because everybody's going to be feeling really intense. So, if you know you need to⁠—I don't know⁠—talk to your landlord about something, if you can avoid it being today, please, I beg of you, don't do it today. If you know you need to talk to your parent or your partner or whatever about something that is really challenging, you might not be able to avoid having these kinds of confrontations during the Sun conjunction to Pluto because, as I said, Pluto brings shit to the surface. It brings up Plutonian emotions. But if you can avoid it, do.

I don't want to say don't be the drama, because sometimes being the drama is exactly what's needed. But if you're going to be the drama, make sure you're acting with integrity because what we do under the influence of Pluto works like a boomerang; it comes back at us. So make sure your motives are clean, and if you're not sure your motives are clean, take some extra time. Sit with your fucking emotions. Don't just barf your emotions at people or situations because that's actually easier than sitting with your barfy emotions. Not the most delicate metaphor I've ever used, but I feel that it hits the mark. And I'll say Pluto actually does govern puking and pooping⁠—just a fun fact. If you're looking for fun facts, I've got you covered. Okay. So that's the 18th.

On the 20th, the Sun moves into Aquarius; we say huzzah. It is a beautiful thing. I invite you this Aquarius season to think about your boundaries, how you articulate them, how you hold them, and whether or not they need a little juj-ing, whether or not they need a little more contemplation, a little more intention, or refinement in how you express them or how you respond to other people's boundaries. Oh, it's Aquarius season. It's okay to be a little heady about it.

And then, on the 21st, it brings us, my friends, to the New Moon in Aquarius. Yes, we're in Aquarius season, and bada-bing, bada-boom; right away, we got a New Moon. Let me tell you all about it. This New Moon is happening January 21st, 12:53 p.m. Pacific Time. And as always, if you want to be tracking the transits on your own and you want to adjust it for whatever time zone you're in, I invite you to subscribe to my astrologer's pro tool, Astrology For Days. It's cute. It's convenient. You track the transits. You take your notes. You learn astrology in a self-guided tour. Why not? It's over at astrologyfordays.com.

Okay. So we got a New Moon at one degree and 32 minutes of Aquarius. And New Moons always happen when the Sun and Moon are exactly conjunct each other, in the same sign to the same degree. Okay? Okay. There's a couple things to note. The first is we have a stellium in Aquarius for this New Moon. We've got the Sun and Moon plus a Venus/Saturn conjunction. It is not quite exact, but it's close. We will talk about that in a moment.

But the other thing is Pluto is conjunct the Sun and Moon. It's at 28 degrees of Cap, so it is an out-of-sign conjunction. That just means we take into consideration the different energies from the different zodiac signs. It doesn't mean it is less of a conjunction. So having a Pluto conjunction to a New Moon is a very big deal. Now, New Moons are, generally speaking, a time for manifestation, a time for planting seeds, setting intentions. It's the renewal of the Moon.

But with Pluto sitting on top of the Moon and Sun⁠—and I think it is worth me naming that the Moon is in the center of this three-planet pileup⁠—Sun, Moon, Pluto⁠—this kind of changes the vibe. So, first of all, I'll say if you're the kind of person who uses consciousness-raising drugs in honor of lunations, this is not a great one for doing that. It's likely to be a bit intense and not super fun. So I would not recommend that. This is also not the greatest time for setting intentions, simply because what Pluto does is it intensifies our feelings and not always our wisest, best-adjusted feelings.

So it's a great time for working with your psyche. It's a great time for working with your emotional, psychological, or spiritual inner world. It is not a good time for trying to manifest things in the world outside of you, because due to Pluto's influence plus the Saturn/Venus conjunction, we are not reliably in a well-adjusted, well-considered place with our motivations. And that is so important.

This New Moon can bring about huge transformation. So we have the Sun/Pluto conjunction influence expanding, and now that the Moon is involved, it's way more emo. And related to that, we have the capacity to participate in a great transformation psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Not so bad, right? The problem is that Pluto brings things about with a great deal of intensity. And so it's not a particularly easy marker for a New Moon to have. We are likely to be feeling really intense under this influence, and that intensity can bring out all manner of feelings and thoughts that may or may not come from your wisest spots.

We may see people⁠—and when I say people, I mean individuals, but also, we may see things happening in the world, so we're talking about collective energies, the behavior of people in power⁠—acting in ways that betray their real emotions, what they really want. And that is messy because a lot of times, the thing that we really want or the things that we really want are not what we're telling ourselves we want.

And this is why, again, it's so important to make a practice of staying in touch with your psyche, your emotions, to be self-aware about the shit that you're coping with and the shit that you've decided not to cope with or you just cannot cope with. It's really important because along comes Pluto transits that kind of rub our face in what's actually happening with us, and if we don't have the skills for coping, things get pretty messy really quick.

Now, the potential for a New Moon in Aquarius is that we turn a corner in our thinking and that it's integrated with our feelings because Aquarius is such a heady sign, and again, we're dealing with the Moon. And so there is a potential for us to shift perspectives, have some sort of insight, to be able to innovate something. And again, we're talking emotions. We're talking about the Moon.

What makes this even more intense is the fact that Venus and Saturn, which are sitting very close to each other in Aquarius⁠—that transit, it has us questioning what we value. Now, Saturn and Venus are the two planets most associated with security. And so there's a real risk this New Moon that we will be motivated out of self-preservation in a fear-based way. And when that happens and Pluto is involved, we tend to act like entitled assholes or to perpetrate self-harm, to shut down, basically to go into our flight, fight, or fawn mechanisms.

So it's really important, if you can, to spend time this week leading up to the New Moon, and certainly on the New Moon if you can, considering what it is that you value and how you are or are not behaving in ways that reflect your values in a very real way because, again, Pluto kind of blows shit up. And that's not always fun, but it is really helpful when we are not going in the right direction or we're not being honest with ourselves or in our lives.

You may feel like you need to be alone or, conversely, feel really kind of desperate or needy for love, connection, and attention. What you want to keep in mind is that we're all going through this transit together. It's going to hit us all differently, but we're all going through this transit. And so it's important, if you have a need, to articulate it to people you trust and, if they can't show up for you because of whatever's going on for them, to not let it add to a narrative that you hold about yourself about who you are or your value as a person.

This is a really sticky, messy New Moon, and it can bring up a lot of complicated emotions and have us acting out of our survival mechanisms. And that means that we may unintentionally be creating or participating in the very things we wish to avoid or outgrow. So, again, practicing your ability to sit with and accept things as they are is a meaningful foundation for enacting change if that's what's needed.

And you know what? Change isn't always needed. But Pluto tends to prefer change. And Pluto is the kind of change that it's like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Well, I guess Pluto is the kind of change that is really about the phoenix being burned to a crisp and then rising from the ashes. That's Pluto's kind of change. Listen, I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you that's what Pluto is about. So it might be really sticky.

Now, the energies I'm describing are ripe for drama. They're ripe for emotional pain and struggle and interpersonal drama⁠—all manner of things like that. But they're equally ripe for healing, for coming to acceptance, for finally dealing with a thing that needs to be dealt with, for being motivated to engage in the crisis of consciousness, the emotional, spiritual, or behavioral crisis that you need to engage in in order to be free. So this doesn't have to be a bad transit or a bad New Moon at all. It's just intense, and intense can be kind of hard.

Now, that all said, Mercury is still square to Chiron. It is much wider now than it was last time we spoke about it, but that transit is still very active. And as I said to you last week, this transit brings up struggle around our sense of safety and our willingness to be here. And you pair that with everything I'm sharing with you about this New Moon, and again, it can really be quite triggering and also quite transformational.

Now, luckily, Mercury is also square to Jupiter. Again, it's not an exact transit yet this week, but it is square to Jupiter, which expands our cognitive/our mental willingness to explore, to grow and expand our perspective, which is glorious given how much airy Aquarius energy we've got.

Now, the thing we want to keep in mind about all this Aquarius energy is it's fixed energy. Luckily, this Mercury square to Jupiter can kind of wiggle some of that fixed energy loose so we're a little bit more flexible in our thinking and our feelings. Now, again, nothing happens by magic. We need to do something to make the most of these transits. So, hopefully, you'll use this information as inspiration to do the things you know you need to do to be healthy and right with yourself on and around this New Moon, and generally this whole week, because again, this Sun conjunction to Pluto is drawn out by the New Moon.

So, to the best of your ability, try to not choose to do the things that you know make you feel fucked up. If you want to binge a TV show that you're really enjoying, but you know when you do that you end up having a weird TV hangover the next day, okay, try to practice a little self-control and watch half the show instead of the whole damn thing or whatever. Whatever. Do what you can to empower yourself to feel as good as you can, as resilient as you can, so if shit hits the fan in any direction, you will have the energy with which to cope.

And remember you don't need to be perfect. Pluto sometimes makes us feel that the only way to be okay is to be perfect. You don't need to be perfect. No. Not even a little. You just need to keep trying. You need to learn from your errors, or at least try to learn from your errors, and keep trying. That's the best we can do.

You know, again, as a reflection, so many of you send me questions telling me that you feel that you have failed at something and that that failure is a permanent fixture of yourself or your life. And I want to say that is a very rarely the case. We can always learn and grow from the ways in which we fuck up. And fucking up is just part of being a person. It's not the thing people lead with on social media, to be fair, but it is a huge part of being a person.

And so you may find yourself ruminating on past failures, perceived or real, this New Moon. If that's the case, tap into those New Moon energies and find a way to reframe your feelings or your experiences so that you can hold them in healthier ways. The energy here can help you to do that, but again, you gotta giddyap and try. That's the move. Now, you want to remember that Pluto is about power struggles. So that power struggle is very likely to be occurring within you. Do your best. That's all you can damn do.

Now, my loves, I'm going to do a quick run through of these transits. On the 18th, we have a Mercury direct and also a Sun conjunction to Pluto. On the 20th, we enter into Aquarius season. And then, on the 21st, we have a glorious New Moon in Aquarius at 12:53 p.m. Pacific Time. We are under the influence of the Venus conjunction to Saturn the second half of this week. It won't be exact until next week, but it is certainly worth considering that that transit has a dampening effect on our self-esteem and can make us feel a little lonely and off, especially socially awkward. So I want to just kind of give you that perspective if you're starting to feel that by Thursday of this week because Venus conjunction Saturn is a boner killer if ever there was one.

And that's it, my darlings, my dears. That is it. I thank you so much for listening to another week of Ghost. If you'd like to learn more with me, visit the Shop page of my website, where you can get my book, which is delightful, and also take any number of classes. You can also join me over on Patreon, where we are learning. We are laughing. We are life-ing⁠—wait. Is that a thing? Learn, laugh, love? Love. We're loving. We're doing all the things.

And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, please do hit the Follow or Subscribe button wherever you're listening to podcasts so that you never miss an episode. All right. I will talk to you next week. Buh-bye.