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.

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Jessica: Monique, welcome to Ghost of a Podcast.

Monique: Thank you for having me.

Jessica: I'm so excited. Tell me what you would like your reading about.

Monique: Okay. So I'm just going to read what I submitted. "Why do I always feel like I need to go 100 miles an hour? It's hard for me to even hug my boyfriend for ten seconds without feeling like I need to crawl out of my skin."

Jessica: So you were born August 9th, 2002, 3:34 a.m. in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Monique: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So, of course, my first question⁠—I feel like this is an of course⁠—is, is this every boyfriend who hugs you that you want to crawl out of your skin, or just this boyfriend?

Monique: Every boyfriend.

Jessica: Okay. Cool. I mean, I'm sorry, but then the problem is not the boyfriends.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: And is it also with friends and family when they hug you?

Monique: I'd say so, yeah. Growing up, I never had a lot of physical affection, so it's kind of weird.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, sure it is.

Monique: So I think I'm just trying to understand where that's coming from and, I guess, how to deal with it. But I don't know. I'm just interested to see what you have to say about it.

Jessica: Sure. So I read your question, and I was like, "Uranus. This has got to be fucking Uranus." And of course, it's Uranus. First of all, you are a double Leo, and you've got your Sun and Moon in Leo, but Mars is sitting right in between your Sun and Moon⁠—all in Leo. And you actually have a pretty strong stellium in Leo because you also have Jupiter in that sign. But these three planets⁠—Sun, Mars, Moon⁠—are stacked on top of each other, and that⁠—first of all, it's a lot of fixed energy.

So, if somebody touches you in a moment you don't want them to, if they're breathing fucking funny in your ear, if they're hugging you and you love them and you like them, but also, you wish they would just fucking order dinner because you already told them what flavor of whatever you wanted⁠—that is just going to bug you. That is just going to make you irritable because here's the thing. Having Mars sandwiched between the Sun and Moon gives you a really short fuse. And because it's in a fire sign, it's really hard for you to hold it back. And because it's in a fixed sign, it's hard for you to ever fucking forget.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah.

Monique: Yeah, definitely.

Jessica: Yeah. So people annoy you. And when you're pissed off and annoyed⁠—and we're going to get to the Uranus part; don't you worry. But when you're pissed off and annoyed, do you tell people?

Monique: Yeah. I'd say⁠— well, it depends. I guess with my boyfriend, I'm more comfortable to say it. If it was with family or something, I wouldn't really say anything.

Jessica: So, with your boyfriend, are you able to be like, "Jesus fucking Christ, stop hugging me?"

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Great/sorry for him.

Monique: I know.

Jessica: Poor guy. But that's actually how you feel. And so the good part about that is you're being honest with him. Are you affectionate with him in other ways?

Monique: Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say so. I mean, sometimes I'm like, "Okay, we can hug. Whatever. I don't feel bad about it." But then it's like, "Okay. We can stop hugging now."

Jessica: Yes. Yes. I respect you. So there's a couple things that are really specific to this. One is you're a Cancer Rising, but still, tender and gentle is what makes your teeth itch. That bugs the shit out of you. That makes sense, right?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It's like all that Leo and all that Mars energy is just like, "Let's wrastle." You know what I mean? Like, "You want to give me a shoulder rub? Don't fucking gently rub my shoulders. Get in there and do something or go home."

Monique: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Right. So, first of all, I just want to say that's just your preference. Sometimes all that Leo/Mars energy is just kind of toppy, too. So it's like, "I'll hug you when it's time to fucking hug." You just hold back. And there is a part of you that really likes that. Now, at the same time, you do have a Cancer Rising. You do have a Venus in Libra. So I'm not surprised that you would choose to be with guys who are really tender and loving and sweet even though you kind of want to rip their face off when they do that.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Sorry. And do you only date guys?

Monique: Yes, I do. Well⁠—yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: So far? So far, anyways.

Monique: So far. So far, anyways. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. Very good attitude. Very good attitude. So here's the thing. Some of this is just you're really irritable. There's a particular kind of touch that you really like, and there's a particular kind of touch you really don't like. And those are things that you can work with. You can be a little more direct, probably, with your bf about, like, "80 percent of the time, I do not like this gentle, tender snuggle moment. This is not for me." And the 20 percent of the time you do like it is what throws him off, I guess.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Right? And you didn't acknowledge that, but that's true, right? 20 percent of the time, you do like it.

Monique: Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. It's confusing. It's confusing.

Monique: It is.

Jessica: But 80 percent of the time, you don't. I made those numbers up, but do they feel accurate?

Monique: Pretty accurate, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay. Cool. The thing, I think, is is letting him know what you really do like and also letting him know that 20 percent is a really big percentage for you, so he should be very happy with his life. So there's a couple more things I want to name here, but I wanted to start with this because I think it's important to not pathologize your nature, to just be like, "Yeah, I don't like gentle touch most of the time. Yeah, I'm irritable, and so I need to be in the right state of mind or I need to be in my body in order to want to have physical connection for just connection."

That's okay to have those preferences, so I don't want to gloss over that as a starting point. Next, you have got a Moon/Uranus opposition. So, literally, when people have Moon opposite Uranus, it is better for your body to eat a little bit all day long instead of sitting down to three big meals in a day. Is that true for your body?

Monique: Okay. I'd say so. Yeah. I think I feel better when I have smaller portions rather than just big meals.

Jessica: You're a grazer. I feel like you could literally eat all day a small amount, and your body will be really happy. Now, that translates to your emotions as well. You do really well with small amounts of emotional contact and intimacy peppered throughout your days. But when somebody love bombs you, it can really shut you off, like literally overload the circuitry and shut it off. Does that make sense?

Monique: Yeah. That actually does really make sense.

Jessica: Yeah. Uranus is electricity, and the Moon is our emotions. And so there's this way that⁠—I mean, it's like this is kind of like a complicated thing, but if somebody's texting you throughout the day and sharing cute things with you⁠—not asking you to do something or to connect, but just showing up, sending you a heart emoji, whatever the fuck, like a TikTok they think is fun⁠—that actually does feel good to you. But if somebody's trying to track your movements or ask something from you, it⁠—okay. So I'm onto something here. Yeah.

Monique: Yeah. You are.

Jessica: That's where you start to feel like you're being controlled. You start to feel like somebody is trying to take something from you. It feels like someone's reaching into your chest and trying to pull your heart, and you're like, "Hell no. This stays inside my body."

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It's very difficult. And the Uranus/Moon opposition⁠—you know, if you read old-school astrology books, they have lots of shitty things to say about women with this aspect because they're misogynist and not worth listening to. But the reason why they say that is because it doesn't make you obedient. It doesn't make you well suited to domestic life. This aspect makes it so that your nature is that you really need things in small, bite-sized pieces. And you really need a lot of autonomy and space.

That doesn't mean that you're not committed to people, because it looks like when you are fixated on a person you want to be with, you're very serious about them, whether it's a friend, a boyfriend, whatever. You're scary loyal⁠—

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: ⁠—I would say. You've got this Leo in you, so you're fierce, right?

Monique: Yes.

Jessica: But when they are on your jock is when it's just like you don't feel fiercely loyal; you feel like, "Why are you trying to fuck with me?"

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: That's all it feels like, even though your brain knows they're just trying to hang out or whatever. It's like something shuts down inside of you. Now, this is related to a couple of things. One is, I mean, you got a lot of fixed energy in your chart. So, if you're thinking about eating a pizza and someone's like, "Come over and eat"⁠—whatever, you know, spaghetti⁠—you're like, "What the fuck is wrong with you? You know that I'm thinking about pizza." Right? There's just part of you that gets very annoyed.

Monique: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: And that is fixed-energy stuff that I think if you decide to make that a priority for you, you can get more flexible with time. It just means breathing through those rigid emotional responses you have and remembering, "This is my friend. I actually like this guy," or whatever, and just breathing through it so you don't respond in the same way that you react. But then there's the other shit. And do you still talk to your parents?

Monique: Yeah. I live with my mom.

Jessica: Oh. You live with your mom. Okay. And is your dad still around?

Monique: He is. Yeah. He lives in the same city, but I haven't been as close to him in these past few months. But yeah. I mean, I do text him every once in a while.

Jessica: Okay. And were you raised with both of them or just her?

Monique: With both of them until I was, like, 12. That's when they got divorced. So it was kind of on and off with him, but yeah.

Jessica: So this gets into this other layer. You've got Saturn in the twelfth house and Pluto in the sixth house. Was your dad a very domineering person, like everything in the house needed to kind of revolve around him?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: And your mom kind of let that happen until she didn't. Is that how it went?

Monique: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. The way I can see that is through the Saturn in the twelfth house. It's like your mom just being like, "Well, in order to be a mom, in order to be a wife, I've got to just suck it up. I've just got to do it." And your dad was the kind of person who was just like, "I take what I want. I'll tell you what I want. I'll tell you when I fucking need it." Right?

Monique: Yeah. Exactly.

Jessica: Yeah. And so it just created kind of a perfect monster. And when your mom was like, "Wait a minute. This does not need to be our lives," because it wasn't just about you⁠—I mean it wasn't just about her; it was about you. It was almost like she had seemed so weak and he had seemed so strong, and then it flipped, eh?

Monique: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica: But by the time it flipped, you had already gone through your early developmental issues. And so, in your early developmental experience⁠—in other words, in your childhood⁠—you saw a weak parent getting bulldozed and a strong parent getting what he needed. And you didn't want to be either of them, but you knew⁠—stellium in Leo⁠—that if you were going to be someone, you were not going to be fucking bulldozed. You were going to be the one telling people what the fuck. Right?

Monique: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. And so some of what we're here to talk about⁠—because it's like you wrote the email, and I think you named it patience or impatience or something like that.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: That's why I was like, "Uranus." But then, when I looked at your chart, I was like, "Okay. So it's not just about patience. It's about power and self-reliance for you because it's not like, with your boyfriend or your bestie, when this sort of thing comes up, that you are feeling impatient alone. You're also feeling like, "Are you trying to control me? Because I need to make sure that everyone knows where I stand because I don't want to be bulldozed. I don't want to be taken advantage of." Does that make sense?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Unfortunately, what ends up happening is you assert what you want. You assert what you need out of kind of a self-defense mechanism. And then you don't really get what you want or need because, when you're not in a moment of self-defense, you don't even want those things most of the time.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So, again, this is why you would date⁠—you didn't say this, but he's kind of like a puppy dog, right, the guy you're dating?

Monique: Definitely. I call him a golden retriever boyfriend.

Jessica: Yeah. That's what I was saying. He looks like a golden retriever to me, too. I wouldn't expect on the surface that you would go out with a golden retriever, but this is why: because he's not always taking it personally when you're pitbulling him. You know?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: He's not trying to compete for power with you, and that makes this doable for you. But on top of it, my guess is that even when you're like, "Listen. I need you to give me space. We can hang out tonight, but you need to not be on me"⁠—when you're actually hanging out, sometimes he'll be like, "Yeah, but I'm going to love on you anyways." And then you're like⁠—secretly, not telling him, but, "Thank God he's doing this, because this is actually what I want now. It's not what I wanted 20 minutes ago when I said what I said, but it's what I want now."

Monique: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: And so, I mean, I'm kind of naming some very deep and complex things in your psyche and in your birth chart. At the end of the day, what's true to your nature⁠—I mean, you may need to shave off the sharp edges. You may need to figure out how to be a little more compromising and not let people see your first reactions because you don't even mean them a lot of the times. So there's work to be done on that, but you don't need to be anyone other than who you are. And you are⁠—I mean, I called you a pit bull. I kind of stand behind it. But you're a lion. You're a lion, right? You're not a domesticated cat. You're a lion. So that doesn't need to change. I want to be emphatic about that. I know I already said it, but I feel like I have to say it again because I feel like so much of the world tells strong, powerful women to change, and I'm not going to⁠—you know. I do not.

Monique: Thank you.

Jessica: You're welcome. You're welcome. But this part that is more Saturn and Pluto, this part that is more your parents⁠—like you being your dad because you don't want to be your mom⁠—puts you in a bad position because it's reacting to something that's not happening. It's you engaging with life from survival mechanisms that aren't necessarily needed for your situation. That can get you in situations with the people you deeply care about where you're acting in ways that you know you don't mean, but you can't stop yourself from acting that way because you're driven by this need to protect yourself.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: What makes it more complicated is fucking Uranus. So Uranus opposite the Moon⁠—it's just everything moves so fast inside of you. Like, it moves so fast inside of you. So, I mean, I'm sitting here talking to you and you're not interrupting me and talking over me and all that kind of stuff, which is a very Uranian thing to do. But my guess is that inside of you, your thoughts and feelings are moving really, really quickly through lots of information. Is that how you run?

Monique: Definitely. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. A lot of people who have strong Uranus aspects like this one, they get all kinds of diagnoses like ADD stuff because the way you process information is a little out of time with so much of what's happening because you're so fast. So you're thinking about what you're going to say in this moment, but you're also thinking about what you're going to say afterwards. You can't help it. You're just moving fast.

And this complicates everything because when your survival mechanisms are like, "I better fucking assert myself. I better put myself forward in whatever way," like, "I need to make sure, again, I'm not being the victim in this situation," you're so good at it. You're way too good at it. You're excellent at it, I'm so sorry to say. You are very fucking good at it. And that is, in part, because of how intensely you want to be good at it because you don't want to be victimized. You don't want to be at the bottom of the pile. The other part is because fucking Uranus moves so fast that you can figure out what to say that's just going to get a person.

Monique: Oh yeah. I can, unfortunately.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, it is terrible. Also, we don't want you to ever lose that. We just want you to be able to use it on your enemies and not your allies.

Monique: When needed.

Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. Not on the people who, actually, you are obsessed with and love and care about, because if you have a boyfriend, you're probably kind of obsessed with him and love him and care about him.

Monique: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. That's just kind of how you do things. You're all in. I mean, this reading isn't about the boyfriend, but when I look at that relationship, it just looks like a great example of what⁠—you aren't in danger here. There's nothing really wrong. I mean, I'm sure there's lots of things wrong, but nothing really wrong. You know?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Which is why it's a great example of how that impatience, that feeling of, like, "I'm going to crawl out of my fucking skin," isn't about what's happening in that situation. That "I'm annoyed and I don't want to be hugging right now," that might be about the situation. But the "I will do anything to make this stop," that is about something else. And that brings me to this final piece that I want to name, which is all of the stuff we've been talking about is focusing on your survival instincts, on self-preservation, on thinking about the future, on thinking about thinking. And all of that stuff keeps you out of your body.

When I look at your birth chart, my friend, you have one planet in Earth, and that is it⁠—Mercury. If we want to include Chiron, which⁠—it's not a planet; it's an asteroid⁠—that's in Capricorn. But Mercury is the only planet you've got in Earth, and that's in fucking Virgo. Such an analytic, in-its-head kind of energy. And so getting in your body⁠—it can be quite hard. So are you like an athletic person? Are you a Sporty Spice?

Monique: I used to be, like in high school, for sure.

Jessica: But now?

Monique: But now, since I graduated, not really. I mean, I would want to go back in sports. I don't know.

Jessica: When you were in sports, what kind of sports were you in? Were you in competitive sports or personal best sports?

Monique: Yeah. I played volleyball for many years. So that was my sport.

Jessica: Wow. Okay. You get to punch shit, right? You get to hit things. Volleyball? Isn't that right?

Monique: Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Mars loves to hit things. So a couple things. One is going to be very annoying, so get ready, okay? If you can get yourself back into some sort of a physical outlet situation, that would really help because using your Mars really works out a lot of the rigidity that comes up inside of you because people don't do things the way you would do them; life doesn't go at the pace that you would prefer it to go. So you can get agitated. Yeah, being able to hit balls, people, outrun someone⁠—this is good for you. This is very good for you. Mars is competitive. And so it's great for you to have that kind of an outlet.

The part that I think you won't like as much is that I feel like you would do really good with yoga or something that's really slow and breathy. Have you ever done anything like that?

Monique: Not really.

Jessica: Yeah.

Monique: Yeah. I'm kind of just like⁠—like my mind isn't there. It's hard for me to be present, I guess.

Jessica: Yes. That's exactly why I want you to do yoga. That's why it's annoying advice that I'm giving you, because you're not present for really good reason. One part, that Moon/Uranus opposition, is that it's just not your nature. You tend to be future. And so I'm not saying that you need to change your nature. But the other reasons why you have a hard time being present is because you're annoyed a lot of the time.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: And it's very hard to sit with your annoyances and not turn them into thoughts, being like, "I'm annoyed. Why am I annoyed? That fucking person is annoying. That's why I'm annoyed. What can I do? What can I say to that person?" So you run through scenarios, is my sense, as a way to kind of "look for the answer." And what I'm saying⁠—which, again, is annoying⁠—is if you had a practice that included and involved your body where you just practiced not chasing your thoughts⁠—so your mind will wander. That's 100 percent guaranteed. But you don't have to chase your thoughts. And every time you are like, "Oh, I've been thinking about this thing for a full minute," you can be like, "Oh shit. Okay. I'm going to stop thinking about it." That is the practice that will help you with this thing of, "I want to rip my face off. Why is he still hugging me? Even though I love him."

Monique: Yeah. And I guess another thing with that is, this past year, I got diagnosed with PMDD. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Jessica: Is that like extreme PMS?

Monique: Yes. So⁠—well, I mean, I'm on meds now to help with that. But before that, I was just really irritated on top of that. So, even then, I just didn't want him to touch me. It came to that where I was like, "Just please don't touch me." Basically, I only felt good for like a month around the time I was ovulating⁠—or, like, before I was ovulating.

Jessica: You mean a week.

Monique: Yeah. I'm sorry. A week. Yeah.

Jessica: Uh-huh. A week before you were ovulating. Yeah. That fucking sucks.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: And is the med they've given you⁠—and you don't have to talk about this, but is the med they've given you like a hormonal adjustment, or is it like a psych med?

Monique: Yeah, it's an antidepressant. I was on birth control. They gave me that, too, but I just don't like how it affects my body, so…

Jessica: Yeah. But the antidepressant's working?

Monique: It is. Yeah.

Jessica: Fabulous. Congratulations.

Monique: Thank you.

Jessica: So let's talk about your hormones for a second. I'm not a doctor, and you know⁠—I'm going to say something I've said before⁠—I never think anyone should take medical advice from a fucking astrologer or a psychic. That is just not a great idea in life. There are alternative doctors that are actual doctors, and then there are mainstream doctors. Listen to them.

That said, what my question is⁠—and you may or may not have the answer⁠—is, is it that you have a hormonal imbalance on some level and it creates depression, and so what the antidepressant does is it mitigates the symptoms that the hormonal imbalance caused, but there's still a hormonal imbalance? Or is it just that PMDD makes people depressed, and therefore, they medicated the depression?

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Is there a hormonal problem is my question. Did they tell you that?

Monique: I'm not sure. They didn't exactly tell me if it was that or not. But, I mean, I am assuming that it is that since I'm only being affected by it during certain times of the month when my hormones are being fixated, if that makes sense.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. It does. And also, when you were on the pill, did it fix the symptoms or no?

Monique: It took a while. It took a while, and even now, sometimes it's like⁠—sometimes I feel how I used to feel. But I guess, right now, I'm kind of more just neutral.

Jessica: Okay. Great. So let's talk about that for just a hot minute here. Again, don't take medical advice from an astrologer/let me talk about your hormones. So, in your birth chart, you have got⁠—we look to the fifth house to find your menstrual cycle, or one's menstrual cycle. And you have the zodiac sign of Scorpio intercepted in your fifth house. The ruling planet of Scorpio is Pluto. That is responsible for so much of what we've talked about.

This placement, having Libra on the fifth-house cusp, Scorpio intercepted, can often give you what seems like kind of a pretty healthy cycle; you bleed every month at the same time. You bleed a pretty regular amount, whatever the fuck that means. But that Scorpio interception will give you really intense spikes of feeling. So it's a hormonal effect. It will sometimes give you really terrible cramping, I would imagine. Scorpio intercept the fifth house can do that. It can give you just⁠—you know, you go three months. Whatever. You cramp, and it's not a big deal. And then, one month, you're just like, "The fuck is happening?" And it's just terrible.

Monique: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So there's a couple of things that I would say about that. One is you will likely have your period for many, many years to come. And so I would recommend that at some point in your life, you find somebody who works with herbs⁠—or acupuncture if you like⁠—do you like needles? Are you okay with them?

Monique: I'm okay with them.

Jessica: Okay. Acupuncture could also be really good for you. You would want to go to an expert, though, like somebody who is really experienced at working with these issues, because your body is so fucking sensitive. So I would recommend trying that at some point because it's almost like⁠—and I guess, in a way, this is kind of what we've been talking about. Things are kind of whatever they are. They're whatever they are, but then they start to pool. They collect, and there's this⁠—again, we're talking about a fixed sign, so it gets stuck in your system. There's no flow. And then there's the cramping, and then there's the moods. Right?

Monique: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And so, when I look at your birth chart and I see that Pluto is in your sixth house and that this Scorpio is intercept the fifth, your flight-or-fight mechanisms, your drive to feel safe⁠—and for you, being safe means being powerful, like not being subjugated by situations or people at all⁠—it becomes really somatic, a.k.a. it becomes very rooted in your body. And so I imagine that your period is not the only thing that sometimes is a pain in your ass and sometimes it's totally fine. Is that correct? You have weird stuff that comes and goes, right?

Monique: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: It's because a lot of what you do is you suck it up and you take on the energy. You suck it up and you take on the energy, and then eventually, for no rhyme or reason, your body is like, "No. I can't do this." And then, all of a sudden, you're sick or you feel just super terrible and crappy mentally or emotionally. This is, again, why I recommend yoga⁠—not that I think yoga is a cure-all, because I actually don't like yoga myself. But I do think that it is a form of bodywork that addresses the mind that is good for somebody like you who has a hard time letting go of control. It's like a way of letting go of control.

And I would say a lot of people might recommend meditation, but for you, if it doesn't include your body, if you're not pushing yourself on some level to get into a stretch or whatever, I don't know that you would do it. And I don't think that it's possible for sweaty yoga to be COVID-safe. I don't know; maybe it is, but I can't imagine it is. But that would be the ideal form of yoga for you because⁠—do you like saunas? Do you like hot spots?

Monique: Yeah, I do.

Jessica: Yeah. You got Pluto in Sagittarius. It's in the sixth house. So sweating would be such a good distraction for you. You wouldn't be so focused on your thoughts if you were sweating your balls off. You know what I mean?

Monique: Okay. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So I think that would really help you. If you can, find something that you can do that challenges your body but the point is to calm your thoughts instead of just the point is to smash a ball across a line⁠—which is good, but in addition to that. I think that'll really help. I also would imagine⁠—I'm not saying that I think there's something wrong with you hormonally, but I would imagine that there is something going on there that could be treated so that you have more flow and release in your life around your cycle.

So, even though I think what I've just given you is excellent advice, I'm not recommending that you pursue that advice in the next year or two. And the reason why is because you're going through a bunch of fucking Neptune transits, and when we go through Neptune transits, we often get weird diagnoses.

So I'm going to pause myself, and I just want to check in. Have we been addressing your question? Is there anything else that's kind of coming up around this issue?

Monique: I would say that we are addressing my question. What kind of comes to mind is, like with my boyfriend, it's hard for me to⁠—he's the type of guy that is okay with taking the long road. Does that make sense?

Jessica: Yeah.

Monique: And it's really hard for me to be like, "Why are you going this way?" It's like, why not just go straight there? It's faster. You know?

Jessica: Yeah. Faster is always better.

Monique: Yeah. I guess that's just one point that I was curious about, but…

Jessica: So are you curious about why he's willing to go the long road or why you're not?

Monique: Maybe both. I just don't understand why on both ends.

Jessica: It's so annoying.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Fun fact. I told my partner that I was going to do this reading, and I described you as a one-line question. So I described your question, and he was like, "Oh my God. You're doing a reading for yourself," because if he and I ever have a fight in the car, it's because I'm like, "You know that the speed limit is actually higher than what you're going? Why are you taking this route?" I'm the same problem. I don't get that at all.

Monique: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: Uranus. It's Uranus and Mars. So the Uranus/Moon opposition that you have is always making you think about the next thing. So you're just like, "Well, why would we be here longer than we have to?" Even if you don't even want to be there, you still want to get there fast because you can, right?

Monique: Yeah. Exactly.

Jessica: The other thing is Mars. Mars and Uranus are the two most impatient planets in the zodiac, and they're both really strong in your birth chart. And also, Leo. Leo is just like, "My way. It's just my way. Are we clear that it's my way?" So, if you're in the car alone, do you ever drive slow and enjoy it?

Monique: Not really.

Jessica: Okay.

Monique: Definitely the speed limit, but I won't drive slower.

Jessica: Slow. Okay. Okay. Does he ever do that, or is he always slow?

Monique: I'd say he's pretty slow most of the time.

Jessica: Okay. Will you say his name? We're going to beep it out of the podcast.

Monique: Okay. [redacted]

Jessica: That's not his full name. Will you say his full name?

Monique: [redacted]

Jessica: There it is. Okay. Thank you. He's just not in a rush. Isn't that an annoying answer? I imagine when you ask him why he is driving slow, he says because he's just not in a rush.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Is that it? Yeah.

Monique: Pretty much. Yeah.

Jessica: He's just not in a rush. He's just chilling. He's thinking other thoughts. He's, like⁠—

Monique: Definitely.

Jessica: ⁠—enjoying whatever moment he's in. He's not focused on tomorrow or in an hour at all.

Monique: Yeah. He's not.

Jessica: At all. Does he have a job?

Monique: He does. Yeah. We actually work together.

Jessica: You do? Does he do the same thing as you?

Monique: Yeah, he does.

Jessica: At work, does he work efficiently? Does he get shit done?

Monique: When he wants to.

Jessica: Uh-huh. But you do it all the time, whether or not you want to.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Right. Right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, he's just not that pressed. That's literally all it is. He's not exactly chill, but⁠—I don't know if he smokes weed or not, but he kind of has that personality of somebody who doesn't need to smoke weed because he's chill.

Monique: Yeah. I'd say so. Yeah.

Jessica: I'm sorry, because it's literally like I could look at his birth chart and be like, "Oh, this is the reason why," but it kind of doesn't matter. What matters is that he doesn't take it personally most of the time when you're annoyed with him, which is a gift from God because if he was taking it personally all the time, you guys would be fighting all the time.

Monique: Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica: Yeah. And he likes it that you're ambitious. You're very ambitious, eh?

Monique: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Yeah. He's not ever going to compete with you. He doesn't want to compete.

Monique: That's awesome.

Jessica: Yeah. It is awesome, and also, it annoys you sometimes because you're just like, "Why wouldn't you try?" Yeah.

Monique: Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, and you're real young, so you're not trying to get married or anything yet, eh?

Monique: No.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Congratulations. Good. Then the problems with him are not a problem. If you decided that you wanted kids, he would be a difficult person for you to do that with unless he was like, "I'll stay home with the kid; you go out and have a job." That would work for you. Otherwise, he would drive you fucking nuts, and it wouldn't be cute anymore. But as long as you're just dating and having a nice life together and you're not sharing responsibilities, this is not a real problem. It's annoying, but it's not a real problem from what I'm seeing.

Monique: Yeah.

Jessica: Do you want human babies?

Monique: Eventually. Not anytime soon, but later.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times, people with Uranus opposite the Moon don't want kids. And so, if at some point you're like, "Huh. I thought the feeling would really come for me, and it didn't come for me," remember my words. It's not that surprising, and there's a lot of ways to have a full life. So I'm not saying don't have kids; I'm just saying that Uranus and also having Mars in between your Sun and Moon⁠—yeah. Parenting could be pretty annoying for you, which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it or you won't do it. But it's okay if you don't want to. I will put that in the mix.

Monique: Thank you.

Jessica: My pleasure. Now, there's one last thing I did want to tell you before we end, which is that Neptune is sitting on top of your Midheaven. This is a two-year transit, and it's about to start squaring your Saturn. And it can just kick up a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about what you're doing and how to take care of yourself, like how to navigate where you need to go in your life. And so I want to just, first of all, let you know this is kind of a long period. It's two years. But it's only two years; it's not your whole life.

And this transit does kick up anxiety. And so, because you have a nature⁠—when you start to feel any kind of bad feelings, you're like, "Go hard. Go fast. Go away." That's not going to work well. So, again, this is part of why I was like, "Try yoga," because this transit from Neptune sitting on top of your chart and squaring your Saturn⁠—both of them will basically want you to find meaning: find meaning in how you feel. Find meaning in your work, in your life, whatever it is. And so it can make you feel anxious when you don't feel that there's meaning.

And this might also trickle into your relationship where you're like, "What does it mean that he's like this? Where is this going?" instead of being able to say, "It's healthy for us now, and I don't need to fucking understand all of it in order to know that it's healthy for me now." And that is going to be really important for you over the next couple of years. And being able to do that, to take that attitude, will require that you have the ability to slow down and shift out of survival mode. Do you know what I'm saying?

Monique: Yeah, I do.

Jessica: The truth is you're not going to end up in your parents' relationship and be your mother. That's not going to happen. You need to make sure you don't end up in a relationship as your father.

Monique: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: And he's not a man who's done a lot of reflecting in his life.

Monique: No.

Jessica: And so the way to not become like him in the ways that you don't want to be like him is to be able to sit with, "These are my emotions, and this is actually what I want to do in my situation. I'm allowed to have my emotions, but this is what I'm actually going to do about them," as opposed to having to act at 100 percent on all of your emotions at all times, which is kind of like your dad's move, right?

Monique: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So those are some fun things to put in your pipe for smoking at various times in life as it needs to come up.

Monique: Yeah. Thank you.

Jessica: My pleasure. Do you have any other questions for me?

Monique: No. I believe that's all. Thank you.

Jessica: Fabulous. It is my pleasure. I'm so glad we got to do this.

Monique: Yes. Me too. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Jessica: Well, take really good care, eh?

Monique: You as well. Thank you.

Jessica: Bye.

Monique: Bye.

Okay. I have an announcement, and it's effective for the month of February on Ghost of a Podcast. In honor of Black History Month and Valentine's Day, I am dedicating the listener questions to Black love for the month of February. So, if you're Black, send me questions about anything that even remotely touches on the topic of love. I'm talking self-love, the love of art or work, romance⁠—of course, romantic love; give it to me⁠—familial love, anything related to the issue of love. Just make sure to use the hashtag Black Love in your question so I can search for it and it will come up. So go ahead and send me your questions. I'm ready for you.

Okay. So I got lots to say before we get into the details of this week. And I know that not everybody loves my preambles, but this feels like an important one, so just stick with me, or maybe when you have the bandwidth, come back to it, okay? Let's pull back a little bit and talk about astrology for a minute.

So astrology has been used for millennia. It's been around through cultures and time. And for most of the time that astrology has been around, it has only been available to rulers⁠—kings and queens and people with great power and resources. This is because in order to be an astrologer, you had to be a scholar. You had to dedicate your life to not only the study of the meaning of astrology, but also, casting charts is a great amount of math. You make the tiniest error, and your predictions are inaccurate; they're kind of useless. And so, in order to have a reliable astrologer, they really needed to be an excellent and precise technician in addition to good at interpreting the meaning of things.

But things have changed with computers and in particular with the internet. Astrology is accessible to so many people, to pretty much everybody, if you want to do some studying and learn about it, because the barrier of math isn't there. And you can google stuff. You have access to astrology. So there's a lot more people who are studying astrology and using astrology in many ways, to which I say fuck yeah. That is awesome.

But for the bulk of time, astrology and horoscopes⁠—I'm not talking about weekly horoscopes; I'm talking about forecasting, reading horoscopes⁠—it hasn't just been used for individual fates. It certainly hasn't been primarily used for love and romance, although we love love and we love using it that way. It's been used to understand collective conditions. It's been used to time events, to make use of energy for big impact in the world as well as in one's individual life. And this is really important because we are in a unique position. We the people, the 99 percent, if you will, can use astrology to plan our movements. Now, I mean that like our movements as individuals, but our movements, our collective movements, our movements for social justice, to fight against restrictive and oppressive regimes. And this is really powerful.

But in order to use astrology in this way, we must study astrology and pair that study with the study of history. To understand what was happening in the last three or six times that Saturn was in a particular zodiac sign really teaches you what you can expect and what the overarching themes and lessons are. We can see what's more likely to work and less likely to work. And this is really important. Now, anyone who studies history or is into politics in any kind of a big way knows that themes⁠—they tend to repeat themselves.

But the thing is that you can't know if history is repeating itself if you don't (a) know your history and (b) know what the hell is happening in the world around you. If you are not paying attention to the world, if you're not engaged in the world, which includes but is not limited to consuming news in a responsible way, it's hard to know what's happening, which means it's hard to know how to engage, how to be impactful. And so, as hard as it is, as difficult as it is, I do want to encourage you to stay engaged. I do want to encourage you to not allow empathy fatigue to compel us to stick our heads in the sand or become complacent, because this is not the time for that.

Pretty much since I started this podcast, I have been talking to you about the transit of Uranus in Taurus. And I have been naming that the last time this happened was during World War II, where a lot of really bad things happened in a lot of places around the world. That's how it got its name⁠—just a fun fact⁠—world war. And you may have been hearing me talk about this and been like, "Well, you know what? It's been a couple years now. There's no world war, so we should be fine."

What we have is a lead-up period, right? So, kind of like⁠—you know I talked to you about the Saturn Return, and the Saturn Return happened. It lasts however long it lasts, a couple weeks up to a year. But you feel it building for two years. The conditions build and build and build until the event happens, and we call that event the Saturn Return, and then you go through all this maturization. The same is true with social and political events. Things don't just happen kind of out of the clear blue sky. They develop over the course of time.

And we are seeing through this transit of Uranus in Taurus the evolution of our values or the lack of evolution of our values as a collective. We are seeing how little or how much people care. After the violent murder of George Floyd, we saw the spike in protests. We saw the spike of civic engagement from so many people. People cared. And as that transit of Uranus in Taurus was active⁠—it wasn't the only thing active, but as it was active, we saw enough people valued fighting against the oppressive and violent police state that we live in. People valued taking to the streets and being engaged in social movements.

Our values must be integrated so that we can live by them. Otherwise, they're passing fancies. Again, you want to remember values are governed by Venus, and the planet Venus can be related to, again, deep and abiding values or flights of fancy, things that we aesthetically like, like changing your profile image. It's like a look that says, "This is what I care about." But it isn't inherently substantive. It may be or it may not be, and that's the trick with our values. If they are just being embodied on surface levels, we can't sustain them. And even if they're embodied on a really deep level, sustaining a life that reflects our values takes a great amount of effort and often consistency. That is hard, especially hard given the fact that we are living through a recession. We are living through a time of increased violence and increased division. We are living through a global pandemic. It's a lot, right? It's a lot.

I want to just ground you into this. For as long as Uranus is in Taurus, which⁠—Uranus is going to be in the zodiac sign of Taurus through 2026, so we got a long time for this transit⁠—we are, as a collective and as individuals that make up a collective, on call to identify our values and make sure that we are, on a material level, living in ways that reflect those values. And when we see violence and cruelty and hate-based behaviors to any group of people, we must not just value our outrage or our hurt but also our commitment to embodying love and care for those affected, especially if we ourselves are not affected.

Within this devastating time where, just in the U.S. alone, we have seen the amount of anti-Trans bills that have been proposed in this year alone⁠—2023 alone, as of the 28th⁠—is 210. 210 trying to outlaw Trans existence? The fuck? In this past week alone, we have seen two mass shootings in California on the Lunar New Year. We have seen further evidence of how policing since 2020 has gotten worse. They've put more money into police, and we have seen greater violence from the police, especially to Black and Brown bodies, but especially to Black bodies.

And the news is comparing the horrific beating and murder of Tyre Nichols to the horrific beating of Rodney King, which I think is complicated, to say the least. But I will say, from an astrological standpoint, when the cops viciously attacked Rodney King, that was in the last transit of Saturn in Aquarius, where we find ourselves now. And as a result of it was a people's uprising. Here we are the fuck again, right? Again. George Floyd, Tyre Nichols⁠—these are not the only names that we need to say. And how many names are we going to say before we take action, before we make change? I wish I had the answer.

But we must care. We must be educated, and we must care. And obviously, this is not a news podcast, right? And I'm naming a couple things that I am aware of that deeply impact my heart, but there are so many other things happening. So Uranus in Taurus is an opportunity for revolution, but that's not the only thing that I want to remind you of. I want to remind you that we are still going through the Pluto Return of the United States. This is a time of revolution within this nation. It is a time where we will see our democracy fall; we will see our democracy be destroyed, or we will rebuild it. And if we do not have people-led movements forcing change, the changes that happen we will not like.

And I am saying this, yeah, as an astrologer, but also, if you have ever studied any history of any place any time in the world, you know that people with power do not give up their power just out of the goodness of their hearts. That's not how that works. People-led movements create power for the people. And they don't always work, but not doing anything⁠—that, for sure, doesn't work. That has got a 100 percent failure rate. Doing nothing gets you nothing. Nothing better, anyways. Right?

So the Pluto Return of the United States is meant to confront us with our core wounds as a nation, with our deepest shadow, with the parts of ourselves that need healing, that are furthest from healing. And policing is a big part of that. There are so many parts to what needs repair within this nation. But I want to just remind you that in 2023, we are still very much in this. And if we can remain in it together, if we can remember the work that we as a collective have to do for each other, this won't only help us as individuals and within our immediate communities, but it will help the nation and it will help the world. It has the potential to, anyways. And we also have the potential to fail, to burn ourselves out and to fail. Doing nothing is always an option, but it's not a good option. It's not a values-based option for people of conscience.

Now, I just want to name one more thing, which⁠ if you've heard the year-ahead horoscope, you've already heard me reference. But when Saturn was in Pisces, 1933, we had the beginning of the Holocaust⁠—not the beginning of the world war, but the beginning of the Holocaust. And if you're aware of what happened for the 10, 20 years leading up to the Holocaust, you can see alarming parallels to what is happening in the United States' culture and legislation: increasing violence, increasingly attacking artists and intellectuals, creating increasingly more restrictive legislation, having more violence on the streets. It's very similar.

And again, it is important to be aware of this. I'm not saying any of this to frighten you. I'm saying this because we cannot look at what is happening in this nation and be like, "Oh well. It's always been fucked up here." We can't look at what's happening in this nation and be like, "Oh well. Life is unfair." These are exceptional times, and we are living under exceptional circumstances. And it takes making an effort to try to be a part of the solution.

A tiny part of the solution is good. Just be a part of a solution in some way, and that requires, again, your awareness, your activation, your education. None of us knows everything about everything. None of us can be an activist for all causes all at once. It's okay that you have to pick some things to focus on, even though your heart might break about all the other things that aren't getting your attention. But it is important that you find a way to be engaged in these problems.

Okay. I know it was a lot. Thank you for sticking with me. Now I'm going to get to your horoscope, your weekly horoscope. We are looking at January 29th through February 4th of 2023. So I want to acknowledge⁠—Mercury Retroshade? C'est fini. It's over. We're done with that. Wonderful. Mars Retroshade? Still happening. Okay? So, just so you know, we're still moving through that Mars Retroshade, but both of those Retrogrades are done. But it's good to be mindful of the Retroshade.

Now, on the 29th, we have two exact transits. The first one is a Sun trine to Mars Retroshade, and the other is a Mercury trine to Uranus. Gratefully, luckily, happily, these are fabulous transits. The Sun trine to Mars is empowering. It's a transit that can bolster your sense of courage, your sense of resiliency. If there's something that you need to deal with or that you want to do that takes bravery, that takes courage, that requires playfulness or just a lot of energy, this is your transit.

Sun trine to Mars can be a really fun transit, as well, because the Sun is your will. Mars is your ego, your passions, and you can basically act in ways that you feel like you're being true to yourself. And that's especially true if you have planets at around ten degrees of Aquarius or Gemini or any sign that is aspected by Aquarius or Gemini. So that's the Sun trine to Mars. It is lovely.

Oh, I guess I should add, if you are looking to have fun, like adult fun with another consenting adult, this is a great transit for you. I mean, again, it's great for sex. It's great for spirited flirting. So, if you're looking to get some, this is a great transit for feeling good about yourself and trying to make that happen.

Okay. The other transit that is exact on the 29th is a Mercury trine to Uranus. This transit is excellent for innovation. It's excellent for communication and for listening with a really open mind. So, therefore, it's really great for learning something new. Mercury trine to Uranus isn't inherently that helpful⁠—especially because the Sun is trine Mars⁠—for focus or for long, protracted concentration. So, if you do really want to study something, I recommend giving yourself whatever amount of time, like 20 minutes or whatever works for your brain, and then getting up, doing some stretches or whatever⁠—distracting yourself⁠—and then coming back to whatever it is you're trying to focus on, because that will make it a lot easier to get through a lot of things that you need to concentrate on.

Mercury trine to Uranus is great for making friends, for having fun communication with people. Mercury governs the platonic side of our relationships. And so, when it forms a trine to very sparkly, innovative, and changeable Uranus, we can often find ourselves in situations where our plans kind of take a left turn and it's fun, or we meet new people and we just have a really nice interaction. So be open if you can. Get your little butt out there. Talk to people. I mean, chat. Chat with the people. Have fun.

Now, if there's stuff going on at work where you're like, "Should I talk to my boss or should I talk to my team about x?" the answer is yes. The answer is yes. This transit is excellent for having communications go better than expected because everyone's a little more open. And again, this is especially true if you have planets at around 15 degrees of an earth sign or any sign that is benefically aspected by the zodiac sign of Capricorn or Taurus. Ya capiche? It's nice and grounded. So, really, it's a great couple of transits for this day, and we're going to be feeling it for a couple days at the start of the week.

On February 1st, we have a Sun sextile to Chiron. This is a bolstering transit. Chiron, always kind of⁠—we're dealing with core wounds. We're dealing with a difficulty, in some essential way, in being here. But the Sun is the center of your own energies⁠, your psychological, your physiological, your spiritual vitality. And the Sun sextile to Chiron can embolden or empower the parts of you that have a hard time really showing up or kind of tend to shrink or fall apart when they get too much attention. So this is a really great transit in that regard.

If there's something that you're working really hard on in your healing journey, in your therapy, whatever, this transit is very supportive for that. So don't shy away from difficult truths. Don't shy away from kind of scary but true content, because the Sun sextile to Chiron is empowering for you to be able to effectively cope. And effectively might mean something really different for you than it does for me, or it might mean something really different for you today than it did a month ago.

So don't be a judgy jerk towards what is good for you or how much you can do. It's really important that you value whatever amount of progress you can make. I know I'm saying that a lot lately, but we're stepping closer and closer to a lot of Piscean energy, and I can't say it enough. It's really important to validate where you're starting from and whatever progress or advancements you can make from that place.

Okay. And then that brings us, my friends, to Friday, February the 3rd. And on that date, we have a Sun square to Uranus. Now, this transit is destabilizing. So, the start of the week, we have these very fortifying, stabilizing transits that can empower you to confront or engage with things that would otherwise be quite intimidating or challenging. It's not a get out of jail free card⁠—that's a Monopoly reference, by the way⁠—but it certainly is a great deal of wind hitting your sails. That's a sailing reference.

Now, on the 3rd, that Sun square to Uranus, we're going to be feeling this on the 2nd of February, the 3rd and the 4th of February. What we're likely to be feeling is a lot of disturbing energies. And what it requires is classic Uranus stuff. It requires that you are flexible and adaptable. That's generally pretty difficult when we're dealing with fixed energies, as we are, because what we tend to do when we're dealing with fixed energies is dig in our heels, insist that it has to be done our way, or, if it's not happening in the way we thought it should or we think it should, that it has to be wrong.

But what Uranus actually wants of us is to be adaptable, to investigate your response to surprises and to changes, especially if that response is anxiety, because a lot of times, we feel anxious when things come at us from out of nowhere. And on the one hand, that is what it is, and that's fair enough. And on the other hand, it's because we have this illusion of control. And then, when Uranus comes, it reminds us, "You've got no control." Things happen because they happen sometimes. And so, to the best of your ability, it is important for you to be curious about your own reactions to whatever it is that's happening within you and in the world around you.

The Sun square to Uranus can bring really abrupt changes, again, things that feel like they're coming out of nowhere. And that can be really frustrating. What's worse is the destabilization that Uranus brings tends to make us anxious because Uranus governs the nervous system. So it's hard to focus. It's not clear what we're supposed to do⁠—that kind of thing. It is possible that you will be dealing with anger and frustration. That might be your own or those emotions in others. And if you're walking through the world or at work or whatever, people being angry sometimes comes across as them being judgy or cold or any number of things.

It's not always clear what people are feeling, partially because it's not always appropriate for people to share what they're feeling and partially because people have a hard time with frustration and anger. They have a hard time expressing it, identifying it, all that kind of stuff. And so it's valuable for you to be inquisitive. It's valuable for you to be curious instead of trying to be conclusive, because we are unlikely to be able to make sense of what's happening during this transit.

This is a transit where whatever it is that comes up, you want to give it 72 hours to kind of play itself out before you make any assessments if possible. This is a terrible, terrible time for trying to create stability and security. It's a terrible time for making final decisions, especially if you are being directly impacted by this transit, like if this transit is hitting your birth chart specifically, which would only happen if you have any planets or important points in a zodiac sign that is directly affected by Aquarius, where the Sun is, or Taurus, where Uranus is. Okay? Okay.

So this transit is kind of all over the place. It may make you feel scattered. It may make you feel stressed. And you can plan for that, right? You can't plan for it in a way that you can control things, but you can plan for it in a way where you can shift your expectations to expect the unexpected, and that can really help.

Now, one last thing I'll say about this transit is Uranus can make us accident-prone because our energy is distracted. So, if you are riding your bike, if you're driving your car, if you're out in the world, just look where you're going. You know what I mean? Don't text and walk. You could fall on your sweet face. Pay attention to what you're doing so that you don't have to deal with accidents and disruptions that make you unhappy, basically.

Okay. And that brings us to the last transit of this week. On the 4th, we have a Venus square to Mars. Now, Venus square to Mars is not a problematic square. I think it's a pretty fun square, actually. But it is overlapping with the Sun square Uranus, so that gives us a problem because Venus is all about diplomacy, and Mars is all about action. Venus is like, "Well, what do you need? How can we figure out what's good for both of us?" And Mars is like, "I'm going to take what I need, and I'll deal with the consequences later. It'll be fine."

And so, when these two planets form a challenging aspect to each other, like a square, what we have is the potential to be more assertive about what we need without compromising on diplomacy completely. What we can have is fun flirtation. We can have a great time romantically, sexually, that kind of good stuff. And I could mean in the act of these things or in the pursual of these things.

Venus square to Mars tends to be pretty fun. It can be frustrating, where things, again, are off-kilter and you're not quite sure how to express yourself, or people come across in a really awkward way that you're like, "Should I be offended, or is this nice?"⁠—you know, that kind of a thing. But because of the Sun square to Uranus, we have more abrupt and disruptive energy than we would have with Venus square to Mars on its own. And so, again, I expect that there will be kind of a deepening and continuation of the Sun square to Uranus. And what I'm going to be particularly on the look for is interpersonal struggles, interpersonal conflicts.

Now, if we're looking more on the collective, a Sun square to Uranus can be incredibly disruptive, and it can be a time where there are very explosive things that happen. When you add Venus square to Mars in the world that we are living in, we may be dealing with, again, Trans rights, the rights of women, and the rights of basically everyone who is not a cis man, which can make cis men feel like it's about their rights.

So we may be seeing some major gender-based conversations happening in the world or explosive, potentially really disruptive events around gender and potentially sexuality. We want to pay attention to the world, and we want to participate to the best of our ability as frequently as we can. You can't always, right? Life. But to the best of your ability, as frequently as you can.

Now, I'm going to run through these transits for you just in case you are a note-taking kind of person. But I will remind you that I always publish the transcripts within a day or two of this episode coming out, so you can always go through the transcript as a way to help you ground the data that I'm giving you. You can also subscribe to my web-based astrologer's pro tool, Astrology for Days, where there is an ephemeris baked into the app and it tracks the exact moment that every transit occurs. And it has a handy section for you to store all of your notes, your predictions, your experiences. So it's a really great way to either aid your workflow if you're a professional or to facilitate your self-guided tour through the stars. Not bad, eh?

Okay. So, on the 29th, we have an exact trine between the Sun and Mars and another exact trine between Mercury and Uranus. On February 1st, we have an exact sextile between the Sun and Chiron. On the 3rd of February, we have an exact square between the Sun and Uranus. And then, finally, on the 4th of February, we have an exact square between Venus and Mars. And that's it. That's the activity in the stars for the week ahead.

I want to thank you so much for joining me here. And I drop a bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast on the 1st of every month where I do a full breakdown of the month ahead detailing all of the transits for the month that is just to come, and I do that on the kittens level of my Patreon. So you can go ahead and join me there to get all kinds of exclusive content⁠—very woo, very astrology. Very woo. And also, it's a great way to support my work, which I super very much appreciate.

This is also your weekly reminder to go ahead and hit the Subscribe button wherever you listen to this podcast so that you never miss an episode. I've got some fun changes coming to Ghost of a Podcast later this month, which I'm excited to talk to you about. So, yeah, hit that Subscribe button, my friends, just in case a little something extra, a little something surprising, happens in the feed. Okay?

Stay safe out there. Take care of yourself and others. And I will talk to you next week.