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. This week, we have a lot of very important transits happening, so buckle up. But before I get into those details, I want to take a pause and acknowledge that all of October was Eclipse Season. And right now, I really am just speaking on a personal level as opposed to a social and a political level, although we of course know that it has been a really consequential and harrowing time in the world.

On October 14th and the 28th, we had Eclipses. So all of October was this deeply emotional time. It brought up a lot of intense energy in the collective, absolutely, but also within our own hearts and our own spiritual systems and emotional systems. And Eclipses are meant to bring things up that we don't know how to deal with. They are meant to trigger emotions and our own spiritual evolution in such a way that we learn something about the world. This development leads us to learning more about ourselves, to becoming more, more whole, more embodied, and to evolve.

Then the second we hit the start of November⁠—and here we are close to the end of the month, but as soon as we hit the start of November, we experienced this onslaught of Uranian energy. There have been a bunch of planets sitting opposite to Uranus. And on the heel of this very deeply emotional time, to have so much Uranian energy activated in the world has been stressful, to say the least. As I've said in previous episodes, Uranus is related to our nervous system. We have been taking in so much information at a super quick rate. Things have been changing quickly, and often in ways we did not expect.

The thing about Uranus is that Uranus governs the internet. It governs electricity. And we, my loves⁠—we are not machines. The speed of data, the speed of connection, that Uranus brings is really hard on a personal felt experience for a human. It just is, because humans don't actually process data that quickly. And even though we may be processing information with our brains, we are not just our brains. We are our hearts. We are our bodies. We are our many divergent parts.

And so this has been a time, since the start of October, that has been deeply emotionally trying and really challenging for the nervous system. And the reality is right now that this is the first week in a hot minute where I'm not going to be talking to you about Uranus. And so, in a way, this can be a time to catch your breath, especially at the first half of the week. And of course, I'll give you the details in just one moment. But the tempo is shifting in a meaningful way.

This week, we're going to be grappling with Saturn, Mars, and Chiron. So we're still grappling, but it's not Uranian. It's not Jupiter. That has also been a really big part of the last couple of months in the astrology. What we're dealing with now is Uranus all of a sudden not activating us, but instead having to deal with the consequences⁠—Saturn and Chiron⁠—dealing with our core wounding, confronting our own egos, our own defensiveness. And this is really hard.

It may feel like you're kind of getting slammed back into your body this week. If that's the case, I want to encourage you to show yourself some grace and some patience and to remember that you have tools in your tool kit. You have resources that you can tap into for how to return to your body, how to sit with the defensiveness or guilt or rage or sadness. Nobody's good at these things. I mean, these are very challenging things. Nobody's good at these things, but this is a powerful time for you to practice.

If you care about what's happening in the world and you are experiencing overwhelm and grief and heartbreak, if you're feeling hopeless, if you're feeling angry, sad⁠—I mean, there are so many really difficult emotions that we are dealing with as we see the atrocities that the State of Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people. As we learn about other genocides that are being perpetrated across the globe⁠—I mean, this is a really devastating time. And it's an intense time to be aware, to stay engaged, and to be educated and to figure out what you need to unlearn and to learn and being exposed to new data, or maybe having old information land in a new way.

If you are participating in activism in tiny ways or in big ways, know that you are making a difference because when groups of people, when the populace, comes together to advocate for each other and ourselves, things change. Things change. That's how all change happens. It's when people come together and demand it. And the reality is⁠—you know, this is an astrology podcast⁠—is that it takes its toll mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It can take its toll physically to stay aware and engaged in harrowing times.

And so it is really important to find a way to sustain your efforts. Find a way to stay engaged without completely burning yourself out. Some of that is about self-care, which⁠—let me just be clear because "self-care" is a term that gets thrown around a lot. Self-care is about taking responsibility for yourself and for whatever's coming up within you, and to weave that into your self-awareness. Self-care is not something that takes you away from the world indefinitely. It's a way of engaging with your own basic needs so that you can show up⁠—show up for the people in your life, in your communities, and the world at-large.

This is a time to wrestle with hard questions and wrestle with emotions and be curious in the middle of it all. And the truth is that for most humans, genuine curiosity goes out the window when big, hard emotions come up. The truth is that humans aren't really wired for exploring nuance and complexity when we are emotionally activated. We can choose to do that, but it's not our first instinct. And so I want to encourage you to bring mindfulness about how you engage with your big emotions, whether or not you are looking at complexity and nuance, and to know that powerful governments and corporations⁠—they profit, they benefit, from us turning against each other. They do.

This is a time for community-building. This is a time for building relationships, and that means sometimes building relationships and community with people that you disagree with on several items, that you see things in a meaningfully different way from, but you share in your heart and mind the same ultimate objectives: peace, liberation⁠—whatever it is. There's only everything right with having the capacity to hold emotional complexity and emotional nuance, to be able to hold yourself responsible for what you do and don't do, and also show yourself grace and patience and empathy for what you can and can't do or just didn't do or did do. To take responsibility doesn't mean you stop having empathy for yourself and care. And similarly, being able to build real community with people who are not 100 percent on board with 100 percent of your perspective is a powerful thing. It's a healthy and mature thing, and it's what we need right now.

I'm just about to jump into your horoscope, but I feel that it is important for me to emphatically repeat here on this podcast that there is nothing anti-Semitic about being pro-Palestine and that there is nothing anti-Arab about yearning for the release of innocent civilians that are still being held captive by Hamas. It's possible to have a large enough heart to hold empathy and care and concern for many different people in many different circumstances. And emphatically, I want to say that I stand against the fascism, apartheid, and occupation from the State of Israel in Palestine to the Palestinians.

Violent occupation, genocide⁠—these things will never bring about peace for any demographic of people. Palestinian liberation and peace and Israeli liberation and peace are intertwined. They've always been intertwined. And what we need now and moving forward is leaders who can envision real peace and come up with new strategies for true and lasting peace in Palestine, in the region.

And I want to remind you of a couple more details astrologically. Uranus remains in Taurus, egging us on to ask radical questions about who we value and how we express and experience that value. Neptune and Saturn are in Pisces, pointing us towards populace movements that deeply, deeply need organization and structure, but that these movements are empathetic and humanistic at their heart. And Pluto⁠—Pluto is still in fucking Capricorn, and we are seeing the old guard, the old hierarchies and patriarchies, doing everything they can to hold on to the old ways.

Come January 2024, Pluto goes back into revolutionary Aquarius. And there's so much wonderful radical potential. However, the final hit of Pluto in Capricorn for the next 250 years just so happens to coincide with the presidential fucking election in 2024. Pluto will be back in Capricorn September, October, and November of 2024, meaning that the election⁠—which is very consequential not just to domestic affairs, but also, the United States has its hands in so many other nations, governments, and military⁠. Pluto in Capricorn will once again govern another American presidential election. So we can take our revolutionary ideas and apply them to the system, but know that we are still dealing with the old guard for now⁠—for now.

All right. We'll definitely talk more about this soon, but for now, let's get into this week's horoscope. We are looking at the astrology of November 19th through the 25th of 2023, and there's a lot going on. But luckily, it starts off with a little bit of support and a little bit of ease⁠—I mean, not an unqualified blessing, but let me tell you what I mean.

So, on the 20th, we have two exact transits. One is to Pluto, and the other is to Chiron. Now, these are a sextile and a trine, respectively. And whenever we have a sextile or a trine, both are considered "easy" aspects. Things tend to be a little bit more flow, a lot more easy than they would be if they were a challenging aspect. However, whenever we're dealing with Chiron or Pluto, we tend to be dealing with intensity. So, while these transits are supportive, they're not completely easy. And this is just another moment for me to gently remind you that just because something is easy doesn't make it good, and just because something is hard doesn't make it bad.

Okay. So, on the 20th, at 1:26 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun forms an exact sextile to Pluto. So the Sun is at 28 degrees and 17 minutes of Scorpio, and Pluto is at the same degrees of Capricorn. Now, the Sun sextile to Pluto is a really lovely transit because it intensifies our ability and capacity to go deep with things and to follow through on actions that are in alignment for us, which is fucking fantastic. So, when the Sun forms a sextile to Pluto, we tend to feel more purposeful, more determination, a greater sense of capacity and a greater willingness to go deep.

Now, this is only further intensified by the fact that the Sun is in fact still in Scorpio at this time. And so this can be a transit that empowers you to put your shit aside and have an important conversation with someone, to really listen to something or someone and learn from⁠—so I don't mean to listen with your ears, but I mean actually actively listen to information and sort through it in a deep and meaningful way. This can be a transit that supports us in working with power in effective ways, so not abusing power, not misusing power, but stepping into power and stepping up to leverage our power. It's a great transit, right? It's really wonderful.

But the trouble with this transit is that because it's so empowering and it kind of creates this stronger funnel for our energies, if you are engaged in something that is self-destructive, if you are engaged in something that is not healthy or helpful in the world, in your life, Pluto will egg you on. And this is why it is always wise to be genuinely curious about your own motivations, your own emotions, your own convictions, and your own behavior. That's how we learn. That's how we grow.

And the beautiful thing about Pluto when the Sun is forming a sextile to it is that it can really empower us to make meaningful strides, meaningful breakthroughs, in our lives. But you kinda gotta choose to leverage it. And so, whether the Sun sextile to Pluto is going to help you to spring into action and to leverage your sense of purpose and use it to direct you, or you use this same energy to cultivate greater repair and healing within you or some situation⁠—however this energy plays itself out, it would be a shame to miss out on the energies of this transit, because it brings with it the potential for healing, for repair. That's the good news of Pluto, healing and repair.

At the same time, or rather, on the same day, we have a Mercury trine to Chiron. Now, this is exact at 7:08 p.m. And Mercury is going to be at 16 degrees and 2 minutes of Sagittarius, while Chiron is at 16:02 of Aries. So we have this nice fire trine between Mercury and Chiron. Now, as I said, Chiron, kind of like Pluto⁠, even when it's really being helpful, it's not particularly easy because Chiron deals with core wounding. And Chiron in Aries deals with core wounding around embodiment, around what you do, your own motivations, how you do it, and also simply being in your damn body.

Mercury trine to Chiron can be a helpful transit because it can help us to learn. It can help us to be open to sorting through the information that we already have and kind of moving it with curiosity⁠—Mercury⁠—through our triggers, through our wounds, which in these harrowing times is really fucking helpful. So, basically, what I'm trying to get at here is these two transits, in their own unique ways but certainly together, are a powerful time to turn within to better understand your own triggers, your own activation, your own shit, how you have been treating yourself, how you have been treating others, how you have been showing up or not. If you have things in the world outside of your psyche that are important to you, these transits can help you to clarify the best way forward, the best way to engage with these things.

Now, Mercury trine to Chiron can activate beliefs that are painful about ourselves or about the world. And those beliefs may or may not be rooted in fact because not all feelings are factual, and not all of our beliefs are factual. The beautiful thing about the Mercury trine Chiron is it helps us to sort through our beliefs in efforts to find the truth. What that oftentimes means is that we have to unlearn pieces of things that we believe, sometimes big pieces, sometimes teeny-tiny pieces, and a lot of times everything in between.

But this is a powerful transit for sorting through the parts of our beliefs and our attitudes that feel completely, irrefutably real and material but are actually really influenced by our emotions, and specifically our fears, our insecurities, and to sort through this messy, sticky, complex data to get to a more holistic truth. And that might be an understanding about ourselves, an understanding about an issue, an identity, a relationship.

But the beautiful thing, again, about this particular transit, especially because it's overlapped with the Sun sextile to Pluto, is that we can come to a greater sense of self-awareness and understanding. The tricky thing is that it often kind of requires that we move through some painful data. Luckily, both this transit on its own but also the Sun sextile to Pluto support us in doing that.

Now, another, I would say, bolt of luck is that we have, on the 21st, another supportive sextile. This one is Mars at 28 degrees of Scorpio and 19 minutes forming a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn at the same degrees: 28 degrees of Cap, 19 minutes. You may note that we are dealing with Scorpio and Capricorn energies. These energies in astrology⁠—they form a sextile to each other, 60 degrees apart.

The thing about this that is important for you to note is that the depth and emotional intensity and passion of Scorpio is compatible with the willingness to work hard, conserve energies, and sustain efforts and actions of Capricorn. So we have the opportunity this week to tap into these energies and benefit from them. And whether we apply this to our individual lives, our mental and emotional health, or our movements, our social and political movements, this is just all across the board good news. Now, don't get too excited, because the astrology is about to turn. But let's stick with the good for a moment.

So okay. Back to Mars at 28 of Scorpio forming a sextile to Pluto at 28 of Capricorn, and this transit is exact 5:18 p.m. Pacific Time. As always, if you want to be tracking the transits with me and using the same tool that I use, you can subscribe to my astrology student and astrologer's pro tool, Astrology for Days, over at astrologyfordays.com. Just tracks the transits and gives you a place where you can keep your notes about what you predict will happen, what other people predict will happen, and also what actually happened. It's a great tool for having a self-guided tour through your own learning, experiential learning.

Mars sextile to Pluto is a powerful transit. It is powerful because Mars and Pluto are both kind of like powerhouse planets. What they want is to have their own will and their own agency activated, respected, and Mars sextile to Pluto gives us the energy to get shit done. It gives us the passion and the push to move through power struggles or step into our own power. It's very productive, as you can see.

This transit is great, just as a fun heads-up, for sex. Just really good for sex: partnered sex, solo sex, whatever works for you, if you're into sex, that is. It's a great time for anything that activates and engages your body, anything that supports healing and repair or simply just tapping into your passions and your willingness and excitement to experience your body, to use your body. What this transit is all about is the relationship between Mars and Pluto empowers us to tap into our felt experience, our passions.

Mars is the body, but it's also the ego. So it's the things that I want for me. It's the things that you want with your ego, the things you feel entitled to. And Pluto empowers us to work through those things, which is kind of cool, to have the endurance to navigate through our most powerful and intense drives and emotions. Pluto is super helpful for that.

Now, this transit is activating, but in what usually is a very positive way. It's activating of our passions. It's activating of our sense of determination and purpose. So this is a good time to get shit done, to get actively engaged with what's important to you. You can point this energy inwards towards some sort of healing that needs doing within you, some sort of recalibration or reset. Or this can be pointed outside of you to a part of your life, relationship, or community effort that is important to you.

Energy is going to be running hot around this transit, which we're going to be feeling for the better part of the week. And so, while this transit on its own is not in any way a bad transit⁠—it's very positive, very supportive⁠—it is going to strengthen and activate everyone's energy. And if it's strengthening and activating my energy, and let's say I want to have a really loud party because I feel really good, and it's strengthening and activating your energy and you just happen to be my downstairs neighbor, and you're wanting to be in your body and tapping into your own system's ability to recalibrate, well, we are going to maybe have a conflict, see, because the ways in which we want to activate our energies⁠—Mars⁠—like, tap into our sense of entitlement, of finally getting into the body and stepping into healing⁠—Pluto⁠—may be a little bit of cross-purposes with each other, right?

And so this is where I want to just kind of ground you into the importance of picking your battles and remembering that not all projects are equal, that not all impulses and passions are equal. They're not all equally good for you. They're not all equally good to center. And this is where, again, we want to tap into curiosity. We want to tap into our own willingness and ability to sort through our felt experience, to sort through our impulses and our beliefs to find what is right⁠—what is right for the moment, what is right for whatever, big picture, small picture, me, you, us.

If you are somebody who feels energy, if you're a sensey person energetically, this is going to be a really valuable trio of transits to leverage so that you can identify and/or establish energy boundaries. And this is something that you likely have tools around or resources around. If you don't, it's a topic I've got lots of content on on my Patreon. You can also take my class, Astrology for Intuitives, where we went through some energy work exercises, and that's on my website. And there's a million resources on the internet.

These transits this week are particularly supportive and helpful in a month without a lot of especially easy or supportive transits. And so I really want to encourage you to tap into this energy and leverage it. Leverage it so that you can live your life in the healthiest and best ways possible. The thing about astrology that is so cool is that it predicts for us when there is more likely to be flow and when there's more likely to be heat and when there's more likely to be roadblocks and all the other things. And so, if we kind of organize our expectations and our approach around this information, it can be exceptionally helpful. That's how I use astrology, anyways, and I hope you do, too.

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That brings us to the 22nd of November. On the 22nd of November, a couple of things happen. The first is we move into Sagittarius Season at 6:02 a.m. Pacific Time. Now, you know me. I don't focus on the Sun seasons, the Solar seasons, very much. That said, it is a fire season. It is a season where things move fast, certainly much faster than they do in Scorpio season, which⁠—fuck⁠—if you consider the past Scorpio season, has been exceptionally fast-moving. But that is thanks to the transits we've been going through, not the Solar season. But the Sun in Sagittarius means it is the season of truth-seeking and fast-moving energy. So⁠—I don't know⁠—put that in your pipe and smoke it. Tell me what it does later.

Now, the other thing that's happening on the 22nd of November is we are going through a Venus opposition to Chiron. Venus will be at 15 degrees and 59 minutes of Libra. So Venus will be at 16 degrees Libra opposite Chiron at 16 Aries. This is exact at 8:45 a.m. This transit we're basically feeling all week. It's exact on this date, but we're basically feeling it all week. And it is a challenging transit.

Venus is our values. It's a sense of safety in our relationships and in the world at-large. Venus is related to feeling loved and liked, and it is also related to how we show others that we love or like them. Venus is also related to the economy. It's related to money, so it's your personal finances in general and the economy in general. And also, it's the planet of diplomacy, which means it is related to how we engage with conflict.

So all these wonderful sextiles have been activating and engaging us around entitlement, around our own energy, around our capacity to heal⁠—beautiful. But meanwhile, this Venus opposition to Chiron has been kind of in the background challenging us to identify what it is that we value and how we prioritize and express that value. As an example, the things you spend money on reflect your values. And this is where, from a political perspective, what we spend our money on, what we support, is impactful. It is power. It is power. Right?

Now, another thing to acknowledge is that a lot of us spend money out of insecurity. We try to buy some happy. We try to buy things that make us look a certain way, whether that's status symbols or literally manipulating the way we appear to others, the way we look to others. And Venus opposite to Chiron activates and reveals our more painful and insecure motivations. So this transit can confront us with our deeply held insecurities around our place in the hearts and lives of others, in our sense of safety within ourselves and, again, in the context of other people.

Whether we think about this in a very personal context or in the context of larger social issues that are occurring, this transit is fucking rough. It intensifies a sense of insecurity for a lot of people. And what do we know? We know that when people's security feels threatened⁠—whether it is or isn't, when a person feels that way, we tend to act out. We tend to clamp down. We tend to be more conservative. It's not great.

And so cultivating tools for coping with insecurity, for being able to engage honestly and even passionately directly with other people⁠—this is important. But in order to come at someone with passion and intensity, in order to be really direct, if you want it to be an exchange⁠—Venus⁠—instead of a conflict and confrontation, what you gotta be willing to do is listen. It can't just be you coming at someone with a bullhorn in their face and telling them a thing. It has to be a back and a forth.

So stepping into relationship with others with honest inquiry, asking someone where they're coming from, leaving room for them to explain, to contextualize whatever it is, is valuable. It's important because we all want to be heard, but we don't always want to hear what others have to say. And this is a big part of this Venus opposition to Chiron, a.k.a. it's a big part of this week. And this week, a lot of people in the U.S. are going to be with their families. So I'm going to get to that in just a second, but I will say that it's quite a triggering moment for the Venus opposition to Chiron to be activated.

In that context, criticisms around the way we look⁠—which a lot of people experience with family of origin, so if you are a parent, don't do that to your fucking kids, obvi. Just let them look the way they fucking look. If you are dealing with that, if you are on the receiving end of that, try to take this approach. People, even your parents, even your siblings, even your relatives⁠—people are constantly revealing themselves to you. And if somebody is obsessed with⁠—I don't know⁠—your fucking body weight, that is a reflection on them and their values. It's actually not a reflection on you.

And if you can see other people's values⁠—the good, the ugly, all of it⁠—as just that, as their values, then you don't need to take it on. Now, a lot easier said than done, I know. But Venus opposition to Chiron is an opportunity to clarify your values, what you value in yourself, what you value in the world, who you value in the world, and how you're going to hold and express those values. Because it's an opposition, we know that this transit is likely to be experienced interpersonally. And that can be between you and another person, but it can also be between this community and that community.

Venus is related to relationships and partnerships. So there is a potential for partnership-building through reciprocity and authentically listening to the values and insecurities and sense of safety between you and someone else or this community and that community. It's a good use of this transit. The key is to not need people to agree with you. Now, I'm not talking about life-or-death situations in this moment. I'm talking about interpersonal and partnership-based dynamics.

But when we are actually trying to understand where someone else is coming from, it's often essential that we don't insert our own perspectives, our own values, and our own version of reality onto somebody else's. Just try to be open to where someone else is coming from, not so you agree with them, not so you can take abuse or be in a dysfunctional relationship, but so that you can have the information, so that you can have the information that you need about who others are, how they are engaging, what their motivations are, what their beliefs are, and you don't have to take on other people's shit if you don't want to.

It's important to remember that boundaries are about you knowing what you can and can't do, what you will and won't do in a healthy way. And it is on you to identify, communicate, and uphold your boundaries. And a lot of people cannot or will not respect your boundaries in life. That's life. And that tells you everything you need to know about them. It doesn't tell you everything you need to know about you. How you uphold and defend your boundaries does. And a lot of people get real fucking defensive around boundaries when our boundaries are crossed, when we're expressing our boundaries, when we encounter other people's boundaries.

And this transit of Venus opposite to Chiron may be real sticky with boundaries. And so, again, I want to bring your attention and your intention back to values. Do your best to engage with yourself and others in ways that reflect your values. If you learn things about other people's values that you do not like, that is not an invitation to fight them. It's an invitation to cultivate greater understanding. And that understanding might be like, "Oh, wow, I really don't respect this person in this way." Being able to identify and sit with that is really important. It's not something you need to defend. There's nothing to prove, necessarily.

Start with acceptance. Always, always start with acceptance. Once you can identify a thing, if you can accept it, then you can navigate from there. But when we try to skip over that very meaningful step of acceptance, we tend to have major problems. And I will reiterate now what I always reiterate when I talk about acceptance, which is acceptance is not consent. Acceptance is awareness. That's all it is. So we will have a lot of opportunities to come into greater awareness of ourselves and others this week, for better or for worse. The work is to only manage your side of the road. That's it.

Now, one last thing I'll say about it, though. It sounded like I was done, but I'm not done. Okay. Venus is related to self-worth. Venus is related to insecurity and self-worth as much as it is related to security. Most of us struggle, in one way or another, with self-worth. Now, on the 23rd, the Sun will form a square to Saturn. It's exact at 1:47 a.m. Pacific Time, and it's happening between the Sun at 0 degrees of Sagittarius and 50 minutes and Saturn at 0 degrees of Pisces and 50 minutes.

Now, this transit will also trigger major self-worth issues. It can trigger depressiveness, loneliness, feeling small. And the fact that these two transits are overlapping doesn't bode great for relationships. Now, again, I know a lot of people in the U.S. celebrate Thanksgiving, which⁠—I think it's really important to acknowledge how fucked up Thanksgiving is. I understand a lot of you celebrate it because you have time off of work, because you have adopted rituals with your loved ones around giving thanks and friendsgivings and all the things that people do. No shade. No shade at all about your personal choices and all that.

But it is really important that we are honest. We have to acknowledge that Thanksgiving is the celebration of English colonizers coming and perpetrating a genocide and ongoing displacement of the people indigenous to these lands. We have to be honest about the roots of this holiday and the just terrible whitewashing of this holiday. It's really quite disgusting. And as right now we are watching the horrifying genocide of people in Palestine, people in the Congo⁠—in many regions of the world⁠—being ruthlessly murdered and displaced from their lands, it is just grotesque. It really is.

And the astrology of this week is calling us in to acknowledge our values, to recalibrate our energy, to check our egos. And the Sun square to Saturn is a little bit of a kick in the cooch kind of transit. It's depressing. So, if you are celebrating Thanksgiving with your family of origin or people who have radically different takes on what is happening in the world right now, let me just tell you this. The transits are fucking rough anyways. You might as well be honest. You might as well act in ways that reflect your values.

Seriously, I don't know what's right for each and every person with each and every family. I really don't. And I know a lot of people are very conflict averse. A lot of people have nothing but conflict with their family. I mean, life is complicated. But I gotta tell you this, my loves. The transits on and around this Thanksgiving are so rough you might as well just act with integrity and be true to what you believe and where you stand.

Sun square to Saturn tends to trigger conflicts between you and authority figures⁠—oh, I don't know, like parents, bosses, landlords, those kinds of relationships where there's an inherent power differential, older people with younger people, so could be any kind of relatives. And the challenge is often around power. Because the Sun is involved, it is about your sense of self. Now, I'm just going to give you a quick little spoiler alert. On the 25th, we have an exact square between Mars and Saturn. So we're already feeling it with the Sun square to Saturn.

And the Sun is the will and the identity, and Mars is the ego. So the likelihood that we have power struggles during the exactitude of the Sun square to Saturn are real strong. Whenever the Sun forms a square to Saturn, there is on some level a need for us to step into our adulthood, to be mature, to own who we choose to be, and to step into it with an ownership of consequence. The most adult thing a person can do is be willing to deal with the consequences of their actions.

This Sun square to Saturn that overlaps with the Mars square to Saturn, which I'll get to in a second⁠, but that also overlaps with the Venus opposition to Chiron, really tests your moral fiber, your character, your willingness to show up as yourself in a way that is responsible to yourself and others. The Sun square to Saturn will often make us feel insecure, like we can't do enough to be accepted by others. And oftentimes, we're not accepted by others.

You may be dealing with criticism. You may be dealing with what feels like a deficit of love. Saturn governs scarcity. When we have scarcity in regards to our sense of self, that's not easy. It's really painful. And again, because of Saturn, we may be feeling really pressured by our circumstances or by other people to show up in particular ways, to have particular values or not have other values, to have already done certain things or have done them differently. It's pressure. It's a pressure cooker.

At the end of the day, when it comes to Saturn, what we're learning how to do is to show up. And that takes patience and humility. So how do you have patience and humility when you're also feeling low self-esteem, when you're feeling insecure? It's really, really hard. But it just means moving slowly and not needing evidence and reinforcement in the short term, but instead being open to exploring what is possible.

Saturn is related to work. It's related to a sense of determination and follow-through. It's a planet that is related to conservation, the conservation of our energies, of our time, of our ability to make plans and follow through, to get shit done⁠—Saturn. Saturn is also related to guilt. This is where we get into trouble because if there are things that we feel guilty about, what we tend as humans to do is to obsessively refer back to our own navel and to focus on the guilt instead of be humble about what we did or didn't do and start to think about what actions we can take⁠—maybe not right now, maybe over time⁠—to build towards something better. That's capital-A Adulting for you. It's owning your shit, being willing to change, being willing to work harder in a different direction, potentially.

Now, in regards to interpersonal stuff, like I said, this transit governs depression. It makes you feel lonely. And so, if there are things you can put in place to support you around that stuff, that would be ideal. But unfortunately, because of the Venus opposition to Chiron, it might be particularly hard to find the kind of support you need, especially if these transits are hitting your birth chart at all.

This transit wants us to take responsibility. That's the most important thing, to take responsibility. So, if you can do your best to own your part and acknowledge what's not yours to handle and to be humble and to be patient, then this transit will be easier for you than if you demand too much of yourself or others. People are revealing themselves to you. They can only be who they are.

And part of growing up is recognizing that your parents are just people. And maybe they're people that if you met them at a party, you simply fucking wouldn't talk to them. Your parents are not inherently going to share your values. Your parents are not inherently going to share your worldview. And the reason why I'm referencing parents is partially because there's this big holiday that I know a lot of people celebrate with their families of origin on this day, not just this week, but on this day⁠—but also because Saturn is related to our elders.

Now, as I said, on the 25th, Mars will form a square to Saturn as well. So we're going to feel that Sun square to Saturn on the 22nd, 3rd, and 4th. It's exact on the 23rd. But then, the 25th, Mars is exactly square to Saturn. So we're feeling this transit the better part of the week building, building, building until it hits us at 8:57 a.m. Pacific Time on the 25th. Now, this transit is hard. It's another hard transit.

Mars square to Saturn I often describe as needing to get to⁠—I don't know⁠—some work thing that is really important to you, but you don't especially want to go to, but you absolutely have to get to. And you gotta drive there, but somebody's blocked your car in, and there's nothing you can do. You don't know this person. You don't know when they'll be back or not. Do you call a tow truck? Is that a dick move? Is that actually the best thing to do? It just is that question, that feeling of being stuck and there's something that has to be done that you don't even fucking want to do, but you have to do it, and then having only bad choices in front of you, and feeling kind of angry and frustrated⁠—all of that classic Mars/Saturn.

And the truth of the matter is this transit makes us feel frustrated. We can often find ourselves in situations where we feel resentful of the problems we're having to deal with, the limitations that we're having to deal with, because Mars literally governs cars. It governs our ego. It's "my need, my drive to get ahead, to get this shit done, to be recognized," whatever it is. And Saturn is like, "Uh-uh-uh. Consequences. Have you thought about slowing down? What about when you have less support? What about when you have impediments on your path?" That's fucking Saturn for you.

So Mars square to Saturn is super unsexy. I mean, for certain people who like to play with certain kinds of power in certain kinds of ways, it can be fun and sexy, but for most people, uh-uh. It just can make you feel really just uncomfortable in your body and stuck, like there's not an energy flow. It can make you feel like your ambitions and your passions are being thwarted by people and situations that you cannot control, that have more power than you.

Now, in regards to social movements, this is not a great transit. I'm not going to lie. It's not a great transit. Mars governs cops and the military, and Saturn is hierarchies, governments, corporations. So having a square between these two can be a reference to fighting going in a really kind of heavy, hard way. Mars square to Saturn is a transit that indicates male types, militaristic forces, literally stopping things from happening, putting up roadblocks.

This can be a really rough time in terms of movements for liberation. And what it does require is that our movements have a plan, that they have a strategy and plan. And a lot of times, in a lot of populace-related movements, which is a lot of what we're seeing right now, that doesn't exist. A lot of times, it does, and a lot of times, it doesn't. So this transit can be⁠—I don't know⁠—messy in that regard.

On a more personal level, it kicks up defensiveness. It kicks up frustration, defensiveness, anger, and it will be very likely that you will want to just lash out at someone just because they're in your fucking way. And you may convince yourself that they're harming you in some way, and maybe they are, but maybe they're not. And other people might do that to you.

So what's going to be really important with this transit is to have done your homework earlier in the week of looking at your ego, of being curious, of getting better aligned with your values so that when your defensiveness and your agitation and your irritability and your discomfort in your body gets activated by this challenging transit, you have awareness in the mix. And that self-awareness can help you to make the best possible choices even in shitty situations.

This is not a great time for starting shit with people. This is not a great time for spontaneously popping off on someone. It just isn't. Consequences⁠—you're not going to enjoy the fucking consequences of that, unfortunately, okay? This is also just not a great time for starting projects if you can avoid it. What Mars square to Saturn is good for⁠—because it is good for something⁠—is to learn more about your ego, to make sustainable plans for your ambitions, and to be able and willing to learn from your past and others who have more experience and wisdom than you about the best ways of advancing your ambitions and goals. That's what the transit's really good for. But it kicks up our defenses and our egos in such ways that we often don't make use of this energy. It's a real fucking bummer. But that's what it's about.

This isn't the time to try to win. This is the time to come up with a plan for how you're going to advance your aims and goals. That's the best use of this energy. And depending on your situation and what you're working on and what you're working with, that may be something you can really do, and it might be something that feels really frustrating to you.

Now, I want to quickly go through these transits one more time and then say something else here, okay? So, on the 20th, we have an exact sextile between the Sun and Pluto, also an exact trine between Mercury and Chiron. On the 21st, Mars forms an exact sextile to Pluto. On the 22nd, we move into Sagittarius Season, and Venus forms an exact opposition to Chiron, while on the 23rd, we have a Sun square to Saturn. And on the 25th, we have a Mars square to Saturn. It's a lot going on. There's a lot going on.

But I want to just kind of point out here that if we look at this week's horoscope, like the transits that are occurring from the start of the week to the end of the week, it tells a story, as it usually does. The planetary aspects tell us that at the start of the week, we have supportive energy. On the 19th, 20th, 21st, we have more supportive energy for working through our defenses and our insecurities and our beliefs and our relationships, all the things. We have supportive energy there to help reset.

If you've been going hard and you need a moment to tend to your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, your physical health, these are the transits to do it because we know from that exact opposition between Venus and Chiron⁠—although we're going to be feeling all these transits throughout the week, from the 22nd, 23rd, 25th, we have these really challenging transits.

And so the more we can do to set ourselves up to be able to handle those transits, the better. The more that we can do to show up, to really show up for whatever's happening in our lives, and to do so in a way that reflects our best and wisest parts, our integrity, and not our most defensive and insecure parts, our drive to protect ourselves from feeling bad at all costs, the better. We want to be able to show up. I mean, that's the whole point of life, right?

So, hopefully, you can orient yourself to make use of the easy transits to support you with the more challenging transits this week. And I know that's no easy task, but that, my dears, is the assignment.

I want to thank you for joining me for another week of Ghost of a Podcast. As always, I invite you to hit that Subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts because it does make a difference with this teeny, tiny DIY show. And I want to encourage you to send in questions if you've got them. You can do that through the contact form on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com. Send in your questions so that you can get a reading with me on the midweek episode.

I hope you're taking really good care of yourself and others, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.