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.

Hey there, Ghosties. In this episode, I'll deliver your astrological weather report for the week ahead. Every Sunday, I help you prepare to navigate through life's up and downs and provide you with practical insights for planning ahead and staying on top of your game. And don't forget to hit Subscribe whenever listening to this podcast, or just mark your calendars, because every Wednesday I'll be back with a live, in-depth reading with a listener. Maybe it'll be you. So sit back, relax, and get ready to get astrological.

Giddyap because we have just stepped into some very intense astrology that's going to last for quite a minute. So I got a lot to talk about this week, next week⁠—I got a lot to talk about in general. But let me start off by saying that I am working on a very exciting new offering, which is a seven-part Saturn self-study with which I will offer a live question-and-answer session. So, if you want first crack at a spot, be sure to sign up for my newsletter. Just go to the footer of my website or my Linktree, and you can sign up for my mailing list there if you're not already on it.

But okay. Let's get deeply astrological here. Now, before we get into the horoscope of the next seven days, I want to acknowledge that Pluto ingresses into Aquarius on the 23rd of March, which is next week. And we are in the final anaretic degree of Pluto in Capricorn, just in time for Silicon Valley Bank, one of the leading lenders to the tech sector, being shut down by regulators, bringing the themes of Capricorn⁠—regulations, shutdowns, financial institutions and their governing bodies⁠—with Aquarius, which is technology and the tech industry in general.

Pluto is at its anaretic degree. In other words, it's at the final degree of the zodiac sign of Capricorn. That's what anaretic means. It's also referred to as the critical degree. People hear "critical" and they think bad. It doesn't mean it's bad; it just means that it's intense. It is the final degree. And so much of the lessons that we have been learning and the issues we've been going through individually and as a collective since 2008, when Pluto entered into Capricorn, are kind of coming to a critical point. And that may be really powerful in a challenging way or really powerful in a wonderful way. It all depends. And it's certainly worth paying attention to, right? We always want to pay attention when a planet is transiting through the final degree of a sign.

But as we prepare for Pluto's move into Aquarius⁠—this is something I've kind of talked about a bit in the year-ahead horoscope. If you haven't already heard it, you can listen to it. It's in my feed. But the transit of Pluto in Aquarius will impact us in many ways, but one of them is around the rights and freedoms of people of all genders. And when we say people of all genders, we mean people who are not in the kind of ruling class of gender, a.k.a. cis men⁠—in particular, cis white men.

We are seeing a serious increase in attacks on Trans, Nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people. And these attacks are happening in many ways, which include but are not limited to social and legislative attacks. This is a form of violence. There's no other way to describe it. I love my Trans and gender-nonconforming family, and I do consider us a big Queer family. It is so important, as we see Pluto moving into Aquarius, to understand that with this transit, we are likely to see greater emphasis on gender-based rights, which can be very good or very bad. But so far, it's not looking great.

And I know that a really large amount of my listenership are women, and many of you women who are listening are cis. And I want to say that it's essential to understand that women's rights and Trans rights are interwoven. We can't really separate them. A lot of cis women seem to think we can. But let me affirm it for you that, first of all, hopefully you care about Trans people and people who have genders outside of the binary, just because that is the ethical and kind and right thing to do. But understand that as soon as societies start policing gender, trust that you, my cis female friends, are in major trouble.

We can't live in a society where gender is policed and have women be free and autonomous. So I want to call my cis friends' attention in to care about Trans and gender-nonconforming people, and to not just like posts on social media or whatever, but make sure you're being a good ally. Make sure that you're staying educated and that your care is translated into action. Do it because it's what's right but also because you understand that policing individual autonomy around gender experience and expression is a fast track to living in a fascistic society. Understand that very evident reality.

I will also add that, of course, being Trans is not new. Being Queer, being gender-nonconforming⁠—none of this is new. And unfortunately, it's also not new or novel that immediately on the heels of a boost in Queer and Genderqueer rights⁠—that we see in societies a spike in fascistic and Christian white nationalist response. This has happened many times throughout history, and we only have to look back to the start of the Holocaust in Germany to see evidence of that.

As I have mentioned many times before on the podcast, the last time that Uranus was in Taurus, as it is now, was World War II and the Holocaust. So we are seeing a lot of things socially, legislatively, around the world, and certainly here in the U.S.⁠—very much here in the U.S.⁠—that were prevalent at that time in history. So, in the spirit of Pluto in Aquarius, as well as the transit of Uranus in Taurus, let me remind you that you do not need to understand, like, or agree with the way that other people live or what they believe in order to show them respect and to treat them with dignity.

Pluto in Aquarius may usher in a mass movement of suppression for the rights of individuals to be true to who we are or a time where we as a collective come together to advocate for those very same rights. We are the majority. When we can respect each other's individuality and advocate not just for the ways in which we're the same but the ways in which we are different, then we are poised to enjoy the best parts of what this very large transit or couple of transits have to offer. But whenever there's Pluto, there's struggle. And wherever there's Uranus, there's change. So, if we're going to struggle, if things are going to change, let it be for greater authenticity for all of us, not just people who fit in the most conventional binaries or what the ruling class wants from us.

Now, I will speak much more on the transit of Pluto in Aquarius in next week's episode, when Pluto moves into Aquarius. But I want to bookmark this stuff for you, the importance of watching out for gender-based rights and gender-based violence in all of its insidious forms and to understand that this is a very vulnerable and scary time for Trans people, for Genderqueer people, and Queer people in general. We want to remember that technology can be used against us, but it can also be used by us as an organizing tool and a resource for education and advocacy for ourselves and others.

Okay. Let's get to your horoscope. We are looking at the week of March 12th through the 18th of 2023, and this is a doozy. If you are a patron of mine and you have joined me over on the kittens level, then you have heard the month-ahead forecast, and you know that this is a week I have been a little nervous about. Now, let me tell you that you've already been feeling this energy building last week because some of the transits I'm about to tell you about have kind of a nice, slow buildup to them. So, if you've been feeling off, a little discombobulated, anxious, demoralized, confused, I'm going to tell you why.

So the first exact transit of this week happens on the 14th of March, and it is a Mars square to Neptune. It is happening at 25 degrees, which means that Mars is at 25 degrees of Gemini and Neptune is at 25 degrees of Pisces. If you have any planets at around 25 degrees of a mutable sign, you're really going to feel this. You're really going to feel this. So you definitely want to pause this, check your birth chart, see if you have anything at around there, and take care of yourself accordingly.

So let me tell you all about this transit. Mars in astrology is our ego, and Neptune governs over our sense of interconnection, our experience of selflessness. Mars and Neptune are the two planets that I tend to think are the most different from each other. So, when they form a hard aspect like they are doing here with this Mars square to Neptune, it can be really uncomfortable. This transit might make you feel really low energy, just straight-up exhausted, because Mars is related to the body and our vitality, whereas Neptune drains energy from the 3D. It drains energy from the body. And it does this in efforts to connect us with our spirituality.

But during a Mars square to Neptune, you may just feel shitty. You may feel physically or psychologically like your vitality is really low, like you just can't keep up. You just may feel tired. Connected to this, you may feel easily discouraged. You may feel a little paranoid. And this is in part because you may be feeling off, and then, when everyone else around you is also feeling off, you may take it personally and make assumptions that match a low self-esteem narrative that you hold. So be on the lookout for any kind of paranoid thinking or paranoid feelings.

This transit can be associated with self-defeat, and the reason why, again, is because Neptune is anxiety and Mars is the ego. So, when we have ego-based anxiety, we can fall into really defeatist ways of feeling and thinking and behaving. So, if you know you have ways of self-sabotaging⁠—and there's a bazillion ways that we self-sabotage, right? If you know you have tendencies when you feel down, and this transit's hitting you directly, especially⁠—but really, this goes for everyone⁠—be on the lookout to put resources in place to support yourself around that.

An example of this may be you know when you feel really anxious, you forget to eat, and then forgetting to eat makes you feel anxious. Okay. Cool. Then put a little alarm on your phone to remind you to eat. Cook food leading up to the transit so you just have it accessible; you have it there so you can just snack your face off. If you know that when you are feeling anxious or demoralized, you have a tendency to tell yourself some pretty damaging stories, okay. Have a friend on speed dial to be like, "Can you be here to reality-check me?" I guess speed dial is not really a thing, because everybody's on speed dial these days. But hopefully you know what I mean.

Connect to people. You don't have to go through this alone. But keep in mind that everyone's going through this. And some people will respond to this transit with anger and defensiveness, others with victimization feelings or martyrdom. And if you're particularly unlucky or you are in the midst of having to really learn about boundaries, then you're going to experience this as whatever category of those two categories I've just given you, and you're going to deal with somebody who's in the other category. So this can be very messy.

Mars governs our motivations. It's our goals. It's our ambitions. It's our passions. Neptune scrambles things. It makes things confusing. And when we try to motivate out of our ego or are too self-involved, Neptune makes us feel terrible. It just makes us feel depleted and down and often scrambled and confused. So you can see that this could be pretty bad. This is a bad time to be in competition. This is a bad time to be trying to prove yourself. And if you have to do those things, you have to do those things. So, again, it's not like this astrology is here to torture you, although sometimes it feels like it. Instead, it's that this astrology is here so that you cultivate the skills for coping.

Some of this⁠—a good amount of this⁠—has to do with boundaries. And boundaries aren't just about what we do. It's where we allow our thoughts and feelings to linger. We must have boundaries internally with ourselves in order to clearly communicate and certainly to maintain our boundaries with others. We also must make sure during this transit to be respecting the boundaries of others. If somebody says to you, "I'm not in the right frame of mind to⁠"⁠—I don't know⁠—"process our relationship right now," but you're feeling paranoid and like you really have to, it's actually on you to respect that other person saying, "I am not in the right frame of mind right now."

So this can feel bad. This transit just can feel bad. But again, the reason why we're going through it is so we learn to cope. And this is where I will remind you that what is hard for you is not what is wrong with you. What is hard for you is simply that. It's simply something that's hard for you. And when things are hard for us, we are meant to be, ideally speaking⁠—and of course, I'm speaking in ideals because Neptune⁠—we are meant to be curious about, "Why is it hard? Is it how I feel, or is it what's happening?"⁠—to be curious about ourselves, our situations, and from that place of curiosity, endeavor to find a shift in perspective, a shift in resources, a change.

So you may feel demoralized by what is hard for you at this time in general, certainly on this day and this week. It's not an indication of failure or something being wrong. It's an indication of what needs attention and curiosity. And when you feel bad about yourself, when you feel like your confidence is slipping away, it's hard to be curious. That's when we tend to move into our defenses and self-harm and all of this kind of stuff. But it's a great time to try to be curious. Just try.

This is a bad time for talking shit about others, projecting your mean thoughts and feelings about yourself or your shitty feelings about yourself onto other people. So try not to gossip or throw other people under the bus, even if it might make you feel better for a couple minutes. It is very important that I say this week, if you're going out and you're getting lucky/you're having a fun time with others, have safer sex. Neptune transits⁠—always have safer sex during Neptune transits. I will just get this out of the way. This is a terrible time for drug use, Neptune transits⁠. We also have a transit to Pluto this week. I mean, I would strongly recommend avoiding any kind of drugs, including consciousness-raising drugs. But I am not speaking to prescription drugs.

But the thing about transits to Neptune⁠—and we're going through a bunch of them this week, not just this one⁠—is they incline us to have a weakened immune system or surprising and unexpected reactions to things, physiologically speaking and sometimes psychologically speaking. So be conscientious about what you put in your body. Don't take unnecessary risks. I want to encourage you to be really gentle and kind to your meat suit. Give it a lot of water, all the nurturance that it needs. If it needs rest, sleep. If you go out and you don't feel comfortable, get out of there. Go home.

And for the love of all that is good, wear a damn mask in public indoor spaces. If you feel even a little bit concerned about your safety or the safety of others, wear a mask. With all these Neptune transits this week, I am not fucking around with my immune system. I am not fucking around with other people's immune systems. We want to be really careful. Wash those paws. Wash them good⁠—soap and water⁠—and do all the things you can do to have healthy boundaries with your body and with your environment.

Okay. So that's Mars square to Neptune. Now, on the 15th, we have a Sun conjunction to Neptune at the exact same degree, 25 degrees, because Neptune moves really slowly, but the personal planets like Mars and the Sun and⁠—spoiler alert⁠—Mercury move much quicker. So, on the 15th, we have an exact conjunction between the Sun and Neptune, which means it overlaps directly with the Mars square to Neptune. And I'm going to just, again, spoiler-alert you. On the 16th, Mercury forms an exact conjunction to Neptune. The Sun forms an exact conjunction to Mars. And then we've got two other transits, which I will get to in a moment. But this overlap between the 14th, 15th, and 16th of all of this Sun, Mars, Neptune, Mercury energy is a fucking lot. So everything I just said, times it times three.

When we are dealing with Mars, we're dealing with the ego. When we're dealing with the Sun, we're dealing with our sense of self, our identity, our will. And when we're dealing with Mercury, it's our thoughts, our attitudes, our beliefs, how we listen, how we communicate. So that's speaking, typing⁠—so texting, DMing, emailing, all that kind of stuff. It's all the ways we communicate ideas and identity. So Mars, Sun, Mercury, and they're all sitting on top of or squaring Neptune, which is very spiritual, very idealistic, very fantastical.

But unless you're living on an ashram or you're on an extended vacation where you don't have to worry about the day-to-day⁠—you don't have to worry about money or cooking meals and all this kind of crap⁠—this can be really overwhelming and really confusing because Neptune governs, as I've said many times, anxiety, and not nervous tension anxiety. That's Uranus. That's a Uranus form of anxiety. This form of anxiety that Neptune governs is anxiety as a response to overwhelm, uncertainty, and fearfulness of what you don't understand. That's Neptune's form of anxiety, which is different than Uranus's form of anxiety.

This is all happening under the backdrop of Pluto in its final moments of Capricorn and Saturn having just moved into Pisces. So there is a lot⁠—like a lot⁠—going on within all of these transits. And I'm not saying this to freak you out at all, but I want to validate that if you are feeling like you're at some sort of tipping point, if you're feeling overwhelmed, confused, uncertain, yeah, there's an astrology to that. There's a math to that. And that can be really validating. And within that, there are directions on how to cope. So let's get into it a little bit deeper.

As I said, on the 15th, the Sun is exactly conjunct to Neptune at 25 degrees. And as I said, the Sun is the will; Mars is the ego. So they're kind of similar. They're not the same thing, but they have a lot of similarity. When the Sun forms a square to Neptune, we can feel like other people do not see us the way we want to be seen. And I'm not talking about some ocular thing. It's not a vision thing. We feel misunderstood. We feel that people are not getting us the way we want to be got, and that can be really demoralizing.

We may also experience this in the flip, where we are putting situations and people on a pedestal. We can even put our own selves on a pedestal, depending on your nature and how this hits your chart. It can make you feel like you or somebody else is absolutely perfect and flawless, and you, by comparison, are lowly and suffering and will never get there. And so this can spark a lot of anxiety. It can make us feel demoralized. Again, I cannot say this enough: strengthen your body as a way to cope with this stuff. Do everything you can to support your physical body during these transits because it can provide a nice little cushion and foundation for coping with the energy that we're going to be feeling here.

The Sun conjunction to Neptune can increase our intuitiveness. It can weaken our auric protections, our energy field protections. That can be really wonderful, or it can be really challenging. I expect, this week, it is more likely to be challenging because of all the other transits going on and because of all of the energetic earthquakes that we're experiencing with all these other transits, the Pluto and Uranus and Neptune and Saturn⁠—all the things. There's just a lot going on.

And so, when we receive unexpected or too much energetic information, most humans respond by becoming disassociated, exhausted, paranoid, insecure, discombobulated, anxious. And so, if you are a witchy one, I want to strongly encourage you to be practicing your energy boundaries. And this is a topic I've covered quite a bit on my Patreon. So, again, if you are interested in that kind of stuff, you can join me there. But there are many resources out in the world, so I want to encourage you, if you don't know what energy boundaries are, to look into it because Neptune has a way of kind of creating a foggy environment, so it's hard to know where you begin or end, and it's hard to make your way through it.

It is always wise and supported by Neptune to be empathetic, kind, and generous of spirit. But the problem with Neptune is it's hard to have boundaries. Whenever we're going through transits to or from Neptune, I'm always going to bring up boundaries. And so having empathy, being kind to others, is a beautiful thing. But when we do it without boundaries, it is not reliably an honest thing or a healthy thing. So being able to identify your own motivations, your own needs, your own limits within your capacity to give is really healthy. It's really important.

This transit can coincide⁠—and especially because we're going through a bunch of transits to Neptune, you may find yourself dealing with psychic or energetic vampires. And this is something I referenced in Episode 305 of the podcast in the reading that I gave there. An energy vampire is somebody who just literally drains your energy. And there are a lot of energy vampires out there. So, if you have people in your life that you know drain you, make you feel overwhelmed, confused, discombobulated, all that kind of stuff⁠—yeah, avoid them. Cancel plans. If they're your roommates, if they're your partner, be busy this week if you can. Do what you gotta do to take care of yourself.

Now, while this may be a time where you're really called to spirituality, engage with boundaries. Engage with discernment. You never want to abandon your common sense when tapping into spiritual teachings or spiritual experiences. We always want to keep our heads screwed onto our shoulders. That's our best move.

Now, something else I want to say about this Sun conjunction to Neptune transit⁠, again, in context of all the other transits, is there is a serious risk that we will see some sort of spike in religious extremism or ideological extremism because, typically, these forms of extremism that are deeply oppressive to groups of people come from an ideology of purity. Now, seeking purity or perfection is a dangerous fucking enterprise. It will often lead to extreme violence and acts of repression and oppression of groups of people.

But on a more personal level, it doesn't lead to greater spirituality. Looking for some perfect blue light, looking for some perfect evolution that empowers you to perfectly heal and never resonate with anything painful⁠—that's not realistic. That's not the human condition. We can seek healing. We can seek evolution. But when we seek perfection and purity, we tend to put ourselves on a really dangerous path, and in particular in today's world where there is a very clear new-age spirituality to white supremacy pipeline that is very easy to fall on if you aren't being really critical in your thinking.

This week has me concerned. It has me concerned. So make sure you're not looking for transcendence from the human condition as a way to cope with the human condition, because that doesn't work. You're a human, for better or worse. This is what it is. Okay. So that's our Sun conjunction to Neptune overlapping with our Mars square to Neptune. And then, on the 16th, shit gets real. On the 16th is when everything goes B-A-N-A-N-A-S⁠. That's bananas.

Okay. So, on March 16th, we do not have one challenging transit; we have⁠—four? Four. Four. Four is the number I was looking for. Four. So will we still be feeling the effects of the Sun conjunction to Neptune? Yes. Will we still be feeling the effects of the Mars square Neptune? Yes. So everything I've said still applies.

However, on the 16th, Mercury will conjoin Neptune at 25 degrees of Pisces. The Sun will form a square to Mars at 26 degrees⁠—so the Sun at 26 of Pisces, Mars at 26 of Gemini. Then Venus forms a square to Pluto at 29 degrees and 52 minutes of Capricorn⁠—that's Pluto. Venus is in Aries at 29 degrees, 52 minutes. And finally, Mercury forms a square to Mars. And⁠—you guessed it⁠—Mercury is in Pisces; Mars is in Gemini. And they're both at 26 degrees.

I'm just going to give you, first, a synthesis of the impact of all of these transits on this day, and then I'll break down each individual transit on its own. When we are using astrology and we only look at the pieces, each of the parts, each of the parts, we only get one layer of information. What's important to understand is that it is the synthesis of the parts that we end up feeling on an experiential level. And as a humanistic astrologer, my primary ambition is always, how is this felt by humans? What are humans going to do with this? How are we likely to experience it and respond to this energy?

So here we go. The big-picture synthesized take of what we're experiencing here on the 16th is overwhelm and defensiveness. That's the real risk here, that people's anxieties, insecurities, fears about the future, about ourselves, about the world will be so triggered that we will be mobilized to act in an ego-based way. Now, an ego-based way may be telling ourselves that we're worthless and we're shitty, or it may be telling others that they're worthless and they're shitty. It can be defensive or self-destructive. The ego, too big, too little⁠—it's a problem. And most of us struggle with the size and positioning of our egos, at least in some parts of our lives. And this week's astrology, and in particular on the 16th⁠—whoa⁠—is going to challenge us to get it better situated.

It is very likely that we will see ideologically inspired acts of violence on and around this date. And this may be happening on a social level. This may be happening in isolated incidents. This may be happening legislatively. This can happen on a lot of levels. And because we are dealing with Neptune, we have the risk of religiously inspired ideologies that are actually hateful. We may be seeing it specifically pointed towards gender-based violence or oppression and suppression because Mars and Venus are both involved in this soup of transits, in addition to all the other big-picture stuff I detailed at the start of the episode.

On a more personal level, again, we may be feeling defensive, paranoid, caught up in self-harming patterns, really disassociated⁠—and the list kind of goes on. This is a rough mental health moment. And so put resources in place. Can't say it enough. If you know scrolling on a social media platform makes you feel anxious, don't do it that day. Turn your phone off. There are, for each and every one of us, things that we know we should do to make ourselves feel better and to support ourselves that we forget to do, that we don't choose to do⁠—whatever it is. This week, I want to challenge you to center your emotional, energetic, and psychological wellness before you start coping with situations. And it's easier said than done, but this is a messy soup.

Neptune is not about our shared reality. It's not about the 3D. It's about what could be. It's about ideals. And we want to remember that so many acts of cruelty and subjugation of people or the land are empowered by religious texts and religious leaders. We want to keep this in mind because Neptune can make us feel like spirituality is beyond reproach, but it is not. Nothing is beyond reproach. We need to bring our critical discernment to the conversation, whatever conversation we're having.

And I imagine that societally, this is going to be a meaningful week. So, again, if you're a sensitive person and you're feeling overwhelmed, the temptation will be there to avoid and evade keeping up with the world. But if you are energetically affected by what's happening in the world, how can you take care of yourself, how can you respond to those sensitivities honestly, without knowing what's happening in the world? So I want to encourage you to find a way to stay informed so that you can stay present with what's happening in the world and within you.

One last thing I'll say about the synthesis, and then I'll drop into the details. Your intuition, my intuition⁠, our intuition⁠ is not completely reliable during these transits, okay? It's just not. There's too much going on. And so, if you're having a really strong intuitive hit, write it down. Put it in the notes of your phone. Get old school; use a pencil and paper or something. Write it down and return to it sometime next week when the energy is less activating, and then you can make sense of it. Don't try to make sense of your intuition right now, because it's kind of too much blasting through, and it's hard to do when that's happening. Right? Okay. Okay.

So that brings us to the details, and I'm going through this chronologically throughout the day. You already know about Astrology For Days, my astrologer's pro tool. That's what I'm using to delineate these transits. And what it does, amongst all the other things, is it tracks the exact moment that any transit is exact, which I find to be a really helpful tool, and you may, too. So you can get that, if you're interested, over at astrologyfordays.com or find it on my website.

Okay. Here we go. So the first transit is Mercury conjunction to Neptune. It's happening at 10:13 a.m. Pacific Time. This transit is very scrambling to the thinking. It just is, and it is because Neptune blows open, like I said, our auric field. It opens us up so much that it's hard to make sense of what we're perceiving. It's hard to stay really fixated and focused on a task, a conversation, etc.

You may find yourself preoccupied with spiritual topics or a drive to divine things, to figure them out, and to do so in a somewhat magical way. And this is not a good time for that, to be honest. Now, if this particular transit was happening on a different day, in a different context, I might say something different. But this is not a good time to tap into our spirituality when what we should be doing is dealing with reality. So, if you're not sure how someone feels about you, don't turn to spiritual tools like intuition or tarot cards or whatever before acknowledging that you're feeling a little paranoid or anxious and tending to those feelings before you try to go and find answers that are not necessarily yours to figure out.

You may be having really intense dreams around this transit and just be really sleepy. So, if your dreams are weird, don't worry about it. It's the transit. And also, if you can pay attention to your dreams, it's always a good idea because your dreams are simply your subconscious working shit out. And when you can remember them, it's your subconscious talking to your conscious. So that's kind of fun, right?

But really, the thing that I want to say more than anything about this particular transit is be honest. If you can't be honest, don't say a damn thing, because if you lie or misrepresent yourself on and around this date, you're not likely to do a great job. It's not likely to go well for you. It's going to be hard to maintain that lie. So try to be honest or be silent. And know that this transit triggers anxiety, and you didn't need any help with that because there's already so much anxiety happening this particular week. But Mercury is the mind, communication. It's what you think. It's how you listen. And Neptune is overwhelm, anxiety, and high spirituality.

So do your best to nurture your mind, nurture your body, nurture your spirit. That's the best thing you can do this transit. Avoid any kind of major process if you can. If you are dealing with legal matters, this is not a great time for doing that. If you can, put it off. I encourage you to. And if you can't, the devil's in the details. Check out all the damn details. And understand that we are likely to have misunderstandings and miscommunications during this transit. It's not Mercury Retrograde, but have you noticed it kind of feels like it? It's kind of feeling like it because things are so confusing and discombobulated kind of everywhere and with everyone in whatever ways they are.

So triple-check your work if it's important that you hand it in, or if you have to sign a contract or whatever, triple-check, not double. Triple, okay? And just because you don't understand a thing currently doesn't mean it can't be understood. So be patient with yourself and be patient with others if you can. Neptune governs grace. Our ability to give ourselves and others grace is huge to our humanity. So I want to encourage you to do your best around that.

And that brings us to the sucker punch. "Which sucker punch?" you ask. The first one of Sun square Mars. And that's happening at 11:10 a.m. Pacific Time, so an hour later. We have an exact Sun square to Mars. Sun square to Mars is a transit that triggers anger, defensiveness, passions, competitiveness⁠—terrible fucking timing. May I say this is fucking terrible timing? This transit is likely to make people feel angry, frustrated, stuck, and to respond to our feelings and situations impulsively. So you could see how this might be bad timing for such a transit, but here we are.

So know that your strongest impulses are not your wisest impulses. Know that your drive to respond immediately is not a reliable one today. And that doesn't mean all of your impulses are unreliable, but it does mean take a pause. Maybe have a breath. Maybe just sit with it for a minute before you send off that text, before you react, before you make a decision about what's happening, what it means, and what the other person's motivations are, because this is a very defensive, combative transit. And it's one in which all of us are likely to take things personally.

Now, unfortunately, anyone who's got something at around 25, 26 degrees of a mutable sign is going to be especially affected. But even if you are not affected at all and you're like, "You know what? This week's astrology didn't bother me," you're likely to be around people who feel different. Those people may or may not cut you off in traffic. You know what I mean? And I say that because Sun square Mars⁠—you want to be really careful when driving your car. Mars governs your car. Make sure that you are paying attention to the road and being safe and being a defensive driver. And by that, I mean know that other people are likely to be more accident-prone and aggressive during this transit, which we will feel the 15th, 16th, and 17th. Be on the lookout. Be really focused. If you can't be focused on the road, don't drive, if you can avoid it. Open all the windows. Do what you gotta do to sharpen your mind.

Okay. Now, fights may be unavoidable because of this transit and the next two I'm going to tell you about. They're all very combative transits. If you're going to fight, fight fair. And if you can⁠—if you can⁠—watch your tone. Watch your approach because, again, this transit is kind of like a boiling pot of drama waiting to erupt if we're not careful.

Another thing about this is that because this transit makes us feel more driven and ambitious and focused on our goals, you may find yourself comparing yourself to impossible standards. And this is only because of what Neptune is doing outside of this transit. This is not a good time for making plans based on your goals. It's just not, because our frame of mind is likely to be to all over the place.

We do not want to center our egos, our drive for dominance or success, at this time. It's just a bad time for it. Now, I name that because you're likely to want to do that, or you're likely to be dealing with somebody else who's kind of trying to force that or who's doing that and making you feel competitive. But again, you want to really rein yourself in and find healthy ways of experiencing and expressing this energy.

So what a Sun square to Mars wants us to do is express it through the body. And that could be dancing, playing. It could be alone time with your sweet, sweet meat suit. You know what I mean? You know what I mean, girl, right? You know what I mean. It could be taking a long walk. What you want to do is use your body as a vehicle for feeling things so that you don't need to project out your feelings aggressively in situations and with people. Okay? Find a way if you can.

And that brings us to the next exact transit on this day. The day just⁠—it doesn't end. Why won't it end? Okay. This one is a Venus square to Pluto, and it is happening at exactly 12:59 p.m. Pacific Time. So Venus is our values, self-esteem, beauty-image issues. Venus is diplomacy. It's our finances. And Pluto is the great transformer. When Venus forms a square to Pluto, we tend to feel really obsessive. We tend to get fixated on love, on not having enough of it, on past loves, on what we want from ourselves. We can get controlling. We can get rigid. We can get insecure. And this can lead to possessiveness, jealousy, and behavior that stems from those feelings.

So you could see why this would be a challenging transit on any day, but this day, this week⁠—I wish I wasn't here to tell you about it, but I am. So what I want to point you away from is cyber-stalking anyone. Do not obsess on people⁠—not friends, frenemies, crushes, strangers on the internet, famous people that you think owe you something⁠—whatever. It's not the fucking time for it. Do not be a troll. Do not be a troll, because you know what? What we say and do online is what we say and do, period. The way we behave online is not fake. It's not happening in a bubble. It's how we actually behave. It's a reflection on us, and it does directly impact people, people with feelings, people with emotions, people with vulnerabilities.

So keep your side of the road clean. The world may be full of jerks and other sorts of problems, but you know what? You don't need to be one of those. Keep your side of the road clean. It's, again, a great time for avoiding social media in general. Remember that comparison is the thief of joy, and I can never remember who said that originally. I did not, but it is a truth that I will often return to. Don't compare yourself to others. Don't compare yourself to how you were when you were 12 years old or how somebody else is at your age or whatever the hell it is. Don't compare yourself to others.

The Venus square to Pluto will often bring up compulsions around the themes of Venus, so it could, again, be any of the themes that I've named around your finances, around your relationships, about feeling lovable, about how you look, all that kind of stuff. It brings up these things so that we can become aware of and heal what is not in a healthy state. But in the short term, it can often feel pretty damn dramatic. So, if someone pisses you off, again, rein it in. Sit with it. Explore, "Am I being triggered, or am I being traumatized?"

If somebody is simply triggering past hurts but they're not doing something harmful on its own, then it takes different remediation, different actions around self-protection and healing, but also to navigate in that relationship. And I think that's really important, that we take responsibility for our sore spots, our triggers. And the Venus square to Pluto is always happy to teach us that lesson.

Now, on a more social/political level⁠—again, here we go⁠—the rights of women are under peril. And when I say the rights of women, I also mean the rights of Trans, Nonbinary, and gender-noncomforming people. We may see major economic shifts on and around this date. We want to pay close attention to those things. And this is just an absolutely terrible time this day, but also just this whole week, for spending big chunks of money if you don't need to. I would sit on big spending right now.

If you have love in your life⁠—love of a cat, love of a tree, love of a partner, a friend, a family member, whatever kind of life you got⁠—this is a good time to try to take a moment alone with yourself to actually feel the value of that love, of how you feel towards them and how they feel towards you, to actually check in with and be present with your connections. That's a really good use of this energy. And it won't be easy to make that choice, but it's a good choice to make.

And that, my friends, brings us to the next and thankfully last exact transit on this day, which is a Mercury square to Mars. Mercury square to Mars makes us irritable. Mercury is your mind; Mars is aggression. It makes us irritable. It makes us quick to jump to defensiveness. So, if somebody has an opinion is different than yours, you may feel offended, like, "How dare you not agree with me? How dare you not perceive things the way I perceive them?" And we want to watch out for that. And you might not be like that, because you're perfect, but it may be somebody else is like that. And if somebody else is like that, how do you respond? Do you just let them show their ass to you⁠—which is always a good strategy in my book⁠—or do you fight tit for tat? Because tit for tat will get you in trouble this week, especially today. But this whole week, avoid it.

This transit⁠—it kind of speeds up the tempo of our thinking because Mars literally is the planet the governs running and cars, so it's all about speed. And Mercury is the mental processer. So we may be feeling impatient. We may be feeling irritated. We may be feeling like we have to rush. And that can lead to jumping to conclusions, rash words, rash decisions, or generally saying shit before you process out whether or not that's a good idea. So you may get into conflicts with people because of that, or you may be dealing with people who do the same.

Mercury square to Mars is also a transit that can sharpen your tone of voice. So, especially if you're somebody whose tone of voice can sound really aggressive or mean, yeah, you want to watch out for this part of the transit. When Mercury forms a square to Mars, it is very hard to listen to others. We tend to, again, jump to conclusions. We tend to be irritable. And so do your best to not be a part of the problem. Make sure when others are sharing something with you, when they're speaking, you're listening. And because of all this Neptune energy, you're likely to be listening with your energy as well as with your mind. But definitely listen so that you know what you're dealing with and also because you want other people to listen when you speak, right? It's a thing. It's a thing.

Again, this is another transit that tells me be careful in traffic. Be careful when you're driving. Be careful about your own driving, and be careful about the behavior of others on the road. This is not a good time for taking your first boxing lesson or something like that. While using the body as an outlet for your feelings is a really good idea, you want to do your best to protect yourself from perpetrating harm by accident, a.k.a. getting into accidents is what I'm trying to say. So, whatever you do, make sure you're doing it safely. Handling sharp knives? Do it safely. Mars governs knives.

So we just want to be as careful as possible. And again, I think I've said this a couple times, but it has to be repeated: drink a lot of water because Mars burns hot, and Neptune, amongst other things, governs the kidneys. We want to make sure we are well hydrated this week.

And then, finally, what I want to say about this transit is you may not be able to avoid fighting or processing, but if you can, you should. This is not a great time for listening, for speaking calmly and clearly, for having a kind of equilibrium in the exchange of ideas. Related to that, it's not a great time for making plans, signing contracts, making any kind of major life decisions. This whole week⁠—eh, not so good for any of it. In particular, this transit and a couple other transits today⁠—really not a good time for it.

So do what you can, if you can, to pause things. And if you can't, don't freak out. Just triple-check. Be exceedingly careful. Ask for help assessing your choices, that kind of good stuff. That's going to be really important. But know that this Mercury square to Mars, in addition to the Sun conjunction to Mars, in addition to the Venus square to Pluto, is likely to have us feeling quick to anger or defensiveness. Because of that, it is wise to consider how you experience and express irritability, frustration, anger, because if you're somebody who runs too hot or doesn't know how to heat things up, like if you're uncomfortable with those emotions, then these transits are going to be especially triggering for you. And that, just FYI, is most of us.

So know that this week, as stressful as these transits are, is an opportunity to kind of learn where you're at around a lot of things, a lot of themes, and how you struggle is an indication of what needs more investigation and care and support in yourself or in your life. They're not an indication of being tortured by the stars, and they're not an indication of failure. Even if you fail, even if you fuck up spectacularly, these transits are teaching you about where in your evolution you need a little more attention. So a failure is only really a failure if you don't learn from it. So be willing to learn from what's hard. Be willing to learn from where you struggle.

Okay. And that brings us to the 17th. On the 17th, we've got two more transits. Now, I want to acknowledge that Venus on the 16th also ingresses into Taurus. I should have done that first. I'm going to just acknowledge it. It ingresses into Taurus. Don't worry about it. We can talk about it later. It is not a very big deal in the context of what we're experiencing this week. On the 17th, we have a Sun conjunction to Mercury in Pisces and a Venus in Taurus sextile to Saturn in Pisces. Two transits, one of them very lovely and stabilizing, the other one a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

So Venus sextile Saturn is a grounding and stabilizing transit. This transit will really help us out if we turn our attention to our values⁠. What is it that you value? What are the resources that you have in your life right now? What do you know about yourself, about your life? Turning your energies and attentions to those kinds of stabilizing things can be really helpful. And if you're really stressing out about the world, then, again, focusing on the advances we have made, the air you're breathing, the sun on your face, whatever it is⁠—if you can find a way to ground into what is working, what you do have, that will really help to cope with all of these energies.

Now, at the same time, as I said, on the 17th, we have a Sun conjunction to Mercury. Now, this transit makes it hard to change our minds. And again, it's overlapping with the 16th, so it's in the whole mishegas. But Sun conjunction to Mercury makes it so that we are highly identified with what we think. So our identity⁠—the Sun⁠—and Mercury⁠—our thoughts⁠—are smooshed up together. Now, this transit puts a huge focus on our opinions, communication, friendships, etc. And that is not a good or a bad thing, but again, in context of what we're going through, it may make it hard to change your mind. There is a serious risk that you will adopt a narrative about yourself or your situation or the world that you're too highly identified with.

So we want to look for confirmation bias this week. We want to be on the lookout for being gullible or being unintentionally convinced of something that isn't so, because the positive side of this transit is that we can figure things out. The Sun conjunct to Mercury is a time that can strengthen our ability and our willingness to be curious, our ability and our willingness to investigate things. And that lends itself to adaptability and flexibility in our thinking, which is a really great thing. But again, in context of all this other stuff, it may be hard to achieve that, because there's so much anxiety and deep emotional stuff happening at the same time.

And so I want to remind you to be curious, to learn, to be open to learning, because the Sun conjunction to Mercury may reveal things that were missing earlier in the week. So this is a good time for a little shift in the heaviness of the energy of this week. We're still feeling most of these other transits, all of them except for the Sun conjunction to Neptune, which we are no longer feeling by the 17th. So what we can do with this transit is cultivate curiosity and an open-mindedness and be willing to learn from others, with others, about ourselves⁠—whatever the case may be.

Now, on the 18th, we have another transit involving Mercury that's really supportive. Now, on the 18th, Mercury also ingresses into Aries, but I'm going to skip talking about that and just really focus on the Mercury sextile to Pluto. So Mercury is in Pisces, and Pluto is in Capricorn. And this is a fucking fantastic transit. And hopefully, the overlap of the Sun conjunction to Mercury and the Mercury sextile to Pluto will empower us to be curious, to be open-minded, and to talk things out instead of jumping to conclusions or making assumptions or losing track of ourselves in all the Neptunian ways that have been triggered throughout the week.

Mercury sextile to Pluto⁠—it kind of adds a little dynamism to our thinking. It empowers us to be more curious, to dive deeper, and to explore what's possible. This transit strengthens the power of our minds. And on a positive level⁠—and this is a sextile, so there's a great deal of positive here. On the positive level, that empowers us to figure shit out, to get out of our own way, and to be more open to social interactions or communication that at other times might feel challenging to us.

Now, on the negative level, it can make people more persuasive or sound more persuasive, which is not inherently a negative thing at all. But again, in context of all this astrology, we want to be very careful that we're not believing people just because they sound confident or really strong in their convictions. We want to make sure that we are having critical thought and that our critical thought is empowering us to dive deeper and figure shit out. This is true with social stuff, like in the world, but also true in your personal relationships, at work, that kind of stuff. So stay curious. Investigate things. Mercury sextile to Pluto will empower you to do that.

That, my friends, is it. Thank God. I mean, how much more could you take? Am I right? I'm going to run through the transits one more time if you're a notetaker. On the 14th, we have an exact square between Mars and Neptune. On the 15th, we have an exact conjunction between the Sun and Neptune. On the 16th, we have an exact Mercury conjunction to Neptune, Sun conjunction to Mars, Venus square to Pluto, and Mercury square to Mars, plus Venus ingresses into Taurus. On the 17th, we have an exact Sun conjunction to Mercury and an exact sextile between Venus and Saturn. And finally, on the 18th, Mercury forms an exact sextile to Pluto, and Mercury also ingresses into Aries. And that, my friends, is your horoscope for the week of March 12th through 18th of 2023.

I thank you so much for joining me here. Please do make sure to hit the Subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast so you never miss an episode. If you get value from the pod, please do write a review, give it five stars, or join me over on social media, on any of the platforms, or over on Patreon. I'm all over the World Wide Web. Take care of yourself and others this very complicated week, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.