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.

Welcome back to Ghost. I want to ground this week's horoscope into a couple of really important things. The first is that Mercury, my friends, is Retrograde. That means we want to be extra careful about communications. That means listening well, communicating with care, triple-checking our data, especially if you're going to be⁠—I don't know⁠—signing a contract or doing something that has to do with making plans or making major decisions. Mercury Retrograde is a good time for introspection and reflection, so take a minute. Sit with your thoughts, your attitudes, your beliefs. Check them out. Feel them out for a minute, why don't you?

And it's going to be particularly important to feel them out because we are in Eclipse Season. So we've already now gone through the Solar Eclipse in Aries, and we have a Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio forthcoming⁠—not this week, but that means emotions are running high. And in particular, having the Solar Eclipse in Aries having so much to do with embodiment and activation, and the Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio having so much to do with messy, deep, powerful feelings, this is likely to be really triggering a lot of people and triggering us around our compulsions and addictions and all manner of other intense feelings.

So, if you're feeling a lot, I want to give you this context astrologically for understanding that. And if you're peachy keen⁠—nothing gets you down; you're super optimistic⁠—you're still in the world with other people who are likely being really affected by this astrology. And that means a lot of people's compulsions, triggers, addictions are activated. So these are things to be mindful of, to show yourself and others grace around, and also to have clear intention and boundaries around.

Now, before I get into this week's forecast⁠—and we're looking at April 23rd through the 29th; somehow, April's over. I don't understand. I don't understand time. I feel like, as an astrologer, I should understand time. That's kind of the whole job. But time is weird. So, anyways, we're in the last week of April, and I'm going to get into the details in a moment. But first I want to say a few words about some really important, big things that are happening in the world, and in particular here in the U.S., and to give you some context that all of this has to do with the Pluto Return of the United States and also Pluto ingressing into Aquarius, this revolutionary, chaotic transit of Pluto in Aquarius.

So there's a very Plutonian backdrop to what we're going through right now. If I may share⁠—and I may have shared this on the podcast before. I'm not positive. But I've been meeting with clients as a consulting astrologer since 1995. And from 1999 until the very end of 2019, it was my full-time job, meeting with clients and doing astrological and psychic consultations. Very woo, very woo-woo. And I absolutely love my work. That said, at the end of 2018, I made the decision to stop taking clients starting in 2020. I guess I should contextualize to say I was booking out a year in advance, so I met with clients all of 2019 but stopped scheduling new appointments at the end of 2018.

And I did this because I saw what I perceived to be a serious risk of some sort of airborne virus coming that would impact the most vulnerable amongst us the most, and I also saw the risk of a civil war as well as world war. These are not things that I ran around predicting, because I don't think it's helpful. I had no power. There's no point in predicting this kind of stuff. But when I was meeting with people one on one, it really influenced what I was seeing, and it influenced the things that I would encourage people or discourage people from doing for a couple years leading up to 2020, when so much of the world just stopped because of COVID.

And it was disheartening. It was disheartening for me, and it was disheartening for my clients to hear me in sessions be like, "Maybe hold off on opening that storefront. Maybe hold off on doing this major life thing. There's too much instability right now." It was a bummer. I'll just tell you it was a bummer. One client that stands out to me in particular who I remember just kind of rolling their eyes at me when I suggested that there were certain life changes that I recommend that they not make in light of the instability that we were living through⁠—they simply did not think that it was possible that anything as dramatic as a civil war or major instability would happen or would happen here in the U.S., even though it has happened before and arguably has been happening throughout the whole time that the United States have been the United States. But this is maybe another conversation.

But I do want to say that in the modern world, not all war happens on a battlefield. And one of the strategic battles that conservatives are enacting and building towards is what's called a convention of states. And a convention of states is when two-thirds of U.S. states⁠—so various states within the United States⁠—come together to call a convention to enact something called Article 5. And Article 5, if it is enacted, could empower right-wing extremists to amend the Constitution. And amending the Constitution could have subtle, gentle effects, or it could have very dramatic impact. And we can look to the actions of the Republican Party and the states that are trying to get this to pass to see what they legislatively want to do.

Within that, we are already seeing in the U.S. bans on interfaith marriage, interracial marriage, Gay marriage, Trans rights, Gay rights. We're seeing the ongoing of very racist legislation, and of course, xenophobia is always a centerpiece of the republican platform. And again, I will remind you that the Pluto Return of the United States, which is still very much active and happening, can mean the end of our democracy. The astrology speaks to this very clearly. All the while, I would say that heavily armed men shooting at people for ringing the wrong doorbell, getting accidentally into a car, accidentally driving into a driveway⁠—just in the last week, young people have been shot for all of these things.

We are living in a profoundly violent culture. And because we are such an individualistic, racist, and heavily armed society, we have this epidemic of gun violence. And understanding that there are so many different ways that a nation can fall, that war can happen⁠—and I don't mean to suggest that we in the U.S. are going through a war in the same way that so many other countries are ravaged by war, because that is absolutely not what's happening here, and things can get a lot worse. But these are not peaceful days. This is not a safe place. And even if you don't agree with my assessment, even if you have a different take on things, it is really valuable to be conscientious about what is happening and who it affects and to care⁠, to care about people. There is literally not a single fucking downside to caring.

At the end of the day, if you're not on the side of liberation for everyone, you're on the side of the oppressor. And if you're not taking a side, you're on the side of the oppressor. To my Trans and Nonbinary loves, I want to say I see you and I am with you. And I want to say, if you are cisgendered, if you identify with the gender that you were assigned at birth, if you never really thought about your gender and you never really had to care about your gender, or you're straight or you have cis passing privilege, it's essential that you raise your voice and get activated around helping Trans people and people who exist on the Trans spectrum.

A good place to start is with education, and then continue by participating as an ally socially, with your dollar, and with your vote. And of course, if you are not activated around racial justice by now, I passionately invite you to change that. There's always the time to reevaluate and join in the fight, join in the process of raising your consciousness and acting to create more equity and safety for everyone, and in this country especially Black and Indigenous people. It is so important to find a way to be activated around these issues. The intersection between racial justice, reproductive rights, Trans rights, and COVID safety is interwoven so tightly. Fighting the draconian direction that the right⁠—and center right, even⁠—in this country is taking will require that all of us give a fuck and get activated and engaged.

One last word, and then I promise to get into your horoscope. If you're of the mind that as an astrologer, I shouldn't talk about politics, I will say that I cannot look at what is happening astrologically, how it's going to affect us as individuals, without considering the backdrop of the world that we live in. And I really care about people and the world, and I want you to as well, not just because it is the right thing but because that will help you find peace with your soul. I don't care what your religion is. I don't care what your values, your beliefs are. At the end of the day, it is hard for me to believe that anyone who has spiritual values thinks that you can be hateful towards certain groups of people and that's going to be good for your soul. Wake-up call⁠—any religion, any form of spirituality that preaches superiority of certain groups of people is morally, spiritually, ethically wrong.

Anyways, it felt important that I name some of that stuff. Now let's get into your weekly horoscope. Again, we're looking at April 23rd to the 29th of 2023. And we kick off this week with a Mercury Retrograde sextile to Mars. So this transit may sound a little familiar to you because I just talked to you about it on April 11th. So this transit was exact on April 11th, and now, thanks to the Retrograde, it is happening again. This is a really lovely transit. There's a lot of great things to talk about with it. There's no downsides to this transit, so that's some good news straight out of the gate.

Now, I want to remind you that Mercury Retrograde is always a time for reflection. And so whatever it was that came up in your life around the 11th⁠—or on the 11th, certainly⁠—pay close attention because you have the opportunity with this Mercury Retrograde to reflect on it, to reassess it, and to come at it again. This is like a second-chance situation. So, if you figure out that you were too much of this, not enough of that⁠—I don't know⁠—you handled yourself in a particular way that you wish you could do differently, here's your chance, see.

Now, Mercury sextile to Mars⁠—and I should say that this transit is happening with Mercury at 15 degrees of Taurus and Mars at 15 degrees of Cancer. So, if you have planets or important points in your birth chart at around 15 degrees of a zodiac sign that will be aspected by Taurus or Cancer, you should definitely pay attention because then you can make the most of this transit. Mercury sextile to Mars is a fun transit. It is a transit that can make you feel flirty and sassy. It could make you feel a little more brave socially, which is great news, right?

So this is a great time for turning it up, for socializing with people, putting yourself out there. And in particular, it's good for connecting with new people because of the bravery and confidence that Mars can provoke. So Mercury is platonic side of relationships. Mars is passion. And yeah, it could be associated with social climbing but also with chemistry. So this is just great for connecting with people. Now, I should of course contextualize. If you are going to be socializing and you're doing so indoors, wear a damn mask because global pandemic still, right? But there are lots of ways of socializing with your damn mask on. Hopefully you're doing that.

Now, this transit is also a good time for getting engaged in anything that sits at the cross section between using your body and connecting with others, socializing with others⁠. So going on a bike ride with a bunch of people, roller-skating, dancing, anything social that you can do with your body is well suited. And that includes taking a walk on your own or finally getting on that piece of exercise equipment that's been doubling as a coat rack somewhere in your apartment. You know what I mean? This is just a great transit for getting in your body, for getting going.

It's also a good time for making big plans. Now, I say big plans because both the transit of Mercury sextile to Mars and Mercury Retrograde are not particularly helpful for making concrete plans. Mercury Retrograde⁠⁠—we're not supposed to be making plans because we're not generally going to be seeing things clearly. And with a Mercury sextile to Mars, it's not that there's anything wrong with making plans. But we're, again, going to be a little bit more like big strokes. It's not a super detailed kind of transit. It's not going to harm your details, but it's not going to help them either. So getting centered in your big-picture plans, your vision or ambition for what you want to create, what you want to engage in⁠—excellent fucking transit for these things, just wonderful.

This is a great time in general for being honest. And again, this is because the ego energy that Mars can bring can empower us to just feel good and push ourselves forward, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it can also help us to be strong and resilient enough in our ego to hold with humility the truth, to make plans based on the reality of where we're at, to do what needs to be done, to push ourselves forward. Again, Mars is about ambition. It's about moving forward. Mars literally governs your car, and Mercury governs your bicycle. Isn't that fun? Fun facts. So they're both about moving through the world. But as you can see, Mercury/bicycle⁠—it's more like moving through your neighborhood, moving through your immediate surroundings. Mars can take you far. Cars can take you far.

So, when we have a sextile between these two planets, we have this dynamic, supportive energy for mobilizing. The more intention you bring to this the better. And one more thing I'll say about the kind of sexy/social part of this transit⁠—which, again, we want to embrace⁠—is Mercury is Retrograde. So you may have a strong feeling. You may have a strong sense of someone when you first meet them or when you re-encounter them. However, Mercury is Retrograde, so we want to allow space and time for people to reveal themselves to us, for people to share themselves with us, and for us to do the same with them.

Relationships take time to be substantive. And so, while this transit can bring sparks and exciting beginnings or exciting developments, we don't want to abandon our common sense and the need to allow things to develop in their own damn time. Because the zodiac signs of Taurus and Cancer are involved here, we have the potential for things being really supportive, and we also have the potential for getting a little attached to what seems like it is safe just because it's safe. So this is the time where we want to just let things play out. You know what I'm saying. Just let them play out.

We all know how important it is to continue to mask in public indoor spaces, and that's why I want to tell you about projectN95.org. Their nonprofit mission is to protect communities and those who live and work in them by providing equitable access to resources that keep people safe through COVID-19 and beyond. If you're unable to afford high-quality respiratory protection, Project N95 may be able to help. And if you can afford to buy yourself high-quality masks, this is a great place to buy them. Visit project95.org to keep yourself and your community safe.

School boards and lawmakers around the country are banning and challenging books at a pace not seen since the 1980s. The American Library Association tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. And librarians have even been threatened with criminal charges and jail time in some places in this country for lending out challenged books. You can contact your representatives about this issue by emailing, calling, or tweeting at them. And above all else, buy banned and challenged books. Support the important work of authors who are being banned or challenged, and in the process, support independent bookstores. My favorite bookstore, Marcus Books, is the oldest independent Black-owned bookstore in the country and has a banned and challenged book list on their website. You can go to marcusbooks.com to see this list and to shop, or visit whatever independent bookstore that you love. Support banned and challenged books and authors today.

Okay. Now, that brings us to the 25th of April, where we have two exact transits. The first one is a Sun sextile to Saturn. That's happening with the Sun five degrees⁠—well, four degrees and 59 minutes, but we're going to call it five degrees⁠—of Taurus and Saturn at the same degrees of Pisces, so five degrees of Pisces. Now, Sun sextile to Saturn is a lovely transit, another great one. And it's nice that this transit is overlapping with the Mercury sextile to Mars because what it will do is it'll kind of ground our potential to make the most of that transit.

Sun sextile to Saturn is fortifying. We have a very different kind of fortifying happening with Sun and Saturn versus Mercury and Mars. With Sun sextile to Saturn, we are at this really dynamic moment where our identity and our ability to work through things are in agreement with each other. This can be a time where you show up and are yourself and find a way to work on things without compromising who and what you are, which⁠—that's not always the easiest thing to do in life.

This transit is good for making plans⁠—now, again, Mercury Retrograde; we want to keep Mercury Retrograde in the mix of all this⁠—but making plans based on what is real and present, paying attention to the themes and patterns in our lives, and doing our best to actually learn from them⁠—Sun sextile Saturn. If there's shit that needs to be done in your life, like you've got to take all that stuff that you were supposed to donate and actually bring it to the donation center, this is a good time to do it. Sounds like a small thing, but it can really free up a lot of space in your head when you actually finally move forward and kind of execute on tasks that you know are the right tasks for you to do but can end up at the bottom of a very long list. This transit is an excellent one for just getting shit done.

Sun sextile to Saturn is also really good for learning, and the reason why it's good for learning is because it's a great transit for being open to receiving the wisdom that is around you. So that might be learning from older people or people who are more experienced than you. It might mean just being willing to learn some damn lessons. Now, the lessons we learn with Saturn are really different than the lessons we learn with Jupiter. Jupiter is really expansive, and it's a planet that we often associate with higher learning. But Saturn is about practice. Saturn is about lessons learned by toil and labor. And I know a lot of people have really negative connotations with toil and labor, and there are certainly shit sides to both of those things.

However, Saturn teaches us through repetition of fundamentals. If you have⁠—I don't know⁠—some sort of spiritual practice or some sort of fitness practice or⁠—I don't know⁠—work practice⁠—I mean, I'm not a yoga person myself, but I know a lot of people are. And yoga is very Saturnian in a lot of ways. It's not in a lot of ways, but it is, because it's so much about grounding into ritual and repetition and building on those tools. So toil and labor are not always bad, and it is valuable for us during a Sun sextile to Saturn to ground into the ways in which labor is supportive to our identities, to our sense of self, and to the advancement of our wellness, whatever the fuck that means for you and where you're at.

If you've been needing to deal with somebody who's in authority over you⁠—parents, landlords, bosses, teachers, managers, that kind of shit⁠—this is a good time for engaging with them because the sextile supports an easier flow of energy in these kinds of relationships. So that's, again, something for you to take advantage of should you need to.

Now, the other transit that is exact on April 25th is a Venus sextile to Chiron. Venus is at 17 degrees of Gemini, and we've got Chiron at 17 degrees of Aries. Venus sextile to Chiron is a dynamic transit that, like most sextiles, if you don't make a point of engaging with, it's going to pass and you're not going to pay a whole lot of attention to it. So, again, unless the transit is hitting your birth chart directly⁠—and, honestly, often when the transit is hitting your birth chart directly⁠—when it's a sextile, we often don't really make use of it because nothing's motivating us. There's no fire under your ass to utilize a sextile.

But if you leverage the energies of a sextile, it basically means that you can make progress without all the pain, without all the struggle, because often what happens with humans, as I see with astrology, is that those challenging transits that happen in the world and to our birth chart, they motivate us because we feel like we don't have a fucking choice. But when those easy transits come, it's all about choice. And it's often hard to choose to tap into challenging things, which is exactly what Chiron transits require of us.

So let me tell you, when we look at this transit of Venus sextile to Chiron, we have the opportunity to tap into our core wounding around relationships. And also, it could be around our finances, and it could be around our body-image issues, like how we feel about the way we look. The Venus sextile the Chiron is an opportunity to look at how authentically you are or are not showing up in any of those areas of your life. This transit will often trigger some sort of⁠—like, wound, yes, but again, it's not a hard transit. So, while wherever Chiron happens we're always dealing with some kind of wounding, it's not like you're being traumatized in this moment. But you're just kind of getting triggered.

While all of this is happening, it is easier to tap into your inner resources or your external resources to cope with whatever gets triggered. So this can be a transit⁠, especially because it's overlapping with the Sun sextile to Saturn⁠, where you really make some sort of meaningful breakthrough in regards to your relationship to authenticity, your relationship to your finances, how you manage them, how you avoid them, whatever it is⁠—your relationship to vanity, the way you look, the value you place on it⁠—and then, very importantly, your relationships.

And this transit can be a time where you kind of are in contact, honestly, with what isn't working in a relationship or your own patterns around how you participate in relationships or don't. And it's not like the world is going to suddenly open up and you're going to be like, "Change is made in this hour." But this transit can empower you to be able to be more freely open with yourself and potentially with others about your own participation, your own patterns, your own engagement, and to create healing from that place.

We talk about healing a lot. I talk about healing a lot. But what is healing? Healing is so many things. But core to what healing is, it's a process. It's a process. This is something I talked a fair amount about in my Moon class that I just did last week, which⁠—by the way, if you missed it, it is now for sale on my website, lovelanyadoo.com/shop. But the thing about healing is that it's not like fixing a broken arm, where it's like something injured you and then⁠—I don't know⁠—you go to a doctor, and maybe you have one painful experience where they re-break it for you. They stick a little cast on it. You wait a period of time, then bada-bing, bada-boom, your arm's better.

That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about healing in general, or at least what I'm talking about. It's the process of becoming. And as we are engaged with the process of becoming, we are also changing. Our environment is changing. The way the world reacts to us in response to us is changing. World events are changing. So the process of becoming, becoming more whole, is just that. It's a process of becoming. It's not a goal to set that you will achieve. It's a path to traverse over the course of time. And that path itself will change, and your relationship to the path will change, even as you make progress, even as you evolve.

And so, when I talk about the opportunity for healing with a transit like this, it might be the most subtle "aha" moment. It might be the smallest little change or adjustment in how you're relating to something that you don't really take a lot of stock of, but then x amount of time later, something happens and you realize you've made a change in you, and you respond differently. All to say don't be too hard on yourself. I want to encourage you to always be taking responsibility for yourself and to be engaged in your own evolution and the world around you, and also, don't be so hard on yourself. You don't need proof all the time. We don't need our wellness to be on a flowchart where we're constantly checking it. You're allowed to have downtimes. And it's fine if you can't always tell what progress you're making because being engaged in the process of becoming is progress, even if you can't prove it.

Now, that brings us to the 27th. And on the 27th, we have an exact square between Mars and our old friend Chiron. Now, this transit is happening with Mars at 17 degrees of Cancer and Chiron at 17 degrees of Aries. And it's exact at 6:35 a.m. if you're counting. You really want to pay attention to this transit if you have anything at a cardinal sign at around 17 degrees. So Mars square to Chiron can be a bit of a challenging transit, and I'm certainly going to be paying close attention to what's happening in the world, in particular from and with men.

This transit may trigger some serious violence. That is the risk, that we see violence here. And because Mars is in Cancer, Chiron in Aries, we can see nationalistic violence. Cancer is quite a nationalistic sign, so sense of "I'm a patriot, and I need to defend my home or my nation," or whatever⁠—you know, this kind of shit. So, obviously, not a fan of this form of thinking. But this is a real risk with a Mars square to Chiron. And certainly, if you don't feel particularly safe in a situation, I would encourage you to not place yourself in that situation this week, in particular around the 27th, where we're going to have this transit activated.

Now, Mars square to Chiron, on a more personal level, can confront us in challenging ways with our ego, feeling either like we are the bad guy or somebody else is the bad guy. So it can basically put us in contact with feeling really poorly about ourselves because we've done something to make us feel really entitled to dominating or overpowering or punishing someone else, or we may be overwhelmed with feelings of victimization because somebody else has done that to us, or we feel that somebody else has done that to us, or⁠—always an option with Chiron⁠—we simply are dealing with triggers from times were those things actually did happen to us even though they may not be exactly happening to us right now.

And I want to just acknowledge⁠—not for the first time on this podcast⁠—that feeling triggered is valid and real and sucks, but it is not the same as being traumatized. When we have trauma, there are so many ways that we can get triggered around that trauma. But when we're triggered, it takes a different remediation, different care, different solutions and strategies than when we are being actively traumatized, when somebody's perpetrating trauma to us, because we can be harmed, we can be hurt, and not traumatized. Trauma means something. It doesn't just mean bad feelings.

So we want to be able to hold space for all of your feelings are valid. But when we kind of mislabel things, when we create stories that are not true stories about what's happening within us and around us, at us, from us, then we end up feeling confused and overwhelmed in life because we can't really care for or engage with things if we don't really know what we're doing, if we're operating off of a false or inaccurate premise.

So this is a good time to take a peek at the old ego of yours. Engage with your ego. Be honest with yourself if it is too big, too demanding, taking up too much space in some area of your life, or the opposite, too small, too recessed, not taking up enough space in some area of your life. And keep in mind that just because you realize, "Oh shit. I am being really egotistical about x," doesn't mean you're an egotistical person. We are complex and we are nuanced, and it is absolutely possible that we have a poorly adjusted ego that is too big in one corner and not big enough in another corner, or that we have a poorly adjusted ego and we are a fucking lovely person who is generous and kind with others.

We don't want to get into character assassinations of ourselves or others, because it distracts from the real point, which is that Mars square to Chiron is an opportunity to heal the wounds around how we are embodied or not, how we enact our sense of agency or not. And generally, because it's a square, we can expect that it's going to be challenging. And when we're challenged, especially if we feel hurt or victimized, is when we're actually most likely to act out. What's that saying? Hurt people hurt people. When we feel really fucked up and shitty is when we often feel entitled to treat others poorly or to not act with care. So this is something to pay attention to.

And just a hot tip here, if you find that you have done something wrong, apologizing is great, but nothing is better than being an agent of repair⁠—not just saying you're sorry, but actively showing up for whoever you've hurt. And this, my friends, includes you. If you have fucked yourself over in some way, if you have harmed yourself in some way, it's important to be able to apologize to yourself but to not stop there⁠—now that you realized you've harmed yourself or someone else, to really commit to doing better. We're all going to make mistakes. Nobody has a completely easy, perfect time with their ego. That's just not realistic. But what we can do is, once we come to awareness of a thing, to adjust how we engage from there. That's the move.

This is a time that calls for bravery. And luckily, this week, Mars is so in the mix that it can empower us to be brave, to take a stand, to mobilize. And you know I think that's a good idea, right? You know that. Okay. Now, that brings us to the final transit of this week. It's Mars sextile to Uranus. So this transit is, again, another really lovely transit. So⁠—another fun fact about astrology⁠—Uranus and Mercury are the two planets that govern your mind. So Uranus is your nervous system, and Mercury is your thoughts, your attitudes. It's your analyzer. So Mars is forming a sextile to both of these planets this week.

So, with the Mars sextile to Uranus, it can really stimulate your mind. It can stimulate your nervous system. But because it's a sextile, it's not likely to be overwhelming unless you're somebody with sensory overload issues, in which case you may, if this transit hits your birth chart directly, find it a little too stimulating. Most people don't, so I wouldn't expect that, but it's something you want to pay attention to. And I will say this transit is happening at 18 degrees. So Mars is at 18 degrees of Cancer, and Uranus is at 18 degrees of Taurus. So, if you have anything at around 18 degrees of a zodiac sign that's going to be impacted⁠—especially by conjunction, square, or opposition⁠—by either of these planets, pay attention because it's going to be important information for you.

Okay. Mars sextile Uranus is a transit that can, again, kick up fun, increase your desire and your ability to socialize, flirt your sweet little buns off, that kind of stuff. Mars and Uranus are two out of the three planets that are the most daredevilish. We're missing Jupiter in the mix, but Mars and Uranus are both daredevils. They love to have adventures and kind of get into shit. So this can be a really fun time for getting into shit. And there's all kinds of good trouble to get into; is there not? And this absolutely includes⁠—I will say absolutely includes⁠—socializing with new people, going to new places, listening to new music, trying new approaches to things that you're doing, trying out new stuff in the bedroom, just getting a little freaky. Mars sextile to Uranus can get a little imaginative in the bedroom or wherever it is you like to do your business with partners or yourself.

Mars sextile to Uranus is fun. It's really fun, but even more than it being fun, what I really love about this particular transit of Mars sextile to Uranus is that it is overlapping the Mars square to Chiron, which is exact on the 27th⁠—Mars sextile Uranus, exact on the 29th. And what this means is that Uranus is there to support us in coping with whatever the Mars square to Chiron provokes, and that's good news. It's really good news because Uranus tends to open us up to options. Uranus is all about inventiveness and creativity, the ability to think outside the box. And with Mars square to Chiron, we can get kind of locked in place because the ego can be really rigid at core.

So this Mars sextile to Uranus is likely to be a supportive ally in working through whatever challenges you find come up for you on or around this date. The key is just being open. It's being open and being willing to experiment with different ways of holding things, different ways of expressing yourself, different things that you can try, different ways you can try it. And at the very least, if you always⁠—I don't know⁠—drive to work in the morning, take a different route. Change it up. I know it sounds so small, but why not start with the small, tangible, easy-to-wrangle things and see if they⁠—I don't know⁠—maybe spark something of their own volition? Maybe you'll take a different route to work, and then you'll see a deer at the side of the road and you'll feel like you're in a fairytale for 20 seconds. Maybe that's just me, but I feel like it could be you, too. It could be you, too.

Anyways, that's your horoscope. Those are the transits of this week. I'm going to run through them really quickly for you but remind you first that you can read the transcript—comes out shortly after the podcast episode does. The transcripts are always available for you on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com. If you haven't visited my website, you're in for a treat because my website is so cute.

Anyways, on the 23rd, we have an exact sextile between Mercury Retrograde and Mars. On the 25th, we have two exact sextiles. The first is a Sun sextile to Saturn, and the next is a Venus sextile to Chiron. On the 27th, Mars is exactly square to Chiron, and on the 29th, Mars is exactly square to Uranus. And that's it.

I want to thank you for joining me for this week's episode. I hope you will tune in again in a couple days when I dropped the reading on the midweek episode as well. And if you get value from the podcast, please do hit Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and consider writing a review or giving me a little five-star review on whatever platform you listen. It makes a huge difference and also brings me untold joy. And if you want to learn more with me, join me over on Patreon.

All right, my loves. Take good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.