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.

Hello, and welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we're going to look at the astrology of July 2nd through the 8th of 2023. There's a lot going on. But I want to take a moment to acknowledge fucking Pluto, Pluto in Capricorn. Pluto is back in Capricorn, as you know. And yet this transit of Pluto in Capricorn is unique in that it is sandwiched between Pluto's first moments in Aquarius and then when Pluto goes back into Aquarius in January of 2024.

In this moment, these final months of Pluto in Capricorn, we are seeing some people doing the most they could possibly do⁠—we're watching institutions and the powerful do their very utmost to consolidate their power with long-standing systems. The Supreme Court has been really busy. In a matter of a couple days here in the U.S., it entitled businesses to refuse services to people for being Gay. It got rid of affirmative action in schools. They rejected Biden's student loan relief for tens of millions of Americans. And it's not just the Supreme Court that's been busy. The first criminal bathroom ban with a jail sentence attached to it has taken effect in Florida as of the last day of June, the last day of Pride Month, in fact.

It is deeply demoralizing to see these developments, but it is not surprising. It's just another step on a long and winding path that we have been on through Pluto's transit in Capricorn. Whether you're a spiritual person, a person of conscience, an activist, it is important to take some time to protect your peace in light of all of this really challenging news. It's very hard to see our rights rolled back. With every people-led or progressive movement, within every struggle for greater freedom, independence, autonomy, justice, people engaged in those struggles on all levels, no matter how impactful their work was⁠—nobody fixes the problem. It doesn't really work like that.

What we do is we engage, to the best of our ability, for progress, not perfection. And this term, "progress, not perfection," is something we talk about in spiritual circles. It's something people talk about in self-help circles. And it's a really important concept to grasp both for your personal development⁠—because again, when we're talking about Pluto in Capricorn, we are talking about this relentless drive for healing or perfection or destruction, as it were. But the truth is that progress is progress, and incremental progress, small progress, is still fucking progress.

While it may be demoralizing and it may feel like, "What is the point?" while these systems have so much power and things are getting worse for so many people, the truth is that it is important to do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because of the results. Again, this is both a spiritual concept and a very pragmatic concept. We, especially in the West, have a really bad habit of trying to turn thoughts into actions and concepts into circumstances, ideas into things. That's not bad, and certainly, if we are struggling, it really makes sense. It's like, "I feel like shit. I figured out how to stop feeling like shit. I want it to work right away." Sure. That makes sense.

But we need to remember that through the process of aligning with what is right for ourselves as individuals, which is interwoven with us as communities, with the collective, then what we've got to do is place ourselves so that we can continue to live in alignment and to do what is right by ourselves and others over the course of time, even when it is an uphill battle. And you know, my friends, is an uphill battle.

Pluto will only be in Capricorn for a few more months, and then it returns to revolutionary Aquarius. We will continue to see hierarchical, old-school structures doubling down to consolidate power and to preserve power for themselves and the many people who support them through passivity as much as anything else. But they wouldn't be working so hard, they wouldn't be passing bills and laws and rolling back protections, if they did not see our power, the power of the collective majority, the power of Queer people, the power of people-led movements.

We don't want to forget this because we're in a Pluto in Capricorn moment, but we're in this Pluto in Capricorn moment in a Pluto in Aquarius sandwich. And that means that there is a lot of energy building for people-led revolution, for changing of the old guard into something that is more inclusive, more progressive, more open. So never forget, when they attack history, when they attack our humanity, when they eliminate our rights, it is because they know how powerful we are. But we, in our grief and our sadness, cannot forget how powerful we are, especially when we work collectively.

Don't forget Aquarius is a zodiac sign associated with collective movements, groups, and subgroups of people. To quote Alfredo Lopez⁠ again⁠—I quoted him recently in another episode⁠⁠—fascism knows how powerful you are, so don't you forget how powerful you are. And when you're feeling really down and demoralized, a great place to start is locally. And this applies to your personal life as well. When you're feeling overwhelmed and fucked up about big-picture problems in your past, your present, or your concerns about the future, a great way to support your mental and emotional health, your spiritual health, sometimes your physical health, is to focus on small, actionable, achievable goals. Find the little things you can do and do them.

This can help to ground you into the present, to affirm your ability to make change and bring it all the way home, and it can just be stabilizing to your mental health. So, if things are feeling too big, that's okay. Do your best to kind of get grounded and find small, actionable things that you could do to invest in your wellness and our collective wellness. And that, my friends, is just a little nosh, if you will, on some big-picture Plutonian themes. But I'm going to give you another little nosh on big-picture astrology themes.

As of June 19th, which was, what, like a week ago, we are in the Retroshade of Venus. Yeah, that's right, the Retroshade of Venus. Venus goes Retrograde⁠—I'm not going to get into it right now because there's enough to talk about this week, but Venus goes Retrograde on July 22nd. And so we've been Retroshady, and we're getting Retroshadier the closer we get to that Venus Retrograde. Venus will be Retrograde July 22nd through September 3rd of 2023. So write that shit down.

But with Venus retrograding in fixed-sign Leo and Uranus and Jupiter in fixed-sign Taurus, we have this really important theme to question the things that seem obvious, to really look at our own coping, look at our values, look at the way we engage with ourselves and the world, and question kind of everything⁠—and not as a way to destabilize, but instead as a way to fortify what motivates us because, hopefully, you are motivated by your values. And if you're not motivated by your values, Venus Retrograde will be a serious pain in your sweet little buns, unfortunately. So here's your heads-up to really consider your motivations these days, and get ready for the opportunity to realign them should you need.

We're going to talk so much more about Venus Retrograde. We're going to talk about it so much. Don't you worry. But let's get back into the immediate short-term horoscope. Again, we're looking at July 2nd through the 8th of 2023. And I will tell you the first transit of this week is a Venus square to Uranus. We've got Venus at 21 degrees and 46 minutes of Leo, and Uranus is at the same degrees, 21/46 of Taurus. We've got this fixed-sign Venus/Uranus square, and this square is destabilizing. That's what it does, okay? That's what it does.

Venus is related to romance. It is related to love and finances because it's ultimately related to our values. Uranus is a planet that is associated with the urge to break free, the urge to individuate, the desire for freedom, and often the spontaneous desire for freedom. When it comes to Uranus, we're dealing with our nervous system. It's a real nervy kind of energy. And when we have a Venus square to Uranus, it can represent a time where your relationships feel real challenging. And they feel challenging because things are changing. Those changes may spontaneously come out of one or multiple parties.

So it may be that your circumstances shift, and all of a sudden, you feel differently about a person or an agreement that you have in a relationship. It may be that that's what's happening with the other person or people. This transit tests us to be flexible and adaptable. Now, because it's happening in two fixed signs⁠, Leo and Taurus⁠, it's going to be especially challenging. And you are going to extra-feel this if you've got any important points in your birth chart or if you have any planets at around 21, 22 degrees of a fixed sign, so Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, Scorpio.

So a couple things. The first is this is a good time to explore, to be open-minded and adaptable. And that looks like lots of different things. In a sexual relationship, it can look like doing new stuff or doing the old stuff in new locations or with a new approach, a new mindset or something. In creative projects, it might mean something similar, doing new stuff, doing your typical stuff in new ways or literally in a different room in your studio.

Basically, it's about changing things up because that's what this transit is asking us to do. It's asking us to change and to change in a way where we can be more authentic, where we can be more truly ourselves. And experimenting is a great way to do that. Experimenting with different ways of being, different ways of engaging with someone else or something else that you care about is a really great thing, ultimately.

Unfortunately, a lot of people feel really threatened by this energy, and so you or somebody else may experience some kind of panic⁠—again, Uranus is related to the nervous system⁠—because things are changing. And so I will give you this advice: do not try to make things secure or stable or to make it make sense on and around this date, because it's not going to work. That's not what this astrology is for. It's about exploring what's possible. It's about trying new things on for size. It's not about coming to a decisive conclusion.

So experiment. Try to tap into possibility. The one place where I would say it's not a good idea to do that is with your finances. This is not a great time to be throwing your money into something that is not well vetted. In fact, if you're somebody who's investing money in any way⁠—you can think of that in a million different contexts⁠—this is a real bad time to do it because Uranus gives us unpredictable circumstances. And so you may not have the whole story, or you might have the whole story, but the story may change in about 72 hours. So, if you can avoid throwing chunks of money in any direction other than a savings account, that would be grand, truly grand.

And if this transit is hitting you directly, you may encounter some sort of unexpected expense, which is a total boner killer. But you gotta deal with it, then you gotta deal with it. If you find that you are encountering an unexpected expense that seems wrong to you, if you can afford to wait a few days before dealing with it, it'll be easier to deal with because errors occur, and errors with technology in regards to finances are likely under this transit because Uranus is related to le internet. Have you heard of it? It's the World Wide Web, technology in general.

Now, one last thing I'll say about this transit is that Venus is related to our values, our ethics, and Uranus is exploration. And so this is a really good time to explore the ethics of a thing, whatever that thing is⁠—of something you've done, something you've thought about doing, something that's happening in the world. This is a great time for doing that because Uranus wants us to explore, so there's energy that will help us to be exposed to new information, process it in new ways, have it hit us in different places than we're used to being hit. While that may feel threatening to you, it may also feel exciting. Be open to being excited by what you don't know. It's what the transit's here for.

Now, the next transit that we're going through is happening on the 3rd of July, and it's a Full Moon. We've got a Full Moon in Capricorn on the 3rd of July. It's exact at 4:39 a.m. Pacific Time. If you want to track the transits to know exactly what time they're happening in your time zone, check out Astrology for Days, my transit-tracking pro tool for astrologers and astrology students. It's the tool that I use to check the transits, and you can get it for yourself over at astrologyfordays.com.

But okay. Here's a thing. July 3rd just happens to be sandwiched between two very patriotic and colonialist holidays of Canada Day and the 4th of July, on the 1st and 4th of July. That makes sense because it's Cancer Season, and the zodiac sign of Cancer is associated with nationalism and patriotism and doubling down for my family kind of stuff, on a social level, anyways.

So we have a Full Moon, which means the Sun and Moon are opposite each other, at exactly 11 degrees and 19 minutes. So the Moon is at 11 degrees, 19 minutes of Capricorn. And as you know, Full Moons occur when the Sun and Moon are exactly opposite each other. And this Full Moon, we have a Sun/Mercury conjunction. So the Sun and Mercury are sitting real close to each other in Cancer, and they're both opposite the Moon in Capricorn.

So let me ground you into some things here. Cancer, as you know, is an emo zodiac sign. And when we're in Cancer Season and when we're dealing with Cancerian energies, what we want to be able to do is to tap into our feelings and our innermost psyche and our needs as a person, as a person with a heart, a tender, tender heart. And that is a really healthy thing to do. However, we always want to look to the opposite sign, which in this case is Capricorn, to understand the counterpoint, a.k.a. the thing we need to be mindful of to maintain balance and not go too far in any direction.

When it comes to Capricorn, it's about responsibility on the 3D, tending to things on a material level, having goals and taking steps to meet them⁠—that kind of shit. So, when we're dealing with a Full Moon in Capricorn, we're dealing with the tension between what I feel I need and then what I actually need to do, like responsibilities that are external versus care for the self. And when the Sun and Mercury are conjoined, what happens is our ideas about our identity, about what's happening around us and how it impacts us, how it reflects on us, become something that we're really identified with.

And that level of identification can sometimes become an ego-based narrative. Sometimes, it can generate amazing clarity and help us to really get aligned and on course, and other times, it's the other thing; it's that we have a narrative, and it's like, "I am a good person." And then a friend says, "Oh, you stepped on my foot a bunch of times, and it really hurt, and I kept on telling you to stop stepping on my toe," and you're like, "Yeah, but I'm a good person."

We want to make sure that our story that we're telling ourselves about ourselves is self-referential but also in consideration of the feedback we're getting from the world, especially people we trust. So having this Moon opposition means that we are likely to get feedback that is critical. We might be in situations where we really have to rise to the occasion, and this is where we want to understand the positive potential of a Moon in Capricorn, which is emotional accountability, emotional maturity.

Whatever comes up for you on and around this Full Moon, do your best to be your most mature and wise self in how you engage with your emotions, how you respond to your reactions. This is easier said than done. But the way that we accrue wisdom and the way that Capricorn gets its maturity⁠—the zodiac sign of Capricorn, not Capricorn humans. But the way that we do this is through learning through experience. It's through practice. It's through applying lessons of the past, contemplating them, working through them, and making adjustments as needed, a.k.a. taking responsibility for your shit.

So that's the move this Full Moon. Notice whatever evidence of growth and maturity is showing up for you, or do your best to rise to the occasion⁠—or, ideally, both.

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Now, the good news is we have Jupiter at almost 10 degrees, 9 degrees and 42 minutes, of Taurus. Jupiter is forming a glorious trine to the Moon in Capricorn. It's also forming a sextile to the Sun in Cancer⁠, also Mercury⁠—it's wider, but Mercury in Cancer as well. And this is really great news because what Jupiter does is it helps us to grow. It helps us to expand. And the capacity that the Full Moon in Capricorn gives us is the capacity to embody emotional maturity and accountability.

The thing about being mature and accountable is it doesn't make you boring, and it doesn't make you predictable. It just makes your life less confusing. It makes the world easier to navigate both inside of you and outside of you. Accountability and maturity simply is knowing yourself and making the best choices you can in response to that self-knowledge. But anyways, the Jupiter trine to the Moon is really helpful for us stepping into that gracefully and in a way that, because Jupiter is in Taurus, reflects our values and not just our ambitions for ourselves. Beautiful, right? Really lovely.

Jupiter forming a sextile to the Sun and Mercury, which is what it's doing, is absolutely lovely for helping us to broaden our identity, our ideas, our willingness to learn, and our capacity to feel complexity. So Jupiter is doing us a whole lot of favors. Something lovely may come around this Full Moon, but you want to keep in mind that Full Moons are about closure. They're about letting things go. So this is a really powerful time to let go of attachments with those Cancerian pinchers. You want to let go of attachments to ideas, identities, habits⁠—whatever it is⁠—that just don't serve you anymore, that you at this point know better about.

Now, that's not the only thing that's happening in this Full Moon chart. We have also got Uranus at 21 degrees and 48 minutes of Taurus forming a square to Venus at 22 of Leo and Mars at 25/45 of Leo. Uranus is squaring Venus and Mars, who are sitting right on top of each other. And this is important news because Uranus destabilizes. You heard me talk just before about the Venus square to Uranus. In last week's episode, you heard me talk about Mars square to Uranus. So we still have these energies at play. It is destabilizing. It is a call for us to embody our values as we individuate away from things that may make us feel secure, that may be familiar, but actually inhibit our growth and freedom.

This is a really expansive set of transits if we allow it to be. But again, it's nervy. It can make you feel agitated or off or just anxious. And Full Moons can do that, too, in their own way. But again, the ability that we have with this Full Moon chart to step into greater ownership of who and what we are⁠—I mean, that shit is⁠—it's delightful. So make the most of this Full Moon by showing up, really showing up.

Okay. Now, there's one last thing that I want to say about this Full Moon. Between the heat wave, the poor air quality from fires, it's really important that you take care of your physical health in addition to your emotional health this Full Moon. So we're talking about the material world because it's Capricorn, a material girl. So I want to just kind of throw out this idea that your health is an individual project, but it's also a community project. So do your best to take care of yourself and others in whatever ways you can in this climate crisis that we're in right now, which might look like, if you have extra masks and the air quality is bad where you're at, share them. If you're in a hot place and you can bring clean water to folks who need it, do that.

The key is to care⁠—Moon, right? Cancer Moon⁠—with your actions⁠—Capricorn. Do what you can. We always want to take into account when we're dealing with earth-sign energies what's happening in the 3D on the material plane. We want to really be mindful of that and engage with that because here we are in our funny little meat suits living this human experience, and there's a reason for it. And we don't want to forget that July is Disability Pride Month. Caring for our bodies but also caring for the health and welfare of others⁠—it's just a good human thing to do. It's a good human thing to do.

Now, that brings us to July 5th. And on the 5th, we have a Mercury square to Chiron. We got Mercury at 19 degrees and 50 minutes of Cancer, and we've got Chiron at the same degrees of Aries. This transit is really important. Mercury square to Chiron can be pretty triggering because Mercury is our ideas, our friendships. It's how we listen, how we communicate. And Chiron is core wounding. And Chiron in Aries is core wounding around our identity. So you can imagine how this transit may trigger major conflicts and disagreements between friends or neighbors or colleagues or siblings⁠—because Mercury governs all of it⁠—around issues that are maybe important, but underneath those issues are much more personal and driving and trigger-happy topics, so core wounding, in other words.

You may feel the urge to evangelize to people, to tell them your good word and express your ideas as though they are the most important ideas for everyone. Or someone may do that to you. And you want to just make sure that you're not trying to force your viewpoint on others so that you feel better about your viewpoint. This is a tricky time for having earnest exchanges. Chiron is not great at earnest exchanges because it's so activated by its own shit. Mercury is a very subjective planet. We like to think that our attitudes are objective, but we are all living very subjective experiences.

And so this transit can really kick up some tricky stuff. You may feel that you are an exalted messenger. You may want to murder the messenger who brings you bad news. This can play out in a lot of different ways. But the potential for coming to healing, the potential for recognizing some sort of trigger, something in you that is a belief that you actually don't stand behind, is really powerful and present this Mercury/Chiron square. The key is to be able to sit with your feelings and not indulge in knee-jerk reactions. And I gotta say a knee-jerk reaction is a natural impulse, a reaction that is simply a natural impulse, and that's not bad. But our reactions⁠—hopefully we do not externalize them right away so that we can create space to discern and determine how we want to choose to respond.

So it's about creating a little bit more spaciousness within our own selves before we go on and be like, "Okay, this is my reaction, and I'm going to let you know." It's not going to go well. But even if you do that perfectly, like if you're really, really good at this and you do your utmost, you may be dealing with somebody else who is just triggered by things you can't even imagine because Chiron is not related to the present moment; it's related to core wounding. So it's the shit that activates us. So somebody might act in ways where you're mystified where they're coming from, and I want to say it isn't about you. They might think it's about you. It's not about you. It is about their wounding.

And so, again, leaving space for people to be having their own experience is a sign of wisdom. It's like, "Okay, this is a person who is acting out," or, "I am the person who's acting out." Being able to kind of make space for that can be really helpful because⁠—I'm not encouraging you to eat shit or be in a dangerous or unhealthy situation. But a lot of times, in interpersonal dynamics, if we just allow people to have a shitty day and to kind of be shitty in an interaction and not make it about their value as a human or our value as a human, life gets a little easier. It's a little more empathetic, and it's also a lack of attachment, which is tricky because Mercury is in Cancer, which⁠—again, pinchers, pinchers⁠—loves to attach to things.

What we're dealing with is a test of our own identity, our willingness and ability to embody what is true for us, even when it's ambiguity, even when it's hard to bear. Luckily, we have a transit overlapping with this one that is really supportive, and it's a Mercury sextile to Uranus. So Mercury is at 21 degrees and 58 minutes of Cancer, and Uranus is at the same of Taurus. Now, this transit is really great to have overlapping with a Mercury/Chiron because what Mercury sextile to Uranus does is it empowers us to be more open-minded.

This transit is great for considering different possibilities, for shifting your perspective, meeting new people, kind of shaking up your routine or shaking up your social world, which can be really fun. Uranus by sextile or trine tends to be super fun, just as a hot tip. And because Mercury relates to the stuff we do day to day in our neighborhood, the little habits that really add up, Mercury is also related to our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors. So this is a great time to leave your damn house. Try connecting with other people and saying hello or whatever. Be open if you can.

This transit helps us to move through ideas and attitudes that would other times be a little more sticky and triggering. So you can see how this is really helpful alongside the Mercury square to Chiron. Now, this transit may make that Mercury square to Chiron a lot easier to bear, or it might make it easier to bear but the Mercury square to Chiron may be so pressing that you might not really notice it. It depends on how it hits your birth chart. But know that this is like a breath of fresh air. This is a delightful smell on the winding path of life. It's a great transit is what I'm trying to say.

You may shift your perspective without even trying that hard during this transit. You may come across a concept or a person who just frames things just differently enough that it lands. So, if you've been seeking solutions but having a hard time, this transit is your friend.

Now, my friends, that's your horoscope. And if you have gotten value from it, please do consider hitting the Subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts or giving the show a five-star review or writing a review⁠—even better. And if you have done those things, thank you so much. I read all the reviews and really appreciate them so much, like so, so much. So thank you for that.

I'm going to run through the transits one more time in case you're taking notes, but you know what? If you're taking notes, you should know⁠—I just gave a reading to someone that'll be coming out on the podcast soon, and they told me that they didn't know this, and it blew my mind. So I just really want you to know that I have transcripts up on my website that are free for anyone to access for just about every episode that I've ever dropped. So, if you're just somebody who needs the written version, it's always on my website for you to check out. Just go to ghostofapodcast.com. And it will take 24 hours, usually, for the astrology episode to come up and maybe a little longer for the reading, but they're all up there for you. So giddyap on over.

Okay. So, on the 2nd, we have an exact square between Venus and Uranus. On the 3rd, we have a Full Moon in Capricorn at 11 degrees, and it is exact at 4:39 a.m. Pacific Time. On the 5th, Mercury forms an exact square to Chiron. But luckily, on the 6th, Mercury forms an exact sextile to Uranus, helping us all out.

I want to thank you so much for joining me here on Ghost. It is a labor of love, and I really appreciate every single one of you for supporting the show with your listenership, by joining me on Patreon, or in any way that you do. It means a lot to me, and it is such a joy for me to be able to share my work. I've been a practicing astrologer for almost 30 years. Yeah, almost 30 fucking years. So I've been doing this a long time, and having this podcast is just such a glorious way for me to share this thing that I love.

And if there are things you want me to cover, if you've got any kind of questions or you want a reading on the show, you can always email me through my contact form on my website. Again, go to ghostofapodcast.com and check it out. And while you're there, there's lots of goodies on my website for you to check out, including a free weekly sun-sign horoscope. So, if you want to know what's going on just for your sign, again, I got you covered.

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