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.

As you know, devastating fires have shaken Hawaii, and the people there need your help. If you've ever been a tourist in the region and enjoyed any of the magic and beauty of the lands, this is the time to give what you can. You can lend support by donating at any of the links that we've dropped in show notes. Even a small gift can make a huge difference in this time of crisis.

Welcome back to Ghost. This week, we're going to look at the astrology of August 20th through the 26th. There is a lot of important stuff happening, but I want to just speak to a couple things. The first is the fact that I just realized this past weekend with my forever fiancé that August is the five-year anniversary of Ghost of a Podcast. And I know I kind of noticed out loud that Episode 350 was a big deal, but it's five years of weekly or twice-weekly horoscopes and astrology. We haven't missed a week. It's just⁠—I don't know. I just wanted to acknowledge what a huge part of my life and what a huge piece of my heart this project is.

It's, for me, so much more than a podcast. It's a way of sharing my life's passion, my life's work, and it's a lens through which I engage with the world. And hopefully, it is kind of helping you to cultivate the same, whether you're super deep into astrology or just kind of in it for Sun sign stuff. I just want to thank you for tuning in and participating in what feels like a really loving and smart community of people. Yeah. It just means the damn world to me. So I wanted to say that.

And in case you don't know, which⁠—I mean, unless you've gone to my website on my Shop page, you wouldn't know⁠—I do have a Ghost of a Podcast T-shirt for sale. It's very cute. And if you want to wear Ghost of a Podcast on your chest, you can. Just go to my website, always linked in show notes, lovelanyadoo.com/shop, and you will find webinars, classes, and a Ghost of a Podcast T-shirt all there, all there for you.

Okay. So we're going to get into the details of this week's transits. But I want to kind of pull back and go high-level for a moment here and acknowledge the devastating fires in Hawaii and in Canada, and acknowledge how just⁠—I don't know. I mean, I guess I said it: devastating. It's just devastating on every level, these fires. And living through a climate crisis, as we are, is really terrifying at times, and it is unpredictable and heart-wrenching.

And while we're all living through it, we're not all experiencing it in the same ways or in the same ways at the same time. Even people of a particular region that may be stricken by a climate event, depending on a variety of factors, a lot of them related to class⁠—which is, of course, related to race and ableism and all kinds of other complex, systemic things⁠—we may be experiencing the same thing but in radically different ways. And I want to acknowledge that, because it's happening and it's unprecedented. It's not like our forebears went through a climate crisis the way we are. It's just this is a novel experience, and it's a lot.

And in the context of Ghost of a Podcast and what we're doing here, I want to acknowledge the grief and the fear that these climate emergencies are spiking within all of us. And again, some of us are really conscious about that, and we're really fixated on it; our feelings and our thoughts are fixated on these things. Sometimes our circumstances force it, sometimes not. And others of us are just not really thinking about it that much. I know a lot of you aren't thinking about it that much, but it doesn't mean you're not going through it on some level. We are going through this collective experience, and it is a lot. And so you may be feeling fine, going through your day la-de-da, and then kind of get hit by grief, by overwhelm, ennui, and not know what it is. And might I suggest it is the very circumstances that we're living through.

I was having a conversation with somebody recently, and they mentioned to me that healers and astrologers they had been talking to or listening to had suggested that this Pluto in Aquarius time that we're stepping into, that we're at the precipice of, is about individuality and it's about really coming into ourselves as individuals. And I want to say I do not think that is the case at all. I think it's about coming together in communities. While Aquarius is in many ways related to individuality and kind of following your own path, it is also very much related to collective conditions, coming together in groups and communities.

And I want to just acknowledge that a lot of what we're experiencing emotionally and energetically⁠—it feels so individual, when in fact what it is is a collective experience. It's a collective condition. And the more that we can acknowledge that our individual experience is both incredibly personal to us and also interconnected to the whole, not only the healthier I think we can be, but also the closer to the truth we get that we're in it together, that we need each other. How we feel, how you feel, what we're going through, what we see others going through⁠—these things bind us together.

And finding our individual way, doing your individual healing and self-care work, is so important, but it is not important just for you. It is important because it creates a foundation within your individual self that empowers you, that directs you, to show up in the collective with and for others, not just with and for yourself. And I think that this truth gets lost in a lot of self-care and self-help and astrology conversations. The transits that I talk to you about week after week in the horoscope that I drop⁠, they're affecting each and every one of us across the globe. And when you hear me do readings for individuals in my midweek episode, it's the same ten planets for each and every one of us. It's the same twelfth houses and the same twelve zodiac signs for each and every one of us.

We are connected by all things, but in an astrological context, a huge part of my practice as a humanistic astrologer is to focus on the outer planets. So it's the social and generational planets. That's Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. And this is for a lot of reasons, but one meaningful one is because they reflect collective conditions. That doesn't mean they're not personal to you. It means what's personal to you is also a product of your generation. It is also a product of the time you are living in. It is also a product of where you come from, when you come from.

For me, that's really beautiful, and it's reassuring because it connects us through our fucking humanity. You know, I say through our humanity, but it's not exclusive to humans. Life is connected to life is connected to life is connected to life. And that is a truth that I believe in. And you don't have to believe in it. You don't have to resonate with it. But for me, it is inspiring. And sometimes it's weighty and hard and heavy, but we're in this together.

And so finding ways to care for each other and show up for each other is really important, and not exclusively to the climate crisis, obvi. I mean, we're also living through an airborne pandemic. And I know a lot of you have thrown away your masks and are not particularly concerned about it anymore, but we are living through a meaningful spike. COVID is a mass-disabling event. You can have a COVID case; you can have three COVID cases, and they're not terribly eventful for you, but that doesn't mean you're not risking contracting long COVID. It doesn't mean that there aren't going to be long-term effects because it's not a cold. It affects your brain. It's not a cold.

And I think part of what our collective experience of living through COVID is really requiring us to do, amongst a bazillion other things, is to not just look at the immediate short-term symptoms that we experience but to have a more nuanced and long-term perspective on the effects that something like COVID can have on our individual bodies or on our communities, not just now, but over time. And this takes a level of consideration that absolutely requires empathy⁠—empathy for yourself, empathy for others. And it's hard. These are really challenging times.

And so I hope that we can all do our best from wherever we're starting from to rise to the occasion, to rise to the challenges, and to pursue our own wellness and our own welfare, not at the expense of that of others, but in a way that is intertwined and interwoven with the wellness needs of others. It doesn't have to all happen at once, but that's kind of the direction we need to be pointing ourselves, I believe. And I believe that as a person with a whole lot of opinions, but I also believe it as an astrologer who sees what's coming. Toxic individualism will be the fucking end of us if we allow it to be. Love it or leave it. I leave it to you.

Okay. Let's get into this week's horoscope. We start off on the 22nd of August with a Venus square to Jupiter. This transit is exact at 5:16 a.m. Pacific Time, and the transit is occurring at 15 degrees and 18 minutes of Leo. So that's Venus, Venus Retrograde. Venus Retrograde is squaring Jupiter at 15 degrees and 18 minutes of Taurus. This transit is, honestly, lovely. It's a transit that, generally speaking⁠—when I see it, I'm like, "Yay. That's good," because Venus and Jupiter are both pretty chill, which is to say they enjoy chill. They are two planets that are about indulgence and connection and play. And when they form a kind challenging square to each other, what happens is we really just want to relax. We really want to have a nice time.

This can intensify our drive to be indulgent, to eat all the delightful, rich foods, to do all the shopping, to basically not get a whole lot of work done. It's not a hardworking transit. But it is a great transit for leaning into love and letting people know how you feel about them, putting on music in your bedroom and just really letting go. This transit is not great for restraint. So, if you're trying to quit a habit or you're trying to save your dollars⁠, which⁠—saving your money is not a bad idea during a Venus Retrograde, as we are⁠—then this transit can actually really make that challenging. That's really the worst of this transit, is that it makes it hard to be moderate because Jupiter is like, "Give me more, more, more," basically.

So this is, in general, a lovely transit. But here's the damn rub. On the 22nd, we have another transit that is exact, and it is a Mars opposition to Neptune. This will be exact at 1:34 p.m. Pacific Time, and it's happening at exactly 27 degrees. So Mars is at 27 of Virgo, and we have Neptune at exactly 27 degrees of Pisces. And this transit⁠—we have been feeling it building for, I think, just over a week now. So you are going to recognize these energies, probably, when I describe them to you.

Mars opposite Neptune makes us feel exhausted. It makes us feel demoralized. It creates messes because Mars is the planet that's like, "I'm going to get out there. I'm going to get things done. I'm going to mobilize. I'm going to get my needs met." And Neptune is the great neutralizer. It's all about creating fog and confusion and uncertainty in the presence of strong ego drives. And so, when these two planets are opposite each other, we can feel easily discouraged. We can feel crappy about ourselves. We can feel easily demoralized. We can feel just really off and exhausted.

This is a messy transit. And to have this Mars opposition to Neptune happening at the exact same time as a Venus square to Jupiter⁠—it kind of accentuates that hedonistic, unmotivated thing that Venus/Jupiter brings us, which is typically absolutely lovely, but it kind of puts a rough twist on it because Mars opposite Neptune is a transit that makes us feel badly about ourselves a lot of times or puts us in situations where⁠—let's say you have a presentation at work, and it's not the biggest deal in the world, but everybody's energy is off, and so they're acting weird. You're not getting good reinforcement, and now you feel really fucked up about yourself and maybe your position in your company or something. It's those kinds of circumstances.

So, when we are dealing with a Mars opposition to Neptune, we can kind of get into a paranoid state of mind. This is not because the transit has anything to do with your mind, technically speaking. It doesn't. What happens when we feel demoralized and confused and exhausted and like we can't move the needle, can't get things going⁠—when all of that happens, what can occur is you start to get paranoid. You start jumping around, trying to figure out, "What's wrong? What did I do? What did they do? What does it mean?" instead of what the transit wants us to do, which is return to the body.

Mars is the body. And when we're dealing with Martian or Marsy energies, what we're dealing with is the need to be embodied. And Neptune is making that very fucking uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. So it's hard to feel comfortable in your body. Let's say you're like, "Okay. I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling exhausted. I'm feeling off. I'm going to really just practice being in my body." What you're likely to feel is fucking uncomfortable.

And what this transit is kind of an opportunity to cultivate skills in doing is to be able to be present in our bodies with uncertainty and discomfort. And⁠—I don't know⁠—it sucks. I don't like doing that. Do you? It sucks. It's not comfortable. And so what happens for a lot of people is, under this transit, you can, like I said, either fall into paranoia, victimhood-style thinking and feeling, or just feel really like you cannot focus. Neptune governs fog.

And so this is a challenging transit. It's a really challenging transit. It is important that you do not try to convince yourself or anyone else⁠—and that you don't believe anyone who tries to sell you this⁠—that everything is your fault or nothing is your fault, okay? Because this transit can incline us to being fatalistic and idealistic. I mean, what is fatalism if not idealism turns towards the negative, right? So, when we have complex and nuanced emotions, complex and nuanced relationships and situations, it is rare that the reasons for them and the explanations for them and the solutions to them are simple, straightforward, and basically like a two-step situation. Usually, nuanced and complex problems have nuanced and complex solutions.

Do your best to be intentional about staying present with whatever it is you're experiencing without needing to prove or defend any of it. You don't need to do either. You don't need to prove. You don't need to defend. Sometimes we just feel like shit. Sometimes things just don't click. Sometimes we cannot advance in the ways we want.

As you could imagine, this is a terrible time for processing with people. Try not to pick fights, because they will not go the way you want them to. And if you're feeling really victimized, take a moment. Wait for this transit to pass before you announce it or proactively deal with it with other people, just to make sure. Now, of course, if you're in an extreme situation, ignore what I'm saying. But if in general that's how you feel, be careful.

I imagine that people will act really terrible online because a thing that humans do is when we feel bad, what we do is we try to make other people feel bad or we try to direct those bad feelings at something or someone as a way to kind of off-gas our shitty feelings. So my advice to you is don't be a troll. Even if you think that you're doing the Lord's work/shitting on someone or complaining about something online is some sort of activism, eh, it's not. Comment section is not activism.

This is a good time to try to pull in your energy, to kind of sit with your energy, even if it sucks, maybe even especially if it sucks. I said this before and I'll say it again: I think challenging transits between Mars and Neptune are some of the hardest because they're such different energies. They're the most different energies from any of the planets in the zodiac. Mars wants to be recognized, fulfilled, validated. It's the damn ego. And Neptune is all about interconnection. These are challenging energies.

Now, the last thing I'm going to say about this specific transit is that Mars, the man symbol, can be related to the behavior of men. So we're not as much looking at patriarchy. To that, we look more to Saturn because it's a system, and that's a generational planet. We're looking at Mars. We're looking at men. And it's not that simple; it's male types, but okay. And Neptune can be extreme religiosity. It can be cults. It's having belief systems that we are devotional to.

We may see behaviors out of men or protecting maleness⁠—I'm putting a lot of air quotes on this. I don't know if you can feel me. But we may see religiously motivated actions in public from men trying to protect their own egos, drives, and interests. And this would be part of a larger trend that we know is happening globally to kind of protect the dominance of men in society. And so we want to be on the lookout for that and be interested in what's happening in the world because the more aware we are of what's happening in the world, the better equipped we are to deal with it and fight it when necessary. And it is so often necessary.

Now, my dears, that brings us to the 23rd. And on the 23rd, the Sun moves into Virgo. Okay. Cool. It moves into Virgo at 2:00 a.m. But the big news is that Mercury goes Retrograde. Mercury goes Retrograde? Yes. Mercury goes Retrograde. Also, if you were curious, Venus is still Retrograde. So we have Mercury going Retrograde at 12:59 p.m. Pacific Time, and it retrogrades at 21 degrees of Virgo and 51 minutes. So this is where the minutes are real important, see, because it's right at the end of that 21st degree.

So let's talk about this damn Retrograde. So listen. This Mercury Retrograde is going to be a hot mess. We want to pay extra special attention to it up until the 3rd of September because that's the day that Venus goes direct. So, between August 23rd and the 3rd of September, we have both Mercury and Venus Retrograde, which is a lot. It's a lot of Retrograde motion, a lot of Retrograde action. Do you need to be scared of this? Absolutely, 100 percent no. Mercury Retrograde is not a transit to fear. Is it a transit to maybe not look forward to? Yes. It's annoying. But I will let you know, should there ever be a Mercury Retrograde to fear, this is not it.

Mercury Retrograde happens cyclically. It happens a few times a year every year, and it happens for excellent reason. It's so that we stop what we're doing; we interrupt our thinking, our attitudes, our beliefs, and how we're communicating with people, who we're communicating with, and it has us reflecting on it. It has us turning within so that we're not always barreling forward; we are at times taking a moment to rest. Right? Rule of re's. We're resting to reflect so that we can refine our attitudes and beliefs, so that we can recalibrate our relationships or our communication style⁠—whatever it is. It's a pain in the ass.

Mercury Retrograde is super annoying because generally what happens during a Retrograde is technology goes sideways on you. It doesn't work. Miscommunications happen all the time. It's annoying. But how you respond to annoyance is a reflection of you, and it's an important reflection on you. And Mercury Retrograde helps you to know the difference between your theoretical coping skills and your actual coping skills. So there's value to it.

I don't want to blow your mind. I'm a Capricorn⁠—Sun, Moon, Rising all in Capricorn. I'm a very Capricorn Capricorn. We have the reputation of being the most practical, common-sensey signs in the zodiac. Right. Okay. Well, I am breaking with that stereotype by announcing to you that I am teaching a class on Mercury Retrograde during this Mercury Retrograde/Venus Retrograde time. It's going to be on the 29th of August at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. So you can sign up, and if you can't make it live, that's sad, but also, you'll get the replay in your inbox, no problem. It's just like, what could possibly go wrong? Right? Please expect technical difficulties. Please expect confusion and problems. It's a damn Mercury Retrograde.

But I really felt like this Mercury Retrograde is an important one, and I wanted to create a resource to dive a little deeper into the Mercury Retrograde and give you tools for coping with it and making the most of it because, again, it's a messy one. So you can register for my class. The link is in show notes. It's on my website, ghostofapodcast.com. I really hope you'll join me there. It'll be fun. I'm calling it a Mercury Retrograde party because, again, I just feel like we don't need to think of this as doom and gloom. It is not doom and gloom. It's annoying, and there is a big difference. And I think, again, we want to have a nuanced understanding of our own lived experience and also astrology while we're at it.

Okay. So back to the chart. This Mercury Retrograde, Mercury is at 22 degrees. We're rounding up to 22 degrees of Virgo. And that means it's conjunct Mars at 27 degrees of Virgo, and that makes this a super extra annoying Retrograde. Mercury conjunction to Mars is all about being irritated and agitated. And fucking Neptune is opposite Mercury and Mars. Neptune opposite Mercury⁠—I just told you about opposite Mars, what that means. But Neptune opposite Mercury confuses our thinking. It makes things really just uncertain and unclear.

And listen. We have this Mercury in Virgo. Mercury functions really well in Virgo. It really helps us to be mindful. It helps us to be discerning. It helps us to work through the details. But it's opposite freaking Neptune. And so that inclines us to miss details, to be easily confused, to communicate things in weird ways. It's not a great situation. I think that a lot of us have started to feel really flustered as this Mercury Retrograde has been mounting, and everyone responds to that feeling really differently.

This Neptune opposition to the Mercury/Mars conjunction is the most important part of this chart. It tells us that things are going to be confusing and overwhelming. And so all those rules that we like to practice during a Mercury Retrograde⁠—don't sign contracts. If you're going to travel, maybe don't check your bag. And if you're going to check your bag, maybe put not just one but four tags with your address on it.

If your life requires you, like most people's, to communicate and to sign contracts or to make agreements or to make plans, then triple-check your work. Quadruple-check your work. And if other people make mistakes, don't be so hard on them. It's going to be hard because Mercury conjunction to Mars means everyone's irritated. Everyone's agitated. Everyone's restless, you and everyone.

And so the risk with this Mercury Retrograde is that we find ourselves feeling paranoid or demoralized, insecure, discombobulated. You may need extra sleep, and certainly, this Retrograde, I encourage you to lean on this particular re, the re called rest. We need rest. There's a lot happening. We need rest. We need to care for our systems, our minds⁠—Mercury⁠—and our bodies⁠—Mars.

Now, Mercury and Mars being in Virgo is related to health and hygiene. And again, we happen to be living through an airborne pandemic that doesn't just affect our bodies, but also, there's a risk of it affecting our minds and long-term effects. So it's really important, like really important, this Mercury Retrograde, as COVID is spiking in many regions, that we don't panic. We don't want to panic. Neptune can make us panicky. There's no need to panic. We know what to do. Masks. Something equal to an N-95 mask is ideal. That gives you and others the greatest protection. But masking in any way is better than masking in no way. And so I want to encourage you to protect yourself but also protect others with your behavior. Mercury in Virgo⁠—health and hygiene. What are you going to do?

So this Mercury Retrograde may be a time where your own self-care, health care, work, and habit routines come up for you in a meaningful way. And you want to keep in mind that we're supposed to be reflecting and reassessing. You're not supposed to be perfect. You're not supposed to have it all figured out. You're supposed to ask questions. As you ask questions, you may be like, "Oh shit. I'm coming up with an answer that's different than the one I had before. I'm coming up with an answer that negates some belief or habit or whatever that I've had before." Change your mind. Change your damn mind. If we are not willing to change our minds as we experience and live new things, then life gets really hard and really stuck.

Now, that's not all that's happening in this chart. We also have a square between Venus and Jupiter. I've already talked to you about it. You already know it's happening. This square⁠—it's not a great helper, unfortunately. Again, this is where astrology is not just about the individual pieces. We have to read it in context. On its own, Venus square Jupiter⁠—glorious. Lovely. But in the context of this confusing, overwhelming Neptune influence to the Mercury Retrograde and the fact that Venus is Retrograde as well, it can make us feel that if it's not easy and if it is not pleasant, then it is tragedy. Just because something is dramatic does not mean it's traumatic. Just because something feels bad doesn't mean it is bad.

Now, luckily⁠—and I'm using the word "luckily"⁠—you'll let me know if you think I should be using the word "luckily" in this context. But luckily, we have a Saturn/Sun opposition in this chart as well. That transit won't be exact for a few days. I'll get there in a minute. But the Sun opposition to Saturn is a boner killer. We know that Saturn travels around with a fanny pack full of little tools to murder boners. Boop, boop, boop. That's what we know. But it's not the only thing that Saturn does. What Saturn does is it helps us to mature, to take responsibility, to have humility. It helps us sustain our interests and efforts.

So, when the Sun is opposite Saturn, it makes us feel demoralized, unfortunately. It can bring up circumstances where we do have to rise to the occasion and we do have to apply wisdom and we do have to take responsibility. And again, that is a boner killer. But in the context of this Neptunian and Venusian, messy Retrograde energies, this can actually help to ground us in to the reality that we're living in. Saturn is in Pisces. The Sun is in Virgo. So we have the tools and the support to get a little more real, not in an easy way, unfortunately, but to get a little more real and to become more efficient and conservative with our energies.

Again, we want to keep in mind, because this is a lot of Virgo energy, what it kind of calls into our awareness is our day-to-day mundane habits, which includes brushing your teeth, whether or not you smoke a bowl the second you get home from work, what you do at work, how you engage with work, how you do or don't eat or drink water. It's the basics. It's the things you do repetitively every day. This Mercury Retrograde is meant to have us really questioning those things. It may destabilize those things.

And because of Saturn in Pisces opposing the Sun, it may be that a person, a Saturnian figure⁠— so somebody you feel has power over you or who has some sort of paternal role in your life⁠—a person or a situation you may feel may be forcing your hand to change, or you may be the Saturn in a situation dealing with people or situations that you feel like this aren't behaving the way they're "supposed to."

What we want to do is avoid being punishing or lashing out. Saturn is punishing. Mercury/Mars conjunction⁠—that shit lashes out. We want to avoid that and instead do our best to be intentional as we reflect and to⁠—again, I can't repeat this enough⁠—prioritize rest. Prioritize rest, not disassociation. Neptune will definitely encourage us to do that. But rest, reflection.

So I'm going to get into this and give actionables and way more details in my Mercury Retrograde class happening on August 29th. We will definitely touch on what to make of the Mercury and Venus Retrograde smashup overlap 2023. It's all happening at Mercury Gatorade: A Mercury Retrograde Party, with me.

So the last thing I should say⁠—which should have been the first thing I said, but⁠ Mercury is Retrograde⁠—is this Mercury Retrograde will last until September 15th. So that means, from September 4th until the 15th, it's just Mercury Retrograde, no Venus Retrograde. And Mercury will remain Retrograde in the zodiac sign of Virgo the whole damn time, okay? The whole damn time.

And that brings us to the final-ish⁠—well, there's kind of 1.5 transits more that I'm going to tell you about. The next one is exact on the 24th, and it is a Mars trine to Pluto. Now, this transit that I'm about to tell you about⁠—we're also feeling it in the context of Mercury Retrograde, but I'm going to just give you focus right here, right now. Mars trine to Pluto⁠—this transit is fortifying. Finally, some energy we can really work with.

Mars is about, again, your body, and Pluto is transformation. It's a huge amount of powerful energy that can be used in any way. Powerful doesn't mean bad, and it doesn't mean good. It's just energy that needs to be used intentionally. So having a Mars trine to Pluto is exactly what we want with all this smooshy, mushy, kind of hard-to-pin-down, kind of hazy, lazy energy, because Mars trine Pluto empowers us to motivate our actions in a way that is deeply felt. So Pluto is really helpful for research, and the reason why it's helpful for research is because it likes to go deep, and it likes to go deep and long.

And so Mars trine to Pluto can help us be really intentional about where we put our energies. This transit will help us to stay in the body even when things feel funky. If there are things that you need to do, especially around advancing yourself, this transit is really helpful. Now, keep in mind everything I just talked about we're still feeling. So you want to hold this in context. This Mars trine to Pluto is not going to be as powerful, necessarily, as other times that these two planets form a trine to each other simply because of this Retrograde mishigas. But it is still a really useful transit that we want to tap into.

Mars trine Pluto is good for your sex life. Solo? That's cool. Partnered? That's cool. Groups? Get it if you can. So, whatever it is that you do under a Mars trine to Pluto, it's likely to be super fun. Of course, you want to be safe, obviously. But this can be a really fun transit for accessing your body and your passions in a delightful way or in an intense way, more specifically, if I'm being honest.

Mars trine to Pluto generally will intensify our passions. And so you can apply that to your journaling practice. You can apply that to your work life. You can apply that to your self-care behaviors. You can apply it wherever you like. Where you're most likely to apply it is wherever you find late degrees of Virgo or Capricorn because Mars is at 28 degrees of Virgo and 23 minutes, and Pluto is that 28 degrees of Cap. So wherever that falls in your birth chart is the parts of your life that are going to be activated by this chart.

There's only one last thing for me to talk about, which is a transit that I mentioned in the context of the Mercury Retrograde. We have a Sun/Saturn opposition that will be exact on the 27th. So I'm going to talk about it at the top of next week's horoscope episode. But we're going to be feeling that transit of Sun opposite Saturn, which is exact on the 27th⁠—we're going to be feeling it on the 26th.

And so, on the 26th, we can expect some pretty heavy-feeling energies. And Sun opposite Saturn can make us feel depressive. It can put us in a situation where we're just frustrated with somebody because we feel like they're trying to limit us or they're getting in the way of our wants and desires, or we could be that person to someone else. Because it's an opposition⁠, whenever we're dealing with oppositions, the transit tends to be projected out, so experienced in a relational way⁠—me against you, us against them, that kind of thing.

So I'll get into it a lot more on the 27th, next week's horoscope episode. But I wanted to give you that heads-up because you're going to be feeling it on the 26th. And because those energies are challenging, it's nice to have a heads-up. You don't need to worry about in advance, but you want to put supports in place. If you're like, "Oh, I have to hang out with that friend who always makes me feel kind of bad about myself," don't do it the weekend of the 26th. Reschedule. If you can't do it, reschedule.

My loves, that's it. That's your horoscope. I feel like it was a lot, but kind of everything feels like a lot these days. I guess that's just kind of how it is. That's the times we're living in. I hope you are able to be gentle with yourself, forgiving when needed, you're able to tap into challenging emotions, and find ways of just experiencing them. You don't have to act on them. You don't have to fix them. You don't need to pathologize them, judge them, defend them. Sometimes you just need to feel your feelings.

I hope you can make space for that. And if you have people in your life who are doing that and then not acting the way you expect them to or you prefer they were, try to make space for others to be doing that because the path to joy includes experiencing grief. The path to wisdom includes experiencing pain. Let us not be perfectionistic or idealistic in regards to what we demand of ourselves or others, but instead make space for all of it, the messiness of it, because that's life. And life is a gift, and it's precious. Leaning into the realness of it, the messiness of it⁠—that's what we're here to do.

All right, my loves. Take really good care of yourself and others, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days.