Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we're going to get all into your horoscope, but I want to talk about Venus Retrograde again. More? I want to talk about it more. I've been talking about it a lot, but I feel like it's worth talking about. One of the things that has been on my mind in the past week is the difference between personal love and impersonal love. This is a concept that was introduced to me by the astrologer Martin Schulman. It's very simple.

Personal love is I have a cat named Panda Elizabeth Henry. I love Panda Elizabeth Henry. He's a great cat. That's a personal relationship. That's personal love. But I can also tell you I love all the cats of the world. I love cats. And when I meet cats⁠—any cats, for the most part⁠—I am filled with love. I experience love. So that's more of an impersonal love. Now, in regards to human relationships, this is really important because some of us have a much easier time experiencing impersonal love and things get a lot harder for us when things get intimate between two people. And other people are much more comfortable with personal love, with their personal, intimate connections, and they're less concerned or motivated by groups of people or communities or people they haven't met and they don't know, that they're not personally connected to.

Impersonal love and personal love⁠—they're not better than each other. They're not worse than each other. They're just different levels upon which we love, and all different people are wired in such a way where we tend to be a little bit more comfortable with one form of love than the other. Part of why I've been thinking about this is because I think what a lot of people do with astrology, or with woo-woo, new-agey spiritual stuff in general, is we know that we have something that is really deeply personal to us, something that is really magical to us and has a lot of meaning. And then a person tra-la-las into our life, and they have the markers of that thing.

So maybe you have an idea about the meaning behind a person who has a specific birth date or a person who has some sort of chart placement that has a great deal of meaning to you. That person has it, too, and you start to ascribe all of this very impersonal power, this intimate power, onto that other person because they exist in the same impersonal container that you do. Truth be told, there are countless people who have the same placements in their birth chart or who have the same birthday or whatever it is. It is important that we do not attribute personal power to the people who come into our lives just because they align symbolically with something that's important to us, because when it comes to true intimacy, when it comes to our personal relationships, what we need is a back and forth and a give and take, and not just on a symbolic level.

And what I'm talking about is kind of related to, like, what is the point, even, of relationships? It's a very Venus Retrograde question. What is the literal point of our relationships? From my perspective, if we are meant to be having relationships with people, which are inevitably going to be cumbersome at some times and joyous at others⁠—right? Hopefully, they'll be joyous at some times. But usually, it's a mixed bag over the course of time in any kind of interpersonal, intimate relationship. The point is to show up.

The point is to show up and to be the healthiest, best-adjusted versions of our own individual selves to make sure that we are not just allowing our stories or our fantasies or our fears direct the way that things go between us and others, but instead that we show up with agency; we show up and we participate in whatever union we're in in ways that reflect our values and what we actually care about, and we do that in a way that is inclusive of paying attention to what other people tell us about who they are. What is that Maya Angelou quote? When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

It is very important that we really listen to what people tell us of themselves, and not just what they verbally tell us, but what they show us with their actions, and to make sure that even if we have some sort of astrology story or feeling, that we are not allowing that to supersede us being loyal to ourselves, our own values, our own needs, and our own safety, self-worth, self-love⁠. These are all Venusian themes.

It's not realistic to expect love and intimacy and connection in life but not grief and loneliness. If you think of it this way, love and intimacy and connection is a bright light, and the shadow that is cast by that bright light is loneliness and grief. They're interwoven. They're connected. Light casts a shadow. That's how it is. And so the deeper the love, the deeper the grief. And this doesn't necessarily mean the more you loved a person. It means the deeper your capacity for experiencing love.

When we're having intimate relationships, any kind of intimate relationship, we are not only experiencing others, but we're also experiencing ourselves. It's easy to have a theory of, "Oh, this is how I would act in this situation." But then how many of us have gotten into situations with friends, with coworkers, with family members, with lovers, where we do not behave the way we had planned or the way we thought we would behave? And that's because we are wild organisms. We are. We have so many parts that are competing for attention, and what tends to win is our strongest impulses unless we're real intentional and careful. And even then, even if you're super intentional and careful, our strongest feelings tend to direct our actual behavior at the end of the day.

And this is part of why Venus Retrograde is a blessing, because it's a time where our circumstances really push us towards looking within, to reconnecting with our actual values, with our self-worth, with our passions. In particular, this Venus Retrograde in Leo is related to our passions. No matter how well you know yourself, change is inevitable. Your circumstances will change you. Life will change you. You will change, and the same thing is true for other people. And the key here is to not seek to avoid problems or even pain and loss. That's a fool's game.

And in particular, I think it's a way that most people use astrology. We look at somebody's chart or we look at our own chart and we think, "How can I get away from the pain that I fear is coming for me? How can I avoid problems?" And that just is not realistic. Problems and pain are parts of life. I know I sound like a Capricorn because I'm a fucking Capricorn, but trust me. I mean, really, as a person who has been a consulting astrologer since the mid-1990s to thousands of people, I can tell you the happiest amongst us, the most miserable amongst us⁠—all of us⁠—have problems. That's part of being a person.

The key is not to try to avoid problems and pain. It's instead to use our agency, whatever self-help skills we are cultivating, and astrology specifically, to help us cope with problems, to help us identify, "Oh shit. I'm struggling in this way," and to not just scramble to figure out why or what it means or what the other person is thinking/feeling/doing, not thinking/feeling/doing, but instead to focus on, "What is activated within me? What are my patterns here? What do I want to use my agency to do? And what can I acknowledge that I think would be the best thing to do and I'm just not able to do it? And can I have empathy and grace and kindness towards myself and the ways in which I may be faltering or struggling just not there yet?"

This is very hard. I think it's exceptionally challenging for all of us sometimes. But that's what it means to be a human, which is a really social assignment, this assignment of being a human person, eh? If we can instead of fixating on what other people are doing or not doing or thinking or feeling or not thinking or feeling, that's where our liberation lives. And I'm talking about our liberation within the ecosystem of our own internal universe. That is interwoven and interconnected with the universe of those you collide into over the course of life.

And so, whether you're seeking joy and happiness and play or you're seeking survival and stability and the ability to cope, or all of it, an important key is to remember to not abandon yourself in the process, to not lose track of your own values and your own relationship to self-worth and self-love and how you are willing or able to experience and express and exchange that with others.

And finally, I'll say a life of ease with no struggle is fucking boring, and it's worse than boring. What it does is it leads us to a rut. When we look at astrology, what we see is that it is a series of cycles and that within these series of cycles, we are meant to struggle. We are meant to evolve. We are meant to have our chrysalis moments from cocoon to butterfly, our phoenix moments⁠—from the flames we must rise. This is part of the human experience.

And so, if you are there, wherever you are in your process, show yourself a little grace. And if you're dealing with somebody in your life who is not giving you what you want but isn't treating you like shit⁠—so I'm not encouraging you to ever eat shit, but who's maybe just not where you want them to be, try to show them a little grace because we are meant to evolve. And when we evolve, that means there are parts of our process that involve devolving. That's just part of it. Again, all light casts a shadow. Let us not fear the shadow. Let us not demonize the shadow. Let us embrace our light, understanding fully that our shadow is connected to our light. It's in fact responsive to our light, and it is to be embraced, maybe a little cautiously, but it is to be embraced.

Now, I want to pivot a little bit, and then we'll get deep into the horoscope. But I want to pivot a little bit to talking about the Nodes, which is off topic in some ways. But the North Node moved from Taurus to Aries. It did this in mid-July, and it went from Venus-ruled Taurus to Mars-ruled Aries. I'm seeing a lot of stuff online about what it means, and I'm not going to do a very deep dive into the Nodes at this moment because you already got an earful on Venus Retrograde and relationships.

But I will say this. In astrology, the North and South Node, the Nodes, the Moon's Nodes, are not planets. They do not govern material things at all. So the fact that the North Node has moved into Aries, and maybe you're a cardinal sign person or you have a lot of cardinal sign stuff in your chart and the Nodes are going to be in some way aspecting some planet in your chart⁠—it does not mean anything on a behavioral level, on a material level, or on a personality level. It's not going to affect your finances. It's not going to break up your relationships. It's not going to do any of that shit. That's not what the Nodes do.

The Nodes are related to evolutionary processes. What this means is that they're really about the translation of our spirit into our consciousness and our willingness and ability to engage with our spirit consciously. So it is much more abstract and nuanced than a planetary shift. And while those things are exceptionally important, they are not per se material, not in regards to just something like the Nodes shifting signs.

So I hope that's helpful, and if you have questions about it, you know where to find me over at ghostofapodcast.com, where you can send me questions. And if you would like a reading with me on the podcast on the Wednesday episode, you can submit a question over at that contact form, ghostofapodcast.com, or if there's just things you want to hear more about on the podcast, just boopity-boop your little click-clack machine and type the message or send me a voice note.

Okay. All right. So, my dears, let's get into the horoscope. This week, we are looking at August 6th through the 12th of 2023. And this week starts with an exact transit between the Sun and Jupiter on the 6th. And we have the Sun at 14 degrees of Leo forming a square to Jupiter at 14 degrees of Taurus. That is exact at 5:03 p.m. This is a really great transit with some pitfalls you want to work to avoid.

The Sun in astrology is about your vitality. It's your sense of self. It's your will, and it gives you all kind of energy. It is the source of so much energy. And Jupiter is expansion. Jupiter makes things bigger, quicker. When these two forces come together, it can help to make you feel better, make you feel more resilient. It can help you to take chances, to get out of your own way, to experience resiliency and healing. It's a lovely transit in that way.

But it can also make you run at the mouth. It can have you feeling confident in such a way that you do something out of turn; you take more than is yours. Or you simply overindulge in such a way that you end up having some sort of ongoing consequence that is a pain in your butt, like you may feel unstoppable in this moment, and then you commit to something, and that something might be something you have to do over the course of a month. And then the transit passes, and you're like, "Fuck. Why did I take that on? That was too much."

If you can kind of find a little bit of grounding in this, if you can be intentional to make sure that you're considering proportion, like, "How much is enough? How much is too much? How much is not enough?"⁠—really kind of consider that, this transit is fantastic. You just don't want to overdo it. And because Jupiter is related to alcohol, also watch your drinking, especially if you're somebody who has a tendency to overdrink. This is why the goddess invented the every other, right? An alcoholic drink, a water drink. Keep that going.

But if you are able to be somewhat moderate or paced, which is neither the Sun nor Jupiter's forte, especially Jupiter, the thing about this transit is that it can really inspire us not just to be optimistic but to be hopeful, to be able to vision what is possible not just in this moment but over the course of time, which is really exciting. If you vibe with somebody today, if you have an opportunity to creatively work with somebody on any level⁠—right? Creation is a thing that happens on a lot of levels. So, if anything like that comes through, I would say run recklessly into the future, but certainly, this is the time to be interested. Jupiter really rewards us for being willing to learn. So stay open. Really stay open.

Now, the last thing I'll say about this is watch the gossiping. I know that we live in a world where everybody's just like, "We have to respond to everything online really quickly." And maybe you do; maybe you don't. You know what I mean? Because the Sun square to Jupiter can be a transit where gossip is spread or misinformation or disinformation is spread unintentionally by you or others. So, if you are truly willing to learn, some of that has to do with receiving information. It's not always about putting information out there.

Conversely, this may be a time where you really need to put yourself out there and take a stand. This has to do with your own ability and willingness to be able to be present for whatever it is that's happening so that you can assess, "Is this enough? Is this perfect? Is this just the right amount, or is it too much?" I guess this is a Goldilocks kind of transit, now that I hear myself talking about it. Maybe it is, my friends. Maybe it is.

What Jupiter has taught me, if nothing else, is that it is a planet that is here to teach us how well we know ourselves because when we allow in too much, when we bite off more than we can chew, that is a real test of character, just like holding ourselves back and not being willing to try new things and try and fail, even. Our willingness to play and to expand and grow is found with Jupiter. Within astrology, I often find that people can oversimplify the conversation of Jupiter to positivity and optimism and luck. And those things are very surface things compared to what's underneath them that we can really work with.

So Sun square Jupiter exact on the 6th.

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The next exact transit for us to talk about is a Venus Retrograde square Uranus that is happening on the 9th. And on the 9th, we also have a Mercury trine to Jupiter. Venus is at 23 degrees. It's really at 22 degrees and 55 minutes, but we're going to round that shit up. So it's at 23 degrees of Leo, and Uranus is at 23 degrees of Taurus. And we have Mercury at 14 degrees and 32 minutes of Virgo trining Jupiter at the same degrees of Taurus.

Let me actually start with the second transit, Mercury trine to Jupiter. This transit is lovely. It is absolutely lovely. It's a time where we really can learn, and we can soak up information and synthesize information. Mercury is details, and Jupiter is big picture. And when there is a nice relationship, like a trine suggests, between the details and the big picture, it's delightful. It is delightful because we can not only assess the little things, but we can make it make sense, which is cool, right?

 Mercury trine to Jupiter is a great time for making friends, connecting with people, communications in general. It's a great transit for travel, taking trips. If you happen to be traveling, yay, but also just leaving your neighborhood, walking around somewhere else, taking your bike somewhere else. This is a great transit for basically coming to agreement within yourself or with others. Not enough can be said about how important it is to have an agreement, even if it's an agreement on, like, "Okay. Our relationship is struggling, and we're going to have a conversation about what's not working. And let's agree on what's not working and what we want to do about it or not." So this transit can really help us even if we're struggling. It's not just good times. It can be used help us to work through challenging dynamics.

It is possible that some sort of good news will come your way on this date, but here's the thing. This isn't the only transit that is exact on this day. We also have the Venus square to Uranus. Now, this transit suggests that things that develop or happen, especially relationship stuff or financial stuff⁠—you can't trust it. And that doesn't mean it's a lie. It just means that when Uranus is involved, especially in a 90- or in a 180-degree angle, what we can expect is the unexpected. So, if somebody says, "For sure. Don't worry. I will be there," eh, I'm not telling you to worry. Don't worry. There's no point in that. But if they don't show up on time, don't be shocked. Try to be adaptable. Uranus does require that we are in the present and flexible because things don't go according to plan when it comes to Uranus.

This transit is a tricky one for a lot of people, and it is because Venus is all about stability and security and sensuality, and Uranus is all about the unexpected, individuation, autonomy. When these two planets are kind of in a struggle with each other, it makes Venus feel insecure. So it may be that you are in a situation where your needs and somebody else's needs or your finances and your desires around your finances are really struggling. Now, keep in mind this is all happening under the backdrop of the Venus Retrograde. So it's going to be triggering something that you need to pay attention to. So follow that rule of re's and reflect.

But the key here is to understand that we do not need to know what's going to happen in order to figure out what is right for ourselves in the moment. And what a lot of people do, especially when it comes to relationships, is we focus on the endgame instead of the present. And that gets us into trouble, especially with this transit. The key is to not act out in a nervy way. Uranus is related to our nervous system, so agitation, irritation, snapping at people⁠—it's all very possible. You may do it. Someone else may do it. And you can't control what other people do. All you can control is how you choose to respond. It's how you choose to engage. Those are the things you can really focus on, and that's where I encourage you to point your attentions.

This transit is meant to shake things up, and it's happening at this moment where Venus is already shaken up because it's Retrograde. So our relationships are meant to be evolving and changing in a material way. And the more self-awareness and presence we can bring to that the better. It's important that you don't fixate on where you want things to land, that you're honest about where you're at now, what you feel now, what you need now, what you have to offer now. And this is a huge part of what Uranus has to teach us.

It's ironic because Uranus, being related to the nervous system, is often fixated on the future. It's kind of a loner-vibe planet. But when we can be present and bring our humanity to this moment, it can be the planet that helps us get free, free from our own internalized shit, free from our own patterns that have held us back, and free in a larger sense from external circumstances and situations. And what Venus wants is security and stability. So this is challenging, but again, when we can kind of get present and get real and be open to changing and being changed, then this transit is at its highest level of engagement. That's when it's the best for us and the best to us.

Now, unsurprisingly, this is a good transit for fucking around. No, I don't mean fucking around, but I do mean fucking around. I mean experimenting, having fun, trying new things out. And so, if you are in a sexual relationship, that could mean doing new stuff in the bedroom or wherever you like to get shit done, if you know what I mean. This can mean if you are single and out there ready to mingle, that you do so, that you mingle in a way that is a little bit more⁠—I don't know⁠—wild, a little bit more open. It might just be that you're open to talking to different kinds of people or connecting with different kinds of people than you typically do or in ways that you typically do because Uranus wants us to break free from convention. And Venus actually just wants us to find happiness, to connect. So it can be a really exciting transit in our relationships.

Now, if you're an artist or a creative person at all, try something new. If there's a place that you always sit to do your writing or your painting or whatever the hell you do, do it in a different place. It could be something as small as that, or it could be try something authentically new. Try a new approach. Start a new project, something like that. Venus square to Uranus is really good for shaking up the energy and allowing you to experience and express in new ways.

Do not spontaneously buy something expensive, especially something aesthetic and expensive. So, if you find this amazing dress that you absolutely have to have, wait 72 hours, okay? Just wait. Just wait. Same thing for furniture, whatever, anything Venusian, anything pretty and aesthetic. Uranus gives us unique tastes, so your tastes may evolve in literally 72 hours. So, if you're struggling with money or if it's just a lot of money, a little bit more than you should spend, please wait or make sure you can return it if you're the kind of person who actually returns things. Try to not waste your money, see?

And that brings us to the final transit of this week, and that is exact on the 12th. And it's a Sun trine to Chiron, and I think it's right on time. The Sun will be at 19 degrees and 47 minutes of Leo, and Chiron at the same degrees⁠—19 degrees and 47 minutes⁠—of Aries. So it's a fiery trine between the Sun and Chiron. Now, this transit is an opportunity for us to really tap into self-esteem issues that we struggle with.

So Chiron and the Sun⁠—and in particular, I'll just speak to Chiron here⁠—is related to our self-esteem in a different way than Venus, in a meaningfully different way than Venus, because Chiron represents where we have really deep core wounding. It's where we struggle to even exist. That's the Chironic wounds, and I think it's part of the human condition to struggle around existence at all.

When we have something like the Sun forming a trine to Chiron, what we have the opportunity to do is to tap into our self-esteem issues with a really powerful flashlight, with a light that can really help us to navigate what is often kind of scary, intimidating, or shadowy content about ourselves and navigate it with a great deal more competence, which leads to resiliency. And this is going to be especially strong for you if you have anything in your birth chart at around 20 degrees of a cardinal sign or a fixed sign, cardinal signs being Aries, Libra, Capricorn, and Cancer, and fixed signs being Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio, and Taurus.

The Sun, again⁠—it is your vitality. It's your sense of self, and it is in your life force energy. That is what it is. And again, Chiron is related to what feels not good enough in you, what feels like the wound that just won't heal. Fucking Chiron, right? And so we have this opportunity with this transit to not only become more aware and present with our wounds but to do it in a way that empowers us to be forgiving or to change things, like to make subtle or large shift in how we relate to, hold, or feel our Chironic wounding.

I really love to see this transit at the end of this week because it feels like it is part of this bigger, larger conversation that I'm seeing within the stars that is trying to help us to move into the present moment with as much integrity and care and empathy as we are able. This feels like a really big time, and I don't know if you feel it, too, but it feels to me like a really big time. So much of self-help/self-care in astrology conversation tends to be so focused on, "I need to heal my shit." And that is true. I need to heal my shit. You need to heal yours. That is true.

But I want to kind of bring it back to the interconnectedness of astrology, the largeness of it. It's not just that you're going through this or I'm going through this. It's that we're all going through this in our own way, but we're all going through this. And there's something so powerful about remembering that our individual wellness, our internal foundations, are not just for our own success or failure, but it is the foundation upon which we can build community engagement, upon which we can feed ourselves to participate in the world in a way that makes the world better because the world needs help right now on a bazillion levels. And all we can do as an individual is our best to participate.

But when I look at the big picture of what is happening astrologically now and what we have come through over the last five years, it feels like it's preparing us to care for each other more. And for a minute there, it really felt like we were doing that. In the worst parts of the pandemic, it really did feel like so many people were prioritizing and considering the needs of others. Now, that has waned. It has sadly waned. But I can't help but see so much of what's happening for us on a personal and individual level pointing us towards creating internal foundations that will empower us to rise to the occasion, again, not just for ourselves, but for our larger communities.

As always, if you get value from the podcast, I invite you to write a review or give it a little five stars wherever you listen to your podcasts and to join me over on Patreon, where I'm going deep diving into Venus Retrograde and lots of other astrology and woo stuff. If you haven't already hit the Subscribe button, then you're missing out because I drop two episodes a week.

All right, my loves. I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.