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 looking at the astrology of January 7th through the 13th of 2024, and there is a lot to talk about. So let's just dive right in. The week begins with the first exact transit on the 8th, and that's a Mercury square to Neptune. This transit is exact at 5:24 p.m. Pacific Time, and it's happening with Mercury at 25 degrees and 13 minutes of Sadge and Neptune at the same degrees and minutes of Pisces.

Now, this transit may spark your memory. It was very recently that we went through it because Mercury was Retrograde, and now it's direct. So, on December 26th, we had a Full Moon and an exact square between the same two planets. And here we are again. So, first and foremost, I want to encourage you to think back a minute what was going on around the 26th of December⁠—so not just that date, but around that date. We have an ongoing stimulation to those same themes.

So one of the things that's really valuable for you to pay attention to is not just like, okay, maybe on the 26th, you had a fight with your sibling or you felt really sad and awkward with a particular friend or with your date or whatever. So it may be that those exact relationships are continuing to unfold in their struggle. But it's also just as possible that you're going to experience those same themes and psychological and spiritual struggles in different relationships and different contexts.

And this is where, whenever we have a transit give us a second or a third hit⁠—because sometimes transits will give us more than one exact hit⁠—whenever that occurs, we have the opportunity to see what's ours in a situation, to see what is your theme. And that doesn't mean that other people aren't responsible and that you bring things on yourself if you're having a hard time. But it is valuable to know that the themes that play out in your life are your themes, and you have a responsibility to yourself to engage with those themes in ways that reflect who you want to be.

Okay. To the specifics, Mercury square Neptune is an anxiety-producing transit, unfortunately. Mercury is your mind, and Neptune is the unknown, the unknowable. When these two planets form a challenging aspect like a square, we tend to experience mental anxiety. We tend to experience kind of disassociated thoughts, especially if that's something that you tend to struggle with. This can be a time where we become so overwhelmed by what we don't know and what's out of our control that we have a lot of anxiety around that.

Now, another thing that's really common under this transit is feeling fucking exhausted, and that's because what Neptune tends to do is to drain our physical vitality. And it does that so that we refer back to more of our spiritual vitality, which on paper actually sounds kind of cool, but in practice can make us feel demoralized, lacking in hope, really kind of confused and confuddled⁠—not great. And on top of it, Mercury not only governs our mind, but it's how we listen, what we hear. It's what we say, how we say it. It's communications in general⁠—how we receive them, how we put them out, how they're received by others. And this tends to be soupy and messy under a square to Neptune, unfortunately.

So what you can do is a number of things. The first is, if you've got to communicate about something important, be clear. Don't be shy. Be clear. Do your best to sharpen the tool of your communications. Listen well. And if you're even a tiny bit concerned that you haven't fully understood, ask a person to clarify or tell a person, "Hey, I understood you said x, y, and z. Am I getting that right?"

This can be a time where we are misled or misunderstand things. It can just as easily be a time where we mislead others, intentionally or unintentionally. From this perspective, we want to keep in mind that any breaking news on and around this date should be regarded with a hefty grain of salt. And that's because Neptune is related to confusion and can be related to propaganda, especially propaganda that comes from a fanatical motivation. We want to just be careful.

Do not waste your energy on gossip, especially malicious gossip. This transit brings up confusion. And so any kind of reporting, whether it's in your social life or it's at work or it's in the world at-large, is likely to be somewhat misinformed or heavily propagandized. So all that means is you do your due diligence. You don't jump to conclusions. You allow things to play out instead of responding to everything that breaks, especially at the first part of this week.

Another thing, because Mercury governs our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, our siblings, and our aunts and uncles⁠—it governs all manner of pal⁠—this transit can make us feel just really confused about our place in other people's lives. And this may be because people are being weird. In fact, you may be being weird. People might be acting fucking weird. And it's important not to allow that Neptunian anxiety and paranoia to grip you.

Remember this is just a funky time. It's not the worst in the world, but it's certainly not a clear or resilient-feeling time. So, if you're really worried about your place in someone else's life, ask them. If you can avoid processing now, I think that's for the best, but sometimes you can't avoid it. So be direct. Be direct. That's the best thing you can do. Neptune can be really passive-aggressive, and that's just not going to help you right now. It's just not going to help you.

Now, luckily, we have a couple very supportive transits overlapping with this. On the 9th, we have two exact transits, a Sun trine to Uranus at 19 degrees and 13 minutes of Capricorn and Taurus⁠—so the Sun is in Cap, and Uranus is in Taurus. That one will be exact at 4:07 p.m. Pacific Time. And then, later in the day, at 6:40 p.m. Pacific Time, we have a Mars sextile to Neptune. So Mars is also in Capricorn, and it's sextile to Saturn in Pisces. This is happening at 4 degrees and 6 minutes.

So, luckily, these two transits are stabilizing, grounding, and invigorating. The Sun trine to Uranus strengthens our resiliency, our sense of self, which makes it easier to cope with the ambiguity and anxiety that Neptune/Mercury square is going to provoke. It makes it easier to kind of remember who the fuck you are, even when you're in a demoralizing situation, which Mercury/Neptune may provoke. The other thing is that this transit, the Sun trine to Uranus, helps us to try new things, to shift our perspective. And so you really want to pay attention to where this Sun trine to Uranus is landing in your birth chart. The Sun and Uranus will both be at 19 degrees of those earth signs.

Now, the Mars sextile to Saturn is very stabilizing. It helps us to act in ways that reflect a groundedness and a self-possession, which is great because, again, Mercury/Neptune⁠—not so self-possessed. But Mars sextile to Saturn⁠—that empowers us to understand what it is we want to get done and to approach it in a sustainable way⁠—very fucking valuable. It also helps us to not feel like a balloon with too long of a string, just not properly tethered to this earthly plane. Now, I know some people love not being especially tethered to this earthly plane, but the Mercury square to Neptune brings out the worst of that feeling, to be honest.

So this is a really great couple of transits to have overlapping with that Mercury/Neptune square. Now, we're going to be feeling that transit, the Mercury square to Neptune, until about the 15th, to be honest. So it's going to drag out. Of course, every day, it's a little weaker. But we are going to be feeling it, certainly, throughout this week and at the very start of next week.

Now, that said, we've got some headline news on the 11th of January, and that is a New Moon in Capricorn, the first New Moon of the new year. We've got the Sun and Moon meeting at 20 degrees of Capricorn at 44 minutes. That will be exact at 3:57 a.m. Pacific Time. On the same day, we have a Venus trine to Chiron. Now, this is not a podcast where I do a whole lot of talking about myself, but I will say this is my birthday, January 11th. I'm entering into my 50th year on this planet, my 49th birthday. So, if you are in a generous frame of mind, if you've gotten value from my work, especially from this podcast, and you want to reach out and write a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, I would receive that as a birthday prezzy. Not that I'm asking for presents, because I am a Capricorn, but if you were in the market.

And I will say one other thing, which is I do this thing. It's kind of an astrology cheat. But I cast a Solar Return chart, and I use it to determine where in the world I should go. And so, this year, I'm going to be out in the world. I'm traveling to a place I really would never have picked, but the Solar Return chart pointed me towards it. So, if that's not something you've ever fucked with, it is certainly fun to do and can really help to shift and shape your life.

Anyways, let's get into this New Moon chart. New Moons are always a good time for charging your crystals. They're always a good time for setting intention, making plans, starting something new. And because we have a New Moon⁠—the Sun and Moon are both in Capricorn⁠—it's especially a good time for doing this in a pragmatic way, like for clarifying your plans, stabilizing and securing your plans, because it's fucking Capricorn, right?

This particular New Moon, we have Pluto not conjoined⁠—it's a whole nine degrees away from the Sun and Moon, but kind of close enough that I think it deserves honorable mention. Pluto is kind of, in my view, the most heavy hitter of all the planets in the zodiac. And so, when it's that close to a New Moon, I'm going to pay attention. I think it's going to bring greater intensity and transformation to this New Moon, which can mean that we achieve greater depth within our thinking and feeling, which impacts our ability to show up, make plans, basically get deep when depth is required.

Now, Uranus is also forming a trine to the New Moon, which is excellent news because it stabilizes our ability to create progress. Uranus is progressive, literally, and it's in stabilizing Taurus⁠, earth sign Taurus. So our ability to make changes, to innovate new paths, to favor our autonomy, our agency, our ability to kind of get into our own lives and make shit happen over the tried and true⁠—that's Uranus trine to the Sun and Moon, which is really good news.

Now, unfortunately, we still have that Mercury/Neptune square. It's just two degrees off exactitude. So it does make it so that our thinking is not clear. Mercury/Neptune square is a scrambler of our thoughts, makes it hard to make decisions. It makes it hard to weigh things out. It's like, "I don't know which of my many thoughts to focus on or which of my many hot takes are the best hot takes," kind of thing. But there's so much other stabilizing energy that we can pay attention to and tap into.

Now, what we want to pay attention to because of the Mercury/Neptune square is that we may be setting intention, getting aligned, doing the inner work, but not literally signing the contract or verbally articulating the plan. That might come a little bit later. And I want to remind you, my dears, you do not need to have everything aligned all at once. Sometimes it would fucking help. Sometimes it would be ideal. But just because all the pieces are not in place at this moment doesn't mean that they're not coming together. New Moons want us to be present, emotionally present. And that is really fucking hard in general, and it's especially hard in a world that is so fucking scary sometimes. But that's the assignment.

Now, Venus forms an exact trine to Chiron in this New Moon chart. It's exact at 6:36 a.m., so a couple hours after the New Moon. But I mean, it's as exact as it needs to be. A Venus trine to Chiron is an excellent transit for showing up for old wounds around your self-worth. This transit⁠—it kind of brings up our core wounding around Venusian themes. We're talking about how we look, our relationships, our lovability, our⁠—in particular⁠—romantic lovability, and our relationship to money. And it empowers us to cultivate greater self-awareness and engagement so that we can make progress.

This doesn't inherently fix anything. But you know how it is where sometimes you think about something that is like a difficult part of your nature or your life, and you just feel demoralized by it?  And other times, you think about it, and you're like, "Okay. I'm cultivating understanding. I feel like I can cope. I feel like I see a path forward." This trine, this New Moon, empowers us to deal with old wounds in a way that points us towards progress, which in the case of Venus trine to Chiron is about self-love, self-worth, and our ability to not just love ourselves and understand our intrinsic value but to treat ourselves in a way that reflects that and to be able to then extend that same self-awareness, that same capacity for love and empathy and grace, to other people.

That doesn't mean you let all people into your life at all levels. Being able to have empathy for others doesn't mean you no longer hold them accountable, that you no longer have boundaries. We can have empathy and love and boundaries at the same time. You don't have to be mad at someone. You don't have to hate them. You don't have to dehumanize them in order to have firm and strong boundaries with them. This Venus trine to Chiron teaches us that we don't need to punish ourselves or others in order to maintain self-loving boundaries that reflect our self-worth. It's a powerful lesson, right?

Now, one other thing that's really important for me to name about this New Moon is that Chiron⁠—that Chiron/North Node conjunction that we're all going through⁠—Chiron is squaring the Sun and Moon. So, speaking of wounding, yeah, this New Moon is going to put us in direct contact with our core wounding around embodiment, being in your body. And this could be literally about being in your body, dealing with health issues, or it may be more in the context of trying to navigate through your sense of agency, your sense of autonomy, that core part of you that believes that you can direct your life from your center, from a sense of alignment, forward. And that's, again, really tricky. It's really hard stuff.

Again, we may be feeling the effects of emotional wounding during this New Moon. We're talking about core emotional wounding. So, as I said earlier, you want to be paying attention not just to the specifics of what you're going through but the patterns that are up and what they reflect to you about you, because the truth of the matter is we have agency. We always have a choice. We do not always have good choices. We do not always have the choices we wish we had. But we always have choices.

And this is one of the lessons of Chiron in Aries. It's how do we leverage our agency? How do we choose to embody what is in alignment for us? Or how do we abscond responsibility for that? And that's when you deal with the more toxic traits of Aries, which is egoism, selfishness, and impatience that leads to bullying of the self or others. So these are things for us to pay attention to.

Chiron, similar to Pluto, is never easy, exactly. But it can be incredibly helpful and instructive for healing. Whether we're dealing with our own psyche and psychology, whether we're dealing with our own trauma, or we're dealing with how to function in a healthy way in unhealthy systems that we live in, or how to show up for really painful things that are happening in the world⁠—whatever it is, this New Moon is going to help to point out what is in alignment and what isn't in alignment. It's going to help us to ground our energies in dynamic ways so that we can set intentions for how we're going to engage with our lives, the world, our psyches, from here forward.

I'm not a New Year's Eve person myself. I don't feel like the middle of the winter is a great time to call it a new start. To me, that's the spring, but whatever. You do you. But I will say, if you're a New Year person, this New Moon is a great time to set intentions for your, quote unquote, "new you." You know what I mean? Because again, New Moons are all about⁠—they're all about setting intentions. So this is a powerful moment to leverage, however you choose to engage with it.

Now, the very last thing I'm going to tell you about this New Moon is that it includes within it a Mars/Jupiter trine. It will be exact on the 12th, but it's very close here on the 11th. And a Mars trine to Jupiter is a beautiful transit. It brings about resiliency and strength. It can empower us to be more optimistic and, again, more resilient. And this resiliency⁠—psychological, physical, and spiritual resiliency⁠—can help us to actually make use of the more challenging parts of this New Moon.

So I want to talk about the Mars trine to Jupiter kind of as a standalone transit in just a moment. But I want to say there is a lot of supportive energy in this New Moon chart. It's not super, necessarily, energy. But it's not bad in any way. It is challenging us to step into the embodiment of healing. Capricorn is a very physical sign. And when we think about Capricorn's energies, what I always return to is conservation.

So the negative side can be conservatism, which is not inherently bad, but it has its problems, obviously, especially when we think about it in a social and political way. But conservatism, the practice and the art of conserving your energy and resources for your priorities, for what's most important to you, so that you can kind of pace yourself out⁠—that is a beautiful skill to have. It's a really valuable one.

And the Mars trine to Jupiter with this New Moon in Capricorn can help us to become more self-aware and embodied around our energies and how we need to best conserve them and how we need to best use them. So very exciting. Now, as I said, the Mars trine to Jupiter is the last exact transit of the week that I'm going to tell you about. It is happening on the 12th of January, and it's exact at 2:42 a.m. Pacific Time. It's exact with Mars at 5 degrees and 51 minutes of Capricorn and Jupiter at 5 degrees and 51 minutes of Taurus.

Mars trine to Jupiter, as I said, is a really expansive, strengthening transit. And because it's in earth signs, it can really help us to invest in the material world around us. And there's lots of ways that that can happen. That can be handling shit at home or managing work stuff, working on projects. This is off season for a lot of people in a lot of parts of the world, but it's a great time for planting. A New Moon in Capricorn with Mars trine to Jupiter is a great time to plant a plant, like a literal plant.

But what this transit suggests is success, the ability to make shit happen, and to make shit happen not out of the clear, blue sky but out of your own efforts⁠—Mars. Mars trine to Jupiter is great for hooking up and flirting, going on dates, fucking, sports, going to dance parties⁠—all kinds of fun, dynamic, physical, exciting things that a person can do. It's also really good for spiritual work⁠—not spiritual work that is competitive or all about centering yourself. And, my loves, I read your questions for the podcast, which⁠—of course, if you don't know this, the way to get a reading with me on the podcast is to send me a question through the contact form of my website. But make sure to read the pro tips before you do. Just trust me.

But I know a lot of you want to be powerful. I know a lot of you really want to be a leader and to be recognized as something and someone important. And this is not inherently good or bad. It is just true. That said, transits like Mars trine to Jupiter really reveal a lot about us to ourselves because if what you really want is conquest, if what you want is dominance, if what you want is your ego to be praised and validated, then what you will center is your own drive over the service or action you perform.

So what it is that you do, when it is done well, can generate attention and impact. But a lot of times, a lot of us want the attention and the reinforcement without doing all the things that need to be done to get that reinforcement. So we want to really pay attention to this Mars trine to Jupiter because it is such a supportive transit. Pay attention to your own ego. If you find yourself competing with other people in your mind, if you find yourself in an ego drive moment, then you may want to really do some reflection on that.

But at the end of the day, this transit honestly is so good for improving yourself, making things better in your relationship to your own insides, especially if you've been dealing with burnout, which I think a lot of us have. This transit is incredibly supportive for getting back in alignment with your energy, physical and psychological. And again, this is only strengthened by the fact that this is overlapping so tightly with a New Moon.

This is a great time for reconnecting with your confidence, strengthening your sense of self, maybe getting a little playful, doing something life-affirming. It could be something stupid and cute. Could be something serious that you invest in. But this Mars trine to Jupiter⁠—it's really supportive and really wonderful. So we all have the opportunity to tap into this energy. And especially if you have any placements, any important planets or points in your birth chart that are around six degrees of a zodiac sign that are aspected by Capricorn or Taurus, then you're going to really be able to really tap into this.

So trust your instincts, especially your physical instincts, like in your gut, in your body. Trust your instincts. Be willing to take some risks. Be willing to be a little playful and to explore what's possible. This energy may need to be turned inwards, especially if you're, like I said, dealing with burnout, anxiety⁠—or it may need to be turned outwards. Maybe it's time to put yourself out there, to try new things, to literally just take a different route to the place you always go. Just change it up because a Mars trine to Jupiter is a time for a little bit of fun. And honestly, you deserve to have a little bit of fun.

I'm going to run through the transits one more time for you. But if you had a hard time keeping track for whatever reason, guess what: I always drop the transcript to the episodes within a couple days of the episode. So you can always check out the transcripts for free on my website.

Okay. On the 8th, we've got an exact square between Mercury and Neptune. On the 9th, the Sun forms an exact trine to Uranus, and Mars forms an exact sextile to Saturn. On the 11th of January, we have a New Moon in Capricorn and an exact trine between Venus and Chiron. And then, on the 12th, Mars forms an exact trine to Jupiter.

I want to thank you for joining me this week and every week for Ghost of a Podcast. If you want to learn more with me, join me over at Patreon, where I'm constantly dropping content about astrology and all manner of woo. You can also visit my website to read my weekly Sun sign horoscope. I never do that here on the podcast, but I have it in writing on my website for you week after week. That drops on Wednesdays. Just go to lovelanyadoo.com. Have a great week, and I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.