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. I have to start this week's episode by acknowledging last week's episode, which didn't happen. And it didn't happen for the first time since I started the whole podcast. I started the show in August of 2018, and in that time, people very close to me have died. I have dealt with all kinds of personal issues, but never have I missed recording this show, because I really love doing this and also because I⁠—not to sound like the Capricorn I am, but I really believe in consistency. I believe in the container that I strive to create for you of being a consistent resource.

And so it really fucks my brain up that I missed a week. I missed a week, both episodes. So, if you were wondering why, it's because I got COVID. I got fucking COVID, and I got COVID outside. I was outside at an event. I was not wearing a mask, because I thought I was safe being outdoors. I was not. So that sucks. I started getting really sick about ten days ago, and I'm still sick. I'm still testing positive, and I'm also sick.

And so I want to say protect yourself, but also protect the people around you because other people at that event that I was at that also got COVID might not have gotten as sick as I did. I got very, very sick, and it's lingering. It was scary, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who's had a scary COVID experience. This shit is ridiculous. And it is incumbent upon all of us to mask in public spaces because otherwise it will continue to mutate. And as it mutates, we have these different strains that are more or less contagious and have crazy effects on people's bodies.

My partner and I both had COVID. We both got it at the same place in the same moment. And the severity of our symptoms was identical, but our symptoms themselves were radically different. This shit is not a cold, and it is really sad to me how careless people are. So, if you're not masking in public spaces, then you're probably not going to just because of anything I say. But I can't stop saying it, because to be a truly humanistic person and to not center in your behavior disability rights, to not center in your behavior care for the people around you, then what are you doing, I say? You can't do everything, obviously. You can't do everything. But wearing a mask, as annoying as it is, is really not a big deal, and it has really big consequences.

So, that said, if you were wondering where I was, that's where I was. And just so you know, I put up a public post on my Patreon letting folks know where I was at. So, if ever you're like, "Oh shit. What's going on with Jessica?" I probably put a public post on my Patreon.

Another, more fun, announcement is if you missed my fireside chat on uncertainty, which⁠—by the way, if you joined me for that fireside chat on uncertainty, thank you. That was really magical. It was such a powerful talk. People asked amazing questions, and I got to answer a bunch of questions, which I love getting to do. So, if you wanted to tune in to that conversation, it's available for purchase on my website on the Shop page over at lovelanyadoo.com. So you can get it there, and it's a goodie, I'll tell you. It's a goodie.

Now, another fun announcement, I will be speaking at the fourth annual Witches Confluence on November 2nd. I am so excited about this. This year's theme is spiritual activism, which is right up my alley. There's going to be lots of workshops, some of which will be virtual and online, before the 2nd of November. But then, on the 2nd of November, live and in person⁠—and it is a fully masked event, thank you very much, so it's a safe place to go because there will be two-way masking. On the 2nd, there's going to be a full-day symposium. There will be workshops on protection magic, for activists, anti-racism, and Tarot, collective spell-casting, and so much more.

And I'm going to be giving a talk on the importance of energetic boundaries, especially in these increasingly chaotic times. This is a witchy gathering I invite you to I hope you don't miss. You can get your tickets at modernwitches.org/witchesconfluence2024, and you can use the code GHOST15 for 15 percent off your ticket. The link and the code will both be in the episode description. That's modernwitches.org/witchesconfluence2024, code GHOST15. But again, that shit will be in the episode description.

Okay. Let's get right into your horoscope. We are looking at the astrology of October 20th through the 26th of 2024, and we're going to talk about the astrology that's happening this week, but first let me just acknowledge the astrology that happened last week because it was, I think it suffices to say, a shit show. Now, I'm not going to go through all the transits that occurred last week, because had I been able to record it, it would have been a very long episode.

But I want to acknowledge how triggering the astrology was and how you may likely have been feeling really activated⁠—activated around your core insecurities, around power struggles⁠. Now, those power struggles may have been with your own self. They may have been in terms of your relationship to the world at-large, like your sense of safety in the world and your sense of how you're navigating dangers in the world with other groups of people. And it may have been in the most traditional way, which is in relationships with individuals like your mom, your boss, your bestie, etc.

The things that came up and that got activated last week kind of hit this astrological crescendo with the October 17th Full Moon in Aries. And so it was a release point, or it was meant to be a release point. Now that we're a couple days out of that astrology, hopefully you have the opportunity to take a pause and reflect on what got triggered and activated in you⁠—not what other people did, not what other people said, what other people meant, whatever. It's what got activated in you and what you need to let go of.

Do you need to let go of a relationship? Do you need to let go of your expectations of a relationship but not the relationship itself? Do you need to let go of some negative stories you always tell yourself or some shit you keep on doing that doesn't work? Last week's astrology was likely to have triggered dynamics in your life or in yourself that reveal some of that. It's not like the astrology is over. It's not like you're six months out and you have great perspective. But I wanted to⁠—because I missed last week's episode, I wanted to just name those things.

Also, you may have already figured this out, but I do have a month-ahead horoscope. So, if ever⁠—God forbid⁠—I should miss another episode and you really want my astrological take, you can always listen to my month-ahead forecast, where I delineate the astrology of every day of every week of the month. So you can go and listen to it there. It's on my Patreon on the kittens level. So you can check that out. It's also available for purchase as a one-off if you don't want to fuck with Patreon or you don't want to be a patron. I respect that. You can simply purchase the monthly forecast on my Patreon.

So, that all said, let's begin at the beginning. On Monday, October 21st, at exactly 11:35 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be at 13 degrees of Scorpio and 12 minutes, and it will form an exact trine to Saturn at the same degrees of Pisces. I'm a huge fan of this transit. Mercury is your mind, and Saturn is reality. And a trine is an easy flow of energy. So what happens during your Mercury trine to Saturn is it's easier to face reality. It's easier to cope with what's directly in front of you and what needs your attention in a material way.

And because Mercury and Saturn are both in water signs, this tends to be a little bit more emotionally informed. Huzzah. This is really good news. And so, if you wanted to sort through some of the shit that came up last week, if you are trying to make decisions or navigate some kind of sticky stuff, this transit is your friend. When Mercury forms a trine to Saturn, it makes it easier to concentrate and focus. It can help you to kind of stay on task in a way that, again, is not just emotionally informed but also consistent.

So, if you have to figure shit out, if you have to have an important conversation, if you have schoolwork or business decisions or any kind of project you're working on, this transit is going to be incredibly helpful. If the transit hits your chart directly in a way that's supportive, then you might even learn something new. And the kind of stuff that we learn during a Mercury trine to Saturn tends to be informed by wisdom and time. In other words, it comes from either lived experience or from older people or people who have more experience than you.

So be open. Be open. That's the way you make use of this transit. Be open to learning. Be open to getting kind of⁠—not checked, but being better informed, having more insight and being able to use it better⁠. Really helpful transit. And thank goodness for this helpful transit because it overlaps with a much more challenging one.

On Tuesday, October 22nd, two things happen. We move into Scorpio Season. Hello, Scorpios. Welcome. It is your time to take the night. However, that's not what we're going to talk about. What we're going to talk about is the fact that the Sun at 29 degrees of Libra and 40 minutes⁠—very anaretic, very Libra, so Libra⁠—forms an exact square to Pluto at the same exact degrees of Capricorn. This transit will be exact at 7:15 a.m. Pacific Time.

Now, Sun square to Pluto is an incredibly triggering, challenging transit, and it overlaps with the Mercury trine to Saturn. So, luckily, Mercury trine to Saturn empowers you to be a little bit more focused on what's constructive than you might otherwise be because the Sun square to Pluto kicks up some major shit. Now, when we're dealing with the anaretic degrees of Libra and Capricorn in a challenging transit like this, we have the kind of codependency of Libra and the drive to be approved of of Capricorn. And they're forming a square to each other.

And so it is really important to pay attention to your own neediness. And when I'm talking about neediness, I want to be clear: having needs is healthy. Being vulnerable is healthy. But that's not neediness. Neediness actually comes more from your ego or from your shadow, the parts of yourself that you don't quite understand and so you project onto others and situations.

There's no amount of validation from other people that you're going to get that's going to absolve you of the need to validate yourself. When you abandon yourself for whatever reasons⁠—and there are so many reasons that are very compelling to abandon oneself. But if you abandon yourself and start looking outside of yourself for answers, validation⁠—whatever it is⁠—that's when you start to be in a state of activation with a Sun square to Pluto that brings out your most compulsive self-harming tendencies.

Some people self-harm by picking fights with other people. Some people self-harm by obsessing on things in the past that already happened, that you're not going to change, but that feel shitty, so you just fucking return to it over and over again. Some people self-harm through classic self-harm, doing things that you know fuck you up, that have negative consequences, that are not proportionate to the positive that they offer. There are so many ways of engaging in self-harm, and a Sun square to Pluto tends to open the door to them.

Now, that's not the only thing that can happen under this transit. Another thing that can happen is that your drive to heal, to go really deep into things that require bravery, things that are kind of triggering and hard to stay present with⁠—this transit can empower you to engage with that stuff and work through your problems. The key is to watch any kind of drive to control or manipulate your circumstances or other people.

And the truth is that, so many times, we tell ourselves that we're doing our best and we're telling ourselves that we're the victims in a situation, and then we use those narratives to act out in ways that harm other people and actually hold us back. The best use of this energy is internal. It's to be honest with yourself about what it is that is triggered inside of you and why, and to challenge yourself to sit with those feelings, to sit not with the narratives for too long⁠—because the narratives can be quite destructive⁠—but the emotions underneath the narrative, the drive, the feeling, the thing that you want underneath that narrative.

And it might be as simple as you want to feel like you're loved, and the way a person is acting is making you feel like you're not loved. It may be that you want to feel safe, and in fact you don't feel safe. It is really hard to sit with strong emotions without trying to fix them or look for somebody else to fix them, but that's the assignment here. It's to work through them, but the only way to work through them is to be present with them.

And when Pluto is so activating, as it is today, the most human, normal thing to happen is you get stuck at the big emotions. So it's hard to get to the place of progress. It's not impossible. Trust it's not impossible. It's just very human. And so, again, I say be open. Be open to experiencing challenging emotions and acknowledging the root cause, the root issue, inside of you.

When the Sun forms a square to Pluto is when you're most likely to have your addictive, self-harming behaviors get activated. And so be aware of that, and know that it's not just you. You might be not especially triggered by this transit this round, but your partner might be, or your neighbor might be. And when people get activated, again, we tend to self-harm. So don't take it personally when somebody else acts out.

Now, I'm not saying don't take care of yourself. I'm not saying don't have healthy boundaries. I'm not saying don't acknowledge what's real and tend to it. But I am saying don't take it personally, because the worst things you've ever done⁠—think about it. The worst things you've ever done, you didn't do them to the person you did them to because of them. You did them because of you. And that's true in the reverse.

So, if the way this transit is experienced by you is that other people are being jerks but you're actually not feeling super triggered outside of that, then know that your experience of this transit is meant to be having healthy boundaries, taking care of yourself, not getting consumed by other people's shit. And that's really challenging. It's challenging under this transit with any zodiac signs, but certainly with the Sun in Libra and Pluto in Capricorn. And it is important to note that this transit will not occur in these zodiac signs for another 250 years⁠—kind of a big deal, right? Kind of worth paying attention to.

Now, one more thing I want to say about this transit is that because it can trigger people in such intense and terrible ways, if you feel unsafe with someone, if you are in a part of town where you're like, "This doesn't feel right. I'm on the street, and I usually feel fine, but right now, it doesn't," listen to your instincts and take good care of yourself. Now, I'm not telling you to be scared of everything or to let fear dominate you, but instead to listen to your instincts because Pluto can bring out the worst in people. So, if you don't feel safe in an environment, trust it. Get your buns out of there. Get your sweet buns out of there.

Okay. Wait. I have one more thing to say about this transit, okay? One more thing. Pluto is the planet that's associated with your root chakra. It's associated with control. The truth is that humans⁠—we have big control issues. We like to control things. I mean, look at how we have paved over this planet. We like to control things.

If you find that your own control issues get triggered around this date, it is important to know that that is about you. It's a spiritual issue, it's a psychological issue, and it's a behavioral issue. It occurs on all the levels. And your drive to control things, to control how you feel, to control other people, to control the way things go⁠—whatever it is⁠—and I should say being inclined to let go of all control and have other people make all the decisions is your coping mechanism for controlling things if that's how you do things, right?

So it can show up in all sorts of ways. But if those issues get triggered inside of you, you have the opportunity to become more self-aware about the narratives of your control issues, about the reflexive behaviors that you have around your control issues, and about the stories you tell yourself, the stories that you believe, whether or not they're true.

Our relationships are very much a reflection on us. If you have a lot of people in your life who behave in a particular way, the way that that's a reflection on you is that you consent to participating in that dynamic. You cultivate that dynamic. Most of the time, most of us do it unconsciously. We don't do it on purpose. Why would we do it on purpose? But we don't.

So, again, I just wanted call you all the way in, all the way inside of yourself, to know that your insecurities and your obsessions and your fixations and the ways in which you wish to manipulate others or you kind of really consciously let other people manipulate you⁠⁠—your strongest, loudest, not necessarily healthiest emotions⁠—those are all yours. And that's not meant as a wagging of my finger at you. It's more a reminder that those are all sad, scared parts of you that require you to stop abandoning yourself.

When we encounter parts of ourselves that we don't know how to deal with or that we don't like, we tend to abandon those parts, which makes them stronger. So creating a practice of acknowledging, "Okay. This is up in me. This keeps on coming up in me, and I'm going to practice just sitting with it without trying to fix it or control it⁠—just practice sitting with it"⁠—that has a shockingly large impact. It doesn't change your life automatically, but it shifts your relationship to you.

Learning how to become a reliable, respectful, kind friend to yourself is way more powerful than you think, way more powerful than you think. And it's a practice. It's a practice that you don't get to a point where you're like, "Okay. I'm done. Practice is over." Pluto transits⁠—they'll keep on coming. And if you have Pluto aspects in your birth chart, they stay there. They stay in your birth chart. But in truth, the source and location of your greatest struggles can also be the birthplace of your greatest strengths. And that's worth being interested in. That's worth exploring. So, this Sun square to Pluto, I hope that you do a little bit of exploring and practice staying present instead of acting out against yourself or others.

And that brings us to the last exact transit of the week. On Thursday, October 24th, at 5:13 p.m. Pacific Time, we have Mars at 26 degrees of Cancer and 10 minutes forming an exact sextile to Uranus at 26 degrees and ten minutes of Taurus. Mars sextile to Taurus is a very supportive transit. And I'm so grateful, even though we have this one rough transit in the middle of the week, to have two really supportive ones on either side.

Mars sextile to Uranus increases your bravery. Mars is what you do. It's your body. It's your motivation. It's your ego. And Uranus is surprising. It's innovative. It's eccentric. And so, when Mars forms a sextile, which is a spark of yes, like a spark of energy⁠—when Mars forms a sextile to Uranus, what we tend to have is an increased drive to try new things, have excitement, follow your passion, get things done not out of obligation⁠—a la Saturn⁠—but instead out of openness, out of a desire to change or grow or have new experiences. Huzzah.

So Mars sextile Uranus is a great transit. It's a great time for flirting and putting yourself out there, for trying new things, for going places. Now, we are still experiencing some dreg energy from Sun square Pluto. But this transit⁠—it's very exciting. It's very positive. If you have the opportunity to put yourself out there, try new things, try old things in new ways, do it. Just do it. It may be very fun.

Something that I quite like about this week astrologically is that we have Mars in a water sign, and we have Uranus in an earth sign. And so, again, we have this reiteration of the potential for acting on emotional intelligence, which I love⁠—huge fan. So, whatever it is you do, try to stay emotionally honest as you do it. Nothing about this transit would increase your emotional honesty or decrease it, but if you bring that intention to whatever it is that comes up inside of you or in your life, then you'll be quite pleased with the results is my prediction.

If you have, in this last week and a half of really challenging astrology, encountered relationship issues where you realized things that are wrong, things that aren't working⁠—and that could be relationships with others; it could be your own relationship to something inside of yourself or a behavior⁠—this transit is excellent for addressing that, for acting from a place of healthy boundaries, of acting in ways that reflect who you really are and what's true for you in the moment instead of some kind of superficiality that really isn't that honest.

This transit can help you to act in ways that are more honest and forthright⁠—love, love, love. So try new things. Put yourself out there. Be brave. Follow your instincts. Mars sextile to Uranus is great for all of it. So happy to tell you that.

Now, that's it for this week's horoscope. On the 21st, Mercury was exactly trine to Saturn. On the 22nd, the Sun was exactly square to Pluto. And then, on the 24th, Mars was exactly sextile to Uranus.

I want to thank you so much for joining me this week on Ghost and every week. And if you've got the energy for just one more little non-astrological/kind of astrological thing, it's this: I hope you vote. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. There's a lot of reasons to not vote for Harris. There's even more reasons to not vote for Trump. But I do want to say inaction is action. None of us can say our hands are clean in this election.

In the United States, we have a two-party system. It's not fair, but that is the system we have at this moment. And in this moment, we have two bad options. But the truth is Trump is significantly worse than Harris, and a Trump presidency will be significantly worse for the planet⁠—like the environment⁠—and it is the most marginalized and vulnerable populations in the United States that will suffer the most and the quickest under a Trump presidency. That chills me to my fucking core.

If you want to talk about the astrology of the election or to consider the astrology of 2025, you can join me over on my Patreon, where when I'm feeling just a little bit better, we will dive back into those kinds of conversations and explore the astrology of these very tumultuous and consequential times.

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