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 look at the astrology for November 17th through the 23rd, a very Retroshady week, as Mercury is in its Retroshade motion, and it goes Retrograde on November 25th. This means not too, too much except if you wanted to⁠—oh, I don't know⁠—get your paperwork in order or do any kind of administrative tasks that you want to go smoothly and in a timely fashion, I would do it before the 25th of November instead of after, if you can, because Mercury Retrograde⁠—you know, it doesn't ruin things, but it certainly creates delays and miscommunications and problems, or at least it can.

So we got a lot to get into, but I want to first just clarify a little something. This is an astrology podcast, right? I'm here to talk about astrology, and my work is inherently spiritual and not limited to astrology. But here we are⁠. Especially in my horoscope episode, we're really here to talk about astrology. But from my perspective⁠—and of course, this is my podcast⁠—when we're talking about spiritual content, when we're talking about horoscopes that impact the world and the ways in which the world reflects astrology back to us and astrology is reflected on the world⁠—however you want to see it⁠—we are inherently talking about politics, social conditions.

From my perspective, spirituality divorced from politics is inherently escapist and not accurate. We can't really look at our astrological conditions without understanding our social and political conditions as well. Thinking about getting pregnant? Changing careers? Making new friends? The social and political landscape that we all live in will impact you personally and directly in regards to the decisions you make and how your options play out.

And in case you don't know⁠—and this is something I've said before on the podcast, but maybe you did or didn't hear⁠ it—I started this podcast back in 2018 specifically because of what I saw coming. Now, I'm talking about the pandemic, and I'm also talking about the very dire circumstances we find ourselves in. We're really at a precipice. My hope with this podcast is, of course, that I am giving you accurate and usable astrology information and that you are getting astrology in a way that is actively engaging for you, whether you're a student, a pro, or just want to know what the fuck to expect from your week.

But the real reason why I started this podcast and why I do most of the things I do with my work is because I want to support you in being able to be emotionally well resourced in yourself⁠—psychologically, spiritually, behaviorally, but really, at core, it's the emotional part. My hope is that you are able to cultivate the self-awareness to be able to navigate the shit that comes up in you emotionally when things are scary. And things, my friends, are scary.

The truth is, in times of fascism and tyranny, what often happens is that the leaders that would wish us harm don't need to do that much because perfectly well-meaning people who are scared, who are truly scared, will unconsciously start throwing others under the bus, start making themselves smaller, minimizing acts of resistance, all in an effort to keep themselves safe. And the desire and the drive to be safe and secure is a perfectly reasonable one. It is a perfectly righteous one, even.

And also, this is a time of righteous rebellion. This week, Pluto moves into Aquarius. There are many things that this will trigger. One of them is profound toxic individualism, which can play out in a lot of different ways depending on who's doing it. And also, it can be a time of rebellion, when people come together, build community, build mutual aid, and build societies and communities that work for the people, by the people. I mean, that is a real possibility. But that won't happen easily or organically, and it won't happen when you and I are prioritizing our individual security and comfort over what is right, over the dignity, liberty, and security of the most marginalized amongst us.

And listen. We all have multiple identities, right? We all have many different parts of ourselves. And there are lots of different ways that are going to be right for you to show up that may not be right for the next person to show up. There may be times when you're more vulnerable or less vulnerable, etc. This is a time for us to be vigorously honest about what's happening in the world and our individual roles within it and how that plays out within our communities as well as the community at-large.

And to kind of circle back to what I was saying just a minute ago, I'm going to keep on talking about this stuff because it is profoundly important to me, and even more so, it is the very reason why I started this show. I want to give you tools to help you to navigate through the brambles of your emotions when they are activated and heightened and make the best possible choices. It is so hard to avoid the patriarchal, white supremacist trap of perfectionism. But perfectionism is not your friend.

As Pluto in Aquarius is going to teach us, we must build community, comradeship, and coalition with people we are in disagreement with, with people who have different experiences than us, different takes than us. Having the capacity to know what you believe is right, what you believe is real, what you believe is true, and to at the same time hold space for somebody else having a different hot take, a different lived experience, a different takeaway⁠—that's really hard to do, especially when we punish ourselves and others for getting it wrong.

So here's a promise. I'm going to get it wrong, okay? I'm going to try to acknowledge something, say something, and I'm going to say it wrong, or I'm not going to say anything at all, and that will be wrong. And so will you. We will make mistakes. And if it's okay to make mistakes⁠—I mean, you be humble. You try to learn a thing. You keep on growing. You keep on going. We want to be in process with ourselves and our communities. But if it's okay to make mistakes, if we don't punish ourselves, if we don't have to yell at people and punish people when they are in disagreement with us, then community-building becomes that much easier. And you know what? Community-building is hard. Being in community is hard. Being a person is hard. But we need each other, quite desperately now.

And so I want to invite you to reflect this week on the truth. Really, what comes up in you emotionally when you are shoulder to shoulder in digital space or in meatspace⁠—either one, but you're shoulder to shoulder with someone who you disagree with? Be honest with yourself. What comes up? Is there a part of you that just wants to rush to fix it, make it better? Is there a part of you that wants to disprove your point or defend your point? Do you have the ability to listen to other people? And do you have the ability to have boundaries with other people when it becomes clear that they're not listening to you? This shit is hard. It is hard. And the truth is that the worst actors, the worst leaders in the world, rely on the fact that we will turn on each other. We do it throughout time, throughout cultures. It happens⁠—I mean, not 100 percent of the time, thank goodness, but it happens.

The more we as individuals are willing to be mindful of how we participate, as long as we as individuals are willing to try to evolve and change⁠—not only as one more person in the world not falling into the trap of the strongman, but also, it has a fucking ripple effect. If you've ever interacted with somebody who showed you a little bit of kindness and grace when you expected the opposite, who was honest in a way that you're just like, "Oh. Yeah. No, actually, this person is actually being honest with me," you know that it shifts something in you. Maybe you don't change the way you think, feel, or behave instantly in that moment, but it has the ability to change you.

You can't know the effect that you're going to have on others, good or bad. All you can do is keep your own side of the street clean. All you can do is what you can do. This is a time where you need you, but also, we need you. And that's just a little bit of the beginnings of the shift into Pluto in Aquarius, which, again, happens this week.

Now, let's just get straight into your horoscope. This week's horoscope begins on the 18th of November with two exact transits. The first one happens at 12:55 a.m. Pacific Time, and it's a Mercury opposition to Jupiter with Mercury at almost 19 degrees of Sagittarius and Jupiter at almost 19 degrees of Gemini. This transit is really lovely, but there's a couple things you want to look out for.

So Mercury opposite Jupiter can put you in a pretty resilient and optimistic frame of mind. It can also have you thinking big picture in a way where you just kind of ignore the details. And so things can kind of get away from you, although you won't really notice it until the transit's over. This is not a great time for working out details, but it is a great time to explore what's possible, to play out the big picture, to take the nature of Mercury, which is your thoughts, your ideas, your friends, the people you connect with, and the bigness and resiliency and willingness to explore of Jupiter, and have them run wild together, basically.

So this can be a great time for exploring possibilities, imagining new futures, imagining new pathways⁠—not exactly the best time for making proper plans, because Jupiter and Mercury together this way can get a little sloppy. But as long as you don't talk over people, make promises you can't deliver on, or commit to things without first properly thinking them through, this can be a really fun time.

This transit can kind of speed up the tempo of your day, so you may just run into a bunch of people, chat with a bunch of people, maybe have spontaneous plans, and that can be super fun. You want to watch out for gossip. Don't believe what you hear. If it sounds scandalous, it's probably scandalous instead of truthful. And don't be a gossip.

Okay. Now, that brings me to the other exact transit happening on the same day. At 6:07 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will be at 27 degrees and 14 minutes of Scorpio forming an exact trine Neptune at the same degrees of Pisces. So we have this beautiful trine between the Sun and Neptune in water signs. This lays the foundation for empathy and kindness and creativity and spiritual connection. It's really lovely.

If you have an earnest desire to understand where someone else is coming from, to explore the spiritual content or the emotional content of a thing, this transit will help you get there. Now, because it's overlapping with Mercury opposite to Jupiter, again, you don't want to leap to conclusions or be too fantastical or idealistic in your thinking or attitudes. But if you're willing to simply explore without arriving at some sort of material certainty, this can be a glorious transit for all things empathy-based, creative⁠—whether it's artistically creative or spiritually creative⁠—and for emotional connection in general.

If you do find that you're having a really busy, big social time because of that Mercury/Jupiter opposition, the Sun trine to Neptune suggests that it will be tender, that it'll be sweet and nice, and that you can use this energy to be sweet, tender, and kind to yourself and others. So giddyap and get at that.

Now, that brings us to Tuesday, November 19th. And at 12:30 p.m. on the dot, Pluto moves into Aquarius, where it will stay until 2044. So we got some time on this, okay? We're talking 20 years⁠—my God, 20 years. 20 years. Okay. So we're at the beginning. And at the beginning, you, as a friend to astrology, may want to make a million predictions. And yeah, that's a good use of astrology. That's fair. But I want to just start where we are, okay?

Pluto's move into Aquarius is going to do a lot of things, and one really big thing it's going to do is shift us globally into a greater experience of surveillance. And so this is a really important time to become more conscientious about your security online. And there's lots of resources out there for how you can do it. I'm not the best resource, but there are a lot of resources out there for what browsers to use, and what's a VPN? Should you be using it? Spoiler alert⁠—yes, you should⁠—how you can be more conscientious about the websites you even visit. Where is it safe? Who's tracking you, and to what end?

And I will say⁠—and I'm going to talk about Pluto in Aquarius a lot over the course of time. But something that you can do is look at where 0 or 1 degree of Aquarius falls in your birth chart. And I say 0 or 1 degree because if you're not using whole or equal sign houses, which are two house systems I am not a big fan of⁠—and if you're curious about house systems, Episode 111 of this very podcast⁠, you can learn about all the different house systems, including the one I use and how I feel about them, yada, yada. But if you're using any of the other house systems, then you can have a zodiac sign, like in this case Aquarius, fall into two or three or even four houses.

So you want to figure out where 0 or 1 degree of Aquarius falls in your birth chart, and know that whatever house it falls in is the part of yourself and your life that's getting activated by Pluto. And Pluto⁠—its effects on you personally are transformational. They can be revolutionary. They can be roiling and deep and healing. They can be destructive. And for the course of a transit that'll last a long time, it can be all of the things.

Pluto is intense. But that intensity helps to motivate and catalyze us towards transformation and healing. So whatever house or part of your chart is activated at around 0 degrees of Aquarius is where you want to look to see what Pluto is going to be doing to you personally. This transit will have a really profound effect on shaping your life and shaping the lives of the people around you, which inevitably means shaping society across the globe.

When we're looking at Pluto, we are always looking at power⁠—abuses of power and uses of power, intentional uses of power as well as unintentional ones. Aquarius is a zodiac sign rightly associated with liberation, revolution, community, and freedom. But it's also a fixed air sign, and so it's also associated with dogma. It's associated with the pursual of truth in a way that is not centered in humanity but instead in information and data. And this is why and how it's associated with technology. The advancements that we can expect during Pluto's transit through Aquarius in technology and the effect that it has on the planet and our lives is profound.

During the course of this transit, we will either come together or really hurt ourselves and each other staying isolated and apart. While Pluto is in Aquarius at the same time that Uranus is in Taurus⁠—Aquarius and Taurus both being fixed signs⁠—we can expect a lot of resistance. So that might look like you experiencing resistance in your life or in yourself for making necessary changes, or we may see resistance-based movements in the world.

Again, when we talk about world issues, we have a tendency to hear buzzwords like "resistance" and "revolution" and think about our own cause and our own priorities and values. But you never know whose revolution is going to be the one that takes center stage, whose revolution is going to be the one that wins, because there's a lot of different perspectives in this world. So you want to remember, when it comes to Aquarius and certainly Pluto's transit through Aquarius, that we are stronger together. We are stronger with broad, humane coalitions built up with lots of different kinds of people, all of us playing our own role, everyone having the ability to experience dignity and autonomy while being connected and responsible to each other.

Again, we're going to talk about this a lot more. For this week, check in on your cybersecurity. Consider your relationship to sharing space with others, even those you disagree with, because any change that you make in your life needs to start with you.

Now, on Thursday, November 21st, there will be a Sun sextile to Pluto with the Sun at 0 degrees of Sagittarius and 2 minutes and Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. This is a really lovely transit. Pluto fortifies the strength of the Sun, making you feel more resilient psychologically and physically. This can be a really great transit for feeling a sense of your vision for what's possible and being willing and determined to do a damn thing. And do a thing may be explore ideas, and it may be actually materially do a thing. It's important that you don't judge yourself for wherever you're at, because you can only start from the place you're at.

This transit creates sparks. So you may be vibey with somebody in your life. You may be excited. You might hear a song that you're like, "Oh, I have to listen to this on fucking repeat." You may tap into a sense of passion or, again, purpose that motivates you to engage in something or with someone with excitement. Whatever it is that happens under this transit, if you put a little effort into it, it'll go far.

If you've been having a particularly rough time lately, this is a really supportive transit for strengthening yourself, for doing whatever it is that you need to do to come back to yourself. As with all sextiles, it's not going to do the work for you. You have to actively choose to engage with this energy. But if you do, you'll find that there is a lot to tap into and a lot of energy use, which is a pretty fucking lovely thing.

Now, the last exact transit of this week is happening on November 22nd, which is a Friday, at 3:56 a.m. Pacific Time. We've got Venus at 12 degrees and 44 minutes of Capricorn forming an exact sextile to Saturn at the same degrees of Pisces. Venus sextile to Saturn is a lovely transit. These two planets are both concerned with security and stability, and they're working harmoniously. So, if you have a relationship or relationships that you want to invest in⁠—maybe it's with somebody at work. Maybe it's somebody in your personal life because Saturn is related to authority figures or people you can learn from. Whether it's personal or professional, this is a good time for reaching out, making contact, and essentially making nice.

Investing in relationships is sometimes about just letting people know that you care about them or that you're invested in them or the dynamic you share with them. This is a great transit for doing just that. It's not the most romantic transit in the world, but if you meet someone or go on a first or a third date or whatever with someone, this can be actually quite a lovely transit to begin a relationship under because it tends to be realistic. It tends to be netted in, like, oh, you like this person for who they actually are and vice versa.

If you've been kind of struggling financially or struggling to make plans that actually work for your life, this transit is your friend. It can help you to be more realistic and to invest in things or ideas or plans⁠—whatever it may be⁠—in a way that actually reflects what's important to you, what you value. This can also be a time where you just are able to take responsibility for your side. So, if there's been relationship shit what's been kind of bugging you and you know you need to deal with it, it wouldn't be the worst thing to try to have a conversation around this transit because, again, it supports you in feeling open to making nice, and it supports the other person in feeling the same.

When Venus forms an exact sextile to Saturn, it's easier to tap into the reality that love is an action and not just a feeling. So treat yourself and others with love on and around this transit, and also every day, if you can.

And that's the week in astrology. I know that American Thanksgiving is coming around the corner. It's next week. And a lot of people are in a lot of pain over the election and in incredible struggle with family. I want to acknowledge that and acknowledge that the holiday is occurring during this transit of Mercury Retrograde with Mercury in Sagittarius⁠—not the best placement for listening to other people.

I think this is a really important time in the world for having difficult conversations with friends and family. But I think it's also important to remember that conversations are not you telling them what to think or feel or them telling you what to think or feel. It's a back-and-forth. It's an exchange. And it's important to be honest with ourselves about how open we are or are not to an authentic exchange because if somebody comes at you and you know they're not going to fucking listen to you⁠—they just want to tell you what they think and what you should think⁠—if they're not listening to you, you're mad, right? You're mad. You're hurt. You're frustrated. You're not listening to them because you're mad or hurt or frustrated or whatever it is. And the same is true in the reverse.

Own where you're starting from so that you can approach your relationships with as much intention and care as possible. And let's all acknowledge that Thanksgiving is a trash holiday and not really a thing to be celebrated. That said, I know a lot of people like to connect with loved ones to have time off of work and all that kind of stuff. But anyways, I wanted to give you that quick little perspective because as we are just in the moments before Mercury does go Retrograde, the energy is stronger than it will be next week to set intentions around how you can communicate, always keeping in mind that communication is not just about what you say; it's about how you listen.

So I'm going to run through the transits that are happening this week one more time, but don't forget I have transcripts available on my website for free accessible to you at any time that you want them. On Monday, the 18th, we have a Mercury opposition to Jupiter and Sun trine to Neptune. On the 19th, Pluto moves into Aquarius. On the 21st, the Sun, now in Sagittarius, forms an exact sextile to Pluto. And on the 22nd, Venus is exactly sextile to Saturn.

If you want to learn more with me, I invite you to join me over on Patreon, where we get deep; we have fun. Don't forget to send in your questions to be considered for the podcast, and tune in every Wednesday for the midweek episode, where I give a beloved listener a reading.

Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you, which is bananas⁠—how could I forget to tell you this⁠—I have an audiobook coming out. It's a series of guided meditations, based on astrology, obviously. And the first one is available for preorder on Audible. It's called "Meditation for Mercury Retrograde." You can preorder it now. It is going to be released on November 28th. And I hope you find it fortifying and helpful for this Mercury Retrograde and for all the Mercury Retrogrades to come. I'll put a link to preorder it in the show notes of this episode.

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