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 go Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we're going to look at the astrology of the last week in November. That's November 24th through the 30th of 2024. There's some meaningful stuff to talk about, including but not limited to Mercury goes Retrograde, and we have a second New Moon this month, so we're going to talk about that.

Also, as always, if you want to listen to my once-a-month bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast, where I break down the transits of the upcoming month, I drop that on the 1st of every month on my Patreon exclusively. So you can join me over there on the kittens level. It's puppies and kittens. It's pretty cute. And that's not all you get. We talk a lot of astrology, a lot of woo, and it's a place where I am really active, whereas I'm not that active on social media. So, if you want to learn more with me and to be a part of that community, then join me there. And if you're already a part of that community, I want to say thank you very much because it is my favorite place on the internet.

Okay. Now, we're going to get into the astrology, but I want to just acknowledge something, which is how much fear and grief so many of us are feeling⁠—a lot of things to be scared of right now, and a lot of things to grieve. After 30 years of counseling people, I've learned a couple of things, but one of them is how hard it is for most of us, at least some of the time if not a lot of the time, to stay present with our challenging emotions, especially grief and fear and sorrow, because they're connected to all these other feelings of vulnerability and instability and so much more.

And when an individual person feels threatened and scared and really destabilized and even demoralized, this is when we have the tendency to act in ways that essentially lead to hate, act in ways that are entitled or toxically individualistic. If you feel like you're struggling to stay afloat, you'll kind of grab on to anything, even if you have to pull that thing down with you in order to try to get back up.

And so I want to acknowledge a number of things. The first one is your emotions are your emotions. Emotions are energy in motion. You are entitled to feel any and all of your emotions. There aren't good feelings and bad feelings. I mean, there are certainly feelings that feel shitty and that feel lovely, but it's not like it is bad to feel emotions that suck. I mean, again, it's not fun, but it's not like a reflection on you, like you're a bad person if you feel anger or resentment or whatever it is. It's how we engage with our emotions. It's how we listen to our emotions, how we tap in and respond to our emotions.

If you can practice experiencing your emotions, even the really upsetting ones, even the really vulnerable ones, without descending into destabilized, fear-based thinking and feeling⁠—a.k.a. hatred⁠—then you are doing your soul a favor. You're doing yourself a favor. You're doing a favor to the people around you. But it's an act of resistance. It's an act that has consequences that will ripple out not only inside of you but also in the world.

Whether we're talking about you and your personal life or if we're thinking about activism⁠—and activism can exist on lots of different levels and in lots of different ways. But if you are motivated by hatred, it'll eat you up. That motivation will eat you up. It burns you out. When you are motivated instead by the love of the environment, people, whatever it may be, when you're motivated by the care of⁠—the drive to care for⁠—others, that motivation is sustainable. It's sustainable.

I'm not saying don't be mad. I'm not saying that at all. I am a fan of anger. I think rage is well fucking placed at this time and at most times, especially when we look at the systems that we live in. But I am saying don't let outrage, don't let hatred, burn you up from the inside. Practice having healthy boundaries with not only other people and situations but with your own interior landscape. In your effort to live a life that is righteous, to do what is right, to take care of yourself and others, to learn how to love better⁠—love as an action, not just a feeling⁠—you gotta have boundaries. You gotta have a sense of understanding of what you want to feed and what you don't want to feed inside of you and in your life.

Let the things that hurt⁠—hurt you, hurt others⁠—let them motivate you to do better, to love more, to be better, to collaborate with others, to try. And part of what trying means is failing. Nobody, not a single one of us, tries anything in life⁠—anything of importance, anyways⁠—and doesn't fail. We all fuck up. We all have misses. We all misspeak or do it wrong, or it looked great in the moment, and then we look back, and we're like, "Ugh, that was wrong." Right? That's part of trying. That's part of life.

And learning how to tolerate the emotions that come up when you do fuck up, when you do fail⁠—that's really valuable. And it's not just valuable for your own spiritual, emotional, and mental health. It's somewhat essential for living through times of fascism, times of extreme crises and risks, as we are living through now. We are currently on the precipice of some really dramatic changes, where things happen quickly and can be quite activating and confronting, to say the fucking least.

Within that, you need to have the ability to navigate your own emotions, especially your fear-based emotions, so that your drive for security or righteousness doesn't empower you to become the very things you hate; it doesn't empower you to step into one of the worst individual expressions of Pluto in Aquarius, which is toxically individualistic⁠—toxically individualistic. Fascism, racism, ableism, xenophobia⁠—I could go on⁠—they all kind of rely on individuals feeling fear and prioritizing their own security over practicing kindness and empathy in their actions towards others.

And so this is a really important foundational shift for you to practice making now, and really forever. And I say it's a shift to make not knowing you personally and where you're at. But I am of the mind that this is part of the human condition. The struggle is part of the human condition, in part because the human condition is in itself very frail. What do you know? What are you guaranteed in life other than death? It is a confronting thing about being a human. And so our relationship to security and safety, to fear and vengeance⁠—these things are kind of wired into this mortal coil.

And so, as I said, I've been thinking about how you and I can act in ways that reflect an emotional intelligence, that can reflect kindness and empathy, while being well-boundaried, strong, resilient, and fierce. These things are possible, but they require a willingness and ability to struggle through feelings of fear and vulnerability and grief and anger and defensiveness and all of these things.

So, again, I invite you to commit or recommit or consider a practice of noticing those emotions whenever they come up in you and noticing⁠—just practice noticing⁠—how you react to those emotions, and see if you can⁠—if you can⁠—take a beat, take a breath, and stay with the offending or challenging or activating emotion for a couple seconds longer than you typically would. I know it sounds small. I know it sounds small. But I really am convicted that it is the foundational step to making radical, expansive change in ourselves as individuals but also in the world.

Now, all that said, let's talk about Mercury Retrograde. On November 25th, at 6:42 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury goes Retrograde, and it will stay that way until December 15th. Mercury will be in Sagittarius the whole time that it is Retrograde. So what could possibly go wrong? Let's talk about it. So we know about Mercury Retrogrades in general that Mercury goes Retrograde a few times a year, and that is part of its natural cycle.

When Mercury goes Retrograde, there's pros and cons. The pro is it is a time to reflect, to review, to reassess, and thank goodness for that, because otherwise, you'd just be barreling through life without checking in with your plans, reflecting on what you've done or what you've been thinking, etc. So there is a spiritual and psychological value to Mercury Retrograde that you never want to lose out on.

To that end, as I mentioned last week, I do have a series of meditations that are going to be released on January 2nd. It's going to be meditations for all of the zodiac signs, and I'm actually really, really excited to share this with you. Creating meditations is really different than anything I've done before. And on November 28th, a.k.a. this week, we are dropping the first meditation that is just about Mercury Retrograde. And at the end of this episode, I have a clip that I'm going to play for you so you can check it out. I'll also have the link where you can purchase the Mercury Retrograde meditation available on November 28th.

Okay. Now, the primary thing that Mercury Retrograde tends to do is create confusion with communications. Now, some people who have Mercury Retrograde in their birth chart report feeling like, "Oh, and everyone's finally on my wavelength," and things are not that confusing or kind of sideways with communication for those folks. But for everyone else, Mercury Retrograde tends to be a time where we have technological difficulties. The internet's not working. You thought you sent an email, but it's stuck in your inbox, just getting old and not getting seen. You think you're having a clear conversation with somebody, and so do they, but they're understanding something completely different than what you meant and vice versa. These are classic Mercury Retrograde problems.

This is why we say it's not a great time to start a new job or make a major purchase. But, my friends, that doesn't mean don't live your life. That doesn't mean apply superstition to astrology. It means if you know that Mercury is Retrograde and you do need to sign a contract or make a major life decision, you're empowered with the knowledge that things are likely to be not super clear. So what do you do? You triple check. You are meticulous in trying to make sure you understand what is being said. You really read the contract before you sign on the dotted line⁠—that kind of shit. Live your life empowered by the knowledge that Mercury is Retrograde, even if Mercury being Retrograde is annoying.

Now, Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius⁠—are we going to reflect on the things we believed were true and realize maybe they're not as true as we thought? Sagittarius is a zodiac sign associated with truth, big-picture truth⁠—also propaganda, journalism. We may find out that news we thought was true was not. We may find out new information or new details during the Mercury Retrograde.

Now, what concerns me is that Mercury goes Retrograde at 22 degrees of Sagittarius and 40 minutes, and we've got Neptune sitting at 27 degrees of Pisces. And so the two planets are square to each other. We've also got Mercury sitting opposite to Jupiter at almost 18 degrees of Gemini. And so what this tells us is that it is very likely that you, me, and the people we are dealing with, either really directly or indirectly, are likely to jump to conclusions, and not based on the truth. Whenever we have a Mercury opposition to Jupiter, we have the likelihood of jumping to conclusions, to make connections that aren't really there, to double down on your ideas even when evidence is pointing you in a different direction. And because Neptune is involved, Neptune and Jupiter are not square. Neptune and Mercury Retrograde are square in this chart. And so, when we have that, we have the risk of confusion, anxiety, delusion.

As a little aside, I am a fan of being well informed and digesting the news, like making sure that you know what's happening in your community, in your state or your province, in your country, and in the world. I am a fan of that, and I make a practice of it. However, when we get fixated on the news in such a way that it only makes you anxious and it doesn't actually inform you, when you're learning the kind of blow-by-blow details of something that hasn't even happened yet⁠—so much of news is just trying to tell us, "This could happen. That might happen. This could happen. That might happen." That's not really news, at a certain point.

What I'm trying to get at here is this Mercury Retrograde is going to be an important time for considering how you are going about being informed, who you are being informed by, and whether or not the way in which you are going about it is sustainable for your mental health. These kinds of inquiries are very important because sticking your head in the sand and saying, "Oh, I don't consume news. I let the world take care of itself. I don't want to be educated about it because I don't want to do anything about it"⁠—that's not great. It's not great, and it's especially not going to be great now that Pluto is in Aquarius. My friends, we are all a part of the world.

So this Mercury Retrograde is going to introduce confusion. It is going to introduce the risk of anxiety. But with that comes the opportunity to reflect, to reassess, to be interested in your own internal landscape enough that you can start to understand yourself better and then, therefore, develop better coping mechanisms.

During this Mercury Retrograde, whenever there's going to be breaking news⁠—and there will be breaking news because we are still in a Mars/Pluto opposition. I mean, also, this Mercury Retrograde chart⁠—it really does articulate to us that there will be lots of breaking news. I'm just going to regard it with a grain of salt, and I'm going to apply the rule of 72 hours. Before you go making life decisions believing everything you hear, let it settle for 72 hours, and then see. See what emerges. See what's actually proving to be true.

This Mercury Retrograde, because of the presence of Neptune and Jupiter and because of this ongoing Pluto/Mars opposition, is a very important time to ask yourself, "Is what I'm going through individual and exclusive to me, or is it consistent with what is happening on a social level?" because when you understand that you are experiencing something alongside masses of people, it contextualizes your individual experience differently, and it tips you off to the fact that there are resources out there because if you're not the only one who's going through a thing, there's got to be some sort of resources that already exist where people come together and inform each other, support each other, offer up tools, etc. But considering the social context of your individual experience is a really helpful thing to do, I think, in general and certainly this Mercury Retrograde.

Now, on a super personal level, don't gossip. I know I say that all the time, but talking shit about other people is just a fancy way to distract from what you're actually thinking about: yourself. And this Mercury Retrograde is messy and sticky. So, if you're going to shit-talk, expect it to come back at you.

One more thing I'll say about this Mercury Retrograde is, because Neptune is square to Jupiter in this chart, you may be feeling extra tired. And that tiredness may be because you're tired and your body needs rest, and it needs to recover. If that's the case, by God, take a nap. Go to sleep. Maybe cancel your plans and just chill out on a couch somewhere. If your system needs time to power down so it can reboot, give your system that gift.

And the other thing that can happen with a Mercury/Neptune square is that you are feeling exhaustion as kind of an anxious or depressive symptom. How to know the difference is really just to practice knowing yourself and figuring out, how much is it that your system needs to be alone, to rest and digest and recover? And what of your exhaustion or your drive to be alone and in the bed is really about escapism and disassociation? And to be fair, disassociation, escapism are not inherently bad as long as they're practiced in balance. And that balance is for you to evaluate and to think about. But this Mercury Retrograde may coincide with a lot of people just feeling tapped.

And that brings us to our next exact transits happening this week. On Wednesday, November 27th, we've got two exact transits. At 12:06 a.m., the Sun forms and exact trine to Mars. And then, later that day, at 8:59 p.m., we've got a Venus square to Chiron. So the Sun will be at 5 degrees and 34 minutes of Sagittarius. Mars will be at the same degrees of Leo. So we have a fire trine. And then, later that night, Venus is at 19 degrees of Capricorn and 27 minutes, and Chiron is at the same degrees of Aries.

One of these transits is a lot more challenging than the other. Let's talk about it. The Venus square to Chiron that's happening⁠—it can be quite challenging. So Venus is your relationships. It's your intimate connections with other people. That includes romantic relationships but is not exclusive to them. It's intimacy. Venus also governs your finances. It's your personal finances, and in particular your liquid resources, so the money you have in your checking account. Venus is also related to your values, so that is the connection between Venus and relationships, Venus and material possessions. It's really about what you value and how you value it.

Chiron, of course, is core wounding. So, when we have a challenging transit like this between these two players, what can come up is that you're struggling around your self-worth. You may be really just confronted by some sort of core wounding around your safety, your security, and your worthiness. So, again, what I'm talking about is your ability to hold value in yourself. I'm talking about your relationship to yourself. This can be really triggering and activating. And it's very possible you won't feel that at all, but you're likely to be dealing with other people in the world who are feeling that way.

And so, when you don't get activated by a transit but somebody else does, then you are engaging with a person who is interacting with you out of their activation. And when some people feel shitty about themselves, they get really meek and passive, and other people get really aggressive and demanding. There's a bazillion different ways that humans can experience and express this kind of insecurity and activation. It is important that you value yourself enough, if you're not the one who's triggered, to have healthy boundaries with how you interact with others. If you find yourself fixated on people you don't know, if you're trolling someone on the internet, just know that's a reflection of this transit.

This transit occurs so that you become more aware of where you're hurting, of where you aren't centering your own worthiness or the worthiness of others, where you are acting in ways that reflect your fears about your sense of belonging and about your safety and security more than your values around those things because, in truth, we are meant to do the right thing because it is right and not because we have attachment to the outcome.

And this transit often coincides with conflict. It often coincides with something coming to a point of crisis or a point of struggle. And if you overly identify with that conflict, with those struggles, instead of to understand that this is an opportunity for you to become, again, more aware of what you value and how you value it, then it's a missed opportunity. This transit can bring about a great deal of healing, but you've got to be willing to stick with those challenging emotions that you have deep coping mechanisms already established to engage with.

It's happy news that the Sun/Mars trine is happening at the exact same time because that transit is quite empowering, especially because it's happening in two fire signs. Sun trine Mars strengthens your will and your willingness and ability to mobilize. Mars is the ego. It's your body. And the Sun is your will. It's your vitality. And when these two forces are in happy relationship with each other, it makes it easier to stay present with your fears, with your activation, and to navigate those sticky, tricky waters with a greater sense of agency so that you can actually feel like, "Okay. I can try something new here. I can move through this, not by shutting myself or other people down, but by exploring this landscape."

This transit can make you feel excited and passionate and brave. This is a really wonderful, strengthening transit. If you've got shit going on with your physical health, this transit can also help you to access resources or start habits that support your health. It can also be a time where you're feeling randy and you have fun with yourself or others. Hey, man, do your thing. So this transit is really fun and strengthening. But in the context of the Venus/Chiron square, it's particularly helpful because it can empower you to move through challenging situations and thoughts and feelings with greater confidence and effectiveness, which is fucking lovely.

Now, that, my friends, brings us to the last transit of the week and the last day of the month. On Saturday, November 30th, at exactly 10:21 p.m. Pacific Time, we've got a New Moon in Sagittarius. It's occurring at 9 degrees and 32 minutes of Sagittarius. You know about New Moons, right? New Moons are this thing that happens usually once a month. This month, it's twice. They're a time that's really great for setting intention, for renewal, and that's because the will and vitality of the Sun and the feelings and emotions of the Moon are in perfect alignment. And therefore, it's a great time for setting intention, doing manifestation work, all that kind of fun stuff that the people love.

Here's the "but." Saturn is at around 13 degrees of Pisces forming a square to that New Moon. Now, Mars is around 6 degrees of Leo forming a trine. So we've got some challenges in this chart, and we've got some assets. We already talked about the influence of the Sun trine to Mars. It is brought over into this New Moon chart, making this a time where you can be well motivated. You can be passionate. You can be excited. You can feel like you have the energy to do things that you want to do.

But Mars is opposite Pluto. So check your fucking ego. Check your ego. Make sure that you're not acting from a place of or motivated by feelings of defensiveness, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, vengefulness. That's the risk with Mars/Pluto opposition. Again, those motive structures will eat you up from the inside. They will just burn you out. They're not great motivations. Feel the feelings that you feel, but work through them. Don't allow each of your strong emotions to mobilize you through this life, because our strongest emotions, as we know⁠—say it with me⁠—are not reliably our wisest emotions.

Here's the other thing. Fucking Saturn is square to the New Moon, which means it's not a great time for manifestation. Saturn wants us to edit. Saturn wants us to cull, to prune, to reconsider, to organize, to work through. And so this is a great time for reflecting on where you're at, what you're doing, and whether or not it's working. Just as a friendly reminder, Mercury is Retrograde. And Mercury Retrograde wants us to reflect. So everything in this New Moon chart, from my perspective, is pointing us towards reflection and earnest exploration⁠—hello, New Moon in Sagittarius⁠—into what's motivating us, whether we're talking about as a society, as a people, or even personally. What's motivating you? What's true for you? Are the things you're doing actually working for you? Are they working for your life? Are the things you're doing a good reflection of what you actually care about?

New Moons are a great time to orient your intentions and your behaviors, as well as your emotions and your thoughts and all the things. So take time to reflect and to explore your inner landscape, to explore the world. I want to encourage you to give space and breath to whatever it is that you get inspired by, that you're motivated to do, that comes up inside of you or in the world or in your life, to allow it some space to take shape and clarify itself to you and within you because Mercury/Neptune square⁠—still active. Jupiter/Mercury opposition⁠—still active.

So, between those two transits and the Mars opposition to Pluto and the fact that this is a New Moon in fire sign Sagittarius, we know that it is very likely that you, me, and everyone else are going to jump to conclusions. We're just going to jump to conclusions. We're going to be impatient. We're going to be excited. We're going to do a thing. And that's not necessarily in your best interest.

Having boundaries, a thing I talk about all the damn time, is not about fencing yourself in or fencing other people out. It's about being aligned with clarity about what you will and you won't and you can and you can't. It's about embodiment. And so this New Moon in Sagittarius, I want to encourage you to explore where your yeses live, and that will inform you as to the boundaries of those yeses, where your maybes and your noes live.

This New Moon, it is valuable to be in pursuit of the truth, but not in a patriarchal or carceral way, but in a way that acknowledges that time and perspective and context are relevant factors in understanding and exploring truth. Most of all, my hope for you this New Moon is that you tap into its energies so that you can be more intentional about how you are living, how you're treating yourself, and how you are treating others, so that you can adopt more sustainable and passionate and engaged and excited and open ways of living, even as we may be living through incredibly dire times.

I'm going to run through the transits one more time, and then I want to invite you to stick around for about a minute for a tiny little clip of my Mercury Retrograde meditation. On the 25th, Mercury goes Retrograde in Sagittarius, where it will stay until December 15th. On the 27th, the Sun forms an exact trine Mars, and Venus forms an exact square to Chiron. And then, on November 30th, we have a New Moon in Sagittarius. It is exact at 10:21 p.m. If you are east of the West Coast of North America, you may clock it as a December 1st New Moon, and I respect that time is important context to truth.

As always, I want to invite you to be kind, to take good care of yourself and others, and I hope you enjoy this clip of my Mercury Retrograde meditation:

Progress rarely occurs in a straight line. And when Mercury goes Retrograde, it's a reminder that for growth and progress to be achieved, we must reflect. Mercury is the planet of communication, and it governs both speaking and listening, as well as your lungs and your breath. As you tap into the potential of this Mercury Retrograde, remember to use your breath to access your inner Mercury. This is a sacred space to revisit old ideas and dynamics, where you can reflect on whatever comes up and reassess your perspective.