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 is a special episode. It is the one episode of the year that encompasses both 2024 and 2025. It's the new year, and that has its own meaning. Separate from any kind of astrology, we as a collective⁠—we decide that the year is 2025. I believe this is based on a religious story, this timeline, not based on humans and living and time and land. But here we go. It's 2025.

A lot of people put a lot of pressure on this transition from one year into another. And because of how many people do this, there actually is a lot of energy in the new year and all the rituals that we have around it. I want to just give you a little perspective about this new year, which is to say that we have a New Moon in Capricorn happening on the 30th, which of course I'm going to talk about in just a minute.

So New Moons are a time for manifestation and intention-setting. Full Moons are when we release and let go. But, that said, not all lunations are made equal. And the New Moon that's coming at the end of January 2025 is actually excellent for manifestation and intention-setting and all that kind of good stuff. And so I just want to kind of give you a bigger perspective on your relationship to setting intentions for what you want to cultivate in the new year and to kind of expand it from the 30th of December until the 29th of January 2025. If you're a planner and if you go deep woo on the New Year, and in particular on intention-setting and manifestation with the New Moon, this is for you.

If you want more big-picture planning perspective for the month of January or 2025 in general⁠—the new year⁠—depending on when you're listening to this, there may still be time to join me live on the New Moon on December 30th for Facing 2025 Together, my live webinar with author and activist Dean Spade, where I'm going to talk to you about the astrology of the year ahead, and Dean is going to give you really practical tools for how to embrace community care, self-care, and basically, we're going to give you practical tools for navigating what can be, if I'm being honest, kind of a scary astrological landscape. As I'm recording this, there are not many⁠—there's only a few reduced-price tickets left, and you can register through the link in show notes or in my Linktree or on my website. It's basically all over. And if you miss it, give me a couple of days; I will make the replay available on my website for purchase, so you will have access to it.

Now, if you want to look at the month of January and get a sense of what is to come, you can join me on the kittens level over on my Patreon, or you can purchase the month-ahead horoscope as a standalone thing⁠—as you wish. The invitation⁠—it is open. It is accessible. Again, links all over the damn place, including but not limited to the show notes to this episode.

One more thing I want to announce is that on January 2nd, 2025, my audiobook of meditations called Meditations for Your Sign will be released. And I am really excited for your feedback, and I hope you like it. It is a resource that you can tap into for not just thinking about astrology and planning with astrology, which are two things I very much enjoy doing, but tapping into the energetics of how the zodiac signs flow and function inside of you and how you can work with your own system to better regulate yourself. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm not going to lie; I'm pretty excited about it. And there's a couple in there where I sneak in some energy work for you. So it's definitely worth a peek. So giddyap. Get it if you're into it.

Now, we're looking at December 29th of 2024 through January 4th of 2025. This week starts off with a New Moon in Capricorn. And as a triple Capricorn born on a New Moon, I'm a fan of such things. This New Moon will be exact at 2:27 p.m. Pacific Time. It will be exact at 9 degrees and 44 minutes of Capricorn. As I mentioned, when we're looking at New Moons, they're always a time for manifestation, for setting intentions, for calling things in, for starting anew. A New Moon in Capricorn is going to be an excellent time for getting emotionally accountable.

When we have the Sun and Moon in Capricorn, it's a time for taking responsibility, for conserving your energy, for considering your needs on a practical level. And when I refer to your needs, your needs are not exclusive to just you and your feelings, of course. They're encompassing of your needs for connection with others, your needs for having a home that you feel safe in or that you think is beautiful or whatever the case may be. Your needs do not exist in a vacuum. Considering your needs in concert with the world around you and your relationships is an important part of any lunation.

With this New Moon, because it is so very close to the new year, I want to acknowledge that good rituals or practices are connecting with nature in a way that is grounding and fortifying for you, considering where and how you need to better conserve your energies⁠, because Capricorn is related to conservation. So where do you need to protect and strengthen? Where do you need to pull back? Where do you need to push forward? Now, this theme is going to be reiterated in just a minute when we look at the ruling planet to Capricorn, a.k.a. Saturn. But these are questions to be considering.

The other thing is to consider steps. What are the steps needed from where you are to get to where you want to be, whether we're talking about in some part of your life or in, maybe, the practice of being more kind to yourself, of navigating fear? If you took my manifestation class, then you know that I have an exercise there that I call the manifestation ladder, which gives literal steps. Probably, I came up with it because I myself am a Capricorn. But things like this can be really helpful and instructive for a New Moon in Capricorn.

Now, that said, this particular New Moon is forming a sextile to Saturn, which is a really grounding and supportive aspect to have in this New Moon chart. What it means is that Saturn is there to be supportive to you as you make decisions and follow through. The trouble⁠—because there's always a little bit of trouble. The trouble is that Mercury in Sagittarius is forming an opposition to Jupiter in Gemini, and they're forming a T-square to that very same Saturn. And so we talked about the Saturn/Jupiter square last week, so hopefully you have some memory of that.

But really, what this little T-square is doing is it's creating kind of a seesaw of confusion. "Do I need to push forward? Do I need to suck it up and do more? Or do I need to pull back? Do I need to do less? Do I need to let it flow?" These are the kinds of questions that this particular configuration will trigger. This T-square tells us that you're unlikely to have all the answers, that you're unlikely to have the perfect perspective yet. And perspective is kind of everything, right? You can only understand what you can understand at a given time, and that's not bad or good. It's part of evolution. It's part of growth. It's part of change.

What this particular configuration is doing is it's showing you and me and all of us our own discomfort not just with what we don't know but with our patterns around how we navigate through uncertainty, obligation, hope, and fear. These are really big themes. This is⁠—it's not easy work. And so what you want to avoid doing is descending into guilt, because the truth of the matter is guilt can become ultimately a self-obsession, a self-obsession that inhibits you from accountability and humility. To be accountable⁠—"Yeah, I did a thing, and it was wrong, or it was not the thing I wished I had done"⁠—that's totally fair.

But when we lament and we get stuck in guilt, it's very Saturnian. It's very rut-like. And then what we're not doing is making amends. What we're not doing is growing and evolving because we're so fixated on our pain around our misbehavior or perceived misbehavior. Stepping with humility into whatever it is that has got you activated is really important. Being responsible is really important, I would say in general, but certainly with this New Moon in Capricorn⁠. Being responsible to your commitments, to your needs, to the needs of others⁠—that's basically what this New Moon wants you to do.

But of course, we also have the Pluto/Mars opposition at play. And I say "of course" because it's been at play since October. It's going to be exact in a couple of days, so it's very fucking intense right now. The effects of it are very intense. This means that you and everyone around you is fucking activated. That activation may be around a health issue. It may be feeling fears and feelings around safety. And this is not exclusively because, but largely because, Pluto governs our flight-or-fight mechanisms.

Now, I've probably said this several times at this point, but with a Pluto/Mars opposition, generally speaking, we're going to experience this transit for a couple of days. And it comes in, and it generally is kind of like a kick in the cooch, and then it's over, and you're kind of left dealing. This transit is going to be exact this week for the second time and then in April of 2025 for the third time. It is a bananas long transit. And it is very hard⁠—very hard⁠—to live at this level of activation and this duration of trigger, which doesn't mean it's not possible to do. It doesn't mean that people don't do it all the time. But what it does mean is that whatever your survival mechanisms are, if they involve holding your breath and waiting for it to pass, if they involve behaviors that⁠—they're not great, but if you're doing them for the short term, they're not that bad either⁠—then you're going to be having a harder time with this transit, which⁠—I know I'm talking about the New Moon, but this transit is a part of the New Moon.

The fact that the Mars opposition to Pluto is occurring is demanding⁠—because Pluto and Mars are both so damn demanding. It is demanding that we develop better, more sustainable coping mechanisms for anger, resentment, aggression⁠—which includes passive aggression⁠—navigating the body, navigating survival mechanisms, and so much more, all the things that are associated with the Mars/Pluto opposition, which, again, we've talked about a fair amount here and I've talked about a lot on my Patreon.

This New Moon in Capricorn with a T-square to Saturn, the ruling planet of Capricorn, is a really meaningful moment because what it is doing is it is bringing about some measure of self-awareness and emotional clarity about how your survival mechanisms, how your self-care mechanisms, are or are not working. If you look at your survival mechanisms from a conservationist perspective, are you conserving the energy that you need? Are you being a good squirrel and keeping nuts in the back of your cheek so if you get a little hungry later on, you can nosh-nosh-nosh? I don't actually know if that's what squirrels do, but you get the metaphor, right? Are you engaging with whatever it is that is activating you in a way that you can sustain?

A New Moon is a good time to become more self-aware and to bring that self-awareness to your center so that you might be more intentional about what you do and how you do it. The "how you do it" is a big part of the Mars Retrograde, of the Mars opposition to Pluto, of a New Moon in Capricorn. And so, my friends, we have this very important moment where you get to show up for yourself and your life and the world in more intentional ways, and I'm going to say even if it's hard, because it's likely to be hard because these transits are not, per se, easy. This New Moon is lovely, but it is not, per se, easy. And a lot of people associate easy with good and hard with bad. I do not, and I want to invite you to reframe if that is a habit that you have.

Now, there's one more transit that is active in this New Moon chart that I want to acknowledge, and I think it's a helper, but depending on your nature, it may or may not be. Venus is square to Uranus. Again, you heard me talk about it last week. It was exact on the 27th. But this kind of destabilizing energy is really helpful because all of the Saturnian, Mars, and Pluto shit⁠—it can have you both deeply aware of what's not working but feeling like you need to dig in your heels and triple down on a thing. Venus square Uranus⁠—it really can help you to understand or perceive things from a different angle, to be innovative, to change, just kind of on a dime change.

Now, for some people, the nervous system activation that this transit can provoke will be too much of a distraction to really make this transit super useful. If you are one of those people where you have just been feeling too much nervous system activation, what I want to encourage you to do is classic New Moon in Capricorn shit, which is identify, "Oh shit. My nervous system is overstimulated." And then ask yourself, what can you do to engage your nervous system in a soothing and supportive way? So maybe that's meditation. Maybe that's a walk in nature or in your neighborhood. Maybe that's taking a bath, talking to a friend, watching some sort of inspirational talk from somebody that you admire or respect.

There's a bazillion things that we can do to soothe the nervous system. The truth of the matter is, in 2024/5, we have an amazing access to resources, so many resources⁠—free resources, paid resources, resources up the wazoo. But when you're in a state of activation, when you're in pain or you're struggling, that's when it's the hardest to remember to choose to use those resources, to really take care of yourself. This New Moon in Capricorn, which is a real accountabilibuddy kind of zodiac sign, I want to remind you to choose your resources, to choose to tap into your resources, to take care of yourself, to take care of the people, places, and things that are meaningful to you, and to do it in a way that is sustainable. I know it's easier said than done, but that, my friends, is the assignment.

That brings us to the next exact transit, which is on the 2nd of January. But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the 31st and the 1st because people tend to celebrate the new year on those two dates. While there aren't any exact planetary transits happening on either of these days, I want to acknowledge what the Moon is doing. The Moon is your feelings. It's your mood. It's also the feelings and mood of others. We've got the Moon in Capricorn until 2:50 a.m. Pacific Time on January 1st. So is that a super party vibe Moon? No, it's not. But that's okay. It doesn't mean you're not going to have fun. It doesn't mean anything like that. But it certainly does mean that the theme of taking care of yourself, taking responsibility for what does and doesn't work for you, for what you can and can't do, for self-care and care for others⁠—it's a theme to close out the year with. I've heard of worse themes, for the record.

Now, on the 1st, there are no planetary aspects. However, at 4:45 a.m. Pacific Time, the Moon sits on top of Pluto. And at 5:53 a.m. Pacific Time, the Moon sits opposite to Mars. So it just really kind of gets in the mix of that Mars/Pluto opposition. A lot of people are going to be awake; a lot of people are not going to be awake. If you're awake, I will tell you these transits⁠—they're activating. They're intense moods. If you imbibe a lot, you may just be super fucking hungover and feel like shit. And that may be a lesson, or it may be a circumstance. I don't know.

The thing to know, though, is that this year on the 1st, it starts off really intense, and it starts off intense activating the Mars/Pluto opposition, which will be exact on January 2nd. As I mentioned, this is the second time it is exact. On November 3rd of 2024, Pluto was in Capricorn, and Mars was in Cancer. Now, Pluto is at 1 degree and 8 minutes of Aquarius, and Mars is at the same degrees of Leo. Now, keep in mind Mars is retrograding, so it's going to go back into Cancer for some time. And then, post-Retrograde, when it comes back into Leo on April 26th of 2025 is the final exact hit of this fucking transit. And that will also be in Leo and Aquarius.

As aforementioned, this transit is a lot. It is worth noting the shift from Pluto in Capricorn, where we're dealing with entrenched patterns and hierarchies, to Pluto in Aquarius, where we're dealing with innovation and community and mutual aid and technology. It's something new as opposed to something old with Capricorn, tradition. And Mars in Cancer can come at things real sideways. So the process of advocating for your needs, figuring out what your needs are, following your passion and your ambition can come a little sideways with Mars in Cancer. Now that we've got Mars in Leo, it's straight ahead. It's a fire hose.

There's a way that this transit is directly related to the larger transit of Pluto moving out of Capricorn and finally into Aquarius. And within that, we have the invitation⁠—and I would say invitation keeping in mind that Pluto is always strong-arming you into the invitation, but the invitation to co-create community, to co-create the future. This is a revolutionary period of Pluto in Aquarius. And there's lots of other things happening astrologically that start in 2025 that are profoundly revolutionary. But in order to participate in any kind of revolution, whether it's a personal revolution wherein you⁠—I don't know⁠—quit some habit, whether it's something you do or a way you think, or it's larger revolution on a societal level, it requires bravery and courage. It requires that we play well together.

Every single one of us have a universe alive within us. It is essential to be able to regard the dignity and the complexity in others as we are regarding the dignity and complexity within ourself because when we believe that a person or a group of people are less than us, are not relevant, then we have slipped into the worst parts of Pluto in Aquarius. Pluto in Aquarius requires that we change deeply at our core, and Mars, again, is related to how you fight, your ambition, your bravery, how you navigate through the world. Mars literally governs running and driving your car. It governs how you navigate through the world, the speed, tempo, and approach that you have to driving or running. And Mars opposite Pluto engages power struggles, period.

And I gotta say, with a transit like this, there is no way through it other than through it. I know so many of you are trying to find a workaround. "What's the spiritual path? What's the spell I can cast? What's the thing I can manifest?" There is no way through your shit other than through your shit. I know that's scary, and I know that's triggering for a lot of people. But it's also liberating because the assignment is clear. It's messy. It's intimidating. But it is clear. You're supposed to be triggered. You're supposed to be activated. You're supposed to be irritated and feeling stuck and frustrated and all the things that Mars opposite Pluto brings up. And the reason why you're supposed to feel this way is not because there's some sort of celestial gang-up against you, but instead so that you develop better tools, better resources inside of you and in the world, that you remember to use those resources and tools whenever we're going through a challenging transit to or from Pluto. And I'm talking about a conjunction, a square, or an opposition.

Part of the assignment⁠—a meaningful part of the assignment⁠—is to let go. It's to release. It's to let go and release that which brings you no value, that which keeps you stagnant or stuck. You, me, and everyone else are going to fight that because our survival mechanisms are oriented to fight threats to the survival mechanism. Who amongst us has healthy, well-adjusted survival mechanisms straight out the gate? That's not really how humans are. And so we struggle.

What I want to remind you is that whether we're talking about Mars retrograding through Leo or Cancer, they're both heart-centered signs. Leo literally governs your cardiovascular system, while Cancer governs your feelings; it's the Moon. This is a time to take heart, to connect with love, not just a feeling of love, but a motivation and life force energy of love, the strength and power of love, so that you may act in ways that reflect your very best parts instead of your very biggest fears.

Pluto is associated with your shadow, your subconscious, that which is hidden. It's the skeletons in your closet. It's your flight, fight, or fawn mechanisms. Therefore, it is also associated with trauma. Mars is your body. Mars is your motivation. Mars is anger and defensiveness and passion. It's the military and police. It's movement. And so this opposition between these two forces during a Mars Retrograde is an invitation to move consciously through your skeletons in your closet, through your flight, fight, or fawn mechanisms, and to stay in your body while doing so.

Are you supposed to be perfect at this? No. No fucking way. This is a practice, not a destination. This is an intention and motivation, not an outcome to be reached. If you are too perfectionistic and outcome-oriented around these themes, then that, my friend, is likely to be a function of your survival mechanisms because we don't need to be perfect. And if we achieve some measure of perfection, it's not to last because we are organisms. We are energy. We are light. We are vibration. We are consistently and constantly moving. And if you are suffering through entropy and you're stuck, that takes its own motion, too. Digging in your heels is an action. Refusing to participate is an action. Refusing to grow takes will.

And so a Mars opposition to Pluto like the one we are going through and that is exact on January 2nd⁠—Happy New Year⁠—is an invitation to grow, to move through your survival mechanisms, your anger, whatever it is, because you love yourself, because you love the world, because you want to try to feel better, do better, be better, not because there's something wrong with you, not because there's something wrong with how you feel, but because life is⁠—it's just a process of evolution. And the more intentionally you participate with your evolution, the greater sense of agency you have, which makes it so much easier to navigate through the lows and even the highs.

You have agency. You have choice. You may not always have good choices. You may not always like your choices, but you always have a choice. Mars opposition to Pluto demands that you notice your patterns around how you engage with bad choices and that you strive to make choices that are in alignment, that you can sustain, because again, this is a long transit. So this isn't a great "fake it till you make it" kind of time. Start where you are. Honor where you are. Don't judge it. Be kind to your survival mechanisms when they scream, "Don't change. Don't grow. Don't evolve."

When it comes to our survival mechanisms, you can't kick them out of the car of life, my friends. That's not how humans are wired. What we can do⁠—our intentional, adult, mature parts can start collaborating with our survival mechanisms, such that we can get them from driving the car, not listening to our feedback⁠, to driving the car, listening to our feedback, and then eventually maybe sitting in the passenger seat and yelling at you what to do, which you can listen to as much or as little as you want, and then eventually, from there, to get your survival mechanisms in the back seat of the car with headphones, maybe a tablet⁠—so, like, watch a movie, a little distracted.

You always want to have access to your survival mechanisms. They're there to help you survive. Don't throw away or destroy your survival mechanisms. First of all, that doesn't work. They're set up to not be destroyed. But also, they at one time kept you safe. So we want to have access to them, but we don't want them making our decisions at all times. When you're chased by a bear, when the building is on fire, let them come online and take over. But when you're navigating through an annoying friendship, you don't need your survival mechanisms. You want them in the back seat with headphones on.

And that's part of what this transit is motivating you and me and everyone else to work through. And this is in part why you see strongmen leaders and other powerful people not even hiding it anymore, just grabbing for power, just seizing it with their teeth and both hands, because we are all being activated around our drive for power. What comes up for you is revealing. What comes up for and in others is also revealing. And instead of being carceral and punishing towards yourself or the people in your life, I want to encourage you to use information to help you to navigate your choices and your agency.

There's so much you cannot control. There's so much you cannot control, but what you can control, my friends, is how you choose to engage. It's what you choose to do. It's the motivations that you center. It's how you navigate your triggers. You don't have control over what happens in the world. You do have control over how you participate, and that's where I want to encourage you to stay focused when you get overwhelmed by what's happening around you.

We will return to this transit because it's going to be going on for-damn-ever. But the last thing I'm going to say about it is, again, it's happening at 1 degree of the fixed signs Leo and Aquarius. If you have any planets or points in your birth chart at around 1 degree⁠—give or take⁠—of Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio, or Taurus or 28, 29 degrees of the cardinal signs⁠—that's Aries, Libra, Capricorn, Cancer⁠—you're really going to be feeling this shit. You're really going to be activated. And if you don't have anything at those specific degrees, those degrees exist in your birth chart. So figuring out what house they fall in will give you a sense of what parts of your nature or your life are being activated by this transit at this time so you can be more intentional about what to look out for and how to engage.

Okay. Now, that brings us to the last exact transit of this week. On Saturday, January 4th, at exactly 2:36 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will form an exact sextile to Saturn. The Sun will be at 14 degrees of Capricorn and 50 minutes, and it will form a sextile to Saturn at the same degrees of Pisces. This, happily, is a very supportive transit. It is grounding. It is fortifying. It can help you to follow through with the things you know you need to do, to have an accurate and realistic appraisal of your own energies because, of course, the Sun is your vitality, and it's your energy. So you're less likely to overdo it on and around this date.

Now, again, it's overlapping with the Mars/Pluto opposition and with another transit called Mercury square to Neptune that will be exact on Monday the 6th of January. I won't say too much about that today other than we're feeling it already. And it confuses your thinking. It creates exhaustion and confusion and anxiety in your thinking, unfortunately. But again, that's not exact yet. We'll talk about that next week.

For now, I want to bring your attention to that Sun sextile to Saturn, which helps you to get centered or grounded, depending on what is easier for your system at this time. And from that place of presence, practice greater alignment. And that greater alignment can help you to navigate whatever triggers are active in your life. If you have been feeling unsteady, triggered, any of that kind of stuff, this transit is your friend because what it does is it supports you in finding stability inside of yourself or tapping into resources externally⁠—or internally, I guess⁠—that help you to ground and remember your own wisdom. And wisdom is just lessons that you've learned through your lived experience.

So tapping into lessons learned through lived experience is the whole damn point. That's what Saturn wants us to do. Saturn wants us not just to have experiences but to learn and mature from those experiences. And that takes integration. A transit like this, Sun sextile to Saturn, helps with that kind of integration. It doesn't make it hard. It doesn't make it complicated. But again, you gotta bring intention to the party. So the most simple way I can put this is practice self-care. Do the things you know you need to do to take care of both yourself, but also your responsibilities, the things that you've promised to other people and to situations.

So how's that for a pretty intense week in the stars? I think it's a pretty good end to 2024 and start to 2025. The astrology feels emblematic of what we are set to experience in the new year. It's going to be a doozy. I'm not going to lie. It's going to be a doozy. And for me, I just should share that historically I have done the year-ahead forecast here on the podcast, and this year, I am not doing that. And I am not doing that for reasons that I will title my nervous system.

The astrology of the next couple of years is daunting. And so what I have learned through doing this podcast since 2018 is that predicting big, collective things that are scary and bad doesn't necessarily help anyone, and it does actively harm me. It taxes my nervous system. And so I'm trying to navigate, intentionally and consciously, that messiness. How can I share the astrology in a way that supports you, informs you, educates you, but also prepares you?

So part of what that looks like is me offering this class with Dean Spade on the transits of the year ahead, but it also looks like me sharing information throughout the year as opposed to all at once. My hope and intention there is that it helps you to be more present because the best way to invest in your future is from the present. When you live in the future or the past, you're robbing yourself. You're robbing yourself of this moment. But also, you can't know. Listen. I'm a professional psychic and astrologer. I don't know what's going to happen⁠—not to you, not to me, not to us. We can't know. We can have pretty good theories. We can have a hot track record. But that doesn't mean you know. And so practicing presence⁠—that empowers you to cultivate the internal chops to be able to cope with whatever it is that happens in the future because the future will just be a different present than the one you're in now.

I'll run through these transits one more time. On December 30th, we have a New Moon in Capricorn exact at 2:27 p.m. On January 2nd, 2025⁠—Happy New Year⁠—Mars is exactly opposite to Pluto in Aquarius. Then, on January 4th, which is Saturday, the Sun forms an exact sextile to Saturn. And that, my friends, is your damn horoscope.

Now, my last big announcement of this episode is that if you are in ATL, come see me. I'm going to be at the iconic Charis Books for an in-person event, but it will also be streaming on Crowdcast. So it will be a virtual event in addition. So you can join me even if you're not in ATL. I'm just so excited to be starting off the new year in community with you. Links all over the damn place. You know where to go. You know what to do.

I hope you take very good care of yourself and others. I will talk to you for next week's horoscope because the midweek episode falls on January 1st. I don't know if we're going to drop one. We didn't drop one on December 25th either. Maybe I'll do a rerun; maybe I won't drop anything. So just heads-up. But you will definitely hear from me next week for your horoscope. Buh-bye.