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. We are going to get into your horoscope, but before we do, I have a couple announcements to make. There's a couple exci- ⁠— I think it's exciting. Anyways, hey, listen. I'm doing a live, in-person event. It's going to be small, but I'm doing a live, in-person event in Berkeley, California. And I'm teaching a class online available to all the people all over the world. So, if you are in the Bay Area, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 30th, at 2:00 p.m. From 2:00 to 3:00, I'm going to be at the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Library, where I'm going to talk about being kind to yourself with astrology. I love a library, and I'm so excited to get to do this event. And I hope to see you there.

And also, I'm really excited that I'm going to get to try out my BioAbundance device, which is basically this device that is a UV germicidal light that is filtered and safe for humans. And what it does is when you turn on this light, it helps to keep viral load low. I'm just overjoyed to be able to use this and add this to my COVID mitigation strategies⁠—not just COVID, anything that's airborne and contagious⁠—because creating as safe a space as possible for immune compromised people and people who just don't want to get sick and don't want to get other people sick is really important to me. So I'm going to get to use that, and I'm excited to see how it works. If this is something that you're interested in, you can go check them out at bioabundances.com. I'm just really glad that there are companies out there who are creating ways for us to have safer indoor environments. And yeah, this is going to be exciting.

Anyways, so that's number one. And the next exciting news is that on March 23rd, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, I am teaching a class called Navigating Midlife Transitions Through Astrology. So, if you are a millennial or xennial, if you are going through any of the midlife transits or you want to kind of get ahead on them, or you want support and insight at looking back at what you've just come through, or if you're an astrology student and you want to learn more about this incredibly important series of transits that affect all of us if we live long enough, this is a class for you.

In this class, I'm going to teach what the midlife transits are, when they happen, what you can expect, and the best ways to cope. I'm really excited about this class, and it is one that I have been planning on teaching for quite some time. We are going to get this in under the radar right before Mercury goes Retrograde. You can register for the class. It will be linked on my website and in the episode descriptions. And if you are in a time zone where 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time doesn't work for you or you just can't make it that day, do not worry, because you'll get the recording in your inbox within 72 hours-ish of the class itself.

So I hope you will join me there. I love talking about the midlife transits because it's such a pivotal time. So many people talk about the Saturn Return, as well we should. I mean, let's keep on talking about the Saturn Return. But the Saturn Return is a thing that can happen two, three times in a life. These midlife transits⁠—it's a once-in-a-lifetime scenario, and it's a really big deal. So yeah. Let's get nerdy. Let's get insight. Let's get astrological.

Okay. And then the very last thing is I'm doing this thing, and you don't need to know about it. It's super boring. I'm changing a platform with the podcast. And because of that, it is within the realm of possibility that if you are subscribed to Ghost of a Podcast, you might be unsubscribed by accident this week. So just maybe double-check; make sure that you're still subscribed later on in the week or next week, just in case. And if you haven't yet subscribed to the podcast, I beseech you, what are you waiting for?

Okay. That's enough announcements. Let's get astrological. This week, we are looking at the astrology of March 10th through the 16th of 2024. There's not a lot of exact transits occurring, but there is a lot happening. Now, importantly, there's a New Moon in Pisces that is occurring on the 10th. I'm going to break it down in detail for you in just a moment. But I want to kind of acknowledge something that is happening in the larger scope of the astrology we are living through.

In the year-ahead forecast, I spoke about Neptune and Saturn both being in Pisces, and this is really important. It's also going to be really important when they meet up in Aries in '25 and '26. And in those two years, 2025 and 2026, I⁠—and I'm sure most astrologers⁠—expect big and dramatic changes in the world. But it is really important, if we're going to be using astrology in the best way possible⁠ according to me, that we stay present and we work with the energies that are active at this time so that we can make the most of them and we can best prepare for whatever is coming next. I think the risk with astrology is we get really in our heads, and we start using all these techniques, and we start predicting all this shit. And it's interesting, but how does it help? How does it actually help?

The thing that occurs when Saturn and Neptune are both in Pisces⁠—which is not an event that occurs frequently, okay? But the thing that can occur is that we get really overwhelmed. Our sensitivities increase, and then demoralization occurs because we feel just burdened and overwhelmed and helpless and hopeless to deal with the realities we find ourselves in. And this is not just an individual circumstance. It is an individual circumstance that is also a collective circumstance. It is something that is important for us to stay mindful around because we're not helpless to deal with it. If we know that the weather is gray and gloomy, then maybe you turn on all the lights in your house. Maybe you don't plan a picnic. I don't know. It depends on if you like gray and gloomy, I guess. But hopefully the metaphor stands.

Self-care and spiritual maintenance are really important right now. And also, it is important that we all take responsibility for how we do or don't engage with reality, the reality we are in now. Piscean energies⁠—and I'm not talking about Pisces people. I'm talking about the energetics of the zodiac sign Pisces, which we all have in us. The energies of Pisces can be very perfectionistic, not in a Virgonian way where it's all⁠—can be judgy and discerning and all that kind of stuff, but it's more in an idealistic way so that when we're dealing with Neptunian or Piscean energy, what we can often find ourselves dealing with is highly idealized and disassociative stuff.

And this brings me to the role of Neptune, the ruling planet of Pisces, in war. Neptune always has an important role to play in wars and in the motivations of fascistic and oppressive and repressive leaders. And this is because Neptune gives us a perfectionistic ideology and spiritual motivation to move towards that perfect vision of things. We have to have Neptune at play in order to empower a populace to dehumanize certain groups of people and idealize other groups of people. This is, unfortunately, a shit side of Neptune and of Piscean energies.

And so I simply want to invite you to consider this week, when there are not a lot of transits happening except for a New Moon in Pisces that has a very Neptunian bent to it, which again⁠—just one second. We'll get there. But I want to invite you to consider where in your life you may be being idealistic, and idealistic in a way that keeps you from reality. And I mean that in that way that perfection is the enemy of good. When you get so idealistic about the way things should be, you may end up missing out on the way things are and engaging from that place.

Neptune and Piscean energies⁠—they govern over anxiety and confusion and cults and escapism. Neptunian energies/Piscean energies can feel so overwhelming and permeate all of your thinking, all of your feeling, all of your interactions, in such a way that you end up self-sacrificing, whether or not it's necessary. And the way to best handle these energies is by having clear boundaries. And that might mean, in this digital world that we live in, developing greater media literacy, understanding that there are writers, thinkers, artists⁠—whatever⁠—that you disagree with on some things and not on other things. And it's up to you to figure out if that's okay or if that's not okay for you.

There's a way that these energies can inspire and help to expand your worldview, your compassion, and your ability to explore beyond the borders of what you thought before, of what you did before. And they can also be really, like I said, escapist. And you can deceive yourself or others. You can put yourself in a position where you are not dealing with reality; you're not dealing with your responsibilities and the material land that we all find ourselves on. And that doesn't help you. It doesn't help your development. It doesn't help your life. And it doesn't help move the needle on social issues and humanitarian issues that are really important to us all, or to most all of us, I'm going to say.

And these are just things I want to encourage you to consider because when Saturn and Neptune are both in Pisces, there tends to be populace-led movements. There tends to be circumstances where people come together and want better conditions because we're all burning out. We're all burdened. This isn't sustainable. Life is meant to have purpose and meaning. And we are family, right? We're meant to treat each other as neighbors and family. That is the Neptunian/Piscean truth of the matter.

But when Saturn and Neptune come together, it's kind of like there's a hole in the bucket of that strong and clear feeling. And it is our job to cultivate strong enough boundaries and protections for ourselves and the things that are important to us so that we can follow inspiration, act in ways that reflect compassion and empathy, but also sustain your efforts. That's the thing. It's the sustaining of efforts. It's finding a way to acknowledge and cope with the reality we find ourselves in even though, certainly when it comes to collective conditions, it's really hard to accept the realities we find ourselves in. But here we are.

So it's about identifying and accepting the realities we find ourselves in first and then allowing the inspiration and hopefulness of Piscean and Neptunian energies to inspire instead of generate delusion, exhaustion, anxiety, or make you vulnerable to people and situations that oversimplify things.

Okay. So let's get into this week's horoscope, and it starts on the 10th with a New Moon in Pisces. This is occurring at exactly 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time on March 10th. And we have the Sun and Moon in Pisces at 20 degrees and 16 minutes. Now, a New Moon in Pisces⁠—it's a time when your emotions and your intentions⁠—they come together, and they come together in the zodiac sign of Pisces, which is good for empathy and compassion, for spirituality and creativity.

This is a New Moon for forgiveness. This is a powerful time for you to be willing to forgive yourself and perhaps forgive others, keeping in mind that forgiving someone is not the same as absolving them of accountability and doesn't require you to let them in your life or keep them in your life in any particular way. Forgiveness is simply taking the hook of pain and resentment out of your heart. It can be really freeing.

And this particular New Moon in Pisces has some very important things about it that we want to pay attention to. The first is that Neptune is about 7 degrees from the Sun and Moon. And that's⁠—it's on the wide side, but the ruling planet of Pisces is Neptune. We have it sitting on top of the Sun and Moon, and this creates greater idealism. Within that, it triggers greater spiritual and emotional permeability and sensitivity. This can be a really good thing, or it can be a really challenging thing, depending.

But what you really want to do is pay attention to your anxieties and the emotional boundaries that you have in place and that you are striving to embody around those boundaries because Piscean and Neptunian energy⁠—they're just kind of everywhere. They're fog, and you can't really contain fog. And so, as a result of this, you may feel like you are disintegrating, like you're falling apart. You may feel anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted. And in fact, you may need to rest. You may need to take care of your body or your psyche or your heart or your soul⁠—or, most likely, a little bit of everything.

This is a really powerful New Moon to set the intention to honor your needs and, within that, to honor your need for recovery, inasmuch as that's real for you, and to listen to your intuition, to listen to your gut instincts, because this zodiac sign of Pisces is, of course, associated with intuition.

Now, the tricky part is when you're in a state of permeability, you might be picking up a lot of data but not have the grounding or the context to make sense of that data. So, if you have insights, if you're just really picking up on things, jot it down. Write it down somewhere with a time stamp, and then come back to it in a few days and see how it feels and how it's landed.

The thing you don't want to do is overidealize, put yourself or others on a pedestal, or tap yourself, to push yourself so hard that you have nothing left. Sometimes, when you get super burned out or exhausted, when you've got nothing left in the tank, it can feel, in the short-term, peaceful. It can feel kind of nice to be empty, but it's not a sustainable way of living.

So my advice to you this New Moon is to show yourself some love, to take care of yourself, and not in an exclusively individualistic way⁠—although, yes, take care of yourself as an individual⁠—but so that you are able to show up for others and for the world, for the things that are important to you, and to be accountable for how you show up⁠—how you show up for others, what you give, how you give it, why you give it, and what you take, how you take it, how much you take.

There's something else about this New Moon that I think is incredibly important, and that is the fact that we have a Mars/Uranus square. Now, it's not exact, but it's close. It was exact at the end of last week, but it's very close. We've got Mars at 20 degrees of Aquarius and 11 minutes, and we've got Uranus at 19 degrees of Taurus and 52 minutes. And if you're an advanced astrology student or an astrologer, you will know what that means. It means⁠—yikes⁠—we have a lot of Mars/Uranus energy.

And so it is important to keep in mind that Neptune and Uranus are the two planets that govern anxiety. Neptune is panic. It's like, "I don't know what's real. I feel panic and overwhelm," whereas Uranus is more related to having a hard time staying focused. It's hypervigilance. It's overanalyzing. It's that kind of nervy anxiety that you can feel. You might know the difference between these two kinds of anxiety. But they're both activated in this chart.

The Mars square to Uranus indicates that it's not a great time for doing major manifestation work or any kind of major intention-setting because Uranus and Mars are here to throw us curveballs, to shift the conversation in a pretty major way. This transit of Mars/Uranus square can be revolutionary. It can help you to break free from a restrictive dynamic, whether it is in a relationship, at work, or it's in your own mind; it's within you. It's in your own behavior or something you've been holding on to that just doesn't serve you or match who you are now.

When Mars and Uranus are squared, it's this kind of erratic, defensive, changeable energy. But within that is so much opportunity to get free. I mean, I feel like that's not a bad thing. So this New Moon is a time where you're likely to feel like you need to make a change but also pretty anxious about that. The kind of anxiety that you're likely to feel is really just destabilizing because Mars square to Uranus is an inherently destabilizing transit.

The key is to check in with your ego, to make sure that your ego is not too big or too small, because in either case, what ends up happening is you are motivated by defending yourself out of a state of egoism instead of self-preservation or ambition in a healthy and balanced way. The ego is governed by Mars, and it is not a bad thing. The ego is not bad. It is part of being a human for most humans. The key is finding a way to embody your ego that is sustainable, that is healthy, that is complementary to the rest of your nature and considerate of the world around you and the people around you.

Now, when Mars square to Uranus occurs, it's kind of like you start to feel your own intense feelings around your ego. And if your ego tends to swing too big, you might just feel like everybody else is being annoying and everyone else is in your way and everybody else is the problem, or any specific person. So the pendulum swings to what other people are doing wrong. And if it's too small, then you may find yourself in a situation where you're feeling inadequate, insecure, like you just kind of want to hide from the world, or you might get really mean to yourself and really beat yourself up. Find that balance point where you are willing and able to take responsibility for yourself, to own your shit, but also willing and able to change, to mobilize in the ways that are necessary.

Now, the other thing about this particular aspect is it's revolutionary in terms of collective conditions. So, when we have a Mars square to Uranus, we can expect change. And we've been seeing it already for⁠—about a week this transit's been active. We have seen people actively engaging in struggles for revolution. It's not new. It's not exclusive to this week. But astrologically, we can kind of track this because we're dealing with a New Moon in Pisces. What is the ideology that is driving these changes? What are the beliefs that are driving these changes? If it's not empathy and consideration and humanity that is driving movements, then it's going to probably be pretty fucking messy and fucked up.

Mars square to Uranus can provoke violence. New Moon in Pisces, not so much. But this is where we get into kind of holy war style stuff, where people feel like it's justified to do something shitty because of their deeply held beliefs. And so this is something for you to interrogate in yourself. Are there things you're empowering yourself to do, you're justifying that you have done or that you're doing, because of your beliefs that you wouldn't otherwise think is okay? This is something for you to consider. Remember who you are. Remember what you believe in. And make sure that your actions line up with those things. And be willing to adapt because the Mars square to Uranus requires adaptation, and in a radically different way, so does the New Moon in Pisces.

Something else that's worth naming is that the Mars square to Uranus is highly energizing and stimulating. It's very nervous systemy, and also Mars, so it's like you feel it in your body. You get activated. The New Moon in Pisces is quite the opposite. It's in the ether. It's emo and it's spiritual. And so the mix in energies can have you feeling just straight-up exhausted or defensive. Instead of me calling that good or bad, I just want to bring your attention to it so that you can have more self-awareness because that's really what all these transits are about. It's helping you to cultivate greater self-awareness so that you can act in ways that reflect the person you want to be, and when you don't do that or you can't do that, that you own it; you learn from it. You keep on going.

Now, luckily, we have an exact transit of Mercury sextile to Pluto on the same day with Mercury at 1 degrees and 28 minutes of Aries forming a sextile to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. And I didn't say this already⁠—sorry. I'm not in the habit. This is all happening on Sunday, March 10th, Pacific Time. So Mercury sextile to Pluto is an absolutely lovely transit. What it does is it deepens your thinking. It empowers you to explore and work out ideas in ways that would otherwise be really stressful or even traumatic, but under a Mercury sextile to Pluto, we're able to go a little deeper with less internal resistance.

And if you end up having conversations⁠—because Mercury is related to our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers⁠—then it indicates that a conversation will be more effectively had, which is really fucking good news because this New Moon in Pisces, with Neptune's proximity to the Sun and Moon and the Mars square to Uranus⁠—it's not great for conversation. None of that is great for really hearing where someone's coming from and being open to listening with all your senses or communicating effectively.

But luckily, this Mercury sextile to Pluto adds a huge and meaningful layer of support so that you and the people that you're dealing with are more likely to be open to self-inquiry, to learning something new, to having a conversation that might be a little bit challenging. This transit also indicates that you may simply be focused on deep shit around the New Moon, and that is really valuable. That's really great.

We also have a sextile between the Sun and Moon and Uranus. So, again, we have a little bit more support in making use of the kind of chaotic energies that Uranus is triggering. This is a really lucky dynamic, and I don't necessarily associate Uranus with luck. But this is a lucky dynamic to have activated in our New Moon chart because it kind of greases the wheel of being open to change and being able to shift your perspective in such a way that it doesn't feel like major labor to change. But all of this requires that you are present and have your head at least only half in the clouds, not completely in the clouds.

At the same time, we have Jupiter and Uranus finally sitting pretty close to each other. So we are, in this New Moon and ongoing, experiencing the mounting effects of the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction, where things get wilder. And associated with that, we all want to get a little more free. And so, this week, with the New Moon in Pisces, I want to encourage you to really ask yourself, where do you need to get free? Where do you want to get free?

You can, of course, apply this to anything in your life that is important to you, and I encourage you to. But I also want to encourage you to apply it to yourself, not just to things and people and relationships, but to yourself, because after this New Moon, we shift into Eclipse Season as we build towards the March 25th Lunar Eclipse in Libra. And don't worry about that yet, because you want to keep in mind that Moon transits are⁠—they're meant to be felt. They're not supposed to be analyzed and planned for. You're supposed to feel them.

And so this New Moon in Pisces is a time for getting right with herself, planting seeds, setting intentions around your own emotional welfare, what you focus on, how you do it, how you show up or not. And really, the best way to prepare for an Eclipse or any Lunar event is by cultivating greater emotional wellness, emotional resiliency, and emotional accountability. And this New Moon offers opportunities for exactly that, but not in a linear way⁠—more in a Piscean way, where you're in process with yourself.

And, my dears, that's literally it. That's it for this week. Those are the only two transits we have happening all week. However, I don't expect that this is going to be a week of chill. And that is partially because we are still feeling the effects of the Mars square to Uranus pretty much through the whole week, which is, again, kind of destabilizing and erratic, but also because the assignment is that you show up and that you cultivate greater self-protection, boundaries, and intentionality for yourself and the things that are important to you.

And that is not complicated work, but it is really hard. And it is especially hard because on the outside, to other people, it doesn't look like you're doing anything. And so much of our lives are kind of pointed outward. And so, if you are doing the incredibly hard work of sitting with yourself, you might need to cancel plans with friends to, quote unquote, "do nothing," to just sit with yourself. But it's not just sitting with yourself. Sitting with yourself is hard. That's why so few of us do it consistently.

I imagine that this is going to be an emotionally trying week. And again, to that I want to say don't freak out. There's nothing to plan. Just be kind to yourself. Just show up for yourself and other people. Notice your own behavior. Notice your own instincts. Notice your own intentions and motivations. Be accountable to them, which is a very Capricorn way of saying understand yourself so that you can be healthier and happier, so you can make better choices. You may need to change, or everything may be changing around you. And that's intimidating. That's a lot. But it's what's up. And identifying and aligning with the truth can be messy. It can be challenging. But it is the quickest way to finding peace because the truth is true, whether you accept it or not, whether you like it or not.

And so, my loves, I want to encourage you to be brave enough to seek the truth and to sit with it when you find it. The practice and the act of sitting with things is more transformative and healing than most of us realize. The world is in a whole lot of hurt right now, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. We all need to find ways of coping with that so that we can be as healthy and happy as possible, yes, but also so that we can show up, so we can show up for the many things that are important to us and that are necessary to show up for at this time.

If you're interested in having deeper conversations about self-care, the ego, the soul, astrology, all this delicious stuff that I touch on here in the podcast, join me over on Patreon, where I post, I think, all the damn time. I post a lot. And we're having lots of really interesting conversations. It's kind of my happy place on the internet. So you can join me over there. The link is always in the episode description. It's at patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo.

I thank you for joining me this week and every week for Ghost. I hope you use this information, and astrology in general, as a tool for getting more present, having more empathy for yourself and others, and navigating the twists and turns of life with a little more grace. I hope you take really good care of yourself and others. And make sure to tune in to next week's reading. I'm still doing Black Love Month all month of March, and the reading that's coming up is really just wonderful and lovely, and I'm excited for you to hear it.

All right. I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.