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 another week of Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we're going to look at the astrology for May 12th through the 18th of 2024. And I want to start this week's episode by thanking everyone who came out to Queer & Well last weekend in Oakland. It was an amazing crowd, and we had great conversations. And it was just so lovely to get to meet so many folks who listen to the podcast who instantly feel like family.

So yeah. Thank you if you came out. It was really lovely. And to be totally honest, I had received exceptionally bad news, just really terrible, terrible news just hours before the event, and I was in a really rough shape. And going to this event and getting to connect with so many awesome people and share community just was uplifting. And I learned about really great resources from two individuals who are doing really great work in the world.

Yaffa, who is a Trans Palestinian writer, death doula, and activist, has a bunch of links for mutual aid for queer and Trans Palestinians. I'm going to drop the link to their Linktree in the episode description, so check that out. And also, the poet shah noor hussein shared resources for supporting folks on the ground in Sudan. Again, I will drop a link in the show description. And while you're at it, check out both of their poetry. They're amazing.

Okay. Let's get into your horoscope. The first exact transit of this week happens on Monday, May 13th. And we don't have one; we've got two exact transits. At 2:13 a.m. Pacific Time, the Sun and Uranus meet at 23 degrees of Taurus. And then, later that afternoon at 12:45 p.m. Pacific Time, Venus forms a sextile to Saturn. Venus will be at 17 degrees and 40 minutes of Taurus, and Saturn is at the same degrees of Pisces. So let's talk about it.

Before we get into details, I will say Sun conjunction to Uranus is destabilizing. It is surprising, and it is stimulating. Venus sextile to Saturn is grounding. It's all about security and stability. So these two transits kind of complement each other because while the Sun conjunction to Uranus is an opportunity for growth and change and exciting stuff, Venus sextile to Saturn makes it so that it's not too destabilizing, that we don't lose track of our values and the fixed parts of our reality, because astrology teaches us there are fixed parts to our reality⁠—our personal realities and our collective realities. And we must work with that. I mean, I don't know. We don't have to do anything, but Saturn certainly wants us to work with that.

The Sun conjunction to Uranus is an exciting transit because it stimulates our nervous systems. It makes us feel engaged and alive, for better or worse. This transit intensifies your desire to be seen and understood as a unique individual. It is very hard to make stupid compromises during this transit because Uranus wants us to be free and independent and to show everybody who the fuck we are. And the Sun is on board, by the way, for that.

And so this transit can make you feel rebellious. It can make you feel irritated. It can have you behaving in ways that are maybe characterized as capricious. And so the thing to do on and around this date, Monday the 13th, is to be flexible, to be adaptable, to know that things are not going to go according to plan. People are not going to behave in ways that you expect, or you might say or do some shit that you were not exactly planning on. And that's neither good nor bad. It's just interesting.

How you engage with this transit can be very consequential because what this transit can do is help you to open doors, to explore possibility. It can have you breaking free of limitations, internally imposed or external. It can have you engaging in some sort of righteous action that you really believe in. And it can also have you just feeling super overstimulated, really anxious⁠—like nervous system anxious, not panic anxious⁠—and having a hard time with concentration. This is certainly not a great transit for concentration.

News that comes your way, opportunities that emerge, insights⁠—psychic or psychological⁠—we don't want to place too much permanent value on them. What I mean by that is, with Uranus, easy come, easy go. With Uranus, you might have this really clear intuitive perception and then realize after the transit passes that it meant something really different than what you thought it did when it first came up.

We just want to let things develop is the key here. Don't rush to make matter and meaning out of experiences. Sometimes you have to stay with the experience, and that's that. Uranus is an impulsive planet. It's rebellious. It's revolutionary. And so this can be a really important transit for any of the many important revolutions and people-led movements that are occurring at this time.

The other thing is that people are going to be impulsively acting out, and that can lead to problems. Luckily, this transit is overlapping with a Venus sextile to Saturn, so it makes me think we're not going to see the worst parts of this transit, but you never know. I like to stay open to all possibilities. It is wise to avoid acting out. You may feel entitled to acting out. You may feel like it's the only thing to do in a moment, but it's probably not.

If you figure out that you're in a situation⁠—or relationship or whatever⁠—that is just not a place where you can be authentic to yourself, that you feel trapped in some way⁠—it's not in alignment in some way⁠—you don't necessarily need to act on it during this transit. You can use that information to start to understand yourself better, how you got here, what you feel like you can do to mobilize forward, because the risk with this transit is that you act out impulsively at the same time that other people are feeling this energy, and so then they act out impulsively in retaliation to you.

So we don't want to kick up forces of opposition unless we do, right? This is a time where you just want to be intentional. And Uranus is impulsive, not always that intentional. Again, the Sun is your identity. And so everything's going to feel really fucking personal on and around this date to you, but also to everybody else. So you want to remember to breathe. You want to remember that you don't have to act on your reactions all the time. This might be one of those times to really pay attention to your reactions before you decide to act on them, even with the people you're closest to.

Now, the Venus sextile to Saturn⁠—this transit, as I said, is a security-oriented transit. Venus is our finances. It is our values. It is our relationships. It's how we feel about the way we look. It's like our vanity stuff. Saturn is reality. It is consequences. It is responsibility. So this transit can be a good time for organizing your finances. I mean, the Sun/Uranus conjunction doesn't agree, but on paper, Venus sextile Saturn is good for organizing your finances if you have to deal with some shit. It's a good time for reconnecting with your values or investing in your relationships. Acting materially⁠—Saturn⁠—on your values⁠—Venus⁠—there will be flow. More than flow⁠—there will be a dynamic spark of energy supporting it. That's a sextile's function, a dynamic spark of energy.

So spend time with people you care about. If you can't spend time with people you care about, that's why emojis were invented. Send an emoji to someone you care about, just letting them know you're thinking about them, that you care about them. It doesn't have to be a poem. It can just be a heart or a peach, if you're feeling a little spicy. I don't know what you do, but you can do something that doesn't take a whole lot from you but affirms for others that you care about them, that you're thinking about them. Sometimes it's the small things that make a really big difference.

Now, Venus sextile to Saturn in general is a great time for investing in security. And Sun conjunction to Uranus is the literal opposite. So don't allow your desire for security and stability to override your need to be authentic and free. However, don't allow your drive to be authentic and free to drive you to act in ways that ignore your very real needs for some stability and security. These two transits overlapping with each other⁠—they're trying to teach us exactly this balance. Easier said than done, but that's what it is.

On the 17th of May, we have another exact transit, and this one is a little bit of a motherfucker, Mercury square Pluto, with Mercury at two degrees and three minutes of Taurus and Pluto at the same of Aquarius. This is the exact at 12:44 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, May 17th. We're feeling this transit all week long, and we're going to feel it through the better part of next week.

This transit is challenging. Mercury is your beliefs. It's your attitudes. It's what you think. It's how you think. It's the tone of voice that you speak to yourself in. It's the tone of voice you speak to others in. It's how you listen. It's how you process information. It's your friendships, your coworkers, your colleagues, all that kind of stuff. Mercury is square to Pluto⁠—Pluto, the planet of transformation, birth, and death, destruction, healing, and trauma. What could possibly go wrong?

On the positive, this transit deepens your thinking. So, if there's any kind of research you need to do, if there's any kind of deep learning that you are tasked with or you want to task yourself with, this transit can actually help because it intensifies your thinking in a really deep way. On the other hand, honestly, this transit tends to lead to power struggles. So this can be through abuses of power, and this is in the context of Mercury, so it's through communication, ideas, that kind of stuff.

It can be just you're so fucking annoyed because you're triggered, and then you act out, and then the person you're interacting with acts out right back. And now we have a power struggle; we have a conflict. If there is something under the surface in one of your relationships that you've been trying to push down and not deal with, yeah, this transit will kick it up. And the truth of the matter is it is wise to confront things directly under this transit. That doesn't, however, mean that it's wise to process with people.

Because this transit is so triggering⁠—it's activating and triggering⁠—nobody is likely to be clear-minded or clearheaded. Nobody is likely to avoid personal activation. And so it's hard to know if you're stirring the pot, starting shit, the very problem in the situation or not. Now, again, Pluto tends to make us feel pretty fucking entitled, so you might feel like you are faultless. But this transit is one that kicks up control issues, power issues, and can lead to some serious drama. So pick your battles wisely.

And as you've heard me say countless times, don't process with people that you don't trust. If somebody's proven to you that they don't handle your truth with respect, that they don't communicate with care, that they don't listen when you express yourself, then why would you process with them? What is the literal point? And if you are not being respectful with somebody else's truth, if you're not listening when they speak, if you're throwing shit in people's faces after they've told you in confidence weeks ago or whatever, this is the time to check in with yourself, to call yourself in so that you can do the healing that this transit promotes, even though it's hard.

This transit, in terms of more collective conditions, can be really tricky in terms of what we see in the world. We may have stories that are more propaganda than factual journalism. We may have an escalation around the ideologies that substantiate the harm that humans do to each other and to this planet. Or you may find yourself just really spiraling about something in your life or something in the world, and I mean, take your pick; am I right?

So this transit can be really destructive. It can be really destructive in your thinking. It can be really destructive in a lot of ways. But it doesn't have to be. It's just that it often is, because we tend to follow the strongest energy instead of recognize that energy is energy is energy. And energy can be transformed. Energy can be worked with, but it takes a lot of clarity of intention. It takes strength of character, and it takes the will to sit with your most toxic impulses and parts and not condemn them and not shut them down and not follow them, but to be present with them.

When Mercury squares Pluto, we are confronted with our shadow or with the shadow side of something in our relationships or in our life or in the world. It can be devastating. It can be really just hard. But how you cope with challenges is an essential part of how you adult. This transit is an opportunity for you to have a pulse check on that. And it might not be super fun, but it's valuable. So, if there's something really important you have to do, especially if you're trying to start something, this is not the time for it.

If you are feeling really triggered by your bestie or your partner or your boss or whatever, try to focus on your own inner landscape instead of trying to fix it in dynamic, unless that cannot be avoided. And if it cannot be avoided and you've got to process with somebody because of whatever reason, be honest. Be authentic. But honesty and authenticity should not come at the expense of kindness and empathy.

If you see, metaphorically, someone has spinach in their teeth, you can look them up and down and be like, "Ew. You have spinach in your teeth. How long has that been there?" Kind of mean, right? Or you can be like, "Hey, you have spinach in your teeth." You can be kind about it. You can be supportive about helping them figure out they've got spinach in their teeth. It's not just about telling the truth. It's about being mindful about how you articulate the truth through your tone, through your language, through your body language, through your motivations. Whenever Pluto's involved, we have to check our motivations because Pluto is associated with our shadow.

This is a very challenging transit, but it can be transformative if you work intentionally with the energies that come up inside of you and in your life.

And that brings us to the last day of this week's horoscope. And we have not one but two exact transits. On Saturday, May 18th, Venus forms an exact conjunction to Uranus. Both planets are at 23 degrees and 24 minutes of Taurus. And the Sun also forms a conjunction to Jupiter in Taurus. So the Sun is at 28 degrees and 18 minutes, as is Jupiter. So we got a whole lot of Taurus energy happening here and now.

So Taurus energy is such an earthy, values-based energy. But the reason why Taurus energy has us digging in our heels and getting stubborn and fixed is because it can be too associated with security. So, when we overemphasize security over authenticity, what we get is a fucking rut. We get stubbornness, cutting off your nose to spite your face. That's the negative side of Taurean energies. So we want to bring awareness to that because there's a lot of Taurus energy this week and certainly on and around this date.

The combo platter of a Venus conjunction to Uranus and a Sun conjunction to Jupiter, certainly egged on by this Mercury square to Pluto, is fucking anyone's game. This is a very impulsive set of energies. This is a very reactive set of energies. Everyone's going to think they're right. Everybody's going to be confident that they're right. And Sun conjunction to Jupiter, especially egged on by these other two transits, the Mercury square to Pluto and the Venus conjunction to Uranus, is a transit that makes us want to shove our truth down other people's throats, proselytize to people and let them know exactly what to think, exactly how to act. And you want to watch that. You want to watch that because most of us really don't like the way that feels.

So Venus conjunction to Uranus, exact at 4:40 a.m. Pacific Time, does something very different than the Venus sextile to Saturn, which I want to reiterate is a really positive transit. This one⁠—it can kind of be anyone's game, as conjunctions tend to be. They're not inherently easy or hard. They're just a lot of energy because what a conjunction is is when two or more planets sit on top of each other. So their energies kind of become one.

Conjunctions are like Power Rangers unite. Each Power Ranger⁠—when they unite, they become one big, new superhero. So, if you take out the whole superhero element, that's basically what a conjunction is. You take individual planets that have their own meaning. You smoosh them together with a conjunction, and now they become a whole new thing.

So Venus conjunct Uranus brings about excitement and change and spontaneity and dynamicism and upsets and surprises and dysregulation. It depends on how you hold it. It depends on how it hits you. Venus, again, is the planet that wants diplomacy and security and stability. It's your failures. It's your relationships. It's your finances. And Uranus is surprises. So, if this hits your chart directly, if you have something at around 23 degrees of a fixed sign especially⁠—so that's Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius⁠—yeah, you're really going to feel this.

But it's going to be a lot more supportive if you have anything at around 23 degrees of an earth or a water sign. That's Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer, Capricorn, and Virgo. So, if you have anything in those signs, it's going to be a lot more supportive. But Venus conjunction to Taurus brings about surprises so that you have to make a call, and that call ideally is going to be a reflection of your values. But if you're really not sure about what you value, of what's important to you, if you're unwilling to connect with the status quo, then this transit's going to be really destabilizing and surprising.

Oftentimes, things happen that you did not plan and sometimes you do not want; sometimes you do. But luckily, because the Sun and Jupiter are meeting, we're more likely to have positive experiences. But again, Uranus is so unpredictable, it's hard to say. You may have unexpected expenses. You may have unexpected challenges to deal with. But you may just as likely flirt with someone you didn't plan on, have a really fun time hooking up with somebody, whether it's your partner or some rando. It could just be a really fun transit. Uranus and Venus together can be a really good time. Ditto for art. If you are a creative person, you may just step into your studio and be like, "What the fuck? This is fun. I'm doing something different."

So be open. Play. Explore. That's what this transit⁠—in fact, both of these transits⁠—want. Listen to new music. Try on new clothes. Just play with creativity, style, and in your relationships, in your connections with others. The thing you probably shouldn't do is invest your money, make major purchases, especially spontaneous ones, or try to make things secure and stable. This is not the week for it, especially not today, but this is not the week for it. So, if you're trying to ask somebody to go steady, yeah, don't do it right now. It's not the moment.

Now, the same day at 11:45 a.m. Pacific Time, as I said, the Sun and Jupiter meet. And this transit is lovely. When Jupiter and the Sun sit on top of each other, we feel good. There's a sense of resiliency and joyfulness and ease and optimism, and it can feel really great. You may find yourself having a more positive frame of mind and, because of that, having more energy to work with. If you are feeling particularly strained by all this Uranus energy and the Mercury/Pluto square, the Sun conjunction to Jupiter can really help.

Now, the tricky thing is, because it's a conjunction, it can also help you to go too far with something, to over-imbibe in a substance, to overdo behavior, to just push yourself too far. Sun conjunction to Jupiter can have us acting in ways that are somewhat extreme. And that's not inherently a bad thing because Jupiter tends to be pretty positive. But because of the overlap of this transit with the Mercury square to Pluto, which triggers addictive behaviors⁠—so it's not going to make you all of a sudden do something addictively if it's not already in your nature, but if you already struggle with addictive behaviors, as so many of us do, yeah, the Sun conjunction to Jupiter just kind of puts a magnifying glass in a hot, sunny day right on top of it. You know what I mean? It can heat it up, see?

So this is where being intentional about your values and your motivations is really important because expansion is not inherently good. Expansion of creative, generative, life-bringing things, healthy things, constructive things⁠—that's good. But there's a lot of things in your life that you don't want to expand. There's a lot of things in the world you don't want to expand. So, if you're having a shitty time this transit, ask yourself the question, "Am I feeding something I don't want to see grow? Am I working towards the expansion unintentionally of something that makes me miserable?" because we are so often the architects of our own misery. It's really valuable to check in with our intentions, unconscious and conscious.

This transit can intensify, like I said earlier, trying to shove your truth down other people's throats, trying to force people to perceive things exactly as you do. And this is where we must remember that there is room for nuance within friendships, within coalitions and communities and movements. There has to be, because if there isn't, what we have is a space where everyone must be obedient and the same. And that is not what we want at all. I'm guessing nobody listening to this podcast is like, "Yeah, that's a great thing. Everyone should be obedient and do the same thing, feel the same thing, have the same perspective." Astrology teaches us that that's not it.

The expression "You can drag a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"⁠—it's a very Jupiterian expression. Speak your truth. Live your truth. Be your truth, and let other people be theirs. Take in the data that other people are sharing with you about who and what they are. Don't be so focused on changing other people that you stop taking care of your own side of the street.

And in regards to movement-building and community-building or projects and work stuff, this transit can be really spectacular as long as you're not so focused on what you want to do that you don't include listening, receptivity, because that's what this transit requires, but not just that, because Mercury square to Pluto is happening at the same time. And this transit can incline us to just overdo a thing. And if we overdo the effects of a Mercury square to Pluto, then we're probably going to be really mean and petty and resentful and bitter and engage in bullshit power struggles that are more a reflection of our activation and our triggers than what's actually happening.

This is a great week for therapy. This is a great week for your dear diary. This is a great week for remembering to breathe and returning to the body and returning to the present moment and giving ourselves permission to have limitations on what you can process at this time, what you can do at this time. Just because you can't do all the things right now doesn't mean you're on the wrong path. There's only so much any one person can do at a time. And it's okay for you to have limitations. It is better that you do it in a way that is healthy and in alignment than you do it all or you do nothing.

So a little bit of progress⁠—you know what I'm going to say. A little bit of progress is progress. And when you validate and center the reality of where you're at and what you're capable of right now, then you can engage in cultivating progress, not perfectionism. And that, my dears, is a beautiful fucking thing.

And that's your horoscope for this week. I'm going to run through the transits one more time. But you should know that there is a transcript for each episode of Ghost of a Podcast available for free on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com. So, if you have a hard time keeping track of what the hell I'm saying because I talk fast and I say a lot, don't worry. There's a transcript. You can just reread it.

Also, if you want to be tracking the transits with the same tool that I use, you can subscribe to my transit-tracking tool called Astrology for Days. And it's available over at astrologyfordays.com. And if you would like to learn more astrology, more mediumship, more woo with me, I invite you to join me over on Patreon, where we do all those things and more. It is my happy place on the internet. And if you're already a supporter of my work over on Patreon, I want to thank you. Thank you very, very much. So yeah, patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo, always linked in the show notes/episode description.

Okay. On the 13th, we have a Sun conjunction to Uranus as well as a Venus sextile to Saturn. On the 17th, Mercury forms an exact square to Pluto. And on the 18th, Venus forms an exact conjunction to Uranus, and the Sun forms an exact conjunction to Jupiter. And that's your damn horoscope, my loves.

I hope you are treating yourself and others with kindness, patience, and empathy. And I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.