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, where we talk about the world inside and outside of you through the lens of astrology. This is the week of August 25th through the 31st of 2024, and it's a lot less chaotic astrologically than last week. And before I get into the details of it, I want to let you know a couple of important things.

The first is that on the 1st of every month, on my Patreon, I drop a bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast. It's the only place you can get it, and it's a look at the month ahead. And September is kind of an OMG sort of month astrologically. Also, on my Patreon is where I'm having kind of ongoing conversations around the politics of the day. And so, if you want to kind of get into that shit with me, go there. That's where I am. I will be happy to see you there. And if you're already a patron, thank you so very much.

Now, the other very important thing I want to say⁠—which is about you, not me⁠—is that when there's really intense astrology happening, like a lot of transits, you feel it. You feel it. It's like an ocean spray in your face. It's like a one-two punch. Things happen. But when we are immediately after some really intense astrology, what a lot of people feel is not too much. And what a lot of other people feel is⁠—all the shit that you did all of a sudden has consequences. All the stuff that you were repressing all of a sudden comes up.

And so, because last week was astrologically so busy⁠—there was so much happening inside of you, in your life, and in the world around us⁠—we are likely to see some meaningful consequences to all that noise. So, to that, I say you were forewarned.

And without further ado, let's get astrological. The first exact transit of this week is happening on Tuesday, August 27th, at 12:24 a.m. Pacific Time, and it's a Venus trine to Uranus. Venus is going to be at 27 degrees of Virgo and 15 minutes, and Uranus will be at the same degrees of Taurus. This is a lovely transit, okay? Venus is your values, your relationships, and Uranus is independence and autonomy and progress.

And when these two planets form a lovely aspect like a trine, what we tend to experience is the potential for progress in your relationships. And because these are in earth signs, this can directly affect your bag. It can directly affect your love life, your connections with other people. So it could be romantic love, but we have a lot of different kinds of love relationships in life, not just romantic ones. So this transit can be helpful to any of them.

Now, in regards to money, which is really worth noting, Venus trine to Uranus is a transit that can help you to organize your finances, and I'm not just saying in a Saturnian way, where you're like, "Oh shit. I gotta cross my t's and dot my i's." But it can help you to come up with better strategies or new strategies for how to cope with old financial patterns, old financial dynamics. So this is a really great transit for you to hunker down and explore what's possible with your finances.

If you are struggling financially, may I humbly suggest seeking people who share your values who are modeling ways of engaging with their finances that works and is inspiring to you? Because that can be particularly effective during this Venus trine to Uranus.

Now, in regards to love and relationships, this is just a great time to try new things, meet new people, flirt a little, try new shit out⁠—that kind of stuff. It's a transit that can feel exciting and dynamic, and it's kind of imbued with possibility, which I'm a fan of. This is a good day for making art, playing with clothes and makeup, for exploring your values system and exposing yourself to progressive ideas, whatever that means to you.

And it's just a nice transit. In particular, it's a nice transit to have overlapping with the other Venus transit that's exact on the 28th.  On Wednesday, the 28th, at exactly 1:25 p.m. Pacific Time, Venus will be at 29 degrees of Virgo and eight minutes, and Neptune will be at the exact same degrees of Pisces. That means they're opposite each other.

A Venus opposition to Neptune is very challenging. So I don't want you to forget what I just said about Venus trine to Uranus because it is grounding. It is stabilizing. It helps you to be curious, to have fun, but also to access new ways of being, including new ways of having boundaries, which is really what the Venus opposition to Neptune requires.

Venus opposite to Neptune⁠—it comes with a lot of problems, to be honest. One is the risk of idealism. So, while Venus trine to Uranus in earth signs can really stabilize and open up your value systems, Venus opposite Neptune creates confusion, makes you more gullible, more susceptible to misinformation or disinformation and, depending on your nature, perpetrating misinformation or disinformation or taking it in as gospel.

And I used the word "gospel" very much on purpose because Neptune can be associated with religious extremism. And when I say religious extremism, I do mean religious, but I'm including New Age and woo in the mix of that. So do your best to not look for confirmation bias outside of yourself. In other words, what I'm trying to say is don't use your spirituality, your religion, your woo habits, as a way to defend or excuse bad behavior, to use it to put your head in the sand, to be a martyr⁠—which is always a risk with this kind of a transit⁠—or to become perfectionist and puritanical in a way that is ultimately steeped in white supremacy on all manner of levels. See what I'm saying?

Venus opposite Neptune is a challenging transit because it challenges our values, which is Venus, and our ideals, which is Neptune. And that's really hard because they tend to kind of bleed over onto each other. But Neptune is the more powerful planet in the mix of these two planets. And so, again, there can just be big confusion and big idealism that leads to kind of big problems.

In my view, this transit is always an excellent time to work on boundaries⁠—boundaries in your relationships, boundaries in your relationship to beauty or money or love itself. By working on boundaries either internally with yourself, behaviorally with other people, or on any other level, what your challenge is is to actually embody them, so to not just say to yourself, "I'm not going to obsess on so-and-so," but every time you catch yourself obsessing on so-and-so, pulling your energy back, not beating yourself up, not getting weird⁠—just redirecting. That's how you enforce a boundary. You just practice being present with the boundaried behavior.

Now, when we look at the world outside of ourselves, when we look at the world at-large, this transit is likely to coincide with some sort of big misinformation, miscommunication, messiness in the world. And this is likely to show up in ways that tug on our emotions or on our sense of safety because, of course, Venus is associated with safety and security, while Neptune is associated with anxiety. Because of this, we may experience propaganda that is pretty effective, that really pulls on our heartstrings and on our fears.

Another thing that is likely to happen under this transit is that you feel anxious; you feel discombobulated, like you're not sure where you belong, whether or not your relationships are working, whether or not your investments are good⁠—and I'm talking about investments not just in a capitalistic way. I'm talking about it like what you've invested energy and time into.

You can see why this is kind of an intense transit. And again, what I want to rein you back in on is this transit is an opportunity to have healthy boundaries. But to have healthy boundaries, you have to have a self-appropriate appraisal of what you value and what the difference between a fear that keeps you safe versus a fear that is a product of imagination and future-tripping. If you can practice being present this week in general and on this day especially, you will have the easiest time making use of these energies, and you'll have the least amount of drama and problems.

Now, I have good news for you on this day, which is Mercury is direct. Mercury Retrograde is over as of 2:14 p.m. Pacific Time. It goes direct at 21 degrees of Leo and 24 minutes, which is pretty damn exciting, if you ask me. Now that Mercury Retrograde is over, you can go ahead⁠—make your plans. Sign your contracts. Make your major purchases. All the things that we tell you not to do during Mercury Retrograde, you can go ahead and do them all now. But know that through the Retroshade period, you're going to be having to deal with whatever messes, miscommunications, and misunderstandings emerged during the Retrograde. So we're only going to be feeling that until about September 11th, okay?

And that brings us to the final transit of this week, and it is also from Venus. Venus is so busy. She's so social. On Thursday, August 29th, we have a trine between Venus and Pluto. So, at 6:22 a.m., Venus moves into Libra. And at 7:32 a.m. Pacific Time, at 0 degrees and 4 minutes, we have an exact trine with Venus in Libra and Pluto in Aquarius. This is a lovely, fortifying, and supportive transit to have overlapping that Venus opposition to Neptune.

And before I get into the details of the Venus/Pluto transit, I want to reaffirm something here. The fact that this very challenging Venus opposition to Neptune is occurring sandwiched between two really supportive Venus transits means this: this is an excellent week⁠—I mean excellent week⁠—to practice your boundaries. I cannot stress this enough. You will have opportunities to do it, and if you take those opportunities, it'll be in your best interest and in the best interest of your life.

And so, generally, what is an opportunity to practice having healthy boundaries? It's an opportunity where you need good boundaries because otherwise you will feel bad. So, if challenging dynamics come up in your relationships, in your finances, with your anxieties, remember that this is all an opportunity to have healthy boundaries. And it's a practice. It's a topic that I explore a lot on the weekly readings that I do here on the podcast, so hopefully you have access to a lot of information that can help you to practice having healthy boundaries because, again, there's a lot of astrological support for doing so. And in doing so, you can make huge and meaningful progress in your own development.

Okay. To the Venus trine to Pluto⁠—Venus trine to Pluto is fortifying. So, as we know, Venus is related to all the things I've already said, and Pluto is transformational. When we're going through a challenging Pluto transit, that transformation can feel like it's being forced on us. But in a trine like we're going through here, it tends to feel more like an opportunity.

And so a very common experience under this transit is an intensifying of passion. And that passion can show up in terms of your creative life, your romantic life, or if you're an activist or somebody who is actively engaged in the world, it can be sparks of inspiration and opportunity to act in alignment with your values. Venus trine to Pluto intensifies things, and it intensifies your ability to show up with love, with creativity, and with meaning.

Now, another thing that can happen is that your drive for power is intensified. And that's not inherently bad or good because power is just energy. Power's not bad or good. It's just a lot of energy to hold. And a lot of people, when they have power, misuse it. And so Venus trine to Pluto is an opportunity to work with power and to do so intentionally. Now, of course, with my hippie ass, my hope is that you will use whatever power you are experiencing as a way to fortify yourself and others, to strengthen the ways in which you live in accordance with your values, the ways in which your relationships reflect your values, and all that kind of good stuff.

But seriously, you do you. Just know that this is an opportunity to love more deeply, to connect more deeply, and to show up for and engage with the people, situations, and things that you care about more deeply because Pluto brings about depth. So whatever you can do to tap into those energies, the better.

And that, my friends, is the end of this week's horoscope⁠—short and sweet. I'm going to run through the transits one more time so you can take notes. But as always, you will have access to the transcript on my website within 24 hours of the episode drop. And while you're there, may I invite you to check out the classes I have for sale and also to send in a question to be considered for the podcast if you want to get a reading with me? You know what I mean? "What's stopping you?" I declare.

Okay. So here's the run-through. On Tuesday, the 27th, Venus is exactly trine to Uranus. On Wednesday, the 28th, Venus is exactly opposite to Neptune, and Mercury goes direct and Mercury Retrograde is over. And then, on Thursday, the 29th, Venus is exactly trine to Pluto.

Take good care of yourself and others, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.