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 week, we are doing another episode of "So Many Questions!," where I answer a bunch of questions from you. Okay. The first one comes from K.S., and it's titled Pits of Hell Maybe. And it says, "How do we overcome placements in their fall or detriment? My Venus is in Aries, and it's Retrograde, I think. Both of these things sound scarier and tense on paper, but is there really such a thing as having bad placements or a bad chart?" And Chaos was born March 14, 1993, 11:30 p.m. in Columbia, South Carolina.

So this is a really important question. And I should say, yes, you do have Venus in Aries, and it is Retrograde. And no, there is no such thing as a bad placement. There are challenging placements. There are easy placements. But I am not of the mind that having a planet in, quote unquote, "fall or detriment" is a challenging thing, even. So let me explain.

When you're studying astrology and you're studying it formally, like with a teacher or in some sort of curriculum, it's important that you learn⁠—if a planet and a sign is in fall or detriment, it's important that you learn the rules. When you're not formally studying but you're kind of hodgepodge-ing it, it's easy to see things like Venus in Aries is in detriment or whatever and think to yourself, "Well, that means I'm in detriment. That means I'm bad. The placement's bad; that means I have bad luck." And that's not what it means at all.

What we're talking about is technical. It's the functionality of a planet in a zodiac sign. In this case, we're looking at something like Venus, which is getting along and romance and potentially your finances, your values. And it's in Aries. Now, naturally, Venus is in Libra, right? And so, in Aries, it can feel a little contradicting. It can have you being really assertive when sometimes what you need to do is be more receptive or whatever. But is this bad? Absolutely not. Do people who have Venus in Aries have happy lives full of love? Absolutely, yes, 100 percent.

When learning about these terms, it's important to try to ask yourself, if you don't have a teacher⁠—so to maybe do a little bit of Google research or whatever⁠—"Is this descriptor a personality descriptor, an experiential descriptor? Or is it a description of energy, technically speaking, about how astrology works?" Does that make sense? Because I get so many questions from people for the podcast and on my Patreon about this question of, like, "Oh shit. I've got a planet, and it's in fall. And it means that I'm going to suffer forever." And it's just absolutely not the case.

Now, in your chart, K.S., you have a Venus square to Neptune and a Venus square to Uranus. And that's the thing that you struggle with, not the fact that your Venus is in Aries. That Venus square to Neptune and Uranus is going to create confusion, some inconsistencies in what you want and what you're attracted to and what happens in your relationship, and a tendency to both want to be really merged and close⁠—thanks to Neptune, so romantic⁠—and really independent and far away, like, "Give me lots of space," thanks to Uranus.

So that's the thing that you are feeling that's inspiring you to look at your Venus and be like, "Okay, what the hell is happening here?" Sometimes the answer to a meaningful question, like a deep, real substantive question, about your life or yourself can be found with just a placement, a planet in a sign. But most of the time, you need to dig a little deeper; we need to look at the planet and the sign and the house and then all the aspects and then the transits. That's where we get to the real good stuff. And when you oversimplify by just looking at the planet and the sign, then you can get into this overly simplistic use of astrology that tells you Venus in Aries is bad or things like that⁠—Venus Retrograde is bad.

But that brings me to the other thing, which is there are no bad placements. There are no bad placements. There are challenging placements. But I will tell you this, and trust me when I say it: every person who has done something of value in this world, every person who has been a thought leader, an athlete, an artist, a spectacular mechanic who just gets car⁠—whatever it is⁠—everybody who does something and is something of value has hard placements because the hard placements in your birth chart are what make you exciting and interesting. They're what motivate you to grow. They're where you struggle, but struggle is not inherently a bad thing. Struggle is dynamic and exciting. Struggle is where chemistry lives. Struggle is where innovation lives.

And so there are no bad placements at all. There's struggle, and some struggle is harder than others. But trust when I say there is nothing bad about your Venus. And I would be hard pressed to ever see a birth chart as bad.

My next question was actually plucked from my Patreon, where I have this ongoing series where I answer questions about all manner of woo. And this one just stood out to me, so here we go. It comes from T.D., and she says, "I love the previous content you've dropped on values.  I like the analogy of stars as ideals and lampposts as values." And if you don't know what I'm referencing, I often describe ideals, a.k.a. Neptune, as stars. They light up the night sky, and they guide us. But we don't really reach them, right? They're aspirational⁠—versus our values as metaphorically related to lampposts, and this is in the realm of Venus. Our values also light up the night sky, but they're attainable. It takes effort to change the light bulb in a lamppost. You have to get a ladder. You gotta get up there. You gotta get it done. But it's achievable. That's how I often describe the difference of values and ideals.

Okay. Back to the question. "I've been trying to do some of the value card sort activities to help me clarify my values and sometimes feel confused by what I already show I value, things I'm already putting attention and time into for better or worse, versus the things I theoretically value or think I should value but don't presently embody at all in my daily life. For example, I tend to put energy into arriving on time and monitoring if people in my life are arriving on time. But in the grand scheme, timelines are not important to me⁠—versus gratitude feels like it should be a value of mine, but I spend very little time or energy embodying it. Do you pick the value first and then try to embody it and assess from there if it resonates? Some of the values in these lists feel moralistic to me, like if you don't pick honesty and kindness, etc., as a top value, then you're a bad person. How many values do you think is reasonable to focus on in a given time? So many questions."

I think this is a very universal struggle and question. And I am of the mind that most individuals do not have many values, like true values. And if you were to create a list of values, if that list is terribly long, like more than five items, chances are these are theoretical values instead of values you organize your life around. So there are many things⁠—like kindness is a great one⁠—to value. But if it's not something that you're organizing your life around, if you're not actually actively engaging with it, then it's a theoretical value. In other words, it's aspirational. It's an ideal as opposed to a value.

In this question, T.D. is referencing their relationship to time and how it's not theoretically important; there's no aspirational importance placed on timeliness. And yet, upon reflection, it turns out she does really value time and timeliness. And this is a really common thing is you may actually start assessing what it is you put your energy and attention behind and find that it does not reflect your values. I think that vanity and beauty stuff is a big one. A lot of us put an immense amount of energy and time into the way we look and the way we feel about the way other people may think or feel about the way we look, even though it's not really a value.

And it's valuable to be able to reflect on that because our values are reflected in our actions, not in our ideas. Again, our ideas are more aspirational. It's more Neptunian. It's more Jupiterian. It's a little more theoretical. So, when you find that your behavior betrays a value that you don't really hold, that's an invitation to change your behavior. If you go into self-inquiry with the idea of, "Am I a good person or a bad person?" you've already stepped into a self-punishing comparative way of thinking. If you want to know what you value⁠—and I hope you do want to know what you value because I am of the mind that when you live your life in accordance to your values, life is a lot easier. It's easier to make choices. It's easier to assess your options. It's easier to deal with consequences when you fail or succeed.

So, as you look at the top five things that you value⁠—and you may assess your values based on what you value, like what you know you value, or you may assess them based on what you're prioritizing in your energy and in your time and in your thoughts. And ideally, you are informed by both. But as you're assessing these things, it's a way to learn about who you are, not who you intend to be, not who you once were, not who you might be one day, but who you are right now. And self-awareness⁠—it's not an invitation to judgment, and it's not consent. Self-awareness is just self-awareness. And when we become self-aware about what we're valuing, it becomes easier to decide to make a change if that's the right thing to do.

My next question comes from someone who says, "Don't share my birth date or name," so I'm not going to share any personal details. But I will share the excellent question that he sent in. And it says, "Why am I low-key and very privately paranoid, suspicious, and a little convinced that eventually meeting my North Node's purpose will swiftly lead me to my death? I'm rational enough to talk my way out of that, and I understand enough to know that I should aim for alignment⁠. Whatever that means for me remains a bit nebulous. But a small part of me wonders if a person prolongs their life by intentionally staying with their South Node's tendencies, or am I just describing an excuse to stay in a rut that I don't really want to be in while describing a fear of endings? Or is this all distraction from some other transit and natal blueprint that I haven't detected? Thank you so much for all that you've taught me and so many others." Well, you're welcome.

Okay. Let's look at this. Now, unsurprisingly, you have got Pluto square to your Sun and your Mercury in your birth chart, and that's a tight square indeed. Now, this natal aspect can make you a little paranoid, a little suspicious, and very scared of endings and potentially very scared of death. But we're not going to focus on that natal aspect because that's not what you asked about. What you asked about is the North Node. And I have to say absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally, what you've been thinking is wrong, which is good news, right?

Many people do not embody their North Node, and all of them die. The embodiment of one's soul's purpose has nothing to do with one's lifespan at all, zero percent. The Nodes in astrology are really misunderstood, I think, especially in online discourse. And it's a topic I've covered a lot on my Patreon. But the Nodes are not planets, and they are not magic. So the South Node speaks to what your soul has come into mastery of in your most previous incarnations. And your North Node represents what your soul is journeying towards in this incarnation.

Now, I don't know; maybe you have the same North Node life after life after life after life. Maybe you just learn this until you've learned it. Maybe it jumps around. Maybe one only has one life. I don't think so, but I don't know. But what I do know is that the North Node in astrology points to a kind of spiritual direction. So you're meant to embody your birth chart⁠—your Sun, your Moon, your Rising, your Mars, your Saturn, your Venus, etc. You're meant to rise to the occasion of your transits, basically be the best version of yourself that you know how to be in any given moment, and when you are the worst version of yourself or the most mediocre version of yourself, to say, "All right. I want to learn from that. It's not where I want to stay. I'm going to keep on trucking." And then you keep on trucking. You know what I mean?

But what happens at around 40 is one gets to the point where⁠—okay. Now you've had enough life experience to have really learned how to embody your birth chart⁠—in other words, how to be yourself, like how to truly be yourself. Living life⁠—that practicum, that experience⁠—it is singular in what it does. You can be very smart. You can have all these theories about life. But something shifts when you've lived a certain amount of time. Time is real. It's not good; it's not bad. It's just time, and it's real.

So something happens at around 40 where now you have enough self-knowledge and enough experience with yourself where you can start to point your life in such a way that it doesn't just reflect who you are in a material way, but on a soul level, in a spiritual way, it allows you to be like, "Oh. Okay. Now I can practice"⁠—for instance, in your case, you have the North Node in Pisces, so, "I can practice unattachment. I can practice being open and not trying to manage all things." Your North Node is in the seventh house. So, when one has a North Node in the seventh house, it has so much to do with⁠—on a soul level, not just a behavioral level, but in a really deep, soul way⁠—learning how to share yourself with others, learning how to be in relationship with others in a way that is truly netted and reciprocity.

So, if you dig in your heels and try not to embody those things, it not only doesn't make your life longer; it doesn't make your life better. And if you can hold space for maybe there are other lives, it doesn't make your other lives any easier or better either. Right? That said, don't be perfectionistic. We don't need to be puritanical or perfectionistic about our progress, development, or evolution because however you evolve in this life, it's just what it is.

I mean, right now, you are in your late 30s⁠—well, not your late 30s, your mid- to late 30s. And you might think back to your early 20s and think about all the things that you were going through and how important they were to you at the time, how urgent they were to you at the time. But now you can see it as part of a larger tapestry of your development. Some of the things that felt incredibly urgent and important to you in your early 20s probably don't seem that deep right now. And you can see how the struggles you went through⁠—what you learned, what you didn't learn⁠—kind of added up to who you are right now.

And being able to hold space for your own evolution, not being perfect, not being too goal-oriented, but being a reflection of you, who you really are⁠—that's the best we can hope for, in my take, whether we're looking at the North Node or not. And so I'm not sure if you're in a rut or not. But I can say that (a) you don't need to overthink your Nodes for a few years, and (b) your paranoia and suspicion⁠—I would encourage you to point it somewhere else. There's a lot of things to be paranoid and suspicious of, and your North Node is not one of them.

My next question is from C.C., and she says, "How do you prepare for a long outer planet transit? My Saturn Return was hard, and I'm trying to get ahead of the game so I don't spiral and burn like before. Looking at my birth chart, I'm seeing Neptune is about to go through a 14-year journey through Aries. This will square my natal Ascendant, Sun, Venus, and Moon. Also coming up is Pluto squaring my natal and conjuncting my natal Saturn." I don't know what that sentence means, but I'm reading it.

C.C., I got answers. Now, there are different ways of preparing for each of the outer planet transits. When you're using astrology, it is easy to be like, "Oh shit. I see all these Neptune squares coming. What does it mean? How do I get ahead of it? How can I prepare?" And I should say, actually, that you are currently going through a Neptune square to your Ascendant, but other than that, your first Neptune transit won't begin until 2028. So you've got some time. You know what I mean?

But when it comes to a Neptune transit or a Uranus transit, the only way to prepare is by cultivating nonattachment, by being open, by trying to get your life in a position where⁠, in the case of Neptune⁠—things can get foggy⁠—you don't have to make life-altering choices, or in the case of Uranus, where you're ready for change, you're ready to adapt based on your insides changing or your outsides changing⁠, right? And I should say that you have Saturn at 17 degrees of Aquarius, so Pluto won't conjunct your Saturn until 2034. That's in a decade.

So all to say, in terms of how to prepare for hard transits, there are things you can do. Saturn likes preparation. Pluto wants you to let go. There's things you can do. What you're doing is considering things that are going to happen so many years from now that you're losing track of what's actually happening now. And this is always the risk with astrology, that we are so forward-focused that we're no longer present, at which point astrology can become a tool for creating anxiety or disassociation.

So here's the thing. There are things that can be done to prepare for transits. But you shouldn't do any of them, because you're going through a Neptune square to your Ascendant right now. And that transit can make you feel demoralized. It can have you questioning who you are. It's an invitation to explore so much of your identity. And it can lead to illusion and disillusionment. It can lead to confusion and a kind of frittering away of your energies so that you feel demoralized and defeated. And so that's the transit I want to point you towards.

I have a rule for myself and how I use astrology. If the transit is not happening within 9 to 12 months from now, I don't think about it. I don't let myself think about it. It took me many years to learn that there's very little value in trying to project into a future that has not yet prevented itself because how different is the world going to be in ten years, in three years? I don't know, but I expect it's going to be pretty different. Think about how different your circumstances were, your thoughts, your feelings were, your relationships were, the world was, three, four years ago. We're talking, what, 2020? 2021? I mean, it's a radically different world in many ways. Different things are important.

And so trying to project into transits that haven't yet begun isn't particularly productive. Now, everybody's going to have a different number⁠—how far ahead can you look and still use astrology constructively and productively? And I'm going to just share with you what my boundary is, which is⁠—sometimes it's six months; sometimes it's a year. It moves around. So I'm going to call it nine months. The present is always the time that needs the most from you. So do your best to stay here and tend to whatever is up for you in the here and now.

My next question is from R.L., and it's called Attuned or Delulu? And it says, "I have a tendency to look for signs from the Universe to tell me that I'm on the right path. Is this an expression of spirituality or indulging in delusion?" And R.L. was born June 30th, 1997, 8:27 a.m. in Pontiac, Michigan.

Now, I'm not going to even focus too much on your chart. Yes, you have some important Neptune aspects in your chart, which can kind of bring up a chronic struggle with spirituality versus delusionment. You have Neptune conjunct the Descendant opposite your Ascendant and opposite your Venus. You also have your Sun and Mercury in the twelfth house. So it can all lead to that. But you also have a Taurus Moon and Saturn conjunct your Midheaven. You've got a lot of really solid, fortifying things.

So I'm going to give you a little pro tip. Pay attention to signs. Signs are great, but it's about holding them in proportion. So think of life as⁠—I don't know⁠—a sea upon which you place your sailboat. So what's important is that there's no holes in the boat; you have all the supplies on the boat. There are so many things that are really important to make sure that your boat is seaworthy and safe and that you're navigating your boat in a direction that you want it to, that you're not navigating full speed ahead if it can be avoided.

So there's all these material things that you can be tending to and tracking to make sure that you're basically living your life to the best of your ability. And along the way, there are signs: a butterfly, dolphins. They're scary, but they're charming. You may see any number of things that you take as a sign. And those things are secondary. They're lovely. They kind of give you a boost, or they point you away. But they are not equal to the preparation that is necessary before you get on the boat and the preparation and responsibility and agility that is required to sail the boat.

And when attunement turns to delulu is when we place too much emphasis on the signs at the expense of or to overshadow what we're actually doing, the choices we're making, and the material resources, the mental resources, even the spiritual resources, that we have lined up to empower you to do your damn best. Now, it's possible that for you⁠—you have really strong signs that you always look for that show up really consistently. And that is great. But in my experience, those kinds of signs will shift over time. We're not supposed to become too attached to signs. Again, we don't want to use spirituality to take us out of life. Life exists in the body. Life exists in linear time. This is the human condition, right? So we want to use those signs as a little bit of wind to help that boat move a little faster but not instead of making sure there's no holes in the damn boat.

My last question comes from L.T., who was born November 16, 1994, at 2:43 p.m. in Nashville, Tennessee. And she asks, "What's the difference between surrendering and giving up? What does it feel like? I'm an obsessive gal who considers herself a perfectionist. So the idea of surrendering and letting go or detaching always feels like giving up. How do I discern the two?"

So, unsurprisingly, L.T., you have a Scorpio stellium. You've got Venus, Mercury, North Node, Sun, Jupiter, and Pluto all sitting on top of each other, all in Scorpio. So it's pretty unsurprising that you would have a hard time letting go. And here's the simplest difference that I can give you. Giving up is when you don't try. Giving up is, "I didn't do anything to make a change, to advance my cause. I didn't try at all. I'm just giving up. There's no point in trying," versus, "I've tried. I've let my crush know that I like them. I've had boundaries with this friend. I've obsessively thought about x, y, and z for the last four days. I've tried. And now I need to let go."

So letting go or detachment or surrendering⁠—all of these things, they reflect self-awareness that you have already done the work and now it's time to allow things to settle, to develop, to evolve and grow. And this is really hard for somebody with so much Scorpio in their birth chart, especially somebody who's got Jupiter sitting right in between the Sun and Pluto because you want everything all at once all the time. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's weak, doesn't mean it's wrong.

Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody, maybe a family member, who really believes something you do not believe; they see the world in a way you do not see the world? And year after year, decade after decade, this person insists that their way is the way. There's no other way. Every other way is wrong. Not only is that person alienating you⁠—they're just bullying you⁠—but they're not listening to you. They're not really receiving who you are and what's happening. And they're not even giving you the space that you would need if you were going to evolve your thinking to come around to their way of thinking.

It's easier to see in other people how pushing things actually closes the window of opportunity for them to truly change than it is to see in our own selves. So you can come up with a general idea around this, or every time you feel this issue where you're like, "Am I supposed to let go in a spiritual way? Am I supposed to detach here? Or would that be giving up?"⁠—whenever that happens, get yourself a piece of paper and a pen or the notes in your phone and write out, bullet-point form, what is the situation? Just a sentence. What's the situation? What are all the things that you've done? What are all the things that can be done that you have not done?

And if you look at the list and you're like, "I actually have done the things," then it's time to detach. It's time to let go and let God, as friends of Bill say. And that doesn't mean you have to let go forever. It might mean you just let go for this hour, for this afternoon, for this weekend. You know what I'm saying? If letting go of control or not pushing things feels bad, set yourself short time goals for doing it⁠—an hour, a day, whatever it is that works for you. And then you can return to the question. "What are the things I've done? What are the things that can be done?" And if there's nothing new there, set another goal, another hour, another day⁠—whatever.

And then you can slowly develop the ability to tolerate the emotions that come up when you stop pushing things and you allow space for them to develop, for better or for worse. Easier said than done, but that's the difference. That's the move.

Now, I want to thank you all for sending in your questions to Ghost of a Podcast. If you want a reading with me on the podcast, go over to my website at ghostofapodcast.com and use the contact form that's specifically for the podcast. Read the pro tips, fill out the form, and maybe you'll get chosen to get a reading with me here on Ghost.

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