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, where we look at the astrology of the week, but we also look at the world because how do you do one without the other, I ask you? Okay. This week, we are looking at the astrology of September 29th through October 5th of 2024. And there's a lot going on, including but not limited to a Solar Eclipse.

But before we get into details, I want to invite you to check out my once-monthly bonus episode of Ghost. On my Patreon, you can either join me on Patreon and become a patron, or you can just go over there, and I am going to try something new where I make the bonus episode of Ghost available to you without having to become a full-on patron. So you can go on over to patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo to listen to the month-ahead forecast. And if you've thought about doing this, I would say October is the time to check it out because the astrology of October is a lot, especially mid-month.

And so, if you are somebody who is helped by knowing what's coming⁠—it helps you to plan; it helps you to adjust your expectations and work with the energies⁠—then the month-ahead episode of Ghost of a Podcast is for you. And if that kind of stuff actually stresses you out and puts you in anxiety and out of the moment, then it's not for you. So not everything is for everyone, and we're cool with that.

But, all that said, if you are already a patron, I want to say thank you because I love our community over at Patreon and getting to unpack and explore all manner of astrology and woo and current events in a more interactive and back-and-forth way. So thank you for joining me there if you already have.

Another thing I want to invite you to is, on October 6th at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, I am having my first fireside chat and Q&A where I want to invite you to join me. The prices are available on a three-tiered sliding scale. We're going to talk about all manner of things, I hope, but really, I want to focus on uncertainty, on how to emotionally and spiritually and mentally cope with uncertainty because we are living through a lot that is changing really quickly, and a lot of it's scary. So how do you stay present, stay realistic, and stay healthy when you're dealing with things that are really challenging and kind of unknowable? We're going to explore it. And as I said, I'm going to take as many questions as I can. So I hope you'll join me for that Q&A. Again, that's on October 6th at 11:00 a.m. Pacific. And you can find the link to register in a description of this episode and on my website.

Let's get directly into your horoscope. Now, there are a couple of transits that I'm going to tell you about before the Solar Eclipse, but I think it's important that I contextualize everything that we are going through. Whether we're thinking about the transits or just life, everything that we're going through is happening under the umbrella of Eclipse Season and the mounting energy that will come to fruition on the October 2nd Eclipse.

What this means is going to be different things for different people. But broadly speaking, it means that emotions are running high. A sense of urgency may be really activated inside of you, or it may be activated inside of other people, prompting them to behave in ways that seem disproportionate to you, seem surprising to you, or just a little bit more keyed up. This is challenging, but make no mistake that the challenge is to your emotional maturity, your emotional coping mechanisms, your emotional well-being.

And when we are dealing with heightened emotions, when we're dealing with the behaviors that leak and pop out of us unintentionally when we are activated, it doesn't always seem like we're dealing with emotions. It seems like we're dealing with situations. We're dealing with behaviors. We're dealing with thoughts. But trust and believe that because it's Eclipse Season, it is meant to be emotional evolution, emotional engagement, emotional development.

And I'm a big believer in properly naming the problem because if you properly name the problem, then you can engage with that trouble in a way that builds towards a solution. But if you've got a headache and you keep on telling yourself that your shoes are too tight and that's why you've got a headache, and you go about trying to find more comfortable shoes as a way to fix your headache, it's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. The chances that your head hurts because your shoes are tight are very small.

And so being able to identify what is actually the problem, what is actually happening, what's activated inside of me, what are the ways that I'm coping that are working and that are not working⁠—that's really important stuff. And developing those skills is a really important thing to be able to do in the act of adulting.

All to say big emotions are stirred up inside of each and every one of us. And in some people, it's going to feel chaotic and crazy and bad, and in other people, it's going to feel not that noticeable. And in yet others, it's going to be something completely different. We get to be different, right? We can all experience the same sunny day and have a radically different experience of what that means. So hold space for your own feelings and needs while also respecting that what other people feel and need, what other people react to and do, is a reflection on them and not on you. And how that's important will come back around when we talk about the fact that the Solar Eclipse is in sometimes codependent Libra.

Okay. We'll pull back. Let's start at the beginning. And the beginning of this week happens on Sunday, September 29th. At 9:06 p.m. Pacific Time, we have a Mars trine to Saturn. So Mars is going to be at 14 degrees of Cancer and 25 minutes, and Saturn will be at the exact same degrees of Pisces. So emotions are running high. We're all emotionally triggered.

And then Mars and Saturn, both in water signs, form a lovely trine. And what this is is good news because Mars is what you do. It's your ego. It's your drives. It's your ambitions. It's your defensiveness, your drive to fight. And Saturn is reality. Saturn is conventional, the reality we all share. It's linear time. It's obligation. It's people who have power over you, like landlords and bosses and government officials or the government in general.

When these two planets form a trine to each other, what we tend to experience is the ability to make things happen in a way that doesn't trigger opposition, which is lovely. This empowers you to get shit done and to get shit done effectively. It makes it easier to maintain your energy. In other words, the transit gives you perseverance. Mars is also the planet of sex, so if you're looking to go a long time, this is the transit for you, especially if it hits your chart directly.

This transit supports you to act on the things you are excited about and passionate about. It supports you in getting things done that need to be done but also that you want to be done. In other words, this is a great transit for satiating the needs of your ego and your passions in ways that don't push away or alienate other people, which is pretty wonderful.

If there's something that you know you need to do⁠—maybe it's hard; maybe it's not the funnest thing, but you know you need to do it⁠—this transit is going to help you because when Mars and Saturn are having a nice conversation with each other, what you tend to experience is a willingness to make compromises in order to get your needs met. So this is one of those transits that kind of shows you how your attitude has a lot to do with your experience of whether or not you're successful.

And in particular, if there's something going on emotionally that's really draining or challenging, this is a transit to lean on because it makes it easier to find a sense of equilibrium within yourself so that you don't kind of get junked up in your motivations and act out, which⁠—again, pretty helpful, given we are in Eclipse Season.

Now, the following day, so overlapping with that transit, on Monday, September 30th, at exactly 2:09 p.m. Pacific Time, we have a Sun/Mercury conjunction. The Sun will be at 8 degrees of Libra, and Mercury will be at the same degrees⁠—8 degrees and 11 minutes. And this transit is lovely/there's some things to look out for.

So the Sun is your identity and your sense of self. It's your will. Mercury is your beliefs. It's your attitudes. It's your convictions. It's how you listen. It's what you say. It's how you say it. And when I say "say," you know I mean talk, type, all that kind of stuff. When the Sun and Mercury sit on top of each other⁠—and here we have them in Libra, right? This is a transit that is directly connected to the Eclipse. When the Sun and Mercury sit directly on top of each other, what happens is you become more identified with your beliefs, with your attitudes.

So, because we live in a world that is so digital and we are being fed stories that provide confirmation bias, this transit is sticky. It's stickier than it's been in any other time in human development, in my opinion as an astrologer and a person who is alive. This is because we are fed, by corporations who give zero shits about us, confirmation bias to further outrage and engage us. And it is up to you, the individual, to have critical thinking, to be open and curious, and of course to have convictions based on your beliefs, absolutely⁠—stand on your beliefs⁠—however, to remain open, to be willing to learn new things, to adapt and change your opinion, to have conversations even when they're challenging.

Luckily, a Sun conjunction to Mercury, especially in an air sign like Libra⁠—it can lend itself to adaptable thinking. It can lend itself to openness and curiosity. It can also lend itself to keeping shit on the surface and smiling in people's face and talking shit behind their back. Whenever we start talking about the gossipy nature of Mercury, I know how much most people love gossiping and how little most people like other people gossiping about themselves. And this is one of those places where you gotta be mindful about what it is that you invest in because when you invest in talking shit, then you're investing in having shit spoken about you.

Okay. So another thing that can come up with this transit, which is a lot more productive, is that it can just be like a busy, fun couple of days. This transit overlapping with the Mars/Saturn trine is particularly exciting because Mercury conjunct the Sun kind of speeds up the tempo of your daily life⁠—you get lots of messages. Lots of people contact you. Plans pop up at the last minute⁠—just new, exciting, unplanned things happen. Yay.

This transit makes it easier to kind of hook into that Mars/Saturn trine so that what you have is new opportunities to get things done, to meet your needs, or to follow through with your commitments. This transit is really helpful for that. This isn't the time to be tight-lipped, the time to hold back what you think. This is the time to have real conversations with people, keeping in mind technical honesty⁠—very good. I mean, honesty⁠—yes. Big fan over here. But there is a way that people can be technically honest while being emotionally dishonest, so being Mercurially honest⁠—like honest with the words; they're technically correct⁠—while being emotionally dishonest.

So an example of that could be a friend cancels plans on you last minute, and they ask you, "Are you mad at me? Are you upset?" and you say, "No, no. It's totally fine," but you are actually upset. So, technically, you're not raging at them. You don't think that telling them that you're upset is going to change anything. Technically, you're being honest. But you're being emotionally dishonest. You're not acknowledging that, actually, it feels kind of bad that they canceled last minute, and you were looking forward to hanging out with them, and you aren't looking forward to not having plans because⁠—whatever⁠—you can't make plans at the last minute.

It's not sharing the emotional impact and not being emotionally honest, and that can lead to the buildup of resentments. And also, it can lead to greater space and distance between you and someone else because the intimacy and closeness that you're building with them is in part predicated on dishonesty⁠—again, emotional dishonesty. And this, my friends, brings us to the next exact transit of this week.

Let's talk about the Solar Eclipse in Libra that is happening on Wednesday, October the 2nd. It's exact at 11:49 a.m. Pacific Time. And in case you need a refresher, Solar Eclipses are always New Moons, right? But a regular New Moon impacts us for about a month, while a Solar Eclipse has a much more intensified influence, and the effects of it are felt through about six months. So it's a much bigger deal.

Now, the last time we experienced a Solar Eclipse in Libra was about a year ago on October 14th of 2023. Now, unfortunately, both of these Eclipses coincide very closely with the date of October 7th, and we all know what happened on October 7th of 2023. It was horrific, and it was terrifying. And since then, we know that the response of the State of Israel has been genocidal, has been terrorism to people of Palestine, and now it's spreading to the people of Lebanon.

And so many people around the world are split on what is justice, what is fair, what is proportional. We can't, as a globe, as a society of humans, agree. We can't even agree on what the facts are, it seems. It's shocking to me how so many people defend and prop up the genocidal behaviors of the State of Israel and of the United States and other Western nations that are funding this genocide. But this is one of the kind of core lessons of a Solar Eclipse cycle in Libra. What is fair? What is just?

The 2023 Solar Eclipse in Libra included a Mercury conjunction to the Sun and Moon, as does the 2024 Solar Eclipse in Libra. And so what we have is not just a lack of clarity about what are the facts, what is true, that is fed, as I said, by our algorithms that just push on confirmation bias, but we also have the relational implications of that. So there's a lot of social and political implications, but there's also the way it impacts our friendships, our relationships with family. What is trust? Does it matter? Can you have intimacy and closeness and trust with someone who believes that there is a genocide occurring when you don't or who believes there is not a genocide occurring when you see it with your own very eyes; you know it to be true?

This Solar Eclipse on October 2nd includes a Mars square to the Sun, Moon, and Mercury. Mars will be at almost 16 degrees of Cancer. And this furthers the risk of militarized responses, militarized actions in the name of what is fair and just. And that can go in any kind of way. I do have concerns on and around this Eclipse of a militarized or a police response to peaceful protest. And I want to say, picking up from what I said last week and I've said many times before in many different ways, we should all find ways of speaking out against genocide.

We should all find ways of engaging with our legal and political and social systems⁠—thank you, Libra⁠—to push them further towards justice, push them further towards equity. This Solar Eclipse empowers us to do that. It asks us to do that. And that may require that you open your mind. It may require that you have challenging conversations. It may require that you interrogate your own codependency, your desire to get along, your desire to just have things be okay with other people or to believe that the world is fair when we know the world is not fair. And that doesn't make us all victims, but the world is not fair.

Bad things can happen to good and innocent people, and good things can happen to terrible people. And so, if there isn't a linear source of justice in the world, what does it mean to you? And my Capricorn head immediately wants to know, what are you going to do about it? Because if justice isn't promised, that means we have to do something⁠—we have to do many things⁠—in order to co-create and preserve equity and justice in this world. And this Solar Eclipse is an invitation to that⁠—not an easy invitation, but an invitation to that.

On a more personal level, this Solar Eclipse in Libra is going to kick up your relationship stuff. Now, never forget that Libra is, yes, the zodiac sign most frequently associated with relationships and beauty and diplomacy, but it is also associated with your value systems, with alignment, with authenticity. So how have you not been authentic in your relationships, and what's it costing you? What's it costing others? Are you willing and able to interrogate that, to be curious about that, to have challenging conversations around that?

The struggle with Libra energies is that they can catch us prioritizing accommodation over authenticity. This is the time for authenticity, for practicing and choosing alignment, for being open without losing your center. And if you do this in your personal relationships, you're rocking the boat, my friend. You are rocking the boat, and some boats need to be rocked. Sometimes chaos and problems are exactly what we need in order to find ourselves, to get into better alignment, to be more authentic and honest.

And again, I want to remind you ever so gently that this is the time for emotional honesty. If things have changed between you and someone else, you can take the steps; you can do the things. But they've changed. Ignoring that, pretending it's not true, is emotionally dishonest, which means any kind of foundation you build upon disingenuousness is somewhat doomed or guaranteed to bring you further disingenuousness.

Finding ways to be honest and open and aligned with your values⁠—that's the invitation of this Solar Eclipse in Libra. And part of this is an invitation towards knowing who you are because in order to not be codependent, in order to be authentic, you must know where you begin and end. There's kind of a requirement to have some amount of healthy boundaries inside of you as well as in dynamic with other people. And this is hard. It's really hard. Luckily, Mercury is there to help you to sort through the details and to really think through what's authentic for you. But Mars is also there egging you and me and everyone else on.

And so this Solar Eclipse, because of Mars's influence, is likely to have kind of an irritating, agitating, motivating, passionate energy to it because, as I mentioned earlier, the Sun conjunction to Mercury⁠—everything I talked about there, that's relevant in this Solar Eclipse. Mars square to Mercury, which will be exact in a couple of days⁠—Mars square to Mercury is a transit that kicks up a lot of irritation and a tendency to jump to conclusions. And Mars square to Moon is just straight-up irritating, annoying.

And so it's going to be important to notice your impulses to jump to conclusions or jump to action or defend yourself and ask yourself, is that the best course? Do you need to defend yourself? Are you being attacked? Do you need to express the agitation you're experiencing? Is that agitation actually emotionally honest, or is it the surface layer of emotion that you're feeling, the hottest and quickest to jump to the surface, as opposed to the most authentic?

Sometimes, when you're really sad and you feel truly vulnerable, the easiest emotion to access is anger and irritability or tears and exhaustion. Those feelings, those surface-level feelings⁠—they're real feelings. They're real, and they're valid. And also, if you only focus on those surface-level feelings and you don't deal with real vulnerability and sadness, then those feelings don't get better. We gotta get to the root.

And this Solar Eclipse, like all Eclipses, is an invitation to explore and to evolve, to grow. It's an invitation to you to finding ways of engaging with yourself that are more authentic and to outgrow ways in which you've been limited or acting out of your programming. You know what I mean? Not out of your authenticity. But this is hard. And you may be doing your damnedest, but you live in the world full of people who are just acting out of algorithms and programming and trauma. That's real. That's real.

Eclipses are not when we get the answer. Eclipses are not when we manifest something. Eclipses are inherently chaotic and destabilizing. They are meant to shake everything up. And how you are able or not to stay present with that level of emotional destabilization or uncertainty⁠—that's a reflection of where you're at right now. You don't need to judge that. You don't need to be judging of where you're at or where I'm at or where anyone's at. It's just a reflection of this moment.

And if you can practice acceptance and presence, then you're doing the work that the Moon wants you to do. And acceptance doesn't mean you're giving yourself carte blanche to be a jerk or to not grow or evolve. But trust me when I say if you are trying to evolve or grow or change something in yourself and you don't start with acceptance and alignment, it is exceptionally hard to do. It is the hardest way to go about things.

So, this Solar Eclipse, practice presence. Practice alignment, even if your truth is messy and ugly and you wish it wasn't your truth, even if your truth is, "I don't know what my fucking truth is." It doesn't matter what your truth is. Start from where you're at. Whether you want to think about this Eclipse in the context of your personal life⁠—your one-on-one connections with people⁠— or you want to consider it from the social and political implications that are loud and clear, this Eclipse will reveal important dynamics around how you relate to others and how you relate to justice and fairness. It will reveal that in you yourself, but it'll also reveal that in the people that you come across, that you deal with, as well as revealing it about us as a people, the human animal.

So be open. Be open to learning more about the world you live in, whether you like what you learn or not, because it is by being present in this shared reality that we all find ourselves in, for better or worse, that we can evolve and make changes, where we can grow and hopefully hold each other up, take care of each other, love and care for each other, because each and every one of us is deserving of dignity. Each and every one of us, including your enemies, including the people you think are terrible and bad⁠—everybody deserves the basics of safety, to have their human dignity preserved and protected. And whatever you believe about that⁠—that's your belief, and it's a reflection on you.

I believe that, generation after generation, we are responsible not only to ourselves and our loved ones, but we are responsible to the people who came before us, who laid the groundwork for us, and to those who will come after us. Whether this generation has it fair or not is irrelevant. What matters is what we do with what we have, what we believe, and what and who we care about.

Now, one last thing I'll say about this Eclipse is that there is a Grand Trine in this chart between Mars, Saturn, and Venus. All three of these planets are in water signs. And this Grand Trine is something you want to really point to so that we can all embrace it because it grounds your ability to connect to others in ways that reflects your values and your passions. It supports and protects your ability to act on your values, to sustain your efforts. This is a beautiful Grand Trine that gives me hope with this Solar Eclipse chart. And the more you can do to tap into those things, the better.

Now, that brings me to Friday, October the 4th, where we have another exact transit. This is the exact trine between Venus and Saturn. Venus will be at 14 degrees and 7 minutes of Scorpio. Saturn will be at the same degrees of Pisces. That will be exact at 10:04 a.m. This transit is another really lovely one. Venus trine to Saturn is stabilizing. Venus and Saturn are both related to safety, and so this transit can tap you into your resources, the ways in which you have access to safety or you are safe.

This is also a really great transit for acting in ways that reflect your investment in your relationships. It's not a bad time for making a commitment if you ignore the fact that this is the same week as an Eclipse. It's not a great time for making commitments during an Eclipse, just for the record. But on paper, Venus trine Saturn is a good time for making commitments. So getting clear that you want to seal the deal⁠—green light. Sealing the deal⁠—yellow. We'll give it a yellow light, okay?

Venus trine to Saturn is in general just a great time for acting on your values, on connecting with people based on who everybody really is. Realistic is Saturn, and Venus is relationships. So realistic relationships⁠—this can be romantic, but it's romantic based on reality instead of a fantasy, which I'm a fan of. This transit is going to help you to stay connected to your values if you let it. And you might not, because it can also incline you to keep things on the surface so that you don't make any waves. I want to say, if you're going to make waves, make sure that they are a reflection of what you truly value and believe.

Now, that brings us to the last exact transit of the week. On Saturday, October 5th, at exactly 11:37 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be at 17 degrees of Libra and 34 minutes forming an exact square to Mars at the same degrees of Cancer. So we have this continuation of this transit from the Eclipse, and now it's in exactitude. And as I mentioned, this transit is annoying.

Now, Mercury governs your bicycle, and Mars governs your car. So, if you're driving a vehicle, pay attention to cyclists. Even if they annoy you, be very careful. They don't have metal around their bodies. If you are a cyclist, please be careful of cars. Even if they annoy you, you do not have metal around your body.

Okay. This transit can coincide with being super irritated and annoyed. Mars is anger. It's fighting. Mercury is friends. It's communication. You may say shit that you think is totally fine, but you say it with a tone. You say it with a tone, and somebody responds to the tone instead of the content of your words, and now you have a fight. Is it passive-aggressive? Maybe. Mars is in Cancer. But it's a fight nonetheless.

This transit can coincide with snapping at people, other people snapping at you, rushing to conclusions, being sloppy and rushing through things that you just want to have done by now. This is basically a recipe for being annoyed. And so many things come out of being annoyed. Now, if you're a person who gets angry pretty easy, you may be just very angry. If you're somebody who has a hard time with anger, you may experience the kind of interjected versions of Mars. You may feel exhausted. You may feel depleted. You may feel like everyone's coming for you.

And the truth is this transit makes people defensive. So you may be feeling defensive. Other people may be feeling defensive. Everyone may be feeling defensive. It's not great. But the good side of this transit is it can embolden you to say what needs to be said. Just do your best to be emotionally honest, to watch your tone of voice, and to not jump to conclusions. Watch your defensiveness because you may be feeling really defensive, and you're not the only one. So beware if you can.

This transit⁠—see, that Venus trine to Saturn is great for negotiating details, being authentic with other people. This transit is terrible for it because, again, everyone's ego gets in the way. And when you're defensive, you may note that you don't do a great job of listening. So this is an important time to go out of your way to listen to other people and to know that people are going to have a harder time listening to you.

In regards to social and political dynamics, this is definitely a date to watch out for because this transit can stimulate things with Martian themes related to policing and the military and battles and also people jumping to conclusions and saying that quiet part real loud. So we're going to keep on paying attention to the world while also paying attention to our innermost psyche as well. If you can, use your body⁠—because Mars governs the body⁠—as an outlet for your irritability and agitation, as long as you don't do it in a way that you could potentially get hurt. But if you can kind of shake off some of your irritability, that could really help you in all manner of ways.

Now, that is the last transit of this week. I want to remind you that on the midweek episode of this very podcast, I offer readings to different listeners every week. And the most recent episode, Episode 467, was a particularly important reading, I think. And so, if you haven't listened to the midweek episode in a while, I invite you to go back an episode and check that one out. And if you want a reading with me, go ahead and write me an email with a question through the contact form on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com for a chance to get just that.

Now, I'm going to run through the transit one more time. The first exact transit of this week is on the 29th, when Mars is trine to Saturn. On the 30th, the Sun will be exactly conjunct to Mercury. On the 2nd of October, we have a Solar Eclipse in Libra. On the 4th of October, we've got a Venus trine to Saturn. And on the 5th, Mercury will be exactly square to Mars.

If you have a hard time keeping up with how fast I talk and how many details I drop, don't worry. There is a transcript available for free on my website every week. Again, that's over at ghostofapodcast.com, where you can find a link to my Patreon and get that bonus episode of Ghost available on the 1st of every month. You can register for my October 6th fireside chat and check out my classes available for sale and all the other goodies I have over on my website.

Whatever you do, whatever comes up inside of you or in the world at-large, I encourage you to take good care of yourself and others. And I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.