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. I am recording this on January 4th, and this year has already been really intense. And there's so much happening that my head is spinning. I'm guessing a lot of yours are, too. Before we dive into the complex astrology of this week and these times, I want to thank everybody who joined me and Dean Spade for Facing 2025, our look at the astrology of the upcoming year and how to navigate it. It was such a powerful and tender event, and so I just wanted to just deeply thank everyone who joined.

And thanks to you, we raised over $7,700 for Dahnoun Mutual Aid Fund, where the money goes to a group of volunteer organizers working to provide life-sustaining aid to Palestinians in Gaza. If you would like to learn more about this organization or donate yourself, the link is in the episode description. If you missed the class and you still want to tune in, it's available on the shop page of my website over at lovelanyadoo.com/shop. So you can purchase the class there.

Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the transits that are upcoming this week, I want to acknowledge how much incredible violence there has been in the United States in the last four days. It's been really stunning and scary, and it's not normal, and it's not okay. We, the astrologically informed, understand that the Mars opposition to Pluto is an intensely violent transit, or at least it can be. And so, while we may understand the astrological implications that precipitated this much aggression and violence, that doesn't make it less shocking or less distressing.

Now, I want to remind you that the Mars opposition to Pluto will be exact again in late April of 2025. We're going to be feeling its effects beyond that point, so through May of 2025. We are in it, my friends. We are in it. Related to this, I think it's worth noting that China is seeing a "mystery virus"⁠—you can't see me, but I'm putting little air quotes on that⁠—that is having people flood hospitals. People are getting really sick, and it's giving early 2020.

Now, listen. When it comes to Mars, Mars is the body. And Pluto is survival mechanisms. And so it is absolutely important that you understand that part of what this transit of the Mars opposition to Pluto is about is your own relationship to your body, taking care of your body, listening to your body. And I think a lot of us are just really disassociated from our bodies, and unless something feels really bad or really good, we don't tap in. This Mars opposition to Pluto is making that increasingly hard to sustain.

So I want to encourage you to listen to your body. I also want to encourage you now, yesterday, and tomorrow to mask up in public spaces, to mask up to protect your own health and to protect the health of others. We have moved into a time where the potential for airborne pandemics is just a part of life. Calling that fearmongering⁠—which I know some of you will do⁠—to me, is missing the point. Identifying that there are very real risks and even experiencing fear about them is not fearmongering. Identifying real risks and identifying the steps that you can take to mitigate those risks to protect yourself and others⁠—that's constructive in my little Capricorn brain. That's community care in my little Capricorn brain.

And so I just want to say thank you if you're already masking. And if you're not, try it out again. Masks have come a long way since 2020. They come in cute colors. There are mask blocs. If you can't afford masks, there are places where you can get masks for free or for very low cost. There are resources out there so that you can keep yourself and others safe. And so giddyap and do it, not just because I want you to be safe and healthy and I want the most vulnerable amongst us to not have to do all the hard work of keeping themselves safe and healthy, but also because a sick populace, a population of people who are struggling for their bare needs and survival, have a much harder time resisting tyranny, have a much harder time rallying and coming together to resist oppressive systems and strongmen leaders and their team of billionaires.

And the incoming president of the United States is scheduled to hold a victory rally at the Capitol the day before inauguration. That's really odd, isn't it? That's an odd thing to do. I don't have a theory. I don't want to sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist about it, but that is an objectively odd thing to do. A reporter on Fox News said it's⁠—and I quote⁠—"going to be shock and awe as far as executive orders and all the lists and things that are going to happen on January 20th" and that they're going to throw a lot in the first day, maybe a couple of hours, that will have to be digested. This is what a Fox News anchor has said on TV. And the astrology backs that up.

If you have already heard my month-ahead horoscope, available over on my Patreon, then you've already heard me talk about this a bit. But on January 21st, we have two really challenging transits that are going to be exact. Mercury is going to be exactly square to Chiron, which can bring up really essentially violent forms of communication, but also, the Sun is going to be conjunct Pluto. So we're going to be feeling these transits on the 19th and the 20th, even though they're going to be exact on the 21st. This is all Pacific Time.

The Sun conjunction to Pluto is inherently a scary transit. So, when we're looking at social issues or politics, we can expect to feel deeply threatened. And that feeling of deeply threatened can be directly related to being threatened. Trump is promising mass deportation, ending birthright citizenship. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately, the astrology of his taking office is paired with some very dramatic and potentially threatening-style astrology.

I am sharing this because I think paying attention to the world around you is important. I think paying attention to the news is important. When the astrology reiterates, contextualizes, explains, validates world events/the news, I think that's also really important. And this doesn't mean, "Oh well. We're fucked. There's nothing you can do." It means that we have a lot of work to do. To quote Audre Lorde, revolution is not a one-time event. And this is a revolutionary time.

Pluto is in Aquarius. It is a time for profoundly meaningful change, both internally inside of you, in your life, and in the world at-large. But in order to sustain this work, you can't go it alone. I mean, you can, but Aquarian energy is meant to be done in community, in collaboration, with respect and adherence to our shared humanity. And so to understand pandemics, community health, revolution, survival, we must understand these things are all interconnected with each other.

What are some things that you can do for yourself to steady yourself, to center yourself? Are there spiritual or mental health or emotional health practices that you can try to return to throughout your day so that you can navigate the thoughts and feelings that come up inside of you? What are some things that you can do with and for the people in your life? How can you come together and connect with each other, support each other, create shared resources with each other?

Whether you need help or you want to offer help, the process of being there for each other, being willing and able to share when you've got the energy and resources to do so and willing and able to receive when you are in need⁠—that is a practice. It's a revolutionary practice when living through times like these where the system itself is trying to turn our attention away from those in power and against each other.

These are scary times in many ways, but it's always scary times somewhere⁠—always. The human condition? We're fraught. We're complicated. We make lots of big mistakes. We love big. We're complicated and messy. And I want to encourage you to remember this very important thing that I often forget: that gratitude is the antidote for anxiety. Finding ways of centering your attention and your energy on what is working, on what resources you do have, on what joys you have experienced⁠—whatever it is⁠—that can really help to fill up the space within you with something other than anxiety.

And again, I don't think anxiety is all bad. I don't think anxiety should be completely ignored. I mean, there's different kinds of anxiety, of course. But practicing gratitude can help you return to yourself. And when you are in your body, when you are centered and aligned to the best of your ability, you are more powerful. You have more resources. You have the capacity to perceive and tap into options. That's really what this period is going to require of each and every one of us.

And within that, I want to remind you that Mars is opposite Pluto, which tends to kick off power struggles, resentments, control issues. And that gets played out interpersonally. And so I want to acknowledge that one-on-one relationships are a little triggering right now. You might be triggering someone. Someone might be triggering you. Or if you're really having a time, everyone's triggering everyone. Everyone's annoying. And as much as this transit kicks up kind of hard-to-process feelings⁠—irritability, anger, resentment, frustration, feeling blocked, feeling like something or someone is oppressing you or stopping you⁠—even though these transits kick up these really fucking intense emotions, there's value in it because it is possible that you are in a situation where all those things are really happening, and it's also really possible that the level that you feel it at might be at a⁠—oh, I don't know, on a scale from 1 to 10, like a 14, but the situation is actually happening at a 4.

When it comes to our survival mechanisms, when they get activated, they tend to be disproportionate to our circumstances, which means our coping mechanisms⁠—they're not great. And this isn't just you. This isn't just your mom. This is all of us⁠—varying extents, of course. Everybody is different. But when transits like this occur, this Mars opposition to Pluto, the assignment is to practice staying in your body when you're riddled with really challenging, hard, shitty emotions or sensations in your body, to practice navigating those with more intentionality.

That might mean practice sitting with your feelings and just breathing instead of chasing the thoughts around them or projecting them out and getting mad at someone or doomscrolling to validate your feelings⁠—or whatever it is. There are so many different ways so many different people move through this kind of shit. But finding ways of making different choices in the presence of old and activating emotions⁠—that's the whole fucking point of why this transit is occurring. It's navigating your survival mechanisms in new ways. It's practicing not just getting hot and acting in a way that is reactive to other people or towards yourself, and that includes completely shutting down or acting out. Pluto tends to be extreme, either/or.

The final thing I'm going to say about this for this week⁠—you always have choices. You always have more than two choices. And when you feel that you only have two choices or you have no choices, that's when you know you're in a state of Plutonian activation, all or nothing, black or white. And so, the next time that comes up, I want to invite you to take a deep breath. Try to create a little space in your system and explore what the other options are. Maybe they're terrible options. Maybe they're not the most realistic options. Maybe they're not characteristic-of-you options, but they're still options.

And when you are able to validate how many options you have, you can tap into your agency, activate the healthy part of Mars, and that helps you to live in greater alignment and ultimately to make better choices. And again, that's what the transit is trying to teach us.

Okay. Let's dive into the astrology of this week. The first transit that I want to tell you about is happening on January 6th. Well, actually, there's two transits on this day. At 2:44 a.m. Pacific Time, Mars moonwalks into the zodiac sign of Cancer. What could possibly go wrong? So, when Mars retrogrades into Cancer, first of all, we're going to be revisiting some of the things that were active the last time Mars was in Cancer, which was in September of 2024 until November 5th of 2024. So we're retrograding back into that time. So there's nothing wrong with looking back at what was going on for you, especially in that November/October period of 2024. You can look at what was going on in the world. You can look at what was going on in your life, in your relationships, whatever it is that you're interested in.

Mars is a planet of action and assertiveness, and Cancer⁠—represented by the crab⁠—comes at things sideways. It's got that hard outer shell, very soft on the inside. The kind of action that that crab takes⁠—sideways. And so, when Mars is in Cancer, there is a risk of passive-aggressive behavior. On a social level, Cancer is associated with nationalism, patriotism. Mars is military, policing. So, again, these are things we want to be paying attention to through Mars's Retrograde through the zodiac sign of Cancer, which will last until April 19th of 2025. So it's a long fucking time if you ask me.

And in terms of Mars being Retrograde, we follow the rule of re's when it comes to Retrogrades. So we review. We revisit. We reassess. We recalibrate. We reflect. And when it comes to Mars, Mars is all about action and ambition and competition. And so this is not, technically speaking, a great time to start a new project. But who can put off all new projects for six months of a year, right? Because this is a fucking long-ass period we're in.

What you want to know about the Mars Retrograde is that when we go through Retrogrades, things are not always as they appear. And so taking pains to review matters, to check in with your own motivations, to be more intentional about your actions, and to consider those same things of the people you're working with or for⁠—those things can be really helpful. Mars Retrograde is a great time to review your own relationship to your body, like practicing being in your body. It can be around your health. It can be around sex and sexuality and also ambition. All of these themes are important to reflect on during this Mars Retrograde. And now that Mars is moving into Cancer, there's a tonal shift. You may notice it; you may not, depending on your sensitivities and how it hits your birth chart.

Now, the other thing that's happening on Monday, January 6th, is a Mercury square to Neptune. At 5:56 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be at 27 degrees and 23 minutes of Sagittarius, and it will form an exact square to Neptune at the same degrees of Pisces. Mercury⁠—your mind. Neptune⁠—anxiety. So a lot of people experience anxiety under this transit. This transit can kind of make your thinking fuzzy, circular. You may find yourself complicating matters that are actually kind of simple or oversimplifying complex issues.

Mercury square to Neptune basically puts smoke in mirrors over your thinking, your communication, and that means not just your cognitive processing, but also how you communicate to others and how you listen. You might read an email for work and respond to it and feel really good about it and then realize later that you missed a very important little detail, like classic Mercury square to Neptune. Or you may simply find yourself fixating on things that are outside of your control.

So the context of having Mars opposite Pluto⁠—which confronts us with a lot of big, scary stuff that we feel in our bodies⁠—overlapping with Mercury square to Neptune can really spike anxiety responses, which can have you digging your head in the sand. It can have you really disassociated, checked out, escapist. You may be deeply tired, and this may be because you're actually tired and now you're feeling it, and it also may be, again, an anxiety response.

Here's a pro tip. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. If things feel really complicated and leggy, my advice to you is try to distill it down to its most essential points. This is not a good time for woo. This is not a great time for trying to learn something complicated in astrology or do spell work or any kind of deep woo stuff, because this transit makes you more gullible. It makes it harder to maintain your own energies, and so it makes you susceptible to misinformation, disinformation, or in a more woo context, psychic attack, either intentional or unintentional.

Because of the fuzziness of this transit, there's a greater risk of conspiracy theories, propaganda from all sides, and general confusion. Also, generally speaking, when there is a massive outbreak of a virus, whether it's a pandemic or not, Mercury is your breathing, and Neptune can be related to the functions of your immune system and things that are contagious. And so Neptune always teaches us about boundaries. So, whether we're talking about interpersonal boundaries⁠—like boundaries with your friends, boundaries with people you know⁠—or internal boundaries, so boundaries with yourself around where you allow your thoughts to linger, maybe boundaries with your habits day to day, with your relationship to social media and doomscrolling, or the other kinds of boundaries that are like safer sex tools or masks⁠—Neptune covers these kinds of boundaries as well, the things that we can use to protect ourselves from any kind of parasitic or invasive energies that are not compatible with our best interest and our healthiness.

So, whatever level this is occurring on for you, I want to invite you to practice healthy boundaries because Mercury square to Neptune is likely to make you need them. We're likely to feel this transit, to some extent or another, throughout the better part of this week. And so, again, simplify matters. Drink a ton of water. If you're into breathing exercises, if you find them to be helpful and supportive to your self-care habits, remember to use them this week.

And remember this important truth. Boundaries are about self-care. Boundaries are about holding yourself together. They're really about taking accountability for what you can and can't do in a healthy way. They're an embodiment of self-awareness of your limits and needs. Rules are more rigid. They're more about controlling yourself or others. Neptune, related to boundaries, is a little bit more flexible and adaptable. But also, because it is rooted in self-care and self-awareness, it can be a lot harder to access. It's harder to access the clarity about what you need and what your limits are. But that's the assignment.

Now, one more thing I'm going to say about this transit is that it can spark paranoia in your thinking. You may find yourself leaping to conclusions that⁠—really, they're not substantive. And so, if you're feeling like you're out on a limb somewhere, making connections that you're just not so sure if they're real, ask your most grounded friend.

This week, I expect a lot of conspiracy theories to run rampant. And you know what? Sometimes conspiracy theories end up being true, and sometimes they very much are not. So maintain critical thinking to the best of your ability. If you find that you really are just getting overwhelmed with communication or ideas, take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself in this Neptunian vibe means not just ghosting on the people close to you and dropping out of connection. Let a person know. If you are all of a sudden just unable to communicate, see if you can copy and paste the same text to the people that you need to connect with and be like, "Hey, I'm going to dip for now. I need to go take care of myself, so I'm not going to be accessible for the next couple of days," or something to that effect. And it will really help you in the long term because everyone's going through this transit.

So, if you just feel really overwhelmed, you should assume that other people do, too, in their own way. And a classic Neptunian mistake is doing something that you need to do for yourself but doing it in kind of a confuddled or escapist way and then creating a whole slew of other problems from the way that you took care of yourself. So a little bit of clear and simple communication will go a very long way this week.

And that brings us to Wednesday, January the 8th, where we have our last exact transit of the week. On the 8th, the Sun forms an exact square to Chiron. That'll be exact at 5:54 p.m. Pacific Time. The Sun will be at 19 degrees and 3 minutes of Capricorn, and Chiron will be at the same degrees of Aries. Earlier in the morning, at 2:30 a.m. Pacific, Mercury moves into Capricorn. Let's focus on the Sun square to Chiron.

The Sun is your identity. It's your sense of self. It's your vitality, so very different from Mars. Mars is your ego and your body. The Sun is your center. It's your will and your kind of core energies. Chiron, as we know⁠—it's wounding. And so, when the Sun forms a square to Chiron, especially if it hits your birth chart directly, anything in your birth chart directly, you may find yourself feeling really at odds with your own self. You may want to be seen or understood in some way. You may want to show up or shine in some way that your insecurities and your fears about yourself scream at you aren't safe. They tell you you can't.

And so this can have you feeling really shut down in kind of a shitty self-talk spiral, or because Chiron is in Aries, it can be really body-based. You might just be feeling sick to your stomach or having a stress headache⁠—that kind of a thing. You may shut yourself down before you have a chance to start, or you may find yourself acting defensively when no one's fighting you but you. So, again, what we have is this energy at play, which is very different to Mars opposite Pluto but resonant with that transit where it would be very easy to act out of your core wounds. It would be very easy to unconsciously act in ways that validate and center your insecurities, your fears about yourself, your trauma, your hurt, your hurt bits.

The truth of the matter is, as humans, we're really habitual. We have this fucked-up way of gravitating towards what we know. And if what you know is not especially healthy, not especially loving, not especially well adjusted, then you can find yourself, like billions of other humans, reenacting family patterns and trauma that you desperately want to get away from.

And so, when a transit like Sun square to Chiron comes up, it's an opportunity for you to practice cultivating greater self-awareness in the presence of those beliefs about yourself, those core wounds. And that greater self-awareness may lead to things being better, you feeling better, you acting better. But it may not do that in the immediate term. And this is where I want to remind you that progress is progress. You don't need big progress. You don't need complete progress. You don't need immediate progress for your progress to be valid, for it to be powerful and important.

This is a transit that can confront you with your fears about who you are or what you're limited to being. And you have the opportunity to tap into your Sun and to show up as you are⁠—be damned the fears; be damned the insecurities⁠—to intentionally move through wounds, insecurities, trauma, whatever level or layer it exists on for you, with greater intention, bringing your psychological and physiological vitality⁠—the Sun⁠—bringing your vitality to whatever it is that is activated within you.

The parts of you that say, "I can't. I shouldn't. I will never," can be validated by your circumstances. That's real. But you have choice within that of how you're going to relate to it, how you're going to show up with it and in response to it. And a transit like this can help you to do that. So it's not an easy transit. It's not chill and light. But it is powerful. And wherever there is power, there is the opportunity to step into greater alignment. And that is my hope and wish for you.

Now, that's all the exact transits of this week, although I will share that on the 2nd of January, my first audiobook of astrological meditations was released into the wild, and I'm so excited about it. I really love this offering, and it's just super different than anything I've done before. Anyone who knows me in my personal life will validate that I am not the most relaxed or relaxing person⁠—not to blow your mind. So being able to tap into the energetics of astrology⁠—and for this book, it was the zodiac⁠—and to create something spacious and with deep energetic layers, it was kind of delicious for me. It was really, really powerful. And I hope that you gain a lot from it, if you're into guided meditations, that is.

Meditations for Your Sign is available on Audible exclusively, and I want to acknowledge the fucking messiness of that. Also, that is the reality of this particular audiobook. So, if that is a platform that you do use for your audiobooks, check it out. And if you check it out and you like it, let me know. Write a review, whatever feels good to you. It's Capricorn season, my birthday month. And you may want to start off with the Capricorn meditation.

But the truth of the matter is you don't need to just listen to the Solar Season meditation or to your Sun sign or your big three, because each of the 12 zodiac signs are all in your birth chart. And so you may actually be more drawn to a meditation that is where you don't have any planetary placements, and maybe that's because you're working to integrate those energies. Maybe you're drawn towards the Cancer meditation right now because Mars has moved into Cancer, and that transit is activating you. Trust your intuition. Don't be too in your head about it is what I'm trying to say.

And one more thing is on January 12th, which is Sunday, I am going to be in Atlanta at the iconic Charis Books for a live talk. And I'm ever so excited about it. It's also going to be livestreamed, so if you're not in the Atlanta area and you cannot come and meet in person, you can join online. The link to this event and how to register is going to be in the episode description of this very freaking episode.

Now, we only had two exact transits this week. On Monday, the 6th, Mercury is square to Neptune. And then, on Wednesday, the 8th, the Sun is square to Chiron. That's what's up.

If you would like more supportive content about boundaries, energy, woo, the Mars/Pluto opposition, go ahead and join me over on Patreon, where we're talking about all that good stuff all the damn time. And whatever you do as you navigate through your week, I hope that you are gentle and kind to yourself and others. I'll talk to you in just a couple of days for the midweek episode. Take good care. Buh-bye.