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 going to look at the astrology of March 2nd through the 8th of 2025. Now that we have entered into March, things are going to be intense. Things are going to start moving very quickly in March, and they're going to stay fast. We are going to be in a phase of development, very internally, very personally and spiritually, but also in the world and in the development of matters in the world. That is important, consequential, deep, and tumultuous. It's a lot. It's so much. If you're paying attention only to the politics of your community or your country, it's a lot. And if you are paying attention to the world, wow, it gets even more overwhelming really quickly.

So, in March, we will have two Eclipses, a Solar Eclipse and a Lunar Eclipse. Venus is Retrograde. Mercury will go Retrograde. We're in the Mars Retroshade for the month, and that's separate from the transits, the day-to-day transits, and the fact that Pluto finally moves into the third degree of Aquarius, triggering some meaningful transits on a global level. Also, Neptune will move into Aries for the first time in 165 years. So the last time Neptune was in Aries was in 1860. And if you pay any attention to world history or American history, you'll know that's kind of an important time, certainly in the States.

So, when there's this much energy in the collective, when there are this many pressures that you as an individual are having to face—and you know, when you're dealing with societal or collective conditions, it doesn't feel societal or collective. It feels personal, right? Because it's happening to you personally. But what's happening is the energy is mounting inside of you. It's mounting inside of the people around you, those with healthy coping mechanisms and those without. It's making all of us act in ways that reflect not only our conscious and intentional parts but our really unconscious parts. And that's the way of Pluto, my loves.

This is a time where you are likely to have your survival mechanisms be activated. And that means it's really important that you hang out with your shadow—in other words, with your challenging emotions. Spending time being present with hard emotions is hard. It feels terrible. Why would you do it? Well, the answer to why you do it is because abandoning yourself in the parts of yourself that are in need, that are struggling—I mean, that's a cruelty to the self. Also, how can you heal it if you don't first feel it? So this is an overwhelming and challenging time, full stop. It's not going to magically get better in the next week or month or couple of months, again, full stop.

So how can you cope? Who can you lean on, and who can you be a support to? Can you build community with other people in person as well as online? Can you learn about how other people in different places and different times have triumphed over tyranny, over pain and all the kinds of limitations that you yourself or your community is maybe dealing with? Tapping into the wisdom and fortitude of our ancestors, tapping into the stability and enduring presence of the earth, tapping into your own resiliency, your own capacity, this is—it's now. It's now.

Now, I've dropped a month-ahead forecast on my Patreon on the kittens level—and you can find it there—where I break down the astrology of this upcoming month, which I think is a really important month in the stars. I'm also really excited that on my Patreon, there's all these new features that I've been fucking with, and I am going live with video and audio, depending on the state of my meat suit. And I'm doing those things kind of spontaneously.

And as I mentioned last week, I'm dropping free content there, as well, for my members on the free level. And one of the things that I am dropping this week, this upcoming week, is a video where I discuss the state of the world and I look at the charts of many different nations—I think I pulled 20-something nations—and some common themes that I'm seeing astrologically over these next couple of years. So, if you're interested in that kind of thing, which I'm not doing on the podcast because I know that's not what everybody is interested in, again, you can go ahead and join me there.

The last thig I'll say before we get into the very details of this week's astrology is Venus—you've heard of it—is Retrograde. So let me spare a few more words for this Venus Retrograde. Venus Retrograde is an invitation to reflect on how you relate to yourself and to others. And kind of nestled in the truths of those things are really your values, like what is it that you, in practice, value about your relationships with other people, your relationship with yourself? So, in regards to your relationship with yourself, we're really talking about self-worth, self-esteem. You may have shitty self-esteem. Welcome to the very well-populated club. But if you value your relationship with yourself in practice, then you're working on it. A great way to work on it is by treating yourself as though you matter, honoring your feelings and needs, striving to provide for yourself, to protect yourself, to be kind to yourself when you're down, supportive to yourself when you have a win, when you succeed in some way.

Self-worth, self-esteem—it's not about believing you're great, although that's lovely, obvi, right? Great. Cool. It's about treating yourself with value and care and empathy and kindness. And when you do those things, not out of a sense of entitlement or defensiveness, but when you do those things, when you treat yourself with love, it is damn near organic to extend that to other people. And let's talk about the value of relationships.

Investing in the people you're connected to is going to look different in different ways for different relationships and at different times. Treating people like they matter, investing in your relationships, doesn't mean you don't have boundaries. It doesn't mean you stay stuck in dynamics that have you in a rut, that are not healthy and not right for you. It doesn't mean any of those things. It means if you determine that your relationship isn't healthy—it isn't sustainable; it's costing you a healthy relationship with yourself—then it's having the boundaries. It's taking care of yourself and having empathy and care for the other person. And that may be on a soul level. Someone might be a damn jerk to you, and the relationship may be super toxic. And you may be able to recognize, "Oh, it's because they had a shitty childhood or they're hurt in some way."

People usually have a reason deep down somewhere for their maladjusted coping mechanisms. You can have empathy and care for someone's soul, for someone on a spiritual level, for their inner child in a more psychological way of talking about it, and to the grown-ass adult in front of you who is not in alignment with you, who's not treating you with care—that person, you firmly have your boundaries.

Relationships are hard.  Building community, being in community with people you don't really like, you don't really get along with, you may have once been close to and now you're not—it's all very fucking hard. It's trying. And it's trying not just because people are hard but because you're people, and you're hard, too. We're all complicated. And because we live in a heterotypical patriarchy, this system has just ingrained upon us for generations and generations that the only relationships that that really matter are your romantic love relationships and whatever progeny you have from those. And that's bullshit, really.

Our relationships with our friends, with our neighbors, with our pals, with our community members, with our coworkers—they're actually really important. They take up a huge amount of our time, of our energy, and they shape our lives, truly. And in this tumultuous time, which will last for many years, we need to value and invest in our relationships not just in our most innermost circle, with your very best friend who you've known for a long time and your partner or whatever, but all of our relationships. And that's going to pull on parts of you and me and all of us that may not be as well developed, maybe harder.

There's almost this idea in the world that we're not supposed to have to work on our friendships, that things aren't supposed to be as hard. And so people often will not work on their friendships, or when shit gets complicated, bounce, whether they ghost or they burn the bridge down, whatever. A lot of us don't really have the tools. It is intense. It's a lot. But having friendships, having community, is important. It's so important. And I say this to both extroverts and introverts. If you are an introvert, it's going to look and feel really different than if you're a really social, extroverted person. We, as astrology nerds, know that a Gemini shouldn't try to be a Taurus, and a Taurus shouldn't try to be an Aries, right? We all get to be who we are. You don't have to be any one particular way to have community, to invest in relationships.

But part of what Venus and Venus Retrograde, which we're living through now, is activated to teach us is, if you value a relationship with yourself, if you can nurture that, then you have self-acceptance. Then you can have alignment. And from that place, it gets a lot easier to navigate your relationships. And if somebody doesn't really like you or if you don't really like somebody, if a relationship just doesn't work the way you wish it would or you think it could, then it doesn't have to be like a personal treatise on your value or the value of the other person. It can be just about things not aligning. It doesn't have to have the impact of caving in your self-esteem or condemning the other person to being x, y, or z.

Venus Retrograde is a powerful transit, and it's a limited-time opportunity. This transit is going to be over on April 13th. It's like 40, 41 days, something like that. And let me tell you it's a transit worth embracing. Now, the last thing I'm going to say about Venus Retrograde I probably said last week, but you know what? It bears repeating. On February 28th, there was a buy-nothing day in the United States, but I think a lot of people in other regions may have tapped into it. And it was perfect timing for Venus Retrograde. It was a call to boycott big corporations and to shop small and local, using cash if you can. Basically, it was an invocation to be mindful of the power that you yield with your dollar and to not just be aware of it but to make decisions that better reflect your values and invest in the world that you want to be co-creating with the masses, with the rest of us.

And whether or not you knew about it, whether or not you participated in it, it's, I think, a really great invocation for Venus Retrograde through April 12th. So, if you can do some sort of shopping cleanse where you're more intentional about where you shop, where you put your money, that kind of thing, yeah, perfect fucking timing. Perfect timing.

Okay. All right. Now let's get into the horoscope for March 2nd through the 8th. On Sunday, March 2nd, we've got two exact transits. At 8:22 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be meeting with Neptune at 28 degrees of Pisces and 57 minutes. This is as anaretic as it gets. And an anaretic degree of a zodiac sign means that its energies are kind of peak. So this is like peak Pisces vibes. Mercury conjunct Neptune keyword—I would say anxiety.

And then, later that morning, at 10:19 a.m., the Sun at 12 degrees and 25 minutes of Pisces also forms a square to Jupiter at the same degrees of Gemini. So I'm going to tell you about each of these transits and then what it means that they're happening together. So Mercury—which is Retroshady, not Retrograde, Retroshady, which means we're kind of starting to get a little amuse-bouche of the Retrograde to come—is sitting on top of Neptune. Now, Mercury on top of Neptune, like I said, creates anxiety. It's a transit that can introduce a sense of overwhelm around what you don't know. If there's ever a time you're going to fall prey to a conspiracy theory, you're going to pass inaccurate data, you're going to have weak boundaries, it's during a Mercury conjunction to Neptune, unfortunately.

This transit can find you fixated on things you don't know, things that you're frightened about, and that in particular you're frightened about and you don't have any control over, because Neptune and Saturn both govern fear in really different ways. Saturn is a very goat-like fear. It's like, "I gotta climb up this big-ass mountain, and I gotta find the next foothold. And what if the other goats see me slip?" whereas Neptune is more, "I am scared of what I can't see, of what I don't know."

So Neptune's fears are more like, "I'm scared of monsters under my bed, even though I've never seen monsters under my bed." When Mercury—your mind, your attitudes, your beliefs, the data you take in, the data you communicate to others—and Neptune meet up, it can be a time where you are just focused on things that are not helpful. So, if you find yourself in that position, I want to encourage you to rein it in. Now, this might not be happening inside of you, but it may be that you're dealing with somebody else who's just spiraling, who's really anxious. And sometimes, when people are anxious, they get mean. Sometimes they get confusing. Sometimes they get needy. There's a bazillion ways we tend to react to whatever is happening inside of us. So, if people are acting weird, try not to take it personally, okay?

Now, the other thing is that this transit can be super woo. It's very Piscean, very Neptunian. And this means, especially if you are an empath or a highly sensitive person, that you are just feeling the world, or you're feeling the energy of the space you're in or the people you're around. And that can be really overwhelming.

So, in that case, I would encourage you to do what I always encourage people to do around Neptune transits, which is work on your boundaries. So this is the thing about boundaries. You need to first be present in order to have a boundary. So, first, you gotta get present. Then you have to have a sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance around your space, like where do you begin and end? And then you can assess a boundary from there. That's how you have an embodied spiritual boundary.

The risk with this transit is that you lean on the woo—and I'm talking about any kind of spirituality stuff—in a way that either has you giving your power to something or someone else that has you disconnected from yourself or just out there in a way that it doesn't actually support you or the people and things you care about. So, if you're going to use spirituality—which is, honestly, not super well advised under this transit, but if you're going to use it, keep it really pragmatic and really simple.

You may be straight-up exhausted. Exhaustion and burnout are really common under this influence. And in that case, I want to say power nap. Rest. Maybe spend a little less time on your devices. If your system is telling you that you're exhausted, take care of yourself. Now, Mercury is related to, actually, your breathing, very literally. Neptune is related to your immune system and can be related to germs. It's like when you think about it on an energetic level, when we are dealing with energy invasion from other people, it's kind of germy. And that works on the material level as well.

Anyways, therefore, if you're going out in public, this is your gentle yet firm and ongoing loving reminder to wear a mask to protect yourself and others because there's a lot of things you don't want to get and you don't want to pass on to other people. And masking in public is such a simple way of participating in collective care.

Okay. Now, the other thing that Mercury conjunction can do is it can help you to tap into universal truths. It can help you to tap into your humanity and your willingness and ability to consider with empathy the perspectives, needs, or position of others. This is really powerful. What you want to avoid doing is jumping to conclusions or making major life choices or changes as a result of any of that, or anything else, really.

This is not a straight-shooting transit, see. And so it's not going to be a great time for major decisions. If you've got to sign a contract, yeah, try not to do it on or around this date. And it can't always be helped, but if you can help it, do. If there's something important that you need to communicate, if there's something important that you're trying to plan, this transit is not your friend. So, if you can leave major communication, major plans, major decisions for another day, that would be fantastic.

Venus is values, as we've talked about. Neptune is ideals. And a transit like Mercury conjunction to Neptune can have you really thinking about your ideals. What you want to make sure that doesn't kind of bleed into is perfectionistic thinking, comparing yourself to others, placing other people or yourself on a pedestal. This kind of shit can be common under this transit, especially because it's in Pisces. So, again, it's about staying grounded in the here and now and cultivating acceptance and, from that place of acceptance, practicing empathy and kindness. That's the best use of this transit.

Now, the Sun square to Jupiter happening the same day and exact only a couple hours later is a really different transit. But the similarity is that Jupiter and Neptune are both super spiritual. So, when the Sun forms a square to Jupiter, there are some really wonderful things that can happen, and there are some really challenging things that can come up—both.

On the one hand, this transit can infuse you with energy and make you feel more resilient, more courageous, more willing to get involved and get shit done. It can make you feel optimistic, excited, and down to clown, as it were. Now, the other thing it can do is boost your ego in a way that has you kind of ignoring or trampling on other people's needs, feelings, or rights. Sun square to Jupiter can lead you to just soapboxing and basically trying to proselytize and force other people to believe what you believe.

And the thing that Jupiter can often compel you towards is feeling like, "If I just show this in a clean and clear enough way, if I explain it in just the right words, then they'll agree with me." But the truth is sometimes people don't agree with you. People don't perceive the world in the ways that you perceive it. They don't have the same lived experience. They don't have the same values or goals. And that's hard to accept. But acceptance is awareness. It's not consent. And accepting the differences between you and others, accepting that other people are what they are whether you like it or not, whether you think they could be better or not, is really powerful. It empowers you to get present and to navigate through reality.

This transit can inspire you to take risks, to be bold, and to cultivate greater strength and resiliency, whether that's on a mental level or physical level. So, if there's things that you know that are important for you to do for your mental health or your physical health and you just have been having a hard time remembering to do them or choosing to do them, this transit is actually your BFF. It can help you to just have the energy to do that little thing that makes a big difference. So that's really cool.

The downside, though, is that this transit can have you overdoing it in all ways. So it can be overindulging in things that are delicious and even addictive to you. It can be pushing yourself or pushing others too fast, too hard. It's being too connected to where you think things should be so that you're, again, not present for where they are. So there's pros and cons. And with a little mindfulness, the pros are fucking fantastic, so they're definitely worth leaning into.

But as promised, let me talk to you about what's most likely to happen here. Because Mercury conjunction to Neptune eggs on anxiety and uncertainty and overwhelm and burnout and panic—did I mention panic—and panic, and the Sun square to Jupiter eggs a bitch on—it pushes you to take in and take on more, to push past limits, to keep it positive even when it's not. This transit can find you acting out of a state of anxiety instead of presence and alignment when that's actually what's needed.

So, when you're in a state of anxiety or burnout or depressiveness—or you fill in the blanks—the first thing to do is tend to the feelings before you go try to fix things or change the station on your feelings. If you can practice doing this on and around this date, you're going to be making the best use of these transits together because the Sun square Jupiter is expansive, so it can be really supportive. But if that transit expands that Mercury conjunction to Neptune vibe, that's not great because more anxiety, more overwhelm, more panic is not what you're looking for, I'm guessing.

So, again, people are going to be acting a little wild. This is the thing. This is the thing that's so hard. Here we are during this Venus Retrograde—again, Mars and Mercury Retroshade and the opposite sides of the Retroshade. But it's very relational. We're in this incredibly relational time. Forget the fact that we're even in Eclipse Season, which means emotions are building and mounting and intense. So we're in this really intense time, and it's making our relationships more challenging because at core, your relationship to yourself is being activated. And if you don't already have the tools and if you don't already have the habits and if you don't have the willingness to sort through all this muck, then you're more likely to act out unconsciously and out of habit and trauma instead of attention to what's present and real right now and intention about how you want to be with yourself and others. And of course, that's the assignment.

So it's a lot. But happily, we have a couple other transits happening this week that are very supportive. So, on Wednesday, March 5th, we have a lovely sextile between Mercury at 3 degrees of Aries and 0 minutes and Pluto at 3 degrees of Aquarius and 0 minutes. This transit is going to be exact at 5:13 a.m.

Now, again, I am paying attention to this Pluto shift at that third degree because I do think it is an important shift. But Mercury sextile Pluto is a lovely transit. If that Mercury conjunction to Neptune made you feel anxious and off, if you had weird conversations and interactions with other people, this Mercury sextile to Pluto is here to help because Mercury—again, it's communications. It's friendships. It's plans. And Pluto is deep. It's penetrating. It's transformational.

And when these two planets are in sextile to each other—that's a 60-degree aspect. That's like a burst of energy that is supportive and dynamic. What happens is your thinking gets deeper. Your agility around ideas and communication—also deeper, more profound. This transit is really great for having important conversations, for learning something new, for finding the words to say what you need to say, which is really great. You may find yourself more concerned with important and deep shit, and I want to encourage you to follow that instinct.

This is a powerful transit for communicating, for connecting, and for learning. And none of that happens without a little effort, but this is one of those times where a little bit of effort is going to go a long way. And if you've been feeling particularly stressed, again, this is a good transit for putting into practice and trying to cultivate the habit for whatever self-care stuff you know you need to be doing.

Don't forget that Mercury is the ruling planet to Virgo, Virgo being the zodiac sign associated with health, routine, and habits. And so, whenever we're dealing with Mercury, we have the opportunity to engage our habits, to be more intentional about what we want to be devoting our time to in a ritualistic way. That's a really cool part of Mercury and Virgo sixth-house energies, is that it is about routine, and routine is ritual if you bring the right intention to it. So where can you bring greater intention and depth and meaning to the routines you're engaged in? This kind of mindset will help you to identify what's a rut and what's a ritual just waiting for your energy.

Now, on Friday, March the 7th, we have a Sun trine to Mars. The Sun will be at almost 18 degrees of Pisces, and Mars will be at the same degrees of Cancer. This transit will be exact at 9:13 p.m. Pacific. This transit is very fortifying. The Sun is your identity and your will. Mars is your ego. It's your physicality. It's embodiment. When the Sun forms a trine to Mars, it can boost your willingness and ability to be in your body, to be present, to be active and activated in a way that facilitates progress, presence, and developments that you're excited about.

This transit is great for hooking up and flirting and competing and putting yourself out there in any way. You may feel especially passionate or excited about something. You may feel the impulse to start something new. Now, Mars is Retroshady. Hopefully you've learned from the last few months Venus is Retrograde, and so if you're starting something new, it better reflect your values, right? But this transit helps you to put yourself out there.

Because of the bigger picture, because of the energy that's out there, because of the emotionality—it's Eclipse Season; we're about to have an Eclipse next week—you may not have any kind of thing you're trying to start. You may just be trying to hold tight, take care of yourself, strengthen yourself. And again, this transit is your friend. This is an excellent time for connecting to yourself.

The only downside of this transit can be that you may be overly susceptible to people who have charisma. Be aware of somebody who's trying to offer you a quick way out of whatever it is that you're feeling if what you're feeling is real. This transit favors work. And it doesn't have to be Saturnian labor, but getting engaged and making shit happen—that's what this transit wants you to do.

So, if you've been feeling exhausted and burned out, this is a moment where you can really tap into your energies and resources yourself or access resources around you. This is a really lovely transit—again, very little to be concerned about. If you can do something with your body that is life-affirming, this is your moment. Shine, I say. Shine. And if you do the things that you know support your body, you'll get more benefits from this transit. So that's pretty cool.

And that, my friends, is the astrology for this week. Now, I don't do a lot of in-person events, but I'm really, really excited about the two that I'm doing this month in March. On Thursday, March 13th, at 7:00 Pacific Time, I'm going to be in person at CIIS. That's the California Institute for Integral Studies. We're going to be talking about navigating through the astrology of these times, and I'm so excited about this talk. If you are not in San Francisco, you can join via livestream, and that means you can join from anywhere in the world. So I want to invite you to join me there. The link to register is both in the episode description of this podcast episode and it's also on my website. So you can giddyap and join me there.

And then the other event that I'm so excited about is happening on March 16th at the Oakland Museum at 1:00 p.m. I'm going to be in conversation with Malkia Cyril-Devich, and there will be music by Mahsa Vahdat. This event is called Reimagining Justice, and we are going to dive into how personal and collective changes can spark real change in the fight for justice. We'll be talking about resilience, resistance, and what it takes to build a more just world together, acknowledging the complexity of the emotions that we're living through. I think this is going to be a really powerful conversation. And if you've never been to the Oakland Museum, this is your invitation to finally go because it's amazing. And again, the link to register is in the episode description as well as on my website. So I hope you'll join me there.

I've recently moved away from the Bay Area after living there for 30 years, so getting to speak in both San Francisco and Oakland at these two amazing institutions is both an honor to me but also something that is really close to my heart. So come see me, Bay Area. I am excited to come back and see you.

And that, my friends, is it for this week's horoscope. As always, I want to invite you to do the very vulnerable work of being kind to yourself and others. And I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.