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 still in Retrograde madness. We've got an Eclipse and some very confusing and unmooring transits from both Mercury and Venus, who are both Retrograde, to Neptune. So there's a lot to talk about.

But first, I want to thank everybody who came to the events that I did in San Francisco through CIIS and in Oakland at the Oakland Museum. These events were just amazing, and it was so wonderful getting to meet so many of you. It was just magical and lovely. And stay tuned because I may be able to share the video of one of these events, so stay tuned. I'm working on that.

But, that said, I want to speak to something really serious, which is that the United States is descending into fascism. That's what's happening right now, and it's really terrifying. There are many things happening in nations around the world which are important to talk about, but as the United States is a global superpower, the cascade effect of the people at the top, the people in power of the United States, making such radical changes means that many, many other nations are scrambling in reaction to what's happening in the U.S. It's scary, but it's real.

And I firmly believe that it's not possible to make good choices in your situation—in your personal situation, in our collective circumstances—if you're not facing reality. So, as scary as it is—and it is scary—I want to invite you to meet this moment and to meet this moment as it is. And it is dire, right? There are many ways that things can play out. But in the context of tyranny and fascism, no one is safe. Now, of course, some people are much more vulnerable than others, but none of us are safe because even if you are personally physically safe, fascism demands that you abandon your values and your humanity while other people suffer.

Humans can be so very cruel, and sometimes that's out of hatred, and sometimes that's out of fear. A lot of times, we let bad things happen because we're scared to intervene. We're scared to try to stop them. And so this moment requires of you and me and each and every one of us to rise to meet the moment. Everybody should be entitled to bodily autonomy, to freedom and safe harbor. We are all entitled to peace. And yet, when we speak of reality and we acknowledge reality, that's not what tends to happen in this world, unfortunately.

This is a time to remember that it is people with power abusing their powers that are the enemy. When we say that Palestine should be free, that doesn't mean that Palestinians should be free so that Jews in Isreal are not. When we say that Trans rights are human rights, that does not pose any threats to cis or heterosexual rights. When we say that all people deserve safe harbor and a place to call home, that does not take anything from your safety or your home. And believing that one equals the other in any of these examples means that you have been lied to, and you've been lied to in a way that appeals to your fears and has compelled you to believe something that is simply not true.

Those who benefit from abuses of power want you and me to believe that our freedom and our wellness can only occur if someone else is not free and someone else is not well. But this has never been true. We know based on Uranus in Taurus, which is something I've been talking to you about for years, that we are being tested in our values. Who do you value? Why? How? Whose freedom is of value, and whose freedom is not of value? Unfortunately, when Uranus is in Taurus, huge portions of the human population are all too willing and able to decide that certain people deserve rights and other people do not. And those people are always on the wrong side of history.

And here's the thing. You may be wrong about something. You may realize that you've been holding a belief that now you realize is not right. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay to evolve and to change your thinking. In fact, it's fucking great to evolve. People with power, people at the top, want the bulk of the population to believe that there is a scarcity, that there is a shortage, that there's not enough freedom to go around; there's not enough resources for education and healthcare and living safely. They want us to believe that. But the truth is that that's not true, and it never has been.

The, quote unquote, "head of a family" does not need to be a man. Two people can share power and responsibility and also love and care for each other. We just have to choose it. We have to believe that we can choose it, and we have to choose it. We know that Pluto exists in each and every one of our birth charts. That drive for power and survival, the parts of ourselves that are petty and resentful and vengeful—that exists in each and every one of us. And in a society that says, "Your vengefulness is okay, but that person's vengefulness is not. Your drive to be powerful and have other people know that you're powerful and other people validate your power—that's not good. But his is good"—when we live in a society like that, then what we're doing is we're living in a broken society. And that we are.

People are fucked up. You and me—we are fucked up. That's part of it. It's part of being a person, is coming into wholeness, coming into healing, making the best possible choices, even in the worst possible situations. When we think about really trying times, when we think about terrible conditions that people have lived through over time or that people are living through now, we don't enough speak about the emotions of it, the psychological impact of it, because it's really hard to bear.  It's hard to have that conversation because, in a way, it implicates you. It implicates me.

Whether or not fascism really takes hold in the United States of America depends on many things, but chief among them is public resistance. We know through history that the resilience of democratic norms, that nonviolent action and protest, that education and the arts, are so powerful that every authoritarian regime throughout time quickly moves to squash those things. This wouldn't be the case if these things weren't so powerful. Do not underestimate the power of our collective voices raised to speak out against hatred, oppression, and cruelty. Do not confuse a lack of evidence that things are changing today with the belief that they won't change tomorrow.

Where we are is scary, and things are likely to get more scary. But if we are willing and able to face it with an open heart, which means, unfortunately, be present with our grief and our fear and our rage, then we have a fighting chance. You know that Pluto is in Aquarius, right? This is the time when we must come together and feel the power of our communities and of the collective and have the power of our communities be felt by those with power. We must find ways of resisting cruelty and tyranny and carceral thinking inside of ourselves, inside of our communities, and in the world at-large. And this isn't easy. If it was easy, we wouldn't need Pluto to force this theme down our damn throats. Pluto is never easy. Pluto always forces us to deal with our survival mechanisms, and your survival mechanisms exist to keep you alive. And so they're not your wisest, most nuanced instincts. They're your strongest instincts. And your strongest instincts, as you know, are not reliably the ones to center in your choices. But you gotta honor them.

In this Eclipse Season and this Retrograde Season and this time that portends a massive shift for humanity, you have the very daunting task of showing up, of meeting the moment, and doing so in an emotionally present way so that you can both honor your own feelings and experiences and also make the best possible choices. When I encourage you to meet the moment, I want to be clear I'm not talking about being perfect. I'm not talking about being a hero. I'm simply talking about, every day, doing your best to meet the moment and to know that while fear and overwhelm can incline you to want to hide, isolate, go it alone, this is the time for collective action and collective power. And there is room for introverts and hermits within that. We're not all going to show up in the same way. We're not all going to feel the same. We're not all going to have the same resources or the same risks. So contemplate, how can you show up for yourself? How can you take care of yourself? How can you show up for others, with others? And how can you participate in building together?

Okay. Now let's dive into your damn horoscope. The first exact transit of this week is exact on Sunday, March 23rd, at 12:32 p.m. Pacific Time. We've got the Sun at 3 degrees and 25 minutes of Aries forming an exact sextile to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. Now, this is a lovely transit with no downside, and I'm happy to tell you because this transit is occurring under the backdrop of some really intense energies.

The Sun sextile to Pluto is fortifying. The Sun is your identity and your will and your vitality, and Pluto governs the capacity for healing, for facing and engaging with intense, profound, real shit, which is great, right? It's right on time, in fact. This transit can deepen your willingness to do whatever work needs to be done, to press forward, to move through challenges, and this can include moving through personal psychological challenges, dealing with health issues. It might be interpersonal. It can be in your career or dealing with the world at-large. It can be on any level.

Pluto is always a little compulsive. It's always driven. As I said earlier, it governs your flight-or-fight mechanisms, your survival mechanisms. But in the case of a sextile between the Sun and Pluto, what we tend to experience is our ability to leverage our compulsions, our intensity, and to leverage it in this case to bolster yourself so that you have more energy or that you're using your energy in a more effective and healthy way.

If you need to show up for something that is intimidating or challenging, this transit is the one for you. You want to look at where it lands in your birth chart to see more personally how it's likely to affect you, but this transit is a great asset in being able to engage consciously and with intention. That's kind of delicious, right?

Now, as I said, this is occurring under the backdrop of Venus Retrograde, which is asking you to really reflect on what it is that you value. What are your values? What do you value in yourself? What do you value in others, in your relationships, in how you use your resources or not, like where you spend your money, what you do with the stuff you have—that kind of shit.

Venus Retrograde is an important opportunity to reflect on the relationships that you center in your life and how you participate in loving and caring for others, how you do or don't share of yourself. Venus Retrograde can slow things down as you strive to figure out your relationships or your values or your finances, etc. That slowdown is so that you do a better job of reflecting so that you turn inwards.

Mercury is also Retrograde, and Mercury Retrograde fuddles up communications. It messes with your plans, and it does so to test your adaptability. Are you willing and able to adapt and be flexible when things change or don't go according to plan? That adaptability or flexibility is a skill, and it's a skill that you can choose to cultivate and develop or not. When Mercury goes Retrograde, we often get really good feedback from the Universe about where we're at because it puts us in these situations where things go wonky, and however it feels, however you respond, is of course a reflection on you first and foremost.

Now, the thing that I want to say about these Retrogrades is, because they are pointing us inward and because they are kind of gunking up the flow of social and interpersonal dynamics, when a transit like Sun sextile to Pluto comes around, it can help you to do that deep inner work, to reflect, to make a change that would otherwise be hard to do. So avail yourself to your own growth. Do your best to rise to the occasion on and around this date.

Now, the next exact transit we have is the next day. So that means these two transits overlap with each other. And now we've got the Sun at 4 degrees and 25 minutes of Aries sitting on top of Mercury, the same exact degrees of Aries, at 12:48 p.m. on Monday, March 24th, Pacific Time. The Sun and Mercury conjunct each other is, I tend to find, a little bit of a mixed bag kind of transit. It's overlapping with the Sun sextile to Pluto, which is going to boost the positive potential of this transit. And also, Mercury is Retrograde, so this transit is happening to a Mercury Retrograde.

Now, when the Sun and Mercury meet, you can be highly identified with your thinking. On the one hand, this can help you to be more adaptable, be more curious, explore different ideas, different connections that you have with other people, to listen in a more dynamic way, to process information in ways that are really helpful to your life or helpful to the world, even.

It can just as easily, unfortunately, especially because it's all in Aries, have you being super fucking self-referential. What I'm trying to say is you may be so identified with your ideas, with the stories you tell yourself, with what you say over the motivations and emotions behind what you say, that you become like the great and powerful Oz, just a little dude hiding behind a big old head, barking out theories. So you want to avoid that, if you can, during the Sun conjunction to Mercury.

This is a great time for having enough faith in yourself, in your vitality, in your resiliency, that you can change your mind, that you can trust yourself. Whatever you need to do, this is a time to be open and adaptable, to turn inwards even as you engage with the world around you. Again, that Sun sextile to Pluto is your friend in this. Sun conjunction to Mercury is a transit where people tend to tell on themselves and not even realize they're dong it. So listen to what other people are telling you. Listen to what they say. Listen to how they say it. And know that if you're just talk-talk-talk-talking and you're not listening, you're probably telling on yourself, too. And that's not bad; it's not good. It's just part of where you're at.

But I want to encourage you to do your best to own where you're at, to take accountability, responsibility, for where you're at. And you don't think Aries, responsibility, accountability, because of course, Sun/Mercury in Aries, right? But Aries is all about owning it. It's all about being all about it. So, whatever it is that you believe, whatever it is that you're saying, whatever your plans are, be about it. And if you can't be about it, be about that.

So, in other words, owning your shit can absolutely look like, "At this time, I don't know. I am learning. I am adapting, and I don't have the answers." That's okay. The reason why planets go Retrograde—and other than the Sun and Moon, all the planets go Retrograde. The reason why planets go Retrograde is so that we don't go too far down the wrong path, so that we don't only grow outward but we grow inwards. That's the same reason why we have shitty transits, challenging transits. It's so that our ideas, our beliefs, our patterns are tested. And if they don't do well for the test, then we have information that we are meant to use so that we can adapt, evolve, and grow. That's the fucking assignment, according to me, your astrologer, or at least one of your astrologers.

Anyways, that's the Sun conjunction to Mercury. And that brings us to the next transit. And if you're a student of astrology, you can probably guess what the next transit will be because the Sun and Pluto were sextile and then the Sun and Mercury met. So it only stands to reason that now Mercury is sextile to Pluto. This transit will be exact on Tuesday, the 25th, at exactly 3:02 p.m. Pacific Time. Mercury Retrograde will be at 3 degrees of Aries and 27 minutes, sextiling Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius.

Now, we know, Mercury—she's Retrograde. Pluto is intense. And so what this Mercury Retrograde sextile to Pluto is set to do is to deepen your curiosity, your thinking, and your communications. This is a time to face things that are intense. This is the time to be brave, to identify what you really think. This might include what you really need or want.  This may include needing to clarify or being willing to clarify your own motivations because whenever we're dealing with Aries energies, especially by transit, we want to check in with our motivations.

So checking in with those things will require a certain amount of intensity, maybe even focus. Mercury sextile to Pluto supports that. It gives you focus. It gives you concentration. It gives you tenacity and even resiliency. This is a great time for any kind of therapy, any kind of digging deep into ideas, having hard conversations with other people and with yourself. What you want to avoid is the impulse to overintellectualize your experience, your feelings, your needs, but instead to explore ideas. Mercury, yes, is analysis and criticism and stories, but it's also flexibility, adaptability, curiosity, inquisitiveness. So strive to access those qualities of Mercury in a deep and penetrating way—because Pluto.

If you've got shit with your friends, with your coworkers, with your neighbors, this is a great transit to have, again, heart-to-hearts, have important conversations. If you have a tendency to talk a lot, this is a great transit for listening. If you have a tendency to not speak up, to not say your piece, this is a great transit for shifting that, for speaking your truth, whether that means typing or verbalizing or whatever. It doesn't matter the mode.

These three transits—this little trio of transits, if you will—are powerful. They increase your capacity for confronting, accepting, working with, and evolving based on what is. And that's kind of super cool, right? But you have to rise to meet the moment. So this is your cordial invitation to do just that.

Now, this is the part of your horoscope where shit gets intense. Okay. So I'm going to say a bunch of things here, but the first thing I'm going to say is this is a big download, right? This is a lot of data. I always have the transcript available, usually within 24 hours of these episodes, over on my website. So, if you find yourself overwhelmed, if you're multitasking while you're listening, don't worry; you can go back and listen to it again or read the transcript, or both, as your sweet little heart desires. Sometimes it's good to listen and take notes and get every detail in the mix, and then sometimes it's good to just absorb and emotionally process. And you're going to do different things at different times.

Okay. So it's Eclipse Season, right? We have a Solar Eclipse happening this week, and this means that emotions are running high. You are feeling your feelings, and it's intense, and it's big. And it's a Solar Eclipse in Aries, which implicates you—how you show up, your motivations. But whenever we're dealing with a zodiac sign, we are always engaging its opposite, which is in this case Libra, which is relationships. So how you show up, who you are, what motivations you center, your own ambition, your own drive to succeed or to thrive or to survive, is being engaged in a profoundly emotional way. It's emotional, which means it's messy. Emotions are messy, right? I just want to pause there. Emotions are messy by their very fucking nature.

So, if you are feeling extra, then you're right on time. If you're having a hard time sleeping, yeah, it's the fucking Eclipse. If you are super emotional, it's the Eclipse. If you're typically kind of a highly sensitive person or an empath, and lately you've just been feeling like your field is all blown open, yeah, it's the Eclipse. We're going to talk about the Eclipse, like I said, in a moment. In a moment. But first let me tell you something that I haven't been talking to you about, that I should have been talking to you about, technically speaking.

On Wednesday, March 26th, Mars forms an exact square to Chiron. This will be happening with Mars at 22 degrees of Cancer and 0 minutes and Chiron at the same degrees of Aries. This transit is exact at 1:12 p.m. Pacific Time. This transit is really important for a lot of reasons. We've been feeling it for quite some time now. Mars is the ruling planet to Aries, right? So the timing of this transit is notable because the ruling planet to Aries is involved in a very important transit this week, and it will not be exact during the Eclipse, but it will be very close to exact. And the Moon itself—a Solar Eclipse is a Lunar transit—is governed by Cancer. So Mars is in Cancer, and Chiron is in Aries. The energies are speaking to each other.

Now, Mars square Chiron is an inherently violent transit. It's Mars, which you have heard me say many times is punch-punch, bang-bang—right? That kind of violence. Mars, which governs the archetype of maleness—it is competition and ambition. It is dominion. It is anger, and it is passion. Mars is related to your motivations, the things you do and the pace and energy with which you do them—Mars. And of course, the planet Mars is in the birth chart of all humans of all genders. Don't get me started.

But coming back to Mars, Mars is square to Chiron. And Chiron is related to your core wounding. It is not a planet. It's an asteroid. And I don't work with the asteroids overwhelmingly, myself. A lot of astrologers do. I don't. Chiron is the one asteroid that I do work with. Chiron speaks to the pain inherent from the patrilineal wound. So this is archetypal. It doesn't have to be literally from your daddy or your daddy's line, although it can be. But it is an archetypal wound. So, when we're looking at this on a societal level, we've got Mars square to Chiron, and we have a crisis here in men with power abusing power in the perpetuation of patriarchy and the violence that it can bring.

When Mars is square to Chiron, things build to a fever pitch, and there is rage, and there is violence, and there is defensiveness. And there are people who are jockeying for space and power out of cruelty and competition. There are also people striving to create reform through power, through passion, and pursuing acts of bravery in the name of what they believe to be right. Sometimes there's an overlap on those two; sometimes there isn't.

This transit can help you to confront old, deep wounds by actively engaging with them. But this transit acts like most transits do. You gotta feel it to heal it. How do we heal something that we don't know how to feel or we don't know how to feel without going into maladjusted coping mechanisms that come from our childhood woundings? I don't have the answer. The answer is the process. The answer is trying. The answer is exploration. Be wary of your impulse to find a simple answer to complex situations, my friend. It's not it.

This transit can coincide with major political, social, or personal conflicts. The problem with this transit is people who are enraged may boil over. People who act boldly and impulsively may act a fucking fool under this transit. Now, equally, people who are clear-eyed and brave may act in ways that facilitate progress of the deepest order. There's room for all of it, but I'm certainly expecting some wildness this week, especially on this half of the week, but I mean, all these transits are happening so close to each other. This is a time where things are likely to be pretty fucking intense.

On a personal level, let me say this. Challenge yourself to grow. Be brave. Confront the truth as it is. Maybe that truth is about ways that you push off blame so you don't have to be accountable. Maybe that truth is that you're choosing to invest in relationships that actually don't work for you or them. Maybe the truth is it's time to move on. Maybe the truth is that it's time to invest. Be brave enough to stay present with what is. That's the assignment, okay?

This transit and the Eclipse is going to set fire to your emotions, your impulses, your passions, and set fire to the impulses and emotions and passions of others. So, as you could imagine, this may be a fucking mess. This transit triggers insecurities, self-worth issues, past trauma and wounding. And the way that you and I and everyone else most consistently reacts when those things are triggered is out of our survival mechanisms. Do yourself and others the kindness of not slipping into hypervigilance or defensiveness but instead remaining present and receptive to your own impulses and motivations. Your boundaries, your actions, your motivations—they're all yours.

This transit can represent a time of major progress, major growth, major developments, or kind of the opposite—things blowing up, exploding, and getting real fucked up. Mars in Cancer can be a very defensive, passive-aggressive transit. And so I invite you to, again, consider accountability. Consider that part of you that is a shitty cop in your head saying, "I'm not allowed to be bad. If I'm bad, then here's the consequence. That person is not allowed to have made a mistake. If that person makes a mistake, there's the consequence."

It's about evolving. It's about recognizing that the coping mechanism of policing yourself or others is a maladjusted coping mechanism. It's one to evolve. Sometimes you are confronted with your own worst impulses, worst behaviors, and you are confronted with them so that they can function as a catalyst for growth, evolution, for self-awareness and self-possession. You can blame people. You can blame yourself. What's it do? How does it serve you? What does it facilitate?

I expect to see people with power behaving in really fucked-up ways. Mars is related to policing, so we may see terrible acts from militaristic or police forces. We want to be mindful of these things. I'm not saying that there is no place for punishment and the aspect of policing oneself, which is being mindful and having boundaries and enforcing consequences. But the motivation of punishment and cruelty, of harming yourself or others, for wrongdoing—that is certainly worth rethinking and, if it's a process that you're engaged in, reframing.

You're allowed to have problems. You're allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to realize you're doing something fucked-up and to fucking change. It's hard to do. It takes humility and strength in equal parts. And this week's transits invite all of it.

Now, that brings me to the next transit. And it's like if your head isn't spinning yet, get ready because the next transit could not be more different than this transit. That is because Venus Retrograde is sitting on top of Neptune in Pisces. So, if Mars in Cancer square to Chiron in Aries is inherently violent and defensive and dredging up one's sense of entitlement and resentment and all of these things, then Venus conjunct Neptune is up in the damn clouds, out of the body. It's a transit that brings up martyrdom feelings. And I'll unpack it really in depth in a moment.

But let me just say the combo platter of these two transits is fucking confusing. It means that not only are we in Retrograde land, not only are we in Eclipse land, but now, as these transits overlap with each other, it's really hard to know which of your impulses to center, what is real and what is true and what is not. And I don't say this to frighten you or make it worse. I say this to validate how fucking all over the place the energy of this week is and how that means that people are going to be acting weird. And you are people, so you're being weird, too. Even if you think you're perfect or your perspective makes perfect sense, yeah, that's only from inside of the universe that is you.

We are all acting weird. We are all trying our best. And we are all probably fucking failing, at least a little bit if not a lot a bit. Let's normalize that. I'm not saying not be accountable. I'm saying perfectionism has no room in the revolution, whether it's the revolution of your own individual healing process or the revolution that we need for collective liberation here and abroad.

So fucking Venus conjunction to Neptune—this transit is exact on Thursday, March 27th, at 6:13 a.m. Pacific Time. Venus will be at this very anaretic moment, 29 degrees of Pisces and 53 minutes, and so is Neptune. They're just sitting there at the same degrees of the same sign. So we are talking peak Pisces vibes. Now, the last time this transit occurred was on February 1st, and this was very recent. And that's because Venus is Retrograde, and that's the shit that goes down during a Retrograde; we relive things, right? So you may want to take a pause if you can. Look back at your day planner, at your dear diary—whatevs—and remember what was going on for you on or around the 1st of February.

So Venus Retrograde—we touched on that. And as you've heard me say many times before if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, Venus is your values. Neptune is your ideals. Venus is what you practice, and Neptune is what you aspire to. Venus is your intimacies with people IRL. Neptune is your parasocial relationship. It's putting others on pedestals or projecting onto people.

When Venus and Neptune meet up in spiritual and hyper-sensey Pisces, the assignment is boundaries. Now, if your boundaries are values-based—they're based in the value that you hold for yourself; they're based in the value that you hold for others—then they are essentially life-affirming. Now, that doesn't mean you don't have anxieties about boundaries. Most of us, most of the time, have anxieties about our boundaries, especially when they're new or we're using them in kind of tender, heartfelt dynamics.

Venus conjunction to Neptune will often put you in a position where you need to have boundaries. So you've probably been feeling this for a while, at least a week. Let's be clear the reason why you need boundaries is because there's something going on that is challenging. In order to have healthy boundaries in your relationships, you have to have self-worth. In order to respect other people's boundaries, you have to respect them. Trampling upon someone else's boundaries for their own good is bullshit most of the time. Hey, man. There's an exception to all rules, but that one—the best of intentions do not always equal the best of the impact that your behavior makes.

Under a Venus conjunction to Neptune, you may be confronted with the difference between intent and impact in your life, either because you intended something one way and it went another, or that might be true in the reverse—somebody else may have behaved that way towards you. This is a terrible fucking time for obsessing on someone that you don't know personally—in other words, the parasocial relationship. This is a terrible time for acting in ways that are martyred and devotional towards others. And the reason why is because you can lose yourself in these kinds of behaviors.

This transit can make a person want everything to be beautiful, for the garden to be filled with roses, and for none of the roses to have thorns; all the bees never sting. And the truth of the matter is roses have thorns, and thank goodness they do, because they're not just beauty and they're not just love. They're also fucking boundaried. That's what those thorns are for. Bees pollinate, and they make honey. And also, they fucking defend themselves.

This transit can make you want to disassociate and lose yourself. And that's not inherently a bad thing, but it's poorly timed. So, if you're tired, rest. If you are drawn to nature or music or the arts, whether we're talking about spiritual arts or aesthetic arts—whatever it is—go for it. But don't forget the larger themes at play here. It is Eclipse Season. Venus is Retrograde. Mars is square to Chiron.

The best way to use this transit is to tap into the highest truth of your values and how you are or are not aligned with them, to practice embodying self-worth and honoring the value and worth in others, acting in ways that reflect universal love, unconditional love, self-love, and the love of others, both the ones you know personally and the impersonal love that you have for humanity, for all the cats of the world. Have you ever snuggled a pig? If you have, then all the pigs of the world. Venus loves very personally. Neptune loves impersonally, universally. And when they come together in Pisces, your capacity to care for others, to deeply, meaningfully care—care for others and yourself—is intensified.

And if you allow yourself to really love, you will also feel sadness. You will also feel grief. That's part of it. It's just part of it. When you feel deeply beloved and connected, you may also feel lonely and isolated because that's part of the human condition, because the shadow that love casts is grief. The warmth of connection includes the chill of isolation because wherever you go, there you are, because human relationships involve humans, messy humans. And the very state of the human condition is one of separation. I am me. I exist in my meat suit. You are you. You're in your meat suit. And that meat suit that you live in—that is your ship for this voyage. It is the one thing that is with you from birth to death. It is yours, and it keeps you separated from others in some meaningful way.

There are ways that this is beautiful, and there's ways that this is sad, and there's—whatever. That's another conversation, but I want to say this. As we connect or disconnect from others, as you tap into your powerful, profound, impactful capacity for love, for value, for connection, you will feel more than just the shiny, pretty parts of that. And that's as it should be because emotions are just energy in motion. Feelings are meant to be felt. If the energy stays in motion, you don't get trapped. You don't lose yourself in any one emotion. The motion keeps on flowing.

And this transit is an invitation to feel all of it without losing connection to your values, and that includes the value that you hold as a person and the value that exists in others. Your struggles are my struggles. Their struggles are our struggles. We must believe that, and that belief must translate into the principles that we govern our lives by if we want to get out of this more whole than we entered it.

This transit is so watery, and the Mars/Chiron square, as well as the Solar Eclipse in Aries—it's so fiery. And what happens with fire and water? My friends, we have fucking steam, right? Steam is associated with literally burning out. It just burns out. So pace yourself. Pace yourself by being present. If you try to bolt away from your emotions, you will burn out. You will experience steam. If you can practice staying present in your body—because that's Mars, that's Aries, it's the body—and staying present with your feelings, your values, then you will be able to make the most of this complex astrology.

Now, on Saturday, March 29th, 2025, we have two exact transits. At 3:58 a.m. Pacific Time, we have a Solar Eclipse in Aries. The Moon will be at 9 degrees of Aries and 0 minutes, as will the Sun. And then, later that evening, at 7:47 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury, at the very most anaretic degree possible, 29 degrees and 59 minutes of Pisces, will sit on top of Neptune, same degrees of Pisces. And of course, Mercury is Retrograde. It retrograded back into Pisces at 7:18 p.m.

So these two transits are exact at this moment. Now, I'm going to first talk about the transit that happens last, which is the Mercury conjunction to Neptune. And this is because it is a meaningful overlap with the Venus conjunction to Neptune. Now, again, we are in peak Pisces territory. The potential for forgiveness, acceptance, tapping into your humanity, your capacity for faith and flow, is powerful this week. And that is something I really hope you tap into.

Now, if you think this transit sounds a little bit familiar, that's because it happened very recently. Mercury was last conjoined to Neptune on March 2nd, so less than a month ago. If you thought that Mercury Retrograde was confusing and fuddling of plans and clarity, then may I introduce you to Mercury conjunct Neptune? Neptune is fog. Neptune is confusion and anxiety and disassociation and escapism. It's also humanity and faith and intuition and forgiveness.

Now, Mercury sitting on top of Neptune can mean that your thinking is super fucking confused. So, again, we're feeling all this fucking fire. Mars square Chiron, the Solar Eclipse in Aries, and Mercury Retrograde sitting on top of Neptune is just like, "Wait. What? Wait. Could you repeat that? Wait. Oh shit. Did I put the wrong year on that document?" It's messy thinking. That means you're not going to think your way out of this. You're not going to talk your way out of this. And it's going to be hard to concentrate cognitively, like mentally concentrate.

This is a great time for creativity and for being incredibly careful about how you tap into your spirituality. This is because Neptune thins veils. Neptune weakens auric fields, a.k.a. your boundaries. Mercury and Venus sitting on top of Neptune says that this is quite a dangerous time for doing spell work. Mercury conjunction to Neptune is a great time for rest. It's a great time for reflection. This is a great time for meditation, nature walks, taking in art.

Unfortunately, this transit can coincide with disassociative and escapist thinking, which in the modern world can play out as gossip, focusing on shit that really doesn't matter but takes up a lot of mental real estate, hyperpersonalization of the parasocial relationship, taking in misinformation and disinformation, the spreading of disinformation, religious-based extremism, and chaos and confusion that creates shock and awe, and that shock and awe creating a sense of inertia, helplessness, and hopelessness. So not a great transit for this moment.

If you are finding yourself having intuitive hits—really strong intuitive hits—wait at least 72 hours before making decisions based on them or taking action based on them, because while you may be more open, a really wide-open channel is not the most reliable channel, right? So you might get a lot of extra fuzz and details that are not accurate. So do your best to sit on things. This is a terrible time for consciousness-raising drugs all week. If you can avoid it, avoid it. That's my best advice. Do what you will, but that's my best advice.

This transit is ideal for cultivating your humanity, for reflection as opposed to hard analysis, for practicing compassion and empathy. Having healthy boundaries means that if you know you're feeling all fuddled and having a hard time with concentration, then you honor that, that you navigate that with intention. Instead of beating yourself up and feeling bad about it, finding ways of making choices in response to it. We must adapt. Mercury teaches us about adapting, being flexible.

Now, Mercury conjunction to Neptune can activate anxiety. Now, we're feeling these conjunctions to Neptune all fucking week, and again, Eclipse Season. And so anxiety may be off the charts. You may be feeling super, super anxious. And if you are, my advice to you is to simplify. Don't think about all the things. This isn't the time for figuring out the future. When you are in a state of anxiety, the most effective thing to do is to tend to the anxiety instead of the thing that your anxiety is fixated and focused upon. Seeking a state of neutrality is a really good goal when you're feeling anxious as opposed to seeking a state of optimism or positivity. Just go to neutral.

Last week, I shared a little bit of advice I called the four Ns about how to navigate anxiety, and in particular anxiety that is related to things that are outside of your control. You may want to try that out. You may have other tools. It's not enough to have the tools; we have to remember to use them when we need them.

So know that this transit this week, this Eclipse, is likely to provoke anxiety. And some of that anxiety may be really personal to your situation and you. Some of that anxiety may be you being connected to a collective of people that are anxious about our futures. And feeling that fear fucking sucks, and it's also valid and real. I'm not ever going to tell you don't feel fear or that fear is some low vibration thing. Fuck that. No. Fear is helpful. Fear is an instinct, and we need our instincts.

What's important is that we develop healthy coping tools, a healthy relationship, to instincts like fear so that we can learn from our fear instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to our fears, so that we never really get the wisdom from them, so we never sit with our fears to understand, "Okay. These fears are really about my trauma. Those fears are really about the unknown. And this fear—this fear is actually something I can do something about. This fear is something I can adjust my behavior around so I can deal with this fear."

Vilifying certain emotions, certain thoughts, certain feelings, keeps you stuck, trapped in your relationship to them. So practice sitting with and listening to your instincts. And if you find that your anxieties are at a place where you cannot be constructive and you cannot fucking handle it, choose a healthy distraction. Unfortunately, this Mercury conjunction to Neptune is likely to provoke a lot of anxiety.

Now, I'll just say a couple other things. It's a terrible time for gossip, so try to avoid it, okay? It's just kind of ultimately a mean-spirited practice that is like a way to deflect your own insecurities and shit. The other thing—Neptune is related to your immune system, communicable diseases. Like I said, it's like fog. It's droplets in the air. And I don't know if you've heard about all the fucking communicable diseases that exist right now that can really ruin your life or the life of someone else, and they're all avoidable by wearing a mask—now, not 100 percent avoidable. But Neptune is related to barriers, boundaries. It's related to safer sex implements. I'm talking about your condoms and such. It's also related to masking.

So Mercury is your lungs. It's breathing. Neptune is boundaries. So consider wearing a mask when in public spaces as a form of self-protection and communal love. In a world that demands productivity at all times and at all costs, having a disability justice lens with how you look at the world and striving to act in ways that protect the most medically vulnerable amongst us is radical and culture-shifting and kind. So put your mask back on. Don't have a mask? Find a mask bloc.

Okay. Now to the main event, the final transit of the week. We have a Solar Eclipse in Aries happening on Sunday, March 29th, at exactly 3:58 a.m. Pacific Time. I know I said it before, but it bears repeating. In this chart, we have got a big old cluster of planets. We've got Saturn sitting real close to the North Node and Venus and Neptune all in Pisces. Now, Mercury and Neptune—as you know, they're almost exact in the Solar Eclipse chart. Mercury is still in Aries at this moment. The Sun and Moon are sitting on top of each other. Of course, it's a New Moon. It's a Solar Eclipse. And then we've got Chiron in Aries, and it's squaring Mars, the ruling planet of Aries.

Okay. Fun, fun, fun. That's sarcasm. Okay. So Eclipses—so I know that most of you are obsessed with Full Moons, and that's great. Full Moons are powerful, and they're important, and also, you see them. When the Moon is full, you look up; you see the Full Moon. But may I introduce you to the potential and power of a New Moon, a.k.a.—in this moment, we're talking about a Solar Eclipse. New Moons are when we set the intention. We clear during the Full Moon. But if all you're focused on is the ending and not the beginning, then you are missing out on the part of the process where you have so much agency.

New Moons are a time when the Sun and Moon, your identity and your feelings, are in alignment. And that's what's necessary for setting intentions, for manifestation. And we are in alignment about things all the goddamn time. We're just not always intentional about the things we're in alignment on. The things that we're in alignment on are often inspired by trauma. They're often inspired by habit and routine, fear, obligation.

When it comes to New Moons, we have the opportunity to emotionally evolve in such a way that we participate intentionally with our own progress. That's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. So a Solar Eclipse is a New Moon, but it's super fucking charged. And a supercharged New Moon is one worth embracing. Eclipses obscure and they illuminate. That's what they do. And so we can expect that things are happening behind the scenes and in our faces all at once, and they may or may not be aligned.

The Solar Eclipse in Aries is an opportunity to internalize, connect with, and own who and what you are, to identify your own motivations and to put the force of your energy behind the things that you care about, that you're passionate about. You may have the impulse to bolt, to move forward really quickly, because Aries is the first zodiac sign in the pool. Aries is the zodiac sign that can be quite impulsive and driven by passion. And this is a really cool thing, except that Eclipses aren't exactly the time for making bold moves. They're the time for bold shifts internally. It's a Moon transit, so it's about your emotional evolution and your emotional process, your emotional truth.

Also, the fact that we have Neptune sandwiched between Venus and Mercury, both Retrograde, tells us that things are not quite as they seem, that this is a time when we're meant to tap into our beliefs, our values, our aspirations, and to do so in a way that is tied to your humanity. The fact that Saturn is so close to the North Node speaks to what we owe each other, our responsibilities, being accountable to the reality that we find ourselves in. And that's hard. Saturn is related to many things, including fear. Neptune/Pisces is related to anxiety. And Saturn is in Pisces, but Saturn is more fear, you know, fear of reality, fear of consequences, fear of punishment and failure—that kind of thing.

Having the North Node and Saturn sitting so close to each other, we can expect fear to be a meaningful player. And again, fear is not your enemy. Fear is not inherently wrong. Fear is not low vibration. It's how you hold your fears. It's how you respond to your fears—that's the invocation here. This is the invitation, is to show up and to meet what you're feeling, whether it's grief or fear or anxiety or hope or passion or ambition—to meet those things in ways that reflect the best parts of what you are instead of just your strongest emotions.

Aries energies are related to leadership. This doesn't mean you want to adopt main character syndrome. This doesn't mean you want to drag other people along with you. It means rising to the occasion, taking accountability and leadership for who you are and how you show up. Leadership is not just about power or telling people what to do or showing people what to do. It's about being accountable. It's about doing what you believe to be right, whether or not people follow you, whether or not you get the outcomes that you want. It's about doing what's right because it's right. It's about honoring your ambitions because that feeds your life force energy and not just because of the outcomes that you expect or hope to get from them.

In the context of your relationships, who you choose to be, how you show up—that's on you. Owning who you are, where you come from, what your motivations, what your fears are, what your passions are—that's all a reflection on you. And a Solar Eclipse in Aries is asking you to own your shit—the good, the bad, the confusing, the ugly, all of it—all of it, without judgment. And I say without judgment partially because, yeah, that's a good practice, but also, it's a Moon transit. And the Moon governs acceptance and presence and flow.

If emotions are just energy in motion, when we freeze up or we dam the flow of emotion, what happens? Then our emotions are not just about our emotions anymore; they're about complexes and patterns. They get lodged in the body, in the psyche, in the heart. A Solar Eclipse in Aries is an opportunity to break the dam, to move impediment, to move through patterns. This is not done with the mind. It's done with the heart, and it requires the body. Aries governs the body. Aries, in fact, and Mars—they govern the rivers of blood that flow inside of your body, life force energy. You don't need to magically heal. I know the internet is going to promise portals because I don't know why, but the internet is obsessed with portals.

Every doorway is just a doorway. It's just a doorway. You cross through the doorway; you don't. Evolution is evolution. You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to make massive progress. The smallest amount of progress is progress. Moving energy at all has a cascade effect that you can't predict or contain. As you participate in your own evolution, as you participate in your relationships, as you participate with your goals and ambitions, as you participate in our collective liberation in this world as it is now, I invite you to simply rise up to the challenge to the best of your ability.

And if you are rising up, you are rising up from where you are now, not from where you wish you were or where you once were, where you think you should be. It requires you to start with acceptance of who you are, where you are, when you are. And that is more challenging than it sounds for most of us, most of the time. But again, that is the damn assignment. The present moment is where you are. Accept it. Embrace it if you can. And in this way, as you meet it, engage conscientiously in ways that reflect your values.

This Solar Eclipse is a powerful invocation of energy. And the more intentional you are, the braver you are, the better use you'll be able to make of it. Solar Eclipses, New Moons are always about beginning. They're always about intentions. But again, I'm just going to gently encourage you to bring your focus back to internal developments instead of physically bold moves. Now, that said, you may be making some bold moves. It may be your moment to act. And that is as it is, right? You want to honor it, but honor it with the awareness that it's Retrograde Season and Eclipse Season, and so things are not reliably as they seem because they're still evolving.

And so, if you're going to make plans, try to make them as open and adaptable as you can. That might look like paying the extra dollars to be able to change your ticket last minute—that kind of thinking. The energy of this moment is a lot, and it's okay if you have a lot of emotions in response to it. Be kind to yourself. Strive to stay present. Be kind to others, and practice having healthy boundaries in your thinking, with your emotions, and with others.

Now, I'm going to run through these transits because that was a lot. On the 23rd, the Sun forms an exact sextile to Pluto. On the 24th, the Sun forms an exact conjunction to Mercury. And then, on the 25th, Mercury Retrograde forms a sextile to Pluto. On the 26th—dun dun dunn—Mars is square to Chiron. On the 27th, Venus Retrograde forms a conjunction to Neptune, just like it did on February 1st. And on the 29th, on Sunday, we have got a Mercury Retrograde conjunction to Neptune, just like we had on March 2nd, and a very heartfelt and intense Solar Eclipse in Aries.

Take a deep breath. Tap in so you can tune up. And thank you for joining me here for Ghost of a Podcast this week and every week. As always, I invite you to send me questions so that you may have the chance to get a reading with me on the podcast. And tune in to the midweek readings, where I unpack a person's chart.

If you would like to learn more with me, join me over on Patreon, where I am really excited that there's this live feature, so I'm doing a lot more lives, dropping a ton of content. I've got content available on the free level as well as on the paid level, so you can become a member on either.

And please, oh please, be kind to yourself and others this week and every week. And I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.