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.

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Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week’s question I think is a really good one, and it goes like this, “I was born May 25th, 1988, at 11:08 a.m. in Windsor, Ontario. And at this point, I’m obviously past my first Saturn return, but I feel like I failed it. It was a very rough period for me internally, as I know it is for most people. I felt more stuck than I have ever been in my life and struggled with making big decisions, especially regarding intimate relationships. I know well that making no decision is a decision in itself, and that’s what I feel like happened. Now the issues that I had during that time seem to be surfacing again. Since I didn’t manage to resolve my issues properly in that time, will they haunt me until I do? Can you actually fail your Saturn return, and what happens if you do?”

So, again, this person was born May 25th, 1988, at 11:08 a.m. in Windsor, Ontario, and there is so much to say about this question. Let’s start here. What you are going through is perfectly normal and on time. So the Saturn Return is a transit that everyone goes through a couple few times in a life, depending on how old you get. The first one’s around 29 years old. The second one is closer to 60. The third one is closer to 90, so it happens every 29 years approximately. 

And what this transit marks is this period of maturization where you essentially become an adult. That sounds maybe cute or maybe annoying to you depending on your nature, but basically, the reason why most people have a really hard time during the Saturn Return is because we have to become accountable to who we’ve chosen to be, and we have to do that in a really specific and unique way that is ultimately maturizing [sp], but really, on a felt experience, is about consequences. 

We all bear consequences during our Saturn Return. And there’s a lot more I can say about that transit specifically, and I’ve dropped a bunch of episodes about it before. However, what happens with your Saturn Return, around 29 years old, you feel like it builds up for a couple of years—26, 27, it starts. You feel it when you’re 27, when you’re 28, and then the transit itself hits at 29 and could be a couple of weeks, could be a whole year, depends on what’s going on in your chart. 

Then the transit’s over and the pressure that Saturn places, it eases. Your autopilot goes back to your autopilot. Everything seems like it’s getting better. Here’s the thing. There’s something called The Christ Year, and The Christ Year is something that is specific to this first Saturn Return as opposed to the other couple of Saturn Returns that one may go through. The Christ Year happens at 33, and you, my dear, are turning 33 on May 25th, 2021.

Your Christ Year or your thirty third year is a year of ultimate consequences of what you did or didn’t do during your Saturn Return. This is super normal. It might not be super fun; it might not be super chill, but it is normal—it is right on time. So you’re on time. That’s kind of cool to know that there’s some sort of math to what you’re going through. Isn’t that kind of cool? So we’re going to get into the specifics of your issues, but let me just stay general with this conversation around the timing of what you’re going through in the Saturn Return in general. 

So you asked this question, “Is it possible to fail your Saturn Return?” There’s two ways I could answer this question, and the same is true for not just your Saturn Return—basically, any astrological transit you go through. And these two answers may seem really contradicting, but they’re equally true. It is literally impossible to fail your Saturn Return. That is one answer. And the other answer is of course you can fail your Saturn Return. You can fail anything you put your mind to, or you don’t put your mind to. You can fail anything, sure. So they are both true. Let me explain. 

Astrology’s not something that just happens at you, right? Astrology is a system. It’s a tool for understanding what you are going through, what your nature is, what your experiences have been, how you’re likely to react, and how you’re likely to respond, which are often very different, as your question actually highlights. Astrology doesn’t do these things at you, you participate, right? And this is why I always say and always will say that astrology does not strip you of your free will. Instead, what it does is it describes conditions, and it describes how you’re likely to use and think about your free will, but it doesn’t actually force you to do anything. You have choice. You have free will. 

Really, what it comes down to—and what I’m about to say is so Saturnian but super true—what it really comes down to is action and consequence or inaction and consequence. It’s all kind of the same thing. Sometimes consequences are random, and they are not symmetrical; they are not proportionate, they just fucking happen—hashtag life, am I right? And sometimes there’s a really clear cause and effect. I was looking at my phone. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. I walked into a wall, and I hurt myself when I bumped the wall. Cause and effect. Very symmetrical, makes a lot of sense—oh well, that was an error. And then sometimes it’s a lot more fucking complicated than that, right? 

Life in general and the lessons of Saturn specifically are about action and causality. And so, if you pursue actions regardless of your reasons, regardless of your circumstances, at the end of the day, if what you do or don’t do does not reflect what is healthy and righteous for you, if it doesn’t come from a place of authenticity, if it comes from something that is not its healthiest and best self inside of you, or if it’s just the best you can fucking do in a messed up situation, whatever it is, you’ll have consequences. You might not like those consequences; you may love those consequences, but, regardless, it doesn’t fucking matter—you’re just going to have consequences. 

Now you may deem those consequences to be failures. You may deem those consequences to be torture, but that doesn’t actually help you necessarily. One of the things that Saturn teaches is, at the end of the day, you can lick your wounds as much as you like, but you got to get up and giddy up from here. It’s what are you going to do next? 

This Christ Year, that thirty third year, or the year when you are 33 years old, is an opportunity to cope with the consequences of what you did and/or didn’t do during your Saturn Return around 29 years old. And now that you’ve grown up a little more, and you’ve learnt more about yourself and your relationships and the world around you, now you can make better informed decisions. 

So is it too late? Have you failed and everything is unfixable? No. Fuck no. Hell no, slash, also maybe. I don’t know, maybe some things in your life are not fixable. Maybe some things in your life are just jacked, and there’s nothing you can do. But my questions for you, my dear, is have you tried? Have you tried? Because deciding that you’ve failed is a great way to empower yourself to just not try.

You might not like where you’re starting from. That doesn’t mean you can’t start now. So if you’re feeling haunted by issues in your life, then you don’t need astrology to tell you that you can either choose to continue to be haunted, or you can work to resolve the ghosts in your life. 

I could try to make it a little more complicated if you’d like, but the bottom line is really simple when it comes to Saturn—action and causality. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what to do. 

I’m going to look at your birth chart in a second here, but, again, let me reiterate, if you have failed in any way in your life, during your Saturn Return or any other major transit that occurs, there are some things that there are no go backsies on, but most things there are. Most things you can decide to pivot, to learn, to adjust. It’s not easy. It’s not fun, but it’s absolutely a choice that you can make, and that choice will have its own consequences. 

But, and I can’t say this emphatically enough, if you decide in your twenties or your thirties that you’ve lived all the life you’re going to live, and there’s no hope for change, and you’re too old to do a thing, you’re going to have a really fucking hard time with the next 40 or 50 or 60 years of your life, which is a lot more living than you’ve already done.

We do get too old for things, sure. Timing is real. Time is real. I don’t like it when people say that age is just a number because it’s not just a number. Objectively, as astrologers we know that age is a number, and it’s also lived experience, and lived experience is valid and valuable. It’s wonderful and difficult. It’s all the damn things. Age is more than a number. Age is experience. Age is an accomplishment. 

And you are still really, really young. At 33, you do not yet have 15 years of adult experience behind you, and you have easily 60 more years in front of you. You’re not even halfway through. So the thing I want to just center you around is where do you want to go from here? Who do you want to be? And what are you willing to do about it? And that, my dear, brings us to your birth chart. 

So you have Saturn in Capricorn. It’s at one degrees of Capricorn, and it is sandwiched between Uranus and Neptune. You have Saturn in the fifth house, and it’s very close to the sixth house cusp, but it’s in the fifth house. In your birth chart, Saturn is tightly opposite Venus and involved in a T-square between Saturn, Uranus, Venus, and your Moon, with the Moon as a focal planet to that T-square. So in English what all of this means is I would expect your Saturn Return to have a lot to do with your relationships, and probably, in particular, a sexual or romantic relationship. 

If you have acted in ways that do not reflect your integrity and what you value—integrity, Saturn; Venus, what you value—then you’re probably really unhappy with what’s happened, right? Having a T-square in the birth chart puts all this pressure on the focal planet of that T-square. Generally speaking, a T-square is a configuration of planets where you have two or more planets opposite each other, and they form a square to one central planet—it can be more than one planet, but in your case, it is one planet—and that places a great deal of pressure on that planet, and in your chart that’s the damn Moon. 

So because of where you’re at in your Saturn Return cycle, it is absolutely healthy and wise for you to revisit whether or not you acted in accordance with what is authentic to you, to have empathy and patience for what motivated you to act out of fear—which is really common when Saturn is involved in a T-square—and to understand that you can bully yourself and judge yourself all you want for as long as you please and it won’t get results, period. 

What happens when we have Saturn square to the Moon, and in particular when Venus is involved, is that the Moon, your feelings, your heart, your tender sweet little heart takes a real beating. You put a lot of pressure on your feelings, and it’s hard for you to give yourself permission to have feelings. And so, you may hide behind obligation, hide behind fear, that kind of stuff. 

To make matters slightly more complicated, you are also going through a Saturn square to Pluto and a Uranus opposition to Pluto. There’s a lot going on in your chart. So what do you do? There’s a million things you can do, but let me reiterate what will be most impactful. It’s to have empathy and compassion for the fears and anxieties that drove you to evade taking action that you knew you needed to take. It’s understanding that you have choices in this life as an adult around how you want to live, and those choices don’t need to please anyone but you. And that line of thinking can turn you into a selfish asshole, or it can empower you to act in ways that reflect your integrity so that you can live with yourself, my dear, so that you can have a life that you actually want to live. 

I passionately believe that our wellness is intricately interwoven with the wellness of others. If we are treating others like shit, then we ultimately are going to feel like shit because we are being shitty. Lying to other people to, quote, save their feelings is shitty and selfish. That doesn’t mean you’re shitty and selfish, but it is an act that will eventually bathe you in the stink of shittyness. That’s just how that shit goes—not to overuse the word shit—that’s how it goes. 

So what can you do? You can stop being an asshole to yourself. You can start clarifying what is true and authentic for you, and you can cultivate bravery. Luckily for you, this summer Jupiter is sitting on top of your Mars, and you have Mars in the seventh house. And so it can infuse you—it can fortify you with more courage, more bravery. And if you are acting from a place that is rooted and centered in your integrity and in your values, if you are treating yourself and others in a way that reflects the care that you hold for yourself and for others, then it can embolden you to say what needs to be said and to do what needs to be done. 

Now, let’s say you’re still hiding and you’re just like, I want to fix this problem; I don’t want to feel this way, then this transit, honestly, can embolden you to just cut ties or be a bully or pick fights that don’t need to be picked as a way to passively make changes, and that will not fix your problem. So there’s the immediate problem of your relationship issues, but then there’s your problem which is that it’s hard for you to do what needs to be done with matters of the heart, out of fear.

So you have not failed your Saturn Return. You are exactly where you are at based on what you were able to do the last time Saturn was fucking with you. That’s kind of cool. You’re going to remain in constant conversation with your birth chart, with your nature, with your truth, throughout the course of your life. And so, you’re not doing future you any favors by phoning it in in the present. 

Learning to make decisions, especially in matters of the heart, on the surface is about doing or not doing, but in truth it’s really about cultivating discernment and having enough faith in yourself that you’re willing to take chances on what you have discerned to be true. And with the Moon in Virgo as a focal planet of a T-square, that’s really hard for you, and that’s okay. It’s okay that it’s hard. It’s okay that you’re not good at it. What you want to make sure that you’re doing is being authentic and honest and acting from that place to the best of your ability. And when you can’t, don’t be an asshole. Don’t be mean to yourself, but also don’t sweep it under the rug and wait for it to come for you. The only way to truly fail is to stop trying. So keep on trying, my dear, and remember that the journey is actually the point. 

As you know, India is going through a crisis around COVID-19, and they need our help. I have a list of orgs that you can support in show notes. And, in particular, I want to highlight mutualaidindia.com. They are organized by queer and disabled folks on the ground in India, and the Mutual Aid is constantly updated for accuracy. Priority is given to queer, trans, and disabled folks, and even small amounts of money can make a really big impact. If you practice yoga, teach yoga, or have ever profited from a spiritual or creative practice that comes out of India, this is your call to give back.

This week’s horoscope has a lot going on, and amongst the things going on is, of course, the Eclipse that is happening on the 26th of May. And before we get into any of the specifics of this week’s horoscope or the Eclipse, I just want to take a moment to spare a few more words about why doing ritual work on Eclipses from an astrological viewpoint is not a great idea. And the reason why is because when we study astrology, when we look at the transits, we’re looking at energy, and we’re looking at what the energy of itself is doing, what the energy is requiring of us, what the energy is sparking within us as individuals and in the collective. 

Eclipses are like standing on a fault line. When an Eclipse occurs, you really don’t know how it’s going to shake things up. And when we are doing ritual work or spiritual work, we generally are releasing intentionally or calling in intentionally. And so, when you try to be really intentional and you open up a doorway—one way or another, whether you’re trying to boot a thing out of it or pull a thing in through the doorway—you don’t want to be on an active fault line. It’s not the most effective or safe way to do spiritual work. And, in general, I think it’s just a good rule of thumb to acknowledge and accept that there is a season and a time for all things. 

From my astrological and, in general, the astrological perspective, Eclipses aren’t the time for actively pulling shit in, changing shit up on a spiritual level. And a lot of people have sent me a lot of questions about, but I throw Tarot cards, but I do these spiritual things, can I still do it on an Eclipse? And the answer is yes. 

Ritual work and really intentional spiritual work can look a million different ways, but if it’s part of your routines, then it’s not a conflict or a problem. But, in general, this is a time to receive whatever emerges as opposed to try to make a thing happen. The Eclipse on its own will make the thing happen, you see? So you don’t need to worry. You don’t need to worry about making the thing happen—the thing will happen. What you do with the thing, that’s your job as opposed to trying to direct or control or shape the thing as it emerges. You can apply this to every fucking Eclipse that has and will ever come to pass. That’s just a general rule of thumb, okay. 

In general, Full Moons and New Moons are a great time for manifestation, intention setting, pulling things in through doorways and pushing things out through doorways—great time. But not Eclipses, that’s all. Don’t worry, they don’t happen all the time. 

I mean, really, when one is living a spiritual life—and spiritual can mean any number of things. It can mean religious. It can mean deep fucking woo. It can mean having a life that is creative and dynamic and authentic—when one is a spiritual life, ideally, your whole damn life is the ritual and not just these weekender things that we do. And listen, I’m not against weekender things; I love a weekender thing, but, ideally, eventually our spiritual life becomes integrated into our life—it’s just life. So you’re the ritual. Be the ritual. 

Okay. Oh God, we’ve got a lot to talk about. We are looking at May 23rd through the 29th of 2021. And join me over on Patreon if you would like to a. get more astrology and woo stuff and also, of course, access Astrology For Days in beta and get 15 percent off of its price. 

I’m really loving, loving, loving, loving Astrology For Days. I’m loving using it; I use it a million times a day, and I use it for all of my horoscopes and astrological predictions. But I’m also just loving on Patreon getting so much really useful feedback and getting to improve the app in beta. It’s what I like to call fun, fun times. And if you’re interested in Astrology For Days, but you’re like, wait, what is it? What? There’s finally a tutorial video out on the website. Just go to astrologyfordays.com and click on tutorial. Is it charming? Perhaps. Should I say perhaps when I really think it’s deeply charming and the background music is really—it is a joy. It is a true joy, if I may say so.

Okay, I have digressed. So we are looking at the week of the 23rd through the 29th, and it starts with the 26th, and that’s the Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius. Now, I kind of touched on this in the year ahead horoscope right at the very beginning of 2021. Lunar Eclipses happen during Full Moons, and Eclipses always happen in pairs, so there’s going to be another Eclipse in a couple few weeks, and that will be on June 10th, but we’ll get there. We’ll get there. Let’s focus on the present for now, okay. 

So the Sun is in Gemini, and the Moon is in Sagittarius, and we have a Full Moon, Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius. This is a really important event in many, many ways. I have been talking for a very long time about my concern about this Eclipse season having specifically to do with journalism and the need for truth and truthiness in issues that are international in nature, that are global in nature. 

Because Sagittarius is very concerned with what is happening throughout the world and not just at home. It’s throughout cultures and not just your culture. And this particular Lunar Eclipse—I’m going to unpack the chart with you in just a moment—but I want to say very broadly speaking that this Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius is likely to coincide with major issues that you’ve already got a lot of evidence for, which is to say the potential for war and international conflicts, so cultures and countries fighting each other. And that fight is not just about punch, punch, bang, bang; it’s a culture war. It’s conflict based on different morals and different values. 

It’s also, because we’re dealing with Sagittarius which has got the archers bow, there’s the potential for greater spread with COVID. Some regions of the world are having improvements in the context of COVID. Some places in the world are having the worst time than ever, and it is really important for us to continue to be good community members. In other words, to not just think of our own health and wellness in the context of COVID, but to think about your community. And I don’t just mean your neighborhood; I mean the global community. You know, this pandemic is still very much alive and dangerous. It’s still taking a lot of lives. 

So part of what’s difficult in this particular Eclipse is not only is it an Eclipse in Sagittarius, but the Sun and Moon, both at five degrees of Gemini and Sag respectively, are forming a T-square to the planet Jupiter. And so, we have this reiteration of the potential of greed, honestly. Our individual desire to have access, to have extra, to do whatever we want because we are sick of compromising, these feelings, these feelings can incline us to act outside of our morality because we tell ourselves it doesn’t really matter, or we’re entitled. So you really want to watch out this Eclipse season for entitlement issues and for issues related to morality. And this is where things get really complicated. 

There’s something really important that’s happening right now, that when I saw that it was coming last year and I was looking at this time, I was really fixated and focused on journalism and the need for a stand for free press and to be able to have journalists that we can trust and have the ability to do their damn jobs and to share the news with us. So fucking important, right? And I still stand by it’s so important. 

What didn’t quite click or gel until this past month for me was that part of what I think is happening between the Nodes and this Eclipse is this: We are living in a time where everyone has a platform, and there’s a way that we expect everyone with a platform to speak on the news, to speak on domestic news, local news, cultural news, political news, global news, all the news. And on the one hand that is as it should be, right? We want people to take responsibility for the space they are taking up and to speak on things that are actually important. That is very moral. That is very righteous. I think that makes perfect sense. 

And on the other hand, expecting people who are not journalists, who are not educated on any number of topics, people who do not have any background in communications or in understanding how to unpack data and organize news—should we expect those people to be journalists? Because now there’s this kind of merging between the internet giving everyone a platform and a much more global world in which we are all interconnected. We all have access to learning about what’s happening outside of our communities in a whole new way. 

The gatekeepers are not the only ones who have access to promoting their stories and their perspectives. This is a really great thing, and, also, it can be really complicated because somebody with a really big platform may be misinformed and spreads something that is wrong with best of intentions or with the worst of intentions, depending on who that person is. And somebody else with an even bigger platform may share it because they didn’t know that it wasn’t true, and now we have the propagation of lies or mistruths, and these things can be dangerous. 

So there’s a way that we almost become better at looking at the source of material, looking at who said this? Who wrote this? Where did they get their ideas? How did they learn this? Does this person have any kind of experience in unpacking this kind of data? Because to imagine that you, in your lived experience, understand what’s happening in a different culture or for different kinds of people, and that you can speak authoritatively on it is hubris. That’s hubris. And it’s dangerous. And also, not speaking on matters of great importance is deeply problematic. 

I want to name here the complexity and the nuance of this truth. It is really important for us to slow down. To slow down our nervous systems, to slow down our thinking, to slow down our reactiveness, to slow down and to really sort through where we are getting our information. To sort through our belief systems, to sort through our ethics and morals because it is really easy in this heightened time—because you know Eclipses kick up all kinds of heightened feelings, not just in you, but globally, collectively—to want everyone to have the same experiences and to have the same analysis. But that’s not realistic. It’s also not great. But whether or not it’s good aside, it’s just not how humans work. 

There are many nuances and levels to truth, and, also, there is truth and untruth. I stand by both statements. And the thing about duality, the thing about nuance, is these things are governed by the mutable signs. And here we have a Lunar Eclipse with the Moon in Sagittarius and the Sun in Gemini, forming a T-square to moralistic Jupiter in boundaryless Pisces. And so, because of this it would be very easy to seek a devotional idea around truth: there is one truth—there is a bad guy and a good guy, and the bad guy is bad, and the good guy is good. There’s a victim and a perpetrator, and the victim is good, and the perpetrator is bad. And those things are often true, and they are often not. It’s not that simple. It’s not that simple. 

But this is one of the major themes and lessons of this particular Lunar Eclipse, and the effects of this Eclipse will be felt throughout 2021 because the effects of Eclipses last for about six months. So what is happening globally, what is happening domestically, what is happening in your community, what is happening inside of you has six months to play itself out from this point, for better or for worse. And it’s not easy. It’s not meant to be easy. Eclipses do not kick up that which is easy. And nuance is hard. And I should actually pull back to say, the Lunar Eclipse is happening May 26th, 2021, at 4:14 a.m., Pacific Time.

The need for us to be in nuance is so important because not only is there a T-square to Jupiter, but in this Lunar Eclipse chart, we have Neptune at 23 degrees of Pisces, and it is forming a tight square to Venus at 21 of Gemini and Mercury at 24 of Gemini. Now pay attention to this Neptune square to Mercury because it is a big player in the Mercury Retrograde that begins on the 29th of this month—I’ll get to it, don’t worry, in a few minutes—this is a really important transit for the next month plus. It’s a really important transit within the Lunar Eclipse chart. 

The thing about Neptune/Pisces vibes, especially when Neptune forms a square to one of the personal planets, is Neptune is the planet that is responsible for cults and kind of giving up all your power for a simple answer. I release my responsibility to myself; all I need to do is listen to you. Obviously, I am obsessed with free will, and I’m constantly like, think for yourself—come to your own conclusions, so that’s not my jam personally. But in this time, in this very global world we‘re living in with a really destructive pandemic, with a million distractions unlike any other generation has ever had to deal with, we really are in a state where it would be tempting, it would even be soothing to seek simple answers. But it’s rarely that simple. Humans are complex. When we’re looking at systems, systems are complex. What each of us cares about, what each of us does, comes from our complex histories and our complex situations in the here and now. 

So what can we do? On an individual level, what we can do is make sure that we are acting from a place that is centered and present and, yes, moralistic. Because we’re dealing with so much Jupitarian and Neptunian energy, aka Pisces and Sagittarian energy, it is really important that we check in with our ideals and our beliefs—Neptune and Jupiter—and to make sure that we are acting in ways that reflects those things and to investigate the ways in which we’re not because we are having such a hard time tolerating the uncertainty of these times or the uncertainty of a situation.

So that’s on more of a social level, more of a global level. On a personal level, this Eclipse is kicking up so much to do with boundaries. Depending on your nature, depending on your situation, and that’s all dependent on how this Eclipse hits your individual chart, but broadly speaking, we are dealing with here the struggle for freedom, for autonomy—to be able to change as I want, when I want, in the ways I want and to not have to compromise. The thing about this, the thing about all of this mutable energy is that it’s very changeable. It’s not unpredictable in nature, but because it’s changeable, it can become unpredictable. 

This Eclipse is kicking up the need for boundaries. Boundaries are not rules. Rules are Saturn. Boundaries are Neptune. Boundaries are condoms. Boundaries are, I make a decision about what I can and can’t do in a healthy way before I get into the situation, and then I honor those needs flexibly—I adjust as needed. 

You are likely to be in a situation, whether it is with yourself, in your relationship to your wellness, or your thoughts, or whatever it is, or in a relationship with someone or someone’s else where it is not enough to say a thing to someone; you’ve got to honor it and manage it with yourself. It’s not enough to go along with things. It’s important in this period that you identify what your role to play is. 

Boundaries are hard. Boundaries are really hard. And if you get good at boundaries, what tends to happen is the Universe is like, cool, cool, cool, so you got really good at these kinds of boundaries, let’s try another. It’s not easy. 

In my view, having healthy boundaries is a big part of the human condition. Learning where you begin and end, how to identify what it is that you think and feel, what your capacity is, and to express your needs and limitations around those things as a way to protect yourself, to manage yourself, and to protect others, that is a skill set that we all need. It’s not generally that easy, especially if you are a caregiver type, especially if you are an empathetic type. 

When we look at the world, when we look at all of the things that are happening in this world at any given moment, how do you choose which issues to care about? How do you decide which issues you’re going to focus on? How do you have boundaries with the suffering of the world? Do you have an evaluation template? Do you just follow whatever’s biggest in your social media feed? Do you care about the things your friends tell you to care about, or do you not really care? These are actually really important questions to ask yourself as a human living in a society on a planet, full of lots of societies. 

And on a personal level, being able to say to someone that you care about, or that you are in personal relationship with, “I’m perceiving the situation as X, is that what’s happening for you? Is that what you’re perceiving as well?” Being able to name things and ask questions is so important—it’s so important. It’s a really great thing to be working on right now. Asking for things is actually really important. And when you hear a no or a maybe, respecting that, respecting that in others.

So these themes are likely to be really activated at this time. But you didn’t think that was it? Because, of course, that’s not it because everything is so messy. Because we also have a Mars/Pluto opposition. Mars is at 20 degrees of Cancer, and it is no longer out of bounds—do do do do do doo—and it is opposite Pluto at 26 degrees of Capricorn and 37 minutes, so it’s like close to 27, but it’s Retrograde, and it’s at 26/37. 

Okay. Pluto opposite Mars, very explosive, very intense. This transit kicks up resentments. Who do you resent? Are you taking out your resentments towards you dad on your mom? Who do you resent? Who are you pissed off at? This transit is likely to kick up passions, but because it’s an opposition, not necessarily like, I feel passionate about design, you know? It’s the passion of like I feel passionate about design, but nobody cares about my design work, and other people are getting all the attention. 

It can be a real tempting transit for looking sideways. And in the context of this Lunar Eclipse chart, again, it reiterates the drive and desire to blame others, to attack others, and unfortunately, because of how humans are wired, we will often take out our extreme frustrations and upsets not on the people or situations that deserve it, but on the people or situations that we feel safe enough to do that with.

So, again, I reiterate the need for boundaries. Boundaries with yourself. How do you experience anger? Rage? Resentment? How do you experience those things? How do you express those things? Because feelings are not the problem. You are allowed and entitled to feel any way you feel. What you are not entitled to do and what you are not meant to do is act based on all of your feelings. That’s not fair. That’s not healthy. So cultivating boundaries with yourself, in your relationship to yourself around your anger and your resentments is really important, and it’s become really important over the past month. Have you felt it? And it’s not going away. All the rest of 2021 is just active, active, active. 

Pluto opposition to Mars, in the context of this chart, is likely to really compel us to seek those easy answers, those all or nothing, good guy/bad guy answers. And I want to really invite you to be in the nuance. When Pluto and Mars are in difficult aspect to each other, it’s really hard to get into the nuance. It’s really easy to look for blame. If you find yourself blaming a specific person for your life, blaming astrology for your problems, blaming a group of people or condemning a group of people, you’ve got a problem. That’s a misuse of energy. 

That doesn’t mean that situations and individuals and groups aren’t culpable, but, again, what we want to do during this Eclipse—and, again, this Eclipse is going to influence us for the next sixth months—is to task ourselves with a willingness and capacity to get more information and to be in the nuance, to not seek simple, easy answers for complicated and nuanced problems. And it’s hard. And it’s especially hard because Saturn is still square to Uranus. It is tight. It is active. It is endless feeling. So, again, that Saturn/Uranus square tests our nervous system. It tests our psychology. It makes us want our reality to be predictable, and essentially what it once was, and things are not going back to normal. That’s not a thing that’s happening right now. That’s not where we are. 

This is a time for change. This is a time for growth, and it’s a time for uncertainty, and that uncertainty can motivate us to create a better reality, a new reality. It’s cool, right? But it’s really, really stressful. Saturn square to Uranus is stressful. That is the best thing I can say about it in the context of this Lunar Eclipse chart. 

So here’s a couple little uptakes for you. There’s likely to be drama this Lunar Eclipse because of the Mars opposition to Pluto. It’s likely to be overwhelming and confusing because of the Neptune square to Mercury and to Venus, and we are inclined, because of that square, to idealize others or situations as a way to kind of empower ourselves to not have healthy boundaries. 

The Eclipse is forming a T-square to Jupiter which can kick up propaganda. It can really trigger issues around news and news sources, and it intensifies our need to really be critical in our thinking about these things. Eclipses don’t happen all the time. It’s okay to be overwhelmed by this. It’s overwhelming, and it’s super normal to have shitty sleep around Eclipses—a lot of people do. We definitely want to look at what is happening in the news. We want to look at what is happening on the global stage. It’s a fucking Eclipse in Sagittarius. 

Okay, there it is. Just a couple words on an Eclipse moment that will stay with us. 

And if you are like, okay, there was a lot of information in that, and I want to get more of it, don’t forget that on my website at lovelanyadoo.com, I have podcast transcripts every week available. They’re free, so you can read along with what I’m saying because I talk fast; I know I talk fast. Okay, it usually takes 24/48 hours for me to get them up, but they’re there, so giddy up and get transcripts if you like them. 

Okay, so on the 27th, we have that Venus square to Neptune becoming exact. This particular transit is very confusing. So Venus is values, and Neptune is ideals. We may see humanitarian issues emerging on the global stage that really test our values and our ideals. Who do we value? How do we express that value, right? That’s the constant question of Uranus in Taurus, and that might be intensified by this Venus square to Neptune. 

Venus square to Neptune, on a social level, can bring up issues of women’s rights. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed if you are here in the US, Republicans are doing a really good job of limiting access to abortion in some states, and, in particular, Texas just passed something really draconian. We are likely to see this topic being increasingly important, so I want to encourage you, all my American listeners, to stand up for Roe v. Wade.

So on a personal level, Venus square to Neptune, it can create confusion in your relationships. So in your pre-existing relationships you may find yourself feeling confused and overwhelmed and like, I don’t know what my role is. I don’t know if they like me. I don’t know if I like them. This is a really important time to have safer sex if you are having sex with partners. And safer sex is generally latex. It is not the pull-out method, for my straight friends. 

Venus square to Neptune is a time that creates confusion about what’s important and what’s happening in your interpersonal relationships. So if you meet someone new and you catch feelings for them, or if things really take a turn, and a very romantic turn in fact, then just wait. Just wait. Give it at least 72 hours. You know I have talked about this many times on the podcast; I am a fan of the 72-hour rule, so give it 72 hours before you make any proclamations. 

Now, if you fear that someone has done something outside of the boundaries of your agreements, aka cheating or being dishonest or whatever, again, 72 hours before you do your full sleuthing investigations. 

Venus square to Neptune can exacerbate any kind of dysmorphia that you have with your body or your face. Venus is a big player in how we feel about how we look and how—our style, our body image, that kind of stuff. And so, Venus square to Neptune can be tricky if you’re somebody who struggles with that. If you’re somebody who struggles with that—who amongst us does not? But the more severe your struggles, the more difficult this transit may be. 

It’s a great time to remember the value of beauty. What does it really matter? How much does it matter to you? I’m not suggesting that it doesn’t matter. I think it super matters. I have Venus in the first house. I love Venus. That said, if you’re having a severe anxiety response to the way you look, it can be very soothing to take a spiritual approach where you remember that in the context of your Spirit and your Soul and your life’s journey, the way you look is transient. It is transient over the course of your human evolution, and it is transient in the context of your spiritual evolution that exists beyond this meat suit, my sweet, sweet loves. So Venus square to Neptune. 

Another thing that can come up around Venus square to Neptune is you spend money on stupid shit. You try to buy yourself some happy. You can’t buy yourself some—you know what? You can. You can buy yourself some happy, it just doesn’t last, you know? So be careful about what you’re spending your money on. And if you’ve been like, you know what? I want to take my saving and my investments, and I want to put them in more ethical bonds and stocks and yada yadas—yeah, that’s a technical financial term, yada yadas—it’s a great time to do a little research into that. Not a great time to do it. It’s a great time to do a little bit of research into it. Venus square to Neptune. 

And that brings us to the 28th of May. On the 28th of May, we have a Mercury conjunction to Venus. This transit happens frequently. Mercury and Venus tend to generally be really close to each other. When Mercury and Venus conjoin in le sky, it’s not too spectacular, especially in the context of this week when there’s so much going on, but it’s just like a lovely little break, you know, getting along with people, connecting to others, finding a way to actually talk about your values. It just flows a little bit better, so that’s a really lovely thing. But there’s not too, too much I’m going to say about this particular transit, this particular week, although I have talked about this transit many times in the past.

And that brings us, my friends, to the 29th of May when Mercury goes Retrograde. Have you been noticing the Mercury shadow? I sure fucking have. My phone calls, my internet, everything’s going a little weird and wonky. Mercury in astrology governs many things. It is communications and the way we use technology. It is emails and DMs and social media. It is your hands, your lungs, what you say, your attitudes, how you listen. Yeah, listen. Mercury is also your friends and your neighbors and your siblings and your aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles.  

Mercury goes Retrograde a couple few times a year, every goddamn year. So you don’t need to freak out when Mercury goes Retrograde. It is not going to burn down your house. It is not the reason why you’re depressed. It is not the reason your cat ran away. Mercury goes Retrograde frequently. And the reason why I reiterate this is because it’s really important to remember that when a planet does something really routinely, like Mercury going Retrograde a couple few times a year, every single year, you want to understand it as a natural part of its cycle and a natural part of its functions. Mercury is not meant to always be direct. The function of Mercury Retrograde is so that we review, reassess and reflect. It’s the rule of Re’s. Mercury Retrograde is the rule of Re’s. 

So as we reflect and reassess, we get to listen—we get to catch up with ourselves, listen to ourselves, listen to others. Mercury Retrogrades are a great time to shut up for a couple minutes and to take in what you have actually learnt, to learn something new, to take stock of how you’ve been conducting yourself, your attitudes, your ideas, what you’ve been saying. 

There is nothing wrong with being wrong. Let’s normalize changing our minds because we’ve learnt something new. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I know that online people are so mean about it, and people can be really like, you’re not allowed to evolve. You once said this, and I don’t care what you’re saying now. I don’t believe that you’ve really changed. And, you know, sometimes people just are full of shit. But I do want to hold space for Mercury Retrograde happens a couple few times a year as way to support us in changing our fucking minds based on the information we have taken in. 

It’s hard to take in data and have it change your attitudes instantly. Maybe you need to process things a little bit more slowly. There’s no shame in that. Mercury Retrogrades are an opportunity to change your mind because you’ve taken in information and sat with that information, and it’s presented you with new ideas. That’s cool, right? 

So Mercury Retrograde is, in general, not a great time for buying things or signing contracts or selling things, and the reason why is because you’re more likely to misunderstand something in the contract or in the agreement, or other people are more likely to misrepresent things in a contract or agreement. But every Mercury Retrograde somebody reaches out to me and says, but I need a job, or I’m in contract on a house, or I really need a new cell phone plan, or whatever the fuck it is. And you got to live your fucking life. See? You’ve got to live your life. 

So the way to think of Mercury Retrograde is to think of it like, okay, it’s snowing. It’s snowing. It’s cold. It’s icy. So what do you do? You don’t go out without socks on. You don’t wear shoes with no grip. You don’t leave the house without a warm coat. You simply prepare for the weather. That’s all. Just prepare for the weather. So if you know you are going to sign a contract, or you’re going to negotiate a deal, or you’re going to sign up for something new during a Mercury Retrograde, just fucking do your due diligence. And if shit goes sideways, if a mistake is made or a misunderstanding is had, don’t take it personally—be ready to cope when Mercury goes direct—bada bing, bada boom. 

Okay. So this particular Mercury Retrograde chart heavily features the Neptune square to Mercury and Venus. This Mercury Retrograde is likely to kick up miscommunications that are not just about, oh, I said it weird, or you said it weird, but it might actually be like literally a feeling of confusion, and I really am demoralized or disillusioned by what you’ve said or what you haven’t said. And this where, again, I remind you to have patience, which honestly, we’re not likely to have because there’s a Moon/Pluto conjunction at the exact time of the Mercury Retrograde, exactly at 3:34 p.m., Pacific Time, on the 29th of May. 

So the Moon will be exactly conjunct Pluto, which is a very intense feeling. The Pluto/Moon conjunction absolutely triggers deep, compulsive, intense emotions. It can make you feel paranoid. And because these two planets, the Moon and Pluto, are still opposite Mars, it’s likely to bring up resentments and defenses and ego battles. 

This is a really amazing transit for healing—fucking amazing, glorious transit for healing. If there’s something you need to confront in yourself or in your life from your past, this Mercury Retrograde is a fucking gift to you. It’s a painful gift. It’s an unpleasant gift, but it is a gift none-the-less. So look out for patterns. Look out for your patterns because the common theme in all of your patterns in your whole entire life is you. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s you. And I’m talking about your personal life, right?

Now, on a more collective level, this fun little opposition in the Mercury Retrograde is going to continue to bring up systems of oppression. And, again, this is where I come back to, it is hard to find simple answers to complex, systemic problems. So there’s a level of truth in which things are very simple—things can be broken into good and bad. And then there’s a level in which things are not that simple, and it’s not helpful to look at things as just good and bad. 

This particular Mercury Retrograde is, again, going to test boundaries. And to find spiritual value in yourself, in your beliefs, in how you approach your feelings and your thoughts, this is the gift of the Mercury Retrograde. The potential here for reform and healing is great. 

The potential here for seeing results during the Retrograde is not great. So can you do the work without the drive for results and validation as you do the work? Can you do the work because the journey is the destination? Can you? I don’t like it personally. Personally, me, it’s not fun; I’m not a fan. However, it’s a healing opportunity, and nothing and no one will make you heal. You make you heal. Astrology doesn’t make you heal. Astrology describes the conditions we’re in. It does not describe your willingness to participate—that’s on you. 

So as much as possible, if you are struggling at this time, if you are thriving at this time and everything in between, simplify. Really try to simplify things because Neptune doesn’t do great with a lot of complex, overwhelming lists, okay? Simplify. Pick one to three things that you’re really going to work on and work with. And that can be one to three things in a day; it can be one to three things in this period of Mercury Retrograde, or even in this Eclipse period for the next six months that are truly important to you, and work on them. Listen. Learn from your past. Learn from your patterns. Learn from history, the past of what’s happened in the world. 

This is a time where it will be very tempting to seek simple answers, to give away our power, and it’s not a good time for doing that. It’s not a good time for doing that at all. 

If you or someone you love is wrapped up in QAnon or some other conspirituality or cult-oriented ideologies, this can be a pretty dangerous time, honestly, because emotions are so high and so complex, and that’s the time when we tend to seek such simple answers. And complex questions are not often answerable in such simple ways. 

So if that is an issue that is close to your life and close to your heart, you may want to re-listen to episode 190 on QAnon with Abby Richards. It’s, I think, an important topic to educate yourself on, and we definitely unpack and explore ways of coping with conspirituality stuff. So this might be a good time to revisit or visit that episode or that topic in general. 

Now, as we are still going through, of course, that Saturn/Uranus square, and it’s testing our sense of normalcy, our sense of reality, this is a tricky fucking time for mental health. And Mercury Retrograde is not a helper of mental health, especially if your life is in a state of busyness, or if your nature is one where you’re looking for answers or solutions, or your situation requires answers and solutions. Mercury Retrograde wants us to reflect and explore, that’s it. 

So my advice to you is to keep on checking in with your mental health and your mental wellness, to remember to use the resources that you have cultivated in your toolkit. It’s very tempting to just collect resources, spiritual and psychological and emotional resources, but to not remember to use them when you truly need them. But you know what? Be a tree hugger, you know? Talk to a therapist. Share what’s going on with friends that have earned your trust. Take a damn bath. Take a walk. Do what you’ve got to do. Do what’s accessible and effective for you personally in order to sustain the work of living ethically in the world, of having healthy relationships, of maintaining your meat suit. Whatever it is, whatever it is, you do need to check in from time to time. You do need to manage your self-care and prioritize and re-shuffle, reorganize your self-care. That’s just part of the game—the game of being a human person according to this astrologer, anyways. 

My loves, this has been a long horoscope, but sometimes shit is complex, so this is what we do. I’m going to run though the transits of the week one more time. On the 26th, we have a Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius, and that transit is exact at 4:14 a.m., Pacific Time. On the 27th, we have an exact Venus square to Neptune. On the 28th, Mercury is exactly conjunct Venus. And on the 29th, Mercury goes Retrograde, and it will stay Retrograde until June 22nd. And that’s your horoscope. 

As always, if you get value from the podcast, please go ahead and subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcasts and write me a nice review. Remember to take breaks from social media. Remember to eat your veggies. And if you don’t have anything constructive or nice to say, it’s okay to not say anything at all. Bye.