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, where I talk about astrology and give you advice, plus information about the week ahead. This week's question comes from Sister Sister, and her question goes like this: "For my whole life, I've felt a deep cosmic connection to my sister. We were born exactly one year, one month, and one day apart. She and I had such a strong bond growing up, almost to a psychic level, and through our family trauma, we became even more alike. For the first time in our lives now, I feel completely at odds with her over her beliefs on the pandemic. I'm now panicked and tripping over my words when I speak to her, when we used to be able to communicate so clearly, often without even speaking. I feel like it's the most important time ever to be unified, not just her and I, but all of us. And yet, when her and I are at odds, the whole world seems off-axis. How can I harness the tools of my natal placements to help find my way through this current fog? I love her too much to let our differences divide us. I love your work, Jessica, and value your guidance now as always."

Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Sister Sister was born June 6th, 1986, at 3:22 p.m. in Christchurch, New Zealand.

There's a lot going on in this question, and I want to unpack your birth chart second but the larger issue at hand first: the differences that you have with someone you love, your sister, around the pandemic. Now, I'm going to make some assumptions because you didn't really specify. I'm going to make the assumption that you believe that the pandemic is real and that COVID-19 is serious and that masking and vaccinations are healthy and a good choice in general, broadly speaking, and that your sister thinks that the pandemic is not real or not serious and that the vaccines are deadly or dangerous, and that masks are not necessary.

I'm making this assumption because this is the divide that's happening in the world, and you didn't specify. So that's what's happening. I just want us all to be clear about where my assumptions are falling. And the fact that you didn't even share—this is not meant as a criticism of you, but the fact that you didn't even share what your differences about the pandemic are is kind of indicative of what so many of us are going through and the problem itself.

We're not just going through a viral pandemic—and we absolutely are. It is a global pandemic. It is serious. It is taking lives and not just impacting us as societies but also as individuals. It's really fucking hard and scary. But we're also going through a pandemic of misinformation and disinformation at a time where trust has been broken, right? There's so much jadedness in the world, and so many people are so disillusioned with governments and corporations and institutions in general.

So many of us are looking away from the mainstream and from the norm to find answers, right?  I say this to you, who's listening to a psychic medium astrologer on a goddamn podcast. This is what's happening. This is where we're at. What's really difficult is to establish truth. Now, listen. There's such a thing as facts. There's such a thing as lies or falsehoods.

Misinformation is when you got something wrong and you spread it along, like I may have said that Mercury will be retrograde this cycle until October 23rd. That was misinformation. I got that wrong. I had it wrong in my head. It's actually retrograde until the 18th of October. That was misinformation I spread. I didn't mean to; I made a mistake. I spread that misinformation around, right? That's misinformation, and it can be really dangerous, or it can be pretty benign. Then there's disinformation, and disinformation is when you knowingly spread misinformation. So it's not a mistake you made that you spread. It's instead biased, misleading, manipulative, or straight-up wrong presentation of facts. It's propaganda. And so it's very dangerous.

The internet makes it very easy for thousands or millions of people to unknowingly spread misinformation that only a couple/few people understood they were presenting as disinformation. And this is where and how many far-right ideologies have seeped into the left—mid-left, far left, all over the damn left. And this is part of how and why so many people in the wellness space or spaces end up spreading actually right-wing extremist, very dangerous ideas without even realizing it.

When we have a climate of misinformation and disinformation, it's hard to know what's true. Wherever you fall, whatever you believe, it makes sense that you would want to help other people see the truth, right? I believe that COVID-19 is real. I believe it 's dangerous. I believe that vaccines are highly effective in fighting it, and masks are essential. That's what I believe. And I believe by saying that out loud and in public and to you, I am helping you.

Now, let's say you believe something different. Let's say you believe it's a hoax or vaccines are bad or masks are bad. Then it would be a kindness from you to explain to me or tell me how wrong I am, right? So this is where we have a problem because when two parties are sitting and looking straight at an event or at a thing and having completely different takes on what is true about that event or thing, then a conversation becomes very difficult because both parties want to explain what's actually happening to the other.

We have different ways of assessing the truth for a myriad of reasons, but a big one is because we're choosing to trust different sources. When it comes to something like medicine and science and immunology, I'm going to listen to medical professionals and scientists and immunologists. Many people on the left, on the right, everywhere in between, do not have that preference. They have the preference to listen to various influencers or alternative health practitioners or radio hosts or whatever it is. There's a lot of people who choose to focus on a lot of different sources of information.

And so this kind of brings me to the thing that I think can be helpful here. The first thing is, if somebody is misinformed, if they simply misunderstood something—they listened to someone who was wrong and now they're wrong about a thing—then what do you do? Do you judge them? Do you reject them? Do you never speak of it? No. You talk to them about it. You explore how they came to that truth, and you do your best to get them to a different truth.

Now, if they are knowingly spreading disinformation, that's a different issue, right? So, if your sister is like, "I know that this is wrong, but I'm going to say it anyways," that's one thing. But my guess is that your sister has been misinformed, maybe by someone or someones who are actively spreading disinformation. But when somebody has the wrong information and that wrong information can be very dangerous to them, for me, what comes up is empathy.

And I think that because we're all in this pandemic together, and it is so terrifying and scary and it impacts all of us, and because so many people are so defensive and entitled in how they express their views and their feelings, there's a lot of defensiveness. There's a lot of defensiveness. There's a lot of lines drawn in the sand. I get it, and it's fair. And it's not helpful. It's not helpful.

People who believe that the pandemic is not real or not deadly are very sadly misinformed, very sadly misinformed. To explain to them that they're misinformed—have you noticed—doesn't work because they have sources. And so do you. You have sources for what you believe, right? So, instead of approaching a conversation with someone, if you're going to have a conversation with someone about something that you believe that they are misinformed about—instead of talking about the specific topic, like the pandemic, my advice is to do what a masseuse might do with a really intensely pulled muscle.

A lot of times, if you pull a muscle and it's really tight, a masseuse won't go straight into that muscle. You'll work around it. Similarly, instead of talking about the pandemic, talk about news. Talk about sources. Talk about, where is it that you learn stuff? Where is it that I learn stuff? How do you think about which sources to trust in this crazy time? "This is how I think about it."

Make sure that you are not doing to your sister exactly what it is she is doing to you, which is speaking without listening. It's really hard to listen to someone who you are convinced is wrong. It's very hard to listen to someone who's wrong. It's really hard to listen to someone if they're being belligerent or mean. You didn't say your sister is being belligerent or mean, but I know that that's a big thing happening with tons of people politically, around the pandemic, etc.

Have conversations about where you get your information, how you assess it, how you fact-check it, whether or not these things are important, because I will sit here and tell you as an astrologer and a psychic medium who has dedicated the last 25 years to my craft, and my whole life is really very much about these things, when it comes to something like a pandemic or politics, your instincts and your feelings, they're an important data point, but they are never meant to replace research, facts, investigation.

There's such a thing as experts, and experts are more reliable than laypeople or beginners. That's just—that's a thing, you know? It's not a criticism. But there are experts out there, and it may just be that you and your sister have a different way of assessing which experts are the ones to trust. Or maybe she's not thinking that way at all.

So this is a good conversation to have so that you can start talking about what's wrong underneath the issue itself, because the issue itself you both have two entrenched views on. Very few people, if anyone at this point, doesn't have an entrenched view about the pandemic, because we're all living it, right? So, instead of focusing on that entrenched view, start to understand your different approaches to making sense of the world because the world doesn't make sense right now.

This brings me to astrology. As I've been talking about a lot this year, Saturn square Uranus, it has been challenging our sense of reality—yours, mine, everyone's. And this has shown up in a lot of different ways, but a big way is that there's a ton of misinformation and disinformation because whenever there's chaos in the world, those with power are really good at seizing upon that chaos and making use of it systematically.

So let's get a little bit more into your birth chart. When I'm looking for information about a sibling, or friends in general—like platonic friends, but certainly for siblings—we look to the planet Mercury in the birth chart because Mercury governs our siblings. And in your birth chart, you've got Mercury in Cancer, which accounts for this incredibly loving feeling that you have about your sister.

But, that said, it's opposite Neptune. So, when we have a Mercury/Neptune opposition, it's not totally uncommon to have this spiritual connection with a sibling that you're describing, this feeling of, "We don't even have to speak; we just get each other, and we're in alignment." And, unfortunately, this can often be, in some meaningful way, netted in idealization. You may have placed each other, or one of you may have placed the other, on a pedestal and have some sort of a fantasy about who the other is.

Clearly, you're really different, and you process information and you engage with the world in really different ways. The thing that's so difficult about what Neptune does when it's in hard aspect to a personal planet in the birth chart is it makes you feel idealistic toward someone. It gives you this devotional form of love, much like you've had for your sister. But when you start to see an unpleasant reality or truth, unfortunately, what it can do is it can give you a crash. It can be deeply demoralizing and make you feel really just like, "I've got nothing if I don't have everything."

Being willing to see your sister or anyone else for who they are is really important. And if that means that you can't love them, that's something for you to look at. We don't have to like everything about the people we love, but we do have to have respectful and safe conduct and contact, right? And that is probably feeling pretty threatened right now. Part of why this is is because Pluto is sitting on top of your Mars, and it's opposite your Midheaven. And so you are going through a once-in-a-lifetime, very overwhelming period that is challenging you to step into your own ego and power and to take greater authority over how you direct your life, how you live your life.

I imagine that's been creating some issues with you and your whole family, right? Not just your sister. And if you're not in contact with your family of origin outside of your sister, that might mean that you're just having a lot of feelings about your family and that you're noticing that patterns of what happened in your childhood with your parents or guardians—those patterns are reiterating themselves now in your adult life.

In fact, what's happening between you and your sister may actually have some serious repeat vibes from what happened between you and your parents or your parents themselves or someone else in your close familial background, because what Pluto does is it digs and it digs and it digs until it gets to the center of things. And from that place, it challenges us to achieve greater awareness, and that awareness requires us to let go of shit we've been holding on to that doesn't serve us. For you, that may have to do with playing it small, placing yourself behind or underneath others. That's just not going to work anymore. It's not been working for you.

And so, in terms of this feeling that you're having that your whole world feels off-axis, some of this is about these transits. Your world is literally off-axis. That's happening, and it's not going away anytime soon. You've got a couple more years of the Pluto opposition to the Midheaven, and it is meant to change your innermost psychology and your family life, whether it's your chosen family or if you have a partner, also your family of origin—that includes your sister. This is a time for getting really present with and real about what's there, what's there now.

On top of that, next year, in 2022, Uranus is going to start to oppose your Ascendant. In other words, you are on the precipice of major change, my dear. And while this can be intimidating or scary, I want to assure you this is what's needed in order to fully embody who you are. It's what's needed to outgrow childhood wounding, to outgrow limitations that you have taken on or you may feel have always been there. This is a difficult process, and it's one that takes a willingness from you to be direct and forthright.

No one has ever said that Mercury in Cancer opposite Neptune is comfortable with direct or forthright. This natal aspect can really incline you to want to come at things sideways and to really shut down, which is why when you hop on a call with your sister, now you tend to feel panicked. It's because you don't want to see what you're seeing, and you don't want to speak on it because you don't want conflict.

The thing is—and I can't say this strongly enough—if we are unwilling to have conflict with the people we love, we are unwilling to be honest with them. The truth of the matter is all intimate relationships have conflict. All people have conflict. Conflict is not bad. It's certainly not fun. It can be done in an unhealthy way, but a lot of times, the conflicts that we have with the people in our lives help us to be more authentic, help us to uncover things, help us to deal. And sometimes they break us up.

In the context of a relationship with a sibling or someone who you're family with, that can be really scary, but also, there's a lot of time that you'll have over the course of your relationship to ebb and flow. Every single thing, everything, that flows also ebbs. Your relationship with your sister has been marked by flow. It has been a relationship that has flowed for you, that has really been in service to so much of who you are and your life. And that's gorgeous. But it would be unrealistic to imagine that that relationship would never also ebb because that's what happens. Things ebb and they flow.

If you have a healthy and loving foundation of flow with your sister, then it is absolutely worthwhile to be honest about the ways in which it's ebbing now so that it can deepen the relationship. I know that this is not easy, but showing up, being forthright about how you're feeling with her, and being honest about the fact that you want to talk about how you come to such different worldviews instead of trying to change each other's minds or trying to make each other feel bad about your different perspectives, that's a great starting point. And you know what? Depending on the details of your situation, it may not work; I do not know. But it's certainly worth a shot.

If you're concerned about the mass deportations and violence against Haitians in the U.S., there are some things that you can do. The first is to support the Haitian Bridge Alliance, and you can do this by going to secure.actblue.com/donate/supporthaitians. The link will be in show notes. Another thing you can do is call your Congress member today. The number is easy to find. It's 202-224-3121. Call them to urge the DHS and ICE to stop all deportation flights to Haiti and to act in humane ways towards the Haitian people. This isn't the time for silence. Call your Congress members and give what you can.

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It's time to get astrological. This week, we're going to look at the astrology of September 26th through October the 2nd, 2021. Luckily, there's not much happening in the world. You're probably not feeling anything. It's super chill. Or am I just being sarcastic again?

We start off the week with September 26th. On this date, Mercury goes retrograde, and it will remain retrograde until October 18th, 2021. Is this the last Mercury Retrograde of the year, you ask? The answer is yes. Yes, it is. And that's not bad. It'll retroshade through November 2nd. It'll be a little minute here where we're going to be feeling the impact of this Mercury Retrograde.

Whenever a planet goes retrograde, what happens is the functions, the kind of regular functions that we expect of that planet, well, they appear to be moving backwards. They get a little funkified. And when it comes to a planet like Mercury, this is a huge deal because our world is so Mercurial. It is all about communication. It is reading. It's listening. It's texting and DMing. It's social media. It's your friends. It's your coworkers and your neighbors. Mercury is what you say, what you believe, what you think. It's ideas. It's attitudes.

And so, when Mercury goes retrograde, all of these things are impacted. You may have noticed in the past couple of weeks that you've been running into problems and delays and frustrations. This happens. Mercury Retrograde is super annoying. It by itself is not depressing. It's not emo. You may feel those feelings as a response to Mercury being retrograde, but that's not what Mercury Retrograde is. Mercury Retrograde is a time when we are meant to review, reflect, and reassess. And when we're doing that, when we're reassessing and we are reviewing, we can often update our perspectives.

Now, Mercury retrograding is a natural part of its cycles. And I cannot impress this upon you strongly enough. It's not like, "Oh my God, why is this happening?" It's happening because it happens every year, a couple/few times a year every year. That's how Mercury does. It's not just about going into the world and communicating with others and listening, hopefully, and consuming content and moving on.

We are meant to stop going forward at times and instead to look within, to make sure that we're organizing our thoughts and our attitudes in a way that is actually right for us. This is a time where we're meant to do some meaningful check-in, and the check-in is Mercurial. In other words, it's your thoughts, your attitudes, your friendships, that kind of stuff.

Now, every time we have an astrological event, we can cast a chart for it. And you know I've done that. I've done that for you here today. So this Mercury Retrograde chart—and it's cast for 10:10 p.m. Pacific Time on September 26th, 2021—it's got some shit in it. I'm not going to lie to you. Within this Mercury Retrograde chart, we have got a Sun conjunction to Mars, which means we can expect this Mercury Retrograde cycle to be annoying. The things that don't necessarily work the way you want them to, the frustrations you encounter, you're likely to take personally, but so is everyone else around you. So tensions are likely to be running high this cycle.

What you can do with that, luckily, is lean into the Grand Air Trine that this chart holds. There is a Mars/Moon/Saturn trine, and that Mars/Saturn trine is particularly tight. What this Grand Trine indicates is that you can learn—we can all learn—a lot about ourselves. We can cultivate greater emotional maturity and develop a better relationship, a more effective relationship, to our ego.

This is actually a really great Mercury Retrograde for doing reflection on those themes and to understand that whatever frustrations and whatever delays you're encountering are essentially an opportunity, a.k.a. a test, of your emotional maturity and the strength of your ego and to understand that these things are interconnected. They're interconnected in general, and they're interconnected at this time in a way that's really meaningful.

And so somebody bugs the shit out of you, somebody frustrates you; you find yourself getting angry and wanting to pop off on someone. And when I say someone, I'm including yourself. I'm including being mean to yourself or punishing towards yourself or just irritated with yourself. This is an opportunity to notice those emotions, notice those feelings, those thoughts, those impulses, and be like a kind and firm adult about it with yourself, like, "Is there a nicer way I can say this to myself? Am I holding others by a different standard than I would want to be held by? Am I acting in accord with how I want to be acting? Is this who I really am choosing to be in this moment?"

Whenever Saturn's involved, there's often a call towards humility. So, this Mercury Retrograde, don't be stunned if you feel like you have to be humble about something. It's not always a fun experience to check in with humility, but it is a really healthy—really, really healthy—thing to do. So something to explore. This is not likely to be easy because of Chiron's placement opposite Mars and, much more widely, the Sun. That particular transit I'll talk about more in depth later in this week's horoscope. But there's one other thing that I want to name here, and it's a biggie.

In this Mercury Retrograde chart, we have a Mercury square to Pluto. You remember that transit, right? It was exact on the 22nd. I know you felt it. If you didn't listen to Episode 224, last week's episode of the show, I do encourage you to either go to my website and read the transcript or listen to the show again because that transit is a big deal. It impacted a lot of last week, and certainly you were feeling it around the 22nd and on the 22nd. But that is a really big transit in this Mercury Retrograde chart. It's just one degree off, and the transit will be exact again later this week.

I got more to say. Don't worry. But what this tells us about the lifespan of this Mercury Retrograde is that whatever it was that came up for you last week on or around the 22nd—so, in general, last week—in particular, in your friendships, in your relationship to your ideas, your own mental health, your obsessiveness, all the things that I talked about last week, those themes are going to carry you through this Mercury Retrograde. And whenever Pluto is involved, certainly by square or opposition—and here we have it by square—it's difficult, it's painful, it's—in other words, it's a potential for healing, healing or fucking things up.

Mercury is in Libra. It will remain in Libra throughout this retrograde. And Mercury in Libra has a tendency to want to get along and have things be okay and nice, and to be diplomatic in how we say things or how other people say things to us. And Pluto gives zero fucks about delivery. Pluto is all about, like, "I want to get to the deepest thing as quickly as possible. I don't care how much it hurts." So, when we have this transit of Mercury square to Pluto, it tends to have us focusing on painful or intense thoughts and emotions or memories or whatever it is. It has us fixating and obsessing, and it can bring up resentments and really deep discord between you and others or around an issue with yourself.

If you struggle with addiction, this transit can actually stimulate that. And it's not necessarily about the behavior of whatever your addiction is. It's about the internal compulsions in your thinking, in your psychology, that motivate you towards the behavior that you have. And so there's actually something quite liberating in that. If you're willing to dig deep, if you're willing to look at what is actually motivating you, the roots of your actions or your attitudes, you can really meaningfully make progress. It's not easy. I'm not trying to tell you this will be easy. But it's absolutely cathartic healing, or at least it has the potential to be.

So this Mercury Retrograde doesn't have a whole lot of chill. Is it a bummer? Maybe. It's only a bummer if you don't make use of it. If you can make use of these energies, this can be a really powerful and really useful time, like a really constructive period of your life.

Now, one more thing I'll say about this Mercury Retrograde. Because of all this intensity, when stupid shit happens, like your phone keeps crashing during a call or your internet's being stupid or you have to wait on hold forever, that kind of mundane Mercury Retrograde stuff that occurs—be kind. Be kind to yourself. Try not to take it personally. Be like, "Yeah, astrology works. I knew that was going to happen."

And if you're dealing with somebody in customer service or in a line somewhere, be kind to them because they're dealing with everybody, everybody's bullshit. Try to be a little generous. A little empathy doesn't mean you have to eat shit, but it also doesn't mean you have to serve shit to someone else. I know I'm very poetic in the way I express these things, but you understand. Right?

That brings us to the next transits I want to talk to you about. On September 29th, we've got two exact transits. Venus is forming an exact trine to Neptune, and the Sun is forming an exact trine to Saturn. And, of course, Mercury, she's retrograde. So I actually love both of these transits.

Now, trines are a 120-degree angle, and whenever we are going through a trine by transit, it is a benefic and easy flow of energy. Who doesn't like an easy flow of energy? To be fair, an easy flow of energy that comes for you when you're in the middle of a bunch of bullshit—in other words, if you're doing something unhealthy or that simply isn't right for you, and then there's a nice breeze that helps you to flow that energy—you could waste some time. You could go further in the wrong direction. That's the downside of a trine if we're looking for one, which—as a Capricorn, I like to look for downsides. But these transits are pretty damn lovely, and in particular together.

So Venus trine to Neptune, this transit is really lovely for cultivating empathy. This is a lovely transit for having compassion for yourself or others, for showing up and showing love to the people that you care about. If you've been self-involved and forgetting to tell people that you appreciate them, if you've been kind of putting off reaching out to someone or falling through with someone that you care about or something that you care about, Neptune is not motivating in that it is like that Martian push kind of vibe, but it can inspire you to show up for others. And in particular, because we have that Sun trine to Saturn happening the same day, it's fortifying. It will further support us in pairing our feelings with actions, with having a plan or being systemic about the ways in which we approach things.

If you've got to apologize, being willing and able to say, "I'm sorry," yeah, these transits are great for it. You know what else is really great? If you fuck up and you have a need to say sorry, just make damn amends. Do different; do better. A lot of times, I think why we don't do different and we don't do better when we kind of know that we should or that we can is out of hubris. It's out of ego. And so the cool thing about these transits is they actually support us in not putting our ego first in a way that would get in the way of being loving, empathetic, compassionate, humble, present people. Isn't that cool? I think it's super cool.

Now, if you're dating, if you're in early dating mode, this can incline you to meet somebody who is really lovely. This can mark a moment where you're just like, "Oh, this could be a thing." The thing you want to know about Venus and Neptune is that when they're trining each other, it's true: it could be the beginning of something really lovely, especially if this transit is hitting your natal chart directly. And, of course, if you want to know whether or not that's the case, all you've got to do is look at your birth chart, crack open the ephemeris, or if you don't already have Astrology For Days, just subscribe to Astrology For Days, my transit-tracking tool, and you'll be able to see the exact degrees and the zodiac sign, and you can just cross-reference that with your birth chart, with this transit and all the transits.

So, while it can do that—it can bring us a lovely, romantic dynamic with someone—it can also bring us a lovely distraction, something that seems really lovely but it doesn't actually have substance to it. The way I think of this is kind of like a beautiful plant that doesn't really root; there's nowhere for it to go past the bloom. Do with that what you will. I just wouldn't jump to major conclusions around this transit. You want to just be present. Be present and be interested in who the other person is, who you are around that person, and let things progress with time because this week is too all over the place to know for sure anything, at least anything about someone new.

So the Sun trine to Saturn I'll just say one more word about. That particular transit is really great for getting organized. It could be organized like organize your closet kind of organized, but I really see this transit as more related to checking in with yourself and asking yourself the questions you need to ask, making sure that you're taking care of your life and yourself in a way that is in accord with your plans and your intentions for yourself and your life. Saturn is really good for that kind of stuff. So a trine from the Sun to Saturn can be really fortifying and stabilizing. So, if you have need for such energies, here they are waiting for you.

On the 30th of September, we've got the last transit of the month, and it's a Venus square to Jupiter. Now, Venus square to Jupiter, smooshing it up with that Venus trine to Neptune and the Sun trine to Saturn, it gives it a more playful vibe. Venus and Jupiter forming a square to each other is fun. It's evidence that not all squares are bad. Venus square to Jupiter is a transit that can spark feelings or passions. It can be a time where you just really enjoy art, whether it's making it or enjoying it, just taking it in.

Venus square to Jupiter is a really lovely transit. It makes you feel good. It kicks up hedonism, the desire to eat delicious foods, wear delightful clothes. If you're a social person, this is going to make you want to interact with people and have a good time. The presentation of this transit, especially in concert with the other transits, reinforces that this is really a relational week that we're dealing with a lot of relationship issues because Venus square to Jupiter is really about connecting with others, and a little bit of gluttony and hedonism, a little bit of "Let me eat the things and enjoy the things and recline."

So the one word of warning I'm going to give you is to leverage that Sun trine to Saturn by showing up, making sure that you don't just feel good feelings about your friends; you actually bother to text them. You don't have a lot of words in you? You don't want to work that hard? This is why they invented emojis. Send a damn emoji to let someone know that you're thinking of them, that you care about them. And you might not think it's a big deal. Maybe they don't think it's a big deal, but maybe it changes their day.

This transit can be associated with an impulsiveness, and I would simply warn you around the impulsiveness because of the next couple transits I'm going to tell you about that are overlapping with this one. So, on its own, Venus square to Jupiter, I'm not worried about the impulsiveness of this transit. However, when we add it up with what's happening all damn week, you want to make sure that you're pairing intention with your actions, and if you don't have something kind to say and it's not constructive, why are you saying it? It's a really good common sense question to ask yourself.

Okay. Now, that brings us into October. Hey, it's October. Can you believe 2021 is just barreling into 2022? It's a lot. This is where shit gets serious this week. Now, I say this is where shit gets serious. The truth is the transits I'm about to tell you about, you're going to be feeling them all week. But here we go. The first one is Mercury is exactly square to Pluto again. We're essentially feeling it since before the 22nd of September, but to have Mercury Retrograde right back into that transit is a real—I'm going to call it a pain in the ass. It's also an amazing opportunity for self-discovery and healing and resolution, but it's also a pain in the ass. Let's not be idealists.

So whatever it was that came up for you last week—and I'm not talking about if somebody stepped on your toe and then it made you in a bad mood all day. It's not about the person who stepped on your toe. It's about your response to the thing that happened. It's how you handled it. We don't want to over-fixate on other people, what they're doing, what they're not doing. And that is because an over-fixation on what others are saying or doing in an interpersonal way, this is a distraction from taking responsibility for how you're responding, for how you're reacting, and what you yourself are saying or doing. So you want to make sure you're not playing the search-and-blame game because it's really just a waste of your energy.

This transit, Mercury square to Pluto, it's rough. You might feel so outraged, so upset about something, that you act in an entitled way. You say some shit that is hard to take back, or you say shit in a way that is hard for the other person to hear, and it creates drama. Is drama good? Is drama bad? I don't know. Not all drama was created equal. But what you can do is snap at someone because you feel bad instead of because they deserved it.

When we're looking at Pluto, we're often looking at triggers because it's not just related to what is happening in this moment or what I'm feeling in this moment, but it's about our history, both inherited issues but also our lived history from early childhood, things that are really deep for you and that unfortunately you have to deal with with your mind, interpersonally, and with your words one way or another. So it's really uncomfortable.

My advice is to do your best, to be as forthright as you can be when you're ready. So when you're activated is not the best time to have a heart-to-heart. If somebody is saying something that you are having a really strong reaction to, do yourself the solid of being interested in the intensity of that reaction so that you can determine what the best way to respond is. Oftentimes, our reactions are very personal and they're very raw, and they're not always best suited for our responses. Those take greater intention so that, again, we are the people we want to be and we're interacting in a way that is effective and healthy.

O were that the only intense transit that is exact here on this day. On the 1st, we also have a really intense Mars opposition to Chiron. So this is a really intense transit. Having it be exact on the same day as the Mercury square to Pluto is not great. We can expect this week in general, and certainly on and around this day, some major drama in the world. We can expect people to be acting out, and in particular, we can expect to see bad behavior from men and people who embody male archetypes. This can be happening from governments. This can be happening from police forces. This can be happening from corporations or from individuals with power. But it is likely to be happening.

So Chiron is currently in Aries, and Mars is the ruling planet to the zodiac sign of Aries. And so a big theme of this transit of Chiron through the sign of Aries has to do with individualism, and within that is toxic individualism. Issues of identity, frustrated ambitions, ego energies, passions, all these things—sexuality—again, we're talking about themes associated with maleness, right? And we can certainly be seeing the role of men in society and how men do what they damn do on a social level because Chiron is a social planet.

Because the planet Mars, currently in Libra, is opposite Chiron, we are likely to see the tension that we always see in the Aries/Libra axis, which is me versus us. In particular, because we're dealing with Mars opposite Chiron in Aries, we are likely to see themes of toxic individualism playing out in the social sphere. And that is not usually chill, and in particular because Mercury is retrograde. So easy to have miscommunication, easy for there to be misinformation or disinformation.

Because Mercury is square to Pluto again, we now have this intensity and defensiveness and entitlement and obsessiveness. Because all of these things are active at once, and even these lovely transits from Venus square to Jupiter, Venus trine to Neptune—all of these things can create a really intense disinformation or misinformation explosion. So we want to be critical in our thinking. Don't jump to conclusions, whether we're talking about world events or we're talking about your personal life.

Now, let's get personal. Mars opposite Chiron, it really is an opportunity for you to look at your ego, look at your ambitions and your passions, your identity in general, and to be willing to understand what is not working. Chiron is associated with healing crises, right? And so, when we have an opposition to Chiron, we can expect some form of a healing crisis. And this may be something that you're like, "Finally. Finally, we're having a real conversation. Finally, something happened." Or it may be that you break something or tear something down and are finally dealing with the consequences. But there's something about a finally, like it's cataclysmic. It's finally happening with this transit, which could be great, could be shitty, could be something in between.

What we want to remember is that not all pain is bad. There is the pain of healing, and it is often devastatingly difficult, but it empowers us to move through something and get somewhere new, somewhere better. And then there's the pain of being destroyed, the pain of being held back or limited in some meaningful and unhealthy way.

And if you can check in with what you're going through, there's something really powerful in that because you may be in a situation, let's say at work, where you're dealing with a bunch of bullshit, and it is unfair. You feel like your hands are tied, and there's nothing you can do. And then in walks this frustrating transit of Mars opposite Chiron, and something terrible happens that reiterates all the things you already knew, and it's frustrating.

It may feel like, in this situation, "There is nothing I can do." However, there is something you can do. You can look at how you're holding the situation, how you're allowing it to inform your identity and your sense of self, whether or not you're letting people you do not have respect for to have any amount of authority over your sense of identity, your ego, your entitlement, your worthiness.

We cannot control what other people do. We cannot control the world. But we do have some measure of control over how we hold it in ourselves, how we position ourselves around it, and it is so important—it is so important—that we are willing to look at our agency within situations because we might not always like our choices, and you know I've said it before, but that doesn't mean we don't have choices. It is essential to look at, "What are my options here?"

This is really important because whenever we're dealing with Chiron, it is likely to see themes of feeling victimized or feeling like someone else is using their power unfairly, cruelly, against you. And, again, this can be applied to groups of people. It can be those with power using that power cruelly to victimize other groups of people.

Now, of course, in the context of toxic individualism, whether we're looking at it playing out in your life or in the life of someone you're interacting with, a family member, a friend, whatever, or we're looking at it in the context of nations or corporations or tech giants, etc.—if something is revealed to you or to all of us on or around this day, it is important that we remember it, not to torture ourselves, not to feel terrible, but so that we can mobilize and do something about it because Mars in Aries energy is so individualistic. It's like, "This is happening to me, and I'm the one who can do it."

But the truth is Aries is associated with leadership. Mars is associated with leadership. And good, effective, true leadership is not isolated. It's not toxic. It is collaborative. And so, if you are feeling really overwhelmed or put down by these transits, remember you are not alone. Be mindful about who you reach out to for support or help or insight or perspective, but don't isolate yourself. You don't have to do everything on your own. I don't know; maybe you do. Maybe you do. But open up.

If you don't have access to humans or physical resources that you need—watch me get woo—connect to the Earth. Connect to the Universe. You like God? Connect to God. Connect to something more that is available to fill you up, to support you, because even when we are technically, literally alone, we are not alone. All life forms are interconnected. We are interconnected. And that can be really fortifying, especially if you're in some heavy and isolated times.

Okay. So I know that's a lot, but hey, welcome, 2021. It's still happening. On the 2nd—I'm going to give you the read on the last transit of the week. And it's a lovely one. It's Venus sextile to Pluto. Now, honestly, because of all the heaviness that we're going through this week and the fact that Mars opposite Chiron and Mercury square to Pluto are both exact just the day before, you're not going to feel this one too much.

The things I would say about this transit in a different context would be really lovely. But in the context of what we're actually going through, Venus sextile Pluto is simply fortifying for showing up in relationships for the realness. It is fortifying for acting in a way that reflects your values. Why values? Because Venus governs values. This is a time where things are hard, and they're confronting. And most of us are not great at dealing with confrontation. But the Venus sextile to Pluto is absolutely a source of support, as are the other trine transits and even the Venus square to Jupiter earlier this week.

So, to the best of your ability, whenever you can, act in a way that reflects your values. Reflect on situations and your feelings in a way that reflects your values. And when you can't, if you value kindness, be kind to yourself about it. All you can do is your best, and when you fuck up, all you can do is try to learn from that fuck-up. That's it.

So I know this is a lot. This is a lot to take in. But here we are. If you want to know more about October and you want to hear a detailed breakdown of all of the transits that are coming up—in other words, your October horoscope—then join me over on Patreon over on the kittens level, because I got puppies and kittens. Join me over on the kittens level, and on the 1st of every month, I drop a month-ahead horoscope. I give you the news so you can get the giddy-up on your month ahead. We also get into mediumship, animal communication, tarot—it gets pretty woo over there. So join me over on patreon.com.

Also, I'm teaching a class on the twelfth house. It's going to be great. The link to it will be in show notes. I forgot to put it in show notes last week. I blame Mercury Retrograde Shadow. But this week, it's in there. I'm certain of it.

Okay. Those are just some quick little news bits to give you before I reiterate the transits of the week. On the 26th of September, Mercury goes retrograde, and it'll stay retrograde until October 18th. On the 29th of September, Venus forms an exact trine to Neptune, and the Sun is exactly trine to Saturn. On the 30th, Venus forms an exact square to Jupiter. October 1st, we have two exact transits. Mars is exactly opposite to Chiron, and Mercury is exactly square to Pluto again. On the 2nd of October, Venus forms an exact delightful sextile to Pluto. And that is your damn horoscope.

I thank you so much for joining me here on Ghost this week and every week, and I invite you to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. It does actually really help this little DIY astro show.

Take care of yourself, take care of others, and remember, when you cannot be hopeful, you can be determined.