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. This week's question comes from a listener in London, and she says: "I adore your podcast. My question as an aspiring astrologer is this: how can I be more comfortable opening up to others and get over my fear of being seen? I would really like to share the gift of astrology but have a bit of a block for putting myself out there. I use whole signs, and so for me, this really resonates that my Scorpio stellium is in the twelfth house. I'd love to hear your Campanus take. Thank you so much for your help." And she was born on November 6th, 1989, at 10:13 a.m. in London, UK.

So let's get into it. When I pull up your chart, there's a couple things to talk about here, one which is, of course, your Scorpio stellium. You have got Mars, Mercury, the Sun, and Pluto all in Scorpio, and Mercury, the Sun, and Pluto are very closely conjunct. Mars is not involved in this conjunction, but the fact that it's a stellium, I mean—you've got a lot of Scorpio in you.

And while, yes, in the house system that I use, Campanus houses, you do have Mercury, the Sun, and Pluto all in the eleventh house, having a Scorpio stellium in the eleventh house is not going to make you super outgoing and social, and it's not going to make you super inclined to wanting to put yourself out there in a way that would make you vulnerable or open to other people's judgments or criticisms. It's just not that kind of vibe. This placement, these three planets conjoined in the eleventh house, is going to incline you towards being involved in communities and groups in a way that you can maintain some amount of privacy. You probably do best one-on-one with people, socially speaking.

Now, that said, you do have Mars in the tenth house, and it is crossing into the eleventh house. So it's exiting that tenth house. But you are ambitious, and so that's going to be uncomfortable for you, this feeling of, "I am ambitious. I do want to do things in the world, and I want to be recognized for my expertise and my hard work," and also, "Please don't look at me." It's an uncomfortable thing. That is reiterated by the fact that you have a second stellium, my friend. It is a Capricorn stellium, and it is in the first house, intercept in the first house. And this is really, from my perspective, a huge part of what you're asking me about, which is the fear of putting yourself out there.

The fear of putting oneself out there can come from lots of different places and be presented in many different ways, depending on your nature and depending on the context. In the context of having Venus, Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune all sitting very close to each other in the sign of Capricorn in your first house, intercept, it means that you do take yourself very seriously. You have a really strong feeling about doing things right or doing them wrong. And because of this interception, you're likely to have a great deal of fear about being seen as ambitious or being seen as wrong.

This fear of failure that Capricorn energies in the birth chart often bring about is intensified by the fact that it's intercept. When we have intercept planets, we get clear indications of inherited trauma. So this can be like epigenetic style of trauma. This can be clear messages that were given to you in your early developmental experiences that are lived experiences and that taught you to not put yourself out there and not risk being wrong.

This would absolutely make it scary for you to put yourself out there, especially because we live in a time where everyone is comparing themselves to everyone because everyone's got a platform. Everyone's got a bullhorn. And that's really terrible for you. It's truly the worst for you. Having two stelliums, one in Capricorn and one in Scorpio, it inclines you to be private. It inclines you to not want to lead with your personal self, or if you do want to lead with your personal experiences and your personal self, you probably have a really difficult time with anxiety and overwhelm because you're a private person, which doesn't mean you can't have a public life. But the way a lot of people have a public life and they engage with astrology by sharing things about their individual lived experiences, that's unlikely to really resonate for you.

I am here to tell you that you do not need to put yourself out there in a personal way in order to cultivate a client base and build a thriving private practice. Now, you didn't really say if you want to be consulting astrologer, more of a researcher, what your ambitions are with astrology. And it is really important for me to note that there are many ways of being an astrologer. There are financial astrologers. There are many different ways of working with astrology, and they all employ different techniques, different focuses of study, and different ways of working. And if you're seeking to earn a living as an astrologer, there are different lives. There are different lifestyles and different career paths.

So I'm going to assume you want to be a consulting astrologer for two reasons. One is because you didn't say, and so that's what I'm going to assume. And the other is because when I look at this Capricorn interception, there is one very important aspect to it, my friend. You've got a Jupiter/Chiron conjunction in Cancer intercept your seventh house. And so counseling, consulting, that is really tricky and hard and healing and powerful and effective for you.

So I mean that in the context of both getting counseling and meeting with other practitioners to see how they work and to learn from them. You hopefully have a therapist or some sort of individual that you consult with to bring about self-awareness and greater presence in your life. And you are really well suited to doing that with others. Being well suited to a thing doesn't mean it comes easy. It simply means that with practice and structure, you will be good at this if this is something you choose to do.

So, just to be clear, Jupiter and Chiron are both opposite Neptune and Saturn. The Chiron opposition is a lot wider to Saturn. They're not technically opposite Uranus and Venus, but it's not a clean break simply because Saturn and Neptune are conjunct Venus and Uranus. Okay. So, all of this said, because of the Chiron/Jupiter opposition to Saturn and Neptune—again, I'm talking outer planets here—because of this, there is something deep in your family line from one side or both that makes you feel like—deep in your bones, it makes you feel like there's a right way to talk to people and there's a wrong way. And it can incline you to be a bit of a people pleaser and to always want to give others everything that they need. That's not a bad thing, but it can make you into a little bit of a "yes, ma'am" kind of person.

What I mean by that is it can be hard for you to say difficult things to others. It can be hard for you to confront them with the hard shit. And the truth of the matter is any consultant, whether it's an astrologer or therapist, whatever it is, who is not willing and able to say difficult things is not willing and able to be honest and to share what needs to be shared. If we're too attached to being right as consultants, we are fixated on ourselves and not on the needs of the client. And when you're fixated on yourself and not on the need of the client, then your client loses. It doesn't matter what you do. You might please them, but they're not getting a service from you that is truly worth it.

I want to encourage you to know that your fear of being seen, your fear of putting yourself out there, that is partially for you actually a preference. You're private. You actually have a lot of ambiguity about being seen, and that's not bad. That doesn't need to change. I do want to separate out the parts that need addressing and attention here and the parts that don't. Some of this is think about how you can organize your career in a way that doesn't put your face on the stationery. I know stationery is old fashioned, but I said it.

Now, the other part of it is simply about a fear of failure. The more humble you can be, the more willing to learn from your mistakes you can be, the better. And a lot of that has to do with being able to say to your clients or to say in your writing, whatever it is, "This is my perspective." And when somebody says, "That doesn't seem right," or, "That is the most amazing thing I've ever heard," you don't let it prop up your ego in a way that defines you. Each of your successes and each of your failures, none of them are meant to define you. If we define ourselves from all the little things that happen in life, then we are giving too much power to the people we're interacting with. That's not helpful.

Learning to let go of control, learning to allow for the ebb and flow of your knowledge or your competency or whatever it is, not only makes you a better practitioner of anything, but it also will help you to confront this fear of being seen because, whether you're seen as the best or the worst, a lot of that is in the eye of the beholder. And it doesn't need to define you.

Now, one last thing I'll throw in the mix is you are going through Uranus oppositions. Uranus is in Taurus and opposing your Mercury and Sun and Pluto, and this will last a couple/few years. Additionally, next year, you're going to have some Saturn squares to your Sun. And so, in '21 and 2022, this is a great time for trying things out, for experimenting with different ways of doing things and learning from what doesn't work, not just from what does. Saturn transits are always a time for us to cut back and see what works, see what doesn't. Put yourself out there. See what works, see what doesn't, that kind of thing.

Now, the fact that you're also going through Uranus oppositions to your Mercury, Sun, and Pluto means you are meant to change. You are feeling the fire of "I need to do things differently. I need to try new things." That's really cool, and it's also distracting. You don't need to be a different person, and you don't need to move outside of your own capacity or certainly outside of your integrity. But don't confuse this kind of restlessness you're feeling to change with a need for you to be something you're not or structure your career or passions the way you've seen other people do it. You can do it your own damn way.

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.

Let's get into some damn astrology, shall we? This week, we're going to look at October the 3rd through the 9th of 2021. There are some things I want to kind of check in about before we get into the details of this week's horoscope.

So, a long time ago on the podcast, maybe two years ago, a year and a half ago, I talked about something called puppy talk roles. And I've been thinking a lot about them lately. So, puppy talk roles, think about how you talk to puppies if you like puppies, or babies if you like babies, or kittens if you like kittens. Think about how you talk to someone that you love who is innocent and deserving of patience and care, and ask yourself, "Do I talk to myself in the same way?" If not, I want to invite you to employ puppy talk roles in your self-talk this week, with the New Moon, which I will talk about in depth—don't you worry—but moving forward, because honestly, there's just been so much going on for so long now, like years now, that it's bound to have taken a toll on us all.

While the world is struggling to "get back to normal," whatever the fuck that means, things are still very much not normal. There are so many existential crises that so many of us are sharing around the climate, the impossibility of overcoming so many of society's ails—I won't list all the terrible things as I'm trying to sooth you from them, but there's a lot going on.

And as I've been talking about all year, this Saturn/Uranus square that this year has been marked by has been testing our mental health and has been very straining for the mental health. And so, you yourself, you may not be feeling that way, but chances are a lot of people, like a lot of people, are feeling this way. So if you're not feeling this way yourself, you're likely to be dealing with people who are. This is a really stressful time.

So, because it's Mercury Retrograde, because there's so much going on, I just want to tap into something that I kind of touch on a fair amount on the show, which is processing your thoughts. Analyzing situations, scrolling through the internet or social media, taking classes, being an idea collector can be really helpful for a certain level of healing and of investigation. Absolutely, please get data and verify your data, right? Like learning how to be a critical thinker, so valuable, so important. Also, when we're dealing with trauma, when we're dealing with emotions, these things are housed in our bodies. And processing emotions cannot be done exclusively through the mind.

So it's really important that we check in with a bunch of things: how we are or are not processing our emotions or distracting from them, how we are talking to ourselves, how we are holdings things. When you fuck something up, do you say, "Oh fuck. I'm a shitty person. I really fucked that up," or do you say to yourself, "That was hard. I feel badly about that. I need to process that"? Most people aren't generally super intentional and careful about the ways in which we talk to ourselves, especially in stressful or triggering situations. But it's really important to cultivate that skill.

And you want to notice that I said cultivate. I'm not talking about perfecting that skill. I'm not talking about being perfect in your thinking or your actions or anything else, but placing yourself upon that path of being aware of how you talk to yourself, being aware of the space you do or don't make for processing your emotions and processing them in your body—these things are very important, not doing anything, but instead being in your emotions and reflecting. These are essential for holistic processing, which means they're essential for actually healing.

In a way, there's no better time for such things than Mercury Retrograde because Mercury Retrograde is when the functions of Mercury, the planet of analysis and connection and being in communication—they're not behaving quite as we're used to or as we generally prefer, unless you have natal Mercury Retrograde. And so this makes it a powerful time for reflecting, and that means sitting with your thoughts and how you relate to them, the tone of voice you speak to yourself in. If you talk to yourself in a way that you wouldn't talk to a damn puppy, you need to change that, or at least try.

If you have been overwhelming yourself with information and approaches and if you've been comparing yourself to others or where you thought you should be or whatever it is, I want to invite you to just slow it down, take a deep breath, and just get present with where you are. And make space for it, not to do anything, just to be in it. I can't stress this enough. We talk about mental health all the time. We talk about mental health all the time, and there's a lot of great reasons for it. Let's keep talking about mental health.

But mental health is not the exact same thing as emotional health. We need to give more energy to our emotional wellness, and there are so many ways of doing that. There's not one way of doing that, and there's not one way of doing that for any one person. Different moments, different situations require different approaches. But I want to really invite you to contemplate how you are or aren't centering your emotional wellness, how you are or aren't carving out time and space in your life to just be with yourself without a goddamn agenda or mental distractions.

Now, this brings us to your horoscope. Before I get into the details of it, I want to just kind of get broad for a moment about this week. This week has a lot in it. It has a lot of combative, intense energy that is essentially coming from a place of defensiveness or pain. On a social level—so we're talking social political level—this may be a kind of intense time. We may see a lot of dramatic behaviors from people. We may see people acting out of their strongest impulses and not their wisest impulses. We may see people causing pain to others because they themselves are in pain. On a social level, that's not great news, obviously. Engage with compassion, and if you can't do that, then have compassion for yourself.

There's a lot of intense energy here. So, the Sun opposition to Chiron, that is exact on the 3rd and you'll be feeling the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. This particular transit can confront you with pain that you can't help but fixate on or, again, overidentify with. It can be an emotional pain, a physical pain. It can be an existential or spiritual pain. Because it's an opposition, it may be something that comes to you or at you through another person or through a situation, or it may be that you do something that creates some sort of consequences that you weren't fully prepared for.

But there's a reason why we go through this transit. We go through this transit because it reveals something that was already not in a state of wholeness. Generally speaking, before you develop the pain of carpal tunnel, you've long developed an injury in your wrist or your arm or whatever, right? Oftentimes, what happens is before we have a crisis in our relationship, things have been a problem for quite some time. And so, when a Sun/Chiron opposition occurs, there's generally some really compelling presentation of what isn't working or what hurts.

It would be tempting to focus on all of the symptoms of this, as it's always tempting to focus on the symptoms of our pain instead of the roots. However, the best thing you can do with this energy—if you are finding yourself caught up in a painful situation, the best thing you can do with this energy is to look at your own participation in the dynamic. What, if anything, are you getting out of your participation, your role to play in the situation? It's a valuable way of engaging with this energy because we're dealing with the Sun, and the Sun is your center. It's your will.

And if you can find, "Oh shit, I do this unhealthy thing because I hate my job, and so I sit in an uncomfortable way at my desk because I don't even want to be here. So I'm not taking care of my body because I'm super disassociated and checked out." Okay. So what you're getting out of this problem you're having with your imaginary carpal tunnel is you're choosing to check out at the expense of your body. Okay. That's a thing. That's a thing most of us have done at least a little bit.

If you become aware of this, then you have choices. Then you can make a choice and say, "Okay, is it worth it for me to be more associated at my job in exchange for less pain in my physical body?" It might not be that clear, and it might not be that literal, and it might not work out exactly like that for you in your situation. But it is an investigation that is worth your energy and worth your attention.

Luckily, the other exact transit that we have on this day is a Mercury trine to Jupiter, and we want to remember that Mercury is retrograde. So it is Mercury Retrograde trine to Jupiter. And this transit is really good for looking within because of the retrograde and understanding the big picture, the details—Mercury—of the big picture—Jupiter. The cool thing about this quite frankly painful and difficult transit is that it's coming paired with this other transit that's really helpful for making connections, figuring things out, being authentically interested and actually having access to insights and answers. Those insights and answers may come through friends because it's the planet Mercury. It might come through community because it's the planet Jupiter. Or it may just come through sitting with yourself and investigating, being receptive.

That's something that Mercury in some ways and Jupiter in tons of ways is really good at doing, is being open to what comes. If you find yourself feeling really rigid or dealing with control issues, be interested in that. Explore that. And if you're dealing with people or systems that are rigid and that are basically set up or positioned in your life to generate pain, then your best move may be, "How can I take care of myself given these conditions?" We can't always change all the things.

So, again, I want to just really reiterate here the value and the kindness of doing the best you can where you're at. Puppy talk roles. Be kind to yourself. Being kind to yourself doesn't mean enabling yourself. It doesn't mean letting yourself off the hook. It means approaching whatever's going on with inquisitiveness and empathy. That's hard to do. It's hard to do, especially in a really stressful and activating time.

My dears, that brings us to the New Moon in Libra on October 6th. It is exact at 4:05 a.m. Pacific Time. And just as a quick reminder, New Moons occur when the Sun and the Moon are at the exact same degree of the exact same sign, and we generally have one New Moon per zodiac sign per year. So this is our moment for the New Moon in Libra. This New Moon is a lot. My friends, my loves, it's a lot. So get comfortable, okay?

The Sun and Moon are meeting at 13 degrees of Libra. Beautiful. New Moon in Libra is all about relationships. It's all about diplomacy and care and creativity, but not this New Moon. Oh, no. This New Moon is going to be quite challenging on a lot of levels, my loves, on a lot of levels.

So one major level is that Mars is also at 13 degrees. It's at 13 degrees and 58 minutes, which means it's almost at 14 degrees. But that is a fucking tight conjunction to the New Moon, and that takes all that lovely diplomatic relational energy of the Libra New Moon, and it sends it a dick pic. You know? Like an uninvited dick pic. It just brings a whole new energy to the conversation.

The Mars conjunction to the New Moon places the Sun in the center of the Moon and Mars. This, unfortunately, is likely to trigger some major defensiveness. The Moon is your feels. Mars is your impulses. It's your ego. And the Sun is your identity. And so, when your ego and your sense of entitlement and then your feelings, which includes your memories and triggers and past experiences, are sandwiching your identity, you're likely to feel pretty pressed.

And on top of that, Chiron is opposite the Moon, the Sun, and Mars. All three of them. On the one hand, do we have a recipe for a healing crisis, a catharsis that is confronting and clarifying? Why, yes, we do. We have a great deal of energy that can provoke us that way. On the other hand, who wants to go through a healing crisis when it's got Chiron and Mars involved, in other words, when it's so confronting? On a social level, this may be really big in terms of violence, unfortunately—violent acts from people in power, people who feel like they're losing power, or people who are sick of how they're being treated.

This could go any kind of way. What we can be sure of is anybody, whether it's an individual or an entity or a group, that is acting out will be acting out from a very emotional and reactive state and be fueled by a great deal of entitlement, a sense of, "I deserve to do this." Will that be revolution or will that be revolution? I don't know. We can expect something, though. We can expect some intense shit to go down around this time.

At the very least, you're going to be feeling irritable, impatient, restless. And if this sounds familiar, it's because we've had a variety of transits kicking up these kinds of feelings, unfortunately. We are still under the influence of the Pluto square to Mercury that was exact on September 22nd and October 1st. So we've been under the influence of it this whole damn time, and we still very much are, which again fuels obsessive thinking. It, again, fuels resentments, the impulse to point blame, whether it's at the self or others. It is consequential and monumental, this transit. It's a big deal.

If you are engaged, honestly, with intention, this can be a time where you really move through some shit and you achieve meaningful progress. I want to remind you meaningful progress doesn't need to be meteoric progress. Sometimes the most subtle shifts are the most powerful ones. We don't need it to be on display for others in order for it to be profound for ourselves. Similarly, if you're working to effect change in the world, oftentimes there are foundational levels of change that we must achieve before anything substantively changes in the mainstream world, in the world at-large. And so let's not undervalue all levels and layers of investigation and healing and working on problems.

This New Moon will incline us to only want things that happen in the world, like I want to see a problem, fix a problem. I want to have a feeling, act on that feeling. And doing this is likely to create some pretty negative consequences, tbh. Again, the best thing that you can do for yourself and for the people that are around you, honestly, is to be aware of how you're experiencing and expressing your emotions, how you experience and express anger or even irritation.

If you are a really physical person, this is a great time to make sure you're having a physical outlet for your passions or your annoyances or your anger, whatever it is. I actually dropped an episode about anger and forgiveness, and it gives a lot of gems, if I may say, about how to experience and cope with anger. That was Episode 177 if you want to give it a relisten or go to my website for the transcript, and so you can just reread it.

This is definitely a week where we're likely to be confronted by our feelings of anger and frustration and impatience. And learning how to cope with those emotions is really valuable. It's not fun; it's valuable. And so just know that this New Moon is meant to confront us with things that are difficult to feel and difficult to deal with. That's not because you failed, and it's not a symptom of the future, necessarily. It's the energy that is at play. And how you engage with that energy, that's a reflection of you, you in this moment. And so, to the best of your ability, strive to act in ways that reflect the best parts of you, the most earnest and honest parts of you.

Now, speaking of honesty, all of this Libra energy can lead to passive-aggressive conduct. You don't want to hear that. I don't want to tell it to you. But here we are. In addition, we've got a Jupiter/Venus square. It's wide, but it's active here in the chart. This transit inclines us to not want to ruffle feathers, not want to say anything too intensely. So we want to watch out for the story that so many of us tell ourselves: "I'm not going to tell this person the truth because I want to save their feelings." Usually, when people say that, what they're really trying to do is not be the bad guy. You're trying to save your own feelings.

Don't be passive aggressive. If you are clear about something, if you are feeling something, if you're at a damn point, you may just have to say it. You may just have to deal with it. And actively lying or misleading others, that shit will backfire on you in meaningful ways. And so not a strong recommend, you see. Not a strong recommend.

One more thing I want to touch on about this New Moon is that themes of consent are pretty strong in this chart. I imagine we can apply this to social conditions, but I absolutely mean it specifically in the context of your personal life. And so you might find that you have to negotiate issues of consent with other people, which has a lot to do, of course, with boundaries. We know so much about boundaries here at Ghost of a Podcast Industries, do we not? But you may have to maintain some boundaries in a way that's kind of difficult or stressful. You may need to assert or reassert boundaries. And in those cases, I want to say, as frustrating and upsetting as it can be, know that there's the energy. That's the energy at play here, and it's not personal to you. It's not exclusive to you.

This is a time where we need to maintain and hold our boundaries, and you may need to negotiate consent with someone.  And that someone may be open to that negotiation or not. It's important that if you don't feel safe, of course, that you take yourself out of a situation. No guilt, no shame. Do what the fuck you gotta do, whenever you can, however you can.

But there's a lot of energy here, like a lot of energy. And so, within that, you may have to sit in your power. You may need to embody your power, and that's hard for a lot of people, and it's not hard for a lot of others. So that can be a recipe for some messy situations. So that's just something, again, to watch out for. And it might be a valuable time for you to revisit, what are your boundaries? What are you doing to hold those boundaries, to maintain those boundaries? If you have people in your life that do not respect those boundaries, how are you taking care of yourself around that? Some things to consider this New Moon.

This is another one of those New Moons where I do not recommend doing manifestation work, like deep ritual work. This is a great time for being present with the energy that emerges, but trying to manifest energy or call in energy when things are as chaotic and combustive as we're likely to see this week—it's not the best timing. So for whatever that's worth. Do as you will, but that's my hot take.

And that brings us, my friends, to the 7th, the 7th of October. On this day, the Sun conjunction to Mars is exact. The Moon has moved very quickly, as the Moon likes to do, and the Sun and Mars are exactly conjoined. This transit is—you know, it's a big continuation of the New Moon energy. It's combative. It's irritating. It's a good time to remember that as annoying as other people are, so are you. We're all annoying. And so, as much as possible, find ways of coping intentionally and constructively with the energy you're feeling instead of trying to figure out why and how and what to do. Sometimes, when you're in it, the best way to cope with it is to be rational and figure everything out when you're less activated. And if the Sun conjunct Mars is anything, it is activating.

This transit can make you feel really ambitious and competitive. It can make you feel a sense of urgency that is kind of mean because, of course, it's combative and it's impatient. So all of these things. It can lead to accident proneness if you're really repressing your emotions, especially anger. This energy, especially because it's getting pulled by that New Moon, it can have a lot to do with pent-up energy, built-up energy. This transit, it's not chill. I would say it has no chill. If you've been dealing with a lot of burnout, this transit might just push you over the edge. So drink a ton of water. Eat healthy foods. Don't overdo stimulants or caffeine or anything like that if you can avoid it.

Mars is a planet that governs violence. It governs physical violence in particular, but also the energy of violence. It also governs doing it—you know, fornication. Mars wants a visceral, physical release. In the context of a lot of things, that's not great news. And so, again, it's important that we find healthy releases of this energy. If you like sex and you can get some with a partner, with some partners, or all alone, this might really help to even out your energy. This might be a really fun time for doing that.

Unfortunately, because of the whole picture of what's going on here this week, it may or may not actually be that helpful. You might feel too tense, or you might be busy dealing with very real issues with other people or in your relationship to yourself, to fully let go and relax. But you know what? Maybe not. So get in there and get some if you can.

You and I, we know the internet is full of trolls. I think it's important for me to say don't be a troll. We all think of ourselves as non-trolls. I imagine most of us think of ourselves as non-trolls, but it is tempting at times to take out your frustrations and your anger on people online. And I want to really encourage you to not do that this week in particular, to not attack people. All it does is it puts more of that energy into the world, and it serves as a distraction from you dealing with your actual feelings and the things that are in your real life, the people in your real life, the situations in your real life, and in the real world at-large. Attacking people, fighting with people online, doesn't really achieve much change in the world. It can, sure, but generally speaking, not so much.

So, Sun conjunct Mars, it's irritating. You're going to try to find some visceral, some physical outlets, and also, use it as an opportunity to mobilize you if you need to mobilize,  and become more clear and self-aware around your boundaries, your entitlement, your anger, your ambition, and your sex drive. Sun conjunct Mars.

Okay. And that brings us to the last two transits of the week. They are happening on the same day. On the 9th, we've got a Sun conjunction to Mercury Retrograde, and Mercury is retrograding right on top of Mars. It's sitting right on top of Mars. We know Sun and Mercury are sitting on top of each other, right? They're conjunct. And the Sun and Mars were conjunct on the 7th, so of course, Mercury is conjunct to Mars.

Hey, listen. If you're an astrology student or an astrologer and you haven't yet subscribed to Astrology For Days, I encourage you to. I really do, because seeing the transits, seeing how they play out, and having access to an in-app ephemeris can be super frickin' helpful for tracking the transits, of course, for understanding and conceptualizing astrology, but also for tracking your own lived experience, which honestly—it's helpful. It's helpful for you to be able to track what is happening, and in particular with Mercury Retrogrades. Whenever we have a planet retrograding, it is returning to planets that it may have just been talking to, for better and for worse. And so it's nice to be able to track how that shakes out in your life, and Astrology For Days is a tool for that.

Okay. Back to these transits. On the 9th—so the Sun is conjunct Mercury, and Mercury is conjunct Mars. So here's the thing. Mercury conjunction to Mars is a combative fucking transit. Mercury is your ideas. It's what you think. It's what you say. It's what you wrote. And Mars is all about fighting. It's just like, "What do you mean by that? Why did you say it that way?" Mars is, "You don't agree with me? If you don't agree with me, that means you're against me." Now, this is only strengthened by the fact that the Sun and Mercury are conjoined on the same day. And again, we're feeling these transits throughout the damn week, see? It's just exact on this day.

And so Sun conjunction to Mercury tends to make us more heavily identified with our ideas. The problems with this are plenty. The first is Mercury is retrograde, so your ideas may be half-baked. You may be misunderstanding things. Another thing that's problematic with this is that when we are overidentified with our ideas, it tends to make us pretty bad listeners. It tends to make us pretty poor collaborators. A life without listening to others and collaborating with them can be really problematic. It can get us really fixed in our ideas and isolated.

Now, Mercury is conjunct Mars and the Sun, which only furthers this combative energy. I cannot stress this enough. Reread your email before you press Send. You don't have to DM that person. You don't. You don't have to text back right away. You do not need to respond until you've sat with your reactions. I cannot stress this enough. I cannot.

These transits are going to make you have a sense of urgency in what you say, and that will make you a bad listener. Not just you. You, me, everyone. It's just the energy in the world. And so, if somebody presses Send before they reread their email or their message to you, slow down. Slow it down. Slow down your response because this energy is impacting everyone. And we're all going to be in a fucked-up mood. We're all going to be feeling all kinds of defensive, intense, fiery emotions.

And so people are going to say things in a fucked-up way, or they may say fucked-up things. You may need to, or you may decide it's important to, speak your damn mind. Stand up for what you believe in, or be assertive about your ideas or about what you feel is right. That might be the best thing for you to do. And, also, the best thing for you to do may be to sit with your reactions before you respond. Yeah, I repeated it. I feel like it was important to repeat.

Check your tone of voice, your tone of voice if you're talking to someone, your tone of voice in a written message. You're not going to be clever and say something passive aggressive in a way that someone else isn't going to know. They'll know. And then, once you've done it, they're going to be just as reactive as you are, and we have a problem. So, again, this is a study in irritability. It is a study in urgency and defensiveness. The better adjusted your ego is, the easier this week will be for you.

Having a well-adjusted ego does not mean not having an ego. Humans have egos. There's nothing wrong with having an ego. It is really important that we have healthy, well-adjusted egos. That means that they're not too big or too small, that they are flexible and that they can be responsive. It's important to know that our worth and our value is not meant to be compared to the worth and value of others. And when we're thinking about being the best or the worst, we are comparing ourselves to others. It's a misuse of our energy.

So, to the best of your ability, be interested in these themes. Explore these themes. Don't waste your fucking energy telling every person you disagree with how much you disagree with them unless it's actually constructive, instead bringing the energy back to how you engage, how you manage your emotions, and whether or not you have the ability to sit with your feelings, to treat yourself and to treat others with care. These things, these are central to this week. And if you can be kind, if you can be patient, if you can be flexible, your life will be better.

So much of what we get really wound up about, so much of what we get really upset about, is not consequential. So much of where we kind of pour our energies is a distraction from what's actually important to us. And these are things to consider, so things to work on and work with in general, and certainly this week.

Now, my loves, that was a lot. And I'm going to run through the transits one more time. On the 3rd, we've got a Sun opposition to Chiron and a Mercury Retrograde trine to Jupiter. On the 6th, we've got this fancy New Moon in Libra. It's exact at 4:05 a.m. Pacific Time. On the 7th, the Sun is exactly conjoined to Mars. On the 9th, the Sun is exactly conjoined to Mercury Retrograde, and Mercury Retrograde is exactly conjoined to Mars. That's what's happening. That's what's happening. And that's it. That's your horoscope.

If you get value from this podcast, please subscribe wherever you hear your podcasts. It does make a big difference. And also send me your questions. Just go to ghostofapodcast.com and fill out the form there, and ask me your questions because I love to see them. Also, if you get value from the podcast, please do write a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. These things help. These things are lovely.

And, of course, join me on Patreon if you want to get woo, if you want your month-ahead horoscope, and if you want to talk to me about animal communication, mediumship, if you want to learn tarot with me. I'm just doing all that shit over there on patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo. The link is always in show notes. It's just there for you, along with the link to the astrology class I am teaching on the twelfth house that's coming up in early November. So links in show notes. Check it out.

Be kind to yourself and others, and I will talk to you next week. Bye-bye.