Predictive astrology involves taking in a lot of information, and it can be a stressful emotional roller coaster. One listener wrote in asking if forecasts are worth the toll they take on her nervous system.

This week's horoscope details the Full Moon in Gemini on the 18th, offering insight about what to expect and sage advice for leveraging the lunar event. Venus goes Retrograde in Capricorn from December 19, 2021 – January 29, 2022! Jessica explains what it means and how to make the most of it.

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.

Hello, my darlings. This week's question feels just on time for getting ready to look at the predictive astrology of 2022, doing a little year-ahead stuff. We're not doing it in this episode, but we're doing it real soon. And, yeah, if you haven't already listened to Episode 233, it's titled "How to Deal With Betrayal." That episode is one in which I touch on the Pluto Return and the transit of Saturn in Aquarius and get into some predictive stuff, which is really what this upcoming question is about. So check out that episode if you're in the market.

But, first, listen to this. I have a question from Ms. Pluto, who says, "I love astrology. I am a devoted spiritual practitioner and also committed to healing from childhood CPTSD through nervous system regulation. I notice that I sometimes get myself into a state of dysregulation when I study transits and create forecasts. I notice that my love for astrology is sometimes rooted in a desire to escape the present moment and plan for a future that does not exist. Is there a way to course-correct for my current pattern, or is astrology inherently triggering for someone with my natal signature? Your advice is greatly appreciated." And then she shares that her birth date is July 10th, 1989, at 2:22 p.m. in New Delhi, India.

So okay. There's lots to say. Yes, the future does not exist, and also, if you want to get real woo about it, the future, the past, and the present all exist all at once. As astrologers, when we're looking at a chart, whether it's an event chart or a birth chart, we are looking at the past, present, and future all at once. It's all in that living document of the chart, which is super cool but also brain-melting—a little bit brain-melting.

Now, your question is a really important one. I'm going to talk about it broadly and then specific to you. The first thing is astrology is not for every moment, but it's not just astrology. There is no dietary fix, there is no magic medicine, there is no spiritual approach that is perfect for all people in all moments. In order to be spiritually, mentally, and emotionally intelligent, we must not only find tools that work but be checked in and present enough to know when they're not appropriate or they're not working for us for whatever reasons. And that's not to shit on the tools themselves, although sometimes that's appropriate too, but it's to understand that your favorite jeans that make you feel so comfortable and good in your own skin—you put them on and sometimes they feel wrong. And you don't say, "Well, what's wrong with me?" You say, "Oh, I don't want to wear these jeans right now," and you try on something else.

And that is what we are meant to do with our spiritual tools. So it is absolutely real that when we use astrology to look at things predictively, it can be stressful, especially these days. But always it can be stressful, because we are not able to only see positive things. And in my estimation—and, to be fair, I'm such a Capricorn. But in my estimation, if we're only looking for the positive, when we are not looking openly and honestly. We must be willing to see all of it. If you're a skilled astrologer, it's really impossible to not see the hard stuff. Now, you might choose to not focus on it. You may put a positive spin on it. But it doesn't mean that you don't understand that there are negative indications in a chart or in a transit or whatever it is. Right?

And so, before creating forecasts, before studying transits—any kind of predictive astrology—it is wise to check in with a couple of things. The first one is, are you in a state of trying to control things? So, whether that's through escapism, as you mentioned, or a kind of perfectionism, are you trying to control things? Because, if so, this is not the best moment to look at transits. You're not going to see things objectively, first of all, and second of all, it can dysregulate your nervous system, a.k.a. make you feel really anxious and stressed out.

The other thing to check in with is, "How do I feel?" This includes listening to my own predictive forecasts that I put out. I write a weekly horoscope, and I have a weekly podcast that you're listening to right now where I predict the week ahead. If you're not in a grounded place, if you're not kind of open to hearing anything, then sometimes the best thing for you to do is to focus on nurturing or caring for your emotional state before you take in data, because here is a limitation of astrology. The limitation of astrology is it is cognitive. It is an analytic practice, and you know a lot of people have a very spiritual relationship to astrology. And, in many ways, astrology's very spiritual. But the truth is it is data that we compilate if we're astrologers and understand, whether you're an astrologer or you're just consuming astrology content, and then you analyze and work with.

There are so many different ways to use astrology, so many different ways to use astrology. And you have choices around how you'll use it. But it is an analytic resource and tool, and if you're in a state where you're not quite right with yourself spiritually or emotionally and you're feeling really anxious, especially about the future, then yeah, you can use your beautiful brain to discern, "This is not the best moment for me to take in information about an uncertain future that I'm scared about."

So this is not about any individual person's natal predisposition. This is about emotional maturity. It's about taking responsibility for ourselves as individuals. As a full-time astrologer, my job is to look into the future. That's a huge part of my job. And sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes it feels really bad, and I cannot hold it in a healthy way. That's a job hazard for being an astrologer.

And so what do I do with that job hazard as an individual, me personally, is I work with that. I'm aware of it, and I try to stay honest with myself about my own personal limitations and the impact that, at times, living in the future can have because it's not all good. It's definitely not all bad, but it's not all good. So the process of self-regulation is a really important one, and it happens on lots of levels. So I'm glad that you're really aware of that, and I want to say to you specifically, Ms. Pluto, yeah, you can fuck with astrology, and that doesn't mean you can fuck with astrology every day, all the time, and in all circumstances.

So let's get into your chart. You call yourself Ms. Pluto because you've got a Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant, real tight—like a real tight Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant in Scorpio. And it squares your Midheaven, your Mars, and your Venus all in Leo. So you're very, very Plutonian. That's real. But that's actually not what I'm going to focus on to answer your question because the Pluto stuff, that's actually—I don't think that's what the problem is here.

You have a T-square between your Uranus/Saturn/Neptune conjunction all in Capricorn and your Mercury/Chiron conjunction in Cancer. And all of those planets, all five of those planets, form a T-square to your Moon. Now, on top of that, you've got a Sun square to your Moon, but your Sun is not involved in the oppositions or the conjunction. So okay. Here we go.

This part of you, this Mercury conjunction to Chiron in Cancer opposite Saturn/Neptune/Uranus, square to the Moon—it makes it so that at times, you can seek safety through your mind, seek to take care of your emotions through analysis, and sometimes it really works, and sometimes it really backfires on you. For you, cultivating emotional intelligence, which is to say being emotionally present enough with and for yourself so that you can check in with, "Oh, I'm looking for a way out of feeling this way. I'm looking for a perfect plan or a way of getting away from my fears"—when you're in that state of mind, that's when you want to be really careful with astrology because you're being driven by not the desire to care for yourself or support yourself or to make sense of the world around you, but instead, you're letting your fear make the decision, "I need to figure this out so I can help myself or I can help others."

This is actually not the greatest motivation for you. What you want to first do, if you can—and this is not always possible, but—is to check in with your heart and how you're feeling. It sounds like you have some framework for that, right? And if you find that you cannot tolerate sitting with your own emotions, that's a great tip-off. Don't fuck with astrology forecasts in that moment. You might want to fuck with self-help-oriented stuff with astrology but not predictive astrology.

We're talking about astrology very specifically, but this is not exclusive to astrology. This is about how we make decisions and choices around our mental, emotional, and spiritual welfare. It's about being able to check in with ourselves so that we know what our motivations are. Wanting to care for yourself because you feel shitty, that's a great motivation. Wanting to escape feeling shitty and repress feeling shitty, less great of a motivation. All of them can be worked with with any number of tools, but again, we want to be honest with ourselves about what we're feeling in the moment and what we're trying to do and why because through honesty and presence, we can achieve greater maturity, healing, and we can use information more effectively.

And in the case of astrology specifically, the information we're getting is a lot. Especially if you're a pro or an advanced student, you are getting a lot of information, more than is easy to verbalize. So can you fuck with astrology? Yes, absolutely. Do you need to check in with your own felt experience, your own emotions in the moment, before you get into predictive stuff? Yes.

And because of the Saturn principle involved and because you've got this Mercury/Chiron conjunction in Cancer, I want to frame it to you this way. This is about taking responsibility and having more agency in your life, and it's also about self-protection and self-love. This is not really about astrology. It's about how you care for yourself and how you do or don't listen to yourself. And the good news is you're totally capable of working through this. And by questioning the wisdom of getting into predictive astrology and the impact it has on you, that to me indicates that you're on the right path.

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My loves, let's get astrological. This week's astro news is kind of specific. There's not a lot going on, but what we've got going on is a lot. You know what I mean? We're going to look at the week of December 12th through the 18th of 2021. The end of this year is nigh, as it were. So I'm just going to get into it.

But before I do, I just want to tell you to save the date: on January 2nd of 2022, I'm going to be teaming up with herbalist Rachel Budde of Fat and the Moon—and if you don't know about Fat and the Moon, get to Googling because they're amazing—and we're going to offer a practical and instructive class to help you prepare for 2022. I'm going to unpack and explain the astrology of the year ahead, and Rachel's going to share corresponding plants, including how to work with them and use them as a support for these really intense and tumultuous times.

So we don't have the sign-up available yet, but save the date. And if January 2nd is a busy day for you, there's no need for you to attend live because when you get the class, you receive a copy of the recording to download and keep for your reference throughout the year. So giddy-up for that, but you know, I want you to show up live so you can ask questions and be a part of the whole damn vibe.

Okay. So this week starts off with two ingresses. And if you don't know what an ingress is, the word ingress simply refers to when a planet moves into a new sign. So it exits one sign, but it ingresses into another. And on the 13th, Mars ingresses into Sagittarius and Mercury ingresses into Capricorn. Just very briefly, when Mars moves into the sign of Sagittarius, we tend to be a little bit more optimistic, a little bit more willing to take risks and have adventures and essentially be playful. That's a fun thing. It's maybe a little bit less of a fun thing during a global pandemic when travel and a lot of other spontaneous and fun things are not especially safe or compromised, depending on your tolerance for risk. But Mars in Sagittarius is a really great time for putting yourself out there and having experiences, maybe challenging, engaging ones, but having experiences.

And then, my friends, Mercury moves into Capricorn. So Mercury in Capricorn is a very literal transit. It's a literal placement. This transit I really like for the end of the year because it brings a bit of ethics-driven pragmatism to our decision-making and our processing. It can help us to tie up the details of the remaining year as we move into a new year and to move into that new year with a fair amount of intention. So, if there's things you need to organize, if there's communications you've needed to follow through on and deal with, Mercury in Capricorn can be your friend.

Okay. So the two highlights of this week's horoscope and what we're going to talk about here today are the Full Moon in Gemini on the 18th of December, and then we're going to get into the Venus Retrograde, which—this horoscope covers December 12th through the 18th, and Venus goes Retrograde on the 19th. But I feel like a week in advance information is only going to help you; it's not going to hurt you. So we're going to get into it.

But let's start with that Full Moon in Gemini on December 18th, and it is exact at 8:35 p.m. Pacific Time. For those who need a little reminder, Full Moons happen about once a month, and when they occur, we know that the Sun and the Moon are exactly opposite each other by sign and degree. This Full Moon is happening at 27 degrees Gemini and 20 minutes. And, broadly speaking, Full Moons are a great time for letting go, for releasing, for coming to the end of a cycle and, in some meaningful and heartful way, showing up for that ending.

And that might look like, from month to month, simply feeling your feelings that you've been too busy or too stressed out to feel. It might look like getting honest with yourself about something that is a lot, and it might be a lot of good or it might be a lot of hard. But it is a time where things come to the surface, and that's why people get really emotional on Full Moons, because everything comes to the surface. And the Sun, which governs our identity, is in opposition to our Moon, which governs our feelings. And so that tension or struggle can be upsetting and also the exact catharsis that we need in order to achieve progress. Not all progress comes from struggle; however, a lot of it does.

This Full Moon has a bunch of things worth naming. The first one is a lovely sextile by Jupiter. Jupiter is forming a sextile to the Sun and a trine to the Moon, and that is a lovely aspect to see in this Full Moon chart. It indicates our potential for tender feelings, for having love—and when I say having love, I mean expressing love in a way that's authentic and really whole to ourselves, to others, experiencing other people's love for us, like really letting it in.

Jupiter is great for integration and synthesis. And so it is a beautiful transit to have in this Full Moon chart. A lot of astrology blogs and stuff like that will tell you this will bring love into your life. And I don't know. If you have something at around 27 or 28 degrees in your chart that gets hit by any of these three planets in Gemini, Sagittarius, and then in the case of Jupiter, in Aquarius, then it can. But I certainly wouldn't say that Full Moons are typically the thing we look to for bringing something new into your life.

But I don't want to put a damper on the positive potential of this transit because it is quite lovely. The potential for spiritual, psychological, or physical healing is really strong here. The key is to really show up, which is a little bit easier said than done because we've got some other shit in this chart.

So Venus and Pluto are conjunct. They're still a degree apart but very, very conjunct. And we'll talk a lot about that in a minute, but in the context of this chart, it intensifies our desire and issues around love, so our desire for love and that we want to be loved—we maybe want to give our love to someone else. Our insecurities and resentments and other intense feelings around intimacy are triggered by this transit.

And so there's a lot that can go sideways on a Full Moon with a Venus/Pluto conjunction, and it can go sideways because our strongest feelings—you know; say it along with me—are not reliably our wisest feelings. And this Venus/Pluto conjunction makes our feelings so strong that it can lead us to feeling entitled, and that Full Moon in spontaneous and impulsive Gemini and Sagittarius can incline us to act before we fully consider where our actions are coming from, what's motivating our actions. We can find ourselves obsessing on a line of thought, whether it's broad strokes or details, that is driven more by our compulsions and our issues than by what's most authentic, what's most true, or even by our own values.

Now, add to that that this Full Moon forms a square to Neptune. Neptune's at 20 degrees. The Moon and Sun are at 27 degrees. It's a 7-degree orb. It's a little wide. The Full Moon forming a T-square to Neptune is a recipe for anxiety. This feeling of "I don't know where I begin and end. I don't know what's going on," or just straight-up feeling anxious, or just a feeling of being off, is what we can expect. And if you've been feeling pretty anxious in the weeks leading up to it, as many people have been as a result of all the transits going on and, of course, the Eclipse season we're just emerging from, yeah, it's a lot.

And so what Neptune wants from us is to take a spiritual approach. And if you're super woo, you're going to have a tool kit to pull from that you can take a spiritual approach with. We do not want this to be idealistic. We do not want this to be without any grounding to it. That won't work. Instead, you want it to be tools and resources that support your mental, emotional, and spiritual health. That's the goal here.

And if you're not super woo and you're like, "I don't even know what the hell you're saying, Jessica," then you want to keep it simple. Keeping it simple means carving out space for rest because Neptune is literally exhausting—so carving out space for chilling with a book, laying down, sleeping, clearing out your social calendar if you can, and if you can't, making sure that if the party's not fun, you leave. And this is a terrible time for doing drugs because the energy is too intense, and Neptune weakens our auric field. It weakens our ability to protect ourselves energetically. So I would definitely be very mindful about any drugs you're taking, especially but not limited to any kind of hallucinogens or opiates. Be really careful if you can because it's a bit of a sticky bunch of energy.

Now, on top of that, of course, we've still got our Mercury square to Chiron. That transit is still exact, not to the minute, but to the degree. And we have the Saturn square to Uranus, again, only a degree off of being exact. This is a lot of very tense energy. It's a lot of tense energy for us to be experiencing with a Full Moon. This tension is rough on the mental health. That is true for you and your besties and your mom, but it's also true on a social level, on a political level.

People are acting out of fear. People are likely to be reactive, which is to say defensive, entitled, all the things that humans often are when they're in fear. When you see on the news people acting out, when you see at the dinner table with family members—if that's the kind of thing you do—evidence of a line of thought that you just think is bananas, know that most people are really struggling with the kind of ongoing destabilization of this time. And I mean of this time in terms of the astrology, but also, we're living through a global pandemic. I know some people feel like it's kind of over. It's super freaking not at all, even a little bit, over. We're still very much living through it.

So it's very important to acknowledge that whatever astrology we're looking at, we're all living through this really kind of unprecedented and frightening period. How people deal with fear and with feeling out of control as individuals is just that: it's individual. But when we look at it as a collective, as a society, or on a global level, that's when you can see real patterns that fear does not consistently bring out the best in us. Right?

And so this Full Moon is a really valuable time to look at your own relationship to fear. Do you get mad when you feel sad? When you feel sad, do you kind of collapse and fall apart? If you do anything like that or anything else, what's the reason for it? I mean, it's because it's how you feel, yes, but also, most of our behaviors, most of our reactions and actions—whether they're coming from a well-adjusted or a maladjusted place, most of them exist for a reason. We behave in a certain way, our psyches respond in particular ways, because there's a part of us, no matter how submerged, that believes that that's the safest thing to do, that that's the healthiest or the best thing to do.

Being interested in your own responses, your own survival mechanisms, your own emotions and psyche, being interested in what's motivating that—not only is it a really good way to be an adult, but also, it helps you to understand what you're going through and why and to have a sense of agency for coping with it in a healthy way.

Within all of that, I want to acknowledge one more thing, which is Mars is conjunct the South Node. So this is not inherently an excellent time for action. This Full Moon is an invitation to do inner work. It's an invitation to do spiritual work. Actions without forethought, actions without any amount of consideration of the details of underlying motivations, are not especially well starred around this Full Moon.

And if you find that people are being difficult, then you are not alone. People are being difficult. But you know what? You're people. You're probably being difficult. I'm sure as hell being difficult. It's a difficult time. So, instead of pointing fingers and assigning blame in places—that might make us feel better for a minute—ask yourself this question: "What do I want to learn from this? How do I want to engage with this? Who am I in this situation, and how can I show up to the best of my ability?" These are the questions that will bring you to the answers you actually need.

So that's the damn Full Moon. And that brings us, my friends, to a little thing I like to call a Venus Retrograde. So this Venus Retrograde starts on the 19th. We have been in its shadow for quite some time, and it's not something I've really focused on because we've had so much else going on. But now we must speak on it in plain terms. Venus Retrograde is a big deal.

Venus goes Retrograde about every 18 months-ish, and it generally lasts around six weeks long. Of all the planets that Retrograde—because the Sun and Moon don't Retrograde. So, of all the planets that Retrograde, Venus does so the least. So, when it happens, it's kind of a big deal. Planets that Retrograde all the livelong day, like those slow-moving outer planets, it's not such a big deal when they Retrograde or go direct. Some people really notice it. For me, eh, not so much. However, Venus Retrograde, big damn deal.

This Venus Retrograde lasts from December 19th of 2021 through January 29th of 2022, and it's staying in the zodiac sign of Capricorn the whole damn time. Okay? This means that Venus will be in Capricorn from November 6th of 2021 through March 7th of 2022. That is a long time for Venus to be in Capricorn. And this is normal. Sometimes, when planets Retrograde, they Retrograde back into its previous sign. In this case, it's just staying in one sign the whole damn time.

So let's just speak for a moment about what Venus in Capricorn is about. When Venus is in Capricorn, relationships and your intimacy issues can take on kind of a fated feeling. That fated feeling has a lot to do with Capricorn because Capricorn's associated with karmic relationships and fated-feeling relationships. When Venus is in Cap, what we want to do is cultivate wisdom through practice.

So this is about learning from past mistakes, but it's also considering our elders. That's family members and community elders, but in particular, with our family members, our family of origin or the people who raised us, this is a valuable time to consider whether or not—and if the answer is we are, how—we are embodying our learned or inherited patterns around intimacy and love and beauty and body image and money and values. Really big themes.

This stuff can be really hard because we will often—as we kind of outgrow family of origin, we will often make sure that we're not one parent. But that doesn't mean we're not becoming the other parent. We might find ourselves, especially post-first Saturn Return, embodying familial patterns without even really realizing we're doing it, and all of a sudden having friendship issues or romantic issues where we're playing a role of a family member or we've unconsciously recreated a family dynamic in our chosen relationships. It's a lot. It's sticky and hard.

And, also, Venus Retrograding through Capricorn is a great time for us to come to more self-awareness around it so that we can review whether or not our behavior, our actions, our relationships match our values because, really, Venus is about values. I've seen a lot of places all over the internet, people referring to this as season of the ex, which—I love the way that sounds. That is a very catchy way to refer to it, and it's not wrong. But it's also kind of tip of the iceberg here.

It's season of the ex because Retrogrades tend to bring people from our past back up. The question to ask yourself is not, "Oh my God, who will come back to me?" It's, "Why does this happen?" And the reason why this happens is because we start looking back at our past and considering or reconsidering whether or not our relationships should have ended, especially if we're feeling lonely or unhappy in the now.

Here's a pro tip for you, okay? When we talk about all the things that Venus governs, it all boils down to values. So, if you're thinking about reaching back out to an ex, I want to encourage you to remember why it ended in the first place and whether or not your values, your behavior, your needs, your nature, or theirs is actually different because when we are feeling insecure or uncomfortable romantically or interpersonally—or financially, as it were—what we can do is idealize the past or imagine that feeling uncomfortable and lonely is worse than feeling unhappy with someone. I don't think that's true, but a lot of people do.

And so, again, you just want to check in with that stuff. If someone comes up from your past, it may be because it's meant to be, but more likely, it's because you need to clear the damn decks to get rid of the things of your past that may be holding up your present and, in some ways, inhibiting your future.

Venus is related to security, intimacy, sensuality, and security. So it is important in this transit, especially the Retrograde, that we do not place our need or desire for security over our need and desire for authenticity. And it might be tempting to do that, especially because in this Venus Retrograde, we've got Venus conjoining Pluto on December 25th and then again on March 3rd. And we just went through it on December 11th, just the other day.

This transit of Venus conjunction to Pluto is a real boner. It's not great is what I'm trying to tell you, and it has everything to do with the Venus Retrograde transit and beyond. This Venus Retrograde, these Venus/Pluto conjunctions, are compulsive and they kick up resentments. And if you can't be authentic with yourself and then eventually others about how you feel and what you need and what your limits are, what your boundaries are, then this can mark a really rough time for you interpersonally.

Same thing financially. This is a terrible time to spend money you don't have or to make lavish purchases that you believe will make you happy. I mean, listen. If you really believe it'll make you happy, go for it. But Venus Retrograde is generally not a robust time financially, especially because it's in fucking Capricorn and Pluto's conjoined Venus. So what we want to make sure that we're doing is being financially responsible, and not just responsible to our own dollars and cents, the money we have, and the possessions we have, but also to consider our social and civic responsibility with how we spend our money.

If your finances put you in a position where you're struggling for survival, then I'm not talking to you, obviously. Hopefully that's obvious. But if you have enough money for luxury purchases, then you certainly have enough money to shop ethically in a lot of circumstances. It takes care and it takes effort, but it's worth it because, again, Venus is our finances, it's our dollars, and it's our values. So shopping with your values is a really healthy and important thing. And in this world, it's a really hard thing, but it's a great goal. So you don't have to be perfect, but I encourage you to be a part of the solution if you can. You can't always. Not everyone can. But if you can, right here right now, maybe later/tomorrow, then please do. Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. That's not all. What we can expect through this Venus Retrograde, and, again, in particular because of the Venus/Pluto conjunction, is power grabs. This can happen in your personal life, so romantically/socially, and it can happen with legal manipulations and legislative manipulations by those in power. So pay attention to what happens in this period. Now, generally speaking, if you can avoid a legal entanglement or contractual entanglement during a Venus Retrograde, that's ideal. It's not the same as Mercury Retrograde, where the contract is likely to be fucked up. It's more about making sure you don't lock yourself into something that doesn't reflect your values or where you are not being valued in the situation.

We want to remember that Capricorn's ruling planet is Saturn, and Saturn itself is in a long-standing square with Uranus. So, whether we're seeking freedom or stability—so Saturn is the stability, and freedom is Uranus. Also, very much, Venus governs stability and relationships and finances. So, whether you're seeking the freedom or the stability, this Venus Retrograde is going to be sticky.

Here is the key. Be careful with what you ask for. Prioritize your mental health. Prioritize authenticity instead of quick fixes. This Venus Retrograde may be really tough for the mental health because of the timing of all the things. So prioritize wellness in a substantive way. And when I say substantive, I don't just mean stick your head in the sand and avoid things that are difficult because they make you feel bad. I mean understand that your wellness is interwoven with the wellness of others.

When you approach your wellness, don't do it in a vacuum. Don't imagine that you exist in a vacuum. We are interconnected. Venus is a social, relational planet. It's a diplomatic planet, sometimes in a wonderful way and sometimes in a not-so-great way. But this is a period that is really challenging us to show up and to show up in a way that we can sustain in terms of our mental health.

Now, in the context of—you know I mentioned power grabs and manipulations. We may see, unfortunately, more progress in terms of the subjugation of women, which inevitably means the subjugation of everyone who's not a man. And this is something that can happen socially because it can happen legally, because again, Venus is a planet associated with the law and legislation. So, whoever you are, stand up for the rights and advocate for the rights of all the not-men, especially if you are a man. Use your damn voice, man. Use your voice. Use your power. Use your social capital to be educated and to advocate. Allyship is a beautiful thing.

Speaking of beauty, Venus, of course, governs body image and beauty shit in general and gender shit in many ways. And this transit of Venus conjunction to Pluto can be really upsetting on those topics. It can trigger a disordered or unhealthy relationship to any of these things, but within that trigger is the exact energy that we need to confront what is unhealthy or not right within us and to take active steps towards healing.

So, when we talk about all the fucked-up, difficult stuff astrologically, you should know that it's not meant as a punishment or torture. It's meant to kind of motivate us through, sometimes, pain and struggle, but to motivate us nonetheless to heal, to engage in a healthy way, to become more aware and to have that awareness motivate a wellspring of action, whether that's internal, spiritual, psychological, emotional action or material changes.

This Venus Retrograde, it is really healthy and essential for you to check your values. That's the takeaway, my friends. Check your motivations. So, in terms of checking your values, you want to follow the rule of re's: reflect, review, revisit, and recalibrate. And, as you're doing that with your values, you want to check your motivations. If you do not check your motivations, it could very easily bite you in your sweet, sweet behind. And that is because of Pluto. Pluto can really warp or twist our motivations. It's not great. Because Venus is so driven to be secure and safe and to not rock the boat, and because Capricorn can be a really conservative sign, this is especially true. Staying tight-lipped just because you don't want to deal with the consequences of your truth, that could bite you in your sweet behind.

So, just to kind of wrap it up, you are likely to be feeling vulnerable, as is everyone else. This is a vulnerable transit and a vulnerable time. And the most important thing I can say to you is don't be a bully. Don't bully yourself around your emotions, your feelings. Don't bully others. It's not going to get you anywhere. And understand that there is a real powerful—I mean, for lack of a better word, I'm going to call it a ripeness to this Venus Retrograde because it is activating when the Sun and Moon are—not exactly, but they are opposite each other. So we're very, very much on the heels of this Full Moon when the Venus Retrograde becomes exact and activated.

And so there is this real kind of closure and ending. There's indications of this Venus Retrograde being incredibly cathartic. That catharsis, you may look back upon it and be like, "Fuck yeah. This was when I moved through my shit. This is when I figured something out. This is when I made real progress." But through the experience of it, it's like wading through a tunnel of shit where you're just like, "This stinks. This is awful. I don't know how to get through here. I don't know if I should go back or go forward. I don't know what's worse at this point." I mean, not to be too graphic, but Pluto does govern poop, just in case you didn't know.

So there's a way that this period—it's messy, and it can go in so many different directions socially, on a collective level, and very personally for you and me. And what we want to do to the best of our abilities is show up for the emotions instead of reacting without forethought, just trying to put a Band-Aid on bullet wounds. This is not the time for that. This is the time, instead, for reflection and introspection and making sure that we align our values with our conduct in the world and in our conduct towards ourselves.

I know it's a lot, but I also know that this work, the stuff that these transits are triggering, are worthwhile. There's a great deal of value in engaging with this stuff. That doesn't make it fun or easy, necessarily, but it is really valuable.

My loves, that's it. That's your damn horoscope. This one, I think, is worth bookmarking, in particular the Venus Retrograde. Because it's going to last so long, you may need to return to it. And, as always, you can check out the transcripts on my website for this episode. So, if you want to read through all the stuff I said about the Venus Retrograde, it is there for you and, of course, always free.

Also, if you want to learn astrology with me, you can always go to my website at lovelanyadoo.com, linked in my show notes, and check out the classes that I have for sale. And you can get my book, Astrology For Real Relationships: Understanding You, Me, and How We All Get Along. I think it's a goodie, and I think you will, too.

And, as always, if you get value from Ghost of a Podcast, please do subscribe to it wherever you listen to podcasts and give me a five-star review. And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that my astrology pro tool, Astrology For Days, which you can get at astrologyfordays.com—it's a transit-tracking tool. It's a great tool for tracking the transits and learning astrology in a self-guided way, because I am that Capricorn that created a pro tool that helps you to do your damn homework. So on-brand. What can I say?

Okay, my loves. Keep on showing up for yourself and others, and I will talk to you next week.

XO