Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator and I'm here to give you your weekly horoscope and no bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life. 

This week I have a question and it says, “Over the weekend I was talking to a friend who doesn't really believe in witchy shit about witchy shit. I was saying how sometimes you just have to trust that the universe has your back and that negative things or feelings are happening in the present and the universe's way of helping you grow and prepare for other things. My friend came at me with the question, ‘Would you say that to a starving child? Does the universe have their back?’ As a vegan I'm used to this kind of question in regards to veganism, and I am equipped to answer it. However, in regards to the universe and astrology, I wasn't sure what to say. How do you answer this kind of question? Thank you for all you do. Helen.” 

This is a really important question. Can we use all of our sweet, little manifestation platitudes for them? Can they be expected to believe that this is part of a greater growth experience, and there isn't a simple answer. I do believe in a lot of things. I am a person with a lot of faith. My faith is not in God as it is traditionally regarded, but I do believe in energy and I do believe that there is consciousness outside of humans and animals and plants on this planet. And this is my take, the universe is not fair. The universe is not symmetrical. The idea that everything is going to be okay is really a nice platitude.

I would like to tell you that everything is going to be okay and that everything works out as it's meant to, and there is a way that that is true. But the way that that is true is very spiritual. It's very big picture. It's not necessarily material. The reality is not everyone is born into just conditions. Not everyone lives in a way that is safe and healthy. Really wonderful people, innocent people suffer.

They live through terrible abuse. They live through systemic racism or ableism. They fall ill. It is not a punishment to have bad things happen to you. It feels like a punishment, but it's not a punishment. It's life. Unfortunately, life is not symmetrical and just. Life is not inherently good. I wish I could tell you it was, but that kind of spiritualism is not really for me. And if it's for you, I want to say I respect that, and we don't have to see the universe in the same way in order to agree in some things. But I will say this just because the universe is not just is not carte blanche for you to not be just. 

Within my spiritual belief system., I really do believe we've come here to really navigate between two choices in all things and those two choices are fear and love. The reality is is that that is not just an emotion or a train of thought that I'm referring to, it’s actions. When your actions come out of fear, you take a job at a company that's doing something terrible because you feel like you need the money. When it's coming out of love honestly, you might take that same shitty job, but you do it with a different energy and with a different set of intentions, and maybe you hold it differently and so it doesn't break you down.

Love and fear are deeply motivating feelings. They motivate the very worst of our behaviors and the very best of our behaviors, both towards ourselves and towards others. And so, when you said to your friend, Helen, that the Universe has got your back and that there is something to learn in the present from your circumstances, you’re not wrong. That's not untrue. However, it is absolutely a different thing when you are saying that from relative safety and privilege versus let's say, starvation or profound depression. 

When you're a person living in a body and you are in the most dire of circumstances, you don't have a lot of choices and the choices you have aren't great. However, you can choose love. You can choose to do your best in the worst of situations and in the worst of circumstances, you absolutely can make that choice and when we say the universe has your back that does not mean if you're in the worst of circumstances and you do the best of things, that you are guaranteed a reward.

That's not what it means. It's this very human, very material idea that you do something good and something good happens for you. We are not here in a symmetrical reward system. That's not actually what we're hearing. But there is something called universal law and universal law is not as concerned with whether or not you're suffering in this moment. It is concerned with what you do with that suffering.

Do you allow that suffering to entitle you to perpetrate suffering towards others, to turn your back on other people's suffering because you're so caught up by your own? You have choice, you will always have choice, whether or not it's a good choice whether or not it's an easy choice is a different conversation, but you will always have a choice.

The universe does have your back with them. It's just not material. What that means and that's where if somebody is not a person of faith on some level if you're talking to somebody who just doesn't believe in God or universe or any of that kind of stuff, then this is not going to make sense for them. This is not going to feel true to them. I don't know you could try to convince them of that, but to what end. 

I'm really a big believer in holding space for multiple ways of perceiving truth and for relating life and for perceiving the world. I think that when we are spiritual or passionate about matters of justice, it's compelling to want to have others see the world in the ways that we do. However, convincing other people of your worldview is kind of like saying you should have my chart don't have your chart, right. 

Everybody has their own birth chart. Everybody has their own unique experience. Everyone has their own soul. I believe that we are all connected. I believe that we are all in it together, but if you don't believe that that's your worldview and I respect that and I really want to encourage you, my love's, whether you're on a witchy path or you're into just astrology, but not witchy shit or, you know, you stumbled upon this podcast and you're like man, I don't know what I think, regardless of where you are where, regardless of where you land, if you can hold your truth without needing validation from others, without needing them to agree with you okay, that's great, that’s healthy because from that place you can tolerate difference. You could even take it a step beyond tolerance where you can really be interested in difference, and as you're interested in difference and you explore difference, it is not only easier for you to hear other people and maybe change your mind, maybe not, but it is easier for others to hear you. Because if I have an agenda and I'm trying to force it down your throat, whether I'm trying to be convert or not, you're going to feel it and if you're anything like me you're going to resist it. 

I really want to encourage you to explore this idea of if manifestation as a thing, if you can manifest, if the universe has your back, how do you make peace with all the fucking terrible things that make no sense in a symmetrical universe?

I really believe that when we see terrible things in the world and if you're not seeing terrible things in the world, girl open your eyes. What are you doing? When we see terrible things in the world we must get angry. We must feel hurt and sad and upset because those feelings are healthy and appropriate in reaction to those terrible things.

But then if we allow that anger in that rage and the fear that comes from it to motivate our actions it drains us of energy. Now you can do that for a period of time, but really long-term acting from rage and anger, it drains you. My belief is that if we experience those emotions, but ultimately if we focus on what we love, the positive, our connection to what energy can I put into the situation, what actions can I bring to the situation, what assets can I bring to the situation, if we motivate through love, through positive participation, generative participation, then maybe will help, but also our efforts are sustainable. This is very important. Our efforts must be sustainable because if the way you are trying to fix a problem is at the expense of your own soul it’s either going to destroy you or you're going to stop doing it, right. 

It's not the most effective way of going and so get it out of your head that if you, you know, sing to the universe in just the right key, the universe will sing back to you. Hey, there's a level of truth where that happens and then there's a level of truth where that doesn't happen. 

I know that I've given you kind of circular answer, but, my loves, the universe is not a straight line. I know that we have all of these spiritual texts that like to give it a narrative, the universe is a narrative, it's a straight line, but that's actually not true. It's, the universe is is a shape that I can conceive of and neither can you because we're stuck in these limited bodies and with these limited minds. 

I want to encourage you to be here for the messiness, the parts that don't match up. Practice being present, even when there's dichotomies that don't make sense and to find your truth within that instead of to bend the truth so that it makes sense to you. That being said, I don't imagine that I have convinced your friend who does not believe in which a shit about anything and luckily that was not my goal.

So on the show I talk about self-care a lot, but I actually need to talk about caring for other people today and the reason why I need to talk about caring for other people is because we are in kind of a really grave state and I could say that is happening globally, but I'm really focused on being here in the US at this time. 

What we've seen in the last week are multiple mass shootings and acts of violence from Individual white supremacist, white men, young men. They're not acting alone and it's just been a really devastating time. It's also been really profoundly disturbing and devastating to learn about the ICE raids in Mississippi. I really have been thinking about ICE a lot and I've been thinking about actually the Gestapo a lot and the reason why I'm thinking about ICE and I'm thinking about the Gestapo is because so much of what is happening now is consistent with what happened in Nazi Germany the last time Uranus was in Taurus as that planet is in that sign again now. So much of what happens then in the early years of the Holocaust in World War II is happening now, and it's important to name that. It's important that we're cognizant of that and it is easy to become overwhelmed and shut down or disassociated or so anxious that we don't even know what to do with it.

But the reason why self-care is so important and honestly, there's a million reasons why self-care is so important, but foundationally speaking in order to sustain acts of kindness and bravery in the face of Injustice and cruelty we must have a self to refer back to. We must have a foundation within ourselves of integrity and spiritual righteousness.

When I look at the charts of the Gestapo and of ICE and I want to be really clear, when we're talking about birth charts, which you know, I talk about birth charts all the livelong day on Ghost of a Podcast, but when we cast a birth chart, it's the chart for a person. When we cast an event chart, it's different. It's interpreted somewhat differently. You look at it and it looks the exact same as a birth chart. Medical astrologers will cast a chart for when you fall ill. If you have a business you're beginning you can cast a chart for that and in the case of something like this I’ve cast a chart for the advent, the legal advent, of the Gestapo and the legal advent of ICE.

I've been studying these charts for several months. I wanted to share some of what I am seeing with you and I should say the Gestapo chart is for April 26, 1933 in Berlin Germany and I'm using a derived time of 12 noon. The ICE chart is March 1st, 2003 again the derive time of 12 noon in Washington DC. So those are the dates of those two charts. If you are interested in looking along with me because those times are not exact and precise. We cannot use the rising sign and we want to have a grain of salt with the houses and the moon because there's variation based on that time. 

Now, it would be between business hours right, because we're talking about government, but there's a window in there. The thing that I want to share with you that really is the biggest thing that struck me about these charts is that when I look at the chart of the Gestapo we see this Neptune Jupiter conjunction. Mars is involved as well. And what this indicates is that the Gestapo, the police force that executed the will of you know, the Nazis was governed by belief. It was governed by deep, spiritual conviction in purity the Aryan nation, right, and it's very, you know, this was shocking to me when I looked at it and then it was of course very obvious when I really thought about it. 

This movement and all of these violent acts that they perpetrated came from some sort of belief system, and this belief system emboldened and empowered men to do terrible evil and not only men, but majority of men, as you do. This Neptune Jupiter conjunction indicates that the pursuit of pure race, a pure country was truly heartfelt and then I looked at the ice chart and we have these exact same two planets sitting opposite each other.

Now what really strikes me about this is a number of things. ICE was established in response to 9/11. ICE was established as a reaction. It's like you did this to me now I'm going to do this to you and that's where we have what often comes up with oppositions. Oppositions can be projected out and so instead of owning xenophobia, instead of owning racism and what has clearly become an anti-immigrant and anti-immigration sentiment, that of course is not extended to white people it is projected out. It's not that I think these things, it's that you're making me think these things. 

When we look at an opposition versus a conjunction in an adventure, I want you to know that we're looking at very similar energies. They're just the opposite expression. So, whenever we have an energy or an issue, and we then move to its opposite expression, it’s kind of the exact same thing just in a different form of expression because when you think of an opposition, it's two points on the same line. What we have here is this iteration of ICE being governed by a spiritual, deep belief in the superiority of some people over others in the need to preserve some sort of purity or perfection because of this theme. I want to be really clear you know, of course everything I'm saying is my theory based on my study and use of astrology, right, you come to your own conclusions, but I'm constantly thinking about this. I'm constantly thinking about what's the solution? What’s our way out of this, because it is getting worse and quickly societally and the raid that happened in Mississippi is the largest that we've had.

The acts of evil of separating parents from children, waiting at schools, going to workplaces to nab people who are contributing to society, who are living their lives, parenting their children, working at jobs. Whatever it is and I want to say if somebody is not contributing to society and doesn't have a job and doesn't have kids, they have just as much dignity as anyone else and so even though I am pointing out that so many of these people were parents and they were all working that should not actually matter. I mean, it does matter because it implicates children, right, but those people who weren't working, those people who don't have kids they also don't deserve to be put in camps and taken from their homes and these two charts indicate one theme.

That theme is conviction and belief. And here's the thing that’s very important, right. It's that ICE. Gestapo whatever it is, whatever militaristic or police forces were talking about those are populated by people, thousands of people and that means that society has to agree with these task forces, with these militaristic forces. Society has to participate in violence in xenophobia and violent racism or let it happen without intervening. That's the only way for it to work. And so, I want to say really clearly that when I look at these charts, what it really hammers home for me about ICE is that there is no reform of ICE. That’s not going to happen. It's predicated on so many evils that come from xenophobia.

There's no reforming it. It needs to be dismantled. It needs to be defunded. And so, if you've been feeling helpless and hopeless and not sure what to do about ICE, what I want to encourage you to do is to call your members of congress, call your senators and demand that they defund ICE. If you have legal skills, if you have cash to give to the ACLU, seriously, this is where we need to go. It's to completely dismantle and defund ice because it can’t be reformed. That’s not the way to go. It's to end it. It’s to crush it. I'm sorry, that was a cheesy metaphor for a serious topic, but let's crush ICE shall we. 

Now I want to say one more thing about these two charts. They both have fixed stelliums. So, in the case of the Gestapo it's four planets in Taurus and in the case of ICE, it’s four planets in Aquarius. Ice was established after 9/11 as a way to like make sure you're more free, right, so all of these things are for your freedom, they’re for your own safety. It's this idea of a humanitarian move in response to a tragedy, right and this is the downside of Aquarius because, it is again not individual people that are Aquarians, I'm talking about Aquarius as an energy in society. What we're looking at is this kind of like great answer that is locking in humanity even though it is meant to serve and protect humanity.

Now, when we're dealing with fixed signs there is this conviction from fixed signs that my methodology is the methodology. It is unbending and it is unyielding. And so, when we're talking about a militaristic force or a police force and we're looking at an ideology that is deeply spiritual and associated with idealism, what we find is an unbending and an unyielding system. And again, we must get rid of the damn system. So, if you have any kind of sense of like well, how can I help and what do I do its make your calls, write your letters, march on the darn streets, my friends, march on the darn straight. Do whatever you can. 

If there are detention centers in your area, you can go and protest or you can align yourself with organizations that are doing something on the ground because our silence is participation in something that we do not want to participate in. 

Okay, all that aside, we’ve got more to talk about. Your horoscope my friends. It is your horoscope. So again, we're looking at the week of August 11th through the 17th 2019 and as I said before the month of is blessed with not too heavy astrology, which I'm so happy to tell you and this week is actually no exception even though there is some stuff going on.

On the 11th we have a meaningful shifting of energies as Jupiter moves from retrograde to direct, Uranus moves from direct to retrograde, and the planet Mercury moves into Leo officially ending the shadow.

What I want to encourage you to do with this information is first of all, just notice it notice if things feel any different, if there's any kind of movement or sense of kind of things getting unstuck around this time. I also want to encourage you to revisit some of the ideas and issues that came up for you during the Mercury retrograde we’ve just come out of in July 2019. 

On the 13th, we have a really lovely transit that will kind of trickle its effects into the full moon chart that we're going to talk about in a minute. So, on the 13th, we have a sun conjunction to Venus. This is a tender, lovely, chill transit. Some people will tell you that this means you will fall in love and everything sweet and darling will happen to you at this time. That is unrealistic, IMO. However, the transit itself is lovely. It is a little bit of a candy and gum drops kind of a transit. It brings up lovely feelings. Its energy can help make it easier to be vulnerable and present and generous and kind. It can be a time where you keep it on the surface and just have lots of nice interactions with people.

It can be a time where you feel cute and you just, you know, play dress-up and enjoy it or just spend a lot of time on social media looking at pretty things and it can also be a time where you have real intimacy with people. 

The thing about Venus that I really love is the layers. No, I love is about every single planet, but when it comes to Venus, I'm always thinking about the layers of niceness and niceties, the layer of self-esteem and body image, the layer of money and personal values and the layer of relationships how we all get along.

These are all really big issues for us and having the sun brighten up that Venus is kind of exciting in that it can light up our feelings or relationship to any of those issues depending on where you're at and how it hits your birth chart. So, pay attention to it. If you decide to get deep with it, this can be really useful time because Venus and the Sun make it easier to go to you and if you just need a damn break then this is a great time for a break. It's a lovely transit for a break. So, take it. 

On the 15th we have a full moon in Aquarius. This is really a powerful time of the month to release what is no longer serving you and as I've said on the show before and I'll say many times again, the full moon and the new moon the each happen once monthly and every year we have usually only one full moon per sign, per year. One new moon per sign per year. There's a little bit of exceptions to that, but that's in general what happens and so this is the time of the year where we have the sun in Leo and the Moon in Aquarius sitting perfectly opposite each other and that will be on the 15th at 5:29 a.m. pacific time. And this particular full moon is expressing the tension between me and us and not me and us in an Aries Libra way where it's my identity our relationship. It's more me and us, my needs versus the collective needs. My drives versus what we all need.

And this is a really important thing because we have a game the Sun and Venus very close together. Mars is actually quite close to the Sun Venus. And so, there's this thing about my identity and how I want to relate to others and how I want to be perceived and how that may sit in contrast to the actual needs of others and how people are actually receiving us. When we have a full moon in Aquarius, we have the opportunity to really get emotionally present with ways in which we have been distant, ways in which we have been in our heads when we could have been in our hearts and ways in which we are connected to others. This is really a powerful time in particular to be happening now with all the shit going on in our communities.

This chart also indicates because of the Mercury Uranus square that there are going to be surprises. Now having the full moon in Aquarius having Uranus squared Mercury, you can expect the unexpected and that might mean making connections and figuring things out in a way that is surprising and you didn't expect. It might mean secrets are revealed. It might simply mean that you feel nervy. That you feel kind of like a mental anxiety. So not anxiety that is like, oh I'm worried, but it's more I'm thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and it's not necessarily going anywhere or you've figured out whatever needs to be figured out and then you still don't let it go.

And so what I want to encourage you to do as your homework this full moon is to practice being present. And because we have so much Leo energy, let's mess with some candle work, shall we. I want to encourage you to get yourself a candle and whenever doing any kind of candle work you want to be fire safe because come on, common sense my lovers, common sense. So what fire-safe candle work means is get yourself a nice bowl that's not made out of plastic, a nice bowl and put water in it and then get yourself one of those candles that comes in a glass container and when you light your candle if you want to leave it lit, or if you just leave it for a little while you pop it in water in a bowl with water. So, you know, God forbid it falls over whatever it's safe, but there's a spiritual reason for it as well. When we pair fire with water it’s action that is heartfelt. Action is fire and water represent the heart. It’s emotions it’s a spiritual conductor and when we light up our spiritual conductors, it's kind of really potent.

And so I want to encourage you, if you can, to get yourself a little candle and get yourself, I don't know, a nail or a pen that doesn't work or a pencil and to carve into the top of the candle, and I personally love working with 7-day candles, but you can use a votive if that's all you got, carve into the candle, whatever it is that you need or want to light up in your life so that you can release it. What you want to become more present with so that you can let it go and that might mean, you know, fear around things in society. That might mean old trauma from your childhood. That might mean really owning the fact that you haven't gotten over your ex so that you can finally let it go. 

I know it sounds paradoxical. I'm telling you to bring something up so that you can release it, but you can't really let go of a thing you’re not holding can you. If you're trying to stuff it in the back of the closet, how are you supposed to get it out of the damn closet, right? So, I want to encourage you to do your little carving and then light a candle for that full moon and set the intention that you want to light whatever it is up so that you can release it. And if you can let your candle burn all the way down, that's awesome. If that's not possible or not comfortable for you, then, you know, whenever you light it again just be really emotionally and mentally clear about what your intention is, okay. And if again lighting candles is not your jam, if it that doesn't make sense for you, you can convert this advice into a journaling exercise, you know. There’s a lot of ways you can play this out, but I do encourage you to really light things up so that you can love yourself enough to let them go.

Now as I mentioned, there is a Mercury Square to Uranus in this chart. It's actually exact the following day on the 16th. Mercury Square to Uranus, it brings up a lot of distraction because your mind is so stimulated, and your nervous system is so stimulated that it can find you just distracted and like thinking too many thoughts in too many directions that’s not super helpful.

And so what I want to encourage you to do is breathe before you speak if. My friends, breathe. Breathe again before you hit send on a text or an email because you may be jumping to conclusions. You may be taking things may be a little too personally and you may be misunderstanding things because you're not properly reading them or listening.

This is a terrible transit for listening, I’m afraid. When you're cycling over ideas you’re not really listening to what's happening around you, right. You’re thinking about your response to what's happening. And so, I want to encourage you as much as possible to be really mindful. Focus on being really present and if that means being present with mental anxiety or nervous tension, okay do that. Don’t abandon yourself when you feel nervous tension. Instead find ways of being grounded and I know I always say breathe, breathe, breathe, but seriously, breathe. It really works. It doesn't fix things, but it is a foundational thing to build upon. Make sure you're drinking enough water. Make sure you're eating enough grounding foods and from that place of breathing and drinking and eating enough food that is grounding and not just sugar, bring mindfulness and patience to the parts of you that are not feeling mindful, present, or patient.

That's all it's a practice. And if you find that you're interacting with people who don't listen to this podcast and aren’t taking this advice then you can be like, oh look, that's what this Mercury Uranus transit looks like on other people or on this particular person at this particular moment. That's interesting. Huh? What does that mean about astrology? Where is the Uranus in this person? Where is the Mercury in this person. Use it as a learning opportunity. It could be really interesting and being interested is what Uranus Mercury is really freaking good at. 

Now, finally we have on the 17th Mars moving into Virgo. Mars moving into Virgo again. It's a changing of the guards. It's a shifting in energy. I encourage you to pay attention to how it feels instead of doing that thing that I see people do where they're like, I don't like Virgo or I don't like x-sign therefore I don't like Mars in Virgo. How you feel about Sun Signs is not equal to how you feel about any individual planet in that sign the interested, my love's. Be interested in it. Pay attention to it. When Mars moves into Virgo it’s actually really fertile for getting into the details and figuring things out if you want to leverage the energy.

This is a great time for planting seeds. So, you know, investigate what that means for you. What seeds are you trying to plant? Are your actions reflecting your priorities? If they're not how can you change? Maybe you can't change all at once? How can you make incremental changes. Mars in Virgo is freaking great for that. 

That is your horoscope for the week and you know, you know, I love you. I want to say one more thing and that's. I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't know you probably don't either. It is really hard to be a person on a good day.

This is not a chill time. This is a scary time and if you care about the world around you, if you care about, I don't know, the planet, if you care about human’s liberty kindness, safety, dignity, then you're having a hard time too. You're feeling overwhelmed too. And I want to say that that sense of overwhelm that you have is healthy and normal and hard. And while I really don't know what to say or do most of the time, the one thing I know is that we can't do nothing. You just can't do nothing. Find a way to participate. Find as many ways to participate as feel sustainable for you this week. 

When we forget that we're in this together, when we forget our collective power as the majority because we, those who care about the dignity and liberty and freedoms of others, are the majority. when we come together as a community and we stand up for each other that is when we win. And I will talk more about the astrology of that in another episode, but that is when we win. Historically it is proven. 

And so, I want to say as shitty as you may be feeling, as overwhelmed as you may be feeling, talk to people, talk to people who feel the same way. If you don't know anyone in your IRL community find people online and talk to them. It's really important that you don't allow yourself to hide out and feel alone in a way that makes it worse because it's bad enough on its own. You know what I mean? 

My love's, kindness and gratitude and generosity and proactive movement combats anxiety. It's us. Now, I'm not talking about anxiety disorders, not talking about that. I'm talking about the anxiety about the world. So, find one at least of those things and prioritize them in your day today and then again in your day tomorrow, and if you can't do it the third day that's cool. Come back to it the fourth and remember I love you. 

As always, I ask you to please like, subscribe, comment, review the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it. I encourage you to send me your questions for the podcast and you can find the place to send me your questions at ghostofapodcsat.com and please remember you, you are special, and you are here for a reason. You don't have to have proof of that for you to trust it. I encourage you to honor wherever you're at and to find a way to embrace yourself today and as you do that, it will become infinitely easier to embrace others.